Artist Development in 2026: What Every Independent Artist Gets Wrong ft. Amber Grimes (LVRN)

What's your purpose? Like, what are you here for? Why should I care about you? There's 500,000 people for me to listen to. Yeah. And a hundred thousand new songs that drop every day. Why should I listen to yours? How many of you can immediately answer that question? And don't say because my s***'s fire, because that's not cutting it in 2026. I'm talking about your story. I'm talking about your purpose. I'm talking about what do you stand for as a person. All of that is artist development to me. And so people are just kind of missing it and putting, I think, the music first instead of investing in themselves long term as an artist, not a song. So what do you say actually to people that claim artist development is dead? I think anybody who says that just somebody who's tired of doing it. Amber's only the fourth person to ever make a second appearance on the podcast. And it's because she understands the hard truth that most artists don't want to hear. The music by itself, it isn't enough. People have been able to get a hit record and nobody know who they are. It's happened. However, a lot of our TikTok hitters are gone. And are they still maybe making money? I'm sure somebody's still making money off of Mambo No. 5. But what the f do you know about Lou Bega?

This is exactly why Amber argues that artist development is actually more important for artists who are independent. Because if one of your songs pops and there's no real identity attached to it, that attention disappears just as quickly as it came. Your story is your story. If you come to LVRN to meet with me, I don't fing know you until you tell me about you. I can't be great unless you give me something to work with. And that's exactly what this episode is: building enough around the music for people to actually care. Not vague branding advice, real artist development. How to find your story, how to tell your story, how to build the fan relationships, and which tools will help you turn attention into something that lasts. Because the music can make you known, but artist development makes you matter. So no label, nobody, not even the best, can make or create a story for you that doesn't exist. You have all the answers. Henry, they said it couldn't be done.

Part two with Amber Grimes. They doubted us. They doubted us. She's in the podcast studio. They doubted us. Oh my God. This one took longer to schedule, maybe than the first one. Don't do that. Seriously, welcome back. We appreciate you making time. Big Summer Walker State Farm Arena show last night. So for you to come by the One More Time podcast while you're in town really, really means a lot. We're seriously grateful. Absolutely. So, you know, just to kind of set the stage. you guys were named Billboard Power Players in the indie space. Right. And, you know, you wrote a Substack article, email, whatever that the verb is for Substack. She stacked. She stacked. She stacked it. And you basically, as opposed to just doing the classic, I mean, we see all these, you know, all the time, little headshots of Billboard Power Players. Like, I'm so great. I see that. Sure. She probably did that too. Everyone else did. You took it a step further, and the indie community really appreciates you.

You basically broke down, you know, the things that you've learned about artist development within the indie space. Because you guys, you know, about four years ago kind of entered the independent space officially with LVRN. And so you've had a lot of lessons learned. I know it wasn't exactly the same as the major label system that you, you know, kind of have been accustomed to. Um, so really want to just unpack kind of the three major, you know, things that you said that you've learned about artist development in the indie space, but also I want to focus on you make a bold claim about the fact that artist development matters more when you're indie than it does even being a you know signed major label artist. And we've had people sitting right there, you know, go as far as to say artist development is dead, which is quite a different claim. That's a good point. Who said that? We won't name names. You can go through her. You can go through the episode. It wasn't me. Go watch the first episode just to make sure it wasn't her. It would never be me. Never. Um, so what do you say actually to people that claim artist development is dead? Because it is a common thing here.

Uh, I think uh anybody who says that just somebody who's tired of doing it. Yeah, maybe somebody who doesn't have to do it uh at the major label. I think in in the um last couple of years, it's been a long time now, actually, since like the TikTok hit thing started. Um people have been able, and sh and and shout out to them, been able to make a career or to get a hit record and nobody know who they are. It's happened. And so I think once people see that that happens, they're like, oh, you can do this without telling everybody all your business. However, there's a longevity problem there. However, on the other side of it now, a lot of our TikTok hitters are gone. Where are they at? Because it was just a song. And did the label and everybody make money? And are they still maybe making money? I'm sure somebody's still making money off of Mambo No. 5. But what the fuck do you know about Lou Bega? Nothing.

All right. How dare you bring it up? To Lou Bega, By the way, because I he is a legend. yes, an icon, but I don't know anything about him. Yeah, yeah. And um, you know, I think what we used to call one hit wonder, now we call TikTok hit. There's nothing new under the sun. Um, but yes, the I think the labels and a lot of the executives and some people like that will say, or or an artist that got it really easy, because it happens, you know, would say artist development's dead. I did it out in my closet, and you know, whatever. But it's not when you're trying to build an artist and when you're trying to build a long-term career for somebody that's more than a song. I think the context that we hear it in is that like the majors aren't doing it as much because they are chasing the people that already have the virality, the the numbers, the things going. So they're not focused on developing artists as much as finding artists that are already getting something going. Well, and you know what I'll say about that? That I don't think I've ever said it before.

Love it already. Um I think that the labels have taken that responsibility away from themselves a little bit and are drawing a line of saying this is what we do as a partner, because this is what we have the bandwidth to do right now, right? We've we've laid everybody off for whatever good reason. We're trying to figure out how to use AI. We signed a bunch of TikTok artists, and our legends can only make up for so much of these losses. Um the manager is responsible for artist development too. And the artist is responsible for artist development too. And they don't want to hear it. If you're going, if you're signing to a label to be developed as an artist, you've already missed the point. You know, uh a lot of a lot of artist development starts with just like, do you know who you are? Um, and I think a lot of people just want to sing or they just want to rap, and they come to a partner lost, um, and expecting somebody to find you, and even the most talented label.

I work at one, um, it's really hard to do when there's not a lot to work with. Well, so so let's make sure we all understand like what artist development is and what it isn't. Okay. Because so, like from your perspective, because again, we hear it's like this theoretical term that everyone says, and then no one really breaks it down. I'm confused as a lot of things. It's like no one knows what an AR is and no one knows what artist development is. Okay, no A&R. That's the classic. No AR hate on this podcast, Henry. No hate. Respect to all the ARs out there. No one knows what the R stands for at all. What is a repertoire? It's a beautiful word. No one knows it. Um, so what I see, I think commonly on the internet is I see like a young rapper. I don't know, like you see somebody like BabyChiefDoit, who's so fascinating to me, by the way. He's fun, um, on stage at Rolling Loud, and maybe he kind of runs out of breath or something. I'm being hypothetical. Yeah. And in the comments, they're like, they need to do artist development. Somebody work on this guy's breath control.

Yeah, somebody, you know, I think um, who is it? Uh, my girl that sings, I want to twerk on a boat. What's her name? Coconut water. Oh, yes, trim. Trim. Yes, trim. Trim comes out and and she doesn't sing one of the lines of the song, and she holds a mic, and like, oh, she doesn't have any breath control, she needs to get out of here. Artist development is way more than how to perform. Yeah. Um, I see that all the time. Um, and that is you do need to practice as an artist. You do need to develop your stage presence. That's fine. We can do that. I think people should focus on that. What artist development is to me is developing the artist's brand and story. Yeah. Um, a story that I hope they already have, that you are figuring out how to amplify which parts of that story matter for an artist to be able to connect with them as an artist and a person and not just with their music. Because unless your first song is a hit, you are going to be trying and trying and trying and trying to find that song that everybody loves. And there's no reason why you shouldn't be accumulating connections and fans and supporters and followers, whatever you want to call them on whatever platform, while you are on the search for a hit record.

Because sometimes you only get one. It does not always come the first time. But can you still sustain as an artist? Can you still have a fan base? I know artists, I don't have, I don't know one song of theirs, and they can tour. Why? Because they've done the artist develop the true artist development, which is a couple things that I'm sure you're gonna get to. Yeah, but that's artist development, which to me being able to build entry points and connections with fans that are not purely based on your music, but it's based on you as a person, as an artist, as somebody who's willing to follow you throughout your journey and develop with you as you become whatever level of star you're going to be. Do you think that's how it's always been, or is that what artist development now is in 2026? Artist development has always been that. Okay. Ooh. There are- I didn't know. How Are you I'm sorry, Amber Damn. How are you doing? Artist development has lost its way. Ooh. and some of it for good cause and some of it for bad.

Um, artists have more control now. So you talk about ARs. A&Rs, the reason why being an AR was always so sexy. I used to want to be an AR. I don't I fucking hate sitting in the studio. The first time I heard somebody play a beat a hundred times over, I was like, I want to do marketing. Can the song just be done already? Yes. Please. Give me the song done, and I'll tell you what to do with it. Amen. That's how I changed my life. Amen. Um, but being an AR was always so hot because ARs are so important. They were actually helping or sometimes doing it, developing the artist's sound, developing what they say in their music, what their specific sonic is, how this artist is gonna work with Swiss beats, not on one song with all 12 of the motherfuckers on the album, right? Pharrell's gonna executive produce your project, and it creates this wonderful connection and memory through the music, through what the artist is going through, everything, right? All of our legends or you know, icons, people who've been in the music business for a long time, they have the most clear brands of all.

Yes. I'm not really shaky on anybody of the past brand the way that I am on a song where I'm like, well, yeah, I've heard I know this song, I don't know shit about the artist, but I know that song from TikTok. I know the hook because somebody danced to it. I don't even know how many songs do you know, the TikTok part. 10 seconds and not the whole song. Is it? So God forbid you know anything about the fucking artist. But then you create these moments at concerts where everyone sings along to the one part of the one song. Yeah, there's no um that I can think of besides, like I say, like, we've you love the Macarena, everybody knows the Macarena. I don't know anything about those guys, right? One hit wonders have always been around, but it was a very clear distinction between okay, this is a one-hit wonder and this is pink. This is a one-hit wonder, and this is young jeezy. This is, you know, any of those artists. If you ask me about their brand and story, I feel like I could tell you immediately whether I'm a fan of theirs or not, versus all of the artists that are out today. And I'm sorry, I want to get back to my point.

Um, before I think people were able to come to a label, and how it worked is LA Reid was like, No, this is how we're gonna do it. That's cool. Okay, I heard you. Okay, L.A. okay. Yeah, this no, this is the vision, right? And you have a person who doesn't have a TikTok and doesn't have Instagram, they don't have anything back then. And they're like, I'm here for the meeting, you just gave me a million dollars. What did you say we're doing, Mr. Reid? Exactly. Let's do that. Yes, yes, Mr. Reid. You know? Yes, yes, Mr. Reid. And like I said, it's a good and a bad thing today because artists do have more, they are empowered to be who they want to be. Um, sometimes the labels got it wrong, and and I think a lot of artists may have suffered from the past. Uh Pink always comes up as an example because she always wanted to do pop music and and make rock music and just just be eclectic. And she kind of had to come out during doing RB. And so then when you're ready to be who you want to be, sometimes it can be hard. Cause and and then you have to explain, like, no, I I always wanted to do rock.

I always had elements of rock, and she actually did it fantastically. So that's why I love to speak about her career um and her brand. It's one of my favorites, but now there's more control. So, like you have a 16-year-old kid that gets signed, and he's like, I know who I am. And I'm like, do you? and he doesn't want to pretend to be anything that he's not, and I think that's okay, but also there's just like some rules and there's some formulas and there's questions that need to be answered that that need to have answers so that someone can build a connection with you, know what the fuck you look like. You can't just dye your hair a different color every day. That uh I now I don't know you. I can't remember anything about you. You know, your story. What's your purpose? Like, what are you here for? Why should I care about you? There's 500,000 people for me to listen to, yeah. And 100, and a hundred thousand new songs that drop every day. Why should I listen to yours? All of that is artist development to me. And so people are just kind of missing it and putting, I think, the music first instead of investing in themselves long term as an artist, not a song. That's hard to hear, man.

I know. I'm like, God, I kind of cringed when she said. it. I kind of did too. She's so right though. I'm like, fuck, she's right. I'm like cringing on behalf of artists listening to this. She's always right, man. It's all about the music, guys. Amber's already cooking. If you guys don't mind, please like this video and drop a comment. Subscribe to the channel. 75% of you watching are not subscribed to the channel. That is an absolute crime. We are bringing superstars, giving you insane value, like Amber Grimes. Gosh. Please click the bell while you're at it. It's Incredible. Let me clear it up. Yes. Okay. The music's important. Of course. But the music can get better. And the music can actually fucking suck. And you can still find an audience. Oh no. It can. I know. It can. It can. That's possible. I know. I know. There's a few that come to mind. Yes.

It is very hard for your brand to be terrible to have no story and nothing to care about, and you still be able to be successful. Yeah. And I cannot give you an example of someone because I can't remember them. You get what I'm saying? Exactly. I remember people with great brands and sound, but like I don't like any of these songs. But you're awesome. Yeah. I don't know any LaRussell songs. Oh. There it is. But I know LaRussell. Oh, yeah. And that's not a dig at him at all because it's actually, I'm saying you are doing your thing because I know your name. A bunch of people talk about you. He he's kind of made his business model his brand and that that you know love of being independent and and wanting to do that, all of that. I know everything about him. Yeah. Except the music. Yeah. It's almost more you need people to like you more than you need them to like your music. Until those points converge, and you just don't, that's not up to you.

Yeah. That timeline is not you, who knows? Yeah. But when you when people are already into it, I don't know, I'll use Dochi, for example. We're already into it. Like, okay, you were on colors. You're so creative. Like, was the song that she did on colors when we first a yucky bucky fruit cake? Was it a number one billboard hit? It could have been, but like it wasn't. But we're like, man, she's so interesting. And okay, she signed a TDE. That's cool. We like them already. There's some credibility. She's cool. She's still figuring it out. Oh, you're from Florida. So we love the swamp bitch thing in your bio. You're really like holding it down for the city. That's distinct. You're different from the other girls that are rapping. Oh, you have different interests. Oh, you come on Instagram and stuff with no makeup on. You don't care about any of this. She's real. She's relatable. And I'm still waiting, waiting, waiting for the hit record, but I'm into it. So I follow you. I know about you. I've seen you perform. And then boom, one day, what it is, ho comes. And I'm like, even there were some songs after that I liked, but that song comes, and I'm like, that's a smash.

Yeah. Convergence. Yes. That's it. Convergence. Yes. Don't you? You know when it happened. Thank you. You know when it happened. It converged. converged. But I was already there. You were locked in. I was already along for the ride. And I loved her and everything that she had going on. So I was willing to wait with her because I already fucked with her. Why would you want to have nobody fucking with you waiting for you to find a needle in a haystack? Because that's what a hit record is. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So, like, do your absolute best working on the music and do your absolute best working on yourself. Yeah. Until those points converge. Yeah, there it is. And make a little house thing. The theme of the episode. You know how people's house be looked. Let me show you how people's house be looked like.

Okay, this house can work. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. The music is just going going. I don't know shit about you, and your brand sucks, but now I'm listening to your music. But this is this may not. Could you live in a house like this? I don't know. That's a bad foundation. This is a terrible foundation. It kind of looks like a modern house, you know. Okay. Really modern is that it don't ruin the metaphor. Okay, fine. This house, by the way, is crazier because it can't exist. No. This isn't a this this is not a real house. This is a dream house. This is crazy. This doesn't you know. This house is beautiful. That's beautiful. You know, and this is how you built that house up. I love that we did this. Okay, okay, so so the the whole theme of the you know, Substack, you know, uh post was about it mattering more for indies than it does, you know, for other artists. So unpack just the kind of few top top few reasons why that's true. Yeah, I I I said that because obviously being indie's hard. There's not a million dollars to throw away into a bunch of trials of things, and someone go, that's okay.

The Adele album will pay for all things. You do not have those luxuries, right? And so in the meantime, while you're in the studio trying to figure out your craft, trying to make the best song ever, trying to make your your houses converge. For an independent artist, the biggest thing I think is building a fan base, building those people who are gonna come along for the ride with you. And for an independent artist, I feel like that if you don't have any money, the you you definitely have a story to tell. You definitely have um yourself. Like that's what I'm saying. Like you're using you as a resource to connect with people is free-ish, you know, and so I think um I use our artist Belly Gang as an example. Shout out to Belly Gang. Love them. And time in. Love them. Fantastic. Houses converge. Belly, you hit the convergence. Friend do. I like I like the story and the music, sir.

Well done. Thank you. Friend do was the first time I saw those houses converge, and I and I looked at our team and looked at Belly Team. Shout out to Monday, his manager, and Meezy, who's managing him as well now. And I said, Oh, well, no, we can merge the houses, did we? So I so I and I'll explain. Um, before there was a friend do, before there was the Streets Is Yours project, we just had um Belly Gang artists from Atlanta who people think is white, and um stood in the middle of I 75. Yes, 75. 75 to start. So he had a viral moment. Don't we all want one of those? Oh, yeah. Oh, there's a dream about them. Viral moment video did great on YouTube. Was that song a number one billboard smash hit? No. But he got people's attention, attention's important. But how do we keep it? Is the next question. Um, so when we got with him, the only thing that we really had to lean on was beginning to tell his story and to figure out how we share his brand or build his brand up, amplify his brand, I'll say, because it's all right there. Um, because we were looking for the music.

And so I think we focused on um first use what you got. Use the most obvious thing. If everybody wants to argue about your racial identity, then let's lean into that. Why would we go? Well, we don't want to bring attention to no lean in. Lean in is gonna be a big word for our conversation. Okay. This is what everybody wants to talk about. This is the drama. Let's lean into the drama. So, you know, all of the narratives that we pushed, and he, by the way, Belly is a marketer. He is a marketer, he's a marketing genius. So it's great to work with him. Well, that's what I was gonna ask. It's like, was there resistance? No. Okay, see. He started some of y'all motherfuckers need to stop resisting the thing that's right in front of your face. Like if he would have resisted, I don't know that he would be where he is today. So I feel like on on his own, he wasn't even confirming at the time. This is we build into the confirmation. He's like comfortable letting people think what they want to think.

Yeah. Because it builds engagement, it it gets attention, and it gets people arguing and cool. I'd rather people be talking about me than not talking about me. Okay, and he's really smart and he understood that part of the the business. And and I thought that was really cool just first meeting him. I'm like, yo, he gets it. Like, he gets the internet, he's great. Anyway, so racial identity, he's playing into it. We're all playing into it, and then we can keep growing and building that because we're like, you know what? Let's finally say, now that we have some of the music coming, let's finally like talk about his mom. Okay, let's tell that story. He has a song on this project that's coming called Sorry Mama that samples Eminem, a big white rapper who's respected. Um, so before we get into that, let's go tell the mom story to Adam 22, wherever he wants to talk about it. And then we get keep going later down the line by the time the album comes out, and we're like, you know what? Let's show his dad. He started bringing his dad to interviews um to show people like this is this is my this is my racial identity.

It's true. I'm a black man. I can say it like it's bomb. Say what, Amber. And people are following this story, and he's parsing it out to keep people engaged. And so now when I look at what his comments on um Instagram looked like six months ago, versus now when he gets posted on a blog or something, before it was like, he can't be saying this. He is a white man, the world is coming to an end. If we and now there'll be like two comments like that, and three people being like, he's black, yeah, his dad is black. We seen his dad. Go watch the the Bend the Dump. They're they're fighting for him. He has made a a hive for his people, and this is all before our friend do converged. And so there's that. There is um him being willing to gratefully, and and I appreciate this from him too, being able to share his journey with his son. His son's autistic.

He raps about it, so he and it's gonna be in the music. So he shows it. He shows the difficult parts of it. You know, he the one of the first posts that he did about his son was saying, Oh, he said his first word, and his son was like wearing a pamper. And so you have people talking shit, like, wow, he's too big to, and he's like, He, my son is autistic. Like, this comes with its own set of challenges that you know nothing about. And this is what I'm dealing with. So, like, I'm giving y'all music in the studio, and then I go home at night and I take care of my son who's just said his first words yesterday. You know what I'm saying? And and and that part makes you go, like, oh, this guy's like, okay, I respect that. Like, fatherhood's important to him, and then watch that converge with the story that they end up hearing on sorry mama when the music comes out, because it all needs to connect, by the way. His relationship with his mother and feeling abandoned by her, and why he would be such a determined father. Oh, it's all starting to converge, maybe. So, I hate y'all.

Um, so you know, the uh like in my comments with that the uh Substack was about the three things you learned. And the number one thing was your artist brand and story actually matters more than the song. And so when you're talking about some of the stuff with Belly, right? Like it was it the music already talked about all these things, so then it was like, all right, picking from what's already in the music and focusing that with the story, or was it like, let's nail down the story so now that it informs all the music decisions for him? Like, what comes like chicken or the egg type shit in my mind? I don't know. That's that's what it is. Um, a real artist is talking about and making sure that their authentic story is in the music. Okay, that's what makes the music good too. Mm-hmm. Like actually, let's and okay, let's do another flamer. Usually your big pop song isn't talking about shit. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what makes it a pop song. It's popular, this is relatable, we love it. It's we we're not saying anything.

However, to build an audience and to build a fan base, people want to be able to connect through the music. People, we have an artist like Black. People are like, oh, he got me through this. Those are people who like your album cuts. They're like, I listened to this when I was going through a breakup. I listened to this when somebody, you know, passed away and I was able to deal with my grief. That those type of connections are not being built off of Mambo number five. I'm giving Mambo number five the business. Dude, sorry. To Lou Bega. I love that song. Sorry, Lou. It's a good song. Yeah, feels good. But I I remember that at the school dance in fifth grade, not because I needed to get through something. And so it's like that. That's what I'm saying about like you build so much of your emotional connection in that first, you know, you find your day ones when maybe you haven't found a big hook, but you are putting your story and your life into the music so they really get to know you and how they can relate to you or what they can learn from you. And so I think though those things are so important. And with Belly, so it's chicken and egg, he's already talking about these things.

Obviously, we've heard some music from him. Yeah. So we make sure with our artists they understand, like, no, people do care about that. Like, because sometimes artists are like, oh, no, no, no, no, nobody wants to hear about my mama. Yes, yes, they do. I promise. Because you're not the only person who has an issue with their mother. You're not the only person that doesn't know that there's, you know, a lot of rappers, um, you know, they're all they're doing it all to buy their mama house. This specific rapper is like, my mom didn't take care of me. I'm dealing with that and and still grieving in my, you know, at my big age and at this part of my career where I'm actually successful, I still feel a way about how I was brought up. Say that. That pain is beautiful, and that pain is distinct. So now I can differentiate you from every other rapper because you have a different perspective. You're talking about something different, and I get something different when I listen to you that I don't already get from this rapper who's bigger than you. Your pain is different from Rod Wave. So now you both can exist in this ecosystem. Yeah, so so then, you know, as far as like practical advice for some of the indie artists out there, right?

That might not have no offense. I mean, I'm sure Belly and his immediate team maybe had some of this stuff going, but like you guys are experts at this shit. Like you and the whole LVRN crew. I mean, this is why we fucking love you guys. That's why you've achieved the level of success that you have. Is you guys are fucking goaded when it comes to like picking out what the story is and telling that story like with the artist. How can they figure out they don't have LVRN. Well, yeah, because they might have the exact same thing of like nobody wants to hear about XYZ. How can they come to the point of actually they do? And this actually is something I should lean into. You said lean in was gonna be. I'm going to tell you a secret. Okay. Zoom in on me. We will, we will, we will. Absolutely. Yeah. Um what really makes LVRN great in all those incredible things that you said about us, thank you. It's common sense. It's not going where I thought so far.

Let her cook, let her cook. It's not a big secret. We are really good at storytelling. Oh, give us that. That's a that's an art, it's a skill, but a lot of it is common sense. Let her cook you know what I'm saying? Tell them. Calm down. calm down. Calm down. I'm so excited. Your story, I'm talking to y'all. Your story is your story. If you come to LVRN to meet with me, I don't fucking know you until you tell me about you. I can't be great unless you give me something to work with. So no label, nobody, not even the best, us. Power player True. can make or create a story for you that doesn't exist. You have all the answers.

What my job is is to get you to believe in your story, for you to tell it to me and help you understand what parts of it are important and relatable and things that we can build off of. And that's kind of it. Empower you. The AR is gonna empower you to put it in the music and talk about it and be honest and be real, right? My job is to say, are you comfortable with us having a picture with your son? If you talk about him, if you do this, could we put him on the cover? Right? I'm saying that hypothetically. I have to get a yes from you. All of this is with you. So creative is going, you know, what's the album cover? What's the song cover? Do we want it to be meaningful or do we want you? What does that mean? What does that mean?

Why'd she do that? It was so serious. I know, it doesn't matter. I'm not serious. I'm very unserious as a person. Because none of it, we're not saving lives. we are saving lives. Well, I was gonna say, actually. We're not doing heart surgery. We're not doing that directly. No, sure. We're we're we're literally making music and making connections. Yeah. And so all I'm asking is that everything you do and everything we say and everything we put out be intentional. If it doesn't mean anything to you, let's not do that. And so really go back and ask yourself these questions. So when I ask somebody what's your story, everybody has a story. I hope. I hope. Even if your story please don't cook me for this. Because I love And I respect this woman and her work ethic and competitive nature. Sexy Red. She's a beast. But no, you know I love Sexy Red.

I know you do. That's why I thought. Taylor Swift. Oh, Swifties, come on. Come on, because I'm going to show your girl love. I don't remember Taylor Swift like uh having a big heartbreak story when she first came out and she didn't come from a broken home. That wasn't her story. Her story was I'm a regular girl, just like you. And there were regular girls out there that weren't the prom queen, but they weren't the you know, girl in overalls in paint, and they were just regular girls trying to, you know, do something, trying to make their dreams come true, and they saw themselves in Taylor. Saying she's just talking about regular things that regular girls go through. Girl next door, she loves the boy, and maybe he's dating the cheerleader, but we can still this can still work for us, guys. Just a regular girl. There's somebody for everybody. There's somebody you she didn't need to make up a dramatic, heartbreaking story about her life.

And guess what? Later down the line, Taylor's had several houses converge. Oh, yeah. Later down the line, mansions converge. Thank you. Because they have a bunch of these in the mansions. Yeah. She's already got all of these people. And she meets adversity, I feel like real adversity, much later in her career. With the, you know, her her masters and all of that stuff. And where did you guys hear that story? In the music. She put that story in the videos. She put that story in the products that she put out. These are Taylor's versions. Why would Taylor have Taylor's versions? Well, she's been through something. She she leaned in and she was authentic in her storytelling all the way up until now. Now she's talking about the guy that she it's it's always been real. And so it's like the story has to come from you, and you need to ask yourself what you're comfortable with or why you're uncomfortable with sharing this part of your life because there's gonna be a hundred thousand people plus that can relate to this thing that you think is not important and this thing that you think is niche. If it is your story, there's somebody else with it, and they need to hear from you, and you need to understand that your perspective is important and respect what you've been through, and that you can help somebody.

And if that's not why you're making music, I don't know what you're doing it for. I hope I answered your question. Yeah, I've got to be able to do that. But the answer is within you. Yeah, no, you totally did. I mean, because again, I I just think I don't know if it's insecure, right? I don't know what it is, but there's just too many artists that we talk to that don't think they have a story, or they struggle finding what it is that their story is, right? Or they think that they need to fabricate something. Yeah. That's maybe not there because their real story isn't good enough, or not enough people will relate to it, whatever the case may be. And you're right about, I mean, God, there's a person out there for everybody. There's a group of people out there for everybody and every story. Yep. Yeah. Oh my God. Um, okay. So if, if they don't have the story dialed in, you know, with this like fast-paced release world that we live in, I mean, should they keep releasing and just, you know, keep working on everything simultaneously? Should they park the music for a bit and focus on the story?

What no, you have time. Okay. You you have time to figure it out. That's that's the beauty of all this, right? Like I said, it can it can grow, it can converge at different points of your career. You should never stop creating. I think that's like the ultimate bad decision. And catalog is so important. Catalog is so important. Don't do that. Don't stop creating. Um, just just think about it. Yeah, consider it important. Intentionality. That's it. All I'm asking you to do is is consider that people do care what you have to say, and not just um, you know, people are just making music isn't about just having a good time. Or just I want to get my art out there. And I know that some people, but like why? Just ask yourself why more. Have some purpose. The same way you live your life. I think you need to have purpose in your career. Um and that's it. And if you're trying to find your story, I man, I've never I've never met anybody with no story. Right?

So it's just like it'd be impossible. Yeah. I mean, it's just you're lying to yourself. And if you did, their story would be that's the one guy on the planet with no story. That's their story. Yeah, yes. My guy. And so you're, you know, and and I think people should do more research. Let's talk about that, right? Because I'm a big case study, break it down type of person. Oh, yeah. Think about your favorite artist. We were just talking about Eminem. Eminem. Oh God, the brand of the century. Oh my gosh. What an incredible brand. If you are young, look him up. He's this rapper. Yeah. He did a Good job. If you weren't there for it, because I was there for his first video coming on like TRL. Oh my God. And so I'm like, who the hell is this white guy? And why is Dr. Dre co-signing this? And damn, his hair is blonde. It's a iced white blonde that I've never even knew was achievable. And damn, he's giving his mom the business.

What did she do to him? Yeah later to find out she did some terrible things. And so I'm like, now I'm using the word Munchausen Syndrome because I learned it from Eminem. I didn't even know what that means. Now you've taught me about mental health. And I know how you feel about it as a child growing up with a parent who had mental health problems. Anybody else ever felt that? Or anybody grateful that they didn't? Because this seems heartbreaking. Oh, you're so funny. Oh, you're making fun of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. You're anti pop. That's cool. This is happening on TRL, so right after a Christina Aguilera video comes on. That was the best, Most ironic shit. You come on, and it's so memorable and it's so great. And I understand why you exist as a rapper because I love whoever else was rapping at the time, but they can't do this. They they have to be street. They can't be funny. But you also, what?

8 Mile? From the streets. You grew up in the hood? Yeah. Okay. Let me let me learn something about Detroit. And I man, that I just told you like nine things. Yes that are his brand and his story that he came out the gate. How do we know Haley? Yeah. Talks about her. I've known your daughter her whole life. Yeah. I'm in a parasocial relationship now with you and your kid. I just saw like, you know, videos, people like Haley's all grown up, and I'm like, oh no. Because she means something to me. Yeah. Every single little piece about your story is important. Yeah. And how you use it to your advantage or disadvantage is up to you, but it's really helpful. And everybody has a favorite artist. And if you have a favorite artist, it's probably because you feel deeply connected to them. It's probably because they helped you through something. Go just reverse engineer what you cared about about that person and ask yourself the same questions.

Literally. That's the science. Oh my god, it's groundbreaking. That's all I'm doing. That's amazing. Oh my god. All right. So go fucking tell your story. So, well, like, just should they just dump their story out and then try and like piece together what's what they want to highlight or something. Like, you know what I mean? What's the actual leading into like practical like steps? Is there like an exercise they can do? Like that you maybe did with an artist of yours. Like, you should dump your story out. No, I'm gonna blow your mind. Um, let's go. And by the way, it's already been happening. You you should dump your story out and figure out which parts of it you want to keep and which parts of it you want to delay. I think mystery is a really big part of having an incredible artist brand, too, a long-term artist brand, because there needs to be more to learn about you. Okay, so just got complicated. It's Complicated. It just got complicated. I'm sorry. Damn it, Amber. Even even in the short term, I'll use Belly as an as an example again. If the first thing we did was tell him, hey, Belly, like, okay, the 75 on 75 video went crazy viral, like we did it.

You know, you need to pull up tomorrow, bring your mom, bring your dad. We need y'all to take a picture together to prove that this, you know, that you are black, and like this is how we're well. Now we just lost six months of our engagement campaign. Yeah. Because we told everything. Mm-hmm. So that was intentional, the delay. It's um it's a rollout for a reason. It's not a it's not a sprint out. Yo, point to the card. Point to the card last episode. We have a running thing. Oh, yeah. Her last episode rollout. Oh, right. Yeah, if you want to go, you guys want to check out the original Amber episode, put a link to it right in this corner, right here. It's so good. Put it over me. Put it over me. You're better at it. I wasn't reading your mind. You're better at it, man. Yeah, sure. you're like the card guy. Yeah, like you know, ask him to like, comment, subscribe. Like, comment, and subscribe. Don't say that. Not for my shit. The depressing call to action. Yeah, it's a good episode. It is a great episode. Oh, my gosh. It's a great episode.

You need to roll it out. Yeah, right? And I'm not intentional. I'm gonna use myself as an example so everybody can get it. Even if you're not an artist, having a brand is important. You guys, do you feel like your show has a brand? I mean, yeah, we struggle with it if we're being up. Yeah. Talk about it sometimes, some days more than others. All right, I'm gonna help you guys at the end of this. Let's talk about that. Okay. Um, wow. I my story is that I am a black female from Atlanta that comes from a single parent home. That's my story. Does that sound groundbreaking to you guys? There's probably like a million other young black girls from Atlanta, just like me who grew up just with their mom. But as an executive, me being black has taken has been a part of my career and a reason why I've had ups and downs, and what it's like to be the only black woman in a room, and I continue to have these different stories to tell when I come sit down with somebody like you guys, or if I ever write a book, because that is an important part of my story that I built myself up in this industry in the early 2000s as a young black woman that wasn't regular. The only two black women that have ever been CEOs of company, two, like I said, I've already made the point that there's two, uh, Sylvia and Ethiopia.

And so it is important that I that people know that I'm a young black woman, and this is my story. Now, is my story different from I don't, I don't, I'm not sure how they grew up, but if they grew up with dads in the home, my story is different. I didn't have a dad, I only had my mom who did XYZ, and this is my experience now. So is my story still important even though there's other young black women? Yes, because the distinction is that there was not a father figure. Now, how does that affect me? How does that make me feel the do you get what I'm saying? The story doesn't need to the people usually fabricate their story because they think it's not traumatic enough. Yes, see. I need to say that I saved a man in a burning building. That's the story. That's that that's not everybody hasn't done that. There's a lot of young girls like me, and so now I can connect with a larger group of people who go, you know what, I'm I that that's that's my situation too. Because I'm just like her, and I see her doing it.

That's it. There's nothing crazy happening. And I'm gonna have more experiences because of who I am and what I'm trying to achieve. And all my houses are convergent, and I'm gonna have a great story to tell as an executive. Same thing as an artist. Just start with who you are. If it doesn't sound if you have to lie about any part of it, that's where you should stop. Yeah, I think they also struggle with, you know, even like you were just kind of hinting at there might be other artists with a similar story. Not like yours. Yeah, not like it's being delivered from you. So even if that's the only differentiator, it's like you're Amber, they're not. It's coming through a different filter, yeah. That is you, your mind. And there's a fuck ton of people, and just like that and just like focus on yourself. I think that is a the a tangible thing.

I know a lot of this stuff is like hippie dippy, but I'm serious. Like comparing yourself is really like a waste of time. And if you focus on just your there, there can actually be two people with the same story, yeah, and that's okay. If you look hard enough, you'll find it, you'll find someone like you, but like stop looking. I mean, like there's Nike and Adidas, like you know, they kind of do a lot of the same shit. Yeah, I'm just gonna make the same products, yeah, but but they have distinctions, and so all I'm asking you to do, which sounds really hard, is to figure out what figure out what you're selling, figuring out what your product is, figuring out who you are, all of these things that you're gonna go through. And it is important to ask yourself and to marinate on it and to sleep on it, and it might take you a year. I don't care. But what makes me different? If you want to go look at all your comps, go ahead and study. I love some good research in a case study.

If you can't figure out what makes you different, it's just not gonna work. We gotta point to the we have a hidden word up here, self-awareness that is like been a through line of so many of our episodes because we do think so much of this just comes back to that. It really does, man. I think what makes me different is in the specific part of my life and in music where I came up in the industry, I'm one of the women that has social media. And I got to build my career in a different way than all of the women that inspired me before me. And I didn't have to, I wasn't forced to put my head down and do the work and be behind the scenes. I was given these tools that they didn't have access to to show everybody what I do and to be confident and to come speak about it in this crazy male-dominant industry, and didn't let that stop me or make me push myself to the background. And there's women who've done have greater achievements than me.

And the big distinction is that they didn't even they didn't have the same tools. And so I respect them because I'm like, damn, that shit must have been crazy. This type of shit y'all were dealing with. Seriously, there's all this stuff coming out. There was no phones, you can't even anyway. I won't get into any of that. Yeah, but I had these tools, and so how I use them to help build my career and my brand is a totally different experience than what you experienced. And now whoever comes after me is gonna have even more tools, but this is my goddamn story. And so then now they can the, you know, make their story more distinctive than mine, but I'm not gonna not tell my story because I think somebody else had the internet. They weren't using how I was using it. They weren't. Absolutely. So I'm very like well dressed and um true. She is all the things. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid to be myself coming up in the music industry and to have these really this big personality and to share it and to take pictures of it and it all of that. And that's what I think made my career trajectory different for me.

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 are winning because of data. They know who their fans are, they have access to their fans. Do you? Spotify's 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. The second thing that you you know wrote about in your Substack was about um use the tools and build a community today, period.

Right? And so we talk a lot about this. We had a whole episode kind of on community building, it's another one of those things that people love to talk about. It's kind of woo-woo in some ways, right? It's tough to really like get super actionable advice. Um, what made you use that as one of your three things, right? Like just elaborate on what exactly that means for our indie artist community. Yeah, I think um, because there there are a lot of insecurities. You you brought this up, um, becoming an artist. It's scary. So I'll give you all credit for that. And it's a very brave thing to do to put yourself out there and put your art out there and um have it be judged and critiqued by people because that's literally it's all we love to do. Oh my god. And that's that's literally the game now. Yeah. Um I think we do a little bit of too much judgment on ourselves in the process, and it can be very stifling when you know what an incredible feat that one person's listening to your music. You know, I don't know a lot of people with zero monthly listeners.

You might have one monthly listener, you might have five monthly listeners. When you put your stuff up there, I think at least one person's listening to it. That's important. That matters. Shout out to that one person. One day one will be 10, and then 10 will be 1,000, and then 1,000 will be 100,000. But y'all people are coming into the game like, man, I want to perform at the Super Bowl. I suck. I'm like, are you comparison? If you I now my favorite meme of all, people are like, I only have 10,000 followers. If 10,000 people beat your ass, you will be in the hospital. That's a significant amount of people that you should pay attention to, reward, give access to, show love, thank, name them. Those are the most important. Those start those 10 people who are supporting you, even if it's your sister, brother, cousin included in there, those are the most important people in your career because they are building the foundation of your house. And to discredit them and to not be grateful for them, I think is the most ungrateful thing you can do as an artist whose work depends on building connection with people.

And so I think the most um important thing for you to do is to acknowledge them and give them somewhere to live. And it's important because when you do that, when you create this home for your fans to live in, you can really be more aware and cognizant of watching them grow and be a little bit more appreciative and a little bit more grateful every day, and really share the journey because you know you're actually talking to somebody. It's hard to just be like, hello out there when you know somebody's listening. I think you act different, you have a different confidence about you. And so I just think you know, you people can be very reactive about their fans and act like 10,000 people are invisible if it's not 50,000. And so I know I can't be intellectual all the time, and I think that shit's weird. And I think that you should really like nurture the one person that shows up for you because they're gonna be with you for the rest of your career if you do the right things. So, what are some ways they can do that?

So because algorithms are not, this is not just your Instagram profile. Your posts aren't necessarily getting seen by all your people, right? Yeah, that's why I say use the tools. So, like simple things like um, I I love broadcast channels, broadcasts. Um, because it it it's really indicative of the fact that everybody that follows you on Instagram is not a supporter. Okay, so you know you have 10,000 Instagram followers, you know, half these people are people who followed you when Instagram started, they don't even fuck with you no more. And their friends and family who feel like they don't have to like every post because they seen you yesterday. And then you start this broadcast channel and you see people who go, I would love to hear more from you. And so if that's 500 people out of 10,000, you just found 500 people. Yeah. Imagine if 500 people came to your house. It's a lot of people in your house. You'd have to buy a lot of food, it'd be a thing, it'd be a function. So now you found your people just on inside this app broadcast channel is free.

All you have to do is get in there and entertain them. The next thing we're gonna do, acknowledge people who care about you and care about your music. So it's not enough to say, yeah, 500 people follow me, and 500 people are my broadcast channel, boom, I'm lit. No, you have to get them to stay. Because fandom has changed. Fans are not um the the beehive uh uh barbs thing, like that's not really a thing anymore. Like, I'm so crazy, no matter what the artist does, I'll be defending them for my life. That's not really a thing anymore. Um, there's no more fan club, like I'm not writing a letter to somebody and getting no message back and being like, I don't care, I love you in sync. That's over with now. Fans are subscribers, and I can subscribe and say I'm entertained by you, I like you. And when you do some shit I don't like, I'm out. Just like that. Just like that, at a click of a button. And so maintaining your fans, giving them a reason to stay, is a part of the work.

What's happening in that broadcast channel? What's happening on even if you're using one of those platforms? What am I getting for being here? It needs to be the fan artist relationship is transactional. And again, that's why I say for indie artists, you can't pay your fans. You can't, even the even the major label artists, you can't go, please stay. I have one million dollars and we're gonna give it out. The transaction is actually like it's you. So if someone clicks and they come into this community that's gonna send them notifications that are annoying. They better be good. I want to Bryson Tiller. I love that he does voice notes in his broadcast channel. Why did why you're independent artists with 500 500 fans? Bryson Tiller's got like 5 million followers, and he's in his broadcast channel, uh, talking to us with the raspy voice in the morning. You think you don't have to do anything? Or I would have left. JT, awesome in her broadcast channel. She is always talking to her juvies, she's doing giveaways, she's asking their opinions on things, she's giving them free tickets to her concert, and that only happens in this special place. So on her page, she's like, Oh, look at my outfit, me and Uzi, look at my dog.

I'm cute. Yes, bitch, new song. And in this broadcast channel, I love her. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, I'm a juvie. What are you doing today? Let me see some exclusive pictures of your dog. I feel like I'm really in. It's a whole new world that she's built for me as a fan, and now I feel special and I want to be a part of it because I'm building this relationship with her, not to get creepy about it, but I want to be a fan of her because she makes me want to be a fan of her. Rema's uh broadcast channels fire. Um, and I'm saying all of these people, so y'all can actually go follow and be in their broadcast channel and see what they're doing for free. No one's giving money away on their broadcast channel, and just do the same thing. Make your fans feel loved. They have they let their biggest fans that run fan pages be admins on their broadcast channel. So now the burden is not just on me to have to talk in there and to entertain. There's some crazy motherfuckers telling y'all everything that I'm doing every day because they love me. And they this is so Summer Walker has the best fan page people in the world.

They are awesome. They find every video and every picture. Sometimes we have to message them and say, Where did you get hello? And they love her. These are people that love her dearly. And so, even at as a label and her herself, she acknowledges them. I think at one point she was only following like three people, and one of them was her fan pages, her day one fan pages. Like that connection is important. And if you don't respect it and acknowledge it when it is one person, you will not respect it and acknowledge it when it's a million because you can't. All you can do is go on award show and say, Oh, and to my fans, and to you know, thank you so much. But there's people sitting at home like bitch, you never did nothing for me. You know, you don't want to lose it. Uh so I hope I answered your question. Yeah, yeah. No, so you mentioned a few other tools that like are kind of related to this idea of building community, right? One of them you mentioned you had been gatekeeping a while.

Yeah. And you no longer have to gatekeep it. Yeah, because it's called co it's called Cobrand. Yeah. Okay. I hadn't heard of it, so I'm actually pissed that you didn't at least send it over my way. Oh, Jesus. Period. I still have to do it. Yeah, exactly. So what's CoBrand? How can our indie artists, you know, folks be using it? Uh, because I mean, you know, again, it was, it was amongst some other heavy hitter tools that we have heard of. Co-Brand is um uh it's an, I don't want to call it an app, but it's like someone's built this whole system where you can link your your Facebook, link your Instagram, um, link your TikTok, and it creates like this dashboard of literally every single thing that's happening for you as an artist. Um, with the virality and everything with TikTok, it's a crazy easy place to see everybody who's using your sound, what they're doing to it, the trends that work, um, you know, what text on screen is working, who's posted this 10 times versus who's posted this one time. Where do the people who are posting this song or interacting with the sound live?

It's like all of this data that when used properly, especially as an independent artist, you can get creative about how you want to operate. So, you know, you're an artist in the US and you're having a song trending in Brazil. You know, I don't know anybody in Brazil. You're about to spend $500 on ads and targeting Brazilians. Send them to. You were about to send them to Canada. You were targeting US and Canada because you think that that's where your your demo is. But for this song, it just happens to be popping off in Brazil. Now you can make better decisions with your with your money, your time, your resources. Um, now you can go see what they're doing so you can participate in the trend and understand why. And when you go speak about it, speak about it educate it. It's like very a great place for data, but it does one of the most incredible things that I've ever seen. And I don't know if anyone does it anywhere, but it keeps all of your mentions in one place. Oh. So when somebody mentions you on Instagram in a 24-hour story that's going to get deleted, you know, you go perform at a show of 10,000 people, say, I loved that.

And actually your DMs are fucked up and you can't get to everybody. Yeah. It keeps all of that content. And so now in this new world of um, and I'm not saying it's new, uh, clipping, um, while everybody's just getting on board yesterday with clipping and just the the need for content all the time. Now you're able to go act like a fan of yourself. You could build your own fan page because you're taking all of the videos from everybody that came to that show last night. So you have 10,000 new pieces of content that you didn't have to get up and put clothes on and makeup on and go shoot something from your fans. And you also know who they are. So if you want to connect with them and build with them, you can go DM them all back. You could go, you know, hey, I wanted to invite so-and-so to my concert in in Tennessee. I saw that you live there, and I just wanted to give you a special thank you. This person's gonna be like, oh my god, it's my favorite art. You do whatever. I'm just I'm ripping the ideas off right now.

This is good. Um, but it's just it's just an incredible place, an ecosystem that makes everything that's happening about you as an artist digestible so you can figure out what you want to do with it. It's just a data landfill. Yeah, gold mine aggregator. How about we use gold mine instead of landfill? Landfill was the first thing that came to mind. Landfill sounds like a bunch of trash. there's a bunch of shit in there. You're right, There's probably a bunch of good into it. You've got to find treasure. Yeah, it makes sense. It's like a yard sale or an estate sale. I'm keeping my statement. Okay, fine. Fine. Fine. A landfill of all this information about you. Yeah. And you go, you find the treasures and use them how you know you want. And it's incredible. And this is not sponsored by CoBrand. And we are trying, just as usual, bringing you guys the best value we can do. I wish somebody would. CoBrand. Cut Amber the check. And one more time, they're great guys.

And so, you know, one of the other ones that we are familiar with and our community is probably familiar with because we had the you know co-founder and CEO on uh Mag from Even. Yeah. Right. And you mentioned in your Substack that this was the first you had actually used it recently for the first time. For black, yeah. Yeah. So talk to us about your experience using a platform like even, what you what you guys did on the platform, you know, just any kind of lessons learned because a lot of people, you know, either are using it already, have used it, or want to use it. So I want to make sure they're kind of thinking about what's possible. Yeah, I I went and did my studies first. Yep. Um, I hate that I was late to the game. Oh, that was kind of surprising that it was your first time recently. So I know. Okay. I don't know. Even Amber slips up, I guess, from time to time. I do. Um, but yeah, I've obviously known about even. I I follow, you know, LaRussell's story because again, I'm just a sucker for brands. So I'm like, I know that he uses it. He's like the face of the brand. Yeah. Captain Even. And when I saw it was when I saw J. Cole using it, I go, what is this thing?

Because it it seems like there's different entry points. So I thought it was just for indie artists, but now I'm seeing that there's like different ways for artists of all levels to use it. I'm missing something. I need to tap in. And so I started seeing all of the ways and subscribing and paying, paying to personally paying to be a part of people's, even just to be nosy to see what they got going on. I'll get like do your research. Anyway, I'd be buying people's Man, I bought Doja's Apple Music, you know, project. Say, what's she giving away? What you know, I'll do all that. So anyway, I'm going and dig in there and just seeing all the capabilities of this app, this product. Um, everybody's page is different. You can build them up, make them custom. Um, you can give away different custom offerings. Uh fucking LaRussell has like given his fans, there's 400, there's a folder of like 400 unreleased songs. A man, my man's making music on the daily, yes. Like at a future level.

Yes. And I'm like, man, none of these songs are out. But if all you imagine, oh my god, you remember like when Lil Wayne was like mixtape Wayne, I would have bought his even. Could you imagine getting no ceilings as as a patron, right? Oh, no ceilings is out, live mixtapes. But for the low, low price of 199, there's 400 more Wayne songs. Wayne, you should maybe drop those. now. I'm selling my car for that. He would have died. And so I'm like, oh, this is the place for the fan who wants more. And you would not, you won't even know, you can't even quantify the fan that wants more if you never gave them anything. Yes. So it was, it was just like a I just found it like incredible that it was like, oh, it's a way to to to find people who love you, not people that like you, people that love you and want more from you, and you can give them more. And so with Black, what we did, um, even's really great with like helping um, you know, with your pre-orders, and um, you can offer a different version of your album, and usually, like, you know, everyone's got like, oh, like I'm sick of deluxe version. you know, whatever.

Um, yes, you know, I'm in all that. Yeah, we know. I'm gonna step on the product anyway. Um, we were able to put out a different version of his uh Project Love is a New Gangsta. Black has a very distinct tone of voice, he literally talks just like he raps, so it's like beautiful to listen to him speak. And he did voice notes to explain, you know, his headspace and where he was at when he made the music and what these songs mean to give this more personal experience to the fan. And so we um maybe it's like maybe a week or two before the album came out, and it was like, oh, you haven't, you know, you've heard a couple singles, but if you're interested in more black, you can get this special one where he's gonna talk to you. And people loved that, and they bought it, and there was also a community chat in there. And so when um the project did come out, he was like, Hey, meet me in my community chat on even. Let's talk about it. And it was really black if you were in there, chatting away, answering questions with the fans, saying this is a special place where you can talk to me. I'm not talking to y'all in Instagram comments.

Black has a broadcast channel, but he's not doing you can't write it's difficult with the having everybody write back. So it was this beautiful place where he could like talk to his fans in real time, but it wasn't people in there that don't fuck with him. It wasn't people in there that wanted to judge the music, it was people who were really listening to the project at midnight and enjoying it. And so I I just found it a beautiful place to find your people. Yeah, and then there's so many other things it can do. I'm underselling it. Selena over there is like trying to give me all the game. She's fantastic. Um, and so I'm I'm looking to discover more, but I will never miss it again. I will never not use it again. And also, international artists can use it, and I thought that was incredible because we have a lot of artists. Huge draw. Globally. And you know, we're dealing with oh, how do we use WhatsApp? You know, because we can't use community or we can't use Laylo, all these my other favorite things. Um, and you can build for an international audience on there. So I'm sold. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think people just underestimate too what fans would be willing to do to support. And they'll never find out if they don't give them the option to do it at any level, by the way.

Like you'd be surprised if you have, you know, 200 monthly listeners, like five of those people might buy a hundred dollar product from you if it's meaningful to them. Absolutely. Like a hundred dollar t-shirt from Belly Gang Kush. There you go. Yeah, white tea of the world. A hundred dollar white tea. So good. So good. So good. So the you know, the third thing that you kind of wrote about in the in the Substack was about like not being a skeptic. Yeah. Right. And you, you know, you kind of use like trial reels and you use clipping and just other things that maybe again people like hear about early on, and they're like, ah, it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work for me. Like all the excuses under the sun as far as like why they don't want to put effort into it. Um, and then they hear about it from everywhere and they miss the boat. It's too late. They're too late, right? So I know we you know, we gotta get you out of here to a very important event soon. So having fun. Okay, well, we appreciate that. Um, but like what's something right now? Like, come on, give us the fucking game right now.

What's something right now that indie artists need to all go research? It's trial reels. Still, Yes. Really? You don't need any research. Yeah, like go use it. Yeah, wow, you're still so bullish on it. Yeah, because nobody knows about it. Okay, so then walk them through some like real life use cases of how you have used trial reels for your artists and then what you learned, or like what happened, you know what I mean? Like, give sell them on it, okay? Because we've all been we've been talking about that. Well listen to us. I made a post about it probably 18 months ago and it was new. And I'm still not even taking full advantage of it. No, thank you. So every there there are people who don't know what trial reels is. There are people who think they uh they've heard about it, but they don't have access to it. It's out everywhere. Literally, it's been rolled out. GA. I know Meta likes to do the thing where they only give it to certain it's out and there's people who were talking about it, and it's like you haven't tried it, so you don't even know you didn't give trial reels a trial. Okay. So made a fucking post and then just didn't use it.

Yeah, I appreciate your honesty though. I've used it, I just feel like the way the proper way to do it, I think is a lot more, but we're about to find out So again. I'm gonna be honest, all of my artists haven't adapted to it yet. I'm about to I'm about to go around chokeslamming everybody. Oh no, get ready, belly. Start with us. So again, I'm gonna use myself as an example because again, what makes me a great marketer is the research that I do. And just like an artist, I put myself out there to learn about things because I will never do something, I will never ask my artist to do something that I wouldn't do myself. Yes, period. That's just how I operate, and I don't understand it if I've never used it. So when I was like, you know, this trial Reels thing's been sitting in my, you know, that little button, I see it. A toggle? I never pressed that. I'm gonna try it out. Man, I put just some videos that I think just that I would say, like, oh, I'm too embarrassed to to put show this to my followers. Let me say what trial reels is first.

Okay, okay. Trial reels is a space. It's a it's a black hole where you can put as many videos as you want. You could put the same videos with different text on screen and send them into this black hole where only people that don't know you live. Oh amazing. Because guess what? People who don't know you are so much nicer than people who know you. They are not sick of you, they don't have fatigue, they're not tired of supporting your song. They don't know you. They just want to be entertained and they're honest. Is this good? Did this make me laugh? Did I watch this for more than five seconds to get my attention? That's the only thing they're thinking about, right? If you're on um Instagram now, you know the algorithm's all fucked up. So when you go home, all you see is videos of people you don't know. And you're like, how does this happen? Let me tell you. If you want to be a part of the videos that come up on people's pages you don't know, trial reels.

Okay. So they take your reel, you put something in there that you're too embarrassed to put on your own page. You made a really good content piece for your song, but it's a little cringy. You put on trial reels, send it out into the universe. Two things, one of two things are gonna happen. Neither of them are gonna kill you. The first thing, you're gonna learn that the content sucked. You thought it was good, it wasn't. There was a it got showed to a bunch of people, they not fucking with it. So now you have data to go back and say, what should I have changed about this? Was it too long? Was the text on screen not engaging? Did it not start with the right five seconds? Guess what? Re-edit that motherfucker and put it back in trial reels and see if you get a different answer. Okay, the second thing that could happen, it could blow up. You can get followers from Trial reels. I put videos of my clothes and stuff up on my Instagram all the time, right? And fashion is a part of my story, it's something else that I want to tell. I don't want to always talk about what I do for a living. My you know, my followers are like, that's a cute outfit. Yeah, yo, you look good going to the Grammys.

Good job. I put one of my uh fashion videos in Trial Reels. They love me. They loved me over there, okay? They wanted me there. Over there it's so funny. They were not fatigued Fashion Grams. Hello, they were not fatigued with Amber's outfits and all the furry hats, and they don't know nothing about me. They were just like, girl, you look good. And let me tell you the craziest thing that happened over there over there in Trial Reels. Yeah, I'm like literally over there. It's different. It is, it's a whole other land. They follow. Yes. I don't know. And I think I'm an expert. One way posting regularly on Instagram, unless you just happen to have a viral video. And viral now is like uh the Kumar video with 15 million. Yeah, you know, you have to get almost get 15 million views to grow your page. Yep. They follow over there, they see that video. The follower conversion, I'll show you guys after this.

It's crazy. They go, I love this outfit. Follow when you show everything to your fans, they're like, bitch, I'm already following you. So there's nothing more I can do besides uh like comment, and I'm already subscribed. So there's nothing. Yeah, y'all motherfuckers who aren't click that bell icon. There's nothing, there's nothing else for them to do. So that for an artist, discovery is an independent artist. Discovery is everything. You can't keep talking to the same people all the time. You can't keep giving them the same content, you can't keep pushing them the same song. Somebody new needs to come in and say, I like this too. And you can gear the content for new people because you know it's only going to new people, right? I'm recycling shit from five years ago and saying, Oh, this sound is viral. Let me put it over this video of me at the beach uh last year and see what to do. I can't speak enough, I can't speak highly enough about trial rails. And it's just there, and maybe like one or two people that you know will see it, and it's just like you'll be okay.

Yeah, like get out of here, friend. Wow, you're not supposed to be here. But it's um it's yeah, it's it's incredible. And I've had some, and I, and I want to say this part because again, insecurity as an artist is real, and I want to take note of that. Some of your trial reels are gonna do well, and some of them are not. That is the point. Leave them in there, let them grow. And the ones that didn't, now you have all of this information because you can go to insights and it'll tell you, you know, the skip rate on this one was high. So if you're getting like over a 60% skip rate on It's trash. it, just the content wasn't good. It wasn't enough for somebody to stick around. Instagram actually shows you the exact point on the chart where people left. Yeah. Okay, so what did I need to do in the five seconds or in the 10 seconds to get them to sit and listen to this, right? And so, like you have nothing to lose, you only have it to gain. So no one's gonna see your 60 view trial reel. It's not on your page, it's free data for you. But let's go on.

Okay. When you do get that hit, and you're like, I knew my content was good. I knew my song was cracking. Flip it over. One click, flip it over to the page, flip it over to the main feed, it shows up as posted that day. So it's new to your so it's new to your fans. Also, Instagram released the move your grid around. So if you don't want it to show up as your, you know, newest piece, now you can shake the shit around the your page. Oh. You can Rearrange. You didn't know about reorder grid. Whoa. This is why we got the expert on the podcast. If you guys are finding value out of this episode, please like, comment, subscribe. Sorry, go ahead. Late. And the bell. You can now reorder your grid. It's rolled out to everyone. I believe. Oh my god. We're sleeping, bro. I don't know if I would yet, but whatever we talk about. it. I have no use for it. But it's okay, yeah. But why are we making such a big deal about this? It's not even helpful. But for an artist, it is It is. For an artist. You know, um, pinning is important to people.

Now you can pin. Well, you're pinned on our reels page. Oh, thanks. Well, you did two and a half million views. I'm about to act like six nine. And we're gonna do three million views on a clip from this video. So get in here because we're here to help all the independent artists and it's going down. You pressing like a button. All of them. Yeah. press on. She doesn't know. Three million views. Watch. Watch this. Watch what I do. Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. So you can if a if a trial reel cracks off, you can move it to your main feed, and now it's there. And also, I have trial reels that have done well, and I leave them in trial reels because the follow I I'm still testing this thing out. The ones where the follower conversion is great. I'm saying I'm staying in the Alamo. Yeah. I don't care what. Because why do I why do my followers need to see? Why would I leave? It's paradise over here. And show it to y'all. Y'all don't even love me. That's crazy.

So trial reels is, and you know why I love trial reels? It's free. Yeah. It's absolutely free. It's another free one. It's free. You don't need no money. It's another free one. You need your creativity and your your bravery and some effort. Yes. Are you getting your artists on instance at all? Um I don't know what instance is trying to do. yet. They're trying to bring back what stories used to be, I think, where it was way more candid and real, honest, in the moment type moments. Like, be real. Um, I'm I'm I'll never come in here and lie to y'all. I'm still trying to figure out the master plan for that. Yeah. I don't know about that. I love threads and I love trial reels and I love broadcast channel. Yeah, broadcast channel. broadcast is a big one. Let's get back to the subject. I'm so sorry. No, this did tie it all kind of back because this is brand new. Yeah, so I but I can't afford to be a skeptic. That's why I said you're kind of being skeptical, right? You saw you saw that.

I saw your brain be like, I'm a fucking fraud. Like literally, I saw you realize how hypocritical you were being. I was like, shit. Okay. She's gonna literally post an instant after she leaves the studio. Because that's what type of a bitch I am. Hey, I didn't call you that. Yeah, I did. It's okay. You're a nice lady. That's what type of nice lady. Doesn't get the same. A nice lady who researches. Researches. Exactly. And and will do the work. Like, and and I use again, I'm using myself as an example because I think an artist needs to be the executive of their career. Especially an independent artist. You it is, I'm sorry, you don't just have the luxury of only focusing on the creative when you choose to be independent. You are running an independent business for yourself, and hopefully with a small team of people that also want to see you win. But you really, you really need to want to do this and to figure it out. And you have to make the content, and you have you should go do the research. You should go try things.

Um, you know, I I I imagine that an artist could like here we go. An artist could like use instance to, you know, reveal like their album cover or the name of their project or something, and only you see it if you're swiping through those instance. And so now you're like, oh shit, I know the name of such and such and whatever. Yep. So I get it. I'm I've already got ideas. She just convinced herself she's gonna use it tonight. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. Um, but yeah, tools, like, I know what instance is. Soon as I saw it, I started flipping through seeing what people are sharing. Nobody's using it, right? Nobody's figuring it out. Yeah, no one knows what they're doing. So the reason why I say you can't afford to be a skeptic is because I think as an independent artist, you are supposed to be a pioneer. You're supposed to be the first to do something and not do the same thing everybody else is doing. A lot of these things don't cost to try, and a lot of things that do, there's a trial. I have so many trials. If I see a new app that comes out, oh you know, free trial for seven days, I'm getting in there and I'm setting an alarm in seven days to be like that shit didn't work.

So let me get out of here for they charge me 2399. But I'm I'm willing to try anything. Yeah. And as an independent artist, I think that you should be finding tools, using all the resources, finding creative ways to use the resources because your whole career depends on you being creative. And I think one of the coolest things, I don't mean to keep bringing him up, but he's you know, done great for himself as an independent artist, is like pioneering a tool. A huge part of LaRussell's brand is even. Yeah. I hope that he has stock in it. I don't know his business plans, but that like being able to parallel path your career with a tool that was made for independent artists and you want to be the face of independence. Well, you figured it out. Yeah. You know, and the the most beautiful thing I think about his story, beautiful and you know, heartbreaking at the same time, he's going through some stuff right now for putting out his art, and and maybe everyone didn't love what he had to say. That's okay.

Everybody fucks up sometimes. Um, but he could leave Instagram. Yeah. He could leave Instagram and be okay because he built another house for his fans and people that are not gonna leave him, and people that didn't cancel him, and people that are willing to forgive him. And I think that is beautiful. That is that's business. That is the the independent artist's business, being able to have your own house. That's literally what we're doing all this for, right? Not building, you know. This is a very homey episode. Put him up. We got our homey on. Yes, true. Being able to build your because how many artists, if they if they got off Instagram, where what would they do? You're in trouble if you are gonna disappear if your social media disappears. What would they do? Yep. And he's able to do everything he was doing before. He could talk to the fans on even, he can give them music on even, he can sell things on even, he can put content on even.

He there's nothing that he could do on Instagram that he can't do over there only with people who love him. And if he needs to feel the love right now, he has built a house of love, and I'm sure he's like, all right, I'll just get back in that other thing when it's time. Um, but that's that's incredible to me. And it's because he wasn't skeptical of this brand, he went and figured out how to be to use it to the best of his ability. And so try stuff. Try stuff. Don't be a skeptic. Don't be a skeptic. Don't be a skeptic. You can't afford it. You can't afford to be a skeptic. It's more expensive to be late to the game when everybody's already doing it. Clipping's cooked, like clipping clipping's about to be cooked. I feel like when when people start doing articles on it, and the streamers, the streamers really pioneered that. And then, you know, as an executive, I'm like, okay, cool. Us figuring out Justice was the person who taught me about clipping.

Yeah. Like, I feel like maybe a year and a half, two years ago. And so we started learning about and how can we use it for artists? I'm seeing like take notice of things. I'm like, man, why am I why do is Tyla everywhere? I just felt like my whole for you page was being taken over by the last 10 years of her life. And I'm like, but I'm like, I wasn't skeptical about it. I was I was intrigued. Yeah to say how I I love her. Water's blowing up, she's fantastic. Why am I watching a video of her sister and her dancing when they were 10 or something? I'm like, what's happening? But now I like know she has a sister and what she looks like, and that she's got like a great personality, and I've learned something, and I want to know how. Like, how can I do that? And you can clip in trial reels. You can. And you're not punished. You can be your own clipper. Take all the what if you take all those videos you got from Cobran and put them all back in trial reels. You maintain the aesthetic of your beautiful main feed, which I fucking hate.

I hate when people are trying to make their feed pretty. Oh, yeah, and you put all those videos in your trial reels and just let them do things. And now they're over there. Over there in trial reel land. Over there in place. Yeah. Just Doing what they do. Even if it's 10,000 views. Oh, that's a that's a lot of views on a video. Yeah. And you just let them live there. All these apps start to converge. You can use them all. It's Amazing. Oh my god. On that note, Amber, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh no. Yeah. Wait, before we go, can I say one more thing? Yeah. Because it was on there. Yeah. Of course. Um, I want more artists to use Substack. Um the way that you are communicating with your fans, even through places like broadcast channel and things that I just told you to use, can be overly transactional. And at a certain point, people can get a little fatigue of being sold. The only thing that you should be, you should not only be talking about listen to my music with your fans, especially when we just went through this whole story and brand thing about give more, share your story, share more of yourself. Substack is this big, beautiful, free place where you can write and express yourself beyond just what song you're putting out.

So even if you wanted to write a Substack and say, hey, the story I really want you guys to know the story behind this song that I wrote. I was inspired this day to do this. Let me tell you a funny story about what happened in the studio. I had a bad day today, man. Oh, I'm fucking watching Love Island too. Let me tell y'all. You love Love Island. Shout out to Substacks. Shout out to Substacks. And so does Kehlani. But yes, please use it. It's another way to engage with your fans. You can email them for free. A lot of people have emails somewhere and they're not doing anything with them. They're just like, my album's out. You can import all the emails that you have and start sharing valuable content about you as an artist with your fans. And email's still around. I know I sound old, but everybody doesn't want to be texted. Everybody still has an email, babe. You substack. That's it. Sorry. You can't afford to be. You can't afford to be skeptical about it at all. Subscribe to the Amber Grimes Substack as well. Yeah, absolutely. Because I got that. We'll put a link to it. That's email about this whole fucking episode to my email. You guys could have just fucking read that at the beginning, and that's fine.

But here we are getting her to expand. on it. Please Subscribe to with Amber Grimes. With Amber Grimes. With Amber Grimes. Love it. Well, you have done a rapid fire rampage before in the essence of time. I did. I know you were really good at it. You said that last time too, but you were actually really good at it. Oh, and before uh we actually get into this, we decided we're gonna, if you guys are liking what Amber's saying right now, she has gracefully agreed to do two indie artist development audits for two of y'all watching right now. And all you gotta do is leave a comment. Let's say put the word story and tell us something unique or interesting about your story, and you'll be entered to win one of two free audits with Amber Grimes. How's that sound, guys? I love that. I love that. She's doing the Lord's work. She really is. I'm glad you said it. And she's busy. Because this was your this was your idea. It did yes, absolutely. I just want everybody to know that was your idea. I said that's a good idea. Let's do it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good job, Henry. So uh, same three sections as always. You know what it is? Um, start with the short answers. Here we go. Starting with Amber, do you think that everyone watching this episode right now should like the video, comment on it, and subscribe to the channel? Well, yes.

Okay, she's starting for real now. Anyway, okay. What are three things that you wish every independent artist did more for their fans? Ooh. Um, name them. People love hearing your name. Fans should still have a name. Um, like a name group. Yeah. Oh, okay. Name them. Yeah. Call them something so you can talk to them and they can be a part of something. The big timer juvies or whatever you were saying. Okay. Ours is the big timers. Yeah. Which Jerry said one more time. time. Big timers is fire. He loves big timers. We're all trying to make it to the big time. You don't have to lie to him right now. I like it. It rolls off the tongue. I did fine. Nostalgia. The big timers. So name them. Yeah. Um, reward them. Rewards do not have to cost money. It is literally just a transaction. So give them something. It could be access, it could be uh information early. It could be so many things.

But if somebody loves you, they will appreciate getting this gift from you. It could be an unreleased photo, I don't care. Reward them. And the third thing I will say is um, create guidelines for them. Community guidelines are important. Your fans will really understand they're a part of something if there are rules. I like saw um Megan Thee Stallion one time speaking to her fans, uh, you know, the hotties, and I think maybe they were maybe being nasty about something on the internet, and she literally addressed them and was like, We don't do that. And so that lets me know, oh, okay, my bad. this is not how she wants us to show up. You know, mother has spoken. And and and in this community. Yeah. In this community, we we carry ourselves like this. That that's how you really make people feel like they're they're in somebody's home, you know, because there's a there's a way to be. And so if you you treat your career like that and your fans like that, you'll have a real community.

That's a good one. You wouldn't think that, like you'd almost think that that would be like, oh, just tell me what to do? But it's like well, they probably weren't real. Yeah, they probably weren't real fans then. There it is. No, they are fans fuck up too. Well, yeah. I just mean if they were gonna dip out that quickly after like Megan was like hey, guys. after one rule, yeah. Oh, yeah. Girl, don't tell me what to do. I'm out of here. Yeah, I guess that's just yeah, how fickle they can be though. Amber, what is something that you should definitely know about an artist after watching three of their posts? Ooh. That's a good question. Man, I'm uh I'm giving a heady answer. Um, what they're selling. What what what is this? What are you trying to sell me on? Who are you? Like, why should I buy into this after after three things? Like what was supposed to get my attention? Yeah. Um, I I know I've I'm saying a lot of questions, but that they are the answer to what are you selling? That was great. Oh, absolutely. Amber, how many tabs do you have open right now spiritually? 500. 500 tabs, spiritual tabs.

Moving on. Give us uh one random piece of game that we've you know, you've mentioned a couple things that you were maybe gatekept or haven't said before. What is one more that you've still been holding on to? Give us just one, Damn. something that you haven't spoken on. Yes, I'm being absolutely selfish for our community. Well, okay, yeah, because the substack audience got the co-brand, that wasn't even really you know, we need something more exclusive. One more time exclusive. One more time exclusive. Can't nobody read that. I need more I read it. We're putting the link to it in the description. One more exclusive. I should have saved the Substack thing for that because that was it. Um fine, that's fine. Okay, sorry, wait. Man, I'd be telling people everything I know. That's good. That's why we have you on. I feel that I've told you everything that I know. We're not lawyers. Like seemed like she was on trial. Okay, I have one. Oh. Okay. Wow. YouTube Shorts. Okay. One of the most important things that I did with with my team with Belly Gang was turn his YouTube shorts into a blog.

Ooh. Before he, he's an independent artist too. But again, Christian is an independent artist. Before he had the budgets or was able to get people's attention enough to get free blog posts, we used his YouTube shorts as a blog and made everything about him feel like news. And so the same way that you would see something on, you know, at rap or DJ Academic set up with like a headline, a picture of the artist and the other person you're talking about. Yes. We were, Yes. That's right. We were doing that on his shorts. And I think YouTube Shorts is great, almost just like trial reels for your YouTube. It actually brings in a lot of subscribers. But every, when I say every little piece of news about him or thing about him, we turned into news. If he happened to be at an event and he ran into Lotto because he was backstage at birthday bash, it would be a post that goes, uh, you know, Lotto tells Belly Gang Kush she's he she she loves him. He's next to him. This is the news. And then, the video of them meeting with

play. Um Belly Gang Kush says he's tired of being compared to Jeezy. And it would be that everything was a headline. Wow. Um and his shorts are so reactive. Um, we grew his page like crazy early days, just making everything important and not ignoring any any encounter that he had, just everything. Wow. And bonus for YouTube Shorts. Uh, YouTube is a search engine. So you're these posts are getting indexed, unlike uh a reel or a TikTok that you know, once it's over, it's probably gone forever. So little bonus for you guys. Last one of the short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Ha ha. Fuck. I think that matches up with what she said last time. I don't know. I'm sure it's still fuck. I don't think it's changed. So I'm trying to stop saying it, especially in these professional interviews. Is this a professional interview? Yeah, don't disrespect your brand. Yes!

We uh that is part of our brand. So we are the music business uncensored. Uncensored. Uh we're gonna sprint through these last two sections. You know them. First one is the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just have to pick one of them, starting with great story or great strategy. Great strategy. I was gonna say I started with a hard one then. Mystique or transparency? Transparency. Trial reels or alt-account? Trial reels. Polarizing or relatable? Relatable. Huge on the internet or big in real life. Big in real life. Go deep on one platform or go medium on five. Deep on one. Visual identity or sonic identity. Sonic. Surprised. Dinner with Jay-Z or magically avoid traffic for one year. Traffic. Jay-Z already told us he ain't got shit to say at the dinner. He did so. And I believe him. I got to update that one. You didn't say that.

Wow. And finally become a full-time dubstep producer or leave the music industry forever. I'm out. Okay. Last section is. She's already a podcaster now. I know. She's already trying to leave music with her little podcast. It's kind of true. So successful. Convergence is what that is. You're right. It's perfect, dude. Let her converge her house, Ben. Thank you. Get this on the thumbnail somehow. Just take a picture of her going like that. Let's all do this still looking. There it is. There's a thumbnail. Appreciate that moment. Last part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word. You've done this before, you just gotta give me the first word right back off the top of your head. Starting with music, business, happiness. Required. Therapy. Necessary. Superfan. Love. If you knew better. Go watch Amber's podcast.

Viral. Fatigue. Industry Plant. Not real. ChatGPT. Claude. Breakfast. Club. Billboard. Magazine. Amber Grimes. Well dressed. Artist. Brave. Dude. Come on, bro. No one thinks like you. Artist development, I think is what Henry was coming for. But there are no incorrect answers, so that is fine. That's true. This has been Amber Grimes. For the second time, guys. God damn. What else can we do? Thank you for coming on the podcast. Nothing. Seriously. That's it. Nothing. I won't be back a third time. So they better Whoa. No, let's let them think that because that's our story and we're branding out. And we're delaying.

We have more to tell later. We've learned a lot from this as well. So we definitely have to come back and it's like, damn, She's mad. She's mad. As always, please like, comment, subscribe. We're here each and every week. Until next time. Getting out of here. Peace, y'all.