Like the total deal would be 1.5, but they only want to give you this to start. And it's like, nah, nigga, I got offered a 360, but they didn't want to give me no present back in exchange. So it's like, they can't properly assess value and tell you why it's just standard.  What's up, what's up, what's up? I'm Brain Man, Sean. Now I'm Corey. And we are back with another episode of No Labels, Necessary Podcast. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday, Apple Music Spotify, YouTube, every stream of your podcast here at the intersection of creative and currency. Artists, don't let people think being artistic means you can't be about your business and entrepreneurs you can be creative to. This is No Labels and we got the very perfect guess for the idea of No Labels. But again, the name is No Labels Necessary, which means, all right, you gonna get it regardless. It doesn't mean you don't do labels. It means you can get it without the labels and they can come along for the ride if they want to. None other than LaRussell, we are in the backyard, the purgula, check the environment. What's up, bro? Man, I'm well, I'm well, I'm honored. This is dope, bro. This is, this is a beautiful scenery, bro. Like catching a vibe. And I definitely want to get into it, like in terms of just the operation, right? But of course we got to start with the story, right? Get a sense of how you started. I was just talking to your dad while you were rehearsing. He was telling me when y'all have the shows because we haven't witnessed the show yet, right? That y'all got like a bounce house outside that y'all put out there.  Nah, he didn't tell me that. Oh, okay, he just started. We just started talking, you know? He was just being like, hey man, who in my backyard, what's up? You know, I'm B Rush, you know what I'm saying? He hit me with that and we just started talking. But you know, again, the environment, like to go this direction, it's a direction that a lot of people don't go. That energy, like it's not necessarily cool in hip hop especially. So like starting early on, I heard that you were under a different name. Yeah, yep. Toto Shakur, right? Toto, yeah. Toto Shakur, I just use that as a moniker, but my artist name was Toto. Okay, so what created that? That vibe, what inspired that? And then I want to understand what made this transition happen. Tupac Shakur was my favorite artist. And Toto just came from just been around, young, just, you know, a nickname. And then the change was I finally made an album that was just like Hella Close to Home. It was my life story. It was all of everything that I experienced and been through. My music has been mostly that my whole career, but this one was more personal. Like my first two albums was more outer political, just talking about what's happening in the times. And then when I dropped that album, it was like, I need to tell my story as LaRusso, as who I am, as what my parents named me, you feel me? So it was just, it just felt like a legacy move. That's crazy, because it sounds like it's like, I know exactly who I am now. You know what I mean? And I, not that you never knew who you were, but like as an artist and how I represent. So it sounds like it was like a clarity that came. Definitely. Like that, that was the moment that I was like, okay, this is a story that has to be told by me because it's mine, right? And I was aware of that. Not so much of like, I know who I am, but you know, that still that sense of like, I know I'm not that, right? Okay, okay. So early on when you were, you know, you were inspired, right? Tupac, were there any other main inspirations that you had? Everybody really, of course, the Kendrick, Drake's, Cole's, Hove, Nas, but really everything. Like I used to just consume a lot of music.  You know, and still to this day, I kind of consume music just as a whole, not really genre bound. Gotcha. So are you, as an artist, all right, how do you look at this turn of like the rebrand? Because you still got the other page up. When I saw it, it was a page, I think it got like 20,000 monthly listeners. Like, so what, now knowing that you're on this side of it, like why is that, why is that page up? And then how do you- Because to me it's not a rebrand, it's evolution, right? And when you evolve, you don't always get rid of what was there, evolution sometimes just improves what was there, right? You start off with an iron that's just steel, then you add a cable to it and you add a steam button, but you don't get rid of the iron, you know, you just keep improving it. So to me it wasn't a rebrand, I wasn't becoming something new, I was just evolving as a person, as an artist too. Yeah, and so I'm just like leaving bread, crumbs of the story off of fans, the fun, yeah. Exactly, you know, it's not, it's not like any phase I was ashamed of or anything that I needed to get rid of, it was just something that I needed to grow out of. And what time period was that album? What year was that when you made that switch? 2019? Well, no, 2020, 2020, yep.   But so, like moving up out of that and getting back to even the community aspect everything, like you got a whole team here man, right? A whole operation. How do you look at building team? Cause that is like the number one question most artists ask outside of, so it's like, how do I get money? How do I get signed, right? And then, how do I build a team? Those are like the three questions we get personally the most often. How did you look at building team? I never had to look at it or think of it a certain way because I just utilized the people that was around me. Like you said, when you look around like I've known Chalmaine since high school, we have like new additions but a lot of my original team was just my friends that was around me and as we evolved, I met new people that was like, that's the key component. But I never had to focus on building a team. I just became a great player. There's not too many niggas who don't want to play with Steph Curry. You feel me?  So I never had to focus on building that much.   That's a beautiful way to say that, bro. That's a perfect way to say that. So your friends who have been around or any of them in music, y'all doing music together at some point or? Not, not really. I kind of pulled a bunch of people who were just my homies. No one was, Tessie was in the music. We kind of started releasing music together, but for the most part, everybody I pulled in was just a homie and it was like, bro, I need some help. Could you hold this camera? Could you here recording it? Could you do this? You know, if someone's around, I'm going to ask for help if I need it. And then it just naturally we start more working more and more people come in. But yeah, it wasn't, no one was really into this field but everyone supported me and what I was doing. Have you ever had any moments where it was like, all right, you need to switch roles?   That was me before there was anybody on a team, you feel me? So naturally everyone replicates. No one here really has a role. Everyone is willing to do whatever they need to do for us to win and get a ring, you feel me? There's not really any assigned roles for anybody. There's no job that's below anybody or above anybody.   Is that, was that like a culture you had to like make happen or did it just come organic? It came organically. I'm a firm believer, like if you leave a demonstration, people gonna follow.  And the people who don't, they wean themselves out. They wasn't willing to help or assist. So yeah, it was definitely organic. I was always willing to do the work myself. So it was just, it was gonna get done regardless or not. So it was just easy for people to kind of integrate into the system because it was already created. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're speaking of systems, man. Like you are rehearsing on a Friday, you know? And I know a lot of artists who don't rehearse at all, right? I think we just talked about somebody who hadn't had a performance and they were already popping and that's a pretty prevalent thing today. It's a newer thing in terms of this error is the first error to really have that as a problem. But it's a pretty consistent and common thing. What makes you in this era seeing that, having that as an option be someone who works as hard as you do at the performing aspect of it? It just feel dumb to go on stage and wrap over a zone plan.  If that's the case, I would have nothing to do. There's really, there's nothing for me to do over here. You feel me? You took my job away at that point.  I love being able to rap. I love rapping. I love getting with the homies and they start playing instruments and I just come up with verses over. I just enjoy it. You feel me? It's a, yeah, I just enjoy. It's me shooting my shots.    You feel me? So today's Sunday, no, today's Friday. The show is on Sunday. Is this the only day that you've practiced this week? Like what is that schedule? No, we've been rehearsing all week. We took like a little break, but generally like I kind of blew up off rehearsals. Like niggas used to see me rehearsing in my garage and it was going viral on the internet. I've been rehearsing a long time. Like there's not really any set schedule when I feel like rehearsing. I come out here and get my work in. Some days I take too much time off and I get rusty and I'm like, I gotta get back in there. But yeah, it's just kind of like ritual. Like we practice. We just go put our shots up. That's dope. Cause I never thought about it this way. And I wasn't aware. You say you blew up off of rehearsals.   Just the fact that you caught that on camera and then you were putting it out there. Yeah, well, we was live streaming on. I mean, we was always filming them and we'd have pieces that go down.  But yeah, we was docking everything. We was filming everything, putting it up on YouTube. We just looked today, I was starting to slash. Cause I'm like, how do you see how many videos we got?  And I think I started that channel probably in like 2018, 2017. Started uploading content.  Yeah. What got you into that? Like to actually start putting the video up seriously, the live stream, like how did you evolve to that? Just sharing content.  You can't just post a song. So I've always kind of just shared it. And when I initially started rehearsing, we didn't use to record them. I just used to be rehearsing. But I was like, this is something people should be able to witness and experience too.  You feel me? So might as well. Go ahead, you got it, bro. Yeah, I was just gonna ask you like, what is your content infrastructure and process look like right now is it just, are you guys just looking at all the contents you gathered for the weekend? You're looking at how you can repurpose things in a certain way. Like, do you have a certain structure? Uh, kind of. So we do, we usually have a schedule, right? So initially when we started, I did a 30 day run I was supposed to like once a day. Then we started building it up. So we would do an interview clip, a quote, a quote post, a live performance. Then we do something that's like today.  And then sometimes we'll end with another live performance. Cause I was always like, I always want people to see what I do. But now similar formula, but we just lessened it because it's like, I only want to share the shit that I'm like, I love this so much. People need to see it. You feel me? They're part of it. I really need to get this message out. But same formula.  So are you hands on with picking the content or is it the team picking those ones for you? Me, Tieta Splash, like Splash now, he does the vlogs. He'll send the vlogs in. I watch each vlog and then I'm gonna cut this. I'll do a final cut, drop it up. Certain clips will come to me. Like after each rehearsal, I usually go in and I'll drop it in and bounce it or Tieta drop it in and bounce it. I'll skin through, find the one that I love. But yeah, I'm still super active, super hands on.  And that's because a lot of artists, they just make music or just want to make music. You feel me? They don't have a love beyond that.   And it's just like, that's my rhythm. That's what I'm used to doing.  And you know, I should be, you should be hands on with that.  What doesn't go out?  Every song is not a home run. Like some performance when I rap and I'm just like, just get in it all. I'm just getting my shots up, you know? Everything gets in a half court shot and those ones just like, no, we don't have to share. You can put it on YouTube but we don't have to share it on the timeline. So, you know, out of an hour interview, sometimes we'll walk away with 30 clips that was like, okay, these were moments. And out of that 30, we might say, but these 10 are the ones that niggas is looking for, right? And that's what goes up in the remainder. It's like, if it goes on YouTube or it goes somewhere cool, but if not, I'm not pressed because it wasn't like, it wasn't life changing to me. It was like, if it's shared, great. If it's not, I'm not, I'm not mad at it. You got a good shot and then you got some highlight. Yeah, you know? Yeah, exactly, exactly. The one that's going on the tender is different from the one that's going on. No, I'm just looking around. That's real though, man, that's real though. You feel me? But man, and it just helps with like content control. Like, I feel like I got to a point where I was posting so much. It was kind of like, it's funny, Mick Jenkins, he's one of my favorite artists and he hit me. He was like, bro, I love your wave. I had to unfollow because it's like an overload. But even though I'm unfollowing, I still follow. I see everything because you put out so much content. But it even had me thinking like, man, that's right. Because we had such an abundance. And then I was like, let's narrow down even more to the ones that's like, we love this. Niggas need to know this.   And those are the things that I really want to make sure I'm putting out and sharing. Do you feel like you had to go through that process though to really have your system popping the way it is now? Definitely, every part of it was like, everything, you learn from each one. You feel me? Everything it goes through, you learn from it.  You feel me? You had to go maneuver. Yeah, I love that because to me, like going high quantity, you're really building a muscle at that point, right? And once you got the muscle, you can be selective. But a lot of people being selective, they don't have the muscle. Exactly. And that's the thing like, my thing is I always have it. So whether I share it or not, doesn't matter because I have enough. I'd rather have more than I need than I have what I need at all. You feel me? So I'm always okay with us ending with a hundred. And it's like, all right, now we can narrow it down. But if you don't even have enough, you know, you can't get no post though. You can't share nothing. So yeah, I feel like, I think quantity and quantity could be accomplished. And I'm a prime example of that. I think probably in the past year, if it's 365 days, I post three, four times a day, I posted over 1200 times in a year, right?  Like we gave people both. And then once you get to that point, you could start narrowing down and getting to just quality, you know, in lower quantity. But I think initially you gotta let people know you out there. They don't know you out there.  You can't drive around here and not know McDonald's exist. Once someone knows you exist, then they can determine if they love it or not. But if they don't know you exist, they ain't gonna never get to try it. Yeah, yeah. So you just gotta get up out of obscurity first. Like just see me, just see me. And then you can figure out how you like me later. I mean, exactly. And it's like, man, like I said, just wanting to share. Like don't even do it to be seen.  You feel me? And I want to share that. And then you could take it from there.  And that, that don't never lead to nothing great. That never leads to nothing great. Yeah, you know, you get, you get hold out. You get tired fast. Especially in this industry, like when you start moving, you get hold out fast.  All right, next thing you know, you got a BBL.    I can't just agree with you there. Now with that being said, you talk about industry. Like how do you view the industry personally? Um, that's the industry. The industry is everything you've heard about since you was a kid and more. Everything that you think exists about the industry exists. It's true. You feel me? It's not vague. It's really true on the good and the bad side.  That's true.    I need your birth name. What kind of nigga take your birth name? A nasty nigga. Like that's insane. I want to do business with you, but I need your birth name.  So to me, the industry is exactly what I thought it was going to be coming into it. And we know you haven't signed certain deals, right? You've been a part of deals. There's the viral clip of you talking about Rock Nation hitting you and not getting you the money. I'm sure people probably hit you up about that. Right, that was a big one. It's funny, because that clip went viral before we posted it on our page.  And it was just another page that clipped it up and took that clip, right? But it's like, you know, it's funny. As I grow, I'm more like understanding of niggas human, right? And it's like niggas gonna move, how they gonna move and how they know how to move best. You feel me? It ain't even, it's not intentional. You feel me?  That's how they do business, right? That's separate from me. And I get it and I respect that. And nigga didn't have to offer me nothing at all. And it's like, cool. We came in off of something, but it's like, it's still, it is what it is. Like I say, you did what you did. You feel me? I just choose not to be a part of it. I just choose not to be a part of it. But it's like, that's how you move and maneuver. That's your thing. It's whatever. To me, to actually be able to turn down deals, all right, I'm sure you've had some deals that were relatively good sums of money, right? But to turn it down, that means you have to have a vision, all right? You have to believe in yourself and you have to believe in whatever you're building. What are you building? Disneyland? I mean, that's the best way to put it. You feel me, Disneyland? Are you going to Disneyland? Everything you see, feel, touch by, express.  That's why we scaling. We building Disneyland. People becoming familiar with the characters. They know who Tietta is. They know Splashy. They know Millie, you know. They know Chow. They, that's all the characters when you're going to Disney and people want to take their pictures. Like we're building that type of infrastructure. Have you studied Disney in that way? Yeah, yeah. Him, Sam, Walton, you know, there's a book called Imagineering based on like Disney and everything he built. And yeah, I study a lot of them. Just Steve Jobs, man.  And I just listened to his speeches and Tim Cook and just everybody who like invented gigantic things that we can't really fathom. Yeah, yeah. Speak more on that, man. Was it always through music that you knew you would want to take that type of information and build on or did you have any other type of, you know, interest that you figured, like maybe I might be building this. I might create an app or I might, I don't know. Music kind of opened the door for all of that. And I thought it would be my launch pad in but I didn't know for certain but I knew that I would get, I knew that I'd become something. Every since I started working, like every job I worked at, I started at a very low level and was able to move up extremely fast and increase pay. I was always creating something new at every job I went to or building or improving the system that existed already. So I knew that I was going to be able to do that at a grander scale. And then music is like, as it start moving and I started seeing the public response, I just was able to apply that same worth ethic and the same shit to it. Like I'm literally a nigga who's here because I've done it 10,000 times. Like Seth Curry shoots the way he shoots because he shot more than everyone else. And I'm the exact example of that.  I love that man because, talking to your pops earlier, he told the story of just him listening to you early on. All right. And he wasn't fully aware of what your talent was. He started paying attention. And I mean, he might have said like seven years old or something like that. It was a pretty young age. If you could think back to your mind back then, like those times you were building music early on, what was it like? You know what I mean? What were your dreams in your head? I don't remember having many back then. I was just chilling. I was just lying.  Yeah, I was just chilling. I was just life. And at that point, I used to let her rap still then.  I had a boom box. I used to download like instrumental line wire and bring them to a CD and play them on there and just rap over them. I used to go to school. My boy Larry used to beat on tables and I used to rap. So like it was just, I just always enjoyed doing, but I never was like, I'm gonna be famous. You feel me? Like at least not to me.  But yeah, it was just something I enjoyed doing. I don't even, I don't think I had a specific thing that I wanted to be back then. Man, that's interesting. Cause it's with the talent being so clear early on, but oftentimes I guess you do find that people who have so much talent, but that's even the thing. Like the talent still be murky early on. Like I wasn't tight. I was better than other niggas my age, but they wasn't tight. You feel me? So it's like, it's not a clear thing. It's just like, you the best person on the court until a nigga who really played comes on the court, you know? Like, and that had to grow and develop. What point were you like? Oh yeah, I got it. Probably like 10th or 11th grade, I had like a battle at school. And it was like, I got it. After that, it was up. It was gone. And I knew I got it. But I even, even then I didn't have the confidence of I got it. Like I'm finna make it and blow up and be famous. It was I got it. Like nigga, I can rap. You feel me? Cause even after, after I graduated, I took a break and was just kind of working in building. You feel me? Cause I didn't have that confidence. Like I can make it, but I knew I could rap. So with all that in mind, there's LaRussell and then there's a good company. Right? A lot of artists have merch and things like that. But you have an entirely different brand house, a media company. Why is that? What is good company? Like your words. And then why that route so early on? Good company is just a creative collective. Like that's how I've always looked at it from when I started. And it was just a way for me to be a part of things and help everybody I wanted to help without having to have my name just like, LaRussell LaRussell this is just like, no, it's a unit.  So it's like, instead of us having to put 10 names, like, this is what it is. You feel me? This is what we're building. And that just grew. It grew into like a culture and a community and a society. But yeah, it's just a creative collective. It's just niggas working. Hey, bro, y'all work hard and y'all work efficient. You know? Like just the things that I've seen, like you're not putting all the information out there right now, bro. I know how much it takes to do this stuff as well as you do it. You know what I mean? Like you saying it like, yeah, we just do this and we making it happen. But like this, this is not a connection thing. This is a... It's not far from that. It's, because it's really, that is repetition.   So like, what this is is really a result of a nigga just doing it every single day. It's not much more complex than that. You know, beyond the work, of course there's a mind behind it, but that can't be replicated.  But in terms of the blueprint, it's the work. A lot of people who don't make it today is just cause they don't wanna do the work. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying like, really, I might fall on a specific blueprint. We know what we're gonna achieve. Every single day we practice and then we try to figure out how to make it better. And that's, this is the result of a thousand tweaks and a thousand. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a, I mean, at this point, there's not many blueprints for me to follow with what I've done.  You feel me? So we're kind of just steamrolling. I get to take things from people who did things prior, but there's not too many people who's done what I've done. Just selling stocks and proud to page, show offer based merch and offer based ticketing. There is no blueprint for me to look to, you know, like the last blueprint that laid a lot of ground for me was Nip season. And after he passed, I was able to take that and help innovate and create something new. So now it's like, we just steamrolling. Everything I do that's new is the new blueprint. You mentioned the offer based stuff. Like what, what, what kind of got you to the point where you even wanted to try that? Because I was doing proud to pay at first. And I was getting whooped at times because like, I had too much heart, right? And I was like, I don't let anyone do whatever, right? And some people take a lot of advantage of that.    And we just had a conversation. And really like, it was just like, bro, I was just blown away at the fact that you could do this. And I was like, yeah, but think about everybody. You feel me? Like if you take them all, then what everybody else gonna get who wants to support and pay? Like you feel me? But after we got from that, I was like, we need to create a system that allows me to determine my worth as well.  So we made the offer based system, which innovated everything. Cause now I could say yes or no to something, right? Can you clarify the difference between those two? So proud to pay. When we used to do proud to pay shows, you can come to the door and you could pay whatever you want and you can get in, merch you can go online, you can put in whatever you want to even get in. Offer based is now you go into the site and you put in whatever you're willing to pay. And I have a back end that can say, yeah, that's acceptable to me or no. I like that, man. Right? And that allows me to accommodate both. You feel me?  Like I get it. You feel me?  That's cool. Cause I always feel like artists, you guys are always fighting that battle between, like you said, me trying to, you trying to display what you feel like your worth is and then also trying to gauge like what you think the fans, what you think your worth. And they just don't understand the artist pays everybody for everything. Right? Like everybody else does a service to the artist. The artist pays and conversates everything. Everybody else is on a service base. So by the time you spent 20, 25,000 to make sure everybody else straight, ain't nobody paying you. You gotta wait quarters for streaming. And we all know how that looked. You feel me? So it was like, the artist takes on all the burden most of the time. I'll spend more money than any collaborator I know. And everyone eats off the art I create. You feel me? I pay everybody. Everyone don't pay me. You feel me? So that's what people don't understand. It'd be a lot of discussions and people are seven is like, rather artist puts out everything. And then ultimately the artist is the one that makes everything blow up. You feel me?  You feel me?  So, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a lot that you got to put in as an artist just to get any point, which is why I get why Nigga signed to labels. You feel me? Cause it's a lot you have to do to get people to come to your backyard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that system is, it's beautiful man that offer base versus just hearing a proud to pay. But I think you, I pushed that out there. You tested it. You, you ran with it very well. It was great to even hear about that. And build around that. And we still do it. Like albums right now, you can go online right now and get an album. You can get jibs, right? You know, whatever you want to pay. So we still, we still do that with certain things, but with shows is just like, I'll say it's a different thing. Cause there's so, man, we bring a lot of people. We bring instruments out. We have to secure venues, secure, just there's a ton of things that go into it where it's like, bro, I can't, I can't let you do me like that this time. But you feel me? Right, you know, you know, but we keep that door open. So it's always a possibility.  You might still get in the show.  And someone was like, man, I only had a dollar. I roll here on the scooter and you let me in this show.  Yeah, I can imagine that. That's the stories that people are gonna remember. Person. You have forever fans. That's the thing, like with a forever fan, you might've got a dollar that first show, but throughout the rest of that year, you probably end up making 3,400 off of that one person because they gonna come buy hoodies, merch, come to show everything. Yeah, when they do get some money. And that's really the goal of this for an artist. Let me take a quick second to tell you about forever fan because many of you know that my agency is responsible for helping multiple artists blow up, tens of billions of views and billions of streams, but I wanna specifically talk about a strategy that we've used to help artists get millions of streams on their very first song. And as a matter of fact, in the last 12 months, an artist got signed to a major label using this specific strategy and you'll never guess what it is. Pre-saves. Yeah, that's right. Pre-saves. They're extremely powerful when you do them correctly but most people don't understand how to do it. See, the problem becomes, we've been all this effort for this pre-save campaign and then the song finally comes out and then what happens after that? Nothing. You're starting from ground zero again because you're not about to ask people to pre-save every single time you drop a song. So I'm here to put you on to our solution for that, which is forever fan. A platform that removes this massive pain for artists by making it so when a fan pre-saves one of your songs they automatically pre-save every single song that you drop after that. So your work doesn't just create a one-time fan of a single song, it creates a forever fan and you can take advantage of this same solution.  Foreverfanmusic.com, check it out now. Forever fans, man. I love that term because that's what people should focus on. There's a lot of artists that are streaming way better than you, right? But they're probably not making the 10th of what you're making, right? And that's being built different, like the way you build things up. And a huge part of that is just fan first. So for even, to me, the way I see this personally is you're building this and people don't see it. Like people can now say, oh, he's not hitting these numbers, typical industry numbers, whatever, whatever. But it's like this undercurrent going right now. That's what's beautiful because, and we've seen it, all the label meetings we had earlier, they're like, they would only offer a certain amount because they're like based on streams, streams, streams.  You feel me? There was a time that Drake didn't stream a lot. There was a time Kendrick didn't stream a lot. There was a time every artist who somebody now didn't stream a lot, right? And we can't base it all for that. And what's even different with me is like, I don't stream a lot, but I sell real records. I probably sold more albums than most other people who do stream well. So that's not even a good metric to gauge me off of. I think that's a bad metric in general. Or the industry has encouraged a lot of people to buy into that system. So it works for a lot of people and for them, I get it makes it easier to make better decisions, lower your risk as a label as a business. It all makes sense, right? But you also have to have that flexibility for the special cases, right? To me, when I see a you, there's just so many other things. If I see this guy's bringing in this type of money, this type of community and doing these type of things, there is a thing for those. And you know what it's called? A 360.  You know what's, and this is the, you know, this is something I learned.  But it's not a bad thing. Like Jay-Z's venture with Live Nation, The Rock Nation was a 360, right? It's a good thing if you're bringing in a bunch of different kinds of revenues. The only thing is like, it must make sense. I got offered a 360, but they didn't want to give me no present back in exchange. So I was like, why would you have a percent of everything I made, but I don't get nothing back in exchange.  What about every nigga who comes to your label after me because I was here? What about all the rapport and offers you get now because you have LaRussell here, you know, like, they don't make it, they don't make it, they don't make it reciprocated. You feel me?  Cause that's, that's a level of value and understanding of value that people don't. And it can't be quantified in an, in an advance or a specific number, right? You have to really tailor things like that. But when you start talking like that, it's like, it becomes a different conversation and it's like, no one wants to deal with that cause they're trying to look for the easy thing that they could sign and make hot. But it's like, bro, we, that just, it don't make sense for me to approach those deals. You know, it's like, how do you want 10% of somebody's else's thing? All of it on every lane, but you don't want to give none of yours. And the only thing you're going to do is I'm going to put money up and provide my staff. And it's like, well, I could put money up and provide my own staff. You feel me?  It should be fair back and forth. Have you, the first time you got offered a deal that you consider to be like a good amount of money. Can you say whatever?  And then what was the mindset like that? Was it hard or did you have to think through it a little bit? Rock Nation second, their return offer was a good amount of money that I had to turn down. Like 750,000 total across a span of projects. Def Chance was like 350,000. And then, yeah, the deal I got after that, that was a good amount of money. I ended up doing a partnership with. So yeah, but those were the things 750 was like the highest I was like, yeah, we're going to walk away from that. Yeah. Was it easy that first time? Like, I'm sure now they made it easy because of what happened before that. Exactly.  Yeah, I've seen a similar situation, not even just as an artist, I've seen it as like people I know who like work jobs, right? So say I'm working a job and it's one thing. You know what? There actually was another for 1.5 that was turned down. There was another. You remember that one? Right, right? That one hurt more. Yeah. See, but what they do, like that one was difficult, but easy to turn down because they rationed the money so much. Like the total deal would be 1.5, but they only want to give you this to start and it's like, nah, nigga. There's a lot of deals where artists finish out the deal and don't see half of the money that was ever mentioned.  It's just like, this is gonna be $100,000 worth of marketing that you get. And then they only spend like 15K of the budget because they have to approve everything and artists don't know that that can happen. And a lot of these labels back end system is built in a way that's not conducive to the artist to where you could see what it actually got allocated towards and how much. So it's real murky. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that is why, like you had made me think about the deal and the way you said that happened with, I think it was Rock Nation, where it's one thing if I'm working a job, I make 50K or something, right? And then I say, hey, I'm going over here. And then you say, oh, no, I'll stay over here. I'm gonna try to like offer you 55K. It's one thing, okay, that's a little bit more money. But if the other person offers me 150 and they all of a sudden you like, oh, I could pay you 175. It was like, whoa. Like you could have paid me this all the time. Early on, like talking to like Wendy, they used to always be like, you got to tell them what you want specifically. And I used to always be like, no, I want to see what they offer me, right? Because if I tell you what I want, it's very easy for you to try to go and appease me. But I want to see what's my value to you. What do you see is worth? I've gotten a lot of offers where I call after and I'm like, what does this mean? Why did you choose this amount? What is behind it, right?  They can't properly assess value and tell you why. It's just standard. Like this is what we do. This is standard, you know?  You feel me?  Like I get it, but I just had, like I get to say, hey, this is what, I don't get the terms, right? But like I just had a lawyer conversation a couple of days ago dealing with a deal or whatever. And the whole argument on the other side was standard, right? And I had explained, I was like, yeah, I get that standards happen, but like if the standard is not right, it doesn't matter. And I think standard is for niggas who do standard shit, right? I think that every deal has to be looked at differently. If it's someone who's doing standard shit, standard means anyone can do it. This is a universal thing, it's easy. So if you find the artist that's like, oh yeah, 10 other artists make music like this, that's a standard situation. But if you find someone who's doing things that no one else is doing, I think that standard should be the last kind of deal that you offer them, right? That they should have a deal like no one else because no one else is doing it. Yeah, it's weird about me.  They got there, you know, a lot of times these people who you're talking to aren't even necessarily the decision. Yeah, they don't have the power. They're working with what they can work with. And I get that, but it's just, oftentimes it's a bad look, right? But it's not that obviously the system works for a lot of people. Somebody like you seems like you're probably gonna end up holding out.  And then, you know, like Nipsey, one day down the road, there might be something that makes sense. But you're not really looking for a deal at this point.  Like every deal I've been able to do, I've been able to structure on my own term to deliver things that I'm comfortable delivering for amounts of money that I'm cool with, with paying back and dealing with, and I own all my shit.    Creative control means you have the control to make whatever you want, but you don't have the control in terms of where we gonna deliver it, when we gonna deliver it, how it's gonna come out.   And that's how I've gotten here. Why would you break a system that's working already? Was it just instinct to look at deals differently or was it just stuff not making sense? Because a lot of people, even if they're doing something different, you might say, I don't like the way things are going and you just don't do a deal. But to realize, hey, I can negotiate and figure different ways to put this together and make sense with a reasonable person, where did that come from? Had you, did you study deals? Did you get advice?    But it's like, I've already experienced that. I don't have to do that again. It doesn't make sense for me, you feel me? Did you ever have like any type of typical situation where you were younger and, you know, maybe you had an early manager, went through a phase and did some of that typical stuff or? Never, I never, I had a few people come in that wanted to like be in that role and position, but no one who ever had anything that was like, yeah, you deserve that. I've always been self-managed and I always had my niggas that I could delegate to if I needed to, but even to this day, I'm self-managed. So I've had people come in and help and I'm big on like, whenever you bring to the table, I'll split with you.  I'm down to do that. And we figure out how we do that, but I've always been self-managed. It makes me think about this one clip I saw going viral from you where you talked about your team members having certain percentage shares of your music. Can you talk about that a little bit more and what kind of push it to that? Man, we shares is the most beautiful thing about all this.  So anyone, when we do live sessions, if you help shoot, if you do audio, if you do lighting, you gonna get a percent.  If you help, like Tieta gets percent on everything because she does a lot of the admin for it, make it show it goes up, it releases getting the lyrics put in, she gets a percent of them to everything that comes.  Just my daughter has percentages, my daughter's mom has percentages. Everybody, if you touch something or work on something that we're doing, you probably have a stake in it. Man, is the thinking behind it, I want you guys to be just as invested in this as I am? Or was it something else that puts you to do that? Just as invested kind of or more so, just like, I don't want anybody to ever have to rely on me. And it's like music is in a perpetuity. They gonna be getting paid forever. You know, they get to look at that every month and there's money in there that's from work that they did. Not work that I paid them for what they did for me, but work that they did themselves from their own contributions. And I just think that's necessary, whether you invested or not, you helped out on something.  That's interesting, man, because you're the first artist I've heard about doing something like that.  I've been seeing it a lot after and it's beautiful because the blueprint is laid and being followed, but yeah, I haven't heard of too many doing it early, but Ty Bison, Ty Baysden, Brent Fias manager, he was doing it.   So we started there, but I'm definitely an early pioneer, but Ty and Brent was doing it before me. And the labels always kind of did it. They just call it master points. So if you ever heard like in past interviews, producers like, oh, they gave me a point on a master. That's the same thing. Okay, so I just, pretty much just. But they never did it with creators at this level where the photographer, videographer, we don't, yeah, right, exactly. That's the thing that changed, right? I'm doing it with more people, even the community.  Like we have gold card members, so we created a membership. You get a gold card, you get added to a stock list so you randomly get just percentages of different songs and you get to come to every show thrown by good company for free. You just pull up, show your card. You went there, right? I already mentioned this, bro, because there's so much shit that technology has provided, but you don't need technology for everything, right? Like the gold card, that's basically like this NFT concept, right? Like all of these things you can do without having to wait for technology to evolve. If you want to do it, do it. Like it might be harder. Bro, when I went to Texas and nigga came up to me and had his card in his hand and I was like, they don't know. And he felt good. He felt good. You feel me? What time is it? Okay. He felt phenomenal. You feel me? And it's a real physical card that we ship ourselves and we do it. Like you don't have to wait on technology. You got it.  You know, all our first gold card, one by one spreadsheet. Gold cards are still a manual spreadsheet.  Stop buying stock is a spreadsheet. That's a manual process.  I can do this or I can't. You feel me? All of everything is still, a lot of it is still a manual process because it has to be like, we build in real community with people. Man, you mentioned community. I want to get to community. But while we're on these spreadsheets, you posted a spreadsheet from the show. I think you and a promoter after everything was bust now, made like $48, something in that vicinity, right? I think you had went up to San Francisco. That was me being lenient. It was less. We was in the red. We was in the red.  Number one, a lot of people took the inspiration from this post in the way you posted it, where it's like, yo, you're not going to win every day. There's wins and losses, but you got to keep moving. That's what I saw a lot of people in the comments because I looked through the comments, try to get a vibe of how people are taking the information and gets put out, especially something like this that you don't see. That's one of those necessary posts, right? Exactly.  Because I love music, but I want those people who like really respect how people move more than anything, right?  Better decisions, right? So how did even spreadsheets come to play? Like, was that like from the gate we did this in school or what? I used to work in aerospace, right? And I learned a lot of skills there to do like business contracts, everything.  Excel was one of those things. Niggas used to come to me at work to build out data sheets, because I knew how to do that.  So I took that skill and everything that I do in business, like when Tieta first came into my business, I had a job probably of hundreds of different spreadsheets and I ran through them, I'm like, this is for this, this is for this, this is for this, you feel me? So that was always just a thing after I left that job, I've been using spreadsheets. My whole discography, like I just transferred catalogs to a new distro. I was able to just go in, send the code, this is what it is. If I didn't have a spreadsheet and I had to go through and find each release and go through you, I'd be fucked. You feel me?  People don't know, man. Excel sheet skills, Sam, bro. Excel, Excel is a powerful tool, man. That's one thing I think everybody should learn. If you run a business, learn Excel. Yeah, I just thought that was so beautiful. I was like, man, this is great to see that he's doing this. Because if he's doing this for this, I know it, you don't just make up a spreadsheet just for the sake of it, right? He's like, no, he's doing this, man. And you mentioned he worked in aerospace. Like what does that even mean, right? Like is that, yeah, I don't even, like that outside.    And I just start moving up.  And I eventually got to move up to like the administrative side that was off the production floor and just learning the back end, the contracts and sales orders and purchase orders and how to reshift like that.  No, no, man. I think it's really beneficial for artists. I know everybody wants to pop as young as they can and like before they really do much, but I think it's beneficial to be able to work in something like that. Whatever the industry is, cause a lot of different industries bring different professional insights.  Like I'm happy that I did work, cause you never know what skill you learning. And for what? Like I learned how to lead and how to run a team and how to operate shit from being at that job. See man, y'all go ahead and get that regular money, right? And then apply it to yourself cause you can, the skills I think are the underrated part of it. That regular money provides you the base to make irregular money. You feel me? Like that's sometimes where you gotta start. That's the easiest way. That's your label. When you start in your job, your nine to five, it's your label.  All my first shows, the paper came from me working a job, all the early Martin, me working a job and my pops working his job and putting his paper in. The homies working their jobs and putting their paper in. What do you say to artists who don't wanna do the work that you're doing to build their career? Cause it's a lot of work. Quit. Quit. I mean, that's an easy, you can say yourself sometimes.  You know, there is luck, luck does strike and sometimes you get lucky and you ain't gotta do no work and you can still make it and have a similar success. Kinda, you feel me? So just, but you know, keep your expectations level. If you're not willing to do the work then just don't expect all the things that the niggas who did the work got. That's real. Oh yeah, that's a fact, man. Like that's the energy I personally like. You know, I'm a very, you know, I come from sports so it doesn't matter. It's not enough, you know, music people telling people to quit, bro.   It is. You can go to the executives that might talk that talk or a dame damn. I mean, I think sometimes it saves you time. Like quitting doesn't mean you stop and do nothing. Quitting can mean you stop that and you go do something that you love that you're willing to put the work in for it. You feel me?  It's quit and go find something that you're passionate about so you don't even have to worry about doing the work. If a nigga gotta convince you to do the work, you in the wrong field already. You don't know what you do. I haven't, I made 25 albums and no one had to force me to do it. I love doing what I do. You feel me? That's not work. No one should have to convince you to do that. If you gotta convince your artists to post and to make content and do all that, it's like, you know, maybe this isn't for you or you have to find people that will do those things while you just do the parts you love. Like I get some artists is like, I don't wanna make a, I don't wanna book shows. It's like, all right, make your music. But now you gotta go find the people that do do that.   And you mentioned community earlier. Definitely one of the things that I got, we got to talk about before we end this. How do you look at community? Cause we had a little debate. We had a little debate. And to me, I'm like, you are building community better than anybody else. All right? In all ways. Like I go into the details of the debate but with you and that guy, so. Stunner Man 02, my dog. He's an artist from San Francisco and he said it best. Community is common unity. It's literally a bunch of people who have something in common and choosing to stand together behind it.  We all have that in common and we unite together. It's as simple as that. That's what every community is. What are your ethics? What do you stand for?  Taking care of the people that take care of you. Taking care of people who don't take care of you. Taking care of people who need to be taken care of because that's what you're supposed to do. Sharing, put the niggas in position. Doing what you love.  And showing people that that's a possibility.   It's a bunch of ethics within there. Yeah. Amen. Well, I love that, bruh. Appreciate you for having us out here, man. It's a beautiful scenery. We can't wait to see this show. Come on. You know, on Sunday, we definitely gonna catch some footage from that. See the man live and direct. If there's anything that you want to leave people with, what would you want to leave them with here? He who is willing is who will. Love that, man. Every town. Right, right. Love that, man. Every town. You got hella quotes on there, man. You know? I mean, sometimes we'll be talking and I come up with a metaphor and it's like, boom. We need the book, man. We need the little quote booklet. We already got one. It's called Limelis. I got you before you go. Oh, that's a fact, bruh. That's a fact. I love it, man. Well, yo, that's yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. I'm Brand Man Shine. I'm Colby. I'm LaRussell. And we out. Come on. Peace.


What's up my beautiful babes? So I grew my hair out. Yeah, like my hair grows really fast. I know it's like pretty, but it's like kind of matted.  And I'm like, okay, Becky, I'll go to the salon. So I'm here at Brad's hair salon. I heard he's like really good at hair. So like he's gonna take this wig off my head and like totally transform it into like a mermaid goddess. Like I don't know, like maybe like a sleek share moment but like blonde and like make me super platinum blonde cause like I'm looking kind of yellow right now and I'm really not into it. And Becky isn't like an either. So I'm gonna hand my hair over to Brad.  So yeah, I had this wig that costs, it would cost like $2,000. I believe I did not pay for it. It was sent to me. Thank you to the company sent it to me. No free brand deals here, but yeah, thank you. Anyways, moving on. So I've had it for a long time. And by a long time, I mean like less than a year probably like almost a year. And I've used this wig for many videos. Many like follow this braiding tutorial video. Yeah, anyways, it's seen better days. As you can see, it's full lace, okay? I will take it off my head in a second and show you, but it is, it was longer than this. It used to be like down to here. I think it's like 30 something inches and it's like a very, very, very thick piece. I actually thinned it out a lot. So I'm gonna take this off my head and transform it and give it life again cause it has seen a better days. And it needs to, I don't know, I just wanna fix it, all right? Cause my friend wants to wear it for an event for BBcon. And like, I want her to look good. And like, you know what? I had so much fun transforming wigs and transforming hair. And I just wanna show you guys my process and hopefully you'll enjoy it. I feel like these videos are kind of like therapeutic just like sitting there and watching something be transformed. So hopefully you enjoy it. I don't know cause I like these things. So hopefully you do too. You feel me on that one? All right you guys, I'm gonna stop talking and let's get started coloring this wig, okay? But I do wanna show you guys real quick the inside of this wig, wig, get it? Leg, you got it? Okay, all right. So here is the internal workings of this wig. I feel like I can't say wig without thinking of like wig. This is the inside of it. It is full lace. Like this thing is all hand done, all tiny little stitches in there. It's insane. Like holy crap, you can part this thing wherever you want cause there is no tracks showing honey. It is all lace and the front is gorgeous lace but we're gonna clean her up and yeah, fix her up. So let's get it started. Like in her hair a bit, I actually used 20 volume with bleach with shampoo mixed in with a little bit of water. That way I could kind of put it on sloppy and then kind of mush it in and lather it a bit.  Rinsed it off, shampooed it three times cause her hair was very dirty. And a lot of people have worn this wig. Then I toned her hair with purple shampoo. I started at the bottom for his most yellow and then worked my way up and toned her hair for like two minutes. Then I can deep conditioned it for like three more minutes and now we have this gorgeous. Oh my God, fabulous white, white, white blonde. When this is dry, it's going to be so pure white. Like just get ready for this. This my favorite part is blow drying and styling and cutting. So I'm so ready. Let's do this. Let's blow dry this baby. Let's cut her and let's style it. And just a little tip with detangling. So hair is way more fragile when it's wet. It has a lot of elasticity. So it's going to stretch out and possibly break when it's wet. So I usually just try to softly, kind of softly, if you just saw me brushing it, it wasn't that soft. But on a real person, I normally brush it pretty softly at first and just get the, you know, the really bad tangles out and then blow dry it like 50% and then brush it again before I start actually blowing it with a brush because when it's dry, you can pull way harder and it won't break the hair and it'll be much easier for you to get the tangles out of the hair when it's dry. No process. This thing is tangled hair. Are you kidding me? Look how white it is. Oh my God, I'm obsessed. And now I still have this side to do. So much hair. Like, this is like stress relieving for me. To see this makes me beyond happy. All right, let's keep going. Here we go. Here she is. $2,000. Way of mine that I can act that she's not glued down on the front. That's why the lace is looking a little bit whack. But, oh my God, you guys, that took me four hours to film. This wig was way worse than I thought it was, but can you just acknowledge this happening right now? Look at this color. Are you joking? Have you ever seen a more perfect blonde? Luxury, okay. So you guys already know what I do with the color. I already told you that. But then after that, I blow dried it in very small sections, starting at the bottom of the hair and work my way up. Put a little bit of product in there. A little bit of smoothing product. And then I straightened it off camera because I was a little bit hot and bothered and I had to put it on my head to straighten it and it was very hard to film, so I just didn't. But you know how to straighten hair, I'm sure. And that's why it's so, so, so smooth. And then you guys saw me do a little bit of a haircut on it and that's it. Now we have this weird wig that I'm obsessed with and I never want anybody to wear it. But like, I'm gonna have to let somebody wear it.  What do you guys think her name should be? Comment below. I'm feeling like Shakira or something. Like, I don't know. She's like really cute and I can't stop touching it. And I'm obsessed with this transformation. I love hair transformations of any kind. Even if it's a wig, I love it so much and I'm sweating to death so I'm gonna get this wig off my head but like, you guys, it's so gorgeous. Let me do a little close up of this. Hi. I look like I have your mask but my hair looks beautiful. That's all that matters. Thank you. Fabulous. So I hope you guys enjoyed watching that. If you wanna see me do more wig transformations like this, please let me know and give this video a like. Please, I would really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for watching today. Don't forget to live your extra life and I will see you all next time. Peace.