Charlie Rocket REVEALS His Music Blueprint for Blowing Up Artists!

Guys, warning. If you're watching this, I'm crazy. And if you just get 10% of this craziness installed in you, you'll probably be madly successful because I've concluded that the most successful people in the world, they are delusional.

>> Charlie Rocket, how are you?

>> I'm on a winning streak. I am so excited for this conversation.

>> You were running and operating a $15 million business.

>> Mhm. in the music industry, managing two chains at the height of your career, his career, Grammy winning, and then you quit the business. What was it about staying in the music business that made it more dangerous than leaving?

It's very dangerous for a human to go through their life and not achieve their dream. >> That's like soul violence. It's like if you want to if you want to attack your soul, stay in the reality of what just makes you money. But my soul knew that I was meant to experience my dream. It was real. Like God gave me a dream. >> Mhm. >> It is my duty to be brave enough to jump knowing that if that dream was given to me, it's guaranteed. And if it's guaranteed to come true, because I'm going to have the strength of the universe and the the the blessings from God helping me. I do know if I make this jump, it's going to work.

And so, um, the music industry was incredible to me. >> And I feel like it's a it's a massive, uh, uh, obligation to have achieved a lot in the music industry, but also reach my hand back and and help guide everybody through it. And on this podcast, I really am excited to leave everybody with blueprints that I've never even like shared before, marketing secrets, strategies, tactics, exact to-dos, >> okay? >> Not just theories and philosophies because in my career, I never used money to break any of my artists.

>> You never used money. I wanted to build authentic fan bases and I would see how the industry would treat people who showed up with checks first. >> Okay, tell me more.

>> If there's somebody out there who's broke, they have an advantage over somebody who's rich. If there's somebody out there who is unintelligent or uneducated, they have an advantage over somebody who is educated.

>> Well, why is that?

>> Being smart. Being smart puts you at a disadvantage because if you are smart and you're chasing your dream, it means you analyze. >> Yeah. >> And when you analyze, you think. And when you think, you're normally thinking about problems. >> Yeah. >> First because you're smart. >> 100%. If you are not smart, you are more delusional because you have no idea what you're doing. All you're thinking about is these possibilities. But if you're not thinking, that means a problem arises and you just solve it. Versus the smart person is thinking problem. This is a whole bunch of inaction. This this mind of ours >> Yeah. creates paralyzation. And sometimes, not always, the smarter somebody is, the more paralyzed they get in action. Because a smart person is going to be studying the past and studying this and studying that while the uneducated person is in action and they're delusional in their pursuit and they are they are they are moving with speed and lightning. And guess who figures things out on the battlefield of war? >> Mhm. First, the person who's okay, picture this. You have a smart person who has their strategy. We're at war. We're on the battlefield. And then you have the, let's say, not smart person who's like, "We're going, we're going to win. Let's freaking go right now." >> Smart person is like, "Let's pull out the sheet of paper. Well, if we go this way, this way." Boom. Bullet already hit you. You're dead. >> You were trying to be smart. Business is war. So sometimes you just have to be delusional to believe we're about to win this. Let's go right now. We can think later.

So to answer the question, I've seen so many smart people in business, not even just the music business, in business, they're going to these seminars, they're reading these books. Guess how many of those people were not I never understood it at these music conferences like A3C in Atlanta. >> Yeah. They have like panel. >> Yeah, I've been to a bunch of them. I was there at A3C a few years. Well, in the beginning of my career, like I talk, we're talking like 12 years ago. Saw Sunny Digital up there, Rico Brooks, Manny Fresh. It was a producers panel. I think >> I would think my my guess would be 98% of people who were on the stage had never been to >> a music conference. Uh-huh. >> They learned >> I believe that >> through their delusional path of jumping into a dark forest without a flashlight and they paved the way. >> Yeah. >> And then those are the people who usually get to sit on the panels and the people who are usually in the crowd, not all obviously, but most people who get addicted to learning >> Mhm. >> they become paralyzed by their knowledge. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I' I've seen it before. Um, and then you'll buy the books, you'll do all the reading, you'll go to the conferences, you'll spend the thousands of dollars, you'll listen to the people that you look up to, but then it just becomes a perpetual pattern of learning and learning and learning, but never doing the thing.

And that's how it that's honestly how I've thought about it because to your point, I don't consider myself smart. Mhm. >> You know, I'm aware. I have wherewithal, but I don't consider myself this brilliant individual. I actually tell people all the time like, listen, if I can do it, somebody who doesn't I don't feel like I have the best command of the English language. I'm not intellectual like some of my friends who I grew up with who are engineers, doctors, etc. But man, you're not going to tell me I can't do something. >> Exactly. >> And I'll have those same conversations with individuals in the business. And I remember early on in my career on the management side, even on the music video production side, I would say things like, "We're going to win an MTV award, music, much music video award, or we're going to win in Canada was the much music video award." >> And it was this question of how and it was, well, I'm figuring it out. >> That's right. >> And then it would be this, you're being unrealistic. And I would sit there and I'd go I would get frustrated and I I'd be like, "Am I crazy that I'm believing in this dream that I have?" And I'd be like, "Maybe." But I also know I think I just talked to the wrong person. So, let me find those other individuals who are delusional just like me. Which is why I wanted to talk to you.

But you found the most delusional person on planet Earth. Guys, warning, if you're watching this, I'm crazy. And if you just get 10% of this craziness installed in you, you'll probably be madly successful because I've concluded that the most successful people in the world, they are delusional. >> Yeah. >> And that is the best ingredient I could prescribe to anybody who wants to achieve their dream is that delusion. Intentional delusion. Like don't >> No. No. Of course. Of course. Yeah. >> The delusion in the pursuit that this is going to happen and it's actually going to be easy.

How many people say that? >> Not many. I' I've heard you say that and I I find that pretty refreshing to be honest with you because I always think and I say it's going to be hard work. Um, but it it's it's not it's there's a there's a a line in a Coldplay record and I I can't remember it right now, but something along the lines of um it doesn't have to be that hard, you know, but it's also not the easiest pursuit. >> Mhm. >> To answer your question, most people in motivational videos and everything will tell you everything is going to be hard, but you say this >> is crazy. This is crazy. which is and sorry I I and I just want to make sure that I that we frame this properly so those folks who don't know this you are somebody >> who went from >> a videographer >> Yep. >> for Soulja Boy >> Mhm. >> to then becoming getting fired >> Mhm. >> to then becoming a manager for other artists, getting fired and becoming the manager for two chains. >> And at the height of the career as well, >> you have a brain tumor >> and you decide to step away >> and then you become a Nike athlete. >> Mhm. >> You become somebody who is now signed by Nike and get in the biggest Nike commercial ever. That was in a Super Bowl for the Colin Kaepernick commercial. That's you. And you're telling me this is easy? How? Cuz I believe you. >> Out of all the things I've done in my life. >> Not one of them has been hard.

Folks, listen up. We're going to take a quick break from the pod to talk about music publishing. Now, look, I had a great conversation with my man Jacob Paul at Cosign, and I think it's absolutely worth you watching a short segment from that convo just to ensure you're not leaving any of those publishing royalties on the table. Some of the people who have the most valuable publishing cataloges are not the biggest celebrities in the world. You know, at Cobalt, we represent a producer who I think is pretty famous cuz he's been so successful, but his name is Max Martin, right? If you were to say, who's the most famous musician in the world? I don't. And you ask 10 people, they they probably wouldn't say him, but he is one of those. >> They know his songs, >> but you know his songs. And you know, someone like that can build an incredibly valuable catalog. And again, as a as a producer and a songwriter, you know, you might get paid for a session, but that's, you know, it comes, it goes. The way that you build residual streams of income over time is by finding a publishing administrator, registering those songs, and building your publishing catalog. So, I would say for artists as well, but especially for songwriters and producers, if you're trying to really build a sustainable living off of music, learning about publishing, learning about how to collect those royalties is absolutely like fundamental to just being able to have longevity in this business. Let's say I got a hit record. Mhm. Billboard top 10. Congratulations. >> Thank you. You're welcome. What type of money could I expect >> on the publishing side? >> Yes. Obviously, not every top 10 is the same, but I would say, you know, Billboard top 10 songs in total at 100% share on the publishing side over 3, four years are often hitting seven figures, right? Low, mid, high. I think it depends on the song. But I'll put it this way. We have writers on cosine who h who are producers or who are songwriters who might have not 100% but maybe 50 or even 25 or even 15 or even 10% of top 10 Billboard songs. And even just registering a share like that quickly, you know, not waiting too long, uh, since when the song comes out, you will generally see that you're generating maybe low six figures, maybe mid or even high six figures over the course of 1, two, or 3 years. So, it's unlocking a salary. It's unlocking not only a salary, but a pretty good salary. So that's where it's like you don't have to be, you know, the Grammyinning artist whose face is on the album artwork to make real money. Even if you were just part of the puzzle of a really successful song, it doesn't have to be a Billboard top 10. It could just be something that you know really had a moment on Spotify. Maybe it had 10, 50, 100 million streams. That is real income. That can be the difference between you struggling and grinding and all of a sudden like, oh, this is actually a pretty comfortable job. The key is you need to one understand there's publishing in this. Yep. >> And two figure out how am I going to make sure I'm unlocking those earnings from the system where they're like locked up until I go out and get it. And that's where something like a publishing administrator, that's obviously what we do at Cosign, helps songwriters unlock money that should be theirs that they just need to get from their success. All right guys, that was Jacob from cosign talking the cold hard facts about music publishing. If you're interested in learning more or even applying to cosign, the application is free and only takes 3 to four minutes. Toss. You can find the link in the description below or the pin comment. Now, let's get back to the pod.

>> Okay. How come? >> Okay. >> Are you Are you >> Let me I'm I'm going to ask you a question. Yeah. >> Let me ask you a series of questions. >> Okay, cool. >> You're successful, right? >> Uh yeah, >> I would say so. >> You did some big things. >> I think so. >> Was it hard or easy? >> [sighs] >> Um, >> traditionally >> I would say I would say it was traditionally it'd be hard. I I would say that. Let's stop there. Okay. >> Nothing in my life has ever been hard. A Grammy, Emmy, nothing. Every building artist, clothing line, nothing was hard.

Now, I asked you a question. Traditionally, would you say what you had done in your life, was it hard or easy? And you said it was hard. So, I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Is what you did harder than let's say let's say there was a mother whose child was diagnosed with cancer at age six. Is what you did harder or easier than what she's dealing with? It >> is easier. >> Way easier, right? >> Much easier. Is what you did harder or easier than what some kid in in the slums of let's say India is going to experience in his life? >> Right? >> Harder or easier? >> Easier. >> Okay. Is what you did harder or easier than if today you were diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and doctors told you you had 3 months left to live. Was it harder, easier than what that would be like? >> Much easier. >> Much easier. You did this in North America, right? >> Yeah. Everybody in North America, Canada, United States, they have it easier than everybody on the freaking planet. >> I I don't think you're wrong. How hard is it being from Toronto, Canada, >> M >> with the ability to chase your dream with the health, the resources somewhere close to you? >> Mhm. >> In the ability to achieve everything you did compared to what the rest of the world is dealing with or what a child with cancer is dealing with or is what you did harder or easier? >> I'd even take it a step further. My dad worked a a factory job 9 to5 his entire life. That's [snorts] way harder than >> That's harder. Exactly. So why do we say in this culture when 99% of the people that are watching this are living in a not a third world country that have ability? This stuff is easy. It really is. It's just it's just doing hard work is only hard because we labeled it as hard and our perspective is like this is hard. But when you were 2 years old, you were given a challenge by your father or mother. I need you to tie this shoe. >> As a 2-year-old, hard or easy? >> Impossible. And like, do you know how complicated it is to to to think about that moment of like, I got to do what? And what? And then, hold on. What? That was a hard thing to do. >> I actually remember it, funny enough. >> I remember, too. I was in the backseat of my my mom's >> 1983 Toyota silver Corona. I remember the car. I remember the back seat with the burgundy. >> That's so funny you say that. I remember being afraid to try and tie my shoe. And so I wore Velcro shoes for a long time. >> Oh, now we're getting to the good stuff. So was >> Oh, you just triggered a [ __ ] memory. >> It was hard to tie our shoe. >> And once you cracked the code, >> do you say it's hard today? >> No. >> So why do we label things as hard? >> Because it's going to be easy. Was oneplus 1 at one time hard? >> Mhm. >> Today is it easy? Right. >> Correct. Yeah. Easy. >> What's 1+ 1? >> Two. At one point in your life that was hard. So hard isn't something we should label. Hard is simply this is a task that I don't know how to do yet. But millions of other people have figured it out, so it must be easy. I drove from here from Malibu, California to uh uh uh um to Culver City. How many houses over a million dollars did I pass? Damn near every single one of them. >> Every one of them. So you're telling me hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have million-dollar houses? >> Is that hard or easy? If millions can do it, millions. It must not be that hard. So that's how I look at things before I even start. Because if I look at it as hard, this is what people do. People are like, "Okay, this is going to be hard. I'm going to have to grind, >> right?" >> And guess what they do? If things are hard, I need to be smart. Okay, so now I'm thinking. >> So now, oh, what could go wrong? Oh, this and then this. Okay, I need to solve for that. And then what if this happens? And this amazing thing called what if starts inserting into our minds? What if I can't get an investor? What if they don't like it? What if somebody steals my work? What if? And now you're paralyzed because you said it was going to be hard. So then you turned on I'm going to be smart. And then you started thinking that smart people think of problems to solve. And if you think of enough problems, you're probably going to get paralyzed versus it's easy. Let's go. What did I say about my book a little while ago? >> You going to have a number one book for the next 10 years that you haven't even made. >> It's gonna be easy. But that's why I'm going to show up and go. You know the number one thing that people don't do and it blocks their success. This is the number one thing that blocks people's success. >> You asking it? >> Yeah. Well, I'm I'm teeing it up. >> Okay. Okay. >> They don't they don't ask properly. >> Okay. How do you ask properly? >> Well, like the universe or if you believe in God universe to me, it's all the same. Yep. When you ask, it shall be given. >> That's that's what they say. If you ask, it shall be given. So what are you asking for? People are asking wrong. If I say I want it to be easy, what if I receive it? Wouldn't that be nice? What if I ask for hard? Will I receive it? >> Right? >> When you go to Chipotle, you ask for avocado. Do you receive it? >> Right? >> So, it's like in this pursuit of our dreams, let's start saying asking for ease. That doesn't mean we're not going to work hard. >> And I think that's the part people get confused. >> Let's go into it. So when you get into this music business, >> yeah, you're a big dreamer, but do you also have operating systems? Are you executing it? Because >> I think folks will say, >> you just you said it earlier, this hustle mentality, right? And I would say you and I are from the same generation as we were talking off camera, NWO, you know, and we'll talk some wrestling, marketing, and sports. I appreciate it. Um, always wanted one of these when I was younger to be honest with you. Now I can afford a lot. Let me cop one of those nWo shirts. >> That's what I'm talking about. >> But are are you on board with this idea? And I find this a lot in the music business or people who are trying to get into it and figuring it out and saying I don't necessarily agree with the hustle culture >> of trying to make it, >> whatever that means for anybody. Mhm. >> But I want to do this and I will find a way to succeed. >> Mhm. >> What are your thoughts when it comes to that? >> My secret has always been blitzing. >> Okay. >> That's been my secret to the music industry and any business. Blitzing. >> Tell me tell me more. >> For one, it's very dangerous to say the word I'mma do this every day. Most people say, "I'mma wake up at 5:30 every day." Nobody says, "I'mma wake up at 5:30 like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday." >> They say, "I'mma wake up at 5:30 every day." >> [ __ ] that. [snorts] >> Like hustle culture is this like everyday mentality. I'm going to do this every day. >> For me, I'm a blitzer. >> When it came to music, I would have these 30 days blitzes and I would call them blitz creeks. which means lightning war. >> Okay. >> And I would achieve so much success in a very short period of time because there's like this like football imagine a football team. >> Yeah. >> If you blitzed every play, >> you probably lose the game. >> Yeah. >> But when you blitz from time to time, so like hustle culture, I think we can all agree on is this like mentality of like beast mode. I'mma wake up at 4:00 a.m. every day like me, bro. I slept till 8 o'clock this morning. Why? Because I needed sleep. Like >> like my like stress levels, if my stress levels are high, my creativity is not going to turn on. >> Mhm. >> And then when I'm working and if I don't feel good, somebody who does feel good is going to run circles around me. So like why hustle culture? Like there's 24 hours in the day. If somebody's deciding to sleep 4 hours in a day, that's good. good if we need to get something done. >> Mhm. >> But let's not have this mentality that if you need to sleep in that that's bad, >> right? All right, everybody. We're going to take a little break because if you're listening and thinking, "Fuck, I could really use some guidance right now." And you're serious about building your career in the music industry, I'm now offering private strategy sessions. These are fully personalized, just you and me tackling whatever you need in your career. With over 16 years of experience working with artists, managers, and brands, I can help you map out your next moves. Now, whether that's structuring your team, scaling your brand, navigating the industry, even figuring out what steps to take, whether to go to a distributor or to a record label and figuring out what are the best deal points. I can help you with your career with where you're at. You can now book a one-on-one with me through my Canonly, and you can find the link in the description. Now, let's get back to the pod.

>> Yeah, but to your point, >> it's not a goal all the time. There are moments where you have to choose. How did you know when to choose when to blitz something versus not? >> Right. >> So my mentality going into a blitzkrieg is like this. [sighs] >> The word the essence of what we're doing is tenacity. Mhm. >> Tenacity is a really big ingredient for like breaking through this like barrier of gravity in your career. So let's say I signed Young Dolph and people are not like big fans of him yet. He's just young man from Memphis. Um, I introduce him to people and they're like, "He raps a little offbeat. I'm not really sure about it and I'm like, "Okay, I need to break through." So, the the the word is tenacity. And that's what like a blitz creek is. I'll do a 30-day blitz. And in that 30 days, it's amazing what you can get done if you have this mentality. >> True. So, I'll set up like a media run with all the like mix show DJs from like Jackson, Mississippi to Charlotte, North Carolina. And we're going to go do all of those and we're going to do these little meet and greets. Maybe only five people show up. Doesn't matter. Okay. And then I'm going to turn that into like make it look like a tour. Okay. Cuz we're going to hit all these cities. So now there's a tour flyer. So like his fans are like, >> "While you're doing a promo run, >> while I'm doing the promo run, it looks like a tour >> because of the content." >> Yeah. So, I'm like, "Okay, like we're just going to meet with DJs, but let's make it look like a tour." So, then I'm going to be like, "Okay, tour flyer goes out. Okay, we're meeting with all the DJs. Then we're taking pictures with the radio stations." And then it's like, "Okay, let's hit the biggest artist in each city and let's do songs with each one of them. Okay, this is in 30 days." Then those videos are going out and now we're getting features and we're going to >> You actually You actually did this? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> This is like what a normal Blitzkrieg looks like. And this is like a 30-day. >> How you get into these big artists in every city to to do No, they're not big artists. They're small artist local artists. They're the local artists. Okay. >> Yeah. They're they're they're not they're not big, but it's it's it's touch points. And then I'll be like, "Okay, we're going to press up CDs and we're going to pass them out at every single club while we're in that CD." I mean, while we're in that market. So now we're passing out CDs every single city. And then I'm like, "Okay, we need to have a music video drop every Friday on World Star." Okay, so now we need to tee up four or five music videos. Let's get them shot. Boom. They're going to come out. So, as the flyer is going out, as the meet and greets are going out, as the fans are saying Dolph is moving, they're like, "Who is this guy?" I'm starting to see him everywhere. Then in local markets, and then they got the CD, then they heard him on the radio like it just might be a overnight radio interview, but then it might be like a local little interview they do, and it's just might only have 200 views on Instagram. Doesn't matter. It's popping up. But this is a 30-day blitz. And it would be you'd be so surprised what you can accomplish if you set this intention. If you have this container and you're like, I'm going to achieve maximum results in a very short period of time. And you just fill up that container with ideas, you'd be amazed what you can do versus this like mindset of like, I'm going to do a little bit every day. Doing a little bit every day, you can get to success. >> Sure. But if you blitz, you'd be amazed by what a human can accomplish in a short period of time. You can do more in 30 days with that tenacity blitz mindset than somebody might do in 3 years. >> It's a similar concept where somebody says, "I'm going to block out an hour to get something done, but some you can now you are going to fill up that hour to get it done." >> It's called Parkinson's law. >> That's right. And if you put if you take it and say, "I'll do this in 15 minutes, you'll get it done in 15 minutes." >> Exactly. Are you talking to Young Dolph and the team at that time like, "Hey, we're going to have a blitz creep. We're going to do this at 30." >> What's the response from them? Is everybody aligned? If somebody isn't aligned, what's the conversation? >> I don't think I've ever had an artist say no to a blitz, Craig. And this is one of the kind of like life hacks I figured out as a manager. It's a manager's job to make sure the artist's dream comes true. But the artist has a mind of their own. They have ideas and it's very important for us to listen to them and fulfill their ideas. But us as managers, we have ideas, too. And if we say it to an artist a certain way, they are probably going to say no. Cuz the artist wants to feel like they're driving the steering wheel. >> Mhm. >> A lot of times the managers, they sometimes know what's best for the artist, but we need the artist to agree to it. So what I did was I learned early on if I present something small I get a no >> really. >> Mhm. If I present something big and my enthusiasm so I walk into an artist. So like there was at one point one of my artists didn't want to do radio interviews anymore. Didn't want to go to the chitlin circuit. Didn't want to go to the small radio stations >> cuz they got to a level of success. >> They were ready to grow out of that. >> Yeah. and they probably saw some other artists as not doing that stuff. So, they're going to >> Of course. >> Yeah. >> So, I needed to do a blitz to make sure my artist stayed hot and that involved a lot of promo. A lot of things that artist isn't want going to want to do. So, what I did was I know that this is probably going to get a note. Imagine us sitting in the studio and I'm like, "All right, we need to do this, this, and this, and then we need to do this." He would have probably been like, "I'm not doing none of that." >> Like a checklist. Yeah. Yeah. So what I did put a presentation together and I'm standing up with a whiteboard authority and I start with this is how much money is going to be made because we did this this this and this and if we do this this this and this and go to this radio station and do this and then this and then this and then this and then give all the DJs these hoodies and then go do this and then this the record is probably going to go top 10 and the revenue that's going to come in after that is going to turn into this and when you see that number attached with the actions and I just went like all these ideas the music videos are dropping the CDs are being passed out the street teams are going there we're doing this campaign we're doing this DJ listening party that's like within this like specific concept like a themed DJ release party at the club this that and the third it'll be like wow like I'm going to make that much money this is big you thought about this this isn't just some little thing I'm in so it's like the bigger I went with my energy, the more the artist would say yes to doing those things they normally wouldn't want to do.

Can I can I get uh a little more in the weeds and tactical on if you can remember? >> Yeah. >> Cuz I think it's important for the people who watch this podcast to understand what were those things that you were able to identify that if you did this and this the revenue would go from say 4 million to 8 million or 10 million or whatever it may be. Do you remember what some of those things were that were able to action to grow the business? >> Yeah. So, let's let's do it anthology style. Let's go back to when I had no money. >> Okay. Please. >> We're actually going to go back to my space managing a group called Travis Porter living in my mom's basement. We did a show, our first show where we were on the flyer in Cobb County, Georgia. Five people showed up. I mean, it was like completely embarrassing. Nobody showed up. >> As a manager, I was pissed. I do I never want to feel like this again. Like, it was like a what I thought was going to be a shining moment turned into a dark moment. And so, I didn't have money. What am I going to do? I don't have money to promote. I don't have money for flyers. I don't have money. I have a $100 in my bank account. Travis Porter had never even done a paid show. Where's the money coming from? I don't have another job. I'm doing this full time. So, I only had one option. It was this concept of if more people just know about us, a certain percentage of them will like us. So, like MySpace was the thing at the time. >> Yeah. Absolutely. So, I went to the DJ's page, the DJ that was hosting the event. Yeah. His name was DJ Charlie Brown. >> Okay. >> He might have had 4,000 friends on MySpace. All 4,000 of them live in this neighborhood. >> We got a Charlie Brown in Toronto. >> Here we go. >> Yeah. Right. DJ, I was I'm wondering if it's the same one. >> If he's from Atlanta, probably. >> No. Okay. >> So, I'm like, if everybody in this neighborhood follows this DJ, he's local DJ in that neighborhood. It's like they all just need to know who we are. And if 10% of those people showed up, we would have had 400 people there. It was a numbers game. I'm like, that's easy. I need 4,000 people to know who my group is and a percentage of them will show up and like them. So, what did I do? I commented on every single person who followed him Instagram page from I mean MySpace page from my artist page. They just need to know we exist. Think about it. You did the manual work. Yeah. >> There's a coffee shop. >> Nobody's walking in. How do you get people to go in your coffee shop? >> Get people to go outside and get commit. >> If you go talk to a thousand people, would a 100 start coming? >> Maybe. It's a numbers game. And that's easy. That's not hard. >> So true. >> So, I'm going to hand message 4,000 people. >> I would comment. Boom. And this thing started happening. Started working. We started getting hundreds of follow requests a day. People who liked our music. People started seeing our comments on their friends pages and be like, "Who's this rapper on my friend's page? Like, let me go check them out. Oh, I kind of like this song. Let me add him as a friend." Like, they're messaging somebody, one of my friends. It's like, it's it works. Mhm. >> So now we're getting hundreds of message requests a day or follow requests a day and I would accept the follow comment on their page run the play. Hundreds and hundreds carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm talking about hours. I would put on TI versip album and I'm in my headphones and I'm behind my computer doing the one thing that does not cost me money. MySpace comments. And I just needed more people to know who we were. What were the comments that you were commenting? >> I'd be like just simple stuff like uh appreciate the follow like just wanted to like show some love to your page. >> Yeah. From the artist page. >> From the artist page. And then people would see it, they'll listen to song. Boom. Boom. Boom. Long story short, this strategy got Travis Porter to be the number one unsigned artist on all of MySpace. >> Wow. It was always a battle between two artists for the number one spot. YG and Travis Porter. >> Okay. Wow. Yeah, that's impressive. All right, folks. Going to take a quick break from the pod because I want to put you on something I actually think is meaningful for artists, managers, and creators. Cover is a pop culture literature platform that lets you create zenes, magazines, and booklets digitally. And here's the best part. It's free to create, publish, and share. Here's why that matters. We're living in a world where everyone's fighting for attention on the same few platforms and renting their audiences from the algorithms. Cover lets you build something that feels like a world. It's visual. It's intentional. It's a collectible. And it gives your fans a deeper way to connect with what you are doing. We just used cover to build a special 50th episode edition of the manager playbook magazine. And it's our first official issue. It's a perfect example of what this can become. a home for your story, your visuals, your process, and a real way to reward your day ones while collecting emails and building directto fan momentum. So, if you are serious about building culture, not just posting content, check out Cover Mag and start publishing something your fans can actually keep. Link will be in the description below. Now, let's get back to the pie.

Now, we're getting into the marketing bag, sir. >> Yes. >> Tell me some more. >> Okay, that's what I call run the play. Okay, >> it is a numbers game that when I started getting budget, when we started getting shows in, so I'll tell you what happened. That got us our first shows. >> Okay, >> I ran the play for a few months consistently, >> did not veer, shows start coming in, >> okay, >> we get a little bit of budget from those shows and I start reinvesting it into the next level. This system is called boil a pot of water. It's one of the best marketing lessons there is. It's virtually impossible to boil a lake. It is the easiest thing you've ever done in your life to boil a pot of water. >> Mhm. >> The goal is to get hot. That's the essence of what we're trying to do. We are trying to get hot with humans. If I try to get a lot of humans spread out hot, very difficult. If I try to get a lot of humans in a small area hot, it's easy. Okay, remember it's easy. This is not complicated. There it is. Yeah. >> East side of Atlanta, my group, Travis Per, we would go to the same couple clubs. And those clubs, we would go every week. Every week boiling a pot of water. Those people get familiar. They like it. At first, they're like, "Who is this?" They see them next week and be like, "Oh, that's Travis Porter." Third week, they're like, "Oh, yeah. I checked out their stuff. I like it. It's cool. It's cool." Fourth week you see him in the club be like, "What's up my boy?" Yeah. >> Fifth week you see him. Sixth week is be like, "Man, what's up?" Seventh week is like you've got like a dieh hard mom. >> Mhm. You're showing up consistently. >> The goal is a process I call mology. Okay. >> You know what this is? >> No. Tell me. >> Mology is one of the best marketing processes there is because the goal is to take somebody from a complete stranger and turn them into a mom. Now, my mom, she thinks everything I do is amazing. Unconditional love. That's the type of supporters you want. >> Mhm. >> How do you do it? Well, there's a complete stranger. They don't support you at all. And then there's these like cultlike fans. You can do no wrong. I call them moms. And this process of connection, consistency, and like almost like vulnerability and realness is very important to get somebody to feel connected to you. And so, as we're boiling a pot of water, we're hitting these same clubs every week. You saw what happened in those seven weeks, how people act different after seven weeks. That's moving them closer to mom status. And then we pass out CDs outside the club every night, those same clubs to where now people are getting this like time spent very important. We talk about time spent when it comes to music. A lot of the streamers have taken the musician fan bases. Sure. >> Yeah. Absolutely. because of time spent. >> Kais might stream for 30 days straight, 24 hours a day. Time spent is high. An artist might release a song and get a couple clips on Instagram. >> Time spent short. Hip-hop artists used to have a lot of time spent. You know why? >> Mixtapz. Somebody freaking gets it. >> Mixtapz. >> Mixtapz. Yep. >> Check this out. This is a This is This is very important. >> The music industry has lost its black market and it needs it back. It needs it back because it actually helps artists make way more money. >> Thousand%. >> If an artist puts out an album today, which increases time spent, and it doesn't do good, it's over. >> Mhm. M that career is over. >> Mhm. >> For the first time in history, for hip-hop, it's a gladiator sport. If you lose, you're dead. Do you know how unfair that is for artists to be like, I'm going to put out a project and I might die because if it doesn't do good, it's over. Record label says it's over. fans see the first week sales numbers. They say it's over. It's over. >> Where we used to have mixtapz. Mixtapes were a black market where artists can express themselves and and experiment. But also at the same time of experimenting, >> the fans got time spent. So we got to become super fans. So you remove mixtapes from artists and you replace it with streamers. Fans are want to be fans of something, but they're going to be fans of something where time spent. That's why the streamers have taken the hip-hop fan base and hip-hop is very rare to get a lot of time with the artist. They're dropping albums every couple months, but there is actually one artist who has done it well and that's why he had one of the biggest tours. NBA Young Boy has the most time spent. >> Oh yeah. Jeez. Yeah. Yeah. >> Time spent. >> Crazy on YouTube. Crazy amount of projects put up. Well, any like to your point, man, back in when I was growing up, Gunit Radio. >> Absolutely. >> DJ Who kid. >> Come on. >> Like, you know, Gangster Grills where you're at. Yeah, exactly. In Atlanta. >> Time spent. >> Flooding the market. Dip set. Yeah, absolutely. >> You want to know what's interesting about time spent mixtapz? >> Mixtapz are free, but they make the artist so much money. Why do you think it's not like there's a market for that anymore? >> Well, it moved to DSP. >> Sure. >> But this is the thing. There is such a need right now for a pipeline. And pipeline goes two ways. The fans need more music faster. >> Hip-hop used to move really fast. Now moves really slow because it all runs through the record label. >> Mhm. If it runs through a record label, that means there's attorneys and business and clearance samples and everybody wants their freaking money cuz you're about to make money, so I want money, >> right? >> That's we get a black market going where mixtapes come back. If we can get a few artists to just be like, "Listen, this crazy guy Charlie has a point. Let's just drop free [ __ ] Let's not involve the attorneys. Let's work with producers." Producers are like, "Please just put it out. just come on, let's just get it back. You put it out and if you had enough artists putting stuff out on a website, mixtapesp.com, the fans will get used to going to. >> Absolutely. >> And it was just at the end of the day streaming, it's just clicking a button and it plays like it really doesn't matter where. >> Yeah. >> It's like if 10 artists said go to live mixtapes, we'll just get used to it. We're on live mixtapes and the new music drop. You know, cool. I'm clicking play. It goes to the Bluetooth. It doesn't matter that it's on not on Spotify.

So, let's go back to mology. >> Boiling a pot of water right there. >> It's boiling a pot of water. So, mology is getting somebody from a stranger to mom status. How do you do that in in music? Go to the same clubs or the same neighborhood and boil that pot of water. Could be with flyers. Flyers don't cost much. People just need to know you exist. >> Yeah. >> Like it's just putting in that energy. We used to pass out CDs. CDs aren't a thing today, but I pass out a flyer all day long. They you just need to know I exist. And then you it needs to connect. So then it starts in one neighborhood, then it goes to another and then it starts spreading. I can take a pot of water, add some more water to it, and it'll boil. I add water that and then that will boil. I add water that that will boil. So we got to get our time spent up and we got to get more people knowing about you. The internet has made people quite lazy in their real life marketing >> because we are told >> that if this goes viral I will make a lot of money and it was true. I'm an internet guy. I was Soulja Boy's cameraman. We kind of invented the virality. >> Not kind of. You actually you absolutely did. Yeah. Yeah. >> But I'm as much of a physical

Guy, as I am an internet guy.

Yeah. You take it from both worlds.

Absolutely. The physical marketing doesn't exist a whole lot anymore.

The posters, the pasting, the billboards.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like that stuff I don't see happen. I was watching a movie yesterday, um, called The Dirt about Mötley Crüe.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And it was so, I enjoyed that movie.

It was pretty good.

Yeah. I enjoyed that movie. Yeah.

But the f their come up with a pot of water. Sunset script.

Yeah. If you own that, you got the world.

That's right. That's right. [snorts]

Who's doing that anymore?

I couldn't tell you. It doesn't exist.

I couldn't tell you. The way that people are doing it, they're building their direct to fan online.

Mhm.

Their subscription models, you know, so DTOC, I guess, as you want to call it, the professional term.

But outside, out of home, I'm sure someone's doing it. And we just don't know, but they're just starting out. And if they're not, they're listening to this conversation and hearing you who have done it before and about to start doing it. How do you have this self-belief when the current situation isn't where you want it to be? So, as an example, I'm not sure when at at what point you came into Chain's, uh, life.

Yeah.

And for his career, but I'm assuming it's not at the height.

No.

So, how easy is it for you to say, "Here's the vision," and keep it going forward when you're not there yet?

Well, Two Chains wasn't particularly interested in me and my business partners being his manager.

Okay.

You started as a marketing company for Two Chains, though.

Okay.

That's what he wanted us to be.

Gotcha.

That's what he thought of us. He thought we were marketers because he would walk out of a club and see me and my business partners passing out CDs. And he looked at me as this like 20-year-old like almost like a whiz kid, not a manager.

Yeah.

And he looked at my business partner Tech as a DJ. So that's like mixtape marketing. He looked at me as like internet marketing. And then he, my other business partner Al, he was like a street dude, like, like from Savannah, Georgia. So he looks at us as a collection.

And he's comparing us. Two Chains is very intelligent.

Very.

It seems like.

Yeah.

And very exposed to a lot of life.

Yeah.

As a businessman.

Yeah.

So he's been exposed to Lil Wayne.

Yeah.

He's been exposed to Ludacris. So he got to see what like managers look like.

T.I.

Yeah.

Like he got to see what managers look like.

Jeff.

Yeah.

And then we look at me and my business partners. These guys look like marketers. [laughter]

So my business partner Tech had a relationship with Titty Boy and they did mixtapes together. And when Tech brought Titty Boy to the table, it was like, we should like manage him.

Yeah.

Me and my business partner.

For context, for those who don't know, Titty Boy is Two Chains before.

Yes.

Yeah.

He becomes Two Chains.

So, we got really excited and we got proactive. So, we're in the studio with Two Chains, Titty Boy at the time, and he put us in a he put us in a room with who he saw as his like manager, very smart man, very successful man, Rico Brooks.

Oh, that's my guy.

Love Rico.

I didn't know Rico. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's my guy. Yeah.

So, incredibly smart.

Rico is somebody we look up to.

Straight up.

He had done some big things and and very intelligent and a sweet soul like.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, good dude. All that. I mean, we talked about him coming on the pod. He. We're going to make it happen.

Absolutely. If you need my help, let me know. I'll send a message. Um, so I messaged, I mean, I told Two Chains, like, listen, we want to manage you and he kind of like danced around it a little bit, but he would have these meetings with us and Rico. And I'm I'm I'm seeing what's going on.

Are you saying you want to manage him with alongside Rico or are you saying we want to come in and.

Well.

Take over?

He wanted one thing, we wanted another. Rico or 2J.

Okay.

Two Chains had a vision what he wanted.

And having four of us manage or like co-management. It's just.

I didn't see that.

Yeah.

So, I'm delusional.

Uh-huh.

It's my secret. When you want something, you don't have to ask for permission. Ask for forgiveness.

You don't even need to ask for forgiveness. [laughter]

You just need to go take it.

So I, I want to, I want to manage Two Chains. So how do I take it? My business partners and I, we invested in CDs and showed up to the meeting like, what's that? CDs? He's not used to having other people like spend their money. And managers typically don't spend their own money.

Not in. [snorts] my world, but.

But it's like, no, we believe. So we're willing to expend. [clears throat] this energy.

Yeah.

And then put together a 30, 60, 90-day game plan. Took Titty Boy out to a a dinner at this restaurant and I laid it out for him and it was like a blitzkrieg. This is what it's going to look like. And it was just like unbelievable. Like he wasn't used to this. He had always been slept on.

He'd always been in these organizations. Somebody.

Criminally slept on.

Criminally slept on. And here we are as these like young managers, not exactly massively successful. Travis Porter was good, but we're laying out this game plan and it's like, you are the star. And so we'll show up to these meetings with, okay, you're going to be at this radio station here. We've got you booked at this club. Started bringing in some money here. Started doing this, using all of our resources to just get him moving. So we started showing up to the meetings with value. And Rico, Rico stopped showing up to the meetings because we kind of were just handling it. Like we were just filling all the spots and it was, we just took it. It wasn't tense. It wasn't.

Falling out with Rico. Like Rico's our friend. It's just it just worked itself out. It was like a dance to get to what the goal was and it worked. And so in our pursuit, if I had doubt, I'm taking a risk.

Yeah, totally.

But that's the beautiful thing about being delusional. Risk is one of those things that will trigger a smart person to be intelligent, where risk to a delusional person is like, no, like this is going to work out.

Right.

Easy. So, we're just going to do this, this, and this, and then this, and this, this, this, and it's going to be easy. And so, that's why we actually showed up and did the thing that wasn't guaranteed because it was also scary because Two Chains was signed. Two Chains was even in a group.

Yeah.

So, it's like not many people wanted to, um, attempt to be in business with Titty Boy because it was a risk. It's like he's in D. There's a lot stacked up against you already as well. You're signed to another label.

It's probably not going the right direction. So, you're getting involved in.

How do you even get them out?

That's what I mean. You're getting involved into something that is technically a bit of a mess.

Yeah.

Business-wise, structure-wise.

And and a smart person would look at the mess and say, "This isn't."

I'm staying away from this.

A non-smart person or less smart person would be like,

"I'll figure it out."

"We'll figure it out."

"We'll figure it out."

Like, duh. Like it's going to be easy to figure it out and it all worked.

What, what did you do to figure that out? Because there's a lot of people who are in these terrible situations. What did you actively do to figure that out?

So, we just started, for one, we just went as if it was all going to work out. Rolling the dice. Putting the cart before the horse. I actually love putting the cart before the horse. It's actually like a secret of mine because like if you put the cart before the horse, let's say like cart, horse, the goal is to get in front of the cart. All you really needed was the horse. Like you put the cart up there. It could be way up there, but if you have the horse, it's all you need. So I will put the cart in front of the horse. As long as I got a horse, I will get to the cart.

But if all I have is a cart and no horse.

You keep worrying about the cart.

Well, the cart ain't going nowhere without the horse.

So it's like if I have the horse, I have everything I need. So let's go ahead and put the cart before the horse. We'll get to where we want to go. As long as we have the horse, and we do have the horse.

So are we going to be able to get Two Chains out of his deal? Not sure. We'll figure that out. We get started by being of service. We want to change's dream to come true. He deserves it. He's a star. He's been overlooked for way too long. We believe in him. We're not the most successful.

Why'd you believe in him?

Oh my god. You can't not. I'm at a music video shoot with Travis Porter. It's a Lil Wayne music video shoot with Playaz Circle. And it was my first time ever being around Wayne. And Wayne is like massive superstar. Like this is crazy. Like Lil Wayne is right there. And that's what like Lil Wayne looks like. Like it's like gravitational pull.

Mhm.

And then this guy walked in the room. He had so many chains on. It was like an Egyptian pharaoh. He looked so interesting. It was like the the atmosphere in the universe shifted when he walked in. It was more powerful than Lil Wayne. I had never felt [clears throat] anything like it. I saw it. I'm like, "That's Titty Boy. That's a superstar." Like, when I think about the most potential of anybody in Atlanta, we all knew who he was. Everybody knew Titty Boy, but it's like, how is he not the biggest thing in the world? And when I got to see him for the first time in person, I felt it. And when that heart starts talking to you, you know, you know that this guy is guaranteed to be big.

Yeah.

And so when that heart talks to you and you're given that vision, you're given that dream, it's guaranteed it to work out. There's nothing that's going to stop it. Especially if you're coming from the perspective that you just mentioned where you're of service to the artist. You're there to make their dream.

A reality.

Mhm. If you don't, they'll leave you.

And you've had that experience a couple of times. Can you talk me through through that?

Man, being lost in the sauce is the worst thing ever. You want to get fired? Think this is about you. Managers, great managers are need to truly be of service. I got fired a couple times. Um, I've had a few artists leave me and it was all because of not caring about their dream enough. I had this girl group. I got them signed to Interscope Records. It was my first success and I was having problems with them every single day. Like it was like tense. And it was like their moms were mad at me, they were mad at me. I was just always felt like I was on edge and they ended up leaving me for a multitude of reasons. One, I was thinking it was about me. Two, I was kind of lost in the sauce. I was talking to girls. I was talking to one of their friends. Like just lost in the sauce.

Okay. Yeah.

And truly not listening to them and making them feel as if it's my job to make their dreams come true. I was pulling off miracles. They just didn't feel the right feeling.

What do you mean?

So, I get them a record deal. I get them shows. I'll do them these things. But.

And that record deal wasn't just, so we're clear, was like that's a that record deal. What year is this?

This is 2008.

I mean, no easy feat.

No.

You know, you you go to work for this record deal and you did that at Interscope.

Yeah. Interscope. College Park. Interscope.

Who did it?

College Park.

College Park.

Yeah.

But is this the same one where there Iran was also courting you?

No, that was Travis Porter.

Oh, that was Travis Porter.

This is before Travis Porter.

Okay, got you. This is before Travis Porter. Wow. Okay. Okay. All right. Go on. So.

So they just didn't feel a good feeling working with me. I'm pulling stuff off, but they didn't. It wasn't. They didn't have this feeling. So, they fired me. And in this moment of getting fired now, for the second time, Soulja Boy fired me and my first group, the Social Bosses, fired me. I went to this one person who was a manager but not a music manager. My mom sold vacuum cleaners and she had this one manager at her branch that she loved named Bill Cook. Now, she's had lots of managers and she didn't like any of them. They're sales guys. They're like, you know, it's like kind of like slimy salesy. But there was this one she loved.

And so I was like, I need to go talk to this guy.

How did you get?

I I sat down with him on a horse farm with a bucket. He said, "Have a seat." I said, "How did you get my mom to love you because I need my artist to love me?" He said, "Tell me the situation." I said, "This. I got a record deal and I did this and I did this." He said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying the word 'I' a lot." Like, yeah, they're signed to me. Like, I'm the manager. I'm got them the record deal. Like, they're they're my artist. He said, "You got it backwards. You're going to keep getting fired." Like, what are you talking about? He said, "It's your job to be of service to them. You work for them." I'm like, "What? I'm their manager. They're signed to me. I'm big time. I'm making them famous." Like, they are my artist. They're like, "You got to flip it." If you change their perspective that you work for them and you make them feel like you're making their dreams come true, they'll never leave you. My attorney Carl Washington, OG Carl Washington, he gave me a book. It's a Barry Gordy's book, autobiography called To Be Loved.

He said, "Read this. When you're done, call me and tell me what you took away from it." I'm reading it and it got to this chapter where Barry Gordy was making all these people famous. Everybody, he touched it, it turns to gold. Number one. Number one, everybody.

Absolutely.

And then all his artists after they became famous, they would leave and go to Columbia or Atlantic. He's just got a little house in Detroit.

Right?

Independent, making a mega superstars, number one, outperforming all the major record labels.

Motown.

Yeah.

Motown Records.

Mhm.

And one of his big artists, forget who it is, the attorney is talking to Barry and Barry asked the the the girl singer's attorney, he said, "Why is she leaving me? And actually, why are all these artists leaving me?" The attorney said to him, "Honestly, she's making a mistake leaving you. She just doesn't know what you do. You do all the work. You just don't tell them what you do. So, you need to spend half the time doing the work and the other half making them feel like you did it for them." So, I thought about it. I was like, what if I went to my artist said, "What's your dream? I'm going to make it come true. And then I'm going to send like reports every week saying everything I did and be like, 'Okay, this was your vision and this is how I'm fulfilling it.'"

Worked.

Really?

It worked. Just telling them what I did.

So you were sending reports every week or every.

Yeah. Sit down and like really go through what we did, what we're going to do. This is great. So after the what we did and it really was this just this this cycle of I am of service. I work for you. This is your dream. It's my job to make it come true. So here's where we're going and this is what we did and it just keeps going and they feel so appreciated that like a Travis Porter never left me. You know, a Two Chains never left because they felt like we were of service.

Right.

We have to remember that in this industry. I I I I love that you just broke that down because I I'll be honest with you like Charlie Rocket is somebody who is well known and a lot of times people will have conversations with you and you it it's it sounds I I subscribe to it by the way just so we're clear but it is like this like delusion and you have to believe and you have to really go for it and you have easy you like it's you got to think of it easy but not often do I hear the level of breakdown which is what I really wanted to hear from you was just like okay great you have the right mindset.

But then now what's the how in all of this?

Exactly.

Which is amazing to hear. I I love the fact that you did you did that.

But you take this and you this approach this blitz, this boiling the pot of water, all the theology.

Mamology.

Yep.

And you go out and win a Grammy.

Me.

Yeah.

No problems with Chance.

Yep.

Pat.

Yep.

Wheezy.

Yep.

Shout out to Pat and Chance, by the way. Um, always got to shout him out.

Pass my guy. He knows what he's done for my career and I always appreciate it. [snorts]

Um, but they win a Grammy with you guys.

It's awesome. I mean, we got nominated for five. I mean, it's just.

Yeah.

In this lifetime, it's so cool to be [clears throat] able to say that.

Were you at the after party there at the.

I was there, too.

Delilah.

Yeah. Was it Delilah?

Was it Delilah? I I was like a I can't remember what hotel. I don't think it was the LA like everybody was there.

The first time I saw Quincy Jones, which was crazy.

No, I wasn't there then.

Okay. But it's the year that he wins Chance wins Best New Artist. But you're faced with something pretty devastating in your life. Can we can we talk about that?

Man, devastating. But man, what a gift. [laughter] Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it.

Man, having a brain tumor, man, is crazy. I I some people some people would think like, oh man, like you're not human, like you don't get sad and stuff. Like you have no idea how dark I get. I just get out of it. Like that's where like my delusion comes in. No, I go dark, man. I mean, at this time I'm at Two Chains' house in Hollywood. I'm 300 pounds and I passed out in the closet. And I was just like, "Oh, fuck." Like I think cuz I had a brain tumor as a child.

Yeah.

And when you were in high school, right? So this is the second time.

Yeah. Come back.

I knew what it was.

Yeah.

Oh, just.

I was terrified.

And like the room, the world, not the room, the world was spinning for like four days.

It was just like like I'm like [ __ ] So doctor, I'll never forget walks me in and shows me the image and it's just like the medication that had been working my whole life stopped working. Like my body, I guess, like adapted to it. So like that's scary. And it's an inoperable brain tumor. Just like [ __ ] [laughter] And so.

Cuz it's it's in the back of your eye, right?

So it's it's on the pituitary gland. Yeah.

And it was wrapped around my eye. It was wrapped around like the artery that goes into the brain. And it was like there for a while. So it was like corroding the top of my spine. And so I'm like feeling trapped. And I called my mom and I told her to come out to California. And I got a little Airbnb in Manhattan Beach. And I didn't tell her why. I just needed to be around my mom, but I didn't want to scare her or anything. And I would just get in my car and do these like long drives to the PCH, like all the way up to Malibu. And I was just like scared and lost. And I'm like, I feel like I got trapped in this like spiderweb and like the spider is about to get me. Like I'm I feel physically trapped that like I buried a dream as a child. I went into the music industry instead. I did some really cool stuff and now I'm about to die and [sighs] it's like, what, what, what if? What if is a very powerful statement.

Mhm.

Because what if can go two ways. What if I die? What if is is a trigger for the imagination, which is like beautiful and dark. What if I die? Or what if having a brain tumor is a gift? This is okay. Now it gets fun to to to to explore these doors. The second you find the gratitude in something bad, doors present themselves. And all those doors are like possibilities where like something bad is like it's like death. There's no door. There's just death. But like what if this is good? Now there's possibilities. Oh, I open this door. What's in there? I open this door. What's in there? And so I started opening these doors of possibilities like, what if this brain tumor is a good thing?

Mhm.

And I thought like, what if I leave the music industry and I reverse this brain tumor because maybe I'm just so unhealthy because I'm like 300 pounds. And so what if like this brain tumor is like redirection? What if this is like God's way of just like waking me up? And what if like this is going to be like really cool? Like like like if like like my leg got bit off by a shark, like I could like that's pretty [ __ ] cool. Like that's a cool like thing in life. Like like it's like I could tell a cool story. You know what I'm saying?

Nope. But go on.

You know, but that's a cool story.

That's a cool story.

You see what I'm saying? Like if we're going to lose our leg, might as well be to a [ __ ] shark.

Might as well be to a shark. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

That's the delusional optimism. So like once I go in this direction of what if.

Now I'm like, oh, like I'm going to leave the music industry. I'm so.

Because I want my dream. If I'm going to die at some point in my life, I should experience my dream.

Well, cuz your dream wasn't to be in the music business.

No, to be an athlete. I want to be an athlete.

You can't help what your dream is.

Your dream is your dream. I always wanted to be an athlete. And here I am looking at death. And if I died right now, I feel like I never got to experience my dream. So, thank you, brain tumor, because now I'm going to go chase my dream. And every every human deserves to experience [snorts] their dream in their life. But how is a 300-pound 28-year-old white man who's not athletic going to achieve his dream? And that's when I started opening up these doors of possibilities and I was like, I'm going to be a Nike athlete and I'm going to ride my bicycle across America and I'm going to do an Ironman and I'm going to do marathons and Nike is going to want to sign me as an athlete because I overcame this brain tumor. So the brain tumor like is like this gift that's giving me my dream. And I kept seeing this like story unfolding where I was going to be in commercials with LeBron James and Serena Williams. And it's like all because of the brain tumor. Thank you, brain tumor. Like I'm going to leave and it's going to work. And so I went to my business partners. I gave them the shares of my company and I went to my artist and I said, I'm going to go chase my dream and I'm going to be an athlete and I'm going to be a Nike athlete and I'm going to make a fan-made Nike commercial. Nike is going to see it and Nike's going to sign me and it's going to be easy and I'm going to be in commercials with LeBron James and Serena Williams because when I was a kid, I would lay on my bed and I'll throw my basketball in the air and I envisioned a world where I was in commercials with Michael Jordan. And I was on the cover of magazines. And so I left the music industry and I started running and I ran for like two minutes and then I ran for like two hours and then I ran five marathons and then I did an Ironman and then I got on my bicycle and started biking across America and next thing you know, I'm on the cover of a magazine. I walk into the grocery store and I'm there on Runner's World magazine. I'm in the airport. I'm on the magazine and then Nike puts me in the biggest Nike commercial of all time with LeBron James, Serena Williams. And it was the Colin Kaepernick commercial. It was named after me. Got to win an Emmy for it. And I got to see myself on a Super Bowl ad. And everything I did was exactly what I saw when I was a kid. Because when you are given a dream, it is already done. Time hasn't caught up. You just got to be delusional enough to jump away from the money and the realistic way of just living in this world to chase that thing that was given to you. And I did it. And it was easy. Becoming a Nike athlete. [ __ ] easy. It was because I saw the gratitude in all the bad things. It was meant to be. And so if things are meant to be, if that dream is in your heart, that means the universe and God will help you. It wasn't me who did this. I had help. Everybody says nobody's coming to save you. Why would you ever think that? You don't want somebody to come save you? There's been so many people come and save me.

Right?

So why would I turn that off by thinking nobody's coming to save you? No, I'm going to go do the work, but there's a lot of people coming to save me and help me. So it's like I always expect a miracle. I always expect a blessing. And somebody might not be a human.

M.

So, don't say nobody's coming to save you.

Well, don't say it. That's terrible. That's like hustle culture.

Yeah.

No. Somebody's coming to save me. Do you I actually want to run an experiment. I'm literally going to do a social experiment. I'm going to go on the side of a highway and I'mma stand outside my car with my trunk open. I mean, my my hood open. And I want to time waving, seeing if somebody, how long it'll take for somebody to come and help me. And then I want to do the second part of the experiment where I get behind my car and I start pushing with my trunk open. I mean, my hood open. And I want to see with me pushing my car, how long it takes for another person to come help me. I guarantee you the numbers are going to be staggering by me simply pushing my car. There might be five people who come and join me. They're going to want to be inspired by my pursuit of pushing. And all these people are coming to save me versus me just standing there saying, "Help me." I'm going to run the social experiment and I will report back to you the exact time it takes for somebody to pull over and start pushing with me.

Please do.

Cuz somebody will come and save you just as long as you're pushing.

Is that a credit to momentum?

Momentum is the most exciting thing ever. Like like if there's a drug, if there's a drug that I wish I could shoot into my vein.

I hear you.

It would be that drug of momentum. And oh man, when you get it, man, it's the most like powerful thing in the universe. And so like pushing, there's actually another.

No, no, it's crazy that you're saying this because like as I'm about to say, I'm like, man, and it's hard to get momentum off the top. I hear your voice. I'll be like, no. But it's actually easy cuz you think about if you've ever had [clears throat] momentum and things are going in the right direction.

Mhm.

You know it's possible to do it again. And whatever the pursuit is of the other thing.

Mhm. Mhm.

All you start to think is though, when this momentum starts to come, it's [clears throat] [ __ ] on.

It is time to go. And that's always exciting as well when the momentum starts to show itself because you've dedicated yourself and you haven't confused the universe and you have people conspiring with you, not against you.

Come on.

Pronoid, not paranoid.

That's right. That's right. Now, do you know about the law of 62?

I don't know. [laughter]

All right. The law of 62 is it gives me a lot of hope in my pursuit of achieving the point of greatness.

Is this from quantum physics?

Mm. This is just something I came up with through analyzing my own numbers and my success.

Okay. I'm in Santa Monica, California, training for my Ironman. And I went and I counted how many songs we released with Travis Porter and Two Chains before both of their top 10 records. 62 songs each. But that's without stopping. Starting and not leaving a lot of space. 62. Does 62 sound hard or easy? Top 10 record. Guaranteed. Top 10 record. You just got to get to 62.

Top 10 record. 62 record.

62 releases. 62 songs.

Where I'm at right now in my life. Easier.

Okay.

But no momentum starting out. You haven't put out one song. Difficult. Hard.

Okay. A rocket ship. It's taking off. It uses more gasoline in the first mile than it will the entire rest of the trip.

I didn't know that.

To outer space. More fuel in the first mile than the rest of the trip combined. Now, to get it off the ground, that first one takes it takes a lot of energy. The second mile gets a little bit easier. The third mile a little bit easier, but it's going really slow. Fourth mile still slow. Fifth mile and it keeps going. It gets easier and easier and easier. And guess what mile exists where there's no gravity?

62.

Yep. That's all of our goal. We want to get to a place where we are chasing our dream, building our business, making our money, and there's no more gravity. It's just it's just out of here. What are the chances that Travis Porter, Two Chains, Young Dolph, all of them became madly successful around song 62? And then I went back and counted Russ, right?

Was right there around song number 62. I did an Ironman, which is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and then run a full marathon. And this is all in one day.

What was your weight at that point?

Uh, this was 185.

185. Okay.

It's a very difficult thing to do. So, I went back into my Strava and I wanted to count how many swim sessions did I do.

Strava.

Mhm. Strava is a running, biking, and swimming tracking app.

Oh, okay. Okay.

And I wanted to count how many swims, bikes, and run sessions I did leading up to my Ironman. And guess how many it was? 62.

Wow. For each one. 62. The law of 62. It gives me a lot of hope that if you start something, yes, that first mile will be very tough. But the second one, there's going to become a point where it gets a little bit easier. What I've noticed in my life, 16 is one of those points. I don't know what it means. I don't know why, but 16 things speed up really fast. And then 62 it breaks through. And that just happens to be where the outer space starts, where there's no more gravity. So law of 62.

Starting.

Push. All we got to do is get to 62.

Artists today, they'll release four songs in a year.

Yeah.

What are we talking about? Four songs in a year because now we're releasing singles instead of projects because a project, if it flops, it's over. So, we're releasing four or five singles. What are we talking about? With Travis Porter, we released a mixtape. January 1st, 2009. No money. March 1st, 2009. April 1st, 2009. August 1st, 2009. That was when we had our first big record. All the Way Turned Up. Wasn't our record. Was taken away from us. It was Rosco Dash's record. The world thought it was Travis Porter's. Took off, taken away. We had a 30-day up and a 30-day crash and burn. Nobody wanted to touch us. And then October 1st, October 31st, 2009, we released a project with Mark Flock of Flame called Streets RS. We had a song on there called Go Shorty Go. Top 20 record in the country. We released 62 songs and we had made it and then it was it was on and popping after that.

When did it start to connect for you, this number of 62?

Oh, I had no idea. Yeah.

I realized this later. I realized this in 2018 when I went back and counted. I wanted to see if there was a correlation of consistency that added to success. Was there a tipping point? And I found this tipping point amongst Two Chains, Young Dolph, Travis Porter, Russ. Like I saw these artists and I was like, right there around song number 62. I'm curious if it's the same with Future. I'm curious if it's the same with early Drake. I'm curious when like some obviously some artists get a hit right out the gate, but you know like that's not the case for.

But the staying power is not there for most of them. They could.

So you might want it to be.

Got to get to 62.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know with Drake to be honest. Maybe he had two mixtapes before So Far Gone came out. Room for Improvement, Comeback Season.

Uhhuh.

And So Far Gone.

Okay.

But.

How many features? How many?

Yeah, that's what I mean, right? Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Drake is definitely an anomaly, but I mean, it was it was it was over 30. I mean, one of those mixes just, uh, Comeback Season was like 22 songs, right?

Uh, yeah, something like that.

It was a long. It was a lot there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But even So Far Gone, I mean, like the one that I think the one that's on Spotify isn't necessarily all the records cuz they didn't clear everything, right?

Cuz some of them were just remixes of songs that were out.

Absolutely.

But I hear. No, I mean like there's real work that's been being put in. Yes, sir. Or greatness. All right. You you talk a lot about, um, well, you don't talk a lot about it, but I know you have your notebook and you write all these things down.

It's not like you're just saying it. How important is that part of the visualization and writing it down versus just talking about it?

Two things happen. One, manifestation isn't just woo. You have a thought in your head and it needs to become real.

M.

Needs to become physical. What's the first version of that?

Well, if I take this thought in my head and I use this real pen with this real ink and this real paper and this real notebook and I write it, it's the first version of it becoming real. It's not this thing in the sky. A thought is a thing in the sky.

Right.

Now, this is the first version of it being real. So that's why it's very important to start that process of this is going to be real. This is beta version. It just being on this piece of paper. So that's one thing that really helps with fulfilling a dream.

The second thing is I love pieces of paper and I love whiteboards because of Parkinson's Law. If I have ideas in my head, ask me, "Charlie, come up with some ideas real quick for my podcast." I will probably rattle off three to five ideas. That's where my brain feels like it's the right amount.

Okay?

But say, "Charlie, take this piece of paper. Come up with ideas for my podcast." If I got to three or five, I'd feel like I didn't do my job. So, guess what I'mma do? I'mma fill up the whole piece of paper. So, now I got to 25 ideas where my brain stopped at five. My brain thought five ideas was good.

But when I look at five ideas on a piece of paper, I'm like, feels incomplete. I need to fill it up. So, what if you made the piece of paper bigger?

You would come up with more ideas.

What if you got to a whiteboard? You'd come up with more ideas. What if you did a double wide whiteboard on a rolling stand? You'd come up with more ideas.

What if you got a notebook and you got stacks of notebooks that go way high?

Exactly. So, that's why I like writing things down.

Yeah.

So, those are.

Better than better than. Do you ever put anything in your notes or anything or.

I got tons. I got tons.

I I could read you all sorts of stuff. Um, let me just type in quantum possibilities.

What is quantum possibilities?

It's those doors. So, quantum possibilities is everything that I see in my mind. It's real. It's if it's a possibility, that means it's already done. Because if I can see it, it's real. So, like right now I see a book that I'm going to write and it is orange and it's called The Winning Streak Effect and it's the number one book in the world for 10 years straight and it's changing so many lives and it's like a cultural movement and it's like a fashion accessory and it looks like a coffee table book and it's just like a sensation. It's a movement. So, I'd like to see it. So, I know that's a real possibility. It's done. It's just up to me to go jump and be crazy enough to like fulfill it. But like quantum possibilities is these things I see and it's not a matter of if, I already know it's done. So let's see how I talk to myself. Let's first like.

Please.

Quantum possibilities. All right, let's scroll. Um, if I don't have a notebook like I'll like do it in my notes. Um, let's see. Quantum Possibilities. That's funny.

What's that?

Uh, let me find one I want to talk about.

All right. Fair enough.

Cuz it gets personal in here.

Yeah, of course.

It gets real personal.

Um, okay. This is this is uh 2018. I said, um, I said I will produce the best Nike commercials ever.

In 2018.

Uh-huh. And guess what I did in 2018? Um, oh, I'll have a number one book. It's about to come true. [laughter] Um, let's go to another fun one.

Uh, like simple things like I will save Scott's life. It's a friend of mine.

Scott.

Mhm. Who's a friend of mine. Um.

What's up with Scott?

At the time, he was going through some dark times.

Yeah.

Dark times, man. Sleeping in his car. Things like trying to make it happen for his family, running a business, like driving 11 hours in the night to try to get somewhere for business every day. Like, it's crazy. Um, here was one. Aean Herreri will help my mission. Aean Herreri.

Where?

Aean Herreri's father was the prime minister of Lebanon.

Oh, okay.

Aean Herreri's brother is the prime prime minister of Lebanon. And uh Aean Herreri donated over $300,000 to our mission.

Oh, wow.

So I said he would do it and he did it.

Um, I'll just say like simple things. Everything works out perfectly in my life. I can create exactly what I want in my life. Like this how I talk to myself.

Ben, would you, do you ever, there's a lot to talk about here, but I do want to. Would you ever consider going back into the music business? Because I feel like it could use someone like you.

Um.

I get phone calls every day.

Yeah.

But I'll never go back.

How come?

You know what? I'll I'll say this. There's only one way I'd go back. [snorts]

There's only one way.

Okay. What's that?

Because there's somebody I idolize. And to me, this man is a is a modern mystic. This man, many people look at him as a joke. I look at him as maybe the wisest, most intelligent. He's like a He's like He found a way to exit the matrix and live a life that is free, childlike. I think if I could study anybody's brain, it would be his.

I I got a feeling I know who you're talking about.

There's only one person who's happy on this planet.

It's DJ Khaled.

Khaled.

Khaled.

Oh, I thought you going with Rick Rubin. Okay. DJ Khaled.

So, you would go back into the music business to work with.

No.

Okay.

If I had $50 million in the bank.

Yeah.

I would and I I didn't I was done inspiring people. And if I just wanted to go get off my creativity.

Yeah.

I would go be the next version of DJ Khaled.

Okay.

I I know how to market the music.

Yeah, absolutely.

I am not a singer. I am not a rapper, but DJ Khaled to me gets to live the greatest life of anybody on this earth. And that seems fun. I think the world of him and the way he chose to live life and he broke down all barriers. I mean, I don't even think people give him credit for what he does, what he did, like like we're just used to him.

Yeah.

But let's think about this.

Yeah.

I I give him all the credit in the world when it comes to how to use a social media platform. Like I, in my opinion, he made Snapchat what it is in those early days.

Yeah.

You know.

Time and attention. He was getting a lot of it.

A lot of it. And [clears throat] it still does.

He's name people who are that happy. Maybe another person was that happy.

That's awesome. And it's just music as a way of expressing and be having fun every day. If it weren't for music, it's just a way for him to have fun. But he's he's So that would be the only way I would ever do it because having full creative freedom. I don't think I would ever be a manager. I never wanted to be a record label. I never wanted to own anybody.

I always just wanted to provide a service.

M.

I don't feel right owning somebody, owning their masters, owning them. I was even the type like if you want to leave, like I'm not even going to try to sue you.

For sure.

Like we don't even need a contract.

Right.

Right. Because if you want to leave, I don't want your money. Right. So that's why I wouldn't want to be a record label. So if I don't want to be a record label, if I don't want to be an artist, I obviously have no talent to be an artist or anything, but it's like DJ Cattle lives a great life. So I'm not going to cancel that out as a possibility. How would you go about doing that? Because I think it's completely within your grasp to be able to do that. You're only 37 years old.

[clears throat] And I feel like music is a very powerful tool to influence culture. Mhm. I I truly believe that you bring a great message. I also truly believe that a great message in music is lacking in many times. I think you could pull that off. You said $50 million, but [laughter] I mean, why $50 million?

Well, it's just there's going to become a point in my life where I'm not going to want to just keep playing the same game. Yeah. Right now, I was called to do something. I've kind of lived a life similar to like a Forest Gump. [laughter] That's a good analogy. Yeah. And it's really fun. It's really fun. Like Forest Gump ran across America. I biked across America. He was a war hero. I was like a hip-hop [laughter] hero of some sorts. Like just like Yeah. We had some casualties, but like we were like really out there fighting the war. Yeah.

Um, I was an athlete. I was in a Nike commercial. And um, I mean, I created the term dad hat. Like all these like little things that are like stuck in culture and like sneaker culture, kicks on fire and nicekicks.com being a part of those. Yes. Well, my business partner, so I had fashion on fire, my business partner had kicks on fire, and we had uh speech.com. So, it was like we were doing this shoe thing very early on in high school. And it was uh, all these things that I've done in my life. Right now, my dream is to to give these uh uh recipes as like a flashlight. Mhm. Because I feel like I have a flashlight and I have to give it to all everybody's trying to navigate. For me, I'm very lucky that I have a brain tumor. Brain tumor is on my pituitary gland. That means the pituitary gland is your third eye. So, I get to see in the dark. So, if I get to see in the dark, I need to be able to give people the tools who don't have a brain tumor, who can't see in the dark, I need to give them a flashlight. Mhm. So, I have to do that. And so, that's what I'm doing.

Let's do it. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I was going to say, so let's do it now for the person that is trying to figure out in the business. So, if you were to get back into the business, How does Charlie Rocket do it? This is easy. I think about this every day and I feel like I have the exact answers. Found the perfect place to talk about it. Okay. Are we talking hip-hop or are we talking about music in general? Uh, music in general. Okay. Music in general. I'm going talk to urban music. I don't know anything about pop. Okay, cool. Like if it was Taylor Swift, I would not know. Sure. What to do. Urban music, hip-hop, R&B. Very first thing I would do, I pull out a sheet of paper and I would write out all the releases for the year and I would have at least 60 songs come out.

Now, mind you, this is also Charlie Rock and no money coming into the business. Yes. Okay, cool. No money. Okay. Yes, we're releasing a lot of music without money. How do you release music without money? Well, we need to find producers who want to go on this journey with us. We're going to call them our band mates. People, the bass player in the band doesn't get paid a fee. Like, no, we're doing this together. Okay. And a lot of the best producers in the world are broke kids. They're geniuses. Yeah. Somebody's not a genius because they've got platinum records. Somebody's a genius because they're a genius. So if I was an artist be like find my set of producers say I have a game plan. This is where we're going and this is why it's going to work. We're going to release this amount of music. We're going to cultivate a really big fan base and when a lot of these songs start taking off the record label, they will want us and they will pay you for these beats because they're going to want to go put them on DSPs or take give it a marketing budget and things and you'll be able to charge them. We'll get you your money. And as we build this together, like Billy Eilish and her brother, we build this together. We're going to get the money. We just have to get the fans first. So, are you in with me? Yes. Okay. You're not going to charge me up front, correct? We can move with speed, right? The goal is to not be a cruise ship. The goal is to be a jet ski. We need to move fast. Okay. So, we're going jet ski mentality. So, that means you just need a couple people who can fit on the jet ski to get this thing up. I'd pull out a sheet of paper. I'd write out all the release dates for the projects throughout the year. I would do projects and I would do a lot of singles. I would start boiling the water and never turn the heat off when it starts. Doesn't matter if it only has 100 plays. Does not matter because the goal is to get to 62. It's going to start off slow. We know that already. We're expecting that. Yes, we all want to put out a song and it goes crazy. We want that. The problem artists are making are I'm going to release a song every six weeks. Well, as tough as a fan, I'm going to tell you why.

[snorts] You have your favorite coffee shop. Go to it every day. Mhm. If they closed one day, you'd be like, "Okay, go back the next day. Okay, they're open. All right, cool. I'm going every day. It's my favorite coffee shop." But let's say that coffee shop closed down for a week. Got to go to another coffee shop for a week. Now, humans are creatures of habit. So, you start going to the other coffee shop, you open yours back up. Not everybody's coming back because they're creatures of habit. You had them, but you lost them. You close your doors, you allow somebody else to turn on theirs and they take it from you. Why do you think streamers who stream every day and they have that blitz year? Why do you think they blow up? Because humans are creatures of habit. They turned on their lights. They opened up shop. People came and they stayed and they stayed coming. And then more people came because it was on. So, as an artist, if I released a song today and then released another one in six weeks, I didn't get to be an obsessive fan. It wasn't on. You turn on ESPN. Is it always on? Yeah. 24 hours a day. Yeah. No matter what. What if ESPN went. So, you got ESPN 2. You got ESPN. ESPN 4 to 7 and whatever. Exactly. It's on. So, as an artist, we have to find a way to be on. Let's learn from what the streamers are doing cuz they took all the fan. So, that might mean release a song, release an acoustic version. I don't care. Release a mixtape. Release an EP. I'm not a big fan of EPs. I don't like EPs. Okay. Want me to tell you why? Please. EPs are lazy. How come? As a fan, artists have to be of service. I get I get a a seven song EP and I've already heard two of the songs. I just got five songs. I want to be an obsessive fan. Artists forget that you're providing a service. You are a business and we want to go there. Yeah. Absolutely. And so when an artist is doing something convenient for the artist and not for the fans, the fans, they feel it. So, it's like, give me 15 songs. Give me 15 songs, please. I want to be an obsessive fan. Get my time spent with you up. So, I would release a project in January. Then I would release singles to keep it hot. I need to always be popping up. Blitz Creek. Then I would build my neighborhood. Just because the internet exists, just because TikTok exists, just because you could go viral does not mean human nature is not still human nature. If Michael Jackson today did all the same exact steps he did in the age of the internet and never had Instagram or TikTok, would he have still been Michael Jackson? I'd have to say he still would be the. Of course he would be. You don't need the internet to be successful, right? Humans are still humans even because the internet is there. That means we go outside. We'll watch TV. We'll watch something about you on somebody else's page. We don't need Michael Jackson to have Instagram or TikTok to become the biggest pop star in the history of [clears throat] the world because humans are still humans. It's actually still a real world out there.

So if he did every action the same, he did a concert that didn't involve Instagram, he did an interview that didn't involve Instagram, he didn't have to do anything with Instagram. If he did the same steps, put out a song, shot a music video, went out into the community, performed, got platformed on different platforms, people be like, I like that. It starts spreading. What I'm telling you is build something in real life. Yeah. Pick your neighborhood, build it. Humans want it. You don't have to go viral, right, in order to make it. You can pass out flyers. You can have somebody put up posters. You can do a listening event. I would do this with my artists. I always had something to do. We were always on. Check this out. Travis Porter. We don't have much money, but we wanted to be relevant. So, we always gave people in Atlanta something to do. DJ listening party first thing. Then single release party. But I ain't throwing a release party. It's just something to do. Just we're making everything big. Okay. DJ listening party, single release party, then we shoot a music and video. Invite the city out. Okay. That's another thing we're giving people to do. And then music video viewing party. Music video release party. Mixtape listening party with the DJs. Mixtape listening party with the fans. Meet and greet at DTLR or something like that. [snorts] And then mixtape release party at the club. And then music video shoot for everybody's favorite song on the mixtape. and then repeat giving people something to do. I would throw DJ listening parties for Travis Porter that involved strippers in a boxing ring. Like I needed to be like we have a song coming out. It's a it's a a strip club song. So we're going to invite all the DJs over. We're going to hire a boxing ring. Cost like $800 to rent. And then we got strippers to be in the boxing rink. And the DJs are there. And I'm like, I need them to play our new song. So, I'm just giving them something to do. And then I'd give every DJ a hoodie with their name on it. We're talking about vinyl. Like, we're talking about no money. Like, we're talking about $6 hoodie. Says, "Salute the DJ." And on the back it says their name, DJ Pretty Boy Tank. And we vinyl press it on. And we gave it to every DJ in the city. So, it's like, I need touch points. Okay. I need more excuses to talk to more DJs. I would do that today with people who own playlists. You still believe that doing all of that will still garner the same reaction? Why wouldn't it? Humans are still humans. Humans still uh uh talk to each other. Humans would even post this on their page for more humans to see. You can remove all of social media from your equation. And if you replaced it with I'm going to do physical things, you would still go viral on social media, but it would just be other people making you go viral. Mhm. I think so. The pushback would potentially be two things. We'll be like, "Well, we only have so much time in the day. We got to focus on our digital strategy, and a digital strategy doesn't cost as much as doing this IRL stuff." Okay. Well, your digital strategy might make you corny in order to go viral. So, do you want your artist to be corny and ruin their career? Cuz what are we talking about? Well, let's do some [ __ ] trends. Like, we want to go viral. Like everything on my page is gonna be somebody doing a dance. You want to go viral? We want to go viral. So you want to what what if what if the artist being more in real life connecting with hundreds of thousands of humans and keeping their mystique versus like imagine like Young Thug right now trying to have a viral strategy. It's weird. Like when TI had um a television show about his family, it took his mystique away. See what I'm saying? I love that new record though. It's actually pretty good. It's hard. It was almost to the sweet spot. I liked it a lot. I was very surprised how much I liked it and I listened to it three times in a row. So that means it's good. I was like, it was almost right where it should have been. I think he got 80% right on that one. You know what's funny you say that and I hope I hope Kawaii is listening to this here not or KP. Um, I agree with you. Uh, not to get on a on a separate tangent, but I felt like the beginning of that song. Mhm. That was the course. The the the flow. The flow. The flow was that's what I cuz the hook was was like old school like I'm trying to make a hit but the flow that's exactly what I felt. Chorus was the top of the rack. Yes. 100%. I'm not an A&R. But all I know is the feeling I got from that record was from the beat. But then when they tried to build up the hook, it was like too late. I'm trying to make a hit. Yeah. No, we're on the same. That's why I said 80%. Cuz it was the flow was the hook. I When you said 80%, I knew exactly what you're talking about. I felt that same energy. But I hear you on the on the IRL, the mystique. um this and I don't even see it so much as mystique, but just being outside and active and people can see you. And also I would be dropping mixtapes. And you'd be dropping mixtapes. I would honestly form a coalition of 10 artists. Yeah. And I'll be like, "Guys, we got to we got to start a trend." Yeah. We got to get our fans going to a mixtape site. Yeah. Music app where it's like okay DJ Scream you're dropping a mixtape I give you two records now I can practice putting out music without it dealing with attorneys and all this [ __ ] but it's like we need the producers and the artists to be on the same page you're like it's okay to give away free music. Yeah. And that becomes cultural. I heard you talking about that on the God show with Ray Daniels, shout out to Ray Daniels, by the way, just absolutely crushing it right now. Got these Nero live streams going crazy, putting people on game and like actually just building this whole other system on top of it now. Getting those artists that are playing music on the live stream to come live and perform at this barber shop like building a whole ecosystem. Shout out to Ray. Um, but I love that you said that and even that that idea of it, it's like this version of let's call it that piff, whatever it might be. It doesn't matter. I was thinking about that for somebody in Toronto to even do that like in the local scene like you can build that and with these AI tools you could probably build that website by talking to Claude with like within 90 minutes. Exactly. Easy. Easy. Um, how would you get around you know what cuz you I think you're the perfect person to talk about this. Okay. But say these artists are signed to labels. What are you saying to the labels? How you pitching them to be like hey do this for free? Honestly, I had a conversation with a regular label executive um recently and I told him that y'all should celebrate an artist putting out free music because y'all don't have a farm system anymore, right? They all wanted to be the like distribution arm. That's cool and all, but the thing is we got to get artists putting. It's not It's not even cool. It's just out of necessity is what's happening. If mixtapes were really fun, like think about like Gucci Mane, like mixtape versus like album with like Swiss Beats. Like it's like way better. [clears throat] Like Zoven mixtape versus like I need a Mariah Carey feature. Like it's like that's the single that's the one to make, you know, go to radio, but the mixtape is anything [ __ ]. And he creates these characters. Burr print, you know, East Atlanta Santa. It's just a way to be freaking fun, right? And so think about like all artists. I'm going to give you some examples. Does doing Does doing something that's bad for business make you more money? No. Wrong. Doing something bad for business make you more money? In the long term, no. Little Wayne leading up to the biggest point in his career. We're going to go we're going to go three for three. We're going to go three artists and dissect the biggest points in their career. Yeah. Little Wayne biggest point of his career was Carter three. What was leading up to that giving away so much free music that it was insane. We're talking about the d like where it was so many free mixtapes coming out that it was like it made him so hot that he sold a million copies of his commercial business album. But it was so many mixtapes. Now, Future before the biggest point in Future's career. Yeah. He had 56 Nights. He had P Code. He had Monster. We're talking about mixtape after mixtape after mixtape after mixtape. And it led into him making so much money. So this thing that's bad for business like giving this away like free bad for business probably cost you money is going to end up making you so much more money than being about your business. I see people all the time who are so about their business and is actually like preventing them from being a good business. Well, I don't I wouldn't necessarily look at that as being bad for business, but more so just kind of how these tech companies do and it's like that's growth strategy. And so, yes, in the beginning you might lose revenue, but overall there's growth happening. Now, you know, this happened with 2 Chainz. Yeah. Go ahead. 2 Chainz. The second album, we were all like kind of a little caught off guard because it wasn't massly adopted. Right. Right. Two was not what we were hoping for, right? And things got cold for us for a while. And so, we got together and we were like, we got to restart this engine. And I went back to that like law of 62. I didn't know it at the time what it was called, but I'm like we need to put out a lot of music. 2 Chainz was with it. So we came with like four mixtapes back to back. So it's like Daniel Son, Nicholas Don, uh Freebase, El Chapo Jr. uh like Habachi for lunch. Like we came with boom boom boom. And in that process of trying to get back hot, couple things happen. There's this beautiful crossroad. It's called the sweet spot. Now, an artist is making art. That means you don't know what people like. There's a target that you're trying to hit, but you don't know where it is cuz it's not where it used to be. M. So, imagine you're in a room and you're blindfolded and you have a a machine gun and somewhere in this room is a target and so you start shooting doom and you don't hear the ding. You don't hear the ting. So, you're shooting. If you shoot enough shots and you get a ding, do you even need your eyes open? No. You're unloading the. You're unloading the. All right, let's put the little drum on there and you're hitting it every time. Yeah. Okay. Now, imagine you tell an artist, put a blindfold on. You got four bullets and in this entire room, I want you to hit the hit the target. That's why we need a black market again, man. We got to get the mixtapes back. You got to get artists putting out so much music because when you hit the target they tell you you hear it back. People are like that's the one and now you're unlocked. So what happened when 2 Chainz dropped these four mixtapes? He got a song called Big Amounting. [snorts] Oh, confidence gets up but also there's this momentum because the fans are happy and things are getting electric again. And then he caught a record called Watch Out Little Bitch. Hit another target. And then he caught Good Drinking. And then all this, he now has confidence that he knows what he's doing again, which is very important for an artist. You hit the sweet spot. It's like a basketball player. Once the ball go in, the next one's going in. Y. Now he's going into Pretty Girls Like Trap Music. Biggest commercial success of his career. It's not a secret. Why? He probably released about 62 songs on those mixtapes and found the sweet spot. So, giving away all that music gave him this sweet spot of I know where the target is and my fans are really really enjoying my restaurant and they're not leaving. So, now it's time to drop an album. But you remove dropping all that music, man. That's tough. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck trying to find that sweet spot. That's man that's then that's the reality of where we're at right now. Well, I think of it in terms of you heard of the zone of proximal development. So, it's basically where the term the zone comes from. So, there's three layers to it, right? There's the outer layer where you're doing something and it's something new, let's call it. Yeah. You obviously don't know how to do it. I'll take snowboarding as an example. First time you go down that hill, what's going to happen? You're going to fall on your ass. All kinds. Yeah. It takes you a moment to get into that second layer of the zone where it's like, okay, I can do that do this now, but somebody's assisted me. They've told me how to carve down the. They've showed me how to go from side to side. So, there's some assistance there. Yeah. And then you have that center layer when you've shot that gun. Yeah. 62 times. I know exactly where it's at. That's the zone right there. And once you hit that and you can go all the way down, it's just always going to be locked in on that. But it takes the work to do that. Absolutely. Right. So, it's absolutely one of those things that fire off. My question is this. Is it going to take 5 years to get to that sweet spot or is it going to take 5 months? Because it wasn't time, it was the shots, right? Yeah. So you could literally watch somebody take 10 years to release 62 songs or you can literally watch somebody do it in a year. Oh [ __ ]. Yeah. It doesn't take more time to be greater. It's look at the data. It was you did this many reps and you got better. Some people decided to do it for eight hours a day where some people decided to do it for eight hours a week. Mhm. You're both getting to the same place. So, that's what I would do. Um, I think it's very important that that people take these lessons and start acting in a way that is not Don't be smart. Be a factory worker. I love that. Yeah, I love that. Don't be the person who's thinking. Be the factory worker. I'm passing out the CDs. I'm a factory worker. We're putting out these songs. We are not being smart. A smart decision would be have a song. Get a marketing budget. We need a record deal. We need help. We need an expert. We need to run Facebook ads. Get the [ __ ] out of here. That's smart. No, we're putting this out. And then guess what we're doing? We're putting another one out. And then guess what we're doing after that? We're putting another one out. And we're going to just use our energy to make it versus trying to think. I see too many smart people, man. I had somebody tell me the other day they're running Facebook ads. I'm like, what are you doing? Facebook ads? You're being way too smart. I'm not against Facebook ads, though, to be honest. But it's a it's just But I I wouldn't just like unleash a whole lot of money on Facebook ads. I had this conversation with Jameson here the other day. Um, definitely, you know, I try to tell him like, "Hey, Facebook ads might be a thing that you look into." He's like, "Fuck that." Just like you. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not his thing. Um, to grow his music. But I I I don't disagree with him cuz whatever he's doing right now is absolutely working. I mean, he puts out an album every year for the last 13 years. He unloads the clip 100%. [sighs and gasps] But the way that I look at Facebook ads, I will put it against what Gary Vee, your boy. Mhm. I've spent some time with him as well, but what he calls strategic organic content. So, if I'm going to put out because we've been using the number 62, 62 different pieces of content out there online in a month, I'm going to look at every single piece of content out there. One or two are going to show its hand and be way more views than the other. Absolutely. So, I'm going to go and put some meta ads behind that and it could be a call to action of growth, right? More people to come to my IG profile or to go to my song because I know that that's a proven piece of content or to sign up to my email newsletter because now I got you within my ecosystem and I don't need you to worry about the algorithm. Right. Right. Right. So, that's where I would use the I would use it strategically. Mhm. Those are the things where I also want to make sure that people know it's like yo you want to make sure you're smart. You want to make sure that you're smart about looking at those types of things. Mhm. That's how I I would look at it. Does that make sense to you or no? And I'm still doing the things. I can't ever sit here and tell you that if you present a really smart idea to not do that. I can't I can't I can't sit here and be like that. What I will say is somebody out there is going to listen to you say Facebook ads and they're going to focus on that because I know how to do that. And they're going to not they're going to release that one [clears throat] song and they're going to run Facebook ads for 6 months and they're going to wake up and wonder what the [ __ ] how do all these other people keep getting their dream but I I I did the Facebook ads when in reality. No, no, this is a in addition. There's so much cuz what you said is like song goes crazy, great new audience, next one, unload the clip, next one, and the other, and let's keep going. Keep going in a very unstrategic. It's strategic. Sure. But to to not to like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had I had I had this one thing. I had the same conversation yesterday with somebody else. But yeah, go ahead. Travis Porter. At the time, we never had a hit record. This was MySpace. And there was this manager. Pre-label or or. Pre-label. Mom's basement. No money. Yeah. Subway coupons. Okay. Like all of us subway coupons. Like we're trying to get like a $4 whatever you can. And we did this show in Augusta, Georgia. And there was this other group that had like a more successful manager than us. Yeah. And we're at this restaurant after the show. And that guy who was the successful manager came over to our table and he said, "I think y'all could be doing what y'all are doing differently." And I feel threatened like I'm trying to hold on. I'm trying to make sure another artist doesn't leave me for a more successful manager. And I'm thinking to myself like what's he talking about? He's like y'all should really focus on just like a couple songs and like really work those cuz at the time we had nine MySpace pages. Nine. Wow. Travis Porter one. They would only let you upload eight songs at a time. Oh. Okay. So like one page for eight songs and then our entire top eight was Travis Porter 2, Travis Porter 3, Travis Porter 4. So we can get all of our music uploaded. And he was like, "Y'all release too much music. You're confusing the audience." And I'm thinking to myself, "My group is about to leave me because this guy sounds smart." I And they came to me afterwards and they were like, "Thie, I think I think he's right." I said, "Absolutely [ __ ] not. We are going to double down on releasing more music." And we doubled down so much. We released this zip file called the Travis Porter iPod and it had like 150 [ __ ] songs in it and it's like we are flooding. We had so many MySpace pages and it was just flooding, flooding, flooding, flooding and then we're dropping mixtape, mixtape, mixtape. Then we got with Tech and then our mixtapes started get on Live Mixtapes and then it's like boom and I was like we are going to not focus on one song. We are going to focus on running a good coffee shop. And a good coffee shop has a big menu and is always [ __ ] open. Imagine a coffee shop with one [ __ ] cup of coffee. It would suck. [laughter] We We have fans. Some of their favorite songs are [ __ ] in the car. The other baddest [ __ ] in the world. We're giving people stuff to be a fan of every day. We are providing a service to our fans and they love it. And way more opportunity to be discovered. Exactly. And so I did not listen to that guy's advice. And we dropped so much music and that's why in 9 months our lives changed. And that's why we then went on to have, you know, big really big records. Well, talk to me about that in 9 months because I think you then had what I would say seemed like a bit of a bidding war going on. Maybe no like a real bidding war. At the time it was the biggest bidding war in hip hop. How'd you navigate that? Walk me through what happened in that. So, a couple things happened. When our first record that wasn't our record, people thought it was our record. It was called All the Way Turned Up with Rosco Dash. It came out on our mixtape. Hard record. On August 1st, 2009, took off. Every record label in the world wants to sign Travis. That wasn't yours? No, it was Rosco Dash's song. It was on our mixtape. Okay. And it was titled Travis Porter Rosco Dash. The world thought it was Travis Porter because Travis Porter had a little momentum and nobody knew Rosco Dash. So, it took off. People are like, "Travis Porter finally got a hit. Every record label wants to sign Travis Porter." 30 days later, [ __ ] hits the fan. Rosco takes us off the song, stops communicating with us as he should. Like, it was like we were friends. We were trying to hold it all together and navigate this, but it was his song. So he put Soulja Boy on it and took us off and record labels were like, "Oh, this Travis Porter stuff is messy. We're not touching it." And then most new artists like when they have a hit, if you take it away from them, they never recover. Like think about like [ __ ] hard. Like like Moa like this like or like like if you took that away from him, it's over. Like and take it away fast. It's just like deletes. It's like damn like that was fun, but like it's over. So Travis Porter fell really quickly. Nobody wanted to book us. Nobody wanted to sign us at the time. There was this kid who we hired to mix our songs. This kid was homeless. It's actually a pretty interesting story. Do you want me to tell the story? I've told this story before. This. Please. I've never heard it. Okay. So this is kind of like a lesson like this is why it's so important to give. Mhm. At all times because it 100% comes back guaranteed. I'm at a studio in College Park, Georgia, and Mr. Hanky is a producer and he told me about this kid that would mix songs for really cheap, like 50 bucks a song. Crazy. And so I hire him to mix a few of our songs and I owe him a couple hundred bucks. I go to meet with him at his studio. He walks out of the studio and I saw this pain on his face and it was like like God just like spoke to me and was like, "You need to help this guy." And at the time I don't have money like that. Like we had like we were in a bad situation ourselves and something told me to just give him 300 extra bucks. So I gave him 500 bucks. And the kid said to me, he was like, "Man, you don't know how bad I needed this. I'm homeless right now." And I I was like, "Man, like like can I hire you?" Like I was trying to find something to do like to help him because right now we're recording in my mom's basement. Mhm. [clears throat] Like we record on Garage Band. We have these little tiny speakers that are sitting on top of trash cans that are flipped over. Little black trash cans are our speaker stands. We have a quilt hanging from a ceiling as our booth. We needed to elevate our sound. So I asked him, "Can I hire you to be our engineer?" And so every day for the next 6 months, he's just mixing our records, recording us, and one day he brings a keyboard to the studio. And we like kind of made fun of him because like you're an engineer. Like why do you have a keyboard? [clears throat] Like I know you. He's like, "Well, I make beats." like, "Man, you don't make any beats." He's like, "I kind of make beats." I was like, "Why have you not made a beat yet?" Well, I've been going through stuff, so it's like hard for me when I'm like struggling. And he had this big old 88 keys keyboard. And the first beat he made changed our life. Was called Make It Rain. It's top 10 record in the country. Then he made another beat called Bring It Back. Top 10 record in the country. Eight tracks. And then he had another beat he made called Bring It Back Times a Thousand number two song in the country called A Ladies. He went on to discover Post Malone and signed Post Malone. And it's like God told me to like help somebody, but like he helped me. What's your name? His name is Good Job First. Mhm. One of the best producers. Genius. Absolute genius. He signed Iggy Azalea, Post Malone, one of the biggest artists of our generation. And um man, it just goes to show like don't overlook anybody and give. Because I gave an extra $500 and obviously paid them. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. But he gave me a career. Yeah. He gave me such a career that like at this time we have Bring It Back, Make It Rain. A Ladies going crazy and every record label is wanting to sign us. And typically over the past couple years, like as record labels would call, I would say not interested. I didn't want to sign to anybody because I I wanted this thing to be real and organic. I had done the opposite with my last group who hired me. I got them a record deal and they left me. So, I had this like paranoia, fear, this fear like if like they're going to outgrow me. So, it's like I want to like control this situation and I want to like boss up. And so, like going to a record label and involving like people bigger than me, I was afraid of that. So, I would get calls from everybody. And I remember one day I got a call from um from P. Diddy and he was very passionate about signing Travis Porter, but I was honest with him. Told him I said, "We're not we're not going to sign the Bad Boy." But it's like he didn't hear me. And he would always call. He was always persistent. And he was like, "I want you to meet with Jimmy Iovine." He said that. Mhm. Okay. Because his label deal was through Jimmy. Was it through Interscope Bad Boy? I thought it was on Sony. Mm- Okay. Mm- So, how do I say no to meeting with Jimmy Iovine? But the thing is, if I meet with Jimmy Iovine and I want to sign with Jimmy Iovine, you have to go through Puff. And I'm like, What do I do? Why don't you want to do go through Go with Puff? Cuz now you're It sounds like you're entertaining potential label situation. I'm I'm starting to I'm starting to I do let them all know I'm not interested in signing right now. Yeah. Um, but I fly out. We all fly out to Jimmy. I did wasn't there. We're meeting with Jimmy. I was like this is freaking awesome. This is freaking awesome. But my gut just tells me don't go with Puff. And I don't know why because at the time we only think the world of P. Diddy. M. Like it's like the coolest like guy ever at the time. What year is this? 2009. This is '09. Yeah. So. Well before any of this stuff comes to light. But like we all have this like compass. And we got to listen to it. Yeah. And it's like our heart and our gut they have they have um knowledge. Yeah. And it's like if I were to ask you like follow your or follow your or follow your [snorts] nothing else. If you said follow your brain, it would sound weird, right? Yeah. So, it's like we've got to follow these things down here and these things told me like don't sign the Puff. Why? I'm a 20-year-old kid. I really don't know what I know. Yeah. But my gut's telling me. So, it's time to start a bidding war. It's time to sign. We're blowing up. Like, it's big. And um we get to we get to New York. I said like all the record labels would want to fly us out, but I I wouldn't let them. I said, I'm flying ourselves out. [ __ ] you better than me. I let all them fly me out. Fly us out, I should say. See, this is the thing. I wanted them to know I'm going to go meet with everybody else. We did, too. So, you can't fly me out and I go disrespect you. So, I will go fly myself out. And I don't see that as a sign of disrespect. Me personally, [laughter] I actually would love to make a hot take. Please. I don't think there's such thing as a good or bad record label. I don't disagree. I'll tell you why. Yeah, I don't disagree. Every record deal I've had, the record label was great when I did my job. Record label was terrible when I sat back and relied on them to do their job. I'm telling you, that's such a fact. Oh my god. And there was many of times with record labels. I had a record label one time. We had a we had a uh a decision. We were going to let them start the record at radio. We're trying to be team players. Okay. So they have their staff meetings, they have their marketing meetings, they have their radio meetings, they have meetings after meetings after meetings. Crazy how many meetings happen at a record label. I know. And so we want to be team players because we want to go into this album and they're cutting us the massive budget with the massive advance and all that good stuff. So we're going to be team players. They said a add date. Let's just say it was August. I don't know when it was. August. This may be like 8 weeks out. Like cool. Gets to August. So we're pushing. We got to push the add date back. Oh my god. Two weeks. Oh my god. Two weeks doesn't sound too. So it's like all right. They they they push it back. You're still the team player mentality. Team player. I'm trying to because they're big time. They're experts. We do want to always have faith that who we sign to cuz we want to confirm our belief system that like I made a decision to sign to these people. So I really don't want to be disappointed in them. So I want us to be a team. Yeah. Release date gets pushed back, push back, push back. Gets to a [ __ ] point where we're just like they're not even they don't even know I'm mad, but we're just going to go spend some money and go to radio ourselves. We go to radio record debuts high. And record label goes what do like because now they're not getting credit. Yeah. And we're spending we'll we we'll pay you back. We'll take it to radio. We'll pay you back. Like like like we'll work it. We'll get it top five. Like I was like don't ask like a lesson in all this for us is don't ask for permission. These record labels, they are experts only because great artists and great managers made their job easy. Yeah. We go find the fan base and the hit and they get to look like experts. Yeah. Okay. Tell them to go do what we do and then I'll call you an expert. [laughter] So when I do my job as a manager, a record label is incredible at being a record label. They prioritize us. They use more money. They everything is just in our favor. So it's like good record label, bad record label. If I could do it all over again, this is this would how be my relationship with a record label. I'm signing to you. Don't expect me to answer a whole bunch of your calls. I'm going to put out a bunch of free music. And if you want to be mad at that, sue me and watch other artists not really come sign with you. But I'm going to go get this hot. Thank me later. You're going to make

a lot of money cuz I went and did some work for you. So, I'll call you when I'm ready for you to spend your money. Let me just go do my thing. And my mentality would be this is all on us.

>> Yeah. And once we get this thing piping, yeah, >> now we need an investment. Okay, now y'all can cut a check to take this to radio or whatnot. But I wouldn't even look at them as a as a as a resource >> at the beginning of any project, any song, any anything. This is solely on us and that is free.

>> Yeah. And you got to get it white hot. And if you get it white hot, they can definitely be they'll be the best record label ever. Absolutely.

>> But if you let them drive And you know what's important also on that note, early days when you go and you sign a record deal, you're going to go and sign because of the people. Don't sign because of the artists that are there, but the people that are working internally in the building, but also when you find like that one person in that building who you rock with and who [ __ ] with you heavy and says and cuz I rather have >> an executive at a record label call me at 12:30 at night.

Mhm.

>> And be like, I just thought of this incredible idea. Then have the [ __ ] meeting at Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. with seven people. You know why? Because they're thinking about >> us.

>> There's one one regret I have of somebody who I wish I had signed to and I never did.

>> Who's that?

>> Salem Bo.

>> Uh he's with Atlantic 300 originally. Asylum. He was always the first one to call me.

>> Seem

>> long before my artist was popular, he was always the first one to call me. But I always signed with the shinier, bigger object, >> right?

>> And he was shiny and big. It's just I was so used to him cuz he was the first to call. It was like he was my friend. And but he was that type to call you in the middle of the night. And it's a regret I have to this day.

So Same, man. Like sorry, man. I really wish I had I had signed with you multiple times.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, but yeah, man. And you know, you can call that person as well too at 12:30 at night at 1:00 a.m. and they're ready and responsive because they also believe in your artist and you as a manager and your project and what you're doing, right?

>> And always do your best to make sure when you find that person in that building, >> that's a genuine person.

>> It's not somebody that cares about a paycheck. It's not somebody that's trying to make the numbers. They're even telling you the god honest truth is like those employees at a label that are like that.

>> They're telling you what's happening inside the building to be to be able to arm you better when you're having a conversation with them.

>> They're telling you even like sometimes inner politics so you can avoid the [ __ ] So then you can go and say, "Oh, [ __ ] All right. So, if you're dealing with all that and you're pushing my ad date to radio, then I guess we got to go and take all the money and we could take our own money and we're going to put that record to radio ourselves cuz now I know what's going on in that building.

>> You just did it intuitively.

>> But then if you have somebody the inside man or the inside woman in that building, >> they'll help you.

>> If I was negotiating a record deal now, and let's just say like my artist wasn't that hot and I could just It's just a standard five album deal, right? Let's just say it was standard.

Um,

>> right? I would actually negotiate something into the deal that would work against me.

>> What do you mean?

>> I would say if this is a five album deal, I need a budget for at least 10 mixtapz just so I can pay the producer something. I need a I need a part of the deal that's what I would call the jet ski clause where the album that's a cruise ship. That's big, bulky, slow.

M

>> you want to turn this whole thing is going to be a big bulky process but I also need like a way to move really really fast and I need a little budget for it. I do need a budget but I need my artist to be able to move fast and I need access to that money so we can move as a farm system for your record label. We need to be able to get this thing hot.

>> Yeah.

>> And y'all don't know how to do anything [laughter] >> other than let's cut a check. But I can go hire those same radio promoters.

>> Y

>> we're all hiring the same people.

>> And you also understand marketing better than most.

>> But I need a budget for street team. I need a budget for posters. I need a budget for flyers. Even if it's for a mixtape.

>> Yeah.

>> But I would negotiate in that. And maybe it's not a a mixtape deal, per se, but it it needs to be something. Actually, you know what? what I would do a mixtape because if you just gave a artist and their manager money, they're probably just going to go spend on other stuff. But they need to be spending on putting out a lot of music fast. That's what I would negotiate because if I can get my artist hot, I can have a successful album. But if my first release with a label is an album, [ __ ]

>> I think that's more negotiated against yourself to be honest. The other way that you're talking about is the practical way to be able to make it move in the streets. We got to get the streets back.

>> Yeah.

>> So, yeah.

>> We'll wrap this up soon, but I've been loving this conversation, man. This is a this is a dope one. But go. You going to say something?

No.

>> No. You know what? I do appreciate you, and this is where I think we have um we do have similar backgrounds because we both started as videographers.

>> That's right.

>> You know, were you shooting on the I was shooting on a Panason I borrowed Panasonic DVX 100.

>> Really? I had one of those. I was shooting on Canon GL2.

>> Okay. My boy Chris Strikes. Shout out Chris Strikes. He was

>> the camera was better than one.

>> It was [laughter] Chris would never admit that. He would always argue with me.

>> But but the GL2 was indestructible.

>> It was I mean it was a fire. But it shaped all kind of crazy looking. But yeah, that was that was what 06 0708. Yeah, that's right. But you know, man, like what's crazy to me about that world of somebody who is actually giving all the visuals and especially in that time when the music video or that con even still to this day.

>> Yeah. But, you know, you can use a phone now, create your content at home. Your kid can hold it.

Yep.

>> You know what I'm saying?

>> Um, back in the day, it wasn't so much that. You still needed some equipment, far less than what, you know, film would be in the music video heyday era, Hype Williams, let's say.

>> But it was crazy to me how the folks who were responsible for your visuals and your content would get so mistreated.

M god dog though

>> I bro even when I had the video production company not everybody

>> there was so many times I would always say the [snorts] music video production company is the unwanted stepchild of the music business

>> you don't even have a name they just call you cameraman

>> hey yo camera guy cameraman yo cameraman come over here come shoot this with us

>> it was wild

>> it was wild

>> you know and and

>> but what a freaking gift.

>> I keep going back to that because I learned how not to treat people.

>> You're right. You're right. It was a gift. It was a gift. It was a gift.

>> I'm never going to treat somebody like that. And I'm never going to make them wait for their money.

>> And we're going to treat everybody with respect.

>> I heard you say that. I I do my best. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

>> yeah. There was times when my production company was if I had to have people, everyone always got paid.

Yeah.

>> But in the beginning, it was hard because we had it was a different system in Canada with like certain grants and stuff. You had to wait or you had to pull money out of your pocket. But if you don't have the money at the time, I would have to call my vendors and tell them, "Hey, it's going to take some time, you know, and

>> most people would appreciate that, if not everybody, that you make the call."

Yeah.

>> Right. But everybody always got paid.

>> As we started to get revenue and rolling it, nobody's waiting to get paid. Everybody's getting paid because I also did not like this idea of not even a uh when I'm going to get paid, but if I'm going to get paid. I hated that [ __ ]

Mhm.

>> My first music video shot for somebody. He never paid me.

>> No,

>> never paid me. It's crazy. And and his

>> I'm not even going to say his name, but his name involved the word millions. And his dad's name was involved named bank. [laughter]

>> Okay. Okay.

>> And it's just like money. And I'm just like, where's my

>> You'll get You'll get Yeah. Yeah. I seems like I'm going to get my cash here.

>> But it it's all good, man. But you had but that that skill set that I always thought about for myself that was very unique was that I understood content as a manager.

>> Goodness gracious. It's the greatest gift as a manager to understand how to get somebody seen.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

>> And the right way of uh making them look like a star.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, cuz it's like that's so much of it. If I was a young manager today, I mean, I would be I would be all over

>> how to edit a video.

>> Oh yeah. Like that's that's critical today.

>> Like but I noticed when I was like Soulja Boy's cameraman and at the time of like spitchame.com I would have edit a video one way and it'll get 4,000 views. I would edit it another way. It might get 4 million. Same video. So I learned that like the editing process was the storytelling process.

>> Go ahead.

>> Not so much like what we're filming. Well, we're filming is good, but the editing process is a very like understanding of human psychology process.

>> What was the difference between a 4,000 and a formula? Cuz I would assume today it still applies.

>> Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like no gimmicks at all, but it comes down to did it grab your attention at the beginning? Um, and then like this like this structure to string you along to just want to watch like it just grabbed you

>> and and made you want to watch. And so there's different ways of doing that, but it's not an editing process. I don't want people to get paralyzed by the word editing. No, it's a chop and move process. No editing. Chop and move. Chop and move. Chop and move. Anybody can do that.

Mhm.

>> Somebody uh called me um young man, smart young man, insanely smart. George Peters and he's starting a podcast and he was like, "Do you think I need to edit my own videos?" I said, "Absolutely. Do not have anybody else edit your videos. Not right now." I said, he said, "Why? But I don't know how to edit." I said, "You know how to chop and move." It's like, "You need to learn the art of storytelling." Yeah. in order for this to be insanely viral because somebody's telling you their story. But how they're going to say it probably won't work for short form, will work for long form. It's a podcast.

>> Yeah.

>> So, you need to find a way to make it work for short form. So, you need to learn how to chop. There might be a part 45 minutes in that goes here and then the end needs to pay off. So, you're just chopping and moving, but it told a good story. Like this right here, for example, I'm gonna edit alongside you,

>> right?

>> My most viral clips

>> are the ones I edit for the podcast, not the ones the podcast edited.

>> I've noticed that.

>> So, I just edit them up myself.

>> And then I'll send it to both of us and we'll collab.

>> But it's like how I talk is not traditional,

>> right?

>> I I it's not easy to edit how I talk. Uh-huh.

>> It's easy to listen to if you give me 10 minutes to tell a story, but we're talking about a minute. So, we got to get something interesting as the first couple seconds and then you got to like draw you along and then there needs to be a payoff and like a mic drop moment. And there might have been something I said here and then here. I'm kind of piecing it together, right? But that's not an editing process. That's a chop and move process. So, don't be paralyzed by the thought of editing. It's like here's this thing. Let's chop and move and that's it. I don't do special effects. I don't do all this crazy stuff. My most viral video from a podcast has almost 7 million views. Had no music or no title.

>> What was it?

>> Um, nothing bad has ever happened in my life.

>> Oh, right, right, right, right, right, Yes.

>> So, I posted about a week ago, but it was like, why did that go viral? It didn't have any music. It didn't even have a title. It was just talking. Chop, move, chop, move. You get good at chop and move. Figure out what people like. Study other people. Follow their formula format. Put your words in. Chop move. Chop move. You can be an amazing editor.

>> I use Cap Cut.

>> Yeah.

>> For that.

>> Chop move. Chop move.

>> 7 million views. Wow.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Impressive, man. The entire career, the entire journey, you as a human being. Impressive. I'm I'm like

>> jack the [ __ ] up, man. I'm ready to take over the world. I love the way that you think, bro. It's uh

>> Thank you, man. It's uh it's refreshing in many ways and you've done so I mean we could sit here to talk another three hours to be honest with you of like of your journey and how many other things cuz we didn't even talk about it much but like right now you're just on this nonprofit journey of just giving back and you've had millions donated to your

>> your your organization and you're just constantly helping was it kids with cancer

>> right?

>> Yeah. This is one

>> so I understand why you're not in the music business. You're serving [laughter] a a bigger purpose right now you know.

So,

>> hey man, it's all when I get called to do something

>> like like with the with the with the with the kids with cancer, like I sold my house,

>> I moved into a bus and I started just traveling across the United States helping kids. Like

>> I just I could tell a million stories just about that. And then it's like right now like I I want to write a book.

>> I want to leave this thing on this earth that if I were to pass away, I gave people a flashlight.

Totally.

>> and the greatest flashlight ever, like like the greatest flashlight to navigate through this dark forest. And it's like, I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it in the biggest way I've ever done, bigger than any album, bigger than any marketing I've ever done. I'm going to unleash all the stops.

>> But I mean, you've done it already time and time again with artists for yourself. I mean, you know, again, biggest Nike commercial, biggest ever Super Bowl commercial ad,

>> biggest Nike commercial of all time. So Nike's stock price

>> over the course of a week went up by $8 billion over the course of a year. 40 billion

>> from that ad.

>> Yes.

>> That was named after you.

>> Yes.

>> Oh my god.

>> Like

>> and cuz you shot a you basically shot a a spec.

>> I made a fan-made Nike commercial.

>> Fan Nike commercial

>> because I just needed to I'm delusional.

>> Yeah,

>> I'm delusional. I imagined I'm going to make a fan Nike commercial. Nike's going to see it. Nike is going to want to sign me. I'm gonna be in commercials [snorts] with LeBron and Serena. It's going to be easy. That was my conversations with myself every day.

>> Yeah.

>> And so now you're playing this for the book.

>> Guess what happened?

>> Yeah.

>> It was easy. It was always going to be easy because there was a vision that was planted in me. And that vision means I'm going to be helped. Like it was not me coming up with that. that was like,

>> yeah,

>> a higher power giving me this vision ever since I was a kid.

>> Yeah.

>> So, it's supposed to supposed to happen that way.

>> Um, so now I want to do it with the book.

>> And over the course of my life, I'm 37, I've been able to live a few lifetimes.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and every time I'm called to do something, it's just going to be like another little like trophy on the wall like, "Okay, cool." Like, what's next? You know, I'm curious. Somebody called me the other day and they said, "Charlie, you always seem to be chasing." I said, "Yeah." They're like, "Are you happy?" Say, "Yeah, but you're always chasing. Like, what if you just didn't chase?" I said, "That sounds terrible." He's like, they was like, "Charlie, what do you want?" And I told him an example of something and he didn't understand it. I was in a park, Malibu Creek State Park, and there's somebody who I really look up to, a celebrity who I just think is like one of the coolest people in the world, Justin Bieber. And I'm walking and I've never met Justin Bieber. I'm walking in the park and Justin Bieber walks by like just him and two of his boys

>> and I thought to myself like wow like it's Justin Bieber like that's cool. Like to me like I'm still like a child, right? Like I think that's I just think I just love what he's done. I think he's like awesome.

>> And I was like I'm naturally like a shy person. So, I walked past him and I thought this thought of like, I wonder what it's like having like a Justin Bieber come up to me and say something to me and say, "Man, like your book or your videos or something like it's just like like really like I [ __ ] with that [ __ ] Like that's dope." I was like, "What does that feel like?" Or to even be invited over to his house. And so I'm explaining this to my friend, right, that this is something I want. He's like, that's like your ego. Like you want to like I was like, "No, it's called curiosity.

>> I'm curious.

>> If I have one lifetime, what's everything that I can experience? What's that like

>> to like have somebody you look up to look up to you?" To me, it's not really like ego. It's like I'm curious about what's possible. And so it's like I would love to experience in this one lifetime. I would love to like experience everything I'm curious about and be like, "Oh,

>> oh man." Yeah,

>> that's fun. So I'm just a very curious person. So I chase because my curiosity and that's a really fun way of living life,

>> man. Love it, man. And I'll tell you what, one of the easiest conversations I had on this podcast, man.

>> Really?

>> Yeah. Absolutely. This has been great, man. I appreciate you, bro.