You've both worked on various kinds of comics. You've done both Superhero and the kind of crime to our base. Can you talk a little bit about how your approach to them maybe differ or what are the challenges each of the modes involves? Do you want to go first? That's up to you. Well, I did 10 years of writing and drawing crime graphic novels, heavily researched, first taking place in Cleveland where I grew up, and then in Portland where I live now. And I just really liked the genre. I really liked the visual. Also, there's something. It's a weird thing, but I have a weird eye thing called Kara DeConis. So I actually see in film noir. I actually see very heavy shadows. So I think that's why I was so attracted to the style of cinematography of film noir. The hard lights and the very key light, just the little information as possible on screen. And it just really got to me that also for someone with limited artistic ability who went to art school for five years, it's a very good genre to draw in. Because when in doubt, you can just black it all in. You're just not the shadows. But I did. I studied the rules of that genre for years and years. And then when mainstream comics called me, it was amazing how many of the rules of crime fiction apply to superhero genre or how you can marry them in a way that seemed honest.  You throw them against the wall to see what they'll do. You've ruined their lives to see what they'll do. And that's how is that different than writing Spider-Man?  And what's he going to do? And so that plus the rule of the city being an equal character, an equal main character in the story, this is a very important part of the visual of comics. Like New York is as important character in Marvel Comics as any of the superheroes. And so I found that I had accidentally trained myself to write for Marvel Comics, even though I wanted to do my whole life, that I spent the 90s doing crime fiction that got me ready to write Daredevil and Spider-Man. And then, yes, cut to where I'm writing a book starring a talking raccoon and a tree god. And still, the rules apply. Interesting left, so there you go. And for me, it was interesting because I grew up reading comics that I literally learned how to read with comics. And I always wanted to write comics as a kid. I wanted to draw them first, but wasn't a very good artist and then got distracted as a writer. And I left the medium. I stopped reading comics for nearly 10 years. And I got pulled back into it by a couple of indie books. And I hadn't met the creators yet. And what was interesting was one of those books was Wied Out by Greg Ruckin and Steve Lieber, which is a crime fiction book. And then the other was Powers, which was by Brian and Michael Ava and Oming. And I hadn't met either of them yet. And that was a crime fiction book that was couched within the world of superheroes, but it wasn't really about the traditional superhero story. And it brought me back into comics. And it was like, wow, this whole medium is sort of reinvented for me and reinvigorated. And I was a journalist at the time. And it made me want to get back into writing comics. And now as I'm writing comics, I'm like an old man now. And I find conversation more interesting than watching two people beat each other up. And so writing superhero books, my editors are constantly like, OK, yeah, yeah, these eight pages of conversation. Can you cut that down to three and give us five pages of action? And I'm like, action's boring. We don't need to see the Spider-Man and Hulk fight. Let's have them have a conversation about their existential crisis over or whatever. But I do. I watch a lot of crime fiction films, old noir films, and big fan of like the Long Goodbye, Robert Altman's Long Goodbye is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I'm constantly going back and rewatching that stuff and studying it for just how stories unfold and how they're unpacked, watching movies like The Maltese Falcon and a lot of stuff. A lot of the noir films from the 40s and 50s. And because all that is about this process of unpacking the story as opposed to front loading it and giving everything away within the comics, you give it away in the first issue. And there's this sort of this immediacy. I think a lot of readers want to know what's going on. And it's funny because they send you these questions on Twitter or wherever. And they're like, so what happens next? And it's like, that's so you come back next month. I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen next. I will give you a hint. The hero probably isn't going to be dead by the end of this. Spoilers. Yeah, exactly. Although I try to kill the heroes every issue when my editors are like, you can't do this. OK, now both of you have worked independently and have created your own characters. And you've also worked with really visible, iconic characters. So when you agree to work for one of the major publishers to take on one of those characters, how do you wrestle with trying to change it to your own? I mean, how much of that can you do in terms of changing it to where you think this character needs to go versus trying to remain true to the way audiences may view that character? How do you approach that? Don't worry about the audience too much. The audience doesn't know what they want. And also, if you're a comic book fan, you know that there's no audience decision that this is a good idea. This is a bad idea. It's all everywhere.  And that's great. And it also frees you from trying to chase that invisible audience of trying to make them happy, which is a bad way to write anyhow. So it's good to be free of it. It really does. And in fact, I kind of like annoying the people who want to be annoyed more than I like making happy the people who are looking to be happy. And that's fun too, to get someone to buy your book every month. And they think they hate it. They think they hate it. I mean, they bought it every month. They don't hate it. But if you get them to buy like 12 issues in a row, and then they're still yelling at you about it, and then you go, well, why don't you just not buy it? And then they don't say anything back to it. Why am I buying this? Because they like it. But so audience aside, but your original question. And Marvel, it's interesting. You learn we get to go to retreats and stuff and meet the editors and get to know them. And you get to learn that they want you to tell a story. So if you have a change, if something you want to do, the biggest, obviously, is replacing Peter Parker with Miles Morales, right? Well, the question is, well, what do we get out of it? Like, what kind of stories do we get? And if you have an answer, you now have no reason not to do it. If you have a pile of stories to do, then do it. If it's changed just for change, it's not going to work. It's not going to work for you. It's not going to work for the audience. And if you legitimately, the character is pushing you into different kinds of stories that are exciting and new and fresh, and they have that regurgitation of old stuff, it gets really exciting for the editors. It gets exciting for the publisher. You're excited. So I mean, it's a mountain of climb. But if you can get there, it's pretty special. And then, yeah, you get to a place where no one was asking for Miles Morales. No one was, as an example, nobody was screaming at us, do this. And then we did it, and they were like, what are you doing? And then when it wasn't terrible, people now it feels like they have many opinions, and they have to have it. And this is what you should do, and it's exciting. It's the best part, actually, of putting something out there that people didn't think they know they wanted until you showed it to them. And I've also done that thing where I showed them something I thought they wanted, and they didn't want it. So both have happened, but it doesn't take away from how genuinely exciting it is to put that out there. And what I do is I tend to look at the main characters that I'm working with and try to find something that I can latch on to narratively and then work that into the story. So as an example, I'm writing Occupy Vendors right now. Hawkeye is the co-lead, I guess. And so I was like, OK, so who is Hawkeye? How am I going to present him? And I came up with this concept that in the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye is the one person who everyone either owes him a favor or he owes them a favor. And everyone is mad that they're involved with him for some reason. And it's kind of based on my cousin Jimmy, who he gets through life. I just got back from New York. I was hanging out at his place. I walk into his apartment in his kitchen. He's got a bed in his kitchen. And it's like, dude, why do you have a bed in your kitchen? He's like, yo, man, this is a $4,000 bed. I got it for $100. And I'm like, why? He's like, because I'm trading it for a $2,000 car. And I'm like, and that's Clint Barton, right? And there's aspects of Hawkeye that other writers have done that way, but I'm really pushing forward with that. And like Brian just said, when I started writing Power Man and Iron Fist, there was a lot of pushback on how I was writing Iron Fist, because I was writing him as sort of this goofy character. And he seemed sort of like a doofus. And there was a lot of negative pushback, which I knew was going to happen. And I was like, just wait. And they were like, well, there's something off about him. And I was like, just wait. And then we got to about issue four or five. And then his dark side came out. And they were like, well, what'd you do? And I said, I was writing him this way so that we see a character who's living a life of force, forced optimism. Like he's really, truly a pessimistic person, but he's trying to live as optimistically as possible. And we see that starting to break down around issue five, issue six, and people are like, oh my god, this is genius. But it's like, they want the main meal. It's like the people who want dessert before they have the main meal or the appetizers or the salad. And it doesn't make the dessert better. It sort of ruins the meal if you have dessert first. Yeah, every single question I get on Tumblr is asking for a spoiler. What happens? Literally, they flat out, hey, what happens next issue? I'm not telling you. I would get fired if I told you, yeah. But it's so funny. They come around, they were the question like a lawyer. I'm going to be tricked into giving a spoiler. I've been doing this. I know this works, but yeah. But yeah, there's one audience that loves the journey and one audience that just wants the, how is this going to end? Tell us instant gratification on story, which is never going to be the job we do.  It's not going to be a very entertaining sentence.  So I live sort of in the belly of the beast, right? I live right near Hollywood. And one of the things that's been happening lately is there's been a lot of discussion about the problems with fans and their expectations and whether they're going to drive the film industry, right? In terms of what we want else to have a girlfriend and a remake or whatever, the sequel to Frozen, all this kind of stuff. Now, given that, you know, there's a discussion about whether fans are actually ruining pop culture. But this question about how much influence they have versus also the tension that comes from working in a commercial industry. Do you feel those kind of the pressures from, you know, how many to sell, you got to sell, you know what? You know what? Here's the thing, you do, you know, you can't help it. I mean, we're online, you know. So art, you can get ahold of us and we're not invisible. There's some. I'm about to go invisible. I get, I do get the need to want to be invisible. I certainly get that, but you can get ahold of us and people do, they get ahold of us all the time with, you know, and they do as you get online. You hear someone say, never do that again. That's the worst thing you've ever done, followed by someone saying that was the best thing I've ever read about the same story. So you're like, what am I supposed to do with this? Right? So you just go about your day and write something that matters to you. But as far as with the, it's funny thing with the fans ruining Hollywood thing. That's, it's not the case at all. Fans have made Hollywood, I think fans keep us honest.  It keeps me honest as a writer because I know Captain Sensation is gonna come on Twitter and yell at me about something. So I would like to, I would like to at least on my end know that I wrote something very honest. So even if they didn't like it, I know they got the best out of me. So that's probably the number one reason I'm online is because I know subconsciously beyond the desire that my name's on the book and my kids might see them one day that I would like to not suck today. And you know what, Captain Sensation is gonna keep me honest whether he knows it or not. Or she, I don't know who he is. You know, I go back and forth.  But like this event this weekend or where a group of us just flew in, John's one of them. We got in from New York City at 1.30 this morning. So we could be here after an event in Harlem. And it's like the interaction with the, especially the young people and young people asking me for advice and or meeting me when you're a writer. And it's like, yeah, and you can be a writer too.  That's sort of what keeps me going.  I mean, I'm the king of self-loathing. But, you know, and we talk about this a lot. You know, John Jennings and I've talked about it and Stacey and I have talked about it. You know, when you're a person of color in this country, like you're born hated, right? Like that's just part of what it's all about. And you take that and it twists you up inside and you learn to live with it. But it's like my philosophy at this point in life, I mean, I've now outlived two generations of men in my family. I'm like, I'm old by my family's standards, right?   I'm going to write things and say things in public and do things that are going to be maybe provocative or maybe be inflammatory, but are also gonna be really honest to a lot of people and speak to help people heal the wounds because we're, as a people, we're wounded, you know?  And as a nation, we're suffering from it too. It's not just black folks. The entire nation is suffering from it.  And it's weird. Especially in this coming political climate that's not coming, it's been here, right?  I actually sat down with them and said, you know, I'm working on some creator-owned stuff that's like people are really gonna hate me and there's gonna be people that are gonna be coming after me and my mom sees some of the stuff on Twitter and she gets all worked up and a lot of people don't see it because I make sure it comes down really quick and I have my dogs of war that take it, you know, go into attack mode. But it's like, if I was younger, this stuff would destroy me. But I'm old enough now.  And I was just like, and people were attacking him and I was like, who cares? Like, because for one thing, he could come into my face and say it and I'll, you know. Yeah, exactly. Because we all know I'm a big guy. I can throw a punch and I'll get John will hold him and Stacey will hold him down and I will cut his tongue out. And I'll sue him. Yes. Well, you got the good lawyer. Yeah, I do have a good lawyer. But here's the thing, we both learned this, that you can't make everybody happy. It's impossible. There's no, you know, Google the Beatles. The third thing Google offers you is overrated as someone, you know, people don't like chocolate bars and Scorsese and like, so that frees you. It just frees you. I don't like chocolate. I was like, they announced like, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Capri are gonna make another movie together. And are there kids in the audience? I can't, I can't see. Yeah, there's a couple of people. But literally like, it was like, hey, great, the greatest living director and his best muse are gonna make another one. And then the third comment underneath the big announcement was, screw them. I'm like, okay, sure, okay, you know, that's good commentary. But what happens is the knowledge of being, you're freed of it. You're like, I'm not trying to make everybody happy. I'm just trying to get enough people to buy this book where I can make another one. So that freedom is phenomenal. And then you realize, well, if not everyone's gonna like me, then maybe the right people hating me is okay too. And I recently had a bad run-in. I have always a good din of noise, but when we announced Riri Williams as the new Iron Man person, thank you. I wasn't fishing, but thank you. You'll know when I'm fishing. But I, like two nights later, I'm working about three in the morning. I was getting beamed by real Nazis, like real down home, old school Nazis really coming at me hard. And I was like, what's going on? It was like, it was only like 30 of them.  And then I found out I was the lead story on the top rated number one white supremacist website. And they photoshopped Holocaust stuff all over me. And literally the headline was, Jew writer creates negrous hero. And I was like, and it was like, yeah. And it was like really bad photoshopped on me. And I was like, and it also was like three in the morning. So you feel very vulnerable. Like, oh, you know, the house is surrounded.  But I was like, I'm confused by this. And I'm jittery. And a very good friend of both of ours is Greg Rucka, who's a writer and the angriest person.  And I literally, before I showed my wife or anybody else, I just forwarded him the link and he wrote me back. He was everything I needed him to do. He gave me, he was just screaming at me.   I'm like, that's all I needed. Thank you. You're right. That's right. But yeah, because you could be in a lot of trouble if the Nazis were like really excited about what you were doing, like they are about our president. So, or elect. So that's the world we live in. So, you know. Do you have any questions from the audience? He was jumping, he was jumping, yeah. I wanna say something. Well, to answer your biggest question, when I find myself in, and we tell our students this all the time, if you find yourself where you're at, the answer is almost always honesty. What's the most honest thing I could write? What's the most honest thing I could draw? Right, and truly honest, right? And by the way, it doesn't mean you have to like bleed all over the paper. It can be hilarious, it could be cute, it could be adorable, it could be ninjas, it could be a talking raccoon. Just what's the most honest choices that you can make as an artist and for the characters? And if you follow that path, so many other parts of it just start to illuminate themselves. It really, it just, you know, and it does, it sounds simple to say, but it actually takes a lot to get really honest with yourself, you know? And really, I come down to, would I buy this when I'm making, like if I was walking to a store, would I buy this? Like if my name wasn't on it, and I look at the artist, I look at the concept, I look at the characters, and I ask myself, and if I wouldn't buy it, and I have a wide breadth of things I buy, I like a lot of different stuff, right? So I'm an easy sell, but if I'm not an easy sell to me, then who, how could I sell it to anybody else? You know, how could I get to the next page if I can't honestly finish this one? So, and if the answer is no, I wouldn't buy it, then pull up tracks, start over.  No one will ever know, all right? On many levels, no one will ever know. Yeah, so, but you know, and by the way, here's the good news, if you become published and successful, and it doesn't change.  What's going on? And then the other thing too is if, you know, if you're not comfortable with your writing, if you feel like you can draw but you can't write, the key is just to begin to get out and build a community and meet other writers and maybe find a collaborator to work with, because I can't draw. So I'm working with other artists, but I know like before this weekend is up, there's gonna be writers that are looking for artists and artists that are looking for writers. Sean Taylor, who is moderating the last panel, is an amazing writer, okay? And Aizay, I don't know if Aizay's here, he's another amazing writer. Like those are two cats that are always looking for artists because they wanna do comics, but they don't draw. You see, so there's always, there's people out there and the key is that we tend to walk around, especially when we're creative, in our own little bubble thinking that we're the only ones who hate ourselves, who, you know, the work isn't good enough and, you know, and does my breath stank and like everybody's thinking this, right? But nobody's, you know, whatever. So the thing is just to get out there and what I love about like this weekend here and where we just came from in New York, it's like I'm always talking about community.  And nowadays there's the people who are gonna be recording and uploading it to YouTube, so you know. Thanks, you had a question. It's the best. First of all, it's a show, don't tell medium. If ever you can, you should be using the visuals to tell the story. And they say that any great comic book page, if you take the dialogue off it, you should be able to tell what's going on anyhow, you know, so that's one of the rules like of making something really special in comics in any visual medium. But this comes from knowing you're working with artists of such a, that can bring a subtext, you know, that can draw.  And some people can draw a spaceship and make you feel something about that spaceship. And some people can make you draw a spaceship and then make you think something you didn't even know you would ever think about a spaceship from, you know. And so, and I love, and when I have that with my partner Alex Malieve who I did Daredevil with and we do Iron Man Now and Scarlet and Mark Bagley didn't know he could do it until we pushed a little to see if he could. No one had ever gave him a moment of quietness to really, you know what I mean? And it's such a special quality to an artist that when you find someone who can do it, you're just desperate to write stories for that special strength, so. And it's, and you know, for me, because I love those moments too as a writer, especially when the artist gets what you're trying to do. And then it's, for me, it's about reconciling and hoping that the reader understands it because there's some people who'll be like, there's no words on this page, I got ripped off. You know, I paid $4 for this comic and there's hardly any words. And it's like, but there's so much story there, you know. Or they think we didn't write anything. Yeah, yeah. You got a sign on the page where people are like, so you didn't write anything? Like I probably wrote more on that page just because you're not seeing the words, doesn't mean. I had a page where there was a review of an issue that I wrote where they only reviewed one sequence that had no dialogue, and all they talked about was how genius the artist was with their storytelling. And I was like, yeah, he did an amazing job. But every, you have to write those scenes so specifically, so much more specifically, because if you have a scene where two people are sitting across from each other talking, you can say, okay, Power Man and Iron Fist sitting across from each other. Power Man is mad and Iron Fist is laughing, right? And then you write the dialogue, but if there's no dialogue, you've really got to get into the emotion and you have to tell the artist, okay, Power Man is mad because Iron Fist owes him $25 and he knows he's got, you know, it's that sort of stuff. And sometimes the artist nails it and then you realize someone buys the comic and just, oh, there's nothing there so you don't read it. And then you get your lettering proof back and you're like, should I put words in this panel so that people will stay there and focus on it? And it's an interesting dynamic. But yeah, I mean, we do this with our students all the time. It's always show, don't tell. And then even as a writer, you get caught up in it. And sometimes with your editors, like I have to say to some of my editors, you're telling me to tell and not show. You know, they're like, don't put a flash back in. And I'm like, comics were great for flashbacks. One panel per page, every seven pages is fine. And yeah, I got into a, well, I'll tell you about that later. Yeah, yeah. Young lady. Yeah, that is a tough one. You want me to grab this? Go ahead, I can chime in afterwards. Well, number one, congratulations on your quest because it's cool. And these things that are bothering you will always be there. They never go away. Even if you have deadlines, it doesn't, it's just another problem. It's the same, but it's the same problem. Now the good news is that this is about instincts. You're just gonna have to trust yourself, all right? And really listen to yourself. Like I've seen people and their instincts are telling them it's time for this idea or it's time to wrap up this project and they don't listen.  We've done this. And you literally have to pretend your own editor and give yourself a deadline and a hold to that deadline. And then you're now practicing what it's like to be a real professional person. So when they start calling you to be a professional person, you've got it.  You know, it is, it's like anything where you just have to act the part and then eventually you'll have the part and you'll already be ahead of the game. I found out I was doing this for myself by accident. Like I literally gave myself deadlines and held to those deadlines like the world was gonna stop if I didn't finish this comic no one was buying. You know, like, but I treated it like it was Star Wars and it's coming out on the 31st. No matter what happens, so we better get it done, right? And I acted that way for years without anybody telling me to. And then when they got, when I got Spider-Man and that actually became my life, like you gotta get this out. This is a budget thing for Marvel. I've never missed a deadline because I have accidentally trained myself. So that's number one. And by the way, that professionalism is 80% of what an editor wants above your talent and above everything else they wanna make sure they can count on you because if they can't, they're probably fired, right? If you don't hand in your work, they're in trouble. So if they can count on you, even if you're not the greatest writer in the world or the greatest artist in the world or you're not totally there yet, you're still finding it, they will hire you because you can get in the pages. So that's number one. So you have to just train yourself. And there was another part about how you know a story's done or an idea's time has come. And I learned this in art school and I found out it was the only thing I learned in art school that actually mattered. And that was, I had a very hippie teacher who literally said, hey, man, it's never finished, it's just done. And truthfully, those words hover over me. And that doesn't mean give up on what you're doing. Like you get it as good as you can get it and then there's a point where you just have to let it go. You're just changing for changing or you're just turning something violet to purple doesn't make it better or worse.  So I think about that, let it go and do better the next time. And so I know we got to wrap this up in a few minutes but I think we do. I don't know if we got a time similar to it. And this is what I tell our students a lot is when it comes time to turn in the final, they're sweating, they're freaking out their finals, man. And they're like, there's always a couple that just sort of bail at the last minute and don't turn it in. And I tell them like, look, turn in, finish it.  It might not be an A or a B, you might get, well, I'm the one who's always given out the C's and D's. Everybody gets an A and he's the good guy. They worked so hard and they did all the pages. But I tell them, I'm like, if you get like a C on your final in our class, like that might haunt you for a month or a year or two. But if you don't finish this project, it'll haunt you the rest of your life. And that's the thing when you're a creator or an aspiring, people say I'm an aspiring creator. There's only, the thing that separates the aspiring creator from the creator is you finish something. And once you understand that process of completion, it doesn't necessarily make it that much easier, but you know, oh, I can do this. I've done this before. It's like any other sort of horrific uphill battle. It's Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill.  There's another hill beyond this, but I can keep going because I've done this before. And that's it, you have to finish. You have to finish. And even if you're not happy with it, come on, how many people here who are artists have completed something and then within whether it was an hour or a year looked at it and was like, wow, this was really bad. Raise your hands. You know, come on, let's be honest, we all do it. You know, you find that thing.  But I went over with a fine tooth comb but the editorial team at the publisher missed a typo on the dedication page. And I was like, okay, this is just a bad way to start, you know? But at the same time, it's like, hey, I got a book. It's got, I think, 47 typos. I think I counted them. And I was like, but I have a book that I wrote that you can go buy on the shelf and am I happy with all of it? No, are there things that there's problems with? Yeah, but did I write a book?  And I'll be like, hey, you wrote a book. You know, at the end of the year, I compiled a list of all the comics that I had published in 2016. And it was like, you know, in 2013, I was still struggling to break into an industry that people were telling me I was too old to get into. And by 2015 or 2016, I had published, I think, 34 comics at three different publishers, you know? And it was like, hey, that ain't that bad. You know, I'm doing all right. So yeah, you just got to pull it away. Well, let's talk about that for a second. Let's talk about the aspiring creator because there's a lot of creators in the room, right? Well, here's the one thing people think that if you're not published by a publisher in the Diamond catalog, you're not a comic book creator. The good news is, if you create a comic book, congratulations, you're in the industry. You're not aspiring anymore.  And that's an empowerment that most people don't take for themselves. But it's absolutely true. This is a DYI, you know, medium. Like, I'm almost jealous. Like, when we were working in the 90s, you had to find a publisher to publish your, you know, newsprint black and white stuff. But today, if I was breaking in, I would be all over Tumblr, man. I would have like four or five different Tumblr accounts that were dedicated to different web comics that I was doing. And I would, oh my God, how exciting. It would be just to like instantaneously put your stuff out all the time. So I tell people, man, you don't, you know, I get, you see, every day someone in Tumblr goes, how do I write for Marvel? Like, how do you make, like, my goal is to write for Marvel? I'm like, well, that shouldn't be your goal. Your goal should be to write. To write for yourself. And to make these books and to create stuff for you. And then, when, oh. And then when, that's the mattering. And then when, and then when you're done with this book that you've made for yourself, it can be a calling card to get you other work, but Marvel isn't the gold key of the industry. It's you, the creators are, you know. So I just tell people who may not be aware that they're actual comic creators, that you are a comic creator. You made a comic book. Ta-da, your comic creator. So congratulations. And just to add to that, and then I, no one's holding a flash card up at us, but the thing I'd like to add is that I do firmly believe that we're going back to a time, we're going to be, we're going into a regressive time. And we need to look to what artists were doing in the 60s and 70s and 80s and how they were getting their art out. And it's like, it's selling out of the trunk of your car is a lot easier now than it was back then. And so we need to look at what hip hop was in the early 80s and what punk rock was and what zines were and utilize modern technology to get stuff out there because we're going to see the closing of America's mind. It's not starting to happen, it's we're in it. Okay. No, it's Silo's. Clinton talked about it on a data show. Everyone has Silo'd. Everyone only follows the ideas that they believe in. And if everyone's doing that on all different sides, what's art going to be like? What's music going to be like? But it's a time for artists to get really dangerous again and really shake up the status quo and not be afraid to be hated. Yeah, and I've been thinking a lot about and hopeful. There's not going to be a lot of hope on the street. So they're going to look for our work to make me feel something good. And I think I need to do it as a writer. I just need to write something. And I found myself, I was writing an issue Iron Man of Rery Williams and it was just the funnest damn thing and I had no control over it. She just took over the book and just decided we're going to have a fun adventure and it's going to be hopeful and heroic and empowering. And I was like, well, I don't even know where this came from because, you know. Well, you needed it. Clearly, but it was fascinating to me that this flew on to me anyway. And there was someone way back there, I saw. Last question. You know, the major companies, I don't really have much control over what they, I will put something in and they'll tell me to take it out or they'll tell me to move something. I'm working on some creator-owned stuff that will be like, oh, wow, okay, you know. Again, you might see me next year selling out of the trunk of my car because no one will wanna talk to me. But, you know, I mean, the greatest writers in television and film, the vast majority of them were blacklisted during the McCarthy scare. You know, the greatest hip-hop artists were the ones that the FBI targeted in the 80s. I'm not really afraid of any of that, you know.  You can either give it into the fear or you can use that fear to drive you forward. And I'm taking that fear to drive me forward and create work that speaks to that. Because, and I said this here in San Francisco two years ago, I don't have the power to make the world a better place. I can't wave a magic wand and have President-elect Trump not be President-elect Trump anymore. But as a writer and a creator, I can at least create places to escape and give hope and give inspiration and get people angry and riled up so that we can reverse and change course in a shorter time span.  Well, you know, it's funny, as writers, and there's a lot of writers in the room, right? Yeah, it's just a, but it's offensive how badly written everything that's going on the world is. I literally, we were talking, we were, we have Friday night dinner and more than we were talking with a lot of the writers and we're talking about how if we pitched this, what's happening, just this week, right? If you pitched this as a story or a storyline, they would give it back to you. This is, no one can relate to this. This is, no one knows what you're talking about. And that's really one of the many, many reasons I'm offended, but so many writers that we know are pitching their Trumpy Trumpness in their comics. And they're like, dude, this is not, you know, first of all, you're not gonna be able to outdo what he's doing, right?  You know what I mean? You know, it can be a distant memory of all this, that's a hopefully, I'm seeing how hopeful I am that I think it'll be a distant memory, but it's interesting and I'm curious what our culture will look like in a year. You know what I mean? I think it's gonna be a big mixture of people trying to outdo what they're seeing. And then there's people just slingshotting in a different way. I think also like fantasy and just leaving the planet stuff is gonna be big. There's gonna be a lot of people wishing they weren't on this planet. Star Trek's gonna have a big comeback.  Okay, thank you gentlemen. Oh, thank you. Thanks for coming out guys. That was very cool.


What's up everybody is lady j bookums, and I'm here with my god brand man shine. What do you do? Yo, what's up? What's up? So look we won't talk today about Instagram and the fact that they are taking away the likes So they've been posting this on all the social media platforms. Everybody been going crazy They everybody saying stuff like oh all these IG models Everybody just about to be mad, right? Thank you. So we want to I would really want to get into this with you, right because The fact that they're taking away the likes like what does that really mean for people? You know I'm saying right Especially like influencers that kind of get sponsorships and stuff like that off of having all of those likes man The first thing in my mind that I already know that affects is really quality of content, right? It just creates more transparency because most of everybody has been paying attention to numbers and that's the finesse, right? Right because we know we can fake numbers. We can right now You know the whole okie-dokie situation We know what that looks like and then a whole social proof like oh, man This person has all these likes maybe this this content is important That's gonna force me as an individual to now judge your shit based on if I like it actually or not versus What other people think so pretty much for me I feel like it's gonna make people level up when it comes to creating the content, okay, you know I don't I don't know if Like the reason why IG said that they're doing this is because they're trying to cut down on Certain things like you know kids killing themselves and people hurt that stuff. Yeah, so it was like, you know people Coming to Instagram and feeling a certain way because they don't have likes which which some people make it feel like I'm you know, I'm not that person I'm not worthy and then we have people who start doing all kinds of crazy things Just to get these lights and I don't know if Instagram feels like yo y'all giving us a bad name because y'all calling Y'all going hamburger. You know me trying to just get likes, you know that term do it for the gram You know me do it for the ground up man, but listen like I don't know if that's like If it's a thing because I know as a woman and just be an industry or whatever when I pull up on Instagram And I see like all these women that look like Super bodies and everything so it's like us old average girls, you know We for a lot of people when you pull up and you see stuff like that it makes you You know feel some type of way about yourself like your self-esteem right and everything like that So I think that that has something to do with it. Also. Yeah, and that's interesting because I feel like so much of that Stuff is fake obviously gonna talk about what this means to artists, right? But even just generally speaking I think artists They face the same struggle that other people face for other reasons just like you talked about as a woman though, right? But it's that same facade where so much of it is fake where a lot of times these women that They have They have those type of views right that well no not those type of views the women that have those looks right they Copy they copy the game in the same way a lot of artists just artificially I'm gonna do with the what's popular right and those women do is popular in real life a Lot of guys aren't treating them the same in the same way a lot of these artists who have that whole social proof look But in real life, they don't have fans right a lot of those women's don't have fans in real life That like it's good for the graven I'm not saying that Like I'm not even talking about some some more or my preference. I'm just saying like what actually is happening So because they fake their views too and that's another thing, right? So now you might be thinking I need to look like this Because these people are getting likes and dudes are coming at them when dudes aren't necessarily treating them out like that always in real life and Some of them got fake likes too. So you're they're playing that whole IG model game Let me be the influencer, but it's actually that's the crazy part though because this fake stuff is actually affecting your real mentality So that's that's why so that's that's what I'm saying Like I think that was one of their main points like we have so many people Trying to be something and not really accepting themselves, you know And it's and it's just affecting the world like social media is so powerful right now, you know me and and I think the younger people coming up, you know We have it's like a generation of a certain type of person right now Like a certain type of women or women a certain type of male and this is what everybody is striving to be Yeah, you know what though? Like I don't think Instagram care.  I mean, of course, I'm not saying the individuals in Instagram Don't care about society However, collectively when you create a company that big and how things go and having to make money, that's the primary bottom line So I think also some of it is Them just trying to adjust and maybe things are getting more out of hand even or out of control Then we might know we might think or they might be looking at the threat of tiktok Which we got to talk about a little bit right because tiktok is actually better built for Quality content versus just social proof likes and all that stuff than Instagram is which I can say we can get into that But like alright, what do you think in terms of artists then? Like what or just anybody wants to be a quality influencer because so much of it is the same But what's your perspective of what the adjustment is going to be like a what are we gonna start seeing? so I feel like You know when it comes to taking our likes away because I had an artist asked me like You know, what is this going to do for me as an artist in my music? Like especially like going viral right because they was like, you know The whole thing of going viral is because you you're getting all these lights You're getting all this engagement people are starting to recreate your content and repose you and all that good stuff So I had a question come to me and was like well, you know, is this going to affect me going viral? So I pretty much I don't think is going to affect artists in the way that they think like I Really think it's better for them because especially independent artists because a lot of them don't have a lot of likes anyway So now we can pull up on your page and not really judge you off of how many likes you have but more So just off your content, right? So it may be better for an artist as long as you have great content Like if you don't have good content then you wasn't winning anyway But if your content is good and people pull up to your page And they don't have to judge you based off of how many other people like you the name It might help them make a better decision of should I follow this person or should I not instead of just being like Shallow about it like oh, I'm gonna follow them because they got 500 likes on all their pictures and stuff like that Right, so I think it might be better for artists and I don't necessarily think it's gonna affect people going viral because like the algorithm in and Having people still post your content a whole bunch of times like it's still gonna get out there if that happens You know, I mean, I don't think the taking away likes is gonna stop somebody from going viral Also, if y'all didn't know if like artists didn't know you'll still be able to check your stats Like in your analytics. So as long as you have like a business page For your Instagram, you can still go and check your stats because I also had somebody asked me like well How am I gonna know if a post is doing good? You know, so I'm like, well, they said that, you know The stats will still be there for the user for you to see like in your analytics So you can still say, okay, that's posted good. This posted it. Maybe I should do something. Yeah I mean one I think I don't know if people have started to see this already I had seen this already on my page where you know, you can't see Five or five hundred people have liked this post, right? It used to show that easily But now it'll be like you have to actually click on gotta click into it just to get into it, right? It's an extra step. So they slowly are like training people, right? That's just how the behavior game goes. They're training people to get to that I thought about this like months they already know they've made a test that it was smaller crowds and all that stuff man Like so if they're gonna get to a point where so when they finally get to that jump It's not gonna be as big as it is of just like oh tomorrow We like we see it this way and now it's that way. It's gonna be steps in between They already have people's attention. It's not like they have to to rush the process right in that kind of way and I Think the bigger impact though is just the fact that the sheep are gonna be confused Yeah, right like a lot of people only like stuff because Other people is popping right because of other people.  That's what's happening. That's that's what I believe is happening. Okay, you know Yeah, cuz it's I mean it still has to be some type of engagement, right? So it's like they're not gonna stop you from being able to like it They're just gonna stop you from being able to see like how many likes you have because when when we talk about Doing stuff like running ads and stuff like we still need that that type of engagement. So I don't know maybe I Don't know if it's gonna force people to like comment more You know, maybe that's gonna be interesting the engagement because they I don't know if I I read or heard anything about them necessarily Stopping or starting the line. Yeah, I I haven't heard specifically But that would be interesting just what you saying that if you're taking away the like for real the ability to even engage in that way Would force people to comment more that would be interesting because that way in my in my opinion That would be a higher quality of engagement likes become so passive You know, you scroll and don't even know what I'm liking. I'm just Don't you don't you know, that's that zombie mode, right? And that's what I mean though like that's what it's gonna it's gonna definitely affect those in terms of the sheet because the quality of content I'm at the The from the content perspective, there's gonna be no curation There's the curation is gonna happen algorithmically, but in terms of curation based on somebody's opinion 500 people like this this must be something I should like that type of social proof Of course, maybe comments right becomes the thing like we talked about But we might have all the box, you know, you know people always find a way They gonna be trying to fuck off for that forever But I think the huge part about that is something that we've already actually have seen of the effect of which is just the internet and social media in general which has Took away in the same way This might take the ability of people to judge quality of content in that way people already because of the internet Have them don't have the ability to judge other people rightly and what I mean by that is You know you hear comments or you see all these horrible comments, right? Right, and they'll be be somebody who says like oh man, you are lying. What you said is completely untrue Something like that and then somebody else is like oh, I love what you're saying. I relate blah blah blah Lo and behold either way it goes. We don't know if this is a 12 year old who has nothing to do with anything, right? So he has no well somebody could be trolling somebody can really be against you, but they could be like Just dumb right somebody else obviously could be highly credible Like really be a real life expert in that in the industry or whatever is going on Then there's all kind of other betweens But the point is in real life You will be able to see this person and know should I listen to this person or do I even care what they say? Right online when some of these bullying effects come like or whatever people saying you get more effective for me because you actually lose Sight of the ability a judge is this person credible like they're certain people if a homeless man came up to you and said Some crazy to you you would still be like that was wild, but that's a homeless man I'm not really taking it a certain way right online You don't know who to like wow crazy person that you probably shouldn't be paying attention to in the first place is so from a Mental health part that was like a why certain things start to happen online. It just became so huge Yeah from and taking that back to the likes being like gone, right? now it's a similar impact in terms of like It's a similar impact in terms of now it democratizes where all these of the content itself is the relevancy itself just like before But no like right it's interesting though because now judgment changes that's that's love will just leave it at like judgment changes at the end of the day and Like when we go to let's talk about tick-tock Let's roll into that because right when it comes to Ways to post and promote we already know it's a hot spot at the moment. I Think Instagram a large part of it might have to do with the quality of engagement that tick-tock is able to get because of their algorithm Right is really built More for quality engagement. Are you familiar with how like how it works? So not not all the way you can break it down So I Got some other stuff, but all right, so their algorithm works like this You post something we talked so much about trying to get into the 4u page and all that stuff on tiktok Really essentially everybody gets to the 4u page on tiktok where and we can talk about why after like so you post your junk goes into this small batch and Everybody When we talk about the small batch is going to be a batch of people's 4u page if you go on tiktok You'll scroll you'll be like five hundred thousand likes three thousand likes on this person's posting a five million views And then you'll see somebody who has like two views and seven likes and because you're one of those first you pick for you Pages that they're testing it on on your 4u page, right? and After it hits that first layer that small batch They analyze the algorithm says alright How many likes like purview and all this kind of stuff is happening and that determines if it makes it to the next batch All right, it makes it to the next batch. Then it's the medium batch Oh, and it stays in that first batch for two hours. Okay after that medium batch And then they do some more it gets a little bit more intense. You have a bigger audience and they really start to judge not just on Um likes and shares which all also because like they are really relevant But then the completion rate like watching the video All the way through and how many replays happens becomes even more relevant right at that time, right? then It goes to the third batch which is a larger batch the largest batch less people make it right you got to think about a Pyramid so now we're getting to the upper, you know 10 to 5 percent of content because the medium batch is pretty big and you can get probably I don't know 50,000 likes also just a medium batch alone, but Yeah, it is oh very good tiktok has good numbers, right? And before you get into that third batch that that large batch There's a in between where they start to test for like hate speech um Like all kind of wild stuff and I'll tell y'all folks right now if you Post the weed on it's on tiktok Man that that junk is gone. It is gone. Really? Yes. I know a lot of y'all who are you know y'all y'all will struggle in that place tiktok is different, man I I'll preview it now really quickly now before I get into that finishing that the batches Look tiktok is owned by china All these other social networks. We're we're talking about and that we used to our own like our american China is different man Like y'all have to the control over their social networks their internet all that stuff is different The mentality the literal political Thesis and way of being is different than the american man, right? You know i'm saying like it's just different so Like get out your bag because it's this is this is a new wild game. It's wild to us at least I think it's good though because I think artists need to be pushed to step outside of their comfort zone Everybody and learn how to yeah everybody and learn how to do something different and adapt to it And make it work for you in whatever your industry is so I think that's a good thing No, I'm excited about it Right, you know, especially especially if you weren't winning in the last wave because you were just too late and just the rule Whatever is your chance, you know, I'm like go ahead and hop into that But so it's stress tests for the third like that's one of the other things after the regular algorithm stuff for intermediate batch On the way to the third batch, even if you make it numbers wise if you got that hate speech or just some other stuff They don't want them in there starts a test for that large batch Bam bam bam like it's there for four days Right. Um And obviously that just gives you an opportunity to give more likes that just means And you're also going to be pushed on so many more pages and very few content gets pushed on as Many pages and then they have a fourth and final one Which is like Crazy it's hard. It was hard for me to believe what now you want. It wasn't even hard for me to believe this at first It was just crazy so After it graduates from that third batch if it makes it there remember like say now you're like talking about the 1% right of content, right? They actually have a real person who works at tiktok.  So expire or really they be like bow. This thing about to go super viral and it goes super viral so so Getting back to the viral concept. Yeah, you know Art now, I don't even know if a lot of artists are really hip to tiktok First of all because I know I've been I've been trying to talk about it. I've been seeing like the rise I've been seeing the potential in it as far as Art is having the ability to get on there, you know with their music Create their content and then other people can use their music to create content So it's really like you can literally build up your fan base over there and and and get those likes up and stuff Especially if you're not getting it over at instagram or the other platforms but I know that like people are are really getting known from tiktok like artists like now that's You know, he talks about it a lot. He credits like tiktok for you know, him going viral pretty much, you know I mean, so can you can you talk about like or can you just like tell artists how How do they go about like getting on there and getting it started so that they can start getting to those tears All right, so for all the primary basics Yo We got a whole playlist on the youtube channel So just go like how to how to get tiktok famous Google that and the brand man channel y'all will find like the whole playlist on the basics How to upload your music and just the main stuff, but when we get into Like how you should approach it as an artist one You gotta spend time just getting into the community Like understanding how it works right liking stuff getting to feel that whole thing right just research research research To get a feel for what that's like figure out where you can jump in we like we're playing double dutch at this point Right, like you gotta wait that out feeling like tiktok is like for kids though No, man, it's not and like tiktok as a company you gotta realize Like for one a company is gonna make want to make as much money as possible Right right especially if it's social network though It's really benefiting off of the demographics that are in there and once you monopolize a certain demographic You've got to only you the only way you can really grow is by extending that So they're trying to get older and people have been saying musically which tiktok And those type of platforms have been young for a long time now right it's been about three four years So some of those people who are 15 or 19 now some of those people who are 18 or 22 now Right if they actually stayed on and didn't die off some have some have it So it's going to get older It's inevitable and just think about how late some of y'all got to tick um to instagram All right, a lot of the people who are huge on instagram Right today are the people who are like really moving early right they've been on there for years And then the people who got huge later or people who had resources and invested like who needed more to get out there The people who actually are On top still and got there from organic that was because they were there early Right So if you don't have no money if you complain, I don't have resources The oldest person has investors and but like if you don't have none of that You need to be on the organic early train before all that other distraction comes on All right, so like just get on it. You have to learn it No, you don't need to know how it's going to be used And maybe exactly how it's going to apply to your brand that might be hard for you to see it first But that's a part of like learning this game testing and growing out because Look, you can't be selfish right these these social network stuff is about entertainment bringing other Getting other people's attention, but you got to deserve and earn their attention So if I just get on here and say oh man, I post in my music and they don't like it and it's not getting viewed It's like bro Like people don't have a reason to care about what you're doing or what you're saying Even if your music is amazing So that's one and then two even if you don't want to get into the content. I'm posting on my page Putting your music on there as a sound and getting influencers to post it I think that was like the biggest The like the the biggest thing when I really started to look into tiktok You know the fact that you can actually put your music on there and and people can Create content with your music. I feel like that was like golden You know, I mean like that platform is literally geared towards music You know, instagram is not really geared towards your music. You know what I mean? So why not get on a platform that's actually geared towards creating content with music You know what I mean like that's for me I feel like that's a no-brainer and I know it was something about tiktok where you can actually Uh receive like you can go live. You know what I mean? It was like a live feature on there It was talking about receiving like donations. You could take payments and stuff like I know you like that I'm all about monetizing when we talk about monetizing your music Bro, it's so many different ways. So you can literally go live on tiktok and get money at the same time You know, and all you got to do is just get on there and be consistent I think the main problem with artists is like they always want stuff right now So it's like if they do it right now and and they don't get that result They're like, uh, no, I don't want to do it. You know what I mean? It's like you y'all got to take time They're like build already gotta build. Yeah, I watched the artist go from like zero To maybe like 70k and making his first $50 on the platform now. He's made hundreds on the platform. But in like a month and a half Like, you know how much time it takes to do that on a youtube page you get to like a rack and followers And even longer to make that much back in advertising Especially if you're not just on no like bull A long time Like it's a long time right And to do that today is probably even longer right and then instagram you mentioned a huge point In the dna of tiktok a large part of it is just music right and and sound We'll just leave it at that because sometimes they do like little acting things and all that stuff Instagram's dna was pictures That's what they started off for photography those types of creatives and they gupped out from there like that alone Like shows you there's some innate things to to artists that you got to build off of. Yeah, I get it Some people like to sit on their hot horse and act like oh, I don't want to do that because that's not cool Or it's like always young kids and it's not for me You can say that but then when you end up on tiktok two years down the road, but you also taking the L Then look you the only one who have to answer for your stuff. So a lot of times You have to put the ability because look business It don't care about who who's benefited.  It just is what it is. Maybe you aren't good enough for it So you got to get out the mentality of I just don't want to hop on the way because I'm too cool Or I'm better than this man. Y'all got y'all got a ghost ride the way You got a ghost ride that way and I tell artists all the time like you got to be where your fans are You know, you got to be where the people are like right now the people are really coming up on on tiktok Like it's it's it's just really something that's being talked about for many reasons So it's like if that's something that you notice just in business That's a strategy So when you when you see a rise in something in business, you're like, yo, we got to do this Like let's get the plan together and let's jump on it and just ghost ride the wave until it ain't no more You know, I mean, so it's like we have to learn how to adapt You know, I mean because it's always going to be something new coming out And then always sometimes with these profiles just like instagram You know, everybody love instagram But now instagram is making all these changes and it's making it harder for people Creatives to do what they were doing before So it's always going to be another app or another platform that comes out and be like boom since you can't do that over there We're going to make it over here And then you're going to have a whole bunch of people run over there and and run it up until they start changing You know, I mean, so it's like, yo, you got to stay up to date First of all with all the new stuff that's coming out Why do people like it? How can it benefit me as an artist? How can I come up and cap off of it pretty much? You know, I mean until I can't no more and then you just you have to do it Like artists is like you said you got to get out your own mind get out your own way man And just step into the light Right what I love about tiktok is people Actually listen to the music It's weird, but people like I got campaigns where Like all right thousands of videos been created to the can um like To their to their sound or them their song, right? But it's just from tiktok only tiktok Now people have gone and got tens of thousands additional plays of their music on Spotify, right? Thousands of plays on the the youtube video Increasing the um the followers on instagram, right all of that stuff without even promoing those other things at all Like I got one dude who's like, yo people are in my I forgot to post anything about my music and people are like Where can I find his music right and because he's just he's an artist who does it as a content creator standpoint and then other people in the comments helping find his music, right? He has all that action, but once again if you do not One of the content create at this time, right and get into that way But you're just still in the study trying to figure out how you're gonna jump into this game The ability to find to pay influencers while they're cheap at the time Right and still get that benefit and still get videos created to your stuff And you don't have to do anything physically as an artist show your face at all Is there's still a lot of value in that as a platform? I mean, that's what great promotion looks like because like I remember you mentioned Like you already talked about the whole like promotion versus just posting Okay, I wouldn't get some of your insight on that because you know It was something that you noticed and had been talking to artists before I think I've talked to artists like that before but it's been like a long time Or I've had that conversation. So I want to say like what is that? I didn't even know it was a thing What does it look like 2019? It's definitely a thing. Why is it still a thing? It's definitely a thing and I I think it's it's a thing because of the lack of knowledge from from artists You know understanding what it takes to actually like push a record, right? So I think for artists a lot of times, you know artists They basically covet what they see so a lot of artists see the major artists doing certain things like going to the studio performing and You know just posting on instagram or posting on social media Like that's really all they see they don't see what goes into Marketing that song that we all know and love, right? So when what they do They go to the studio. They make this song They go perform and then they just post it and then that's the end of it. You know, I mean So it's like that's that's the structure that they follow And and then they sit back and try to ask yourself like well, why is my music under performing? Like why am I not getting results? You know, I posted this on instagram But yeah, that's the key word you posted it, but you didn't market it It's a big difference from marketing and posting.  Like even before the song drops to even build up hype So you have all these different things that you can actually use to Promote or market, but a lot of artists don't do that. They use this one piece of content they drop it on their social media one two three times and a because it doesn't get a lot of Engagement or b because they don't know what to do next with it They just move on to the next song and then they're like a week later They're like oh i'm about to drop this song, you know, I'm saying and then and then their page becomes Just watch this listen to this go watch my video blah blah, you know what I mean? And there's no conversation going on on their page. So how can that? all right, how can they Like change that though so Before you start dropping music you have to develop a marketing plan You have to think of like your question to yourself is okay. I got this song Even before you record the song you can be like, okay. I want to make a club song I want to make a twerk song, right? So if I know I want to make a twerk song I know what kind of people want to hear this twerk song, right? So and then when you know what kind of people want to hear it you can be like, okay Well, since I know that I know where I can put it, you know where what dj's I need to send it to What clubs I need to pull up and try to get played like you when you start with Asking yourself questions you start developing the plan on how I'm going to get my music in front of new people every day You know, I mean, I think that's valuable Just what you said as far as just asking yourself the questions, right find an answer to those questions, right? But And those are specific questions. That's not how do I blow up? How do I grow my fan base? Right growing a fan base is only a result of those actions which come from Proper action like what which means proper questions have to be asked, right? So, yeah What's it like people like the song? Where are these people? All right, how do I get my song in that place versus? It's true man. It is true a lot of artists are just yeah, I record the things that you see Right, just how they say a kid see like sees certain things and that's what they're going to do, right? Or oh, we need to have more representation of minorities over in Movies so they can think they can be these different things how people say all that stuff Artists are doing the same thing. Yeah, right. It's like, okay. I think that I can record Go to this show post and it'll be good, but it's so much more than that and I think even when We tell people though, it's more than that And even when we break down certain stuff is this other side, right? Where some people think that It's okay. I'm gonna do these things now, but they don't realize how long you have to do these things How much action and energy it takes to actually break through and then there's these other people who Even when they get the keys information wise They still think nah, I gotta be some extra extra stuff like they're kind of conspiracy theory Like in terms of like nah, I gotta be some extra stuff some super secret person It's like they want to act you about steps, but they don't want to do no work You know, I mean that's the part that's being avoided, right? It's like, okay I'm gonna do the simple thing and nope. This is gonna happen. I should get a fan base.  I did this one time I should get a fan base.  What's the secret, man? Y'all lying to me. It's like, no, it takes more actual work, right? Like even the answers the answers have to be done 50 times 60 times over and over again to create that energy To to break through like that's just I can't look I can tell you this This is a saying that I learned a while ago So the saying is that a hit song Is not created. It's marketed.  Some people will but the labels understand that What we have to do is have that song everywhere Everywhere the fans all show us like when you turn on Pandora She's spinning when you turn on your radio.  It's like it's literally everywhere you are and see artists Don't do that with their music They don't put their music on every platform that they can put it on and and market it there They only focus on let me pull this real quick on instagram or let me post this real quick on facebook And then you drop this real basic message that just says new single out cook the link in my bio like there's there's no Like there's no hype about it. There's there's no even excitement You literally have the same line with every song that you drop, right? So it's like you're not putting your music in all these different places. You're not Forcing it down people throw. That's why we hear music like this might be a song that you don't even like But like a month later, you know all the words that's because you hear it everywhere That you go right and it just becomes in your mind. So it's like People you can't help but to sing the song Yeah, I mean because this is what it comes down to in my opinion Like one based off of what you just said write that saying that I love so much Is not created it's marketed What's the one thing that creates it the one thing you can do all these other things? But there's one thing at the end of the day that's going to determine whether it's a hit or not what you think that is Tell me Awareness Yes, you you talked about it like from the steps like what it looks like, right? But it's awareness, right? It can't be a hit like we only qualify if it hit is if it's known By a certain amount of people right now you can have a song that should be a hit Like in terms of it should be known by a certain amount of people Of course you have those songs that have a huge amount of awareness And they're trash songs and they don't become like that for real for real hit But no matter what the last gatekeeper to Like whatever everything else can be done like the last gatekeeper is just the awareness That part has to happen if that part doesn't happen, you don't have to hit right right So it's like when you dissect everything down from there now you have to choose Okay, can I create awareness in a lot of environments and do it on this mass commercial scale? Or can I just do it in a small niche and be omnipresent, but we want to talk about the secret of secrets that are separating some artists from other artists or like when we talk about labels and what's going on there versus some other artists One of the main things just goes back to resources, right? Of course, they have the ability to create The awareness like even outside of that now we want to get into the work that gets done We talk about the stuff that you just talked about right. Oh, I'm not just writing a follow this link or oh Whatever right, you know, like these passive Irrelevant messages that don't really matter or may have an actual impact, right, right? They have the resources meant like people wise money wise But like the resources to say I'm going to put this much attention to this phase of it the copywriting Right, I got this much attention to put towards the actual video this much attention like they actually can put intentional intention to each of those steps where For one understandably, so Your artist is starting out and you don't have all these resources You got your regular job It's hard to put a lot of time into each of those steps individually. It's hard to do that as one person All right, so but that's like one of the things it's like. Oh the work has to be done You just aren't able to do the work right which it all comes down to sometimes So now you have to figure out a find what are the most important things and let me break through here All right now I kind of figured and I just did the work to get to here And you got to put all your energy into that versus like oh, let me Follow all these steps because you're not going to be able to put your energy in all those steps Right, so you just said like you just mentioned like a keyword for me, which was intentional, right? And I don't think a lot of artists intend to get a specific result Therefore they don't plan for the result, right? Like you're not intending to Get a certain amount of people to follow you or to buy your your merch or whatever You don't make any type of plan that's going to help you get to that point, right? You're not doing you're not even creating your music Um intentionally like y'all just getting in the studio and y'all just creating and then you're releasing But you have when when it comes to like if you know, you have a product, right? You start moving intentionally like I have this product So what I what do I have to do to get this product out, right? So now I'm making a list of okay. I need to sell this much How many do I need to sell this to and this is one thing I was teaching I had a something called the money formula, right because every artist says I want to make all his money, right? So and I'm like, okay, if you want to make this money, what do you need to get there? So you want to make $5,000, right with you want to launch a new song you want to make $5,000. What does it take to get there? Let's break down the numbers, right? So the money formula is basically how many fans you need like super fans times How much you need them to spend with you in order to get $5,000, right? So that how that breaks down it can be you have 100 fans That pays you $50 For this campaign. So if I know all I need is 100 fans. I can start doing things intentional I don't have to worry about 20,000 fans. All I need is a hundred and I can make $5,000 Focus yeah, exactly. So you can start moving intentionally, you know start putting together things when it when you talk about like a release Campaign or a single campaign or whatever you can start putting things in that campaign that will help you get those numbers Right, which means you're doing things intentionally. I can have a show where I say, okay. I'm gonna have A real quick y'all, you know, we had a quick uh Issue with the camera, but we back at it. So I want to I want to finish the point You know, we was talking about, you know, being being intentional figuring out whatever your goal is Figuring out what it's going to take to get there and then you can start creating the plan to execute, right? Simple, yep And I think I think that's the main thing a lot of artists just don't start with a plan They just get to the recording and then drop it and it's just so excited about that But even with doing that like to get that awareness that you were talking about I think one reason why, you know, artists don't have that awareness with their music or their brand or whatever is because artists A lot of the independent artists. They're not that visible Right, and it's like you got a lot of you guys only Jump on these platforms when you're releasing, you know, I mean, so it's like you haven't built up awareness for yourself You only jump up on instagram when you have this new song and then you post the video and then you're done with it You know, but like what about before that, you know, I mean, yeah, you're moving like a big big big artist When you're not there, so it makes it harder Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially if you expect Organic reach and content to be a thing and actually create that for you You have to stay visible kind of if you want that to happen because that's just how the algorithms and people Work and the real tension if you're gonna put a lot of money to ask to Re-up that the visibility then that's cool.  I mean, it's free awareness as possible. You got to kind of stay in that game It's hard to like tiptoe, right?  Like your instagram instagram for me is my office You tell me so it's very important for me that when people pull up to my office My office looks like I'm open for business, right? So that they can go and click on my link and buy some for me A lot of a lot of artists like y'all don't look like y'all open for business y'all look like y'all close You ain't posting like three four months, right? So it's like When a when a fan or or a customer or whatever comes to your page, you know They're gonna look and be like, well, why do I even need to follow you? Like I might have liked your song, but I see that you're not even really on instagram like that Like you ain't posting that long. So now it's like out of sight out of mind. Like, oh, I'ma just let it go, right?  If you walk into a restaurant, everybody look lazy, you know Take them a long time to come and talk to you and say what's up, right? You ain't going to want to eat there. So it's like we have to apply that same thing to our social media platform Especially if you don't have a website But even with that people come to your social media platform before they do anything else Before they go to your website before they're clicking on your product to buy anything from you It's like they come and check if I hear about a new artist Before I might even listen to a song I'm probably going to just go to your instagram page because that's the platform that I like to use the most So i'ma check you out, you know, i'ma i'ma click links if if you're looking like, you know, you're somebody I'ma that's when i'ma start clicking links like okay. Let me see what else this person does Yeah, right.  We we need to convert people from just being somebody who found our page Over to being a fan and then over to being like a payer because artists you want to make money We can't put all of me in my pair when I mean pair like some artist That's I mean a fan that's buying something from you, right because one thing about independent artists I think when they think of money they think like I gotta get these streams up but there are so many ways to monetize with your music and and streams first of all Even if you're getting streams that can take months to even get those payments So like what kind of money are you getting in between that right? Yeah You you have to be able to monetize So it's like you have to figure out other ways to make money with your music So that's doing shows, of course, you know, um, you can have informational products So there's a lot of artists, you know producers whatever that can teach other artists and producers how to do things Like we're just in this information Stage where like if you know something more than the next artist you can teach them how to do stuff Right and you can put a price on it. So now even if you only know a little more Right more more than they know. Yeah, you can put a price on it, right? So that's that's what we talk about or what we mean when it comes to like Monetizing you have to figure out what your product is because music is free I don't have to pay you to listen to this music, right? So it's like what product are you going to sell to me? Especially if I'm actually becoming a fan now. I'm looking for something from you Like I want a shirt or I want you know, I mean like people don't realize how much Our fans want to support people. They're waiting. They're literally waiting for you to just tell them what to do next, right? Hey, look man at this point a lot of fans. They know the game They know that you need merchants sell it like they know like they see the steps They've aware they've seen so much because this is the information age not just for you Right, the the fans know more than they ever have known before Right, that's why so many artists already know so much because they started off as fans and just seen it from that perspective Anyway, that content is getting out to everybody. So fans are aware of the process way more than you think You just got to you know, not play it fully yourself Make sure you stay on what your brand is and make sure you do it in that way and keep your Your integrity as an artist in that particular bag, whatever yours is in your niche, right? But other than that fans are willing to help you go through those hoops to get to where you need to go It's just about packaging it and knowing how to do it when to do it stay invisible And being on your piece and cues creating those systems So you can make sure you can do this consistently Not just have this one thing you you did great and now you don't post for five months like lady j's talking about Right, exactly. So I think I think you just like you just ran it down. You know what I'm saying? Like you just ran it down for me. Hey, y'all gotta be visible You gotta have content and I think when you start figuring these things out You'll have better content. I think one thing about artists is like a lot of the times I hear them say like I don't know what to post, you know, so So it can be like it can get stressful. You know, I mean if you feel like I don't know what to post You know and a lot of artists are not really documenting their process Like gary v always says like document over create. Yeah, so it's like you're you're doing all these things Quote on quote, you know going to the studio Perform blah blah blah, but like you're not even documenting this process and then when it's time to release a song All you have is this video You know, so it's like you got to start documenting your process as well And that will help you create the content and make you look like you're doing something Yeah, that's a whole whole whole another talk we can get into like, how do you know what to post and all that stuff? So we'll make sure we do that. But um, true. I mean, this has been this has been a good talk You know, I like talking to you. Um Like there's another It's another another conversation in the bag. We hope for we hope y'all got some value from it We'd love to hear y'all thoughts give us some feedback on this thing. Yes, and you know, lady jay Leave them out man. What's what's gonna be the outro for this convo? How's that gonna look man? You put me on the spot. I don't even know I don't even know but look I just for all of y'all that that may stumble upon this That don't know me make sure y'all follow me. We got great content. That's always coming out You know, if you have any questions or topics that you even like us to to hit on like, you know Send us a message reach out. Um, I don't know about Sean, but I do be responding to people That's fine here and there when it makes it But uh, you know, just reach out or whatever. Um, and that's that's pretty much it for me We out of here But we out man follow add lady jay bookums follow add brand network brand man network Because we're gonna be doing a lot of great things for y'all on that actual IG page We're only in like 300 followers right now But we're gonna boost that thing up and give y'all some like free stuff for some other things like that Interesting at some point y'all hear more about that later. We out. Have a good one folks. Hey