62M Streams, Sold-Out Shows, & 6-Figure Brand Deals: All From Content ft. Jayo

I got zero dollars. I was living at home with a million followers, broke. I had a song being used. That was Jayo. and the song he's talking about, it's about guacamole. Came up with the idea while I was in Chipotle. I was like, why isn't there a guacamole theme song? Uh he actually DMed Chipotle and they negotiated a six-figure deal. And then the pandemic hit. They asked to pull the budget, and his manager at the time recommended that he just give them the song for free. For fing free. That was the last time anyone got Jayo for free. I live off content and brand deals more than music. It's actually really hard to make money off music. Fast forward five years after the Chipotle fiasco, he's got 35 million streams on a song, three quarters of a million monthly listeners, a publishing deal, a debut album on the way, and headlining shows outside of his own city. And the part y'all aren't gonna like, all of it was built on content. One of the best examples is a system he invented for selling tickets to his shows, and it lives in his comment section. It's called Need It Got It. Like, all right, we're gonna have people comment need it if they need a ticket and got it if they want a sponsor ticket.

$2,500 of sponsored tickets in the room. And everyone who needed one got one. And that song I mentioned earlier that has 35 million streams, he says it could not have happened without a content series around basketball that he started two months earlier. Can I target them in a way that's entertaining? I was like, let me target music fans through like something else I'm good at, basketball. So in this episode, he breaks it all down. The content series, the brand deals, the ticketing systems, everything that the content engine feeds into real revenue for artists. And the biggest takeaway from this episode that I really want to land for y'all, he doesn't see himself as a musician who makes content. He extends his creativity into the whole package. You know, I believe we're all built to be creative. Why limit that to one thing? One more time. One more time. Spin it, one more time. This man just dropped a collaboration with Sprite. He just announced a brand new publishing deal.

He's a dude, he's going on tour. He just dropped his debut album. We got fucking Jayo on the podcast. Jayo. On the pod, baby. Holy shit. Let's go. There's so much stuff happening in the world of Jayo. right now. It's kind of overwhelming. I didn't really know what to. I'm like, do we talk about the publishing deal? All of it probably. But when I when I thought about the world of Jayo, I did feel like everything kind of comes back to the like insane content engine. Don't say the C word. The C word. Don't say the fucking. I love content, Henry. And so does Jayo. And that's why we got him on the podcast to talk about basically like how you've built a content machine that's really pulling different levers for your career. Okay. Because, you know, a lot of people treat content, you know, for discovery, and like that's great. But I think you've done a really good job of, you know, monetizing content creation in a lot of different ways, right? Like I said, whether it's brand deals, whether it's um discovery that does turn into streaming revenue, whether it's using it to like creatively sell tickets. Um, you're just a beast at this shit, man.

So really, really excited to have you on the podcast, man. Thank you for joining us. I just want to like I just want to say you're one of the people that has figured out, you know, music is such a creative thing. We get so creative in figuring out how we want to express ourselves in audio form, but it's like we don't have to limit that to music. Some people just refuse to get creative on the business side. And I think you have this creative side that you've been able to apply not only in the art, but now to the business, and that's why it's paying off. So again, shout out. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. Lovely intro. Yeah, man. So um, yeah, I mean, I do that. I definitely love to be as creative as I can be. I uh, you know, I believe we're all built to be creative, we're all made in the image of the creator. So in my in my perspective, it's just like, you know, why limit that to one thing? And um, yeah, sometimes creativity just starts at combining two things someone's never combined before. So um I just yeah, trying to find new ways to market and do something. Yeah, like to the outside looking in, right?

Like it seems like you enjoy content creation just because of again, like how well done all the pieces of content are. Like, is that true? Or are you like every fucking other artist out there that like hates content and you just so happen to like put it in the work and do it? It's funny you say that. It's kind of like um it's it's like kind of like both true and untrue at the same time. Like, I like part of me is like, damn, if I could be Frank Ocean, I would love to. The other part of me is like, okay, I want it to be dope, like you know, I want it to be amazing. So it's like, and it and it's funny because like I kind of have that bad habit of like not being the person to just film my life, and people tell me all the time, your life's so interesting. You need a posting. I'm like, well, before I used to believe it wasn't that interesting. Now I realized, oh, it actually is interesting. Like I'm going through like 20 million things a day, yeah. But I still haven't flipped on that switch of like, oh, let me film this, you know. So like all my content that you see is very like performance stuff and like stuff that's thought through, scripted. It's not very like fly on the wall type stuff.

So um, so yeah, I mean, I do love creating dope stuff. I love creating dope things. Um, do I love making content to the point where I'm just filming my whole life? Not really. I I wish I did, and I wish I I hope to eventually get there. Um I'm trying to like set systems in place, but uh yeah, in general, I just love yeah, making some dope things that are gonna make people react, make people feel things, and make people move. So I think that at every point an artist needs to find when they've reached a level, whether that's like financial level or just whatever comfort where they can hire a homie to just follow them around all day with a camera. I really do think like because no most people don't want to just remember to film themselves all day, but it is like priceless uh exercise to do. So if you can just have just find a person that you don't hate being around all the time and give them something to just be around, hang out, buy them a pizza, and you know, and film you. That's that's high leverage.

Yeah, we're seeing that more and more, especially with like people's fan pages are like somber having like the page that uh follows them around. And like there's different strategies like that that are like you know, someone just following me around. And I I it it's nice. I would I wish I had the budget for it, but we'll go on. Maybe soon, so we'll see. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, we did an episode with uh with Patrick Stafford, right? The episode was how to shoot uh or like how to make a shit ton of content to promote your music, right? And shit load shit load of content, not shit ton, shit load. Shit load. Okay, thanks for the the clarification, Henry. Um you're one of the artists that he has worked closely with. Um, and so you know, we kind of got his take on how to create a ton of content in a short amount of time, right? From his lens, like he's a content strategist, world builder, like creative director, wears many hats. You're obviously the artist side of things here.

So would love to know what an experience is like working with Stafford on like high output content creation, but with the quality bar still there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's great. Uh he definitely is very, very high functioning and like very organized and a very like scheduled man. So like definitely love working with him because you know, even if it's a matter of us, me meeting with other creators all in one area and we're all just like getting bits of our pieces together. It's like this man's very efficient, knows what to do, colors great, gets high efficiency. Um, and yeah, and then we worked on like solo projects too. And even like then, it's like, you know, he he definitely uh we when we work together, he knows like I care more about the intentional content than I do about like uh performance shots. But we've gotten a bunch of performance shots. And for me personally, in my page, I think because I built my audience off like the more intentional content and stuff like that, it's gonna be harder for me to grow people into the just like liking the performance shots. So, you know, I'm I'm starting to feed it in, and like I have a bunch of videos from Stafford that's where I'm doing that now, trying to do it in between.

But I think for a beginning artist, especially if you grew your audience off and just performance shots, you're golden. Like that's great. Like if people truly love your music, you know, and I feel like for some people like me, where it's like people like my music, but some people love the video editing more than the music, you know what I'm saying? So it's like it's if you can really genuinely get like your performance class to start performing well on every single time you do it, that's great. And I think that Stafford approach is is great, especially for new artists coming out or even established artists that have familiar songs or whatever. It's like you really just let the music speak for itself when you do that. So yeah, I'm curious how you like quantify those buckets. So you when you say intentional content, you know, what I mean? Like so you're you're kind of putting like the performance content, right? Which is just more like the lip sync kind of videos, you know, performing the song in a place, which I guess is what Stafford does most of, versus the intentional content, like break that down for people so that because it seems like that's what you specialize in. Yeah, I would say the intentional for me is more like just like we're thinking of a hook, we're thinking of like our structuring stuff, and it's not necessarily just about like how cool it looks, it's like um you know, how are we gonna hook people in, keep their attention and trim it up, which takes longer time.

You can't really like spam those, you know. And I've done some of those with Stafford. It's like, you know, it's gonna take a little more time when you're being intentional than just like being like, okay, let's play the song five times in this one spot, different position bodies and like move, you know. So um, yeah, I mean, I I think like those videos have just worked well for me. I was kind of one of the first artists to really like do the um iPhones uh camera hook with the yellow text behind the head, you know, and a lot of people just took it and ran with it. And I was one of the first artists to do the the rope video with the cut rope at the end, and and it's like I for me, it was really just a matter of like finding inspiration from like other sources, but like combining it with something I haven't seen before, you know, like oh, if I combine, like I saw a pizza guy doing the rope video. If I combine that with music, I've never seen a musician do it, let me do that. And I did it, and I put that together and I was like, boom, took off. So it's just like being creative and finding ways to you know, hook people in.

And there's a lot of stuff out there already, and just trying to find new ways to like be the first person to do it in music, baby. you know, that kind of landed that it landed for me, really, because Stafford's approach is you know, for the performance content, but you might want to do some more scripted, you know, thought out here, like you know, other type of content, right? Yeah, and I mean I I don't remember who it was, but someone gave similar advice where it's like taking trends or formats that work in other niches, right? Whether it's like a Citizen, like your homie, you're a bro. Yeah. So okay, who who came up with that first? You were citizen. He'll admit that he got he got that from me. He told me that on my show. Shit. He involved. He involved it. That's the thing. So, Citizen, like we talked about it at my show. Um, we actually met for the first time in March. Uh, because I didn't follow him for a while. I followed him like more recently, um, because I was loving the stuff he was doing, and like, yeah, he he was even saying, like, yeah, you inspire me with the because that's the thing. People were sending his videos to me all the time.

So yeah, because I was the first one with the ice cream drop on worst case scenario, right? With the yellow text behind the head, ice cream drop. And then he did um uh he did one of those with like the similar yellow text, and people would send me his stuff all the time. But I was just kind of like, oh, that's cool. And the thing is, he comes from like a true film and editing background. I like work with editors, I have an eye for it. My swim brother is an editor, like I just have an eye for my family. My dad was a photographer. He's artist first, though. Yeah, I'm artist first. I don't really spend time editing, but not to take anything away from citizen. He's artist first, too. He writes a new song every morning. We've got to learn each other a lot since like March. So like this man is a machine. But uh but yeah, Let's put a link to the Citizen episode, by the way, right here on the top right-hand side, if in case you guys are interested. Excellent interview with citizens. Sorry to cut you off. Yeah, so he he told me that um I was one of the first artists he saw really connecting not only like a transition hook, but also doing it emotionally, which I think is the key takeaway that a lot of people are missing. Is that they'll do these hooks and it doesn't really tie into the emotion of the song.

Um, so me dropping ice cream is like it's sad. Like you're understanding, like, oh, I relate to that, and now. That makes people go listen to the song, it converts better versus like people just being hooked in by like a robbery for a song that's about like Barbie. I don't know. Like, you know, just like you know, I can give you an example but you know what I'm saying, like of the emotional side, and we we talked about that, and I was uh giving him his flowers because like he took that, ran with it and really developed it, which I like, like he never really copied me, he just like was inspired by me and then grew that to a thing. And we worked together on a uh video uh recently and it did numbers, like he's clearly taken what I did and learned way more, and now I'm learning from him. So it's like you know, so it's it's uh it's dope. I think artists criminally undervalue that like intentional part of the planning of the post, you know. It's a lot of what we talked about recently, like it needs to pull people into this very specific lane that your song lives in, or it's probably just not gonna hit, right? It's not gonna convert, it's not gonna do the job that you want the post to do.

Well, and so as someone who kind of was joking about like, hey, if you if you blow up off performance-based content, like you're fucking golden, like they're there for the music only, Shout out Matt Hansen, not for the editing, yet, not for the editing tricks, so on and so forth, not for the hooks and the this. Like, do you do you feel like it was tough for you when you were only doing the like scripted shit to convert people to listen and they were there just because the videos were cool? Nice question, yeah. Yeah, like what did that look like for you? Yeah, so it's interesting for me because like I I most of my music like promotion came from a place of I don't want to start over because I I blew up for comedy first. So I blew up on TikTok. Um, and I was a substitute teacher. My students told me to hop on TikTok in 2019, and I got like a million followers for comedy. Yeah, so I was early. Yeah. So like, and then the pandemic hit, and that forced me to be a content creator because I was getting unemployment checks while subs while uh being a full-time content creator. So um, you know, after the year, it was like, all right, do I want to actually do this or do I want to go back to the classroom?

And uh since then I spent like you know, three years trying to convert that audience to music, and anytime I posted anything music, it wasn't working. So I tried to figure out like how do I do comedic stuff, how do I like you know, find that balance. And the first time it really connected for me was 2023, actually, a year before worst case scenario. I had a song called Comfortable You, and I did a trend where I was and it was the it was funny because the first time it happened was because I thought of the content idea before the song. I was in the shower and I was like, Oh, it would be funny if I like go to the beach and I'm like, excuse me, sir, how tall are you? And like I measure his height and I sing a song about telling the truth. And then I wrote the hook, and that's why this Comfortable you fun little tidbit. The shower at the end is me actually doing the original audio of like I went to the voice memo, it was like, you could be honest, you could be cool, come to be real and come to be you. And like, I just I did that in a voice memo, and that's what you hear at the end of the song. But I took that, went and did the video, measured a guy, like I scripted it, but I like made I did multiple takes. I was like, his knees look real.

Like, you know, like I was like, he can't be fake. So I had my boy like be like, yeah, I'm six foot, and he's with a girl, and then it's like, oh, can I measure that? And it's like, oh, it says you're 5'10, sir. And I was like, Oh, you're in your profile. And it got like a hundred K views, and I was like, Whoa, I actually have like views, and people are going to see the music. So I made a series out of that. It was like, uh, oh, I caught you looking at her booty booty, and he's like, No, I didn't. And it's like, we caught you in 4K. And it was like you can be honest, you can be cool. And we'll have the guitarist come out and just start singing it. And this is when I finally started seeing traction for like, okay, people like the musical comedy thing. So I tried to figure out that balance. So fast forward a year, it's like everything I was doing at this point, I was just trying to figure out how do I promote my music while also being funny or whatever. And I only had two sad songs, but I met with this videographer who happened to be doing the yellow text behind the head, which was brand new to people. Like it was still like fresh. It was only editors doing it, and like not really musicians, or like I didn't really see any musicians doing it except for the editor himself. Yeah.

And um, I hit him up. We like he was maybe getting like 300 views of video, and I was like, you up bro, like I love this vision. Like I have an idea. Like, what if I drop ice cream and we put the words behind my head? And then like I was about to use another song, which is the funny part. I was gonna use the song Fool that like doesn't get any traction at all. It's just my only other sad song. But I was like, you know what? Let me try worst case scenario because I haven't posted it in five months since it's been out. So I tried it and it instantly got a million views. So it was like a quick, like, oh, oh, I got something here. So it jumped from, like, a thousand plays a day to 10,000 plays a day on the first post. The Nic D, like he's he was the first artist I think that I heard come on the show and be like, I will I will I will literally think about the content like first sometimes, which you guys just immediately like your buttholes clenched. I know it did. Oh Jesus. But like, but like there's something to that, you know, like it's when we're writing music. If we can think about more than just what the song sounds like, if we can think about the world and what it looks like and what the videos and the C word looks like for the song, I just think that's gonna convert better.

Well, but bro, there's so many gems in what he was just sharing. Number one, yeah, recognizing that he's funny, right? And let's let's figure out a way to intertwine the fact that I'm fucking funny into the content that also is promoting my music. So number one self-awareness. If you're a street dude, incorporate street shit into your content and let us make sure we know you're a street dude, right? Like there's just multiple versions of this. If you're like an athletic fitness type of person that also makes fire music, incorporate that shit, right? So that's number one. Number two, five months later, after the song's already out. I know y'all motherfuckers are you don't even remember what you released five months ago. You hate your five-month-old song. You hate Your music from five months. ago. You hate your five-month-old song. It's So true. And then shame on you for that. And because I mean, that's your that because that's your biggest song now, right? That is my biggest song. 33 million streams.

Same thing. Yeah, 33 million streams later. yeah. So yeah. So so walk me through like what's going on, right? So you you had that idea for just that specific video, and you were like, ah, well, I only have that one song that's been out for five months, or this newer one, or one that I'm gonna drop, or like I hit him up. The funny part was that wasn't that wasn't even the main video for the day. I hit him up for a different video. I had another song that already came out. It was called Not My Fault. And I was like, yo, I wanna do like I saw him having multiple people of himself. So I was like, oh, can we do that? Like, I want to play Django with myself. Okay, and I'm gonna singing not my fault. I'm gonna make the basketball. Like, like I'm gonna be the guy in the background's gonna throw a basketball, it's gonna hit the thing, and we both look at him kind of like, and he's like, It's not my fault. I think you keep you know what I'm saying? So I was like, okay, that's the idea. We spent like an hour shooting that video. Like, and it was like, okay, this is gonna be a very complex edit. Let's shoot a backup idea.

And I was like, Cool. The backup idea was me dropping ice cream, and I went to go buy it. Literally, if you look at the original video, my hand, the ice cream is melting because we're still trying to set up the camera, and I'm like, I got one take, bro. Like, you know, so yeah, I mean, it was just like the backup idea, and we posted it first because it did it was quicker to edit, and then when we posted the Django one, it only got like 60,000 views. So it was like I love this. I love this shit, man. We don't know what the fuck's gonna work. You don't know what the fuck is going to work. We have no idea. We don't know what's gonna work. No, yeah. Maximize your chances. That's the thing I learned. Post it all, you know what I mean? I was like, God, yeah, that was the first thing I learned when I was um uh because I've so the thing is I've had many viral waves before, especially in the comedy space. Like when I was saying I gained like a million followers in four months, it was like I went to 60k, then I went to 100k, and I went from 100k to one mil in one month. And Oh, the things I was learning about that were like series, like doing series are gonna get you way more followers, and people like bought in than like just doing random one-off videos. So, like, I had an incredibly viral series on TikTok at the time, which was like uh it was called the Food War series.

Like, um, this girl was coming down the escalator. Oh no, I was coming down the escalator, she was going up, and she had grabbed fries from my thing, and I stare at her. And it was just I gave the most deadpan real look to the point where Fox and you thought it was real and was posting about it, like these influencers were stealing the fries, like so. So after that, we were like, Oh, we need to do a follow-up where I find you. And then I found her, stole her food, and it became a series where it was like the food war, and people were just like tuned in, and I was substitute teaching, so it was damn near a tour. Every school I went to, it was like one kid would know me at homeroom by lunch. 500 kids are outside my lunch door. Like it's like how yeah, it was a tour going on while I'm like blowing up on TikTok, and then the pandemic hit. So it was like I did learn, like, okay, series are what works. So second worst case scenario did well, just like I did with Comfortable You the year before I made a series. I was like, Oh, we gotta double down, we gotta think of some other sad things to happen. Uh let's drop a pizza slice, let's let's drop a hot dog. Let's you know, I was just trying to think of stuff to do, and then we just kept going.

It's so good. This is an excellent moment, I think, because Jayo just dropped the best piece of knowledge so far, and he's been dropping heat all episode already. I know what you're doing, but the series is crazy. And if that doesn't earn a like, comment, and subscribe to the goddamn channel, then I don't know what will, guys. Shit, figure out your series. There's so many reasons the series works, man. It gives like returning. First of all, I think the algorithm knows, by the way, it does that it's a series. And if you liked the first one and it and you make another video, it it say it knows what videos you're posting. And it and it knows if you like we did, we were trying to get Russ on the podcast. We did day one trying to get Russ on the podcast, and then we did day two trying to get Russ on the podcast. The same people in the comment section. I don't think that's a coincidence. So figure out your series. I'll even give a bigger gem on series two having multiple series at once is very, very powerful. Multiple series. I will argue that worst-case scenario wouldn't have done as well if I didn't have my basketball series that I just started, like a month or two before. And I'm gonna give you guys context that not a lot of people paid attention to.

So my worst-case scenario series 2024, May was when the first video took off. Before that, I started this basketball series that I had. I actually thought about it a year before that. 2023, I was talking to the professor, street ball player, we're friends. I was talking about it, I was like, yo, I want to play like basketball and sing songs, like like how Justin Bieber fans play basketball, how Kendrick fans play, or whatever. I was just saying it like an idea, and he's like, Oh, that's genius. But I wanted to do it well. That's the thing. I'm very like, I can't do it mid mediocre. So I was waiting to find the right editor. I found the right editor in January. We did three videos. How Gibion fans play basketball, how John Legend plays basketball, and like uh how Steve Lacey. I post the Gibion one, which is like, you know, uh pass me the rock, please. I'm going to shoot doing movie stuff, right? Just so people know, like I'm like, okay, I'm gonna at the end of the day, my goal with that series, right? This is what I'm thinking with the series. It's not like oh, I'm just trying to entertain. I'm like, what audience do I want to target? I've been trying to target music only through my music.

Can I target them in a way that's entertaining? So I was like, let me target music fans through like something else I'm good at basketball, and that's why I combined two things. So now I'm doing this. I posted that video. Now, mind you, the video when I posted only got 8k views and it had 2k likes, and I was like, this is interesting. One, that's a very potent like ratio, especially for 2024. Because it was like, that was like that. felt like 2019 TikTok ratio. But two, why is this not taking off? I was like, it's just very like low views because my algorithm wasn't used to it. Six weeks later, and I only I posted that one and and John Legend, and because both of them weren't doing well, I didn't post Steve Lacey. Six weeks later, the Gibion one shoots up to 500k, and I'm like, Okay. See, okay, what's going on? We gotta stick with shit. We gotta stick with shit a little longer, right? Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, let me post some other ones. I like I go and I was like, hey guys, we gotta shoot again. I didn't even shoot a second one until like four months later. Like, you know, or like three two or three months later at this point.

I'm like, all right, guys, hey, we gotta do um Chris Brown and and Drake. I was like, all right, we're gonna do that. And then I post the Drake and Chris Brown. All of a sudden people were DMing me, like, yo, you're on Chris Brown's story. I'm like, I'm on Chris Brown's story. He didn't even tag me. I was like, cool. So I DM, I was like, yo, thanks for the love, man. Could have used a tag though. Niggas gotta eat. I can show you that. I literally said that. I was joking though. We said that. We said that. We'll put it in the video. It probably wasn't that. It was it was probably something else in a day, but that man deleted all his stories an hour later. But I got the fuel I need. I got all the fuel I needed. I was like, oh, if Chris Brown likes this, y'all, y'all, y'all gonna like this. I was like, bet. And he'd even tag me then. So I was like, all right, cool. And then guess what happened? The Drake and Kendrick beef. So not only are series important, paying attention to pop culture. I heard the the Drake and Kendrick beef go off, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do Kendrick.

And I literally did the uh bop blah blah blah blah blah block video, and that was my first viral basketball series right before I did the worst case scenario series. So now I'm gaining fans from music. I start the worst case scenario, so now I have this dance and I was doing multiple series at the same time. Which is funny because like management at the time was like, Oh, you need to stop the basketball series. But I'm like, I think this is what took this off. Like, I have momentum on my page from multiple different sources, you still with that management? No, okay, excellent. Yeah, okay. Good, good, good, good. Well, and and we'll get into another way your previous management fumbled the back here in a second, but um, I do want to ask, like, I mean, I'll be honest, from again, like my point of view, I could understand potentially the logic of they're not there on your page to give a fuck about your music. And that's where my earlier question was coming from like, did you find it hard to convert, right? Because it's a citizen thing, too.

It's like, do they like his videos or do they actually like his music? Correct. I think I think, and you know, I maybe I got spoiled because worst case scenario just is a good hook and it's a good breakup song, and everybody's going through a breakup and all that stuff. I I like psychoanalyze that song all the time. I'm like, okay, what is so hook? I think the song itself is a hook. Worst case scenario, you have to hear what's after that. Yeah. And I think about that, you know, because I've done similar videos of other songs. I'm like, why isn't this taking off? You know, and it's kind of like I have to like figure out okay, lyrically, song-wise, like this is also a hook, and sonically emotionally, this is something that people are going through. I get DMs all the time, like, yo, you really helped me through a breakup, you really helped me through a dark time. So, you know, I did feel that connection very quickly. Um, but yeah, I it being able to see how it doesn't always work all the time helps me realize okay. One, the song is very important. Like, how are you emotionally, you know, getting people to like the song is the fucking important part here? Like, it's the most important part, you know.

Aren't getting any views, you know? Because it's like, okay, or even that they got a bunch of views, they're not converting. Yeah, man. Like, I I don't even want to name drop. I know a lot of artists that get a lot of views and don't convert on Spotify. Name drop them, bro. Let's start some beef. Yeah, we're trying to go viral out here, Jayo. Fuck Drake and Kendrick We got Jayo. versus whoever. X. Yeah. Fill in the blank. Nah, man. I I just I do think that's what it comes down to, man. Because again, like the viral formats are out there, right? And the reason why they don't like you can't just copy them straight up and they work. It's the song. Like, it's you. It's you, the artist and your song. Those two things have to also like the stars have to align with all this shit. You copy the framework. Sure. And you fill in chance, but you have to plug in you. The good shit. Yeah, you. You have to be good. Well, you have to be good. That's just before you even start anything, guys.

Figure the music out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, god damn, there's so many artists that I have, you know, spoken with that I I almost like I've given them advice being like, yo, like, take six months off and dial in the brand and the music, bro. Because again, nothing that I nothing that comes out of my mouth is gonna help you right now. Like where where things are at right now, not shit is gonna move because the music and the brand is not there. So that's tough. I don't know. That's a it's a tough at the same time. It's like like I said, you never know this song. I did not think worst case scenario would be my biggest song. I thought it was cool. I thought I think I make way better. Like, I think I've, there's always songs that are it's never the song the artist thinks is gonna be their biggest one. It's never one time in history has the artist's biggest song been the one they thought would be the biggest. Well, so let's let's try and understand it. So, what didn't you like about it compared to maybe a song you loved that flopped? Like, let's actually like break this down.

I hate to interrupt this episode, but guys, I got one thing on the mind right now, and it's data. I can't stop thinking about it. All the artists in 2024 are winning because of data. They know who their fans are, they have access to their fans. Do you? Spotify'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.

I will say this. Worst case scenario is the demo vocal. Okay. So we kept the demo. Day one bounce, by the way. It is four hours in that song. I I it was like a session my manager set up. I set a bunch of had a bunch of sessions that like month, and um literally I was trying to meet up with Slush Puppy, the producer again, and we just never could align because he's a big time producer, and we just schedule wise just never aligned. And I wanted to track better vocals. He's like, Oh, they're good, they're good, bro. We'll just mix it. I was like, okay, I love that. Like I did an SM7B like in a bedroom, and we made that song. We made that song so fast. Actually, I'm gonna play all this. If y'all want a clip, by the way, we need to send we need to send we need to send you an SM7B, by the way. Day one of me writing Worst Case scenario. I sang that song. I sang the words worst case scenario like two minutes into like him playing chords. If you want to hear that. Absolutely, yes. For sure.

All right. Literally, it was like off the iPhone note, by the way this is like we just talked about like you know what chords we like and so on Oh, fuck with that. I instantly knew metronome and all, yeah, I was like about to say right there too, and I was like keep it going. All right, I'm sorry. Hey, Zach, Zach, can you grab me a water water there it is That turned 35 million streams. wow wow. That's incredible. Yeah.

That was and that's yeah, 35 million streams later. We don't touch on the like creative aspect of this whole journey a lot, but just as a producer, I just know like sometimes that first feeling, that initial that demo vibe just becomes like unrecreatable, you know, and it just becomes something you can't match, and you do have to end up keeping He lost it. Yeah, he got his laptop got stolen. So, like to this day, we will not have those original stuff. Yeah, it's like cloud backup stuff, like one cloud backup, one cold backup on an off-site. Yeah. That's amazing, man. Thank you for sharing that for sure. Um so you know, I I know that obviously, like your like content creation expertise and and like social media following has been a big part, obviously, of you being able to do brand deals, right? Like brands are looking for, of course, they want artists that make good music, but almost more so they want musicians that can make really good content for social media, right? Um and so you know, I I want to talk about a couple of the brand deals, you know, that you've worked on recently.

But was the guacamole situation? Was that your first interaction with a brand and brands overall, like as a musician? Yeah, yeah, it was my first interaction. with a brand. Yeah, because um that's funny. It's a hell of a lesson learned, man. So just break down break down. crazy story. Honestly, just break down that whole experience, right? Like what the song was, like how the brand partnership came to be, the detail around it. Where the bag got fumbled. Yeah, because like I said, I I blew up for comedy, but it's the whole time I've been like a musician. Like, you know, I started, I actually started like on Instagram and and YouTube doing covers like in 2017. Like, um, and then when in 2019, my students sold me off on TikTok. That's when I did comedy. But the whole time I'm like, I want to be a musician, what's going on? So anyway, while I'm blowing up, it in the month that I went from 100k to a mil, I like made and finished a song called Guacamole because I came up with the idea while I was in Chipotle. I was like, why isn't there a guacamole theme song?

Uh sorry, I don't know. Part of me was just like I always like wanted to make jingles. Uh, I think it was like from the J Talk show or something. I just like always thought about making jingles. So I was like, but I want to make it a bop. So I made I made guacamole with like a friend, and then um I I had the cover art made where it was just like my head as a seed of avocado. And um we're DMing it to Chipotle while I was in class. I DM it to them, and they're like, yo, this is a bop email list, and they dropped emails, and I was in class, like, yo, Chipotle responded the kids go crazy, like, oh cool, like you know, like they liked the songs. I literally like sent a snippet of it, I sent like 30 seconds of it with the cover art. I knew like they would have to like see it that way, and I at the time only had like 20k followers on IG, so it's like me doing that on IG was like I didn't have a lot of follow- it wasn't like I had a lot of motion, but I was maybe at like 400k on on tick on TikTok when we started conversations, right? And they didn't look at my TikTok, I don't think.

Anyway, at one point we're negotiating back and forth, and I didn't have management at the time. I had different people in my life that have helped out, but I ended up getting this manager because my friend was like, Hey, this you should use this manager, and da da da-da-da-da-da. I won't burn. but he hopped on the deal while I was already negotiating. And we were talking about a hundred K like music video and this, that they wanted to run a campaign, pay all these influencers to use it. Bonnie, XYZ is the pandemic hits as it does. And uh in March they do of uh 2020, they respond like, hey, like we're actually gonna have to pull back on budget. Now, normally you can like, you know, hey, okay, cool, let's do 50k or whatever. Like, now that I know that in hindsight. Like, you know, let's go, let's go half. Like, you know, let's go. Whatever pullback on budget means, um, let's counter, you know. And my manager at the time, who was a firm believer that Trump was gonna delete TikTok, said uh, let's just have them use the song for free. And uh, yeah, we'll we'll come back to them and circle back after this whole pandemic thing in a month and and uh we'll we'll get our deal now.

So yeah, they used a song um with a bunch of creators and paid for a whole campaign, and I got $0. I was living at home with a million followers broke and didn't really know how to feel. I was really like depressed, kind of like it was just like tragic, especially as the pandemic kept going and I was still broke. So um guys, in this in this emotional state that you're feeling, you're feeling bad for jail right now. Just drop a like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. Please, guys, 75% of you are not subscribed to the channel. I um I uh yeah, it's like I we try to hit them up later and there wasn't really a response. Yeah, they got what they needed, bro. What do they need from you now? Yeah, so people were kind of like sorry, the door is closed. I I did a deal a year later with Uber Eats, and it was like Uber Eats Chipotle combo, but we did a year a deal of the a year later for like 15k. And then and then like after that, I um like it's funny, I never really promoted the song.

So like two years after at this point, I was like, oh, what if I made this like chip filter where like we have this guacamole bowl? Because I don't know where I saw it. I was like, oh, you're catching stuff with your nose. So I made a guacamole bowl and chips were falling. And then like I like I went on Fiverr to make it. That thing blew up. 60,000 uses on the filter, 30,000 videos made uh for with the song, but 60,000 videos made in total with the filter. And um, yeah, the song just started getting a second spark and everything. And uh just because I challenged people, I was like, Oh, uh I word on the street is you can't get 20 in this game. And I in in the video I got 18. So I'm like I intentionally did that just to challenge people. People were doing I got 20, I got 20, I got it was like sucker. But I was like, I made this I I missed filters on on IG. It was like I was unlocking something, I was like, Oh my god, this is gonna be like huge for artists, like trends and all that stuff. And I could tell like this is what labels pay for, but IG took away filters anyway. But um it's like here comes Tostitos. Made me a lot of money you can put the trend.

Like, you know, this is where this is where Tostitos comes into play. Oh, yes, yeah, you're right. Yeah, so Tostitos, yeah. Funny enough, I DM'd them before I made the filter. I said, Hey, y'all want to be a part of this? Like, I'm about to make this filter. They wouldn't see it. After the video blew up, it had like 40 million videos of views, sorry, 40 million views on the original video. Um, Tostitos commented, is that our chip? And I said it could be if you respond to your DMs. Fire. What a reply. Did they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did. And then we did a follow-up. Hey, Fire. And then we did a follow-up deal, and I made a uh their own chip filter and everything. So wow. So I mean, have you tried to like I just I feel like I asked Nic D this question to some like strategy he had, right? Where he did something and like the song blew up, and I was like, Yeah, did you like do that again? And he was like, No, not really, never did that again. Have you have you tried to replicate this approach? The filter approach? No, not even the filter, like the idea of like you said you like to make jingles, like making a song for a brand. with brand deals in mind.

Yeah, hey, I don't, I don't know. It's funny because like the guacamole song to me is like it was my Mooo! by Doja Cat. Like, you know that song So you think it's the meme song. She hates that song. Objectively, I've seen like she never performed at concert, and everybody's dressed as a cow. She clearly hates the song. And I feel like for me, it's kind of the same thing. It's like the song was goofy, it wasn't really like a true like show of my artistry. It's fun, it's great. I love that kids love it, and I love that like adults love it too. But uh, it just never was really like what I was trying to do as an artist. So I think like I would do a jingle, like you know, I've had companies hit me up and I did I made a Spanish song. I I have a wide pen, like I can write in way more styles than I like release for my artist project, yeah. But um, but yeah, it's like yeah, maybe I do need to like try and make another jingle. I I was kind of salty when the Pepsi one blew up. I wanted to make a video talking about like that's crazy because I didn't get paid for my jingle. Yeah, yeah.

What was it? Oh, Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper, baby. Dr. Pepper, baby. It's good and nice or uh or uh coconut water now. I mean that yeah, a little salty. Like, bruh. I could have used a little salty, like dang. Yeah. I could have used a 10th of that. Yeah. From a $10 industry that could have easily paid me. Yeah. that's interesting. So is there another brand deal? Because you dropped like five or more, I feel like right before we started recording. I mean, is there any other one that you think is worth kind of sharing as far as like how it came to be? Or I don't know, because like I'm always trying to put artists on game. Like if they have the chance to work with a brand, what should they expect, right? Are there any things that like surprise you in your interactions with you know multiple brands at this point? Because you've you've had a good variety of different types of brands, etc. So I mean, yeah, I mean, shout out to my uh social media manager Dylan Huey with Reach Management. Management. We started a year ago and um he's gotten me more deals in the last year than all of my other managers combined.

So uh it's been great. But uh, but uh yeah, I mean uh a lot of my stuff earlier than that came from like either me reaching out or like me putting myself in positions to um yeah, just like show a brand how to do stuff and or like how the how their brand would look with mine, you know. Like if you're um for instance, I did one where I reviewed a pickle thing and like that blew up, and it wasn't even a brand deal. But I was able to send that video to other brands and be like, hey, I could do stuff like this, you know, boom, boom, boom. I did hit up that brand to pay me, but they didn't. it was crazy because I really made them so much money. Yeah, um, yeah, that video had like three million views of me like reviewing pickles because I was like, I hate pickles, and then yeah, like I like pickles So amazing people ordered. I know it was like their best performing video, so yeah, anyway, that's a whole nother story. Yeah, so sometimes people want to pay. Yeah, so so for someone that doesn't have you said his name was Dylan. Yeah.

Yeah. So for someone who doesn't have a Dylan, right? Yeah. Like, what is Dylan doing for you to land these deals? Like, is he sending out one sheets with your stats and this, that? Like, just yeah, paint the pit. Because again, like if someone doesn't have a team member to do this, they got to do this shit themselves, right? Yeah. And they should be doing it because it's clearly paying you. I'm assuming it's paying you a hell of a lot more than even the streams, and you stream pretty well. Right. I live off, I live off that more than I live off content and brand deals more than music. Um there it is. I would like music to be the breadwinner. But can you say it again loud and clear? I live off brand deals and content more than I do off music. It's actually really hard to make money off music. But um, you know, last year was my most lucrative year in music because of touring, but uh even then I spent all of it right back. So anyway, but yeah, I would I would say like before, like you know, before having a Dylan, and part of probably why it helps with Dylan, it's like it was an easy transition. I had things set up like an EPK, I had things set up like um uh there's different websites like influential, uh Maverick.

Um these are websites that like creators can submit their stuff, like, or there'll be a campaign of like open call, open casting for this brand deal you can submit and try to get it. And I got like an old spice brand deal that way before, or like uh, you know, whatever it is. So like there's there's different websites that you can put yourself out in front of and just um, and yeah, like DMing brands and just trying stuff. That's huge. No, I mean, end in hand, right? I mean, even just you know, showing that some of these like marketplaces for influencers actually because I always looked at those being like, does anyone actually get a deal out of this shit? It always feels just like yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, obviously, influential Maverick, I feel like I'm a victory. Maybe later. maybe later. Um, and yeah, it's like the more you do it, of course, the easier it is. Getting an agency like a reach, a whaler, like yada yada. There's so many companies out there that um also have those. that see, that's the thing. Like, I was self-submitting, but like now it's like I have people like my team who personally just know people there or know CEOs of those companies, so it's like cool, I'm gonna be front of line but I still have to qualify. So I have to like they'll be like, hey, we want to pitch.

Okay, I'll pitch an idea top to bottom, like this is what I could do with your brand, and then they have to like it, and then we could go. So, you know, sometimes it's like that. Um, and yeah. So you mentioned touring, right? And I think that's a kind of perfect segue. So last year, was that your support runs for touring? Right? Is this your first? Yeah, this is your first headline tour, right? So talk to us about like how many days did you do, right? And then specifically again, I want to really tie this back into the content side, right? How did you leverage content to either like get the tour opportunity or maximize the tour opportunity, right? Because again, I think that this all kind of works, you know, like they all coexist together, I think. So yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a big, I'm a big proponent, I think, overall of just like using all your talents. Um I mean, biblically we talk about bearing talents and so on. I know so many people that are talented in acting or in comedy or content that are like, I'm only gonna do music, I only want to do a music post.

And it's like even when I stopped doing comedy, I was still collaborating with people on the comedy space. And I'm gonna tie this back in the story, but I was still collaborating with people on the comedy space, like for their pay and so on, just to build those relationships. And um I believe that that mentality for me opened a lot of doors a year, two years, three years down the road. So um because of that, I was always even I was very active on the social media and I was hitting up people before they blew up. Like I knew my roommates, I'm roommates with Crash Adams. I knew them when they were like 20,000 followers. I I knew like Anise at 10,000 followers, and he was the second tour that I was doing because I followed him early on, but I was I was just in the thick of it. Um the reason why I have two songs in obsession is because I made three videos of Curry Barker and Cooper. And after they were like, Hey, do you want to put some songs in the movie? And it was for an indie film, and I was like, sure. And then it became the biggest indie film of all time. You know, like these you don't you don't predict that as uh, you know, if I'm just like, oh, I only care about music and da-da-da-da-da. But yeah, that being said, it's like I had that crazy run with worst-case scenario, and at the time, I guess I should rewind a little bit.

I met Bryce Vine and Dominic Fike in the same day, both crazy stories, but um, I met them back in like 2022 or 2021. Yeah, 2022, um, at uh no vacancy in Hollywood. And when I met Bryce, I didn't know who he was, I knew his music, but it wasn't until at the end of the meeting, he's like, yo, get my number, it's Bryce Vine, and I was like, You're Bryce Vine. I was like, I didn't know not know what you look like. And I said, yo, you know, you probably realize a lot of people don't know what you look like. Like, I know your songs, Drew Barrymore and so on. So I offered to help him with content. I was like, here, let me help you get people to recognize what you look like. And I took him out, and um, like his team was like, All right, let's shoot. And I had him do interviews where he was interviewing people, play the song and be like, hey, who sings this song? And people were like, Diddy, uh, Drake, uh just saying random stuff. And it was funny because like I was posting videos, and one of the people said, Bryce Vine And then if you look at his thing is still pinned on his TikTok, you'll hear me in the background be like, Can you describe what he looks like?

The guy's like, Oh, yeah, no, I have no idea. Mind you, it's Bryce interviewing. Yeah. To me, it's so good, dude. So good. It's amazing. I got a new So it's like now I built this relationship where I'm helping him with content. And I helped Bryce with content for like years. He let me open that year in 2022 for like two shows. But now, fast forward, it's like, okay, I have this final big run with my content. My music now has substantial numbers. I'm like past 600k monthly listeners as opposed to like the 50 or 70k I was at before the worst case scenario. Yeah. So now it's like his team's like, hey, it makes sense. You can open now. You know what I'm saying? So like these are like things that there's a lot of lessons in there. It's like, you know, just kind of being open, but also just finding ways to give to other people, barter and trade. And I was just giving, you know, helping them out for years, and now it's like, okay, cool, you're going on the road. So I leverage content in that way. I I uh often would leverage content and helping a lot of bigger artists too. Um I don't know that naturally I help, but you know, I just I've done something like a lot of people, but but yeah, it's like that's that's how I leverage it and it opens these opportunities up. Yeah, I just love I love the idea, and that's like what we that's what we hope that our community can finally become, right?

At least for me. And I think you would probably agree. It's like, I want our artists in the community to be doing that for each other. Because that's what we all like. You were like, yo, you're fire. Your content sucks. Let me help, you know. And it was like, and then you clearly helped. And then the shit came back around. It didn't happen immediately. And I think maybe sometimes we get a little too like short-sighted. We're like, we're only doing this because we like think you need to do something back for I just helped you, bro. Like, I need something now. Like, what the fuck Yeah. So I don't know, man. I just love that story. For like hopefully y'all can, and it just makes you not feel so fucking alone in this shit. I don't know why you'd want to just be like in your own little bubble. Like, it's just this this is lonely as fuck. This is hard. I don't know why you wouldn't want to like try and like share it, like the journey with other people. You know what I mean? It's also like identifying your strengths and leveraging them. It's knowing what you're good at.

And it doesn't have to just be for your own career. You're like, yeah, if if you're good at one thing and another artist is good at another thing and you can trade. Yeah, like how does that not better for both of y'all? Well, because and some artists are like really good at recording. Yeah. Like, honestly, like so. Run their own sessions. Recording another friend that's an artist, like record them. And then maybe that friend that you're recording is really good at like styling, and maybe they help you with your fucking like you know, visual identity, right? Or then maybe they're good at content. Maybe they're maybe they got a car and you don't. I don't fucking know. Like, hey, let me borrow the Lambo, bro. Find a way to give value. Yeah. Yes. I just because you're always giving value. So I love that. Yeah, I mean, like, even and it's never immediate, bro. Like, what three years of price, Cooper and Curry, we followed each other for like two plus years before I even did the first get with them. And then the month after the skits is the obsession. And then a niece, I followed him for at least like almost four years, probably before

you know, I was early on him. I was on Sun, um, not Sun and Moon, I was on um Flip, like when I was out. Like early. That's how you get picked open, man. You have these relationships. I'd love to have an on the podcast, bro. Love to have a niece on the podcast. Also, if you're watching this, did did you did you casually say Crash Adams are your roommates? Yeah, yeah, they're my roommate. Yeah. What up, Crash? They can hear us. Bring them in for a second. I mean, open those doors. That's so funny, man. Cause I mean, honestly, they've I mean, gosh, what a cool, just you know, yeah, storyline for them, obviously, too. That that's incredible. I was the first give me a kiss freestyle. Really? Yeah. Did they let you back on? Yeah, we did it a couple times. I even did I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, that kind of sucked to me the first, and then it's like the biggest, you know. So the funniest part, sorry, I'm like trying to find a charger, but so the funniest part is um, let me just plug this in before I get into this bit.

Go ahead. I was like, don't want to lose y'all. Yeah, the funniest part is that before I did the gimme a kiss freestyle. Um, they've only done like two real freestyles, like people really came up to them and really like freestyled. Like, yeah, I mean, they're real freestyle, some of them, but like those are like two like un unpredicted, like they weren't planned. And I was like, yo, we should just do a thing where because they were thinking about doing this can you rap thing? And I was like, Yeah, just ask me, can you rap? And I'm gonna say, No, but I can sing. And just like, you know, we should do it, and then I I sing, and they're like, All right, pick a song. And they sent me like a few songs. I was like, I want to do give me a kiss. They're like, nah, that song's too fast. Everybody's trying to freestyle to it, and it doesn't work. That's what they said. And I said, Hold my beer. And then uh and then um I wrote the verse like 10 minutes before it was like time to shoot. And then like I went out there. It was like the second take, I think it's the one they posted. But yeah, 50 million views.

That thing jumped My YouTube was literally like frozen for years. It was like a 7K for like six years. And mind you, every platform I have, I post all my videos on the same platform. So normally stuff grows. YouTube was frozen at 7K. After that video, it jumped up to 80K. And then the basketball season is what carried it. So now I was like at 460. Wow. But like I got hit up by Atlantic. I got hit. Like all these things happened for a bit And then they made a series. They were like at 2 million on YouTube at the time. And now they're at like 12. And that all started just because like we randomly like, I don't even know what it was. It was like I I had like followed them back when they were 20K. And at this point, they were like growing. And we randomly like, hey, let's catch up again. And when we talked, we were like, oh, we should do a video together. And that video started, and now it's like a whole thing, a whole series, can you rap? And it's like this big giant thing. Are you guys still learning? Are you guys learning anything? It's so good. Are you guys learning from the says nobody can sing on the videos? Which is funny because I um I did that in a will free art video before.

Like, nobody can sing. We talked to him rolling loud. Yeah, he's great. Yeah. That's incredible. So with with this, you know, kind of solo tour, right? Like, how are you using content to promote the shows and move tickets? Because I mean, bro, like you might be popping on social media. We've heard this time and time again. You might have viral video after viral video. And when it comes to getting a body in a room, body in a room. body in a room. Those motherfuckers aren't showing up for your shows. Like, I'm not speaking. I hope I'm not speaking to you. I'm just saying, like they just know eight seconds of your I really don't know. Well, it's it's tough, dude. It's tough to get people to commit their time, right? And their money, right? And shows are both time and money. I gotta leave my house. I gotta leave my house for like a few hours. I gotta get a babysitter. Hell no. I gotta buy dinner. I gotta buy pay for parking and the ticket. Oh, so And the date that I'm bringing to the show.

Like it's a whole thing. So yeah, walk us through kind of like what you are learning. Because like on the support runs, yeah, you want to promote and you want to try and help sell tickets, but it's not really on you. You know what I mean? It was easy. Yeah, it was nine days easier to do opening runs for sure. I um these are literally my first headline shows outside of my city. Yeah, I've been very comfortable with LA because at the worst case, I'm gonna have a 200 person guest list. So it's one way to do it. Very easy. Like not making any money, but the bitch is packed out. So I can fill up a room. It's a content exercise. That's the thing because LA is also pretentious. They're like, I don't want to go unless I'm on the guest list. So that's a whole nother story. It's really hard to get people to buy tickets tomorrow. It's annoying. But anyway, yeah, um, like New York and Chicago being my first headline shows. Yeah, I have to think outside of the box. And my last LA show, I was thinking outside the box.

I was like, you know what? Like, hey, you know, there's the dollar method, like charging a dollar for a show or like the pay anything you want model. But how do you sell tickets when you have a show that's through Ticketmaster? Yeah, so I was trying to think of that. I was like, oh, and then like I it started, it actually started with my friend being like, hey, he was in Vegas. He's like, hey, I just want to support, like, buy whoever tickets and spend like $500. I was like, damn, bro, like, that's real love. Like content creator friends, some of them make a lot more money than me. So he's just talking about it. Damn, JMs, bro. I was like, cool. John Moss LOL shout out. And he was just like, he sent like um it's 500. And he was like, I just want to support people, like if you need to buy some tickets. I was like, oh, that'd be cool if there was like a system for this. So I was like, you know and I talk to my team. We're like, all right, we're gonna have people comment, need it if they need a ticket and got it if they want to sponsor a sponsored ticket. We made this whole video, we made this system, and we instantly got like a bunch of sponsors, including like uh Brianna Price was one of the first sponsors She gave like a hundred dollars, and people were just throwing in money and money in.

And we have like over almost like $2,500 of like sponsored tickets, and we bought 80 of them. Like it was over, I don't know. We lot I the everybody that needed a ticket got one, but we had more sponsors and needed tickets, so it was great. It was like, okay, cool. This is a great way to support for the show. So yeah, I want to try that on a grander scale. I want to try that with a tour, um, let alone a full tour. Um, I only have three shows this month because we're trying to test the market, but would love to try it with a big tour and potentially just uh make it a thing. Yeah, this is like genius. It's so good, by the way. Like, I don't know, tell when he told me about this. Did y'all just hear about Need It Got It? Need it got it, bro. This is like a groundbreaking framework because one thing we've learned is like you don't know what someone is willing to contribute unless you give them an option. So not only are you giving your biggest fans who might have a little extra in their pockets the opportunity to commit more, but that money is going directly to the fans that might want to show up for the shows and really like you, but maybe don't have the means. Yeah, and they're just like community building

building thing, too, bro. This is like my favorite boxes. This is like my favorite shit of the episode I know. It's Need it got it. Damn, great. Need it, got it. Yeah, so I'm doing that now. Uh so I mean, if we post this on my IG comment need it or comment got it. Or you could DM me the word need it or got it, and it should send you either way. Um, but yeah, my first L LA show is August 13th. Chicago is August 27th, and New York is August 29th. So we need Atlanta, bro. We do need Atlanta. What the fuck is going on? You know, I love Atlanta. Atlanta is a hot market. I need to do them. I will do them soon. I do love performing in Atlanta. We'll pull up. It is shit. I'll be there. I mean, we might need to put the show on, bro. We've we've been doing a show. We've thrown a show or two. It's a little off brand for us, but we enjoy it. I would love to. Yeah. Using uh mini chat for Need It Got It. Oh, yeah, for sure. Thousand percent. If you guys if you guys want, uh, 50% off your first month of ManyChat Pro, you can go to the One More Time deals page at onemoretime.fm slash deals and click the mini chat link. Get started and get serious.

So you can try to get good at the CTA. Let's go. We got Jayo with a discount, bro. 50% off your first month of ManyChat Pro. I spam ManyChat. I've, I've honestly had some crazy ManyChat funnels that have been copied um for sure. Okay, but it's on, bro. We'll just end real quick because I'm serious about like the mini chat a lot of our on the deals on our deals page kind of have been inbounds, right? Mini chat was the one that I was like, we talk about it so much. I went out and like I was like, I gotta get ManyChat. They required like a company LinkedIn page, and to get a company LinkedIn page, you have to have a personal LinkedIn page. I made a personal LinkedIn page. layers of like authentication. Made a personal LinkedIn page. I had to add connections to get verified and then make the company page and then apply for their partner stack, then then get the I was like, I'm getting this ManyChat fucking affiliate team. Yeah, like usually, usually I'm the one that like talks to brands and whatever. I went out on a limb for that one, dude. I was like, I need it, and then guess what? I fucking got it.

He really did, bro. He really did. You did that shit, bro. You did that shit. I saw the like at first. I saw the denied email, and it was like, you're not a real company. It was like, fuck. But then, like, cleaned us up. I cleaned us up, bro. A day later, it was like approved. And I was like, yes, Henry. You know who I'm dealing with that with? Jiffy. Oh, because I've been, you know, I'm thinking outside the box. I'm trying to make GIFs. Oh no. Oh, oh, oh, okay. you meant the peanut butter company not be approving me as a brand so no. But yeah, I'm doing the same thing where it's like I keep getting denied. I would be making so many GIFs right now. Yeah. As an artist? Is it Jiffy or Giffy? I mean, let's just I say gif. I don't know. I think the owner called it a jiff Oh no. The G stands for graphical, which is pronounced like guh So that's what I'm going with logic. The creator of GIF called it Jif. Someone verify that in the comments. I don't buy it.

Fact check us expeditious. I remember watching this video because I sent it around. I was like, told you. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. It doesn't. But okay, so so other than Need it got it, which is fucking great. I love that for so many reasons. Oh my god. Um, what are are you are you taking that intentional approach that you take with you know other content to the like content you're trying to post to move tickets? Like, like are you scripting shit for like ticket promo videos? Uh and if so, like how does that differ? How are you finding that differ from like you know, song-based scripting? And what's it like? What's the funnel like? Yeah, it's a little bit more of a sale, so it's definitely harder. I I haven't had a I mean, okay. Well, the last tour, we had one that did really well was with me, Michael Cimino, and Johnny Valentine tied to a rope. Okay, where the car is driving away. Oh, I see, it's like comment got it, and then we say, or comment takes if you just want tickets, and then yeah, it might got swooped away by the car. So that one did well as far as like a promo video that was just about need to got it, but most of the stuff we're doing is like script and like talking.

Yeah, so I don't expect to do it incredibly well. I just posted a video um that was uh uh me getting waterboarded. Okay, tell me more. Tell me follow the terms and conditions, yeah. I mean, it didn't. I think I already have a strike on TikTok, but well, now you have two. Yeah, I on IG, no, literally, but by the end of this episode, you'll get the notification that you have two strikes now. So yeah, I'm getting waterboarded, and I'm like, you know, the the they're like give us they're like uh tell us what we need to know, and this all stops. And I'm like, guys, I know you're just trying to get free tickets, and they're essentially like I'm like, all you have to do is comment needed, and I would give you tickets, and they're like, You think we're stupid? I was like, No, the people that comment got it are gonna sponsor the tickets for those that need it. It's a funny skit. You should just check it out. Okay, hell yeah. You know, like we try to think outside the box, so it's it explains the system in the context of the story of the post. Exactly.

Yeah, I love that, man. I love that. So cool, man. It's amazing, it's amazing. Well, Henry, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Holy shit, I could talk to Jayo for hours and hours. So much game. This has been insane. See, like, this is another one where like I knew it was gonna be good. Yeah. But like over delivered. He overdelivered for sure. And the best part is yet to come. Hello, it's the rapid fire rampage. Okay. With Jayo. Yeah, yeah. Buckle up, Jayo. Jayo, it's gonna be a three-part rampage. I'll explain them as we go. The first part is just some short answer questions. Do you have your seat belt on? I I just put it on. Perfect. That wasn't the first question. That was a prerequisite to start the rampage, by the way, just to clear our audience out there. Okay. Jeez. Anyway, let me play them. Here we go. Starting with you're a former track guy, okay? So 40 yard dash, you verse Ben. What's the outcome? I don't know. I lose because I'm out of shape. To Ben.

Oh, wait. Are you in shape? I don't know. He kind of looks athletic while sitting down. I have to see him stand up Thank you, bro. He plays a little basketball. Who doesn't look athletic is Henry because he's not. I'm in the best shape I've been in years. Basketball, if we're talking about that, but like a 40 yard dash. I ran like a 4-8 at best. It wasn't crazy fast, okay, First of all, I'm a little slow, but I am a hooper. I do play pickup basketball a couple times a week. So I would love to hoop with Jayo. And he might, yeah. I was like, I've seen his, you know, Justin Bieber uh playing basketball videos and shit. He looks like he can hoop Chris Brown. He can play like a comedy version of hooping. Even during like a comedy version of hooping, you can just still tell who who's got it. You know what I mean? Yeah, you can see a little bit. You can see who can hoop. That's fair. And Henry cannot. Anyways, go ahead. Can you not hijack my rampage? Okay. You brought me into it. You literally brought me into it. And he and he gave you and he shouted you out. That was the best possible outcome for you. Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad I'm satisfied. Where's the conflicts here?

Moving on. Jayo, for an artist who has never landed a brand deal, but they really want to. What would you advise them as their first steps? Make an EPK. Yep. EPK. Got him. Yeah. And then, but then okay, give us a couple more. What do we do with it? That's very broad. That's it. No, no, no. You got it. Just keep it, just keep it on your computer. Yeah, let local hard drive, EPK. You want to work with, make a list of brands that you want to work with, find ways to implement them if it's like a clothing stuff, start wearing the stuff. And then DM some stuff. Like, hey, would love to boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And uh, yeah, I feel like that's a great way to start. So just naturally use the fucking product that right, make it make sense. Yeah, like go to Chipotle and eat a taco. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, post them on the story. Oh, yeah. I feel like I would have gotten more like Chipotle might have circled back if I gave him free promo with this they might have circled back, yeah. That's the thing though.

If if you get a viral post for that thing, they will like pay you for a follow-up. Yeah, like it worked. It was already pretty it was it was low risk, it already worked. It's gonna work if you guys were unaware. Like companies spend infinite money on ads, right? That's a whole and what an ad looks like now is it's not an ad, it's content, it's a post that did well. That's what they're looking to put ad dollars behind. So if you happen to be the one that made that post, that's where the dollars go. Shit, yeah. This is why I was so hurt. A company's ad spend is probably anywhere from one to four percent of their revenue. So if a company makes five billion a year, hello. Imagine their ad spend being 200 million. You don't be afraid to ask for that number. I could have easily got that. Easily. Six figures was the the surface. Insane. They gotta get rid of it too for taxes. They budgeted so many reasons. Yep. Jayo. Q4 actually, I will say also another tidbit, Q4 is also a high open time for brands. That's when they have to balance everything.

They have to dump money. So start hitting them up now, like September, October, August, like prepping for Q4, they're gonna have to dump money anyway. Yeah, that's a high business tactic right there. He and brain, he gets it, right? Either use it or lose it. Use it or pay 20% on it. Exactly. Yeah. Jayo, what is your most controversial opinion you have about content right now? Controversial opinion about content. Wow. Um damn, uh quality over quantity. I don't know. Controversial dang, I feel like that's kind of that's kind of the citizen lane. He said uh quote, I was I'm miffed by the advice to post more. I'll never I don't know why I have that word. He said miffed. It stuck out. I'll never forget that he said miffed. I forgot about it. Yeah, I'm so kind of miffed by the thought of post so much. Yeah, I mean, I think it is important to do quality over quantity. I think also controversial.

I don't know about controversial, but like unique, maybe. I don't know. I if if you could don't be afraid of rinse and repeat on trial rails, I guess we'll take that. We cannot hear that enough. None of y'all are doing that, and you need to, so that's good. Um Jayo, what's your toxic trait creatively? My toxic trait creatively is that I should have been pre-thought. All right, creatively, that's toxic. What is toxic about me? I mean, I shit. I mean, I have so many thoughts that I'm like, I don't think that's toxic enough, but maybe it is. All right, let me just say I'm very much a collaborator. And um, so sometimes I will get lazy on some parts of like doing things because I'm like, okay, this is someone else's job. Um, is that toxic, I guess.

But I'm very good delegator, point guard at heart. Yeah, you can see it as delegating, you know what I mean? And smart or you can see it as lazy. That's why no, that's an interesting one. I think it's a great one. Some people see it as lazy. Like, you know, like, you know what's funny? Like, I actually like it's funny. I most of my videos I don't edit because I will delegate the time. But I create it, I co-edit, or I will oversee the edit, or like I will give all the feedback because I know how to edit. But do I have four hours to spend on that video? No. And like sounds smart, that's my life. Well, I guess it's toxic to some people, they're like, oh, you don't spend your time on your own videos. And I'm like, well, I'm making it work. The key is that you know I got the key is that you know how to do the job that you're hiring for. I think a lot of people hire for jobs that they don't know how to do themselves, and it makes it harder. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like if I don't understand what masking was, I mean, my editors will have a hard time, but like if I if I didn't understand what was happening on the video, like Ben still has no idea how the words get behind our heads in our intros, he just doesn't. Yeah, like I know how it works, I just don't have time.

And my life is perfectly fine, right? Yeah, you don't need to, it's fine. I love my life without knowing how the words get behind you. You don't need to know masking. Let's move on, my toxic trait is I always want to be the first in music to do something. First mover, shaker. Okay, move to shaker. I mean, let's go, Jayo, you're you've just been appointed the supreme leader of the music industry with the power to do anything. What is your first order of business? In the music industry? Anything. You want something toxic or I just want to know if you took control of the music industry today. What would you do first? Oh, Ban AI. Banned. Wow. You can't even generate it. There's not even generators. I mean, just no AI music for sure. Like especially the 100% made. But like even then, it's just like it's not. I don't think at the end of the road, it's not it's not gonna serve us.

We don't need more people dropping songs. It went from like what 20,000 to 100,000, now it's like 400,000, 700,000 a day. It's ridiculous. Is that the latest? So not even like silo them over here, just like make it illegal. You can have your own AI app, I guess. Like let it stay on Suno. No distributing it on like Spotify. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, that I like it. Yeah, it's just like why are we competing with people that spent years working on their craft for you to just prompt up a song that steals from them in two seconds? Like, no, that's not and it's a pro rata system, shared royalty pool. Anyway, we're let's not get into that right now. It's very complex. Um, Jayo, pitch us a brand right now that you want to write a song for next. Um man, a brand that I want to write a song for next. I mean, the first one comes to mind. It's funny, I've written for them before, but it was through an agency, so it wasn't really like that good. But Paxon, I've been loving Paxon's stuff.

Um but another brand I would love to write for, I would say, is like Nike. Okay. Just do you have any like ideas on what this you know the song might be about? Bring the basketball theme back. Victory. Victory. That's right in that lane. You've thought about this. He has one, I think. He probably he's probably already written one. Triumph, dude. Yeah, I feel like he's pitching us a song right now. He's promoting a song right now without us knowing it. Yep. He's that good. Genius. I'm writing in the back of my head right now. Okay. Love it. Have you guys heard of Ed Sheeran doing that stuff? Doing what what specific? He can write while like having a full-on. Oh, see, he's just not listening, whoever he's talking to, he's half tuned in, half writing. Quick story. Benny Blanco talks about how like they were writing a song before he like, you know, he does these huge stadiums. They're writing a song, and then like he goes out, performs, comes back, he's like, okay, I have the bridge written. While he was on stage. Yeah, mind you, he's doing Luther

stuff and all the guitar playing and singing and literally it's so robotic for him. He could write another song in his head. That's amazing, dude. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, Ed's a beast. It's insane. He's the next level. Yeah. That's a dream open. Yeah. Last one of the short answer. I don't have any research on if he uses curse words or not, but I always ask it, so I'm asking it anyway. What is your favorite curse word? Probably fuck. Hey. I was like, you're such an actor, bro. I was like, oh my god, man. Such a I like probably fuck. Such a fucking comedian actor, man. No, it was Miranda Cosgrove. Yeah, that's close. Yeah, yeah. No, but actually, like for a while I didn't know like shit was a bad word. That's my favorite. I think it was a good word. Like, that was kind of word like that was kind of allowed in my family. Just like, but like not like not like allowed. I just think like I always said it and never really knew it was a curse word.

You don't keep it like a music too much though. I feel like as a curse word. Is that is that like a brand positioning move? I feel like your music's relatively clean. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I personally like I prefer to make clean music because I want to make music for everybody. I want to make music for kids, adults. What does Jon Bellion say? The say the Disney approach? Yeah, you know, for adults. So yeah, I mean, that's I also I don't I don't know. I just feel like a lot of the cursing is out of laziness. Like filler. So I yeah, it's like I want to say something, and I especially if I don't have to curse, I don't want to curse. Like, I don't mind if someone else curse on my song, it's whatever, but I mean I prefer not. The next song you're right. The next song you're right. I want you to include the most perfectly placed intentional fuck that you could even possibly come up with. I'll do it as a challenge, just out of care. Make it as intentional as possible. What is an intentional way of reasoning?

I don't know, but it drops at an intense moment, and you just say it. I don't know, man. In general, I'm more about like positive vibes. I want to bring joy to the world. That's my mission on it. Fucking be positive. Stop trying to convince him to curse in the music, all right? Yeah, you're right. Let's move on. Let's move on. You're right, right, right, right, you're right. Really lobbying for this. Next section is the uh this or that. Let's pick it rapid fire rap phrase. Let's go. This will be this will be quicker I'm just gonna give you two choices. You pick the one that stands out the most to you. Here we go, starting with drums or melodies. Melodies, the song or the content around it. The song. TikTok skit or Instagram reel. I like Instagram. Land a brand deal or sell out a headline show. Sell out a headline show. Free placement that blows up or a check that nobody sees. That's hard.

Oh, that's a tough one. I'm dealing with money now or exposure now. I'll tell you that much. That was a tough one. wow. Uh uh. Good. I think in this point of my career, I'll take the placement. Yeah. I think it'll help more. Because you can pay the rent. Yeah, well, the placement of seeing, like getting more seen. Yeah. Because yeah, if I can afford rent right now, yes. If I didn't, if I couldn't afford rent, I'll take that. Right. At this point in my career, it's like I'm trying to get more like the artist's career moving. So expanding. That place makes sense, you know. Yeah. It could be the next juice. Or uh I keep bringing up Lizzo, but like, you know, that was a big placement for uh the movie or whatever. Yeah, facts yeah. Silly song that pops or serious song that sits. Yeah, you've done that.

Impacts the right hundred people. Love that. Ranch or blue cheese. You said what? Ranch or blue cheese. Oh, ranch. Oh, I hate blue cheese. Own your masters or win a Grammy. Ooh. Own your masters. Books or podcasts? Uh podcasts. I don't even know why I hesitated. Me neither. To be honest with you. Me neither. Uh most people can't stand you, or nobody's ever heard of you. Nobody's never heard of me. I can change that. Oh, you kind of flipped that on its head. You can't Make people change their mind. It's harder. Yeah. You might be able to do that. Once people can't stand you, it's a very aggressive stance. That's a that's really great. Last one of the dish is that become a full-time jingle writer or leave the music industry forever. Full-time jingle writer.

Let's go. He's like seriously considering a full-time jingle writer. Like that was like a dream, kind of like I don't know. And I wrote this question before you said that earlier, by the way. I just want to point that out. So okay, last section. This is the word association. Joe, I'm just gonna say one word. All I need you to do is give me the first word that you think of right back off the top of your head. You're not judged on your answers, you're only judged on speed. Here we go. Starting with content. Kyle. Viral. Yes. Guacamole. Khalid. That's great. You're not supposed to think. Just let it flow. Khalid. Muhammad. What? It's hilarious. Keep going. It's the first word coming to my mind. This is great.

LA. Palm tree. Red flag. Matador. Free. Falling. Paid. My dues. Super fan. Love it. Anti Rebel. Wow. You forgot about the album. He just dropped last month. You forgot about the brand new album. This has been Jayo. Jayo. Oh, shit. shit. The debut album, 60 singles later, really skipped over his head. Anti-Ghost, true anti-depressant. No, you think, wait. I just, I'm shocked that I was the setup didn't work. Seriously, thank you for thank you for coming on the podcast, man, incredible episode. Man, holy shit, thank you, thank you. We're here each and every motherfucking week, y'all. Guys, if you haven't liked, commented, and subscribed by now with this Jayo interview.

I don't know what the hell we can do for you. Until next time, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Peace, y'all. Appreciate y'all.