Most Artists Will Never Get a Manager. Here's What to Do Instead ft. Troy Carter

Most artists are never gonna find a manager. That's the last we count it is close to 20 million independent artists putting out music. There's only 30,000 professional managers. Troy Carter spent 15 years managing some small artists you haven't heard of like Lady Gaga, John Legend, Eve, Meghan Trainor, and Charlie Puth. Then Then he walked away from management to run creator services at Spotify, recruiting other small artists onto the platform like Taylor Swift. I started started off as a terrible manager with really good intentions. The The mistakes that managers make, I can say them because I made them. From experience, folks. So So when the man says that the difference between you and a signed artist is not money or your contact list, that's worth a minute. The biggest biggest luxury that artists with labels or managers have that DIY artists don't have is the luxury of compartmentalization. You gotta do every single job. It's impossible to build a career that way. And And none of that is a skill problem. It's

It's a math problem. There's no company on the planet that would survive being run that way. And yet it's a totally normal reality for most artists.

Which is why Troy made it his mission to build something for the ones that have nobody coming to help. You You might not even need a manager for at this point in your career anyway. Henry, Henry, this is one of those episodes, man, where the people said it couldn't be done. They were like, no way you're getting this guy on the podcast, bro. No chance.

chance. Who Who do y'all think you are? And And we f****** proved him wrong again. We got Troy Carter on the pod, Henry. Yet Yet again, this time in a major way. It's massive. What is going on, Troy?

It's absolutely my pleasure. Oh Oh my gosh.

No way is Troy Carter saying that it's his pleasure to join the One More Time podcast right now. It's amazing. We recorded it. It's cemented. It's It's on WAGS. WAGS. But

But no, man, really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Seriously, Seriously, you've you've got such an interesting career in music and in technology and in the entrepreneurial space that I think our community is going to learn a ton, right? And so really the way I want to take this conversation is I do kind of want to talk a little bit about what artist management used to be, right? And kind of the role of the manager, you know, maybe referencing your days with Gaga, right? But But then I do want to kind of talk about what the role of the manager looks like you think in 2026. And And then I want to talk about the good stuff on where technology might enter the chat as far as like how it can help our independent artist community thrive in

in this climate. So, So, yeah. Yeah. So I guess just like looking back, you know, in your days as an artist manager, like how would you kind of summarize the role of the manager back then? Yeah.

You know, I live through multiple cycles, you know, and through which each cycle, the manager's job is to adjust to what the artist needs in that particular cycle. So So whether that's, you know, selling mixtapes out of a, out of a trunk, you know, whether that's doing, you know, bars and playing bars and, you know, going to shows a night or, you know, and, and I got an opportunity to see things through from mixtape days to download days to streaming days to now in this shift to AI. And what's happening now. So I would say, you know, the, some of the principles just never change, by the way, is is like, you know, a manager's job is just to make sure that the best interest of the artist is always comes first, you know, and sometimes it may not be what the artist wants to hear at that particular time. Always.

Always.

You know, but it's like, your job is just to make sure that they're protected. Your Your job is to make sure that they have the right resources. Your job is to make sure they have the right information. Your Your job is to be able to distill that information down in a way that the artist understands it. And the most important job is driving the Mack truck through the cul -de -sac to get things done for your artists. What What do you mean by that analogy?

I want to make sure I'm tracking. It's a banger, first of all. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, you know, you, you do whatever you need to do to make that artist successful. And, And, um, you know, is, it's not about you. You You know, that's the number one thing to be a great manager. You You got, you got to take out any level of ego. You put that client needs before your needs. And that's the most important thing. You know, you, you, for, to be a great manager, that's one, that's, those are some of the qualities. And actually, you know, when it got to the point in my life, in my career, where I couldn't put the artist's needs in front of my own, you know, but I got a family and, you know, and I, and I had my own, I grew into having my own ambitions. I I knew I couldn't do a good job, you know, uh, for, for artists anymore. What

What do you think a lot of artists misunderstand about the role of a manager?

Because I think some artists might get it twisted, like take my career to the moon. what a manager should or shouldn't be doing can and cannot do. What

What are some, you know, myths that a lot of artists have about the role of a manager? I'll

I'll give you two examples of, of artists that, um, that I was super close to on a personal level. And that, that would probably be like Eve and Gaga. We got to know each other on such a intimate level where they knew everything about me and my family. I knew everything about them and their family. I was there through breakups and heartaches and they were there through breakups and heartaches and, you know, all of these different things. And And when you got that relationship, a certain level of mutual empathy develops. And And so when people can see that you truly, truly care, that melts any sort of ice automatically when they know that you have their best interests. One One of the misconceptions, you know, I think a lot of artists have with managers is that a manager's job is to scream at the record label. You know, uh, it's always about a fight. That's

That's the, that's what I see. Like Like a lot of artists come to me and they'll be like, you know, I want to fire my manager because he doesn't, he's not fighting. You You know, he, he's not going in there cursing out the record label and the promoter and this, and and that's the opposite. Like Like my, like my job was to really go in and convince the labels and the promoters and, and all of our partners that we are going to be your best partner that you have. You You know, so I'm sending people flowers, you know, and champagne when it's time to celebrate, you you know, we, we know people's birthdays, you you know, we like, it is really about building a real personal relationship. And And that way, you know, when Jack has to come out of the box a few times, you know, it's not like, okay, Troy's an asshole. It's like, no, Troy's pissed off right now because somebody pissed him off. But, but, you know, 90, 90% of the other time, calm, cool, and collective. But

But if you're always on tilt and a lot of managers make the mistake of projecting the artist's emotions. So So when the artist is like emotional and upset, the manager is coming in emotional and upset. And if anything, that's like, you know, partners are looking at that as, as a weakness and they know eventually, you know, you'll be gone. So what,

what, what do you recall is some of the most difficult, you know, conversations you had to have with your partners, right? right? Whether it's the label or promoter or whoever in like the Gaga or Eve days, like, you know, there, are there any stories that come to mind of like, man, I remember I had to go into the label and talk about XYZ and that was difficult. Yeah,

Yeah, not, you know, not to be too, too specific, but, you know, what I can say, you know, having to tell labels, I'm not putting out an album because the artist isn't ready. Or I'm not traveling to this country to promote the record because the artist might not be in a good space at a particular time. Or telling a promoter that, you know, I need to cancel the rest of the tour and you're going to have to lose, you know, tens of millions of dollars or whatever because the artist can't get, can't get through it right now. Like, Like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's hard conversations, but the difference is when you pick good partners and you got partner, you got great relationship with those partners, those partners understand. The The bad partners are the ones who don't understand and the ones who want to force you to go to those places and things along those lines. So, So, you know, I think I've, I've gotten lucky enough to be in business consistently with mostly good partners. Like,

Like, it's no coincidence that if you, you know, you mentioned Eve and Gaga, both of them were signed to Jimmy Iovine at Interscope. So, So, you know, and I probably had 10 artists with Jimmy at Interscope, you you know, so there was, there was a consistency in that partnership. You You know, same thing with Michael Rapinoe at Live Nation, you you know, honestly, Michael might be the best partner I've ever had, period. He's the best partner to artists. If If I look at all of the people in the music industry, Michael might be number one partner to artists because he knows how to show up when you need them the most. It's It's not when you're, when you're the hottest, it's not when you're on top of the world. It's It's like, you know, the people who show up and understand those circumstances that we're talking about, you you know, those are the people that you want to be in business with and you, and you do repeat business with. I'm

I'm so like always fascinated by just the marriage of like art and business. Cause Cause like any other business, if you were to go to your founder, CEO and say like our flagship product, like I, you know, I don't, I don't feel like it's ready yet. It's It's having, it's having a tough time right now. now. I'm just not ready. Like personally, mentally, like they're going to look at you like you're insane, but but it's a super valid thing with art, which is very personal. And it down. It's a human. Yeah. Yeah. It's a person and it's their art. So that's why I think the manager thing. And that's why I love that you highlight the interpersonal aspect of being a manager, which I think is overlooked. It's It's not just screaming. It's not just answering emails. It's like you're in the people business and really understanding that dynamic is something that I don't think anyone talks about, which I love that we're like, you know, going over that now. This is like great stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so when you have, you know, one of the things, you know, where, where I got lucky, you know, I started off as a terrible manager with really good intentions.

I remember you said, I remember remember on manager's playbook, you said, I think the phrase was like, you came in like a bull in a China shop. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because, Because, you know, because the stuff that I'm saying about, you know, mannered, the mistakes that managers make, I can say them because I made them.

From experience, folks. And

And there's some stupid, stupid things, but I was lucky enough to have very experienced people who have been in the music industry for decades. And they work with some of the biggest artists and best artists in the world and have seen horror stories and they've seen the biggest victories. And And so, you know, when you got people like, you know, a Jimmy Iovine or a Clive Davis and like, you know, just all of these OGs, Benny Medina's, like just people who have seen it all. Basically telling you, you know, Benny Medina, I remember remember best advice he gave me was, he said, shut the fuck up and listen. said, you talk too much.

That's kind of where I'm at right now, by the way.

said, you talk too much. And that's jolting. That's jolting, you know, especially, you know, a guy from West Philly, you know, you coming in, you know, ego, people can't just talk to you any old kind of way. But, But, you know, this is the guy who, you know, pretty much signed Prince, created Fresh Prince of Bel -Air, you know, built Warner Brothers' black music department. And And he was somebody I respected. He He came up under Barry Gordy, who created Motown. And know what I did? I shut the fuck up and listened. You know, with Jimmy, I made a terrible mistake and I ended up bringing Suge Knight up to Jimmy Allen Iverson office. Because Jimmy Iovine wouldn't take my call when I first started managing Eve. And I didn't even know Suge, by the way.

I met him the night before. You

You know he gets shit done, though. Yo,

Yo, yes. He overheard a conversation I was having at a restaurant. And he leaned over and came over to the table. He said, oh, you manage Eve? You You trying to meet with Jimmy? He's like, meet me up at Interscope tomorrow at noon. Oh,

Oh, shit.

And by the time I got into the lobby, and I just, and the receptionist, I could see just by the look. You know how you could tell what somebody is saying on the other end of the phone? And I see a couple of security guards at the elevator bank now. And, you know, we, and Suge and I went up and we did the meeting with Jimmy. And I knew in that meeting I made a stupid mistake. But by the time I got home, my wife, who was my then girlfriend at the time, told me that a couple of my really close friends and mentors had called the house. And they needed me to call them back immediately. Oh,

Oh, no. And

And because they found out, because, you know, Jimmy had reached out to them and Steve Stout had reached out to them at the time. And Jimmy called me up. I ended up going to his office. And he said, you know that red button that the president has where he can launch nukes? He said, you have no more nukes with me. So either you can learn the business the right way or you can learn the business the wrong way. And he gave me an opportunity to learn the business the right way. And Jimmy taught me so much about how to be a real manager because he worked with John Landau, who had Bruce Springsteen. manager because he worked with John Landau, who had Bruce Springsteen. He worked with the team who had U2. He He worked with, you know, with Jim, who had no doubt. So

So it's like, so I got a chance to learn the real fundamentals of how to be a partner from some of the best guys on the planet. That's

That's amazing. So we had a clip go really viral like a couple of years ago at this point, but it was talking about yes men in the music industry. And And the reason I'm bringing it up is because I feel like a lot of artists kind of want like a yes man manager where like the manager is a yes manager.

Yes manager. Thank Thank you. I knew there was something right there. That's what I'm here for. This is is all he does. And he does it great. No, you do way more, buddy. I got got you.

But no, so it's like, you know, I guess I want to hear your experience and your perspective on having the tough conversations with your artists. Right. Because it it could be just, you know, you take the order from the artist. They want X, Y, Z. You go in and pump your chest and you yell at people or, or you, you know, just go in and have the conversation the artist wants you to have. And that's that. How much, you know, again, like how much pushback is correct. Right. Or like, where's the line as far as like challenging the artists and what they think you should be doing and really what you think you should be doing. Yeah,

Yeah, because I'm just picturing myself having to go fight for something that I don't believe in. And I'm just getting uncomfortable thinking about it. Me Me too. So,

So, so, so truth be told, some, some of my clients have come to me with the craziest, most outlandish ideas that you could possibly think of. And to me, the best ideas are the ideas that make me the most uncomfortable when I first hear them. Okay. And so what I try to do is I try, I listen and then I try to figure out, can it be done? So So my job is to try to figure out, can I take what this artist is telling me and get this thing done? So So it's a... a few buckets in terms of like, yes, men. And one of the buckets is, is something dangerous to the physical or mental wellbeing of my, of my client or his or her business. And And so that part is just, you know, you draw red lines there when something is just like, I'm not having this part, you know, is, is, you know, so certain things you just draw a red line on. And

And then when it comes to the outlandish bucket, that's the part where I have the most fun in terms of exploring the outlandish ideas to battle test them. And then if it can't happen, then that's the part where I got to come back and say, no, it can't happen. And those are the toughest no's for me. If it's like one of, one of, like one of those ideas. But But some of those things is like where I see artists who just want somebody that's going to say yes to them all the time. They don't want a manager. They, They, they just, they just want somebody who's going to facilitate everything that they, they want, they want, they want to, want to do. The The smarter artists want some, want somebody who is always going to be a few steps ahead of them, who they can learn from, who, who, who can help shape them, who can help put them in the right rooms, who can help take them out of the wrong rooms. And you develop this mutual respect for each other. So 80% of the managers that I meet fall under the, I wouldn't call them just strictly yes men, but they're facilitators. Okay.

Okay. And And then there's this 20% that I'm just blown away by who are just like, just animals in terms and just intellects and just super curious. And just, you know, like they're just great at, they're great at what they do, but they, they're not saying yes to their artists all the time. You You just recorded your favorite song. The The world has to hear this music, Henry. I gotta hear it. You gotta hear it. And you need a distributor to do so. And DistroKid is hands down our favorite distributor for independent artists. We've We've personally used it for years for the bang for your buck. It's insane. Unlimited uploads. 100% of royalties. 100% of royalties. And it goes to every single platform. We're talking about over 150 platforms, Spotify, Apple, TikTok. They're They're not promising you things like playlists or promo or anything like that. Right. But But what they do offer is a very easy to use platform to get your music everywhere that it needs to get. And And a bunch of tools to just jumpstart your marketing. It

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Yeah. It's It's funny because Tim Weber, who's the co -founder or the founder of grouped.com. I don't know if you know grouped.com. And he also ran the blog, Good Music All Day. Oh,

Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, So, so Tim was on the, on the pod recently and he talked about how like the reason why the managers get a bad rap is because most of them are shitty managers. So

So like, I mean that 80% that he's throwing out, he's kind of like, you're not really doing your artists a service here. I I don't know. So So again, maybe think about this. If you're anyone out there as a manager, like your job is to make the impossible possible. Which bucket do you fall in the 80 or the 20 year? Because let's let's try and shift that number a little bit, you know?

You know, most of, most of the artists that I signed over the years, I signed them at the beginning of their career before they became, before they became famous. And so my relationship never changes. Like Like I don't, I don't change how I act once they become big. I I stayed the same exact person. And And so the way I would tell them no to things when I first met them is the same way I would tell them no to things when they became big. So So the relationship for me never changed. changed. Unfortunately, you know, sometimes that gets you fired, by the way, you you know, when you don't make that adjustment. Because, Because, you know, because at that point in their lives, you know, people, they get used to being told yes to everything. Even with parents, by the way, your

your parents tell them yes to everything. Their relationships with their friends change. Where, Where, you know, their relationship with their spouses change. Their Their relationships with everybody changes. And nobody wants to tell them no. And usually the manager is the guy or girl that has to say no because everybody else is scared to tell them. And, And, you know, I remember, I got fired once. It was the funniest thing because literally it was an artist who, they were having this album release party. And, you know, wanted to spend millions of dollars on this album release party. Okay.

Okay. And

And at this time, labels weren't spending a nickel on an album release party. So, you know, the artist is like, you know, well, you know, you just figure it out. So I'm like, I'm not letting this artist spend their own money on this at all. So I call up the label and I said, do me a favor. I I need you to pull up every single artist within this artist category throughout the entire system of the, throughout the entire label system. And And let me know the most you guys have spent on an album release party for one of those artists. And And I think it was like, it came back at like 50 grand. A

little off the mark. Yeah. Yeah. So,

So, so I tell the, the, the head of the label, you know, what's happening. And, and, and he was like, absolutely not. That artist should not be spending that kind of money. Part of the spend was they were hiring this famous artist to create these sculptures. And literally the artist said, the next day these sculptures have to be thrown in the trash because they're not up to my standard. So So there's like millions of dollars on these things. So So I call the art, I call the, the, the dad of the artists, the the dad agrees. We're not spending that kind of money on that. So So I'm like, great. I got the head of the label. I got the dad. We're going to talk, had this conversation. We We get on the phone with the artists. They both bailed on me and I had to be the bad guy to say, we're not doing it. And

agree with what they agree. Man. Pops. Damn, Damn, pops. But

But that's what happens. That's That's what happens. That's That's what happens. But But it's like when, when, when everybody around turns into, into a significant, you got to be that person that stands on principle. And And at the end of the day is like, I can live with that, but I can't live with letting the artists bankrupt themselves with a bad move that I, that I know is a bad move. Mm That's what I was getting at though.

Like, this is a kind of more blatantly obvious one. But even when you talked about like an artist bringing you an outlandish idea, like, yeah, there is some fun and like, oh, let me go see like the art of the possible. Right. oh, let me go see like the art of the possible. Right. But there had to have been some that were like, this is a terrible idea.

Like, I don't want to, I don't want to waste my time trying to figure out. Yeah. Can I figure out how to accomplish this outlandish idea? Cause this

this is just not a strategic move. We

We can't put your vinyl on the moon.

But, but, but you know what you you got, you got to show, you got to show your artists that you tried. Okay.

Yeah. I I like that distinction. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to show you try and, and, and, and look, I've been proven wrong. Cause you know, what if the label would have said, oh, of course we'll give $2 million for this thing. Right. You're like, you know, you know, one, one example is, uh, you know, and this, this is, you know, this example is Gaga where she actually, I remember, um, we got a program. And then she was approached by, um, Cody fragrance about doing, uh, they wanted to do a perfume and, and, you know, she wasn't that interested. And then finally she said, you know, she'll take the meeting. And And so president of the company, his whole team, they fly out and she says to them, okay, I'll do it. But the perfume needs to be black. So we, so meetings over president pulls me to the side. He's He's like, Troy, you know, you spray perfume on like, on your, on your body.

I'm trying to figure out the bottle or the actual perfume needs to be black.

Gaga. This is, this is outlandish. So,

So, you know, I'm like, okay, this deal's dead. A

A month later, he calls me up, comes in to meet with me and he walks in a room and he takes out of his bag, a clear bottle with, with black perfume in it. Oh

Oh my gosh. And

And he has on a, he has on a white dress shirt and he sprays it on his shirt and it comes out clear.

Whoa. Develops new perfume technology for Gaga. Just for Gaga. And

And what he said was they found an actuator that, uh, that breaks the chemical down when it comes, comes out of the actuator and it sprays on clear. Oh

Oh my gosh. But

But it just shows you how, if you try and, and, and, you know, I always tell my team the black perfume, the black perfume, the black perfume, because because ideas might sound crazy. But if you, if you start to explore enough, you may actually be able to find find a solution for it. So, you know, they found a solution. So, So, so my job is to explore the crazy and be able to come back with facts.

I'm of the belief that, I mean, every great entrepreneur, every great inventor was looked at as a lunatic at first. I mean, that's just, there's no breakthrough. There's no real innovation without that period of like, no, like what the hell are you even talking about, bro? Like let's pump the brakes. Like that's just, that part of it is mandatory. And I think it totally applies to management. Yep.

Yep.

So, so, you know, in, enter into 2026 now, right. In, In, in the music business that, that we all exist in now, right. Like Like there's been so much advancement in technology, right. I I mean, just of course, looking at AI alone, right. It's It's just this crazy like existence that we're all living through right now. Tell

Tell me about it.

And so I'm curious to know where you see the opportunity for technology to come in and take some of the, the tasks away from an artist and their team that had maybe historically had been done by, by humans. I

I have, you know, one opinion on the creative, on a creative side, one opinion on the business side. We

We need both.

We need them both.

Yeah. So, so I guess on a, on a business side, we can start there. Um, Um, the business side is going to unlock a lot of opportunity for artists and managers in terms of how they run their business. I I wish we had a lot of the tools that are available right now in terms of being able to understand, um, everything from how should I, how should I route a tour? How How should I price certain things? I I need very specific information on fan demographics. Like it's so many things that a manager can use that where I'm like the amount of stuff, even if you think about travel, right? With agentic AI things I would use, I used to have to have a tour manager do in terms of planning. I I literally could have agentic AI basically book everything for me if I needed to need anything booked at this point. You know,

so you think about, you know, simple things like that. Anything Anything from an assistant, like all of these types of things. So I think it'll cut the size of teams down and expenses down tremendously. So So workflows are going to be a much easier. The The future of touring is going to be way more efficient, by the way. So, So, you know, when you think about, if you look at Amazon warehouses in terms of, uh, an Amazon warehouse is mostly run on robotics. Now, you you know, you got, you know, human oversight, but with robotics backstage backstage of tours are going to be very, very similar in terms of truck, you know, trucks on the road are going to be driverless trucks. Um, load in, load out is all going to be robotic load in, load out, setting equipment up on stage and backline. And those things on stage is going to be a robotic, a mix of robotic and humanoid robots. And, And, you know, and you'll have human in a loop on these these things, but it'll, it'll mostly be, um, robotics. When, when we look at a lot of what the technical side of touring was, even down to sound engineers and things along those lines, those

those things are going to be, um, a mixture of, of, uh, mostly AI and robotics on this, on the sound engineering side. So So in terms of efficiencies, we're going to see a lot of efficiencies. The The downside to it is so many jobs are going to be wiped out because, but, because of this. And how do you retrain a workforce of people that have built their lives and fed their families from being on tours? You know, so I know like a lot of the people who are in tour with me, you know, over the years, they become family. You You don't go from being a sound mixing engineer on tour to like, where do you go after that? If you've done that for 30 years, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, so it's, it's going to be a lot of shifts in the, in this, in this space. And, And, um, and honestly, it's, it's just inevitable. You

You know, the same way we saw, it used to be a lot of radio promo people at record labels. I I was a big part of seeing, you know, with Spotify and seeing how things were shifting to streaming. Then there all of a sudden it became these people called curators at, of these things called playlists. And all of a sudden you didn't necessarily need radio promo people, a full staff of them anymore to promote records at radio. And And so these are natural shifts that happen with technology. So So what I'm saying right now, it seems way off and far fetched, you know, because it's like, you think about robots on these tours and you think about, you know, AI doing sound mixing. And And I said the same exact thing about promo people and other personnel when I saw streaming come in and, and we saw what was happening with, um, with curators, you know, so, so, you know, so a lot of this is inevitable. And

And then as it relates to the creation of music side with AI, I fucking hate it. Um, Um, um, I think is inevitable. I I think is inevitable. There's There's going to be these two worlds that coexist where you have this AI native generation of artists. That'll be credible artists that are creating on AI in different ways. And And I think there's a lot of pros to that where I'm, I'm meeting singers right now, right. And song, a singer songwriters right now who they know how to write. They know how to sing. They have zero access to producers and no money. And And then they, they, they'll go on a platform like Suno and they'll start creating beats for themselves and tracks for themselves and making songs. So So they're legitimate artists. They're legitimate. It's like super legitimate, but don't have producer skills, but now can create product, create production and put out music. So

So there's, that's to me, that's net positive at the end of the day when you can find somebody like that. It's It's the AI slop stuff to me where there's no effort, where, okay, I'm not a songwriter. I'm not a producer. I can write prompts and it's going to write these things for me. And then I'm going to put this music out on Spotify or whatever platform. And And that to me is lazy. That to me is not artistry whatsoever. And And then one of the other pros is, you know, I'm meeting producers and I know producers who are huge producers that basically are like, yo, I'm creating my own sample packs with this thing. So So before where I used to go and have to sample old records or whatever to, and then put those records out and have to pay publishers, you know, X amount of money for sampling their records. I'm I'm basically creating my own things that I would want to sample. And then I'm putting that in my, in my original music. And then I'm putting those records on these bigger artists. So

So instead of me sampling XYZ from Motown or this old record from such and such, I'm making my own sample packs now. Ah,

Ah, it's such a weird space that we're in, man. It

It is. And I think we have a rare opportunity where I really want to get Troy on record here. So So like, I'm in like a unique kind of space. I've I've been in the music industry about like for 14 years, I've been a producer engineer. It's It's been my only obsession for 14 years and AI has come in and it's been the only thing in that 14 years that has matched that level of like, okay, this is something I need to pay attention to. And And being on both sides of it, something I've noticed is like the business world really understands the value of AI. They They see the like 10 X -ing of productivity. They see the agentic workflows. They see the routines and the loops and it's happening and they're all in on it. And And the music industry is very much like they still think of AI as Suno and AI slop and stolen IP. And And I think because of all that, they're getting a little behind of like other industries, you know, and and I'm kind of like made it my mission now to like help the music industry kind of catch up because I agree. Like we draw a hard line in the sand of like your art is your art. There's There's like a lot of gray area when it comes to using AI to make your music. We

We don't personally recommend it, but but man, like if you're an artist, like you are a business, even if it's just you independent by yourself, you are a business. And we're all in on AI enhancing the business. And And so like, I just want people to hear it from you, like Troy Carter, we're just two guys, but like, can you help people like really understand the power here? Because there's so much unlock and I, and you, like you said, it's inevitable. I just want them to like understand the power here and that it can unlock even more time for them to focus on their art. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'll

I'll give you a real life example. There's There's an artist who just went on tour opening up for Kehlani, like huge tour. This is an R &B artist who we may or may not have had on the podcast. And we may or may not have had her manager who I was texting with about this. And I was trying to help her understand how she could leverage AI to help again, like unlock just so much potential right within within their micro business that they're running as like a dynamic duo. Cause they're a small team. It's like manager and artists. And like, they have a label, you know, support, et cetera. But like, it's them.

And what was her reply? And And she was just not, she was like, we're not doing any of that shit around here. Not interested. Yeah. Yeah. So So how do you respond to people like that? How do you get through to people like that, man? You

know, it's, um, everybody has AI in their life and and whether it's spell check, whether it's, you know, chat GPT, whether it's, you know, your Gmail, like is, is AI is already integrated with, with, within our workflows and within our, within our life.

Even a Google search now. I mean, you're just getting AI response.

Yes. It's like, so, so there's purists in every art form, right? And there's certain artists who only would use analog when digital came into, into play, right? Because Because they didn't feel, they didn't feel like digital was real music, by the way. It's like, you know, it, it, it doesn't capture X, Y, Z, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. You had every single, every single technology change. There's always artists that are going to be resistant to the change. Always. Always. There's always artists that are going to be left behind because of the change. MTV and music videos is a good reference point because that was probably one of the biggest shifts ever in the history of music. It It was one of the biggest shifts. It

It sounds obvious right now. It It was one of the biggest shifts because you, people made songs that you heard. People People didn't make songs that you saw with your eyes. So, So, so the, the idea of a music video was something that a lot of artists were like, I'm not doing that shit. That's like, that's novel. And And you had a lot of artists who couldn't even adapt to it because they weren't designed to do that thing where they're singing into a camera specifically to sell a song around, you know, this three minute edited cut versus something they might do on TV or something along those lines. So So totally different format where you had a ton of artists push back on it. The The CD, you had a ton of artists push back on CD. Streaming, literally, it was, it was probably no artists that I talked to that wanted to be on streaming, by the way.

Understandably so. No,

No, no, no artists. But I'm like, I literally, I had to put together, I had my team put together a deck, basically showing artists that you won't exist to fans in 10 years if you're not on this, on this platform. Because Because this is where, this is where consumption is moving. Because Because when you got a product that you can have every song in the world for $9.99 a month or $7.99 a month, or you just got to listen to a couple of ads, or you're choosing between paying $9.99 for one album on iTunes. I can tell you what fans are going to choose. And And I got all of the data because they're already moving off in Nordics and nobody's downloading fucking iTunes. They're all listening to Spotify. So So if you want to exist, if you want your music to exist and your catalog to exist, forget about first week sales because that's a vanity novel. And think about the value of what a catalog is going to be worth over a period of time. And And if you can own your catalog, you could be a billionaire. But

But if you continue to do these stupid record deals with these record companies for 20% royalties, you won't make money off Spotify. So change your deal, get ownership in your catalog, and get on this platform and get as many streams as possible because that's going to change everything. So So it's a mental shift that people have to take. But But it takes education and it takes on -ramps to bring people in. Again, Spotify just so happened to have an on -ramp that understood the music industry and that understood the artists that could speak an artist's language that could take them and make them feel safe in terms of coming onto the platform. And And in exchange, internally, I said at Spotify, I need a budget of a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, where I can give back to the artist community because they need promotion. I I need money for billboards. I need money for campaigns. I need money for fan activations. I need money to help them shoot music videos. I need money to help them go on tour. So

So we were doing all of these things for artists just for goodwill because we knew, okay, you might not see it right away financially, but you're going to see it eventually. And a a lot of artists have seen it. So, you know, you see the horror stories, but trust me, I know what those success, the financial success stories were. So So what's happening right now with the Sunos and some of these companies that are in the space, they came in wrong. They They took the Napster out. Spotify, where I give Daniel credit, before Daniel launched that company, he went out and got every single music license from the labels. He didn't just say, I'm going to steal everybody's music, put it on the platforms. Like, you know, you had a million services doing it at the time or whatever. And And he actually went out, got the license, figured out financial structures, contributed back tens and tens of billions of dollars in the music industry. And was smart enough to actually say, okay, I need people on the team that can help me figure this out with artists to make sure we can do it.

Suno came in and these companies came in. And, you know, it's hard to steal somebody's shit and actually think, you know, try to convince them you're a good guy.

As it turns out, yeah. I didn't mean that whole theft thing. I'm I'm really a good guy. Just joking.

hard to do that. So it's like, so if I'm sitting in Suno's seat, I'm laying on my sword. And I got to say, you know what? I I was wrong. We did steal your shit. We We stole everybody's shit. We stole, you know, AI. We stole the entire history of the internet. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about that right now because AI, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. That's the honest answer. You

You don't close Pandora's box. And

And if you're honest, at least if you could lay on your sword, that's number one. Because that's showing I respect you. Them figuring out ways besides doing writer's camps. I'm like, writer's camp. Like, okay. You got to do more. You You got to do more. You You got to really do more. And And so it's building goodwill. How can you build legitimate goodwill with the artist community to make them feel safe? Show Show them how you could be a good partner. Show Show them how you could build technology that's actually going to be to their benefit. You You got some of the best engineers in the world inside of these companies that can hack together a skunk work project that might not have to do, have anything to do with the Suno consumer facing product that could be extremely helpful to all of the artists that are upset right now. You You could build a product that could help them audit their record labels to show how much money the record labels owe them right now.

I'm going to build that, by the way. You just gave me a lot of money. I'm literally going to build that.

it. Because the record labels that are suing Suno right now have robbed the artists even more than Suno has. Oh,

Oh, no.

And then the money that they're going to get from Suno, the money that they're going to get from Suno, and the equity that they're going to get from Suno, if they get any money in equity, the artists aren't going to see any of it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So the labels are robbing you more than Suno and the AI companies. That's the guy on his truth. Ask Ask any artists. So So when the labels negotiated with Spotify, they got equity in the company. They They go, they sue these companies. It It was one company that I invested in that to get the license, they had to give the labels in advance. No No artists in that company saw any of that advance. Not in advance. No artists in that company saw any of that advance. Not one.

Wow. So

So all of these things that we're talking about in terms of the AI companies or the bad guys, and yes, in some sense, absolutely. But But the biggest bad guys, in my opinion, is the record labels who aren't giving the artists any of this money, any of this equity.

No label necessary. I don't don't know. It'd It'd be your own people. It'd

It'd be your own people. This is kind of related, but kind of unrelated. I am curious. Obviously, Obviously, when Spotify was emerging, you were a big part of clearly making artists feel safe to utilize the platform, look at it as a trusted ecosystem partner. And And we can tell by the way you speak about Spotify even then. A A lot of artists love, love, love. It's like their life mission is to just hate Spotify with all of their existence. What's What's your opinion of Spotify and the role that they play in today's ecosystem? Look,

Look, if I look at the entire net negative, net positive, and let's talk about pre -Spotify. Yeah. Yeah. Independent artists had absolutely pretty much zero to nil shot of being able to find an audience. Because if you had to go to radio, good luck getting on radio.

Yeah.

We know how expensive radio is. We We know radio has a limited amount of inventory in terms of what they have to play. You think about reaching global audiences and being able to like, you know, for your music to be able to travel. So So the platform itself was transformational in terms of what it was able to do for artists. The Probably I'm two weeks into Spotify. And I had to go and meet with these managers. And like, our team put together a deck showing how much money we paid out to particular artists. And then how much they would make over the next amount of years as Spotify grew and, you know, da, da, da. So the Weeknd was getting ready to do an exclusive with Apple. And my job was to be able to come in and convince Sal not to give Apple this exclusive. So

So I show Sal the numbers. He He said, hold up. You mean to tell me when somebody buys my album right now, I get paid once. But with this, I get paid for the life of that project. Say, Say, yep. He He said, I'm in. He He understood. It's It's no mistake that the Weeknd just did that deal around his catalog. You know, it made him pretty much a billionaire with his catalog. You know, the deal that he just did. Because Because they understood how the economics of long -term growth works. Taylor Swift, one of the probably the smartest artists I ever met. She She was getting ready to do an exclusive with Target. I I had to fly to Nashville. I

I fly. I sit on her mom's couch. Taylor's not there yet. It's this huge Great Dane. I literally jumped in my lap. And I'm like, I got to pretend I'm okay with this big Great Dane lick in my face. Because I'm like, I'm doing anything to get Taylor Swift on his platform.

So I'm dealing with the dog.

But she's smart. She said, Troy, I'm probably one of the last artists that's going to be able to sell this many physical items in my first week. When she said, but I'm going to give you guys the single. I think it was the Shake It Off single. And she said, let's see how you guys do with that. And then we can, you know, sort of talk from there. But But I was able to show her what the fan growth that you could have and the fan loss that you can have in these territories that were quickly adopting to streaming. And she understood it. And, And, you know, we, and of course, you know, we ended up getting the album and everything else or whatever. But whatever. But it's like, it's an education piece of understanding it. But But it was, it was me being able to go in and say, I respect your business. I

I respect what you built. I respect your music. Um, Um, I did my research on your fans. You You know, this is what I know about you. Like Like being able, like, that's how you partner artists with technology companies. But But if it's just the tech mentality of, you know, break things, move fast, you're not breaking things. These are people. These These are, these are artists. These These are people who invested their lives in, in these crafts. These songs are about their, you know, their personal experiences. And And like, you know, so to come in hot and not care about it is like, you know, it's just, this isn't, this isn't disrupting taxi businesses. So

So what do you think, you know, you mentioned kind of like understanding how the artists can like marry up with the tech, right? So So with, with co -manager, co -manager specifically, what do you understand about the artist's plight, right? That connects artists to co -manager? You're like, like, what are you trying to achieve here? And what is the connection between those two? Most

Most artists are never going to find a manager. Okay. You know, that's the, that's the reality is, is, you know, it's think last we count it is close to 20 million independent artists putting out music, you know, or, you know, making music on putting out on, you know, what a little above hobbyists, hobbyists to, I'm taking this serious. There's There's only 30,000 professional managers in the world. So, so, you know, 20 million artists, 30,000 professional managers, artists aren't good. Most artists aren't going to find managers. Wow.

Wow.

And when I look at the needs of like, you know, most artists who are putting out music is things that technology can help them out with that you might not even need a manager for at this point in your career anyway. So So it's like, so when I, when I think about, and I, you know, we spent a lot of time, you know, working with, with independent artists and learning from independent artists is like, okay, most of them have day jobs, number one. So So it's like, because they, they can't afford to just focus on their music full time. So So if you got a nine, if you got a nine to five and then you're expected to, I gotta, okay, I gotta post 50 million things on social a week. I gotta create content. I gotta put out a song every week on, on, on Spotify. I gotta, you know, learn algorithms. I gotta do this. I gotta, you gotta do every single job. So So it's like, you know, being able to have something to help you figure out strategy, something to help take some of the load off of you and sort of be that companion. That's what we're building. So

So we got enough knowledge in the management space to understand, okay, technology is going to be technology. Technology can help us with certain things. I I can learn enough about an artist within 10 data points to give them enough strategy to get ahead. Granted, if the music is decent, by the way, and that they're willing to work, but you still got to have a human touch to it, a human layer. Like, you know, so there's a reason why I bring in managers to have conversations, you know, there's a reason why I make my team available to, you know, to talk to artists, answer questions. There's a reason why I make myself available for these, you know, for coaching sessions with artists, because it's like a certain things that they still need to, to have somebody to be able to bounce things off of. So, so as a, as a mixture of, you know, of human and technology. So, so what do you think like the lowest hanging fruit are as far as like, you know, let's say I'm a, you know, hobbyist now trying to take it seriously. Right. So I'm at the very like base level of my career. What are some of the lowest hanging fruit as far as like tasks that technology can be doing for me? If you think about just mundane things, I need to buy ads. I need to, I need to buy ads. I need to post social. I need to create and cut certain pieces of content. I need, I need to be organized. Number one, you know, just what, even, even with artists. So like, okay, what should my, yes. What should, what should, what should my schedule be? What should I be reminded about? Um, like, you know, we like just for co -manager fans and we just, um, introduced this, this new feature basically where every week we're, we're looking at data, your data, understanding what you're doing, where you're at right now. And you don't have certain things done. Like, yeah, it could be, let's use bio for instance, or something might not have been updated or we, we already did it for you. So So you don't even have to do it. We We already did it, did it for you.

So only thing you got to do is push send or approve or, or whatever else. But But so it's things, most artists don't even know what to do next. Not even saying it in a negative way, but if it's a million jobs, I wouldn't have a clue what to do next if I've never done it before. You You know, if I like, I'm not a construction person, I wouldn't know, you know, how to, how to build architecture or anything like that. So it's like, so most artists, they don't know what to do next. They They know how to write the song. They know how to produce it. They might, they might know how to create videos, but I don't have strategy around it. I I only got a certain amount of hours in a day. The The biggest luxury that artists with labels and managers have that independent art, like DIY artists don't have is the luxury of compartmentalization of process. So So to go in and be able to make an album and focus on an album is a luxury. Mm

Because I don't have to worry about promoting content right now. I don't have to worry about, you know, TikTok. I don't have to worry about, you know, all of the things that artists are asked to do right now, answering every single comment and all of those things, just to be able to focus on the creative process. That, That, that's how you get the best work. That's how you get the best work. And And then from there, being able to shift, okay, my album's done. Now Now I can focus on building up my content and and I get, cause you know, let's shoot some music videos. Let's shoot the album artwork. Let's shoot, you know, you got, you got time to even conceptualize because most artists don't have a cohesive vision right now. It's It's all disconnected. Like Like you, you is, is very, the visuals look different from, from single to single, you

you know, the, the stuff that they're uploading to, to TikTok, the videos look different. Like Like it's just no consistency. Every, every single is a era. It's It's like, it's almost like if an era was every other week or every month is an, is an era. That's That's not how you build a career. That's you, you can't, it's impossible to build a career that way. It's It's impossible to build visual familiarity that way. You You know, it's impossible to build, um, uh, audio, uh, familiarity that way. So So to be able to sit down and create a body of work is a luxury. Then Then once you have that body of work, a lot of ideas are going to come out of that. Because now it's like, it's almost like being, you don't want to name your kid until you see what the kid looks like sometimes. Right. It's It's like, I got, I can't, I don't have a name yet because I want to, you know, so it's like, okay, my ideas are going to flow. Once I got this body of work together.

Now I have my content together. Then I can figure out, okay, I can spend all my time promoting this. And And if I got all my time to promote and I don't have to split it, we're creating is you got more energy to focus on doing your best in each, each area versus, and right now what we see is all of these things kind of suffer because you don't have the time of focus. So So if you got a platform and a system to help you figure out how to compartmentalize, how to organize, how to organize your thoughts is, um, and organize your time. It just becomes a bit easier for you. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so interesting. I I think, you know, something that we're, something we're finding, you know, us using AI for a lot is that like thinking partners, how like Henry, I know likes to refer to it, right. Where it's like, it's just another business partner, you know, where you can get strategic recommendations or like thoughts and that sort of thing. Right. It's not to say that you got to go do everything that the AI suggests. Right. But it's like, I've found it helpful to like get the creative gears turning. Like oftentimes we'll start out baseline prompting around like episode titles for a certain episode we might've shot. So, So, right. So we might put in Troy Carter prompt around like everything we know about you have it look around the internet, talk about like what we're hoping to achieve out of the episode and then have it spit back some ideas for like titles of the episode. And And do we oftentimes like land on exactly what it said the first time? Typically Typically not. We're like iterating and iterating and iterating. And that's where like that human touch and that human layer to it can really be valuable. It'll

It'll never replace taste for sure. But I still think, yeah, like that's, that's great. think, yeah, like that's, that's great. But yeah, it's really like when you get into the agentic, like having it actually do stuff for you too. You mentioned like an analytics kind of thing. I've set the same up, same thing up for us. And And a funny thing happened. I had it scrape, you know, every piece of every, anywhere we exist, right. Where we can track any type of data and send us a report with like recommendations, right. Based Based on the model's reasoning. The The first one comes back and it's like, Hey, um, I don't know if you knew this 70% of your podcast downloads come from Apple podcasts and you haven't even claimed your show on Apple podcast.

See, this, this is the genius of this type of technology.

Isn't it amazing? I've I've dropped everything and have claimed the show since then. It's

It's the genius of it. And it's like, you gotta be sensible about certain, about certain things. Right. And there's going to be things that you could use. Like any artist that's not using Claude Design is out of their mind. Out

Out of their mind. so good, Troy.

Claude Design is to me, it's probably the best product that I've played with. And And I, I've played with almost every piece of AI technology you could think about. Claude Claude Design, for me personally, I'm like, this is unlocked so much. Your Your artwork will become exponentially better. I I promise you. Yes.

Yes. I

I just, I worked on a project over, over, over the weekend and I had a very specific design that I, that I wanted to do. And I found, I found like the reference. And And when I tell you, it looks so good that I'm going to make my, I'm going to make my head of design jealous when I show it to them. Uh Because the quality of it is like, cause look, I was the worst guy at making decks on the planet. My team would laugh at me cause I'm like the worst at making decks.

Oh, everyone should be a professional deck maker at this point.

No reason not to. So So it's being able to find the right tools because you may never, you may never touch an AI music production tool, but you might find an AI video editing tool or you might, or video production tool, or you might, the level of video that I would spend a million dollars to make before people are going to be able to shoot that level of video and had that level of video for $40 worth of, worth, worth of tokens, by the way. It's

It's unbelievable. So crazy.

Who, which artists wouldn't want that? And I'm not talking about the AI slot that we see right now for, for video. I'm I'm talking about what we're probably six months away from before before I would have said a couple years, by the way, we're probably six months away from an artist being able to make a high quality $1 million Dave Myers music video. Like Like I, like I love Victoria Monet's music video. She just shot like, I'm like, Oh my God, she brought music videos back. Thank God. God. Dave Myers is one of my favorite music video directors ever. And, And, uh, and you know, the choreography that amazing, but independent artists will have the ability to shoot something like that. And And that's, that's the reality that we're living in. I

I love that for so many reasons, man. So what, what's what's one of your favorite kind of like success, you know, success stories early on so far within co -manager, right? Like an artist used it and, you know, 10 X to their streams or grew their following or this, that, and the third, right? Like, are there any that come to mind? We're

We're getting them every day, you know? So it's like, it's, it's two, it's two types of, um, of, of, of stories and, and, you know, is great. Like we love hearing the story. Cause a lot of people come and say, we, I increased my monthly listeners, you know, uh, my audience grew, you know, like that's fantastic. I I love hearing that. The The ones I really, really love hearing are the stories around strategy or or the stories around, oh my God. Um, I would have never figured out how to do X, Y, Z, or, um, I would have never come up with this idea or similar to you being able to spot, um, that, that 70% of, of, of, uh, uh, downloads. Yeah. A lot of artists discover stuff like that. So So it's like being able to find those little threads to me are, are, are, are the types of wins. You

You know, what's so crazy though, is that like, those are so important. And even like the strategy side of it, like knowing what direction you should be moving in so that then all the tasks associated with like executing against do. But I do think there's a little bit of resistance sometimes for all of us, like me included sometimes to know how important that foundational piece is. Cause Whereas the strategy shit, you know,

artists, I look monthly listeners is bullshit. It's made up. X Spotify says. No, it's bullshit. No, it's not. And I'm, you know, look, it's bullshit. And And reason being is the wrong thing to look at because none of those people know you. For the most part, none of them know you. The The other thing is none of them care about you. They They couldn't care less. You're, You're, you're, you're a, you're a passive song and the background of somebody else's playlist. I don't, we don't know. I don't know who you are. I I don't know who you are. And I'm going to listen to the same playlist in two weeks and you won't be on it. What we tell artists focus on fans. I

I would, I would rather you, I would rather you have 75 fans than 7,500 monthly listeners who don't care. And And who won't, and who, who may not be, who may not be around. I literally would rather you have 75 fans. That's That's an important, that's a way more important metric to me than, than, than 7,500 monthly listeners that, that we made up. Yep.

Yep. I I almost don't want to let Troy go, Henry, but I'm sad to say we've entered a final segment of the podcast. I thought about holding him hostage on this, on this video conference for a few more hours. I've got way more questions.

When you do, when you do your three hour, four hour, Sean, Sean, Ryan, Joe Rogan additions, I'll come back.

We're just going to have you back. We're We're just going to invent that for you, by the way. Yeah. Like, I mean, you got a couple more hours. I'm trying to be respectful of your calendar here, right?

So respectful of my stomach, not the calendar. Yeah. Me too.

I'm, I'm actually selfishly starving, Troy. I I put together a very special edition of the rapid fire rampage. Ben doesn't even know about this. me more, Henry. Troy, you're in a unique position where you're just, your name has come up on this show a bunch of times. We We talk about you, like you're just, you're obviously just such a legend in this shit. And And instead of the usual kind of thing, I'm trying something new here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You literally, this guy has no idea what's I'm hearing this right now for the first time. I I want to play you a few of the times that you have come up on the show and just get your kind of general reaction. This This is fire.

It depends on who's, who, who, who has answered the question.

Uh oh. There's, yeah, I don't know. There's, I got four different people. Well, let's, we'll start with number one. This This is a red push on getting the job at Venice. Um. Um. Yeah, cause Amber co -signed you to get the, uh, the job with Venice, right? For sure. Yeah. A lot of people don't even know that. It was Amber and Toonday, actually. They They both called me and was like, hey, um, Troy's looking for a new A &R from Atlanta. And we told him he need to talk to you. And I was like, oh, shit. At At the time when they first said it, I was like, oh, okay, cool, yeah. I'm gonna look him up. up. And I looked him up. up. I'm like, oh, shit. This is serious business. You know know what I'm saying? Oh, that's the guy. Yeah, Yeah, it was like that. So I was like, okay, cool. guy from Shark Tank. Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Damn, let's do this on Shark Tank. Okay,

Okay, cool. I I love Red Push. And And Amber, Amber to me is one of the smartest marketing people I've worked with. And I have so much respect for her. And, And, you know, although I hire Amber, I consider myself a student of Amber. Because every time she talks, I learn something.

Oh, my God. Professor Grimes, dude.

Professor Grimes. She

She is amazing. And Tunde, I love. So So when they told me hire Red, he was hired before I even did the interview.

See, that's incredible. incredible. I love that. just dropped our second interview with Amber. She's only the fourth person we've ever had on twice. So So also love Amber. And also this next one.

Who is it, Henry?

was just a little extra excited. But has there been a time where you were a little like flirting with the stalker line? And being persistent, I flirted with the stalker line? I mean, mean, you know, professionally speaking, of course. Oh, who have I had the opportunity to? Oh, I got a little stalky with Troy Carter when I wanted that Spotify job. Okay. That's my near stalker story is like literally I was like. I'm not logging into my premium and we just got an ad, folks. Oh, no. I can't believe we got it. Skip. Okay, sorry. This is happening in real time. I was willing to do like anything to get that job. I really wanted it. And so I'm like, okay, cool. Let me find out who the person is. And when I found out it was Troy Carter, I like was very blessed to have like a very close degree of separation. And I had to kind of like stalk a couple of people to get there. So it was multiple stalks. Well, because I had to get to Tuma, who I had like a cool relationship with because I met Tuma a long time ago when he worked at MTV. Because Tuma used to program MTV Jams, such a legend. And I kind of kept our relationship going in a genuine way because I used to give him Reeboks. So like if people come to town, they'd be like, hey, Tuma, like this is Amber that works. She

worked at Reeboks. Yeah, this, by the way, the Red Push was, that was four years ago. We didn't even have the set. Wow. This was our first interview with Amber two years ago. So really diving in the vault here. Wow. You know, the one talent that I think I have, because I don't have a ton. Bullshit. I'm serious. Like there's a few things that I feel like I could do really well. And then I'm mediocre at a bunch of other stuff and then bad at a bunch of stuff. But I try to focus on what I could do really well. I can spot talent really, really well. That's one thing. Like stars, I can spot stars. Amber Amber was a star. So So I've hired a lot of employees over the years. I've hired hundreds and hundreds of employees over the years. I've of employees over the years. I've hired a handful of employees that are stars over the last few, over my career.

Amber's on that list. Like, you know, within a couple of meetings, I'm like, Amber's a star. And And still to this day, you know, just watching her growth, I'm like, okay, I was right. one I got right. Yep.

Yep. She has not let you down so far, Troy. Definitely Definitely got that one right. Yeah. Yeah.

She's brilliant. She's brilliant. This

This next one is legendary independent artist, LaRussell. The didn't even know there was that many Troy Carter references, honestly. Oh, Oh, I've dived. I I dived deep. It helped me, of course. But But I dived deep. And this is like two years ago. Yeah, first time we had him on. He's He's another one of the only four people that we've had on twice. But But this is some advice. I I believe the context was we were asking him if he would ever like take a deal, you know, or consider working with a label because he was Captain Independent. You know, I mean, mean, he still is. And he had this to say. which I feel like has been the issue because it's like I get it. But there is nothing that really works for me. You You know, I had a discussion recently and I was talking to Troy Carter and he was like, there is no amount of money or anything they could give you that's worth your freedom. Like Like just how you move now. Like, man, we've been working with Venice lately. You know, I'm always dropping something.

I'm moving things here. Shit moving here. So So just having to keep up with that. I don't think it exists in this current form. Like what I'm building now is what that is going to look like in the future. It's going to be indie artists who find this company that does this and this company that does this and this one that does this. And we all figure out ways how to split the pie and and kind of he's kind of right. Right. That's That's an interesting one. It's a prediction. You You kind of almost called the current landscape that is developing right in front of our eyes, I think.

Yeah. LaRussell, you know, that conversation that he's referencing, I I remember specifically with like once I like learning about him, sitting down with him, understanding how he's wired. Beyoncé Beyoncé has that song, Break My Soul. You won't break my soul. Russell Russell signing to a label will break his soul because because he's wired a certain way. He has a level of freedom where he puts out music consistently. I've never seen anybody put out as much music as them, by the

Yeah, it's unbelievable, dude. I I saw him make like 10 songs here in the studio. I feel like I got on the spot.

That's where I'm like, I can't keep up. That was like the big thing with us and Russell because I'm like, I don't even know how to do it, by the way. Like Like in terms of it's very hard for me. My My system doesn't work with his system. He has his own system. His His system works for him. So So keep your system working and let other people have to adapt to your system or or build a system of your own. You know that like so if he should build his own distribution system like like for artists like him, you know, and build platforms for artists like you and create consumption habits for fans where fans want that volume of music on a regular basis from artists. Where they want to binge is is almost like binge watching binge listening.

But, you know, he's a guy who has his own system. And I just felt like it would break his soul if he went into a structure that didn't work for him.

Yeah. Sounds like he got some good advice. Oh,

Oh, man. This

This last one is. I love this, by the way. Thank you. We're going to talk about it. But like something custom for every guest at the end. Well, Well, Troy Carter gets custom. We'll talk about it. Okay. Okay. You're right. You're right. It It is. It is TC. So So this last one is a two -parter. This comes comes from your very own VP of marketing, Shawna Peasy, who we had on the show. I'm going to start with the first part and just get your reaction here. Participate in a dance battle or a rap battle? Rap Rap battle. Organic growth or paid ads? I think I know the answer. Organic Organic growth. Babysitting your kids, Iggy Azalea or Troy Carter? Troy. Troy. Hey, Hey, Gardens. Gardens. I was just saying. Great dad. Great dad. That's so good. Do you still garden? You

You still a gardener? Every Every day. Wow.

Wow.

Every day between my garden, my chickens, and you know. It's where I find my peace. Sorry. It's where I

Yeah. Sorry, Iggy. Iggy.

Sorry, Sorry, Iggy. Counterbalance to technology. Nature is my counterbalance to technology.

I love that.

technology. Nature is my counterbalance to technology. I love that. I love that. Just to put it in perspective, I wake up. I go swimming in the ocean. Sauna. Go to my garden. Then come to my computer. I'm in front of this computer all day. Right here, going to my garden. Then get something to eat. Feed my chickens. Then get something to eat.

Troy's living my dream life. Did you hear me? Ocean. Relax. So good. I just added plants. Computer for eight hours to hours. 12 hour stretch. No problem.

I got ahead at balance.

Yes. Excellent.

Excellent. Then I'm just going to press play. It keeps going. Here, there's a part two. Wow. Wow. Burnout or boredom? Burnout. Burnout. AirPods in or speakers blasting? Speakers Speakers blasting. Small Small cap venue, headlining tour, or primetime festival slot? Small Small time. What's up? Venice or United Masters? Come Come on, man. Come Come on, man. Steve Stout. Shout out to the gang. We'd love to have you on the podcast. Come on. No, Troy Carter. We'd love to have you on the podcast. first post -obey. We did it. And And we did it. And And we did it, man. Just to wrap it all up. Wow. I wanted to do something. Just because no other show can do this. this. Anyone could ask some real questions, but we've had them on. I love that, man. something kind of special. For manifested this, Troy, so thank you again so much for coming on.

This is a pleasure. And you guys are so smart. And I love what you guys are doing. And continue to do it. And I'm here to support. Hell Hell yeah, man. Until next week, what are we doing?

Getting out of here, man. Getting out of here. Peace, Peace, y'all. Well,ленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленленлен