What's up? What's up? What's up is brand man Sean and I'm Corey and we are back with no labels necessary This is episode nine of no labels necessary and you can catch us here of course on youtube But anyway, you listen to podcasts as well every Tuesday and thursday right Tuesday and thursday baby So check up on us and real quick if you don't know who we are right? We both are co-founders of contra brand music marketing agency We've done some pretty dope things in the industry some pretty cool endeavors artist successes But here we are here to talk content Music marketing and branding and have fun while we do it. So that's exactly what we're going to do. All right today Topics include la russo people have been asked us to talk about la russo We're not going to go deep on him today, but got a little bit to talk about him Um, what else are we talking about today some nil stuff? Y'all don't know about enough nil we talking about some new artists that are going to be coming in So y'all enjoy that conversation and last thing There's gonna be some other things, but we got to talk about taylor swift yet again as well.  Yeah, like the you're the nil deals You don't know what they're not. Oh, come on. Yeah, that's I was I was wearing for the Oh, shit, man. I just assumed that you know. All right, hold up. I'm gonna read the Specific definition in so we can start from ground zero because that means a lot of people don't Might not know that All right, but you'll know what I'm talking about once I share But you'll still have an idea All right, nil nil is short for name image Enlighteness and nil refers to the way that college athletes can receive compensation Using an athlete's nil would involve a brand leveraging their name image Enlighteness through marketing and or promotional services crazy. I know how to turn. Oh, yeah, that's that's that's the term so All these years, right Athletes cannot take official brand deals. Why because that kept them from being a spot That kept them from being an amateur when they were a college athlete, right? That's what that whole thing is, right? Oh, I can't work with nighy have a sponsorship deal until I go to the nba because once you're a Professional you have those type of deals. You can no longer play college ball, right? That's what that is. Huge finesse huge finesse, bro. Because it's like why what is me? well We can get into the fact that Like my name is my name and I should be making money off my name But what is me actually going to college for a year has to do with me going to the nba? Yeah, exactly or the main it's like resonant different if I was working at starbucks while doing this on the side You know, but now I don't have to I should be able to make this money off my name, right?  They Revoked his heisman trophy because apparently he got some money And then he says he didn't get the money. He's appealing that or whatever But all those types like it's been a really really serious thing and now the nil Situation comes it's actually an athlete's equivalent to the legalization legalization of weed Yeah, you got all these folks who done suffered, right now. They're watching these other people thrive by why they get checks All right, so This particular situation that I wanted to talk about it's actually an artist, right? And she's in our nil related, but I think it's dope because It's like it's something that I don't think people really talk too much about right it translates Nile initially this artist her name is phalage. I believe I said that right Uh, and she's actually dope. I can play a couple seconds of freestyle But she just signed a shoe deal with puma. All right Signs a shoe deal with puma, which is something you can't do as an an athlete prior to the nil situation That they've had I think it's been maybe two years three um now I haven't been able to do that. So now she can do that. That's great. Cool. A college athlete actually can sign But Why this is important to me or interesting to me is because She's a hooper, but she's also a rapper. Yeah, all right and rock nation You know, they got rock nation sports. Yeah, and then obviously rock nation is rock nation So one I wonder how far ahead did they see that coming? I'm sure they were some of the people lobbying to get nil resolved So, yeah, and now you have both sides. We already know how close culture And music uh not culture and sports are in general will shoot culture is music and sports down there Right the arts and sports entertainment. So you're able to start seeing a lot of these college athletes possibly Become artists which actually are so, you know, johnny two phones, right?  We know j. Cole played ball. Yeah, all right So we'll start instead of finding the x athletes We're going to see the athletes be athletes while they're moving Yeah, and I was just looking at that. That's what made this interesting I just peeped the last line where it says she's just she's going to start her freshman So she's not out of high school yet Or she or I think she's technically Just started because the season is you know basketball started.  Yeah in high school, bro. That's crazy. Yes Yes, like a map I wonder I'm I think I think I saw somebody who might have a nil in middle school, bro in middle school. Oh, yeah You know sports you want to talk about music when it comes to a and r sports is ridiculous, man. They watch They watch all the way up.  Yes cheering you on. Yeah, it's been um, you know plenty of stories where This such and such is committed to duke and he's in ninth grade. You got four more years and sometimes those people switch up but Like I think this is really interesting because this is a new type of competition for artists or a new type of Way in for artists right because We've always known that school is a great space in place to market your music, right And the the problem often times that people face is getting beyond school. Yeah, all right. Oh, you can create us a A song about your school that blows up within the school and that's pretty easy to do Now, how do you go beyond that? All right That's pretty much the struggle that most people face Johnny has done it well Golden has done it well, but both of them literally went there out song about the school at some point and then take off Right flip it, but you gotta know how to flip it the thing is though You add athlete to the mix like athlete is like the equivalent It's like an a and r It's just that inside network where you can influence so many people So easily because once you get something in the locker room and make it a part of sports culture You got other athletes that come on to that really quickly. You have the rest of the school that are influenced by athletes so for me to not only Be an artist because I like to rap and just do my own music But for me to now be supported truly from a label standpoint That's different. Yeah, because I imagine I I don't know this. I would have to look it up But I wonder if people actually could have signed A artist deal Or this is you know a combination, right? It is rock nation. They do everything But I wonder could an artist A basketball player or a football player, whatever you are Have a record deal in college before It's a good point because it's not a doesn't make you a professional basketball player, right? It makes you a professional record artist. Yeah, sorry And they are allowed to have professional jobs. Wow That that right there might be the key. No, okay. Yeah, maybe that's a part of it. Yeah Like it's almost like a title man. You know how many professional artists and how many signed artists Are even doing as well as unsigned artists like I don't know that's that's a weird space If you look at music the way you look at it But they probably look at it as a black and white thing. Yeah, and I would imagine too They don't want the brand attention going to the label, you know, it's like all this We would much rather the other leverism the effect in the school and our ourselves rather than be like, hey Look at what this Atlantic records artist is doing. I could imagine that's a part of it That is a that was a part of the issue that people had It's like, yo, you can monetize the names on our jersey But we can't monetize the name on our jersey. I can't even sign somebody and like let somebody pay me 50 dollars for this thing. It's technically wrong and it's illegal that somebody want to buy the shirt off my back or whatever because I made a game winning shot in it so Yeah, I don't know that that might be part of it. Maybe you couldn't even be a artist. Yeah, I'm saying has there ever been a Has there ever been a college athlete that got far in music because most of the athletes I'm familiar with that getting the music. They're usually professional about a time We really started to hear about it. Seriously Or they start or They're professionals in their sport before it sounds like they start like putting out that they do that So I'm trying to think is that ever been like a college athlete? I don't know Yeah That's making me think because it when you say it out loud it doesn't make sense What you think about like bro, you mean taking of all these basketball You know what I'm saying? These basketball teams these football teams these baseball soccer There ain't one motherfucker on there trying to rap or a scene. Oh, we know it is Yeah, that's why she's here. I'm thinking about nails like that. That hasn't made sense You don't sound like it's it's a hotbed. They're instant influences who wouldn't use that At least try to fill that music but now it's getting together. They can't bro. Oh, they couldn't, you know, they couldn't It's a it's a crazy system man because they also You know outside of the financial aspect of it. They put it around like focus Right. Are you committed to this or not? Yeah, they got to leave remember like blue play blue face play A college football or a year or two or something like that, right? So There's never been at the same time that I've seen personally. I'm sure there maybe there has been somebody do it Hey, y'all put it in the comments help us so we can just have another topic, right? But One her freestyle though. I saw y'all I was just saying y'all go check her out Like we're not gonna play like all because I don't even know we might even get copyrighted or whatever but Like her doing it at the same time and being able to play that game We're going to be able to see more of that type of stuff And this is going to be interesting for the people who are artists and and they don't have to make the decision early on So go get your free money in college Have deals which is money money You're talking about like million dollar multi-million dollar deals that are happening for these college students before they go into college Yeah, right and and then you can I don't know incubate your artistry under the safety net of school Yeah So she's a little out the pro she's gotta be like the prototype of that that whole model one of them Yeah, one of them.  Okay, or or trying to do some music We're going to sign this and we're going to start here But to take on our artists and support her in these two ways and have her in this in these type of outlets Where she's always ready doing interviews because that clip I shared right that's that interview for her music And rapping like to actually put her in that circuit and lead that way. It's really interesting. She's dope as hell um everything I've heard by the way, but It's dope to see that they're actually it's going to be a woman that's early on on this curve versus the opposite um so all right I think this is something I'm actually gonna like look a lot deeper into I think we should actually kind of follow the athlete artist thing a lot more because It goes back to culture mixing. Remember. Yeah, we talked about everybody is the artist competition now You got the athlete artist. You got the politician. You got the the regular content creator and everybody's making some type of music But now you got these people being support what you now Everybody's being supported by the infrastructure Right That's the that's the thing that it makes it so crazy for artists to deal with Like I could be an artist who likes to ball And you got like the crew league or chris brown and all these other people play with their teams But they're not playing on nba games. Yeah, you know, I mean they're not fighting with it Like the nba players aren't competing them for nba money But you got artists competing with all these other types of people for atlantic records money With some social media Anybody with social media that party is crazy, man Yeah, and it's just making me think like the whole athlete thing is crazy But I'm thinking about this random tiktoker. I found like two weeks ago I think he's like a golfer or something. He was signed to banner media, but he's in college I remember thinking that's how like I remember it didn't click then I was all he's on he's in college on You know banner media, you know what I'm saying, but it's like so even there starting to see that and then Well, I'm gonna guess they probably like they probably lobbying for it. I mean fighting for it in the back Because you know, he got banner sports Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna think about so he got banner sports JZ got you know That side of everything so say are we gonna fight for this shit? So he can be the first one to get these people that can take advantage of it. Yeah It's not because it's such a I don't know. It's gonna be bad, bro I think for ours because like brabina's a big sports player immediately makes you like influential. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, almost immediately. You know what I'm saying like you get a strong head start Yep, especially if you I mean like heard narrative right was like, oh, we we're not taking the Once we taking the ones that's already built in some celebrityism and within the sport they do So that's a easy flip at that point, right when you got X amount of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousand people paying attention to you Yeah, bro, that's about the game. I'll be ugly, bro. It's gonna be a good way. You know what I'm saying people like us It's about to be great. Yo, and I mean it's beautiful because you've seen so many times careers get fumble That were possible in terms of like sports stars who wanted to be in music Invites versa because the infrastructure wasn't clear. It was that one or the other but now VaynerMedia knows how to monetize culture. All right, that's what we do All right, so the system is they're full funnel Rocknation they know how to monetize and navigate culture So we can easily slide you from this athlete to that side of the culture versus being again two separate companies Oh, yeah, you're doing what you're doing now. Now you got to go find a record label So all the development is clean throughout the entire process, man Brandon and I just clicked again, bro. Like the the brand narrative that they're building out. That's why The first thing I saw of her like heavy was that freestyle clip. You know what I'm saying? Let's go ahead and start setting the foundation, bro Like oh, she's a rapper, right? Like this is a music interview, but she made sure to throw that narrative in there Right spin it Yeah, it's like they're literally planting the seeds now. It's gonna be interesting to see like what she's at and like Because I mean, you know, she can have pushed on a holiday time You know, we already had that the whole talk about what that's gonna be That's gonna be interesting to see like what she looks like for her around the summer. You know what I'm saying? Right, especially like Well, because that's what season's up around with over about the top of spring Yes, what is it gonna look like once in between seasons? Yeah, but she also gonna have that whole season to build the attention and come off the season Be fresh on it right good or bad because the season is in it So that's like that to me will be the start of the rollout when the season's over with Especially if you win, that's definitely gotta be a start of the rollout if you lose You know, maybe like a week or two later I'll take a break I'll take a little break Feel bad for a second Let that be the narrative for a while and then get back into it All right Well, it's like either way, bro Like yeah coming off of season top of spring to then go into the summer rollout With like that behind you for the last six seven months. Yeah, that's gonna be wild Yeah, yeah, they're gonna he really take time. Oh my gosh And another thing if I think about from a company standpoint if you're getting both sides In that regard and look I could be wrong where Technically they might not have the artist Side of it right technically they might not I don't know right? So let's put that out there, but we still know what's up, right? This is rock nation They're not they're gonna want to It only makes sense in some ways, you know what I mean And the resources look how did she get here, right? She matter of fact, let me see sign Yeah, like it just makes sense. She's probably something some way involved Or at least they made that a part of the sale. Hey, we have this access, right? You know what it is, right from a company standpoint, bro How hard is it to monetize an artist? Scale one and ten like a like a seven and a half eight at least. Okay. Yeah, okay And How long does it take typically To be able to monetize an artist like I sign artists that they're developing and then yo, we can seriously start making that money back that's like if you're lucky like Two three years if you're lucky As a constant like in a lot of cases it really is that right? We see the pop, but like that's it right two three if you're lucky I'll probably say five six. You know what I'm saying if you one of the unlucky few Shit, you you still do lucky few if you pop Yeah, they have a real career most people never right so If that's happening I now Damn near can monetize immediately From the athlete side. Yeah Wow, I'm waiting for this money to be made from the artist side. Oh, he's figuring the art side out Yeah, figuring out they're gonna have to go through with that. Exactly. They're still developing and maybe look Maybe there's an L completely who knows but That even from a business standpoint makes a lot of sense So because I don't have to worry about all those things and while your athlete is funny. It probably creates extra because You Is now a novel thing that you're an artist, right? So it's attractive because you're not graded by the same You know criteria as somebody who's not an artist So you look more successful than I don't want to say more successful than you are It's just not great Yeah, it looks easier. Yeah from the other side. They have their own tribulations They have to go through the artist athletes or the athlete artist, but it definitely looks easier I'm looking at right right So like you come out with a song It's almost fun that you came out with not people don't judge it as hard because this is the only thing We're judging you on so there's all these benefits So that is an athlete But again as a company if I can begin to monetize With these brand deals with puma. All right, like this is how you know rock nation man Like come on out puma. All right, this is all this is rock Or whatever other type of deals that you might be monetizing this personality from Outside of just your regular stuff, but the things that additionally come from our Music as well Which brings me another question If I could do that and then finally when the music stuff pops out That's a beautiful situation. You take away Again, so much risk that comes from music and everybody's been waiting time and time Like year after year after year figuring out ways to decrease the risk of artists like artists. I don't know. Look, I get deals have been historically really bad, but y'all also have to understand that Like there's a high high risk Historically, it's a lower risk. That's why deals are becoming or are better That's actually why it's like. Oh, yeah, because we can a and r a little bit better We can look at data we can we have to pick you up until a certain point, right? We don't have to pick you up from um until a certain point. There's all these other factors that Put people in a position to actually offer better deals. It doesn't mean there's not people offering trash deals That's all that's gonna happen like that People are always gonna get in where they fit in there's gonna be those characters But a huge part of it is literally just where the marketplace is people can make smarter decisions You know on top of that like how can I make? Uh again minimize that that risk.   So hopefully he comes up with something else But this single is gonna at least get me to break even so out. He's not as much of a risk, right? Yeah This isn't a single but this This being an athlete is in some ways equivalent to being a single probably even better in some ways They're being a single that has some momentum Like I said, the month the monthization rod is already there. So it's like we can literally cover that gap Well, the money on you on your music brand about just maybe not hyper focused on the athlete brand But we have the option to if we need to right if you start getting dry Hey, man, I know you want to put this merch out and go on tour But let's get some more of these jerseys out, you know saying like first like let's let's get that Stacked out first and yeah Flip it from there. So it's it's interesting bro Like like thinking of it that way because like I said, I wasn't aware that they were even kept out the competition like that I always thought it was just You know, because you you meet so many athletes and they want to be artists Like I feel like that's a secret desire of like them every athlete So I always thought they were just keeping themselves out of the game because of the love for the sport I know they really couldn't hop in the game none of that doors wide open, but no Yeah, it's gonna be a very very interesting They just need one to hit that actually got really really top music like usually they're like at max like Okay, you know saying or good. It's probably like the highest bar personally from artists in that world I think that we get one that cracks the quality aspect of it like and has this machine behind him, bro It's gonna be bad pop out what it hit hit.  Yeah, I mean, we know we've seen the prototypes dion Sanders dropped his track It wasn't really a good song, you know, I mean his music wasn't good, but you know That'd be like entertaining. All right. It was entertaining Shack arguably had like some solid stuff like his track with biggie 30 years ago 30 years ago And yeah, who's some pretty solid music Lonzo Ball's like one of the more recent artists that I could think of we get a good athlete At least once a year athlete freestyle is just better at more. There's better athlete freestyle than athlete music They're good at maintaining the image for like long enough for it to be interesting And then once it comes to like the super long-term work aspect of it, I think that's what we start to lose Right. Yeah, because it's different. It's a different type of work.  I'm that nigga. I'm top 50 whatever to now have to go back to the music side where I'm one of Many over here, you know what I'm saying? Like the whole big fish small pun things small fish big pun, right? That can't feel good. No No, I can't it can't I just made a quarter million over here. I check my Spotify streams. I made 36 dollars I can't come back with that. So I get it. I get a while Yeah, yeah, that's just gonna be interesting, bro. Like they're like built-in influencer base, bro It's gotta keep you going long enough Yeah, starting up from ground zero is definitely hard when you when you're already used to that upper level Part of the interruption I have to take this quick commercial break to let you know that we are sponsored by Me because I signed myself We signed ourselves. It's a brand-man network That's why we're calling no labels necessary because no label Nobody else is necessary for us to get the train moving So if you could just subscribe to show appreciation, we'd really appreciate that back to the program Let's get into this right here though. Um, I want to talk about first Being first not mattering now. Why am I talking about this? You know, you remember our conversation we had about that You're about resting the pyramid resting the pyramids Yeah A lot of interesting comments and there's a lot of interesting takes that I think we can expand on So there's a lot of people that were like, oh, Russ wasn't first You know, there's some group called was it I am or something like a french group. Yeah, some french group Right that performed on end of pyramids already and What I'd say to that cool Yeah, but the reality Is nobody cares Right, and that's how it works And I'm not saying that to disrespect the group But this is literally how marketing works and that's what I want that to be a jump a jump in A spark for this conversation Is Well, really the way this shit works is it's first to mine not first in reality This person has The Migos flow, right? You remember when the Migos flow Popped off and then there are all these old heads that were like, well, this person had that flow and this person had that flow, right? The youth don't care. Yeah, right because it was first in their head, right It might be nice from a historical standpoint and say, oh, well, I could see where it originated Like even if you're somebody who's like more respectful like, okay I see it originated back there, but it doesn't hit the same When I hear from this person Then I do from the older person or just the originator because I got it from that new person's delivery first You know, I'm saying like so first to mind is far more important than actually being first. I'm not saying that They finessed this I just misspoke apparently on the podcast because I remember that it was a headline Because I see some headline headlines. I looked at it later. They get specific. There's another thing First solo rap artist. So all y'all french duo people talking about some group. Hey, he's the first solo apparently But even if he's not and y'all want to whip out somebody else Guess what? Nobody cares because we know about rest first, right? That's just how it works, right? This is Kanye like with the stage, right? Kanye wasn't the first person to have a floating stage But most people's experience at least over here, right America was Kanye with a floating stage And oh my gosh, he's so jeans. He's so visionary and guess what when you find out there's a guy over in Africa that did a floating stage It doesn't deduct Kanye's jeans points in people's mind enough To actually matter because I knew about his first and for some reason there's the cognitive The dissonance that just still last and I think a lot of people even understand that Especially some of these people on the pop scale.  I gained 20 from it. So what is It is what it is new people coming there from the look of outpacing the people that Remembering that this was something else right right and overall they didn't get so deep into that person's fan base that did it originally that Like to actually truly care long term. Yeah, you know what I mean? So like that's the way that marketing work works, right? It's not just the reality of ownership So the like ownership are two things actually so you can legally copyright something But if everybody knows me for this Right, I have a level of ownership in the people's minds. Yeah, so Jaquor you wrote this song. What should this is the reality, right?  Yeah Well, I get that technically Jaquor wrote it, but this is Sean's song man Like I don't even care that you can sing better to him like Pharrell says uh, silo has a His version of happy is better than he is right Pharrell says that it's like a breath She wouldn't hit the sign. Hey, it wouldn't hit the sign It might have hit If I heard his first but it's too late yours is already in my mind. That's just just that's just the way it go Right that was part of frosty Remember when jaquice had the uh The buddha remix element.   It's a distraction at that phase.    What's the actual official name? See you last season. Yeah, I forgot the actual official name, right?  I cannot find it on the internet I cannot find it. It has like extra bass to it and everything and they play it so much It seems so regular for a second. I actually started down. I'm like This should always have this bass in it and I forgot I thought to go back to the regular songs I knew this didn't have bass in it like this and it's it's it's perfect I found up sped up versions, but it's more like the hyper pop sped up. It's not that it's it's a higher Like a you know faster pace and there's just bass dropping back. That's all that's it. There's no feature nothing Red goes so hard though. He goes I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I made I haven't checked tiktok. I've looked at like a spotify and youtube But that small switch Yo, it goes. I don't I don't know how to find stuff when when it plays on the radio though um Now with that being said imagine If I heard that first right And then I was like dang this shit slow. That's just not weird. It's a oh perfect example. We can go back to them first um Miss miss uh, I don't even want to say her name but I don't Y'all artists that we worked with and remember when she dropped The that teaser right? I remember we were in florida.  I was like, what's that like she dropped this Shit, it's a song song. You're like, no, it's just a little teaser thing. She did but everybody loves this song Or this teaser and they're like can we drop a full song make it a full song? She didn't really want to make it full and then she drops a full version And I'm like, oh shoot. She dropped the full version.  What what what's the beat? Why is it so different the the production's different? It's like that was it sped up or something? I feel like it was a faster beat. It was faster I was like you took all the emotion away from this shit, man Me hearing that one version first maybe the second one maybe the second version I would have liked it if I didn't hear that first version. Yeah, but boy Did the rest of the fans agree with me? That's all I know I was like, how could you do that? What did you say? She said like why she redid it? It was something with the the instrumental like the one that she used the rights to it it got embossed You know like arson She got beat to it So she had to go get her producer that she know to completely remake it for And then by the time that happened, you know, it was late Far down a little bit and then the song was different. See I thought she said she just didn't I thought she just didn't like the the pace of it and wanted to be sped up or something like that Yeah, I think that's what made her go with this the sped up version But that's why she didn't use the original original original was yeah, I think because she she can't get it But the pace I forgive her more. Yeah, I forgive her more. Yeah now. Now that I know that Like I thought it was just like I don't like this. I see people want it, but I don't like this. Well, that was part of it. That wasn't all of it There was maybe 20% of what okay, I think not getting the first beat in her head was like, oh, that's a song That's a song. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, then this shit's sold out. So yeah, I mean, I should have switched it up and go with this direction Okay, okay.  It's so much more up. Yeah, man. It's growing on me over the years Like I was a little bit Come up on my I'm gonna give it a try. Maybe with separation. You know, I don't have time in between now because I vaguely remember it only because I was looking at the post not too long ago So the post reminds me of what it's about this point. I almost forgot what it sounded like So I'm I'm I'm almost at the that point where it's completely fleshed out of my system. Oh man. Yeah. Hey, well artists look If fan acts or something Don't give them that except Whatever adjustment you think you should change or if you are like looking back on it I think if we could have done that differently if I could have advised her differently I don't even like do both like do like an og version of it And then maybe drop like this second version of it and call it the something else mix or something Right. So you can just get that out.  No, I don't think about it I can see that and then maybe even give it a little narrative of why she did This version is more somber and speaks to x y z and this Version is more upbeat because it's me finding myself and walking towards it You went better than I was gonna go I was gone for the aimer. I couldn't get the official beat So I gotta do this other one with the truth. Yeah The truth is a good narrative sometimes, right? I feel like bands don't believe that The truth sometimes sounds like a lot because we hear a lot from so many other artists All right, that is true. Yeah, I'd rather go with the creative lot because at least they don't they don't They don't even know what you think that's that's true. Yeah I mean, I think the thing that would have helped there if you just you wouldn't have Been able to put it on the regular platform It's like I just can't put it there but y'all can listen on youtube or whatever. But yeah, so look that's the impact of the first stuff, right and it's It's so important to realize again It's like first doesn't matter by itself I got to make an awareness of the fact that this first happened All right, that's why you'll see a lot of products that are far better marketed Do better than a higher quality product. All right. It's like, yeah, people are oh, this is so much better. It doesn't matter Nobody knows about it. Yeah period Who cares who knows except for whoever the tree fell on when it hit Like you one of those people's screaming but So people have to be aware And then especially if it's something like the pyramid situation and things like that, right? You have to create awareness Of the of the meaning of it as well So now I know about it. Why is it important? Oh rush perform to the pyramids Oh, but it's important even more important Not just dope because that'll write that right there is dope period, right? But it's even more important because I'm the first solo rapper apparently right and by the way Um, if y'all are listening y'all past POT listeners was at number four clip listeners. Let me I'm gonna pull something up on On the google real quick Why don't y'all to see something artist Who Performed At pyramid Look at this Y'all talked about that one group y'all talking about me y'all didn't mention louis armstrong You know y'all didn't mention frank sanatra.   So y'all didn't have to come in me like that man. That's all I'm saying All y'all did was prove the point And that's why look that's why we come at the kids so hard when you think of um, like society when it comes to marketing and products Let's get them so we can get in their minds first because They're still experiencing first. Yeah, so it doesn't matter that this old music might be it might be I'm not even like objectively, so I'm just saying like it might be better Then there's new music, but if they hear that new music first and that new style first That's gonna change your perspective of that old You know what I mean by all that type of stuff I mean, we we literally build society Basically from a marketing standpoint off of the youth for that reason. That's always the big money opportunity That's why there's always articles like oh the way millennials think the way Gen Z thinks because it's a new opportunity Yeah, and it may it may make sense when you look at it that way Right because like how many people are going to do the research to find out if you tell them the truth or not No, that's not like we don't condone lying, right? Like I'm not you know, but I get it sometimes, you know in in the world of entertainment Sometimes there's a clear cut narrative that you know that by the time People start to figure out that this isn't a hundred percent true. I'm already I've already won. I'm already I've already cashed out Got what I wanted. This is one of those things right like I said, like how many people Scroll past that response was like, oh, that's cool And even then to go look into it my first thought wasn't to go verify not right Which we fall for the trick sometimes, you know, it's the beauty of it You know the bullet coming, but you don't step out the way for whatever reason This is this one's too enjoyable. Yeah, let me see what happens here I won't be taking all the way out.  And narratives be spun into these crazy moments That like the truth comes out a day or two later and like the truth doesn't go anywhere near as big as Whatever the initial narrative was, right? Yeah, play like this, bro Like they're probably it's my who posted it to that rush quote like no rush.  No, that's like I already put my capacity about caring into caring that he did it I don't have the room to go care about this new random person that maybe did it You know saying 20 30 however long I don't know longer was but however long ago, right? Like you said like people are looking for the first in their time. It's just like history, bro Like we're not it's cool to learn that people did all these things back then but you like man But this ain't got no effect on me like I'm not saying this shit right now The motherfucker that's showing me them doing the same thing on youtube right there or something has more impact than the people I learned about doing your past because I can experience it and see it In real time and then that's what we always take it back to that I think are something about bro like from a Consumer standpoint We just care about who we heard about doing it first and if we happen to know that that person wasn't first Then we care, you know, so we talk about it, right? If we don't know then we probably most of us probably just take the narrative around with it You know sad truth was how people are and then even the ones that do know They're still contributing to the conversation to that conversation I write hey, he wasn't actually first this guy was first but you're still talking about it So even in that situation, you still win because then the narrative change enough people find out the narrative switches to Oh, Russ was not actually the first artist to perform in the pyramid here Five other artists that actually were first, but you just extend the conversation by another week. You know what I'm saying? Another week or two. So hey, it's crazy, bro. Exactly. That's the Old person's dilemma right as we all get older How many times have we all heard somebody older say Well, no first you hear somebody younger say oh, that's so unique This artist is so dope. They're doing this and that and in the old person like man Oh x y and z been did that they been did that and you're like I hear you But doesn't really connect like the true fact that they aren't as unique. No Like they're unique in your time. It's hard to unsee them as that Why because I can't unexperience my experience Say it was first to me. It's too late If the cherry gets popped you can't unpop the cherry. Yeah, it just doesn't work that way, bro It's like, well, so what you want me to do not feel as amazing as I felt because that amazing feeling is now always going to be associated with that Artist not these other people. I can build some appreciation for those people who already have done it And I could truly love and like a lot of things I'm hearing from them Especially as I experienced first with those older catalogs Right. There's a lot of old artists that You know, their catalogs are amazing to me But still growing up. You can hear one thing first. It's like dang like This is it for me This is it for me. I hear what you're saying pop, but this this is it for me. Um, but but yeah, man that That that the being first is I think and that's what I love about a margaret conversation and kind of like how we think Because a lot of times I I like to say The way consumers care about stuff and we'll see all in the comments a lot of times It's completely different than how we say stuff All right We will literally be talking about something and saying something like a first doesn't matter or this is first and that And then they'll think we're hating. It's like the travis bot Scott uh travis scott bot situation. Yeah, like us talking about travis having bots They think it's hating and all these other things before us. Yeah, that's part of the game for us We're not even thinking like this is like, oh, yeah, no, man He should have did it that way like in that conversation. You were basically like man Y'all need to try to find some people who can do this right in in a way that matters, right? And we talked about the music so that's a big all that stuff, but It's like when you if you want to be in the game actually in the game You don't have the luxury of viewing The game with that same level of romanticism that fans think that's why everything's like hating or love It's like hate or love for us. It's like there's so much great space It's like bro, I'm with it man. I think that's a that's a very important distinction So to make is that You know, there are a lot of marketers on the on the internet who are like that, right? They're very like, you know, we only do the positive things and you know No, this is wrong. This is bad artists The artist gang should be pure and everybody should get an equal chance starting at the same point on the starting line And yeah, I'm saying we all get the same power boost and all that shit But I feel like we're one of the few marketers that I mean, we don't encourage it, but we acknowledge it, right? Like it's like I've worked with clients before and seeing Impact of bot set up from that back in right. We've had clients, but we look we get access to that back And she will this ain't nothing like we thought it was on the front end like I don't hate it I'm saying like I've we've done enough to understand that Like any game there are there are things that you won't understand how to play well within it until you're at the level where it matters Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? Like so when you're down here looking up and you wonder why all the The motherfuckers at the court got on this special pair of shoes Why they all wear the same pair of shoes and you get it.   You know what I'm saying? And So that's how I look at a lot of the marketing stuff all of it. I don't condone You know what I'm saying all of it I wouldn't recommend to a client or a particular client But I respect that when I see a game play well, you know, I'm saying no matter how fair unfair that game was played But like I'm I'm respected, but the market in me is like then like the fan of me not be like then it's fucked up But the market in me is like no that shit was kind of hard. I can't Hey, look to me especially something like bots. Yeah boss or whatever at this point. That's like To me, it's irrelevant. All right. If you if it works to get you where you need to go Who's talking about bots? We're not talking about I don't know something serious. Yeah Oh, yeah, he got an extra few fake numbers And now he's a big artist Like who did that hurt? That's a that's the way I think of it. Like what what mattered to me if anything, especially if it's a social proof thing I always blame that stuff on the fans like to me.  Do I like the music or not? Right. All right.  You know what I mean? So And a big brother like so I was getting stuff from everywhere And I would be so I would be ahead of trends and then When a train would catch up It messed me up sometimes it was like Man, I don't want to wear this because everybody else was wearing it, right? but to some extent mentally I was like I'm being controlled by the environment around me So I got to a point where of course I like to have stuff and I like this have something that feels unique or Nobody else might have and whatever. There's still a extra gas that comes from that, but also I don't care 50 motherfuckers have this if a hundred thousand people have it if I like it I'm still gonna wear right like that's the that's that small little trigger But you know, there's a phase where you almost don't even like your outfit No more because somebody else have that on I had to mature past that point and that's Again judging something based off on something that has no merit for it Like the music is this music good? It doesn't matter that this person has a lot of fans to me or not, right? It doesn't matter that I Discovered him on tiktok. It doesn't matter how to score for him in my homie's car You know, it doesn't matter that I discovered him at a live show the first time like all that stuff And of course it it might you got he might have a different affinity from how you experienced it But it doesn't change if the music is good or not for me And I'ma follow him at the end of the day based off of how their music sounds Yeah, yeah, and even that argument is like it's the it's different styles of the same coin, right? Like ours like oh my music quality shouldn't be judged based off of how many followers I got or my Social proofing or what my I'm lacking. It's the exact opposite All this person shouldn't be judged because they do have a following. They do have xyc right like yeah So I mean that's the thing that I think makes that argument kind of hypocritical at its core Is that a lot of artists don't The only artists who I feel like truly argue artists merit Are mostly the ones who aren't in the game like that Then there are some who aren't a game. I do think argue like we've seen artists at high level Like vouch for you know better music and shit like that. Yeah, but I don't know. I feel like as like I just feel like it's a hard thing to as an artist to say like hey, we should be able to like Your music with criteria put in place, but when it comes to my music that should need to be Judging for you the table needs to be clear. What you mean by that? It's like like that same situation. Hey you shouldn't say or You shouldn't judge my music By the lack of resources I have to do things to promote it make it better Whatever, I feel like that's a it's a mentality of like a certain level of art But you know same ours will turn around and be like hey, that's not fair That you know this artist Had bought somebody credit a box system for it, right? And so now it's like I'm taking these things into consideration when it's on if I enjoy your music or not that are Maybe different from what I could experience to my level But the end of there like that's the it's the it's a different style of the same coin like you're being judged They're being judged for having See like this is Again, and that's why I want fans to know Loud and clear Look to the camera Y'all are the reason that the music industry lies Period Because you want to feel this thing that has nothing to do with the music you want to feel like you discovered the artist, right? Do you remember how artists were marketed back in the day versus how they're marketed now? I gotta lie to you and pretend like I don't have a record label Because you want to feel like you're supporting this person who doesn't have a record label I'm discovering them from ground zero.  So you can feel like I'm struggling that exists now because that's what fans desire now, but You remember what was happening in the 90s Bigger than life bigger than life being signed Actually meant something and fans actually gave people clout or looked at people better for being signed That was an emblem. That was a symbol that you made it. You were doing something. So, you know what? That's what we talked about back then. Yeah, all right, but we can't change the business You got to get the artist signed or whatever as early as possible because that's where you get your returns So I got to still do my business the same I just got to change the face put on some different makeup because Hey, now y'all like the eyes like this. Yeah, you know, I mean now you like this kind of mascara It just is what it is. So That's That's why we live, bro Like we have to make it feel organic.  Otherwise people wouldn't care if something came up on an ad And be like, do I like this or not? I've discovered a lot of music that I like And I don't know if I ever told you this um, I discovered her from an ad Oh, really? Yeah And and it was funny because I was early to her. I don't know. I dropped them I don't know if you remember I dropped the music video not music video youtube video and everything on her But it was from an ad that I discovered her and you know the whole silhouette All of it was dope and there's been a few artists that I discovered from ads Nobody I don't think that's been as big as her But it doesn't matter bruh It doesn't and maybe it's easier for me to not have that sensitivity because obviously that's what we do So we're gonna look at some type of marketing and have like an appreciation for in general like what are they doing? Is this working? Oh, yeah, they don't we're seeing it completely different Um, so we don't have that bias because we're just studying it in general because that's part of what we do but But man, yeah, I hate these arguments where people spend so much time trying to tear artists down Because they so as if they actually care about the artist in the art When it has nothing to do with the artist, it's about you. It's what you want to feel personally. Yeah That's all it is What reason do you have to disqualify them for because it's funny like I think there's like an invisible checklist that kind of comes up But I wouldn't have thought about if we didn't have this conversation But it really is like the first thing you look at or I second something look at that Is this person may listen to by other people? Right, we look at monthly listening account. Yeah, go to instagram see if we got some mutual followings You know I'm saying see all my homies from whatever follow him to I'm gonna ask him how you feel about right first thing you look for Do other people listen to them or do anybody I know listen to them Right and I feel like third is that is this a Organic person or some bigger corporation trying to feed this person to me you're looking for signs You know saying to see the label I don't know. I don't know every fan things that deep I'll be looking at like that. You know, so I'll be that'd be the third thing I think a label attached or not, right? Are your nd is it just you then you go through the look for like other social cues? Oh, he wearing this one clothing brand.    He went you know what I'm saying. I don't know Timberlands with the the the long white sauce now.  Yeah to say You should listen to this thing or not. And I think that's what makes that argument Well said so hypocritical. I'm not saying it should stop I just think we all do it naturally. You know, there's nothing you can do about it But it's only an issue when it's against you as I for what ours is like if if if a fan is like, yo, I listen to you Because actually great it actually I just make it a personal example Like I've told you before I've had people be like, hey, bro Like I want to work with y'all because like you black and you got locks You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, all right, cool, bro. Whatever get you over here. I'm with Whatever you spend the money. I'm with it. That means I have to assume that somewhere out there There's a person that's like the opposite of that.  Or you know what I'm saying? I have to naturally assume that You know what I'm saying? So it's like to every you know what I'm saying? Whether there's always the opposite to whatever bro I whatever thing you're kind of discounting people for people at discount you put the opposite of it You might fit one archetype that makes a whole group of people want to rule for you and Invouch you and that might be but you might fit three other archetypes of other people for why they shouldn't support you and take up for you And you know what I'm saying, right? It's like there's nothing you can do about it Because people are diverse and weird and we like what we like, you know what I'm saying? So it's just that's to me. It was just what makes the whole argument so hypocritical Yeah, I know we can't do anything about it. But you know, one of those things is gonna be here forever But that's just it makes it so so so You make a very very fair point and then the one that you said about Looking at are they being pushed by a larger entity? Most people don't do that I think people who are I'm talking about consumers, right? A lot of people who are artists in the industry. They do that, right? So we almost don't count that. Yeah, but there's a level of fans Who do care about that stuff, right? But that's the deeper and that's the That's the deep more deeply invested. That's a smaller portion of the whole Most people don't think to care about who they're signed for By who's related to them any old all those other details that are just like technical music industry How long have they been in the game before they blew up? Like they'll hear about those stories. Maybe if they're a fan and they care about the narrative And this is why I had a problem with Industry playing when it first started popping up because less because of the term and the fact that Again, like if you really understand marketing and whatever actually takes For artists to be successful, you don't really give That that much credence but less about that. It was because obviously, you know, so many artists follow us, right? And I see so many artists having all these conversations and looking down upon people for meeting the industry plant quote-on-quote Argument, you know, and it just felt like this weird classic thing that started to go on And you're hating on this person and you're trying to find why This person shouldn't be successful, but the worst part about it is Finding out why they're successful and you're not you're finding all these reasons and excuses And I don't feel like that does anybody good, right? So it's like you are hurting yourself by constantly saying, oh, this person is successful just because they have this just because they have this meanwhile You're not looking at the game for what it is and figuring out. Well, how can I get this? or understanding that One it doesn't a lot of times it doesn't happen as clean and clear as we think right? It just doesn't not even close It's not even close man There were the way these as a matter of fact a lot of times they clean it up to make it look and feel like that because that's a better story Than the actual story this shit was a lot uglier So it was like being an industry player like it's actually a good way to To look at things sometimes based on how un how boring this shit actually was You know what I mean? So But it does damage to me If i'm in this profession and I want to be one of those successful artists that constantly always be thinking About this term this thing that's separating. This is why people are big or not When my focus should not be other artists and their type of success my focus should be the fans All right, like I would say all the time You go ask a lot of random people out there What an industry plan is and they don't know what the hell you're talking about All right, I would ask my sister I would ask my girl I would just ask some homegirls and other people are like they don't even know So you're saying rest is an industry plant some people who are are you say that about rest, right? And it's like, well you look at rest is fan base a lot of them Definitely don't even never even heard that term term before it's More out in culture now just because it's been pushed and it's been longer But it's like you're spending too much time wasted on something that Has zero contribution to what your actual career is and you're comparing yourself and looking at something that has Zero ability to make you blow up, which is another artist fan base in their story You're the inspiration maybe but like we know the effort all comes from everybody finding their way to build fans There's a how many artists that have hella artist fans in the industry Everybody know they're dope a lot of people in the industry know they dope Love it all that person's so talented.  Yeah, right? That's when we then the industry becomes like a benefit on top of it All right, but you still need that core like oh now you can leverage their relationships now It looks really dope to have this extra love from all these people who have a name for themselves All these other like things become the matter, but we there's people out there who are They're at these little mini shows that have all these dope people in the room and they're get on every showcase Or they end up in just all these rooms navigating there like whatever whatever But they don't have a fan base like that fan base is the thing that changes everything so it's like the more time You spend convincing and pandering to Just What's happening in the industry? The less time you're focusing on the thing that's actually gonna make the respect you and then once you get too old The industry doesn't look at you the same anyway.  You six years past gone. All right, so Yeah, it's it's it's crazy Yeah, right. Well, I mean what happens I'm even type really the industry plant comments usually come from artists that don't understand it because like you said I feel like you very really hear like industry artists saying it I guess one because they're all technically industry plants at that point but in two They have an understanding of just because you have this entity behind you Does not mean you're going to be any more or less successful than the next person And so I think it's artists who don't have a view into that side of the industry that assume Like oh, this is still the magic ticket You're in a better situation than I am because you have x y z level behind you But how many label clients have we worked with were like if we didn't know the label wasn't working with them on paper They wouldn't help look any different in the indie clients If I just Looked at their applications and skip past that part everything else about them on paper looks exactly the same Only difference is this client doesn't have a label entity behind them This client does and I even tell artists in that situation the only difference that they have between like the only real Leverage point they have over you is that if an amazing moment where they happen for both of y'all They will build the cap on it a lot faster. That's the only advantage They really get over you like if it hit both you would have hit the same day They could probably house might moving around it within the matter of days Where it's like you will take your while to build the infrastructure and learn what you need to do When so that's the only benefit they have up until that point is everything else is exactly the same.  That first part you got to get popping yourself, right? And then like jacorio said they can accelerate they can help you fall in line That's why the industry plant shit is like the new illuminati, bro. It's like the excuse To take away and deduce your level of success. Yeah, that's all it is Man, that's why I was uh account for like, you know the conversations we get A marketing agency. I always try to think about it. Like are these artists don't have the same conversations We have with nearly as many people that we have them with so I can get it, right?   You know what I'm saying?  I ain't no threat in this situation I can't do nothing So you hear things and I remember man, this was a long time ago, bro No, man, not long maybe like a year ago. There was one guy to reach out to us I don't know if he ever hit you be at DME so I kind of want to say it But I just remember this guy on paper like just walk me through all the people He's connected to and show me proof and you know all this shit Like on paper, bro shipping out of here real life And you you know, you get so desensitized to it I'm like the more you work in music. It's like everybody knows my other points. I don't even I know At least one or two Yeah, if you've been doing long enough, you you connected to somebody so right But it's just that's why I say like I think that whole industry playing argument When I hear is usually only an argument made by artists that I can tell don't understand Nothing because I'm like, bro, you're saying that this person had that advantage But this artist might have been signed to this deal for Five years and it just took them a year for to start seeing the advantages that you're talking about, right? The first three three years they were going through the same grind You were going through and they had to know all the things that you were complaining about They also had to deal with but they still figured out right like they're artists that are in the system that figured out It's like they're artists outside the the system who figured out In the system who don't figure it out. It's like they're artists outside the system who never figured out Right, so it's like that's the thing that gets me about the industry playing because I think it ignores the core Like struggles that every artist has to go through right there are some things that no matter what type of artist you are Like you're gonna go through some very specific struggles and issues just because it comes with it's like no job related issues And I feel like it's like you're trying to like disregard that Part of it because they have a seemingly Better situation than you are we're in reality, but I've talked a lot of some laybars We'll be looking at our indie clients the complete opposite right like they ain't got no deal, but he's doing shit like that That's crazy. He's free He just woke up. What you mean? Y'all had the campaign start on Tuesday He just had the idea for it on sunday and it happened like that. He cleared in for some Monday We was kicking things right so like it's the grass the grass is always green on the other side mentality That I feel like both sides have against each other. Yeah, and it's just it's just weird being in the middle of it You like yo, you're wrong for so many different reasons and you're wrong for so many different reasons So I'm both attacking each other about the whole issue crazy about nothing, man About nothing. It's nothing that fans care about that's the part Nothing that fans especially once you get to a more commercial scale None of them care about you might have some when you're smaller first movers pay attention to the Them little details, but I want you out there out there Nobody's thinking about that. Nobody's trying to check from where you came from if the My my thing is if it were true That having connections meant You were going to be up That having money meant that you were going to be up We wouldn't ever have rich people who lose their parents wealth Right. I still a certain standard and maintenance now It might be an easier start right when we talk about wealth might be easy because that's a lot more objective, right? But when we increase that and did that difficulty Is music right the arts and actually being good at that and getting convinced to be able to be your fans. How many Kids of people who are famous Are not popping and actually make music a lot of Period like we looked at look at um Russell Simmons not not Russell Simmons Reverend run his brother. Yeah the two sons diggy and jojo. Yeah Both of them have the same dad. Diggy did a lot better commercially. Yeah, you're right. Yeah the moment same Jojo had nowhere near that. Yeah, like I never heard his music outside of him recording his music on the show I'm just saying like so if not just That resource pool like this is the same resource pool Now let alone all the kids out there of celebrities. It doesn't even have to just be an artist, right? We were talking that's artist specific. We could be a Uh a basketball player son, so they still got money. They still got connections and friends into music. All these things exist Yet they aren't successful in music. All right, like it just it especially them oftentimes a lot of them dabble because they have the uh The riches to take that chance and actually look at it like for when you see it around you, you know You got the connections and I don't I can't say Yeah, exactly studio right there a real official studio right there so I don't they don't have to deal with Hey, I gotta still work this regular job and like, you know, of course, there's certain situations I don't want to say that about everybody but like It's more real and achievable. It seems like to them probably versus somebody who's You know, don't have the money so I need to spend time getting to like money money This music money takes too long or have no idea how this stuff happens But still even what that being said the percentage is so small for every jaden smith as you point out Every shoe who's who's somebody else actually? Uh, did he's one son?  Um I mean willow, you know willow It seems a jaden come and that actually might be the the best Yes conversion rate, you know saying from a family scene two out of three and one didn't even try Shit Two as far as I'm concerned And I play there's others. I know uh, oh, that's definitely others Like I think like young baby tapes mom was a famous singer back in like that.  Um He don't like people know saying I said I have a homie who's like dad is a Famous rapper and like or he's not famous anymore, but he's famous of a period in time Yeah, he's quietly moving through the world. He don't really talk to tell people about that I'll happen to know because I just met him one day around. Oh you Show dad bro But it's like they out here moving but I It goes back to us being put in situations where we get to see that which is why sometimes I understand Right because I said we've Met these people we talk to these people because of nature of the job We have to almost over care and even pay attention to people. We haven't met they're going through things right just comes with the territory So I do get it When the average rsi Me doesn't have that same level of context to put two and two together. So I know bro I haven't worked with in the rsa struggling. I've worked with labor rsa struggling All y'all got the same issues, but you don't have it.     Real magic, bro.  So let's keep running with like when people like the music Things will start to happen for you that didn't even don't even sound possible You'll hear us say things So we have to even in the network sometimes recant things we say goes like oh on the bouncer probabilities This thing doesn't make sense for you.  So yeah, you and I'm we bro because people like the music when people like the music Not just like that's that like that special level to you know, they love it Yeah, it's like it's that special special love, right? Yeah Like I was remember that was one year. Um, but we have this one artist And I always tell people this story. There was an artist we were working with where I mean, we couldn't spend more than like $4,000 on her across like four or five months. This was when prices were much cheaper You just need to throw that out if people started putting math together in the head but And I always remember looking at like damn we spent like 45,000 dollars on her And she was having things happen for her that I remember we had a couple climbs of time that maybe spent Double trip of her budget one even getting close to the same result Yeah, with double triple the span and it was crazy because it's like bro.  And the higher It takes For your song to truly be activated in culture. The worst song is right. Yeah, and we're not talking about Like just really really bad music. So like just cut out really really Objectively just horribly bad music, but let's think about the some of them songs that were They would have never been a hit if it didn't have a record label Right on a massive scale pumping a lot of money or it wasn't dropped by an artist who was already really big Right and it still didn't do even what that artist is used to but it's still got a lot of blood, right?  Let's start at level zero At level zero is one of those like, you know, this is an eye over with people hear it and It goes right. So that's the super magic. Then you got some stuff They just need a you know level one level awareness, right? They might take five kers And you know, we're just throwing some numbers out there, but that just helps give some example Like oh, this one takes five k and once it gets five k it's gonna go But that doesn't mean just because your song didn't get five k it can't go It might be a 10k song, right?  It's the weird part about music too It could be a song that takes five k to take off and you think that means that this is a Bigger song than the song that takes 20k to take off Some songs, right? It might take a little bit longer for it to hit the way it needs But it's still going to be bigger than that song that pops earlier. Yeah, right because there's just some unique elements. All right, so for instance This is my example Just because this was one of the most recent examples for me personally of songs that the moment I heard it He just goes crazy glow with rilla f and f right I'm gonna keep pushing the agenda man. I actually went deeper into her catalog. I'm in love with it even more F and f right the moment I heard it The moment the right crowd hears it, you know, so we're not you can't just go play this for George straight and I don't even know why I said George straight.  Yeah, yeah, bam. You have that track But there's other music Bo that yellow go back to there because we rushed in that recently Bo that yellow has a far higher ceiling Right, obviously we know what it did but f enough could not get there Even if it wanted to with all the money That Bo that yellow had behind it if it takes all that the effort some of the same people It couldn't do what that song did because there's a limitation in terms of who is going to connect with the language is a little bit You know for some crowds, right? Um Her delivery is going to really resonate with somebody who's from the south like me Right more than some people from other other spaces and places around the world.  I know what this is.  Yeah So we convinced them they need to be convinced culturally convinced, right? So Again f and f might hit with a certain audience that might hit Uh be like that type of track. Let's say a level zero it immediately bam It goes but then it fizzles out I'm just gonna make out some numbers a hundred million monthly listeners or whatever His other song It takes you to get to level five as a slow pace But then we get to level five 500 monthly listeners or streams or whatever number you want to do it Like so it's a weird Way that you have to look at music and you have to be able Like pay attention to all those nuances at the same time Recognizing like oh man, this thing popped me off But this thing still has a ceiling so maybe it's time for me to get my next thing popping Those are the type of things especially if you're like managing or the record label They have to deal with it and consider those a lot more or marketing or marketing, right? You know, it depends on what the marketing relationship is. I'll say that sometimes I'll be looking at camera. All right, boy You got about another month and a half on this for a time to start Thinking about what's after this. I'm reading the social cues. I'm looking at things you got Either another month and a half or another hundred k see And I guess the point of that too is Stop acting I don't it's best not to expect a 10 To get you to 100 Right, but that 10 don't mean that 10 isn't valuable to get to level 10 from that song You went from zero to 10 right there using this song But hey, bro, it's not gonna get you to that next level All right Appreciate it for where it was and those people who got you there because actually some of them level 10 fans Ain't gonna get you to the next level They're gonna fizzle out or they're not gonna like you because you are as big kind of like what we said earlier Yeah, all right. So have that right expectations for those songs. That's why some of these songs we hold on to It's like, oh, I'm not gonna drop this till I'm at this level because it's not gonna hit the same But all that stuff have the right expectations for the right songs And put the right marketing budget Behind that right the right effort behind that And then timing of where you are all that stuff matters when it comes to Why you market a song how much you put behind a song when you decide to go uh to market that song And if you should feel hurt if it didn't do Certain numbers or not, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that's why it's important to kind of look at songs Like building blocks, right? Yes, because I think a lot of artists come into it. Oh, this shit's amazing Like you said, like I'm expecting this song take me from zero to 100 And in reality, you know 100s way up there.  So your next song might not take you to 100 It might take you to 30 right and it takes you to 50 But each of these songs are kind of like building you up to where you just look a little bit closer to Whatever that moment is or that thing is that kind of takes you out perfectly It makes me think of that old meme of like the guy digging up the diamonds. You know what I'm saying? Like he's like one hit away The wall collapsing and he's walking with it makes me think about that when I think about art Oh, this shit didn't hit so I'm gonna kill the operation or I'm gonna completely pivot or you know, one of the things we'll tell clients sometimes Overall, it's not a waste because You learned that this thing wasn't going to go Right, which is just as valuable as learning to me learning what doesn't work Is just the value of learning what will work because it's like you very much so could plant For this to be a hundred case on And you know, we we helped you realize a dollar number 15k that this ain't the one you we just saved you $85,000 Bro, you you were ready to blow all this man on this shit is not clicking like you wanted to click Yep So it's like there's a lot of power in that right and seeing that hey I'm going to this song marketing campaign Of course with the the goal of it doing well and people liking it But I could very much so just be spending money to learn that this is the thing I don't even spend money on which is still valuable himself Now you know But then also it needs to be looked at as like well Even this song doesn't take me to 100 if I if I'm at zero and I can get to five because of this I'll be happy next release. I'm shooting for 10 Right and then maybe you know three four releases down a line you at 50 I mean you feel like you understand what the lead looks like from 50 to 100 and that next one becomes your shot Right at that right, but you've learned all these things along the way just Building the blocks so they help you get to that understanding or you keep nickeling down me. I'm at 50 I'm gonna get to 55 I'm gonna 55 60 60 65 right like I'm not trying to rush it. I'm just trying to see what can I learn from these different situations That helps me get there and I don't know that goes back to man We got we should do an episode about it whenever because some of these things I think are usually like Growing artist pains more so than like artist artists.  Yeah, I'll be happy, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and then it just pops off. Oh, I'm happy. So happy surprise, right? But I'm not. Yeah, I mean Basically what you're saying is like learn without dying, right? Yeah, you know, it's like you want to stay in the game You want to learn as many lessons as you can Because this benefits you But of course you don't want to get put out the game. Yeah, so All right, how can how much can I learn from each track? I think um Man Well, actually, let's do this reminder folks Like and subscribe. Oh, yeah That's my that's my straight way of saying it. I'm not I'm not even gonna add any like cool No funny quips.  So I appreciate y'all so like and comment then Say what's up some just a little a little activity for the for the uh For the video so you could boost the algorithm. That's all that's all and we're gonna get into this next subject to transition Now we got two routes we can go we can talk about Taylor Swift and this tickets fiasco Or we can go The tiktok bots, which one you want to go? Choose your adventure Taylor Swift or the tiktok bots Let's do the bots. Let's do the bots. Oh, man. All right all right It's heavier It's a little bit heavier Let me find this because I still kind of want to see how the tiktok swif thing plays out, you know No, what yeah, I actually like that. We can like delay that conversation. There might be some new information That might be some new information. So long story short The bots on tiktok There was an article shout out to wendy day for sending me this article that was written Let me see if I could find it about bots on tiktok and Basically the person was trying to warn No, I think I've just put notes at the bottom. So we didn't have to go look for it. Yep I'm just read the notes instead of the article So this person was basically warning That there's so many bots on tiktok. You gotta watch out for these bots on tiktok because The amount of followers that you have Aren't necessarily congruent with the amount of even plays you get the views that you get or your Engagement or the amount of people that show up to your show who are paid for a project, right? And here's one of the things they started if you don't know charlie demilio Known as the biggest person on tiktok massive She has 148 million followers. All right So i'm gonna read this And give you an idea of where they're coming from so They say If you're running the numbers then at max 500 000 people in america are watching the demilio show every week In reality, I guess the actual number could be as low as 50 000 people per week, right? Watching charlie demilio's tv show. All right, and I'll tell you why this is important The imdb scores at a fairly the imdb scores are fairly atrocious too at 6 on a measly 1,600 views now that's less relevant, but 148 million global followers is what she has 148 million global followers converting to a couple of 100 000 people Watching and streaming the tv show. This is where she calls The big question. This is a big question. How do you have a 148 million followers? and only About 200k people watching your show right question. I get it. I hear why it breaks down. All right now She's saying charlie demilio was able to convert at best Less than 0.5 of her followers interviewers. What? Even assuming half of her followers are global and I guess they're saying hey Half of our followers like global maybe they don't have access to hulu Right the the platform, right? So you bring that down to 74 million, right?  So to me So for her she's posing that hey, this isn't weird that you have 148 million followers and barely interviewers for your tv show relatively speaking Because tiktok has so many bots for me. I'm not surprised for a different reason not bots, but That's just not how it works. Yeah, right? Like the way I've seen it move the culture Obviously, we've done a lot on on tiktok now. There are some things that are suspicious and we do know that bots exist Yeah, 100 right on tiktok. This person even points out Other platforms And I I have to say her name. I gotta find the article because you know, I'm not trying to not shout you out or anything I think it was a very well written article From a perspective it was an interesting op-ed that made me think and I liked the fact that it made me think about these things, right? And she had a chart on there too. I feel like we We have to show us some we do have to show the chart. You're gonna see a chart All right, if this is true the the bots on tiktok are crazy for a specific um A type of marketing so we will we will we will put that up. I'm gonna try to find that as we discuss. Yeah, yeah, but um Let's start here with charlie dameleon Then we'll get into the specifics that apply to artists, but it all applies because we are our content creators but Some of the specifics on the platform in general first she called it out The imdb score Basically The quali rating do people like this shit or not was low. It was a bad show All right, they got a season two, but it's kind of boring Yeah, I tried to watch it when it came out. I was on hulu and I was oh I didn't know she had a show because I didn't even know it was coming out Is that the one about like it's just like her and her family? Yes, I tried to look at it and now, you know, this is like technically Relates to work for me. Like I can figure out especially at that time The way we were leveraging those audiences and those influencers who are in there like Yeah, this will give me a better understanding Man I can't get through this thing. It's tough. Is that the same show or like the first I think the first two episodes came on a youtube channel or something, right? That's how they premiered it I don't know I don't know. I didn't know about that because I remember There was an episode where what's that one makeup influencer? Jane Charles, I remember he was on one of the episodes something happened around the time he was on the episode I remember watching That clip and I'm pretty sure I didn't actually never I'm not watching the article I remember that whole situation had the clip kind of because it felt like like he did it to kind of help the show You know, that's what I think got it Got it. Okay. I never mind then because I was gonna be like, bro You're trying to take her audience to something they don't want to go I don't want to go to that's another part of it though, right? Yeah There's new audience Gen Z They don't necessarily care for traditional TV traditional TV has been Taking L's year after year for the last 15 years at least right because of the internet Now we have that generation that truly has come up Internet for real for real getting phones at eight years old 10 years old And really knowing how to use these things, right? So They see things differently. I'm not trying to watch just regular TV And yes, this is at least on demand in the new streaming Environment, but I don't even think to go to that you would think oh, yes on no I don't even think to go to that and I'm young my fan base is young So all of them might not even have access to hulu because that's another gateway So their parents might not have it and the parents like no, I'm about to buy the hulu just so you can Watch some de milio or whatever you're talking about That's another thing that takes away from the audience There there's so many factors just around her alone, but again, let's go back to the show itself and they don't like the show Hmm So why would the second season do all that well? And right now she's the Kim Kardashian of her space without Chris Jenner Damn That's a bar. I'm just saying true. That's true, but no one's coming in flipping They like like like the brand need to be flipped Hey, I'm not saying do those things that Kim did like make that very clear I want to make that super super super clear, especially since she she's a young lady, you know, I mean But the marketing genius that comes with Chris, you know, and Because people for years were like, well, what does she even do? She has no talent. She's boring But somehow we always still talking about her somehow they're getting the news That's not happening for charlie. Yeah Period and again, I'm not saying it should go that route and all those things should be pursued because one probably doing well just fine, right and Everybody doesn't have to even be on that level right of attention seeking and looking And leveraging the industry in that way She might want to get money. She might say hey in about three years I'm gonna be done with all this industry front facing stuff in general I was just trying to get the money because the opportunity came She wasn't even an artist, bro. Like she or like a Somebody strongly pursuing a career at that point from what I understand just like so many of these tiktok artists I mean tiktokers Bro, I just get on this app for school No one knew this shit would go the way it did I just got blown up overnight and now this is just an opportunity that I have to cap on So the pre-meditation isn't even there on how to leverage All this stuff, right? So that's just for her situation alone and Then we got to flip it to the major one of the major arguments that was made in this article That I think Is a meaningful point to talk about but it's a little misplaced in terms of its full impact in this particular category, which Once you talked about like views No followers, all right and then the amount of views that people are getting all right and the engagement and how that's Translating to other platforms followers Let's be clear on tiktok does not mean what it means on other platforms It just doesn't and it's not actually supposed to go that way and I know that sounds weird, all right but Let's look at it this way when we know followers don't mean the same on any social media platform period But when you break things down tiktok was built interest graph first What people are used to is social graph first, right? Social graph if you think about all these platforms What you like they're built around your friends, right? That was social media came from that, right?     Y'all not into the same thing They don't even talk like that and then especially you get older and you evolve it gets even further away Yeah, right. So it's It's not that tiktok is Whatever you're reacting to lately I'ma keep showing you so you can evolve as a person I'm gonna evolve with you or I might just keep you in this this this zone All right, I'ma keep you in his loop. You're gonna get addicted to whatever i'm showing so Like that makeup Has implications and i'm starting there because once you understand the makeup and the meaning of the platform it Begins to explain why other things are occurring So to give some other examples for the interest graph because it sounds like something like super deep things sometimes um or a unique thing but tiktok is the only Platform that uses interest to drive behavior Is just a spectrum and in this spectrum i'ma make up interest in social All right So i meant to do the other hand, but i'll get started over here interest is over here now So The interest graph like tiktok is at the extreme, but so many social platforms They have interest Elements to them some of them actually started fully social and they move towards it Some of them started closer in the middle of the spectrum, right? Then you have a platform like tiktok Interest and then they skew with some social features, right? But it's still not a fully social platform.  That's interest driven. Yeah, right? If you go on youtube and you keep seeing all these videos that are popping up That's interest driven So by the way newsflash subscribers also don't matter on youtube like they used to right It's more about interest and youtube is a best example for anybody who wants to see it To look at the difference between interest And more of a social type makeup because tiktok is like this more black box Still is showing you it is showing you you still don't fully understand it But youtube it started in an era where hey subscribers really matter more They moved heavily towards interest though and You'll see this when you go to your homepage Everything's based off of what you've seen lately. Mm-hmm. You go to your subscriber Tap which most people don't even pay attention. Matter of fact, let me Should be a mess. Yes Let's let's see if I can find Maybe it was on this page. I'ma just pull youtube up All right If you go to your subscriber tab You'll be like man these videos I haven't even seen some of these people that i'm subscribed to in so long Oh There goes the article right there. I had it set up and I forgot that I set it up. See it's like when you uh When you put something in a place where so you don't lose it and then you lose it Because it's in that place. Dang. All right, so Like just pulling up youtube Let's see. I'm gonna just take it over here. I'm gonna keep it still small on the screen now No, that doesn't look great. So I'm gonna enlarge it. All right So the first thing I'm seeing on the homepage I'm seeing how drake comes up with new flows This disease killing the 1.5 million people every year like all these different things tech is the new black so so apparently My mix that they think I'm interested in seeing right now has something to do with rap music education um health Health scares uh technology and Look like some nation of any other nation of Islam stuff because they got Lewis Farrakhan here, which I don't know why that's popping up right now But let's go look at my Let's see Subscribers that subscriber tab do even have a subscriptions tab. Oh, there we go. Bam Now I'm seeing Gary v I have two videos that are the same. Everything else is completely different Everything else is completely different. So do that Experiment for yourself when I just do that experiment. See how different your your home pages. I got a lot of basketball on my Subscription tab.  But my subscriptions haven't forgot so That right there is like having followers That's what it looks like when a platform is paying attention to your followers and showing you what they did lately And then home All right, this is based off of your behavior based off of what you're doing lately Not what other people have done lately that you said you used to care about They're like a I know you said you care about these people but your behavior You really don't Like if if this was like if there was a way to do this Like in relation to like a relationship Like do your actions really show that you care like you say you do Like I know how you come home every day, but but what's really happening out in the world And uh, you know that'll mess up a lot of people. They'll take things sideways. So Like that's the difference between how these platforms work in reality right and Now people are trying to appease people By adding a subscription tab, right? So you can go to your subscribers if you want to right TikTok has the for you page then they have the The following tab following tab is who you're following right Instagram has had to because of where they started they've had more trouble getting there as much as they wanted to But they've navigated here like now, you know, they show stuff. They went to showing you Like what's getting more engagement on your news feed from actually just showing Chronologically and now they add a lot more of the interest of you'll have stuff showing your news feed that you're not following these people Right. Yeah, so what do they do the further they get into interest? They give you the option Because they can always say you have the option to go to who you're following All right and look at things chronologically and we do we do have that now But everybody knows interest is more powerful because it's going to stay up to date and what you're interested in now And because i'm interested in this now i'm going to click on it now. Oh shoot I need to get me a Some some syrup for these pancakes I see a syrup ad right Now i'm not talking about that whole conspiracy how everybody's oh, I was listening to you I'm just saying the level of interest and relevancy is far higher than yeah I love basketball, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I'm about to eat some pancakes And I want some syrup right it's that level of interest when you look at the interest grab versus The social grab which I guess it in an interesting way bring brings out the idea is interest Is on a moving scale All right, it keeps up with the user so the platform doesn't have to right right It's like in your life you have more interest in things and moment to moment Some things are really fleeting some things are longer standing and some things come and they go right every winter Some things matter to you more than they do during the summer All right, you start doing some of those same habits or whatever Maybe you start drinking hot chocolate again and all that all you know marshmallows and fireplace But you don't turn on that fireplace during the summer Right, it's it's the same thing. So that's how these graphs work And that's why everybody's like no we got to legitimately like focus on the interest graph right as much as possible Now what does that mean again tiktok followers doesn't matter as much so you can't just look at oh their followers and care Or like or say oh just because they only have this many views But they have all these followers There's nothing real going on and you can't say they got these many views and they only have This many followers nothing real going on the video itself is more of an individual Uh Entity than it used to be your individual post is an individual versus the whole profile used to be more meaningful itself, right? Yeah, it's a weird space to be in Right, we've been kind of moving from that up. Yeah, like because youtube pretty much changed you to kind of think of social that way I will argue twitter Trying to know for the same way tiktok just kind of came along and just Destroyed it after we were trained. Yeah, I don't think tiktok could have just came out the gate the same right, but They're that little brother. You know what I mean? We learned from big sister big brother mom and dad And here we are. Yeah, we just went straight to the shit It is what it is so Yeah, I think It makes it really interesting When once you really understand how the social graph is supposed to work All right, and the interest graph is supposed to work It changes the expectations around views and now you realize Yeah, if my Next post isn't as high as that lies post Then it's not gonna do anywhere near as good like it really is a what have you done for me lately All right, and if it's too different than the other one Then also the algorithm is showing me this like showing my stuff to people who are interested in this type of thing You went outside that interest and we don't show people stuff just because they follow you Yeah, like we don't care about that. Yeah, I think one of the the bigger You know less look that reason for that too is that sometimes people's interests just change like that You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, like we've had a conversation with arts.  You know what I'm saying? They've kind of evolved and changed and or they're just sick of whatever that the idea was initially And it's one of those things like it's a lot harder to like see at a certain level So it's the hardest thing to kind of skip over.  I don't like your idea And the best way that they they can show it is You know, they're not liking and not viewing or whatever and tiktok is just taking that or any social just taking the information They're going like, well, no people don't like it. So this is where it dies That's it. This is the end of the road for you my friend. So and I think tiktok Like Over-emphasized that oh, I don't know. I think it I think it hurts more on tiktok than on other social because you know What the potential is like, you know how So it's like something about not hitting it You know I'm saying it hits you different in the seed different people like new people hit it every day Like, you know, like at this point you scroll your 4u page If you really pay attention to your 4u page and like click through on every influence that came across your tab Probably at least 30 40% of them if you look at their page, you can tell they're growing right you see like they got a million View posts you go looking at all and they only got 18,000 followers. Like this should like this should just happen for them Like three days ago, right?  So the conversation with that natural excuse or There's the platform favor Or de favor certain things are they botting or they're not botting right like it's naturally going to lean that way because Like you can't you can only explain so much of the top of phone or stuff, right?  It's a crazy amount of bots out here, but it's about Right placing the right blaming the right places. Yeah, because when you actually are in the field Things look different, you know, um, like I always I'll talk about like judging somebody judging somebody correctly Means more in a higher stakes environment, right? So let's just say you say somebody's racist like and that's why I talk about like when you're in the streets or something like that You have to navigate, right?  All right Maybe that person's not racist.  Yeah, right or maybe they're not racist.  Yeah, right but that differentiation is important because Let's just say it's a a business environment or You know, let's just say we can make it like a high stakes drug deal environment or something. I don't know, right? And this person that's purebred racist Then they might not do any kind of business with me period. All right, but if they're more so an opportunist So they don't mind doing business with some racist people and pushing there at some of their agenda Just as a result, right indirectly But they also Well, but but but yeah, if they're if they're that kind of race is cool. All right, but if they're indirectly racist just because they're careless And they'll be with racist people that doesn't mean they won't do business with you right Of course if we go morally or ethically how you think about something because I messed up I butchered the way I said what I just said like if you go to Just the ethics of it. You might have a problem with it.  Maybe some somebody's coming to to shoot me And I need whatever leverage I can get and I could do I could go Get some bread from this guy and do that as long as I do the favor and because he doesn't care as long as he's gonna make money All right, that's like that. Maybe that's his thing. I just got to make money He's like that's an important differentiation to make again when we're all just chilling in a Low stakes environment, we have the ability to be less accurate But when you're marketing on a platform, right what you related to And you're spending money on that platform You don't have as much leeway to just cast everything off his box Or to cast everything off on the platform, right? Not if you still want your career If you don't care, you can just like Is this and the energy that gets me or I don't have it because of that But if you Really want it and you're going to take those actions. You have to figure out what the nuances are You have to figure out. Oh, no, that's that's not bots. That's actually because my interest is The my my people's interest has evolved like you said like we just came back to youtube seriously Really only a month of the gold still Like super seriously We really people didn't catch it, but we really have been low-key not really Focus on youtube for about two years There's people who probably aren't even interested in being an artist anymore So those subscribers some of them are meaningless Right in in terms of what we talk about and they're not interested in artists the the Marketing any of the stuff that we talk about Go on Out here doing finance, right? And they don't see the connection. So You can't expect to get that engagement anymore. Yeah, right tiktok is that except Like in a hyperbolic environment We could talk about two weeks from now Things be vastly different or you got so much activity from one post And do you do something remotely different? It just doesn't hit the same Because we just built you a audience of two million people On this one little thing over a two weeks time And you really weren't committing to doing that for a lifetime So now you're stuck in this route because not only did we show them to this many people We algorithmically put you in In a uh a groove to continue to show to those people first Because they've reacted off of the bulk of your attitude Your profile let's just like Those nuances matter because now they might help make you say oh, they're not shadow banning me They just really got me deep into this space that I I don't mean I'm I weigh down the alley and I got a post x amount of times To get out of it and it might take three months. It might take four months It's like how to be away.  That video went crazy. He probably got like It wasn't like super viral.   I'm the brother. That probably would have made him go viral again. Yes, you know what I'm saying Yes, but I remember the time he's talking like man like here.  I don't want and I think we see that with Tiktok more than any platform. Yeah, I'm saying because how easy is for you to work on it? But I like I don't usually make funny content.  It's a blessing because you in reality can damn to go viral for talking about almost anything But the algorithm picks up on you talking about things in certain communities Right, it's gonna push you towards that community and that could very well be in a space that Where the audience that likes that particular topic doesn't like 90% of the other things that you do Like it's very possible for that to happen, right?  It's like it was not what we're here for, right? So I could see how if he Popped to actually did when he started going that direction pretty heavily his fans started leaving And they weren't paying as much attention. He came back to the hood shit like I'm running them off with this new direction This new interest I have in the direction I'm trying to take it So I think we just see that happening a lot faster on tiktok Because like I got this video about plants and cars and video games all of them shits going viral at once They have nothing to do with my artistry, but they're bringing people back Maybe if I'm lucky 5% of them will stick around for the music Because they think I'm fine.   Yeah, bro. It works Like comfortable. Yeah, it works I want to stay in this groove and it just is what it is No matter how much of us like like to think oh, you know, I'm so different and I don't like any kind of formula It's it's it's just not true. It's not true Like we all might have a different formula than somebody else And our formula might not be a popular formula at the time But everybody has a sense of formula Um that they appreciate But I I found the The little the stat that you wanted me to show. Oh, yeah Yeah, I Break it down if um, oh, it's actually not showing you. Let me make it in larger a little bit bam, so what this is showing is A comparison of different social media platforms and the quality of the pay ads So if you look at instagram, I mean it's doing pretty well Like if you look at blue because the red by the way is what represents This thing right here is fake. It's a bot tiktok is Damn, you're already they're like everything when you're running paid ads is Is fake that's what they're saying now. We know for a fact that it's not everything We've done very well, but we can say A lot We do have a We do have a quick story I'll let y'all freeze frame because we're not going to break down like all these different platforms and And um and compare but if you are watching this episode And you can definitely compare and check it out. And if you are listening then come watch the full episode You know what I mean? Come look at it now You know, I brought it to you when I sent you this sent this over to you It's like man until we I was reading this article and until I got here I completely pushed it back in my mind when we first start running ads on tiktok.  It's we're about to run it up on tiktok We are early to this thing. This is what everybody's waiting for every marketer's dream is about to go crazy and then What do we see on the music nothing? And Fortunately we had this gateway in between So we use toned in All right, we're not gonna mention y'all too many times, you know, you ain't paying that's no money Yeah, we use a smart link You know one of those links where you put the music On it so people go check it out right apple spotify youtube and amazon etc and That gave us the clarity that all we need to see is like you see all these clicks from the ad But there's zero clicks happening on That that little landing page right there on the smart link.  That's just not a thing right You know, I'm talking about literally zero by the way, so you're talking about Maybe a hundred percent probably a hundred percent of those clicks were bots That right there was mind boggling right a weird experience and frustrated because we went through this thing to work Right. Yeah, and to be clear at that time. Well, this is probably early 2020 or something. Yeah, this was really You know, it was really early. Yeah, this one there was still When only like agencies to get access to tiktok at yes, so we had gotten early through that. Yep. Yeah So we had that as an agency So and we didn't recommend it to clients for a very very long time because of this issue. Yeah, all right like Zero like how can we justify zero and we weren't about to test too much more of our money on that either Because you know, we have all kind of things that we could test it on our personal stuff our business and And it was like, all right. Yeah, this thing isn't worth it We're just gonna be off it because also we were popping off so well with all of our influencer campaigns and we weren't worried about it Yeah, we weren't worried about it, but that was an early experience which is in line with This number right here the tiktok all right Still I want to see when this was done. I don't we don't have time like to really go figure Oh, wait. There it is. It's saying January 2022 is when this was published That part is weird for me for it to be this big of a number When we know for a fact we've ran plenty of ad campaigns and seen Some pretty on par with instagram numbers And that instagram circle is pretty suspicious the instagram definitely got some bots on it that too That is suspicious. That is suspicious. So I wouldn't say this is perfect, but I Would say relatively speaking to each other right Our experience has been Similar All right I mean The the thing that makes it hard to say about tiktok ads compared to the others that since it's still so new Some of it you have to kind of account to like user behavior as well going back to that because we would tell some clients Right like yeah, you gotta think bro tiktok does a damn good job and make you not want to leave the app Do you think this thing that you're marketing to them is good enough that it's gonna make them want to leave this app So they're about to spend the next hour and a half hand, you know, it's not thing really early on We were seeing a lot of nose in that it's like no, bro.  I'm glad you had a camera on me But jocelyn sent me a text about a client that we've been running tiktok ads for Asking about us putting the iTunes link in the bio because that client has made like 1500 Running ads that people we weren't even looking at but people been racking up buying the song of iTunes. Oh, that came in tiktok I got Those real people spending money. You know, I can't can't call it about if it is about you know, appreciate it We're about there doing it, but I'm pretty sure it's not so like that be the thing that makes the whole bot argument So touchy like I see this in like it's great because We know bots exist on everything. They're everywhere. There's nothing you can do about it You know, I I once remember reading something that said if a tech platform gets big enough There will be bots on that platform. There's nothing that can be done about it. So that's the part of the tech game, right? So it's like You can't use this as an excuse. You're gonna use it as an excuse for so far because like you can't get away from it Like we have our system to To weed out bot traffic, right? That's us saying like hey, this is a reality That we got to figure out how to get around because nothing we can do about it So rather than complaining and whatever let's find a solution and figure this out. Okay, great Now let's train everybody that we work with to look at this end result That's more truthful than this front anything that they might be used to looking at and judging our campaign success off of So, I mean, that's all I look at as like What is going to be your work around for this because you're not about to stop using tiktok Just because they have a lot of bots. You're not about to start using youtube because they have bots Instagram right like these are things that might sound good if you would say a lot of this and ours I believe in all man tiktok got bots. I ain't that's why I'm using it.  I was basically talking about early, right? Yeah It's like that nuance matters. Yes bots exist heavily on this platform But oh snap bots exist on the internet period and it's a huge problem Period is I think even this article that we're talking about Suggested that it might even be a 60 40 split 60 box on the internet as a whole versus regular people So when you're dealing with that yet, you are still seeing people get rich on the internet You are still seeing people get real fans from the internet. You are still seeing these real things. You have to know Okay, yes That is a thing But the nuance is Now you just need to understand the game better You still need to understand when how and where you can cap Just like you talked about the $1,500 people paid for itune downloads now. I'm thinking back one of our um tiktok bootcamp members I don't even know he made it probably at least 5k off of running ads, right selling merch But again people spending money. Yeah real big spending money Um, that's not let alone the people who have made more than that just from posting content So people real people are viewing that stuff. I mean, there's no greater example than people seeing it And then creating a video to it. Yeah Right, so we know there's real people out there, right? Well, we've literally had campaigns that have done over a million videos created over a hundred thousand videos created This is real real people. So that that nuance is it's always cool to look at this stuff but Then you always have to understand like How is this platform still useful for me if it is then how do I go about it, right? Yeah, how do I go about finding the real how do I go about finding real people because our final statement had something to do with Um, and actually let me last thing real quick the plat the It's anchor. I believe there's a name of the blog by the way. So shout to anchor. Um Now the last statement was basically like hey watch out If you're getting a tick tocker or in hiring a tick tocker Because their audience might not add up It's like, yeah, and music this is what we've been doing for a while Like we know that people's views are not their views All right, their followers are not their followers. You should never be hiring people Just off of that alone. There's so many things that we're not going to go into this conversation right now for um in terms of You know things we use to identify if things are a higher likelihood of being real Yeah, and then we can project similar results for our post. There's so many things that that comes um They that goes into so y'all need to learn those things if you don't know the things Because again, that's not this conversation right here With that being said you have any final thoughts on that one. I think we're gonna make this the last topic I know we uh, we we're running. Well, I expect us to go that long today on these topics Yeah, that's when I got a call in like 15 minutes. Yeah, so you got a final statement set up for this back a final statement. Um I don't know man like like I keep going back to the article I thought it was a great information only Sentiment I didn't agree with was like trying to push people away from using it because I I think it ties back to Something we sell other episodes in different instances. There are going to be things about every platform that you use You know every marketing strategy every tactic you think they're going to be things about it that Beneath the service level look bad and it's really a part of the game and so rather than being one of the artists that Complains about it Right because I think those are It'll all some out of what? Well, you don't have to be one of the artists that embrace it We're not saying compromise your your moral values around certain things if you really don't want to do it There are lots of artists who stay away from things that we've seen as industry standard stuff that are doing great, right?   I don't know if you want to do that, but I didn't want to do that All right, so it's like rather than doing that. It's like wait, wait, hold up Let's there's a way here that we can make this work within what we're looking for So I thought that's the bigger lesson that I feel like that had kind of went into but I know that wasn't her point You know what I'm saying, but yeah, that would have been the point I think we remember hey like this is bad.  They care That is very real. That is very real now.  So they think the content converted. That's crazy But outside of that the activity we seen from content Is ridiculous for real people Um, we're with real people we we can only assume it's real people But yeah, like you said man, it happens everywhere. You can't let it dictate all your decisions Again tiktok still might not be for you completely. We have artists that we still are helping and are doing well that are Not using tiktok. So that's that is what it is as well But other than that, um, don't forget Tuesdays and Thursdays people Tuesdays and Tuesdays and Thursdays people. Yeah. Um, and she likes to scrub. Oh, you know what?  This is no labels necessary. I am brand man. Sean and i'm kori and we out