Spotify went from a $14 billion market cap in 2022 to crossing $100 billion toward the end of 2024. A lot has changed in two years, but there’s more to the story than just the past 24 months. Join me and Sleepwell Capital, an investor, to break down Spotify’s journey to profitability. Hope you enjoy!

04:59 Spotify vs Big Tech DSPs

10:16 Spotify's growth signifies change in music distribution.

14:26 Netflix comparisons

21:44 YouTube vs Spotify

28:19 Is Spotify's PE ratio too high?

32:31 Major label’s challenging 2024

This episode is presented by State Farm, the home for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Don't forget to follow Sleepwell Capital on X and Substack for more insights.

Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week.

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Here’s Part 2 of the winners and losers of 2024 in streaming, artist, and record label with Zack O’ Malley Greenburg. We talked about the shifting terrain of the music industry, down to the decline of festival headliners and the emergence of “Peak Superstar”. Hope you enjoy!

02:00 Live music - winners and losers

08:22 M&A - winners and losers

24:38 Comeback players of the year

28:13 Honorable mentions

TikTok has had quite the 2024, especially in music. The year started with a very public dispute with UMG. But TikTok also saw the rise of SoundOn, the end of TikTok Music, lingering threats of a US ban, the force of TikTok Shop, and more.

Join me and MIDiA’s Tati Cirisano as we break it all down.

Sponsors:

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I’m digging into the mailbag for today’s episode. For the first time in over a year, I asked Trapital listeners and readers to send me their most burning questions about the music industry. I’ve pulled out nine questions from the bunch to cover on the show. 

We’re covering everything from NFTs to artificial-intelligence-assisted music creation to investing in music catalogs going forward and a whole lot more. I’m hitting you with my honest thoughts on each. Here’s a look at the topics:

[0:54] State of music NFTs 

[4:40] Customer problems as a music startup

[8:35] Lack of new music superstars 

[12:07] Future of AI-assisted music creation 

[17:00] Tradeoff for artists wanting ownership 

[22:11] Hasbro selling eOne

[26:16] Music catalog investing in 2023

[29:41] Globalization of hip-hop 

[33:21] Emerging artists as startup founders 

Trapital’s first-ever Cultural Report for 2022: https://trapital.co/culture-report/

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

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Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Dan Runcie: If you're an owner of I.P., often times that I.P. may be the most valuable thing that you have. But does it always make sense for you to then be the ones that produce it? Of course, there's unique examples of this, right? I think Disney is a company that clearly does both, but Disney is such a unicorn in what it does in so many ways, and we've all seen that flywheel of what they've done, and that flywheel is so relevant because it's hard to see another company that could really do that to that level. But it's more likely than not that if you are an I.P. owner or it's probably in your best financial interest to partner with a company that you can leverage their production because they are skilled at being a production company to do that thing.

[00:00:46] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:01:04] (Intro) Dan Runcie: From you, the listeners who make Trapital, exactly what it is. So this is a mailbag question where you all sent in your best questions. Some of you emailed them, some of you posted them on socials, but I looked at the questions and picked the best ones, and this is a mailbag episode. It's been a while since we did one of these, so it felt good to do one. I actually wanna do these more often just because I think the questions were really great and we're able to address a bunch of topics that we'll get into A.I, the future of music, globalization, ownership, and all the topics that we love to break down on capital and a few ones. So let's jump in.

[00:01:41] (Pre Roll Ad Moonpay) 

[00:02:11] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have our one and only Mailbag episode from Trapital. It's been a while since we did one of these. I feel, maybe at some point earlier this year we did a mailbag, so it was finally good to dig back in, hear from folks and be able to answer the questions that a lot of you have been thinking. This podcast has grown quite a bit this past year and was in the 1% for the most shared podcast according to Spotify wrap, so that was pretty good. Some applause for that. And I wanted to bring in some of the questions from some of the avid listeners and readers we have. So I posted in social media, posted in the newsletter, and this is a roundup of the best ones. Covered a bunch of topics. We're gonna talk about the future of A.I and music, the state of NFTs, globalization, ownership, and a whole lot more. So let's dive into the first question we have here. So, Ken Penn wants to know what is the current state of music NFTs and our major labels as interested in them as they were? So first for some clear context, a lot of people have been asking questions about this because the general trends of N F T discussions from last year to this year is not quite what you would expect. A lot of people saw that Bloomberg report that came out earlier in 2022, I think they said, N F T transactions were down 97% from the peak that they were at in 2021. And if you type in the word NFTs in Google Trends, you'll probably see a slope that looks quite downward. That is very true, and that's clearly where that is. But I think there's a big difference between that, which I think 97% of that was the hype and a lot of the crap that you likely would only see at the height of the pandemic when money was flowing like crazy. Think about the time when like Pet rocks were being sold and Logan Paul was buying his NFTs or trying to sell his NFTs for whatever. If that was the top of the market, then I think we're seeing things level off a bit more now because you are still seeing partnerships from the major labels and from a lot of artists. I look at Warner Music Group. Warner's been active, more active than any other major label, I think, when it comes to active investments and being forward-looking and being public about those investments. And it was just six, seven weeks ago that they had formed a partnership with Open Sea, which is one of the largest platforms out there to be able to trade in as a marketplace to be able to buy and sell NFTs. So you also have other deals that we've seen. Universal Music Group recently hired two SVPs that are focused on web three with a pretty strong focus on NFTs themselves. And more broadly, you have companies like Public Pressure that just raised $6 million to continue to build in this space. I have said this a few times in this podcast, but I think that Web three and NFT specifically, you had to get through the.com era. You had to get through that heads.com phase of people just starting shit because it sounded like it was something that was gonna resonate, but after a lot of that didn't work out. You obviously had the.com bubble burst. That era still gave us Google, it still gave us Amazon and all these other companies that have still continued to be successful and be some of the biggest companies in the world today. And I think there was a very strong chance that we will still have that with this current wave. It may look slightly different in music, but I still think that we're gonna see, and we have seen more of the true opportunities, whether it's on the artist side of artists that are selling actual NFTs that their fans would find valuable and that others will wanna buy into as well. And I think you'll see this on the major label side with more investment going into acts that can actually reap the rewards from it. One of the biggest deals of 2022 when it comes to N F T sales was Snoop. and what he was able to do, just capturing that momentum. After the Super Bowl. We wrote, or I covered a lot of this in the culture report that Trapital put out will include a link to it in the show notes if you haven't checked it out yet, but still a lot of upside on NFTs. I do not see it quite as much as the bubble that I think was clearly there in 2021. A lot of that quarantine rapid growth needed to calm back down a bit, and I think NFTs are one of the areas that were hit a lot harder than others, but I still think that there's plenty of upside for people that actually wanna build and don't just wanna do grifter, whatever the hell else people were trying to buy itself time. Another question here is from David from Santa Monica, and this was actually a reply to a newsletter that I recently put out where I was talking about some of the cost challenges that music startups and music tech companies will face as in regards to working with customers and customer service and working and dealing with unprofitable customers and wanting to move further up. Mark's question was whether or not I had any data on the customer service costs that these companies have. And I wanna answer that question in a slightly different way. It's less about customer service in the same way that you know, you or I may go call Comcast or may call Xfinity when we're having an issue with our cable or our internet, but it's more so you are a client or customer that is trying to use this particular service, whether it's free or you're relying on it to grow your own business, and you are now having some challenges, you're having some type of question. The thing is a lot of the companies, especially a lot of the distribution platforms, started off being available to everyone, but I think they realized how expensive it is to serve the clients and to serve the customers who are not driving the most business possible. It's no different than a lot of people see when they're working with client services. Overall, your $2 million clients in a lot of ways can be so much more enjoyable to deal with and work with than your $2,000 clients or $2,000 clients will chat a nickel and a dime. They have a bunch of questions about this, that, and the third, but your clients that have a bit more money, they normally come in a bit more clear and confident with what they're looking for, and it can lead to better business in the long run. And I think to a lot of extent, the same is true with a lot of the artists that you end up serving or a lot of the customers that a lot of these platforms end up serving because a lot of their time gets spent with customers that just don't justify the ROI of how much it costs to have that person on staff continue to work and continue to coach and work directly with someone who's just not generating enough revenue to be able to justify the spend. And if you think about how a lot of the companies focus on these things, especially if you're being built out like a tech customer success. This is a role where whether even at the high individual contributor, or the middle level manager role, you're talking, you know, $150, $200,000 plus for someone that can do that roll on annual basis. I mean, I'm thinking of myself, it was six years ago at this point, I was offered a customer success role from a startup that has, you know, now been acquired. I believe the offer was right around that $150, or maybe it was a little bit more than that K range. And that's how much you're paying to have one person that is dedicated to not just you, but to other clients.

But if you were to fractionize my time, let's say that, you know, I was someone that was making $160k a year and I had 12 to 16 clients per year that I was serving, you have to justify, okay, is it worth $10k of the company's time to be able to continue to serve this person if that's what I'm spending my timeline, and we all know that it's less likely that it's gonna be an even split. So that's where these things I think, can often come into play, which is why I think you've seen a lot of the distribution services and a lot of the others start to be more selective over time. And they start to have cut-offs in terms of who they're willing to serve and who they're not willing to serve. And that's one of the reasons why I think we see that shift where, especially in music distribution, it ends up leaning itself towards just having a low cost option, like Distrokid or a tunecore where it essentially doesn't cost much at all to upload the services, but it's a bit more do it yourself or you get something that is a bit more boutique. But by being able to join the boutique offering, it's much more selective as a result. So the next question here is from Arthur from Twitter. He didn't specifically say his name, but it was a good question here. He asked, who gets more blame for the lack of consistent superstar X, labels or customers? The answer is neither. The answer is technology. If you're trying to blame anyone, I personally don't call it blame. I more so call it the driving factor, but this is more about technology. Technology was the driving force that lowered the barriers to entry for artists to be able to create more music than they've ever created, and to be able to release it the way that they've done it. And because they're releasing music the way that they've done it, it then becomes harder and much more noisier for new artists to be able to enter the scene and be able to hit the same heights that they did. And because of the increased number of options that are there, it makes it even easier for powers that be to continue to invest more in what they already see proven. Whether that is your superstar artist or ones who have already proven themselves that seem like they'd be most likely to be the next next bets, whether that's your Taylor Swift or your Adele, or your Beyonce on the proven side or on the artist coming up, whether it's someone like, Olivia Rodrigo, or like Blast, or Billie Eilish or someone like that. So these things that are, I think, a big factor just based on where things are and barriers continuing to be lower and lower. And there's been countless reports on just how difficult it is and how record labels are starting to feel like it's having a harder time to break new stars in the way that they once did. It's harder to have new superstars reach the levels that they did. I think you see this in some of the analysis that's been done on charts and stuff like that too. It's a lot of the same names that have been household names for over a decade that are continuing to stay there and it's harder for the new artists to really come through. So I guess if there's anyone to blame for that, we can blame the founders and the product managers from the companies that enabled the barriers actually to happen in the first place. I know a lot of people disagree. I do think it's a good thing that people have more options than ever just in terms of the artist's perspective, but just because I think that it brought a lot of flexibility. But with that, there's always trade-offs like any new technology brings. There's good with that. There's bad that comes with that. I do think that the pros and the cons outweigh them. I do think that the pros do outweigh the cons with that, but still very aware of the downsides of the current timing. This next question is from Joe Edwards and he asked, what is the ultimate potential of GPT-3? This is a hot topic right now, I think for a lot of folks, and it's a question that I think everyone from record labels to attorneys, to emerging artists are trying to figure out, but here's my perspective. I think that GPT-3 is a great tool that will be able to give songwriters an extra tool that they can have by their side. I think we recently heard Bruce Springsteen on a podcast talk about how he could use A.I., whether it's something like something that can help jog his memory or jog his thoughts, specifically if he's having a better writer's block and how difficult that can be for a songwriter. You just wanna be able to have a few things that can aid your process of bringing thoughts together. The pen that comes from that would ever truly replicate something that Bruce Springsteen would wanna put out himself. But just give it how advanced these tools get and how better and better they get. It's likely gonna provide some

inspiration that can be helpful. That said, I think it would be more helpful to help existing artists, and I'm a bit less bullish right now on new artists coming up. I think we all saw what happened with Capitol Records and FN Meka and that whole mess, while I don't think that that's all A.I. driven, part of that's driven by the people that were running it. I do think that that is an inherent challenge that some people may be a bit weary of, at least for now. But one place that I do think A.I. and GPT-3 specifically could be unique for is for giving certain artists or certain people the ability to access a sound catalog or an ability to access a group of songs that they can use to then scour to figure out what they can then glean from that to be able to create the new songs that are able to create lyrics that they could use in the future. The reason I highlight this is because I'm sure if you're trying to use a song that is based on a song that is owned by a major record label, the record labels and their lawyers will come after you, and it is something that I know that is already top of mind for. But there's a lot of music out there, a lot of music that people would want to hear that isn't owned or controlled by the major record labels. And I think in the same way that you saw platforms like Epidemic Sound or Splice and others be able to create, whether it's monthly subscriptions or other types of opportunities to buy access to a right to use any of the songs in the catalog. I think you could see something very similar to that happening with A.I. and GPT-3 specifically, because yes, if GPT-3 tries to scour all of the songs available, that is a legal nightmare. But if you're an artist and you wanna be able to pay $10.99 a month or whatever it is, to be able to access this tool where you could type. Any prompt that could help spur your thought, that could be a very great use of $10.99, especially if that gives you the ability to make the next album from your bedroom that could be nominated and win a bunch of Grammys or sell, or, you know, do a bunch of commercial success or just have enough success for you to be a standalone successful musician in your own right. Because I do think a lot of those things are likely to appeal more so to independent artists. I also think that we'll see some potential with GPT-3 with an artist that breaks out on TikTok in general, I almost feel like it's inevitable that there's gonna be some artist in 2023 that has some song that goes viral on TikTok, and people are gonna be like, oh, where did the idea for the song come come from? And the artist is gonna say, oh, I just typed in a prompt. Write me a song about X, Y, Z. And here's what came up. Because we already started to see little hints of how artists would use name generation or using tools to come up with things, right? You've all heard the story about how Lil Nas X used insights from Reddit and insights from Twitter to create Old Town Road and how he essentially engineered that song to reach a type of success that it did grant. A lot of that was outside of his influence, just given things going viral after the whole country music controversy. But a lot of the things leading up to that point were influenced by him. And I think even on a more simpler side, artists like Childish Gambino and Post Malone, I'm pretty sure that both of them got their names from some random computer generators. So there's been things like that that we've seen and I think we'll continue to see more of that. And I think even the answer to this question is gonna continue to evolve. So you could ask me this question in a year. I think I could probably have this as an end of the year podcast question for some time now. And their law used to be something new to glean. The next question here is from Mercedes G. She wants to know why don't artists prioritize ownership even though artists have been pushing ownership for decades? So this question is a bit nuanced because I do think that there are a lot of artists out there that do push ownership, and they are clear that they wanna be able to own their masters and own their publishing and understand the value. I think the challenge comes though, when it becomes a trade off and that trade off is likely offering the artist something that they couldn't have otherwise had because owning your masters and owning all those things sounds great and it sounds great if we assume that the artist could have reached the same heights that they could without giving up something in exchange.

The thing is, when an artist is starting to pop and they are already experiencing what some of the challenges are, being able to really hit that next level and whether that is something that they want to do because of some of the things I answered with earlier questions. With more and more music coming out, it's harder for everyone to break out. It's especially harder for artists that are already signed to two record labels to break through. That means it's gonna be even hard for an artist that doesn't have the major label resources behind them to break out as well, which could make them even more likely to wanna then sign with the major record label, especially if they are cutting you a check. I'll look at a few examples of younger artists as well. Look at an artist like Lil Dirk or even NBA Young Boy, I'm pretty sure little Dirk. Posted that he had gotten a 40 million deal recently this year. And I think Dirk is someone that has been popular. I mean, it's several years ago at this point that he was on double XLS freshman list, but even as an independent artist, it could have taken him quite a bit of time to ever hit that amount of money, especially if he's trying to cash it in on the moment that he has. So it's one thing to push ownership and it's another thing to still be able to say, you know what, no, I'm good. I don't want that check. Let me continue to do what I'm doing. When someone offers you an eight figure check that's right in front of you. And I think there's a bit of that human element that can sometimes get a bit lost cuz it's easy for the people in the pita gallery playing Monday morning quarterback to go say, oh, why would you do that deal? Or us to focus on some of the survivorship stories of Master P turning down a million dollar record label deal. Different people that may have offered it to him. Because for every success story like Master P, there are other people that turned those same type of deals down but it didn't take off the way it did for P and then they go back to the record label and being like, oh, hey, could I still get that deal? And the record label's like, no, like the moment passed and the only reason you're coming to me is because you don't feel like you have the momentum that you had before. So there's a few factors here that I think are important to consider, and there is that human element that I think just changes. It's one thing to be a Twitter pundit and put your thoughts out there, but it's another thing to really still say no when a company that you know, they're rolling out the red carpet for you their show, they're presenting the seven, eight figure check, whatever it is, and then you still saying, no, I'm good. And then I think you even see us at the highest levels as well. You look at the deals that you know, someone like Drake or the weekend, you're more so hitting now into the nine figure deals and these artists are more likely to be able to continue to have ownership, but they're still licensing their masters or licensing their music out to the major company. So there's still some trade off there. It's very rare that you ever are really seeing superstar artists that still are hitting those superstar artists levels that is like, you know what? I'm good. Let me just go release everything independently. Cause I think at the end of the day, if you are a priority on these labels, and if you are still getting the best that you can get, you're more likely to figure out, okay, what trade-off is commensurate at what level? And that doesn't mean there wasn't a better way that could be done optimally. My explanation here is more of an explanation of the entire landscape of less of an advocacy for one position or another. But I do think in general, just given how much harder it is for record labels to be able to truly, I think, focus and invest on that artist development piece because they're expecting artists to come to them when they've already hit zero to 60. I think it really puts the onus on the artist to be like, okay, are you happy at 60? Because if you're happy at 60, you may not need the record label, and maybe you think you could get to 70 or 80 yourself, but it may take some time. But if you're trying to get to a hundred, it's gonna be really hard for you to do that independently. So a lot of it requires some questioning on where you wanna go, how far you wanna go, and why that may or may not be as important to you. 

[00:22:52] (Mid Ad): Today's episode of The Trapital Podcast was brought to you by Revolt. Revolt is on a mission to curate and share the best of the best in hip hop culture and social justice. You may remember a couple months back I had the CEO of Revolt, Detavio Samuels on the podcast scene. He talked all about the mission and where things are going, and I think this is one leading company that is elevating what's happening in black culture. It was launched by Sean Diddy Combs back in 2013, and the multi-platform Network offers breaking news videos, artist interviews, exclusive performances, and original programming. They have content for everyone, like Asset over liabilities and original podcast with the host of Earn Your Leisure that gives you a behind the scenes look into the business investments of artists like Soulja Boy and Rick Ross. They also have the Drop Revolts weekly newsletter and curation of the latest in hip hop and black news, and they have the black print where sits down with innovators and change makers laying the ground up for the next generation for the culture. You can learn more and sign up for Revolt's newsletter, the drop@revolt.tv.

[00:24:00] Dan Runcie: All right, this next question here is about a specific deal that's going on, but it's gonna be a good one to answer. JB from Atlanta asked, now that Hasbro has sold E-One's TV and film division, could quality control be a potential buyer? So a few things to unpack here. Earlier in November, Hasbro announced that it will be selling its TV and filled divisions of the comp company. Note that this news, three years after Hasbro had initially acquired all of Entertainment One, which included its music division. And then I think it's been about a year now. My time may be off, but it's been about a year plus now that it had rolled off its music division, which then became Monarch, which is run by Chris Taylor and that team. You may remember them because they were the team that was involved with the selling and the acquisition of Death Row records and then that deal with Snoop Dog. But Hasbro overall has kind of been in this, oops, maybe we should have done this deal when they went and bought E-One. And I think the big takeaway away for Hasbro has been that if we want to leverage the IP that we have, and as many of you know, Hasbro toy companies, so it has the IP there, but it also has some brands that were in that production, like Peppa Pig and things like that. They can still own the IP, but they don't have to own the in-house production to be able to then leverage that IP and make it happen, and then when you own those divisions, it just can be so costly to try to do that. So they got a lot of pressure from Wall Street and other analysts to sell that division and focus on what they do. If you're an owner of an IP, Oftentimes that IP may be the most valuable thing that you then have, but does it always make sense for you to then be the ones that produce it? Of course, there's unique examples of this, right? I think Disney is a company that clearly does both, but Disney is such a unicorn in what it does in so many ways, and we've all seen that flywheel what they've done, and that flywheel is so relevant because it's hard to see another company that could really do that to that level. But it's more likely than not that if you are an IP owner or it's probably in your best financial interest to partner with a company that you can leverage through their production because they are skilled at being a production company to do that thing. So that was a lot of the reason why that sale happened in the first place. Now let's talk about the QC part of this. I would be very surprised if Quality Control was to go on and buy a TV and film division because I also look at Quality Control as an IP. I mean just given the ownership structure, they may joint own some of that with Motown, give the joint venture there. But they are IP owners that can then use that to leverage, whether it's the brand or the story of your little baby Migos and even the rise of coach K and P and and things like that. And while QC does do investments, like I know they're involved with SoundCloud and they have a few other things going. I would be very surprised if they went on to acquire a type of, you know, studio themselves. I know that QC does have a film division, but my impression of that has always been more so, yeah, let's stay quiet, let's have that something that we could have that small and manageable in-house, but if they still have a big release, I think they would probably wanna go to shop that and market the same way that any other big time producer would want if they wanted to push something further. No different than, I think you kind of saw with the Little baby documentary that eventually went on, Amazon was released on Amazon Prime a couple of months ago. So I would be surprised there, if anything, I mean, I think QC is one of these record labels that may be looking for an outside investor itself, but I'm not quite sure what the Motown relationship, just given the joint venture ownership there and how that may look, whether or not who the actual company is that owns, whether it's the brand or the artist or anything like that.

Moving forward from that. All right. Couple more questions here. So is music investing specifically, like in catalogs, is music investing still a good idea in 2023? And my answer is yes, but not in some of those 2021 pandemic era evaluations. And that's because I think what I liked about the catalog boom is that it brought awareness to something that I think a retail investors in the niche knew, but a lot of others weren't focusing on, is that there's a lot of value to be had with owning some of these catalogs because there's certain artists that I think do have the potential to just feel similar to a evergreen stock or something like that continues. Provide consistent revenue that isn't correlated with the economy time and time again. But I think there's a few things that happened that people may have missed. One, there is a decay curve with all of those assets. And even as much as people wanna tell you that the Beach Boys or Michael Jackson or the Beatles are timeless, everything has a decay curve. I mean, you could even go back, you know, decades, even. Frank Sinatra or Elvis. I know that you know that the movie that came out recently, but even folks like that, the discussions that are happening now about those people aren't anywhere near the type of discussions that you may have heard, at least when I was growing up, and that just shows you how much has changed in several decades since then. So, and I think the music listening would've probably aligned with that as well. So there's that, and I just think that the valuations that were being paid for a lot of these things probably just wouldn't happen again. One, because interest rates are nowhere near as low as they were, but I think even regardless of interest rates, there was a lot of overpaying for those assets just given the excitement. So smart on a lot of the artists for cashing out when they did and getting a lot of those returns because at least from what we've seen from a lot of the reports, You've seen some of these financial time stories talking about Hypnosis. And Hypnosis has at least from what the returns have been from their catalog has not been able to generate returns that a lot of the investors feel satisfied with and feel are in line with what they had, which is why I think you started to see more challenges there. There was almost an entire year period where the company didn't make an investment, and I think you've seen a lot of things ring true for others. There are still catalog sales happening. It just may not happen at the particular dollar amount that people wanted. For instance, there was Pink Floyd deal that was being talked about for a while. It's still being talked about. I believe they wanted $500 million, but based on some of the recent findings that had come out, the offers that they started to get were much smaller than they would've liked. So people are still interested in buying Pink Floyd. It may not be for the amount of money that the rights holders wanna sell it for, but there's still interest there, and I think that rings true all the way up and down the board. Listen, it wasn't even just music investing. The quarantine era of the pandemic led to a lot of sales for things happening that just probably wouldn't happen in the same way today. All right. Another question here is how does the globalization of hip hop Influence its business and cultural impact? And this question came from chat GPT. Someone had submitted this question and then it came back as, oh, what do you think is a good question to ask about the business of music or the business of hip hop? So this is a fun one. I know I've written about it a few times, but for the sake of brevity, I'll tackle it in two ways. First, A lot of the Western hip hop artists were able to reach a much bigger audience as a result of globalization, and I think it made it easier for some of them to launch global brands as a result. I look at folks like Rihanna and folks like Jay-Z. Look at some of the deals they've done with, whether it's ACE of Spades for Jay-Z, or the Fenty partnerships with Rihanna. These partnerships are tied in with European companies and there has to be some relevance for how big you are seen in Europe and other areas for those things to really have an impact. And I think you saw that compound as well. When you look at someone like Rihanna and Fenty Beauty, being able to enter Africa and just given the ethos of that brand being able to be inclusive and have shades for all skin tones, it makes perfect sense to be able to do it in Africa, which you just think about the beauty industry. This is an entire continent of people, especially women. Different complexion and skin tones that were largely overlooked by the many other major brands. So being able to have that influence there directly ties into an artist like Rihanna, you know, years, decades earlier, being able to tour in these places and being able to have her name out there, being able to be seen in that way. So I think it affects it from that perspective. And of course, Jay-Z, Rihanna are more so people at the top of that chain that are billionaires, but I think it really made a large impact on everyone else on the other side, I think it's made a huge impact on international artists too, because we've seen in so many other places that hip hop has truly been that connective tissue. It's really been that gateway that can help. Raise and elevate the voice of the unheard or elevate the voice of the people that may not have either gotten a chance to get their word out there or can really speak to some of the challenges that are happening. And that's the way that hip hop started. You look at Public Enemy, they saw themselves as the black CNN. They were trying to voice what's really happening. You listen to songs like Grandmaster Flash, The Message. This is what's going on in the streets of New York right now. And I think that if you listen to a lot of hip hop from other areas and you hear things translated, you're hearing a lot of that. And even someone like Bad Bunny, how he speaks about some of the challenges and the oppression that's happening in Latin America, or even things that are happening in Puerto Rico specifically, or even how we spoke out about disaster relief and even L G B T Q issues. It's not a coincidence that this is a hip hop artist that is doing this in their own language and that's happening. So I think we've just continued to see more and more influence and we'll continue to see how hip hop continues to be such a big driver. And it's not just Latin America. You're seeing it in France and you're seeing it elsewhere. And as globalization of music more broadly has made it more possible for artists in local languages to truly rise up. I think you're gonna see more and more of that coming from hip hop in a lot of those local language areas. All right. And the last question we have here is from Quai Bangs who asks, do I notice similarities in emerging artists that follow the start-up path to start-ups themselves? And I definitely do see a lot of those. And I like the question because I've been hearing so much from founders in the space and start-ups in other companies about two things. Truly identifying and seeing artists as founders, not just as the creative talent behind what they're doing, but they are the ones that are the founding person of this company that if successful as it can be, it'll be a company built around them to then help focus and really benefit and speak to their strengths and address their weaknesses as well. No different than a start-up would be who is that? Who are your co-founders that you're gonna find that may not be on the talent side, but can help with the business? Or if you wanna do it all yourself, who are the people that can be around you to at least help support in that way? And I think that you've seen some of those things happen, from time and time again. You look at the start of Dreamville, I very much do. Ibrahim Hamad and Jay Cole as two people that are in line with being able to do that and continuing to push forward, which I think has been pretty strong, seeing how they've been able to do that over the past decade. Plus, you look at any of these record labels and I think you're more likely than not going to see some type of tandem there. We talked about Quality Control. I think you see a lot of that too, and I think no different than a start-up may try to get equity for what they're doing. I think you're seeing certain artists start to explore this as well, whether they're trying to explore on chain, we're trying to sell tokens or they're trying to get a more formal structure in place. I recently had the investor, Cooper Turley, Cooper Tupa on the podcast, and he was talking about this as well, and how he's investing in companies that are looking at this investing artist specifically so that he can take an equity stake out of the artists themselves and be a bit, you know, less dilutive than a record label that may wanna take 80% of the cut moving forward in exchange for in advance. So there's plenty of trade-offs there. I think it's an interesting thing to continue to explore, but I think that it is a sign of what that path to the future looks like. Cuz I think that artists, our founders, at the end of the day, how they go about that, you know, is one thing or another. And who wears that CEO hat. Whether it's someone that artist proactively puts in place or it's someone. It ends up being at the record label that they signed to, or it's their manager. There's so many ways that these hats can be worn, so you'll be interested to see how it plays out. But wow, that was fun.

That was a quick bunch of rapid fire questions there, but this was really great. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed the podcast this year as well. Definitely continue to share it with anyone that you think would be in. And let me know if you have any other questions. We can keep this in mind. I wanna do these more regularly in general. So, yeah, if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, send us a quick note, whether it's, you know, on social media or email. And then we'll keep them rolling so that the next time we do a mail bag podcast, we can keep it rolling.

This episode is a two-parter. At the top, I talk about the news at Motown Records with Ethiopia Habtemariam stepping down from her role as CEO and Chairwoman. After that, I talked to Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Hip-Hop’s wealthiest artists of 2022. 

After years of compiling the list for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg released the 2022 edition independently. This time around, he used insights from Columbia Business School to better grasp on the wealth of the industry’s biggest moguls.

Jay-Z tops the updated list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. In second is the newly-minted billionaire Sean “Diddy” Combs. The rankings are rounded out by Ye ($500 million), Berner ($410 million), and Dr. Dre ($400 million). 

Zack joined me on the episode to discuss the rankings, and two artists in particular — Diddy and Berner. Diddy has a portfolio of diversified assets that include media, music, spirits, and now cannabis. Berner is the biggest surprise of the top 5 but has quietly built a cannabis empire with a large runway for further growth. Here’s everything Zack and I covered on the show: 

[13:56] Zack’s process behind putting the list together  

[15:40] The newest billionaire on the list

[16:41] The growth of Diddy’s DeLeon tequila brand

[29:02] Sean John’s place in Diddy’s portfolio 

[30:28] Diddy’s latest moves in cannabis and possibly Twitter 

[32:45] The evolving business of REVOLT

[36:19] Berner’s “surprise” $410 million net worth

[31:50] High potential for Berner’s business

[34:52] Berner’s business success supersedes his music fame 

[39:50] Drake moving up the ranks 

[43:50] Girl Dad stories

Zack’s Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists list for 2022: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/hip-hops-wealthiest-artists-2022

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:23] Dan Runcie: Hey, today's episode is a two parter. The first part of the episode, we're gonna do a breakdown on one of the more recent news that happened in the music industry. Motown Records CEO and Chairwoman Ethiopia Habtemariam has stepped down and there is a lot to unpack there. So we're gonna talk about that. And in the second half of this episode, we're joined by my guy Zack O'Malley Greenburg, and we are gonna talk about the recent list that he put out, which is his hip hop's 2022 list for the wealthiest artist. He has some new announcements, some usual names, and we break it all down. But first, let's start with the news at Motown. So it was last week, shortly after Thanksgiving. Ethiopia and Universal, and Motown announced that she will be stepping down from her role. This is a role that she has officially had at this level for just over a year and a half. I think it was March, 2021 that the role was announced, but she's essentially been the face of Motown from a leadership perspective for over a decade now and when the move happened, I think that there were a fair amount of people I could understand that could have been caught off guard by it. But when I start asking around, asking a few people questions who I know understand the situation pretty well, it's quick to see that what's being pushed publicly isn't quite reflecting what's actually happening behind closed doors. But before we get to all that, let's talk about some of the wins that I think Motown and Ethiopia have accomplished over the past decade, because I think these stand out and they're really important. I look at the 2015 joint venture deal that she did with quality control music, as one of those deals that can ultimately help bring a record label from its days of resting on its laurels to being able to get a bit more current. We've seen this happen time and time again. You look at Interscope in the early nineties. Interscope was a legacy rock and roll label. Jimmy Iovine was trying to figure out the next thing and then boom. Here comes Suge Knight. Here comes Dr. Dre and Death Row records comes through. Not only does Death Row continue to rise up with the supportive Interscope, but you also see Interscope adopt a bit of that cool factor and really revive itself, and now Interscope is continuing to be one of the strongest record labels that we have. You also saw that a few years later happened with Republic records and with cash money signs. The deal that I've talked about plenty of times on this podcast, that 1998 distribution deal and that deal did a lot for Baby and Slim, but it arguably did even more for Republic Records, which now I believe it's in its fourth year in a row, the leading industry or the leading record label in the industry when it comes to overall market share. And I do think that what quality control and Motown were able to do, do deserve some similar praise. But the slight difference here is that Motown for a lot of its time and even more so as we continue to learn, was saddled under the Capitol Music Group umbrella and didn't really have the opportunity to standalone as a true record label that could run on its own and be a standalone entity. The same way that we see with Interscope, the same way that you see with Republic. And some of the other record labels that are under the Universal Music Group umbrella. When the news first announced though, there wasn't as much chatter about Ethiopia's departure. You think about the times that Def Jam has turned over CEOs. There are think pieces on think piece. You can't get people to stop talking and sharing their opinions, and some of them on base, but people sharing their opinions about what Def Jam did and didn't do wrong, but there wasn't as much here. You saw a little bit in piece that Gail Mitchell at Billboard had done where I think she did a good breakdown. You could definitely read between the lines a little bit of some of the things that necessarily weren't being said, but what I think we started to unpack and what we started to get a sense for was, even though Motown had increased its market share considerably under Ethiopia's tenure, I believe back in 2017, it was around 0.4%. And as of most recently from what Billboard reported in 2022, it's at 0.95%. And that's great, more than double. And you think about how much more recorded music has grown from 2017 to 2022 now as well, that's a pretty huge growth and that's nothing to shy away from. The thing is, record label executives and the music industry aren't just judged on market share. You're judged on how efficient you are with what you do to acquire that market share. You're also judged on your ability to score deals and your ability to do it in a way that's efficient. Everyone still has a PNL at the end of the day. But I think the slight difference for some of these companies is that because they sit under the Universal Music Group umbrella, you may not necessarily know what's really happening unless you have a really discerning eye and you can put two and two together. And if you look at some of the moves that Motown has made over the years, there have been a number of big signings. But have those big signings always necessarily led to the type of results? You know, someone like Universal CEO, Lucian Green wants to see from a record label that now would be standing alone and no longer under the Capitol Music Group umbrella. You look at an artist like Lil Baby, who you know, through quality control, is part of that Motown collective. But, you needed a few more artists at that level and you needed to get them at affordable rates. And I think the biggest win that we saw from Motown in recent years was they recently signed NBA Young Boy. This is about a year after he started working with his record label, but how much did it cost to get NBA Young Boy? He had just posted on Instagram, this is two months before this deal was made public. He had just posted on Instagram, this was in August, 2022, that he was a 60 million dollar dude. You're saying you're a 60 million dude. A lot of people thought that was a cash money deal. They thought that was probably what Baby and Slim offered, but you later find out that this is what was coming from Motown, and I don't know if that's the number or not, but you can just assume a few things. One, NBA Young Boy was someone that just got out of his deal at Atlantic Records and he's getting out of his deal. This is the second most streamed artist according to HITS Daily Double for year to date for 2022. But as we also know about streams, not all streams are necessarily weighted the same, and those YouTube streams may not necessarily lead to the same payouts that you may get from the digital streaming providers. Your Spotify, your Apple music, your titles, your Amazon, and so forth. So you have that. You also mix that in with NBA Young Boy's audience isn't necessarily the type to go buy up a bunch of vinyl. They're not the type to go buy up a bunch of digital copies or then necessarily sell out an arena. And it's great that he has those streams, but he has those streams because he is dropping an album every other month. It's not the same as Columbia having a big release from Harry Styles and then monetizing the shit out of that. Or Kendrick Lamar having a big release on Interscope, and then that continues to do numbers and numbers. It's not the same type of thing in that way. So I think, even if you were able to win a bidding war, which is great, obviously a number of labels would've wanted to get NBA Young Boy. There's a certain price to everything, and even though we may not know the specific details, we can put two and two together. There are also a few other recent signings that could be called a bit into question. There were signings of Diddy and Brandy, and these are names that I think a lot of people, especially millennials and Gen X folks grew up with, and they're gonna be people who have done quite a bit in the music industry, but they're at a different stage in their career. They're hot. Their years of earning meaningful revenue for a record label aren't necessarily where they are at this particular point in their careers. That's okay. But does the price that was paid to get them, justify that. And I think there's kind of an unsaid thing where if you're signing someone who is already well off, they are likely doing this for their own choice, then it may cost a little bit more than an equivalent artist who could produce just as much from a revenue side as what you may expect from Diddy or Brandy moving forward if they don't have that name and that cache. And to be frank, the stability to not do a deal unless it's gonna be lucrative enough for them. And then you also have artists like Smino and Vince Staples who are talented at rap, and they definitely had the moment where you thought things were rising up, but they don't move units like that. And then it brings you back to the broader piece of what's happening, specifically with the JV, with quality control music. And I think that you've seen a lot of success there. Little Baby is one of the most successful artists that we've seen, but I think you just needed a few more artists, even Migos. I think that Migos in some ways from a commercial standpoint, peaked with that first culture album that came out. Culture two wasn't able to hit the same heights and Culture three definitely wasn't either. None of the solo artists were necessarily able to do that, and unfortunately there was some, you know, conflict between the Migos themselves. Takeoff is no longer with us. There's just a lot that just didn't exactly line up. It's really tough, and it's even tough to share it this way because I think one of the reasons you didn't hear a lot of chatter and discussion about this is a lot of people really wanted to see Ethiopia succeed, myself included. We wanna be able to see these black executives continue to reach the highest ranks that they can because we also wanna be able to see the same, whether it's toon feat at Def Jam or other. But the way that things are presented externally and this effort to necessarily hide things may have you thinking that these executives have more control and influence than they actually do. And they weren't necessarily given the same level of influence or control that John Janick may get at Interscope or that the Lipmans may have at Republic. So we really have to be honest when we're reporting these things and what we're showing and what we're not, because it does a disservice not only to the industry about, you know, trying to hide these things because listen. This is a place where there's plenty of people that are talented. People learn from where they can come through and it doesn't, and it isn't gonna hurt people the way that you think that it is. And one of the reasons that these things often can be controlled this way, the music's industry's PR machine can be so strong and it can have you having this, you know, Misconceived perception, and while I think insiders do know, there's a lot of folks who are on the outside that will eventually rise to those ranks who just don't necessarily have a clear picture. And anytime that there's that big of a delta, that's how information just doesn't necessarily get itself to the right people at once. And we wanna make sure that we're doing everything we can to empower the folks in the next generation. And I know a lot of this is swimming uphill. This is an industry that is controlled by a lot of lawyers, and it's an industry that really thrives on the PR of how things spin, but been behind closed doors. It's a very different situation. In some ways it's almost a stark difference to something like tech where so much of the drama and decisions that happen within big tech are happening. You know, out in the open you could see things and while some of that, you know, can be to a fault, I do think it leads in some ways to some better discussions around what success can look like and what opportunities can look like. So I hope we can all use this as a reminder to make sure that we're being transparent as we can. When we call things out, it helps more. Think and be able to have the right discussions about what success looks like, and the more that we can report on what success benchmarks actually are, so that you're not just relying on an imperfect key performance indicator like market share, and you're actually reporting on. Efficiency. It's great that someone landed a deal, but how much should it cost to get that artist assigned? And will that payout turn out the way that you think that it is? And at the end of the day, this is about PNLs. Are you bringing in enough profit to offset any of the loss? And is there future belief and potential in your ability to get the buy in, do it in an efficient way, and keep driving the business? Quite the buzz after Thanksgiving. We'll see what the rest of the year brings. I think things will be pretty quiet until things head into January. But with that, let's turn things over to the next part of the episode. Here's my conversation with Zach O'Malley Greenberg about the wealthiest hip hop artists in 2022.

[00:13:06] Dan Runcie: All right. We have Zach O'Malley Greenberg back with us, who recently released Hip Hop's wealthiest List for 2020. Your second year doing this independently, by the way. So shout outs to you on that. And it was great to see the results. We had some expectations, Jay-Z, number one, but there's two people I really wanna dive into with this conversation. Let me just run through the list first. So you have Jay-Z, number one, one and a half billion. Diddy to newly minted billionaire, 1 billion. You have third, Yey at five hundred million dollars. 4th, Berner, 410 million. And then we have Dr. Dre at 400 million. So let's start at the top. What was it like for you, not just releasing this independently, but being able to put it out and as you were putting it together, what were some of the stuff that stuck out to you?

[00:13:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. You know, first of all, this list is probably the thing that I put the most effort into every year. At the end of the day, you see these numbers, you know, 1.5 billion, they get reported. And it was the same in my days at Forbes, as doing it independently. People take the number, everyone with it. And I think a lot of times people just assume it's like, ah, somebody's pulling them, out of wherever. But you know, I would say I put more time into those numbers, than I have put into some cover stories, you know, that are several pages long. So it's going through each of these, you know, these superstars and figuring out, you know, what's in their portfolio. What is each asset worth calling? People, you know, who have knowledge, whether it's, you know, within the camps of the stars themselves, or industry experts that are covering, you know, the booze business or the weed business or something like that. Finding ways of valuing these assets. And, you know, and I think the new thing for me, aside from doing it independently was, I've been taking courses at Columbia Business School this year. I'm part of a fellowship where I sort of do my first year of business, school light, and get to bounce around and learn some of these concepts that, you know, maybe, I didn't know before I got to sharpen them. And it's given me some new tools for looking at things like Diddy, Ciroc Partnership and, you know, ways to value things that are a little bit weird and not sort of like a run of the mill asset. So, yeah, you know, I mean I think the big takeaway, the big surprise is probably Berner being on the list, being ahead of Dr. Dre. Like you said, I think Diddy being a billionaire, finally, you know, Diddy would say that's not news. You know, you would say that he should be higher. I'm sure it's been really cool to take a look at it, you know, independently and with some of these new tools in my toolkit to come up with, I would say my most active list.

[00:15:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. And I wanna talk about Diddy first because I feel like. That's the one. I'll be honest, the news there surprised me a bit, not because I didn't think that Diddy was a billionaire, but more so because of how his business is and how things are structured. And it made me wonder, okay, how much has changed? Because I knew that Ciroc was the main thing that he had, that was the one of the largest drivers of his net. But you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the sales had peaked around the mid 2010s and maybe there was a slight decline, but maybe, you might have more intel on that. And I know that revolt and I know that business there. And with Sean, Sean itself, I know he had sold it and bought it back. So I was a bit curious to see or maybe hear how much net worth changed as a result of something that had appreciated in value versus your calculations of how you'd be doing this now as opposed to maybe how you had done it years back?

[00:16:41] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I think my methodology changed slightly. The breakdown isn't that much different. Ciroc is still the main component. You know, you could say safely, it's the slight majority of his 1 billion net worth. And it's a weird arrangement because he does not hold an equity stake. However, the deal is structured to emulate an equity stake because, you know, it wouldn't have worked as an equity stake cuz Ciroc is owned by Diageo, it's this giant public trade company. They couldn't really be like, Hey, here's, you know, a quarter of our company or something like that. There wasn't really anything to do with that. So it was more creating a framework around the Ciroc brand to function like an equity stake. So if Diageo were ever to sell Ciroc, Diddy would get, you know, let's say the proceeds after you back out the amount of money that Ciroc has put into the partnership. So, you know, it would be a lot. And there's no doubt that even if things have sort of flattened out a little, it's a multi-billion dollar brand. You know, I mean, if you look at something like Ketel One, you know, brands like that that have changed hands, you know, these are billion dollar brands and you know, Ciroc is I think number two behind Grey Goose. So it's up there. They're not gonna sell it, but if they did, you know, we're looking at a pretty big payday. So the question is how do you value something that isn't gonna get sold? And really, you know, you wanna really nerd out about it from sort of MBA type perspective. You know, thinking about valuing cash flow. That's, you know, one of the fundamentals of valuation in corporate finance and stuff like that. And, you know, there are formulas and without getting into like the, you know, sort of like more details of it where you can sort of enter assumptions into the formula and you can get a number. But basically what I did was I took the way I was doing it before I ran the numbers that way, and then I kind of did some pre cash analysis and kind of like average things out and any way you slice it, these Ciroc partnership is, you know, worth a little more than half of his, billion dollar valuation. The other things that, you know, I think perhaps I had been, you know, undercounted a little bit in the past or have appreciated. A lot since then, you know, revolt is still hanging around there. And that's another thing where the valuation could depend on you. Do you value it as, you know, sort of a, like a TV based entity, even though it's more digital? Do you value it as a news outlet? Do you value it as a tech startup? There are a bunch of different ways to look at it, but in any case, you know, he is the majority owner. Another thing that I think people sleep on is DeLeon tequila, that is really growing and he owns half of that. Actually. It's a 50-50 joint venture with the AIO and they're moving a hundred and something thousand cases a year now. Actually, you know, booze has done really well during the pandemic. You might imagine people, I don't know, I feel like we're back to, you know, some of our old ways of going out and doing things. People are drinking at home during the pandemic. So, you know, Ciroc and DeLeon didn't get hurt in the way that, let's say the live touring business did. So Diddy was pretty well slated there. And then you go through and he's got like a pretty immense art collection. He's got some real estate that's appreciated pretty rapidly over the past few years. You know, some of which he owns out, right? And, you know, you kind of add it all up. And, he's comfortably a billionaire. And yeah, I mean, if you notice like  you know, some folks when they hit that status or when they make the list or something, we'll kind of like to tweet about it. But, you know, I don't think I saw anything from Diddy because, you know, he's thought that he's a billionaire for, you know, years already. And, you know, maybe he was, but now I, I definitely think that he is and, I would expect, you know, to see other, let's say mainstream business outlets follow suit in, you know, kind of acknowledging what's definitely the attitude.

[00:20:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, appreciate the breakdown there and thinking about just like different categories there. If thinking about Ciroc itself, as you mentioned, maybe the sales flattened out a bit, but looking at revolts specifically, and I know that business has, you know, gone through some evolutions as well over the past few years, would it be safe to assume that the biggest valuation change here for Diddy's assets that maybe brought him to a billion is daily owned and some of the artwork in terms of like what's appreciated? If we assume that whether it's Ciroc or Revolt have flattened out a bit. Like would those be the ones you say that had put him over 1 billion? 

[00:21:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, you know, he was pretty close before, last time I did it before was, I think it was three years ago. I think he was at 740. You know, personally, you know, without getting too deep into it, I would've put 'em a little higher. But, you know, you get your files. I did. And that spar deal and you know, you gotta create a consensus. And I think, you know, and Forbes always says it, it would rather be conservative about valuations that it would rather understand an overstate, but you know, so that's part of it too. Yeah, I think there's definitely been an appreciation in the value of DeLeon the real estate, you know, there's a lot of startup stakes, and he's not doing it as, let's say publicly as, Nas or Jay-Z, but, you know, he definitely hops in as an angel in a lot of, a lot of startups that, that have done well. So, but, you know, yeah, I think DeLeon doesn't get the glory of Ciroc, but you know, it's a younger company. There's more room to grow. And not to be a shit, but it actually tastes really good. I've tasted other, you know, celebrity tequilas and they're not good, but it is a tasty booze, if I may say so myself. And I think the way that he launched it was that he found this sort of, you know, like a boutique brand that had already won some awards and then he kind of got in with Diageo and, and they boosted. To where it is now. So I really think that's probably like where you could see a lot more growth, if he's gonna start to try to challenge Jay-Z for that.

[00:22:53] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that DLleon hasn't gotten that same amount of love that Ciroc has gotten, at least publicly?

[00:23:00] Zack Greenburg: I think a lot of attention was focused on, you know, like Casamigos or some of the other really big brands and it hadn't quite gotten to that level with the same, you know, distribution and mind share. And, you know, frankly, I mean, I think Diddy has been devoting more energy to Ciroc, but you know, you're starting to see it, you know, it's a little bit less in your base kind of vibe with the brand. it's like more of a sipping thing, less of the shots at the club kind of thing. Although I'm sure, you know, you could sit either or do shots at either at the club. But I think it's just not around as much. I mean, I think the case volume on Ciroc is still like 10 times more than 10 times as high as DeLeon. So, you're just not gonna see it around as much. And I think that's why.

[00:23:51] Dan Runcie: And the other thing too, that you mentioned is that DeLeon itself is actually a joint venture with Diageo, unlike Ciroc Partnership. So of course I know that the Ciroc partnership, now we're talking 15 plus years ago at this point when things kicked off and different positions, different leverage and relationships. So I wonder if the relationship is part of the reason why Diddy was able to have the type of ownership. Partnership with DeLeon that he may not have, at least in writing with Ciroc? 

[00:24:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think so. And I think that was part of his motivation, for how he structured DeLeon. He wanted to have that. Actual equity stake, you know, like ironclad 50-50 joint venture type thing, rather than an agreement that mimics a joint venture. So, you know, I think that the success of Ciroc definitely convinced Diageo like, all right,, we can do this with another brand. He's the guy. And, for my book, 3 Kings, I talked to some books over there and you know, I think I talked to the CEO at the time, and they couldn't have been more abusive about him. And of course, you know, like whatever, he's part of their team. Of course they're gonna say good things about him, but they were saying just like the attention to detail. Like he would, he would go to clubs and, you know, go to the bartender and be like, why is the Ciroc not on the top shelf? And what are you going to do? You're gonna be like, oh, sorry Mr. Coles gonna leave Joe here. You know, and they'll put it up on the top. I mean, it's sort of like a retail politics level of stuff. And you know, I always say that, that Diddy, you know, in a way, like you could argue. Who has had the most scheduled career and you know, who's the goat of, you know, on the business side. And you know, I think a lot of people would say Jay-Z, and they wouldn't be wrong. But, you know, I think Diddy in a way has done more with less because he hasn't been musically relevant in, you know, a really long time in that way. Still puts stuff out in whatever, but it's not like the anticipation that exists when Jay drops an album or even a verse on, you know, on a DJ Khaled song or something. And, you know, I always like to say that Diddy is kinda more like Richard Branson if he happened to just have had, you know, like a moment as like a big time rapper And you know, certainly as a producer, he's had ahead a lot of things. And not to diminish that, but he acknowledges himself. He says, I don't write rhymes, I write checks. And I think that's a strong student. I think it's especially impressive to see that he's done it without being particularly talented. 

[00:26:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that, His true line of being able to sell a lifestyle is what sets him apart in a lot of ways. He did it with his music. I think in a lot of ways. Bad Boys modeled after so much of what he learned at Uptown, and then you're able to transfer that lifestyle to, okay, this is the music that you listen to now. This is what you wear while you wear Sean John. This is what you drink while you're listening to this, right? Mm-hmm, you're gonna drink and this is the media that you're gonna watch. Now with the cannabis line that he just bought, this is what you're gonna smoke while you're enjoying this lifestyle too. Mm-hmm. And I think that a lot of those businesses have had varying success and we can go into that, but I do think that the ones that have been the most successful, Ciroc, Sean and the music, there's that tight connection and there's a key timing aspect that goes into all of it.

[00:27:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and it doesn't even need to be his music. Right? That is popular in order for the Ciroc Formula to work, it's the Ciroc Boys, it's DJ Khaled, Summer Watermelon, or whatever it is. You know, I think his ability to make those partnerships, to find other people you know, who are kind of doing now what he was doing then musically are, you know, I think that that's part of the formula and that's why it works so well. And you know, I mean, it's funny, like DJ Khaled, you know, something like Wild Thoughts was doing exactly what Diddy was doing a couple decades ago, right? He was taking a song from a couple decades, you know, one or two decades ago and putting, you know, some new voices, the modern voices on it. And it was a song that was great before and now it's got, you know, like more kind of a vibe to it and you know, goes off the chart, so I think Diddy is just very savvy with that kind of stuff, even if it's stuff. 

[00:28:31] Dan Runcie: Let's talk about Sean John for a bit, cause I'm curious how that factored into your methodology with everything, because as many people know, he started the brand over 20 years ago and well, in 2016 he sold the brand, then the brand was up in auction, and then he bought it for public number I saw was 7.6 million. So now he has that back as an asset. How did that piece of it factor in for you and just the journey overall of Sean? 

[00:29:02] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and not much now. You know, I mean, I think what factored in more was, sort of like his cash pile. Like he sold it for. Like, whatever it was five years ago, something like that. I think he got, he got 30 million out, 40 million, something like that, that he then put into other things. And uh, you know, obviously without him it doesn't do well. And so he went bankrupt and I think it's really smart for him to buy it back. You know, who knows what he might end up doing with this, but, I think there's just,  you know, like a tremendous market for sort of like nineties nostalgia right now. You know, I think Sean John, or even a Rocawear, if they could have, I dunno, that's a little more complicated, but I think that, you know, if he's at the helm and his part as a lifestyle, Would never count him out. So, but yeah, as far as what it's worth right now, it's sort of more of a rounding error and overall number. But, you know, be interesting to see what comes.

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: And when you made your list around the same time, I believe that same week, there were two other announcements that came up. One was the cannabis company that he bought for, I believe it was 185 million. And the other one, I don't know if this one was a hundred percent confirmed, but did you see that thing floating around about him making an investment in Twitter along with Elon Musk's bid?

[00:30:28] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, you know that was all after the numbers got finalized, so, you know, those weren't really factored into it. But you know, I mean, yeah, it all makes sense. It's all part of the lifestyle thing. It's all part of the Diddy empire, the Diddy MO, and you know, he's look, I mean, on the cannabis side, right? Like he's puff daddy, you know, like what are, what are you puffing? It's exactly, it makes sense. It's like part of the brand. And, you know, if he could do the same thing with cannabis leaders with vodka, Which is to say like, I mean, I don't know. I think when he started vodka was not, you know, it was not really seen as a stylish thing. It was more like, you do a shot to get drunk. I mean, I don't know, maybe that's physics. I was in college when that happened, and that's when, that's sort of the vibe on vodka. But he made it like the champagne of vodkas. He associated his lifestyle with it and similarly, I think with weed, it's like, you know, we're in this very nascent part of the canvas economy, you know, becoming legal and, and sort of how do you start to differentiate brands, you know, and when you have legalization you can have, you know, like. The champagne of weed, right? You can start to differentiate, you know, like what type of buzz you're gonna get because it's regulated and you can actually say like, this is the thing that has this much THC and it's gonna give you this kind of high, versus like, this is just gonna knock you on your ass. I think it's a great place for him to get into, but you know, at the same time it's like, It is a really hard place to do business still. And you know, it is not without risk. It, you know, because it is not federally legal yet. You have to do, you have to do most of your business in cash. You can't get loans in the same way, especially if you have a plant touching enterprise. You have to do all these, handle all these different state regulations, which are constantly changing and are subject to the whims of, you know, clinical races and you know, potentially gerrymandering, all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with Diddy. So, you know, I think that's the tricky part. And you know, also not being a first mover in the way that somebody like Berner is. But at the same time, it's like, you know, he fills a different niche in the mark potentially than Berner does. 

[00:32:45] Dan Runcie: And yeah, no, that'll be fascinating to watch. Yeah. I think the thing about Revolt is a great concept in the vision, of course. Makes sense. Seeing how influential Diddy was with MTV and whether it's the voter die shirts that he would wear or some of the other programming, he leveraged it so well as a hip hop artist. So if you know you have that impact, why wouldn't you wanna go start your own company and go do the same? Right. I think some of the timing just became a little tough in that he started the cable network in 2013. People are already starting to cut the cord at that point. And then I know the company's transitioned much more into digital media, but even that, given that so much of it is social media based, relying on other platforms and their algorithms, I think we saw so many of those companies in that same timeframe, even the ones that were perceived as being successful, whether it's your Buzzfeed or your Huffington Post or your Complex, like all of those valuations came back down to earth. And you look at a company like Revolt, which I think was largely playing the same game, although I think they still make tons of great content and there are tons of great, brilliant people working there. I think that the digital media itself and where things transformed was a bit tough. Like let's say that Diddy had started let's say 2007 as opposed to 2013, I think we'd be having a very different conversation, 

[00:34:03] Zack Greenburg: You know, or 1997 , you know, I mean, yeah. I think it could be a whole different conversation and, you know, yeah. That's one of the smaller pieces of the empire, and I think, like you would say, he would make a certain argument about it and, you know, valuing it more like on the line of being a tech company. But it's hard to escape the fact that it, you know, it still. I would say yeah, like primarily a media outlet point and whether it's, you know, via cable or the internet or whatever, it's like these are not, like, these are kind of tricky places to be, but you know, it does make sense. There is a demand for that kind of stuff and it's a crowded marketplace, but, you know, he does have something different to offer and, you know, I think that there's a reason why it's still around and, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it goes, how it proceeds as we enter like the next phase of this sort of media shake up in a amount of time.

[00:35:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I think the other thing too, that I should have mentioned earlier is that given that this is a black owned media company, I know he's been vocal and Byron Allen and others have been vocal about advertisers not contributing the same level of money into black owned media companies that they would to, let's say, some of the Revolts competitors in the space that maybe started and run by white founders, white executives, but they're commanding more money from that perspective. So I think that's another tough thing there. But overall, like we said, this is a small piece of the overall pie. And yeah, it'd be interesting too. Especially the newer businesses, how many of them can continue that Ciroc magic, the bad boy flavor? And see? See where that lifestyle keeps going? Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about the other big one on the list, Berner. And based on the response that I saw from people sharing the list of people talking about it, this is the one that surprised a lot of people. But I know it didn't surprise you because you've been following this for a while. You've been talking to Berner, getting a better understanding of his business. So it'd be great to hear the breakdown because I think a lot of people out there may know Berner now more so for this product than they may actually know his music or anything else that he's done in hip hop up to now.

[00:36:19] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think Berner is one of the most fascinating names on the list. Definitely the most surprising. But, you know, I've been following his work for a while and, you know, he is a master marketer and his whole journey about how he turned cookies, cannabis, You know, it is a billion dollar company and it's just a little tricky to value, but, it is a billion dollar company and the way he did it, you know, I would say it's a case study, but it's actually pretty hard to emulate. It is sort of like a singular way of doing things. So, you know, for the people who don't know the background, Bernard born in California and San Francisco grew up there, moved to Arizona as a teenager and, and would bring back good weed from California when, whenever, you know, would make trips back to his old stomping grounds. And that's how he kind of got his start. He moved back to San Francisco, during the early, you know, weed legalization gold. Worked at a dispensary and, you know, kind of popularized this Girl Scout cookie, strain of weed. And so his thing would, at the dispensary, he would, you know, they used to sell things. It was sort of like an index car with the name of the strain. It was very clinical. But he would sort of like do these doodles and cookies and, you know, these like bright colors and stuff. And, and it started to get some tension. He became, you know, Wiz Khalifa's weed man when he was in San Francisco. And on one occasion brought this fully butted six foot tall weed plant onto the stage at Khalifa's show. And, you know, I think it was sort of instrumental in that Khalifa had created the Khalifa kush and all this. And so Bernard ultimately parlayed this sort of underground, you know, weed connoisseur image that he had as both on the legal and illegal markets into this brand. Cookies started opening stores, created a clothing line that, you know, kind of goes along with it. But the thing that he did with the way he set up this company is pretty, pretty unusual and very hard to value, but I think is quite brilliant. He started striking these partnerships with dispensaries and, you know, essentially it was a licensing deal where he would get a cut of revenue. And then the other part of the deal is that he could also buy out any of these partners. At market rate, at a time in the future, you know, in the future to be determined. And you know, like some of these numbers are out there, but you know, I think the system-wide sales are close to half a billion dollars now. And he gets a cut of that. But you know, at any time he could decide to roll all you could raise money, roll all these partnerships up into one giant weed company that's, you know, making. You know that, that kind of revenue and, and suddenly, you know, all you need to do is you put a multiple on that and, and that'll tell you what the company would be. If he rolled it all up and bought everybody out. And I talked to Wall Street analysts about this and covered the space and they said, you know, yeah, you could put like a five x multiple on this, so that would mean it's you know, yeah, like about a $2 billion company. Then you have to factor in the cost of buying out all those partnerships. You know, long story short would probably be about half billion dollars because it is a very tricky business. In fact, you have to be very liquid when doing everything in cash. It's kind of complicated. People I talked to, you know, bankers and stuff, said, yeah, you would apply a private company discount due to the uncertainty of the market, things like that, that's operating in it, you know, you would knock 20, 30% off of that and you know, so that it brings it down to around a billion dollars and then Berner still owns about a third of it. And so there's the bulk of his fortune right there, you know, so his stake is probably worth around $300 million. This point, I figure. And I think that's pretty conservative. You know, you add in some other thing invested in the clothing line, which he owns, you know, a huge part of still, you know, some homes, cash stuff like. And you get to that 400, 2 million number.

[00:40:27] Dan Runcie: Nice. Yeah, I've been seeing people wearing the cookies hoodies, walking around San Francisco, walking around other places. But definitely seeing the apparel thing push and I feel like he has one of those brands there are probably seeing even more of that stuff. I think it was a couple weeks ago I was driving by and I saw the store in Hate Ashbury neighborhood here at San Francisco. So yeah, no, definitely making moves. A few things there that stuck out. So he of course has his own standalone stores. As you mentioned, there's 55 of them across the country right now. And he also was selling them to other dispensaries. And I'm sure if and when weed does become legalized across the country, that will then just make things even easier from a distribution perspective from other places that he may be able to sell any otherwise. So in some ways the investment isn't just based on what's currently there or there's also a speculative nature. As this underlying product becomes more and more legal, there will be more opportunity to further sell this and further have its reach to different places. 

[00: 41:36] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And the clothing line also builds the value of the cannabis brand. And you know, if and when it is federally legalized, you gotta think. I mean, you know, this is one of the top brands in the business. And in fact, you know, there aren't really brands in this way in the cannabis space. There's strains, it's almost saying like in beer, you know, like, yeah, people like IPAs or people like those or whatever, but there isn't really like a Budweiser yet or a dogfish head, you know, or something like that. And, you know, to go back to Diddy, there's not really a champagne of weed. So, you know, I think that Berner has built up all this credibility in this space and, you know, if, when it goes legal, it's like to be one of the top weed brands in this space that is going to, you know, potentially rival or, you know, at least kind of start to eat into alcohol business. I mean, you know, 2 billion is not a large number for a company. There's a lot of potential for it to get a lot bigger and, you know, we can get into the whole. There's definitely a lot of arguments, pros and cons, about the benefits of THC and Cannabis General. And, you know, we will be here all day on that. But just from a business perspective, you know, it seems like we're headed toward legalization. Berner actually thinks that republicans are more likely to make federal legalization happen. He said, cause they're all about their paper. So I'm not saying who he's voting for anything. I don't. You know. it was an interesting perspective and, you know, like I think that he's really got kind of the key to where…..

[00:43:15] Dan Runcie: One of the other things that sticks out to me about him is that he's someone who is much more known, at least on a general awareness perspective, for the business that he's built as opposed to the music. I feel like his music was a bit more of a regional thing and he puts out a ton of music, but it never hit the same levels as some of the other artists who are having nine figure net worths as well. And I feel like there's often this thought, and which I do believe generally is true, that the artists who tend to be the most successful with product sales and investing and some of the more lucrative business opportunities that artists have done, they're more likely to be the household names who have been releasing music and touring for decades than a lot of times it's because they're releasing products that are lending their names, so they're leveraging their influence to now sell things that have a larger stake in and can be bought time and time again. He's a little different though because he doesn't necessarily have that. I'm curious what you think about that piece of it, because I think so many of the hip hop cash lists over the years do have at least somewhat of a correlation as to who are the more well known artists or who are the more popular artists at the time, and not necessarily who is building the strongest business, you know, that is being worth the most, and that is not correlated with how much mainstream popularity that artists may have.

[00:44:44] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean the funny thing is when you look at it, he is the most prolific artist on the list. But, you know, he has the least name recognition as well, right? I mean, Jay-Z, Diddy, Kanye, Dr. Dre, none of them are putting out music at the pace with which Berner is putting out music. But everybody knows who they are and not everybody knows Berner. You know, I think you could almost argue like, well, are you really gonna put him, you know, on the list with these guys who have that much more name recognition? But you could also argue, should we really be treating, you know, Diddy as a rapper anymore than we should be? You know, treating Richard Branson, as I know Richard Branson didn't actually rap ever, but, you know, effectively Diddy is just focused on business at this point and you know, he puts out songs here and there. Music is an ancillary Berner also used. You know, the Music Chief boosts the weed business, but he's in the studio like all the time, more than any of these guys. Yeah, it's just kinda fun.

[00:45:48] Dan Runcie: I think another person that maybe thought of a similar way, someone like Chamillionaire who had one really large hit, mm-hmm. But wasn't necessarily known for having classic after classic after classic album or touring the world in the same large ways as some of the other big names we did, but his investing journey is something that has been pretty well documented and I think as a result, he's definitely further than a lot of the other artists that came around the same time as him that may have had even more commercial success. So I feel like even though there is a lot of a correlation between who are the most well known artists and who are the wealthiest artists, he is someone else who is a bit similar in that Berner way of, hey, yeah, there may have a smaller overall impact from the music itself, but was able to wisely use that and then now leverage that into something where, you know, the artist is making more money from the business moves and more known for that now. 

[00:46:49] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean a great example of Chamillionaire and, you know, the work that he's been doing in the startup world. So at the same time, it's like if he hadn't had that one day hit, you know, would he have been able to get into, you know, the Silicon Valley kind of fear in the same way, you know, I don't know, but I think all it takes is one hit to be in the mix. And certainly like Burner never had that one hit, right? He just had a lot of, you know, really solid albums and stuff, but he was doing it in San Francisco. And I think, you know, in that way that you see somebody like Jamon Green getting really involved in the startup world, would he have been that guy if he were in, you know, like Cleveland or something? You know, I don't think so, but if you're in the mix, in the Bay Area, you're just gonna have access to a lot more opportunities, you know, in the startup world. And I think the startup world, cannabis world, you know, it. Kinda the epicenter. So in a funny way that the two have a lot of commonalities I think are familiar.

[00:47:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. This is good. I'm excited to see what next year's list looks like as well. And I know you may not be able to share publicly, but in order to get the five, you probably evaluated a few others. Are there any names creeping up, arising up that you think may make a  2023 appearance?

[00:48:08] Zack Greenburg: I think, you know, Drake is creep enough, big new deal. You know, he doesn't have quite the same level of, you know, sort of like outside assets. Like he doesn't have, like a Ciroc or a cookie or what have you. And, you know, I think he does have this whiskey, Virginia Black, but it's like, never like still around, but it never really took off and it only tastes okay. It's okay. I don't think taste ultimately matters a lot of times with this stuff, but I'm kind of surprised that he wasn't able to like boost a little bit more. But I don't know. When I think Drake, I don't really think whiskey. Maybe that's just part of it. I mean, I could see him with more champagne maybe. 

[00:48:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I'm interested to see for him how this new deal he has and the music that he makes as a result ends up factoring in, because of course we know that music itself may not be the largest revenue stream for a lot of these artists. Drake has this huge deal with Universal and Republic now, and he's releasing music more frequently than ever, and we can assume that it's likely because he's getting better upside and margins for the music he's releasing. So if he keeps up at this, like two, three albums a year clip. I mean, the numbers are gonna speak for themselves. Last year he streamed more than all pre 1980 artists. Like it's gonna catch up. 

[00:49:29] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing with net worth less as opposed to. Is that, you know, it's just harder to get on these lists if you are a big cash earner. Like if you are earning a lot on an annual basis, you know, things get factored into that, like taxes and cost of living and all that. And so, you know, you're getting these huge outlays, but you know, it's not in the same way that it was like going into this, this growing asset that can be valued. And in a way that's kind of like a quirk of the system because, you know, I'm valuing Berner’s stake in cookies, you know, like it's not tax, right? Like  if he were to sell it and he were to get $300 million, you know, whatever, a third half of that would be gone to the government. But that's not baked into the formula until he sells it. So you know, this is how Bloomberg and Forbes do it. It's just kinda what it is. But, it means that if you are holding assets, you know, the taxes aren't taken out. Whereas if you're a cash earner, that gets deducted before it gets added to your cash pile. So, it just means Drake is more likely to be at the top of, you know, let's say top earning artist. And you know, it's a little harder for him to get to the top…

[00:50:59] Dan Runcie: That's a great distinction. No, we'll definitely keep that in mind for next year. Do you think you'll do another top earners of the year list as well?

[00:51:05] Zack Greenburg: I don't know. Maybe, we'll see how it goes. Being a new dad, and doing this full time program, you know, this fellowship at Columbia that I mention. It takes a lot of time. And you know, I don't wanna put out a list unless I have the time to really dig in and get the numbers right. But yeah, you never know. I got this one out. So, there could be more. More to come.

[00:51:28] Dan Runcie: And I think on that note, just talking about dad life in general. Let's close things out there. So by the time this comes out, your daughter will be six months old and we can both share one funny thing that our kids did this past couple weeks. So I'll let you start.

[00:51:44 ] Zack Greenburg: Oh, man. Well, I think the thing that's really most exciting is that she's laughing now and the thing that she mainly thinks is funny is when I'm laughing. So like, we'll get into this thing, I will make myself start laughing and then she'll go, ha ha. I go, ha. And, and it’s very dorky, dad life. But, that is like one of my favorite things to do is have like, sort of a laugh off with Riley. So, yeah, I don't know, man. I pick her up from daycare every day and she just gives me this huge smile and I know that she’s still really young, but I can tell that she's specifically recognizing me, you know, and that we have this bond already. That there's like a specific connection. I just had no idea that babies could sort of, like, differentiate people and start to have unique relationships in that way. And that, it's like the best part of my day every day. So… 

[00:52:41] Dan Runcie: That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. How about you? 

[00:52:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. How about you? 

[00:52:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like there's something about that. Like yeah, the first couple of months I remember I would like, ask my wife, I'd be like, you think she recognizes us? Like, because she understands who we are. And I think over time there was like, yeah, no, we can get that in. Even things like now, The mirror is something that she is obsessed with. I'm sure you probably feel the same with Riley too. But yeah, the mirror. At first it was kind of looking at the mirror where there's like, okay, what is this screen? Who is that person that I'm seeing? But I think now it's like looking at us through the mirror and like seeing that it's us. And maybe she's starting to be like, oh well, I see them through this. Like she probably still isn't at the point where it's like, oh, I can see that's looking at me. But she'll look at that other person staring at her in the mirror and start smiling and stuff too. So I'm like, oh, that's cute. So yeah, man. Wild time's flying by. She'll be five months by the time this comes out. Wild man. 

[00:52:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of like….

[00:53:38] Dan Runcie: oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's that? Little, little peek-a-boo style games. 

[00:53:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. In the mirror. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We'll have to have our kids together sometime soon. I guess, you know, but of course babies, not so interactive with each other yet.

[00:53:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No. We'll get there. That'll be fun. Zack. This is great, man. Good work as always. It was great to see the list and again. The fact that I think you got just as much coverage and buzz and recognition for this, doing it independently is a great sign. Not just for you, but I think in general for people that are always questioning, okay, you know, what's the power of what I do elsewhere versus individually. So great job on that and we'll definitely keep tabs on this coming years. But great work, man, as always. Appreciate that.

[00:54:25] Zack Greenburg: Thanks man. Same to you.

Rich Homie Quan was one of the defining rappers of the music era that preceded the industry’s shift to streaming. He — along with the likes of Future and Young Thug — made “mumble rap” a hot commodity in the mid-2010s. But while Future and Thugger continued their careers, Quan took a hiatus from the game, until now.

Quan dropped his first project, “Family & Mula”, in almost three years back in October. During the long layoff, Quan admits he lost both his confidence and heart for rapping. He refused to quit on himself during the down period, which only spurred him artistically and business-wise. 

That’s because the eight-track EP is also the first under his independently-owned Rich Homie Entertainment label. Now ten years into his career — most of which spent under a label — Quan felt now was the time to go independent. Not only for the creative freedom, but also for the CEO role that comes with it. 

I caught up with Quan to reflect on his 10-year music career up to this point and how he envisions the next ten playing out as an independent artist and a CEO. Here’s everything we covered:

[2:41] Reflecting on the loss of Takeoff

[4:07] What Quan misses about his “come up” years

[5:16] Why Quan went independent at this stage of his career 

[5:40] Taking on a CEO role

[7:57] Why Quan doesn’t like his hit record “Flex”

[10:33] New partnership with Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo's Venice 

[14:44] Differences between Quan the CEO and Quan the artist 

[15:54] Rising as an artist before the streaming era took off

[17:25] Distinctions between album, EP, and mixtape 

[20:16] Quan’s non-music business pursuits 

[21:56] How pandemic re-motivated Quan to do music

[24:00] Quan wants more credit for influencing Atlanta sound

[31:14] Quan’s 10-year vision for himself 

[35:54] Did Quan start “deluxe” project drops?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Rich Homie Quan, @RichHomieQuan

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Rich Homie Quan: I was kind of afraid of my creativity on that song. You know what I'm saying? If that makes any sense. Like, I don't know. Cause I make a lot of music, man, and it's a lot of songs that's probably similar. That's like that. That will never come out only because of my mind. But that's why lately I've been letting the team I create, decide, you know? Pick which ones they feel like that needs to be heard. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I've grown as an artist slash CEO.

[00:00:31] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:51] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the one, the only Rich Homie Quan. R.H.Q came through to talk about his partnership with Venice and how this is a new start for him as an artist. He's independent now. He's seen what it's like on the label side. He's seen what works, and what doesn't work. But this is his opportunity to have more creative control. To see more of the money that comes in and out, and ultimately have more of a say on what makes the most sense for building his career and moving. So he talks about the benefits of the Venice partnership. He also talks about some of the other things that he's working on as well. We talked about his real estate game and how he made over a million dollars this past year from his real estate business. We also talked about where he sees himself in Atlanta's influence. He says he's top three and not three from the city. So you have to listen to hear the name chops that he has in here. Some of the other multimedia projects and a whole lot. Quan also recorded this one while he was getting his hair braided, so I gotta give him credit for multitasking. Shout out to Quan. Hope you enjoy this episode. All right. Today we got the one and only Rich Homie Quan with us. Man, before we get started with any of this stuff, let's just do a quick check, man. How are you? How are you living? How are things right now?

[00:02:03] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man, I'm good man. Mentally, better than ever. I'm just in a good space right now, man. I love the space I'm in, probably better than ever, man. I'm good, man. Yeah. How about you, man? How are you, you know what I'm saying? Mentally, you know what I'm saying? You know, spiritually how you feeling? 

[00:02:021] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I mean, I'm good. I mean, things have been good getting ready for the holidays and everything right now, but, I feel like it's kind of been a tough week, I'm not gonna lie. Thinking about take off and just thinking about artists passing so young. I mean, I mean, I know that this isn't anything new necessarily, but it just feels like it's been so much recently, so I've been thinking a lot about that.

[00:02:41] Rich Homie Quan: That part, you know, like I've been trying to get it out my mind, man. Cause like me and Takeoff wasn't close, but I have worked with him, you know what I'm saying? On numerous occasions, on numerous occasions. And with him being from Atlanta, man, it just hit, that one hit a whole lot different, man. That one touched me, man. That one hurt me, man. That hurt a lot of us, man. You know what I'm saying? Like I think I was walking say the best man, like hip hop took big ill man that that was a humongous ill man.

Humongous.

[00:03:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And there were so many of you that came up right around the same time. I feel like you came out and then they had the moment, like there were so many of y'all from Atlanta that rose up.

[00:03:22] Rich Homie Quan: Yes. Yeah. So that's why it's like, I, I kind of felt a different, like I saw, I saw before, um, they were with QC all us sitting on Gucci couch before we, before we got our first million, when we still were grinding and grind mode. So like, just to see that and know like, man, that could have been me, that could have been any of us. You know what I'm saying? Like, so that, that one definitely like hit me. Alright man, real hard.

[00:03:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, you were just talking about it, you going back to being I QCs couch. I was just looking back at the double like cell cover, the freshman class for you on the cover. And man, it was such a moment. I mean, when you think back to that moment when everything was rising up, like what do you think on the most, what memories stick out to you the most about that time?

[00:04:07] Rich Homie Quan:  Uh, what memories stick out about the most? I would just say more so recording in the music, being so. Because at that time we didn't have all those eyes on us. So then, you know, like we could say whatever and when, and no one, you know, we can say how we really felt. You know what I'm saying? Because you was in that grind and it just, you know, once you get to a certain level and certain things, you can't say no. Cause you know what I'm saying? You got certain people looking at you and that dissecting your words every, every type of way. So I would just say, man, just a recording process, man. Then man, the way we record the way, it'll be all five of us in the booth at one. Or maybe you should say it this way or this way. And it was just a know, just a vibe man. And the learning experience, man. Cause we were so young at that time, like we didn't know we'll be here 10 years later, you feel me? So yeah, that's the beauty of it all. 

[00:04:56] Dan Runcie: And I mean, for you 10 years later, you've done a few interview recently. You talked about why you wanna be independent and what this next chapter looks like for you? What has been the big thing that's made you wanna have this next chapter? Be independent, be on your own terms as opposed to how the last decade was up to this point?

[00:05:16] Rich Homie Quan: Would say the most important part about being independent and what I wanted about it, what I wanted, uh, from it more so, it was just the fact that I had tried everything else. I had tried being with the other independent labels and I just thought it was my turn. I had saw every side of the sword, but just this side of the sword and it's just been so much more fun.Just when I say fun, it's more so from a business side. And I say that because at first I was such an artist mode. It was hard for me to be a CEO, but to continue to say I'm a CEO when I'm not doing none of the CEO shit. And I say that to say like, I'm not in tune with the conversations, or I'm not on every phone call. I'm not CC'd in those emails and those important emails. So now man, with me being a ceo, I'm more in tune. You know what I'm saying? I'm knowing, I'm knowing what the budget is for this. Uh, just understanding the budget, know what I mean? Understanding, so, you know, just taking this a whole lot more serious, being independent, knowing now, like it's really the, that's why I'm probably in this such great space because I know the opportunity I have, I know what I've done.

[00:06:27] Dan Runcie:  You talked about seeing the money and just being able to see what the costs are looking like, what the money's coming in. What was the biggest surprise there? Cause I know you didn't see a lot of that as the artist, but now that you're being CC'd on those emails, now that you're seeing those things, did anything stick out to you?

[00:06:40] Rich Homie Quan: The most? To me, uh, it was just more so of money I would see go without videos and stuff like that, and I would have no knowledge on my input when it's my money that's paying for these. That made me just put my, you know, like, damn, I would've rather shot the video with so and so and so, and maybe, you know, it could have been better for a cheaper number than a number of, uh, someone who's big, big, like, you know what I'm saying? So it just started making me like, way more in tune man, just way more in tune and like, how can I call my c myself a CEO if I'm, if I don't have those last say sos on, you know what I'm saying? Who, who, who I think should shoot the video. So it's like, yeah, I just want to stay in tune, man. And stay at it. Stay at it. Yeah. All the way around the boy, man. Like I'm getting older now and I still got people I look up to and I'm looking at some of the transitions they had to make. You know, sometimes you gotta realize everybody can't go with you. Right. And that's part of better. 

[00:07:40] Dan Runcie: And I feel like you're talking a lot about something I've heard you talk about at other interviews too. Creative control, being able to have more say so over the process. And I was surprised it stuck out like a song like Flex, which was a hit that people liked. Like you really weren't feeling that song as much. 

[00:07:57] Rich Homie Quan: Oh, oh. Like one of mine like, because I felt like at the time Flitch came out, I was such, I was more so of, I don't wanna just say a street rapper, but those were my fans. My fans were like the people who came up from similar situations to me. And I just didn't want my fans to ever think like I was crossing over or making crossover music. And, cause that was one of them songs. Like it wasn't a, I was known for making pain music, you know what I'm saying? So to say. And uh, that was one of, one of those still good different records, but it made, it was, it was a gift and a curse to me cause it made me realize. It's not what I like, it's what people want, and it's all about the fans. And that was my biggest song, like solo to this day. So it's just, it, it just made me realize like co you just, just focus on making the music and let the people decide for you, which is which man, you know what I'm saying? But it turned into a good situation, man. To this day, I still patrol. I still perform Flex Man, you know, so still getting paid off. So, you know, that's. That's one of the perks, man. You know what I'm saying? Trust your team. Definitely trust. Trust your team. The ones that love you, who love you, that you keep around.

[00:09:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I feel like that's a balance I hear from even the folks that have been doing this in entertainment for years. I feel like Denzel was someone who had said, he's making all these equalizer movies, right? But he's like, those movies pay the bills so that I can do these August Wilson plays and all of these things that really mean something to him. So I feel like Flex might be that for you, that gives you the ability to do the stuff you really wanna put out so….

 [00:09:38] Rich Homie Quan: And that's what it was like. I was kind of afraid of my creativity on that song. You know what I'm saying? If that make any sense. Like, I don't know. Cause I make a lot of music, man, and it's a lot of songs that's probably similar. That's like that, that will never come out only because of my mind. But that's why lately I've been letting the team, I create, let the team decide, you know? Pick which ones they feel like that needs to be heard. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I've grown that as, as an artist slash ceo, know what I'm saying, getting outta the artist mode and going step back. I trust these guys enough. You know what I'm saying? Not, they're not gonna make me look bad, let alone make themselves look bad cause they're part of this. This represents them as well. 

[00:10:15] Dan Runcie: Definitely, definitely. And if we fast forward a few years, here you are now you have R.H.Q Entertainment, you recently have the joint venture launch with Venice. Shout out, uh, Troy and Susie, the folks over there. Talk to me about this. What's the vision for that joint venture? Where are things going? 

[00:10:33] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man, where are things going? I think, uh, the world is starting to see, and we haven't even got started yet. That's the crazy part. Like we haven't even got started yet, but like, you know, it was one of those situations. The distribution was nothing I hadn't had. You know what I'm saying? So like I said, it's all about me, like always throwing new things and never want, try nothing twice. You know what I'm saying? Like I still don't know like what my future holds, but I just know like, man, Venice has just been such a tremendous help to the RQ brand and for what I got going on, it just fit perfectly. And it wasn't one of those, or we just jumped straight into it. I think like a big shout outta Red man. Cause red, like he did not give up man. And it might have took us six months to get everything just done the right way where everybody's comfortable. And most importantly, everybody wins, man. You know what I'm saying? Big shout out Detroit. I was just with him last night. He flew down here, man. It was tremendous. Every time I'm, I'm big on energy and energy last night. Created a crazy vibe, man. You know what I'm saying? At the vintage man, Susie, everybody, the whole team Alyssa. I don't wanna eat nobody out, but man, uh, I love it, bro. I love it man. And it was the best situation for me. And like I always like to say, I don't wanna encourage no younger artists or anybody upcoming who wants to do music. I'm not saying independence may not be for you because at the same time, music takes money and sometimes a label situation may be the best for you. It just wasn't the best for me anymore. Cause it's something I. You know what I'm saying? And with me being in the game 10 years, like kind of saw it all. And now I know what's best for me, man. The creative control, you know what I'm saying? And like, and I still have a partner, you know, I still have a partner, man, but now man, I'm, I'm really boss ceo and I'm, I'm loving it.

[00:12:24] Dan Runcie: So now that you do have a partner, but like you said, they're not a record label, it's more on the distribution side. What are the things that they are gonna be doing for you and like what does that partnership look like in terms of your role, in terms of Venice's role? 

[00:12:37] Rich Homie Quan:  Okay. You got a partnership, man. It's more so of a, uh, like a lot of things I didn't know, like on the technology side of things and stuff that's showing me, man, you know what I'm saying? Even with more opportunities outside of. You know, I'm, I think that's the biggest thing now, man. You know, opportunities outside of meals, you know what I'm saying? Movie ventures and stuff like that that I had no idea that I thought I could tap into, but you know what I'm saying? It's showing me, man, it's beautiful man. It's beautiful man. Feel top priority. It feels better. You know what I'm saying? Like I've been in label situations. The team we got over there, they're working hard on 80% of these labels I saw, and I.So that, that's what I love and that's what it's been, that being able to show me, man, that like they ain't playing, they ain't, they ain't playing. You know what I'm saying?

[00:13:26] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. Cause, cause I mean, Troy gets it and I know just seeing the way that they've structured things, a lot of it is thinking about how to think beyond streaming too.Right? Like what does web three look like? What do NFTs look like? 

[00:13:39] Rich Homie Quan: Exactly. So that's what I'm saying. It's stuff that I had no knowledge of. Of course I hear it, but now I. A person who can show it. And that's what I told him last night. Like, man, it's different when you, everybody that's talking, but you, you've shown and prove everything you said, man. So, and that's a big, and with me being able to have a direct line to him to be able to talk to him, you know, like, and no showing on the labs.

[00:14:29] Dan Runcie: No dope. No, that's for sure, man. So yeah, it's been good to hear you just talk about the ownership and just what it means to be a ceo. And I know it's two different hats you gotta wear. Do you feel like Quan the CEO is any different from Quan the artist? 

[00:14:44] Rich Homie Quan: I would definitely say according to CEO is a whole lot different from the, uh, from the artist. And that's only because as an artist, I be in my mind a lot. You know what I'm saying? I be in my mind a whole lot. But as a CEO, I get it. Where you gotta get out your mind. It, it ain't about your mind or your feelings, man. It's business. You know what I'm saying? It's, it's business and, and that's why I have to separate. It's what they're totally. And is only corn as an artist with the microphone, whatever. When I'm not the microphone, it's about the family and it's about the beast. You know what I'm saying? In that order. In that order, and God, of course, first with him being first, you know what I'm saying? I'm backing up. You know the son. 

[00:15:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. And thinking back just about your career, I feel like we're just talking at the beginning of the conversation, right? Whether it's you, Migos, Rockos, a few of you that came up in this same timeframe, but I feel like y'all were a little bit early then when streaming really took off. And I often wonder like, man, like they obviously all had successful careers, but would things look any different, and maybe it was like two or three years later when you saw how streaming was streaming really copied what y'all were doing.

[00:15:54] Rich Homie Quan: I remember, yes. I remember that. Like when the first, like my biggest records, like those were so hard copies, you know what I'm saying? It's been like, it wasn't no streaming, it was just like, but a lot of my packs packs. You know what I'm saying? Me and record sold like no, like, you know, physically. So it is different. Like there was still city players then and stuff, you know what I'm saying? So it was, when they first started talking streaming, I was like, I can get paid out that, nah man put, I wanna sell money just now. Like you said. I really feel like they got something from the numbers we were doing and, and turned it. All the way. So I love it, man. And that's why this run here is more important. Cause I'm gonna get me some of that. No money, I promise you that.

[00:16:37] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. A whole lot. Yeah. The thing. Yeah, the thing. I feel like that you all. A lot was just dropping in the frequency of when the mix tapes came out. Right. It was like you didn't let up.

[00:16:49] Rich Homie Quan: Like all Now and now Mix Tapes are album, they're no more mix tapes, you know what I'm saying? Like I think I saw something from He is gonna bring mix tapes back and it's like even now Mix tapes are album, then there was still mix tapes. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like come on. But yeah, it's ok. I got something.

 [00:17:07] Dan Runcie: I know, man. I know. So, yeah. So you had the recent release that came out. It was an EP For you though, how do you distinguish or make a distinction between EP versus albums versus Mix tapes now? Just given that everyone is putting out music and however they wanna label it, maybe. 

[00:17:25] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah. Yeah. To me, I differentiate 'em only because man, like, so what? I just put out the little EP man or mix tape. I feel like EP mixtape, same. Mix tape. I'm doing, I'm, uh, I would say I'm rushing the music, uh, album. I'm gonna take a little more time. You know what I'm saying? It's gonna be a little more thought out. It's gonna be, cause I still look up to my favorite albums coming from your, coming from your tis first album. You know what I'm saying? I'm looking at the structure of those and the instruction of those can't be within a month, two month process. That process may take a. You know what I'm saying? Because you know, I need the content to rap about, but that's the only way I differentiate towards the time I put out a man. You know what I'm saying? Time. 

[00:18:09] Dan Runcie:  Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like for the most part, you can hear that from a lot of artists. Once in a while you'll hear a mixed tape that people feel like it's just as goods an album, but for the most part, The more effort that you hear or you hear to the production quality, you hear it in the bars and yeah.

[00:18:25] Rich Homie Quan: And they last longer.

You know that last longer. That's why I feel like a lot of the music is here, you know, today and gone in two weeks because it's so much similarities and that's why I've been trying to stay creative with the process. Stay corn, don't change my style, but I can't evolve in my sound. And when I say what I mean, it's like, you know, I don't see the same stuff I used to see. Now I'm rapping about the things I'm seeing now. Cause I'm old. I'm trying to put my peers and the, uh, the younger generation on real estate, man, that's probably less jewelry. Let's be, you know what I'm saying, little less flashy and get the things that really matter. You know what I mean? We, we screen the block, let's go buy a couple of properties on the block. So now, now we have a reason to, you know what I'm saying? Stuff of that nature, man, you know, and me just, you know, respecting my position and, you know, playing it.

[00:19:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah. You been getting more real. 

[00:19:16] Rich Homie Quan: Oh man. A whole lot. Whole lot. And I think last year, you know what I'm saying, a million plus on real estate, you know what I'm saying? And not a music checking ball, you feel me? Just last year. So I definitely getting into a whole lot more, man.

[00:19:31] Dan Runcie: Nice. Was that a rental property or a sale property to be here? 

[00:19:37] Rich Homie Quan: Uh, rental. A couple of flips and me selling my first. Nice. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's like, yeah, I did a million plus in real estate. No rap, no rap cap. And is this mostly in Georgia or is it El you got,  uh, not only in Georgia, you know, like I'm born and raised here, now I'm getting on. Now I have, I'm getting to the level I'm going out, you know, in different states and, you know what I'm saying, going to buy, you know, smaller, smaller stuff and just, uh, revamping them, doing resell. I'm doing a clip flipping and stuff like that, man. 

[00:20:08] Dan Runcie: That's what's up man. That's what's up. Appreciate that, man. Yeah. Are there any other businesses that you've been getting involved with outside of music? Uhuh, you? 

[00:20:16] Rich Homie Quan: Yes, sir. Uh, also with the 18 wheelers, got a couple of 18 wheelers, you know what I'm saying? We got box trucks, you know what I'm saying? A couple of car lots and stuff like that. Car mechanics, some stuff like that. It's every type of way to keep it. Keep it rolling man. Keep it moving, man. You know what I'm saying? The pandemic opened my eyes up a whole. And I really had to take advantage of that time opposed just sitting in the house making babies.

[00:20:42] (Mid Ad) Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to tell you about a podcast I am sure you'll love. It's called nineties Now, A show all about the music, movies, tv, pop culture, and more from the nineties with a twist of what's happening. It's hosted by two radio vets, Kelly Alexander and Sharon Highland, along with their millennial producer Alex Brisson. The three of them navigate all that is and was the nineties, and you'll hear a wide range of nineties music. They had a really interesting episode about Diddy and Bad Boy and him starting a new record label. They had another breakdown on Beyonce, especially with Renaissance coming. And they look back at the decade that was the film, the TV, and so much more. And you'll also get to catch up with some of the beloved actors and actresses and entertainers that made that decade what it is. You can find nineties now on all of the major podcast platforms. Also check out their website nineties now.com or follow them on social media at nineties. Now fm

[00:21:44] Dan Runcie:  I hear you on that man. I hear you on that. What was it like for you during the pandemic? Obviously you couldn't tour. I know that gave you an opportunity to explore these other ventures, but what was it like for you. 

[00:21:56] Rich Homie Quan: uh, the pandemic? Uh, what was it like for me? Uh, I would say that's definitely the moment I caught my groove back in the music. Opposed when I had took that long break. You know what? Being here. Cause I had just moved at that time. I had just moved and got me another house. I had bought my, uh, the house for something. And when I moved, I didn't set the studio equipment up for like close to a year. Just I, I'm syn like, come on man. And I think, I think the Migos might have had a just drop sign. I'm had my employees just dropped, but I'm hitting like in a competitor mode. Like I go drop me one two with just like, man, get up off your ass and go. Go get up off your ass and go do something. And since that day, man, I haven't started recording. I built, I built the studio back at the house. A new one, A dope one. That's where I'm at now. And get here, get it done. And it's just like my whole mindset changed like, nah man, we ain't giving up. We ain't quit right now. Nah, man, I'm from Atlanta. We, we don't throw in any white flash. You feel me? It's going hard. I think, um, it started with that then from dropping some music, uh, in Lincoln with Ben and them trusting my plan and wanting to have my back, you know? 

[00:23:05] Dan Runcie: For sure. What has it been like for you with live music just coming back in general? Have you been going and doing as many shows as you were doing before the pandemic?

[00:23:17] Rich Homie Quan: I would definitely say I'm doing more shows than I was doing before the pandemic, and that's probably because of the new music we've been dropping. But I've been trying to get like a little more social, social active on the social media a little bit too, man, that's, that's played a part and me just, you know, like I say, taking it a whole lot serious, more serious now realizing that the game don't need me, game doesn't change the players do. And realizing that I need the game, so let me act like I need this shit like you. Changing my mindset shit, man. That's, 

[00:23:49] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And in other interviews too, you've talked about your place in Atlanta hip hop and your respect in Atlanta, hip hop ain’t you say you feel like you don't get the credit you deserve.

[00:24:00] Rich Homie Quan: Nah, I don't, I don't, I don't get the credit. Uh, I don't, uh, like I say, I feel like the sound, like the Atlanta sound today. I feel like I should be one of those ones in that heavily influenced sound. You know what I'm saying? But I wasn't vocal about it then. So I don't respect them. But they know, like we know, like we know and they know, you know what I'm saying? Like you can't mention the Atlanta sound today without mentioning corn. Corn, period. Period. You know what I'm saying? That's why I'm, you know, top three and I'm not three. And that's, that's, that's what it's been. And I'm gonna show, I'm gonna show these people that I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna let the music show you. It ain't just me saying it. I know what I, I know what we've been working on. They gonna see what I'm top three.

[00:24:44] Dan Runcie: And so top three are not three. Who? The other two? I don't know. That's what the people decide. I didn't know three because, like I, but cause it's really like a five in hour. Like I got like a. And the five will be, um, no order. Savage is up there and it's just for today. It's not all time. You know what I'm saying? Bro. You got Savage up there. You got Future Up, you got Thug up there, baby up there, and myself up there and I'm just, you know, I'm top three and three. That's for everybody else. 

[00:24:47] Rich Homie Quan: I don't know. That's what the people to decide. I didn't know three because, like I, but cause it's really like a five in hour. Like I got like a. And the five will be, um, no order. Savage is up there and it's just for today. It's not all time. You know what I'm saying? Bro. You got Savage up there. You got Future Up, you got Thug up there, baby up there, and myself up there and I'm just, you know, I'm top three and three. That's for everybody else. 

[00:25:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, I hear that. And I mean, just here are the names you think about, thinking about you and a thug. I mean, I feel like lifestyle is one of the most influential songs of the decade.

[00:25:27] Rich Homie Quan: For sure,  for sure. Yeah, for sure. Or lifestyle and definitely that the uh, the rich game mix tape, the rich Oh yeah. Tape as well as the still going in. And I promise I never stopped going in that influenced the sound that influenced the sound man. Cause that's when the differences came. The some type of wave and, oh man, that room was crazy that that decade did. It definitely influenced the sound.You know what I'm saying?

[00:25:56] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I mean, even just the way that you see that artists are trying to do multiple things on a track, whether they're trying to sing, they're trying to real like the, I feel like you dug a lot of you were doing that early. So you combine that. You combine with the frequency that people are released in music. We, a lot of these pop stars just, you know, try to do different things on the, at all.

[00:26:23] Rich Homie Quan: You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah, I think, I think we showed it like they ain't gotta be a single, the hold the tone. And I think it more people just want to go try like that. Cause I know I can't sing, but I can hold a decent song where I can make you, I can, I can trick your mind. And I think a lot of people want to try that and that's why, that's why you hear it so much. It's an unorthodox sound. We ain't trying to sing, but it does sound, we try to hold a song and you hear that in 80% of the music you on the radio today. If you weren't hearing that then 10 years ago, that's all I’m saying.

[00:27:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, you see where the trend is for sure. But yeah, I mean, For you. I do know that, you know, even though you had that moment, there was a period where you know, you weren't released in music and there was, I know that in past interviews you've talked about how it was a bit of a difficult time for you. What was it like for you to be able to come back from that? I know you talked a little bit about how the pandemic was an opportunity for you to reset things. What was it like for you to really be able to come out of that and then still be in the place that you, you are today? 

[00:27:42] Rich Homie Quan: Oh, man. To come outta it, I think it was just like amazing. Took a whole lot of praying for one, stand down and like I said, man, not wanting to give up, man. You know what I'm saying? Knowing like, I think I, I started something beautiful and it's still so. So many pages I've yet to get to, and I know I'm capable of getting to, I get to scratch the surface and like me being such an asshole to myself, you know what I'm saying? Like on days I would just make up, I would wake up mad just for no reason and like the people around me didn't deserve it. You know what I'm saying? Like. I'm the leader and a lot of times like, man, I just know, like I couldn't, I couldn't continue to live like that and call myself a child of God, man. You feel me? So once I got that cloud, my head, man, it felt, it felt amazing, man. But I had to take it a day at a time like it. I wouldn't be talking the way I'm talking now if I didn't get filed over. Like it was some tough, tough, tough nights. Like I think, like I said, I went a year without getting in the. And I've always kept me a studio, like at my house, like a nice, yo, I didn't, I didn't listen to the radio three years, you know what I'm saying? But I'm still doing shows. Like I never stopped doing show, but my, my heart wasn't in my mind, was there, but my heart wasn't it. And I think like in this bitch heart gotta be in anything. And I like for my shit genuine and you know what I'm saying? My heart just wasn't in it. So sitting back in this house for that, Um, reminiscing on a lot of things, a lot of memories, those good ones. And waking up one day is like, well, this is how you gonna hear your story. And I myself telling myself like, you better than all these niggas. But in order to say that, you gotta go put in the work to be able to show, show that. And that's what it was, man. And I ain't got, I ain't got, I did in room since I do everything down here. I sleep down. You as you see, I'm getting my hair braided down here. We play the game down, the vibes down here, it your energy out. Don't even come down here. You know? And that's just what it been, man. 

[00:29:58] Dan Runcie: And I've imagine that some of that exact competitive nature too, right? Yeah. You don't listen to the radio for three years. You're focused, you're locked in, but you're still performing. When you start listening to the radio again, I'm sure you're hearing what's popping off and you're like, no, I'm better than these.

[00:30:13] Rich Homie Quan: Oh yeah. Like when I'm hearing, I'm like, oh, this what people going crazy about. Oh no. We got to, we got to go to work.To go to work. And it was like, and when I started going to work, like at first I didn't, I felt like, um, cause I, I was so used to doing songs fast, like going crazy. And when I got back in there, it wasn't like I just got back in there and was the, it was the corner I am today. Oh no, it took time. It might have took six months before I got back to playing my songs back in the car from my, for the people around me. You know what I'm saying? So still I had to gain my confidence back, man. I had to get it back man. But I got it. Oh, I got it. I got it.

[00:30:50] Dan Runcie: And I know too for you, I feel like there's a few things, cuz obviously it's you as an artist, like we're talking about Wanda artist building that up. You've got the confidence and you got the swag back with that. But I know that you've talked a lot about how 10 years from now you want Wanda CEO to be doing more of the work and you don't necessarily wanna be making music as much. You talk to me about what you see that 10 years from now looking like.

[00:31:14] Rich Homie Quan: Uh,  10 years from now is a long time and I try not to see that. Like, and when I said. Cause I try to make like real short term goals that are real possible. But I do know and I like 10 years from now, I'll be 43 and I probably said 12. Cause 45 sounds like a better number just to leave it alone. It um, I won't be focusing on Coin the artist, but as far as point the CEO coin, the CEO may start writing more. Cause I just love music that much, but I still can never not see myself created. So, uh, I've been even dipping into it now, like more writing. Writing more, but I would probably doing, writing more, focusing on, cause I been trying, I've been doing models moderat lately when they do the fashion show, I'm walking the runway. It's the first time I did that, I had just did the fashion week. So I'm already trying how that?

[00:32:05] Dan Runcie: How did you like doing the runway for the fashion show?

[00:32:07] Rich Homie Quan: Well, I haven't done that yet. I, I do that next week. But just the fashion snow itself, just going to fashion week in new. Aw man. Amazing man. Like, just being around people like, oh my, like, I was almost like, I didn't want my phone. I, but I was, man, that's the boy from my show out. You know what I'm saying? Just like seeing Cal coo, no, see, uh, you saying boat? Amy? What's her name? Amy W Winnie. Winnie Harlo. Yeah. Winnie Harlow. Man. Like just seeing her in person, just made and being. Front next to talking to court a like, dang. It just gets you in different room. I'm, and I'm saying like, I maybe could do this. I maybe we could do this for the next 20 years after rap. You know, I'm saying stuff like that. So it's just like, you know, other stuff. Even like being an author, I wanna come out with a memoir. I'm ready to write my book, you know what I'm saying? Cause I do want to get in movies and I, uh, wanna come out with a autobiography movie one day. So, not even me playing myself, but at least writing it. I'm trying to get in directing, trying to get in. I see 10 years from now I see myself, that guy, man. 

[00:33:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Okay. I feel like we're gonna see you at the Met Gala next year or something.

[00:33:15] Rich Homie Quan: For sure. For sure, for sure. I'm gonna be at, uh, try to be at a whole lot more of a man, a whole lot more and all this stuff that's clean. I just gotta let 'em know I do this shit too.

[00:33:26] Dan Runcie: The memoirs are good. I mean, Gucci's was good. Ross's was good. I mean, there's so much, and I mean, you're obviously gonna be able to tell stuff that no one's stole before. You're gonna have the …

[00:33:35] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah, and I got stories that, I got stories that I know like, I mean, I just don't give that, I think that would be dope into a book. Like, especially me being real, I think it'll be more raw. Cause I love to read, so I would definitely give more, more details on my book, you know what I mean? I would definitely, yeah, it get spicy, it get spicy.

[00:33:55] Dan Runcie: Have you done as much on TikTok lately? Just, you know, whether you are the on camera, off camera and, and I'm have a lot of opinions about it.

[00:34:03] Rich Homie Quan: Yeah. I'm, I'm still adjusting. I'm still adjusting. I'm still adjusting. So now a lot of my TikTok has been like, like stuck on the music, but I'm starting, I'm, I'm gonna start, I'm, I'm gonna get a little more personal show, show the fans a different side of me. Cause that's what I'm transitioning to now. Like I am a rapper and that's what fans love. I'm transitioning just to showing them a little bit of, a little bit more of my personal side and just decide deciding which side of my personal side and what I'm willing to reveal. No, that makes sense. Cause I want to be authentic. I don't just wanna get on there cause everybody's doing it. I wanna have something different to offer and that, you know, it's authentic. You're getting a real me.

[00:34:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah, like, I can't see you trying to do some like trick, like, you know what I mean? Like everyone trying to do these visual tricks.

[00:34:48] Rich Homie Quan: Like no, never, never, never, never, never. That, that, that goes against my morals and ethics, you know what I'm saying? Like , you know what I mean?

[00:34:57] Dan Runcie:  Yeah. No, for sure man. Well, no man, I'm excited for you, man. I feel like this is a good chapter. I feel like whether it's a pandemic or other things, like these triggers that happen in life, give us a good opportunity. Just pause, reset, and come back stronger. And I feel like you got the infrastructure there to keep moving, man. So proud of you. Excited for you for what's coming, but man, before we let you go, give us a heads up of what to look out for. What should we look out for the next couple months coming? 

[00:35:25] Rich Homie Quan: Uh, next couple of months coming from me. We In November. Yeah. Oh shit. Some weeks after this, man, you can look for us to be reloading the family in Moula. You know what I'm saying? We're not gonna call it a deluxe, we're just gonna reload it. Cause I feel like the reloaded is a deluxe anyway. And I think like that's a trend I started years ago. So they, they, they say deluxe, but we reloading it with seven new songs.

[00:35:51] Dan Runcie:  Wait, wait. So, so you started the deluxe. 

[00:35:54] Rich Homie Quan: Yes. I'm not gonna say that, but it was called Reload. No, God, I'm not gonna say I started, but I think I did. You know what I'm saying? I think, I think men, I think Men Thug, what's the first artist doing? You know what I'm saying? The Duo Mix tape that they name the album. You know what I'm saying? So it's like a, you know what I'm saying? You know, history beats yourself. 

[00:36:18] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So dope man. We'll look out for that and we'll look out for the rest of this stuff coming from you.

[00:36:23] Rich Homie Quan: And more videos. Yeah, more, more videos in your face. A whole lot more. Yeah, man. More RQ, the brand, more RQ Time, Venice and more of us going up putting it in they face. Man. I'm on the way. We're here now. We're here now. 

[00:36:39] Dan Runcie: Love it man. I love it. Quan, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for joining. 

[00:36:44] Rich Homie Quan: Thank you, man.

Cooper Turley, better known as Coopahtroopa, is betting big on ushering a new generation of music. In September, he announced a first-of-its-kind investment fund focused squarely on web3 music projects and artists themselves. Coop Records raised $10 million and Coopah will be the sole general partner. 

He’s hesitant to call it just an investment fund though. That’s because Coop Records is also a record label and incubator. Coopah will invest directly into web3-native music artists in a “seed round” — turning emerging artists into venture-backed startups.

Structuring an artist’s company is what Coopah sees as web3’s biggest opportunity: resetting ownership dynamics. NFTs are another vertical of the Coop Records fund, in addition to the seed-stage investing in both companies and artists.  

Coopah joined me on the show to give us an in-depth look at how Coop Records is eying its investment opportunities. Here’s everything we covered:

[0:00] How Coop Records started

[2:06] Focusing on emerging artists, not established ones 

[3:35] Coop Records’ investment thesis

[7:24] Investing in artists during “seed round”

[9:50] Structuring artists as a holdings company

[11:40] What does an exit look like for artists investors?

[15:00] Artists as CEOs

[20:11] What makes a music NFT historical 

[22:28] NFTs as a replacement for masters and publishing

[27:18] Accredited investors vs. fan investors

[29:30] Artist success stories with community building on web3

[31:40] Focusing on story when marketing NFTs

[34:25] Optimizing for engagement not reach on social 

[39:24] How tokenization changes the artist-fan relationship 

[47:00] Predicting the year that music NFTs go mainstream 

[48:25] Coop’s big question for web3

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Cooper Turley, @Cooopahtroopa

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Cooper Turley: And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them.

[00:00:24] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:49] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Cooper Turley, aka Coopa Troopa. He is the founder of Coop Records, which is a new venture fund, a 10 million fund that is focused on investing in the future of music, specifically in web three. He is someone that has made a name for himself as a thought leader in the space. He was involved with the Dow Friends with benefits and he's now started this fund to make economics better for artists and ultimately help them take more advantage of the opportunities that are around them. So we talked about a lot of it. We talked about how he views the space right now, why he started this fund, and what the fund's investing in. There are three main areas that we go into. We talk about investing in music startup. Investing in artist seed rounds and investing in NFTs themselves as an investible assets that him as a general partner and little Bited partners would wanna see returns from. So we talk about what the economics of that look like. I think that. Cooper stands out in a lot of ways because he has a much more nuanced understanding of how Web Three fits in with the broader ecosystem of what's happening right now in music, what some of the trade offs are with the financials, the relationship with fans, what services it offers versus the traditional record labels and more really insightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. Here’s our chat.

[00:02:07] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're joined by Coopa Troopa who just launched Coup Records, which is his fund that is investing in the future of music and Web three specifically. And first off, congrats. I saw the announcement, it's really dope. So walk me through the process from thinking about you wanna start this fund to where you are now, today with it.

[00:02:28] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I've been in music for the last 10 years in crypto for the last five, and so I've seen everything from ICOs to Defi, to Dows, and not most recently NFTs. You know, throughout that time I've been active across public markets as a trader, behind the scenes, as an angel investor, as a community builder, and as an operator. And when I started to think about how to connect all the pieces together, I've always been a fan of music. I felt like there was never really a clear vehicle to help elevate and amplify the space. And so I found coop records to be the best way to really just zoom in on this niche that I'm so excited about and figure out how to really help the founders, artists, and builders that are supporting this space everyday.

[00:03:05] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. What were the conversations like getting buy-in from LPs?

[00:03:10] Cooper Turley: Basically helping to explain what music NFTs are, why this is a vertical that you'd wanna invest in at this time and day? You know, historically I think that music has gotten a bit of a bad rep, cuz it's very antiquated in a lot of ways. You know, there's a lot of systems that are very complicated and hopefully we can unpack some of those on this episode. But, I think we through presents a new opportunity for artists to monetize in creative ways. You know, as someone who's been a curator my whole life, it's very easy for me to understand the value of investing in songs, artists, et cetera. But for someone who's not music savvy and not passionate about this sector, you know, the majority of those conversations are why would anyone wanna collect a song? Why would someone wanna invest in an artist? And trying to help people understand why there's an opportunity here that I think is. Influential and paramount for the next chapter of music. But once people get over that line, you know, I've kind of been able to build a brand for myself that I think speaks very clearly to why I'm so excited about music. And so for investors that are looking to get exposure to the space, coop records is a great way to get that exposure without them having to get as deep in the trenches as I am.

[00:04:07] Dan Runcie: Right. And I gotta imagine that that probably took a few conversations just given things that I'm hearing too, from folks. People, they understand the promise and the opportunity of what NFTs and what web three offer, but there's. Hesitation, there's still perception about what's going on and some of the headlines that people see. How did you communicate or address some of those concerns while still sharing the value add for what you have? 

[00:04:32] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I really focus on emerging artists. You know, I think that this is where the vast majority of value will accrue over the next couple years with Web three. And so when you think about investing in music, most people's mind goes to like, how do we get Drake to drop NFTs? I actually don't really focus on that at all. Instead, I think about how do we develop the next act that becomes Drake using Web three tools? And so for investors that are kind of hesitant about getting involved in the space, I point out early examples like X copier people, you know, crypto artists who really made a brand and a name for themselves on the back of selling their nfts. And obviously in the case of people, he had a major brand before, but it wasn't until the existence of NFTs and sort of these community based assets that they started to see monetization aspects with their fans and with their collectors. And so trying to highlight that there's an opportunity here to develop and support emerging artists new to Web three through music, I think it really made a clear case that. This isn't about trying to get your biggest celebrity to drop NFTs. I think that will happen at some point in time. But this is about investing in the infrastructure and the artists that are going to make this space very valuable over the next couple years.

[00:05:31] Dan Runcie: And one of the things I like too about how your fund is structured or reminds me a bit of Matt Pinkus and how his music fund is structured. It's not just focused solely on startups that are trying to build the next tech platforms. You're also looking more broadly. The NFT space itself and what that opportunity looks like and it'd be great to break each of those down. So let's start first with the music tech companies, cuz I know that's 85% of your fund looking at preceded seed stage companies. What's your thesis for the type of company that is a coop records company that you're looking for? 

[00:06:04] Cooper Turley:  I'm a really big fan of composability. So in Defi there's this concept of money Legos or protocols and platforms that could plug into one another. I believe the same thesis will play out with music, where we're gonna have music legos, where there's different marketplaces, service providers, tooling, infrastructure that can help sort of amplify what an artist can do with Web three. And so when I think about investing in a music tech company, I think about culturally, is this company aware and active within the pocket that I'm spending a lot of my time in? And then beyond being aware of sort of the artists, the songs, the type of platforms that are doing well in this space, do they have the open mindedness to wanna work in collaboration with those other platforms? So in accurate, we can kind of create this toolkit in this stack where if I am an artist who's new to web three, it's not about choosing Spotify versus Apple, it's actually about trying to develop a presence across many platforms. And hopefully those platforms. The life of the artist easier by making everything connect together with one another.

[00:06:56] Dan Runcie: And I feel like this speaks to one of the broader themes that I know you've talked about before, is. It can't be this approach of web three versus web two. These things need to be collaborative. No more zero sum games. How can you think more broadly about the opportunity there? How do you view that more broadly, not just with the fun, but also likely how you're seeing the space with any artist that you're working with too?

[00:07:21] Cooper Turley: I'm really laser focused on web three platforms because I think there's a lot more room for change within those platforms. You know, I have nothing against legacy platforms like Spotify have done fantastic work for artists and I think there will be at a time and day when they're able to enable music, NFTs to be purchased, collected, listened to within their platform. But the reality is these companies are so sophisticated that trying to move the needle is very complicated. And so for someone like. I'm running this fund as a solo gp. It's a relatively small fund, and so when I think about where I can have impact and leverage, it's typically working with very early stage founders. You know, I can get in the trenches and help to develop the product. Think about how we're onboarding artists, think about new marketing strategies. And so for me, I think right now it's about cementing the cultural relevance and value of this emerging wave of Web three music. And once that's been clear and established, we can take those same values, ideas, songs, artists, and help to bring those into the traditional industry in a more clear way. Because right now I think that a lot of the bigger players, let's call it major labels, et cetera, they recognize that there's value to be captured in Web three, but I don't think that they have the same level. Boots on the ground cultural awareness that maybe someone like, um, myself or some of my colleagues have. And so I think the challenge here is a, making it very clear what that culture is so you can start to translate it to larger players. And then once that they agree there is something of value there, you know, being able to act as a connector where you can say, Hey, maybe instead of going and doing a 500,000 or a million dollar drop for the biggest act on your roster, let's go ahead and find an emerging artist who's curious about the space and develop them with the course. Five or $10,000 drops and instead really build that community and that collector base in a very organic way.

[00:08:56] Dan Runcie:  And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them. And in some ways your approach isn't too much different. Maybe it's just a bit of a different stage because one of the other areas that you're investing in is artist seed rounds. And can you describe. What stage an artist would have to be in order to be at the seed round, and what types of things you're looking for there from an artist?

[00:09:33] Cooper Turley: I think it's very similar to what I look for in companies. You know, has this artist been able to prove a little bit of traction? You know, have they demonstrated that they're culturally aware of where this industry is headed? You know, different things that I feel like are interesting to kind of describe. Cause it's not very concrete. Like you can't point to like a specific amount of sales or a specific amount of volume and say, okay, this artist is ready to be invested in. But it's really just a development process of like, is this person making web three a focal point in their career? I believe that that's something really important for me personally, cuz that's where I had the most leverage. But once they've demonstrated that they've been able to release on some of the bigger web through platforms, you know, once they've been able to collaborate and onboard other artists to the space, you know, you start to see that these people have like a little bit. Leverage was sort of their career. And at that point in time, instead of signing a traditional record deal, co records can really be the one to say like, Hey, let's go ahead and set up a company for you. Let's think about how we wanna do a cap table. Let's bring on some partners to give you the capital that you need to go and hire a team around you. So instead of selling your next three albums to a major label, you can instead fund this through accredited investors. And then over time think about the ways you wanna bring other partners into the fold, but not need to be so reliant on the capital to do that in the first place.

[00:10:38] Dan Runcie: And with the artists specifically, cuz I know that you've started the fund. Maybe for the people listening, is there a particular artist that you have made a seed investment in just so people can get a good idea for, okay, this is someone that we invested in, this is where they're at in their career, and this is what the opportunity is 

[00:10:56] Cooper Turley: Not publicly. I think by the time this comes out, we'll be right around there. You know, I can say that privately, behind the scenes we're working. The first round, you know, we've had some very serious progress on it. Investors are excited about it. We're going through the whole corporate structure, but for me, this is a very different lane because it's not as simple as just investing in the safe note of a precede company. You know, there's a lot more complexity around IP ownership, around revenue sharing around. Kind of how this artist thinks about their company and what kind of rights they're giving back to people. And so it's a slower process, but it's one that's currently in motion. I expect that we'll probably have the first one announced within the next one to two months, but I can definitely say there's one in motion that I'm really excited about. And I think, you know, by the end of this calendar year, we should have that one announced. 

[00:11:37] Dan Runcie: I think part of this too is also the structure of things. You mentioned this earlier, and I think for a lot of artists it's probably. Not necessarily a new way to think about it, because I think in general, artists do think of themselves as having multiple revenue streams, but in order for this to work, in order for you to be able to make an investment, there needs to be some type of, whether it's a holding company or some type of structure in place so that you can make an investment that would touch all of these things. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like on the artist side?

 [00:12:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's a fantastic question. I wanna start by saying, This is early days and so this is the first stab at it. I think that this model will evolve and change over time. The way we're thinking about it is there's one Hold Co, that represents the artist ownership across their various income streams, uh, that hold co owns subsidiary entities, one of them being a music entity, which owns the masters in publishing for that artist. One being a live entity, which owns touring and merchandising, and then one being a Web three entity, which owns NFTs and. And so all of that wraps up into the larger hold cow. But the reasons those subsidiaries exist is because we wanna limit liability to each of those different vertical. If there's an issue across web three, we don't want that to end up touching the masters. If an artist wants to go and sign a record deal, they shouldn't have to figure out what to do with their touring or what their NFTs to be able to enter into agreement with a different party. And so we've kind of split up the different verticals into buckets that make sense relative to the type of partners and the type of work that it is. But all of that rounds back up into this holding company and when it comes time to invest in the artist, quote unquote, that artist is selling anywhere from five to 10% of that hold cow to accredited investors so that they can have exposure and pass through to those underlying revenue streams. But there's not this sort of majority ownership, creative control, et cetera. It's really, here's capital and exchange for you to go do what you do best. In exchange for that, we have exposure to these underlying entities, which represent the artist brand in its entirety.

[00:13:27] Dan Runcie: And for an investor like you, I think most people listening have a good idea of what an exit looks like for a startup, but what does an exit look like for you as an investor, for an artist, if you're going in at that seed round?

[00:13:39] Cooper Turley: I think there's a couple ways it can pan out. You know, one I think would be IP acquisition. Let's say that there's a buyout of someone's masters or publishing, et cetera. You know, there's kind of larger capital inflections that can happen later down an artist's career. I'm more excited about this idea of taking artists public cuz it's something that hasn't really been done before, but I think will happen eventually. Where right now, if you're a fan, you can't really invest or bet on an artist. I think we're starting to see us at a very granular level with music NFTs, and it's something I would love to cover as the last bucket next, but to me, I think an exit here is helping an artist really take this company that we structure for themselves and explore what it means to go public. And so rather than only accredited investors being able to buy into that five or 10%, how do you invite fans to participate in that convers. I think that there's a lot of, uh, legal nuance there that needs to be figured out. And so I don't have that answer today, but I would say that more broadly, the two ways that this could happen is a, investors are seeing a return from the IP becoming more valuable, and they're being capital injected into the whole co. Or B, more optimistically the artist, quote unquote, going public by either, you know, listing on a traditional market or what I think is more likely is creating some form of a token, which represents exposure to this entity that's been set up to represent the artist brand in the first.

[00:14:49] Dan Runcie: Got it. And then from a structure perspective, do you ever hear any type of pushback or comments from artists who feel like, oh, you're getting a slice of all these revenue deals. This feels similar to a 360 deal. Do you hear any of that at all?

[00:15:04] Cooper Turley:  Yeah, I mean, it is a 360 deal, and I think that that's really important to like zoom in on, because 360 deals have gotten a really negative rep because of the percentage ownership that they typically encompass. So traditionally with 360 deals, it's anywhere from 50 to 80. When we talk about a 360 deal in this context, it's five or 10%. And if you start to look at the way that companies take on dilution and precede and seed stage rounds, it's kind of the same concept. You know, like that company is basically taking all of their revenue into this central entity and they're selling off dilution to investors. And so I think for artists, this is particularly scary because there's been such a history of people taking advantage of 360. But I don't think the structure with 360 deals incorrect. I just think the ownership targets that those deals are typically set at is what's really predatory. And so if we can zoom out a bit and instead say, Hey, five or 10% can give you a couple hundred grand, maybe a million dollars to go invest in a team around you, there's ways for that capital to be really value added where the dilution is actually necessary and valuable because it helps you advance your artist career in a way that you simply couldn't do without it.

[00:16:04] Dan Runcie: I agree with that. I think that that's, Testament of some of the challenges with the broader major record label system as well, right? It's not that people shouldn't be willing to trade some level of ownership in exchange to get a boost from the company. It's how much ownership, it's what the terms that the actual economics look like, not the economic agreement itself.

[00:16:28] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's correct. And I think that it's something that is really important to help educate artists on. And this is the area that I'm actually most fascinated by is like artists really thinking about rights ownership, thinking about dilution, thinking about cap table management. And just with that in mind, I wanna highlight, it's a very specific type of artist that is willing to enter into this quote unquote, artists seed round. Because I think that most artists are not thinking about their brand as a ceo, but I think there are very selective artists who think about their entity as a business and for those specific artists being able to demonst. There's value in having employees. There's value in giving them long term options and equity, and having these ownership incentives be a little bit more aligned. I think traditionally music has existed in this weird ballpark where we've basically only ever sold masters in publishing. We haven't really experimented with equity or any of these other ownership vehicles that startups have been taking for the last couple generations, so I'm excited to explore it. You know, I by no means have all the answers, but I think. My time investing in precede and seed stage companies has given me a little bit of context on how things work behind the scenes, and I'm hoping that with a little time and effort, we can sort of mold those same practices and help apply them to artists more broadly.

[00:17:34] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I have to imagine too, with artists as well, there's some artists that love the mentality of being the business person themself that can be the CEO and wear multiple hats. There's other artists who I. As much as they want the business to work for them, they just wanna focus on the art. So there's specific things that you're looking for to determine, okay, is this artist gonna be wanting to be the ceo? Or maybe making sure that they are partnered with someone that may wanna be in that role instead

[00:18:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I mean, you just touched on it perfectly. I think that there's situations where artists have partners that are acting as their ceo, you know, and in many typical startups you have a ceo, a cto, a ceo, et cetera. Um, the artist isn't the only person that's responsible for their success. They're obviously the largest player in that. But it's less about, is this artist capable of being a ceo? It's more about is this artist capable of building a team around them that can. In tandem as a unit and as an organization. And if that artist is uncapable of operating as the CEO, because they're phenomenal at making music, it's very likely that there may be a manager, an agent, a business partner, et cetera, that could step into that role. And I think the biggest thing that I'm excited about is to realign incentives around the service providers around an artist. So whether that be a manager, an agent, a business manager, a lawyer, et cetera. Typically, all these actors are just operating on commission, you know, and they have five or 10 clients because there's no guarantee that they'll be with that artist in 10 years time. You know, these contracts aren't really a center aligned for those key players. But if we can instead start to create an instrument where a managers may be able to take a salary and then have equity that's vested over four years, I think there will be more situations where artists would be willing to enter into a full-time quote unquote agreement with their manager, because that a manager is now incentive aligned to actually spend all their time developing one. Instead of needing to commission off of five or 10 different artists just to be able to make a living.

[00:19:24] Dan Runcie: It's a huge point because there's so many managers I've talked to that just talk about how thankless that job is, and that's purely just from how they're treated, not even getting to the economic aspect. You start thinking about the economics about how managers are treated and yeah, maybe you'll get 10 to 15 to 20%, but if that artist levels up and then they wanna level up their manager too, they can just be like, Hey, sorry, I wanna move on. And you, the person that brought them from zero to 40. Now you have nothing. Right?

[00:19:54] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, it happens time and time again from smaller artists to the biggest acts in the world. I mean, I don't have to name names here, but I think we all know examples of this happening time and time. And it's really just a game of incentive alignment. You know? And when I think about the term web three, to me that means ownership. And so for all of these different deals that I'm doing, it's about how do you create ownership incentives so that everyone who's contributing value to this entity is able to capture that in some way, shape, or form. And so I think it's a very difficult conversation to tell a manager, Hey, instead of taking a 15 or a 20% commission, you're gonna get a base salary and then have a couple equity percentage points that best over multiple years. But when you start to zoom out a bit, you start to see like, hey, maybe 1% of equity can actually be more valuable than 20% commission. Because if you're operating a multi-million or multi-billion dollar business, you know that's a life-changing amount of money. And so I don't expect this is something that's gonna happen in the short term. I think it's gonna take a very new class of partners, managers, agents, et cetera, that are willing to enter into these type of. Situations and these type of organizations. But I'm very excited to work with the emerging class of talent that's willing to try something out a little bit differently because I think that new class of talent is looking for an opportunity here. And I think that we've seen time and time again that the systems that exist today work, but I think that there's a lot of room for improvement and I'm excited to use some of the artists that we're working with help push the needle on what that could like. 

[00:21:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think the other point that you mentioned too, was aligned as well, just in terms of artists being able to have that team around them. We've seen so many examples where whether it's Jay-Z, having someone like a Dame Dash next to him, or you have Jay Cole and e Bama, they've been working together for years. Kate, uh, Kendrick Lamar, and the whole Top Dog team. These artists are doing it themselves, and oftentimes the ones that try to get stuck, so no different then. Yeah, a startup, if you're trying to raise money, they're gonna push back. If you have the technical co-founder being the same one that's trying to go raise money, right? Like you need to have some expansion there. So I think so much of that makes sense. I do wanna talk about the other piece that you mentioned though, the NFT piece of it, because the way that you're investing in these, I think could be eyeopening to some of the folks listening because you're looking. And I heard you referred to historic NFT opportunities and NFTs as collectables. Can you talk a little bit about what you're looking for if you're investing in NFTs through this fund and how that may separate from what a lot of people may assume when they think about an nft. 

[00:22:18] Cooper Turley: Yeah, so there's a really amazing market of songs that are being released as collectibles right now. You know, there's platforms like Sound xyz, where every day an artist is releasing a song with 25 editions as NFTs. And I've been really active across these markets for the course of the last two years. Personally, you know, biggest collector on Sound today, one of the biggest collectors on catalog. And I'm really excited about being able to collect these early songs from artists that are building in Web three. You know, the analog I'd make here. Music, rookie cards. You know, we have rookie cards for basketball players, for baseball players, et cetera. We don't really have rookie cards for artists, and I think in a lot of ways these early music NFTs are sort of the equivalent of an artist rookie card. And so personally, I've been doing this for the last couple years. I recently just put out a post called the Music NFT Collector Thesis. This is how we're thinking about collecting from the fund. But to really break it down, we're thinking about how do we sort of acquire early NFTs that represent historical relevance of this. Web three and Music NFTs have been around for maybe a year at this point. I think that there's a huge opportunity for fans to start getting involved by collecting the songs that they love and for the fund. I almost look at music NFTs as the new form of like masters and publishing. You know, it's not quite one to one, but there's almost this new market being formed of Tradeable assets that you can buy for something like 50 bucks when it drops, and then hopefully have the ability to resell at a later. And I think for the fund, you know, us being able to participate in these markets and say, Hey, we are aware of what's happening on the ground floor with the next generation of developing artists, we're actively collecting these songs that we can show that were there from them, beyond needing to set up a company and needing to do some crazy type of investment situation. And I'm really excited about the opportunity just to have. Ownership over some of these really early collectibles, cuz I think they're very historic in the development of these artists' careers and I believe they're extremely valuable and will continue to demonstrate. So in the years to come. 

[00:24:03] Dan Runcie: You brought up an interesting point just about how you feel like NFTs could replace what we are naturally thinking about masters in publishing. I guess in terms of how artists are monetizing and what their ownership looks like. Can you talk a little bit more about that and specifically how that could look or what that could look like? Years down the road.

[00:24:23] Cooper Turley: I mean, I'll start by saying that, um, masters in publishing are extremely valuable. You know, I think that this is a system that has worked for generations. There's a huge trend around catalog acquisition. I think that will continue to exist for many, many years to come. I think for someone like myself, me trying to get in the catalog acquisition game is not a smart move. You know, there's a lot of players with a lot more experience. There's a lot of people with a lot more money. The one unique advantage that I do have though, is developing thesises within this small pocket of web three artists, and the best way to get exposure to them is to simply buy their nf. You know the way that this looks is if there's the first song an artist ever released their artist rookie card, and there's 25 additions of that being sold for 50 bucks. If you zoom out and one of these artists becomes the Weekend, Drake Post Malone, Jack Harla, whatever it might be, there's a very high likelihood that those early additions are gonna be worth a lot more than $50. And so instead of trying to invest in the masters in publishing rights, those songs can also go on Spotify. They can stream extremely well. You can have relationships with major label. But I believe those early collectibles have a market of their own. These markets are not tied to any sort of royalty rights because it's just collectibles. You know, there's 25 additions of this digital vinyl. I can buy it for $50 and then sell it for whatever price I want in the future. And I think this is a market that not many people are paying attention to right now. But I think when it comes to new and creative revenue streams for artists, I think that collectibles are gonna be a very, very big market in the years to come. I think it's the most clear way that fans can start to get involved with sort of, Collectible nature of getting involved with an artist and as a fun, I think we're really excited to be participating here to say, Hey, we're really excited about this. I think there's some really amazing plays out there right now, and we're gonna continue to support artists on the ground floor to help develop this thesis. 

[00:25:59] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that a lot of people aren't paying attention? Or what do you think some of the, if there's friction or if there is just in a bit of a natural adoption curve, like what do you think's going.

[00:26:12] Cooper Turley: It's just new. I mean, this entire market has only been around for a little bit more than a year at this point. You know, in total, I think we have less than a thousand artists that have ever minted a music NFT before. There's probably less than 10,000 people ever collected one before, and so. Relatively speaking, it's just a very new and small market. And I think for a lot of players that have bigger fish to fry, it's probably not worth their time to invest buying records for $50 because they have multimillion dollar record deals in place. You know, and so for someone like myself, um, a lot of what I do is help educate artists that there's a lot of value to be captured in web through right now based on how early it is. You know, I think that there's a lot of unlearning that can be done with the way artists are releasing music in Web three. And so traditionally, when you're putting out a song on Spotify, most artists I know here in. They'll take eight weeks in advance to think about what distributor am I gonna put this out through? Am I gonna sign this to a label? What's my advance? What's my marketing rollout? What's my TikTok campaign? How am I getting pre saves? How am I making the music video? And what I've been preaching is like, Hey, if you have a song, you should put that out tomorrow. You know, like there's people out there that would probably wanna collect that record. And if you can 5 25 people to come and collect music in FT for 0.05 E, they're basically $75. That's the equivalent of half a million streams. And so I think trying to teach people that you don't need to have this giant rollout process to make this headline moment with music. We've gotten really conditioned to trying to shoot for the new Music Friday playlist. You know, all of these emerging editorial playlists. One of the beautiful things about the SoundCloud era was people were just uploading music in real time and if you had your finger on the trigger, you could go and just repost something and be part of a wider movement. And I think what's happening with music and FTS now is artists are gonna start to see that you don't need to have a six week rollout to put out a collection of 25 songs. If you make that song on Wednesday and put it out on Thursday, you can immediately get funding from your biggest fans and use that funding to go and market the rest of your career and instead be able to obviscate the need for a lot of those major capital advances that typically get artists caught up in a weird position in the first place.

[00:29:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like if the funding's in place and you can replace early on, because I think for a lot of artists, the economics don't really work out either. Unless A, you own the underlying masters in publishing to begin, so you're just bringing on a. You know, revenue per stream or just general from what you're getting from streaming or on the other side, you're just massive, like Drake or someone like that. And your billions of streams per year brings in plenty of money. But for a lot of other artists, it ends up being either A, a loss leader if you're focusing solely on streaming or a, or you're leaving money on the table some type of way. So I feel like that approach is something that makes sense for a bunch of. On the investing side though, I have a few questions on this, but the first one, on the investing side though, how do you feel like the appetite will be for, let's say an artist does have early investors, the likelihood for those investors to be folks who are accredited, folks that just wanna be able to get a return, versus people who are actual fans of that artist. Any thoughts on what that mix may look like for the average artist that's going through the web? Growth cycle and the rep do growth curve?

[00:30:19] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, I can speak on this from the artist seed round that we're doing right now. Every investor in that round has been an active collector of this artist for many, many months. Prior to that, they all have personal relationships with the artist. You know, they may be an accredited investor, but they're not just bringing capital. They've been active and supportive of this artist's career way before the seed round even started. And so I think if we zoom out, there will definitely be situations. Investors just want to put in a couple hundred grand and not really worry about getting involved on the ground floor. But given how early it is right now, most of the investors who are interested in participating in these capital markets are ones who want exposure to both NFTs and to the artist equity. And so I think that over time, collectors to me are a little bit closer to like early investors. Think about them like almost angels or sort of like seed round investors. Over time, collectors will start to mirror more fan behavior. But I think for right now, a lot of the collectors I know, they're just excited to get exposure to an artist's career and to go and support them more so than they are to really go to their show or to buy their merchandise, et cetera. And I think that's where a lot of the pushback comes for web through music is like, oh, these people aren't actually fans. They're just, you know, buying NFTs. But if you zoom into what that means, it's almost a different form of fandom where they're providing capital to be able to have exposure to an artist's career. And their expectations are a lot less on the fan side. I need you to collaborate with this artist. I want you to put out this type of music. It's more so like, Hey, we just wanna support you and your career however we can. Because the more that you're able to identify your vision and create a brand around it, the more valuable our NFTs are going to become. And so it's a very mutual relationship I think hasn't really existed in music in the past.

[00:31:50] Dan Runcie: You're really getting at this aspect of community and how artists can foster that, how they can build around them. We've seen the power of that in the SoundCloud era, so we've seen a lot of these things happening and what streaming in general has enabled to happen. What are some of the success stories that stand out to you when you're thinking about artists to be like, oh yeah, they've nailed community, or they're nailing community, like that's how you do it.

[00:32:13] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I would say a couple artists to check out. Daniel Allen, I think has done a fantastic job of this in the web three space. Latasha who started something called Zora Topia has done a fantastic job at this Early nft. Artists like Matt Cha os. Grady bloody white. I mean, the list goes on and on, but basically you see. The small pocket of artists that are really making web through a centerpiece for their career, and they're leveraging that into creating more community conversation. Where typically all these artists have a collector chat where once you've bought a music nft, you can get into a private chat with that artist. It's typically 20 people, 25 people, and that artist is in there every day saying like, Hey, what do you guys think about this demo? Hey, I'm thinking about dropping a song next week. Which one do you like more? What do you think I should do for the supply? Do you think we should do an airdrop? And that conversation is a lot more interactive. And I think in a lot of ways artists have typically maintained separation from their fans to kind of uphold this like form of mystery and this like storytelling aspect. But what I'm seeing now is that collectors are getting really close to the artists that they know and love, and those artists are realizing that for a very specific demographic of their audience, they can be very value added, asked the right questions. And so instead of just doing a meet and greet or doing like, you know, 50 people standing in line to say hi, back to back for an hour and a half, it's like, hey, if we wanna have a valuable conversation about the future of my career, These other people that I can turn to, cause I know they have exposure to my brand and they actually typically have experience That's very valuable and it's something that I think is gonna happen more and more with the next generation of collectors to come.

[00:33:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a good way to just think about the framing of it, right? Meet and greets can be great, but it's so transactional. It is really isn't an opportunity. And it kind of has a bit of this like hierarchical thing. Like, oh, I paid $500 extra at this concert to like take a picture with you. Versus no, like if you've really been with this person, then how can you help shape that in the same way that someone that was really early on can? So I feel like there's so many principles there and there's so much that aligns with, especially on the financial side. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the marketing side of it, because I know that's a piece that a lot of artists have had questions about, but I also think that we've seen from. Project specifically with Web three projects like outside of music where whether it is the creator themselves who's been able to market or get the word out effectively, or they've been able to just find ways to build their distribution themselves. What are some of the ways that you've seen artists who've been successful on the Web three Path have been able to replicate, or at least make up for some of the marketing that they would get from a major record label, but otherwise they're recreating on their own.

[00:34:47] Cooper Turley: I think it starts from the story, you know, like first of all, what is the music that you're releasing and what is the story behind that? But more importantly, like what is the narrative with how you're using the technology? And so almost fusing together like the creative side with the tech side, you know, whether this be something as simple as like creating your own artist website where people are mentioning s from, or it's something like, hey, we're using on chain splits to reward and compensate. 15 different contributors, five of which didn't touch the music, but were helpful in the development or the project management or the visual assets, et cetera. You know, I think there's new creative channels to help bring more people into the table, but I would say generally Twitter is kind of the main resource for all web three artists. You know, the ones that I see doing really well are typically putting out tweet storms, talking a lot about the drops that they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they're doing it. I see a lot of artists doing these sort of collector chats and more private investor relationships. If they have a bigger release coming out, it's not only about posting the tweetstorm, it's also about going and finding time to talk to some of your bigger collectors one on one and being like, Hey, what do you think about this? How can I get you involved? What are some feedback you would have on this drop? Are you excited or not excited? And I think typically with music, traditionally, how it's released, Artist makes a song, they have their internal team, and then they put it out to the world. And when it's out to the world, everyone forms an opinion on it. With Web three music, a lot of the time, there's a lot more happening behind the scenes before the release actually comes out, so that when it is time for one of these releases to happen, you start to see these things sell out because there was a lot of work put into the record before it came out, and that's not untraditional from typical music, but I think the difference there. Active conversations with your collectors is very new. You know, typically it's like people around a table at a major label that are talking about like, how are we gonna market on TikTok? But this is different because it's going and having very direct conversations with the people that are supporting you the most. And in aggregate that sort of. Neural net of all these different people talking about your drop in tandem. It creates this sort of network effect where when it does come out, there's almost a rippling effect that helps to make the drop become more successful. And I think that's something that I'm seeing being replicated time and time again.

[00:36:44]  Dan Runcie: And I know that, as you mentioned, Twitter has been a great space for artists to be able to share things. There's so much. There's so many people in the one three community that are active there, and I think have added to a lot of the discussion and narrative around it. But as someone who's active on Twitter myself, I know how small sometimes those circles can feel. What other platforms or what other areas are you seeing some of these conversations happen, and how long do you think until we're starting to see it not just becoming necessarily a Twitter thing, but it is expanding to more platforms and it's becoming a bit more of. Early majority, at least being able to catch on.

[00:37:22] Cooper Turley: I think it'll be Twitter for the foreseeable future. You know, I think that's just where the vast majority of Web three people live. And I think it's actually the one social platform where you can talk about Web three and not get ridiculed for it. You know, I think across nft, TikTok, et cetera, it's very taboo to talk about NFTs, and I don't think that those users are really as tapped into sort of like the valuable aspects of Web three. And so I think for the immediate future, let's call it the next one to two. Twitter, I think is gonna be the source for all of that. And to your point, some of these communities do feel very small, but I think that's actually one of the biggest differences with Web three. You know, I think with traditional marketing platforms, we optimize for impressions, we optimize for plays, for eyeballs, et cetera. On Twitter, if you have 50 people that are consistently showing up to each of your drop, you're doing an amazing job. You know, I think that this is the biggest thing that shows why Web three is valuable is you don't need to have a million monthly listeners to make a couple thousand bucks. If you have 25 people that are willing to come and support you, you can make the same amount of money and have a deeper relationships with those individuals. And so I always say to artists, Even if you're only getting three, five reactions on your tweets every single time, that's very impressive because the benchmark to move the needle and Web three is a lot lower because every individual person is much more active and the quality of those conversations is much higher than what you could expect from a TikTok, Instagram, et cetera.

[00:38:36] Dan Runcie: And I think in general, like with those platforms, you're more likely to reach people who are just casually following or passively engaging versus whether if you're already in that audience that's Twitter, you're likely reaching a more active fan base to begin with. And it gets to this whole concept of where can you not just reach followers, but reach people who are actual fans of their music? And a lot of the platforms that have grown tremendously large in the past few. Are much more overindexed on followers and less overindexed or or under indexed rather on true fans.

[00:39:08] Cooper Turley: Yeah. And so there's still a lot to be done there. You know, I do believe there's a world in which artists that are using Web three and music NFTs become viral acts that have fans in the traditional sense. I try not to like focus on that too much because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get there. I think that will happen, but I don't think it's healthy to think. What that looks like today, because frankly, we're just far away from it, you know? And I think for me, helping an artist get a thousand collectors is much more important to me than how do they get 10 million streams on Spotify? You know, if the ladder happens, that's great. But I think the former's actually a lot harder to do because it's a much smaller design space. But, you know, I think there's something really exciting there. And a lot of the work that I do as a collector is really just educating fans on like, why would I wanna collect music? Like, why would I wanna participate on the other side of these? I think from the surface, a lot of bands got really bad experiences with NFTs because artists were just selling random drops that didn't really have any merit to them. They didn't actually care about the output. They were just kind of doing something to be cool at the time. But now what I'm starting to see is that these emerging artists, they really care about their NFTs. They care about them just as much, if not more, than their release strategy on Spotify. And for those demographic of artists. If you are a fan that's looking to sort of develop a brand for yourself around. I believe that this web through music space is a great opportunity to do so. And what we're now seeing is a very small group of music collectors who are building their entire Twitter brand around collecting drops on sound, or writing newsletters or writing mirror posts, et cetera. And I think those are the type of people that I want to try and amplify in Spotlight because it's a very much two-sided marketplace here. And in order for these artists to be successful, you also need to have collectors that are willing to be active in these markets and see success from the music they're collecting as well. 

[00:40:42] Dan Runcie: This is one thing that I keep in mind. More broad trends about like what's happening in music, but I also keep it in mind with artists and creators who are trying to expand beyond the folks that they're naturally reaching. Because if you're only going to try to focus on the people that you naturally reach on a regular basis, it, it can work. And I do think that it's kind of like shifting a bit of the psychology, because I think so much of us have been conditioned to just focus. Who is the next person you're gonna reach? What is your customer acquisition cost? It's not just artists, it's the whole industry that's thinking about it this way, but you can build a sustainable business if you are just focused on the pub shot reach. I know it's a bit of that thousand true fans mentality applied to web three, but I think that there's plenty of nuances there. And sometimes it could be less than that. Sometimes it could be more than that. But I think there's some really unique things. One thing. Interested to hear your thoughts on though is just with artists specifically and fans and just the nature of that relationship and whether or not the tokenization of their relationship changes anything. Right. Because I feel like with fans, there's a lot of this conception that because they don't feel like there's nothing that's like financially tying them to them, maybe that brings up, you know, a different relationship than they would if they do feel actually, you know, financially tied to the. Is there any downsides or is there anything that you think of in terms of how that broader tokenization of the relationship changes any of that dynamic or expectations?

[00:42:21] Cooper Turley: I definitely think there's downsides, and I think there's a lot of pressure that comes with it. You know, I think for artists that are selling nfts, you need to think about new mechanisms. Like, what is my floor price? What is my volume? Is this asset trading above what I sold it for in the first place? That's a lot of pressure, you know, and that takes a lot of time to get right. I think that over time people are gonna recognize. Collector is getting mad about floor prices. The same as a fan being mad about the type of song that you're releasing, where that's just kind of the name of the game. You know, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it's not like there needs to be a huge reliance on that. I think the one thing the artists need to focus on is actually being consistent with what they're putting out in releasing. If you're giving it your best effort and you're doing things to add value back to early collections, to be able to engage with your community and doing things that show that you're being intentional, that to me matters a lot more than like, what is the price of the tokens themselves, because I think over. We need to recognize that not all fans are the same, and it's not like all music is only gonna exist as NFTs. What's gonna happen is that all these songs are gonna be available on Spotify. If I'm a passive fan, I can go and just listen to that song. There's no expectation for me to ever have a financial relationship with that artist. But the new unlock here is if I wanna go deeper on that relationship. This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, and I believe many others do. I can now collect something that represents a limited version of that song. And for other people that are excited about that artist's career. Not only can we share on our Instagram story, we can now go into a private collector's chat and say, Hey, I was able to pick up this sold out drop. I was able to pick up one of their early rookie cards, and I think what we start to see is that the fan base gets a little bit more. It's delineated across different verticals where there's some vans who are just showing up to a concert, you know, all the time. I go into GA at a show and I'm like, how do I get these people to buy music and FT use? And the reality is most of them probably never will because they just wanna go and have a good time. They wanna party and forget about their nine to five job. And that's perfectly fine. But I think for the small subset of people who are really passionate about music, those active listeners being able to answer into these more deeper relationships, it's really gonna empower curation in a very new way. And I think the analog I would make here, Sites like Height Machine really drove the success of SoundCloud in a very massive way. You know, there was a demographic of curators who were saying, Hey, we love this type of music. There was all these different blogs, like This song is sick, you know, all these EDM blogs, pigeons and planes, et cetera. They were adding cultural zeitgeist to these songs. And I think the financialization of these assets is not only gonna incentivize people to wanna curate and write about these different article. It's actually gonna give them the means to sustain themselves on the back of doing so. Or if I'm a curator who's really successful at identifying talent, I don't need to go work for a major label as an a and r because I can simply spin up a newsletter on sub stack, go and look at the drop calendar on sound, xyz, and then the event that I'm able to really identify. Successful drops, I can actually start to make a living on the back of my taste. I think that's something that hasn't really existed before and something that I'm personally really excited to see happen more and more in the industry at large.

[00:45:08] Dan Runcie: That last piece is huge because it makes me think back to the blog era, especially at hip hop with just. How popular it was when, whether it was sites like Two Dope Boys or Now, right. And their influence on being able to have a mix tape that they're putting out. They're putting their stamp for approval. They're the media channel that's sharing the tape, that's being released from Dap Piff and being like, Hey, here is this new kid Cutty record that you need to listen to a kid named Cutty. You know, this is the mix tape. Check it out. Or the cool kids, or Charles Hamilton or whoever, one of these artists, The difference though, is that even though the artists in the blog era and the people who ran these websites in the blog era were so influential, and I think at a time they even had more influence than the major record labels did. They didn't capture the upside. They created the culture. They created the influence, but they didn't capture the upside. This allows that to happen in a way. The next version of Two Dope Boys could essentially be the one to, like you said, they could start up a newsletter, they could be able to release this and be like, Hey, I'm the one that is putting this investment in and then this is gonna stay there from here on out. That's something that's really special. And to be honest, I don't feel like there's enough discussion around that. So I'm glad you brought that point up.

[00:46:26]  Cooper Turley: Absolutely. And I think the one, the one thing I wanna zoom in on there, That doesn't require the artists to sell any of their masters. You know, them putting out 25 editions of a collectible song that a curator can go and buy and then help spread the word about within their pockets. There's no conversation around like, what percentage master publishing does this curator now have? Do I need to bring them into my creative decision, et cetera. It's a new market that now exists on the back of taste and curation, and I think in a lot of ways, music NFTs get pushed back cause they say, oh, you don't actually own the rights. Why do these things have value in the first place? I'm a big believer that community has a lot of value to it. You know, I don't think that art needs utility or needs IP ownership or Masters or publishing to be valuable. I think these curators are able to tell very compelling stories about the impact that music has and being able to add a new market into the equation through music and fts, it really unlocks a new mechanism for artist fandom that I think is very simple to understand. I don't think the average fan will be able. Rationalize what a master or a publishing right looks like. But I think they can understand what a rookie card or what a limited edition of songs looks like. And so I'm very excited to watch these markets mature. And I think that ties back into why the fund is collecting music, NFTs, cuz we believe that. More people are going to be able to understand what it means to own a collectible than they are going to know what it means to own masters or publishing. And so you sort of have these two different sides of the equation. I think they can both work in T and in unison with one another to make the aggregate music market more valuable as a whole.

[00:47:51] Dan Runcie: And I think your fun will be a, a test to see how well that works. So, It'll, it'll be, it'll be fascinating. I feel like the structures make sense. You have each day, each piece of it there. I'll be very interested to see what the returns end up being like for each of those categories. Right. Of course, you know, most of the fund is looking at your precede and seed stage music and web three startups, so I assume that it's naturally gonna be what the expectations would be for any young startup. But I'm very interested to see what those expected multiples or the exits will be for the NFTs and then, The artists seed round investments themselves. 

[00:48:26] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. I will say that the vast majority of the fund is going into web three companies, but time and time again, people get really excited about this idea of investing in artists. Again, do not have the answers whatsoever, but. I'm noticing people are really excited about that ballpark. So I'm excited to at least start that trend with this first fund here and in the future. I'm hoping that we can create playbooks for many artists who don't even use nft, use their web three to also start to enter in these agreements as well. But you know, I'm really excited about it. You know, like I said, I've been in music for 10 years, crypto for the last five. I feel like this fund is a great way for me to really fuse those two passions together. And it's a very small market right now, but if you made it this far in the episode, I hope that this is something of interest to you and I would love to keep the conversation going if you have more.

[00:49:06] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Before we wrap things up and let you go, one of the quotes you had mentioned, you referenced this earlier, the conversation too, that we're not at the point in Music Web three, where Drake is gonna come through and drop an album or a Bieber or a Post Malone or one of those artists. If you had to pick a year that you think that will happen though, what year would you pick?

[00:49:26] Cooper Turley: Uh, 2025. Okay. And I think what's gonna happen is that a lot of the biggest artists in the world will just happen to have NFTs under the hood. You know, I don't think it's gonna be like one of those major superstars doing their first drop as NFTs. I think there's like a developing culture of artists right now that are gonna really gain a lot of momentum over the next couple of years. And when they release that major album, you're gonna look back and see that their first songs actually happen to be minted as the collection of 25. A lot of major artists are really excited about this. You know, I spend a lot of my time talking to artists who are currently signed to deals that are saying, Hey, I wanna drop, but I can't because the major label doesn't let me. And I think what's gonna happen is that major labels are gonna wake up to how valuable these early collections can be. And instead of blocking their artists from doing these drops in the first place, they're gonna start to really ramp up and get engaged with them too. So instead of just like, how do we put this album out on Spotify? It's gonna be, how do we develop a relationship with these platforms and onboard our catalog into the. So the biggest thing that I see as a question mark for web three is do we recreate the same systems of Volt? You know, is there going to be a world in which the major labels are just driving the vast majority of NFT sales? I think you're already seeing early examples of this like Warner's partnership with Open Sea, and one thing that I think is really important for us to recognize is that artist independence is very, very valuable. You know, I think that artists owning their own rights and knowing how to run their own companies and run their own business is extremely valuable. And so I'm hopeful that there's a world in. Artists can coexist with labels in a more free form matter. You know, I'm hoping that there's a world where artists can upstream their most viral song to a label, but still retain the rest of their catalog. But I think what's gonna happen over the next year or two is there's going to be. A shuffling of different power dynamics from artists to label relationships. And I think the most forward thinking labels are gonna recognize that it's okay to give up a little bit of control so that an artist can run their business more properly. And if you have 20% of the biggest artists in the world, that's probably more valuable than having 80% of someone who's not really doing much with their career. And so I'm eager and excited to see what those relationships look like and hopefully try and, you know, form some of those early stage relationships along the way.

[00:51:41] Dan Runcie: But it's to your point, yeah, they would rather have 20% of that than 80% of the field at this point, so, mm-hmm. , I think we'll see more of that and actually we'll see more of that, not just involving multimedia, but involv. More merging technology. So yeah, it's only a matter of time. 2025 is earlier than I thought you were gonna say, but things move quick, so we'll keep the, we'll keep an eye out for it.Cool. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. This is great.

[00:52:07] Cooper Turley: Thank you, man. I just wanna say, I really appreciate this podcast because you're so well versed when it comes to both the music side, the tech side, and the financial side. I think that it's, Um, difficult for me to find pockets to really talk about the financialization of music. You know, there's a lot of pushback that comes from it, but you know, the way you structured this conversation I think really gives a clear picture of why I'm excited about more of the financialization of music. I think it gives a lot of credence to emerging artists and sort of the way I'm thinking about collecting. So really appreciate you making this happen. I think it was a fantastic episode. I'm excited to share with all my friends.

[00:52:37] Dan Runcie: Likewise, no. These are the conversations that need to happen, right? The more that people can talk about it, the more it just gets in the open and the faster things get to where it should be.So thank you for making the time. This is great. 

[00:52:49] Cooper Turley: Yeah. The last thing I'll say here in closing, I write a weekly newsletter called This Week in Music, NFTs. If you're interested in any of this conversation,

every Monday I publish a short edition that talks about upcoming drops, top stories, bonus read from the community. So if you're looking to get more involved in the web three space, that's where I'd recommend getting started. And then if you are a founder or an artist that's building something and looking for investment, the best place to reach me is via email coop Coop records xyz. But again, thank you so much for having me, man. This was a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate your time.

[00:53:18] Dan Runcie: Thank you. And if you're not following him on Twitter and you reactive on Twitter, make sure you do that. What's your Twitter handle?

[00:53:23] Cooper Turley: Twitter is at kooopatroopa. Good stuff. Thanks man. Thanks for having me.

Today's episode is a two-parter. Part 1 is on Spotify and YouTube’s billion streams and views playlists. After reviewing both lists, there’s a lot to learn about the streaming era and the strategy for both platforms respectively. I broke it all down with Tati Cirsiano, a music analyst at MIDiA Research.

Spotify’s list is more reflective of passive consumption. Spotify’s top-performing songs are more correlated with radio hits than YouTube, which is a more active consumption experience.

YouTube’s Billion Views Club has more international stars than Spotify. With streaming continuing to grow across the world and plateauing in the United States, YouTube’s list more reflects future music consumption. 

Part 2 is with Glenn Peoples from Billboard. We talk about its new Global Music Index that takes the publicly traded stocks from the biggest music companies in music to give an overall picture of stock performance for the industry. 

Here’s everything Tati, Glenn, and I covered on the show:

[3:03] Immediate takeaways from each Billions Club playlists

[5:15] How “meme traffic” impacted both platforms

[9:37] Passive consumption vs. active consumption

[12:11] International differences between Spotify and YouTube

[14:57] The Justin Bieber conundrum 

[16:36] How Spotify and YouTube enable fragmentation of fandom

[21:26] Gym-going and seasonality’s impact on streaming numbers

[26:14] Short-form videos eventual effect on YouTube streaming

[27:55] YouTube vs. Spotify competition intensifying 

[35:58] MIDiA’s upcoming predictions report

[38:33] What % of the Global Music index Spotify takes up

[39:23] Why music industry stocks fell further than the overall market

[46:25] Streaming platforms increasing prices

[50:22] What goes into calculating Average Revenue Per User for Spotify

[55:23] Spotify’s podcast strategy & acquisitions

[59:18] How much of Trapital’s audience comes from Spotify

[1:02:53] Why TikTok should launch it’s own streaming service

[1:09:39] What Glenn expects 2023 to look like

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Tati Cirisano, @tatianacirisano, Glenn Peoples, @theglennpeoples

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Tatiana Cirisano: Spotify's list is more of an accurate reflection of what the passive majority listens to, whereas YouTube is more of a reflection of what people are actively fans of and actively engaging, which is interesting because that was a question that we asked in our last episode where we were like, how do we measure, like, what are new ways to measure consumption? And I said, well, it'd be interesting if we could actually measure, you know, active consumption versus passive. And now here I'm looking at these two lists, I was like, oh, this is actually potentially an example of that.

[00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is a two-parter. We normally don't do two-parters, but these topics were so closely linked, it made perfect sense, so we had to do it. The first part of this episode is a conversation I had with Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research, and we talked about the Billions Clubs. Spotify and YouTube both have their respective playlists that have over a billion streams and views respectively. So we talked about what can we learn from both of these playlists together. What does it tell us about the most popular songs that do well on streaming, but also what can it tell us about these two platforms individually? What are the differences between the two playlists? Are there certain songs that perform better on others versus that and why? And what that means more broadly for the sector, Just given how big these companies are. Second part of the conversation, I talked to Glen Peoples who works for Billboard, and he recently released this Global Music Index, which is a value-based index that takes the publicly traded stocks from many of the biggest companies in music, combines them, and gives us an overall picture of how we can look at the performance of the music industry, at least in the publicly traded companies. Hint, it's been a down year for stocks overall, so nothing too surprising there. But we talk specifically about Spotify, who stock is noticeably in a tougher place, at least from, where it was year to date compared to some of the other companies. So we talked about why that is, what to expect, and more. Really great conversations. Let's start things off with Tati. Hope you enjoy it. 

[00:02:31] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Tati Cirisano back with us from MIDiA Research and we're going to dive into the Billions playlists that are both from Spotify and YouTube. What a fascinating list that's like a tripped-out memory lane, telling you what songs are popular, but also how these lists are different. I feel like they both have somewhere between like 3 to 400 songs, but there's a whole bunch of different trends here. I know that we both have a bunch of notes here, but Tati, I'll start with you. What stuck out to you most when you were looking through these lists? 

[00:03:03] Tatiana Cirisano: Oh my gosh. So there's so many things. I guess I'll start with the things that stuck out to me that don't have to do with differences, but just stuck out to me in terms of just looking at both. And one was that I felt like there was definitely a dominance of songs and artists from the last decade and maybe even just the last five years, which was interesting to me because there's been such a debate recently about is old music or what we call catalog, which is often not actually old music. But is it sort of cannibalizing new music? Does new music have more to compete with? And that whole argument. So it was interesting to see that there actually weren't that many or weren't relatively as many older songs. I believe the YouTube Billion Views Club had, like, one song from the 70s. It makes more sense with YouTube. And I think YouTube had even more dominance with more recent songs. And that kind of makes sense because if it's visual-based, maybe some of these songs we don't have the music videos, or maybe they're not as good. But I thought that that was interesting just off the bat from both ways. 

[00:04:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I would agree. I think that YouTube's list did trend much younger, and there's a whole MTV effect of just what music videos look like then and now. But I also feel like what's important is with both Spotify and YouTube, that when these platforms accelerated in growth, a lot of the artists that were releasing music around those times accelerated and growth too. And I feel like I saw some trends there. If I think about YouTube and its rapid growth phase more so in the early 2010s. There were a few songs there that I saw, whether it was like a party rock anthem or songs like that, that streamed really well on YouTube. Still nowhere near a billion streams on Spotify. And I think on the flip side of that, on Spotify, there were a few songs that were in that late 2010s era when Spotify was in its rapid growth phase that weren't on YouTube's playlist. So that was one of those interesting things. Like, for example, I think Drake's song Nice for What, a billion streams on Spotify. It's in the Billions Club, but it wasn't on YouTube's list. And I remember that music video, I think it's at the skating rink and he has, like, Issa Rae and all these people in it. So there was definitely some influence of the platforms too. 

[00:05:15] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. And that reminds me, too, of with the influence of platforms, it felt like, there were, so okay on both platforms. I felt like there were a lot of songs that were driven by, like, a viral hit or a novelty, which kind of just goes to show how embedded music has become in, like, meme culture and social media and just like online culture in general. But it also, like, looking at the differences within that, it felt like, this is like, I mean, you'd need to do more of a real, like, study and look at the actual numbers on this, but just from scrolling over the list, it seemed like, more of the TikTok traffic is going to Spotify. Like, there were a lot of songs that had a billion streams that I just remember being moments on TikTok, like Dreams and the Roses, Imanbek remix, like those songs and many others had passed a billion streams on Spotify, but had not cracked the YouTube list. And then on the flip side, YouTube had a lot of stuff that was more, like, just these, memes about, I'm trying to think of an example, like the Dame tu Cosita song and video, like that. There were actually an abundance of songs on the Billion Views Club for YouTube that were linked to these videos, including Crazy Frog. 

[00:06:24] Dan Runcie: I saw that. 

[00:06:25] Tatiana Cirisano: It like that was just, like, that was a moment in time in meme culture that kind of preceded TikTok humor. I don't know, like you can almost track meme culture's impact based on these two platforms lists as well with TikTok driving more traffic to Spotify and sort of the old, almost like Vine humor going more to YouTube. 

[00:06:45] Dan Runcie: That point makes me think of two things I also saw as well. So I believe the first YouTube video that hit a billion streams was Psy's Gangnam Style. I don't think that song has a billion streams or anywhere close to that on Spotify's list, which I think speaks to your point about just the visual nature of that. And that of course is a pre-TikTok era. The other song I think that lines up with this a bit, and this is because of memes within the music video itself is Nelly and Kelly Rowland's Dilemma music video. That is the most popular YouTube video that Nelly has, and I'm pretty sure that Kelly Rowland likely has too. And it's because of this one scene in the music video where Kelly is texting on this 2002's phone and she has Microsoft Excel open, and that's what she's actually using to text. So they're both, you know, generating money. And Kelly was even talking about an interview semi-recently talking about, I didn't even know what Microsoft Excel was. They just told me to type. But over time, and now we obviously have a different relationship with texting. That type of event can blow up on YouTube in a way that not necessarily going to Spotify. 

[00:07:54] Tatiana Cirisano: Right. Like, there's an inherent difference in just what you're going to do on these platforms. Like, there's a number of reasons why you might look up a music video on YouTube. Maybe you like the song, maybe there's a celebrity cameo, maybe somebody told you that. It's a crazy, wild video and you're just curious. Like, there's a lot more reasons I think than there are reasons why you would stream a song. So that just by definition kind of opens up a lot of differences in these lists. 

[00:08:18] Dan Runcie: The other thing, too, that you mentioned earlier was the decades and how YouTube's list only had one song that I think that was before 1980 and there was only a handful even from the 80s and the 90s as well. And while Spotify had a bit more, I still think it was quite less. Last time I looked at Spotify's list, it was less than 10% of the 300-plus songs that were more than 20 years old. And I have to assume YouTube may be even closer to 94-96%. Part of that, I think, as you mentioned, is music videos, but I also wonder is part of it with Spotify having a bit more of a close link to radio play and just things that were popular on the radio at the time. Like for instance, a song like Goo Goo Doll's, Iris, that was on Spotify's list is not on YouTube's list. I don't necessarily think the song had like a memorable music video necessarily, but I think it's the audio of it, it makes people think of, you know, what was that movie that it was in? I'm trying to remember the movie that it was in. It'll come to me, but there was some 90s movie that was in, I'm drawing a blank on it right now. Oh, City of Angels. So it was in that, and then, but I just don't think that people, like, recognized the music video they would like, it wasn't necessarily this big, like TRL hit the way that like a boy band song was. 

[00:09:37] Tatiana Cirisano: I noticed the same thing where looking over Spotify's list, it felt very much like just a list of every radio hit of the past 10 or 20 years that it was really, really tied to that. And I wonder, like, this kind of brings me to another thing that I wanted to talk to you about with this, which is how my sort of theory with another reason that these are different is that Spotify's list is more of an accurate reflection of what the passive majority listens to, whereas YouTube is more of a reflection of what people are actively fans of and actively engaging, which is interesting because that was a question that we asked in our last episode where we were like, how do we measure, like, what are new ways to measure consumption? And I said, well, it'd be interesting if we could actually measure, you know, active consumption versus passive. And now here I'm looking at these two lists, I was like, oh, this is actually potentially an example of that. And the other reason that came to me is because at MIDiA, we've recently done a report on looking at different types of entertainment and how much of consumption is in the background of another activity versus focused. And YouTube, like, people that watch music videos on YouTube are much more likely to be doing that as a focused activity in the foreground rather than something in the background, which makes sense because it's visual, there's, you know, social features to it, et cetera whereas they're a lot more likely to just put on their Spotify music in the background of something else. So I wonder if that's also part of the reason that Spotify seems to have more of a tie to radio and those songs that were just kind of popular for everyone whereas YouTube is more what are the songs and artists and videos that people are like engaging with.

[00:11:09] Dan Runcie: That's a good point. It makes me think, well, on the YouTube side, I'm much more likely to listen to a YouTube playlist run, right? Like, I normally don't do that when I'm watching YouTube. I know YouTube has playlist, but I'm more likely to put a Spotify playlist on, which speaks to that. And I know some of the stuff that you've researched and the team has researched on MIDiA as well, is just this whole nature of probably a bit more on the digital stream provider side, but how to measure active versus passive engagement of, or actually listening to a song. And maybe this is a closer way to get a gauge for that because, you know, especially when these artists have these big week sales that'll come out and we'll see the numbers come through, it would be great to know, okay, how many people said yes, I want to listen to this Taylor Swift song from the Midnights album as opposed to people being like, oh, it just happened to be what's dominating today's top hits or if I'm listening to, you know, the number 50 or the top 50 songs in the US. These are the ones that happen to play. 

[00:12:11] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, yeah. That makes total sense. And I think the other reason why Spotify's list probably is more tied to radio is because it's a lot more, like the user base is less international than YouTube 'cause that was the biggest difference, looking at the two lists was just how few internet, like non-Western artists there were on Spotify's Billions Club versus YouTube's. 

[00:12:36] Dan Runcie: That stuck out too. And I think YouTube as well also had a list of artists that had the most Billion Views Club songs were and artists like Ozuna were high up on that list. I want to say he had at least 10 videos on YouTube that hit a billion. But on Spotify, it's far less. I think J Balvin was another one too, where there was a big discrepancy there. And yeah, I think the fact that YouTube has had much more of a market share and in general listenership in these regions outside of, you know, US and Western Europe as opposed to YouTube. So maybe part of that, where it's a signal of like, okay, this is where Spotify's clearly trying to grow and has been trying to get more share in. So, like, if Spotify achieved its goal, then it likely would have more of that and vice versa.

[00:13:28] Tatiana Cirisano: Right. And then it is YouTube's sort of a more accurate representation of, like, what the music landscape of the future looks like in that way where it will be less dominated probably by Western artists. As you know, streaming sort of infiltrates all these other places. And that is so interesting for, like, the fragmentation conversation that we've been having because it means things are just further fractured and, you know, there's going to be lots of artists and songs on these lists that we've probably never heard of. Like, it was so interesting to me because part of the, like, excitement that I had to do this little project of, like, opening the two and comparing them was, I was excited to be surprised. I was like, I want to see what things are on the list that I'm like, I have never heard of that. Or what is that? How did that end up here? And I did not have that moment once looking at Spotify's playlist. But looking at YouTube's, there were so many videos and so many artists that I just had never heard of, and that was exciting to me. So I wonder how much that's a product of YouTube specifically versus that being what will happen inevitably when streaming is more widespread.

[00:14:34] Dan Runcie: And were most of the surprises that you had, were most of them from an international perspective, or were there any Western-based music surprises? 

[00:14:43] Tatiana Cirisano: That's a good question. There were definitely a handful of Western ones that I can't think of right now, but the majority were probably just artists I'd never heard of or songs, yeah, artists I didn't know anything about that had billions and billions of views. Yeah, I don't know. Let me think about that. 

[00:14:57] Dan Runcie: Yeah. While you're thinking about that, one thing that stuck out to me was there were certain artists that I think surprised me both in a way of, oh, I thought there would've been more here, or there were actually a bit less here. One artist is Justin Bieber. So I know that Justin Bieber is very popular, but if you would've asked me who were the biggest artists of the 2010s, I probably would name four names, maybe even five names before I named his name. But if you look at, even if you're just looking at Western artists, the artist that is the one with the most songs on Spotify and the one that I believe has the most songs on YouTube as well, Justin Bieber is in the top three of both of those lists. I believe it's at least nine songs on Spotify and at least maybe 10 or so on YouTube. And there's something about that fandom that I didn't necessarily, I mean, I knew that he was huge. I knew that there were so many songs that were quite popular, especially the album that had, like, Sorry, and Love Yourself. Like, that one was huge, but I thought that there were other artists, like for instance, an artist like Beyoncé or even someone like Taylor Swift, who, I don't believe that Beyoncé had a song on the YouTube list at all, or a song that's really close to that. And at least up to now, I don't think that Taylor Swift has a song on Spotify's Billions List. I think that Blank Space will probably get there eventually, but I don't think she has a song this moment that's on that list. So to see the two of them who I think a lot of people largely think are two of the largest musicians in of the past decade, but to see someone like Bieber just have hit after hit on both of these lists, I was like, wow.

[00:16:36]

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iana Cirisano:

That's so interesting, the Justin Bieber conundrum of all of this. Okay, I have a couple of thoughts on that. I think, so he was sort of Made on YouTube, right? That's where he started posting clips. That's where he was discovered. And I think something else that this ties into that I wanted to bring up is how, with YouTube, the artists that reach these Billion Views Club, I think probably are more likely to have sort of built a community on YouTube which Justin Bieber did, and that was kind of like the roots of his fandom. So when I was reading YouTube's, like, blog about the Billion Views Club, and there were a bunch of artists' quotes, and a lot of them had to do with the artist saying, you know, like, YouTube was a place to build a community. And Alan Walker was one of the artists who said that. And he was someone who, he's an electronic music artist who when I was looking at the YouTube Billions Views Club, he came up again and again and I was like, it seemed random to me because he's a great artist. He has a big community of fans, but I just didn't think that he would have billions of views. But he seems to credit the community aspect for that. So I think that could be part of it. But then as soon as you said, oh but he's also one of the top artists on Spotify, I'm like, okay, but that's a completely different story because there's no community building on Spotify. So is it just that the fans are, that obsessed with the music that they're, you know, maybe migrating over and streaming there as well, or are we just misremembering, you know, how big of an impact Justin Bieber had? And then that brought me to thinking about how, I mean I think this relates to Taylor as well, but they both built their fan bases at a time when things were just kind of a lot less congested. So I think it was in many ways, easier to get a billion views or billion streams on something a couple of years ago than it is now, now that people's tastes are so fragmented. So maybe that's also part of the reason why, like, I wonder how many of those streams came from, you know, pre-2015 or something versus from then on. I wonder when they were accumulated. So yeah, that's sort of my rant of thoughts. 

[00:18:41] Dan Runcie: That one about Bieber is a good one because I didn't think about that, but I think it's absolutely right. He was doing all those cover songs of all these other artists when he's like a teenager. He's growing the base there. And to the point that you had brought up in an article a couple of months ago, we talked about the last time we're on the podcast, he is in a different category than someone like a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Like, when Taylor made Teardrops On My G uitar. I don't even like, that was probably around the same time that YouTube started. Like in some ways her fandom predated so much of what people know as music. And of course, Beyonce became a solo artist from Destiny's Child well before YouTube even started. So I think that's a good point there with some of it. The Spotify thing though is interesting, yeah. I mean, I think those songs did get a lot of radio play as well. Like everything off of that album, that Bieber's album that Sorry came on as well. Like, they got a ton of radio plays. So that ties into the Spotify piece of it, too, and maybe a little bit of misremembering of certain things of, well, and you know, like I'm a little bit older than the custom Bieber demo, so there could be some of it there where they may not hit me in the same circles that, the same way that, you know, someone did with Beyoncé for instance.

[00:19:53]

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iana Cirisano:

Yeah. I have another thought related to this that I feel like I'm struggling to articulate, but I'm going to try, which is that on the Spotify list and the YouTube list, I thought there was more overlap when it came to which older artists were on the list than there was when it comes to newer artists. And I wonder if that is also sort of further proof of this fragmentation that's happening because it would make sense that if a decade ago, two decades ago, people kind of had less to choose from to listen to. Everybody kind of has the same favorite artists from those decades that they've listened to enough to reach a billion streams. Yet now that people have more choice and things are fragmented more, their favorite artists and songs today are more varied. 

[00:20:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think there's something there because if you think about it, the lists are quite similar. And I think even if you look at YouTube's list, which I think even though YouTube's list is less reliant on radio, the biggest songs they have from the 80s and 90s are still the same songs that people have heard in bars and in stadiums and in TV commercials for decades now. So there's consistency there. Things do start to get a bit segmented to your point of where things are right now. So both of these platforms, in many ways enable the fragmentation of fandom. Their algorithms made it easy for people to have their own circles. So I do think that that piece of it is true. So I think that's a good point. 

[00:21:18] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I could put that into words 'cause it was one of those things where I had this thought and was like, does this make sense? 

[00:21:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

[00:21:25] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Fascinating.

[00:21:26] Dan Runcie: Another thing too, that stuck out, this stuck out a bit more on Spotify's playlist than others, but how certain songs have shifted from when radio, for instance, was more playing songs that I think people more often wanted to hear in their cars. But Spotify, it's on-demand, it's everywhere. I think, for instance, workout music is something that we've seen a pretty large uptick on with Spotify. A song like Eminem's Till I Collapse, which is in the billions playlist for Spotify, I don't think I heard that song once on the radio. Maybe I'm misremembering things just relative to how big Eminem's hits were in the early 2000s. But that song is one of his most played songs. And I think it's because it's a song that a lot of guys listen to when they want to work out. Maybe it's something that they also will play, like, I don't think they to like LA Fitness necessarily like on the speakers, but I think it's more so of like a, no, let me go listen to this while I try to, you know, set PR on the bench press or whatever. So I feel like there's things like that, also seasonal music, right? Of course, just Mariah Carey and some of the records and accolades that All I Want For Christmas Is You has continued to reach and all of the remixes and versions she's done of that song, like that doesn't happen without streaming, right?

[00:22:41] Tatiana Cirisano: I was going to say September was also on there, which, you know, every September everybody starts to sing. That is a seasonal song. So, yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And I also noticed that both lists had a lot of, like, upbeat music, like what you're saying, like stuff that people work out to. And I feel like it's for different reasons. Like I'm Spotify, maybe those types of songs dominate because like you're saying, they're the things that people put on in the background of something. Whereas on YouTube, the reason might be because those tend to have more vibrant videos. Like, I feel like more people are likely to watch videos for, you know, an upbeat reggaeton song than like some acoustic, I don't know, Taylor Swift song, even though she's a massive star. Like, overall, you know? And on that note, I don't know if this is just my, you know, anecdotal takeaway, you'd have to, again, like actually go through all the songs and do some data crunching. But I felt like Spotify had actually more varied in terms of like upbeat songs were on there. But also a lot of, Coldplay, a lot of like earlier Ed Sheeran, like, those more like, not so upbeat, more acoustic songs, whereas YouTube barely had any of those because again, I think there may be less likely to be something people watch the video of. I don't know. But that was interesting just how uptempo the two lists were. 

[00:23:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I would need to go back and check to see if like a song like Coldplay's Yellow. Is that on YouTube's list? 

[00:24:08] Tatiana Cirisano: It's on Spotify's, but I don't think it's on Youtube's.

[00:24:10] Dan Runcie: And that would speak to that, right? It's a more somber video. I'm pretty sure Chris Martin's head is laying like sideways on the pavement in that video, right, or on the bed, if I remember correctly. So yeah, it's just not going to be as, I think, yes. Like, if you have five minutes, like, this is the thing that I want to be able to get to. So yeah, it's such a fascinating distinction. And I think with it, it's clear that with both of these platforms, the two of them are really trying to compete more and more with each other, with both Spotify trying to get more and more international, YouTube trying to have more and more influence just in terms of the overall revenue that they generate for the industry. So I do want to talk about the two of them as companies distinctly, but before we get there, I think that the international piece and just how revenue is generated for each of these streams or each of these views will be an interesting distinction over time because, especially with Spotify, these streams that the artists are generating don't necessarily get weighted the same in terms of the pro rata and the pools that they get put into and then getting separated. So if one artist has a bunch of streams from a bunch of their fans, but a lot of their fans are in places where the subscriptions cost $2 per month to subscribe to Spotify, or there's a over index of free accounts versus paid, like these numbers don't necessarily reflect that, which is fine. I think we're just trying to get a gauge for what listening looks like. But the revenue may actually look very different for, let's say, thinking about like one of these, you know, 80s or 90s radio hits. The person that's listening to that account may be more likely to be paying 10 or maybe soon $11 a month for Spotify subscription if I'm just thinking about what that consumer may be like and therefore essentially getting more revenue per stream than some of the newer artists that may have a younger aboard international fan base. So that was another point that I thought was interesting. We won't have that data, but just based on inference, I feel like that's a trend in terms of where it's going. 

[00:26:14] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, that makes sense. And I also wonder, like, if short form video becomes the more dominant form of consuming video, and the people that are watching music videos on YouTube shift to watching 32nd videos that use music on shorts, like, what will that do to the revenue mix? And it'll also depend on if the way that UGC platforms payout to the music industry changes where it's no longer this, you know, blanket payment for uses and is more per use. I think there's a lot that could get shifted around there. And I wonder if, like, does that mean YouTube is sort of cannibalizing its own, one of its own sources where people that are watching music videos are now going to shorts instead? Or is there an opportunity? Like, I think there's an opportunity for both. But I guess these are just questions that come up in my mind when I think about it. 

[00:27:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's like in some ways it's similar to when Instagram adds stories, right? You're trying to get a sense, is this additive or is this going to take away, And I think YouTube's goal is that would be additive, but you're bringing up, I think, a valid thing where it's a little different with music and how you're registering streams. And I do think that there's a certain number of people that the better and better that shorts get, there's going to be less desire to go check out the actual video. And if these songs aren't registering, I think at least for a stream or a view, it's 30 seconds of listening needs to be registered, at least to be counted as a stream. Then if that doesn't happen on a short end, you're just getting these clips, then how does that impact the actual artist themselves, right? 

[00:27:47] Tatiana Cirisano: No, you put it really well. Like, the better that shorts gets, the more it might actually threaten people going to YouTube to watch the video.

[00:27:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So many interesting, I think, things to just dive into with this. But I think it's a good point to just talk more broadly about Spotify and YouTube in general, just in terms of where they are, how both of them want the other one. And I think based on these blog posts and based on a number of the letters that, the emails that you'll see from Lyor Cohen when he's describing where things are with YouTube. There's clearly a goal to, you know, establish itself as the leader in the market. And I think the growth has been pretty strong, but of course Spotify, I think still with nearly 200 million paid subscribers is definitely, you know, I think leading on that front. But where do you see this play out in terms of whether or not the trends and clearly what these playlists tell us about the tendencies of these two companies and also where things are going and who we think will be more or less dominant, let's say five years from now? Let's not say 10 years. I think that's a bit too far out, but let's say five years from now. 

[00:28:51] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Well, I've written about this, I've written a couple of blogs about this, but I think that YouTube does have a lot of advantages, especially for just where the music landscape is going. So one is that, in the streaming world, there's so little differentiation, right? All the DSPs kind of offer the same experience, the same catalog, the same price. But YouTube actually has a differentiating factor in that it's an audio-visual platform, and that they also have shorts, and they kind of have this ecosystem of apps that feed into each other. And that's sort of the second advantage, is that ecosystem aspect where, you know, based on our data, new generations of fans are really looking for more ways to actively participate in fandom and, you know, not just listen to a song, but create content around it. And YouTube has that it has this, you know, creator proposition. In many ways, YouTube was the first, arguably the first, you know, creator platform. The first place that you could post video content online and build a career around it. So, fans want this, but also artists need more ways to directly engage with their fans and monetize and actually not just be discovered, but sustain fandom and build communities. And that's the thing that I think so many social platforms lack, is they can help artists get discovered, but it's still really hard for them to connect the dots. So when you have YouTube, if you think about like the journey of, a fan through the ecosystem, you know, maybe they discover a song on shorts, and they can actually just click it and go straight, you know, go straight to the artist's YouTube page where maybe they watch the video that just came out and then they can go to YouTube music and stream the song, and it kind of creates this more frictionless experience. So I think we're already seeing a lot of consumers spend more of their music time on platforms that let them play around with the music, like the TikToks of the world and the shorts of the world. So if you have an ecosystem that combines that with streaming and the ability to just go seamlessly from one to the other, I think that's really powerful. And that's also why, you know, ByteDance launching a streaming service could really change the game. I think ByteDance and YouTube have a lot of the same advantages in that space. So I think YouTube is well positioned for the current era and what both artists are looking for and what fans are looking for, I guess is how I would frame that.

[00:31:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that YouTube's biggest advantage with this is that A, it still is under a much larger company that prints money from search, which is Google, right? So the fact that it in itself is the second largest search engine, largely because of Google, I think that piece of it will serve well. And I think secondly, the fact that when there's so many more things competing for your attention, whatever can make that have less friction, it can make it easier for people to access that platform as we've seen based on the rise of TikTok, I think those platforms do tend to win out in this area where you're ultimately trying to either capture or monetize attention. And the way that streaming is going, even though I know it can be lucrative for artists that own their assets or have favorable terms, it is a bit more of a measure of capturing attention for a lot of artists and being able to essentially market and position themselves out there to share what they have so that they can monetize elsewhere. And I do think that, I know I've talked about this previously, but just Spotify may be in a little bit more of a difficult position just given the fact that its ultimate goal is still to try to get more monetization from its non-music audio, whether it's your podcast or your audiobooks and stuff like that.

[00:32:41] Dan Runcie: And I think that is a little bit of a tougher bet relative to YouTube, China. going with shorts and essentially try to compete more directly with TikTok or just other things in general that are making it easier. That said, I still think that Spotify is more strong from a product perspective of actually being able to, you know, ease of use of listening, being able to find and skip to the song, and being able to listen to a song on my phone you know, turning off the screen and then putting it in my pocket. And I know that YouTube does now allow you essentially to do that if you pay for subscription, but I think the friction, at least in the consumer's mind, is a little different than it is with doing that with Spotify, even because you do that with Spotify for free account especially. So I do think that there are some pros and cons there, but to your point, I do think that because YouTube is moving more in the direction of creating less friction for people to use its product and just the fact that it's visual, it's engaged, and to your other point, it's a bit more directly connected to fans being able to actively choose what they want to listen to, like the data and all those things are going to be more impactful and insightful there.

[00:33:48] Tatiana Cirisano: Right, Right. So I think artists will kind of go to wherever the fans and the remuneration opportunities are, and I think YouTube is right now, providing more of that than Spotify is. Like, Spotify is a place where you can monetize scale, but you can't monetize niche. And YouTube is an ecosystem where you can monetize both. And I think there's no reason why streaming services in general shouldn't be a place where you can monetize both. But we haven't really seen that happen yet, and I think YouTube is moving in that direction. So I guess I come at this question because of the work that I do from such a perspective of what do the artists and the fans want. But of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that alone isn't going to, you know, make YouTube overtake Spotify. So I guess I'm a little bit biased just based on the work that I do. 

[00:34:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I could see that. Because there's just so many other, there's just so many factors at play here. It's such a dominant position and at the end of the day, nearly 200 million people in the world are paying for the service and that is much higher than a lot of these other services. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out though. I feel like to some of the points you brought up earlier. Just going back to the Billions Club, if we had this conversation two years from now, I'd be interested to see, one, which old songs creep back up and which songs that have come up recently end up rising up and hitting those places, and does it line up with a lot of the points that we brought up here? So I'm excited to see what that looks like. 

[00:35:15] Tatiana Cirisano: No, me too. And also what the pace will be like? Will there be just way more songs that have hit a billion streams in a shorter amount of time, or will the opposite trend happen because of fragmentation? Like, I'm not, I'm not really sure. So yeah, as always, excited to see definitely what comes next. 

[00:35:30] Dan Runcie: Well, Tati, this is great. Thanks for coming to share these insights. And I think now I got to go back and count how many Crazy Frog videos there were on YouTube's list because when I saw that, I'm glad you brought that up. I was just like, my goodness, I forgot all about this trend. 

[00:35:45] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, at least in that ratio, you know, we have confirmed YouTube wins. 

[00:35:49] Dan Runcie: All right. Before we let you go, what do you have coming down the pipeline? Are there any upcoming research or any recent things that you've put out that listeners should keep an eye out for?

[00:35:58] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I would say coming up one of my favorite things that we do at MIDiA Research is our predictions report where every year, at the end of the year, we put out predictions for the coming year. And we also rate ourselves in terms of how much we got right from the past year. I believe our success rate is somewhere above 80%.

[00:36:16] Dan Runcie: That's legit. 

[00:36:17] Tatiana Cirisano: That's great. But yeah, so we always do I believe we always do a free webinar on that. It was free last year. So look out for that because it's a great chance to interact with us even if you're not a client. And it's a lot of fun. 

[00:36:30] Dan Runcie: Awesome, we'll look out for that and, yeah.

[00:36:33] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah.

[00:36:33] Dan Runcie: We'll have to see. I'm curious about what the hit rate will be this year. So definitely let us know what the success rate is...

[00:36:39] Tatiana Cirisano: We will.

[00:36:40] Dan Runcie: from the ones you made last year, heading into this year. 

[00:36:42] Tatiana Cirisano: Awesome. Thanks, Dan. 

[00:36:43] Dan Runcie: Awesome. Well, thank you. This is great. 

[00:36:45] Dan Runcie: All right. Hope you enjoyed that first part with Tati breaking down the Billions Clubs. Here's my chat with Glenn Peoples.

[00:36:53] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Glenn Peoples with us who is from Billboard, and he just released this Global Music Index, which has stated that music stocks are down 44% this year, twice as much as the market. And Glenn, it'd be great to start here. What's going on? Why are socks down in the music industry?

[00:37:13] Glenn Peoples: Hey, thanks for having me. Well, stocks are down in general. So it's not that just music that's having a tough time at the stock market. You know, a big component of the Global Music Index, which I created for Billboard is Spotify. And Spotify has had a tough year, just like Netflix has had a tough year. There's, I think, enthusiasm for streaming stocks was high at the beginning of the pandemic and dropped quite a bit since then. And investors are not looking at growth so much as looking at margins, looking at profits, and so they're expecting a lot more from streaming services right now. So it's a tough time to be a streaming service, whether you're Netflix, whether you're Spotify. You could say, well, the investors got carried away. They were overvalued. Yeah, maybe so. It's just been a tough year for streaming services and when Spotify is that big of a component of the index, it's down, well, as of yesterday, it's down 60% for the year. And so that's a lot of market cap that's gone and that's dragging down the index. And that's the short version. 

[00:38:17] Dan Runcie: Right. So of course, it's a value-based index. Market cap is what defines it. And just so listeners know, how big of a factor is Spotify? Like, how much is their stock and their market cap weighted in terms of the overall index?

[00:38:33] Glenn Peoples: I would say it's probably, again, this is just ballpark. It's probably about 15% of the value of the index. It was a lot more obviously. I would say right now at its current price, it's 10 to 15%. Universal Music Group is the biggest component of the index, and there's some other companies just a handful that really stand out above everybody else. Live Nation, Warner Music Group, Sirius XM are some of the big ones. 

[00:39:02] Dan Runcie: The thing that stuck out to me about it is that, of course, Spotify stock is a huge piece of it, but even if you were to take out Spotify, the non-Spotify stocks in that index still are down more than the overall market has been this past year. So it also makes me think that there may be something going on that's a bit deeper than just streaming. 

[00:39:23] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, it's not just streaming. You know, a lot of music companies had a great 2021 and I think that they just had further to fall. So there were some really high valuations and it just sets these companies up for a pretty big fall when investor sentiment turns and the market turns. And ever since the Fed announced in, I believe, December, that it was going to start raising interest rates. You know, stocks have started to fall and Spotify definitely started to fall then. And it's been a long, what is that, roughly 10 months since then. Things have calmed down a bit, but stocks are, boy, they're really having a tough time. It's really volatile a lot there. I think there's two ways to look at it. One is what's the value of the stock? What's the value of the company as valued by investors? And what's the potential of the company based on the company itself and the intellectual property it has? And those two don't always line up. You know, Spotify I still think is a very good company. I think it has a lot of work to do, but it's growing at a good clip and I think they have good people there. But when you are a streaming stock and you're facing really a once-in-a-generation kind of environment with very bad inflation you know, crazy, I was about to say unemployment, but unemployment is not that bad. It's just a very strange time in the market and a very strange macroeconomic climate. And you're seeing good companies have very difficult times with their stock prices. You know, Universal Music Group is down. But the market is down overall and Universal's not going to escape the just general downturn of the market. That's saying something because Universal is the biggest music company out there holding up market share very well has a big share of the top 10, any given time, big artists. But you can't correlate stock market performance with company performance just perfectly. It's a very strange time in the macroeconomic climate right now. 

[00:41:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The interesting thing with the major record label stocks, and even some of these other companies that, yeah, even though they may not be streaming services themselves, when streaming makes up such a high percentage of the overall revenue for this entire industry, then Spotify's stock is in many ways going to be at least somewhat correlated to what we see with Universal given the fact that these companies have equity in each other, they're so dependent on each other, so a lot of that is given. You mentioned Live Nation earlier, and I think that their stock is interesting, too, because even though it isn't directly tied to streaming, that stock had hit record highs in the middle of the pandemic when there were no shows going on. So that just spoke to how much of a disconnect there was if you looked at how the company was actually doing in 2020 and even in 2021 when there were nowhere near as many shows as they had had in 2019, but they now are actually being able to realize more of that revenue. But the stock has adjusted in a lot of ways since. So there is a bit of this disconnect. I think there was just a good amount of excitement as well about what's happening in music as an investment class. Specifically, you looked at all of the catalog sales and the booms that happen thanks to the low-interest rates, and they're no longer low anymore. So you're also seeing that play a factor in, and you've also heard some of the acquirers of those catalogs expressing a bit of disappointment that the returns aren't quite what they thought the returns were going to be as well. So some of those things, I think, Brought some of the temperament and a lot of the companies that are in your index down to, I don't want to say necessarily down to earth, because I think there's still plenty of room for growth for a lot of them, but it's clear that we've moved past that era of the pandemic when things were just high for the pure speculation of where it could be in a few years.

[00:43:15] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think the honeymoon is over for a lot of music stocks. You know, music as an asset class was really attractive. And, you know, look, just the fact that Universal is public and Warner is public once again, and there are numerous streaming services from Tencent Music and Cloud Music in China to Anghami and Spotify and Deezer. There's a lot of music companies that are publicly traded right now and that says a lot about music as an asset, as a segment, set aside the problems it's had in the last year. So music companies had a great 2020 and 2021, and it's been downhill since then. But the fact that there are a lot of publicly traded music companies right now, and so much investor interest in music catalogs like you mentioned, I think says a lot about music as an asset class, music as an investment in general. Look, five years ago, how many publicly traded music companies were there? I mean, Spotify has been public for about five years. Pandora was before it was bought by Sirius. You know, but you didn't have Tencent, you didn't have Cloud Music, you didn't have Anghami, you didn't have Deezer, you didn't have Reservoir Media, or Believe. Warner was private. Universal was private. So the fact that Wall Street has taken a liking to music, I think says a lot despite what the stock prices say right now. 

[00:44:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. The fact that this wasn't even possible, just shows what's happened. And a lot of companies, even outside of music, are starting to have money at least level back off now that the pandemic is over, now that the quarantine highs for a lot of these stocks are over. I'm interested to see where did things go from here, because I still believe that there's a ton of potential in each of these companies if the expectations and if the investors expectations of the market are where they need to be. I still think that music is a hot and a popular asset class, especially for investors. But is it 30 x value? Is it 30 x multiples for some of these catalogs that just bring 'em to certain valuations, or does it need to be more level? Because I do think that there's still plenty of value if those multiples and a lot of those things are where they should be. And even thinking about whether it's live entertainment or streaming in general, I think there's still plenty of room for growth. There's still a lot of opportunities there, but it's just being able to get a clear idea on, what is the actual TAM? What is the actual total addressable market for these areas? And I think if anything, you saw that challenge happen with a lot of the discourse around Netflix and what the future is there, you started to saw things drop right around they had, you know, around 220 million subscribers. I think Spotify was likely asking similar questions, too, and I still think there's growth, you know, for the right price there's always going to be something, but what that price would be and how many people are willing to pay for it, knowing that, of course, if it's a paid product, you're not going to hit all 8 billion people in the world. But there is some actual number out there. So I think the more clarity that there is on that, and of course that's part of the game to figure that out, but the closer that you can get to what that actually is, the more that investors can make sound decisions. 

[00:46:25] Glenn Peoples: Yeah. You know, as we're talking now, there's a lot going on. We're a couple of hours away from Spotify releasing third-quarter earnings, which will, I'm not sure how much that'll say, look, that's backward-looking, but the company will take the opportunity to talk about a lot of things investors and analysts are curious about. Yesterday Apple announced it was raising prices for Apple Music and Apple TV Plus, and the Apple bundle. And YouTube premium prices went up as well, I believe, for the family plan only. And what do we see today? What we see Universal shares went up almost 12% and closed. They're trading the Netherlands, so that's already closed. In the middle of the day, Warner Music was up 7% to 8% at its best. Believe was up. Hipgnosis shares were up about, and those closed, that trades in London. That closed up about 8% I think. So investors, I think, get the news that they've really been waiting for, that prices are finally going to go up. You know, Netflix has raised prices. Pricing in streaming video on demand is a lot more flexible than it is for music and music prices have barely budged in over a decade, and executives have been saying for months and for years that prices will go up. But they haven't. 

[00:47:45] Dan Runcie: Why do think it took this long? 

[00:47:47] Glenn Peoples: Well, I think, companies were much more concerned about growing the market than maximizing revenue per customer. Is it more important to get the customer in the door or to charge more per customers is the question, and I think that they've been much more concerned about building the customer base and building relationships. And then at some point, it's a timing issue. When do you raise price? When can you do it without turning people off? And I think what we see these days with inflation is what it is, is companies might feel a little more emboldened to just raise price and think they can get away with it. Name one price that's not up in the last year. Except music streaming, it seems like everything else is up. And so somebody had to be, you know, first to do it and YouTube and Apple did it, which could embolden Spotify to do it finally. And I think my impression of Universal's shares going up almost 12% is that they think Spotify's going to raise prices as well. That doesn't seem like a bump just from Apple. That seems like a bump from broad price increases across the board.

[00:48:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I would agree. I think that it's going to happen and the reason why I think it probably hasn't happened until this point I was talking to Will Page about this, who is a former chief economist at Spotify. And his perspective on it was that the difference, and it was mine as well, the difference between why a company like Netflix would continue to increase prices but Spotify hasn't a bit in line with the type of content that you're getting. In a lot of ways, Spotify and Apple are offering a lot of the same thing. Sure. I know Spotify has its podcasting, Apple has its podcasting and non-music audio, and we'll talk about that in a second. But I think when they're all offering the same thing, then there's a bit more pressure to try to offer price discounts and bundles and stuff like that as opposed to Netflix or some of those companies offering differentiated content. So you're more buying into something that you're going to get on Netflix that you can't get on Hulu or on Disney Plus, or on HBO Max or one of the other services. So I feel like there's a factor of it there. And I remember a few years ago there was some tests about it and some discussions where in Europe they were exploring what. 12.99 would look like, or maybe it was 13.99. But I didn't hear anything necessarily come definitive from that. Maybe it was 11.99, but there was some price increase that they were exploring in Europe. So it feels like it's inevitable that Spotify will join in and yeah, if your price is going to increase 10%, then your stock price will likely increase around 10% as well.

[00:50:22] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, that makes sense. Most people look at how much revenue a company takes in every month. ARPU, average revenue per user, Spotify considers a metric lifetime value. And so it's not focused solely on price. Price plays into lifetime value, but so does churn rate, and the family plan is something that is reduced churn rate. As churn goes down, lifetime value goes up. I mean, for a subscription business, what you don't want are people coming in and out and churning in and churning out and taking time off or just leaving the subscription service for good. So if you cut down churn rate, the value goes up, and that's more value to creators. That's more value to publishers, to record labels, and to Spotify without raising price. If you can work on lifetime value without having to raise price, that might be the low-hanging fruit that you do in the meantime before you consider raising prices. And now it appears like everybody's to the point where they say, okay, now we can raise prices.

[00:51:22] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. I think the fact that we're here says a lot. So we'll continue to see, and I'm sure that the next price increase after this probably won't take this long if this is the one that got us here. The thing with Spotify though, is I'm sure we'll see what investors feel more broadly about the company's strategy because non-music, audio and podcasting specifically has been part of its big bet on how it can have better margins, how it can just essentially make more money and have something that they can continue to grow. But there's been a lot of pushback. There's been a lot of canceled shows and studios, and some of that's standard for the industry. But some of it also feels like there's more and more question marks on, okay, they've spent billions on this. Is this going to work? Is this going to take off the way that they expect it to? What's your current take on the future outlook for Spotify's non-music audio strategy? 

[00:52:16] Glenn Peoples: I think it's a good strategy. You build up a platform starting with music. You attract hundreds of thousands of users and then you turn it into an audio platform that's not just music and you introduce spoken word content. I think it's going to take quite a few years. So I think expecting changes, you know, we're only two years into some of their acquisitions for podcast studios and for platforms such as Megaphone. I know investors might not want to wait five years, but it's going to take a while. And, you know, long-term Spotify thinks that they can get some pretty good margins out of podcasts, margins that exceed what they get from music. They think that they can get the math when I look at audiobook margins, they bought an audiobook distributor called Findaway. And I think as retailer and distributor, Spotify gets about 60% of sales. Audiobook download margins are pretty good and that's about double what they're going to get for music. How much business is out there for audiobooks? Yeah, I mean, right now probably not that much, but over time I'm sure they can build it into something much more considerable. And, you know, if it's 60% gross margin, that's really good. You're not going to get that in music. You can build a platform based on music, but then eventually you got to go looking elsewhere for margins. And so I think it can work out for Spotify, it's just going to take a while and some people might not have much patience. I get that. But it's going to take a while. 

[00:53:41] Dan Runcie: It's something I've thought a lot about because I understand that podcasting itself is something where the audience takes time to build. You want to be able to see these shows grow over time. But I also think that so much of their biggest growth has come from acquiring shows that are already popular. And I know they've made big acquisitions, whether as with Gimlet or with The Ringer, or they have the exclusive deal with, or the licensing deal with Joe Rogan. But how many others of those are out there that they haven't necessarily had? Are there going to be more in-house ones that can build up? Because I feel like one of the challenges I've seen with the strategy is that they've had a lot of money spent on getting these big-name celebrities to then have shows where they have other big-name celebrities as guests and things like that. And a lot of that is antithetical to what's made so much of podcasting be effective for a lot of folks. And sometimes it works well, but a lot of times it doesn't. And it's content. You do have to make some bets, but I'm interested to see how many more of those wins that are going to be out there for them, because that's the piece that at least gives you some bump 'cause at least we've seen the numbers and successes from the popular acquisitions, the shows that they've had. It's the in-house development where I think by nature there is a natural, whether it's just the likelihood of success of you're starting anything new, not everything is going to take off, but the real success metric will be, okay, two, three years from now, we're there Spotify originals that are at the top of the charts and are creating and demanding that audience the same way that some of these other shows, whether it's outside of the network or some of the ones that they've acquired are able to do?

[00:55:23] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, it looks to me like they have kind of a three-prong attack where they spend mightily for somebody like Joe Rogan and that's not going to last forever. That licensing deal will be up, I don't know, maybe next year. And what do they renew or do they go spend a lot of money on somebody else? I mean, Joe Rogan brings 'em a lot of a lot of listeners I'd wager. So they have a very small number of really big shows, and then they have a lot of in-house shows with Parcast, The Ringer, Gimlet, and they can go acquire some other ones. And then they have a lot of DIY stuff. And then you get into the long tail. And this is where I think there's a lot of potential to monetize listening just like there would be in music. They bought a platform called Anchor. That's a podcast creation and distribution. Megaphone rather, is more the distribution tool. And so they have the infrastructure in place to let people create shows, distribute shows, and now they can monetize those shows. Now, do advertisers want to monetize or advertise against, you know, podcasts nobody's heard of. Not sure exactly how that's going to work. You might be not getting good advertising dollars on some of the shows, but to the extent that you can monetize the long tail podcast, Spotify is building that. And if anybody can do it, it looks like they could. So it's not about Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan might have been something just to get his podcast business off the ground, a very expensive way to get his podcast business off the ground and get it noticed by listeners and noticed by advertisers. And they might not, you know, have another Rogan after that deals up. But there's a lot of stuff out there to acquire. You know, Spotify, you take a look at the top 50 or a hundred shows. Spotify is Rogan and Call Her Daddy and maybe one other one. But there's a lot of stuff out there that they could go after. But again, this is kind of the long tail and maybe the midtier stuff that would be in-house productions. I think that really is the test of how they're going to do in podcasting at scale how can they monetize the long tail of podcast? 

[00:57:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the other thing that's an advantage for them is the advertising business and being able to not just offer, but sell better data to advertisers on who's actually listening to podcasts because outside of Spotify, using podcasts downloads, or relying on some of these third-party tools to be able to tell you how well a show's actually doing is not the best way to actually determine if people are listening. There's so many shows out there that now have ghost downloads from people that we're downloading and subscribing to these shows back in 2014, 2015, 2016, that are no longer listening to those shows, but because of the metric of downloads, It's essentially an RSS feed. They don't know if you and I are actually listening to a show versus it actually being downloaded. I'm talking about more from Apple Podcasts and from other places outside of Spotify itself. Spotify's advantage is the fact that it can provide data just as precise is what it does in streaming, essentially. Are these people listening for at least 30 seconds? Are they going and listening to the middle? And I know some of this exists with Chartable and some of these other tools, but that's the advantage that Spotify has. So if you can essentially have that, offer that to your advertisers and then say, hey, this is the better data to base it on, not self-reported podcast downloads, which is a very tough metric to use if you're trying to base that purely on advertising. This is how you can ensure that you're reaching the right people. And I do think if you have enough of a catalog there and you're able to monetize enough, then in principle, you could then pull the advertisers yourself. And if you pull them, then I think that helps also attract the shows. And you can become not just the dominant platform, but the dominant platform that can monetize as well.

[00:59:08] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, well see. You have a lot of insight. You're a podcaster, so you have a lot of insight into what Spotify's doing. As a podcaster, how is the platform for you? Do you get a lot of listeners from Spotify? 

[00:59:18] Dan Runcie: There's other platforms that I still get more listeners for. Like, I still get more from Apple Podcasts, I would say. But it's up there though. It's interesting because even though I get more listeners from Apple Podcast, if I put a link in my newsletter that has the Apple Podcast link or the Spotify link of where to listen, more people click on the Spotify link. So that also makes me think, okay, one of these is measuring what's already been there, people that could have been listened to my podcast since 2019 to prove my point when I started it, versus what's capturing things now. And I think as we're just seeing Spotify continue to grow and we're seeing more and more stats of how, I forget the exact metric, but them becoming one of the more popular places for listeners to listen to a podcast. The data that I'm seeing on my side, even though I haven't precisely calculated it, more so a gut check of when I'm checking my newsletter analytics, I'm like, okay, I can see where this is trending.

[01:00:12] Glenn Peoples: I think it helps Spotify that they're just an innovative company that is always improving the product, right? So, you know, who knows what they'll end up doing with podcast. They could revolutionize how we listening to it. 

[01:00:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The other thing, too, that made me think of it, you mentioned audiobooks earlier, and I feel like there's an opportunity for innovation there because audiobooks themselves, I think to date have in many ways just been looked at as another channel that's a companion to people either buying a physical book or downloading something on a tablet to read. But how can the art of creating an audio podcast feel similar to these high-production podcasts that we hear that sound like they are, you know, made by multiple people in a studio show? I think Malcolm Gladwell did something like this with his most recent book the Think Like Strangers, I forget the exact name, but something like Strangers where it sounded like his podcast does. You know, it's high produced, you can get a bit more variety. It's not just some voice actor that they paid, you know, some flat fee for, and then that's just what's uploaded as the audiobook. So if you're able to create that as its own unique experience, I think that there's an opportunity there with audiobooks. So I'm interested to see if the art and the content itself around those will continue to improve.

[01:01:31] Glenn Peoples: I would love a company like Spotify to breathe some life into audiobooks. I used to do a lot more audiobooks than I used to. And you know, what's changed? I think what's changed is just the podcast platforms that are available that make it easier to listen to and find podcasts. I'm not much of an audiobook buyer anymore. But I would say that my audiobook listening has been cannibalized by podcast. 

[01:01:54] Dan Runcie: And I think some of that, too, like if it's in the same app, it's something that you're already using. I feel like there's an opportunity there because although it's been a while since I've used the Audible app, I have to imagine that the Spotify app is much less friction to be able to be like, I want to listen to this. Boom, here, let me click and listen to the thing. And it's a game of, yeah, how can you make it as easy as possible for the consumer. So yeah, it'd be interesting to see how that space develops. The last topic I want to chat about though before we end things is TikTok. I know you've written about this recently. TikTok has been trying to get into a number of areas, specifically streaming, and I'd be curious to hear your take on them, not just their potential in streaming, but what their strategy is overall in music and how you see them working, either not just alongside, but also competing with not just the streaming services, but other companies that are part of this, that are part of this chain of the, you know, music ecosystem.

[01:02:53] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think TikTok is fascinating as far as TikTok launching a streaming service. I mean, that makes perfect sense. I mean, why would you not? TikTok sends a lot of traffic to streaming services. If you could keep people on the platform, or at least on an app from the same company, rather than sending them off to Apple Music or YouTube or Spotify after they see a video on TikTok, I think that's probably a better, I would say, it's a better listener experience. But you know, what we've seen over the years is people use the apps they want to use. You can't force-feed people an app. You can stick it on a device. It doesn't mean they're going to use it. People will use what they want to use and TikTok would have to build a pretty amazing music streaming platform for people to use it. And I guess the question is could they grow the market rather than just take customers away from the Spotifys and Apple Musics in the YouTubes? Yeah, I guess so. There's always that, but I always think of it as more of a zero-sum game that TikTok would be taking business away from others. On paper it makes perfect sense. You know, Billboard's done a really good reporting, had some really good articles about the impact TikTok has had on the business. You know, most recently there was an article about how it's just kind of, thrown A&R executives' lives into disarray because it's, it's very hard to capitalize on TikTok success, which everybody wants. It's much more random than sending something to streaming services or sending something to radio and promoting it. It's much more grassroots and not so top-down. So it's unpredictable on what's going to hit. And that's not a good way to promote music, not knowing what people are going to end up listening to, so it makes labels' lives difficult in that aspect. On the other hand, I think labels are probably pretty happy that there's an app out there that customers want to spend a lot of time with and potentially spend money on, and that they are licensing music too and they'll get royalties from. So, you know, labels don't build these platforms themselves. They have to count on other companies to do that. And I read articles every now and then that says that TikTok is going to be the death of labels. Now labels have to partner with these platforms. That's what they do. They don't build the platforms themselves. And TikTok has a great platform. And so it's another one to work with. The question is, is it ultimately good for the labels? Yeah, maybe they honestly don't have a choice. They have to work with TikTok. They have to go where the consumers are. But I think it's ultimately probably a net win even though it's, really thrown things into disarray and changed how people discover music, and it's just not as simple a path as it used to be in promoting music and get people to listen to it.

[01:05:28] Dan Runcie: You brought up a few things that I want to circle back on because I think they're important to highlight. One, if you look TikTok's overall strategy, I agree this is something that they should naturally do. If you're the person that has the top of the funnel, then you would want to identify ways that you could do it yourself instead of having another app that is relying on yours to capture that same traffic and to capture that same business opportunity. That said, does that mean that you will succeed? Not necessarily. I think as we both understand and see, it takes a lot to have a platform that gets to where Apple Music has gotten to, to get to where Spotify's gotten to, even where Amazon Music and some of these other digital streaming providers have gotten to. It takes a considerable amount of time to get there. So being able to do that effectively and being able to necessarily grow the market and do that, I think it's tough. Are there regions that TikTok is going to reach that Spotify and Apple have not already spent millions of dollars trying to reach? Probably not, which does turn it into a bit of a zero-sum game. And then are you going to be able to try to offer it at a different cost? Are you going to try to do any of these things that really make it stand out? Not necessarily. And I think one of the bigger challenges, too, is just the consumer behavior that someone has when they're going into TikTok. It has grown as fast as it has because it's an app that doesn't require much active engagement. You can sit there and passively scroll through everything. It's a very passive entertaining experience. Streaming is not that. You have to go and find who you want to listen to. Even if you want to go check out the latest album, you have to go type in that person's name unless they're the biggest star in the world, and they may happen to be on the app when you open it. You got to type in the person's name to figure that out. So shifting that consumer mindset, I think is tough if that's what they're used to in your app. So I think that piece of it is going to be a bit of a challenge for them. And I think in general, we're kind of seeing TikTok adopt a bit of that Facebook strategy, where Facebook is a company that has tried to do any and everything because they're like, hey, we have billions of users. We are the biggest platform in the world. Let's try to do all these things. And more likely than not, Facebook doesn't succeed at a lot of these things. It's more likely to succeed at the things that are naturally aligned with why someone would want to be on Facebook to begin with, and whether it's Facebook's dating services or any of these other things that just didn't necessarily take off the way it could, I think that there could be, you know, some similar type of risk if you're thinking about TikTok. Even though it is aligned with music, even though there's a lot of these things, the mindset that a consumer has when they are going into a streaming service that requires on-demand activity is very different than a passive social media experience.

[01:08:13] Glenn Peoples: Yeah, I think those are really good points. There's no guarantee that TikTok is going to make a winning music subscription service if that's what it chose to do. It's just not that easy. I mean, there are companies with big head starts who have built really good apps and have a lot of momentum. And you know, the thing that I've noticed over the years with subscription services and music streaming, in general, is that you have to have an excellent product. Having a pretty good product just doesn't cut it anymore. And there are a lot of music services that have been pretty good that have just gone out of business 'cause pretty good doesn't do it. With ByteDance and with TikTok, you have to assume that they could put together pretty good service. I would bet, better than average. And can they do better than that? Possibly. And what could they do differently that would transform it? And maybe that's the question. Do they need to do a transformative subscription service? Or can they just do something that's a little more traditional and not try to build a new mousetrap? Maybe that's the better option. You know, I'm not sure, but I think, people shouldn't expect that TikTok is just going to clean up the competition because they have a very popular short-form video app. That's just a different experience than what they would be getting into. 

[01:09:22] Dan Runcie: Agreed. Streaming is a very different game. It'd be interesting to see how it plays out. But Glenn, before we wrap things up and let you go, how do you think the Global Music Index that you created, how do you think things will look at 2023? What's your take on how you think certain things will play out in the index?

[01:09:39] Glenn Peoples: There's so much negative forecast out there for 2023. There's a lot of economic experts saying that there's going to be a recession in 2023. You know, normally I would say, boy, probably pretty good. You know, the time to buy a stock is not when it's high. It's time to buy is when it's low. So right now the index is starting from would be starting year at a pretty low place. It's just that they're pretty dark clouds on 2023. It's really hard to say how it's going to play out. There's just a lot of really bad expectations for next year. So I think that as far as these stocks have fallen, they're not out of the woods yet. And I don't think we can assume that they're going to turn around and start growing next year. But if you look at 2022 as kind of a correction to maybe some stocks that were overvalued, then they're starting in a better place.

[01:10:27] Dan Runcie: That's true. Maybe the overvaluation may have some, or the overvaluation of the overcorrection rather could lead things off to a good start. So it'll be exciting to see for sure. And we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the index itself. Once again, good job creating that. I think a lot of people were looking for a way to just capture everything that's going in the industry. So it'll be good to continue tracking it. And Glenn, thanks for coming on. It was great to touch base on so many important topics, and I'm sure we can have a similar conversation like this soon. 

[01:10:54] Glenn Peoples: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. 

[01:10:56] Dan Runcie: Thank you.

[01:10:59] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Megan Holston-Alexander is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz Cultural Leadership Fund. It’s the first VC fund that raised money exclusively from Black leaders — from entertainment to sports to business. The fund co-invests with a16z’s other funds and has raised more than $60 million across its three funds to date.

The overarching purpose of CLF is to create generational wealth opportunities for Black communities. It’s a two-pronged approach. The first is getting Black dollars directly on the cap tables of high-potential startup companies. And the second is creating a pipeline for more Black talent at early-stage companies. 

Megan joined me on the show on the heels of hosting the first-ever Cultural Leadership Summit and announcing CLF III before then. Here’s everything we covered during our conversation:

[2:39] Takeaways from the Cultural Leadership Summit

[5:19] Building despite economic uncertainties 

[7:36] High-worth individuals also affected by macro economy 

[9:05] How has the Cultural Leadership Fund evolved?

[14:54] Difference between entertainment and executive LP’s

[17:16] Web3’s knowledge imbalance  

[19:16] Megan’s interest in DAO’s

[20:58] Will CLF’s investment model change?

[22:42] How CLF used relationships and trust-building to scale its operation 

[28:35] Megan’s vetting process with LP’s

[36:02] How VC industry at-large can create more opportunities for black founders and talent 

[39:15] Has the Bay Area lost its monopoly on tech? 

[44:59] What CLF is focusing on in 2023

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Megan Holston-Alexander, @meghalexander

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Megan Holston Alexander: What we hadn't considered on the executive side is, while the athletes and our kind of entertainers can partner on different things or, like, help them go into new markets, when it came down to, like, core operations or how you should run on your board, or how to think about hiring X, Y, and Z, our black executives, like, hold that information, like, in the palm of their hands. These are people who've been, you know, operators for 20 or 30 years, and so they brought kind of an additional level of skill and kind of insight to bolster what our other LPs on the more kind of athlete or entertainment side were doing.  

[00:00:40] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:01:01] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Megan Holston Alexander. She's a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, currently leading its Cultural Leadership Fund. And to date, this fund has raised over 60 million, invested in over 300 Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies, and has brought over a hundred black leaders into this space. I'm talking to Megan right after the Cultural Leadership Fund hosted its first-ever in-person summit. It was a pleasure to attend that summit myself and meet so many of the people that are friends of the fund, LPs of the fund, and really make it what it is. So this conversation, we talked a little bit about what it was like bringing that event together, especially after the pandemic. We also talked about how events like that fit within the fund's overall strategy and how that strategy has evolved over the past few years. For a little bit of background, the LPs in the Cultural Leadership Fund are all black, and it is one of the first funds to have ever done that in the VC space, and specifically, to date, a lot of the investors had been athletes and entertainers, but Megan talked a little bit about how they've expanded to bring on more black executives, what that looks like, and how that ultimately helps support the goal of the fund even more. One of the fund's other goals is to increase the amount of black talent and interest in tech. So we talk about what some of the opportunities are, what some of the challenges are, and what the VC community can do to help improve this even more. Great conversation, so many insightful points that Megan shared. I enjoyed this conversation and I know you will too, especially if you are an investor or you're a founder yourself. Here's my chat with Megan. 

[00:02:39] Dan Runcie: All right, today we have Megan Holston Alexander from Andreessen Horowitz Culture Leadership Fund, and first, I got to say congratulations on an amazing summit. It was a great event to be a part of and to attend. How does it feel for you now being on the heels of that and just seeing the impact of everything? 

[00:02:57] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah, so thank you so much for coming. It means so much that people would be interested enough and engaged enough to spend time with us away from their, you know, everyday grind. But we're really pleased with how it turned out. We were motivated because so many of our LPs had said to us, we want to get together, we want to meet each other, we want to meet the founders, we want to meet the investment team. So as an LP and kind of partner summit, I think it had the intended effect and it seemed like people really enjoyed their time, but also learned a ton. So I could not be happier. I will say I was telling myself that after it was over, I was going to have so much time to, like, get so much other stuff done, but, like, it just never, it never stopped. So, we were really proud of what we were able to put on.

[00:03:38] Dan Runcie: 'Cause I'm sure an event like that makes you think about what else you could do, right? I'm sure you had a bunch of people buzzing with ideas on what other in-person events or what other things could look like, too. 

[00:03:48] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. And that's always the hope, right? We bring people into a room together in hopes that, like, we can help some serendipity happen. So many people in our network work on similar things or adjacent things or things that would have a really nice kind of partnership together. And so anytime we get to make those introductions, our hope is that people will be buzzing after, and have ideas for events and programs and partnerships. So we'll see what comes out of it. 

[00:04:12] Dan Runcie: And I imagine that a lot of this probably had been in the plans for a while. It was just a matter of timing. So much of CLFs rise and growth had happened during the pandemic as well. And it was just a matter of, okay, when can you bring people together safely to make something like this happen? 

[00:04:28] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah. Yeah. And when I say it was three years in the making. I am not kidding, because we were planning actually to host the first summit in 2020. So we were in process of like, you know, picking out venues and cities and where we wanted to be. And then, like, so many people when the pandemic hit that spring, it just kind of cleared everybody's calendars. And so it's nice to know that 2 and a half years after the original that the motive was still the same and the demand for what we were building was still the same that we got to put it on, I think, even better than we could have hoped in 2020.

[00:05:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. And then looking at, now, you, of course, get to have it on the tail end of your announcement for fund three. You've now raised over $60 million for this fund. What was it like raising in this climate though, just given where things are with the market and how things have been so far in 2022? 

[00:05:19] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah, totally. Totally. So when it comes to like the market environment, you just never know what's going to happen and unintentionally, you know, I actually got to raise ahead of kind of the market changing earlier in the spring. And that was actually because I was expecting and planning to be a new mom. And the firm was really supportive of that. And they said, okay, kind of up to you. Do you want to do it before mat leaves? Do you want to wait until the fall when you come back? And me being like, I don't want to think about this while I'm trying to raise a baby. I was like, Let's knock it out early. So lucky enough, you know, I was able to close that out before people really started tightening their belts. But, you know, as a firm, we really believe that, you know, no matter what the economy looks like, what the macro, you know, face of the world looks like, builders are always building. And even more so, during times when they can be home and spend time thinking about the problems that they want to solve. And so our hope is that, you know, even in moments like that, we can still really rely on founders to keep, you know, pushing great, great companies out. 

[00:06:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I like to think of these moments as well as when you do start to filter out some of the companies or ideas that maybe were a bit more fleeting, and you can focus on the real things happening, you look at the last economic downturn that we had, and all of the companies that came from that timeframe, too. So I feel like the call to action for so many fund managers like yourself, you mentioned the LPs or even to others is, like you just said, people are still building, and if anything, it's the real companies that are going to come out of this timeframe.

[00:06:46] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. And then a piece that I would add onto that is in these moments, while we know that like great companies will be built, we don't truly know what they are because people do build for the time and you don't know what kind of instances will be, like, permanent behavior changes or what things are like, just for now, it seems like it's a, you know, a really good idea, but in six months people won't behave the same way. And so the hope is that you just always try to lean in the things that you think will have kind of staying power. But you just try to do risk reduction. 

[00:07:15] Dan Runcie: Right, Right. And I assume, too, from a fundraising perspective with you and this fund specifically, because a lot of the LPs are high net worth individuals, some of their willingness to invest in funds hasn't necessarily changed as much as some of the more institutional investing in things that we've seen in the past year or so.

[00:07:36] Megan Holston Alexander: Yeah. So actually I might argue the opposite. So when you're dealing with individuals, right, in their personal wealth and people who are really new to venture, right? That's a really, really scary moment because venture is a long-term play, right? It's not like you put your money in and then two or three weeks later, you can be like, Hey, Megan, where are my dollars? And so making a long-term commitment like that during a period of economic uncertainty is actually more difficult for an individual than it would be for an institution because one, it's not any particular individual's capital, but also institutions have much kind of more thorough game plans, right? They know what percentage they're putting into venture versus private equity versus, you know, bonds or whatever the case may be. So they're kind of more consistent and they understand that the market kind of goes up and down and that there will be moments like this, and it's actually a little bit more difficult when it comes to individuals to kind of get them over that hump.

[00:08:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's fair. Because I do think that even in some conversations I've had with folks, things like the price of Bitcoin or the price of Ethereum having a pretty impactful influence on what their net worth is and their own willingness to invest in particular things. 

[00:08:46] Megan Holston Alexander: For sure. 

[00:08:47] Dan Runcie: And for you with this fund, specifically, now fund three, but the fund itself has been around for a few years now. Do you feel like the vision for the fund has evolved at all in that time? I mean, I feel like the core mission is the same, but have any of the ways that you've either talked or pitched the fund evolved in that timeframe? 

[00:09:05] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So I think you're right. We've kept our two kind of core missions the same, but what we do understand now is there are a number of different ways to execute on it. So if you will bear with me, I'm happy to share kind of two, you know, how that looks on both missions. So on the first mission of connecting the world's greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies. You know, historically we set, you know, athletes and entertainers and musicians, people who, from, you know, a large scale of consumerism have contributed to cultural change. But over time we've realized black executives also have like a really, really huge impact on this space. So people who are in leadership roles at Fortune 100 companies, or even at startup companies, they can have a huge impact on culture and consumer behavior more generally. And so we wanted to be sure that we really leaned into bringing in more black executives into the fund than we ever had before. And that has proven to be really helpful for the firm because they end up being, you know, equally if not more useful to the portfolio than the musicians and the singers, and the actors, et cetera. And so we have really enjoyed kind of expanding and involving that side of the network. And then on the second side of getting more young African Americans in tech, you know, fo fund one, we committed all of our management fees and carried to, like, one set of organizations. We picked them in the beginning and wanted to support them through the life of the fund. But what we realized by fund two was like, well, that doesn't really give us an opportunity to invest in new non-profits that are kind of on the cutting edge of technology, right? As things are growing and changing, we want folks who are being innovative on the non-profit side as well. And so what we did for fund two and now for fund three is we opened up kind of the spectrum of what we would support from a non-profit perspective to kind of match where we thought the technology world was going. So for fund one, you see a supporting kind of big well-known organizations that have proven over time if they are directly putting black folks into the pipeline for technology. But now we're saying like, okay, how do we add to this? Well, Web 3.0 is a huge thing, not only as a space for investment for the firm, but also generally of wanting to be sure that black folks don't get left behind in this Web 3.0 revolution. So we support organizations like crypto tutors that is meant to do just that, and that's not something we would've had insight into in that first fund. Gaming is also a new, huge area in technology. It is now, I think, you know, people play games more than they watch TV based on current research. And so how do we ensure that black folks are being supported in the gaming industry? So now we support black and gaming. We support the Black Collegiate Gaming Association. So just ensuring that our philanthropic efforts can support and are aligned with what we're doing as a firm and where technology is going overall. 

[00:11:51] Dan Runcie: I actually want to talk about each of those two things separately. Let me go back to the first one. 

[00:11:55] Megan Holston Alexander: Let's do it. 

[00:11:56] Dan Runcie: I think it was really interesting what you said about athletes and that sector around sports in general, if I heard you correctly, them being but not even more influential or helpful for the fund overall, but maybe relative to some of the other folks, whether it's your LP such as your musicians or entertainers. Did I catch that right? 

[00:12:16] Megan Holston Alexander: If I'm hearing what you're saying, you're saying that I said that the athletes are not as useful?

[00:12:20] Dan Runcie: Oh, the other way around. Like, more useful than, like, some of the others that work with the fund?

[00:12:24] Megan Holston Alexander: Well, I was saying, from the executive side, did I say athletes and not executives?

[00:12:28] Dan Runcie: I think it was athletes.

[00:12:29] Megan Holston Alexander: Maybe I misspoke. But what I was essentially trying to say is from a cultural leadership perspective, historically, it has very much been athletes and entertainers and we wanted to involve, we wanted to evolve our kind of mission overall to include more black executives.

[00:12:45] Dan Runcie: That was helpful. Yeah, 'cause I was curious to tap into more about like, why that is and how that's impacted the fund so far. 

[00:12:52] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. Because I feel like, everybody thinks that when you bring on like just a celebrity, everything skyrockets, right? That it's just like, ooh, if you put this name on there, things just grow. And that's not always necessarily the case. We've, you know, really supported our companies in being thoughtful and strategic around the ways in which you use a celebrity. And we've also been, you know, in deep conversations with our kind of LP network and our network at large about wanting to be more than like a disengaged kind of passive investor. And so they love partnering with the portfolio companies, et cetera. But what we hadn't considered on the executive side is, while the athletes and our kind of entertainers can partner on different things or like help them go into new markets or help them with the launch of a new product, when it came down to like core operations or how you should run on your board, or how to think about hiring X, Y, and Z, like, our black executives, like hold that information like in the palm of their hands. These are people who've been, you know, operators for 20 or 30 years, and so they brought kind of an additional level of skill and kind of insight to bolster what our other LPs on the more kind of athlete or entertainment side were doing. So now we have this really robust group of black cultural leaders who can help in a number of different areas.

[00:14:07] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we see the influence, we see how influential they are in all of these sectors, and if you're thinking about just like how your fund is structured, I know that you do have different folks on the team focused in sports, focused in entertainment more broadly, and I feel like eventually having, you know, whether it's even more of those or just being able find the best ways to lock in on talent, because I think we're seeing this more and more. I think a lot about like, let's say like 10-plus years ago when we saw the era of a lot of artists being named as creative directors for particular companies. And some of those turned into, you know, really flourishing partnerships, and some of them necessarily didn't. But now, and I feel like your fund was timing this. You captured this moment where we're seeing more than that. 

[00:14:54] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep, absolutely. And it's not just because you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And it's not just because, and not only because, you know, athletes and kind of other entertainment folks want to be more engaged, but quite frankly startups are requiring it. They don't want you to just let your name on something and then you disappear and like, you know, take the money and run or whatever the case may be. And so what we're trying to do is really build up to kind of core groups of people who are interested in each other and want to work together. And so there should be an equal expectation when we bring our LPs in and on our startup side that the startups want to work with these LPs and they've been thoughtful about how they want to engage with them, right? So if you want a particular person, why, right? Why is this person the best fit for your company? And so we really challenge our companies on that, where it's not just like, you want to get the biggest name, but the person who will actually be most influential for the product that you're building. And on our LP side, we say like, okay, what is it about this company that makes you most interested that you want to bring to the table? So it really is about working together. We are trying very hard not to make it where it's just like, kind of one-off, really transactional doesn't make a lot of sense 'cause those tend to be the things that don't work out. We try to be thoughtful on all fronts. 

[00:16:11] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. 'Cause it's like, otherwise, then it would just be like an Instagram ad or something like that, being like, oh, hey, go sponsor this product. And like, that's not what this is about. 

[00:16:21] Megan Holston Alexander: And it doesn't make sense. Like, make it make sense. That's the most important thing for us because those are what can be fruitful. And then say it's something that, everything doesn't always work out, but if you went into it with the right intentions and everybody did their best, like, that's all you can hope for. And then those people usually want to work together again, even if it didn't work out. So we really do take this long view on relationships, not just as a firm, but as a fund and the way in which we interact with people and hope that they'll interact with each other. 

[00:16:47] Dan Runcie: Right. And then at the second piece of what you were talking about, you talked about investing in companies that are ultimately helping to either further access or knowledge. Web 3.0 was an example and wanting to make sure that black talent doesn't get left behind in this space or in other spaces that may emerge. Where do you feel like things are right now? Do you feel like folks are on board? Do you feel like there's still a huge opportunity specifically with when it comes to Web 3.0 and black talent? 

[00:17:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I think until we get to a place where we feel like we have like, peer across the board equity, there's always work to be done. And being like an HBCU grad being from, you know, born and raised in Alabama, I have a very core sense of like what inequity looks like and how, what are the ways in which we can try to approach solutions to that problem. And so I think I'm lucky enough to have you know, that, sort of background where I can bring an interesting perspective into how we solve those problems. But I am finding that Web 3.0 overall has a lot of opportunity. One, because, like, nobody's an expert, right? Nobody's been doing Web 3.0 for 30 years. It is relatively new, right? There's people who've been doing it for the last 10 ish years, and there are a few people who are just really hardcore, but there is so many of our Web 3.0 companies, because there is just like a lack of, expertise in the space, they're just excited to get people who are interested and passionate about Web 3.0, right? So you kind of get to jump over this need for a long period of time having worked in X, Y, and Z or Web 3.0 in this case where you get to just work off of passion and start building the product. So that's one of the things I love about Web 3.0. The hard part is that there's a knowledge imbalance, right? It takes a lot of reading. It takes a lot of listening to podcasts and going through the a16z canon that a lot of people just don't have, right? The information is there, but everybody doesn't have time to read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages on Web 3.0. And so the kind of that asynchronous ability to get information, I think, is where we have to fill in the gap. What is the answer to that? I'm not completely sure, but organizations like crypto tutors that I mentioned earlier, are making content easy, accessible, fun, really big on entertainment. And so while I think the opportunities are there for the roles, I do think we need to fill in the knowledge gap in terms of who gets the knowledge.

[00:19:09] Dan Runcie: Agreed. And for you specifically, which areas of Web 3.0 are exciting you the most as an investor? 

[00:19:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Whoa, well, you know, with CLF being a co-investment vehicle inside of the fund, I feel like I get lucky enough where I get to see all the cool stuff, but I don't have to make the strenuous, anxiety-ridden decisions about, you know, which ones to pick. I just get the benefit of spending time with them all after the fact. And so for me, I am most excited about and I'll just say the one piece that I've been looking into a lot lately is like, DAOs. I love this concept of like governance and people getting to vote on what they do with capital and making decisions of that, like, things to buy and things to sell. I think the way in which communities are being built around kind of DAOs and that type of governance is really interesting. 

[00:20:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. I think some of these conversations, whether it's DAOs buying sports teams or Dows trying to get involved with different things, we'll see. I think, like anything, we're in the early days and some of these things will come to fruition but there's definitely something there. Just looking at how decentralized so many things are becoming then I think a lot of those things do need to. 

[00:20:20] Megan Holston Alexander: Agreed and I think there's pros and cons of everything, and I think that's one of the things that, you know, gets missed in the hype cycle. There are things that will be really great about web 3.0 and there will be things that don't work out in the way that we hope, but in the end, we hope we shake out with the best kind of the pack. 

[00:20:38] Dan Runcie: Right. And then you mentioned it earlier about just the way that CLF invests and you co-invest. So you do get to see all the things that come through and you're not necessarily picking or, you know, making them the investments yourself. But do you think that's something that may change with either the vision or the evolution of the fund itself, where you would be making those investments? 

[00:20:58] Megan Holston Alexander: You know, we, at the firm, we never say never. We don't know what the future holds, but I think right now, the way that we've structured it, you know, we've got two really core goals at CLF, and the first is like getting black dollars onto the cap tables in Andreessen Horowitz companies and the more that I can do that, whether it's through co-investing or otherwise, I think that the structure that we have right now is one that works and that I'm I'm really pleased with. And then in that second mission or actually still the first mission, but the second way that we execute on it, right, so CLF has a fund and dollars out of that fund go into kind of the deals across a number of the funds inside of the firm. Not all of them, but most of them. But then the second thing that I get to do and spend a lot of time on, because I don't have to do, you know, a ton of that behind the scenes like diligence work, et cetera, is get additional strategic rounds for our portfolio companies. So not only is our LP base as a whole represented on the cap table, but anytime that there is a really thoughtful or smart partnership or somebody wants to add an additional strategic capital, we now can give even more black people on the cap table. And so I really enjoy spending my time doing that and I want to keep at it, but the firms, we never say never to stuff. Who knows? If it ever makes sense, we'll see. 

[00:22:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And then I think too, you mentioned this a few times just in terms of how the firm is structured in terms of building and investing in relationships. And I think this is something that I know you've talked about in other interviews, something that rings true with a16z overall. Can you talk a little bit about the way that you have the divisions or the way that you have the different verticals for, whether it's entertainment or sports and some of the events that you attend as well, and how that helps the overall mission? 

[00:22:42] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So for CLF, you know, historically when probably two years ago when it was just me and Chris the two of us, we did everything right and we realized that if we really wanted CLF to scale and to grow and to really have an impact on the communities and generational wealth, we needed to scale what we were doing. We need to get more cultural leaders involved. We needed to be able to make more kind of partnership introductions, et cetera. And so the way that, you know, made sense was, okay, we've got these cultural leaders. How do we bring together the best at what they do in order to help manage these networks? So we brought in folks like Derek who have been on the management and agency side for a number of years to manage the entertainment vertical, right? So when you have one thing to focus on and it's only entertainers, you can make much more kind of clear and thoughtful decisions around who to introduce to whom or who to bring into this company, or when a portfolio company says, I need this type of person, you can make a quicker decision. We brought in Deb on the athlete side. She was a manager at Rock Nation Sports for a number of years, so she really just has the depth of knowledge. And not only that, they both have this really interesting knowledge just about who players are, but how we can structure deals with them, right? This is what they're used to, and now we're bringing in this tech side, how do we make those deal structures match, or how do we make it more, you know, favorable to everybody involved? And so they brought another level of rigor to the deals and the strategic rounds that we were putting together that we needed a lot. And then both Julie and I work on the executive side, which I said is burgeoning. And so we really try to specialize. One as a firm, right? We've got a crypto fund and a bio fund, and people who are specialized. We do the same thing inside of CLF. We try to have people focus on a swim lane. And it's proven to be successful. So far, we're really pleased with that decision. 

[00:24:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think it's effective and I think the names that you've been able to have as LPs in each of the rounds speaks to that too. And at the end of the day, especially in these industries, of course, I know relationships drive everything, but I think it's more so in these industries because especially with some of these high net worth individuals in entertainment, there's so many people from coming out of the woodwork who are trying to swindle them out of stuff or trying to propose them the most horrible deals and investment opportunities. So I think that's where the value add is here, as opposed to, or even more so than someone else who, you know, isn't in these fields. So they're not necessarily getting as much of the crap, if you will, from the proposals. So being able to sift through the good ones.

[00:25:12] Megan Holston Alexander: I think you brought up a really good point. And I think that point is trust, right? So when you have people coming out of the woodwork, like you said, with investment opportunities, I got a good investment opportunity for you. But that person has no real background to be able to speak to like kind of whatever that item is or whatever that company is. We try to really mitigate the risk for our LPs and, and kind of partners that we bring into rounds for CLF, like, we never bring deals to people that we haven't invested in ourselves, right? We feel like how can we tell you like, you should invest in this, but like we didn't do it. And so people know that anytime we bring something to them, it is fully invested through Andreessen Horowitz, like, process, deal team, GP, et cetera. And so we try to, you know, really eliminate risk for them. And obviously, we always have them, you know, do your own research. Here is the information you make the decision for yourself. But we just pride ourselves on building trust with people because if we mishandle people and we swindle people, like that gets around and then that doesn't benefit us, right? If it goes around like, oh, those. sneakers over there, a16z are doing that. But we feel like we have really put forth a concerted effort that people know that they can trust us and they share with their friends that they can trust us. And that really is I think how we try to maintain and engage with our network. And so far, you know, that network has been able to grow and we always say, you know, we're not going to sacrifice a relationship for a quick buck that's just not our style. That's not what we do. I hope that that is kind of what's making the rounds. But so far it feels like people really have built a lot of trust in us and we don't take that lightly.

[00:26:53] Dan Runcie: And I do think that information and understanding of these things has just gotten better in decades overall. And couple that with the fact that this is venture capital. Of course, it's a risk. Most of the companies that we're investing in probably aren't going to take off, but the ones that do are going to hit. And you're doing it with a firm that has a track record in this. So I feel like there's so much transparency. 

[00:27:16] Megan Holston Alexander: Well, I don't think I'm allowed to agree with that, so I'm just going to say okay.

[00:27:20] Dan Runcie: Fair enough. Fair enough. And I think the difference there though is that I think about so many of these athletes, whether it's you get pitched on like opening restaurants with their name and all these other things that you know are just dated things. Of course, those things can still work. We've seen them be effective. But we've come a long way. 

[00:27:39] Megan Holston Alexander: And then one of the other things is, you know, we tell people, you know, that invest in our fund to please consider us a resource when things like that come up, right? We say we're a VC firm in your back pocket, right? So if something comes your way and you want us to, like you have questions about it, you know, obviously we can't tell you what to do, but we can help you figure out what are the right questions to ask when these opportunities come in front of you. And so that education piece that we do, I think is really valued by a lot of the folks who trust us with their capital.

[00:28:10] Dan Runcie: And then with your LP specifically, is there anything that you're specifically looking for from a vetting process? Like, not necessarily talking about like commitment levels or anything like that, but more so things that you're looking for 'cause earlier we're talking about, of course, we've come a long way from the celebrity investors slapping their name on things. But I'm sure there are probably still some out there that may want to do that. And you're making sure that that's not who you're attracting. 

[00:28:35] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I'm trying to tell you all my secrets. You know, the most important thing for us is that we have LPs who want to engage. We want people who are willing to like, you know, hop on a call with us and share their interests or if, you know, you join the fund and you are entered in particular deals or we, you know, come across a company that would be a really great fit for you to talk to, maybe just have a 15-minute conversation with the CEO. There are people who love opportunities like that. So people who want to engage and want to learn and spend time with us and spend time with our LPs is who we try to really, really lean into because it's a symbiotic relationship, We want to support them. But at the end of the day, like our largest goal is to support our portfolio companies and whether it's the a16z team, whether it's our LPs, like it's all hands on deck. And so I love people who come in and have a genuine curiosity and they're excited about technology and innovation and they want to play a role in things that are being built. And so, we love those conversations and you can kind of really tell, like I've had people who you would never think, people who you would think would be super disengaged. Like, that person is interested in tech who are, have gone down like the Web 3.0 rabbit hole and they're like, ooh, and I'm going to do like a token that has this, and then I'm going to give it to my whole community back in Texas or whatever. Like, really is just a really, really thoughtful people. You don't have to be an expert. Like, that's not what we're looking for, but we just look, want people who want to be involved. 

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. That makes sense. Shifting gears a bit on the talent side of things. We talked about it a little bit about how important it is to the fund to be able to just help develop this space and obviously your fund's doing its part. We talked about some of the areas that you're looking to invest in, how you're looking to just elevate this space overall, what do you think the rest of the VC community and landscape needs to be able to do to ultimately get things to where it should be. 

[00:30:31] Megan Holston Alexander: Sorry, when you say get things to where they should be, you mean in terms of like talent as an employee of companies? You mean talent in what way? 

[00:30:40] Dan Runcie: So I'm talking about talent in terms of whether it's black founders who are leading companies or black talent that are just interested in the space that are either going on to get jobs in the space or to work for other established companies, overall investing and then just being able to grow and see more black talent in tech.

[00:30:59] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So I'll start by saying there's no one way to do it. I think there are a number of different approaches that people can take. But I usually divide it up at least of this industry into three things. One, funds can, or you know, firms can support black founders, right, by putting capital directly into their hands so that they can build their companies. Two, they can help more black talent get into early stage companies, right? So, employee 10, employee 15, employee 20, because we know that early employee equity can really change a life, right, when a company has a liquidity event, whether it's an IPO or a sale that now that person has capital to start a company or to angel invest in companies and kind of create some generational wealth for themselves. And then the third thing is getting more black dollars on cap tables, right? So ownership stakes, not just monetizing on a platform, right, for all of the amazing things that we're creating, but actually having its ownership in the platform to create generational wealth. And CLF focuses on those last two, but there are a lot of firms, again, focused on, you know, funding black founders. I think kind of focusing on those three core areas can really create economic, you know, extreme economic kind of opportunities for the black community. And so, you know, with CLF focusing on those last two, I think we've got a really special niche that we get to support in a number of ways, which I mentioned before.

[00:32:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like the closer that, or at least the more people, whether it's in this generation or in, you know, people that are a little bit older that are still trying to do it, being able to just get more focus on building generational. And just the knowledge and the mindset of it. I think all those things help. I think we're seeing more podcasts, more shows, more content from black folks that are specifically focused on this, which is great. I think, you know, there's never too much of it. So personally I think that I would love to be able to see more dollars and more hiring that happens in these places too 'cause I think we saw, especially in the past couple years, there was so many press releases that came from particular companies, and I think I saw recently there was a big tech founder that just announced, you know, a $400 million fund to invest.

[00:33:16] Megan Holston Alexander: 400 million. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:33:17] Dan Runcie: But like, wanted to be able to actually see the results from those and being able to see the impact and being able to see people, you know, become their own Robert Smiths that can then, you know, pay for, you know, tuition for a future class. The more of those we see, and it's not just the one, you know, few names we already know would be great and I think those things will happen, but ultimately I think that's what so many of us want to see in this space. 

[00:33:39] Megan Holston Alexander: And there's so much embedded in this conversation, right? And I'll go on a little bit of an aside because I think one, we have to understand that like when we think about the future and black equity and empowerment, some people still don't care. Like, there are a lot of people who just do not care. It's not their problem. They don't want to help solve it. And then you have people who kind of commit to things but have no follow-through. And that's what we saw a lot of over the last couple of years. Like, after the murder of George Floyd, all these companies were like, yes, we're going to give this, we're going to do this. And then the follow-through two and a half years later is just not there. And then you have the people who are really, really committed but don't understand the expanse of the black community and think of it as a small sliver, like, really high, like, accelerators that they would want to support who still go to like a very specific set of schools, right, the talented tenth of the black people and are willing to support that. But then there is this holistic perspective around, like, non-monolithic blackness and how do we encourage economic empowerment and growth across the community as a whole? And that's what I want to get to. When we think about HBCUs, there's over a hundred of them, right? And how do we support more of them as opposed to like the same ones that get, you know, a ton of shine. Mind you, when it comes to HBCUs, like, they don't work outside of the community, be like, we depend on each other and we rely on each other. So, you know, I want to get to a more comprehensive perspective on, like, what supporting black economic empowerment looks like from a long-term perspective. So I think we'll get there, but there's a long way to go. 

[00:35:25] Dan Runcie: What you just said reminds me of, there was one of the tech companies that announced that they were going to have a black board member and that someone was going to take their seat away and they were going to make the opportunity for a black board member. And people were very curious, okay, who should it be? And to the point that you're making, who can we elevate to that point? Who could we provide an opportunity for? And I think they ended up choosing one of the most successful and high-profile black founders in this space. And while it is great to see that person in that role, that wasn't creating a necessarily a new opportunity in that same type of way, and it goes back to the talented tenth thing. 

[00:36:02] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. We're here. And you know, I think you bring up a good point when, and now we're about to get into black history, but that's okay 'cause this is for the people. Conceptually, when you think about the talented tenth that's, you know, W. E. B. Du Bois and, like, his concept from a sociological perspective, and you think about who he was at tension with the most, Booker T. Washington and this concept of the Atlanta Compromise. Two very powerful black men, the founder of Tuskegee University versus, like, the first black man to get a PhD at Harvard. Conceptually thinking there are multiple ways in which the black race can succeed. And I think that's still very much the case, right? So, you know, W. E. B. Du Bois is very much like, we should be going to college. We should be getting these advanced degrees. Like we can have these like high power jobs, et cetera, and be in government, but Booker T. Washington is like, our people down here, don't even have running water, right? We should be focused on trying to get like basic level of education, jobs that provide us, like, a source of income that's steady, et cetera. So my point is, you know, reasonable people can disagree to what the solution is. And, again, I think there's multiple approaches and so I think if we can, you know, not just go one route, right? It can't always be about only the talented tenth, but kind of like also bring up a pathway where in Booker T. Washington space, right? That's why we'll have all the like, black agricultural people. Tuskegee is, like, the best university for, like, mechanical engineering and industrial engineering. And that's all like thematically with Booker T. Washington. So there's room for both. We just have a habit of focusing on one. Ali went there and went into a total black history tangent. 

[00:37:38] Dan Runcie: We could do a whole episode on that. But I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I do think that analogy and just, it ties so much of this together and ultimately the purpose of the fund and what you're trying to do. When I think about the nuance of all these conversations and the comprehensiveness of it what people need to hear so thank you for that.

[00:37:56] Megan Holston Alexander: Fun fact. I'm actually a sociologist by trade. It was my undergrad. My undergrad degree, I got a Master's in it. I went to get a PhD, dropped out 'cause I hated it, moved to California, and got into tech and my dog is actually named after W. E. B. Du Bois. So fun fact for the people out there.

[00:38:14] Dan Runcie: Still fresh, I mean for some of that, you know, I'm sure the sociology degree may have been, you know, some time ago, but still fresh. You still got it. 

[00:38:21] Megan Holston Alexander: It's good stuff. I love social interaction and studying how people engage with each other. So it's my secret passion. I'm a sociology capitalist, I guess so. 

[00:38:32] Dan Runcie: Of course, no, I think that there's some term there. But shifting gears a bit though, this is also somewhat on a sociology perspective, especially among VCs, the concept of where to live and where people are investing in has just been a bigger discussion ever since the pandemic had started and you are someone that lived in the Bay, you've recently moved to Alabama. And it'll be great to hear two parts. One, not just why you made the move, but also what is your take right now on the Bay Area, on San Francisco, because it is such a polarizing discussion point, especially from whether it was even people I talked to when I was at the summit or in so many conversations, for me as someone that still lives here.

[00:39:15] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. So it's polarizing for a lot of people, but my feeling is clear and I've always felt that, like, talent is truly, truly all over. So I moved to Alabama because, you know, I got two little babies and, you know, my parents are getting older, and I wanted to be able to have my kids spend time with them and to go to Mimi's house, and Mimi to be able to come to their school stuff. And so, you know, the pandemic really allowed us the opportunity to do that because as you know, Andreessen Horowitz moved to the cloud. Prior to the pandemic, we were very much a, you know, in office culture as most firms were. But you know, much to the credit of our leadership, they saw how much flexibility people had while still being productive and wanted to be sure that, you know, people were able to maintain that. So I'm really grateful for it. But, you know, my stance has been the same. I've always felt like people, smart people come from everywhere and they can be everywhere. I used to get really offended, actually. So I went to an HBCU undergrad. I went to Clark Atlanta, but ultimately got an MBA at Stanford. And somehow after I went to Stanford, everybody starts, like, picking up the phone for you, right? And then they'll, like, respond to your emails when they, you know, see a certain thing there. But people are like, oh, I see you went to Stanford. Like, you must be smart. And I'm like, I was smart before I went to Stanford. I was smart in Alabama, you know what I mean? And so I've always conceptually believe that, you know, yes, people get these extra markers, but that doesn't necessarily determine, like, I didn't go to Stanford and get smart. I didn't go to Stanford and get some magical thing that makes me, you know, smarter than everybody else. And so I've just always been a believer in, you know, talent being everywhere. As far as like the Bay, in particular, I do think, you know, something special happens when you can kind of create some serendipity and put people in the same place. It's not that like, oh, you know, everybody was just born there. They're very smart. It's like, no, like, people were actively coming there to join companies, et cetera. So you did get this great critical mass of people living in one place, especially when offices were in office culture. But now kind of that disbursement has happened and I think it just shows people that like, yeah, people who are interested in tech and building things. Also, they desire to live outside of the Bay Area for whatever reason, whether it's family or friends or I want to live near Warm Beach. Whatever the case is, I just think, and again, have always believed that you can live anywhere and be smart and productive and happy.

[00:41:38] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of this was inevitable. We knew that as technology got better and better, the power of conglomeration, especially from a physical location perspective, was only going to lessen. I don't think it necessarily goes down to zero. There, of course, is benefit and why people live in particular places, but I do think that what we saw the past 15 years up until maybe the past two years was at least like the last wave. And you saw it before, whether it was with, you know, the auto industry or the Midwest of all these other places. Like, we've seen this happen time and time again. But what's different now is that things are so fragmented and it makes me think a lot of things we see in music as well. We saw so many areas that were just such culture beds for where the new hot sound was coming from, where the hottest music was. And I think we still see a lot of that. But we're starting to see even that spread out of it too. So this is happening across the board. 

[00:42:31] Megan Holston Alexander: Yep. I agree. And, you know, I think as long as companies support their employees' needs in whatever it is to be productive, I think we'll get to the right answer. So for example, our firm allows you, if you want to go to the office, you can. There's, like, no office that exists, so, like, you can't get interaction if you desire it. But not requiring it allows both types of people to be happy. And quite frankly, like, most people don't even know I live in Alabama. Like, I'll be on the phone with somebody from work and I'll like, no, I'm in Alabama. And they're like, oh, how long you visiting for? And I'm like, no, I live here. And like, everybody's eyes bug out and they're like, what? You can be equally as productive and no one have no, you know, no idea where you are.

[00:43:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think that, and it's interesting, I've heard, you know, from some founders that are trying to go back in the office, some founders that are, you know, doing things remotely a hundred percent. And part of it is all that works for you, but the fact is we have options now and that's basically it.

[00:43:30] Megan Holston Alexander: And I appreciate, again, the flexibility of so many companies to, like, actively buck against what the normal used to be, because I think it would've been really easy or conceptually easy to say, like, we're going back into the office. Like, that's what it is, and, you know, that's the end. But for all the companies that are like, hey, the world is changing, let me adapt. I and I know so many other people are really grateful for that. And me as a new mom, the flexibility it's given me is just huge. 

[00:44:00] Dan Runcie: Right. And to tie it all in too, it just allows the greatness and the genius to come from so many other areas that aren't filtered by all of the other things that let people pick from the pools of talent that existed before.

[00:44:13] Megan Holston Alexander: Agreed. The CLF team, at this point, I don't think anybody's in the Bay.

[00:44:17] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. 

[00:44:18] Megan Holston Alexander: I knew we've got New York and Miami and LA. Okay, wait, no, we do have one person in the Bay. But the fact is that this team, CLF as it is now, could not have existed if we could only be in Menlo Park. 

[00:44:31] Dan Runcie: Right, right. No, that's a good point. That's a good point. All right. Well, Megan, this is great. Covered a bunch. We got a deeper look behind the fund. Everything that goes behind the work you're doing.

[00:44:41] Megan Holston Alexander: Wait, we're not done, are we? 

[00:44:43] Dan Runcie: We're getting to the tail end. We're going to the tail end. Oh, you got more? 

[00:44:46] Megan Holston Alexander: You couldn't convince me that that wasn't only 20 minutes.

[00:44:50] Dan Runcie: No, we definitely, we definitely had some good deep dives in here. This was good. But no, before we let you go though, what's one big thing that you're excited for 2023? 

[00:44:59] Megan Holston Alexander: One thing I'm excited for 2023 for the fund, I am really excited to continue to, like, bring people together. In the last two and a half years, we haven't been able to do that, but CLF as a fund and as a network really relies on putting interesting people in a room together so magic can happen. And you probably heard me saying it's all around like the summit a few weeks ago. Like, my favorite part of my job is when, like, I know somebody and I know somebody else and I see them and I'm like, ooh, they need to talk. And I'll bring them together and I'll say, like, I don't know what's going to happen here, but y'all need to talk and whatever happens, give me my credit. And then I walk off. And then there's like all this like zhooshing and this magic that happens. I love those moments. So hopefully I can get to create more of those in 2023 with the awesome team that we've built at CLF.

[00:45:50] Dan Runcie: Well, we'll definitely be looking out for that for sure. Megan, thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. 

[00:45:56] Megan Holston Alexander: You as well. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're doing something very amazing with Trapital, and I mean, I just feel honored that you wouldn't let me be on your platform. 

[00:46:04] Dan Runcie: Of course, these are the conversations you want to have. Thank you. Appreciate that. 

[00:46:08] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

At the top of the episode, I talk about Trapital’s new Culture Report and our opening section on hip-hop’s “decline.” This report is sponsored by DICE, and it was a great chance to chat with DICE President Russ Tannen about the future of ticketing and live events.

Russ moved to New York City in 2021 amid the pandemic with one lofty goal: grow the music ticketing platform’s business inside the competitive United States market. If that wasn’t challenging enough, this was all while live musical shows were still hard to come by. More than a year later, DICE is still in growth mode, not only in the US but with aspirations for other international markets too.

Russ was a day-one employee of DICE when it started in 2013 in Europe. What separated the platform then — and to this day — is its laser focus on the music fan. Unlike its major competitors, DICE is as much a discovery platform as a point-of-sale. Using the app’s own internal data, fans are recommended local shows to attend. 

The recommendation system was created with the intent of improving the live music-going experience for fans. This same reason is also why the ticket price you see on DICE is the final price, no extra fees added at check-out. DICE tickets also can’t be resold outside of its app, ensuring true fans, not ticket scalpers, will have first access to see their favorite artists. 

Russ joined me on the show to discuss the inner workings of DICE, from the app’s unique benefits for fans, artists, and venues alike to its overarching growth strategy. Here’s everything we covered:

[0:35] The Culture Report

[13:01] DICE entering the US market amid pandemic

[15:26] Competing against other ticketing platforms

[19:58] Re-wiring consumer behavior around attending events

[22:15] Prior partnership with Kanye West

[23:37] Has there been any artist pushback?

[25:16] Showing ticket price upfront, not at checkout

[28:10] How DICE deals with ticket-buying bots

[35:57] DICE’s investment in data science is paying off

[35:37] Partnering with Ice Spice

[38:21] Early signals that an artist is on the rise

[40:22] Correlation between social media and streaming numbers on ticket sales

[43:16] Differences in ticketing in US vs. other markets

[46:18] Sales strategies for low-demand shows

[48:46] DICE’s plans to tap more into Latin music market

[52:27] Expansion is DICE’s primary focus in 2023

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Russ Tannen, @RussTannen

Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Russ Tannen: At one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50 capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, many of the best 100 to 200-capacity venues that exist in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that.

[00:00:42] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.   

[00:01:02] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Russ Tannen. He's the president of DICE, which is a ticketing platform for live events that's working to make ticketing fairer for fans of live music. They're also working to make sure that there's personalization, so that fans have a better understanding for the music and the concerts from the people that they want to be able to see. And they've been using a ton of analytics to address some of the challenges that the live entertainment industry has faced over the years. DICE is one of the presenting sponsors for Trapital's 2022 Culture Report that is out and available. You can get that on the Trapital website or if you're on the email list. And it was great to talk to Russ about some of those findings and also get a better understanding for the main problem that DICE is trying to solve. There are several aspects of the live ticketing business from scalpers and bots that are raising prices, with artists and fans not necessarily being able to have the most direct connection possible, and fans not always necessarily knowing what concerts are in their area, other people that they may want to see, and being able to get personalized recommendations there. So Russ really brought us under the hood, painted us a picture of what the events business looks like. This is a company that started in the UK, was able to get a good amount of market share there, and is now expanding into the US. So we talked about how they're focused on the venues, specifically, that have capacity from 200 people up to 10,000, what that looks like, what the opportunities are, what some of the challenges are, and what he's ultimately looking forward to most. Here's my chat with Russ.

[00:02:36] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Russ Tannen, who is the president of DICE, a company that is on a mission to help solve a number of the challenges right now in the ticketing and live events business. And I give you a lot of credit because this is a difficult business for a number of reasons, and you're entering a US market where I think there's so much opportunity for improvements with things. So it would be great to hear from you all, and for the folks listening, what your strategy is and why the US market's been so important for you.

[00:03:08] Russ Tannen: Thanks Dan. Thanks so much for having me on. It's really good to meet you and to get a chance to have this conversation. I don't know why you think it's difficult. It's it's been so straightforward. It's been such a breeze the last nine years. No, it's definitely complicated. Before we jump into it, and I do want to tackle that one, I wanted to ask you a question first actually. What was the first concert you went to, Dan? 

[00:03:27] Dan Runcie: Ooh, the first concert I went to. So I am Jamaican and my parents are Big Harry Belafonte fans, so I must have been nine or so, and we all went as a family to a Harry Belafonte concert. I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, so he had come through, so that was the first one. 

[00:03:44] Russ Tannen: Wow. What was the first one where you, like, bought a ticket or you were, like, going with your mates and you were, like, excited to go? 

[00:03:49] Dan Runcie: Okay. The first one where was actually, like, me going, it was a 50 Cent concert. He had come through, they had this concert venue, the Meadows in the Hartford area. So, yeah, we went to that. This is like right when he had, like, blown up. 

[00:04:00] Russ Tannen: How was it? Amazing? 

[00:04:02] Dan Runcie: I mean, at that age, it was amazing. I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, this was the person that everyone was talking about, Oh, you know, he got shot nine times. He's this mythical legend. And then you get to see him in this venue. And of course, you're also, you know, you're young, you're with your friends, you're finally, like, getting out, like, people are finally starting to go different places. So I really enjoy that. And yeah, I mean, that was with my own money for the first time.

[00:04:25] Russ Tannen: Yeah. I love thinking about those memories. I found a picture of me going to my, like, first proper concert, which is, like, I used to have hair, obviously, when I was a teenager and it was, like, dyed green, and we were going to see Deftones and Linkin Park play. They were playing in London. And I remember just being with all my mates going, it was like the most exciting thing ever to, like, go to that show. And I love like, thinking about those things and that feeling and that emotion 'cause I think, like, if you have, like, a really amazing experience early going to a concert and feeling all of those emotions about going to see live music, then it can really stay with you, like, your whole life. And I think a lot of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to capture is that feeling for as many people as possible and to get more people having those types of experiences, like, more of the time, really just spending less time at home. Like that's what we're really, that's what DICE is all about. Like, more than being an app or being a company or all the other things that we're doing, like, it's really, like, how do you get more people to feel like they're going to the 50 Cent concert and just, like, this is it, like, but thanks for sharing that. 

[00:05:26] Dan Runcie: Oh, definitely. 

[00:05:27] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I moved to the US in April last year. So I'm joining on the call from New York at the moment. And we already had a presence here. We'd been building up the business in LA for a few years before, and obviously, the pandemic hit. And I think coming out of the pandemic, we realized that there was an opportunity to start working with a number of partners in New York and really focus on our growth here and building out a team. So when I got here in April, there were three people on the team here. We've built that out to 70 people in this office and a hundred people in the US team overall with other little posts in Miami and Nashville as well as the team in LA. And, yeah, I think it's an extremely competitive market, obviously, but I also think that one of the great things that the pandemic really showed us was just how big and how strong the independent music scene in the US really is. And a big part of that, I think, was the work that Dayna Frank did and founding NIVA and really uniting all of those independent venues together to lobby for the grants that they got to keep the businesses going. And I think that that was just like a really interesting thing t o come out of it and something that will go on for a long time and last for a long time. Now, that organization, and I think it helped to show everyone, you know, how strong the independent music scene is here and what a large opportunity for a company like ours that works only with independent venues and promoters has to build, you know, a very big business here, too, and to support all the artists that are playing in those venues. So we really focus between. 200 - 10,000 capacity. Those are the types of venues we work with. And for people that are listening that don't know what DICE is, you know, we're a mobile event discovery and ticketing app that's working directly with venues and promoters to, you know, increase sales for those shows and to do all the things you'd be expecting a ticket company to do. So, yeah, but that's really where we play. It's a very competitive space, but it's a bit different to thinking about arenas and stadiums and you know, maybe that part of the live business. 

[00:07:19] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. I do think that, of course, that you have, whether it's ATG or Live Nation, having those arenas and stadiums and a lot of the partnerships there, the independent opportunity is much more flexible and I think there's less pure ownership there from a lot of the big players, but I do know that there's still competition from, whether it's your folks like Eventbrite or others. How have you been able to work and gain market share given that dynamic with some of the other players from that 200 to 10K capacity venue? 

[00:07:51] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think that we've been going for nine years now. And we had originally worked as promoters, we'd also run venues. We were working in artist management before starting DICE, and I think we had a number of different perspectives from day one in building the company and the kind of foundational things that we focused on were probably a little different to someone who's maybe more coming from a technology background and seeing a market opportunity and looking at how to build for the venue client. Whereas we always kind of still had a management hat on the whole time. And also we're really thinking about how to build for the fan, and we've had this kind of laser focus on building for the fan experience and that started all the way back with making it a completely mobile product, making the actual purchase of the ticket extremely easy, always showing the full price upfront so you don't get that sticker shock at the end of the purchase when it's suddenly more expensive, stopping the tickets from being sold on resale, introducing functionality like the waiting list where if a show sells out, you can join a waiting list and if tickets get returned to that waiting list, you can just pick them up at the same price. All these things that we did very early that just built a lot of trust very quickly, I think, with fans to become like their preferred platform for tickets and then through time thinking even more about social functionality connecting with your friends. We talk to fans all the time and fans would tell us the number one reason that they wouldn't buy a ticket for a show would be that they wouldn't know who to go with. But we would know that from all the fans that we had using the product, that there must be some that were already friends. So we made it so you could connect with your friends through the app, through your contacts, and then on an event level, you can actually see who from your friends is going to the show, who's been to see that artist before, who's saved that event? You can also go on a view where you can just pick, so me and you could pick this page where it will show us events to go to together based on both of our musical tastes and shows we've been to before. So there's all these things that we've built that are really just nothing to do with the person sat at the venue who's the ticketing manager, and they're all about the real end consumer being the fan. And I think that's just been a different approach to most ticket companies in the US previously that have built been more transactional. And so when we pitch, it's all about how do we actually significantly change how people are discovering the events at the venue and how do we increase the number of shows that they're going to by focusing all of their experience on the actual ticket purchase. And that's really paid off and that narrative is paid off. And when we think about a city like New York, where, you know, last when I got here, it was still events weren't happening. So obviously, you know, the number of users on the app was extremely low. We only had a few partners signed that think people were starting to think about putting shows on sale, but it was really early days. We were really selling a vision of what we could do in terms of driving sales and making people go to more shows. But now that we're 18 months in, we can see, you know, over a million people in New York City using the app every month. We can see over 40% of sales coming through discovery, which is sales that we are driving. That's really significant for the venues and promoters that we're working with and of course for the artists playing those venues. So I think that New York's a great case study for us, and we're excited to do it even more across the rest of the US and also around the world. We're already in London and Spain and Germany and France and Italy, so, yeah, we're just getting started really.

[00:11:17] Dan Runcie: Let's talk a bit more about that consumer behavior aspect of this because this is where I think you make the distinction. So many of the other events promoters, it's more focused on their relationship with the artist, right? They're essentially the end consumer or the venue itself. But then it's the fan that then sees the after effects of it, whether that turns out in how tickets are resold or how they're initially sold and offered in the first place and the fees and all the other things that come up. And you all are making it more so of the destination for someone that wants to come to a show and wants to check that out, and by also with some of the other measures you mentioned, not having scalpers, resale value or resale, in general, going directly to someone on the waitlist, how do you feel like this piece of it has been? Because I think so much of this is just rewiring the psychology of how consumers think about attending live events. So of course there's the business aspect of it, but there's also a bit of retraining the customer because I think for so many years we've been trained to follow the way that it's been.

[00:12:23] Russ Tannen: I know. I also think that everything is always in flux, right? And everything's always changing and shifting. And I think that the moment you stop innovating is the moment you start, like, failing, right? You've got to keep kind of pushing things forward and thinking about keeping the right north star, I think. And for us, keeping the fan experiences a North Star has been the thing that's really led to, I think, a lot of our success. And I think that with the resale piece, that's a really interesting one, how that's evolved even in the last kind of nine years since we started. And I think where we're at now is that we are so at odds with how, you know, some of the other ticket companies are doing it with integrated resale and this dynamic pricing debate that's obviously going on at the moment. And we're really at the complete opposite end of that, where we really believe that if you really rip off fans or give people an experience or perception that they're being ripped off, then the next time they think about what they're going to do with their spare money to spend on social activities or with their free time, they might not pick going to a concert, and we think it's such a short term view to be doing those behaviors. And I think definitely in the sort of capacity size of shows that we're doing and the types of independent festivals and promoters that we work with, it's just not what people want either. So when we are pitching to those partners or talking to artists even about how we do things, which is really about stopping the resale of tickets and having this completely fair waiting list platform, then a lot of them love to hear that, and that's what they want to be pitched. They don't want to be pitched that we've built a system that could squeeze every dollar out of a fan who can happen to afford it. So I think that's a better approach to be doing it. I think, like, with the resale piece, especially, a lot of the early success we had with artists was also on the fact that we could stop the resale of tickets. I was just thinking of when we worked with Kanye on the Project Wyoming launch parties around the US, it was very early for us when we just launched here. And, you know, that was one of the massive reasons that he actually wanted to use the platform was to stop the resale of tickets. So there's been lots of case studies like that that we've had where just really big artists are trying to use us just to stop resale, and I think it's a misconception that, you know, larger artists are actually all trying to just make as much money as possible from the fan using that dynamic pricing or participating themselves in resale. 

[00:14:39] Dan Runcie: How did the Kanye partnership develop? 

[00:14:42] Russ Tannen: It was really very last minute and unexpected, and it was all happening from LA, and Andrew who's on our team and was in LA at the time, running there and setting up the business there had a call very late. And so it all happened while we were asleep in London, and he'd been told to set up some links, no event details, all super secret. And then we were all in a meeting the next day and I remember him texting us saying, go to kanyewest.com, and it rerouted to a DICE ticket page for the show. So it was pretty wild. But yeah, it was via promoter that we'd been working with in LA who'd been sort of brought on to find you know, locations for those shows and stuff. And there's been lots of other examples of that, but great example of a large artist using the platform for protecting their fans, and, yeah, it was just a good one to do. 

[00:15:27] Dan Runcie: Do you ever experience or see any type of pushback from any artist specifically? Because one of the underlying things about scalpers is that a lot of times it's the artists themselves who also benefit from the secondary market, just with the price that is seen as what people perceive as the value for going to a particular show of theirs. And also, since some of these artists have also participated in buying their own tickets and selling them on the secondary market. Have there been any artists or instances where artists have had any pushback on that? 

[00:16:02] Russ Tannen: No. Like, the way that we see it is we really focus on attendance. So by having the waiting list, we're making it easy to return a ticket if you can't go, then we're going to be very, very close to a hundred percent attendance on any sold-out show. In fact, what we normally see is about a 15% increase in attendance when a venue switches from a traditional ticket company to DICE, which makes a big difference when you're in the room. And I think the artists get that. The other thing with the waiting list data that we have is that you can really see the true demand for an artist. So an example recently in London would be with Little Simz, where we did this small show and we had 11,000 people on the waiting list for her, and it's just, it was so easy for her to add another date on that show. So there's been thousands. We've had millions and millions of people on the waiting list and millions of tickets returned. But the really exciting story, I think is always when an artist sees those waiting list numbers building and actually adds a second date, and that's when they're really making money. That's a better way to do it, right, really fulfill the full demand, actually have the right number of people in the room, not just a load of tickets unsold on secondary, or use that data properly to make sure that the next show on the tour is going to be the right size, so not missing opportunity on the next go-round or on the next album. And that's one of the data pieces that we really pioneered and a lot of artists have used very successfully at this point. 

[00:17:22] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. On the pricing piece of things, does the fact that the ticket price, once it's set is not going to be any higher and it's not going to change, does that change either how you or the artist think about what that initial dollar amount should be relative to what they may do with a more traditional platform?

[00:17:41] Russ Tannen: Well, I think that the way that ticketing fees and fees in general on to tickets has kind of evolved, has made it sort of less relevant, I think, to have it kind of separate. It's kind of all part of the pie in a way. And we just always thought that the best way to do that was to show the fans the full price upfront and explain that that includes any fees that related to the ticket. We also fight to keep fees kind of as low as they reasonably can be. So we hope that, you know, the tickets are as low as they can be, but the idea of a face value ticket in a world where that ticket is not available at that price anywhere, there's no box office to go to to buy a ticket from. There's no, you know, that ticket is never available at price. So to show that price anywhere to us feels a bit disingenuous to fans and really the, I guess, the theory is that you hook people in with the lower price, and then you just sort of surprise 'em at the end and they won't care because they're already down the journey. What we decided was that actually fans are smart, and once you've been to one show, you know that's what's going to happen. So it's better just to be upfront with people and say, look, this is the full price of the ticket including any fees that need to be added. And, you know, that's it. That's the price you're going to pay at the end. In terms of how that informs pricing, you know, we don't actually inform pricing ourselves. That's always down to, you know, the venue promoter, agent, artist. And I don't know. I don't know, maybe sometimes, because we see shows coming through now where they'll say, actually, let's put it up in 10 and make sure that that includes any of the fees. Or let's put that up for 20 or 30 and make sure that includes all the fees. So maybe a little bit is starting to happen. And, you know, I hope that's the way that that it goes 'cause people should really always be thinking about the final price that people are really going to pay. And, you know, that's another thing that fans tell us all the time that they like about the platform. It felt a little bit, I think, to begin with, counterintuitive to show people a bigger price. Like, it feels weird, almost, like, to start, but then actually if you speak to fans, then they'll say, no, It's better to know. Be upfront. How much is it going to cost me? Don't surprise me at the end. 

[00:19:38] Dan Runcie: And this extends industries as well, right? It's like the Airbnb thing. No one wants to be surprised to see the price double because of the cleaning and service fee ends up being twice as much as the rental. 

[00:19:49] Russ Tannen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's just the way that we think things should be, you know, so it's a change. Like, it's been one of the big things we talk in length about with partners, especially new partners coming on board. They've done it a certain way for a long time. But actually, you know, there's all types of legislation getting passed now to actually enforce upfront ticket pricing. And I do think this will be the way that everyone does pricing for ticketing, you know, over the next five years or so. 

[00:20:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how that all develops. I know that DICE has invested heavily in analytics and how you think about offering the best service, and so much of this also ties back to ensuring that consumers themselves are the ones that can get their hands on tickets. So how do you address bots? Because I know that's an ongoing concern for ticketing.

[00:20:35] Russ Tannen: Yeah, with bots, in particular, we were very fortunate that we started the company when we did, and we built this from scratch as a mobile company. The main thing for us really with any bots or any really anti-secondary measure is that for the most part, you know, everything is happening on mobile. We actually have two of the founders of Google Deep Mind were seed round investors of ours. And very early day,s we were terrified that one of the reasons that the company would fail would be that we would crash on a big on sale. And we used to call it the Radiohead test. Like, if we could survive a Radiohead on sale, we could survive anything sort of thing. And we actually worked and we had our CTO at the time go into Deep Mind and like work with a couple of the developers there, thinking about the architecture that would support, you know, hundreds of thousands of transactions to support on sales, but also to think about how we could protect against, you know, fake people trying to buy tickets. So we've done a lot there, a lot around security. And yeah, we haven't had a problem with it to date. So we hope that that continues. But I think, honestly, the biggest thing is that we've built this all ourselves. We have this huge, amazing product team who blow my mind every day, every year that we do this. And yeah, I think that they've built something really special. That's not something like many other ticket companies have been building on the same, they've been building on the same platforms for many, many years. And I don't think it's as, new or as, you know, as capable of handling some of these bad actors as we are.

[00:21:59] Dan Runcie: And I think, too, on the analytics piece, you've also used a lot of that to inform how you think about whether it's helping artists or venues or promoters think about capacity or other dynamics involved with selling a show or with putting a show on together. Can you walk us through that process and how that informs the end product that the consumer sees when they go to a show?

[00:22:22] Russ Tannen: Oh, totally. Yeah. Our first hire was a data scientist, so I don't know. It's, like, we're starting a ticket company, what do we need? Okay. Like you might think, I don't know, someone from another ticket company or, you know, an operations person or like someone from a venue. Like, we were like, no, let's hire a data scientist first, 'cause we knew that our superpower would be personalized recommendations and building an algorithm that was extremely sophisticated, that was going to show people the right shows for them., Shows that we know that they like and shows that we think they're going to like at the right time. And, yeah, so we hired this amazing guy, Greg, who still works for us and, shout out to Greg, and he's been part of the team now for many years that's been working on how to ingest all the different data points we have, starting with our onboarding process, which is all about you know, syncing with your music library, but also, you know, onboarding process, showing you different artists and genres and everything, and then starting to record all of your different behaviors in the app, which shows you're going to what you've been on a waiting list for, what you've saved, what you're browsing a lot of, and using all of that to inform your discover page, which is really the heart of DICE and the home screen when you go in there. And when we have like a critical mass inventory in a city that we're in, like, in London or Paris or Barcelona or New York, once we have that inventory, then you have an extremely personalized experience that feels almost as personalized as your streaming experience can be where there's enough inventory that you're going to see things that you're really passionate about and excited about. And we're going to package that up in different ways for you. We're going to show you things that your friends are going to, we're going to show you the genres you like, your favorite artists. We're going to show you things from your music library. We're going to show you all the shows that have been announced for you from the last seven days. Fans are always missing these announcements because there's no coordination between venues or promoters on when things announce. It's just all getting announced all the time, every day, hundreds of announcements. So, when you're looking at putting up, like in London, we're maybe 1500 a month. In New York, it's not far from that either. There's so many shows, right? Like, how as a fan are you supposed to filter that? So we filter for them using the data and the algorithms that we've built, so that we're only telling them about on a Thursday, here's the shows that announced to you this week. And that's really where all of that. You know, that's the biggest piece from a fan perspective of where that all that investment that we've made in data analytics really comes to life, away from the numbers and the stats and everything. That's, like, the real-world use of it. And that's what's driving, you know, that massive percentage, that 40 percentage of sales that we're seeing come from discovery and from the push notifications we're sending. And, like I said before, I think the person, the people that really benefit from that is the artist because that's just sales that are just happening organically through the product that we've built and not another post that they have to do or another ad they have to pay for, which always comes out of their pocket eventually. So, yeah, that's where that investment pays off. 

[00:25:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That 40% number is quite high, and it's impressive, I think, just given that this isn't something where people are necessarily consuming their product itself on the platform, right? And I think sometimes that discovery versus on-demand breakdown, you would likely expect that more from, as you mentioned, streaming something where you aren't consuming the actual product there. So the fact that you've been able to do that there is quite strong. And I do have to assume that given the investment that's been put into the data science and the fact that you can direct people and understand what people like, are there any desires or goals to be able to use the platform and the insights you have on these customers to offer them things in addition to concert ticket notifications or things like that, or other ways to leverage it knowing that you're reaching music fans?

[00:25:58] Russ Tannen: Yeah, there's two. There's two parts to that. One is, I think, uniquely with DICE, we've built it in a way that what we saw before was that people would discover the show in one place, then they would listen to the artist on their streaming platform. They would invite their friends through their messaging app, and then they'd buy their ticket from the ticket company. And what we tried to do was build that stack into DICE. So you're going to open DICE and discover the show. It's all integrated with Spotify and Apple Music to preview the artist, so you're going to listen to the artist in the app. You can invite your friend directly through the app and then obviously buy the ticket there as well. So what we see is more of the journey happening there. Obviously, the event itself happens off of the app, but a lot more of the actual process of the functional and the emotional parts of like, going to the show, like who you're going to go with, for example, that can all happen within the app and people just spend a bit more time in the app than I think that they would on a traditional ticketing site where it's more like search to purchase is the normal journey, I'm sure, almost all of the sales. So I think that's where we've managed to extend the amount of time people are in there. We are really excited about sort of commerce in general, and we'd made an announcement previously around merchandise and sort of doing more merchandise and things like that, and that's something you're going to see a lot more from us in the new year as well. So, absolutely, and that's something that we already do. We do some really interesting things with Rough Trade Records in New York and also in London where we'll do, like, vinyl bundles with album launch tickets and things like that. So there's already other parts of commerce kind of happening through the app. And ultimately I think the product is well-designed to make it very easy for people to buy things. So yes, whether we're selling them a ticket, or we're selling an artist something alongside the ticket, or we're adding something onto the ticket, I think that it's a natural progression for us and something that we're excited about exploring more. 

[00:27:44] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I know a lot of the data analytics discussion leads we've had here is focused more so on the consumer side. Does it inform as well things on the business side, such as the artists, thinking about what size venues that they may want to be in or the promoters thinking about how best to organize things?

[00:28:02] Russ Tannen: Yeah, we've been working, I'd say that there's definitely some artists and teams who have been really tapped into that. And, you know, we have a whole artist development team based out of London, New York, LA, and they're working directly with artists and agencies and managers on these data reports where we're really showing them not just where we're seeing a lot of activity from their fans, but we're doing things like suggesting support acts based on other shows that the artists' fans have been to see that might be smaller shows, or we're looking at what cities we think they should play there. We're doing a lot of that on a very kind of bespoke level with artists and also working with artists on getting them into more of the DICE venues and thinking about really make sure that from day one, they're treating their fans well and building that community on DICE, using that waiting list data to plan the next show. There's been lots of successful stories and artists that we've done that with, but just one that's top of mind, a New York artist that's coming up would be Ice Spice, who we're working with on just doing a first show somewhere, so it's not announced yet. But our artist team here is working closely with her team on planning something there, and I think that's really exciting, like, an artist that's blowing up, who's also really keen to make sure that the experience for the fans is going to be amazing from day one, from show one. 

[00:29:11] Dan Runcie: So with someone like Ice Spice who is clearly having a moment right now, what does that onboarding, the initial process, look like? Is it similar to the Kanye example where these things happen, or did someone on your team looking and scouting to see who's bubbling and then reaching out to be like, hey, let's make this happen?

[00:29:28] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I guess I kind of take it for granted now 'cause we've been doing it for so long, but, you know, we literally have a meeting that probably looks more like an A&R meeting at a record label where we are really saying, okay, what are people hearing? What arts are coming through? And that's how we've really, like, you know, a ton of artists now over the years, we've really identified very early as artists that we want to support and have worked with very closely on different types of shows that they want to do. Like, another example that's kind of top of mind would be someone like Cuco, who he identified very early and worked with on this huge block party that he did in LA a few years ago and continue to build that relationship with. But there's really, like, thousands of examples now, so, probably over a thousand artists this year. By the end of the year, it'll be over a thousand artists would have really worked with us very closely, not just on having a show through the platform, but whether we've informed which venue they play or which promoter they're working with or helping them with the marketing on that event or some other really tangible thing that we've done with them. And really that artist development team, I think is, part of kind of, like, the special source of DICE that's like just a bit different to what a traditional ticket company would do. And I really think the fact that we're able to do that is because of the brand that we've built around DICE, and it is a platform and a brand that I think artists do feel comfortable with and want to be associated with as well versus, like, maybe a traditional ticket company that wouldn't have that same kind of feeling to it. 

[00:30:46] Dan Runcie: Right. For the A&R piece of it, 'cause I think that's interesting and I think that it makes a lot of sense, what are the factors that go into the decisions that you're looking at? Because I know I talked to a few folks and there's been a bit of debate around which stats make sense to follow, which stats don't make sense, what's more signal versus noise, how do you determine that? 

[00:31:06] Russ Tannen: Well, I think, we obviously have, obviously, this really interesting data ourselves. So a lot of the venues we work with at the smaller level. And at one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50-capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, you know, many of the best 100 to 200 capacity venues that exist in, in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that. So some of the data points that I think we are finding most interesting are actually the ones that we're seeing very early come from our own data. And then I think that that's always going to be the debate on the, you know, the taste versus, or the gut versus data kind of thing, and a lot of that comes from hiring amazing people, like, we have on our artist development team whose judgment we trust very much to pick the things out that are really going to cut through. But yeah, I definitely think seeing some of those early signals, which may, in the grand scheme of things, look quite small, but I think if you are playing a hundred-capacity show and you have a hundred people on the waiting list, that's a great sign because if you're already driving 200 fans to a show, and you are brand new then, I think that's harder than going from, you know, 3,000 to 5,000 and finding those 2,000 people, I think those first 200 is really difficult. 

[00:32:39] Dan Runcie: How important is streaming data or social media engagement or following in your analysis? 

[00:32:47] Russ Tannen: I have to talk to the team about how much they're tracking that. I think it feels more like, Ice Spice is a good example of this. So we are talking about Ice Spice, Morgan on the team who's working with her team is telling me about this track, and he thinks it's going to be big, and we're talking to them about doing a show. And then in the time from when we first started speaking to her team to today, you know, her Instagram following has gone from, you know, in the tens of thousands to in the millions. And so it's more like a, we're right about this one moment. It didn't matter a few months ago or whatever, that there was only 10,000 followers or whatever. We wouldn't have ignored it 'cause it didn't have millions of followers already. But I think that now it's more like, okay, yeah, that is a good signal that this is really going to blow up.

[00:33:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think just given that large number, it's hard to ignore that. It's been interesting though. I've talked to agents on this platform and they've said that they don't see as much of a correlation between streaming numbers and ticket sales. And of course, I think there's nuance there. Yes, someone like Drake or Bad Bunny that's doing 10 billion streams a year is obviously going to be in arenas and stadiums, but I think it was more so highlighting that some of the newer artists, it can be tougher because you have people that have, you know, so much of a strong following, but they may not necessarily have that following because of their music or because of other things about them. So, and I think we've just started to see more and more of that. So it does create, in some ways, a bit of a unique opportunity for the promoters or events companies that can be able to determine, yeah, like what is the true signal and what are the things that have less weight?

[00:34:19] Russ Tannen: Yeah. We really want to try and work with managers and agents more and more on providing this data that we see so that they get a sense of what is really happening 'cause it is just so different. I think if someone's put their hand in their pocket and spent $30 on going to a show versus hearing a track on a playlist, obviously, like, it's just not the same type of commitment at all. So we're working to keep growing that team and expanding the number of artists that we're having that type of relationship with. And, yeah, anyone listening who wants to get in touch with our artist team is very welcome to as well, and you can do that through the site. But, yeah, we are keen to be talking to as many labels and managers, agents everyone really who's interested in kind of digging into that, especially if their artists already have shows on DICE as well on in any of our venues. We'd love to get into that with them. 

[00:35:04] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Switching gears a bit, going back to the entrance and really expanding things in the US market, one of the things that stuck out to me from your past interviews was how you talked about how live events and concerts is much more of a localized business, and I'm sure that the experience that you all had in Europe and everything in the UK, there's slightly likely some differences considering things being localized, whether it's in New York City or some of the other markets here. What are some of those notable differences that you've picked up on in the US and some of the cities in the US as opposed to things in the UK? 

[00:35:41] Russ Tannen: I'd say that one of the biggest differences is more of a technical thing, I guess, for us, which is that in European markets, the people who actually control the tickets, it's much more spread. So on one show you could have 10 ticket companies selling tickets for the same show, and then it's really just like on the fan to have a preferred outlet or who's, you know, boosting their link the most, honestly. So it's a little bit different versus the US where it's exclusively with the venue. So every show pretty much has one ticket company and it makes the market difficult to break into honestly because of that. It's very binary. You're either working on the show or you're not. Versus when we started in London, we could say, hey, to a promoter, we want 10 tickets to the show, and we would be able to list the show. So if you were going onto the app, you could see all these amazing artists playing. But we didn't have more than 10 tickets sometimes or 20 tickets versus US, where you really have to have the whole inventory and you have to be in a position to do it. I also think that how the market worked in Europe was one of the reasons that we invested so much in the discovery piece because we were competing on every single show. We had to sell our allotment of tickets versus in the US. I think the ticket companies as soon as they've signed the venue, they're almost more lazy maybe about it. So they haven't spent so much on discovery piece. And I think that's why, you know, our discovery story here and the way that it's working here is kind of a rich one and honestly just better for fans. But we needed to do it that way around. I think it would've much harder to start here and then go into Europe. So I'm glad it works the way it did. But that's been one of the big differences. I think for us, really, we're just excited about finding all of the best kind of quality independent operators, whether they're promoters or venues, and really helping them grow their businesses as well. And we love venues that have just really well-curated programming, like, we love the programming. Elsewhere, for example, is another New York venue that we work with where super diverse, amazing program that just kind of ticks all these different boxes, but always hits this quality bar that just seems like almost impossibly high, like, every night. It's really special. So we are really, like, excited about working with people like that. And New York such, it's an amazing city for music. So it's nice that this is kind of our main base here at the moment in the US. 

[00:37:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And given that in the US, things are much more all or nothing, does that have any type of impact on how the tickets may go throughout the entire process? I know at least in the US, I've seen a few things. If a ticket is on for a while. And we talked a lot about scalpers and just their influence when tickets and the demand increases, right? We haven't talked as much about when the demand decreases 'cause I know that at times, I've seen things where artists will have their tickets go on Groupon and places like that where they'd be offered for a much lower price. How has that piece of it been in the US where, let's say there's a show that you've wanted to put on and if the resellers are needing to sell for the same price, but the demand itself may not necessarily reflect where it is, or if the artist is struggling to sell, how does the pricing dynamic impact that?

[00:38:43] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think you obviously see that, and not every show can be a sellout with, you know, tickets being sought after. I think that there's different strategies around that always. I think that for a lot of our partners, they're more used to handling all of that themselves where maybe we might be able to work on doing like competition strategy or just doing discounts or looking at other marketing channels or extra support that we can give to a show, whether that's really checking that we've done and reached all of the different audiences we think might be interested in a show and really keeping that as mobile and really trying to stay away from email, honestly. I think that one of the changes, if you think about how event marketing has changed through the years from kind of posters to magazine adverts to heavy social media to email, I think those email days are very much on the way out and really focusing on our push notification strategy and just having a very sticky product that people going to keep coming into naturally to check. That's going to be the best way to really thinking about increasing sales on low-selling shows. I think it was also a really interesting summer for people just being very honest about their ticket sales. Like, there were literally artists just coming out and saying, you know what? We're canceling these shows. We haven't sold enough tickets. Like, that was kind of new. I think people haven't been that straight up before, but that was definitely happening a bit this summer. And I think that it was a hard summer for lots of artists and lots of events and also some people had some huge success. So it's definitely a kind of uncertain time still, only obviously one year or so out of COVID and shows being back. I think that people are still feeling some of that after effects. There was a, obviously, huge rebound last summer that we really felt here as we were putting together the team still, and then suddenly we had all these venues turning on and using the product for the first time. So that was an interesting experience. But this summer I think things kind of bounced the other way a little bit, and we're going to hit a steadier stride coming into the end of the year, and I think next year is one that people are going to find easier to plan for, hopefully. 

[00:40:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I bet. And I think that we saw a few things happen this summer. As you mentioned, there was some success, but I think it definitely was a bit subject to that power law, right, where the folks at the top were able to sell out and have their tickets sell for whatever the dynamic pricing set them at. And then a lot of the artists that were either your middle class of artists or emerging definitely struggled. But one area that I do see huge amount of opportunity is Latin America and in our Trapital Culture Report 2022, we talked a lot about how much growth Latin Music has had. Of course, Bad Bunny, but there's many of other artists as well. What does your Latin American strategy look like for DICE? 

[00:41:11] Russ Tannen: I saw that in your report and, yeah, it totally reflected what we have been seeing as well, actually pulled the stats to share with you as well as you've done such great work. So it was fun to kind of pull something back. So Latin ticket sales for us increased nine times in the past year, so, 829% 2022 to 2021. And Latin events listed on DICE have quadrupled 2022 from 2021. So we are absolutely seeing the same. It's obviously huge. We've been working with people like the Paramount in LA and for a long time, been working with lots of Latin artists. We just did a show last year with Karol G at United Palace, with the Cuco show I mentioned, we did Bad Gyal in Spain. And also we haven't touched on it yet in this interview, but last year we bought Boiler Room, and they've also had a lot of success with Latin and Reggaeton programming, and worked with many artists, especially at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, which was another one of the festivals we work with where we had Boiler on stage this year. And they had this amazing program there, which included lots of Latin acts. So I think that, yeah, like, I think the whole industry's feeling it. I think it's super exciting. I think it's so cool. And I think that people are still discovering a lot of this incredible talent, and it just feels like a nice moment to have that exposure. I think for us more on the venue side. We're also doing this big push into Miami, and we just signed our first venues in Miami. And we're really excited about building that up there. And we just signed Club Space there, but there's many, many more venues there that we're looking to sign. So yeah, I think this is just like an interesting time. We're probably a little bit further away from actually launching in Latin America itself. But, you know, our partners Primavera Sound are just doing, over the next couple of months, are doing their first festivals down there, which are selling really well. Like, they're going to be really, really well. So definitely got my eye on maybe trying to make it down for one of those and checking it out. But yeah, it feels exciting, doesn't it? 

[00:42:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it definitely does. 9x is impressive, and it's especially impressive because I think that a lot of the folks in the music industry are seeing the top line numbers on Latin, and they may assume, okay, well, yes, the Bad Bunny effect, his album is dominating. The difference for you all though is that you don't have artists that are like the Bad Bunny level. Well, I know you're working with them, but since you're primarily focused on that 200 to 10,000 capacity, it means that you're seeing this at that level, too. And that says, and I think that should instill a lot of confidence that this isn't just one or two artists that are pulling up everything. This is an entire movement. 

[00:43:30] Russ Tannen: It's a really good point. Yeah. I think that's a really nice way to look at that data. And that's, yeah, it's absolutely what we're seeing and I think definitely it's hitting that point where it's not just that kind of trickle-down effect, but it's also like this bottom-up ground swell of artists coming through. So, yeah, that's definitely the right way to think about that, I think, that's awesome. 

[00:43:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think that Africa, with what's happening with afro beats and some of the other sub-genres there, that's next up. It's only going to, I mean, it's already happening, but it's only a matter of time. 

[00:43:58] Russ Tannen: It's happening, yeah, yeah. 

[00:43:59] Dan Runcie: You know, we see those numbers start to have even bigger and bigger market share. 

[00:44:03] Russ Tannen: Yeah, it gets me excited 'cause we're, you know, it takes so much every time we launch into a new country, and we kind of have to do it kind of one by one, and it's a big focus. But we really want to build DICE into being a global business and be truly global. And that doesn't mean just the kind of markets that have this really established touring infrastructure, all these other things. We want to be everywhere and explore all of these different genres and cultures in a way that makes sense. And, yeah, we're excited to be everywhere in the next few years. But in the meantime, yeah, we are helping, you know, do what we can to support all different types of music and sub genres of music and subcultures within music, and we just keep an eye on what we think the next big thing is going to be as well. 

[00:44:42] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Well, Russ, this has been great. Before we let you go though, what's one big thing that's on your radar for DICE that you're focusing on for 2023? 

[00:44:52] Russ Tannen: I think for us the big thing for us next year is really going to be expanding across the rest of the country here. We are really excited to be in tons of cities, and there's so many amazing music cities in the US as you well know. And we're excited to keep building and be everywhere because we want to be sat having conversations with artists where we can talk about doing a full US tour with them, playing all in venues that we work with, and helping them to plan how to grow across the country. So that's going to be the big push for next year. 

[00:45:22] Dan Runcie: Nice. Exciting stuff. All right. Well, if people want to follow along with DICE and if they want to set up their own profile, where do they go? 

[00:45:30] Russ Tannen: They can go straight to dice.fm. So that's the best place if you want to partner with us, if you want to get in touch with the arts development team, if you are a promoter or a venue that wants to work with us, everything's there. If you want to buy tickets and play around with the app, then head to, you know, the app store, iOS, Android, and download the app and have a play around with it. And yeah, let us know what you think. And people are more than welcome to get in touch with me directly as well. So it's just russ@dice.fm and they can email me directly. It's great. 

[00:45:57] Dan Runcie: Nice. Sounds good. And yeah, the next time that Kanye throws one of these impromptu listening parties or these Wyoming get-togethers, I'll look to see if I see that DICE redirect. 

[00:46:09] Russ Tannen: Yeah, oh, well, I'll let you know if it's going to happen. I'll give you the heads-up. 

[00:46:12] Dan Runcie: Right. Sounds good. Thanks again, Russ. It's a pleasure. 

[00:46:14] Russ Tannen: Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks.

[00:46:18] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Rory Felton has spent most of his past two decades in music being pro-artist. He developed talent and sold millions of records under his Militia Group label that he co-founded and eventually sold to Sony. In the early days of social media, Rory worked with Top 40 artists and majors to monetize on these new platforms. That’s why it was ironic that Rory was recently criticized for being anti-artist. 

Rory founded HitPiece two years ago. HitPiece is an NFT marketplace focused solely on music collections. While in beta earlier this year, unauthorized NFTs from big-name artists became available for purchase on HitPiece. HitPiece was hit with wide-spread backlash from artists, the RIAA, and many others for copyright infringement. The company quickly went dark while the team recalibrated its business.

Months later, HitPiece has now re-launched. This time with strictly-authenticated collections on-site from rising artists like ATL Jacob, Pyrex Whippa, and proven commodities such as Rick Ross. A metaverse add-on is also in the works to virtually display purchased NFTs. In many ways, the industry-wide blowback changed both Rory and HitPiece. The company’s intent has stayed consistent from the get-go: to make NFTs easy for both artists and fans.

Rory joined me on the show to cover what went wrong with HitPiece earlier this year, why this relaunch is different, and the opportunities and challenges NFTs have inside the music industry. Here’s everything we covered:

[2:58] Rory’s two decades in the industry pre-HitPiece

[6:07] “Best time in human history to be an artist” 

[9:19] What went wrong with HitPiece’s beta release

[13:33] Re-gaining industry trust after the backlash 

[16:22] Did HitPiece consider rebranding?

[19:12] How HitPiece built a collection with rising star ATL Jacob

[20:27] Web3 co-existing with industry, not replacing it

[27:34] Building out a music-centric metaverse 

[33:32] How HitPiece will compete against Facebook, Opensea, and other big players

[35:57] Types of NFT collections on HitPiece

[39:00] How to win the music industry in 2022 and onward 

[43:17] HitPiece plans for 2023

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Rory Felton, @Roryfelton

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Rory Felton: We think this space is for everyone. And we think that the smallest artists on the planet can actually benefit from Web 3.0 in a way that maybe streaming isn't changing the game for them right now. For instance, we've worked with baby developing artists that are making more money from Web 3.0 in one launch of an NFT collection than they would over two to three months from streaming. In general, we all think music's the coolest thing in the world. And so we want to revalue it in a way that maybe NFTs allow us to that technology hasn't enabled in the past.

[00:00:40] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:60] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Rory Felton. He is the co-founder and CEO of HitPiece, a company that's bringing artists and fans together through NFTs in real life experiences, metaverse experiences and more. HitPiece is one of our sponsors this quarter for Trapital, and I wanted to have this conversation because Rory and HitPiece have had a very interesting past couple of months. Back in February, they launched a platform, but there was a ton of controversy surrounding it because a lot of artists had their music and their NFTs for sale on the platform without their consent, and understandably so, it created a bunch of frustration and news around some of the consent around NFTs, some of the perception around the space overall and how that impacted Rory and the team. So in this conversation, we talked about it. We talked about how that happened, why it happened, and what Roy and the team are doing now moving forward for that not to happen in the future. And then we talked about what does HitPiece look like now moving forward, what are the opportunities more broadly for Web 3.0 companies in music, what are some of the challenges, what are some of the artists that they're working with now, like ATL Jacob, who just signed with Republic Records. So we talked about that, and Rory has a ton of experience in the music industry, even before HitPiece. So we talked about how that shapes his current strategy and what he thinks successful look like, not just for HitPiece, but for the overall industry moving forward. Great conversation and tons of insights, and especially for a lot of the founders that have built stuff messed up and want to hear what it's like to keep things going. This is a good one to listen to. Here's my chat with Rory. 

[00:02:39] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are joined by Rory Felton, who is the co-founder and CEO of HitPiece. But before we talk about HitPiece or anything like that, I know you've worked in music for a number of years and you've had a few different hats in this industry. What attracted you to the space early on? 

[00:02:58] Rory Felton: Oh, man. So when I was 15, I started playing music and I learned pretty quickly that I really couldn't write songs very well. So when I was 16, I started putting on local shows for artists booking regional acts, and that naturally turned into putting out records for artists. And in the nineties, we were manufacturing CDs, so I actually learned the process of printing, shipping it to a factory, calling distributors, trying to get them to ship out our CDs to retailers. And that's how I started. In 2000, I moved out to LA to go to school at SC, was a little bored and started another record label. Our first few records did quite well. I think our first record almost went gold, and so that created enough revenue to really fund the company and grow that record label. And for the next 10 years, we ended up selling millions of records. I developed dozens of artists, felt really proud of what we accomplished. Sony Music later invested in the company and later acquired the major artists that I worked And I took a breather for a moment because working with artists can be a lot of work and can be emotional and and challenging in so many ways, but also fun and exciting. And I ended up finding a real passion for the technology side of the music industry. I really wanted to have sort of a macro impact on the industry in helping artists create new technologies to connect with their fan base, develop new business models. And I saw, sort of saw the old record company structure or record deal structure is sort of a little bit antiquated, and there are so many technologies here that could allow artists to directly connect with their fans and connect and create new and unique revenue streams. And so I spent several years in the early 2010s helping top 40 artists sell music and merchandise in stream on social media like Gaga, Green Day, Snoop Dog, Tim McGraw, A$AP Rocky, all the major labels. And I did a couple years overseas on a volunteer trip and then came back to the music space really on artist management initially, but also in blockchain. I bought Bitcoin in 2014 and was always really curious about blockchain's application to the music space. And in 2018 I co-wrote a white paper on digital collectibles for artists and could not get anyone's attention back then on this space and the idea of fans buying digital merchandise from artists and connecting with them and the idea of an artist creating a layer of community ownership and what they were doing. And then obviously fast forward a couple of years, the NFT space, that specific protocol has really taken off four creatives and four artists. And I decided to jump in full time to apply this innovation to the music industry 'cause I saw so many opportunities for artists to take advantage of it.

[00:05:43] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And one thing there before we get to the HitPiece part of it where you are today, selling your record label and everything there to Sony, what is it like watching the current movement now with other record labels being bought up by other record labels, especially the majors or just some of the catalog purchases there? Because I'm sure you did this in a very different market than what we're seeing now. 

[00:06:07] Rory Felton: Yeah, so a lot of people don't remember this, but in 2006 to like 2011, it was really hairy for the record industry. There were a lot of unknowns. Downloading was here, digital like iTunes and its competitors, however, streaming as a paid streaming format really hadn't taken off or really been fully established. And so you had these massive problems still with file sharing and people just assuming music was free, right? And just downloading it without paying for it from all sorts of websites. And so there was this moment, an era where like, gosh, golly, we don't know if these major labels are really going to figure it out. And kudos to them, they struck some really savvy deals and made streaming something that really, really worked. So today's era has been amazing. I get really excited for artists that are able to have huge liquidity opportunities if they've built a catalog over their lifetime. And then also I get really excited just as more opportunities to finance your career than there ever have been. You can now borrow against your catalog. You can borrow against your master rights or publishing rights to fund something you want to do moving forward. You could never do that 10 or 15 years ago. So you have players like that in this space. You have distributors in this space, almost playing like record labels and advancing monies to artists, but allowing artists to keep their masters. And then you have record labels sort of playing as distributors. And so you have all these middle men kind of playing as different roles. And I think it's great 'cause artists have more opportunity now than they've ever been. I've been saying this for a few years. It is the best time in human history to be a music artist. It was so hard in the nineties and so hard in the early 2000s to stand out, and now even though we are in some economic challenges right now, and just the macro economy, it's still really the best time in human history to be a music artist. 

[00:07:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's generally where I land with this too. I know that there's a lot of people that have a bit of the nostalgia and yearning for being able to sell CDs and being able to make the money off of CDs, but it was still a market that had tons of gatekeepers. And even without Napster, I still think that there would be a lot of challenges 'cause there were a bunch of CD sales that were of bad catalog that weren't exactly of new things, but we could go all day talking about that. But it was a fascinating time for sure. But fast forwarding a few years though, with HitPiece, of course you have the idea and you see the opportunity to be able to make it easier for artists to monetize and take advantage of what's here. And I know that earlier this year, the launch day didn't go the way that you had wanted it to. And there was a lot of press and some negative things written about just the intent and where you all were trying to go. And I know that there are also a few artists too, whether it's like Jack Antonoff and a few others that had some complaints about how it went down and after reading a few of those, I definitely saw some of the responses and from your perspective as well, but I never really got a good, clear sense for what was the . Intent and what would this have looked like if the launch had went as well as it could have, so it'd be great to hear a little bit about that, because I feel that's the part that was a little bit missing in some of the discussions about what had happened. 

[00:09:19] Rory Felton: Yeah. So first and foremost, I really believe in innovation, and I really believe in enriching artists, and artists being able to control their music and what they're doing. And so we were looking at this space and thinking about like, man, if I put on my music fan hat, what's the ideal experience I want as a music fan? What would I love to have more than anything? And platforms like Spotify and Apple Music has sort of trained us to feel like everything could be in one place. And so we put together this idea to create an experiment where we tried to show artists and labels and rights holders, hey, this is what the future could look like. Here's sort of this private game experience that we think would be really fun to onboard a huge number of people into this space very quickly and create a massive revenue stream for artists and rights holders. And where we really messed up is we failed to put the proper guardrails around it to where too much of it was public too fast. And that was something that we definitely messed up with. We were having active discussions with hundreds of artists, managers, major record companies. We had showed them what we're doing. Hey, what do you think of this experience we're creating? And all the feedback that we received was highly positive. Everyone was really excited about this potential future for a platform that could turn on a whole new revenue stream for them without a lot of work. One thing I've experienced as a manager and a record company founder is that artists are so busy. They're in the studio making music all the time. They have to go on tour, they have to make content for social media all the time right now. They're so busy doing all these things you don't want to add just another thing to their plate. And so we've always tried to make it, what's the easiest way for them to onboard into a new space without having to create a huge amount of work for them? So that was our intent. Clearly, we failed to have the proper guard rails around it. And we took down the beta after a few weeks. And there were obviously some artists that expressed some frustration with it. And since then, we've had conversations with hundreds of artists and labels and managers and industry leaders, sharing with them how we feel about this space, what we think is coming, and the overall sediment has been really about excitement and enthusiasm. about what's coming in this space and the opportunities that are being created for artists and rights holders in this space. 

[00:11:39] Dan Runcie: Got it. So if I'm understanding correctly, it's like you were trying to show, okay, this is what it could look like. Let's give you an example of what this could look like. Like, if your Taylor Swift, like this is a type of revenue stream that you could unlock, but the presentation of it was more so, hey, here's where you can buy Taylor Swift's, you know, access to her likeness or access to her music. And you were trying to more so show a demo as opposed to an actual marketplace. Do I have that right? 

[00:12:07] Rory Felton: Yeah, it was definitely a live demo. There was no music used on the website. As a music rights holder myself, as someone that's worked with artists for decades, we would never utilize music in a way that was infringing on their rights or unapproved in any way. And that's something that I think really got lost in the storm of it all is the fact that there was no music on the website. We had some marketing language on the website, and again, we've looked at this as a beta experiment for a small audience. It was by no means built or intended to be exposed to the world at large. But we did have some language on the website that was not fully fleshed out at the time, again, like many beta experiments are. 

[00:12:49] Dan Runcie: So was part of it also as well that the beta was meant to be a bit of a closed opportunity, but then it leaked, or then it got out? 

[00:12:58] Rory Felton: It was public and that was an error on our end. You know, we failed to have the guardrails built around to cut off certain sections or functions of the website that shouldn't have been made public.

[00:13:08] Dan Runcie: Got it. Okay. So since then, how has it been having a lot of these conversations? 'cause obviously you were able to drum up a bunch of support leading up to February and you still had plenty of connections now with artists that we'll get into soon. But what was it like having those conversations, whether it's with labels or others where you're trying to communicate not just what happened but also build up a bit of trust given the impact?

[00:13:33] Rory Felton: Yeah. What we found is that, well, having been in this industry for two decades, I have a huge number of relationships from, you know, the tops of the major record companies, major publishers to many, many, many managers of both developing artists and some of the biggest artists in the world. And they know me, right, so they knew my heart, they knew where I was coming from, and I just was able to be honest with them, and say, look, we moved a little too fast here. We built this product a little too fast without fully flushing out where we should put certain guardrails in place, and the response was, hey, look, we get it, no problem. We're looking for solutions in this space. We need easy ways to launch collections to audiences that might want to be interested in this. And right now everything on the market feels a little too complicated, right? NFTs and Web 3.0, it feels nerdy and it feels complex. And I think a lot of the early people in this space may have made it that way on purpose so that there feels like there's a level of like seniority or gatekeeping to it. And we've approached this and been like, no, this is actually pretty simple. This is actually making what has existed in the world of music already, such as VIP experiences, and fan clubs, and even, like, DRM music, and it's creating it on a layer of new technology that actually gives more ownership to fans and actually deepens relationships between artists and fans. And so that response has been really exciting and I think that's what's contributed to us being able to onboard the large volume of artists that we have onboarded so far and continue to have exciting conversations every single day with folks across this space. 

[00:15:14] Dan Runcie: Have there been any lingering impacts since then? Like, obviously there's the initial response and things have happened. But since you've relaunched. And it does seem like, as you mentioned, you still are stable of artists and there are a bunch of folks that you're working with but are there any lingering impacts from what had happened? 

[00:15:30] Rory Felton: I would say there's probably still some artists that just don't want to have anything to do with the NFT space. I think that in general, there's still a lot of misunderstanding around what Web 3.0 is and what it can enable, and there seems to, generally speaking, a level of negative sentiment towards NFTs in some categories of the music industry. But that seems to be sort of a blanket feeling or sentiment towards NFTs, not necessarily what we're doing.

[00:15:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I've heard that from, was just talking to a few people about this earlier this week, and we've heard it as well, just the polarizing nature of it that's bigger than HitPiece. And I think it's something for a lot of companies to navigate, but it's not necessarily at one company itself. But, I guess, leading up to the relaunch recently, were there any talks at all about rebranding or anything like that? 'Cause obviously I know that staying with the name is also a statement in itself. 

[00:16:22] Rory Felton: Yeah, clearly, we thought about every sort of path we could take. You know, we even thought like, do we want to do this? Like, is this worth the battle, right? And what we decided at the end of the day was, look, some folks thought we were doing something we were not doing at all. Our intent was completely misconstrued, and we felt like if we were to shut it all down and say, you know, good night. It's almost like the people that were creating this narrative would've won or that narrative would've become true, right? In our hearts, in our feeling, and everyone at the company that's at the company that was experienced all that, we all felt together, like, look, this isn't what we are doing. This isn't what we're all about. Like, we should stick with it and see this through because we felt like the brand was now very well known for better or worse, and it's up to us to sort of, to see it through and show to the world that, no, this isn't what we were trying to do. We're actually making something amazing, we think, for artists and so far, in the collections that we've launched has done really well for the artists that we've worked with. So that's what led to our decision to stick with the brand and keep going. We could have posited to a whole other brand, but everyone would just say, oh, those are the same folks that did this. So what would be the point of that? Because it's still me. Unlike a lot of people in this space, I've never been anonymous, right? I've always been completely public with who I am. HitPiece was on my LinkedIn, on my branding since early last year. I didn't hide from any of this. I engaged with anyone that wanted to have a conversation and still will. So it's not in our nature to hide or to run away. We think that Web 3.0 is still a huge game changer for both developing and establishing artists, and we want to provide incredible solutions for artists. 

[00:18:10] Dan Runcie: And what was the hardest part for you personally during all of this, as the founder, as the leader of the organization, but also as a human being dealing with the fallout and just trying to keep things moving?

[00:18:22] Rory Felton: Oh gosh. I think for a little bit, like, you know, personally I'm a father. I'm a husband, and so for me, it's just not letting what some people in social media or in the media might say about me impact who I know I am and who I am to my family. First and foremost, that's always most important to me. So that was probably the biggest challenge and, you know, clearly, it's not something that we wanted to happen, but we're really excited and bullish on the future right now. 

[00:18:48] Dan Runcie: For sure. And I think you have a lot of reasons, too. One of the artists that you have, ATL Jacob recently signed a deal with Republic Records. And I think he's someone who's definitely been rising quite a bit, and I assume that's a partnership that you are able to land in the most recent months. So what did that look like and what has it been like working alongside someone like him and then seeing the growth continue?

[00:19:12] Rory Felton: Yeah, Jacob was amazing. We are so blessed to really have just the perfect time to connect and meet him and hear about what he thought about this space, and what he wanted to do, and had that sort of build a collection together that really made sense for his brand and offer value to his super fans that really you can't get any other way. And so that's what we're really excited about. We, of course, knew he was in conversations with major labels at the time and knew something would happen in that space. We just feel honored and privileged that we get to be his partner for Web 3.0 because he's clearly an incredible talent that's had huge success on the producing side in the last couple of years, and I think we're going to see him break out as an artist over the next year and reach completely new milestones as well in his career.

[00:19:57] Dan Runcie: And what was it like for what he was able to do specifically on HitPiece? 'Cause I think a lot of people that see artists, they understand what it's like to be on a major label, but from an economic standpoint, like what they were able to do with a platform like yours, there still is a bit of questions, and this honestly may lead to some of the confusion some artists may have about NFTs, Web 3.0 in general, so obviously you may not be able to share all the details, but, like, what did things look like for him right now with what you've all been able to work on and what he's released, and what that ends up looking like for him? 

[00:20:27] Rory Felton: Yeah, so he's building a beautiful collection of art that's going to be completely collectible, and those tokens will be connected to incredible in real-life experiences. So some of those tokens can be redeemed for a studio session with ATL Jacob. So rather than, typically in the music industry, right, you have to go through a manager or you have to go through a record company. You have to go through gatekeepers to get to someone on Jacob's level. Here we're saying, no, let's break down all the barriers and say, actually through Web 3.0, you can have an incredible experience, and you could work with, you know, a producer that spends six months at the number one rap producer chart on Billboard. Like, you can actually work with them and make a record together, right? Experiences like that we think are incredible, exclusive merchandising items. And being able to essentially build a really connected VIP club of sorts that will get you access to experiences, to events, to really in- person, one on one time with these artists and producers that people love. You know, this is what I think Web 3.0 is all about. It's creating experiences that are unparalleled in other parts of the music industry. 

[00:21:40] Dan Runcie: So given those experiences, and I think those are definitely things that fans and everything value and things that he could likely build a career standalone on. Is there any particular question or thought about when an artist-producer like him goes in, does a deal with a major label as a bit of it like, oh, well why did you need to do that? Like, you could have continued working here, like, part of the promise is getting more inherent value for the work itself. Was there any tension there at all with him or even with some of the other artists? 

[00:22:11] Rory Felton: No, because every artist is different, and every artist gets different types of opportunities. And to me, Web 3.0 is not about being in Web 3.0 only and forgetting about the rest of the industry. It's not like you release your content or your music only as NFT and you don't do streaming, right? It's not like you do that only and you don't go on tour, or you don't sync your music to film and TV, or you don't do brand partnerships. It's just one part of the bigger puzzle of connecting with fans and connecting with bigger audiences. I think this huge opportunity for artists to connect with fans through Web 3.0 while also doing partnerships on the record side that they want to do that work best for them and their brand. For Jacob specifically, he has a whole record label, Wicked Money Family, that he can do. He can sign new artists, too, and they all can go through this bigger system. That's not something that not every artist can just do on their own, right, being able to plug into a bigger system is great for him. What it does do is it may limit what type of content an artist can mint as an NFT on their own, such as if you're in an exclusive recording contract, it may limit or prohibit what specifically you can do with music. But those are always open discussions, and every single recording contract is unique and specific and different, and provide artists and labels with all sorts of different rights.

[00:23:35] Dan Runcie: Got it. So for someone like him, and I guess as well thinking about how you're building the business, I do feel like your stance essentially is that a company like HitPiece can work, and they don't necessarily have to be exclusively here. They could work with majors, they could work with others. Do you feel like that mentality is similar to other founders you may talk to in Web 3.0 or with NFTs? Because some of the folks I talk to, there's a bit more of that dogmatic approach where the purpose of our platform is that you don't need to do that. 

[00:24:08] Rory Felton: Yeah. So first and foremost, every partnership we have with an artist is non-exclusive. They could do a collection with us and go to a collection with anyone else or on their own using their own software at any time. That's something that I believe in. I believe in, like, we're not here to be an exclusive partner in any way. So I believe in artist freedom. Artists should have the freedom to do a record deal if they want to. Artists should also have the freedom to say, hey, look, I'm going to stay independent. I'm going to build up a balance sheet of masters and publishing that I own, and I'm going to leverage that in the way that I want to. I think every path is different for each artist and some work for others, and some don't work for others. And I've seen artists stay independent, build balance sheets of masters, and publish they own, and be tremendously successful. They build these multimillion-dollar businesses that they can operate and function like their own business. And then at the same time, that can just build up their leverage for if a major label wants to do a deal with them, they're saying, hey, look, my business is already doing millions of dollars a year. If you want to be in business with my business, you've gotta make it worth my while. To me, it's about, I think Web 3.0 increases leverage for artists if they embrace it and engage that community. But by no means would I look at it as a dogmatic Web 3.0 anti-record company approach. I don't think that's it at all. I think we're already seeing major labels enter Web 3.0 and allow their artists to try things in Web 3.0 that I think is really exciting. And every conversation I have with major labels and people at those companies is it's curiosity, it's intriguing, it's fun. They are by no means looking at it as a do-or-die or like you said, a dogmatic approach. I come from the music industry. I think maybe some other founders in this space don't have two decades of music experience, and so they're wanting to disrupt an industry that they think needs disruption. Whereas I know all these, all my friends that work at labels or at management companies, I mean, they bleed for artists. They put their heart and soul into trying to break new artists, and these are the people you want to be a part of your business, right? You don't want to just alienate them and cut them off. That being said, historically, some record deals have been a little unfair for the artists, right? And I'm not trying to say that that's not the case, but I think innovation like Web 3.0 is continuing to increase artist leverage and continuing to give them more options. More options is really what it's all about. 

[00:26:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think even the point that you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation, just your stance on streaming itself and what it unlocked for the business, that is a bit more of that holistic perspective as opposed to some others that, you know, I think the belief that music should have inherent value, which it should. I think it's a bit of that dichotomy, and to be honest, you hear less of that from the record labels with, most of the time, it maybe from some of the founders and folks outside of the industry. But it's a fascinating time. It's a fascinating time. And I know that with you, you're not just thinking about NFTs and things minting for HitPiece, you're also having a metaverse, you have the Lounge and having that as an opportunity for artists, and I know that's something that's continuing developing as well. What does that look like and what does that opportunity look like for artists? 

[00:27:34] Rory Felton: Yeah, so one, we realized there's a small but growing population of people that love to collect music as NFT format. I think of NFT as it applies to audio music as a new format, just like there was vinyl, there was downloads, there was streaming. NFT is sort of a new type of format for music, and there wasn't really a centralized place to play all your music. There are a couple of apps butting up that allow you to sort of plug into your wallet and play your music collection. We wanted to create a space that allowed a collector to display NFTs that they're collecting from music artists on the wall, but also put them on a record shelf if they're music NFTs and allow people, allow them to come in and play their own music, allow other people to come into a fans room and play their music. I've seen that a lot of these metaverse spaces that fans are using to share their NFTs are almost like part business card part, like, showing off and bragging to their friends and their community what they own, what they collect. It reminds me a lot as being a teenager of collecting CDs and records that were hard to find from really, really new artists and sort of bragging with your friends that you got to them earlier than they did. And we wanted to sort of mimic this experience in a really cool, beautiful, metaverse space and also be a space that artists could brand and create their own version of, as well as invite their VIP community to be a part of, be it virtual record listening parties or virtual tour kickoffs where they could display or present new music. One functionality we have that artists are taking advantage of is token-gated releases. So they might release regular releases like they always do but put out maybe a limited edition mixtape that is only available to people who buy an NFT to access it. And so you go into the Lounge, our system reads that you have that NFT in your wallet and it unlocks access to music that you wouldn't otherwise have. That doesn't just have to be music. It can be all sorts of content. So the idea is you're rewarding your most engaged community token holders with really cool experiences. We speak with artists that want to create experiences that get updated every single month, so keeps fans coming back to this space that they almost treat like a social media platform or like a website, but the artist gets to control it entirely themselves.

[00:29:58] Dan Runcie: I feel like the fan piece of this is the unique piece of this, and I know that's a bit of the broader conversations that people have had about the metaverse, but being able to have that type of way to actually physically show what you have, and I think this is a piece that was missing a bit from, I'll call it the first stage of the NFT boom, right? We saw a lot of people changing their profile picks, but ultimately, how do you create the opportunity for people to have some type of visual that you can see, right? Like, people are buying vinyls right now. People want to be able to have those vinyls visible or no different than buying DVDs or VHS tapes back in the day. Part of it was the medium itself, but you also, it was a statement of who you are. Having some type of collection that can show that I think it's valuable, plus all of the exclusive perks that they can get from their favorite artist or from their type of experiences. I do think that that is something that a lot of fans would value, assuming that it can be somewhere where the people that they want to see those things also are engaged in.

[00:30:59] Rory Felton: Yeah, we see there's millions of people around the world that build up massive record collections on their wall. And when you go into their house, it's often the main feature of their house is their record collection. And oftentimes, that's tied to a really high-end audio system as well, depending on where you're at and your lifestyle, right? And we wanted to sort of create that experience for anyone or everyone in the metaverse space. And so that's what the Lounge is built around, is sort of to cater to that type of collector, if you will. I think we're still very early in the Web 3.0 NFT space, clearly with where the economy's at. I think we're going to start to see some huge growth over the next year or two, but we wanted to build these tools now for people so that when more and more people start to come into this space every month, every quarter, they're already ready for them to sort of plug into. And in fact, in a certain sense, it provides more utility for all NFTs. So you could buy music NFTs anywhere you want to on the internet and be able to pull them into this Lounge space we've created for them to perform, to play, and to share with their friends and their community.

[00:32:05] Dan Runcie: So this leads me to the age-old question I'm sure every venture capitalist asks at some point, how do you compete this against Facebook or Meta and their offering to eventually try to do this similar type of thing? But obviously, you have a more of a specific community. But I do know that with a lot of the different types of metaverse experiences, that type of thought is something that's likely in the back of the minds for a lot of founders.

[00:32:30] Rory Felton: I think that there's clearly dozens of metaverse spaces that already exist. We're not necessarily looking to create an entire universe. We just want to create experiences and artist-branded experiences. And I think potentially we see a future where these artist-branded virtual slash metaverse experiences can be interoperable with a metaverse space that Meta is building or with the other ones that exist right now, such as Sandbox and Decentraland. We, of course, being a blockchain-based company, we believe in decentralization. We think that that's a value to be recognized and to be held up. And so if we continue to see other metaverse spaces built on the same or similar blockchains, I think we're going to see them be interoperable in new ways that may currently just not exist yet. 

[00:33:22] Dan Runcie: And would the same type of logic apply as well for the marketplace that you all have, given folks like OpenSea or some of the other broader platforms? 

[00:33:32] Rory Felton: So our big differentiator from a platform like OpenSea is we only allow authenticated artists to mint NFTs in our platform. One of the big challenges I see with some of the secondary-focused NFT marketplaces is that it's a wild west still. There's an insane amount of content that infringes on other people's rights that use all sorts of artists' name, image, like this audio without any sort of permission, right? And unlike a lot of people in this space or some people in this space, we actually believe in copyright. We think that's really valuable for artists and artists investors, and we really wanted to make sure that we prevent it as much as possible, people minting content that they didn't control through our platform. And so when fans or collectors come to HitPiece.com, they can feel assured that everything on our platform is authentic, is real, is coming from the artist that says it's coming from. And that's also why we were the first NFT company to integrate with Audible Magic. Audible Magic allows us to scan every single piece of audio file that gets uploaded to HitPiece to be minted as an NFT. And we test that against their massive database of over a hundred million songs to see if that song has been registered previously or as a copyrighted work from a record company or an artist. And we've already been able to say, hang on, that song's copyright. We need to confirm whether this artist actually controls the copyright of this audio file. And so we want to make sure that only the authenticated parties, the owners of works are actually able to mint NFTs of their creative content through HitPiece. So that's a big difference I see versus like the secondary markets of the world. But we also think ours is a little bit more just music-focused, right? Music NFTs are a little different than PFP projects or artwork NFTs, and so it really requires a different experience than maybe what some of the secondary markets that appeal to every one offer, if that makes sense.

[00:35:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. And I assume that some of the guardrails there to make sure that things are authenticated, to make sure it has the right copyright and licensing, also tie back to ensuring that what had happened back in February doesn't happen again. So part of that authentication, I'm sure likely may slow down some of the process, but it is how you ensure that everything that is there and what is transparent and seen is ultimately what you're trying to actually sell. 

[00:35:57] Rory Felton: Yeah. I don't think an experience that we've built, that you can go to HitPiece.com and see right now really exists anywhere else, and we've really tried to focus on making, one, authenticated protecting rights holders. And two, just make it super simple and easy for both artists who are new to this space that may not fully understand all the language and this new terminology that's come around, make it super easy for them to create their own collections and start minting NFTs with their creative content. And then also just make it super easy for music fans, you know, that haven't purchased an NFT to be able to collect one. I would say that really a small, small number of music fans overall have still entered Web 3.0 or acquired an NFT, be it for free or purchase, and there's still a huge amount of education that platforms like ourselves need to do and others about how to onboard into this space.

[00:36:52] Dan Runcie: So for you all, specifically, with the folks you have on board before and up to this point, is ATL Jacob, is he the most successful artist or the artist that's made the most money on the platform so far? 

[00:37:04] Rory Felton: So ATL Jacob's collection has not launched yet. We have launched a variety of collections from artists like Surf, and we have a couple of collections dropping tomorrow. This interview, of course, will be out after this date. From King Midas, who's a Baltimore artist, and from Pyrex Whippa, who's a multi-platinum producer slash artist, a part of the 808 Mafia. He's worked with artists like Future, Juice WRLD, DaBaby. And his collection also involves granting people rights to collaborate with him in the studio. Some actually get a limited-edition skateboard from him. And also some of them actually get a limited edition beat kit from him as well. So there's all these cool, both digital and in real-life experiences, tied to token ownership, which we believe in. 

[00:37:50] Dan Runcie: No, that's solid. 

[00:37:51] Rory Felton: But beyond those, we do have some other, like, multi-platinum slash diamond level music artists, Grammy-nominated artists that we're looking to announce really, really soon.

[00:38:02] Dan Runcie: Any hints as to who they may be? 

[00:38:05] Rory Felton: I'll just say we have a lot of love for Atlanta. 

[00:38:08] Dan Runcie: Okay. 

[00:38:08] Rory Felton: Atlanta moves the culture. Atlanta's, like, where my heart is. I love going to Atlanta. I think everyone in Atlanta is just coming. Being in LA for 20 years, like Atlanta's so nice. You have that southern hospitality, but you have that hustle and that combination of both. Like, I just love being in Atlanta. I love the vibe of Atlanta. 

[00:38:25] Dan Runcie: All right. We'll definitely look out for that one, for sure. Thinking about the company and hearing how you're building it, though, it does make me think about this article that you had written a couple of years back. I think it was an article you posted on LinkedIn actually is like, How to Win the Music Industry of 2019-2025, and you're describing what the type of company would look like and what type of things they need to have in place. And now that we're a couple of years past that, what are you seeing in the industry now, and is there any specific company that you think is checking all those boxes? 

[00:39:00] Rory Felton: Oh, man. I think when I wrote that, it was one of those, like late night, man, why doesn't this company exist? You know, if I had a hundred million dollars, this is what I would do, right? And it's interesting, I see companies doing bits and pieces of that, and what's fascinating is like I sometimes forget that I published that article, and I've even had, you know, investors and venture capital people reach out, nothing to do with HitPiece. They're just really curious about what I wrote, and they're like, this is it. How do we do this? And it's been fascinating to see that piece impact, if you will. No one's doing all of that, but I'll gladly compliment folks that I think are moving in that direction. United Masters and what Steve Stoute built, I think, is incredible. If you would've told me several years ago that someone could enter the music distribution space with a similar offering to other platforms out there, I never would've thought someone could truly compete. But kudos to him and his team, they've completely proved me, and I'll think a lot of people wrong. They've made a huge impact in, again, creating more opportunities for artists who can own their own content and not necessarily feel like they're stuck to have to do the traditional record deal. I think what they're doing is pretty amazing. Let's see, who else? I got to give out props to Downtown Music Holdings group. I think they're doing a huge amount of innovation in this space, both on the record side, on the distribution side, and on the publishing side. I'm a huge fan of Songtrust and what they built and that offering. I tell every music artist to work with if they do not have a publishing deal, sign up with Songtrust. It's a super easy admin deal that just creates a great solution that captures money that you just cannot capture any other way. I try to tell every music artist, I'm like, look, if you're writing your own music, you're writing your own songs, you're not going to get all your money that's due to you, just through your PRO. Artists, unfortunately, they're so busy, so much going on, they don't fully understand that. And so it's, like, the artists that I've seen turn on to a platform like Songtrust, they've literally turned on five figures plus in revenue in a quarter because that money is just sitting there if they don't capture it, eventually just goes away, which is really sad. So those are my shout-outs. Those are companies that I think are doing it well. I think with that piece, if I were to critique it now, I think it's a little too broad. There's a little too much going on for one company to do. But I'm a big fan of companies that, you know, believe in artistic freedom and innovation and providing more tools and opportunities for artists while also actually creating real success for them.

[00:41:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think what sticks out about those two companies is both the partnerships and the fact that there's, you know, overall companies that are tying both of them together, right? So United Masters is obviously tied to the work that Stoute had done with or is currently doing with Translation on the ad side. And then that also informs so many of the partnerships and just how he has been able to help think and expand things there. And then Downtown, specifically how they've been able to just reorganize a few of the things and then restructure to just understand, okay, what could that stack look like. What could it have to have all of these companies underneath, but in this way that feels practical, but not in this way of, you know, a company trying to check every box that's the hottest topic right now. 

[00:42:12] Rory Felton: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think companies are wise to, that are established in at scale. They're wise to take their time with Web 3.0 versus jump into it head-on per se. And I would encourage everyone to experiment. I think you can experiment in this space and try new things without having to go completely in. And of course, we're a great solution to experiment with. But there's clearly a variety of opportunities out there to do things. And quite frankly, no one knows exactly how the NFT innovation's going to be utilized in a few years from now, right? We have our hunch. We think it's going to be connected to real-life experiences and real amazing virtual experiences. However, I think there's all sorts of innovation that maybe hasn't even been created yet for its application, such as to ticketing and other categories as well. 

[00:43:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah, there's so much more to explore. We're still in the early innings with this. I'm excited to see what's next. But before we wrap things up, let's talk about what's next for you all. What does 2023 look like? What are the big things on the roadmap? 

[00:43:17] Rory Felton: Yeah, so as you mentioned, we've been building the Lounge metaverse space to connect artists and fans as well as give fans a great way to display and show off the collections that they own. So that's going to be launching soon. We clearly have some really amazing collections coming up from some really top-tier artists that we're excited to announce really soon as well. And then we fully built out now this completely self-service solution for independent artists to come in and start minting NFTs with their content. We haven't really focused on presenting that or pushing that yet to the independent community at scale. But that's something that we are looking forward to. We felt that it was best, hey, look, we want to establish that there is interest and demand for this space. That's why we focused on more established artists, artists with audiences initially, but really we think this space is for everyone. And we think that the smallest artists on the planet can actually benefit from Web 3.0 in a way that maybe streaming isn't changing the game for them right now. For instance, we've worked with baby developing artists that are making more money from Web 3.0 in one launch of an NFT collection than they would over two to three months from streaming. And I think this again goes back to humanity and society sort of revaluing music. In general, we all think music's the coolest thing in the world. We all think music is the most divine thing that we get to participate in as humans. And so we want to revalue it in a way that maybe NFTs allow us to that technology hasn't enabled in the past. And I think more than ever this concept of a thousand true fans is truer than ever, right, if an artist doesn't need to be a pop star to make a living. They really just need to cater to a niche of dedicated fans that love what they're doing. And NFTs and Web 3.0 really allow that artist to benefit from that type of model more than ever before. 

[00:45:08] Dan Runcie: I know. It's fascinating. It's an exciting time to see all the developments and what's going to come down the pipe for you all, what's going to come down for everyone else. It's going to be an exciting time. That's why so many of us are in this industry, right? But before we let you go though, where can people follow along with HitPiece if they want to stay and tap with what you have coming on, or if they want to follow along, where should they go?

[00:45:28] Rory Felton: Yeah, so clearly you can go to HitPiece.com. You can just put in your email if you don't want to sign up yet and just follow updates from us on our email list. You can find us on Twitter or Instagram @joinHitPiece. You can even follow me on Twitter or Instagram if you'd like, @RoryFelton. Everything's open and my life is really an open book for everyone.

[00:45:48] Dan Runcie: Awesome. Thanks, Rory. This is great. Thanks for coming on. 

[00:45:51] Rory Felton: Thanks, Dan, for your time. We really appreciate it.

[00:45:54] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Most artists want career growth and they want it fast — sometimes to a fault. This is where Curren$y is an outlier. From the jump, Curren$y set out to grow both his career and fanbase slowly but steadily. He successfully did that and it’s a reason why he’s not only stayed in the rap game for almost twenty years, but is now still earning more money, and at a career point where most of his peers coming up have already fizzled out.

Curren$y and his longtime manager, Mousa, joined me on this week’s episode to explain how zigging when others zagged contributed to their career longevity. One instance is leaving his hometown Cash Money Records label to create their own, Jet Life. The two have been able to morph the brand into a full-on business empire that now includes apparel, athlete management, products, and more verticals on top of the music label. 

The duo built Jet Life on the back of touring and being true to their audience. To do so, they turned down more brand partnerships they can remember and even music festival appearances at times — no matter how good the bag was for each. These trend-bucking moves were covered at length in our interview. Here’s what we covered:

[3:15] New Orleans folks are immune to heat

[4:44] Mousa and Curren$y relationship began in 2005

[8:49] Growing Jet Life business beyond a record label

[11:45] Turning down non-authentic business opportunities

[15:59] Emphasizing touring early in Curren$y’s career

[19:21] Releasing an EP as an NFT

[23:52] Curren$y’s take on streaming farms

[29:47] Macro-view of Jet Life revenue streams

[34:47] Touring is cornerstone of Jet Life business

[37:08] Performing on own shows vs. music festivals

[43:48] Festival money goes to sports car dealership

[45:16] Curren$y’s partnership with NASCAR (and problems with Coca-Cola)

[50:37] What’s the secret to a great artist-manager relationship?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Mousa Hamdan & Curren$y, @MOUSA504 & @spitta_andretti

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Curren$y: You can always expand and try new things, but if it feels wrong on the core, then you're setting yourself up. We never made a move like that. No matter what deal comes across the table 'cause he's money first. But he'll tell the people, the check writer like, man, just let me talk to bro. Because at the end of the day, he's going to hear me say it's half a million dollars, but he might say it's a boring job and he might not want to do it. 

[00:00:32] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:54] Dan Runcie: Listen, you're going to love today's episode. It is with one of the most successful independent artists in the game and his longtime manager. We got Curren$y and we got Mousa. If you've been following Curren$y's journey for a while, you know that he was originally on No Limit Records 20 years ago. He left the record label. He then went to join Young Money. He was a little early on the Young Money Train, but he ended up leaving the record label before Nicki and before Drake blew up and he started his own. He started Jet Life, and he's been building up his career as an independent artist, and it's been great to see how he has navigated both how he releases music and also how he approached his business overall. And that was a big focus of this episode. We talked about his strategy for releasing music, and Curren$y is someone that is very prolific in terms of the amount of music that he puts out, but it also gets him plenty of opportunities to be able to go on tour, to be able to have several other business ventures that they have through Jet Life and through other areas. We talked about what they're doing in cannabis as well. We talked about the nightclub that they have, the apparel business, and a whole lot more. We also talked about a few partnerships that you may be surprised by, but I still think that fit well within the ethos for what Jet Life is and what Curren$y is trying to build. We even talked about some of the movie deals and opportunities that Curren$y had turned down. I don't want to spoil it. It's a really good one, but this was a really fascinating conversation, is also been great to just see how long these two have stuck together. If you're a big fan of this podcast, these are the type of episodes that you come for. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Curren$y and Mousa. 

[00:02:41] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're joined by the duo themselves. We got Curren$y and we got Mousa here, the artist-manager combination. How are you guys doing? 

[00:02:49] Curren$y: Man, we can't complain. The weather is nice outside and it is been pretty bad out here in Orleans. It's been a hundred degrees and raining every day, but right now it's sunny, 86 degrees, you know what I'm saying? I got long sleeves on, top down, having a good day. I can't complain. 

[00:03:07] Dan Runcie: See, that's the one thing about folks I know from New Orleans, like it could be 86 degrees and y'all are still in long sleeves. Y'all are still in hoodies. 

[00:03:15] Curren$y: Well, it is, well, because it is the heat, we're already adjusting. It's just hot in here. So now we've gone more fashion-forward, bro. It's like, just fuck it, bro. Wear what you want to wear because it's still going to be 190 degrees no matter what. So just go for it. I don't really condone that lifestyle unless you have a car. A lot of my younger brothers I see walking up and down the street, and they definitely look like they're about to commit crimes because it's a hundred degrees and they got on the hoodie and I'm, like, weary of, I'm like, hold on, you know what I'm saying, because, fuck, that don't make no sense. You dressed for action. But if you are in the car, you are in the office, you are in the studio. That's where that look really originated. People always tell me, II'm dressed like that forever, but it's been because most of my life has been like tour bus, studio, even when it wasn't me, I was like a little guy on Masterpiece bus. It was 60 degrees, you know what I'm saying? And these big mansions, it's cold as shit. So I just grew acclimated to dressing like that. I think I might have spearheaded that. I honestly, I think that I may have spearheaded that, but what haven't we spearheaded over here, you know?

[00:04:25] Dan Runcie: It's true, especially folks at New Orleans, folks like y'all are trendsetters. And one of the things that I feel like sets y'all apart is that you've been doing this for so long, and you've been doing this for so long together. I mean, Mousa, you've been managing Curren$y now for, since '05, right? I know you do 'em before, but you started managing, like, '05, right?

[00:04:44] Mousa Hamdan: We're friends before, but definitely since '05, since he joined in with Lil Wayne, with Young Money, Cash Money. So I think that's when he brought me on and asked me to come on as his manager. 

[00:04:53] Curren$y: Yep. Yeah. 

[00:04:54] Mousa Hamdan: And you know...

[00:04:55] Curren$y: As soon as there was business to manage. 

[00:04:58] Mousa Hamdan: Right. 

[00:04:58] Curren$y: You know, right? While I was just slinging t-shirts, like ordering 28 t-shirts on a month, pressing CDs upstairs at my apartment, that was easy to do. When it began to grow and I saw, like, my two homes wasn't going to be enough to handle it, you know, what could I do but reach out to the one homie who I knew forever who don't want to smoke no weed with me, who don't want to get drunk with me, you know what I'm saying? Like, who's just like totally, his high is the business, deals closed and stuff gone successfully is him having a drink, you know what I'm saying? So it worked. It works like that.

[00:05:36] Mousa Hamdan: Definitely. I like achieving goals. You know, I'm a goal seeker. And once you achieve one goal, set another one, you know? And that's my inspiration is to see how big we could really take this Jet Life, how, you know, how big deal this will be, and how long we can make it last. I mean, I thought about this morning, I was talking to one of my other homies, I was like, we've been in this game a minute, bro. Like, and he was like, look, I've been home for a little while and y'all been doing this a long time. So I say, yeah, definitely, but we not done, you know. We’re nowhere near done. We really just starting, we really starting to grow even more now. 

[00:06:12] Curren$y: That's crazy to say that, and that's really the truth, to be here in the game. Like, Jet Life, we're like over a decade, and each year it just gets bigger. That's really what you want. It's not a big, hasn't been just one big explosion. It's a slow burn. But it is guaranteed. And we've always grown. A lot of times you see people struggling, like, not to lose ground in the game, you know, and stay relevant. And that's never been a problem with us because we've been blessed to be able to, like, generate or, like, create our own world, you know what I'm saying? And the people who listen to our music or who dress, some people dress only in Jet Life apparel. And it is because they don't give a fuck about nothing else, you know what I'm saying? They've had their time to see what the world had to offer, and they saw that ours was just uncompromised. So they lend themselves to it a hundred percent. And that's been enough to sustain, like, the lifestyle that we have. And the people that support us, they like to pass by the Jet Life store just to see what cars we might have outside. So they continue to support us because now we're going to park more and more shit. Like, they the ones who help us do it, you know? So it's good. It's good. 

[00:07:27] Mousa Hamdan: It definitely is. It's really a lifestyle, you know? I think it's, you know, from the beginning I remember, Curren$y said in interviews as well as told me directly, like, you know, his vision of seeing how Jet Life and how he wanted to grow. He always said it was like a balloon. And I listened, I heard that, and I was like, he's right. He's like, you could either, you could blow air in it fast and it's going to blow big and then it's going to explode and it's over. Or you could blow in it slow and it's going to slowly blow. 

[00:07:57] Curren$y: Yeah. Fucking right. 

[00:07:58] Mousa Hamdan: Then you show the longevity. And that's what we did. We're blowing it slow. 

[00:08:02] Curren$y: Yep.

[00:08:03] Mousa Hamdan: But look at us. We're still here. There's a lot of people that we saw that came before us and during us who we feel like, oh yeah, they got the light quick and they blew up fast. But then what happened? And you know, they're not around no more.

[00:08:16] Curren$y: Something explodes, it ceases to exist.

[00:08:19] Mousa Hamdan: It's done.

[00:08:20] Curren$y: I've never seen anything, you know what I'm saying, explode that still had it ever, you know? 

[00:08:26] Dan Runcie: Right, oh yeah. You know, and I feel like with y'all, specifically, you're able to see the trajectory. You're able to see everything that you've accomplished, too, because I look at Jet Life, and it started as the imprint for your record label, but now you have your apparel, you also have the other businesses you have. How would you describe the current businesses? What are the current things under Jet Life right now? 

[00:08:49] Mousa Hamdan: Well, we got, of course, like you said, it started with records, Jet Life Records. And then it went to, we started doing tour merch, which grew into Jet Life Apparel. We were in now Jet Life Athletics. So we started to do deals with managing athletes and growing that brand. Then of course, we've other stuff that's not necessarily labeled Jet Life, but we've opened up a nightclub in New Orleans, so so that's something that's coming. 

[00:09:16] Curren$y: We got a big footprint in the cannabis community. We got a couple of other startups, like a coffee shop and a cereal bar we're going to launch. We already have two films out, so, I mean, if you want to say Jet Life Films is in existence, that is true. It's so much stuff that we do, but the circle is so tight, like, nobody's going to tell the other one. Like, bro, you realize what we doing because we are still in the midst of doing it. Like, an outside person would have to come in and really show us how many businesses and what's all under the umbrella 'cause we really just wake up and try to, like, just make sure we make something happen, you know, every day. If you want to label it and put a name on it, then, it was news to me, right now just listening to how much stuff we have going on. 

[00:10:04] Mousa Hamdan: We forgot Starting Line Hobbies.

[00:10:06] Curren$y: Yeah, we got hobby shop bro, like that. See? So the more you sit down… 

[00:10:11] Mousa Hamdan: We forget some of the business. But they exist and they're profitable, right?

[00:10:16] Curren$y: He's got an auto body shop, it's still in existence. That's really where a lot of it comes from, his whole foray into it all was being able to survive if one thing fell down. Even though the music was the one that paved the way and drew the attention, the industry is fickle. So you see people like, we see them rise and you think they going to build this whole empire, they end up with a warehouse full of shit. They can't move bobbleheads of themselves. Nobody wants t-shirts, nobody wants home furnishing. Nobody wants it, fucking goes that way, you know what I'm saying? And we've been blessed to like, now we got two or three warehouses, you know what I'm saying? But we're moving the shit, you know. So it's just about staying true and not, we never really tried to do too much, nothing outside of what felt right to us. You can always expand and try new things, but if it feels wrong on the core, then you're setting yourself up. We never made a move like that. No matter what deal comes across the table 'cause he's money first. But he'll tell the people, the check writer like, man, just let me talk to bro. Because at the end of the day, he's going to hear me say it's half a million dollars, but he might say it's a boring job and he might not want to do it even though it's half a million dollars. So he'll just check with me, you know what I'm saying? We probably go and do the 'shit anyway 'cause it's half a million dollars. But he checks with me because in my heart of hearts, I might want to say no, but I got a kid and shit. 

[00:11:45] Mousa Hamdan: I'll definitely ask him. Do you want to do this though? 

[00:11:49] Curren$y: Yeah. And I got respect for him for doing that. The fact that he compromised his money mentality that asks me that much, gives me the strength to be able to say, you know what, fuck it, bro, you gave, I'll give. I'm going to come and do this shit, you know what I'm saying? And then lo and behold everybody wins, you know? 

[00:12:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah. What's an example of something that you have turned down? Like, Mousa, 'cause it sounds like you're the one that's seeing the things and you're thinking about, oh, this is the bag, but is this something that fits with the Jet Life lifestyle?

[00:12:18] Curren$y: There's a lot of those, like, TV shit that'll come across, you know what I'm saying? I hope that he knows, I don't care. So he would say, I'm going to jump out in front of you, like, you don't see because these people still come up with more and more ideas. And eventually, they might put, they might table something that we want to pick up. But we've slammed them because it's like, bro, you know, just looking at something where they say, well, he can say it in his own words, but the way they phrase it makes me like, I'll never put this in my own words, I don't want to fucking do it. You know, just fuck it, you know what I'm saying? Or like post, they'll try, you know, they'll pay you for social media stuff just to say you like something or you can't wait for something to fucking hit the theaters. And I'm like, you know what? Fuck no. I don't want to say that. Because as soon as I post this, my fucking true audience is going to say, you know, how much did you get, bro? They'll say shit like that. I don't want to play them like that. 

[00:13:15] Mousa Hamdan: Yeah. I think we've known each other long enough and I know his answers on some things. Some things I won't even bring to him.

[00:13:22] Curren$y: For sure. 

[00:13:23] Mousa Hamdan: You know, we had some stuff like, you know, I'll be honest with you, like, you know, media companies that come and say, well, you know, let me post this on your page or do this, that, and the others, and it's clickbait. And he was like, nah, bro, I don't want my fans clicking on that. 

[00:13:37] Curren$y: Yeah, I don't want that. I'm the one who have to answer for this shit.

[00:13:41] Mousa Hamdan: I don't care how much it is. And the fans aren't crazy. They'll be like, Curren$y, that shit was clickbait, bro. 

[00:13:46] Curren$y: They're like, what? Or you had to, bro? Like, I have all that kind of shit. So I'm just like, let's save the company who wants to pay us the embarrassment of when they realized this was not organic and it didn't cross over. Like, now they won't want to spend any money. They may not want to spend money with us later on, on something that might actually work, you know? So it's just better to just say, you know, it is better to protect yourself that way. You end up in the long run, you still make that money. A few times people have double-backed because they realize, you know what, that was kind of lame. I can't believe we asked them to do that shit. And then they come back with something way dope after they've researched me, you know? 'Cause immediately you do a Google search and you are like, all right, cool. We'll get him to do the new weed spray. Let's get him to endorse this new air freshener that kills the weeds, man. Like, bro, the fuck? Like, I'm not even living like that. I'm actually a boss and I don't have to conceal the weed smell in my fucking life, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not promoting shit. 

[00:14:46] Dan Runcie: I'm even come to you with a deal like that though, knowing you. 

[00:14:50] Mousa Hamdan: Yeah, yeah. They'll bring all type of deals, bro. They'll try and get you out of character if you let them. You know, they'll push the button. 

[00:14:57] Curren$y: But it feels like trolling a lot of the time. Like, are they trying to see if I would do this, you know what I'm saying?

[00:15:03] Dan Runcie: Right. 

[00:15:03] Mousa Hamdan: I don't think they understand that he's not saying he's true to his lifestyle. He is actually true to it. He's not going to do anything that's going to bend. 

[00:15:11] Curren$y: It's not about money. We got enough pots on the stove. It's a six-burner stove. And we have pots with food and all of them are cooking, you know what I'm saying? So when somebody comes with the bullshit, it's like, all right, let's just go dip in this, right, quick. You know, like I I've done that with music, when I feel like, it is just sometimes I get a little down on myself just based on the climate of music, you know? And I'll fall back and maybe I'll just come up here and we'll just make a whole collection of clothes at that time, you know? And we were able to keep the lights on and shit through the apparel. If I said fuck it from here on end, you know what I'm saying? But it just so happens, like, I get my win and it is fun again, and I want to do it. You know, so we're lucky as shit.

[00:15:59] Dan Runcie: That makes sense, yeah. It's a good position to be in, right? You understand your brand, you understand what makes sense. You're only going to do certain types of deals. And I feel like this goes back to the way that you just go about this industry overall, right? You were early in terms of, let me put out my music and if people get it for free, they may get it for free, but let me go make the money on tour. Let me go make the money with these other business interests. 

[00:16:24] Curren$y: Yeah, because I mean, it's, shrinkage. It didn't matter how much music, like, what you do, how much you put behind the budget and what the labels do and all this shit. These people were just, our music was being stolen. This was during the time of, like, manufacturing jewel cases and all this shit that the company had to do, so that affected how much money they could give you. And then at the end of the day, everybody had the album a week before any damn, you know? So you can't feed your family like that. But what you can do, and what I did do is, and also when I did that, it was out of necessity. I didn't have no money to pay everybody for beats. But I could download Dr. Dre's instrumental for free. And as long as I don't sell this bitch, he's not coming for me, you know? I'm going to put it out for free. People going to love it. They're going to want me to come and wrap the motherfucker and they're going to pay however much it costs, you know, so that's how we did it. You know, that's just, like utilizing your natural resources. Like, what's growing in the land? Like, what's there? Just looked around and worked off what's growing out of the ground when you don't have the funds to do it. Like, you know, and you're creating business. Like, that's all we've ever done. And the more resources and the more materials we gain, you know, from gaining leverage or going up a level, then we start another joint, you know? Cause we got more to start with, 'Cause we, we did it with zero. So now it's insane. Like, we're just throwing darts at the board, like, fuck it, let's try and start a speedboat racing team tomorrow, you know what I'm saying? Like, fuck, whatever is whatever you want to do. And I've seen people do it. I’ve seen Master P do it because he had, like, with the bread to try it, you got to go for it. But what you had, but his circle is, was so large at the time with no limit. Like, first crack some ideas, not the best ideas, but you got love for everybody, so you going to roll the dice with everything they come with. You going to try, see, but what's working for us is we don't have that many people, like, around, you know what I'm saying? Like, as far as where the love is, it is right, it is in the room, so we not going to bounce. So if we try each other's ideas, one of 'em going to work 'cause it was just to, you got 19 people in here trying to, you know, tell you what to do and you want to keep everybody happy. You try, you going to end up trying to, like, start a golf cart company and, like, do spacewalks and sell reptiles and wild pets and then just doing everything that they ask you to do. And some of it's not going to work. 

[00:18:59] Dan Runcie: And I feel like with that, too, is just understanding your brand, understanding what's effective. And I know last year you had released an EP as an NFT, and I know this was the time when a lot of people were first discovering what an NFT is and things like that. What was that like? Because I know that was something that you didn't necessarily need to do to reach your fan base and do everything you wanted to do.

[00:19:21] Curren$y: It wasn't to increase the fan base. It was to make our listeners aware that we are in touch with what's going on, and we are going to make sure that you guys aren't left behind as far as having Jet Life representation because we know you wear this shit every day. We know this is all you're listening to. So if the whole world converted to the metaverse, and everybody just wore headsets and live like that, how will you survive if your life is Jet Life? We got to give you something in this shit too. Rather we understand it or not, we have to learn to understand it, to become a part, to take care of y'all out there because it's real, you know? No matter how imaginary it may seem, it's real, you know what I'm saying? It's intangible, but it's a real thing. So we had to be able to provide something for our people 'cause they were there, you know? You look out of touch and, like, not sharp, not able to move, you know, then people wash their hands of you. Other companies won't want to collaborate with us that much because it won't appear that we are in the know, where if you have a big company that's not doing anything in that world, they're like, oh shit, look at Jet Life, well, let's just fuck with them. Let's put some bridge in them because they can handle this for us, blah, blah, and that be our representation 'cause we're far too big to even try to learn and far too big and far too old to even try to learn that shit, you know what I'm saying? So once they saw we did, that makes us look, you know, mobile, you know what I'm saying? 

[00:20:51] Mousa Hamdan: We have to exist in the future. You know, at the end of the day, we got to do what we have to do to let everybody, like he said, we're in the know, you know, we're aware of what's going on, what's coming, what's worth getting involved with, what's not.

[00:21:05] Curren$y: And we going to ride with y'all because if it crashes, all us, then it did it off of us. You know what I'm saying? Fuck it. We going to roll too. 

[00:21:12] Mousa Hamdan: And even back a long time ago, I don't know if Curren$y even remember this, we did a deal back then with BitTorrent that we released a mixtape on BitTorrent, and it was 'cause the relationship we had with BitTorrent, they wanted to move away from everybody feeling that BitTorrent was a piracy site, and they wanted to like, well what if we give away something that we actually want shared? 

[00:21:38] Curren$y: Yeah. 

[00:21:38] Mousa Hamdan: And I remember we did that, I think we had like 156 million shares.

[00:21:45] Curren$y: Yeah. 

[00:21:45] Mousa Hamdan: I told the record label that we were in a deal with at the time and they was like, nah, I got to see that. They didn't believe it. Well, like, what? Don't worry about it. You don't have to believe it. And that's why we're not with y'all now, because y'all don't believe the future. Y'all believing what y'all were taught to believe.

[00:22:05] Curren$y: Yep. 

[00:22:05] Mousa Hamdan: Rather than having your own mind and realizing things change, the world changes. And you just got to be in the mix. You got to know what's going on. You got to get involved where you fit in. 

[00:22:15] Curren$y: You got to appear agile, man. 

[00:22:18] Dan Runcie: Stories like that, I feel, is what set y'all apart because if you think back to that time, no one wanted anything to do with BitTorrent or even LimeWire, BearShare, all these places where you could stream music and I get it. It was all the piracy, all the copyright. But at some point, someone asked to be able to say, all right, this is where folks are at. This is how they're getting our music. How could we get our music onto these places? Or how could we just think about it in a different way that isn't just no, don't do that?

[00:22:46] Curren$y: Watch it come all the way back to the beginning because we stayed true the entire time, that company that needed to wash his hands and kind of rebirth themselves, needed to stand next to something that was pure the entire time so that they could get some of our life, you feel me? Like, that was the way that shit worked. Their name was so sullied that it was like, okay, as far as music is concerned, people know Jet Life will not falter. They won't fold. They don't go for fucking the dangling carrot. So if we fuck with them, then they would know, like, well, Jet Life wouldn't fuck with us if we were really this pirate fucking factory. So it made everything, you know, legitimate. You know, we saw good in them, so it was cool, yeah. 

[00:23:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's interesting too, to make me think about the current thing that people are pushing back on, whether it's streaming farms, you know, people trying to drive up these streams and stuff like that. What's your take on that? Because I feel like, for you, something like that's almost irrelevant because you're not in this to, like, sell your music, so you don't care about charts or probably any of that stuff. 

[00:23:52] Curren$y: I can't blame them because it's not like streams, not like that shit pay you a lot of money, you know? I'm saying it takes a lot of streams to make, like, you know, substantial money. It takes a lot of people. A lot of artists don't even understand, you know what I'm saying? Like, the motherfucker call me like, bro, you did a million streams in the day. Like, so what do you think? I'm going to buy a yacht tonight, like, that was worth $12,000, bro, you know what I'm saying? That was worth 12 grand. I was like, don't trip. So I know they need those machines and shit to try and run those streams up. That could be check fraud. Like, they're trying to fucking, they're riding the clock, like, here man, we did 80 zillion billion streams in Apple music. Here's the paperwork. Fucking pay us, man. It could be that, it could be, we need to fucking this shit up so we could get a deal from some other people, maybe Pepsi Cola will reach out to us because they think we going to bring 'em all this attention and fuck them if we can't. The check's already here. You know, everybody's hustling though. It's not righteous, you know, but none of this shit is righteous. And that's kind of the ceiling that we set on ourselves by trying to, like, be legit, you know, it's not like that, you know what I'm saying? So I don't trip off the stream machines and people with the padded streams or, because I understand why they do it. We're blessed to not have to exist that way. And on the other hand, we do a decent amount of streaming because I put out a good amount of music, so I'm not going to do a million every month on one project like these other dudes, like, dude, some people only got to come out two times a year because that project will stream a million fucking streams a month every month all year. But what I will do is probably drop every month and still make it that way, you know what I'm saying? Or drop every two months, you know, and I'm still making that same bread. We just work harder, you know, because we're not doing a lot of the extra shit. 

[00:25:56] Mousa Hamdan: It don't hurt that he likes to record and what you're going to do? 

[00:25:59] Curren$y: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:26:00] Mousa Hamdan: You going to hold all the music? The music's going to sound old. He was writing about a '96 expedition, right? You got to put it out, bro. Next year, that thing's old. 

[00:26:11] Curren$y: Yep. 

[00:26:12] Mousa Hamdan: So at the end of the day, it don't hurt that he likes to record and the fans like to consume the music. They like the new drops. They don't feel like they're oversaturated with his music. They want more. 

[00:26:23] Curren$y: Yeah. The only time we hear that word is from, like, somebody outside. It's like when I'm doing, like, a press run and the people who had to Google me while we were on the elevator and we get up there to interview me, and that's like some shit they say like, so do you think you know about oversaturation? Like, fuck no, I don't think about oversaturation. I only think about my folks, like, you know what I'm saying? That's you. Y'all don't know. Y'all just tired of saying that Curren$y is coming out again with a project. I'm just tired of saying that. It shows up on y'all fucking thing. You have to mention it. You're just tired of saying this shit. 

[00:26:58] Dan Runcie: That's them trying to put you into a box. That's them trying to put you into what they know. But like a lot of people that serve their base, you know what they want and you are giving them exactly what they want. 

[00:27:08] Curren$y: Well, I mean, we interact with and we're around motherfuckers that come to this store all day, sometimes not even, to buy a shirt, like to be like, bro, when is this dropping? Like, you know, to play something for Instagram, when is this coming out? So we got our finger on the pulse of what's keeping us alive. Like, we check our posts often, you know.

[00:27:28] Dan Runcie: For sure. Mousa, I want to talk to you a bit about the business of Jet Life and everything you have going on. And I know we talked a little bit about how touring is a big place where you all are getting a lot of the money, but what does the breakdown look like from a high level? Like, how much of the money you all have coming in is from touring compared to the other businesses and then compared to streaming and the music itself? Like, from like a percentage? 

[00:27:53] Mousa Hamdan: Well, I think, of course, since pandemic, the touring has slowed down. We haven't done anything, but I don't think, for a while, I didn't think the people were ready for a tour, you know, because different cities still had different COVID restrictions and vaccination card restrictions, which would limit the fans of coming to the venues. So it wasn't a good look. I spoke to some other artist manager, who is like, yeah, he's on the road, but he's kind of depressed because shows are not selling out. He feels like he lost it. And it's not that, it's just that the environment wasn't for that. You were going out there too fast looking for the money. The good thing with us was, like he said earlier, that if one thing wasn't doing what we wanted, we had something else that was doing it. So, crazily, the apparel skyrocketed during the pandemic. 

[00:28:47] Curren$y: And I was the one who thought we needed, I thought we had to stop. 

[00:28:51] Mousa Hamdan: Yeah. 

[00:28:51] Curren$y: I was like, nobody is going to buy a fucking hoodie. 

[00:28:55] Mousa Hamdan: He was like, bro...

[00:28:56] Curren$y: There's no toilet paper. There's no fucking lights on in the store. Who the fuck is going to order a shorts, and fuck it, we're selling out of shit. 

[00:29:05] Mousa Hamdan: Shit was flying. 

[00:29:06] Curren$y: I was watching the news. There's just one, like, who are these people that are buying? Are they aware that this shit's even happening? Do they know they have nowhere to wear it to? And they're just posting the shit in the crib, in our brand new drop. Like, just fucking kicking it. The love was real, and they kept us alive, bro. I bought like fucking three or four cars while the shit was locked down. You couldn't even, we couldn't even go to dealerships, and I was buying cars because people were buying fucking sweatshirts. I'm sorry. I'm going to go back here. Y'all continue with business talk. 

[00:29:42] Mousa Hamdan: Definitely.

[00:29:43] Curren$y: You know I'm saying? He knows, he knows, he knows. 

[00:29:47] Mousa Hamdan: So I think when he drops some music, there's a jump in streams, you know what I'm saying? There's a bigger check coming, you know, apparel, same thing. We drop some, a new line or a new drop, it's bam. You know, everybody wants that, and depending on what it is. But, you know, we tend to drop a good little bit of apparel. So I think now apparel and the music kind of coexist, and both have their times, that one makes a little more than the other and vice versa. The other businesses that are fresh starts are creating a revenue. Of course, we don't expect the nightclub business to make the money that the record label makes, but it's an addition. So it is always like our thought of keep putting in the pot. Eventually, that pot will get full or, like he says in the songs, we're trying to fill up a safe. Once we fill that safe up, we just got to get another safe. We're not going to empty that safe. We're going to get another safe. Now we got to fill that one up, you know? So if, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it is Jet Life, we're going to spread our wings, we're going to see what we can put our hands on that will create a revenue and at the same time, sticking to our morals and beliefs of what we feel like Jet Life should stand for. A lot of people don't know, Jet Life, at the beginning, Jets was just an acronym. Just enjoy this shit. So that's what we're doing. We're enjoying it. Or like I tell people, Jet Life has just enjoy this life. So that's where we're at with it, steadily growing, steadily trying to get involved in everything that makes sense. You know, If it doesn't make sense, we leave it alone. So the revenue streams, like I said, it kind of goes back and forth. Apparel definitely is a world of its own now. Apparel is great. You know, we moved from, originally, like you said, with touring. That's when I realized that the apparel was so good because at touring, we were selling so much what I consider tour merch, you know, which is just the name of the show, the city's on the back, a picture of Curren$y on the shirt. You know, all the fans want it. They're like, man, they really love this shit. They're buying it. 

[00:31:56] Curren$y: That was just a tour shirt. 

[00:31:58] Mousa Hamdan: So then I was like, well, damn, I'd rather wear our own clothes when I want to go to the nightclub, when I go out to eat, or if I just want to hang around. I don't want to wear a tour shirt all the time, but I want to wear something. 

[00:32:12] Curren$y: And I didn't want to wear no shirt with my name on it.

[00:32:15] Mousa Hamdan: Right. He doesn’t want pictures of himself.

[00:32:17] Curren$y: I don't want no shirt with me on it, no shirt with my name on it 'cause like, who the fuck am I? You know what I'm saying? Who am I, you know, to even do that? 

[00:32:27] Dan Runcie: Right. 'Cause that's more like merch, right? And I didn't know that people use merch, but like, no, y'all have a clothing apparel.

[00:32:33] Mousa Hamdan: Tour merch. And then we changed it to apparel. Apparel, which you wear on a daily thing, every morning you wake up and you put apparel. You were sleeping in apparel. So we had to reach that. And then every couple of months we just think, what else can we make? What else? 'Cause you know, we started with just t-shirts, you know, then went to hoodies and long sleeves. And then we're like, we got to start getting bottoms and we got to get hats and you know, so now we're, you know, building into accessories and whatever else people may like. And at the same time as well, like I said, we test fitted on ourselves. If it's something that we don't want to wear, I'll always show him stuff like, look, these are some of the new designs. This is some of the stuff that you talked about with me that we created. Now it's on paper. Do you like it? If you like it, let's push the button. Let's go with it. If it's something you would wear. 'Cause at the end of the day, if he doesn't wear it, if I don't wear it, if the other artists on Jet Life don't wear it...

[00:33:33] Curren$y: It will sit in the warehouse. 

[00:33:35] Mousa Hamdan: Why would we expect a fan or a fellow lifer to wear it? They don't want to wear something that you don't even want to wear yourself. So if we don't want to create nothing that we don't like. You know, and that's just, I think our business model with everything we do. We don't want to do anything that we don't agree with. We don't want to do anything that goes against what we stand for. 

[00:33:58] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And the point again about the merch, too, I think Curren$y, you had this line in maybe it's an interview, I think you said, but it's like, no one's calling you Sean John merch, right? As you're telling Diddy like, oh yeah, I like your merch. 

[00:34:12] Curren$y: Right. You know what I'm saying? And just, we have to stand on that, you know? And I think we have for a long time, and it made people change the perception of it, you know. Before, like, just, the fact that we stand behind it like that, it made people buy it who maybe weren't even thinking about it because it made people want to look at it a little more to not like it, you know, like people came in to find like what was wrong. And then it's like, well, shit's just actually, you know, I'm going to buy the shirt, you know what I'm saying? Like, they were coming to point out why it was just merch and it wasn't, you know? 

[00:34:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Yeah. One other question for you, Mousa, about touring itself and just doing live shows. Because of how well the apparel's going right now and how the business overall may have changed since the pandemic, do you ever think that you'll go back to doing the same number of shows that you were doing before the pandemic because of how much success you have with everything else? Do you think it'll scale back a bit at all?

[00:35:10] Mousa Hamdan: In my mind, I've always lived thinking never forget where this started from and never forget what created this lane for you to get into. Without the touring, I never knew how much the merch sold. And I noticed that with a lot of artists, there's a lot of artists that don't sell merch, and they don't know the money that they're missing. So without the touring, without the shows that we do, like he said, we put a finger on the pulse of the fans. Well, we'll know who's coming to these shows, you know, and you can see when, all right, well, the shows are getting a little light, so what is it we're doing wrong? There's something that we're missing. Same thing with the apparel. When sales are a little low then I'm like, well, what are we doing that we used to do better? Or what are we missing? Are we getting laid back? Are we feeling like it just is what it is now? But being involved in it like that, I think, keeps us on with whatever else we're doing 'cause it's going to keep telling us, like, this is the pulse of the people. This is what you're doing. So I think we'll always do tours. Maybe we're not, you know, one time we did, I think it was 60 shows in 70 days, which was crazy. 

[00:36:23] Curren$y: 63. 

[00:36:24] Mousa Hamdan: Yeah, it was, yeah, crazy. Show every night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And they're like, whoa, when is the break, bro? Like, when are we? So I don't think we'll do that. But we're going to stay out there, you know, as long as the people want to see, and he's got fresh music that he wants to perform. And you know, he's an artist, I think, that feeds off the energy, you know. And if the crowd doesn't have the energy, he's like, why am I here? Why am I performing for these people? They don't really want to see me because the energy is not there. So as long as we're feeling the energy, then I think we're there. Hopefully, I don't see it going down no time soon. You know, we're going to keep doing whatever it is that allows us what the universe puts for us to do, you know? And we're just going to be there. 

[00:37:08] Dan Runcie: How do you look at doing your own shows versus doing festivals? Do you have preferences? I feel like for an artist like you, your own shows where your people are going to be at, right?

[00:37:18] Curren$y: Yeah, bro. This is a whole other show. Don't do it. We love, we love, we love festival checks. If I had to pick, I like, you know, me at the House of Blues. I know exactly that the people who are in there, like, are there for what we going to do, you know what I'm saying? The festival, I've been blessed to be a person that you kind of, you can't get around me in the game, you know what I'm saying? So when you don't fuck with me, people speak out to you. You look stupid, you know what I'm saying? You look crazy. So people put me on shit, like just, no, we got to have him on this festival. We got to put him on this. We got to put him on this, you know what I'm saying? And my core people are there, but they're surrounded by people who are, like, waiting for like the next person to come out and like spit fire, you know what I'm saying? And walk on the crowd, pop, you know, like, I can't do it. I'll never do it, you know? So I'm like, I don't want to put my listeners through it because and they're in there like, shit, man. There's, like, a kid who kept, like, elbowing me, you know what I'm saying? Like, some of my listeners are, like, there's always somebody to put me to the side, like, yo, I'm 51, my nigga, like, this is the shit I'll listen to. So them, them dudes don't, they don't want that. Those ladies, like, who pull me to the side, like, boy, look, you know, I could be... I'm like, Yeah, you don't have time for, you know, for that. So I like to do just my thing. But the festival checks go directly to the sports car dealerships. Like, those are the checks that get you off the lot though. So, you know, you're being a fool not to do it, you know? And that's just business. 

[00:39:03] Mousa Hamdan: The checks are good, yes, but I think as well...

[00:39:08] Curren$y: He makes sense with this. I know what he coming with this, but I'm going to tell you, they're coming to business. He makes sense. 

[00:39:12] Mousa Hamdan: Sometimes, I honestly, in a lot of things that we do, I always tell him, I think he underestimates his reach, you know, and he's too humble to the point of, nah, bro, like, they're not really here for me and this, that, and the other. Now, I'll be honest with you, we had one festival show. I was a little worried. We got on stage. He wasn't on stage. He was backstage, so he didn't know nothing was going on. I literally walked to the DJ. I said, bro, this is probably our last festival 'cause it was like, there was literally 10 people in front the stage. I said, bro, if he gets out here and there's 10 people out here, he's liable to walk off stage, bro, so listen to me. The intro started and it looked like a rush. Like, I didn't know who. They had about 5,000 people or better rush to the stage. And I like, whoa, that's more like it. Then he came out, he didn't see the dead part. He saw that part. He was like, oh, my people are here. They're here. They showed up. They showed up. I'm like, you just don't know. They really did show up 'cause they wasn't here five minutes ago. 

[00:40:22] Curren$y: They just showed up.

[00:40:23] Mousa Hamdan: Bro, but then that's understanding the festivals. You got six stages. 

[00:40:28] Curren$y: Yeah. 

[00:40:29] Mousa Hamdan: They're trying to catch everybody.

[00:40:30] Curren$y: I was posting one time, there's a way to do it, you know what I'm saying? As long as you are vocal about what time you go on, your people will navigate through to get there for you, you know what I'm saying? But you also, you got the people who're waiting for somebody else 'cause I'm like, it's a gift and the curse, 'cause, like, I'm, like, the most known unknown. So it's, like they know they can't put me on at fucking one o'clock, you know what I'm saying? So then when you put me on at, like, eight, and then there's, like, whoever the fucking, whoever name was written this big on the flyer, this guy's coming after me, all right. The kids who are waiting for this guy are, like, have been pressed against the barricade for hours, like since 11:00 AM. When I come out there with my low-impact workout, like they're fucking dying, like looking at me and I'm like, I get it. Don't trip. I fuck with this guy's music too. He'll be out here in a minute, and I hope he does a backflip on top of you when he does, you know what I'm saying? Like, that shit kind of fuck with me because I'm delivering a real message. Like, every word I write, like, I mean it. So I really don't want to say it sweating to a person who's like this, like on the barricade, just like, bro, please stop. We get it. You like Chevys, you want us all to get rich? Fucking shut up. We want to fucking rap about drugs. Where's the next guy? So that shit kind of make you not want to do it. But then this guy, fucking, he's also the person who says this like, okay, you also woke some people up to the music you make. Then there's always, like, when I get done, the people who work the festival, the grounds, are, like, bro, I never heard this shit, but this was real music. Like, I couldn't understand nobody else's words, you know what I'm saying? This is fucking good. So I'm like, well, that's cool. I do leave out there with more listeners than I did, you know what I'm saying? It might be 12, it might be 150. He going to count every dollar for each one via stream, so I understand where he comes from with that. But I always like, I say it to myself sometimes, and sometimes when it gets too heavy to me, I say to the people around me, I'm like, bro, I'm actually the only one who fucking have to go and do that shit. Like, I get it. We all here, we all fucking supporting, but they're not looking at you, like, get the fuck out. And you got to do this shit for 45 minutes, you know what I'm saying? Sure. There's some people who are enjoying it, but the motherfucker who's right in front of you is dying, and you have to continue to have a good time. Like, that shit is like being a fucking Disney World animatronic or, being like a Chuck E. Cheese thing. Like, that's a rough time for me for sure. But it works, you know? That's anybody's job.

[00:43:27] Dan Runcie: It's a balance, right?

[00:43:28] Curren$y: You know, a hundred percent love any fucking gig that you have, any job you have, bro. I'm sure everybody at NBA, that was their dream, to go to the NBA. Some of those days sucked though for those dudes, you know what I'm saying? So it ain't always going to be the shit. The situation overall is one that I wouldn't trade for the world. 

[00:43:48] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And you mentioned too that the money that you're getting from the festivals is going to the sports car dealership. Can we talk a little bit about that? How's that business set up and how's that been going? 

[00:44:01] Curren$y: Oh, well, me and Mousa, we've always been kind of into, like, bringing cars back to life, restoring things, and shit. But I've been holding on 'em. But as of late, we're building a stable of vehicles to kind of release onto the public, but it'll be like a collection, the same way we come out with clothes. There'll be like six vehicles put up for sale at one time that we cultivate and put together. We putting together a BMW, a few vintage sports car that we putting together. We're going to roll 'em all out at one time, you know what I'm saying? So I expect them all to be gone, like, within the week. I expect it to be like shoes. Like, I expect motherfuckers to try it and everybody will blow. You know, everybody try their hands at the shit we do. So another motherfucker with a bigger audience and shit will try to do the same thing, but you know, who cooked that shit up first. 

[00:44:52] Mousa Hamdan: Okay. They know, They know where they got the idea from.

[00:44:56] Curren$y: Yeah, they know, too, so it don't matter. 

[00:44:59] Dan Runcie: Speaking of cars and trendssetting, I know you got a partnership with NASCAR as well, and I feel like there's another thing, too, where not a lot of hip hop artists are doing those deals, but we are just seeing the way things are trended now. Everyone will be following to that. And you got the Jet Life cup series. All right, let's talk about it. 

[00:45:16] Curren$y: Yeah, man. Yeah, man. Well, yeah. People of any other nationality other than the original rebel down home boys were not involved in NASCAR and they fucking, they had it that way. They built it that way, executive-wise, it's not like that anymore. Now, you know, doors have been broken down, kicked in, and open-minded. People are now there, and it's made it more accessible for fans. I was shocked when I went that I saw like groups of different people, I don't want to just say black people, just different people in general because the other side of it, the way it was, they weren't picking what nationality or what people they didn't want, they didn't want nothing else, but what the fuck they had, you know? So it's way different now in all aspects. It's not just minorities selling nachos. They driving the cars. They are the ones like turning the wrenches and making sure shit is right. They got headsets on, they out there doing the real thing. And I brought one of my younger homies with me, it blew him away. He's at school for engineering, and he was just, he was nervous for us to even be out there. I made a few small jokes to my friends when we first got there based on the appearance and how it looked. But it really wasn't like that once you got down into the meeting. And I read on social media, like I read a few comments. There were some people who were not excited about our presence. There's some people who weren't into the collaboration. I saw one thing under a video that I was so sad 'cause I was like, I hope my mom don't see it. Because the motherfucker was like, what is he coming to steal? And I was like, damn, if my mama sees that, she'll probably cry, you know what I'm saying? Like, it'll take a minute for me to get her over that shit. But what are you going to do? You know what I'm saying? This shit, you can't blame the behavior 'cause it was taught a long time ago. Like, they didn't pop out like that. That's what that motherfucker told him to do, you know what I'm saying? And what we doing is playing the hand and telling the people who are receptive and the new people, the younger generation, like, it could go this way instead, you know what I'm saying? Like, we were up in all the suites and eating NASCAR food, you know, and actually, I'm going to say this, I was a little bummed with the NASCAR because we couldn't get a Coca-Cola badge on our jersey. We wanted to have it because the race that day was actually Coke Zero, Coke Zero 400, all right. So, when they originally had the design meeting for the package, they included Coca-Cola logo because that was the race, you know, that's when it was coming up. And I think like they did the same thing, like, whoever is involved with the collaborations just did a little brief overview of who I was or what I was about, and they're like, oh, no. So like, that kind of fucked me up. 

[00:48:17] Mousa Hamdan: They'll be back though. They'll be back. 

[00:48:19] Curren$y: Yeah. But you know, like, I was like, well this still, you know, shit is still hard, you know? But with time, with time, yeah. And I don't know. And then, and I didn't like the you got gang with you. I heard over there, I'm sorry. 

[00:48:32] Mousa Hamdan: Oh, yeah.

[00:48:32] Dan Runcie: That's from fans or was that from NASCAR? 

[00:48:35] Curren$y: No, no.

[00:48:35] Mousa Hamdan: Coke exec. 

[00:48:36] Curren$y: Just one of the brass at Coca-Cola. And I drank a lot of Coca-Cola, so I really do need to stop, but for health and maybe for business, because motherfucker was like, to the representative from NASCAR who was showing us to where we were going to go to sit down, like, in the suite. He's like, oh, you got a gang with you. And I was just like, damn, like. I'm sure maybe I'm looking at it with a microscope, you know. 

[00:49:01] Dan Runcie: But still though, you can't say that, yeah. 

[00:49:04] Curren$y: I really don't know, I just don't know. I just was on the fence. I thought about it a lot. I think about it. 

[00:49:09] Dan Runcie: But like, they wouldn't say that if, like, Jason Aldean walked up in there with a group of folks.

[00:49:13] Curren$y: You got a lot of people with you, you know I'm saying? It wasn't like he said the gang's all here. If he said the gang's all here, that would not have hit me like that. People say that the gang's all here, that doesn't mean that you got a street gang here. 

[00:49:29] Mousa Hamdan: Right.

[00:49:29] Curren$y: But, whoa, you got a gang with you. 

[00:49:33] Mousa Hamdan: He could have said, Hey fellas and just kept it moving.

[00:49:36] Curren$y: Yeah. 

[00:49:36] Mousa Hamdan: How y'all doing guys? 

[00:49:38] Curren$y: Yeah. 

[00:49:38] Mousa Hamdan: And you didn't have to make conversation with us. You were just passing.

[00:49:41] Curren$y: It felt like it was a Chappelle show skit because it could have been where keeping the real goes wrong. Because I was like, half step, like, trying to see if I could make eye contact with one of my friends who felt like maybe that was wrong and I had support in, like, hey man, like, what? But it could have went way south. Like, there could be no more NASCAR 'cause shit if we could, would've did that. You know, we just might not have the Coca-Cola on the next one. Or maybe we will, maybe they're like, oh, shit, man. We didn't mean that. I thought I did say that gang's all here. Let's put a badge on the fucking next jacket, you know, it might work that way. And that's business and that's why we're here talking, you know? And and that's why it it pays to be true to yourself within your business. And if your circle is small, it's easier for you to be honest and not worry about if something sounds stupid or anything because, like, we have a yin and a yang, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what makes it work. 

[00:50:37] Dan Runcie: Right. And I think that's a good note to close things out. And I want to get your thoughts on this question because as you started with the beginning, y'all have been together for a while, even in this conversation, we can see that chemistry between the two of you, that yin and the yang, you understand each other. What do you think is the secret for having the artist and manager that just stay with each other? 'Cause there's so many times that, either other artists or other managers that have been on this show and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, so and so fired me. 

[00:51:04] Curren$y: Somebody lied in the beginning.

[00:51:07] Mousa Hamdan: Right. 

[00:51:08] Curren$y: Just like, who fucks up anything. You know, like, just somebody lied in the beginning. The artist was signed to nine different managers. Everybody loaned him $1,500 to help him do something. He's just signing with whoever's going to fucking give him a fucking chain or watch, and he's not being honest. Or there's a fucking, like, a discrepancy on this stack of paperwork or something, and this guy's outsmarting the artist and fucking going to rob and blind, you know what I'm saying? Like, if that happens in the beginning, the intentions are bad in the beginning, then you'll see where it looked good and then it fall into pieces because you find out, you know what I'm saying? Like, fucking, when we read for fucking N.W.A, which is one thing I didn't turn down, I was down to do that. He's coming to me with movie shit. Do you want to read this? Do you want to do this? No, no, no, no. They're like, do you want to be Easy-E? And I was like, no. At first I was like, no, like, they should call his son, you know what I'm saying? But then I end up reading for it, and then they end up getting a guy from New Orleans anyhow. So that was cool. I'm like, damn, I probably could have got that shit. But nonetheless, the part that we were reading, it was after Easy-E's wife went through the paperwork that he did with Jerry Heller and she brought, like, so much shit, attention to him. And when E and Jerry had this talk, it made Jerry cry because he was leaving even though he did so much wrong shit. But in his heart of hearts, he probably didn't think it was wrong 'cause he took dude from nothing. But it was still bad and he couldn't believe how quick Eric was ready to shut the shit down. But it's because he was wrong. Like, once that, there's nothing you could do after that. Once it get like that, it shut down. That shit is heartbreaking. And we never, like, we have not hurt each other like in that aspect, you know what I'm saying? Like, when I came to him, I was like, look, I don't, you know what I'm saying, I ain't signed nothing yet, but this is what's going on. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's that, you know. I don't know, I'm going to go talk ahead, I'm going to do this and get this and then not say this. You know, he don't fucking pop up and see I'm doing the show in Colorado and, you know what I'm saying, I didn't say anything. I just went, flew out and oh no, I made just 30 grand right quick, you know. That there's just, it's all on the up, bro. So with that, you know, you stay friends, we friends first all. 

[00:53:28] Mousa Hamdan: That's I think the biggest thing. 

[00:53:29] Curren$y: Yeah. If he wasn't in my homie, then we wouldn't do business. 

[00:53:31] Mousa Hamdan: We started as friends, and then we continued to be friends in this. 

[00:53:36] Curren$y: Yeah. All the way through.

[00:53:38] Mousa Hamdan: We're business partners, but we never was just business partners. We was always friends to begin with. 

[00:53:44] Curren$y: Right. So that make you not be able to do no fucked up business. 

[00:53:48] Mousa Hamdan: And then we trust each other. 

[00:53:49] Curren$y: You know what I'm saying? You can't do that to your friend.

[00:53:52] Mousa Hamdan: Trust is big, you know. I think he trusts my decisions, I trust his decisions. And then we talk about things, like he said, we were going to always converse about whatever decisions we want make. If there's ever a thought, I think, you know, this may be wrong or whatever, I'm going to consult with him as if he was my manager, you know what I'm saying? So we're going to talk and the trust issue, I always hear that, you know, how, why y'all been together so long? I'm like, if you build a business, who builds a business to separate, right? We build a business together 

[00:54:24] Curren$y: Who are these people that you're with? Who's in your car? Who the fuck are you riding with in the car? Like, who? That's why. That's why I said, like, having 19 and 30 motherfuckers. Like, now there might be 30 people in this building at a time, and they all could have a Jet Life chain, they all be a part of what's going on. But at the end of the day, you know what I'm saying? When it'll come down, it'll come down. Like, we got to sit down and fucking, you know what I'm saying, and put it together, you know. Everybody respect that because when we come out the room, we come out the with the right answer. I might have the wrong answer, but this ain't here. When we come out the room, we present the right answer. 

[00:55:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, a hundred percent right. And I feel like y'all got the right mentality. It speaks to everything that you've accomplished up to this date and excited to continue to see where it goes, right? Like you said, this is a balloon, and we want to keep seeing how this balloon continues to grow slowly. So, I mean, congrats to y'all on everything that've done.

[00:55:17] Curren$y: Got new music dropping Friday, so if this don't get to them this week, you, bro, you know for sure, Friday, I got music dropping.

[00:55:26] Dan Runcie: Okay. Yeah. I was going to ask you what else you got coming up and if people want to follow you, where's the best place for them to check in with you, both of you.

[00:55:32] Curren$y: Car is outside, but I don't suggest you follow me. @spitta_andretti, Instagram. S P I T T A underscore A N D R E T T I. Twitter, well, I have a lot of fun at Twitter. Instagram has gotten really weird. It's really, like, tough to figure that out. It's nuts. Twitter is staying true. Curren$y with an S because they don't recognize a dollar sign. So C U R R E N S Y underscore Spitta, S P I T T A. And you know what? They had a fake Curren$y when I first got to Twitter. That's why I had to make that name like that, @CurrensySpitta, because there was already somebody who was saying he was me and he had like pictures and everything. That's fucked up, yeah, but nah. 

[00:56:17] Dan Runcie: And what about you Mousa? 

[00:56:19] Mousa Hamdan: I'm on, pretty much all the handles are the same, @mousa504, M O U S A 5 0 4, that's going to be on whatever, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, anything, you know. I stick to that same handle. 

[00:56:33] Curren$y: Oh, we also got the partnership with Sovereign Brands, Villon France, this is our cognac that we are standing behind. That's just one more thing on the number. I forgot. It doesn't help your memory. It tastes good. It doesn't help your memory. I forgot to mention that we were doing it.

[00:56:49] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. We could do a whole follow up episode on all of that. All of these deals. Role you've turned down, too, but we'll have to check it the next time. Appreciate you both, man. Thank you. 

[00:56:58] Mousa Hamdan: Appreciate you. 

[00:56:59] Curren$y: Cheers, bro.

[00:57:00] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

The dominance of Atlanta’s hip-hop scene has been discussed often, but not in the way Joe Coscarelli covered it in his new book, Rap Capital. Joe, a New York Times music reporter since 2015, spent four years and interviewed over 100 sources to get the contemporary story about Atlanta’s culture-defining music scene.

Characters are what move the story forward in Joe’s book, not discography, record sales, or cultural relevance. Lil Baby is featured prominently, as is his mom. Joe’s relationship with the hit rapper dates back to 2017 when Lil Baby was still a mixtape artist. Another recurring character is Quality Control Music’s Kevin “Coach K” Lee, who has deep-rooted ties with the city’s most well-known artists across eras.

Joe came onto the show to take us through the book’s journey — both for him to write it and the characters themselves. Here’s what we covered:

[2:40] How the book came together and finally clicked

[6:42] Role of Quality Control’s Coach K in Atlanta story

[10:11] Lasting effects of pandemic on music industry

[12:38] Which era of Atlanta hip-hop to focus on? 

[14:09] How streaming helped launch Atlanta rap into the mainstream

[16:10] Building trust with his sources despite racial differences

[18:10] Did Joe receive any pushback while reporting?

[20:19] Evolution key to Atlanta rap’s longevity 

[25:05] Adapting Rap Capital into a movie

[29:45] The crumbling of mainstream culture

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Joe Coscarelli, @joecoscarelli

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Joe Coscarelli:  I wanted to tell the story through characters, through people, not just, you know, you can run down the discography of all the amazing Atlanta musicians, right? You can go through the label history, read the reviews. But I always want to sort of pull back like, who's behind these people? Who's behind that person? So that's why I think, you know, mothers were huge, fathers, you know, friends, people who are around these artists growing up, I wanted them to be human characters, and I wanted the side characters to be as big of a part as the famous people 'cause I think they're as crucial to the equation. 

[00:00:30] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.  

[00:00:58] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Joe Coscarelli. He's the author of Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story, and he's a culture reporter at The New York Times. And this book that he wrote, Rap Capital, I cannot recommend it enough. If you listen to this podcast, if you read the newsletter, if you watch any of the clips from our conversations or any of the posts on social media, this book is made for you. It's a street-level epic about the most consequential music culture today, Atlanta Rap. Joe put so much thought and care into how the book came together and tying everything from the Atlanta murders that happened decades ago and how that shaped the rap culture and the broader culture for black folks in Atlanta that we see today, and how that led to someone like Lil Baby, how that led to someone like Coach K having such an influence over hip hop music and the culture for decades now. This book was a great opportunity as well to have a trip down memory lane. A lot of us understand how influential Atlanta's been, but it was great to have it be told from a unique way. We also talked about broader trends happening in the streaming era right now in music, what a movie or film or TV show adaptation could look like for Rap Capital, and more. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it. All right. Today we had Joe Coscarelli, the author of Rap Capital: An Atlanta story and read the book, really enjoyed it, and I got to ask because I was going through the synopsis and you said this was four years in the making, and I got to imagine with a book like this, there was some point when things started to click in that four-year process. When did you feel like things were coming together for you? 

[00:02:40] Joe Coscarelli: So I knew that there was a book in this stuff because I had done a handful of stories through my day job at The New York Times about Atlanta. I started this beat in late 2014. So., You know, my first couple years on the job, streaming was really taking over and specifically rap music and streaming. So I just found myself over and over again talking to the same group of people, right? I did a Migos Story, did a QC story that featured Lil Baby, one of his first interviews. I wrote about Drew Findling who's a lawyer in the book that's all over the news these days in various capacities. So I knew from those stories that there was something here. But I didn't know what it was going to be. I knew I wanted to not just tell a history, but follow characters in real-time as they tried to make it. That's something I always want to do in my work. You know, so my favorite art ever is like Hoop Dreams or a music documentary like Dig!, which follows two bands across a long period of time. One of them makes it, one of them doesn't make it. That's always what I want to bring to my reporting is this idea of a journey, right? And it doesn't even matter what the destination is, but following, specifically artists and musicians as they're trying to make something out of their lives, that to me, is just a timeless tale, right, of ambition and dreams, and so I knew I had a handful of characters that I wanted to go on this trip with, but I didn't really know how it tied into the broader story of Atlanta until a real marathon brunch interview with Lil Baby's mother, Lashawn. He was, you know, he and I had a rapport at that point. I'd interviewed him a few times. I did talk to a lot of people around him, and he was kind enough to set me up directly with his mom. And, you know, we sat down at a brunch place outside of Atlanta. And, you know, she said, I asked him, I asked Dominique, her son, we're like, what do I tell him? And he told her tell him everything. And she really did, her whole life story became part of the book, especially the foundation of the book, in the first part. And she had such an incredible life on her own. You know, I hope she writes a memoir someday. But when I learned really that she had been friends in school with an early victim of the Atlanta child murders, which were happening on the west side of Atlanta in the late seventies, early eighties, that she had a firsthand relationship to that historical event that I feel like really left its mark on the city. And she was open. She said it sort of affected the kind of mother that she became, and I think ultimately helped set Dominique, Lil Baby, on his path. And all of that could be traced to, like, something she went through as a kid that also spoke more broadly to Atlanta and the way it has developed socially, politically, culturally, especially Black Atlanta over the last 40, 50 years. So that was a real breakthrough moment for me, and I knew that I could start with her story, which in many ways was also the story of Atlanta in the last, you know, half a century. 

[00:05:30] Dan Runcie: And in reading that first piece, too, I could see how much care and thought was put into it from your perspective of going through what happened with those murders and then how that traces directly to someone like Lil Baby because it's hard to tell the story of Atlanta hip hop without doing all of that. And that's something that I think is often missing with so much of the discussion about Atlanta's run, which is why I feel like your book does stand as its own and is able to have a unique voice and perspective on this.

[00:05:58] Joe Coscarelli: I appreciate that. Yeah, I wanted to tell the story through characters, right, through people, not just, you know, you can run down the discography of all the amazing Atlanta musicians, right? You can go through the label history, read the reviews. But I always want to sort of pull back like, who's behind these people? Who's behind that person, you know? So that's why I think, you know, mothers were huge, fathers, you know, friends, people who are around these artists growing up, I wanted them to be human characters, and I wanted the side characters to be as big of a part as the famous people 'cause I think they're as crucial to the equation. 

[00:06:31] Dan Runcie: And of course, Lil Baby is one of the central characters. Another one is Coach K, who's one of the folks leading up Quality Control Music. Why was it important for him to be a central character in this too? 

[00:06:42] Joe Coscarelli: So Coach K is amazing because you can tell basically the last 30 years of rap music only through his career, right? When I said I wanted to be able to trace characters back through the years to artists and eras, like, Coach has seen it all, right? This is a man who was passing out Church fans to promote Pastor Troy and the congregation in the mid-nineties. Then he goes from that to representing all these producers who were, you know, crucial to founding the trap sound, someone like Drama Boy. And then he's working with Young Jeezy, right, as the Snowman mythology takes over and, you know, Def Jam South and the explosion of trap music on a national scale. Coach is behind that, right? You know, there's a moment I talk about in the book where they put the commercial on the radio right, in Atlanta, when the Jeezy's mixtapes, Trap or Die are coming out, right, and it's All Traps Closed today, like National Holiday, you know, like these are the things that Coach was cooking up behind the scenes. Then he works with Gucci Mane, right, who was blood rivals with Jeezy. And then that brings you up to the present day, and in 2013, he and P, his partner Pierre Thomas, they founded Quality Control, and then they have Migos, right, and then they have a Lil Yachty, and then they have Lil Baby. And through Coach K, you could talk about every single one of those careers and so many more that he was on the periphery of, even if he wasn't the main executive or manager involved. So I just think, you know, there's nobody more crucial to that ecosystem at this moment and through the last couple of decades than Kevin Lee, Coach K. 

[00:08:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think one of the things that stands out about their run, too, is that it wasn't just one artist and they faded and rose with that artist. And I think that's what we've seen a lot in the streaming era, frankly, from a lot of the record labels that have rose up. They had the runs, and even when one star started to fade from a group that was the hottest group in the moment, they had others that came through, and you're seeing that infrastructure. I feel like that's one thing that sets them apart from a lot of the others at this moment. 

[00:08:42] Joe Coscarelli: Totally. For them, it's all about artist development, right? Like, I remember being around them in the office, you know, in late 2017 and they were talking about whether they should have gone after Bhad Bhabie, you know, the Cash Me Outside girl. And like they would see little things pop up and think like, oh, should we get in on that viral moment? And then they would be like, No, that's not what we do. We build artists, we build careers, we build brands. And something that's so special about Quality Control and why they were able to, you know, be the backbone of this book is because they are invested in that sort of old school Motown-esque record business thing of I'm going to pluck someone who might not even think they're a musician, and we're going to believe in them, and we're going to back them, and we're going to build it from the ground up, right, and we're going to build it Atlanta first. Whereas so much in the viral marketing, streaming world of today is going top-down, right? It's a TikTok hit, then it's a major label deal, and this person's probably never even played a show before. They're still very invested in the grassroots bottom-up approach, and I think that's worked for them so many times now that the playbook is, you know, you can't deny it.

[00:09:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think that also that goes with something that I've seen you talk about even outside of the book as well, just some of the challenges that a lot of the artists and labels have right now in terms of now that the pandemic has, at least in this stage that we're in right now, there's still some lasting effects in terms of how that's shaping the charts, how that's shaping how music's released. What have you been seeing there from that perspective? 

[00:10:11] Joe Coscarelli: I mean, you know, a lot of people have been writing this year, yourself included, about the sort of stagnancy of the charts, how, you know, there aren't a lot of new breakout hits, especially in rap music, which had been so dominant for the last decade, essentially, as things started to move online and towards streaming. And I think you're right that a lot of that is pandemic hangover, right? Like, people were not outside like they used to be. Artists were not sort of feeling that energy, that creative energy. They were creating often, like, in a little bubble. I'm sure you get projects like a Beyoncé's RENAISSANCE that comes out of that pandemic moment and maybe speaks to some people's hopes and dreams for what the next few years will be, a little freer. But you don't have any chance for that sort of grassroots development, right? So we saw a lot of things come off of TikTok, but as I was getting at, like, those people, they haven't had the opportunity to touch their fans, right, to speak to the sort of ground swell of support. So you get a lot of things that feel fleeting and then you have something massive, right? Bad Bunny or like Morgan Wallen that's just like lodged up there at the top of the charts 'cause I think those guys had a fully formed thing going into the pandemic and were able to ride it through. You know, when you think about a lot of rap, especially regionally, that's bubbling now, there's a lot of drill, right? Like, you think of the stuff coming out of Brooklyn and the Bronx and that sound traveling all over the country. And I think, you know, since Pop Smoke, we haven't really had a sort of mainstream emissary for that sound. And it is such a local, such a hyper-local, such an underground phenomenon that you haven't really had someone translate it for the mainstream, you know, maybe that's going to be Ice Spice, maybe that's going to be Fivio Foreign, and like, you know, maybe it's going to be someone younger. But I think we're still waiting, right, for what that next wave, especially in rap, is going to be. You see the sort of sun may be setting on the trap era that's described in the book in the rise of drill as the default of what a rap song sounds like, but again, that hasn't really crossed over quite yet. 

[00:12:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's been fascinating just to see how the streaming era has shaped things, specifically with how much you focused on it in the book. And with a topic like Atlanta hip hop, there are likely so many sectors that you could have dove in on, and of course, Lil Baby being a central figure did lend itself to the streaming era. But how did you decide which era to focus on? Because there's so many time spans that you probably could have done and equally deep dive on.

[00:12:38] Joe Coscarelli: I always knew I wanted to tell a contemporary story, right? Like, I'm more of a reporter than I am a historian. So I'm not a musicologist, I'm not a music critic. You know, I've never really written criticism in terms of album reviews or show reviews, things like that. So I knew I wanted to be able to witness as much as I could firsthand and write about that because that's what I love to do in my work, getting back to this idea of, you know, being a fly on the wall for someone's journey, for someone's rise, for someone's fall even. So it was always going to be contemporary, right? And I feel like you have to tell a little bit of the history, right? You have to talk about Freaknik, you have to talk about OutKast, and the Dungeon Family, and LaFace Records, and So So Def to be able to get to this moment. But I think for me, like, I'm not someone who writes about music nostalgically. Sure, I love the stuff I grew up on, but I'd rather look forwards than backwards. And I think, character-wise, I just want to stay with the cutting edge, right? I want to see what's next. I want to see who's changing things, who's, you know, who's moving things forward. And that's just what I seek out in my life and in my job. So I think it was always going to be as contemporary as possible. 

[00:13:46] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I think that streaming also allowed us to see more growth from the areas that I think, in a lot of ways, were a bit held back from gatekeepers controlling everything. And I think Atlanta's a perfect example of that, even though they had the massive rise, you know, nineties, early 2000s, it went to another level this past decade. 

[00:14:09] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah. And I think you know that sort of in-between time, right, when you think about post-Napster and file sharing, post-CD crash in the early 2000s. But pre-streaming, like, a lot of what became the go-to playbook for streaming was happening in the underground mixtape scene, especially in Atlanta and in the South. And you think of things like DatPiff or you know, sites like that where free mix tapes were coming out and it was all about quantity, right, in a way that really set these artists for the streaming era, right? You think of Lil Wayne's mixtape run, Gucci's mixtape run, and then Future's mixtape run. It was just about music, music, music, music. And so Migos sort of got in at the tail end of that and they released, you know, whatever it is, 5, 7, 10 mixtapes before they put out a proper debut album. And then when they finally hit with something like Culture, their second proper full length, the world had finally caught up to them and the rest of the Atlanta artists. And yet there's this whole group in between that gets left behind, right? Like, I'd love to read a book about Travis Porter and Rich Kidz and you know, these Atlanta rappers who are really, like, laying the groundwork for a lot of this, even like Rocko or you know, early career Future. Like these guys, I think if they would've come out once Spotify was as big as it is now, they would've been huge national and international stars. And instead, they sort of get caught in this in-between zone. So, you know, I think, I love to see when art lines up with the technology of the moment, and I think these Atlanta rappers were in the perfect place at the perfect time to take advantage of that explosion. 

[00:15:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. And then even reading it too, and thinking about this conversation we're having, so much of you framing this as you're a reporter, you're capturing what's happening contemporary, and given the insights and the things that people are sharing with you, the amount of trust that you were needed to develop with them, and we talked a lot about the aspect of race and how that plays in. How did you navigate that yourself as a white man and trying to tell this black story and making sure that you're capturing it in the best way possible? 

[00:16:10] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah. You know, obviously, I thought about this a lot in the reporting, in the conception of the book, and certainly in the writing and the editing. I think the job of any journalist, right, is to be like a respectful, humble, open-minded guest in other people's worlds, right, and to be well aware of what you know and what you don't know. Like, that goes for when I'm interviewing a female artist, a trans songwriter, reggaeton star. I think, like, to navigate spaces where you're not an insider, like, it's best to come prepared and engaged and curious. Like, I did my research, I knew what I was talking about to the extent that I could, but I also was eager to, like, defer to people who are the experts, right? I made sure that everyone from artists to managers, family members, like, they knew that I wanted to take whatever platform I had with the book and with my work at The New York Times, and sort of take their work seriously to shine a light on it, and recognize it as important as it is, right, this cultural product that has this immense influence and impact. So I wanted to really preserve these moments to the best of my ability for the history books. And I think that my subjects got that right away. You know, I don't think it took a lot of time for them to spend with me to see that I was really dedicated in that mission, that I was going to be respectful of their time and space, interested in the work that they were doing and the lives they were living. And then, like, your credibility travels, right? One person can vouch for you with another, you know, with a collaborator, with a family member. And I just wanted to just defer to them and their experiences. And I think I took that with me in the writing of the book. You know, of course, there's analysis, there's observation, but I really wanted people to speak for themselves. The book is very quote-heavy. I really wanted to capture people as they are, do an accurate portrayal of what it is they've been through. Hopefully, I think the quality speaks for itself. But I wanted to, you know, give these people whatever, spotlight, whatever platform I can offer. And then tell the truest version of how they relate it to me. 

[00:18:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's the best and the most fair way to do it. Along the way though, did you receive any pushback or any type of challenge as you were doing this?

[00:18:10] Joe Coscarelli: There's very little. I think I'm fortunate enough to, you know, have an institution like The New York Times behind me. I think, you know, people take that name seriously. It opens a lot of doors, whether or not I was a good reporter. And I think when you can open the door and then when you show up, and you're thorough, and you're accurate, you know, I'd written a lot about these people before the book, I think that the trust just grows and grows. And I was also finding people really at the beginning, right, of their careers in a lot of cases, like Lil Baby, like, you know, he may not be able to spell my last name, but he knows that I was that guy with him listening to his mixtape tracks as they were deciding what was going to be on, you know, his second, his third mixtape. And he's seen me for years along the way, supporting that journey, you know, engaging with the work, like I said. And, you know, meeting people at the beginnings of things, they remember, right, who was there with them and who was supportive and who got it. And I think that that went a long way for me with my subjects. I think the other thing is like, you know, in the music industry, whether it's rap, you know, southern rap, regional street rap, like, there's always a white guy around, you know. I talk about this in the book, whether it's a dj, a producer, a manager, you know, this is a trope, this is a tradition. And I think, you know, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes poorly. But I try to always be above board and respectful in my dealings. But I think, you know, when you're riding around in Atlanta, with a rapper and you look like I do, you know, someone's just going to assume that I'm either from the label or I'm from The FADER, you know, something like that.

[00:19:41] Dan Runcie: Exactly. Exactly. But no, I think that, given this, as you mentioned, yeah, there's plenty of precedent for people having done this before. And yeah, I think the care that you bring into it with the book is clearly shown. And thinking about that, as you mentioned, just you driving around Atlanta, getting a feel for the vibe of the city and everything else, spending so much time there, how do you feel about the run that Atlanta's currently having and how this will continue? Because I think that like anything, people are always thinking of what is the next thing. How long does this last? We, of course, saw the east and west coast rise and fall. What do you feel, like, the next decade or so it looks like for Atlanta in hip hop? 

[00:20:19] Joe Coscarelli: I mean, the thing that's been so amazing about Atlanta, the reason it can be the subject of a book like this is because every time you would think it was over, they would just come up with a new thing, right? So like, you know, you think back to OutKast, you think back to So So Def, you know, you have the run of Ludacris, who becomes, you know, this crazy mainstream success story, you have Gucci, and Jeezy, and the rise of trap, and T.I., you know, becomes this huge crossover star. And then you think that that's over. And then you have crunk, and you have Lil Jon, and you think that's over. And then here's comes Waka Flocka Flame coming up from under Gucci, you know. Even someone like Gucci, he's helped birth three, four micro-generations of Atlanta rappers. And, you know, someone like Young Thug comes out and you're like, oh, like, this is too eccentric. This is never going to happen, right? Like, this is only for the real heads, only for people listening underground, and then all of a sudden he's on SNL, right? And he's in Vogue. And just over and over again, you have these guys sort of breakthrough with something that seems like it's too outre. It's too avant-garde. You know, even Migos and their sort of like punk repetition, you know, people heard Bando and said like, oh, this is annoying. Like, this is going nowhere, and then all of a sudden the whole radio sounds like that. So there's a part of me that does feel like, you know, this book is sort of capturing a contained era, right? The first 7, 8, 9, 10 years of streaming and the intensity and the tragedy of the YSL indictment. Like, maybe that's a hard stop to this era. But I think you can never count Atlanta out, right? So like, you might not know exactly what's coming next, but there's always more kids like this, like coming up with something new, taking what came before them, putting like a twist on it, and then all of a sudden it's on the radio, right? So like, even me, like, I see like a real post-Playboy Cardi, you know, sort of experimental streak in a lot of these rappers. I think there's some drill influence coming into Atlanta. And I don't think the next generation has really revealed itself yet, but I'm very confident that based on the infrastructure that's there, based on the amount of talent, the artists who call it home, both from there and not, like, I really think there'll be another wave, and there's just always another wave, in a way that even New York, you know, has struggled to bring the championship belt back that many times, you know? But I think, you know, Atlanta's regeneration has always been sort of its calling card. 

[00:22:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think one of the things that stands out about Atlanta too, and this is a bit of a sad way to frame it, but they've been able to withstand the jail time or the charges that happen for a lot of the rappers that are in their prime. Of course, we saw that happened with the West Coast in the nineties, Death Row, and you know, everything with Suge Knight and Tupac. I think we saw that a bit with the East Coast as well. But Atlanta, unfortunately, whether it's T.I., Gucci, like, a lot of them have served time, but the city still has been able to still thrive in hip hop because there was always someone else coming through. And I think even more recently now with Gunna and Thug, dealing with the RICO case and everything, who knows how that'll end up. But I think the difference for them and the city now as opposed to other areas is that even if you know, let's say that they may not be able to make music or this hinders their rise, there are other folks that can continue to have the city continue to rise up in the music around it.

[00:23:38] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah, and I think so much of this music, right, the music that's come out of Atlanta in the last 30 years, like, it comes from struggle, right? It comes from necessity. And the things you're describing, whether it's, you know, violence, death, you know, the criminal justice, the weight of the state on these young black men, mostly. And they do tend to be men, especially in this scene, though that's changing too. You know, I think when people feel backed into a corner, like, art can come from that, right? So whether it's YSL directly or it's the people, they influence, the people from their neighborhood who are going to fill that void. I think, you know, the people hear the urgency in this music, right? They hear the, whether it's the joy or the pain, you know, there's a lot of feeling here. And I think, yeah, the tough times, people bounce back out of that. And trap is so much about that in general that I think it'll just continue to happen.

[00:24:29] Dan Runcie: Definitely. And in the beginning of this conversation, you talked a little bit about how Hoop Dreams and that type of story was definitely an inspiration, and of course, that was nearly a three-hour long movie, if I remember correctly, the timeframe there. In terms of this book, already reading it, maybe through the first few chapters, I was like, oh, this is going to get turned into some type of TV or series or a movie or something like that. I could already see that happening. Was that in the back of your mind as you were thinking about what this could look like? Obviously, I'm sure you're so focused on the book, but were you, as you're thinking about the inspiration, were you thinking about multimedia adaptations? 

[00:25:05] Joe Coscarelli: You know, I wasn't as much as I should have been, right? Otherwise, I would've been recording my audio better to turn it into a podcast, to then turn it into a doc series or whatever it is. I'm very much like a print writer, right? Like, I'm a newspaper reporter. I don't even think about images really as much as I think about words. And yet, like, so much of my influence, like, you know, Hoop Dreams was always the sort of the north star of this, but, like, I'm a huge consumer of television and film and stories of all kinds. So I knew I wanted the scope of the story to at least have that potential, right, to feel grand, to feel cinematic, to feel like it was about a time and a place and characters, which I think, you know, is often easier to do in a visual medium. So I had it in mind. But I was really too focused on just getting the words down on the page and getting the material I needed. I hope you're right and that now that this thing exists, right, this big book, like you said, Hoop Dreams is a three-hour movie, and this is like the book equivalent of a three-hour movie. It's almost 400 pages, so it has that sort of epic quality. And I think there is, you know, hopefully, more to mine there, not necessarily in recreating the stories that I've already captured, but in that essence, in that spirit and the way that Atlanta sort of goes in waves and goes in cycles. I hope there's a way to be able to capture that visually as well. 

[00:26:23] Dan Runcie: If you could handpick any director you would want to lead a project on Rap Capital who'd you pick?

[00:26:29] Joe Coscarelli: Oh, man. All time. I mean, that's a tough one. Look, I mean, what Donald Glover and Hiro Murai have done with their Atlanta series, you know, it's much more surreal than this. It's fictionalized, but the parts of it that are based, you know, more on earth and more in the music industry, like, are just captured so well. I think, Hiro, as a director specifically, was able to, you know, all the aerial shots, like the highways, the roads, the woods, like that version of Atlanta is really seared in my mind. And, you know, I know they've done their version, but I think there's more to do. But then there's like the younger generation, right, of video directors and stuff that I'm just waiting to be able to see their worlds on a larger scale, you know, someone like Spike Jordan or someone like Daps who have their hand in, or, you know, Keemotion, like people who have their hand in a lot of the visual representation of this music on YouTube. And I think I would love to see what they would do, right? I would love to see the present-day music video directors' version of Belly, right, in Atlanta. Like, Belly, one of my favorite, you know, top five favorite movies ever, and has that sort of that music video quality to it in a lot of ways, but then blown up for the big screen. Like, I want some of those guys to have a canvas like that to paint on. 

[00:27:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's a good answer because I think that, especially the Hiro one, because I think that Atlanta, as a TV show, does capture so much of it. And you're right, the episodes that are set in earth and not the surreal, you know, messages. But yeah, the ones that are set in earth do capture a lot of the intricacies about the music industry and I think the reality, which is I think something you do in the book as well. I also think that some of the newer music video directors, too, just given the world that they're capturing, do so much of that well, too, and I think having that is key because, of course, some of the more established names have a picture of Atlanta, but it may be more relevant to that, you know, LaFace era of Atlanta, which, while very impactful, isn't what your book is about.

[00:28:27] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah, I think there's a new wave, right, and the people who are responsible for the iconography of this wave. You know, even the crazy run of Young Thug videos, I think the director Be EL Be, is that his name? You know, just super, super surreal sort of dream world stuff. But I want to see what those guys can do with the present day, given the budgets, you know, if they were given a Hollywood-size budget instead of a rap video-size budget.

[00:28:53] Dan Runcie: Well, I will definitely be keeping an eye out for that because I feel like it's one of these inevitable things and it'll be fun to watch for sure. 

[00:28:59] Joe Coscarelli: Fingers crossed. Yeah. 

[00:29:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. All right. Well, before we wrap things up, I do want to go back to one thing about the music industry because you had tweeted something out, I forget how long ago it was, but Punch from TDE had, shoutout to Punch, he had asked a question about when did the personalities become bigger than the music, and you had responded and said, well, there's some nuance here. Look at someone like Rod Wave who is, you know, selling multiple times more than someone like Megan Thee Stallion. And I think Rod Wave is someone that, unless you know the music, you're not necessarily tapping in, versus Megan who's someone that's performing at all the big award shows and has a lot of the big features, how do you make sense of that dichotomy between those examples and maybe what it says about where we are in the industry and how to make sense of it?

[00:29:45] Joe Coscarelli: I think there's just been a real crumbling of the monoculture, right? Like, before. You would expect, if somebody had a number one hit, if somebody had a number one album, everyone would know who they were, right? I would know, you would know, your mom would know, my grandma would know. They would at least have some vague idea, right, of who Shania Twain was, or you know, Katy Perry, whoever it may be, even Ed Sheeran, to name one of the last, I think, monoculture stars. Whereas today everything is so fragmented, right? You write about this in your newsletter, whether it's streaming TV or movies or music, like, everything finds its own little audience, and it's sometimes it's not even that little, you know. Jon Caramanica, the pop music critic here at the Times, and I collaborated on a piece, you know, I think probably almost four years ago at this point, saying like, your old idea of a pop star is dead. Your new idea of a pop star is, you know, it's Bad Bunny. It's BTS. It's Rosalía who's not selling a ton of albums, but can pack out two shows at Radio City Music Hall without saying a word of English, basically, you know. And people are finding these artists on their own, right? You think of NBA YoungBoy, another one who's like, basically, the biggest rap artist we've had over the last five years, and he gets no radio play. He's never been on television, he's never played SNL. He has, you know, maybe one magazine cover, national magazine cover in his past, that happened when he was, you know, 16, 17 years old. And yet, like the numbers on YouTube are bigger than Ariana Grande's, for instance, you know. So I think these audiences have just splintered. And there are a few people who permeate, right, personality-wise, you know, Megan Thee Stallion or whatever. But often the music is somehow divorced from that, right? Like, I think there's far more people who know these next-generation stars from being in commercials or, you know, Bad Bunny in a Corona commercial or whatever it is, then can sing one of their songs word for word. And I think that's fine. You know, I think that a lot of artists have found freedom in that, right? I keep coming back to artists who sing in Spanish primarily. Like, before I would be that to cross over, you had to change, right? You had to start singing in English, at least somewhat, like a Shakira or whatever it is. But now, that's no longer a prerequisite because your audience is going to find you on Spotify, they're going to come to your shows, they're going to buy merch. And even if you're not getting played on Z100 or, you know, Top 40 radio, you can still have as much of a footprint. It's just not in that same everybody knows the same 10 people way, you know? 

[00:32:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that the fact that someone like Bad Bunny has an album that's not in English, that has been on the top of the US charts for, what, 30%, 40% of the weeks of the year is incredible. 

[00:32:24] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think that he is a celebrity, right, he is in films, he's in Bullet Train, he's in commercials, whatever. But I still think if you, you know, maybe it's different in New York, but if you went on the street and you asked, you know, your average 42-year-old white woman who Bad Bunny was, or to name a Bad Bunny song, it might not happen. But he's still selling out Yankee Stadium, you know, so it's this weird give and take of, like, what makes a hit these days, what makes a superstar. I think, you know, to bring it back, like, Lil Baby is in this boat too. Like, he's as close to, we have, I think, in the new school as a mainstream superstar, right, headlining festivals, you know, he's performing at the World Cup. He is sponsored, you know, Budweiser sponsors him. He's in, you know, all sorts of commercials, and he is really moved into that upper echelon. But he is still not a celebrity, right, in the way that a 50 Cent or a Jay-Z is to everyone. But he is to a certain generation. So it'll be interesting to see if he can sort of push past that last barrier and become a household name. But he doesn't need it, right? He doesn't have to be a household name to be the biggest rapper in the country. 

[00:33:28] Dan Runcie: Right. I think the part that I'm really fascinated by, too, is how this separation of, yes, you can be someone that is more known for personality than music, how that will translate to the labels they're assigned to, which of course are in the business of people actually streaming and listening to your music, and they're not necessarily in the business of selling personality or selling brand deals, right? Like, they're not getting the Pepsi deals or they're not, like, that's Pepsi doing that, you know what I mean? So it'll be interesting to see what that looks like 'cause obviously I know that there are legal challenges and transgressions with maybe why someone like a Rod Wave or like an NBA YoungBoy may not be getting asked to perform at the Grammy's, right? Like, I think that's pretty easy to understand. Or even someone like a Summer Walker who I think that does very well from a streaming perspective, but I think, you know, personally, just isn't the personality type to want to be all out there, right? 

[00:34:21] Joe Coscarelli: Yeah, has no interest in being a celebrity, but I think it's almost healthier, right, for some of these artists to be able to say, like, I've seen what happens on the fame side, and I don't want that part. I just want to make my music and play for my fans. Like, I think that's becoming maybe more and more of a possibility, where you can speak directly to your fans and not have to play the game, right, with the gatekeepers that might not actually be turning into anything at this point other than mind share. So, yeah, there's a lot of different kinds of stardom right now, and I think, like, the cult star, the, like, mass cult star, Tyler, the Creator, you know, the way he built up his career. You've written about this over so many years. Like, he doesn't have a smash hit, he doesn't have an Old Town Road, you know, or a Call Me Maybe, or whatever it is. He doesn't have that defining record or pop cultural moment. He just has years and years and years of solid growth, and people respond to that, and that you can pack arenas on that just as easily as you, and maybe even more effectively than you can on the back of one or two massive hits.

[00:35:25] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely now, for sure. It'll be fascinating to watch and I'll be looking out for your continued reporting and thoughts on this, yeah, such a fascinating time in the industry. But Joe, it's been a pleasure, man. Hey, if anyone listening, if you are a fan of this podcast, believe me, this is a book. I can't recommend it enough. You'll enjoy it. But Joe, for the folks listening, where can they get Rap Capital? 

[00:35:47] Joe Coscarelli: Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story, out October 18th, available wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Get an audiobook, should be out soon at your local bookstore. Yeah, hopefully, you'll be able to find it. Rap Capital. Thanks so much for having me. 

[00:36:00] Dan Runcie: Awesome. Thanks for coming on and great work again. 

[00:36:02] Joe Coscarelli: It was really fun. Thanks. 

[00:36:03] Dan Runcie: Really good.

[00:36:04] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Here’s another great fireside chat from our Trapital Summit. Listen to Warner Music Group’s chief digital officer Carletta Higginson and MIDiA Research’s Tatiana Cirisano discuss AI’s impact on music, and the ongoing tug-of-war for startup founders asking for permission vs forgivenes.

Higginson has seen it from all sides of the table; as an attorney, at YouTube, and now at a major label and rights holder.

Enjoy!This episode was brought to you by Too Lost, the all-in-one technology solution for musicians and record labels. Learn more here.

Mona Scott-Young is best-known for producing the Love & Hip Hop reality TV series on VH1. The franchise debuted in 2011 has remained a TV fixture today through industry-wide changes with TV and around 30 different seasons aired. However, it’s Young’s ability to permeate hip-hop culture into the mainstream that’s been the true calling card.

Before Love & Hip Hop, Mona managed talent in music. She was a co-founder for Violator with the late Chris Lighty, and was behind memorable brand partnerships such as Busta Rhymes and Courvoisier, Missy Elliott with Reebok and Adidas, and the landmark 50 Cent-Vitamin Water deal, among many others back then, such deals were harder to cut than nowadays.

It was during this time in music when Mona was introduced to the fascinating lives of hip-hop wives, which led to Love & Hip-Hop’s creation. But Mona, who also founded and runs Monami Productions,has more stories to tell about the hip-hop industry. She’s teaming up with another well-known TV producer, 50 Cent, on “Hip-Hop Homicides,” which debuts later this year.

Mona’s influence on the world of hip-hop reaches further than most realize. To hear how Mona moved the culture forward, you’ll want to listen to our show. Here’s everything we covered: 

[2:59] How does Love & Hip Hop stay fresh?

[4:45] Biggest challenge for reality TV in social-media age

[7:55] Love & Hip Hop success stories 

[9:07] Influencing other hip-hop-related series

[11:15] Increased programming around hip-hop

[14:21] How reality shows fit into today’s streaming landscape

[19:00] Mona’s career in music and artist-brand deals

[24:52] Brand deals for Love & Hip Hop talent 

[28:27] Network pressures to expand the Love & Hip Hop brand

[30:06] Scrutiny on the show’s content

[34:01] Future of Love & Hip Hop 

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Mona Scott-Youngs, @monascottyoung

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Mona Scott-Young: These were women who were living in the shadows of the men in their lives who had achieved all the fame and the success, and how were these women leveraging the relationships that they were in and the things that they were doing to get to where they wanted to be in life. So I always framed it as an opportunity, so you're getting these stories, right? All of the heartbreak and all of the joy, the highs, the lows. But in exchange, these women are also getting this platform where they can build their brands, build their businesses. 

[00:00:39] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:59] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the producer and entrepreneur, Mona Scott-Young. She is the mind behind Hop. She also was a music executive for a number of years, worked with Violator and put together some of the more memorable hip hop branding deals of the time, such as Busta Rhymes in Courvoisier and Mountain Dew. She worked with 50 Cent, Vitaminwater as well, and a bunch of other deals, and she's been someone I've wanted to have on this podcast for a while. We talked a lot about the business of TV and how things have changed specifically for a docu-follow show like Love & Hip Hop. This is a show that has been going on for more than 10 seasons now and has had different franchises, different spinoffs, and has had plenty of copycats as well. So we talked about the business of the show, what it's been like producing it, the platform that a lot of the talent have had that have come up from it, one of the most famous examples is Cardi B and what she'd been able to do after the show, but we also talked about some of the other talents that's come from the show as well. We also talked about how Love & Hip Hop is positioned and some of the perception that it's had, whether or not that perception is more so chatter and criticism, or has that actually made a material impact on the business of what Mona's doing. She also talked a little bit about some of the other projects coming up from Monami Entertainment such as Hip Hop Homicides and a whole lot more. It was great to talk to her, get her perspective on streaming, the industry, where things are, and overall the brand deals that are happening in hip hop. Great conversation. Glad we finally had her on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Mona Scott-Young 

[00:02:38] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are joined by the one and only Mona Scott-Young, producer and one of the great folks in media and entertainment today. And I feel like for you, you've been more than a decade in with Love & Hip Hop, you have several spinoffs. How do you keep things fresh? How do you keep everything coming year after year?

[00:02:59] Mona Scott-Young: You know, I always say it's about reinvention. It's about evolution, making sure that you are constantly growing, whether it's me as a producer and applying that to the franchise. You know, what's great about the way that that concept was built is it's that it was a world, right? So we could always populate different folks in and out of that world. So it gave us an opportunity to, you know, cycle in new talent who had fresh stories to tell. And I think that has a lot to do with the staying power and the longevity of the franchise. 

[00:03:31] Dan Runcie: I think the other thing that's impressive is just how the show's been able to stay consistent with all of the changes that are happening with media and streaming and anything else. Have there been any big shifts that you've made from that perspective as things that have continued to move, whether it's from cable to streaming networks to where things are now? 

[00:03:50] Mona Scott-Young: You know, not necessarily in terms of the concept, right? 'Cause like I said, the stories are what keeps it fresh and different, but we definitely loosened up our shooting style a lot and we became, you know, more free-flowing, I think to be in line with the fact that folks were able to tune into social media and see things happening in real-time. You know, when we first started the franchise, a big part of it was this very soap opera-like feeling that it had. And over the course of the years, we loosened that up a little bit just so that the stories were able to, you know, track a little more closely to what was happening in real-time in their lives.

[00:04:30] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Do you feel as if social media changed the overall feel and the flow of the show itself? I know that's something that, I've talked to a lot of people on TV and they felt like they've noticed that. How are some of the ways you feel like social media either impacted things for Love & Hip Hop?

[00:04:45] Mona Scott-Young: Absolutely. You know, because there's such a lead time with production and editing. It's really hard to stay up with the fact that these folks are out here living their lives on social media, and so the audience gets a chance to just tune into their IG lives and get a blow-by-blow of everything that's happening in their lives so that by the time our show is edited, it's hard for it to feel fresh, right, because they're like, oh, I saw that happen months ago. And so it's finding those other stories, getting the cast to keep things exclusively for the show so that there's this sense of discovery for the audience. 'Cause I think that's the biggest hurdle for reality TV is the fact that, you know, everyone has access to their audience and can broadcast their lives, you know, on a minute-by-minute basis. And so how do we offer something that's different, something that's entertaining, something that feels fresh and current and relevant? I think that's the biggest challenge. 

[00:05:44] Dan Runcie: Have you noticed that shift with social media at all changed based on what platform has been popular at the time? Of course, the show is popular as ever in Black Twitter, but how about with TikTok now with things picking up there? Have there been any unique things you've seen with the reception there? 

[00:05:58] Mona Scott-Young: Not necessarily. You know what, I'm not a big TikToker. I don't know if I should say that. I probably just aged myself a thousand years, but, you know, I haven't really noticed a big shift based on TikTok viewership. I know that, you know, or usership, 'cause I know that that's mainly what music, dance, or are they doing skits on there as well?

[00:06:21] Dan Runcie: I mean, they're doing skits. I feel like with the show like yours though, it's unique because I think that you're reaching a bit of an older demographic than the folks that are really in TikTok. But like with all these social media platforms, they do tend to scale up at some point, right? So the younger community... 

[00:06:37] Mona Scott-Young: We'll see what happens, yeah. One of the biggest things that we saw happen on social media were the reenactments, right, the recreations where you had all of these social influencers and social comedians doing their takes on the scenes from the show, and that gave it a whole another life. And I think, you know, what people enjoy about the show is the cast's ability to be self-deprecating. They make fun of themselves, so sometimes you'd see them participating in those skits. You know, social media has always played a huge role in the success of the franchise, even dating back to the very early days where we gave bloggers and the video influencers, the social media influencers, the sneak peek at the show so that they kind of had first dibs. And the immediacy of, you know, them talking about the show and having that engagement was a big part of the success of the show. So I love it when I continuously see the show showing up in different ways on social media.

[00:07:34] Dan Runcie: Can we also talk about how social media has been a big piece for how a lot of the folks on the show can use Love & Hip Hop as a platform to do other things? I think Cardi B, of course, has been one of the hallmark examples of this. But what are some of the other folks that stick out for you in terms of, yes, what they were able to do at this show, and then social media took them to another level?

[00:07:55] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, if you think about everyone who's like started a business, right? Most of their products, they're hawking them online and via social media. So, you know, whether it's the waist trainers, the hair clips, makeup, all of that stuff kind of came from seeing it on the show and then watching them blow it up. And then you have some of it that was reverse engineered like Cardi was huge on social media already as kind of a, you know, influencer, comic, and having an opportunity to be on the show expanded her audience. But I just think seeing those two things come together, that was probably the biggest example of how, you know, social media and linear TV worked really well to really expand her brand.

[00:08:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, especially with her specifically. I mean, she's giving you the shoutouts in the songs, too, but just seeing what she's able to do creatively with the brand, and I think that's something that's been unique that we've seen with reality TV overall. But I feel like with your type of show specifically because you do get some of those characters that come back, you have some that go off and do their own thing, you see a bit more of that variety than some of these other shows where it's like one season that you may never see that person in the season. 

[00:09:07] Mona Scott-Young: That's very, very true. I mean, one of the big mandates for me, 'cause a lot of these shows were just about chronicling lives, right? This is about your life. For me, it was always, this is an opportunity, right? If you think about at its core, these were women, or the core of the original concept, these were women who were living in the shadows, right, of the men in their lives who had achieved all the fame and the success, and how were these women leveraging the relationships that they were in and the things that they were doing to get to where they wanted to be in life. So I always framed it as an opportunity, and what I love to see is how, you know, they go out and they take advantage of that opportunity. So you're getting these stories, right? All of the heartbreak and all of the, you know, the joy, the highs, the lows. But in exchange, these women are also getting this platform where they can build their brands, build their businesses. Everyone from Yandy, right, who went from being behind the scenes to having her Yelle Skin Care and all of her other numerous businesses that she has. Cardi with her music, who, you know, was doing her music, didn't have that massive success, had a huge following on social media, but was able to kind of connect the dots in a way that allowed for her music to take off. Oh, God, Rasheeda, Karlie Redd, and K. Michelle, and when I think about all of the success stories with their businesses and their brands, that for me is the big differentiator for Love & Hip Hop 'cause I think these ladies understood the assignment, understood that this was an opportunity, and took advantage of it to, you know, level up in their lives and what they were doing with their business.

[00:10:50] Dan Runcie: And I feel like I've seen your own career and your own opportunities take a similar evolution as the show has continued to have its own success, and you had started your production company years ago, but I think right now we've just seen more and more opportunity for creators like yourself that have been able to establish their franchises and just have the success and have different networks have interest in them year over year. What has that process been like? 

[00:11:15] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah. You know, it's the most gratifying thing because I think, you know, the first to market with anything always is a double-edged sword, right? So Love & Hip Hop was the first docu-follow of its kind that focused on the genre of hip hop and the way that we did, and really gave a different look and feel to what we're used to seeing on reality television. And what we've seen since then, I think, are a lot of shows that I would say Love & Hip Hop paved the way for. You know, shoutout to shows like Power and, you know, Empire and even Rap Sh!t that Issa Rae has on right now. I look at that and I go, yeah, the fact that, you know, we're now giving space to scripted shows that are set in this world and shining a light on the culture and, you know, the women in the culture specifically, if you look at Rap Sh!t, I feel like that is a direct descendant of what Love & Hip Hop was able to pave the way for.

[00:12:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, those are good examples. I feel like that moment in the end of the 2010s, you started to see more shows, I feel like that whole Empire run and a bunch of shows around that, we're able to see a lot of success there. I also feel like around this time too, especially in the most recent years, we've also seen a lot more studios and a lot more folks get different opportunities, whether it's folks getting these overall deals from the streaming services or some others getting big interest from private equity firms that are trying to invest in these studios. As someone that runs a studio, runs a reduction company yourself, how do you view that landscape, and how do those opportunities come up for different folks?

[00:12:55] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, I think it's fantastic. I think it's a wonderful thing. I still don't think there's enough of it happening. I always say that during, you know, Black Lives Matter, when we were at the height of that movement, there were so many overtures, right? So many calls were made and people wanting to be in business. And I do believe you're seeing an increased number of programming that caters to our audience and opportunities for those content creators. But I also, you know, hope that this trend continues, and I hope this isn't kind of a performative gesture in order to check a box or to satisfy, you know, their contribution. But, I think it's great. I think the more that audiences understand that their viewership matters, that their support matters, and that's really what is going to dictate it at the end of the day, because we can, you know, get those dollars in and we can get those opportunities. But if those eyeballs don't tune in, then you know, we're not going to continue to see the programming and have those opportunities. So I think it's, you know, nice to see it happen. I'm very interested in seeing what the staying power is for this and how those opportunities increase and not, you know, level out. 

[00:14:10] Dan Runcie: Do you think that there is any sort of fear or thought that folks should have about the staying power of those eyeballs? Like, does some of these things seem a bit more fleeting in nature? 

[00:14:21] Mona Scott-Young: I don't think we get the same commitment to staying with something and giving it an opportunity to grow, right? It's like if we don't have instant success, if we don't get those eyeballs instantly, the idea is, oh, this audience is in here moving on to the next, right? I just think that sometimes it takes a minute for a show to catch on. I don't ever think the same marketing dollars are put towards the programming so that folks even have the awareness level that's usually left to us to figure out what are the ways that we're going to bring visibility to, you know, our shows and make sure that, you know, folks know that we exist. Again, I just hope that the commitment extends beyond just the initial overture and that there is promotions and marketing and commitment to seeing these shows grow and find their audience like every other programming has an opportunity to do. 

[00:15:18] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. It also makes me think about whether or not there are specific differences as well for folks who are making shows, whether it's something for streaming versus something for cable TV or for a network specifically, because I know that with your shows and some of the others that are doing reality things, most of your audience still is, at least from my understanding, still tuning in through cable and watching it through those areas, but. Even though we started to see some reality TV that's been exclusive to these streaming services, it still hasn't been to the same extent that we see, like whether it's with Love & Hip Hop on VH1 or some of the other services. Why do you think that is? And do you think that'll change at all? 

[00:15:59] Mona Scott-Young: I think the formats have to evolve in order for us to find the right formula to live on the streamers. You know, those shows are about repeatability and about, you know, the binge-watching and, you know, for reality, there's something about that appointment television that tuning in week in and week out that I think plays into the idea that what is happening is happening to some extent in real-time, even though we know it isn't, and the ability to, you know, watch it all. I think it's just a different, it's a shift. It's a paradigm shift, and we have to figure out what the right formula is, what the right content play is to work in that arena. So there's a lot of conversations around that and everybody's trying to find like, kind of what is it right now what you're seeing on streamers are. Formatted docu-series, like real estate shows and, you know, those kind of, I'm trying to think of what are some of the docu-follows that are living. Probably the Kardashian show in Hulu is an example, right? That's kind of a beast of a different nature, right? There's a rabid audience there for the Kardashian clan that I think will watch no matter where it exists. So, you know, I'd love to see more conventional docu-follow find its way to the streamers. I think there's going to have to be a little bit of a fine-tuning in what that format looks like for it to really work there.

[00:17:29] Dan Runcie: Right. Because it isn't necessarily a binge release. I don't feel like that necessarily makes sense if you're trying to follow things. I think back to, it was Rhythm + Flow. This is almost three years ago at this point, but the show, you know, the competition show Cardi B and Chance and T.I., I think they did every week or every other week for three block episode of release, and I felt like that was okay. It wasn't too long that felt like it didn't make sense for Netflix, but it was just enough to capture some momentum. And I think back about that, I was like, Okay. 

[00:17:58] Mona Scott-Young: They're doing that as a format, right? It's a competition show. So those work. The competition shows work. The format shows, the real estate, the cooking, the anything, it's just that finding that right rhythm, that right lane for docu-follow is going to be the challenge.

[00:18:14] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. That's your point. And then, of course, the Kardashians may be a bit of an outlier just given the size of them, but you are, in a lot of ways, bringing either new stars or people who haven't necessarily had their headlines everywhere in quite some time to the stage, and that's a little bit of a different...

[00:18:31] Mona Scott-Young: That's a little bit of a different, yeah, a little bit of a different proposition, if you will.

[00:18:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The other reason why I wanted to chat with you is because even before Love & Hip Hop and everything else, you had spent years in music, and you were one of the early ones that were looking at the opportunities for artists, working specifically with brands and looking back at whether it was 50's Vitamin water deal or Courvoisier with Busta.

[00:19:00] Mona Scott-Young: For Mountain Dew or Missy with Adidas, or I should say Adidas, and Reebok, and you know, A Tribe Called Quest and Sprite, right? It goes all the way back to that. 

[00:19:12] Dan Runcie: What do you think it was? 'Cause I felt like Violator was here when everyone else was here in terms of just pushing those things. There were a few others I know that were doing their thing, but it felt like you all were at least five years ahead of where everyone else was pushing them, pushing those things. 

[00:19:26] Mona Scott-Young: Well, and I appreciate that. For us, it was really always about how do we maximize for our clients, right? We were managers first. And then when we realized that there were all these other areas that we needed to educate ourselves in and get involved in in order to really manage our clients to the best of our ability, and help them expand their brands, and fully monetize, you know, their talents and their contributions to a culture that we saw was taking over every area of advertising and pop culture. We realized that, you know, the opportunities were way beyond just their music, way beyond understanding how to conduct the business of their music. It was about their branding, their cross, you know, marketing value, their ability to bridge the gap with brands and sponsors. So that was just a function of us really wanting to represent our clients not just the best of our ability to help them maximize to the fullest what they, you know, they were bringing to the table with their music and with their cultural relevance. So we understood that it was bigger than just the music. 

[00:20:41] Dan Runcie: And do you feel like a lot of the brand partners that you were pitching and talking to with about these opportunities at the time saw that it was bigger than just the music and wanted in because I look at the way things are now and the amount of deals and partnerships we see now. It was nothing compared to what it was like when you were doing these deals back then. 

[00:20:59] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, you know, it's interesting 'cause there was that period where they didn't quite understand what was happening with this, you know, music and the culture because it was always just across the board, Black, White, Asian, and understanding what that kind of point of connection was, right, with all of these kids. Was it the music? Was it the clothing? Was it the lifestyle? What exactly are they buying into? And I think we serve the very important role in helping them bridge that gap, right, giving them that understanding of what hip hop was culturally and all of its different touch points. And then it became about, well, can't we just tap this thing without having to necessarily put this talent front and center? We can just use the music. We can dress, you know, our folks in the clothing and getting them to understand that there was an authenticity, right, that came with the culture that you couldn't fake, and that if you were going to do it, it had to be done in a way that was mutually beneficial because we also couldn't afford to risk our clients' viability with their core audience. Because if they, you know, sold out, then they were done with the music. And that exchange, that dialogue, that conversation I think is what allowed us to position ourselves in a way that benefited our clients, that allowed us to become a gateway to the culture and to the music for a lot of these brands. And that allowed companies like Steve Stoute's Translation literally to exist based on being that, you know, cultural bridge. So it was a step up process of getting them, one, to understand what this thing called hip hop was, and then how it was influencing their consumers, and then how best to tap it in a way that, you know, didn't hurt the artists that they were exploiting. And I'll use the word exploit 'cause I think, you know, exploiting is simply taking full advantage of a situation or, you know, a space. And that's what it was at the end of the day. 

[00:23:12] Dan Runcie: And we definitely saw a lot of the success at the time with the number of deals that we were seeing. Were there any that you look back on that you were like, oh, you may have pitched that client, or you may have tried to push this one, they just weren't ready, but if this was now, it would've been, No question, this would've already happened? 

[00:23:27] Mona Scott-Young: You know, I always look back at that time fondly because I realized that we were at the forefront of, you know, an industry that nobody knew exactly what it was. Now when I hear, you know, branding, brand partnerships, you know, I'm like, okay, I guess that's what we were doing way back then. But I think I look back more fondly at the way we were able to leverage our talent into those deals, right? Busta with Mountain Dew started out as a print campaign, and by the time we were done, it had grown into this multimillion-dollar, you know, 360 television spots, everything. It started out as a radio campaign, actually, not even, it was just going to be his voice, right? And then it blew up into something more. It's just now it's par for the course. Now, you know, if you don't have a brand endorsement deal, if you're not, you know, aligned, people think you haven't made it right. But back then, I think it was a lot more challenging, a lot more difficult, and, you know, I think we broke a lot of barriers with the kinds of deals that we did. 

[00:24:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I could imagine now that with the stars that are on Love & Hip Hop and the talent that you're working with now, some of them are probably trying to see, okay, can they reach out to you to get advice on these types of deals that they're getting? Do you get involved with any of that ever? 

[00:24:52] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah, you know, every once in a while. But the interesting thing is now they're sought after, right, because of their following. And all of these brands want them, you know, creating these organic posts so that folks can really believe they're drinking this slim tummy tea or whatever it is that they're hawking. But I think the value, understanding the value of their engagement with their fans is the most important thing for these guys, and I think they're all doing a fantastic job. I mean, I'm always surprised when it's like, oh, okay, well that's, you know, I don't really believe that they're eating or drinking or engaging in this activity, but more power to you. Go ahead. 

[00:25:33] Dan Runcie: Does any of this ever find a way to get itself into the show itself where folks are like, Okay, I have this partnership now, they'll give me extra money if I wear this Fashion Nova t-shirt in this season of Love & Hip Hop? 

[00:25:47] Mona Scott-Young: It's funny that you mentioned Fashion Nova because they are extremely aggressive, and they have, you know, they were very smart about the way they built their business, right? They just went out and got a bunch of brand ambassadors, and I think in the beginning it was for a box of free clothes. They had all of these people hawking their product, but the networks and the buyers, they're pretty savvy now. And, you know, they've got their ad sales departments, they still rely probably more than ever on their ad sales dollars. And so they're very, very leery of any kind of integrations, and there are opportunities to kind of go through the front door, do deals with them, buy ad time, and get real, you know, integrated placements. And sometimes, you know, they're also good about if it's an organic, you know, partnership with the talent and it's something potentially that factors into their story, they'll let it slide and let it make its way into the story. But they're a little bit savvy to the fact that, you know, sometimes the talent is getting paid for this and is promising the placement on the show as part of their deal in leveraging that. And yeah, they put the smack down on that. 

[00:27:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I could imagine because it's one of these things where, of course, it's more money into the show and I think everyone generally could benefit from it. But from the other perspective, you don't just want to turn the whole thing into sponsored content, right? 

[00:27:12] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah. I'm constantly saying to the talent, this is not going to be one big message commercial, you know? But listen, a lot of times the network isn't even participating in that income. They're just letting the talent, yeah, whatever deals that they have in place with these brand partners, they just let the talent hang onto it. So it doesn't really bring money to the show's bottom line. And depending on who the partner is, like somebody like Fashion Nova, the network definitely, you know, their antennas go up. But some of you know the smaller brands and especially. If it's the talent's brand, and they know that it's their business, like you'll always see Yandy washing her face with Yelle Skincare. You'll see Rasheeda doing a scene at the Pressed, you know, store or at the Frost Bistro. So if it's their businesses, the network is always happy to, you know, give them the opportunity to promote their brands and their businesses.

[00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Is there ever any pressure from the network to try to capture all of the value that the show is creating? 'Cause I know I'm hearing that from so many other areas in media and entertainment, where they're seeing what's being captured in their area, or they're seeing what's happening and what they're creating. They want to be able to capture more of that. How have those conversations been like with the network if they come up at all? 

[00:28:27] Mona Scott-Young: When you say capture more of it, you mean with the content or trying to find ways to exploit the brand? 

[00:28:32] Dan Runcie: The latter, trying to find ways to exploit the brand. 

[00:28:34] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, yeah, absolutely. It's a little bit of a tightrope, right, because they want to preserve the integrity of the brand. They want to protect the brand and not overexpose it or not hurt it by doing the wrong thing with the brand. But they certainly want to, you know, see the brand continue to evolve, which has been a big part of the staying power. And I think Viacom does a really good, you know, job at that when you think about Love & Hip Hop and the way that it's branched into, you know, all of the specials that we do and they have, you know, spinoffs that they do with the talent. And now they're beginning to do smaller capsule shows that are going to be coming out, you know, whether it's like watch party- type shows or, you know, getaway trip- type shows. So they're very careful about not diluting and over-exposing the brand, but they're very good about continuing to build on the brand so that it evolves and, you know, continues to have a long life. 

[00:29:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like the longevity you've already had speaks a lot to this. I'm curious though, 'cause I know in other interviews, people have often asked you about how your show is positioned relative to some of the other reality shows and whether or not you are portraying certain people in the best light. And I'm always curious, one of the things I was wondering is that more so chatter where people are talking about these things? Or have any of those conversations actually impacted anything you've either done with the show or the show's success in any way? 

[00:30:06] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, a lot of it is chatter because you know, in all fairness, when I watched the other shows, there really isn't anything much different happening on those shows in terms of the way the cast members are expressing themselves in any given moment. I think the increased scrutiny on our show has one to do, and I say it very honestly, with the word hip hop and the title, right? I think that there's this preconceived, you know, stigma attached to this huge genre that is literally pop culture right now. So it's almost ridiculously laughable that people still want to treat hip hop as some kind of a subculture, you know, of any kind. But I think the fact that the word hip hop is in the title makes people put us under a microscope, under a magnifying glass in a much different way than they do with, you know, shows with the word Housewives or Beverly Hills in the title. But if you look at the reactions and you look at some of the situations, they're not different at all. So for me, it is chatter, right, because I think the strength is in the numbers and the viewership. I think that's where you know honestly that there is something very relatable about this show, no matter what people want to say or think, because of the sheer volume of, you know, folks who tune in week in, week out to see the show, the staying power that the show has had, the influence that the show has had, whether it's music or, you know, the number of shoutouts that the show gets, the number of mentions that it gets, what happens on social media whenever the show is on air. There's a stronghold there that I think is undeniable. And so there's that whole saying about, you know, we build things up just to bring them down, and we've seen that happen with so many different cultural and iconic, you know, things, and I just think that it's par for the course with this franchise. 

[00:32:08] Dan Runcie: And I also think you've seen that in the range of folks that tune in as well because I think sometimes the type of content that you create, people will often say, oh, well that's meant for a certain type of person. And it's like, well, it's not really the case 'cause there's people of all ranges of income, however you want to measure success. 

[00:32:26] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah, it's actually pretty mind-boggling even to this day when, you know, for a long time I did the VOs at the top of the show, so the voice has become a little bit of, you know, its own personality, and, a lot of people don't know what I look like, but the minute I opened my mouth, and it'll be like middle-aged, you know, white people and young, very young kids. And I'm like, why, you know, are you even watching this show? You should be watching Nickelodeon. And so it's interesting to me the broad range of audience that it's found. And again, I always go back to the relatability, and I always go back to the connectivity with the stories, and I think that that's what people gravitate towards. 

[00:33:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think that's always going to be there as long as the show continues to evolve as well. And I'm thinking you were probably already thinking about several seasons ahead of now, several years ahead and now, but I'm very curious to see what is this next generation of talent that is going to be into your show, the generation that grew up on TikTok, the generation that grew up with a lot of the things? I think a lot of the talent on your show, whether they're Gen X or millennials, more so, okay, they had their run, but eventually, it's going to be the Gen Z folks and more of them that are going to be on the show more regularly, how that's going to shape not just the things they talk about and everything else, but also as streaming and other things evolve, how the show continues to move, and how the show continues to grow from that perspective. So I'd love to hear what you think the future is going to look like, let's say five years down the road of how this show may continue to evolve.

[00:34:01] Mona Scott-Young: Oh, wow. I mean, you know, it's always been about the cast, and they've shaped kind of the feel and the content within the show. So if you're talking about, you know, five years from now, there's going to be a cast there that is reflective of where we are with music, technology, the culture, and those are going to be the stories that we're telling so hard to predict. But like I said, the key and the magic of the franchise has always been that the brand, you know, acted as kind of a bubble within which you cycled in the talent. And five years from now, there's going to be the talent doing what they do, how they do it, and we'll be right there with those cameras to capture it.

[00:34:46] Dan Runcie: Yes, it'd be exciting to see. So in the next couple of months though, what should people stay in tune for before we wrap things up here? What should people look out for? 

[00:34:54] Mona Scott-Young: Oh, so many things that we're doing. I mean, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the Love & Hip Hop franchise, but as a company, we have so many other projects that we're engaged in and that we're doing. And one in particular coming October 27th and November 3rd actually is the actual premiere, but Hip Hop Homicides is a show that we're doing on WEtv, 50 Cent and G-Unit, Monami and Lionsgate came together with WEtv, and that is a show we're very excited about, very proud of. And it just, again, utilizing, you know, hip hop culture as kind of the foundation, but it's looking at those staggering number of murders that have occurred within our culture that still remain unsolved and even some of them were folks are, you know, serving time for these murders. They're still questions out there that have never been answered. And so Van Lathan is our host and he does a very active, you know, boots-on-the-ground kind of journey to a bunch of different cities where we take a close look at these murders and talk to family members and fans alike. And it's really, to me, a very, very fresh look at these murders that have plagued our community. 

[00:36:08] Dan Runcie: Oh, nice. That'll be a good one. And I've always liked Van in everything that he's done. I know he's done a lot of stuff with The Ringer recently, but no, he'll be good. I'm excited for this. 

[00:36:16] Mona Scott-Young: No, he's great at it. And Hip Hop Homicides on WEtv. Yep. November 3rd and we're excited for that one. So that's the next thing coming down the pike. 

[00:36:27] Dan Runcie: Great stuff. Great stuff. Well, Mona, this is great. Excited for you. Excited for everything coming up from Monami Entertainment. And if people want to follow along with you or with everything that's happening, where should they check in to follow you? 

[00:36:38] Mona Scott-Young: They can check on Instagram, Twitter, all social platforms. Mona Scott-Young or Monami Productions, @monamiproductions. 

[00:36:47] Dan Runcie: All right, great. Thanks again. This is great. 

[00:36:50] Mona Scott-Young: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[00:36:54] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Hannibal Buress has carved a name for himself in comedy over the past two decades. But now he’s foregoing that part of his career for a fresh identity — Eshu Tune, his rap alter-ego. The name pays homage to a “trickster god” in Nigerian mythology.

A rap career has been in the back of Hannibal’s mind but the career pivot wasn’t seriously put into motion until 2020. Earlier that year, he put out a comedy special, “Miami Nights.” While promoting it at home during lockdowns, Hannibal felt a spark missing. That, plus the added alone time from not performing at comedy clubs, finally pushed Hannibal into the studio. 

Since then, Hannibal has largely dedicated himself to rap and rap only. His eight-track, self-titled EP dropped earlier this year. Live rap show performances followed that. An agency deal was inked with UTA this summer. And soon, Hannibal will hit the studio to prepare for his debut album, which he plans to drop on his 40th birthday next April.

Hannibal took me through his comedy-to-rap journey over the past two years on the show. Here’s what we covered in our interview:

[2:54] Introducing Eshu Tune the rapper

[4:17] What led Hannibal to the career pivot

[6:53] Goals of debut EP 

[10:11] Benefits of being independent artist

[14:34] Following Too $hort at a Bay Area show

[19:52] Getting a performing residency in LA

[21:29] Challenging himself with music

[26:52] Difference between Hannibal’s comedy and rap fanbase

[29:08] Will Hannibal still do comedy?

[31:36] Has the changing climate of comedy impacted Hannibal?

[34:01] Previous comedians that went into music

[37:50] Response from rap community to Hannibal’s career pivot

[38:52] Eshu Tune’s next album drop

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Hannibal Buress, @hannibalburess

Sponsors:

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Hannibal Buress: I got some stuff, I got 'em locked and loaded, just, you know, got to go get 'em out. That's one thing too, is since I am independent, I don't feel, I just kind of do it when it feels right, when it genuinely feels right to do. It's no pressure. It's just like, okay, do I truly want to do this? Ain't no exec, hey, you got to do, there's nobody doing that, so I have to make that decision, which is a gift. I wouldn't say it's a curse, but it forces that accountability.

[00:00:35] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Hannibal Buress. You likely know his name from his comedy and his acting, but this episode is all about his music. Hannibal Buress has released an eight-track EP under the name Eshu Tune, and that is his artist that is creating hip-hop music. And we talked all about why he chose to start this new chapter in his career, why music was important to him, and how he sees things moving forward. Hannibal had had a career of dabbling in music every now and then. He actually had beaten Open Mike Eagle in a rap battle a couple of years back. And it's something that he had tapped into, but it really wasn't until the pandemic, and a lot of us had the time to really think and tap into what was most important to us. And he was able to take this on not only as a new challenge for his career, but as a new opportunity to do something that he always wanted to do, but knowing that he could both continue to leverage the platform that he has as a comedian and as an actor, both from a financial perspective, but also from an exposure perspective. We also talked about his upcoming residency, how he's been positioning himself to get booked on shows and other things, and how important this is for him right now. So it was great to tap in. This was also the first episode recorded in Trapital's new home. I have a new office and studio here, and it's been great to get everything set up, and it's been great to record these in person, too, because, listen, it's great to do things remotely. A lot of them have been that way, but it's just a different chemistry that you get when you can do them in person. So it was great that Hannibal and I could connect while he was in town. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it. All right. Today we got the one and only Hannibal Buress.

[00:02:41] Hannibal Buress: What's up, man? 

[00:02:41] Dan Runcie: Mr. Eshu Tune now, though. 

[00:02:43] Hannibal Buress: Eshu Tune, yeah, yeah. 

[00:02:44] Dan Runcie: Last we talked, it was all about comedy. We're getting ready for a special that you had Miami Nights, but now we're about to talk about your music career, man. 

[00:02:52] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, for sure, man. 

[00:02:53] Dan Runcie: So who is Eshu Tune? 

[00:02:54] Hannibal Buress: Eshu Tune is my musical alter ego. Eshu is from Yoruban mythology, Nigerian mythology, the trickster God. I was looking for a stage name there, so I just looked up African mythology and I just connected with that description. It kind of felt like me and some of the things I've done and, yeah, it just felt right. It really was a big help to kind of separate the worlds a little bit just 'cause now I look at, you know, Eshu as, okay, we can build them together 'cause now, I can if I want to do a little bit of comedy on this shows, it's like, Hey, yeah, they'll both be there.

[00:03:34] Dan Runcie: Right, right, right. 

[00:03:35] Hannibal Buress: I changed shirts. You know, I can think of you like, you know, Hannibal's t-shirts. Eshu's in a red shirt or something, you know? So it's been fun. And so I'm excited for the growth, and performing has been really exciting, and a lot of dope stuff coming up.

[00:03:53] Dan Runcie: So talk to me through the journey a bit because I know this is something that you spent a lot of time on in the pandemic. And last time we talked about it, you were getting ready to release Miami Nights, and this was around the same time that you had started working on music. So what was your mindset at that time? You got this big comedy special coming out, but you also are thinking about this new career opportunity.

[00:04:17] Hannibal Buress: My mindset? 2020, putting out the special during that time was hella weird just because it wasn't the usual motions and movements that you have with putting out a special, doing events, doing press in person. You know, I did The Daily Show, but it was on Skype. And it just felt weird doing television from my place 'cause you still get wired kind of, but then you're just wired at the crib. It's like, man, oh, I'm not getting in the car to go somewhere else, you just there like, oh.

[00:04:54] Dan Runcie: Right, right. 

[00:04:55] Hannibal Buress: I remember doing, I did First Take with Stephen A. Smith. Something for Last Dance, just talking about Last Dance. And I remember just, I kept messing with them changing jackets. 

[00:05:08] Dan Runcie: Oh, I remember that.

[00:05:13] Hannibal Buress: Molly was giving me sass. Oh, thanks for being so professional. I'm trying to, like, you want me to make a great statement about Last Dance? Look, oh, yeah, Last Dance. What's up with that? I'm trying to have some fun, make some real memories here. Nobody will care about my take on... 

[00:05:30] Dan Runcie: It's a documentary, right? It's not like it's an event that happened last night. 

[00:05:35] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. If I make a great point about the '96 Bulls, '98 Bulls in 10 years, but people don't care if I'm was chaotic as hell. I need to put that clip back up actually. That was really fun. I was sweating and shit. Yeah, it was a good time. But, yeah, putting out the special then, it was weird, man. And I wanted the music, I started really diving in in November of '20 when I was out in Hawaii. I kind of, it was nice to be able to lock in, focus. I've always wanted to do it and would finally find the time. And the time was always there, honestly, but I wasn't as good as maneuvering time as I am now. 'Cause looking back, I could have been on the road after gigs, instead of going to the club, could have been booking studio time, that type of thing, or, you know, I'm glad it happened when it happened. 

[00:06:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I think, too, I've looked a lot about how you chose to roll this out, right? It's not like you just did one single, let me drop in and see what happens. You had an eight-track LP, oh, EP that you put out specifically for it. What was your goal in terms of the release? Was there a certain response that you wanted to have or a certain emphasis you wanted to have with how you chose to put it out as an EP?

[00:06:53] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. And initially, I was going to do singles, the single strategy, but then I had a bunch of songs and I said, let me just get these out and see how I want to do it. Like, if I want to do videos for stuff, which I am still going to do the visuals on things and get 'em out. But it was just after a while. It was just, let me just do it. And I didn't follow the proper practices of, you know, get it to the DSPs with this much time, to the best time, like, all the stuff that I know you're supposed to do to give your release the best chance. But I just feel like it'll get its due when it's due, you know what I mean, whether it is when I put out videos later this month or next month or down the line. It's my first project. So whether it's crazy now or crazy in five years, it's always my first project. So it'll be there and it just felt good to get it out and have it out ' cause then the music got better afterwards, the stuff I started recording. And I still like the song, like 1-3 Pocket. I like 1-3 Pocket. And that was 1-3 Pocket, that's the motherfucker hit. Like when we made it, yeah, this bowling song's going to go crazy. Hell yeah, we made a bowling banger, but now I got other songs. I'm like, okay, I was wrong. Well, maybe I wasn't wrong, but it's just, the music is getting better. And so it's nice to feel that and feel that improvement and the progression. And so that'll keep on happening indefinitely. You know, if you keep on working on it, keep on releasing, keep performing, it's going to get better. So it's nice to have that feeling and, and hear that in the music and like even hearing how the music sounds. If I record the day after a show, that music sounds good 'cause you can kind of hear the clarity, you know, you already got the energy. So it's been exciting, man.

[00:08:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I get the feeling that 1-3 Pocket was a song you thought was going to be the one and that's a one, but I feel like Veneers is the one that I feel is your anthem. 

[00:08:57] Hannibal Buress: Veneers worked before I even put it out, and I performed it 'cause the hook is slower and the beat is chill. It feels, yeah, Veneers is the one I think people like more than the song that has really inside bowling terminology in it. Surprise the song about teeth is more accessible than the song about the bowling pins. Like, even people that love bowling have said to me, what is the 1-3 Pocket? 

[00:09:33] Dan Runcie: 'Cause some people would think you're talking about like billiards or like, you know, like shooting pool or something like that.

[00:09:37] Hannibal Buress: Nah, it's just a, yeah, it's the headpin and the pin to the right. I got to put out a video for 1-3 Pocket. I got the lyric video out. I got to get the official video out, a couple of them. I might, you know, we'll see if I get on stubborn mode and start putting out three, four videos for a song. That's when I really, I'll start really lighting up, just going crazy with the visuals. Yeah. I was waiting to see the music videos. I'm glad you mentioned that you got the lyric video up. 

[00:10:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And of course, you know, like that's a great way to get the views and engagement up, but yeah, seeing the Eshu Tune visual character, I feel like that is, you know, the next piece of this.

[00:10:11] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, I've been holding off a bit on the music videos 'cause I know when I got to know, when I do officials, that's when things are really shifting in a way. And so I don't want to rush it, but, you know, they come in over the next month or so, is when the visuals start. I got some recorded already. I got some for Back In The City. I recorded in Thailand actually. When I was in Thailand and I looked on Eventbrite and it was a restaurant packaging conference at the convention center. I was like, let's just go here. And I went and it was all this interesting, just different machinery and robotics. Me and my lady just walked through, something just to, you know, just a different environment. I said, man, well, I'm over here. What else am I going to do in Thailand and it's a convention? I have to shoot a music video. So I came back two days later, shot the video there. And so I got that. We got one for Closed Mouths. We got a Pocket video, got a version of the Veneers video, but I want to do a story version. So, yeah, I got some stuff, I got 'em locked and loaded, just, you know, got to go get 'em out. That's one thing too, is since I am independent, I don't feel, I just kind of do it when it feels right, when it genuinely feels right to do. It's no pressure. It's just like, okay, do I truly want to do this? Ain't no exec, hey, you got to do, there's nobody doing that, so I have to make that decision, which is a gift. I wouldn't say it's a curse, but it forces that accountability.

[00:11:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah, with that, too, I feel like, with you, you're an independent artist who also has the luxury of this platform of your comedy that has given you not just the resources, but the platform to be able to get booked on shows or to be able to get at festivals or other things like that. How do you look overall in terms of how you view your career as an independent artist and wanting to see that through? Do you see a major label in the future? Do you see building what you have clearly with the resources that you have from your comedy and acting to be able to push off for that? 

[00:12:19] Hannibal Buress: I think the major label thing isn't something I'm chasing. I would hear them out, you know what I mean? I would take a meeting or a call just to hear the right pitch and see. But before I even would do that, I would have to give myself at least a year or so of operating full speed. 

[00:12:42] Dan Runcie: Right.

[00:12:42] Hannibal Buress: 'Cause now I'm in the coast, I'm doing a good amount of shows and having fun, done a couple of festivals this year with, you know, no visuals out. So I would have to give myself all of 23 of like going, you know, with a full staff, you know what I mean? My whole infrastructure, putting out everything, like really, really going crazy merch, all the whole thing, and then see how I like that. And then see what we could do from there. But for now I kind of got an idea of how I want to do it. And a lot of the things that a label can provide, I've been to some of these spots before while I promoting standup or touring or different things, I've been around. I'm sure there's other things or different cracks and crevices they can operate in, but there's a lot of things that, you know, I'm able to pull off 'cause I'm independent, but it's not a true, like in the same kind of thing. 'cause I've got the visibility. So it's a good help. The music still has to be good, too, and I'm cognizant of that, where I want to be, you know, I don't want to just be in the spots to be in them. 

[00:13:52] Dan Runcie: Right. 

[00:13:52] Hannibal Buress: I want to be in the spots and really doing my thing and having a dope show and, you know, justifying the spot.

[00:13:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 

[00:14:00] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. 

[00:14:00] Dan Runcie: Because I think the thing that works out for you with it well is so many folks signed with the record label because they want to be able to get the distribution that can at least get them some global recognition in reach. But then that also gives them to being able to do shows, right? And you are able to get a lot of these shows on your own, just given the connections and the influence that you have. What has that process been like specifically with you getting out? 'Cause I know that you were up in San Francisco a couple of months ago. You did, you know, we had the 420 thing up here. What has that process been? 

[00:14:34] Hannibal Buress: That's through friends, you know, old friends that I've worked with before or talk with and people that, yeah, my homie Normani helped put that together, the 420. So it's just people that believe in what I'm doing, that I have a history with, that, you know, see some opportunities. So Too $hort went on, I forget who the DJ from the Bay was, but Too $hort went on and I was like, oh man, I'm going on after Too $hort in the Bay? With friends? 

[00:15:07] Dan Runcie: Blow the whistle finishes and now... 

[00:15:10] Hannibal Buress: It was crazy and I got brand new music. Brand new. That was two days after the project dropped. But it was a fun time. I enjoy it so much, man. Even that show didn't go how I thought it was going to go, but it still was fun, you know? 

[00:15:34] Dan Runcie: Wait, how did you think that show was going to go?

[00:15:36] Hannibal Buress: How did I think it was? I thought it was going to, in my mind, and it's the blessing of being mostly optimistic on the performance side might just drop the project, it's circulated, two days after, it's the Bay. I'm going to hit the stage going Veneers. Yeah, get out there, and then, you know, they didn't, they was listening, but it just wasn't, you know, it's just new rap sometimes it's tough. And so also then I still, my music performance chops are a bit more developed now, too. It's been some time, so I'm better at engaging the crowd, even if they don't know the music 'cause I think, at first, bringing a lot of standup energy into it, meaning, you know, you get the, Hey, yeah, say, yeah, but, you know, you got to, and so getting used to just monologue and even just the body language, too, microphone holding, body language, like, you know, that whole thing. Still a bit rusty now. And there's a lot of room to grow. I like coming back to spots, too, after you did, so it will be some folks, they had a good time there, too. It was dope. Had another show that night too. I did LA later that night with the full band. So it was just a dope experience to have two shows in the Bay, LA, same night, 420. I'll never forget that at all. 

[00:17:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an interesting crowd too, because their crowd is high as hell, and it is a midweek thing, too. So it's not the same way of, let's say a music festival where it's like, oh, three o'clock at the East stage, Eshu Tune is going to be there, right, so that's definitely a little bit of a different vibe than I feel like what that event is. 

[00:17:21] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, it was. But the one good thing, another good thing about is that I rehearsed right before. Like I landed, went to a rehearsal space, and then I ran through it. So when I got on stage, I felt good 'cause I was freshly rehearsed. So even though I wasn't rocking out, I kind of was in the zone, in a good space. But when I had a show in Philly for Adult Swim Fest, that one we were tapped in, had the band. I love having the band up there just because I feel like, you know, when you got the band, that's just a lot of energy on stage and you got to, I feel like, giving them a reason to be like, okay, why are we playing for this motherfucker? So then you got to bring the energy up even more to justify the band, you know, so that's always fun.

[00:18:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So how often are you doing shows right now? 

[00:18:15] Hannibal Buress: My last show was I popped out at this open mic in LA a couple of days ago, then before that was, what? 

[00:18:24] Dan Runcie: An open mic for music, to clarify.

[00:18:26] Hannibal Buress: Open mic for music. Yeah, open mic for music, did a few songs. And doing Wild 'N Out next week in Atlanta and probably do a popup or something in Atlanta, maybe. And then I'm starting up a residency in LA, six weeks at Grand Star Jazz Bar. That's going to start on September 26th, every Monday until October 31st 'cause I wanted to get that structure in. And then, you know, I used to host at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn and that kind of, like, having that consistency of doing a regular spot. I hadn't done that in a minute. And so when I did the last show at Knitting Factory, that location closed down, I did and so it reminded me of that energy and just of that, you know, having that regular spot where people know they can see me 'cause you can't always link up with friends or grab lunch and all of that. So you can kinda have the residency, people know where to find you. So I want to do that. I'm excited about doing that 'cause I think that'll help the writing 'cause it'll be like, okay, I got this show. I definitely have this show on Monday. Maybe I'll try this new song there. And then the rest of the week can kind of flow off of that. So I'm super excited about these six shows. I put 'em all on sale at once and it's nice to see they're flowing, you know? And so it is going to be, it's going to be a good time and then we'll see how we want to operate from there. But definitely doing those six in a row, man. 

[00:19:47] Dan Runcie: What was it like to get that process going for the residency specifically?

[00:19:52] Hannibal Buress: It was, you know, I went to the spot at Grand Star. I saw something there I've been there twice. It is really close to my spot. And then I just reached out to the owner online, walked over there, talked to him, told him what I was trying to do, told him I wanted Mondays. He was like, all right, you take the door, I'll take the bar. I ain't dealing with your ticketing, like this it. And then I was like, all right, let's get it. It was pretty straightforward and simple, you know. ' Cause I realized I wasn't, something about LA, it was making me stagnant on a live performance side and I was doing more gigs out of town. And I've done some stuff, but I wasn't really consistent locally. And so I just realized I had to create that. I couldn't be, you know, annoyed with the nightlife or performing if I wasn't really trying to do something about it. 

[00:20:45] Dan Runcie: Right, right. 

[00:20:46] Hannibal Buress: When I have that ability, it's not that tough to like, Hey, this is the place I do a show, you know? So I'm really hyped 'cause they'll be, you know, have a comedian or two and two or three music acts and get the book stuff that I'm a fan of and tape 'em. And the excitement of doing a show, like putting on a regular show after doing it for a while and doing it now with knowledge and knowing how to build the vibe and promote and all those things. It's going to be a blast. 

[00:21:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah. With that type of show specifically, you are also staying in the same spot. And I know that probably helps from a lifestyle perspective too. You have a young daughter, you know, you're not trying to, you know, be on the road, maybe, to the same extent.

[00:21:29] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, just the consistency of this is what, you know, for everybody, for the team, for the camera people, by the third show's, like, okay, this is my spots right here. Everybody being, you know, the timing of it, and it's just, I got to create that consistency for myself and that external pressure to do 'cause they're not all like everything else. 'Cause then once like, okay, Monday, this is what Mondays are no matter what. So then it's like, okay, well, it's Tuesday now since we only got six others. So like, okay, one of those has to be a studio day or this type of day or that. Or, you know, it forces the structure for the rest of it. So it's something I haven't had in a while like that consistency. So, you know, when I did have it in New York, it kind of led to the most productive times in my career and, yeah, the most profitable. 

[00:22:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, I feel like I'm seeing, hearing more artists talk about that, especially, we're seeing what's happening in Vegas. So many more artists, especially while they're still in their prime, taking the residencies there, too. And you're starting to see them more in different cities. And I like how you did where you're like, yeah, you essentially created your own opportunity where you're at. So and I feel like we're going to start to see more of that as I'm just seeing trends of how artists are thinking about doing things and where it makes sense to monetize in and where it doesn't.

[00:22:50] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. Just, you know, it's like, Hey, I booked myself for six, you know, I'm here. But even, you know, with that, it's a bunch of different things. And look, you could change up the core each week, you know what I mean? Change up the merch or change up the drinks or change, you know, all these different elements to keep it fresh since you learn in the space and learning the crowd. And you get to know the fans 'cause I'm sure, you know, folks go return, you know? So and having that data, too, of seeing that, you know, yeah, who you see exactly who I'm seeing, who’s buying the tickets and blah, blah, blah, and so can reach out direct. Thank you for your time, who are you listening to, you know? now it's like a kind of, It's going to be a new phase, man. And that's one thing, too, with the music is that younger hunger, 'cause it's a newer thing. It still has that feeling of I don't know what's going to happen. Right. You know, I could try to make things or put things, but the other parts of it, when you do that, make other things happen when you just, you know, action cause reaction. Even going to that open mic that I did the other night and ask this other person, Hey, come to this show, you know, shows beget shows. And so it's nice to have that momentum and that feel because the comedy side, I don't want to say it's predictable, but the goals kind of are, you could change up your special and, and different things, but the goals like, oh, blah, blah, blah, special, blah, blah, blah, move and you do this, too, but it feels super blank canvas a little bit.

[00:24:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I get the impression from you that there's part of that that is enjoyable. It's that challenge. It's like what keeps it fresh in a way, because, at least for comedy, you mentioned the predictability of it. Like, you knew what would work, you're getting the calls. Like, you know, you're still getting them up to this point. So this is an opportunity to be like, no, this is something I've always wanted to do. Let me tap in here and explore the unknown because, at least from the comedy side, even though that could be unknown to someone else, but you've been in this for decades now, you know? 

[00:24:50] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. At the open mic, it was a bunch of other artists, that was having the same conversations. Like, I didn't know you rapped, I didn't know you rapped, I didn't know you rapped. Like, yeah, I guess that's why I'm here. So now you know I rapped. And so to have, you know, it's still building that, you know, through word of mouth, through performing and, you know, a solid amount of time, but it's happening piece by piece where I'm, you know, seeing folks in public. Oh, I see you doing the music, yeah, keep doing, you know. Yeah, it feels good, man. It feels exciting. And it is just going to get better and keep learning and, you know, I got my drum set, you know, practice more, got keys, got to, you know, I want to in five years be full on musician be able to move around the whole kit, the whole, you know, all the instruments and, and really do a show show, you know?

[00:25:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. By show show. What do you mean? 

[00:25:47] Hannibal Buress: Like, being able to, you know, like even have a band, like this one, I'm on keys, for this one...

[00:25:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:25:52] Hannibal Buress: But not fucking around on keys. Like, actually killing that shit. This one I'm hopping on the kit and like, not bullshit. I don't want to, you know, half-ass it like, oh yeah, he's up there. He's having fun. Then get the picture. No, I wanted to, you know, actually, be technically proficient at it. And I'm willing to work to get to that spot too. You know, but you got to lock in for that. So that's the real, real goal is to be able to even, in seven years, pop in on somebody's set only for drums and, like, nail it, you know what I mean? Like, okay, like he playing on somebody else's music, you know, and it like, yeah, that's the goal. Even if I'm 47, 50 when I'm able to do it, that's what I want to do. 

[00:26:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like with you, too, you talked a little bit about the fan base piece of it, and you be able to see who's coming to the shows and seeing who the fans are. Do you feel like the fan base is slightly different in any way from your comedy fan base? 

[00:26:52] Hannibal Buress: It will be. It will be. Right now, there's a lot of overlap 'cause people that might be thinking, they're getting the comedy show and show up for the music and then they like, oh, okay, that was better than that. I didn't know that was happening. But there'll be some folks that weren't into my comedy at all that was like, okay, I like this I'm seeing some folks, I did Sway In The Morning, the freestyle, some people are like, I like this better than his comedy. And now I'm thinking me too. I do too, yeah. And then there'll be people that never knew I did comedy once, then when the music is discovered, if they find it through the algorithm or something, they'll be some folks like, what? This guy got four comedy specials, you know, especially when things start tapping on an international scale. If When I started touring in Asia, going over, you know, folks that they just find the music through the promoter or whoever, and then they like, what? You do music? So I'm excited for that part of it too, man. It's nice to, you know, and then I might rerelease Miami Nights, but just put music videos in between that shit.

[00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 

[00:28:05] Hannibal Buress: Like, oh, y'all want Miami Nights? Well, here. And it’ll be like, and so, and then I said 2Chainz and like Veneers, Veeners, 1-3 Pocket, you know. There's a lot of moves to, you know, that just because I have that this older stuff and this older material to be able to maneuver and, you know, run ads against and all these different things, man. So it's just a lot of possibilities and ideas. It is fun, it's a fun time. Every day, I'm lit up, like excited, just because, you know, there's so much to do and so many different ideas. I'm and so it's just, I'm fully locked in, yeah. 

[00:28:45] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Where do you feel like your comedy itself fits within your career? 'Cause I know I've listened to past interviews you've done and you've said that, nope, I'm locked in on music right now. But I also know that you had said in other interviews that okay, maybe in three years, if I do another comedy special or make it all even stronger. So where does your comedy fit in for you right now? 

[00:29:08] Hannibal Buress: I could still do it. Because I did it last night at this private gig. And I did it when we did the last night at Knitting Factory, I planned on doing 10 minutes and I ended up going on a couple of tangents, did it in 20, 30. That was partially 'cause of the history of the room and that energy there and that's where I built that soul. And I still can write, you know, I do banter in between. I just don't think I foresee just me kind of grinding out in the clubs or, you know, trying to do for weekends for a while, unless it's just purely to pay for some last-minute music expense. It would be just purely that, if I'm at an improv or doing it if I'm billed as a standup publicly, that's where it's at right now. Even I did for the gig last night, I brought a keys player, Preach Balfour, he plays for my show sometimes, but it was just, I didn't feel like having the emptiness of just pure waiting for laughs. It's not going to be with a keys players the whole time and I'm telling these stories, these jokes, but it's not going to be dead in the room just because. It's like, I'm not giving y'all that as an audience. I'm not giving you the ability to have this shit be silent at the very least after I say something, it's going to be beautiful keys planted as motherfucker. So it's just that exercise of just the grind of what it takes to stay sharp as a standup, I don't feel like doing that anymore. I just find the music to be more enjoyable. And just, it has more, yeah, you just can go into a different direction, like everything don't have to be funny or everything don't have to be one level, you know what I mean? And so maybe down the line now, another one or, but as far as like working, working, I don't see it happening, yeah. 

[00:31:15] Dan Runcie: Has any of the reaction to how comedians have either been perceived or how they're being called upon to respond to particular things, especially in the past few years with how things happening on Twitter, has any of that impacted how you feel are your relationship to comedy or making it at all?

[00:31:36] Hannibal Buress: No, man. 'cause you just have to, you don't have to do anything out here unless you're on a show where you do that and you're contractually obligated. But even that is still a choice, you know what I'm saying? Everything is a choice. We could live in the woods, man, with no electricity if we choose to. We choose to be out here and perform, play video games, move about, you know, born into this, but you don't have to do none of the shit, all of it, all of it's made up. 

[00:32:11] Dan Runcie: Right. 

[00:32:12] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. 

[00:32:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because I feel like as you mentioned, yeah, a lot of it being made up probably makes people almost forget that they do have a choice in a lot of this because I feel like what I've seen or what I've heard from other comics sometimes is that just because of how things are with the climate or how people feel like they need to respond to particular things that there are comics that feel different, especially how things have happened, post-pandemic. But I feel like your mentality is a bit more like, Hey, we really don't have to like, just like whether it's people being canceled or people having backlash for things they say like, comics don't need to fit into fall into that.

[00:32:51] Hannibal Buress: You can just do what you want, you know? And that's one thing. And it's not to judge or say, oh, it's wrong. I see why people would feel pressure. And I get that, too, but it's, after a while you just really like, oh, it's now that I know exactly what I enjoy, and I know the spots where I am truly having fun and losing track of time and enjoying life. And so I just try to spend as much time in those spots and spaces as I can and leave the other shit alone. It takes practice. It's a great theory. It ain't fully perfect, but it's a solid system for me. 

[00:33:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, yeah. Has there been a bit of a connection to other comedians that have went into music? Thinking about something like a Jamie Foxx or someone like that, that, you know, someone else like yourself, multi-talented and has, you know, had success in both areas. Is there kind of like a, okay, you know, you see that others have done this, or do you really feel like, no, this is even more unique thing? 

[00:34:01] Hannibal Buress: I respect, definitely respect what they've done. The timing is different for how I'm doing it. So that's why it's kind of, it's tough to compare a little bit the approach because it is been a minute. But it makes it interesting for me just from having stuff to talk about, too, for doing it so long 'cause sometimes I'm like, maybe I should have started when I was 23, but I think it happened when it was supposed to happen, and it happened when I was ready for it to really happen. But yeah, I watched, you know, like Jamie is amazing, you know? What Gambino's done, it's really dope. I saw Lil Duval write his Living My Best Life, was popping. I saw him. 

[00:34:42] Dan Runcie: That was a good song. 

[00:34:43] Hannibal Buress: He did good with that one. He was at the Stress Factory in Jersey as the song was peaking, and he was definitely too big for that room, but it made the energy...

[00:34:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah.

[00:34:55] Hannibal Buress: He was, like, crazy. He hit the stage to it. Like it was dope to see, man, like I was genuinely excited, and you could feel that he was hyped about it too, man. So it is dope to see when people just go for it in that way, and then we just making this shit, you can really do anything. I have to remind myself of that, too. Just really do anything, man. Just, you know, just go for this shit. I got this song, No Whip. It is a freestyle. It's a 7-minute freestyle about how I was living in Hawaii last year. I bought a car there,, and then I took a trip and then we ended up moving, but I didn't go back to like send the car and I've been planning to, but it's just kind of one of them things where I just, out of sight out of mind. And it ain't really, you know, causing a strain on my life, right? But it is, it's kind of, I bought this whip left in Hawaii, blah blah. And it's like, it's a loose freestyle. And I'm like, you know what, man, I'm going to shoot this part here, part in Hawaii, and just keep it at seven minutes 'cause you can just do that. The instinct is like, oh no, maybe I need to, I'm being repetitive, so maybe I should cut. I'm like, no, shoot that shit rough. Like, make it look as dope as possible. Like, shoot it rough freestyle dope and have fun and then just let it fly and just don't put the constraints on yourself unnecessarily. It's easy to try to overedit sometimes or get it. And so it's just, getting better at trusting myself, which was the initial hurdle It was just, okay, let me do this. There was nobody like, you can't make music, man. What are you, like? It was kind of me battling initially. And then once I dropped it and then, you know, now, okay. And then just rewiring my brain to, okay, I am doing this and keep doing it. It's like, okay, well, we are doing this for real, you know, no matter, no matter what. That's why I find it, like, absurd when people reach out and like, stop. That's weird. Like, you realize I'm a very, I'm a very stubborn person. Like, I'm not doing it to show you up. Like, this is like, I'm already way more locked in than you could ever imagine. So, you know, why you would ever tell me to stop. It's weird. But then I know that that person's not locked in on whatever they want to do if the time to tell me to stop. Yeah, but it's that I don't even get mad is just more like what, what? That's a weird thing to like, why stop? You realize even if my music was completely trash, I would still be able to figure it out from a marketer standpoint. I'd still be able to work some angle in this shit. But it's, you know, it's exciting, man. 

[00:37:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an exciting time, man. What has the response been like from the hip-hop community?

[00:37:50] Hannibal Buress: It's been dope, man. Went on Sway In The Morning, did my written freestyle. I bothered Questlove when The Roots were performing at Pitchfork. They let me rock up there. So I got to rap with Black Thought, you know. It's been good, man. The Sway, the Sway interview helped, you know, I got a bunch of friends that I've worked with that I send stuff to sometimes. So the people that really know me, like know me know me, know that I've been working on things for a while and been building. So they've been super supportive and especially the ones that know what the grind has been and know how I've been working. So it is been dope, man. I'm just, I'm excited to just keep pushing, putting together shows and it's a fun time with just lots of possibilities and shit. 

[00:38:40] Dan Runcie: Exciting time, man. Exciting stuff. So before we close things out, what should the audience stay in tune for? What does the next year look like for Eshu Tune and what should they keep locked in for?

[00:38:52] Hannibal Buress: The plan is to drop the full album on my 40th birthday, February 4th, '23. So I got a couple of songs done for it, going to start the sessions for it next month in November and December, hopefully, shoot videos, December. January, drop a single on New Year's Eve. And then 40th birthday album, I don't know what the title is going to be yet. 40-year-old freshman, 4 HB, 4 Eshu, 40, 244. I don't know, something like that, but I feel like 40th birthday is a good, drop date. Yeah, so that's the plan. And so I'll use the time leading up, you know, to start purging old stuff, you know what I mean? Use that to kind of, you know, drop loosies and different things and even drop some of the older comedy stuff I got, I've been hoarding. And so I want to also, in addition to having the Mondays residency, use the Mondays as a drop date, you know, for new content, old content to start just really, really getting stuff out and start just to free my brain up, 'cause there's a lot of, even though I'm making stuff and dropping stuff, there's a lot of other stuff that I think needs to just be let go, let the birds fly and then it'll help the creativity more.

[00:40:12] Dan Runcie: I hear that. In terms of other stuff too. I think I remember seeing you, you had a song called Numbers. Is that a kid song? Is that one of those things you're going to be putting out there? 

[00:40:21] Hannibal Buress: I don't know if I'm going to lean too heavily into the kid songs yet, or maybe under an alias. I might start dropping, but yeah. I've been seeing some of, who's it, Gracie's? 

[00:40:29] Dan Runcie: Gracie's Corner? 

[00:40:30] Hannibal Buress: Gracie's Corner and then another one where they got the trap kind of kid stuff. Maybe Numbers was fun to do. I did that, yeah. Shout out to Shaliek on the beat for Numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. One robot, two robots. The robots is an ongoing theme in my music also. 

[00:40:51] Dan Runcie: Hey, man, we're excited for all of it, man. 

[00:40:53] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. 

[00:40:54] Dan Runcie: Tons of respect for you, man. 

[00:40:55] Hannibal Buress: Hey, thank you, man. Thanks and good talking with you, Dan, for sure. 

[00:40:57] Dan Runcie: Always been. 

[00:40:58] Hannibal Buress: Yep.

[00:41:00] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

It’s never been easier for artists to release music and find an audience in any corner of the world. Likewise, it’s never been more difficult for artists to break through the noise. The Internet and streaming services have created a double-edged sword for rising artists. To discuss this, Tatiano Cirisano joined me on the show. Tati is a music analyst at MIDiA Research and a former reporter at Billboard.

Tati released a research piece a few weeks ago that argues the music industry is oversaturated and fragmented — more than ever before. This shift has created a new class system for artists.

In Group 1 are artists that reached prominence pre-streaming in a less cluttered marketplace (e.g. Beyonce or AC/DC). Class 2 consists of artists who rose in parallel with the proliferation of streaming. Drake and Taylor Swift fall into this category. And then there’s the Class 3, that includes newer artists, who try to cultivate audiences in today’s hyper-competitive landscape against the other two groups. 

Tati believes the trend line for the music industry’s fragmentation is clearly pointing up. To understand how we got here, why it matters, and how it redefines success, you’ll want to listen to our interview. Here’s our biggest talking points: 

[3:11] Why consumption is now fragmented

[8:41] Music superstars losing their reach

[10:55] Modern artists valuing fame less than prior generations

[13:24] Benefits to fragmentation

[14:48] Updated benchmark for artist success

[16:50] Active vs. passive listening

[18:53] Music industry is still tied to album sales

[25:34] Artists segmenting audiences by platform

[30:18] Trap of taking users off native platforms

[32:59] Content is becoming more important than the creator

[37:35] YouTube and other potential outlier platforms for audience-building 

You can read Tati’s full report here: https://midiaresearch.com/blog/music-is-not-a-level-playing-field-it-is-a-field-of-all-levels

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Tatiana Cirisano, @tatianacirisano

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Tatiana Cirisano: Fame is actually really low on the list of priorities of artists today. And whether that's because they don't really want it or because they just don't think it's achievable is kind of another layer to that, but the top two things are earning a sustainable income and achieving recognition within their scene. Artists' definitions of success are changing, but I don't know if the music industry is really catching onto that or really supporting that because the music business is a hits business and record labels are trying to create superstars and drive culture.

[00:00:38] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:58] Dan Runcie: Today's conversation is all about why the stars of today cannot be compared to the stars of yesterday in the music industry. And when I'm talking about yesterday, I'm not talking about 20, 30 years ago. I'm talking about 3, 4 even 5 years ago. The era that Drake and even Post Malone and some of these other artists came up in cannot be compared to what's happening with the artist today and that's as it relates to streaming, as it relates to TikTok and all the ways that things are fragmented in the creator economy. And it was great to be joined by Tatiana Cirisano. She is a music industry analyst at MIDiA Research, where she has written some insightful pieces and breakdowns on this topic in a whole lot more. We talked about the impacts and the current landscape of the streaming era, and what it looks like for artists that are prioritizing their growth and perfecting what they can do on one platform as opposed to spreading it on others. We also talked about some of the trade-offs and some of the challenges for artists in the creator economy and a whole lot more. She does some great research on this topic. So definitely check out the work she does at MIDiA Research if you haven't yet, here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it. All right, today, we are joined by music industry analyst, Tati Cirisano, who is going to help us solve all of the music industry problems today. Are you ready? 

[00:02:22] Tatiana Cirisano: One can hope. I'll do my best. 

[00:02:25] Dan Runcie: So what sparked this conversation was a really insightful piece that you had put out recently through MIDiA Research, and this was about the different levels of artists and where they are specifically in the streaming era. And you had this really good breakdown on how you had the artists that were already established in the streaming era such as your AC/DCs or your Beyoncés, they were established before streaming became a thing. You had the artists that were, folks like your Drakes or even your Taylor Swifts that rose while streaming was really huge. And then you have your artists today. Could you talk a little bit about how that differentiation between those groups impacts success and what achieving success looks like today?

[00:03:11] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'll kind of back up a little bit to what is underlying all of that, which is just the fragmentation of consumption. And that's something that we study a lot at MIDiA, and it basically means that you know, with people able to, through streaming, access all the music they could ever want to and listen at any time that they want to, and also with these increasingly sophisticated algorithms kind of pushing people to niches. It follows that there are kind of less mainstream moments or mainstream stars and more of these stars just for individuals and their communities or their niches. And I think that's something that we've all kind of experienced at some point, like, maybe there's an artist that you're obsessed with and all of your friend's love, and you mention it to a friend that is in another circle and they're like, who's that? I mean, I get that reaction. I've gotten that reaction talking about Bad Bunny before, and he is the top streamed artist in the world. So I think we've all had like this anecdotal experience of you thinking that something is mainstream, but it's not as mainstream as you think it is and that is the fragmentation at work. So this is happening on a really, really accelerated scale now. Just because of how everything is online and on demand and because of these algorithms. So we're in this situation where the artists that are competing today are in a much more oversaturated and fragmented landscape where it's a lot harder to have a mainstream impact than the artists that were even chasing success three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. So the way that I had kind of broken it down, and I think you could actually break it down way further, which I think we're going to talk about is yeah, the artists that came up before all of this, pre-streaming, really, which are the AC/DCs, even a little bit of like the Beyoncés, and because they built their fan bases at a time before everything was so fragmented and cluttered, they're still, like, building on that today. They're still kind of riding that wave. And then you have the artists who came up kind of at the beginning of streaming and before all the second-order impacts happened. So basically streaming did democratize the playing field. It did make it so that way more artists could find their audiences. And there were all these benefits at the beginning, and artists like Drake, Taylor Swift, and Ed Sheeran really benefited from that. But now we're at a point where streaming has also contributed to this really oversaturated landscape, this really fragmented landscape. And it's only getting more and more so every year. And so the artists that are competing in that landscape now face really, really unique challenges, yet they're still competing in the same field as the Drakes, as the Beyoncés, as the AC/DCs. So because so much of this change has happened in just, like, 5 or 10 years, we're in a situation where the artists of today have very, very different challenges than, I think, even the artists of 2020, like the pace of fragmentation, is just insane. And I have data on that too, that I can share. 

[00:06:00]

Dan Runcie: Yeah. It would be great to dig more into that 'cause you've mentioned 2020. I look back on that year, especially, maybe the year leading into that, Billie Eilish was someone that was being talked about more and more, and she, of course, ended up sweeping the Grammys that year. But even when she came up, things are even more different now than back then, to your point. 

[00:06:20] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. I really like the data that BPI pulls on this in there, I think it's called All About the Music. They have this annual report, and they look at, this is only in the UK, but they look at what percentage of total annual audio streams go towards the top 100 tracks? So, like, how much the hits are dominating basically? And that percentage has halved, more than halved, in the past 5 years. So you see that, like, we still have superstars, but their impact is just kind of lessening. And more, more consumption is going towards sort of like the mid-tier of artists, but it's spread across them. So it's just harder and harder to kind of have an impact. So, yeah, I think Billie Eilish is, it's funny, I feel like she's such a tough one because I try to use her as examples all the time, and I'm always like, but she is the exception to every rule because she is, like, such a talent. And, you know, I feel like it's hard to use her as an example in things, but I do think that she even came up in a much less cluttered space. I think that was like, more like 2017, 2018 pre-TikTok. And that's actually another division that I would make. Like yes, because of TikTok, the app itself, but also because of the fragmentation that it kind of has fostered and that other platforms are now following the footsteps of.

[00:07:38] Dan Runcie: It's interesting because the BPI data is essentially telling us that a superstar has around half the reach that they maybe once did, or half of that footprint that they did. And it's one of those things where, of course, there's that cultural aspect of wanting to feel like something is big enough, so that, yeah, you're not asking your friends about Bad Bunny. And even though he's a global superstar, people still don't know who he is, but is this necessarily an issue as it relates to artists? Because a lot of it does reflect on the expectations that someone may have for their career, so I wonder has the industry itself adapted to the expectations, right? I think a lot of folks understand that no one is necessarily going to have that 1960s Beatlemania level of fame, or even 1980s, Michael Jackson level of fame. But do you feel like people have come around to the fact that no one is going to have 2015 Drake or 2014 Taylor Swift level of fame? Do you feel like that has sunk in yet? 

[00:08:41] Tatiana Cirisano: That's a really good question. That's a really, really good question because so much of this is about, like, how we define success in the first place, right? So at MIDiA, we do these surveys of creators where one of the questions we ask every year is what is your definition of success? And we're finding that, while in the past, the music industry was very much associated with, like, fame and fortune, and like, that was kind of, like, what you're going after as an artist. Fame is actually really low on the list of priorities of artists today. It's the last thing. And whether that's because they don't really want it or because they just don't think it's achievable is kind of another layer to that that I'm not sure the answer to, but the top two things that they choose are earning a sustainable income and achieving recognition within their scene. And I think that's why so many artists are sort of enticed by the creator economy model because that's what you're doing, right? You're earning a sustainable living from, you know, your biggest fans or the people that are recognizing you within your scene. There are a lot of problematic things about the creator economy and maybe that's for another episode, but like, I think that what I'm trying to say is I think that artists' definitions of success are changing, but I don't know if the music industry is really catching onto that or really supporting that because the music business is a hits business and record labels are trying to create superstars and drive culture. And if the mainstream is almost nonexistent these days, like how do you do that? I do think that the sort of silver lining to it is that these sort of like more niche communities behind these, like, smaller stars are more engaged anyways. So it's like, do you want this, like, are you trying to go after this passive majority that, you know, maybe isn't ever going to be that engaged with your music, or would you rather go from a bottom-up approach and kind of find your audience, your niche, and builds from there. And I think that that can be really, really powerful, and we're kind of entering this age of like cult stars rather than superstars in that sense. I forget what you even. Ask me that launch beyond this rant. 

[00:10:52] Dan Runcie: That was good though. 

[00:10:54] Tatiana Cirisano: Those are my thoughts on success.

[00:10:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like that was relevant though that, 'cause cult stars is a great way to capture this because I think shadowing back to the first thing that you said fab and fortune were so linked from the legacy of the music industry. And in many ways, they were linked that you couldn't really achieve one without the other. There was no one that was making 10 million a year from music as an artist that people really didn't know about to a certain level in terms of their take-home pay, not in terms of, you know, the money that they're generating, but today it's completely different. And of course, yeah, we mentioned how someone like Bad Bunny may be unknown to those outside of the circles. But I think we see this even more so because it's easier to achieve some of those fortunes without that same level of fame. I look at someone like Russ who, you know, he shares his TuneCore receipts and how, I forget whatever number he is pulling in, whether it's 6 figures a week or a month, or however much he's getting there, but he's clearly showing that he can pull in millions. And I mean, Russ, his music doesn't hit my circles, and if anything, the more news I hear about Russ is more related to his earnings and how he manages as an independent artist, not necessarily his music itself. And I think that speaks to me not necessarily being in that cult itself, right? But I still think that there is a space and opportunity for those artists that clearly want fame and fortune. You know, if you want to be able to perform in an arena and sell it out and gross, however many millions or, you know, doing the same thing in stadiums, you do have to likely follow a lot of the same traditional things from that path level, but still, even fame from that perspective doesn't hit the same way that it did. So it's a really fascinating time, and yeah, I think a lot of it does go back to both artists' expectations and the industry expectations, if the industry and the artists still have these dreams of thinking that artists can reach the levels of fame that artists did even 6, 7 years ago, then that's where people should probably be taking, 'cause I've had this conversation with so many people and they'll mention examples like, oh, well look at BTS. Oh, well look at Bad Bunny. Oh, well look at so and so, and I do think that there's something to be said for just the global aspect of the fame is just how music is reaching in different areas, and maybe that probably reflects that the people that are closest to that global superstar level, maybe just because of how saturated the US is, they're more likely to come from elsewhere, but who knows? 

[00:13:24] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, no. And there's also, like, a lot of benefits to this fragmentation, right? Like I feel like I, the way I'm talking about this is very like doom and gloom. but it's also very beneficial to, like, the middle tier and long tail of artists that, you know, they're actually able to have audiences. The tricky thing though is that it's still so hard to break through. It's such a fascinating conversation to have because whenever we present this data on fragmentation and our thinking around it, the question from labels is always like, okay, but how do we drive culture? How do we create those moments? How do we make something mainstream? And I think there's an opportunity to kind of, like, labels are really top heavy, right? They're focusing on like the top three artists in their roster, making them superstars, and I feel like there's maybe an opportunity to spread resources more evenly across the middle and create those kind of cult stars that we were just talking about. So I think it is about changing your definition of success. I just don't know, you know, if the music industry wants to. But they might have to, I don't know. 

[00:14:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because to your point, it could be potentially even more profitable to reflect the current playing field and invest in the people that have these niches, and knowing that even though it's not going to reach everyone if this person is reaching their tribe of people, then they can double down on that. And it could probably end up being even more successful, you investing all your resources to sell you know, three artists on your roster telling that they can be the next Drake.

[00:14:48] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, no, and talking about this is reminding me too of I think we both wrote about the Gunna and The Weeknd album release week, like, whenever that was, time is flying. I think that was like earlier in the year. And how, even though the weekend is like objectively a household name, a bigger star, Gunna had this more engaged niche fan base that, you know, latched onto this P phenomenon and it ended up vaulting him maybe into the mainstream. 'cause the album debuted at number one. So it's like, which of those scenarios is success? You know, like the P phenomenon that happened, so many people didn't even know that that was going on. It totally bypassed, like, the majority of the population, right? But for the target audience, it felt mainstream. And I think that that's like, what's so different about this current moment is that something can feel mainstream to that circle, but totally bypass the rest of the population. 

[00:15:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And there are so many factors at play in that that gets into this broader question that I've been thinking a lot about in terms of what does the closest thing we have to a benchmark for success look like, right? Because someone could easily look at that weekend that The Weeknd releases Dawn FM, and Gunna releases his album and Gunna outsells him, and then someone can think, oh, well, look at Gunna, you know, already selling more than the guy that performed at the Super Bowl. But if you look at it another way, The Weeknd is selling out stadiums right now and one of a handful of artists that can do that. And I love Gunna, I think he's had a great rise in everything, but he's nowhere near being able to sell out that much, at least in terms of where he is in his career right now. He could get there someday, but he's not there right now. So I feel like even that makes me wonder, okay, is streaming itself as a predictor for concert tickets or other things becoming harder to inform what it is really reflecting, or is that just its own individual metric that we are looking at? 

[00:16:50] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I think it is becoming harder to use stream counts as a metric for fandom and for culture because I think those things are building off of streaming platforms. Like, fandom is building on, you know, TikTok or Twitch or wherever, whereas streaming is a lot more of a passive activity. So that's another thing is like, I feel like we need new metrics and one of them is, like, active versus passive listening, which is something that's kind of hard to track. How do you do that as a streaming platform? So yeah, I think streams don't always equal fans and that's becoming more and more true. It's just, it's a lot harder to discern. 

[00:17:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And that goes back into this broader question of the Billboard 200 and how it's trying to both combine streams, and pure album sales, and all these things to get to these numbers that we have. And it's becoming tougher and tougher to use that as a metric of what success is. If anything, these things are more reflecting, marketing budgets than they are popularity of the actual underlying music. And although the marketing was always tied with it, this is another thing that's separating further and further. And it reminds me of something that I know that MIDiA has talked about often in terms of measuring the success for these superstars when they do release albums. Remember Mark had that breakdown about Adele and how it should be, how her album for 30, we can't even compare what she had done when 25 came out in 2015, different era. She did pure CD sales and you could do that in 2015. You can't do that now. Although I think that vinyls have brought back an interesting conversation with some of this, but still it's difficult to do that, and it's making me think again because you had something similar when we looked at Beyoncé and I don't think you can necessarily compare Renaissance's numbers to Lemonade or the self-titled album before that. And we're going to have this conversation again when Taylor Swift's Midnight album comes out in a couple of months.

[00:18:53] Tatiana Cirisano: No, it's so true. And I actually, I had that exact conversation with someone recently about, you know, the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 and how it's not necessarily measuring, there's a lot of places that get left out from that count in terms of how people are consuming music. Like, I think so much of listening is happening and the fandom around it is happening off platform these days or off DSPs. It's happening like on TikTok and all these other spaces, in games, you know, wherever. And I don't know if we're accurately measuring that. I also don't think that, like I said, we're measuring so much, you know, active versus passive listening and these sort of segments of fans on streaming. Like, streaming kind of equates everyone as the same consumer, right, whether you're a super fan or whether you just press play on a playlist and sit back, you're still paying the same. You're still kind of equated as the same thing. So the question is how should we measure success today? Or how should we measure cultural impact? It's so hard 'cause I think in a lot of ways it goes beyond music. Like, if you're an artist who has really had a cultural impact, that impact is transcending music anyway, and that's kind of what it means to be like an icon or to be a cultural icon in that way. So I don't know. It's really tough not to crack. Like, a lot of these things are qualitative, right? Like, how do you measure the cultural impact that something has? And I don't think that it necessarily parallels commercial success. Like, you can have something that had a huge cultural impact on a certain group but didn't really hit the charts or change the way that people think about making music but didn't really hit consumers the same way. So now I'm just ranting and rambling.

[00:20:34] Dan Runcie: Let's explore this a bit though. 

[00:20:36] Tatiana Cirisano: It's tough. 

[00:20:37] Dan Runcie: Let's explore a bit though because you brought up this point about active versus passive listening. So if I'm understanding you correctly, even if we started there, active listening is Gunna's album's coming out, I'm a Gunna fan, it's midnight. I want to press play and hear this album on Friday morning. 

[00:20:55] Tatiana Cirisano: That would be a great metric to know is, right, and I guess we have first-day streams as kind of an indicator. 

[00:21:01] Dan Runcie: But I guess you're saying, that's different from passive listening, which may be it's Friday. I just want to put RapCaviar on and then boom, RapCaviar has eight tracks that are going to be in the first 20 tracks that I just play as I'm going to work or something.

[00:21:17] Tatiana Cirisano: Right. Exactly. And I think that's where it's more and more difficult to know, and it would be really helpful information for artists to have as well because if you're going to go this route that we've been talking about of, you know, finding your niche and finding your biggest fans and sort of going from a bottom-up approach in this fragmented environment, trying to become a cult star, you need to know who your most active listeners are, and I think that's really hard for artists to know today. 

[00:21:43] Dan Runcie: I think part of the other challenge, too, with any type of metric is that the music industry itself is still tied to album sales. So anything that can translate back to that will always be there. So even if streams are how majority of music consumption is happening, as it relates to chart performance, it's always going to be challenging from that perspective because I feel like the resurgence of vinyl brings back an opportunity to push these things. I look at how well Harry Styles' album had performed, but a majority of the sales from that album was because of the vinyl that he had that was sold with it. But given all the shortages, how much of Harry Styles' performance is based on the pure demand that he had, which I know, obviously, he sold them. But because of how high his number is relative to, let's say some other artists that are signed to Sony and Columbia, what if they had the same type of inventory? I think that I had similar questions thinking about whether it was a Beyoncé or even a Kendrick Lamar. If they had the amount of vinyl inventory that he had, would it be a completely different discussion? I feel like the two of them maybe had around 300,000 or so first-week album sales, Harry Styles was over half a million. But if we were to still give them all the same inventory on that perspective, what that would look like? So there's all these ways that when you look at the data, it's telling you completely different things, but people are still just responding to the top line revenue number, and it brings us back into this whole thing that we just talked about with Gunna versus The Weeknd where it's like, okay. Yep, these numbers may tell you something, but when you really dig in, it's something completely different. So it becomes a mess to try to quantify. 

[00:23:37] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, exactly. You hit the nail on the head.

[00:23:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because the comparison I've always had as a joke is like let's say that the music industry was still stuck on trying to measure everything by DVD and VHS sales, right? So they had some amalgamation of some calculation that had whatever percentage of streams that you had on Netflix that was weighted with this, plus how many VHS sales you had, plus how many DVD sales, and this gives you a DVD equivalent unit. If you presented that metric to someone, someone would be like, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. 

[00:24:13] Tatiana Cirisano: Right, right. 

[00:24:13] Dan Runcie: They would laugh at you out of the door, but that's what we've normalized in the music at this time.

[00:24:19] Tatiana Cirisano: That's what we're doing. Isn't that just a metaphor for so much? Yeah, it's true. I also think it goes back to exactly what you're saying about, maybe these charts are more indicating the marketing budget and you know, how they decided about bundles or we're going to sell vinyl or whatever we're going to do to try to make it to the top of the charts. And I wonder what these charts would look like weighted differently, or we are talking about fragmentation. It's so fascinating to look at, you know, the charts across different platforms and see that they're totally different. So I do wonder a lot, like what are we actually measuring when we're looking at, you know, the Hot 100 or the Billboard 200.

[00:24:57] Dan Runcie: Great question and great segue, too, 'cause I wanted to chat with you about this, how you look at a lot of these platform charts, especially the non-digital streaming providers and the artists who are on the top look completely different. You even see this a little bit with some of the DSPs as well, where some of the artists on top of your Amazon and Apple music may look a little different from what you see on Spotify. What's your take on that overall and do you think that artists themselves should be keeping this in mind when they are focusing or when they are thinking about how best to build an audience? 

[00:25:34] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, no. I mean, I think that it's just another really apparent reflection of the fragmentation that's happening. And I think it does make sense knowing all this as an artist to rather than try and dominate every platform, which is next to impossible, trying to kind of find where you fit in and dominate there. And that is sort of like that bottom-up approach, but from a platform perspective, and also might, like, reduce the feeling from artists that they need to be, you know, popular everywhere and they need to be churning out content on every platform and all that. I think the risk though, is that, especially when we're talking about non-DSP, there's artists that maybe have the most followers on TikTok, but they're not being followed for their music. They're being followed 'cause they make funny videos or their song has the most uses because it's become a joke that people are sharing around and not as many people are streaming it offline. So I think it is a good idea as an artist to maybe figure out what platform fits you best, but you also need to understand, like, the particular sort of idiosyncrasies of each of those platforms. I also think, I think you've written about this a lot like segmenting your audience across platforms as a strategy. And I think that's another way that you can kind of use this information as an artist if you know that you have an audience on one platform that is looking for this specific thing and another, that's looking for another, why not, you know, release your full album on Spotify, but you know, the deluxe edition only on Patreon for your biggest supporters or something like that. Or even, there's this indie artist mxmtoon, who I think is a really interesting example of like a modern-day sort of artist slash creator where she has a presence on pretty much every platform. YouTube, she has a podcast, she's on TikTok, she has like a Discord, I think. But every single one of those is used for something totally different. And she has audiences that kind of funnel through all of them. But YouTube is where she does ukulele tutorials and, like, TikTok is where she does Q and As, and the Discord is where the true fans go to congregate. And that's also a path that may be unsustainable for a lot of artists, and I don't like, I'm not trying to suggest that everyone should be on every platform, you know, there are eight octopus arms, like doing all the things. I think that's one of the, like, things that's problematic about the creator economy, but, but yeah, I do think that it's really valuable for artists to understand this fragmentation and how it plays out on different platforms because I do think there are ways to navigate that and kind of use it to your advantage. 

[00:28:07] Dan Runcie: There's definitely a benefit to focus here. And this, as you mentioned, spans beyond artists. It does look at everyone that is a creator. And maybe just for clarity for the folks listening, when we're talking about DSPs, we're specifically talking about the ones that a lot of people are paying monthly subscriptions to, so your Spotify, Amazon, Apple music. When we're talking about non- DSPs, we're talking about the place where you could still hear music and artists can still build platforms, but they're not in the same type of way as the other. So we're talking about TikTok, we're also talking about YouTube and maybe some of the other platforms there, although YouTube does have some hybrid tendencies there, but to level set that piece of it. I do think that focus helps a lot because I look at someone like an NBA YoungBoy and how he's been able to just blow up and dominate on YouTube. That takes time of really understanding the algorithm, understanding what works here, and just given how big the platform is that did help him grow and have traction on Apple music, on Spotify, and on other places. So I've heard a lot of people refer to this 80-20 rule. That's a lot of content creators, which I think could be helpful for artists as well, where if there was a platform that you're focusing 80% of your time to try to focus on and just understand, especially if there's an advantage there where others that are in your niche, maybe aren't necessarily doing as much. And then you're still having your feet in the others to just understand what those opportunities could look like. I feel like that type of approach could work well because that's how you get to the levels of, you mentioned the independent artists who essentially tailored so much of the content for each area. And while there's a lot that benefits there, obviously, it isn't completely scalable, but I feel like that's how you get to these things. And we've seen other examples of how people have just focused on a particular platform or just doubled down the risk of that. Of course, when we can talk about this in a minute, is that you do relinquish a lot of your power to any decision that that platform does make, especially if you're relying on so much of it for your business when you necessarily own anything underneath that. So there's definitely trade-offs, but there's benefits too. 

[00:30:18] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, no, that's a huge issue there. Which we'll get, yeah, we'll get into more of that, that stuff in a minute, but this approach of like focusing on a platform also means that you're seeing these non- DSP platforms as a form of consumption in their own right, rather than just using them as a funnel to streaming, which I think is like a trap that the music industry has kind of fallen into is, oh, make something go viral on TikTok and then push everybody to Spotify. And it's like, if the fandom and the culture and a lot of consumption is happening on TikTok, you're leaving that on the table when you're pushing people to Spotify. And you know, I think that there's a lot to be gleaned there, and we should start thinking about these platforms as their own consumption platforms in their own right.

[00:30:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah. As a content creator myself, I've heard a lot of people use that analogy of give, give, give, give, give, and then ask. So it's not like you're just going there and asking and trying to transport folks over. You're still making some enough effort to make sure that you're connecting authentically with the folks on the platform, but you still know that when there was time for an ask, you're thoughtful about how you're doing, and you're not doing it all the time because trying to take people off the platform, especially TikTok, which has grown in so many ways because of passive engagement, it's even harder. 

[00:31:31] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, yeah, no, I think this is something that you wanted to get into anyway, but just, like, the objectives of the platform and the creator are totally different because the platform has the best-case scenario when there is all this passive viewing and people are just scrolling endlessly and they're spending a lot of time on the platform, but that's not the best case scenario for the creator. So the audience and the platform get all the benefit. And the creator kind of falls to the wayside. And I think that's a big issue that we're seeing in the creator economy. 

[00:31:57] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And this is a big issue that I know that people have had about Web 2.0 more broadly and just how this can be improved. The challenge I've seen though is that any type of platform I've seen that does try to be more creator-focused and doesn't try to do the same things that marginalize the content that the creators make, a lot of those platforms struggle to gain traction, or they're only used in these niche type of ways. So it creates a bit of this double-edged sword where the creators themselves feel like, well, if I focus on the platforms that are solely built to cater to me and prioritize me over the content, then it's going to be hard to get the users there because it isn't designed in a way to keep the users engaged, just thinking about the extent that the more popular platforms do and more popular platforms are the ones that prioritize the content over the creators. So it's one of these unfortunate situations that has continued on and on, and that's why we're at the point we are now.

[00:32:59] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I think that we do see that happen more often than not. And before we even got to this point where content is becoming more important that the creator, which I could talk about in a minute the objectives are just totally, like I said, misaligned, like the platforms need scale. They need to monetize. All of the combined audiences of these individual creators. But the creators are looking more so for fan bases and engaged followers than they are looking for, you know, these passive audiences. So it actually, I think a lot of the struggles that creators are having with these platforms sort of echo issues that artists have had with streaming platforms in really interesting ways. Because it's similar to how like rights holders, like labels are monetizing scale of being able to own all of the songs and therefore all of the audiences of dozens, if not hundreds of artists, but those artists individually will never have enough scale to earn a meaningful income from streaming. And I think the same sort of thing is playing out with creators now where the platform is getting all the benefit because they get the combination of all these audiences and it's best for them. If people are just mindlessly scrolling, whereas creators have just totally different objectives and a different way of earning money. And then the current algorithm, or like the one that everyone's trying to kind of copy, which is TikTok, is making matters worse because there's no need to even actually follow anyone or, you know, really engage that much with the platform because you're going to be served content that is tailor-made for you regardless. So we're kind of teaching people with that kind of discovery-focused feed, not to actually follow individuals and more to just expect this constant flow of content. And again, going back to the parallels with streaming, it's interesting how we went from a few years ago, talking about TikTok as this amazing democratizing force to now talking about how well, yeah, it's democratized 'cause everybody can post anything, but it's impossible for anyone to get heard. We've gone through the same trajectory with streaming where, 5 years ago, we were all saying, oh, my God, streaming is great. It's democratized the industry. And in many ways it has, but now we're seeing all these second-order impacts where it's really, really hard for anyone to break through the noise, and it's really, really hard for anyone to earn meaningful income, so, yeah. 

[00:35:14] Dan Runcie: The pattern is clear. You laid it out perfectly. 

[00:35:17] Tatiana Cirisano: It's crazy. 

[00:35:17] Dan Runcie: And one thing about TikTok, everyone talks about how quick it is to grow a following, how favorable the algorithm is when you start off, and all those things are intentional. It is the easiest platform to be able to gain tens of thousands of followers and even more, but it's the hardest to be able to translate those followers into actual fans because it's more likely that they are going to be passive folks that are engaging versus active ones. And we're going to see more and more of that, especially given to goals to try to expand into so many other places, and then additionally, every other app trying to copy what TikTok is doing, because they see that being the norm. And now that that's what they see as the standard operating procedure for how to keep people's attention and engagement, everyone is trying to have their own version of that.

[00:36:09] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, you know, and I think that people do have an appetite for, like, wanting to follow individuals. I mean, that's what everything has been based on up until now. And people were annoyed when Meta changed its algorithm and said, it's all going to be discovery-focused now because you go to Instagram to see updates from your friends and people that you follow, not to just get this feed of things that you've people you've never heard of. So I think that there is still, like, an appetite for that. And there's sort of a chance to recalibrate and allow more ways to actually follow creators and not just make it all about each individual piece of content. But I think that we're kind of in a critical window right now to preserve that. And I don't know if we're talking about this enough. Yeah, it's just the situation, like to kind of bring it back to artists is really difficult because you need every individual thing that you post to do well. It's not enough to just have one thing, draw someone in because they might not even follow you from there. And they're just consistently scrolling and getting more and more content. So there's just this endless churn of content happening. And it's just, yeah, it's benefiting audiences and it's benefiting platforms, but it's not benefiting creators. 

[00:37:18] Dan Runcie: The need to preserve is there, as you mentioned, and we talked a lot about some of the platforms that have made it challenging. Are there ready that stand out to you that you're like, okay, they are at least making an effort or do you feel like there's more opportunity there relative to some of the other platforms that exist?

[00:37:35] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. I do think that YouTube could be an exception to the rule with this. I think that it's a really interesting company because when you think about it, they kind of were the original creator economy company and kind of are seemingly doubling down on that now. I think that it's great how there's sort of this network between YouTube shorts, YouTube music, YouTube, and that's sort of what I think is missing, but won't be for long from TikTok is that you have to switch to a different platform to listen to the music, which is why if ByteDance, you know, release Resso worldwide or make this TikTok music app, it might become crazy powerful, but, yeah, I think YouTube does have this focus on channels and following people. And I think a lot of creators have been able to build sustainable incomes there. But I do worry that the impact of all these other platforms kind of teaching people not to follow and not to follow individuals and channels is going to have an impact, but I think YouTube has a lot of potential. 

[00:38:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think so, too. It definitely is the platform, bad thing has the most ability to offer this just given the full complexity of whether or not you're an artist, you're someone that's creating any type of thing that has video, you're probably going to be on there. I also do think about platforms like SoundCloud, Audiomack, and Tidal as well because...

[00:38:55] Tatiana Cirisano: A hundred percent.

[00:38:56] Dan Runcie: ... even though they may not necessarily fit into the same buckets as some of the others we mentioned, I do think that the things they've tried to do, whether it's with SoundCloud's fan-powered royalties or with Tidal's user-centric base model, which is similar, or even what Audiomack has done with its supporters program, allowing people to say, Hey, this is the person that I want to give my money to. If there's extra money at the end of the year, this is the person I want to have a badge on and want to be able to share that with the profile, they keep the connection there. They're willing to share who are particular artists' followers and fans are, which is something that most of the other DSPs don't allow to happen. So I do think that they are more unique opportunities. And also, I would say tracing back to the last thing we talked about, a place where a lot of artists, if they are trying to build up a fan base on a particular platform could be an interesting angle to prove, because I do think there is a certain type of fan and artist that thrives on each of those platforms individually, just given the brand there, everything else. So those are the ones that I keep an eye out for, the same way that we saw NBA YoungBoy and others rise up. SoundCloud, of course, had its SoundCloud rap era and there's still artists coming out there. And of course, Tidal, I think, just given its origins will always have deep roots within hip-hop culture. So I'm always keeping an eye out for those.

[00:40:18] Tatiana Cirisano: A hundred percent. No, I'm glad you brought up Audiomack and SoundCloud. Those are two companies that, I mean, we worked with SoundCloud on a user-centric royalties white paper that was really just eye-opening with all of this. And I do think that there are opportunities to, going back to what we were saying about being able to actually segment your fans on streaming and see who are your biggest supporters and not have everyone just equated into the same bucket. I think what Audiomack is doing is really smart because those support badges are also a way for people to express themselves. If you have that in your profile, you know, it says something about who you are. And I think there's a lot more opportunities to bring music and self-expression closer together 'cause I think that streaming has kind of pulled them apart a little bit by sort of equating everyone. So yeah, I think those are really good examples and really promising.

[00:41:04] Dan Runcie: So there you have it. We solved it. I think in this conversation, we solved it all. 

[00:41:10] Tatiana Cirisano: There we go. We can all go home. Class is dismissed. 

[00:41:13] Dan Runcie: This is great. Tati, thanks for sharing your insights and some of the highlights of the research you've done on this space. Excited to see what you have coming up next, especially now that things are ramping back up for the industry. So for the folks listening, where can they stay tuned to keep up with the latest research that you have coming out? 

[00:41:32] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. You can go to MIDiAResearch.com, where we have a blog that I write on often. Those posts are free. So even if you're not a client, you can read them. And I also wanted to mention that I'll be talking more about this exact topic at Stan Con in New York on October 5th, which is Denisha, who I think she had an episode with you recently, right, Dan. If you heard that episode, it's her conference, so I'll be there talking more about fandom and fragmentation. So looking forward to that and thank you so much for having me. 

[00:41:59] Dan Runcie: Of course, great minds coming together. I'm glad you're going to that. That's awesome. Thank you.

[00:42:03] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Returning to Trapital for a second time is comedian Roy Wood Jr. We last spoke in mid-2020 when lockdowns curbed his usual comedy performance routine. On the outside, it might not seem Roy has changed much since our first convo — he’s still a regular on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah — but internally, Roy is amidst another career evolution.

Roy made a successful comedic career — three specials on Comedy Central over a five-year span — out of finding unique angles to discuss external events such as news and politics. But now, Roy wants to talk about himself. Spurred by an appearance on PBS’ “Find Your Roots”, Roy is more introspective about the relationship with his father, a civil rights activist, and how it influences raising his own son.

How and where Roy delivers this refined message hasn’t been decided yet. For now, Roy is taking time for himself to think through how he’s changed, and so has comedy and the entertainment industry at-large. In our discussion, Roy hinted at some of those major changes. Here’s what we covered:

[3:15] The state of live comedy in 2022

[5:32] Roy’s insane performing streak from 1998-2020

[6:27] Why the comedy club isn’t the right venue for Roy right now 

[11:45] Comedian expectations have changed 

[13:35] Morality vs. profit 

[17:05] Roy’s partnerships

[18:42] Roy’s criticism of Netflix and streaming

[26:27] The new superstar is an assemble cast 

[31:08] How Roy chooses comedic topics

[34:43] Roy’s most personal joke

[35:24] How much does Roy’s son know about his comedy career? 

[37:39] How Dick Gregory changed Roy’s life

[40:48] Roy starring in Confess, Fletch movie

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Roy Wood Jr., @roywoodjr

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Roy Wood Jr.: You can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe, you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup? Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour.  

[00:00:36] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Roy Wood Jr. This is his second time back on the podcast. The first time we recorded a podcast was back in the middle of 2020, middle of the pandemic. And we talked a lot about how the closure of comedy clubs and the closure of everything was affecting his life as a comedian and what he saw the world would be like on the other side of the pandemic. And now we're starting to be here, so it was a great opportunity to check in, hear how things are going for him. And we talked a lot about how the past couple of years have reshaped his perspective on the type of message that he wants to be able to. What are the best venues to do that and how he might change his approach up a little bit in the next few years. We also talked about streaming and what it's been like from his perspective as someone that is acting in movies, acting in TV shows, writing and producing shows as well, and how it's been like navigating these streaming networks, what their goals and incentives are. What his goals and incentives are and what he has seen from others in this space. We also talked about his upcoming movie Confess, Fletch. It's out in theaters on September 16th. It stars Jon Hamm. This is a reboot of the classic Chevy Chase Fletch movies from the eighties. So we talked about what to expect there, what he's excited about and more. Roy's good people, man, plain and simple. If you listen to the last conversation that him and I had, you know that if you've watched anything he's ever done on The Daily Show, ever seen him perform standup, you know that as well. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it.

[00:02:30] Dan Runcie: All right. We are joined today by a return guest to the Trapital podcast, the one, the only, Roy Wood Jr. How are you doing man? 

[00:02:38] Roy Wood Jr.: You're back. I'm back. You're welcome. You're all welcome. I apologize in advance for my voice. There's things that happened this week that I did not plan on happening. And this is the result. It was either this or cancel, and I didn't want to cancel it. 

[00:02:54] Dan Runcie: No, I appreciate you. Hey, it's either this, or, you know, this is part of getting back on the road, right, 'cause I feel like the last time we talked, we were talking about what the other side of this whole pandemic was going to look like and what it was going to be like for comics returning to the stage. And now you're in it. What has it been like to return to the stage and with everything? 

[00:03:15] Roy Wood Jr.: What's wild is that I can't tell you too much. You know in 2022 I've only done four or five road gigs. Most of my gigs this year were COVID makeup dates from '21. So I've been blessed enough to be able to, you know, have a podcast that I'm able to do for myself, and sell a couple of scripts, and just create other revenue streams for myself, when the pressure to go back out on the road wasn't there. Also, creatively, I'm just in a different spot, bro. And I know that the stuff that I want to talk about, I don't know if the comedy club is the right place. It's part of the process creatively, but I just haven't been in a rush to get back out to figure it out yet, you know? It's been a really weird year for me in that the thing that I've done for 23 years is the thing that I did the least this year. And you know, that part of it's been really odd. It seems like the clubs are doing well though. You know, I still talk to a lot of comedians that are in the clubs because I'm still kind of that on the outside looking in. So I see all the comics who are touring, there's guys who I didn't know were headliners yet, but apparently, they are now. They're out there, they're doing their thing as well. So, you know, I'd say, all in all, it seems like the comedy club model got through it okay. But I don't know how sustainable it is as an entertainer to continue to be a part of this standup comedy model. You know, a lot of these new cats, you know, they're finding their own venues and they're figuring out their own way through the internet to get shit popping for themselves. But, you know, I will say this about standup. Since the shutdown, this idea of having one magical five-minute set on late night, and that being the thing that definitively becomes the new pivot point in your career, the likelihood of that happening is definitely less and less as the years go by.

[00:05:09] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I could only imagine how big of a life change it is for you. I remember you saying in the past, from when you started this once out of every 10 days, you were doing something on the road, right? Whether it was a standup show or something, and for you to be doing this completely different now, and just thinking about what the adapting is a complete life change, let alone anything on the business side of things.

[00:05:32] Roy Wood Jr.: Until the shutdown, until a federally mandated government shutdown, from 1998, I'd never gone more than 10 days without performing, period. 

[00:05:41] Dan Runcie: It's huge. 

[00:05:43] Roy Wood Jr.: And I've gone months. I look forward to it for months at a time. I don't have another gig right now. And I have a corporate gig in three months and I'm like, perfect, perfect because it gives me the time, it gives your brain the time to settle. I can only imagine, you know, when you look at guys like Chris Rock, who have said, you know, you need time to go away and live and see the world and experience things and have something to come back and report on. I understand that now.

[00:06:13] Dan Runcie: You also mentioned too, that there's material that you want to talk about, topics that you want to discuss that the stage may not be the best place for that. What are the things you want to discuss and why isn't the stage the best format? 

[00:06:27] Roy Wood Jr.: It's not the stage it's comedy club specifically. Like, alright, so I did Finding Your Roots over the shutdown and found out a lot of new truths about my father and, you know, some stuff on my mother's side, but as a father, myself, I often feel this attachment to my dad and then looking at how my father lost his dad when he was four. My granddaddy was gone when my dad was four. So when I think about that type of stuff, how that will inform the type of man that I will be to my son, and just family, and bonds, and the men who raise me in my father's absence. And there's jokes and there's stories, but as I figure out what the heart of the story is first before I make it funny, I don't know if the comedy club is always the right place for that because the comedy club, motherfucker, we want the jokes. I've been drinking. Me and my wife got dressed. I came here to be happy. You up there talking about your dead daddy and trying to figure out what that means for your son, motherfucker, I don't want to hear all that shit without jokes. So I think there's a place to go and develop that, you know, New York has a lot of different places, but also I think it's important for me to do my standup in venues other than comedy clubs because I think that sometimes, depending on the venue, you know, jazz club or black box, little theater or some improv house, I believe it changes how the material is received. You know, it changes how people listen to you sometimes. This is a terrible analogy and it's not going to be a perfect analogy, but it's like how food tastes better in church. You know, like when your grandma will pull a peppermint out of her purse, and she gave you that peppermint in the middle of a long ass church service, and that peppermint tasted like a pizza hu meat lovers. Like, it was just an amazing, so where we are sometimes can change the experience and the connection to the material. And so as I start mining this material, I'm going to have to figure out the best places to put it all together 'cause I feel like I'm teetering into some one-person show territory. And, you know, every comedian that I know that did a one-man show, you know, they didn't build it in a comedy club. You can sure present it at a comedy club, but you cannot build it there. That's why I've been meaning to talk to Jerrod to figure out where he built up Rothaniel 'cause, you know, that one was definitely a blend of the two skill sets. 

[00:08:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a good example of it. Just how he was able to be so raw, be so personal and different than anything he had done before leading up to this. I got to imagine, too, that part of this may also be linked with just the evolution of comedy and some of the other topics you've talked about recently and how people, especially nowadays, are looking for comedians to be truthsayers or they're also looking for them to be the ones that can tell them certain messages and how there's some people that believe that should be the case, but there's others that, I know you said this before, that it shouldn't necessarily be that way. So I feel like there's some of that that could also be potentially in line with some of the broader feeling about what is the best message to communicate where. 

[00:09:39] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. And I think once you figure that out as a performer, the people will come find you. You know, I don't really think it matters where you go once people love you, they will follow you to wherever, you know, so I think that's it. They went to a farm to see Chappelle. So you can come up with different venues, you know, once you have the ideas that are worth hearing. So it's my job first to get the ideas together.

[00:10:02] Dan Runcie: Right, yeah. There's something about that comedy club setting, like you said. You're going with your significant other, you got the two-drink minimum. No, like I'm trying to get these laughs out that just doesn't, that works there. That doesn't necessarily translate elsewhere that could obviously work to your benefit going elsewhere. 

[00:10:18] Roy Wood Jr.: You can get deep in a comedy club, but you really have to stack the show properly. The people have to know who they're coming to see. And I'm still a comedian where, you know, with The Daily Show, unfortunately, this is a lot of people's first discovery point for me. So you don't know the previous 15, 16 years before I got with Trevor. So, you know, even those people come to a show and they want me to be a little more political than what I am on this show. And I'm like, sorry, that's not who I am. That's not what I do. So even within the construct of just regular standup, they still want something more specific. So, you know, it's about just figuring out, you know, the right places for that. But if you put that person in a setting they've never been to before, well, now you don't know what to expect. And I just think it just changes how you see and analyze things a little bit. You know, I'm going to try to experiment with, you know, different venues in '23.

[00:11:15] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. You mentioned the politics piece of it, too, and just , given what you and Trevor are doing on The Daily Show, people coming to you for that. But I assume part of it also is channeling back to that truthsayer thing and seeing some of the things that Chappelle and others have talked about. Do you think that the way the current climate is that when people are expecting you to speak on these things, do you think that this changes and continues to evolve, or do you feel like this is kind of the place that things are right now? 

[00:11:45] Roy Wood Jr.: I don't think that the role of comedian has changed. I think that the expectations of a comedian have changed. Some for the better some for the worse, but I can't think of any one standup comedian that I know that is, like, set and looked themselves in the mirror, okay, today these jokes are going to change everyone's and change the world. You know, comics are more outspoken. Comics are more, you know, quicker to say what they feel on stage, especially the young ones, which is good. But I don't feel like when people say this climate, the climate is about the people reacting to what the comedian said, but most of these comedians that people get mad at, they've been saying shit like this for a long as time. But they're groups of people that have decided, you know what? I want to hear that shit no more. So they got something to say and they got a right to that. But I think at the end of the day, I don't think comedians have changed. I mean, Louis C.K. Back, he's cooking. Chappelle got another three special re-up from Netflix after all of the outrage or whatever. So that should show you where the corporations stand. And for as long as you are an entertainer that has an audience of some sort, you know, they're going to find a place for you regardless of whether or not that pisses off another group of people. You know, that's just kind of where we've always existed as a society. It's capitalism, baby. 

[00:13:10] Dan Runcie: Does part of you see someone like, let's take Chappelle, 'cause you had mentioned him, him still getting these deals even after the backlash or even after the response. Does some of that almost feel like, okay, we're not necessarily just responding to what people may get mad at, there's still clearly an opportunity or there's still people that want to hear what we have to say, even if the expectations from our viewers have changed? 

[00:13:35] Roy Wood Jr.: I think that as a society, you know, it is very difficult to place the expectation of morality and profit on a corporation. Most corporations have to choose between one or the other. And when I say profitability, you know, we're talking gross levels of profitability. I don't think many companies care to a certain degree about people in general. You know, this is bigger than just entertainment and whether or not you can say something that pisses off a group of people. Delta Airlines just started paying their flight attendants for when the plane doors open and they're boarding passengers. It's nothing moral. There's nothing moral about that, but it's definitely profitable. And only when it became embarrassing, which is not profitable, that they become a company with morals. If you can't attach profitability to morality, more often than not, you're not going to find a corporation that's going to make moves like that. I'm not surprised that Netflix gave Chappelle more specials for the amount of people that were mad at it, clearly, somebody was watching it and this is Netflix. Netflix cancels shit while you are in the middle of watching the episode. The second episode of a 10-episode show will come out and Netflix about, yes, cancel. What? Damn, can I finish? Season one? Nah, we've already looked at the metrics of the first episode that tells us everything we need to know. So, you know, that's a company that, you know, like people say that, oh, it's a FU to the LGBTQI community. It's definitely a slight to them for them to rebook Chappelle after they had said what they said and everybody had protested, whatever, whatever. But also Netflix is a company and that's about profit, which means somebody was watching Chappelle. And that's all they care about. That's all most companies care about is eyeballs. So, you know, unless you're getting into just straight-up criminalistic behavior of someone, morality versus profit is always going to be a tug of war that most corporations, they just do not have the heart that people do.

[00:15:34] Dan Runcie: That's real. That's real. I mean, and even thinking about Chappelle specifically, because of how Netflix tracks the performance, a lot of the backlash likely helps those episodes because you have some that are tuning in because they want to hear what he has to say. But you have others tuning in because now they want to see or hear what he said that is causing all of these headlines.

[00:15:55] Roy Wood Jr.: And that's all Netflix cares about. So the surprise on the backside is that can you believe this company didn't care? Yes, I can absolutely believe this company didn't care because more often than not most companies don't care. And that goes into women's rights, that goes into race, and George Floyd, and every company putting up black lives matter, whatever the fuck on the top of their website, and black squares and Instagram. So, you know, when it comes to a bevy of social, it is just, you know, it's interesting because corporations are now rocking a heart because now being moral. if it's profitable and cool, they'll jump on board. But if it's not, they're kind of like, eh, we'll see.

[00:16:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. You've experienced this, you've worked with a number of these networks and seen the decisions that you've made. How has this impacted you at all with any of the partnerships you've made? I know you have the deal with Comedy Central that you've had. I know you had a special that came out with them, but we'll talk about that in a second. But how has that been with regards to you, and your specials, and your content, and how that works for you, both with the things that you want to do with the networks, and how you're able to still produce and create? 

[00:17:05] Roy Wood Jr.: You know, from the standup side, you know, it's fine. We're Comedy Central. You know, we had a, I call it The Trilogy. I had my first three-hour specials with Comedy Central and they were good. And now, as I think about what that next block of content will be, you know, we'll figure out where that's supposed to go once I figure out creatively, what the fuck it's going to be? But, you know, on the scripted side and selling scripts, I've been very blessed to have opportunities to sell stuff, not just the Comedy Central, but you know, Fox and NBC in the last couple of years and HBO Max as well. but the thing is that it's very difficult to predict how COVID is going to affect a network's creative strategy when it comes to scripted, you know. Like scripted is, that's where the glory is. That's where the fun is, right? But, you know, I had one script, Jefferson County: Probation. Aaron Magruder was my, you know, executive producer and co-creator on it. And as soon as we got the script together and shot the pilot, there was a merger between Viacom and CBS and they changed their strategy. And then right after that COVID hit and they changed their strategy again. And at both of those mile markers, scripted shows were the first things to get cut from the budget because they're the most expensive. So the pressure to be profitable fast or to have a cultural impact fast is greater now on the content that, you know, that we have because the thing that I don't like about Netflix is that what streaming has removed from our zeitgeist is the concept of a cult hit. You know, like a cult hit TV show. Cult is just a nice way of saying underground and not a lot of people watch it, but the ones who watch it really, really love it. But there are shows that sometimes do not pop until season three. Sometimes season four and it takes people a while to get on board, but then you have a network that has creative execs who want to stay in that pocket. And now we believe in this show. We're going to give it another season, give it another season, give it another season. This don't happen with black shows. I'm talking about Arrested Development and you know, shit like that. And maybe The Wire, if you want to count that as a cult hit. But I feel like The Wire was more by the time they got to season four, everybody was on board, but at that point, HBO was like, wrap it up. Streaming, the analytics that are attached to streaming companies deciding whether or not a scripted show lives or dies has eliminated the ability for certain shows to germinate over a year or two, and really have an opportunity to find their audience, get the word of mouth. Everything is now, now, now. And so because of that, you know, where scripted is concerned, you have to have an idea that pops now, that sails, now that gets on TV now. And if you're really lucky, it also touches the vein of what is happening in the now. That's why Abbott Elementary is what it is. You have a great creator. You have a great writer. It's well cast, it's shot beautifully, it's funny, but also educators are at the forefront of a lot of the bullshit that's been going on the last two years. It's perfectly on the pulse. It's perfectly on the pulse. So, you know, word of mouth isn't enough. You also have to have the numbers. And so, you know, I'd say that for me, when it comes to coming up with scripted content, you almost have to find something that lives. You have to have the idea that lives at multiple intersections, because if it's just a fun, cool, nice idea. That might not be enough anymore. That's 2015 ideology. 

[00:20:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The closest thing that seems like it's comparable to that cult classic of discovering it seasons later is when something gets picked up from a smaller network and then gets put on one of these big streamers. For instance, I'm thinking about South Side. Season Two. It's on HBO Max. And I think that made a lot of people that weren't watching South Side Season One discover it. 

[00:20:57] Roy Wood Jr.: Correct. Like, there's a show that was on in Canada that came over to Netflix called Kim's Convenience and that was a fucking hilarious sitcom that somebody like me, I would've never discovered had it not come over to, but it had to live over in Canada for two years. But you need execs who care about the IP and care about the idea. And a lot of these execs are under the same pressure as the creatives. You better be bringing this studio, some hit shows and you better be signing and buying scripts from the best creators 'cause if you aren't and we don't have a hit, if we're not getting nominations, and we're not getting talked about it's your ass, too. So if you have an exec that is betting on a show, that's just has midling numbers versus just canceling it, and bringing in something new, there's also job security in that for them as well. And I think that's why, you know, to a degree, you know, you don't see shows that get an opportunity to build and grow their audience, either you a hit out the gate or you got a target on your back. 

[00:21:57] Dan Runcie: The other challenging thing about this is knowing what those numbers are and whether or not the streaming services are sharing them with you. From your perspective as someone that is doing the scripts, selling shows, do you feel like you're getting any true quantitative aspect to be able to compare and say, okay, I see what I would've been able to hit or what the target is or how that compares, 'cause that's the piece that feels so non-transparent at all right now.

[00:22:26] Roy Wood Jr.: That part of the game is still above my pay grade because I haven't gotten anything that's gone to series. I've sold a bunch of scripts that have all gone to pilot and most have gone to pilot at least. But even with the stuff over at Comedy Central, you know, we're on basic cable. So it's Nielsen. So, you know, that's more above board than companies giving their streaming numbers. But I wouldn't even be able to speak to that, unfortunately. I hope to be able to one day, but not today. 

[00:22:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. There was some interview I had seen it was Steven Soderbergh or someone like that. And he was like, I have no idea how well these movies do. They literally just tell me, yes, this was good. You can make another one or no, we're all set. Thanks. And he's just like, okay, then that's when he decides to make another movie. 

[00:23:08] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, that part of it, yeah, you are totally flying blind as a creator. You know, at some point there's going to have to be some equity in this, but, hey, sooner or later, all of these streaming sites are just going to keep merging and folding into one another. It's like airlines in the eighties. Go Google up how many different airline carriers we had in the eighties. And then here we are now with United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, and, what, American. Spirit and JetBlue emerging. So, okay, so you'll have, what, four or five major carriers? In the eighties, there was like, well, over 30. I could Google it real quick, but I know for sure I can name 15 airline companies from the eighties and I bet you the numbers are higher than that. 

[00:23:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's that whole industry. Even the big ones have done so many consolidations, even in the past 20, 25 years, they've done a bunch. It's been wild. 

[00:23:59] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. My point is that all those streamers are going to eventually all keep folding into each other and it's going to be basic cable all over again. 

[00:24:05] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. And I think, too, even how they're making decisions is starting to stand out. I'm sure you saw the Batgirl news when the movie's done, they just decide not to run that thing and just put it as a write-off. That's not going to be the last time that happens. 

[00:24:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. It's literally cheaper to not release this because the landscape keeps changing, bro. My heart goes out to that whole team. They are crushed about that. You know, as they should, but you work hard on a film, spend 90 million, at least you could do is put it out. But, you know, I just think that, you know, corporations like it's, again, it's profit. The right thing to do would've been to release the Batgirl film, but if projections and analytics have already told you that this film more than likely will underperform in the top tier markets where we need it to perform above money, profitability, it ain't profitable. Morality ain't profitable, man. So fuck them folks. We ain't going to release the film. Oh, but we should, they worked really hard. It's a black woman get to be black. We don't give a fuck. Cancel it. That's how a lot of places think, man. And you know, as they say, the game is the game, but that don't make it right. That don't make it hurt less. I just think that that's where a lot of companies are coming from, you know. They want bankable stars or an idea that's high concept and easy and quick and catches on. I still think that, you know, when you look at a show like Squid Game, which was such a breakout, you know, hit for Netflix, I think that the new superstar is the ensemble. You know, if you can't get a single star to carry your thing, then you need a great idea with a bunch of people nobody knows anything about. And then that's how you get people to invest, get people to invest in the concept and not the face.

[00:25:47] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I can see that because I feel like there's so many big-name movies that you see on Netflix and they have all of these actors that you would consider to be A-list, but they come and go. But yeah, the magic of Squid Game is that it didn't have that, but it had this fascinating topic that people just wanted to have more and more of. It created a bunch of memes. And I'm sure not only they're trying to create a sequel, they're trying feel like, okay, what is the next thing like that that's going to take off. And sometimes it's random. I mean, I don't know if people thought that Queen's Gambit was going to take off the way that it did or any of those things. I feel like Netflix, especially, it feels like it could be very, you know, we'll see what happens.

[00:26:27] Roy Wood Jr.: I mean, when you look at shows that have sustainability and have expanded their universes, like Power, there isn't a single actor in Power that is such a behemoth. Like, and I don't say that as a slight, it's an extremely talented cast of wonderful A-list actors. But when you look at how they try to anchor a show around one person, where Power is, it's always been a universe of people all working together. Of course, you have Mary J and Method Man in it, but it's not Mary J and Method Man alone to, it's not Joseph Sikora alone. Abbott is an ensemble cast. It's not a singular person. And so I think that concept will, I don't know, man. Why do you think people get so excited when Idris Elba comes back to do another round of Luther? It's 'cause, oh, my God, it's him. You get Idris every scene being badass, but he's busy, he's got movies to do and stuff. So I just think creatively, we're probably in a world where, you know, by and large, I feel like we'll just see more and more, you know, larger groups of people unless you have a network willing to pour millions of dollars into one person. You know, I don't know.

[00:27:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think, too, we talked a little bit about how this is part of the evolution. Part of it, too, they want to have something that's quick to capture people's attention. And I think some of this has impacted how comics, and you as well, have talked about how it may approach your shows and how you're delivering certain information. And I know you've talked a lot about both the balance of having the timely topics, of talking about something that's current versus having those evergreen things that you need to, or you want to be able to tap into. And I feel like, you know, why actually Imperfect Messenger, you did a good job of that with just being able to balance things, you know, whether you're talking about current topics or just evergreen things. How conscious is that when you're thinking about the topics that you want to cover in a special?

[00:28:22] Roy Wood Jr.: Well, for Imperfect Messenger, my comedic philosophy up until now, it has changed now 'cause I want to talk about myself and not the world. But the creative excavation process of a joke for me boils down to what is everybody saying about this topic. And is there anything new I can say? And if the answer is yes, then I continue down that road of exploration and then I put that joke on stage and then the best jokes win. As I like to call it, those are the jokes that make the 25-man roster, like baseball. Like, these are the start. 12- man, if you want to go basketball. So, you know, if the argument is A and B, is there a C side to it that I can introduce? Like if you look at my second special, No One Loves You, where I talk about the national anthem and the debate at the time with Kaepernick was should people stand for the anthem or should you take a knee? And my angle was why is that song the anthem? That song sucks. And then an exploration into what songs could replace it. What, if you won't stand for that song, is there a song that people would stand for? And so that's kind of my approach, you know, to a lot of this. You know, and if we're going to talk about Imperfect Messenger and we talk about policing and, you know, the issues that lie in policing in America now. Okay, fine. It's going to take bureaucracy and a lot of bullshit to try and get that changed. But in the meantime, in the interim, what are the small things cops could do to help? And then the joke is just essentially, a run of those things. You know, every now and then just let a black person, someone who should have gone to jail, let them go. If there's Stop Talking in Code on the radio, I forget my material. Like, literally the night I do a special, that material just turns into Thanos dust in my brain. But for me. That's how I've always tried to approach standup and my material rather than just arguing from the conventional positions that have already been presented to everybody because if nothing more, I want you to leave with a different perspective. I'm not trying to be right or wrong. I am just trying to make sure that you get something that you hadn't considered. 

[00:30:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I always got that impression. I feel like that's a good example. I also think about, from Imperfect Messenger, your piece about Leonardo DiCaprio and Django Unchained and even though that movie, you know, I think like eight years ago at that point, still everyone knows exactly who you're talking about. It's timely. It's not dated in this way of a comedian still referencing, you know, pop culture from the nineties, but you have it. And you're able to weave that in with everything that's happening. And I feel like even though that was a movie that was a few years older, you're still relating it to all the topics we're talking about now, like allyship and all those things. So I feel like people may not see the subtleties, but when you really break it down, you can see how much goes into constructing a good joke.

[00:31:08] Roy Wood Jr.: I appreciate that, man, 'cause you get paranoid about that type of stuff, 'cause you don't want to be dated, but are there evergreen examples of a point that I'm trying to make that could help me parallel and boil this down, you know, a little bit more? You know, that special was also very interesting because the story that I told near the end about a childhood friend that's in prison for the murder of a person I know, but, you know, he was the getaway driver. You know, like that was a joke. He was a getaway driver in a robbery that turned into a murder is what actually happened in real life. And so he never went in the store, but in Alabama, the law is set up where everybody gets the murder charge. If a murder happens while your crime is being committed. And that joke was set up in a way where it was really about him and the sentencing and how it's all messed up and blah, blah, blah. But you know, there's part of me that's, you know, I love Birmingham. I love Birmingham, Alabama. I love the people there. And I've tried, you know, for the entirety of my career since 2001, when I came home and started at the radio station and started doing stuff in the community with the radio station. I've always tried to be a person that's of the community. And so that joke carries a different level of responsibility when I'm home because everyone remembers that murder. Everyone remembers Mr. Muhammad being murdered at the Music-N-More store and that man was a pillar of the community. So if I'm going to speak on his legacy, there's got to be balance to that. And you know what. I probably should reach out to his family before I put this on national television. And so when I did that and I had a conversation with his son, it completely shifted what that joke was and it made it the right version of what that joke needed to be. And that's the thing that I really enjoy. And it's part of really what's triggered so much more of where I am now creatively because that just wasn't an A, B, and C observation. This was a legitimate issue that I was having within myself of feeling like my friend should not be in prison for the rest of his life for being an accomplice, but also feeling empathy for the family, because I knew them. Like, they carry my CD and I'll spare the story here, but in the special, you know, I tell the story of my relationship with this store as an independent music artist, like this store supported local rappers and, like, they help people kickstart their career. So it's not as cut and dry. So when you look at a law, like, the one that Alabama has set up and then you start talking to the victims, then you start understanding why these laws are in place. And so that will always be my favorite joke isn't the word, but it's definitely the most honest joke that I've told on television to this point. 

[00:34:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, definitely link it to this one to make sure that people can see it, that or listening to this episode right now and just bringing it all full circle. I can see how this is informing the type of content or the type of message that you want to be able to push forward, whether you're telling it in a different setting, whether you're finding new ways to tell it, it has been really cool to see how so many of our favorite comedians have been able to find new ways to be able to share different messages or even things that they may have to give a little piece of and seen that that's where they want to move more into for the next stage of their career. So I'm excited for that. 

[00:34:43] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, it's going to be fun. You know, it's going to be fun, talking more about my father, my relationship with him talking about, you know, raising my own child. My son is six. So you know, that is definitely a new and scary place to be as a parent. But yeah, yeah, I'm excited about what's down the road, but I'm just not in a position anymore where I feel like I need to rush. You know, I was very blessed, but also probably very crazy. I put out three one-hour specials over the span of five years. That's a pretty healthy clip, you know? So I feel like I should go sit my ass down somewhere for a second and really think about, you know, what it is I want to say and what I'm trying to do. 

[00:35:24] Dan Runcie: What's your son's relationship with your comedy? Is it something that he goes and checks back in looking back at old clips, just to see the history of where you came to things, or is he not allowed to look at all that just yet?

[00:35:37] Roy Wood Jr.: He might catch me on the couch every blue moon watching old episodes of The Daily Show. Like, I binge our show every week, 'cause I don't get to always watch it every night 'cause of whatever's going on. So he may pop in and see me on television. Like, if you ask my son what his father does for a living, he'll say my dad works on TV and he's a comedian. Like, he knows that much. He's been with me to sound checks early in the afternoon for, you know, theater shows and stuff. But the idea of bringing him around this and exposing him to it for the sake of this is what you're going to do, this's a family business. Nah, not really. I'd like for him to see some of the cameramen and the editors and the computer stuff. I don't think my son will be a comedian because he has two loving parents, which is already the worst thing that could happen to a comedian. To be a good comedian, you can't have both of your parents love you. What trauma you got? We want to know what's wrong with you. 

[00:36:32] Dan Runcie: Right. What is the source of the comedy then?

[00:36:35] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, so we're trying to raise him as pain-free as possible. So I think that's going to make him ineligible for most comedy clubs. 

[00:36:41] Dan Runcie: maybe he'll go back and look at the old stuff. He'll go back to that. You know, the Last Comic Standing run, then he'll come back to see, okay, all right. I can see this trajectory here. I can see what dad's been up to. 

[00:36:52] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. I mean, he's funny. He has a sense of humor. He's cognizant of that, but it's not something I encourage or discourage. It's just, you know, whatever you feel like doing today, bro. Then that's what you're going to do. Like right now he's into the BattleBots. So let's watch and do things that are related to mechanics and STEM and see where that goes.

[00:37:10] Dan Runcie: I'm hearing a lot from you in this conversation that talks a lot about both mentorship and the relationship that you have with others in your life, especially family members and important figures. And I know that from a comedian perspective, Dick Gregory was an important person in your life. And you had referenced in a past interview life-changing conversation you had had with him and it would be great to hear a little bit more about what that conversation was like and how that changed, how you ended up approaching comedy. 

[00:37:39] Roy Wood Jr.: I only saw Dick Gregory, I only opened for him twice. And the first time was in Selma at the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. It was a banquet that he and Jesse Jackson were speaking at. And then the other time was in, I opened for him proper in a comedy club in Zanies in Nashville. And he said something that just always resonated with me. You know, I'm butchering the quote, but he said people always ask me, Dick, why you always on the road? Why are you always out of town? And I said, because the battle for justice ain't at my house. And so that always stuck with me in terms of his tenacity right up till the end. You know, he died the way that, that every comedian wants to die and that's with dates on the books. I think it's the biggest compliment that, you know, any comedian can have is to die with still having more work and gigs scheduled because you got to get the message out there. You got to make people laugh. You got to try to heal people. In Dick Gregory's case, you know, he was doing things that were far above and beyond just telling a couple of shuck and jive jokes about police reform. This man was out there really doing the work, you know, concurrent. This man would have had a full itinerary all day and then go do two shows on a Friday night. It's not like he was just posted up in the hotel, watching Maury Povich till 7:30. So, you know, when I look at his career and everything that he did, that was a beautiful thing to see. It was a beautiful thing to see a dude knocking on 80 that was just at a comedy club on a Friday night, and it's 350 people ready to pay him and ready to hear what he has to say. And to be able to still say things that are resonant and that are on the pulse of what people are feeling, you can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour. And, you know, I saw Dick Gregory do that twice and Selma was even more amazing 'cause he did it from a podium and I cannot explain to anybody how hard it is to do standup comedy from a podium. Jokes do not go over a podium, lectern, whatever the hell you want to call it don't matter. The jokes don't go over it. The moment you standing at one of them damn things, you look like a preacher and none of your jokes are funny, but Dick Gregory demolished, demolished, it was a good time. 

[00:40:19] Dan Runcie: That's special, yeah. He's someone that always stuck out in a unique way with everything that he did. So and I think a lot about that, even with artists or anyone that's performing on stage, if you can still do this when you're 70, 80 years old, that's where the real magic comes. And I know many of the younger artists now want to get there and it's great to see. I think, you know, you're in a generation of comedians that I think are going to be doing the same thing as well., 

[00:40:44] Roy Wood Jr.: Trying to, that's what I'm trying to get to. 

[00:40:48] Dan Runcie: All right. Well, before we let you go, we do got to talk about the film that you have coming out, Confess, Fletch out in theaters September 16th. And I have to ask, you're a detective in this film, you're opposite Jon Hamm, is Jon Hamm, a white ally that we could trust in this movie? 

[00:41:07] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, yeah, in the movie. Yeah, I'd say in real life as well. I'll go ahead and hang that on him. No, it's dope. I also had to give a shout-out to our director, Greg Mottola, and Greg, you know, really worked to create something that totally feels different from the bright lights and the big demonstrative jokes that were the eighties Chevy Chase version of this character. And so, you know, it plays right into Jon Hamm's warehouse. I'm just happy. I got to play a cop in Boston and they didn't force me to do a Boston accent 'cause that would've been insulting. That would've been very terrible. 

[00:41:39] Dan Runcie: Was that a conversation at all? Did anyone even broach, Hey, should you try to do this? Or should we, 'cause I know that Jon Hamm with The Town and all that stuff, I know he's done it before. 

[00:41:48] Roy Wood Jr.: It was breached briefly during my audition and at the audition, they said don't even try it. We've watched a tape on you. I'm like, well, just let me know if you wanted the cop to be from Alabama. I can nail that one, man.

[00:42:02] Dan Runcie: Sometimes I feel bad. The ones that they try to do, like, when Anthony Anderson was in The Departed, love Anthony Anderson, but I feel like they try to make everybody in that movie. What was it, Mystic River, I feel like that was another one where they try to have everyone do a Boston accent. I'm like, all right. I don't know, you know. Let's have a few signature characters maybe, and I think everyone else is fine. 

[00:42:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. Yeah. It was fine. It was definitely a good time. It was a good shoot, you know I think just murder- mystery- comedy, you know, I think it feels light enough and fun enough in these times. And so, you know, we don't get too woke in it and I know everybody is scared of the woke and the woke mob is coming. A, it's a cop trying to catch a criminal or a guy that he thinks is a criminal. It's a cop trying to solve a murder and a private detective trying to solve the murder as well. So, you know, I think it's a good film. 

[00:42:48] Dan Runcie: And we talked a lot in this conversation about streaming and everything releasing there. This is not debuting on streaming, out in theaters, available on demand as well. Did that change to the creation process at all? Or does that change your relationship at all with this movie? 

[00:43:05] Roy Wood Jr.: No. I think that it'll be interesting to see how quickly people see it and when and where. You know, I do think that coming out on demand, in addition to theaters, I think it only helps word of mouth and I think it still brings profits for the film itself. So, you know, in that regard, you know, I think it'll be fine. But when you make the movie you're, as an actor, my job is to just make the movie y'all can figure out the rest of that shit after, you know, two months from now in post-production, you can decide how many theaters and blah, blah, blah, and all of that. 

[00:43:34] Dan Runcie: Exciting stuff. Well, we'll definitely look out for that, but Roy, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for coming on, keeping it real as always. And if people want to follow you and stay in touch with everything you're doing, where can they find you?

[00:43:46] Roy Wood Jr.: Oh, it's Roy Wood Jr. I put an @ sign in front, .com on the backside. Also visit me online, my podcast, roysjobfair.com. 

[00:43:54] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Appreciate you, man. Thanks again. 

[00:43:56] Roy Wood Jr.: All right, will do.

[00:43:58] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

TikTok has reshaped the Internet in under a three-year span, but if its parent company, ByteDance, has its way, the platform’s dominance is just getting started. This week I brought Stan founder Denisha Kuhlor back onto the show to discuss TikTok’s ambitious plans for total media domination.

In the past few months, TikTok has announced plans for several new features — each aimed at competing with current media giants such as Google, Spotify, and Ticketmaster. Features include extending video-length capacity to 10 minutes, the TikTok Music streaming service, better internal search capabilities, and a ticketing platform, among many others.

Recent history in Western culture is not kind to companies trying to be an all-in-one platform. Google and Facebook stumbles come to mind. To predict how TikTok might fare, Denisha and I hit the new features point-by-point, weighing TikTok’s advantages and disadvantages at breaking into each. Here’s our main talking points: 

[0:50] TikTok’s masterplan

[7:02] Prediction: 10-minute-long TikTok videos

[11:50] Prediction: TikTok music streaming service

[15:43] Prediction: Enhanced TikTok search

[22:00] Prediction: SoundOn music distribution

[25:42] Prediction: In-app ticketing 

[29:46] Are consumers creator or platform loyal?

[33:18] TikTok’s impact on creator economy 

[37:22] TikTok’s geopolitical issues

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Denisha Kuhlor, @denishakuhlor

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Denisha Kuhlor: It has become this trend where we have more affinity to the platform and the platform's ability to curate the content than some of these content creators themselves. And in a world where I think these content creators are so driven to following the algorithm and getting promoted by the algorithm, what they don't realize is kind of the uniformity in content that is created.  

[00:00:30] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:50] Dan Runcie: All right. We're joined again today by Denisha Kuhlor, who is the founder and CEO of Stan. And today we're going to talk all about TikTok. And TikTok has been a topic I know you and I have talked about offline, we've both covered it and have our opinions on it, but I want to talk today about talk's grand plan to try to take over everything. Just to name a few headlines from the past couple of months, TikTok is planning to extend into 10-minute long videos. It is launching its own music distribution service called SoundOn. It filed a trademark for its own streaming service called TikTok Music. They are enhancing their search function to identify key terms. They're also adding in a text-to-image option as well so that people can start to do that. And it sounds like a lot, the company has grown quite a bit, so it's understandable. But do we think that TikTok is going to be able to do all of these things? What's your thought? 

[00:01:47] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. So TikTok's been really interesting to watch these last few months and honestly, really from inception, my initial hunch is that it's hard to do a lot of things well. And as TikTok grows and somewhat through replication and also a bit through innovation, I do think they're going to struggle to really get to scale for all the new features that they want to launch. 

[00:02:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the tough thing with this, and it's something that has been ingrained with big tech companies for a while is when the big social network grows and they have this huge following. TikTok now is the fastest to reach 1 billion monthly active users. We can see the trajectory of it potentially getting to be as big as Facebook is now. And Facebook, of course, is another company that has tried and is still trying to do every possible thing under the sun. But I think the part that's important is there are a few examples when these companies have succeeded. Instagram copying Snapchat is of course the primary example that people often look back to, but more often than not, most of these attempts don't actually work that well. And one of the reasons they don't work as well is because they don't necessarily solve a true need that the core users are looking for to be solved from that app. And I think that's one of the important things about Instagram Story specifically because Instagram Stories copy Snapchat worked because Instagram already had a hub of influencers as its core users. And these core users wanted to be able to both post pictures, but they also didn't want to feel the pressure of needing to have this polished picture that was on their feed all of the time. So their thought was, okay, if they could copy this feed that they see Snapchat's doing, they already had the core users there and having something that's more ephemeral. It can go away in 24 hours was perfect. It worked as good as you could probably expect it to. And honestly, it worked better than Snapchat because Instagram already had the home base of those core users whereas Snapchat, at the time, they had a bit of penetration from Gen Z, a bit of DJ Khaled here and there, but it just wasn't to that same level. And I think when you look at a lot of the other attempts that Facebook has tried to copy from others and even Instagram as well with seeing with Reels, that's the piece that I go back to. If these successes and these copycat attempts haven't worked, it's usually because there's some type of disconnect between what the core users on that app are looking for and whether or not that new feature helps them do that.

[00:04:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Totally. And I think it creates a culture even internally for these organizations of duplication versus innovation, right? So now you see these organizations going and seeking the desire to duplicate and get to market as quickly as possible, whereas before they had no choice but to be innovative. And to do that, I think they really had to listen to their users and the folks on the app. So it also just even changes, in a way, the culture of what the app is about because now folks are so used to see or expecting to see things that have already been done before, rather than excitement towards really where the platform could take things. 

[00:05:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's interesting because, on one hand, I do understand the aspect of copying what's already successful. You see it's there and you know that you have those users on your platform already. So why not make an attempt, why not use your resources, especially because of how much money these companies print on ads, then, yeah, you could take the chance with Google having its Google X or Facebook opening up its own VC firm or in many ways, treating all these new initiatives as its own VC firm. But to your point, you do lose the innovation and that's exactly why these apps became relevant in the first place. They offered something newer. They did it in a truly unique way. And when you think about why TikTok has blown up, the genius of it is that For You page. They made it so frictionless to be able to stay entertained, to scroll. You don't have to think about who to follow. You don't need to do any of those things. And that is its biggest strength, but I think it also makes it very challenging to have any type of new feature that is harder or requires more user- input or more activity than the mindless scrolling that has worked in its favor up to this point.

[00:06:11] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like the For You page really was the magic and to, in some ways, see them stray away from that, or even improving that in other ways does feel a little unfortunate. Some of the features that you listed, while exciting, I think are just not necessary in the sense that so many other folks are out there doing it. But it will be interesting to see how it fits within maybe the grand scheme or the grand vision for TikTok users and creators. I mean, when it comes down to maybe offering a more seamless experience, then it gets a little bit more interesting. But how big of a problem is that right now for creators, especially when you think about, like, some of the plays towards distribution and features around that? The problems don't seem prevalent enough to justify the investment. But maybe there's a grand vision within all of that, in which it makes more sense. 

[00:07:02] Dan Runcie: So let's break those down. Let's go through each of 'em. Let's start first with TikTok extending into 10-minute videos. I do feel like this is probably the least friction out of each of them, but what's your thought on this expansion and clearly a move to compete more directly with YouTube? 

[00:07:18] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think this one is interesting because it really, in some ways, is probably the least painful in the sense that if content is compelling enough, you could argue that an individual is just going to keep watching, if the initial, you know, piece of content is compelling enough. What actually is, like, somewhat fascinating to me is that in some ways you could argue that TikTok took away or has hindered people's ability to focus for that long of time. So going to like the corollary of now having 10-minute videos, I do think will be interesting 'cause it's like a different habit, right? Even just focusing on something for 10 minutes versus like 6 seconds is a very different habit. So to see how or to see what type of users actually adapt to that, I think it will be interesting. I do think though there'll probably be some niche communities that emerge as a result of that feature who do want to take deep dives much to content, right? There's folks that like read casually about the music industry and then folks that like really, I think, deep dive, much as a testament to Trapital's content. And so I do think, like, some interesting, like, subsections of the feature will rise. However, I think the bulk of the users aren't even, like, able to watch a video for that long.

[00:08:33] Dan Runcie: I think that if it is extending the videos into that length, I agree with you. This is the least friction one. I think it does have the highest likelihood of success. But if I'm thinking about music videos specifically or something that ends up being at least that length, it changes the format to look like what the videos for the most successful YouTubers often look like and the science that goes behind that. I'm picturing what NBA YoungBoy does in the beginning of his videos or even someone like MrBeast. There's some hook there that gives you some tease and that keeps you engaged, just to make sure that you end up watching the whole thing to see what it is. So I feel like if artists start creating music videos or start creating videos in general to be more like 10 minutes. And I think the format of how those videos look will be a lot different and everything will be how do we keep people engaged so that, okay, if we keep them for the first 15 seconds, how do you get them for the next 15 seconds and after that. Like, you can't have these long buildups that I think you can have for certain types of videos on YouTube, just give the audience. But I think it will change things in that format. No different than when MTV blew up, there was a type of video vibe that people tried to go after. I think that if this is the route that TikTok is really trying to go. I think we may see videos lead more into that where, yeah, everyone does start creating videos where you may look like you're trying to be a YouTuber. You're trying to be a TikTok dancer, whatever it is. But I feel like that's where it could head if it's as successful as it could be. 

[00:10:04] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, that's actually really interesting in the sense that a lot of folks, like, point to their desire to use TikTok because it does feel like less polished, in a way more authentic. I was listening to a podcast where a TikToker says she makes more content on TikTok because she has to like, yeah, just be less prepared in a way or prepare herself to get on TikTok in the way you would for on Instagram. So I think if that does happen, it'll probably have an effect they don't want, which is a longer timeline to people creating and posting content. And like, just a harder barrier to entry because now folks will feel like, well, I don't have all the things needed to start a TikTok or to really start posting on TikTok, which is really against, I think what the platform did in its early days. 

[00:10:50] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah, you're right. That whole instant, making it easy as possible is part of it. It almost brings me back to Vine to an extent. Maybe that's a better comparison for what this looks like 'cause of course someone like a MrBeast or NBA YoungBoy, they have big teams at this point. But some would be able to take a Vine and having this whole narrative story in that 6-second, 7-second clip, maybe it's getting a bit back to that. But even that takes time and there's clearly a difference between that. And, you know, while Vine was popular, it didn't blow up the way that TikTok has blown up. So I feel like you're right. It may change the app in a way that users aren't ready for. But we'll see. I obviously know that this is kind of what happens when you're trying to do everything. You're going to risk having some type of frustration that comes from the core users. 

[00:11:37] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Much to your point, I do think there will be a really active, like, community or communities around that in which like 10 minutes of content works really well and TikTok is just like an easy medium to do that 

[00:11:50] Dan Runcie: For sure. All right. The second one here, this one I will be interested to dive into. TikTok Music and TikTok filing this trademark. It clearly wants to launch its own music streaming service. We had heard rumors about ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, wanting to do this, but how do you see this one playing out?

[00:12:09] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, this one, I just kind of felt like, okay, like another music streaming service You know, one, I don't think people realize or really think through just like how complex streaming services are as a business. I mean, thankfully, you know, a lot of platforms have kind of, pioneered some of the heavy lifting that came with making deals with labels and really like getting the content onto the platform. But that's all still to be said that it's a very unique and complex business model that's driven on another party, right? And how another party feels about giving you access to your content? What does seem somewhat interesting about it is, in the same way that TikTok democratizes content creation and the barrier to entry to post, you could probably argue that it in a way, democratizes that for music, and so more artists are able to get more volume or traction as a result. And so I do think if they focus on maybe content from newer creators or newer musicians who don't necessarily have some of that on the platform, that could be interesting, like in terms of a new streaming platform being able to get access to these independent artists at rates that could be favorable. I think that's interesting, but I don't know if that works at scale. And frankly, like, songs from independent artists, I don't think, is enough to keep a consumer satiated. And there's an even harder barrier to entry to have two streaming platforms at once. 

[00:13:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah, this is the one I'm probably the most skeptical of its success and for very similar reasons. Say what you want about Spotify. I know people have a number of issues about how that platform is operated and how it distributes its money. But the fact that it's helped the music industry, A, get to this point, says something and just the type of deals it's been able to negotiate to make it all work the way that it has that's enabled all the other types of revenue-generating opportunities that have came from it. And then additionally, it's hard to get to that point. Again, you may not agree with all the decisions that they make, but it is very hard to get to that point. And while I understand, from a strategic perspective, why TikTok may initially want to do this. Of course, if you have and you own the top of funnel that exists in the industry today, why wouldn't you want to at least think about what it could be like to keep that attention on your platform? If your platform is where discovery is happening for both the new fans, for artists to get initial exposure, and for that, you know, the record labels are already seeing, I understand why you would want to think about keeping more of that in-house. But it is a lot tougher than they think for the reasons you mentioned. And also going back to the usability of the app streaming services are a type of consumer experience that requires much more active engagement. People don't just scroll through Spotify and Apple Music. You're going there actively to find something that you're looking for. I mean, I don't even know that many people that are actively relying on that discover weekly playlists to find anything. You're still searching for the things that you want. Even if you're looking for a playlist, it's probably that's much more catered toward the mood or genre that you have. So I think anything that requires that level of agency or action from the consumer side will always be a bit of a challenge for TikTok there. So yeah, I'm skeptical on the success of that one. Unless it tries to go more of the YouTube route of things, which ties back into the 10-minute video things that we talked about before. There's some potential there, but even there, I think there's still some question marks.

[00:15:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. I'm aligned with you there. 

[00:15:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The next one is TikTok Search. A lot of us had seen the viral tweet that someone had. I don't Google I TikTok. And a lot of that spoke to how a lot of folks in Gen Z are looking for information and I get it, I've even done it myself, my wife and I were recently searching to buy a new mattress. And you know what? I didn't want to go through a Google Search and just read some sponsored content about a mattress. I wanted to see a video of someone unboxing this thing to see what it looks like. 

[00:16:10] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. 

[00:16:10] Dan Runcie: And TikTok was the quickest place to do that, even quicker than YouTube. YouTube's going to show me a mix of explainer videos and then also concept from the company. I just wanted to see some random person be like, oh, hey, here's what I think about this bed. And here's what I think about that bed. It was quick, it was easy. So I do think that that works, but I think there's a few caution flags with it. A, I still think that even though TikTok was able to offer that, there's still deeper search functionality that went into how Google got to be as good as it is, even going back thinking about 20 years ago about like why Google succeeded where Lycos and AltaVista and all those other go.com, .com era search engines didn't work. So I don't know if TikTok has all of that baked in to really go beyond just, you know, people like me looking for random purchases that they want to look through here or there or just want to look up a certain topic. And I also think the other bigger, more important pieces, the misinformation, and just being able to correct for that because that's already been an issue on TikTok. And I think that could potentially continue if there isn't some way to relegate what's happening in search. So, high likelihood success, but still some trepidation. 

[00:17:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, this one is one I'm actually a little bit more excited about. I do think it's really interesting, like in the sense of search, because it is something that we naturally do more. I first started to search on social media using Instagram. And I think they've even done a greater job of like adding more functionality to do that search, whether it's by location and showing you things surrounding that location or even venues or event spaces. So I think that it's a growing feature and a great feature. Like you said, the reviews, whether people sought them to be that way or just inherently more, right, they're showing you video. Most times they're talking through it and you can just consume and walk away with a more educated viewpoint for a time that's favorable, right? A 30-second or 1-minute video can really give you a lot of feedback about whatever you're searching. I think, honestly, this is where a TikTok should spend some time doubling down. I think we want to see more of that functionality from them playing around with maybe the highest use cases, whether that's locations or certain venues, or even like festivals. As I think about it, like, I see so often on TikTok, like you can see a certain event from multiple vantage points and understanding what it's like at a festival from someone in VIP versus general admission versus backstage, even, right? Like, Rolling Loud, you see, like, every single vantage point, even sometimes down to the artist manager with them. So I think, like, them doubling down on a few use cases that really highlight the immersiveness of search is something that excites me. And I think just naturally follows up on what the users are already doing on the platform. 

[00:19:02] Dan Runcie: That ties into the another announcement I saw from them about enhancing its ability to search for things locally, or being able to find things from that level because to your point if you are seeing multiple vantage points at Rolling Loud or at Coachella, you may want to meet up with someone that is there, or you might be able to see their vantage point. You might have times I've been to a music festival and it's like, where are you? I'm at the main stage. But what part of the main stage, you know, they got this quarter over here, they got that quarter, but if someone could just do a quick, like, boom. And maybe that could be even easier than them trying to send me a FaceTime video or something like that, where there's no service, but if they could at least post it up on TikTok or wherever, then it could be like, okay, I see your angle. I'll be there. I'll come see you in a minute.

[00:19:44] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think that's great. And to that point, too, it kind of like puts on other users in terms of like, okay, wow, I didn't enjoy my experience at like Rolling Loud 'cause I was GA. So maybe VIP is worth it to me or I should consider doing that. And so I actually think more artists should be embracing and recognizing that search feature. The only thing is too is because so many people are using it, you in real-time, right, seem to get updates. So like, Kizz Daniel who's come under fire in Tanzania for not showing up to his performance. I already, like in my mind was like, well, Kizz Daniel was four hours late to his DC show. And how did I know that? Or DC or New York? I'm sorry, but how did I know that? Like, because I saw it on TikTok and so that's like twice in a row. So how likely am I as a fan to justify the cost of a ticket in the event that he is going to be near me? So I think it's like a good maybe transparency or accountability measure. But with that search, we maybe do sometimes need to recognize like, what do they say that like, people are most likely to post or leave reviews when they either have a really great experience or a really bad experience. And so sometimes you might not just get what the true experience is in the case of like a service-based search. 

[00:21:02] Dan Runcie: That's true. That's a really good point. And that goes back to the quality of the results and how they can find a way to measure that piece 'cause I think that's the piece that ties back into why Google has been good at what it does over its competitors. So that TikToks can actually survive and not, you know, become someone else that may do video search even better. 

[00:21:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. And maybe, you know, to the extent they would consider this, like, there's an opportunity for collaboration, right? Like Google's done a great job of, you know, when you ask certain questions, they have a definitive answer, but they also pull like multiple sources. And so what if, like, on a Google search, you search a restaurant and you're also seeing like TikToks in the area? I think the aggregation of that repository of information could be really great. And also a way for them to continue to like maintain their dominance in search. 

[00:21:55] Dan Runcie: Let’s take a quick break to hear a word from this week’s sponsor. 

[00:22:00] Dan Runcie: Definitely. So the next one, this one's interesting, music distribution. TikTok recently launched SoundOn, which is a service that in many ways is set to compete with a lot of the music distributors. And I think similarly, it could be seen as its opportunity to capture its top of funnel attention as well. You already have the artists, why not make it easier for artists to use your platform, to distribute the music that they have? What are your thoughts on this one? 

[00:22:31] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, and this isn't personal, but I'm just not really excited by music distribution. Nowadays, like in a lot of ways we're listening to a song on a streaming platform is a commodity, right? Like listening to Drake on Apple Music sounds the same as, like, Spotify. I feel that way with music distribution, like, as a consumer, the consumers have no idea, right? They just know they go to their streaming platform and the song is there. The reverse engineering of how it got there and the back end is really not of much interest to them. On the artist side or for them to do this, I think it requires a really deeper investment in artist education. And so I'm curious to see, you know, especially as they double down on creator programs and things of that nature how willing they are to invest both on a content and community side, but also a capital side, in artist education to incentivize users to distribute through that platform. When you think about switching costs in terms of getting set up on a new platform and just probably some of the like new things you have to adjust to by doing it. I feel very underwhelmed hearing about this, and I'm really curious to see how it goes. 

[00:23:39] Dan Runcie: I think you called it right in the beginning. Music distribution is a tough business. It is purely a commodity at this point. And I think you can win a few ways. You win by trying to achieve massive scale with it, which Distrokid clearly has just given everything else. But if you don't have that scale, you try to find something unique to position yourself with. I think we've seen that a bit with United Masters, but even that's a bit of a unique business model because, A, they've done a bunch of partnerships with different platforms and companies in sports and entertainment to try to use that as a way both to attract artists and give them an opportunity. But it's also attached to an ad agency with translation, which essentially can, you know, offset any costs or anything like that if there are already losses that come through with the business. So that part of it is unique there. But then even with some of the other services, I think a lot of them have adapted their business models over time because that customer service piece is so timely. It's so expensive. And yeah, when you have an artist that maybe generated less than $20,000 a year, and they're calling your service every other week because they're trying to feed their supporters and making sure that every one of their fans can get their music. How do you justify that cost when you want to be able to support the fans? But the economics of it don't make sense if you're also trying to compete with Distrokid where it costs very little money to be able to use their service on a regular basis. And the same could be said about TuneCore and the others. So it's a tough business to enter. 

[00:25:16] Denisha Kuhlor: And I think, you know, artists and management teams don't really have any particular affiliation to, you know, to like any platform. Maybe there are things that they like about certain platforms or that keep them there. But when you talk to artists and management teams, it's kind of just this is what we use, it works, it gets the job done. And it's not an area of the business as long as things are working, they're going to particularly spend a lot of time overly evaluating. 

[00:25:42] Dan Runcie: Right. The next piece of this and the next thing that TikTok's been trying to do is ticketing. And while this is less of a big initiative the way they have it right now, it's an integration with a Ticketmaster who, of course, owns most of the medium size to large venues from a ticketing operation, given their relationship with Live Nation. I have to imagine that TikTok's ultimate stream would actually be trying to do what we just saw from Spotify to try to launch its own ticketing service. But even that has plenty of issues and challenges there, but what's your take on at least this first step of the Ticketmaster integration for TikTok and where it could go from here?

[00:26:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. On the ticketing side, it's interesting. And just like having a background in venture and tech and startups, like, I've seen a lot of folks try to solve ticketing in many areas, right? The curation that comes with ticketing, ticketing from all over the world and in different currencies, and just a better user experience overall. I will say while I don't think I'm, like, particularly mad at TikTok's, like, foray into ticketing, I do think it's a missed opportunity to probably focus on like events that have organically grown through the platform. And something that's like so interesting is I think you've seen more and more promoters or even event producers, like really like leverage TikTok to create those events and grow their followings in their community. And that's not what TikTok's ticketing platform is really targeted with as evidenced by, you know, a partnership with Ticketmaster. And so while I feel like it's somewhere in the direction, I do think it could be a bit more directionally accurate by focusing on, kind of the, yeah, the smaller organic events that just naturally have grown through TikTok and like TikTok partnering with those events to help users produce more content and like, it can truly be mutually beneficial in a way that I think some of those event organizers would welcome. And so while I could understand why they went for the validity and reputation that comes with a bigger brand, such as Ticketmaster, I think they could have got more bang for their buck with a smaller, more targeted partnership with folks that already found interesting use cases to grow ticketing for the respective events.

[00:27:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like there's a bit of a balance there because I hear you and I do think that it ideally would be, yeah, great for them to double down on the creative uses of the, especially some of the more emerging artists that are using this platform to bring folks together, right? Almost similar to what you may see people trying to do, whether it's seeing things virtually in Twitch or bringing those types of audiences in real life to particular things. I think that's really cool and unique. I do feel that for TikTok though, specifically with what we're seeing them do on the music side, in the back of my mind I always wonder, okay, if it weren't for Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion and some of these other major artists that are using the platform, what percentage of their impact is making up the overall pie of TikTok Music? Just thinking about that, they had that pie chart from a few years back about the genres and how hip-hop was over-indexed and how Megan Thee Stallion was the most popular artist. So if you're trying to cater to the biggest artist on your platform, you know, Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat are definitely at the Ticketmaster level of what they're doing. So if they are going to have an event, could you have something that keeps them in, right, because I think that the more organic things that we've seen likely are more of a direct competition to what we see from Eventbrite, let's say, which I think is much more in that sweet spot of everything from like a birthday party up until you get to like, you know, a small club concert or event, right? But then obviously Ticketmaster is everything else. So yeah, it's like, my heart wants to be like, oh yeah, stay with the types of cool events you've had. But also just thinking about how YouTube leaned into its biggest customers and like, if you're TikTok then yeah, it's the Megs, it's the Dojas, and ones like that. 

[00:29:38] Denisha Kuhlor: That is interesting and I think a good corollary. Maybe it does, like, trickle down on more of like a hybrid approach. Yeah, that's interesting. 

[00:29:46] Dan Runcie: I do think this taps back into something that you had mentioned before just about the platform itself and as this platform continues to grow, where does the loyalty sit for the consumer, right, whether it's with the artist or with the platform. 

[00:30:03] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. I think this is such a big thing, right, and that comes with building a fan base or even just like your notoriety on TikTok. You see the changes that were made to Instagram and kind of everybody from the Kardashians, right, calling them out. And I think it has become this trend where we have more affinity to the platform and the platform's ability to curate the content than some of these content creators themselves. And in a world where I think these content creators are so driven to following the algorithm and getting promoted by the algorithm, what they don't realize is kind of the uniformity in content that is created. Even when it comes down to, like, some of the events or experiences or those types of videos, sometimes, like if you've seen one, you've seen them all. And I think that's why there's other creators, whether it’s, like, more comedian-focused or other topics that really excel because it forces them to kind of have to do something different, even if they do have to be relatable. And so unfortunately I think that, you know, artists who are employing TikTok and kind of using this, especially as they build their name and their brand, need to think a lot about like, okay, I have X amount of followers on TikTok, but the barrier to entry to get someone to follow you on TikTok looks very different compared to other platforms. And then taking that a step further, it's like, what does that mean? Because while people might like you, how willing are they to migrate to another platform? They ultimately have that ultimate affinity and loyalty, in my opinion, to TikTok. 

[00:31:38] Dan Runcie: I couldn't agree more, and it makes me think about how I use these apps today. For instance, we're recording this now August 26th, and this is a few hours after DJ Khaled released his album and Jay-Z had his four-minute-long verse on GOD DID. And I've seen everyone from ESPN's account to all of the hip-hop blogs and everyone else posting about this. And of course, you get it. And it's all these memes you see about people posting, okay, what Hov did on this track and they're getting photos of LeBron's best games or LeBron's game six against the Boston Celtics and things like that. But I bring that up because speaks to the uniformity of how all of these platforms or all these accounts on these platforms end up doing the same types of things because they know it works and they know what is effective. And it comes to the point now, when I'm scrolling through Instagram, I don't really know who the account is that is there that's posting something that I see unless it's something that's super specific to that person, right? Like if a friend is posting something from, you know, one of their kids starting in kindergarten, then it's like, okay, I know that that only comes from you. But if someone's posting something that's happening in media or something, that's happening in the news, you have to, like, look at that account at the top to really know who it is. And I think that's something they probably got from TikTok more so that, unless you're really looking to see where that account's coming from, it's a bit hidden now, right? Like that's part of, I know some of the frustration people had had, whether it's with Google searches or how social media was sharing links and they made all the links look the same, whether it's something from The Wall Street Journal or your friend's blog, right? And it kind of goes back to that point. 

[00:33:18] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. And it probably has like real implications for the creator economy now that we're talking about it, like, I think, you know, living in New York, I see, I like casually probably see a few TikTok creators a month and maybe even sometimes I follow them. But you know, what's interesting? Like, rather than noting, other than noting to myself, like, oh, I follow them on TikTok, kind of the like je nais se quois or like the magic of like, oh my God, like I'm seeing this person in real life feels like it's disappeared a bit to me in a way that used to exist with YouTube or some of these other platforms where it felt like a weird, like breaking of the screen. But now that everybody's behind the screen and as a result, even some of the content they're showing is so accessible. I do think it probably, like, leads to this dynamic of where we're just like, okay, let's just see interesting things. The people creating said interesting things are no more interesting in some ways than like you or they just did a great job at doing this. And I see that with, there's a lot of debate and, like, discourse around some of the lifestyle blogs or, you know, like people showing their lifestyle, like waking up in the morning, like obviously, you had to set the camera up before to do that. But a lot of folks in the comments argue like this is just a type of content. Like, it's a type of cinematography that people like to view and people like to see. And so as a result, these people are continuing to make these videos, but if that's just a type of content that people like to see, TikTok is simply going to provide that content all the time, regardless of really any affiliation to one creator, which makes it a lot tougher on these creators, I think, to build these networks and conversely artists.

[00:34:55] Dan Runcie: Right, and this brings me back to the whole issues that people have with Web 2.0 to begin with and why they wanted to be able to solve some of this with Web 3.0. It's because the platforms commoditize your content, and then in return, they're the ones that hold the power. 

[00:35:10] Denisha Kuhlor: You know, I think though folks have to be honest. In some ways, it's what the user likes or what the, yeah, the users do like this because if not, you know, we're long past exclusives being standard in the industry, but if not the exclusives would've worked. Like having, you know, Chance the Rapper's album on Apple Music for two weeks, that would work. But the industry shied away from that because ultimately consumers cared more about choice and the ability to choose and experience and be exposed to all types of artists. And so I do think it's a dangerous game because it doesn't recognize like that's why malls exist, right? Like, you go and you want to go to multiple stores. And so I do think sometimes while I understand and recognize and very much like honor the need to, you know, differentiate and be able to have your core audience and provide to those things, I think we'd be remiss if we also didn't realize, like, natural human behavior comes from choice and like the brevity of choice. And so that's sometimes the interesting thing between Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 and with crypto, for me, because ultimately, like, the barrier to entry is so high, right, to get someone, a true fan to download an artist NFT because that insinuates their true fans. And I think a lot of artists have actually had to face the music in some ways with realizing their perceived fan base isn't as big as they thought and the mechanism to realize that has been some of these drops.

[00:36:40] Dan Runcie: Well said, well said. The engagement piece and what you need to have a true fan is harder than people think, so, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, we're getting to the tail end, but before we close things out, we have to talk about the elephant in the room for TikTok, and that is its geopolitical standing and all of the things that it wants to do while, whether or not they will be successful, a lot of it depends on the company's viability in the US and whether or not it's current status, especially given the fact that the Chinese government does have this data and there are unknown questions about what that means, what it can do with this data, how do you see this piece it?

[00:37:22] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think it's tricky in some ways, because, you know, as consumers, we're now kind of privy to the implications of tech and big data. And even just being on our phones, being on our phones in general, what I will say is and a lot of the like research indicates that true, like avid TikTok users are just, like, hooked in a way where they don't or they might say to you they don't care. Now how much is that true, I guess we'll find out. But I do think it's concerning because maybe to some extent, we don't even fully realize everything and all the factors that are at play here, right? Like, you're just giving that summary, I'm like, whoa. But as a user coming on every day, you're not thinking about that. And so often with big data and some of these platforms, in a way, you don't realize just the implications it had until it was too late, right? Until we're now talking about the ramifications of a platform existing in that way. And so I think it's going to be really interesting to see how, seriously consumers want to take it and beyond consumers, like the US, the US in general. I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't say that some of the data is concerning, right, learning about some of the data TikTok has access to is concerning. But ultimately like as more and more people post and the ecosystem grows larger and there's now 10-minute videos and your favorite artists are on there and they have a streaming platform and all these things in this ecosystem, it starts to get hard to really stray away. And so I think that's going to be a challenge because it feels like it almost has to be a collective push for folks to disintermediate from the platform. But I'm really curious your thoughts on this, too.

[00:39:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So the first attempt of this was in fall 2020. So it was around two years ago at this point, when Trump had tried to shut down TikTok. That didn't work for a number of reasons. There were a number of things going on in the world that the attention just wasn't there. And I don't think that the argument was made in a concise and effective way that could have necessarily gotten the job done. And TikTok had other challenges at the time, Kevin Mayer had his short term and then he had left shortly after. So there were a number of issues there. This though, I think that even though you're starting to hear some senators say certain things about it, I think things will be pretty mum, I would guess, until the 2022 midterm elections coming up just 'cause think from a strategic perspective, they want to keep momentum on things that they can confirm can get votes. So while I think I've probably heard more of the concern, if I'm being honest, coming from democratic senators, their biggest concern right now is okay, how can we continue to try to celebrate Joe Biden's victory so that they can not lose seat coming up with this election, I feel like. And because of that, like, we kind of see how this whole thing plays out. I do think though that we could be facing a potential situation where it's almost like the Facebook thing where people know that this is an issue, but it's not going to happen proactively. It happens reactively. It's going to be like, when shit hits the fan and then people are going to be like, oh shit, now we need to do something. 

[00:40:27] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Exactly. Out of curiosity, how do you think TikTok, and I'm sure it'll vary, right, but how do you think TikTok is going to be used with the upcoming election cycle? 

[00:40:37] Dan Runcie: Oh, good question. I don't see it impacting 2022 as much, but I could see it playing a factor more so in 2024 because I just think that even though there's plenty at stake coming up with this election, the presidential elections always get more in place. I do think that, especially as this group of voters does tend to grow and as more and more older people do get on TikTok, a lot of the same types of activities and nefarious behavior that we saw on Facebook here is going to make its way onto. TikTok. The bigger challenge is though, I think, it's even tougher to navigate all those things. I mean, we even saw that there was misinformation back in 2020 when you had a lot of the Black Lives Matter uprisings and people, they were censoring certain things related to those hashtags. So I do think that those things are going to cause big problems. I think the difference though, and this is part of it is that when these issues happen for Facebook, it's one thing if you have mark Zuckerberg coming to Congress and it can kind of be this thing where he could be media training, he can kind of have these like, you know, haha moments where it's like, Senator, we sell ads, that's how we make money. That doesn't exactly work with the Chinese government in the same way 'cause I don't think that that type of congressional hearing would necessarily work in the same way. So it would have to be some type of, you know, harder crackdown that happens with it. So, yeah, it's tough. I feel like we're not going to see anything actually happen until shit does hit the fan. And unfortunately, that could be the 2024 presidential election in the US, but maybe it could be something sooner. 

[00:42:19] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, no, we'll definitely have to see how it plays out. I also think we could potentially see, like, new candidates that come to the result from easily being able to build followings on a platform like TikTok. So I'm curious to see what, like, TikTok- native candidates emerge as well. 

[00:42:36] Dan Runcie: Right, like kind of like how Obama was the Facebook champion in 2000. 

[00:42:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. 

[00:42:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's funny, right? Because I feel like, you know, back then it was like, oh, look at all the great things that Facebook could do with 2008. And just, I think given some of the political leanings at the time, but then 2016 in many ways was a very opposite case with it. So I do feel like we're a bit more jaded and cynical of the powers of social media than we were then. But there is always a candidate that rises up with these things, that does these things, right? Like, I don't know, thinking back to the days of candidates that are just entering a different thing or new platform, whether it's Bill Clinton going on the Arsenio Hall Show playing his saxophone or something like that. Like, who's going to be that on TikTok? I don't know. I don't follow any politicians on TikTok. I'm sure they have accounts, but I'm sure they'll probably be doing that. And who knows? They'll probably have a debate on Hot Ones for all I know. 

[00:43:35] Denisha Kuhlor: It's definitely going to be interesting. 

[00:43:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, this was great. We covered a bunch in this, so we'll definitely have to revisit this topic at some point. And we'll see how TikTok succeeds over this for the next few months. I think we both have our internal scorecards ready, but we'll definitely have to touch base on this again at some point. 

[00:43:54] Denisha Kuhlor: Agree. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:43:56] Dan Runcie: For sure. Thank you.

[00:43:58] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry is, without question, Matt Pincus. He sold his independent music publishing company, SONGS, for $160 million five years ago. And now, the music holdings company he co-founded, MUSIC, just raised $200 million to invest in music and music-adjacent companies. 

Though, Matt doesn’t see MUSIC as an investment fund, but rather a holding company. That’s because he takes an operator-centric role in the companies he funds. And unlike the splashy catalog acquisitions that’ve dominated the space over the past few years, Matt is looking forward with his investments and targeting brand-new growth opportunities instead.

In particular, Matt sees big opportunities in the technology sector, web3, and even record labels and publishing. At SONGS, Matt was able to spot and develop up-and-coming songwriters, inking early deals with the likes of Diplo, Lorde, and The Weeknd. He’ll be tasked with finding similar success at MUSIC.  

Matt and I dove deep into a wide-range of topics during our conversation. Here’s a few highlights of what we covered:

[2:58] Why Matt created MUSIC

[8:07] MUSIC’s investment thesis?

[14:40] What Matt doesn’t like about the music business 

[19:49] Recent inflow of capital into the music business

[21:15] Two lanes to entering music business

[25:15] Finding left-of-center opportunities among musical talent 

[27:30] The structural problem of the music business

[31:35] Continuity was key to SONGS success

[33:34] The Weeknd as a business blueprint for other artists

[37:53] Sync business opportunities 

[44:55] Have streaming subscriptions peaked?

[47:50] Tiktok brought back music frequency

[51:40] Matt’s five-year predictions

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Matt Pincus, @mpinc

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Matt Pincus: Defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works. 

[00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is with one of the most successful music entrepreneurs of the past few decades. His name is Matt Pincus and he is the founder and CEO of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invests in music tech and music-adjacent companies. MUSIC just launched a 200 million fund to invest in this space, so Matt and I talked all about it. He's looking for companies that still have a clear understanding for how music gets made and understand the art behind it. He's also looking for startups that have a true defensible moat that is something unique that they can do. And he's also looking for the companies that have a huge total addressable market that can clearly grow and expand as we're seeing things continue to grow in this space. Our conversation covered a bunch of topics in this space. We talked about sync and the impact of that. We also talked about how much further streaming can go. And we talked about a bunch of insightful music trends. Really fascinating conversation. I feel like every few months we have one of those conversations where people reach out to me and say, Hey, I took a bunch of notes in that conversation. Thank you for this. And I have a good feeling, I have a good feeling that this is going to be one of those conversations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Matt Pincus. 

[00:02:16] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we're joined by Matt Pincus, who is the founder of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invested music and music-adjacent companies. Matt, I'm really excited to have this conversation because you have had a very impressive career with what you did with Songs and everything that you had done in publishing specifically. And what always stuck out to me about you in this space is how you've identified opportunities where others didn't see them. So I know when I saw the announcement for MUSIC and the $200 million fund you launched, I said, okay, he's seeing something and he's seeing an opportunity to dive in. So what did you see? What made you want to get involved with this?

[00:02:58] Matt Pincus: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm a big admirer of Trapital and your work in general. And I'm really happy to be with you here today. So, you know, I started music, it was sort of an organic process. I sold Songs after running it for about 13 years. And it was a fairly abrupt end. So we decided to sell the company and neither me nor my two partners really wanted to run it for somebody else. So we decided that once we sold it, it was time to step away and it was fairly quick. So, you know, I ran the company for 12-plus years. And then 90 days after the sale, I was out in the street, like, what am I going to do with my life? So it was a bit of an organic process. It started with meeting a lot of really interesting founders of music businesses and companies that were around the music business. It's obviously an interesting time in our business in a number of different ways. The streaming market has matured. There are a lot of music tech businesses with interesting founders cropping up over the past four or five years. The web three crypto business has, you know, started the early days of really coming online. And the way that labels, publishing companies, management companies reach audiences is really different than it was like, you know, six, seven years ago. So I met a lot of really interesting people. The first one was Steve Martocci, who was the founder of Splice. He and I hit it off particularly well. And I sort of said, listen, I've been, you know, doing talent deals with young people, you know, in the early twenties for the past 12 years, I think maybe the next chapter is working with founders of companies that are more like 10 years younger than me, as opposed to, you know, 20, early 20s. And taking the experience that I had in the last, like, four or five years of songs when we were trying to figure out how to really realize returns on the business and build on that to try to help people do the same thing. So I was out looking for, you know, are there interesting companies that I might be able to work with in some way or another? And the answer to that quickly became kind of yes, on the music tech side originally, in growth companies, when online music and music technology was shifting to a subscription-based backbone as opposed to a packet software business. And then also on the music side of it, you know, interesting independent labels, music companies operating in a different way. And so the first thing was, are there interesting companies out there? The second is, do they need capital and where would they get it from? And the third was, how am I going to get the money to invest in these businesses? So it was kind of a bit of a bootstrapping exercise where I would go find an opportunity to invest in a company, put some of my own money in LionTree, which sold songs for me and has been a partner and champion of mine since I sold the company, would invest some money too, and then we'd find some other people to round out the investment. We did that first with Splice, put about 20 million into the company over a period of time. We also did in the same way, made an investment in a company called HIFI, which is a FinTech platform benefiting artists in a bunch of different ways, and also with DICE, the ticketing business. And you know, they started, a couple of them did well and actually, they all did well. And so I decided that I wanted to raise some capital and have my own sort of, it's not really a fund. It's more of a holding company 'cause I'm less of an investor and more of an operator. And so the question became, how are we going to raise the money? Now Aryeh Bourkoff who runs LionTree is somewhat of a magic maker, and he took me on and introduced me to two families, the Schusterman Family and JS Capital, which is Jonathan Soros's capital vehicle. And they agreed to invest in a four-way partnership. So it's between me, LionTree, Schusterman Family, and JS Capital. And we formed MUSIC, which is a $200 million holding company. We do deals in a couple of different areas, music tech, which is sort of where I spent most of my time after Songs. We also invest in independent music companies like Songs. So labels publishing companies, management companies. Increasingly, a few of those functions are in one company, as opposed to when I was running Songs, it was like you were either a publisher or a label or a management company. And then we partner sometimes with a larger private equity firm if we are interested in acquiring something that's, you know, of a larger size. And so we're in the middle of one of those right now. And so we were able to find a bunch of interesting opportunity, a bunch of interesting ways, and it seems to me to be, you know, a really good time to be putting money to work in the music business. 

[00:07:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an exciting time to be investing in these companies and to be acquiring them too. And you mentioned something there about the types of companies you're looking at and whether they are modern music companies or whether they are doing something that's unique in the space. Can you talk a little bit more about your investment thesis and what you're looking for, and specifically, because, as you mentioned, you're not a fund, you're a holding company, so you're not necessarily just doing, you know, angel investments or early stage. You're trying to make investments for the long haul. So how does that shape your strategy?

[00:08:07] Matt Pincus: Very good question. And I think the answer to that depends somewhat on the different areas of investment. So the first is in the technology side of the business, which is kind of where I started as an investor. So, you look for a couple of things there. So first of all, you need to invest in companies, not products. So some of the music startups can be sort of, it's an interesting widget, but can it be a scalable business? So you need to make sure that you have a couple of things in order to know that you're investing in a company that has the ability to grow. So the first thing is you need your own tech stack and it needs to be built to suit whatever market you want to be in. So for example, with Splice, one of the reasons, and there were several, but one of the reasons I invested in the company was because Steve had built this subscription stack from day one of the company. So it was a native SaaS company in a world where the rest of the market needed to move from the old way of doing business to the new way of doing business. Splice was always in the new way of doing business, so it was going to be ahead of the curve. And so you need to make sure that your technical capabilities and your technical assets are going to, you know, be where you want to go. The second is that you need to make sure you're in a part of the market that has a big enough user base to make a real company out of it. You know, it's great to make a widget that, you know, 1500 people love, love, love, but 1500 people is not a lot of people. So you need to make sure that the addressable market around the business has a lot of users. And again, in Splice's case, you know, they are the content business in music tech. So they can be used in an infinite amount of applications across the business, which gives them, you know, a really solid user base. And so, you know, that's kind of the second thing. And the third thing is that you need to kind of own where you live or have the ability to own where you live. So, you know, it's great if you get into a category in the technology side of the business, that, you know, breaks some ground and shows everybody what can be done. But if then, you know, Apple or Google just says, thank you very much and does it instead of you, it's not so great. So you need to have a defensible business that you can build and scale. And again, back to Splice, you know, they are the content leader and I'm a music publisher by trade, so content is the water supply in the music business. You know, in publishing, it's the song that starts the whole conversation. Splice owns music. And so no matter where the market is going to grow, no matter where it ends up going, they have the supply that feeds the music tech business. And so it's inherently defensible when it gets up to a certain level. You know, at this point they have 3 million works in their database. To catch up to them is, you know, difficult, if not impossible. And so you need to be defensible now on the music side of what I do, which is investing in music companies, there's a couple of things I look for. So first of all, I don't do catalog acquisitions. I invest in people. So the first thing is that you need to have really talented executives that understand music and know how to find repertoire and make it bigger. I tend to like businesses that give advances to artists. There's a certain way, like at Songs, we built a catalog over a long period of time, but we built it through signing young writers and giving them advances. So I call it a mattress out of sheets. If you do that one after another, over many, many years and you do it well, all of a sudden you wake up, you know, 7 to 10, 12 years later, and you're like, holy shit, it's a big catalog. And so I tend to like businesses that advance money to artists and build catalog that way or manage catalog that way. There's a certain magic to understanding how to compensate artists and doing it fairly. So I tend to look at that. You know, the music business has changed a lot. It used to be that if you wanted to be an independent, you needed to own your own vertical. And you know, at Songs, we had our global administration business that we owned and built. We had our own technology. So we were self-contained, standalone competitor. Now I think, you know, solutions have become available everywhere. There's a lot of good publishing administration, a lot of good record distribution solutions. There's a lot of off-the-shelf stuff you can get. It's really about music. It's really about understanding artists and the music that they make and connecting them with an audience. So I look for people who uniquely understand that. Now that can be, you know, somebody who has a geographical lock on a particular kind of music. It can be somebody that has a particularly unique understanding of how the studio works because I think if there's one big change in the music publishing business lately, it's that it's gone really back to the studio. And the interesting companies are actually making songs in real-time in a studio environment. So it can be that. It can be that you have another business that you do and music is associated with it. So why not, you know, get into the music business while you're doing whatever else you do, but you need to have some reason why you have access to a particular group of artists in a particular kind of repertoire, and you're helpful to that in some way or another. And so it's quite a different set of things that I look for on that side than on the technology side. 

[00:13:34] Dan Runcie: And with the way that your firm is structured, too, I see parallels with the types of companies you're looking at, right? You're not just focused on one particular type of investment area. You have the music tech companies that you're looking at. Splice is an example. You also have the companies that are working more directly in music itself, whether that is giving advances or companies that have a unique edge on who they're reaching. And I think that translates as well when you're talking about the types of companies you're looking at because a lot of times, especially 10, 15 years ago, as you mentioned, there were more silos and now you're starting to see companies have different types of roles that they do or different divisions to try to be this nebulous term that I've heard several times as broader entertainment company. And while I think that that's effective, I could also see how that could challenge some of the challenges of being able to have a business that is defensible or having a moat and the focus that comes with that. So how do you balance that and what are the things that you look for when evaluating companies that are both trying to do it all, but also are trying to have something that they can be defensible with? 

[00:14:40] Matt Pincus: Well, so on the music side of it, you know, it's about relationships. You know, the good companies, their equity is their relationships with different people around the business. And it's really a human-centric business. So, you know, defensibility often is correlated with reputation in the independent music business, at least. That was certainly true of Songs. One of the big success factors of the company and in fact, like, kind of our asset was that me and Ron and Carianne had really good relationships around the business that we built over many years, and that allowed us to punch above our weight class. You know, when we were a very small business, you know, we acted as a bigger business because we were able to get champions that helped us along the way, both in terms of the artists that were willing to sign with us, but also in terms of, you know, other people around the business that took us on and helped us out. Oddly enough defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. You know, on the tech side of it, it's a little bit different. You have to make sure that your innovation curve is constantly there. You have to make sure, like, I would not invest in a business that did not have a technical co-founder. You know, ideas are great. Everybody's got ideas. You know, there's an app for anything. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works, which when you get into the crypto side of it's really interesting 'cause a lot of people understand the implications of it, but they have no idea how the shit works. They don't actually use it. And they get kind of confused thinking that it's much more complicated than in fact it really is. Or, you know, they get so fascinated with the technology that they don't make a product that stands on its own bottom and has value to the end user. So it's a little bit different in the different areas of the market that you look at. And one of the reasons why I like the field that I play on and I feel very lucky to be able to do the different things that I can do with music is because some of it is about sort of analytical, scalable technology-oriented investments. And some of it is just about people in tunes. And so you're kind of mixing a lot of different things together. You know, the one thing that I don't like so much about the recent music business is somehow we all slipped into talking about music as assets and fractional finance and cash flows and securitization. And I'm like, listen, if I wanted to do all that shit, I do it not here. You know, the music business is not assets and finance and cash flows and, you know, securitization. The music business is moving people, motivating people, creating an audience, assembling humans to want what you make, and distributing that and delivering it and all the rest of that stuff. You know, the fact like, listen, what I'm doing is either really smart or really dumb because either you can make a real investment business just out of the music business. And I think you can because there's lots of different types of investments in music and there's lots of growth and lots of possibility. But also, you know, it's a pretty small business. And I live in, play, you know, a neighborhood, the size of a postage stamp. We'll see if they can be done, but I think originally, you know, it starts with the creative and it starts with the means of delivering the creative to the people that want it. And then all of the rest of this stuff, you know, yield, debt payments, multiples on equity, bonds, all the rest of this stuff just is a happy accident that comes from doing your job well.

[00:18:35] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned this because there's a version of what you do that could easily look more like a traditional private equity firm, where they are just going in and doing all of the things that you just mentioned and they're coming more from that perspective, but in many ways, your defense is having this laser focus on music, but you're going deep within all of the areas that it encompasses. And with that, I have to assume that this also maybe has a bit of a flavor on what your take is about the money that has come into the music industry and some of those other non-music companies or those that are purely looking at it for the financial opportunity or for the noncorrelated opportunities and how that in a lot of ways, even though on paper, someone that's fundraising may see the money they can get from you versus the money they get from others. But I'm hearing it from the record labels. And especially the independent ones they're getting reached out to all the time now about acquisitions. And a lot of those calls are coming from non-music related companies that are trying to make those moves. So it's been fascinating to see how that shapes, but I do feel like you are going about this in a much more unique way than a lot of them are.

[00:19:49] Matt Pincus: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I will say that the recent, like, huge inflow of capital into the music business has one very good byproduct, which is it's giving a lot of money to songwriters and artists. Some of these catalogs getting valued at 20 times, 30 times, you know, NPS where they would've been valued at 10, you know, four or five years ago, maybe 10 years ago. It just results in people that make great music, making a bunch of bucks. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. On the catalog side of it, it makes a little bit more sense that some of these like larger capital vehicles are coming into the market and, you know, bidding things up and structuring the leverage in a certain way that makes sense. There's a big difference between what's going on now and what was going on when this first happened, like in 2006, 2007 timeframe because the people that are doing it now can afford it. They've got lots and lots of money. They don't need big returns on that money. They have the ability to structure this stuff financially in ways that don't make no sense. And so it makes, you know, more sense that people are doing that with the IP catalog acquisition business. When it gets to new music, you know, I think it's still a human business. I think you got to know the people, you know, and you have to understand how it's really about managing what I refer to as the working capital of the business. So, you know, you need to advance money, you need to collect that money, you need to reinvest the money. And so a lot of that, you know, it's not a big enough business that you can structure it like a bunch of bonds. You need to kind of understand the market that you're in, how many deals you could possibly get, and what about you ought to pay for them, and what kind of infrastructure you need to address all of that to do a good job. And that's hard to know from outside of the business. It's even hard to know, like there's sort of two lanes in the music business. There's people who came up through the building where they started at majors and they kind of built their career, you know, up from coordinator to director to senior director to VPs, SVP, EVP. And then they end up running the company, a lot of great people who came up that way. And then there's people who kind of feed in the wild. Like, come outside of the building and need to figure out, like, what's available. And there's some real differences, you know. Sometimes they cross over like Ron Perry who was an instrumental person at Songs from, you know, the very beginning to through time we sold and now runs Columbia. So sometimes that happens. Or Carianne who, you know, also was my partner at Songs who now runs Warner Chappell with Guy Moot. It's like there, you know, it happens, but there are really two lanes. And I think in the independent side, it's a lot about systematic A&R so about looking at, listen, none of us are overfunded with tons of money. So, you know, everybody's stretching the dough. And it becomes about how can I build this system in the world that I live that can do deals inexpensively, and then find the ones that are working and invest and push them forward. And all the great independent music companies, you know, Chrysalis, Jive Zomba, A&M Rondor, all the great ones throughout history sort of did that really effectively or were usually like the other ones. So everybody goes to the majors to get their offer. And then there's these other cooler guys that are there, like, you know, kind of fucking with the majors by picking off all the left to center stuff that was us at Songs. You know, and all those other companies I just mentioned were kind of some version of that. But there's kind of, all of these mechanics that come both from history, so understanding the history of the business, but also understanding the people and how they sort of work 'cause as much as the world is changing and it's changing a lot, it's still kind of about A&R. It's still about creative in some way or another. I mean, Carianne's superpower, which she's got many, but the original superpower was understanding not only what works well to picture, but the people that choose music in film and television, advertisements, video games, she's particularly uniquely talented at that. And that's still a core skill that people need to understand. So, you know, I'm the guy that kind of pulls the pieces together. I don't do any of those things. I, you know, originally hired some great people and now I try to invest in great people that do all that stuff, but it's still about understanding it and if you're coming purely from the outside, I think it's challenging.

[00:24:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think your career experience speaks a lot to this, right? You mentioned being able to find the left-of-center opportunities when you're at Songs, whether it was Lorde or The Weeknd. And you saw how those turned out. It worked out brilliantly. I'm curious to hear what you think about the way things are right now because, especially with the way that TikTok is and so many of the companies, whether it's the major labels or the independents, they all have access to the same information. So the cost of acquiring and being able to find and develop those same artists is much more expensive. So what do you think those left-of-center opportunities look like today in the current environment where it feels as if there are more and more outlets to find different types of people, but the way that people are going about it, it does seem like a lot of people are now playing a pretty similar game.

[00:25:13] Matt Pincus: You mean like a moneyball...

[00:25:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 

[00:25:15] Matt Pincus: ...type of, yeah. So, you know, again, I go back to like, there's sort of in the building and there's outside of the building way of thinking. So in the major system, it makes logical sense that they want to sort of hang back, see what reacts, and go and get it when it reacts, the more predictable something is the more you're willing to pay for it. That makes logical sense. There's nothing wrong with it. They're not idiots for doing that. It's just the way that they traditionally operate. And now it's about, like, seeing the shiny pennies and then grabbing them right away, whatever the cost, because music is much more efficient than it used to be. It used to be that you'd have to, like, release a whole album and sink a bunch of capital into seeing if something works. Now you can kind of tell pretty quickly if something's going to work. So it makes sense to pay a lot for something predictable, as opposed to, you know, paying a little bit for stuff that is wildly uncertain. So, you know, that makes total sense. I think on the independent side, and I really count in that like A&R mentality, like people who are finding artists and developing artists. So it's not just like, you know, independent labels, but it's also like, you know, Electric Feel is a really interesting company that does this, Hallwood. You know, APG is obviously the really great example of this, of finding artists really early and developing them into something or representing people who do that. A lot of, you know, that is about iteration and about understanding, you know, what makes a good story in a particular market. Now, part of that is the music itself. Part of that, most of it is the music itself, but part of that is also all the other stuff around it. You know, how you unfold the narrative, how you stage market entry for an artist. You know, all of those things, again, I come back to the stick to your knitting thing where it's like, as much as the world changes, it kind of remains the same to some degree. So, you know, the interesting and frustrating thing about the music business for people that run companies like I did at Songs is that there's just not that many good, really good, talented people, you know. If there's one structural problem in the music business is there's not enough, really good A&R people, promotion people, you know, creative people. 

[00:27:29] Dan Runcie: And why do you think that is?

[00:27:30] Matt Pincus: I think it's hard, for one, I think it's hard. And as much as people try to play moneyball, now I'm a big believer in systematic A&R, which some people would consider, you know, moneyball. So in other words, like having a funnel that gives you a group of things that might work, that I'm a big believer in that as a starting point, but that only gets you like 51% confidence. That's not much more than a coin toss. The rest of it is really doing the work of developing the product itself, the music itself, and then the story around it. And it's just a hard business, plus you got to know everybody, you know. So it takes a while to develop those relationships and those skills. One of the things that's interesting when I look on the music tech side of it that I think is one of the great things is that the technological development in music production is allowing people to learn how to use the gear quicker. So you're going to have hit singles coming from 13-year-olds within no time at all. And that used to not be possible because it would take you four or five, six years just to learn how to twist the knobs on a board. Like, it was hard. Now with like, you know, presets, with things like Splice, with AI-assisted creation, you know, anything that makes it easier for an artist to get what's inside of them out, the learning curve is becoming less steep. And that's a good thing because talent shines in that environment. You know, it's one thing to be able to, you know, have a knowledge-base to tweak things. It's another thing to just be a talented and expressive artist with urgency. And so maybe some of that will happen. And on the executive side, like on the A&R side, as things like radio, you know, radio's been so monolithic and so hard to penetrate. And now maybe it's loosening up a little bit, but it still takes a while to figure out what's going to work. It's very hard. And it is one thing to be a fan and be like, this is good, this is not good. It's another thing to take a look at something that doesn't yet exist and be like, this is what it will look like if we can pull it off. I don't have that talent, you know. I'm not an A&R person, but I watch people do it and it's pretty miraculous. And it's not just A&R, it's also promotion, which is an undervalued piece of the equation and increasingly, marketing, digital marketing, like the first cut of it was just, you know, sort of advertising on Facebook. Now it's much more sophisticated than that. And so I feel like it's just hard and I wish there were, you know, there's also the part of the problem in the music business is nobody trains anybody. There's no HR infrastructure. You know, I went to Columbia Business School and I had been in the music business. I didn't have one single meeting about a job that came through the school. 

[00:30:14] Dan Runcie: I'm not surprised. That wasn't the case for me either. 

[00:30:17] Matt Pincus: That’s what I'm saying like, nobody trained you. I mean, I remember going on a job interview when I was like 21 coming right out of college or 23 coming right out of college with a guy at ICM. And he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to be an A&R .He said, great, find a band. That was it. That was the interview. And so it's like, it's that kind of business, which is kind of wonderful in its own way, but it doesn't train people really. And so that's also part of the reason. We don't develop our talent, executive talent pipeline in a really great way. And that's why people like, you know, Mike Caren at APG is so special. You know, the LVRN guys are so special because they bring along executives in a really concerted kind of way. And I wish there was more of that in the business in general. 

[00:30:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity for it. And I think you see a lot of it play out when there are executive shake ups and who gets picked for certain things and why people get picked for certain things. And to some extent, you see this in other places too, whether there's a mix of internal hires versus external. But one thing that I have noticed is the units that do tend to stick together, or there is some continuity there. You do see a lot of success happen if they understand what works, everyone's into it. And I think some of these other places where it could be a bit of revolving doors with who's in leadership, who's trying to get where it's very tough to have that infrastructure. 

[00:31:35] Matt Pincus: And that was one of the great blessings for me at Songs, which is not, doesn't speak well for the industry, particularly, but, you know, Ron and Carianne were two of the most talented people of their generation for sure. And the business didn't know what to do with them. The fact that I could get the two of them and we could all stay together for 12 years and build a company is like a miracle. And that was a big part of the reason why it all worked is because we knew each other really well and people knew us as a unit. We had different things we did. It's a little bit like, you know, kind of what's going on with the professional sports a little bit too, is, you know, it's great that all these individual players are celebrities. And again, great that athletes are making more money, but great teams don't stay together in the same way that they did before. And I think that's changing a little bit now because you don't have to do a deal with a major and get your money the traditional way in order to build a company. And that's one of the reasons I exist as MUSIC, is because there's opportunities to bring outside capital into the business under terms that look a little bit more like sort of venture capital or private equity, which is in a way more fair than the traditional music business has been on a per transaction basis. There's natural reasons why the major music companies finance the music business for as many decades as they did, and it's not to rip people off, it's because nobody else would do it. But now it's a different world and so hopefully some of these things will change. You know, when you have really great entrepreneurs that own their own business, as opposed to, you know, in some JV with a major that's really a compensation agreement, then it's in their interest, like it was in mine when I was running Songs, to bring along really talented people and find new ones. And so that's one of the things that I've sort of hoped for in some way. 

[00:33:24] Dan Runcie: Are there any artists that stick out to you as examples of yes, they're building their business and they're doing this the way that could be a blueprint for what we'll see more frequently moving forward?

[00:33:34] Matt Pincus: Ones that I talk about all the time is The Weeknd, which we were involved with, you know, from fairly early on. And Sal who's, you know, has been his manager for a very long time, and Cash. You know, I think you're going to see what they did with XO happening in a lot of different ways going forward, where you get a group of people that form a partner and distribute responsibilities between artist, manager. You know, there's people like La Mar Taylor involved with those guys that does all the visual. There's a lot of cooks that need to be in the kitchen to make something really successfully work. The label model of sign to a label, they'll do everything that existed in, like, the nineties is way long gone. Even management where you sort of have somebody who's a commission person that's just doing the business of an artist, that's not true of the good ones anymore. The good ones get in it with the artist and really help them build an entrepreneurial life. I mean, to be an artist now, you need to, like, be like a 140-character joke writer. You need to be an accountant. You need to have a corporate entity. You need to deal with all these different vendors. And you need to be like, you know, P. T. Barnum, like, step right up, step right up, check this out, you're going to love it. It's a complex skill set. And so I think one of the things that you're going to see in the talent representation business, like the management business is I think you're going to see more entity partnership formation, where people are going to go into partnership together. Managers and artists will be like Sal, Sal and Abel have been together for, how long now? Like, I mean...

[00:35:08] Dan Runcie: It's at least a decade, right?

[00:35:09] Matt Pincus: Yeah. And they've been able to scale and grow and make a lot of money and still be together. And that's because everyone provides value. I'm sure they adjust their relationship, however, over time, I don't know. But I think you're going to see that approach because it takes a village in a way to make really durable stuff. I mean, if you're talking about a viral hit that's here today, gone today. That's one thing. But if you're talking about really building a franchise over a period of time, it requires a lot of work from a lot of people. So I think you'll see sort of, you know, entity formation with partners that include business people and artists in with interest aligned. You know, Diplo's another one. I mean, you know, TMWRK and Diplo have been together for again, going back to since I started working with them. So that was 2011, you know? You look at firms like CRUSH, Jonathan, Daniel has built franchise after franchise of artists that stay with him forever. And he works with him as a partner and that's why it works. So I think you're going to see more of that going forward and and I think that's a good thing.

[00:36:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The Weeknd's a very good example because even from the origins of his career, you could see the mentality of where he saw things. Drake famously offered him the opportunity to come on OVO Sound. They had the whole Toronto connection, Drake put him onto that blog post and everything, but then he was like, no, I don't want to be under another artist when I think I can be just as big as that artist, even bigger and do my own thing and look what he's been able to do now. So I think a lot of it...

[00:36:41] Matt Pincus: And by the way, the record deal is a distribution deal. 

[00:36:43] Dan Runcie: Right. 

[00:36:44] Matt Pincus: You know, I mean, there you go. And so in terms of distribution of value, you know, if you can do it, if you're smart enough to have a cool head and plan like those guys did, you know, you can have a much larger enterprise than you normally would. So I hold them up as an example of, you know, what I think is going to happen and is happening really in lots of different areas of the business now.

[00:37:07] Dan Runcie: One of the other areas that has gotten a bunch of attention right now has been syncs, and this has been growing, I think, especially given what we've seen with people, especially from outside the music industry, trying to get more involved, but especially this past summer with Kate Bush being featured in Stranger Things. This conversation has been happening more and more. This is another example where it's a mix of that art and science of what does finding a good sync looks like and what happens with it. And I think so much of it, there's maybe a little bit of luck with just how the internet works and how things take off, but there's also a good amount of work that's put into finding the right type of placement for the right type of artists that could make all those things work to make it happen. So how do you view the opportunities for sync right now? 

[00:37:53] Matt Pincus: You know, it's interesting. I was sort of a student of Carianne. She taught me the sync business. I literally remember she had a binder where she kept every single interaction she ever had around a song and a placement. And she not only showed me how it all worked, but then we made a software platform out of her own process of how she did it. So I was trained by the best. One of the interesting things about sync is how it always comes back in cycles. You know, when we started Songs, it was like 2004, sync was the whole game. Like, between 2006 and sort of 2009 timeframe, it was the most important thing in a pitch. You know, it was responsible for a lot of our really early successes. And then when it became a largely pop business there in the early days of streaming, it was like sort of radio and super reactive and viral repertoire. It sort of stepped to the background for a minute. And now with the way that kids are bouncing around on a playlist from like, you know, Taylor to like a hip-hop track to, you know, Kate Bush back to Metallica and they don't care. It's become all of a sudden, perhaps one of the top, most important ways repertoire gets discovered now. It's amazing the enduring power of synchronization over time. The thing about sync that I think is interesting is part of it is selection. Like, is this song going to work to picture? But there's a lot that goes into making the deal happen. I mean, that Kate Bush deal as my understanding, I was not involved, but my understanding from, like, just hearing about it was that it took 'em forever to get the clearance done. So a lot of it is not only just is this going to work the picture? Is it the right BPM, the right mood, you know, the right tonality, the right cultural notes, which is a very special thing that music supervisors are particularly good at, but it's also the real politic of like getting the fucking thing cleared. And one of the things that I look at, I tend to have thesis sort of areas when I look at investing in the music business, and one of them is just how fuck the sync business is. That, you know, there should be a buy it now button in the music business if you want to use something for your film, buy it now. And if it was easy, people would pay more. But the problem is they have to roll around a glass to clear a copyright, getting the same deal with 13 songwriters and the master side and it's horribly inefficient. So I think part of the interesting thing with sync in the next generation is how do we do right by the music by making it more usable. Because there's also a couple of different ways this sync business cuts. So, you know, you have stuff that's used in a more traditional sense, and that has a real, like the standard pairing of like, it matter, it makes a huge creative difference and it's very hand selected. Front title and title, you know, big placement in a film television advertisement, but then you have this huge blanket sync business where a lot of the new promotion platform are AV platforms. It's technically synchronization, TikTok, YouTube, you know, Instagram it's technically sync. And I would argue that if there's one element of the business that gives radio a run for its money, it's AV platforms because what happens is people use it in so many videos that you end up hearing the song a thousand times, however many times it takes for you to be like, oh, my God, I have to hear it again. That's really the only place it happens and that's sync. There's a couple of different ways it cuts. You know, the great, like, placements of all time, and we had quite a few of them at Songs that sort of are like, you know, really make a song and make a film. Those are works of art. But also a lot of handling everything else is like maybe 50, 50 at best creative to handling. And so a lot of it is understanding, having those relationships, understanding how to price things, understanding how to clear repertoire, getting permission from the artist to do it. There's a lot of process that goes into it.

[00:41:49] Dan Runcie: Is there a sync from your days that song that you look back on that you were like, yeah, that's the one. It took some work, but looking back that's the one. 

[00:41:56] Matt Pincus: Wow. That's really, that be would a really better question for Carianne than for me. In terms of like the stuff that really made a difference to us as a business, one of the things that I think was meaningful was when Lorde did the Hunger Games soundtrack in the follow-up movie. That gave us a really good look at how music can be a content element in overall entertainment. The Weeknd did a similar thing with Black Panther where, so it was those sort of tie-in, you know, big-ticket where our music was woven into the substance of the film or the ad in some cases. That I think are really the special moments. Those are two that pop out. There's always like the random one where you have a relatively smaller artist and you get them a sync and, you know, it changes their life. It gives 'em more money than they ever thought was possible. There's also the ones, we had an artist who had a very high level of ethic and I won't name the artist, but independent artist, good earnings, but not a pop artist. And we got a $90,000 ad and for very good ethical reasons, he said, fuck, no, it's not going to happen, not going to approve it. And as much as I was like, it was to do early days of the company, it would've made a huge difference to write 90 grand into my books in a quarter. There's some beauty in the level of control that artists have over their own work in the music business that they don't in a lot of other media that I was like, you know what good for him, I guess we're saying no. There's this artisanal component to it that's really special.

[00:43:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Being able to have that power and knowing when it isn't right. I've heard similar things as well from other podcasters I'll talk to when they get pitched with certain deals and stuff, and they'll be like, you know what, that's just not a product I'm willing to do, or that's just not an endorsement I'm willing to have. And it could have been a game changer for them and their business and everything. But I think we're going to see more of this with creators as they just are leveraging their own independence and being able to make their own decisions. 

[00:43:59] Matt Pincus: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:44:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah.

[00:44:00] Matt Pincus: Exactly. 

[00:44:01] Dan Runcie: I want to close this conversation out talking about streaming 'cause I know this is a topic that you've shared a number of insights on over the years. And one of the things that you've said before that has always stuck out to me and resonated is this path that streaming has been on where it has been growing year over year, but a lot of people, especially in recent months, have started to question how many more subscribers out there are willing to pay the full price for streaming services and even if there is growth in some of these other regions where the revenue coming in is only a fraction of what it currently is now, what does that growth necessarily look like? So I hear that there's two camps there. Some people are skeptical about the future, but others are looking at smartphone adoption and just the way that things are trending as an indicator of where things are going. But how do you view the opportunity and especially streaming's growth from here on out. 

[00:44:55] Matt Pincus: Okay. So I think there's a couple of different things there. You know, one is just on-demand streaming and what the growth curve looks like for on-demand stream. I think the broader question is what does overall growth look like for music consumption going forward? And I'm not sure those are totally the same thing. So, you know, listen, Spotify's done an epic job growing that business. It's a difficult business from just the word go, you know, you're relying on content licenses, you're inherently undifferentiated. Like on paper, it looks like this is impossible. And yet they build an unbelievable business out of it. And I really, you know, sort of think it's worth, you know, whatever opinions people have about streaming, to take a step back and realize that the people who did this originally, you know, Larry Jackson and Apple Music, the people who did it originally did a really fucking tremendous job of making it work. It will mature. There's some debate over whether it may have already started to mature in some distinct ways in Western, you know, sort of developed economies and even maybe in some of the larger sort of secondary territories. The really interesting places that we used to see at Songs in our own data are high population, low discretionary income countries, Indonesia, Philippines, a lot of the African continent. I'm not sure it's necessarily in all of those places going to be an on-demand streaming function that, you know, ultimately wins the day. There are people fucking with a model in a bunch of different ways over mobile. Boomplay in Africa is doing a buyout model. You know, it can be woven with other kinds of entertainment in a bundle in a bunch of different ways. So the question of where on-demand streaming goes, it is a little bit like anyone's guess, but there are different opinions between reasonable people about how the growth curve looks. You know, one of the things that I really love about the web three thing, and I think it's in the early days of really grinding the gears to figure out what actually works, 'cause like this sort of, you know, sucking on the laughing gas tank and you know, watching your crypto go up or over now. So it's entering into like a moment where people actually like have to figure out how it works. But the thing that I think is true is that it's unlocked a premium, that people are willing to pay over the cost of consuming music permanently. How big that premium is, we'll see. I think it was overinflated and inorganic in some of the early times of crypto, not a lot, humans are doing it and they're doing it for high ticket prices, you know, but if you look at some of the stuff, for example, that's going on in Asia, where people are throwing money at artists they like just because they want to you know, people paying sort of eye of the beholder price to be associated with an artist that they feel strongly about, that they love early in their career. Like, that's not going away. So whether, you know, the subscription fatigue is a reality, whether effective penny rates, times units of consumption are going up, flattening, going down. You know, we'll see. I mean, the Goldman Sachs people think they're going to go up forever. I'm not sure I totally agree with that. But what is true is that the willingness of people to invest in artists they love is increasing. And I don't think that's going back to zero, so it may not be, you know, that subgrowth continues on forever and on-demand streaming, but it may be that there are other ways that people can figure out how to engage with artists that keep the value, you know, exchange going up. Now, the one thing about streaming that's interesting is that, you know, the TikTok thing, in ways that people, like, talk shit about it all the time, whatever, but the thing that's interesting is that it did introduce frequency back into the equation. And one of the things about music that's unique is that you need to hear a song a number of times before you like it. Like at first you're like, I hate that. And then you hear it like five times and you're like, maybe I want to hear it again. And then by like, whatever end time you hear it, you're like, I can't get it out of my head. I got to hear it. It's like, Barry Weiss used to call it a record finding its bottom, where it would kind of come out and people would spin it, and then it would drop and then at some level would start to rise again. That's a function of promotion. That's a function of frequency. And in the early YouTube time and on-demand streaming time, you didn't really have that. Like, the people couldn't make something frequently play. And the AV platforms, not only TikTok, but also Snap and Instagram changed that equation and that music needs that. The thing that I'm wondering where it will happen, where it will come back into the equation though, is the music press, which has largely disappeared. And so I'm looking for who, on a consumer level there, people like yourself covering the business, part of it, that are doing an extraordinary job, but who sort of tells people what's good, gets it in front of them, filters it and what does that look like? It's probably not printed on a page. It's probably, it's sort of associated, I think in some way with what's going on with the NFT world, you know, with getting people to buy in, getting a community of people bought to projects, but it's still that same mechanism of filtering. And so I'm wondering where that's one of my thesis areas that I have my on. Where's the next one of those? 

[00:50:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think this is a role that, of course, MTV and so many other places own and were able to do so well decades ago. And now the commonality I've always referred back to is that TikTok in many ways is the new MTV, but it's more so in the broader sense of just the cultural appeal, but not in that solo aspect of yes, if you want to know what this group of people are pushing, or what is the thing that's in, this is the place to go to find that. And I think it's very tough, the way that things are right now, just with how fragmented things are. But people are always going to want to feel like they're part of what's in or feel like they know what's in that desire also isn't going away. So I think there were always be a space for this, no matter how fragmented.

[00:50:53] Matt Pincus: And people don't always know what they like. I mean, who knew that all these people love Kate Bush? 

[00:50:58] Dan Runcie: Right. 

[00:50:58] Matt Pincus: We all understand why. She's amazing. Song's amazing, but people don't always know what they like until somebody shows it to them and repeats it. And then all of a sudden they can't get it out of their head. And that's the magic of music. So how that happens, you know, the cool kids like it up from the bottom, you know, like to be selective, know about the stuff first. The general audience likes to hear things multiple times and then, you know, be addicted to it. And I think that those things will reinvent themselves in a bunch of different ways going forward. 

[00:51:27] Dan Runcie: For sure, Matt, before we let you go, do you have one big prediction for us on where you may see things in the next five years or one thing that you think will change from where music is right now to where things will be come 2027?

[00:51:40] Matt Pincus: Well, I think as I touched on before, I think younger and younger people are going to be making music that the world reacts. And that is going to be miraculous when it happens. And not necessarily in like a sort of criss-cross Whip / Nae Nae type of way, but in a real, like expressing the core thoughts and feelings they have and getting them out there in a way that sounds good to the world. I think that's going to happen in a bunch of different ways. I think the way that repertoire moves across the planet is going to be revolutionary in the next five years. If there's one thing that's really going to change, you know, it used to be that sort of music went west to east and technology went east to west. Now, I think that's all scrambled eggs right now. If you look at stuff, like, you know, some of the music that's coming out of West Africa right now and how it gets into the global culture. It's not like in a, you know, used to be like you had like a world music business. Like, that's ripped up and thrown away. And so I think, you know, the way that the in-country community relates to the diaspora community in around the globe is going to be really different. You know, I think if there's one thing I have my eye on, it's sort of how all that stuff travels. And obviously, there's some obvious examples like BTS. But I think this is going to happen anywhere and everywhere. And one of the things that I heard somebody say the other day that I felt was really interesting is that the music business thinks about countries in its marketing. You know, they've Europe and Asia and Australia, Canada, US. It should be cities because music is about scenes and it's going to travel that way. And so your Amsterdam strategy is going to be different from your Seoul strategy is going to be different from your São Paulo strategy. And so if there's one like broad thing, I think we're going to look at the way that music travels around the planet in a completely different way. 

[00:53:37] Dan Runcie: That's spot on. Look at the way we think about music here in the US. That should be an indication of how it should be looked at elsewhere, right? We know what Atlanta hip-hop sounds like compared to what you may hear in LA or even the New Orleans bounce sound. Like, it's so different place to place. So you look at a country like Nigeria, which is soon going to eclipse the US in population. What you may hear in Lagos would be completely different from other parts of the country. So that's a really great point. 

[00:54:05] Matt Pincus: Yeah. So that would be like, if I, you know, sort of, if I had to obsess about something, it would be that. 

[00:54:10] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of people listening probably will too. This is a good one. I think that you got a bunch of notes for people to jot down. So Matt, thank you for making the time for this. This is fun. Thanks for coming on. 

[00:54:21] Matt Pincus: Thank you so much. I just really appreciate your thinking to me. And it's a pleasure to talk to you about all this stuff.

[00:54:27] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

In less than a week, AI-powered rapper FN Meka became the first virtual rapper signed to a major label and then released by one. Capitol Records dropped the virtual act for being a complete caricature of black culture — glorifying police brutality in lyrics, dropping the n-word, and other cringey behaviors. However, FN Meka’s utter failure shouldn’t be a write off for ALL virtual characters. In fact, a prime example of how to do it right is Aku.

Aku was created by Micah Johnson — a former MLB player and now a full-fledged artist, both in the virtual and real world. The kid character is a black astronaut, which was inspired by Micah’s four-year-old nephew asking his mother, “can astronauts be black?” Unlike FN Meka, Aku is a vehicle to promote what one artist wants to see in the world. A symbol or hero for a better tomorrow. 

This week, I’m running back an interview I did with Micah in 2021. It was done shortly after Micah first released the character as an NFT collection, selling $2 million right off the bat. And no, this was not just a FOMO-fueled drop amid the NFT crazy. Aku has lived on since then, and only a few weeks ago, the lifestyle fashion label Paper Plans announced a snapback collab with the Aku character. This comes on top of prior partnerships with major brands like Puma and Billionaire Boys Club, plus Aku appearing on the cover of Time Magazine.

Unlike FN Meka, the creation and intention behind Aku is an uplifting story.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Micah Johnson, @Micah_Johnson3

Links:

• Aku | Micah Johnson’s character to inspire kids to dream without limits

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

Before Abe Batshon started BeatStars in 2008, a handful of superproducers had a quasi-monopoly on selling beats, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars per song. Top producers still get paid today, but the concept has become more antiquated with platforms like BeatStars democratizing beat-making. Creators can sell instrumentals — either under an exclusive license or not — to artists around the globe for a fraction of the previous cost. With $200 million paid out to creators to date, BeatStars has reset the entire economics of beats. 

Abe started BeatStars without any VC funding during the Great Recession. This was also pre-steaming, when the music industry was in its dark days. Bootstrapping the company, BeatStars would redefine the music landscape along with other DIY distribution platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube. Abe’s goal from the get-go was to break the relationship-driven nature of creating music and open opportunities for creators around the globe.

Fourteen years later, it’s safe to say Abe has created more opportunities and then some. Famously, Lil Nas X bought the beat for viral sensation “Old Town Road” on BeatStars for $30. BeatStars’ producers have also been featured on songs released by Drake and Ariana Grande and ads for adidas, the NBA, and many more. BeatStars’ fingerprints are all over media, not just the independents but the majors too. 

Here’s all the noteworthy moments during our conversation:

[3:27] Recognizing BeatStars instrumentals online 

[6:18] Starting BeatStars amid 2008 music landscape

[7:28] Receiving pushback when BeatStars began

[10:02] What finally changed for producers

[12:20] Resetting economics of beats

[16:25] Typical earnings for BeatStars creators

[20:36] Music syncs in mainstream media

[23:44] BeatStars growth trajectory

[28:20] More competitors in the marketplace 

[31:22] VC money’s impact in the music industry 

[36:03] BeatStars cap table

[39:30] Roadmap for the future

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Abe Batshon, @AbeBatshon

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Abe Batshon: for us, it's never been about the money. It's always been about these young people all over the world and old people, creators from everywhere. Like, can we liberate the idea of songs? Can we help push people to be more experimental with their words and their messages and their art and something that's so personal for them. I don't see any of these like venture-backed companies or big invested-type of companies actually having a genuine approach to how they treat or deal with their community. So I'm really not worried about it. I definitely keep them in mind in terms of continuing our fight to liberate music. 

[00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is a topic I've been wanting to dive into for a minute and this is about the business of buying and selling beats. It's a fascinating marketplace that has shifted considerably over the past few decades. So I wanted to bring on an expert himself to chat about it. Abe Batshon, who is the founder and CEO of BeatStars, which is a marketplace for buying and selling beats. He joined me on this topic, and we took a trip down memory lane. We went back to the 2000s, we talked about what it was like. You remember when Timbaland was bragging about getting half a mill for his beats and Neptunes had 40% of the songs on the radio? As great as it was for them, there really wasn't a lot for the other producers and other people that were trying to come up, so BeatStars came up in this post-YouTube era to make it possible for having this marketplace. And Abe talks about what it was like back then and just given some of the challenges that existed with the music industry, searching for its own business model at the dark days of piracy and trying to navigate that. But then also with the early days of the streaming era and how that has lifted his business. In the past two years, BeatStars has made more money than it made in the past 12 years before that, and it's on track to have another one of its biggest years yet now. So we talk about what that journey's been like, what led to that, and how this marketplace and how this business has evolved. When Abe was starting this, people laughed at him because they thought it was crazy what he was trying to do. Today, there are plenty of investors with bigger pockets that are trying to come in and eat his lunch. So we talked about what that looks like and why he still thinks that BeatStars is well positioned there. We also talk more broadly about the amount of VC money that's come into music tech, and how he looks at that, and what it looks like for other opportunities. If you're as fascinated about this topic as I am, you'll love this conversation. Abe kept it real and it was great to talk to him. Here's our chat.

[00:02:55] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Abe Batshon who is the CEO and founder of BeatStars. One of the premier places to buy and sell beats and wanted to have him on so we could have a conversation about this entire process, this landscape, and right before we recorded, Abe, you were just telling me about how you were listening to a different podcast. And you could hear when you hear that BeatStars beats on a podcast, Trapital podcast, of course, mine came from there. How do you know that the beat for sure came from BeatStars as opposed to somewhere else? 

[00:03:27] Abe Batshon: Well, yeah, I'm a dude. I listen to so much music on the platform. Like, I process everything so much and I kind of, I don't know if it's photographic memory in terms of when you hear something, I just retain that information around that piece of music forever. Like, I know when I've heard something. Yeah, so, yes, I'll randomly, like, you know, turn on the TV or turn on the radio or turn on, you know, TikTok or turn on SoundCloud or turn on anywhere. And I'm like, holy shit. Or Spotify, you know? And I'm listening to, like, some of the trending viral songs or the top Billboard songs. I'm like, yeah, I know those beats. I know those beats. I've heard those before. Yeah. 

[00:04:04] Dan Runcie: Do you feel like there's a distinct brand or sound that has BeatStars sound that you can pick up on almost in the same way that well-known and established producer has that sound like you could hear a track and be like, oh, that's a Neptunes track even if I'd never heard it before, do you feel like that's the case for a BeatStars beats? 

[00:04:21] Abe Batshon: Good question. You know, maybe eight years ago, nine years ago, yeah, I could have, you know, been like, okay, that's definitely an influence from the marketplace, from the sound, from the platform, but today with the amount of variety and just so many different genres, and sub-genres and styles of music that's getting uploaded to BeatStars, it's impossible to just define it to one, sound anymore, but maybe 10 years ago, for sure. Yeah, not now, not now. 

[00:04:49] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense from the timeframe perspective 'cause I could imagine, especially in the early days, there are artists you have that are likely championing the service. And if they're bringing on others that want to have that artist-type beat there, then there's going to be a lot of that similarity. But over time, especially with where you are now, over 200 million paid out to artists on this platform that just speaks to the reach that you have and everything that you've been able to do from it. 

[00:05:16] Abe Batshon: Yeah, man. so fulfilling, so fulfilling to just like know that's the kind of impact the technology and platform is making for, you know, for creators' lives. I'm definitely not satisfied with that number at all. But it's a great, great motivational indicator for me to keep going for the team, to keep pushing. But, you know, our aspirations are a lot bigger than that for sure. 

[00:05:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Let's actually go back a bit because I think that could be a way to have the arc of where this is going. Of course, you started this company in 2008, but in the 2000s, it was such a different landscape for producers, beat makers. And I look at that era as being quite top-heavy, right? If you were one of the super producers. If you were Timbaland, if you were Pharrell, if you were Kanye, then you almost had a, you know, quasi-monopoly in a particular area of just what you could charge, what you could do. But for everyone else that wasn't a superstar, it was a much more challenging landscape, I could assume. Can you speak to what it was like that time frame? 

[00:06:18] Abe Batshon: Oh, so challenging then. So challenging, you know, I was working at INgrooves prior to me starting up BeatStars and, you know, I'd work with a bunch of artists, and labels and I'd get to know, like, the producers behind some of the work that's being released. And even for those top-heavy guys that I was talking to, they started definitely feeling a shift in how operationally the record labels were approaching licensing of beats and the development of an artist. You know, I think I just saw a recent article. I forget which publication, oh, maybe Billboard just the other day about how everyone's a distributor now. All the majors are just, you know, they're distributors. Each one of their kind of like sub-companies under the parent companies are all, you know, competing with each other, actually as distribution companies, and it's creating like a healthy competition of distribution. And so, you know, that wasn't the case back then, man. You know, back in the day, like, the major record labels weren't operating from a DIY, you know, distribution mindset of like mass distribution, mass releases of content. That wasn't the mindset. So, yeah, it was a much more controlled environment with which producers actually were contributing to, you know, these songs or these albums that were, you know, the majority of what we were listening to back in 2008. And I think you know, what changed at all was, was the emergence of probably YouTube, right? The emergence of YouTube, and SoundCloud, and, you know, and BeatStars, right? And the accessibility and the ability to now reach a broader and global audience of collaborators and music creators. And we were kind of laughed at. We were kind of laughed at in the beginning, you know, everything different that goes against a grain, that goes against a traditional way of how things are done, there's always going to be some resistance to that model or any resistance to those ideas. And it used to bother me back in the day and I used to get some of these super producers, you know, some of them would send me like dirty messages, like you're fucking up the game. You're saturating, you're devaluing our art. And I didn't see it that way. You know, I didn't see it that way. I was seeing it as a new opportunity to create more and broader reach of intellectual property for the independent creator that can actually sustain themselves in a world where it's controlled by a few different organizations, you know. 

[00:08:36] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Thinking about those artists themselves. I'm thinking back to that time, there was that stat, maybe it was in 2002 or 2003, where they said that 43% of the songs on the radio were Neptune songs. And I think you could have said the same about Timbaland. You could have said the same about Max Martin or any of these people that are just on the radio so much, but you come in with this platform that very much speaks to where we were in the music industry and where things were with technology with hip-hop specifically. This is the blog era, it's really starting to pick up. You're starting to see more of that DIY distribution from the artist side. SoundCloud was just launched and even Spotify was still in the early days, but streaming still didn't take off the way it did. And I can imagine that some of the pushback or some of their response you got was from people feeling that you were likely ahead of the curve, and because of that, there were still several years before things really took off in streaming. So it was probably interesting just to see the landscape evolve. And then as you had success, you saw other competitors come in and other folks see the landscape and you're like, well, you know, I've been trying to tell you all, this is what the vision has been since the 2000s. But back then, the industry was just in such a place of people were still trying to push CDs. Like people were still trying to fight piracy. And like, when you think about that, I'm not surprised at all that you had faced some of that pushback you did. 

[00:10:02] Abe Batshon: Yeah. I'm trying to kind of go back to those days in hip-hop, you know, everyone was the plug for certain things. Everyone was the plug for certain things. And you had to go through this person or this company in order to achieve some of the, like, artistry goals that you have as an artist, you know? And there was a determined route that you had to go, you know. There was a determined route that you had to go and you had to go through certain gatekeepers in order to, you know, achieve success. And it just bothered me from a human level. You know, it bothered me from a human level that we're not allowed to experiment and develop art, you know. Closed environments, the outcome of those. Like you said, how many more Neptunes hits can we have continued to listen to? Nothing against the Neptunes, I fucking love those guys, right? They're amazing, they're geniuses. But even them, they would tell you that, yeah, that kind of monopoly was probably unhealthy for music, for artists all over the world. You know, I'm sure they will tell you that that opportunity was, you know, scarce, you know, opportunity was scarce. And yeah, it was relationship-driven industry, you know, so it was a different time, different time. And I think my goal was to just completely break it.

[00:11:16] Dan Runcie: Thinking about that time too. You had the people that were the top producers at those times, and they could charge handover fist for a beat. I mean, there's the line where, you know, Timbaland's like, I'm getting half a mill for a beat. And if I'm thinking about just from the competitive dynamic, what happened there, you did have this very top-heavy landscape. And in some ways they're telling you, Hey, you know, you're fucking up our money. And in some ways you are, but not necessarily in a bad way because you're letting everyone else that couldn't eat at all at least get something, right? So when you now introduce this marketplace and no, you don't necessarily have to pay half a million for a Timbaland beat to get on the radio. You could pay under a thousand dollars, a few hundred dollars to have one of the biggest songs of the summer on your music, and being able to do that lifts it up for everyone else. So I think whether it's your Timbaland's or your Mike Will, other folks could still get, you know, six figures or a lot of money, but I don't know if they're getting that 2006 or those 2003 checks that they were for the type of beats they did.

[00:12:20] Abe Batshon: But, Dan, superstars are superstars in terms of creation, right, in terms of music production. Even on BeatStars, right, even on BeatStars, maybe, yeah, there's some producers on a platform that don't have that type of name recognition in a game of only a handful of producers. It's kind of different now to gain that kind of name recognition, but there are superstars on BeatStars. There are superstars that are generating half a million dollars in cumulative earnings in licensing revenue from one beat on BeatStars. So those days of like earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on one track is still happening on the platform. It's just happening in a different model. It's happening in a non-exclusive model where thousands of recording artists are, you know, licensing that same production and have the rights to create another master version of that production. But at the end of the day, that producer generated hundreds of thousands of dollars just from that one piece of content that lives as a catalog item in their store. Yeah. And I'm hearing like huge songs now on the radio that those beats are still available, non-exclusively on the platform, they're still available. So producers are becoming less and less willing to let go of their intellectual property exclusively because there's just so much backend earnings and recurring revenue, business building and, you know, forecasting of earnings for themselves, that it doesn't make sense now for them to kind of give up the rights to just one rights holder anymore. So now it's super competitive and it's gotten to a point where I think competition is healthy in song making like, Hey, here's the beat, $20. By the way, some of these beats, a lot of these beats that live on BeatStars, if they existed back in those 2000s, when it was the heyday of license revenue of 200,000 a beat or 500,000 a beat from Timbaland. Like, these beats are competing with those beats or even beyond them, right, 'cause these kids are pumping out content like crazy, right? They're bending this software in terms of DAW, the accessibility to digital VSTs, and effects, and processing, and sound libraries and, like, their ability to, like, craft, you know, sonically, like, amazing, amazing records that penetrate every market around the world. Like, it's much easier now. Back then it was harder. But, yeah, I think the earnings potential is still there on BeatStars. You know, I think it's still there. It still exists and that's why we're still seeing producers that have had tons of success, you know, licensing to major recording artists still maintaining and developing and building their online presence on BeatStars. Like, it's still a major income stream from them to the point where they can't neglect it. And they can't completely immerse themselves in the traditional way of like, you know, music licensing within the industry. It's cool to see. It's cool to see a balance. You got to have both. You got to have both today. 

[00:15:07] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. And I'm glad you brought that point up 'cause that's an important distinction 'cause, of course, we're talking before about the upfront money that the super producers were getting in the 2000s, but people were rarely talking about the totality of it, and what it looks like. And that's what you're talking about here and being able to measure it in totality makes so much more sense because, with the way it currently is now, with an artist releases something on BeatStars, there's so many ways that they can generate money from that, whether that's, especially if it's non-exclusive, as you mentioned, people can pay for it directly. Anyone that is then using that beat, you could earn revenue directly, you know, from anything that's there, depending on the arrangement. But then I think you have this additional benefit where people, especially with TikTok and all these other platforms, they want to be able to remix and make their own versions of songs and being able to do that and how that can compound on each other. That's what makes the platforms like this successful. And maybe it would be helpful to hear you mentioned that, you know, there are superstars on the platform that are making and exceeding a lot of those, you know, revenue totals that we had seen before. What does a typical breakdown of that look like in terms of how much of that comes from upfront sales of people purchasing versus how much of it is the recurring and maybe ballpark? We don't need anything too exact, but maybe to give an idea. 

[00:16:25] Abe Batshon: Yeah. So I guess we can only attribute the upfront micro licensing revenue on BeatStars, right? That $200 million, that micro licensing. But if we wanted to get very, very technical, we can talk about the earnings that were actually, you know, generated from those, you know, derivative works, those songs that were made from those beats. And if you calculate the earnings from the millions of songs that are created on the platform every year that get distributed to DSPs and DIY distributors, you're talking probably billions of dollars of earnings, music copyright earnings from, all of these non-exclusive licenses, cumulatively. So I wish there was a way to calculate all that, but it's hard to like quantify that. But I think today, from a platform earnings potential on BeatStars. I think the average seller producer on the platform generates over a thousand dollars a year, you know, which, Hey, a thousand bucks is, you know, not the craziest amount, but if you compare that to the average earnings of artists on these DSPs or some of these, some of these other ways of earning revenue from music. I don't want to poke too many holes at platforms that are, you know, kind of not building their businesses and products with the music creators in mind. I wish they would. I wish they would, but we're not going to get too deep into that. But I think I'm proud. 

[00:17:53] Dan Runcie: I was going to say there's somewhat listening right now that is backing into the math of how many streams does it take to get a thousand dollars a year?

[00:18:01] Abe Batshon: Right. Exactly. Yeah, I think if we were to calculate the stream versus earning ratio on BeatStars, yeah, our million streams are definitely generating a shit ton more, shit-ton more than what you would earn, you know. But again, it's a different concept, different way of consumption. Things are happening differently than compared to, you know, the more bigger consumer products that are out there, which, you know, we're going to keep up with them at some point though, I think, and that's one of our goals is to build a more consumer-friendly product that actually is not just niche to artists and music producers. So we're excited about what the future of what we can do for our creators, yeah. 

[00:18:41] Dan Runcie: Can we talk a little bit more about that? What would that consumer side look like? 'Cause I think as you mentioned, a lot of the creators themselves are the ones that are using the platform, getting the most out of it, but what would the more creator side focus look like?

[00:18:56] Abe Batshon: Like a more creator-focused platform that evolves, what the evolution of what BeatStars could be? Yeah, I mean, you know, we are already starting to do it. We're already starting to do it in terms of adding publishing administration, global publishing administration, and partnership with Sony Music Publishing and giving our creators the ability to go and collect on, you know, all their royalties worldwide. I think is a big one from all of these copyrights that are made on the platform that they still have ownership and rights to. You know, we don't take ownership of anything on the platform. Our creators right now keep a hundred percent of all their sales on the platform. They maintain all of their ownership. They dictate and decide what their license terms look like. We're just a technology layer just facilitating this collaboration. And I think, we'll definitely get into a lot more, a lot more businesses that are complimentary to music licensing. So we do allow our creators to sell sound kits and samples as well, too. And I think we're, you know, we're going to build a more sophisticated product around that. Major companies are already licensing for syncs already off of the platform indirectly, even though that's kind of not the primary function on the platform. That's something that, you know, we're exploring and, and going to expand on as well 'cause just another revenue stream opportunity, you know.

[00:20:12] Dan Runcie: I was going to ask you about syncs next because I feel like that is so current and top of mind, especially the explosion of video streaming right now in all those projects. And so many people see the benefit of having a good sync. And I think we're having these conversations before, but ever since the Kate Bush song on Stranger Things, those conversations have happened so many more times, more frequently than I've at least heard before then.

[00:20:36] Abe Batshon: For sure. For sure. Yeah. We used to have a, man, like eight years ago, we did have a sync license and I don't know why we took it away. We just kind of wanted to laser focus on just the non-exclusive licensing of artists and producers. But yeah, we're already seeing our music and Netflix documentaries. We're already seeing our music, you know, synced on movies, TV shows, independent, films, commercials for Adidas and Madden video games. We're seeing our content already being used in that way. You know, it makes sense to develop a product that's, you know, tailored for that community for sure. 

[00:21:06] Dan Runcie: Has any of the explosion of music rights buying and selling, has any of that changed and shaped your business in any way? Because I know that there are super producers themselves that have sold theirs, whether Tableland or Darkchild having done deals themselves. Has any of that shifted anything or have you seen any result of that in your business or any of the transactions that are being made there? 

[00:21:31] Abe Batshon: Yeah, so I'm not too aware of too many producers on the platform that have kind of sold their rights away or anything like that. It hasn't happened on the platform, but I'm sure, I'm sure there's been, you know, those investor, kind of like investor copyright types that are out there acquiring rights of music, whether it's, you know, from the producer's side of things. But I'm sure they get approached all the time. I just, I don't know of any, like, specific creator producer on the platform that's done it yet. But I'm sure, like, a lot of people are having those conversations with them for sure. 

[00:22:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, 'cause I know the artists' side, artists get reached out to all the time now about this whether it's from the main investment firms that we know, or even some that in my experience don't really do much in music, but have reached out because they'll reach out to me to see if I can reach out to these artists, right? And I got to imagine that in some ways, not only are they looking for the artists themselves, they're looking okay, where are these artists? Where are the catalogs that they own? So it's fascinating to see, I assume that it's likely a conversation that, especially given the way your business is, I know you said that a thousand dollars is the average payout annually that artists or that the beat makers and producers get on the platform, but I'm sure that it is quite top-heavy itself where, you know, there are the few that are just bringing in so much, and I'm sure that they're probably hearing some of those conversations every now and then. 

[00:22:54] Abe Batshon: For sure. For sure. Yeah. I'm sure it's happening a hundred percent. 

[00:22:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah. One of the things that I had seen, especially with BeatStars, we talked about how growth you've had recently, and, I believe this was at July 2020, you had $85 million in payouts that you had done to beat makers specifically at that point since you had launched a platform in 2008, and then you had recently announced a few months back here now in 2022, that you had had $200 million. So quite a big jump, it’s almost double in less than a two-year span. One, it would be great to hear what that was like and also, what are the steps that happened or what are the things that you all had done that helped you, you know, double everything that you had done the past decade-plus in the past two years?

[00:23:44] Abe Batshon: Yeah. I mean, our growth trajectory, even the years prior were a hundred percent year over year as well, too. So we were already kind of pre-pandemic move, like, that was our growth trajectory prior as well. It just took us a long time. It just took us a long time. We did it the slow and steady way. And the last two years, I would say, for sure the pandemic put a priority, yeah, I guess I guess people started questioning their existence, man. You know, like we started questioning our existence and we're like, am I not going to explore my art, you know? Like, I know I was doing it. I was making more music during the pandemic. And I would, you know, meet a lot of our creators and I and I would hear their stories and like, I started singing during the pandemic, or I started making beats more seriously, I'm home and I needed an outlet to kind of license and sell them. And so I think the pandemic definitely kind of accelerated the priority or like top of mind of creators to take it more seriously or to kind of, you know, explore more serious options for monetizing their music. So it's been a blessing to kind of see the platform and marketplace grow globally all over the world, and yeah, the marketplace is still booming and still going crazy. And I think, you know, we'll achieve over 70 million this year for sure. That's kind of our projection, could be more. So yeah, the licensing activity is continuing to go great. I'm excited. I'm excited about the future, man.

[00:25:06] Dan Runcie: That's good to hear because I am not surprised to hear the growth in the pandemic. I think there's so many things we can look back on the past two and a half years where especially something like this, where the art of doing it is something that people could do at home. So many people that are creating products, or creating services, or music, or medium putting out into the world, so much of that picked up and there was so much that was successful. And I think we saw that with the way the stocks went and the way everything was. So you had this run from March 2020 pretty much up until let's say November 2021, when everything was booming, right? The past six months, we saw certain things come back down to earth a bit. And I think there were a lot of the pandemic stocks and a lot of the companies, even the ones in the music industry that had had sky-high valuations, coming back down to earth a little bit, but at least for you all, I'm getting the impression that that hasn't necessarily impacted you from that perspective, given I think you have a different business model than a lot of the companies that had, you know, challenges there, but how the past three to six months been specifically?

[00:26:10] Abe Batshon: Yeah, I think our growth has kind of leveled off a little bit. We're kind of, you know, I guess, the normalization of things are happening for sure. And we're having to work harder to like retain our subscribers and users. It's just shifting our approach and adjusting and pivoting to more accessible business models for this time and this moment in our history. I mean, it's for sure a recession. It's happening globally. It's impacting a lot of people's lives and we need to make sure that we kind of still factor that in mind and create products that are are still useful and accessible and functional for anyone with any economic status that they're in, you know, because it breaks my soul if someone can't afford a BeatStars subscription and can't explore their art and can't develop themselves and meet those goals because of this current space that we're in right now. So we're definitely pivoting and adjusting and thinking about new and better accessible business models that can cater to anyone with any kind of economic status. So, we're definitely adjusting things though. 

[00:27:11] Dan Runcie: I could imagine. I do think though that these things aren't permanent and, of course, we'll see things pick up, again it's just a matter of the timing there specifically. I do feel like for you all, it's interesting because the future of where this all is heading right now, you, as you mentioned, I think that you were a bit ahead of the curve. So, you know, growth in the early days may not have been as fast, but now we're in this place where people saw the success you have, people see the potential of where things going and now more companies are starting to launch their own beat marketplaces and ones that we're establishing other places. Have you seen that impact, what you've seen in your businesses? Because I know that, at least from other people I talked to that are in streaming of the DSPs, they've talked about how we've switched from this herbivore market where everyone's just capturing people that are generally wanting subscriptions to now they're in this carnivore mode of competing with each other. Have you seen any of that where you feel like the people who are beat makers now, it's not so much capturing new ones. It's essentially positioning yourselves from the competitors who have come after you. 

[00:28:20] Abe Batshon: Yeah, I'm definitely, you know, definitely aware of the competitors, and a lot of these guys were admirers of what we've done. And you know, I know them personally. It's flattering, you know. It's flattering to see in terms of people being inspired by the things that I create and build and what we do here as a company as well too. And it's part of being in a capitalistic society that we're in, you know. Monkey see monkey do, you know. I feel like it's increased our kind of our competitive spirits here at the company to want to be more innovative. I think it's a blessing that there's other folks trying to come into our space. For me, I've been doing this for almost 15 years, right? So it's, I need a kick in the ass in terms of where I want to go in my career and the aspirations where I want to see BeatStars. I mean, we've always been driven and always been the hardest working and most caring community that you'll ever see in terms of the music producers. But yeah, I just use it as a competitive chip to keep moving and pushing and pushing for our creators to provide even more fair and useful products for them. I haven't seen a shift in like our business or anything like that because of the competitors, you know. It may take a while for that to happen. If they do something super unique or whatever it is that they're doing, but I haven't seen anything that's like, exciting from an innovation standpoint. It's just monkey see monkey do, copycats. 

[00:29:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That was going to be my next question, you see, if are there new things that you're seeing the competitors do that make you say, oh, that's interesting, right? 'Cause that would definitely validate the ass-kicking or the bit of the push there. It reminds you of that sports analogy, right? Like how. Michael Jordan had to go create these demons out of thin air because there was really no one at this level, and anytime someone tried to say, oh, Jordan or Drexler, he just like squash it that immediately. So you all having that, yeah. 

[00:30:04] Abe Batshon: I've always had that. You know, I'm a sports guy, huge sports guy, played sports my whole life, too. And so I definitely was competing with myself in terms of wanting to be better and extract more capacity of myself and see myself and my team's dreams continue to grow. But yeah, I just use those as just another factor into, and I'm not to say anyone's intentions are bad or anyone's intentions are good, but it's a little suspect. It's a little suspect. It's a little bit, I don't know, what's the word, but it feels ingenuine. It feels like a land grab. It feels like a money game. And for us, it's never been about the money. It's always been about these young people all over the world and old people, creators from everywhere. Like, can we liberate the idea of songs? Can we help push people to be more experimental with their words and their messages and their art and something that's so personal for them. I don't see any of these like venture- companies or big invested type of companies actually having a genuine approach to how they treat or deal with their community. So I'm really not worried about it. I definitely keep them in mind in terms of continuing our fight to liberate music.

[00:31:13] Dan Runcie: How do you feel in general about the amount of VC money that has entered music and music tech and the platforms and companies that have been launched? 

[00:31:22] Abe Batshon: Dude, where was this money when I was in, like, Silicon Valley? You know, I mean, I'm from the East Bay, Hayward, California. And you know, Silicon Valley was just right down the street. And when I was building BeatStars, man, I couldn't even get a meeting with these guys. Like, I created 12 of the most amazing decks throughout my career that no one ever actually saw. Like, I couldn't sell anyone on the concept of investing into music. But like I understand that at that time, the music industry was going through a huge transitional moment. Like, everyone was really scared about the future of music. So it was pretty disastrous in terms of where music was at that time, and if I wasn't an investor, I probably wouldn't have invested in me either. But I never even got an opportunity to even you know, meet investors or pitch the ideas of BeatStars. We had to bootstrap this thing the whole way. And our creators invested in us, our customers did, we built this thing together with them. We just continue to reinvest every little penny that we made back into the platform. And so I think it made the journey a lot more satisfying, but it's exciting that there's much more investment and people willing to believe and other entrepreneurs and their ideas. I think it's cool. It pushes all of us, you know, pushes our creative boundaries and it's cool to see money flow. And I I'm happy that, you know, other entrepreneurs are not going to have to struggle the way that I did for 13, 14 years before I was, you know, able to kind of like sustain ourselves. So it's like, but you know, we kind of always figured out ways to sustain ourselves build organically, which has been beautiful. And we've been profitable since day one and we just continue to run lean, you know, and just not be wasteful and just, yeah. So it's exciting. I don't know where it's going to go. I mean, I don't know where a lot of the money is actually flowing in music tech, really. You probably know more than me, Dan. I don't pay attention to a lot of that stuff. 

[00:33:06] Dan Runcie: You're too busy building to track this stuff. 

[00:33:08] Abe Batshon: I'm busy, man. 

[00:33:09] Dan Runcie: That's my job. 

[00:33:11] Abe Batshon: Busy, dude, too busy. 

[00:33:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. With that though, do you get more interest or offers from any of these tech companies now, because I've started to hear from a lot of the companies that rose up the same timeframe that you did that. Now, when all this money pours in, now they're getting the attention, too, and the interest, too, from these investors that wouldn't have paid attention before, but now it's much less about the initial investment. Now they're trying to either acquire and now they're trying to do a joint venture, do these things. What have those conversations been like? 

[00:33:48] Abe Batshon: It's definitely getting aggressive for sure. And I think because of where we are right now, economically, you know, investors feel like they can come in and get a good deal right now for all these startups or companies that have existed even prior to the pandemic that are still thriving through it as well. I'm seeing a lot of acquisitions happen, a lot of private equity stuff happening. And it's interesting. It's interesting. We don't need the money, Dan, in terms of like where we are financially. We're, you know, we're self sustaining. We've got a ton of money in the bank and we have our investment plan internally to kind of finish our, you know, not finish, but continue our roadmap of all the things that we dream of wanting to do and build within our goals at BeatStars. So, thank God I'm healthy. I'm feeling good. I'm in remission. I I battled cancer the last couple years during the pandemic. And you know, that was a shaky moment for me during that time. It was really up and down. I didn't know where my future was and still kind of in it, but I'm thankfully feeling really well and just energized and I'm enjoying independence, I'm enjoying independence. And I really feel that we're in a good spot to kind of push through this kind of down moment of the economy and head down and focus on our creators while everyone is just focusing on profit and revenue. And we're going to do the opposite and just build something that's going to be a utility for people for many years to come, hopefully. 

[00:35:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely, I mean. 

[00:35:08] Abe Batshon: They're coming though. They're throwing checks. They're, you know, they're throwing checks at us. They're making offers, but, yeah, we're just not ready right now. We're just not ready. 

[00:35:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And like you said, you have the vision for this and the amount that you've poured into it, the amount that you've gone through, as you mentioned, especially in recent years, like all that comes through with the story, and I think that is what connects with both the artists and what connects with anyone that may be interested from a business perspective. And I think you do have the control, the autonomy to make those shots when you want to, and that's the power of bootstrapping, right? We all know the trade-offs where, yeah, it can take time as you very well know. But if you're able to get through the other side, the autonomy you have. You could make decisions like you don't have to have, you know, the investors reading it out of your deck or anything else are trying to wonder why you're not pumping more Facebook and Google ads to go do this or that, right? Like, you're able to do the things on your terms and to clarify, is the ownership a hundred percent you for the company or? 

[00:36:03] Abe Batshon: No, it's not a hundred percent me. Some employees have ownership in the company. We did take a minor, a very small, minor investment from Sony music publishing when we did our joint venture together. They've been great partners. They've been awesome. And they've been helping us kind of strategize and scale our publishing business, which I believe in the last 16 months, we've had 26 Billboard 100 hits that are from our BeatStars publishing roster of creators. One of our producers has two songs on Beyoncé's new album. And I know we had Megan Thee Stallion's new single, Pressurelicious, with one of our producers, I believe, it was HitKidd with Future. So it's like, it's so cool to see that our business is touching so many different parts of the music business. It's not just the independent creator like we're powering songs, even for the major, major superstar artists, which is awesome to see. So yeah, I'm excited about the future, man. I think we're just getting started, Dan. 

[00:36:53]

Dan Runcie: Yeah. and it's always fascinating to hear how companies like yours think about the compensation and things like that for employees because with a lot of the other competitors or even others in the space, especially with the amount of money that support and people are getting, you know, equity in these companies and they are getting them because if they're VC backed, then they have an exit in the mindset and you aren't coming from that perspective. So it's always interesting to hear, okay, what are the other things you're doing? So, yeah, it sounds like you're still doing equity, I know. 

[00:37:22] Abe Batshon: Oh, I forgot to mention like there's 400 creators as well. 400 creators that invested in BeatStars when we partnered with Indiegogo back in 2016 to be one of their, actually their initial kind of equity crowdfunding launch partners. And it wasn't because we needed funds or needed money at that time. We did it because I loved the fact that our creators can actually, like, buy ownership into the company, and I can like, continue serving them, man. I can continue feeling like, you know, I have to make sure I'm reporting to these people because these are the people that keep me grounded. These are the people that keep me focused on, you know, how we impact all the other creators' lives. So yeah, we have 400 other creators from the platform that invested like $150,000 total during that campaign. So it was pretty cool to know that they're also on our ownership structure.

[00:38:11] Dan Runcie: That's great to see them on the cap table. That's great. I'd like to close this conversation out. 

[00:38:16] Abe Batshon: Hopefully, make some money at some point. 

[00:38:19] Dan Runcie: Well, I mean, that depends how some of these conversations go with these, you know, companies breathing down your back. 

[00:38:23] Abe Batshon: Exactly. 

[00:38:24] Dan Runcie: So we'll see.

[00:38:25] Abe Batshon: For sure.

[00:38:26] Dan Runcie: But I like to close this conversation out of it and talk about focus because you talked a lot about creators and how you're focused on serving them. We're talking primarily about the people who are buying beats, the people that are selling beats, and anyone involved with that production or engineering process. But for you, I know what it's like to build a company. I'm sure there's been plenty of times where not just you or some of the people you're working with are like, oh, what if you did this? What if we did that, right? But you've been able to stay focused on I'm sure, part of it was likely a function of you're building as fast as you can. Given the fact that you're bootstrapped, some of your focus is by design, but then on the other hand, now that things are starting to come in, you're starting to see the success in reaping the rewards. I'm sure there's likely some thoughts of maybe that thing that you had in the back of your mind for a few years, but now maybe it's a little bit easier to do if you're going to be, you know, hitting nine-figure payouts annually soon enough. What are some of those things, if there are, that you have on the roadmap for where things are going for other things you might be doing?

[00:39:30] Abe Batshon: Yeah, we definitely want to make some acquisitions for sure. We're exploring some of that too. We're exploring some potential acquisitions, and I think maybe we'll do our first one by the beginning of 2023. Never know. So we're definitely thinking about how can we acquire some technology or companies or communities that really would help elevate what we're doing. So definitely, definitely thinking about that. We're investing a ton in technology, man. We're, I mean our engineering team, we're probably, we'll double by next year. I think we're at like 40, 40 people on the engineering team now. So we have all of these cool projects that these engineering pods are working on and it's exciting to see. So you'll definitely start seeing a lot more innovation more frequently from BeatStars soon. We have spent, and it may look like focus, but really it's been just kind of a restrain of our technology for the last four or five years. We've been rebuilding our whole tech stack, the back end, front end, the whole thing, because, you know, we were still using legacy platform from 2008 when it was just, you know, me and our founding members of the company, Joseph Aguilar, one of our engineers, you know, building it together and we're just some kids, you know, just going crazy. We didn't think that this thing was going to scale to millions and millions of creators all over the world. So we had to kind of pivot four years ago. And we're about 95% done in terms of the full platform rebuild. And from a technology standpoint, we're competing with some of the biggest music services in the world in terms of our tech stack. Now we're prepared to really do some damage now and build on top of what we're doing and optimize our offering and also get into some different verticals as well, too. So, yeah, it's kind of like a new rebirth of BeatStars in a sense, a whole new team, a whole new technology stack, a whole new drive, and purpose. And we're building out our executive team right now, too. It's been just me in terms of executives. I was wearing all the hats, and I don't know why I was doing that. And we just hired a Head of People, Sarah Simmons, who just joined us. We have our CTO, Nader Fares. We hired Damien Ritter as our President of Label. 

[00:41:37] Dan Runcie: My guy, Dame. 

[00:41:38] Abe Batshon: Yeah, man, Dame is legend and legend to me in terms of what he's done on the independent record label front, you know, and what he's been able to do, the dude's one of the smartest guys I know. And I'm excited to have him lead the initial kind of kickoff of what a BeatStars record label can look like. Like, so many amazing artists have been discovered on BeatStars, even just from our competitions. You know, like we discovered Ali, Ali Gatie, won one of our song contests and he's got billions of streams, you know, Joyner Lucas, and Anees. Anees is an independent artist right now that's doing some amazing things, touring, you know, he's got a hit song called Sun and Moon and just killing it on TikTok and just so cool, man, just so cool to see all of these amazing artists take and utilize the platform the best way and build careers. And, yeah, so it's cool to see all these different things happen and finally bringing some like seasoned leadership to, you know, bounce things off of and build with and collaborate with. And I think I've come to a place in my career now. I feel like almost 15 years in, I can let go of some control and I think I've matured enough as an executive to now understand and articulate what the company needs and what we want in our dreams and now do it in a collaborative way with a bunch of amazing people that have the same kind of mission. So it's exciting to see what this new phase of BeatStars goes into. 

[00:42:55] Dan Runcie: Making moves. Love to hear it.

[00:42:57] Abe Batshon: Trying to, man.

[00:42:58] Dan Runcie: Hey, hey, that says that's the journey. That's the journey. Well, Abe, this has been great. Appreciate you for coming on, and before we let you go, we want to make sure that people that are listening know to find you, so where can they go to either follow you or to follow BeatStars if they want to tap in more? 

[00:43:14] Abe Batshon: Thanks, Dan. Dude, I'm some big fan of yours, like I told you before the podcast. Congratulations. Amazing to follow your journey as well. Follow BeatStars at @BeatStars, B E A T S T A R S everywhere. My personal social media shut down everywhere for the last few months. I shut it down, but I'm going to bring it back, just @AbeBatshon and excited to hear the feedback from this episode from folks listening to it. Appreciate you having me on man. 

[00:43:37] Dan Runcie: Of course, and best luck to you and best luck to you from health, most importantly, and with the business too. 

[00:43:43] Abe Batshon: Thank you, sir.

[00:43:45] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Post Malone is the definition of a streaming-era superstar. He exploded onto the scene with the viral hit, “White Iverson” that was uploaded straight to SoundCloud. That was followed up with a record deal with Republic Records, four feature albums, world tours, and now he’s one of the world’s most popular artists. 

My guest on Trapital this week is Cheryl Paglierani, a partner at UTA, who became Post’s agent a few short weeks after the release of “White Iverson.” The duo, along with manager Dre London, have engineered one of the fastest and most successful come-ups for an artist during the streaming era. The keyword in the last sentence is engineered because Post’s resounding success was deliberately planned out. 

Cheryl prioritized live exposure early in Post’s career. “To see him was to fall in love with him,” she said, which meant getting Post in front of as many different people as quickly as possible was the key to building a fanbase with longevity. 

This live strategy helped make Post a must-see attraction — whether it’s on his upcoming 33-city Twelve Carat Tour or at music festivals, including his own-created Posty Fest. For a first-hand look at Post’s enormous rise over the past seven years, you’ll want to listen to my interview with Cheryl that covers strategies on touring, social media, sponsorships, and more. 

[3:15] Cheryl And Post Malone’s Joint Rise-Up

[5:13] Post’s Upcoming Twelve Carat Tour 

[6:44] Exposure Was Key To Post’s Early Success 

[9:11] Post Malone Being Genre-Less By Design

[10:32] Dynamic Between Post, Dre London, and Cheryl

[12:42] Post Headline Strategy 

[13:52] Factors That Influence Festival Headliners

[15:50] Touring vs. Festival Shows

[17:57] Main Trait Cheryl Looks For When Signing With An Artist 

[21:29] Philosophy Of Artist-Branded Music Festivals 

[23:07] Post Malone Brand Deal Strategy 

[24:18] Correlation Between Social Media Followers & Ticket Buyers

[26:01] TikTok’s Value-Add For Artists 

[28:00] The Trap Of Overperforming At Nightclubs

[32:03] How To Prevent Artist Burnout 

[33:28] Could Virtual Experiences Help Avoid Burnout? 

[34:43] Cheryl’s Personal Wishes For Post’s Career

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Cheryl Paglierani, @cherylpags

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Cheryl Paglierani: I always say, like, you need to start the build from the beginning because you're not going to want to go backwards. So I think that's where the disconnect can take place if you're not building and doing it all. Like, you have to be smart enough to strategize and say, okay, I'm going to go play the 500 cap or the thousand cap. I'm confident that I can sell it out. And when I do that, I'm going to make the club the after party. And I'm going to kill two birds with one stone, but they don't always do that. And I think that's where you see certain artists that will stream really well and have a lot of hits but have never built proper touring history fall into that trap. 

[00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Cheryl Paglierani. She is a partner at UTA where she represents some of the biggest names in music. She does booking for Post Malone, Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, 21 Savage, Offset, Flo Milli, Dominic Fike, and many more. But today's conversation. We talked a lot about her rise with Post Malone. Back in 2015, she met Post at South by Southwest after hearing his music and wanting to meet him in person. And she knew that there was the opportunity then to help develop a superstar. And since then Post Malone has grown into one of the artists that in many ways represents what's possible in streaming. Here's an artist who doesn't necessarily fit in one specific genre, but he's collaborated with so many and his music identifies and resonates with the vibe that is so relevant for today. So we talk about the journey with Post Malone. What it means for artists like him that are doing festivals versus touring and how she looks at some of the opportunities and advantages with both. We also talk more broadly about touring and how artists can make a tour off of a strength of a single, the importance of that. We talk about how she views social media, some of the pros and cons there. And so many other future trends with artists doing live performances. She shared a bunch of insights in this one, very relevant to where the industry is right now and where things are heading post-pandemic. Here's my chat with Cheryl Paglierani. 

[00:02:24] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are joined by Cheryl Paglierani, who is a partner at UTA, represents a number of big artists in hip-hop and music more broadly. But today I want to talk to you about one of the artists you've been able to see rise up the ranks and that's Post Malone, and he sticks out because I've talked to many agents over the years and so many of them talk about that dream of finding that one artist that they can rise up with. And you found that with Post Malone and it was really inspiring hearing the story of you meeting him at South by Southwest, back in 2015, but it would be great to see and hear since then. What was the moment that it hit you that, wow, we did it. The dream and the vision that I had seen back in 2015, we accomplished it and here we are, let's keep going.

[00:03:15] Cheryl Paglierani: Right. You know, that's such a funny question because we all started together, right? Like, Post was essentially my first client, like, on my own. And so through rising, like, trying to pinpoint one moment, almost every moment every step of the way felt like that because you had never been there before, so take it back to just him supporting Justin Bieber. I remember being at the Madison Square Garden shows and you're hearing thousands of kids singing White Iverson, and you're looking around and you're in an arena. And even though you're not headlining that arena yet, you're thinking, wow, this is really on the right track. And then I remember on the Stoney Tour when he played in his hometown in Dallas and we played the Bomb Factory, that was a 4,000 cap room. And at that point we were like, my God, we just sold 4,000 tickets in Dallas. We're like, we're popping, right? So you feel then that feels like a really special moment. Up until, you know, we're playing two nights at The Hollywood Bowl, that felt really special. And you look like, wow. It never feels like the end, if that makes sense. It always just feels like a new height to be reached, and it just makes us more excited for what's next. Two nights at Madison Square Garden felt amazing, like, wow. Now we just sold out Madison Square Garden ourselves or AT&T Stadium was then another one of those moments. Every time we reach one, there's another one to be reached. And we're always looking forward to that and, and planning and just excited for what the next one will be 'cause that feeling just never gets old. 

[00:04:33] Dan Runcie: Madison Square Garden, it was a great one because that's such an iconic venue. And I think for so many musicians, being able to sell there, being able to sell out there is huge. It's one of the biggest arenas and the most notable arenas in the country. And when looking at where a Post is now, he recently announced a tour that he has over 30 cities, whole arena tour. He's done them before. This one, I'm sure, probably felt a little bit different though, because you're booking in the middle of the pandemic. You're hearing so much, from cancellations and what venues are being available. What was it like finding space for him just given everything that happened with touring in the past few years? 

[00:05:13] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, well, lucky for us, like, we had been planning throughout the pandemic, right? So, you know, it's like there were certain tours where I had to rebook them and rebook them 'cause you wanted to be ready to go when tours were back. I think we had a little bit more leeway on this one for when we were planning, but it definitely got challenging with in terms of just avails. Because you're not only competing with all the other tours to be going out at this time but competing with sports and just different things that's all coming back at once. And so, I mean, that made it a little, a little bit more challenging, but also just making sure that, as we're booking, we're following all the right COVID protocols and that we're being cognizant, too, of just where people are in their lives, and how we're going to price it. And, and just trying to think of it holistically of where, not just he's at, but where the fans are at and what's going to set us up for success. And I think that we did a pretty good job. We had a very successful on sale and we're looking forward to starting in just about a month from now. 

[00:06:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. He's one artist where I see the tour go up, I'm like, I know that tour is going to sell out. There's other artists, not going to say names, but you'll see the announcement and you're like, I hope they can sell that one, but he's not one that I ever have that thought with. And I'm sure for you, obviously, you'd seen the, from the beginning, but in those early years, like, especially in the Post, White Iverson era, I'm sure there was a lot where you, Dre, him, you see the vision, but likely may want to sell and get people to see the potential of where it's going. What was it like selling at that perspective and trying to build the image when not everyone on the outside maybe was fully bought in and saw things the way that you may have seen it? 

[00:06:44] Cheryl Paglierani: I mean, I can't really say that I remember selling Post ever being hard. I think it was always about how can we get him in front of the most amount of people as quick as possible because to see him was to fall in love with him. I think the second that anybody saw him live, they would always come back to me and be like, wow, this guy's the real deal. The performance was never really a factor. I mean, I think it was really just finding the right opportunities and making sure that we were strategically building him to be able to be in a position to really build the right fan base and build to longevity I think a lot of people don't know this, but Post actually supported three times before we have a headline. So he supported a DJ called SBTRKT. It was only a couple of shows, but it still, it was like EDM. It wasn't what you would expect him to be doing at that time. And then we went on tour with Fetty Wap and so that was a hip-hop tour. So he supported Fetty Wap through, through that tour. And then it went straight from Fetty Wap into Justin Bieber. So we had built a foundation that would almost touch multi-genres before he ever even went out and headlined. So I think that it was just being strategic in terms of how do we get him in, in front of not only the most people but different types of people, because he really is so eclectic. And we wanted everybody to be able to see that 'cause he really does have something to offer to everybody. 

[00:07:50] Dan Runcie: That's the piece that sticks out to me the most 'cause I've had so many conversations with people and they'll ask me what type of genre do you think Post Malone is? Do you think Post Malone is hip-hop? And it's always this ambiguous question and I think that's by design. He can go and have different types of collaborators. You see it with who he's worked with. You'll see it with who's featured on his album. Can you talk a little bit more about how that piece has helped shape his career and maybe his ascension as well? 

[00:08:19] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, I think that, like, you just hit the nail on the head, right, in terms of who he works with. Post is going to work with artists that he's actually genuinely a fan of. I think that you'll see sometimes artists will work with people just because, oh, this is the new hot guy right now. You should go make a song with this person, or this is who everybody expects you to work with so you should go work with this person. But Post is going to work with artists like Fleet Foxes 'cause it's his favorite band ever, who I didn't even know who they were until him, so he's putting us onto them or he's going to work with artists that, that really touch and resonate with him. I think, I don't if you saw but this was record a while ago, but it kind of just started going viral. It's his video singing a Brad Paisley song, like, his videos have gone viral singing country songs, but, you know, then he can, can go make songs with, hip-hop artists. And we always laugh when we see like a headline will write hip-hop, where he gets categorized as that because he's so versatile that it, it isn't that. But to pinpoint it is difficult because he touches so much. 

[00:09:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I also think that his position highlights what makes the streaming era work in a lot of ways. I've heard people refer to him as a post-streaming era artist or someone that's a symbol of what's possible now in streaming. And I was talking to a friend about this recently about, in a lot of ways, we're moving past in genres. We're moving towards moods and vibes. And I think that in a lot of ways probably captures Post Malone, but it also captures what people are looking for. You see that in how Spotify looks at playlists, right, it isn't just genres. It's moods that what you're after. And I feel like he speaks to this piece a lot. 

[00:09:48] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, he, he completely does. It just goes back to, I think, his love of music, right? He really loves so many different genres of music and you see that come through in his music. And I think that's why he makes music that that's so relatable to so many people. 

[00:10:03] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of this, too, is the management of leadership behind. So it's you, who's the music agent, you also have Dre London, who is his manager, and you have Post as the artist himself. And it seems as if the three of you have a very strong dynamic that's been intentional and clear about how you're growing him as an artist. Can you speak to that in the different roles that you all have beyond the obvious pieces of where you stand there, but how you all work and how that dynamic clicks together?

[00:10:32] Cheryl Paglierani: No, absolutely. I mean, yeah, of course, it's like me and Dre. And Dre has become one of my best friends in the business, like a brother to me. I mean, we have like the best dynamic, of course. It's me and Dre and Post, but we have a whole team. There's Bobby who's Post’s day-to-day, and Jay who manages everything on the road, and Austin Rosen who's Post's co-manager with Dre. And I think really we've become like a family. And I think what makes us work so well is that we all have a role and a pivotal role, but everybody's role is different. And I think, like, we all trust each other to be able to handle it. It's like if you're building a house, right, you need to be able to trust that the pillars in each position are going to hold you up and prop you up. We've been able to build like this beautiful foundation, this beautiful house together, just off the foundation of our, trust for each other and, and how everybody works together.

[00:11:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it seems like it because I think it's so rare that you can see all three of you really be able to work in sync because we know how many times changes happen in this industry and how many times things shift as well. And I do think that continuity is one of the things that get so underrated. There's so many aspects of music that can be a revolving door or things change quickly. But the fact that there is, in many ways, a tight unit where the three of you can work together. I honestly wish we saw more of that in the industry because I think sometimes the continuity hurts the potential of or the lack thereof hurts the potential of a lot of artists and how far they could go.

[00:11:55] Cheryl Paglierani: What's also interesting, I think, Dre and I have our birthdays are a day apart, so it's almost like, even though we're so different in a lot of ways, we're actually so much alike. We can literally look at each other almost and know what the other one is thinking and not have to say a word which has become just this beautiful dynamic between us and I mean, just, you know, working with them, their whole team, I couldn't have asked to be on this journey with better people. I just feel really lucky that they let me be a part of it. 

[00:12:17] Dan Runcie: No, that's special. Speaking specifically about his live performances and how he goes about things, we talked a little bit about festivals in the beginning piece, and obviously Post is headlining several festivals in the US. When people reach out or you're looking for spots now, do you even consider anything that isn't a headline slot or this point, or you're like, no, if we're not getting a headline slot, sorry. 

[00:12:42] Cheryl Paglierani: No, not Post anyway. I mean, he's just a bonafide superstar at this point. I can't even really think of any acts that would make sense for him to play in front of. So for him, definitely not. For others, I mean, of course with other acts, it's really just a strategy and sometimes more about the look than necessarily the exact position. You know, you want to obviously be billed properly and be in the right slot. But for someone like at Post-level, it's a headline or it's not at all.

[00:13:06] Dan Runcie: That's what I figured because sometimes I'll see for certain music festivals, again, I'm not going to say a festival or names, but you'll see people slotted in. You're like, really? Well, they must have a superstar agent that made that happen because I would think that they would be a third row or there's people that are also on that lineup that I think could have been in that headline spot instead. And I'm sure that, you know, the mechanisms of so many of those things more than anyone, and probably think a lot about that, too. What are your thoughts on that piece of it and how the artists do get chosen for headline slots? And I'm sure you sometimes may see it yourself when the festival Posters come up and you're like, okay, that makes sense, but, huh, really, that person? Interesting. 

[00:13:52] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. And like, look, I think every market's different, right? A lot of it comes down to hard ticket sales usually, and I mean, when, when a promoter's booking a festival, there's two, usually, two things that they're looking at the closest and that's how many tickets have you sold in the market and how fast can you sell them? So while you might look at a lineup and scratch your head and say, how is this person headlining? It could be because it's that person's hometown or because that person's show in the market blew out, there could be a number of different reasons. But you know, there's certain artists that can blow out a show in LA that might not blow out that show in New York. Or a certain artist you might see headline in New York festival because they're from the East Coast or they're from the Northeast that would never make sense to headline in LA. So I think some of it has come down to digging a little deeper as to what's that artist's connection to the city or to the festival, to the market, what's their history, have, they done there before 'cause plays a lot into it. 

[00:14:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense. Certainly, there are artists that just aren't going to work everywhere. Again, you mentioned the venues that Post Malone has sold out, whether that's his hometown, doing the stadiums, or even the arenas in other places, this isn't as much a discussion point for him. So I do think that that does play a factor. There are other times where I still do see wow, you know, great agent, you know, hats off to them. But it's fascinating though. 

[00:15:03] Cheryl Paglierani: I think that sometimes, too.

[00:15:05] Dan Runcie: It's fascinating though. And I think the broader growth. And as we've seen, especially the past decade-plus proliferation of music festivals has been great. And I think it's created more opportunity for the bigger artists to really decide how do you want to prioritize the opportunities. Of course, there's some artists that are strictly for the most part, only doing festivals. They may get the bigger guarantee up front, but there's a chance they may not be playing in front of as many true fans as they could have if they did their own concert. And there are plenty of pros and cons there, but I'm curious from your perspective, what's your philosophy on balancing touring versus doing the festival shows, and how do you look at it for the artists you represent?

[00:15:50] Cheryl Paglierani: You hit it right on the head with the word you just used. It's a balance, right? So I think you never want to say, like, I don't believe it's ever too early to play a festival. Sometimes people are, you know, you'll hear that said, or it's too early for you to play or you need more momentum. But I think there's certain opportunities and certain festivals to be targeted when you're a new artist and through your journey. So let's say you're a new artist and you're ready to go do that 500 cap tour and you're ready to go, you know, start selling tickets at the bottom level. Yeah, you're probably not ready to then go pitch for the Coachella slot 'cause you want to be in the right position when you play a festival like Coachella or a major one, but you could still be perfect for the Thursday night at Bonnaroo. That is great for showcasing new artists. So I think you want to find that healthy balance of like, okay, what festivals can we target that might be in a market that we wouldn't necessarily go headline, but could still put us in front of a lot of bottoms in that market. And that's what I usually try to find from the ground up is, okay, what festivals are we targeting this year? What's going to be our target next year? What's your plan with the music and how are we building our headline shows around that so that we can be growing as a headline artist at the same time? And then with every artist, it's different too, right? 'cause some, it might not be you're building festivals into, headline or some artists it's going to be, it makes sense for them to find a support slot first. You might need more time to develop your show. You might need, you know, you might not have a full set that's long enough to headline. You haven't put out enough music yet. So I think every artist is different. It's just about your strategy to where the artist is at in your career.

[00:17:12] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And especially with the balance piece of it, too. And I know that you represent a number of artists that are at different stages of their careers as well. Do you have any that lean more into the festival-heavy and touring light because I know that's another thing I've heard from many artists where they feel like touring is a bigger risk and they don't necessarily want to do that. They would rather do things a bit more on-demand or do things a bit more when the opportunity comes up, as opposed to having a set time to have an event where, yeah, they're doing a 500 or 2000 cap event that they go around. Are there any artists you have that lean towards that way? And how does the strategy shift at all for any of them?

[00:17:57] Cheryl Paglierani: I just think it through my personal roster, I actually don't think I have anyone that's more only a festival-centric artist. I think, you know, just for me personally, too, when I'm looking at artists that I want to sign and who I want to work with, it all first and foremost starts with passion. Like, to me, I'm not really looking at streaming numbers. I'm not really looking at stats that most people would. I'm looking at do I love the music? Do I believe in the artist? And do I think that they can grow into arena selling headliner? So I'm always looking for that from the start. So it's almost like it would be very strange for me to end up with artists that only play festivals 'cause I always try to get involved, you know, very early. There's some artists I work with now that haven't been day one, but almost my whole roster has been day one and, and builds from the ground up. And even though every strategy is different, the goal is pretty much always the same in terms of how are we going to build longevity, how are we going to build a real fan base that wants to keep coming back and keep seeing you over and over again. If maybe the live show's not great from the beginning, the things that we can do to help you amplify your show, can we help with connecting with performance coaches, can we help with bringing production people into the team? Like, how can we help add value to get the artist where they need to be so that there's not a ceiling because if you've reached a point where you can only go play festivals, you've hit a ceiling. If you can sell the festival yourself or you get to that point, you want to be able to get to the point where you can book the area out yourself and, and do an open-air show and sell it all on your own. That's where you want to get to. So there's always going to be a ceiling, I feel like if you cap yourself there. And I say it's kind of similar to, like, artists that you see only play nightclubs because I think it can be hard, in the beginning, to turn down nightclub money. If you're a new artist and you come out and you have a song that's big and all of a sudden, clubs, want to throw a check at you to come play your song and three songs in a nightclub. Like, sometimes that's hard to turn down and they'll take that over, playing the small venue and trying to sell the tickets 'cause the money isn't the same. And so I think like that's just always the trap that I tell every artist avoid, avoid, avoid. You have to go build a fan base if you want longevity. 

[00:19:50] Dan Runcie: Where do artists starting their own music festivals fit in this dynamic? Because Post obviously has Posty Fest. He's had it, it's a success. And obviously again, now that we're at least coming on the other side of the pandemic, where do you see that fit in with this dynamic in that balance? 

[00:20:07] Cheryl Paglierani: There has to be a connection. There's so many festivals now, right? That if you're an artist and you want to start your own, you have to have probably a good amount of the draw, or I would like really advise against it. But I think that, you know, with Post and creating Posty Fest, he just had such a strong connection to Dallas and a passion for wanting to build a lineup that was multi-genre like him and, give artists an opportunity that he believes in and kind of create something where his fans could really step into his world. And we have an incredible brand team who is able to help us really turn Posty Fest into what Post world would be and bring in all of his partners. And create that without it feeling like overly branded or forced, it felt very authentic to him. And yeah, we're excited to just see how we can keep growing it.

[00:20:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And especially with a festival like that, the hometown, the audience, the fan base is there. I'm curious how it's viewed from a business perspective because I've talked to some folks in the industry that feel that the artists-run festivals are almost more of a passion play project. The economics may not be necessarily better than what they could do elsewhere, but it's just actually a unique opportunity to be able to create something like that. But then others feel well, people run their own music festivals for economic gain, obviously. And if you have it there, then there is plenty of upside to be had. So how do you view it? 

[00:21:29] Cheryl Paglierani: Listen, what you said is absolutely right. I think for starters, you need to start it off as a passion project because to have a festival that's profitable year one, year two, usually isn't very realistic. You have to be able to build it up. With Posty Fest, I mean, we were pretty smart about it. And like I said, his brand team and my partner, Toni Wallace absolutely killed it. We were very lucky to be able to make Posty Fest profitable. And both times that we've done it, just because Post has so much love in the brand space, but it's expensive. It's expensive to create an event like that and to book talent and you just have to be willing to make sacrifices in certain places and be willing to really put in the work to build it year after year, to get it to a place where it's going to be economically profitable.

[00:22:10] Dan Runcie: You mentioned the brand piece. And I imagine for Post that's huge. Can you talk a bit about how that factored into the profitability? 

[00:22:19] Cheryl Paglierani: Of course, as we're selling tickets, but, you know, every time we do a brand deal with Post, we would build Posty Fest into it. So it's like, okay, you're going to do your deal with Bud Light. Bud Light, we're going to need you to come onto Posty Fest. You're going to do your deal with, we had Nerf, we had Crocs, there was just a laundry list of all of his partners, but every time we would be doing deals, we would be building the festival into it. So come time for the festival, we had economics and, and money from all of his partners to come in and create activations for us, so it's authentic to him, but they're coming and they're creating activations and they're helping us create the experience. And that just took a huge cost off of us to have to create those things organically.

[00:22:55] Dan Runcie: His brand partnership with Bud Light feels like one of the most authentic artist-brand collaborations. I can't think of anyone else. Like, so many people are like, oh, Post Malone being the ambassador for Bud Light is perfect. 

[00:23:07] Cheryl Paglierani: Perfect. Like I said, he is not faking it. He really drinks Bud Light. That's his drink. And you know, he's always going to do what's authentic to himself.

[00:23:14] Dan Runcie: I could imagine what the success of that. Something else that I think has been fascinating with touring has been the influence of social media. And I think there are a number of people who have strong social media followings that people couldn't actually assume that, okay, you had millions of fans that are following you on Instagram or TikTok or wherever that would then translate to those millions of people coming out and buying tickets for your show. And while there's some correlation there, I've always thought there's a bit of a disconnect to some extent because while having a large number may be great, your followers on socials may not always be the fans who are buying tickets for your show, but I know that when you're making decisions for these shows, there's all the data. There's also that instinct factor that you have when deciding who to pitch in, book where, but for you, how important is social media and the numbers or metrics you see from social media in the live performance decisions you're making, whether that's for touring or for festivals?

[00:24:18] Cheryl Paglierani: It's definitely a factor, but it's by no means the factor because there are artists that have millions and millions of followers who can't sell a ticket and there's artists who can stream really well, but also can't sell a ticket. Like, there is definitely not any proof of a direct correlation between the two, but I do think that being on socials is really important. It also depends on how you are using your socials. Are you using your socials to connect with fans or are you just posting when you have to post something, right? Are you just posting a flyer to a show or you're not going on your Insta stories and talking to them, or you're not responding in the comments and they don't really feel like, for artists, I feel like we use it as a connection point. We'll see it translate more into, you know, the live side. But I haven't seen yet where I feel strongly enough that, like TikTok specifically, like if you have millions of followers on TikTok, are you going to be able to go sell out a show? That I don't think directly correlates. I think that to build yourself and start being successful in live, there has to be the live piece there. You have to have the live show, you have to have the music, you have to have the connectivity with an audience more so than just creating like cute Insta videos that are going to go viral. But it is going to be interesting to see, I think, as we're getting back into touring and more tours are going out and if that changes at all, but I haven't seen it be directly correlated just yet. 

[00:25:36] Cheryl Paglierani: I'm glad 

[00:25:36] Dan Runcie: you mentioned TikTok because there's been so much talk about how influential TikTok has been in the music industry. It is the place where so much music gets discovered that ends up performing well on streaming, but given the way the algorithm works, you can have tons of followers or tons of engagement proposed, but like you said, it doesn't exactly translate to having fans that are actually going to buy tickets. 

[00:26:01] Cheryl Paglierani: There's no question, right? There's no question at all that TikTok has become super important to breaking new music and bringing awareness to new music, whether you're a brand new artist or your Post Malone, the label's going to try to push TikTok because that's where so many kids are. And that's how you can just make things more visible. When you talk about breaking records and stream, like, I think TikTok can really add value into the streaming side of things and just being heard. But in terms of it, like, translating over into hard ticket sales, I don't think there's a direct, I think it helps, but I don't think there's a direct correlation where you can say, oh, okay, if you have X amount of views or followers on TikTok, you're going to sell this room now. It's not realistic. 

[00:26:37] Dan Runcie: And Post has talked about this too. I saw a quote from him recently that was like if I was a new artist that was being pushed to use TikTok right now, maybe there'd be a little bit of pressure to try to find a natural way to use it or even he himself wanting to find a natural way to use it. How have those discussions been? Because on one hand he already has the fan base that was there long before TikTok blew up, but there's so many established artists that are leaning into the platform now. 

[00:27:03] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, lucky for us, Post has an incredible creative director, Bobby, who is also his day-to-day. I'm not really involved so much in the what goes on his TikTok, but Bobby's really good at finding authentic ways, whether they're out somewhere and Post is just there doing some of capturing those moments and then helping translate them over to TikTok. But even though it wasn't around while Post was on the come out, so it's a relatively new thing. I think they're figuring out really cool ways to still have him featured on the platform, and there's been a number of videos they've put up there that have gone viral. 

[00:27:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. There was something else earlier that you mentioned about streaming specifically. We talked about how there's some disconnect between social media and being able to sell tickets. But you also mentioned that there's some artists that stream well, but can't necessarily sell tickets as well. What are some common or things that can have that type of dynamic exist or that is the reason why that can happen that you've seen? 

[00:28:00] Cheryl Paglierani: The nightclub situation, I think is one that can be a total killer, right? So like, there's so many artists you'll see that will come out. They'll have a song that will get really hot in a nightclub. And instead of going out and doing the work and building the fan base, they'll go take the 10, 20, 30 grand to go to the club, just play the song. It's not their real fans. It's just people that want to party. And then they'll feel like, you know, they'll get to a point where, okay, now you've had two hits. Now you've had three hits. But going backwards to start at the beginning, to really build the fan base and sell the rooms and the money you're going to make to play a 500 or a thousand cap just feels to them like a step backwards. And so they hit that ceiling. I always say, like, you need to start the build from the beginning because you're not going to want to go backwards. So I think that's where the disconnect can take place if you're not building and doing it all. Like, you have to be smart enough to strategize and say, okay, I'm going to go play the 500 cap or the thousand cap. I'm confident that I can sell it out. And when I do that, I'm going to make the club the after party. And I'm going to kill two birds with one stone, but they don't always do that. And I think that's where you see certain artists that will stream really well and have a lot of hits but have never built proper touring history fall into that trap.

[00:29:07] Dan Runcie: That lines up with something else I've heard you say, which lines up with how artists now can build a tour off of a song or off of a single that does really well. And you don't necessarily have to always rely on going after the short bag or trying to do the short-term things. No, if you have the single that works, you can build on that. Can you speak a little bit more about that? 

[00:29:30] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I think like when you're a true artist, like, I remember when we first started building out Dominic Fike's first tour and his EP was incredible. He had a real fan base. We had no doubt that the shows were going to sell. But I think the whole thing was under 30 minutes. Like it was almost going to be a struggle to get a show to where, you know, you want to be at least a 45-minute set if you're going to headline. But having the creativity that, okay, I'm going to throw in a couple of covers that are unexpected so that I can stretch this out and really go, build from the ground up and do that tour, and that's what they did. They figured out a way to make the show entertaining and interesting and with the band and to fill that time, even though it was only one project and, you know, 3 Nights was a big radio hit for him. We were able to still get out there and, and do that tour and start building it the right way with him as a headliner from the start.

[00:30:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think, now, especially just because there are so many hits where you can clearly tell that, okay, I don't know if that one's really going to last, but other times he'll hear hit, be like, no, you can truly build something off of this. And that's what I think is unique about this era. And that's what I think is unique to see artists like Post and others as well who've literally been able to say, okay, I have the awareness. I have the exposure. How could we continue to build on whether you're taking your time for whether it's the album or the launch, whatever it is. There are so many unique ways to be able to continue to just build momentum and build the fan base today. And I think that's one of the more exciting things about where the industry is right now. 

[00:30:55] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah, absolutely. Shout to Dre and to Post, we talked about this a lot in the beginning because of course when White Iverson came out, we were getting all the clubs that were reaching out and me and Dre were totally aligned and on the same page of like, that's not what we're going to do and we're going to build this the right way. And here we are. 

[00:31:11] Dan Runcie: For sure. And I'm sure part of this, too, with the artists you represent is that so much of the booking and so much of the time can be reflective of just them feeling burnt out, right? Maybe burnout isn't as much of a piece on the touring side, at least for Post, just given the fact that you're touring in arenas now. He's not necessarily doing 200-plus arena shows a year, but there are other artists that are doing nightclubs or doing smaller venues that are doing that clip or potentially even. How is it with some of the artists who that clearly is the phase that they are in their career, but there's just so much more awareness right now in this industry of how do we prevent burnout, how do we support the artists without having them be on the grind that, I think, in many ways became so standard for artists in the industry? 

[00:32:03] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's actually really important. And I always, personally, when I'm putting together a routing or I'm thinking about what are we doing, I try to put myself in the artist's shoes and think would I be able to handle this? Could I play four nights in a row? Like, am I going to get burnt out if there's not a day off after this many shows in a row? We think about that a lot with Post 'cause even though you're not playing 200 arena shows a year, even playing two nights in an arena back to back and be really exhausting, and that's going to take a toll on him and on his voice and on his body. And I think, like, if you're an artist and you're getting up on stage and you're giving it your all. That's going to wear you out. So, it's always something that we're thinking about when we're routing of, like, okay, let's not make sure that we got this amount of time. We're going to fit this amount of shows in. We're going to make sure that there's a proper amount of days off. And I'm always thinking about that when I'm routing as to how is this going to physically be on the artist because that's first and foremost is keeping them healthy and keeping them wanting to do it. We never want an artist to start feeling like, oh, this is just too much. I can't take it. So we try to make it as comfortable as possible. 

[00:33:03] Dan Runcie: Do these VR and metaverse experiences help with this to some extent? I know he recently had the VR experience for his project, the Twelve Carat Toothache, and I know that he had had the Pokémon collaboration that he had recently. Do these types of things help a bit? Because there obviously is less travel and you could still reach an audience and potentially a growing audience based on the way things are heading. 

[00:33:28] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, I don't think it helps per se in a sort of like taking anything off the touring side 'cause the touring's still going to be there, but those opportunities are just easier to pull off because you can do them in LA or like he did the Nirvana live stream from his house in Utah, things like that, where through the pandemic and we were able to still stay out there in a real way without having to go anywhere. So that definitely helps when there is something like that that can be done and adds so much value to your album rollout and just be really cool and really different. The VR experience, I mean, they built out different sets almost for every single, so like that was a full two-day production to film all of that. So it was still a lot of work, but it was again, staying in one place made it easy to pull off. 

[00:34:09] Dan Runcie: So five years from now, when Post is still headline status and is booking all the top festivals and touring around the world. What do you think shifts? Because obviously so much has shifted in the industry since White Iverson came out, streaming and all of the other types of opportunities for artists to go direct with their fans or anything else has expanded as well. And we'll continue to see more evolution on that front. What do you think will change specifically in the live performance or, more broadly, how Post and some of your other artists may go about it? 

[00:34:43] Cheryl Paglierani: What do I think is going to shift? I mean, I hope that one day with Post and you say, what will change, well, he's always been a one-man show. He's never played with the band. It's always him. And he gets up there and he kills it. I kind of hope that in the future we're seeing him, he might hear this and say, why would you say that? But my personal wish, I hope that like one day we see the show shift into him playing with a full band or maybe playing, you know, everyone always says to me, when's Post making a folk album? When's Post making a country album? I almost hope that maybe we see him shift and actually take a stab at a different genre completely. And just do something that's completely unexpected. Does that happen? I don't know, but it could be a shift. And I also think he has the potential and will reach stadium status. I hope somewhere in the next five years we maybe see. Like, we're able to go into baseball stadiums or something of the sort. Maybe it's not a full tour, these are just like my aspirations and my, my goals and what I want to see, whether, you know, that aligns with him, we have to discuss, but I think those are a few shifts that could be really interesting and cool.

[00:35:39] Dan Runcie: Well, Cheryl, this has been great. I think that there's just so much that's happening in this space and I'm excited for you. I'm excited for Post and all the other artists you represent, but before we let you go, is there anything else that you'd like to plug or let the capital audience know about?

[00:35:57] Cheryl Paglierani: Anything else I want to plug? I probably should have something for that, but nothing comes to mind. I'm not much of a self-promoter. I don't know what I have to plug.

[00:36:04] Dan Runcie: Or where people can find you if they want to follow you.

[00:36:07] Cheryl Paglierani: People can find me on Instagram. I'm just @cherylpags. 

[00:36:10] Dan Runcie: Okay. And then big things coming up for Post, obviously, we mentioned the tour, a few festivals coming up as well. 

[00:36:17] Cheryl Paglierani: I don't know if you saw, but we also announced we'll be doing stadiums in Australia with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in January. So we're really excited for that also. 

[00:36:24] Dan Runcie: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Another collab that makes a bunch of sense. All right. Well, Cheryl, this has been great. It's a pleasure. Thanks again for coming on. 

[00:36:32] Cheryl Paglierani: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:36:34] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Music exec Benny Pough has shaped the hip-hop industry in a career that’s spanned from Motown Records to Def Jam to Roc Nation and now his own entrepreneurial pursuits. Benny joined me on Trapital to discuss his 30-year journey and where it’s heading next.

The defining feature of Benny has been his ability to spot and develop musical talent. He’s responsible for signing the likes of Future, Jeremih, and Yo Gotti, among others. That skill was initially forged from having an ear for what would catch on the radio, but has evolved in the streaming era. Despite this radical shift in music consumption, Benny says “stars will always be stars.”

After working at seven different record labels, Benny left the corporate world in 2019 and dove full-time into entrepreneurialism. He runs two separate companies — DVERSE Media and Kandiid. The former is a global music distributor and publisher, while the latter is a mobile app for creators to monetize their content. Benny also manages a diversified real estate portfolio. 

Like Benny’s own career, our conversation covers a lot of ground. Here’s our talking points: 

[3:13] How Benny Developed His Eye andEar For Talent

[4:42] Differences Between Hit-Makers andSuperstars

[6:10] How Has Streaming Changed Superstar Development?

[7:33] Record Label’s Role in Talent Development 

[13:07] Inside Def Jam’s Business Turnaround During Mid-00s

[16:02] Aligning Business andArt at Def Jam 

[18:15] Teairra Mari and Rihanna Coming Up at Def Jam

[21:37] Balancing Short-Term andLong-Term Business Goals

[24:39] How Did Benny Adapt To Working At Different Labels?

[27:00] Why Benny Became a Full-Time Entrepreneur 

[28:34] How Does Benny Split Time Across His Business Ventures?

[31:26] DVERSE Media’s Pitch To Artists

[33:15] TikTok’s Role In Talent Development Today

[34:43] Monetizing Content On Kandiid

[36:07] How Benny Got Into Real Estate

[38:54] Benny’s Upcoming Book

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Benny Pough, @bennypough

Sponsors:

MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital

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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Benny Pough: You can have a star, but if you don't have people who can market it and promote it and put the music together, then it's going to take that star a little more time. Or you can have great executives, but you have artists that don't have drive. They're kind of confused on who their identity is. They write good songs, they don't write great songs, then it's kind of off balance. It's that marriage of really strong executives and really great artistry.  

[00:00:35] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:55] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Benny Pough. He is a music industry veteran. And when I'm talking about people that understand promotion, understand what it takes to make an artist go from sixty to a hundred, this is the person to talk to. He has identified talent over the years, working at Motown, Perspective, Arista, MCA, Def Jam, Epic, and Roc Nation Records. He worked at Def Jam during one of the turnaround eras for the record label from 2003, all the way up to 2011. So we're talking about that stretch where you had Rihanna, and Jeezy, and Kanye, and so many artists that made a huge impact there. Then he also worked at Epic where he was able to see Future, and Jeremih, and Travis Scott, and Yo Gotti. And so many of the artists there. And now he is building his own company. He works at Diverse Media, which is a music distribution and global publishing platform. He also has an app called Kandiid, which helps content creators and artists connect more directly with their fan base. We also talk about some of the ventures he has outside of music. He does a lot in real estate. We're talking about some of the real estate he does, even in my hometown, which was pretty dope to hear how he understands the neighborhoods pretty well. So this is a great interview. If you want to talk about a mogul that understands each point of this industry, and with this upcoming book where he is sharing these insights as well. This is the interview for you. Here's my conversation with Benny Pough. 

[00:02:27] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we got one of the music executives that has seen this industry and seen hip-hop through so many pivotal moments at some of the most storied record labels. Mr. Benny Pough. Welcome to the pod. 

[00:02:40] Benny Pough: What's up, Dan? Been waiting, man! I don't know why you kept me out here so long, but thank you for having me today.

[00:02:47] Dan Runcie: People have been asking for this one, people have been asking for this one. 

[00:02:51] Benny Pough: Yeah. Yes, sir. 

[00:02:52] Dan Runcie: And I mean, I think one of the reasons that people have been asking is because of your track record. You have identified some of the best talents in this field. Yo Gotti, Future, Jeremih, could go on with the list, but it's clear that you understand what you're looking for and you have an eye and an ear for this. What are you looking for when you spot talent? 

[00:03:13] Benny Pough: So, you know, being a promotions person is how I started in the business. Like, my first entry point was at Motown records, doing college promotions. And at that point, I realized that, you know, music changed my life when I was able to take a song, and from a college level, and have it played across the airways, 'cause you have to think about over the decades, the mass means of communication was radio. So that changed everything. If you got on the radio in any capacity, you know, it could take you from zero to sixty. So for me, listening to the radio and listening to music one way or another, my ear just got refined to what sounds good on the radio. So with the artists that you mentioned, I heard their music before I even met them. So it's something about, you know, obviously the spirit, you know, that ooze through them that comes out in their music that always just resonated with me. So the next step would be, you know, to meet them and obviously the artists that you mentioned, you know, from Future to Jeremih, Gotti, F.L.Y., it was something special about them that they'd already created for themselves. They just needed, you know, that opportunity to present itself for them to move on to the next level. 

[00:04:23] Dan Runcie: And I'm sure meeting that adds a whole nother layer 'cause you could have the voice but you're not just building someone that can record an audio track. You're trying to identify stars. What is it from meeting them in person that adds to it? Or is there something extra that you see when you're face to face? 

[00:04:42] Benny Pough: I think what's probably problematic now is that people can become instantaneously popular just from streaming. But never been in, you know, never really been in a studio 'cause you can record in your house. Never performed at a dive because that's not what's required. Never actually performed in front of an audience. So they're great songwriters, maybe producers, but the bar is so much lower on the entry point now, because any and everyone can do it. The difference between the people who make just hit songs or records, and the ones who are superstars is that they have the full package. Not only do they write or they perform, but you know, they have that whole je ne sais quoi, something special about them that people want to hear more and more, see more and more of them. And that's what the key is. And always has been, you know, since the beginning of music, of those people who attract and draw you in.

[00:05:37] Dan Runcie: You mentioned streaming and how it is easier and how it's very different from having a hit record as opposed to being a superstar. But do you think that even some of the visual aspects are becoming easier to replicate, too? Thinking about how someone could do so much of the production of music videos, or even the visual of what they can do, whether it's through Instagram and developing a following, but there's still, there could still be a disconnect between having that piece of it as well and really being someone that can push a record label and push themselves. 

[00:06:10] Benny Pough: So the power is probably the best time, music and arts, the power's in the creator. You know, ultimately as a consumer, we'll choose what we like at the value point that we will or not. But ultimately as a creator, you can get in where, before you couldn't, because there were, you know, gatekeepers. So now that you have the access and the ability to take your art to the masses. It's great. Now the level of what you have, meaning, you know, whether it's your music or your visual, if people like it, they're going to like it. And if they don't, if they feel it's inferior, then that's your presentation to the masses. So ideally you can't look at it as a negative, but, you know, obviously, as you grow, and you develop, and you have success. All of those levels start to heighten as well. 

[00:07:02] Dan Runcie: And do you feel like this has made it easier or harder or how different it is for the people that clearly have superstar potential, but they are coming up in this era where there is more noise? But on the other hand, because some of that noise can filter away some of the artists that don't necessarily have that potential and let the cream rise to the crop, I've heard people use both arguments about what it's like for superstars right now, but what's your take on the current stars now?

[00:07:33] Benny Pough: Stars will always be stars, and we're going to find them if that's the true course of action. You know, I worked with L.A. Reid, and I remember him always just telling me the story about Outkast. He didn't sign them the first time they performed for him. It might have been the second or the third, but because they had it and when they finally brought it back to him, you know, the rest is history. Did it make them lesser stars because they weren't signed the first time? No. What they went back and did was hone their skills, hone their craft. And at some point, the rubber hit the road and the rest is history, and that's happened countless times. Look how many times Michael Jackson was passed on. So I don't think the internet or that we're in a technological, you know, era that it changes the pursuit and the passion for people who truly have the desire and commitment to their art. You know, it just doesn't happen that I designate myself to be an artist today. And since I'm going to be an artist today, I'm going to be a star tomorrow, right? It doesn't quite work that way. And the people who have the wherewithal and the gifts, they're going to find it. 

[00:08:38] Dan Runcie: Do you think it's harder for people to hit those Michael Jackson levels though? Because I do think that he, of course, I can't think of anyone that was more famous at that particular time. And even some of the artists that you have now. Yes, some of the biggest stars you've seen, they're breaking records and streaming, but culture is just so much noisier and there's so many other things like it's hard for any one artist to reach those same levels. Or do you think that that's still possible? 

[00:09:07] Benny Pough: It's just different iterations of it. And I don't think you can ever take the greatness of one artist and measure other artists to that, right? Now you can look at stats and go, well, did you, did this person have this many accomplishments as is that one? Then you start getting to the, you know, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe, right? It's just all different. So it's not the same measurement, but also just realize everyone has greatness and in their time of what was available and what the market was, they exceeded everyone's expectation. So that exists and it's going to exist beyond, you know, today until tomorrow. So it's really about, you know, how do you maximize the moments and all of that is really consistent on how much you commit to your craft.

[00:09:56] Dan Runcie: I agree because I think about some of the stars right now, we still see it. It just may not be necessarily the most traditional sense the way people see it. I look at what Bad Bunny is doing right now. We haven't necessarily seen someone like him do what he's doing at the level that he's doing, whether it's the streaming records or even the sold-out concerts. Or even if you look at BTS, I think there's something to be said there for just how popular and strong that fan base is. And then you have your Drakes and your Taylor Swifts, these artists that I think even in 10 years will still be some of the biggest artists of their generation. 

[00:10:33] Benny Pough: And that's all catalog. You know, artists that have great music, amazing songs, and are true performers. So, you know, once you get to that level, it puts you in a category by yourself, 

[00:10:47] Dan Runcie: Right. And so much of this goes back to the work of these artists working with record labels, and a lot of the names that we mention, they got big pre-streaming. And because of that, I think they entered a phase where record labels did do a lot more of the development to help bring them along to the area that they are now.

[00:11:07] Dan Runcie: But I think what we're seeing now is, because of all of the tools and all of the do-it-yourself functions that we're seeing that artists have the ability to do, by the time you're ready to join a record label, the hope is that you at least have some footing behind you, right? This isn't necessarily the place that's going to bring you from zero to a hundred. But if you could get from zero to sixty, you sign with them and then that can hopefully get you to a hundred. And I think that's the piece of it that's a little different than even what we may have looked at 10, 15 years ago with some of the names you mentioned where it was still a bit harder for them to break out without having the additional support earlier in their career. 

[00:11:49] Benny Pough: That's the equivalent. I don't disagree with you. The entry points probably are, you know, different, but in some very similar. Ideally you are a thousand percent correct. You can't look to a label to develop you at this point, but when you think about, you know, some of the earliest stars they were developed outside of the label as well, right? So, you know, that kind of overlaps in that perspective. I think the root of all of this is starting with talent, regardless, whether you were, you know, in the past and things weren't as technologically advanced or right now, you know, you have the ability of all of technology. But you don't have all of the components that are going to help you, i.e. great songs, great producers, you know, and all of those true means that are going to really push you to the next level. 

[00:12:35] Dan Runcie: Agreed. And I think, for you specifically, you've seen it with so many of the labels you've worked out, whether it's Motown or even the run you had with Def Jam as well. And I do want to talk specifically about the Def Jam run because, as someone that loves business case studies, this is a turnaround story and you had a front-row seat to push that forward. Tell us that story and let's walk through that process. What are the key things you think that really helped Def Jam turn things around from that '93 to, you know, going on into the 2000s run?

[00:13:07] Benny Pough: So the crazy thing was, you know, for me getting into Def Jam was, it was amazing. The fact that they were a closed shop. You have to realize Def Jam never really let outsiders in. Everything was homegrown. They were one of the very few labels that was truly closed shop, right? Like, the people who started there from interns elevated all the way up, you know, into the higher senior positions, I mean, i.e. Kevin Liles, who is, you know, the person who reached out to me to come over to the organization. So given that opportunity and I was on the West Coast and wanted to get back home, I was at MCA Records and I wanted to get back home. So when I got the call, I was like, wow, I can go for one of the most renowned hip-hop labels in the world and get back home. So it was a no-brainer. Shortly thereafter I came on, Kevin and Lyor exited the building and L.A. Walked in. And that was, you know, an interesting dynamic because, one, I'd, you know, heard a lot about him and knew, you know, his abilities, but I didn't, wasn't certain on what my outcome would be because he didn't bring me in.

[00:14:10] Benny Pough: It was a great union because he was an amazing, as we all know, music maker, hit kind of guy. I was a promotion guru, you know, at that time in my career. So, it gave me a great opportunity to, one, work with one of the best, which also made me one of the best, great music, strong promotions, i.e. put it all together in a pot, stir it up, you got to hit artists, right? And the talent was insane. We had one of the best A&R teams in the business, one of the best marketing teams in the business, one of the best promotion teams, publicity, et cetera. And then we all played as a unit. And I think that's, what's really important in any business, including the music business. When you get a real starting fire and the goal is to really bring on the gold, it's unstoppable with incredible artists and amazing music. So, you know, that's how all of that came together. And through that, you know, between Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Rihanna, Ne-Yo. We had Fabolous, Justin Bieber walked in, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was just an amazing, amazing time in music for us and that component of those artists, that team, and everyone wanting the big win put us right exactly where you have in this conversation. 

[00:15:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And the other key thing with this, too, is that you also had a few leadership changes, as you mentioned. You had Kevin Liles, and then you had L.A., and then you were there during the Jay-Z stretch as well. And I'm sure with each of those, you were able to keep things moving just with the amount of talent that was coming through, but I'm sure that there were different things, whether it was leadership styles or things that the label needed at a particular time that was able to help it get to where it was during those 2000s. 

[00:16:02] Benny Pough: So what's important, what people have to realize, and, you know, we put entertainment as though it's its own kind of business. It's still business. And you know, you have to learn how to manage up and manage down. And obviously, all the bosses have their own idiosyncrasies, but all of their goals is about winning. And obviously, you know, the people component is very important 'cause they're all specific on identifying the right talent, but also the right executives because true leaders understand, in the music business, the combination of both is what's going to help. You can have a star, but if you don't have people who can market it and promote it and put the music together, then it's going to take that star a little more. time Or you can have great executives, but you have artists that don't have drive. They're kind of confused on who their identity is. They write good songs, they don't write great songs, then it's kind of off balance. So when you get that real true alignment of both business and talent, that's when you have, and you look back at it, like go through the history of all of the strong labels. It's that marriage of really strong executives and really great artistry. So it doesn't change, right, where our business isn't different. We have just a non-traditional product. 

[00:17:22] Dan Runcie: Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, there's something that you're trying to sell. You understand the customer, you're trying to get what you can get out there. 

[00:17:29] Benny Pough: Yes, sir. 

[00:17:30] Dan Runcie: Looking back and you talking through some of these stories with these leaders making me think of that time as well. One of the stories I know that often gets talked about going back to around 2004, 2005, Def Jam is figuring out, okay, who is the artist that we want to propel, especially who is the woman artist we want to propel. And there was so much about whether the label is going to push Teairra Marí, or if the label was going to push Rihanna. And so much of that, I know that you were, had a front row seat in, what was that process like? And what is it like now just thinking about how it went and how, whether you could discern what we eventually saw play out, or if it was still tough to know at the moment how either career would've went?

[00:18:15] Benny Pough: So let's be very clear. And especially in my upbringing in the music business and how I've always been disciplined and even in just me as an individual, I don't play sides. I have to give my all to each and everyone because we don't know. Like, I can't say this one is a hit and this one isn't. My responsibility in the pipeline is to make sure that I do my best to expose the product to the marketplace. In both of those scenarios, the company was behind both artists. Ultimately, the public is going to decide who are they going to weigh in more or not. But sitting here today, I wouldn't tell you I did more or less for either of those other than provide an amazing system for them to go through in order to have the opportunity to live their dreams.

[00:19:04] Dan Runcie: And that makes sense. And I think that's the most fair way to do it. 

[00:19:07] Benny Pough: Yeah. 

[00:19:07] Dan Runcie: Were you surprised at all by the outcome or how things played out in terms of the public's response? 

[00:19:14] Benny Pough: Rihanna's one of the greatest in the world. I mean, it speaks to its own, right? That speaks to itself and also realized she had, when you think about it, and there's very few artists, when you talk about classics, right? When you can go through hip-hop or R&B, like, classic albums, her first album was a classic album, right? So ultimately the people weighed in on what they appreciated from her at that point. And that in turn is about once where we started in this conversation, the artistry, it's the music and it's the team. So you got to think about a lot of artists who came through Def Jam through those years. We talk about the ones that, you know, went on and had massive success, but there were artists, too, that had great success. There were artists that make a good living and then there are artists like, it didn't work out because, obviously, the people did decide, not us.

[00:20:06] Dan Runcie: Right. And that's what makes it so tough, I think, in any type of business, whether you're looking at other areas of entertainment, everything else, you could do the best thing that you think you want to put out. But there has to be some type of demand. There has to be something that is pulling artists through. And I think we saw that with the other singles that came off of Music of the Sun, Rihanna's first album. So fascinating times, it's really special to go back and think about it, especially now. I mean, who knows when we'll see the next album, but hopefully sooner rather than later. One of the things that stands out to me though, with the Def Jam time specifically, is just how much market share the record label was able to grow as well. And I wonder from your perspective, we're talking so much about balancing the business versus the art, so much of the work is focused on, okay, who can you promote? How can you push things? But there's also this zero-sum game of how can you get more market share than the other record labels that you're competing against and all of that. Was it ever a feeling like a bit of a tug of war between the art and the business of pushing these things knowing that there's this ultimate metric that the label's shooting for. But there's this longer-term aspect of trying to build and grow artists 'cause I know with other companies, it's kind of one of these things where you have the long-term goals, but how does that work with the quarterly earnings and I do think that market share is essentially that for record labels in the music industry. 

[00:21:37] Benny Pough: So, a lot of that's going to be predicated on leadership. And, you know, the companies that I worked for were very artist-driven. And what was most important about having the artist was making sure that the artist got their best shot and performance. And so that was a driving force for us at Def Jam. You know, it's not being irresponsible, it's just a matter of, you know, investing in giving the music, the artists enough time to breathe. Everything is not going to just be determined in black and white. Everything's not going to be determined in dollars and cents. And the people who are aligned right from the business end, gas on, gas off. Someone has to read it, how much to invest in this artist because of what the tea leaves are versus investing in this artist, predicated on what the tea leaves are. If you have something that's not talking back or something that's not performing, then you can't throw enough money at it. They don't like it, but if you have something that's incrementally or even starts to just explode, then, you know, that's a better bet to hedge your money on. And the executives in the leadership, in the companies that have a really firm grasp of knowing when to gas on and gas off on which particular artist, as well as you know, the whole perspective of the business unit are the ones that have wins in both the artistry, people want to come in because, with the success of the artist, that's what people are excited about. No one signs to a label going, oh, you have the largest market share. They go, oh, Future's over there. Travis is over there. Gotti's over there, you know what I mean? That's what they're going to say. Khaled's over there. They're going to say that they're not going to go, oh, you guys had 11 share? No, they're not going to do that. 

[00:23:22] Benny Pough: But in essence, all of it does work hand in hand, right? And on the other end with having successful artists, you have more market share, bigger profits. You know, now the executives, you're going to attract executives 'case they want to be there, right? Because good bonusing, good salaries, et cetera. So, a lot of that is really, really determined by the leadership. 

[00:23:43] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned the Future, Travis, and Gotti 'cause that is your time at Epic. You were able to see this run. You were able to see those artists just push through as well and, obviously, a different record label. I'm sure things were likely different there, but you had worked at several beforehand. What is it like when you obviously know exactly what you're doing, you understand what's required to succeed in your role, but you know, that you're shifting into a different culture, shifting into a different environment? How do you adapt yourself as someone that has already seen success in different labels, but you're moving on to other companies and still understanding that, yes, you know how to make this artist pop, but there's different folks in charge and there's different things that are happening that you also need to be aware of as you're wanting to execute the best promotional campaigns possible?

[00:24:39] Benny Pough: So Benny Pough is a brand. I'm not interchangeable in that way. My core values are my core values. And if people are hiring you or bringing you into their organization, they want the best of you. And obviously, and it's no different from going from, you know, the high school football team to the college football team. You have to learn how to adapt, but football is football. And in essence, you just learned in different plays from a different coach, and what they expect you and why they recruited you to bring you over is to bring your talent and show us exactly what we need to be done in order to win. So it doesn't become that complicated and don't forget once again, it's learning how to manage. Like, you can't come in with a crazy ego. You have to be adaptable, amenable, and willing to learn in someone else's environment, but also bring your best game to play. 

[00:25:28] Dan Runcie: Were there any of the record labels you worked at where you feel like the culture or the way that they operated things was very different than the others? I know you were at Roc Nation Records after Epic but was any of them truly unique in this area? 

[00:25:41] Benny Pough: I worked at seven different labels. All of them were different 'cause it's seven different leaders. And I think, like, the common thread with all of them is that they had an insatiable desire to win. So every person that I worked for wanted to win and they all saw a different path to winning, but that was the common thread. And then systems, you know, obviously, the ones who were successful had winning systems, and the ones who kind of meandered out had different kinds of systems. So I think a lot of it comes into play to the individuals, right? If everybody could you know, coach the New England Patriots, then everybody would be doing the job, right? It's the best of the best it's going to get, you know, to do that and sit in that seat. 

[00:26:29] Dan Runcie: Right, exactly. And I know that sitting in that seat and having so much control over understanding what needs to be done is key with this. But I also recognize that you specifically with where you are in your career right now, you've worked at many different labels, but you're no longer working for a label. You've since left, you've left Roc Nation Records a few years back, and you are now building your own companies. Can you talk to me about that process, that transition, and why this was the right time for you to make that leap?

[00:27:00] Benny Pough: Man, it's an amazing time in my life because now I have the opportunity of everything I learned, right? Think about the talent that I've identified over the years, the executives that I've groomed over the years, and realizing business and talent is something that I've been blessed to do. So now I can take all of that, what I've learned, and now apply it and reap the benefits for my family and friends. So I'm super, super excited about this time and being in the marketplace and having the freedom and flexibility to chase different and identify different kinds of talent, you know. Had I been at a major label, I wouldn't have invested in an app, right? Had I been in a major label, I wouldn't be launching my first conference. Had I been in a major label, I wouldn't be releasing a book. So it gives me, you know, the freedom and the latitude. But since I'd spent so much time learning the system, I am now approaching this from both a corporate perspective and entrepreneurial perspective, blended to now give the artists that I've signed as well as the ones that, you know, I manage and the business that I'm involved in, you know, the best opportunity to win because I've seen a lot of winning along the way.

[00:28:19] Dan Runcie: Exactly and for you right now, you have Diverse Media, you have Kandiid, you also have real estate, and a few other business interests. How do you split your time right now? And writing a book as well, how do you split your time between each of these?

[00:28:34] Benny Pough: Organization. It's no different than anything else. You know, whether you're working for someone or working for yourself, it's all time management, allocation of, you know, what needs to be done for this particular company today. You know, the things that need to be responded to, but most importantly, making sure that I'm reading the tea leaves properly because I'm the one that's investing. So it's, you know, being fiscally responsible is important and also taking the signs from the marketplace. As we talked earlier, the things that you learn along the way, just because I love it and no one else does, at some point I got to go to what they say versus how I feel because it's my resources, but I'm having a great time in this section of my life.

[00:29:15] Dan Runcie: I got to imagine that's the biggest change as well, right? You're working for these record labels, part of these bigger corporations, someone else is always giving the final checkoff. And some of that may line up with what you want. Some of that may line up with what you don't want, but here, the buck stops with you, and there's sure there's so much freedom with that. How has that piece of it been? Because I know that that is likely one of the bigger changes or bigger shifts that comes with being able to run these types of businesses yourself. 

[00:29:46] Benny Pough: It's exhilarating and scary at the same time. You know, what you realize or what I've realized along the way is, you know, was always indicative of having someone on the team to go, what do you think, or let's go through this one more time, you know, to help you formulate that opinion because all the opinions aren't yours and all decisions aren't just made by you. The buck stops with you, but you know, you can lean in and on other different resources inside of the company. When you're independent, it may not be as rich as far as having those qualified people to assist you in the decision-making. So I'm very tactical on how I approach things. Obviously, you have to get more analytic in determining, you know, how to proceed in situations in the companies that I'm invested in. And at the end of the year, it has to make sense, right? It's the bottom line. It has to make sense in order for it to continue. 

[00:30:39] Dan Runcie: So let's walk through each of these 'cause I think there are ways to talk a little bit more about each of them, with Diverse Media specifically, global music, distribution, and publishing. This is your insights you're bringing. And you're like, I've been doing this for decades. I'm one of the most experienced people here. And I know what it takes to run the ship. What is the pitch then to artists who may want to, as you kind of put it yourself, they see the superstars that are still at the major record labels? You may not necessarily have the stable of the superstar yourself, but you're pitching yourself as your experience as well. How has that pitch been? 'Cause I'm sure that pitch is a little different when working for yourself as opposed to having the major label behind you. 

[00:31:26] Benny Pough: So it's not for everyone, but it's for the right people. I've worked with some incredible talent as an independent now that I have been able to help groom them, teach them, develop them in a process that, one, a major label wouldn't look to them for. So we have different needs. It's a smaller investment for me in investing in someone who's at the beginning of their career. And we are more of a partnership because I'm going to be very specific as well of who we're going to give my time to. And for them, they get direct contact to someone who, guess what, can make a call and help them move a little bit further and faster than they would've on their own. So I enjoy that, that element of it, and it gives me the ability to stay very connected in the music space, but also grow and develop talent at the pace that they primarily would not get at a major. 'Cause once you get on the conveyor belt, it's your time. It's your time when they say it's your time. And I think what we're lacking now is the development, the true artist development. So that's what artists get the benefit from. And it works.

[00:32:26] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I think, especially with the type of artist, you're looking at the sweet spot as well. There's so many artists that look at the technology medium as the means of growth or the means of exposure, right? I got to get on the streaming services. I got to get on TikTok. I got to start making reels and things like that. How much importance does that play for the artists that you serve? Because on one hand, as we're talking about at the beginning of this conversation, there can be so much emphasis on just having these songs or having these videos that are being put in this place, so you can write it up in numbers, but that still doesn't quite develop you as an artist, but it is one of these chicken and egg things. So how much of a focus is TikTok for you with the artist that you're working with? 

[00:33:15] Benny Pough: TikTok is pretty much the hand were dealt in the music at this point. So you can't ignore it because that's what everybody's leaning into, but then there's a whole other means of developing talent outside of TikTok. And it all depends on what's specific for what you're looking for as someone in the executive seat. I mean, if I can see it on TikTok and everybody at a major label can see it on TikTok, okay, it's cool. But everyone's not going to see the same thing. Like, although it may have all of the mechanisms, it's making all of the growth, you know, week over week. It just may not be something comfortable for me unless you're doing, you're in the commerce game, right? You're just chasing money and that's fine, right? People do that well. I've always been someone who's been more about the artistry and people who are going to have staying power. So, you know, if you get lucky and you get one that becomes lightning in a bottle, that's great. But more importantly, you know, I'm a time over money kind of guy. You know, I'll develop you, you know, spend time with you, you and I like, yo, we figured out, you know, we committed to each other. And when it's okay, we might not have made the billion dollars, right? But we lived a good life and that's equally as important as those who, you know, get a couple million, then they go away. 

[00:34:31] Dan Runcie: Right. And I feel like this lines up as well with Kandiid, which is your social media platform that you have. What role do you see it playing for artists and content creators? 

[00:34:43] Benny Pough: It's the equalizer. It gives artists the opportunity to monetize on their content, which was crazy. When the pandemic started, we were one of the first platforms to actually introduce that, that people could actually pay to monetize their content. And obviously, you know, OnlyFans took on a whole other different dynamic, but also, too, that was web-based that wasn't an app. Like, we were an app that was in that space, you know, to put us into a different ball game and then having Soulja Boy come on and endorse the company and is also one of the co-founders involved, just opened up all kinds of vehicles and avenues for us as we started to grow and develop in the space. 

[00:35:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's crucial. It's needed. And I think having the artists themselves as backers helps push it into a whole other level 'cause it goes back to the why does someone want to sign with the record label, they see who's involved with it. Why would they want to use a social media app or a new platform, they see who's involved with it. So that makes sense. The other piece of this, though, and we're talking about this a little bit before we recorded is what you're doing in real estate. You own a number of properties, even in my hometown, which I thought was pretty dope to hear about. Talk to me about that piece of it 'cause obviously very different from music, but there's so many wise reasons why it's a smart investment, but we'd love to hear what that journey was like for you, how it started and how you see it continue to develop.

[00:36:07] Benny Pough: Mentally, I fell in love with real estate. If there was a passion, first thing I ever wanted to do was be a truck driver, just like my dad. And then the second thing was to own a home because we lived at a five-family home in White Plains, New York, where my parents had an opportunity to purchase this home from the owner who was moving back to Kansas. And when I realized the freedom that having a multi-unit at that time, you know, what it gave our family was exceptional. My father had the freedom, didn't have to work. My mother worked at the post office and was able to take care of us with, you know, the benefits from the health perspective and the building paid off the mortgage and put money in their pocket. So one day I said to myself, you know, I just want to be like my parents like when it's time for me to retire, I don't want to have to worry about how to make ends meet per se. So that was the impetus to this. Once I got into the music business and realized that, you know, it's one of the few businesses, especially for us as minorities, where, you know, you walk in and six months or a year, you could be making six figures, right? As a young person, there's no guidance, there's no financial planning, you know, there's no one telling you what the value of six-figure you might be making more than your Senator, right? 

[00:37:23] Benny Pough: As a music person, so for me, staying in lockstep with what my parents were doing, I realized making this money, I had to prepare for my exit. So every bonus I bought a piece of property, you know, I bought a single family. I bought a single condo. I bought multi-units. I bought buildings. And to the point we were talking about, you know, I had even owned up to a city block at one point. So the benefit of the business was very, very giving to me and realizing that at one day it would end, that you'd have to create no different than any other entrepreneur, people who are out on their own in their own small business, you have to create your own retirement because one day you can be making a six figures or a seven-figure salary. And then the next day that's gone. It may never come back. So you can't live in the moment of just what you're receiving. You need to think about what you're receiving, also to be planning for the day when that's not there, right? So it's important, very, very important for young people or old people who are now, in their careers, figuring out the next steps is that you should always plan for the future. 

[00:38:33] Dan Runcie: Well said, and I feel like I can hear some of the insights already that you're likely going to be sharing in the book you have coming out.

[00:38:40] Benny Pough: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:38:41] Dan Runcie: So talk to me a little bit more about the book. I'm sure that this conversation highlights some of those things that you want to share, but what are some of the things that we may not have covered that are the key themes from the book that you have coming out? 

[00:38:54] Benny Pough: So On Impact spawned from a near-death car accident that took place in 2014, hit a tree at 90 miles an hour, sustained a level two concussion. That's when you black out from one to five minutes, L3-4 vertebrae fracture, bulging disk in my back, lacerated liver, and severed two feet of my small intestine. And in that moment, God put a book inside of me called On Impact, which is an acronym for intuition, mastery, pivot, authenticity, connection, and teamwork. And what it does is takes the reader for me with my first job that was, at 11 years old, delivering newspapers to modern day with an undercurrent of music because the majority of my life, I spent in the music business. And at the end of each chapter, I put together what's called a hit list or takeaways from each chapter for an individual to now apply to their daily lives and say pretty much if Benny could do it, I could do it, too. So it's a roadmap for interns to CEOs because I've done both. 

[00:39:52] Dan Runcie: Nice. When's the date for it coming out? 

[00:39:57] Benny Pough: September 27th, 2022. 

[00:39:57] Dan Runcie: Exciting stuff. Exciting stuff, man. I feel like it will be, and I'm sure it already feels like it's going to be a ton of work leading up to it, but I am sure that once you're actually in the thick of it, you're seeing people resonate with it, like that's where the real reward comes from, right? You wanted to be able to share these insights, of course, life-changing and life-threatening challenges and accidents that you have to go through. But that's what gives you the clarity to be able to share this. So hopefully it can provide someone else and hopefully many others with the same insights.

[00:40:31] Benny Pough: I think what happens for us is we don't get an opportunity to get the lessons when we need them. So, what I want this to be is a roadmap of giving people an opportunity to see, guess what, there are a lot of similarities for others just like myself. And now you don't have to struggle to figure it out. This is here for you. So I'm excited to share this with the world and give those who just need that little extra push and insight. Come get it. 

[00:41:00] Dan Runcie: And they're in the right spot. Good stuff. Well, Benny, this has been a pleasure. We covered so much in your career, what you've been doing since then, especially on the entrepreneurial front, and also with other ventures, but for anyone that wants to keep tabs on you and follow what you're doing. Where could they follow and keep up with you? 

[00:41:19] Benny Pough: All my socials are @bennypough, B E N N Y P O U G H. And come visit my website. bennypough.com anytime. 

[00:41:27] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Benny, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. 

[00:41:29] Benny Pough: All right, Dan.

[00:41:31] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

The NFL and Roc Nation just renewed their five-year partnership to lead the Super Bowl Halftime Show production and its Inspire Change Initiative. Let’s dive into what led to the initial deal in 2019, how it’s gone, Jay Z’s involvement, the twists, turns, and whole lot more. Join me and Zack O’Malley Greenburg as we break it all down.Sponsors:

• CD Baby: https://cdbaby.com/
• Splice: https://splice.com/
• Chartmetric: https://www.trapital.com/chartmetric

Best-selling author Zack O’Malley Greenburg and I took a break for a new Dad-girl duties to talk about the latest headlines in the music industry — namely Irv Gotti selling a 50-percent ownership stake in Murder Inc.’s past music recordings. He got $100 million from Iconoclast for the deal, plus another $200-million credit line to fund future media endeavors Irv has planned. 

After the sale, Irv did an interview with Billboard and quipped that monetary-wise, the music industry is the “lowest form” in entertainment compared to film and television. Zack and I debated that during our episode comparing top-line revenues for each entertainment vertical, plus how Irv’s deal compares to other splashy catalog sales in the past two years. 

We also dived into a guest post on Zack’s Substack about how “moods” has become the new classification for music, not genres anymore. Discovery algorithms deployed by streaming services have pushed listeners toward moods — and away from regionalism (e.g. Houston-style “chopped and screwed”) and loyalty to particular record labels. It’s also another tell-tale sign that Gen Z is more fluid, less rigid than prior generations with their labels. 

Below are all the music-industry topics Zack and I covered throughout the episode, plus a special segment on becoming Dad’s in the past two months:

[0:55] Baby Duties For Zack & Dan

[4:11] Irv Gotti Calls Music Industry “Lowest Form” In Entertainment 

[6:09] Zack Still Gets Royalties for “Lorenzo’s Oil”

[7:52] Top-Line Revenues: Music vs. Movie Industry

[8:59] New Artist Perspective Skewing Perception Of Music Business

[11:04] Did Irv Gotti’s Deal Get Made Before Market Correction? 

[13:08] Irv’s Deal Was For Masters, Not Publishing

[13:50] Crowning Jewel of Murder Inc’s Catalog

[18:23] Why Mood Is The New Musical Genre

[19:26] Gen Z Uses Labels Less Than Prior Generations

[25:53] Post Malone The Genre-Agnostic Artist

[27:10] Did Streaming End Regionalism In Music? 

[29:53] Fan Attachment To Record Labels Has Disappeared

[32:30] Stories From Two New Girl Dads

[38:21] First Music Show For The New Babies?

Tiffany Ng’s article on music being categorized by moods, not genre: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/why-mood-is-the-new-musical-genre

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Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Our generation, in general, is pretty hung up on labels. You know, everything from music to sexuality, to whatever, you know, it's like things have to be classified and, you know, there's kind of an obsession over putting things in buckets. Whereas I think Gen Z has a lot more about fluidity and sort of like, you know, questioning why we need these labels at all to begin with, or at least, like, maybe we should just loosen up a little bit about them, which I think makes a ton of sense, you know? 

[00:00:34] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:55] Dan Runcie: This episode is the first one I'd done in a little bit, took a quick break from recording. My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world last month, so took some time, focused on family, and finally, ready to get back into the swing of things. And there's no better person to do it with than my friend, Zack O'Malley Greenburg, who recently is coming back from paternity to leave himself. Him and his wife just had a kid in May, and the past couple of months, Zack and I have been talking about our journeys, both leading up to this moment and after. So, and given what we cover in both music and entertainment, it was a good time to catch up on a few recent headlines. First, we talked about Irv Gotti and the $300 million deal he did for selling his Murder Inc. Catalog, doing a deal with Iconoclast for further stuff in media, TV, and film. And this statement that Irv Gotti made about music being the lowest-monetized form of entertainment. Zack and I had some thoughts, so we broke that down. We also talked about one of the articles that was a guest post in Zack's ZOGBLOG that he had published that was about moods in music and how moods and music are definitely taking over genres, especially in streaming, and how that may shape the future of how music's released and monetized. We're getting away from these genre legacy terms like country, rap, and pop and moving more so into chill vibes, or other things that are named by hyperspecific Spotify playlists. And Zack and I saves a little bit of time at the end for Girl Dad Life, where we chatted about some of our mutual experiences and some funny moments that we've experienced so far with having kids and what's that's been like with newborns specifically, so hope you enjoy this episode. Here's my chat with Zack. 

[00:02:42] Dan Runcie: All right. We're back with another episode. And I'm joined by my guy who is also probably with limited sleep, fresh off of paternity leave himself, Zack, how are you holding up these days, man?

[00:02:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Not too bad. I think we got eight hours last night out of Riley, little Riley. So life is definitely getting a little bit more normal but it's, it's all good. sleep or no sleep. It's just a blast. 

[00:03:06] Dan Runcie: Ah, love to hear it. I'll hopefully be at that eight-hour stretch soon, a couple of weeks behind you with a newborn, but we'll save some time at the end to catch up on Girl Dad Life. 

[00:03:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: All right.

[00:03:17] Dan Runcie: Let's start things at the top though. We got some big topics we want to dive into, but this first one that caught my eye, and it sounds like it caught your eye, too. This quote is from Irv Gotti, who just did this huge deal. Of course, Irv Gotti, CEO, one of the founders of Murder Inc. He was able to do a $300 million deal recently with Iconoclast, where he was able to sell his share, his 50% share of Murder Inc.'s masters for $100 million. And plus he also got a $200 million line of credit. That's going to be specifically used for future TV and film projects that are likely going to be based off of some of the Murder Inc. IP or other things. But in an interview that he did talking about this deal with Billboard, he said this quote, and I've been thinking a lot about it.

[00:04:11] Dan Runcie: He said, "Entertainment industry is music, TV, and film," right? "The music business is the lowest form, and I just bagged a hundred million dollars for some shit I did 20 years ago." And the interviewer then follows up and it's like, you know, can you say more? And he says, "It's just the facts. More money is made in TV and with movies than music. It’s a non-disputable fact. We love the music industry and I love the music industry. There’s money to be made. But [it’s dwarfed by] the money made from TV and film. If I have 100 episodes of television and I own it, they’ll probably put a worth on it at $300 or $400 million. With $300 or $400 million, I could sell it at a 10 to 20 multiple. That’s three to six billion. This is why Tyler Perry is a billionaire. That’s why I sold my masters and did this deal with Iconoclast." So I pause and, although I get what he's saying and I think there is some interesting discussion there, I think there's a lot of nuances there. And I'm not quite sure if I'm completely on board with him on this. That said, I think Irv Gotti is great. I always loved what Murder Inc. did, but I think that this particular statement is a bit more nuanced, especially with what we've seen happening in music the past few years. 

[00:05:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I mean, you know, and I think he got into some fuzzy math there at the end. I mean, I don't know, you know, to multiply what by 10? And we're talking how many billion dollars? Like, when Disney pay a billion for the entire Star Wars library, so, I know that was a great deal for them and it's worth a lot more now. I think the math might be a little bit off, but I would kind of flip it and say, you know, sure. You know, there are movies that gross billions of dollars or, you know, hundreds of millions or into the billions, low billions. But like, there aren't albums that do that. Okay, but, you know, in terms of libraries, I mean, we just saw Bruce Springsteen get half a billion dollars for his.

[00:06:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I mean, we're seeing, you know, masters in publishing go for hundreds of millions of dollars. The fact that Irv Gotti got a hundred million dollars for half of the Murder Inc. catalog. I mean, that's a wild number. No, not to sort of sleep on the Murder Inc. catalog, but, you know, it's not Bruce Springsteen. So, you know, I think that actually, the fact that he was able to get a hundred million dollars shows that the music industry is actually alive and well, right, in terms of the valuations. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure how much I, I, I agree with that, especially when you look at, you know, like for example, I was in a movie when I was a kid. The movie's called Lorenzo's Oil and I played Lorenzo. It's a, a big role, and I still get checks for 60 bucks, you know, every few months. And that's nice. And I'm sure that Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon who were in it get much bigger checks, but, you know, they can't really go and, like, sell that catalog. You know, you don't have masters as an actor. I suppose you could go and sell the royalty streams or companies let you do that now, but it's not the same in terms of intellectual property. There's not like an equivalent to, you know, songwriting you know, like the sort of, the same kind of IP that, you know, at least, if you are an actor or an artist, or, you know, you would have access into your, to your masters in a way that you wouldn't as an actor unless maybe you're Tom Cruise and you negotiate some crazy backend deal. So, I think the grass is a little bit greener on the music side than Irv is, is giving credit for. 

[00:07:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the difference that you're highlighting is that it's not so much the top-line number. It's more so just how the business model under that number is distributed between who owns the underlying content and who doesn't. And I think if you're Irv and you're trying to compare this from this perspective of, if you're in music and you're trying to do a deal with Universal, whether you're an artist or you were an indie label at the time, trying to do a distribution deal or some type of joint venture. I forget exactly what Murder Inc. had at the time. But comparing that isn't the same to comparing what Tyler Perry is doing because even what Tyler Perry's doing, he is very much a unicorn in that right. There's not that many actors that are owning the underlying IP of the work that they're doing. Tyler Perry is the writer, the director, the producer for all of these things. That's why he is getting those things. And that is a very unique use case because in most cases, those are all different people in television. And I think, to be honest, TV is likely getting even murkier now because so much of the money that was going into these projects was based on this concept that these video streaming services could just have infinite growth and just keep growing and growing.

[00:08:59] Dan Runcie: And now we're kind of reaching this point where people are like, okay, Netflix had 220 billion people paying $10, $15, almost $20 a month. Maybe that was as high as it could potentially go. I mean, I think there's plenties to break down there, but if those dollars aren't going to be as high as they may have been in that perspective, then we're going to see the shift. I did look at some top-line numbers, which are, I think, a good way to kind of balance things out. The music industry almost made $30 billion last year. I think it was around $28 billion last year for recorded music overall. So that does not include concerts or any of those things. I know that Irv isn't referring to that, but then if you look at the box office, I mean, that's more money than the global box office made, granted last year was a pandemic year so I know it's a bit tough to compare these things. And there's a lot more other things there, but it's not so much that this industry itself doesn't make as much money 'cause, yeah, you mentioned Bruce just got half a billion for all of his stuff. He owns this stuff and you know, that, you know, Born in the U.S.A. is going to be playing for decades, at least with, you know, as long as your Baby Boomers, and Gen X, and I guess even Millennials that are big Springsteen fans continue to listen. But I think that's different than how Irv might be looking at it. The thing is though it's not just Irv. I think that has its perspective. I think a lot of other folks have that perspective too, but I think it stems from when you are at the lowest rung of being the talent in the particular industry, I think music at that stage is likely a bit less advantageous than it may be for, you know, an actor per se. And maybe that's a bit of the difference where if you're a musician that's just signing on for a deal, it's going to take a lot longer for you to maybe recoup that money than an actor would, you know, signing on for an equivalent level size of something. But that's definitely very different than putting that as a global claim about the broader industry. 

[00:11:04] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's true, but I, I would still argue that if you are an artist getting into the game as a, as a musician, the default would be that you would probably have shared ownership of your masters. If you were an actor getting into the acting game, the default is like you get an okay chunk of money for one movie, you know. It doesn't come with IP in the way that it would. And so it's not until later in your career that you can start to say, Hey, I want to be a director. I want to be a producer. Until you start to get, or, you know, or maybe you're kind of DIY from the beginning and, and you're doing it, all of it yourself, but that's, that's so unusual. You know, I don't know. I mean, I, I think the other thing too, is that like, and maybe this is part of what Irv was alluding to, I mean, that a hundred million dollars that he got, that to me seemed like a number that was more along the lines of the stuff we were seeing, you know, six months to a year ago before interest rates doubled. And we kind of stopped hearing about these big deals. So I wonder if that deal, and I kind of asked around a little bit and I couldn't get a, a firm answer, but I would suspect that that deal, you know, was agreed upon you know, like last fall or something before the economic environment changed and, you know, and it just didn't close until now 'cause these, these deals can take six months to a year to close and, and that's why, you know, you've got such a good multiple. But like these days, you know, when the interest rate is, like, gone from 3% to 6% or whatever, I guess it depends on the kind of deals you're doing, but, you know, that's a huge difference. And it sort of like makes buying music assets a lot less interesting because you know, when just, like normal financial instruments, you know, and not to get, like, too nerdy about it, but, you know, in the bond market are generating something closer to what a music catalog would do. I think, like, these big financial institutions are going to be more inclined to kind of like lean on their expertise rather than trying to, to do these exotic things or, you know, get involved with, with music catalogs and intellectual property and that sort of thing. 

[00:13:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I could see that. I think the other piece of this, too, that may get lost in some of the details, especially, is that this isn't a publishing catalog deal. This is masters, at least partial ownership there, or not partial ownership, but at least the revenue generating from at least half of what Irv had, and at least in streaming, your recorded revenue from the master side is at least three to four times higher than what the publishers are getting. Of course, there have been some, there's some recent changes where the publisher royalty has increased. I think increased from 10 and a half percent to 15.1% recently. So that'll help, but still, that piece of it does in many ways, so even, let's say you were to compare this number for the Murder Inc.'s masters to let's say what Justin Timberlake got for his catalog deal. You can't necessarily compare that because Timberlake's was for the piece of the music sound recordings that were less valuable, relatively speaking, at least currently than this. So I do think sometimes, like, those things do get lost in it, but it would be interesting to see, yeah, what would that be like now if those deals were starting to shine a closer look if those conversations were happening? I think it would be interesting and also a bit unique because this deal is with Iconoclast. This isn't one of the standard players that we've seen that are handing out, you know, the nine-figure checks to these companies. Who knows what the conversations could have been like with Hipgnosis or Round Hill or some of the others. I feel like he may have alluded to that to some extent in the interview, but it was hard to get a sense specifically.

[00:14:52] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. And you also wonder, I mean, how much, if it was about, you know, being able to say, oh, now we have a catalog that, like, there is some Jay-Z in there. There's some DMX in there. I think there's some J.Lo in there. You know, in addition to like a lot of Ja Rule and Ashanti, and you know, but that's kind of like a trophy to have that. You know, I don't know that it's quite so often that you know, anything by Jay-Z comes up. I think it was, there's a piece of Can I Live on there, which, which is pretty cool, so, you know, that that might have added, you know, a certain premium to it. 

[00:15:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I was going to ask you that. What do you think is the crowning jewel of this catalog? I mean, every one of these catalog sales, it has the typical 80- 20 or the power law thing, where there is a few big songs that are really generating everything. I mean, you mentioned J.Lo. I mean, I'm Real has to be one of the biggest Murder Inc. songs they had, or maybe Always On Time with, you know, Ja Rule and Ashanti. Are there any others that stick out?

[00:15:48] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I mean, the Jay-Z one for sure. Which DMX song was it? It was a pretty big one. I think it's What's My Name? 

[00:15:54] Dan Runcie: Oh, What's My Name. Oh, that, that was on X's catalog. That was Ruff Ryders and Def Jam. 

[00:15:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh, that was. Okay. 

[00:15:59] Dan Runcie: But Jay-Z, they, they were on It's Murda though, right? It's Murda from Ja Rule's Venni Vetti Vecci that had Jay and DMX. 

[00:16:07] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's right. Okay.

[00:16:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Is that right?

[00:16:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: It was, it was some, it was like somewhere in the discography. I was looking at it though. Oh, well, I'll track it down someday. We'll have to talk about it the next time. But there was, there was a big DMX single that somehow ended up on there that caught my eye. But, you know, like a lot of the Ja Rule stuff, I think. I think maybe Livin' It Up was on there. 

[00:16:26] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah, that was big.

[00:16:27] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's a huge one.

[00:16:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, like Down 4 U, like Down Ass Bitch, like, you had a few of those that were in it. I think Ashanti had some big ones, too, like Foolish. Foolish was huge. 

[00:16:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Oh, yeah, here. Okay, it says What's My Name. It said that he produced What's My Name. So that's why, even though it wasn't...

[00:16:45] Dan Runcie: Oh, interesting.

[00:16:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. What's Luv? That's a huge one. 

[00:16:50] Dan Runcie: Oh, that's a big one. Yep. With Fat Joe and Ashanti, yep. 

[00:16:53] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. Can I Live, Holla Holla, you know, so there's, there's some really good stuff on there. And I think you're right. It's probably, there's a couple, you know, without us having a, a look at the statements, it's hard to know, but it, it wouldn't surprise me if one of those songs is just like a sleeper hit that just continues to, I mean, we know it's a big hit, but it, it could be, like, way more lucrative than we ever imagined. Or one of those could have been in a movie, you know, more, more than the others or something like that. So, you know, I think a lot of these songs are going to be, actually, that's what one of the lawyers I reached out to about this said. He was like, you know, there's a lot of stuff in there that is very interesting from the sync perspective. You know, to the sort of like Millennial, Xennial crowd that grew up on that that would love to see it in movies, and TV, and video games, so yeah, that could be part of it, too.

[00:17:38] Dan Runcie: Big on sync. Also, big on the likelihood of being turned into some viral TikTok trend. I don't know if that is a quantifiable metric they're using, but I would, I think it is. I just think of so many, the TikTok things that blow up and that era of early 2000s, late 90s hip-hop has done really well in a lot of ways. And sometimes it's so random, but I do think that that Murder Inc. sound captures so much of that. It's only before long that someone finds some, like, weird thing that happened in one of the music videos, and then that then becomes viral, and then it becomes like a whole TikTok viral campaign. 

[00:18:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yep. Yep. Although don't know how, how much they'll be getting paid from TikTok, but that's a whole other, that's a whole other story.

[00:18:23] Dan Runcie: We'll have to save that one for our next, for the next chat. We got to see how that whole situation firms up. But so the next topic that we want to talk about is a fascinating piece that was a guest post that was written by someone that you had worked with, Tiffany, and she wrote a really interesting essay on why mood is the new musical genre. And when you picked me on this, I read it, and it stuck out because I was like, you know what? It's a hundred percent right. If you look at Spotify and you look at how all these streaming services have shifted, how music is being consumed and listened to. Yeah, it isn't rock, pop country, hip-hop. It's a lo-fi chill vibes. It's, you know, backyard barbecue hang. It's all of these super niche things that reflect a lot more of where music listening is going. And I could only imagine there's so many broader implications that it can have, but I'd love to hear what you think about it. 

[00:19:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. So I've been out on paternity leave and, you know, not really writing, but Tiffany who's a really great writer and, and was doing some research for me while she was a senior at, at my alma mater, at Yale. And, and she and I were actually, we worked on the same, basically, arts and culture desk on the school newspaper, you know, whatever it was, 15 years apart. So she, while I was out, she wrote this great long piece kind of talking about how, you know, from her generation's perspective, this idea that, yeah, that you would classify things by genre or really identify yourself as like a hip-hop fan or a rock fan or whatever, is all kind of moot. It's like an old people thing. And that her generation is more about moods and, and like you say, it's backyard barbecue or whatever it is. And people don't, you know, really care about genres so much anymore, you know, amongst the sort of Gen Z crowd, and she, you know, really kind of dug into some, I think, great examples of it and talked about Spotify classifications and how they put together, Audio Auras that give you your kind of, like, yearend picture of your listening tastes. And I think it's a really great point. And I think that, you know, our generation, in general, is pretty hung up on labels. You know, everything from music to sexuality, to whatever, you know, it's like things are, have to be classified and, you know, there's kind of an obsession over putting things in buckets. Whereas I think Gen Z is, is a lot more about fluidity and sort of like, you know, questioning why we need these labels at all to begin with, or at least like, maybe we should just loosen up a little bit about them, which I think makes a ton of sense, you know? I mean, I remember when Halsey put out that song, New Americana, and she talked about being raised on Biggie and Nirvana. And I was like, yeah, that's me. Like, I get that. But that always felt weird when people were like, well, what kind of music are you into? And I was like hip-hop, and grunge rock, and like some other stuff. That was always sort of weird, but I think it's good to see the next generation kind of embrace that more and that's what the article kind of dug into.

[00:21:22] Dan Runcie: The label and generation identification is a huge thing. Do you remember growing up when the labels of how we were and folks were in middle school and high school was such a thing that people went down the road, it was like, oh, you're a skater? Oh, then you listen to Linkin Park. Then you listen to this and you dress, and you wear like JNCO jeans, like with the chain hanging from the back of your pocket to the front or whatever. You're a prep? Okay, you shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. You're probably wearing Adidas Superstars and you probably, I don't know, clothes from, like Structure or like Express, and stuff like that. Like, there were all these buckets, too, and then it extended as well. If you listen to hip. You probably wore Timberlands. You probably had Nike Air Force 1s, Ecko, or whatever the popular clothes were at times. Like, all of these things and this generation and timeframe is just like, no, that's not the case. And I think this mood thing factors in a lot of that. I think we're almost seeing this to some extent with things we've kind of just seen, like regionality as well. 

[00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Like, I've heard a lot of people talk about how from, you know, certain generations it's like, oh, like, well, people in Seattle, they dress like this. Like, you could go to Seattle, walk or like, you know, the Pacific Northwest and everyone's wearing flannel like it's a Nirvana music video or whatever. Or if you go down south, like I would visit my cousins in Florida growing up and they would be listening to Ying Yang Twins and all these other songs that were popular at the time. And we just weren't listening to that stuff nearly as much growing up in the Northeast. And it hit that vibe. And I think now, too, because of the internet, so much of that generationality piece just, or not the generationality, the geographical identity is also dissipated, too, where people in Seattle can, you know, feel no different, especially from a youth perspective, could feel no different than someone growing up in Miami or Fort Lauderdale or whatever it is. So I'm curious to see how is that going to shape? Even the legacy labels that we do have on things. I think that the Grammys is, you know, clearly an institution that has prided itself on the number of options that it's given particular artists to have and celebrate their particular genre of music based on these legacy labels. I think it takes a lot of time for those things to change, but will we see that? Could you eventually see things where I think pop radio in a lot of ways? And radio, in general, is still one of the things that's still holding onto this generational, you know, label divides much to a fault because I think there's still certain types of artists that are precluded from being heard on Z100 or being heard on your mainstream stations, so, I think that it may still take time to get there, but I'm curious to see what did that look like 20 years, 20 years from now? Will we still see the same restrictions on radio and in award ceremonies? 'Cause I think those are the two areas that feel harder to disrupt than the broader culture that already has been disrupted by it.

[00:24:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. And one of the other things that Tiffany wrote about in this article which you, oh, you can read it, just it's zogblog.com, and you can go through the newsletter. It's the latest post. I'll be back writing in a week or two, I think. But anyway, it's up there on zogblog.com and she said, she pointed out the IGOR one for best rap album, even though it's not really a rap album. Like, it's already happening, right, like, in categories at the Grammy's. So, right, like how, how soon until we start to change that or, or even have sort of like, broader, you know, kinds of labels. Like, what if it's like, you know, best chill album, you know? Best barbecue album? I don't know. So I'd love to see how that, how that kind of turns out. But, man, I remember, you know, in the nineties, when you would sort of put on your AOL profile what kind of music you listen to. A lot of people sort of also define themselves in opposition to certain genres. They're like, I listen to anything but country and rap, you know? That, I remember a lot of people that, anything but rap, anything but country. That was sort of their battle cry. And you know, I just don't see too much of that anymore. And I think that's a great thing, you know, like, why should you have to limit your taste? It's like, you know, you don't want to be a traitor to, to your emo, whatever, by, by listening to hip-hop. But now we have like emo hip-hop. It's great. I think it's cool that we have, you know, all these kinds of like mixings and subgenres.

[00:25:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah, if anything, I think I'll see the angst more for particular artists themselves and not necessarily the broader genre, right? Like, I know there's people that, you know, they just don't like Post Malone for a number of reasons. And it's like, I get it, but you can't put Post Malone in a musical category to be like, oh, I don't like this type of music 'cause I guarantee you, whatever, you know, genre of music, you want to put him in, there's going to be an artist that sounds like him, may not look like him, may not have a fan base that, you know, vibes the way that his does, but you're probably going to like something of that, you know, type of thing, right?

[00:26:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've gotten into so many arguments about how to classify Post Malone. Some people say he is hip-hop, which I don't really, I wouldn't classify him as hip-hop. Is he pop? I guess. I guess that's what you'd call it, but, you know, I wouldn't really say that he's rock.

[00:26:45] Dan Runcie: I would call him pop, yeah.

[00:26:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Pop yeah. Pop or sad frat party or something, you know? I mean, mood. I think mood is a great way with him, too. 

[00:26:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I mean, is there any other broader implication that you can think of with how moods will just continue to shift over time and how moods may play a bigger role in music, either how it's consumed or how it's monetized? 

[00:27:10] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I mean, I think really what's on my mind about that right now is I go back to what you were saying about regionalism. And, you know, I wonder if sort of this movement away from labels of genre, more toward labels of mood has to do with the fact that you know, there's sort of like, you know, national moods almost that you can attach to music in a way that you couldn't when things were sort of regional. And, you know, there was that whole moment where radio, sort of like the consolidation of radio, that kind of switch over to like the clear channel model. And you, you had sort of like the same, you know, whatever it was, KISS-FM or something like that, and you had these big playlists that were just kind of on rotation, the same playlists like all over the country, and you kind of lost a little bit of that local flavor. But actually, you know, as people were lamenting that the whole thing shifted over to streaming. And there's no regional streaming, right? And so I think it sort of follows that mood would sort of like become a new means of classification because once you eliminate the regional aspect to it you know, I don't know, it's, it's sort of like it maybe unnecessary movement to happen over time. And I think, you know, There's some cons to losing the regionalism and, you know, you get some unique sounds and certainly within hip-hop, it was really cool to see like Houston versus Bay Area, you know, like very specific microclimate-type sounds that you could get that, that, you know, within kind of bubble up and percolate into different like more mainstream hip-hop sounds. But you know, then again, I think it's cool to just other genres meld into other genres and have that be kind of the mixing that happens too. So, you know, pros and cons, but I think, I think there are a lot of pros to the mood thing over the genre label thing.

[00:29:00] Dan Runcie: So before long, we're going to have to pour some out for the dirty south hip-hop playlist. Got so much play over time.  And maybe this regionalism trend or trend away from regionalism is just the way things are going. This is a sports analogy, more so, and there's other reasons behind it. But I look at what's happening in college sports right now with these major teams joining the Big Ten, joining the you know, or the Big East no longer really being a thing, and how so much of that is just a sign of where things are right now. And so much of what people really appreciated about what these conferences could tell you about a particular place in the country, that's not necessarily going to be the case if, you know, Texas and its whole culture is coming and joining, you know, joining the ECC, right? It's just very different. 

[00:29:53] Dan Runcie: And I think to bring this conversation full circle, too, it's like, I've heard through the grapevines about record labels that had wanted to start their own metaverse experiences and being like, okay, this is the record label's metaverse experience. And then someone wisely told them, Hey, no one cares about your record label. Like, that's not the draw here. Like, I mean, in the folks that are inside the industry, of course, you can share the accolades and stuff like that. But the fans care about the artists. They're not going to be drawn. Like, the days are done of people being like, oh yeah, no Def Jam, like, in the heyday, I'm there. Like, that's just not how it works anymore. 

[00:30:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. You know, I mean, if you're really in the business, you know, which labels have which ethos. But, you know, it, it really has blurred together more and more. And yeah, I think in the old days, you know, people would be like, oh, I'm an Atlantic records fan. You know, because when they pulled out that vinyl, you know, they saw that logo, and they knew that there was a certain type of artist and that Atlantic Records were a curator of the type of music that they liked. And maybe it wasn't the same genre always, but there was, you know, they knew that it would be good. But if you're a casual listener, there's not really even an opportunity to easily know what label anybody is on. So why would you care? And I think, especially since you know, I mean, I think there was a heyday in the nineties of hip-hop artists shouting out the record labels that they were on or that they owned and that was sort of, you know, important. Definitely, like Ruff Ryders had a very different ethos from Bad Boy. And, you know, you might classify yourself, you know, more in one bucket or another and identify with that. But I think so much of that has just dissipated in the streaming era, 'cause yeah, you're not looking at a physical thing. So you know, who knows, who cares what labels anybody on, and why the hell would you really want to go to an individual label metaverse thing? I'm glad somebody told them that they shouldn't be doing that anymore. 

[00:31:43] Dan Runcie: Definitely. No, definitely. All right. Well, we saved some time at the end for the section that's near and dear to both of us, as, you know, if you followed either my writing or Zack's writing recently, you know, that we both had kids very recently. So Zack had his daughter in May. I had mine in June, and it's been great to just, you know, connect and bond and hear more about how things were for both of us leading up to this point and now after. So I figured now that we're on the other side of it with relatively newborn and young children, we could have a little section here called Girl Dad Life, where we each share one interesting or funny experience that's happened for both of us trying to navigate fatherhood here. So Zack, I'll let you start. What's your experience been like? And what's yours?

[00:32:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. You know, less than a, like a specific story, it's really more about an overall vibe mood, if you will. Man, I know it sounds corny, but the moment you become a parent, this compartment opens up inside of you and it's just filled with a new capacity to love that you didn't know was in there. And it just is like overwhelming and beautiful and is, is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I think that one of the things, you know, like I think the best advice I would give is, is that there's no, like, right way to do it. And people have been having babies for a very long time without all the gear and whatever, and we've survived, as the human race. But I think the thing that, that always surprises and delights me is that you know, Riley, despite being eight weeks old, I mean, from the very beginning, has been a little human who, who knows what she wants. And it's like pretty straightforward. If she's crying, you know, she needs to go to sleep. She needs food or she needs a diaper change. And if she doesn't like that, it's time to put on, like, any number of different songs or albums that she likes. And she's, talk about a musical omnivore. Oh, my God. She loves, like, Shirley Bassey, Big Spender. She loves Biggie, Mo Money Mo Problems. You know, she's really like, no genre constraints when you're an infant. And I think it's just really cool to see that, you know, she could be crying and then that beat comes on and she starts smiling, you know?

[00:34:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I would also say like, I, I read this book called Bringing Up Bébé, and it's all about the French method of child-rearing. And they're really big into this idea of, like, the baby is a human with thoughts and preferences the minute they come out of the womb and sort of just like paying attention, you know, and, and also giving them a second to try to figure whatever it is out. Like, if your baby starts to cry, you know, don't necessarily just, like, drop everything, rush in and, you know, give your baby a second to try to figure it out. And sometimes they won't. And then you go and tend to them, but, like, if you don't give them a chance to figure it out as babies, then they'll never be able to sort of figure it out on their own as adults. So I thought that was a really cool insight. How about you? 

[00:34:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's funny. You recommended that book to me, a couple of other friends did too. And I read it and yeah, it was a really an interesting read and it was a good reminder of, like, yeah, people have been doing this for plenty of years, and just because your baby doesn't have the newest, fanciest insert whatever, stroller, bassinet this and that, like, the fact that you're thinking about this to this extent means that you'll probably be fine and the baby will be fine. But a few funny stories that we have that I could share, so one of them when we were in the labor delivery phase, one of the folks that was in the room with us, she was a volunteer doula that was helping with a few things. She had asked me, she was like, oh, did you want me to take pictures? Because she could see I was trying to, like, multitask. My wife had wanted me to take some pictures and I was like, yeah, sure. So then not only did she take pictures, she took a video of everything, from like the moment of, you know, when my wife started pushing to everything after. And then I remember like when, you know, my wife was still recovering, I watched it, and I was like, oh wow, I did not realize she captured everything. And then my wife was just like, I do not want to see that. And then I think she heard me watch it. And then she was like, okay, I have to see that. She was like, was that me? Like? I was like, yes, yes, that was you. But it's okay. You know, completely normal, unexpected. So that's, what's there. But, yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more on, you know, everything from the love, life-changing perspective, you know, something we had wanted, and, you know, it's been so good from that perspective and just pick it up on cues and stuff. There are definitely a few funny moments that we'll always crack ourselves up as 'cause you have to, right? It's like, I mean, you know, we both know what it's like with the whole sleep deprived, everything and, and all that. But you do start to notice the baby's patterns and stuff. And like how they'll react to, you know, when you're either about to feed or when you're about to give a bottle or any of those things and just the instant reaction, so. It's something else. But, you know, it's been good. I mean, we're recording today. Today's actually one month since she was born. 

[00:36:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh, my gosh. 

[00:36:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Time has is flown by, time has flown by. And this is, like, the first podcast I had done since then. Everything else up to this point had been pre-recorded stuff we planned, so slowly getting back into the swing of things. I think I'll most likely be back in like a full-time perspective, maybe sometime later this month, but I think, you know, just going slowly week by week there. It feels good to have the work stuff to mix in with everything, but like, life-changing in the best way.

[00:37:03] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, well so you're coming up on five weeks and actually one of my favorite moments so far happened at five weeks. My wife and I went out with Riley  and we went out for dinner at a sidewalk cafe in New York. And, you know, Riley's, like, sleeping, we're having a great time and chatting and eating. And you know, after maybe like an hour, she starts crying, and so I take her out and I'm kind of rocking her, and she's crying. And there are these ladies sitting next to us  and I was like, oh, I'm so sorry.  And they're both like, no, really don't worry, we have babies at home. And my wife goes, do you have any advice for us? And the one lady goes, how old's your baby? And Danielle says five weeks. And she goes, honey, you don't need any advice. You're at a restaurant with the five week old.  Like, God bless you.  And that was exactly, exactly what we needed to hear. And I think it's also like a great indication of, you know, your old life isn't over. You could still do stuff. You just have to plan it a little more carefully and be flexible. And  I was shocked like if you had told me a couple months ago that I'd be doing that at five weeks, I wouldn't have believed you. But it's been really cool to just have the summer to chill out and spend time with Riley, and it's so cool to be having like the same timing as you would kind of like  go through the milestones, so. 

[00:38:18] Dan Runcie: Definitely. When do you think you'll bring Riley to a music festival or some type of event like that where she's wearing the headphones and you and Danielle enjoying yourselves?

[00:38:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: We already got her headphones.

[00:38:31] Dan Runcie: Ear muffs, I should say. I said headphones.

[00:38:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, right, right. Ear muffs. Well, we put them on, we did a trial run on the 4th of July. And initially, she smiled a lot and I think she thought they were pretty cool. And then she was like, get this shit off of me. So I don't know. We actually were thinking of venturing into Central Park to SummerStage. A couple of weeks ago, I think Trombone Shorty was there. And then our plan just got blown up with like the various feeding schedules and things like that. So I don't know. I think we're ready to try. I think it just has to be a SummerStage thing, and it has to be like not too hot or too cold, and go for it. But I think the first time we're just not going to buy tickets. We're just going to stand outside, and see how it goes, you know, for like a half an hour. And then if that's okay, then maybe we'll work our way up. But yeah, I mean, so great to be in a, in a place where live music is just, you know, a short walk away. She hates being in the car, so it's a good thing we're in New York. 

[00:39:29] Dan Runcie: Perfect. No, that's great. 

[00:39:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: When's your first concert plan? 

[00:39:34] Dan Runcie: It's funny because last year Outside Lands here in San Francisco was in October. So in my mind, I was like, oh yeah, we could do it in October. But then I forgot that it was a pandemic year and Outside Lands is in August. So that's like two weeks from now. It's, like, the first weekend in August that Outside Lands is, and a concert might be a little much in, you know, two weeks if you're listening to this one week from recording. But I'm hoping that, you know, some early fall, hopefully, we could do something. 

[00:40:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Fingers crossed for both of us. 

[00:40:03] Dan Runcie: Definitely, definitely. Well, Zack, this is a pleasure. Appreciate you coming on. We'll make sure that we link to Tiffany's post in the show notes and, yeah, so next time, we'll hit you up and then, you know, we can definitely save some stuff for our next Girl Dad Life quarter, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of stuff happening in the industry. Everyone's on vacation right now, relaxing, but soon enough things will be ramping back up. 

[00:40:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Amen. Well, thanks for having me on Dan as always, and best of luck on fatherhood on your end, too. 

[00:40:31] Dan Runcie: Likewise. Thanks, man. 

[00:40:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: All right.

[00:40:34] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Twenty-four years after their debut album, Black Star — the duo of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey — is back with its sophomore release, “No Fear Of Time.” Talib joined Trapital to discuss the long-awaited return album (which dropped in May) and why it was released exclusively on the paid-subscription podcast platform Luminary. Spurning traditional streaming platforms like Apple Music or Spotify was about serving its true fans, Talib told me during our interview.

The pair was already in business with Luminary, hosting an original podcast “The Midnight Miracle” alongside Dave Chappelle. The way Talib sees it, the group’s most dedicated fans — one’s that care about them on a personal level beyond just spitting bars — were already rocking with them on Luminary. And after a career that’s spanned four decades, Talib is more interested in engaging his core fanbase rather than reaching the masses. 

Disruptive art is on-brand for Black Star. Similarly, Yasiin’s latest solo album was exclusively distributed inside a 10-week art exhibit in Brooklyn. For Talib, he’s blended different musical genres and sounds his entire career. “As an artist, it’s my duty to try everything I can,” he told me on this episode. 

For a closer look at Talib’s creative and business approach, you’ll want to hear our interview in full. Here’s all our talking points during the episode:

[3:16] Black Star’s New Album “No Fear Of Time”

[4:10] Why The Album Released Exclusively On Luminary Podcast Network

[8:07] Why Talib Moved Away From Patreon

[10:37] Art Vs. Business

[14:11] What Talib Has Learned In Different Creative Pursuits 

[15:55] Yasiin Bey Makes Talib “Step Up”

[19:23] TikTok’s Influence On Modern-Day Music

[23:00] Why Talib Avoided Clubhouse 

[25:12] Talib Doesn’t Miss Twitter

[29:41] Speaking Out Against Online Trolls

[33:51] Putting Out Music On “Own Terms”

[35:24] Talib Did 200 Shows A Year For Two Decades

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Talib Kweli, @talibkweli

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Talib Kweli: Most of my music is available for free on YouTube. On Kweliclub.com, you can get all my mixtapes for free. You can get the album Fuck the Money for free. My biggest song Get By, you could, if that shit came on in the store, you could Shazam it and listen to it on Shazam for free, you know what I'm saying?

[00:00:16] Talib Kweli: Like, it's got 15 million views on YouTube. You could go listen to it on YouTube for free. You mean to tell me I can't get $10 or $5 or $30 with a new Black Star album with all this free music you're getting? What are we even talking about? You know what I'm saying? Like, how are you ignoring all of this, to complain about this?

[00:00:42] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:01:03] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the one and only Talib Kweli. He is one half of Black Star which is back with its second album since their debut 24 years ago, 24 years. It's crazy how long it's been. But it was great to talk to him about why he chose to release it now and also why he chose to release it exclusively on Luminary.

[00:01:25] Dan Runcie: Luminary is a paid audio platform, specifically known for podcasting. So we talked about that decision, why it was important for him and Yasiin to release it on a platform where they already had a podcast and what that means for him moving forward. And what it ultimately focuses on is the quest for autonomy and control and independence in being able to reap the rewards that come from it.

[00:01:49] Dan Runcie: This is nothing new to Talib Kweli. He's released music on his own website, Kweli Club. He's used Patreon as well to release his music. So we talked about what the decision was like to release on Luminary and more broadly what this means for him as an artist. He's someone that has toured a lot over the years.

[00:02:07] Dan Runcie: So we talked about what it's been like since the pandemic. What it's been like finding the right sound and themes given so much of the conscious rap that Black Star and Talib himself were known for over the years. And we talked about a whole bunch of other trends in the industry. Great conversation, really insightful.

[00:02:24] Dan Runcie: Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Talib Kweli. All right. So today we have the one and only Talib Kweli, one half a Black Star, which is back with its latest album, No Fear of Time. So the album's been out for a little bit, man. How are you feeling? How do you feel about the response? 

[00:02:41] Talib Kweli: I feel grateful and blessed, and I'm happy that the fans have gotten a chance to hear it. I've been listening to it or iterations of it for a number of years now. And I'm just happy to have gotten it out. 

[00:02:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I bet. I think too, I'm glad that the fans are hearing it 'cause one of the big discussion points about the album, which stuck out to me, was how you chose to release it. And I give you so much respect for doing it on your terms and not necessarily following the main path because we all know that artists have their own autonomy and independence. Like, you don't have to just do the standard thing. So credit to you on that. 

[00:03:16] Talib Kweli: Well, yeah, you know, all praises due to the most high and really, I give the credit to Yas he was the one that really stuck to his guns on that. You know, my music is widely available or many platforms, not all of it, you know, some, some things I have exclusive, but we've had offers as you can imagine all through the years to ways to put out the Black Star album in a more traditional way.

[00:03:37] Talib Kweli: Yasiin stuck to his guns on that. And by default, just me, me being in a group with him, I benefit from that. Because the situation absolutely was a beneficial situation to me and, to be frank with you, one of my most favorite situations I've been in business-wise in terms of my relationship with my art and how it gets out to people.

[00:03:59] Dan Runcie: That's good. That's good to hear because I know that you've done a few different things independently. You've released albums on your own website before, you've done Patreon. What made you choose Luminary this time? 

[00:04:10] Talib Kweli: Well, we were already in a very fruitful relationship with Luminary due to the fact that we had the podcast on Luminary with Dave Chappelle, the Midnight Miracle Podcast.

[00:04:19] Talib Kweli: And it was attractive to us, the idea that fans who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, fans that are already spending money with us, fans that are following us enough to know where we at, fans that are interested in our conversation, right? Fans that are interested in us as men, as human beings and not just like feed us, feed us, feed us art, feed us content, but fans that are really interested in what we think and how we see the world and how we see art. 

[00:04:50] Talib Kweli: Those fans, I feel like, that niche was either already on Luminary rocking with the Midnight Miracle or if they had heard about the Midnight Miracle, that would be exciting to them. And so just automatically it weeds out the people who are like, Nah, I'm not interested in you as a human being. I'm not interested in how you feed your family.

[00:05:11] Talib Kweli: I'm not interested in your, your thoughts on the state of the industry. I just like them bars and the beats. I just want to hear the music. But that's not the fan I want, you know, and that's not a fan. That's pop music. Pop music is like a blanket, trying to blanket and cover everything and get every single ear.

[00:05:28] Talib Kweli: And I don't need every single ear and I don't need all eyes on me. I just want to rock with the people who want to rock with me. And that, that's the first thing beyond the fact that, you know, the business of Luminary is, that we're in is a fair arrangement. It's not, you know, it's not ownership.

[00:05:45] Talib Kweli: It's just fair. It's the antithesis of what happens with most of these streaming networks, most of these DSPs. So it's, it's just a, it's a good situation. And it's not, you know, the news was, was announced that Dave Chappelle at other people had been invested in Luminary. So it's not just something where it's like, we're asking people to come to something that we personally don't put our money where our mouth is, you know what I'm saying? 

[00:06:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Because that's what I saw. I saw that Dave Chappelle was an investor. I assumed that maybe you and Yasiin were as well. And 'cause I know some people, I wondered, okay, well, if I was going to do $5 a month, is that $5 that I could just put directly in Talib's pocket?

[00:06:25] Dan Runcie: But you're like, Hey, we also want to support the people that have clearly been with us, paying for Midnight Miracles, paying for our content. So it's not just about the monetary aspect. It's about being able to share and celebrate with the people that have already been with you. 

[00:06:39] Talib Kweli: Yeah, exactly. And I can't speak for Yasiin's investment to what he do with his money. You know, that's, that's really his business. I really don't know. But for me, I, I have Kweli Club, as you mentioned, and I'm very proud of Kweli Club, but people are not there. You know, I've never been on Bandcamp. I just started a page on Bandcamp this week for the first time because I've heard about Bandcamp.

[00:07:02] Talib Kweli: But in my mind, I'm like I could do that with Kweli Club. I could have my own Bandcamp. And Kweli Club is still rocking and is a unique experience to sell books there, there's product and information and things you could get from me there that you can't get no place else. But now you can also get my music, some of it on Bandcamp and the Black Star album is on Luminary. And I think I'm going to probably do some more things with Luminary. 

[00:07:23] Talib Kweli: It has all these other podcasts and it's like, whether you're into those podcasts or not, right? Like, you might not want to hear Trevor Noah, or Roxane Gay, or Russell Brand, or some of the other podcasts they have there, or the People's Party, or Midnight Miracle. But you can't say, well, we're just asking you to pay for this album. You can't say that 'cause that's not accurate. What you're paying for, you're getting a lot more than an album. 

[00:07:47] Dan Runcie: I agree with that. And I think the distinction here, too, that I think about, I know you mentioned on your website, of course, you could do it there, but that's not necessarily whereas many of the fans are, as you mentioned, how does this compare to Patreon? For instance, I know you've used that in the past to release art and release your work specifically.

[00:08:07] Talib Kweli: I respect the Patreon audience, and the Patreon people, and the people who started it. It's a very good idea. That is very artist-centric. But for me personally, it was Patreon just like everything else is based on your level of engagement. It's a social media platform, right? So the more you engage there, the better it's going to be.

[00:08:25] Talib Kweli: And they got, what, the Discord. They're plugged in LinkedIn with, and it's just for me, we're already engaging on other social media apps to then take that time. And I engage where I enjoy, right? I don't do it just for business. Like, I'm talking about things I enjoy. And also that, because I enjoy the engagement, it's also rewarding to me.

[00:08:45] Talib Kweli: It brings followers and listeners, whatever, but you just to add time to do it on Patreon, I didn't, I couldn't get into the engaging in the social media part of Patreon. And I feel like for me personally if you're not going to, I feel like if I wanted to engage to the level of some of the other creators on Patreon, I probably would've done better there, but my interest never, never quite got to there.

[00:09:11] Talib Kweli: And so that's what this is, there's no disrespect to that platform. I just think it's a personal taste or what you enjoy doing. And I see, I see people who do very well on Patreon. 

[00:09:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like for you specifically, we are talking about being able to invest in a platform, not just with your money, but with your time as well.

[00:09:32] Dan Runcie: And if you're going to get the most out of a platform, you got to put a lot into it. And you already had work in luminaries. So I feel like that connection was there for you. And this also makes me think back to when you had released your Gutter Rainbows album. This was back in 2011, and I feel like at least of what you had written at the time, this was a bit of a, a turning point for you because I think what we're talking about is the autonomy, and the independence, and the impact of that, especially from an economic perspective where you're like, you know, you put up your own money, you tripled your investment in a few months, and you're like, even at the more commercially successful albums you had before that, you never saw something like that. And I feel like that shaped a lot of your experience and outlook forward.

[00:10:15] Talib Kweli: Yeah. And it's even in 2022, it's even more like that. I'm still learning, and growing, and bending, and shifting. And the space I'm in now is even a lot more independent than I was when Gutter Rainbows came out. Now it's just like the industry's completely broken down. Like, when Gutter Rainbows came out, it was like on the way to really, really breaking down.

[00:10:37] Talib Kweli: But now it's completely broken down. It's like the wild, wild west. And it's like really about what you invest in yourself. It's really about focusing on the business aspect of it, like where you completely leave the ego out of it. And that's so difficult for a lot of artists because a lot of art can be, for better or for worse, ego-driven. And it can be, you know, people say that art is reciprocal. You want people to like your art, you put it out in the world, and you search around to see who's feeling it. And that could really have an adverse effect on your ego and what your value system is, right?

[00:11:10] Talib Kweli: And, you know, me as an artist personally, I've spent money. I've invested in things that I knew I wasn't going to see no return on, over and over and over again, just for the sake of the art, just for the sake of the culture. And I'm not just talking about my art. I'm talking about other artists on Javotti Media, you know, there's things that I've invested in and I'm like, I don't see a path to making a profit here unless by some stroke of luck or miracle, something, someone feels as strongly about this art as I do.

[00:11:39] Talib Kweli: And it gets a placement somewhere. Someone picks it up for a movie or something, like that's possible, or use it in a commercial, stuff like that. But I mean, those are long shots. That's not a guarantee. That's not like a plan for success, unless you're going into those situations where you're, you're knowing how to pitch those things and have those relationships, which I did not and do not, you know, so yeah.

[00:12:02] Talib Kweli: My thinking on it now is not that at all. Because I've done that. I've done the artist thing for so, so, so, so long, and I'm not really a businessman at all. I'm a businessman by default. I'm a businessman because I have to be, I love, I love this art so much. I love this culture so much. And in order to sustain myself, in order to live the life I want to live and to feed my family, offer this art I had to learn a certain degree of money management, time management, business management in order to just do what I do, but I don't enjoy it.

[00:12:32] Talib Kweli: and this is why this conversation was in, in doing this podcast was interesting to me because I think it's very important whether I enjoy it or not.

[00:12:41] Dan Runcie: I think that's an important distinction, because I do think that we see artists now that clearly you could get the sense that music is an afterthought for the bag that they're trying to get. But at the end of the day, I still believe that most of the people in this want to do it primarily because they love the art and they are much more aligned with you where it's like, they had to do this because they didn't want to get, you know, taken advantage of by the system.

[00:13:05] Dan Runcie: They didn't want to not have things work out in their favor. So by default, you have to have some, you know, cursory level of knowing what works and what doesn't. And as you kind of mentioned earlier, that bar has increased a lot since Gutter Rainbows, that has increased a lot since so many of these things.

[00:13:22] Dan Runcie: So the landscape forces you to do that, or else you may likely get taken advantage of unless things work out luckily in your favor.

[00:13:31] Dan Runcie: I think, too, for you, something else you mentioned with this, just thinking about needing to reach so many fans, if you are relying on this major system, so much of that relies on taking you away from the core people that are really rocking with you, because if you're trying to reach the masses and you're trying to do what a major label may want you to do to try to reach the masses.

[00:13:53] Dan Runcie: then you may have, they may want you to either shift your sound. They may want you to try to do all these things, which further take away from the autonomy and control that you clearly want to be able to have. So I get the sense that this more recent stage of your career has likely been more freeing from that perspective.

[00:14:11] Talib Kweli: Yeah, I mean, as an artist, I really, really, really want to try everything. I've definitely tried in my music to make music, to take aspects of what I do, who I am as an anti-racist person, as a pro-black person, as a person who likes a certain type of what they call underground hip-hop and take those sensibilities and stretch them, expand them and find global audiences.

[00:14:34] Talib Kweli: And I've worked with artists all over the world from different genres. I've tried many different styles. I've sang. I've done double time. I've done, you know, I've round over trap beats. I've done it at all. I've tried every single thing because as an artist, not only is that my right, feel like it's my duty to try everything I can.

[00:14:52] Talib Kweli: But in that trying, what I've learned is is that the more I try different things, the more I start to lean towards being comfortable in being the best at what I do, finding that thing that what it is that's unique about me and finding that. And I've tried that through my career.

[00:15:09] Talib Kweli: People, there's albums of songs, things that people are, like, maybe be like, I don't like when Talib did this, or I don't like when Talib did that. And some of that, some of it worked and some of it didn't. There's some of it that I love that people hate. And some of it that people hate that I love, I don't even know if I just said the same thing twice, but you know what I'm getting at.

[00:15:27] Talib Kweli: But in this state, business-wise and creative-wise, I'm closer to the vest and more about what is it that I do best. And try to put that on display. 

[00:15:40] Dan Runcie: Right. And that last piece you talked about in terms of doing things you loved that the fans didn't like, or the fans not doing things you liked, but then you actually liked it yourself. Did any of that influence how you and Yasiin went about this latest album? 

[00:15:55] Talib Kweli: Well, the good thing about Yasiin is that he try, he does try as much as I do. He tries different styles. Absolutely. I've heard him rap and sing on all different types of things. But what really helps shape the Black Star sound is I'm the steward of the beats and the administration.

[00:16:12] Talib Kweli: Like, I'm going out and finding the beats, and looking for producers, and booking studios. I'm doing all that. But what Yasiin is doing is he's trying to get closer to God in his lyrics. You know, all his albums, all his projects start with Bismillah and all his bars and where he is trying to go lyrically is always about a higher level of self. And trying to get closer to God, whatever that is for you. And so it makes me step up, frankly, and it doesn't make me just step up, but it makes me because let's not get it fucked up. Like I don't slouch from my, on my other projects. You know what I'm saying? So it's not just about stepping up, but it's also about the focus.

[00:16:54] Talib Kweli: It's just different. And it's like that when I worked with Styles P, it was a different type of focus. When I worked with 9th Wonder in them, it was a different type of focus. When I work with Hi-Tek, it was a different type of focus and, you know, even on my solo albums, even the producers I work with, whether it was DJ Scratch or Kanye, will.i.am, whoever. Like, wherever I go with that person is is pulling some out of me. And what Yasiin pulls out of me is wanting to be closer to God. 

[00:17:19] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I definitely get the sense of that. And even listening to y'all two conversations, hearing it from the album and even just, you know, his own evolution with religion, I always got the sense that, for you two, like spirituality and the importance of that was always going to have a theme through its music.

[00:17:36] Dan Runcie: And it's been interesting to see how, like, that piece from a tonality has evolved over time as well. The debut album you had, there were so many things that were timely to that era. And I think in this album, too, we're kind of seeing so much of it because I think that there's a lot of things, whether it's about, you know, black liberation, freedom that I think were relevant then, relevant now. However, it looks different in a way that I feel like you all are able to keep a lot of the same themes, but have more of a modern shift to it, which I don't think necessarily applies to a lot of people that are still creating music from the late nineties and putting it out today.

[00:18:13] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I hear you. And I think that was very intentional on our part. This album was formed over a lot of conversation and, you know, it's 24 years since the last project in them, you know, there was a lot of attention to detail. A lot of attention to detail, but also with the idea that it's got to sound loose. It's got to sound organic, and raw, and loose. It can't sound overproduced. 

[00:18:37] Dan Runcie: Right. And it has to be timely as well in a way that it can both stand, you know, the test of time. But it also, you know, whether you're talking about millennials and how people are relating to particular things, it has to relate to that piece.

[00:18:51] Dan Runcie: And I feel like that resonated with me, at least, for being able to hear things as well. But there was something else you said even earlier in this conversation that I was thinking about in terms of doing things and you always willing to try things, whether it's going with EDM, working with different producers. I'm curious, how does that shift with looking at different formats as well to put out music? Because I know that there's this ongoing debate right now about artists and whether or not they should be forced to use TikTok or not, and whether or not people like to use TikTok. How do you feel about that?

[00:19:23] Talib Kweli: Yeah, I was watching the Billboard Awards and that's when I first, I knew in the abstract that everything was moving towards TikTok, right? But watching the Billboard Awards, it hit me when they were introducing every single artist that was popular. Most of them I hadn't heard of or heard their song, but every single thing they were announcing was like, this is how it performed at TikTok. And for how I grew up, that was the radio.

[00:19:43] Talib Kweli: And so I was like, now we're an era where the radio is not on his way to be obsolete, but completely obsolete. And let me be clear. I don't mean radio as a concept. I mean, commercialized pop radio and that system. Because clearly what you're doing is radio, you know, what I'm doing with People's Party and in Midnight Miracle is radio. So that's driving, right?

[00:20:04] Talib Kweli: I feel like we're in almost in a golden age of radio, but as far as, like, with the music business, man, oh, man. Yeah, TikTok is, I just posted something today from, or that Earn Your Leisure poster about Isaac Hayes Jr., for Fanbase, talking about the algorithms and Instagram, and how, when it first started, you could gain 300,000 followers, very quickly, a million followers very quickly, but then once they had video and once they had ads, well, now you could be a network and now, the advertisers are going to come to you instead of coming to Instagram. So now they've made it so, that's why they shadowbanned people and limit content. I have a million people following me. If I post something, maybe 5,000 people will see it or like it, I don't know who, how many people see it.

[00:20:44] Talib Kweli: I have to look at the insights, but I'm definitely not reaching everybody who I'm supposed to reach. And they'll be like, oh, well you could, if you pay us, you know what I'm saying? And so it's just interesting to see how with TikTok, which is Chinese-based if I'm not mistaken, I don't think they're doing that. I think they're allowing the content to reach who it's going to reach, or I might be mistaken about that. I don't know. 

[00:21:05] Dan Runcie: I think that's going to shift with TikTok as well though, because I think we kind of saw the early stage where you could put up a song and, you know, like a Megan Thee Stallion song could blow up or whoever song could blow up.

[00:21:16] Dan Runcie: But I think now they got over a billion people using it every day. I think we're going to see or using it every month rather. I think you're going to see the same type of shift happen there, too, eventually. 

[00:21:27] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I mean, I post on TikTok and no one follows me on TikTok. It's like 4,000 people following me on TikTok. But again, it's the same thing with the Patreon thing. I'm not there, right? I'm not engaging with the people. I'm not clicking on videos, and scrolling through it, and, like, commenting. And I'm not doing anything. I'm just posting things, trying to get some engagement because people are there. I'm putting things up. But that's not really where my fans are looking for me yet at this point.

[00:21:54] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. And especially with the demo that you're reaching, and they're not looking at you to go do some TikTok dance or something like that, right? 

[00:22:01] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I saw The Game doing a TikTok dance. I mean, I hope that that's what he really wanted to do, you know what I'm saying? I hope that he's like, yo, I think that dance is hot, and I'm going to do that dance. Instead of like, damn I got to get on TikTok and do a dance, you know what I'm saying? 

[00:22:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I do think even that piece of it's going to change too, though, because kind of like we saw on YouTube, right? Like people avoided YouTube for a while because they're, okay, I'm not going to go out here and go dance like Soulja Boy and try to do some viral video, but it eventually matured. And I think we're going to see the same with TikTok where, yeah, you don't have to do some dance that could fit in a vertical video, but you're going to see, you know, folks that you know, are trying to reach your demo, doing whatever the version is that's relatable to them. So it'll take time. In some ways, I feel like it's already happening. Yeah.

[00:22:47] Dan Runcie: For you, I do think about even, you know, we're talking about spending time on different platforms. Did you dip into Clubhouse, especially when, you know, the hype on Clubhouse was big or? 

[00:23:00] Talib Kweli: Oh no. They kicked me off at twitter for, they didn't like the way I was talking on Twitter. If they can't take what I write in text, they damn sure ain't going to be able to take my voice, you know what I'm saying? Clubhouse got popping right when I got kicked off of Twitter, and so I started getting like, you know, you got to invite people, right?

[00:23:17] Talib Kweli: So I started getting like, literally I would get 15, 20 invites a day of people like, you got to join. People would take time out of their day to call me, be like, yo, you should be at Clubhouse. It's perfect for you. And because of that, I was like, there's no way I'm ever going on Clubhouse. because nah, like me talking to these things? Nah. That would go left quick. 

[00:23:41] Dan Runcie: The wild thing is I do think that people can get away with saying wilder shit on audio than they can on written text on Twitter, at least from some of the stuff I've heard. 

[00:23:51] Talib Kweli: Yeah. That's exactly right. That's exactly right, which is why I don't need to be on it. That's exactly right because here's the thing, here's the problem with me, right? I'm a very intersectional person, you know, I'm not out here, slut-shaming. I'm not here calling women bitches and hoes. I'm not out here using the R word or using the F word. I don't do none of that. I'm not a bigot. I don't use bigoted language.

[00:24:14] Talib Kweli: But I'm very good with words. And so with the shit that I write in text, and I'm very blunt and direct. And so the shit I write in text, I feel like it triggers a lot of people in terms of, like, because I'm like, Hmm, nah. And I'm just very blunt and direct. If you come at me wrong, I can be insulting without lowering to this vibration of bigotry, right? Or, that's not true. Every man has fucking bigotry issues, but I try my best. I feel like I try more than most of the people I converse with, right? And so, that me, that shit just comes off as snark, bro, and people just be upset, 'cause they feel like you making 'em look stupid and they get very upset and very tight. And that's what it would be for me at Clubhouse. I would say some slick shit and people would get very upset very quick. 

[00:25:04] Dan Runcie: No, I hear that. I hear you on that. It's been, what, almost two years since you've been off Twitter. 

[00:25:09] Talib Kweli: Yeah, it's been since 2020. 

[00:25:11] Dan Runcie: Okay. Do you miss it? 

[00:25:12] Talib Kweli: No, I don't. It was time. I had been on Twitter for 10 years. I don't miss it at all. I enjoyed my time there though. But, you know, I don't miss it because I honestly, for real, in my heart of hearts, I really, truly, truly, truly do not want to be someplace where I'm not wanted. Like, I stand by that. Like, mm-hmm. Like, if they don't want me there, I don't have no desire to be there.

[00:25:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah. You're not missing much. I'll be honest with you. As someone who spends too much time on that place, you're not missing much. 

[00:25:42] Talib Kweli: Yeah. What I do realize is that being on Twitter, as much as I was on Twitter and then not on Twitter, is that the things that I was talking to people about on Twitter, and these things, let's not get it twisted, right?

[00:25:53] Talib Kweli: These are things that are shifting the culture. And these are things that are shaping the world. The things I was talking about in particular, I wasn't talking about frivolous shit. I wasn't talking about rat beefs or whatever I was talking about, you know, real things. The things I was talking about on Twitter became mainstream news years later, things that I was ringing a bell on, and a lot of us were ringing a bell on and people were just not paying attention.

[00:26:14] Talib Kweli: But what I realized was a lot of the things that were elevated in my mind to a level of super I importance that we have to talk about this, people who are not on Twitter, not thinking about none of that shit, not talking about none of it. And so that's why a lot of the stuff that I was going through on Twitter, a lot of stuff that became so ugly and toxic, part of it that I wasn't understanding was when I was like, yo, how is this happening? How's the community letting this happen? Because the community really didn't care, really didn't care. And I'm not saying that to disparage anybody on Twitter. I don't want to seem like now, now, cause I'm not on Twitter, like, haha, oh, y'all whack up being on Twitter. I'm not saying that because Twitter is still a very important tool.

[00:26:57] Talib Kweli: That's why all the conversation about Elon Musk and all that stuff is so prevalent and so important. There are people who still use Twitter in amazing ways. Absolutely. But I agree with you. Twitter is a cesspool and it was a cesspool when I was there. It's just a lot clearer not being there and a lot more understanding for why people didn't give a shit about it, you know, now looking at the engagement. I'm glad I was there. I learned a lot. I gained a lot. It was a gift and a curse, but mostly a gift for me. But yeah, it was time for me to go and they decided that before I did, but they were correct. 

[00:27:31] Dan Runcie: And I think with that, too, it's a bit of that double standard that I think public figures like yourself are kind of put towards, right? People can, you know, reply at you and talk all sorts of shit to you and take what you say out of context. But if you go back at them, then they're going to say, okay, he's putting his fan base back at me. He's doing this. 

[00:27:47] Talib Kweli: Yeah, that's such an important part of this conversation, right? And I want to be clear here because like I said, I'm an intersectional person. So, you know, I don't want to be the guy that he's here to protect black women. And, well, what about men, you know what I'm saying? Because as a man, I'm a member of a privileged, oppressor group, I'll go as far to say. But there's a phrase, black men are often the white men of the black community, right? Now that phrase is funny, is hyperbolic, right, but it's based in some truth. And I understand why people would say that. When women be like all men are dogs. Yeah. I get it. I don't personally feel like I'm a dog. I've done some dog shit before, but I don't personally look at myself like that. I don't feel offended by that, but just because black men can and often are the white men of the black community, if we're going to be hyperbolic, right? 

[00:28:37] Talib Kweli: Doesn't mean that we're not still part of a marginalized group of people. It doesn't mean that we're not still under attack. Doesn't mean that we're not still faced with many threats and that we don't still need protection, 'cause we absolutely do. And the conversation in our community has to be about the black community, has to be about women, and children, and men, and gay people, and disabled people, and rich people, and poor people, has to be about all of us.

[00:29:07] Talib Kweli: If we're talking about the conversation around systemic oppression. And so the idea that because I've earned an extra layer of privilege, 'cause I'm already born with some privileges. I'm already born in America, born as a man, but because I've mastered my craft, worked hard to master my craft. And it's earned me a degree of fame, and a degree of celebrity, and a degree of money that a lot of people can't earn or not in a position to earn resource and all that, because of that, I'm now supposed to allow people to disrespect, not just me, but my family and particularly the women in my family?

[00:29:41] Talib Kweli: And I'm not allowed to be a human being and want to respond and have a response? The things that people say about celebrity is that they're disconnecting, that they don't engage. I don't view myself as celebrity. I view myself as an artist. Well, as an artist, I'm going to talk to the people and for better or for worse, you know? What I realize now is that me talking to the people has put a target on my back because a lot of these people don't even deal with these people. They just block people, look and call 'em trolls.

[00:30:10] Talib Kweli: They don't even talk to anybody. And I'm not built that way. And I understand the logic behind it, but I also, there's also a method to my madness as well. And so the idea, I push back hard against the idea that you have a pass to undervalue my humanity or to not treat me like a human being because you haven't earned what I've earned in terms of cultural currency, you know, because you choose to be anonymous, or because you are not famous, or because you are not, I don't know, whatever, like, I can't abide by that. I can't. I find myself inclined to speak out against that idea that we lack humanity, or we are less human, or we deserve to be treated less than because we're famous, or because we have a million followers, or whatever the metric is, I don't know. 

[00:31:00] Dan Runcie: And I think this point brings the conversation full circle, right? Because so many people, when you and Yasiin decided to release the album on your terms, they're like, oh, well, you're not going to put it on streaming. You're missing out, that you shouldn't be doing this. And y'all are like, This is our music. You can't tell us what to do. Like, this is our craft. And I think it just goes back to the entitlement of people feeling like they have the ability to dictate what you do when you are the one that is in control of what you do. 

[00:31:31] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I mean, that's, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause for me, those conversations are difficult, right? Because I'm an advocate for artists. I'm a fan. So when we talk about fans, right, we're not talking about, I'm not separate from that group. When you see me post on Instagram videos of me with Bun B, and I'm jumping up and down just like any fan would. I'm not playing it cool, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I'm a fan as well. And me as a fan, I'm a fan of these artists as human beings. That's why I wrote that article In Defense Of Ms. Hill ' cause it's like, if I'm a fan of her music, then yo sis, take your time. If you don't feel like showing up at the show tonight, Hey, I guess we got to eat that one tonight.

[00:32:09] Talib Kweli: But you're still Ms. Hill, you're a human being. You're not some product that rolls out on stage. You press a button, it just goes. If you're having a human issue, you're a human being that's having a human issue. Let us know when you got some new shit and I'll be happy to support. I likely, if you give me an option, I'll overpay for it.

[00:32:25] Talib Kweli: How about that? Because I can't quantify what you've given me, and that's honestly how I feel. So it's hard for me to relate to these fans, be like, I want, first of all, that's even the wrong language to be using with me, talking about what you want, you know what I'm saying? If you want the Black Star, I'm going to make the Black Star out.

[00:32:41] Talib Kweli: And if you can't, then meet us halfway, bro, and come to where I'm at, because guess what? The first Black Star album, Universal says they own and they don't own it. We've never signed a contract for that album. So they've been profiting off of that. So if you bought that or listen to streaming, you've been paying some rich white company that has nothing to do with Black Star.

[00:33:01] Talib Kweli: Every song in that album is available on YouTube. Most of my music is available for free on YouTube. On Kweliclub.com, you could get all my mixtapes for free. You could get the album Fuck the Money for free. My biggest song Get By, you could, if that shit came on in the store, you could Shazam it and listen to it on Shazam for free, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's got 15 million views on YouTube. You could go listen to it on YouTube for free. You mean to tell me I can't get $10 or $5 or $30 with a new Black Star album, with all this free music you getting? What are we even talking about? You know what I'm saying? Like, how are you ignoring all of this, to complain about this?

[00:33:39] Dan Runcie: Right. It's like, you've had so much up to this point. It's not like you haven't had anything, you know, like, if you want to be able to put this one out on your terms, then yeah, here it is. You know, you don't owe anyone anything. 

[00:33:51] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I find it hard to relate to the people who don't understand that, which is why, if you notice, when I've been on social media and people ask about it, my response has been, well, this album is not for you.

[00:34:00] Talib Kweli: And maybe I should stop doing that because that's such a triggering thing to say to people. And I've been saying it a lot 'cause I mean it. But then it starts these long arguments with me. Fuck you and you're mean to the fans. It's like, nah, my fans are listening to the album. Now whether or not they like it or not, that's subjective. 

[00:34:18] Talib Kweli: My fans were listening to Midnight Miracle. And if they weren't, if you are a fan, who's watching this podcast right now and you didn't know about Midnight Miracle, go listen to it because you're a fan. You want to hear what we got, you want it. If you are a fan of us, be a fan of us.

[00:34:33] Talib Kweli: I don't believe to separate the artists from the music. I don't do that. I feel like that's a cop-out. Let me not say that because, let me just speak for myself. You can't do that with me because I am what my music is. All them lies they be telling about me, it doesn't go with my music. It doesn't go with my actions.

[00:34:51] Talib Kweli: It doesn't go with the truth. i I am what I say in these bars. I stand on that. I'm very proud of that. 

[00:34:57] Dan Runcie: Right. And I think the other piece of this, too, that I think has now just become the norm in music is that so many artists are predispositioned to be like, okay, lemme just put my music out on streaming.

[00:35:07] Dan Runcie: Treat it like it's marketing, get it out there. And then let me make my money when I go on tour. But the way that you all have it set up, I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. You can get the money from the art, and you could also get the money, you know, if you and Yasiin choose to do a tour together.

[00:35:24] Talib Kweli: I mean, I was touring, I was touring before the pandemic. I was doing 200 shows a year. So that's more than anybody, you know, like I was, that model right there. Think about it. I got 16 albums out, doing 200 shows a year. So that's what, 'you're describing my life. That's exactly what I was doing. And I don't do that anymore, and I don't plan on doing it again.

[00:35:43] Talib Kweli: But when I look at pictures or videos for myself from that time, I don't even recognize that person. Like, how was I doing that? That's not sustainable. I was on some super human shit. I don't know what, I don't know how I was doing this. I don't know how I was dropping music and touring at that pace.

[00:35:57] Talib Kweli: And still, like, doing activist work, and supporting my family, and just being me, and being on Twitter, you know what I'm saying? Like, all of it, I was doing all of it and I don't know how I was doing all that. 

[00:36:06] Dan Runcie: How many shows do you think you'll go back to? If 200 was a lot, what do you think is the ideal range?

[00:36:13] Talib Kweli: As you're saying, as I'm saying this to you, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, damn. I got a lot of shows coming up, but I can't let it get back to 200 a year. 

[00:36:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I mean, 'cause at that rate, yeah, I mean, you're talking, I mean, like more than half of the days of the year you are out there putting it all out there. I mean, yeah.

[00:36:29] Talib Kweli: 20 years straight, I did that for 20 years.

[00:36:31] Dan Runcie: And it's wild. It's wild. I mean, I think at least the position that you're potentially in now, you can earn more money from the actual music you're putting out. You clearly have, you know, a bit buy-in with a platform that has other people that are invested in it as well.

[00:36:45] Dan Runcie: And then with any other business interest that you may have, like, this is something to build up on, right? It's clearly, like, recurring revenue that you have and if you and Luminary continue to grow, then you can also tour and do any of that other stuff on your own terms. 

[00:36:59] Talib Kweli: Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:37:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel that's the way to go with it. Well, Talib, this has been a great conversation. I feel like we covered a bunch just in terms of the importance of autonomy, importance of independence, and where you see things going. But for the people that are listening and they do want to follow, I'm sure they already know if they're listening, but where should they go to check for the latest of what you got going on?

[00:37:18] Talib Kweli: Man, just follow me on Instagram. If they don't kick me off Instagram, 'cause they be threatening to kick me off Instagram too. They don't like when I talk about racism on Instagram. So for as long as I'll be on Instagram, follow me there. I just joined Fanbase today. So I'm looking forward to exploring Fanbase.

[00:37:32] Talib Kweli: But I mean, you got to come see me in the flesh or don't actually, you know, like just, I don't know. Like, I've been out in the flesh a a lot, man. I don't know. I don't know. Just holler at me when you see me, and I'll try to make my presence known. For the near foreseeable future, I'm definitely going to be at Luminary. So I definitely encourage people to subscribe to Luminary. 

[00:37:52] Dan Runcie: Sounds good. And I appreciate the Fanbase shout out too. Shout out to Isaac Hayes III. I had him on the podcast couple of months ago. Love what he's building. 

[00:37:59] Talib Kweli: Yeah, me too. I've been knowing about it for a minute, but now as I'm starting to, like, really assess what's valuable to me, I'm, like, starting to look at things a little different, and I'm like, yeah, Fanbase. We can't keep talking about it, right? At some point we got support. 

[00:38:14] Dan Runcie: Right. Exactly. We know that this is the culture that pushes it forward. It's our culture. I mean, have the people that are about it to be the ones that actually own it in, we can see what happens.

[00:38:22] Talib Kweli: Yeah. Word up. 

[00:38:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. All right, man. Appreciate you. 

[00:38:26] Talib Kweli: All right. Peace. 

[00:38:27] Dan Runcie: All right, man. Thanks. 

[00:38:29] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

This week’s special guest on Trapital is entertainment lawyer Karl Fowlkes. As part of his own The Fowlkes Firm, Karl represents entertainers across many domains — from music to sports to media, including hip-hop’s rising star, Blxst. He pulled double duty, not only appearing on the podcast, but guest-writing for the newsletter about the need for the artist contract to evolve.

In particular, Karl predicts shared equity between not only artists and record labels, but also with other parties like distributors or fintech companies. The days of record labels having 100-percent ownership of an artists’ masters could slowly be phased out over the next decade in favor of a split much more friendly toward the artist.

Karl also has advice for an artist, or any content creator for that matter, signing a new contract — LOMO. The acronym stands for length, obligation, money, and ownership. These are the top-line items creators should prioritize when inking deals, according to Karl. 

Karl has a ton more insights into how artists and creators can maximize their long term value, plus how deals will change in the near and distant future. Here’s everything we covered during our interview:

[4:13] The Future Of The Artist Deal

[5:50] Changes With Major Record Labels

[7:36] Will Record Labels Exist In 10-20 Years?

[11:20] Artists Wanting A Partnership, Not Signing 

[15:50] Karl’s Advice To All Content Creators Signing Contracts

[19:18] The Issue With Music Royalties

[22:42] The Hip-Hop “Middle Class”

[24:47] Building EVGLE Brand Alongside Blxst

[25:08] Blxst Partnership Status With “Major” Labels

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guest: Karl Fowlkes, @esqfowlkes, Fowlkes Firm

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Karl Fowlkes If you're making $20,000 to $30,000 a month off music. I mean, damn, that’s pretty, you know, that's solid money. No, that's nothing to shirk off. And some of these people, if they were independent, they might not be the global superstars that they are, they might be a little bit more in control, they might have less obligations, and they might still be able to put out the music that they want to put out. And all that stuff sort of creates sort of a concoction of, man, and maybe I will be happier, maybe I wouldn't have to get fake teeth, get a bunch of gold chains. I wouldn't have to do that because I'm living a lifestyle that's conducive for long-term success. 

[00:00:38]  Dan Runcie Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:58] Dan Runcie Today's episode is all about the deals that artists sign. There are so many more options and ways that artists can level up and types of companies that they can partner with. It's no longer just the record labels. There's alternative finance options, their distribution platforms, and more. And I broke this down today with my friend and well-respected entertainment attorney, Karl Fowlkes. And he runs an entertainment practice called The Fowlkes Firm where he represents artists like Blxst, producers, entertainers, athletes, and more. 

[00:01:30]  Dan Runcie So I talked to Karl about his experience with this and what he sees as the future landscape. And Karl has this phrase that I think he needs to trademark, he has this phrase called LOMO, which is focused on the four key elements that artists should be focusing on when they're signing deals. The important thing about LOMO. And more broadly, this conversation is that this doesn't just apply to artists, look at all the different types of creators right now. There's so many deals that they're doing, there's so many opportunities from different companies that want to partner with them. And whenever those things happen, there are more and more contracts that aren't always set up in the easiest way for you to be able to understand and break this down. So we talked about that and where things are heading and how it really is shifting to a place where artists aren't just giving the keys to a big corporation to handle everything. Let's have them, build the businesses around themselves, partner with the different companies to fill in the different roles you need, and build up from there. This was a great conversation. I think it's really insightful for all the creators out there. So I hope you enjoy it. Here's my chat with Karl Fowlkes. All right, today, we got Karl Fowlkes with us who's back on the podcast from The Fowlkes Firm, you represent Blxst and a bunch of other artists. But we're here to talk about this guest piece that you wrote for Trapital, a really great piece about the future of the artists deal. So let's start at the top. Why did you want to write this piece?

[00:02:56] Karl Fowlkes  I think right now, you know, historically, there's, there's been a few players. And those few players are really just record labels. So it kind of pigeonholes what the what the deal is going to look like, you know, now, there's so many different players out there. Technologies is infused all through the music industry. So there's, you know, there's distributors, there's advanced companies, right, they're just trying to like, you know, model what they can give you based on streaming algorithms, you know, companies like beatBread, for example. And then you still got those major labels, they're sort of offering a lot of those services. So the landscape is so different, I think, because there's so many different parties and so many different solutions. I think the deal has to change with the times that we're in. And oftentimes, you know, what I'm seeing, you know, I'm not seeing, you know, those changed deal terms. And, you know, I just think it's something that we need to get ahead of.

[00:03:48] Dan Runcie  Yeah. And I feel like now you're hearing more than ever, people talk about ownership artists, whether or not they may have enough behind it, want to make sure that they're owning everything when they're coming to try to negotiate contracts. Do you feel like that's shifted the landscape? I mean, I feel like it's definitely improved the conversation around it, but do you feel like that's actually having an impact on the deals that are being made?

[00:04:13] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, and it's been quite effective. You know, I think most people who are in my position, you know, doing deals on the attorney side are seeing contracts that, especially if there's any built-up leverage that almost exclusively, you know, have a license period, right? So instead of the full transfer of ownership or work-for-hire language I've seen in the past, I'm seeing a lot more 20-year licenses, 25-year licenses, 15-year licenses. So the artist is you know, almost exclusively, you want to get the masters back. Now some of the other top line terms might not be that different in terms of the royalty rate, or some, you know, the ancillary income. But you know, the ownership paradigm is definitely, definitely changing. And I think that's the unique thing about it today.

[00:04:59] Dan Runcie  Yeah, because I feel like, especially with the major record labels is kind of two things happening, right? On one hand, you're streaming revenues are continuing to grow. And you have all these other revenue sources from outside of the digital streaming providers, whether that's with Peloton or Roblox and all these other partners that want a license deal. So while that's increasing, but on the other hand, more and more artists are not going to want to  just give up their masters in perpetuity. So the labels are also counteracting that piece of it. So I see them in a lot of ways, they're hoping that the revenue from all of these areas can offset the loss that's eventually going to come from the masters, because eventually you can earn money from the back catalog forever if the current artists are going to keep that back catalog, and the labels aren't going to be able to have it.

[00:05:50] Karl Fowlkes  3,000%. So I think, I almost wonder why some of the record labels out there don't sort of take from their publishing counterparts, right? Because the co-pub deal is sort of set up as a joint ownership structure, 50-50, right? So the songwriter usually owns half the composition, and the publisher owns the other half of the composition. And, you know, when the term is up, the kind of, the songwriter can go do what they want with their 50%. And they can have, you know, whoever collects on it, and then you know, the record label can, sorry, the publisher can take their 50% and go collect on it as well. So it's a shared equity model. It's something that I think tends to work for better parties. I know, there's some mechanisms that are a little bit different, you know, as it relates to distribution of music versus collection of music. But I think that's sort of a precursor to, you know, maybe something we'll see, you know, happen over the next 10 to 20 years.

[00:06:46] Dan Runcie  What do you think the next 10 to 20 years will look like? Because I often have this conversation with a lot of people, some people go to the extreme of being like, no record labels will be extinct by then. And I've never quite gotten to that perspective, just because the people still ignore the desire that people have to be the biggest star in the world and where they feel like they need to go in order to do that. But I do think that we'll likely see more of these shared equity or more of these flexible options because I feel like one of the things you highlight in the piece is that it's great that there's so many distributors and places that you can release your music, but it's still a pretty big difference where it's like, okay, you either got to give up everything, and we'll make you a superstar, or you try to do it your own. But it's still hard to get to that level without some additional support.

[00:07:36] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, I think the next 10 to 20 years are going to be a very interesting time. And I don't think anything's going to be figured out in the next 10 to 20 years, just because I think there are so many different emerging business models, right? Like, I keep talking about these music tech companies, kind of coming in and offering using algorithms and, you know, formulas to sort of create an estimate on, you know, what your royalties could be, will make in the next three to four years. They'll give you a big advance, right, and now to reference beatBread, because, you know, I just saw they did that for a massive artist recently. And they're, they're not really they're not offering service or anything, we're just going to give you that funding element. And I think historically, if you look at startups, and you know, there's always been a lot of artists, our founders’ conversation in the past five years, but when you look at a lot of startups, it's really hard to scale a business without capital. So capital is always going to be sort of the driving force on any decision I think you have to make in your business journey at a certain point. So I think what will happen is labels will realize I think the all-or-nothing approach of sort of either doing a license deal or completely owning the masters isn't really probably in anyone's best interest, including theirs. And I think we'll see more shared equity, right, and more investing in artists, you know, being in business with an artist forever, like in a tasteful way, right? Like, owning 20% of somebody's master for perpetuity seems a lot better than owning 100% of someone's, you know, master in perpetuity, right. There's, there's like a natural, if you’re an artist, you might be able to live with that, hey, this person gave me a million dollars. They have different access, resources, and funding opportunities throughout and they have a history of helping artists, you know, why don't I, we can we could share this thing forever, but you know, I'll be in control. I think that makes a lot more sense.

[00:09:32] Dan Runcie  Yeah. And what I think it does is it itemizes how to look at the value add that you're either getting from a record label or from another type of partner, right? Because at its core, a record label deal is very similar to a private equity model. I know a lot of people make the venture capital comparison. But I think it's a bit more like private equity or even more so an M&A deal where you are essentially selling yourself as the business, at least to the recorded music business of what you're doing, to this company. And then in return, they are paying you for the services, and they're obviously going to try to maximize it as much as they can with everything they offer, from marketing to promotion to all the other services that you can essentially get counsel advice, so on. But I think the shift and what we're seeing a lot more artists do, more so I'd say on the independent side, I think we'll see some of the bigger artists do it, too, they want to create the business, they want to be the one that is doing the actual tasks, and how can they have, you know, things set up around them in order to do that. And it's something we see with all creatives to some extent, right? I feel like some people are always going to, maybe they want to gravitate more towards the business side of things, maybe they want to gravitate more towards the art that they actually do need to make. But still, if you're going to take the business side of it, then yeah, there is likely going to be a company you go to for marketing support, there's going to be a company you go to for PR or for distribution or for those things. And if you do it that way, then you're likely going to have a better approach about how you're making deals. And I feel like this is one of the key things that, like, you and I've been talking about for years now, just in terms of like how these things get set up, and how these things should be set up, especially for the artists that are willing to put in the work.

[00:11:20] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I think what artists and their teams, too, are realizing are, you know, they're still doing a ton of work, even after they signed to the record label, right. And I think some of those things, historically, that we may be thought or attributed to regularly, but whether it's right or wrong, are things that in this generation, you know, teams, managers, other team members on that direct artists’ team are being tasked with, and, and they're executing, you know, to some extent, right? We're seeing TikTok campaigns being launched. And then that being the driving force of, of an artist being signed to a multimillion-dollar license deal, right, because that artists and their team leverage, you know, that music technology to create some moment, momentum and drive the price of that deal up. We're seeing a lot of that. So I think all that's making artists and their teams do is say, hey, if we're going to do a lot of the strategy and, and work to get signed, maybe signing doesn't necessarily make sense, maybe we're looking for, for something else, maybe it's not traditional, we signed to you model. It's like, let's partner, I need you for a few things. The rest we can take care of, we need some funding, and you know, we need some support on you know, a radio, we need some money, some of your tools that you might have and your staffing, but you know, eventually, we think we'll be able to do that stuff down the line. I think that's kind of the fut ure more and more sort of artists’ companies. And you see some of these catalogs, you're like, yeah, that's like, that's, you know, that's a mini-company. You know, I know, we talked, we saw Justin Timberlake’s catalog sold for, I believe, roughly $100 million. But you think about companies that could sell for $100 million, like, they have more than, like, two employees, where it's actually a company. Like, there's people driving marketing campaigns, there's the Human Resources Department, there's, you know, so I always think it's funny, because when you actually look at the valuation of the IP, and what something is actually making year over year, and, you know, that's like, that's a pretty sizable company, that that's probably not staffed correctly. I think that's probably what we'll see in the future is, hopefully, these companies and they can get staffed correctly.

[00:13:35] Dan Runcie  And it makes you also think about, okay, let's take the Justin Timberlake example, obviously, someone that had a very successful and still has had a very successful solo career. But how much more value could there have been if he had created things in the way that, you know, we're talking about here? Obviously, there's a trade-off there, because I do think he's clearly someone that benefited more than the average person for a number of reasons from the major record label system and the broader media system that we're in. But yeah, $100 million, like, you think about a startup that is reaching $100 billion, you already have the idea of how big that startup is, what’s that startup’s trajectory looks like. And obviously, this is a little bit different because it's based on that recurring revenue stream. But still, I mean, it's huge,

[00:14:22] Karl Fowlkes  Right? And I think like it's when we talk about sales and you know, when a company has to do get due diligence done on them, right so you look under the hood and you know, you're trying to see what that company actually owns. Do they even own the rights? Do they own the pub rights? Do they own the likeness? Do they own the trademarks, right? But if a company, for an artist, you know, driven company It doesn't have to be one artist. I think, you know, obviously, there's going to be a lot more collective and smarter labels, I think, in the future that are successful and, you know, running this model. But, you know, if you do due diligence on a company, and they do own all the IP, they do own all the trademarks, they do own the pub, and they do own the record, and there's employees in place, and there's procedures in place, and there's a history and books to sort of show what's happening over the past 5 to 10 years, you know, you're right, like, you know, these, these evaluations are probably being done on just raw numbers. But if you were to factor in some of this other stuff, it's like, man, this is like a, this is a well-oiled machine, this might be worth a little bit more.

[00:15:22] Dan Runcie  Yeah, for sure. And I feel like once we were able to get there, a lot of it is focused on the type of deals, people can make and how specific they're getting about these. And you have been pushing and promoting this acronym about how artists, and I think this even extends beyond artists, how anyone that is creating content or making any type of deal should be looking at things. So what's the advice there that you give for that? And what are the elements to look out for?

[00:15:50]  Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, yeah, you know, a strategy I've sort of been using and I created, I believe it was about a year and a half ago in talking to a few clients was, you know, length, obligation, money, and ownership. And those four key things are sort of the top line things you need to worry about when you're forming a contract. And also, I like to think about, you know, clients and people I'm talking to, when I'm discussing LOMO, just prioritizing those things, right? Because you're not going to have, you're not going to have the perfect deal where you have a short term, you get, you get a lot of money, your obligations low, and you get to own everything. That's just not, that's just not realistic. But what I do think is realistic is, you know, putting together a strategy that you can sort of, you know, put those things in order and you know, 5, 6, 7 years down the line, be happy with whatever sort of business you set up for yourself because you knew what you were getting into. You knew what your priorities were and you knew what you were signing. So I think those four top line terms: length, obligation, money, and ownership are the driving force of, they’re for sure the backbone of every contract, and for better or worse, I think those terms have decided whether an artist is going to be on Twitter in five years, talking about how they hate their contract, or they're going to be, you know, being able to sell their catalog for $50 to $100 million in 10 years, right? So I think LOMO is really important, and they'll help you sort of prioritize your needs if you are an artist. And again, that's not just for the artists, that's for the artists’ team. That's where these collectives that are coming up, I think those are probably will be the ones enforcing that strategy. But you know, LOMO is very, it's very useful, I think.

[00:17:35] Dan Runcie You got LOMO trademarked?

[00:17:37] Karl Fowlkes I haven't gotten LOMO trademark, man, that's crazy. Maybe after this episode.

[00:17:42] Dan Runcie  I mean, I feel like you got it, I mean, because that's so many of these things, right? How do you, like, simplify things to just make it clear and take away so much of the legalese that I think is in there, and many times as a tactic itself to confuse artists?

[00:18:00] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I mean, and again, like some of the legal, you hire an attorney to do the hard legal work, right? That's like the job of, you know, when people are generally saying artists, you need to understand your deals, we're not saying you need to become an attorney overnight because you still need an attorney, you need someone who's, that's someone else's job. Your job is to sort of run your company, you know, have a little bit of insight on some of these objectives and stuff that you're building. But you should really have a key indicator of those top line terms, that's what you really need to know. You're not going to know what the indemnification clause is, or you're not going to get into the warranties and representation. That's not the best use of your time. But you should know how long the contract is. You should know how much money, how much royalty you're going to get, or how the royalties are even paid out. You should know what you're required to do. You know, all those good things are the core of a contract. And I think that artists need to focus less on some of the nitty-gritty of the contract. You're not going to read too much legalese in a contract. But you know, those four things will help you sort of, you know, understand what you're signing.

[00:19:03] Dan Runcie  Yeah, I agree. And you mentioned earlier about the artists that are going to be on Twitter complaining about their deal. Is there an area of LOMO that you think they're most likely to complain about or have an issue about?

[00:19:18] Karl Fowlkes  Oh, yeah, that's a really good question. I think oftentimes, it's a combination of usually two things, but I think it's the maybe the way royalties are paid out. I think once you really understand recoupment, you know, it's not like a net profit. It's not like an off top thing, and what I mean by that is, if you're recouping at the royalty rate, I mean, If you have a 20% royalty rate, you got to make five times, you know, to recoup, right, to get even, right? because, you know, you're, if a dollar of money is generated, only 20 cents of that dollar is counting toward, you know, paying back the label, right? So you got to make five, you got to make 25 times over. I think that's the part that really rubs people the wrong way, right? Just because if it was a net profit situation, or an off top, right, you know, all costs go toward recoupment,, and then you get 80. And I get 20. and still be bad, but it'd be a little better, it'd be, it'd be a little less bad. So I think it's that part of the money that really, really gets people upset, because I'm not even sure that, you know, these companies really don't have to do that. Like, that is just, and I'm not, I'm not in the business of, I don't care. Like, that's just stupid. That's a bad business model. I think that's the reason why a lot of disruptions happen, because that just so that's so one-sided.

[00:20:36] Dan Runcie  Yeah, it makes me think of Meek Mill, when he had posted, at some point earlier this year, I don't know when I'm going to get paid, or I haven't gotten paid for this. And this is someone that, you know, could sell hundreds of thousands in his first week with, at least to do with Championships, or whatever the album was when he, llike, first came out of prison, but he still doesn't know, and he's also someone that runs a record label himself, or he has the joint venture with Roc Nation for his Dream Chasers. So it's like, even at that level, artists still don't know.

[00:21:08] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, I mean, Benny The Butcher, definitely a favorite rapper of mine. But you know, I was listening to a Freestyle yesterday, he did, I think, with Charlie Sloth on London. And he said, these rappers, you know, they're doing 100k first week, but you know, he's still not recouped. And I always, that is interesting, right? Because, you know, we all care about these sorts of, these first week numbers, but, you know, how much money is it taking to get to those first week numbers? And, you know, still, you're still probably in a hole, depending on the advances you've got. Advances are good, but it's also a way for you to continue to be locked in that contract, right? Would you rather. have some people want that $5 million check. But you know, you lose leverage me the more money you take. That's just the reality of it.

[00:21:56] Dan Runcie  Right. Yeah. I, I think that Benny, of course. And I think Griselda overall, they figured it out in a model that actually works for them. And I think Russ probably falls in this category as well, where it's like, okay, you know, we don't care about the first week numbers. We actually want to have a business that runs, right? So Griselda could sell $75 or $100 vinyls or, you know, butcher cleaves, or whatever it is, in order to, you know, have, like, high-end merch that people are going to want to buy. And I think for a lot of artists, yeah, there is at least a bit of a trade-off to some extent, like, do you care more about the revenue? Or do you care more about the fame and the accolades and the media and stuff? And I don't think that's as black and white for most artists as they think it is.

[00:22:42] Karl Fowlkes   Yeah, because like, the real metrics that people should care about, you know, we're not in this all for money, but I think money and ownership, if you have those things, and you're building a model that sort of is conducive, and not just because you're doing shows all the time, like, you know, I'm not sure Russ passed pop out ar nightclubs, you know, just to pay his bills, I know for a fact he doesn't have to do that, right. And that sort of the flexibility and freedom that I think guys really want when they hop into the rap game. They want to be able to, you know, sit down sit by the Dame Dash Calls it that “by the pool money,” right? You know, I want to be able to put my feet up by the pool, have their residual income coming in, and you know, and really be a boss really be a CEO not have to perform in Shreveport, Louisiana, you know, at a nightclub to pay my bills because I'm not getting any money from my music. Streaming is not the best model yet, from a payout standpoint, but because of how often and consistently people are streaming music, it's still an effective way for you to get money, right? So I think, when Russ posts TuneCore statements, you know, that is, obviously not everyone's going to have that sort of consistency and hard work. But you know, a lot of that's real, I mean, if you have five, I always talk about that, that hip-hop, middle class that needs to emerge, and you need to be happy and we need to celebrate those people. And because if you're making $20,000 or $30,000 a month of music, damn, I mean you could talk, you know, that's solid money. No, that's nothing to shirk off. And some of these people, if they were independent, they might not be the global superstars that they are, they might be a little bit more in control, they might have less obligations, and they might still be able to put out the music that they want to put out. And all that stuff sort of creates sort of a concoction of, man, and maybe I will be happier, maybe I wouldn't have to get fake teeth and get a bunch of gold chains. I wouldn't have to do that because I'm living a lifestyle that's conducive for long-term success. 

So I think that I think that's really important, too. I mean, that's, that's kind of where I am. And that's not the sort of education that I'm putting out.

[00:24:47] Dan Runcie And I feel like that's also how you're building the businesses that you have and what you're associated with, right? I look at what you and Vic and the team are building, with Blxst as well, and what you're building with Evgle, and I feel like this is exactly that. Like, you're building the company that structured around this. Can you talk a bit about how you all have things set up?

[00:25:08] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, so Evgle is a company that I am an equity partner in. It's me, Victor Burnett, who was the president and is also Blxst’s manager. And then you obviously have Blxst, who is the key cog, the creative genius, and really someone who's sort of, you know, been patient, and made this all possible. But, you know, the way we're set up is, you know, we were, we're a company, privately-owned, and we've been able to partner with entities in, you know, retain 100% ownership of IP, make sure we're getting, you know, some of that mail, that by the pool money at all times, and in putting ourselves in a position for us to, you know, not just build vertically, but horizontally. We're building out, you know, we have a full staff, you know, we have health care for everybody. We have office space, all those, all that fun stuff, that I think that, you know, isn't probably celebrated enough in building a company and particularly in hip-hop. So that's kind of how we're building. And I think long term,  we're empowering our artists and the people that come next, to do the same thing. It's not going to be, hey, you signed with Evgle, or we're taking your masters, and you're taking ownership and control of everything. That's, that's just not what we're doing. And, you know, I think Vic and Blxst in particular, are very, very cognizant of that. And so I think, I think we're trying to lead the way in that regard.

[00:26:34] Dan Runcie  So is the plan to continue to build the company solely around the brand of Blxst himself as the creative or do you also want to bring on other artists, too?

[00:26:46] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, so we already signed another I’ll call a multi-hyphenate, you know talent as well. He's an artist and producer. So we'll be rolling him out sometime later this summer, maybe early fall, then we have another producer signed on or partnered on, sometimes I use old terms, but partnered on the publishing side. So there are two other creatives already, you know, in-house, and I think the goal will be to get bigger, you know, as time goes by

[00:27:14] Dan Runcie  And then in terms of Blxst specifically, what does his relationships look like with the major record label system and being able to amplify the work that he does?

[00:27:25] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. You know, we obviously have a public relationship with Red Bull Records, who's our partner on the record side, and it's been a super fruitful partnership. You know, Blxst has, you know, elevated his career. They've been really helpful in allowing Evgle to stay, you know, 100% independent, and building what we built. So, kudos to Red Bull. And those guys over there, in Red Bull’s distributor, is The Orchard. So we do have a, I guess, major label tie, righ?. So you know, but that's really kind of, you know, I think all three of us, you know, Blxst is a multi-hyphenate to the truest extent ever, you know, he's, he can edit his own videos, he does his design work, he can produce his songs, he engineers it. You know, Vic, similar type of talent, you know,  he's, you know, he's, he's a merch guru, you know, great leader, great manager. And same with myself, obviously, I'm a lawyer, but, you know, as an operator, and someone who builds businesses on the sort of technical and admin side, you know, I love that part. So we're talking about three people who are multi-hyphenates. I think when you have people like that, you don't have to outsource as much throughout the different phases of growth. And we've been able to resist some of the pitfalls that other companies have had to go through because we've been able to scale to  2x to 5x by doing a lot of stuff in-house and I think I don't think that's going to change. And you know, our growth has been incremental and positive, you know, year after year and I think that's because we're taking the steps and we're not trying to build something really quickly.

[00:29:11] Dan Runcie  Yeah, you're trying to build for the long haul, right? And if Blxst’s someday going to have his triple-figure catalog sale, if he want ever wants that, that's going to be done by, you know, building step by step. You're building for the long term, even though I'm sure, right now, especially after the Kendrick feature, and he's just been blowing up especially I feel like for the past two years now, but I feel like especially the past, like, 12, 18 months, you've been seeing more and more, at least publicly, I feel like, it may seem like it, you know, things are going fast, but I feel like, you know, talking to you all, yeah, you know, this is a long game.

[00:29:46] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, it's a long game. And you also know, like, you know, behind the scenes, we've been aggressive, in know, diversifying our company profile and our portfolio and what we're trying to build, you know, outside of music. You know, I think all of us also realize the entertainment industry is also just a vehicle, to impact the world. So, you know, at some point, your vehicles change. And I think we're also we also realize that, you know, everything that we're building today, you know, has to be bigger than, bigger than just the industry that we that we exist in. That's just not, it wouldn't be fulfilling for for any of us. So, I think that's it, we're very cognizant of that.

[00:30:23] Dan Runcie  That makes sense. That makes sense. Good stuff, man. I am excited to see not just more change in the industry, but obviously, I think you wrote this piece for a really timely reason. And we're gonna continue to see the impact of that. So yeah, if you're listening, definitely go check out The Future of the Artist Deal. It's up now on the Trapital website. And Karl, before we let you go, anything else that you want to plug? Or let the listeners know about now?  

[00:30:50] Karl Fowlkes No, man. I mean, honestly, just keep your eyes out for everything we're doing at Evgle, I think there's going to be a lot of fun, disruptive stuff that we announced, and we do over the next couple of months to a year. And, you know, personally, you know, The Fowlkes Firm is growing as a disruptor in the law firm space. So, you know, look out for those two things. And, you know, I just challenge everyone to challenge the status quo. You know, that's, that's what we're all here for.

[00:31:17] Dan Runcie That's the only way the industry grows, right? 

[00:31:19] Karl Fowlkes Yeah.

[00:31:19] Dan Runcie  Exactly. I appreciate you, man. Thank you.

[00:31:22] Karl Fowlkes All right.

[00:31:24] Dan Runcie  If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

There’s never been more ways for artists to tap directly into their fan bases than present day. However, actually understanding those same audiences hasn’t scaled at the same rate with the times. My guest on Trapital this week, Denisha Kuhlor, is out to solve that pain point with her new music tech startup, Stan.

Denisha’s company wants to take a more scientific approach to understanding and growing an artist's fanbase — from the casuals to the “stans.” Strengthening the artist-fan relationship will create better fan experiences, or as Denisha calls them, “moments of magic.” 

One way to create that magic is through live performance, but not necessarily at music festivals, argues Denisha. She thinks artists are mistakenly prioritizing quantitative metrics (attendance and performance-fee sizes) rather than the qualitative. While this might provide a short-term boost, it hurts in the long term since artists aren’t connecting with the “stans” that are paying to see them and them only.   

Denisha has observed this effect among Africa-based artists. The continent has produced a number of new stars, who generally “cut their teeth” performing at smaller, but more intimate venues like a club or even a wedding. Denisha has more insights into the rise of Africa’s music scene, the state of touring, and more. Here’s all our talking points in this episode:

[2:44] The Downside Of Performing At Music Festivals

[8:52] Followers Aren’t Your Fans

[12:51] African Artists Model The Way For Growing A Fanbase

[14:11] Benefits Of Instant Feedback Loops When Performing

[16:47] Cardi B’s Unique Approach To Touring

[21:28] Deeper Message In Kendrick Lamar’s Partnership With Cash App 

[26:52] What’s The Future Of African Music?

[28:07] TikTok’s Influence In Africa’s Music Scene

[31:42] Differences Between Performing In US Vs. Africa 

[33:55] 'Elasticity” Of An Artist Like Future

[38:41] Denisha’s Start-Up Stan Is Reimagining Fan-Artist Relationship

[40:19] How An Artist Can Leverage Stan

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Denisha Kuhlor, @denishakuhlor

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

Transcription

[00:00:00] Denisha Kuhlor: I really think that music coming out of the continent in a lot of ways, it really does like describe like the tastemaker culture. I always hear the songs first in Ghana. I learned about I'm A Piano in Ghana, even Peru, I was in Ghana back in August. And that's when I first heard the song. Like, I think because of the just diaspora nature, right? So people like myself or other first or second-gen folks going home and saying like, oh, wow, like this is the next big thing out here and kind of taking it back allows for that to happen. 

[00:00:31] Dan Runcie:  Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:58] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is all about fans, specifically as it relates to music festivals because the people that see you perform at music festivals are not necessarily the same people that see you perform when you're on a tour. And on this episode, I was joined by Denisha Kuhlor, who is the founder and CEO of Stan, a company that focuses specifically on helping artists make better decisions based on their fan engagement.

[00:01:24] Dan Runcie: And we talked all about what it's like for artists that focus on music festivals and while music festivals can be a great way to reach new people and a great way to get a good check, especially if you're a headliner performing at one of the big ones, it doesn't replace the things that don't scale and doing the hard work of building a fan base, and going out there, and meeting the people that actually want to see your music and see you in person.

[00:01:50] Dan Runcie: So we talk about that. We talk about some of the current trends in the trade-offs and what Denisha is currently seeing, specifically in Africa with artists like Burna Boy, and Wizkid, and Davido and others that have really made the most of the constraints that they've had, but how it actually helped improve their careers as well.

[00:02:08] Dan Runcie: We also talked about the music investment landscape, specifically in Africa, some of the opportunities there, some of the differences as it relates to music streaming. And then we chat a little bit more about Stan and what Denisha is building towards. This is a really fun combo. I hope you enjoy it. Here's my chat with Denisha.

[00:02:26] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're joined by Denisha Kuhlor, who is the founder and CEO of Stan. And Denisha, you recently wrote an awesome guest piece in Trapital about the downside of music festivals. So why did you write this piece? Let's talk about it. 

[00:02:44] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. So it's been something that's been in my mind for a long time. I think even on the consumer side, I've changed, I guess, how I patronize music and seeing artists and really just wanted to talk about like, how that impacts my relationship with the artists. I think we've been really conditioned and excited as consumers to attend festivals that optimize for seeing as many artists as possible.

[00:03:09] Denisha Kuhlor: But what I think about some of my favorite music moments, frankly, they weren't at a festival, always a show that the artists headlined themselves. And so when I think about the impact and the touring coming, kind of coming back, you know, since restrictions, because of COVID, I think it was really important to explore from both an artist and somewhat a fan perspective.

[00:03:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah. One of the things, I think, you highlight as well, especially on the artist's perspective too, we could easily get caught up in the allure of festivals. People always want to see who's headlining Coachella and what does it mean. And there's not going to be as much of a headlining or newsworthy thing if you're doing your own festival, but in a lot of ways, that's where you really meet your fans everywhere. And in a lot of ways, that makes much more of a difference in the long term even if the initial check size isn't as big, which you called out. 

[00:04:01] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. And in a weird way, festivals have almost become like very industry, I guess, and everything leading up to the festival, right? The politics behind being picked, where your name is on the flyer and, and what that represents. And while they're all great, I guess, points that can help an artist in the right direction, I think there's other ways to do it that maybe don't initially come with some of that fanfare. I totally agree. 

[00:04:25] Dan Runcie: So what are some of those ways? 

[00:04:27] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. So I really, to, I guess, put a tech or venture lens on it, but the great essay of like, doing things that don't scale, right? Like, I think so often as an artist or as an aspiring artist, it's really easy to look up to the really big things. Like you said, those are the things that are newsworthy, those are the things that are covered, and that people like see as amazing. But I, I think that artists right now have like a really unique ability to just play around, right, and play around with what that means. So I think a lot about Burna Boy's interview in Billboard recently. And even though he just like headline MSG, is the first Nigerian act to do that, and has been breaking a ton of records. Like, he just kind of was like, the next big thing for me is touring in like, avant-garde venues or venues that you typically wouldn't.

[00:05:11] Denisha Kuhlor: And while he's a big star, that's something that's really feasible for small artists as well, right? You know, venues, venues and tradition. And that's why I love what, like Sofar Sounds are, is doing or other platforms. But I think so often it's easy to have like a uniform idea of what a tour looks like, or even what connecting with your fans looks like.

[00:05:31] Denisha Kuhlor: And I think sometimes just bringing together, like, even 20 or 25 people that want to see you, that are willing to take their time. And like this world of an attention deficit, like someone giving an hour or two hours of your time just to appreciate your art is really amazing. And I think that artists are so used, like, just sold out a thousand, a thousand seats or 2000 or 3000. The quantitative numbers kind of don't allow them to connect on a qualitative level. 

[00:05:57] Dan Runcie: Right. And everyone has to start somewhere. But I feel like in this era where there's so much instant gratification, people don't always want to go through the steps of shooting in the gym or any of that to get to that point.

[00:06:09] Dan Runcie: And I think part of what makes it tough, even if they're willing to do it, sometimes the optics can be a bit scary just because of how things are set up. I think one of the things that you mentioned in the piece and we were talking about afterward is just how, if an artist gets booked on a festival, everyone may not necessarily be there to see them, even the people that are standing there, but there's this optic of look at me, performing in front of these 8,000 people that are immediately in front of me, right? But if they go and do their own show and they can't sell a thousand tickets, or if they have one of those things where they're performing and you could see so much space in between the people that are standing in the audience, then there's a bit of a vanity piece where it's like, are you comfortable with that even though, you know, that that's how you build a fan base. 

[00:06:57] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. Yeah. So true. You know, as we were talking about that point, I thought a lot deeper about it, and a dynamic, I think, that's also really important is almost like how social media accessibility also plays from a peer perspective.

[00:07:12] Denisha Kuhlor: And so these artists, while you can be a smaller, newer, upcoming artist, you can, I guess, be or feel like your peers with artists that are way larger than you just for proximity to that artist. And as a result, you almost kind of feel, like, embarrassed, if you will. It's like a freshman hanging out with a senior, right?

[00:07:31] Denisha Kuhlor: They're going to do senior things, whether it's going to prom or what, like whatever, but there's, like, really levels and social media. And I guess just other mediums have kind of taken away some of those levels. And as a result, like Issa Rae's quote, people are so busy, like, networking that they're not networking across. And as a result who or what they compare themselves to creates a false sense of reality when it comes time for their own careers. 

[00:07:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that if you're on that stage, you think, okay. Yeah, I'm here, but you're really not. There's a huge difference. And as we both know, festivals get sold by the headliners, and yeah, the further, the smaller your font size is, for better or worse, the more interchangeable you actually are. And I think an instance of this, I know I've written about this recently, was looking at Coi Leray. And a lot of people had made a bit of noise about where things looked like from her perspective and her numbers because she had so many things that were coincides in her favor, in terms of being signed a Republic, she had songs with Nicki and Lil Durk. She performed on Fallon, BET awards. Benzino's daughter, over 6 million Instagram followers, but when it came time to sell her album, we're talking 11,500 units, which is around, I mean, less than 20 million streams in a week, which isn't that much.

[00:08:52] Dan Runcie: There's plenty of other legacy albums that get more than that. And then they recently announced her tour and she's doing a mix of festivals and tour stops, but her tour stops, they're cities with less than 500 capacity venues. And I don't think it's just her necessarily. I think this applies to a lot of people, but it's just such a big difference where, okay, your followers are not necessarily your fans. And I think the distinction between touring and doing, you know, festivals highlights that more than anything. 

[00:09:24] Denisha Kuhlor: I think she's been a really interesting one to watch if only for all the things you mentioned. She's a great example of kind of a new artist these days and it begs the question, like, if attention at all, even really equals any type of conversion to, like, true patronage. And something I find is that like in a digitally native generation, they don't view attention, or maybe even we, like, we don't necessarily view attention in a positive or negative sentiment. Just because in a way you're willing to give your attention to something doesn't mean in any way it's potentially in your favor when the time comes that that attention will convert to something really tangible.

[00:10:04] Denisha Kuhlor: But I also in, you know, in her case being signed, you know, being signed to Republic, I think it continues to, like, push that conversation of what A&R should look like now. You know, reading a lot about how A&R has evolved and having conversations with people in the industry. I think before or, or now it's evolved, right, to, like, leveraging data, right? And so many people talk about data. You can, of course, leverage data to find these up-and-coming artists, but then once you do or decide that you want to invest in this artist and work with this artist, what do those conversations kind of look like early to promote that strategy and kind of sometimes force the artists to, to go slow before they can go fast.

[00:10:41] Denisha Kuhlor: I mean, we've all seen documentaries of artists from decades ago and kind of all the pre-work they did before even being pushed to being allowed to release a single or being allowed to perform a song. And that looks very different now. It almost seems like things are backwards, but not in a reverse engineer backwards. It's more just like, this happened and so now let's capitalize on that. And I think that we're kind of seeing some of the negative effects of premature success if you will. 

[00:11:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. I think that, on a more recent level, I think about Olivia Rodrigo here in the US, everyone saw how big Sour was and they were like, oh, well, you could go tour arenas now.

[00:11:20] Dan Runcie: And it sounds like her and her team talked about it. They're like, no, we're going to stick to the halls that we have. And it looks like she's performing in venues that have, you know, roughly several thousand, you know, capacity. At least that's what I saw here when she came through in San Francisco. And I think she may have done like Radio City or some of the others I would have to check, but I feel like that makes sense. You know, just given that, but I think this dynamic is even more pronounced in Africa, which a lot of the artists, which have recently become superstars there as well. And you talked a lot about that in the piece and Burna Boy, who I think is a great case study on this. 

[00:11:55] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, one, just loved the music coming out of the continent. And two, I think it's really fascinating in the way artists have to position their careers to really succeed both in the continent and on a global scale. You know, part of it in a way probably comes from socioeconomic factors and then as well as just having like really migrant diasporas.

[00:12:16] Denisha Kuhlor: But because of that, artists are like really, I think, forced to prioritize performing in the beginning. And when you look at the audience, right, it is kind of those things that don't scale. It's the weddings, it's the really small club performances, it's the open mics, like things that used to be very common for artists everywhere.

[00:12:37] Denisha Kuhlor: But seems like, has kind of, kind of slowed down. And so as a result, I think, without having an A&R, they kind of do their own a A&R, right? You've heard stories of artists who would come to a country once and like nobody came to see them. And then three years later, the show was sold out.

[00:12:51] Denisha Kuhlor: And so, artists are not only able to refine their performances. They get quick feedback loops and they do it in a way that I think is authentic to them and their sound. And it forces them to win people over, right? If you're performing at a wedding, the percentage of people that might like you could be high, could be low. But ultimately you want to walk away with more fans, right? These people are giving you an opportunity to convert them or at least to try. Whereas now I think, unfortunately, a little bit of entitlement that comes with some artists, right? Even from being upset when the audience doesn't react a certain way, and that's just like a humility that I think African artists have, have embraced.

[00:13:28] Denisha Kuhlor: In terms of converting, converting the fan or the listener. And I think you see that even more when the artist really begins to take a global approach. Everybody from, you know, Davido shutting out the power of, the power of New York, or why music from the continent has been able to get so big as of recently.

[00:13:46] Denisha Kuhlor: And so I think that African artists are a great example in terms of looking to, to kind of do that slow climb, and that slow work to be able to get to the point where they can sell out arenas today. 

[00:13:57] Dan Runcie: Right. It's like the constraints that the industry has forced them to do the things that don't scale and because they exactly did that, that's how they're in the position they are today. And that's why Burna Boy's selling out Madison Square Garden, right? 

[00:14:11] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Exactly. And it's a safe space, if you will, to get feedback. I think, you know, so often as an artist, you're of course refining who you are in creative direction and all of that, but there's just some things that come from experience with being a performer and constantly just having those feedback loops to, to iterate on what songs work, what transitions work. When you see a Beyoncé at Coachella, that's years and decades of being able to study crowd reaction of how certain things flow, what works, what doesn't work to put on a show like that.

[00:14:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah, the feedback loops piece is key too, 'cause obviously that's going to be harder to get from a festival because you don't even know if half these people are just, you know, burning time until the headliner comes, but you can actually see what the folks you're trying to reach resonate with. And this is something that I always thought about.

[00:14:59] Dan Runcie: Tyler Perry, of course, this isn't music, but with his place, he would always talk about this, how he would switch things up. He's going on this large tour across different parts of the country. He's going to use certain jokes or use certain lines that are going to work in the South, that aren't going to work in the Northeast and aren't going to work on the West Coast, and things like that.

[00:15:18] Dan Runcie: And anyone that is performing that actually sees how the people that they are reaching, interact with the stuff while they're doing it. It almost always leads to a better product so that when they are doing the movies or when they are doing the mass thing, they can hit the ground running. 

[00:15:34] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, that's really true. And you know, as you're talking, it makes me think about like, maybe there's even a certain archetype of artists and like, one that doesn't, like, heavily involve performance. Like, I think a lot about comedians and what the, what a comedian looks like now. You have your Instagram comedians or, you know, TikTok comedy is as it's referred to, but not many of them are thinking about going on tour doing standup. And so maybe in some ways, even all-encompassing performer is different now. 

[00:16:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Yeah. I do think that for the people that are doing things live, it is easier to see it. I think that honestly, for people that write or podcast, it could be tougher because you, any type of feedback, there has to be at least some level of intent to let me reply to this email or let me follow up. I do think it's relatively easier for someone that has a newsletter to be able to do it relative to someone that's just writing standalone on a website. But I do think that when podcasters have live events and that is attracting people to a certain area, like, that's how they're able to get around this. But everyone, I think most creators, the more IRL things you have, whatever it is that you create, you're going to get more value out of that. 

[00:16:45] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. I totally agree with you there. 

[00:16:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah. the person that I think actually kind of challenges this with some nuance perspective is Cardi B, especially at the highest level, just considering that we're now, it's been four years since Invasion of Privacy.

[00:17:00] Dan Runcie: I think it's been five years since Bodak Yellow came out, which is wild to say, but I think there's a few things. One she's yet to do a true formal tour. And she's been the first to say that with, Hey, I'm getting seven-figure guarantees to go do stuff over in Europe. And sometimes I even get those checks here in the US to perform in headline festivals.

[00:17:21] Dan Runcie: Why would I go through all of the things that are involved with touring? And to be fair, there are some challenges that many artists have with touring, whether it's okay, making sure that the lighting and everything is set up right. And the production looks great on that first event that you have, because if that doesn't hit right, then that's going to impact the sales for everything else.

[00:17:40] Dan Runcie: So even though we know that, yeah, that's part of doing things that don't scale. You have to do it. Some artists are fearful of that. And I think sometimes she may, you know, or at least she's alluded to her avoiding that, or even just the cost. Like, she even talked to herself about how the first time she did Coachella, it cost her more money than she actually got from the events of doing it just because of how much she spent on those things.

[00:18:01] Dan Runcie: And, you know, she, at least, of her perspective sounds like she wants to be able to build up leverage likely in order to command a, you know, 40, 50 plus city arena tour that would likely match up with her star power. And I feel like that's part of the thing because I remember there was this debate going on, where people were wondering, okay, you know, if she does, like, what she would do.

[00:18:26] Dan Runcie: And of course you'd all the Nicki Minaj haters were being like, oh, well she's not doing a tour 'cause she can't sell out a tour. And it's like, okay, I don't think it's that, you know, egregious. You all can, the barbs can relax a bit. But I do think that, you know, part of what I think makes it kind of tough, especially from a, a social following perspective, which I know is something that we've talked about before is that with certain artists, the reason that people follow you, you mentioned this earlier, isn't always because they're, like, vibing with your music.

[00:18:57] Dan Runcie: I mean, Cardi B puts out a lot of, you know, beauty shots to show off her fashion to show off her glamor, and some people may like that stuff and they may have not even listened to WAP or any of the, you know, bigger hits she has so how do you quantify that? So I'm very interested to see, one, what this next album looks like and what her next live performance strategy looks like.

[00:19:19] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. You know, if, if I was like thinking about what would be interesting for Cardi B, I think ultimately it'd be kind of a hybrid experience, right? Like I think you nailed it on the head in the sense that Cardi is a lifestyle, a lifestyle brand that has many different pillars that stand for many different things.

[00:19:36] Denisha Kuhlor: And people really resonate with her, but for all types of things. And so, you know, you see more artists creating their own festivals and I don't know if there's a potential to, like, pilot what that, like, hybrid concept could look like maybe in the Bronx or somewhere unique to her.

[00:19:50] Denisha Kuhlor: But I think that ultimately it will need to encompass everything that she represents. And so while the music will, of course, be one of those pillars, I feel like it could be, or would be so much, so much more. And given that she has so many brand deals and endorsements with companies that really appreciate her for the lifestyle brand that she is, I think it could be really, really unique.

[00:20:10] Denisha Kuhlor: Even a partner with a festival promoter, you know, Rolling Loud is working with Chris Brown and Lil Baby as they go on tour. Like, even to, to have that partnership in a way that's really authentic and unique to her, I think is going to be fascinating. I feel like she's the artist that can kind of push the envelope in terms of experiencing her or artist in a way that we haven't necessarily thought of. You know, so often I think about, I think about like the rise or, of nightclubs and like branded parties. And right now you kind of see like two things, right? There's like really popular nightclubs that will just exist by virtue of like being a marquee name, whether that's the LIV and LIV on Sunday, but then you also have parties, right? And the parties exist without the, the venues. What I constantly think about is, like, everyday people is the party. It's not about where everyday people is or more, or more so where they're going. And so I think that's like a similar thing, that Cardi brings and the ability that she's so much of the brand, that it's more so about what she wants to do and where she'll bring people to that medium versus following the traditional way things have been done before. 

[00:21:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think the branded piece, it, especially being able to have some type of partner with the concert or with the tour more broadly, would be big because I'm thinking about some of the recent ones we've seen. And even some of these are just slight nuances, like Kendrick Lamar partnering with Cash App for his Big Steppers tour.

[00:21:28] Dan Runcie: He has coming up. I saw The Weeknd has one of these crypto companies. I think it's Binance. Yeah, Binance is doing his tour and he's doing like a big stadium tour for this run that he has coming up. And I think that just opens it up to be like, yeah, you could have many other folks. It doesn't always necessarily have to be, you know, Visa credit card holders to get the pre-check or whatever it is to get the early thing. You know, you can actually have, you know, other partners that are aligned with many of the brands and partnerships that Cardi has already had relationships with. 

[00:22:01] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. And I really thought, you know, the Kendrick and Cash App partnership was fascinating to me because of, I feel like, the message it sent, right? Like, to me, it almost said like, let's make this tour accessible to all our fans versus the barrier to entry, you know, while it's nice to have an Amex Platinum, not everyone does so like versus the barrier to entry. And I think that's another really important thing with touring, right?

[00:22:25] Denisha Kuhlor: Like controlling the barriers to entry in which your fans get to see you. And so, you know, it just really symbolized to me that, like, in a way, Kendrick, like, wants his biggest fans there and he's going to remove the barriers to entry to do so. So that was a, I really enjoyed seeing that partnership.

[00:22:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a great point because I think one of the challenges that we've seen over the years with live shows and live entertainment pricing for events is artists that are trying to price things in a way to give fans a fair chance. But also understanding that the reseller market is going to, you know, take it up to a crazy amount and then you have artists buying back and then trying to sell it themselves as resellers. And I know it could just get so messy when you see that. But I think it's clearly done because they want to be able to make sure that the actual fans can do it. But yeah, if you're just giving it to like Amex Platinum and Black Card holders, then it isn't going to work Like, we've all seen the dynamics of how Cash App grew. Cash App grew because of hip-hop fans 'cause of hip-hop influencers pushing this, and then that's how they're able to grow in the South and grow in places that Venmo didn't grow. So have it all lined up if you're trying to reach those people.

[00:23:37] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly, exactly. You know, in, in the years to come and especially with the rise of tech and really probably as a result of rising customer acquisition costs on Facebook ads and other platforms. Partnering with tech companies is going to be a great source, a great source of revenue.

[00:23:52] Denisha Kuhlor: And I think just authentic partnership for artists. And ultimately it'll come down to their methodology behind choosing the right partners and what it says about how they value or how they desire to connect with their audiences. So I'm excited to see more, more partnerships, especially, I guess not just in the FinTech space, but consumer technology space overall. And I think we can tell, you know, even just as regular fans, whether it's authentic or not. Cash App made so much sense, everybody was like, of course. And I think the best part about it was people were like, oh, I have an account. Like, I've already done X thing. And so this just naturally fits in with my lifestyle. 

[00:24:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I, I think we'll see more of it. I hope we continue to, I know a lot of these companies have been US-based, but I'm really excited to see what's going to be coming from Africa specifically because there's so much music activity.

[00:24:43] Dan Runcie: We already talked about the artists coming through and how the artists themselves in many ways will have better chops just because of the constraints that you know, are there that currently existed that we talked about earlier. What are you seeing in the space? What excites you?

[00:24:57] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I've been really excited about everything coming out of the continent, both from a music standpoint and venture standpoint.

[00:25:04] Denisha Kuhlor: It's interesting because for a long time telcos have been heavily involved in underwriting artists, artists careers, right? So a lot of performances and even festivals are heavily sponsored by telcos on the continent. And so they've always had a role and I think kind of understood the value in investing in partnering with, with artists early. I think what's evolving is the amount of money coming to the continent, especially as it relates to startups and funding tech companies.

[00:25:31] Denisha Kuhlor: And so as a result, like they realize the value as well and investing in music. And you see a lot of those partnerships. I mean, Chipper Cash is partnered with Burna Boy, right? So, like looking at, like, one of the most valued FinTech companies in Africa and one of the biggest artists in Africa, I think we're going to continue to see those relationships and those partnerships. I also think that it's going to evolve to a natural progression that we saw here as that artists want a bit more, a bit more of the pie. And so while, you know, speculating, I think a lot of these deals are, you know, cash, maybe a small range of cash and a little bit of equity.

[00:26:06] Denisha Kuhlor: I think we're going to see artists want to become a lot more hands-on, especially for projects that are commoditized. And in a lot of ways, remittances or some of these FinTech products are, are really dependent on your ability to have a license. And so as artists maybe get to start to be able to navigate that landscape and bring together teams, I would be, I wouldn't be surprised to see them launch products of their own in similar spaces.

[00:26:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's exciting. I mean, there's so much, I also look at what's happening in music specifically. Of course, as we know all the major record labels have a presence, not just in the, you know, continent overall, but in the different areas. I mean, it's huge. You can't just, you know, have a presence in South Africa and think you're going to cover everything happening sub Sahara or everywhere else.

[00:26:52] Dan Runcie: Like, you need to be focused on what's happening in a particular area. And I think too, we saw earlier this year in Andreessen Horowitz had made its first investment in that mobile games company, Carry1st, I think we're going to see more and more of that. And I do think that we're going to see even more innovation in African music.

[00:27:12] Dan Runcie: I know that all the streaming services have been trying to acquire more subscribers and more listeners in those places. But yeah, the dominant listening in many ways is still downloads of the companies that have been able to focus on that. So there's so many unique aspects that I'm excited to see play out.

[00:27:32] Denisha Kuhlor: Totally. Another, you know, another, I guess, thing that's really interesting to me is the kind of the conversation lately, as it relates to like what type of music has dominated. I've seen and talked to a lot of folks who kind of hypothesized that, like the reason music coming out of the continents and has grown so much is because it's very universal in a way where everybody can participate. Like say, on the dance floor, just experiencing the music versus kind of some of the hip-hop and rap music that has dominated that's really driven by club culture, and bottle popping culture, and VIP, and sections and, and that whole thing.

[00:28:07] Denisha Kuhlor: And so, I find that, I find that dynamic fascinating as well in kind of the universal sense that it brings. And you see that on like TikTok, like how many, like, dances can you make to a song about like popping bottles versus just like a really great beat? 

[00:28:24] Dan Runcie: Right, right. Yeah. Do you feel like TikTok is having the same impact there on the continent that it is in the US? Are you noticing anything that's unique or different? 

[00:28:34] Denisha Kuhlor: No. I, I really think that music coming out of the continent in a lot of ways it really does like describe like the tastemaker culture. As someone who's spent, you know, time in Ghana as well as in the States, like, I always hear the songs first in Ghana. I learned about I'm A Piano in Ghana, even Peru, I was in Ghana back in August. And that's when I first heard the song. Like I think because of the just diaspora nature, right? So people like myself or other first or second-gen folks going home and saying like, oh, wow, like this is the next big thing out here and kind of taking it back allows for that to happen. 

[00:29:10] Denisha Kuhlor: So in a lot of ways, I feel like I go or spend time on the continent to see, to see what's new. And then TikTok is probably the biggest indicator of what's most likely to take off from there. But I would look at, you know, some of these cities, especially around nightlife, as more of the curators and, and the tastemakers and TikTok, just being a mirror of, in some ways, the work that's already been done. 

[00:29:31] Dan Runcie: Okay. So it's more so following the culture, not setting it. 

[00:29:34] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. 

[00:29:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think, too, to some extent that's, I would say maybe it's, it's a little different in the US because I do think that what we see on TikTok in some ways does set where people end up following, at least here, right? Because I think you just see so many trends originating from things people do. You're more likely to see clips from TikTok posted and shared on other platforms, as opposed to what you may see, vice versa. So I feel like, yeah. 

[00:30:05] Denisha Kuhlor: I agree. I think it's definitely, I think it's definitely very different and I think it's what makes being an artist a little, a little tricky because if you are an American artist, for example, and your song is becoming the biggest thing in Ghana, that probably has very, you know, different implications for how you navigate that or how you think about career and how you think about strategy.

[00:30:24] Denisha Kuhlor: And, you know, unfortunately, I guess if you're an artist maybe who has risen on TikTok primarily in the States, what does that mean when it comes time for touring or time to do a date? How is that attention converted? Because the fact of the matter is American fans just have more opportunities to patronize their favorite artists.

[00:30:42] Denisha Kuhlor: When you look at the amount of venues and just like analysis to, and ways you can interact with artists here, there's just so many, so many option. And so that conversion rate is high or is harder. 

[00:30:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And that reminds me of something else I've heard artists say. This isn't anything new, but they've said that they always get more love when, US artists specifically, they always get more love when they perform outside of the US because the US artists, they see plenty of things there or the US fans necessarily, they have more opportunities to see you. So they're not necessarily as like wilder, they take the moment in as special as it is, as opposed to the artists that are going outside of the USA perform. 

[00:31:26] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. You know, I talk to folks around when J Cole in Nigeria. And I think that was such a great example. Like, he had just released the album that day and was shocked that people knew, that people knew every word. And specifically, I think when artists come to the continent, it's always an occasion, right? People are really excited.

[00:31:42] Denisha Kuhlor: Cardi B was a great example. People are just like really excited in some ways that they're like participating. Like, we didn't go to you, you came to us. You value us enough to do that. And I think, you know, regardless whether it's Africa or Japan or even Europe, like, there's just a, yeah, there's just a different level of, of appreciation.

[00:32:00] Denisha Kuhlor: And people really, really hold onto it as an experience that will, that will be with them. And unfortunately, because of some of these, these festivals, like you can casually see an artist that you don't even like that much. Multiple times, like, you know, I don't, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but let's say if you go to every Rolling Loud festival in New York, just once a year, how many artists have overlapped or how many artists have you seen multiple times?

[00:32:25] Denisha Kuhlor: Just as a result of patronizing that one Fest. And so as a result, the star power, the whole je ne sais quoi, kind of, kind of falls away. But I think you don't get that same type of, I guess, performance burnout or consumer burnout when you do headline your own tour because it's something different every time. It's experiencing, you know, Beyoncé fans, I'm sure we'll talk about this, but I think the beauty and what her Coachella performance was. Everyone knew the songs, right, we knew the music for the most part, but it, it was now just experiencing it in a different way and in a way that she wanted us to experience it. And unfortunately, I don't think artists get to do that in the same way with festivals they're not headlining. 

[00:33:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The Rolling Loud example always makes me think of Future. I always say that he has a low-key residency at that. I, I actually went back, and counted this. I forget how many Rolling Louds there have been, but at least 40% of them, he has been a headliner at.

[00:33:23] Dan Runcie: I mean, it's a high number and to your point, I mean, I'm sure that paycheck's great. I, I'm not concerned about, you know, Future from a buddy perspective. He is prolific, and, I mean, he had one of the best-selling albums so far this year, but yeah, to your point that is kind of, I think, Future is a model that clicks with that as well.

[00:33:42] Dan Runcie: He's going to put out music early and often. He's going to perform, and he's always going to be there. And I think for him it works, but it's just not going to be the same thing necessarily as. Beyoncé record or something like that.

[00:33:55] Denisha Kuhlor: You know, I'm curious, how do you think that impacts like an artist's elasticity, like, of course, with more and more artists selling their catalogs and just navigating the world as an artist very differently, how do you think that does impact their just elasticity in the music game overall? 

[00:34:12] Dan Runcie: I think it's twofold because I think that to one point, a lot of artists do feel like they have to keep the content machine turning. I think that's, that kinda line, lines up with Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, and what he had said that was a polarizing statement at the time of you releasing music every three years, isn't going to be enough anymore. So I do think that someone like Future has lead into that and say, okay, I have this base and I know they're going to listen to everything that I put out, whatever I do it. So let me maximize that.

[00:34:49] Dan Runcie: And I think for someone like Future because as popular as he is with a particular demo, one, his mainstream popularity isn't quite where it was like when like DS2 came out in 2015. So he's definitely serving more of the large, but, you know, core fans. And I think just given some of the issues that people have about him, and, of course, we've all seen the memes about, you know, problematic Future sending, you know, the text to the, to the ex or whatever it is.

[00:35:20] Dan Runcie: Like, I don't think that he necessarily has the same marketability to let's say, go launch a, you know, huge, whatever it is, the same way that we see the Beyoncé or Rihanna do it. That doesn't mean he can't, he can obviously still has the platform. So I do think for him and even someone like an NBA YoungBoy who, you know, is even younger, then releasing music early and often kind of works for them because they may not get, you know, like, the big deal from whatever company wanting to partner with them, but they could reach their fans directly. So they're going to maximize that. So I think it's a little different though, when you are a Beyoncé or you are a Rihanna where, you know, there's so many other things you're doing, so when you release music, you do want it to hit because you want it to have this halo effect over everything else that you're doing.

[00:36:06]

Dan Runcie: There's anomalies to this, of course, I mean, or not anomalies, but I think some folks will do it differently. I mean, Drake is still going to give you a release every year, every other year. Kanye West has likely been doing the same, but I do think that that's still different than, you know, how like Future's going about it.

[00:36:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Agreed. Agreed. I wonder 10 years from now or 15 years from now if Future is still touring or even releasing music, what that relationship looks like, and even what a tour would look like given the brevity of music he's put out. 

[00:36:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. To be honest, I think he likely will, just a matter of like, you know, what does it look like? How big and like, you know, like, the dynamics there. I recently posed the question on Twitter, which artist do you expect to still be releasing music when they're 70 plus years old? I don't think many people mentioned him, but I would definitely put him in that category. I feel like not too far away from 40. I do think that, you know, he loves this, for better or worse, and I feel like he'll likely continue. 

[00:37:06] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, in, in rap, it's still so new, which is crazy that we have just seen enough examples of that. And so these probably, or artists like Future will be those, those examples for us to look back at.

[00:37:20] Dan Runcie: Definitely. And I think so much of this, with this whole conversation, we're talking about the relationship between fans and how fans really help you format what you're doing and how to really set the framework for your career. And this aligns with the work that you're doing now. You recently launched and, and announce the company you have with Stan that is helping artists have a more fan-focused approach to their careers. So can you talk a bit more about that? 

[00:37:45] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. Yeah. So I recently decided to go full-time on a music tech startup called Stan, focused on audience engagement infrastructure, so really to help artists understand their audiences at a micro and macro level with the goal of providing better fan experiences. I kind of think it's crazy in some ways that every industry that wants to encourage a repeatable customer behavior has a loyalty program, but unfortunately, artists have very fragmented loyalty programs. And of course, the rise of NFTs and specific things as it relates to streaming platforms or even email lists. We've seen artists make great attempts, I think at doing and running really effective programs, but I really want to add more, more science to the arts to create, if you will, moments of magic on a greater scale. So artists can better connect with their fan bases. 

[00:38:36] Dan Runcie: Nice. Where did the inspiration come from? I'm sure a lot of it is things we talked about in this conversation.

[00:38:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, so much of it. Interestingly enough, it has come from writing. I long admired, of course, Trapital and, and other platforms. And really just wanted to explore, like, the conversation of fan relationships. And I think fan relationships have evolved so much, but wanted to kind of like push the, push the envelope in terms of what was being explored as it relates to the fan-artist relationship and also highlight how sophisticated fans are of course, with, you know, the rise of, of stans and how much they're covered. I think that people think of fans as just like, okay, like a casual listener and then the overzealous fan. And I think that's such a, that's such a gap and fandoms operate in such a sophisticated way, that we really needed to push the conversation on what that looked like.

[00:39:25] Denisha Kuhlor: And as a result, the more I kept writing, the greater, like the problem became to me in the sense of, I think there's a lot of really, really amazing platforms designed to, you know, be direct to fan and connect the artists to the fan. But for anybody that's in any type of relationship business, I think it feels a little used car salesman to, like, try and extract money, like immediately, like, Hey, I just met you, like, give me this thing. And so I felt like there was a, an over-focus on the monetization of fan bases. Before fan bases were frankly strong enough to, to survive that monetization. So I kind of wanted to take it back a step to say, if you have a really strong relationship, relationships are everything, right? You'll be able to survive and not even just survive, thrive, because you can withstand volatility and maybe even turmoil.

[00:40:13] Dan Runcie: So what does it look like from the artist's perspective? Like, if I wanted get involved, like, what does that engagement look like? 

[00:40:19] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. Yeah. So we're currently in the experimentation phase playing around with products and experiments that allow us to hit product-market fit. We're gearing up for a beta. So I love to talk to any artists that think really intensely about connecting with their fans. But ideally, we love to work with artists that, one, want to create, like, what I call moments of magic. And so like some great examples is J Cole, right? Like, not only the Dollar & A Dream Tour,, but going to, going to this fan's graduations or how do you actively and naturally involve yourself in your fan's life in a way that feels authentic and encourages a bidirectional relationship.

[00:40:55] Denisha Kuhlor: As a result, a lot of the work that we're doing is analyzing artists and their current data as well as tapping into, into new data sets as a result of creating games, as well as just different forms for artists to connect with their fans. So any artist that, one, thinks deeply about this, that wants to understand their data better across multiple platforms. We, we'd love to talk to you, especially as we work with artists on an ad hoc basis to gear up for the launch of the platform. 

[00:41:23] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. I mean, as we both know, this type of need is more crucial than ever, and there's so much data that can be misleading or misunderstood as you've talked about before you can't just go on a follower account. You can't just go on Spotify listens. Some of these things correlate, but a lot of them don't. 

[00:41:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, it's so true. You know, I think Spotify Wrapped is always so interesting to me in the sense that it's great, right? And what became even more interesting was when fans, fans, of course, post, but then to see artists post, right?

[00:41:54] Denisha Kuhlor: And kind of what that meant for them and the excitement. And so there were things that I felt like off the bat, like, certain artists expected to get, right, you expected to have every country represented when it came to countries listened or just certain things represented, but I thought a lot about it.

[00:42:08] Denisha Kuhlor: And I was just like, that one snapshot into a portion of your fan base. Like, what does that tell you from an actionable data perspective? But I guess before we can even know how relevant or how much you can guide your actions around those results is how much of your fan base is on Spotify? Like you mentioned, in actual, like, a lot of music is listened through downloads or partnerships with telcos and other streaming platforms.

[00:42:31] Denisha Kuhlor: People use Audiomack, and Boomplay, and different streaming platforms. And so without, like, knowing an aggregate, what your Spotify listeners even represent when it comes to your audience? It can also be a slippery slope to make directions based on the most advanced data sets. If they're not really replicative of your whole audience.

[00:42:51] Dan Runcie: Right. Because I think one of the things that I often see with Spotify specifically is that people will, especially in the US, they'll use it as like a rule of thumb to say that, okay, you see the data that comes to you from Spotify, either multiply it by three or three and a half or four. And maybe that gives you a rough idea of how big the overall streaming market is for a particular artist, but that works in the US that doesn't work for artists elsewhere. So being able to see those distinctions, especially considering how global the music industry is, that's where people can actually make actionable insight. 

[00:43:25] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Exactly. I think, you know, artists are really starting to approach their careers from a global standpoint will be really, really helpful moving forward.

[00:43:33] Denisha Kuhlor: And as they consider the elasticity of their own careers, especially given that, like, smaller markets can be more forgiving, right? And so even if you don't want to necessarily go through the 50-city 500-person venue tour, what about going to just a smaller market globally and getting that feedback, being able to perform, really connecting with your fans that way too.

[00:43:54] Denisha Kuhlor: I completely agree with you. I think that artists are just going to really have to be global from day one and as a result just because you're familiar with consuming music in a certain way, isn't necessarily how your entire fan base is going to do it. So becoming more sophisticated around what that looks like and how you can best work with those platforms will be really, really advantageous moving forward.

[00:44:14] Denisha Kuhlor: Definitely. 

[00:44:15] Dan Runcie: And you're in a great position to be able to do that. So I feel like the timing lines up well with this. So for you specifically, for the people that either are listening, or whether they're artists or working with artists, where can they follow up? Where could they go? 

[00:44:28] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, yeah. So you can find me on Denisha Kuhlor at Twitter, love Twitter so always on there. And then you can just shoot me an email at d@stan.fan as well. 

[00:44:38] Dan Runcie: Sounds good. Denisha, this was great. I feel like we covered a bunch of things that are happening right now in the industry and yeah, very timely. So thanks again for coming. 

[00:44:47] Denisha Kuhlor: Of course. Thanks for having me. 

[00:44:49] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

“Content is queen” is the mantra of this week’s Trapital’s guest, Sherrese Clarke Soares. The phrase has a double-meaning. For one, it’s the heart of her investment firm, HarbourView Equity Partners, which specializes in acquiring content across the entertainment, sports, and media sectors. But on a personal level, the phrase also represents her unique place in the industry as a rare Black and female founder. 

Sherrese founded HarbourView in 2021. This came on the heels of founding Tempo Music and ten-plus years at Morgan Stanley. These experiences have put Sherrese front and center with IP, understanding not only its financial incentives, but its cultural value too.

HarbourView is backed with up to $1 billion in investment capital from Apollo Global Management. Within months of its founding, HarbourView acquired the music catalog of Luis Fonsi and with that, the decade-defining hit “Despacito.” It was the latest splash in the booming business of catalog sales that ecliped over $5 billion in 2021 alone. 

What’s Sherrese's strategy with Fonsi’s catalog plus other IP acquisitions? You’ll want to listen to the full episode to find out, plus a whole lot more. Here’s everything we covered during our interview:

[3:27] Why Sherrese Created Her Own Firm, HarbourView

[6:55] Why HarbourView Team Looks Different Than Any Other Investment Group

[10:31] Hip-Hop Investments Being Overlooked

[15:28] Why HarbourView Acquired Luis Fonsi’s Music Catalog

[17:21] HarbourView’s “Forever Owner” Strategy To IP

[22:47] Owning IP In web3 

[24:22] Owning IP Vs. Owning Distribution 

[28:24] Current Market Conditions Impact On Catalog Investments

[33:39] Music Industry In Better Shape Now Compared To 2008 Recession

[35:54] Building A Next-Gen Asset Management Firm

[37:25] Opportunities In Reggae & Ska

[39:11] Importance of Mentorship in Private Equity

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Sherrese Clarke Soares, @sherreseclarkesoares

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We want to be one of the largest buyers, if not the largest buyer, of music catalogs, but we're also investing outside of music in how do we create cross-pollination across the music that we own to other places where we may invest as well. So we think there's lots and lots and lots of upside around owning premium content. So we are very focused on being kind of as close to the IP as possible or the IP creation or development, or actually ownership of the IP, because we think that that's going to drive huge, huge upside. 

[00:00:27] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. 

[00:00:54] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Sherrese Clarke Soares. She's the founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, a global investment firm that's focused on premium content across the entertainment, sports, and media sectors. You may know the name from some of the music catalog acquisitions she's done a couple months back.

[00:01:14] Dan Runcie: The firm acquired Luis Fonsi's catalog and got one of the biggest hits of the 21st century with Despacito. So we talked about that and we talked about Sherrese's strategy more broadly for the firm. One of the things that has always stuck out to me about the music investment space is that you don't see as many big deals for hip-hop, R&B, or genres outside of the US, especially considering how popular all of these are in the streaming era and likely will continue to be.

[00:01:43] Dan Runcie: So we talked about how Sherrese's firm is focused on the wide space and how she sees us as an opportunity that others may not. And we talked more broadly about the entertainment space, what some of the investment opportunities that HarbourView is looking at outside of music and other emerging trends as they relate to the main streaming services and other technology platforms and more. Here's my conversation with Sherrese. All right. Today we're joined by Sherrese Clarke Soares and you've been a high-demand guest. So I'm glad we could finally do this. 

[00:02:16] Sherrese Clarke Soares: I'm glad we can, too. Thank you for having me. 

[00:02:19] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think one of the reasons people want to hear from you is because you've accomplished a lot in your career both Morgan Stanley and at Tempo, and now you have your own firm and it'll be great to hear a bit about the journey and specifically that moment that you knew that you wanted to break out and launch your own company in this space. 

[00:02:39] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, absolutely. Well, super great to be here. I guess just the journey is, you know, it's like one of those things that people talk about, it's the overnight success, 20 years in the making.

[00:02:48] Sherrese Clarke Soares: It's been something that I've wanted to do for a long time, which is to be an investor in the entertainment space, entertainment media, you know, sports, even, because of how much I believe in the power and the impact of what content does. You know, obviously, it brings stories across the world and has the ability to shape hearts and minds.

[00:03:07] Sherrese Clarke Soares: But it also brings joy, like so much of what we all know and have fond memories of, especially when it comes to music are things that are momentous and important times in our lives. And so something that's so core to the human condition to me is nothing but a great investment opportunity. So that's, I think, you know, that's, I guess, one kind of critical piece of the journey.

[00:03:27] Sherrese Clarke Soares: As it relates to starting HarbourView HarbourView. I started in January, 2021 after resigning from my post as CEO of Tempo Music, which was a platform that I founded out of work I was doing at Morgan Stanley. There's so many things, you know, as I was putting together that platform, when I was at Morgan Stanley, I got multiple offers from different investors.

[00:03:46] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We ultimately chose to work with Providence Equity Partners because of their intimate knowledge of the media space. But one of the things, I guess for me was I was, it was my first deal in terms of becoming an investor and finally getting to do what I wanted to do. So I didn't really, you know, in hindsight, negotiate the best deal for myself as it relates to, you know, economics for something that I was building with my own two hands.

[00:04:11] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And it basically started from a blank sheet of paper in 2015 when I was pregnant with my son, actually. And so I really finally had this moment and this aha moment of, one, there's an opportunity, people are looking for people who, who are like me and have the track record that I have to back me and I was getting a lot of actually reverse inquiry when I was at Tempo for investors to back what I had built a lot of unsolicited inbounds.

[00:04:39] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And that was largely because I had spent so much time trying to curate investors to really support what it was that I was looking to build. And so that started to give me some confidence that, you know, that there was really an appetite for the firm and the vision that I was looking to build. And so I resigned in December of 2020 with, you know, the idea that I really was going to build a firm that was bigger than music.

[00:05:05] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Tempo was also only designed to be a music rights acquisition platform. And I really wanted to do music 'cause I love it, but also do things outside of music as well. So I launched HarbourView and went about the business of finding the right partner for us. We knew we wanted to partner with a large scale asset manager to really turbo charge and accelerate our growth.

[00:05:25] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so we did that in October of 2021, where we launched a billion-dollar partnership with Apollo, but importantly, we are independent. We're an independent firm and we're able to retain that independent and that discretion over how we invest, how we think about building out the firm, which is great. And so was able to do that in October, launched officially in October in terms of our capital partnership and have been out, telling our story to the world and really looking at building a coalition that believes in our vision, which is in identifying opportunities that other people have a hard time seeing because they kind of only invest from their own, from their native walks. Whereas we, by virtue of being a diverse team, we believe in the power of thinking about things differently.

[00:06:08] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so, so that's what we've been up to. It's really exciting. I'm joined by exceptional humans that have joined me on this journey. We're all really aligned to the vision and the mission with all of my team, including my assistant, really participating in the equity upside of the business, where 13 full-time professionals, soon to be a 14th.

[00:06:26] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And, you know, we've been pretty busy since October. We've made a number of investments, some of which we've announced, some of which we are about to announce. And so, continue to look forward to that. And we're, you know, pretty active in the market while also starting to think about investment opportunities outside of music, which we're really, which we're really, really jazzed about.

[00:06:42] Dan Runcie: Could you talk a bit more about the opportunities specifically for your diverse team and the opportunities that investors saw in you that you feel that the market wasn't focusing on? 

[00:06:55] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah. So I would say, like, one of the things that's critical to us is obviously, you know, we are who we are. And so, you know, when you look at us as an investment team, we very naturally look different than any other investment team that you will see.

[00:07:07] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Like, the collage of who we are as a team is always like my proudest moment of a page when I'm showing into anyone in the world and telling our story, because we are really sort of, you know, I know you're Jamaican, too, by heritage. And so, you know, as, as you know, we have a statement "Out of many, one people," and so it really does kind of resonate with that.

[00:07:26] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so from that perspective, that was really resonating with how we talked to investors, including Apollo, which was great. They saw that in us immediately, but also how we think about the world. We think differently. And we think our difference is our strength. And so what that means is that we have approached the opportunities based with a very data-focused mindset.

[00:07:45] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And that data-focused mindset actually leads to the truth, which the truth is that we own a lot of things that are in the Latin space, and the hip-hop space, and R&B space, which we're all really proud of because we also are showing very quantitatively and, with data, that that's where the real growth and the real opportunity is in our perspective.

[00:08:04] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so we tend to try to, again, lead with this idea that the world is round and not flat. And what we mean by that is a lot of investors tend to do the same playbook over and over again, or a template that, you know, many other people do. We're very focused on building a pathway that allows us to not take anything for granted to not come into a situation with preconceived notions, to really try to identify what we think our value add is to an opportunity set, whether it's in music or otherwise and how we really can envision the future.

[00:08:40] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And that really, I think, has been resonating with investors, with our partners because it is a differentiated approach to how other people are thinking about it. In the music space, obviously, there's a lot of great firms, many of whom we admire who have done really fantastic things, but we just differentiate our strategy from that.

[00:08:57] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We are not aiming to be a music operator, a music label, or a publishing business, or otherwise. We are really aiming to be a really strategic partner from an economic perspective and financial perspective to the overall ecosystem. So that really allows us to think creatively and to do really creative things and really be respectful of the fact that, you know, the creative ecosystem itself has gone through its own journey, has offers and brings a lot to the table. But in a similar vein, we as seasoned investors bring a lot to the table, too. And so we're able to engage in the way that's differentiated from others that are kind of purely looking at it from an operating perspective. 

[00:09:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We're looking at it from, like, okay, how can we join forces together and really drive upside for both sides of the equation? So we, we typically try to, in anything that we do, any investment that we make, structure how everybody benefits on a go-forward basis together. 

[00:09:49] Dan Runcie: I'm very glad you're focused on this piece because one thing that I've always scratched my head at is I've talked to other people who are investors in this space.

[00:09:58] Dan Runcie: And I would always hear from them specifically about hip-hop music that, oh, well, it isn't mature enough. And they don't feel like it's proven or they feel like it's too disposable or they feel like sampling is a challenge. But if you look at streaming data, which a lot of this has been influenced by, especially with the current wave of acquisitions.

[00:10:18] Dan Runcie: It's hip-hop, it's Latin music where we think about the genres that have shown the power and the potential, especially on a worldwide perspective. I'm like, you can't overlook this forever. So, you know, in many ways it's their loss.

[00:10:31] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Well, mostly, yeah, you know, people do what they're very comfortable with. So it's like things that they know, see, and hear, which, you know, I get it. And I'm okay with, I guess, to a point. You know, I'm excited about everything in the classic rock space, as much as anybody else. Like, I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of all of it, like, grew up on all of it, enjoyed it, listened to it, but I'm also a child that was raised in the hip-hop era.

[00:10:53] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Like hip-hop is going to be 50 years old next year. Like, that's not an immature thing. You know, I don't think we're calling 50-year-old people children, in which case, there is a lot that underlines it. And so it's all about how you sift through the data, how you look at what your, what you think is driving and where you think things are going to go, which gives us a point of view that we think again, is differentiated.

[00:11:14] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We have a lot of things in our portfolio that we believe to be really strong for the culture, really strong from a legacy perspective. And we think has really extraordinary growth potential for a variety of different reasons. And so we don't believe that view. And again, we don't have any preconceived notions about what's going to work and what isn't going to work.

[00:11:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We really try to be genre-agnostic. So, you know, we own a little bit of everything. Like, we're closing this week, a couple of things in the country market, which we're really excited about. We've closed things in the rock market, which we're really excited about, but we are never going to ignore genres such as hip-hop, R&B, et cetera.

[00:11:52] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Latin are places where it may be a very local experience. Like, one of the artists in our catalog is Eslabon Armando. And last week, he crossed a billion streams and was on the cover of Billboard. And he is a Mexican, local Mexican artist, and one of the best in the game, but not very well known here in the US market or in the, you know, pop, you know, the, the pop market, if you will.

[00:12:16] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so just giving a sense for there is a lot to local music, and so I'm sure you can, you know, commiserate, like growing up, what did you listen to on Saturday and Sunday morning in your house? It was not necessarily, like, you know, what was playing on the radio. It was what your mom and dad grew up to.

[00:12:34] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Those rhythmic sounds of soca or reggae or local, which is very local music, but there are billions of people like us around the world that connect with a very differentiated experience. And so we're really bullish on things like that because we know that just, we just know that intrinsically based on who we are, that this is popular music.

[00:12:54] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And we also know intrinsically that, you know, technology is bringing broadband globally to a lot of places where it hasn't existed before. So you intersect those two things and you see growth. And we again drive through data to come to these conclusions, which again, leads us with what I think is the best outcome, a data-driven, you know, evidential support and not just an empathetic one, that this is all real.

[00:13:19] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And we have known it for a long time in technology has democratized it, such that we can see it evidenced in a real way. 

[00:13:27] Dan Runcie: You mentioned the data-driven approach a few times. Is there anything that the data is telling you that you see as a huge opportunity coming up soon that you think that others may be overlooking or not thinking about as much?

[00:13:39] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, 100%. I don't share that though, because then everybody starts, the next thing, you know, people start chasing down my sources. Yeah, no, 100%. That's I think how we, that's how we're differentiated. That's how we find differentiated opportunities. And, you know, we think about that every single day. So we are constantly building our own proprietary data system that we love.

[00:14:05] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And we don't think that anybody else has anything nearly matched to it. I started to build one at my previous platform, but didn't have the resources candidly to actually do it. And now that I do have the resources, we've built it out full sum in a way that we can analyze things from back, you know, backwards and forwards, including historical information all the way through to, you know, tapping into what's happening in real-time platforms, such as, you know, Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, et cetera.

[00:14:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So it gives us a lot of really great insight, which again, I think just makes us approach this a little bit differently than even my predecessor. So, yeah, so it allows us to see a lot of stuff. And again, if I told you what I was seeing, then everybody would just try to go copycat it. What they probably can't copycat is how we've been able to build a really great platform around data analytics that we just continue to invest in.

[00:14:55] Sherrese Clarke Soares: But that's who we are as a DNA, right? Like other people kind of use their DNA, the lead, their platforms, and they have great success in different ways, but our DNA is really around leading around that stuff. And so we're excited about that. 

[00:15:07] Dan Runcie: I hear you on that. And yeah, definitely don't want to give away any of the trade secrets, but let's talk about one of the deals we can talk about, which is the Luis Fonsi catalog, which your company had acquired. With that, you got one of the biggest hits of the 21st century with Despacito. What did it take to make that deal happen? 

[00:15:28] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, I think what it takes is a couple of things. The first is obviously again, leading with data, having a sense for the marketplace. Again, going back to like a local language, Spanish language song. It's going to resonate with a lot of people. They may not be people that you individually know, but it resonates with a lot of people.

[00:15:48] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So from a thesis perspective, completely right on point. And secondly, like just spending time with Luis and the team, Angie and Denny and others, you know, we really connected on what we want, what at least what I personally want HarbourView to be, and how impactful I want it to be for the entertainment business overall, but particularly for recognizing the impact, the cultural impact that we, and I say, we like broadly people of color have in the world.

[00:16:17] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And again, we buy everything, but it's important to me for that to be a level playing field. So I think it was really just spending time with the team, working through sort of the thesis, letting them know who we were thematically as a firm, what we care about. And then that really allowed us to sort of see a really great path together.

[00:16:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And, you know, again, we built in partnership into that deal as we do into every deal. And that allows us to basically, he wants us to win. We want him to win, keep rooting for each other. And all the deals that we have in our portfolio, and we've closed close to 30 deals already so far, are all kind of very similar and kind of pick up on those very same themes of like, look, the things that we know and love are really impactful and important. And you're seeing it drive through, drive through data. 

[00:17:03] Dan Runcie: And after you acquire a catalog like this or any of the other ones in your portfolio, what does the post-sale activity on the asset look like? I know that in this space, a lot of people have talked about whether some investors are buy and hold versus trying to maximize the asset themselves.

[00:17:21] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, absolutely. So the post-sale is, you know, look, we aim to be the forever owners of these assets and we look to provide return to our partners in various ways that we think is differentiated and one that we believe there's nobody better than our team to actually deliver. So we think about, like, how to create liquidity events while still maintaining the ownership ultimately of the catalog itself.

[00:17:47] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so some of that will be in portfolio strategy. And so portfolio strategy for us is like, yeah, we're building an accumulating, a really huge library. We want to be one of the largest buyers, if not the largest buyer, of music catalogs, but we're also investing outside of music in how do we create cross pollination across the music that we own to other places where we may invest as well. So we think there's lots and lots and lots of upside around owning premium content. So we are very focused on being kind of as close to the IP as possible or the IP creation or development, or actually ownership of the IP, because we think that that's going to drive huge, huge upside.

[00:18:24] Dan Runcie: And I imagine that too, that extends into the multimedia aspect too. And obviously why you don't just want to have holded music. You're looking at other assets too, because obviously IP and music's there, but there's so much potential. You're looking at movies and TV shows and just where everything's going with video streaming on that front.

[00:18:42] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Absolutely. But also think about this, two things. One is, again, my team is incredible, just again, an exceptional group of people, but they're athletes, they're not one-trick ponies. And so, you know, they really can think about things across the space. The other thing that's also happening as we engage deeper and deeper in the music space is the same thing is true from the parties that we partner with on the catalog side.

[00:19:04] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Like, many have ideas of things that they want to do way beyond music. And sometimes people, you know, tend to hold a lot of that in a box. But if you look at, you know, culture, culture is led by music in a lot of ways. And so you can see that music is like, you know, kind of a leading indicator and that being a leading indicator helps you to really identify where to go next.

[00:19:28] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so we think that all of these things work very symbiotically together in giving our partners and our partners on the other side is people who are looking to invest in, you know, they, you know, engage in music engagement as well because they engage in music as it relates to how you're thinking about developing either new product on the film and television side and, or integrating it into what they're putting together.

[00:19:51] Sherrese Clarke Soares: You know, again, there's, you know, there's a soundtrack. Every movie, just think about the synergies that exist across both. And so we're very focused on really thinking holistically about the learnings that we get from really understanding the asset itself, understanding the entertainment asset itself and how we think that can apply in other spaces as well and really being very, very intentional about leveraging that knowledge across a wider pool and really creating some of that synergistic upside opportunity. 

[00:20:19] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So that's how we think about it. And again, it's very differentiated than others who have been solely kind of a music operator with a fund vehicle that's attached to it or big firms that maybe only take kind of a point of view at one point in time on the relative value of the attractiveness of music.

[00:20:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We are residents, I like to say. We are not tourist. And means that we're here to stay. Like, we like the neighborhood, this is our block. We know the lady down the street, we know the person up the street, people may move in and out, but we'll be here. This is our home and this space of really kind of thinking about how all these things work together.

[00:20:55] Dan Runcie: And I'm sure it's an exciting time on that front too, with just all the other emerging IP-related opportunities, whether it's with metaverse in gaming or other related things. What is that piece have been like? 

[00:21:08] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, listen, I mean, I think it's really interesting. I think we're at early innings, you know, as my dear friend Morgan DeBaun, who's a CEO and founder of Blavity, likes to say, we're sort of in the MySpace era of Web 3.0, right? So like we all had a MySpace account and we all thought that was going to be it for social media. But truthfully, obviously we're looking at Facebook, and Instagram, and TikTok, and other things as sort of like what became the mature execution businesses of what social media is. I think Web 3.0 and the metaverse and all that is probably in the same place.

[00:21:36] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So super excited about the potential, but we're still really early on what it will look like over time. But I think it's going to be huge for anybody who owns premium IP because that's, you know, again, how do we all decide how we're going to engage? We're going to engage because they're going to be sort of the ability to engage with anchoring around IP that we all kind of know love and care about.

[00:21:57] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So I think it's going to be a really interesting time and an exciting time, exciting time as it relates to sort of the next frontier for a digital distribution. I mean, I'd like to tell people like, it's 2022. In 2012, which was 10 years ago, we weren't talking about streaming, we were talking about downloads and maybe sort of this disruptive technology where people were, obviously, at that point, pirating music. But we weren't talking about, you know, streaming leading how we consume both video and audio content.

[00:22:25] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And 10 years from now, I think, streaming will be, is still a big part of the business model, but we've been talking about something else, too, and we don't know exactly what that is. But what we do know and if we look at over decades, not just the last 10 years, multiple decades, is that as distribution platforms pull up IPs at the center of it and really drives how those distribution platforms, you know, gain eyeballs, right?

[00:22:47] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Like, I don't know if you remember back in the day when you were all growing up and, you know, if you had Comcast or, you know, I don't remember all the cable services anymore, AT&T. Every once in a while, there'd be a dispute between ESPN and AT&T and the screen would go black and you couldn't get your sports content.

[00:23:03] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And who won over time, you know, the content owners, ESPNs and others, who were providing this kind of premium content to allow us all to pay a hundred dollars a month or $200 a month or whatever it is that we pay for cable to exist, you know, really kind of what we're able to command rates and outcomes. And so if you think about that as sort of, again, even a leading indicator around the power of content, this is sort of what we believe in intrinsically. And we believe that that's going to be applied in a Web 3.0 and the metaverse world as well. 

[00:23:34] Dan Runcie: That's a great point. And I mean, I couldn't agree more that, I think about a question I posed to a few people a few months back. It was on whether they would rather own universal music group stock or Spotify stock.

[00:23:47] Dan Runcie: And the answers were pretty split. And I think I was a bit surprised and I was like, you wouldn't want to have the underlying asset that is having all of these other distribution deals with all of these other growing platforms as they are, you would rather take the bet on the one. And of course, you know, there's a case to be made on the other side, too.

[00:24:03] Dan Runcie: But to your point about ESPN and the cable services, the underlying content does end up being the one that triumphs. 

[00:24:10] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, I think that's right. And I mean, listen, like Spotify positively changed the way that the business model and was like the leader and so kudos to Dan Ek and everything that he's built.

[00:24:22] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so I think there is something to being kind of at the forefront of changing a distribution model because there's obviously a lot of room, and it's hard for people to catch up as we are seeing, and obviously why they in so much share. But just to be kind of a generic distribution provider, that's less interesting to me personally, because you get squeezed on both sides.

[00:24:41] Sherrese Clarke Soares: You got to pay for the content and then you got to, you got to compete on price with your subscriber base. And so that's just to squeeze into the middle. That's just pure math. But when you see like platforms like, and we know Netflix is going through its adjustment period now, but when you see platforms like Netflix and Spotify, what ends up happening with them because they lead.

[00:24:58] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And they're so far ahead as it relates to redefining the category, that's why they end up capturing a lot of value. So I hear the debate and understand the debate philosophically, but if you're just asking me, like, would I rather own IP versus would I rather own distribution, it's IP for me all day. Now, if somebody was going to redefine what distribution looks like, then, and in a way that we think is going to be a category killer, that may be a great place to invest because as we've seen, you know, distribution models that, that lead the category and disrupt actually win, for at least an extended period of time.

[00:25:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's a great point at Spotify, too. I feel like they did change the space in what they've been able to do, and even how they've continued to diversify their own income streams. I think they've shown it had the proof points, you know, of what works. And I think similar to Netflix, to some extent, you know, they're changing a few things just given with the way things are, but.

[00:25:52] Dan Runcie: I feel like it's an age old thing. I think one other aspect, I think about, too, just given you mentioned 2012 versus 2022, here we are now. And what the next decade will look like. I look at an app like TikTok where it wasn't a few years ago, where not that many people were talking about it, except for, you know, the early users.

[00:26:10] Dan Runcie: And now it has a billion monthly active users. Fastest app to get there. That just means that that timeframe of getting to a billion monthly active users for the next thing is likely going to be even shorter than it was for TikTok. 

[00:26:23] Sherrese Clarke Soares: That's right. And by the way, and now TikTok is super influential on music that we all listen to, on advertising, on how people get exposed to different things.

[00:26:32] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so, you know, the speed with which, to your point, getting to a billion active monthly users, you know, technology has really allowed to persist is incredible. And so I only think that'll get faster and faster and, you know, again, content, again, back to TikTok, like, you know, it's popularity was indexed off the back of music.

[00:26:52] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And so there's no denying that again, back to like, Seeing what's going to be the next thing. What's the next distribution model, what's the next use case will continue to proliferate. We've got inklings of things that exist now, whether it's out of home exercise or, you know, whether it's other social media platforms or whether it's gaming.

[00:27:11] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So we've inklings of that, but it's all still really small in the grand scheme of the revenue pie. But to, you know, as we've discussed and to your point, like the speed with which technology is changing and moving forward, the next next thing may be on the horizon in the next two, three years, or maybe something that, again, we're not even talking about now in the way that we weren't really talking about TikTok in 2018 or 19. And so yes, technology will move quickly and the way to engage will continue to expand the monetization opportunities. 

[00:27:42] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. The big opportunities there, especially on the longer term, but I'm wondering on the short term though, I've heard a few people talking about just where things are with the market.

[00:27:52] Dan Runcie: We're recording this now June, 2022, and the overall market may not be quite as fraught as it was say, let's say October, November 2021, but there's still deals that we're seeing happening, especially on the investing side. And I'm hearing rumors about this Pink Floyd catalog getting nearly half a billion dollars potentially, but what's your take right now on where things are and whether or not the current market conditions will impact anything that we've seen on the catalog investment side? 

[00:28:24] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, I think, listen, I think, you know, as interest rates rise and as relative value to other risk asset classes change, you may see people who are tourists, from an investor perspective, leave the space because they may say, okay, instead of investing in music, I'm going to invest in this other thing, which will decrease buyer demand and may put some weakness into the market.

[00:28:50] Sherrese Clarke Soares: You know, so I think that being said, you know, people should expect that that may happen in the next few, next few years, or the next, you know, 12 to 18 months is probably a better time frame. But I would say that as it relates to the overall environment, whether it's inflation, supply chain, things of that nature, depending on how a business is positioned and the way that we buy we're positioned really well as a really great hedge to all of that.

[00:29:17] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We don't really have the same exposure to that volatility. The price point, particularly in music from a consumer perspective is actually a really great value. And so we don't see a lot of churn expected. The way that consumers consume music is actually, you know, very accessible, even relative to video content, right?

[00:29:37] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Because video content, you buy into platform, A, B, or C for the exclusive content they have on those respective platforms. Whereas in music, like you can pretty much listen to anything you want across all the platforms pretty homogenously. So that I think is, you know, proves to be a really great asset class, especially in this period of uncertainty, especially with the public equity markets being as volatile as it is.

[00:30:01] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And, you know, people having, you know, a hard time getting a sense for where real value is with tech, valuations being as volatile as they are, because their indexed to the overall equity markets, public equity markets, et cetera, like things like what we do as illiquid, but also, you know, non-correlated for sure, but certainly also countercyclical really actually create a really great investment opportunity for people who are looking to reduce volatility or especially market volatility in their portfolio.

[00:30:31] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So like, nothing's really changed for us in the last. You know, six to nine months since, for the portfolios that we own. Everything's continuing to come in as expected. We don't really see any, like, real top line impact. Whereas other businesses are seeing really top real top-line impact, they have wage inflation, they have supply chain issues.

[00:30:49] Sherrese Clarke Soares: They've got obviously interest rates. They have overall market volatility. And so all that will create kind of near-term uncertainty for those companies and therefore for those company valuations, which we just don't have that same type of volatility. So we're actually really excited about, you know, the marketplace in the near term because we think we'll have a great, you know, we'll have, we have a lot of dry powder and, in having a lot of dry powder, we also are positioned in an opportunity where we have the opportunity to really kind of lean in. So, that's us 

[00:31:21] Dan Runcie: Right. In a lot of ways, that was the pitch, I think, when a lot of these deals were happening, people were attracted to the non-correlated assets and here it is, right? Like, we're seeing what's happening elsewhere. 

[00:31:34] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So a lot of times for entertainment, me being around the entertainment market from an investing and financing perspective for the better part of 20 years, you're always telling people how non-correlated it is, but usually you're kind of having this conversation and the market's all working together and in parallel. Well, what's been interesting about the last few years, starting with COVID is that you've been able to in real-time, see like, oh yeah, it really is non-correlated. Everything else is moving, you know, down into the left and we're moving up into the right because of the way that we consume, because you're basically, again, content in particular, but music even more special, is connected to the human condition.

[00:32:13] Sherrese Clarke Soares: We all have a favorite song. You know, you're going to go to a birthday party or a wedding, you're going to hear music. You're going to go to a kid's performance at the end of the year, you're going to hear music. You know, we all have things that are attached to really important moments in our lives. And we use music and consume music more than we even realize.

[00:32:30] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Sometimes we consume it very, you know, proactively, but a lot of times we can consume it very subconsciously. We go into a grocery store, we go to the gym, we step into our car, listen to the radio. Like, you're engaging with something that again, you know, is very pervasive. It's ephemeral, and it's everywhere, and it allows it to really kind of be resilient on a relative basis.

[00:32:50] Dan Runcie: Right. And I think one of the differences too, between this timeframe, and let's say 2008, when there was the last recession, then the music industry itself, the business model and the state of the industry, just wasn't in the best place to begin with. Even beforehand, just given where things were with CD sales, and piracy, and digital downloads still, you know, and I guess you had, you still did have road tones and things like that at the time, but it wasn't where it is now, where yes, there has been a bit of a slide back with a lot of the stocks. However, music itself was in a strong place. So not only are you able to prove that out, there was an underlying business model here that continues to prove that people are going to listen to all of this music and consume all of this music, regardless of, you know, what may be happening outside.

[00:33:39] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think, look, you know, at the end of the day, all businesses will go through business model adjustments. You know, the music business went through theirs. The film business just recently went through theirs. And I think it's coming on the other side of that, where that's why you're seeing all the major film studios have, you know, a something plus right.

[00:33:57] Sherrese Clarke Soares: A Disney Plus you know, a Discover Plus, or what have you, and starting to move towards having a streaming model as well. So all businesses, no matter what shape or size, no matter what industry media or not will go through disruptions on how the business is consumed and will have these periods of time.

[00:34:14] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And I don't think the entertainment business is, you know, somehow isolated from that or immune to. But what you will see over the long duration is again, back to kind of like the underlying consumption. I'd say the other point to make is like, it's hard to look at stock prices in this current context to really kind of give you kind of a good point of view on volatility or, and, or valuation only because it's a reference point, but we also have to remember that most of the public markets is actually managed by quantitative balancing if you will, but not necessarily active and, and active and thoughtful and you know, investing strategies. A lot of it is very passively managed. And so as there is volatility that injects itself in the overall markets themselves, you see a lot of rebalancing of portfolios that actually just bring prices down that may have nothing to do with the underlying fundamentals of the asset class itself.

[00:35:07] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So that's just something to kind of keep in mind if you're looking at the stocks of universal Warner or any of the other kind of music traded stocks as well. 

[00:35:14] Dan Runcie: The other big piece with this, and you mentioned this earlier, is just the distinction between the tourists and the residents here, right? These types of things end up impacting much more of the tourists who maybe, they only had one foot in and it doesn't take much, you know, ripple for them to move, or shadow, adjust, or downscale what they were doing, where the people that were actually building. Are still in it. I mean, I'm still seeing startup deals happening.

[00:35:36] Dan Runcie: I'm still seeing rounds being closed. And I think that's, it's likely a signal to the people that were more so, you know, dedicated. And they're also just showed with the investment market, saw them as you know, from an opportunity perspective. So I, I think that's a, like you mentioned earlier, that's a big piece of this, too.

[00:35:54] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, I think that's what's going to differentiate us. Like, you know, our goal for HarbourView is to build an institution not dissimilar to a lot of people who I admire in the private equity space. And you know, there's been a lot of great work that's been done over the last 35, 40 years building kind of private equity, asset management businesses.

[00:36:12] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And we're hopeful to build kind of the next generation of that, and really build a scale of industrialized force in the entertainment and media space from a sector perspective. And so as we think about that, we really think about who and what we want to be and being residents of the space is a big piece of that because that's where we can identify places where we can really dig in and support high quality management teams that we really like and want to engage with.

[00:36:35] Sherrese Clarke Soares: That's where we can really dig in support, really having a long term view over owning these assets and really find ways to identify value when other investors, again, kind of have a relative value in their mind and have moved on to the next greatest or the next hottest thing. We want to really be focused on really kind of you know, building, obviously, we have to deliver great returns. And the only way that we can scale to being an industrialized force is having top-quartile returns. So we aim for that just as much as anybody else, but we think that there's a really great way of doing that as being a part of the ecosystem, you know, fully entrenched in the world versus just being there to be opportunistic.

[00:37:13] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, shifting gears a little bit. One thing that I know is near and dear to both of us as Jamaicans, we got to talk about what the opportunities in reggae and ska look like. 

[00:37:25] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, listen. I'm a huge, huge, huge, huge fan. Like, people often ask me, I often get the question in these interviews. Like, what are you listening to? And if I'm really honest, you know, the car ride is the Bob Marley radio station. Every day, my kids are constantly like, why do we always have to listen to Bob Marley? And then every morning the kids get up to Here Comes the Band and Machel Montano, that's the way to kind start our high-energy day.

[00:37:50] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So we're big fans and believers. And to the extent that there's opportunities out there to acquire, we're happy, happy, happy to do it. You know, one thing for about us as a firm is we try not to be a pursuer. Like, if somebody's open to selling, we want to have every opportunity to, to take a look and to compete and to compete on the merits and put our best foot forward.

[00:38:12] Sherrese Clarke Soares: But we are not interested in making anybody feel like we're after just being vultures or after their work. But I say all that to say like, we don't own a lot of reggae and ska or soca today. But if anybody who is of those audiences is listening and is excited to sell, we are happy, happy, happy participants and active participants in that market, but we're never going to, you know, go and try to, you know, force people to, to give up rights or sell rights that, that they may not be ready to.

[00:38:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like it's only a matter of time before we see one of those deals or, or dance hall too. I feel like we're going to see it soon enough. 

[00:38:48] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

[00:38:49] Dan Runcie: Yeah. All right. Well, before we let you go, I do want to talk a bit about mentorship and apprenticeship 'cause I know that's something you've talked about in past interviews as well and just how important it is specifically in private equity and in finance and I want to hear how that's been really helpful for you and your career, and then extending that to the next generation. 

[00:39:11] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yeah, absolutely. So we're big believers in that. We're taking interns this summer, I believe one from Howard and one from HBS. So we're big believers in that. We're a small firm, but we're still having an intern class, which, you know, I think speaks to sort of this idea of giving people an opportunity to just come learn.

[00:39:29] Sherrese Clarke Soares: And us to learn from them and what they can bring to the table. So, yes, it is absolutely 100%. And in an apprenticeship business, I've learned so much from so many really great people, inclusive of all the people that I've worked with over the years at Morgan Stanley. You know, tons, tons of people I could give you lots, a whole long laundry list of names of people there, or even all my new partners at Apollo have been just great in, you know, rolling up their sleeves and thinking about things with me as we've been, you know, looking at, you know, various opportunities.

[00:40:01] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So that's been really great. I think one of the things that we're very focused on as well is really trying to be thoughtful about who we want to be as investors and how we want to, and how we think and we derive our own POV. So we, we try to basically take all the things that we want to take from those experiences, learning how to obviously, you know, do all the diligence and all that stuff are things that I've learned coming up, but having this strong conviction around what we care about, thematically, who we want to be as an investor, how we want to be seen as an investor, how we want to partner with management teams, I think has been things that we've sort of curated based on the experiences that we've had, but mentorship and apprenticeship has been huge part of my career and will never not be.

[00:40:47] Sherrese Clarke Soares: I mean, I, I have mentors today, like even to negotiate my deal that I negotiated with Apollo, I had great people like the great Stu Bergen, who's a good friend of mine, who was a senior executive at Warner music, who really helped me to think through that. Or Robert Smith who's obviously the CEO and founder of Vista Equity Partners, or Damien Dwin who, as a long-time friend of mine, has started multiple platforms have really been people who have been in my ear on like, okay, you could do this.

[00:41:11] Sherrese Clarke Soares: This is how you negotiate that. This is the value that you bring, make sure you stand firm or this or that. And it's been just really great to always have those people around, but it's also really empowering to also, you know, set a vision for what it is and who it is that we want the firm to be, and what it is we want our investing style to be, and what it is we want to be to the marketplace.

[00:41:30] Sherrese Clarke Soares: So, so it's been great. I've been very fortunate over the years to basically have exposure to people who have built great businesses, who have seen lots of things, seen lots of different points of adversity, but also made way, made time to pour back into me. And so we think it's responsible for us to pour back into others too. So we're very, very, very focused on that. 

[00:41:53] Dan Runcie: Well said. And yeah, I think especially people hearing that you're still reaching out to people to help close the big deals that you have given everything that you've accomplished is just a reminder that yes, like this doesn't stop. Everyone that you see is learning. You know, this is a constant thing for sure. 

[00:42:09] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yes, 100%, 100%

[00:42:11] Dan Runcie: Well, Sherrese. This is great. Thank you so much. I think people are going to definitely feel like they'll get a closer lens as to how these deals go down and just a lot of the thought behind it, but I'm sure people will also be listening and waiting for the headlines to see the next deals to drop as well.

[00:42:27] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Yes. Yes. We'll be coming to a neighborhood, neighborhood near you soon. 

[00:42:34] Dan Runcie: And if people do want to keep track, where can they follow HarbourView or where can they do that? 

[00:42:39] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Follow HarbourView on LinkedIn, on Instagram also, and then, you know, check out our website. Yeah. 

[00:42:46] Dan Runcie: Sounds good. Sherrese, thanks again.

[00:42:48] Sherrese Clarke Soares: Thank you so much. So great to see you. Take care. 

[00:42:51] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

After a massive week inside the music industry, I had to bring Wall Street Journal music and entertainment reporter Neil Shah onto Trapital for an emergence podcast on Drake’s surprise “Honestly, Nevermind” album drop and Beyonce’s own announcement for her first album in six years, “Resistance.”

For Drake, he once again switched it up — not only his hairstyle (cornrows this time), but his musical style. Drake is known to experiment with different sounds and flows, but “Honestly, Nevermind” is a complete 180-degree turn for hip-hop’s biggest star. It’s a dance album and actual rapping from Drake is mostly absent, which not surprisingly, has led to a mostly lukewarm response. 

Drake’s musical output has always been high, but “Honestly, Nevermind” ironically comes shortly after signing a new $400m deal with Universal Music Group. With a fresh contract and the economics of the streaming industry as a whole, Drake is incentivized for consistent music rather than “classics.” And whether fans and critics “catch up” to Drake’s new sound or not, he’s getting paid big-time from new releases either way. 

And then there’s Beyonce. Details about her next album are slim besides its drop date, July 29. Announcing an album in advance runs contrary to her last release, “Lemonade”, which was surprise dropped in 2016 — a completely different era in streaming when exclusives were still a thing (Lemonade was on TIDAL only). Even for a star the size of Beyonce, one has to wonder what kind of pull she has in today’s streaming era.

Neil and I covered all things Drake and Beyonce albums in this episode of Trapital. Here’s all our talking points:

[2:31] First Reaction To Drake’s Surprise Album Announcement

[7:12] Drake’s First Album Post-UMG $400 Million Deal

[10:56] Significance Of Drake’s Pivot To Dance Music

[13:25] Is Drake’s Popularity Losing Steam?

[19:20] Did Beyonce’s Album Announcement Affect Drake’s Release?

[23:06] Music Industry’s Evolution Since Beyonce’s Previous Album Drop

[30:21] Will Beyonce’s Renaissance Album Be A Multi-Release?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Neil Shah, @NeilShahWSJ

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

This week, we’re doing something a little different and sharing a fantastic episode from our friends over at the Broken Record podcast. 

On Broken Record, acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, bestselling author Malcom Gladwell, and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam talk with the musicians you love about their lives, inspiration, and craft. 

Today, we’ll hear Rick’s conversation with one of the most innovative artists in music, Missy Elliot. Hope you enjoy! We’ll be back next week with a new episode of Trapital.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

Joining us on Trapital for the second time is Milana Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Stem. She last joined me at the end of 2019 and Stem has been in hyper-growth mode since then. Stem helps artist get paid in a clear and timely manner — not only through online-based financial tools, but music distribution too. 

As a former talent agent for UTA, Milana noticed it wasn’t exactly cut and dry how artists were paid out. That issue is exacerbated inside the music industry due to murky record deals and no-so-transparent streaming numbers. And these problems are affecting artists of all sizes, from the Meek Mill’s of the world, to independent ones.

Enter Stem, which just raised a $20 million. With the the fresh injection of capital, Stem wants to extend its digital tools across the industry even further. It’s a completely new level of transparency inside a industry that’s notorious for being the opposite. Here’s everything Milana and I covered in our interview: 

[0:49] Stem Raised $20 Million In Latest Funding Round

[7:03] The Differences Between Label And Independent Artists Are Becoming Smaller

[11:07] Music Labels ARE Becoming More Artist Friendly

[13:05] Companies That Stem Models Itself After

[16:19] Payments Are An Issue Across Entertainment, Not Just Music

[19:29] Technical Workers Pivoting Into The Creative Side

[23:03] Stem’s Unique Positioning In Music Distribution 

[33:47] Asking Artists “Why?”

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Milana Lewis, @milana

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

TRAPITAL 129

[00:00:00] Milana Lewis: I think a lot of people assume that, oh, you can get your music out there. And that's the only role of the distributor, but that's really a delivery company, right? There needs to be that distinction that people need to realize that, like, there's delivery services. And then there's like distributors and distribution services. And distribution services is not just getting your music into the store.

[00:00:16] Milana Lewis: It's about positioning it. It's about being an advocate, thinking strategically about how you structure marketing plans. And there are a ton of services that even our clients expect from their distributor and that cannot be commoditized.

[00:00:34] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Milana Lewis, the founder and CEO of Stem, a company that's on a mission to provide clarity and accountability to the music industry through modern financial tools for artists, labels, and the people they collaborate with. Milana is a return guest to the Trapital podcast. We did our first episode back in 2019, this was actually at Stem's office and this was down in LA. This one we did remote though. It was great to catch up because Stem just raised $20 million to further its mission. So in this episode, we talked all about the plans for that money, where things are going with Stem, where things are going in the music industry, and why this is so important.

[00:01:31] Dan Runcie: And one of the reasons it's important is because of a op-ed that Milana recently wrote in Billboard which highlights the difference between artists independence and artists autonomy. And Milana's case is that artists really want to have autonomy with their careers. And they may still be willing to partner with others.

[00:01:52] Dan Runcie: So we talked about the distinction there, what that means truly. And there are a few artists, examples that she use that we brought up here and also what that means for Stem in the future that it's building towards. So, we talked about that, and we talked about where Stem sits relative to other distribution services, what customer acquisition looks like for them, and some of the other ways that the business is structured, what's in place for the future. We also talked about a few recent trends happening in the industry, which is great to talk to the actual operators in this space building it. So I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do, too. Here's my chat with Milana Lewis.

[00:02:31] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have a return guest, Milana Lewis, who is the founder and CEO of Stem, which just raised $20 million. So Milana welcome back to the podcast and give us an update. How are things going? And what's the latest, especially with the new round you all have? 

[00:02:47] Milana Lewis: Thank you, Dan, for having me back. I love sort of seeing the growth of the show, too, and the audience, and just more and more people appreciating the work that you're doing. So it's fun to come back. 20 million, we raised it, gives us more runway fuel to continue building what we want to build. And we've been pretty heads down, just scaling up the team to execute. 

[00:03:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that in terms of scaling. I mean, I know that last time we had talked, it was shortly after a raise and a pivot that you all had as well. And I feel like post pandemic though. Now the market's a little bit of a different place, but there are more and more independent artists that want to create, that want to use things and want to build.

[00:03:29] Dan Runcie: So how has that influence been, especially with you all and the plans you have and where you want to take things?

[00:03:35] Milana Lewis: Yeah, for sure. It's funny, you sort of used the word pivot again, and we never really pivoted. So the vision for Stem has always been about how do we ensure a music future where people can expect to get paid in a clear and timely manner, right? And that's not one that exists today, quite frankly. And I think if anything, music has the worst reputation doing that out of if any other industry. And so when we think about how do we bring that mission to life, what we realized the best way to enter the market for us was to start a music distribution company.

[00:04:05] Milana Lewis: If you think about it for an artist as a business owner, it all starts with the song. The song is the first product that they create. Without that song, there's not much of a business otherwise. And the innovation we brought to the market really was around how they split the earnings from that song. And for many different reasons, that was something that became really attractive to all types of artists, right?

[00:04:26] Milana Lewis: Artists that are independent but larger and leaving a major label system, as well as artists that are just starting off their careers. And what we realized is that the problem that we wanted to solve was really one for the artists who were operating more like a business, so there was a team of different people around them who needed to get paid a percentage of their earnings.

[00:04:44] Milana Lewis: There were various collaborators coming in and out of projects, and the complexity there is very different than the complexity of an artist who's more of a DIY artist. And when you and I last talked, we had to make the really hard decision to part ways with the clients that, you know, fit the profile of more of the early stage artists, where their complexity of the payments was a lot more simplified, where we felt like they already had enough tools they were using to do that.

[00:05:08] Milana Lewis: And we wanted to serve the more business-type of artists. The artist has a business, we call them the entrepreneurial-like ones, where they're a little bit above sort of just figuring out where they're going and have an existing management team and lots of collaborators. So it wasn't necessarily a pivot as more of a refinement and focus on our core customer.

[00:05:27] Milana Lewis: And the reason we started the music distribution business is because we needed to create our first client of that software. So we built a music distribution services company that was the first client of the software we were building 'cause back then in 2015, people didn't really understand what we were trying to do, right? They sort of thought about the world of royalty counting, the world of business management, and the world of distribution as being one that's completely different from each other. And what we were trying to do is sort of integrate all of these workflows and processes into one platform and build a tool that all of these people could use, with the end goal of an experience where, whether you're an artist, a songwriter, or producer, you can open up your app or log into your dashboard and you can see exactly how much money you're making off of the products that you helped create, which is your music, right? I hate calling music a product, but it's an incredibly valuable piece of content that has both cultural value, but also has enterprise value.

[00:06:23] Milana Lewis: And we're obviously seeing that happening as it's being traded across so many different types of transactions, whether it's catalog buyers buying music rights or fans buying portions of earnings through NFTs of their favorite artist, like, related to their songs so that we know that there's a lot of value in the song.

[00:06:41] Milana Lewis: And so how do we bring that to life? Well, one, trying to go and pitch that as an offering to the existing music labels and distributors was really hard. They were like, why do we need this? It's their problem, not ours. And creating the messaging around the experience for an artist is really compelling to the artists, but it didn't give enough of a business reason for anyone else to invest in these types of tools or developing them at the time.

[00:07:03] Milana Lewis: So we thought, let's go build our own distributor. Let's set the precedent of what an incredible experience. It can be for an artist producer, songwriter, manager to know what they're getting paid when they're getting paid. So we did that, and that's what we've been focused on for the last, call it, five or six years of the business is really changing people's expectations around what it means to be artists-centric, clear, not transparent, but clear, and timely.

[00:07:28] Milana Lewis: And I think that we've done a pretty tremendous job at that. We've witnessed other people emulating our features, right, which is now a thing that many distributors offer. We've seen major labels increase the cadence in which they're paying their artists, right? We've seen sort of more transparency happening across the board.

[00:07:45] Milana Lewis: And yet it doesn't feel like it's enough. And so the reason we raised this round is really to take the tools that we've built for ourselves and our distribution class. And make them work for other labels and other distributors who want to be as clear with their artists, with their creators being producers, songwriters, et cetera, and not have to make the investment in building and maintaining those tools themselves.

[00:08:08] Dan Runcie: And thinking about the importance of that, there are so many artists that are signed to major labels, we see them tweeting or share their thoughts often about how they don't necessarily know what's coming in, when is it coming in and how all of those things line up. So I do feel like for you all, there's a huge target audience there that, even though many people may assume that it's the independent artists that need to see this and major label artists would be fine, no, in many cases, it's likely the opposite. So there is that black box and the fact that a lot of the artists, especially the A-list ones, want it. That means that there's a need for it.

[00:08:44] Milana Lewis: Yeah. Well, the thing that I'd love to sort of dive in on with you on what you just said is you're kind of creating a distinction between a major label artist and an independent artist as being two different types of artists. And I think when you look at the landscape today, it's not so black and white. Most artists are autonomous.

[00:09:02] Milana Lewis: They choose which projects are with a major label and which projects are independent. And they want that autonomy. And if that's true, then this need becomes even moreso because now they're getting to a place where they're having to have that information come into them from so many different sources, distributors, platforms that just having one place to centralize it all is going to be really important for them to make good business decisions or just be in the know.

[00:09:27] Dan Runcie: Right. So do you think that when artists are like, okay, I want to be independent, they're really saying they just want to have more control in general and that they just want to still be able to have the support of others, because I do think that that's kind of what it's getting at, right? It's not that the artists don't want to partner with others.

[00:09:45] Dan Runcie: It's not that they're not willing to split things or that they want to wear every single hat themselves. They just want to be able to push things forward or be able to have a little bit more direction. And you had written a piece, it was a guest column in Billboard, that highlighted this, and you used Meek Mill as an example of this exact story.

[00:10:05] Dan Runcie: Are there any other examples that come to mind that distinction? Especially because I do think that you hear so much about independence, but what it really is is people wanting to have a bit more push, even if there is someone else that they are dependent on. 

[00:10:21] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I think it means something different for every artist. And I think it just depends on their previous experiences, right? When we sit with our clients and we ask them like, why do you want to be independent? Why is that important for you? We hear one of these following reasons, right? Control is one thing you talked about. We've also witnessed people say they actually don't care about control.

[00:10:39] Milana Lewis: They just want more money and have more of the economic participation in that projects, right? That's another one that we hear a lot. The third one is not necessarily control, but more like creative autonomy and flexibility there where they don't really want some, they don't need to be A&R, right? Like, they just want someone else to help execute the activities that they are putting together as part of the release plan, or they know exactly they're going to collaborate with, like, they don't need a lot of the A&R services they're getting elsewhere. So why, why give up the freedom and being able to move agile and quickly just by partnering up with someone else, right?

[00:11:16] Milana Lewis: So I think it's a combination of those. They either want to keep more of the economic upside. They want the creative liberation and freedom, and control is a big piece of that as well. And then the last piece that I actually think is pretty important is visibility, right? There's a lot of artists who are independent because they don't trust the existing system.

[00:11:34] Milana Lewis: They're okay with giving up control. They're okay with giving up more of the economic upside to someone else, but they just don't feel like they can trust the way that the industry will work. And so they want to be maybe in control or they want to be just having that visibility.

[00:11:49] Dan Runcie: Right. That creative piece is a big piece because especially now we're hearing the wave of major label artists that don't want to be forced to put out TikToks to promote their music.

[00:12:01] Milana Lewis: Halsey, last week. 

[00:12:02] Dan Runcie: Yup, and Florence from Florence + The Machine, too. 

[00:12:05] Milana Lewis: Totally. Yeah. I mean, those are absurd, but that's the reality is like the minute that you work with a major entity like that, there's other people who are going to have a say in various parts of the rollout, which was in sometimes that's a good thing. And sometimes it's not, it just, once you hand over the project, it's theirs, it's not yours anymore.

[00:12:24] Milana Lewis: And I don't believe that that's always the case. Like, I think in my op-ed I tried to make it really clear. Like, I don't think labels are bad. I actually believe that if anything we've seen happened in the last six or seven years that we've existed, is there, how do I say this? Their desire to become more aligned with their artists that they're working with, they want to be more artist-friendly. Like I just had a call today with someone who's pretty senior up in the c-suite at Sony. And, like, they're going through so many big initiatives internally to be more artist-friendly, to pay their people faster, to be more transparent. I mean, they made an announcement today where they're forgiving a lot of unrecouped debts.

[00:12:59] Milana Lewis: Like, we're seeing the behavior and the nature and the sentiment of these entities changing and evolving, which is an amazing thing. It's just, how does that trickle through the whole entire ecosystem? And while they might have the resources to build it, there's so many other smaller entities and labels that provide incredible artist development services that are not capable of investing in their own infrastructure to keep up.

[00:13:23] Milana Lewis: And I think that's really the opportunity for us is creating a turnkey solution for these companies that are so invested in being great partners for their artists, but just don't have the capacity to build their own technology. 

[00:13:35] Dan Runcie: And that makes sense. And in your piece, too, you talked about how other industries have done a better job of this.

[00:13:42] Dan Runcie: And I agree with you. I think music has come a long way, even someone like Olivia Rodrigo being able to get a more favorable deal. Like, she got early on as a sign of how far things have come along. But in terms of other industries, can you talk more about that and what are some of the other things that you've seen about how others have done it better?

[00:14:00] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I mean, you know, Square's a company and you look up to, and it's one that I referenced quite a bit, but what's been amazing about what they've been able to do is not only provide the tools, but also provide the education for a small business owner to become more financially literate about their business, right? 

[00:14:17] Milana Lewis: It's amazing how much quicker and better decision-making you can make when you're looking at the numbers consistently, and they're being surfaced to you where you don't have to like haul, haul through spreadsheets to figure out what's going on. And I still think that we're very much in the universe, in the music industry, where people are hauling through spreadsheets at every level to figure out what's going on. And that takes a lot of time. And I think what Square did so brilliantly is it took really complicated business decisions and surface data so that the person who's running the business can look at it and make more actionable decisions. Right. But it started with speeding up the ability for those people to accept payments in a digital form.

[00:14:54] Milana Lewis: So when I first discovered Square is because I loved food trucks, and food trucks started off as a cash business. And then quickly it started seeing everyone being able to accept credit cards because they had that little Square attachment. And so now you're transacting all that data's being put into a system in real time.

[00:15:09] Milana Lewis: So when you go to close your books or you look to see about your income at the end of the day, it's all in your Square app, you can see that happening there. You know, on a more sort of like enterprise level, it's incredible what Square and Brain or that Square, sorry, Stripe and Braintree have been able to allow startups to do, right? A lot of the whole on-demand economy, everything from Uber, and Lyft, and Airbnb could exist because of Stripe and Braintree, right? It took the headache away from a business that's trying to scale quickly and create an offering from having to figure out how you can accept credit cards, how you can transfer money between the customer and the person providing services and the platform.

[00:15:47] Milana Lewis: And it did that in a way that super seamlessly. It didn't have to become something that every company had to figure out. It became something that companies could partner with them on and build everything else around it. And that enabled a lot of innovative things to exist. And music industry just hasn't had the benefit of that kind of infrastructure to enable a lot of the innovation that's happening right now.

[00:16:07] Milana Lewis: Like, you know, we're spending quite a bit of time with a lot of the companies in the NFT space that are promising to share their royalties with their fans, but like they're struggling to actually make that happen because, in reality, those artists are making money from so many different sources in the real world.

[00:16:21] Milana Lewis: How do you translate that income in a way that's accessible to transfer to someone else? And not just one other person, but thousands of other people? 

[00:16:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I do think that music has a long way to go on that front. And I'm curious what you think about other areas of the entertainment industry, and if you think it's any better there, I know that you were in UA before this, so you definitely, you know, saw a lot there. What are your thoughts? 

[00:16:45] Milana Lewis: No, like TV is the worst place. I think more than anything, especially because a lot of the streaming services and television don't pay a backend deal and they don't, they don't pay backend because they don't want to. Just for them, like that's a headache.

[00:16:55] Milana Lewis: They don't want to have to figure out. . Film as well. Like, payments is a huge problem in our team and across the board. Music to me is just the easiest place to solve for it primarily because it shouldn't be as complicated as it is. It's a much more dynamic industry. Believe it or not.

[00:17:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 

[00:17:11] Milana Lewis: And the partners, the platforms provide a tremendous amount of data to supplement the income that they're paying out. Whereas like, if you're trying to figure out how much your show is being streamed on Netflix, when they pay you whatever they owe you, like they're not giving you that reporting data.

[00:17:25] Dan Runcie: Right. I was listening to a podcast. They were talking with Steven Soderbergh and he was talking about how, the only way that he knows that he's doing a good job, or if he's making something else, they literally are like, Hey. The movie did well, do you want to make another one? And, okay, if you're Steven Soderbergh that may work, but if you're most of the other people trying to do stuff, there's no security. There's no way to feel like you have any sense of autonomy at all with that. 

[00:17:51] Milana Lewis: Yeah, and honestly, like, the visibility problem isn't one that's just like limited to the artists' experience, right?

[00:17:57] Milana Lewis: Like, the artist is at the center of it. It impacts the songwriters and producers and the publishers. It impacts the manager and their ability to support the artists that they're helping manage the careers of. And more importantly, it impacts the label. I mean, one of the things that I wrote about in the article that I did for billboard was just like, in reality, like I really laughed at myself thinking about being that marketing person or like that finance person at Meek Mill's label, having to figure out like, what do we owe him and how much have we spent on him?

[00:18:25] Milana Lewis: Like, do they know, right? Like, how were they tracking the expenses? ' Cause every label we've talked to and done customer interviews with, they're using Google sheets. Maybe they're using QuickBooks. If they're super organized, they might have some sort of internal system for budgeting that they felt, but not everyone's touching that system, right? So there's just so much inefficiency and it, and to me, that's the part that I'm really excited about solving. Don't get me wrong. Like, I love the artist development side. We have a whole artist relations team that works on the distribution side of the business that cares a lot about the creative element of the work we're doing as well. But to me, all of that still needs really good infrastructure in order for those decisions to be more streamlined. And I think it's because everyone who comes to work into music wants to be as close to the artists or their creative process as possible 'cause that's super attractive.

[00:19:15] Milana Lewis: It takes away from people who actually want to solve the, you know, the infrastructure problem that exists. One of the things we've noticed and is kind of like a funny, but also painful thing we deal with is like, we hire tons of people on the technical side, whether they're engineers or product people.

[00:19:31] Milana Lewis: And I can't tell you how many of them have taken the job at Stem because they love music and want to be building solutions for artists only then to find out a couple months in that they actually don't want to be engineers. They want to be in the artist relation side. 

[00:19:45] Dan Runcie: Wow. 

[00:19:45] Milana Lewis: It happens all the time. And I thought that we were crazy. And then I talked to someone who was at Myspace back in the day, running engineering over there, and they had a similar problem. So people want to work in music because they want to be closer to the creative process of it, which is incredible. And it's so powerful to do that 'cause you're legitimately servicing people who create and shape culture, right? 

[00:20:06] Milana Lewis: But not enough people want to actually build the picks-and-shovels of the business. 

[00:20:10] Dan Runcie: Definitely. 

[00:20:10] Milana Lewis: And we're sure looking for people who want to.

[00:20:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And that point too reminds me of some of the thoughts I've heard for people that have looked at a lot of these newer solutions that have come up trying to solve particular problems, or helping people support artists, or just connecting fans to artists more directly.

[00:20:28] Dan Runcie: And some of the critiques I've heard from people in the music industry is that these people, they may understand their business, or they may understand tech or investing, but they don't actually understand music beyond, you know, actually wanting to be in the culture and not like, as you said it, actually, you know, picking up the shovels and doing the work.

[00:20:47] Dan Runcie: And I feel like that has grown even more. I mean, even more since the last time you and I did a podcast where you're just seeing more and more of that, and it's great to see the investive activity. It's great to see everything, but there's still a disconnect between the actual solutions that need to be solved.

[00:21:04] Dan Runcie: That it's not always, you know, the person that finds the artist as the investment opportunity, being able to snap photos with them and post them on Instagram or whatever. 

[00:21:14] Milana Lewis: Yeah, I mean, that's why we have the distribution business, right? Like, we created an internal customer that we can continue to build and evolve for who feels a lot of the same pain points, encounters, the same challenges that other labels and other distributors have.

[00:21:28] Milana Lewis: And so we have them right next to us as we're building and developing. The other thing too, is when we hire people on our product team, you know, we've had a couple of people that come from. The finance world and FinTech, but the majority of our product managers and product leaders and designers come from the music business, right?

[00:21:44] Milana Lewis: Like, one of our senior product managers, this woman, Sarah is incredible. She spent years working at Virgin Capital as a product manager there, but not product manager on the technical side, more on the creative, like, marketing side. So she's done that job working really closely with artists and she understands those painpoints and was a manager herself.

[00:22:03] Milana Lewis: And then actually made a career pivot and decided to get into like technical product development, worked at other tech companies and is now at Stem. So, like, I think one of the things that puts us in a unique competitive advantage really is the fact that we're able to find these like unicorn humans who have the skillsets that like grew up in music, understand the music business intimately well, but have also developed pretty deep technical skills and understand how you built in scale technology offerings. 

[00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's the combo right there. I feel like everyone's after that, but when people have those people, they keep them close. They don't want to let them go. Understandably so, right?

[00:22:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Shifting gears a bit because you did talk about distribution and that, of course, being one of the big parts of your service, I want to talk about growth and just what that process is like for customer acquisition, because I do know that music distribution has become a even more crowded space.

[00:22:54] Dan Runcie: There's a lot of competitors, a lot of people try to say, Hey, this is the place you can, you know, distribute through or rehab what you need to help you. How has it been navigating that? And what are some of the things that have been most effective for you from a acquisition perspective? 

[00:23:09] Milana Lewis: Yeah. So a couple of things, we built the distribution business for an entirely different purpose than many other people do.

[00:23:14] Milana Lewis: So the things that many of the distributors care about, we don't. We don't care about market share. So you will never see us on the peeling of an artist. You will never see us taking claim over their releases. And the way that we think about our distribution service and offering is really intentional about how can we super serve clients.

[00:23:30] Milana Lewis: So again, we don't take anyone. We've been incredibly intentional about the types of clients we want to serve. And it's because we really have a point of view for them. And we think that we can help position them in a way that other people can't. So growing and scaling the distribution business isn't our biggest priority.

[00:23:46] Milana Lewis: Our biggest priority is going and scaling the tools that enable the distribution business to be successful. That doesn't mean that we're not going to continue to expand that team. I mean, a lot of the use of proceeds of this fundraising round is going towards hiring more people to service our clients on that.

[00:24:01] Milana Lewis: And that's a direct response to the demand that we've seen in this space and just the fact that we legitimately have not had enough people to be able to take on the clients that come to us. So we've had to be a lot more intentional and turned down a lot more business than we can take on. So we want to be able to meet the market and, you know, but do it in a way where we're so conscious of our capacity, because the reason we started the distribution business is because we saw this, like, gap in the market where so many other distributors are going after market share and growth, that a lot of artists were just lost in the shuffle.

[00:24:30] Milana Lewis: They were lost in the volume and our distribution offering is a direct response to that. And we're going to keep it boutique in that way, because we think that there needs to be a place for artists to get the attention they deserve at a price that's the right value exchange for the services they're getting.

[00:24:46] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I hear that. I mean, and I think for you all specifically, having the distribution service be either not necessarily a testing ground, but just having a place to be like, Hey, this is serving the other tools and services that we have. I guess there's a few other models like that that we see.

[00:25:03] Dan Runcie: Like, of course I think that UnitedMasters has, you know, their version to some extent where it does serve what they do on the ad side. And I think some of the others do, but I think that the tough thing is, if you're not either building the business in some type of way, you have some other type of thing that is one of the main value adds that you offer.

[00:25:22] Dan Runcie: It's a commodity and just being able to differentiate yourselves in that perspective. And I feel like that's what, at least it's been not necessarily missing, because I do think it's a very real challenge, but it's a long tail. It's a long tail for a reason. But I do think that the companies, like yours, I mean, you obviously made the switch a few years ago to focus more on the select artists that were fitting that profile.

[00:25:45] Dan Runcie: That ultimately I think is where the most successful companies can be. Otherwise you're trying to just jab anyone you can. And I mean, as you know, that could be a very costly game. 

[00:25:55] Milana Lewis: Yeah. And quite frankly, the commodification of distribution really pisses me off because it's not a business that's easily that, like, it shouldn't be a race to the bottom on fees.

[00:26:05] Milana Lewis: I think a lot of people assume that, oh, you can get your music out there. And that's the only role of the distributor, but that's really a delivery company, right? There needs to be that distinction. And people need to realize that, like, there's delivery services and then there's like distributors and distribution services. And distribution services is not just getting your music into the store.

[00:26:21] Milana Lewis: It's about positioning it. It's about being an advocate, thinking strategically about how you structure marketing plans. And there are a ton of services that even our clients expect from their distributor and that cannot be commoditized, but that also makes it challenging because a lot of it is relationship driven.

[00:26:36] Milana Lewis: It's hard to scale because you have to be able to be attentive and give the right focus to the clients that have a point of view. So I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of confusion from sort of the market around, like, the difference between a distributor and a delivery mechanism. And I just want those to be clarified because yes, delivery is commoditized. Distribution should not be.

[00:26:57] Dan Runcie: That's a fair distinction. That's a fair distinction. So when new artists are either considering you or they're considering others, or you do want to bring them on board, what's your pitch? What is the big thing that you and the artist relations team say to bring them on and make them feel like this is a place where their career can level up?

[00:27:16] Milana Lewis: Yeah, I wish I had Kristin on here with me 'cause she does the pitch so much better than I do. And she's the president of that side of the business. So she spends the most time thinking about it and kind of consistently refining the offering there. But the unique thing is is that we don't actually start pitching unless we understand what that client is looking for.

[00:27:32] Milana Lewis: Because again, like we have the ability to shape our value proposition to our clients, depending on what their needs are. So some clients come to us and they say, we just want someone that's going to pick up the phone. We need them. We want you out of our way, and we want money, and we want that money as cheap as possible, and that's it. And it's like, great. We're going to give you the tools so you can handle it yourself. You'll have a dedicated account manager that will get on the phone with you whenever you need them to, you can text them. You don't have, like, a support line you call, you have that human being's phone number. And they're very responsive because they're not servicing hundreds of artists at a time.

[00:28:04] Milana Lewis: And we're going to show you the options that we can give you as an advance, but you're going to control the terms. So if you want the cheaper fee, take less money up front and take in tranches. You can take the same exact of my money, but instead of withdrawing, call it a million dollars at once, take it out in tranches of a hundred thousand, you need to spend a million dollars next week, right?

[00:28:21] Milana Lewis: Like if you're not, don't do that. And we're going to pay you every single month and we're going to pay all the people you want us to pay on your behalf so that you can stay focused on the things you want to focus on, right? That sort of like the tried and true, like keep things, easy pitch. Those are the most exciting clients to work with, but there's enough labels that feel that way.

[00:28:39] Milana Lewis: And every so often they maybe want to get advice and strategy from us and that's great. But for most clients, they come to us because they want a real thought partner, right? I think one of the reasons why a lot more artists are not independent, quite frankly, is because them and their management team don't want to take on all the work on their own, right? I think people have, like, the criticism of, like, they always want someone else to blame. Like, they want to be able to blame the label. That is a direct statement and quote that our mutual friend says a lot. But you know, what they really want is someone that's going to understand the narrative of the artist and the positioning and advocate on their behalf to the DSPs.

[00:29:15] Milana Lewis: And our pitch for them is that we're not delivering, again, hundreds of songs a week or a month or pitches for that reason. When we deliver something, the DSPs pay attention to it because we're so intentional and curated. So your pitch is going to stand out. It's going to be delivered. People are going to hear it. We can't guarantee you're going to get placement, but we're going to go out of our way to make sure that the positioning is there for your client.

[00:29:35] Milana Lewis: So we've done a lot of unique things, too, with our clients to build those relationships with the editors. Everything from sending curated boxes to renting suites, suites at big sports games and inviting people out to build that relationship personally with the artists. Like, we try to be a lot more hands-on and experiential than I think many other distributors are with their clients.

[00:29:57] Milana Lewis: So we take that, like, indie label approach to supporting the artist, but we don't overpromise and say, Hey, we have a big radio team. Hey, we have a whole in-house digital marketing team. Like, all of that stuff, we're very clear that we're going to outsource that, but you're going to be in control of how that money is being spent and you're going to be in control of picking the right partners.

[00:30:15] Milana Lewis: So we're really more dot connectors and strategists, and we're just upfront about what we do, what we don't do. And I think a lot of people find that refreshing and that builds trust and people like that. 

[00:30:25] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I know a lot of this has been focused more on the streaming side because that is where so many of these playlists pitching and that type of conversation happens.

[00:30:34] Dan Runcie: But do you get a lot of interests from artists who are focused on what support you may be able to provide if you all do on vinyl or some of the other non-streaming music revenues? Just because of how much... 

[00:30:47] Milana Lewis: No, we have vendors that we can partner with for vinyl distribution and physical. It's not a core competency of ours, and it's not one that we want to handle either.

[00:30:55] Milana Lewis: So we're honest, we're just like, we don't do that, but here's why people who do, and we've worked with them, we've had great experiences and we'll help you pick the right one because, if you're only looking to print this number of units, they're probably not the best partner this person is. If you're in this, like, there's so many considerations. We have a whole strategy team that we've built out where this is their full-time job is getting to know the landscape of all of these service providers and vendors, vetting them out, understanding what they're good at, so that when clients come to us, we can make the right recommendations. 

[00:31:21] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And does the same thing exist as well for artists that may be reaching out to you, whether they want NFTs or they want to do something Web 3.0 related?

[00:31:29] Milana Lewis: Everything. Yeah. So we have a whole digital strategy team as well, where their job is getting to know all of the digital platforms and tools and new companies emerging that if anyone wants to partner with Snapchat in an interesting way or Peloton or Royal or Mint Songs, like whoever that could be, whether it's even like Discord and other platforms, like they're an expert and they can talk, they can be a good conduit but also just educate our clients on that as well.

[00:31:55] Dan Runcie: Right. And I feel like a lot of their jobs who is likely just sifting through the noise and what actually is worthwhile and what isn't. How do you feel about that?

[00:32:03] Milana Lewis: That was my job. I mean, that was my job at UTA, right? My job was getting to know every single technology company that could possibly partner with any of the agency's clients. Started with me as a person that I grew into a team of like, I don't know, like 30 or 40 people today that do that. There's a lot of land to cover there. 

[00:32:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's, every new day there's something else. And I do think that in general, it makes, at least from my perspective, as you know, more from the strategy perspective, like, having the focus is there. And I know everyone is trying to incorporate something into their web, something in Web 3.0, especially if they're trying to, like, raise money and stuff.

[00:32:37] Dan Runcie: But I feel like after a while, like that stuff gets old, not old in a way that obviously that is the future, but old into like, okay, you can't just put lipstick on a pig, you actually needed to have something. So yeah. 

[00:32:49] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I mean, for us, the number one question we ask is why. Why, like, why do you want to do this? Because that'll determine, it's like, if you don't know why and you want to do something because you want to jump on it, you want to understand it. Then we realize that you're still in discovery mode, right? You're still trying to figure out why you want to do it so we can change the way that we approach it with you and take you more on an educational journey versus taking that as directive.

[00:33:10] Milana Lewis: And I think it just like being really, again, like, intentional with your client. And you can't do that across thousands and thousands of them, you have to be selective because that's the level of servicing that those people require. 

[00:33:23] Dan Runcie: How often do you feel like you get a good answer when you ask why? 

[00:33:26] Milana Lewis: You know, it's a really great question, is that I'm not present in a lot of those conversations. So I'd love to have someone else answer that for you. 

[00:33:33] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I got to imagine that at the level of artists you're talking to anyway, there likely is some of that built in to begin with. But every artist is in discovery mode to some extent, right? So I get that. Yeah. But yeah, this was good.

[00:33:47] Dan Runcie: It was great to recap and just hear how things are going and get a pretty good idea of where things are heading in the future. But what are some upcoming milestones or announcements? What are some things that you can share that we should keep our eyes out for? 

[00:34:01] Milana Lewis: Oh, that's a good question. When is this podcast gonna be posted, we think?

[00:34:05] Dan Runcie: End of June.

[00:34:06] Milana Lewis: Cool. Okay. So you'll be hearing about some of the first few labels we're partnering with to power their dashboards and payouts because we're actively developing that right now, quietly with a couple of big players. So we're excited to announce that. Some are independent. Some are part of the major label ecosystem.

[00:34:23] Milana Lewis: So pretty excited to get people's reactions on that. The advance is business. The scale product is growing pretty tremendously. So we're going to make some exciting announcements about how we're positioning that moving forward. And then just continuing to keep our heads down and building an expanded team.

[00:34:40] Milana Lewis: There's a lot of new, exciting people that have joined us that we haven't talked about yet, but we will soon. 

[00:34:44] Dan Runcie: Nice, good stuff. Good stuff. Well, Milana, thanks for coming on. This was great. 

[00:34:49] Milana Lewis: Thanks for having me. 

[00:34:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And for the people following. They'll know to find you and keep up with everything, but keep up the great work. It's great having you on. 

[00:34:57] Milana Lewis: Thanks for having me again. And thanks all for listening who made it this far. 

[00:35:01] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group. Chat, posted in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word.

[00:35:14] Dan Runcie: continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use apple podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating. And we've reviewed tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you. In advance. Talk to you next week.

Bay area artist Rexx Life Raj (real name Faraji Omar Wrightz) is in album mode with “Blue Hour” set to drop soon. The new album is his most personal yet. It was largely recorded after his mother passed away and before his father did too — which was within a three-month span of each other during 2021. The personal grief of both losses influenced the sounds of the new music. 

While recording this music was one way Raj coped with his grief, he also wants the album to do the same for others going through similar pains in their own lives. The deeper purpose behind Blue Hour is to create a safe space to talk about grief, especially amongst black men, where the topic of mental health can fly under the radar. 

Raj wants Blue Hour to honor his parents, who instilled in him an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. The album will be his fifth — all released independently. A tour will follow later this year too. For a closer look at Raj’s process behind his art, listen to our full interview. Here’s everything we covered:

[3:03] Bay Area’s Influence On Raj’s Music

[4:51] Rexx’s Entrepreneurship Spirit Stems From Parents

[7:07] Did Rex Ever Consider Taking A Record Label Deal?

[8:13] The TikTok Effect On Artists (Pros & Cons)

[11:25] Content Strategy For Raj’s Newest Album 

[14:25] Why Grief Is Such A Big Theme In Rex’s Music

[17:40] How Raj Is Coping With The Loss Of His Parents

[24:10] Personal Goals For The Upcoming Album

[25:53] Post-Album Tour Plans

[30:40] How Tapped In Is Raj To Local Tech Scene?

[32:42] E-40’s Entrepreneurship Skills

[36:37] What Is Raj Most Excited About?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Rexx Life Raj, @rexxliferaj

This episode was brought to you by Highlight. Build the community of your dreams on the blockchain. The new company is backed by leading investors like Haun Ventures, Thirty Five Ventures (“35V”), and more. Learn more at highlight.xyz

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TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Rexx Life Raj: When it comes to numbers, like, you can buy followers, you can buy comments, you can buy likes, but a lot of people will tune in for the spectacle, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a lot of followers who are just like there for the show. Like, you're really good on the internet so we just want to watch you on the internet.

[00:00:15] Rexx Life Raj: But it never translates to anything real. It's like, that's why looking at engagement is such a big thing. Like, I'll look into followers, but then I'll look at how many comments, like, I'll be looking at that kind of shit. Like, how many comments you got? Like, how many people are really tapped in? What's the engagement like on all platforms? 'Cause that's how you can really tell

[00:00:39] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:59] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Rexx Life Raj. He's a Bay Area artist known for the Father Figure trilogy and his upcoming album, The Blue Hour. In this episode, Raj and I talked a lot about the inspiration for this album and what brought him up to this point? Raj, unfortunately, lost both of his parents in the past year so one of the big focuses for this album was grief.

[00:01:21] Dan Runcie: What are the things that Raj had done to process that, him being able to navigate that and some of the coping things that he had done over the year and how that prepared him to be in the mode to create this album. So we talked about the process for that. And we also talked about some of the things he's done to market and push the album.

[00:01:38] Dan Runcie: He has a blog, he has a trailer, and being able to truly document the process. So we talk about some of that balance that a lot of artists have between the marketing they need to do in the actual product that they need to put out and share with their fans. We talked about that and we also talked about how that relates to TikTok.

[00:01:57] Dan Runcie: TikTok has been one of the growing debates with a lot of artists in terms of how they put their content out there and record labels wanting to push them to do things, but Raj is in a different position. He isn't signed to a record label. He is independent. He still does distribution through EMPIRE. So we talked about that decision as well and how he looks at some of the broader trends, whether it's TikTok or, thinking more broadly, he does have a tour coming up as well to promote the album.

[00:02:24] Dan Runcie: So we talked a little bit about what it's like doing festivals versus doing tours yourself. And this was a really good episode. I think a lot of the independent artists will appreciate this. A lot of the independent creators will appreciate this as well because a lot of you are taking a more bootstrapped approach.

[00:02:42] Dan Runcie: You know, it's going to be a longer game, but a lot of the decisions you make need to line up with this strategy and Raj to someone that's doing it on a successful level. So I hope you enjoy this chat. Here's my conversation with Rex life, Raj. All right, today we got the one and only Bay Area native Rexx Life Raj here. How are you doing, man? 

[00:03:00] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah. I can't complain. How are you doing?

[00:03:03] Dan Runcie: I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited for this. And it's good to talk to the artists that are from here, and especially you because you have always had the Bay Area such a clear and prominent focus in your music and your music videos. And I really feel like it's a character in your art in a lot of ways. Can you talk a little bit about the influence Bay Area has and how it shapes what you put out? 

[00:03:25] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man. I think that the Bay Area is just like such an influential place and you see it in terms of just the way, like our lingo spreads, that the sound of the music spreads, you know, the dancing that comes from here, everything is so like cultural and impactful that I feel like if you're from here, it just comes out of you without even trying. Because you know, people always tell me,

[00:03:45] Rexx Life Raj: like, they get that from me and I don't even be trying. It's just like who I am. So I think the Bay Area is tight 'cause it's like a blend of so many different people, but at the cooler of the culture, everybody HiFi for real, you know what I'm saying? And that's really what it is, you know. So, yeah, I love the Bay Area, man. 

[00:04:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's like not everyone needs to do HiFi straight up music, but I feel like you kind of find your own spin on that, right? Like, you can see the origins, but you took it in your own direction. 

[00:04:10] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, it was like, I think that's what's dope about art is that like, to me, art is people living in this life and taking these experiences and it goes through your filter and it comes out how it comes out. You know what I'm saying? So I took an artist of life around me and this is how it comes out. But I think you could still feel like the Bay Area in it just 'cause, you know, this is who I am and where I'm from. 

[00:04:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. And I think, too, looking at your background, I know that your father was a big influence. Not just in your music, but also how you approach your career as someone that owned businesses and I feel like I see a similar thread with how you've went about the business side of music, especially as an independent artist.

[00:04:51] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, for sure. Like, like you said, my dad was an entrepreneur since I was born. I think he had, like, he worked at Coca-Cola up until I think a couple of years before I was born. And then after that, it was pure, like, entrepreneurship. He got tired of working for people. He wanted to set his own schedule and kind of just be in control of his own destiny.

[00:05:09] Rexx Life Raj: So that's all, I really know, like my mom worked at Cal up until I was like three or four, but then she started fully working with my dad in the business. So it was kind of like where I come from. I don't even really know what it feels like to work a job. Like, I worked for a summer job while I was in college, but everything I know is kind of like building it from the ground up, building it from scratch and, you know, nurturing it and watching it grow.

[00:05:32] Rexx Life Raj: And it's kind of what I do in every avenue in like in music, in the brands I have outside of music and just kind of all I know. 

[00:05:38] Dan Runcie: Right. And I know with that path that takes a lot of patience and likely a lot more patience than you're seeing from some of your peers that may be doing other things, whether it's with major labels or others.

[00:05:48] Dan Runcie: And I can speak to that too, from running a bootstrap business and just seeing how it is with others that are going a different path. But how has that been from your perspective? Just balancing obviously the patience, but knowing the long-term outcome that's on the other side.

[00:06:04] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man. I think it's just something that's kind of ingrained in me from, you know, seeing my parents 'cause they had that business for like 30 years and with was so many ebbs and flows in the business, but just knowing, like, it's something sustainable that's going to carry you for the rest of your life. It puts a different perspective on it. And also it's like, I come from a football background and I was the o lineman.

[00:06:26] Rexx Life Raj: I'm used to not getting, like, no shine and no glory and just putting in the work, you know what I'm saying? It's kind of what I come from. So I feel like it's like that with music and for me, and you could probably relate when you doing something like this, it don't feel like work. You know, you're just having fun.

[00:06:41] Rexx Life Raj: So I'm not looking at it like, oh, this is hard. This is tedious. It's like, nah, you're, you're building something. It's a blessing, bro. I get to build something from scratch that people resonate with, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, people are finding value and meaning in it. So it becomes like, even more purposeful for me. So I was just like, bro, I'm blessed, bro. I can't complain about too much. 

[00:07:00] Dan Runcie: Was there ever a point that you did consider doing a more traditional record label deal? 

[00:07:07] Rexx Life Raj: Not really. I mean, we, I want to say a few years ago we took a few meetings with some bigger record labels, but I think my situation with EMPIRE, for me personally, is just, you know, it's ideal, you know? 'Cause I can move out when I want to move. I can kind of do what I want to do. There's no restrictions on me. You know, you hear stories about the majors. You're on a schedule, or you're shelved, or you can put out something. People have been waiting for, like, a year to put out music and, you know, it's such a big system that people get lost in it, you know what I'm saying? You're just banking on having somebody in a building that's rocking with you and you hear stories about those people leaving and now you just kind of, you know, up in the air. So it's like, you hear a lot of weird stories, but for me, the situation I'm in is just, it's solid. I can't, I can't speak on what happens down the road or if it makes sense, maybe it don't makes sense then, but for right now, it's like, what I have is pretty tight.

[00:08:00] Dan Runcie: I hear you on the weird stories. The one I keep hearing right now is people talking about the labels, trying to make them put out TikToks, right? Label wants them to put out a TikTok before they released the track, before they released the album. What do you think about that? 

[00:08:13] Rexx Life Raj: It's interesting, but I think about that a lot. It really makes me sad, you know what I'm saying? Like, when I really think about, like, but it makes me sad cause it's, like, if you're an artist and you don't want to do that, and that's kind of, like, 'cause some people have that persona and personality where it plays into that, you know, they're good at the internet.

[00:08:30] Rexx Life Raj: Some artists are really good at the internet, but I feel bad for the artists who just want to make music. And now they feel like they have to do Tiktok and be less organic and it don't feel right. Like, to me, that's not tight, but at the same time, it's a platform that's enabling so many up-and-coming creators because the algorithm over there is crazy.

[00:08:49] Rexx Life Raj: Like, I remember when I first got on TikTok, I had, like, 50, 70 followers who just followed me over to TikTok, but I will post things and they will go, like, fake viral, like 30,000 views, 40,000 when I only have 50 followers. So I'm like, it's a game that you have to play. Like, you can go over there and bullshit and fake go viral by accident, you know what I'm saying? But it's kinda like, it's kind of contingent upon the artists, but I see, you know, it needs encouragement on both sides., 

[00:09:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think we're also still just so early that we're likely going to see more types of content that can be put out when someone puts out a TikTok, right? Because I feel like when it started, it was people doing these dances that are just in this like vertical screen.

[00:09:32] Dan Runcie: But, all right. They've expanded the timeframe. Like, it doesn't have to look like that. It reminds me of, like, when MTV first came out, you started to hear a little bit of that, right? Everyone thought it was just going to make people to these, like, phonies that just did these, like, Milli Vanilli dances and stuff like that, but then it, then it evolved. So I feel like that could still happen, right? Just 'cause like you said, the reach is so massive.

[00:09:55] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah. No, I think it's happening right now because I feel like from what I've learned in my experience is that fans, like, people who are fans of you are, who are becoming fans of you actually want to know you. And I feel like, you know, with TikTok, it's a place where you could be, you could be dancing and viral and all that, but you can really be personal and show people behind the scenes, like, I look like a LaRussell out of Vallejo. And he's really good at, like, at the internet period, but like, he's not really TikToking like playing a game, he's just getting on there and rapping, you know what I'm saying?

[00:10:28] Rexx Life Raj: And people are receptive to that 'cause there's a whole demographic who just want to hear people rap. So I think it's really about finding like a little niche, something that's comfortable for you, and understanding that, like, you're not making content for everybody in the world. You're making content for your people and finding your people. And like I said, knowing what's comfortable with you and you can win for sure. 

[00:10:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I agree with that, and that's a good example of that, right? Like, I was just reading an article, I was talking about, yeah, the platform's maturing and it's going to be more niches and the more niches, yeah, the less people that are going to want to see these standard TikTok dances, more people are going to want to see bars.

[00:11:04] Dan Runcie: They're going to want to see people wrap. So that's a good point there. Shifting gears though, I want to talk a little bit more about your album, The Blue Hour and what you have coming up. You have the trailer for it. You got the vlog. I really like how you've built up and had the rollout for it. Can you talk to me about the strategy or the plan for how you want it to execute that all?

[00:11:25] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, for me at this point, bro, cause I just understand like, everything is about content and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about with TikTok. Content is king, you know what I'm saying? And for me it's just, I want it to have as much content as possible. So I had the cameraman, you know, my boy filming all these sessions. And then, anytime I'll have a show, I have somebody film it or anytime I have ideas, it's, like, let's try to do this idea, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause the more content you have the better. And so it's just literally when I went into it, it's just like, bro, follow me with the camera and just get everything.

[00:11:59] Rexx Life Raj: Then it'll be shit in here that we could just slowly roll out and turn into a vlog. And then turn it into a documentary, like I'm actually shooting a real documentary right now that we're starting to drop trailers for, but it's just like, anytime there's a camera, turn it on, you know? 'Cause you could choose whether to put it on or put it out, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's not like you have to put it out, but people want to see the process, like they want to hear the music, of course, but people want to see the process. They want to see how you create. They want to see the thinking behind it. They want to see who you're collaborating with.

[00:12:29] Rexx Life Raj: It just makes that connection to your fans I think that much stronger. So it's like when me, I'm just trying to involve them in as much of the process and my thinking as possible to really, you know, make them connect as much as possible. 

[00:12:41] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Do you ever feel any tension with that approach? Because I know I've heard from other artists where they feel like when the cameras are out, they need to do this stuff. It makes them feel like they're more of a marketer than they are an artist. And obviously, it's a combination of both. But how was that for you? Especially as, you know, you want to be in album mode, you know, you obviously have a concept that you want to be able to do purely from an artistic person.

[00:13:04] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, I don't really have that problem, right? And it might be, 'cause I did have the camera on me at this point for a while. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've always had people following me with cameras, but also it's like, I think, you know, if you have a good videographer, they're not all in your face with the camera, like they might ask you questions every now and then.

[00:13:20] Rexx Life Raj: But the people I work with, they're planning the cut. You know what I'm saying? It's like, they're almost not even in the room. To me, that's the best kind of cameraman. It's just like behind the speaker or you're not even paying attention to him. And he's kind of shooting you while you were in the booth 'cause it could be like a distraction. I think as soon as the camera comes on and you're very conscious of it, it changes everybody. Like, this conversation with us will be different if we weren't on camera, it'd probably be more candid. But since we know people are watching, like you kind of changed.

[00:13:47] Rexx Life Raj: So like, I think it's really just, like, having a good cameraman is just like, they're not really in the room. And then maybe after, you know, luckily I've had the camera videographers who are like, afterwards, they'll contextualize it. Like, they'll ask me a question or, like, let's elaborate on this afterwards. But during the process, it's really kind of like playing the clip and just recording.

[00:14:07] Dan Runcie: Right, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think for you as well, thinking about this album, specifically, a lot of the focus you're talking about grief, and you want to be able to not just process your own, but helping other people with it. Why was that an important focus for you with this album?

[00:14:25] Rexx Life Raj: For me, because I think my music is very much grounded in reality, in my real life. And I feel like for me, like this past year, year and a half was the most insane, impactful year I've personally ever had in my life. And I feel like there's no way that it wouldn't come out of me, you know what I'm saying? It's just, so much happened and there was so much emotion and everything built up in me and it came out in the music. And for me, it was almost like, you know, you went through all this shit and you felt all these feelings. There has to be a way that you can transmute this into something that can help people going through the same thing.

[00:15:04] Rexx Life Raj: And for me, music has always been like my favorite songs aren't really the turn-up songs. They're the songs that cut all the way, you know, I'm going through some shit or I need to cry or I'm in my feelings or something. And it's like knowing that music has that capacity and knowing that it could be that like music has helped me in times where I was going through whatever I was going through and knowing that I have the potential to do that.

[00:15:27] Rexx Life Raj: To me, it feels only right to put that into my music, because like I said, I've done songs where like Moxie Jova, Shit N' Floss where people turn up and it's crazy when I perform it. But then I do songs like Time where it hits people on almost like a spiritual level, not even almost, it is a spiritual level in that feeling.

[00:15:46] Rexx Life Raj: That's how I know this is my purpose 'cause I'm so attached to that feeling that people get where they're just like turning up and having fun. So it's like, I want it to create a space for people to be able to talk about grief, to be able to talk about it, especially for black men, because the experience is so much, but how we talk about it, like, with the homies, to me, it's kind of like crazy. Either we talk about it, very surface level, or we don't talk about it. And we hold these feelings in and we harbor it. And that's why for me, like, going back to everything outside of the music, the music is one thing, but my rollout has been to be focused on like, letting people know, like, yo it's okay to express these feelings if necessary, to talk about these things, you know what I'm saying? So that's kind of been my whole thing with this, with this album.

[00:16:31] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Yeah, I feel like this is generally gotten better over time where we are seeing more artists like yourself and others sharing their thoughts and being vulnerable. And I think we've seen it just more broadly in culture where people are becoming much more comfortable. And there is less of a stigma, especially with black men around checking out for your own mental health, being able to get awareness with things. But I still feel like there's plenty of room to grow with that. So you, of course, you know, not just using yourself as an example, but being able to communicate that through music is going to help a lot of people. I know you mentioned that the past year and a half has been tough and I'm sure that a lot of people could likely relate to that for their own respective reasons. So there's a timeliness here as well. And there are so many things happening that I feel like we've almost become immune to whether it's things happening our own life or things happening in society where no, it's helpful to pause because that doesn't happen as often as it should. And things just keep going and going. 

[00:17:40] Rexx Life Raj: Literally, man. I mean, for me too, it's like for people who don't know, just to kind of like give you a synopsis of what's going on. I lost both of my parents last year. I lost my mom in May, and then my dad in August and the majority of the album wasn't really right before my dad passed. So it is sort of three months right after my mom passed. And it's crazy because I remember something that she said to me that stuck with me, it's like, when she got diagnosed with cancer, we had a conversation and one of the things she said was no matter what happens to me, I know you'll, you'll do something good, like whether it be music or whether it be, you know, just you talking about it or whatever. She's like, I know something good comes from this. And I feel like one of the biggest things for me when it comes to grief is finding ways to honor the people you lost, right? So for me, it's like, the album honors her. Me talking about, you know, when I'm going through honors her and that's one of the biggest things for me, that's why I'm so open about it because it's like, yo, it's one thing to go to the cemetery or, you know, wherever your place is where you honor the people you lose.

[00:18:50] Rexx Life Raj: But to me, like, I want to take action in some way to honor my mom, you know what I'm saying? So that's kind of what all there is to me. 

[00:18:57] Dan Runcie: I mean, I could only imagine how you felt. It's so sad just losing both of them in such a short amount of time and obviously, this album has been a point of catharsis for you.

[00:19:08] Dan Runcie: I'm sure. Just the process. And like you mentioned a few of the things you've done as well, but what are some of the other ways that you've been able to the best that you can cope and manage your own stress and grief with the losses and any and everything else in your life. 

[00:19:22] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man, music has really been a main thing cause it was really therapeutic for me, but I think being around friends and family, for me, and being able to talk about these things and cry when I need to in front of the homies and just get things out is important.

[00:19:35] Rexx Life Raj: I try to stay on top of like meditating. Like, I try to meditate two or three times a week, you know, I pray a lot, you know, anything that I could get these feelings out of me. One of the biggest things for me, it sounds funny, but it's the Peleton, you know what I'm saying? For me personally, when I'm going through anything, working out is such a stress reliever, you know what I'm saying?

[00:19:55] Rexx Life Raj: So I had got a Peloton right when my mom got sick and it was something that like any time I built up extra energy or anxiety in my body, I'll just go hop on the Peleton. And outside of me losing a little bit of weight, it just helped me mentally, you know, just working out. I'm really thankful for the Peloton, shout out to all the instructors and stuff on there.

[00:20:15] Rexx Life Raj: That's really tight, but yeah, just find a way to get it out of me. Like, I do all the little stuff. Like I journal a lot, you know what I'm saying? Anything that could get my thoughts out and just kind of figure out what's going on. 'Cause I feel like people have these things in their head, but when you write it down and you can reread it and really see what's going on in your mind, you can have better understanding of what you're going through.

[00:20:34] Rexx Life Raj: So I did this thing called morning pages, which at one point I was waking up every morning. So what you do is you wake up every morning and you just journal for like two or three pages, whatever comes to your mind, you know what I'm saying? Like, no matter what it could be, because when you first wake up, it would be shit like I'm tired.

[00:20:49] Rexx Life Raj: And I really don't feel like writing this. I didn't get a good night's sleep, but the more you write, the more real feelings and thoughts come out. And what happens is if you do it for a long enough period of time, you start to see consistencies and you're thinking in your feelings, right? So you might, for somebody who might be, you know, in a relationship, they keep having these problems in their relationship, and they noticed that they write about it every day, you know, or that you're having problems with your dad or your mom or something that keeps coming up. And what it allows you to do is see it like, yo, this thing keeps happening and then you have the choice to take action, because if it keeps happening and you don't take action, nothing's going to change.

[00:21:27] Rexx Life Raj: But by you writing it every day, like you've seen it seven days, seven days, it forces you to take action and you can clearly see what's going on in your life. So I really believe in that, I read that in a book called The Artist's Way. I highly recommend like that for any artists or anybody just in the creative realm for sure.

[00:21:44] Dan Runcie: That makes a lot of sense. And I've heard similar with people doing voice memos as well. You know, just being able to have that steady, consistent thing that you're putting out there because, yeah, over time it is going to be a reflection of where things are and just that habit of it's one thing to journal, but it's actually having a common practice with it.

[00:22:03] Dan Runcie: I'm sure that's been huge. And I could imagine that even some of that has been a helpful reflection for you as you were putting this album together as well. 

[00:22:11] Rexx Life Raj: For sure. It's crazy 'cause when I was going through, you know, basically being a caregiver for my parents, cause I was taking care of both of them. I didn't really have time to do music because I was so consumed and taking my mom to chemo or radiation.

[00:22:26] Rexx Life Raj: And then my dad, he was already sick. So I'll have to take him to dialysis and the Kaiser and I was, you know, cooking the meals and staying at the house, make sure everything is right. So I really was so overwhelmed with life that I didn't even have the capacity to do music, but what I always did was I have a, in my notes tab, I have a note just called life notes.

[00:22:48] Rexx Life Raj: So anytime something would happen, like, I'll have feelings, a lot of different feelings and emotions. I would just jot it down in the notes. So in my phone, I literally had, bro, just so many life notes because there's music in everything that songs and the conversations you have with people are songs. Like, these feelings that you feel, these experiences that you have can now be turned into music.

[00:23:10] Rexx Life Raj: So even when I couldn't necessarily make music, I was just taking notes. So when it became, like, after my mom passed and I started going back to the studio. Like, I had just so much to draw from, you know what I'm saying? So it's not like I had to sit and even think about now, what am I going to write about? What am I going to do?

[00:23:29] Rexx Life Raj: It's all in the notes. So it's like the album was written before it was written and it had to piece it together. 

[00:23:34] Dan Runcie: Right. That makes sense, right? It's like documenting the process, like, like anything. And I do think that just being able to have that likely helped the product of it, too. So, and I know that that was coming out soon. You're definitely excited about where things are heading.

[00:23:49] Dan Runcie: Do you have any particular milestones or goals that you have that you're trying to hit with this album? I know that you're not signed to a major record label, so some of those same types of things may not exist, but a lot of it may be a bit more on the personal side for what you have. Is there anything that you have that you're shooting for, that you have as a particular milestone?

[00:24:10] Rexx Life Raj: Not necessarily numbers-wise 'cause I feel like as soon as I do that, I can set myself up to not be happy if I don't hit those things. So I don't really be tripping off numbers. Like my thing, when it comes to numbers is as long as we're on the up and it's better than what we've been doing, then we're doing something right.

[00:24:26] Rexx Life Raj: But my whole goal and intention with this album was to help people who are going through what I was going through. Like, that's all I was thinking about. And I see it, you know, in the songs that I've released, my DMs be crazy with people who are either, you know, it's a lot of people in my DMs whose parents are ill right now.

[00:24:44] Rexx Life Raj: So they resonate with the music. It's even more people in my DMs who are going through grief. And the music is helping them process in any way. So to me, that's the win for me, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the win is the music helping people navigate through life and shit. The numbers are just numbers and the numbers be fake a lot of times, like, you know, so I don't really be concerned about the numbers, you know what I'm saying?

[00:25:05] Rexx Life Raj: But for me, it's just being intentional in what I put into the music and just hoping that it resonates with people. 

[00:25:11] Dan Runcie: And it sounds like it already is, like you said, if you're having the folks of the DMs hitting you up and responding to it, that's great. And I got to imagine that being able to potentially see that impact in person at some point would likely be an ideal thing that I'm sure people would connect with as well. Are there plans to tour, do live shows after the album's released? 

[00:25:33] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, we already got the tour locked in toward the end of the year. I've got a few festivals, actually have a festival on Sunday. I just did one in Sacramento. So we got a lot of little festivals and shows coming up but the actual tour is set for the end of the year so I'm super excited.

[00:25:49] Dan Runcie: Nice. Do you prefer festival performances or do you prefer your own tour stops? 

[00:25:53] Rexx Life Raj: I prefer my own tour, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause what a festival, especially for artists at my level, you never really know how many people are there for you and it's tight because it's a bigger crowd so you can win new fans and festival experiences are always super fun, but like you alluded to earlier, just the connection that I've made with the people that I know I've made that connection with is different.

[00:26:17] Rexx Life Raj: You know what I'm saying? It's, it's spiritual. That's the only word I can have for it, bro. 'Cause I've had shows where, you know, I'll perform a song and people cry, you know what I'm saying? It's like they came for that song, you know what I'm saying? That came out of my brain and for whatever reason, it resonated with them.

[00:26:33] Rexx Life Raj: To me, that's just, you know, and to have people sing songs in unison. And it's just like a different type of connection when it's your own show, but festivals are tied to them. And I love festivals. 

[00:26:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like, especially for independent artists, a mix in general is what people do thrive in. And I feel like that generally makes sense, but especially for independent artists, your career is already built on the long game and touring is a much longer game than a lot of festivals, right? Festivals, their upfront cash should be great. It could be bigger than what you may get from an initial stop, but like you said, you don't know if they're necessarily there for you, but you could be reaching out to new fans versus at a tour, even if the total audience may not be what it may be in that festival crowd, all those people are there to see you and you build on that and you're going there with the next album. And the one after that, like, that's where that long game is that lines up with that independent mentality. 

[00:27:29] Rexx Life Raj: Literally, man, and I'm happy you said that 'cause I be trying to preach that to, you know, any up and coming artist that asked me for advice. It's like, that's what I'm focused on. You know, the touring. That's what I look at. Like, even when, you know, everybody has a moment and niggas be laid on the internet and shit look cool. My first thought is like, can I sell tickets?

[00:27:48] Rexx Life Raj: Are they selling merch? 'Cause in real life, that's, what's going to sustain you. Like, have you built maybe another business or brand outside of yourself? Because the internet shit is cool, but real life is what's going, what gets you paid in the long term. So, yeah, I'm happy you said that. 

[00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. I had this piece that had gotten some traction recently that was a breakdown on why your followers are not your fans and the followers, exactly, it's the internet shit that you're talking about, right? It just doesn't always line up. And we both know people that have millions, tens of millions of followers, but they can't sell when they actually go to show things and makes you question, okay, were all those true numbers, legit stream numbers and all those things? And you can't fake actually, to have actual bodies there, like watching you perform a concert. 

[00:28:38] Rexx Life Raj: It's the only thing you can't fake, man. That's what I'm saying. Like, the internet is really, but at the same time, like if you play the internet correctly, you can make money off the internet as well.

[00:28:47] Rexx Life Raj: Like, you know, don't get it twisted, like there's money to be made on the internet. But as far as sustainability, like, I've only seen it this way, you know what I'm saying? And like you said, everything can be manipulated. And even when it comes to numbers, like you can buy followers, you can buy comments, you can buy likes, but a lot of people will tune in for the spectacle, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a lot of followers who are just like there for the show. Like, you're really good on the internet so we just want to watch you on the internet. But it never translates to anything real. It's like, that's why looking at engagement is such a big thing. Like, I'll look at the followers but then I'll look at how many comments, like I would be looking at that kind of shit. Like, how many comments he got? Like, how many people are really tapped in? What's the engagement like on all platforms?

[00:29:30] Rexx Life Raj: 'Cause that's how you can really tell. 'Cause it's been harder to, like, for instance, on Instagram, I think I got like 80,000 followers, right? But there's been artists who I've seen that had like 20,000 followers, 30,000 followers, even less, their engagement is way higher and they're selling way more tickets than me.

[00:29:47] Rexx Life Raj: And I'm like, damn, dude. Like, that's it. Cause you damn near made all your followers believe to the point where we following you not only on here, but we following you in real life to the stage, you know? And that's crazy to me. So yes, it's an interesting game for sure. 

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's a good example. I mean, you're seeing it that way because you see it the other way, too, people that, you know, you got tens of millions of followers and then less than a thousand people, like the last photo, what, like, no. 

[00:30:18] Rexx Life Raj: Something's not clicking. Something's ain't right. But, yeah, for sure.

[00:30:22] Dan Runcie: So you're the Bay Area, and of course we know there's a lot of tech investments happening out here. And I know that you are interested in things outside of directly making music as well. What does that side of things look like for you? Have you got involved in the investing side, looking at different startups and companies?

[00:30:40] Rexx Life Raj: I'm kind of tapping in 'cause I have friends who are really in that world. Like my girlfriend works for Facebook, so she's fully in it. One of my best friends, he works for Google, so he's fully in it. And then one of my good friends who I went to college with, Jason Robinson, he has a VR/AR software, it's called Playbook Five.

[00:31:00] Rexx Life Raj: And so he actually just did a pitch in Menlo park, Denver last weekend, pitching to investors. It's lit, it's really tight. Like, you put on the Oculus or whatever, and it's for kids to learn, like, kids in high school and middle school who are trying to play any sport in college. It teaches you all these schemes and game plans and everything you can learn through a software, but what's he trying to do is make it accredited. So say, like, they're trying to go to Cal to play football and Cal runs a three, four scheme on defense for the players who aren't like four or five stars who are getting directly looked at by the school. They can look at Playbook Five and be like, oh, let's check this kid out.

[00:31:37] Rexx Life Raj: He's fully accredited in our scheme. So they bring him in and he fully knows what's going on. And so like this, seeing the homies do stuff like that, you're automatically drawn into it because that shit is the future, you know what I'm saying? And then he's telling me like, like I said, how he's pitching and he's looking for investors. He's down in Austin 'cause he knows Bowman down there now and he's moving around. So I feel like this being out here, you get consolidated in that and you've learned shit on accident, you know what I'm saying? So I haven't actually invested in any companies, but I'm for sure, just like watching and learning the landscape as much as possible.

[00:32:09] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. You get up with E-40 at all? I haven't linked up with E-40 in a while, but anytime I hit E-40, he pick up and he chat with me, Gmail, like, real cool dude. Man, like I love E-40 'cause any, like I said, anytime I hit him and ask him for tips and wisdom. He's always there for me, if I need them on a song, he always did. So shout out to E-40. 

[00:32:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 'Cause like, think about the investment thing, I mean, obviously both in Vallejo and...

[00:32:34] Rexx Life Raj: He's the man. 

[00:32:35] Dan Runcie: He is the man. Anytime I see it, I'm like, I see his name everywhere. I'm almost surprised when I don't see him at certain deals now.

[00:32:42] Rexx Life Raj: E-40, he's going to sell you anything. He sells sausages. He sells lumpia. He got E Cuarenta Tequila. He got burritos now, the hood burritos at the store, like, when you think about entrepreneurship and just real rap independence, like, E-40 is the pinnacle, bro. Like, he's giving niggas the blueprint for so long and he's been doing it. That's what I'm saying. Like, pure longevity, you know, he's like, who's been doing this independent shit for as long as he has and has been that great at it?

[00:33:15] Rexx Life Raj: It's not too many people, you know what I'm saying? So shout out to E-40, man. He's been ahead of the game for a while. 

[00:33:20] Dan Runcie: And his products are good, too. I mean, we know that there's a lot of artists out there that have stuff that doesn't always click, but his Earl Stevens wine is award-winning, like, it has gotten a shout-out from all those like Napa and Sonoma County celebrations, whatever they call them.

[00:33:36] Rexx Life Raj: And it's gonna get you faded. I didn't, boy, I, like, take some of that and be, oh, like, oh God, E-40 is crazy! What is it called? 

[00:33:46] Dan Runcie: I know what you're talking about.

[00:33:48] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, it ain't no joke, bro. You trying to get drunk, you gotta bring some of that. It's crazy. 

[00:33:54] Rexx Life Raj: Oh, man. That's wild. That's wild. But Raj, man, I'm excited for you. You got a lot to look forward to this year. Obviously, I know that a lot of it hasn't been the easiest, but when you're looking at the rest of this year, then also in 2023, what are you most excited about? What's getting you excited, looking forward to where things are heading and where you want to, where you want to take things? I'm just excited to drop the album and just see where it takes me, hit the road again, go to Europe, you know, do all the things that come with dropping the album, because I feel like for the last year and a half, I've really missed that.

[00:34:27] Rexx Life Raj: So just like everything that comes up on our music, you know, like, I think the next phase of my career is like really focusing, focusing on other artists from the Bay who I think I have a lot of potential and kind of like giving them game and wisdom and putting them on. So I'm working with, you know, a bunch of different artists in the Bay and just kind of focusing on them and giving them a shot 'cause it's, I think it's a Renaissance happening in the Bay, you know, in the underground music scene that not too many people know about. I feel like it's really coming to light and you get to see how diverse the music scene in the Bay is 'cause I feel like for a while we were just known really for one thing, one sound. But it's so much dope shit happening in the Bay, you know what I'm saying? Like, from bills like ‎Elujay, to, there's this singer in Vallejo, she's really tight, named Tyler Lauren. She's really cool. My brother, The Dakota Wytefoxx. Michael Sneed who's doing all that shit. My boy, JAMMY, you got, you know, I think her username is thuymusic. She's doing a lot of jazz. It's like, it's so much going on in the Bay, you know, and I'm happy to that it's actually in the light that it deserves at this point.

[00:35:30] Dan Runcie: I know, that's legit and thinking about all the activity, too, I'm sure you saw it as well. The Golden State Warriors started their own record label and I'm like, if there's any sign that there's something... 

[00:35:40] Rexx Life Raj: I did not know that.

[00:35:41] Dan Runcie: Oh, you didn't hear this?

[00:35:43] Rexx Life Raj: No, tell me about it. I did not know. They started a record label?

[00:35:46] Dan Runcie: Okay. I'll send you the link to it after we're done, but yeah. So the Golden State Warriors started a record label and they are planning to sign and support the artists that are local in the area, right? Like they want to invest in the talent here and using their arena and using the concerts that come through as a platform, maybe some of their own documentaries. They're trying to use that and use that as a platform to push these artists. 

[00:36:10] Rexx Life Raj: That's crazy. No, I did not know that. That's actually insane. That's tight though. That's interesting. I need to read the article because that's crazy. 

[00:36:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I'll send it to you. Yeah, because I actually just interviewed the guy that's running it, David Kelly. He's their Chief Business Officer over there. So yeah. I'll send you the link to that too.

[00:36:26] Rexx Life Raj: Dope, man. I appreciate that. That's clean. 

[00:36:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. But Raj, before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to plug or let the Trapital audience know about? 

[00:36:37] Rexx Life Raj: Man, I'm dropping The Blue Hour soon. Appreciate you having me, man. I appreciate anybody who's watching this who's been a fan of me for however long and, you know, stay tapped in, and I appreciate y'all. 

[00:36:48] Dan Runcie: Yes, sir. And where can people find you?

[00:36:49] Rexx Life Raj: Anywhere, man. Google. I'm on every platform, Rexx Life Raj, R-E-X-X-L-I-F-E-R-A-J. You know, if you know how to use the internet on your phone, you can find me. I'm everywhere, man.

[00:37:05] Dan Runcie: That sounds good, man. 

[00:37:07] Rexx Life Raj: All right, man. I appreciate you. 

[00:37:09] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

The Golden State Warriors took the commonly-said phrase “every company is a media company” and did one better, launching a first-of-its-kind organization, Golden State Entertainment (GSE). Leading this brand-new entertainment company is Warriors’ chief business officer David Kelly, who joined me on this episode of the Trapital podcast to discuss the brand-new endeavor. 

While GSE is an extension of the Warriors brand, it wasn’t created with the sole purpose of advancing the NBA team. It’s a completely separate company (not a division) and as Kelly told me, it needs to be profitable. To do so, GSE will produce original documentaries, music, and events.

Announced in April 2022, GSE has wasted no time breaking into the entertainment space. It’s already inked deals with iconic acts like Rhymefest and No I.D., released a song with K-pop star BamBam, and announced a documentary around Bay Area’s own Jeremy Lin.

The Warriors are building a sports, entertainment, media, and technology company in front of us and this interview shines light into the entertainment piece. Here’s everything David and I covered in this episode:

[3:10] How The Golden State Warriors Got Into Music & Film

[5:34] Measuring Success For GSE Record Label

[7:05] Synergy Opportunities With NBA Team

[8:11] What’s An Artist Deal At GSE Look Like?

[9:32] Why Rhymefest & No I.D. Joined GSE 

[14:55] Crypto’s Influence On Golden State & NBA Naming Rights Deals

[16:52] What Type Of Projects GSE Is Pursuing

[21:22] Why Can’t GSE Do A Steph Curry Documentary Until He’s Retired?

[23:13] Is There A New Era Of Documentaries?

[25:07] Upcoming GSE Projects

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: David Kelly, @goldenstateent

This episode was brought to you by Highlight. Build the community of your dreams on the blockchain. The new company is backed by leading investors like Haun Ventures, Thirty Five Ventures (“35V”), and more. Learn more at highlight.xyz

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] David Kelly: We don't want to limit ourselves to only doing Warrior stories. We're not going to limit ourselves, even you know only doing basketball stories. We want to do, and I don't think we're even going to ultimately limit ourselves to just do sports stories. We want to do stories that are relevant and resonate and have most likely some sort of sports tied to them.

[00:00:18] David Kelly: But if it's a story that we think we can facilitate the telling of the story, and there's a place for us at that table, and, if not for our participation, the story maybe doesn't get told then we'll be involved. 

[00:00:29] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is David Kelly. He's the Chief Business Officer and Chief Legal Officer of the Golden State Warriors. And he's the head of the new Golden State Entertainment, which has focused on music, media and more. That's right. The Golden State Warriors are starting a record label. Believe me, when I heard this, I paused what I was doing, and I said, "Okay, I got to learn more. Tell me everything." And it was great to have David on to hear more about it. A lot of the inspiration for the record label came from David's own experience in hip hop. He was an artist himself, Capital D. We talked about how his journey through music influenced what he saw the platform for, of this team and ultimately the opportunities that they could provide for artists.

[00:01:41] Dan Runcie: They also have some great vets in the game that have jumped on board. No I.D. is an advisor to Golden State Entertainment, as well as Rhymefest who was signed on to join the record label himself. You may know both of them from their relationship with Kanye West and the work and influence he's done there.

[00:01:58] Dan Runcie: And David's old relationship with Rhymefest, too. So this was great to chat about. And we also talked about some of the potential projects coming down the pipeline. They're actually working on a project telling the story of Jeremy Lin, who is a Bay Area native and especially around everything that happened with Linsanity We're coming up on the decade anniversary of that and the influence he had on his New York Knicks run.

[00:02:21] Dan Runcie: And we talk about what some of those future projects may look like. We also talk about some of the trends happening right now with naming rights and all of the cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0 companies that are fighting for naming rights, both inside and outside of the arenas as well. This is a fun chat.

[00:02:37] Dan Runcie: And if you're interested in how teams like the Warriors, a team that is worth nearly $6 billion, how are they thinking about things and using their platform? This is the episode for you had a great chat. Hope you enjoy it. Here's my talk with David Kelly.

[00:02:52] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we have David Kelly, head of Golden State Entertainment, which recently launched a record label. Congratulations. And let's actually start there. When did you first get the idea to start a record label for an NBA basketball team? 

[00:03:10] David Kelly: Yeah, so it's, it's funny. So, I mean, the company is two parts.

[00:03:13] David Kelly: We're doing film and we're doing music as well. And so the idea has been something that's been kicking around in my head for maybe three years now. And it really came from conversations with our ownership group around what we want to create as the Golden State Warriors. Like we see ourselves as a sports team, but really a sports entertainment media technology company.

[00:03:32] David Kelly: And it's up to me to try to figure out, all of us at the Warriors, to figure out what that really means and what kind of skills we can bring to bear on creating that larger vision so that to make it a reality. And so I thought about like what we do on the marketing side and what we do as a sports team, like we create stories, we create content.

[00:03:51] David Kelly: And then I thought about my own personal background in the music front. And I always saw myself as a content creator storyteller. And I started thinking about how can we bridge these two worlds? And so just over time, it's just the idea started becoming more and more apparent that this is something that we can be doing as the Golden State Warriors, and we, you know, there's this ancillary markets that are close, very close to sports, specifically to basketball. and we can create content in that space, whether it's film and/or music, so. 

[00:04:20] Dan Runcie: And I feel like your background, as well as an artist, Capital D, you had an experience that you understand exactly what it takes and the nuances of the music industry. So I feel like that as well, likely had a, as you mentioned, a pretty big influence on wanting to bring this to life. 

[00:04:39] David Kelly: It did. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's kind of aligning my passions and my background, my experiences into just bringing it all into even greater alignment and, with the platform of the Golden State Warriors platform that the NBA provides and being able to take who I am and really, really of dig into it and align it.

[00:05:00] Dan Runcie: Right. And then for the record label itself, let's talk a little bit about that. What do you see as success for the record label? How will you measure that? Because I'm sure that some people could maybe think that you obviously have a very successful basketball team itself. Is this something more that extends the brand and gets more customers in? Or is it something that, you know, stand alone, does have its own benchmarks for profitability or some of the other things looking at how other record labels may manage themselves? 

[00:05:34] David Kelly: Yeah, so we want to, it's both. It definitely is an extension of the brand and it's good for the Golden State Warrior brand. It's already paying dividends there, but it's a separate company that has it's, it's not like a division of the Warriors. This is a separate company that we launched.

[00:05:48] David Kelly: And it needs to be a profitable company and we're going to run it as such. In addition, we want to make sure that we're having an impact with the art that we put out, with the music they'll be put out and we want it to be relevant. We want it to speak to issues. We want it to inspire people. And so it's nothing new for a record label to be focused on that, but because we are attached to a separate organization, a separate team, it needs to all be consistent with our mission as Golden State Warriors. And so what we do all has to, it's that word alignment again. It all has to be aligned. So, yeah, so we're going to make some money.

[00:06:25] David Kelly: We're going to do dope projects. We're going to have an impact. And it's all going to speak to the benefit of the Golden State Warrior brand. 

[00:06:33] Dan Runcie: I'm envisioning some type of opportunities, just leveraging the platform you already have, whether that's, at halftime artists that assigned to the label coming out and being able to perform their, they have a platform or on the other side, as artists are performing at the Chase Center, being able to feature them as headliners for some of the A-list acts that come through.

[00:06:55] Dan Runcie: I feel like you having that, and then you also have the channel as well. Just being able to leverage each of these things to amplify the voice of the platform you have. 

[00:07:05] David Kelly: Check, check, check. So, yes. So at game two in the series against Memphis, actually it was game four, the second home game in our, in the series against Memphis.

[00:07:16] David Kelly: MAYZIN, who's the first artist who got signed, who signed to Golden State Entertainment, he performed at halftime in that game. And so, so yes, what you envision is, already come into pass. And in fact, the very, before we had even announced Golden State Entertainment, we had BamBam, performed at halftime right before we released the song by MAYZIN and BamBam. I mean, that was our last home game of the season against the Lakers. So yes, we definitely want to use that. We already bring talent in, artists in to perform. And so, yeah, we should be using the same sort of, the same homegrown talent that we have at GSE and finding these new ways to get exposure for artists who are affiliated with. 

[00:07:56] Dan Runcie: And for the artists listening that may be interested, I know where in this era where a lot of artists want to own their masters. They want to be able to have their own flexibility. Well, what does some of that look like for the artists that would be considering GSE? 

[00:08:11] David Kelly: Well, so I'm not going to get into the finer deal points that we have, but like something like, BamBam. Bambam was with this group called GOT7, obviously, right? And then he went solo. We did a song with BamBam. Bambam is not signed to Golden State Entertainment, right? He has his own career as an independent artist, huge following. So we can align ourselves with any number of artists who are not signed to our label.

[00:08:36] David Kelly: And so I think that's something different than your typical record label in that we have this platform that the Golden State Warriors that has his own benefit that we bring to major artists to, to larger artists. And we have something that I think that's already attractive to an artist. So it doesn't have to be a long-term deal necessarily instead of every instance that we, that we're doing a partnership or collaboration with an artist, so. 

[00:09:00] Dan Runcie: And to that point, the connections and a lot of that is what makes the difference even when people see and understand the brand, or you had Too $hort performing at game one of the Western Conference finals, E-40's courtside at all of these games, like you have the culture that's there so I do think that you have that.

[00:09:19] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. One of the other things I saw too, is that you all have Rhymefest who, of course, is an established artist himself, long-time collaborator with Kanye West. What did that relationship look like and getting him on board? 

[00:09:32] David Kelly: Yeah. So Rhymefest is like family. So that, that is a friend of mine going back 30 years. And when I think about, we're trying to build GSE, who do I want to align ourselves with from a brand perspective? When I think about one of the best writers that we have in hip hop over the past several decades, someone who actually has been an activist in his life still very, you know, very wise and very relevant at the same time, people like Rhymefest come to mind. And so that's where that kind of collaboration came from.

[00:10:06] David Kelly: And No I.D., the same way, right? Like this is your OGs' OG when it comes to knowledge of the industry, knowledge of executive coaching. Someone who can help me just in terms of, trying to really run and build Golden State Entertainment. So to have him as a strategic advisor, also as a cultural advisor and producer, like there's no better person. And so, yeah, and those are just relationships from, you know, both of those guys are like family, so. 

[00:10:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's great. That's great. And then are there any partnerships right now on the major record label side, or is it mostly an independent operation? 

[00:10:46] David Kelly: Independent at the moment, who knows what the future might bring. But I'm independent at the moment. We have a distribution agreement, so we go through a distributor like your typical indie label would what would do, and we go from there. 

[00:10:58] Dan Runcie: Nice. And something else you mentioned, taking a step back, looking at GSE more broadly, you mentioned the tech side and I always thought a lot about the rise of tech in the bay area, along with the rise of Golden State Warriors, just when they were in that run 2015 on with Steph, Klay, and Draymond, and we had heard so much about the investments that they were getting involved with.

[00:11:23] Dan Runcie: I think this is a lot of what attracted KD. I know that Andre Iguodala and Steph had done work with Mastry and Rudy Cline-Thomas, and what he's done there. So, a lot of that at least to be seemed like the area brought them there, but they were each doing their own separate things. So it's interesting to hear what you may have alluded to in terms of the GSE in the Warriors itself, doing a bit more directly on the investment side.

[00:11:49] David Kelly: Yeah. And so on the investment side, as it relates to tech, it's less GSE and more just the Golden State Warriors. And we have a separate arm that looks at various different tech investments. So that's separate from GSE. GSE is on the content front, film and music. But when we talk about us being a sports entertainment, media, and technology organization, we are as an, as a larger organization, that Golden State Warriors looking to make various different tech investments. The background of members of our ownership group, specifically, Joe Lacob, a fantastically successful venture capitalist. And so like he knows what he's doing when it comes to looking at those sorts of investments. 

[00:12:27] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor.

[00:12:30] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Especially the past few years, I feel like there's so many teams as well that have either been getting more involved with crypto, where the rights for naming, with a lot of the crypto companies sponsoring arenas as well. And I know that some of that, you're also the Chief Business Officer for the organization too. What does that wave been like at least from your perspective when you're seeing some of the companies that want to, whether it's naming rights or wanting to be able to partner with the team on a more direct basis?

[00:13:02] David Kelly: Yeah. I mean, so we're always looking to be at the forefront of new, innovative, whether it's technologies, ways of doing business. And so I see that world for the Golden State Warriors connects to what we'd have done in, in the NFT space. And we actually, we have a partnership ourselves with FTX. And so we were, I think the very first sports team to do an NFT drop around this time last year.

[00:13:27] David Kelly: And so I do not, by any means, consider myself to be an expert in that space, but we, as an organization, want to make sure that we're on the cutting edge and innovative, and we have a number of people at the organization who are experts in that space and guide our hand in terms of looking into different companies with which we'll push to partner in ways in which to invest in, in Web 3.0 and NFTs and things of that nature, so.

[00:13:49] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I guess on this note, thinking about naming rights more broadly, I know that the Chase Center had signed the deal with Kaiser. You, of course, have Thrive City and naming that through them. And then with the Chase Center as well, obviously with Chase too, it feels like every few years we do go through these waves where a lot of the teams do start to change or they do start to re-up their things. And I feel like the past couple of years, we've been in one of those modes now. Does it feel that way from your perspective, or do you feel like these things are constantly changing? 

[00:14:24] David Kelly: When you say one of one of those modes now, can you elaborate what you mean?

[00:14:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So I feel like in the past couple of years, especially the NBA, there's been a lot of teams, either, A, changing their naming rights to crypto-related companies that like things that are reflecting the current wave, or maybe the same thing with their outdoor space. And I know a lot of these things may change from time and time again, but I feel like the past, like, two, three years, we saw a wave. It felt like there was a lot more turnover than maybe there was in the three years or four years before that. 

[00:14:55] David Kelly: Yeah, I think that may be more coincidence. I think those things go cyclical. And so you'll have your naming rights deal, whether it's for an outdoor space or for the arena itself, your 10- year deal or 20- year deal.

[00:15:07] David Kelly: And just when those deals come up, they come up. And so I haven't talked to my counterparts at the other teams about it, but I'm pretty sure that those new deals that you're seeing are, they're as, a legacy deal that just happened to expire sometime over the last couple of years. And yes the crypto space is very hot right now.

[00:15:25] David Kelly: So you'll see, you know, crypto arena and things of that nature, definitely jumping in and using sports properties, specifically arenas as a way to promote their product. And so you'll see a lot more arenas being named in the crypto space, but I don't think that the number of partnerships that have changed hands over the last couple of years is increased.

[00:15:44] David Kelly: I don't think that's the case. You've just probably would see more concentration inside of that particular, with that particular industry. 

[00:15:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think maybe the other side of it too, is that because at least from my perspective, we're seeing more of the outdoor spaces as well. Like having those and maybe a bit more valid.

[00:16:01] Dan Runcie: I think I recently saw that the box area, they call it Deer District. They're looking for $4 billion for the naming rights for that. And I mean, sure, other teams are seeing that. I mean, you already have yours with Warriors. I'm sure other teams will see that, okay, like how could we get our version of that?

[00:16:17] David Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. We named our entire plaza as Thrive City. And so, yeah, so we sold naming rights with respect to the arena as Chase Center. And then, sold naming rights with respect to the entire district as Thrive City. And so, yeah, so similar things happening with other teams. 

[00:16:31] Dan Runcie: Got it. So shifting gears a bit, I want to talk a bit more about the other multimedia areas of GSE. So outside of music, we talked a bit about movies. You talked about what it could look like. It’s just like film and video in general. What does that outlook look like? What are you envisioning for the type of projects you can release? 

[00:16:52] David Kelly: Yeah, so we want to be involved in projects that are rooted in sports. By no means are they limited by sports, right? And so one of the first projects, and our involvement can be any number of things. We could be a producer. We might come to the table with the script, with the entirety of the idea. There might be a project that's already moving forward and it just kinda needs us to make some connections and, and help to facilitate and so we could be putting money in not putting money in, lending our platform, any number, any number of things. And so, but one of the first projects that we got involved with was a project that was already moving forward, called 38 At the Garden about Jeremy Lin. We came in to help facilitate the production of that project.

[00:17:31] David Kelly: And it really is a, it's exactly what it is we want to be doing on the film side at GSE. It's a story that's rooted in sports. It's the 10 year anniversary of Linsanity, but the true relevance of the project and why it speaks to us, and why I think it's going to speak to so many people, it's premiering at Tribeca in a couple of weeks, is because, more recently, the Stop AAPI Hate Movement and the violence against members of the Asian American community makes Jeremy Lin's story that much more relevant. And there's, so there's a social relevance to his story, which is why it really appeals to us. So we want to be telling stories that are rooted in sports, but have a larger social component to them.

[00:18:11] David Kelly: And so Lin, Jeremy Lin's story is specifically that. And so, yeah, we're proud to be a part of it.

[00:18:15] Dan Runcie: That makes sense, especially given the connection there because I think that some people may hear the association immediately, they may think, okay, well, he's a New York Knick. How did the Golden State Warriors get involved with the project for the New York Knicks?

[00:18:28] Dan Runcie: Like, wouldn't the Madison Square Garden, or their, entertainment group be all over this? But what was the process like for that? Because I do assume that that is something that they would want to be heavily involved with, or maybe even potentially protective of.

[00:18:43] David Kelly: Well, to be clear, he's from the Bay Area. And his first shot in the NBA was with the Warriors and his last shot in the NBA was with the Warriors.

[00:18:51] David Kelly: So, our stories, we do not have to, we're not only going to be involved in stories that are Golden State Warriors stories, but for Jeremy, there are several Golden State Warrior ties, which is why it was something that we were very much focused on him and his story. We don't want to limit ourselves to only doing warrior stories. We're not going to limit ourselves even, you know, only doing basketball stories we want to do. And I don't think we're even going to ultimately limit ourselves to just do sports stories. We want to do stories that are relevant and resonate and have most likely some sort of sports tied to them.

[00:19:24] David Kelly: But if it's a story that we think we can facilitate the telling of the story, and there's a place for us at that table, and if not for our participation, the story, maybe doesn't get told then. we'll be involved 

[00:19:36] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I assume this also extends with scripted content as well, whether that is, you know, movies and films and things like that.

[00:19:43] David Kelly: Yeah. we are starting off in the unscripted space, but we do not want to limit ourselves, put it that way. I think there's a lot that we can bring to bear whether on those unscripted or scripted side. 

[00:19:52] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Thinking about your team though, and thinking about some of the stories you have potential for, a few things come to mind that I think would be amazing to see if there was something about it, that "We Believe" Warriors, that run. We'd love to see something like that. That's one of them, the other one that comes to mind is what would the Warriors' version of a Last Dance look like, right? Like we obviously have to see how this playoff run goes, but what would that look like?

[00:20:21] Dan Runcie: I mean, I have to imagine that there's been some type of recording that has footage, that hasn't already been broadcast about everything from a, likely even well before that year you won the championship because this core group had been together for so long. 

[00:20:35] David Kelly: You have a very vivid imagination.

[00:20:40] Dan Runcie: Well played,well played. 

[00:20:42] David Kelly: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Let's just say that. 

[00:20:46] Dan Runcie: Well, the one thing that you can comment on, which I saw and you can correct me if I got this right, but I saw something that said that GSE couldn't do a documentary on Steph Curry until he retires because of the League's collective bargaining agreement.

[00:21:03] Dan Runcie: And when I first saw this, I had to pause and think about it because I was like, I thought that Steph had had stuff with Facebook, I thing, one of those shows. I think him and Ayesha have that HBO show. What is the aspect that makes it that he could do stuff with them, but you all couldn't do something like this?

[00:21:22] David Kelly: Yeah. So, I mean, it seems a little, it doesn't seem intuitive, but when you think about it actually does make sense. So if we're paying, the salary cap is such that we can't pay Steph more than X dollars, so we can pay them X dollars in terms of his contract. But then we can go do a movie with him that's going to make X plus Y or X or 3X dollars.

[00:21:43] David Kelly: The League will look at that and the other 29 teams will look at that as a salary cap and salary cap circumvention. And so I get it. It makes, it actually does make sense. It protects us the same way, protects all the teams. And so, yeah, you can't have your separate deals under the table deals with a player where you're driving revenue to that player outside of his player contract.

[00:22:03] Dan Runcie: Okay. That makes sense. So, because it's still technically part of the broader organization, that's why versus obviously Facebook is completely independent. Okay. 

[00:22:13] David Kelly: Yeah. 

[00:22:13] Dan Runcie: Interesting. 

[00:22:15] David Kelly: So it's not to say that the player can't go out and make, you know, 5X, his player, his salary, more often times 10, 20X his playing contract. It just can't come from the team.

[00:22:24] Dan Runcie: Got it. That makes sense. And maybe one thing that you may be able to comment on that I've been thinking about, especially just given the era that we're in now with how much more is being recorded, every person has their own channel to share things, whether that's Steph or a Draymond or whoever it is. I feel like that may make the filmmaking of a future Warriors-run documentary a little different than something like say The Last Dance when content and media was just less saturated then. So the footage and the concept they were able to have stands out in a unique way.

[00:22:59] Dan Runcie: Does that shape overall, at least at this era, how you may approach documentary projects or what the unique angle may be given all of the opportunities for these players and for other outlets to be able to share their voice? 

[00:23:13] David Kelly: Oh, it does. It does. It changes it. In some ways it makes the player a lot more known and relevant and universal.

[00:23:21] David Kelly: I mean, if you think, if you look at a player like Draymond, who has been able to, he's a personality on TNT. He has his own podcast and he's phenomenal inside of all that, all the different venues that he's in, it makes them a lot more. It makes him a lot more marketable. And so that could be a very good thing for when we're trying to do, if we might try to do a, and make our version of The Last Dance documentary, right? Cause I think that, you know, there are still stories to be told. There is still the definitive story to be told. And so I don't think that it necessarily detracts from what it is that we're trying to do. I think one can build upon the other. Maybe we have to look at it differently in some of the stories that we're gonna maybe tell are going to be a little bit different than stories that you may have already heard as a listener. 

[00:24:06] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I think in a lot of ways, the fact that there is more means there's so much more to build upon. I think back to last year. So this would have been 2021 when Draymond and Kevin Durant had had that Bleacher report conversation they had, and it created enough buzz to create a moment, at least for people that follow the NBA.

[00:24:25] Dan Runcie: And you got two people that were just sharing their thoughts on one particular aspect of, you know, not one particular aspect, but one of the main things surrounding that discussion was one of the infamous interactions that they had had. So I think that those things do, like you're saying they build upon each other and they create new opportunities to tell and share these stories.

[00:24:45] David Kelly: That's right. I agree. 

[00:24:46] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense. Well, this has been great. I think it's exciting. You have a lot of stuff that's, we're definitely going to keep an eye on and I guess before we let you go though, are there any future GSE projects that you're excited about or anything that we haven't touched upon? Or as you're thinking about what the future looks like, where the potential is at, where things are going?

[00:25:07] David Kelly: I mean, there's a number of film projects that we're working on right now. Not in a position to announce anything yet, but we, there may, there's another one that we're working on with respect to, a retired basketball player, probably gets announced over the next month or so. And when that comes out, you know exactly what I'm, talking about. What we have announced are some of, is the lineup that we have on the music side. And so I'm really excited for people to hear this new J.U.I.C.E. project and a couple of projects that we have with Georgia Anne Muldrow, because those are two legacy artists who I think have not received their just due in their careers.

[00:25:41] David Kelly: And I think there's an underground, hardcore support that they have. And we're just looking to see if we can expand upon that because I think Georgia Anne is the Nina Simone of our generation, like she is, her voice and her ability to produce and sing and, and her viewpoint on the world is just something that would just love to be aligned with.

[00:26:01] David Kelly: I love listen to and be aligned with. And so I'm really excited about that project. 

[00:26:04] Dan Runcie: Nice. Any plans in audio, not music-related, podcasting. 

[00:26:10] David Kelly: We've kicked some things around. Yeah. We've kicked some things around, nothing that's concrete at the moment, but you know, we're, we are aware of all the various different mediums.

[00:26:19] David Kelly: And so we're looking to see how it is that we might be able to do storytelling be all on different media. 

[00:26:25] Dan Runcie: Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Well, David, this is great. Thanks for coming on and chatting. Before we let you go, where can people find you or find the GSE if they want to follow up and keep up to tabs with everything that you have coming?

[00:26:39] David Kelly: Yeah, so, we're going to start doing a much better job updating our website. So our website is gsent.com and we're also on Twitter and on Instagram as well. 

[00:26:49] Dan Runcie: All right, sounds good. Thank you. This was great. 

[00:26:52] David Kelly: Hey, appreciate it, man. This was great.

[00:26:54] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Here's my fireside chat with the Founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, Sherrese Clarke Soares, live from the Trapital Summit. We talked about the future of music rights, future-proofing assets, media companies, sports, and more.

We'll be sharing more of our conversations from the summit on this feed, so stay tuned for that!

This episode is brought to you by elgato, my go-to for podcasting tools. Learn more here. Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week.

On this episode, we switched things up! Instead of a standard interview, I talked about a few recent topics with the best-selling author, Zack O’Malley Greenburg. He has long had his pulse on the music industry. Between his past time covering the business at Forbes, writing acclaimed books on the likes of Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, or his current Substack blog, Zack has formed both a macro- and micro-view of the entire industry. He’s the perfect person to bring onto Trapital to discuss the stories reverberating across the music business today.

One of those stories is Spotify’s floundering performance as of late. The streaming leader’s stock has cratered to all-time lows, partly due to so-so performance, but also as a byproduct of Netflix’s own struggles. But if you ask Zack, the commonalities between Netflix and Spotify aren’t as close as critics will have you believe. Specifically, Spotify’s “unlimited buffet” business model is a massive differentiator. 

And then there’s Apple officially discounting the iPod after 21 years. Whether it gets the credit or not, the innovative product re-shaped the music business into what we see today. As a “legal Napster”, it laid the groundwork for today’s streaming-dominated industry — not just for music, but podcasts too. 

Check out all the topics Zack and I covered in this episode of Trapital:

[0:00] Zack’s First Experiences with The iPod

[6:11] Steve Jobs First iPod Keynote

[8:33] iPod As A Gateway Into Apple Ecosystem 

[12:16] Will iPod Have A Resurgence Like Vinyl? 

[14:48] U2’s Free Album On Apple Backfires 

[18:55] Spotify’s Current Business Struggles

[20:09] Why Spotify Shouldn’t Be Compared To Netflix

[27:23] Do Spotify And Netflix Have Content Problems?

[33:00] Examining Bad Bunny’s Meteoric Rise In Six Years

[38:21] Latin Music Succeeding In US Despite Language Barrier 

[40:12] Did Jay Z Ruin Robinson Cano’s Career?

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog

This episode was brought to you by Highlight. Build the community of your dreams on the blockchain. The new company is backed by leading investors like Haun Ventures, Thirty Five Ventures (“35V”), and more. Learn more at highlight.xyz

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: If you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and, I know that the market is cooled down a bit, but still, you know, you're in a fairly mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that he has, especially if you're trying to get into the Spanish language market. It's untoppable and, you know, I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too.

[00:00:29] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:49] Dan Runcie: On today's episode, we switched things up a little bit. This is normally an interview-style podcast, but I did a recent survey. And many of you say you wanted to hear more from me. You wanted to hear my insights, my perspective on this space and where things are heading. So it was a great time to invite back Zack O'Malley Greenburg.

[00:01:08] Dan Runcie: You may know him from his work at Forbes, where he started a lot of the reporting on how much money hip hop artists were making and the potential for what they could do in the business world. So we covered a bunch of topics in this episode. First, we talked about the iPod. Apple recently announced that they are discontinuing the influential device after almost 21 years in its production. So Zach and I talk about the device's importance and influence. Then we talked about Spotify. The stock is trading at an all-time low. So we talk about what does that mean for streaming? What does that mean for music and, more broadly, how does that compare to video and other types of streaming?

[00:01:45] Dan Runcie: Then we talked about the current king of streaming, of the current king of Spotify. Bad Bunny is the biggest artist in the world. So we talk about the impact and importance of what that means for a Latin artist, a Latin artist, who is yet to do a song in English and how cool that is. And then we close things out where we talked about Robinson Canó, who is a baseball player and how his career took a bit of a different turn after he sides with Jay-Z's Roc Nation sports agency.

[00:02:12] Dan Runcie: Hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, send a note and let us know, because that's the type of stuff that encourages great content. I hope you enjoy it. Here's our conversation. All right. We got Zack O'Malley Greenburg with us today and we are going to cover a bunch of topics. And the first one that's near and dear to both of us is we got to pour some out for the iPod. After almost 21 years, the device that changed the game, Apple announced it's discontinuing it.

[00:02:38] Dan Runcie: And it's a great time to talk about its legacy, its impact. So first let's start here cause I know that you likely owned a bunch of these. I did too. How many iPods did you own and which version was the first one you got? 

[00:02:50] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh man. You know, I think I had originally one of the clunky ones that didn't have sort of like the touch wheel, you know, like the kind of mano, you know, the, what is it like the black and white kind of a janky one.

[00:03:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But the one that really sticks in my mind was right around the time that Bono was doing all those commercials. And I remember my godfather was like, I want to get you a nice present for your birthday. He's like, I want to get you like, like a personal DVD player. And I was like, that's very sweet of you. And I really appreciate that. Can I have an iPod instead?

[00:03:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: He was like, what's this iPod? But yeah. I mean, it was, I think that one that must have been. I don't know, maybe around 2005, that was when they started getting really sexy-looking. And, and you had the touch wheel and you had kind of like the sleek black look on it instead of like, you know, sort of like the white witch, which would get kind of, you know, get kind of grimy, at least mine did.

[00:03:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But this was sleek. I think the back was silver. I mean, it was really a work of art and that was when I started thinking it's only a matter of time before they just make one of these as a phone, you know? And I'm sure, you know, having talked to people at Apple over the years, by the time they put out that iPod in the mid-aughts, they already had a design on the iPhone, but there would have been no, you know, no iPhone if there weren't an iPod.

[00:04:10] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, in many ways, I think the iPod saved the music industry, right? I mean, when they created that ecosystem, it just became easier to get your music, you know, through the legal means than by downloading them, you know, downloading those MP3s illegally and say what you will about the depth of the album and the issues of like breaking up albums and selling them single by single.

[00:04:31] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, I think that really provided the bridge that the music industry needed to get to the streaming era. So yeah. Pour one out, indeed. How about you, Dan, what was your first?

[00:04:41] Dan Runcie: Ah, yeah. So the first one for me, let's see, I want to say it was 2004, I bought the iPod mini because I didn't have a Mac at home. So I waited until they were compatible on PC.

[00:04:54] Dan Runcie: And I added, I think I was working either at Dairy Queen or I was working at our local parks and rec at the time. And one of the first paychecks I had, I was like, no, let me go take this, buy iPod mini. So I had that, but listen, after two months of having that, and I was one of the first people in the school to have one at the time. I left it in my pocket and put it in the washing machine, like a typical teenager would, and that thing gets ruined. Right. So then I was like, okay, fine. Let me get another one. This time I was making CDs at the time, I was burning them and selling them in school. So I said, okay, I need a bigger operation here. Let me get the full-on classic one.

[00:05:34] Dan Runcie: Got that, within two months of getting that, so this is around the time of high school graduation. I put the bag into this bleacher area by the school where we had the graduation. I go back after graduation. Someone takes that bag, someone in the class must've seen me put it there, and then that was gone. So then by the time I'm entering in college, I said, you know what?

[00:05:55] Dan Runcie: I just need to get another one. So I bought three iPods within an 18-month period. It's one of the most ridiculous things. And obviously for the kid that was making $7 an hour at various jobs, would be at a camp counselor, working at Dairy Queen and other places. That's what I spent my money on. I bought it on iPods.

[00:06:11] Dan Runcie: So I had to go into freshman year of college, fresh with of those things, but as I had that, that one I did have for a while though, I kept that one for a number of years. And I think I eventually got a Shuffle later on for running and stuff like that. So I think, so I guess I had four devices total, but I agree with you. Take a step back, thinking about the device overall. I'd actually went back and watched Steve Job's keynote that he initially did.

[00:06:35] Dan Runcie: And he had done keynote presentations before for all the other products that he had throughout the years. But I feel like this one is the one that really turned to the pop culture aspect of the Steve Job's keynote with, he was no longer wearing the suits. He’s wearing the black turtleneck tucked into the jeans.

[00:06:51] Dan Runcie: Takes the iPod out of the pocket, has the “hundred songs in your pocket” quote. And I think, from there, what you mentioned too about the bridge that this was for streaming. It makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, look at the way iTunes is set up. iTunes was essentially a legalized version of Napster, right? Instead of just downloading the songs for free, let's take a similar layout and make it look a lot cleaner than Napster did.

[00:07:14] Dan Runcie: And you can download the songs yourself. The thing that's interesting though, if we just think about Apple's influence in this space over the years. This was the company that essentially paved the way for digital music technology, listening, both from companies in the industry. And it did the same for podcasting as well.

[00:07:33] Dan Runcie: And for years, Jobs didn't want to get into music streaming. He thought that having an annual or having a monthly subscription for it wasn't the best idea. And obviously, we know that podcasting as well. Although it was something that Apple started, we're looking now, with the way things are, yes, they have presence in both podcasting and of music, but Apple isn't the industry leader in any of these spaces. So we can have a whole podcast episode about what's changed, but even though there's a lot that necessarily maybe hasn't taken off in the same way. You can't knock the influence of what this product did in just its evolution over the years and what it led to. I was looking at some stats earlier. Its sales peaked in 2008, 2009, right? You could still, after the iPhone came out, so you had this whole runway of time where they just kept selling more and more and they just eventually figured it out. And they had a whole system of these things that you're selling 20, 30 billion of them a quarter. It's crazy. 

[00:08:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh yeah. And you know, the deeper you get into the Apple ecosystem, right. I mean, and I'm fully embedded. I'm stuck. There's no way out. You know, I remember with that, you know, the U2 era iPod, you could still, you know, when you plugged it into your computer, you would still see that little iPod icon on your desktop and you could open it up as though it were, you know, an external hard drive and you could, you know, move files in and out.

[00:08:59] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And it didn't really, there were no questions asked as to where the files were obtained, you know, and they would show up in your music library and you can put all kinds of different files on there. And it was great. And then, you know, with each successive version, so they eventually eliminated that. And you know, now of course, if you have iTunes, you know, songs that you may have had in there from the, from the Limewire and Kazaa era just suddenly disappeared.

[00:09:21] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, you can't really get them back unless you have them backed up somewhere on a physical hard drive. So, you know, I think that there was also a level of control that Apple got, but, you know, but to have you be part of that ecosystem, I think that's the most valuable thing for them, right? I mean, if you look at Apple or Spotify, you know, like you were talking sure, Apple is not the leader in the music streaming business. Apple Music is I guess, a distant second, but they, you know, they don't need to win that because the hardware turns out or at least in the case of the iPod. And now that, you know, more recently that the iPhone, that the hardware turns out to be more valuable than the software, you know, looking at Spotify.

[00:09:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, intellectual property, right? If the, if you have to pay for the intellectual property or your, you know, or a whole huge chunk of that is coming out of. You know, out of your profits or your revenue before you get to profit, you know, it's a, it's a lot harder to make a ton of money than it is for a company like Apple, where the iPod or the iPhone, you know, that was their intellectual property and they could sell it for whatever they want to. 

[00:10:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, that's a good point. It makes it even think about AirPods. Now. Now I always see those infographics of AirPod revenue, and comparing that to all of these other tech companies. And how have you just looked at this one product that Apple has and how it does better than so many of the household companies that we have.

[00:10:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But for you though, was the iPod the first product that pushed you onto Apple? Or were you in a household that had iMacs and things like that? 

[00:10:48] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, no, I was, my first computer was an Apple, I think I only ever owned one or two computers that were not Apples. And that was when my gaming buddies in high school convinced me to get something else. But yeah, no, it's been, you know, from back in the day for me. So, I'm stuck. 

[00:11:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I do think for a lot of people, this product ended up being the game-changer. Yeah. I know it took a few generations for them to eventually put it and make it Windows-compatible. And it's funny. I was looking back, there was a few conversations where Tony Fadell, the guy who had actually invented it, essentially that worked with Apple on it.

[00:11:26] Dan Runcie: They had had a whole bunch of conversations about what ends up leading to what. And I think for a while, Jobs was under the impression that if you keep the iPod as Apple iOS exclusive device that it'll encourage more people to buy future iMac or Apple products, but what actually ended up happening, they pushed for the opposite and they saw the opposite where make the device compatible people then see, and they get introduced to the Apple world.

[00:11:55] Dan Runcie: And then that makes them want to then buy more iMacs and buy more MacBooks and buy things like that. So it was the opposite push-pull of what they thought happens. And it's one of those things where instead of restricting access to make people think that they want, that they, you're restricting. How do you give people a taste and then have them naturally want to get it on there on their own?

[00:12:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean, I think it almost mirrors being an artist, right? I mean, you don't want to withhold your art, your music from streaming services so that people will go out and buy the vinyl or, or, you know, back in those days, download the MP3. You want people to be out there and getting familiar with your work.

[00:12:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And you're not going to cannibalize yourself if people really like you. I mean, just look at Taylor Swift, you know, her fans go out and buy her vinyl, you know, by the hundred thousand and they can certainly have access to it whenever they want on the streaming services. 

[00:12:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Speaking of vinyls, it stuck out to me that there were a bunch of iPod Touch that sold out immediately.

[00:12:51] Dan Runcie: So essentially the line is completely gone now and even a few on eBay that were going for crazy prices after this announcement came out and it made me think, is the iPod going to be the way that vinyls are looked at now? Is there going to be this resurgence for this retro thing where people look back and let's say that as millennials or gen Z have, kids, they want to see, okay, what was this generation listening to when they were teenagers and they'd go back and be like, oh, let's check out Zack's iPod, let's check out Dan's iPod or whatever else. Do you think that there is a resurgence in that type of way the same way we're seeing with vinyl? 

[00:13:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I could see maybe I think the main issue would be a compatibility, right? In the way that you, you know, not even Apple to PC, but you know, old Apple stuff isn't even necessarily compatible with, compatible with new Apple stuff.

[00:13:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So if I wanted to plug in my old iPod, if I could dig it up wherever it was. I don't think I even have a freaking USB port on my computer. No, I don't. 

[00:13:49] Dan Runcie: You need like five dongles. You need like a firewire, USB to USB to C. 

[00:13:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly. And so, and even then it's like what songs will it remove, will my computer remove from my iPod or vice versa?

[00:14:04] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So, I mean, I almost wonder if there's the really old ones where you go and you can see, like you can open it up like that U2 era iPod, and actually just manually move the MP3 tracks around, if those still work somehow, you know, that might be almost the way of safeguarding one's music files from being kinda like yanked up into the ether.

[00:14:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I think whereas, vinyl, despite being somewhat cumbersome, it is ultimately plug and play. You plug it into a standard outlet, put the thing on pretty mechanical. So yeah, I do think that might be the only drawback, but yeah, I could totally see it. The next hipster thing, being dongles at all, finding the way to use iPod. So, yeah, just, I guess cassette tapes are making it come back to, so, you know, just like vinyl, even CDs were up, you know, over the past year or so.

[00:14:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: What's old is new again. 

[00:14:48] Dan Runcie: I know, right? You never know if someone had told me when the iPod first came out, that vinyls would've made a comeback, I'd never would have thought that, but you mentioned plug and play and you mentioned U2 earlier. We have to talk about the greatest hack of all time with whatever you plug this damn device into any USB thing, U2's album automatically starts playing.

[00:15:07] Dan Runcie: How they were able to get that to happen and I know it wasn't a hundred percent intended, but it also kind of was so however they were able to do that, eventually I do think it got on the nerves of many people and we saw from whether it was Apple or even Spotify later on people feeling like these services are pushing certain artists on them.

[00:15:27] Dan Runcie: I do think that that is one of the understated hacks that we've seen in both of U2's major deals with Apple. 

[00:15:36] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just remember, you know, right. They gave away that album and you woke up one morning and it was on your iTunes and all these people were freaking out, like, get this off my computer.

[00:15:45] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I can't get it off my computer. I don't want this taking up hard drive space. Like first of all, how much hard drive space is taken up? You have a Mac anyway, probably. And it's, you know, it's fine. Is Bono really that offensive to you? Like U2? I mean, I don't know. I think it's sort of, you know, I mean, I don't want to say like easy listening, but it's not like offensive, like who is offended by U2?

[00:16:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I was kind of always surprised by that. And Bono had this kind of poignant quote. He said he was like, you know, “I'm just an Irishman trying to give you some beautiful music.” Yeah. If you don't want it, I'm sorry, you know. That kind of thing and can't really feel bad for Bono and he was a good sport about it, but it's kind of funny that the way people's minds work, you know, it's like during the Napster era, it's like, oh, I got to go get all my music for free.

[00:16:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I will seek it out to illegally download music. Right. And it'll take me an hour to download a song. And if somebody calls my mom on the landline, you know, it'll get interrupted halfway through, right? And then. Here comes U2 giving everybody a free album and they don't even have to do anything.

[00:16:51] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And all these people are kind of grousing about it. So I thought that was sort of, you know, above all a really interesting commentary on like the human psyche and, you know, wanting what you can't have. Not wanting what you do. So pour one out for that as well. 

[00:17:05] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I mean, from my perspective, I was never upset about the album actually being there, if anything, it was more so than minor inconvenience of can I plug this device into the USB port for one second, without anything automatically playing, right? Like I also had this era where it was back from doing anything that I'd purchased on iTunes and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance would always play. So like once the U2 thing stopped, like that song always played in.

[00:17:35] Dan Runcie: You want to hear about friends making fun of me and dragging me for that all day long. That was always a, a hilarious one, but no, this was good. Let's pour one out for the iPod, one of the most influential products we've seen. And as we both know, I think we talk about how so much innovation starts in music and this device is one of the best examples of that.

[00:17:55] Dan Runcie: So salute to it. It had a, had a great run. And on that note, I actually think it's probably better for us to stay on the music topic and the streaming topic. And talk a bit about Spotify because this company, less than a year ago, well, maybe a little bit more than a year ago, they were signing so many of the big exclusive deals.

[00:18:18] Dan Runcie: The Rogan deal was still fairly fresh and the stock was at an all-time high. And now this stock is at an all-time low, as of recording this, it's trading under a hundred dollars. Its market cap is under $20 billion. Daniel Ek just purchased 50 million himself to show confidence that he has in the company stock moving forward.

[00:18:39] Dan Runcie: But where do you see all of this happening? I think there's a lot that's happening in the market right now that could be aligned with this, but there's a lot that could be separate from this. That could be a bit more specific to where Spotify currently is. What's your take on the current state of Spotify?

[00:18:55] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. I mean, I think, like you say, there are these kinds of macro trends in the market, in the world that are kind of dragging down a lot of stuff. I think with Spotify though, what's going on is that people are freaking out about streaming in particular after that sort of big surprise, bad news from Netflix a little while ago, where they essentially admitted that the cap on, you know, paid streaming for them was 220 million people and that they were going to open up their free, you know, free or lower ad-supported tier. I forget if it was free tier with ads. I think it was just a lower price tier with ads. So yeah know the idea that, well, you know, it's all streaming and Spotify had been trying to emulate Netflix by paying all this money for content and you know, the Joe Rogan's of the world and podcasting and stuff.

[00:19:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I get it on one hand, but, you know, there's a lot of fear right now in the public markets. And there's a lot of, sort of, you know, constellating of things, right. And yes, they're both streaming companies, but to me, you know, I take a step back and I look at it and I see two totally different companies. I mean, obviously one is primarily, you know, video, one's audio, but you know, the reason that Spotify works and the reason that Spotify became the market leader in audio streaming, it is essentially an unlimited buffet.

[00:20:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Netflix was never an unlimited buffet. And you know, this, if you are somebody who has ever gone on Netflix to find a particular movie or something like I remember many years ago when I first got Netflix, I was like, oh, you know, I want to watch whatever it was. The latest James Bond movie. I'll go on here. It's like $9.99 a month, unlimited everything, right? No, they only have, you know, whatever move they have, all these Adam Sandler movies and they have, you know, just like a random smattering of movies. And of course they have all these shows, but you get Netflix because you want to watch certain shows, you know, or because you are somebody who's just like, I want to just put something on and I trust that they will have, yeah, I don't want to think about it. Like I trust that they will have good stuff and I'll put on one of their shows and you know, it's not cheaper than cable. So, you know, that to me was always a very different model. It is not an unlimited buffet of movies and television, you know, unlike terrestrial cable, where in theory, you know, you get your cable package.

[00:21:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You can watch the news or you can watch sports. So you can, there's some crappy movies on, you know, there's like more of a promise of unlimited opportunity. So I think that, like, there was never a video streaming service that had the unlimited buffet kind of nature of Spotify. So, you know, I think that's what ultimately caps Netflix, like around that 220 million number. If there was some way that Netflix could totally replace your cable. And I know Hulu has live TV options, or if Netflix really did have, you know, a complete movie library that you could complete TV library, you can, anything you want. I think that there would be a lot more room to grow, but it's such an ordeal to get all the rights necessary to do that.

[00:21:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I don't know how that would ever happen. And you certainly couldn't bankroll like every single thing in the future. That would be needed to have that kind of thing going on in perpetuity. So, yeah, I guess I just, I think that Netflix is dealing with this issue of like, sort of the unbundling and re-bundling and what people are treating Netflix as a sort of like a bundle, right? You want to maybe some other bundles, you probably don't just have Netflix, you have Netflix and Hulu, or maybe you even have terrestrial cable and Netflix or something like that. Whereas the Spotify, you have all of your music. I mean, what do you not get on Spotify? Or if it's Apple Music, what do you not get an Apple Music?

[00:22:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think it's a little bit of the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. And I just think that the fundamental thesis is a little bit different when it comes to Spotify than it is with Netflix. So that's my 2 cents. 

[00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. 

[00:22:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think that echoes what Daniel Ek had said himself. Right. He said, even though Spotify and Netflix are both subscription-based revenue companies that serve media on a regular basis to its content, that is where a lot of the similarities do stop. And even though there are points where I feel like Spotify and other streaming services, music streaming services, tried to replicate what Netflix did.

[00:22:55] Dan Runcie: It was never going to be that way. And I think what makes the music streaming area a bit more unique is that because 80%, I'll probably even say 90% of the content that each of these services offer is largely the same. You end up inevitably having a price war at some point, once you've reached a certain level of distribution, and once you've reached a certain percentage of audience that you're reshaped, we're starting to see that happen.

[00:23:20] Dan Runcie: Now you're starting to see that saturation. And I was recently talking to Will Page, the economist that studies this space. And his analogy was that for a long time, this was a herbivore market. People were capturing the opportunity that's there, we're shifting to a carnivore market, and in a lot of ways that does end up benefiting the companies that are the most willing to cut costs and the most willing to pivot. And if we're bringing things back full circle a bit to what we said about Apple Music earlier, this is not a product that they are necessarily trying to run at a profit. It's very similar to the Amazon Prime mentality of when Jeff Bezos has said, the more Golden Globes that we win, the more sneakers that we're able to sell through Amazon.

[00:24:03] Dan Runcie: And I think the same could be said for Apple to some extent. They won best picture, CODA won best picture. That's their product that helps them get more subscribers who then end up purchasing the wide number of different products they have under their Apple TV+ bundle that they're able to offer there.

[00:24:19] Dan Runcie: I do think with Spotify though, and this is why I do think they likely have more relative upside right now, I would say than Netflix, it's for two reasons. One, Spotify has had relatively better growth in the most recent quarters, I'd say, and that's even accounting for both services are ceasing their service in Russia.

[00:24:37] Dan Runcie: It's also looking at them just being able to already have the free tier penetration, already having a pipeline to acquire more as well. And secondly, I think the podcasting model is ultimately what will help them. This was a model that I was initially skeptical about for years, just in terms of whether or not Spotify would be able to actually make it work and become the dominant player in audio.

[00:25:01] Dan Runcie: But the reason that I think they're probably going to be better off is because of the actual data that they could offer both advertisers and listening and podcasters as well. And this is going back to opportunities that Apple didn't necessarily capture at the time, if you think about the fact that most podcasting is essentially just an RSS feed and a lot of people are sharing monthly podcast downloads and things like that.

[00:25:25] Dan Runcie: And if you look at some of the podcasts, especially some of the ones that were most popular, 2016 when podcasts would really start to take off. A lot of those listeners may not necessarily be actively listening, like it could be background downloads. That's where Spotify wins, because they can actually have that clear data to show who's listening to what. They acquired two companies, Chartable and Podsights, that are both analyzing and having the better data in this space. So the, we're leading to a future where Spotify eventually is going to be able to, I think, dominate the space because they're able to make the better pitch to advertisers. Come here, get a more direct way to reach your audience.

[00:26:03] Dan Runcie: And I think if the numbers do continue to grow, I think they will be better off. So of course this is not investment advice, to be clear for anyone. But I do think that between the two of these, that Spotify is probably the company that's in the better position. And it's funny cause this isn't always a, a thought that I would have had of course, two completely different business models.

[00:26:22] Dan Runcie: Netflix is fixed. Spotify is variable, but I do think that over time, relatively speaking, it still has plenty of hurdles to get through, but it feels like that's where the opportunity is. 

[00:26:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. I think I totally agree with you there. 

[00:26:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I mean, with that, another piece that people have brought up as well as content as well. What are your thoughts on Netflix's content? Because I know that's a piece where people have often said, well, if you're just going to make shows, like, Is It Cake? and stuff like that, then why am I going to pay money for the service and the fact that they haven't necessarily had as many true franchises or any repeatable types of things.

[00:27:00] Dan Runcie: In my opinion, a lot of the things that have taken off from Spotify have, or not from Spotify, from Netflix. Sometimes it almost feels like it's like flashes and bottles that catch off a bit unexpectedly, whether it's like a Bird Box or a Squid Game, or Making A Murderer, things like that. Like it doesn't have the same feeling of, okay, you don't, this big HBO show is going to come and dominate like it does.

[00:27:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think Netflix has just done such a good job of going out and just acquiring tons and tons of content. Right. And, you know, given their model, they pay out a lot, you know, then people have been talking over the past, however many years, like, oh, Netflix spent X billion dollars on content.

[00:27:41] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: How are they going to sustain it? But when you're acquiring that much stuff, it's like, you have all these lotto tickets and when something takes off, you know, I think in most cases you're not having to pay a lot of it back, you know, on the backend like you would with, you know, obviously Spotify ends up paying back, you know, a huge percentage of what comes in back to the labels and to the artists.

[00:28:01] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that the model. Netflix, has there are sort of like a lot higher upside when something works? I mean, I guess with Spotify, they're trying to emulate that on the podcasting side, but you know, it would seem to me that when Netflix has, you know, a TV show that takes off just out of nowhere, I mean, something like Squid Game, the amount of new subscribers they sign up are just, you know, so much more than, than you'd get with a hit podcast. So, I mean, you know, in a way I think what I'm most curious to see is how much will Spotify continue to try to emulate Netflix. Now that Netflix is sort of in a, you know, questionable phase and do they just kind of, you know, try to double down on the music aspect because the other piece of it that we haven't talked about, you know, when you're going out and acquiring content and you were paying for it specifically like to have it named and everything you become, you know, an arbiter of culture and taste also, you know, right and wrong of what is hate speech of what is, you know, all kinds of things. And that's like a huge pain in the ass to figure out, right, as we learned with the whole Spotify, Joe Rogan, Neil young situation.

[00:29:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And. Yeah. I never thought that Neil Young being off of Spotify was gonna ruin Spotify. And I don't really think very many people did, but you know, it did go to show that there's a, an amount of energy that has to go into defending some decisions once, once you are acquiring content versus sure, I mean, if you have artists on your platform and you know, they do something terrible, you may have to make a decision to try to pull them off. But, you know, I think generally as a society, we've moved away from pressuring people to sort of deplatform musicians for making, you know, offensive music or something like that, music that some people find offensive.

[00:29:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And even for, you know, some of the most controversial musicians, you know, it's super rare that their music is pulled down. So I just think that there's a lot more editorial energy that goes into obviously Netflix, but, you know, Spotify emulating Netflix in the podcasting space, that becomes a whole new headache with like a lot of unknown unknowns.

[00:29:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I do wonder now that it's, you know, perhaps less of a growth area. Will Spotify continue to follow that path? 

[00:30:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a great point. We had not touched on this piece of it. And I think that in a lot of ways it does mean it's more workforce, something like a company like Spotify. Netflix can pretty easily, at least I would hope so, identify the movies that have these issues, and we've already seen some of them have disclaimers, but there's a bit of a removedness from it because of just how they go about their deals versus Spotify. You just see the blind spots where someone that literally goes and finds all of the clips of Joe Rogan saying the N-word, putting that together.

[00:30:38] Dan Runcie: And then that's what sparks the controversy. You would have hoped that the company themselves would have been looking at the content. And then it makes you think, are people really responding to the issue itself? By people, I mean, the company like Spotify, are they really responding to the issue itself or are they responding to the public outcry over the issue?

[00:30:54] Dan Runcie: And that could, you know, be an ongoing conversation, but that's where I do think that there needs to be much more editorial oversight and understanding that if you are going to be, it's one thing to say that you're an open platform that anyone can put music on. Anyone can put, upload their music too, but when you're exclusively paying someone or licensing their content, it changes the dynamic of the relationship.

[00:31:18] Dan Runcie: And I know that they try to make the distinction. Yes. we are licensing Joe Rogan's content as opposed to acquiring it. But the example I always bring back to people it's like, okay, well, let's explore that scenario then, let's say that this was Bill Simmons, who now works for Spotify because you acquired his company and we found those clips of him saying those things. Would you then have treated this situation differently? I don't know the answer to that situation, but Spotify is implying that they would, but I don't know. 

[00:31:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. It's a gray area. And the more you get into, the deeper you get into editorial, the less profitable it is, I say, as a journalist.

[00:31:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that, you know, some of these companies are learning that the hard way. 

[00:31:58] Dan Runcie: Couldn't agree more. And while we're on the note of Spotify, let's switch gears again and let's talk about the current king of Spotify, right? Bad Bunny. It is been really cool, and refreshing to see an artist outside of the US dominate on a platform like this.

[00:32:13] Dan Runcie: I think that his success has really shown what's possible now in a way, I think that he's the greatest success story of the streaming era. I really do. I mean, when you think about what he was able to do, where he was six years ago, I've written about it in a recent newsletter about how six years ago, he's bagging groceries at a local grocery store in Puerto Rico.

[00:32:36] Dan Runcie: And then now he's a superstar. He was on stage at the Super Bowl. He's going to have this old Marvel movie, tops every chart possible. It's like that Kurt Warner underdog story from him starting off as a grocery bagger and then did his Arena Football. But imagine if Kurt Warner had the career of Peyton Manning and actually went on to, you know, dominate years and years, it's impressive. What do you think about Bad Bunny and what he's been able to do? 

[00:33:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Ah, I think it's incredible. I mean, and I think it also, it shows the democratization that has been brought about by streaming and what's that Jay-Z line? Men lie, women lie, numbers don't. And you know, you can have your charts for whatever publication and you can have all this and that and their formulas and stuff like that.

[00:33:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, it's all very convoluted and, you know, it's, it's usually one way or the other. It's engineered to sort of favor the, those who are already sort of big names, but when you have the numbers, it shows up on Spotify and regardless of where you are on whatever other chart, I mean, the fact is that more people are listening to your music than they're listening to anybody else's music and it's objectively true. You can see it in Spotify and the numbers don't lie. And so Bad Bunny, I think, you know, was able to come up from, you know, in this incredible underdog story, you know, to get there and there's proof, right? I mean, there's proof in a way that there might not have been, you know, before the streaming era.

[00:33:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think another thing about Bad Bunny that, you know, certainly in my time at Forbes, we would look, we've scoured the world to find and do our list of the top-earning musicians. And I did that list this past year for Rolling Stone, but, you know, it was just all old rockers selling their catalogs basically.

[00:34:14] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think, you know, a function of that is that the pandemic has just greatly disrupted touring, which would kind of like traditionally be the thing that would get you up on one of these lists. And, you know, I think now that the pandemic is kind of easing up and tours are really starting to happen again, you know, we're seeing Bad Bunny be able to sell out stadiums, you know, I mean, he is really on that level in terms of, you know, people putting their money where their mouth is. So I think that next step is going to be, as we start to see these totals from his tour in combination, you know, with the streaming dollars and Marvel and all these other things that are going to come along with it, you know, he's going to start to climb up these earnings lists, you know, from a financial perspective as well.

[00:34:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that adds a whole other level. You know, sort of like credibility in some cases, when looking at somebody as like a generational superstar, when they sort of have the, you know, the financial success to prove it and to sustain and to, you know, to expand into other fascinating ways. So I'm really curious to see what he does next.

[00:35:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Like, you know, what's his Jay-Z move? What's his Puffy move? Is there going to be something in the spirits business or the cannabis or who knows what, but, you know, personally, as sort of a music business nerd, I'm especially interested to see, you know, what does he do with all this energy and momentum and you know, what direction does he take it in having created this incredible musical empire.

[00:35:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's only a matter of time until he's going to top most of those lists, right? You look at the numbers that this tour will likely do. It's likely going to be over 2 or 3 million, if not more, just given the amount of shows that he has and the size of the arenas that he's performing in. And one of the things that I've always thought about with artists from other countries is that there's always been this stigma or thought that in order for them to monetize, it always had to rely much more on brand deals or things like that because the assumption was that the fan bases in these areas may not be willing to necessarily pay as much, but his tours are disproving that just based on the sales numbers, I would need to dig it a little bit further to see, okay, are the dollar amounts in all of the regions similar, but I think he's proving that that isn't necessarily the case. Yeah. If he does want to continue to take this further, what would it look like if he eventually let's say that he continues to do things with the WWE even further? Is he able to have some type of connection there to make that further extend, right? This Marvel character he's going to have in this upcoming movie is a wrestler. What could that potentially look like? If he ends up selling some type of, as you mentioned, some type of spirits or getting involved with something on the business side, the sky really is the limit.

[00:36:52] Dan Runcie: And I think it's one of those unique optionality things where it's up to him and what stuck out to me as well as if we think, just think about his trajectory and what's possible now for a lot of Latin artists, is that he has not done one song in English. Everything that he's done is either been in Spanish or if he did it, then his verses is still in Spanish.

[00:37:15] Dan Runcie: But everyone else is still doing their stuff in English. Like this song. Cardi B from a couple of years ago. But I do think that that's different from even the wave of Latin artists that got mainstream popularity. Let's say 20 years ago, you have Enrique Iglesias, your Mark Anthony or even JLo to some extent, they all had to do albums in English before they were ever given a consideration for that mainstream push or appeal.

[00:37:41] Dan Runcie: Ricky Martin was the same exact way. And I think the fact that he's been able to do on his terms, he's been able to be an advocate as well for both gender norms and for just LGBTQ as well and how he has been just a lot of the causes and things that he cares about. It's really cool to see artists like this.

[00:38:02] Dan Runcie: And I think in some ways the trajectory that Latin artists have been on, especially in the streaming era, kind of reminds me of where hip hop was at a certain point, right? It's like in the early days they wanted those artists to like assimilate to whatever the pop phase was, right? Like the rappers had to do these pop collaborations.

[00:38:21] Dan Runcie: The Latin stars had to do the, you know, US pop star collaborations. Then once they prove they no longer have to assimilate in the same way, then those artists set the trends and now everyone else wants to come to them. And now we're seeing Billie Eilish and Drake and all these other artists doing songs in Spanish, even though that's not their main language, we're just going to see more and more of that.

[00:38:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, and I think that one of the things that Bad Bunny has proven, you know, in some other form, is that if given the opportunity, you know, if you're not sort of, you know, forced to go meet the quote unquote US mainstream market, where it's at, the US mainstream market will actually come to you. You know, and people who don't understand Spanish will still love your music.

[00:39:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I know a lot of songs in English that I don't understand. Whatever genre, if it's, you know, rock and there's a lot of yelling or if it's, you know, rap and it's like so fast or with like a really deep accent. I don't always catch on but, you know, people respond to music. I mean, it doesn't really matter what's being said, I mean, look at Nirvana, right? Like a lot of the lyrics didn't particularly mean anything, but people just responded to the music and the vibe, the whole thing. So even if you can understand the words, people are going to be attracted to the music. And, you know, I think that he's showing that that holds true even on the tip-top superstar level for sure.

[00:39:38] Dan Runcie: A hundred percent. Excited to see where his career goes, excited to see where he continues to dominate. 

[00:39:43] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Amen to that. And, you know, if have his management too, I'm trying to get him in some consumer-facing startups, because if you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and they know that the market is cooled down at it, but still, you know, you're in a really mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music, investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that has, especially if you're trying to get into Spanish language market. It's untoppable. And I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too, so. 

[00:40:12] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. It should be. All right. Before we wrap this up, we got to talk about this article that you had written very recently about, we're both fellow Yankees fans, and one of the stars we've been most familiar with over the years, Robinson Canó, and you have this idea that you were brought up. I thought it was really interesting and I want for you to talk more. Did Jay-Z ruin Robinson Canó bag? 

[00:40:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I kind of posed that question on my Substack and, you know, I think going into it and that the background,I'm going to set the background for anybody who maybe isn't a Yankee fan, but I guess it was eight years ago, Robinson Canó, who at the time was the best player in the Yankees.

[00:40:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Everybody thought he was going to resign. He was a free agent. Everybody thought he would come back, think they he's never lose out on a free agent. Jay-Z comes in, takes over as his agent from Scott Boras, who was like, you know, he is to baseball agency as Jay-Z is to hip hop. Jay-Z comes in, gets Canó to come over to Roc Nation, Roc Nation brings on CAA to help them, you know, kind of become, you know, Scott Boras-level players in the game, let's say, and you know, Robinson Canó gets offered seven years, $161 million by the Yankees and the months drag on, nobody else is offering him more. Everybody thinks Jay-Z is getting greedy.

[00:41:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then just out of nowhere, Canó goes to the Mariners for 240 million over 10 years and great deal financially for him. Obviously, it's, you know, like $80 million more than Yankees we're offering and no state income tax in Washington. However, a much worse team, a much worse ballpark for hitters and, you know, five years into the 10-year deal could no, I mean, I think that was when he got suspended for steroids, then he got traded to the Mets.

[00:42:03] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then he got suspended again last year, 80 games. And he started out this year with the Mets and just earlier this week got cut. And so here's this guy who, you know, so I guess that's my question. If he'd stayed with the Yankees, would all of, all of these miseries have befallen him and should we blame Jay-Z for the misery?

[00:42:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think my answer ultimately is, is no, you know, It's going to retire almost a hundred million dollars richer, eventually. From a baseball perspective though, you can argue that things would have been better for him if he'd stayed with the Yankees. And as it turns out, the guy who really kind of led the charge and I reported this in the latest edition of my Jay-Z book, Empire State of Mind, the guy who led the charge for Canó to leave was Brodie Van Wagenen at CAA who then became the GM of the Mets. Traded for Canó, got fired by the new owner of the Mets and is now back working with Jay-Z. And I think working on, on representing Canó again, as he tries to, to latch on with another major league team.

[00:43:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So you could kind of blame him, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it really does come down to the player, you know, who makes the decision to take bag, you know, instead of glory, which is, you know, defensible, I think you've got to live and you only have so long to be a professional ballplayer. And, you know, he was the one that took the performance-enhancing drugs, got suspended so, but it is this just sort of like a fascinating winding road, you know, from this decision that happened eight years ago, that's still playing out, that still had all these ramifications. And you look back to that deal. I mean, you know, the fact that Jay-Z, whether it was Jay-Z or CAA, or this guy, Brodie Van Wagenen doing most of the work.

[00:43:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Jay-Z, Roc Nation did get credit. And after that you saw Roc Nation really become much more of a force as a professional sports agency. So, you know, certainly, Jay-Z did well for himself in those past eight years. He's a billionaire now. Brodie Van Wagenen has this great new job, and Robinson Canó has that much nicer retirement eventually.

[00:43:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So maybe he lost a chance at eternal glory, but you know, a hundred million dollars is a lot of money. I don't know. Dan, what do you think? 

[00:44:04] Dan Runcie: It's interesting because I've always thought that his career was definitely into replay. I felt like it was typical timing of, okay, this guy's turning 30 and that could be hit or miss for a lot of baseball players, depending on how well they're able to take care of themselves and stay out of injury thing.

[00:44:18] Dan Runcie: The one thing though, and this is a part that I do think gets overlooked sometimes is the ballpark difference. Yankee Stadium, especially in the new Yankee stadium, literally engineered in some ways to get more home runs and just have more, especially more than the old Yankee stadium compared to T-Mobile Park in Seattle, before it was Safeco park, historically picture friendly ballpark.

[00:44:41] Dan Runcie: So if you know what you're getting yourself into, I mean, outside of Griffey and A-Rod in the nineties. I can't necessarily think of people that really like, oh yeah. You know, they cleaned up there. Maybe, you know, you had some early, I'm trying to think of some of the other stars who may have like, done well they're from like a home run hitting perspective, but it's one of those things where you think about the trade-off, right? It's. to some degree, it kind of makes me think about Carmelo Anthony with the Knicks, right? It's like you went to that team, you did get paid and you ended up getting, you know, later on a Supermax. But I think a lot of the decisions that he made show that he was prioritizing more of the money that came through, as opposed to the decisions, why not wait until free agency to then join that team instead of making them all those picks for you. 

[00:45:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly.

[00:45:31] Dan Runcie: And in some ways, yeah, I think about the Canó thing, that kinda kind of similarly, right. If you want it to continue to win and you didn't care as much about the money that you would have stayed in New York, but to our point, yeah. You get it a hundred million dollars is a lot, of course, but it's hard to have both, especially with the franchise, in my opinion, that they'll have spurts of having great players here and there, but they haven't necessarily been able to prove that winning this, that Canó was raised in.

[00:45:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, and Canó is going to finish up and, you know, even now it looks like he may, he's probably going to catch on with another team, at least for the rest of the year, but he's, I think at 2,600, a little over 2,600 hits for his career, if he had been able to get to 3000, which I think in New York with a better lineup that turned over more, he gets more best, more opportunities to hit.

[00:46:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: There 's a better ballpark for hitters. So more fly balls turn into home runs. It's pretty likely, he would've gotten to 3000 hits or that he'd be within shouting distance of it. Now with, you know, a little more time to go. There has never been a major league baseball player who got 3000 hits who did not end up in the hall of fame once eligible, except for the steroid guys and Pete Rose, who was thrown out of the game for betting on baseball. So it is like an automatic ticket to the hall of fame. So if he had just stayed at Yankee stadium, not done, you know, not on steroids, I think he would have gotten there. No question. And you know, who knows, I mean, seven years into that deal that he would have been what, 37, maybe. You never know if he was still hitting well, they might've brought him back for another year or two. God knows they kept bringing Brett Gardner back. So I do think he would've gotten a few thousand hits and had a really good shot at the hall of fame. And is that worth a hundred million dollars though?

[00:47:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. He did have such a sweet swing though, man. Watching him play in the Yankees stadium. That was always fun. 

[00:47:25] Dan Runcie: He did it. He was exciting to watch. He had a great career and yeah, I think that's a great note for us to close out with this. Zack, we've covered a bunch in this pod, but basically, we'll have to have another roundup again at some point soon, but thanks for doing this. This is fun.

[00:47:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: For sure. Thanks as always.

[00:47:41] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post in your group chat, post in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people.

[00:47:56] Dan Runcie: And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

3.3 million followers on Facebook. Over 423 million views on YouTube. 4.2 million TikTok likes.

Bigg Jah (real name Jahdai Pickett) has put up those gaudy social media numbers with no studio or agency backing and a relatively small team. The do-everything entertainer — who can write, act, direct, produce, and everything in between — has been posting content online almost nonstop for the past five years, doing what he calls “hood good comedy.” It’s all paying dividends now.  

He’s built a synergy map that extends past his wildly popular social media franchises like “Inner Thoughts” and “The Lesbian Homie.” There’s also merch (with a new piece dropping almost every month) and with the world re-opening, perhaps comedy shows again.  

Next, Bigg Jah is trying to parlay his massive social media success into feature films. He originally studied film in college and planned to take the traditional route into the industry — shooting a short film, winning movie festivals, and signing with an agent. But the rise of social media gave Bigg Jah an alternative AND independent route into the business.

You’ll want to listen to my interview with Bigg Jah to get more insight into his creative process and meteoric rise on social media. Here’s everything we covered in this Trapital episode:

[3:14] What Does “Hood Good Comedy” Mean?

[5:36] Lasting Impact Of 90s Comedy Movies 

[7:36] Navigating Different Entertainment Mediums (Social Media, Film, Comedy)

[11:49] Being Forced To Go The Independent Creator Route

[14:59] Acting Vs. Directing Vs. Writing

[18:18] How Bigg Jah Chooses What Type Of Content To Make

[21:06] What’s Behind Bigg Jah’s Success On Facebook?

[23:19] How Bigg Jah Has Leveraged Other Social Networks

[26:25] Bigg Jah’s Revenue Breakdown

[29:05] The Struggles Of Creator Burnout 

[33:56] The Key To Bigg Jah’s Success 

[43:55] Upcoming Projects For Bigg Jah

[45:44] How To Follow Bigg Jah

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Bigg Jahh, @biggjah

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:00] Bigg Jah: I'm not pressured to keep the series going, because I know that it works. I'm in it to create new stuff and see how it goes. I'm not a slave to the, "Well, this is what works. So let me just keep doing this only." No, I'm gonna push the envelope and push the line and I'm gonna see if they like this too. And what about this?

[00:00:15] I'm going to grab this and what if I do this? You know, so I don't have a problem with that. Plus I've done so much. I've done the series thing to a degree now I wanna move on to something else. I want to challenge myself to do another character or another storyline that see if people like that.

[00:00:36] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level.

[00:00:56] Today's guest is Bigg Jah. He's an actor creator, filmmaker, comedian, and one of the funniest people on the internet, I was first put onto Bigg Jah's work because I got to know Damien Ritter, shout out to Dame. He used to run Funk Volume, and he's now chief operating officer at BeatStars, but he also manages Jah.

[00:01:16] And Jah is someone who I think has definitely been one of the more successful, independent creators that I've seen being able to leverage social media, to grow his platform. And now accrue millions of followers on Facebook. And on YouTube. And we talk a lot about how he's built his career. He's someone that first went to school to study film and how he transitioned eventually to wanting to be the person behind the camera.

[00:01:43] But realizing that there was a lot of value from him being the person in front of the camera as well. And that's when things really started to take off for him. And we talked about how he approached his comedy, some of the most successful franchises and series that he's had and his bigger ambitions to still be able to do more motion pictures, and do more stuff behind the scenes.

[00:02:02] And we talked a lot as well about just how much of a grind it can be for creators to always produce content nonstop and how that's what the algorithms ultimately want you to do. And that's definitely something that I can relate to. I know a lot of people listening to this can relate to as well. 

[00:02:17] We also talked about how he looks at running his business, what his team looks like. And so much more, if you are interested in the different levels of the creator economy, there is this essay that I wrote a couple of months back, that overlooked levels of the creator economy. And I talked a lot about the success at each stage.

[00:02:34] Jah was one of the people that was featured and mentioned in that article. So I definitely recommend you check that out and Pete this episode, because I think that anyone that. The landscape. You're trying to love a love determine. When do you partner with other companies when you don't? This is the episode for you I had a great chat with him.

[00:02:51] Hope you enjoyed it. Here's my conversation with Bigg Jah. 

[00:02:55] All right. Today we got the one and only Bigg Jah. He's a comedian, an actor, a filmmaker himself. Jah, welcome to the 

[00:03:02] Bigg Jah: Thank you for having me, bro. Appreciate it. 

[00:03:05] Dan Runcie: Hey, I've always been a big fan of you, how you've built up your platform, not just on social media, but through touring and putting everything out there.

[00:03:14] And one of the things that stuck out to me is your brand. You've referred to yourself as putting out hood good comedy. Can you talk more about that and what that means? 

[00:03:23] Bigg Jah: Yeah, man, have a good comedy, bro. Is this I'm from the hood, bro. Hood good means good things come out of the hood, and I'm one of them. So it's just sometimes you being from the hood or growing up in that environment.

[00:03:36] It's humble beginnings, tough times. Things that a lot of people wouldn't want to go through, but if you're from here and you grew up this way and you end up, you turn out good, you turned out. Okay. I loved my, I love my upbringing. I love even the hard times. Yeah, it's almost like making lemonade out of lemons..

[00:03:52] You know what I'm saying? So it's hood good comedy. A lot of the times, the stuff I like to talk about or display on camera are things that if you're from the hood, you can relate to, you don't even have to be from the hood to relate to it. But for sure if you're from the hood. You can relate to it. You know what I'm saying?

[00:04:07] That's kind of what I make it for everybody, but I make it for specifically, for folks in the hood, 

[00:04:12] Dan Runcie: And I think what helps you as well as that, of course, there's a lot of black content that is out there now with Netflix and all these other streaming services. You're able to tell stories and talk about things that aren't going to get covered in those spaces.

[00:04:25] And I think that just shows that even though people may think that there's this abundance of content, that's everywhere. Now, you're telling stories through your comedy and through your sketches that you know are not going to get told elsewhere. So you have a good niche for yourself there. 

[00:04:40] Bigg Jah: Yeah. Thank you, bro.

[00:04:41] It took me a minute to do it consistently. I've always wanted to do this type of stuff, this type of content, but growing up, watching Martin, you know, the Jamie Fox show or the woods, Don't Be a Menace to Society, all those different shows and movies, Harlem Nights, Eddie Murphy, like Boomerang.

[00:05:01] Those films definitely influenced me into doing what I do now. And so I feel like you watch Friday that Friday show the movie Friday is specifically for the hood. Anybody could like it. Anybody can find value in it and find humor in it, but for sure the hood is going to love it because it's exactly where we come from.

[00:05:18] It tells the story, it tells our story. When I had the opportunity to do that, I wanted to do the same. 

[00:05:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And those movies you mentioned, and the TV shows too, they all hit this error that I feel like a lot of us grew up with that we saw on TV, right? The nineties had such a Renaissance for not just black entertainment, but comedy too.

[00:05:36] I mean, thinking about even you mentioning the way, a lot of people may not think about that as a traditional comedy, but it's a coming of age story. Everyone remembers what it's like going to prom or going through any of those experiences. 

[00:05:48] Bigg Jah: For me, for sure. A hundred percent for that boy. It was it's funny because I remember going through almost every single thing in that movie I experienced as a kid growing up.

[00:05:57] So yeah, that's why the woods is a classic for me. I would love to create something like that for myself, for the people in other versions of. The Hood Good stories and stuff like that. So, yeah. 

[00:06:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because now we're in this space where they're starting to make sequels of all those right. Cause best man came out right around the same time as the wood and that best man holiday.

[00:06:19] And I think I saw something they're trying to put out another one of these know 

[00:06:23] Bigg Jah: that series is dope. I think that cast is so strong. They can do a part three and as long as it's just that. And then the next thing someone else is getting married or someone's going through a divorce, or if someone's having a baby shower or something, I think you can do more, are turned into a TV show or something about that.

[00:06:39] Cash is so dope. I think, I think a baby could do it. And I think all the actors in that movie wouldn't mind doing the series. You know what I'm saying? Because they all doing their thing, but I'm sure that'd be a great opportunity for them to really get back on camera together and consider. 

[00:06:56] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Yeah. One of the things about your career that I think is a bit more unique from maybe that generation of stars is they very much were trained to perfect how they were on screen, right.

[00:07:08] They're either going to be in TV or in movies. Your career's a little different because you have to. Be a face on social media, you're doing your stand-up. You have your specials, your movies, and then even your own touring. And I got to imagine that there was a bit of maneuvering there between each of those areas.

[00:07:25] You're not trying to get pigeonholed, but you also know that you need to have exposure in each of those. What has it been like navigating each of those areas, but knowing that they're all part of how you run and do what you do 

[00:07:36] Bigg Jah: It's still a challenge. it's lovely. It's a beautiful struggle, man. That's crazy.

[00:07:40] Cause I went to film school to learn how to make films. And then I started doing comedy. Then I went and did comedy. I started pursuing comedy when I moved back to LA. And I was trying to make it as a comic, still trying to make it as a comic and, you know, get on tours, open up for different comics, get the, be, become a stronger comic, get my hour going.

[00:08:04] And it was moving by the snail's pace. I was growing as a comic. But I just wasn't professionally growing as a comic. And then it dawned on me, like once I started reaching back and grabbing my film information, my film degree, and working on films and sketches and just doing content like that, it took my comedy and it boosted it.

[00:08:23] And then fast forward, a lot of things are, are, I wouldn't say fast-forwarded. I think it brought me up to speed with my comedy, you know, because the biggest thing about comedy, no matter how funny you are, if you can't get butts on the seats. No one cares, you know, promoters don't care and you don't care either.

[00:08:38] If you throw a show and no one comes then you don't really have a show. Cause you probably still gonna perform. But you know, it's just being a filmmaker and a comedian at the same time allows me to A. Interchange both. So if I think of a funny sketch, a lot of the time I'll put that sketch on stage and talk about the sketch as the comedy bit.

[00:08:58] But most of my sketches come from comedy. Anyhow, come from my stage work. So I have a joke about certain things word plays. The whole crew is stupid, came from a joke on stage. The lesbian homie came from a joke on stage, you know? Yeah, man. So I think it worked in my favor at first. I was doing one or the other.

[00:09:15] Now I'm doing both, you know, so 

[00:09:17] Dan Runcie: yeah. And I figured what that, to each of these, it gives you an opportunity to just get that quick feedback. You can then turn that into however you're going to make the actual longer form content itself. You put something on social media, you see the engagement, that's your feedback.

[00:09:32] You're doing something on tour. You see how the crowd reacts. You see, okay. There are differences with the crowd in this city versus that city. And then each of those things I'm sure gives you the confidence. You'd be like, okay, if we're going to spend several weeks or several months putting this project together.

[00:09:47] I know this is going to hit because of what I saw from the responsible people. 

[00:09:51] Bigg Jah: Right? True. Yeah. The social media is great for that, you know, instantly whether or not it is funny or not, or you can find out instantly whether it's funny or not. And even if you don't find it, that it's funny right away doesn't mean it's not funny.

[00:10:04] I refuse to believe. Social media is the only way to gauge whether a joke is funny or not. It's a good way because the people laughing at me and it's funny. And what I'm saying, if people don't laugh, I mean, they're not laughing yet in my opinion, but yeah. So I navigated through both, you know, stand up comedy, sketch comedy, and then I'm moving on to feature films.

[00:10:23] Eventually that's the goal. That's the immediate goal, you know? So yeah.

[00:10:27] Dan Runcie: let's talk more about that immediate goal. People could probably look at your career from outside it and be like, oh, he's killing it independently. He's doing his thing. He has things in motion and you've definitely hit one of those higher levels of being someone that has their platform and being able to just do bigger things with it.

[00:10:47] But you're still like, no, you want to be able to do the feature films and you want to be able to do bigger, bigger things. Can you talk about that? The difference there, because I know. There was likely a stage maybe from where you may have been several years ago, where the point you're at now would have been like, oh, this is where I really want to be able to get to.

[00:11:04] Right. And then now it's about what it looks like for that next level of being able to do more motion pictures. 

[00:11:13] Bigg Jah: And so my goal was to, in a perfect world, create a film, enter into a film festival when it wins several film, festivals, booking agent, you know what I'm saying? That, and then getting to the point where I'm in a position to create, write and direct my own films.

[00:11:29] And that's the typical way I believe, you know, but then this thing called social media came and it took me a while to really buy into it. That's what changed my world and my mindset. A lot of the time I was trying to be an employee. I was trying to be a writer for sketch comedy network or a writer for Fox or writer for ADD or something like that.

[00:11:49] So I was trying to pitch me. I was pitching myself to, you know, what the funny was back in the day, which is the Waynes Brothers and whatnot that was sitting in the offices, just trying to say, oh, look at the sketch. I did look at this, read my script. And no one really took hold of it. No one really long story short note, and everyone said, no, they didn't say no. No, we not going to mess with you, but they didn't hire me.

[00:12:10] They didn't put me in a position in their company to thrive or just become a team player. So eventually I got to the point where I was like, I got to do this myself. And so let me start a page from scratch, put my name on it and started making them for the first sketch and the second sketch and the third and fourth and keep it going as opposed to, because most of my sketches, especially in the first year, Most of my sketches were sketches that I wrote for ADD or for other platforms.

[00:12:35] And there was a rifle with me at first, you know, and so a shout out to them. I said, I know a lot of people over there and so I love it. But, it was a blessing in disguise me not like selling my, my scripts over there or getting hired to be a director over there, forced me into doing my own thing. And I'm much rather we would be doing this than anything else.

[00:12:54] So, uh, the feature film thing. I also still want to state, I would love to be independent, an independent filmmaker that makes what I want to make. And at the times, and the pacing that I wouldn't make it. But my goal was to always make films and TV. So I went to school for that.

[00:13:09] And when I came across social media, it was, it's not, I would say it's a step back, cause it's not, it's a step across. It's another way of getting to where I want to go. And it took me some years to figure that out. But, uh, I did so myself putting sketches or sort of spending months of making a short film or many months trying to make a feature and trying to get the funding for, to produce a feature or short.

[00:13:34] let me just take this camera that I have and my equipment that I already have and start shooting the small vignettes. So small sketches cause people doing anyways, small sketches and it's keep doing that until something happens and something happened. It was a fan base and a fan base is the most important thing to any entertainer.

[00:13:51] Singer writer, poet offer dancer. You build a fan base. That's the most important thing, in my opinion. Because at that point you have people who love what you do, you know, and you don't need, you don't need a producer or a studio to say yes to do what you want to do. I can move right now by myself.

[00:14:09] And it took me a while to get to this point. It's a blessing that people do, like what I do, and they do support. Like I said, it's, it's way more gratifying than making someone else's dream come true.

[00:14:20] Dan Runcie: It's powerful, especially to be able to do it on your own. And you saw it, it was like you tried to break out initially and they weren't feeling it at first, but now that you have a bit more clout and leverage, you can do the same thing yourself.

[00:14:34] And in that space, I'm sure it's a bit of this distinction where you're wearing multiple hats. You're the lead person as the comic and the creator and the face of the brand. You also want to be the filmmaker, the person that can direct and put everything together. Do you feel as if people are always seeing you in that light or do you feel like you may have to remind people?

[00:14:55] No. No. I'm also interested in this other aspect as well.

[00:14:59] Bigg Jah: As far as acting and producing and directing. Okay. So one thing I will say this, when I will create different things, whether it was a short film or, or just a piece of content, a lot of the time I was writting it and I was directing it and I was shooting it, and that was getting other actors.

[00:15:15] To begin it and building it that way. And no one really out would put it online. Nobody would really follow it or watch it. And maybe because it was just too soon, then back in 2017, I decided, let me put myself on camera, have someone from me doing all the funny stuff I'm writing for other people. Let me do, let me do the funny stuff.

[00:15:32] And that was already an actor. I have an agent and I've been acting since 2009. So it was not like I was just a director writer. I was after as well, but I didn't care when it came to my projects, I was seeing other people play these roles. And I was working under the hat of writer director. And then it got to the point where, all right, you can't really rely on people, especially when you have no money and limited resources and limited time.

[00:15:56] So you have to start doing things yourself. And so I said, okay, cool. I'm gonna have to find somebody who rocks with me, who cares about what I do and asked him to shoot me, just hold the camera, push record and just make sure it's steady and I'm going in front of the camera and then I'm going to be the funny, and that's when things start picking up, that's when things took off.

[00:16:12] So to answer your question about reminding people that are, yeah, I mean, honestly, I would love to, as much as I love being in front of a camera and telling jokes and being funny and being silly. I would love to just write and direct sometimes, sometimes to where it's a project that's produced by me directed by me, but I don't have to be the lead star.

[00:16:32] I can just literally sit back and direct the actors and make some dope. So eventually I put on, get into. I think this year, the remainder of this year, I'm wanting to start putting more projects together where I'm not the focal point, but it's the focal point is where people come to see at this point, it's me.

[00:16:48] So I would love to get to the point where people would love just to see my content, whether I'm in front of the camera or the main character or not, they just are interested in seeing what I put in. So that's the goal. 

[00:16:59] Dan Runcie: That reminds me of something I heard recently from Quinta Brunson from Abbott Elementary.

[00:17:04] She had said when she was first pitching the show, she actually did even have herself as the lead in the role. And then the people that at ABC were like, ah, we didn't buy this project without you in this. Like you have to be in this. So it was interesting to hear her experience through that. And I think similarly with you, it'd be interesting to see what.

[00:17:24] Continues to do a backpack. Cause I do think that there's this thing where yes, what people may most respond to is seeing the person they're most familiar with. But as the thing expands and grows, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. And I think one of the ways that you've done that, and I think it continue through is that you do have consistent series throughout your content.

[00:17:45] You have the lesbian Hovey, you have inner thoughts and some of these. Sketches. And I think in a lot of ways, these are the franchises that you have under your umbrella. And in thinking about that piece, do you ever think about the balance of content, whether you want to continue making shows in those series because you know how popular they are versus tried new series out and doing things, how much do you balance the content play between what you know is already proven versus testing new things?

[00:18:18] Bigg Jah: Honestly, I will say over the years, I've gotten more comfortable with this. I've been going back and forth. I've been going, like, for example, when I first did my first big project I did, or my first sketch that really did numbers and really got me some notice was Tiberius, The Hood Man. And then that kind of spread fast and it was going to share it a lot.

[00:18:38] And I was like, man, this is dope. And so I did another one. I did a part two. Then I got like an episode three. and episode four and I kept going. I was like, all right, let me fall back and not just do this one character, this one type of a piece of content. Let me do something different. I'm coming to, that was my second, like non-sequitur series.

[00:18:56] You know what I'm saying? It just, it was just episode for episode here and there, but I was doing that. So that was a totally different room. It was still Hood Good, but it was, I was a different type of character in Tiberius. I'm this big Debo type character in the I'm coming to.

[00:19:08] I'm like this big guy too. You can't hide my size, but pause, but you can. My lady is the bully. My lady is the one punking me and stuff like that. So that was like a two different dynamics there. And, it did well. And then moved on. So I forget the next one. I think that might've been lesbian the next one, but then the whole crew was stupid.

[00:19:26] I keep trying to, I was still doing episode one, two and three of this series, one, two, and three of that series. And I was adding on the whole crew was stupid. My inner thoughts, the roommate pays all the bills I kept doing. So I don't have a problem with doing something new because I feel like. I feel like if I'm blessed enough to make these go to the next project, the next different ideas will go to, you know, so that's what I mean about like, yeah.

[00:19:48] I'm not pressured to keep the series going, because I know that it works. I'm in it to create new stuff and see how it goes. I'm not a slave slave to the, "Well, this is what works. So let me just keep doing this only." No, I'm gonna push the envelope and push the line and I'm gonna see if they like this too. And what about this?

[00:20:04] I'm going to grab this and what if I do this? You know, so I don't have a problem with that. Plus I've done so much. I've done the series thing to a degree now I wanna move on to something else. I want to challenge myself to do another character or another storyline that see if people like that.

[00:20:25] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor.

[00:20:28] Yeah. And that follows with what you said earlier in terms of if you're only doing things for the response. You're not taking into account that some things may not take off on social media, but that doesn't mean that they're not funny. It could be the algorithm doing whatever it's doing that day. You still got to have the confidence in what you're putting out that it's good, and that people are going to resonate with that truth.

[00:20:50] One of the other things too, that stuck out to me is that Facebook has been a pretty big channel for you in terms of where you have had a lot of your audience on social media, where there's been a lot of the growth that attraction there. But I also know that Facebook hasn't always been the easiest platform

[00:21:06] For a lot of creators to be able to navigate, even though they have the biggest user base out of anyone, how have you been able to make the platform work for you 

[00:21:15] Bigg Jah: Well, let me start by saying shout out to Facebook. Facebook has been amazing. It's been a blessing for sure. And I agree with you. They're not the easiest to navigate through. If I had to critique them, which I would say they, the customer service needs to be much better.

[00:21:29] Their customer. I think for someone like myself and others, We should have a little bit more love. We should get a little bit more love from them. A little bit more support from Facebook on the do's and don'ts and more and more clarity, you know, and I think that it should be more, we should be handled better, to be honest with you, as far as how that helped my channel go.

[00:21:48] And for me, a hundred percent honest with you, I've never strategized. I literally just. I do all the work on my end and I post I don't and well, I will say I do have times where I will. I do strategize in the sense, I will say I'm going to post every day between eight and 10 o'clock 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM. I don't post in the evening time that I posted in the morning and I'm on the west coast.

[00:22:10] So if it's. Here in the morning and in LA was 11 o'clock in the morning in New York. So it's still morning. And I posted that. I've been doing that for years. So, and because I'm not really clear on what to do and what not to do with Facebook, it's not very clear. I just do me and hopefully, it works.

[00:22:29] So, uh, I do have some hangups here and there, but for the most part, I've been pretty successful as far as getting my content out and they're being overloaded. 

[00:22:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's interesting because especially at your level, having millions of followers on the platform and through your page as well, having some type of custom service for someone at your level would make a lot of sense.

[00:22:50] Cause I know that that's something that is existing on a lot of the other platforms. And to your point, I don't think any of these platforms have necessarily been perfect. They're always having challenges, but some of them have been more catering to others, but yeah, it's been fascinating to see. With that after Facebook, which other platform would you say has been the most beneficial for you?

[00:23:11] I know where your followers are, but more from your perspective, which one have you enjoyed? Both from an engagement and a performance perspective? 

[00:23:19] Bigg Jah: Believe it or not. YouTube was my first platform that really no Instagram Instagram was where I started putting my one minute videos on my 15-second videos on the first 15 second videos.

[00:23:29] And then they gave us a minute. I started doing one minutes pieces of work. And then I started going on YouTube and then Facebook, YouTube IG, and then Facebook. IG and Facebook at the same time, I think they're together. At least they are now, but I didn't see much. I didn't get that much love on Facebook initially.

[00:23:47] It was, most of my success was coming on IG and I think maybe because it's more personal, it's closer. It's right there in your hand. And it's just a little bit more popular than Facebook and YouTube. Ideas, but I started there and then I started really focusing on YouTube first. And then you then Facebook started coming along strong.

[00:24:06] And so now I will say Facebook and YouTube, but then IG as far as my success, Tik Tok is there as well. I'm not as strong on Twitter as I should probably be, but it's whether it was there, but mostly. Facebook is my biggest platform. Then YouTube, in this instance, Tik Tok actually, then there's YouTube, then there's Instagram.

[00:24:25] So Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. Those are my four biggest platforms and Facebook and YouTube are my biggest. Yeah, 

[00:24:32] Dan Runcie: it's interesting because I do think that for. Anyone that is creating content using platforms. There's normally going to be a few that you gravitate the most to, for what your strengths are and where you think works the best for you.

[00:24:45] And I think in past interviews you had talked Vine saying like, Hey, there's certain people that are good with six seconds, but that just didn't necessarily work for what I was working with. But. When IG had expanded you at 15 and then 30 seconds of the whole mini you're like, all right, bet.

[00:25:01] This is exactly where I need to be. And I think even Twitter, to some extent with that, right? I think that Twitter probably is something that leaves itself a bit more to people reacting to whatever the current thing is. And I don't necessarily look at your comedy in that type of way. Right. So I do feel like you've definitely found the places where you can perform the best and where your audience.

[00:25:24] The other question that I had for you though, was around given everything that you do with what you do on social media, what you may do on tour as well. For other people that may be looking at you or where you're at at least independently, what are the rough breakdowns of where your revenue comes from in terms of, from touring, you know, versus other areas.

[00:25:45] And it doesn't need to be like specifics more so from a percentage perspective, but how you run the business and where you expect things to come from. 

[00:25:53] Bigg Jah: Well, my biggest income, my biggest sources of revenue are from Facebook and YouTube. And then any given month, it would be merch and or brand deals like sponsorships.

[00:26:04] So Facebook and YouTube. And then depending on if I have a shirt that I'm selling or has a shirt that people really like. Or as a piece of it is a hat or some type of piece of clothing that I have that people really like at that, I try to come up with something every month or something like that. So depending on the month, it could be, my third revenue could be merch or it could be sponsorships depending on if I, I landed a deal with a brand, with a company and they want to, you know, get this product promoted and they pay me this amount of money.

[00:26:31] So it could be brand deals, which are very important too. Especially if your brand deal fits. If it really working and be creative, you can keep that relationship going for awhile for a long time. And that's the goal is to get a working relationship with these, with these companies and let them confide in you and you respect what they do, where they're doing and what they're willing to give and you, and what you're willing to give as far as your expertise and your talent and stuff like that.

[00:26:55] And hopefully I'll come to an agreement and get it going for that for the longterm. So I will say merch then brand deals or sometimes brand deals then merch YouTube and Facebook or my business platforms. 

[00:27:07] Dan Runcie: Where does touring fit into that? 

[00:27:08] Bigg Jah: I haven't toured the 2019. So 2019. This is before the pandemic that it fit in there.

[00:27:13] It was good. I had a great time. I loved the tour. My goal was to go back on tour in 2020. I was going to go into every year, but pandemic hit and 2020 was a blur. It was a down year. I caught COVID before the lockdown. I called it before the lockdown. I was in bad shape and then I got better and then it was still, the city was unlocked.

[00:27:33] So no one was going anywhere. Then people started touring. But at this point I got to get back to the shooting. That's the other thing is the balancing the two, going back to that first question. I know the first couple of questions you asked about navigating between like comedy, standup comedy and filmmaking and sketch comedy.

[00:27:49] The creating it's tough when you. One thing about sketch comedy, our social media creation, it's different from TV and movies because there's off seasons in TV and movies, you can really make movies all year round. Yes. But like with this pilot season, there's like, especially for TV. There's off seasons.

[00:28:08] You know, sometimes the city of Hollywood shuts down for a few months, a year, right during the holidays and whatnot as a social content creator, social media content creator. There's no off days. Really, really you have a lot of times you find yourself I'm victim to it too. And it's like racing against the algorithm.

[00:28:25] That's the problem. We don't have a network deal where you're getting paid this amount of money to create this. Then, you know, everything's set in stone. You're good. Come to work, do your work. And the season is wrapped. You go do something else. You go to another project and are you going on vacation with social media content creation, you have to create your own vacation and it's tough, but then you look at your numbers.

[00:28:45] You look at your pages and your pages. Aren't really going because you're not putting content. That'd be because you're taking a break. It's hard to take a break. Yes. That's one of the biggest challenges I've been any social media creator feels and really relates to like, yeah, that's something that I think everybody can relate to and the constant need, or once our pressure to create.

[00:29:05] Social media. It never gets tired of you, or they might get tired of you, but they'll never like they ask enough, they want more, this gets, it's funny. What's next? You know, when the TV show, you know, you got 13 episodes, 10 episodes, and then you got to wait for the off season for them to reshoot some stuff.

[00:29:22] And then get back to showing your season two, season three, season four, with episode, whether it was social media content. Hey Jah. That was funny. Hilarious. When's the next case coming? When's the next Lesbian Homie. When's the next Roommate Pays All the Bills. When's the next, you know, Tiberius And then once those down, 

[00:29:36] Dan Runcie: it's a grind.

[00:29:37] It is, I could speak to that myself and the algorithms don't know you want to take PTO, right? They're not going to be favorable to you when you come back and that's what can make it so tough with it. And I'm sure for you, that's probably a lot of. Thought behind wanting to eventually shift to being less the main person in front of the camera and do a more behind the camera, because then that just frees up a bit more of your time to still be able to leverage what you created, but not need to be as on-demand. .

[00:30:06] Bigg Jah: I don't mind it. I love acting. I love creating and I love being in front of the camera, but at the same time, I feel like I could be, I could be even more effective all this love. I see other, I see a lot of talent around me that might not get the recognition unless they're in my video. I'm the, it's my video.

[00:30:22] I'll create a storyline and I pull them into the storyline and try to showcase them. And tried to show how talented he or she is and show that to, hopefully they can build their own following off of it or continue building their following. A lot of them already have a following, but they wanna increase it.

[00:30:37] So a lot of times I have to take them and put them in my video for them to get as much known as, as they want to get. As opposed to these people are so talented, I would just love just to work with them. I don't have to necessarily have them in my video. I can just, if they have an idea. If they want to do all with my producing it, I would love to eventually my goal is also to create my own films and my own TV shows, but also produce content for other strong creators, other strong actors, actors.

[00:31:03] That might not be directors. I see a lot of talented people that put content out and I'm like, I don't like it because I'm very particular about how they convey a story, how to perform dialogue, how to really put a dope, strong scene together in a series of scenes together to make us.

[00:31:21] To make a short film, to make a film, to make a TV show episode. And I see a lot of funny, talented people that can act. I can do these things, but they're not director. So it kind of falls flat. I would love to be, I would love to build some kind of conglomerate to where it's me, along with other directors.

[00:31:36] That they have access to these strong actors that will help tell their stories. You know what I'm saying? 

[00:31:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah. You definitely have the network and the access to these people and being able to create that platform makes a lot of sense. And what it makes me think of is just how people are structuring.

[00:31:54] Their team or what their group of people look like. And I'd be curious to hear what that is like on your end. What is your team look like? How many people are working with you on a regular basis to put out your content, to run the business, and what are some of those roles that people currently have with where you are right now?

[00:32:14] Okay. 

[00:32:14] Bigg Jah: So I could tell you how I started. I started by myself. And my room on my phone, my iPad, and I had cameras. I had cameras equipment cause I was a DP, none, not a professional. I mean, I was a professional DP, but I wasn't in for Hollywood, but I was a DP. I was directing music videos and being hired to shoot weddings, music, videos, short films, sketches.

[00:32:36] I was all those things by myself. I had a truck full of equipment, a lot of DIY. And then when I decided to do stuff for myself, like the Bigg Jah brand, I'm pushing big jock. I'm the first guy I had was my boy, Ken Edwin. I ran into Ken. Ken is another comedian, another actor and writer. I've known him for years, but I didn't know that he did content.

[00:32:56] So I ran into him about five years ago. I've known him for about eight and then we didn't become real friends until five years. And I saw that he created too, and his stuff was dope. It was super, super creative. I was, I was not when I first saw it and I was like, maybe we need to work. And he come to find out he's just a selfless as I am, anytime I needed someone to shoot, he was there to shoot.

[00:33:18] If I needed to use his house. I can come to his house and shoot at his house. If I needed to go to another location, he'd be there with his camera and my camera, and we'll put them together. And he's working. He was the first guy that really supported me in this as far as shooting, even before that, when I was a standup comedian and I just got my first camera and I was on to start shooting for other comedians, my boy, Kraig Smith.

[00:33:40] Kraig is like the first guy that really supported me had my back. And it was a team. It was a team of two, me and him when I was writing something directly to him, he was after or whether or not he was trying to network and tell people that we can shoot your projects. And me and him first started doing like a comedy specials, like short comedy specials.

[00:33:58] We would have like five, six comics at a time. They would come to a comedy show and we would film them doing their sets. And we did that. I'm talking about almost 10 years ago. So we've been doing this for a long time, and then it kind of evolved into me doing the big stuff and then add into the team. So Ken, my boy, Kraig, my boy Troy around, I ran to Troy working at a sketch house.

[00:34:20] We were all creating at this place called the sketch house and he and I were the only ones that actually were doing. On cameras, not just cell phones, everyone else is doing cell phones. He and I were shooting on cameras and we needed somebody to shoot that we didn't have, we had cameras. We didn't have anyone to shoot for us because no one knew how to shoot cameras.

[00:34:38] They were all always on their phones. And so we decided to you shoot for me, I shoot for you. And that's how we built that bond. So me, Troy, Kraig, Ken. So I met a lot of these guys doing the work as sketch artists, and we just clicked and we just decided. Okay. Is a group of us. Now is 1, 2, 3, 4 of us.

[00:34:59] When you need them at the time where you just shoot, we got one of us gonna shoot for you. One of y'all gotta shoot for me, and that's how the team formed. And that's when we sort of started growing I'm shooting every day. I'm shooting a couple of sketches a day. I'm dropping two or three times a week and my platform is starting to grow.

[00:35:14] Cause now I'm flooding. The followers on flooding the supporters that are just, if they love this, you're gonna love this. You're gonna love this. So I was coming out with so many different pieces of content, so many different stories. Cause I had guys that will come bring lights. They were inexpensive.

[00:35:29] They were the cheapest lights you can get, but they were there and we just, none of us really had any real money we had. And we had loyalty and that's really the only reason why I got to where I'm at right now, honestly speaking is that the team and, and it wasn't like I had a professional casting, uh, cast director, casting director, or a professional DP or a gaffer.

[00:35:50] I just had the homies and we were just supporting each other, shooting all of our sketches together and we was putting out stuff. And then it got to the point where we were all making okay money. We were starting to make a little income from it. And we start, we had to meeting, we had a recent meet every Sunday, every Sunday we used to meet.

[00:36:09] And then we got to the point where we were saying, we got to find our individual teams as a team. We had to branch out and get our own shooters, our own editors, our own, this, that, and the other. So we don't have to be balled down weekly. This doing work for you. You know what I'm saying? It's the officer, their stuff, his stuff today, his stuff tomorrow, I Vista somebody showed my stuff on Wednesday and then I'm shooting this stuff on Thursday and vice versa.

[00:36:30] Now a week we're all working as grind is great. We're grinding, but we need time to do something else too. You know? And so now I had to regroup my team. I had to rebuild my team. These guys are still around. They're still my brothers. They was at the house today. I mean yesterday, but I had to find my own guy.

[00:36:46] That's going to shoot for me as opposed to. Always relying on them because now they gotta be there, but we're all busy. We all got our own things. We've built our platforms. We have our fan bases. We have our algorithm, the race against, you know what I'm saying? So instead of having him take the whole day to fill my stuff, he needs to feel his stuff.

[00:37:02] And now we need more than one day each we need 2, 3, 4 days each for the week. You know what I'm saying? So now to answer your question, I have to give you that quick basketball, that long story. My team now is smaller. My glamour, their friends that are there, that I create with they're still here. It's about five of us.

[00:37:20] The whole crew was stupid is the show that I was doing. I was on the live show December. I mean, November. October October, November, December of last year, I did a one monthly Inglewood, California. I did a live show where I was so fat. I was so sketches and I was shows that we would do stand up comedy in between the sketches.

[00:37:41] And it's about five. And yeah. Five. Yes. So that's the crew, the whole crews who that's their crew. But as far as me shooting now, I have a DP and it's really just me and another guy, me and my boy, Anthony. He was also a director. But once again, you run across people who are selling. And just loyal to the cause.

[00:38:01] And he's a director first arrived a director at first that has a strong with the camera and strong with lighting and strong with editing. And he does a lot of those things for me. He does basically, sometimes it's like, for example, we just came, we just finished shooting the second season of lesbian homie.

[00:38:18] And he helped me write that he co-wrote it with me. He co-wrote it with me. He de Pete the whole. And he's editing the whole season. So he's really a person that is doing four or five guys jobs. You know what I'm saying? All in one. And it's a blessing. I met him a few years ago. He loves my content and we met basically him as a fan of the content come to find out he had this wealth of knowledge of filmmaking and we became a team.

[00:38:43] So he and I together created this whole season two of lesbian homie. And it's probably the best thing I've ever done producing. Written, and he has a lot to do with it. He was, he's an inspirational dude and I'm all about organic relationships. And our relationship is very organic, even though he came to LA and he wanted to meet me because he wanted to let me know what he can do.

[00:39:07] And once I'm, once we met clicked, we had the same type of style. So my team is small. Still. My goal is to branch out and delegate some of those, uh, roles that he does to other people. But to be honest with you, I'm particular. You know, I have a certain style that hood good style and how I edit, how I write.

[00:39:27] It's hard for me to like, have other people write for me or other people edit my stuff, but I don't have time to do all of this stuff. I've written over 400 sketches. You know what I'm saying? So it gets to the point where I got to delegate some things. So I can't be doing everything myself. My team is small, but I know over the years I've worked on bigger projects and I've done.

[00:39:48] I've hired. I do have access to other people who, like I said, I grew up, I came in in this game. Directing and DP work. So I know a lot of other DPS that have camera year and have experience. So when it comes time for me to shoot my actual film, I can have a cast. Wardrobe VP camera assistance, gaffing crew.

[00:40:08] I know I have enough resources and a Rolodex of people I can contact when I need to do a full production. 

[00:40:13] Dan Runcie: It's impressive. What you've been able to do with the small team. I mean, outside in someone could look and see, I go, I'm sure he has a whole crew of people that are working with this. But like you said, you have people that are wearing multiple hats.

[00:40:25] They're shipping in here and there to do things, and that's ultimately how you build. And I think you ultimately do get to the place where. Things kind of continue to expand, but there's also no reason to make things bigger than they need to. Part of the beauty is you being able to be nimble and having a team that appears bigger than it is.

[00:40:42] I feel like that's the most powerful position to be in. And for you with that, what's on deck for you for the next few years. Now that things are opening back up now that the pandemic is starting to subside. What do you see for the next couple of years? What are you most excited about? I know you want to get more behind the camera, but is there any specific projects or anything else that we should keep an eye out for? 

[00:41:04] Bigg Jah: Yeah. Yes, sir. I don't know when, because I'm still assembling. It's still being written, but I'm wanting to do a film wrapped around the character Tiberius. I'm doing a Tiberius film and I'm excited about that. I think that's going to be a big thing. I hopefully the, I haven't brought Tiberius out in the long run.

[00:41:21] And maybe, I'm praying that the supporters, fans, supporters, I call them supportive. Most likely, usually it will still let the idea of becoming that with a movie for type area. So audition still have an agent I saw audition for other roles. And I'm open to do other projects for other companies, other studios, but as far as my stuff, even one or two at one of the two are going to happen.

[00:41:44] I'm either going to shoot the film this year are going toward this year. And if I don't shoot this feminist year and I still do go on tour, I want to be, I don't want the film with within the next year. The defendant would be, we made it in the film. So whether, and I can do it independently, like I said, I'm at the point now where I'm, it's a blessing to be able to say, I can just do this myself.

[00:42:06] I know how to, I know how to create film, just do it myself. And I have enough people around me, good people who are, are good at what they do to make a dope film. 

[00:42:15] Dan Runcie: That's exciting, man. It's good stuff. Good stuff. Hey, Bigg Jah this has been great. Before we let you go, though, where should the chapter audience follow you to keep posted with what you're doing and everything that you got coming up?

[00:42:28] Bigg Jah: You can follow me everywhere @Biggjah. B-I-G-G J-A-H. As YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, I'll be on Tik Tok doing all kinds of stuff. I'll be dancing around. Naw, I'm not doing too much, but I do a little. I'm on all platforms at Bigg Jah. My website's Biggjah.com.

[00:42:51] The Hood Good Store go get your merge. If you want to support, it's all love you. It's love anyways, but go to thehoodgoodstore.com. That's T-H-E-H-O-O-D-G-O-O-D-S-T-O-R-E.COM. That's the https://thehoodgoodstore.com. You can get almost most of the stuff I wear in my sketches.

[00:43:09] This is my own company is my own brand and I sell it myself. Much love to you all. If you have any more questions, I got answers. 

[00:43:16] Dan Runcie: Good stuff, man. Good stuff, Jah. Appreciate you coming on 

[00:43:19] Bigg Jah: Thank you so much, bro. 

[00:43:21] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy of the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat,

post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show.

[00:43:49] Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

The traditional record label model isn’t artist-friendly. That’s not a secret to anyone by now. Deals are notoriously long and feature a revenue split heavily tilted toward the label — not the artist. But an ambitious alternative has arisen in the last few years. Meet indify, a start-up co-founded by musician prettyboyshav and his two childhood best friends, Matthew Pavia and Connor Lawrence.

indify is a platform that connects investors with up-and-coming artists. Investors can not only financially back artists, but also mentor them in matters like legal or marketing. But unlike a record deal, investments can be as short as a song-per-song basis. As prettyboyshav told me, it’s like “going on dates instead of marrying.” 

As an artist himself with millions of streams to his name, Prettyboyshav is specially equipped to carry out indify’s vision — to create a more equitable, prosperous music industry. indify was originally a music discovery tool when it launched in 2015. Using an algorithm, it identified emerging artists on the cusp of “blowing up” like Khalid, who the tool flagged way back in 2015. That technology still underpins its new business pivot as the “AngeList for the music industry.” 

To get a glimpse into indify’s innovative technology and mission, listen to my full interview with prettyboyshav. We covered a lot of topics, including the ones below:

[3:39] indify’s Mission In The Music Industry 

[5:28] Why Artists Are Taken Advantage Of So Often

[7:03] What Does indify Look For In Investors Wanting To Join The Platform? 

[10:16] The Potential For Culture-Setters To Financially Back An Emerging Artist

[14:38] indify Vs. Record Labels 

[19:07] Is There A Glass Ceiling On Artists Who Don’t Sign With A Record Label? 

[23:35] Does indify Do Upfront Money Deals? 

[26:10] Principles That Guard indify’s Technology

[29:27] indify Having Web 3.0 Values Despite Being Off-Chain 

[33:11] How prettyboyshav Juggles His Music Career And Being Start-Up Founder

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: prettyboyshav, @prettyboyshav

Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

TRANSCRIPTION

prettyboyshav 00:00

I truly, truly, deeply believe in it and feel it and empathize with the work that's being done because I believe in these values, which really comes down to community, right? And community ownership, community governance, I think these things are very powerful concepts. And I think these are very powerful ways for an artist to run their business.

Dan Runcie 00:26

Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's guest is prettyboyshav. He's the co-founder and CEO of Indify, a platform that is helping people invest in the future of music. Indify connects merchant artists with the funding they need to build the biggest careers. On Indify, it brings together artists who want to grow and control their career on their terms. It also brings together investors who want to support and back these artists and have the know how to help bring them to the next level. It also brings together business partners who can help artists with marketing, legal, accounting, and many of the other things involved to help run the business. One of the things that Shav and I have always talked about and we agree on is that artists are founders. If you follow me anywhere, you've seen me talk about this, you see me reiterate this. And I think Shav himself is a great example of this. He very much approaches Indify this way, and he's also a recording artist himself, prettyboyshav has over 10 million streams. And we talked a lot about what it's been like for him, navigating both the CEO role and his role as an artist. But we also talk about what Indify has been up to and some of their progress they've ha. The company has had over a million dollars generated this past quarter and 2022 for the artists on its platform and over a billion streams for those artists collectively as well. We talk about the influence that some of the partners they've had as well, such as Alexis Ohanian, who was an early investor in Indify, some of the artists that he's been able to back, and ultimately what they're trying to build towards. We talked about how Indify is positioned relative to other alternative financing options in the music industry. We also talked about how it's positioned relative to record labels. And can an artist on one of these alternative financing platforms achieve the same success as the superstars that are on the major record labels? The folks that headline major music festivals, perform at the Super Bowl and things like that? This is a great conversation. And if you're interested in where the music industry is going, some other options, you'll love this one. Here's my chat with prettyboyshav. All right, we got the one and only prettyboyshav here with us today. He is the co-founder CEO of Indify, platform and a company that is helping artists embrace their independence. He is also an artist himself with over 10 million streams. Shav, welcome to the pod.

prettyboyshav 03:15

What's up, Dan? Good to be here, man. I've been wanting to come on here for a while.

Dan Runcie 03:19

Yeah. And I mean, you know that I've been following everything that you've all been doing. And it's been very interesting to see how you've navigated the industry and how you leverage the technology built to continue to do good things. So for those that are less familiar, what is Indify and what is it that you all are trying to help solve in the music industry?

prettyboyshav 03:39

Well, Indify is a marketplace that's helping artists raise funding on equitable terms from strategic partners. You could think of it as almost like AngelList for music. I think our premise is that the major labels and a lot of the old system and the traditional system, the music industry, kind of represent what you know, private equity did years ago on the venture side. And I think fortunately, we have things like YC and AngelList. Actually, one of these tweets is the Kanye tweet from around fall 2020, where he kind of talked about a lot of things that we've been talking about, but we think it's time that a lot of those standardized, founder-friendly, and digitize terms come to help artists who we believe are also founders raise funding equitably. Yeah. So it's been exciting. I think this is an evolution from our earlier platform, which was really just a discovery tool for the music industry and became an industry-standard tool across a ton of record labels and ended up identifying a ton of artists, early one that we're very known for is Khalid.

Dan Runcie 04:34

Nice, and I got to mention, because you mentioned the Kanye tweets behind you. Is one of those the one that's talked about the Y Combinator for the music industry?

prettyboyshav 04:43

Yes, that's exactly what it is, you know, “When I spoke to Katie Jacobs who's on the board of the Vivendi. We decided to create a YC for the music industry so artists have the power and transparency to be in control of our future. No more shady contracts, no more lifelong deals.” And this one is Alexis tweeting Blonde, because I showed Alexis Ohanian, who's our investor. I was like, man, you got to get deeper into Blonde and Frank Ocean because this thing is amazing.

Dan Runcie 05:05

Yeah, it's an amazing album. And I think, thinking more broadly about what you all are building, I think that venture for music is the pitch I've heard from you. I've heard references well with where you're seeing with this, but I feel like you're taking a bit of a more unique take on it than maybe just the YC model. So what does that look like? What do you see things playing out for you?

prettyboyshav 05:28

Well, I think what YC did, right, in building the safe and standardized docs, and more documentation and transparency has allowed founders to see, okay, what is par for the course? What are founder-friendly terms? You know, if you don't use a safe note, for a raise, or standardized docs, you're kind of, you know, totally left field, a ton of artists, I would say, you know, just anecdotally, like, one out of three artists we meet, a very high percentage have actually signed some sort of predatory, shady contract before they even get off the ground. And the lack of standardization at that early stage if you compare it to Venture Seed, Series A, Pre-seed, has made it so a lot of artists get taken advantage of at inception. And I think that's something that's very core to Indify to prevent that from happening to build the tools and education system so that artists can have an ecosystem or have kind of technology, such that they're protected.

Dan Runcie 06:20

And I think a lot of that you mentioned the partners they work with and the people they meet, because that, of course, is how people ended up in either good contracts or bad contracts. That's a lot of what's there right? And I think you've spoken before about this distinction between smart money versus dumb money, which I know has also been very common in investing and in tech as well. And I think the same can be said in music. And I know that you all do your job on both sides, both the artist side and the investor side to determine who can be entered into the program. So yeah, let's start with the investor side. What are the things that you look for when someone wants to join your platform because they want to invest in an artist?

prettyboyshav 07:03

Yeah, I think, you know, building on kind of some of the points you were making earlier to Dan, like, what is protection for artists? What is being artists first? This is something that at Indify we studied for six years, and these are nuanced questions, and I've studied it myself as an artist, right? You know, there's a ton of funding solutions that are out there, some fan investing, some loan investing, but you know, if it is a finance bro buying your song, or if it is, you know, a loan against your own streams, a lot of the times this can put the artists in a worse position than if they were to take no money at all, because now they're in the hole, X amount of dollars. And if all those dollars are not spent, wisely are spent in a way that they're amplifying, ultimately, your platform as an artist or your income as an artist. Now, you're not increasing your income, and you're in the hole 10, 20, 50k. And that's something that I think, you know, is important to make a distinction about because artists are founders. And we're not necessarily seeing founders prioritize capital, but prioritize the best partners when they're raising funds for their companies. I think the same is true for the smart business owners that are artists. And I think they should be respected as such, many of them are making six, seven figures a year that work with Indify. And part of the reason that that is, is they're not only I think, CEOs in their own right, and building their business on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, social media, shipping every day, right? Like we talked about shipping with founders, these artists are shipping every day. They're putting their stories out there, they're connecting with people. But they're also very, very smart to find business partners that know how to digital market their music, that know how to manage their operations, and they're hiring these partners and partnering with investors. And so what we look for, you know, there's generally two kinds of cohorts, I would say, one is spark music professionals that have had experienced breaking artists before. And we have certain kinds of thresholds for that, one of the thresholds we talked about is, has this partner work with an artist that has reached over 30,000 streams a day or not, even previous time? Or also, you know, influencers themselves. I think that's something that we're really excited about. It's a bit more on the early stage. But, for example, Alexis Ohanian invested in the artist Leah Kate, I think around, you know, when he least identified her on the platform, and he, that was all him. He went on the platform and he found her. She was even lower on the rank. She was at around 3000 streams per day. He's helped her grow using his platform and his base to now over a million streams a day. And we think that's an incredible example of a partnership. And we think those combinations together, a syndicate of sorts of these strategic professionals with strategic influencers that can gift an audience to younger artists, is the new way of music industry.

Dan Runcie 09:51

I'm sure there must be some nuance there, right because of course, someone like Alexis who is a fan, he understands that clearly, he has a lot of influence to be able to make things happen. But I'm sure you may also get interest for people in tech, let's say they were early at a startup, startup exited, they have some extra money. They may know nothing about the music industry, but they just want to get in. How are those conversations?

prettyboyshav 10:16

Well, I think, Alexis, and I'll tell the story, like, Alexis tweeted, I wish I could invest in Lizzo enterprises. And I tweeted back, invest in the next one on Indify, and somebody showed him the tweet, somehow, I caught him for five minutes at the US Open actually, and told him music investing safe, he said, you're a crazy person. Investing in music can't be safe, I tried it. And he, actually, you know, put his money where his mouth is, and he backed an artist. But I think with that was the spirit of somebody who wanted to help that artist and grow, with that was the spirit of somebody who wanted to spend time with Leah, who was a founder and help her develop both as an artist and as a businesswoman, an independent businesswoman who's building an incredible seven-figure per year revenue business. And so I think that that development, and I think more so with him, the ability to empower her as an entrepreneur. And that story, getting out there, I think, was what made for something really exciting with Leah. But I think what's really interesting is now bigger artists actually coming into the fold. We actually a huge artist, I'm not at liberty to say yet, in Q1, backed an artist, one of my favorite artists of all time, and this I think is going to happen more and more. What happens if LeBron starts backing artists on Indify, right? What happens if, you know, actors and actresses? What happens if Lisa, right, starts backing artists on Indify? I mean, these are artists that can bring real taste, culture, and audiences to those next generation of emerging artists. And I think when you're posed with signing your rights away to a major label or partnering with someone like that, I think it's a really exciting proposition for the future.

Dan Runcie 11:48

Yeah, this reminds me of an idea that I think it was Jack Butcher, if someone like that had mentioned on a podcast about looking at someone like a Canelo Alvarez or even Deontay Wilder, you have these prizefighters, boxers, and if they invest in artists, that artist is the one that walks out with them when they're doing their walk-up music, that is a huge platform, so able to introduce someone like that. I think that is so powerful.

prettyboyshav 12:14

I saw that clip and shout out Jack Butcher and Visualize Value, and everything he's doing. He has an amazing podcast too, he's a friend. And I think that's such an amazing concept, right? Like, I think as a society, we're yearning for cross-cultural moments, you know what I mean? You see it so much with even the Paul's fighting in boxing. And you know, Paul-Mayweather, what a crazy event that was, or Conor McGregor-Mayweather and I think, more and more, I think you're gonna see culture crossover, right. And I like that fun there. But like, you know, music is in our DNA. And people talk about sometimes they asked me, like, you know, what's the market in music? What's the market of streaming? What's the opportunity? And I'm like, well, there's 7 billion of us in the world. We all like music, right? So I think everybody is on the table to be a part of the story. And I think that's why it's so powerful. I think we've wanted solutions for music for such a long time. But I think for us, you know, it's been these strategic partners, and pairing them with, you know, and our ability to identify artists, I think is the best out there in all honesty, pairing them with artists with traction, that's when one plus one equals 100. I mean, in the last year or so we've helped artists reach over a billion streams independently. And this is rea on the ground effort, and real on the ground connections, that is making a difference in these lives, not in terms of just a one-time cash-out. But many of these artists are now making six, and some seven figures per year over, you know, what could be the rest of their careers. And that's the beauty of when you do break through on streaming, what it can do for you can create sustainability as an artist, I think it's something that we're very proud of, in our cohort of artists helping them get to.

Dan Runcie 13:48

So let's talk a little bit more about the benefits and what artists do you get. Because I think a lot of people, they hear options like Indify, they're thinking about it as an alternative to maybe going with their traditional record label and doing that type of deal. And on the surface. Of course, if an artist is working with Indify, I believe the terms is up to 50% and rotating ownership for their masters is what they offer. I know there are some record label deals that do offer that. But if you could talk a little bit more about the distinction there. And if there are certain things that you think that you offer as a replacement, and then are there certain things where you still think that an artist would need to still find elsewhere, they should find elsewhere, and may be a bit of the itemization of where Indify's value add is relative to what the artists would get on a record label.

prettyboyshav 14:38

Well, I think talking more just technically to start, if you look at the traditional record industry contract and what standard and this is for people out there who don't know, generally they're like, aghast when I explain this, but a typical record deal is, this is the deal that a lot of these greats have signed A typically a record deal Is 85%-15% in favor of the major label, a five-album deal. And over the course of a lifetime of copyright plus like seven years. It's like the traditional kind of deal. So that means an entire artist’s career, that they're sort of signing away at 17, 16, 20 years old, but are involved in for the next 10 to 15 years of their career. And I think that time period also matters. Also, for the capital advance, you get, right, like you see these artists get all these nice things upfront, I think that upfront cost is massive. It's massive, because you're not only, in a typical loan, you pay, you know, your 100% of your rights would pay back that loan, right? In this case, your 15% has to pay back that initial advance, let's say it's 100k, 200k, 500k, meaning you're in the whole millions, right of dollars, before you see 15 cents on the dollar. And that's after there is and these are some of the things that I find the most predatory, a 25% distribution fee, which costs $20 on this circuit, or, you know, accounting that is just less than clean and clear, I'll say. And so I think on the converse side, I think a lot of these infrastructural issues are initially what we're trying to fix, you know, beyond just I think the terms, but if we put it plain and simple on terms, I mean, a lot of artists on our platforms start with raising for one song, right? With a partner that they talked to, and they might have interest from a ton of partners, messages from the ton of partners on the platform, speak with them. And if they liked that partner, generally these deals are for one song, only three to five years. And after the initial investment is paid back, I think we see a lot of 70-30 kind of splits in favor of the artists. So it's quite literally flipping the economics and making the commitment significantly less. And I think honestly, one of the other things that I've heard, you know, people talk about one of the greatest forms of control is slowness. I think, you know, these contracts, they take sometimes six weeks to six months to a year to fully kind of work through. On Indify we're seeing, you know, you can raise one song, try a partner, try another partner for another song, if you liked them, do an EP. And you can do that investment. You know, using this platform. Again, all of the actual legal terms are in our outsourced to our like TOS and our super artist-friendly, we have our sort of indie note that like backs that, but you're then just deciding for simple terms, once those are decided it can take 45 minutes to raise, and you can capitalize on that moment that's happening on TikTok, or on Instagram immediately with some of the best marketers and managers in the business that are doing a lot of, a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes, and are a lot of times the people who the label pay at a premium. And so I think that's for us why we feel Indify is really a better option. Because, you know, rather than diving in and getting married to a partner at the youngest possible age, you're in fact, just, you know, going on dates, I guess, with different partners and seeing, alright, who's the best fit for me, who's somebody that connect with? Who's the right value add investor for my project?

Dan Runcie 18:01

I do think that last example, makes a ton of sense of that, essentially, because so much of it, especially with these five-album deals, you are signing away so much early on when, if you think about yourself as an asset, you've been de-risked, hopefully much earlier in the process if you end up being successful, but there's no opportunity to necessarily realize that until a bit later on in the process, and I know one thing that I do hear from people and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it is that with some of these alternative financing options, the terms are great, everything is effective from that perspective. However, people still have this question about, okay, well, what is the max that we could see an artist succeed? Can we see someone be this superstar that's performing at the Super Bowl or reaching these Billy Eilish or Olivia Rodrigo or Ariana Grande level of artists if they're not with one of the major record labels? You could still earn a living off of those, but can an artist reach that path? So it'd be great to hear your thoughts on that, and especially how you think that relates with Indify. 

prettyboyshav 19:07

I'd really love that question. It's something that I think about a lot. It's something that I'm excited to experiment with myself. I think eventually, you know, something that I'm interested in is documenting, transcribing, and publishing my process of going through Indify with an artist with 10 million streams. I'm not quite, I think fairly qualified. So I'm actually posting my TikToks trying to get there. But I think as an artist, you get excited about seeing what, and as obviously as a founder, what the brink of this platform is. We've seen for transparency's sake a $400,000 deal happened on Indify. We've also seen deals for 10 to 50k, right, where the investor, you know, pre-release, invest in the song. Week one with some initial pre-release traction, and then I can talk about the Seaside demo example. That song was invested in on Sunday, it came out on Monday. By Wednesday, it was doing well, Nick Mueller and Golden Kids Group, he flagged it to Spotify. And he made sure the digital marketing was being spent wisely. So that week two, it's now doing 100,000 streams per day 200,000 streams per day, week three, week four, he's calling TikTok, calling Snapchat, calling Apple, calling all the right partners such that it reaches pop rising by week two, or three, and by week five, and hit Today's Top hits as an independent song. And this happened within the course of a month. I mean, you know, songs like that, without going into too much detail. When you do have that viral capacity, you could see a 30 or 50x, on your 10k investment. And we're seeing investors experienced that, you're seeing these artists, again, earn six to seven figures, from creating moments like that. And beyond that, you know, just working with these partners, when it doesn't happen at that level, you're seeing, I think 80 or 90% of these deals on the platform are profitable. So quite literally, you have what is a low ceiling, or a low risk, high ceiling asset class, which I think is incredibly unique, especially because we're de-risking those things by only allowing the artists to come on and see strategic partners and only allowing the partners to come on and see artists with traction and be able to invest in them right on the platform and then be able to earn out directly through kind of this whole ecosystem and technology that we've built. And I think what we've seen in the last year, even the last quarter Jx.Zero, I think he reached 700 or 800,000 streams a day. Leah is now doing a million streams per day. Pink Sweat$, who was the first artist to raise way back when this was even off platform. Leah was the first one on platform with Alexis. Off platform, Pink did a funding partnership, a funding deal to start his career. I mean, he's had a platinum record. He's in the top 500 of the world, and he's at Coachella. And that's the only artists that's had a few years to develop. I think the next superstars are already happening on Indify, I think that's a given. I just think that just like startups, these are going to take time. But if you look at the last year, and even if you look at the last quarter, I think we had three or four songs hit the global viral chart last quarter, and these artists are on their way to be great. And I think just to add one more thing, if you look at Kanye West's top songs on Spotify, his jeen-yuhs just came out, College Dropout was spotlighted in that, like crazy. I mean, what an amazing doc. But if you look at his Spotify, his number one song is Praise God, right? If his number one, why is his number one some Praise God? I mean, Moon. I love that song. Arguably a better song in my view, praise God is a great song. Off of Donda, there's a million tracks that are doing well but that's the only song off Donda that's number one. No, the jeen-yuhs doc didn't move anything to number one in terms of The College Dropout and the songs that were spotlighted. So why is it that Praise God is the number one song on Kanye's catalog. Kanye West are the biggest artists the world, because on TikTok it reached 1.5 million videos. The investors on Indify are the best at marketing on TikTok and social media. And it's my belief that not only should the next generation of emerging artists raise funding on Indify, but it's my belief that the current generation of superstars will start to in the next few years.

Dan Runcie 22:58

It's a compelling pitch. And I think normally at this stage, you of course, are able to incentivize artists with the amount that they could earn by essentially starting around and using their songs as around or using an album is around, right? Is there any upfront pitch or financing though that would happen? So let's say there is a major artist that's like, Oh, hey, I see what you all are doing, I'm down. But if you could give me some upfront money, not necessarily an advance or some type of upfront money, what would that look like? Is that something that you've all explored? Or has that come up at all?

prettyboyshav 23:35

You know, it's so funny. One, bigger artists are approaching us. I think that's actually, to my surprise, I didn't think we'd be at that stage yet. It's a dream. It really is a dream, what we get to do every day, a chance to serve some of these artists gives me chills, because these are artists that are heroes. And to know that we built the infrastructure better than the old. In fact, the pitch is much easier to them than the new artist because they've been through the system. They know what it looks like from the inside. Generally...

Dan Runcie 24:01

So you don’t have to say the artist but could you give us like a tier, like what level is one of the ones that have reached out?

prettyboyshav 24:07

I would say an important megastar. I won't say like, I think that's the right, I'll give that to you. That's what I'll give.

Dan Runcie 24:14

Okay, okay. Someone that would have headlined Coachella? 

prettyboyshav 24:18

Yes, absolutely.

Dan Runcie 24:19

Okay. Okay. 

prettyboyshav 24:20

I think you'll see artists that would headline Coachella, and that people would be most excited about on the bill, especially in Brooklyn, where I'm at, where there is a care for culture and art, and these things that we've been excited about. I think those are the artists who were excited to serve, man. You know, like it'd be a dream to work with and help Frank Ocean raise for his next project. I mean, he's the guy that started this model years ago, and I think these artists deserve credit, not just as artists, but as entrepreneurs. But yeah, to your question on Indify, you'd be shocked. Artists are on there negotiating down the amount of initial sort of capital they'll get, because they only want the right amount, not the most amount, because they don't want to earn on their advance. They want to earn on their equity, they want to earn on the business. And that's to me, the generation of founders as artists or founders that we're looking to empower. And I think I'm excited to help the superstars, you know, earn off of their streams too as they should, because their pies are going to look a lot bigger.

Dan Runcie 25:17

Yeah, I think the interesting test I've always looked at was when Taylor Swift had finished her record label deal that she was on the open market/ She was exploring options, and everyone wondered, what is she going to do. She obviously wants to own her masters moving forward. And she ended up doing a licensing deal with Republic Records, which she has been now and she's released, I believe, three albums now, under that deal. I think that, what you're saying is that if we could get to the point where now the market is at a different place than it was in 2018, with options like yours, that now have the option or opportunity for a megastar, who is out of their deal. They've been de-risked they already are a star, what could it look like for them to be like, okay, now that I'm done with this deal, now, I want to go to Indify?

prettyboyshav 26:10

Yeah, I think you're gonna see a lot of that happening. I'm very confident in that. And I think those are conversations that are happening faster than we expected, I think what, you know, going back to the Taylor Swift moment, and you actually did an amazing breakdown of what was going on with her. And just for anyone who's listening, like, I know, you're already on Trapital, because you're listening to the podcast. But I do believe, Dan, what you're doing is some of the most accurate breakdowns in the market. I mean that. It's a joy to listen to these podcasts. It's a dream to be on here. And it's so cool to read your newsletter, you know, every time it comes out. I think, going back to the Taylor one, because I remember you breaking it down. And obviously, we're nerds about this stuff. So we should talk about it. But you know, on Indify, there's three main principles that guard the technology on the platform. One, artists own the rights forever. You know, artist kids deserve to have their music, we think that's the fundamental, maybe even a human right, not just a right that we believe they should have. And that's something that, you know, an ownership deal will never happen and in the fight, and I would hold Web 3.0 platforms to that same standard, because I think a lot of them are doing ownership deals. And I think that's going backwards. I think a lot of the music industry is moving forward from that. So it's something that I believe just very strongly as an artist, we need to move forward from. Two, artists deals are always 50% or better after the initial investment is returned on Indify. The platform is like locked in, like error out if you start to put in terms that break that. And third, artists always keep creative control. And that's the way these docs are formatted. I mean, for an artists like Taylor Swift, who's brought a lot more value to these companies, and, you know, arguably bigger than some of these institutions ourselves. She deserves to be the CEO of her own life and our own art. And she deserves to make every decision the way she wants to, she deserves to pass that on to her kids. The fact that artists like that can't do that, and then what she has to now go through to make that music, you know, listen to equitably out there is insane, it's out of control, and it shouldn't exist. And I think, you know, we need tools that we need new solutions, to rewrite how this is going to work for the next generation of Taylor Swifts. I think, Indify, you know, I hope that we can have a conversation with her about doing stuff with her future projects to make sure that, again, she can build her business equitably, own her business, but still get those strategic partners and marketers needed to take the next level.

Dan Runcie 28:30

You mentioned Web 3.0 earlier, and some of the solutions there and what you hope those solutions will offer to artists. And I think a lot of people have talked and thought about the Web 3.0 opportunities in music and positioned it as a use case to do or in many ways, what Indify is doing and you are proving with your platform that this can happen. It is happening off-chain, and it doesn't necessarily need to be done through 3.0 or through NFTs or things like that. Some of these things you may be exploring in the future. But where do you stand right now in that aspect, because I do feel like a lot of the other companies that are positioning themselves to try to solve a similar problem have positioned themselves as the Web 3.0 solution for this. But you've been a bit more focused on saying, hey, this can exist, it doesn't necessarily need to happen that way. 

prettyboyshav 29:27

I mean, look, I think you really broke it down best, as you do in the A16Z piece you wrote, the music tech community is going to need to, at large, both Web 2.0, and Web 3.0, and Web 2.5, and everything in between is going to need to tackle different problems for artists for us to build an ecosystem that's competitive with these goliaths of the old, you know, and I think us working together and us holding each other accountable having these conversations and I love how I think Web 3.0 has pushed Indify to be more open and more inclusive. I have a lot of friends in the community who've, you know, shown me incredible values and the incredible depths of what this movement is about. And I truly, truly deeply believe in it, and feel it, and empathize with the work that's being done. Because I believe in these values, which is really comes down to community, right, and community ownership, community governance, I think these things are very powerful concepts. And I think these are very powerful ways for an artist to run their business. I, you know, I have so much love for what sound and what catalog and what some of these companies are doing. I think there are amazing founders behind those companies. I think they're building amazing tools for artists to earn different and new revenue streams on their music. And I think all of us need to really come together and work together to build this infrastructure for new artists. I think one of the things that I'm yearning for, one of the things I haven't yet I think fully see in the space that I'm excited about, is something that maybe more reflects an artist DAO of sorts. And again, I'm still in the first inning of this, all of this understanding all of this as most people are, but something I'm going to experiment with. Again, like the way I've always operated with prettyboyshav and you know, the artist career and being the founder of Indify as co founder with Connor and Matt who I've built this with, you know, my best friend since day one is, like, I experiment and we experiment, me, Connor and Matt experiment and kind of create these different like processes with the prettyboyshav. We hack at my Spotify For Artists, we do all this crazy stuff, to learn, right, and to experiment and to figure things out. And then a lot of that, a lot of that failure becomes what is knowledge and R&D into I think the Indify roadmap. I think that's an amazing way to stay grounded and stay into focus. For me, one of the things I'm going to do is and I published my goals at the beginning of this year, I not only want to raise on Indify and published and transcribe that, that for the public to see. But I also want to, as an artist, do some Web 3.0 experiments. And I'm basically launching this physical and digital trading card experience that is going to be like my mecca for my pretty community. And so it's going to come, you know, if you get it, you can basically like, see a roadmap for the prettyboyshav art, you can come get your nails painted with me, you can listen to some exclusive music. And I think those community events, that superfan access, I think is something I'm really excited to just play with on the Web 3.0 side and to see happen in the space.

Dan Runcie 32:21

It's great to hear, because I think you can see both sides of this, you understand what needs to be done and not just using yourself as not even more, not even a use case. But essentially you understand what needs to be built, what you would want for yourself as an artist and how you navigate all of that, as well. And while we have the time, we'd love to chat a little bit more about you and what you've been doing with your artists career on that front. First off, how you manage the time between the two, because I'm sure it's both hats to wear. And I'm sure it's a lot from that perspective, but how have you navigated doing both of those things? And I know that you've also said in past interviews, you want to be known more for music moving forward. So how does that continue to or how does that evolution continue to progress based on where you see things going?

prettyboyshav 33:11

Yeah, well, I think, I appreciate it, that question. You know, me, myself, Connor and Matt, we've always understood that there's this fluidity, I think, between myself being an artist and being a part of the company. And in fact, I think we've all come to realize it's a huge advantage. When I talk to artists, I relate to them, I can understand their problems when we make decisions, you know, in the room. And I think I consider Connor and Matt artists and themselves. I think Matt, what he does on a technical level and building this tool, I've always fallen in love with the art of tech. And building product is very much like making music. It's a new creative entity that didn't exist before that you created the outside world. I think it's very similar. And I think Connor himself is a writer and an incredible artist. And if you don't have art and tech, then what do you have? You know, so I think we've all come to understand that, that the prettyboyshav journey is our guinea pig. And it's a part of our story. And it's cool. It's really cool. I think more than anything, the company is us three, and to have their support in that I think is first and foremost. And to have investors supporting them too, I think is first and foremost, I think people understand that it only really makes me better as a founder. And they're one and the same. You know, being an artist and having more artists lead music companies is kind of, I hope, the wave of the future. I think on a personal level. You know, I'm really proud of the music I've put out there. I think it's some of the best music out there, whether I'm a co-founder of that company or not. And I have a new album coming up that I think is just a huge step of growth and I think addresses a lot of my own values of growing up as an Indian American understanding my own perspective, telling my own story. And it's a story that when I was 15 the two things that my sort of Northstar were, were, man, I wish I could be an artist without having to be Drake and just being you know a sustainable artist because this is what I love to do. Why is it that somebody can be an accountant but I can't be a musician, right? And why can't those existences coexist? And I think for me, I think just seeing more people like me making pop music, more people like me, getting our nails painted, wearing earrings, wearing cool clothes, and breaking kind of the boxes that that we were put into. So, for me, I think all of this stuff comes from a deep sense of mission and a deep sense of serving our 15-year-old self. It's something that Virgil talked about a lot. And I think that's ultimately, you know, what I'm in service to when it comes to both Indify and the artists journey, but it's cool to see them coming together more and more, I had my first interaction where, I was actually with Peter Boyce and John Exley and we were in LA celebrating Peter installation actually just invested in the company. And it just turned Peter's birthday, and we were sitting having a great time. And somebody came up to the randomly and was like, Are you prettyboyshav? And you know, as a kid, you always, see, I was more excited than her. But as a kid, you always wonder, as an artist that'll ever happen. I think that moment is one that you know, we all got to share together, John and Peter, we wouldn't be here without them. They've been supporting for six, seven years. So to have that with them, you know, and be on this journey together, I think is super cool.

Dan Runcie 36:05

That's powerful. And those stories are always great when you hear them because you know your, it definitely won't be the last time.

prettyboyshav 36:11

Yeah, yeah. Let's see. Got more work to do then.

Dan Runcie 36:15

Well, Shav, this is great. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing both your journey as an artist and your journey as a founder, as we both say artists are founders and you're a great embodiment of that statement. But before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to plug? or love for the Trapital audience to know about?

prettyboyshav 36:32

Yeah, I would just say you know, follow Indify on Instagram and Twitter. I think it's a good follow. And, you know, we've done a lot of work behind the scenes in the last year and a half. I think we've got to do a better job of telling our story in front of the scenes and there's gonna be a lot of content coming in the next year and storytelling coming out of these artists and these incredible stories, you're going to find amazing music, so you know, give us a follow, follow the journey. Come along.

Dan Runcie 36:57

Good stuff. Good stuff. Thanks, man. 

prettyboyshav 37:00

Cool. Thanks so much, Dan.

Dan Runcie 37:02

If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Music NFTs are all the rage as of late. Entering the mix is Young M.A, who dropped a capsule on April 19. But in true Young M.A fashion, she took a different approach to her first-ever NFT project.

For one, each NFT is only $20, making it widely accessible to her diehard fanbase. That’s a departure from most artists-focused NFTs that are on the pricier side due to their limitedness. In total, Young M.A dropped five NFT collections with 250 editions in each — for a total of 1,250. Each of the five collections represents key moments in Young M.A’s career. From first going viral with her Brooklyn Chiraq freestyle to the smashing success of “OOOUUU” and other highlights. 

Moreover, the capsule is exclusive to new NFT marketplace Serenade. The platform prides itself on being eco-friendly in an industry widely criticized for its energy consumption. 

The NFT collection is just one way Young M.A is staying connected to her fans these days. She’s also on tour and has continued to invest in non-music products like her adult toy line. Here’s everything we covered in this episode:

[0:00] Seeing where things go

[2:45] Purpose Behind Young M.A’s NFT Drop

[9:29] Surprising Price Point For Young M.A’s NFT Capsule

[10:14] Young M.A Has Hesitations About The Drop (Honest Talk) 

[12:32] Prioritizing Long-Term Impact With Business Ventures

[12:55] Young M.A’s Relationship With Fame

[15:37] How Young M.A Approaches Non-Music Business Ventures

[20:10] Partnering With Serenade For The NFT Drop

[23:22] Keeping Up With Web 3.0 & Music Industry 

[28:00] Young M.A Understands Her Place In The Industry

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Young M.A, @youngma, serenade.co/@youngma

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

Transcript

________________

Young M.A  00:00

When it comes to business, you might not always know. You can't always say you know people. Even if you research them, no matter what the situation is, sometimes things might not work for you. You know what I mean? So you just look more to it. And you see how it goes as it goes. I mean, seeing business situations I handled in the past, some things didn't go right. Some things went right, you know, and it's just like with them. I feel good, you know? And it was like, let's go, let's see where it goes. Let's take these events and take risks. 

Dan Runcie  00:31

Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.  Today's guest is Young M.A. You may know her for her hits like BROOKLYN (Chiraq), OOOUUU, and plenty others that helped her go six times platinum. I knew this was going to be a good interview because, the moment that I logged on to the chat, Young M.A was already in there. And her first words were "took you long enough." And that's what I knew that we're in for a good one. Young M.A came on the Trapital podcast because she just had an NF T drop for her latest single Aye Day Pay Day. And she did it as a series of stories throughout her career. And she launched her NFTs different than most artists do. As I've written and talked about on this podcast, people have looked at NFTs as a way to monetize and make a lot of money from being able to sell high-end products as collectibles. But Young M.A is going about in a different way. She only has 250 drops for each of the five NFTs in this collection. And she's only selling them for $20. That's it. So we talked about the decision, how she's approached this, and why she made the decision that she has. And I think a lot of this ties into her mentality. As an artist, Young M.A is one of the more strong proponents of being an independent artist and what that means. And we talked about how this relates to how she looks at record labels and a lot of the deals that she's turned down. And we also talked about some of      Young M.A's investments too. She's invested in a bunch of different areas. So we talked about that. We also talked about some of the other trends happening in this music industry, how she keeps up with everything, how her team is structured, and a whole lot more. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Here's my chat with Young M.A. All right, today, we're joined by the one and only Young M.A, who has a big drop for us today. She is launching an NFT. And I'm excited and I want to hear more. So break it down. Why was now the time for you to make this drop happen?

Young M.A  02:45

I see. You know, I'm the same person. I don't, I don't talk all that extra “Aaah.”  I keep it real. The big one since A1.  You know what I mean? I honestly didn't know too much about it, you know what I mean? I used to see it every now and then. And I didn't understand what it was because I'm the type of person like, like, if it don't make sense to me at the moment of me seeing it, I'm just not going to pay attention. I don't see interest into things that everybody else see interesting, too, you know what I mean? So that was literally the case. But I didn't see it casually and then once my team brought it to my attention, it was like, oh, okay, I know what you're talking about, you know what I mean? Like, I've seen, so I'm guessing this is like the new way of things, new wave of things, or whatever. So focusing my attention, you know, just basically gave me the intellect of it, the background of it, detail and everything like that. Somehow, Okay, okay, no, still not understanding it too much. But you know, kind of intrigued into it. And they kind of like broke it down. So I was like, Yo, give me a little more like pinpoint, because like, I do want to understand this situation, because it'd be something that's going to be longevity, and something's that's gonna help, you know, long term future-wise. And it's like, one of the new way that's coming in, you know, why not, you know, at least, you know, check it out. So we talked more about it, had a meeting, and, and we came up with kind of like I did. So once they broke down the ideas to me of like, what's, like, the meaning of it. And also like, what I would do if I do it. And then it become a more of understanding that was like, Okay, now I can go, you know what I mean? It's not just like, like anything we ever did before. Like, it's not like, it's, like, we did but like more digital, you know what I mean? It's like what we did but digital, in a different sense. So I'm like, okay, I get it now. So once I got that understanding, there's like, I got more intrigued, and I was like, let's go. You know, I'm the type of person, like, I'd take risks. I don't believe in like, No, I gotta, I gotta be the see it to believe it type person, like, I got to see. You know, even if I got to take that risk. I had taken risk all my life, so now I was like, I want to take this risk of, a new risk of taking risk. Let's take this risk. So we got to to it on, whatever the case, got involved with a team or whatever. And we came to a point where it was like, alright, if I'm going to do this, you already know my vibe. Not going to do it on nobody else's terms and circumstances and shit like that. Like, I know how it moves. So me understanding that this is how it goes about, let's go into a route where it's going to make, make sense for me. That's always been my, my way of grinding since I came up. Anything that I've ever done always went in a sense of how I had to do, so on and, you know, still be independent, of course. So we came up with this, all my team came up with this plan of like just creating like a timeline of, like, when I first started. Literally from the ground up, like... I wouldn't say the ground up because literally I started from the ground like, like, probably like 19 years old. For like far as like when social media and stuff like that really came into play as far as music, we wanted to start from there and we started from like my first freestyling, like, went viral, BROOKLYN (Chiraq Freestyle), you know what I mean?  When Facebook was like one of the hottest things ever, at the time, like Instagram was still hot. Cool. Instagram was hot but like, Facebook was one of the places where you want to go viral before you went viral on Instagram. Before... I came from them. I mean, SoundCloud, before there was SoundCloud rappers, I was on SoundCloud, you know what I mean? So like, we really wanted to bring that world into, like, just my supporters and my fan base. So it's really not too much about trying to sell this. It's more so about trying to give back to my supporters. In a way now that I understand that NF T is a way of them making money by just putting one investment into me, after like years of investment you will put into me, this is your way of making money, just like that? Come on, man. You know, I mean, like of course, I'm gonna jump into that. But of course, I still need to know more detail into it or whatever the case. So as time goes on, we come up with the details, we like, let's pinpoint the biggest times on your career. Chiraq Freestyle go viral. Boom. Years later, everybody knows, a lot of being on all these like big radio stations. Hot 97. after that and we went viral. On this... She started doing shows in Connecticut and Tri-state areas. You know what I mean? Like, I'm starting to do these type of things. Now my come up is coming up. Now OOOUUU come out, boom, because they like we need a club record. Boom, come with them. Exactly. I gotcha, you know what I mean? Like boom, OOOUUU, come out. Now that's became the biggest break now. Now, I'm crossing other into the industry. Another, you know, milestone in my career. We go from that, boom. And now we go into Petty Wap. It is a lot. So like, that's basically the timeline. Like there's so much that I did in between each time that could really count. But it's like, when you pinpoint, like, literally, like, the bowstones of everything. So like, that's what the NFT is really about, it was creating and like, like, you know, the longevity and what could create from each individual situation that you might not never know, that might develop as you go, you know what I mean? So that's what I feel like my NFT should be about. I don't know what everybody else is doing and shit about. Like, I heard about the research, I heard about, you know, people's, like, unreleased stuff. Of course, like I do unreleased music, or unreleased merch or unreleased things and shit like that. Of course, you get the exclusive. But to me, like, my NFTs, they have to, like gravitate to something close to me. It made my supporters understand that it's still me. It's not about just, yeah, having new stuff that nobody got. No, it's still connecting with you all. At the end of the day, I look at this. I don't know, I don't look at this for money. Like, I don't know, I don't know where people mine that or whatever. As humans, whatever the case, and they only be... But like me, as a artists. I always had this mindset. I treat my supporters as my family, for, like, this my way of, like, giving back. It's like me getting a platinum plaque. And seeing that I went platinum again. Like just, like it just, like I feel so good about just having that platinum plaque as another accomplishment. There's no one that I'm doing what I'm doing. So like for them to have something valuable, 250 out of millions, billions, and trillions of people in this world. You got that? Like, that's what matters to me. I don't know about that money stuff, bro. Okay, so that's what I'm trying to say.

Dan Runcie  08:51

Yeah. Was it tough to limit the amount because it's only 250 people for each of the drops, and you got a lot of...

Young M.A  08:52

Exactly. 

Dan Runcie  08:54

...Young M.A fans out there. Was it tough to limit it?

Young M.A  08:59

Yeah, that's basically the case. Like, I'm still trying to figure it out. Like once it dropped and I see like how things go about, I just want to see the reaction. Like, I'm not even looking into like, like, I know the money aspects of things. And if you want to talk money, but, like, my benefit from it is more so like seeing what they value from it, you know what I mean? Like...

Dan Runcie  09:20

Yeah, let's talk the money piece of it first, just to get that out of the way. So you got 250 of volume. And of course, the goal is to sell out, how much are they? And are they different prices for each of the five different ones? 

Young M.A  09:29

No, they're $20. 

Dan Runcie  09:31

And see that's important because I think most people that do drops like this, if you only have a limited amount, they think it's going to be thousands of dollars, right? But you're like, so essentially it's like a first come first whoever gets it first, right? 

Young M.A  09:42

Yeah, $20, $20. I feel like, you know, like my supporters.  If you could buy merch, I mean my merch is more $20, oh there you go. If my merch is, like, more than $20, or you could buy a ticket to come see me, my whole package, meet and greets, all that, it should be like a bucket of change. If you can spend $20 just have an NFT of me and make money off it, like, I don't know what to say, you know, like, I'm not a...  I just feel like, you know, like, we take risks, we take risks.

Dan Runcie  10:08

Do you feel like this was a big risk for you though? Because I feel like it's a slam dunk. I mean, you know that you got the fans that are going to want it. 

Young M.A  10:14

Yeah, I mean, I don't look at it like a slam dunk, though. I don't know why. And that's just me being honest. I don't know why, like, I don't know, if it's just not in my heart to like, I don't really look at money value. I don't know. There's just something, I don't know. It's just something in my heart that just never been that person. Like, of course, I'm going to make money. Yes, I had to make money to survive. But my intent into going into things be more deeper than people ever think. Like, I really think deeper into things, like I have to understand. Because if I don't understand something 100%, like, what this NFT, I'm gonna keep it G. I don't know 100% about it. I do know enough. But I don't know 100%. And when I don't know, 100%+, about something. I'm not going to never put my trust into it. 100%. I'm going put my trust into how much I understand. So my trust is how much I understand per say, right? You know what I mean? And I just want to see how my supporters feel and what's gonna make them happy. If it ain't making them happy, I want to do it. And that's real, bro.

Dan Runcie  11:13

Oh, yeah. And I think the good thing with it, too, you have other exclusive perks lined up. If someone collects all five of them, then you invite them to certain things, and you know fans are always going to appreciate that. And I feel like this also taps into how you run your game in the industry from since you've been in this, you know, because you were always more about longevity. You were always more about the money. That is how you approach any deal that came through or you weren't trying to approach it with a bag. It wasn't about the bag, it had to be more than that.

Young M.A  11:42

Yeah, I had to always be more. I've been sitting in so many record labels... I fell asleep in one, I ain't going to say which label. I'm not going to say which one. But I literally lay my head on the table because they just said everything everybody else said and I don't have none of these labels. I don't. I just felt like it just wasn't, it wasn't in my league. You know what I mean? So I didn't want to tap into, some certain people I didn't want to sign to. I just felt like independent was my best move, because I just understood me. Like it was just more so, like. the industry wasn't about money to me. It wasn't about that. It was more so about understanding me as an artist, and how I express myself, and who I am. You all don't know me. You all don't know. You don't know. So you all can't tell me, which I can do for me. All you have to tell me what it is I can do for y'all that will do for me. But it won't do for me. 

Dan Runcie  12:31

Right.

Young M.A  12:32

You know what I'm saying? So like, I'd rather move slow-paced than fast-paced. Just to get a quick dollar? No, like, like, I love the position I'm it. Like, I don't like that fast life. I don't even like the fame. I don't. I just love my supporters. I love when I go on stage. I love when I got to handle my business, when I got to handle my business. You know what I mean? And just like, just enjoying life, as long as my family's taken care of. That's all I care about, like all that fast-paced stuff and all that stuff like that. Like, I don't need it. It's fun when it's fun, like I can have those moments. I can go on a boat. I'm going on a yacht. I can drive a fast car. I can drive them... And it's just like, Okay, now like, I'm going to... I go to club, I can go...

Dan Runcie  13:11

Let's talk about relationship with fame. Because I feel like that's an interesting point, right? Like you would have the moment after, what is, Chiraq Freestyle or even after OOOUUU when things blew up. Now you're a few years past that. Do you feel like, the way things are right now, you're in a pretty good spot where, you know, I feel like the level of fame I have is in line with where I am comfortable, or do you still feel like no, no, I wish I was less famous than this.

Young M.A  13:37

No, actually, I think I'm in a comfortable spot. Because even when sometimes, like now, like I noticed, like, of course, I get bored. You know, sometimes you get bored. You know, that's just normal human being stuff. But you'll get bored. So you want to go out. And then sometimes I'll go out. And they'd be like, like, this is so normal. Like, I just be seeing guys. It's just everybody just acting... Like, man, been there, done that. And it's just like, so, it's just so common. It's like sometimes, like it'd be certain moments that feel good. It's like, this is the time to celebrate, like it's like accomplishment to me now more so than just going out for fun, like random and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Now it was more so like if we go out we have a good time, it's because we just, we just, you know, dropped the check or something. You know what I mean? Are we just invested in something, you know, we just got this or we got that. Like that celebration to me more is now more of a celebration and more fun to me now. All of just like randomly going out stuff to me is like. it's cool, but it's like, it's not as exciting. And I'm going to say that and that's just me being honest. Like, I can say it's me getting older but I can just say it's really me just probably, it's just, something that I always had in me. Like, even when I used to, like go out when the phase first happened, with OOOUUU and all that. It was fun, but I still wasn't like dramatic about it. Like I was never like that, Oh yeah, I'm happy to be in clubs, like, it was just like enjoying the moment I guess. Like, it was like one of the... Cool, cool, but I still wasn't like extra, like, I never got in trouble. I never went, you know what I mean? I never went crazy. You know, I still kept my composure even when having that much success and fame at the very moment. So like, even now that I've been there, done that, it's like, I'd be looking around at people and I'll just be like, damn, I understand. But like, to me, like, it's like, I can leave right now and be okay. You know? And that's where my mind and like, I'm automatically thinking like, damn, so tomorrow, I need to figure out, like, what next business move... And that's really when my mind be like, all day running like that. And that's just really how I be like.

Dan Runcie  15:37

Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Yeah, I feel like with you especially, you mentioned the investment piece. What does that piece of your business look like? What are some of the investment opportunities you've looked at? And how do you evaluate them?

Young M.A  15:38

Well, I can't tell you too much. So I'm going to shhh on that. But what I am, into I'm not going to tell you what I'm...

Dan Runcie  15:55

You're going to give us something public though?

Young M.A  15:57

So right now I got the, of course, the NFT and then I got the sex toy line that a lot of people, I mean, they aware of it but like, you know, just to get more aware in, you know, when we have these interviews. I have a sex toy line being that people want to talk about my strap, like I use things to my advantage. That just makes sense. Like, you got to talk about me, you're going to walk about me, you know what I mean? So like, I got the sex toy line that I originally created in collab with Doc Johnson, which is a big sex company located, like, based in LA, or whatever the case and, like, they just known, like, everywhere, like, they're literally like a big ass company. And we had like a meeting, went probably like three years ago. And we locked out with them and I came up with this own, my own sex toy line called Play Nyce, called Play Nyce. N-Y-C, so N-Y-C-E, so that's Play Nyce with a Y. That's why... With a Y. I just placed everything in one and NYC. I always do that. Like, even with my chains like this is Young M.A but it looked like the Loki symbol. You know, I always put anything when it comes to, like, where I'm from, what I'm based on, everything, just as long as it what makes sense. But like, yeah, we came up with that. So like, it's like a whole starter kit of sex toys and like, you know, strap-ons, and stuff like that. And even cleaning your strap-ons or whatever. So when they can't, you know, get pleased by whoever they want to get pleased by, they please they self. And then I also got the vibrators as well, because a lot of women are using vibrators now, and that's also by Play Nyce but it's called Power Play. Because there's a lot of power and it plays with that... And that's just, you know what I'm saying? And you know, I got a lot of, like, lot of positive comments back from that Power Play right there. And a lot of women use vibrators. And it's, like, so many different styles, they've been telling me about. So I've been doing my research and trying to get to it. So like, I just started off with that. So I'm gonna get more in tune with that, because that's literally like, a way for women, and I love women. So that's always going to work for me. So I'm definitely locking in with that, like, continuously. So that's just been in the works on that. So my website is shopyoungma. Everything is on shopyoungma.com. And then I got the PSD collaboration as well with my boxers. So we got like different, like, styles of boxers. like women's booty short-type boxers, and they got the men's boxers. Well, briefs, boxer briefs, like locked and tight. And then they got the women's sports bras. We actually got like all my designs and stuff like that. So we've been locked in with PTSD so make sure you all check that out as well. So it's basically underwear. And also Nyak. Nyak is my liquor brand that I've been associated with. They also had their own company, but they brought me a part of it with my own VSOP bottle. So I get my benefits from my actual own bottle which is all red. This is brown, is a brown label, is called Nyak, N-Y-A-K, you know what I mean? And mine's an all-red bottle, same thing, Nyak. But my actual, like, logo was on the bottle so you know it's mine, it's all red. And so I've been like, you know what I mean, doing little entrepreneur stuff, and then we got more stuff too, but you know, I'm just going keep quiet and not tell you.

Dan Runcie  19:02

No, I hear that. Well, I appreciate you sharing those though. And the sex toys and the adult toys in general. I feel like that lines up with some of the stuff you've done before. I know you've directed adult films before so I feel like you've been in this space.

Young M.A  19:16

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And that's why it was perfect to actually release that because it wasn't coming from left field, you know what I mean, when that first came out. It was like a lot of people was like oh... Like, Young M.A on porn? So that literally became like a token discussion or whatever, so then it was like perfect timing because it's like, so now you're all talking about this, I see you're always talking about my strap, I was like, let's bridge the gap. There you go. So now I'm making money from you all. Hello. From not even from just y'all, from the people that... You know what I mean, like girl, or a man, I don't even care. It don't matter.

Dan Runcie  19:51

Yeah, so I feel like that lines up, too, and even back to the first piece. I know you've got the partnership here with Serenade for the NFT drop itself and... what does that relationship like? And I guess, first, what was it that made you want to partner with them on this? And then what does the relationship look like with them moving forward?

Young M.A  20:10

I ain't going to lie... I believe they didn't know too much about, you know what I mean? Like, I just know, once, you know, I really got the confirmation that they was, you know, more so equal, friendly, equal, friendly more than anything, and that's a big plus, in itself. Why do we want to establish more of a relationship with them? You know what I mean, after this NFT drop, and that's what kind of what we've been planning. You know what I mean? Like, I'm more so like an observant person, like, once I meet you, I understand. He was like, okay, cool. So once I met them, and it's like, okay, you know what I mean, we can move forward. If things don't go right then things don't go, right. That's just in the business. And so you know, what I mean, I'm not giving nobody the highest benefits of anything, you know, I'm not saying this person is so, so good. No, but they definitely good people to work with. And it's different discussions, different people. And I decided, you known what I mean, just to see where it go. Like we said, we'll take risks in life, see where it goes, I don't think they bad people. We're going to see where it goes. I'm still learning about this NFT more and more, and I just want to see where it goes. And that's was just pretty much that, you know what I mean? Too much to go into detail but I appreciate them for even giving me the opportunity. You know what I mean? They definitely looked out a lot, you know what I mean? a lot. And I could tell they have a lot of hustle and motivation to put forward into my NFT. So that's one of the reasons to as to why we work with them. Because I really feel like intuition with certain people and just having to understand, like, when it comes to business, you might not always know. You can't always say you know people. Even if you research them, no matter what the situation is, sometimes things might not work for you. You know what I mean? So you just look more to it. And you see how it go as it goes. I mean, seeing business situations I handled in the past, some things didn't go right. Some things went right, you know, and it's just like with them. I feel good, you know? And it was like, let's go, let's see where it goes. Let's take these events and take risks. 

Dan Runcie  21:52

Yeah, it makes me think of two things. One, with Serenade, their eco-friendly pitch stuck out to me, too, just because a lot of people don't talk about how much energy is burned when people are either making NFTs or doing things related to gas fees, or any of this stuff like, it's a lot. Well, I'm glad that they're pushing that piece of it. And then, two, what I like about this for you, as well, is I've seen a lot of these times where new platforms or newer platforms will pitch themselves to a popular artist that has a fan base and then if they're able to grow with it, then that obviously attracts more and more artists, and then the artist gets a bit of that influence sort of help push this and they become, in many ways, one of the faces to push that brand through, especially if things continue to grow.

Young M.A  22:36

Right. Exactly. So like it's just understandable. Like, some, some, some people, you know, you got to get it like, that's why I said, like, I'm learning more about this, this, this, this whole company, this whole NFT thing, this whole new dispersion of just this new, new elevation of life, you know, and the evolution of life. And that's what I'm getting at. And I just want people to just... I want people to put the same kind of risk into and just had that understanding and learn more because like it's going... no matter what we do. We know we want to be so old school as much as possible. We're like, you know, you can still hold on to that like, Oh, no to the... But like, you still got to make sure you had...

Dan Runcie  23:15

Right. How do you keep up with all of it? I mean, every week, I feel like there's something new happening with Web 3.0 or that Metaverse.

Young M.A  23:22

Right, me too. I feel like... I feel like damn, wait, what's this right here? Like, I ain't going to lie, like, I ain't going to lie. It is hard to keep up with. I mean, I'm getting it, you know. I feel like I don't got to force it, too? You know, I don't always feel like I have to force it. Like, I'm the type of person, I will catch up with yo ass. I'm not running around, laps around, you know what I mean? Like, if you're already ahead, I'm like, alright, alright. I'm observing. I'm like that turtle, you know what I mean? Chasing the rabbit? 

Dan Runcie  23:50

Yep. Yep. 

Young M.A  23:51

You know, I mean, yeah, so...

Dan Runcie  23:53

Yeah, that's the thing. We're still in the early days with this, too. I think that's what people forget, I get it. Everyone wants to jump at the newest thing of the opportunity that's there. But we're still figuring a lot out about how so much of this is gonna shake out. And I feel like the way you're doing it is right. It's not like you're saying, No, I don't fully understand. But alright, if I get this enough to at least test this out, no different than a startup, just put it at initial product. Let's see how this works. All right. And we learned and then we continue to tweak.

Young M.A  24:22

Exactly, you know what I mean? You just learn as you go. That's how I look at life, you learn as you go. I mean, some things may not work for you, something will. You never know. Like, even if it don't, it may be something that makes you do something that changed something. You know what I mean? You might retreat something. You don't know where this is going to lead you. Everybody could be entrepreneurs. Anybody could just be what they could be, you know what I mean?  And that's just way of...

Dan Runcie  24:44

Yeah, for sure. 

Young M.A  24:45

Yeah.

Dan Runcie  24:45

If anything, now, there's probably getting even more, with people reaching out about different opportunities. It's like you're picking your spots, right? And kind of with how you structured your career, I bet that you say no a lot, even if it's outside of the record labels or anyone else, just because there's only so much that you want to focus on. And there's only so much that you can do. So if you're saying yes to something that means it's definitely crossed at some level where it's like, no, this is worth our time. And we think that this is worth the potential benefit of what it could do for our fans and for us.

Young M.A  25:17

Yeah, me and my team, we family. You know what I mean? They consider me like a boss, but I don't consider that. I just consider us all, you know, just everybody working in this spots, in place, of course, I'm the yay or the nay... I mean, if I want to do it, I won't do it. If I want to do it, I'm going to do it. And there's that. But other than that, like that's what I said, I don't, I don't need a hundred people... As long as I got the right people and the right positions. That's all. That's all about relationships, man. It's all about relationships, whatever relationship you decide to, you know, what I mean, you keep or whatever you feel like is right for you, go about that. Other than that, like, I always know, like, I will avoid certain things. People look at something like glamor... and think that's just it all the time because they want to keep a certain relationship. But like, I don't think nothing's wrong with it. Don't get me wrong, but like, I don't have the kiss nobody else. Like, it ain't that I don't want to I'm not just a mean person, just like, I still always stand like firm to my ground. Like, I always stand firm to like, certain things, I believe in certain things on this day. When I see through somebody and I see bullshit, I will literally like just leave you alone, like there's no talking about that. And I don't have to go against you. I don't have to be mad, or will be angry. I got to be aggressive? No, Just like... And we go about our business. And it's just about that, you know what I mean? Like, I see when one person act towards this person this certain way and this person acts towards this person a certain way. I see those type of vibes. And when I see those type of vibes, I just don't look at you genuinely. You know what I mean? So, I know when somebody... And that's how I move with you, I move with you the same way you're probably moving. And that's just that, you know I mean? That's how I just, you know what I mean, like, I just understand this game and all that that's why I don't really play too much part into things like, I got a lot of people associated with in this industry that a lot of friends and then they got people that... but that's just a game. And I understood that a long time ago.

Dan Runcie  27:02

Right. And I feel like with how you’ve built this, what it ties back to you for me is you have a very clear understanding of who you are and what you want out of this game. And because of that, it helps you make better decisions and helps you not have that fear of missing out that other people do and you can be like No, like we're focused on what we're doing. And I think that's what hurts so many artists because so many artists get frustrated that they're not doing what that 1% of people are doing, they're not doing that thing and I think that mentality can all always just set you up for not feeling fulfilled or not feeling like you're doing enough. But you were able to have a pretty even perspective with that. Do you feel like you always had that? Or do you feel like that's something that you just became better with navigating over your career?

Young M.A  27:48

No, I always had that. Because if I didn't, I would have been so.

Dan Runcie  27:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, though, you did say that there were times where you did go back and forth and you at least considered whether you should or not, right?

Young M.A  28:00

No, I had meeting yes, I have meetings of course. I had meetings. I wasn't, it wasn't that I wasn't I never going to give nobody a chance. I wasn't like... that's what I'm trying to say. I'm not against it. I'm not against it. I'm never against nothing. I've never against nothing. It's just like, I give things the actual opportunity. I'm a type of person, like, if I know for sure, for sure that it is not right, then, of course, it's clear. I already know. Because I know, because I know. But other than that, if I don't know, and I'm like, alright, let me just, at least, even if I have an intuition, I'm going to still go try. And if I'm right, then I'm right. If I'm wrong then damn, you know what I mean? Change my mind, you know, and I go from there. Like, that's just how I look at it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not against nothing. I'm never against nothing. It's just more so like, I want nobody to feel like I'm like, against, like, what people will do or how they do it, or... Anybody can do how they want to do what they want to do when they want to do. Me, I'm just the type of person where I observe, you know what I mean? I go about it how I go about it. I want nobody to feel like I'm like, this person where I'm just happy-go-lucky, then. You know what I mean? You feel like, oh, yeah, we got to have it. Because that's how people come into it. Like these little young boys, young kids. They're so happy to have opportunity but they don't read between the lines, you know what I mean? And that's what it means. And I mean, always you have a lawyer and always you had somebody, a guardian beside you, you know, always you have somebody to understand, or you might have been people, enough people might just be really just trying to take advantage of you the whole time. You know what I mean? So like, I just don't trust nothing. Even if next to me, you won't don't got to be across the table. You could be next to me and I still don't... So like, that's just how I've always have moved, like, I always move like make sure I'll protect me. You know what I mean? Like, you can say you're for me. I will hear that. But I mean, I got to believe, right?

Dan Runcie  29:46

No, that's real. That's not real. And I mean, I appreciate you for sharing the insights here. I feel like a lot of people have looked up to you and appreciated how you run your career and I feel like this drop, this NFT job specifically, it's just that next evolution that ties back to everything you've been doing, so before we let you go, is there anything else you want to plug or you want to let the Trapital audience to know about?

Young M.A  30:06

Yeah, just know we're going on tour, man. April 23. We're in VA, Portsmouth, VA. . Portsmouth Virginia. It's at the 420ish, it's called the 420ish Festival. Make sure you have... that's where you start. And then I think we're in Cincinnati after that. 26 and then 27, I think the tour will be in Mesa, so we'll be able to on tour for a month. Off The Yak tour. Yeah, so that's pretty much, NFT about to drop. New music be here soon, I can't, I don't really know if we should. I'm going throw that in the air real quick...

Dan Runcie  30:37

Yeah. Because I was gonna say I thought you got a song lined up with the NFT drop, right?

Young M.A  30:39

Oh, yeah. Aye Day Pay Day. 

Dan Runcie  30:40

Yeah.

Young M.A  30:40

Aye Day Pay Day. That's right, Aye Day Pay Day, y'all. Aye Day Pay Day.

Dan Runcie  30:46

I know, I was gonna say we can't let the interview cut if you don't mention the song. But Young M.A, this is great. I appreciate you coming on.

Young M.A  30:52

Thank you both. I appreciate it you guys.

Dan Runcie  30:56

If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

In less than three years, the Fanbase social content app has raised six million dollars (without traditional venture capital) and is inching toward the one-million user mark. How did co-founder Issac Hayes III take the app from nothing all the way to this? If you ask him, his life spent in the cut-throat music industry gave him the inspiration AND business chops to thrive within the tech space. 

As the son of legendary R&B artist Isaac Hayes, he was made well aware from the get-go of the exploitative practices by record labels toward musicians. Isaac would go on to notice similar exploitation with social media giants and their users, who were creating content and driving attention, but reaping little of the billions of dollars in revenues being reported by the same corporations.

Fanbase is changing those optics. On the app, users can post content — written, photo, video, audio chat, and live stream — for a subscription fee. As Isaac sees it, “monetization for every user is the wave of the future.” For a full glimpse of how Isaac is building Fanbase into a disruptive social media force, you’ll want to tune into our interview. Here’s what we covered in the episode:

[4:10] Fanbase Raised $6 Million From Crowdfunding — Not Venture Capital

[6:34] The Most Important Investors Of Fanbase 

[8:10] Making Investing More Accessible

[10:30] How Fanbase Is Acquiring New Customers

[11:59] Fanbase’s Biggest Business Advantage (Not What You Think)

[14:13] “Monetization For Every User Is The Wave Of The Future”

[16:18] Why Artists Shouldn’t Sell Their Catalogs

[22:23] What Isaac Loves About Technology

[23:40] What Does Fanbase’s Future Fundraising Timeline Look Like?

[26:38] Size Of Fanbase’s Team Now & In Near-Future

[27:51] Atlanta’s Underrated Scene Outside Hip-Hp

[30:39] Isaac’s Influence For Creating Fanbase

[32:34] Getting The Music Rights Back For His Dad

[33:48] Keeping Black Icons Relevant Post-Death

[36:14] Will There Ever Be An Isaac Hayes Movie?

[41:45] Fanbase’s New Features

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS

Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co

Guests: Isaac Hayes III, @isaachayes3 

Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. 

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Transcription

Isaac Hayes III 00:00

I think monetization for every user is the wave of the future. I keep saying it, I think that there isn't a person right now that isn't subscribed to at least one thing. And one subscription becomes more and more the common vernacular of how we engage with content. Social media is the last, you know, frontier that's left. You know, when you think about TV and film with Hulu, and Netflix, and Disney+, and music with Spotify and Apple Music, and print media with Forbes, and The New York Times, and Billboard, and then productivity software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft Word. Like, you don't... You're subscribed to something. You're probably subscribed to an app on your phone that allows you to edit your photos. And so subscriptions are just the language. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward.

Dan Runcie 00:53

Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's guest is Isaac Hayes III. He's the founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a company that helps creators better monetize the content they put out. And on Fanbase's platform, followers can subscribe for $3.99 a month to get all of the exclusive content from their favorite creators, or they can follow creators and they can spread love. Love is the primary form of engagement on Fanbase, and it's how creators monetize. The more likes and love they get, the more revenue that they get into their pockets. So Fanbase addresses a lot of the challenges that people have had about social media more broadly. And in this chat, Isaac and I talk about what the journey has been like. He's been able to raise $6 million through crowdfunding. He did it through this platform called StartEngine, and he's had many well-known investors on board, folks like Snoop Dogg, Charlamagne The God, Kandi Burruss, Chamillionaire, Roland Martin, and more. So we talked about his decision to go that path as opposed to the traditional VC route. Isaac and I also talked about the trend of music publishing and the catalog sales that have been happening, and why he actually thinks that a lot of musicians should not be selling their catalogs. He is not the only person to say this, but these voices have been a little bit quieter in this narrative. So it was great to hear his perspective on this. And then we also talked about the other hat that Isaac wears. He is the manager of his late father's estate. His father is the legendary singer, Isaac Hayes. So we talked about what that experience has been like managing the estate, and how his father's experience in the music industry had formed a lot of the work that Isaac Hayes III himself wants to create and the opportunities he wants to do through Fanbase. We also talked about what an Isaac Hayes biopic would look like, and who Isaac Hayes III would want to play his father in a movie. I think he had a pretty good answer. I'm a big fan of this person. So I think you'll enjoy who we said. We also talked about Atlanta's impact, and just how influential that city has been in culture and for Fanbase as well, we had a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Here's my chat with Isaac Hayes III. All right, today, we got Isaac Hayes III with us. He's the co-founder and CEO of Fanbase, an app that helps creators monetize the content that they put out into the world and get what's there. So Isaac, thank you for joining. And it'd be great to just hear from you how things were going with you and how things been going with Fanbase. What's the latest been?

Isaac Hayes III 03:46

Man, we just closed our second seed round of $2.6 million on StartEngine. So we've raised a total of $6 million in less than a year. It's been phenomenal. We're adding a lot of amazing functionality to Fanbase. And new features are rolling out in the next couple of weeks, a new version of audio, which is one of our flagship features on the platform that's monetized for all users. So it's an exciting time at Fanbase.

Dan Runcie 04:10

Can you talk to me about your fundraising process a bit because I know that you crowdfunded the 6 billion. You were able to do it at a few different stages. But what made you go that route, as opposed to the more traditional venture capital fundraising?

Isaac Hayes III 04:25

Two things: one was just a recommendation by a really good mentor of mine to do so. And it was in COVID, because, you know, we couldn't move. And I had a real kind of like off-putting conversation with a VC. And it immediately reminded me of the music business. And so in my mind, I immediately thought, okay, these seeds are like the label. And I'm like an artist trying to get a record deal. And so starting to gave me the opportunity to go independent, and sell my shares out of the trunk of my car to the tune of $6 million, which gives us better leverage, and lets people know that we don't need venture capital to raise serious cash. And so that's really how it, you know, wind up that being that way.

Dan Runcie 05:06

Yeah, I heard the comparisons from a lot of people. And I think that the thing you often hear from folks that do crowdfund is that it can take a lot of time to get there. But at least from what I've seen from your process, you were able to get several thousand investors in a pretty short amount of time. So what were the steps from that perspective to keep the momentum hot, and to make sure that you had a strong pipeline?

Isaac Hayes III 05:29

I think the best thing is, when you're, I think the biggest benefit was the fact that it's a product that the investors can actually use in real time. So it's not like they're giving to something, and they're investing in something and not knowing what the product will be or what it does. They're a part of it in real time. And it's something that's relatable to them. If I go and invest in a tech startup that does something to do with aerospace engines, cool, when I'm not with it every day. I just sit back and hope that they make the best decision possible with my investment. But Fanbase is something that I think is more personal to people because of where we are social media. So I think that gave it a lot of energy, because people are a part of the process, and they feel part of the platform and part of this journey together in real time. So it's something that you can use, you know, and then who better, I got to say, to give actual equity in a social media startup into the users themselves that will actually make the platform grow. 

Dan Runcie 06:20

And I think you're able to find some influential folks with that too, right? You got Kandi Burruss, you got Charlamagne. And of course with their platforms, they're able to help amplify and can connect you with other investors or just other creators, given what they've done.

Isaac Hayes III 06:34

Yeah, but we honestly haven't used them in that fashion. And I actually don't typically want them or to do that particularly yet. And the reason being is because I like the fact that they are silent in their action, because a lot of times when people of notoriety step out in a space where they're invested in a platform and may turn other people off, that feel like well, I didn't get that opportunity. And in social media, it's more about the users. The most important investors on Fanbase, and we have some really big, big name investors, the most important investors on Fanbase are the actual users, the larger, broader, probably a sea of 8000 plus individuals that have put their money in and actually use the platform on a day-today basis, who will be those day-to-day, you know, hardcore super users. But relationships and those investors that are of a high stature like a Snoop Dogg and stuff like that, their time will come later. They all, I know, they all know exactly when they're going to get on and when they're going to turn the engine up on the platform. So we're just, you know, we're focused on the core audience and the core investors of the platform being what we really focus on at Fanbase.

Dan Runcie 07:41

And with 8000 investors, you mentioned $6 million raised, it makes it pretty affordable to, you know, for people to be able to have a stake, because I think that's one of the challenges that you often see from institutional money that comes through or some of the minimum buy-ins for some investments is that it isn't always the most accessible for folks that may be interested. So I think you're able to at least allow that to happen given the amount of people that were able to invest for the total amount you have.

Isaac Hayes III 08:10

Absolutely, I mean, the accredited investor rule has kind of been a barrier for all people, you know. I don't care what race you are, if it's a law that's been in effect since 1933, it's just only given opportunities to rich people to actually invest in early stage companies. So you're coming out of the Great Depression, if you ever wonder why none of your family members got a call to invest in IBM, or Microsoft, or Apple, or Facebook, and so on and so forth. It's this accredited investor rule that is given all the best opportunities of wealth to the wealthy. And so I love the fact that Barack Obama and Joe Biden pass the Jobs Act and allow people like myself to go to my peers and the public to actually have the same opportunity that VCs and accredited investors have to get a piece of the American dream by investing the same way that all these other people have been able to do for 83 years.

Dan Runcie 09:01

I think we're gonna see the rules continue to break down on that. I know now they have that flexible option where I think if you take the Series 63 or 7 or one of those tests, then you can become accredited. So that's one way to pass the income thresholds. But I feel like even that is probably going to break down at some point. That just feels like where everything is at it.

Isaac Hayes III 09:22

It should. I mean, one of the seed investors in Uber, a guy by the name of Oren Michels only invested $5,000 into Uber, but when it IPO in 2019 is 5000 was worth 24 million. And I'm like, well, how come we can go to Vegas and spend $5,000 on the crap table or go buy $5,000 worth of lottery tickets, but I can't invest in Uber. And I think that's the real crime is that, you know, it's okay that if you go blow your money gambling in that fashion, but not gambling in in the fashion of investing your money in a startup like Uber, which wound up being very, very successful, so the rules have to change and platforms like StartEngine are breaking down those barriers.

Dan Runcie 9:59

Right, especially when so many other people using it and giving these startups their early validation are the ones that believe and see in the future. So I feel like those dots got to connect eventually. But...

Isaac Hayes III 10:10

It will for sure.

Dan Runcie 10:11

Going back to Fanbase itself and how things are, I read that you have a goal be able to hit a million users in June. And it would be great to hear what your strategy has been in terms of acquiring customers. What's been the most effective thing that you've done to get more creators and users onto the platform?

Isaac Hayes III 10:30

I think the biggest thing is actually just word of mouth, right? It's the quality of the product. And then I think we're in a very unique time, a very opportunistic time for platforms like Fanbase to emerge, because of this transition from users wanting more access to their following, they're getting tired of words like shadowbanning and content suppression and stuff like that. And algorithms are becoming the enemy of the common user on the platform, or even the super user on the platform, because platforms typically are profitable off ad revenue. And so for that to happen, you can't simultaneously provide visibility for every user on the platform, and then run ads at the same time. That's counterproductive to the business model. Because if that's the case, then the people that buy ads would just go to the users themselves and run ads that way. And then you would have no business model. And so Fanbase is just you know, emerging at a time right now that I think the conversation is different. And ad based, ad-based revenue social media platforms are going to continue to change that puts us right, at the right time to continue to grow. So word of mouth. And then timing is just helping us, and then we have an amazing creative advisory board of young people. There's some other strategic partnerships, and I'm really excited to begin working on that, they’re really rooted in community and rooted in the culture of what we want on Fanbase, which is young, centennial people of all races, ages, backgrounds, creating content and monetize.

Dan Runcie 11:56

What are some of those partnerships? Anything you can share with us?

Isaac Hayes III 11:59

No, because... And the reason why I can't is because they're really savvy in the way there's things that I think, social media startups, I'll say this, like, I think Fanbase has the best advantage to become a social media unicorn by simply being in Atlanta. And what I mean by that is like Atlanta, is the epicenter of black culture in the United States of America. And what we know about Black culture is Black culture is pop culture. And we know about pop culture, pop culture is what drives social media. So therefore, if you're right at the epicenter of where the viral challenge is going to happen, or the newest, funny influencer, or the dance challenge, or the artist is at, being able to have them be part of Fanbase, and part of that community gives us a really big advantage. So some of those partnerships are rooted in culture, and community, and music. I can't announce them or anything, because it's really dope, though, the way that you have an advantage to do so. And I think a lot of the other platforms know that, which is why they kind of try to pivot in and out. And also try to acquire those users from Atlanta, those the talent, they're like, oh, let's pay them. Let's try to get them, you know, in the same way, but I think Fanbase just has a little bit more of an advantage.

Dan Runcie 13:09

I hear that and thinking, too, about making sure that the talent gets paid fairly. I think that's been the underlying theme for so much of why you wanted to create this. There have been so many people that we've seen have become viral sensations, or creators who have a strong following, but being able to really tap into that in a meaningful way hasn't always worked. And in some cases, it's everyone else making money instead of them. I think you would have that story about the ghetto Spider-Man and how the person behind that had blown up, but he's the one calling you like, hey, what do I do? Like, is anything that can help here? And you think about that, and you just think about all of these creators, whether it's folks on TikTok, that are, like the guy that does the hands video, you know, he is, you know, one of the biggest creators, but he isn't anywhere on that Forbes list of the top creators. So I feel like you’ll be able to bridge that connection of, okay, there's clearly a market gap here and how we can have a platform that can close that and how big of an opportunity that is.

Isaac Hayes III 14:13

It's an enormous opportunity. I think monetization for every user is the wave of the future. I keep saying it. I think that there isn't a person right now that isn't subscribed to at least one thing. And one subscription becomes more and more the common vernacular of how we engage with content. Social media is the last, you know, frontier that's left. You know, when you think about TV and film with Hulu, and Netflix, and Disney+, and music with Spotify and Apple Music, and print media with Forbes, and The New York Times, and Billboard, and then productivity software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft Word. Like, you don't... You're subscribed to something. You're probably subscribed to an app on your phone that allows you to edit your photos. And so subscriptions are just the language. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward. And it just, it gives everybody a chance to make money as opposed to the people that the apps highlight to be most successful, because they're the best vehicles for ads to run in between their content. Think about that, like the larger audience on, the greater audience of a platform like Tiktok, since there's really only one kind of like channel. It's literally just a platform of short form video. So the wider audience on their demographic on that platform is a white audience just based off of the United States. So therefore, it would behoove them to have bigger white stars to run ads to monetize that larger audience. So that's what they kind of have to focus on. So Fanbase doesn't worry about that. It doesn't matter who you are. Everybody can be a superstar on the platform.

Dan Runcie 15:42

Yeah. And that piece about the subscriptions as well, it just, everyone having that and then seeing who can profit off of it. It also makes me think of an exchange you and I had had recently, we're talking about what's happening right now in the music industry and these catalog valuations, too. You had shared perspective that artists actually should not be selling their or publishing their catalogs, because how much room streaming has to grow. And you just look at some of the demographics on that. What's your take on it? And how much bigger do you think this market will get?

Isaac Hayes III 16:18

Man, I think it'd be massive. Like I said, at the time, last year was 400, I think it was 450 million people were on music streaming services this year, it's like 525. It's jumped up. That's like, you know, almost like 7 to 9% of all the people with the ability to have streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify on their phone, have them over the next decade by 2030, I think it'll be close to a billion people, so that, that'll be almost a little over double what is available. So imagine and that's only that's only like 1 billion, it's less than a billion, not even a billion people a music streaming services, but there's 6.3 billion people on the planet with smartphones, you know, satellite Wi Fi, satellite internet is going to be something that is going to actually be more connected, as opposed to where wires can go. You know, satellites can go to provide people Internet, and then with video, like, there's like 222 million people on Netflix. And there's 6.3 billion people, the available market share is massive. So I mean, as big as a company is Netflix is, they don't even have, you know, they don't even have 7% of the market of available people that can get on their platform, it's more like three and a half. So think of the growth potential that Netflix can have or anybody that's providing subscriptions via content they can have. That's why we're focused on person-to-person subscription content, which I think will trump everything in the future. 

Dan Runcie 17:42

Yeah, it's interesting, because I think there's these two trends happening, because one of the reasons everyone's buying the catalogs is exactly what you said, people see the upside, were streaming's going n the other side, you're also seeing, whether it's Netflix or Spotify, the rapid growth that they may have had once starting to slow down a little bit. So you do think about, yes, you know, a service like Facebook, if we think of that as being like the most ubiquitous thing out there, you know, several billion people on it, but it's also because it's free, right? So it's like, there's some number of what are the total number of people that will be willing to pay $999 in the US for music streaming service, or whatever that price difference may be in their respective place. We still haven't gotten there yet. And I'm curious, you know what that actual number will be. And it's just so hard to know, because I think some people think it's going to be a lot higher. And there's other people that think that we’re close to that peak. So who knows.

Isaac Hayes III 18:38

I don't think we're anywhere near the peak because it's the nature, the market will grow as the youth grow. And so as kids are more like, kids are trained and kind of use to subscriptions, and virtual currency, and app purchases, it's that they've known that their whole lives. I remember when I was first discussing building Fanbase, I spoke to someone that was in their 30s, they were like, I'd never subscribed to another person, right? Why would I do that.? And then I was in the Apple Store, and I just randomly asked this 20, I think the young lady was probably like, 21 years old. I think I asked how old she was. She says I'm 21, I was like, if you could subscribe or what her favorite group was, and my first inclination that she was going to name a very famous artist, and she named an indie band, right? What's your favorite artists? I bet you're gonna name somebody like, you know, Ariana Grande. I said, if you could subscribe to that person for $3.99 a month, that band for $3.99 a month, and they would post videos and they were working on their album or exclusive photos and stuff like that.Maybe, they might let you buy, you know, tickets to their show before anybody else, would you do that? And her answer was like, fuck yeah, $3.99. And I'm like, that's when I was, okay, I gotta do this because they don't care. There was, I remember, there were legions of people that swore they wanted to own a mp3. And I'm like, man, it's $10 a month to listen to everything that's ever been created. Only your mp3 is out of here. That's a done deal. So I think the market will go as the youth decide. And the youth are showing their propensity to spend, or virtually, you know, their Cashapp and Venmo and PayPal, their NFT's, their crypto, they're all in that space. So I think it's going to actually explode way beyond what it is now.

Dan Runcie 20:13

Yeah, that's a good point. The other thing, too, is that there are just so many other services beyond the digital streaming providers that are offering some type of music experience that's going to drive up the platform, right? Like it doesn't always have to be streaming. It can be in app purchases, the same way that, you know, these kids go wild about V-bucks or whatever it is in these games, it's going to be the same thing there. As more and more of these companies getting music licensing, like, we're going to see that continue to happen. So it'll be interesting.

Isaac Hayes III 20:42

I'm telling you... I'm spending money on Call of Duty to make my gun cooler or wear cooler outfit. Kids are going to spend money to have access to shoes before anybody else can, tickets before anybody else can, experiences that no one else can have for, you know, small amounts of prices, and that give them exclusivity and clout and bragging rights. Trust me, I know exactly what's going to happen.

Dan Runcie 21:07

Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Let's talk more about today's sponsor Intercept Music. The company is on a mission to empower independent artists everywhere. This is a tale as old as time. Artists and labels have often had to choose between their creative freedom and autonomy and access to marketing and distribution that would catapult their careers. Well, that's no longer the choice, especially today, people can have both and Intercept is one of the companies making that happen. It offers a fully managed advertising and promotional service allows you to distribute your music and you have the opportunity to sell merchandise through its branded online stores. This is your one-stop shop to manage your career and take it to that next level. As an artist or label, Intercept can help you unshackle your monetization opportunities and, as Method Man said himself, you can use this platform and keep 100% of your shit. To learn more, go to interceptmusic.com and learn how this company is helping independent artists like you take their careers to the next level. You mentioned Call of Duty for yourself. Are there any other personal areas that you've been personally where, you know, attracted to, whether it's a single game or a solo thing where, you know, a majority of your attention has gone to?

Isaac Hayes III 22:23

Just call... I only play one game, Call of Duty. I've been playing Call of Duty for like 12 years, I like content. So I used to fly drones, like, all the time. Like, not just for the fun of flying, but the fun of capturing the actual content and creating content. But other than that, I mean... Social media is like, it's a passion of mine because I liked the connectivity. And I liked the potential. I liked the potential of being disruptive. And where we can create unique experiences via technology. That's one thing I love about technology, technology doesn't give my brain like a limit. I have conversations with my CTO and say, hey, you know, can we do this? And he's like, the question is not if we can do it, it's just how long it'll take us to do it. How many man hours? Well, we could do it. And that's the greatest feeling to have, like, can we make this do this and just do this? He's like, yeah, we could do that. But and so having like, your imagination not being limited. Only the, only limitation is your resources like man hours, and manpower, and funds. And cool. Like, I understand that part. So don't you know, don't give me $100 million dollars, move out of the way. You know, no, don't let me raise $100 million. You want to see an app, like be fly than anything you've ever seen? Fanbase is phenomenal. And we raised $6 million. Imagine what we do, and we raised 60, 600 million, it's gonna be phenomenal. That's why I'm excited. I'm like, oh, it's gonna be go time for sure.

Dan Runcie 23:40

So what does the future fundraising timeline look like for you? Where do you think you'll raise again? And how big do you think that'll be?

Isaac Hayes III 23:46

I mean, we've been getting calls, which is kind of curious, because I guess the A&R of what a VC is, their version of A&R has been starting to reach out because they see Fanbase making waves and so now, it's not me going to VCs, but it's VCs coming to us, which is better. So I feel we still have a lot of work to do in a short period of time. But I would like to raise a significant series, a somewhere, you know, in the eight figure range, really to get us, you know, in eight figure range to really get us where we need to be because there's so much involved with data and streaming and music licensing. And so these platforms have to be funded to scale and so we're gonna need it. You know, I love the notion of being able to continue to raise equity crowdfunding with people, and I think I'll find ways to continue to do that. But you also... VCs also serve a very good purpose of their knowledge, their relationships, their experience. So I'm not opposed to them. I'm just sometimes primarily opposed to the terms. So now we can have conversations that are different than that. I'm not opposed to the VCs, I'm just opposed to the terms. So sometimes we just have to work better and making sure we get fair terms by doing things on our own. 

Dan Runcie 24:54

And I think the fact that you're at the place you're at now gives you the leverage to do that, right? I think one of the reasons that the unfair terms happen more often is because the founder or the founders don't come from that place of leverage. They're more so looking for the help just from being able to be sustainable, to keep the lights on and all those things, you have that piece of it checked off, given what you've been able to do with the money you've been able to raise. So it's more so, hey, we're trying to go a bit faster. We're trying to do this, this, and this, if you want to be in it would be great. But if you don't, there's other people knocking at the door who can make this happen.

Isaac Hayes III 25:32

Yeah, I mean, writing your own path, you know, coming from the music business, I look at like, I look at percentages, so I'm on a platform called PitchBook, where I can see like, how much equity was given up for what percentage and I'm like, what, gave up what, for 39% of the company, and like, hell, oh, no, you can't do that. Because you have to be strategic. And I know, sometimes we want to get our product to market so bad. And we want it, we feel that once we get there, doesn't matter if I gave him this much, it's gonna be successful, I'm gonna be able to do this, but you have to be conservative with equity, you can't be selfish. At the same time, people have got to invest money, they're gonna want significant portions of your company. But I think the more work you do improving your model on your own, the more advantageous you are as a part of the VCs, because now you can work together. I love my team, my team is brilliant, they're smarter than I am, I'm just a big idea guy that want to make sure, wants to make sure that the colors look good, and the energy is right. And then the rest is up for us to really, you know, structure this business. So I like writing our ticket that way by being independent, as I like to say. 

Dan Runcie 26:34

So how big is the team now? And how big do you think it'll be end of this year?

Isaac Hayes III 26:38

So right now we have a team of 25 developers, and probably 15 other personnel or 40. But I think our development team would probably be 150, given a significant raise, and probably our executive team probably go from like, 15 to 30 people. So it would grow. I mean, you know, and that's with everything, running it, you know, at best case, you know, if I had it my way, because we can build faster and more simultaneous functionality. And then I love you know, being able to pay really smart people to make Fanbase do amazing things and in the right amount of time. So I'm looking forward to that though, we have a game plan to really scale up to a million users by June, it's two months. It's two months, as you know, it's April, you know, saying April 8, so we don't have that much time. But I'm looking forward to the grind.

Dan Runcie 27:30

And I also got to imagine that the Atlanta community and culture ecosystem you're around has and will continue to have so much of an impact on you. Can you talk about how beneficial it's been from that perspective? I know y'all got The Gathering Spot, and you have so many other execs there. How important has that collective been?

Isaac Hayes III 27:51

It's been invaluable, because the first conversations that I had about building a startup social media platform happened at The Gathering Spot, they were members that were in the tech space that I looked at as mentors, their names are Jewel Burks, Barry Gibbons, and Justin Dawkins. They are all accomplished tech professionals in their own right, and the fact that I could sit right next to them, like a kid, you know, being able to talk to like, talk to Michael Jordan or whoever be like, yo, how do you do this? How do you do that? How are you able to do these things, and then lending their ear and lending their voice and their information to me is invaluable. I think that was really, you know, the essence of community and Atlanta, especially in the black tech space. They're just tons of brilliant people and I've met met at those spaces, but those three individuals were like instrumental in helping me shape Fanbase to the company because they told me you know, why it's important that you have a CTO that has a stake in the in your company, why is important, like what your deck must look like, why you know, when it's a raise, how you scale, all these things that you have to bring together. And so that's the dope part about it. So the Atlanta communities are invaluable in that fashion. We're all like, there's no ceiling of what you can achieve in a city like Atlanta with black leadership. I was just telling you, I just saw a clip today about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being able to be elected to the Supreme Court, Symone Sanders said, if you didn't elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia, that would have never happened, he wouldn't have had the votes or the leverage to do so. And so a political community that's aware, that's African American that understands how politics play in the ability for you to scale your business and city like Atlanta is invaluable. That's the probably, the biggest asset to being anybody in the city is, is probably that there's a political foundation that has been built on for over 60 years that kind of gives people the energy and the confidence to try things that no other people would try. Like Tyler Perry saying, I'm gonna build a movie studio, like L.A. & Babyface, and we're gonna bring a record company to the city, like someone like The Gathering Spot, or Pinky Cole with Slutty Vegan, or Tracey Pickett with Hairbrella. Like all these amazing startups that are coming out of Atlanta, Georgia, and have come out of Atlanta, Georgia. So it's a place for you to dream and excel.

Dan Runcie 30:02

It really is. It's remarkable just to see how much of it stems in. I think so many of you as well have roots in music and how I think that has been the core of what you all have been able to do and achieve. And it makes me think a lot about where your inspiration for why this is so important to you came from. You would obviously seen your dad's experience in the music industry and some of the challenges he had had with unfair contracts and things like that. Can you talk a bit about how that through line was for you in terms of the influence and seeing that inspire where you want to be the most impactful and how that shapes Fanbase?

Isaac Hayes III 30:39

Yeah, so I mean, as a kid, getting into the music industry, the first thing I learned, before I learned about music notes, I learned about music publishing, and it's just because that's what your family's gonna tell you is like, look, all this creative stuff is great, but know your business, right? Because you can get taken advantage of, don't get caught up in it. It's a joy, like creating music, being a creator is the best feeling in the world, making songs that people want to dance to, and that are part of their lives. And never forget, if you don't have that business, it's going to be something that you're going to wind up having a bitter taste in your mouth about because you've created all this great music, but do you really benefit from it, people that exploit you. So content ownership, ownership of your content, exploiting your content to your benefit has always been something that's been in the back of my mind. So that's why I say I've approached tech with a music industry mindset and nothing gets grimier than in the music business. So like I said, you know, tech is nothing compared to, like, the record business. So if you can handle a record business, you can handle tech, because the deals are what the deals are. The deals are straightforward, you know, the music history just makes up their rules. And so I had a great teacher and my father and my mom who just taught me about the business. So I think that helps a lot. It gave me, it gave me quite a bit of perspective of why artists deserve to get paid more for the content they create. And that's any user on social media. Those are the people that are making these dances go viral. Also the people that are being funny, those are people that are bringing really great thought-provoking content that gets you thinking, get you inspired, get you to vote, get you to, you know, to protest. So we have to, you know, make sure that those people have an opportunity to really make sure that they monetize their energy in that way.

Dan Runcie 32:16

Definitely, and I hear you on how the music industry, there's so there could be so much lack of clarity on these things. I know one of the things that you've also been pushing towards is to get the music rights back from your dad's music. How has that process been? And where are things right now with that?

Isaac Hayes III 32:34

So it's just a matter of time. I mean, the good thing about Copyright Law is they expire, they return to the original authors. And so we're just in the process right now of terminating so much as a case publishing, we've terminated all the songs that he wrote from 1963, all the way up to 1968 into going into 69. So there's, you know, his entire songwriting catalog as a songwriter we haven't even gotten to the Isaac Hayes era, but we've terminated you know, one of his biggest works was a song called Hold On, I'm Comin' that he wrote for Sam & Dave that gets used at commercials all the time. So that process is moving along, you know, very steadily and now there's new opportunities and new deals for my family, or equitable opportunities, and the ownership is ours. So it's a great spot to be in right now.

Dan Runcie 33:19

That's good to hear. I mean, because we've definitely know how tough it can be especially on your side, whether you're an estate manager or you're just more broadly trying to get it back for the sake of your family or loved one so that's good to hear. And on the estate side of it, I know you do manage that. Definitely heard a number of stories of different people that have managed estates over the years, both the good that comes from it, but also some of the challenges as well. Can you talk a little bit about how your experience has been on that front?

Isaac Hayes III 33:48

I mean, well, I was looking at it,I look at a brand, it’s like a hot air balloon. And so the higher the balloon goes, the more people see it. So it's a job I'm going to stay to get that balloon as high as possible before you try to do things so people say well, how come there hasn't been a you know, a movie on your father I was like, well, there's more work the balloon gotta get a little higher. We got to, people got to see a brand and build it. So it's been tough because I think a couple things like icons, black icons are not always held to the same standard or represented in media the way that white icons are. And what I mean by that and that's the job above actually the black community to uplift its own icons to do so. And when I tell people all the time I said, look, you go to the grocery store, and you can practice this exercise, you can go, you can go to the grocery store, and you're always going to see one of four people in a magazine at all times. You're going to see John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Elvis Presley, or Babe Ruth, at any time. And all of those guys have been dead for quite a long time, but they never let you forget their icons. They never let you forget Audrey Hepburn, they never let you forget Marilyn Monroe, they keep their legacy and their icons immortalized by continuing to push them and elevate them through media. Now in black culture, we typically do that for a period of time, but you don't typically see Dorothy Dandridge, or Sammy Davis Jr., or James Brown, or Martin Luther King, or people on covers of magazines just cause right, it's usually in some drama that, you know, some tabloid is trying to bring back up, but just for the sake of doing an amazing pictorial on, you know, Ray Charles, and to let that continue to uplift his legacy. That doesn't happen that often. So we have to take better care of our black icons, and continue to uplift them in media to do so.

Dan Runcie 35:32

That's a good point about the same faces you already see in the magazines, or you go to the grocery store. I think all the names you mentioned are the ones that you often see. On the movie point, though, I do hope that we do get in Isaac Hayes movie, at some point. I know you're saying that, you know, these days, you got to wait for the bubble to get a little bit bigger. But it's one of those things we're in this moment now where you're seeing, I'm sure you've seen it, too, so many music documented, whether it's documentaries, or the bio pics themselves, and some of them are a lot better than others. But you still know that they all had a ton of money poured into them. So hopefully, while this run is going on, that bubble can meet and the stars can align to make something like that happen.

Isaac Hayes III 36:14

I think so. I mean, we definitely have a documentary that must be told before feature film, I think a biographical nonfiction version of what really happened and what my dad's life was really like is a story that I think should be told first, and then we could dramaticize that and infantilize that in a way that I think brings young people and old people together. And I have that in my mind of how we merge all these genres together, these generations together to really tell the story of Isaac Hayes because I think he's probably the most relatable icon to the current generation of any icon that's passed away, by the way that he looked, by the way the type of music he created because I'm like, it's like, there's not too many people that still wear clothes like Michael Jackson, or wear their hair like James Brown, but there's several black men with bald heads and beards and sunglasses still in 2022. So the relatability is there. And then in terms of evergreen music, it's just like people continue to sample him to make new records. So I think he has the most connectable thread to the youth coming from his generation to now so we're definitely going to capitalize on that, expand more on that in 2022 and 2023.

Dan Runcie 37:32

Who would you want to play him in a biopic?

Isaac Hayes III 37:27

Ah, I've said this before. Just off first glance to the surface is probably Jonathan Majors, right? I like Jonathan Majors. Jonathan Majors is a phenomenal actor. I looked at him, I said he could play him. But then there's like, you know, you never know. I mean, there's always this sea of amazing, you know, talent out there, especially from people... I always get trouble in saying it but let me tell you something, the UK Brits, the Brits got those actors. Like they come from places like, I'm like, most of the shows I've watched on TV, the actors are British, like what? Like Snowfall? Like All American? The Walking Dead? It's like, yeah, those are the guys that you wouldn't know. They're so good at what they do. You would have never thought that but they're so classically trained. And then there's some, you know, amazing actors in the States as well. But you know, even Daniel Kaluuya. I'm like, oh, man, all these dudes? Brits be crushing it. So who knows, though, but Jonathan majors is an amazing actor. And I think he could do a great job portraying Isaac Hayes.

Dan Runcie 38:24

He's a good one. I'm excited to see what he does at this Creed movie coming up. And the range is there, you saw his Marvel thing, and I've done of course, Last Black Man in San Francisco. He's so good.

Isaac Hayes III 38:35

Yeah, I'm like, What's he gonna do a Ceed? I'm like, okay, what's going on? Like Creed 3? That's gonna be a good one right there.

Dan Runcie 38:41

I know. I know. Yeah. 

Isaac Hayes III 38:41

It's going to be interesting.

Dan Runcie 38:42

That will be good.

Isaac Hayes III 38:42

Yeah.

Dan Runcie 38:43

Daniel Kaluuya, of course, I think he's one of the best under 40 actors. I mean, period. He's one of the best folks under 40 we got right now. So I mean, obviously, what he did with Fred Hampton was amazing. So I think he would be legit, but it's good that you brought up the British piece because it's one of these things where we both know, if that happened, people would be you know, all up in arms like they are about a lot of black British folks that play American actors, thought or based off of American icons. But it's like you yourself as the person representing the estate in the family is like no, I would endorse this based on what you're seeing. We know how that conversation would go.

Isaac Hayes III 39:24

Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, I think again, like I said, Jonathan Majors was the first in mind that I had. And again, you never know who's out there by way, like, even like I watched it just by actors in general. I watch Winning Time, the story about the Lakers and the guy that plays Magic Johnson, they just found him like,

Dan Runcie 39:37

He's so good.

Isaac Hayes III 39:40

He's so perfect for the role. That's what I'm saying. Like there's always the right person for the role, it's out there. You got to find them. But it’s just like I said, I don't think he's, he hadn't been in anything, I think, a lot of stuff. I don't think he'd done a lot of stuff. But they were like, it's this guy in California, like, give them a go. See, when we came in the room, he smiled. It did that. Like, it's Magic Johnson. He's killing it. So yeah, you always know that and I think, and also, here's another dream of mine, though, is I do want another Shaft film. I want another Shaft film with a modern Shaft, right? I want a modern, you know, modern day Shaft and the person that I think that should play that is Mahershala. Ali. I would love to see Mahershala Ali as a new Shaft do that. I know he's about to be Blade, his plate is full. So but again, yeah, I think Shaft go modernize is something else to do, such a big part of my dad's career. So and I think there will always be an appetite to have a black, you know, superhero in the sense of saying, a person that stood up for his community and fought crime and as a stand up black man. So I think there's always the ability to do that, too.

Dan Runcie 40:41

Oh, yeah, I think he would be great at that type of role. And I think that Blade definitely gives you some of that imagery of, you know, the black trench coat and everything. And the whole vibe, too. But yeah, I think that'll be good.

Isaac Hayes III 40:53

Sure.

Dan Runcie 40:53

Even what artists would, you know, cover the version that your dad did, and you know, with that, I mean, thinking about that, too, for the song perspective? 

Isaac Hayes III 41:03

Yeah, we have a lot of unreleased, I have a lot of unreleased Isaac Hayes music that was recorded around the same time. And trust me, it's some Shaft D stuff in there, some stuff. Like I've been holding on to it for years now. Like I think I transferred those masters in 2014. For eight years, I haven't even really let some of that stuff. Like I said, they won't call about another Shaft at some point. And I'm gonna be ready. I'm gonna be ready to let people check it out.

Dan Runcie 41:25

Oh, yeah. You know, the call is coming soon, especially the way that content works right now, the call's coming soon. 

Isaac Hayes III 41:30