Viral Music Marketer: The Mistakes Keeping Talented Artists Invisible ft. Junior Makame

reason why most upcoming artists are completely invisible on social media... You wanna know it? Let's go, Junior! There's A and there's B, you're at A, no one knows you, there's B, everyone knows you, how how do you get there? At Rapville, we manage 200 plus artist accounts. We're posting thousands of videos a month to see what's going viral. If If you've been stuck at 200 views for a long time and you've been consistent, just look for these no -goes. Probably Probably the biggest sins of social media. Okay. Stop marketing your music. Market the moment. Market the emotion. That's how you market anything in the world. God, he's good. If If you just want views, just buy bots. People People are like, oh, just clip the music video. Yeah. Yeah. Who are you? I paid thousands for this. Who Who are you? you? I'll add a text hook on it. Text hook won't save you. No! Go to Instagram and play your video on mute. Tell me me the emotion that it shows. Wow. Wow. The The mute text. And everyone's on mute anyway. Okay, Okay, controversial question. Okay. Okay. Should Should they be changing the lyrics or changing their songs to work on social media? Oh, no!

Junior, don't do it. Don't f***ing do it, Junior.

Real quick before we get started because this is the biggest giveaway we've ever done and it's not close. close. Junior and Rapville have agreed to give two of you free content shoots valued at $5,000 each. And And the best part is you don't have to go anywhere. Their Their production team flies out to you and gets it done. This is the same team behind G-Eazy, Fetty Wap, Eric Bellinger, currently pulling 200 million views a month across their artist accounts. It It can be any song, released, unreleased, doesn't matter. Just Just go to onemoretime.fm slash shoot to submit your song because you only have seven days from the release of this episode, at which point we're going to pick our winners. So So best of luck to you. Let's Let's get into this episode.

Well, I'll tell you, the reason why most upcoming artists are completely invisible on social media and and in the grand scheme of building a fan base, the reason why most are invisible right now is because they're just battling with gravity. They They are so mad that the way to be an artist is no longer to have the correct vocals. They have not accepted this. Therefore, all of their actions in order to be a successful artist are driven towards someone who's a successful SoundCloud rapper. Someone that focuses on building in the bedroom, who doesn't get outside, doesn't create content, doesn't put their name out there because they're not happy with the fact that that is the new reality that we live in. The The second reason is most artists try and do it themselves as if they were born with the skill of marketing. Most artists have a production team. I mean, you're a producer, right, Henry? Most Most people hire a producer, hire a mixer, master. Why Why is that? Because

Because they're skilled at what they do. Exactly.

Exactly. They, someone else trained at this thing and they've accepted, I'm I'm not an expert because I, well, I wasn't born an expert. I'm I'm great at singing. I'm great at rapping. I'm great at writing bars, but maybe I'm not so great at producing. Why Why is it that the best musicians in the world, some of their biggest hits weren't written by them. They They gave away this sense of responsibility to somebody else who was more skilled at them at this specific thing. But But for some reason, that mindset, that psychology doesn't really translate over to music marketing or content. Cause like, oh, it's just content. You You know, how, how can there be a skill behind it? How How can there be intelligence by somebody else? So let me just keep doing this all by myself. Okay.

Okay. So you think that they don't take the same like investment approach that they do with some of the like music making stuff. Like they know they got to pay the engineer to record it. They know they got to pay the engineer to mix it and master it. it. They know they got to pay the producer for the beat, whatever. They They don't necessarily take that same approach to the actual, like how the shit gets heard, which is, It's a pretty big piece. we know know tons of music that has been like recorded on fucking like iPhone mics, like wired iPhone, you know, mics. like iPhone mics, like wired iPhone, you know, mics. I mean, Arden Jones had millions of streams, millions and millions, like, I think like 30 million streams on a song that he recorded on a - It's insanity. Yeah. Yeah. It

It doesn't make sense. And what's interesting is they separate content into a few different fields. Like YouTube content is music videos.

Yeah.

Short film content is short film content. They'll They'll hire a videographer. They'll hire the creative director. They'll spend thousands of dollars to make this music video look incredible. But But when it comes to content, oh, just because the reasons for content to go viral are the hooks, the psychology, the trends, the cinematicness of the content. They don't try and invest into that, but they will invest into music video to make it look all those other things just miss out the hook, miss out the fact that it's short form content. It It just doesn't make sense that people haven't accepted this yet. I'm

I'm just thinking of the plight of the independent artists though, man. I'm I'm hearing some of them screaming at their phones right now. It's It's like, they're doing so many jobs. It's It's like, how, how do you navigate? Like what, how do you split up all these different things that, unless you have either the budget or you have the time to learn the skills to do these things, you know, how how do we know?

There is always budget. Well,

Well, and I think what his point is, and I actually haven't surprisingly, I haven't given this as much thought as I think I probably should have, is that like they're spending in the wrong places. Maybe. Yeah. Like they, they are still getting the fucking music videos, bro. You You don't need a music video. Exactly. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I think it's, it's just a mindset shift that hasn't really happened. You

You don't even need another song. Oh,

Oh, okay. You

You have, if songs out, let's exploit the catalog kind of deal. You don't

don't even need another song.

song. Okay. Okay. What

Most people's excuse to not creating content and not marketing and not building a fan base is I just need another song. So So I'm going to keep investing in the mixing and mastering of another song, more studio sessions for another song, but but you haven't even created 20 pieces of content for your last release.

Oh, they're giving it up. Big one. Exactly. Okay.

Okay. People are like, oh, I'm not even spending on music videos because because I understand that content's the investment. So why are we still spending on songs and saying you can't invest in content?

Especially nowadays when songs are blowing up and people don't even know when they were released. Like Like in my opinion, release dates and, you know, rollouts, I think are still important, but like, you know, you get these old songs. Catching brand new winds blowing up like they never have before. People People don't really care when a song came out. If it's like, if it's fire to them right now, it's fire to them right now, but they're not going to know it's fire to them right now, unless they maybe scroll on a TikTok and hear it or something.

just did content for G -Easy. Same exact thing. A A song from like the 2000s and whenever I was born, that that song went super viral. It's called Trap Queen, I believe.

Okay. Is

Is it called Trap Queen or or is that Fetty Wap?

That's a Fetty Wap song. Fetty Fetty Wap. Well,

Well, we did Fetty Wap as well.

Same thing.

Trap Queen's going viral right now.

Yeah. But

But who cares when it came out?

Yeah. It's

It's just a movement.

Yeah. It's It's a fashion sense. It's

It's a world that they've already got built around it.

Yeah. It's

It's just reminding people of that world and people will still share that sense because, well, psychology has been the same since we were created as human beings.

Yeah, for sure. Well guys, we got Junior from Rapville on the podcast. They They are the biggest viral content production agency for musicians. They're They're doing what, like a hundred shoots a month. Yeah. Yeah. 200 million views for their clients in the last 30 days. I mean, you guys are global in every fricking continent. I I feel, I mean, they might be doing an Antarctica shoot right now.

know. There's some shoots going on right now.

Yeah. But, um... Well, it's crazy. We

We did have someone get stuck in the un -talk together. Not because we were filming that though. Okay.

Okay. One One of our strategists. Okay. One of our strategists. Oh my God. Okay. One of our strategists. Oh my God. Okay. Okay. Well, see, I wasn't in line. You One of our strategists. Oh my God. Okay. Well, see, I wasn't in line. You should have had a better strategy for that plan, my boy. But no, I mean, I just think like everyone hears how important it is to post content. Everyone's obviously like trying their hardest, I feel like, to go viral because they're seeing people go viral left and right. They're They're seeing artists have their viral moments, songs popping off. They're like, why can't I do that? Why isn't it me? So, So, you know, you kind of alluded to like some of the artists that aren't posting consistent enough. They're not investing, whatever. But But I'm not going to lie, I think there's a different bucket of artists that I know who are like posting consistently. Okay. Okay. They're trying to think about the world that they're trying to build, but they're still not hitting. Mm Mm -hmm. Like their shit's still not moving like numbers wise. Right? So So for an artist like that, you know, you've audited a ton of artists and looked at people's pages and I think you have a good idea. Like, Like, well, you know, what do you think is going on with those artists? Mm Mm -hmm. Like what are some of the most common things that you would find on their pages that they're doing wrong?

Let me explain it like this. Here

Here are the no -go's that artists need to watch out for on their page right now. Okay. Like if you've been stuck at 200 views for a long time and you've been consistent, Yeah. Just look for these no -go's. Okay. Okay. If you're doing these things, there's a reason why you're not growing. Mm The first no -go out of the three that I, that I have is probably the biggest sins of social media. Okay.

Okay. The

The first sin is you're just copying videos from other people. Mm -hmm. Your music is unique, right? right? If I told you, oh, your music's not unique, you probably punched me in the face. Mm -hmm. Because Because your music is unique. You have a unique story. You have a unique way of creating it, of creating the beat. It's It's unique to you. So So why are we copying videos from everybody else? Why Why are we not building things into your own, into your own brand, right? your own, into your own brand, right? Look at the way you make music. You find inspiration, you make something of your own. You You don't copy and paste or else you probably get taken to court for that. Well, Well, it's the same way for social media.

Where's the line for finding inspiration from something and adopting it? it? Maybe like stealing like an artist. Cause Cause I do that in music. I've done that in content myself, you know?

Yeah. I

I can still make it mine, but you know, I think there's some value in trends. Like Like I see if a trend inspires me to do something that's like for me, how do you look at that balance? Well,

Well, I see copying as a copy and remix. So So copying alone is stupid. Got it. But copying and remixing works.

Okay.

Because copying alone means you've forgotten why content even goes viral in the first place. If If you're aiming for a few hundred views, please copy. But But that's not viral. You want to go viral? We're talking five, 10, 50 million views on a video. How How do you get that? It's by copying and remixing. Meaning it has to be unique. Because Because the only reason things go viral on social media is if it's unique. Mm -hmm. You watch something as a video because it's like, I want to see what's going to happen next. The The only reason you stay and watch a video, this is the algorithm. They, it shows you a video and you have a choice within the first three to five seconds, because that's how long it takes for you to get bored, for you to either scroll or keep watching. That's That's your choice as a viewer. Meaning how do you get someone to stay? You You get them to be interested in watching the entire video. You You make it enticing enough with enough curiosity, with enough entertainment and dopamine that someone stays and watches the entirety of the video. And that's how you go viral. Meaning Meaning if you just copy something, someone's already seen it before. How is that going to make me curious? The equation doesn't work. So So it has to be copied and remixed based on what's relevant to you.

And that's very important for conversing into streams as well, because because that's what's actually world, that's, that's world building at the end of the day. All right. The The second sin, if you don't want to go deeper on that one.

No, no, no, let's go. All All right. I was about to get you back to the sin. I was like, don't let, don't mess up him cooking, bro. On the sin. I like the sin.

I'm a butt in if I got a bit. You

You butt out. The three sins of social media. Yeah. Get Get the behind me about social media. This

This is going to be a clip.

Preacher Junior is here to tell you how you're going to music hell. Absolutely. Content hell. Can I get the praise in this place? Come on, everybody. Amen. Amen. Amen, Junior. Hey,

Hey, man.

Okay. Back to reality. All right. The

The second sin that I see a lot is being worried about a video's performance and then deleting it. You'd You'd be surprised how many people just be archiving posts. Do

Do you ever delete videos? No.

No.

Yeah. I don't. It's data. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And

And things sometimes pop off weeks later.

Facts. We've had it happen. It could happen to y'all.

100%. So how, how, how, how can you be more worried about how a few people perceive you when they never, no one, no one's seen you essentially compared to this video actually cooking or even this video teaching you something about your own algorithm around your own target audience. Because Because that's what it is. Every Every single video is just more content to give you more data so you can make better decisions. If If you want to post more bangers, post a lot of crap and find the one banger and do it more times. That That is a great strategy, but but most artists won't do it because they're worried about how other people will perceive them. And that's, that's the sin. And And it stems from just ego. Um, Um, the, the third sin I'd say is you don't actually know why a video went viral. So you don't know what to copy. Wait,

Wait, you don't even know know most people. Okay. I Okay. I was like, what the fuck? So is this your whole, is this why you flew here? To

To some degree, nobody knows.

To some, to some degree. I thought that was the premise of this whole conversation. degree. I thought that was the premise of this whole conversation. I was like, well, we should end it now.

I mean, I won't lie. I will get to that in the, in the idea that I would, I might tell you that, you know what? I don't know if this video is going to go viral.

You can't guarantee it. I

I can have great feeling.

Yeah.

And I can test the heck out of it. Okay.

Okay. I'll

I'll tell you that in a second.

Yeah.

All right. That's going to be saucy. Okay.

Okay. Good. Yeah. When

When I tell you how much volume I can output in a month to know if something's going to work. Oh

God, I love it. It's It's incredible. So

So firstly, this back to the sin. Yeah. Yeah. They try and copy something without actually taking the principles. So So even if I tell you to copy and remix something, which is, you know, our phrase here at Rapville, it's that ethos. It's It's like, you can copy the video and think you're remixing the right points, but forget everything that helped that video go viral. Oh,

okay.

All right. So So let's say it's a video, which is, you know, you've all seen the video of probably a TV transition. Yeah. All right. Where someone stands in front of a TV and then they cut to them actually performing inside the location that was on the TV.

Oh, we interviewed citizen. He, He, I don't know if he invented it, but he's great. I wanted maybe the most viral version of that. We

We actually had a more viral video.

Really? Than his? But

But he created the format. At least he stole it from somewhere. Yeah. Which is great because it was inspired from probably somewhere in cinematography, one of these trends, and then he used it for music marketing. And And we then amplified that. that. And it turned out one of our videos got more views. Uh, Uh, we actually got 150 million views on one video doing this stupid little TV transition.

Holy shit. So, wow.

But see, someone can copy that video, stand in front of a TV and forget that the reason it goes viral is that there's a camera in frame, which shows that this is actually someone filming the person in the TV.

The BTS element of it. Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And you'll be surprised how many people don't get that. They'll just get them standing in front of a TV with someone like carrying a phone for example. But it's not obvious enough that it's a camera that someone's actually filming. And And then also the extra elements you add so the TV is actually enticing. Like Like for example, uh, well, this is a really important one, but the movement match cut between the two shots. Most Most people stand in front of the TV then end up in a completely different position in the actual shot. What's What's most satisfying is when someone spins around in the hook and also in the transition.

Yes.

And they don't think about filming this because they're like, oh, the whole point of the video was just to record in front of a TV. They've forgotten the reason it goes viral is because someone is seamlessly transitions from a phone video to a high quality shot. And And that's what gets the brain to question. Was this even real? When we did this for Eric Bellinger, we had him spinning on a chair. And then in the second shot, we had the cameraman running around him. All

All right. So

So we had this like orbit effect going on and it matched cut with him in front of the TV on a chair being spun around by a girl. That's That's just like, no one would know why that went viral and then go ahead and miss most of the elements. Wow.

Wow.

So they'll just copy what they think, but they'll forget to remix what's actually important. Okay.

Okay.

The shit is deep.

It does get deep. Okay. So you kind of hinted at like the testing process because, you know, we talk a lot about it in theory. You You should use trial reels. reels. I don't know, but I don't think. Alter count. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. But I I don't think that we've gotten like the real sauce and and you were like smiling and smirk. And so so like, I hope that you've got it, bro. Cause Cause we need it because, you know, people hear that information and I don't think that they have any like actionable ways to put this in practice. Right. Like, because to your point, you know, the testing and the data is so important. Yeah. You know, to know what works, right. right. And to double down on it and to be able to figure out why something went viral to then replicate it. Right. I

I hate to say this. Yeah. But the But the way to create viral videos through testing, if you want to figure out what goes viral through testing, it's, it's really hard. No, as in like, I wish I could put this in an actionable framework for musicians and be like, you can test this way. And And don't get me wrong. Trial reels is a way to do that where you can test different hooks for the same video. Like, say you're really confident about a short form video and it didn't go viral. You can test 10 different variations, different text hooks. This This is what we do across all of our artists accounts. But the reason why I can't make this actionable to the level that I want it to actually help somebody is because we just have an extremely unfair advantage. Which Which is? At Rapville, we manage 200 plus artist accounts.

So you've aggregated all the data.

Posting 15 videos a month. Sure.

Sure. We're

We're posting thousands of videos a month to see what's going viral. We'll We'll take the best performers from different genres and we'll apply them to yours. So you seem like the first person to do it. Meaning your video is going to get the most views compared to somebody else. If If you're the first mover, you usually get the benefits of that. If If you're the first person to post a certain format in your niche, in your genre, you will break through bigger than most people. But how are you meant to do that as an artist who's just got your own account and your own genre? So So I will say that's kind of unfair that we can post 2000 times, see what goes viral and then just tell you what to post. Can

Can you give them like a mini version of it? Maybe like some kind of science experiment. They can just at least be making just trial reels really, but

but it's and research. Yeah,

Yeah, you could. That's what I was going to say. It's like you could research. Yeah. Yeah. And cause you're doing, you're doing research within your own like client base. We're leading the research. Oh, Oh, exactly. We

We don't research. We create.

Oh,

that makes sense.

but once you've seen the bandwagon, you're already too late. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that true? is. Cause that's something people ask too.

you're falling. You're You're at the ending of the battle. Okay.

true? It is. Cause that's something people ask too. You're going, you're, you're falling. You're at the ending of the battle. Okay.

You can maybe catch the, like the last little, because like the whole rope thing. Once Once you see it, the guy, the rope,

you've seen it in your genre. It's already been seen by your target audience.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Such another genres though. Now you're on a cheat code. See,

See, well, that's what that's what citizen did. I was going to say, I think it was citizen who talked about like stealing from film, taking things from other niches that are just not music related at all. Yeah. Yeah. Like Like looking at maybe fitness pages or cooking pages, whatever.

Video games.

Yeah.

Maybe you have some research accounts that only follow accounts in those niches and see what like the most viral posts in those kind of areas and see how you can apply them to your, that's kind of, that's kind of some sauce. You need some serious output and some serious speed to make that happen. Yeah.

Yeah. Like

Like it is no joke that in order to push content out at speed at a high quality, if you're copying cinema like citizen, then how are you going to do that? If you just got your phone and you're not willing to actually get a team who's behind you.

Yeah. So citizen is like a director of he's a priest. He He does this. He's a beast.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So like we asked this question a lot. I mean, how many pieces of content do you think is like what you should be posting for every release? release? Because I think you have like a minimum for your clients. Yeah. Yeah. We just have people on here share different figures and like everyone's always, everyone's always asking us this question. Yeah. How many posts do I need for this new song? I

I had to take a break from today's episode guys, because I'm terrified that too many of you are not collecting all the royalties that you're owed. It's It's hard enough to make a dollar and you guys are leaving money on the table.

Unlike your master royalties that are generated when you upload through your distributor, publishing royalties do not get collected by default. Could

Could you hypothetically register your song with hundreds of collection societies around the world? Yes, do not get collected by default. Could you hypothetically register your song with hundreds of collection societies around the world? Yes, but ain't nobody got time for that. That's why a pub admin like KOSIGN, the sponsor of today's episode, is extremely beneficial to make sure that you get every single dollar that you're owed on the publishing side of the house. KOSIGN is backed by the fourth largest music publisher in the world. So

So they have an absolute beast of a machine supporting you to make sure that you get every dollar that you're owed. They're They're selective with who they work with. That way they can provide the best customer experience possible for their clients. But But it's free to apply. So there's absolutely nothing to lose. The The link's in the description. Now let's get back to the episode. Well,

Well, if you're in, it depends what stage you are in your artistry as well. Like Like if I say there's like three stages of being an artist, it's like zero to one. You have have no fan base. Nobody knows you. You You have never gone viral and you're not going viral. I assume post a lot, I

I assume at that stage.

Post a lot of that stage and try different styles of content, different formats as we call it. People People call them hooks, formats. I like the authentic style of content. It means you can post a lot of output with just your phone mixed with a high quality style of content. High High quality videos always do 15 minimum per release. High quality videos. I'm I'm talking videos where you've really thought about the location, the story, the background, the characters in this world that you're building and then go and create those. And And then for the authentic stuff, well, you know, there's a ton of strategies you can do, which are super authentic. And And you want to be posting 30, 60 times for a song realistically, if you're at this stage. Okay. And you want to give it six weeks realistically. Um, Um, I will, I will talk about my ethos to breaking an artist in a minute though, because that's great for views of social media, but there's a level ahead of it, which most social media artists can't talk about because that's only what you realize. This is only the information you realize when you speak to people who blew up before social media. And there's a different level of audience after that. You've

You've seen it probably, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm

I'm not going to mention names, but there's a lot of social media artists. They've got so many views in those streams. And you realize why, when you speak to people like Fetty Wap, like Fivio Foreign, like G-Eazy, guys that really took off before social media was the biggest thing around. If you're at the next stage, which is sort of one to two, this is where you're getting views. This This is where you got viral results, but you're not getting streams yet. You haven't haven't got a fan base, but you've got people that can comment and around you a little bit. They They know that you make cool videos and you have good music, but they haven't taken a massive action to go stream it and become a real fan. And then definitely not going to pay for any merchandise. And they're definitely not going to turn up 20 shows. And And then sort of two to three is the final stage. This is where you're like Katy Perry. All right. This This is where you've got a fan base. You can turn up to a concert and you can sell out the tickets. Now at each stage though, it's different content and it's different pages that you post on. From zero to one, it's all your account. You You need to figure out how to get your footprint on the world. No one has ever seen your face before on this planet, on social media. Yeah. Just your friends and family.

family. So you've got to break forth and you definitely don't want to just get a viral song without blowing up your own account because that would just make the song go viral and you can't go viral. Fan bases are built around people, not songs. Songs Songs aren't timeless really. It's It's the people that are almost timeless. People People want to be around those people, at least in today's day and age. All right. And then you've got one to two, which is this level of, once again, people that have got the views, hammer the views even more, but not just viral, viral content. Don't Don't just go for that sort of top of funnel content that goes viral. Aim for that bottom of funnel and middle of funnel content where people can start to know a bit more about your personality, where you've got a community off platform where you can start building them off. It's It's a different strategy than just top of funnel, viral content. Before Before it was about getting views and making a footprint, you've got your footprint. The more you just get views, the less you get close to the actual goal, which is building a true fan base. Because Because you get a lot of one -time people that you could just get from running ads. It's like almost, there's no point of creating another viral video of putting all that effort in because it's not helping the actual goal. It's

It's just helping you get some views. And And at this stage, of course, you want to be getting streams. And this is why you won't just create top of funnel views, view content. And And the final stage, two to three, don't post content on your own account. Be Be a bit more mysterious. Do Do streaming, do fan pages, do UGC campaigns, do viral songs. Because Because at that stage, you post too much on your own account. And to be honest, it kind of takes away from how special you are as an artist. People People want to scream when they see you. They They don't want to be like, yo, bro. Because if they know so much about you, well, then where's the excitement to turn up to the concert anymore? Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think about Alex Warren? He He seems to be a guy that, he's kind of the bro. And he's massive.

Have you seen him just like injuring himself?

it's amazing.

So fucking funny. He

He might just be like a weird exception, I guess. I I don't know. I

I think there's always exceptions to this game.

Absolutely. Because I agree when you're that level.

Most Most artists that level as well don't want to be posting too much. So So I just be like, you know what? There's There's definitely a way you can keep your fan base active. Like look at Drake.

Like Like he posts content, but he doesn't post content if you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's the best way. Yeah. Somehow.

That made total sense to me. Just

like him just driving a like sick boat, you you know? It's kind of not him, but it's him. You know know? It's kind of not him, but it's him. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like it's a strategy that he definitely thought about, but it's not him making the video. Yeah. No, that's interesting. So, So, you know, you kind of hinted at like texts and, you know, or sorry, hooks and formats, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is something you guys post a lot about on your, on your Instagram page. And I love it. Like, it's so helpful. Thank you for what you're doing for the artist community. community. Cause like, we just featured it in a carousel. Yeah. Cause every

every independent artist must follow this account. Because

Because I think it gives people an opportunity who are really struggling with this shit to again, like you're doing the research for them basically. Right. It's like, I could go watch a bunch of videos and like, we've even done this like manually with like other products we released where like, we're giving you viral content ideas or hooks or whatever. But like the way you guys presented is great. So what are some hooks or formats that used to work that just are dead now? We're

We're not doing the rope anymore. Right. It's the the rope attached to the ankle with the car driving away. We're not doing that anymore, guys. Stop Stop it. Stop Stop it with the rope. Please stop. Please.

Please don't hide yourself. God, we know it's cut. We

We know you're not about to get yanked off that goddamn chair, bro.

you so riled up about that? You're not fooling anyone. I'm

I'm just sick of the rope. He

He was probably hooked 15 times. times. He's like, no way. No way.

It's good. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just exactly what he's talking about.

People don't like you missed it.

Oh, okay. Damn. Anything else you have to add about the rope?

No, I'm I want to get the answer. Okay.

Okay. So which ones, which ones are dead in 2026 and which ones are like thriving right now? And it might even be too late. Which Which ones do you think are about to blow up or something? I don't don't know. I

I just made the song of the summer. I

I was like years ago. That That was like Tic Tac 2020. It's

It's dead. Okay. It's dead. Okay. It's dead.

Unless everyone stops doing it. Someone does it again. True.

True. Yeah. That That is the funny thing about trends and culture. I'm telling everyone

everyone on the internet, don't do it so we can do it. Yeah.

Okay. But that's the song of the summer. telling everyone on the internet, don't do it so we can do it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But that's the song of the summer. Yeah.

Um, if you like Bruno Mars and Drake put together, you'll love this.

I kind of like that one. I, yeah, I know, but it's not, it's not working anymore.

Sorry, bud. I'm

I'm not an artist. That's

That's fine. with the rope.

if you make that, I'll watch. The

The Snapchat method when executed incorrectly. Okay.

Okay.

It just looks cringe.

Yeah.

It looks cringe nowadays. It's doing too much. Whenever

Whenever I see the bar, the black bar with the text, I, I, I at least know. Spam filter. I know. know. I'm like, you're, you're going to trick me. This is going to turn into something. I'm I'm like, Oh, kind of over that one myself, but I might not be all people. I don't know. I

I think it's dying quickly because artists are making the mistake of just doing it.

it. Copying it. Yeah. Doing it is so wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. How do you do it wrong? How do you do it right? Oh,

Oh, please.

I love this. Let's Let's go. I

I love this. So

So many people do the Snapchat method wrong, but when we've done it right, it's got millions of views and and it's usually because of these two different things. Okay.

Okay. It's

It's got to be real. All All right. Most Most people, of course, it's not going to be real. You're You're not going to actually have someone standing on a ladder filmed from an airplane like citizen. You're You're not actually going to have a train coming and you stepping on the train tracks. You You know, it's not actually going to be that real, but you can make it look real. Okay.

Okay.

So most people will be sat in a studio trying to do a Snapchat hook. You're You're in a studio.

Yeah.

Isn't the whole point of a Snapchat hook to be from the POV of a bystander? Mm Meaning how are you doing it in the same studio? Why Why not on the street? And And when you're on the street, why do we not hear the sound effects of being on a street? Why Why do we only hear your song from the beginning of the video? It's It's meant to be real. It's meant to transition from, to, in an authentic way that looks legit.

It's meant to, it's gotta look shitty at first.

Exactly.

It's gotta look like bad. bad. Like someone just pulled out their phone and - It's got to be shocking as well. Right. Right.

The whole point of filming something with Snapchat is I'm from the POV of the bystander, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Why

Why am I taking all this energy to take out? I I don't even like people.

I'm pulling out my phone and I'm filming this person doing something. You

You wouldn't do that to anybody. You'd probably get beaten up if you did this to everybody. The The reason you do it is because, wow, something's shocking. I I need to show all my friends this because because this is insane. Like, is this about to happen?

Yeah. It's like, I just saw a video of someone doing that to a guy like fricking using the N word or something on an airplane, like flight and they had to like duct tape him down. Like literally, I was like, that's when you would pull out your phone because it's like, holy shit, what's happening right now? Exactly. makes sense. That makes sense.

So most people do the Snapchat method with them on a piano in school or something. Like, well, how is that? How

How is that? Holy moly moment.

Yeah. Unless you're just like you're dressed as a random character or something or the piano's on fire, then maybe something interesting there.

Have you tried the, tried the ring camera? Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a good version of that, right? That's

That's pretty interesting if done correctly.

Confrontational moment happens on the front porch.

You know what the problem is? Artist acting is the worst.

They're not great actors. It's trash, dude. even, you know, shout out to Connor Price and Graham, right? Yeah. They have this new like four song EP, but but like great, like Connor Price is an actor.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like he's an actor.

He gets it. But

Graham and some of the supporting cast and some of the videos, like, I hope you'll still do the pod, Connor. I've been, we've been coordinating it, whatever. But But just like, I agree that it's not their, it's not their like forte. I just

keep hearing like, dude, you guys are insane. We want to be artists. You need to be marketers. You need to be business people. Now you have to be actors. You have to do, I know you guys just want to make music. Or

Or it's more like, if you're going to do this, it has to be done right. It

It has to be done right.

music. Or it's more like, if you're going to do this, it has to be done right. It has to be done right. Yeah. Just don't do it if you're not going to do it right. Maybe, right? I mean. Change your title.

Do you want to be an artist or do you want to be a SoundCloud rapper?

Choose. Do

Do you want to be a bedroom artist or do you want to be an artist? Which lifestyle do you choose? Choose the SoundCloud bedroom artist and you'll just make music for yourself, your friends, family, maybe some elderly people on the road. But But if you're actually making music for the, if you're actually trying to be an artist, trying to live that lifestyle, trying to get on stage and perform and get everyone screaming your song with tears, then how do you get there? There's A and there's B. You're at A. No one knows you. There's B. Everyone knows you. How How do you get there?

Try and get there, dude.

You got to put in the work. Okay.

Okay. And I want to unpack this, but I want to get back to what are the ones that are working now? The text, the sorry, the hooks in the formats.

Yeah. So Snapchat hook. Or

Or if there's any more that are dead.

Snapchat hook will always work. Always. Always. When done right. When done correctly. As is everything. Good Good songs will work if made correctly. Okay. Okay. Like this isn't an anomaly. This This is the truth of the universe. This is like the formula of life. Okay.

Okay.

You know, a good haircut is a good haircut.

Yeah. And Henry hasn't seen one in a while.

while. Sometimes stuff goes out of style though. I feel like, you know, like now it's skinny jeans. Now it's baggy jeans. Now skinny jeans again. Sure.

Sure. I think the psychology is though that there's, that you're creating a video that doesn't look like music marketing, but it looks like something shocking going on relevant to your song. Right. And it's emotion. Right. And then transitioning to something like we did a video with this Hungarian artist. She had, had, she had literally a hundred followers on TikTok when she came on board. And her first video took her to over a thousand followers. All right. And that's great because a thousand is usually the hardest, the hardest to get past.

Yeah. Road to a thousand. Most accounts are like getting 200 views.

Like you're not, you're just going to be there for a very long time. Yeah. We did it in one video. And the way we did it was we did a Snapchat video aligned to the emotion of her song. Her Her song was about her friend getting abused by her boyfriend. So her coming to the house and like beating up the guy.

Oh, whoa. That was the story behind the song. Hell yeah. So

So what did we do? Snapchat Snapchat hook of this crazy Hungarian woman beating a door, smashing it. The door opening her, running inside, getting thrown on the floor, transition sideways to the camera angle and performing the song. Woo.

Woo. Whoa.

Whoa.

I got chills. Damn.

Damn. He really does. He does this. You get chills really often, honestly, on the podcast.

That shit hit, man. Yeah. Yeah. He's, it's like, you got to create this world around it.

It made sense. People commented in the video broke, you know, hundreds of thousands of views. Wow.

Wow.

Just like that. just because for an artist, nobody knew. Yeah. Yeah. Because everything made sense. The Snapchat hook was shocking because the Snapchat text, guess this. What

What is it? Uh,

Uh, this is why you don't piss off a Hungarian girl. Oh.

Oh. All right. So if you're Hungarian or you know a Hungarian. Yeah. I feel like I would, that would get me even. Yeah.

I don't even, I don't even know a Hungarian.

want to know. What are Hungarian girls? Exactly. Now actually. We all need they have a thing? I

I want to know. Yeah. Yeah. Are they scary? I

I know. Yeah. I I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's specific enough where it's like, yeah. Okay.

Exactly. And

And then transition into obviously the song, which is, it just made sense. Yeah. And it works really well. well. So the Snapchat method will always work.

Okay. What else is working?

working? Transitions in general. Just our fire.

Transitions a hundred percent.

Yeah.

Because it's just, it's just a psychology. You You want to go viral? Stop marketing your music. Market the moment. Market the emotion. That's how you market anything in the world. So why are we just trying to put the products in people's faces? Say, eat this product. Nobody sells something like that. I like that. I do not show you a car and sell you a car with just a picture of the car telling you to buy this car. You sell lifestyle. You

You sell lifestyle.

I'm going to show you all the girls looking at you and be like, Ooh, what's that?

I'm going to show you how it turns around the curve and you just hit the... Yeah. It's like, if it's like an SUV, they're like going through mountains and through fucking rivers and valleys. It's a lifestyle. It's It's a feeling. What's

What's the point of your song? What What is the feeling that comes with buying your product as a musician?

See, well, that's the thing they don't answer. They don't answer that question enough. They won't.

Dude, the amount of artists where I ask them even just, what is your song about? They can't. That they can't answer. Guys. Guys. What's the feeling? We

We got to do better there. Cause Cause I think that unlocks everything.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that unlocks the world you want to build, the type of content you want to make, the text hooks, the visual hooks, the audio, all of it. Right? The The songs, the writing of the songs. I mean, the product itself. Uh, Uh, like dude, that's a big question. The

The core of everything is how do I affect my consumers and how do I actually intentionally show them this is who I am. And that will change everything. The The music you make will be different. The content you make will be different and all will be aligned to actually help someone feel something when they consume your product or else there's no point of your product. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think people were like nervous to get locked in or something? Or like, why do you think that's such a difficult, like exercise for artists? Well,

Well, because they, they, they deep it too much.

It's just too, they think on too deep of a level where they're like, Oh, I need to rethink my entire artist brand. I've

I've got no brand. Brand Brand is really easy. Your brand is in your song that you made already. There There is an emotion in the song you've made already. Likely, unless you're like a, you know, a trap rap who's talking about booty cheeks and bottles in the club.

Hey,

that's a feeling.

feeling. That's a feeling. I just got a feeling. I felt something. That's a feeling. Calm down, Henry. Calm down, Henry. But you get what I'm saying.

Every song has a feeling. And if not the whole song, maybe having one congruent feeling, choose choose the 25, 30 second snippet and decide what feeling is in that snippet. Yeah.

Yeah.

What's the beat cadence? What's the emotion? What are you saying? What are the lyrics? And let's make it all congruent. We We have a really easy way that I teach new people who come on board to rap, Phil. You know, whenever I hire someone, because we're a team of 40 people, I'm always training people to become as best, as good as I am. We follow something called the HLEV framework. All right. right. HLEV stands for this. H is hook. L is lyrical congruence. E is emotion. And V is visuals. So So visual storytelling of all of these things. That's why it goes in that order. So So from the lyrics, what are you actually saying? You You know, let's just break down citizens video where he says, baby, I caught you falling for me.

Ooh. Right. Yeah. Vocals. That was was pretty good. All right.

Yeah. Decent falsetto. Hey

Hey man.

Sound like a mouse. Yeah.

Yeah. So So the girl falls off the ladder.

He catches her and he sings a song, baby, I caught you falling for me. Lyrical congruence straight away. H is the hook. She's standing on a ladder. She falls off hook hook done. We

want to see what happens. Everyone wants to see what happens.

L H hook. L lyric, uh, uh, lyrical congruence and emotion. The The song is about love. Look Look at how they're looking at each other in this video. They're in love, yo.

Cause it's actually his girl. She

She just got caught falling for him. The emotion is also congruent with the song that was made already. Cause Cause it's a love song. And And in that, in that verse, he's saying, baby, I caught you falling for me. And And in the video, he catches a falling and she's looking at him like, you just saved my life. Of course I'm going to be in love with you right now. She's She's kind of flustered. That's how she looks in the video. And then V visual storytelling done. done. The lighting, the time of day, it was sort of sunset. It was golden hour. It It looks like this is where you'd find love. It's where you'd find love. It's not super nighttime. It's not morning where it'd be weird. It's It's not like super bright outside when it's uncomfortable to be outside. It's It's just perfect to the point where it's like, this is, this is the way that love movies would portray love to each other. How How do we translate this to music marketing? So So we actually like to see it like that. We We like to see it as what's the ending moment that you want to show on the video. What What is the ending emotion? And And then how can we add a hook to that? Most people think let's add, let's create a hook. And then let's add the visual emotional storytelling after. Let's try and make it make sense. They

They don't think let's create this ending point where they're standing there loving each other or where she's standing there. She's falling off a ladder, whatever it is. They They think about the second piece, which is you need to, you need to find a way that you guys look in love and how do you end up in that moment?

Does that make sense? Yes. Now you can think of unlimited hooks. Yeah. Well, I've, I don't know, just most people, even like some really brilliant music marketers that we've had on the podcast. And like, we obviously also like consider ourselves most well -versed in the music marketing side of the whole business. It's It's like, I don't know that I have thought about like reverse engineering. It is basically what you're saying, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Reverse engineering. What

What are we trying to get to?

That's how you make it authentic. And

And then there's on, there's unlimited ways to get to that same exact. Exactly. Place. People

People think hook first because that's all we,

what everyone talks about. Right? Hooks, hooks, hooks. Formats, hooks. Let's

Let's try this hook. Let's try that. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you just talk about your song? What is the emotion in your song? What would be the perfect visual storytelling of that moment? And the way to think of this is you're already doing it in your music videos.

Yeah. I've already done it. You paid the thousands of. of. It's what you paid the thousands for to visually storytell it. Yeah. Now

Now add a hook to that thing.

Just bolt the hook on last.

Yeah. But well, because dude, I mean, as I'm thinking about it, I'm like the amount of love songs where I've seen an artist on social media, probably because he just like did the best he could. I get it. But it's like, he's alone. He's He's alone. He's standing there. And it's like, why are you alone?

What do you love? In

love. In studio. Why is there no love interest? In

In some random studio.

In a random location. It It doesn't matter. Like Like he's standing with a skyscrapers in the background. And again, like I applaud the effort. I really do because it's hard and it is hard to like get yourself like to put yourself out there to put in the work to just filming these things. You You don't know about like hooks and all the, you don't know how it works necessarily. You're You're doing your best. I get it. But But like, that's where it, I love how you said it's like, it's not that deep. That's not that deep. That's not, that doesn't take a rocket scientist to be like, my song is about love. Oh, it should probably have a garlic element of of love. I'll

I'll break this down even more simply. Okay,

Okay, let's go. All right. Cause that sounded pretty simple. So I'm hoping. How does it get more?

Here's a test you can do with your past videos. You want to know why they haven't gone viral? You You want to know why your past videos haven't actually grabbed attention and haven't got millions of views? Yes.

Yes. I would like to know that.

want to know if you've actually executed on this emotional piece correctly. You You want to know if you visually story told your song properly.

properly. Yeah.

I would like to know if you've built a world around your music. Yeah. Here's the test. Okay.

Okay.

Go to Instagram and play your video on mute and tell me what it's so, tell me the emotion that it shows. Wow.

Wow.

Play your video on mute test. And everyone's

everyone's on mute anyways.

75%, whatever number they're saying.

saying. If you're standing there in a studio and your face doesn't even tell the story of what the song is.

You don't even look in love. How

How do you expect someone to match this up correctly? You You got to think you are now making movies. In In a movie, what music do they use in a sad scene? In a movie, what music do they use in a sad scene? Oh, that one. Shot him up on his ground.

Now that one.

He's dead. He's

He's bleeding. He's crying on the ground. It's pretty good. That was hard.

No, it would never do that.

Yeah. Someone's

Someone's dying in your loving arms.

Yeah. And the song you're playing is. Yeah. Somebody rock. Some casual. Like, come on.

You got to, in movies, they play the right song for the right scene. Now you're doing it the other way. The song's made. Now make the freaking scene. So

So are artists movie makers?

I was like, dude, you just heard that. And you're like, now we're having to make movies. I mean.

mean. If someone watches that simple framework and decides that you have to be a movie maker now to make. To make music.

Well, yeah. If that, if that's the way you want to see it, for sure. But that's that's also why when you do a music video, you hire creative director, videographer, DOP, everybody else included.

Right. Once you have the budget. No different.

Why did people invest in music videos in the past? It It used to be the way to break.

Right.

Music videos used to be incredible. You You could go viral, get millions of views, get a record deal. Content is literally the vehicle. Without content, where do you stand? Nowhere. Nowhere. With With the right content. If If you could just improve your content. If 12 months ago you had posted all the right videos and you went viral right now, would you be in a different place in your music career? Yes or no? Yes.

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So

So why is there this mental barrier? It's like, oh, I have to do all this for content. Well, Well, if that's the vehicle to go viral, then apps are fricking lootly. Well,

Well, so, so let me ask you this. Can Can an artist, um, use their music video for short form content or is that a big no, no? Big Big no, no. Okay. Okay. Even people. I knew he was going to say that.

We can't repurpose. Even

Even people are like, oh, just clip the music video. Yeah. Who are you? I paid thousands for this. I'm going to squeeze my, who are you? I'm going to use your music video. As in, if you're Drake, of course I've seen your face before. I'm going to watch this clip. I'll add a text hook on it. Midway. The music video. Text hook won't save you. No. Dude, why do you have to say it like that, dude? I don't know. Wait. I mean, so seriously. Okay. So then there is some strategies where you can use a music video. Okay. Well break. Yeah. Yeah. Like, cause I got it. I got it. I don't even, I say don't, let's not make music videos. Or is that the advice? But in most cases, just don't make a music. With that same budget, you can make six, two months. Of content. Of content. Do that. You can make 60 videos. Do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not even break down. We are the iteration of a music video. Wow. At Rapville. We're the next level of a music video. Cause that content genuinely looks like something out of a music video. Yeah. When you see anything online that is high quality from the music industry, it's probably either Citizen or Rapville. Yeah. And people are like, holy crap. Like this video looks so good. Yeah. And it's so visually storytelling. I'm, I just want to eat this. Like it looks so good. I want to eat it. It looks so cinematic. Exactly. This is Steve Jobs own words. He wants to make a product so nice that people literally want to feel like they can eat it. I need my Mac book. That's why he took a bite out of the apple and the logo. That's true. So I do want to, you know, cause obviously you guys run a very successful, you know, content marketing agency. I do want to get a, a kind of like, you know, peek behind the scenes on your process. Right? So if I'm an artist and I'm being, you know, onboarded to work with, with Rapville, right? To help create content for me. Um, and hopefully, you know, blow up my music. What What is the process? Right? Like just walk me through literally everything from I sign up the ideation process to then the shooting, the editing, the, like, you know what I mean? Cause Cause I'm sure it's not as simple as just like, I click, you know, approve by, and then like it's that right.

right. Like, so I just want to know like how it actually works. I

I hate courses. I hate webinars and I hate masterclasses to be honest, uh, for most artists because most artists naturally are so busy that they can't do everything themselves. Yeah. So at Rapville you don't just pay us and then you get this thing. Yeah. Instead you get a whole team. Okay.

Okay. So

So as soon as you sign up, you get your content team delivered to you. This This will include a creative director, a strategist, someone that studied the algorithm, got millions of views before will come into your world and understand your brand and create the content ideas that you can approve to be yours and ready to grow. Right.

And so what if I don't know my brand? Well,

Well, we help you figure that out with a branding session. So

So this is the process you

you on board. Yeah. After of course, you know, seeing me and the rest of the team and being like, yeah, I want to move ahead with you guys. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then literally 24 hours later, you're on a branding session.

Okay. It's

It's a 30 minute call, one hour. We don't really need too long because it's, it's meant to be simple. The The brand is meant to be simple.

Yeah. love that. By do think that the deep thought around this is what trips people up. I'm like, so it's, I'm so like multifaceted and it's so complex and and it's like, well, no, that's actually worse. If you're complex to understand, that's actually not a good thing.

Exactly. We've We've got, we've got one of our strategists, they're a musician. Their, their brand is I make good music for non -resident Indians, which is like Indians that are in the diaspora. Okay.

Okay. And

And they're making cool music. I make make good, cool music for those people. Yeah.

Yeah.

Which is like so simple.

Yeah.

That's the, that's the Instagram bio. Yeah.

Yeah. Now

Now all your content can be around that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so easy. It's so clear. clear. So the first thing is branding session. session. Branding session. Okay.

We want to leave that branding session knowing exactly who you are, what you stand for, and what your audience looks, feels like, and the age of them. leave that branding session knowing exactly who you are, what you stand for, and what your audience looks, feels like, and the age of them. Okay. Very much. We have really simple, amazing questions.

Yeah.

I'll throw a few of them at you right now.

Okay. Let's go. First

First question. If If you're standing on stage and you're playing this song because a brand is not the entirety of your life. The brand is based on the song they're releasing right now, to be honest. And And hopefully there's a consistent thread throughout all your songs that your brand is consistent, but but a brand is now and the brand can change. So right now with these songs that we're going to market this month and next month, if you're playing that on stage and you look at the crowd, what's their emotion on their face? What What are they wearing? How old are they? What What era is it? Are they holding iPhones or are they holding brick phones from the 2000s? Are Are they Y2K or are they way more modern? Are Are they sad boys or are they people that are in a relationship having a really good time? Is it joy or is it sadness? Now Now you can start to picture the exact target audience, the feeling you want to portray because the song's already done it. Now Now you just have to translate that into the videos. Okay.

Okay.

So once that branding session is done, then you want to, oh, and there's another great question. Are you struggling with visual storytelling? Sit back, close your eyes. Imagine you're at the cinema and your song is playing as the background sounds to a movie scene. What would be the most perfect movie? Yeah,

that's a good one. Love

Love that. That's a good one. What would it be? Is

Is it a really dramatic moment where someone's basically running away from themselves? Is

Is there a Hungarian woman? Smashing the door. mean, maybe. Well, exactly. Because that's what the song's about anyway. Right? Is

Is it a sad song where you can picture yourself at a park, sat on a bench and it's dark and there's only one light shining on you. And And if you're struggling for this, well, ask AI. Ask

Ask it.

Here's my song. Here's what it's about. Here's the emotion. What movie scenes can you think of?

can you think of? Y'all didn't think AI was going to make it into this episode, did you? You got that fucked up. Somehow it's like content and AI are like sneaking their way into. They're going to. I I know for sure. Okay. So what happens next? After

After the branding session, we then present you with a strategy because we're going to spend five to seven days researching your past content, seeing what's worked, understand your genre and your target audience, the age demographic. What do they like? What have they shown to like in other niches? Take that data and create a really good, strong content plan for the whole month. And

And so what is a content plan? A

content plan is a step -by -step script that explains exactly what the video is, what the hook is, the duration of that hook, the transition moment, the transition movement, the characters that are in this world. Is there love going on or is there a fight? And And where is the camera angle? Is Is it top down 45 degrees or is it head on? This

This is like a full script that someone - For every video. For every single video. For the month. For

For the month.

Okay.

Everything's extremely in detail and it's shot listed.

Yeah. So

So we have AI pictures so you can see what it's going to look like before we create it.

Okay.

You can imagine this world and be like, damn right. That's my world. Damn right. That's freaking cool. You You guys are going to turn me into a freaking superstar like this.

Okay. You

You approve the plan. You can also disapprove some of the plan because it's your brand. You're the leader of it. So you can just tell us, I don't like this. I like this and pick and choose because we're not going to lead your career. You're going to be the leader and we're going to support it as your team. All

All right. After

After that's approved, we then pick a date where we get our production team, whichever country you are. We have producers on the ground. We have the best videographers, editors, lighting guys, everything to make sure the shoot is perfect. And And then if you need actors, either you're sourcing this yourself or we source everything for you. And And that's what we do. Like we've posted a ton of vlogs on this as well. So people can go check those out. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the process. After After that shoot's done, which by the way, we come to that shoot extremely prepared. Yeah. process. After that shoot's done, which by the way, we come to that shoot extremely prepared. Yeah. Most artists fail when they're trying to create content because they have no schedule for the day. They turn up and they're like, let's create content. We We turn up with a whole shoot schedule, a pre -production plan that explains every single location, the address where we're going to film, pictures of the address, pictures of your outfits that you're going to bring to the shoot because everything has to match. Colors Colors matter a lot. And And then also, what time is the crew going to be here? What time are the actors going to be here? And And in the end of the day, we're going to film a month's worth of content in less than 24 hours. So So you just turn up for one day and we film everything. Wow.

Wow.

It's a machine. And then after that, we edit everything within five to seven business days.

Yeah. That's

That's it.

Yeah. I'm not going to lie. We had the pleasure of hopping on with some of the team members.

Yeah.

Like literally, we got got to kind of experience like the whole Rapville, you know, uh, experience because we had some questions about our own setup and filming and seconds later. Yeah. Yeah. Or, Or, you know, very detailed approach later. Um, Um, that's amazing, man. What's, What's, uh, you know, what are some of the most like common apprehensions that like clients have? Right. Because again, I feel like even if I'm like signing up for something, I'm still maybe like nervous about this or I'm unclear about that. Or, you know what I mean? Like Like what are some of the most common points of resistance? Right. So So that people kind of understand you're not alone if you're like worried about X, Y, Z. Yeah.

Yeah. Most Most artists who come on the call and like, I don't want to, I'm worried about working with you guys at Rapville. The The reason being, because all the hooks that they remember and they've seen because they're studying music marketing about a lot of these artists, they're scrolling, they're saving things. And that's that's the thing that sticks in their head. So they think all the strategies we give them are going to be cringy, like just the Snapchat hooks or just the TV transitions. But But then I have to ask them a simple question. Do Do you have an artist that you like on social media? Yes. Yes. Do you, do they have visuals that are successful? Yes. Yes. So does that mean we have to be cringe with your strategy? No. No. Therefore we're going to build something that's personalized to you. Everything's personalized. What What I've seen from other plays in the space, I'm not going to mention names, but a lot of other videographers, a lot of other people that film this short film content, they're a one man band. They're pretty slow because they're a one man band and they take the shortcut. They They will book out a studio that has three different looks in it and tell you to stand and be like, okay, stand there, film, pose, 30 reels in one day.

Dude, it does not matter volume anymore. It's It's all about the quality over quantity. It's It's about breaking through, which means being extremely intentional about that hook and that moment that you're creating. Like Like just, just, just on that, on those formats that are working right now, you've you've got the bandwagon effect that's completely different to the rest. But But it's this idea that if you get like 12 people standing behind you as you do like a little listening party and you stand and you perform in front, you can get, uh, you can get really viral results because having all those people listen to your song makes you look way more famous than you actually are.

That's the Tommy Richmond. That's That's how he did it. And

And that's the AO dice. You You can't do that if you're just standing, uh, in a green screen and you're doing 30 reels in a day. You've got to coordinate all the people to show up. You've got to teach the people the song so they don't look like actors. They look like they're really enjoying themselves. And then you've got to record multiple angles so you can really capture the reactions. That's not something quick, but it's something that will work. And it works almost every single time because that's just human psychology. Make Make you look way more famous than you actually are if you get loads of people reacting to the song.

So, I mean, like, how do you find the most viral part of the song? It's kind of going back to the testing part, right? Because Because it's like, I'm not going to lie. We've had multiple people come on the show and, you know, say that they thought that one part was going to be the part that, you know, really resonated online. And it was a complete opposite. And there's something else within the song that was actually what broke through. So So how do you go about like determining which part is going to be the most viral? Bro,

Bro, where's my bell? This This is the last call for the studio cable kit giveaway. a bell by your head. Jesus. Jesus. I forgot about that bell. Last Last call, guys. This This is the last call for the cable giveaway. We're We're giving away three studio cable kits for you guys to totally re-cable your home studio. Henry. It's It's so easy to enter. Oh my God. All All you got to do is comment the word RECABLE on this YouTube video, plus a sentence or two of who you are and what you do without the bell. Can we not do the bell anymore? Because the truth is you guys buy a cheap cable because it's cheaper, but then it starts humming and hissing and breaking and you got to buy another cheap cable, which breaks. And then you could have bought one fire, high quality cable like ours from the very beginning. This This is all thanks to our friends at IO Audio Technologies. They've They've been making pro grade cables and connectors for over 40 plus years. This is some high quality stuff. Yeah. I mean, I put all their cables in our podcast studio and my music studio. I I did it once and I'm not going to have to think about it for a very long time now. He might not have to buy anything for a decade. Ever? Okay. I don't

might not have to buy anything for a decade.

Ever? Okay. I But if you do want to buy anything, head to the link in the description. There's their website linked, but but honestly, guys, I mean - The giveaway. The giveaway. giveaway. Yes. This is the last week that it's available. Just Just comment the word RECABLE. Give us a sentence or two on your story and we'll let you know who wins next week. Stay Stay tuned.

If the artist hasn't got viral songs in the past, which most artists don't, Yeah. The way to do it is shoot the same video twice with a different part of the song. Simple as that. You've already taken frigging 30 minutes to set up the shot anyway, get all the lighting to look beautiful. You You might as well film two videos with either two different songs or two different snippets of the same song. As As long as the emotion is the same, you can get a pretty good test. Either Either post them on trial reels or post them on the main page.

Yeah. And

And if it doesn't get views, well, it doesn't matter because no one saw it anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And And so is it safe to say then that you don't take the approach of like filming the whole song? No way. Okay. Okay. Well, that's interesting. There's a lot of people that, you know, and I know who you were talking about.

feel like, I feel like if you shoot the whole song and then you have one look and there's only one variable that's different. And then I can have a trial reel starting here, starting here, starting here, starting here, And you get the cleanest results.

works only for performance videos. Yeah. Videos where there is no hook. Once Once again, baby, I caught you falling for me. Citizen's hook right there in this song.

Yeah.

If you take a different part of the song now and try and do it there, as she falls off the ladder, it's going to be a different lyric. It's not going to make sense anymore. It's It's not going to work as well.

Yeah. So

So you choose the visual based on the lyric. It It has to be congruent.

So if you just... I love the idea of lyrical congruence. I

I do. I do too. Yeah. Is

Is there a point where it's like two on the nose or or it's like... Literally. Well, that one is literally... Because it's like two related to exactly what's being said. said. Like, I don't know. That's where my mind goes.

I mean, artists are performance, man.

Yeah. Artists are performance.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And

And us as viewers, like, we're pretty dumb. We kind of need it if you're spelled out for us.

Well, I think about the KELS episode all the time, first of all.

Yeah. Yeah. And she like... Yeah, dude. She sneaks away to every

And she like... Yeah, dude. She sneaks away to every episode. She was like spamming, posting the chorus. And then a reaction guy posted a video of her starting at the pre -chorus. And it went up. And then she started just posting this pretty much the same. She has a look. She has a brand. Just Just starting from the pre -chorus. I don't think there was anything like special about the actual words that she was saying. But for whatever reason, that part of the song just started hitting. Because you think that's literally called hook. Because it's

it's just repetitive most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's boring.

Yeah.

And the chorus is meant to be catchy. Meaning it's meant to be same. It's not meant to change too much. It's It's a repetitive phrase or lyric that just makes you remember it easily.

easily. Yeah, it's an ear candy melody. Exactly.

Exactly. But that's against what the point of social media is. Yeah. The point of social media is to be novel, be unexpected, and keep my curiosity throughout the entire 25 seconds of this video. How How hard is it to keep someone's attention for 25 seconds? Impossible. repeat it. If If it can be new words, new lyrics, new things happening visually at every point in the video, you keep re -hooking people. sense. They don't think about the hook, but they forget the re -hook. And the re -hook is what keeps someone hooked. Oh.

Oh. Yeah. How can you forget about the re -hook, guys?

Yeah.

Speaking of length, how long should videos be? Well, you know. You said 25 right there.

there. Yeah. Is that

24 seconds, 22 to 25 seconds. Wow.

Wow.

That's a very specific kind of spot.

songs follow that. Okay. Unless the song's really slow, then you're in a bit of a hard, hard place, to be honest.

Yeah. But

But 22, 25 seconds is pretty good.

Interesting. And what do you think about, we had Matt Hansen on who, he says he has a lot of big belty kind of choruses, right? So he he gives, he gives like two to three seconds before the beat, like he actually comes in, right? Yeah. To kind of, he times it with like how long it might take them to read the text hook. And then the thing comes in. times it with like how long it might take them to read the text hook. And then the thing comes in. Yeah.

I mean, that's the same with all transition videos, right? Mm -hmm. Like you do actually play the song in the hook of the transition video, but very quiet in the background. Right. And then it - With more echo to make it sound like it's playing from someone's car outside.

So it seems authentic.

And then as it comes in, big risers. Yep. You get a bunch of risers, layer it up and then boom, hit them with the big thing. I love that. That's That's actually, there's a few things I look for when I think about choosing the right part of a song. Mm -hmm. And it's these, it's those elements. It's It's the element of, is there a moment of silence and then a moment of just right in your face? Mm -hmm. If If it's just loud the whole time, boring. I want to have it so there's a hook for the first three seconds and then it hits you in the face really big. Right.

Right. All

All right. That's why I always look for that in the song. And I know that if your song has that where it goes, there's like a - Crescendo. There's There's like a crescendo. And then it just bangs straight in your face.

Even better if it's a crescendo. A moment of silence and then bangs you right in your face. Even better. That

That exact, if I can draw that out on a wave form - Yeah,

Yeah, I can see I'm visualizing it. Get the hell out of there. All All right.

And the second thing I'm looking for is are the words really clear and are they action -based? Can Can I visualize your lyrics? Mm Some people will do lyrics that are, that are really hard to visualize.

It's like - The theoretical or like their ideas. Yeah. It's very hard. But

But in some songs, they use certain objects or certain actions like slapped me in the face. Mm -hmm. Or when I step through, when I step into the party, the party don't start till I walk in. Walk inside this place. You know, there's, there's lyrics like that, that you can visualize. Therefore, you can create visuals with them. Okay.

Okay. Controversial question. Okay.

Okay. Do

Do you think, cause this is what some artists are thinking and I know they have a strong, a lot of them have a strong opinion on this. Should they be changing the lyrics or changing their songs to work on social media?

If you want to grow faster. Oh

Oh no. Junior don't do it. Don't fucking do it Junior.

It's a, it's a double ended sword. It's

It's tough.

Choose your opportunity cost. All

All right. You

You want to go viral quickly. Make your song in mind that social media needs a few things to make it work really well. Mm Now. All right. But But if you want to figure out things a bit slower, but have a more obsessed fan base, a fan base that's willing to understand that this is your world, a fan base that's actually going to listen to your music on repeat. You You want a high listener, listen to stream rates. Mm -hmm. Well then you better not focus on social media, focus on the emotion. Mm -hmm. And the rest, there's things you can tweak in the song just to finalize it for social media, but don't make the song for social media. Because then you forget everything around that. And And there's a few creators, which you've seen, I'm not going to mention names where the stream, the streaming is not matching the amount of views they're getting on socials. Mm -hmm. And it doesn't make sense. Connor Price did a great job of going viral, but posting other bits of his personality and building a real fan base around the content. Where his music was, was great in a way that he could make it, he could kind of put this great song in a great video and it would work well. Rather Rather than some people just doing approach where they need the song to be the thing. It really is a game of opportunity cost. Just

Just kind of choose your battle. You You want to be big on social media and probably get more money straight away by getting brand deals, by getting a couple streams. You You can get paid sooner if you, if you do the first approach, but the longevity of your career is a lot less. So

So when, when you're putting these like plans together, I mean, how focused are you on like the listeners to streams, like average listener, you know, or average streams per listener ratios and middle and bottom of funnel. Like, I mean, you're a viral content music marketing agency. So like in my mind, you almost shouldn't, I I don't know that why you would give a fuck about that or stuff, but it sounds like you kind of do. A A hundred percent. Is that, yeah, why I guess? Cause it's like, I'm assuming you're measured on the, like, how viral did I go?

Yeah.

I'm hiring you. Cause I want to go fucking viral junior.

Kind of.

Right. Okay. So

the right, the right viral. I promise

promise you nobody who's come on board to rap film and actually paid us things that we're just going to get them views on social media. If If that was the only case, they wouldn't pay us because they could just get views from ads and they would be just like bots.

That's true. If you

you just want views, just buy bots.

Yeah. If

If you want a fan base, then work with someone who understands getting a fan base.

Okay. Getting

Getting a community.

Okay.

I say viral. We put viral on everything we say because well, that's the only way people fricking listen to power. We're

suckers for it.

Exactly. We

We all want to go viral, man.

It doesn't mean viral means not building a community.

That's where people get it twisted though. Yeah. Yeah. They do like, they almost like, it's almost like this holier than now attitude of like, they almost want to not go viral. I'm

to grow slow and steady. One fan at a time. Who Who said slow and steady? One One fan at a time is the best.

Yeah. Yeah.

Who said that it has to be inauthentic?

Yeah.

Who says that going viral is a one hit wonder?

Yeah.

Wouldn't you like to be a one hit wonder? Which Which one do you rather choose one one hit or no hit?

Yeah. Yeah. What we we

we do, we focus also on that conversion, but we don't say that we're going to get it straight away. We We can't get it straight away. No conversion, but we don't say that we're going to get it straight away. We can't get it straight away. No one knows who you are. People need to hear the music multiple times. People need to see your videos multiple times before they can make a buying decision. Like Like anything. You've You've probably seen an ad from some company. They're on your mind a little bit, but you haven't clicked the ad. You've You've been busy. You didn't trust them enough. enough. And then you just kept seeing them so much. Just like, damn, I'm going to fricking buy the product.

Fine. I'll buy it. Fricking hell.

Of course you knew all my pain points.

Finally, I get it.

It's the same for music. Everyone Everyone knows when you're running ads, people need to see like 7.4 times or something. It's It's the same with content. You go viral once. Great. You're going to get some views, but you want to actually turn those views and streams. Keep going viral to the same people. Keep posting stories. Be relentless with your content output, and then you're going to get streams. That's why it's like, we can help you go viral on the first stage, but we'll also tell you that there is a conversion approach. So you can actually get streams on the back of this because viral is nothing. Artists don't want to go viral. They want to build fan base and communities. And that's what we understand. We We show you all the hooks, but you don't know what goes on in the back end. You You don't know why we chose that hook for that artist. What emotion we're playing against or what world we're building. The consistencies between the content. You go to some artists pages, all the videos are completely different worlds. Meaning there is no world. They're They're scattered. They're just copying. But But with a strategy, if I ask an artist, do you have a strategy behind all these posts you did? No, No, I'm just posting videos. Yeah. I'm saving posts and I'm recreating them.

That's not a strategy. That

That is copying. You You want to create a strategy that has your world. And I'll tell you how to world build. If you want to world build as an artist successfully world build that goes viral and converts people. You don't want to just be one of these artists that gets views and doesn't convert people into streams. Be that embarrassing guy. What What you want to be focused on is first of all, who are the people that are going to be listening to the music? Who are their friends? And how do they relate with each other? All right. I listening to the music? Who are their friends? And how do they relate with each other? All right. I say this as like characters. Who are the characters in your world? If If it's a love song, characters simple, probably you're in love with someone. That's it. So there's two people in the video. You're doing a love song alone. It's not, there's no love.

It's just you. you. It's just, it's a bit weird. a weird change world that you're creating. All right. The

The next part of the world is location. Where will people listen to this? If this is a Y2K song, why are you sat in a 2025 Mercedes? Get Get an old school Cadillac. All right. And And then the final part of the world is time of day and the visuals. All right. And And it's the actions of all these things put together. If If you're filming a song, that's sad. You do not film this during straight sun sunrise. Like it's just, it's like, it's the, it's the beginning of the day. It's super hot outside.

birds are chirping, the birds are chirping. That's That's such a happy view. Everyone's Everyone's got their coffee and they're so excited to start the day.

Let me take you through it. In In that world, there is nobody else in that world.

Meaning

Meaning it's just you in that video. And And if there is anyone else, they shouldn't have a face.

They should cover their faces.

because you're the only person in that world. Yeah.

Yeah. I

I would love to get a song and just strategize right now. Cause I genuinely think I'm the ideas man. Give me any song and I can brainstorm for it in like 0.5 seconds.

Well, I've got a little something cooked up for this final segment. Whenever we get there, I I don't know where you're at. Okay,

Okay, cool.

We'll do another session. Yeah.

So, I mean, can you blow up a bad song? No. Oh yeah. For the wrong reasons. Yeah, I guess. Okay. Okay.

You just recorded your favorite song. The

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Let's get back to the episode.

What the hell?

but bad song is like two things. If If it's not mixed and mastered and if it like, like it sounds really bad. Yeah. Phone Phone recording, like it sounds cheeks. It's It's not gonna, it's not gonna go viral. Please Please don't even, you don't get on a call with us. We've We've turned, we turned down probably three to 5% of all the calls that come to us. When people like get on meetings, like we want to work with you. We listen, cause we listened to the music live on the call. We We not to scare any artists, but if you're on the call with us and we play your music and it's trash, I'm going to tell you dog, click click that red button.

He did his American accent to me on the phone before. way better. He's improved in like a day's time. We We just talked yesterday.

Do we need to flip it on him a little bit? Oh, what should we do here?

That's what I'm talking about. It's cheeks. Absolute cheeks.

your song in the bin.

Go to the loo and flush your song down the toilet. Yeah. Anyways. Um, yeah. Cause I mean, you know, your whole like slogan is like, we make good artists go viral. So yeah. Cause I mean, you know, your whole like slogan is like, we make good artists go viral. So I would assume, yeah. Like you feel pretty strongly then about like the music.

Oh yeah.

Needing to be good. I've

I've had before this was a thing for us. Before we were focused on making good music go viral. We were just like, oh, we just need to build our name as an agency and work with as many people as possible. That That was a profit focus way of thinking. And I own up to that. I would appear at a time right in the beginning. We've only been at this for a year and a year and five months.

Crazy. Crazy.

That's when we started this. But in the first three months I was like, yo, we need to go, we go, we got got all this momentum. Let's accept everything.

Yeah. Let's

Let's build a name. Let's Let's build, let's get some money. Right. But then it, then it hits and

and you realize you have to actually work with those artists. And you have to strategize for these songs, but

but it's so hard to strategize for a bad song because you're not motivated. It's It's not fun. You're You're not excited. And And I had team members leave me at that point. And And we were a very small team. We We were like five people, someone left and they were like, yo, I just don't want to edit these bad videos. I don't want to edit these videos that have such bad music. It's not, it's actually, it's not even fun at that point.

It's like, it's just work.

For me, I would rather be a musician in the idea that I can do what I love for work. And And the only way I love my work is if I work with artists that I love. There

There it is. I

I love that because I mean, guys, we have all these cool people. Come on, talk about all this dope shit. Don't Don't worry about it. If your music is, your music is cheeks. Yeah. Yeah. Like don't like commenters subscribe to the channel, bro. No,

No, we'll still take your subscribe.

No, bro. bro. We'll still take your subscribe. work on the music, man.

Subscribe and then go work on the music.

Okay, fine.

And then come back to here. Fine.

Fine. You know what I'm saying? You're right. Okay. Our

Our value is here. Like they need, you know, I

I know. I'm just, I just more mean that to say like none of any of the shit that we ever talk about on here is going to work if the music is asked. Yeah.

Yeah.

A hundred percent. And And like, that's a hard pill to swallow. And like, I don't know. Do you have to deliver that news?

Do you tell them on that first call when they're playing it? Like Like actually, nevermind. Yeah. Yeah. Like you got to, you got to, you got to imagine like this.

Our calls run like this. Whenever we onboard a new artist. Yeah. Just before we onboard a new artist.

was about to say, you got on a call with them.

them. You're like, you know, let me understand the music. Let me understand your brand. Let me understand what's been holding you back. What have you done? What have you tried? And And then it's like, before we get to figuring out how to move ahead together, I just need to listen to the music.

Yeah. All

All right. Is that okay? Most artists like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Play Play the music. If your camera's on as the, as, cause we get on a call as, as growth consultants. Yes.

Yes. We

We have a bunch of them on our, on our team. They They usually keep their camera on to listen to the music. If the music's bad, you got to turn that camera off. Because you don't want to, you don't want to get like hunted out because you laughed at someone's music. Cause

Cause like it can be really bad. You know,

the music can be really bad to the point where it's like, you don't just do the, the polite, the polite head nod. I'm just saying like that.

And then after listening to the music, you just be like, you know what? I don't think we have any case studies for this market.

That's the line.

Polite decline.

So if you hear that on, now you know the secret. If you hear that on a call, I'm sorry, but it's a very polite way to be like, you got some growth to do, man. Yeah. And it's, and it's, and it's out of love really really is out of love. If If you pay us and it's bad music, we're not going to be motivated. To take it on board to do a good job. You're going to get scraps. Do you want to get scraps? Or do you want to get a team that's for you?

Yeah. See, it's, it's weird, man. Cause I literally just saw a video of, it was Neo on, on behind the wall with Daniel wall. And And he was talking about Hey, yeah. With Andre 3000 and about how every single person told him, do not release this song. You You will be the laughing stock of the music industry. person told him, do not release this song. You will be the laughing stock of the music industry. Don't fucking do it. This makes no sense. And literally is one of the most historic records of all time, obviously at this point. Right. So So I say that to say like, there has to be some level of delusion, kinda sometimes in like self -belief. If what

what we might mean by bad music, that was very easy. Is Is it, does it sound like, like, is it comparable to a song that's actually listenable?

Like if I, if I, if I listenable, it doesn't

doesn't need to be the most well orchestrated best structure, viral this viral that it just needs to be listenable to a sense. It's like, yeah, I think people would really like this. If If it's not mixed and mastered. That's an easy one. Yeah. If If the beat is whack, if you're rapping off beat in a way that's not actually off beat rapping, like cool off beat. Yeah. Well then you're going to have a problem and we're not going to be motivated.

Yeah.

Hey y'all. I'm sure that one actually, uh, sounds, you know, makes a massive. Oh,

Oh, it's an amazing song. Yeah. It just wasn't like what he had historically put out. Exactly.

Exactly. That's That's a different framework. Yeah. But

But it was a good, clearly a good song. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I don't know. That wasn't the pushback. I don't don't know. I mean, people might've just been like, bro, this is weird ass. Just not like it. I think that people are, I guess it's, we're biased now maybe, but like, I'm pretty sure did, uh, someone told the story on this show, Yeah. Pretty sure he said it too. And then Neo said the same. I I mean, dude, they did. No one liked that song. How?

How? I I can't picture it. I

I don't know because it's like, it's, you don't know until you know. And then like the whole world. Shout

out, shout out Andre up there on the, on the wall. For

For sure. sure. But anyways, man, we've entered a final segment of the podcast.

Oh shit. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, sorry.

sorry. By,

By, by mixed and mastered, I don't mean you have to come on a call with the most amazing, perfect song. Cause sometimes people will create songs and not finish them.

Yeah.

That's fine. I I don't mean you have to come on a call with the most amazing, perfect song. Cause sometimes people will create songs and not finish them. Yeah. That's fine. I don't mean it like that.

Okay.

Cause people would like, Oh, I have to go, I have to be perfect for showing you guys. Like

it's not like it's it's not like that because

because we understand that a song might not be mixed and mastered yet because obviously you're in creation mode. Yeah.

Yeah. But

But we'll be able to, we'll be able to hear if you're, if you have the chance to be a good musician.

Yeah.

Yeah. If

If it's off beat and you can't hear yourself and you can't sing at all and you're not even trying to use AI to sound any better. Well then, you know, it's not

even trying. Yeah.

Yeah. It's also just one of those, like it's subjective things too, where it's like, just because like their team passes and like we might pass. I mean, bro, I don't know. Like Like we're only just a fucking couple of guys up here.

Just a few, a few dudes. But But if you hear that all the time, I mean, we're going to start the just a few dudes podcast together. Us three, a few dudes. I'd

I'd love for junior to replace you. Okay.

Okay. As As we enter the best segment of the podcast, which is the rapid fire rampage. I have a very special first part cooked up specifically for junior that I'm calling the hook lab. Junior, I'm going to describe a few different artists and I kind of want you to describe what you would do for them as far as social media hooks. How can we get people's attention? How How can we stop the scroll?

Okay. I like the name, the hook lab.

Hook lab, baby.

Pretty cool. Let's

Let's get in the lab. Rap Rap Phil hook lab. That's right. Artist number one. She's a shy R and B singer, maybe around 19, 20 years old. She's She's got 2000 followers, right? She She doesn't like talking to the camera. She She does takes at her keyboard in her bedroom. She's She's got her phone propped up on a stack of books, right? She She makes a ballads, typically ballads, right? This This one's about her ex, let's say, who's now engaged to her best friend, junior. How do we stop the scroll with our friend here? Yeah.

here? Yeah. First of all, am I limited to the equipment, which is a book stand and a phone?

Just if it's reasonable to assume she might have something in her bedroom.

Sure. I mean, does she have shoes?

Yes. Right.

Right.

Sell your shoes and pay for a videographer for a day.

Step one.

What I do is I'm going to, I'm going to make sure this shoot happens at nighttime because because that's clearly the song, right? It's It's sort of a breakup song. It's It's deep. It's introspective. I I would then look for a Peerspace, a little studio or ask the videographer if he knows any. Peer space is a great website to look for locations really quickly. Get Get something that has a massive window and has this sort of one source of light. And you can probably AI a moon in or record it where the moon is actually in the shot. And And if you can silhouette her singing the song and add the lyrics right in the middle, really small, really tasteful. The lyrics don't need to be big. That's not what the song is. The The song is meant to be introspective. It's It's not meant to hook you with like, Oh, this is shocking. It's It's so exciting. It's It's like, it's meant to be something which relaxes you, which kind of takes you out. And it's like, damn, I really connect with that. So So let's make something that isn't trying too hard is tasteful and cinematic. And in low light, it will be incredible.

I love how you commented on the size of the text. Small text, tasteful. Small, modest, very nice. That was so good. I literally had that.

Let's do more. This This is great. Let's Let's move on to our, yeah. Can I just add an extra hook to that? Yeah. Because there's no hook on that video, right?

It's just a performance. That's

That's true.

Yeah. Which is fine. Which it was good in my head.

It's absolutely fine. But But you can get someone from the ground. Cause remember this is a studio with a window. Likely she's on the second floor. Someone records her sat in her head thinking, is that, is she making music? Like Like what's she doing in the transitions

transitions into transition into her actually performing the song banger.

banger. Hmm. Snapchat hook done. Well, Well, Snapchat hook.

And if you can do it where it's like, if there's something more going on in the visual, like for example, someone's got like fake rain out the window. Someone's pouring fake rain out the window with the girl performing in the screen. Now that's something Snapchat hookable. All

All right. So you record them and be like, what is, what are they recording in there? Transition to her. She's

She's inside. There's rain outside. It's night outside. She's a silhouette. Come on. Tell me more. I knew it, dude. I knew the hook. That's cinema right there.

Now that's the BTS.

I knew.

Snapchat hook. Exactly. Oh man. I knew this was it. Let's

Let's move to our UK drill rapper friend. He's He's got the hood up. Tough guy. Let's say he's on the rooftop in front of his estate.

Okay.

He's doing a verse about his mom working two jobs. Mom? His His mom. Yeah. He's UK.

I heard it.

Yeah. So, So, um, he's trying to, let's give him a goal. Let's Let's say like people who don't typically listen to drill. We We want to like reel them in. How do we get them just just to put a slant on this one?

Wouldn't it be cool? Cause drill rappers aren't trying to be cringe. Meaning you've got to create a strategy that's not cringe, but still viral. What What I would do is drop down microphone. He's He's in front of his estate. Let's Let's get him off the, let's get him off the building. Let's

Let's get him on the road. Okay.

Okay. Get him on the road with cars. All right. And And what I want to happen is I want there to be the visual of people standing behind him. The same way you would do sort of a bandwagon effect where you get loads of people behind you. But But these people don't let them be drill rappers. He He should be the only guy dressed in the sort of clothing that a drill rapper will be dressed in. And everybody everybody else is older age, like 40, 50 years old. And they're wearing public service clothing. People like nurses that you can sympathize with that you look at and you're like, man, I wish you would have retired already. I wish you would have retired at your age. Right? Cleaners. Cleaners. Oh my gosh. Cleaners. Street cleaners. People like that. Get them to be standing behind and let him be rapping at the forefront about these things. Now Now you've got something which visually story tells the deepness of the song yet taps into the right audience and is already visually enticing enough where it's like, why are all these people that are usually working behind this guy?

I should pay attention to what's going on here. I don't even know what this song is. I love this. Novelty sells and add a little hook behind that. Of course, why

why are these guys stopping traffic from the car that stopped behind them in the road?

Why are these guys stopping traffic?

All right. And obviously it's a drill rapper standing in front of

them. You see like the back of everyone. Like what's going on up there? Yeah.

Yeah.

Transition. Damn.

I just love how easily you're able to paint the visual picture. And And that's where I think again, you kind of mentioned it of like, if I can't really even describe what's happening in the video or be watching it on mute and automatically like see what's happening in the video, then let's talking about how much you love

let's get back to doing it. That's why I founded this company. How

How does the CEO of rap build not understand viral content effects. What I do all day. You're right. I literally have multiple calls a day brainstorming with the team.

This is what I do.

I got some more. I got some more. I'm keep keep cooking. We're We're talking about a 45 year old dad never released music before. He does open mics, maybe at bars. He just wrote an original song for his daughter's wedding. Oh, that's beautiful. So it's about love. Probably. Yeah. I would assume like like she found her love and she's getting married to

Yeah. Let's

Let's do that. Okay. Okay.

And what's the demographic of this love song? Probably

Probably all ages, right?

Older age. He, He, he has a guitar and he plays at dive bars. You You know what I mean? Okay. Okay. Um, Um, so yeah, I don't know if that helps. You

You know, it'd be funny. I crashed a wedding to promote my song. That's That's the text hook.

Right. Or

Or even someone's, I thought it'd just be so funny. And And then actually, uh, he can talk about the storyline of finding a wedding, a wedding that's going on and saying, can I sing for your wedding? Only if I get to record it for social media though. And And he performs behind the crowd or whatever it is or next to the bride and the groom as they're looking at each other, loving it as the crowd behind is grabbed out their phones and he's singing this song. That That would just be such a good storyline to show actual love, love portrayed and him just singing a song. Cause he's a 45 year old guy. He's not trying to do too much. He's He's trying to just be in a moment that tells the story of his song without him having to create the moment himself. Does

Does that make sense?

And it, and just the fact that he's a 45 year old guy and he goes on social media, here's 30 days, me trying to find a wedding so I can promote my song. Day Day one. Trying

Trying to find a wedding where

Everyone loves a series. Wow. Damn. Okay. Okay. Four piece indie band, sweaty basement show. You You got like 30 people in the crowd, maybe like crowd show, crowd footage, right? Unreleased song drops this Friday. They're trying to get pre saves. Okay.

Okay.

They, they, they got cameras set up at the show, but like, they don't know what to do.

Okay. Here's what you're going to do.

You got to make sure one of the band members' moms is okay being on camera. Okay.

Okay.

I want to set up a camera in the room somewhere that makes it look like this was recorded like ages ago. I I want them to degrade the footage a bit.

And, uh, like home movies VHS. Yeah. Sort of.

And, uh, they record a video, a conversation shouting about it with the mom and the son. The son's like, mom, but I've got to do this. I I want to be, I'm going to be on stage. Just you watch.

Mom's like, Oh yeah. You bet.

You bet. Try your best.

Yeah.

Transition to on

This. I invested thousands for you to, to, to quit.

Yes. And

And then boom.

Snap.

On stage.

Text on screen. From the beginning.

Yeah. Which

Which is what your mom thought this was going to be versus the result. Sort

Sort of like follow your dreams or even something.

Or like, fuck you mom. Me convincing

Quote on quote, something that was said in the video, is like, uh, you'll never make it. Oh, Oh, being an artist is crazy. Everyone's like, it

hurts. And

And then transition to the actual moment when you're on stage, everyone going crazy.

He made it. And

And the, yeah, just, he made it all the age of the, uh, the age that you are now or the year that it is now. Yes. And, um, or even how many people are at the show, you know, something awesome like that.

Damn. God. That is viral.

All you four piece indie bands. You know why it's so viral as well? Cause

Cause it's his story.

Yeah. That's not copied from anywhere. Yeah.

Yeah. That completely is novel. Cause your story is novel. No one else has lived your exact story with your exact mom. She doesn't look exactly like that. No one looks exact like you. This This is a novel moment that you can post and it will go extremely viral.

Insane. Insane. Make sure the hooks not too long. The final video is like eight seconds. God, God, I wish I had like 25 more of these. I got one more though. One One more. This is a gospel singer in her church choir. She's like, I love gospel music. She's She's a standout. Like she hits the high notes, singer in her church choir. She's like, I love gospel music. She's a standout. Like she hits the high notes, the church ladies erupt. You know what I'm saying? Um, Um, she's singing. And they do classic hymns and stuff, but let's say she wrote her first original piece. Okay. And we, and this song is just, it's just a gospel track.

It's an introspective sort of singer, right? right? Well, first of all, most gospel singers just try and like be in a beach or stand in front of a white wall and try and sing.

It's so boring. Get

Get in a church. You'd be surprised. I can find a church building. We We hired out a church building for Fivio Foreign's rebrand into being a gospel rap artist. All All right. Hire a church. You You want to get, you want to get a smoke machine. You You want to make sure that the light is beaming through the church onto your position. And And someone's going to film from outside the church saying, what is this guy doing? I swear church just finished or or the service is over. What What is she doing? And And she's setting up on the piano and she sings the song. And And that right there is just something that's so enticing. Even Even better. If If this gospel song is meant to attract people that aren't even Christians to watch the video, make it even better. Have Have her sit in a bus filled by other people, but other people wearing masks. Everyone's got a black hood all over them. You You can't see anything. They don't even look like humans. They just look like people that sat sat on a bus. She's She's the only one wearing white as she's singing the song and and have this sort of static angle, slow zoom in. She's She's in a world of people that don't understand.

She's the only one that understands. And it's highlighted through the visuals. God, he's good. Okay. Okay. Moving on to part two, Junior. I'm going to give you two choices. It's called the this or that. I'm going to give you two choices. All you got to do is pick one of them. Starting with text hook or audio hook.

Text hooks. You can play around with more, but I wouldn't even choose either.

I just choose a visual hook. Visual. Visual. Light

Light travels faster than sound, bro.

So just play with the. We were told like the words are the first thing that grab that people's eyes hit. sound, bro. So just play with the. We were told like the words are the first thing that grab that people's eyes hit. But anyway, this was rapid fire. We'll get into it. You're allowed to pick a third option if it's better. TikTok or Instagram. Insta.

Better for building a fan base. Instagram

Instagram or YouTube.

Instagram. Better for going viral and better for building a fan base.

Shares or saves.

Shares. That's manual virality.

The algorithm doesn't control that.

One 10 million video or 10, 1 million videos. 10 videos with a million views. Reason Reason being hit someone the same way multiple times. They're going to remember your name. Multiple touches. Hate comments or no comments. Hate Hate comments. Cause

Cause then you can join in and you can make some love comments. You can convert some people.

Haters turn into lovers very easily, by the way, I've come to find. It's when you like engage with them sometimes. It's It's crazy. Chad, GPT or Claude?

Claude. It's It's way better at understanding large amounts of data and pretty creative. I

I agree. I'm pretty much Claude Max, but Astra 6 though. Try out the new GPT model. Books or podcasts? Podcasts. I

I can do it well at the gym. I don't have to like sit there and open a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

London or Miami?

Oh, Miami a thousand percent. Really? Really? London

London is filled with people that don't want you to be successful. And And they're not, they don't think they can be successful either. So So essentially no one becomes successful if you stay in London. London. That's the idea.

That's you getting out of your hometown. That's That's like the artist. That's your artist story. That's That's your brand. I just stayed here. I just stayed here for the last like three months. months. Three months. Great. Arsenal or Chelsea?

I don't watch football. I'm too busy making viral content. Let's

Let's go. I love that.

Unlimited virality or your mother's approval? Come on.

I don't know the answer.

I dropped out of school. I answer. I dropped out of school. I have not finished high school. I I dropped out of high school at 19 or 18 years old. And And my mom didn't talk to me for a month. Why? Why? Because Because I was focused on building the business. I I believe that my business has enough success for me and I love it enough. And it can get me insane opportunities, which it has. I I banked on that. I said, Mom, trust me.

She said, I don't trust you. So I'm not going to talk to you. And I dropped out anyway. So

So clearly I know what game I'm playing and she would want me to be happy more than anything.

And does she approve now?

Oh yeah.

Love

that. I mean, I threw them all out to Dubai for a family holiday.

Excellent.

At 20, at 20 years old. That That is impressive.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you started a - Shut up, Mama Rap Bill.

You started a label at 14, right?

Started a record label at 14 years old, correct? Did

Did you ever like video games or like nothing else? You know what I mean? Like Like soccer,

football. Yeah,

I really couldn't. And

And when I did try, I was always really bad because I was so behind on the video game world, unfortunately. unfortunately. And we just didn't really have the money to be buying the latest and greatest video games.

Yeah.

That was our family. So

So I had to find other things to occupy me. I I was never actually focused on money though. I I was a musician first and explored other things that my music helped me do or rather what my creativity could help me do. Music Music is just problem solving on a micro scale. You You problem solve to think of which high hat would be the best. You You problem solve to think how the bass can fit in so perfectly and how it should mix in with the rest of the beat. But But you cannot, but that doesn't mean you have to be a musician just because you're going to make music. You You can take that creativity and problem solving and ability to lower your ego to fix stuff out and apply it to a different industry. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll find that you'll be a lot better than other people because creativity makes a problem solving, analytical thinking and patience and lowering ego means you can do anything.

Last one of this for that only only post TikTok dance trends for the rest of your life or leave the music industry forever.

I mean, I don't mind posting TikTok dance. He's still got to go viral.

He's still got to go viral. There's one right now.

Clip that. He's got moves. Someone

Someone clipped that. mind posting TikTok dance. He's still got to go viral. He's still got to go viral. There's one right now. Clip that. He's got moves. Someone clipped that. The last part is the word association. association. Junior, I'm just going to say one word. I just want you to say the first word that you think of off the top of your head. It is that simple. We'll We'll start with music. Marketing. Viral. Trend. Hook. Hook. Algorithm. Algorithm. Ben. Ben. Me. Me. Cringe. Inauthentic.

Inauthentic. Apple.

Apple. Samsung.

Samsung. AI.

AI. The The future. Jet lag. Doesn't Doesn't exist. Dubai. Luxury. Luxury. Atlanta. Not Not luxury.

I just

just realized the order that I put those in. flipped it.

Yeah. Poor planning on your part.

America. Ambitious. Drill. Drill. Music.

Music.

Afro beats. Fire. Fire. Grime. Unlistenable.

Unlistenable.

Nando's.

Chicken. Rain.

Rain. Boring.

Boring.

Royal family.

Fake. Burnout.

Burnout. Fake.

Fake. Red

Red flag. Ex Ex -girlfriend. Green flag. Authentic. Rapville. Viral.

Let's go. This has been the viral content marketing goat. Goat. Junior from Rapville. Appreciate Appreciate you coming on the podcast. you, man. Rearranging your schedule. Flying into Atlanta. You're literally laying out right now. All All within six hours of each other. Thank you, man. Thank you. So So much game. Like, Like, comment, subscribe. We're here each and every week. Till next time.

Bye bye.

Peace, y'all. Bye bye.