Yo, what's up everybody? We are back. This is the second episode of No Labels Necessary. The podcast is back. We all gave us great feedback for the first one, and we're happy to be here with the second one. So as y'all know, this is Brand Man and Corey. We are here today, gathered here today to bless y'all with some TikTok topics, some artist music marketing topics, a few finesses that we've noted going around in the industry that y'all should be aware of, and inspired by. So let's start it off this way, Corey. One of our topics that we talked about last time, M trippin', tripplin'. Yeah, I think it's E.M. Tripplin'. E.M. Tripplin'. Yeah, E.M. Tripplin'. He had a beautiful, beautiful viral video. We talked about it last time. We talked about how he finessed an L and made it a W by taking these 13 people at his show, and highlighting that experience on Twitter and tweeting about it.  Yeah. And then there was another video that went viral from the same show. You wanna talk about that? Yeah, man, so, man, it's pretty new at this point. So it's a little bit of speculation. People might, okay, okay. It might not be pieced all the way together, but I feel like by the time it comes out, it'll be a pretty 100%. Ain't no speculating, man, yeah. But pretty much what happened was, there's this clip that's moving in the mean space. He's on stage at another show, and he's just like talking, you know what I'm saying? Doing the little talk art is doing between each song. And a random fan in the crowd is like, yo, bro, can you shout me out? And he's like, yeah, I shot you out. What's your name? And the fan's like, uh, uh, you know, the whole crowd goes crazy. And the emus is like, oh, bro, forgot his name, and the crowd goes crazy. Like, I don't know when that show happened. It looks like it was pretty recent. I'm gonna guess. No, bro, that looked like the same show. You think so? That looked like the same show. We can like contrast outfits. We gonna throw that up on the screen. Yeah, we need to. Probably even play that for you, but I think that was actually the same show. That would be crazy, because then down the conversation, we need to change to maximizing your investment. When it comes to getting content at these different events, but I mean, either way, like it was dope because I think it speaks to how a lot of the time we talk about, like you can manipulate conversation, right? Like you can, you can shoot things and use like these mean pages and these different repost pages to create a narrative that could go much further than you plan for it to go. Cause I don't know, I personally have my reasons for why I didn't believe it was real. You know, some things about the technical aspects of it felt a little stage, you know what I'm saying? Like we do this a lot. So like we see it a lot. I can tell when it's real and when somebody's acting it out. But it still is genius nonetheless. Cause I've been seeing it on all the mean pages I follow on Instagram at least all day. At least the really big ones. Like definitely the really big ones, but a lot of smaller pages are picking it up. I've been seeing it on some Twitter threads and it's like he created this. Oh, that's it.  This is 100% bro. This is 100% the same show. It's the same show? I'm looking at his outfit. Oh, it is the same show. That's the same show. Damn, that's crazy. That's the same show. So let's break this down. Cause I know we've kind of talked, I want to make you all need to understand why we're even talking about this the way we're talking about it, right? So I'll say, I'll go for the maximizing values. Nah, nah, we're going to skip to this. What did you find out? What did you notice about the back end of this guy?  Who's this guy associated with? Oh yeah. So I have a really good friend who, well, okay. So his manager is Snott's manager, the rapper Snott. I have a friend who is good friends with Snott's manager. Thus how I was able to get this information and pieces together. But there were things about that I feel like I would have pieces together anyway.   Which I'll just do it.  Like they're, they're, they're pretty good at like getting the artist to do these things that have been so they can later flip into like social media of viral moments. Which is interesting. Cause I think that's how Snott might've kind of came up. I think Snott came up in the meme, the meme world and the meme culture, right? So he has these people behind him that understand how to make an organic looking meme moment. Which I don't know if this is well known, but you know, we've kind of seen it. It's like, you can crack the meme market. That's a very powerful, very cheap engine to learn how to tap into. It's crazy, right? Cause like, you can literally get a post, I don't know, a couple of hundred bucks a couple of tens of bucks that gets millions of views. If you do it right, because that whole community is oriented around just sharing shit, right? Like one meme page posted, it's 30 of them that like them. They all start sharing and it can create a like a really quick like viral looking moment that could lead to a viral moment. Cause you know another, another artist that did the meme strategy recently is Lil Yachty with Poland. I don't know if you heard that song. I've seen Clips by, no, yeah I did listen to, cause he actually mentions Poland in it, right? I saw, yeah, one little snippet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like that, it's almost the same strategy, but it's, it's this same strategy, but to a higher degree. Like Yachty really blasted the meme pages like that. Couple of days to week after it, as it was coming out to when it came out, he was on the meme pages hard. Like, so this to me is like smaller brothers that they probably don't have the crazy budget to keep it going the same way Yachty would have it going right. But I will argue that this is probably a little more impactful because one, he just had that conversation about the show. That was like two weeks ago, a week ago, two weeks ago. So it's like, all right, he's a newer artist. We have to figure out how to keep him in the conversation for as cheap as we can possibly do it for. Cause we don't want people to forget about him and think of him as like, oh, he's just the guy from that viral tweet. All right, let's create another one. Wish now that we're seeing from the same content from the same day. It's like, let's put enough time out there that this doesn't look obviously fake. Cause I think the clips that came out like too close together, they've been obviously it was fake, right? And there's probably some people who peeped it too.  But they put enough time in between it to make it feel like a true organic viral moment. The artist isn't doing too much around it. You know what I'm saying?  You know, I might've failed for it. That's a fact, man. That's a fact. And I'm gonna say like, whenever we talk about this type of stuff here, it's not to like out somebody. We're not any industry to plant type people here, right? Cause obviously we're the people behind many of these types of campaigns.  Big up it and y'all should be inspired by their ability to take a small moment and then flip it and to create a conversation. Cause I agree that's way more powerful than what Lil Yachty is doing. Just because, you know, Yachty has a name so he's getting that recognition. So he, but he couldn't necessarily do the same thing because he's a small artist. So people just feel like, oh, y'all are just throwing this artist in my face. But people already know Yachty's big. So it kind of feels validated. But even beyond that, the clip that they're sharing has more natural virality where Lil Yachty's campaign is just awareness. You know who Lil Yachty is. He just dropped something great. This, I'm gonna share it, all right? I'm gonna talk about what E.M. Tripplin did in his first one, especially even if you think about the order. It's perfect that he thanked these people.  That blows up. Now you're aware of them. So then when you see the second clip about the fan at his show, right? Now you know who the artist is, right? It's more context to it, right? Cause that clip right there without that, you're like, I don't know. Now why do I care? Why do I care? Exactly, exactly.  And that's what you're supposed to be. You need to get some smart people in your corner or think creatively. And that's always, always say with artists, like people stop short with the music so much versus applying the creativity towards their music videos, towards their shows, towards their marketing. This is that, my tuity, tuity. Yeah, shout out to them for having the idea on the fly that like, I don't, I don't know which came first, like the flipping. I'm guessing this probably came first. And then the, the moment they just flipped cause it was like, oh, it happened. We might as well, you know, get some, get something out of this. But yeah, bro, that's, that's, that's definitely a bang for buck, bro. Two viral moments out of a one show, bro. Like it's crazy. The way this is going on, it might be a third one coming, man. We don't know. Yeah, thanks, thanks. We'll see, we'll see. But with that being said, you would put me onto this coilovery clip. Oh yeah. Well, her talking about TikTok. I want to see what you guys think about that. So we'll play it. And then, of course, the comments. So let's watch it real time. Man, E.J. can edit this.   And I was like, man, listen, literally I know y'all right. Listen, I'm a, all right. Hmm, hmm, hmm. You knew something different. He was like, okay.  Once I knew that the TikTok drove streams, I'm about my money and I'm about strategy.  Cool. If you don't want to appreciate the music and you hating because you can't do it the way I did, then that's cool. But check the numbers out. Crazy, bro. Hey, man, like, first of all, she coming with a different energy than what I'm used to seeing. Yeah. She's tired of the internet bullying, bro.  She don't level up. I like that energy right there. That's, okay, that's beautiful. So it's a lot of things about that. So many artists talk about like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. And half the times it's fear, ego or laziness. That's what I see in most cases. Where it's like, all right, if you really want this, if you hate your job, you hate your existence at whatever profession and what you're doing for work today. Come on. We talk about people selling their souls to be successful. And when they talk about doing anything that's necessary, we talk about people sleeping with people.  Bro, if it just means you gotta create some TikTok videos. Or, and this is a conversation, remember before TikTok, we were having these conversations I don't want to post on Instagram. I'm not a, you know what I mean? The type of person. I'm not a SoundCloud artist. Yeah, I'm not a SoundCloud. It's like, do what you need to get in the door. Especially when it's something like this. It's just your behavior. It's not even like legit, like doing something grimey or against your ethics. And then when you get control of the situation, then you can manipulate more how you brand yourself the actions you take. But you need to get a fan base for cheap as possible. Unless you just want to have somebody put money into you super early and then they own you. So you want to get owned or do you want to do the work to get on but own yourself, right? That's what it comes down to me. Yeah, I mean, I like more so the fact that we see like these platform slurs come up.  Oh, you just a SoundCloud rapper. Yeah.  Oh, you're just a, you're just a TikTok artist, right? And she said something in there that was like very important to me, but she was like, bro, they should draw a strange round here. I don't care what you say. Like I can see that a result is leading to, well, a effort is leading to be results. And I think the clip shows a lot of growth for her because to your point when you're saying like, she's bringing different energy. I feel like she's taught with somebody or come to the realization that like, yo, like I'm in a unique position. But like everybody doesn't get, I mean, she's at like two, three viral TikTok hits, bro. Most people ain't even gonna get one. You know what I'm saying? Let alone like two or three. Especially at an artist about her stature, we might see like bigger artists get multiple TikTok hits back to back. But a new act, but she's only been in the game for like a year and a half, two years at this point, something like that, you know, seriously. So I feel like she's had the realization like, yo, I'm in a very unique position where like you said, I could post a video on TikTok, post five of them.  Thanks. I don't know, it looks like a lot of maturity. A lot of maturity happening, you know what I'm saying? Or somebody broke it down for her numbers.  Look at what you say, bro. Period, and that's the game. And that's the game. And that goes always back where I say, what I do like about street artists that a lot of the more creative, non-street or suburban artists or other genres don't quite get like the street artists put into work. All right, they understand business a little bit more maybe because it's the hustle background, but it's like, what's going towards the result? I don't care too much about the opinion of people what's talking and conversations on the internet.  And a lot of times other genres tend to, they can, they overconcerned themselves without what other people's opinions when, I don't know, maybe you have, maybe it's like a real life thing, bro, if I'm on the streets and I'm hustling and I'm used and I'm in some life, you know, threatening circumstances and I might need to get off the blocker. I'm trying to figure out a way to get off the block. I don't got time to think about all the other stuff, but you're in a position of comfort. You want to get on in the exact way that you want to get on. It's more of an entitled mentality, which is cool if you can make it happen that way, but cutting off all your options. It's just like, this game is hard enough as it is, especially when you talk about the money part. Yeah, and I think too, a lot of it comes from like, you're taking feedback and criticism from people that don't get it. But I actually have a really funny story that kind of talks about this. I think it's funny. It's sad what's kind of funny, but I was in middle school, right? When I was in middle school, I used to want to play soccer. Oh, man, can't even see it. Yeah, I was right, crazy. But middle school was when we moved from like the country to like the hood.  I was like, it's a soccer uniform. He's like, bro, you playing soccer?  And they would bully me about it. You know what I'm saying? About not playing basketball. So eventually I gave up and I stopped playing soccer. I started going to play basketball with the hood kids.  You get more into soccer, but you start seeing soccer players go pro at like 12. You know what I'm saying? Whatever you're making, millions of dollars by the time they're 16, they retire at like 27, 20. I was just listening to something the other day. Is it Lionel Messi? I think it's Lionel Messi. He has a four year, $600 million contract, bro. Yeah. Four year, $600 million. That's, that's... Crazy. Far beyond. That's bigger than baseball and basketball. It's crazy, bro. So it's like, I know stuff out of that now and I'll look back on anything like damn, bro, like, what would have happened if I kept playing soccer? Cause I don't have like 11, 10, 11, you know what I'm saying? So, but that goes back to what I was saying about the court or everything. Like I was taking in feedback and criticism of people that don't get it. Like, don't think it's been known.  You know what I'm saying? Where soccer players could go and how fast it could happen.   So that's why I say, I feel like she had a conversation with somebody or somebody brought some numbers down to her or something clicked for her to maybe see it as like, yo, like I'm, I'm lucky, bro. Like I want them to lucky a few people that get this degree of a TikTok moment. We see it come and go, right? People like to joke about the fact that like, a lot of them come and then they fall off. But it's like, a lot of people don't even get the opportunity to fall off. You know what I'm saying? They don't even get the chance to fall off.  And so I personally like the energy she's coming with because it's a me, I feel like it's gonna make her take the platform more seriously, move it in the future. And that's just gonna strengthen the whole she has.  They're probably 13, 14, 15. They ain't got money like that. You know what I'm saying? But unless she quits in the next three to five years, bro, she gonna be good, bro. Like as soon as they get the bread and they like, oh, I remember her from the TikTok days and she still going, you know, maybe by then she dropped like more music that people like she gets a catalog. Right? Like she's gonna be crazy, bro.  So yeah, bro, I don't know. Somebody tell Cole, right? We said, keep it up. Keep up the good work.  No, that's real though, man. Like you really got to control who you listen to for all this stuff and the ego stuff. Like dead, dead in this era, bro. Like do what you gotta do to get on. Just don't do anything too wild where, you know, you just out of pocket. What's a, I can't remember his name now. Bam, boom. A bunk? Bunk. There we go. You know what I mean? That was so far out of pocket. They all messed that up. And the music didn't really back it up. His music was doing way better than it should have been doing. Yeah. Right? That's how much of a, you know, attention grabber he was. But imagine he actually had some good music. He probably would have made. Yeah, it would have been crazy, bro. Because attention is the hardest part of the game. Literally. Like getting attention is like, I don't know, I feel like making quality to good music is easier than it's ever been. You know what I'm saying? I mean, even though it's the process of, actually, I'll say it's the process of getting attention is actually pretty easy too. If you know what you're doing, hell yeah. Yeah, it's easy. It's retaining the attention that's the hard part. Cause it's like, everybody has so many different things that they could be paying attention to, to instead of you. So it's like, now you have to consistently prove to people why they should be paying attention to you. Right? So really, really interesting hamster wheel you get on. You know what I'm saying? As an artist or creator of any type. But it's just like, these platforms give you the vehicle to be able to access all these people if you choose to crack it correctly. What you choose to do with it after that point is up to you. You know what I'm saying? Some people are gonna use it and drop the bag. Some people are gonna use it to pop themselves off into, I don't know, the next massive art goes like any day, but it's just a, this is just a hub of people. That's it.  That's it. And with that TikTok conversation of mine, we gotta play that Steve Lacy clip. Oh yeah. Which was, bruh. Oh man. I thought this was so amazing in the wrong way. I'm gonna shout. The way nobody send the next verse embarrassing as. All right, so yeah, man, that, but to me, one, we already know, like TikTok is literally the most extreme version of just hearing snippets of a song, right? But we've always had that experience before TikTok. There's plenty of songs that you know that it could be so big and it's not even like your particular bag that you know the song because it was like an old school song or it was just a massive pop song in a different genre. And you're like, oh yeah, I know that song. You don't know it, know it. So TikTok puts that out there, but hey, first of all, they're at your show. Yeah, fine. So you still got the bag, right? The wind is still there.  I was just at one music fest and it was like the GZ set. And it was one of his B sides. And I heard part of the chorale get quiet. Some people knew it, but it was part of the chorale.  There's always the risk there. So one, hey, bro, it just is what it is. That's the part of the risk that you take when you do that. But two is TikTok ruining music. Do you feel like that goes to TikTok or what? No, I think that's more of a reflection of just. Steve? No, not Steve. Steve's fault, bro. I ain't gonna put it on Steve.   I was just trying to bait him into something. Yeah, well, I think it's more of a reflection of just consumer behavior, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know. I don't want to get too technical into it. I don't feel like I have the degree to get too technical into it. But people have kind of evolved to many short attention span people, you know what I'm saying? We all don't pay attention to things for too long. And that isn't super shocking to me because I feel like if the ringtone era was still around, like ringtone era makes me think of that, right?   Then the rest of it started playing.  I don't even need to worry about that, you know what I'm saying? So I don't even need to learn the rest of this. So I think, like, I don't know. I think people are like looking for something to blame because I don't feel like anything at this point can truly ruin music. Like, music is so big, bro. It would take a very powerful entity. It would be like Drake, Bad Bunny, and Olivia Rodrigo just banding together for the greater evil of society, you know what I'm saying? To bring down the music industry.  So it's like, I don't think these things ruin the music industry. I think they show artists a side of user behavior that they're not used to seeing. Because I think, well, especially a lot of newer artists are going to have to understand is that, like, you are a part of a cultural phenom that's not going to be understood for another five to 10 years. You know what I'm saying?  So it's like, you're a part of it.  Because nothing has ever come along until I really show this in that type of way before. So I feel like, like you said, bro, they had to show. They probably bought merch, you know what I'm saying? They probably went home and talked about how great of a time they had. Maybe you can listen to the rest of your color. Maybe that was the eye-opening moment for all of them. They all went like, damn, I should go listen to the rest of this song and figure out the words for it.   But it's like, bro, you won at least for what most artists are looking for. They came to the show, they knew the song enough to come to the show, spend some money. Now it's up to you as an artist to, I think, keep them interested enough that they care to learn the rest of the song, the rest of the catalog. That's the part right there, bro. Because this is your job, right? At the end of the day, we got to remember, this is your job. So yes, it will be nice to the fans to listen to everything. But one day, they're at your show. We keep repeating that part back because it's so hard to get people to your show and that's money that you're getting exchanged for that relationship. So one, it's your job for the music to be good enough that people want to listen to more of it. Because let's be real, some of these songs, that part is the part. It ain't nothing else. So you don't deserve for them to listen to the whole thing.   But still, they are at the show. It's your job to put on a hell of a performance so people just rock with you in the future and they follow your next thing. That experience was so great. So I want to come to the next show. I want to go listen to the rest of the project, give them an experience or perform that song so good and now they want to go listen to it in their own room and now they're associating with that moment. So if you can just stay humble with it and keep putting in that work, you understand, matter of fact, Gary Vee does this. He's always good at getting ahead of this stuff and playing that game. Like you ever seen Gary Vee when Gary Vee was already Gary Vee to you, right? He'll go into a room and he'll be like, I know half the room doesn't know me. Like who doesn't know me up here, right? And he'll see, oh yeah, I'm glad.  You know Gary, right? It'll be like, all right. And then my job is to like, you know, basically. When you're over. Yeah, when you're over, right? I know I seem like a sales, what snake oil salesman, da, da, da, da, da, right? But this is my job to keep staying consistent. You might not even like me now, but eventually you see this stuff play out and say Gary's a dope individual and he's already got millions of followers, right? That's the mentality that an artist really has to has to go at it with, right? That's kind of why Kanye still, I think it comes from a slightly more insecure place, but that's why he goes like so hard still, where I think he's aware of the lack of awareness of him. Like he has this thing where he wants to dominate and continue to make people acknowledge him in the way that he wants to be acknowledged, right? You know, better or worse to see, you know, that's a whole another conversation I ain't trying to have today. But the fact is the impact is the same. You continue to get known, continue to get talked about and the growth continues to happen. Yeah, and two, to the point you may have think about, there's different types of people that come to these shows, right? So you have your die hard fans, which is not like it wasn't anybody in the crowd not singing the words, but they were drowned out by the people that didn't know. So you have your fans. You were drowned out by silence, bro.  It's like, you got the fans, you got maybe a pseudo fan, like I know the song enough, so maybe I want to go. And then you got the people that probably don't really know who you are. Their friend probably brought them. Maybe they've kind of heard of you before. Maybe it was like walking past the venue and saw the line out. So I was like, oh, this is pretty crazy. Probably not see like his tickets probably sold out, but you know. But you have these different groups and I think like, I don't know, one thing I wish I would have saw him do in that clip and maybe it did happen, but I feel like he should have stopped the crowd and been like, he should have acknowledged it, bro. He should have been like, yo, like, I see everybody in the room doesn't know how to words. So look, I'm about to teach it to y'all real quick.  That's that next level performance skills, yeah. Crazy, bro, like it flipped the moment. So I wish he would have did that. But I mean, he's not out here like ranting about it. So I mean, he's handling it well. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, cause that was his fan page. I thought that was him at first, but that's like his fan page. But hey, you know, like on the other side, going back to the beginning of the pie, man, we could have made this a way bigger viral moment. Y'all should be pushing that, you know what I'm saying? That could be a whole thing. And that could start an industry conversation. And people, you know, like, I could see that being pushed and having its own organic effect. Yeah. I was kind of having a moment on Twitter. That's what I saw at first. I think I dropped it. Yeah, yeah, that was the link. Link, yeah. It's not viral enough, though. He got to give it the attention. That's all, yeah. It's not, or his team needs to like drop it on some meme pages. That could become a legit conversation.  So, you know, look, this TikTok thing, I get that it's his own beast. And it bring, like Jacory said, or I think that was a really good point. This is a moment that no one understands right now. People probably aren't gonna understand it for a good four or five years. So just know that this is the time that you're in. Yeah, so you can't really make any wrong moves because there's no wrong moves. Exactly. I mean, that's not true, but. Please. You've only made so many wrong moves, you know what I'm saying? And then going back, it's the long game, bro. It's like these fans gonna grow up, you give them a good show, a good experience, a good performance. They're gonna stick around, man. They'll learn the words eventually, then, you know, going back to what I was saying about Call of Ray, unless you plan on quitting anytime soon, then you're gonna be good, bro. They'll know the words of the next show. That's how it matters. Now, with that being said, just a little bit deeper because we had a conversation yesterday with a, you know, an individual in the industry that, you know, has a nice amount of clout in what he does, very, very reputable and respectable. And he brought up, they were asking us about TikTok, some questions around TikTok, because we dropped this really dope report for y'all who don't know. We did a TikTok global report between 2022, had the industry talking about it, you know, posted in many respectable publications. Y'all should check that out. Maybe we'll drop a link below here. You know what I'm saying? We'll do that. So they were asking us some questions, right? Now, one thing that he said that a lot of managers were complaining to him about was it being hard to make a hit on TikTok, right? There was this moment of time where they just felt like it was making some hits, but they feel like that moment has passed. All right, I'll let you get started on that. I got hella thoughts on it. Obviously we had the conversation already, but like, well, share some of those thoughts that you shared in the combo. Yeah, man. So I think the conversation started when we were talking about the artist-generated content. And so for those who haven't seen the report yet, we have this term that we use called AGC, which AGC stands for artist-generated content. It's our term. You see that anywhere? It's our term, people, just let it be known. Yeah, so AGC is basically content that the artist makes and put out on their own platform. Similar to UGC, which is user-generated content, which is content that people outside of the artist make and put on their platform, right? So the conversation was sending around how our report found that most of the most recent TikTok hits, their spark was kind of driven by AGC, the artist-generated content, rather than what was more traditional was influencer campaigns. And so I think that we're in a really unique position where we might be one of a handful of people in the music industry who've been working TikTok in every version of it, you know what I'm saying? Other than when it was musically, but we came pretty close after they switched to TikTok. Right, right, right. That's ads, influencers, content advising, manipulation in media. Yeah, I love it. All of it, every single aspect. So it's like when we were listening to the guy speak, I'm thinking like, okay, this must be coming from managers who maybe are familiar with like 2019, 2020 TikTok. Cause I don't know if you remember that TikTok, but that TikTok was pretty easy to get viral.  That was all off of the influencers at first too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was just money being spent, taking advantage of the platform, how cheap the attention was, and then just blasting it out a lot. The platform was much more simpler back then.  You fast forward to 2022. The platform is more mature, you know what I'm saying? Like the creators are talking about a more diverse group of things. The community as a whole is pretty sick of dancing. Every time we hit an influencer about a dance trend, they're like, bro, please, like please leave me alone about this. So I think it's a lot of these managers and people in the industry who are coming into 2022 TikTok with 2019 aspirations, you know what I'm saying?   And it's like, no, the platform is much smarter now. People, I think fans are able to pick up pretty quickly on when they're being marketed to. You can kind of feel the signs out, you know what I'm saying? Like we did with the E-Triple in Baltimore.  So it's like the fans are smarter, the platform is matured, and the strategies that work then don't work now. Right, right. Like, non-existent, they're not gonna work. And so I can understand why they would say it is much harder to break an artist on TikTok in that regard, you know what I'm saying? But that's what comes with every platform. There's no platform that gets easier as it builds, you know what I'm saying? Like, bro, one of my biggest regrets is not doing YouTube in 2004, bro. I wish I had, for what, you know what I'm saying? Like being early to YouTube and just staying with it was crazy. Man, man, man. I know there's people that got big, like I saw them be big, but they kind of like felt like it was the ceiling at the time. They didn't realize that it was still place to grow and go. So yeah, another platform thing is definitely huge. One thing I feel like, all right, managers gotta realize, and not just managers, but they mentioned managers have been asking this, like people gotta realize when you get something popping on TikTok, it's still no other place that you can get something popping from zero to millions of streams so quickly, so cheaply on a consistent basis, right? We've seen this happen time and time again. We've done it as an agency time and time again. The difference is, right, when TikTok was super new, super novel, you might've seen some stuff pop and go, like to hundreds of millions and billions of streams more often, maybe that was happening more often. I'm not even fully like of that idea. What I think is there's also way more artists in the game, so it's just a more legitimate percentage that's reflected, right? But if you get to millions of streams for basically nothing because the price of TikTok is not the price of these other platforms in most cases, it's just up to you to keep the thing popping.  Nobody's gonna like feel sorry for you because you got 10 million streams and it stopped there. Now you got enough attention to flip to Instagram, right? Now you got enough attention to flip to radio if you have those relationships. But getting breaking the artists, we had the convo about Ice Spice, right? Remember, breaking, marketing a song is not breaking a song. Breaking a song is not breaking an artist, right? So there's more leg to that race, right? I always say if Lil Nas X never made the connection with the labels, right? To do the rest of the marketing and provide the rest of the resources to continue Old Town Road and take it to his max, he could have just been another internet hit artist, right? Had a nice little viral moment kept pushing. He was getting close. He was getting close, right? Those windows are small. And I don't know the backend details of it, like whether it's him smartly understanding the importance of his relevance of it to his team, however, all right, because that was ran so beautifully, but it literally was the difference between being, I think at that time, it was like the most streamed song of all time. It broke some kind of record. It broke a lot of records. It broke a lot of records, literally of all time record breaking type stuff to literally just another hit on the radio, not the radio, on TikTok and the rest of internet. That was the difference, right?  And you need to move quick and always, especially new artists, right? New artists fail to value the moment, right? Because they don't know that this moment is fleeting.  I'm not even doing anything. I go to sleep. I wake up, my phone's moving faster. I eat some lunch. I wake up, I got some more followers. I got some more streams. I got some more views. And then they finally take a step back, like man, some of them honestly, right? Which is something y'all got to work on, like that mental work. I know, I've talked to many artists, they'll be like, man, I'm almost scared of it. Like so much activity. I just get off of TikTok. I just get off of Instagram. I don't do anything because like you get paralyzed. So that's a whole nother conversation that needs to be had. But this moment will not last. You got to capitalize. You can't have no paralysis analysis. You can't just not do anything. Get afraid of negative comments. You can't just, you know, rest on your laurels thinking it's going to apply to the next song, but that's what everybody does. And it sounds like some managers, they don't quite understand like TikTok is what it is. It's up to you to take it to that next level. Like you never stopped working a hit, right? To that moment, it's gone gone, right? It's gone gone. So I don't know, man, it's so many things about it. Like with, it bothers me. Every time somebody attacks a platform, I guess, right? It's just like, come on, bro. Like the platform, you know, it's a gun, right? Yeah. Depends on who has the gun in their hand. You know what I mean? Gun ain't good, gun ain't evil. You know what I mean?  Some person don't think I'm good. Some person don't think I'm evil. You know what I mean? So it's like all of that is relative.  So like, I think it was some, another interesting thing Buddy brought up in that conversation was TikTok over time, right? He was asking if we thought artist-generated content has become more effective over time. Oh yeah. Has influencers become on campaigns become less effective. Cause we had a stat that basically like two thirds of content like hits that got sparked off or from organic content, artist-generated content, right? And, you know, my whole analysis was, look influencer campaigns are great. If you look, if you look at the data, right? It was artist-generated content. We had user-generated content second and influencer campaigns and ads were last. And when you just think about it, all three, those top artists, influencer and user are all content, period. And it makes sense. It makes sense. Content works. The only difference between your shit, your artist-generated content and influencer content is you get unlimited at bats cause you got control of this. You can keep posting and posting and posting.  So it makes sense when you got more chances and you're not spending money for most of the things to pop off be that, right? Cause then you have managers and astute marketers like us that are like, yo, let's try to actually make it pop off of artist-generated content first and before we pay for it influencers. And then, the user-generated content. That happened. Hey, bro, it just is what it is, you know what I mean? Whatever guy does, guy does, that's the luck. I don't even want to say the luck of the draw. That's just, look, if it happens, it happens. So like the stats make a lot of sense and influencer and user-generated content have not become less impactful. It's just people becoming a lot smarter and understanding the impact of artist-generated content. So if you ain't creating TikTok content, I know you heard this before, but yo, it's a L. Yeah, it's locking, bro. And I think too, like people understand how to more effectively market that music on TikTok.  And we're probably like, mm, you know, we don't completely understand it yet. But now there are so many examples of artists who've used the platform correctly, both in the past and even currently, that I don't know, it just, it makes sense. Like even looking at the line where like, artist-generated content is the first thing, makes sense. People like to see and hear things from the artist first. Right, we like to feel like we're getting that personal connection with them. User-generated content, these are the fans of the artist that he got from making the post, right? Influencers, it's like, okay, now he got some budget. He found the bags somewhere. As, it's like, you don't feel like doing none of that work anymore.  Right. So, I don't know, it's like, I guess it makes sense to me because we see that line happen so many times. Like we see it go from artist to fan, to then we guys were influencers and then guys were ads and then just rinse with it the whole process.  Even though, I think the point I made to him was that they're not less effective, it just makes sense to do them at a different point in the artist campaign. Exactly. Where like, 2019, 2020, we were going influencers first. Right?  Let's just pay as many influencers as possible as gas it was to find a trend. Probably was around late 2021.  We ain't had a viral trend in months, you know what I'm saying? Also, I remember it was just way more expensive too. Yeah, way more expensive, yeah. Yeah, more influencers started learning their worth. You know what I'm saying? Becoming more high vibrational creatures, you know what I'm saying? Picking up the information. It's probably from people like, I think about it all the time, we're like, damn, we probably shot ourselves in the foot, but they got the information for wherever they got it from. Know your value, know your value. I mean, and it was actually, I think when we started to see it was, well, I don't know, maybe when you saw it, but I know when it clicked for me was the Nick D campaign was when it first kind of hit for me. Which part? The artist generated content and stuff because we had like 24k gold in. He was. No, bro. How did it not click to a Nick D, bro? Because Nick D's pineapple was the first one where I could see it from ground zero up. Cause when he came to us, it wasn't going, it wasn't like going crazy, was it? But Fash was a year before that. Oh, you're right. That's true. I forgot my bad past. A year before that, bro, and he had zero. He only had content. So to me, it was cleared in. It was just, I think it was, TikTok was still so early and influencers and trends were still working. Well, actually. That's when people still wanted. So it was no point of really trying to push them to that. That's kind of where my energy was. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. I'll take it back. I do know why Nick D was the first one I saw. Cause it was the first campaign we had where we try all of them at the same time and we could really clearly see like what was driving, what was driving, what, right? Got you. Like we saw the portion that was influencer focused. I think we had just got access to ads at the time. Like he might've been the first, no, Taj was the first ad client. He had to be like the second ad client we ever had for TikTok. Right, so we're learning there and then his shit's the one going on.  But when we add these other elements to it, shit sparked and really went crazy. So it's like, we could keep trying to flip the chart and go influencers ads and then convince the artist to make content.  Well, I won't say easy, but it's much easier than when nothing is happening. So that's why I said that was when it clicked me cause I could look at all three parts of it working together and be like, oh no, this is clearly the thing that's driving majority of the people with the content. And so like, but I know that was the point when, I mean, I always tell like other people about this, but you know, we had that point that same year where we just like looked at all of our most successful campaigns. It was like, damn, like what's the same thing we got? We got these 10 hours this year that popped off to varying degrees. What, what do they all have in common? And the one thing that they all had in common was they all were pretty good to really good content creators. Yep. Some of them were decent, which we argue like, we don't need you to be amazing. We just need you to at least be decent. You know, at least be okay bro. But most of the really good ones were like really good to amazing content creators.  You know what I'm saying? It was like, damn, we just gotta sell some ads and hit some info and this is, he did most of the work, bro.  So I don't know, man. I feel like the point we keep making the artist is the bro, if you got the money, do all of it, right? Like still do all of it. If you don't have the money, you definitely should be doing the content. Wait, this is why that's important though. Because it goes back to newer artists, not quite understanding how high something can go. You have that moment again. Oh, I've never had three million streams in 30 days or 60 days before. So I'm like, yo, I don't need anything else, right? Cause it popped all off of organic or maybe it popped off of influencers. Not respecting and understanding where the other aspects lie, right? So it's like, yeah, ads might not be as impactful for creating the spark like artists is generated content, but it doesn't mean ads can't add value to this campaign. It doesn't mean IGPR can't add value to this. It doesn't mean that influencers can't add value to it. It's just used strategically in a different way. But so many artists is funny cause we've had so many different clients that will move in different ways and they found success in different ways and they'll only swear by that way. Next thing you know, nothing else works. Oh man, you know, all I need to do is post content. Ads don't work. You had an artist that popped off with ads and that's all he sees, right? And then you got the artist that had an influencer campaign or artist that never spent money at all a day in their life cause they're meant, but you got a manager that's a hustler and they flip some things. They're creative and everybody just falls into their dogmatic mentality and tries to preach and nothing else works. So while we're kind of in the center and like saying, you know, all these things work. It's just when you do them, who you do them for, what song, like it's an entire machine. So like to Jacory's point, man, like if something gets popping, like one, it doesn't mean anything else doesn't work, but two, like your song can go farther if you do more. It's the same reason why people will work a song. They'll say radio isn't really responsible for creating hits these days. Yet when songs get really popping on the internet, what do they do? They take it to the radio, right? Cause radio still does have value. You just need to know when to apply the value. Like that's my point with that. Yeah, I love it really. When we talk about the whole like marketing mix, mix, ecosystem, all this doesn't make sense to do down. This makes sense to do at these points. And it's like, in the ideal world, everybody would do all of it, you know? I think in the more realistic world, you kind of find the combination of things that work for you. And then you get that so tight knit that you feel comfortable enough to experiment. Right?  Right. I just feel like, yeah, like too many people write it off as just like, I don't know. I guess writing off is like, I think it's the word aspect of it. I always go about that, bro.   You know what I'm saying? And I really do feel like that's what it boils onto. There's no way everybody's seeing these same people on TikTok pop off seeing it the same way.  But there's no way that we all for the last year and a half, two years of the industry have been looking at this shit happening and nobody else is coming to the same conclusion that we're coming to. I refuse to believe that. We might have been the first one to put numbers on it. Right. But there's no way we were the first ones to start thinking about it. So I have to boil it down to everybody's like, damn, that's how this should work.  You know what I'm saying? Like, so I'm gonna go do this other thing. I hope that works out.  Hey, bro, that's a fact. You already know I'm on your side with that one. Before we get into this next topic, I got a spam message. Have you been getting these messages? This one says, OMG, she will squirt all caps. So hard if you use this. No, bro. You even getting these? No, bro. I'm getting my phone over private. Man, look, bro, I ain't doing that. I put my number in nothing, bro. I blame it on a Democrats, bro. You know, you signed up for some of them campaigns. I know they selling data, bro.  No, we're selling it to the tech sector workers, bro, that's all kinds of wall, bro. I've gotten, this will be like make your junk bigger. You know, I'm never gonna click the link because I feel, you know, come on, I don't know what data hold I'm gonna end up in breach my security, all that kind of stuff. I got a homie that got a phone hack clicking links, bro, I'm due up. Really? Yeah. Wait, no, tell me, what happened? No, they just clicked the link from a sketchy message and they got locked out of the Instagram account. And then they got it back and then the person sent them another sketchy link and they clicked that link and they got that in there. Hey, bro, you deserve it. Exactly, bro. That point was up, bro. You deserve whatever comes out of this, but that's crazy. I don't click no link and I answer no phone number that ain't in my contact number. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta shoot me a text and it better make sense. That's crazy, bro, because they, I was watching, I think it was like a Joe Rogan podcast. They actually got some security thing now and they're not gonna use it for a normal person. This is like probably the president or something, but they can literally now just send you a text and hack your phone. You don't even have to open it. If they send it and get to that phone, they can hack you and turn on listening device, video, all that. That's crazy. Yeah, bro. That's crazy, bro. Yeah. So it's like, you remember that tech that Mark Cuban came out with a few years ago, Cyber Dust, that's what it's called. It's the whole thing is like you send texts and they disappear automatically, kind of like Snapchat, except it's for text conversation. Oh, nah, I missed that. Yeah. And the validity, I was always kind of like, I mean, why do people want this? We got Snapchat, because Snapchat was fresh out of there. It's just for text, but a lot of the higher level executives, things that you're talking about.  Yeah, don't need to be out there. You know, when you see some of the things that come out and be taking companies down today too, anyway, you're like, okay, I can see why they don't want it. Let alone the true security breaches and like- Call them and talk. Yeah, you just talking about the stuff that you probably shouldn't be saying, you know? Like that's the stuff right there. So, yeah, but anyway, the next subject read a TikTok live, last TikTok subject for today, but we gotta have a chance in that same conversation. This whole, like most of this talk today, right? It's been just recapping a conversation. We talked about TikTok lives because like most people don't quite understand that TikTok lives are going to a place that these other platformers haven't taken it yet. The beauty of it is beautiful, right? I feel like a better word. Like the biggest thing that I noticed, right? That just let me say, oh, I need to pay attention to this was when I started to take note because I had been doing it out of habit, but one day it clicked. It's like, yo, they're showing somebody's live stream that I'm not following, all right? Instagram, you gotta follow that person to see their live stream.  I clicked that thing, I'm in there live. That's a discovery mechanism. Where before, it's only a way to, you know, interact with people who are already following you. So that alone lets you know, oh no, this is gonna hit different, right? That was what I was seeing early on, but now things have, like we'll play a clip, but they've graduated to a point where you'll see people making dumb money doing interesting things. I've seen a lot of crazy things, but remember I sent you this clip with this rapper right here. I'll play it, we'll play it on the live. The whole point of this and why I think this is like important to share and show, Right, it's just these numbers that buddy's getting he's just straight up freestyling right if you got that type of Billy Especially, you know, we know freestyles always try to figure out how to make money. This is the new I'm rapping on the street You know I'm saying he's just rapping on the live and do has 903,000 likes just as I'm watching it. I recorded it because I thought it was dope where I was going on Look at all the hearts. He's getting 1500 people in there 1500 people in there You know, I mean I never heard of this guy before but this is just off of a live and he probably does these a lot You know, I mean trains people to like come in and to continue to discover him do that, but look at all these These these gifts, right? Remember the guy Do you remember who that was? Who was like, yo? Like getting a rose is five cents, which is more than a string. Yeah, it was a Nathan Fox. That was Nathan Nathan it's a Like shout out to you Nathan, right? But like that right there is a crazy thing to think about so like if you stay on live and you hustle Like I know a lot of DJs that'll be on live. I watched them So it's like you're getting tips and this money is adding up this money is adding up versus getting the stream But and not only that you're able to get Discovered by a new audience Those two alone the money you're making I know it's still not like a stupid amount just to say five cents per rose But there's also bigger, you know Yes Yes, then that that you can get the net but that's just a baseline literally one of those is more than a stream How many streams do you how many streams do you need to get five cents? Like ten ten eleven? Ten streams to get the five cents, right? One rose you get that so that's if you think about it in that in that different paradigm And that's one of the big things about like escaping the way the music industry is trying to get you to think about music and consumption You start to be able to take advantage of different moments, right? That's what a lot of artists like Russ do Russell's now doing that. All right a lot of those artists that are Even if they're taking advantage of some of the main music industry stuff.  Yeah, they're doing the new stuff pretty much just the new though It's just like just to break the Like the edge where they're dealing with the world outside the industry new or old of how they are willing to get their fans Or look at their fan base and the whole relationship where the industry a lot of times They sell us on how we should look at ourselves, right? If you're an environment artist, right? They sell us on how we should judge success When most of how they judge success is based off of them as a corporation numbers that they have to hit first week Numbers only matter if you're really at a label like that, right? Okay, if you happen to be number one That's something that you can market and flex and show right but then again a lot of times leverage for a label deal but if like so if you're at a label it looks a lot better to have I Don't know. I'm just gonna say 10 million That's a low number for a label. Let's just say a hundred million streams in the first week I'm just throwing that number out there versus having a hundred million streams over two years. All right Yeah, all right, or even matter of fact, it's more valuable to have for them to see 100 million streams over the first week than it is for those see 300 million streams over three years two years All right, because there's so many incentives when it comes to like just corporate, right? It's just a you got a so one thing that we forget about Is this is a regular as job for people? Yeah, it's a regular as court people get bonuses off of what? How music performs at a label? They get taxes. They get promotions Oh, this artist did well and you did well in your job, right? They get fired It's a regular job for people on that side of things So when you look at and understand it that way, but you're not in that system none of that stuff applies to you Yeah, so it's like it doesn't mean that that can't be valuable or cool Right getting your Grammy doesn't mean much in terms of a fan base But also you can flip that from a brand standpoint and get corporations to pay you more All right, so there's value to it, but don't assign it where it doesn't belong and like Friday Who mentioned it? I'll let you say it then like it's funny I saw somebody else mention that recently, but we've talked about that before Okay, okay, I was just saying like everybody dropping their music on Friday Ain't nowhere else you could go with that. Yeah, but yeah, it's exactly like that Right where it's like the Friday release only matters if you're trying to hit billboard I actually just had to come to the arts today. It's crazy, but I was like, yeah I was like, do you feel like You right now has a real chance of hitting billboard and they were like, no I was like, okay. So why does it matter if you put your music out on Friday now? Granted, I also get you know people wanting to get the playlist relationships, right? Most playlists up there on Friday, but I mean Sam When he did the Curtis waters single release dude through his label They dropped that on a Tuesday and I remember he was freaking out. He was I mean We're not gonna know if he gets a DSP support into a Friday because we chose not to drop on the Friday Friday Roll around they on New Music Friday on all these different places. Everything's good again Well, like the ship is back. The ship is back moving like it should be CMI. Yeah So it's just like it's like man. There's so many of these like traditional Music industry, I guess models of methods that do not apply to like 99% of music art It's like I feel like like you said brother game has no rules when you're beneath the industry Like it's just like get in how you can get in you know saying these credit if you can be You know saying break through however you got a break nobody people only talk shit about you while you're trying to break Do so you break this like I do genius That's crazy. I did he came up with hey, that's it. That's your spot. Exactly. So it's like I Don't get artists who force themselves to play by the rules of a game. They're not part of yet It's like bro that you're gonna lose. Yeah, and if you're gonna lose that Yeah, it's like you're not even supposed to be over there and you kind of it's like your little brother They're trying like who would you know your friends like bro? You're not ready yet, but like one day you're gonna grow You'll be big and strong, right? You post up with but until then bro go back over there That were right there to post up. Yeah, you're there crying cuz you get in the post But I'm using my strength. It's like bro. It don't matter. You got better handles and all that stuff I'm using my strength. I'm winning. It is what it is.  Of course.  You didn't have to do it that way There's so many other ways you could have went about this thing and so to me That's what the tiktok live thing becomes interesting because it's still too new to really say I Guess what kind of impact is gonna have on ours, but I really do feel like we're starting to see this weird renaissance where I Think people would rather be an influencer than a music artist. I don't think it's fully there yet But I think we're getting there because it's like but now Information my music is coming out and we're learning about how much these artists don't get paid Right, I mean, I can pay right reports are coming about influencers and we're learning how much a lot of them make you know I'm saying it's like damn, but you making that from YouTube making that from tiktok. And so to see it in real time It's different. I had a live once where there was a guy who was taking donations to sing songs Like whatever songs might want him to sing you like your donate whatever you want to donate to me And I'll sing it now watch him make like three four thousand dollars in like an hour and a half That dude I haven't seen him on my timeline in a while But that was the point where like he was going live like four or five times a week if I if I'm assuming low-end $500 high. Let's say that was the highest he ever got at three or three four thousand dollars. I mean He's still making like seven to ten thousand dollars a week if he's doing that consistently Yeah, I don't know any independent artist that would turn that down And I don't know any who have figured out a system yet to make it that quickly and for that That little amount of work and so it's like I think it's more of those people start to come out And of course is tiktok kind of like evolves the whole platform and the way they kind of run it Hopefully a lot more RSC and like you said, but it's like damn I could come over here hang out on this tiktok live for our Make six seven hundred dollars, which isn't nothing, but it's like you would do the same amount of work Put six hundred people to your music, you know saying like you're the man like 40 cents So it's like oh you could do both you could do it make the donation money How those people follow over to your music you make that money man You use all of it to kind of like keep keep the shit going exactly and It was crazy about is it is I was having this conversation with another artist to what I was like It was interesting about is that Gen Z and younger Like they're they're fully ingrained in like donation culture because a lot of them grew up in Twitch Right, which I will argue was the first platform that started getting people used to like yo You like it's crazy. I'll give them some money because we ain't about to pay them. So don't US at least. Yeah Yeah, exactly.   They've always been doing stickers and yeah Yeah, so that's like a lot of these like new age kids But like they grew up with their favorite twitch streamer being like yo donate money in the chat YouTube has been doing the whole super subscriber thing for like years at this point. And so it's like there's a period where that was all weird Now we're moving to the period. We're like, that's normal. Like yeah fans go into these different platforms Thinking like man. I got five dollars on me, bro.  They're doing it Consistently every day, bro. That should that should start to stack up So I don't know my thing like the lives are looking like a pretty viable like monetization model for like any artist who can figure out The gamification element of it because that's the big thing I've been seeing with it Like that even a guy could be shows like you can just go live and like regular talk Might make a little bit of money if you got like if you have the audience for already if you were new Going back to like you said the whole discoverability aspect of it Like we're more likely out of takes out live one time bro. I was like 40 people in there And I know where it shot up to like 1600 people in it. Oh, yeah Yeah, bro, so it's like I know where 16 1500 and 70 people were in there that I did not know who I was Came out nowhere, but it's like if you figure out something that you can do that's not just entertaining to your audience But also entertaining to random people and you can gamify it, right? You can have a tiered system in it or some type of competition in it or whatever But you can make a lot of money off these things. I lost And this is just in the beginning of it because remember, you know, I remember you told me that I see was doing terror cards Yeah, I've seen a lot of people now doing like terror cards or whatever, you know, that's a whole space, right? So get those do the readings that artists that we first started talking about in this conversation.  But in fact, I literally I Can record it like me going through a whole bunch of lives Just because I wanted like to show how random it is I'm gonna like put it up somewhere whatever like it's everywhere, man like tiktok goes everywhere and It's funny he talked about the amount of money, especially these youtubers make man, the um, I was you know, the lead attorney Now man, he's actually in Atlanta, I believe but he's like a divorce attorney, right and Well, I don't know if he's still practicing, but he's like for ease or whatever and One he was like, yo, if you're over Like if he's like if you're 25 making 45,000 dollars a year cool, you know, 30 33 I could you know, cool. Well, he's like baby over your 40. He's basically like quit and become a youtuber This basically he was coming from and he say he started he wasn't making that little money, but he was he started at 43 you know, you to 45 now and He's making 50k a month Yeah And he was like this conversation was actually about like Cardi B's trial right and Tasha K Unwind with Tasha K. Yeah, it's like you heard the whole name and she owes that 40 million parents for four million And he was like at the case and stuff. Alright, so he would like he was talking about some of the things going on in the courtroom and everything but Yeah, he was saying that like do y'all he acts like the chat. Do y'all think Tasha K has this money and A lot of people like nah nah nah nah and a couple people said yes And he was like it's funny that the only people I see saying yes that she got the money are youtubers Yeah, and that's where he started breaking down. He was like, yo, man. It was like I think he was making I mean he just walked down from when he was making 10k to What 15k a month to 20k a month and now doing 50k and he's like she got over a million followers I only got I think he has like a hundred fifty two hundred K followers.  Yeah, and these people who go live Full circle, bro. Yeah, cuz he was I was watching his it was a recording of his live stream But if you look at him Like Kevin Samuels.  It was like What three white guys and Vanessa? They were one of the guys was like, I don't know how Kevin like just does those lives Well, you know, you know RIP, but like just goes lives keeps the attention. Everybody's trained and you're done You do your live show doing hundreds of thousands even millions of Views off of it and getting super chat money. Then you get to be the ad dollars when that thing plays So like the amount of money they're making and just from going live man and doing that in the right way That junk is crazy. It's like people people just are itching to give that money to somebody Hey for real it's out there. So yeah, I appreciate you know actually Because I'm going to Vegas for Thanksgiving to see my, you know, my uncle or whatever This is a perfect conversation because the live streams, right and you talked about The culture that exists now that didn't exist, but especially in America of donating money, right? Especially the people online through those chats twitch now tick tock super chat on on YouTube Instagram Facebook Bless the heart. They still trying right The beauty about this is Somebody is gonna everybody's gonna come up out there money miles will be me right? Yeah, and this is the Vegas setup right because If you watch all these lies, right you see all these people donating you might you might not make that donation that time To that person.   Yeah, it's the strip club as a city, right? Yeah, and now Tick tock live these live streams across these platforms. That's the strip club on your phone Crazy That's a crazy way to look at it That would be a lot of money made on these lies, bro I'm already seen it brother. I believe like I'm telling everybody I know like yo, just at least try what you gotta lose Well, best case now you make the money with a scenario, you know That's the best part about the content. I remember actually When on buddy Mention I'm making 50k a month.  Yeah You just post the videos on YouTube making that much money let alone the other numbers we've seen on YouTube Yeah, but you're making that so imagine. Yeah, you are making 50k a year on on YouTube Just posting not having to travel to work Not having to deal with a boss that you don't want to all right Not having to deal with all these other circumstances even that even goes back Why would I want to deal with all this other stuff in terms of monetizing music in this entire game when I could literally just sit in my Room talk about some shit that I'm interested in and people follow me and I make money that way versus play the artist game Yeah, like that's harder. Yeah Why would I do that? So yeah, man These lives man these lives I think Extrapolate these clips Pull them out into the hemisphere, but I think we need to have more conversations and like pull out We should find some dope people brave y'all know some dope people y'all seen some great lives Bro, we got like six on my phone brahman every time I come across one. I think it's five. I'm recording. Hey, we need it We're gonna share that content. Maybe we started doing some talks with people You know, I mean everybody's gonna have their own flow and formula because it's just all the show but man, it's like There goes the cycles again, right? You got live TV All right, that's taking a toll except for sports Because sports obviously, you know, it's just best to experience it live They already won and I don't want to know what happens. It just ruins it, right? So they're they're doing well But now live streams are coming back. So that's that same thing. It's still that cycle, right? Yeah, people never escaped the cycles Yeah, but I just reformatted for whatever people want to be on it's all that that point in time same shit Different platform, but I wouldn't be surprised if they start having interstitial ads on live stream It's probably gonna get there. I think I've done actually Not nevermind, I can't say I think it's getting there cuz tiktok has a whole thing where you can market your lives now But that's pushing out to other people. So right, but I think they are gonna get there Cuz tiktok doesn't have a space with a live can live for them to make ad revenue off of it Right, and eventually they're gonna want some ad revenue off that shit or they're taking a crazy percentage of the donations which might be making up for the The fact of not making our revenue, but I think yeah some point. I definitely think so, but especially if it's a long-ass live I'm throwing I'm throwing a 30 second Exactly Make it clear to people what we talking about. So y'all listen to podcast, right? If you go back to listen to I Don't know somebody's podcast from earlier this year They have the ability to have new ads in that old Podcasts, right? So I was listening to a podcast from July of this podcast I listened to but he's all they're all Talking about this water that they're advertising. It's like some water. You can get it public some mineral water or sparkling water And it's like dang this is exact same ad, but I know they weren't doing this back then I remember listening back then because it can update. So if you think about the company, I got a podcast company. I got a Or just a catalog of content For me to constantly monetize with new Advertisers all the way to my back catalog without having to edit the video. All right like and do the ad live That's extremely valuable. You add that to live streams. Bam same thing, but What if there was a way that you could do that during a live stream? I feel like somebody would try to figure that out too. I think it's gonna get there It's natural because it's commercials But there's no way I'm about it Let this crater sit on my platform for hours making all this money And I'm not throwing that it's gonna get there, bro I think tiktok whole model is like making it look super crater friendly in the beginning They come behind and like, all right. Yeah, I love it And I go a little bag for it. You know tiktok not tiktok Instagram did the same thing well, um How do you TV like you get ads on your like videos over whatever the length is, right?  I'm like, I get ads on my video It's crazy, right? So I think the fact that tiktok They're either gonna have to a make a space for the lives to live so they can run ads on it Or they're going to start running ads on the lives while they're In action. I think it's gonna be that's the pimp shit, right?  So maybe not then they already violated Man, I don't know man. I feel like about They got to be crazy real like looking at your analytics and saying like that is credit made a hundred K lives I mean, we made at least 50.   It was crazy, bro That's what happened. So I was like, yo, what's up in the comments like, yo, what's your cash? I was like, what's my cash up? And it ended immediately.  I won't say it. I'm gonna write it on the wall. That's my shirt, you know I'm over the rhymes with ash apples. I love red. Yeah, that shit is funny, bro tiktok Look, they really have a strong hold a game and I don't really see it changing for a very long time But you know, look it is what it is that the I think the benefits outweigh the cons from an individual level Macro, okay. Look, there might be a little bit of strong army going on But as a way to get up and the amount of visibility they give you just look at that way You don't have to pay for the marketing out of pocket So you're getting like a little you know a loan that you never have to touch the money for we bring you the money Yeah, we're bringing you the money. We just we just want a little commission. That's all We're gonna bring you the leads man. If you give them the expensive man, we're gonna cut that brother We brought them to you. You know sign. Hey, that's all they take in the YouTube robber I was saying that like where you to you know anytime a youtuber comes out has a criticism with you, too They never respond back.   Instagram I feel like tiktok is starting to like get to that level of Oh They they fill in myself Man, we just pushed 300,000 people to your video in 20 minutes. What are you gonna do like that? My bad, y'all No, no more cash ups Well, all right, let's roll out like this because we there's more topics that we want to actually Touch on but we aren't gonna touch on them today.    He really did Pretty crispy And you know y'all keep watching we can get an even better camera, you know I'm saying, you know, so if I keep watching this thing, let us know give us your feedback You know, we like having these conversations want to help people out any people body who wants to be in the interview We ain't doing interviews. No time soon. Let's figure our life out first Episode 56 56 I like that one. Yeah, you got to keep up even though we got there.  I'm Sean. I'm Cory. Peace. Peace


sometimes this topic of diversity and inclusion is an interesting topic to me and it's a focus not only my company but also it's something that we have been approached by larger companies to help them. Really? Yeah, because diversity and inclusion is a topic we're living. Yes. But diversity does not mean that you're going to hire a person of color or you're going to hire somebody that is Hispanic. That's not the only thing that that means. We could be a minority owned company and we could have issues with diversity and inclusion. If you are African-American, everyone in your company looks like you, you have an issue with diversity and inclusion. You know who told me that originally? Guaranteed fence. You know them? No. Okay. Well, when you're next time you're looking on the highways, the companies that fix all the fences, their trucks are grain, they had a problem with that. They said that they were, I don't know if it was the state gave them a difficult time because they said they were Cuban owned and all their employees were Cuban. Right. And they had a problem with diversity and culture. Same thing. And what happens is, look, if everyone in your company is more than 30, for example, you have an issue with your, you don't have young people. You don't have a different age.  And you might be, what are you missing by not having a company that is diverse and includes all? That's it. That's a very interesting topic. I would have never thought a larger company would have approached you with something like that. Well, they actually have seen the pain again. We're living in times where that topic is being brought by others. And they, you know, people, when you see your competition doing something else, you start asking yourself, what am I doing in front? Yes. So, you know, when in a company, everyone is white and, you know, you have 5% women, you have an issue where we're not living in an era where everybody is the same. So, you know, if you see companies that are making billions of dollars of money, and you see these people at the top, top, top, and you look at the demographics of that company, you see that they're bringing talent from somewhere else. Yes. Awesome. So what am I doing differently? We got to learn from others. We can be, you know, blind. Okay. And that makes a lot of sense.


All right, we are now live. Chris, thank you very much for keynoting. The first virtual SafeMode DEF CON ICS Village has been a lot of work. I think it was really great how you set out both, I'm sorry, I'm getting some feedback. There we go, sorry. How you set out both the way that the strategy has changed, acknowledging how government has to be different, and then extending the hand to the community. And so the first question is, why now? What's changed? Hey, thanks. So first off, let me, first thanks to you. Thanks to the ICS Village for having me on. I gotta admit, it is painful watching recordings of your own remarks in what's, I guess, now real time. And we've also made a bit of a studio change. I looked like a hostage in that feed. This is more of a natural setup. You, on the other hand, Bryson, we could spruce up, I think, your setup there a little bit. So I'll help you on that front. I've got the important things. I know, I'm jealous, I got it. Hey, I got my aerospace badge the other night, so I'm excited about that. So what changed? I think it's, I don't think anything necessarily changed overnight. I think it was more of an agency coming into its own and trying to figure out, A, what Congress asks us to do and B, the special authorities and relationships that we've had. We've been in the ICS space for years. And if, in fact, we had an announcement earlier today, I mentioned the Control Systems Interagency Working Group, the private sector co-chair, we announced that just simultaneously, and that's Marty Edwards from Tenable. Marty Edwards has obviously been around for quite a long time. In fact, he was an employee of a predecessor organization to CISA running our ICS CERT capability. So we've been here, but again, I think what it was more about is a philosophy change here at the agency about being bridge builders, about connecting the dots. And that's in part, I think, just kind of my style, my, you know, the way I always operate. I'm a middle child, always seeking to build bridges, relationships, compromises, and not be an adversarial. And I think this is a community that kind of, I think shares that mentality and approach and is just looking for that hand for the pull-up. So again, I think we've got a number of different things that we're trying to do here. And one of the big takeaways that I had from the speech is democratizing security in the control system space, that the gap between the haves and the have nots is pretty remarkable. So what I'm looking to do is not just make sure that the bigs are into the party, but the fact that we can roll out in the rural communities in water sector, water facilities, the 30,000 plus water treatment facilities across the country, and make sure that they have access to training resources and capabilities. Not trying to take anything over here. They're still gonna be responsible for their security, whatever we can do. So we've got a couple of concepts between the control environment lab, resource the seller capability, but also looking to put some people on wheels, moving around the country and again, bringing that last mile delivery on ICS training. Yeah, so I appreciate the kudos to me and to several others, certainly with the village, it's a team sport. I couldn't do it without Tom Van Norman, who has done the lion's share of the CTF work, including integrating CISA into that, along with all the volunteers we have and all of the legends that we follow on from before. And so with that, opening the aperture for team and democracy, how can small and mid-sized businesses get more involved with these efforts? The CISA calls during COVID have been a fantastic resource for situational awareness. How can people get more involved in the R&D to bridge the gaps? Yeah, so a few things here. First is, first, I like hearing that the calls that we do during COVID, just so everybody's tracking Tuesday, Thursdays, the first, I don't know, 15 months of COVID, however long it was, six or seven months, we did Tuesday, Wednesday calls, broad stakeholders open, average anywhere, the highest number I think we had about 10,000 connections, and that's winter down over time. Now we're at every other week. But the idea there is to make sure that we can bring a set of resources, educational information sharing, technical guidance to the broader community. And that's not just us, but it's CDC, HHS, FEMA, anyone else. And we've done that for other events too. If you recall back at the beginning of the year with Iran, we did a couple calls there as well. The first evening call, we had, you know, 6,000 plus folks on a Friday afternoon, Friday, 6 p.m. call Eastern. And to me again, it's, hey, here's what's going on in the world. Here is the background on the Iranian actors. Here are the things that we're worried about and you should probably be worried about and covering down on over the weekend. Yeah, sorry to do this to you over a weekend, but that's just kind of how life is right now. So again, the idea is to be able to quickly engage. We've built partnership mechanisms and distribution mechanisms over the years. We've got tens of thousands of partners in these programs, but that's not nearly enough. We have a lot of room left to cover, our ground left to cover in terms of bringing people in. So we'll continue doing these. We'll continue doing those calls. We're gonna continue to do things like the ICS JWG, which is open to everybody. It's free of charge. It's virtual now. So there's really no barrier to entry since it's streaming online. If you got a connection to the internet, you should be able to tap in. We also have our cybersecurity summit, our third annual cybersecurity summit later this year, which is also gonna be in safe mode, which is gonna be about two to three hours of programming once a week on a, I think it's on a Wednesday. What's the first day there? September, I'll come back around on that. But it's gonna be four weeks in a row every Wednesday, two to three hours of programming. Again, free of charge. We're gonna be streaming it on the sysad.gov website. And so lots of lots of opportunity. And from there, what we've got to do a better job of is communicating the specific, almost the equivalent of an API on how you hook in. Just a week or two ago, we released the CISA service catalog, which is an interactive tool so that you can kind of pick and choose, sort through the things that we provide. Again, training, education, guidance, best practices. So that an organization of any stripe or capability can plug in and that'll get you into some of the other things we can do, like have a protective security advisor, cybersecurity advisor sit down with you and walk you through a good plan. You have any suggestions for how CISA can help push for critical infrastructure software updates where the current model of CVE vulnerability reporting and tools like OWAS scans do not show a problem in old, deprecated software platforms and tools. This would help open up the budget and get prioritization escalated. Yeah, so I mean, this is some of the initial feedback we got through the cross sector interagency working group. One issue was standards, help improve government input and engagement on standards bodies, but that doesn't really help for stuff that's already deployed, the legacy systems. And in part, that's what we're trying to do through pillar two of our ICS strategy. Again, I made the point in my remarks of nobody wants, nobody's here to hear about a strategy. They want to hear about the things that we can do. And that's what we're trying to build towards is collaborate with the community to the extent we can do joint research, joint investment to get that defend today aspect of our mission space. So to get the tools out there, the visibility out there, transparency out there on currently deployed and then help to the extent possible transition over into more secure by design, secure by deployment technologies. But this is the real challenge because some of the stuff's hard to get to. You can't take the plant floor offline to do a swap out. So we've got to continue thinking through what some of the alternative options are. So as a two-year-old agency, you noted how young Cease is, how is the process of recruiting ICS talent going? And can you discuss what you are doing or plan to do to grow future talent? Yeah, this is tricky, right? ICS talent is a unicorn out there right now.  Yeah, is that new? I haven't seen the dark unicorn version. Yeah, this is new. Okay, nice. Bryson's seven months into COVID. So it's tricky, right? We are able to attract talent right now on a 1Z2Z basis, but that's not gonna cut it. Our requirements are pretty dramatic. But it's also not about getting the people and the boots on the ground here. So first off, I have a philosophy. I want to be able to bring in as much talent as possible, but I'm okay if after four or five years or three or years or whatever it is, they spin out in the private sector. For me, it does a few things. One, it allows us to have an alumni network of folks that know how we work, the things we do. And then once they spin out in the private sector into the vendor community or the deployed community, they know how to work with us and they have an affinity in predisposition to work with us. Second, it allows us to provide training. So we're providing a lot of this training anyway, but if we do it here in-house, then we know that there's some degree of bar met or standardization in training for ICS security. Now, that's all well and good. You got to identify the talent as it comes up through. So we are working with colleges, universities, with various veterans programs to bring folks in. And in some cases we can pay for tuition, scholarship for services, one program. But again, that assumes that at least that part assumes that people are going into the traditional education path and we are committed to a diverse and inclusive approach to bringing folks into the government and particularly this agency. So we're working with Congress. They've provided us some funding to set up a program that'll look more a trade school or an institute, like approach, so it's not necessarily a four-year college but maybe two years. And that'll, I think, get us into an entirely different population of potential employees, but more importantly, get more capability and training out there at the edge rather than just thinking through the standard, four-year college and university approach. So I know our time is almost up. But again, oh, sorry. I don't think it's up, yeah, right there. Look, we're hiring all the time. So sysa.gov slash careers. Check it out. And also for any of our ICS resources, sysa.gov slash ICS, I realize the glare is probably bad. We'll fix that for the next one. But we are always hiring. We are a steady employment machine, not just here in the national capital region but throughout this great country. So I just figured you've been writing your password back up there. It would be a typical Opset phone fail. One, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah. Same combination I have on my luggage. Three rapid fire questions to close it out because I know you're out of time is you get to wave a non-internet connected magic wand. What is that one wish that you wish could happen? And then the final two questions is next year in non-internet connected magic wand is a crystal ball. What is one good thing and one bad thing that you think is gonna happen in critical infrastructure in the next five years? Yeah, so one thing that we've heard pretty clearly from across the community is a need for some sort of Rosetta Stone of protocols within various ICS technology and equipment. So anything we can do on that front to enumerate all the protocols and have it just that much easier for the security and safety folks to understand what they're dealing with and be able to make good informed decisions. So that's on the list. What's a good thing that's coming? I think we're gonna have a much better in part through things like ICS for ICS and part through things like updating CVSS and the distilling down commonalities across vulnerabilities and various deployments. Again, have a more informed risk-based approach to decision making. On the bad side, you know, look, the more stuff that's getting plugged in, the more stuff that's getting remotely monitored, it is just additional attack surface. There will be bad moments. It's not always gonna be cyber but they're very likely will be cyber because we know the adversary is taking a hard, hard look between China, Iran and Russia. So we're just hoping that we can, you know, through whether it's layer defense or just risk management and consequence management, keep the boom small and keep the loss of life to zero. Chris, thank you for your time. Pleasure as always. We look forward to a continued collaboration. Thanks, Bryson. Hey, stay safe. Wear a mask. Thanks, folks.