Trapital (Dan Runcie)
Explore every episode of Trapital
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jan 2021 | Master P on Reebok, Ownership, Generational Wealth, and Lessons Learned from Reginald Lewis | 00:47:28 | |
The mogul and hip-hop legend Percy Miller (!!) came on to talk about why he and ex-NBA star Baron Davis want to acquire Reebok. We also talked about his new Master P Reviews channel on YouTube, supporting Black businesses, how his strategy differs from Jay Z and Kanye West, and lessons learned from studying the late Reginald Lewis, the Wall Street banker who started the first Black-owned billion dollar company. If you want to learn it straight from the No Limit Records legend himself, this is the episode for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Master P, @masterp Link:
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 07 Jun 2024 | A24 Wants to Evolve, But Can it Maintain its Brand? | 00:36:39 | |
Let's dive deep into the world of A24, the film studio known for its distinctive approach to storytelling. We explore A24’s journey from a savvy film distributor to a powerhouse production studio with hits like "Moonlight" and "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once." But A24 faces some headwinds: big investments with higher expectations, a string of underperforming releases, and pressure to expand to bigger budget IP. How can the brand known for its mystique be able to maintain its unique positioning? I'm joined by friend of the pod, Dr. Marcus Collins, to break it all down. Make sure you listen for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week! | |||
| 04 Nov 2019 | Shea Serrano on the Economics of Book Publishing, ‘Movies (and Other Things),’ and How DJ Screw Inspired his Promotional Tactics | 00:49:08 | |
Shea Serrano, New York Times bestselling author and staff writer at The Ringer, came on the pod to chat about his strategy for his latest book ‘Movies (And Other Things),’ the pros and cons of selling independently vs. through a publisher, and how the late DJ Screw inspired his promotional tactics. We also talked about Shea's FOH Army fanbase, rappers who fumbled the bag with Fast & Furious franchise, why The Ringer CEO Bill Simmons is the plug, and his Top Five rappers. Don't miss this one. Tune in! Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Shea Serrano, @sheaserrano, sheaserrano.com Links referenced:
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| 08 Jul 2019 | Mathew Knowles on Beyoncé's Streaming Strategy, Solange's Marketing, and Dinner with Jay Z or $50,000 | 00:39:32 | |
Mathew Knowles, founder and CEO of Music World Entertainment came through the Trapital podcast to talk shop on Beyoncé and her streaming strategy with Netflix and Tidal, Solange and BlackPlanet, and the burning internet question: Would you rather have dinner with Jay Z. We also ran through a list of lightning round questions from Trapital members. Check it out! Listen: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | YouTube | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, Trapital Links Discussed:
Stay up to date on Trapital between podcast episodes: https://trapital.co | |||
| 04 Dec 2024 | What is Drake's Goal? | 00:33:28 | |
Aubrey Graham has taken two legal actions against Universal Music Group, Spotify, iHeartMedia, after the success of "Not Like Us." Are Drake's claims of inflated streams and defamation of character valid? Even if they are, what is Drake's end game with all of this? Listen to me and Brian "Z" Zisook, Audiomack co-founder, break it all down. This episode is brought to you by elgato, my go-to for podcasting. | |||
| 01 Apr 2022 | The Broccoli City Music Festival | 00:46:57 | |
Today I’m joined by Brandon McEachern and Marcus Allen, the co-founders of Broccoli City. The music festival makes its return to Washington D.C. on May 7-8 with a stacked lineup that includes Gunna, Summer Walker, Wale, and plenty more stars from the world of hip-hop and R&B. The black-owned promotion had not one, but two events canceled in the past two years. During the forced downtime, festival co-founders Marcus Allen and Brandon McEachern made a conscious decision to not just return for 2022, but come back better than ever. Specifically, the two wanted to leverage the Broccoli City platform to create black change. Since starting in 2013, the festival has always catered to black people first and foremost. But in 2022, it’s aiming to give its fans better resources well beyond the music grounds. The duo is accomplishing that in the form of an expo that’ll feature job/internship opportunities, health/wellness tools, financial support for small businesses, and forums on criminal justice issues, amongst other things. The expo is one component of what the festival organizers are calling BLK Change Weekend. The world and the music festival industry have transformed plenty since Broccoli City’s last show in 2019. However, Brandon and Marcus are not just changing with the times — they’re creating it with new initiatives too. Here’s what we covered in this episode of the Trapital podcast: [0:00] Broccoli City Returns For 2022 [3:10] The Optics Of Bringing Back Broccoli City After Two Years Of Cancellation [6:34] Artists Charging More For One-Off Festival Than Tour Event [12:25] Managing Egos When Creating Festival Flyers [14:31] Changing Nature Of Agents With Talents [19:05] Broccoli City’s Biggest Advantage Over Other Festivals [23:15] Measuring Success For The Festival [25:25] Anticipating Whether An Event Will Succeed Or Won’t [27:15] How Loyal Are Customers To Certain Festivals? [29:01] Ongoing Challenges Of Being Black Execs In Music Festival Scene [31:15] Influence Of The Live Nation Partnership [34:47] Lining Up The Festival With BLK Change Weekend [41:39] What’s In Store For The 2022 Event? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Marcus Allen, Brandon McEachern
This week’s sponsor is 1-800-NUMBER, a creative agency that produces iconic moments for brand and artists. The studio has collaborated with Lil' Uzi Vert, Future, Isaiah Rashad, 24KGoldn, Nike, Sony, Universal Music Group, TDE, and more. Want to hear how 1-800-NUMBER can help your next project? Book a free 30-min intro chat.
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. ______ Transcription Marcus Allen 00:00 Ain't no better feeling to know coming into the event is going down like that, feeling that morning. Those mornings be like the best mornings because you really, there's two times it's the day you drop in in the morning of the festival that is just there's nothing like those two days coming into that time, and those are moments that you really appreciate and you cherish and we've had mornings that have felt good like that. And we may have some mornings and then feel bad because we always walked into the festival that morning, knowing it was about to be a win. Dan Runcie 00:40 Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Brandon McKay Hearn and Marcus Allen. They're the founders of Broccoli City. It's a two-day music festival that's based in DC that has headliners, Annie Lenox, Summer Walker, they have Lil Durk, Gunna, and great lineup of some of the biggest names in hip hop and R&B. This festival is focused on celebrating Black culture more broadly with the entire weekend they have planned with the BLK change weekend, they have a 5K. And they have other community events that really speak to maybe the topics that be branded and Mark is talking about on this episode, we talk about what it was like for them to get this festival off the ground, given some of the challenges the past two years and how COVID set them back. We also talked about some of the challenges dealing with particular artists. Some of you may remember, there was a pretty public complaint from Wale. He was one of the artists that was frustrated, but they were able to navigate some things with him. So we talked about what it's like dealing with artists, some of their pushback, but also we talked a little bit about the broader Asia landscape. If you've been following Trapital, you know, I've talked about examples of the NBA, where you have an agent like a Rich Paul and Klutch Sports and the influence that they've had making things happen for their stars, while the same thing happens in the music industry with some of these powerful agents that are trying to convince themselves and others that their stars deserve to have headlining spots everywhere. So we talked a little bit about that. We also talked about what it's like for black music festival promoters, and how they are not just pushing this, but also some of the challenges they may have in this industry. We also talked about some of the other economics some of the decisions and what Brandon and Marcus are most excited for and how all that stays afloat. If you are interested at all in the music festival space, what it takes to put one on this is definitely the conversation for you. It was a great chat, it was great to reconnect with them both. Here's my chat with Brandon and Marcus. All right, we got Brandon, Marcus co-founders of broccoli city, y'all are back. COVID set y'all back for a couple of years via y'all like “Nah, we're gonna be here. We're gonna make this happen.” So how does it feel? Brandon McEachern 03:10 Man, it feels good. It feels good to be back. Happy that the world is opening up. You know, for a minute, dead. Damn, we thought that we was gonna be able to come back for 2021. But you know, COVID and the variant had a different plan in mind. You know what I mean? So, so that's what we're happy. We're back this year, though. 2020 to two days. You know, we outside so it's a good look. Dan Runcie 03:32 Yeah, I mean, I feel like it must have been stressful because 2021, once everyone got vaccinated, I'm sure you probably thought the rest of the year was green light, right? Go Let's go. But no, Mari I came through with that touch. Brandon McEachern 03:46 And a couple other festivals got off. You know what I mean? So that was the thing to kind of had to like, dang, you know, like Lollapalooza, the biggest festival, one of the best festivals out, shout out to them. They actually, “Oh, rolling loud.” Got to do this. Shout out to Matt Tyree like saying, “Yeah, we just got the short end of the stick on that side. But it's all good.” Marcus Allen 04:04 Yeah, I mean, I think the other part too, is is that of the festivals that got off, we were the only ones that was focusing in on people of color, right? And so there was a certain optic that was in the air that was like, as our people was the most effective. It was a decision like, you know, do we put all of our people in jeopardy, right? Do we create a big spreader event? And will the world accept this having a big spreader of like, how he makes up somebody else? And like Brandon and I've just decided it just weren't worth it. It wasn't worth the risk on anybody's part. Dan Runcie 04:33 So walk me through the steps of being able to put this back on right because I'm sure some of those same questions you're talking about Marcus some of that trade off? Are people going to be comfortable if there's a super spreader event when we're putting this on? What was that decision process like? Brandon McEachern 04:47 Man so um, I think it number one it was we decided we're gonna push through like we came in at ‘22 saying it's gonna take the world to pretty much be shut down for us not to come back right so I think that was number one. We got on the same page with our partners at Live Nation just in terms of what their plan was for COVID one to 22. And once they gave us the “Hey, listen, we're all full steam ahead. We support and you guys fully. We were locked in.” Brandon, everybody affiliated and connected says Book and talent started booking talent. Man probably back in what November. And it took probably longer than it ever took us to book talent because so many shows were rescheduled for 22. So many people wanted to get back on tour, venues were booked and double booked. And so this year was everything about this year was very much different than what we ever ever had. Dan Runcie 05:41 And on the side of trying to put the talent you mentioned, it took much longer than ever, what were some of those conversations, like, because I'm sure you had interest but was there more hesitancy because of their own discomfort about COVID or was it just their own uncertainty about their schedules? What was that like? Brandon McEachern 05:58 I think that the COVID, the COVID side of it wasn't necessarily the conversation. It was more so the busy runway, like everybody knew that everybody was coming back. So you may want to book artists, but they got to a four or five-city tour that they're trying to push out, you know what I mean? So at the time, they not necessarily thinking about a festival, they trying to do their own, you know, single tour, so it was just having those conversations with agents. And obviously management as well say, hey, you know, this could be a part of your tour day, or whatever the case may be, but I think it was yet again, it really was just a runway, it was just so packed. It was so bad. Dan Runcie 06:34 That makes sense. And I'm curious, what was it like from the price perspective? Because when you're dealing with agents when you're dealing with folks, whether it's the artist or even the venue's like where people item or what was there where they try to be like Fat Joe with the yesterday's price is not today's price. Brandon McEachern 06:50 Yesterday's price, today's price you got to meet. So I don't know if everybody was just trying to get a bread back from what they had last previously. You don't I mean, those years that we were all, but yeah, prices have definitely went up like the game is crazy, especially when you say that F word. You know, I mean, as soon as you say festival, it changes the dichotomy of the other conversation you didn't mean. Marcus Allen 07:11 Agents was talking about inflation is like what was inflated in the price of people themselves? Like what I don't get, how could there be inflation connected with booking talent? Brandon McEachern 07:20 You know, is it true? Is it true? You know, that's the cost of playdough, D. That's what you got to do. You know what I mean? That's the cost to play in this game. You know what I'm saying? It's a big cost to so tell my young festival people about to get into this festival game. Just know, these cats is crazy out here. Dan Runcie 07:36 You can you talk a bit more about that PC mention where once you make good Festival, the prices go up, or people's eyes light up, you're freaked out, like why is that? And how much higher are we talking? Brandon McEachern 07:48 Yeah. Now granted, all this stuff has happened like pre-Marcus and Brandon, right? Like we are, I would say we were Allen Iverson before he got into organized ball. You know what I mean? Like, that was us for the longest time. We were independent. I mean, we actually still kind of are independent. But a club show that's different than you know, than a festival day. You know what I mean? A one-off is different yet again, from a festival date. Because I think personally, they start looking at your pockets too. Marcus Allen 08:16 Well, you know, what it is, is the most festivals, in a lot of cases, while there is a capacity, once you reach capacity, that number’s so big. That is crazy, right? So they're thinking about hard cap. So you go play a film, or I can say specifically, we're going to sell 1,500 tickets. When you’re in a festival ground, that's 100,000 square feet, I might be able to sell 20,000 I might be able to sell 50,000 So they plan for that margin, is he gonna sell 20? Or is he gonna sell 50 they trying to get money like you're gonna pay for 50? You know, I'm saying even if you know, you only got to sell to 20. But they ain't trying to hear that. Dan Runcie 08:52 That's real. Because even some of these tours that take place in a theaters or outside venues, there's still a capacity there. But I think people see the flexibility there. But then people obviously see when there's too much flexibility. And there's there could be logistical issues and things like that. The other piece that is a factor of festivals that I would assume is probably part of it, too, is because it's more of a one-off event as opposed to touring. People want to up the price for that event, right. It's almost like paying someone a per diem rate even though that per diem rate would never be their salary for if you normalize it out over a set period, right? Brandon McEachern 09:29 I like the way you broke that down, D. Yeah, yeah, we get and they are, they're in demand. So they can say what I mean, if you got a good album, if you pop in, you can kind of say whatever, you know, and to be honest, a lot of promoters have paid these artists that hefty hefty bag. So they like yo I'm not going back regardless of what your festival may mean to the community or whatever the case may be, you know, so get again you get you got to pay to play. Marcus Allen 09:56 And then the other part of that too is is that in the festival scene is so competitive with the big boys, that they need certain names to be able to headline those festivals. And so they really created a housing bubble. That's really what we end right now. Right? There's literally a bubble. And for only way for it to burst is that as a collective, the Live Nations, the AGs, they got to just simply say to the agents, nah, we not paying it no more, but they keep paying it. They keep paying it. Every time when an agent come with a wild number, somebody is paying it. So it's really in the body… Brandon McEachern 10:34 you make this clear that we're not anti paying people what they were, you know, I mean, let me just say that right now. Like, it's all good, we get it, you know what I mean? Your talents that God gave you that gift, you know, I just got through listening to you, whatever the case may be, I know what this money is doing for your family. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, a lot of these artists are getting a lot of a bread from shows, you know, me, I don't know what the streaming stuff is, and all that. But we do understand that these festivals are a bulk of a lot of these artists’ income or whatever the case may be. So we definitely adhere to that. And we pay all of our artists very well. You know what I mean? I don't think nobody would say Oh, broccoli city shortchanged us or anything of that nature, never at all. Never. Dan Runcie 11:16 That housing market analogy, I think makes perfect sense, right? Because we're seated now across the America, you have people with well-paying jobs do their thing. And then someone else giving out $100,000 above asking price cash off to go buy… Brandon McEachern 11:30 you in the bay, you know what it is? Dan Runcie 11:32 Exactly, exactly. And it's like, I'm sure you probably see that well, where it's like, even if you may not think and artists market rate, is it more than what you're willing to give? Not like you said not they're trying to shortchange everyone, but there's a market for everyone, for sure. But then, if another festival just is willing to put everything behind it, that is the market and then it's like, alright, well, you know, even if I may not agree with where that is, someone is willing to pay that price. So it does reset things. So I'm sure that's probably difficult to some perspective to deal with. But I think another thing too, and maybe part of this is navigating artist’ emotions, or artist feelings is Ivan here. And more recently, there's some artists that have started to complain about how be their David's on that music festival poster or what font size they have and stuff like that. How much do y'all deal with that? Or how much did you deal with that either past years, or this year was brought. Brandon McEachern 12:25 Man, we've actually never dealt with it before until this year, who dealt with it with somebody and much respect to that somebody as well. But you know, honestly, and it's funny, because he had, again, these conversations weren't had as much as they were had this year, just in terms of the billing placement. And I don't know yet again, if that was something that happened during COVID. And folks was like, hey, you know, when I come back into this game, I want to make sure my joint is bigger than everybody's name, whatever the case may be. But it's actually something that's done when we put the offer out, and we're going back and forth with the agent, you know, they'll say things or management, they'll say, you know, top-line billing or, you know, I mean, like, they'll make it a conversation piece, you know, and usually, we match our eye on that. And it's not a problem that then sometimes the artists may not have been in communication with the management or the agent, and then certain things happen. And I don't know, Dan, if you could put a clip up of what we talked about. Yeah, you know, saying, but definitely, to that tea. Dan Runcie 13:25 Yeah. And I think on that front, you know, I know you're not trying to put anybody on blast by any means. But I'm curious, though, is there some type of trade-off there where there's an artist that is frustrated about something, they're not communicating to you? They just want to put it out on Twitter, and then all of the blog aggregators that say, oh, you know, so and so is upset with Broccoli City, on one hand, it may be a negative thing, but on the other hand, now, you'll have a bunch of press out there. It's like, oh, yeah, well, Broccoli City's back this year, let me go check that out. What was that? Like? Did you notice a bump in sales after that. Brandon McEachern 13:59 Sales, to be honest with you, the sales is already in a very good place. But just in terms of the attention to your point, we definitely got a lot of tension off that. And it became a conversation outside of just our particular event, which I thought was super dope did at least cause conversation between folks in the industry is that to the third, and I think I could have swore I seen somebody else actually just do this. Like yesterday, a particular artist just got mad, I think at Lollapalooza, something about something. So yeah, I mean, they're becoming really vocal about it. But we respect this. Marcus Allen 14:31 The other thing too, Dan B's has a more personal connection with the agents, right. So just as an outside person, to my degree, right, because I don't really talk to him, but I get firsthand information. I see the emails, a part of it, I believe, is agents positioning themselves because the industry is changing. Right? COVID really made artists readdress how to teams in their business restructure right. You sit down, you've been paying people all this money, you had two years off a year and a half off, you now get a chance to really look at your books, you now get a chance to think about what are you paying people? What are they doing to be paid? And so I believe that folks tightened up their teams, which made a lot of agents on the outside. So obviously, cream rises, right. So the best agents are gonna still be the best agents, but they have to still show value, right? And we may all everybody may be still paying you agents gonna get you your fee, for the most part. So if you get in 100,000, you get 100,000. But if I'm an agent, and I say to you, Dan, listen, I'm gonna get you your bag. But I'm gonna also make sure you get topline billing on every festival. Now, you might know in your heart, hey, no topline billing. But if an agent tell me I can get you top line billing, and 200,000, who you gonna go with? That's the new game, right? It's about the value proposition of what the business is around these artists and how they're thinking about it and the value proposition of each part of their business. You know, I mean, what's the role of everybody? What are you bringing to the table for this fee? I'm paying you. Dan Runcie 16:13 So this is fascinating, but it's not surprising. And I say that because I think about what we see in the NBA, right? There's been plenty polarizing opinions about the impact of Rich Paul and what he's been doing with Klutch Sports. And you can literally insert Ben Simmons in the example that you just brought up, right. But the NBA is a bit more transparent about these things. People either love or hate what Rich Paul is doing. And it's been very actively talked about. I don't know if people outside of the industry music know that dynamic as much with regards to people in music, like who the agent is, that is the equivalent of the Rich Paul or the Klutch Sports in that way, where the client goes there because the client is like, hey, my way or the highway, we are getting you to the Los Angeles Lakers. Watch me do this, right, like, but I'm sure that even though those things aren't public, that's the kind of shit that y'all handling. Yeah, on that front with the headliner piece. You talked about that as well. I know that you've had different headliners each year. But is that something where that does become at least a conversation where let's say you are dealing with a agent who had promised this to their artists, but you're like, hey, we either don't want to have that person as the headliner, or B, we already have it set. Does that, do those conversations stop? Is there continued negotiation there at least for you all, what is that piece of it been like? Brandon McEachern 17:42 Usually Dan, if a person is a headliner, we want them as a headliner, like everybody know that they gonna be the headliner, you know, what I'm saying? Now, I will say for this year, was a little different, because we went the route of having two black women, headliners and Annie Lennox, and Summer Walker issue that we had with a particular somebody, it was a matter of who was more important in a particular area, particular city. It was longevity versus right now impact, right? He's like that kind of deal. You know, I mean, it's like I've been running this race longer. But in the short term, you're bigger. Dan Runcie 18:19 Right. And I mentioned that piece is probably interesting, too. I know conversations we've had offline about this, just given that you are very much wanting to have and celebrate an event that is pushing or promoting black music for black people, and that it doesn't necessarily always 100% line up with festivals that are hip hop festivals that may be happening, although the artists themselves may be black. They aren't necessarily selling or having guests there, or attendees who are black. I think we've seen plenty of examples of that. How does that dynamic and curation shape not just who you reach out to for headliners and others, but also how you think that shapes the makeup and the target audience for the festival? Brandon McEachern 19:05 I mean, I think that I think we don't necessarily go for what's trendy, if that makes sense in terms on the booking side, because we actually do, we do know the culture, right? So if you look at Broccoli sitting in 2016, you know, we had Anderson Paak, you know what I mean? Like if you look at what was that March 2015. You know, we had Kaytranada you know what I mean? And this is yet again years before they become who they become because one of the things that we try to make sure that we do is we listen to the streets, listen to Little Sisters, listen to nieces, listen to… Marcus Allen 19:38 Even better, go look at the 2020 Grammys, and then go look at the 2020 Brockton city festival lineup that got canceled. Brandon McEachern 19:46 Yeah, you know, LS who does a cat was you know what I mean? We are a new dozer was and then as soon as I'm not gonna say as soon as we booked her, but you know, everybody's starting to see her value. But we saw that way back I heard the streets Definitely like our rules. I knew what time it was with that young lady. And I think that that's one of the things that broccoli city does a hell of a job at, you know, is just really listening and finding that talent early and being able to give them a shot before everybody kind of hops on the bandwagon of that particular person. Dan Runcie 20:17 So that piece there listening, finding the talent and having a year before the mainstream does, how was that piece of change? Because, you know, y'all been doing this for a few years now. In 2015 16, there was no Tiktok, and there wasn't some of these other things, but how has that played a factor in what you're noticing or what you're trying to pick up on where things are heading? Brandon McEachern 20:38 I think it's still the same. I think it's still listening to the youth, you know what I mean? And we do know, when Tiktoks on that, you know, hours and hours and all that and we got money, you know, but he's at the festival. So I think it's just different avenues. At one point, it was all SoundCloud. You know what I mean? And that was kind of like your avenue to the music. So I think it's really just kind of just staying above and making sure that you got an ear to the streets and and not thinking that you know, at all, I think sometimes we get in a space where we think like, oh, we know this, that to the third like no, there's a 13, 14, 15, 16 year old, that's way cooler than you. And that's what you need to be listed. Marcus Allen 21:14 I think also to some of it is time into right, because this is one thing to know the right artists, but if you book them off-season, you hustling backwards, right? So like in this example, we booked a lineup in 28, I guess in November, but we got Durk. Durk was out cycle in 2020. But right i mean 2021. But right now, he's crazy. It looked we looked crazy. I was on a call listening to be talked to somebody and they asked him be How did you know? How did you know it was Durk? Because if you look at the festivals Durk do we know only festival that marks a major name right? And so we look be looking like, you know, like he like he perfect for dictate the future. But it was really just understanding that he was coming. Right and just believing that Durk is a strong artist, and he's coming. Dan Runcie 22:02 Yeah, I think so much of that insight is key, right? That is your job. At the end of the day, you're trying to have these you want to create the memories for fans to be like, oh, yeah, remember, they were on Durk early, we have that. Because then that obviously builds audience and the people that come back year after year after year on that front. And that is something that I've begun to, especially with a festival like yours. Do you have stats or anything on how many of the people are repeat purchasers or the folks that come back as opposed to be able to try to bring the new audience in? And what is that? What are those two groups look like? Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Marcus Allen 22:41 We got a super high super high turnover rate. And I will say not only the super high turnover rate of people who attend the one tear connection to people who went right. So like, Oh, I saw my cousin went two years ago. Now I want to go right. And so I think it's very close to that as well. Like, it's almost like I wasn't ready for it three years ago. Now. I'm ready right now I get it. Dan Runcie 23:03 Right. That makes sense. That makes sense. And for both y'all. What does success look like? So when you're looking back after the festival, of course, there's things like tickets and revenue, but from a high level, what does success look like? Brandon McEachern 23:15 I mean, for me and get again, Marcus, I probably have a different answer because I connect to the world a little different than he does. But for me, it's the stories. It's the stories, obviously, bottom line stuff, right, we'll make sure we hit on my bottom line and chip was good financially, but it's the stories man, like when I hear the stories of be me and my home girl was out there. And did it look like to me that or another thing that is artists having a good time, too. You know what I mean? Like going back to Anderson Paak story, Fox story, I remember him saying that this was the first time he performed in front of this many black people, you know what I mean? Which I thought was crazy and dope at the same time. So it was those type of things for me, they've really claim success on myself. Marcus Allen 23:57 And I love markets. Brandon McEachern 23:59 Now, I mean, it ain't no better feeling like the money always got to be right. Let's just be clear, right? Like, I mean, that's what we're here for Dan, we're here to make money. But it ain't no better feeling to know, coming into the event is going down like that feeling that morning. Those mornings be like the best mornings because you really, there's two times it's the day you drop it in the morning of the festival. That is just there's nothing like those two days coming into that time. And those are moments that you really appreciate and you cherish and we've had mornings that have felt good like that. And we have some mornings that and feel bad because we always walked into the festival that morning, knowing it was about to be a win. So when you know it's gonna be a win, you really, really appreciate that you really appreciate it. And then once everybody get home safely, and you get back to that hotel, you can look at your partner in the eye and be like, Yeah, that's a great feeling, man. That's it is a great show. Dan Runcie 24:58 That's special. I hear that. Can you talk more about that, actually. So those mornings that for past festivals where maybe you woke up and you weren't sure how it was going to go where you had less certainty? What was it about the planning or leading up to it that made you feel that? And then on the flip side, what is it about those festivals where you're like, Yes, this is going to be the best one yet? What was it about that feeling the morning that made you have that memory. Marcus Allen 25:25 So this is wild, Dan, because, and Brandon, you might even feel differently about this. But after doing it for enough years, either the people want it or they don't, there's not much that you can do to market it to a sellout. You can make sure it stays in front of people, but when they want it, and if they don't, they don't. And so you spend four months, five months, just talking about what the flyer gonna look like the names gonna be on it. So it's like somebody dropping an album, you know, I'm saying and cats ain't messing with it. That's like, it's hard to accept it. Because you don't like so and slow and slow and slow. Just kidding me, right? And you like, man, we go put these marketing plans together, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. But then you get to the point where you realize they just ain't messing with it. They just ain't messing with it. And so it's like, you know, when you see somebody drop an album, they sell 100,000, the first week, and the second week, they sold 5,000 10,000. Because that nobody wanted to tell nobody, people wasn't talking about it. And so it just dies off. Dan Runcie 26:25 Hmm, that makes sense. Brandon, anything you want to add? Brandon McEachern 26:28 No, I think he hit it right on the head. You gotta mean like, you put a lot of time and effort in this thing. But they don't want it. They don't want it. You got to eat that. You got to eat. Dan Runcie 26:39 it's fascinating. Because obviously, so much of that is dependent on the line of that you have and how people are feeling about the lineup. And I'm sure this affects every festival people buy tickets because they want to see them. But I'm sure you probably have people that will go to Broccoli City regardless because they just enjoy the vibe of it. And in your opinion, do you think any festival in the country has that benefit where it is if they have whoever is the headliner, just because it's that name? And just because it's that vibe, they will have a dedicated audience or do you think this is something that every festival promoter has to navigate? Brandon McEachern 27:15 I mean, I personally think that there are some festivals out there that just have that right like yet again, the Lollapalooza the world, possibly even like the bottle rocks, you know what I'm saying? Like, and if you notice, I'm not naming any, any urban land festivals, you don't say black land festivals, I would love to see more of that within our communities, in all honesty, like, you know, just kind of loyal to the work that you know, your people are putting in to kind of put something together but you know, that's you just cry. You know, I mean, you preaching to the choir at that point. Right. So it is what it is. But I do think that there are some staple brands, like I said, the Lollapalooza of the world, BottleRock, Marc, I'm pretty sure you got some. Marcus Allen 27:54 Maybe in terms of black maybe, Only Essence. Oh, yeah, that's for sure. I think it's probably Only Essence that I would say from a black perspective, actually has real draw. Brandon McEachern 28:05 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's something that we working on, right. Like you want to keep giving people you know, it's like, man, we've been doing this for 10 years. Are you gonna trust us? At some point? You know what I mean? So, yeah, but it's just an interesting thing, Dan, just in terms of the urban saw. Dan Runcie 28:18 Yeah, definitely. I feel like essence definitely has that annual Black homecoming vibe to it, that makes it the search for the draw it is. And I think for you, what a lot of your peers who are also black festival promoters in urban music are also in that same boat wanting to build that up as well. And, Brad, I know, we talked a little bit about this, but what has it been like from your perspective? Because obviously, you see that so much of the music from this community is what is making these festivals that money, but you as a both the all as black promoters in this space are likely still experiencing challenges pushing so much of this even though it is your music that is making this entire ecosystem what it is, Brandon McEachern 29:01 Yeah, no, I mean, it's really just a trip. And at the end of the day, you know, shout out to folks like you, right, that give us somewhat of a platform to kind of, you know, just speak so people just kind of know what we got, I don't even think that people leaving, they don't even think about it, you know, like, maybe those who are in kind of a creative space. Think about it, but I know there's been people who have, you know, man talk shit to me or something at some point, right? But then they start planning something big, and they'll text me like, you know what, be my bad bro. My bad man cuz now I see what you were going through. When I thought that it was just kind of a walleye kind of thing. You know what I'm saying? But it takes a lot of hard work. And it's interesting yet again, going back to dealing with agents from our side on the urban side, and how they may treat me versus how they may treat you know, Jordan and those folks from governors ball you don't I mean, like the tone of the voice. You know, we talked about this a little bit earlier. They're not saying they talk to you crazy, but I don't have some wild conversations with some of these agents. You got to me even going back to the artists, right, and our particular artists that we were speaking of my question is, I wonder what the comrade, I wonder, would he have done that on another festival? You get what I'm saying? Do you feel like you can do that? Because we're so close in terms of camaraderie. It's like, you know how your friends treat you versus somebody who don't know you treat you if that makes sense. Dan Runcie 30:24 It's a fair question, right? Like, because I'm sure you probably wondered, oh, would they have done that if it was Coachella, one and two, how would people respond? If they were trying to say something about? Yeah, on festival like Coachella, Brandon McEachern 30:39 It may be as forgiving. I suppose you know what I mean? Or try to get to the bottom of the issue or just snip you. You know, I think we saw that last year, or the year before last with artists saying a certain thing and every festival followed suit, and snip snip, Dan Runcie 30:54 right. It doesn't take much for Word to travel and people to just see how the dynamic is. I know one of the changes for you over the years with this festival has been the partnership with Live Nation urban and what you've been able to do with them. How has it been working with them? And what influence have they had for you all in the more recent years with the festival? Brandon McEachern 31:13 More, more, want to take that? Marcus Allen 31:15 Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the number one thing that they've been able to do is take some of the financial risk off of Brandon and I to be able to operate the festival in much more of a business and not a annual, write with every year, we got to figure out how to get back in position to raise capital to find an investor to you know, me, it's just like a consistent cycle. You can't grow a brand, having to do that every single year, because you're starting from scratch every time. Right. And when you're doing that one loss is devastated. You know, me as devastated and as independent. Where, I mean, you think they think they've been in a Lollapalooza been going on for 25, 40, 30 years, you know, I mean, you think they don't want every year, you know, I'm saying like, it's an ebb and flow, like you're gonna lose some years. And so that's what Live Nation gives you the ability to do is have some years to just be normal, right? And not make $2 million at the gate, right? Like, just be normal. Like, yo, we lost money this time. Alright, we're gonna be back next year, and we know we gonna be back. So that's huge. Brandon McEachern 32:21 And I would say, you know, shout out to our partner, Shan Ji, who is, you know, who's been in the game, you know what I mean? And it's rare that you meet, you know, other people that's been through what you've been through, you know, what I mean? So just big shout out to him and his vision and everything that he's built… Marcus Allen 32:35 And let us working to. He lay his work, yeah, let me let us work he don't play to you know, micromanage, he let us work. He wants to see stuff when it goes out. He want to make sure he got some merch, you know, I mean, he want to know who the lineup is he want to help add value in terms of setting the right talent, you know, I mean, he want to make it easy for us, and use his experience, you know, to make it easier for us, you know, as we navigate through this whole thing, Brandon McEachern 32:59 on top of relationships as well, because yet again, this industry is superduper small and like a Dan, right? Like, we know, Dan already from from from back in the day a little bit, even though it was like a year, and I'm trying to go but just imagine Sean and the relationships that he built over the years and to be able to introduce markets into markets and nine to different folds that, you know, makes sense that he has, you know, strong relationships with and then us doing the same, because his folks on the street is different events that he don't know about that maybe we introduced him to. So it's been a fantastic relationship. Dan Runcie 33:31 Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because at the end of the day, most festivals, even the ones that are household names today lose money in the first few years. So when you're starting from scratch, so much of it depends on who you could get money from investors, how you can get secured, you know, deals in place for all of these things. And unfortunately, it can be harder for folks that look like you to be able to do that here and in this country, right. So when you look at that being able to have the support of a company that has gone through to the fact that they have a division geared towards this, the partnership makes perfect sense. It gives you all the room to do what you could do to build this up, because you know that something is here. And I think that if we just let's say it like it wasn't there, if we just let the festivals that can maintain get to where they are, then there's so much left as an opportunity or not even as an opportunity. There's so much left that isn't given the opportunity because of that. So it's one of those partnerships that I do think makes a ton of sense, at least from the outside for my perspective. Marcus Allen 34:31 for sure. So shout out to Ellen, you for sure. Yeah. Dan Runcie 34:35 The other thing too, with this year, you lined it up with the blockchain, we get that I know that was part of the promotional push for this. How has that shaped your event planning and what you hope is in store for this weekend? Brandon McEachern 34:47 Yeah, I mean, we're kind of we've always kind of been on that. Right, Dan? So when we talk about when we talk about broccoli city as a whole, right, you know, to say that broccoli City is a music festival. It's kind of disrespectful, right? When you think about Everything that we have done leading up into this point like in 2017, US launching, you know, Broccoli cod, you know, like, I don't know, any other festivals that you can go to that you have a networking opportunity, a chance to maybe hear a Dan talk or hear Bosman St. John talk, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, no other festivals with that. And if I do, I know them after we started the whole conference outlook, right? And then when you think about a 5k, ruin, right, like, I don't know, any other festivals that's doing 5k. But I think they are something to do do that stuff now. But yet again, it was always a black chain weekend, we think about it, you know what I mean? And yet again, I know that we're one of the only festivals if you think about on a wide scale of them all that gears, the talent, gears, the experience, the host, the music, the all that geared with African Americans, black people of color in mind, first, you know what I'm saying? Like, our people aren't the afterthought, which I think is some of these other events. We may be the afterthought, you know, So yet again, with Blackshades weekend, and really just kind of putting that word out there, it really hasn't changed much of what we already have been doing. And honestly, I think it was important for us to put a name to it, though. So I'm glad that you mentioned that, Dan. And Marc, I don't know if you have any statements on that, please. Marcus Allen 36:15 Yeah. Now just gonna say that it was important for us to say what it is right, like coming out of COVID, we made a conscious decision that we wanted to use our platform that are right. And at the core, what that meant was we wanted to create black change for black folks. We knew we had corporate partners, we knew we had different folks who've been looking to touch this demo with our sponsorship and partners have always been strong. But now it was time to say like, alright, well, you've been cutting broccoli city a check, how can we do a better job of providing resources opportunities to these attendees? Oh, you want a better platform to do? So you need an expo? Okay, we're going to add an expo to the conference. You know, I mean, like, Oh, you want to talk about health and wellness? Okay, we're gonna add another component to the five cake. Right. So I think, for us, it was always there. But we needed to be attentional going in between to about that. Brandon McEachern 37:09 And to add on the Marcus's point, Dan, not afraid to say black, right. Like, I think a lot of us get to a certain level. And I even said it earlier, right? Like POC like people of color, like, you know, I mean, which is cool, don't get me wrong. But Marcus and I wasn't afraid to say Yo, we really want to do this for black folks. And I don't think it's nothing wrong with that at all. You know what I mean? Like there are specific festivals that may be geared toward the Hispanic consumer, which is completely fine. I don't mean, you'll see no black person there. Marcus Allen 37:37 But I think the key about black the conversation around black chains is that for black chains to happen, it takes more than black people. Right? So let's be clear, right, like black chains happens internally with black people. But you need some white folks, some Spanish folks, some Asian folks to participate right? In some change happening. So this isn't necessarily just a black event. It's just that we focus in on creating change for black people. Dan Runcie 38:03 That's an important distinction. And I think that to your point, right, there is a great opportunity to celebrate this and not be afraid to call it what it is and have that there are many festivals that hit different groups for that reason, but the fact that you all know your audience know the opportunity you're going to create and in the region that you're doing it it makes perfect sense. Marcus Allen 38:23 Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what to think on that even if we check out if everybody checks out the quest love documentary to summer soul, and you know what I mean? Everybody didn't get us on that. But it's like, Yo, this shit going on right now too. So, come to broccoli city is see somewhere solid? Actually, there's well, you know, Dan Runcie 38:41 exactly, exactly. Alright, well, before we let you go for the listeners, give us a sense of how you're feeling now going into it. Of course the festivals coming up and you talked a little bit about some of those years. You're feeling good some of those years you're not How are you feeling right now? Brandon McEachern 38:57 feel great. I feel good. You know, say I'm pretty sure Marcus feels great too. I mean, it's lit up you know, I mean, everything from whiz kid to summer Walker to Tim's to Rico nasty to Young Jeezy to snow man like Don Oliver, like what the fuck are we talking about? You know what I mean? Like is split up 2121 dirt? I mean, come on mate, Gunner like come on man. And on top of that, there's so many things going on that weekend black chains weekend and it's in DC I'm feeling Mac you know what I mean? Like it's phenomenal. So I'm super excited. I don't know Mark got anything to add. Marcus Allen 39:31 I feel super excited. It's funny because not that BS job is done. But the bulk of his core ship is on the front end. So now like he like do my job you know me, “What's up now” like so now it's like I'm all back to back production calls experience call venue calls and so speak. Brandon McEachern 39:52 On that though it, me and Marc have had this conversation. It's one of the things that I respect about my partner so much is that Marc hates it when we go somewhere. We're at an event No, like, Oh, this is okay for black of it. You know what I mean? Like, and I love for you to just speak on how you trying to heighten our experience and how you know me, like how you heighten the experience. He's already heightened experience for other LNU properties as well. Marcus Allen 40:14 Honestly, Dan made me you know what it is right? We met at probably one of the most immaculate fundraisers of person could go to, right? Like, let's be honest, right? Like, we saw some stuff right there front of us that was like, Oh, is this happening in real life, like, I gotta go back and watch the video to confirm, I'm watching this with my own eyes. And at the end of the day, like, there's a stigma out there that if you just have the talent, that's enough, and in a love, Coachella spin to $10 million little art, that's more than that's more than festivals hold talent budgets. But that's why to our conversation earlier, why they dropped that lineup with no names, and it'd be sold out. Because people know that there's an experience value associated with that brand. And a lot of our people aren't willing to invest that $10 million, because it may not come back to you year one, that's an amortized cost over 10 years, for you to see that value in that art to spending. And so I think that's what we're getting into now. Right. And that's what the partner show ln gives us the ability to do is to go spend big money on experience, right? And push partners to say, like, “Nah, you can't do that little 10 by 10 Cent,” na, na, if you want to be on site with us, you got to step it up. You got to get your agency's up, like you got to get it right. Brandon McEachern 41:39 And we want to give that experience to our people. Yet again, if this is Black change weekend, it needs to be beautiful. We aren't a culture, we you know what I mean? So even if there's any sponsors, listen to this, any, you know what I mean? Like, get at us. So we can make this experience great, because these are the same people that make your products what it is, these are the same people that make whatever artist that is on top. It was Sinead good to Nika and Rahim that made that artists pot, period, period, you know what I mean? And those are the folks that go to broccoli city, you know what I mean? Even if we talk about ticket prices and things of that nature, Dan, like, come on, bro. We give him folks. 10, 12 phenomenal acts, and our prices ain't nowhere near anyway, I don't even want to get there. That's a whole nother conversation. And we've done that by choice because we want to make sure that we give our people the experience. I had a girl tell me one time, the, I never been to Disney World. But I've been to Broccoli City, though. And I appreciate you for that. You know what I mean? Because we the only festival that maybe she can afford, you know, so I don't know is this such a bigger conversation than what we can do in this 30 to 40 minutes, but it's a real thing. And yet again, I just commend I commend my partner Republican in front of the whole whoever listening, you know, to me for really sticking on that shit, like, not be like, we got to make sure this shit right, bro. And I respect that wholeheartedly because anybody can book artists, if you got the bread, you can go out there and get them. That's fine. You know, now I do hop through hoops to sit and do what I do, you know, I mean, to give myself a pat on the shoulder. But factors, in what way in terms of what we try to do for this experiences is key. And we just want our people to have a magnificent time. So anyway, shout out to that today’s experience. Dan Runcie 43:21 So it's a perfect way to complement both your skill sets where you see the space. And yeah, I mean, Marc, I hear you be already has his work done. He could get excited about stuff. And I know you got a lot on your plate. But I think that you have it in store, you have the partners and like you said, you know, there's an opportunity here, we're no different than a company investing in a startup or investing in artists, many of these festivals did that, you know, level of support do and I think that's where it can happen, especially with something that has the proven audience that you all do, for sure. Marcus Allen 43:52 For sure. Now, a lot have you got a ticket now even be in DC because we got these VIPs on the ice for you waiting when you get here? Dan Runcie 43:59 For sure, John, appreciate y'all. Thank you. Brandon McEachern 44:02 And yet again, Dan, thank you, D man for highlighting what's going on on this side. You know what I mean? From the Chitlin Circuit there right now, you know what I mean? Like, it's been a whole bunch of us pushing and curating our culture and making sure that that we are responsible for getting our artists out there and getting their music out there. You know, I mean, and yet again, I don't want to keep tooting my own horn. But I mean, we had to Willow and Jaden back in the day, you know, I'm saying like we had come over the salons isn't like, tattoos gotta stop. It's me. No, you know what I mean? All these cats that a lot of people were just taking note too, like, we've been pushing these folks out and not for any other reason. And they've been using their gifts, and we want to make sure that we use our platform to get their gifts to the world. You know if that makes sense. So it's a blessing. Appreciate you. Dan Runcie 44:50 A 100%, 100%. Alright, then yeah, anyone else that is listening, you already know about the concert. Make sure go to the website. Y'all want to give a quick plug. Make sure that People listening nowhere to go check it out. Brandon McEachern 45:01 Man go to BCfestival.com. Broccoli City. I'm pretty sure you heard of it. Your cousin heard of it, you know, so make sure you out there. Yeah, make sure you out there because you don't want to see them pitches. You don't want to be on Instagram that day you're not there. That's just not something you want to do. Marcus Allen 45:18 For sure, man, appreciate you again. Damn it. It's love man. This is great. Just to connect with you. Big fan of the podcast. Stay on the Twitter. I'll be back to comment on some of your stuff. But I'd be like yeah, let me chill you know me some of them comments be crazy. But nice is love though. I really appreciate this man. I love the growth that you build in the USA with your platform it and the brand growth man stay down. Anything we could do, man you already know. Brandon McEachern 45:44 And yet again, and I sorry, do you know me? I'm gonna go on a tangent, but we let go. But that's the ecosystem, right? Yeah. Right. Black Journalists, right? Black curated events, like we all you know what I mean? So we have to do a way better job black executives that you've interviewed before, black agents that you've interviewed before, we got to find a way to make it work, because they're finding out a way to make it work. In all due respect. You know what I mean? So we got to figure it out. But pretty say to Brother, I'm gonna get off my shoe Dan Runcie 46:12 For sure. No, that's a great note to end on. Appreciate you both man. Marcus Allen 46:17 Appreciate you man. Dan Runcie 46:20 If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review, tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 12 Jan 2024 | Why Radio Still Matters | 01:01:07 | |
Radio is the music format with nine lives. Despite all of the new evolutions in AI, streaming, and short-form video, radio continues to live on; and will do so for several more years. In this episode, I’m joined by a friend of the pod, Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. We dive into radio’s impact in music over the years, current cutbacks and layoffs, and what the future of radio looks like in today’s era. Today’s episode is brought to you by Bandzoogle. Build a stunning website today. Start your free 30-day trial and use promo code ‘trapital’ to get 15% off your first year. Make sure you listen in for our new Chartmetric stat of the week! 09:100 The underestimation of radio’s impact. 15:20 Debates for royalty payments 22:20 How streaming flipped radio's role in promotion 37:15 The Breakfast Club's success 48:14 What streaming can learn from radio Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. | |||
| 20 May 2022 | The iPod’s Legacy in the Music Industry with Zack O’Malley Greenburg | 00:48:17 | |
On this episode, we switched things up! Instead of a standard interview, I talked about a few recent topics with the best-selling author, Zack O’Malley Greenburg. He has long had his pulse on the music industry. Between his past time covering the business at Forbes, writing acclaimed books on the likes of Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, or his current Substack blog, Zack has formed both a macro- and micro-view of the entire industry. He’s the perfect person to bring onto Trapital to discuss the stories reverberating across the music business today. One of those stories is Spotify’s floundering performance as of late. The streaming leader’s stock has cratered to all-time lows, partly due to so-so performance, but also as a byproduct of Netflix’s own struggles. But if you ask Zack, the commonalities between Netflix and Spotify aren’t as close as critics will have you believe. Specifically, Spotify’s “unlimited buffet” business model is a massive differentiator. And then there’s Apple officially discounting the iPod after 21 years. Whether it gets the credit or not, the innovative product re-shaped the music business into what we see today. As a “legal Napster”, it laid the groundwork for today’s streaming-dominated industry — not just for music, but podcasts too. Check out all the topics Zack and I covered in this episode of Trapital: [0:00] Zack’s First Experiences with The iPod [6:11] Steve Jobs First iPod Keynote [8:33] iPod As A Gateway Into Apple Ecosystem [12:16] Will iPod Have A Resurgence Like Vinyl? [14:48] U2’s Free Album On Apple Backfires [18:55] Spotify’s Current Business Struggles [20:09] Why Spotify Shouldn’t Be Compared To Netflix [27:23] Do Spotify And Netflix Have Content Problems? [33:00] Examining Bad Bunny’s Meteoric Rise In Six Years [38:21] Latin Music Succeeding In US Despite Language Barrier [40:12] Did Jay Z Ruin Robinson Cano’s Career? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog
This episode was brought to you by Highlight. Build the community of your dreams on the blockchain. The new company is backed by leading investors like Haun Ventures, Thirty Five Ventures (“35V”), and more. Learn more at highlight.xyz
Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: If you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and, I know that the market is cooled down a bit, but still, you know, you're in a fairly mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that he has, especially if you're trying to get into the Spanish language market. It's untoppable and, you know, I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too. [00:00:29] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:49] Dan Runcie: On today's episode, we switched things up a little bit. This is normally an interview-style podcast, but I did a recent survey. And many of you say you wanted to hear more from me. You wanted to hear my insights, my perspective on this space and where things are heading. So it was a great time to invite back Zack O'Malley Greenburg. [00:01:08] Dan Runcie: You may know him from his work at Forbes, where he started a lot of the reporting on how much money hip hop artists were making and the potential for what they could do in the business world. So we covered a bunch of topics in this episode. First, we talked about the iPod. Apple recently announced that they are discontinuing the influential device after almost 21 years in its production. So Zach and I talk about the device's importance and influence. Then we talked about Spotify. The stock is trading at an all-time low. So we talk about what does that mean for streaming? What does that mean for music and, more broadly, how does that compare to video and other types of streaming? [00:01:45] Dan Runcie: Then we talked about the current king of streaming, of the current king of Spotify. Bad Bunny is the biggest artist in the world. So we talk about the impact and importance of what that means for a Latin artist, a Latin artist, who is yet to do a song in English and how cool that is. And then we close things out where we talked about Robinson Canó, who is a baseball player and how his career took a bit of a different turn after he sides with Jay-Z's Roc Nation sports agency. [00:02:12] Dan Runcie: Hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, send a note and let us know, because that's the type of stuff that encourages great content. I hope you enjoy it. Here's our conversation. All right. We got Zack O'Malley Greenburg with us today and we are going to cover a bunch of topics. And the first one that's near and dear to both of us is we got to pour some out for the iPod. After almost 21 years, the device that changed the game, Apple announced it's discontinuing it. [00:02:38] Dan Runcie: And it's a great time to talk about its legacy, its impact. So first let's start here cause I know that you likely owned a bunch of these. I did too. How many iPods did you own and which version was the first one you got? [00:02:50] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh man. You know, I think I had originally one of the clunky ones that didn't have sort of like the touch wheel, you know, like the kind of mano, you know, the, what is it like the black and white kind of a janky one. [00:03:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But the one that really sticks in my mind was right around the time that Bono was doing all those commercials. And I remember my godfather was like, I want to get you a nice present for your birthday. He's like, I want to get you like, like a personal DVD player. And I was like, that's very sweet of you. And I really appreciate that. Can I have an iPod instead? [00:03:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: He was like, what's this iPod? But yeah. I mean, it was, I think that one that must have been. I don't know, maybe around 2005, that was when they started getting really sexy-looking. And, and you had the touch wheel and you had kind of like the sleek black look on it instead of like, you know, sort of like the white witch, which would get kind of, you know, get kind of grimy, at least mine did. [00:03:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But this was sleek. I think the back was silver. I mean, it was really a work of art and that was when I started thinking it's only a matter of time before they just make one of these as a phone, you know? And I'm sure, you know, having talked to people at Apple over the years, by the time they put out that iPod in the mid-aughts, they already had a design on the iPhone, but there would have been no, you know, no iPhone if there weren't an iPod. [00:04:10] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, in many ways, I think the iPod saved the music industry, right? I mean, when they created that ecosystem, it just became easier to get your music, you know, through the legal means than by downloading them, you know, downloading those MP3s illegally and say what you will about the depth of the album and the issues of like breaking up albums and selling them single by single. [00:04:31] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, I think that really provided the bridge that the music industry needed to get to the streaming era. So yeah. Pour one out, indeed. How about you, Dan, what was your first? [00:04:41] Dan Runcie: Ah, yeah. So the first one for me, let's see, I want to say it was 2004, I bought the iPod mini because I didn't have a Mac at home. So I waited until they were compatible on PC. [00:04:54] Dan Runcie: And I added, I think I was working either at Dairy Queen or I was working at our local parks and rec at the time. And one of the first paychecks I had, I was like, no, let me go take this, buy iPod mini. So I had that, but listen, after two months of having that, and I was one of the first people in the school to have one at the time. I left it in my pocket and put it in the washing machine, like a typical teenager would, and that thing gets ruined. Right. So then I was like, okay, fine. Let me get another one. This time I was making CDs at the time, I was burning them and selling them in school. So I said, okay, I need a bigger operation here. Let me get the full-on classic one. [00:05:34] Dan Runcie: Got that, within two months of getting that, so this is around the time of high school graduation. I put the bag into this bleacher area by the school where we had the graduation. I go back after graduation. Someone takes that bag, someone in the class must've seen me put it there, and then that was gone. So then by the time I'm entering in college, I said, you know what? [00:05:55] Dan Runcie: I just need to get another one. So I bought three iPods within an 18-month period. It's one of the most ridiculous things. And obviously for the kid that was making $7 an hour at various jobs, would be at a camp counselor, working at Dairy Queen and other places. That's what I spent my money on. I bought it on iPods. [00:06:11] Dan Runcie: So I had to go into freshman year of college, fresh with of those things, but as I had that, that one I did have for a while though, I kept that one for a number of years. And I think I eventually got a Shuffle later on for running and stuff like that. So I think, so I guess I had four devices total, but I agree with you. Take a step back, thinking about the device overall. I'd actually went back and watched Steve Job's keynote that he initially did. [00:06:35] Dan Runcie: And he had done keynote presentations before for all the other products that he had throughout the years. But I feel like this one is the one that really turned to the pop culture aspect of the Steve Job's keynote with, he was no longer wearing the suits. He’s wearing the black turtleneck tucked into the jeans. [00:06:51] Dan Runcie: Takes the iPod out of the pocket, has the “hundred songs in your pocket” quote. And I think, from there, what you mentioned too about the bridge that this was for streaming. It makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, look at the way iTunes is set up. iTunes was essentially a legalized version of Napster, right? Instead of just downloading the songs for free, let's take a similar layout and make it look a lot cleaner than Napster did. [00:07:14] Dan Runcie: And you can download the songs yourself. The thing that's interesting though, if we just think about Apple's influence in this space over the years. This was the company that essentially paved the way for digital music technology, listening, both from companies in the industry. And it did the same for podcasting as well. [00:07:33] Dan Runcie: And for years, Jobs didn't want to get into music streaming. He thought that having an annual or having a monthly subscription for it wasn't the best idea. And obviously, we know that podcasting as well. Although it was something that Apple started, we're looking now, with the way things are, yes, they have presence in both podcasting and of music, but Apple isn't the industry leader in any of these spaces. So we can have a whole podcast episode about what's changed, but even though there's a lot that necessarily maybe hasn't taken off in the same way. You can't knock the influence of what this product did in just its evolution over the years and what it led to. I was looking at some stats earlier. Its sales peaked in 2008, 2009, right? You could still, after the iPhone came out, so you had this whole runway of time where they just kept selling more and more and they just eventually figured it out. And they had a whole system of these things that you're selling 20, 30 billion of them a quarter. It's crazy. [00:08:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh yeah. And you know, the deeper you get into the Apple ecosystem, right. I mean, and I'm fully embedded. I'm stuck. There's no way out. You know, I remember with that, you know, the U2 era iPod, you could still, you know, when you plugged it into your computer, you would still see that little iPod icon on your desktop and you could open it up as though it were, you know, an external hard drive and you could, you know, move files in and out. [00:08:59] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And it didn't really, there were no questions asked as to where the files were obtained, you know, and they would show up in your music library and you can put all kinds of different files on there. And it was great. And then, you know, with each successive version, so they eventually eliminated that. And you know, now of course, if you have iTunes, you know, songs that you may have had in there from the, from the Limewire and Kazaa era just suddenly disappeared. [00:09:21] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, you can't really get them back unless you have them backed up somewhere on a physical hard drive. So, you know, I think that there was also a level of control that Apple got, but, you know, but to have you be part of that ecosystem, I think that's the most valuable thing for them, right? I mean, if you look at Apple or Spotify, you know, like you were talking sure, Apple is not the leader in the music streaming business. Apple Music is I guess, a distant second, but they, you know, they don't need to win that because the hardware turns out or at least in the case of the iPod. And now that, you know, more recently that the iPhone, that the hardware turns out to be more valuable than the software, you know, looking at Spotify. [00:09:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, intellectual property, right? If the, if you have to pay for the intellectual property or your, you know, or a whole huge chunk of that is coming out of. You know, out of your profits or your revenue before you get to profit, you know, it's a, it's a lot harder to make a ton of money than it is for a company like Apple, where the iPod or the iPhone, you know, that was their intellectual property and they could sell it for whatever they want to. [00:10:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, that's a good point. It makes it even think about AirPods. Now. Now I always see those infographics of AirPod revenue, and comparing that to all of these other tech companies. And how have you just looked at this one product that Apple has and how it does better than so many of the household companies that we have. [00:10:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But for you though, was the iPod the first product that pushed you onto Apple? Or were you in a household that had iMacs and things like that? [00:10:48] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, no, I was, my first computer was an Apple, I think I only ever owned one or two computers that were not Apples. And that was when my gaming buddies in high school convinced me to get something else. But yeah, no, it's been, you know, from back in the day for me. So, I'm stuck. [00:11:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I do think for a lot of people, this product ended up being the game-changer. Yeah. I know it took a few generations for them to eventually put it and make it Windows-compatible. And it's funny. I was looking back, there was a few conversations where Tony Fadell, the guy who had actually invented it, essentially that worked with Apple on it. [00:11:26] Dan Runcie: They had had a whole bunch of conversations about what ends up leading to what. And I think for a while, Jobs was under the impression that if you keep the iPod as Apple iOS exclusive device that it'll encourage more people to buy future iMac or Apple products, but what actually ended up happening, they pushed for the opposite and they saw the opposite where make the device compatible people then see, and they get introduced to the Apple world. [00:11:55] Dan Runcie: And then that makes them want to then buy more iMacs and buy more MacBooks and buy things like that. So it was the opposite push-pull of what they thought happens. And it's one of those things where instead of restricting access to make people think that they want, that they, you're restricting. How do you give people a taste and then have them naturally want to get it on there on their own? [00:12:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean, I think it almost mirrors being an artist, right? I mean, you don't want to withhold your art, your music from streaming services so that people will go out and buy the vinyl or, or, you know, back in those days, download the MP3. You want people to be out there and getting familiar with your work. [00:12:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And you're not going to cannibalize yourself if people really like you. I mean, just look at Taylor Swift, you know, her fans go out and buy her vinyl, you know, by the hundred thousand and they can certainly have access to it whenever they want on the streaming services. [00:12:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Speaking of vinyls, it stuck out to me that there were a bunch of iPod Touch that sold out immediately. [00:12:51] Dan Runcie: So essentially the line is completely gone now and even a few on eBay that were going for crazy prices after this announcement came out and it made me think, is the iPod going to be the way that vinyls are looked at now? Is there going to be this resurgence for this retro thing where people look back and let's say that as millennials or gen Z have, kids, they want to see, okay, what was this generation listening to when they were teenagers and they'd go back and be like, oh, let's check out Zack's iPod, let's check out Dan's iPod or whatever else. Do you think that there is a resurgence in that type of way the same way we're seeing with vinyl? [00:13:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I could see maybe I think the main issue would be a compatibility, right? In the way that you, you know, not even Apple to PC, but you know, old Apple stuff isn't even necessarily compatible with, compatible with new Apple stuff. [00:13:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So if I wanted to plug in my old iPod, if I could dig it up wherever it was. I don't think I even have a freaking USB port on my computer. No, I don't. [00:13:49] Dan Runcie: You need like five dongles. You need like a firewire, USB to USB to C. [00:13:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly. And so, and even then it's like what songs will it remove, will my computer remove from my iPod or vice versa? [00:14:04] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So, I mean, I almost wonder if there's the really old ones where you go and you can see, like you can open it up like that U2 era iPod, and actually just manually move the MP3 tracks around, if those still work somehow, you know, that might be almost the way of safeguarding one's music files from being kinda like yanked up into the ether. [00:14:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I think whereas, vinyl, despite being somewhat cumbersome, it is ultimately plug and play. You plug it into a standard outlet, put the thing on pretty mechanical. So yeah, I do think that might be the only drawback, but yeah, I could totally see it. The next hipster thing, being dongles at all, finding the way to use iPod. So, yeah, just, I guess cassette tapes are making it come back to, so, you know, just like vinyl, even CDs were up, you know, over the past year or so. [00:14:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: What's old is new again. [00:14:48] Dan Runcie: I know, right? You never know if someone had told me when the iPod first came out, that vinyls would've made a comeback, I'd never would have thought that, but you mentioned plug and play and you mentioned U2 earlier. We have to talk about the greatest hack of all time with whatever you plug this damn device into any USB thing, U2's album automatically starts playing. [00:15:07] Dan Runcie: How they were able to get that to happen and I know it wasn't a hundred percent intended, but it also kind of was so however they were able to do that, eventually I do think it got on the nerves of many people and we saw from whether it was Apple or even Spotify later on people feeling like these services are pushing certain artists on them. [00:15:27] Dan Runcie: I do think that that is one of the understated hacks that we've seen in both of U2's major deals with Apple. [00:15:36] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just remember, you know, right. They gave away that album and you woke up one morning and it was on your iTunes and all these people were freaking out, like, get this off my computer. [00:15:45] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I can't get it off my computer. I don't want this taking up hard drive space. Like first of all, how much hard drive space is taken up? You have a Mac anyway, probably. And it's, you know, it's fine. Is Bono really that offensive to you? Like U2? I mean, I don't know. I think it's sort of, you know, I mean, I don't want to say like easy listening, but it's not like offensive, like who is offended by U2? [00:16:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I was kind of always surprised by that. And Bono had this kind of poignant quote. He said he was like, you know, “I'm just an Irishman trying to give you some beautiful music.” Yeah. If you don't want it, I'm sorry, you know. That kind of thing and can't really feel bad for Bono and he was a good sport about it, but it's kind of funny that the way people's minds work, you know, it's like during the Napster era, it's like, oh, I got to go get all my music for free. [00:16:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I will seek it out to illegally download music. Right. And it'll take me an hour to download a song. And if somebody calls my mom on the landline, you know, it'll get interrupted halfway through, right? And then. Here comes U2 giving everybody a free album and they don't even have to do anything. [00:16:51] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And all these people are kind of grousing about it. So I thought that was sort of, you know, above all a really interesting commentary on like the human psyche and, you know, wanting what you can't have. Not wanting what you do. So pour one out for that as well. [00:17:05] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I mean, from my perspective, I was never upset about the album actually being there, if anything, it was more so than minor inconvenience of can I plug this device into the USB port for one second, without anything automatically playing, right? Like I also had this era where it was back from doing anything that I'd purchased on iTunes and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance would always play. So like once the U2 thing stopped, like that song always played in. [00:17:35] Dan Runcie: You want to hear about friends making fun of me and dragging me for that all day long. That was always a, a hilarious one, but no, this was good. Let's pour one out for the iPod, one of the most influential products we've seen. And as we both know, I think we talk about how so much innovation starts in music and this device is one of the best examples of that. [00:17:55] Dan Runcie: So salute to it. It had a, had a great run. And on that note, I actually think it's probably better for us to stay on the music topic and the streaming topic. And talk a bit about Spotify because this company, less than a year ago, well, maybe a little bit more than a year ago, they were signing so many of the big exclusive deals. [00:18:18] Dan Runcie: The Rogan deal was still fairly fresh and the stock was at an all-time high. And now this stock is at an all-time low, as of recording this, it's trading under a hundred dollars. Its market cap is under $20 billion. Daniel Ek just purchased 50 million himself to show confidence that he has in the company stock moving forward. [00:18:39] Dan Runcie: But where do you see all of this happening? I think there's a lot that's happening in the market right now that could be aligned with this, but there's a lot that could be separate from this. That could be a bit more specific to where Spotify currently is. What's your take on the current state of Spotify? [00:18:55] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. I mean, I think, like you say, there are these kinds of macro trends in the market, in the world that are kind of dragging down a lot of stuff. I think with Spotify though, what's going on is that people are freaking out about streaming in particular after that sort of big surprise, bad news from Netflix a little while ago, where they essentially admitted that the cap on, you know, paid streaming for them was 220 million people and that they were going to open up their free, you know, free or lower ad-supported tier. I forget if it was free tier with ads. I think it was just a lower price tier with ads. So yeah know the idea that, well, you know, it's all streaming and Spotify had been trying to emulate Netflix by paying all this money for content and you know, the Joe Rogan's of the world and podcasting and stuff. [00:19:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I get it on one hand, but, you know, there's a lot of fear right now in the public markets. And there's a lot of, sort of, you know, constellating of things, right. And yes, they're both streaming companies, but to me, you know, I take a step back and I look at it and I see two totally different companies. I mean, obviously one is primarily, you know, video, one's audio, but you know, the reason that Spotify works and the reason that Spotify became the market leader in audio streaming, it is essentially an unlimited buffet. [00:20:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Netflix was never an unlimited buffet. And you know, this, if you are somebody who has ever gone on Netflix to find a particular movie or something like I remember many years ago when I first got Netflix, I was like, oh, you know, I want to watch whatever it was. The latest James Bond movie. I'll go on here. It's like $9.99 a month, unlimited everything, right? No, they only have, you know, whatever move they have, all these Adam Sandler movies and they have, you know, just like a random smattering of movies. And of course they have all these shows, but you get Netflix because you want to watch certain shows, you know, or because you are somebody who's just like, I want to just put something on and I trust that they will have, yeah, I don't want to think about it. Like I trust that they will have good stuff and I'll put on one of their shows and you know, it's not cheaper than cable. So, you know, that to me was always a very different model. It is not an unlimited buffet of movies and television, you know, unlike terrestrial cable, where in theory, you know, you get your cable package. [00:21:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You can watch the news or you can watch sports. So you can, there's some crappy movies on, you know, there's like more of a promise of unlimited opportunity. So I think that, like, there was never a video streaming service that had the unlimited buffet kind of nature of Spotify. So, you know, I think that's what ultimately caps Netflix, like around that 220 million number. If there was some way that Netflix could totally replace your cable. And I know Hulu has live TV options, or if Netflix really did have, you know, a complete movie library that you could complete TV library, you can, anything you want. I think that there would be a lot more room to grow, but it's such an ordeal to get all the rights necessary to do that. [00:21:46] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I don't know how that would ever happen. And you certainly couldn't bankroll like every single thing in the future. That would be needed to have that kind of thing going on in perpetuity. So, yeah, I guess I just, I think that Netflix is dealing with this issue of like, sort of the unbundling and re-bundling and what people are treating Netflix as a sort of like a bundle, right? You want to maybe some other bundles, you probably don't just have Netflix, you have Netflix and Hulu, or maybe you even have terrestrial cable and Netflix or something like that. Whereas the Spotify, you have all of your music. I mean, what do you not get on Spotify? Or if it's Apple Music, what do you not get an Apple Music? [00:22:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think it's a little bit of the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. And I just think that the fundamental thesis is a little bit different when it comes to Spotify than it is with Netflix. So that's my 2 cents. [00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. [00:22:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think that echoes what Daniel Ek had said himself. Right. He said, even though Spotify and Netflix are both subscription-based revenue companies that serve media on a regular basis to its content, that is where a lot of the similarities do stop. And even though there are points where I feel like Spotify and other streaming services, music streaming services, tried to replicate what Netflix did. [00:22:55] Dan Runcie: It was never going to be that way. And I think what makes the music streaming area a bit more unique is that because 80%, I'll probably even say 90% of the content that each of these services offer is largely the same. You end up inevitably having a price war at some point, once you've reached a certain level of distribution, and once you've reached a certain percentage of audience that you're reshaped, we're starting to see that happen. [00:23:20] Dan Runcie: Now you're starting to see that saturation. And I was recently talking to Will Page, the economist that studies this space. And his analogy was that for a long time, this was a herbivore market. People were capturing the opportunity that's there, we're shifting to a carnivore market, and in a lot of ways that does end up benefiting the companies that are the most willing to cut costs and the most willing to pivot. And if we're bringing things back full circle a bit to what we said about Apple Music earlier, this is not a product that they are necessarily trying to run at a profit. It's very similar to the Amazon Prime mentality of when Jeff Bezos has said, the more Golden Globes that we win, the more sneakers that we're able to sell through Amazon. [00:24:03] Dan Runcie: And I think the same could be said for Apple to some extent. They won best picture, CODA won best picture. That's their product that helps them get more subscribers who then end up purchasing the wide number of different products they have under their Apple TV+ bundle that they're able to offer there. [00:24:19] Dan Runcie: I do think with Spotify though, and this is why I do think they likely have more relative upside right now, I would say than Netflix, it's for two reasons. One, Spotify has had relatively better growth in the most recent quarters, I'd say, and that's even accounting for both services are ceasing their service in Russia. [00:24:37] Dan Runcie: It's also looking at them just being able to already have the free tier penetration, already having a pipeline to acquire more as well. And secondly, I think the podcasting model is ultimately what will help them. This was a model that I was initially skeptical about for years, just in terms of whether or not Spotify would be able to actually make it work and become the dominant player in audio. [00:25:01] Dan Runcie: But the reason that I think they're probably going to be better off is because of the actual data that they could offer both advertisers and listening and podcasters as well. And this is going back to opportunities that Apple didn't necessarily capture at the time, if you think about the fact that most podcasting is essentially just an RSS feed and a lot of people are sharing monthly podcast downloads and things like that. [00:25:25] Dan Runcie: And if you look at some of the podcasts, especially some of the ones that were most popular, 2016 when podcasts would really start to take off. A lot of those listeners may not necessarily be actively listening, like it could be background downloads. That's where Spotify wins, because they can actually have that clear data to show who's listening to what. They acquired two companies, Chartable and Podsights, that are both analyzing and having the better data in this space. So the, we're leading to a future where Spotify eventually is going to be able to, I think, dominate the space because they're able to make the better pitch to advertisers. Come here, get a more direct way to reach your audience. [00:26:03] Dan Runcie: And I think if the numbers do continue to grow, I think they will be better off. So of course this is not investment advice, to be clear for anyone. But I do think that between the two of these, that Spotify is probably the company that's in the better position. And it's funny cause this isn't always a, a thought that I would have had of course, two completely different business models. [00:26:22] Dan Runcie: Netflix is fixed. Spotify is variable, but I do think that over time, relatively speaking, it still has plenty of hurdles to get through, but it feels like that's where the opportunity is. [00:26:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. I think I totally agree with you there. [00:26:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I mean, with that, another piece that people have brought up as well as content as well. What are your thoughts on Netflix's content? Because I know that's a piece where people have often said, well, if you're just going to make shows, like, Is It Cake? and stuff like that, then why am I going to pay money for the service and the fact that they haven't necessarily had as many true franchises or any repeatable types of things. [00:27:00] Dan Runcie: In my opinion, a lot of the things that have taken off from Spotify have, or not from Spotify, from Netflix. Sometimes it almost feels like it's like flashes and bottles that catch off a bit unexpectedly, whether it's like a Bird Box or a Squid Game, or Making A Murderer, things like that. Like it doesn't have the same feeling of, okay, you don't, this big HBO show is going to come and dominate like it does. [00:27:23] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think Netflix has just done such a good job of going out and just acquiring tons and tons of content. Right. And, you know, given their model, they pay out a lot, you know, then people have been talking over the past, however many years, like, oh, Netflix spent X billion dollars on content. [00:27:41] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: How are they going to sustain it? But when you're acquiring that much stuff, it's like, you have all these lotto tickets and when something takes off, you know, I think in most cases you're not having to pay a lot of it back, you know, on the backend like you would with, you know, obviously Spotify ends up paying back, you know, a huge percentage of what comes in back to the labels and to the artists. [00:28:01] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that the model. Netflix, has there are sort of like a lot higher upside when something works? I mean, I guess with Spotify, they're trying to emulate that on the podcasting side, but you know, it would seem to me that when Netflix has, you know, a TV show that takes off just out of nowhere, I mean, something like Squid Game, the amount of new subscribers they sign up are just, you know, so much more than, than you'd get with a hit podcast. So, I mean, you know, in a way I think what I'm most curious to see is how much will Spotify continue to try to emulate Netflix. Now that Netflix is sort of in a, you know, questionable phase and do they just kind of, you know, try to double down on the music aspect because the other piece of it that we haven't talked about, you know, when you're going out and acquiring content and you were paying for it specifically like to have it named and everything you become, you know, an arbiter of culture and taste also, you know, right and wrong of what is hate speech of what is, you know, all kinds of things. And that's like a huge pain in the ass to figure out, right, as we learned with the whole Spotify, Joe Rogan, Neil young situation. [00:29:06] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And. Yeah. I never thought that Neil Young being off of Spotify was gonna ruin Spotify. And I don't really think very many people did, but you know, it did go to show that there's a, an amount of energy that has to go into defending some decisions once, once you are acquiring content versus sure, I mean, if you have artists on your platform and you know, they do something terrible, you may have to make a decision to try to pull them off. But, you know, I think generally as a society, we've moved away from pressuring people to sort of deplatform musicians for making, you know, offensive music or something like that, music that some people find offensive. [00:29:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And even for, you know, some of the most controversial musicians, you know, it's super rare that their music is pulled down. So I just think that there's a lot more editorial energy that goes into obviously Netflix, but, you know, Spotify emulating Netflix in the podcasting space, that becomes a whole new headache with like a lot of unknown unknowns. [00:29:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I do wonder now that it's, you know, perhaps less of a growth area. Will Spotify continue to follow that path? [00:30:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a great point. We had not touched on this piece of it. And I think that in a lot of ways it does mean it's more workforce, something like a company like Spotify. Netflix can pretty easily, at least I would hope so, identify the movies that have these issues, and we've already seen some of them have disclaimers, but there's a bit of a removedness from it because of just how they go about their deals versus Spotify. You just see the blind spots where someone that literally goes and finds all of the clips of Joe Rogan saying the N-word, putting that together. [00:30:38] Dan Runcie: And then that's what sparks the controversy. You would have hoped that the company themselves would have been looking at the content. And then it makes you think, are people really responding to the issue itself? By people, I mean, the company like Spotify, are they really responding to the issue itself or are they responding to the public outcry over the issue? [00:30:54] Dan Runcie: And that could, you know, be an ongoing conversation, but that's where I do think that there needs to be much more editorial oversight and understanding that if you are going to be, it's one thing to say that you're an open platform that anyone can put music on. Anyone can put, upload their music too, but when you're exclusively paying someone or licensing their content, it changes the dynamic of the relationship. [00:31:18] Dan Runcie: And I know that they try to make the distinction. Yes. we are licensing Joe Rogan's content as opposed to acquiring it. But the example I always bring back to people it's like, okay, well, let's explore that scenario then, let's say that this was Bill Simmons, who now works for Spotify because you acquired his company and we found those clips of him saying those things. Would you then have treated this situation differently? I don't know the answer to that situation, but Spotify is implying that they would, but I don't know. [00:31:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. It's a gray area. And the more you get into, the deeper you get into editorial, the less profitable it is, I say, as a journalist. [00:31:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that, you know, some of these companies are learning that the hard way. [00:31:58] Dan Runcie: Couldn't agree more. And while we're on the note of Spotify, let's switch gears again and let's talk about the current king of Spotify, right? Bad Bunny. It is been really cool, and refreshing to see an artist outside of the US dominate on a platform like this. [00:32:13] Dan Runcie: I think that his success has really shown what's possible now in a way, I think that he's the greatest success story of the streaming era. I really do. I mean, when you think about what he was able to do, where he was six years ago, I've written about it in a recent newsletter about how six years ago, he's bagging groceries at a local grocery store in Puerto Rico. [00:32:36] Dan Runcie: And then now he's a superstar. He was on stage at the Super Bowl. He's going to have this old Marvel movie, tops every chart possible. It's like that Kurt Warner underdog story from him starting off as a grocery bagger and then did his Arena Football. But imagine if Kurt Warner had the career of Peyton Manning and actually went on to, you know, dominate years and years, it's impressive. What do you think about Bad Bunny and what he's been able to do? [00:33:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Ah, I think it's incredible. I mean, and I think it also, it shows the democratization that has been brought about by streaming and what's that Jay-Z line? Men lie, women lie, numbers don't. And you know, you can have your charts for whatever publication and you can have all this and that and their formulas and stuff like that. [00:33:18] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: But, you know, it's all very convoluted and, you know, it's, it's usually one way or the other. It's engineered to sort of favor the, those who are already sort of big names, but when you have the numbers, it shows up on Spotify and regardless of where you are on whatever other chart, I mean, the fact is that more people are listening to your music than they're listening to anybody else's music and it's objectively true. You can see it in Spotify and the numbers don't lie. And so Bad Bunny, I think, you know, was able to come up from, you know, in this incredible underdog story, you know, to get there and there's proof, right? I mean, there's proof in a way that there might not have been, you know, before the streaming era. [00:33:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think another thing about Bad Bunny that, you know, certainly in my time at Forbes, we would look, we've scoured the world to find and do our list of the top-earning musicians. And I did that list this past year for Rolling Stone, but, you know, it was just all old rockers selling their catalogs basically. [00:34:14] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think, you know, a function of that is that the pandemic has just greatly disrupted touring, which would kind of like traditionally be the thing that would get you up on one of these lists. And, you know, I think now that the pandemic is kind of easing up and tours are really starting to happen again, you know, we're seeing Bad Bunny be able to sell out stadiums, you know, I mean, he is really on that level in terms of, you know, people putting their money where their mouth is. So I think that next step is going to be, as we start to see these totals from his tour in combination, you know, with the streaming dollars and Marvel and all these other things that are going to come along with it, you know, he's going to start to climb up these earnings lists, you know, from a financial perspective as well. [00:34:56] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So I think that adds a whole other level. You know, sort of like credibility in some cases, when looking at somebody as like a generational superstar, when they sort of have the, you know, the financial success to prove it and to sustain and to, you know, to expand into other fascinating ways. So I'm really curious to see what he does next. [00:35:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Like, you know, what's his Jay-Z move? What's his Puffy move? Is there going to be something in the spirits business or the cannabis or who knows what, but, you know, personally, as sort of a music business nerd, I'm especially interested to see, you know, what does he do with all this energy and momentum and you know, what direction does he take it in having created this incredible musical empire. [00:35:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's only a matter of time until he's going to top most of those lists, right? You look at the numbers that this tour will likely do. It's likely going to be over 2 or 3 million, if not more, just given the amount of shows that he has and the size of the arenas that he's performing in. And one of the things that I've always thought about with artists from other countries is that there's always been this stigma or thought that in order for them to monetize, it always had to rely much more on brand deals or things like that because the assumption was that the fan bases in these areas may not be willing to necessarily pay as much, but his tours are disproving that just based on the sales numbers, I would need to dig it a little bit further to see, okay, are the dollar amounts in all of the regions similar, but I think he's proving that that isn't necessarily the case. Yeah. If he does want to continue to take this further, what would it look like if he eventually let's say that he continues to do things with the WWE even further? Is he able to have some type of connection there to make that further extend, right? This Marvel character he's going to have in this upcoming movie is a wrestler. What could that potentially look like? If he ends up selling some type of, as you mentioned, some type of spirits or getting involved with something on the business side, the sky really is the limit. [00:36:52] Dan Runcie: And I think it's one of those unique optionality things where it's up to him and what stuck out to me as well as if we think, just think about his trajectory and what's possible now for a lot of Latin artists, is that he has not done one song in English. Everything that he's done is either been in Spanish or if he did it, then his verses is still in Spanish. [00:37:15] Dan Runcie: But everyone else is still doing their stuff in English. Like this song. Cardi B from a couple of years ago. But I do think that that's different from even the wave of Latin artists that got mainstream popularity. Let's say 20 years ago, you have Enrique Iglesias, your Mark Anthony or even JLo to some extent, they all had to do albums in English before they were ever given a consideration for that mainstream push or appeal. [00:37:41] Dan Runcie: Ricky Martin was the same exact way. And I think the fact that he's been able to do on his terms, he's been able to be an advocate as well for both gender norms and for just LGBTQ as well and how he has been just a lot of the causes and things that he cares about. It's really cool to see artists like this. [00:38:02] Dan Runcie: And I think in some ways the trajectory that Latin artists have been on, especially in the streaming era, kind of reminds me of where hip hop was at a certain point, right? It's like in the early days they wanted those artists to like assimilate to whatever the pop phase was, right? Like the rappers had to do these pop collaborations. [00:38:21] Dan Runcie: The Latin stars had to do the, you know, US pop star collaborations. Then once they prove they no longer have to assimilate in the same way, then those artists set the trends and now everyone else wants to come to them. And now we're seeing Billie Eilish and Drake and all these other artists doing songs in Spanish, even though that's not their main language, we're just going to see more and more of that. [00:38:42] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, and I think that one of the things that Bad Bunny has proven, you know, in some other form, is that if given the opportunity, you know, if you're not sort of, you know, forced to go meet the quote unquote US mainstream market, where it's at, the US mainstream market will actually come to you. You know, and people who don't understand Spanish will still love your music. [00:39:02] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I know a lot of songs in English that I don't understand. Whatever genre, if it's, you know, rock and there's a lot of yelling or if it's, you know, rap and it's like so fast or with like a really deep accent. I don't always catch on but, you know, people respond to music. I mean, it doesn't really matter what's being said, I mean, look at Nirvana, right? Like a lot of the lyrics didn't particularly mean anything, but people just responded to the music and the vibe, the whole thing. So even if you can understand the words, people are going to be attracted to the music. And, you know, I think that he's showing that that holds true even on the tip-top superstar level for sure. [00:39:38] Dan Runcie: A hundred percent. Excited to see where his career goes, excited to see where he continues to dominate. [00:39:43] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Amen to that. And, you know, if have his management too, I'm trying to get him in some consumer-facing startups, because if you're a startup and you're looking for celebrity investors and they know that the market is cooled down at it, but still, you know, you're in a really mature startup. And you're trying to get your name out there a little more by getting, you know, music, investors, celebrities, et cetera. The kind of reach that has, especially if you're trying to get into Spanish language market. It's untoppable. And I just think there's a tremendous opportunity there and in a lot of other places for him too, so. [00:40:12] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah, I'm sure. It should be. All right. Before we wrap this up, we got to talk about this article that you had written very recently about, we're both fellow Yankees fans, and one of the stars we've been most familiar with over the years, Robinson Canó, and you have this idea that you were brought up. I thought it was really interesting and I want for you to talk more. Did Jay-Z ruin Robinson Canó bag? [00:40:40] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I kind of posed that question on my Substack and, you know, I think going into it and that the background,I'm going to set the background for anybody who maybe isn't a Yankee fan, but I guess it was eight years ago, Robinson Canó, who at the time was the best player in the Yankees. [00:40:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Everybody thought he was going to resign. He was a free agent. Everybody thought he would come back, think they he's never lose out on a free agent. Jay-Z comes in, takes over as his agent from Scott Boras, who was like, you know, he is to baseball agency as Jay-Z is to hip hop. Jay-Z comes in, gets Canó to come over to Roc Nation, Roc Nation brings on CAA to help them, you know, kind of become, you know, Scott Boras-level players in the game, let's say, and you know, Robinson Canó gets offered seven years, $161 million by the Yankees and the months drag on, nobody else is offering him more. Everybody thinks Jay-Z is getting greedy. [00:41:34] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then just out of nowhere, Canó goes to the Mariners for 240 million over 10 years and great deal financially for him. Obviously, it's, you know, like $80 million more than Yankees we're offering and no state income tax in Washington. However, a much worse team, a much worse ballpark for hitters and, you know, five years into the 10-year deal could no, I mean, I think that was when he got suspended for steroids, then he got traded to the Mets. [00:42:03] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And then he got suspended again last year, 80 games. And he started out this year with the Mets and just earlier this week got cut. And so here's this guy who, you know, so I guess that's my question. If he'd stayed with the Yankees, would all of, all of these miseries have befallen him and should we blame Jay-Z for the misery? [00:42:22] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: And I think my answer ultimately is, is no, you know, It's going to retire almost a hundred million dollars richer, eventually. From a baseball perspective though, you can argue that things would have been better for him if he'd stayed with the Yankees. And as it turns out, the guy who really kind of led the charge and I reported this in the latest edition of my Jay-Z book, Empire State of Mind, the guy who led the charge for Canó to leave was Brodie Van Wagenen at CAA who then became the GM of the Mets. Traded for Canó, got fired by the new owner of the Mets and is now back working with Jay-Z. And I think working on, on representing Canó again, as he tries to, to latch on with another major league team. [00:43:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So you could kind of blame him, but you know, at the end of the day, I think it really does come down to the player, you know, who makes the decision to take bag, you know, instead of glory, which is, you know, defensible, I think you've got to live and you only have so long to be a professional ballplayer. And, you know, he was the one that took the performance-enhancing drugs, got suspended so, but it is this just sort of like a fascinating winding road, you know, from this decision that happened eight years ago, that's still playing out, that still had all these ramifications. And you look back to that deal. I mean, you know, the fact that Jay-Z, whether it was Jay-Z or CAA, or this guy, Brodie Van Wagenen doing most of the work. [00:43:37] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Jay-Z, Roc Nation did get credit. And after that you saw Roc Nation really become much more of a force as a professional sports agency. So, you know, certainly, Jay-Z did well for himself in those past eight years. He's a billionaire now. Brodie Van Wagenen has this great new job, and Robinson Canó has that much nicer retirement eventually. [00:43:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: So maybe he lost a chance at eternal glory, but you know, a hundred million dollars is a lot of money. I don't know. Dan, what do you think? [00:44:04] Dan Runcie: It's interesting because I've always thought that his career was definitely into replay. I felt like it was typical timing of, okay, this guy's turning 30 and that could be hit or miss for a lot of baseball players, depending on how well they're able to take care of themselves and stay out of injury thing. [00:44:18] Dan Runcie: The one thing though, and this is a part that I do think gets overlooked sometimes is the ballpark difference. Yankee Stadium, especially in the new Yankee stadium, literally engineered in some ways to get more home runs and just have more, especially more than the old Yankee stadium compared to T-Mobile Park in Seattle, before it was Safeco park, historically picture friendly ballpark. [00:44:41] Dan Runcie: So if you know what you're getting yourself into, I mean, outside of Griffey and A-Rod in the nineties. I can't necessarily think of people that really like, oh yeah. You know, they cleaned up there. Maybe, you know, you had some early, I'm trying to think of some of the other stars who may have like, done well they're from like a home run hitting perspective, but it's one of those things where you think about the trade-off, right? It's. to some degree, it kind of makes me think about Carmelo Anthony with the Knicks, right? It's like you went to that team, you did get paid and you ended up getting, you know, later on a Supermax. But I think a lot of the decisions that he made show that he was prioritizing more of the money that came through, as opposed to the decisions, why not wait until free agency to then join that team instead of making them all those picks for you. [00:45:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Exactly. [00:45:31] Dan Runcie: And in some ways, yeah, I think about the Canó thing, that kinda kind of similarly, right. If you want it to continue to win and you didn't care as much about the money that you would have stayed in New York, but to our point, yeah. You get it a hundred million dollars is a lot, of course, but it's hard to have both, especially with the franchise, in my opinion, that they'll have spurts of having great players here and there, but they haven't necessarily been able to prove that winning this, that Canó was raised in. [00:45:57] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, and Canó is going to finish up and, you know, even now it looks like he may, he's probably going to catch on with another team, at least for the rest of the year, but he's, I think at 2,600, a little over 2,600 hits for his career, if he had been able to get to 3000, which I think in New York with a better lineup that turned over more, he gets more best, more opportunities to hit. [00:46:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: There 's a better ballpark for hitters. So more fly balls turn into home runs. It's pretty likely, he would've gotten to 3000 hits or that he'd be within shouting distance of it. Now with, you know, a little more time to go. There has never been a major league baseball player who got 3000 hits who did not end up in the hall of fame once eligible, except for the steroid guys and Pete Rose, who was thrown out of the game for betting on baseball. So it is like an automatic ticket to the hall of fame. So if he had just stayed at Yankee stadium, not done, you know, not on steroids, I think he would have gotten there. No question. And you know, who knows, I mean, seven years into that deal that he would have been what, 37, maybe. You never know if he was still hitting well, they might've brought him back for another year or two. God knows they kept bringing Brett Gardner back. So I do think he would've gotten a few thousand hits and had a really good shot at the hall of fame. And is that worth a hundred million dollars though? [00:47:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. He did have such a sweet swing though, man. Watching him play in the Yankees stadium. That was always fun. [00:47:25] Dan Runcie: He did it. He was exciting to watch. He had a great career and yeah, I think that's a great note for us to close out with this. Zack, we've covered a bunch in this pod, but basically, we'll have to have another roundup again at some point soon, but thanks for doing this. This is fun. [00:47:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: For sure. Thanks as always. [00:47:41] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post in your group chat, post in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. [00:47:56] Dan Runcie: And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 28 Jan 2022 | How KevOnStage is Building His Comedy Flywheel | 00:55:58 | |
Kevin Fredericks is a comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage studios. He is known for his works Major Deal (2016), No Good Men (2008), and The Family Exchange (2015). Despite his talent, Hollywood somehow couldn't say yes to him. But that didn't stop him from having his green light and making his trademark in the tv industry. In fact, he surprised people to build his own streaming service. Today's episode talks about how he built an independent brand that really paid off his hard work. He established a solid fan base, had millions of followers on social media, and monetized these platforms by producing his hilarious viral content, a total blast in the mainstream. Listen as we talk about what's going on in his business and his independent success, turning rejection into a massive opportunity to be where he is now. Episode Highlights [01:56] What KevOnStage is currently working on [04:49] His take on more black content going in the mainstream [06:53] KevOnStage’s motto, his marketing strategy, and business goals [11:57] What it’s like to have autonomy in his brand [19:08] His thoughts on artists knowing their audience and dealing with critics [21:30] What's the process from the stuff put out on socials versus onstage [25:24] How does he approach his game using different social platforms [32:38] What’s something beyond just the monetary gain that makes him want to continue to feel inspired to create content [35:13] His opinion on creators who are a one-platform-dominant [38:21] Where does his most lucrative income come from [41:57] How he diversify his content to own the media and make his brand stand out [45:51] What would he like to be doing more of [51:28] KevOnStage’s new content to watch out for Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Kevin Fredericks Studios Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 21 May 2021 | Tracy Chan on Twitch Music, Helping Artists Monetize, and the Creator Economy | 00:38:46 | |
Twitch’s VP Head of Music, Tracy Chan, came on the podcast to talk about how artists on Twitch are making money. The number of artists making $25,000 on Twitch has grown 16x since the pandemic started. For those making $50,000 or more, the median viewership is 183 fans. That’s wild! We talk about how artists use the platform, gaming culture’s influence, and where the creator economy is heading. Tracy joined Twitch in 2020. He left Spotify where he launched Spotify for Artists, and worked at YouTube before that to help launch its creator platform. Tracy has seen the creator economy at every stage. If you’re interested in this topic, this is the podcast for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Tracy Chan, @tracypchan, twitch.tv/music Link: Twitch’s Rockonomics - a case study on how musicians make money on the platform Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 23 Feb 2023 | Where Web2 and Web3 Meet (with Cardin Campbell) | 00:46:23 | |
In music, web3 hype may have cooled over the last year but there are still builders in the space making moves, like trac’s founder, Cardin Campbell. Trac is one of our sponsors for Trapital, and it was great to have Cardin on to discuss how music tech startups see the big picture and are approaching this. trac is a music distribution service, but it wants to bridge web2 and web3 together in a way most distribution services aren’t. Cardin sees an opportunity to digitize how royalty payments are made without disrupting the Web2 experiences on Apple Music and Spotify. That can remain, while blockchain technology adds a layer to bring an artist’s superfans around for the journey. In this episode, we discussed web3 music — what was overhyped, what has lasting value, and where things go from here. Here’s what you can expect: [2:57] Finding a wedge in web3 music [5:17] What people get wrong about web3 and ownership [9:25] SEC challenges with NFT royalties [12:04] Most music fans don’t want to invest in artists [15:31] Where web3 and web2 meet in music [19:13] Building trac’s platform [21:37] Benefit of artists “windowing” music releases [25:59] How trac sets itself apart [32:15] Artists “moving on” after reaching success [34:54] What’s most exciting in web3 right now [36:22] Biggest friction points to web3 [41:05] Projecting trac’s revenue mix between web2 and web3 [44:38] How to follow trac’s process Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Cardin Campbell, @iamcardin Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Cardin Campbell: Success means, you know, you as an artist can make a living doing your art, and whatever the national average is in terms of salary per year, we want every artist on track at that level to get to that level of freedom and beyond. [00:00:17] yeah, we're building for that success story. and then some that's like the bare minimum for us. But yeah, we hope to create, you know, the next superstar. Not create, but we hope to help support the next superstar by giving them the tools to make the business side and, you know, management side of their catalog super easy. [00:00:35] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more. Who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:01:03] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is all about where Web two and Web three meet each other in the music industry. It has been a rollercoaster past couple of years in terms of NFTs Web three Crypto and how all of it makes sense for artists, musicians, record labels, and more to help make sense of where we are and where things are going. [00:01:21] I sat down with Cardin Campbell, who is the founder of Trac is on a mission to empower artists to reach their fans more closely than ever, whether that's by distributing their music directly to the digital streaming providers or through NFTs so that their most passionate fans can get early access and a small ownership stake in their music moving forward. [00:01:42] Trac is also one of sponsors, so it was great to be able to talk with them about their solutions more deeply and how they're serving artists. In this conversation. We also talked about some of the other challenges that happened with music distribution, such as when you have those superstar artists, how do you keep them on board? [00:02:02] We also talked about broader trends in web three, where things are going, what some companies are getting right, wrong, and more really great conversation. I like the way Cardin sees things. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Cardin Campbell. [00:02:17] Dan Runcie: [00:02:17] All right. Today we got a full conversation on deck. We're gonna talk about where Web two, when Web three, meet each other with someone that is living and breathing this every day, Cardin Campbell, founder of Trac. Welcome. [00:02:29] Cardin Campbell: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good to [00:02:30] be here. [00:02:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. I feel like you and I have had a few conversations about this, and the industry's been in such a fascinating place right now. You look at the past year and a half with Web three, crypto NFTs. It's been a rollercoaster in terms of where the industry is, where people stand, where companies stand, and where they're focusing on. [00:02:51] How do you feel like we are right now? What's your macro take on where the industry is right now with regards to web three? [00:02:57] Cardin Campbell: I think the industry's in an interesting place. I think we're still trying to find that wedge of where web three or this concept of Web three, you know, aids music in any way. You know, I think a lot of people, are trying to think of it like this separate space and you know, this place where you can sell more of stuff and generate more revenue for the industry. [00:03:19] And I think that can happen, but I don't think it's going to happen in a way that we've been approaching it to date, you know, but yeah, I think we're still trying to find out which ultimately is where we currently are. [00:03:30] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think one of the challenges was that there were so many cool and nifty ideas that people had about what something could look like, but at the end of the day, you needed to have a real functional aspect that would add value in a way that you are either making something easier for the consumer or you are making it more unique in a way. [00:03:49] And I feel like a lot of the things that are being pushed, were more focused on, oh, here's this cool, almost wonky idea of what something could look like as opposed to, boom, here's a fundamental shift change into how things were and how things could be moving forward. [00:04:04] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. [00:04:05] Yeah. It's really like, you know, the classic case of entrepreneurship and startup, right? It's like you try to find a problem to solve and then solve that problem, whereas with web three, there's so many cool things you could do. And people were just like building cool things and then trying to find a problem, you know, later. [00:04:24] Right. So I think that's why we're still trying to find our wedge in the whole space, but because it's just been a case of, "Oh, we can do this and do that and like, wouldn't this be nice?" You know, but not really centralizing, you know, the focus on problems to solve, right? And then solving them. [00:04:39] Yeah. [00:04:40] Dan Runcie: And as you look back on it yourself, as someone that's been following the industry to to a deep extent yourself, do you feel like there are parts where you yourself are like, huh, maybe I had overstated where I thought this was gonna go? Because I think that each of us probably bought into some of the height and potential to at least some extent. [00:04:57] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, [00:04:57] so I still feel like we have, we've got it right to a degree, and I'll explain, right, so a lot of people approach Web three music in this like way of thinking of it like it's another medium, you know, for people to consume music, to buy it, like it's a collectible and I think that's the wrong approach. [00:05:17] That's just my personal feeling. I've always thought that, and probably will always think that until I'm convinced otherwise, right? Because you can't really treat it like a new medium. When Spotify and Apple, you know, has the fan experience, you know, being the best it's ever been, like I feel like discovery has been solved, do you know what I mean? Like the algorithms and all the things that they provide to help you discover new music and just have access to all the songs, right? There is the best it's ever been. So companies that's been approaching it where they're thinking, oh, web three, we can generate NFTs out of songs and sell them. [00:05:56] I don't know that that's it. like, I hope I'm wrong cause it feels like an opportunity, right? To generate more revenue for the industry but I don't think that that's it because we've seen iTunes come and go, right? they were selling a digital file that was the MP3 for a dollar and that was cool for its time. [00:06:12] But then we shipped to streaming, they bought beats and turned into Apple Music and, right? Like it shifted. So I don't think that that's it. And I think that's where a lot, you know, the focus has been, and I think that's where people are getting it wrong. Because it's not, another, you know, medium, so to speak. [00:06:29] Dan Runcie: That's a good point because I do think that part of the reason that streaming took off, and a lot of this was in conflict of what Steve Jobs himself thought. He of course, is one of the big proponents of iTunes, and I think for its time, iTunes especially, when did it launch 2003? I believe that was the answer at the time. [00:06:48] You could buy your favorite song for 99 cents or a $1.29, whatever it was at the time. But after a while, consumers really didn't wanna do that. And I feel like one of the reasons why Spotify worked, granted, I know that the company has had its own ups and downs over the years, but one of the reasons why I think Spotify works is because it met consumers where they were at. People wanted to have access that at the time mattered more than ownership. So some of these things that are going back more to ownership, like whether it's companies or models that you're referencing, it brings us back to that. And it's not that people don't wanna own things. [00:07:22] They clearly do. You see the boom of vinyls and other things. It's just not ownership in the way that we may have thought, or that some of these companies may have. [00:07:31] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. And when you think about it from an ownership standpoint, like you don't technically own the MP3 when you bought it from iTunes, and when you're selling a .wav file or an MP3 as an NFT, which is the same thing, you don't technically own it, you're own like access to it. Like [00:07:47] Dan Runcie: Your copy of it. [00:07:48] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. Your copy of it. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, I just don't think that's the right approach. Now, I think the mistake people are making in Web three in particular is trying to mirror what we've seen happen with PFP NFTs, right? Like they, you know, collect them and it has this, you know, extreme high value from the doodles, you know, crypto punks and bored apes and all that, they're trying to mirror that. But fine art or the representation of art as NFTs in web three is a different thing than collecting music, right? Like you can't collect the mp3 like you, I mean, I guess you can, like we did with CDs and vinyl, but I think that's dead. [00:08:30] and I think that's where we're trying to like force something to be what It's not, right? Music is valuable when millions of people listen to it and love it, whereas fine art, it's like a one of one thing and that's where the value comes from, you know, I think the more apples to apples comparison with music and fine art is the actual royalty now that's the product of music and then we have two of them. [00:08:53] So music is just way more nuanced and more dynamic than fine art is. And I think, you know, those companies that are approaching it from the, let's collect the mp3 or the .wav file or sell it as this thing, you know, to consume it like another medium. I think that's all wrong. And like I said, I hope I'm wrong because I support anybody in the space trying to build a better tomorrow for music creators and the artists right, to make more money. [00:09:18] but I just don't think that's necessary. I do think the royalty side is it, but the SEC makes it complicated. [00:09:25] Dan Runcie: Let's talk more about this because when I think of the whole one of one thing, of course the physical example, you think about that Wutang album, the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, that was essentially a one of one, and I know that that's traded hands a few different times more recently as last year, but I guess if we're thinking about it from your lens, you're saying that that isn't necessarily the product since obviously it can be copied and replicated in the same way that you and I could have a replica of the Mona Lisa, in our house, the real value is the actual recording itself, so you feel like the royalty, or at least that piece is the piece to focus on. [00:10:02] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. That's where the value is. Like when we see all these companies buying catalog, you know, they're buying the royalties, right? Whether the publishing side or the masters, right? Like that's where the money is, that's where the value is, that's the asset, right? sure you can replicate that thing in the, you know, the Wutang example, and I think Nipsey Hussle mighta did something too at one point in time, selling his album for a thousand bucks. [00:10:25] But that to me is a, a marketing thing. That's like a part of an album rollout. And if you have the cache like Wutang had and Nipsey had, you can do those things, right? But when you think about doing this at scale. Where every artist can, you know, benefit and, embrace this new model or approach, that's when it starts to break down. [00:10:45] And that's when you know, it's like, that's not it, that's not the answer. [00:10:48] Dan Runcie: You mentioned SEC part of it before. And I think we've seen a few different challenges from some companies that have tried to do creative things where fans could either buy a NFT or that could get them some fractional ownership of the music moving forward. And that what that actually looks like. [00:11:05] There are companies such as SongVest and others that have gone through the securitization process. How do you view that aspect and how do you feel like that aspect of the ownership or what you may see on royalty exchange or one of those types of platforms. [00:11:20] Cardin Campbell: So, I think of it, in two ways. So I love it because fractionalizing, the actual asset is a beautiful thing, right? the SEC though, I think, I could be wrong, but I think from what I've been hearing and reading, the SEC thinks of it as a security. The minute it's fractionalized and then you have to go through the whole regulatory process and it just kills the flexibility you can have, it kills the scalability you can have with it If it's on the blockchain and it doesn't have to go to this regulatory, you can like BS. So that's one side, on the other side, you know, we now have a different audience that we're like selling these things too, because, the casual fan is not the audience as much as we think it is. [00:12:04] Like there's a Venn diagram that exists, right? That says, yep, we have some fans that are investors, but truly who we're targeting our, we're talking about investors of music, people who value catalog and wants to own it. And yeah, that's just a different beast. [00:12:18] And that's why we haven't seen it like really take off. Like we would think, in my opinion, because we haven't like really targeted the fans just yet. And find something that they would value just as much as the consumption of the music, [00:12:32] Dan Runcie: So two questions for you on that. Let's start with the actual fans themselves and some of the misreading that I think people had on whether or not the average fan would wanna invest in or own a piece of a stake in the fan, the artist's music. Why do you think that there was an overstate or an over assumption of how much the fan would be interested in there? [00:12:56] Cuz that was a pretty popular point for sometime [00:12:59] Cardin Campbell: right. [00:13:00] I don't know. I think, you know, it sounds cool. It sounds like, oh wow. Like if you know, we have billions of people in the world that love music. I think the last time I checked, I think six plus billion people listen to music every day. So when you think about like the total accessible market, you're like, oh shit, that's a huge market. [00:13:18] Cardin Campbell: And if we can fractionize this one asset and sell it to a bunch of people, And then they can sell it to amongst themselves. Your head explodes right at the the potential scale of this thing. but with the regulatory, you know, stuff and then the fact that fans aren't really investors, it's kind of like "womp womp", right? [00:13:36] It's like that's when you realize it's like not as sexy as it sounds, in theory, on paper. [00:13:41] Yeah, the analogy that I've always used with it is, I think if you look at the popularity of something like, Apple and the iPhone and all their products. So many people have the Apple phones themselves, but that doesn't mean that all those people necessarily have Apple stock in that way. There's a person that's gonna be the retail investor in Apple stock than the person that is still going to buy a MacBook, a iPhone, an iPad, and everything else that they have, AirPods, you name I think there was an overestimation there. And then I think additionally just with the psychology of how a fan thinks it interacts with music. I think sometimes this is part of the challenge with confusing things with sports because I think that people looked at the popularity of fantasy football and just gambling and how gambling has exploded. [00:14:28] The monetization in sports in general, and I know that several music executives have asked me like, what could this look like? And I know that there's startups that have tried to do more of the fantasy sports for music, but. It's a different fan base and it's a different type of experience and product. And what a lot of these fans are into, at least from if they wanna have something beyond just the $9.99 per month that they pay for Spotify, they don't wanna collect a vinyl, they wanna have some piece of merch, they wanna go to a concert. [00:14:58] They want things that don't necessarily always lead to actual like cash value that they could trade in, in the long term, but they want something that means something to them. [00:15:09] Yeah, they want something that shows how much of a fan they are of that particular band or artist. And yeah, like, you know, in a nutshell, fans aren't investors, and investors and fans aren't gamers. Like, in the fantasy football example, like three different customer base right there, three different audience, three different personas. T here's a Venn diagram, like I said, but by and large, they're three different people. [00:15:31] Dan Runcie: Definitely. And I think one of the other things too that you touched on earlier was just where web two and where web three meet each other because I think that a lot of the early web three excitement was around. People pointing out some of the challenges that exist for the digital streaming providers and the payouts that they give to artists, and seeing Web three as a solution to that to put more inherent value on music. [00:15:54] Cardin Campbell: And I think a lot of those things sound good. But I do think that the more actual reality, as you've said both here and even in past conversations you've had is where the two of these meet each other. And from your perspective, what do you think the best approach is, or some of the best things you've seen look like where you do see Web two and Web three meet each other in music to actually provide value for fans? [00:16:18] Right. So I guess let's define what Web three means by starting with Web one, right? So, the definition that I've used, you know, with people is web, one is read, web two is read, write, web three is read, write and own, right? And what I encourage people to do is not think of them as three separate spaces. [00:16:40] They're actually a stack, a capability stack, let's call it, right? That, you know, you had one capability in web one. We can read things like a magazine, which is why it's called a webpage, cuz it's like a page of a magazine we read, right? As you know, the error we're in now where you can post things on social and leave comments and write all kinds of things on the web. [00:17:02] and web three is read, write, own. I think it's just another capability that we now have, and I think stacking it in that way is where the value is. You still want to give people the experience and the, you know, the UX of web two, but the invisible, immutable experience that the blockchain also has and provides. [00:17:24] Cardin Campbell: So I think when you think about web three music, the way we're approaching it is, yeah, let's give them user experience in web two, but let's also write their royalties and their ownership on the blockchain. So it's immutable, it's saved forever. No one, can take it away from them, which solves a problem that exists in the industry today. Because a lot of the industry still on pen and paper, it's not very digitized just yet. So I think Web Three gives us an opportunity to digitize the music industry in ways that we've never been able to do it before beyond just a PDF or whatever, right? It's like, yes, these are real assets. We can put them on the blockchain and keep them there. [00:17:59] And I think, you know, if we think about it from that perspective, the blockchain and Web three music is more of a B2B play between the creators and the rights holders themselves. And it makes it really scalable to send, exchange and trade these royalties, in a space that is immutable and no one can change it. [00:18:19] No one can, take it away. Cause we've heard Snoop say, you know, man, the first couple of albums at death row, I wrote, what's the publishing check? I never saw a publishing. I wrote 70% of the Chronic and I wrote, that would never happen in this new era with the way we're approaching web three music, it's like, hey, let's publish your work and write itinto the blockchain. You own it, it's in your wallet. No one can take it away, Right? And if, we can streamline that and make that a standard, I think we would solve a lot of problems. and then once everybody has their stuff in their wallet. Yeah, there can be a space where we, in web two, give them the ability to trade it with each other, sell it amongst each other, sell it to a hypnosis or whomever. [00:19:04] But it's all immutable. that's my thoughts. [00:19:07] Dan Runcie: And then with that, where are you right now at Trac with making that a reality for artists? [00:19:13] Cardin Campbell: So, it's a reality already for us. Like we built the tech, right? It's now about getting the artists that have valuable assets to use it in a way that's meaningful, right? And the challenge is at what point do you make that right to the block chain? Is it in the studio at the creation process? [00:19:34] I don't think so. Is it at the point of distribution, which is why we launched distribution, right? Because I believe that's where the cutoff is from the creative process to the business of music. So we're betting on that being the right space and right place for it. So yeah, we built the Tech Stack, we built the product. [00:19:51] We're now going after the artist that can, you know, evangelize the solutions and, make it meaningful, basical. [00:19:57] Dan Runcie: And then are there any artists that you can share or any examples from, oh yeah, this is an artist that's doing what we're envision [00:20:03] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, we have some, you know, up and coming artists that's like really, really growing. Like one artist on our platform, his name is MRG, he is like killing it. He started with us from the very beginning with barely no, you know, monthly Spotify listeners to now he has over 400 thousands. And we're, you know, we're in talks with, you know, major label artists that, that are no longer on major label deals that we want to use the platform and, you know, like, make this thing a reality. So it's really about like putting it together. Bringing it together, in a meaningful way. It would be nice if we can like, make this thing scale to all distributors, Right? [00:20:40] But the problem is, you know, it's also attached to payments, right? So we have to like really showcase this and make it, you know, big first. I think before we can like, yeah, like scale it to everybody else, but ultimately we would love to do that and be the central solution for it all. [00:20:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I feel like with these things, especially in a space like distribution, one or two success stories with those normally help get the eyeballs and they see, oh, okay, this person did it. No different than any the headlines we see, you see what, whether it's the Chainsmokers or you see what BL or some of these other artists have done, and then that generates the attention there. [00:21:17] Cardin Campbell: for sure. For sure. [00:21:18] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And then thinking about that specifically, I know something else that you've touched on with this is just the idea of how artists can use windowing, specifically astatic, to be able to use both web two and web three, and being able to meet and serve their audience where they're at. How do you see that factoring in. [00:21:37] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, so the reason why we thought of like doing it this way is, another problem to solve in the industry besides, you know, getting assets written to the blockchain so that they're immutable and people own their stuff and no one can take it from them. That's one thing. [00:21:51] Another problem in the industry is that artists typically don't know who their fans are. they just don't, They're consumed so much by all the DSPs and even social platforms, but they don't really know who their fans are. and, and we've seen, you know, platforms like community and, you know, come, come up and, try to give, you know, artists, that ownership of their fan base. [00:22:12] But so I think the way we're approaching it is if we can give an artist the opportunity to, give away an NFT to their fan base, like it's an early listen to an album or a single, so long as they pre-shave the song on Spotify and that pre save will unlock the NFT and give them access to listen to it early. [00:22:33] That then gives us an opportunity to share that fan to the artist and build a community for them. And what I also do another benefit. It trains the Spotify algorithm to say, oh, we have a bunch of pre-safe, that means this song must be good, or this album must be good. It automatically gets added to the algorithm, the algorithmic playlist on Spotify. [00:22:54] So it's like this nice, you know, recursive flywheel effect if we can, you know, apply that using NFTs. Right. you know, and you technically can do it without NFTs, but we feel like the NFT can then now have another lifebeyond that, so if the artist is doing a show somewhere and that person who did the precinct just show happened to be there and bought a ticket in that entity could be a backstage pass or something. [00:23:18] So it just unlocks the opportunity, multiple different opportunities. the way we think about it, way we're gonna approach it. But yeah, windowing, is I think a necessary thing. we've seen the platforms try it without success. I think the success can be realized at the aggregator level because we're not dependent on any of them. [00:23:37] Right? And the artists can, you know, own the fan and give them an experience that none of the individual DSPs can, you know? So that's kinda how we're thinking about, and. [00:23:48] Dan Runcie: Speaking of windowing, you may have just saw the news that Snoop Dogg is re-releasing Death Row Records, but he's giving TikTok a one week exclusivity through their sound on service before putting it on streaming. And that was interesting because at least to my knowledge, I had yet to see an artist or at least you know, a former major label artist do anything like that. [00:24:08] So [00:24:09] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, we've seen, you know, the Carters do it right with title, but I don't think it's been successful. Just, windowing at the platform level that is. but yeah, I've I haven't heard that, but that's interesting to see him do it. [00:24:20] Dan Runcie: So with this, you're saying that, of course, this isn't at the platform level, but they're saying whatever digital student provider that you used, you can pre-shave this song. You get exclusive access to listen to it on the provider of your choice, whichever one that you're already subscribed to. [00:24:35] Cardin Campbell: We're gonna give them a space to listen to it. At the artist level on Trac, on our platform. Like we spin up a page for them to listen outside of the platforms early. That's what the NFT gives you. It's like a token into that listening experience. And then once the release date hits, you get that notification from your stream platform of choice that, Hey, the release is here and you can go listen, you know, as much as you want. [00:24:59] Dan Runcie: Got it. And as you all were thinking through it, even just, channeling back to the earlier part of this conversation when you were thinking through, okay, a lot of the NFT things didn't exactly work out in the same way. There seems to be some type of consumer disconnect in terms of what they may have valued and what they didn't. [00:25:15] What was the value add for this one, this idea that was like, "yeah, you know what? I think a consumer would be interested in this particular type of NFT that we'd be offering here. [00:25:25] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, the benefit is you know, for both the artists and the fan for the family, get to listen to the song or the album early and for the artist, they get that pre say, which trains the algorithm to, you know, add it to playlists in the future. so that's the benefit for both personas in this case. [00:25:43] Dan Runcie: Got it. That makes sense. And then for you all specifically, I know I mentioned sound on earlier, there's a number of music distribution services out there, and you talked to different artists and I think a lot of them can sometimes feel like they can be a bit commoditized in terms of the roles that they have. [00:25:59] Cardin Campbell: But how do you feel like Trac stands out in that regard? And what are some of the things you've done to help Trac stand out so it isn't seen as just another. [00:26:07] Another. Yeah. So when we thought about the space music tech, we thought web three first, but we're like, we want to be in a position to help artists maximize their earning potential, so monetizationwas the central thing for us. And with that in mind, we thought another problem in the industry is, you know, the, payments and speed of payments. [00:26:30] So when we launched the platform, we lost distribution. We said, why wait two, three months to get your money? We're gonna pay you out weekly. We saw it went viral for us. It was like, holy shit. Who would've thought that this would happen. But you know, when you think about entrepreneurship, like I said, when you're solving a problem, you know, it tends to go viral. [00:26:49] So that's our differentiator. we want to be known as the platform that gets you your money fast. And with distribution, we unlock a bunch of other value around like, to where it feels like. we don't wanna be known as just a distributor, necessarily. So even though that's where we started, but yeah, we get you your money fast and we unlock value at the point of distribution is what we say. [00:27:13] So the minute you, you know, release your music, we also take your cover art and put it on merch. We get you syncs, like it just unlocks value around without you having to do anything else. It's literally one action. Value creation [00:27:27] is our value prop. [00:27:29] Dan Runcie: and this is the value prop you're pushing to artists, artist managers specifically. He's definitely the target that you're trying to reach there. And how would you say that's been on the customer acquisition side? What does that look like for you and what are the most effective ways that Trac is used to be able to get artists and their managers on board? [00:27:47] Cardin Campbell: So product-led growth is interesting, right? Because it's like it scales and you don't need a bunch of people to acquire people, just do some digital ads. People come the products, you know, converts them. Oh, happy day. While that's great. You don't typically, you know, at a high clip that is, find your target audience and you definitely have to then shift to more of a sales led approach to acquire that target audience. So we are building out, you know, a team of Biz dev folks there are as to go after our target audience with, you know, the value propositions we just talked about earlier to bring on, you know, folks we feel like is our core managers and artists at a certain caliber. [00:28:32] Dan Runcie: Okay. And what is that caliber? How would you define that? [00:28:35] Cardin Campbell: We define it as an artist with 250,000 monthly Spotify listeners. That's our core. [00:28:40] Dan Runcie: Okay, nice. And then with that, is it also, I guess a vision in the artist's mind of, okay, if I'm at 250K now this is where I wanna get to, or this is where I can get to, like with Trac’s help. [00:28:54] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. that's how we want to, you know, position the brand. It's like, Hey, when you're at this point, we want to get you to that next level, that next level being success for us. Well, firstly, I guess I gotta define what success means for us. Success means, you know, you as an artist can make a living doing your art, and whatever the national average is in terms of salary per year, we want every artist on Trac at that level to get to that level of freedom and beyond. [00:29:25] yeah, we're building for that success story. and then some that's like the bare minimum for us. But yeah, we hope to create, you know, the next superstar. Not create, but we hope to help support the next superstar by giving them the tools to make the business side and, you know, management side of their catalog super easy. [00:29:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and one of the benefits that I think I often see with distribution services that stand out is that there's so much discussion right now about independence, ownership, and artists wanting to have more rights that they can stay the course, and they can do that with the service that can grow with them. [00:29:57] And I do think that after a while, The power laws do tend to take over to some extent where, of course I understand the goal is to make sure that everyone can reach at least some minimum viable level. But inevitably there will be a handful of stars that do end up having the outsize returns, hopefully, on a lot of these platforms. [00:30:17] But then it also becomes the flip side of that challenge, which is keeping those people happy because they start getting offers from elsewhere about other things. How has that piece fit? [00:30:27] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. So on one side, you know, people say, don't worry about it. Right? Like, there's nothing wrong with helping an artist, grow and then graduate, let's say, right? I don't want to think of that as like the standard or the norm. because I think, yeah, like, that feels like failure to me, right? [00:30:49] Like if you support an artist and they get to a certain level and they go take a big check that feels like we didn't do our job well, of educating them on. why that may not be the best move. Right. like getting a big check doesn't really mean it's a success, right. So yeah. [00:31:07] We're, we're, we're trying to find the right medium. is really me, like trying to find acceptance in, saying, yeah, you know what, it's okay if they move on to a label or, or, or somewhere else and take a big check. Yeah, I don't wanna accept that right now. [00:31:20] I feel like we need to get them to a certain level and, and make sure that they are educated enough to stay there, you know, and that, that's not only education, but maybe helping them build a team that can support them, you know, as much as they need, you know, as they grow. [00:31:35] Because that's really where I think the drop off is, it's like they feel like, oh, the label will do everything for me, but they don't realize your team outside the label is just as important, if not more important than the label themselves. You know? Cause we've seen a time and time again where you're forgotten, you know, even though you're a signed artist, like Frank Ocean is a perfect example, Right? So yeah, I think the market share is also shifting. So much so that, the role of the label will eventually change. That's my prediction and we're betting that we can establish a relationship with the labels that is different from the one that exists today. [00:32:13] At least that's what I'm imagining will happen. [00:32:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah, this is an interesting topic because I feel that on one hand, there is something to be said for, as you mentioned it yourself, artists moving on from one thing to the other. People are always switching things or sometimes people are trying things differently. They may go to something else like we've seen that a few with how artists may do deals with empire or label like that they do on album and then they choose to do something else on their own. [00:32:39] And it's interesting because I do think that on a lot of the music distribution services, you do technically have the ability to earn as much as you want and continue to maintain ownership and move forward with all the things which is great. The other side, some of the checks that artists do get, and I'm not even saying I advocate for this, some of those checks, it's different when there's $50 million in front of you and that's what the label's giving you. It changes the conversation. [00:33:07] Cardin Campbell: sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. being, you know, a web three company like, and that that's possible in web three. We're hoping to do some things in defi that can challenge that, like, challenge that like greatly, you So yeah, like can't really talk about too much because it's not baked yet. [00:33:24] But yeah, like we're planning to, you know, combat that somehow, you Um, yeah, I, cause I don't feel like graduating them to a, you know, a state or a place where the problem exists is, is the right thing, even though the check is, you know, is lovely, right? It's like, is, is it really lovely? [00:33:42] You know? Yeah. I don't [00:33:44] Dan Runcie: And I guess with this, and of course I think we're talking qualitatively, but on a quantitative side, how does this impact churn or any of the more specific benchmarks that you may be evaluating things. [00:33:56] Cardin Campbell: we, yeah, we, we we're not there in our maturity yet to really. Factor that Um, but it's an interesting question. Interesting mental model to, to, to play with for yeah, I mean it's, it's, it could be a good acquisition strategy to say, Hey, look, Trac got all these artists signed to all these major label labels. [00:34:17] So we have like a big funnel of people coming in, but then a smaller funnel of people going out like, yeah, I don't know if that's, that's not the definition of success. . So I, I try not to like, embrace it too much, you know? Yeah. I, I, I, I really hope to solve the problems in the, in the music in, in, in, in every way. [00:34:40] It's a, it's a tough, tall order, but I'm an entrepreneur. I can't help it. [00:34:46] Dan Runcie: What excites you most about this space right now? I know we've talked about a number of things, but what excites you most? Right. [00:34:54] Cardin Campbell: what excites me most is the digitization of the, the business of Um, the immutability of the, the, the assets and making payments,um, work at scale, right? Like, I think waiting two, three months is BS to me. Like it doesn't need to um, that long. I think with the blockchain and with money now being uh, on the. [00:35:20] And trust being like almost solved on the internet with, with web three. I think there's so many opportunities there. So that's where my heart is and that's where we're trying to build, but it's just tough with regulations and tough with user adoption and, you know, all these complicated technologies and whatnot. [00:35:39] So that's why we, you know, we think of the capability stack as I, as I talked about it. It's, it's, it's just another layer. We shouldn't be inundating. artists and fans and people with wallets and all these weird and wonderful things, like it should just be seamless. So yeah, that's where my heart is. That's what keeps me up at night. [00:35:57] That's what, you know, brings me joy in thinking um, yeah, I, I, I can't wait for five years to roll off and we're like, oh shit. Cardin was right. Like, look at, look at what we built. You know, like, yeah. That's, that's what excites me. [00:36:10] Dan Runcie: you talked about wallets and maybe some of the confusion that fans may have with things, and from that I can pull out some of the friction that has existed with. Web three experiences more broadly. [00:36:22] Can you speak about that piece of it? Cuz we haven't touched on that, but I do feel like that's been part of the barrier for some of the web three adoption as well in that the people that are web three enthusiasts, that was no barrier for them. [00:36:33] They were already native, but some of that Venn diagram of who is a hardcore fan versus who is a web three enthusiast. Those things didn't necessarily always interact in the same way. If they did, then great, that's your demo. But I think that at least historically up until this point, a lot of the companies and a lot of the things they've been launching attracted more of the enthusiasts than they did some of the super fans. [00:36:57] And I think the friction of the wallets and meta masks and some of those things that you needed to be able to fully tap in. Played a factor. [00:37:07] Cardin Campbell: big, it's a big barrier of entry for the masses. Um, and I think, you know, over time the more investments that go into the infrastructure side of web three to make it more seamless. and, and like I said, a part of the, the value stack the, capability we're seamlessly, I think that's where the beauty is, which is why we built all of our web three stuff on Um, not only were they an investor, we, we believe in how they wanna approach it because it's the same, you know? I, I, I think about it in, in the same way. Yeah. Like, no one wants to have to go get this other tool just to interact with the internet, right? We've already invented the browser. [00:37:47] That's it, right? Like, that should be the standard thing and it should just be Um, So yeah, that's how, that's how we think about it. [00:37:54] Dan Runcie: It's interesting because I agree with you. I think it should be seamless. I've also heard this ongoing debate from a few other folks within the Web three community about, they feel like there's pushback on this notion of things that are in web three need to seem like they're less crypto or seem like they're less web three. [00:38:11] And then that's how you get people bought in because of some of that stigma, and I don't think that the stigma necessarily was as much about the actual function as much as it was people, you know, kind of pointing and laughing at a hype. It's almost brings me back to the.com bubble in a lot of ways because yeah, people, some people may have laughed at the internet at the time and there were laughable things that people were trying to do like, you know, delivering ice cream cones to people and pets.com and stuff like that. But what we are now in is this world where everything relies on it. And I think that is the most bullish perspective on web three more broadly. And I do think that still exists and will exist. I think that we just had to get past a lot of that. [00:38:56] And if anything, this post pandemic wave of things coming back to reality and the 97% drop in NFT volume that you'd seen from that Bloomberg report. That's all a sign that, okay, there's no more million dollar pet rocks. That was the wave, and we are now unto hopefully bringing the real businesses to come to fruition. [00:39:18] Cardin Campbell: Yeah, we, gotta solve problems. that's the bottom line. We gotta solve problems. It's technology at the end of the day that we can use to do that, solve a problem,and you know, just as we don't think of companies as not being a web company like, you know, I think that's just what we gotta think of it as. [00:39:38] Like, you're a web company, whether it's web one, two, or three, doesn't matter, like you're just, you are a company that embraces the internet, whether that's web three or web two. Like, I think that the technicals shouldn't matter. Like no one, you know, says, oh, you know, I went to amazon.com and ordered something and, you know, it was written to a no SQL DB and like no one cares. Like what's underneath is like irrelevant, you know? So that's how seamless it has to be, to really like break through, solve problems and give people immutability and, and trust and native currencies on the internet to make it like truly, truly seamless. We'll get there, you know, we just need to get through, like you said, this Pet Rocks movement and soft start solving some problems, which is what we're doing and what we're working on. it's a marathon, not a race, you know, not a sprint. So, yeah. [00:40:29] Dan Runcie: Agree. I think we'll get there too. And would you think maybe more than the short term, let's look at in the next year from now, if things with what you're building with Trac play out the way that you think it will. If you look at the business model you have, where on the distribution side you do take a cut of any of the revenue that comes in from the songs that you distribute. [00:40:46] And then I assume on the web three side of things, you would also take a small percentage of any of the transactions that come through on that side. Where do you project that your revenue mix will most likely come from when you compare the web two side of things, when you compare the web three side of things. [00:41:05] Cardin Campbell: Yeah. Music has always been a transactional business, right? it's always been , you know, we add value here and, you know, we take a percentage of whatever revenue is generated from that relationship, you know, experience. So I think that's gonna always be the case. Even like when you look at companies like Shopify, on the surface, you might think, oh, there, there's a subscription, you know, business model. [00:41:31] Yes it is, but 70% of their revenue is transaction, less than 30% actually is subscription. So I think that's gonna be the typical mix with any company in our space. Whether there's a subscription at, you know, attached to, you know, an artist's plan or whatever. and if we take a percentage, we just approach it differently than most where we take a percentage where we add-value. [00:41:54] So, you know, back to what I was saying earlier, when we launched with Speedy payouts and get your money, you know, week after the stream happened versus two months, that's when we take a percentage versus some companies say, we're gonna take 20% just to deliver your song to Spotify. That's bullshit to me. [00:42:09] You know? So, yeah, it's gonna be a mix of, you know, different, you know, streams of revenue, some subscription, because you need a pay wall just to make sure you're, dealing with serious people. That's the subscription side, but I think the majority of it's gonna be from the revenues generated from that relationship being established, and if we can add, you know, a little bit more service to our mix, to help an artist even grow even more, that's another example of adding value to why aren't you taking a percentage? [00:42:38] But yeah, I think the transactional revenue's gonna be the lion share of where the revenue comes from. [00:42:42] That's what I was [00:42:43] Dan Runcie: gonna ask about next because I know that if we take that Shopify example further, they have their white club or their white glove enterprise offering for the clients that they hope that they can keep, that don't go create their own website or create their own stack, right? And tie back to what we said earlier, that would be. [00:43:00] I assume how you all would try to make sure you keep those superstar potential artists on Trac opposed to doing their thing. [00:43:08] Yeah. Yeah. we we're building out a concierge team as we speak. we just hired a sales guide that, that can help those clients, those artists and artists teams, you know, achieve goals that they might have and really have a more intimate relationship with them. So one might say, oh, that's a label. [00:43:25] Like we think of it like any other business that, you know, sells a software license that gives you an account manager. that's how we think of it. So it's like Salesforce, you pay them a million dollars for software, guess what? They're gonna make sure you have a success manager to make sure that you achieve your goals, that you can renew every year, every year. [00:43:45] So that's kind of how we're approaching the business for that top tier in hopes that they don't go graduate as they say to some label. But if money is the carrot that pulls them away, like I said, we're hoping to solve some of that problem, with some defi Web three shit too, you know? [00:44:00] And I think if that's what things come to, then those are good problems to have, as I always say. [00:44:05] Yeah, absolutely. Good problems to have. Yeah. Definitely. Well Cardin, this is great. Appreciate the breakdown on everything related to Trac where things are moving forward, and just good to hear where you see things moving with the industry. [00:44:17] I think a lot of companies are trying to see where things sit and what you're building as a reminder that you don't have to pick between one, find a way to integrate it into your business model and potentially do both of them. So before we let you go, what's the best way for whether it's an artist, manager, or for anyone else that's listening that's in the space to follow along with what Trac is doing? [00:44:38] Cardin Campbell: They can go to Trac.co or go to our social, Trac.co I think everywhere. and follow along, you know, all the things we're talking about. You know, we're, gonna be doing a lot more on the content side as well to just to educate the artist and, you know, talk about the problems that exist and how we are the wedge or the solution for those problems. [00:44:55] So yeah, I think our website and our socials. Would be a great place to start. and then yeah, we can take it from there. [00:45:02] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Cardin, thanks again, and it's always great to have a fellow Jamaican on too, so appreciate you [00:45:13] Dan Runcie Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead. [00:45:34] Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people. Discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 05 Jan 2023 | NYU Keynote: Music, Streaming, and Second-Order Effects | 00:53:25 | |
I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at New York University’s Annual Alumni Event for its music business department. Big thanks to Larry Miller, a professor and director of the program, for inviting me. It was a free-flowing conversation focused on how technology is reshaping the music industry from top-to-bottom. We’re well into the streaming era now, but some of the second-order effects are barely starting to ripple — particularly the oversaturation of content. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to release music, which explains how tens of thousands of new songs are uploaded to Spotify on a daily basis. On one hand, this has ushered in a golden era of independent artists making a career without the backing of a label. On the other hand, value is increasingly accruing to the superstar artists. Most of these superstars were “grandfathered” into this new era as they were already household names before streaming took off. Reaching that same superstar status is harder and harder for new artists due to the industry’s oversaturation. Larry and I dove deeper into the issue during our conversation. Students also hit me with Q&A about burning topics such as ChatGPT, botted streaming numbers, and much more. Here’s what you can expect to hear on this episode: [2:02] Introduction from Larry Miller [5:09] Superstar artists like Taylor Swift and Drake shining brighter than ever [10:22] Too many hits, not enough superstars [17:23] How Curren$y “niched down” to break through [24:18] Tradeoffs of going independent or the major label route [26:47] Industry takeaways from Spotify and YouTube’s billions playlists [30:32] YouTube’s competitive advantage over Spotify [34:09] Evolving Trapital’s own business model [39:43] Music’s bot problem in streaming and ticketing [42:07] Is the music superstar dead? [44:19] Picking a platform(s) as a new artist [46:24] How oversaturated music landscape impacts listeners [49:03] Is New York drill music the next wave? [50:48] Pros and cons of AI music Trapital’s first-ever Cultural Report for 2022: https://trapital.co/culture-report/ Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co
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Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Dan Runcie: Both Spotify and YouTube generated a tremendous amount of revenue for the music industry. I believe Spotify had last shared that they generated 7 billion for the industry. YouTube generates six or seven, I think it's 6 billion. The last thing that I had seen them put in. So that is a sign. Okay, great. You know, you tie that back into the numbers you shared before. You can do a little bit of backwards math to see how much of that is responsible for the overall industry with where it is now. So you see that, and then you also know that like anything else, the most popular songs drive most of that revenue. So you can kind of get a good idea to be like, okay, what are the songs that are driving? The music industry right now. [00:00:46] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:01:04] (Intro) Dan Runcie: This episode is a fun one. We're sharing the audio from a talk that I recently gave at NYU. I was the keynote speaker at an event there for several hundred alumni and students. For the music business program, it starts off with a 10 minute talk by me where I'm giving an overview on the lay of the land with where things lay right now with streaming and music and social media, and how artists are doing their best to navigate all of the noise that's happening right now. And then it pivots into a conversation. Which is a fireside chat with me and Larry Miller, who's the head of the music program at N Y U, and we talk even more about what certain artists are doing, right? We talked about Currensy, who I recently had on the podcast a couple months ago. We also talk a little bit about me and Trapital and building this and where I see things going in the future. Really fun conversation. I really enjoyed doing this event and I hope you enjoyed this. Here it goes. [00:02:02] Larry Miller: Dan Runcie is the founder of Trapital. Trapital has become an amazing media platform and the quality and amount of content, really insightful content that Dan cranks out as remarkable. It's just remarkable. What it's about is the people who are taking hip hop and culture to the next level. That includes the artists who are becoming moguls, leaders who are reaching new heights and fans inspired by hip hop's growing influence. Dan, when he'd school, and I suppose even, you know, business school. This media company Trapital, because he wanted to see a change. The hip hop execs that he looked up to were becoming really successful business leaders, but he felt that they rarely got the coverage that they deserved. And he wanted to do something about it. So he launched Trapital in March of 2018, and the business has grown ever since. Tens of thousands of influential people read Trapital's weekly memos and listen to the Trapital Podcast every week to stay ahead of the latest trends. Trapital's been featured pretty much everywhere. Places like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC and N P R, C N B C and lots of other places are turning to Dan for insights on the business of hip hop. Dan's recent coverage has focused on lots of things. He's focused on the surprising differences between Spotify's and YouTube's. Billion stream playlists. Just looking at the ones that have done a billion on each platform. There are actually some pretty interesting differences between those two platforms. He's done significant work on how a venture capital fund from a 16 Z, Andreas and Horowitz invest money that is raised exclusively from black leaders in entertainment, sports, and business. He's done a report on the so-called decline in the influence of hip hop culture. He's done work on the future of ticketing. He's done a lot on DIY careers in hip hop, and done some really insightful reporting around Joe Kelli's amazing new book, Rap Capital, the Rise and Reign of Atlanta's hip hop culture, which if you haven't read it, get it. Dan got his MBA from a school in the Midwest, I think it's called Michigan, and he lives in San Francisco with his wife, and small child, daughter. Please give a warm NYU music biz welcome to Dan Runcie. [00:05:09] Dan Runcie: Larry, thank you to the entire faculty, alumni for having me. It's an honor to be here. And I guess to start things off, because she's been brought up a few times, Taylor Swift has been a topic I know a lot of you thought about. So just outta curiosity, how many of you tried to buy Taylor Swift tickets this week? Okay, a few hands. Keep those hands up if you actually got Taylor Swift tickets this week. Okay? All right. Well, people will have to follow up with you all after to figure out exactly how you did that, but I think that's an interesting place to start with so much of what's happening right now in the music industry, because Ticketmaster, as most of you know, the whole entire app and the site crash because of the high demand. Ticketmaster put out this blog post and they said that they had five times the amount of hits compared to the Super Bowl, compared to other high days worth of events for this concert alone for Taylor Swift, and she's someone that's been on tour before. She's someone that has done plenty of things in music, but to see this kind of demand is pretty surprising. But she also broke a bunch of records with the album that she just put out a couple weeks ago, Midnights, and it's made me think about something we've talked a lot about recently, in Trapital. Something we've done a lot of research on. Right now there is so much music coming. I see, I think a few of you probably saw that music business Worldwide article, Spotify releases it. A hundred thousand songs a day get uploaded to that service. Most of those songs don't get listened to, to be clear, but a hundred thousand songs a day is still something else. And then as Larry had mentioned as well, Live Nation and a lot of these other event promoters and ticketing companies are having their biggest quarters and biggest years. And artists like Taylor are probably going to be having record years. And on the flip side, you also look at someone like Drake. Him and 21 Savage recently just put out their album, Her Loss. I think Drake gave one week's notice on this album, fourth highest streaming week that an album has ever had, which is pretty impressive. I know that Drake's a superstar, but still, even his past albums before this had plenty of buildup before where if you think about what he did with Scorpion or even the long buildup for an album like Certified Lover Boy. But the fact that Drake can announce on short notice is pretty surprising because if you think about where things are in music, you have more artists than ever that wanna tour. You have more artists than ever that are releasing music, but it's the superstar artists that are still the ones that people are gravitating more towards and they're the ones that are still getting most of the profits. But on the other side of the spectrum, things are getting a little bit tougher because Larry mentioned it a little bit earlier, but a lot of artists are struggling to make toward profitable, especially post pandemic the way that things are right now. Inflation costs are rising. It's costing so much more from freight costs to be able to travel with an entire production set from city to city, hotel airfare. So certain artists are selling out their tours or selling out their concert tickets, but they still aren't able to generate profit unless they increase the ticket prices. But even if you do that to a certain extent, the customers are going to push back. I'm sure a lot of people have seen all the complaints that people have had about how high the prices are, all these hidden fees. So there's a little bit of a squeeze there. And I think what we're seeing now is something that we've seen happen in the media, something that we've seen happen in music, but the fact that the barriers to entry have made music more easy to access, and now that we're in a post pandemic world, more people wanna be outside than ever. It's a lot of the artists at the top that are doing extremely well. But on the other side of the spectrum, while you do have some folks struggling, there are artists who are doing extremely well on the independent side of things. These are artists oftentimes that are owning their masters. These are artists that own their publishing rights as well. And because they've been able to keep a low cost and they've been able to essentially build from the ground up and continue to do it almost the way that a CEO in the music industry will be building up their business. They've been able to build pretty successful businesses too, in many ways. Leveraging the power of the internet because whether it's through SoundCloud or using YouTube or any of these other platforms, they can use their content or they can use their content to be able to drive awareness to their music. And then with that, they can then build up their audience and ultimately, Do that more successfully than they might have otherwise if they were to join one of the major record labels. So it's in this interesting piece because a lot of those artists feel like they have to make a decision, and Larry and I are gonna talk a little bit about one of them in a bit, but it's making artists, and I think many people in the music industry kind of pause because of the amount of content that's coming out, because of the amount of music that's coming out, it's a little bit harder to be able to pierce through. How many of you remember about a month ago, there was a billboard article that came out that said too many hits, not enough superstars, there was named something around that. Does that ring a bell? Okay. I've seen a few folks nod their heads there, and there were a few quotes in that article that stuck out to me because you had a lot of folks that are A & R or other executives in the industry that would say, we're doing all the things that they're telling us to do. We’re doing all the TikTok campaigns, we're doing the same press runs, we are creating the content, we're putting it out there. But even if we do all those things, We still can't guarantee that an artist that we think is going to be successful can get there, and that's because at the end of the day, the record labels and the artists themselves don't have control over the TikTok algorithms. They don't have control over the Instagram feeds to be able to tell what specifically is going to rise to the top and how you can break through another piece from that same article that stuck out to me. How many are you familiar with Steve? Okay. Pretty familiar. And it stuck out because there was a recent concert that he did and he was singing his song at the concert. The audience, the voices, got quiet once it got past that TikTok moment of the song. And if you're an artist, you're putting everything into your album. Of course you know that your fans are probably gonna sing harder to the hit songs under the singles. But because through the TikTok piece. I mean, it's just a reminder of how things are coming and where things are going. Even the concept of a one hit wonder I think has changed quite a bit because back when a lot of us probably were growing up, even if an artist was a one hit wonder, you still probably knew something about that artist. I mean, we can go back years ago, but even someone like Lou Bega who had that song, Mambo Number Five, or even someone like Trinidad James who had all gold everything, you still remember the videos, if you saw them walking down the street, you could probably recognize them. Or I've still been to, you know, a few events where I've seen some of these folks at. But now a one hit wonder could have just a song that you may hear a bit often, but you're recognizing it from some meme that someone else did on their TikTok video or someone else did. So you're engaging a bit more with the viral hit itself than the actual person that's making the music. So it's making things a lot tougher for a lot of artists who I think are the majority of them, wanna be successful, wanna be known and wanna get a few looks. But that middle ground of just wanting to be able to feel like you have that moderate place, you're kind of in the middle of the industry. It's getting a little bit harder to continue to have that being viable because now as I mentioned, you're starting to see a bit of this path where you have the superstars who are just getting more and more recognition as there's more and more options than ever. Or the independent artists who, even though the economics work in their favor, even though they may be able to do even better financially than some artists who may get more exposure than them, they may not be getting looked at the same, as some of their peers are. So it's a very interesting place for the industry. I think with that, it presents a ton of opportunity, but I also think that for certain artists, especially hip hop artists, there's a little bit of a mindset shift in terms of how am I releasing music? What is it that I wanna release? Because I think for a while it seemed like there was a blueprint that generally most people do. You put your music out, maybe you have a following on social media, you share that. You share a little bit of your personality. Hopefully a good manager can come to you if you find one or vice versa. If you do well, you're able to break through. Then maybe a major record label can find you. There was a bit of a general path, but now you're starting to see more and more of that split, and it's making artists in a lot of ways, think a bit sooner about what that decision is when you're still figuring out where it is and where you honestly wanna be. Do you wanna try to become the next Taylor Swift or the next Drake, or do you wanna try to do this a bit more yourself and have a bit more control over what you do? Because the thing is, even things like that, like becoming the next Drake or becoming the next Taylor Swift, have plenty of nuance part of other things that people have been talking about is how much harder it is for a newer artist to be able to hit the same levels. The fact that, you know, we're still referencing whether it's your Adele's or Beyonce's or Taylor Swifts, or Drake's, a lot of these artists have been famous years before TikTok was ever a thing. They still had a lot of that monocultural benefit of when they blew up, they were the thing, and they were able to benefit from that and have a lot of exposure. So now any of the platforms they had, it's all gravy. Now it's all added. They can use that to their advantage, but you are now trying to rise up and do that same thing, it's harder. Even someone like Olivia Rodrigo. Any fans of Olivia Rodrigo? So she is someone who I think Driver's License in a lot of ways for some people felt like the song blew up overnight and it did extremely successful, as did her album. But she was a Disney kid. She had been famous for years before leading up to that. So even that isn't quite at that same level. So it's a very interesting time in the industry. It's been a really great time to working the work we're doing at Trapital specifically to understand what this means. We're talking to a lot of different artists. We're talking to a lot of their managers, and really just making sure that we can share the best stories that we can about what's working, what's not, and highlighting those things. Cuz I think at the end of the day, you wanna find a way for artists to be successful. You wanna find a way for the people that are trying to build companies in the space to be successful, but it's very important to with the way things are trending right now, and a lot of people are saying, oh, it's oversaturated. Oh, we hope that we can eventually get back to a place that is less saturated. I don't think that's happening. The cat's out of the box at this point. If anything, there's gonna be more and more exposure more and more platforms. You look at how quickly TikTok grew to be a platform that has 1 billion monthly active users at this rate. There could be another platform that hasn't even grown yet that by 2026 could be that big. That's just how big things are from a connectivity perspective. So you never know what things could look like, but I think for where things are heading in the music industry there, it's a really fascinating time and even there's a lot of the established superstars that have done extremely well. There's still a ton of potential opportunity. I'll pause there cuz I know that Larry and I can talk a little bit more about that. But it is such a unique time and I think it's probably a good time for us to continue having the conversation because one of the people I do wanna talk to you about is Currency, who is an artist there. So we can do that in a moment, but yeah. [00:17:23] Larry Miller: A New Orleans hip hop artist who's got a lot going, you guys know Currensy. Woo woo. So what's the deal and what made this especially noteworthy for you? [00:17:36] Dan Runcie: So Currensy is someone who I had interviewed about a month ago and it was a pleasure to have him on as a guest on a podcast. I talked to him and his long-time business manager and partner Musa, and Currensy is someone who has been through each aspect of the music industry and I think in capsules a lot of what we've been talking about here. He first got exposure about 20 years ago. He was signed to Masterpiece No Limit label, and of course there's the whole New Orleans connection there. He ended up leaving New No Limit, and then he eventually signed on with Cash, Money and Young Money specifically under Lil Wayne. The thing is though, he actually ended up leaving cash money right around the 2007-2008 timeframe, which was a bit unique because that was the time that Drake and Nicki Minaj ended up joining them as well. And that label went on a pretty high trajectory after that. So some of the young money fans may often be like, oh, what could have happened? Right. But I actually think it was probably the best thing for Currensy because he realized that he was speaking to a slightly different audience, and specifically he knew that there were certain things that he was gonna be able to share with them that would resonate. That probably may not make sense trying to be on the next Lil Wayne mixtape or trying to be on the next Young Money collection or whatever it is. So he's been able to continue his career since, but he has a bit more of an interesting model where you see artists like him, NBA Young Boys, another one, but these artists are releasing albums every other month or releasing mixtapes every other month on streaming. And it's one of these things whenever people talk about that, it often becomes a bit of this question, where is this quality that's being put out? Or is this just quantity? And I think it's a very real thing. I mean, as someone that grew up enjoying a lot of music, even the artists that are successful now, from a personal fan perspective, you know? Yeah. It means something that, yes, you know, Beyonce drops Renaissance. We haven't heard her do a solo album since 2016, and she did one this summer. Okay. I'm listening. Same thing with Adele when she had hers, but I think that for Currensy, I'm not in, I may not be in that fan base demographic specifically, but the people that are following him on a regular basis love him. So he is focused on his true fans, he's found them. And by being able to do that, ultimately these people are gonna wanna hear from you on a more regular basis. Even if it isn't your best stuff, it's what they're gonna want to hear and it speaks to the flexibility that is offered now with streaming because before, just with how much it cost to release an album, yeah, it made perfect sense why you would wait and wanna save your best stuff for it. But if an artist wants to have the model where they wanna release frequency frequently and drop as often as they can, they can do that. And the platforms give them the flexibility. And someone like Currensy, the way he put it to me was, you know, there's certain artists that are gonna get 80 million streams a day. They're more popular than I am, but they don't drop as often as I do. And I'm gonna get my 80 million streams as well, even if I'm putting out much more music than they are. And for a lot of artists, they're still recording the same amount of music. They're just shit picking the best ones to pick for the album versus someone like Currensy's like, no, let me share most of it and share it with the fans. So it's very interesting to hear that. And then specifically since then, he's been able to take a lot of that money. He is solely focused, for the most part on tours. Really doesn't do too many festivals because he doesn't feel like that is where his true fans are. So leaning even more so into the true fan piece, been able to build up and create a few different nightclubs and places like that in New Orleans. He has an apparel company, Jet Life, so it's been a really interesting model for someone to leverage the tools that are available. And even though he may not speak to me or you specifically, he has his people. That to me shows the power of artists being able to focus on their niche and being able to build from there. [00:21:38] Larry Miller: How broad do you think this, you know, phenomenon is? I mean, you made a point a couple of minutes ago that it's only gonna get bigger. There's only going to be more of this. And I think that the inference for the incumbents for, you know, the majors in particular is that they need to, you know, continue to, you know, innovate and unbundle the thing that they do and be really good and, and competitive at it. You know, the leverage seems to be moving overwhelmingly toward the side of the individual music creator. You seeing more of that? [00:22:16] Dan Runcie: I think there's nuance there, and it's something I've thought a lot about because on one hand you do see the overall revenue share numbers, where the share of at least recorded music revenue from independent artists is continuing to grow, and I believe now it's over 30% and has continued to grow year over year, the past couple of years. On the other side of it though, if you're looking at the top artists on the Spotify charts or the top artists on any of these other charts, it's still mostly signed artists that are there. Those signed artists may not necessarily, let's see, be as many new names. Like it's gonna be harder for someone to dominate the entire list the way that Taylor or Drake do when they release an album. But most of the ones that are still there are still the signed folks. So I do feel like a lot of at least for the folks on the record label specifically and the people that are working there or the people that are working at publishing companies, they still are working with the majority of the most popular artists. I know there was a quote recently from Steven Cooper from Warner Music Group and he said, our record label is less dependent on superstars than it has been in the past. And I think there's a lot of truth to that just because you can see who's being signed to wear, you can see how many stars they've been able to develop ever since. And even though there may be less big names that they may have had. There's still a higher likelihood that a big name is gonna come from them than it would be from, you know, an independent group, from an independent artist. I would say, especially at the top level. Mm-hmm. I would say. Yeah. [00:23:51] Larry Miller: Right. And so for an individual artist, they may need to go through a, you know, calculation that evolves over a period of time about whether they have the ambition. and the drive to become Drake or Taylor Swift, or if they can make, you know, just as much or maybe more on a probability adjusted basis doing it for themselves. [00:24:18] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I do think that. If you're an artist and you wanna shoot for the stars, I think that even though there's a ton more platforms and there's many other tools out there that are making it easier for you to own your masters and own the rights to everything that you have, even the artists that have ended their deals, they're much more likely to resign with the major record labels or resign with the publishing companies, but having you know better terms than they did before. You've seen that with the weekend, and you've seen that with a few of the artists, specifically, a lot of the ones signed to Republic Records, they've, you know, de-risk themselves essentially as assets so they're able to get better terms. And they may have gotten on that first deal many years ago, but I do think that that means a few things, right? That means that those artists themselves that are already established, they're more likely to wanna stay there. But I do think for the newer artists, there's still plenty of opportunity because there are still a number of companies that wanna be able to partner with them and help them build. Right. You were just referencing Downtown and one of their key tenants of their mission is, let's help you become a superstar where you can continue to own the assets that you have. And there's a tremendous team there that has a tremendous amount of backing and tools to be able to make that happen. So I think things like that are really, really interesting. I think we'll have to continue to see how it plays out to see if we can see someone that can continue to go that route without ever having to given it up. Cuz I think right now you've seen a lot of folks were traded in at least, you know, some ownership for their rights early on. But then once they got enough leverage, they were able to get them back, which I think is powerful and in their own right. But have we seen it the other way where they started off owning everything and they've continued to own throughout their career? I think naturally there's any type of trade off you have to do when you have a business partnership. So part of that comes with the territory. But with so much flexibility and so many more options, it's gonna be interesting to watch. And that's one thing I'm interested in. [00:26:23] Larry Miller: You just mentioned the charts a minute ago, and I know that you just did a pretty deep dive on a comparison, of the billion stream or billion view charts that YouTube and Spotify separately came out with, that revealed some sort of interesting, you know, nuanced insights about what is similar but different about those platforms. What did you find? [00:26:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I guess first for a little bit of context there, one of the drivers for this analysis was because, both Spotify and YouTube generated a tremendous amount of revenue for the music industry. I believe Spotify had last shared that they generated 7 billion for the industry. YouTube generates six or seven, I think it's 6 billion. The last thing that I had seen them put in, so, that is a sign. Okay, great. You know, you tie that back into the numbers you shared before. You can do a little bit of backwards math to see how much of that is responsible for the overall industry with where it is now. So you see that, and then you also know that like anything else, the most popular songs drive most of that revenue. So you can kind of get a good idea to be like, okay, what are the songs that are driving The music industry right now, and if you're looking at those two platforms specifically, a lot of similarities because I think some songs are hits regardless of the platform, but a lot of differences too. I think there are a few things that stuck out. Spotify specifically is a bit more leaned, at least as of right now. It's a bit more skewed towards English speaking music. I think that's just given where it's got a lot of exposure. In the earlier years, Spotify, a Swedish company, had a lot of exposure specifically in Western Europe, and then we're seeing it now with a bit more of a saturated market now in North America, but YouTube has been much more international. As a, you know, result. And in many ways, as a compliment, it was a free service and a lot of times it was able to reach and help and make sure that people could upload and reach people all across the world. And I think with that, we've seen a lot more artists from Latin America that have been able to excel quite far on spot on YouTube's list specifically. And we may not see them as high on Spotify's list. So that's something that was definitely a bit unique. With Spotify specifically, it aligns a bit more towards radio hits in general because you think about music itself, it is a very flexible type of thing that people wanna consume. You can listen to something on Spotify while you're at a friend's party. You can listen to it while you're, you know, on, on yourself, demand. You're hearing music on the radio, the grocery store. There's so many ways where the same song can resonate in a way that watching the music video, it's a little. Right, like it's a much more active thing. You're gonna probably wanna sit here and have this more visual engagement and experience with it. So with that, it highlights a few things. One, YouTube is probably gonna be a bit more aligned to what someone may actively choose to wanna listen to. So there's some insights there. But YouTube's also a bit specific because. The platform is a bit more driven by memes and things like that, that probably just don't get as much notoriety or become as relevant as they would be on Spotify. Like for instance, are you all familiar with the song?, Nelly and Kelly Rowland, Dilemma. So there's this iconic scene in that music video where Kelly is texting someone and she's using Microsoft Excel to text the person . And it's bizarre because it's something that probably didn't get that much, you know, attention at the time it came out. But now that people can rewind and look at stuff, it's fascinating. So things like that, you know, just don't translate the same way. [00:30:15] Larry Miller: What about the community building and just the community-esque interaction that has been natively part of YouTube for really quite a long time now that is still kind of blacking at Spotify? Is that a factor? [00:30:32] Dan Runcie: I think so. And I'm glad you brought that up because I think YouTube's power in a lot of ways is, you can look at the comment section of a lot of these songs, and it's almost like a trip down memory lane, especially for some of these songs that you may not have visited in a little bit of time. And artists can see the name of their fan, they can interact with them, they can find a way to be able to try to build a bit of a community there. You can't necessarily do that on the same platform on Spotify. I think in a lot of ways, Spotify and maybe some of the other digital streaming providers from a strategic perspective didn't necessarily give artists the option to be able to see who their fans were, because I think in some ways that data has so much value, right? Spotify may share it as a flex every now and then through Spotify wrapped and things like that, where you can be like, oh, I'm in the 0.4% of Travis Scott fans. You know, I guess I listen to, you know, whatever song too often. But besides that, you don't really have that. But think about the power that an artist could have if they could do that themselves on YouTube. Even though you don't get that data, you can still see some familiar people. You can, you know, find some way to connect or go off platform if you can. And that creates the ability to build a niche. And I think in some ways it helps you have the algorithm just work in your favor, right? Like I think YouTube just being based in general off of, you know, it's the second biggest search engine, so you're leveraging everything from Google's power to be able to help power that. It just helps you as an artist be able to connect directly. So someone I mentioned earlier, NBA young boy. The way that he's used YouTube has been pretty fascinating because he releases his music first on that platform and he's someone that's releasing music every time. And the way that he's been so focused on it, it's almost similar to someone like, do you all know who Mr. Beast is? The YouTuber? Yeah. I heard a few laughs there, but it's almost a bit of a similar mentality to that where he understands that this is his audience. He sees what's working in the algorithm may continue to serve them, and because of the success from YouTube, he's been able to translate that to other platforms. So I do think that that's a platform, and I think there's a few of them, but artists being able to find a platform that allows them to connect with fans, and especially if fans in their niche or in their base happen to be there. It can be really powerfu. [00:33:04] Larry Miller: I want to remind you that we're gonna have a couple of minutes for questions from you and you know, please figure out what you'd like to ask Dan. And I'm not sure exactly where we're gonna have a mic set up, but I know it's gonna be somewhere. It's walking around the back of the room right now. But first I have another question. When we were talking earlier, we had talked a little bit about the shift in capital business model and that where you had started out as a subscription based business and now that it is, you know, entirely sponsorship driven and that one of the things that that has afforded you is the ability to help build deal flow as the result of the subject matter and the segment of the business that you're in as an angel investor. And I wonder if you can say more about that, about what your experience has been and what your aspirations are. [00:34:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No, thanks for asking that for me. Going back a little bit. When I initially started Trapital, the thought was to have this as a paid subscription service model where I would have a free piece that went out every week, and then if you wanted to have additional pieces written, and it would be specifically for the people that were most interested, and it would be $10 a month or a hundred dollars a year, and I did that a little under a year and things were working and I mean, things were growing. I took a step back because I felt like what was most effective for me and what was most effective for the type of things I'm doing was I wanted as many people as possible to be able to be able to either read or listen to the stuff that we're sharing because I felt like this wasn't like I was writing about tech or finance where there were plenty of people that had been writing about this, but there was something that, you know, you were gonna get like a trade secret or some insights from me that you wouldn't necessarily get elsewhere like you had shared in the intro in the beginning. I largely wanted to start this to be able to elevate and hopefully change the discussion so that when people talk about whether it's the business leaders and the strategic moves that are happening, your names like your Rihannas and your Jay-Z's can be mentioned in, you know, in the same breaths as your Jack Dorsey's or your Jack Welch's or other people like that. There are successful people in this industry that are doing this, and being able to highlight that was effective. So the more that I could broaden who could have access to it and who could read it, the more that that would be possible. And I felt that there was opportunity from a sponsorship perspective, from other companies in this space, or even tangentially outside of the space that wanted to align with this type of content and the type of people that were reading it, that I knew that not only could it match the revenue that was coming in from the subscription, it could likely be even larger. And with that, the more people it reaches, the more that it helps everything else grow. And one of the things that it's afforded me is the ability to not just be able to, you know, write and share insights about the strategy of what's happening, not just from the artist level, but from the companies that are in the space and technology, where a lot of them started to reach out to me and wanted to get my advice on, hey, this is what we're building. What do you think of X, Y, and Z? But what that specifically offered then was leading to the next conversation where, hey, we're gonna be raising. And we would love to have you on as an investor specifically because we think you have the insights and we think that you could be a value add to what we're building. And you know, after I think, you know, a few of those conversations, that's where I say, you know, this is something that can be taken more seriously because the insights are here and the spaces here are obvious. And I think that it became more and more clear that I could use this as an opportunity to, you know, back and support a lot of the companies in the space, specifically the ones that were aligned with the way that I had seen clearly what was working and what wasn't. So it's afforded me the opportunity to make angel investments in several of these companies and something that I'll continue to do through the work that I do here. And I think having a podcast, having a newsletter has been a great way to do that. And ultimately just continuing to, not just me, but other folks on the team with their help as well, to make sure that the content and the insights that we're sharing is as helpful as possible. Cuz at the end of the day, this is research that we wanna be able to make it reach as many people as possible that are interested. And then with that, knowing that it's not just the content and the insights that are helpful, but actually being able to provide, you know, financial backing and support to the companies in this space that can help, you know, make it, you know, as strong as it can be, not just for them, but for the other companies. I mean, it's a space that has had so much innovation and I think one of the things that's been a bit frustrating to see at particular points is that a lot of the newer companies in this space have had a PR, and had a pattern of asking for forgiveness instead of permission from the music industry. Yeah. To be able to use the rights of a lot of the songs, to be able to have a lot of the partnerships that they should have in place. And it doesn't have to be that way. I think there are great people out there that are building companies the right way. They're having the conversations early on and being able to help be part of that movement has been really fascinating and inspiring to see as well. [00:38:44] Larry Miller: Great. Thanks for sharing that, Dan. Let's go to your questions. I know that some of you have questions for Dan. If you do have one, there's an open mic in the middle of the floor and we'll give you a moment. Step right up. There is a questioner. [00:39:00] Audience 1: Hey, how are you doing? I just have a quick question. I'm really curious on how you feel about just botting in the industry in general, because I feel like when you were talking about the YouTube charts compared to Spotify, there could be some discrepancies in the data just because it's a lot easier to bot on YouTube versus Spotify you can get flagged. So I'm just kind of curious to know what your thoughts are around those charts. You know how accurate the data is and also what you think about that in general. Because I feel like, especially in hip hop too, it's really prevalent and it's definitely a lot about getting the numbers and stuff like that. And a lot of my clients have, you know, similar thoughts about that. So I'm just curious to know what your thoughts are on the morality of that. Is it worth it? Is it not? All those things. So yeah. Thank you. [00:39:43] Dan Runcie: Yep. Great question. I think I'll take it in two parts cuz I think there's issues with bots on streaming sites that are issues with bots on the ticketing side too. As you know, a lot of people have probably experienced it, but on the streaming side of it, it's something that I've looked at and thought it's frustrating and it's wrong because a lot of people are just gaming the system because I think that the technology has improved where a lot of things like streaming farms and things like that have been able to, it's become a little bit easier to be able to figure out like what to ignore, what not to include from a data perspective, where I think a lot of that's been ignored. But I think a few people, I don't know if anyone saw, but there was this video going around about how I don't know if it's true a hundred percent or not, but like Travis Scott's team, like gaming the system to be able to, you know what I'm referring to? Like, to be able to help boost the sales for Astro World. And it's one of these things where, okay, you could, if I'm taking a step back, directionally speaking, do I still think that he would've been as popular as he is without that happening? I still do. I mean, I think that there were so many things treading in that direction, but did that help? I'm sure it did. You know, so I still do think that it is something that is directionally, it can still give you a pretty clear idea over what's accurate and what's not. I think it's really hard to pierce through the top and be there consistently if it's purely driven by bots. But I do think that more likely than those things come to the surface in some way. Whether it's an artist that is streaming or they have tons of social media followers, but then when it becomes time to try to sell a concert ticket, The tickets can't sell, and then that artist then has to downgrade a venue or they have to cancel the show because of things like that. These things always find a way to come to head. So I do think that in some cases, some type of retribution does often happen for artists specifically with streaming, just to get other questions in. I won't go into the ticketing piece of it. I think we all know how, you know, you know, horrible that that can be, but yeah. [00:41:52] Larry Miller: Do we have another question? Oh, good. Hi. Welcome back. [00:41:57] Audience 2: Who decided this way of asking questions? This is really weird. Hi Dan. Is the superstar dead? And if so, is that necessarily a bad thing? [00:42:07] Dan Runcie: Good question. I don't think superstars are dead, but I do think the definition of what we describe them as has shifted and it continues to shift over time. Right, because. Let's say we go back to the sixties or even, let's take a step back. Even if you go back to the nineties and say, okay, our superstar's dead. No one is as big as Beatlemania was before people would say, you're right. No one's as big as Beatlemania, but Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey are still very popular as our Boys 2 Men are whoever else. And I think that's kind of shifted now to someone being like, okay, well our superstar's dead. Can someone be as big as Beyonce? They may not necessarily be as big as Beyonce in that same type of way, but I mean, Billie Eilish had a pretty good year. I think even though I think she came out in the late 2010s, she still had her, you know, big moment 2019. I think we're also seeing, I think if anything, the biggest superstar potential now, just given the way that things have expanded, is on the international side too. You look at what Bad Bunny’s doing. I mean, that is a superstar at every definition. The fact that a non-US album or a non-English speaking album has been on the top of the billboard list for almost the entire year is incredible and the billboard is really just capturing what's happening in the US. So imagine if that was a worldwide list. So, yeah, so I think it shifts in that way where I think, you know, 20 years from now, people will be saying, oh, is so-and-so, you know, or a superstar's dead because no one will be as Bad Bunny be as big as Bad Bunny. So I think it continues to evolve. [00:43:48] Larry Miller: Great. Hi, Max. [00:43:50] Audience 3: Hi. How's it going everybody? First off, I just want to say, I can't believe you started this speaking about Currensy. I'm a huge fan of his and he has a lot of unique ways of releasing music. And so my question is, if you're a burgeoning new artist who's trying to get as many listens as possible, would you suggest trying to move forward in platforms that are really big right now? Or finding platforms that are emerging, trying to develop a fan base there where there's less competition? [00:44:19] Dan Runcie: I think it's a mix, but I think, and maybe instead of the last piece of it in terms of finding platforms that are emerging, I think it's more so finding a platform that may seem less quote unquote sexy. But is that gonna be more so where your fans are where your folks like to be. Like for instance, I think a platform like Audio Mac has been doing pretty well over the past couple of years, and they may not get the same level of headlines that Spotify is, but if you are an artist that has a strong following in West Africa or in other parts of Africa, and you know that Audio Mac is one of the leading streaming platforms there. And then that's gonna work out tremendously in your advantage. And I don't know if I necessarily consider them like newer emerging, but I think it works out there. But on the other side of it too, still having exposure o on your Spotifys and your YouTubes and your Apple musics is still good as well because you want to, you don't know when that moment may be that you, for lack of a better word, like breakthrough and have that hit. And when you do, you wanna be able to still have something in those other places. Even if you had your home base on, you know, one of the platforms that may not get as much exposure but for the people you're trying to reach may be the best thing. [00:45:38] Larry Miller: What do you got? [00:45:40] Audience 4: Hey. So, in a conversation of superstars, you know, you talked about the notion, the billboard, headline, you know, too many hits starting up superstars. The platformization of music where it is right now. Maybe it's a little bit harder for superstars to kind of come up and cut through the noise, but the potential, like you mentioned, to be a superstar is never any bigger in that sort of way. You mentioned the implications on, you know, from like the label side of things, from the other side of things a bit. In your opinion, what are the implications from a music consumption standpoint? You know, the average listener, people that listen to music in terms of the implications for music discovery, how music is in people's lifestyles and the way that it is now with platforms and just the superstar conversation as a whole? [00:46:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I thought about this a few ways because I think that one of the things that we're missing a bit because of the way things are now, is that someone can have a song that is topping the charts, but it's not the way that it was maybe like 10, 20 years ago where, oh, if the song is the number one song in the country, oh, like I heard it on the way to the grocery store and then I heard it on the radio and then my friend was probably playing it when I went over their house in the afternoon. No, it's more likely to be that the super fans of this song have been like, you know, streaming the hell out of it and they just have been going nonstop and I may not even know who that person is. So a bit of that water aspect isn't necessarily there as much from a fan perspective. I think the other piece of it is the algorithm of the streaming services double down on this more because at least when I log into Spotify or if I log into one of the streaming services, I'm more likely to see the songs that I've been listening to before. I'm more likely to get some type of daily mix that is based on what I've been listening to before. It's harder for me to be able to see. If I actually wanna see, okay, what are the new top hits? Like I have to search for that to some extent and go out of the algorithmic feed. That's already been tailored to me. So I think it makes it harder for me to go search for those things. And in some ways, the platforms kind of design it that way because they're like, okay, if they know that I am Rihanna fan. They're more likely to want to share with me more Rihanna songs I haven't listened to than assuming that I'm gonna like whoever may be the rising artist right now. So I think it makes it tougher from that perspective. And I think a bit of that shared community isn't, isn't there as much. So I think from a fan perspective, I've kind of had a bit of a double-edged sword because while I think part of what attracted me to so much music and memories is being able to have those shared experiences with people as opposed to now it's like, you may have like these super fandom experiences, but it's with these people that may not necessarily be in your direct area, but you're all connecting online in this way that you may not have. [00:48:33] Larry Miller: Okay, good. I think we have time for, well, let's ask this question and see how we're doing for time. Go ahead. [00:48:39] Dan Runcie: Maybe you could do like a rapid round, we could get through. [00:48:41] Audience 5: Just really quick then, what are your thoughts on like NYC Drill? I know artists like Dio Sama are huge. Just on the data side like TikTok and YouTube, so what are your thoughts on it? Sort of, cuz I'm a little skeptical on it going really mass. Like, cuz we're really super focused on NYC. Just how big can Drill really get? [00:49:03] Dan Runcie: Well, I think we've seen, you know, the growth and exposure in the Midwest specifically. I think so you've definitely seen it there. I think you've seen artists kind of having their own moment, whether it's someone like Ice Spice, who I think has blown up pretty recently. But I also think that moments of it hurt, right? I think it really would've been cool to see someone like Pop Smoke be able to have the moment and the rise that I think he was going to have. But even that, I think it's kind of interesting the way you phrased the question, because I think even for something like Drill music, there's probably certain people that, like the concept of Drill music, don't like to reach them in the same way. But if you're in it, you probably already think that it's overexposed to some extent, which I think kind of speaks to this like broader dynamic that we're in, where if you're in something, it can feel like if you're in that niche and you're focus, and I know it may sound awkward to call Drill music niche in that way, but if you're in that group, then yeah, it can seem like, oh wow, this thing has been going on for a while, and now it feels like it's everywhere. But if you don't really tap into Drill like that, someone could be like, oh, what's this thing? So I think that's something I keep in mind with it as well. Like there's still so much more exposure out there. So I don't necessarily have those concerns for Drill music. If anything, I think we'll probably see other regions, especially in the US, continue to adopt it more the way that we've seen New York and the Midwest, specifically Chicago. [00:50:26] Larry Miller: Let's go to what I think is gonna be a final question. Go ahead. [00:50:30] Audience 6: Okay. I just had a question about your thoughts and involvement in like A.I involvement in the music industry. You know, just like in terms of the recording side. perhaps may potentially be in the Live side of the music industry as well. I don't know if there's any applications for that? But just your thoughts on that. [00:50:48] Dan Runcie: I'll keep this quick. It's funny, I was talking to someone about this earlier today. A.I and anything based on like GPT Three in general is fascinating because I do think it can be addictive for artists, but I feel like I can already see the headaches that are there with so many things, right? Because if it's based off existing content, and of course those content owners are rightfully gonna have certain issues about who's basing these A.I lyrics or songs off of things. I do think, though, that for certain artists it can be fascinating. I don't think it'll get to the point where someone could have like a song that they actually wanna release at a top level that is created by A.I. At least not now. The technology isn't there, but could it help with an artist that is having writer's block about a particular thing? I think it was interesting. There's a conversation. Bruce Springsteen was on an Interview and he was saying how like for him with A.I. he's looking at it as something where, you know, he's like, I've had months where I just didn't write cuz I essentially had writer's block. I just couldn't think of something to be able to put out there. But could A.I. just help jog my memory and even as someone that I am not a songwriter or a musician, but as a writer, I've been seeing these tools and the things they can do, and just being able to plus, you know, sign and then them being able to generate some thoughts, or at least a potential outline of, okay, what could this topic look like? It does at least help jog the memory in the way that reading an article or something like that can be such a fascinating space. I know we're over time, but yeah. Fascinating space. [00:52:31] Larry Miller: Thank you. We're gonna have to leave this here for now, but you can hang out for a while and chat with everybody as we run through the rest of our program and maybe even a little bit afterward. And so let's thank Dan for a really thoughtful discussion. [00:52:50] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how capital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead. Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people. Discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 21 Nov 2024 | Will TikTok Become Too Big to Ban? | 00:31:58 | |
TikTok has had quite the 2024, especially in music. The year started with a very public dispute with UMG. But TikTok also saw the rise of SoundOn, the end of TikTok Music, lingering threats of a US ban, the force of TikTok Shop, and more. Join me and MIDiA’s Tati Cirisano as we break it all down. Sponsors:
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| 07 May 2021 | Trapital Mailbag! Hip-Hop’s Streaming Popularity, Rap Battle Leagues, Cancel Culture, Women Music Execs, and Record Labels | 00:26:56 | |
I answered a bunch of questions from Trapital readers and listeners! Monetization in hip-hop vs other genres, rap battle leagues, Square’s Tidal acquisition, women in the music industry, cancel culture, record labels, and tech funding announcements that look like music festival lineups! Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 01 Nov 2024 | Why The Grammys Moved to Disney | 00:32:30 | |
Big news! The Recordings Academy announced that in 2027, the show will move to Disney and be broadcasted on ABC, Disney+, and Hulu in a new deal worth over $500 million. This is a huge loss for CBS, the home to music's biggest night since the early 1970s. In this episode we break down the reasons for the move, along with upcoming storylines from the 2025 Grammys in February. I'm joined by LA Times pop music critic, Mikael Wood! This episode was brought to you by elgato, my go-to for podcasting tools. Learn more here. This episode was brought to you by FUGA, a Downtown-owned company empowering independent music. Learn more here. Make sure you check out our Chartmetric Stat of the Week! | |||
| 16 Feb 2023 | Investing in New Music Startups (with Bob Moczydlowsky) | 00:50:07 | |
The Techstars Music accelerator just announced its 7th cohort. As the program’s Managing Director Bob Moczydlowsky told me on this episode, they don’t invest in music companies. They invest in companies solving problems for the global music business. There are 10 companies that involve music in some way, including — education, web3, and even wedding celebrations. Each startup gets a $120,000 check from Techstars and hands-on development for 90 days. Past portfolio companies include Community, Endel, and Splash among many others. According to Bob, the program has returned a 3X multiple on invested capital since starting in 2017. Companies that went through the accelerator have gone on to raise an additional $250 million in capital after the accelerator. Here’s what we hit on: [0:00] How the accelerator has evolved [7:56] Investment areas that have underperformed [9:02] Is there a ceiling on music innovation? [12:38] Minor-league scouting, major-league swinging [17:07] Repeating motif of investments [18:11] 2023 accelerator cohort is “weirdest class ever” [28:49] The case for remote teams [31:44] The surge in capital from outside music industry [37:46] Music is less sensitive to macroeconomic conditions [40:39] Return on music accelerator vs. other Techstars programs [43:32] Techstars LP’s becoming more experimental [48:01] Hip-hop business mentors wanted Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Bob Moczydlowsky, @bobmoz This episode is brought to you by Amuse. Learn more about how its new program Music Insights can help your artist career: https://www.amuse.io/en/insights Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Bob Moczydlowsky: We have to invest in something that isn't fashionable but looks like it's before it's time, might even look a little crazy. And that's the where we can add a ton of value. And then it's our job to help to look back three years later and go, oh yeah, there it is but of course we saw that all along. [00:00:13] Like, same thing with generative media. We've been making generative media in investments since the very first year of the program and about half of them are really interesting, valuable companies now. And it took a long time for the red, the market to sort of catch up to that. and then, you know, ironically, my problem is as a small check investor just at the moment where I know that space really well and I can be really helpful and we have a good portfolio there and a community of people to connect new founders too. Now that the category is hot, we can’t afford it anymore. [00:01:07] Dan Runcie's Guest Intro: Today's guest is the one and only Bob Moczydlowsky, but if you're in the space in the industry, you probably know him as Bob Moz. He is the managing director of the Techstars Music Accelerator, and he recently announced the seventh cohort that they have for the accelerator, which includes a few companies here, let me just read the names here. [00:01:26] Baton Media, Beeper, Confetti, 5ive Mics, Haven, Highly Liquid, Homeroom, Obey Me, Royalty, and Seed. So Bob and I talked about what went into these companies, what are some common themes that went into this cohort and how this cohort has changed over time. This is now the seventh year that Bob has been running this accelerator. [00:01:48] So he's gone through the bull market of startup investing. The growth of streaming and how each of those things have impacted. So what are some of the trends that have been the most lucrative for him? How he's evaluated on his returns, how his LP mix has been shaped and shifted over time, and some general trends and some common misconceptions that people hear and think about when it comes to investing in music companies and companies that are trying to solve problems in music. [00:02:16] Great episode, especially for the founders, investors and builders out there. Hope you. [00:02:22] Dan Runcie: [00:02:22] All right. Today we have Bob Moz, who is the managing director for Techstars Music Accelerator. Bob, first time on the podcast. [00:02:31] Bob Moczydlowsky: Thank you very much for having me. I am a, longtime listener. I'm kind of thrilled to be a guest. It's very cool. [00:02:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think it's great to talk to you right now because you have the new cohort for Techstars Music Accelerator now, but you've actually been doing this now since 2017, and I think that. It's been interesting to just to see how much has changed in your role, but more broadly with music. You had this bull run, you had streamings rapid growth, and I'm sure with that, there's been so many different evolutions of how this cohort and how the companies have shaped over time. [00:03:06] What's been your read on that? How has the accelerator evolved over time? [00:03:11] Bob Moczydlowsky: Oh man, that is a gigantic question right out of the gate. so when we started the program in 2017, part of the thesis was. and it is still sort of the dirty secret of Techstars music. Like, we're not really here to invest in music companies or music tech startups. We're here to invest in startups that solve problems for the global music business. [00:03:31] So we wanted to be five to seven years ahead of, where new revenue streams would be. New audience interactions would be. we wanted to be really, really out there on ways kids could express themselves and, and or make new music or how rights holders would monetize that music and I would say that heading into our seventh class, like any, you know, venture fund, we made a bunch of mistakes. [00:03:54] we are happy to have some really valuable companies in the portfolio that are changing the way the music business works, like Splash and Endel, and community. And so the winds have come from the places we didn't expect, with maybe the exception of generative media. We can talk about that a a little more. [00:04:11] Bob Moczydlowsky: We were into that from the beginning and we've, remained into it though I can no longer afford any of those deals because that's kind of a popular category. So I think I'm kind of out of those deals now. But in general, like the wins came from places we didn't expect and the defeats came in places we thought were gonna be great spots, right? [00:04:28] So what we have learned is that you really have to focus on the quality of the team. You really have to focus on the opportunity and how that company can capture value in the market. And then you have to be patient, and just, and remember that one email, you know, with a yes on it. One phone call with a yes changes the fortunes of companies. [00:04:48] Pre-seed, seed stage, you know, one feature, one good, dev sprint, where you actually really, you know, solve a problem for your users, changes the trajectory of the whole company. So, I would say that we have, put ourselves in a position now where we ha like our thesis is defensible, our portfolio value is real, and we have an incredible list of people who have come through the program and touched it in some way that. [00:05:12] make a lot of really important decisions in the music business. So mostly it's just, I feel old when you say that, and I just feel super grateful that we get to do. [00:05:20] Dan Runcie: Well, you said a few things there that I wanna dive into about the wins and the losses being opposite from what you may have expected on either side, and I think that's a thing I've heard from other investors and VCs, but specifically with this accelerator, are there certain trends that stuck out for things that you thought would've been a big bet but didn't end up turning out? [00:05:43] Bob Moczydlowsky: Well, know, we were really excited about adaptive music and it's changing and matching your biometrics and pairing that with fitness that hasn't really come to fruition yet. . I'm optimistic it still might, but it hasn't so far. we were super optimistic that the using DSP streams to make mixes would allow, DJs to create and express themselves and create new content and repurpose music, and that wouldn't be considered a derivative work. [00:06:08] And you could give full credit stream back to the rights owner, and that would be a way to deepen engagement and maybe add a couple of bucks to the monthly subscription fee of a larger DSP. That hasn't happened really, you know what I mean? or come to fruition. it has taken longer, than we've expected for someone to make a hit song using generative media and AI, though, you know, it sort of perpetually feels like it's right around the corner. [00:06:33] but I think in that category, you know, I think we were just wrong people were gonna use generative media and AI to make songs. and instead they were going to use it to become artists and play games. and so we've learned a lot there where, what the thing we actually learned, and I say "we", but what I really mean is the splash team. [00:06:50] Bob Moczydlowsky: And Steven and Angus, I'm a passenger in that, right? So I say "we" a lot, but those guys do all the work. you know, what they realized was that kids don't wanna make songs. Like no kid is going out there looking for an AI to make a song. they're looking for an AI to help them do [00:07:05] several of the things that it require that are required to be an artist and grow a following and have people pay attention to you and express yourself. And they went and built a whole game around, okay, well then here's all the parts you need to DJ set. Here's the ability to perform in front of people. [00:07:20] Here's a framework under which those performances are judged. And that became a wildly popular game. And so it turns out that like in the gaming world, you might use an AI to control both sides of the copyright, to give the player the freedom to do whatever they want with the music. but you also need a venue and you need an avatar, and you need a crowd. [00:07:38] And there's a bunch of pieces where it's the song or the music is just one part of that. so that's been a massive, massive learning. and then the last one I would say, is that we continue to make investments around this and we will continue to do it, but the pace at. royalty flow and auto software automation for routing payments from consumption of music. [00:07:56] The rate at which that has changed and adapted to be automated and look, I'm not naive. I know there's a bunch of competing interests and reasons, you know a bunch of players who benefit from it being slow and manual. but I think that's an inevitable area that has to get automated over time, and it hasn't happened as fast as I would expect it to. [00:08:14] we we're kind of bumping up against the ceiling of growth for revenue from recorded music until we start automating those payouts and have better database ownership and better understanding of who owns what on a track. And the idea of like, you know, one publisher opting out or, securing their payment information to sort of give them leverage. [00:08:33] Bob Moczydlowsky: Like, yes, that optimizes price for any one license or copyright, but it doesn't, grow the, it doesn't swell the tide. And so I think we're hitting this point where if we really want astronomical growth, we're gonna have to start automating that process too. [00:08:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:08:48] Bob Moczydlowsky: I remain optimistic. I'll keep trying on that one, but I haven't yet, mined any gold there, [00:08:52] Dan Runcie: touching on something that I've heard other investors talk about too, where it does feel like there is this ceiling of how much innovation, how much growth can truly happen, and you hear that mostly about music tech specifically, just because some investors feel that. The incumbents just have so much power and control over the wake. [00:09:12] Things currently are done with the systems that, whether it's tams or astronomical growth can be somewhat limited compared to what you may see in other industries. [00:09:21] Bob Moczydlowsky: That's right. that's part of why I say we invest in companies solving problems for music and not music companies, is that it is a really complicated process to license music and use that. and so you think about the, act of primary listening or primary consumption, you know, some of the big platform companies use that as a loss leader. [00:09:37] You know, Spotify's a pure play streamer, but they had diversified into audio and it took them enormous scale to make that those economics work. those are great businesses. It's cool, you know, think of me as a minor league talent scout. I'm not, you know, my checks are small. I go to work to help make those companies valuable. [00:09:53] That's a level of the game that, I can't play, I don't have the kind of capital to make investments replace current big competing companies to Spotify. I'm better off make investing in companies that have an opportunity because of the way Spotify changes the landscape or the way Amazon changes the landscape. [00:10:09] Now all of a sudden there's a new opportunity because people's consumption habits are different. That's where I'm gonna invest. I'm not gonna invest in the primary piece. And then the secondary part of that is like a lot of the way music copyright works, and we could talk about this as you dig into web three stuff if you want to. [00:10:25] but a lot of that stuff is coded in the law and it's coded in the law across multiple territories around the world. You can't just disrupt the way payments work for music. That's not how it works. . Like there are rules and laws that make that stuff be what it is. and so in some cases the, those laws are holding back growth for the rights holders and in some cases they're protecting value for them. [00:10:45] and startups that pretend that, that's not true, like they're kind of lying to themselves, you know, and they're, there's a couple of those every year. I wish someone would write a really definitive blog post about how to stay out of that. it is what it is. like that's not our domain. [00:10:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think too, just thinking about, you mentioned something as well, just in terms of you being in the minor league position, that's not your job necessarily to make the swings for the majors, but I also have to imagine too that whether it's you or even some of your LPs, would love to be able to double down and invest some of the prorata that you may have in some of these follow on rounds. [00:11:20] Bob Moczydlowsky: Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, my job is to swing for the majors, right? but my job is to find a company that could be a billion dollar company where, you know, a couple a hundred grand and the support of the program and mentorship can put it on a path to succeed. Like if a company needs 10 million dollars to start, I just don't have that kind of capital. [00:11:40] I'm not the right profile of investor for that company. So it's not that I'm not trying to get gigantic companies, right? Like when we wrote the first check in to Endel people thought we were crazy. They were like, what are you doing? How is the personalized soundscape for helping you focus, relax, or go to sleep? [00:11:55] How is that gonna be a billion dollar company? And now you're in a situation where there's, you know, millions of dollars in annual revenue, hundreds of thousands of subscribers, interesting revenue coming out of the DSPs. Incredible partnerships with artists. No one at this point now in music, would argue that functional music is going to be eight to 10, maybe 12% of total consumption of music. [00:12:20] And that Endel isn't the premium brand and the most valuable company in that space, that's sort of a foregone conclusion. That wasn't the case when we wrote that check. That's what I mean about sort of minor league, right? It's like, it's not that the companies aren't major league companies, of course they are. [00:12:37] It's just that we have to invest in something that isn't fashionable but looks like it's before it's time, might even look a little crazy. And that's the where we can add a ton of value. And then it's our job to help to look back three years later and go, oh yeah, there it is but of course we saw that all along. [00:12:52] Like, same thing with generative media. We've been making generative media in investments since the very first year of the program and about half of them are really interesting, valuable companies now. And it took a long time for the red, the market to sort of catch up to that. and then, you know, ironically, my problem is as a small check investor just at the moment where I know that space really well and I can be really helpful and we have a good portfolio there and a community of people to connect new founders too. [00:13:19] Now that category is hot and we can't afford those deals anymore. [00:13:23] Dan Runcie: And I'm sure. [00:13:24] Bob Moczydlowsky: so that's what I mean, like it's not that we're trying to have small companies, we're trying to have [00:13:27] Dan Runcie: Right. No, that makes sense. And I would imagine too, Whether it's your investors or others, they would love for you to be able to, oh, could you still get in these deals? Or could you still be able to do the follow on investments in whether it's an end or, or some of the generative companies? [00:13:42] Bob Moczydlowsky: That's right. so the companies that have come through our program in total have gone out and raised another additional 250 million dollars after taking our initial capital, Right? so the capital we've deployed through the program is now, let me see, 7.4 million dollars after this current class. [00:13:58] It'll be 7.4 million of, checks all sort of at that 120K, you know, Techstars, accelerator deal. You know, like they're all the same. All of our deployments are Post program now 250 million plus, it's like 254 million, something like that. And change has come into those companies after the program, of which about 16 million of it has come from the member companies. [00:14:20] So that's Sony Warner's, Peloton, Hyde, Concord Monarch, Quality Control, Right hand, Bill Silva. All of those companies sort of collectively have put another 16 million dollars in post program, into those companies. So they're, active strategic investors and angel investors into those companies. the number I don't have that I should to tell you, is like also the individual, the number, the numbers, right? [00:14:44] So executives from those companies as angels, or, executives or mentors who are not from the members, but are just independent and come and visit and help in the program. They also write, you know, 25K, 50K, 100K angel checks into companies. That number's a little harder for us to capture. cuz it's sort of personal money and not, corporate money, but, everybody around the program is definitely taking prorata and in, participating in those rounds as the companies grow grow for sure [00:15:07] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I feel like those examples hit at the flip side of that earlier question of, at the time people probably didn't think that those were the areas that may have lined up with the initial thesis on paper, but they ended up being some of the most successful ones you had. [00:15:23] Bob Moczydlowsky: it is a continuing, like delightful and hilarious, like repeating, you know, motif through the whole program. Right. no one liked Splash when it came in. It was called Pop Gun at the time. No one liked that, right? That's a 70 million dollar company now and the number one music related Roblox game. [00:15:40] The company shimmer came in and was sort of like stuck mid-C ground, had a huge pivot and became community, right? That was, who could have predicted that? Endel, everybody hated, didn't believe it was real. Hey, these crazy Russian guys. This isn't science back. this doesn't work. [00:15:55] This is the placebo effect. you , know, that's a 75 million dollar company. even just recently, like last year as recently as last year, having all of this history in the program, we get all the members together to screen new companies coming in and decide who we're gonna invest in. [00:16:07] last December, the lowest ranked company in that screening was Circle Labs. Run by Anushk Mittal makes sentient NPCs sort of, and chat bot, right? A year ahead of chatGPT a year ahead of, in world, right? In those companies trying to like personalities into video game characters. you know, and during the program he went from sort of like two or 3000 users to 25,000 users. [00:16:31] Bob Moczydlowsky: By the end of the summer he had 40,000 users. They're making these creators, you know, they're making these characters independent creators are, they're in multiple Discord servers. They're chatting with people all day. They have Twitter accounts, that becomes a competitive round, that light speed leads last fall, no one thought that was a company. [00:16:48] Everybody thought that was crazy, not gonna be a thing. Now that's a, you know, $20 million plus company just you know, less than a year later, right? So it just is a thing that like can keeps repeating and repeating over time. and the reminder to us as investors and, especially at this pre-seed stage is it's okay if it's wild, right? [00:17:08] There are gonna be things that are wild that are gonna fail, but only the wild different ones have a chance to actually move into that open space in that green field and be a huge company from seemingly nowhere, right? And that's our job. Our job is to experiment with that stuff and bring the whole music business around, in an ecosystem to participate and argue about it and be wrong together and disagree. [00:17:29] And, you know, it's sort of my job to provide that safe space for those conversations to. [00:17:34] Dan Runcie: Right, and I feel like you've talked about this a little bit, and even in past conversations about how the definition of a Techstars Accelerator company, or Techstars Music Company is part of that. It continues to evolve as you've seen different cohorts, but at least for this current cohort right now, you have a few, three companies in here. [00:17:56] You have a few music companies, even one involved with wedding celebrations as well. [00:18:01] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah, we do. It's the weirdest class ever, in the best way. Like I'm actually really curious. So you've seen it almost before anybody else has. and you know, it'll be public by the time people are hearing this podcast, but it's not public right now. Like, where do you wanna start? [00:18:15] Like, it's an interesting list. there's probably a couple companies on there you've heard of before and seen, , I'm actually like, I'm happy to talk about any of them and I'm just as fascinated and curious to hear where you wanna start and what you, saw when [00:18:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So we gotta start with Confetti. We gotta start with the wedding planning there and looking at the website, this wasn't a company that was on my radar before, but that's why I love stuff like this. You know, you're able to have unique access to things and it points out, and for me it stuck out. [00:18:43] There's an experiential aspect. We all know how many people would love to be able to see and attend and experienced weddings and can't normally do so, but they're integrating brands. They're integrating music and culture in different ways and I think that's a unique thing. And yes, of course you could always throw a Zoom link. [00:19:02] I've attended Zoom weddings before, especially during the pandemic, but I think there's something different here. And that one, let's start there. That one stuck out to me. [00:19:10] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah. It's the most polarizing company, within our sort of internal community coming into the program. Andrew, the CEO knows this, like you've mentioned all the things like people wanna attend remotely. People might watch and buy a ticket to an influencer wedding. As weird as that sounds like it's totally believable thing that could happen. [00:19:26] but I also think like there are, ways to organize media and everybody's at these events with a phone in their hand the entire time. like, you know, you're dressed up, you're in your suit, you're in your cocktail dress, whatever it. The only thing you need besides yourself and a fancy outfit at a wedding is your phone. [00:19:42] Bob Moczydlowsky: You're taking pictures, you're making video, you're sharing things. So the concept of can we provide and experience people who are not there, can we generate and organize content with people who are there? Can we do virtual gifting and tipping or challenges and organize some of that stuff, especially as that pertains to the big moments in a wedding, which also, let's be honest, revolve around music in a lot of ways. [00:20:04] I mean, it's very few weddings you've been to that don't involve music in as a core key ingredient in different places. this is a thing where there's enormous number of these events that happen over time. There's enormous potential in organizing this already existing behavior. and this is a good, it's a good hack as a venture investor if the behavior already exists and the company is gonna capture value by organizing it. [00:20:27] that's a good opportunity as opposed to like, oh, we have to create some behavior and convince people to do this action. We have to change the user behavior before the company works. Those are companies that just have a much steeper hill to climb. And so this company comes to us with some traction. [00:20:43] They've done some influencer weddings, they've got kind of a cool philosophy around it. We're gonna run a bunch of experiments and see if we can turn this into a [00:20:50] Dan Runcie: So what does the business model look like [00:20:52] Bob Moczydlowsky: for them? [00:20:52] Come along for the ride, like, if right now it is a share of ticketing for the influencer stuff, right? [00:20:57] and that's kind of marketing if you think about it. Like how do I get people comfortable with, how do I participate in a wedding remotely? but we actually think the much larger opportunity is just in people moving cash around during the wedding, gifting, buying things for each other, participating or having the account to organize the media. [00:21:14] So there's several different revenue streams inside of that, and we're gonna experiment with like, what makes people happiest and they'll do sort of at volume. but right now the virtual gifting thing is a real thing. And it's easy [00:21:24] Bob Moczydlowsky: for a bunch of [00:21:25] people. Like, you don't have to bring the gift with you. [00:21:27] you know, you're not just sending, like, who wants to just buy something off an Amazon registry link that's boring. Like, let's instead, you know, put a bunch of money on at the moment and, you know, run up a cool tab for people to go have a good honeymoon with during the reception itself. Totally believable. [00:21:41] Dan Runcie: No, I think there's something there, especially even with brand opportunities too. Just think about the number of brands that want exposure. Think about anytime you see a wedding and even just a way to like share that information in a way that's more clear. I know friends get weddings, literally, they'll reshare the Instagram story of every friend that was at the wedding, and it's like, all right, you know, happy for your nuptials and everything, but I'm not gonna sit here and tap through a hundred Instagram stories. Like, no, I'm not gonna do it. But if there's some type of interesting thing that's somewhat in between some, you know, $10,000 videographer, you know, montage that they put together and something that could be done here, I think there's something cool to be able to potentially tap into there. [00:22:21] So excited for that one. The other one, come meet them. [00:22:25] Dan Runcie: I know. Yeah. The other one that stuck out to me is Five Mics. So Ace Patterson, "Call Me Ace". He's been a guest on this podcast before. Him and I are friends, and I remember him telling me about this startup that he is playing as a while, and I think that he has, interesting landscape into the industry from both his work in consulting, working in big tech, working at YouTube. [00:22:49] So he understands how that piece of it works, but then he's an artist himself, so just tapping into the collectibles opportunity, and I feel like so many people have been talking about that hip hop gaming collectible intersection, so I feel like there's something there. [00:23:03] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah, I mean, well, so we should tell people what it is, so anybody listening, the picture is very simple. Imagine a card game like Magic: The Gathering or horror stone that is started around hip hop. And so instead of playing my or versus your Wizard, I'm playing Snoop versus, you know, Chief Keith, I don't know, like I don't know if it requires name and likeness. [00:23:21] I don't know. Like the whole thing could happen. It could be Snoop Lion versus Murder Was The Case, Snoop, right? There's a bunch of different ways you could think about the organization of the characters. They could even be. Made up characters just in a fantasy hip hop world, if you don't, you know, need name and likeness, right? [00:23:36] but the concept of those cards as digital collectibles, not physical printed things, you can store them, right? You can tokenize them, you can play them back and forth. if that game is fun and can entertain you, that's a real opportunity in a very cool and interesting way. And so I think, you know, I think Ace and Adam, are really talented guys who needed a shot, they needed shelter to actually like get this idea off the whiteboard and into practical reality. [00:24:01] Bob Moczydlowsky: And part of the reason our program exists is to take really talented people who need that and need a little capital and need a little shelter to really like, feel like they gave that thing the full effort it deserves. and that's an idea that deserves real effort. Like that's a great concept. And if done correctly, I think we all could believe that could be played by millions of kids around the world. [00:24:21] No problem. [00:24:21] Dan Runcie: The other companies that stuck out to me from the list, there was a large focus I felt on community. There were a number of the startups that are either tapping into it, in some way, trying to bring music fans together, bring collaboration with other folks together. [00:24:32] Bob Moczydlowsky: A hundred percent a theme for this year's process. Yep. Like very intentional. we talked a lot about what's happening around our own behavior, and the way we are all kind of interacting with each other. And it's like, I don't know if I need to have millions of followers. [00:24:46] Like that's not a community. I need to have, you know, hundreds of people or thousands of people that are really like-minded that really teach me things and move me together. And, and so, the future being a massive niches is a thing we've all been talking about for a very long time. [00:24:59] And there's a lot of evidence happening right now that these things are starting to become really lucrative, really valuable to people, and are becoming places rather than just online destinations. so we got a couple of companies that, touch this sphere, One called Homeroom, founder named RJ Ruggles. [00:25:15] the Lazy investor way to describe this company is it's Google Analytics for your online communities. it's the, console you use to monitor Discord, Slack, other community-based environments where your community manager has to report metrics back to the business. Are we getting people out of the community into the transactional purchase funnel? [00:25:33] Bob Moczydlowsky: Do we have people leaving the community because the commentary is toxic they're getting harassed? How do we monitor and what are the standard metrics by which we operate as community managers, like that's pretty loosely defined these days. and we think we can build a piece of software that defines that for people and then also helps them do better at it. [00:25:51] and then in that same world, there's a company called Highly Liquid, run by Izzy Howell. If you imagine if you build a new fashion brand, and the buzzword of the day is a fi digital brand, right? Where you have digital and physical products. [00:26:03] Bob Moczydlowsky: You have physical experiences, online community. So if you took a company like Supreme and we're gonna start at today, not everything would be skate decks and t-shirts. but you'd have collaborations. You would have some products in person and in her mind, Highly Liquid is targeted at women who care about online and tech communities, her first, product drop is actually a pair of panties. It's like a lingerie product. The second product will be in a totally different sort of category. but the idea that there's sort of a, what's the company, mischief. [00:26:32] She references a lot that does like crazy online campaigns with artists and gets, like, creates trouble online and gets people to follow. If you combine that with sort of an ongoing community that was about female empowerment, about being active online in a, cool community, had a little bit of your favorite R-rated sex comedy jokes and attitude about it, that's a really interesting brand. [00:26:51] That could exist in lots of different channels. and so we're excited about that and you could see how a company like that would need a company like Homeroom, as part of its core, you know, control center for running the, business. Right. on the other side of that is this company, Seed,the founders come out of a small town in Puerto Rico. [00:27:07] They're living in Florida now. They've built an online music community slash school for learning about the music business. Entirely in Spanish and targeted exclusively to Spanish speaking markets. So they're not trying to like have multiple languages and everything's in English, like very specifically Spanish language, Spanish language contracts, dynamics and explaining the way the business works from the perspective of someone who sees Bad Bunny or sees Shakira and aspires to be in that world. [00:27:37] and that company is doing gangbusters business already. and could be, I think the definitive brand for how music business expands in Spanish speaking, territories, right? Again, driven by a combination of school and curriculum, but also community and professional development, and a place where you can go and talk to people and develop your career and make like sort of lifelong contacts. [00:28:00] Bob Moczydlowsky: As opposed to something like LinkedIn where it's like, oh, everybody's on LinkedIn. So there's not really any real community there, right? yes, you need that because you need the publicly available place where you're, you could be found professionally, but in your industry, in your category, in your specific vertical, you need much more interaction. [00:28:16] So, we're headed that way with sort of, with some of those companies. So I'm glad you noticed like this. It's not an accident that all that stuff's [00:28:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I'm sure too with this cohort, this is a hybrid cohort. With that, we're talking a little bit before we record it, but you're gonna have a week in la, you'll have a week in Atlanta. There'll be a lot of remote time, and I think that reflects a lot of the trends we've seen over. The past few years, and even how Techstars has run, because you started out where the teams were all in LA, at least for the duration, working outta the office during the pandemic. [00:28:49] Everything's remote. Now it's hybrid, which I think does reflect a lot of this that we've seen. and I know that the focus of teams and the people that are building these is so important, especially in early stage startups. How is your evaluation of teams? And that piece of it evolved with knowing that even the startups themselves may not be directly working in the same place. [00:29:11] Like the founders themselves may not be directly in the same location. [00:29:14] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah, I think the idea that you have to run your startup in a specific room with everybody all together, or you have to be in a specific geography like, the trend was that that wasn't true pre covid, but Covid just wiped it off the, board. You know, like we, we've had companies in the past, like investor, like go to see investors and the investors is like, oh, like everything about this deal except that your company's located in Europe or your company's located in Australia or whatever, so we're gonna pass because of your location. [00:29:44] I haven't heard that in years, you know what I mean? Like we're in a new world now where people can be multiple places at once in a really weird but true way. Like, one of the teams coming in, Baton is working on organizing all of the pre-release, like work in progress music. [00:29:59] And their teams are all over the place. They've got guys in, they have a guy in Dubai, they've got a team in Italy, they've got Americans, they have people in New York, they're gonna be with us here in LA. We have a team, working on online virtual nightclubs, specifically targeting African teens. [00:30:15] They're based in South Africa and London. They're gonna be with us in LA and New York and probably raise capital in the US and build a product targeted towards, you know, teens in Africa. So the idea that these things are geographically focused, or your thesis could be geographically focused, I think is actually a detriment if you're operating that way. [00:30:32] and so we've resort of rearranged the way the program works to try to add a maximum amount of value for Serendipity. Be together in the office, talk about hard things, have accountability, do an all hands, meet each other, share contacts, and then break apart and go back remote and focus on shipping product. [00:30:50] Bob Moczydlowsky: And you can do really great mentor meetings in, you know, 20, 30 minute sessions via Zoom and get access to amazing people because they don't have to come to the office to have that meeting. and so if as long as you're balancing the hard conversations and the development and the team organization in those in-person weeks. [00:31:08] And then you're breaking apart to go actually focus and accomplish stuff. I think you end up with the best of both worlds. So we've always had an international program by thesis design. Half our investments are outside of the United States because we think that's where most of the future revenue opportunities are and growth is gonna be. [00:31:25] So the hybrid model just makes this whole thing, you know, easier for us and allows us to actually, you know, have European portfolio companies that are just as important to us and accessible to us as Americans. [00:31:36] Dan Runcie: Definitely, especially in this industry, with any company that's trying to improve problems for music, it's most likely gonna come from places outside of the us so that makes a lot of sense. The other shift that I've seen over the past couple years, especially in music, is the increasing amount of non-music or non-music people that have a big checks or they're trying to get involved in some way, usually at later stage rounds. [00:32:03] And in your case, those could be the folks that are marking up some of your companies that you've already made investments in, do you feel like that has shifted what the success likelihood or the type of companies that may get follow on investing in that, that you're then looking at your end of obviously trying to fund those companies out to be most likely to exit and how that may have shifted the portfolio companies or just the likelihood of success one way or another for companies solving problems in. [00:32:32] Bob Moczydlowsky: Hmm. Yeah, I would say it's like, so it kind of depends like, the companies that are related to music, there are a lot of people coming into music who have bought catalog or who have, who have bought music related assets, who now wanna help further that ecosystem. and we have a company in this year coming into this year's class called Royalty that's working on, like, the analogy I would use for that company is, a company that was very boring, that wasn't very sexy, called Athena Health that automated the medical billing process. [00:32:58] Like it was too hard for doctor's offices and clinics to submit their procedures to the insurance company. Insurance company reject it cuz it didn't have some special code on it. They have to go refile it and try to get paid to qualify. Right. That model looks a lot like, royalty registration and making sure you're collecting money from copyright assets around the world. [00:33:16] And so you see people funding companies like that and like entertainment intelligence, although I guess entertainment intelligence in the program a couple years ago. We sort of co-own that as a program with Concord and secretly Canadian, and it's used by Monarch and secretly, and Hopeless Records and a bunch of other folks, to do data warehousing and trend analysis, right? It's the ability to watch what's happening to your streaming data and then react to tiny signals in that data. So, for example, you have a catalog track that you haven't done primary marketing on or 15 years starts to get a little traction on TikTok. You now need to call your rep the DSP and get that thing onto a playlist or you need to call your music supervisors and get that in somewhere, right? And so investment and capital and growth is happening for those companies. and they're so like that's the kind of company that the person who's coming to music because they bought some assets or they've had extra cash and they're developing, those are the kind of companies that we're seeing that kind of investment going to. [00:34:15] and like I'm really excited about royalty this year because of that opportunity, right? There are people now who have gone and purchased these assets, who now need the way the music business operates to become more efficient and more streamlined so that they can get growth that justifies the multiple they paid for that catalog. [00:34:30] Bob Moczydlowsky: If you bought a catalog at 20 x annual revenue, you need to make sure you're collecting every penny that's due to you, and you need to work on streamlining the way the business works to get more money in the future, right? So you get a faster payoff and better ROI on your deals. The companies that are most valuable for us, however, I still have to cajole, convince, arm twist network with, you know, grade A venture investors and show them those deals. [00:34:56] And I almost have to leave out the fact that we operate in and around music on those deals, right? Like when Splash goes to COSLA or Endell goes to, true or, gogogo comics goes to BitCraft or Circle Labs goes to light speed music isn't part of the conversation at all in those cases. And we still have a stigma of music as a category is a smaller, not as interesting place to play for those investors and instead of convincing them that they're wrong and they should look, I have found that the way to be effective is just to show them the opportunity uniquely to that one company and let them judge that and forget how it relates to music altogether. [00:35:38] Dan Runcie: That first point you mentioned I think is really interesting because if you're a company that has purchased a catalog, it would also be in your interest to make sure that those payments are being processed as efficiently as they should, or any other type of financial activity that could benefit your asset that you just spent 50, 60, a hundred million on could be even more beneficial. [00:35:59] So that piece, it made sense. And I think too, even the comparison to like Athena Health, right? How can you make a comp to some other industry where this thing did this and helped push things moving forward. I could definitely see that. I would like to imagine that the music conversation, maybe it would eventually shift at some point. [00:36:17] I know that we often hear the comparison to gaming and how gaming's revenue continues to increase and I know a very different business model different in a lot of ways. So I still think that the big tams are out there, and I think because given. There's been so much investment activity, even from the major record labels or some of the indies. [00:36:36] I know some of them are investors in your accelerator, or they have made big investments themselves or big bets like they want to be able to increase the overall pie. Just think that there's so much that is inherent with the complexity of the business and just some of the. Information that can be held tight, that can make some of it be a bit challenging. [00:36:56] But if you do have that combination of someone that knows the space, someone that's willing to find efficiencies where it can be, I still think that there is big opportunity. [00:37:06] Bob Moczydlowsky: I agree. Like If anything, there are more deals that I would like to do that I can't do. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like I'm like, oh, I didn't have enough deals to do. I think the next couple of years, there will be less cash. There will be less capital in the market. [00:37:19] which will be good because there was sort of too much and prices were too high and there was too many and it was hard to sift through which founders are real and which ones weren't. but in these next couple of years, there is unbelievable opportunity based on sort of like the inertia of where the business is headed and whatever impact we get of macroeconomic downturn is gonna hit music less than it's gonna hit a bunch of other categories. [00:37:42] And so the concept of music driving culture and culture driving everything else, and things starting in around music, and music, being willing to find these other revenue streams. music was at the forefront of the direct-to-consumer online shopping revolution. Music was at the beginning of the, how do I become, an entity that can have multiple brands and collaborations and have new consumer products driven by fandom. [00:38:03] Music has been at the forefront of these movements over and over and over again, and the company doesn't have to position itself as a music company to benefit from working in and around music, right? Like that's the way we think about it. And I just think that's gonna be more and more true over the next several years. [00:38:18] It's just gonna be, and the things that people wanna do in and around music, like go to events and go have experiences with their friends outside. are going to become even stronger. That demand is really high now, and we have a bunch of tools and platforms that allow people to do that at scale. [00:38:37] That was never possible before, right? Like this company coming into this year's class, I think it's the last one maybe we haven't talked about. Haven, they have multiple brands, one called Floating and one called Ambient Church. Where they put on events that don't have artists on the top. They have sort of experience like, we're gonna go to the park and there's gonna be a sound bath, and we're going to like 40 people, no alcohol Sunday afternoon out in nature. [00:39:00] Connect with each other, talk to each other, be mindful and relax and like de-stress from our overly technical scheduled lives. That company, you know, sold tens of thousands of tickets last year across their two brands. And they're connecting everybody with, you know, SMS community and membership belonging to a community that furthers those brands and those events. [00:39:22] But the event itself is like unplugged, disconnected, like that's the level we're at now where the tools allow you to have sort of music style experiences that don't necessarily involve the legacy music business at all. There's no promoter there. There's no primary ticketer, you know, there's no tour merch, there's no back production company. [00:39:43] There's not a huge rig and a negotiation like there's none of that stuff. It's just humans agreeing to go do something and enjoy some music and sound out in nature. But everything around it makes like you can have the entire rest of the company that looks like a really awesome modern promoter company because you can scale it horizontally into multiple cities. [00:40:03] Through community, right? So these are the things where everybody says there's no more green space in and around music. It's a low limited category, there aren't big, huge opportunities for these companies to have a hundred, 200 million in annual revenue, a billion dollars in annual revenue. [00:40:18] I just kind of chuckle cuz it's like the perfect, you know, like it's the perfect great garden bed to plant these seeds in. Like yes, they grow up to be trees in other forests, but they start there. [00:40:28] Dan Runcie: And when you hear that pushback, do you have like stats that you can show or anything that like I'd be curious to hear what does the Techstar Music Accelerator returns or success look like compared to maybe other Techstar non-music accelerators like we. [00:40:43] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah, so some of that's pretty proprietary. couple of the stats I'll give you just because I'd like you and I'll probably get in trouble, but it'll be okay. So our multiple on invested capital from the accelerator is a little over three. And, you know, we've deployed, like I said, that 7.4, you can do the math on that about what our positions are worth in those companies. [00:41:02] The reason that is true is because, you know, the way an accelerator works is you, you know, there's gonna be a power law, right? You're gonna put 10 companies in, you're gonna work on them together. They're not all gonna end up being equal, but the things you learn from the ones that fail are gonna help you make better decisions on the next batch. [00:41:19] Bob Moczydlowsky: And, so, you know, the last couple of years the market has been so, frothy, right? There's been so much cash looking for assets to the price of assets just went way up, right? Interest rates were effectively zero. If you had cash, you had to do something with it to get a return. You couldn't just put it away and get 3, 4, 5, 6% on it. [00:41:37] There was no interest to be had. So that drives up asset prices, it drove up the stock market, it drove up private company valuations, drove up the prices of seed rounds and pre-seed rounds and everything, right? That is deflating quite a bit at the moment. So, in those two years where our deals stayed the same and we make the same sort of fixed term investments and there was, it got even more competitive for us to try to get into companies and invest in them. [00:42:00] And great companies had their pick of investors, we decided to go the other way and go even earlier and even crazier because instead of competing for those really high, overly marked up deals, we're gonna help start some things. And yes, we're gonna have a high mortality rate, but if you grab a couple that work, the markups are so gigantic that you end up with a pretty good performance on your fund, right? [00:42:22] So if you invest in a company, you know, at a 3 or 4 million dollar valuation, and the next round to capital for that company is in the twenties like, now you look like you know what you're doing and it's okay that a couple other ones like that seemed crazy, turned out to be crazy and went to zero, like the magic of venture capital is you can only lose your principle. [00:42:42] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. Asymmetric upside for sure. Especially with, [00:42:47] Bob Moczydlowsky: That's for sure. And so if you're thinking about deploying capital in the category, you kind of need to be promiscuous, right? You need to have a long-term horizon on it, and you need to be willing to think about it that way. And I think the way to do that is at the very earliest stages. Now to do that, you have to know how music works and you have to be able to get people on the phone, and you have to be able to argue about stuff, and you have to have the stomach for the crazy one, you know, going belly up six months after you wrote the check. but if you're willing to do those things, the amount of information you learn by doing that is sort of creates a, little flywheel around you making this better and better and better [00:43:21] Dan Runcie: decisions. [00:43:22] Right. And I think for you, at the end of the day, it's being able to get that buy-in from the LP base. And I'd be curious to hear from you, how has your LP base shifted over time? Are there any trends you've seen there? And does that say anything about what types of companies have been more or less interested in investing in the future of solving problems for music in the past five, six years [00:43:44] Bob Moczydlowsky: Yeah. they've definitely gotten less conservative over time. More experimental, more willing to like try stuff. Like to the point even where like if you look at Warner from Warner's comments in, I think they maybe were in Music Ally or MBW a couple days ago, like late January, I think she even said publicly like, the era of conservatism is coming to an end. [00:44:06] We need to start experimenting with the way our content is used to build these businesses. I can back her up, she's awesome by the way. Very thoughtful looks at it at a really good high level. I can back her up and then I've actually felt and seen people's behavior change against that rhetoric. [00:44:22] when we first started the program, it was a lot of question about what are returns gonna look like? When are these companies gonna be valuable to us? When are we gonna get something out of this that's we can have, you know, financial ROI on and as the companies have evolved, as Endell became Endel and Splash became Splash and Community did its thing, and Gimme Radio is moving, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars for catalog divisions, you know, in specific genres. [00:44:47] Bob Moczydlowsky: When AI became, you know, the source of data warehousing and is helping people understand TikTok and Concord is the secretly Canadian are like, oh, we need to actually own a piece of that company, you know, when those things start to happen. Everybody looks at it and goes, oh, all right, like, we just need to water the garden. [00:45:03] We don't necessarily need to be beating any one deal up on its ROI as long as the garden has flowers in it, right? L et's look at the whole thing. And so we have a very real feeling of, collegiality and team inside of the accelerator. you know, it's not like Warners and Sony don't compete. It's not like Concord and Sony don't compete, right? But when it comes to a company that is providing the service that could help them be more efficient. They are more likely to collaborate and share information with each other, because everybody benefits. And that posture now, you know, in 2023 where, you know, compared to 2017 radically different. [00:45:39] Like when we were first putting the program together in 2017, I had major label business affairs lawyers, like giving me checklists around making sure we didn't have like, you know, anti-monopolist or collusion issues or antitrust issues with the way we shared information in the program. Now we have a screening committee where we look at sort of the top 25 companies each year, and everybody's in the room together sharing ideas and like trading deal flow, and like, oh, I think we really like this one. [00:46:07] Do you guys like this? If we wrote a check, would you write a check? Like the conversation is so radically different and collaborative compared to where we started. That I can just say like the music business knows that to get growth, it needs to be more experimental, and it's not like it was doing the wrong thing from 2005 to 2012 or 2013 when your annual revenues are declining, [00:46:33] like anybody, you lose your job, you have less revenue. You're gonna be more conservative with how you spend your cash and what you do it, and you're gonna be more protective about the revenue you do have, right? Like when you are making more money and you made your bonus and you got extra money you didn't plan for, you experiment and you try new things and like that. [00:46:50] So the good news is I think we're in an era that's gonna stay, you know, pretty steady for a while and that experimentation and growth is gonna occur, and it's a delight to see, you know, public rhetoric from the heads of major labels, like backing up the behavior they're already exhibiting in the accelerator, right? [00:47:07] Like, I think it's time for huge [00:47:09] Dan Runcie: optimism. [00:47:09] Well said. I think that they we're in this transition moment, so hopefully we'll see more of this. But Bob, this has been great. Before we let you go though, for folks that wanna stay in touch with what's happening with this cohort, with the accelerator, where should they go? [00:47:23] Bob Moczydlowsky: Okay, so we actually are recruiting some new mentors for this year's program. we have some specific issues and people that we're interested in and we want them to come, particularly from, hip hop, right? We are constantly trying to build a deeper bench of mentors and angel investors from the hiphop community all the time. [00:47:42] And so what I would tell people, if that's you and you're listening or you are active in that area, just email me. I'm Bob Moz, bobmoz@techstars.com. I'll send you a thing to submit on mentorship, and not everybody will make it through. Some people will have to say no to. But we'll read 'em and look at all of them, but there are specific things where we wanna e expand and deepen our community, that that's one of them. [00:48:03] the other thing, would be is that if you are an investor thinking about deal flow here, you're looking at a company we're in, or you're looking at a company that we're not in, and we can be helpful to you to like, here's what we've seen, here's the comps companies, here's the competing company or Oh, you know, we made an investment like that. [00:48:18] Bob Moczydlowsky: Here's all the places that fell apart. Be careful of these places. Also just, email me you know, I'm constantly talking to investors about their portfolio, not mine, and trying to like just be useful to them. because ultimately I want there to be more capital in the category, right? I want people to raise funds. I want them to invest in deals. [00:48:36] there's not one thing I can think of where I would've a competitive posture about any of that stuff. and I would tell people who wanna be involved, like, drop your competitive pieces off out of your own actions and your own behavior. Just be a hundred percent collaborative. [00:48:51] There's only a couple hundred people who are really serious and really active in this community worldwide. There's nothing to fight over. Like there's enough for everybody. and, you know, deals that I can't afford. That's okay, I'll still tell people I think they're cool deals and if you wanna be involved and see some of that stuff, like just email me and we have ways to plug people into our, community. It's hundreds of people. So, it's not like we're off in a closet running the accelerator with, 10 folks. It's a lot of people. [00:49:16] Dan Runcie: That's awesome. That's awesome. Love to see it. Well, thanks Bob. This has been fun. Appreciate you. | |||
| 04 Jun 2021 | Jonnyshipes on Cinematic Music Group, Indie Hip-Hop, and Building the Supreme for Music | 00:43:01 | |
Cinematic Music Group founder and CEO Jonnyshipes came on the pod to talk about how he’s built Cinematic into an influential entertainment company that other labels are trying to follow. Shipes worked with Smoke DZA, Nipsey Hussle, Joey Badass, and more. In this episode, Shipes breaks down how he partners with major labels, helps artists build their careers, and more. Shipes also loves comedy. He recently signed comedian Druski, who blew up after Drake’s “Laugh Now, Cry Later” video. Druski and Shipes have a few things in the works which he goes more in depth with. If you want to hear about how an indie hip-hop company is run, this is the episode for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Jonnyshipes, @jonnyshipes, cinematicworldwide.com Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 15 Jun 2023 | Do Music Videos Still Matter? (with Tati Cirisano) | 00:48:09 | |
What’s the role of a music video today? In the 1980s, music videos flipped the industry thanks to MTV. Videos helped artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna become cultural icons. Record labels spent millions on music videos to promote their CD sales. Everyone was winning. Music videos don’t hold the same power today in the streaming era. The budgets are smaller, but they still get made. To break it all down, I was joined by MIDiA Research analyst Tati Cirisano. Here’s what we covered: 0:52 What is the role of a music video today? 2:15 MTV’s role in music videos 7:46 Comparisons to TikTok 11:27 Music video budgets peaked in mid-90s 14:30 Napster changed everything 17:27 Music videos as career launchpads 18:50 YouTube revitalizes music videos 25:44 Range of video budgets 31:04 Big dollars going to documentaries and short films 32:53 Rise of lyric videos 41:42Does YouTube have a music video formula? 44:09Measuring ROI of music videos in 2023 Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Tati Cirisano, @tatianacirisano This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Tati Cirisano: There's an argument to be made that MTV like almost invented the music video or almost like made music videos a thing because having that audience there and having that like cultural impact is what led to bigger budgets for music videos so I almost feel like MTV gets credit for like kind of inventing the music video. [00:00:19] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:47] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: This episode is all about music videos and what their value prop is in the industry today. Back in the MTV era, the role of a music video was clear. This was your four minute opportunity to sell the hell out of your artist and for your label to promote its artist. Yet fans bought into the lifestyle, the identity, the persona of this person, and get them to go to Sam Goody, go to Tower Records and buy the albums. It was a marketing channel and it was a marketing channel that the record labels were continuing to put money into, and as the effectiveness continued to grow, they put more and more. Into that and that budget exploded. By the time we got to the mid to late 90s, we saw music video budgets hitting millions of dollars, and artists were doing out of this world things in these videos. But we slowly started to see those budgets slash. Went at the introduction of Napster and the CD era started to decline and the money was no longer flowing the way that it once was. But we started to see music videos take a new turn in the YouTube era. And now in the TikTok era, what is the ROI of a music video? What role do they serve in today's industry? And to break it down, we're enjoying by Tati Cirisano, an analyst at MIDia Research. He's been on the podcast a bunch of times, and this topic was right up her alley. So we talked a bit about that and more. Hope you enjoy this episode. Here's our breakdown on the role of music videos in today's industry. [00:02:16] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are going to take a trip down memory lane to the wonderful World of Music videos, how this art form has evolved over the years. And I'm joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research, Tati welcome. [00:02:28] Tati Cirisano: Thank you. Good to be back once again. [00:02:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. Can I start with a story? You mind if I start with a story with this one?
So, a couple weeks ago I was catching up with, CEO from one of the major record labels. This is someone that if you're probably listening to this household, if you're probably listening to this podcast, you probably know, and they run a label that is also a household name, and they were telling me about a conversation they had with an artist who is also a household name and how this artist wanted to have a million dollar plus seven plus figure, multi-million dollar music video budget because they wanted to make this big splash with what they were doing. And the CEO was like, no, I'm not giving you that. Like, what do you think this is? And for context, this is a artist who hasn't had a big hit since George Bush's first term. Let me say that roughly, just to give some context here. So, So it's been some time, but I also was a bit surprised because this is someone who seemed like they were up with the times in tech, and I remember asking the label exec, I was like, what's the deal? I thought this artist was with this. You see the movies they're making here, there, and this, that, and the third. And he was like, Hey. You would be surprised sometimes the egos get the best of these people and this is what they want. And that was a big inspiration for this conversation because I know you and I have talked about things like Spotify versus YouTube. YouTube, of course, having such a big focus in music videos and it's role. But that's what made me think it would be a great time to take a trip down memory lane and just revisit music videos themselves and. Going back to 1981, I feel like we could start music videos well before that. That obviously was there, but I think that was the origin place for a lot of what became known as the Modern Music Video and MTV itself. What's your take on how impactful MTV was? Because there was definitely a big shift of any music videos we saw before and any music videos we saw after. [00:04:36] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, I mean, you're right that like we could start this even further. Back in history, there were artists like the Beatles were making music films in like the 60s. David Bowie did the same but there wasn't really a place to showcase them the way that MTV, like, the one that MTV created. So I feel like it's not just that really iconic, amazing music videos, like those of, like Michael Jackson and, others made MTV a thing. I feel like there's an argument to be made that MTV like almost invented the music video or almost like made music videos a thing because having that audience there and having that like cultural impact is what led to bigger budgets for music videos and labels kind of focusing on this as an art form and a promotional piece. And that also led to more interesting creative videos. So I almost feel like MTV gets credit for like kind of inventing the video, the music video. [00:05:30] Dan Runcie: And inventing the video as a distinct art form that can live on its own in distinction from the music itself, because you mentioned The Beatles, you mentioned some of those other artists from that time. Music videos almost felt more like a utility. They were a commodity. Let's put the camera up while you're recording the tune, and maybe we'll add in some things. Maybe they'll add in some B-roll. And that's what it very much existed as for years. But then MTV takes it and makes it this unique thing. And we saw from the early days, whether it was Duran Duran, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna, they were some of the early people that really made it their own thing. And you saw more of those movies and that's where MTV being able to capture the eyeballs there, the growth of cable as well, and them becoming one of the more popular channels there. You see this platform having this type of impact, you invest more dollars into it, and this becomes a much stronger marketing channel, which then commanded and justified them putting more and more money over time into these videos. [00:06:35] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, and speaking of Madonna, I think it also made music a lot more visual where music videos kind of opened this pathway for artists to become not just music icons, but kind of like style and fashion and cultural icons. there's so many videos that. Are just kind of like etched into everyone's brains and so many iconic outfits like people still dress up as, Britney Spears and the Baby One More Time Video and like all these other iconic ones. I think it, started making music more of a visual thing. And in turn, that also helped drive fandom around artists. Cuz if there's one thing I've learned in all the studying of, fandom that I've done and how it develops, it's pretty much always about context. It's always maybe listening to a song makes you a fan or doesn't make you a fan. It makes you a listener of the artist. But it's only once you know more about, who they are and like what their style is and what their aesthetic is and all these other things that you become a true fan. I think a lot of fandom was formed by sitting around the TV with friends and like watching a video for the first time on MTV. It was just a more captivating way to get to know an artist and have that context around them. [00:07:47] Dan Runcie: It's a big point, and that's something I definitely related with too. Growing up in that era, you were able to see and interact with those artists. If I had just heard these artists on the radio, it would've been a very different relationship. But I know that for a lot of people, that's how they gravitated to music. That's how they captured this, and that wasn't the way that it, I grew up for me, whether it was watching them on MTV, watching them on BET, That was the experience, and especially as things started to take off in the CD era, we saw more artists having success with it. We also started to see more pushback as well. I think it was around the early 90s, even the late eighties, this was around the time MTV was really kicking into gear. And the sales and numbers, everything was just up and to the right from a growth perspective. But we started to hear more critiques, some of the more traditionalists in the music industry started to say things like, these music videos are turning artists into one trick ponies. It's no longer about the music anymore. It's about making, Music video. And that's clearly resonating with some of the critiques. We now hear about TikTok as well. But it makes me think about the patterns that music often follows and when there is a new art form that does allow some type of growth, there's critiques, but those critiques also do stem from bit of this. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And we've seen this time and time again where a lot of those artists that had. Had critiques about MTV, whether it was Mariah Carey in the very early days, or even groups like REM, they would go on to make some of the most iconic music videos from the 90s as well. And I think we've seen the same with whether it's streaming or TikTok music videos was one of the things that I remember as having a bit of that cyclical pattern. [00:09:32] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, and there's so many trends in music videos that I feel like now we're play, we're seeing play out on TikTok or have already seen like there was sort of the dance, video craze of like, single ladies and crank that and PSY with Gangnam style. There were all these music videos that were about getting everyone to do a dance. And that was the way, that was like the promotional thing of if you got people to do that, then they would do it at the club when the song came on, they would do it in public. It would sort of become this bigger moment. And then that was kind of the first phase of TikTok when it started to rise in the 2020 when in early 2020 was like all dance videos. and even. I remember there were some videos that people, I know we haven't gotten to YouTube yet, but when YouTube came into the equation, people were uploading their own versions of videos and now that's like a pretty common thing. But yeah, it's interesting how all this stuff is cyclical and I think like video to the stuff about, the criticisms and like being one trick ponies and that kind of thing. I think that video has kind of, with music, always been about creating a cultural moment, aside from it just being another art form that I think artists delight in taking part in. Cause it's just another way to be creative. But I think it's, it's, about creating a cultural moment and creating a cultural moment in this day and age has morphed into this concept of virality, but it's always been about the same thing. Like viral in the 90s was, people wanting to be Britney Spears in that music video I was just talking about, and it kind of like being, this thing everyone was talking about for months. The same thing is happening now on TikTok. It's just happening faster. so yeah, I think that a lot of this stuff is cyclical and those criticisms, the point is that it's a promotional tool, so of course it's gonna lead to kind of like flash in the pan moments. So, Yeah, I have complicated feelings about those criticisms, I guess. [00:11:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I do too. I understand and I think that what we saw in the next decade, especially with some of those artists that came around and ended up leaning in, said a lot about where it is. And not every artist needed to do the MTV thing. Not every artist needed to lean into it all the way. Granted, I do think that most artists had music videos to an extent, but there was clearly a wave of where things were going. And right around the mid to late 90s, We saw the peak, at least from a budget perspective, of how much money was being put into music videos. And when you're talking about creating moments and in the pre-internet era, there wasn't necessarily as much virality, but the thing that got people locked in was how visually stunning or something that you've seen that's never been seen before. It's almost this bigger was better era. And then we get to points where in the mid 90s, Both Madonna and Michael and Janet Jackson are having music videos that aren't just one or 2 million. That screen music video was rumored to be around five to 7 million depending on the source you look at, in 1995 dollars, and that's that black and white video. They're shape shifting and all this stuff. And we continued to see this over the next couple of years. Of course, hype Williams and everything that he did from music videos was always unique, is always futuristic and with all of the elements that he had there. But it took a lot of money to make those music videos the same way with NSYNC and all those no strings attached music videos. Those were multimillion dollar music videos too. And it brings me back to even the things that they would spend money on. I'm thinking about, Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson, they had that once. It's gonna be a music video where you have the silver liquid that's like coming over. Both of them and Busta Rhymes took guitar lessons. Apparently that's what MTV's making the video thing had said in its, little popup that comes to the music video. But all of those things [00:13:24] Tati Cirisano: I missed those popups. [00:13:26] Dan Runcie: I know it was such a fun era, right? It was. It was such a, I guess a lot of that's been now disrupted by what we see on YouTube, which I know we'll get into in a minute, but that was such a moment. I think it spoke to, why people were willing to put in money at the time with just where things were with the era that was the marketing channel. Music videos were seen purely as an expense to be able to sell more CDs the same way that touring at the time was seen as an opportunity to try and sell more CDs. And the artists that sold the most often got the biggest budgets. And at the time, bigger was all often seen as better, especially when it came to the contemporary Pop X and that whole ecosystem of music, video culture, and everything around it made that take off the way it did. [00:14:13] Tati Cirisano: no, absolutely. I think the promotional power was worth it at the time. and like you said, you could justify spending that much on a music video if you were gonna make it back in CD sales if you were one of these superstars. So it made a lot of sense at the time. And then came master. [00:14:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that changed everything because and there was a fair amount of overlap there just with the way things were because so much of the industry was still focused where it was, I look at even the music video economy where there was a cyclical nature where because of the demand, The programs themselves or the channels themselves started launching programs dedicated to showcasing music videos, whether it was 106 and Park or TRL. They had different shows throughout the day, but all of them were some unique flavor of just trying to show you more music videos. And that's what was cool about it. You were able to have this whole ecosystem there, but then as you mentioned, Napster comes in, changes everything. The dollars are no longer flowing, and it. Is harder to justify spending millions of dollars on a music video if you can't confirm that that artist is gonna be able to do that. I think in a lot of ways, the peak was, we talked about them before in sync, Britney Spears, Nsync being able to sell, I think it was nearly 3 million units of an album the first week that it comes out. Like people skipping school in order to go buy, no strings attached. That just didn't happen any more to that level. I mean, we eventually saw examples like Adele and even this Taylor Swift album, but it wasn't the same way that it was then, and it shifted everything and I think it eventually Led to lower budgets. We still saw a lot of creativity. I still remember watching tons of music videos, especially in the mid to, especially in the mid two thousands. But it was definitely a different vibe cuz it was this pre and post Napster, but pre YouTube era where the budgets were still somewhat strong, but it wasn't quite what it was before. [00:16:13] Tati Cirisano: and there was this whole ecosystem before that, like, it's, kind of stunning me to remember how many different roles there were. Like music directors I feel like got a lot more shine because there were the VMAs and all these kind of things dedicated to them. But then there were the VJs of the time. and there were kind of like the. dancers and the other like characters in these videos, which kickstarted a lot of actors and actresses careers. Just being in these music videos, there was this idea of like the video vixen, which is a term I absolutely cringe to the n degree at, but like that was a role, like there was such an ecosystem around it. You're totally right and then it really so much since then. [00:16:54] Dan Runcie: When you think of the term video vixen, who's the first person that comes to mind? [00:16:58] Tati Cirisano: I think of people like Eva Mendez in the Miami video with Will Smith, I think of Scarlet Johansen. which one was she in? It was like some, [00:17:09] Dan Runcie: Justin Timberlake, what goes around comes around. [00:17:11] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, there were so many, I don't know. Alicia Silverstone I know was in a couple of music videos. Kim Kardashian was in Fallout boy, thanks for the Memories, which was a bit later and like she was already famous. But like that remembering that blows my mind. Like there were just so many of these examples. I don't know. [00:17:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah, there's a few that comes to mind. I think about someone like Vida Guerrera, like she was always in a bunch of them. Even male video vixen's too. I'm thinking [00:17:37] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. [00:17:38] Dan Runcie: Beckford and, Toni Braxton's Unbreak my heart, in that one. And then Tyrese and, what music video is that was that angel of mine with Monica. So you definitely had 'em back and forth. Even the artists themselves sometimes ended up being vixens and other ones. Terrence Howard was in a bunch of 'em. But I think that this too, it talks about just how music was a launchpad, right? You mentioned the VJs earlier. So many of these VJs started as those types of personalities, but then they went on to go do other things. I mean, Carson Daley is a media personality now doing his own thing. He got his roots in TRL. I feel like, aJ from 106 and Park still does media things suspense. Terrence Jay definitely does as well. So you see those, but you also saw it on the music video side too, where directors like Spike Jones is now doing, you know, Hollywood movies. Look at the Daniels, they directed turn down for what? the little John's music video, and then they just directed and won an Oscar for Best Picture and best Director with everything everywhere, all at once. So music continues to be a launchpad in [00:18:45] Tati Cirisano: What a pivot. Turn Down for What to Everything Everywhere All At Once. [00:18:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah, never would've guessed that one, never would've guessed that one. And I think with that, we should probably start now talking about the YouTube era because things took another turn here. You mentioned a little bit of this earlier where user-generated videos started to take off, but I think the success of YouTube started to tell people that, Hey, The things that are going viral and getting attention. It isn't just using the most amount of money possible to see outta this world stuff. As cool as it was to see Hype Williams creating action figures of Missy Elliot running around in space, we don't necessarily need to see that much out of this world to do it. It can be Soulja boy doing his type of dance and then having all this other user generated content on Crank that Batman, crank, that Spider-Man, crank that whoever, and we saw that time and time again. So I think YouTube, and this was before any of the licensing deals came. The fact that crank that blew up became the number one single in the country stuck out in a way. And I think that led to another evolution of what people were willing to spend money on and how they thought about the promotion of music videos as well. [00:19:59] Tati Cirisano: Totally like remember the okay go music video with the treadmills. Like remember how cool we all thought that was? I mean, I'll speak for myself, but like it's like funny to think about now. That was such a big deal. That they made this like really low budget video, just kind of like running around on treadmills. And I think that's the other thing that's interesting about YouTube is, so pre MTV, there was like not really any place to showcase music videos. Then there was this channel for it, but it was really limited to the major label signed artists. And then you got to YouTube where there wasn't any gatekeeping around music videos anymore. Anything could be uploaded and anything could be played. And there was just less of that gatekeeping. But then the flip side of that is it also means that it's a lot harder to stand out. And so YouTube has, kind of made any one of those videos a bit less impactful for that reason. Over time, I think, and that gets back to like the fragmentation that, you know, I love to talk about. [00:20:57] Dan Runcie: It's fascinating because I think that each time something goes viral or each time something breaks out on YouTube, You do get a lot of copycat behavior. You see a moment where things are happening. It isn't always rational, but that's kind of the beauty of it. And then you go on to something else. I was looking at things talking about the 10 year anniversary of Harlem Shake, of that whole video wave where people were doing all those crazy dances. The music then stops, and then a couple years later we saw Black Beatles and that saw reach a whole nother level because of the freeze challenge thing that people were doing. And that was a whole nother culture with it because again, we started to see less flashiness of them trying to do particular things. But once the licensing came, music videos then became revenue generating tools. On their own and it was no longer necessarily just about trying to have a song get retired on the charts, whether it was on a 106 and Park and TRL there became the subculture of how can we get this music video to hit this? Number of streams or this hit this number of views. And I know we start to see this now more where most of the services are publicly sharing how many streams and views their songs and music videos have. But I feel like we started to see this on YouTube first, and a lot of the chatter that you would once see started to live in the comments section. And you started to see these subcultures of fans that would gravitate and connect to songs in that way. And I felt like that was something that was unique. [00:22:29] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, and there were a lot music videos, over the past, like five years, over the past 10 years, like the single ladies video and like Childish Gambino with this is America. And even like more recently, like the Kendrick Lamar video with like the AI generated faces, I forget which song that [00:22:46] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah, the hard part five. [00:22:47] Tati Cirisano: Yes. But you're totally right that rather than the go, the virality of a music video. Just being about driving streams. they also, those videos also became revenue generated themselves. So going viral on YouTube, having a video that everybody was gonna be anxious to watch, was a big deal for that. And there, I feel like there were kind of less so today, but like pre TikTok in like 2016 to like 2020. It kind of feels like there was a bit of a mini revival of like, Music videos being this bigger promotional tool, like, do you remember all the promotion around the Thank you Next video for Ariana Grande? That was nuts, like, we were all waiting weeks for that video to come out and there was so much, conversation about it and so many clips and so many interviews in the press and I feel like there was kind of a moment before TikTok came around when music videos were once again, kind of this really big promotional tool and way to kind of break through the noise and generate revenue. [00:23:47] Dan Runcie: With Thank you, next. That was the one where they spoofed mean girls, right? [00:23:51] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, and like a bunch of other of those types of movies, like there was like a clueless scene in it. I feel like there [00:23:57] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah, yeah. [00:23:57] Tati Cirisano: I feel like there were a bunch, maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I think they, they did that with like a bunch of different, like 90s and two thousands movies. And there were so many cameos. There were so many cameos. [00:24:08] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah, that's right. It did. It did. And I think a few of those music videos, you mentioned Salish Gambino as well. He's clearly someone that I think is calculated and knows what he's doing from a communication perspective, but with that video, it wasn't even necessarily about how much money was spent on this or something. It was more so here's this timely thing and there was a shock value that was linked to it, and I know that music videos have always had a bit of, have always had shock value, especially since the MTV area era think specifically about an artist like Madonna and then even Britney later on that leaned into this. But we started to see artists lean, lean into it even more from a. political standpoint, making statements and trying to say things that they wouldn't otherwise have said. And even thinking about artists like Joyner Lucas who had someone that was wearing a Make America Great again hat in their music video to then show that as some type of hypothetical conversation of what it could be like to talk to people that may think differently. I may be misremembering parts of the music video, but we started to see more of that integrate where. That then stems from how flexible this art form can be. You can have a music video like wp, which I do think was one of the more recent, you know, TikTok era music videos that created a moment. You could have them have these standalone things as well. [00:25:29] Tati Cirisano: Mm-hmm. That's exactly what I mean with how music videos give you so much more context like it's just another way for the artist to tell their story and express themselves. It's just another avenue for that, and there's so many different ways to do that. It is such a flexible art form. [00:25:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. I have a few stats here that I think would be helpful just for some context setting. As we mentioned earlier, we talked about music video budgets in the late 90s and even the early two thousands where, top artists getting million dollars plus for their music video wasn't uncommon. But here, let me share some numbers. Cardi B had shared some self-reported public numbers of things she spent on music videos just over the years. This was from two years ago, so I'm sure she's done stuff then. But Bodak Yellow, that was the music videos that they had done. That one in Dubai, that was $15,000. Granted, she was much smaller at the time. People likely weren't charging her as much, but she did that for just $15,000 and then, Bar Cardi, that was $150,000. The money music video, which did look like a pretty elaborate and not cheap music video. That was 400,000, please Me. The one that she did with Bruno Mars, that was 900,000 and then WAP was a million dollars. But those are two artists coming together, and that was also another expensive looking music video with a bunch of cameos as well. So even WAP, something that I would consider on the highest degree. Of what, major record label might be willing to spend. Even that was just a million dollars or compared to how much more they were willing to spend a couple decades before. [00:27:02] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, yeah, I mean that, that kind of doesn't surprise me. Like I feel like the ROI for music videos has just gone down a lot and it just doesn't make sense to spend much more than that on a music video. Like you can still make a splash, it can still be, a good promotional tool. And a way to, generate more revenue, but they don't tend to last as long as they used to, and it's just really hard to get people's attention on one thing these days. I think short form is also being prioritized or that's kind of the sense that I'm getting and yeah, it doesn't totally surprise me, does it? What do you think about those numbers? [00:27:44] Dan Runcie: It doesn't surprise me either because of where so much music is consumed and how things go viral. But it is a bit interesting when I think about music videos as a visual art form and what tracks and what resonates compared to other forms of entertainment where I do feel like we've continued to see bigger and bigger com, bigger and better, at least from the money that's put into these productions for major film studios, for instance, what they're putting into superhero films, what they put into Fast and Furious films, or even what James Cameron had put into Avatar. Spending 300 million, not even on the marketing, just on the budget for these movies isn't even unheard of now. So there's clearly an attraction of doing that, even if it is one of these tent pole franchise movies, even for some of the things that have gone straight to video. But that didn't necessarily happen in the same way in music videos. It started to pull. We obviously know that the industry was hit harder than others, so it pulled back. But even as the industry continued to grow, and I think, I mean, I know now the numbers unadjusted for inflation have the highest, at least revenue on the recorded side. Bigger hasn't necessarily translated to better in that perspective. Even if you look at video games, the graphics, all the things that are stunning are the things that we continue to see. And granted in, video games, we've seen a few outliers, like when Nintendo, we blew up. Clearly that wasn't a graphics thing, but they were tapping into something that Xbox and PlayStation weren't at the time. But in music videos, the bigger, better graphics of artists doing crazy things just didn't resonate in the same way, the only music video I can think of is, Ed Sheeran, what's that music video he did? I think he's kind of floating around and stuff and moving. I think it's bad habits. But one of those, I think that's probably the most recent one, but even that one I don't think is like that expensive of a music video, but we just haven't seen better. I'm thinking back to in the 90s. Yeah, I mentioned the Hype Williams music videos or even, you know, Backstreet Boys like moving around in space and larger than life. We just haven't seen that translate in that same way in music videos. [00:29:51] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. Well the other thing that you just that just made me think of when you mentioned film is how do I put this? Like album promo cycles these days are so much less premeditated, right? It's more about putting songs out and seeing how people react, and then deciding which ones to push forward as a single, then deciding what to put music, video resources behind. So I think that the other difference with music versus something like film and TV is things are just getting decided on the fly. Like a song goes viral and then you're like, okay, now we're gonna make a video for this song, but you wouldn't decide that until you saw how the songs were performing. So I think that that's a big, big factor in it as well. But we've also seen some good, like low but lower budget music videos. Like I loved the Ice Spice Pink Panther for boys a Liar. And it was literally just them like hanging out on a fire escape. And I was like, this is perfect. So I think we've also seen like some good lower budget ones come out of this as well. But yeah, definitely doesn't feel like the same, you know, spending all this money on like these crazy graphics and like whatever it is, has as much of an impact or is, as worth it as it might be in film. [00:31:04] Dan Runcie: I feel like we've seen a few outliers here or there in music. Kanye West's music videos, especially in that, let's say 2007 to 2015, 16 range, it seemed like there was still a good amount of money that was being put into those. And even some of the extended ones that, that short form video, the short form film version of Runaway, still felt like a pretty expensive music video. And I'm pretty sure Hype Williams directed that. But I also wonder is. Is the definition of what we consider music video, and the expansion of that. Also shifting what people are putting money into and how it's categorized. And by that I'm talking about some of these documentaries that have come out and what bucket we put those in. I look at something like when Taylor Swift had recorded those pond sessions after the folklore evermore albums had come out. She essentially did an entire visual album of her at this pond or wherever. She wasn't that like Cottage and Sells and sold that to Disney, and then Disney then streams and puts that out and it's an hour or two hours or however long it is. Beyonce is recording her Coachella performance and then sells that to Netflix, and then Netflix puts that out. And you're essentially watching an alternate version of a Beyonce music video that is just over this two hour or two hour 15 minutes, however long it is. But when I think about that, I think about these visual albums and just how so many of them have spanned in, had different forms and ways they've gone about it. Is that where some of these more expensive projects are going? Is that where some of the more expensive dollars are going when looking at video as it relates to music, as opposed to just this music video bucket that we may have put it in? [00:32:53] Tati Cirisano: I think so, and I think I would also put in that category like the more. Like the short films that our music videos. And that's something that artists have been doing forever. But I mean, like, I don't know, like the Taylor Swift All Too Well video and even like, I feel like the SZA Kill Bill video was like longer than the song and like had, a lot of artists are starting to add more of a story and create more of like a short film. And I think part of that is a way to like just stand out from all the other music videos and actually grab people's attention because you are really telling a story, you're taking it to the next level. And even having parts where like the song isn't even playing, and I think you're probably right, that more of the budget that used to go to music videos, Is now going more sparingly to a few of those types of projects for the bigger artists. Whereas, l ike for what was traditionally a music video is now becoming lyric videos or sort of like these animated videos that I've seen come up that are so much cheaper to produce and often also involve AI generation, which is, an area that I feel like we haven't really touched on in all of the discourse about AI and music is like AI for music videos. And maybe that will end up lowering the cost to making these really fantastic crazy concepts that we used to see that used to cost 7 million. And now, well you can click a button. So I don't know, maybe we'll see like a reversal of what, of everything we're talking about, of like music videos kind of shrinking and instead becoming bigger. But yeah, I think you're right. [00:34:28] Dan Runcie: The point that you mentioned about music videos and just the storytelling, adding in the short film piece of it. I don't know if he was the first, but Michael Jackson Thriller is the one that comes to mind there, just with how that became this extended film. But again, not everyone was getting that much budgeter opportunity to do that in that way. Michael Jackson had built up the track record in order to make that happen, and then as you see, we continue to see that now with Taylor and others. I'm glad you mentioned the piece around lyric videos and AI, because lyric videos have long been the low-hanging fruit. Of YouTube, especially for artists. Yes, it's great to have your own music video, but sometimes people don't want that. They just wanna be able to have it there playing and Sure from a purely practical perspective, you could tell yourself. They can go listen to that and Spotify or they can just go listen to the audio version. That's what they want, but not necessarily. There are creative and unique things that you can do with music videos. It doesn't always have to be the text scrolling across the same way it would on a karaoke screen or something like that. Artists have had unique ways to go about it, and AI music videos isn't even necessarily something I necessarily thought of, but what's holding it back? You look at the same way that the images went viral of the Pope in, you know, wearing the bomber jacket or whatever it was. The same thing can happen with the music video. And when I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking again about like how we started this conversation around where some of the critiques are that people have had with music videos when they first came out. Some of the critiques, we hear now about this more user generated era of music, videos and content as well. The path and the journey. It seems that once music gets too derivative in some ways, two things happen. One, it expands and grows the pie for the overall industry, which is good because we wanna be able to see the impact in music. We wanna be able to see it grow. That's always gonna naturally attract detractors that wanna see the thing in the pure form, but nothing stopping them from seeing the thing in the pure form. But we do wanna be able to see the growth in evolution there. And AI is the next version of this where, what is the core piece that you have, whether it's the artist and the music that the rights holders have the control and ownership of, but whether it's music, video, or just other ways to do it, what are the ways that that can be unlocked? And if that can be done in a great way, that's where the potential comes. That's where you unlock all of the opportunity in the industry. And who knows, like you said, it doesn't even need to be as expensive as it was, but you're giving people the opportunity to do something unique. [00:37:06] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, and speaking of the SZA one, I don't know if this is something that she planned or if it's just something she's encouraged, but there's a whole culture on TikTok of fans making their own SZA music videos. Not copying the ones that have already been created, but making their own. And she'll repost them and comments on them and like talk about the ones that are her favorites. And that whole thing is really fascinating to me. And it even like brings me back to the lyric videos because the whole reason that the music industry started to realize, oh, we should release these music videos, was because fans were already making them and it was just revenue that the industry wasn't, and eyeballs that the industry wasn't capturing. So lyric videos were just a way to kind of formalize that, and I think we're seeing that in so many ways on TikTok with sped up songs that fans uploaded and then record labels formalized. So I don't really know where I'm going with this with music videos, but I feel like there's a connection there of like, How, video could potentially enter more of that. I mean, music videos could potentially enter more of that, UGC space. But the other thing I wanted to bring up before I forget, is that I did grab some stats from our research at MIDia about, both of those things. So just for context here. 59% of global consumers use YouTube to watch music videos weekly. And then we had another question where we asked how do you engage with music artists beyond listening to their music? And 35% of consumers said they watch lyric videos. and that's from our Q4 22 consumer survey and our Q1 23 respectively. So, both are pretty high. [00:38:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I would say so. I wonder for some artists, the numbers that they've had for the music videos and lyric videos are probably closer than they think, right? And sometimes a lot of it just depends on what you're in the mood for. Sometimes, there's just so many more opportunities to have a passive thing in the background, and sometimes I've done it myself without even thinking, I think what is the user experience that then causes me to go to a lyric video, even when I know the music video is there. And most of the time it's when I wanna have the thing in the background. Maybe I'll go to it, but I don't necessarily wanna stare at the screen for the next few minutes and it makes perfect sense and there's so many more use cases for that. So I wouldn't be surprised if for certain artists, they both serve a purpose, but they might actually be making more from the respective lyric song. And I think when you just think about it overall, the Lyric song does enable you to have your entire album up on the streaming services guy, I guess you could technically have a few versions where I've seen some artists have the music video, they have the lyric video, and then they just have the still with the cover art of the album there. So you have three different options and that could all be, revenue that goes back to the artist and the rights solar. [00:39:53] Tati Cirisano: Mm-hmm. There's also this interesting idea of like how all these things kind of play together. Like going back to the episode that we did on, that was about YouTube and, kind of contrasting these short form video platforms and how YouTube's whole pitch is that they're able to unite long form and short form so that, you know, there isn't that gap where people watch a TikTok video about, and then they don't actually go in and learn more about the artists. So, I don't know. I think there's something interesting there with YouTube being the main place where people watch music videos. The only, like the main place, I won't say the only. And also having the short form video platform. So I think that is a really strong proposition to be able to kind of marry the two. [00:40:35] Dan Runcie: Here's a question for you similar to that I actually don't know the answer to this myself, but thinking about how like audio and music itself, we see how music has adapted over time based on the mode and the medium that it is, whether it's CDs and streaming. And then we see the impact of TikTok and everything else. And music videos we've seen similar where we knew what a an MTV era music video looked like, especially if it was a music video that's trying to be on TRL. There's almost a certain formula that you saw to it. And we also see now what a TikTok video can look like where you see the types of dances and you see the way that the music video is made almost in a way to make it easily be replicated, whether it's a Drake, Lizzo, Doja Cat, Cardi B, plenty people have done this. Do you think this exists as well with YouTube? Was there a certain type of music video that stands out to you, is Yes. This is a YouTube music video. This is a music video that personifies the YouTube era of music videos. [00:41:38] Tati Cirisano: I love that question. that's a really good question. [00:41:42] Dan Runcie: As I'm thinking about it, there's one person that did come to mind. NBA Young Boy is a person that I do think speaks to the YouTube era of music videos because he approaches this the same way that. Someone like Mr. Beast approaches videos. There is a formula there, he has his hook, he has the things. There is a bit of the storytelling dynamic of what he is trying to do, or the challenge that they're trying to overcome, and then they do the thing. But it's definitely told in this way that has the hook and the elements that you naturally see. In YouTube and the way that the font for the name of the music video scrolls up, that is very much the formula. How quick it is for the beat to start. All those types of things, I think speak a lot to the YouTube era. [00:42:27] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, I also think, I'm thinking of artists who have sort of played into meme culture with their videos, like Drake has kind of done that. Remember how meme'd the Hotline Bling video was like. Even like the video for, what's that song you have with Justin Bieber? Pop Star was like, kind of playing into like the stereotypes about them in a way. Like I think artists like them who have sort of played into internet culture in their videos are maybe part of that YouTube era. Charli XCX, the boys video felt very YouTube, Yeah, I would say things like that. And then also videos that invited user participation, like the dance video craze, where it was kind of intended to get you to make your own version. And that was kind of like the early TikTok was being YouTube. So, yeah, that's a great question. [00:43:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think we saw some of this with Instagram as well, because I think about Drake in my Feelings. That was another one where there was clearly a Instagramable place where he's saying, please repeat this, because TikTok really wasn't blowing up the way that it was then, but he clearly made this video leading into that. And if anything, I think that the video came after we saw the viral instagram clips of, what was that guy? Shaggy that was doing the dances for that music video and then Danny Le as well. So there were a few people that had done that. [00:43:55] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, no, the correlation is so fascinating. I could do a whole nother podcast on how Drake lyrics invented Instagram captions, but we'll save that. [00:44:09] Dan Runcie: And no, we will definitely table that one. And I think as. Yeah. No. I have a few thoughts on that one, but as I think about this, I feel like a good way to, to close this one out is thinking about the ROI of these videos. And there's a number of ways to look at it, but with the way that a video is now, what do you think the best way is to measure the ROI? Because of course there's the hard dollars that the video could generate, the impact, but what's your take on that? [00:44:36] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, aside from the things like, aside from the things that are just like hard views and streams, I think it's also about cultural impact, which is kind of impossible to measure. it's about UGC, like how many videos was. I don't know, how many people kind of created their own version or did the dance in the music video, wherever it is. I guess that kind of depends on the video, but I think there's like some element of like creations related to the video that are part of it. and then did anyone dress up for Halloween as that music video? That's the biggest measure of cultural impact. [00:45:18] Dan Runcie: Like Lil Nas X dressing up as Ice Spice [00:45:21] Tati Cirisano: Yes. Yes. And I'm sure there were people that dressed up as Drake in the hotline bling video. the scene that that came out. So, look at Halloween costume sales, all you label executives. No, I don't know it's a really hard question to answer, but I think it's, mix of those and it's increasingly about, how fans are kind of like recreating their own versions of things. [00:45:42] Dan Runcie: Because there's a clear need to, water creates something that creates shock value, but you can't do those moments automatically cuz sometimes randomly it's gun just being gunna and then, Rihanna dresses up like him for her Halloween costume in like multiple settings and stuff, and it's like, oh, okay. I guess this is a thing. Like I don't think he knew that he was putting a fit out there, but you can't always guarantee that that's what's gonna come out, right? You have artists like Da Baby that I think have always tried to do stunty things to get cloud out there, but I don't know if, I've never necessarily seen people try to dress up like him for Halloween in that way. But that's a good one, and I think at first I was like thinking you're saying it in jest, but it's a hundred percent true. Like how are you able to capture zeitgeist? And I think that checking Instagram tags especially, or hashtags or just trending topics Twitter can tell you. Yeah. definitely. [00:46:36] Tati Cirisano: Well, many gift uses did you get of a clip from the music video? [00:46:41] Dan Runcie: Exactly. Or are people creating gifts of you in some type of way? [00:46:45] Tati Cirisano: Exactly. [00:46:46] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Well, Tati, this was fun. We have a couple of topics that I know we'll dig into eventually on this, but before we let you go, what are some things that you're digging into? What should the travel listeners stay looking out for? [00:46:59] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, that's a good question, let me think. So many things. I mean, we have a new report at MIDia that'll be out next month, for clients that's about live music consumers. We did a big survey, with bands in town asking people about their attitudes towards ticket prices and all sorts of things like that. So if you're listening and you're client of ours, look out for that. If you're not and you're interested in it, feel free to reach out. but yeah, that's the thing that I'm working on a lot right now and very excited about. [00:47:27] Dan Runcie: Nice. All right. We'll stay looking out for that. Thank you. [00:47:31] Tati Cirisano: Awesome. Thanks Dan. [00:47:32] Dan Runcie Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend. Post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how travel continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. While you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, Go ahead. Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 30 Nov 2020 | Daouda Leonard on CreateSafe, the Record Deal Simulator, and Empowering Artists to Manage Their Careers | 00:44:42 | |
CreateSafe co-founder and CEO Daouda Leonard came through to break down his company’s goals in the music industry. In 2020, CreateSafe launched the record deal simulator to empower artists to better manage their careers. Daouda has used these tools to manage Grimes and other artists. It’s planning to launch a publishing simulator and a suite of other products. The goal is to make the music industry’s operating system--an open source tool that offers the transparency the industry needs.
Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Daouda Leonard, @daoudaleonard, createsafe.io Links:
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| 03 Dec 2021 | Tunde Balogun on Developing R&B Superstars, LVRN's Journey, and Mental Health in Music | 00:48:29 | |
Tunde Balogun is the co-founder and president of Love Renaissance (stylized as LVRN), an Atlanta-based record label that is focused primarily on R&B music. We talk about Summer Walker’s latest release and how LVRN has prioritized mental health services not just for its staff but also its executives. Tunde then weighs in on the differences of running an R&B label versus running a hip-hop label. He also shares his thoughts on the trends he is seeing in the music industry such as NFTs and other emerging technology. If you are looking to change the game and make things better for artists overall, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights [02:18] What Tunde is hoping to achieve with Summer Walker’s latest album [04:38] How LVRN stays a tightly-knit company [09:00] The LVRN executives’ history [12:22] What lead them to the decision to invest in group therapy [21:42] How they balance their artists’ welfare with making a profit [25:20] Tunde’s thoughts on Tiktok and cryptocurrency [33:35] What LVRN does differently compared to hip-hop labels [40:55] On investments in the African market, how education is key, and streaming Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Tunde Balogun, @tundetun88, Love Renaissance Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 09 Mar 2023 | The Future of Music and Gaming (with Vickie Nauman) | 00:49:23 | |
The gaming industry is larger than music and film combined. We’ve seen big music collabs in Fortnite, Roblox, and more, but there’s room to leverage music even more.
That’s been a big focus for Vickie Nauman, who works at the intersection of music and gaming. She consults for major record labels, game developers, and more through her company, CrossBorderWorks. She’s also worked on big virtual concerts, like David Guerra and Saweetie in Roblox, and VR games like Beat Saber.
But there are plenty of friction points between music and gaming. As Vickie said, the music industry likes to get money upfront, whereas gaming is fine getting it on the back-end. Then there’s the long process of clearing music from rights holders to even use in games. It makes it tough to move quickly
It’s even more challenging because of how fast technology is changing. New virtual experiences are being created daily, which adds pressure on the music industry to sort this out.
Vickie and I covered all this and more. Here’s everything we discussed:
[1:40] What attracted Vickie to gaming [2:40] The gaming moment that finally struck a chord with the music industry [4:33] Similarities and differences between gaming and music industries [10:09] Why Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert clicked but others haven’t [9:53] Can gaming have its Kate Bush - Stranger Things moment [15:47] Why the music industry plays catch up to technology [21:33] Clearing 143 writer’s share for David Guetta’s Roblox concert [28:45] Dot-com bubble era of web3 [30:45] Music will evolve differently in web3 experiences [36:17] What’s slowing down virtual reality adoption? [41:26] AI is coming at the music industry like a freight train
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Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Vickie Nauman, @vnvnvnvn This episode was brought to you by trac. Learn more about how artists can bring web2 and web3 together for their fans at trac.co Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital
Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Vickie Nauman: There are not an enormous number of opportunities for music and games. It's gaming is similar to the music industry where there are a handful of huge, huge, huge gaming studios, and then there's an inordinate long tail of small to mid-size gaming companies and, you know, very, very similar to music. [00:00:19] So the few big studios, a lot of them are doing, you know, licensing and they get music in. But it's been much more common over the years to gaming studios just hire a composer and they just create a song that is right for the mood and the moment in the game, the gaming studio owns it and they're just done. [00:00:40] You know, they don't have to worry about licensing or business models to incorporate music into the games. But I think for the most part, the music industry always likes to get their money up front, and the gaming industry likes to get all the money on the back end [00:00:55] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more. Who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:01:22] Dan Runcie: This episode is all about the future of gaming, and today we'll be breaking it down with someone who understands this space in and out. Vickie Nauman. She is the founder and CEO of CrossBorderWorks, which is her consulting and advisory firm, which works with some of the biggest major record labels, streaming services, and more on the intersections of word music meets technology, gaming, and several other emerging tech platforms. [00:01:47] We talk about what music and gaming's challenges and opportunities are in the future, how games are monetized versus music, some of the opportunities there. We also talk about the music industry itself and why the music industry often sometimes plays catch up with regards to emerging technology, how that impacts her work. [00:02:07] And what it can look like for gaming, to have that huge sync moment that Kate Bush running up that hill moment like we saw on Stranger Things. What could that look like for music in a video game? I think we've seen several successful examples over the past couple of decades, but we'll continue to see more as gaming in the Metaverse, Web three, and AI continue to intersect and influence this space. [00:02:29] Really great episode. It was great to have her share her insights here, and I hope you enjoy it. Here's our chat. [00:02:36] All right. Today we're here to talk about gaming music and so many of the intersections it has, and wanted to talk with someone who understands this space better than almost anyone that I could reach out to Vickie Nauman, who has consulted and worked with many of these companies in music and gaming. [00:02:53] Vickie, welcome to the pod. [00:02:54] Vickie Nauman: I am so happy to be here. I'm a huge admirer of your writing and your work and it's an honor. [00:02:59] Dan Runcie: Thank you. Appreciate that. So what is it for you that attracted you to this space? It's been an emerging space for some time, and it feels like the music industry is now starting to put more emphasis in, but you had been focusing even before the current wave has been there. What attracted you to it? [00:03:16] Vickie Nauman: Well, I've always looked at gaming and I'm one of these people who for years was telling the industry. Gaming is bigger than music and film combined, you know, it is a massive, massive industry and they're, you know, and almost all the monetization is built on low friction, high engagement in-app purchasing. [00:03:37] And so companies are releasing games that are free and they're making billions of dollars. There's, you know, there's lessons for the music industry. I feel like it all fell on deaf ears. People are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, companies come to us and. We wanna license them our whole catalog, and they don't want it. [00:03:53] And so there's nothing for us to do. And then, Marshmello did a set in Fortnite and got 10 million people to listen to his music, and that struck a chord in the, you know, in the industry. you know, and importantly, it didn't necessarily resonate with the digital business people who were always, you know, under an onslaught of new companies coming to try to get rights. [00:04:19] But it was in marketing and a and. and then there was like, it was a moment where I think everyone started to realize the power of gaming and the hundreds of millions and billions of people who are playing games as a new platform in a new way for artists to reach, fans and to break artists. [00:04:37] And it was interesting too because at that time I was working with Beat Saber. and they were this was in 2019 that all of this happened. And, Beat Saber was still an independent studio out of Prague, brand new game. And we were trying to get some of first songs in to that game. [00:04:55] Vickie Nauman: We had worked with Monstercat before and we had these original soundtracks in there, but we didn't have any, huge major label acts and we were trying to license Imagine Dragons. And so I heard firsthand from labels and publishers all throughout that process of like, wow, you know, we really want to do more with gaming. [00:05:16] And I credit a lot of that to Marshmello. [00:05:20] Dan Runcie: And you talked a little bit about how gaming is just so much bigger than music, and part of it is because they're not necessarily selling the content itself. They are selling what you can do on top of it from things you can buy or other things that are less friction. The frictionless, as you mentioned. [00:05:38] Had any of that come up, especially after the marshmallow event? Did any of that come up in any discussions about like, Hey, could this be an opportunity to rethink monetization a bit more broadly? Or maybe think about the bigger picture? What have some of those discussions been like? [00:05:54] Vickie Nauman: Yeah, it's been really interesting actually because they're really in aggregate. There are not an enormous number of opportunities for music and games. It's gaming is similar to the music industry where there are a handful of huge, huge, huge gaming studios, and then there's an inordinate long tail of small to mid-size gaming companies and, you know, very, very similar to music. [00:06:18] So the few big studios, a lot of them are doing, you know, licensing and they get music in. But it's been much more common over the years to gaming studios just hire a composer and they just create a song that is right for the mood and the moment in the game, the gaming studio owns it and they're just done. [00:06:39] You know, they don't have to worry about licensing or business models to incorporate music into the games. But I think for the most part, the music industry always likes to get their money up front, and the gaming industry likes to get all the money on the back end. And so you know, there are these friction points that, you know, marrying a business model into a game is kind of an art because if you've already got an existing model and it's free, or there's, you know, in-game purchases, then how do, you know, do you try to incorporate music into that? Do you just pay the rights holders and get a deal for a certain period of time, or can you create a revenue share and some way to participate in the upside and, a lot of gaming companies are even huge companies are still new to this. And so they're kind of what I would call, like dipping their toes into the pool, you know, testing the waters and trying some small things. And then trying to figure out does this work for us? [00:07:44] Do we need to, you know, do we need to create a big stack of technology to manage the rights? Most of them do not have an appetite to do. They certainly have the skills, which is part of what's so fun working with gaming companies is they have amazing engineers and really great minds about problem solving and coming up with these ways to engage users. [00:08:06] But nobody really wants to dedicate engineers to building a rights management system. And so I think everyone is, you know, all the companies that I work with, they're trying to kind of simplify things with music, try it out, find out what their users want, what their gamers want, because that's another big thing is, you know, you have to ask, you know, gaming is such a culture and such a subculture and each game has kind of a different community in it and a different vibe, and so you really wanna make sure you're getting that. Your assumptions of what kind of music is going to work are in line with your user's expectations. [00:08:45] There was one company that I worked with that was like, had a lot of underground, you know, all, their users thought of themselves as very underground and they did a music thing that their users thought was too commercial, the gamers rebelled . So, so, the best thing is to ask the people who are gaming, ,you know, and your products. [00:09:02] Ask them what they want. [00:09:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that customer base, especially with gaming, I think is huge cuz it makes me think a lot back to that Travis Scott Fortnite integration, which was almost three years ago at this point, but it was the perfect combination of so many things. At the beginning of quarantines with the pandemic, but also there's such alignment between the type of person that's on Fortnite with the Travis Scott fan as well, which is why I think that one worked much better than some of the other A-list artist superstar artists collaborating in a digital gaming environment. [00:09:37] Vickie Nauman: Yeah, I think that's a great, I think that's a really great point, and you know, because of the dynamic of gaming and the kinds of things that we're seeing, you know, it's not like a service that has, it's just music and it's going to put out hundreds of thousands or millions and millions of songs and just saying, You know, something for everyone, you know, let the end users find the music that resonates with them with, when you're picking and choosing a couple of artists or a couple of songs, you know, you kind of have one shot. And it reminds me of, you know, I used to work in radio before I started doing all of this, and. there was so much science to the choices that we made in radio because we knew that you know, we had one signal and we had to choose artists. [00:10:24] You know, if we said our demographic is, you know, 18th to 34, urban men and women who are professional and make a hundred thousand dollars a year and above, if that's your demographic, then you have to say, what kind of music and what kind of programming and what kind of announcers and events. Gotta get it. [00:10:45] And that's very similar to the way things are when you're doing things in the metaverse or gaming where you're like, well, we're just doing, we're picking a few things and we really wanna light them up, but we need to get them right. We need to get the user experience, we need to get the right artist to fit with the right user base. [00:11:04] And then how we present it, how we monetize it has to also be something that fits within the gaming community. [00:11:14] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I feel like that lines up with something else you had said in recent interviews talking about gaming syncs and the potential there and how there may not be as much because a lot of the game developers are doing in-house music now, but it can grow in the future. And I'm thinking about, especially this past year, we saw the Stranger Things moment with Kate Bush running up that hill and I assume like it's only gonna be a matter of time until we see a gaming moment that is at that level or something like that, or maybe there already has been ones that have been at that level. [00:11:45] Vickie Nauman: No, I think it is a really good point there as well that, that I think with the Kate Bush moment or Fleetwood Mac with the skateboarder and the, you know, cranberry juice that we've had these cultural moments in social that have, Absolutely lit up music for a new generation, which I love. [00:12:05] I mean like kids bought tickets to see Fleetwood Mac in concert after listening to 20 seconds of one song. And that's so exciting and I think, it will get there with gaming. and I think when you think about the limited number of opportunities and then then the limited number of artists or songs that can be integrated into every game, I think that we are really, really at the early end of the early part of that spectrum. [00:12:34] I don't think we've even begun to really let the music industry and the gaming industry come up you know, with that Kate Bush moment or the Fleetwood Mac moment. and I think that, what I love about gaming as well as you know, other kinds of audio visual is that when you hear it, you know, you hear the music differently when you're gaming and you know, like Beat Saber, I've worked with them for many years. [00:12:58] Vickie Nauman: I also work with Niantic on, they have a new NBA game and you know, with Ubisoft and some early stage gaming companies but with Beat Saber there are certain songs. that I've always loved. Like there's a, you know, a bunch of Green Day songs that are some of my favorites that I've listened to for 20 years, but now I've, played them in Beat Saber, and now whenever I hear the songs, I hear them differently because of the experience of having this immersive gaming and this gaming experience. [00:13:30] So I think there's, I think there's just so much potential that we haven't yet been able to tap into. Some of it is also because there's been so much friction around licensing, and for the most part, I think sync licensing is the best way to do things in gaming because you want something specific and then you know, the artist and their team want to know how their music is being used and you know, you, take something to rights holders and if they're like, you know, we need more money or we don't like that rev share, or that artist has a conflict. And then you're like, okay, well, you know, we'll move on to something else. And then you know, ideally you get an artist and a label and a publisher and a writer and those teams that all say, wow, this is great. I would love to have my music in this game. [00:14:21] And that's really where I think that, you know, if we can get those, all of those things right. that's the start of it. [00:14:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and this conversation too is making me reflect on a few things. Cause I feel like music and gaming have gone through ebbs and waves like for instance, I know that there's always been music in games like Madden or like the NBA 2K series, for instance. But I think back to like Grand Theft Auto. [00:14:43] I know one of the things there, they always had music. So they had this Vice City game that came out 20 years ago and that was all eighties. So I feel like for a lot of people of a certain generation, that was like their thing to go to. And then a couple years later, Guitar Hero and Rock Band, huge. Right? [00:14:58] And then I think even those songs reintroduce, especially some of those classic rock song rock songs there. And you also had some of those Def Jam vendetta. video games as well. So now I think what's different of course is that these are more so, okay, how do we integrate them into these digital environments, the metaverse and things like that. [00:15:15] So I'm excited to see, I still think that there is huge potential to see one of those moments happen, and who knows? I mean, I feel like the Kate Bush moment was largely, I don't wanna say unplanned, cuz obviously people expected it, but no one would've anticipated that it would've taken off that way. [00:15:32] But that's how these things. [00:15:34] Vickie Nauman: Exactly. I know, I know. I love it. like a lightning in the bottle, you know, where you're just like, wow, you know, we didn't, we really couldn't quite anticipate that things would resonate like that and, and especially reaching a gen, a new generation that probably otherwise would've never heard of Kate Bush. [00:15:50] but I also think that with. you know, with music and gaming, what's, what's also so fun for me personally, is I've been doing music licensing and write based things for like 20 years now, you know? So I feel like an old lady when I say that, but I'm always the one chasing everyone, you know, I'm chasing labels and publishers and trying to put things in front of them, you know, what do you think of this? What about that? Have you thought about it? Is this approved? Is it not approved? Can we move forward? No, we can't. gotta start over. And this is the first time in my entire professional life where I. artists, publishers, labels, and songwriters coming to me now and saying, I wanna get my music in games, you know, and I wanna get my music in the metaverse. [00:16:36] Vickie Nauman: how can we get band in the Metaverse? And I love that because, you know, for me, like self selection in the industry is huge. It's really frustrating when you have to drag people kicking and screaming into the future and into experiences. So I love it when people contact me and let me know which of their artists on their roster are really interested or even better, which, artists are gamers themselves and then they are already part of the community but then they want to take it a step further with their music. [00:17:08] Dan Runcie: That's good to hear because I often feel like the music industry is playing catch up when it comes to emerging a new technology. In so many ways, dating back 20 plus years at this point. So the fact that people are coming to you now is good. Do you feel like that is true overall? Do you feel like the industry is at the moment, like right in step with where things are going? [00:17:29] Or do you still feel like there's a bit of catch up? [00:17:32] Vickie Nauman: I think there's always a bit of catch up, just simply because, you know, technology moves at such a pace. None of us can really quite keep pace with it. And then there's always these very similar dynamics where there will be some new technology that comes around, whether it's, you know, on demand streaming or live streaming or gaming or virtual reality, and now metaverse and NFTs and fractionalizing rights and all of those things in web three, and there's a very common pattern where these technologists, they look at music and they say, oh my gosh, this would be fantastic for my platform, you know, it will help me with adoption and relevance and get in, get some artists and some music in there, and fans will come and it'll all be great. And then they start talking to the industry and they learn about how music writes work, and that you usually can't just go to an artist and get what you need. They're usually signed or they have some management and they publishing is probably administered by someone and they all have their ways of doing business. And there's a moment where everybody then, you know, they have to decide, do we have an appetite to do this? Or should we just move on to something that isn't as complicated? Because music is great when you get it right, but not all companies really wanna do things right.,You know, and so, you know, we kind of go through this every time when there's new, you know, new user experiences that are emerging. [00:19:06] And I think that the music industry is always, you know, takes all these things in. and then they start thinking, number one, is this a fad or is this something that's going to last? Is it worth us spending time and cycles to really engage with the companies on this particular kind of experience? And then how can we extract value? [00:19:30] How can we make money? How are they making money? Is our deal going to outlive the the survival time of any given platform or company? There's a lot of people, I mean, it's very frustrating sometimes to do licensing, but I have empathy with all of the, with all of the rights holders, because I'm in the same boat where companies come to me and I have to just like, oh gosh, you know, it's a great idea, but you guys have never done anything before and, you know, can you build this? Can you execute you? Can you take it from a PowerPoint or a demo into a fully functioning product? And it's hard. And so I think that, you know, the labels and publishers they have assets to protect and they're, you know, and now increasingly artist management companies are also in the mix because a lot of things require artist name, image, and likeness rights. [00:20:26] And sometimes that can come from the label, but sometimes it. So they're all in a mode where they have something to protect, they want to exploit and, you know, make money, but they have a lot to lose if they do things wrong. And so there's this inherent mismatch between how quickly things move in technology and how slow and methodical the music industry is about deciding. [00:20:52] Whether they wanna move forward. And then there's the other issue, which we're faced with right now, which is all of these emerging use cases and people being kind of afraid of agreeing to the wrong terms and setting a precedent that they're later going to regret. And so, . when technologists complain about the music industry and they're like, they're so slow, they're so backwards, they don't understand our vision. [00:21:20] It's like, well, they have a lot to lose. You don't have a lot to lose cuz you're a startup and you have a big idea. But these guys have, you know, they've been, you know, 20 years of companies just like you that have come before. And so I always try to encourage, I always try to encourage people not to just, you know, get so frustrated with music that you know that they abandon it because a lot of great Id great ideas die on the vine because of these mismatches. But to be patient and to also, you know, maybe you think you need Jay-Z. But I would challenge most early stage companies, you're probably not ready for Jay-Z. [00:22:00] You know, like let's, you know, maybe find some earlier stage artists that might be more appropriate to your size and budget and a little bit more forgiving. And then you get product market fit and then start expanding and, you know, might end up with Jay-Z, but maybe you might find you don't need, you know, you don't need that to resonate with users. [00:22:24] Dan Runcie: Right. The break thing things fast mentality of startups just doesn't always line up. And that's a good point too. You get approached by so many companies, you don't know who's gonna be there. And obviously that probably requires some level of evaluating these startups to see what makes sense. That's just one side of it. [00:22:42] The other side of it is the patience to be able to see these things through. And I know you've seen this yourself with David Guetta and making sure his music can be cleared. Can you talk a little bit about that process? [00:22:54] Vickie Nauman: Yeah, it was really crazy. I mean this was a project I did with Warner Music Group and I love what they're doing cause they're really trying to create a pipeline to get their artists into metaverse and new web three based experiences. And so, this was a year ago, David Guetta was doing a DJ set as an avatar in Roblox, and he originally had chosen 26 songs and then we narrowed it down to 20 songs. [00:23:23] but you know, what I found was that those 20 songs represented 143 shares on the publishing Plus, almost all of them had shared masters. And what many people don't realize is when you're listening to music and you see, you know, here's a song featuring, you know, Shakira or somebody else, that featuring usually means that artist is probably on a different label. [00:23:50] Vickie Nauman: And so even the sound recording can end up having multiple owners. and there was a certain point in the process where I start looking at these songs and I quickly saw like, wow, there are, you know, 10 of the songs that had, you know, all these writers who are not on a PRO, so they're non society, they don't have a publishing administrator. [00:24:18] They may own one or 2%, which if you're in streaming and on-demand audio streaming, it doesn't really matter, the services can still use the music, even if you can't find the person who has one or 2% but if you're doing sync licensing, you need to have a hundred percent of the publishing at a hundred percent of the master recordings or the sound recordings cleared in advance. [00:24:42] So I chased down. All of these people, these writers and people who had small shares, you know, they weren't registered anywhere. I found them on social media and got everything, got everything in there and approved. But for me, it was kind of an exercise in how well prepared or how poorly prepared are we for the world that's coming, which is all of these metaverse, web three-immersive platforms that are building creator tools directly into the platform, assuming that artists can just be nimble. And then you look at this, it's like David chose these songs, he wanted to mix these songs. And that's so unsustainable to think of, you know, being able to harness innovation. [00:25:38] When you have 143 different rights owners that all have to be harmonized around the same deal, and then a third of them are people who are not even, you know, technically in the ecosystem of music, but they still have shares. And that's true for hip hop and electronic music. Pop music also has an enormous number of writers, but they tend to mostly be with pros and have publishing administrators. But in hip hop and electronic music, there's just a ton of people who are contributing to big songs, but they're completely outside of our ecosystem. [00:26:16] Dan Runcie: That point reminds me of the news that had came out when Beyonce released her album, The Alien Superstar song had 24 songwriters on, and people were like, oh, well how does this happen? And I think for some people it became a bit of an eye-opening. Well, this is how a lot of this music gets created, and these are the people that either had a hand or they helped sample. [00:26:35] There's so many things. And then if someone goes and samples, they only have superstar in the song that's gonna have all those same 24 writers, plus whoever helped them with that new song. [00:26:44] Vickie Nauman: Exactly. I know, and like when you watch the Grammys and they go through the , the awards for composers, you know, and there's a paragraph, all these names that have contributed to each of these songs. and I think about it a lot though, like, you know, we've kind of, if you go back in history to the olden days, you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, you know, like in the fifties and sixties, most artists, it was very common to have a songwriting group and then an artist, someone performed someone else's songs. [00:27:20] And then when the rock music came around, we had bands that it was like a big deal. Like we write our own songs. And so in that era, like if you're licensing rock music from the seventies, eighties, or nineties, it's great because there's like one or two writers on every song and it's usually the band and they've written every single thing. [00:27:43] So you, you know, you wanna license one Green Day song, you're pretty much going to have the same mix across all of their music. And then you fast forward to the way people create now, and we have this incredible fragmentation where we have on average seven writers per song, but it's outsized in electronic music and hip hop. [00:28:05] And so we have 10, 15, 20 writers on every song with these tiny shares and that just a trend of how people collaborate and how they create and samples and you know, people in the studio and people all, you know, collaborating all over the world. But I think a lot about where the industry is going. And Metaverse and NFTs and Web three and, you know, where you know, again, all of these platforms are assuming that you as an artist can come in and bring all the rights you need to be able to do something interesting with your fans and whether or not this is going to drive a different kind of creation because, it will definitely the artists who have just a one writer or a couple of writers. [00:28:55] And who really have tight control over everything are at a much bigger advantage to be able to be nimble in the, in this next iteration of music experiences than writers, than artists who have 20 writers. And some of them they don't even know. And so, you know, I'm going to watch this because like, there's a producer, Poo Bear, you know, contributed to a lot of big songs, but he's doing an NFT project and he's just made a decision. I'm gonna write, perform, do everything on these songs that I'm doing in the NFTs. Cause I don't want to, you know, have to pull in an entire army of people to get them to approve. [00:29:36] So I feel like, you know, thinking creatively about how you can take advantage of things without having all of this, administrative burden. It might drive and change some of how we see music being created. [00:29:50] Dan Runcie: That's a really interesting point because I think broadly, everyone's been trying to figure out specifically with Web three and what's ahead, how do we best make this work? How do we make this into a real business vertical that can drive real revenue. It isn't just a fad. And I know you've spoken about this in the past, how felt like we were at this .com bubble era of Web three and where things are now more proof of concept, but not actual businesses, like more features, not necessarily companies, but where do you feel like we are now and if any of the things that have been good examples, does anything stick out to you to be like, okay, like that's generally how this could be done and how we could approach Web three. [00:30:33] Vickie Nauman: Yeah, This does really remind me of the early two thousands, because. There are so many things that, like in back then, we would do things like order a pint of ice cream to be delivered by someone and no markup. And it's like, that's ridiculous. That's not a real business. But it was a proof of concept that you put your name in, put a credit card in, you order something and they promise to deliver it and it, comes to you. [00:31:02] And so, I feel like, you know, and then out of the ashes of all the companies that burn through venture capital, you know, inflamed out or had some great idea, but there was no business model to it. And somebody else then saw it and said, if we do what they did, but we do it this way, you know, we're in the midst of that process. [00:31:25] And back then out of the ashes of everything grew, companies like Amazon you know, and there were certainly lots of casualties, but I think we're kind of in that phase right now with Web three, and I'm still really bullish about it, but I think that we've, I think that we have now because of crypto and what people saw with FTX, you know, their eyes have been open a bit. [00:31:51] and a lot of the companies that have been doing things with music and NFTs and, you know, some of them have been really lucrative and successful, others haven't, but it's all part of the process. but I think that some of the things that I see I think that music is going to evolve slightly differently in all of these web three experiences than maybe, non-musical, activities. [00:32:14] Like, especially in NFTs. I think the dynamic of, you know, of buying and collecting. Visual art is going to have its own trajectory. But I think, music in token based communities, I mean, I think there will be a point where we'll probably look back and be like, damn, remember when we talked about NFTs, non fungible tokens? [00:32:35] Sounds this ridiculous name. But I think that what we will see is these artist communities that are artist centric, that are token based, and it's like fan clubs 2.0, you know, interactive fan clubs with different ways to, you know, limit membership. Maybe you can co-create with the artist. Maybe you are getting a access to ticketing or the artist in some way. [00:33:04] that there's benefits and ways to pull a small community of people around an artist together. And then We've had a lot of these artists direct to fan initiatives for many, many years that most have failed because they required the artists to do too much. The artists are artists, you know, they wanna be artists. [00:33:23] They don't want to spend all their time, you know, on 20 different platforms. But I think these are different because I think there's something inherent about, you know, artists and fans that is the most golden connection that you can possibly have in music. And we currently have artists and fans and then, all the different platforms and labels and publishers and, algorithms and transaction engines and, you know, followers and all of these things that are keeping many, many, levels separate of separation. [00:33:58] And now I think we can bring them much closer together. So I think that's one experience that I think is going to have an enormous and outsized, positive effect for music. And I think some of these will have music in them and some of them won't. And, some of them will be more about the artist's brand and their likeness and you know, their personality, their identity.And then I think another, use case in web three is, this fractionalizing rights and allowing users to invest in music. because this requires, you know, SEC, you know, this is like full investment, you know, you have to really, really get that right. I think there will be very few companies that end up in that space. [00:34:44] I think it's [00:34:45] Vickie Nauman: just you know, the lift is too much for the average, but I think there will be a really viable marketplace. And I've talked to writers and performers who are also even signed, cuz if you're signed to a label or a publisher, you know, you're not gonna fractionize their share. [00:35:01] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:35:02] Vickie Nauman: And that's also something I always have to tell the companies that want to do this. [00:35:05] Like I'm going to now tell you some really disappointing news. but they're interested in doing some fractionalization of maybe just their writer's share or their performers share. And that's super interesting. And so, you know, how can we make that another income stream. [00:35:22] And then I think the third area that I'm really bullish about is the experiential side of, you know, we, we've seen during the pandemic, you know, and starting with starting with these things in Roblox and you know, Fortnite and you know, having these kind of pop-up experiences. Again, that's a proof of concept that if you put an artist in as an avatar and create some sort of activation, that people will come and they will buy virtual goods and they will have a great time. [00:35:56] So I think you know, that's, again, we're just barely scratching the surface of where these more experiential things will go with AR VR. Just, you know, web-based and mobile-based and, you know, avatars, you know, live streams I think fit in there as well. And I also think that the way the internet and even websites, the way that they work now, where you are, kind of view, go to a menu and you click on things and you get a flat page that tells you this is, you know, who the people are, this is what the products are, you know, like even the most basic things about how we engage online I think are going to change. And so I think there's going to be much more, you know, immersion and interactivity and real, you know, real time engagement. And to me that's just feels like that's just so perfect for. You know, small artist, activations where you don't need 20 million songs. [00:36:52] You just need a couple of artists who really want to do it. And I think that we will have just a really, really wide range of ways for people to enact more meaningfully with artists performing online. [00:37:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think the collectible piece was a key point, and I also think that artists just being able to have communities around this too. I think we probably overestimated the investing piece just because I don't think that the average fan is going to be as interested in that piece, and I think that was a big selling point. [00:37:21] It's almost in the same way that like we all may have Apple devices, but how many of us are owning stock in Apple as a result of us wanting to see the thing right. But I do think that the collectible piece is huge. Obviously you see it in people wanting to have physical media, whether it's cassettes or vinyls going up. [00:37:37] So there's an aspect there that I think will continue to be tapped into, but it'll be fascinating to see how that plays outthe other emerging technology space that I know you've done some work into is VR itself. And I know that one of the companies that you worked with extensively was acquired by Meta and although you know, from my purview, they seem to be one of the more successful companies in a landscape that I think has been a bit slower to have that mainstream adoption than a lot of people thought with VR more broadly. So where do you see with that space right now? [00:38:10] Vickie Nauman: Yeah, it, you know, VR at the beginning, you know, it had so much promise of, you know, being, you know, being transported to, other worlds and having, you know, having this 3D environment around you. But I always felt like it's going to be gaming, that would be the catalyst to this because I think there's also, you know, there's also something like how much time does anyone want to sit in a headset? [00:38:39] And you know, you generally, it's kind of like, you know, remember when 3D TVs, we're huge, and everyone's like, no, we're not gonna sit around our house with these funny glasses on for hours at a time. It's just not going to happen. But I think that gaming has really been an enormous entry point in, and, you know, Beat Saber is the VR game that was acquired by Meta and continues to do extremely well with this customized gaming rhythm But I think that, you know, part of it is we need the headsets and things to shrink and we need them to be, a little bit more, you know, a little bit more comfortable. We need to be able to spend more time in them, and we need to have more experiences than we have right now. [00:39:28] And I think that there are things, you know, there are lots of companies that are starting to build even like, you know, meetings and,you know, are we going to have meetings with people in the metaverse and in virtual reality? There are companies that are doing enterprise-based training for employees that are using VR you know, and using these technologies in ways that I think is not gimmicky, but it will actually lend, it will actually lend to human emotion and feeling close. [00:40:00] but I think with everything with web three, we're going to have a blend of, these things, you know, AR is generally considered to be more accessible than VR because you know, you don't need as much equipment. But I think as, all of these things grow and we start to get more platforms and you know, more variety of use cases that we'll probably see a blurring between AR and VR and lighter weight. [00:40:28] hardware and more cost effective hardware, and that will just help to grow. That'll help to grow the market. [00:40:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think for a while VR kind of had a bit of that sharper image vibe, I would say where, Yeah, you know, you go in the store, there's these cool forward technology things, but not necessarily something that I would wanna have in my house, right? And I think over time, to your point, the headsets get smaller, gets a bit more accessible. [00:40:54] We'll eventually get there. It's just a matter of the use case said, Yeah, to your point, I think gamers, if anyone, you think about the people that are gonna be wearing a headset while they are playing Call of Duty or whatever it is, they're probably the audience that's more likely to have another device over their head as they are interacting with game. [00:41:13] Vickie Nauman: Exactly. Exactly. And I think, you know, fitness is another area that, with VR originally was like, oh yes, you know, are there ways to simulate, you know, downhill skiing and hiking and cycling and, you know, being in this expansive different world than being in your house. but you know, you don't really wanna just be sweating, you know, sweating in your, headset either. And so I think the only, like, there probably needs to be some evolution, if that's a big enough market to support specific hardware of fitness, you know, then there probably are people who really want to do that. but you know, we're still kind of trying to figure out what this entire next iteration of the internet is going to be, and I can't imagine that VR won't be a part of it. [00:42:05] Dan Runcie: And I think the other emerging platform that'll likely or emerging medium, that might likely be a part of it somehow is AI and that's the one thing we haven't talked about deeply yet today, but where are you at right now with AI and let's fast forward five years from now, 2028. What role does AI have with music, and specifically with what the major record labels and their artists are doing? [00:42:28] Vickie Nauman: I know. I mean, it's just like, I feel like web three is, we kind of have some time because I feel like you know, companies are building infrastructure, there's lack of, you know, horizontal integration and interoperability. We have time to kind of keep experimenting and figuring it out. AI is coming at us like a freight train right now, and I think maybe five or six years ago when. [00:42:54] AI and music first came on, the first came on the horizon. A lot of people were freaked out by it. Then they listened to the music and said, that's pretty bad, you know, now, we're not worried anymore. But now music's getting way better. and I think that, I kind of look at it in a couple of different, you know, avenues because I feel like the first thing that I see is artists. And artists are always the first to embrace any kinds of creator tools. You know, they're not afraid of technology, they're not afraid of tools, you know, you think back to drum machines, you know, my God, the drum machine's gonna eliminate drummers, you know, we don't need drummers anymore. Well, we didn't, you know, we still need drummers. [00:43:41] But it did serve a purpose. Practicing and, you know, don't need to have you know, a drummer there to practice your songs. Don't need to always take a drummer on tour if you're doing some sort of small, intimate shows, but we still need great drumm. so I think that artists are probably going to be the first ones to embrace and use technologies that are like, think of plugins to DaaS and, you know, and that you've got a writer's block and you want to have something kind of help pull some things out of your head and break through that. [00:44:13] So I think like that is going to be a really, really robust market. And those are still very much human creations. They're just tools that are now a little bit more advanced. [00:44:25] you know, the opposite end of it is text to music, [00:44:29] and that's where I think like, we have no idea how that is going to play out and who owns it either. [00:44:37] I think that electronic music is kind of the first use case because it's easiest to replicate and come up with, you know, a new electronic mix that's AI generated as opposed to something that is, you know, got, you know, 12 instruments in it. But, I still feel like there's a line there around what are the areas where it's, music is still kind of human created and you can never get it away. [00:45:03] Vickie Nauman: And live music for sure, you know, there's nothing that replaces being in a room and you're waiting for your favorite band to come on stage. And we're all human and we're all there in this shared experience. and I also think that there are things about human creativity and music that surprise you and that, you know, kind of, you know, a human can take you down an emotional path or a musical path that you never, ever would've anticipated. [00:45:32] And that's something that, that seems inherently human. But I think there's a lot of things, like a lot of background music. A lot of music that's kind of music for sleeping, music for concentration, you know, non-descript, you know, unknown artists production. I think that area is probably ripe for disruption by AI. [00:45:57] , you know, but it just still doesn't answer some of these fundamental questions about the copyrights of, if you fed an AI engine, millions of songs and it can now reproduce music based on a text command, you know, who owns that? You shouldn't t he music that was fed into the AI participate in that. [00:46:20] Dan Runcie: right. Because right now there's nothing that's necessarily pulling them, that they're pulling these from whatever, lyrics, websites that are there, but the lyrics, websites aren't, you know, pulling from those. So a lot of issues to sort through. [00:46:32] Vickie Nauman: Yeah. what do you think about? [00:46:34] Dan Runcie: I mean, I'm excited for the potential because I do think that if the industry is able to get it right in some way, if there's a way to fairly compensate people, like let's say that whether it's open AI or one of these companies has some way that they have a licensing agreement, no different than the record labels have licensing agreements with the streaming services or the dsbs. If you have something there that attributes some level of, okay, how much was pulled from here, and even if it ends up being some fractional aspect or whatever it is, obviously it would most likely all be some fraction, some way to attribute that back, especially if that becomes the next viral TikTok hit. [00:47:14] If that then spawns the journey for the next person to release the next big song, and you think about, whether it's the next Billy Eilish or whoever is creating music in their bedroom that's gonna release the biggest album of the year, like that's likely where this is gonna come from. I do think that's some of the things that we discussed in this conversation about how. [00:47:32] because the industry is more likely to not be in this break things fast mentality, to make sure that things are right. It's more likely to play catch up on some of those things, which I think, you know, could be frustrating to see it play out, but it's completely understandable just given how these things play out. [00:47:49] So maybe we'll see some more, of this happen from independent artists or those that are doing more things where they own everything themselves, kind of to your point with whether it's Poo Bear or other people like that, experimenting. Okay, what could that look like? So I think we'll probably see some type of innovation there. [00:48:06] Or maybe there's even a solution where some company has more rights to more of the royalty free or independent artist owned music where that can then be used as something derivative from where the OpenAI or chatGPT three or some of these companies can pull from. But I think we're a little ways away from that. [00:48:27] Vickie Nauman: But there's clearly no stopping it. [00:48:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, this is a train that is gonna continue to go on for sure. But Vicki, this is great. I feel like we covered a bunch of stuff, especially with gaming and so many of its intersections. And if people wanna follow along with you and the work that you're doing, where's the best place that they should follow Thank you so much. [00:48:47] Dan Runcie Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast, that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 23 Nov 2020 | Steven Galanis on Cameo’s Growing Marketplace and Closing the Gap Between Fame and Monetization | 00:40:40 | |
Cameo CEO and co-founder Steven Galanis came on the pod to talk about his company’s marketplace for personalized celebrity video shoutouts. We broke down Cameo’s growth in the pandemic, finding product-market fit with people who are more famous than they are rich, and tapping into the long tail. We also break down Cameo’s success with hip-hop artists and Black culture, and the future products that may come from the company. If you’re interested in how marketplaces are built, creating flywheels, and finding product-market fit, this is the episode for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Steven Galanis, cameo.com, @bookcameo Links:
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 04 Mar 2021 | Mick Batyske on How His DJ Career Led to Brand Deals, Angel Investing, and Startup Advising | 00:46:14 | |
The multi-hyphenate entrepreneur Mick Batyske (aka DJ MICK) came on the pod to share how he started his career as a DJ (Mick Boogie) for the Cleveland Cavaliers hosting parties for LeBron James and Jay Z. He rebranded as “Mick” to expand his reach in multiple areas, build for the long-term, and leverage his best skillsets. His most important skill is building relationships and gathering audience insights. That mindset equates to how founders think, how marketers sell products, and invests in startups. If you’re interested in how a modern creator operates in today’s landscape, this is the pod for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co
Links:
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 16 Jul 2021 | Jamal Henderson on Space Jam, Structuring SpringHill, LeBron James, and the Creator Economy | 00:35:42 | |
Jamal Henderson is the Chief Content Officer of The SpringHill Company, a video-production company created by LeBron James and Maverick Carter. He reveals what it took to get “Space Jam: A New Legacy” off the ground, diving deep into branding partnerships and the musical aspect of the production. He also weighs in on all of the changes that have happened in the entertainment landscape post-pandemic and gives a preview of what’s next for SpringHill. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to spearhead projects for an entertainment company and to launch a movie post-pandemic, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights: [ 02:08 ] How the pandemic affected the production and release of movies [ 03:12 ] About “Space Jam: A New Legacy” and SpringHill’s brand projects [ 06:27 ] Why the movie is on-brand for LeBron and how it aged well [ 10:45 ] On creating the “Space Jam: A New Legacy” soundtrack [ 14:40 ] How SpringHill came to be what it is today [ 22:55 ] About SpringHill’s venture into the audio side of the entertainment industry and its ongoing efforts to promote diversification [ 29:38 ] On SpringHill’s upcoming projects
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Jamal Henderson, @jamalhenderson, The SpringHill Company Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 13 Aug 2021 | Mike G on Music Festivals, Touring, Young Thug, The Kid LAROI, and Chris Brown | 00:40:56 | |
Mike G is a music and touring agent for United Talent Agency (UTA). He joins me on the podcast to share what it has been like for him since COVID broke out, especially the big things he did recently. He talks about The Kid LAROI and Young Thug, the trajectory of their careers, and the projects they’ve worked on. He looks back on how he went from sales rep to full-time booking agent, revealing what it was like to manage Chris Brown. He also weighs in on what music events will be like when the pandemic’s over. Tune in to this episode to get an update on some artists, and see what things will be like for future concerts and tours from an agent’s perspective! Episode Highlights: [00:21] The opportunities that Mike G saw during the pandemic [05:18] The recent trend in tours and concerts [07:00] On working with The Kid LAROI and increasing the demand for him [12:00] About Young Thug and the challenge of getting him to the level where he should be [16:35] What music festival promoters look for in artists [22:13] On rebuilding artists [26:16] About Mike G’s background and why he decided to become an agent [30:00] On managing Chris Brown [34:42] His smooth transition to UTA [38:20] His prediction for music events post-pandemic Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Mike G, @MikeGNitevision Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 07 Jan 2022 | Master P on Bringing Culture to Corporate America (live from TMRE) | 00:45:01 | |
Master P is an American rapper, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur. In this episode, he shares his thoughts on what corporate America can learn from hip-hop culture. He then talks about his work to get distribution in some of the more competitive spaces on retail shelves across the country, Snoop Dogg, Shaq, and some of his business endeavors. He also weighs in on the future of businesses and answers a few questions from the audience. If you’re looking to get into corporate America and become the best in your space, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights [03:55] Master P’s insights on starting from the bottom, marketing as the key to his success, and bridging the gap between hip-hop and corporate America [10:15] Personalities sell thanks to social media [13:12] How to get talents to work with brands [15:58] On Master P’s transition from music to business, [19:45] What he learned from the types of partnerships he has been able to make [22:48] On creating ideas, being a blessing to others, and loving what you do [28:32] What sets great companies apart [33:32] Master P’s 5-year forecast for companies [36:58] How to shift from being rich to wealthy and how the Astroworld tragedy will impact the hip-hop industry [39:40] The accomplishment that Master P is most proud of and the best advice that he has ever received Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Master P, @MasterPMiller Link: Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 10 Sep 2021 | Rick Ross on Bossing Up, Building His Empire, WingStop, and his Investments | 00:36:32 | |
Joining me on the show is Rick Ross—rapper, entrepreneur, mogul, and record executive. He has over 20 partnerships, and he just recently published “The Perfect Day to Boss Up” which he wrote during the pandemic. In this episode, Rick discusses his passion for music and business, highlighting the importance of finding joy in the things you do. He then talks about his home which has been featured in the movies “SuperFly” and “Coming 2 America”. He also weighs in on the feature market and ways to go viral. Strap in for some gold nuggets from a man who has found success in both music and business, and get into the mindset that you need to be in to level up! Episode Highlights [02:41] How Rick has changed since the pandemic [05:08] How he evaluates which brands or businesses to partner with [07:51] On doing live performances [11:07] About Rick’s Wingstop franchises and his thoughts on artists getting involved with the fast food industry [14:21] How Maybach Music Group fits into Rick’s vision [16:55] About his 280-acre estate, The Promised Land [24:44] On investing in physical and intangible assets [27:23] What to expect when doing features and from Rick’s upcoming album [30:00] On going viral, networking, and building an empire Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Rick Ross, @RickRoss Link:
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 12 Dec 2024 | The Future of Music Creation with Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava - Trapital Summit | 00:28:40 | |
At our Trapital Summit, we had a fireside chat on the overlooked areas of music with Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava and MIDiA Research’s Tati Cirisano. They discussed why it matters to invest in the new generation of talent, the tension between creators and rightsholders, and AI’s influence in music creation. Hope you enjoy! 08:22 Exploring differences between recorded music and creator tools. 08:56 Focus on creative vision, subscription model success. 12:34 Creating tools for human-centered artistic expression. 16:31 AI enhances music accessibility while preserving creativity. 20:23 Striving for better tools, UI in post-AI. 21:48 Music's influence grows beyond TikTok expectations. 25:34 Focus on nurturing young creators and fans. 26:36 Conversations between creators and rights holders challenging. This episode was brought to you by Hangout. All your music in one place. Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week. | |||
| 18 Mar 2021 | Ibrahim "Ib" Hamad, Dreamville President (2020) | 00:45:49 | |
Dreamville co-founder and President, and J. Cole’s manager Ibrahim Hamad came on the Trapital Podcast to talk about how him and J. Cole started Dreamville and how it became what it is today. Ib also broke down what changed for Dreamville in 2014, the impact that the Dollar & a Dream tour had on J. Cole’s career, establishing the Dreamville brand beyond J. Cole, and why the Dreamville Fest has nine lives. This episode was originally published in April 14, 2020 Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Ibrahim Hamad, @KingOfQueenz, dreamville.com Link: J. Cole is Still Making Millions From a $1 Million Concert - Trapital Dreamville Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 14 Nov 2020 | Dave Macli on Audiomack’s Role in Music Streaming, Partnership with DJBooth, and Global Expansion | 00:42:18 | |
Dave Macli is the co-founder and CEO of Audiomack, a music streaming provider built for artists. We discuss how Audiomack got started, its business model, and why it’s artist-first approach is so important. It landed early projects by J. Cole, Chance The Rapper, and Jennifer Lopez. Dave is also co-founder of DJBooth, which has had an ongoing partnership with Audiomack. In 2020, Audiomack has strengthened its global footprint in Africa and other continents. If you’re interested in how music streaming execs navigate a rapidly growing landscape, this is the podcast for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Dave Macli, @audiomacli, audiomack.com Links:
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 27 Apr 2023 | The Rise of Interscope Records (with Zack Greenburg) | 00:56:52 | |
In the 1990s, Interscope Records played by its own rules. Most new labels started with big stars, but Interscope had a clean slate. Most labels were scared of rap music, but Interscope leaned in. Co-founded by Jimmy Iovine, a producer, and Ted Field, a film producer, people questioned whether they had the chops to make it. The label has had a hand in some of the most memorable music moments like Death Row Records, the rise of Eminem, and the creation of Beats by Dre headphones. To break down Interscope’s success, I brought back Zack O’Malley Greenberg. His book, “Three Kings,” covered Interscope’s story. Together, we unpack what’s made Interscope such a long-standing player in the music industry. [0:53] The most successful individual label of the past 30 years? [2:40] Key figures in Interscope’s come-up story [6:57] Nontraditional way to build a record label [11:07] Death Row Records partnership [16:44] Biggest signing? [19:14] Best business move? [28:07] Darkhorse business move? [33:21] Where will Interscope be in 10 years [36:07] Would Interscope’s 90s approach work today? [43:39] Interscope’s entrepreneurial challenges today [50:36] Biggest winner in Interscope history? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:27] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is all about Interscope Records. It has been one of the most influential record labels since it was started in 1990. This record label has been home to Dr. Dre, Eminem, 50 Cent, Lady Gaga, Olivia, Rodrigo, and countless other names in between. So we talked about what made Death Row records wanna partner with a company like Interscope and what made Interscope succeed time and time again. So we talk about the business model of being able to sell controversy and why that worked well, especially in the 90s. We also talk about leadership and how important it is to have people at the helm that understand what's needed and how that continued to help Interscope time and time again. We also talk about some of the challenges that Interscope has had and how they're able to navigate that too. And in this episode, very similar to the Cash Money one that we did a couple months ago, Zach and I, that's Zach O'Malley Greenberg, you may know him from his work back when he was at Forbes as the entertainment editor there. And from the books he's written like Three Kings and Empire State of Mind. We talked about a number of things and answered several questions that we talked about in the Cash Money episode as well. What was the biggest signing? What were the best business moves that were made? What was the Dark Horse move? What are the missed opportunities? How did this record label handle transitions? And who is the biggest winner overall from the success of Interscope Records, which is now Interscope Geffen A and M today, one of the umbrella labels under Universal Music Group. This is a really fun episode to do, and we're gonna do more of them. So let us also know if you have any suggestions on other ones you want us to do at the end of the episode, and we'll go from there. Here's our breakdown on Interscope Records. Hope you enjoy it. [00:02:13] Dan Runcie: This episode is a breakdown on one of the most storied record labels of the past few decades, Interscope Records and we're back to break it down with my guy, Zach O'Malley Greenberg. Zach, welcome back, man. [00:02:24] Zack Greenburg: Thanks for having me, as always. [00:02:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I knew that this was a topic that was near and dear to you, given the work you covered in the spaces. Well, this is one of the more interesting record labels, but following their work for years. And just to just kick things off, this record label starts 1990, right at the beginning of a new wave for music and since it's come out, would you say that this is the most successful record label, individual record label that we've seen in music since then? [00:02:52] Zack Greenburg: I mean, it's certainly hard to think of another one, that's been more reliably at the top, right? I mean, and I think the thing that really sets Interscope apart is it's not like, you know, the label was made off of just one act or two acts or three acts. They just have a, track record of continuing to find, you know, artists that push the envelope, that, you know, break records and that end up at the top of the music scene and, you know, kind of across genres and eras too. So, you know, and really even across, chief executives, which is I think, pretty unusual. So, I think there's some kind of secret sauce in there and, can't wait to dig into it with you. [00:03:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think it. In terms of the longevity, in terms of the phases they've gone through, whether it's dominating in hip hop, dominating in pop, dominating in rock, they've been able to do it across genres across decades. The one record label that I do think could also be worth mentioning in this respect is Republic Records started a few years after 1995, but I think there's a few things there too as well. The consistency and the ability to do consistent deals, win challenging Bit Wars and get some of the top artists. So I do think it would probably have to be one of those two. But from a timeframe perspective, just all of what Interscope was able to do even before things got started at Republic, do give them a edge. If we're talking past 25 years, that's probably another discussion, but past 30, 32 years, I think Interscope is probably there. I think there's also maybe a case to be made for Columbia or a case to be made for Atlantic as well, but I do think that Interscope, especially just with the way that they went about things a little differently, which we'll get into, but I feel like they have a strong advantage there. [00:04:33] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, particularly when it comes to the sort of entrepreneurial spirit, you know, and we've talked about Cash Money and Def Jam and you know, Rockefeller certainly, hip hop, specific record labels that have been uniquely, entrepreneurial, you know, especially given some of their leadership, but like, I think for a label that, you know, kind of delves into pop so much. And of course Interscope obviously, you know, huge home for hip hop too. But to have that entrepreneurial streak, outside of it, mostly hip hop label. I think that's pretty unusual too in some of the things they've done around beats, which we can get into. you know, j just, you know, being almost, you know, like a venture fund or an incubator as much as a record label in some ways. I think that's another way that Interscope has been, you know, really different from the rest. [00:05:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. That beats thing, we'll get into that one in a minute. I feel there's so much to dive into there but let's start with the quick backstory. I'm sure a lot of folks already know this, but there are three main figures that were involved with. The beginning of this record label. You have PBIV, you have Ted Fields, and you have John McLay so. Let's first start with Jimmy. So as many of you know, this was someone that was a record producer. It started as that worked with legendary artisan music, whether it was John Lennon, Springsteen, and several others. And with that, he was able to carve out a lane, figure out what works for him. And I know that now the jump from producer to executive may not seem like it's that much, but back in 89 ' 90', there were a lot of question marks around whether or not this record producer guy could run a business, could he be an executive, and make the decisions and call the shots? And there were a lot of things that Jimmy did that may seem conventional, but there were a lot that were seen unconventional. But I do think that him having the partnership with others helped craft Interscope to where it is today. And Ted Fields is one of those first, one of those people where the name comes from. So yeah. Zach, tell us a little bit about Ted and some of his [00:06:28] Zack Greenburg: work before. Yeah, I mean, you know, and it was, this was at this point, over 30 years ago, but, you know, I was five years old. But kind of looking back on it now, I mean, it seems to me the way these things go, like Ted Field was kind of the money guy. Jimmy was the industry guy and you know, Ted Field was one of the heirs of the Marshall Field Fortune, he had been involved in film production and like race cars and all kinds of things that heirs to Fortunes are option involved in, which are maybe not as lucrative as Interscope Records turned out to be. but interesting nonetheless, he was a producer on, revenge of the Nerds and some other really interesting films. but yeah. In 1990, he came along, basically thought of Interscope Records as its division of this film company. and he brought on, he teamed up with Jimmy. I think they were actually introduced by the manager of u2. and, David Geffen was sort of involved in negotiations along the way. And, it was like kind of a who's who of the music world, you know, at kind of the cusp of the 1990s there. And so he came in, he brought on John McClain, to run Interscope at first. So John McClain is like one of these people who's incredibly, he might be the most influential person in music who nobody's ever heard of. And, unless you know, you know, John McClain was, critical in Janet Jackson's success. he's also now become the co-executor of the Michael Jackson estate. you know, really since MJ died, along with John Branca, who's sort of the, public face of it, but, you know, John McClain, if you want to like, try to find a picture of John McClain. I mean, this guy is so, under the radar, but he's so deeply in the mix. I don't really know how he manages to avoid the spotlight quite as much as he does. But, you know, obviously contributes a ton, of expertise, and as a true power player behind the scenes in the music business. So, you know, you kind of, you kind of put that dream team together and then you have sort of the ingredients for, you know, the beginning of, what we now know as Interscope records. [00:08:18] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I'm glad that you brought up Geffen earlier because when this started, a lot of people looked at Geffen as the model for what this could be, but also how Interscope went about things differently. Geffen's whole thing when he had started Geffen Records was who were the established artists that he could go after? Again, whether it was Elton John or a few other folks that they were able to really secure, because at the time, the thought was you wanna have the proven people on your roster because it's so hard to be able to build that from the ground up. So not only is Jimmy and the team already going into this from people that don't traditionally have strong music experience in terms of running a music company, at least in late eighties, early nineties, but you also have them try to do it completely with new artists and going in from a new perspective. And this was part of one of the things that I think helped set them apart because they lead into genres and aspects of genres that other folks avoided. So of course, in the early days of Interscope, they focused more so on rock music. That's what Jimmy was known for. And you had artists, I think their first hit was Ricoh Suave. They had had some stuff with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. So you started to see a little bit of more interesting ways to go about stuff. But then they also had Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. So you got a vibe for the fact that this wasn't just rock music. They were in many ways going after that shock value like what was the thing that was somewhat controversial, but there was the controversial stuff that did sell and was resonating and they were able to take risks that others weren't, and it worked out to their advantage. [00:09:58] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And you know, another executive, who deserves mention is Tom Whaley, who came over from, I think it was, he was at Capital and a and r there. And you know, he was the one who had originally signed Tupac, in I think 1991. So that was like way before Tupac was a mainstream success. He was really getting in early, you know, the seed round of Tupac, if you will. and [00:10:18] Dan Runcie: Digital underground era of Tupac. [00:10:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, whereas maybe Geffen was more of like a series B kind of fund, you know, looking for series B and C, kind of sure things, you know, I think Interscope was really willing to get in there early and Right. They didn't really care if, somebody was controversial. And I think, I think Jimmy, I think that was part of his genius, was being able to tell like, you know, we shouldn't shy away from controversy. And in fact, you know, as, as long as it's. Not crossing certain lines. controversy can actually be good for a record label because it generates publicity and, you know, certainly as Jimmy got deeper and deeper in, you know, into the hip hop world, you know, I think, he followed that, strategy pretty closely. [00:11:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think this speaks to something that worked effectively in business in the nineties as well. There was almost this monetization of pearl clutching, if that makes sense. What is gonna make people actually be like, oh, did so-and-so just say that? And that's why MTV was able to reach heights in the late eighties and early nineties that VH1 necessarily didn't at the time. And that's why Interscope was able to do things, other labels weren't. And then I think similarly, you even look at gaming back in the day. You look at a company like Sega and the types of games they were willing to release on a council like the SEGA Genesis, they were taking risks that Nintendo didn't wanna take. And I think we actually saw Sony continue to do that. So I feel like there was this ethos of that in the nineties from the get-go, and Interscope was willing to go there where others weren't. [00:11:50] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, hundred percent. And, you know, I think it's, also just interesting to know that I think a lot of people look at the Tupac saga and they think about, you know, there's this whole, and we can get into this later, the whole Suge Knight and bailing him out of jail and all that. But, he was already in the Interscope, family, you know, years before that. So [00:12:06] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:12:07] Zack Greenburg: It all kind of comes together. [00:12:08] Dan Runcie: Oh, definitely. And I think with that it's time to talk about what are the most important things that does set the stage for this record label. In general, it's the partnership with Death Row records and signing them to the deal that they did. So it's funny because I think that when a lot of people think of hip hop artists signing deals and getting ownership, we often hear about cash money. We often hear about Master P and No Limit, but Death Row was able to do something quite similar and have that type of relationship with Interscope as well. It was a distribution deal, and for as notorious as Suge Knight is for his bully tactics, and that's probably a light way to put it in terms of how he goes about his business. He was very adamant about what they owned and they were able to use a few hundred thousand dollars investment on their end. Largely gotten from some money that, Suge Knight didn't get that he was owed from a vanilla ice steal and that that becomes a start to death row records. And they sat on the chronic for over a year until they found the right company. And the right company ended up being Interscope to partner with. [00:13:14] YT Clip 2: All I remember is that Dre came in, then plays the chronic. I said, who recorded this for you? He said, me. I said, wow. This guy will define Interscope. [00:13:24] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. and you know, I think that, you know, there's the old story of like, when Jimmy first heard Dre and Snoop together on a track, he's like, these guys are like Mick and Keith just, you know, they're just, just different genre but saw it immediately, right? He saw the, like behind the scenes musical guy, you know? and then the sort of like the forward facing storyteller, the performer. And, he saw formula that worked in rock and that would work in hip hop. And, I think in many ways, You know, Jimmy's genre agnostic, right? It didn't really matter that this was hip hop or that was rock. The point was the formula works and it works in whatever genre you put it forward in. So, at one of my other favorite Jimmy Stories was, I don't remember which song this was, what was it? It was, maybe it was off the chronic or doggy style and that he couldn't get the, radio stations to play it, because it was too obscene or whatever. And so, he just bought like 32nd or 62nd slots, or maybe he bought like, full three minute slots on drive time in LA just terrestrial radio and just played the song and people didn't realize that it was an ad, and they just, they loved the song and they started calling the radio stations requesting it, and that's how they rocketed it to the top. Which, do you remember what song it was? it's, not such, of course, the listeners are gonna be like, oh [00:14:41] Dan Runcie: someone's gonna come back and ping us about it. [00:14:44] Zack Greenburg: But I just, I love that story and it's, just like classic Jimmy Iovine, you know, you know, and it works. and I think also, you know, to your earlier point, like monetizing the pearl clutching, the best way to, get somebody to want something is to tell 'em they can't have it, right? I mean, so whoever's mom is like clutching their pearls, but the kid is like, wait a minute, my mom is freaking out and I can't have this record, like, what is this record that I can't have? Even if they didn't know what it was, you know? and I think in a funny way, like that era, you know, the whole parental advisory sticker, I mean, that became like, you know, like almost a badge of honor, [00:15:18] Dan Runcie: Oh yeah, I was a marketing employee at that point. [00:15:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, exactly. and you see that, know, obviously throughout music, but even, to draw parallels, with basketball, which as we get into talk about, beats by Dre, you know, I think there are a ton of them. But like one of the reasons that, Eric Jordan did so well early on was because they were like finding Jordan for wearing them. And this was a big story, you know, he was kind of like breaking the rules by wearing, cuz it, you know, the sneakers they had to be like white in the nba, white sneakers. We could only have a certain percentage with color on them. And like the Jordans were 50% red or something. And, this was like a big problem and, you know, resulting in fines. But Nike decided to just pay the fines and take the publicity. And I think that sort of attitude is, the one that was, you know, adopted by Jimmy and, you know, by Interscope more broadly throughout. [00:16:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, great story. And I think that speaks a lot to both the blessing and to be honest, in some ways the curse of, Jimmy, what Jimmy's great at, and some of Jimmy's challenges as well, because from a leadership perspective and from the risk taken perspective, he was always willing to go there and spend the money to make the things happen, right? Whether it was taking a less lucrative deal to work with Death Row because you're working with Death Row, what you're able to put out, right? Three other first four albums they put out are classics, you have the chronic, you have Doggy Style, you have the above the Rim soundtrack. They just came so strong. And even that moment when they're able to have that cover on vibe, that is just such an infamous cover of, you know, the three main artists and show together. No one else could really do that, and that's why that does stay as strong as it is. But with that, Jimmy also did get a lot of criticism for overspending and not necessarily having as many checks of balances in place. A lot of people felt that, you know Doug Morris, who, this was a little bit later, but Doug Morris, who was leading Universal at the time, pretty much gave him a green light to do a lot of the things he wanted to do. And I remember in the nineties he had side Tom Jones, which was in many ways a bit antithetical to like how he's been running the business so far to spend the money on an act like that. And then even some of the things later on with Apple Music, and I mean, that's a whole nother conversation, but it's the way that the money was spent, worked well when it worked well. But then things don't work out, everyone has, you know, the criticism ready and some, some businesses that can work well, but in other businesses it can be a little bit challenging. [00:17:47] Zack Greenburg: Right. Yeah. absolutely. And, you know, I think as with many businesses though, if you spend a lot of money and you spend it, you know, intelligently or at least you know, in the right direction, maybe you overspend a little bit. If you spend in the right direction, you know, the rewards accrue to you. And, you know, I don't know if I'm getting too ahead of myself here, but. Just while we're on the topic of controversy, you know, just the whole corporate history of Interscope, it had started off as a, or it eventually was a joint venture between, Time Warner and then Field and Iovine. And in 1995, after all this controversy, with some of the lyrics and, you know, Dolores Tucker, you know, and all this T ime Warner divested, sold it's half of the company to field an Ivy for 150 million bucks. And then year later they just turned around and sold that half for 200 million back to Seagram. And, you know, so they made a tidy little $75, 85 million in like a year, you know, after, having their hand force by this controversy. So, it's just kind of funny how that all works out. [00:18:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up. But I think we could get into some of the categories now cuz some of this probably fits there with that too. At least, I'd say the biggest signing here, I think the biggest signing, there's a number of them in Interscopes, 30 plus year history, but I think it has to be this Death Row deal. [00:19:02] Zack Greenburg: I think the death row deal, because it kind of paves the way for everybody else. But, I would say though, if there were a single artist that, you know, sort of, if you had to pick one artist to define Interscope, I'd probably go with Eminem. I mean, just in terms of like the overall, the controversy, the evolution, the sales. I mean, you know, just, nobody can touch Eminem from a sales perspective. you know, certainly when it comes to hip hop, over the past, you know, couple decades and, you know, just, all of the, kind of, the good and the bad and everything that came together. I mean, you know, but that doesn't happen unless you have Death Row. It doesn't happen unless you have Dr. Dre. I mean, you know, if you say like, what artist was most critical to Interscope overall, like on a broader kind of like holistic spectrum, I'd probably go with Dre. but as far as assigning, I don't know. It'd be hard to top that in my book. [00:19:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think Eminem is a good counter there because this is kind of like the cash money conversation we had then, right? Do you say that it's Lil Wayne or do you say it's Drake and it actually is Drake from a pure numbers perspective, but obviously Drake doesn't happen without Lil Wayne and the same thing as here with Dre and Eminem and then everything else there. And Eminem is specifically because I think even if you looked at the 2010s, he's still probably up there in terms of the most commercially successful artist. He's already number one of the two thousands. He was already pretty high up from the nineties just given the work that he did in the late two thousands and his. In 2022, his greatest Hits album was the most popular rap album in the UK. And this is a album that's 17 years old, a greatest hits album. And then you just look at the streaming numbers. I'm pretty sure he has two of the three most streamed songs of the two thousands being Lose Yourself and Till I Collapse, which wasn't even like a big single at the time, but ended up being a staple on workout playlist. So yeah, [00:20:57] Zack Greenburg: and he has remained relevant in a way. I mean, I think if you walk down the street and you ask the average, you know, 15 year old, they'll know who Eminem is and they might not know who Dr. Dre is. [00:21:08] Dan Runcie: Which is wild to say, right? [00:21:10] Zack Greenburg: I know, [00:21:11] Dan Runcie: Wild. Yeah, [00:21:12] Zack Greenburg: It's crazy, but I think but I think it 's also true, for better or worse, so, [00:21:17] Dan Runcie: What's the best business move in, Interscopes done? [00:21:20] Zack Greenburg: I think it might be cheating a little bit because it was part Interscope and it was also part Universal more broadly. but I would go with beats, right? Just, you know, by way of background for those who don't know the full story, you know, uh, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre founded Beats in, gosh, what was it, 2008? Something like that. [00:21:36] Dan Runcie: Yep, 08' [00:21:37] Zack Greenburg: But like from the very beginning, you know, the story goes that they're like walking down the beach in Malibu and, Dre has some kind of sneaker deal on the table and he says, you know, Jimmy, should I take this sneaker deal? And Jimmy goes, you know, like, F sneakers, let's sell speakers. And so that's how Beats was born. Is that exactly how it went down, you know, we'll never know, but it's a great story. and You know, to kind of tie it back to what we were talking about earlier with Air Jordan, they really did follow the Air Jordan Playbook in a lot of ways. And, when I wrote my book Three Kings, which was about Dre, Diddy and Jay-Z, the Dre section really focused a lot about, you know, beats and sort of how Dre set up this business and everything with Jimmy. And, you know, I actually went to the former CEO of Best Buy and I said, how did you sort of like, get kids to pay 200 bucks for a pair of headphones when like, they had been paying 200 bucks for sneakers before? And he said, well, we very consciously told our salespeople, when somebody walks in, you've gotta tell them like, you know, you're competing with Jordan not Bose, you know, you're gonna tell that kid like you know, this headphones set is like, more interesting for your wardrobe than that pair of sneakers or, you know, like that's how you're gonna really kind of win and create a category, not just sort of become the, best player in an old category. And, I think that was like the brilliant thing that they did. But the way that they got it to happen was they got full buy-in from Interscope and from the parent company, universal. And actually Universal invested a pretty big chunk of money into Beats. so that, you know, I think gosh, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I think when Apple finally bought them out, in 2014, I think Jimmy and Dre had 25 to 30% each. I think Universal had something like 20%. LeBron had a little bit and, will I am, but, you know, the fact that Universal was bought in, the Interscope was bought in, and that Jimmy was able to get them to put, beats headphones in like every single, I don't remember if it was Interscope video or all universal videos. I think it might've just been Interscope. [00:23:33] Dan Runcie: Yeah, they had 'em in Ineterscope cuz like they had 'em in like Gaga videos and like she would wear them and stuff. [00:23:39] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. And it's like, it's brilliant. Like what a brilliant move. So, you know, off of the two, that, whatever they put into it, intermediate, a lot of that was free, right? They just put in, you know, their own free product placement. They have to do anything and they help build this, you know, build beats into this $3 billion company. and so, you know, I, I don't know how the pie sort of divided, but it ended up being, you know, worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, to the sort of universal Interscope family. And then, you know, also, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for Jimmy and Dre. So, there are a lot of great signings. I'm sure they made a ton of money off of Eminem and all these other artists, but like, it's really hard to top that one. And, they just really knew how to do it. They really knew how to, I mean, Jimmy, you know, yeah. Again, it's a perfect partnership. Dre is this perfectionist artist and Jimmy is the market critter. And I remember, man, it must have been like 2010 or 2011, I got invited to this like launch of some new Beats thing, for New York media only. And, you know, there were like 30 people there and it was Jimmy and Dre and they were kind of like standing around in this, big conference room. And, you know, Jimmy was just like talking and yacking it up and telling stories and he told the story about the walking down the beach and, you know, sneakers or speakers and Dre's just kind of nodding and, you know, chiming in occasionally, but like, that was their deal. you know, Jimmy, Jimmy was the talker and Andre was the, you know, the, the quiet genius artist. and that was a pretty potent formula. [00:25:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that was my answer too. Beats has to be the best deal. All the reasons you mentioned as well. They also saw a huge opportunity with speakers as well because at this point, the predominant way that so many people were listening to music were those cheap white iPhone headphones or the iPod headphones, I should say, at the time that people were listening to. And I remember Jimmy was adamant about how poor the sound quality was coming out of them, especially given how much focus there was in the nineties around surround sound and both speakers and all this stuff. And sound shifted to these very cheap plastic headphones that just came for free in the iPod, cases. So them putting a bit more money into the technology there. Granted, there were other companies that did come through and really expand further, and that's how we're able to have products like the AirPod Pro Maxes, which are now several hundred dollars more than beets ever were because beets was considered to be expensive at that point. And now people will buy those like it's nothing the same way that people will buy Yeezys. Like it's nothing. So that other point about category creation, not just building within an existing area was key there. [00:26:20] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. And I think it's also worth noting, you know, Jimmy clearly looked up to Steve Jobs a lot and, you know, took cues from Steve Jobs creating the iPod, right? I mean, that was a very, like, he created the iPod. It was a music thing that helped basically revive apple and, and get it on the track that it is today. And you know, there, I don't think there's an iPhone if there's no iPod, but, you know, how did they get the iPod to be so sexy? It was like, It was those YouTube U2 commercials with the like, hello, hello to place golf to go, you know, and everybody was dancing and, and the crappy white, you know, earbuds with the, you know, chords and everything. you know, that was like, that was a creation of a category. And you know, I think that Jimmy looked at that and he thought, gosh, you know, I could do something like that. And I think he always thought it would be a great fit for Apple but Steve Jobs, you know, while he was alive, I think he kind of thought he could do it all himself, and he didn't really want to be involved in, you know, in that side of the business. So I think it's why, it wasn't until after Steve was gone that, you know, Apple came in and, and bought beats. But yeah, I remember reporting on that deal when it happened and happened at the worst. I was like, I had just gotten on a flight to like go to Italy for vacation with my wife. and I woke up at 7:00 AM and we landed or whatever, and I had like 70 texts and it, you know, it was like be, while I was over the Atlantic Ocean Beats, had gotten sold to Apple. And that, video came out with Dre saying how he was, you know, the new king of the Forbes list. And, [00:27:54] YT Clip 1: The Forbes list just changed. They need, Hey, it came out like two weeks ago. They need to update the Forbes list, shit just changed in a big what? Oh my understand that. Oh my. The first billionaire in hip hop. Right here from the motherfucking West Coast. Believe it. Oh. [00:28:11] Zack Greenburg: and so I just said to my wife, I was like, honey, we're gonna have to hang out in this airport for a little while before we started our vacation. I was like, you know, trying to put together a story and figure out what happened. but I think that one of the things that people talked about, you know, and at the time everybody's like, that's a crazy amount of money, you know how, you know how like Apple never spends money like this, you know, what's the deal? But a lot of the scuttlebutt was that they kind of like viewed Jimmy and Dre as, you know, maybe not like a replacement Steve Jobs, but almost like a piece of the Steve Jobs Voltron that they were gonna try to recreate, you know, like Tim Cook would, you know, the, would be the brain and the like, Dre and Jimmy would be the heart and somebody else would be the, I don't know, like something like that. They would piece it back together and get these little aspects of Steve and that they thought that Jimmy and Dre could really help out on the marketing side of it. and, you know, I don't know, I know that they had kind of like, there was a period of a few years where they were getting paid to hang around and, do stuff. And, you know, they did some, I think they did some more commercials, promotion, that kind of thing. But I never got the sense that they really were like, all right, you know, apple for life. And I think they kind of just, the thing ran its course, and, you know, they, took the last bit of their cash and off they went to do the next thing but it was interesting at least. that a lot of people really thought that that was kind of like part of the reason why, the deal was for such a big number, you know, that it was almost like an acquihire type of situation. [00:29:36] Dan Runcie: Right, and the other big piece of it was the streaming service that they had created at the time. And Apple wanted to get into streaming. They didn't have a streaming service. They were starting to develop one. So Beats music eventually became Apple Music, and then that's how Jimmy became so integral with [00:29:52] Zack Greenburg: And, I think even by that point, beats already had some really interesting people, I think like t Trenton Resner and so forth who were like deeply involved with it. And I think, you know, part of that was appealing to Apple too. that they felt that, you know, not just that the product existed, but that it, you know, that, the people existed who could kind of like grow it within Apple and, you know, eventually turn it into, into, iTunes like, you know, Apple Music and so forth. [00:30:17] Dan Runcie: Right, which speaks to that partnership in Jimmy's connections, right? He had been working with trend since the nine Inch Nails days. So yeah, all comes full circle. what do you think is the dark horse move or the dark horse thing that Interscope has that doesn't get talked about as much? So mine for this, I actually think it's the longevity that they've had with leadership there because I think that other record labels, this gets talked about a fair amount, but, and it's true for auto scope, I feel like it just doesn't get talked about in that same way. So since 1990, there's been two people that have been the head of it. So you had. Jimmy from what, 89 or 90, the founding until 2014, and then John Janick takes over and he's been there for almost a decade. And then if not more, if you just consider, you know, I think the total time working in the organization. So that's like you think about other organizations too, whether. You look at a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers, there've been two head coaches there since the early nineties. You look at the Green Bay Packers, there's been two quarterbacks that they've had as starters since the early nineties, and those teams have been consistently competitive and you rarely see them getting the first round or the number one draft pick. I think like Mike Tomlin hasn't had a losing season, and in some ways I kind of think about Interscope in that way. Yeah, sure. Every record label's had ups and downs, but these teams that have consistency, especially in an industry like music where there's so much turnover, so many of these other labels that are their competitors can be revolving doors in this way, which can lead to a lot of challenges for people to really be able to execute a strategy. This is one thing that I think has helped their longevity quite a bit. [00:32:01] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I would say for my dark course, I would say John Janick, specifically, and I think people don't really realize, you know, just like how successful he's been cuz everybody talks about Jimmy. But, you know, first of all, at this point John's been there, I mean, he's been running the show for almost 10 years, which is nearly as long as Jimmy was. And, you know, who knows how much of the time before, Jimmy left in 2014, John was actually really, you know, running things on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, the, just like so many times you see a, visionary founder like Jimmy, leave a company and then, you know, the thing just kind of like Peters out, but, you know, I mean, under John Janick, you know, look at, you know, like Billy Eilish for example. I mean, I think Kendrick Lamar was also under his watch, probably Machine Gun kelly must have been under his watch too. [00:32:51] Dan Runcie: Yep. And then even Olivia, Rodrigo more recently. [00:32:54] Zack Greenburg: I mean, what a huge, you know, like, so that's definitely like on the level of, you know, of the biggest acts that Jimmy was able to bring in. And you know, it's like, you know, even with some of them it was really more Dre than it was Jimmy. So I think that's, you know, yeah, I think John deserves a lot of credit too. you know, and we haven't talked about Lady Gaga, so she's not exactly a dark horse. but, you know, lady Gaga is somebody who came in under Jimmy, but like, jimmy should not get credit for Lady Gaga because Lady gaga was kinda like languishing, you know [00:33:23] Dan Runcie: He was on the bench chilling and then like it was like the Akon's, the one that's like, Hey, what about her? What about [00:33:30] Zack Greenburg: And I remember I interviewed him, for Forbes. This was back in, you know, oh nine or 2010 or something like that. And, and I was like, so tell me the Lady Gaga story. And he said, basically I heard her stuff. And I was like, this is amazing. And I called her up, or I called, I think you called maybe Troy Carter, who was managing her at the time and said, you know, I wanna assign you, to my Interscope imprint. And she's like, I'm already on Interscope. So, so they just kind of like moved her around, within Interscope and, you know, they were able to, you know, that first song Just Dance. a lot of people forget that was like, when that came out. Akon was much bigger than Lady Gaga and, you know, that was at the height of Akon's fame. He's not out there as much now, but he is out, you know, he's all over the world making probably even more money than he was, back then. But, you know, yeah. He was hosting or appearing on SNL with Lonely Island and all those guys and, you know, he's kind of like showing up in the back of just dance, you know? Oh, yeah, you know, doing his Akon thing and, you know, and kind of really helped get her off the ground you know, and then just kind of like, pieced out and Lady Gaga became this incrediblesuperstar. So, you know, I think that's, certainly some serendipity for Interscope there, but, yeah, I wouldn't give Jimmy full credit for that one. [00:34:45] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely not Interscope, collectively. Sure they had her on the roster, but yeah, that one has to go to Akon on that one by extension, who himself, you know, clearly worked with Interscope and then just given, cuz we didn't even mention him himself, just that whole run he had from like oh four to what, 08', maybe 2010 if you wanna go a little bit longer. He was everywhere. [00:35:05] Zack Greenburg: yeah, yeah. [00:35:06] Dan Runcie: So of course we talked a lot about consistency. We talked a lot about Janet and the role that he's been able to do there, and I think consistency does naturally lead itself going further. So let's flash forward 10 years, let's go to 2030, 2033. Do we still think that Interscope will be at the level that it is now, where if you look at the market share numbers, it's roughly alternating, right? Around 10% of recorded music may be a little bit less, but I feel like it's like them Republic and then Columbia alternating to some extent. And it all kind of depends on who releases when but do you think that changes? Do you think they're more likely to stay there? Or what do you think 10 years from now [00:35:46] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think they're gonna stay, I mean, it's not like, one of these situations where their top artists are leaving or, you know, you're really too concerned about it, or they're kind of in the wrong genre mix. I mean, they're really heavy in hip hop. you know, they have some of the biggest stars out right now. I mean, we already talked about Olivia Rodrigo, Kendrick. Billy Eilish obviously is enormous Machine Gun Kelly, but you know, they have Black Pink. That's huge. Like, that could be a big place for growth [00:36:11] Dan Runcie: You got SZA through the TDE deal, right? [00:36:13] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. yeah. I mean, that's a great point, you know, hard to find anybody, who's having like a bigger moment that says it right now, so, You know, there's a lot. let's say that to go back to the sports analogy, it's not like this is a team of like, you know, 38 year olds who are nearing the end, you know, this is, like a win now team, with plenty of talent in the pipeline. and they've proven that they can keep working the farm system or something to continue the sports metaphor. But, and you know, I mean, John himself is not an old guy. I mean, John is, [00:36:40] Dan Runcie: Mid Forties? [00:36:41] Zack Greenburg: You know, I I forget old he is. Exactly. Yeah, you're talking, you know, where are they gonna be in 2030? I mean, you know, he'll be like in his early fifties and, still I think doing what he's doing, and doing it really well. So, you know. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't really see them fading. And if anything, you know, all it takes is like, You know, like another Monster Billy Eilish album in a given year. you know, and they start to gain even a little more market share. So I think they're in a pretty darn good place. [00:37:09] Dan Runcie: And it's arguably one of the best jobs in the recorded music industry because of the amount of leeway that I think Janet and by extension, the Interscope Geffen a and m umbrella is given relative to a lot of the other labels that are either under Universal or even others under the majors in terms of the decision making, the things that you could do, and when you have that much control based on his relationship with Lucian compared to others, it does make a huge difference. [00:37:37] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. And you know, I think another, another guy who's kind of in the background, who's been in the background, you know, for a really long time there is Steve Berman. He's another executive, who doesn't get you know, like a ton of limelight, but, you know, is kind of like quietly, like, like the cons. He's been kind of the cons area type over the years. and, you know, I think that might be part of the, you know, continuation, the connective tissue between Iovine, and, john Jank as well. [00:38:02] Dan Runcie: Right. Good point, especially just given how important lawyers and they are in terms of the influence direction of this industry. Another thing that I think is interesting, just thinking about the future, is also looking at the past of Interscope and how this record label did start and rise because of this controversy, because of the pro clutching business model. Do you think that could work today? Because I have my skepticism, but what are your thoughts? [00:38:31] Zack Greenburg: I think it depends, you know, what sort of pearl clutching is about, right? I think, know, in, in many ways the world is a nicer place than it was in the nineties. Like, you know, things were kind of a little rough and tumble in the nineties and it wasn't as sensitive a time as it is now. you know, I think, I think in general it's, good that, you know, we're like a little nicer, a little more sensitive, but, you know, in other ways, you know, I think, sometimes perhaps too much. But, you know, I think that, you know, certainly when it comes to music, I don't know, in a like this moment, for whatever reason, music isn't at the. Forefront of the culture wars and the way that it was in the nineties. And you know, instead it's like books in Florida, right? I mean, who knew? But, you know, people aren't really like, kind of, this is not a, like a campaign issue in the same way, that it might have been in the 90s, you're not seeing as many politicians sounding off about it. I mean, I think certainly you're hearing stuff, about, you know, can lyrics be used as evidence in court? you know, which is, can be a really troubling topic. But, you know, I think the sort of focus of that argument is, it's not like in the middle of national campaigns in the way that this was in the 1990s. So, yeah, I think, you know, like Interscope certainly as an experience. walking the line and it's maybe a little bit less of a delicate line, that they need to walk these days for just whatever reasons, with the political headwinds. [00:40:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I don't think it would work in the same way because I think the people that do try to create shock value were so desensitized to things compared to when we were the way things were in the nineties. Even for people that weren't that threat to society, but because of how they were depicted, it was easier to do that and still release great music, right? The chronic could be a shock value type of work, but it's still something that is critically acclaimed. That is in the National Registry and Library of Congress and all of these other areas. But now the stuff that creates shock value in music, whether it's even someone that's like more on the personality side, like a dj academics or someone like that will literally just say like, you know, the wildest shit just to go viral or partner with right wing organizations in order to create momentum that still has this area where it lives in somewhere like YouTube, where yes, you can get a following and you can make a living and you know, do things for yourself. But I think there's somewhat of a ceiling to that in terms of how much you can like, create, you know, broader impact and truly monetize the bases and the masses. And some of it even extends to artists as well, like those, I think someone like NBA Young Boy is quite popular and has had a bit of a number of transgressions in his track record, but still I think there's a pretty big gap of, you know, him relative to like some of the other names you mentioned just from some of the exposure and opportunities that he's given that doesn't lend itself to that. So, you know, Interscope in the early nineties probably wouldn't have wanted to try to sign Olivia Rodrigo because it didn't make sense. But it makes perfect sense now just given where things are and where things are going. So you can maybe do it on a niche level, but I think it's hard to have shock value sell in mass quantities and for the mainstream in that same way. [00:41:55] Zack Greenburg: Well, I think it's also just harder to shock people now, right? I mean, you know. [00:41:58] Dan Runcie: Or desensitized [00:42:00] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you were to put out the chronic today, you know, with, the marijuana leaf on the cover of it, it's like, and you know, and like this has been legal in California for like how long, you know? And certainly in terms of like things you could say or do that would be truly shocking. It's like after Donald Trump has been president in the things, you know, that are kind of, came out of that, it's like, you know, I don't really know many things an artists could do that would be more shocking, you know, and in this sort of like, hilarious, I dunno if it's hilarious, but this, let's say, ironic juxtaposition, you know, you had Eminem, the king of shock value Like making a track against Donald Trump when he was in office, you know, you have the rappers protesting against the politicians, instead of the other way around. So I think we're still, as a society, been kind of turned on our head, you know, by some of the developments of the past. you know, let's say eight years, eight years plus the past decade or so. you know, it's, guess in some ways hard for politicians to be complaining so much about music when, a lot of the obscenity is coming from them. So, [00:43:05] Dan Runcie: Right, and I think too, you were mentioning about how what Congress or what the American government can rally against in how so much of the nineties was. I still remember that infamous cover of Snoop Dogg on the cover of Newsweek, and I forget what the title of the magazine was, but it was something, along the lines of, oh, this is the greatest threat to America, or this is the greatest threat to our country, or something like that someone could probably pick me and find it, or maybe you'll link to in the show notes. And that's what people were able to get riled up around, right? Now, the biggest thing in music that has gotten anyone on a congressional level or congress level riled up is ticketmaster and Live Nation and Taylor Swift's tickets, which just shows how different things are, people used to be riled up about the content. Now this is a way to try to get at big business or whatever the exact complaint is. So, such a different time. [00:43:58] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, yeah, No, I Couldn't agree more. [00:44:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So we definitely spoke a lot of praise about the current era of where things are with the Interscope and the work that Janet has done the past decade. If you were in his shoes, would you be doing anything differently? And I do think that he's done a few things. So you mentioned black pink earlier. So there's clearly a way to be able to pivot and move more into music that isn't from the United States. It isn't domestic, and you're able to rise there, clearly done different types of deals from a flexibility perspective. Some artists do have, licensing deals like Olivia Rodrigo will own her masters for the long term just based on what she's shared about the nature of her contract moving forward. But for him himself, I mean, I think there's other IP things that could be interesting, but what does the type of things that Jimmy was able to do back in the late 2010 or late two thousands with beats? Like what could that look like or what could that look like for Interscope [00:44:59] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. You know, I think it's a different time. One of the things that's changed so much is over the past few years, I would say it's like, it's not quite as cool to be rich anymore, you know? I think sort of the Bernie Sanders movement, the sort of like this, right? I remember seeing it at Forbes, you know, when I started out it was like, woo, like I wanna be a billionaire and [00:45:20] Dan Runcie: The Forbes Remix [00:45:22] Zack Greenburg: Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you had, Jay-Z, Diddy, and 50 being like, you know, the Forbes, yeah, they put out this Forbes 1, 2, 3 billionaire remix they called it. But you know, even now, even within the past couple years, you know, certainly, I think the Pandemic really crystallized this. But even before that, you know, with sort of like Bernie and, that whole, you know, movement, There was this kind of questioning of like, should there even be billionaires? And you know, I remember starting to see, people who you had thought, you would've thought would be, you know, jumping to be on the cover of Forbes. Just say like, eh, you know, like, I don't want to be seen as crowing about my wealth. so, you know, I think that's a big cultural change. And that's post beats, right? That's post, you know, Dr. Dre's situation. And, you know, I think that there's certainly a lot of leeway for Interscope still, to be entrepreneurial and they've always done that. But I think the challenge for Interscope or for anyone really is like, how can you be entrepreneurial in a way that is sort of like, you know, not necessarily charitable per se, but has some kind of impact, you know, like some kind of impact investing sort of thing. how can you, like, make money but, you know, drive change at the same time? I think that's sort of like, as we look going forward into the, you know, celebrity earning, you know, celebrity business sphere, I think that's gonna be the big question because it's no longer the thing that's just, it's cool to make a bunch of money on some random app or, you know, selling, some crypto thing as we've seen. And you know, you can get a lot of blowback, people think you're selling out. People think you're greedy people don't think you're selling outta greedy just cause you're doing something business related. But, you know, I think, over the past couple years it's become a lot more like, well, you know, is this something that really helps the world are using your money for good? and so I think whatever it is, if it's gonna be public facing and, you know, and I think. That's the value when you have a stable of celebrities, right, is to do something public facing. It's like, what is this doing, to help the world. So, you know, I think there are a lot of ways to take that, but certainly, you know, I think that's a bigger, bigger and bigger component going forward. [00:47:22] Dan Runcie: This is something that has changed in a relatively quick time span. You even think back to the Obama era and just the Obama presidency and just how music was and how people interacted and thought about music. You look at a album like Watch the Throne In, which I do think was one of the more popular albums from that decade. Granted, I don't think JayZ or Ye are even on the terms or desire to put something like, like that out again. But if they put that out about now, it would not get the same reception. There would be all these think pieces about, oh, here are these two men talking about, you know, their, you know, Hugo watches and there other, other bends and all this stuff. And people would be complaining about that in a way where just as recent as 2011, they were celebrated, like people, like revered so many of the songs. And just the talk about black excellence and wealth and even some of the conversations around Jay-Z himself as a figure, I know you know this well as probably some of the responses you've gotten over the years when you've talked about Empire State of mind and how people react to him, statements he's said and stuff like that. And yeah, we're just in a very different spot and now we're kind of in this space where, Yes, people can have commercial success. People, businesses can do it too. But I think it's especially difficult for companies in music because of so much historical context of how people view the record label as the enemy. People view the record label as this, and then even when the topic of the prices potentially raising for some of these streaming services, the number one thing you often hear from fans is, well, I hope that extra dollar or $2 for a potential raise in the streaming service goes back to the artist. And it's like, yes, you, you do eventually want those things, but we're losing the opportunity to talk about the value that these record labels create because of how media disseminates, right? If you talk about, oh, Olivia Rodrigo has a very favorable record deal. No one wants to hear that. But if there's ever a report, oh, Olivia Rodrigo's upset about, you know, Interscope, that thing would be a news topic for five days. Cuz that's where we are right now. [00:49:27] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you know, so to to your point, I mean, you mentioned my book, empire State of Mind, which was this business focused biography I wrote of Jay-Z. it came out in 2011. but you know, It was such a different world back then. And when it came out, you know, their response was basically like, whoa, awesome. Like, this is Jay-Z's blueprint for how to, you know, be a centi millionaire. And this is so cool because now I can apply this to my career, or I can, you know, learn some lessons from him. And, you know, and there was just definitely like a sentiment of people rooting for Jay-Z to become a billionaire, race to a billion, and who's gonna get there first? Is it Jay-Z or Diddy or, you know, whoever. And, you know, and then it happened and Jay-Z you know, crossed the threshold in, I think it was 20, early 2020, something like that. I think late 2019, early 2020 was when we put him in the magazine as a billionaire for Forbes. but even when that, like, by the time that happened, you know, about 10 years later, I put out the billionaire edition of the book. after, you know, let's say, what was it, in 2021, this was 10 years later. It was a totally different story, right? people were like, why is this guy, you know, like, who cares? Like, you know, like he should be giving it all of it back, you know? Why are there billionaires in our society? Something's wrong in society that has billionaires. So, you know, and I think it has gone, that narrative has gone even faster than Jay-Z has kind of evolved into this, like very socially aware, you know, type of philanthropic mogul, you know, people are not even that into the idea of like, oh, I'll make a lot of money so I can give it back, people are like, just, you know, do the good, like do philanthropic stuff, do impact stuff the whole way through and like, don't even try to become a billionaire. So, it really is such a different world, and it's, been fascinating to write about this stuff as these attitudes have changed on a broader societal level for sure. [00:51:25] Dan Runcie: Did you hesitate naming it the Billionaire Edition, knowing like this would change and seeing things over the years? [00:51:32] Zack Greenburg: Well, I had it in mind that it would be a cool thing to do whenever he did become a billionaire, because it was like, it was almost like the realization of a prophecy. It's like, you know, in, in 2011, I sort of like, I'm telling you he's gonna be billionaire and he's telling you, you know, and it's like, okay, here it is. He's a billionaire, you know, and I actually wanted to get like a, gilded cover and do the kind of watch the throne type of thing and you know, like embossed gold and all that stuff. But, it's not the right era. I mean, like, you're saying, it's just not, it's that era anymore. So yeah, I did wonder, like, should I kind of like back off of that narrative. But, you know, to go back to the Jimmy Iovine Interscope conversation, it's like, whether it's good or bad, it starts a conversation and you want the conversation to start, so that people will read the book, you know? And it's not like, a bad thing for me if people think it's bad that Jay-Z's a billionaire, it's just a fact. And even since I put out the Billionaire edition, he's like, more than doubled his net worth, you know, again. So that's just, that's just how he operates. And, you know, that's Jay-Z. [00:52:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, you had to put out something. So much had changed since when you first put that book out. And this is how, in many ways the. Business model of books works when there is something to be able to add, that's a refresher new forward based on this one. you had to do it. So, yeah. I think it made sense. But to bring this all full circle with Interscope in this conversation, the last thing we'll dive into is who is the biggest winner, artist, executive producer, so on from everything that has happened with Interscope in the past 33 years. [00:53:09] Zack Greenburg: Hmm. it's a great question. I mean, to me it's between Jimmy and Dre. but I would probably go with Jimmy because, you know, Dre was gonna be centimillionaire, you know, music legend no matter what. And although Jimmy had done a lot of great work, you know, in the rock world before then, and I'm sure, you know, was, very adequately compensated. You know, he wasn't sort of like a, an international business superstar in the way that he became as a result of, Interscope. And, you know, Jimmy and Dre both got a lot of money out of it. but I think Jimmy really got a lot more than he would've otherwise. in his, prior iteration of his career and Dre, you know, I mean, Dre has founded a bunch of things, right? And Interscope, you know, obviously he wasn't the founder of Interscope, but, you know, I kind of tied B to Interscope and that whole thing together. So it, Dre had lots of different paths to wealth. and so did Jimmy, but I think Dre had more, and, Jimmy kind of like ultimately got more out of it. [00:54:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think between the two of them, even if Interscope had said no back in 92 or 91, whenever the initial deal was made, I do think that Dre would've likely found a home. Dre and Suge would've found a home. It's still been able to do something similar elsewhere. Maybe it would've made the Tupac thing a little bit more challenging, but I think they still would've figured that out too. [00:54:30] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. [00:54:31] Dan Runcie: I don't think the same would necessarily be true for Jimmy though, because if you don't have them, you don't have this. And a lot of this, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this unlikely watch the Defiant ones or maybe you've seen should do a few interviews. I don't know if a lot of that would work. But I think I'll actually take a different approach. I think the person that probably won the most, just from a situation perspective, I know we've talked about him a fair amount, but I'll say Janet with this one because he didn't build this company himself. But the fact that when it's your time to come up, you have this opportunity to be able to step into, you have this much leeway, this much assets that already work in your favor because we just know how valuable the bat catalogs are. You walk into that position and then that has you then. Then that just makes it much more easy for you to have things set up because we know how a lot of this stuff is, right? People leave record labels all the time, especially if there's an opportunity to go to that next level. And this was before streaming really broke out. So if it wasn't Interscope, it may have been one of the other opportunities that could have opened up. And for him to be able to take that and then continue things for the next decade and then prove that, to our point earlier, this isn't just a one trick pony. This was able to live beyond and in some ways, maybe even operated things a bit more efficiently than Jimmy did as well with some of the recklessness at points from spending too. I do think that there's a case to be made for Janet, in terms of how that's been able to help that career too. [00:56:00] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good pick too. Although, I think probably if you're going in terms of wealth creation, Jimmy, [00:56:06] Dan Runcie: Jimmy, for sure. Yeah, a hundred [00:56:08] Zack Greenburg: you gotta give it to Jimmy. But point, taken, for sure. [00:56:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, good stuff. This one was fun. I feel like after this we definitely went on a few different tangents on beats about even one on Apple music. We didn't explore too deeply. And even some of the other record labels here, there's a lot we could dig back into with this one. But yeah, Keith, and though controversy can sell, but not in the same way it did in the nineties. [00:56:33] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, that, that's absolutely, absolutely, [00:56:36] Dan Runcie: Well, Zach been a pleasure to us all, man. [00:56:39] Zack Greenburg: Thanks, Dan. Have a good one. [00:56:41] Dan Runcie: You too, man.
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| 22 Jun 2021 | The Major Record Labels All Want Your Attention | 00:14:08 | |
An audio version of the Trapital essay “Inside Universal, Sony, and Warner’s Arms Race For Your Attention” Streaming, media, and indies have changed the game for the three biggest major record labels. Here’s a full breakdown on where each company is heading. Host: Dan Runcie, trapital.co Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo: https://trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 22 Mar 2024 | UMG vs TikTok, Kids’ Music, and Beyonce - Verizon (Trapital mailbag episode) | 00:29:41 | |
It's time to dig into the mailbag again. I asked Trapital listeners to send me their most burning questions about the music industry. But this time we’re doing things a bit differently: you’ll be hearing the questions directly from our listeners. We dug into the TikTok vs. UMGc dispute, children’s entertainment media, and the Beyoncé - Verizon relationship leading to album ‘Act II: Cowboy Carter.” 00:00 UMG vs TikTok 15:17 Kids’ music 19:55 Beyoncé, Verizon, and Cowboy Carter Make sure you listen in for our new Chartmetric stat of the week! Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. | |||
| 06 Apr 2023 | Rerun: The Future Of Music Business With Economist Will Page | 00:36:09 | |
This week, I’m running back an interview I did with Will Page in 2022. It was our most popular episode of 2022 and we talked about a lot of topics that are still timely and still being debated right now in the industry. One of the most unique insights into the state of the music business today doesn’t come from a record label exec. Not from an agent. Not from an artist. No, it comes from Scottish economist Will Page, who served that role for Spotify from 2012 to 2019 — a period of explosive growth for the streaming giant. But if you ask Page about streaming’s future, he’s not nearly as optimistic as the rest of the industry. “The party has to come to an end,” as he told me on this episode of Trapital. Page believes the music industry is transitioning from a “herbivore market” to a “carnivore” one. In other words, future growth will not come from brand-new customers — it’ll come from the streaming services eating into each other’s market share. Not only has subscriber counts possibly tapped out in Page’s opinion, but streaming services have also put a ceiling on revenues by charging only $9.99, a price that hasn’t budged in 20 years despite giant leaps in technology and music catalog size. That against-the-grain prediction was one of many Will shared with me during our in-depth interview. But he has plenty more research- and experience-backed thoughts on touring, vinyl records, Web 3.0, and everything in between. Believe me, this is an interview you don’t want to miss. Here’s everything we covered: [3:21] The Global Business of Music [4:15] Vinyl Records $1.5 Billion Recovery [08:54] Will’s Bearish View About The Future Of Streaming [14:46] Ongoing Price War Between Streaming Services [18:33] The Changing Economics Of Music Touring [21:44] Performing At Festivals Vs. Tours [24:57] The Evolution Of Music Publishing [28:34] How Music Revenue Gets Distributed To Publishers [32:41] What Does A “Post-Spotify Economy” Look Like? [33:44] The Current Business Landscape Of Hip-Hop Listen to Will’s mix right here: https://www.mixcloud.com/willpagesnc/we-aint-done-with-2021/ Check out Will’s Podcast, Bubble Trouble, where he breaks down how financial markets really work. Read Will’s book, Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Will Page, @willpageauthor Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Will Page: When you have 110 million households, and you have more than 110 million subscribers in the United States, then we are in a race to the finishing line before herbivore turn into carnivores. In oil, we have this expression called peak oil, which is we know that we've extracted more oil in the world than is left to extract an oil that's left is gonna be even more costly to get out the ground. I think we're in peak subscriber territory where at some point soon we're gonna start seeing growth happen through stealing other customers as opposed to finding your own. [00:00:29] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:01:12] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: For today's episode, let's revisit the most popular episode that we did in 2022. That's the conversation that I had with Will Page. Will Page is the Former Chief Economist for Spotify, the author of Pivot, and Advisor consultant to many of the companies that are leading the music industry today. In this conversation, Will and I talked about a lot of topics that are still timely and still being debated right now in the industry. The price of streaming. Streaming, especially for Spotify, is still $9.99 in the. Pound and Euro in many markets. But Spotify wants to keep that price for several reasons. They want to continue to grow as much as they can. They also want something in return from the record labels. They want some type of concession if they're going to raise their prices. But as we've heard, the push has got louder and louder from the record label CEOs that want that price to increase. So we talk about some of the origins of that debate and where that may be. Then we also talk about some of the competition among the digital service providers as well, whether it's Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, and others. We talk about how it's transitioning from a herbivore market to a carnivore market now that the market's getting saturated. You probably heard that term a bit over the past year that originated from this podcast. So we talk about that a number of other timely things and more we'll eventually have will back on the podcast soon. But this is a nice precursor to refresh the memory a bit and with some of the topics that are still going on in music today. Here's our episode. Hope you enjoy it. [00:02:48] Dan Runcie: Some of the work you've done for a company that is very heavily focused on playlist, which is Spotify, and I think more broadly looking at the streaming era we're in right now. This is a great time to chat because we just saw the IFPI results and streaming as continuing to grow as we've seen. But I feel like you probably spotted a few interesting trends about where things are heading, and I think that's a question mark for a lot of people. Streaming continues to grow, but how far can it grow? What are we seeing in terms of differences within genres or regions? What are some of the things that stuck out [00:03:21] Will Page: to you? I'll give you a couple. The first one is the global business. Well, last time I looked at United Nations, I think there's 208 countries in the world. The global yearbook that we're discussing here has, I think 58. So we have to be careful what we define as global. I think Africa's clubbed together as one continent and where they need to work on that. But I think the global business is growing, but it's also becoming more American. So if you go back to when Spotify launched America, 22, 20 3% of the business round about just over a fifth. Today it's 37%. So we have seen the business grow and become more American, and that raises questions, you know, economic questions like globalization, questions, should poor countries catch up with rich ones? The theory says yes. The reality often says no. So we're seeing this kind of lopsided growth where the business is growing, but it's growing in favor of an American market. The biggest country is growing at the fastest. That's a positive problem, but I just wanna flag it, which is, that's not how it was supposed to play out. And then the second thing I'd wanna point to as well is just vinyl. this vinyl recovery is just, well, I don't know how much my bank balance is responsible for this vinyl recovery, but I'm telling you, Is define the laws of gravity. Now, we're now looking at vinyl being worth one and a half billion dollars, which is more than it's been worth in the past 30 years. It's worth more than CDs, cassettes, and downloads, the three formats that we're supposed to declare that vinyl is dead. But there's two things you can kind of cut out the vinyl recovery, which I think will be of real interest to your audience. Firstly, on the consumer side. I saw a survey which suggested that the majority, just over half of all vinyl buyers today, don't own a record player. I mean, something's cooking here. So what are we buying it for? I'll extend that as well. the cost of wall frames to frame vinyl on your wall often cost more than the record itself. So I'm willing to pay more for vinyl to you know, framed on my wall than I am for the record. And by the way, I don't have a record player. There's a lot of people who will tick those bizarre boxes. But on the crater side, something else is interesting. This'll take a little bit of working through. But if we think about the streaming model, it's monetizing consumption. That's what it does. So if there's an album with 10 songs, three killer and seven filler songs, and an album, and let's say Dan Runcie wrote the Three Killer Tracks and Will Page, he wrote the Seven Duff Filler Tracks. On streaming, Dan might walk away with all the money and I'll walk away from none because we're only streaming the killer tracks and nobody's touching the filler. As the album model kicks out from vinyl, I would get 70% of the cash. That's crazy because nobody knows what's being consumed and it's a lot of cash. If I just kind of do some rough math here of a million fans streaming your hip hop record on Spotify, and let's say they're stream. 200 times in a month when the album drops, you only need 20,000 of them of that million to make the same amount of money from vinyl than you would do from streams, which is entirely plausible. But then how do you pay the copyright owners from those songs on an album is very different from how you pay them on a stream. If you go back to the late seventies, the, one of the most successful records of all time was Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Ges and a bunch of other people. It's crazy to think that Ralph McDonald's Calypso strut his record there, which nobody has listened to, got the same royalty as staying alive by the Bee Gees because it was a vinyl record. So to reiterate, on the consumer, I don't know how many of these vinyl records are being played, and on the crater side, it raises questions about how these craters are gonna get paid. [00:06:53] Dan Runcie: That's a good point book that I don't think is being talked about as much about the vinyl search because there's so much like wow, about just how much is being purchased. I think I even saw the stat that Adele's 30 album sold 8,000 cassettes. Or there was stuff tied from Stat about that, and I think the similar thing that you said, lines up having those people actually still own a watman or whatever type of cassette player that they have. So I do think that that is something that probably there could be a deeper analysis on because. A lot of the people that write the filler songs, how do they feel? Or whether you're a songwriter, whether you, you know what's behind it, especially when you know that there's so much clear path to be able to determine, okay, this is going to be the lead single, this is what we're gonna push most from this album. It really shifts things even more to where things are going in terms of a single market. Like the way that people have talked about pop music for a while now, right? And I guess that brings a, brings me back to the streaming trends that you mentioned. Overall, we're in this area, as you mentioned, streaming itself, the US penetration is grown from 22%, I believe you said is now through your 35, 37, somewhere around there. But where do we go from here because as you've written before, the price of music streaming, at least the monthly subscription hasn't necessarily been increasing. The average revenue per user overall because of the international growth is decreased, and you have plenty of people that are still trying to get there, fair share of what they can. It's streaming so. It's in like five, 10 years from now. If you could see into the future, where do you think streaming distribution is? I think the good thing is that people have smartphones and there's more and more growth from that perspective. So streaming is going to grow, but on the other hand, the economics of these things do have some theoretical goal point where we've maximized the global penetration of this. What do you think about, where that is going? [00:08:54] Will Page: Let me unpack it in two different lanes. Firstly, I'll deal with the saturation point question, which is, you know, how long can this party keep going for? It's three o'clock in the morning, who's gonna call time on it? And then secondly, I wanna deal with the pricing point on its own lane as well, but on saturation point, you're now in a situation where I put it as in America, we've had herbivores. We've had Spotify growing Apple, growing Amazon, growing YouTube, growing. Everybody's reporting growth, Pandora even is growing. What we are gonna see some point soon is carnivores. Which is Apple will grow by eating into Spotify's growth, or YouTube will grow by eating into Amazon's growth. So the key question we gotta ask is when do we go from the herbivore market? We're in today to a carnival market of tomorrow, and I output Spotify's US subscriber number around about 45 million, Apple at 49 million. We dump on top YouTube. Amazon, Pandora, you're well past 110-120 million. Now, that's important because I reckon and there's around about 110 million qualifying households in America that has at least one person who could pay for a streaming service. This is crucial because if you look at what Apple One's bundle is doing $30 a month for news, music, television, gaming, fitness, and two turbos of storage per six account holder. It's a household proposition they're saying to the home, I got you convenience. Everyone under this roof is covered with Apple products. So when you have 110 million households, and you have more than 110 million subscribers in the United States, then we are in a race to the finishing line before herbivore turn into carnivores. In oil, we have this expression called peak oil, which is we know that we've extracted more oil in the world than is left to extract an oil that's left is gonna be even more costly to get out the ground. I think we're in peak subscriber territory where at some point soon we're gonna start seeing growth happen through stealing other customers as opposed to finding your own. So I just wanna put that warning flag out there. Just now we're partying like it's 1989, fine, but at some point the party has to come to an end and gross is gonna come at the expense of other players that then flips, you know, from the A side to the B side of this record. We flip it over to price and then the pricing debate is interesting. I published this work called MELD Economics,uh, which we can cite on your, your wonderful website there. Which was to look at 20 year history of the nine 19 price point, and its crazy story back in the 3rd of December, 2001, over 20 years ago. Today Rhapsody got its license for a $9.99 offering, which had 15,000 songs. First point. The origins of 9 99 bizarrely date back to the Blockbuster rental card. Some coed up label executive would've said, if it cost 9 99 to rent videos from Blockbuster, that's what it should cost to rent music. Secondly, there was only 15,000 songs with limited use case. There was no smartphone back then. No apps, no algorithms. That was all a weird welded into the future. So you just. 9 99 for 15,000 songs. We are now chatting in early April, 2022, and it's still 9 99 in dollar in Euro and Sterling, but we're offering a hundred million songs. That's the crazy thing. So in the article, Mel Economics, what I do is I strip inflation out in the case of the uk, 9 99 has fallen down to six pounds, 30 pence. Remember, you know, Family Plan makes music cheaper too. If 2.3 people are paying $40.99, that's six pounds 50. There's way too many numbers in this conversation for Trapital, but still we'll stick with it. Student plan makes it cheaper too. So music in real terms, has fallen to six pound 30, which is less than a medium glass of Malbec wine, so 175 milliliters of Malbec wine costs than a hundred million songs, which is available offline on demand without adverts. That for me, is certified bonkers. I don't understand what we've done. We're offering more and more, and we're charging less and less, and you only have to leave the ears to the eyes on the video streaming to see what they're doing on the other side of the fence. Netflix has got me from $7.99 to $8.99 to $12.99, to now $14.90. In the space of 15 months, and I haven't blinked Disney plus. The reason I'm paying $4.99 on Disney Plus is because I paid $19.99 to get Cruella live on demand. So they're charging more and more, but only offering part of the wells repertoire set for eyeball content. We are charging less and less and offering more and more of the wells. Ear hole content, so it's like two ships passing each other in the night. It's a very interesting dilemma. It's intriguing because when you look at the way that video is structured, as you mentioned, you have all these price increases, and I think Netflix for some plans is, you know, $18.99, it's approaching that level, but in music, It's this thing where, yeah, there's some price differences where I think I saw today that Amazon music is increasing a dollar, but that's from $7.99 for prime subscribers to that being $8.99. So we still have to cross that. I wonder if I won't cost that. [00:13:57] Dan Runcie: I mean, honestly, I feel like there's something here because when I think about this, I think about a few things. Obviously you do have this fight where the artists wanna get more and the labels wanna get more, you know, not just for the artists, but for themselves. And obviously Spotify wants to earn more logically. You would think, okay, if you increase the price and people just understated the economics of what's likely. If Spotify increased up to 1299 a month for the standard base rate, how many folks would boing. But to your point earlier, I have to imagine that the fear is looking at the trends and where that penetration is. If they jump up to $12.99, then they're going to lose those customers to the other streaming services that haven't jumped there yet because of that thought of, you know, shifting to that carnivore mentality of competing with each other. So because for roughly 80% of the content that they do offer, it is roughly the same between each of these services. It's led it to be more of a price war then in video streaming, where most of them do have some differentiated content. [00:15:02] Will Page: A hundred percent. And two things to bolt onto your very eloquent points there. And firstly, let's just remind ourselves that Apple launched superior sound quality. You may remember the, commercial of Lossless audio. You buy your AirPods, which cost two years of Apple Music or Spotify to put in your ears and you get superior sound quality, the subtext underneath it said at no extra cost. That was the actual marketing message. So there again, we are improving the offer we're supplying more but we're charging less in real terms. And that's a really interesting kind of point kind of cut into. And the second thing, and we should get balance into this discussion cause it's delicates, we have to remind ourselves that, you know, there's 120 million subscribers in America. There's still another 120 million to go, but we know they're not that interested in paying for music because they haven't paid yet. Now the best way to attract them is not necessarily to raise price. So we gotta remember that there's still, you know, oil to extract. It's not gonna be easy oil to extract, but the best way to get to it might not be to raise price, but there's a catch to this. I can remember in the early nineties, right up to 2010 piracy, ripping the asset out of this business and concept promoters were saying. We love piracy because the kids are getting music for free so they can pay more on concert tickets. I wonder if now they're saying we love Spotify because they don't raise prices, which means we can raise ours. This is not a discussion of how to rip off the customer. This is a discussion about value exchange and I just wonder whether recorded music is leaving value on the table. That's the key point to hammer on. [00:16:32] Dan Runcie: That's a good point. And I think that also made me think too, could there be some notion of maintaining the perception of Spotify as something that still has high pricing power and still has high consumer surplus, because then that helps the stock price. And then seeing that the major labels are all invested in Spotify itself. It's about like having that perception of, you know, the future growth and whatever it is. So what you just said made me think about that being a factor potentially too. [00:17:02] Will Page: A hundred percent. And of course, you've gotta distinguish the Spotify Apple music cost structure from that of the video streaming companies in that they have a kind of variable cost. You double your business, you double your cost base. Whereas Netflix, you jump up costs and you have, you jump up your revenue, you know, you raise me from 7 99 to 14 point 99, the cost of that content was fixed. And I'm still consuming the Fresh Prince of Bel Air on Netflix to this day. That was a fixed cost deal that he did to get that content and that's margin to Netflix. So, you know, the cost structure matters to this one as well. [00:17:33] Dan Runcie: Definitely. And you mentioned live music there, and I think there's a lot to think about from that perspective. I Feel like we're in this post pandemic. I mean, we're still not out of it, but we're in this post quarantine era, more artists than ever are trying to tour and get out there trying to capture what's there, but also from an economic perspective from that. Most people are only gonna go to a certain number of live events per year, and we have this 18 to 24 month run coming up where everyone wants to make up for what they couldn't do in the past two years. How will that shift, not just who then goes on tour together, and then how they may split those profits, what the availability looks like? And if they're not able to do what they may have done on tour in the late 2010s, how does that affect future touring? I think that's a piece of it that, you know, we still haven't necessarily seen the impact of, but it just feels inevitable based on where things are heading. You did it. [00:18:33] Will Page: Absolutely. Now on touring, I was lucky and I gotta do some great work on the UK live industry, and I can only speak for the UK here. I know a lot of your audience in the US but I think these points will carry. The first one was to work out how much is spent on concert tickets in Britain during the, the normal year of 2019, and the answer was 1.7 billion pounds. That's more than was spent on recorded music a lot more than was spent on recorded music, which makes sense, you know, you pay 120 pounds on the Spotify account, you're paying 240 pounds to go to Redding Festival. Two days in the muddy field in Redding, cost more than 365 days of all the wells. But what I noticed there was the industry is changing in its growth. I showed that between 2012, the year of the London Olympics and 2019, The live music industry in this country had exploded and grow, but it was lopsided. All the gro came from stadiums, festivals, and to lesser extent arenas. The theaters, the 2000, 3000 capacity theaters like the Philmore West over where you are, they were getting crushed. They were actually shrinking in size. So we have this lopsided live music industry, which is going right in the direction of the head as opposed to the long tail, the stadiums, the festivals, the arenas, as opposed to the theaters, the clubs, the university venues. And that's interesting cuz that's gonna change the dynamics of how you make money from live. Do you go from doing your tour of an album to doing a tour of your festivals for that record? And what does that mean? The cost structure for the insurance and all those things that bands have to consider when they're hitting the road. I mean, credit to capital. You've had some great podcasts recently on this topic, but as, a big rethink coming along in this live music market, it's not the same as we had back in 2019. It's changed fundamentally, and it is the breadwinner for most artists' income. I think it makes up about 70% of what an artist has to live for comes from the road that vanished. How do we get it back? [00:20:22] Dan Runcie: I feel like Cardi B has been a good. Case study on this specific point here, right? It's been four years now since she released an album, and she's yet to go on a true proper tour in that time. That said, she's done plenty of festivals where she's earned more on those festival guarantees that she likely would on tour. She's also done many private events where she's likely earned that save amount, if not more. So there's a whole economic argument to be made, and I think there's also some risk involved too, right? I think that festivals do give you the opportunity to. Get that major bag, you get the high number, the revenue that comes through, but maybe your fans will be a little bit more forgiving if your set piece at your festival isn't the most extravagant thing, especially if you're not the headliner at it. But on a tour, I think it changes. It's a little bit more pressure, everyone wants to see that Instagramable or talkable moment to then sell future tickets and just the production cost and everything with travel. It still is something that is very worthwhile, but I think we've just started to see some of that segmentation there. Especially for someone like her. I would add residencies too. I know she's done a few different things in Vegas here and there, but yeah. Still yet to do that 30 city worldwide tour. [00:21:44] Will Page: Yeah, I think you gotta think with your head and your heart. Your head says like you point out the economics favors festival. Your back line's there, your insurance is covered. Travel's already covered. I have numerous hip hop bands perform at festivals in Europe, and that's one of the big advantages. The costs are all taken care of by the festival, but your heart says, what does that do to intimate relationships with your fans? [00:22:05] Dan Runcie: Right? [00:22:05] Will Page: I mean, you're staring at 50,000 strangers in the muddy field. That's different from staring at 2000 friends in the Fillmore West. So the head and the heart's gotta come into play here. What I would add though is that there are rumors, I would say here in the UK at least, that the promoters are saying, I'll pay you a ton of money to perform at the festival to make sure that you don't go on tour. And that's an interesting situation. If you build one too many houses, you collapse a property market. If you have one too many tours or one too many festivals, you collapse live music industry. So there's ways in which people are trying to restrain the market to festival. At the expense of the theaters. That certainly is coming through in the data. We're seeing the theater business take a kick in while festivals go on a roll. [00:22:45] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because I think about, you look at the artists that are touring stadiums now, whether it's your Taylor Swift's or Beyonce's, they wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't have the individual tours at smaller venues when they were starting out. Being able to build that intimate fan base, like you said, like you get to that point, right? And I do think that as good as festivals can be, it is much more of a lucrative cash grab that is, I don't wanna say necessarily short-term thinking, but I think you ideally wanna have some type of balance there, right? Get the big bag that you can get from something else. It's almost no different. I think running a business, right? Okay, sure. You may be able to do a speaking fee or do some type of, you know, thing here or there, but hey, you can't do that all the time, especially if it's not an audience you're tapped into. You still need to do some of the things that could set you up for the long game. [00:23:37] Will Page: Yeah, and there's an infographic that I'll share with you to pass onto your audience here. I wrote an article in The Economist called Smells like Middle-Aged Spirit as opposed to Teen. Nice play on Words hat to Dave Gro and Kurt Cobain. But what I was looking at was the average age of festival headliners over time. This is a du pessimistic Scottish economist. This is what you do with your spare time. Okay, so in the nineties when radio head to Glastonbury, the average age of a festival headliner is 25, 26 years old. all these hot bands were coming through the Brit Pop era. You know, there was so much development of new talent. By 2012, I think it had got up to 58 and I got a lot of criticism for that article. But then Glastonbury that year had the WHO and Lionel Richie headlining, which I think was 17 and 73 years old apart. And then you can see the conveyor belt problem, which is okay, it's a quick cash grab. It makes sense. But that's not the conveyor belt of how we developed talent for tomorrow. That's just how we cash in our chips at the casino today. So it does raise questions, I'm not saying it's like the doomsday scenario here, but we just need a healthy balance of, you know, a seeded for future growth and then the big stage for exploiting that moment today, which could be the pyramid stage at Glastonbury, the headlights stage at Monterey over in the States. So I just think we're getting a little bit lopsided here. We're a bit short termist and how this business needs to develop. [00:24:57] Dan Runcie: Agreed on that. Switching gears a bit. One thing that you wrote recently that stuck out to me, you did this deep dive on music publishing, and I think this is another area that kind of has some of that short-term, long-term perspective on it, because you look at the people who get the share of the copyright pie, at least today, and from music streaming perspective, a lot of that has been much more in the favor of, the recorded side and then the people getting compensated on the recording side. But with that, the songwriters and the publishers, a lot of them necessarily in that timeframe, didn't get a lot of that. But I think in this wave now where we're seeing more catalog deals and we're seeing people understand the value of that, things may be starting to shift and there's likely other things as well. But what do you think about the way that the publishing side has been seen in what the future opportunities are for that side of the business? [00:25:54] Will Page: Well, the way that labels and publishing were taught to me in terms of what makes them distinct from one another goes back to my Aunt Dorian Loader, who worked in the music business from 1959 at Deca Records, right the way through to 2012. She ran Enzyme records with Nigel Grange, Lucian's Half-Brother. They were responsible for Shead O'Connor, who sold 11 million albums based on the Prince cover. And she once said to me, will, this is how the music industry works. The record label pays for your drugs and the publishing pays for your pension. I just kind of, that's a nice succinct way of summarizing how the business works. That was then, this is now clearly times have changed, I think, but it reminds us about, you know, what makes the business different. And then that piece of work that you cite is something called global value of copyright, where I'm really keen to educate this. Regardless of whether you're coming from a label perspective, a manager, an artist, a songwriter, there's a C with a circle on it called copyright. We get that, and it involves record labels. It involves sound exchange. It involves artists. It involves ascap, BMI, GMR, Czek. It involves publishers, David Israeli, and the great folks at the NNPA. It Put the whole thing together for me, all this spaghetti and strain it out. And what I was able to show was that in 2020, copyright was worth 32.5 billion, way bigger than what you've just heard from IFPI way bigger than what Czek would say. This is the entire thing. And the split was about 65% labels, 35% to the publishers. Now, if you go way back to 2001, when we used to sell CDs by weight of pate. In the cocaine capitalism days, you know, record labels back then. The split was much more in favor of labels, you know, more than three quarter labels, less than a quarter to the publishers. And what we've seen happen in the years in between is quite an interesting story. Labels went from boom time with CDs to bust with piracy, and now they're booming again with streaming. And the inverse, the opposite happened. Publishers as labels went bust. ASCAP, BMI kept on reporting record breaking collections, so you have a hair tore toys analogy here of labels going really fast and falling off a cliff. Publishers just trundled along with record breaking, not massive record breaking collections, but it kept on growing their bases. So, the questions these throw up is what type of industry are we moving towards? Are we going back to a business model which paid labels over three quarters of the pie and publishes less than a quarter, and is that a good or a bad thing? Or in this post Spotify economy where we're seeing companies like Peloton, Twitch, TikTok, come to the business, is that gonna have a completely different balance? Now why this matters to your audience is not just on the crater side, but also on the investment side. You pointed out catalog valuations. We can dig into that if you want, but just a high level point is, let's say that in a few years time, I go into my back cave again, calculate the global value of copyright, and instead of 32 and a half billion, it's 40 billion. I'll come on Trapital show, I'll make an exclusive announcement. Copyright today is worth 40 billion, seven and a half billion new dollars. Have come into this business, I want the audience to start thinking about who gets what share of that marginal new dollar. Is that gonna split publishing side or is that gonna split label side? And if you're investing in catalogs, be the master rights, be the author rights that really bears, there's a huge educational drive here to understand the balance of this business of copyright. [00:29:15] Dan Runcie: So there's a few things you've said there that I wanted to dig into. Of course, for streaming Spotify and its competitors around 75%. Is going to the recorded side a quarter to publishing. But from a breakdown, what does that look like for the TikToks, the Roblox and the Pelotons? What does that share of revenue from those plays look like? [00:29:38] Will Page: So, The best way I could do this is if I just talk about ratios. There's three Rs in this business. There's share of revenue, there's ratio in this rights pool. They mean different things. Most experts get confused. With these three Rs, I'm gonna stick to ratios. That is, if I give the label a dollar, how much do I give the publisher, the songwriter, this collective management organization. So we stick to the conventional streaming model Today, I would say that if you give the record label a dollar, you're giving the publishing side of the. 24 cents, you know, a decent chunk of change. But still the pure cousin of the record label on YouTube, I think it could be as high as 35 cents, 40 cents even. Because there's a sync right? Involved in those deals. And then when you take that observation of imposing the sync right into deal, and you expand it to Peloton or TikTok, potentially even more, and then you can flip it and say, well, what happens if the future of TikTok is karaoke? Not saying it's gonna happen, but it's not implausible if that was the case. That favors publishers even more. So there's all these weird ways that the business could develop, which could favor one side of the fence. The labels and the artists continue getting three quarters of the cash or the other side of the fence. Publishers and songwriters start enforcing their rights and getting. A more balanced share and that that's what we need to look out for when we're investing incorporates. That's what we need to look out for. If you're a singer and a songwriter and you're trying to understand your royalty statements [00:30:57] Dan Runcie: mm-hmm. Well, like how much higher do you think? I mean, if you had to put a percentage on it for the TOS or the Pelotons, and I guess as well, you made me think of sync deals, right? Like for the folks that are selling, or their song gets placed on one of these hulu series or one of these HBO Max series, like what does that ratio look like, you know, from a ballpark for those. [00:31:20] Will Page: So I think a 50 50 split would be the upper bend of the goal. If, if a song is placed in a Hulu TV show or you know, an artist I've worked with for many years, Yu Dito Brazilian composer, his songs now in this famous easy Jet commercial over here in Europe. The artists and the publisher would see around a 50 50 split of those revenues. Now, would that happen in the world of streaming? Unlikely. But I think if you can get to a stage where you're giving the record label a dollar and the publisher 50 cents as a ratio, and I've gotta repeat the word ratio here, you know, that's potentially achievable with this post Spotify economy. I don't think it's gonna happen with the business we're looking at today, but I think that's a potential scenario for the business developing tomorrow. That's the thing. If I can quote Ralph Simon, a, a longtime mentor to me, he always says, this industry is always about what's happening next. And then he goes on to say, it always has been. It's a great reminder of just, you know, we're restless souls in this business. We've achieved this amazing thing in the past 10 years with streaming. Got there. Banked there what's coming next, who would've thought Peloton would've had a music licensing department 18 months ago? Now they're like a top 10 account for major labels. [00:32:30] Dan Runcie: It's impressive. It really is. And I think it's a good reminder because anytime that you get a little bit too bullish and excited about what the current thing is, it's, we always gotta be thinking about what's next. And you mentioned a few times about a post Spotify economy. What does that look like from your perspective? I think there's likely a number of things that we've already talked about with more of these other B2B platforms or where these other platforms in general, having licensing deals. But when you say, or what do you think about post Spotify economy? What comes to mind for you? [00:33:02] Will Page: Let me throw my fist, your words, your jaw, and try and knock you out for a second. We talked about price for a minute, and we talked about streaming. We haven't talked about gaming, but you noticed the Epic Games. It's just acquired band. I learned a fascinating stat about bandcam, which relates to my book Tarzan Economics. There's a chapter in the book called, "Make or Buy", where I sat down with the management of the band radio head. We went through the entire in Rainbow Story for the first time ever, a real global exclusive. Explain how that deal worked out, what they were really achieving when they did their voluntary tip jar model. And by the way, can I just put a shout out to one of your listeners and live from the Ben Zion. Best remix of Radiohead I've ever heard in my life is Amplive, Weird Fishez hip hop version of the entire album. But Radiohead tested voluntary tip jar pricing. Now check this out. If you put your album out on Band Cap, could be a vinyl record. Remember, it's the people who are paying to stream who are also buying vinyl. So if you put a ban, an album, my own banquette, and you say name your own price, no minimum, and there's a guidance there of 10 bucks, the average paid is. People go above 40% asking, and that could be for a super rich blockbuster artist who tries something out in band camp. That could be for some band who's broken Brooklyn, Robin and coins together, trying to make them breed. People go 40% above asking when you say name your own price. And that's interesting for me. there's a great academic paper by Francesco Cornell from Duke University. She asked, how should you price a museum? An intuition says Top-down. Museum should set the price. Adults 10 bucks, kids, five bucks, pensioners, some type of discount arrangement. But she said, no, let the visitors set the price because that way rich people will give you even more and poor people can attend and you'll see more cash overall. And I would like to see a little bit more of that experimentation around pricing compared to the past 20 years where we've had a ceiling on price, where if you really love a band, all you can give a platform is $9.99 and not a penny more. I think that's, we're suffocating love. We're putting a ceiling on love and we need to take that ceiling and smash through it and let people express love through different means. But I love that ban camp story. Whatever you suggest, I'll give you 40% above cuz it's art. We're not dealing with commodity, we're dealing with culture and that's why we gotta remind ourselves. [00:35:13] Dan Runcie: It's like the Met model, right? Where at least the last time I went, it was like $20 was the recommendation. But to your point, it at least had some vary of a threshold. But the people, a lot of the people that go there that have a lot of money end up giving much more. So I hear you on that. That's a great note to end on. Will, thanks again. Thank you so much. [00:35:33] Dan Runcie Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how capital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, Go ahead. Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 12 Jan 2023 | How Diddy is Underestimated as a Businessman | 00:51:49 | |
Sean “Diddy” Combs is one of hip-hop’s most serial entrepreneurs. His business track record stretches 30 years with successes in completely-different industries — music (Bad Boys Records), clothing (Sean John), spirits (Ciroc and DeLeon), media (Revolt), among many other ventures. To take a closer look at Combs' empire, I brought on Tarik Brooks, who is the president of Combs Enterprises. Many chalk up Diddy’s entrepreneurial success to his influence and brand alone. While Tarik doesn’t deny Diddy’s star power, he also argues that line of thinking understates Diddy’s business acumen — his ability to spot trends, attract talent, raise capital, and so forth. Not only that, but the broadness of Combs Enterprises is a unique competitive advantage. Diddy’s different businesses across sectors give them unique data points that can drive decision-making. The group announced a new foray into cannabis in late 2022. However, they won’t enter the space completely void of knowledge. Using insights from Revolt or Ciroc, they can glean how customers think about cannabis already.
Tarik and I dove deep into Diddy’s sprawling business empire this episode — the “why” not the “how” behind Puff’s success. Here’s what you can expect to hear: [0:00] Combs Enterprises’ focus in 2023 [2:22] Synergies between Diddy’s different businesses [4:40] Using Revolt Summit as a testing ground [6:29] Origins of the “Ciroc playbook” [9:32] How much strategic overlap is there between Ciroc and DeLeon marketing? [15:41] Entering the cannabis space [18:00] Regulatory challenges in the cannabis industry [26:01] Why Diddy is not just another celebrity entrepreneur [30:03] How Combs Enterprises invests in startups [34:21] Did Diddy really back Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter? [36:45] No rush to sell Bad Boy Records catalog [41:32] Sean John comeback [47:05] Diddy’s attempt to buy the Carolina Panthers in 2018 Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Tarik A. Brooks, @tarikamin
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Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Tarik Brooks: Twitter's impact in society is certainly bigger than how it shows up from a profit and loss and from a market cap perspective. And when you look at, you know, where Twitter is trading today is trading at a fraction of like Facebook or like Snapchat is the question from an investment perspective with some you could create meaningful. [00:00:33] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:53] Dan Runcie: All right, today we got my guy, Tarik Brooks, the president of Combs Enterprises. Second time on the podcast. Great to have you back, man. [00:01:01] Tarik Brooks: Happy New Year my brother. Great to be back. [00:01:03] Dan Runcie: So what's the latest from the House of Combs? [00:01:08] Tarik Brooks: Things are wonderful enterprises, man. Tremendous 2022, where we did a lot of investing in our existing platforms and in new platforms. And so, you know, the big push in 23. Is to operationalized and grow a lot of those new platforms. You know, a lot of people are familiar with the cannabis deal, which we announced late last year. We're gonna close that deal and get that operational. We've also been working on an e-commerce platform with Salesforce, called it Power Global, that will launch this year, you know, released music last year. That did great. I mean, he and a sub-Christian. You know, with the first father and son duo to be number one. At the same time, there'll be more projects from Love Records coming in this year. So a lot of new things are in 23, so I wanna accustom a lot of exciting developments. [00:01:56] Dan Runcie: And I feel like one of the strengths for him whenever he is launching a new brand is being able to find some type of synergy between something that he's done that's already worked and finding some way to tie it all together. And for you, I know you've been there for a couple years. Is there like one company or one tie in that really stands out about, oh yeah, what Puff is able to do here? Tweak the formula a little bit, brought it over to this company and then it helped that one too. [00:02:22] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. It is interesting, man, like, because you know, with the ecosystem we have that there are synergies all over the place that we work hard to exploit everyday. What I'll tell you bigger thing is that underneath our ecosystem sits the core premise, a core belief that our culture drives culture, that our people drive what's cool and what's next and what's hot in a meaningful way. So, you know, you go back to blues and jazz and rock and roll to hip hop, TikTok, viral dances, like our people drive that. And so if you look at all of the different elements in our ecosystem. What you see are different sectors that we drive through our cultural presence. And so when you look at our platform through that lens, you see how they all fit together. So then synergies just become finding places where, you know, we can work together to make one plus one equal three or four. Right? And so like, you know, easy examples when you think about how you know our brands will show up at the Revolt Summit. So Revolt hosts this amazing event every year in Atlanta. 10,000 people come. It gives us an opportunity to kinda have revolt, touch to people, but also have ourown touch to people for us to do research for new companies that we're developing the test concepts. These are ways that we don't place there with our ecosystem. I mean, I look at a great example. Deleon tequila. Used Druski in an ad, you know, super funny guy. Did a tremendous job with the ad. We then, you know, connected in with the team in Revolt and he did something with Revolt. It ended up being a great, great opportunity there. So like throughout our ecosystem, you see all these opportunities that exist with our portfolio companies and with the companies that we invest in. We think about how we invest and part of it is all the stuff you expect from any traditional investment vehicle. You know, do you have great leadership? Do you have a strong destructive concept? But what we also know about there two or three ways that this thing could be utilized is our ecosystem for the company. So it's an everyday activity, you know, finding, exploiting, and developing those things [00:04:31] Dan Runcie: You mentioned earlier about the Revolt Summit and how that can be a test space for whether it's new products or new things. Can you talk more about that? Cause I think that's really interesting. [00:04:40] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, so I mean this past Revolt Summit, the team at Empowered Global, which is the eCommerce platform that I just mentioned, had a space set up where they could introduce the concept to the participants at the Revolt Summit. And more than that, we actually had, and it was, I gotta find you a picture of this. A digital vending machine that was filled with black-owned products. So, and kinda like what you would see at the airport where you have vending machines, where they kinda have, you know, non typical vending machine products, headphones, and different things like that. Our vending machine that we had set up in the Revolt Summit was all filled with products that were owned by black that came from black owned companies. And so that was like just a real example. In that moment, we were able to introduce people to the concept of the platform, try out some new tech and get real time feedback from people who we believe will be a part of that target. [00:05:34] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Yeah. Because you wanna have people that are first bought in, you get the people there and I think the people that are gonna attend Revolt Summit likely end up being culture shapers or mavens within their particular area themselves. They start saying something's good, and then they can, you know, go back and that's how you're able to spread things. [00:05:52] Tarik Brooks: 100%. It's the way, you know, everybody talks about it in terms of synergies, but we like to talk about it in terms of not planting there, right? Like we have these resources, we have these brands that mean something to people. You know that the most impactful thing we can do is find out how putting those brands together at different times in different ways produces more information, produces more insight, produces more, you know, revenue generating opportunity than any of those entities in silos. So for me, like the silo is the enemy, right? Like the key is to have all of our leaders and all of our team members continuously engaging in a very fluid way. [00:06:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, the one that always stuck out to me too was Ciroc and the on the ground promotion for that, because there are so many through lines going back to The Bad Boy Days, the Bad Boy Street team, and then the Ciroc Boys. It's very similar playbook and being able to help push that. [00:06:45] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I mean, look, and again, the playbook is the same. It's the same. You know, when you look at what the spirits industry looked at at the time, it was very different from today. You know, a lot of folks don't realize at that time the only people really trying to market, know black people in the hip was more liquor. Right? Cause I know I wasn't on the team back then, but what I can tell you is he looked at how nightlife worked and how the culture was working and evolving and saw a huge opportunity for an aspirational luxury product. And then was able to apply a lot of the same tools that were driving his success in the music business in spirits. And so that's how you end up with us showing up better than most people in the nightlife, us being able to have the DJs, you know, be a part of our experience. Cause Puff knew back then, in which he knows now how powerful DJs are in the culture and in the communities he lives in. If you look at even now, like a lot of, you know what he's posted socially as, you know, the efforts around love, records, respect. Like, we get what algorithms can do, but understand like DJ is culturally important. Like they mean something to their communities and they mean something to our culture. And in that way they have outside influence, that I think people still underestimate. [00:08:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think as much as things have been movement streaming or NFTs or whatever it is, people still wanna go to the club and people still want to be in the hands of a DJ that knows what they're doing and can introduce them. [00:08:12] Tarik Brooks: Absolutely. There is power and curation. Right. And look, theoretically A.I. will be able to kind of take that input and lead curations that are solid. But you know it's tough to replicate, you know, instinct. And natural art, you know? Exactly. That's the thing, right? Like to be able to think you can do it with just an algorithm means it's all science. And I think, you know, most entertainment industries, particularly when you talk about the power of a DJ, are art and science together. That art is that intuitive thing that, like you, some folks just have, they know when to play the right record. You know, not just cause it's a similar bpm, but they know, cause they know that crowd, they know that venue. They know that audience better than most other people do. [00:09:00] Dan Runcie: Definitely. And I think too, a lot of that we definitely saw with the Ciroc Playbook, but I wanna spend some time in this conversation talking a bit more about Deleon because, I think that that is relatively newer business for other portfolio, but I think there's a lot that's similar, but the lot that's different too in terms of how you've all rolled it out, what you've done, how you've done things differently. So love to start there and maybe start first specifically, how much of the Ciroc Playbook was used with what you've all done so far with Deleon? [00:09:32] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, so I think the core premise stays the same, right? What Puff has been amazing at throughout his career is being able to spot and help develop trends very early. And he saw back in 2013, 2014, that the next wave in spirits was gonna be, you know, brown spirits, in particular tequila. And so when he formed the joint venture with Diageo, that he built that knowing that a tequila wave was coming. Now from the perspective of how industries developed, tequila and vodka are two very different places, right? It is very big, very mature right now, trying to fight off the growth of some of the spirits that are taking customers away, whereas tequila is smaller but fast growing. And it's also very nuanced. So like when you think about what we've been able to do driving Deleon's growth, and Deleon right now is the fastest growing tequila in the country, right?It's on fire right now and just, you know, small plug, you are new to tequila. Deleon are absolutely amazing. I will put them against any tequila that's out there, you know, so smooth ice cube, orange slice. You're good. [00:10:41] Dan Runcie: But any numbers to share in terms of like, cases sold or anything like that? [00:10:45] Tarik Brooks: So look, I'm not gonna go into the details on cases, but again, this is Nielsen’s data,this is not coming right? So right now, you look, it is triple digits right now, you know, comfortable cause to disclose. But what I would say is, you know, part of the Deleon story is making sure Deleon is relevant in culture. And when you hear Deleon Lemonade in the young Miami, I'm not sure when, when you see Deleon on, when you see Deleon sharp in these things, it's a part of ensuring Deleon is relevant in the culture and shows up the right way, but there's also a big part of the future of Deleon that will grow. Talking about the liquid itself, you know how we get to such a high quality. It is the fact that Deleon is aged in both American whiskey and French red wine barrels to get the distinctive taste that, like, that's just part of the story that we're still just beginning to tell and roll out as we build it. And from our view, we are building, you know, iconic, long lasting brands. We want Deleon to be thought of the same way you think about Johnny Walker or Hennessy or any other great brands that are out there. So our view is like you don't rush that thing, you develop that story over time. You feed people in, you bring people into the brand and then you culture that and as soon you cultivate that audience, you know, as it grows. And so, you know, a lot of the kinda principles that we've applied in growing, we're applying to Deleon, but we're also being very aware that, you know, vodka and very different liquids develop differently, Exactly The same. And you think about that as you start to position the brand. [00:12:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah, cuz I think that was a good point that you mentioned just in terms of how vodka has been the market leader just from a type of liquor for so long. So you didn't necessarily have to do that piece of it, but it was more so Yeah. How do you bring this brand that I think some people may have forgotten about, but bring it to the same level as your great gooses in your others. [00:12:44] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. People know people, I mean, look, the way Ciroc hadn't been positioned in a way that was creating a lot of noise, a lot of impact, and I think, you know, part Puff's genius was figuring out that it was amazing juice. It was amazing liquid, with beautiful bottles. So if you positioned it the right way in culture, you could create a wave. And that wave has been historic. This was a brand that was doing, you know, cases annually and now this is a case brand globally. Huge brand in the spirits industry in a sector that was big, vodka's a very, very big sector. Tequila we're growing Deleon as the sector's growing as well. So it's just, again, from a marketing perspective, a different set of challenges, but the same principles apply to how we think about leveraging culture. Leveraging, you know, our ability to kinda set trends to help drive a career meaningful brand, but it all also starts with a great quality liquid that we stand by. I mean, one of the things, right? Yeah. I think one of the things has always been super consistent about is the authenticity around, like, standing behind the products he brings to market. There's not a variant of Deleon or flavor that gets released without Puff. Personally, we stamped that saying, you know, this is okay to go to market with our income. [00:14:03] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah, cuz I think the distinction too on the flip side with tequila is like, not even that it's so much education cuz I think a lot of people know tequila, but just getting the consumer a bit of a visual of yes, this is the setting where not just our brand but this broader aspect. And I know there's 1800 and there's like others too. Yeah. But like you all be able to be like, hey, This is where, so some of that, what I think worked so well for sag, just in terms of thinking back to those like Vegas promo shots where they had all the people there being able to, you know, have whatever the tequila and Deleon equivalent is of that. [00:14:39] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. I mean, look, I think a part of the tequila growth story is helping people understand that, you know, while they may have been introduced to tequila, you know, with shots on spring break or something like that, you know, once you learn more, you learn a much more complex liquid that can be enjoyed a lot of different ways mixed drinks, neat, you know, over on the rocks, you know, and all the other kinds of occasions. So I think part of our experience is helping people understand that it's versatility is part of why it's growing as fast as grown. [00:15:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think too, just thinking more broadly about spirits and things that people enjoy you all now going into cannabis, I think that there are definitely some similarities there. People wanna be able to relax and enjoy what they choose, but so different in terms of not just regulation, but the culture. How has it been, just, I know, even thinking about the origins of that deal, how some of that playbook and mentality can be leveraged for what you all have now with this massive opportunity in cannabis? [00:15:41] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I mean, look, there are certainly two categories that are at very different stages, but you know, you could argue they've been on similar journeys, right? Like there was a point in time when alcohol was prohibited. When you look at the history of cannabis, you know, you start to realize a lot of the way this product category was treated was less around the specific impact of the product and more around the specific influence. The culture that was around, you know, before that was hip hop, cannabis was huge in the jazz community. And the jazz community was something that black people were bringing and spreading throughout the United States in a meaningful way and, you know, real impact culturally, and there were folks that didn't wanna see that happen. And so a part of the criminalization of cannabis was connected to slowing down the influence of that jazz, that black culture. And so you've seen over the past years been that cannabis has been illegal, you know, the disproportionate criminalization of black people as it relates to cannabis, more than white people. And so this opportunity is an opportunity that gives us a chance to basically through doing good sound business, you know, rights and historical wrongs. When you look at the last 10 years of legal cannabis, Despite, you know, the overcriminalization of black people, it is dominated by white men. You know, 85, 86% owned by white men. Black people only own 2% of the space, and so for us, particularly coming in this way, it gives us an opportunity to kind of make change and enter the business at scale to be able to come in with a three state footprint and be able to use that as a platform to help change the cannabis ecosystem to make sure to use our platform to enable black and brown people to participate in the industry in a number of different ways. To be able to use our voice, to be able to help shape the way regulators and lawmakers think about how cannabis needs to be developed going forward, and continue to do what we do at our core, which is bring our audience, great quality product for them to enjoy. [00:17:46] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I do think that those stats you mentioned are just around the 2% of the business, that is only being, again, like I said, at this point, currently run and administered by black people. And that's in America, right? [00:18:00] Tarik Brooks: In America in the US. It is gonna continue to be a leader in global cannabis. So a lot of countries look to see, you know, what the US is doing and how they're thinking about deregulation and how they shape their rules. And, for us it's a big part of what we do is helping people to see how the way things are set up negatively impacts our community. So when you look at, you know, the cannabis industry broadly working to change the way cannabis is scheduled by the federal government and how it's treated by the federal government and how banks are able to interact with cannabis companies. All of those things make it hard for the industry broadly, but it makes it extra hard for us because when you look at industries without those, We don't get the same access to capital, we don't get the same access to opportunities. So it's one of those things where, you know, once again, we're starting from behind the eight ball, but what our, you know, perspective allows us to do is start from a different vantage point, right? Like it is an extremely difficult time to raise money in cannabis. And so for us to be able to pull off something, this big speech. You know, the success and track record that Puff has had building quality grants, building quality companies, and being able to find the kinda talent you need to come in and create value. And so we're excited man. We think this is gonna be a huge event for the cannabis industry. We think it's gonna be a huge event for us to help our community create meaningful wealth. Cause ultimately, you know, as business people, we wanna use our skills and resources create wealth for our community. [00:19:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And like you said, definitely, you know, huge undertaking and make this happen. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the steps to get from the first idea, maybe it's you and Puff talking about, Hey, you know, we should do this, we should get into this business. Then boom, the announcement comes. Like, what were some of the steps to help make this happen? [00:19:53] Tarik Brooks: So we have been exploring the cannabis industry, you know, with different levels of intensity since looking at opportunities. Starting to understand how the industry works, getting closer and closer to the space, you know, building relationships with entrepreneurs and companies in the space to kinda understand how things develop. I joined the board of Cresco Labs, you know, one cause I wanted to learn more about the industry. I thought they were a great company. But two, from that vantage point, you were able to see how the industry works and how things develop. And so when this opportunity came along, which was really driven by Acquisition of Columbia Care by Cresco. They, by regulation, have to divest assets. This opportunity to look at a portfolio of assets that are good, you know, good, strong businesses. Generating revenue, generating cash flow today to be able to come, bring those into our portfolio and then do what we do to create meaningful brands around those assets seem like a phenomenal opportunity. And so, look, these things take time to develop and it's a long process of, you know, doing the due diligence, raising the capital, going through all the steps you have to do to actually close a deal. But we believe it's gonna be a phenomenal historic deal once it's closed and wherever operated. And we think, like, look, when you look at pub's track record of building brands in music, in fashion, in spirits, you know, should extend, we believe it's gonna extend itself to cannabis and meaningful given how influential and impactful cannabis is in culture. [00:21:28] Dan Runcie: And we definitely know that there are a lot of regulatory challenges in this space for sure. And I also know that there are several other celebrity investors, even some in hip hop that have started businesses in this space and haven't necessarily been able to help take them to the next level. Do you have thoughts about some of those, I guess how business now moving forward can help address and overcome some of those hurdles that maybe some others weren't quite able to get past. [00:21:58] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, so I take those in pieces. What I would say is, you know, we believe over the long term, the federal view on cannabis will change. We believe cannabis will ultimately, eventually be legal, you know, throughout the United States and in all 50 States. But we don't know when that's gonna happen. And so none of our investment thesis, none of our modeling, none of our business case was built on imminent regulatory relief. And so while, you know, we hope for it and we wanna help shape how lawmakers think about it the same way the rest of the issue does. Nothing in our core premise for doing this deal was built on the expectation of regulatory relief this year, next year, five years from now. Right. So that's the one thing I would do. That said, we wanna be immediately a part of the conversation cause cannabis is so connected to our community. And so we're gonna jump into that conversation at the state level. We're gonna jump into that conversation at the national level. Now going to the second part of your question. You know, one of the things I think is the biggest, you know, misnomer when people think about, you know, Sean comes entering cannabis, is thinking about this as a celebrity cannabis deal, right? When I think about this and when Puff and I have always talked about it. What we think about. A guy with an amazing track record of building culturally relevant brands. Is that relevant in cannabis? Yes. Check, right. You know, does he have resources and the platform to be able to raise the capital to do a deal like this. Check. Does he have the ability to attract the kind of talent you need? Check right. Now. You also then say, is this celebrity extremely valuable in getting the word out? Brilliant. Absolutely. But that's not the core premise of what we're trying to do, right? Like we will get as much value through all the things we can learn throughout our ecosystem and how our customers and all of our other businesses think about. As we'll get from Sean Holmes, the celebrity. Right? And so from that perspective, you know, we don't expect to have our business be a celebrity driven brand per se. It's gonna be built on the back of great brand building, great marketing, and very strategic and efficient operations. [00:24:07] Dan Runcie: And I think that ties into something you had said in a recent interview about how insights from Revolt, for instance, can inform some of the decisions that you make with the cannabis business. [00:24:18] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. I mean, look, when you think about an ecosystem like ours that spans from spirits, music, media, fashion, with every interaction with our audience, you create. So every time posts go up from their social media, you know, there's data that comes back. Every Ciroc transaction generates data when Revolt has shows on all the different platforms that has shows on cable, YouTube, In app, all those different platforms generate data. As you compile that data, you're able to kinda look at it with a different lens and pull insights from that. What we're then able to do is take the data that we get from the cannabis industry that everybody else in cannabis is getting. But when you start putting those things together in unique ways, that's how you start to generate interesting insights that everybody's just not gonna have access to 'em. So that's where we think, again, we have a real competitive advantage in how we think about what we do in the space. That'll impact everything from, you know, how our stores look and feel, and what that experience will be what products we lead with how we think about price points, how we change things from state to state. A lot of that will be driven by insights that not only come from the cannabis industry, but that are informed by the other businesses in our portfolio as well. [00:25:32] Dan Runcie: And this steps into, I think, a broader conversation of some of the categorization of someone like Puff and the work that he does in that the media can often put him alongside other people who have happened to be a recording artist on a track and compare their business ventures in the same way. And what you're essentially saying is, You can't compare us all the same way. Did they build a revolt? [00:26:01] Tarik Brooks: It's so hard cause it's like, I don't wanna deny how impactful he is as an entertainer. Epic performances. When you think about, and not just performances in music, performances in movies, performances on Broadway. Like the guy is quintessential, entertaining. You know, by all means, like you can't argue that. But I think when you try to look at him narrowly as just that you are really missing the picture. Cause I think that underestimates or understates, how difficult, it’s to build a bad boy into a success, to build a success, build a revolt, to build us rock, to build a Deleon, to build three schools, like that, that's not just on the back of him. An amazing entertainer, right? Like that speaks to his business instincts, his ability to spot trends, his ability to kinda find and cultivate talent, like those are all things that are universal in business. Leave aside what he's been able to do as an entertainer, I would argue, had he never got on the mic or touched the stage, he would've been just that successful business person just on the back. His business, you know, acumen and abilities. And so that's where, when we're in these conversations and people think about, you know, in cannabis this came up recently, people say like, well, you know, celebrity brands haven't really worked. And I'm like, lemme take a second to help you understand why this is different from a celebrity brand opportunity. The other thing that's different that I think is important for people to understand is when we take control of these assets, we'll be fully vertically integrated in the States that we operate, which, we are gonna cultivate, we are a process. We are gonna manufacture, we're gonna distribute, we're gonna sell. So these are all pieces of the business value chain that we'll operate. Again, not so relevant from the celebrity space. This is all around how do you build and run high quality businesses? And that's where I think you have to look at our business portfolio to understand how impactful Puff is throughout his career. And you just don't see those things that the only lens you're looking at is through him as the celebrity. [00:28:10] Dan Runcie: I could see this topic also coming up in some ways, potentially from an investment perspective, where you all have companies that are trying to either get you to invest or you're evaluating them and at some point someone on the other side of the table may come to you and be like, Hey, well if you invest in us, can we get a shout out in a song? Can we get an Instagram post? Can we do this? Like these things that view Puff as the influencer as opposed to the business leader that has all of these things. [00:28:39] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. What I found just in my experience and I've been working with Puff almost six years now. Most of it typically comes with how people were introduced to them and the depth or lack thereof of their understanding of what he's been able to do throughout his career. There's a lot of stuff, you know, people just don't necessarily, you know, attribute to him in the way they should. So usually that journey is one where it's about informing people to say things like, let's make sure you have all the perspective and then think about kinda how this can make sense. Cause again, there's no denying his impact and influence as a celebrity. He's huge. Like, he's a big name, he's an iconic person in culture. But I think to only think about him that way now, I think when people start to understand, you know, what working with Combs Enterprises means more broadly, you start to understand the power of the platform that we really have. And that's where I think it gets really exciting for the people. [00:29:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. That makes sense. From an investment perspective specifically though, do you feel like, is that something that often needs to be addressed with startups or with founders or others that may be whether deep down they may be looking for something and I'm more so asking that in a way because I've seen it happen to others and given this conversation, I can see that especially being somewhat frustrating where it's like, Hey, I hope you're not just interested in this to think you're gonna get a shout out. [00:30:03] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. I mean, so look, I'll tell you when we are evaluating investment opportunities and people are looking at ideals, I don't think that is a thing that people are using as their primary driver. Do I think there are people who will be like nice to have, do they hope to get to meet them? Do they hope to get all those? Sure. Right. Like, again, all 'em, all those kinds of things. But I think when we get, you know, evaluating real deals. I think one thing that surprises people is the rigor with which we do our due diligence and our analysis, right? And so that's the first thing you see to say like, well this is not just, you know, high level celebrity thing. This is being looked at with real deep due diligence and real deep analysis. And I think from there it starts to shake away that kinda filter of, oh, oh, I'm gonna try to just get a celebrity deal done. Cause it's just not the way we do business. And I think people get that. [00:31:02] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. Leslie. Yeah. Especially if there's a due diligence process that they're seeing on their side. And maybe we could talk a little bit more about that, like from a high level, for a lot of the investments you do, maybe less like the cannabis deals, but more on the venture side, do you have a particular sweet spot in terms of, you know, this is normally the dollar amount range, or this is normally what we put in, or this is normally what we are looking for? [00:31:26] Tarik Brooks: So, we have, you know, flexibility, right? We're not a fund that has to, you know, stick to a certain sector or a certain stage of growth the way, you know, funds are typically mandated to do so. We do have flexibility, but that said, going back to the earlier comment I was making, we tend to look at businesses where we see some application. At places within our current portfolio. Right? So like, I don't know that you'll ever see us do like, you know, some like heavy machinery deals or you know, enterprise software, things like that. Cause that's not natural, when you look at interface with the businesses we operate in, it becomes a lot more interesting for us. And so while we apply, you know, the very standard kinda ways of assessing, you know, the quality of the leadership team, the uniqueness of the opportunity, how opportunity is the total addressable market opportunity. Ultimately, we look at all those things just like every other, you know, person who investigates an opportunity. I think where it gets unique is for us, once we've gone through all that, we then sit back and say, okay, you know, how many of our businesses could actually utilize this offering? You know, how many different places do we think we can use this throughout our portfolio? And then it starts to become even more interesting. So, that's kinda how we get there. Now, to be clear, like we don't have a hard mandate or a set of funds. We have to put the work in the way the fund does, and so we tend to be very, very opportunistic. We pick what we do very carefully to be investing. So as we see economic conditions change as we see market conditions. We're able to just say like, all right, let's take a step back. Let's wait and see how things play out. And I think that helped. I mean, it helped us avoid, you know, some of the frustrations some folks are seeing in the web and cryptocurrency world. Cause we weren't forced to go aggressively and do something too fast. We saw the market was evolving and so we were able to take a step back, and continue to evaluate it. So from that perspective, there's a lot of flex. [00:33:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense, especially given that, yeah, there's no fun mandates though. It's not like you're burned because there's a winter or something like that. [00:33:44] Tarik Brooks: Absolutely, and the reality is we're always investing in our core portfolio as well, right? So we think about whether we wanna put millions into, you know, a startup passively. Part of the kinda analysis is to know where we could deploy in our current portfolio and does that make more sense? Right? And so there's that kinda flow of how we think about deals as well. [00:34:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. A couple months ago, there were headlines that Puff had apparently done an investment in Twitter around the time that Elon Musk had. Was that actually a thing, or did that come through or? [00:34:21] Tarik Brooks: Look, so like Puff and Elon like have a relationship.You know, Twitter is a very interesting situation in that when you look at, you know, the side like Twitter's impact in society is certainly bigger than how it shows up from. You know, profit and loss and from a market cap perspective, and when you look at, you know, where Twitter is trading today is trading at a fraction of where like a Facebook or even like a Snapchat is I think, at this point. And so the question becomes, you know, from an investment perspective, like do you think, you know, with some changes you could create meaningful value in Twitter, that platform. And so I think while you know, the kind of, the kind of statements in the press were overstated. There was a small investment in Twitter, but it's nothing. People get pieces of information and run, so we just, you know, we gotta sit back. [00:35:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think the way you framed it is correct. Right? I think it's definitely one of the 40 billion companies that creates more headlines than most other 44 billion companies we could probably even think of. [00:35:29] Tarik Brooks: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, like with some decisions to be a much more viable company than today and the verdict's still out, like those changes happen in real time and cause of how, you know, big the platform is in society. You know, you're seeing those things play out in the press and, you know, I'm sure Elon's campus is trying to work as methodically as they can through those changes. As they figure out what is the right, you know, kind end state for, for that platform. [00:36:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The other side of the investment piece, of course, I think we talked a lot about Combs Enterprises point Capital, but on the other side of it too, thinking specifically about everything happening in music catalogs over the past couple of years, everyone wants these valuable catalogs with this timeless music. Combs has one of the most valuable hip hop, r&b black music catalogs of the past 30 years with Bad Boy Records. There hasn't been any public news about any sales, but I am sure that people must have been calling nonstop trying to at least see what they could get in there. What were those conversations like? I'm sure at some point it must have come up of Rick, whether it's running the bum numbers or even thinking through like, what would this look like? [00:36:45] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. Well look, I think as you know, like part of the interest in these catalogs is driven by the fact that, you know, the returns they generate aren't really correlated to the market, right? Like they’re like if you have, you know, a high quality performing catalog, it's gonna generate returns and generate cash flow irrespective of the ups and downs of the markets. And so that's attractive to investors. That said, for those same reasons, it's attractive to us, right? Like it is a great quality, high performing catalog. And for us, part of how, you know, we think about things, we think about like Puff's long-term vision, right? Like we're getting back into how he's getting back into music now with Love Records. You know, he's gonna build that platform in the way that makes sense as you think about the way culture and the music industry continues to evolve. And for us, we're in no rush to get rid of a portfolio that could be a part of that. Like who knows how you think about those assets in the future. And so for us, we're spending a lot of time thinking about what the future of music is gonna look like. And you know how Puff is gonna participate in that, what that looks like. And so for us, you know, again, you don't have, you know, some of the time constraints that you get from being they're public company or you know, money at a certain time. So we had the benefit of being able to go slow and kinda take our time and basically run experiments at our own pace to figure out what we wanna do. And so from that perspective, people have, you know, continually come through with offers and with opportunities and things. And we've purposely taken our time as we've about what, you know, Puff's experience of music is gonna be over the next, you know, next years as he climbs when he talks about it's his second, right? Like he's at the point of his career where he's accomplished and he's thinking about what that second looks like. Music has always been a very important part of his life, and so music is gonna be a part of that. Second, we're shaping what that looks like. And so from our perspective, there was no reason to move. [00:38:46] Dan Runcie: That makes a lot of sense and I think for you, there's two things that are different with you all compared to some of the others. Two of them you touched on, but one of them is that you already have the infrastructure in place on how to do things that can help maximize the asset of the Bad Boy Records catalog. It isn't like one of these situations like where the Whitney Houston catalog, like it was dormant before Primary Wave came in and obviously they've like, you know, forseed it since they acquired it three years ago. And it isn't like one of these other legacy artists that, you know, the estate may be in shambles and things just aren't lined up. And yeah, for them it probably makes sense to just get a lump sum of money and be able to distribute that instead of hoping that your relatives who may not be trained in managing this type of asset can't continue doing it forward. Like you all have that. And I think that's part of it. [00:39:37] Tarik Brooks: Yeah. And I think there's a couple ways to think about it too, right? Like, cause these artists work so hard to create these assets. You know, why sell 'em? Why get rid of them? But I think there's a couple ways you can think about. You can say one, alright, we may be at peak pricing. And so it's like, you know what, lemme sell while things are hot. You know, take the cash, be able to take the money off the table and invest other ways. You also, particularly with younger artists to say, all right, I'll sell this catalog, but if I'm still creating, I can continue to create and you know, build new works that will create value as well. And so I think there's different logic for different artists in terms of, you know, why they think about selling and why they sell when they do that, you know, in some respect make, particularly if you're looking at it from a purely financial perspective. But again, we were unique in the way that we have an ecosystem that helps continue to keep catalog relevant. We're back in music now, and so again, that also helps to create the halo effect across all of our ecosystems. And so for us, there just really isn't a rush to move too quickly, like where we can think about what is the kinda value maximizing way to utilize the catalog and whatever else we're doing to create the best outcomes. [00:40:54] Dan Runcie: Right. I think that's a good way to put it too, like you said, numbers are there and if you wanna sell, there are sound financial reasons that someone may choose to do so for you all, and given Puff's current goals in music, it just may not make the most sense, but with that though, shifting gears a bit, one business we haven't talked a lot about is Sean John and I know this is a business that the team had sold a couple years back. The company that bought it. Things didn't quite work out there. You all then bought it back recently. So where are things right now with Sean John? [00:41:32] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, Sean John is super exciting, right? So you first start with an iconic, you know, street brand, right? You know, this is again another example. Being able to see where fashion was going, seeing how, you know, folks in our community were wearing other brands to get particular silhouettes and have it, you know, look a certain way and feel a certain way, and then be able to build a brand. That became a real like a foundational piece of, you know, hip hop culture. And through that process, Puff was the first African American man to win the CFDA award, which is the biggest award you can win in fashion, right? So truly iconic sold the brand. The buyers at the time weren't able to figure out how to maximize it, so they created the opportunity for us to buy back. And so what we're excited to do now, and we're in this process with Puff of really reimagining what can and should be for this generation, right? Like as much as you know, we all love the iconic valore sweatsuits and all rest it like, maybe that's a part of the future. Maybe it's a different brand position, different way, but like spending time. Actually really ideate on that and get to the right concept to bring it back again. We have the benefit cause, you know, we operate this portfolio, we don't have the pressure to rush. Like we don't have to, you know, do something right away to be able to, you know, capture that value overnight. You know, we have the luxury of being able to take our time and what I found with Puff is he likes to be able to, one, work with the quality people he possibly can and really run ideas through the ringer in terms of, you know, having people question his logic, test the thinking. Really, really pressure test to see if it's the right way before we do something. So what I can say is, right now in the lab, like, you know, there's creative folks that are thinking through, you know, what Sean John could be and should be and isn't engaged in that process. And so it's exciting I think when we do hit on the market, we're gonna come back in a way that one pays homage to the legacy of John, but then isn't just caught in what to be, is really thinking about what the brand could mean and should mean to, you know, new generations. [00:43:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like when it happened too, it definitely generated some excitement. So I feel like there's some good momentum. [00:43:47] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I think a lot of the folks who are dominating the fashion world now, were inspired, you know, by, you know, fans. So the fact that it's a brand is still, you know, relevant to people in different ways, gives us a great building. Like, I would rather be trying to kinda help people connect to this brand with so much history and legacy than trying to build a brand from scratch. You know? I think it provides a good foundation. Like's aspiration is to build iconic, long-lasting brands. So when you think about iconic brands that have been around for 55, you know, longer periods of time, that's what the goal is. And so, and those brands have gone through research, you know, any iconic brands gone off, of kinda laws and growth. And so for us, this is just really, you know, the second chapter of something that's gonna, you know, be a part of our community and our culture for years ago. [00:44:45] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. And for you specifically, if we zoom out a bit, looking at the past six years since you've been there, we definitely talked a lot about wins, a lot of the successes. But are there any setbacks or are there any missed opportunities that you look back on, especially the past six years since you've been there being like, oh, I wonder if we did this differently with this brand. I wonder if we did that differently? [00:45:07] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I think for us, one of the things I appreciate about Puff and it's a value that we both share, which you know, you look at everything as like a learning opportunity to say like maybe the outcome didn't go your way, but there was plenty of stuff you could learn from if you embrace the opportunity the right way. So like I look at the fact that it was back in was announced as an opportunity. We saw the value of the team and the value of the assets all around. You thought it was a great opportunity, pursued it. You know, the group that we were part of didn't win, but through that process, learned a ton about that space. You know, I met great people, you know, business partners and relationships that we still engaged with in different things today all came from that opportunity. So like, you know, while, look, I would've loved to be able to win that deal or bring that home, you know, I think there's a lot that comes from it. It sets us up for the things we do, you know, when I think about, David, we talked about the Revolt Summit earlier, right? Like, you know, as we were building the Revolt Summit, you know, we bring it back after, I think a year off. And then in 2020 the pandemic hit. So we gotta basically shut it down and go virtual. But like coming outta those were things we learned about how we're gonna in the future. So this year, you know, the biggest Revolt Summit ever, how's Metaverse versus online? Like all those things coming around. Again, learnings that you utilize going forward. And so, you know, whether it's you thinking through every single flavor in the portfolio or every single bab in the artist roster, even the ones that don't work out the way, you know, you want them to work out their stuff. You can learn from that help, impact and help you to be better as you move forward. That's the way we think. You know, and I talk all the time about just, you know, transparently looking at the things that go right and go wrong and making sure we're learning. [00:47:05] Dan Runcie: Can we actually talk a little bit about the Carolina Panthers one specifically? Because I know you all said that you didn't win the bid, but was it an aspect of being outbid or the owners or someone just choosing someone different? Like how did that all go down? Cause I remember the headlines about it. I remember that there were a few other prominent black public figures that were in that ownership group too. [00:47:27] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I mean, look, what I would say is, you know, the person that you know ended up winning the bid, I believe, if I remember correctly, had, you know, the highest bid relationship. I think from that perspective, he kinda knew the league, well, and, and was prepared in a number of different ways to be able to take it down. And I would just say the group that we were part of kinda fell short in that way. But what's interesting is, you know, the number, and I just can't remember real time, the exact number he ended up paying for. When you look at the number that people think that the Washington Commanders are gonna command, and the number that the Denver Barcos commanded. You know, while that number he paid was high at the time, you know, it's not even half what somebody might pay for the Washington Commanders. And so perspective, you're willing to pay for something. You gotta live with the fact that there's just maybe willing to pay more for it than you. Right. And so, you know, we ended up being a part of a really sharp group that, you know, had thought really hard about, you know, what was in this case. You know, we rounded. So, you know, again, it's one of those things you learn from, right? Like, you know, sports, entertainment, and business is very unique. You know, assets, you know, come available at different points in time. It's all about thinking about, you know, what do you think the asset is worth? What do you think you can do with it, you know, to translate to what you think it should be worth. And somewhere in that analysis you get to what you think you should pay for, right? And that's where you kinda make your move. And in that case, you know that there were just folks willing to pay for. [00:49:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, I think that's a good point too. Cause I feel like I might be misquoting, but I feel like the Panther's bid was somewhere, I think it was under 3 billion at least. [00:49:20] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I believe you're right. I wanna be careful. I just don't remember exactly. But yeah, I remember it being less than 3 billion and I think the number they're saying for Washington Commanders now, like 7 billion and so I imagine, you know, like when you think about where the value of that Panthers is going, probably going. They probably did really well. So I mean, again, and we believed it was gonna do well and continue to do well. I mean, when you look at the size of the deal, I guess Google or YouTube just did it with the NFL. The NFL is a platform, right? When you look at, at least for the last couple years, I haven't seen 2022. When you look at the list of the top 50 watched things on television every year, 40 plus of them are football games. Right? Right. It's just that powerful of an entertainment platform, so therefore commands the prices of command. [00:50:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, hopefully. Whether it's this group or some combination of others that we know we're interested in. Hopefully we see something happen soon in the sports ownership space. But this was great. I know we covered a bunch of topics in this one, and before we let you go though, is there anything that you didn't cover that the audience should stay looking out for or that we should be thinking about moving forward? [00:50:34] Tarik Brooks: Yeah, I think 23 is a year that the audience should look out for a lot from, from the Combs organization. You know, music out of Love Records, including album and power, global e-commerce platform. Kinda reimagining how, you know, black people circulate dollars in our community. You know, the cannabis venture closing and beginning to build brands and establish meaningful footprints in the markets that it's in. There's just a lot of new things in 23, so there will be a lot coming outta our camp that we're super excited about, and so it's gonna be big. [00:51:08] Dan Runcie: We'll keep our lookout for that, man. All right. Appreciate you spending the time, man. [00:51:12] Tarik Brooks: Thanks so much, man.Take care. [00:51:14] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how capital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead. Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people. Discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 14 Dec 2020 | Phylicia Fant on Developing Superstar Artists, Rising in the Music Industry, and Navigating 2020 | 00:50:07 | |
Columbia Records’ Head of Urban Music Phylicia Fant came on to talk about her career in the music industry. Before Columbia, she had executive roles at both Warner and Motown, and launched The Purple Agency. We talked about the superstar artists she’s worked with, the challenges the industry has faced in 2020, the use of the word “urban” in the music industry, and more. We also talked about the documentary she worked on--Eggs Over Easy: Black Women & Fertility. If you’re interested in how major record labels have navigated all the changes in 2020, then this is the episode for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Phylicia Fant Links: Eggs Over Easy: Black Women & Fertility
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| 09 Dec 2024 | Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode with Believe’s Denis Ladegaillerie - Trapital Summit | 00:27:32 | |
At our Trapital Summit, we had to talk about Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode. We were joined by the founder and CEO of Believe, Denis Ladegaillerie. Believe is global music company that owns TuneCore and had its IPO in 2021. But in 2024, a consortium led by Ladegaillerie tried to take the company private, while fending of a takeover attempt from Warner Music Group. We talked about that experience, Believe’s plans to 2025, and more. Note: This conversation was recorded on October 3, 2024, before Universal Music Group’s claims for copyright infringement from Believe. The topic was not discussed in our conversation. This episode was brought to you by Amy Allen, who is shaping today’s music one hit at a time. For your awards consideration. Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week. | |||
| 22 Apr 2022 | How Fanbase Raised $6 Million Without VC with Isaac Hayes III | 00:42:32 | |
In less than three years, the Fanbase social content app has raised six million dollars (without traditional venture capital) and is inching toward the one-million user mark. How did co-founder Issac Hayes III take the app from nothing all the way to this? If you ask him, his life spent in the cut-throat music industry gave him the inspiration AND business chops to thrive within the tech space. As the son of legendary R&B artist Isaac Hayes, he was made well aware from the get-go of the exploitative practices by record labels toward musicians. Isaac would go on to notice similar exploitation with social media giants and their users, who were creating content and driving attention, but reaping little of the billions of dollars in revenues being reported by the same corporations. Fanbase is changing those optics. On the app, users can post content — written, photo, video, audio chat, and live stream — for a subscription fee. As Isaac sees it, “monetization for every user is the wave of the future.” For a full glimpse of how Isaac is building Fanbase into a disruptive social media force, you’ll want to tune into our interview. Here’s what we covered in the episode: [4:10] Fanbase Raised $6 Million From Crowdfunding — Not Venture Capital [6:34] The Most Important Investors Of Fanbase [8:10] Making Investing More Accessible [10:30] How Fanbase Is Acquiring New Customers [11:59] Fanbase’s Biggest Business Advantage (Not What You Think) [14:13] “Monetization For Every User Is The Wave Of The Future” [16:18] Why Artists Shouldn’t Sell Their Catalogs [22:23] What Isaac Loves About Technology [23:40] What Does Fanbase’s Future Fundraising Timeline Look Like? [26:38] Size Of Fanbase’s Team Now & In Near-Future [27:51] Atlanta’s Underrated Scene Outside Hip-Hp [30:39] Isaac’s Influence For Creating Fanbase [32:34] Getting The Music Rights Back For His Dad [33:48] Keeping Black Icons Relevant Post-Death [36:14] Will There Ever Be An Isaac Hayes Movie? [41:45] Fanbase’s New Features Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Isaac Hayes III, @isaachayes3
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. _______________ Transcription Isaac Hayes III 00:00 I think monetization for every user is the wave of the future. I keep saying it, I think that there isn't a person right now that isn't subscribed to at least one thing. And one subscription becomes more and more the common vernacular of how we engage with content. Social media is the last, you know, frontier that's left. You know, when you think about TV and film with Hulu, and Netflix, and Disney+, and music with Spotify and Apple Music, and print media with Forbes, and The New York Times, and Billboard, and then productivity software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft Word. Like, you don't... You're subscribed to something. You're probably subscribed to an app on your phone that allows you to edit your photos. And so subscriptions are just the language. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward. Dan Runcie 00:53 Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's guest is Isaac Hayes III. He's the founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a company that helps creators better monetize the content they put out. And on Fanbase's platform, followers can subscribe for $3.99 a month to get all of the exclusive content from their favorite creators, or they can follow creators and they can spread love. Love is the primary form of engagement on Fanbase, and it's how creators monetize. The more likes and love they get, the more revenue that they get into their pockets. So Fanbase addresses a lot of the challenges that people have had about social media more broadly. And in this chat, Isaac and I talk about what the journey has been like. He's been able to raise $6 million through crowdfunding. He did it through this platform called StartEngine, and he's had many well-known investors on board, folks like Snoop Dogg, Charlamagne The God, Kandi Burruss, Chamillionaire, Roland Martin, and more. So we talked about his decision to go that path as opposed to the traditional VC route. Isaac and I also talked about the trend of music publishing and the catalog sales that have been happening, and why he actually thinks that a lot of musicians should not be selling their catalogs. He is not the only person to say this, but these voices have been a little bit quieter in this narrative. So it was great to hear his perspective on this. And then we also talked about the other hat that Isaac wears. He is the manager of his late father's estate. His father is the legendary singer, Isaac Hayes. So we talked about what that experience has been like managing the estate, and how his father's experience in the music industry had formed a lot of the work that Isaac Hayes III himself wants to create and the opportunities he wants to do through Fanbase. We also talked about what an Isaac Hayes biopic would look like, and who Isaac Hayes III would want to play his father in a movie. I think he had a pretty good answer. I'm a big fan of this person. So I think you'll enjoy who we said. We also talked about Atlanta's impact, and just how influential that city has been in culture and for Fanbase as well, we had a great conversation, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Here's my chat with Isaac Hayes III. All right, today, we got Isaac Hayes III with us. He's the co-founder and CEO of Fanbase, an app that helps creators monetize the content that they put out into the world and get what's there. So Isaac, thank you for joining. And it'd be great to just hear from you how things were going with you and how things been going with Fanbase. What's the latest been? Isaac Hayes III 03:46 Man, we just closed our second seed round of $2.6 million on StartEngine. So we've raised a total of $6 million in less than a year. It's been phenomenal. We're adding a lot of amazing functionality to Fanbase. And new features are rolling out in the next couple of weeks, a new version of audio, which is one of our flagship features on the platform that's monetized for all users. So it's an exciting time at Fanbase. Dan Runcie 04:10 Can you talk to me about your fundraising process a bit because I know that you crowdfunded the 6 billion. You were able to do it at a few different stages. But what made you go that route, as opposed to the more traditional venture capital fundraising? Isaac Hayes III 04:25 Two things: one was just a recommendation by a really good mentor of mine to do so. And it was in COVID, because, you know, we couldn't move. And I had a real kind of like off-putting conversation with a VC. And it immediately reminded me of the music business. And so in my mind, I immediately thought, okay, these seeds are like the label. And I'm like an artist trying to get a record deal. And so starting to gave me the opportunity to go independent, and sell my shares out of the trunk of my car to the tune of $6 million, which gives us better leverage, and lets people know that we don't need venture capital to raise serious cash. And so that's really how it, you know, wind up that being that way. Dan Runcie 05:06 Yeah, I heard the comparisons from a lot of people. And I think that the thing you often hear from folks that do crowdfund is that it can take a lot of time to get there. But at least from what I've seen from your process, you were able to get several thousand investors in a pretty short amount of time. So what were the steps from that perspective to keep the momentum hot, and to make sure that you had a strong pipeline? Isaac Hayes III 05:29 I think the best thing is, when you're, I think the biggest benefit was the fact that it's a product that the investors can actually use in real time. So it's not like they're giving to something, and they're investing in something and not knowing what the product will be or what it does. They're a part of it in real time. And it's something that's relatable to them. If I go and invest in a tech startup that does something to do with aerospace engines, cool, when I'm not with it every day. I just sit back and hope that they make the best decision possible with my investment. But Fanbase is something that I think is more personal to people because of where we are social media. So I think that gave it a lot of energy, because people are a part of the process, and they feel part of the platform and part of this journey together in real time. So it's something that you can use, you know, and then who better, I got to say, to give actual equity in a social media startup into the users themselves that will actually make the platform grow. Dan Runcie 06:20 And I think you're able to find some influential folks with that too, right? You got Kandi Burruss, you got Charlamagne. And of course with their platforms, they're able to help amplify and can connect you with other investors or just other creators, given what they've done. Isaac Hayes III 06:34 Yeah, but we honestly haven't used them in that fashion. And I actually don't typically want them or to do that particularly yet. And the reason being is because I like the fact that they are silent in their action, because a lot of times when people of notoriety step out in a space where they're invested in a platform and may turn other people off, that feel like well, I didn't get that opportunity. And in social media, it's more about the users. The most important investors on Fanbase, and we have some really big, big name investors, the most important investors on Fanbase are the actual users, the larger, broader, probably a sea of 8000 plus individuals that have put their money in and actually use the platform on a day-today basis, who will be those day-to-day, you know, hardcore super users. But relationships and those investors that are of a high stature like a Snoop Dogg and stuff like that, their time will come later. They all, I know, they all know exactly when they're going to get on and when they're going to turn the engine up on the platform. So we're just, you know, we're focused on the core audience and the core investors of the platform being what we really focus on at Fanbase. Dan Runcie 07:41 And with 8000 investors, you mentioned $6 million raised, it makes it pretty affordable to, you know, for people to be able to have a stake, because I think that's one of the challenges that you often see from institutional money that comes through or some of the minimum buy-ins for some investments is that it isn't always the most accessible for folks that may be interested. So I think you're able to at least allow that to happen given the amount of people that were able to invest for the total amount you have. Isaac Hayes III 08:10 Absolutely, I mean, the accredited investor rule has kind of been a barrier for all people, you know. I don't care what race you are, if it's a law that's been in effect since 1933, it's just only given opportunities to rich people to actually invest in early stage companies. So you're coming out of the Great Depression, if you ever wonder why none of your family members got a call to invest in IBM, or Microsoft, or Apple, or Facebook, and so on and so forth. It's this accredited investor rule that is given all the best opportunities of wealth to the wealthy. And so I love the fact that Barack Obama and Joe Biden pass the Jobs Act and allow people like myself to go to my peers and the public to actually have the same opportunity that VCs and accredited investors have to get a piece of the American dream by investing the same way that all these other people have been able to do for 83 years. Dan Runcie 09:01 I think we're gonna see the rules continue to break down on that. I know now they have that flexible option where I think if you take the Series 63 or 7 or one of those tests, then you can become accredited. So that's one way to pass the income thresholds. But I feel like even that is probably going to break down at some point. That just feels like where everything is at it. Isaac Hayes III 09:22 It should. I mean, one of the seed investors in Uber, a guy by the name of Oren Michels only invested $5,000 into Uber, but when it IPO in 2019 is 5000 was worth 24 million. And I'm like, well, how come we can go to Vegas and spend $5,000 on the crap table or go buy $5,000 worth of lottery tickets, but I can't invest in Uber. And I think that's the real crime is that, you know, it's okay that if you go blow your money gambling in that fashion, but not gambling in in the fashion of investing your money in a startup like Uber, which wound up being very, very successful, so the rules have to change and platforms like StartEngine are breaking down those barriers. Dan Runcie 9:59 Right, especially when so many other people using it and giving these startups their early validation are the ones that believe and see in the future. So I feel like those dots got to connect eventually. But... Isaac Hayes III 10:10 It will for sure. Dan Runcie 10:11 Going back to Fanbase itself and how things are, I read that you have a goal be able to hit a million users in June. And it would be great to hear what your strategy has been in terms of acquiring customers. What's been the most effective thing that you've done to get more creators and users onto the platform? Isaac Hayes III 10:30 I think the biggest thing is actually just word of mouth, right? It's the quality of the product. And then I think we're in a very unique time, a very opportunistic time for platforms like Fanbase to emerge, because of this transition from users wanting more access to their following, they're getting tired of words like shadowbanning and content suppression and stuff like that. And algorithms are becoming the enemy of the common user on the platform, or even the super user on the platform, because platforms typically are profitable off ad revenue. And so for that to happen, you can't simultaneously provide visibility for every user on the platform, and then run ads at the same time. That's counterproductive to the business model. Because if that's the case, then the people that buy ads would just go to the users themselves and run ads that way. And then you would have no business model. And so Fanbase is just you know, emerging at a time right now that I think the conversation is different. And ad based, ad-based revenue social media platforms are going to continue to change that puts us right, at the right time to continue to grow. So word of mouth. And then timing is just helping us, and then we have an amazing creative advisory board of young people. There's some other strategic partnerships, and I'm really excited to begin working on that, they’re really rooted in community and rooted in the culture of what we want on Fanbase, which is young, centennial people of all races, ages, backgrounds, creating content and monetize. Dan Runcie 11:56 What are some of those partnerships? Anything you can share with us? Isaac Hayes III 11:59 No, because... And the reason why I can't is because they're really savvy in the way there's things that I think, social media startups, I'll say this, like, I think Fanbase has the best advantage to become a social media unicorn by simply being in Atlanta. And what I mean by that is like Atlanta, is the epicenter of black culture in the United States of America. And what we know about Black culture is Black culture is pop culture. And we know about pop culture, pop culture is what drives social media. So therefore, if you're right at the epicenter of where the viral challenge is going to happen, or the newest, funny influencer, or the dance challenge, or the artist is at, being able to have them be part of Fanbase, and part of that community gives us a really big advantage. So some of those partnerships are rooted in culture, and community, and music. I can't announce them or anything, because it's really dope, though, the way that you have an advantage to do so. And I think a lot of the other platforms know that, which is why they kind of try to pivot in and out. And also try to acquire those users from Atlanta, those the talent, they're like, oh, let's pay them. Let's try to get them, you know, in the same way, but I think Fanbase just has a little bit more of an advantage. Dan Runcie 13:09 I hear that and thinking, too, about making sure that the talent gets paid fairly. I think that's been the underlying theme for so much of why you wanted to create this. There have been so many people that we've seen have become viral sensations, or creators who have a strong following, but being able to really tap into that in a meaningful way hasn't always worked. And in some cases, it's everyone else making money instead of them. I think you would have that story about the ghetto Spider-Man and how the person behind that had blown up, but he's the one calling you like, hey, what do I do? Like, is anything that can help here? And you think about that, and you just think about all of these creators, whether it's folks on TikTok, that are, like the guy that does the hands video, you know, he is, you know, one of the biggest creators, but he isn't anywhere on that Forbes list of the top creators. So I feel like you’ll be able to bridge that connection of, okay, there's clearly a market gap here and how we can have a platform that can close that and how big of an opportunity that is. Isaac Hayes III 14:13 It's an enormous opportunity. I think monetization for every user is the wave of the future. I keep saying it. I think that there isn't a person right now that isn't subscribed to at least one thing. And one subscription becomes more and more the common vernacular of how we engage with content. Social media is the last, you know, frontier that's left. You know, when you think about TV and film with Hulu, and Netflix, and Disney+, and music with Spotify and Apple Music, and print media with Forbes, and The New York Times, and Billboard, and then productivity software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft Word. Like, you don't... You're subscribed to something. You're probably subscribed to an app on your phone that allows you to edit your photos. And so subscriptions are just the language. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward. And so I think that's going to be the language of the future moving forward. And it just, it gives everybody a chance to make money as opposed to the people that the apps highlight to be most successful, because they're the best vehicles for ads to run in between their content. Think about that, like the larger audience on, the greater audience of a platform like Tiktok, since there's really only one kind of like channel. It's literally just a platform of short form video. So the wider audience on their demographic on that platform is a white audience just based off of the United States. So therefore, it would behoove them to have bigger white stars to run ads to monetize that larger audience. So that's what they kind of have to focus on. So Fanbase doesn't worry about that. It doesn't matter who you are. Everybody can be a superstar on the platform. Dan Runcie 15:42 Yeah. And that piece about the subscriptions as well, it just, everyone having that and then seeing who can profit off of it. It also makes me think of an exchange you and I had had recently, we're talking about what's happening right now in the music industry and these catalog valuations, too. You had shared perspective that artists actually should not be selling their or publishing their catalogs, because how much room streaming has to grow. And you just look at some of the demographics on that. What's your take on it? And how much bigger do you think this market will get? Isaac Hayes III 16:18 Man, I think it'd be massive. Like I said, at the time, last year was 400, I think it was 450 million people were on music streaming services this year, it's like 525. It's jumped up. That's like, you know, almost like 7 to 9% of all the people with the ability to have streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify on their phone, have them over the next decade by 2030, I think it'll be close to a billion people, so that, that'll be almost a little over double what is available. So imagine and that's only that's only like 1 billion, it's less than a billion, not even a billion people a music streaming services, but there's 6.3 billion people on the planet with smartphones, you know, satellite Wi Fi, satellite internet is going to be something that is going to actually be more connected, as opposed to where wires can go. You know, satellites can go to provide people Internet, and then with video, like, there's like 222 million people on Netflix. And there's 6.3 billion people, the available market share is massive. So I mean, as big as a company is Netflix is, they don't even have, you know, they don't even have 7% of the market of available people that can get on their platform, it's more like three and a half. So think of the growth potential that Netflix can have or anybody that's providing subscriptions via content they can have. That's why we're focused on person-to-person subscription content, which I think will trump everything in the future. Dan Runcie 17:42 Yeah, it's interesting, because I think there's these two trends happening, because one of the reasons everyone's buying the catalogs is exactly what you said, people see the upside, were streaming's going n the other side, you're also seeing, whether it's Netflix or Spotify, the rapid growth that they may have had once starting to slow down a little bit. So you do think about, yes, you know, a service like Facebook, if we think of that as being like the most ubiquitous thing out there, you know, several billion people on it, but it's also because it's free, right? So it's like, there's some number of what are the total number of people that will be willing to pay $999 in the US for music streaming service, or whatever that price difference may be in their respective place. We still haven't gotten there yet. And I'm curious, you know what that actual number will be. And it's just so hard to know, because I think some people think it's going to be a lot higher. And there's other people that think that we’re close to that peak. So who knows. Isaac Hayes III 18:38 I don't think we're anywhere near the peak because it's the nature, the market will grow as the youth grow. And so as kids are more like, kids are trained and kind of use to subscriptions, and virtual currency, and app purchases, it's that they've known that their whole lives. I remember when I was first discussing building Fanbase, I spoke to someone that was in their 30s, they were like, I'd never subscribed to another person, right? Why would I do that.? And then I was in the Apple Store, and I just randomly asked this 20, I think the young lady was probably like, 21 years old. I think I asked how old she was. She says I'm 21, I was like, if you could subscribe or what her favorite group was, and my first inclination that she was going to name a very famous artist, and she named an indie band, right? What's your favorite artists? I bet you're gonna name somebody like, you know, Ariana Grande. I said, if you could subscribe to that person for $3.99 a month, that band for $3.99 a month, and they would post videos and they were working on their album or exclusive photos and stuff like that.Maybe, they might let you buy, you know, tickets to their show before anybody else, would you do that? And her answer was like, fuck yeah, $3.99. And I'm like, that's when I was, okay, I gotta do this because they don't care. There was, I remember, there were legions of people that swore they wanted to own a mp3. And I'm like, man, it's $10 a month to listen to everything that's ever been created. Only your mp3 is out of here. That's a done deal. So I think the market will go as the youth decide. And the youth are showing their propensity to spend, or virtually, you know, their Cashapp and Venmo and PayPal, their NFT's, their crypto, they're all in that space. So I think it's going to actually explode way beyond what it is now. Dan Runcie 20:13 Yeah, that's a good point. The other thing, too, is that there are just so many other services beyond the digital streaming providers that are offering some type of music experience that's going to drive up the platform, right? Like it doesn't always have to be streaming. It can be in app purchases, the same way that, you know, these kids go wild about V-bucks or whatever it is in these games, it's going to be the same thing there. As more and more of these companies getting music licensing, like, we're going to see that continue to happen. So it'll be interesting. Isaac Hayes III 20:42 I'm telling you... I'm spending money on Call of Duty to make my gun cooler or wear cooler outfit. Kids are going to spend money to have access to shoes before anybody else can, tickets before anybody else can, experiences that no one else can have for, you know, small amounts of prices, and that give them exclusivity and clout and bragging rights. Trust me, I know exactly what's going to happen. Dan Runcie 21:07 Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Let's talk more about today's sponsor Intercept Music. The company is on a mission to empower independent artists everywhere. This is a tale as old as time. Artists and labels have often had to choose between their creative freedom and autonomy and access to marketing and distribution that would catapult their careers. Well, that's no longer the choice, especially today, people can have both and Intercept is one of the companies making that happen. It offers a fully managed advertising and promotional service allows you to distribute your music and you have the opportunity to sell merchandise through its branded online stores. This is your one-stop shop to manage your career and take it to that next level. As an artist or label, Intercept can help you unshackle your monetization opportunities and, as Method Man said himself, you can use this platform and keep 100% of your shit. To learn more, go to interceptmusic.com and learn how this company is helping independent artists like you take their careers to the next level. You mentioned Call of Duty for yourself. Are there any other personal areas that you've been personally where, you know, attracted to, whether it's a single game or a solo thing where, you know, a majority of your attention has gone to? Isaac Hayes III 22:23 Just call... I only play one game, Call of Duty. I've been playing Call of Duty for like 12 years, I like content. So I used to fly drones, like, all the time. Like, not just for the fun of flying, but the fun of capturing the actual content and creating content. But other than that, I mean... Social media is like, it's a passion of mine because I liked the connectivity. And I liked the potential. I liked the potential of being disruptive. And where we can create unique experiences via technology. That's one thing I love about technology, technology doesn't give my brain like a limit. I have conversations with my CTO and say, hey, you know, can we do this? And he's like, the question is not if we can do it, it's just how long it'll take us to do it. How many man hours? Well, we could do it. And that's the greatest feeling to have, like, can we make this do this and just do this? He's like, yeah, we could do that. But and so having like, your imagination not being limited. Only the, only limitation is your resources like man hours, and manpower, and funds. And cool. Like, I understand that part. So don't you know, don't give me $100 million dollars, move out of the way. You know, no, don't let me raise $100 million. You want to see an app, like be fly than anything you've ever seen? Fanbase is phenomenal. And we raised $6 million. Imagine what we do, and we raised 60, 600 million, it's gonna be phenomenal. That's why I'm excited. I'm like, oh, it's gonna be go time for sure. Dan Runcie 23:40 So what does the future fundraising timeline look like for you? Where do you think you'll raise again? And how big do you think that'll be? Isaac Hayes III 23:46 I mean, we've been getting calls, which is kind of curious, because I guess the A&R of what a VC is, their version of A&R has been starting to reach out because they see Fanbase making waves and so now, it's not me going to VCs, but it's VCs coming to us, which is better. So I feel we still have a lot of work to do in a short period of time. But I would like to raise a significant series, a somewhere, you know, in the eight figure range, really to get us, you know, in eight figure range to really get us where we need to be because there's so much involved with data and streaming and music licensing. And so these platforms have to be funded to scale and so we're gonna need it. You know, I love the notion of being able to continue to raise equity crowdfunding with people, and I think I'll find ways to continue to do that. But you also... VCs also serve a very good purpose of their knowledge, their relationships, their experience. So I'm not opposed to them. I'm just sometimes primarily opposed to the terms. So now we can have conversations that are different than that. I'm not opposed to the VCs, I'm just opposed to the terms. So sometimes we just have to work better and making sure we get fair terms by doing things on our own. Dan Runcie 24:54 And I think the fact that you're at the place you're at now gives you the leverage to do that, right? I think one of the reasons that the unfair terms happen more often is because the founder or the founders don't come from that place of leverage. They're more so looking for the help just from being able to be sustainable, to keep the lights on and all those things, you have that piece of it checked off, given what you've been able to do with the money you've been able to raise. So it's more so, hey, we're trying to go a bit faster. We're trying to do this, this, and this, if you want to be in it would be great. But if you don't, there's other people knocking at the door who can make this happen. Isaac Hayes III 25:32 Yeah, I mean, writing your own path, you know, coming from the music business, I look at like, I look at percentages, so I'm on a platform called PitchBook, where I can see like, how much equity was given up for what percentage and I'm like, what, gave up what, for 39% of the company, and like, hell, oh, no, you can't do that. Because you have to be strategic. And I know, sometimes we want to get our product to market so bad. And we want it, we feel that once we get there, doesn't matter if I gave him this much, it's gonna be successful, I'm gonna be able to do this, but you have to be conservative with equity, you can't be selfish. At the same time, people have got to invest money, they're gonna want significant portions of your company. But I think the more work you do improving your model on your own, the more advantageous you are as a part of the VCs, because now you can work together. I love my team, my team is brilliant, they're smarter than I am, I'm just a big idea guy that want to make sure, wants to make sure that the colors look good, and the energy is right. And then the rest is up for us to really, you know, structure this business. So I like writing our ticket that way by being independent, as I like to say. Dan Runcie 26:34 So how big is the team now? And how big do you think it'll be end of this year? Isaac Hayes III 26:38 So right now we have a team of 25 developers, and probably 15 other personnel or 40. But I think our development team would probably be 150, given a significant raise, and probably our executive team probably go from like, 15 to 30 people. So it would grow. I mean, you know, and that's with everything, running it, you know, at best case, you know, if I had it my way, because we can build faster and more simultaneous functionality. And then I love you know, being able to pay really smart people to make Fanbase do amazing things and in the right amount of time. So I'm looking forward to that though, we have a game plan to really scale up to a million users by June, it's two months. It's two months, as you know, it's April, you know, saying April 8, so we don't have that much time. But I'm looking forward to the grind. Dan Runcie 27:30 And I also got to imagine that the Atlanta community and culture ecosystem you're around has and will continue to have so much of an impact on you. Can you talk about how beneficial it's been from that perspective? I know y'all got The Gathering Spot, and you have so many other execs there. How important has that collective been? Isaac Hayes III 27:51 It's been invaluable, because the first conversations that I had about building a startup social media platform happened at The Gathering Spot, they were members that were in the tech space that I looked at as mentors, their names are Jewel Burks, Barry Gibbons, and Justin Dawkins. They are all accomplished tech professionals in their own right, and the fact that I could sit right next to them, like a kid, you know, being able to talk to like, talk to Michael Jordan or whoever be like, yo, how do you do this? How do you do that? How are you able to do these things, and then lending their ear and lending their voice and their information to me is invaluable. I think that was really, you know, the essence of community and Atlanta, especially in the black tech space. They're just tons of brilliant people and I've met met at those spaces, but those three individuals were like instrumental in helping me shape Fanbase to the company because they told me you know, why it's important that you have a CTO that has a stake in the in your company, why is important, like what your deck must look like, why you know, when it's a raise, how you scale, all these things that you have to bring together. And so that's the dope part about it. So the Atlanta communities are invaluable in that fashion. We're all like, there's no ceiling of what you can achieve in a city like Atlanta with black leadership. I was just telling you, I just saw a clip today about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being able to be elected to the Supreme Court, Symone Sanders said, if you didn't elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia, that would have never happened, he wouldn't have had the votes or the leverage to do so. And so a political community that's aware, that's African American that understands how politics play in the ability for you to scale your business and city like Atlanta is invaluable. That's the probably, the biggest asset to being anybody in the city is, is probably that there's a political foundation that has been built on for over 60 years that kind of gives people the energy and the confidence to try things that no other people would try. Like Tyler Perry saying, I'm gonna build a movie studio, like L.A. & Babyface, and we're gonna bring a record company to the city, like someone like The Gathering Spot, or Pinky Cole with Slutty Vegan, or Tracey Pickett with Hairbrella. Like all these amazing startups that are coming out of Atlanta, Georgia, and have come out of Atlanta, Georgia. So it's a place for you to dream and excel. Dan Runcie 30:02 It really is. It's remarkable just to see how much of it stems in. I think so many of you as well have roots in music and how I think that has been the core of what you all have been able to do and achieve. And it makes me think a lot about where your inspiration for why this is so important to you came from. You would obviously seen your dad's experience in the music industry and some of the challenges he had had with unfair contracts and things like that. Can you talk a bit about how that through line was for you in terms of the influence and seeing that inspire where you want to be the most impactful and how that shapes Fanbase? Isaac Hayes III 30:39 Yeah, so I mean, as a kid, getting into the music industry, the first thing I learned, before I learned about music notes, I learned about music publishing, and it's just because that's what your family's gonna tell you is like, look, all this creative stuff is great, but know your business, right? Because you can get taken advantage of, don't get caught up in it. It's a joy, like creating music, being a creator is the best feeling in the world, making songs that people want to dance to, and that are part of their lives. And never forget, if you don't have that business, it's going to be something that you're going to wind up having a bitter taste in your mouth about because you've created all this great music, but do you really benefit from it, people that exploit you. So content ownership, ownership of your content, exploiting your content to your benefit has always been something that's been in the back of my mind. So that's why I say I've approached tech with a music industry mindset and nothing gets grimier than in the music business. So like I said, you know, tech is nothing compared to, like, the record business. So if you can handle a record business, you can handle tech, because the deals are what the deals are. The deals are straightforward, you know, the music history just makes up their rules. And so I had a great teacher and my father and my mom who just taught me about the business. So I think that helps a lot. It gave me, it gave me quite a bit of perspective of why artists deserve to get paid more for the content they create. And that's any user on social media. Those are the people that are making these dances go viral. Also the people that are being funny, those are people that are bringing really great thought-provoking content that gets you thinking, get you inspired, get you to vote, get you to, you know, to protest. So we have to, you know, make sure that those people have an opportunity to really make sure that they monetize their energy in that way. Dan Runcie 32:16 Definitely, and I hear you on how the music industry, there's so there could be so much lack of clarity on these things. I know one of the things that you've also been pushing towards is to get the music rights back from your dad's music. How has that process been? And where are things right now with that? Isaac Hayes III 32:34 So it's just a matter of time. I mean, the good thing about Copyright Law is they expire, they return to the original authors. And so we're just in the process right now of terminating so much as a case publishing, we've terminated all the songs that he wrote from 1963, all the way up to 1968 into going into 69. So there's, you know, his entire songwriting catalog as a songwriter we haven't even gotten to the Isaac Hayes era, but we've terminated you know, one of his biggest works was a song called Hold On, I'm Comin' that he wrote for Sam & Dave that gets used at commercials all the time. So that process is moving along, you know, very steadily and now there's new opportunities and new deals for my family, or equitable opportunities, and the ownership is ours. So it's a great spot to be in right now. Dan Runcie 33:19 That's good to hear. I mean, because we've definitely know how tough it can be especially on your side, whether you're an estate manager or you're just more broadly trying to get it back for the sake of your family or loved one so that's good to hear. And on the estate side of it, I know you do manage that. Definitely heard a number of stories of different people that have managed estates over the years, both the good that comes from it, but also some of the challenges as well. Can you talk a little bit about how your experience has been on that front? Isaac Hayes III 33:48 I mean, well, I was looking at it,I look at a brand, it’s like a hot air balloon. And so the higher the balloon goes, the more people see it. So it's a job I'm going to stay to get that balloon as high as possible before you try to do things so people say well, how come there hasn't been a you know, a movie on your father I was like, well, there's more work the balloon gotta get a little higher. We got to, people got to see a brand and build it. So it's been tough because I think a couple things like icons, black icons are not always held to the same standard or represented in media the way that white icons are. And what I mean by that and that's the job above actually the black community to uplift its own icons to do so. And when I tell people all the time I said, look, you go to the grocery store, and you can practice this exercise, you can go, you can go to the grocery store, and you're always going to see one of four people in a magazine at all times. You're going to see John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Elvis Presley, or Babe Ruth, at any time. And all of those guys have been dead for quite a long time, but they never let you forget their icons. They never let you forget Audrey Hepburn, they never let you forget Marilyn Monroe, they keep their legacy and their icons immortalized by continuing to push them and elevate them through media. Now in black culture, we typically do that for a period of time, but you don't typically see Dorothy Dandridge, or Sammy Davis Jr., or James Brown, or Martin Luther King, or people on covers of magazines just cause right, it's usually in some drama that, you know, some tabloid is trying to bring back up, but just for the sake of doing an amazing pictorial on, you know, Ray Charles, and to let that continue to uplift his legacy. That doesn't happen that often. So we have to take better care of our black icons, and continue to uplift them in media to do so. Dan Runcie 35:32 That's a good point about the same faces you already see in the magazines, or you go to the grocery store. I think all the names you mentioned are the ones that you often see. On the movie point, though, I do hope that we do get in Isaac Hayes movie, at some point. I know you're saying that, you know, these days, you got to wait for the bubble to get a little bit bigger. But it's one of those things we're in this moment now where you're seeing, I'm sure you've seen it, too, so many music documented, whether it's documentaries, or the bio pics themselves, and some of them are a lot better than others. But you still know that they all had a ton of money poured into them. So hopefully, while this run is going on, that bubble can meet and the stars can align to make something like that happen. Isaac Hayes III 36:14 I think so. I mean, we definitely have a documentary that must be told before feature film, I think a biographical nonfiction version of what really happened and what my dad's life was really like is a story that I think should be told first, and then we could dramaticize that and infantilize that in a way that I think brings young people and old people together. And I have that in my mind of how we merge all these genres together, these generations together to really tell the story of Isaac Hayes because I think he's probably the most relatable icon to the current generation of any icon that's passed away, by the way that he looked, by the way the type of music he created because I'm like, it's like, there's not too many people that still wear clothes like Michael Jackson, or wear their hair like James Brown, but there's several black men with bald heads and beards and sunglasses still in 2022. So the relatability is there. And then in terms of evergreen music, it's just like people continue to sample him to make new records. So I think he has the most connectable thread to the youth coming from his generation to now so we're definitely going to capitalize on that, expand more on that in 2022 and 2023. Dan Runcie 37:32 Who would you want to play him in a biopic? Isaac Hayes III 37:27 Ah, I've said this before. Just off first glance to the surface is probably Jonathan Majors, right? I like Jonathan Majors. Jonathan Majors is a phenomenal actor. I looked at him, I said he could play him. But then there's like, you know, you never know. I mean, there's always this sea of amazing, you know, talent out there, especially from people... I always get trouble in saying it but let me tell you something, the UK Brits, the Brits got those actors. Like they come from places like, I'm like, most of the shows I've watched on TV, the actors are British, like what? Like Snowfall? Like All American? The Walking Dead? It's like, yeah, those are the guys that you wouldn't know. They're so good at what they do. You would have never thought that but they're so classically trained. And then there's some, you know, amazing actors in the States as well. But you know, even Daniel Kaluuya. I'm like, oh, man, all these dudes? Brits be crushing it. So who knows, though, but Jonathan majors is an amazing actor. And I think he could do a great job portraying Isaac Hayes. Dan Runcie 38:24 He's a good one. I'm excited to see what he does at this Creed movie coming up. And the range is there, you saw his Marvel thing, and I've done of course, Last Black Man in San Francisco. He's so good. Isaac Hayes III 38:35 Yeah, I'm like, What's he gonna do a Ceed? I'm like, okay, what's going on? Like Creed 3? That's gonna be a good one right there. Dan Runcie 38:41 I know. I know. Yeah. Isaac Hayes III 38:41 It's going to be interesting. Dan Runcie 38:42 That will be good. Isaac Hayes III 38:42 Yeah. Dan Runcie 38:43 Daniel Kaluuya, of course, I think he's one of the best under 40 actors. I mean, period. He's one of the best folks under 40 we got right now. So I mean, obviously, what he did with Fred Hampton was amazing. So I think he would be legit, but it's good that you brought up the British piece because it's one of these things where we both know, if that happened, people would be you know, all up in arms like they are about a lot of black British folks that play American actors, thought or based off of American icons. But it's like you yourself as the person representing the estate in the family is like no, I would endorse this based on what you're seeing. We know how that conversation would go. Isaac Hayes III 39:24 Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, I think again, like I said, Jonathan Majors was the first in mind that I had. And again, you never know who's out there by way, like, even like I watched it just by actors in general. I watch Winning Time, the story about the Lakers and the guy that plays Magic Johnson, they just found him like, Dan Runcie 39:37 He's so good. Isaac Hayes III 39:40 He's so perfect for the role. That's what I'm saying. Like there's always the right person for the role, it's out there. You got to find them. But it’s just like I said, I don't think he's, he hadn't been in anything, I think, a lot of stuff. I don't think he'd done a lot of stuff. But they were like, it's this guy in California, like, give them a go. See, when we came in the room, he smiled. It did that. Like, it's Magic Johnson. He's killing it. So yeah, you always know that and I think, and also, here's another dream of mine, though, is I do want another Shaft film. I want another Shaft film with a modern Shaft, right? I want a modern, you know, modern day Shaft and the person that I think that should play that is Mahershala. Ali. I would love to see Mahershala Ali as a new Shaft do that. I know he's about to be Blade, his plate is full. So but again, yeah, I think Shaft go modernize is something else to do, such a big part of my dad's career. So and I think there will always be an appetite to have a black, you know, superhero in the sense of saying, a person that stood up for his community and fought crime and as a stand up black man. So I think there's always the ability to do that, too. Dan Runcie 40:41 Oh, yeah, I think he would be great at that type of role. And I think that Blade definitely gives you some of that imagery of, you know, the black trench coat and everything. And the whole vibe, too. But yeah, I think that'll be good. Isaac Hayes III 40:53 Sure. Dan Runcie 40:53 Even what artists would, you know, cover the version that your dad did, and you know, with that, I mean, thinking about that, too, for the song perspective? Isaac Hayes III 41:03 Yeah, we have a lot of unreleased, I have a lot of unreleased Isaac Hayes music that was recorded around the same time. And trust me, it's some Shaft D stuff in there, some stuff. Like I've been holding on to it for years now. Like I think I transferred those masters in 2014. For eight years, I haven't even really let some of that stuff. Like I said, they won't call about another Shaft at some point. And I'm gonna be ready. I'm gonna be ready to let people check it out. Dan Runcie 41:25 Oh, yeah. You know, the call is coming soon, especially the way that content works right now, the call's coming soon. Isaac Hayes III 41:30 Absolutely. Dan Runcie 41:31 Well, Isaac, this has been great. It's been great to chat, hear more about Fanbase, hear about some of the other things you're working on with regards to the estate. But before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to plug or let the Trapital audience know about? Isaac Hayes III 41:45 Of course, to download Fanbase, we have a new version of audio, we have audio chat rooms that are monetized. So a new version of audio is coming in, like, probably, like a couple of weeks, we have our version of TikTok and Reels called Flicks so you can make short form video. And we have stories that are for followers and subscribers. So you can put your stories behind a subscription paywall as well. And I think that's something that's amazing, too. baseLike I said, monetizing content for everybody is just something that I think the world is gonna be all immersive in in the future, say right now is that kind of that friction point where it's like, is it really going to be a thing? And people are going to resist it at first, but once it becomes part of the norm the same way with all these other media verticals, our social media is just a next vertical for subscription. Dan Runcie 42:46 Definitely, we see where it's all heading right. 10 years ago, people thought it was gonna be crazy, like, oh, you're gonna pay people at social media to do posts and now influencers do it on the regular. It's just a matter of timing, platform, and everything. And I feel like you got the right mix. Isaac Hayes III 42:40 Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Dan Runcie 42:42 Thanks, Isaac. This is great. Appreciate it. If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 31 May 2024 | Why Top Artists Stick with Major Labels | 00:27:59 | |
The biggest stars in the world, like Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake, have all the leverage to go independent, but they continue to work with the major labels. A big reason why is that they sign licensing deals. These deals have shifted over time, and become much more artists friendly, especially for the superstars in the streaming era. We break down the different types of deals, how they’ve shifted over time, and unique case studies like Brent Faiyaz, Kanye West, and more. I’m joined by Brian “Z” Zisook from Audiomack, who is a wealth of knowledge on this topic. This episode is brought to you by EVEN. Buy the art from the artist. Learn more at https://get.even.biz/trapital This episode is also brought to you by SymphonyOS, the marketing platform for today’s creative businesses. Learn more at https://symphony.to/trapital Make sure you listen for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week! | |||
| 08 Dec 2022 | Turnover at Motown, Berner's Billion-Dollar Weed Business, and Hip-Hop's Wealthiest of 2022 | 00:55:03 | |
This episode is a two-parter. At the top, I talk about the news at Motown Records with Ethiopia Habtemariam stepping down from her role as CEO and Chairwoman. After that, I talked to Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Hip-Hop’s wealthiest artists of 2022. After years of compiling the list for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg released the 2022 edition independently. This time around, he used insights from Columbia Business School to better grasp on the wealth of the industry’s biggest moguls. Jay-Z tops the updated list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. In second is the newly-minted billionaire Sean “Diddy” Combs. The rankings are rounded out by Ye ($500 million), Berner ($410 million), and Dr. Dre ($400 million). Zack joined me on the episode to discuss the rankings, and two artists in particular — Diddy and Berner. Diddy has a portfolio of diversified assets that include media, music, spirits, and now cannabis. Berner is the biggest surprise of the top 5 but has quietly built a cannabis empire with a large runway for further growth. Here’s everything Zack and I covered on the show: [13:56] Zack’s process behind putting the list together [15:40] The newest billionaire on the list [16:41] The growth of Diddy’s DeLeon tequila brand [29:02] Sean John’s place in Diddy’s portfolio [30:28] Diddy’s latest moves in cannabis and possibly Twitter [32:45] The evolving business of REVOLT [36:19] Berner’s “surprise” $410 million net worth [31:50] High potential for Berner’s business [34:52] Berner’s business success supersedes his music fame [39:50] Drake moving up the ranks [43:50] Girl Dad stories Zack’s Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists list for 2022: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/hip-hops-wealthiest-artists-2022 Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:23] Dan Runcie: Hey, today's episode is a two parter. The first part of the episode, we're gonna do a breakdown on one of the more recent news that happened in the music industry. Motown Records CEO and Chairwoman Ethiopia Habtemariam has stepped down and there is a lot to unpack there. So we're gonna talk about that. And in the second half of this episode, we're joined by my guy Zack O'Malley Greenburg, and we are gonna talk about the recent list that he put out, which is his hip hop's 2022 list for the wealthiest artist. He has some new announcements, some usual names, and we break it all down. But first, let's start with the news at Motown. So it was last week, shortly after Thanksgiving. Ethiopia and Universal, and Motown announced that she will be stepping down from her role. This is a role that she has officially had at this level for just over a year and a half. I think it was March, 2021 that the role was announced, but she's essentially been the face of Motown from a leadership perspective for over a decade now and when the move happened, I think that there were a fair amount of people I could understand that could have been caught off guard by it. But when I start asking around, asking a few people questions who I know understand the situation pretty well, it's quick to see that what's being pushed publicly isn't quite reflecting what's actually happening behind closed doors. But before we get to all that, let's talk about some of the wins that I think Motown and Ethiopia have accomplished over the past decade, because I think these stand out and they're really important. I look at the 2015 joint venture deal that she did with quality control music, as one of those deals that can ultimately help bring a record label from its days of resting on its laurels to being able to get a bit more current. We've seen this happen time and time again. You look at Interscope in the early nineties. Interscope was a legacy rock and roll label. Jimmy Iovine was trying to figure out the next thing and then boom. Here comes Suge Knight. Here comes Dr. Dre and Death Row records comes through. Not only does Death Row continue to rise up with the supportive Interscope, but you also see Interscope adopt a bit of that cool factor and really revive itself, and now Interscope is continuing to be one of the strongest record labels that we have. You also saw that a few years later happened with Republic records and with cash money signs. The deal that I've talked about plenty of times on this podcast, that 1998 distribution deal and that deal did a lot for Baby and Slim, but it arguably did even more for Republic Records, which now I believe it's in its fourth year in a row, the leading industry or the leading record label in the industry when it comes to overall market share. And I do think that what quality control and Motown were able to do, do deserve some similar praise. But the slight difference here is that Motown for a lot of its time and even more so as we continue to learn, was saddled under the Capitol Music Group umbrella and didn't really have the opportunity to standalone as a true record label that could run on its own and be a standalone entity. The same way that we see with Interscope, the same way that you see with Republic. And some of the other record labels that are under the Universal Music Group umbrella. When the news first announced though, there wasn't as much chatter about Ethiopia's departure. You think about the times that Def Jam has turned over CEOs. There are think pieces on think piece. You can't get people to stop talking and sharing their opinions, and some of them on base, but people sharing their opinions about what Def Jam did and didn't do wrong, but there wasn't as much here. You saw a little bit in piece that Gail Mitchell at Billboard had done where I think she did a good breakdown. You could definitely read between the lines a little bit of some of the things that necessarily weren't being said, but what I think we started to unpack and what we started to get a sense for was, even though Motown had increased its market share considerably under Ethiopia's tenure, I believe back in 2017, it was around 0.4%. And as of most recently from what Billboard reported in 2022, it's at 0.95%. And that's great, more than double. And you think about how much more recorded music has grown from 2017 to 2022 now as well, that's a pretty huge growth and that's nothing to shy away from. The thing is, record label executives and the music industry aren't just judged on market share. You're judged on how efficient you are with what you do to acquire that market share. You're also judged on your ability to score deals and your ability to do it in a way that's efficient. Everyone still has a PNL at the end of the day. But I think the slight difference for some of these companies is that because they sit under the Universal Music Group umbrella, you may not necessarily know what's really happening unless you have a really discerning eye and you can put two and two together. And if you look at some of the moves that Motown has made over the years, there have been a number of big signings. But have those big signings always necessarily led to the type of results? You know, someone like Universal CEO, Lucian Green wants to see from a record label that now would be standing alone and no longer under the Capitol Music Group umbrella. You look at an artist like Lil Baby, who you know, through quality control, is part of that Motown collective. But, you needed a few more artists at that level and you needed to get them at affordable rates. And I think the biggest win that we saw from Motown in recent years was they recently signed NBA Young Boy. This is about a year after he started working with his record label, but how much did it cost to get NBA Young Boy? He had just posted on Instagram, this is two months before this deal was made public. He had just posted on Instagram, this was in August, 2022, that he was a 60 million dollar dude. You're saying you're a 60 million dude. A lot of people thought that was a cash money deal. They thought that was probably what Baby and Slim offered, but you later find out that this is what was coming from Motown, and I don't know if that's the number or not, but you can just assume a few things. One, NBA Young Boy was someone that just got out of his deal at Atlantic Records and he's getting out of his deal. This is the second most streamed artist according to HITS Daily Double for year to date for 2022. But as we also know about streams, not all streams are necessarily weighted the same, and those YouTube streams may not necessarily lead to the same payouts that you may get from the digital streaming providers. Your Spotify, your Apple music, your titles, your Amazon, and so forth. So you have that. You also mix that in with NBA Young Boy's audience isn't necessarily the type to go buy up a bunch of vinyl. They're not the type to go buy up a bunch of digital copies or then necessarily sell out an arena. And it's great that he has those streams, but he has those streams because he is dropping an album every other month. It's not the same as Columbia having a big release from Harry Styles and then monetizing the shit out of that. Or Kendrick Lamar having a big release on Interscope, and then that continues to do numbers and numbers. It's not the same type of thing in that way. So I think, even if you were able to win a bidding war, which is great, obviously a number of labels would've wanted to get NBA Young Boy. There's a certain price to everything, and even though we may not know the specific details, we can put two and two together. There are also a few other recent signings that could be called a bit into question. There were signings of Diddy and Brandy, and these are names that I think a lot of people, especially millennials and Gen X folks grew up with, and they're gonna be people who have done quite a bit in the music industry, but they're at a different stage in their career. They're hot. Their years of earning meaningful revenue for a record label aren't necessarily where they are at this particular point in their careers. That's okay. But does the price that was paid to get them, justify that. And I think there's kind of an unsaid thing where if you're signing someone who is already well off, they are likely doing this for their own choice, then it may cost a little bit more than an equivalent artist who could produce just as much from a revenue side as what you may expect from Diddy or Brandy moving forward if they don't have that name and that cache. And to be frank, the stability to not do a deal unless it's gonna be lucrative enough for them. And then you also have artists like Smino and Vince Staples who are talented at rap, and they definitely had the moment where you thought things were rising up, but they don't move units like that. And then it brings you back to the broader piece of what's happening, specifically with the JV, with quality control music. And I think that you've seen a lot of success there. Little Baby is one of the most successful artists that we've seen, but I think you just needed a few more artists, even Migos. I think that Migos in some ways from a commercial standpoint, peaked with that first culture album that came out. Culture two wasn't able to hit the same heights and Culture three definitely wasn't either. None of the solo artists were necessarily able to do that, and unfortunately there was some, you know, conflict between the Migos themselves. Takeoff is no longer with us. There's just a lot that just didn't exactly line up. It's really tough, and it's even tough to share it this way because I think one of the reasons you didn't hear a lot of chatter and discussion about this is a lot of people really wanted to see Ethiopia succeed, myself included. We wanna be able to see these black executives continue to reach the highest ranks that they can because we also wanna be able to see the same, whether it's toon feat at Def Jam or other. But the way that things are presented externally and this effort to necessarily hide things may have you thinking that these executives have more control and influence than they actually do. And they weren't necessarily given the same level of influence or control that John Janick may get at Interscope or that the Lipmans may have at Republic. So we really have to be honest when we're reporting these things and what we're showing and what we're not, because it does a disservice not only to the industry about, you know, trying to hide these things because listen. This is a place where there's plenty of people that are talented. People learn from where they can come through and it doesn't, and it isn't gonna hurt people the way that you think that it is. And one of the reasons that these things often can be controlled this way, the music's industry's PR machine can be so strong and it can have you having this, you know, Misconceived perception, and while I think insiders do know, there's a lot of folks who are on the outside that will eventually rise to those ranks who just don't necessarily have a clear picture. And anytime that there's that big of a delta, that's how information just doesn't necessarily get itself to the right people at once. And we wanna make sure that we're doing everything we can to empower the folks in the next generation. And I know a lot of this is swimming uphill. This is an industry that is controlled by a lot of lawyers, and it's an industry that really thrives on the PR of how things spin, but been behind closed doors. It's a very different situation. In some ways it's almost a stark difference to something like tech where so much of the drama and decisions that happen within big tech are happening. You know, out in the open you could see things and while some of that, you know, can be to a fault, I do think it leads in some ways to some better discussions around what success can look like and what opportunities can look like. So I hope we can all use this as a reminder to make sure that we're being transparent as we can. When we call things out, it helps more. Think and be able to have the right discussions about what success looks like, and the more that we can report on what success benchmarks actually are, so that you're not just relying on an imperfect key performance indicator like market share, and you're actually reporting on. Efficiency. It's great that someone landed a deal, but how much should it cost to get that artist assigned? And will that payout turn out the way that you think that it is? And at the end of the day, this is about PNLs. Are you bringing in enough profit to offset any of the loss? And is there future belief and potential in your ability to get the buy in, do it in an efficient way, and keep driving the business? Quite the buzz after Thanksgiving. We'll see what the rest of the year brings. I think things will be pretty quiet until things head into January. But with that, let's turn things over to the next part of the episode. Here's my conversation with Zach O'Malley Greenberg about the wealthiest hip hop artists in 2022. [00:13:06] Dan Runcie: All right. We have Zach O'Malley Greenberg back with us, who recently released Hip Hop's wealthiest List for 2020. Your second year doing this independently, by the way. So shout outs to you on that. And it was great to see the results. We had some expectations, Jay-Z, number one, but there's two people I really wanna dive into with this conversation. Let me just run through the list first. So you have Jay-Z, number one, one and a half billion. Diddy to newly minted billionaire, 1 billion. You have third, Yey at five hundred million dollars. 4th, Berner, 410 million. And then we have Dr. Dre at 400 million. So let's start at the top. What was it like for you, not just releasing this independently, but being able to put it out and as you were putting it together, what were some of the stuff that stuck out to you? [00:13:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. You know, first of all, this list is probably the thing that I put the most effort into every year. At the end of the day, you see these numbers, you know, 1.5 billion, they get reported. And it was the same in my days at Forbes, as doing it independently. People take the number, everyone with it. And I think a lot of times people just assume it's like, ah, somebody's pulling them, out of wherever. But you know, I would say I put more time into those numbers, than I have put into some cover stories, you know, that are several pages long. So it's going through each of these, you know, these superstars and figuring out, you know, what's in their portfolio. What is each asset worth calling? People, you know, who have knowledge, whether it's, you know, within the camps of the stars themselves, or industry experts that are covering, you know, the booze business or the weed business or something like that. Finding ways of valuing these assets. And, you know, and I think the new thing for me, aside from doing it independently was, I've been taking courses at Columbia Business School this year. I'm part of a fellowship where I sort of do my first year of business, school light, and get to bounce around and learn some of these concepts that, you know, maybe, I didn't know before I got to sharpen them. And it's given me some new tools for looking at things like Diddy, Ciroc Partnership and, you know, ways to value things that are a little bit weird and not sort of like a run of the mill asset. So, yeah, you know, I mean I think the big takeaway, the big surprise is probably Berner being on the list, being ahead of Dr. Dre. Like you said, I think Diddy being a billionaire, finally, you know, Diddy would say that's not news. You know, you would say that he should be higher. I'm sure it's been really cool to take a look at it, you know, independently and with some of these new tools in my toolkit to come up with, I would say my most active list. [00:15:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. And I wanna talk about Diddy first because I feel like. That's the one. I'll be honest, the news there surprised me a bit, not because I didn't think that Diddy was a billionaire, but more so because of how his business is and how things are structured. And it made me wonder, okay, how much has changed? Because I knew that Ciroc was the main thing that he had, that was the one of the largest drivers of his net. But you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the sales had peaked around the mid 2010s and maybe there was a slight decline, but maybe, you might have more intel on that. And I know that revolt and I know that business there. And with Sean, Sean itself, I know he had sold it and bought it back. So I was a bit curious to see or maybe hear how much net worth changed as a result of something that had appreciated in value versus your calculations of how you'd be doing this now as opposed to maybe how you had done it years back? [00:16:41] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I think my methodology changed slightly. The breakdown isn't that much different. Ciroc is still the main component. You know, you could say safely, it's the slight majority of his 1 billion net worth. And it's a weird arrangement because he does not hold an equity stake. However, the deal is structured to emulate an equity stake because, you know, it wouldn't have worked as an equity stake cuz Ciroc is owned by Diageo, it's this giant public trade company. They couldn't really be like, Hey, here's, you know, a quarter of our company or something like that. There wasn't really anything to do with that. So it was more creating a framework around the Ciroc brand to function like an equity stake. So if Diageo were ever to sell Ciroc, Diddy would get, you know, let's say the proceeds after you back out the amount of money that Ciroc has put into the partnership. So, you know, it would be a lot. And there's no doubt that even if things have sort of flattened out a little, it's a multi-billion dollar brand. You know, I mean, if you look at something like Ketel One, you know, brands like that that have changed hands, you know, these are billion dollar brands and you know, Ciroc is I think number two behind Grey Goose. So it's up there. They're not gonna sell it, but if they did, you know, we're looking at a pretty big payday. So the question is how do you value something that isn't gonna get sold? And really, you know, you wanna really nerd out about it from sort of MBA type perspective. You know, thinking about valuing cash flow. That's, you know, one of the fundamentals of valuation in corporate finance and stuff like that. And, you know, there are formulas and without getting into like the, you know, sort of like more details of it where you can sort of enter assumptions into the formula and you can get a number. But basically what I did was I took the way I was doing it before I ran the numbers that way, and then I kind of did some pre cash analysis and kind of like average things out and any way you slice it, these Ciroc partnership is, you know, worth a little more than half of his, billion dollar valuation. The other things that, you know, I think perhaps I had been, you know, undercounted a little bit in the past or have appreciated. A lot since then, you know, revolt is still hanging around there. And that's another thing where the valuation could depend on you. Do you value it as, you know, sort of a, like a TV based entity, even though it's more digital? Do you value it as a news outlet? Do you value it as a tech startup? There are a bunch of different ways to look at it, but in any case, you know, he is the majority owner. Another thing that I think people sleep on is DeLeon tequila, that is really growing and he owns half of that. Actually. It's a 50-50 joint venture with the AIO and they're moving a hundred and something thousand cases a year now. Actually, you know, booze has done really well during the pandemic. You might imagine people, I don't know, I feel like we're back to, you know, some of our old ways of going out and doing things. People are drinking at home during the pandemic. So, you know, Ciroc and DeLeon didn't get hurt in the way that, let's say the live touring business did. So Diddy was pretty well slated there. And then you go through and he's got like a pretty immense art collection. He's got some real estate that's appreciated pretty rapidly over the past few years. You know, some of which he owns out, right? And, you know, you kind of add it all up. And, he's comfortably a billionaire. And yeah, I mean, if you notice like you know, some folks when they hit that status or when they make the list or something, we'll kind of like to tweet about it. But, you know, I don't think I saw anything from Diddy because, you know, he's thought that he's a billionaire for, you know, years already. And, you know, maybe he was, but now I, I definitely think that he is and, I would expect, you know, to see other, let's say mainstream business outlets follow suit in, you know, kind of acknowledging what's definitely the attitude. [00:20:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, appreciate the breakdown there and thinking about just like different categories there. If thinking about Ciroc itself, as you mentioned, maybe the sales flattened out a bit, but looking at revolts specifically, and I know that business has, you know, gone through some evolutions as well over the past few years, would it be safe to assume that the biggest valuation change here for Diddy's assets that maybe brought him to a billion is daily owned and some of the artwork in terms of like what's appreciated? If we assume that whether it's Ciroc or Revolt have flattened out a bit. Like would those be the ones you say that had put him over 1 billion? [00:21:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, you know, he was pretty close before, last time I did it before was, I think it was three years ago. I think he was at 740. You know, personally, you know, without getting too deep into it, I would've put 'em a little higher. But, you know, you get your files. I did. And that spar deal and you know, you gotta create a consensus. And I think, you know, and Forbes always says it, it would rather be conservative about valuations that it would rather understand an overstate, but you know, so that's part of it too. Yeah, I think there's definitely been an appreciation in the value of DeLeon the real estate, you know, there's a lot of startup stakes, and he's not doing it as, let's say publicly as, Nas or Jay-Z, but, you know, he definitely hops in as an angel in a lot of, a lot of startups that, that have done well. So, but, you know, yeah, I think DeLeon doesn't get the glory of Ciroc, but you know, it's a younger company. There's more room to grow. And not to be a shit, but it actually tastes really good. I've tasted other, you know, celebrity tequilas and they're not good, but it is a tasty booze, if I may say so myself. And I think the way that he launched it was that he found this sort of, you know, like a boutique brand that had already won some awards and then he kind of got in with Diageo and, and they boosted. To where it is now. So I really think that's probably like where you could see a lot more growth, if he's gonna start to try to challenge Jay-Z for that. [00:22:53] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that DLleon hasn't gotten that same amount of love that Ciroc has gotten, at least publicly? [00:23:00] Zack Greenburg: I think a lot of attention was focused on, you know, like Casamigos or some of the other really big brands and it hadn't quite gotten to that level with the same, you know, distribution and mind share. And, you know, frankly, I mean, I think Diddy has been devoting more energy to Ciroc, but you know, you're starting to see it, you know, it's a little bit less in your base kind of vibe with the brand. it's like more of a sipping thing, less of the shots at the club kind of thing. Although I'm sure, you know, you could sit either or do shots at either at the club. But I think it's just not around as much. I mean, I think the case volume on Ciroc is still like 10 times more than 10 times as high as DeLeon. So, you're just not gonna see it around as much. And I think that's why. [00:23:51] Dan Runcie: And the other thing too, that you mentioned is that DeLeon itself is actually a joint venture with Diageo, unlike Ciroc Partnership. So of course I know that the Ciroc partnership, now we're talking 15 plus years ago at this point when things kicked off and different positions, different leverage and relationships. So I wonder if the relationship is part of the reason why Diddy was able to have the type of ownership. Partnership with DeLeon that he may not have, at least in writing with Ciroc? [00:24:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think so. And I think that was part of his motivation, for how he structured DeLeon. He wanted to have that. Actual equity stake, you know, like ironclad 50-50 joint venture type thing, rather than an agreement that mimics a joint venture. So, you know, I think that the success of Ciroc definitely convinced Diageo like, all right,, we can do this with another brand. He's the guy. And, for my book, 3 Kings, I talked to some books over there and you know, I think I talked to the CEO at the time, and they couldn't have been more abusive about him. And of course, you know, like whatever, he's part of their team. Of course they're gonna say good things about him, but they were saying just like the attention to detail. Like he would, he would go to clubs and, you know, go to the bartender and be like, why is the Ciroc not on the top shelf? And what are you going to do? You're gonna be like, oh, sorry Mr. Coles gonna leave Joe here. You know, and they'll put it up on the top. I mean, it's sort of like a retail politics level of stuff. And you know, I always say that, that Diddy, you know, in a way, like you could argue. Who has had the most scheduled career and you know, who's the goat of, you know, on the business side. And you know, I think a lot of people would say Jay-Z, and they wouldn't be wrong. But, you know, I think Diddy in a way has done more with less because he hasn't been musically relevant in, you know, a really long time in that way. Still puts stuff out in whatever, but it's not like the anticipation that exists when Jay drops an album or even a verse on, you know, on a DJ Khaled song or something. And, you know, I always like to say that Diddy is kinda more like Richard Branson if he happened to just have had, you know, like a moment as like a big time rapper And you know, certainly as a producer, he's had ahead a lot of things. And not to diminish that, but he acknowledges himself. He says, I don't write rhymes, I write checks. And I think that's a strong student. I think it's especially impressive to see that he's done it without being particularly talented. [00:26:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think that, His true line of being able to sell a lifestyle is what sets him apart in a lot of ways. He did it with his music. I think in a lot of ways. Bad Boys modeled after so much of what he learned at Uptown, and then you're able to transfer that lifestyle to, okay, this is the music that you listen to now. This is what you wear while you wear Sean John. This is what you drink while you're listening to this, right? Mm-hmm, you're gonna drink and this is the media that you're gonna watch. Now with the cannabis line that he just bought, this is what you're gonna smoke while you're enjoying this lifestyle too. Mm-hmm. And I think that a lot of those businesses have had varying success and we can go into that, but I do think that the ones that have been the most successful, Ciroc, Sean and the music, there's that tight connection and there's a key timing aspect that goes into all of it. [00:27:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and it doesn't even need to be his music. Right? That is popular in order for the Ciroc Formula to work, it's the Ciroc Boys, it's DJ Khaled, Summer Watermelon, or whatever it is. You know, I think his ability to make those partnerships, to find other people you know, who are kind of doing now what he was doing then musically are, you know, I think that that's part of the formula and that's why it works so well. And you know, I mean, it's funny, like DJ Khaled, you know, something like Wild Thoughts was doing exactly what Diddy was doing a couple decades ago, right? He was taking a song from a couple decades, you know, one or two decades ago and putting, you know, some new voices, the modern voices on it. And it was a song that was great before and now it's got, you know, like more kind of a vibe to it and you know, goes off the chart, so I think Diddy is just very savvy with that kind of stuff, even if it's stuff. [00:28:31] Dan Runcie: Let's talk about Sean John for a bit, cause I'm curious how that factored into your methodology with everything, because as many people know, he started the brand over 20 years ago and well, in 2016 he sold the brand, then the brand was up in auction, and then he bought it for public number I saw was 7.6 million. So now he has that back as an asset. How did that piece of it factor in for you and just the journey overall of Sean? [00:29:02] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and not much now. You know, I mean, I think what factored in more was, sort of like his cash pile. Like he sold it for. Like, whatever it was five years ago, something like that. I think he got, he got 30 million out, 40 million, something like that, that he then put into other things. And uh, you know, obviously without him it doesn't do well. And so he went bankrupt and I think it's really smart for him to buy it back. You know, who knows what he might end up doing with this, but, I think there's just, you know, like a tremendous market for sort of like nineties nostalgia right now. You know, I think Sean John, or even a Rocawear, if they could have, I dunno, that's a little more complicated, but I think that, you know, if he's at the helm and his part as a lifestyle, Would never count him out. So, but yeah, as far as what it's worth right now, it's sort of more of a rounding error and overall number. But, you know, be interesting to see what comes. [00:30:04] Dan Runcie: And when you made your list around the same time, I believe that same week, there were two other announcements that came up. One was the cannabis company that he bought for, I believe it was 185 million. And the other one, I don't know if this one was a hundred percent confirmed, but did you see that thing floating around about him making an investment in Twitter along with Elon Musk's bid? [00:30:28] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, you know that was all after the numbers got finalized, so, you know, those weren't really factored into it. But you know, I mean, yeah, it all makes sense. It's all part of the lifestyle thing. It's all part of the Diddy empire, the Diddy MO, and you know, he's look, I mean, on the cannabis side, right? Like he's puff daddy, you know, like what are, what are you puffing? It's exactly, it makes sense. It's like part of the brand. And, you know, if he could do the same thing with cannabis leaders with vodka, Which is to say like, I mean, I don't know. I think when he started vodka was not, you know, it was not really seen as a stylish thing. It was more like, you do a shot to get drunk. I mean, I don't know, maybe that's physics. I was in college when that happened, and that's when, that's sort of the vibe on vodka. But he made it like the champagne of vodkas. He associated his lifestyle with it and similarly, I think with weed, it's like, you know, we're in this very nascent part of the canvas economy, you know, becoming legal and, and sort of how do you start to differentiate brands, you know, and when you have legalization you can have, you know, like. The champagne of weed, right? You can start to differentiate, you know, like what type of buzz you're gonna get because it's regulated and you can actually say like, this is the thing that has this much THC and it's gonna give you this kind of high, versus like, this is just gonna knock you on your ass. I think it's a great place for him to get into, but you know, at the same time it's like, It is a really hard place to do business still. And you know, it is not without risk. It, you know, because it is not federally legal yet. You have to do, you have to do most of your business in cash. You can't get loans in the same way, especially if you have a plant touching enterprise. You have to do all these, handle all these different state regulations, which are constantly changing and are subject to the whims of, you know, clinical races and you know, potentially gerrymandering, all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with Diddy. So, you know, I think that's the tricky part. And you know, also not being a first mover in the way that somebody like Berner is. But at the same time, it's like, you know, he fills a different niche in the mark potentially than Berner does. [00:32:45] Dan Runcie: And yeah, no, that'll be fascinating to watch. Yeah. I think the thing about Revolt is a great concept in the vision, of course. Makes sense. Seeing how influential Diddy was with MTV and whether it's the voter die shirts that he would wear or some of the other programming, he leveraged it so well as a hip hop artist. So if you know you have that impact, why wouldn't you wanna go start your own company and go do the same? Right. I think some of the timing just became a little tough in that he started the cable network in 2013. People are already starting to cut the cord at that point. And then I know the company's transitioned much more into digital media, but even that, given that so much of it is social media based, relying on other platforms and their algorithms, I think we saw so many of those companies in that same timeframe, even the ones that were perceived as being successful, whether it's your Buzzfeed or your Huffington Post or your Complex, like all of those valuations came back down to earth. And you look at a company like Revolt, which I think was largely playing the same game, although I think they still make tons of great content and there are tons of great, brilliant people working there. I think that the digital media itself and where things transformed was a bit tough. Like let's say that Diddy had started let's say 2007 as opposed to 2013, I think we'd be having a very different conversation, [00:34:03] Zack Greenburg: You know, or 1997 , you know, I mean, yeah. I think it could be a whole different conversation and, you know, yeah. That's one of the smaller pieces of the empire, and I think, like you would say, he would make a certain argument about it and, you know, valuing it more like on the line of being a tech company. But it's hard to escape the fact that it, you know, it still. I would say yeah, like primarily a media outlet point and whether it's, you know, via cable or the internet or whatever, it's like these are not, like, these are kind of tricky places to be, but you know, it does make sense. There is a demand for that kind of stuff and it's a crowded marketplace, but, you know, he does have something different to offer and, you know, I think that there's a reason why it's still around and, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it goes, how it proceeds as we enter like the next phase of this sort of media shake up in a amount of time. [00:35:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I think the other thing too, that I should have mentioned earlier is that given that this is a black owned media company, I know he's been vocal and Byron Allen and others have been vocal about advertisers not contributing the same level of money into black owned media companies that they would to, let's say, some of the Revolts competitors in the space that maybe started and run by white founders, white executives, but they're commanding more money from that perspective. So I think that's another tough thing there. But overall, like we said, this is a small piece of the overall pie. And yeah, it'd be interesting too. Especially the newer businesses, how many of them can continue that Ciroc magic, the bad boy flavor? And see? See where that lifestyle keeps going? Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about the other big one on the list, Berner. And based on the response that I saw from people sharing the list of people talking about it, this is the one that surprised a lot of people. But I know it didn't surprise you because you've been following this for a while. You've been talking to Berner, getting a better understanding of his business. So it'd be great to hear the breakdown because I think a lot of people out there may know Berner now more so for this product than they may actually know his music or anything else that he's done in hip hop up to now. [00:36:19] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think Berner is one of the most fascinating names on the list. Definitely the most surprising. But, you know, I've been following his work for a while and, you know, he is a master marketer and his whole journey about how he turned cookies, cannabis, You know, it is a billion dollar company and it's just a little tricky to value, but, it is a billion dollar company and the way he did it, you know, I would say it's a case study, but it's actually pretty hard to emulate. It is sort of like a singular way of doing things. So, you know, for the people who don't know the background, Bernard born in California and San Francisco grew up there, moved to Arizona as a teenager and, and would bring back good weed from California when, whenever, you know, would make trips back to his old stomping grounds. And that's how he kind of got his start. He moved back to San Francisco, during the early, you know, weed legalization gold. Worked at a dispensary and, you know, kind of popularized this Girl Scout cookie, strain of weed. And so his thing would, at the dispensary, he would, you know, they used to sell things. It was sort of like an index car with the name of the strain. It was very clinical. But he would sort of like do these doodles and cookies and, you know, these like bright colors and stuff. And, and it started to get some tension. He became, you know, Wiz Khalifa's weed man when he was in San Francisco. And on one occasion brought this fully butted six foot tall weed plant onto the stage at Khalifa's show. And, you know, I think it was sort of instrumental in that Khalifa had created the Khalifa kush and all this. And so Bernard ultimately parlayed this sort of underground, you know, weed connoisseur image that he had as both on the legal and illegal markets into this brand. Cookies started opening stores, created a clothing line that, you know, kind of goes along with it. But the thing that he did with the way he set up this company is pretty, pretty unusual and very hard to value, but I think is quite brilliant. He started striking these partnerships with dispensaries and, you know, essentially it was a licensing deal where he would get a cut of revenue. And then the other part of the deal is that he could also buy out any of these partners. At market rate, at a time in the future, you know, in the future to be determined. And you know, like some of these numbers are out there, but you know, I think the system-wide sales are close to half a billion dollars now. And he gets a cut of that. But you know, at any time he could decide to roll all you could raise money, roll all these partnerships up into one giant weed company that's, you know, making. You know that, that kind of revenue and, and suddenly, you know, all you need to do is you put a multiple on that and, and that'll tell you what the company would be. If he rolled it all up and bought everybody out. And I talked to Wall Street analysts about this and covered the space and they said, you know, yeah, you could put like a five x multiple on this, so that would mean it's you know, yeah, like about a $2 billion company. Then you have to factor in the cost of buying out all those partnerships. You know, long story short would probably be about half billion dollars because it is a very tricky business. In fact, you have to be very liquid when doing everything in cash. It's kind of complicated. People I talked to, you know, bankers and stuff, said, yeah, you would apply a private company discount due to the uncertainty of the market, things like that, that's operating in it, you know, you would knock 20, 30% off of that and you know, so that it brings it down to around a billion dollars and then Berner still owns about a third of it. And so there's the bulk of his fortune right there, you know, so his stake is probably worth around $300 million. This point, I figure. And I think that's pretty conservative. You know, you add in some other thing invested in the clothing line, which he owns, you know, a huge part of still, you know, some homes, cash stuff like. And you get to that 400, 2 million number. [00:40:27] Dan Runcie: Nice. Yeah, I've been seeing people wearing the cookies hoodies, walking around San Francisco, walking around other places. But definitely seeing the apparel thing push and I feel like he has one of those brands there are probably seeing even more of that stuff. I think it was a couple weeks ago I was driving by and I saw the store in Hate Ashbury neighborhood here at San Francisco. So yeah, no, definitely making moves. A few things there that stuck out. So he of course has his own standalone stores. As you mentioned, there's 55 of them across the country right now. And he also was selling them to other dispensaries. And I'm sure if and when weed does become legalized across the country, that will then just make things even easier from a distribution perspective from other places that he may be able to sell any otherwise. So in some ways the investment isn't just based on what's currently there or there's also a speculative nature. As this underlying product becomes more and more legal, there will be more opportunity to further sell this and further have its reach to different places. [00: 41:36] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And the clothing line also builds the value of the cannabis brand. And you know, if and when it is federally legalized, you gotta think. I mean, you know, this is one of the top brands in the business. And in fact, you know, there aren't really brands in this way in the cannabis space. There's strains, it's almost saying like in beer, you know, like, yeah, people like IPAs or people like those or whatever, but there isn't really like a Budweiser yet or a dogfish head, you know, or something like that. And, you know, to go back to Diddy, there's not really a champagne of weed. So, you know, I think that Berner has built up all this credibility in this space and, you know, if, when it goes legal, it's like to be one of the top weed brands in this space that is going to, you know, potentially rival or, you know, at least kind of start to eat into alcohol business. I mean, you know, 2 billion is not a large number for a company. There's a lot of potential for it to get a lot bigger and, you know, we can get into the whole. There's definitely a lot of arguments, pros and cons, about the benefits of THC and Cannabis General. And, you know, we will be here all day on that. But just from a business perspective, you know, it seems like we're headed toward legalization. Berner actually thinks that republicans are more likely to make federal legalization happen. He said, cause they're all about their paper. So I'm not saying who he's voting for anything. I don't. You know. it was an interesting perspective and, you know, like I think that he's really got kind of the key to where….. [00:43:15] Dan Runcie: One of the other things that sticks out to me about him is that he's someone who is much more known, at least on a general awareness perspective, for the business that he's built as opposed to the music. I feel like his music was a bit more of a regional thing and he puts out a ton of music, but it never hit the same levels as some of the other artists who are having nine figure net worths as well. And I feel like there's often this thought, and which I do believe generally is true, that the artists who tend to be the most successful with product sales and investing and some of the more lucrative business opportunities that artists have done, they're more likely to be the household names who have been releasing music and touring for decades than a lot of times it's because they're releasing products that are lending their names, so they're leveraging their influence to now sell things that have a larger stake in and can be bought time and time again. He's a little different though because he doesn't necessarily have that. I'm curious what you think about that piece of it, because I think so many of the hip hop cash lists over the years do have at least somewhat of a correlation as to who are the more well known artists or who are the more popular artists at the time, and not necessarily who is building the strongest business, you know, that is being worth the most, and that is not correlated with how much mainstream popularity that artists may have. [00:44:44] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. I mean the funny thing is when you look at it, he is the most prolific artist on the list. But, you know, he has the least name recognition as well, right? I mean, Jay-Z, Diddy, Kanye, Dr. Dre, none of them are putting out music at the pace with which Berner is putting out music. But everybody knows who they are and not everybody knows Berner. You know, I think you could almost argue like, well, are you really gonna put him, you know, on the list with these guys who have that much more name recognition? But you could also argue, should we really be treating, you know, Diddy as a rapper anymore than we should be? You know, treating Richard Branson, as I know Richard Branson didn't actually rap ever, but, you know, effectively Diddy is just focused on business at this point and you know, he puts out songs here and there. Music is an ancillary Berner also used. You know, the Music Chief boosts the weed business, but he's in the studio like all the time, more than any of these guys. Yeah, it's just kinda fun. [00:45:48] Dan Runcie: I think another person that maybe thought of a similar way, someone like Chamillionaire who had one really large hit, mm-hmm. But wasn't necessarily known for having classic after classic after classic album or touring the world in the same large ways as some of the other big names we did, but his investing journey is something that has been pretty well documented and I think as a result, he's definitely further than a lot of the other artists that came around the same time as him that may have had even more commercial success. So I feel like even though there is a lot of a correlation between who are the most well known artists and who are the wealthiest artists, he is someone else who is a bit similar in that Berner way of, hey, yeah, there may have a smaller overall impact from the music itself, but was able to wisely use that and then now leverage that into something where, you know, the artist is making more money from the business moves and more known for that now. [00:46:49] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. I mean a great example of Chamillionaire and, you know, the work that he's been doing in the startup world. So at the same time, it's like if he hadn't had that one day hit, you know, would he have been able to get into, you know, the Silicon Valley kind of fear in the same way, you know, I don't know, but I think all it takes is one hit to be in the mix. And certainly like Burner never had that one hit, right? He just had a lot of, you know, really solid albums and stuff, but he was doing it in San Francisco. And I think, you know, in that way that you see somebody like Jamon Green getting really involved in the startup world, would he have been that guy if he were in, you know, like Cleveland or something? You know, I don't think so, but if you're in the mix, in the Bay Area, you're just gonna have access to a lot more opportunities, you know, in the startup world. And I think the startup world, cannabis world, you know, it. Kinda the epicenter. So in a funny way that the two have a lot of commonalities I think are familiar. [00:47:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. This is good. I'm excited to see what next year's list looks like as well. And I know you may not be able to share publicly, but in order to get the five, you probably evaluated a few others. Are there any names creeping up, arising up that you think may make a 2023 appearance? [00:48:08] Zack Greenburg: I think, you know, Drake is creep enough, big new deal. You know, he doesn't have quite the same level of, you know, sort of like outside assets. Like he doesn't have, like a Ciroc or a cookie or what have you. And, you know, I think he does have this whiskey, Virginia Black, but it's like, never like still around, but it never really took off and it only tastes okay. It's okay. I don't think taste ultimately matters a lot of times with this stuff, but I'm kind of surprised that he wasn't able to like boost a little bit more. But I don't know. When I think Drake, I don't really think whiskey. Maybe that's just part of it. I mean, I could see him with more champagne maybe. [00:48:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I'm interested to see for him how this new deal he has and the music that he makes as a result ends up factoring in, because of course we know that music itself may not be the largest revenue stream for a lot of these artists. Drake has this huge deal with Universal and Republic now, and he's releasing music more frequently than ever, and we can assume that it's likely because he's getting better upside and margins for the music he's releasing. So if he keeps up at this, like two, three albums a year clip. I mean, the numbers are gonna speak for themselves. Last year he streamed more than all pre 1980 artists. Like it's gonna catch up. [00:49:29] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing with net worth less as opposed to. Is that, you know, it's just harder to get on these lists if you are a big cash earner. Like if you are earning a lot on an annual basis, you know, things get factored into that, like taxes and cost of living and all that. And so, you know, you're getting these huge outlays, but you know, it's not in the same way that it was like going into this, this growing asset that can be valued. And in a way that's kind of like a quirk of the system because, you know, I'm valuing Berner’s stake in cookies, you know, like it's not tax, right? Like if he were to sell it and he were to get $300 million, you know, whatever, a third half of that would be gone to the government. But that's not baked into the formula until he sells it. So you know, this is how Bloomberg and Forbes do it. It's just kinda what it is. But, it means that if you are holding assets, you know, the taxes aren't taken out. Whereas if you're a cash earner, that gets deducted before it gets added to your cash pile. So, it just means Drake is more likely to be at the top of, you know, let's say top earning artist. And you know, it's a little harder for him to get to the top… [00:50:59] Dan Runcie: That's a great distinction. No, we'll definitely keep that in mind for next year. Do you think you'll do another top earners of the year list as well? [00:51:05] Zack Greenburg: I don't know. Maybe, we'll see how it goes. Being a new dad, and doing this full time program, you know, this fellowship at Columbia that I mention. It takes a lot of time. And you know, I don't wanna put out a list unless I have the time to really dig in and get the numbers right. But yeah, you never know. I got this one out. So, there could be more. More to come. [00:51:28] Dan Runcie: And I think on that note, just talking about dad life in general. Let's close things out there. So by the time this comes out, your daughter will be six months old and we can both share one funny thing that our kids did this past couple weeks. So I'll let you start. [00:51:44 ] Zack Greenburg: Oh, man. Well, I think the thing that's really most exciting is that she's laughing now and the thing that she mainly thinks is funny is when I'm laughing. So like, we'll get into this thing, I will make myself start laughing and then she'll go, ha ha. I go, ha. And, and it’s very dorky, dad life. But, that is like one of my favorite things to do is have like, sort of a laugh off with Riley. So, yeah, I don't know, man. I pick her up from daycare every day and she just gives me this huge smile and I know that she’s still really young, but I can tell that she's specifically recognizing me, you know, and that we have this bond already. That there's like a specific connection. I just had no idea that babies could sort of, like, differentiate people and start to have unique relationships in that way. And that, it's like the best part of my day every day. So… [00:52:41] Dan Runcie: That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. How about you? [00:52:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. How about you? [00:52:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like there's something about that. Like yeah, the first couple of months I remember I would like, ask my wife, I'd be like, you think she recognizes us? Like, because she understands who we are. And I think over time there was like, yeah, no, we can get that in. Even things like now, The mirror is something that she is obsessed with. I'm sure you probably feel the same with Riley too. But yeah, the mirror. At first it was kind of looking at the mirror where there's like, okay, what is this screen? Who is that person that I'm seeing? But I think now it's like looking at us through the mirror and like seeing that it's us. And maybe she's starting to be like, oh well, I see them through this. Like she probably still isn't at the point where it's like, oh, I can see that's looking at me. But she'll look at that other person staring at her in the mirror and start smiling and stuff too. So I'm like, oh, that's cute. So yeah, man. Wild time's flying by. She'll be five months by the time this comes out. Wild man. [00:52:35] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of like…. [00:53:38] Dan Runcie: oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's that? Little, little peek-a-boo style games. [00:53:42] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. In the mirror. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We'll have to have our kids together sometime soon. I guess, you know, but of course babies, not so interactive with each other yet. [00:53:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No. We'll get there. That'll be fun. Zack. This is great, man. Good work as always. It was great to see the list and again. The fact that I think you got just as much coverage and buzz and recognition for this, doing it independently is a great sign. Not just for you, but I think in general for people that are always questioning, okay, you know, what's the power of what I do elsewhere versus individually. So great job on that and we'll definitely keep tabs on this coming years. But great work, man, as always. Appreciate that. [00:54:25] Zack Greenburg: Thanks man. Same to you. | |||
| 06 Jul 2023 | The Real Story Behind Hip-Hop's "Decline" | 00:48:41 | |
The media commentary on hip-hop’s decline is stronger than ever. Especially since it took six months for a rap album to top the Billboard 200 in 2023, and no rap song has topped the Hot 100 yet.. Is hip-hop slipping? Or is there more to this story? is slipping or others are merely catching up? To break it all down, I’m joined by The Wall Street Journal’s Neil Shah, who has written about this extensively. 0:40 Our take on hip-hop’s “decline” 4:51 Upcoming albums that may top the charts 8:48 How Billboard charts work 17:40 Hip-hop over indexed when streaming took off 18:30 Was hip-hop held back in the past? 20:26 Implications of chart performance 22:55 Gaming the system with album bundles 32:49 Are album equivalent units the best way to measure success? 35:13 Hip Hop’s market share in 5 years 45:16 Music recycling IP vs. developing new one Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Neil Shah, @NeilShahWSJ This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Neil Shah: While it looks like hip hop is suffering a little bit right now, or in this cooling period, maybe it's tentacles have stretched out So much, it's influences so total that it's actually become the bedrock of a lot of pop music. [00:00:12] Dan Runcie Intro Audio: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:40] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: This episode is about the state of hip hop, which has been quite the topic over the past year. So it was right around this time in 2022, when we started to see articles and stories and reports pop up about hip hop's decline in market share. This is specifically looking at the US listening consumption over time for hip hop artists that were producing tracks. And after a record number of years of growth in hip hop is eventually becoming the most listened to genre of music in the 2010s. We started to see that growth slow down relative to other genres. And there's a number of reasons for this, a number of reasons that are unfair, a number of reasons that require a little bit more digging into and to break it all down. I was joined by Neil Shah from the wall street journal. He's written about this himself. Him and I've talked about this both on and offline, and we decided to bring it together to talk about all the various factors. What does this mean for the music industry? What does it mean for the artist in the industry in terms of the budgets that they get? And is this even fair when we think about all of the factors in place with regards to streaming, where audiences grow, whether hip hop artists and their fans are more likely to be early adopters versus other genres, some of the rules that Billboard and other entities make that influence how these charts get factored in vinyl and a whole lot more. So let's dive into the state of hip hop. [00:02:05] Dan Runcie: All right. We're back for another episode this time. Neil Shah from the wall street journal makes his return. Welcome back. [00:02:11] Neil Shah: Thanks for having me. [00:02:12] Dan Runcie: And today we're going to talk about a topic. Both you and I have written about, thought about and has come to a head this past year. And that's the state of hip hop and where it lies relative to other genres right now. I'm sure many of you have seen the stats dating back as early as last year. When many outlets really started to talk more about hip hop's market share of its overall listening relative to other genres, which genres are growing at faster rates than others, which are declining. And now we're in this place in 2023. We're still as of the end of June, almost six months through the year, not one rap album has topped the Billboard top 200. And I'm pretty sure that no rap song has topped the Billboard hot 100 either. So Neil, what do you make of all of this? [00:03:04] Neil Shah: It's pretty striking that rap has not topped either of these charts, the Hot 100 or the Billboard 200. To put it into some context, in 2019, 17 rap albums Hit number one on the Billboard 200. 17. In 2020, another 17 did. basically last year, we started to see a slowdown on this front where there were fewer number one hits on these two charts in rap and hip hop and R& and then now this year, we have this striking reality that rap has been absent in this way, which I believe it, we haven't seen something like this. Since about 1993. So yeah, think it's generating lots of discussion and varied opinions. Hip hop has long had ups and downs, you know, in the 21st century, there are plenty of lulls, there are plenty of hot periods, and we could be in another lull. But my gut sense at the end of the day is that this does constitute a fairly significant slowing compared to how hot this genre was running, I mean, just a few years ago. I think it's a marked slowdown. And while one can quibble with the fact of not having a number one, because that can easily change, you know what I mean? Like as soon as Travis Scott puts out Utopia, as soon as Drake puts out For All the Dogs, the picture can change slightly. But even all that quibbling aside, I do feel like it's pretty striking that there is a slowdown. [00:04:51] Dan Runcie: Right, and that's a good point, because we could look at the more specific pieces of it. And yeah, if J. Cole, if Travis Scott dropped Utopia, if any of these things happen in the spring, we may not be having the same conversation from a top headline. Oh, let's react to this thing. But even like you said, you named 17 albums from a couple of years ago. So we're talking one every three weeks, essentially that hit that target, if not more, and we're now 24 weeks into the year and we haven't had any. So there's still a pretty big shift, even if you account for the superstar releases. And if we're looking at the artists that are planning to release albums this year, I was looking through at some of the artists that have. Big albums coming out, and these are the only ones that I thought are certified locks to hit number 1 on the billboard. You have Drake's new album, as you mentioned, Travis Scott's Utopia, J. Cole's The Fall Off, if he drops it this year, Lil Wayne, I think there's another Carter coming, Lil Uzi Vert, who I believe is dropping pretty soon, so he could potentially be the 1st, and then after that, And I hate to say this, but maybe Cardi B. I still think that she's pretty strong, but we'll see it. I say maybe more. So we'll see if she drops an album. And I say maybe to Nicki Minaj too, while I have a bit more confidence in her dropping an album, her last album went number two, second to Travis Scott back in 2018, but it's also been a long time. And some of the other artists who are a few more fan favorites, like Pusha T or A$AP Rocky Rick Ross, even Chance the rapper. Great artist. But it's been a while since any of those artists, if ever have topped the billboard. 200 for album charts. I know Ross and others have in the past, but, so there's a lot of fragmentation. There were, there's still are artists have a shot, beloved albums, but they're not reaching this particular milestone of how people view mainstream success. Yeah, the [00:06:46] Neil Shah: question of who's a lock for number one in the rap community has gotten a little bit more complicated than maybe a few years ago. Some of these people may not be a lock. [00:06:58] Dan Runcie: Do you think anyone I named isn't a lock. [00:07:00] Neil Shah: Drake is obviously a lock. Travis, I would think would be a lock. Vert comes out on Friday, that's a pretty large artist and a highly anticipated album, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely sure that that would be number one. I'm not sure about Nikki. I would think Cardi, who I believe has been having 2023 in the frame, I would think that Cardi B would be number one. It's just a little bit more complicated than especially with projects from the likes of Pusha T and whatnot. Yeah, there's definitely not a guarantee that even these stars and superstars will perform the way they did. Of course, that's up to the vicissitudes of do they have a hot single or not? How much mindshare are they capturing, you know, these things change from year to year. All things considered, it does feel like, you know, things. I'd be worried about the downside of people being a little bit weaker. We just had Gunna, for example. Gunna, you know, came out with an album. It's been doing pretty well. his mentor Young Thug actually also just released an album. There's a new Metro Boomin version of it that I think came out today or yesterday. But look Gunna back in 2022, last year, hit number one. [00:08:19] Dan Runcie: Outsold the Weeknd [00:08:20] Neil Shah: and what happened this year with this album they're gonna just put out, it hit number three. And even more than that, just the EAU unit figure, the equivalent album units, 85K, 85, 000 is decent, but not the strongest showing. So, I think there is a question about when these stars come back, just how well will they do as the surrounding environment for them is, creating what we're talking about, [00:08:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think there's a few factors here, and I do want to call them out. Billboard, who does reflect the charts, they released a article, 5 Reasons Why a rap album has yet to top the charts and there are 5 reasons are I'll read them here. The 1st is a lack of stars essentially in a fragments in a fragmented landscape. There's so many artists that don't necessarily need mainstream success that billboard relied on. And I think that could be true to an extent. You have their 2nd, 1 here, which is growth for hip hop itself is only up 6. 3% compared to country and Latin, which are growing much faster. I have some thoughts on that, but that was their 2nd point. They made the 3rd, which is related to Gunna here. They talked about guns, violence, drug abuse and courtroom legal battles as well that have slowed down or halted the production of many promising stars. Whether you look at XXXTentacion, Juice WRLD, Pop Smoke, and then you look at Gunna and Thug and others that have been battling legal challenges as well. The fourth one they mentioned is just stagnation. At the charts, which I think may be a bigger thing where if you look at the charts this year, at least for the billboard 200, it's been SZA, it's been Morgan Wallen and a little bit of Miley Cyrus. And that's pretty much been it for most of the year. So it's not even the way that it was in the pre pandemic years where every week there was a new album that seemed to have its glory moment. It's the same artists that are staying at the top. And in some ways, it almost feels a little bit like a throwback to days before streaming when we saw a little bit more stagnation there. And then their 5th reason is not enough dance music because they talked about albums like Renaissance or Drake's Honestly, Nevermind, Dua Lipa and Future Nostalgia and how they feel like post pandemic people want to get out there and how a lot of hip hop music has been a much more slow chill, especially in the streaming era. And I think that each of those are valid points, but I think there's a few other things that weren't mentioned in billboards article that they themselves as the entity that decides these things has a big influence. We mentioned several of those Pre pandemic years. 1 of the biggest things is how billboard itself. Change the rules and album bundles is a big thing. Ironically, they're actually going to be coming back with album bundles in a few months, but this was their way to be able to help preserve the sale of the album and have artists combine their album with a merch item, whether it's a T shirt or some other type of item. But like anything, people started to game the system and people felt like it wasn't necessarily about album sales. It was more about people trying to sell these items. And I think we saw that most to extreme degree with what Travis Scott did with Astroworld, where he literally had an e commerce machine that was running, in perpetuity to help make sure that album almost doubled in its expectations of what people thought we just hadn't seen that much of a outpaced growth, but he saw the way the system was and we'd into it. So I think that's one thing. That's a big factor, a second thing that I look at is just what we consider hip hop on these charts, because of course, billboard itself is it's reporting things based on us listenership. But we know that Latin music is very popular as well. Just considering how well bad bunny did on the charts. But as you and I've talked about, bad bunny is labeled as Latin. He's not labeled as the actual genre that he performs. He's more categorized based on the region he's from. And for all intents and purposes, he considers himself a rapper. He considers himself a hip hop artist. So if hip hop was given some of that region agnostic glory that pop music or others get, maybe we would see, maybe we would even be having this conversation and we think about the global aspect of it. So those are two things. There's a few more, but I wanted to get your thoughts on those. [00:12:44] Neil Shah: Yeah. So let's start with that last one, what if hip hop is suffering from its own success, hip hop has had booms. For decades now, but what we saw in this back half of the 2010s was something fairly special and now we're at this juncture right now and so it just raises the question of like it looks like we're in a cooling period for hip hop, but hip hop is It's tentacles are reaching into, I mean, almost all of the other genres that are capturing the imagination of music fans right now. I mean, often Morgan Wall in the country star sings with rap like cadences. one reason why [00:13:25] Dan Runcie: Hip hop sounding beats too. [00:13:27] Neil Shah: Yeah, even the tracks hip hop. Some of the bedrock, some of the sonic structures of Morgan Wallen's music are inherently, deeply hip hop. One reason why BTS and a new crop of Kpop stars have thrived so much, especially in the U.S., is their hip hop fluid. You can go down the list. I mean, the regional Mexican music craze that's going on right now. there's a ton of hip hop there, reggaeton, Afro beats. and then of course, Latin music and figures like Bad Bunny, Who's rapping and due to billboard nomenclature is categorized as a Latin artist, so one could look at the phenomenon differently and think, actually, while it looks like hip hop is suffering a little bit right now, or in this cooling period, maybe it's tentacles have stretched out So much, it's influences so total that it's actually become the bedrock of a lot of pop music. And then while rap stars are not thriving the way they did, say, between 2016 and 2019, in particular, because that's the period we're coming down off of, one could argue that it's. In all of these other places. And in fact, in this age of, hip hopping everywhere, of everyone sing rapping, essentially the boundaries between quote unquote core hip hop, what Billboard would categorize as hip hop for the purpose of the charts, and a lot of these other genres is getting very fuzzy. So, one party could look at the phenomenon before us and think, weakness, in hip hop, another way of looking at it would be an increased fuzziness between hip hop and these neighboring genres. And so that that could be, that could be a major factor here. and yet at the same time, you know, something I think about a lot. what is the right way to think about this? And I'm really of 2 minds, like, I'm kind of in a conflicted space where on 1 hand, I don't know whether hip hop's influence is what we're watching is this kind of dominance on a new level, hip hop being a victim of its own success and essentially being everywhere or whether, you know, there really is some kind of transitional period afoot, you know, 1 thing to keep in mind is just how hot the 2010s and it particularly the back half was just think about how much era defining music was made in this period, incorporating R&B to Beyonce, Rihanna, Kanye West. The hubbub over Life of pablo, Drake views, you know, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar. I'm just talking about the top level. We're not even talking about the medium tier of excellent rappers and R&B stars beneath that Childish Gambino. There was a lot going on during this period. And so, despite, some of the other factors that we're talking about and that we'll talk about, I feel like that's what you gotta compare it to. And so, to my mind, and I'm getting to actually a 2nd point in the billboard article. it does feel like we're help where we've come from a unipolar hip hop dominated universe using the strictest definition of hip hop to something. That's more multipolar and really. That can be a function of time and development, i.e. hip hop's success. Another good point that I think the Billboard article raised was just, you know, as a genre becomes so dominant, how much room is left? Once you're king of the mountain, how much growth is there left in the shoe? I mean, mathematically, your growth is going to, slow down. I come across this when I think about vinyl sales, you know, for years now, vinyl has been hot, but naturally, mathematically, as your base gets bigger, and we're talking about lots and lots of sales, your growth rates slow down. So, like, this is just kind of an analogy, but as hip hop gets so dominant, there's something natural about not just a genre having slower periods in a cyclical fashion, which is a slightly separate thing, but there's also something natural about the genre at this point actually just I'm losing some steam for purely mathematical reasons. [00:17:40] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned the back half of the last decade as being a high point for hip hop, because here's some important stats that influence this. Right in the middle of the 2010s is when we saw this shift is when streaming started to take off. Apple Music launches Spotify really kicks into gear. Of course, they launched in the US in 2011, but things really came into focus in 2014 and then in November, 2014. That's when the billboard 200 starts counting streams and they've altered the formula a little bit, but it's roughly been the same where it's been anywhere from around 1, 250 to 1, 500 or even more if it's a free ad supported stream. But that's when they started counting streams at that particular point, Spotify had 15 million paid users and 60 million overall. And then, four years later by 2018, they have 96 million paid users. And so if we go back to that point, so this is obviously when Travis Scott was releasing Astroworld, when Drake released God's Plan, as you mentioned, all these hip hop albums are doing extremely well, but there was a large. Index on hip hop fans. And as we've seen when technology and time again, hip hop fans as a genre do tend to over index and their early adopters with new technology. We saw that with Spotify and the various streaming services, especially where their user base was. And you also saw that as well with social media with Twitter and places like that. Where were the genres that people were talking about most on these platforms? It was hip hop. So there was this run of hip hop getting this lead. That other genres didn't have him because it over indexed early. You saw this outsized performance, especially as record sales, traditional, pure album sales started to dip a bit, but since then, you're now looking in this post quarantine phase and Spotify's growth is, paid subscriber amount is more than doubled since 2018, it's now over 200 million paid subscribers. And most of that growth came less from hip hop fans, but more from everyone else. So as we look and see the growth of whether it's Latin music, music in Africa, music in Asia, even country music within the US, you're looking at the growth of Spotify and the growth of all these streaming services and how that impacts charts and performance. So even though hip hop listening is still growing. In the way that we've seen it record labels in the industry often do report things as a zero sum game in a lot of ways. So because of that, even though the growth is slowing down, it's still growing. It's just not growing as fast as these other genres that are now having their late 2000 late 2010s hip hop moment [00:20:26] Neil Shah: Totally would. so yeah, when I looked into this topic last fall. Basically, fall was upon us in 2022, and it looked like hip hop's chart performance was relatively weak, so I wanted to look into this topic at that point. One of the interviews I did was actually with the head of the data tracker, Luminate, and this is definitely one thing that they noted, which is hip hop fans. This is an important point, hip hop fans, were early adopters for streaming. So they over indexed and kind of led the way during an earlier stage of streaming adoption in precisely in the middle of the 2010s. And so, yes, you're right that you're, seeing, a shift here as the base of the streaming universe essentially becomes more varied. And especially during the pandemic, we saw these significant jumps with country and Latin music, partly that's a Morgan Wall in effect. Partly the Latin music numbers are juiced by Bad Bunny, these gargantuan artists in terms of their numbers, but it's a broader phenomenon of these genres. And their fans being a bigger part of the streaming pie and as a result, partly because of that hip hop share of streaming, not overall music consumption, but hip hop market share of us streaming is yes, like period after period, year after year is dipping as we now have a, actually a fuller picture. A more varied streaming audience. so that's definitely a major factor and it's you know, part of why country and Latin music in particular have gotten the lifted that they've got of late. One thing to keep in mind throughout all of this is that while we're talking about, hip hop slowing, at least according to these chart metrics and streaming market shares and whatnot, it's always worth mentioning or noting that it's market share still outstrips these other genres by a wide margin, not just Latin and country, which, you know, Latin's numbers in the billboard math are, have always been weirdly low, frankly. They seem lower than they should be, but they're fairly low. I mean, we're talking like, right? Six, seven, eight percent, just neighborhood ballpark in terms of market share of U. S. consumption compared to hip hop, which is still outpacing. [00:22:46] Dan Runcie: In the high 20s, Yeah. [00:22:48] Neil Shah: Right. So it's just worth keeping in mind how much of a distance there still is between hip hop and some of these other genres. [00:22:56] Dan Runcie: And this dynamic as well made me think about other times, even before streaming where distribution and means have impacted which genres were more popular. And in a lot of ways, I've often thought that streaming's ability to lower the entry barriers and to eliminate the gatekeepers, not completely eliminate, but to lessen their power is what enabled hip hop artists and artists from other genres to realize their power. And it made me think back to times in the CD era. And I remember growing up when we think about the peak of the CD era, this is something I still remember to this day. Cause I was in school at the time. I think about three albums that came out right around the same time. You have two hip hop albums. So you have DMX is, and then there was X this December, 1999. And then a couple months later you have NSYNC. They have their no strings attached album, which was still up until Adele's album was the highest first week sale. I think it was just under 3 million. I used to the US and then a couple months after that, you have Eminem drops, Marshall Mathers LP, and roughly from a high level, I believe that NSYNC, as I mentioned to just under 3 million in its first week. Marshall Mathers LP did just under 2 and DMX did a few hundred thousand under 1 million. And just calling those 3, 2, 1 from that perspective, all those artists are pretty big. I don't know if I buy that Eminem was that much less popular than NSYNC at the time, but I think part of the reason was, A, you had these parental advisory stickers on them, which essentially acted like a rated R thing where, okay, it's making you pause when you go to the register. And too, because I was in school. I remember parents of NSYNC fans that were taking their kids out of school to go line up on Tuesday to go to Sam Goody or Strawberries, wherever, buy the album, and then come back in time for C period to start, right? That didn't happen with the parents of Eminem fans, and that did not happen with the parents of DMX fans. So all of these things that may seem like natural commerce are structural things in play when we think back about that, and even to just how the nineties were in general with. Time Warner and all these big companies and the government and the Clinton administration trying to come down on hip hop. We finally now saw it reach its potential. And now when things are starting to dip, everyone now wants to pull it back. [00:25:17] Neil Shah: Totally. So, like, even as late as the late 90s and the early 2000s, there's this cultural penalty on hip hop music that is kind of artificially suppressing sales. I mean, you still see this in the live music industry to this day, whether it's festivals like Rolling Loud or New York City music venues where rappers often have a tougher time. It's a little harder to put on an arena rap show. It's unfortunate, but partly it's because the insurance rates are higher and it's more costly to put on the show. Why is that? So even to this day, whether on the business side or culturally, there are things that can affect sales, and in streams and whatnot, you're mentioning kind of the, you know, the late 90s, I think back to the early 90s, in a way, the way in which hip hop over indexed, or kind of was buoyed by technology in the form of streaming in the middle of the 2010s, it was like a revenge for 1991 and what obtained in the prior years when rap albums were very popular and were actually selling briskly, but they were underreported along with country also too, they were actually underreported in the pre digitized sound scan era. So there again, you moved from a period when for these cultural or business factors, one genre was kind of artificially held lower, and other genres look like they were, dominating the mindshare of the country. But then lo and behold, we entered the period of SoundScan and suddenly the whole country is listening to NWA, who knew? And so it's always seemed to me like while hip hop may have over indexed in like, you know, 2015 and 2018, it was kind of like almost like payback for 1989 or whatever, but yeah, so like these shifts, you got to take with a grain of salt because, you know, they're constructed a billboard and the industry does the best it can. And it's constantly retooling, how it approaches things. You noted earlier the shifting position on album bundles. It's interesting that they're allowing it back this summer, but now with safeguards, so you don't pull a Travis Scott, presumably. So, you know, it's a work in progress, always, all of these metrics. So you, when you're thinking about these debates or discussions, you do need to take it with a grain of salt. The average person on the street, maybe a rap fan, maybe a rock fan, maybe a post genre music fan. They may not care about the ins and outs of genres going up and down. Journalists may care about it and obviously people in the music industry do. but you know. It is relevant to the business, because it does affect how the business operates and what I mean by that is, you know, at record labels, your job is basically to, sign acts and pursue the hot thing and make money and some, so some of these cultural discussions about how genres are doing definitely have an impact on how the business operates and at the end of the day, the way, you know, the way the music that we hear now, I think of, you know, in earlier periods when hip hop experienced a lull, I don't think this will happen this time, but in earlier periods when hip hop experienced a lull, you know, the boy band era that you mentioned, I think, like around NSYNC and around Britney Spears time, you did see the slight lull in urban music have an impact on A&R budgets. There was a very much a shifting wind in terms of like, you know, money in some cases withdrawn from, like urban A&R budgets and, diverted elsewhere. you know, much like any business does, like diverting resources to where things feel like they're hotter. So my point being, some of these discussions, while the average music fan, may not care as much, they have real world implications. [00:29:16] Dan Runcie: That's the part that frustrates me because a lot of this, as you mentioned, it's chatter for us, we're in this space. We talk to the people, or if you're someone that's a super fan on Twitter, you're Reddit as well. They're probably active, but they have huge. Implications I can't help, but to think about how many of the decisions that are being made about. Which artists to give a particular budget to how much to spend on their music videos, how much to do on all these things. A&R, as you mentioned, they may see some type of cutbacks, some type of impact there. And the other piece of this, that's a bit frustrating is that in lieu of album bundles and bundling with merchandise, which is something that a hip hop, a lot of hip hop artists lead into what we saw on the flip side was artists then combining it with or not even combining, but selling physical albums like vinyl and all the boom that we've seen there. The challenge with vinyl though, is that there has been a limited supply, given the supplies train, the supply chain constraints and some of the materials there. So the record labels do have discretion over who gets allocation for the limited vinyl supply they have and who doesn't and that then creates much more decision making and much more King making essentially on who gets to have the full allotment. And when we see artists, whether it's Harry Styles or Taylor Swift, get all of the. Allotment that's there and you see other artists, whether it's a title, the creator, even a Beyonce that are waiting several weeks, sometimes even months to get theirs. And these are superstar artists in their own right. That are still waiting for it. And when you think deeper about it, half of the people that buy vinyl don't even listen to it. So what is it really? Is it a merch item or is it actually an album [00:31:07] Neil Shah: totally. It's a great example of a Intra business, real world implication of some of these discussions, a record label having to determine. Okay, we got relationships with X, Y, and Z plants in Nashville and in the Czech Republic and, this is the space we got, which artists are we going to prioritize? It matters, I mean, they're making these decisions and it can help certain artists and hurt others. And then if they don't have their physical ready while they're putting out their album, effectively, whoever doesn't have their physical ducks in a row is effectively penalized in terms of their chart placement. So it's very real. one thing that's been going on, You know, we may get on Travis Scott and, his ilk's case for gaming the system with these bundles in that. Earlier micro era, but, you know, 1 thing that's been going on with the pop stars and especially with the K pop stars are all these collectible, collectible CDs and whatnot, which definitely are giving placement to these artists, especially in K pop that they wouldn't otherwise have. So, in this era, when billboard got rid of those bundles, you're seeing, you know, something different going on with Kpop. It basically dominating the charts, or at least the top 10, using all these collectible CDs that then basically drop off. If you look carefully at the streaming numbers for a lot of the K pop artists that hit number 2, number 3, or number 1, the streaming numbers are not very strong. I mean, The lion's share, almost the entire consumption is these collectible CDs, which are, actually de facto merch. So, you got another phenomenon, very similar to rap's phenomenon, where de facto merch is just gaming the charts. [00:32:49] Dan Runcie: We're going to continue to see this, but I am very interested to see how this year's changes will impact things because even if you look at. I don't even think it was Travis Scott's thing that brought it to a head. I'm sure that was in the back of people's minds, but I think it was right after DJ Khaled dropped his album the same day as Tyler the Creator dropped, the album that had earthquake on it, Igor, that's the name of it. We started to see more of it there because obviously Khaled got penalized for energy drinks or whatever he had tried to bundle his albums with, but at the end of the day, they want to bundle it with things that aren't restricted in the same way that others did. So even though in the moment, it was definitely an eye roll type of thing. Now, I'm like, okay, at least there was some type of control and autonomy there that the artists did have. But so much of this preservation of figuring out and having the powers that be tweak and determine the right Metric for album equivalent units, and then even the whole thought about how you have to listen to a song 1250 times on a paid streaming service for that to count as 1 full album sale. You can't even listen to a full album at once a day to then count as that. If you were to do the math there. Right. It really makes you think about the real dynamics at play, because we know for years that the major record labels themselves have wanted to preserve the aspect of an album. And a lot of it does seem like it's this another aspect of this underlying tug of war between them and the DSPs, the streaming services that do want to report on streams and do use that as the primary benchmark of success. And now we're backing into this album equivalent unit metric that has now become normalized that we would never do in any other industry where it's not like Netflix is trying to show DVD equivalent units as a metric of success. [00:34:42] Neil Shah: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, Billboard is continually trying to get these things right. But, you know, it is, that is precisely what the pop stars and the Kpop stars are taking advantage of the fact that the physical albums, have much greater weight than the streams, which right there just, privileges certain genres then hurts, others, you know, like physical sales are not what in hip hop or not, but they are another genre. So, I'm sure they see it as a work in progress to kind of get these things right. [00:35:13] Dan Runcie: Right, and I do acknowledge the work there in many ways. It is a very difficult task. You have a number of competing factors. You're trying to make essentially an advanced metric become the industry standard. And it is going to be an evolving conversation and likely will look different as streaming services continue to gain traction as you mentioned, if we do see a vinyl slowdown at some point, how that may shift things and there will be this continual movement here. Where do you think things are in five years from now, specifically with hip hop? Do you think that the market share continues to slide? Do you think that another genre does become number one? [00:35:50] Neil Shah: That's a great question, it feels like we're in a transitional period right now where lots of genres are thriving at the same time. People talk about music being post genre so much that it's almost become a cliché to, you know, for publicity materials to describe an artist as being genre less, kind of elicits eye rolls at this point. Every artist is post genre at that point. It actually would be more striking if artists stuck to genres, ala Beyonce with her dance music album, which I thought took the opposite road of, focusing on the genre, which was actually refreshing. but so we're in a transitional moment. and so, I mean, the short answer to your question is that it's hard to see where this goes in five years. But, you know, I would imagine that some of the cooling off of hip hop does level off and then maybe we're in a period for a while where, what currently obtains kind of sticks around. I mean, it's entirely possible that the 2000, the rest of the 2000. Twenties could be kind of a transitional, confusing period, barring some, culture shifting huge superstar in one of the genres that somehow changes everything, even in our highly fragmented music landscape. Typically some of the engines for different types of musics going up or down have relied on huge stars changing the game. Whether it's hip hop, you know, hip hop had certain weaknesses in the early 2000s. And, for example, Kanye West, helped revive rap also broadened its audience, broadened rap's audience in a very significant way. Something that Drake then, continued effectively soccer mom-izing hip hop, you know, like anyone can listen to one dance. I mean, it's not even rap, as an example, and increasingly rappers were singing. So, in the past, when genres have had lulls and then come back to life, it's usually been on the back of these pivotal stars. Well, the reason why it's so hard to really project, like, what we're going to do and what things are going to look like in five years is because music, as you know, like, we're losing the ability for such stars. Even if they're very big to really shift the culture, Morgan Wallen is a massively big star right now and yet much of the country, you know, doesn't listen to Morgan Wallen, you know, doesn't like him for various reasons, et cetera, you know, NBA Young Boy is a massively big artist, especially on YouTube. And yet, most people are not familiar with him. I mean, to give you a better example, even when an artist like Cardi B or Ice Spice has huge hits that, you know, hit the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, much of the country does not know that song the way they may have known, You know, a Cyndi Lauper song in another era or an Adele song. So we're in an environment where increasingly, it's so fragmented that it's hard for stars to really dominate in the way that they used to. And so that may also affect whether we see Kurt Cobain like shifts where, you know, where everything changes and then we recognize, Oh, the landscape is different. There's plenty going on in hip hop, whether commercially, you know, an act like Suicide Boys is doing great on the live music circuit. They get almost no media attention, but, in terms of the live music circuit, they can sell concert tickets. there's plenty going on also from a, critically acclaimed point of view, you know, artists like DoJi, you know, are making waves. It's not that like, you know, Youngboy's doing this thing. We've had work from like Lil Durk. I mean, Metro Boomin is having a great year. Ice Spice has been an exception in terms of being a big breakout star, there's plenty of stuff happening, but it's really rare for that stuff to really dominate, you saw, you know, these two examples are kind of related, but two moments that have been kind of monocultural with the capacity to shift things is obviously like Taylor Swift in this Era's tour, which is something that a lot of people talk about. And then, of course, her getting a platform to ice spice, which was just very interesting and exciting because, wow, this is the biggest platform and it's being given to ice spice. What will happen? Will Ice Spice be able to develop into the kind of star that could, carry on Poppa Smoke's legacy in a different way and indeed populize Drill or will Drill and a lot of these, you know, vibrant rap stars that are on kind of a lower level, will they kind of stay there in this more, in this fragmented kind of multicolored, universe? I think that's like a key question, you know, even Taylor Swift, not to go into Taylor Swift tangent, but, you know, there's been debate, there's been discussion of like, oh, we do have monoculture. There's Taylor Swift, even Taylor Swift only captures a certain part of the American audience. I mean, if you go to a Taylor Swift show, you know, it's not that racially diverse. I'm just putting it like that. not a Wwift hater. I'm just pointing out the fact, you know, so, it's tough to have the monocultural forces that one used to have to create these ships. [00:41:01] Dan Runcie: Right, because I know you mentioned the points earlier about whether or not most people are really hearing Morgan Wallen or they're really hearing NBA Young Boy. And part of that probably applies to these generational superstars to even just with where they are now. You compare a song like Taylor Swift for the antihero compared to Cyndi Lauper time after time or any of these other songs that they did, it probably is less mind share there, but the other point you mentioned, there still are these little moments and these other things that happen that are still noteworthy, even if they're not the big thing. I think that the big thing, whether that's having this huge album that sells 1, 000, 000 in its 1st week or 500, 000 units in its 1st week, given the way that media is going, I still think that is something that does become more and more subject to this power law dynamic, to some extent, where I do think it's still even five years from now will probably be very difficult for an artist not named Drake to be able to bet money and say, yes, oh yeah. That artist will could sell over 500, 000 in the first week. Even Drake hasn't necessarily a hundred percent done that. I mean, he did it with certified lover boy most recently, but, the other two albums he had before this, the joint one with 21 Savage or the honestly, nevermind he did it. So, but he still was able to at least top the charts there. So I do think that. We'll still see success. We'll still see these moments, but almost in the same way that in Hollywood, where I think it's probably pretty unlikely at this point that there's going to be a billion dollar grossing movie. And it's like, Oh, wow, Huh, that's an original story or original concept. Never heard of that one. It's almost always sequel or based on some type of existing IP. And in many ways, Taylor, Drake, Beyonce, Adele are the closest thing you have to existing contemporary IP and music. These are the biggest bets you have, and you do have a few acts here or there that have definitely come into their own SZA's SOS album has clearly done extremely well. It's been great to see her continue to break. Strides and do, and I think there's plenty of stats that show just with the performance of control over the years that there's a lot that is indicating there, but still, even with where SZA is now, there's still a gap between the other artists I mentioned. So, there's levels to this for sure. We'll see growth there, but I still think that we're going to see the most continued bets and the more the budgets as well go towards the Drake's and the Taylor's because that's where the safest bet is for the money spent. [00:43:32] Neil Shah: So it would be fascinating if this period remains more confusing than it usually would and more transitional, partly because ala Hollywood. We, as a culture, rely on this safe, riskless IP instead of, doing the artist development to really help some artists, you know, achieve, get to that next level, you know, it's striking, these artists you're mentioning, Taylor, Drake, they come from a different era. They come from an era that was of the fulcrum, not even the fulcrum, they proceed the streaming era. and they benefited from the branding power of an industry that has changed, dramatically and they remain right now are, you know, some of our biggest stars and it doesn't feel like a hangover yet. These artists are still doing respected work. Drake's numbers are weakening substantially album by album, but, yeah, it will be interesting if, as you're noting, we kind of rely on these folks IP, like, you know, maybe Drake should rerecord all of it. Maybe I wouldn't mind it if Drake rerecorded Take Care For No Reason. Maybe it's so hard to make another Take Care, another masterpiece. Maybe he should just re record it. The point being, some of these stars could linger with us longer than they would because of this effect where, in such an industry that's so fragmented, these are the riskless parties to do business with, whether you're a record label, whether you're a concert promoter, this is where the safety and money is at. And so they could have a longer, you know, there's a perennial question about when Drake will fall off, but maybe some of these artists won't fall off, in this next stretch, but stay in this weaker state as, you know, this other stuff continues to bubble, [00:45:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's almost in the same way where Tom Cruise is now in his 60s. I don't see him stopping Mission Impossible anytime soon. As serious as he's been doing since he was in his early 30s. Denzel's about to drop the Equalizer 3. The man turned 70 next year. [00:45:31] Neil Shah: Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford. [00:45:33] Dan Runcie: Yeah, he's 80. [00:45:35] Neil Shah: So, this can be bemoaned. people bemoan this in the Hollywood context, the recycling of IP instead of the development of new stuff. but it's an open question. You just, you never know, you know, there's plenty of vibrant rap being made. There's an entire rage movement that Playboi Carti and other artists have helped inspire, you know, there's just like Ice Spice to my mind follows a little bit. Sonically in the heels of pop spoken certain ways. There are inheritors of the SoundCloud rap era that sadly waned with the passing of, you know, stars like X and Juice WRLD and whatnot. There's stuff going on. You just, you never know, like, music business is a hard one to predict. You can't even predict that confusion will reign because, you know, it's a topsy turvy business and things change. [00:46:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. Well, Neil, this was fun. before we close things out, anything you want to plug or let the audience know that you're working on? [00:46:34] Neil Shah: No, I don't think so. Anything you suggest, I don't think there's anything I'd want to plug. [00:46:38] Dan Runcie: Okay. Well, we'll make sure that we link to your most recent Taylor Swift piece in this one, just with the breakdown of the economics. They're not related to this conversation, but a fascinating book in deep dive, obviously considering all the conversations needed to happen to give people a breakdown, not just into that top line number, but the profit margin of a tour of this scale. [00:46:59] Neil Shah: yeah, with the Taylor piece, I'm happy with it. And I was basically trying to do something that's just hard to do. Artists don't talk about their costs and what their deals involved with promoters and booking agents. So very hard to actually ascertain profit. And so what I was trying to do there was just. and it talked to a lot of people about what's reasonable for a superstar and then what's reasonable to assume about the breakdown when it comes to an unusual superstar. So that was kind of, that story, I guess, you know, related to this topic is just, you know, yeah, my attempt to kind of get my head around. It wasn't that article. I did, I think, in October of last year. and so, yeah, this is like an important discussion. and when you want to have in a measured way, you know, like, it's like, another not colleague, but a good guy at Billboard Elias did also a piece, following on Kyle's piece, right? Kind of actually talking to executives about how worried, you know, they are about this stuff. So, yeah, this stuff is hard to predict. So, but yeah, if anything, you could, flag that old piece if you want. [00:48:01] Dan Runcie: Okay, great. No, we'll do Neilm Thanks again. It's been a pleasure. [00:48:05] Dan Runcie Outro Audio: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast. Go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 13 Apr 2023 | The Business Behind Coachella (with Tati Cirisano) | 00:43:56 | |
The first weekend of Coachella is here: Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK, and Frank Ocean will headline for 2023. Coachella is expected to gross well over $100 million with over 100,000+ attendees per day. In this episode, broke it all down withMIDiA Research’s Tati Cirisano. Coachella started in 1999 as a niche festival for indie rock and quickly morphed into the biggest brand-name festival in the United States. These days, the Coachella brand is big enough to sell the experience itself, regardless of who’s performing — a rarity in the festival business. Tati and I discuss why that is, the implications, and what the future of Coachella could hold. Here’s what we hit on: [1:20] Coachella’s brand sells itself [2:19] Festival’s origin story [7:09] Advantages and disadvantages of performing at Coachella [9:09] Success by the numbers [11:28] Coachella bump for brands, influencers, and local economy [16:38] Untapped opportunities for future Coachellas [22:02] How individual music show prices influence festival attendance [24:22] Artists that are above playing Coachella [27:08] The festival that’s the antithesis of Coachella [31:10] Festival lineups becoming homogeneous [39:36] Predicting Coachella’s 2024 headliners Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Tati Cirisano, @tatianacirisano Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Tati Cirisano: Being a performer at Coachella has become almost like a badge of honor or like something that goes on your one sheet, you know what I mean? Like, it's something that like gives you leverage as an artist and also is just, I don't know, seen as like it has a certain level of prestige. Like I would compare headlining at Coachella to like, in the same way that a lot of artists would love to get like a rolling stone or a billboard cover, even if like, regardless of whether that's selling or regardless of what that does, just that as a concept has, is just something that's like on a bucket list for most artists. I feel like headlining Coachella, if you're someone who's trying to be a superstar, that's like a bucket list item too. So yeah, it's, interesting How entrenched this festival has become in the music industry when you really think about it. [00:00:43] Dan Runcie Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:01:25] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is about the business behind Coachella and the unofficial start to music festival season in 2023. Coachella's history is pretty impressive when you think about it. This festival started in 1999. It was announced the week after Woodstock 99, and the shit show that that festival. With just 60 days’ notice to then put on this festival that attracted just 25,000 people and ticket prices cost $50 each, and the headliner was Beck and the festival didn't make it money that year. Didn't even make enough to continue in 2000, and it wasn't until its partnership with Golden Voice in 2001 that it was able to get things back on track and slowly build up to the behemoth of a festival that we see today. It's an event that attracts well over a hundred thousand people per day for the six days of the festival itself. Two straight weekends and it attracts some of the biggest artists in the world. And this year they're especially making its footprint scene on the global scene. The headliners include Bad Bunny, Black Pink, Frank Ocean. There's also artists like Burna Boy, Calvin Harris, and many others that are making up this year's lineup. To break it all down, I'm joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. We talk about what this festival does well, how it's shaped music culture overall, and its broader impact on music festival culture. Here's our breakdown. Hope you enjoy it. [00:02:55] Dan Runcie: All right. Today's episode is all about festivals and the granddaddy of them all, at least in the US, Coachella. We're here to break it down with Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. Tati, welcome back to the pod. [00:03:09] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, thanks for having me, excited to dive in. [00:03:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to talk about this with you is because I feel like Coachella reminds me of some of the conversations we've had about, a lot of these platforms that they, in many ways have become the bigger brand and the destination than the actual creators on some of these platforms. And I feel like Coachella, at least from a music festival perspective, has some of that because at least in the US this is the most popular music festival. We've seen it expand over the past two decades. And while most music festivals do rely so heavily on their headliners, Coachella is one of the ones that it's still able to, in many ways, capture the same audience and just get a consistent following and culture around it. That doesn't seem like it's stood as dependent on the headliners, but they still get big headliners. So how do you think that shapes the festival and how fans themselves interact with that festival? [00:04:10] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. I mean, just to like prove out what you're saying, I think, I'm pretty sure Coachella tends to sell out or at least sell a lot of tickets before their headliners are even announced or before the lineup is announced at all. So you're totally right. I think it's become a big enough brand in itself that people are just kind of, ready to buy into it. And I think it's because Coachella has It's kind of created a culture. I remember kind of the celebrity era of Coachella when like, you know, Vanessa Hudgeons was like the queen of Coachella and you could go and run into Rihanna and Paris Hilton and like they kind of created that aesthetic of like the hippie style and all of these things. And so, when people buy a ticket, it's like they're buying into a lifestyle and a culture more so than the music itself. I think a lot of people go for that experience and to dress up and like buy into that, that lifestyle, maybe even more so than the music. and it does seem like Coachella over time, maybe because of that. The lineups have become a little bit more like crowd pleaser and mainstream to me. Like I was looking, just in preparation for this episode, like kind of looking at the history of Coachella and I didn't realize that when it started, part of what Paul Tollett wanted to do was create like a more niche festival where you would bring together like a lot of niche artists and hope that they all have big enough individual following that, you know, putting all that together. Would be enough for a festival. and it seems like the complete opposite today. In many ways like I think Coachella still sometimes tends to have like more left of center artists that line up this year is like super diverse and interesting. But it does seem like they've maybe become a little bit more mainstream over time. And maybe it is because the people are going not as much for the music as they're going for, like the vibe of it all. [00:06:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and dating back to that first festival, it's kind of crazy that this even became what it is today because it starts in 1999. They announced this festival and put tickets on sale. I think it was two months before the actual festival started, so not that much time. They announced it the same week or the week after Woodstock 99, which is just a complete shit show, which said so much about where people viewed a festival like this and their headliner was Beck. They didn't make as much money, I wanna say like 25,000 people showed. So they couldn't even have a festival in 2000. They had to wait until the next year and do the partnership with Golden Voice and make it happen. And then, yeah, fast forward to where we are today, where it is mainstream pop artists that are doing it. And what was once this niche culture of people that just really enjoyed indie rock music. It now is this mainstream thing. It almost reminds me of something like Comic-Con in that same way where it was this nerd thing with people that you know wanna do live action, role play, and Dungeons and Dragons, or dress up like Zelda. And now every mainstream celebrity is there to promote their movie. [00:07:19] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. And in the same way, you're going to dress up, you're going to like, kind of put on a costume, Coachella, it is kind of a costume for most people and like have that experience regardless of who's playing.so yeah, I totally agree. And I think the other thing, like over time Coachella has gotten to a place because of all that we're talking about, where it has such a, power on the festival market, like written into its contracts, like it has a radius clause that they get to release their lineup first. They are the first festival of the season, mid-April is like pretty early, so there's also now like I think built in ways that Coachella tends to be kind of the North Star for all of the festivals, and so it's just the one that people are going to regardless of, yeah, regardless of who's playing. [00:08:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I also feel like because it has a bit more of that brand and that audience command, regardless of who the artist is, I almost feel like it has a little bit of that Super Bowl effect where artists want to be able to perform on that stage because sure, they may bring some fans themselves, but they're likely gonna be reaching a new audience and having exposure to people that may not necessarily have tapped in general compared to, and I think Coachella is similar, but if you compare that to some of these other festivals that are so heavily reliant on that headliner themself. There's a case to be made that, okay, well if the headliner pulled those fans into the festival, then they have to then share those tickets essentially, you know, soft tickets with everyone else. How does that compare to actual hard tickets that they could have done themselves? So, I feel like there's a Coachella advantage there. [00:09:01] Tati Cirisano: And there's also a disadvantage in that you don't get, I mean, I know that I'm pretty sure already, like the data that you get on who's in your seats at shows is pretty minimal. But when you go to a festival, you don't really know who's going to see the festival for you and you don't really know who dis how many people discovered you or how many people came to your set. It's not the same as like if you sell out an arena, you know, the number of seats that were there, you know what I mean? So that's also an interesting thing is like you are probably getting a greater audience and this artist might be the whole reason the festival is selling tickets, but nobody's actually able to quantify that. [00:09:34] Dan Runcie: Right. And I feel like for some artists too, there's almost a bit of risk mitigation that can come with doing a festival. Risk mitigation may be the wrong word, but I think that's certain artists that have a lot of buzz or may have a lot of fanfare, it may be a lot harder for them to sell hard tickets. But if they could perform in front of this large festival crowd, they get a big advance or they get a big guarantee with the, promoter and through their agent as well, they can feel much more confident performing in front of, you know, thousands of fans or maybe even tens of thousands of fans on stage, even though they may not be able to sell, you know, sell out a house of Blues for instance. [00:10:14] Tati Cirisano: Totally. Yeah. No, and it also feels like being a performer at Coachella has become almost like a badge of honor or like something that goes on your one sheet, you know what I mean? Like, it's something that like gives you leverage as an artist and also is just, I don't know, seen as like it has a certain level of prestige. Like I would compare headlining at Coachella to like, in the same way that a lot of artists would love to get like a rolling stone or a billboard cover, even if like, regardless of whether that's selling or regardless of what that does, just that as a concept has, is just something that's like on a bucket list for most artists. I feel like Coachella headlining Coachella, if you're someone who's trying to be a superstar, that's like a bucket list item too. So yeah, it's, interesting How entrenched this festival has become in the music industry when you really think about it. [00:11:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah, let's look at some of the numbers here, cuz I think that's another fascinating piece. So we don't have hard numbers for this. A lot of it is based on past things that have been shared. But in 2017, this festival grossed to 114 million. And they had around 125,000 people coming per weekend. So if you roughly do the math thing, you look at ticket sales, I feel like that's like just under $500, like per attendee that ends up coming to the festival. And we likely saw similar, maybe even greater as well, because that doesn't take into account sponsorships that doesn't take into account these brand activations and other things as well. And I know that Coachella is a festival that has taken some shit for not paying artists well, at least the artists that are further down that list, that have much smaller font size, I think it's seen as paying the headliners. Well, at least I was talking to, someone that understands the business well, and their estimates were that the headliners this year, so you have Bad Bunny, Black Pink, and Frank Ocean. Their thought was, Frank Ocean and Black Pink got 4 million per weekend, so 8 million total and that Bad Bunny likely got 5 million per weekend. So then 10 total and then I believe that Calvin Harris's name was, towards the bottom of that list, like returned to the desert, Calvin Harris, I think he got one and per weekend. And then the artists that are on let second row, like Burna Boy and a few others, I think it was around like seven 50K per weekend but then it's a steep drop off after that, right? I mean, I remember hearing from Cardi B, this was, you know, after invasion of privacy, but still before, you know, she blew up, blew up. Or maybe it was the year before that, I forget. But she talked about how she was paid 70K, but she saw it as an investment in her career as an opportunity to pull up and get more. And obviously she's someone that you know, is now getting a million dollars. Private shows where she's doing 35 minute sets, but I feel like that like plays into that. So I don't know if all of those artists are getting paid, but yeah, I think some of them are willing to take that because of the exposure. [00:13:14] Tati Cirisano: Right. Yeah, I think you're probably right. And the number that I would love to know is like how much money that, cuz I know you, you were also talking about the boost of the local economy and that I think it was400 million, in Coachella Valley. I'm also wondering, like, even outside of that, just the whole business of it, like you mentioned the sponsorships, the influencer deals, you know, H & M having a Coachella section in their store. Like all of these things, I'm almost more fascinated by all of these kind of like satellite businesses around Coachella than the business of Coachella itself like I would love to know the total number for how much revenue this festival is just kind of generating for all these things outside of it, if that makes sense like, cuz it seems to go so far, like e every store has a festival section in March and you know that what they're really talking about is Coachella. [00:14:06] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Yeah. Like, could we look at, I'm sure they wouldn't share this, but if Forever 21 and H & M and those types of stores shared, how much more do they get from, you know, their festival and attire, whether that's, you know, the flower headdresses or whatever, you know, the crowns and the stuff that people wear or just shut general outfits as well. And then I forget the name of the brand, but there's one of those brands that I'm sure many of them do, but they pay for all the hotels that are in Palm Springs, that are in Indio in the general area, put all the influencers there, buy all the clothes for them, and then buy all their tickets and just have them work almost the same way a reporter would work the festival. [00:14:47] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. like what is the influencer economy around Coachella specifically? Like how much money is there? I would love to know. [00:14:56] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I feel like, because if you count that, I wouldn't be surprised if you're over a billion, especially like just when you count the overall impact for sure. [00:15:05] Tati Cirisano: did you happen to see the price of the first Coachella ticket? When you were doing your research, [00:15:12] Dan Runcie: I saw this a while ago, but I forget now. How much was it? [00:15:16] Tati Cirisano: Guess, guess, [00:15:17] Dan Runcie: oh, guess. Okay. I'm gonna guess it's like $75. [00:15:20] Tati Cirisano: It was $50 [00:15:22] Dan Runcie: Oh, wow. [00:15:23] Tati Cirisano: Was and this year's was $550 and that's before, so [00:15:28] Dan Runcie: Wow. Wow. What a come up 50 bucks to see all those artists and then only 20 other 25,000 other people there. Wow, that's something crazy. Yeah. I mean, so 10X there, everything's grown. And then even just the expansion, right? Because I think it was around like 2007 or so that they first went to multi-day, then they went to multiple weekends. Yeah [00:15:51] Tati Cirisano: I wouldn't be shocked if they added a third. I think anything more than a third weekend would be kind of overkill and maybe wouldn't be special anymore, but I actually would not be shocked if they made it a three weekend thing. [00:16:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah, [00:16:02] Tati Cirisano: One of these days. [00:16:04] Dan Runcie: I feel like it, because if you look at the opportunity, we can talk about this now, but if you look at the livestream play that's been happening, they've only been expanding that. So this was the first year that. So YouTube has been partnering to livestream this show since 2011, I believe, but this is the first year that all six stages are now gonna have a dedicated stream. And I think the pattern that we've seen now is you have a artist like Beyonce, she obviously gets the full recording of her show. She then sells that to Netflix for 20 million dollars or however much that deal is, and then she ends up monetizing that. I assume that there's likely some compensation or some participation that Coachella and more broadly golden voice get from that piece of it. But what could the stepped up livestream look like further. I mean, I've watched it in past years and it's nice, but could there ever be a Super Bowl level production that goes into at least some particular part of these artists sets? Because they're clearly putting more and more into it as it does become a big stage and you do have a little bit more flexibility of Yeah, it's not a 13 minute set, it's a hour long thing and the higher the production value, the more fans are gonna wanna see it, the more YouTube can get more ad dollars for it and the more goes to Coachella too. [00:17:26] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, no, I think there's definitely an opportunity for that and not just higher production quality of filming the show, but also when you mentioned the Super Bowl, like having like commentators and doing interviews and there's like know what I mean like there's like a halftime like conversation. I could see there being like hosts and like interviewing fans and things like that. I feel like that's probably happened at festivals before. before. I haven't watched that many festival live streams but I'm trying to remember, like Glastonbury's was really good, this past year and it was everywhere like, because they did such a good job with the live stream. There were clips on every social media app I looked at. It was all over the news. Like it really became this cultural moment.so I think, yeah, I think there's definitely an opportunity to like have a higher quality live stream that people will pay for. I also think on the other end of things, I wonder how much more. Like UGC Live streams will come into play. I was thinking about this because, bill Wordy, who's the former, billboard, like editor-in-chief, he has a newsletter, you probably know, what is it called? Full Write No Cap [00:18:28] Dan Runcie: Full Rate, No cap. [00:18:30] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, he spoke recently, or he wrote recently about how so many Taylor Swift fans are live streaming the entire. concert for the Eras tour on TikTok and on YouTube and getting tips for it. And these streams are like pretty low quality and they're often like from the nosebleeds and you can't even see Taylor, but they're getting like thousands of viewers and people are paying them to do it, and he kind of suggested, like what could the opportunity be here, whether that's artists partnering with TikTok to livestream it or what I think is more interesting maybe is like partnering with creators to do this. If they're already doing it, why not create an infrastructure around it? But then I also don't wanna advocate for like, everybody to be at the show live streaming the entire show and like have their phones in their faces and like I know artists hate that. I know fans hate that, I hate that. So it's an interesting question and I don't know exactly how it would look, but I feel like UGC live streams could come into play like on the opposite end of these, like more high production shows or live streams. [00:19:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think so too because you, of course, there's always gonna be something for the high production quality camera that you see, and even that I still do believe is under monetized to a lot of extent. I mean, we don't have public numbers, but I could just assume based on what you see from sports and other rights. But the UGC thing is huge because I just feel like you could have some unique angle. You're getting the experience yourself. I'd love to know like what those tipping numbers do look like. But yeah, I think it's huge because while a tour. I think there may feel like a less scarce aspect for that, and just in the fact that, yeah, you know, Taylor is only doing this once, but she's doing roughly 50 shows, right? But there's only gonna be two of these times that, at least right now, that Frank Ocean is gonna be doing this headline set and it's, you know, when we release this podcast, it'll be right in this timeframe but like that's it. Like there's scarcity around that people wanna see that they're gonna wanna go back and watch it time and time again. So I think there's something there. I feel like we start to see some of this where, I'm sure you've seen it. Artists are starting to record one of the shows from their concert and then have that as something that you could watch on Amazon or something you can watch on HBO Max or Hulu. So we're seeing some of that, but I still feel like there's an opportunity to get more fan, like even if you get fan views in there and get them, have some type of participation from when the doc ends up getting sold or whatever that is. I feel like there's a few interesting ways to do it. [00:21:04] Tati Cirisano: I mean, I even think about like YouTube reaction videos and how like that's such a huge space of people. For all sorts of things, like listening to the new Taylor Swift album and live reacting, and people watched that and I could see a similar thing at a festival like live reaction to the Frank Ocean Set. And then afterwards you're like telling everyone what you thought. Like again, I don't wanna advocate for more phones at shows, but I feel like people are already doing this and so maybe it's a question of like how to support it and make it a better experience. I don't know. [00:21:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it'll be interesting to explore. I feel like the other unique thing about Coachella, we can talk a bit about pricing. You mentioned itself the price is 10X'd in 24 years since the first Coachella. But as this festival becomes more expensive as touring itself, especially to see these headliner type artists becomes more expensive. You talked a lot about, or you mentioned how does that impact the actual experience and how does that impact what fans may wanna do? Like how do they justify buying separate tickets to see just one artist versus being able to see multiple ones in a festival? What are your thoughts on that? [00:22:13] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, no, I mean, I think there's multiple factors kind of pushing toward festivals. Being a kind of solution for a lot of fans today. One is, as I've, you know, shouted from the rooftops in so many of our conversations, like listenership is really fragmenting and people tend to listen to way a wider spread of artists today, making it kind of hard to have a mainstream or a superstar, or harder to have a superstar. And they're also focusing more on songs often than artists. and then on top of that, costs for pretty much everything are skyrocketing. So yeah, if you're someone who listens to a wide range of artists and you're more likely to be, to kind of center your fandom around songs than artists themselves, and you also are not maybe able to afford going to five different shows anymore, why would you not rather go to see a festival? And not that festivals aren't expensive, cuz their enormously expensive, especially when you factor in travel and the outfits like we've talked about and all of these things. But I just given all the trends with, listenership that we're seeing, I feel like festivals will become even more popular for consumers. [00:23:23] Dan Runcie: I also think some of this may shift genre by genre, and to some extent I do look at it. A bit bittersweet to some extent because I look at festivals like, let's look at two of them rolling Loud and this Lovers and Friends Festival that I know had been canceled and I know they, had recently had one rolling loud, of course, is primarily rappers and hip hop artists, lovers and friends is more of that R and B that I think that a lot of millennials and even some,younger Gen X folks grew up with. Because those festivals exist in that same way. It's great to be able to bring those artists together. I do wonder though, has that dynamic hurt any of those artists impact to be able to generate not just real fans that may definitely wanna see them by buying hard tickets, but how does that help them grow the fan base in a way that doesn't make them just reliant on doing, rolling loud and then just getting an upfront check to do that as opposed to the long-term gains that could come from. Okay, yeah, you may not be performing for as big of an audience relative to your social following, but what could that build up to down the road? And I think even for some of these legacy artists that are doing lovers and friends fest, I remember I was talking with someone, about this recently and they were like, yeah, you know, as much as you like lovers and friends fest like t hose artists are the more indirect way, seeing them all the way they do now. [00:24:48] Tati Cirisano: Right, like the festival makes a lot of like on paper, logical sense for consumers, but does it make sense for fandom? Like is it actually helping artists nurture fan bases or is it just feeding more into what I was saying about, you know, a lot of people just kind of listening to songs and not artists So yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and a lot of these artists that are playing. Those smaller, more niche festivals are playing a ton of them. And if it's like Megan Thee Stallion is playing at 10 different festivals, why are you going to buy a ticket to her tour? Like, I think it could kind of cannibalize some of those sales or like diminish people's interests in, going to the tour as well, or maybe they go and they're like, oh my God, Megan was incredible during her shorter set. I want to go see her on tour like, I don't know, maybe it, goes both ways, but I do think that we might see more and more of those smaller and more niche festivals for all of the reasons that I've mentioned. Like I think we've seen more and more, there's so many nostalgia festivals now there's so many, like speaking to a very specific scene, like, I forget what it's called, but there was one that was almost like, it was kind of like emo night, but as a festival, like I think we're, I think we're probably gonna see even more of that, and those are gonna be the ones that don't cost you, you know, two grand to go to Coachella. and it's maybe a little bit more accessible. so yeah, I think, I think we're probably gonna see more of those type of niche ones. [00:26:14] Dan Runcie: Do you think that there's certain artists that don't need Coachella? I know we talked about how it's beneficial for headliners, but I thought a lot about the weekend doing Coachella last year, and he was a late edition, Travis Scott was supposed to be the headliner, but after Astroworld and the tragedy there, he didn't do it the weekend does it? The weekend already had this tour planned. He did that tour in Southern California, he had still performed at SoFi Stadium later on that year. I don't know how the radius and the timeframe works out there, but I'm sure there must have been enough time there. But I wonder if, okay, beyond the $8 million, we could assume that he got from that. I mean, that's roughly what he would make from one of these stadium rougnights that he would do on his own tour. Did that benefit him in the same way? I don't know. I mean, I think I can clearly see the benefit for Black Pink or even Bad Buddy and others where, hey, this is a statement. You're here on one of the biggest stages we have in the US and you aren't from this country and you don't live here. There's a big, influence that that can have, but does it make sense for the weekend, right? I know that people have often talked about when would Taylor Swift do it, and whether that's talking about the Super Bowl or even Coachella, but even if we just talk about Coachella even if you paid Taylor 10 million dollars or 12 million dollars, is that going to be more beneficial for her when she can sell out football stadiums herself doing her own thing? So [00:27:47] Tati Cirisano: Right. It's been more important for Coachella than it is for Taylor Swift. to be at Coachella, I guess. [00:27:54] Dan Runcie: I would think so, because I mean, on one hand, yes, we know Coachella is gonna sell out regardless, but they could get more of those fans that may do participate in other, you know, economic, you know, aspects of the festival. [00:28:08] Tati Cirisano: Totally. Yeah. And they have more control over things and everything. Yeah, I think, you're right, for an artist like The Weeknd or Taylor Swift, it's probably more about like checking off that bucket list item or like having that prestige of performing at Coachella than it is like a material benefit. I think you're probably right to question that, but then you're right. for an artist like Black Pink, it means a lot more and is probably a lot more impactful in terms of like revenue and fan building and things like that. [00:28:35] Dan Runcie: Another topic you brought up about festivals right before we had started recording, you're talking about a festival you had went to recently in Knoxville, Tennessee, and it was spread out across different music venues in the city itself. And you also said you're done with festivals on festival grounds. So can you talk a little bit about that? Cuz I think that could be interesting to dig into a bit. [00:29:01] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, no, it was perfect timing to do this episode because I went to the antithesis of Coachella last weekend, which is, a festival called Big Ears in Knoxville, Tennessee it was a 10 year anniversary of this festival and in terms of the types of performers there, it was a lot of kind of like experimental and independent and folk music, instrumental artists, like Sun Ra Arkestra was one of the performers. I also, my favorite performer was a rock band from Niger called Atron Delea, like it was all these kind of like from all over artists and so that was one part of it that was cool. It was very niche and it was very much a scene, kind of like I'm talking about having these like more niche scene oriented festivals and it was held across the venues in Knoxville, of which there are like, 10 or 15, and they're all about a 10 minute walk from each other. And they also had performances in movie theaters and in cathedrals and in these sort of like non-traditional spaces and. It was just such a more enjoyable experience to me than being locked in a pen in like a parking lot and like, you know, having to pay $10 for water and like feeling very Lord of the Flies for 12 hours like, it was such a better experience and it also struck me how much it could be, you know, a big thing for the venues in that area. It's a big thing for the community and for the culture of the city, like, I don't think you could like turn Coachella into a festival, like across the venues in LA or like New York or something like, I don't think it would work for something at that scale, but it did make me think that, there could be more of, I think, and I'm sure that there are, I'm sure others exist, but that there could be more of these types of festivals that are a bit smaller, a bit more niche, and are held in a city. And you're also bringing the music to consumers rather than people having to travel to someplace like LA like just having these festivals in smaller cities. I just think there's a big opportunity there and also just to innovate the festival experience in general. Like, why do we have to be, you know, in a parking lot and, you know, all that kind of stuff. There's been better. Innovations in like, like I know the food at festivals has gotten a lot better over time. It used to be like frozen pizza was like your only option, and now there's like crazy food tents. But yeah, it just got me thinking about like how to innovate the festival experience and what the future of things looks like. [00:31:23] Dan Runcie: That's a good point because it makes me think of the film festival variety that we see where there's different vibes, but a lot of it is based in existing venues, and it does bring a bit more traffic in general activity to that area, but it's a bit of a different experience, right? Whether it's, you know, Tribeca or even here in San Francisco or in Sundance, I mean you could also get a little bit of a different vibe too, where, okay, if you wanna go skiing in Park City, then you can go to Sundance in January, right? If you want to go on the French Riviera afterward, you can go to Cannes like there's so many different vibes, but I feel like in general, when people think of music festivals, it is wearing that Coachella outfit and being somewhere in an open field with not a lot of shade and, you know, like that type of thing. So I feel like it couldn't then, yeah, it could just bring a little bit more variety to some of these things. And the fact that it already exists is good, but it could probably bring a bit more, you know, boom, to some of these other areas that may want something unique and ideally, if they're not overlapping on headliners, which is another thing that I know is an ongoing challenge with these festivals. I feel like when Outkast did their whole festival run where I forgot how many they did in 2014, that was the first year that stuck out to me where I was like, oh, some of these artists are just going boom, boom, boom. Same festival. Same festival. So you have that some artists that would do it in the same years, but then you also have some artists that will just come back and do the same festival time and time again, and it really isn't that much different. What are your thoughts on that? [00:33:02] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. I wanna say one more thing about the big years thing, really quick before that question, which is, how that kind of festival could expand the audience, like the tam of festival goers like I would say about half of the people at Big Year's were 55 plus, these are not people that are going to Coachella, you know, like, I mean, maybe they are, but I, I think there's other demographics and other age groups that would enjoy going to a festival if there was a bit of a different experience. So I feel like there's a lot of groups that were not hitting with the traditional festival market. and like this venue model could be kind of like that. but yeah, in terms of festival lineups getting a lot more homogenous, I kind of can't help but attribute it to the fragmentation trend that we've been talking about and how much harder it is to create a new mainstream superstar today. Like, y eah, I think that a lot of festivals are finding it harder and harder to find these kind of crowd pleasingheadline acts and there aren't as many new ones coming up. And it also seems like, festivals are kind of continuing to dip into these legacy acts from times when the industry was less congested and less fragmented like the Glastonbury lineup, it's Yeah, Arctic Monkeys, Elton John and Guns N' Roses. And it's like this could be the lineup a decade ago. So it does feel like not only are festival lineups becoming more homogenous, but a lot of them are tending to book legacy acts rather than newer, mainstream stars. Maybe because there aren't as many newer mainstream stars, I don't know. [00:34:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that, that headline spot is probably where some of, I don't even wanna say contention, but some of that decision making can lie in, maybe a lot of this applies to festivals that aren't like Coachella a bit because they are a bit more reliant on the headliners themselves, and because of that, they're more likely to make, what they feel is safer picks and unfortunately, a lot of these safer picks end up being more male, more white, and more legacy acts that have likely been there before. So if they're like, okay, well we knew that Arctic Monkeys were, you know, huge in 2012, then let's bring them back in so we can try to command some of that same audience that is like, well, you also have local stars and others around the world that don't fit into those same categories that could do it. But they feel like that's a risk, unfortunately, and then if they do invite those folks, it's for less money and their name is smaller and they're not presented as a headliner in the same way. So I think that's one of the downsides of it. And the fact, I think fragmentation plays into this, cuz I think, you know, regardless of who you are, it has just become even harder to have artists break out. The artists that do break out, they're more likely to maybe break out within their particular region. It's harder to have that same global appeal in that same way and I think we've seen maybe a few outlier examples of that more recently. Especially when you look at Coachella's lineup this year with Burna Boy and Black Pink and Bad Bunny all having prominent placement in their festival. I'm curious what that looks like in future years. How do you maintain that? Because even from that perspective, yeah, there's other artists that are huge, but they've already kind of gotten some of the biggest ones that we've at least had at this particular moment. But there's others. I'm curious. I forget if Dual Lipa has headlined one of the big, huge festivals in the world, I don't think she has yet, right? [00:36:41] Tati Cirisano: That's a good question. She hasn't headlined Coachella, she definitely had a big set at Glastonbury, but I don't know if she headlined. I don't know. [00:36:48] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. I feel like that may have been a few years ago, but I forget if that was like before or after, [00:36:53] Tati Cirisano: Oh yeah. [00:36:53] Dan Runcie: of Nostalgia tour and then after that, just thinking of other artists that have gotten huge in the past recent years, whether you have Billy Eilish or SZA, I mean, there's a few but. I'd be interested to see whether or not those names have become headliners, maybe we're seeing some of these festivals do this now, where outside Lasnier, which is, you know, right here in my backyard of San Francisco, their most recent poster. Instead of having three headliners, one per day, they have 10 artists that have big font size names, and then they have the other 60 or 70 that all have, you know, smaller, but it's all kind of the same. And, you know, you just look at the names of these artists. I'll just say right now for outside Lasnier, Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, Odessa, Lana Del Ray, the 1975, Megan Thee Stallion, Zed, Janelle Monáe, Maggie Rogers, and Fisher. and I mean, I'm, I'm not shy to be mean, I'm not trying to call anyone out, but there's certain artists on that I just mentioned there that would not headline outside lands if it was presented as, oh, these are the three headliners. And they may not even be on that second row either, but. Is that in some way reflective of where things are, where it may make it easier, and of course you could probably guess based on the order of those names, Kendrick Lamar's name is at the top, you know, of this list. But still like, is this some type of reflection of this fragmentation where you have all these different genres, most of these artists, more modern, current artists, except for, you know, Foo Fighters, a bit more legacy that has continued to play on but I wonder how often we'll see that with other festivals that are maybe closer to outside lands and Coachella where, you know, still a major huge festival, but they're not getting the same headliners that Coachella is. [00:38:42] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. No, I think, you're absolutely right and I think we're gonna see that type of lineup more, at the same time as we're seeing that, there are fewer of these like Beyonce level mainstream stars, we're seeing a growth in the middle tier. We're seeing a lot more of these like, cult stars and also artists on that list who are huge but aren't really at the level of, you know, some of like Madonna or you know, these artists of the past, these icons of the past. So I think it makes more sense rather than having, you know, three headliners to have like six, not as huge artists still have a really big following. I think that makes a lot more sense, for the festival, the people going, and I think we will start to see more of that just because of the way that fragmentation is playing out. Yeah. I also wonder, when we're gonna start to see like the millennial version of legacy artists start to perform, like, was funny when I saw like the lovers and friends line up, I was like, oh my God. when you start getting an nostalgia festival marketed to you, that's when you know you're getting old. That's when you know you're no longer like the youngest And like, I wonder, when we'll start to maybe tap into like 90s and 2000s era. Sort of icons, like I would love to see like Missy Elliot headline, Coachella, like that type of thing. And I wonder if that's gonna be like the next step once we've exhausted all the times that like Foo Fighters can possibly headline a festival [00:40:09] Dan Runcie: I know, right? Like [00:40:10] Tati Cirisano: Who are also that era but, you know, what I mean, like. [00:40:13] Dan Runcie: For sure. For sure. Yeah, because I feel like we saw. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg were headliners maybe around 10 years ago, and then they had brought, the Tupac hologram out infamously. You remember that? So, we did have that. And of course, you know, that kind of reminds me of the Super Bowl that, from a couple years ago. But I do feel like there's a sweet spot there, given. Where Usher is right now, the popularity of his residency, I wouldn't be surprised if he jumps back on this circuit and he's doing less of the lovers and friends and he's doing more of the headlining major music festivals [00:40:49] Tati Cirisano: He would be amazing. [00:40:50] Dan Runcie: There's a huge opportunity there. Yeah. Great performer. I think he still does great stuff. I wanted to see if I can go make it to Vegas to go catch this, residency before it ends. But yeah, I I think that there is a sweet spot there for that. I mean, you think about other artists, I think Justin Timberlake has probably done some of these already, so we've seen him do them. I don't know if Britney Spears would probably perform in that same way. But we'll see. I feel like there's a number of artists that they can tap into from that era. [00:41:18] Tati Cirisano: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [00:41:21] Dan Runcie: And yeah. I guess before we wrap things up, are there any predictions you have then for let's predict what 2024 would look like? Three headliners. Who would you think would most likely be a headliner for Coachella 2024? [00:41:37] Tati Cirisano: I would say SZA, probably, I would say Dua Lipa I think she makes a lot of sense as a headliner too, just in terms of like how, I hate like, I don't wanna say like crowd pleasing or mainstream, but like, cause I feel like that sounds like I'm giving her shade and I'm not. I think she's incredibly talented, but like she would please a, a big swath of people with her music and she's a cool performer and she has some time now, I think, since she's not touring. but, okay. So Du Lipa, SZA, This is about to be an all female headliners. This is a bit of wishful thinking, but I would love to see, cause I don't know if she's ready for this yet, but I would love to see Rosalia, headline Coachella. I think she's getting there and I actually saw her in 2019 at Coachella. She was playing the tiniest stage ever and she treated it like she was in a stadium. Like the production quality and the dancers and just like everything she put into it was incredible. And she's risen a lot over the past few years. So, yeah, that's my trio. [00:42:35] Dan Runcie: Nice. Nice. All right. We have one in common. We have SZA, so I'm gonna go SZA, Madonna, and Usher. I think that's gonna be my prediction, I feel like, Madonna has this tour coming up. Maybe she'll cap things off with a Coachella performance. But I feel like yeah, if you're gonna have this tour, I forget the name of it, you're gonna go back through all her eras. I feel like there's something unique there, so, so, yeah. I know, I know. And we'll have to revisit this. We still have a number of festival lineups to get announced this year, so we'll have to check back in and see how do these continue to develop, what continues to shape in how these festivals continue to evolve over time. So tati, this was great. Thanks for coming on. [00:43:17] Tati Cirisano: Yeah, Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. [00:43:19] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:43:20] Dan Runcie Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat. Post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how capital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, Go ahead. Rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 05 Feb 2021 | The Best Hip-Hop Album Rollouts of All-Time (with Ernest Wilkins) | 00:52:48 | |
A webinar recording of "The Best Hip-Hop Album Rollouts of All-Time," a conversation on the best album rollouts in hip-hop since the year 2000. I’m joined by Ernest Wilkins of Office Hours. We break down the marketing tactics that make a good album release and each shared our top five list of albums rollouts. Our lists include some big releases by Kanye West, Dreamville, Beyonce, and many more! Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Ernest Wilkins, @ernestwilkins, officehoursnewsletter.com Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 15 Jul 2019 | No Tour, No Problem for Cardi B | 00:08:59 | |
Dan breaks down why Cardi B has held out on a major tour, why she’s on the festival circuit instead, and whether her model is one that other rappers can follow. Listen: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | YouTube | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, trapital.co, @RuncieDan Links Discussed:
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| 05 Aug 2024 | StubHub: The Complicated World of Reselling Tickets | 00:46:10 | |
StubHub has IPO plans this year, so it was the perfect time to breakdown the complicated, controversial, and crazy story of this ticket resale marketplace. We discuss its 25-year history, M&A, impact on the live concert business, and ways to improve the secondary ticketing experience for fans. I'm joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. Hope you enjoy! Learn more about the Trapital Summit here. Join us Oct 3 in LA! This episode is presented by State Farm, the home for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Make sure you check out our Chartmetric Stat of the Week. Learn more about Alts music investor trip to Nashville! | |||
| 04 May 2023 | Rerun: How KevOnStage is Building His Comedy Flywheel | 00:55:58 | |
This week, I’m running back an interview with another one of the most popular episodes we ever did with KevOnStage from early 2022. KevOnStage (Kevin Fredericks) is a comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage studios. Today's episode talks about how he built an independent brand that really paid off his hard work. He established a solid fan base, had millions of followers on social media, and monetized these platforms by producing his hilarious viral content, a total blast in the mainstream. Listen as we talk about what's going on in his business and his independent success, turning rejection into a massive opportunity to be where he is now. Episode Highlights [01:56] What KevOnStage is currently working on [04:49] His take on more black content going in the mainstream [06:53] KevOnStage’s motto, his marketing strategy, and business goals [11:57] What it’s like to have autonomy in his brand [19:08] His thoughts on artists knowing their audience and dealing with critics [21:30] What's the process from the stuff put out on socials versus onstage [25:24] How does he approach his game using different social platforms [32:38] What’s something beyond just the monetary gain that makes him want to continue to feel inspired to create content [35:13] His opinion on creators who are a one-platform-dominant [38:21] Where does his most lucrative income come from [41:57] How he diversify his content to own the media and make his brand stand out [45:51] What would he like to be doing more of [51:28] KevOnStage’s new content to watch out for Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: KevOnStage Studios This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPT Kev: So, sometimes partnering is great, sometimes licensing is great, sometimes selling is great sometimes. A good business person takes the best deal for what they need to get done. (intro) Dan: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I’m your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today’s guest is KevOnStage, the comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage Studios. I’ve been following KevOnStage for years now. I think he’s one of the funniest people on the internet so it was so good to have this conversation. We talked about how he’s built his business and everything that he has done from how he creates content, how he thinks about what platforms he prioritizes, how that then provides insights for what he creates for his longer form content, what gets created from KevOnStage Studios, and, ultimately, the type of opportunities that he can offer for other creators and other entertainers that want to do, in many ways, largely the type of thing that he’s done. And we talked about where his streaming service sits in this ecosystem of the Netflixes and the Hulus and, in a lot of ways, even though those streaming services may have their black voices tabs, that’s not quite the type of content that is what Kev is making so he’s really finding his niche, doubling down there, and how he uses the insights from that to infer what gets made, that is how many creators have been very successful so so much of that is very relatable. This is also probably one of the interviews I’ve laughed in the most. He’s hilarious, like I said. This is a great conversation. I really hope you enjoy it. Here’s my chat with KevOnStage. (interview) Dan: All right, we got my guy KevOnStage here. Kev, you are one of the busiest people that I’d seen from 2021. Now we’re next year, man. How you feeling? Fresh year, how is it? Kev: I’m excited, man. We’ve got a lot of new things we’re working on. I’m really excited, man. It’s always fun to be at the beginning of a project, not knowing where it’s going or how far it may go and that’s kind of where I am now. All the things I’m like, “Oh, soon as I get back, soon as I get back, I’m gonna start working on that.” That time is here now so I’m really excited. Dan: That what’s up. Because I feel like for you, you got a few things that are already in motion that have been working well. Your content’s good. You got that machine going. But the Studio, I feel like that’s the really exciting thing that’s been growing. Kev: Listen, man, I’m working on my own flywheel, okay? Westbrook, they got their flywheel, fast IP, that was the best graphic I’ve ever seen that you made. Dan: Oh, thank you. Kev: I was like, “This is what I wanna do. I wanna do everything from Instagram videos to selling shows.” So, you know, and they all have their own value so that’s what’s exciting. I have the same amount of joy from making a funny reel like I posted of Angel falling in the challenge show, it was just — I spent 20 minutes on that, really just getting the fall right. And then I came here, you know, I went on location scout right before I came here to this new show we’re working on and then this podcast, like they’re all exciting for different reasons so I’m trying to enjoy it all. Dan: Yeah. I think the cool thing with that, you get to wear multiple hats and I know, with this, there’s a number of things that interest you about this, right? Like you enjoy comedy, you have that piece, but I also know that you like to put people on. You wanna use your platform to do that. So I feel like you being able to wear each of those hats and do those things gives you that opportunity to provide all of that. Kev: Absolutely, man. I think there’s the old saying of the church, “We’re blessed to be a blessing,” and that’s kind of what I wanna do. People have given me opportunities, partnerships with, you know, people have helped lift me, and I just wanna pass along the same thing. For me, my platform isn’t about me shining alone, you know what I mean? I tell my friends all the time, I want us all in the gated community. One things I used to do at all deaths that I found a lot of joy in was give people their first great reel or first time directing or whatever and I found that I had as much joy doing that as making somebody laugh. And KevOnStage Studios is really just a more expensive version of that. So, we wanna give people their first time PA-ing or help you get into the wardrobe union or makeup union. It’s hard for black people to get into those places but we need black people in those spaces so that’s kind of what we’re working towards doing. And then even simple things like our editor, one of our editors likes improv so it’s like, “Hey, you wanna be in an episode?” Things like that are great too because I want people to be able to scratch their own creative itch and that’s kind of what my passion is. Dan: What I like about KevOnStage Studios is that, sure, I think there’s a lot of attention right now with, “Oh, there’s so much black content out there on your Netflix,” your this and this, but what you’re doing is like you’re saying, that’s true to an extent but it really isn’t true for a lot of the people that I think could have the opportunities to be put on in this era. Kev: Yeah. I was just watching Abbott Elementary this morning where I was shaving and I was just like, man, this show is amazing, and to see somebody like Quinta Brunson who — my first time seeing her was on Instagram. Her “Girl who’s never been on a nice date, a large, he must got — he got money. He could —” like from that to a network sitcom. And even shows like South Side, which I don’t know their story as much, but the show is amazing, that’s great. But then there’s a lot of creators who have those similar ideas and absolutely no path to HBO, Comedy Central, ABC, Netflix. Even me, like I’ve pitched to a lot of people and I had a lot of, “Uh-huh, we’ll circle back.” And, you know, that was 2018, ’19, you know, pandemic killed off anything I had going in Hollywood so I want to be that same network for people who can’t get all the way to Hollywood, you know, like here’s your chance to get to, you know, Hollywood adjacent — North Hollywood, if you will. You’re right over the hill, you just — you know, it’s cheaper in North Hollywood. You know, there’s more taco trucks, you know? And your number 15 minutes of real Hollywood, you know, that’s what KevOnStage Studios, it’s the North Hollywood of Hollywood. We’re right there. We’re right there. But it’s a one-bedroom washer and dryer stacked, you know? Dan: Exactly. Kev: That’s a leg up from having to go to a laundry mat. Dan: Yes, that’s true. It’s true. Kev: Stackable’s good, man. I’ll take a stackable. Dan: Right, right. It’s one of those things, right? It’s like location and all that, you can’t pick everything with these things. You can pick two, and, Kev, you’re gonna give them two. Kev: Laundry is a huge plus. Location and a stackable, I’m like, “Bet, let’s do it.” Dan: Well, I think the good thing with it is that — because I know in past interviews, you’ve talked about, hey, with this model, this is something you wanna provide the opportunity. But from a business perspective, I know that it’s not something that you necessarily need like a ton of subscribers to reach some point or you’re not trying to reach like Netflix scale necessarily, it’s something that can sit beside that. But with that, I’m sure you also have goals from the business side as well as the impact side with the service. So, what does that look like from a streaming service perspective? Kev: Yeah, that’s a great, great question. It’s like — I heard this example somewhere. They’re like, you know, somebody’s saying you’re not gonna beat Walmart at selling everything at a low price, right? They’re gonna beat you if you’re starting out. What you can beat them at is selling a lot of one thing, right? Because they sell so many things for a low price, they can’t sell a lot of any one thing so they’re gonna have, you know, maybe one or two black shaving kits, maybe Bevel and maybe one other thing. If you have a black beauty supply store, people are gonna be like, “Well, Walmart doesn’t have what I’m looking, here I can go get some weave, you know, a do rag, I can get Bevel, I can get seven other, I get essential oils, I can get Dixons,” you know? So that’s our motto, like we’re not — Netflix has an $8 billion content budget. They made Squid Game to Red Notice with the Rock — we can’t compete with that, right? But they don’t have black people learning how to play spades. They don’t have that video. They don’t have, you know, the Real Comedians Challenge Show, they don’t have things like that, right? So we wanna over serve a population that is being served by Hollywood but it’s not the primary focus, you know what I mean? Right now, we’re in an area of, we’re sorry, black people Hollywood, like, man, we really discriminate against you guys for a long time and you guys caught us out on it. So we’re reaping the benefits of all that, you know, time where we weren’t, you know, getting our just due. But even then, there’s still so many other shows that can’t be made to this audience and that’s kind of what we wanna fill. We wanna make stuff for black people who don’t see themselves on Netflix, you know? This church show that we’re working on, you know, is for black people who grew up in the church from a point of view of somebody who also grew up in the church and worked in the church, like if you grew up in the church like me, you know, there’s never really been a true church show from people who grew up in there. There’s people who attended but not people who like worked in ministry, and Netflix might not see the value in making a show like that and that’s where we come in, and we wanna serve that audience. All that content where they can’t get it on Netflix. And also I’m not even saying you don’t have to have Netflix, like I ain’t gonna lie to you, Dan, I watch my Netflix, I watch Hulu, HBO Max, like as a consumer, there’s stuff that I wanna watch too, like Game of Thrones one through four. Dan: Yeah, one through four. One through four. Kev: One through four. Insecure, like all those shows. Of course we’re not even here to say “Don’t watch Netflix” and “Boycott Netflix” like I won’t even ask you to do that because I’m not gonna do that. But, you know, sometimes you want a nice steak dinner at a five-star restaurant, sometimes you just want a taco truck, you know, and you can’t get that experience. When you really want a street taco or the corn man selling elotes, you know, a big steak dinner is not gonna do it. So that’s all we wanna be, man. We just a little taco truck on the street, man, just pull up real quick, get you three little tacos, you know what I’m saying? Some Jarritos and a little elote and go on about your way. You’re not gonna bring your wife here to propose to her. But if you’re in between work, you know, this Kevin taco, that’s KevOnStage Studio, just a little street taco place on the side. Dan: Right. And then with Netflix too, that’s the place that has all the good ratings of the people that know what’s up. Kev: And that’s the thing. You know, somebody gotta tell you about this place. “Hey, man, you gotta go over there. Trust me.” And when you — and that’s kind of how we’re growing, right? We don’t have the marketing budget like Netflix, right? When Netflix came out, yet get three months free, a year free. They had billboards and buses in Times Square. We don’t have that. Our thing is like, “Yo, there’s this funny show on this network called KevOnStage Studios, you gotta check it out.” Or you see a funny clip on TikTok and you wanna see the rest of the video, that’s our marketing right now. Word of mouth, your boy telling you, your girl telling you, or you seeing a clip and you wanna see more. Dan: Right. I think I heard you made the analogy once of the Sally’s Beauty Supply as opposed to, you know, what you may see at the traditional place like a Walmart, right? And I think even with that, it’s like, you know, from a haircare perspective, you know what, yeah, Walmart may have that can of Sportin’ Waves but I may want something a little more serious if you wanna make sure the wave’s spinning, right? You gotta get something a little — Kev: Absolutely. They might just have Sportin’ Waves but they’re not gonna have Murray’s, they’re not gonna have Sulfur8, Just For Me, they might just have one thing. And that’s kind of, yeah, that’s exactly what we wanna do here, man, and we’re having a good time doing it. Dan: That’s great, man. That’s great. I think that, in a lot of ways, like we were saying before, that’s how you identify the elements of your flywheel and where everything sits and how you’re able to foster not just your platform but the other opportunities and what I think it does at the end of the day, it narrows in, okay, what is the KevOnStage brand? What does it stand for? And what type of opportunities you can create from that? Because I feel like with you specifically, you’ve now kind of hit this mode where I know you mentioned that, you know, you were knocking on the door of many folks in Hollywood or anywhere else and they weren’t necessarily letting you in, but now I feel like you’re kind of at this stage where you are doing well for yourself given everything you’ve built up independently. You’re now able to leverage things. As you mentioned yourself, you got that Maserati, like you’re — like you’re showing from that perspective, right? But you got those things. I’m curious, though, because I know that — and as you know, definitely you have broken down a lot of the levels of what creators are and the creator economy and all those things, at this stage, you really do have the autonomy if you wanted to, okay, at this stage, would I wanna ever do some type of partnership or deal with one of these bigger distributors that are always trying to offer comedians or creators like yourselves the serious bag, but I’m curious from your stage right now, like is that something that would still entertain you? Like is that something that you would ever do? Kev: I thought about it and it depends and I’ll tell you why. One of the best parts about being at KevOnStage Studios and not having to answer to a network is not having to answer to a network. If I wanna make a show, if I wanna cast whoever, no name or whatever, I don’t have to have anybody else say yes, you know, or no, right? One thing is, you know, I learned when I shot my first pilot that a network paid for, when they pay for it, what they say goes, right? So in this instance, they were like, “Take this joke out and this joke out and this joke out,” during the notes process and then when we shot it, they’re like, “This isn’t funny. This is not landing. We don’t think black people are gonna get this” so we took all that stuff out, even though we were fighting for it, at the end of the day, they won because we were small and we didn’t have as much power in the room, and at the end of the day, they passed on it because they said it wasn’t funny enough. We were like, “Well, you took everything funny out. How could it be funny?” So, you know, when you’re first starting out, the network has all the power because I’m not Denzel or Shonda Rhimes. If I got an opportunity, they’re gonna tell me what it is, and fight as I may, it’s gonna be what they say. But here, we can make what we want to make and I think that autonomy is very freeing and it allows me to make what I know is good and funny. Like one of the things that I pride myself on is knowing my audience and what they will like and all that stuff. And, you know, even when I do like brand deals, you know, especially early on, I would have less power and I would have to basically say whatever the brand said and it would come out corny, and I’d be like my audience would hate it and they could smell the fakeness from a mile away. As I’ve grown. I’ve been like, “Hey, I’m gonna tell you right now that’s not gonna work. Trust me, let me do it this way and it always goes over better.” So, in that instance, I love the autonomy. However, if we were able to partner with someone, it allows us to make things at a greater scale and provide more opportunities for other people and do things a lot easier. You know, everything we do now, we gotta figure it out, you know, when your mom came home, the kitchen bare, the cupboard’s bare, she’s like, okay, we got two chicken thighs, some corn, you know, some breadcrumbs, make something work. That’s where we’re at, you know what I’m saying? At the end of the day, you’re like, “Hey, low key, that was kind of fire for what we had,” but you’d also love to just go to the grocery store and get everything you want. So, right now, I’m loving the freedom, but as we grow, I wouldn’t say no to an opportunity to do more and maybe employ more people for certain projects. I don’t think there’s ever a world where everything I do, I answer to somebody. I always want to be able to create something that I want to create without having to answer to anybody. But, you know, if Warner Brothers said, “Kev, we’re gonna offer 140 million to develop some stuff,” well, yes. Yes, I would — I’ll take a little 140 mil, yeah. Dan: Right, right. And that’s the thing, right? It’s like you have the clear strategy and from an overall perspective, it sounds like, hey, I know that overall deals are the wave, that’s not necessarily what I’m looking for. However, if that number is right, I’m not gonna not have the conversation. We’re going to talk about it Kev: Absolutely — like look what Tyler Perry did, right? And I’ve watched his career and tried to mimic it to the best of my ability, which I haven’t done that well yet. But, you know, still working. But, you know, he leveraged the early Lionsgate deals into his own pocket, like, you know, he partnered with them and they were able to finance those movies and he did X, Y, Z, boom, boom. And then the capital that he got from that, he was able to finance his own shows. So sometimes, partnering is great sometimes, licensing is great sometimes, selling is great sometimes. A good business person takes the best deal for what they need to get done, right? So I wouldn’t say that, you know, part of our business model is if I can make a show, you know, at our margins and I can license it to you in the first window, I can make a great margin there and now I’ve done two things, I’ve made the show and I made the show I want and I might, you know, right now, there’s a lot of, you know, places that have more distribution than we do so if you wanna take it off our hands, we made our money back and you wanna, you know, stream it, then you’ve just introduced a lot more people to KevOnStage Studios and they can come back to the app and watch the other stuff we’ve made. So that’s definitely part of our plan and that would help us make more shows. So even if we sold that one and they own the rights to it, I wouldn’t cry because we can make eight more shows with what we sold that one for. So it’s about making the right business, you know, choice at the right time and not being like, “I wanna own it all,” like, I mean, obviously, I wanna own it all but that also comes with its own risks, which means you have to finance it all. And if it sucks, you’ve lost everything, you know? Everything you spent. So that’s a risk that you don’t want to have to take every time, you know? Sometimes, you wanna take it when it’s near and dear to your heart, but not — every time? You wanna reach into your own pocket every time? You know? Not every time. So, yeah, we’re always keeping our options open to the right partnership whenever that may come. Dan: Yeah, I think that’s the healthy and best way to look at it, because as both of us, people that spent a lot of time on Twitter, we know how big — everyone wants to own everything, right? But until you’re actually in it, you don’t realize how much nuance there is with all of that and I really look at these things as a spectrum, as you do, and I think the best people have a mix of both of these things. And like you said, I know that, you know, you mentioned Tyler Perry as a model, the same way that you know how to create this content and do it at a way it’s affordable, that’s essentially what he did with like Meet the Browns, right? Boom, let me go sell this to TBS and now we got cable distribution for however many years, you know, he’s been doing that. Kev: Absolutely, and hardly anybody in Hollywood could shoot at the rate he shoots at. So his margins are much lower than a traditional network or even cable. So I mean, you know, Tyler, you see articles, they shot 20 episodes in six days — Dan: Wild. Kev: — nobody would even attempt that, you know? And BET was like, yeah, we’ll take more. We’ll take whatever you got. So, for him, he knows his audience, he knows his business model, he knows it works. Critics don’t stop what he’s doing. And the numbers reflect that he’s doing the right thing. People criticize, come what may, but when them numbers come out, people are watching. So that’s one thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is like, especially if you’re on Twitter a lot, everything sucks, everybody hates everything, there’s nothing good, everybody’s wrong. But at the end of the day, somebody is watching that. So, you know, we’d be on Twitter trashing everything but somebody likes that show and they’re watching it weekly. So, Tyler’s learned to focus on those people who are enjoying it and tuning out people who don’t enjoy because they’re not — they don’t help his plan and that’s kind of what we’re doing here. Like we’re not trying to make everything for everybody. We’re trying to make a lot of stuff for the people who want to watch it. And then you grow, the same thing Tyler did, you have your base, you cater to that base, and you grow that base. Dan: Yep. Kev: And if you do that, I mean, that’s tried and true. Like we were talking about earlier, you don’t need a lot of followers, you don’t need a whole bunch of people. You need people who are really excited and who want to come to your live show and buy a t-shirt, to support your Patreon, and get your app, you know? There’s so many creators with millions of followers but not a lot of active fans so when they try to go on tour or sell a t-shirt, people are like, “No, man, we don’t — we’re not — you know, post the thing on Instagram I like.” Dan: Right. Kev: But I wanna do this. No, no, no. So I learned a long time ago, it’s better to have 500 really active fans than 5 million people who kinda like your stuff. Dan: Definitely. And I feel like, with you, you’ve been able to see that in real life, like you are going on tour, you’re seeing these people in person, you’re getting all those reactions too. And you mentioned earlier about just insights and you being able to see what works and what doesn’t and I wonder, how much of that is based on just the feeling of, “Okay, this piece or this post really took off and then I’m gonna try to incorporate that into something,” or how much of it is also, you know, data driven as well where you’re looking at things, you know, precisely and you’re like, “Okay, like if I’m spending this much time here,” what’s that process like, you know, from the stuff you put out on socials versus what you may do on stage? Kev: That’s a great question. For socials, the one thing I’ve learned about the internet is I don’t know anything about the internet. What goes viral? What works? Man? My best TikTok is me holding my son’s dog and talking about how black people — Dan: Oh, does your dog know if you’re black? Kev: Does your dog know you’re black? If you’re Mexican, does your dog know you’re Mexican? If you’re white, does your dog know you’re white? That didn’t take a lot of thought. I literally was at home and he was about to get into something, I was like, and then I was like, I wonder if he knows that means stop in black, you know what I mean? And then I wondered if a Mexican family has their own version of that. I just threw that up and it had — it’s got like 2.6 million views on TikTok. That is not the funniest video, it’s not the most relatable, it didn’t even do that well on Instagram or Twitter or whatever. I just throw it up against the wall. I let the internet decide what’s funny or not and I know some things tend to do well more than others. Any culture messing with black food in a way that’s not traditional, you mess with macaroni and cheese, it’s gonna get a lot of views, right? But, you know, I was making a lot of those food videos and then people were just — like I was getting every food video so I was like, okay, as a creator, even if it does get a lot of views, I don’t wanna be the food guy and I don’t wanna keep making the same video. So, part of my strategy is I make something that is funny, make something that’s relatable, or make something that I just think is funny. Or if I got nothing of that, then I’ll share another creator who’s funny. There’s been some days where I’m like, “Man, I don’t feel funny today,” and I’ll see somebody else’s video, I’ll be like, well, let me just share their stuff because there’s nothing I can do that’s as funny as this. So, you know, and I share and tag them and then I’m like, even if I didn’t make something funny, I fulfilled my promise to introduce you to new creators. So that’s kind of my strategy. And I just also am very consistent. Even if I don’t think the video’s great, I still post it because what’s great to me and what’s great to somebody else is very different. I’ve had a lot of videos that I think they’re hilarious that did absolutely nothing. And a lot of them, like my dog video that I didn’t think nothing of and just threw up, that went viral. Like I made this waffle house video probably four or five years ago, I mean, I was on my way to work, I was like, you know, I saw this article, it said Waffle House is dirty. And I’m just like nobody who eats at Waffle House cares about that. Dan: Right. Kev: We know. That video went stupid viral. I mean crazy. And I didn’t even — it took less than 5 minutes total. Shoot, edit, post. And I did it — I wouldn’t advise this but I shot the whole thing on the freeway. I was driving to work, I always had my phone in my rearview mirror thing, hit record, said what I had to say, turned it off. When I got out of my car, I edited it, put the article next while I was walking to work. That thing went crazy. Didn’t think nothing of it. Just threw it up and so many people, that’s how they got introduced to me. So, you know, what do I know? I’ve been doing this 10 years now pretty consistently. So many things went viral that I would have never done. And, you know, that’s the nature of the internet. Dan: Right, it’s like you know that there’s generally a type of content you put out that’s going to work, you put it out there and you just know that something’s gonna hit. It may not always be what you think is gonna hit, but you put it out there, for sure. Kev: Absolutely, man. Let the people decide what’s fun. I mean, I did one video where I was yelling at my son, I use the term loosely, ’cause he had gotten good grades. It did like 7 million views on Twitter, 6, 7 million views, and I was just like, kids, puppies, they’re gonna work every time. So, you know, I try to exploit my dog while he’s still small. I don’t exploit my children as much. But the dog, he don’t even know how many videos. He does well. He’s earning his keep in the Fredericks household. Dan: One of the things I also, you know, like about how you approach your game is that you look at each social platform differently and you also know how to move to things, right? Like you know that Twitter is quick. You’re gonna — that’s gonna be the one that’s most current about things. But I know you’ve also put a lot more time into TikTok and just given, I think we saw the recent stats that TikTok, people spending more time on that now than Google, you know, you gotta be early on a lot of these platforms to rise. But there’s also things like Clubhouse, for instance, where, you know, I think things rose and then, you know, it dipped and I’m curious, how do you approach that? Like do you know that there’s certain ones where you’re like, “Okay, there’s something here, let me double down here,” like what’s your method for that type of thing? Kev: You have a lot of good questions, man. This is why you — you should do a podcast, maybe a newsletter as well about hip hop and entertainment. What I try to do, one of my, you know, things that I’ve noticed works well is using a platform how that platform was designed to be used. So Twitter, the best thing is tweeting, like writing, like writing out funny tweets, whether you’re trending, relatable, whatever. I post my videos — the only reason I post my videos on Twitter is because people would rip my videos and post — because videos didn’t do well on Twitter for me for a long time and the only reason I posted on there now is because people would rip my videos and post them and they’d do better on Twitter than I ever would have thought, so I was like, well, nobody’s gonna be getting them if I’m not gonna get them. But as far as TikTok, I always try what’s new incoming. I’ve tried, I mean, Vine. You want to talk about the worst creator ever on Vine? Kevin — I mean, I couldn’t get Vine to work for nothing. I made a Vine one time, Dan, and I’m lucky you can’t find it. And I was like making toast and I put a piece of bread in the oven and then the Vine cut and I had like half a second left and I was like, “Burnt,” and it was just a piece of burnt bread. And I was like, I don’t — I’m gonna stop doing this. This is literally the worst Vine ever. I tried Socialcam, Periscope, Clubhouse, spaces, Fleets, Stories, Snapchat. I’ve tried everything. Part of it for me is like, let’s talk about TikTok, for example. TikTok was a new — there were so many fun ways to edit on there, editing was more seamless, they had all those backgrounds. So, as a creator, it was just fresh. But anytime children are using something, the user base is gonna grow. And I think TikTok used to be Musical.ly and I remember my niece was on Musical.ly a long time ago so my strategy is always dip my toes in the water, see what works, find out how that platform works specifically. I realized what I learned about TikTok is you gotta be even quicker than other places on TikTok. I’m talking about people are scrolling like almost like this. You got like maybe 6, 7 seconds on Instagram, you got like 2.3 on TikTok and you can buy 3 seconds if you put the caption. It took me a long time to realize you had to write the caption on the video because people are not looking down to, I believe it’s the left to see what you’re saying so you gotta figure out, stop their system for one second and say when this be like or baby like or whatever. That’s step one and now you might have their attention. Using whatever trend is popping or whatever music is popping, now that’s step two. Now, you got them for 7, 8 seconds, now you may have a chance. But almost all of these platforms are, “Is it funny? Is it entertaining? Is it educational? Or is it relatable?” If you’re doing one of those of the four, you’ll be better off, but like I was a long winded person so I was on Periscope early and I stayed for a long time and I have so many of the people who are now on the Stage Crew is what we call our group of fans are — I used to go on Periscope every day while I drove to work. I was stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, I’d be on Periscope for an hour. And I just chopped it up. I’ve seen video ideas. And so many people loved it and they stuck with me for a long time. And another thing I do, I know I’m just rambling, I test out concepts on platforms, right? So I’ll tweet something and if that tweet does numbers, then I’ll be like, “Bet, I’ll make a video of that.” Like, for example, Uberfacts tweeted, “What’s —” This is a trend maybe last week. Uberfacts tweeted, “What’s a company’s secret you can spill now that you don’t work there anymore?” and I was like, oh, I worked at the bank. I quote tweeted, “The bank does actually overdraw you on purpose,” like a lot of people used to accuse us of that and we would have to lie but they actually do it on purpose. It had like 26,000 retweets so I’m like, okay, that’s great, that means people are interested. Now let me screenshot that, go to TikTok, and make the talking version of that. And then I put that video on TikTok, did well. Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, did well. And then a couple of days later, I put the video version of a tweet that went viral right back on Twitter with my own tweet and it also went well. And I’ll do that all the time. If I’m not sure video work, I’ll post it on my stories and I’ll check the engagement. If I get over 50 shares or 100 shares, I’m like, “Oh, I’ll take that off and put it on the main grid.” Sometimes I’ll make a full video. So I’m kinda like seeding out content and seeing what people respond to and then deciding if I wanna make a full video after that. I have to do that now because I’m doing other projects. I used to just scour the internet for videos all day but because we’re making stuff for the app and stuff, I don’t have as much time so I’m kinda like throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what works, and then making full versions of that. And that’s kinda how I continue making content consistently while I’m really spending more time creating long-form content, where I’m on set 10, 12 hours a day. I just don’t have the time to be on the internet like I usually was so I’ve gotta like be more strategic about doing it. Dan: That’s your fastlane IP model right there. You just broke it down. Kev: Yeah. Absolutely, man. I’m just always moving in there. And my hope, one day, I wanna be like — do you remember, DC Young Fly early? He used roasting to rise him to fame and then he leveraged that into other stuff. Now he can use social media just to remind you of what he’s doing. One day, I’ll be able to be like, “Oh, my social media is just to remind you of what’s coming and going.” Or like Kevin Hart, like he’ll still come on every once in a while and remind you he’s hilarious on social media but he doesn’t need it as a vehicle as much as he used to. That’s my goal, when I can go a week or a month without making something funny, and people still are checking in. But I’m probably a little ways away from that. Dan: What do you think that would look like to get there? Like is there a particular number or do you feel like it’s like a feeling of where you are in your career? Kev: I think — what it really will probably be is when I’m shooting so many things that take up my full day, when I’m shooting 10, 12 hours on set, it’s really hard to make a great internet video that day, because I’m not on the internet because I’m shooting. When I’m on break, I might be scanning but, you know, the lunch on set is 30 minutes, if that, feels like. By the time you sit down and eat and then you’re back on set for 6 hours. If I was doing that for three months, it’d be tough to make the same amount of content that I’m making. So if I was basically doing those kinds of projects back to back, then I know my social media will suffer in the sense of creating at the pace I usually did. My only hope is that the monetary benefit from my other projects will, you know, keep me afloat. I mean, obviously, I don’t make crazy money, well, relative, from the actual platform, it’s all about leveraging them to make money off the platform. But, you know, we still get paid from Tik— I mean, not TikTok, I mean, technically TikTok but I make no money off that. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube so my hope is that I’ve got so many projects that I’m making, either from my own distribution service or for somebody else or a partner or something we’ve sold, that I’m like, “Man, I’m making too many things, I don’t have time to like see what the TikTok trend is.” But, honestly, Dan, I like making videos so much. If I was on my lunch break, scanning through TikTok, I will make a video, because it doesn’t take me that long. My best skill isn’t funny, isn’t being hard working, it’s efficiency. When I’m inspired, I can download, shoot, and post in no time. And TikTok, God bless them, so happy you can just click download for most videos. Don’t make me go through screen recording and down— that’s too much. You want people to share these anyway, make it easy. So, I can do a whole thing in less than 5 minutes so as long as I got 5 minutes, I’ll probably make something. Dan: Yeah. I feel like that’s what drives it at the end of the day, right? Like there has to be something beyond just the monetary gain to make you wanna continue to feel inspired to create and that’s great that you have that still with the videos. I mean, I definitely sense that from the joy and passion that you share out of it, but I think for a lot of people that do create content on the internet and then that is the awareness they build to sell elsewhere, they ideally would just love to sell the other thing but the internet feels like this thing that they have to do. So the fact that you don’t feel that, I mean, I’m sure it’s still exhausting, for sure. But the fact that you don’t feel that naturally, I think, is what helps that longevity. Kev: Absolutely. I think, you know, we all deal with like burnout or not feeling funny or feeling like I’m never gonna come up with any other idea. But I see the value in using these platforms but also leveraging them to your own stuff, like being an early YouTube creator when adpocalypse happened and Logan Paul did that suicide forest thing and everybody’s monetization was punished, that’s the first time I was like, “Oh, snap. I didn’t even have nothing to do with this. I never been to Japan. I would never. Why am I getting punished?” That’s the first time I was like, “I can’t rely on these platforms,” and then when Vine came and went, even though I sucked at Vine, there was a lot of people where they depended on Vine and, luckily, most of the creators who were big leveraged that to Snapchat or Instagram or YouTube but some of them never even got close to the heights that they had on Vine. And the same thing happened on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. You know, a lot of people are one platform dominant, killing it on TikTok but nowhere else big. I would rather be five platforms doing okay than one platform dominant because now I can go from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, into my own platform, Patreon, which is fantastic. It’s very important to what we do here. If I only had Patreon, I’d be okay. So, you know, I’ve kind of like made my exit strategy because the Internet changes too quick, you know? One day it’s popping — Clubhouse, man, people were — it was the thing for like 5 months and then everybody — it felt like everybody was just like, “Nah,” like one day, and it’s still there, it still have great stuff going on there, but during the pandemic, man, it launched — or not launched but it popped at a perfect time when everybody was at home. Dan: Right. Kev: But then people just got sick of people talking and Facebook came up with their own one and Twitter came up with their own one and then Clubhouse didn’t have, you know, that exclusive thing anymore. I mean, that’s — you talk about a quick pivot. Dan: Yeah. Kev: You know, Clubhouse, how quickly Twitter jumped on that, that was fast. It took Instagram a long time to copy Snapchat. Dan: Yeah, and — Kev: It took Twitter, it felt like 2 months before they had — Dan: Yeah, Spaces was quick. Kev: I was like, Jesus, and the thing that Facebook did really well is kind of what Twitter did too. They said, “We’re not gonna beat Snapchat’s market share, and we don’t have to. All we need to do is slow their growth and get somebody who was never gonna go to Snapchat to do what they would have done on Instagram.” My wife is that person. She never went on Snapchat ever. But they took that idea and that, you know, Stories, put it in Instagram, and she was like, “Oh, I’ll do this.” And I was like, “Girl, I’ve been telling you about Snapchat.” She was like, “I’m not downloading no more apps.” And that’s the same thing. So you — that’s why I never wanna be one platform dominant because the winds, they blow and change too quickly and you could be caught in the cold, you know? Like YouTube, man, YouTube decided on a whim, it felt like, family content, if it looks like it’s geared towards kids, you’re not gonna be able to monetize that. People went from making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to zero. When they decided they didn’t want pranks anymore, people went from making 50 grand, 150 grand a month to like literally zero, I’m not even exag— I know people who had to give up their house in the Hollywood Hills when YouTube was like, “We’re not doing that no more.” And that’s when I was like, “Oh, this is too dangerous to be only on one platform.” You gotta use them all but you also have to have an exit strategy. To me, you know? Everybody doesn’t have to do that but, to me, you gotta have an exit strategy. Dan: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. And I think the way you structured it makes sense too. I mean, yeah, you mentioned you’re still getting some income from those platforms but the majority is outside of it. And I’m curious, what do your splits and breakdowns look like from a percentage perspective of, you know, like how much does come from those platforms versus how much comes from your other content or your stand-up or any of the other ticketed type of things? Kev: So, the most lucrative by a mile is live events. Touring, live events is the most lucrative. That’s why when the pandemic happened, I was like, “Oh my God,” because that — before the pandemic, that was foolproof. As long as people wanted to come see you, you will be able to eat forever, and then all of a sudden, no. So, for me, the most important thing is touring. The second most important thing probably is my Patreon, because that’s a group of people who really believe in what we’re doing here and support me and if I lost my other platforms, they would still be there. Outside of that, YouTube and Facebook, YouTube was really consistent monetarily. Facebook can be a blow up, for me at least, a blow up and then nothing. You have some months where it’s, you know, 2 grand and some months it could be 10 grand, you know what I mean? So it’s like, you really can’t build a business off of that, you know, wave of, you know, unpredictability. But for me, I probably say 60 percent is live, 40 percent is — or I’m sorry, 20 percent is Patreon, and the other is like podcasting. Podcasting can be really lucrative with the ad revenue. It’s also platform agnostic. Like I don’t need to be monetized on YouTube because I’m monetized through the ads that are baked into the podcast, you know? So, for me, those are what I focus on and everything else is gravy. Whatever Instagram pays me, gravy. Whatever Facebook pays me, gravy. Whatever YouTube pays me, gravy. And those are the things I have the least amount of control over anyway so, yeah. Dan: That makes sense, yeah, and I think like that split too, honestly sounds like what it’s like for a lot of artists as well. I mean, so much comes from live performances, more than half for most of them, but that other chunk, you know, whether it’s through their branded partnership or any of their influencer revenue that they may have but also what they get actually selling their music through streaming or the publishing revenue that comes in. So there’s definitely a ton of similarities there, which is why I like the model of what you all, and what you specifically have done to build it up. But I think the difference though is that I probably see a little bit more creativity on average from some of the more successful independent comedians than maybe some of the more, you know, successful artists. I feel like there’s been more of like a standard path but whether it’s you or some of the others that have, you know, risen up, especially in the past 5 to 7 years, there’s definitely, you know, I think a bit more variety and, you know, especially whether they’re building their own studios or they’re trying to do a few more creative brand partnerships and deals, I’ve always been fascinated with that piece about how comedians and stand-ups are able to monetize and use the internet. Kev: Absolutely, and I think like look at any 85 South, man, like they have — their live event is huge. And then they can just put that exact video on YouTube or their app and they sell merch and even if they did nothing else but live shows and merch, they’d probably be okay, but now, they’re building their own app out. It’s already out there, the Channel 8, and they’re expanding that. So, you know, another smart thing, like let me diversify what we’re doing and own the media aspect of it. But, for me, that’s merch and brand deals like, to me, it’s hard to be good at everything, you know what I mean? So I don’t try to be. I’m like merch, I’ll focus on the road, if I have a great idea, but it’s not my strong suit, because fashion and design aren’t my strong suits so I’ll just really make stuff for the Stage Crew who loves it. And I’ll focus on live events, video content, and podcasting and I’ll be strong there. I mean, you got people like Kountry Wayne who like master of Facebook and Instagram, like he knows the amount, you gotta be at least 3 minutes to get really paid. His sketches are 3:01. They’re gonna be over 3. On Instagram, they start really quick so he’s mastered that and he’s also on the road. So everybody has their skill set and it’s kinda like, to me, basketball players, like LeBron’s the greatest player to me, ever, and he’s good at a lot of different things. Steph is the best shooter ever so he doesn’t have to be a rebounder like LeBron because he’s gonna shoot threes from the logo so you won’t be able to guard him. And that’s kinda how I think of creators, like very few people are as well rounded as LeBron but you can have a long career being really good at one or two things and that’s fine too. Dan: Yeah. And as long as the platforms that are there are still aligned to like where your skill set is the better. Kev: Yeah. Dan: Because it’s one of those things where Steph also was really good at something that he was able to set a trend with and, you know, just gotten more and more favorite too as the game went on. But it’s like if you’re really good at, you know, like that Charles Oakley, you know, old school right? This next game, you might not have as long of a career is you may have had in ’93. Kev: That’s a fantastic point. Charles Oakley wouldn’t know what to do in this game, like he’s still gonna be big and strong but he’s gonna be guarding Luka or Kevin Durant and they shooting from three, they’re driving around, the game has changed so that’s a good point as well like the game changes so you have to be able to, you know, change with the game. The internet changes. The same thing with comedy, like what was funny and tweetable 10 years ago isn’t funny or tweetable this year, and I’m not one of those who complains about cancel culture. As a comedian, our job is to know where the line is. Know what society thinks is funny and stay there and not to be like, “Well, this was funny 12 years ago.” Yeah, The Nutty Professor was hilarious before but it wouldn’t be as funny if it was made now. People would call it fat phobic or whatever. But if you watched it then, it was great, you know what I’m saying? Pepé Le Pew, hilarious as a kid. Now you’re like, “Yo, what’s was he on, man? Where’s the consent? Leave her alone, man. Let her go,” you know? So I think comedy and everything is similar. Everything is changing. Fashion, language, music, all of that stuff. So, you know, as a creator, you have to be aware of that change or you get left behind. Dan: Yeah. And to bring it full circle, what you brought up with Vine is a great example of this. You yourself may not have been the most successful on that platform, like you said, but there are many people who had some of the most popular Vines that were like winning and spread everywhere. And, unfortunately, I just haven’t seen them as much because there’s something about that 6-second storytelling that they did so well with that just didn’t translate as well to where things are right now. Kev: Absolutely. 100 percent. That’s what I was saying, like some people translated but for some people, that was it. They never reached the heights they had on Vine ever again, you know? And some of the same trends on Vine probably would work on TikTok but not exactly. So, you know, you gotta get in where you fit in and fit for as long as you can. And then, as the world changes, you gotta fit there too. And that’s, to me, the only way to survive. Dan: Definitely. So, for you, just because you are wearing, as we talked about, all these different hats, all these different roles, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, of course, we don’t know where things are going, but in the ideal scenario, what would you like to be doing more of or what would you like to be doing less of? Kev: More of helping other creators create their content. That’s actually one of the things we wanna do at KevOnStage Studios. It’s the hardest part though. Much harder than I realized, you know, to even maybe make somebody else’s show, to even go through the legal process of trying to make it is already expensive. So I found that that part was a lot harder than I realized. If somebody comes in and is like, “Yeah, whatever deal is fine,” it’s very easy. If somebody is like, “I’ve got these ideas and stuff,” talking to their lawyer, our lawyer, it’s tough. And to do development, you need somebody who can focus on that, you need the resources for legal, you need the production staff to be able to go and make that. So I would hope that we could grow enough to be making more of stuff for other creators and creating those opportunities. Right now, we’re kind of focusing on building the foundation with the team we have. But in order to do that, we’d have to scale out a little bit so that would be our goal. I would also love to be making independent movies. That’s always been a dream of mine. I just love the experience of movie, either in theaters or at home, I don’t care. I’m not like one of those creators, like, “It’s got to be in a movie or it ain’t real,” like I was poor so we couldn’t go to the actual movies that much so all my dreams and memories are watching them at home. So I don’t care if you’re watching it on your phone or TV or whatever, but I’d love to be doing those two things, if nothing else. Creating content with others and then creating movies and creating stuff that I would love to create and hopefully distributing it to a lot of people. The one thing about the KevOnStage Studios app right now, it’s still very small so, you know, to the viewer, that’s fantastic, but the other streamers and distribution sites, they have a lot more access. If I tell you to go watch a show on Netflix, the chances of you having Netflix are very high. Or HBO Max, something like that. If somebody tells you to go watch something on KevOnStage Studios, the chances of you already having that app are not as high as you having Netflix. So our goal, our hope would be that, “Oh, yeah, man, I’m gonna check that out. I didn’t even know we had that.” But you gotta have the show that breaks through. Like if you think about Apple TV, as much money as they have, people didn’t really click in by and large until Ted Lasso. Like I watched See, they had a lot of stuff. Nobody cared, by and large, until Ted Lasso. So even — and they have trillion dollars in cash. People were like, meh, you know what I’m saying? So it’s not just unique to what we’re doing, it’s a lot of places that struggle. Peacock and Quibi. Quibi had all the money in the world, access to every A-list star in the world, people were like meh, so it’s not easy, man. It is not easy. It’s not even unique to being small. It’s just not an easy business to be in. So I would just hope to still be here, in fact. Low key, to still be able to do this for a living in 5 years, I will be happy with just that. Dan: No, man, I think you will. And I mean, I’m not just saying that as someone that’s been a fan of your content following you for a while. I mean — Kev: Thank you, thank you. Dan: I really do look at you as one of the success stories when we think about this era of the Internet and what creators were able to do in this phase. I feel like we’ve seen folks in, you know, past eras and eras before that and the Internet has always been so nascent but I think your focus and consistency. Wait, which one? Kev: I really don’t know. Nascent, what’s that? Dan: Oh, in terms of like just being early on a trend and just being, you know, like quick with it. Like I think that, you know, for you, oh, man, lost my train of thought — Kev: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Dan: No, no. Kev: When people use a word that I don’t know, I always ask because then I’ll be like, you know, “That was nascent,” and then people would be like, “What did that mean?” Oh, you know, what it means is early on to the trends and whatnot, you know what I’m saying? So I didn’t mean to get you off track but I was — that’s a good word that I don’t know so I had to ask you real quick. I could have Googled it later but — Dan: Oh, no, no. I appreciate that. I know, people appreciate this too, just from like, you know, the conversation, for sure. No. So, normally, some of these things, editors, I’m like, “No, can you all take that out?” They’re like, “No, we’re leaving this in here,” because — Kev: Leave it in, editor. Dan: They’ll learn too. But, yeah, man, I mean, like I said, you, the focus that you had with so much of the content that you put out and also just how you continue to enjoy it, I feel like that is the model. And I’m really excited for you and where you continue to grow and the fact that you’re leveraging your platform the way you have to put people on, I mean, that’s the dream. I mean, I know that, you know, I’m definitely, you know, in the days of it, it could likely feel like a lot of work but, hey, man, you’re doing the work, man. And it’s much appreciated. Kev: Thank you, man. That truly means a lot, Dan. I appreciate you even saying that. And I’m glad that you think, you know, I’ll still be here in 5, 10 years because I hope too, you know? But if not, you know, I own a house in this small town. If you see me living in South Carolina, just figure out that it didn’t work. Dan: Hey, man. Kev: But I’ll still be happy. I’ll still be making videos or doing podcasts or something. Dan: And joy will be there. The joy will be there. For sure. Regardless. But, hey, man, Kev, this was great. I really appreciate you for making the time. Kev: Thank you, man. Dan: But before we let you go, anything you wanna plug the audience, let them know some of the content you got coming out with the streaming service? Kev: KevOnStage Studios. man, go to your app store, whether you’re on Apple, Android, Roku, Amazon, go to KevOnStage Studios, download that. Go ahead and subscribe for the year. Don’t worry about what’s on there. Just subscribe for the year. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. We’ve got a lot of amazing things on there. We got the Real Comedians Challenge Show, which is just knockdown drag out funny. We’ve got What’s Good?! which is a food show with comedians and comedians are more like regular people than chefs so you’re gonna feel like it’s you and your friends going out to eat in a different city. We got Love On Stage, which is a dating show my wife created and produced. That’s fantastic. You can stream that whole season in there. Just fun stuff like Get Your Black Card Off Layaway shows, Keon’s All Stars, Crafts and Cocktails, just fun stuff, man. Just go on there, check it out. Destination Evrywhr is an amazing travel show that, you know, has a musician who went all the way to Cambodia to make music with Cambodians. We have stuff like that. I mean, just go over there and check it out, man. Just don’t worry about the monthly fee. Don’t pay monthly. Pay by the year. You get two months free when you pay by the year. Just go ahead, go from here, wherever you’re listening, right to KevOnStage Studios and pay for the year. You won’t regret it. And even if you do, we already have your money. Dan: We’ll make it easy for people too. We’ll put the link in the show notes. Kev: Perfect. Thank you so much, Dan. I really appreciate it. I’m a big fan of yours. I’ve been watching your podcast and be like, “How does Dan get these guests?” And then you tweeted like I just be asking, I was like That ain’t no secret. That’s just — He’s like you just know somebody or just shoot your shot. I’m like, you had Rick Ross though, man. You had Issa Rae. And you’re like, “Yeah, just ask.” I’m like, “Okay, we’ll see how that works, Dan. I’m gonna just ask too, see what I can get on my podcast.” Dan: I will say, I mean, there’s something a bit more nuanced to that and I was like, you know what, I could have added more because I made it seem like, “Oh, y’all could do it. Why don’t you just DM Rick Ross?” Kev: Yeah. I was like, “Dan, it is not that easy.” It is not that easy and you know that. I just believe all we got to do is DM him and he’ll be like, “Yeah, I’m gonna be on there.” You know it took more than that, Dan. Dan: Oh, man. Well, no. So ’cause I think people probably appreciate this for the folks that do listen. So the Rick Ross one, real quick, so the Rick Ross one, I had had his attorney, Leron Rogers, on the pod. Him and I had had a good conversation and, you know, stayed connected afterward and I saw that Ross was putting out a book and I was like, “Alright, if someone’s put out a book, they’re gonna be on the tour,” and then I was like, “Okay, hey, you know, I know that Rozay is gonna be on the tour, would love to have him, he’s writing about business. This literally is the avenue to do that.” And he was like, “Alright, send me some details, let me see what I can make work,” and then we made it work after that. Kev: See? Dan: Yeah. Kev: It is more than just DM-ing. It’s timing, it’s relationship, it’s an audience people care about and a podcast that people actually watch and download. So, sorry, guys, it’s not as easy as Dan made it seem. Dan: No, you’re right. If someone has to be, “Oh, hey, how did you get KevOnStage on your pod?” I’d be like, “Oh, I just DM-ed him. Y’all could do it too.” You gotta get all these people flooded. They will be like, “Oh, KevOnStage, can you come to do my thing? Oh, KevOnStage — Kev: Guarantee you it’s not gonna be that easy. ’cause if I don’t follow you, I don’t even really see your DMs. I’m a fan of Dan so I saw his and I already wanted to be on this show so when he asked, I was like, “Finally, my time is now.” Dan: It’s funny, man, because I so remember, it’s like one day on Twitter and, I mean, like I said, I’ve been following you on, you know, all the other platforms. And then, one day, you just quote tweeted something I said and you were like, “Y’all should follow this guy.” And I was just like — Kev: Yes. Dan: Yo, KevOnStage — I was just like, okay, all right, we hear this. Kev: ’Cause you’re really smart, man, and you take stuff that is like out there and you make it so digestible. Like what Westbrook is doing, I’ve been following them but when you made that graphic about the flywheel, it’s like, “This is exactly what they do,” but it makes so much — I sent that to so many of my friends. I was like, this is what KevOnStage Studios has to become and the way they did The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion, all of the stuff they did with that and then they ran that same thing back for King Richard, genius. And then with Will’s Best Shape of My Life, I watched that, get YouTube to pay for it, boom, use it to actually lose weight and promote your book. Dan: Brilliant. Kev: I said what the heck? I wanted to get the book because of that. Genius level marketing and even somebody as big as Will Smith, everything they do is not behind the paywall. They gotta use YouTube and Instagram just like regular people. So I know I’m on the right track. And I also met Will Smith, I don’t know if you know that. I don’t like to talk about it. Dan: Oh, no, you only post a photo, what? Every month or so. Kev: I haven’t posted in a while. I should bring it up again today. Dan: If he wins this Oscar for Best Actor, you gotta be part of that campaign. Kev: He might thank me from the podium. He might be like, “This wouldn’t have worked without KevOnStage’s dad joke to help promote the film. I’m so glad that he did that and that’s why you heard about King Richard,” and I’m gonna be like, “Thanks. You’re welcome, Will. And you’re welcome, world.” Dan: Oh, man. I’m kind of waiting for that moment, that will be dope. Kev: Oh, man, I’ll be so happy for him. I’ll be so happy. And he was great in that, like it was an Oscar-worthy performance so I really do hope he wins. Dan: Yeah, no, definitely. No, he does too. But, hey, man, this was great. I really appreciate you coming on. Kev: Thank you so much for having me, Dan. I appreciate it, man. (outro) If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That’s how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you’re at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating, and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 12 Sep 2019 | 50 Cent is a Habitual Line Stepper | 00:42:03 | |
Dan is joined by Ace Patterson (hip-hop artist ‘Call Me Ace,’ Consumer Marketing at Facebook). They break down how 50 Cent built a brand on shock value, why he raises hell on social media, whether he’s changed his style, and why he’ll never get canceled. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | YouTube | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Ace Patterson, @callmeacelegit, callmeace.com Links referenced:
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| 06 Oct 2022 | Mona Scott-Young’s Influence On Culture Goes Beyond Love & Hip Hop | 00:37:28 | |
Mona Scott-Young is best-known for producing the Love & Hip Hop reality TV series on VH1. The franchise debuted in 2011 has remained a TV fixture today through industry-wide changes with TV and around 30 different seasons aired. However, it’s Young’s ability to permeate hip-hop culture into the mainstream that’s been the true calling card. Before Love & Hip Hop, Mona managed talent in music. She was a co-founder for Violator with the late Chris Lighty, and was behind memorable brand partnerships such as Busta Rhymes and Courvoisier, Missy Elliott with Reebok and Adidas, and the landmark 50 Cent-Vitamin Water deal, among many others back then, such deals were harder to cut than nowadays. It was during this time in music when Mona was introduced to the fascinating lives of hip-hop wives, which led to Love & Hip-Hop’s creation. But Mona, who also founded and runs Monami Productions,has more stories to tell about the hip-hop industry. She’s teaming up with another well-known TV producer, 50 Cent, on “Hip-Hop Homicides,” which debuts later this year. Mona’s influence on the world of hip-hop reaches further than most realize. To hear how Mona moved the culture forward, you’ll want to listen to our show. Here’s everything we covered: [2:59] How does Love & Hip Hop stay fresh? [4:45] Biggest challenge for reality TV in social-media age [7:55] Love & Hip Hop success stories [9:07] Influencing other hip-hop-related series [11:15] Increased programming around hip-hop [14:21] How reality shows fit into today’s streaming landscape [19:00] Mona’s career in music and artist-brand deals [24:52] Brand deals for Love & Hip Hop talent [28:27] Network pressures to expand the Love & Hip Hop brand [30:06] Scrutiny on the show’s content [34:01] Future of Love & Hip Hop Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Mona Scott-Youngs, @monascottyoung
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Mona Scott-Young: These were women who were living in the shadows of the men in their lives who had achieved all the fame and the success, and how were these women leveraging the relationships that they were in and the things that they were doing to get to where they wanted to be in life. So I always framed it as an opportunity, so you're getting these stories, right? All of the heartbreak and all of the joy, the highs, the lows. But in exchange, these women are also getting this platform where they can build their brands, build their businesses. [00:00:39] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:59] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the producer and entrepreneur, Mona Scott-Young. She is the mind behind Hop. She also was a music executive for a number of years, worked with Violator and put together some of the more memorable hip hop branding deals of the time, such as Busta Rhymes in Courvoisier and Mountain Dew. She worked with 50 Cent, Vitaminwater as well, and a bunch of other deals, and she's been someone I've wanted to have on this podcast for a while. We talked a lot about the business of TV and how things have changed specifically for a docu-follow show like Love & Hip Hop. This is a show that has been going on for more than 10 seasons now and has had different franchises, different spinoffs, and has had plenty of copycats as well. So we talked about the business of the show, what it's been like producing it, the platform that a lot of the talent have had that have come up from it, one of the most famous examples is Cardi B and what she'd been able to do after the show, but we also talked about some of the other talents that's come from the show as well. We also talked about how Love & Hip Hop is positioned and some of the perception that it's had, whether or not that perception is more so chatter and criticism, or has that actually made a material impact on the business of what Mona's doing. She also talked a little bit about some of the other projects coming up from Monami Entertainment such as Hip Hop Homicides and a whole lot more. It was great to talk to her, get her perspective on streaming, the industry, where things are, and overall the brand deals that are happening in hip hop. Great conversation. Glad we finally had her on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Mona Scott-Young [00:02:38] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are joined by the one and only Mona Scott-Young, producer and one of the great folks in media and entertainment today. And I feel like for you, you've been more than a decade in with Love & Hip Hop, you have several spinoffs. How do you keep things fresh? How do you keep everything coming year after year? [00:02:59] Mona Scott-Young: You know, I always say it's about reinvention. It's about evolution, making sure that you are constantly growing, whether it's me as a producer and applying that to the franchise. You know, what's great about the way that that concept was built is it's that it was a world, right? So we could always populate different folks in and out of that world. So it gave us an opportunity to, you know, cycle in new talent who had fresh stories to tell. And I think that has a lot to do with the staying power and the longevity of the franchise. [00:03:31] Dan Runcie: I think the other thing that's impressive is just how the show's been able to stay consistent with all of the changes that are happening with media and streaming and anything else. Have there been any big shifts that you've made from that perspective as things that have continued to move, whether it's from cable to streaming networks to where things are now? [00:03:50] Mona Scott-Young: You know, not necessarily in terms of the concept, right? 'Cause like I said, the stories are what keeps it fresh and different, but we definitely loosened up our shooting style a lot and we became, you know, more free-flowing, I think to be in line with the fact that folks were able to tune into social media and see things happening in real-time. You know, when we first started the franchise, a big part of it was this very soap opera-like feeling that it had. And over the course of the years, we loosened that up a little bit just so that the stories were able to, you know, track a little more closely to what was happening in real-time in their lives. [00:04:30] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Do you feel as if social media changed the overall feel and the flow of the show itself? I know that's something that, I've talked to a lot of people on TV and they felt like they've noticed that. How are some of the ways you feel like social media either impacted things for Love & Hip Hop? [00:04:45] Mona Scott-Young: Absolutely. You know, because there's such a lead time with production and editing. It's really hard to stay up with the fact that these folks are out here living their lives on social media, and so the audience gets a chance to just tune into their IG lives and get a blow-by-blow of everything that's happening in their lives so that by the time our show is edited, it's hard for it to feel fresh, right, because they're like, oh, I saw that happen months ago. And so it's finding those other stories, getting the cast to keep things exclusively for the show so that there's this sense of discovery for the audience. 'Cause I think that's the biggest hurdle for reality TV is the fact that, you know, everyone has access to their audience and can broadcast their lives, you know, on a minute-by-minute basis. And so how do we offer something that's different, something that's entertaining, something that feels fresh and current and relevant? I think that's the biggest challenge. [00:05:44] Dan Runcie: Have you noticed that shift with social media at all changed based on what platform has been popular at the time? Of course, the show is popular as ever in Black Twitter, but how about with TikTok now with things picking up there? Have there been any unique things you've seen with the reception there? [00:05:58] Mona Scott-Young: Not necessarily. You know what, I'm not a big TikToker. I don't know if I should say that. I probably just aged myself a thousand years, but, you know, I haven't really noticed a big shift based on TikTok viewership. I know that, you know, or usership, 'cause I know that that's mainly what music, dance, or are they doing skits on there as well? [00:06:21] Dan Runcie: I mean, they're doing skits. I feel like with the show like yours though, it's unique because I think that you're reaching a bit of an older demographic than the folks that are really in TikTok. But like with all these social media platforms, they do tend to scale up at some point, right? So the younger community... [00:06:37] Mona Scott-Young: We'll see what happens, yeah. One of the biggest things that we saw happen on social media were the reenactments, right, the recreations where you had all of these social influencers and social comedians doing their takes on the scenes from the show, and that gave it a whole another life. And I think, you know, what people enjoy about the show is the cast's ability to be self-deprecating. They make fun of themselves, so sometimes you'd see them participating in those skits. You know, social media has always played a huge role in the success of the franchise, even dating back to the very early days where we gave bloggers and the video influencers, the social media influencers, the sneak peek at the show so that they kind of had first dibs. And the immediacy of, you know, them talking about the show and having that engagement was a big part of the success of the show. So I love it when I continuously see the show showing up in different ways on social media. [00:07:34] Dan Runcie: Can we also talk about how social media has been a big piece for how a lot of the folks on the show can use Love & Hip Hop as a platform to do other things? I think Cardi B, of course, has been one of the hallmark examples of this. But what are some of the other folks that stick out for you in terms of, yes, what they were able to do at this show, and then social media took them to another level? [00:07:55] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, if you think about everyone who's like started a business, right? Most of their products, they're hawking them online and via social media. So, you know, whether it's the waist trainers, the hair clips, makeup, all of that stuff kind of came from seeing it on the show and then watching them blow it up. And then you have some of it that was reverse engineered like Cardi was huge on social media already as kind of a, you know, influencer, comic, and having an opportunity to be on the show expanded her audience. But I just think seeing those two things come together, that was probably the biggest example of how, you know, social media and linear TV worked really well to really expand her brand. [00:08:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah, especially with her specifically. I mean, she's giving you the shoutouts in the songs, too, but just seeing what she's able to do creatively with the brand, and I think that's something that's been unique that we've seen with reality TV overall. But I feel like with your type of show specifically because you do get some of those characters that come back, you have some that go off and do their own thing, you see a bit more of that variety than some of these other shows where it's like one season that you may never see that person in the season. [00:09:07] Mona Scott-Young: That's very, very true. I mean, one of the big mandates for me, 'cause a lot of these shows were just about chronicling lives, right? This is about your life. For me, it was always, this is an opportunity, right? If you think about at its core, these were women, or the core of the original concept, these were women who were living in the shadows, right, of the men in their lives who had achieved all the fame and the success, and how were these women leveraging the relationships that they were in and the things that they were doing to get to where they wanted to be in life. So I always framed it as an opportunity, and what I love to see is how, you know, they go out and they take advantage of that opportunity. So you're getting these stories, right? All of the heartbreak and all of the, you know, the joy, the highs, the lows. But in exchange, these women are also getting this platform where they can build their brands, build their businesses. Everyone from Yandy, right, who went from being behind the scenes to having her Yelle Skin Care and all of her other numerous businesses that she has. Cardi with her music, who, you know, was doing her music, didn't have that massive success, had a huge following on social media, but was able to kind of connect the dots in a way that allowed for her music to take off. Oh, God, Rasheeda, Karlie Redd, and K. Michelle, and when I think about all of the success stories with their businesses and their brands, that for me is the big differentiator for Love & Hip Hop 'cause I think these ladies understood the assignment, understood that this was an opportunity, and took advantage of it to, you know, level up in their lives and what they were doing with their business. [00:10:50] Dan Runcie: And I feel like I've seen your own career and your own opportunities take a similar evolution as the show has continued to have its own success, and you had started your production company years ago, but I think right now we've just seen more and more opportunity for creators like yourself that have been able to establish their franchises and just have the success and have different networks have interest in them year over year. What has that process been like? [00:11:15] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah. You know, it's the most gratifying thing because I think, you know, the first to market with anything always is a double-edged sword, right? So Love & Hip Hop was the first docu-follow of its kind that focused on the genre of hip hop and the way that we did, and really gave a different look and feel to what we're used to seeing on reality television. And what we've seen since then, I think, are a lot of shows that I would say Love & Hip Hop paved the way for. You know, shoutout to shows like Power and, you know, Empire and even Rap Sh!t that Issa Rae has on right now. I look at that and I go, yeah, the fact that, you know, we're now giving space to scripted shows that are set in this world and shining a light on the culture and, you know, the women in the culture specifically, if you look at Rap Sh!t, I feel like that is a direct descendant of what Love & Hip Hop was able to pave the way for. [00:12:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, those are good examples. I feel like that moment in the end of the 2010s, you started to see more shows, I feel like that whole Empire run and a bunch of shows around that, we're able to see a lot of success there. I also feel like around this time too, especially in the most recent years, we've also seen a lot more studios and a lot more folks get different opportunities, whether it's folks getting these overall deals from the streaming services or some others getting big interest from private equity firms that are trying to invest in these studios. As someone that runs a studio, runs a reduction company yourself, how do you view that landscape, and how do those opportunities come up for different folks? [00:12:55] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, I think it's fantastic. I think it's a wonderful thing. I still don't think there's enough of it happening. I always say that during, you know, Black Lives Matter, when we were at the height of that movement, there were so many overtures, right? So many calls were made and people wanting to be in business. And I do believe you're seeing an increased number of programming that caters to our audience and opportunities for those content creators. But I also, you know, hope that this trend continues, and I hope this isn't kind of a performative gesture in order to check a box or to satisfy, you know, their contribution. But, I think it's great. I think the more that audiences understand that their viewership matters, that their support matters, and that's really what is going to dictate it at the end of the day, because we can, you know, get those dollars in and we can get those opportunities. But if those eyeballs don't tune in, then you know, we're not going to continue to see the programming and have those opportunities. So I think it's, you know, nice to see it happen. I'm very interested in seeing what the staying power is for this and how those opportunities increase and not, you know, level out. [00:14:10] Dan Runcie: Do you think that there is any sort of fear or thought that folks should have about the staying power of those eyeballs? Like, does some of these things seem a bit more fleeting in nature? [00:14:21] Mona Scott-Young: I don't think we get the same commitment to staying with something and giving it an opportunity to grow, right? It's like if we don't have instant success, if we don't get those eyeballs instantly, the idea is, oh, this audience is in here moving on to the next, right? I just think that sometimes it takes a minute for a show to catch on. I don't ever think the same marketing dollars are put towards the programming so that folks even have the awareness level that's usually left to us to figure out what are the ways that we're going to bring visibility to, you know, our shows and make sure that, you know, folks know that we exist. Again, I just hope that the commitment extends beyond just the initial overture and that there is promotions and marketing and commitment to seeing these shows grow and find their audience like every other programming has an opportunity to do. [00:15:18] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. It also makes me think about whether or not there are specific differences as well for folks who are making shows, whether it's something for streaming versus something for cable TV or for a network specifically, because I know that with your shows and some of the others that are doing reality things, most of your audience still is, at least from my understanding, still tuning in through cable and watching it through those areas, but. Even though we started to see some reality TV that's been exclusive to these streaming services, it still hasn't been to the same extent that we see, like whether it's with Love & Hip Hop on VH1 or some of the other services. Why do you think that is? And do you think that'll change at all? [00:15:59] Mona Scott-Young: I think the formats have to evolve in order for us to find the right formula to live on the streamers. You know, those shows are about repeatability and about, you know, the binge-watching and, you know, for reality, there's something about that appointment television that tuning in week in and week out that I think plays into the idea that what is happening is happening to some extent in real-time, even though we know it isn't, and the ability to, you know, watch it all. I think it's just a different, it's a shift. It's a paradigm shift, and we have to figure out what the right formula is, what the right content play is to work in that arena. So there's a lot of conversations around that and everybody's trying to find like, kind of what is it right now what you're seeing on streamers are. Formatted docu-series, like real estate shows and, you know, those kind of, I'm trying to think of what are some of the docu-follows that are living. Probably the Kardashian show in Hulu is an example, right? That's kind of a beast of a different nature, right? There's a rabid audience there for the Kardashian clan that I think will watch no matter where it exists. So, you know, I'd love to see more conventional docu-follow find its way to the streamers. I think there's going to have to be a little bit of a fine-tuning in what that format looks like for it to really work there. [00:17:29] Dan Runcie: Right. Because it isn't necessarily a binge release. I don't feel like that necessarily makes sense if you're trying to follow things. I think back to, it was Rhythm + Flow. This is almost three years ago at this point, but the show, you know, the competition show Cardi B and Chance and T.I., I think they did every week or every other week for three block episode of release, and I felt like that was okay. It wasn't too long that felt like it didn't make sense for Netflix, but it was just enough to capture some momentum. And I think back about that, I was like, Okay. [00:17:58] Mona Scott-Young: They're doing that as a format, right? It's a competition show. So those work. The competition shows work. The format shows, the real estate, the cooking, the anything, it's just that finding that right rhythm, that right lane for docu-follow is going to be the challenge. [00:18:14] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. That's your point. And then, of course, the Kardashians may be a bit of an outlier just given the size of them, but you are, in a lot of ways, bringing either new stars or people who haven't necessarily had their headlines everywhere in quite some time to the stage, and that's a little bit of a different... [00:18:31] Mona Scott-Young: That's a little bit of a different, yeah, a little bit of a different proposition, if you will. [00:18:36] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The other reason why I wanted to chat with you is because even before Love & Hip Hop and everything else, you had spent years in music, and you were one of the early ones that were looking at the opportunities for artists, working specifically with brands and looking back at whether it was 50's Vitamin water deal or Courvoisier with Busta. [00:19:00] Mona Scott-Young: For Mountain Dew or Missy with Adidas, or I should say Adidas, and Reebok, and you know, A Tribe Called Quest and Sprite, right? It goes all the way back to that. [00:19:12] Dan Runcie: What do you think it was? 'Cause I felt like Violator was here when everyone else was here in terms of just pushing those things. There were a few others I know that were doing their thing, but it felt like you all were at least five years ahead of where everyone else was pushing them, pushing those things. [00:19:26] Mona Scott-Young: Well, and I appreciate that. For us, it was really always about how do we maximize for our clients, right? We were managers first. And then when we realized that there were all these other areas that we needed to educate ourselves in and get involved in in order to really manage our clients to the best of our ability, and help them expand their brands, and fully monetize, you know, their talents and their contributions to a culture that we saw was taking over every area of advertising and pop culture. We realized that, you know, the opportunities were way beyond just their music, way beyond understanding how to conduct the business of their music. It was about their branding, their cross, you know, marketing value, their ability to bridge the gap with brands and sponsors. So that was just a function of us really wanting to represent our clients not just the best of our ability to help them maximize to the fullest what they, you know, they were bringing to the table with their music and with their cultural relevance. So we understood that it was bigger than just the music. [00:20:41] Dan Runcie: And do you feel like a lot of the brand partners that you were pitching and talking to with about these opportunities at the time saw that it was bigger than just the music and wanted in because I look at the way things are now and the amount of deals and partnerships we see now. It was nothing compared to what it was like when you were doing these deals back then. [00:20:59] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, you know, it's interesting 'cause there was that period where they didn't quite understand what was happening with this, you know, music and the culture because it was always just across the board, Black, White, Asian, and understanding what that kind of point of connection was, right, with all of these kids. Was it the music? Was it the clothing? Was it the lifestyle? What exactly are they buying into? And I think we serve the very important role in helping them bridge that gap, right, giving them that understanding of what hip hop was culturally and all of its different touch points. And then it became about, well, can't we just tap this thing without having to necessarily put this talent front and center? We can just use the music. We can dress, you know, our folks in the clothing and getting them to understand that there was an authenticity, right, that came with the culture that you couldn't fake, and that if you were going to do it, it had to be done in a way that was mutually beneficial because we also couldn't afford to risk our clients' viability with their core audience. Because if they, you know, sold out, then they were done with the music. And that exchange, that dialogue, that conversation I think is what allowed us to position ourselves in a way that benefited our clients, that allowed us to become a gateway to the culture and to the music for a lot of these brands. And that allowed companies like Steve Stoute's Translation literally to exist based on being that, you know, cultural bridge. So it was a step up process of getting them, one, to understand what this thing called hip hop was, and then how it was influencing their consumers, and then how best to tap it in a way that, you know, didn't hurt the artists that they were exploiting. And I'll use the word exploit 'cause I think, you know, exploiting is simply taking full advantage of a situation or, you know, a space. And that's what it was at the end of the day. [00:23:12] Dan Runcie: And we definitely saw a lot of the success at the time with the number of deals that we were seeing. Were there any that you look back on that you were like, oh, you may have pitched that client, or you may have tried to push this one, they just weren't ready, but if this was now, it would've been, No question, this would've already happened? [00:23:27] Mona Scott-Young: You know, I always look back at that time fondly because I realized that we were at the forefront of, you know, an industry that nobody knew exactly what it was. Now when I hear, you know, branding, brand partnerships, you know, I'm like, okay, I guess that's what we were doing way back then. But I think I look back more fondly at the way we were able to leverage our talent into those deals, right? Busta with Mountain Dew started out as a print campaign, and by the time we were done, it had grown into this multimillion-dollar, you know, 360 television spots, everything. It started out as a radio campaign, actually, not even, it was just going to be his voice, right? And then it blew up into something more. It's just now it's par for the course. Now, you know, if you don't have a brand endorsement deal, if you're not, you know, aligned, people think you haven't made it right. But back then, I think it was a lot more challenging, a lot more difficult, and, you know, I think we broke a lot of barriers with the kinds of deals that we did. [00:24:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And I could imagine now that with the stars that are on Love & Hip Hop and the talent that you're working with now, some of them are probably trying to see, okay, can they reach out to you to get advice on these types of deals that they're getting? Do you get involved with any of that ever? [00:24:52] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah, you know, every once in a while. But the interesting thing is now they're sought after, right, because of their following. And all of these brands want them, you know, creating these organic posts so that folks can really believe they're drinking this slim tummy tea or whatever it is that they're hawking. But I think the value, understanding the value of their engagement with their fans is the most important thing for these guys, and I think they're all doing a fantastic job. I mean, I'm always surprised when it's like, oh, okay, well that's, you know, I don't really believe that they're eating or drinking or engaging in this activity, but more power to you. Go ahead. [00:25:33] Dan Runcie: Does any of this ever find a way to get itself into the show itself where folks are like, Okay, I have this partnership now, they'll give me extra money if I wear this Fashion Nova t-shirt in this season of Love & Hip Hop? [00:25:47] Mona Scott-Young: It's funny that you mentioned Fashion Nova because they are extremely aggressive, and they have, you know, they were very smart about the way they built their business, right? They just went out and got a bunch of brand ambassadors, and I think in the beginning it was for a box of free clothes. They had all of these people hawking their product, but the networks and the buyers, they're pretty savvy now. And, you know, they've got their ad sales departments, they still rely probably more than ever on their ad sales dollars. And so they're very, very leery of any kind of integrations, and there are opportunities to kind of go through the front door, do deals with them, buy ad time, and get real, you know, integrated placements. And sometimes, you know, they're also good about if it's an organic, you know, partnership with the talent and it's something potentially that factors into their story, they'll let it slide and let it make its way into the story. But they're a little bit savvy to the fact that, you know, sometimes the talent is getting paid for this and is promising the placement on the show as part of their deal in leveraging that. And yeah, they put the smack down on that. [00:27:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I could imagine because it's one of these things where, of course, it's more money into the show and I think everyone generally could benefit from it. But from the other perspective, you don't just want to turn the whole thing into sponsored content, right? [00:27:12] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah. I'm constantly saying to the talent, this is not going to be one big message commercial, you know? But listen, a lot of times the network isn't even participating in that income. They're just letting the talent, yeah, whatever deals that they have in place with these brand partners, they just let the talent hang onto it. So it doesn't really bring money to the show's bottom line. And depending on who the partner is, like somebody like Fashion Nova, the network definitely, you know, their antennas go up. But some of you know the smaller brands and especially. If it's the talent's brand, and they know that it's their business, like you'll always see Yandy washing her face with Yelle Skincare. You'll see Rasheeda doing a scene at the Pressed, you know, store or at the Frost Bistro. So if it's their businesses, the network is always happy to, you know, give them the opportunity to promote their brands and their businesses. [00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Is there ever any pressure from the network to try to capture all of the value that the show is creating? 'Cause I know I'm hearing that from so many other areas in media and entertainment, where they're seeing what's being captured in their area, or they're seeing what's happening and what they're creating. They want to be able to capture more of that. How have those conversations been like with the network if they come up at all? [00:28:27] Mona Scott-Young: When you say capture more of it, you mean with the content or trying to find ways to exploit the brand? [00:28:32] Dan Runcie: The latter, trying to find ways to exploit the brand. [00:28:34] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, yeah, absolutely. It's a little bit of a tightrope, right, because they want to preserve the integrity of the brand. They want to protect the brand and not overexpose it or not hurt it by doing the wrong thing with the brand. But they certainly want to, you know, see the brand continue to evolve, which has been a big part of the staying power. And I think Viacom does a really good, you know, job at that when you think about Love & Hip Hop and the way that it's branched into, you know, all of the specials that we do and they have, you know, spinoffs that they do with the talent. And now they're beginning to do smaller capsule shows that are going to be coming out, you know, whether it's like watch party- type shows or, you know, getaway trip- type shows. So they're very careful about not diluting and over-exposing the brand, but they're very good about continuing to build on the brand so that it evolves and, you know, continues to have a long life. [00:29:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like the longevity you've already had speaks a lot to this. I'm curious though, 'cause I know in other interviews, people have often asked you about how your show is positioned relative to some of the other reality shows and whether or not you are portraying certain people in the best light. And I'm always curious, one of the things I was wondering is that more so chatter where people are talking about these things? Or have any of those conversations actually impacted anything you've either done with the show or the show's success in any way? [00:30:06] Mona Scott-Young: I mean, a lot of it is chatter because you know, in all fairness, when I watched the other shows, there really isn't anything much different happening on those shows in terms of the way the cast members are expressing themselves in any given moment. I think the increased scrutiny on our show has one to do, and I say it very honestly, with the word hip hop and the title, right? I think that there's this preconceived, you know, stigma attached to this huge genre that is literally pop culture right now. So it's almost ridiculously laughable that people still want to treat hip hop as some kind of a subculture, you know, of any kind. But I think the fact that the word hip hop is in the title makes people put us under a microscope, under a magnifying glass in a much different way than they do with, you know, shows with the word Housewives or Beverly Hills in the title. But if you look at the reactions and you look at some of the situations, they're not different at all. So for me, it is chatter, right, because I think the strength is in the numbers and the viewership. I think that's where you know honestly that there is something very relatable about this show, no matter what people want to say or think, because of the sheer volume of, you know, folks who tune in week in, week out to see the show, the staying power that the show has had, the influence that the show has had, whether it's music or, you know, the number of shoutouts that the show gets, the number of mentions that it gets, what happens on social media whenever the show is on air. There's a stronghold there that I think is undeniable. And so there's that whole saying about, you know, we build things up just to bring them down, and we've seen that happen with so many different cultural and iconic, you know, things, and I just think that it's par for the course with this franchise. [00:32:08] Dan Runcie: And I also think you've seen that in the range of folks that tune in as well because I think sometimes the type of content that you create, people will often say, oh, well that's meant for a certain type of person. And it's like, well, it's not really the case 'cause there's people of all ranges of income, however you want to measure success. [00:32:26] Mona Scott-Young: Yeah, it's actually pretty mind-boggling even to this day when, you know, for a long time I did the VOs at the top of the show, so the voice has become a little bit of, you know, its own personality, and, a lot of people don't know what I look like, but the minute I opened my mouth, and it'll be like middle-aged, you know, white people and young, very young kids. And I'm like, why, you know, are you even watching this show? You should be watching Nickelodeon. And so it's interesting to me the broad range of audience that it's found. And again, I always go back to the relatability, and I always go back to the connectivity with the stories, and I think that that's what people gravitate towards. [00:33:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think that's always going to be there as long as the show continues to evolve as well. And I'm thinking you were probably already thinking about several seasons ahead of now, several years ahead and now, but I'm very curious to see what is this next generation of talent that is going to be into your show, the generation that grew up on TikTok, the generation that grew up with a lot of the things? I think a lot of the talent on your show, whether they're Gen X or millennials, more so, okay, they had their run, but eventually, it's going to be the Gen Z folks and more of them that are going to be on the show more regularly, how that's going to shape not just the things they talk about and everything else, but also as streaming and other things evolve, how the show continues to move, and how the show continues to grow from that perspective. So I'd love to hear what you think the future is going to look like, let's say five years down the road of how this show may continue to evolve. [00:34:01] Mona Scott-Young: Oh, wow. I mean, you know, it's always been about the cast, and they've shaped kind of the feel and the content within the show. So if you're talking about, you know, five years from now, there's going to be a cast there that is reflective of where we are with music, technology, the culture, and those are going to be the stories that we're telling so hard to predict. But like I said, the key and the magic of the franchise has always been that the brand, you know, acted as kind of a bubble within which you cycled in the talent. And five years from now, there's going to be the talent doing what they do, how they do it, and we'll be right there with those cameras to capture it. [00:34:46] Dan Runcie: Yes, it'd be exciting to see. So in the next couple of months though, what should people stay in tune for before we wrap things up here? What should people look out for? [00:34:54] Mona Scott-Young: Oh, so many things that we're doing. I mean, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the Love & Hip Hop franchise, but as a company, we have so many other projects that we're engaged in and that we're doing. And one in particular coming October 27th and November 3rd actually is the actual premiere, but Hip Hop Homicides is a show that we're doing on WEtv, 50 Cent and G-Unit, Monami and Lionsgate came together with WEtv, and that is a show we're very excited about, very proud of. And it just, again, utilizing, you know, hip hop culture as kind of the foundation, but it's looking at those staggering number of murders that have occurred within our culture that still remain unsolved and even some of them were folks are, you know, serving time for these murders. They're still questions out there that have never been answered. And so Van Lathan is our host and he does a very active, you know, boots-on-the-ground kind of journey to a bunch of different cities where we take a close look at these murders and talk to family members and fans alike. And it's really, to me, a very, very fresh look at these murders that have plagued our community. [00:36:08] Dan Runcie: Oh, nice. That'll be a good one. And I've always liked Van in everything that he's done. I know he's done a lot of stuff with The Ringer recently, but no, he'll be good. I'm excited for this. [00:36:16] Mona Scott-Young: No, he's great at it. And Hip Hop Homicides on WEtv. Yep. November 3rd and we're excited for that one. So that's the next thing coming down the pike. [00:36:27] Dan Runcie: Great stuff. Great stuff. Well, Mona, this is great. Excited for you. Excited for everything coming up from Monami Entertainment. And if people want to follow along with you or with everything that's happening, where should they check in to follow you? [00:36:38] Mona Scott-Young: They can check on Instagram, Twitter, all social platforms. Mona Scott-Young or Monami Productions, @monamiproductions. [00:36:47] Dan Runcie: All right, great. Thanks again. This is great. [00:36:50] Mona Scott-Young: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. [00:36:54] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 11 Mar 2022 | How Quality Control Music Invests in Startups | 00:26:05 | |
Dazayah Walker is the Head of Investments at Quality Control Music, the label behind today’s most trendsetting artists like Lil Baby and Migos, Dazayah. She maintains QC’s investment portfolio, particularly within the startup space, which spans well beyond just music and entertainment. Being a 23-year-old venture capitalist is difficult as is. Now tack on being female and black? “It’s been a journey”, as Dazayah Walker shares with us in this episode of the Trapital podcast. Dazayah’s path to becoming a Venture Capitalist is as unorthodox as you’ll find in the venture capital world, but she’s stuck to the same principles that got her that opportunity to begin with — seeking out mentors, surrounding herself with a supportive community, and taking the learning process day-by-day. Before overseeing QC’s investments, Dazayah worked on the music side for the label. She began as an intern for QC, and worked her way through the ranks at the same time QC was taking the music industry by storm. Not only is Dazayah breaking down doors, but she’s also trying to leave them open for future aspiring VC’s with similar unconventional backgrounds. As Dazayah continues to learn the ins and outs of venture capital, she plans on creating initiatives to educate others about the world she operates in. To hear Dazayah’s future ambitions, plus everything else we covered in the show, reference the video chapters below: [0:00] Dazayah’s goals with her role [2:13] Dazayah’s Transition Into Venture Capital [5:29] What Is QC’s Investment Thesis? [6:35] The Pros And Cons Of Involving QC Artists Into Investments [9:16] What Does Dazayah Look For In A Company Before Investing? [10:49] QC Investing Beyond Just Music and Entertainment [10:45] Dazayah’s particular interest in Fintech [12:56] QC’s and Dazayah’s Involvement With Techstars [14:48] The Challenge Dazayah Faced Breaking Into The VC World [16:04] What Programs Have Helped Dazayah Adjust To The VC World? [17:40] What Was Behind QC’s Investment Into Riff? [18:50] QC’s Investment Portfolio Explained [20:00] “You Can Do This Too And This Is How” [23:30] Music-Wise, What Is Dazayah Most Excited About QC In Near Future? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Dazayah Walker, @dazayah
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands ----------- Dazayah Walker 00:00 Finding success here and having a strong track record and proven portfolio and then be able to use that as a way to show people you can do this too, and this is how, let me show you how, let me be that person to help you understand and be a part of it. Dan Runcie 00:23 Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Dazayah Walker, Head of Investments and the Operations Manager at Quality Control Music. This is an exciting role to have at a time like this. QC has been on a run the past few years and has really shaped what hip hop is sounded like, from artists like Migos, to City Girls, to Lil Baby, and then on the other side of this hip hop investing activity is growing faster than ever, and we're seeing more and more artists getting ICAP tables, getting involved with deals. So it's a really exciting time to have a role like this. I talked with Dazayah about what it's been like from her perspective, and representing and getting roles not just for QC as a firm, but for the artists that they represent, and how she has navigated the record label growing as fast as it has the past few years to venture capital landscape and how she's been able to navigate that and a whole lot more. Had a great conversation with her. Hope you enjoy it. Here's my chat with Dazayah Walker. All right, we got Dazayah Walker here today, who is the Head of Investments at Quality Control Music. Dazayah, welcome to the pod. Dazayah Walker 01:42 Hello, I'm so happy to be here. Super excited. Let's do this. Dan Runcie 01:46 Yeah, so one of the things that stuck out to me about you and your career, you had started as an intern at QC, and you've risen up the ranks there as the label as not just a record label, but as an entertainment company. And now with a corporate venture arm or brollies just continue to grow and expand. Dazayah Walker 02:05 Yes. Dan Runcie 02:06 Walk me through the steps. What was it like from when you started to where it is now, just with how fast things have been growing there? Dazayah Walker 02:13 Yeah, it's been a great journey and experience for me, with this being my first job. There's been a lot of learning curves with that in itself. But it was definitely a privilege and a great opportunity to be able to see the growth of QC, because we've expanded in so many different ways since I started as an intern, and being able to be a part of that, witness that, learn from that I couldn't be in a better position. Dan Runcie 02:36 And is there anything specific with the role that you have now that had drawn you to it or something specifically because I know you had started a bit more focused on operations? And then now we're obviously seeing much more on the investment side. But was there something about that opportunity that pulled you in? Dazayah Walker 02:52 Yes, so getting to this side was definitely a path of, I would say divine ordering because me entering the opportunity at QC. Starting as an intern, I thought I just wanted to do music, work my way up to being a music industry executive. But as I became more in the groove, and learning more of the things that I like, things that I don't like, I really had to find my place. And when I discovered what venture capital was, because when I was at Spelman, I was an economics major. So I kind of have like, I've always been surrounded by that when I was in school, just the finance, track and everything like that. But me venturing into music was me following my passion or what I thought was my passion at that time. So when I discovered what venture capital was, it was actually kind of crazy to me that I hadn't learned about it when I was in school, considering the impact that Morehouse, our brother institution has, as far as their representation of black men in venture capital. It was just crazy to me that I was at an institution right across the street and had no idea that this industry even existed. So when I stumbled across VC and began learning about it, I just saw the opportunity for artists, athletes and entertainers to be involved and was curious as to why more people that look like us aren't represented in those spaces. So that's when you know, my research and dedication to being in this position really started. And then from there, you know, bringing that idea and really helped become what we're building today with quality Ventures has been amazing. Dan Runcie 04:26 So talk to me about that piece about bringing this idea together. So was it you seeing the opportunity and seeing how much of a disconnect there was and then going into the team at QC to be like, hey, there's something big here and we have talent here that could be just as influential. Dazayah Walker 04:42 Yes. So it was a moment where I had to really think about what legacy do I want to have, what value do I want to add, and being in this position, you know, I built relationships with, you know, our entire team. So I was somebody that, you know, they trusted and when I, you know, have something to say they were listening, and you know, they embraced any idea or anything that I had. So by, you know, telling them and showing them, you know, the opportunity that exists for us in this space, it was well-received. And now here we are deploying capital, making investments. And my goal is really for us to have that same little level of influence and impact that we have in music in the venture capital space, as well. So having that same strong presence and footprint in that industry, too. Dan Runcie 05:29 So what does that thesis look like? What does that investment goal look like for QC specifically, because I'm sure it's more than just the financial aspect? There's the pitch and how it can help intersect and how the music itself and everything you're doing on the media and entertainment side can help with the venture opportunity too? Dazayah Walker 05:48 Absolutely, so our biggest thing is adding value, adding strategic value. So for us being in a unique position of being that entity that defines culture and creates culture, I feel like we're uniquely positioned to leverage our artists and our athletes to really help grow these companies that we see as potential winners. Dan Runcie 06:11 And are there ever any specific moments where folks are reaching out? And there's, of course, the interest in having QC on the cap table, but then people reaching out about specific artists, whether it's like, oh, well, we want to have City Girls on here, specifically, or we want to be able to have a Lil Baby on here? How has it been with that piece of advice, I'm sure that could be an interesting discussion, especially from your landscape with all of that. Dazayah Walker 06:35 So that happens a lot as well. And it all boils down to seeing if the artist even aligns with what you're building. Because when you're working with early stage, or pre-seed stage companies, that may be the very first version of whatever they're building, there's so many more iterations yet to happen. And as the entity continues to grow, and transform, the artists that they thought may be ideal for what they're building as a representation may not be as they continue to, you know, redefine what it is that they're building. So yes, you know, we get opportunities all the time for our artists, which was another reason why, like the opportunity to bridge the gap and intersect music and technology was so evident and clear to me, you know, to pursue and to do, because those opportunities and those deals are always flowing. But really being in a position being someone that knows how to evaluate those opportunities, and educate, you know, the artist, or the athlete or whoever may be to let them know, like, this is why this is a good, you know, opportunity or something to look at and this is why it isn't. Dan Runcie 07:41 I also imagine that there's likely people that may be reaching out because they may want just the exposure that may come right, they may be like, “Oh, well, if y'all invest can Lil Baby, give us a shout out for the product on some song. And I could see there being you know, some pushback on that, because obviously, you all would see the opportunity as being greater than that.” But how was that piece of it been? Because I know, I've heard similar from folks in the entertainment space when they're looking to have not just celebrities, but artists specifically on the cap table. Dazayah Walker 08:13 Well, personally, I don't think a founder having that mindset is necessarily wrong because in the VC ecosystem now, capital isn't an issue. So getting the money having people to, you know, write a check for you isn't the hard part. It’s actually once you get that money, how can you use that, you know, relationship that you now have to help build your company or grow whatever it is that you're building. So I feel like a founder having that perspective isn't necessarily a bad thing, because you want to have partners that can help you grow your company and add value in different ways. So if there is an opportunity for an artist, if it's something that they really love, you know, to be an ambassador for it, and to push it. Dan Runcie 08:58 So when you're evaluating startups, and when you're evaluating artists, or not artists, founders, specifically, what are you looking for, like, what is your criteria set? And what are those things whether it's tangible or intangible that you're looking for that clears that over the hurdle to be like, Yes, this is what we want to invest in? Dazayah Walker 09:16 So I would break it down into three things. The first thing I would say, what is the problem that you're trying to solve? Is this a problem that is unique to you and from like, or where you're from? Or is this a problem that is affecting a wide market of people? So first, understanding the problem, and if the solution that they're attempting to build is a solution for the greater good? The second thing is really understanding their team, like, who do you have helping you build this? What people do need a position to help you build it? And like how much traction Have you gotten so far. And the first, and I think the most important thing is the founder, when you're working with companies that are likely pre-revenue, maybe they have a very, very early version of their product, you're placing a bet on the founder. So knowing the type of person to look for, or the type of characteristics to look for in a founder, I think are very important. Somebody that is determined, somebody that is all in like willing to make the investment themselves because how do you expect me or someone to make an investment when you haven't even, you know, fully invested yourself in this in this idea? So I will say those are the top three things that I look at when I meet with founders and new companies. Dan Runcie 10:33 That makes sense. And then in terms of the industries themselves, is there any type of sector that you're particularly looking for, or any other type of industry that you feel is most aligned with what QC or Quality Ventures is after? Dazayah Walker 10:49 Yeah, so as a company, Quality Ventures isn't looking in specific industries and verticals. I know a lot of people think since you know, we have Quality Control Music, we're looking strictly at music-based companies and startups. And that's not necessarily true. Like I said, our whole thesis is really about us being in a position to add value. But for me, specifically, I really like looking at fintech companies, I think that Fintech is the next market to really boom so paying attention to the trends, paying attention to what people are saying, paying attention to what problems are they need to be solved. So for me personally, the industry of interest to me is fintech. Dan Runcie 11:28 And what is it about fintech specifically that sticks out to you or interest you? Dazayah Walker 11:32 I like it because I think it's time for a change as far as how money is viewed, how money is moved. Like I know, you probably have seen how crypto, everybody's talking about crypto, and preparation for the metaverse, like, all of those things are happening strategically. And by being aware of what's happening in fintech, you know how the money is moving what the future of money and finances look like. So that you can kind of put yourself in position to not only be educated about it but know how to make your next move when it comes to what the future looks like. Dan Runcie 12:05 Right? That makes sense. And I think especially when you look more broadly at the definition of FinTech, and you look at companies like Coinbase, and you look at some of the partnerships that they've had with organizations like the NBA, or even the United Masters, there's clearly an alignment where even if it isn't in the quote-unquote, entertainment landscape, this touches so much. So that's why I think you see so many artists and companies in this space that want to tap into all these areas, even if they're not necessarily what you may think is in that industry. Dazayah Walker 12:38 Exactly. Dan Runcie 12:39 And with that, I mean, for you, I know that another partnership that QC has, at least on the investment side, from what I've seen is in Techstars Music, and I saw that you're a mentor there and that QC more broadly as a partner. So how has that experience been? Dazayah Walker 12:56 It's been amazing. Just the Techstars music team in general have been a great like resource for us. So when the program, when we joined the program last year, we kind of were thrown in when things were already in motion, like they were already preparing for demo day, the companies in the cohort were already selected. But now I was able to be a part of the process of you know, picking the companies for the new cohort, being a part of like all the member meetings and the mentor meetings. So with me still being in a very early part of my career, I'm always looking for opportunities to learn and experience new things. And Techstars has been an amazing teacher for me. Just seeing things from that perspective, working with an accelerator, like working with founders and seeing them in that perspective has definitely helped me I feel like become a better venture capitalist, just seeing things from different angles and different perspectives. Because honestly, once I made the decision to transition into venture capital, I was a little discouraged because I am entering it through a very unconventional background. So any opportunity that I have to learn and observe and ask questions, it's been amazing, because it's been it's been a rough journey for me to be able to confidently say, this is what I'm doing. I know that I'm uniquely qualified to do that thing, and, you know, moving like that. So it's been a journey, Dan, I tell you, Dan Runcie 14:22 I could imagine I mean, there are not many people that look like you that are doing this type of work. And when you compound that with what people already may assume is standard for what they expect for people working at, the type of company you work at that just compounds it further. I mean, what are some of the things that you had done early on to try to, you know, either break through that or try to navigate that the best, and I could only imagine how tough that could be at times. Dazayah Walker 14:50 Yeah, I would definitely say reaching out to people asking questions, really being a sponge, absorbing as much information and knowledge as I can. Because making this pivot into an entire new industry is scary, because like, I built my network in my name and music. And now, I feel like making a career shift almost as still such an early point in my career was very, very scary. But some of those same like tactics and things that I did to be successful or reach the level of success that I had in music, I applied those same principles to me, you know, trying to achieve a level of success in venture capital. So really finding mentors and finding a community to learn from to be supported by and to be supportive of, and just taking things day by day. And knowing that every day is an opportunity to learn something new, and, you know, not taking opportunity for granted because I know I'm in a very unique and special position. And I'm grateful for the position that I'm in. So really showing people why I, you know, I'm deserving of the role that I've been placed in. Dan Runcie 16:04 Definitely. And I also think, too, whether it's programs like HBCU, VC, and obviously, you representing that being an alum from HBCU them recognizing that this is a pipeline that not only is a challenge, but how can they help bridge that gap? And, you know, are there any specific organizations, whether it's like that or others that have been helpful for you as you've gone along this path? Dazayah Walker 16:26 Yeah, so definitely HBCU BC, considering I was a fellow, that was an amazing program with amazing teachers, and I've really been able to, like tap into that community, which has been amazing. Another community that I'm really grateful for is Black VC and the Black Venture Capital Consortium, both of those organizations have been super supportive and welcoming of me. And it's things like that, that are very important for not even just me being a young black woman, but you know, being a person of color trying to enter another space that is male-dominated, white-male-dominated. So just having that comfort of knowing that there are people that support you and want to uplift you and see you do amazing things. Dan Runcie 17:11 Yeah, definitely. I could see that for sure. I could see that. Well. Let's circle back quick. I do want to talk about some of the public investments that you've made. I know that Riff was one of them, that you all were in, was that one of them? Riff, yes. Okay. So what was the process like for that investment? What was it that attracted you about that company? Dazayah Walker 17:31 Well, Riff isn't one that I necessarily, like found from the beginning and worked all the way to the point where we cut the check. But Riff has been an amazing company in our portfolio, I'm super excited for what they're building, just seeing them being disruptive and combining elements that we as consumers love, I'm really excited for the journey of Riff and being able to be a great partner to them, and just seeing them grow. And you know, being along that journey in that ride with them, but they're definitely building something amazing. And I'm excited for, you know, the masses to really, you know, tap into it, learn about it, and really get engaged with it. Dan Runcie 18:10 Yeah, I can see that. Are there any that are public that you've worked on that you can talk more about? Dazayah Walker 18:17 Yeah, so one of my favorite companies in our portfolio, which is actually one of the companies from the previous class of Techstars. It's called Faith. And this is one that I really, really loved. Because not only did our relate to like the platform, just to give you a little bit of background Faith is an app for fans. It allows fans to come together and really live within their fandom. And with me being a past fangirl, I immediately fell in love with what she was building. And the founder, she's a black woman, she's a solopreneur, which is a challenge in itself. So just seeing what she's built so far, the amount of traction that she's received, and just how far she has come has been super inspirational for me, you know, being involved, even in like the due diligence and saying, I think this is a great company, I think this is one that we really should pay attention to, to the point of us actually deploying capital to that company. That was super cool, and really amazing. And that's another company in our portfolio that I'm super excited about. And I feel like not only will my generation, like, enjoy the app, but the generation underneath me will as well, so… Dan Runcie 19:23 Nice. That makes sense. Yeah. And I feel with apps like that in platforms. I mean, not only do you have the direct connection, but I'm sure you being able to have the connection to it. I mean, these are the type of things obviously it's still early stage, you know, but gets marked up you continue to have that influence over it and you never know where that could take you. I feel like that's kind of the exciting thing, especially for the people I talk to you that are that start their careers in VC, as opposed to the other way around the, you know, the folks that may have done something on the product side and then go into vc. Dazayah Walker 19:56 Yeah, but my goal overall, really is to, you know, find my groove in this and really, you know, find success for myself and I define success within this space is being able to invest in companies, have exits, and you know, have a strong portfolio, so that I can get to the point where I'm able to educate and inform, because I feel like, part of the reason why a lot of artists, athletes, and entertainers, which is, you know, the people that I'm used to working with and being around, which is why I really strongly urge them to get into this space, and why I feel like I'm in the position, and the person to really do that work, is because they don't know, like, there's that kind of barrier. Like they may see things on social media of other artists that have invested in Gods, you know, there's money back, but really having someone there to educate them and be that bridge and that conduit from, you know, them being in the position and the level of influence, and you know, the reach that they have, and showing them and being that person to bring deals to them to help them leverage that so that not only are they able to, you know, be represented in this space, but build generational wealth for them and their families. Like that's the bigger picture. And that's the goal for me. And that's the work that I really want to do and look forward to doing. So finding success here and having a strong, like track record and proven portfolio, and then being able to use that as a way to show people you can do this too. And this is how, let me show you how, let me be that person to help you understand and be a part of it. Dan Runcie 21:32 Yeah, that's powerful. Because I feel like especially for you or you're in your position now. There's a lot of people that I'm sure look at you being like, oh, Dazayah, how can we get in that? Like, how do you were able to, you know, connect those dots. And then you obviously, you know, I'm sure you feel like you're deep into yourself, you're learning as you're continuing to grow. But you know that in the near future, you will be able to have enough. And that can look like a number of things, whether that's a course or some other type of platform to just share and disseminate this information. Because not only is it important for people to hear it, it's important for people to hear it from people who you know, look like you they if you want to inspire, you know, especially if there's black women across the country across the world, I want to hear it, the more folks that could share their experience, the better that is. Dazayah Walker 22:16 Absolutely, I agree 100%. Like, the more you know, the better position that you can put yourself in. And I just think it's a lack of knowledge, people just not knowing, like, what these things mean, how to get in on deals, how much to invest, like, there's so many layers to it. And I feel like if people were a bit more comfortable, they'd be more open and investing their money in other ways than the traditional stocks and bonds or, you know, how people see fit to save their money or invest their money, I should say. Dan Runcie 22:47 Yeah, especially now I feel like we're seeing things like whether it's the accredited investor rule or other things just continuing to be challenged, we're gonna see more and more people investing the definition of an investor and who can get involved with things. As those barriers continue to lower, the options increase. And when that happens, it just provides more space for education. So yeah, you're definitely on the right track with all that stuff has ever said. 100% Dazayah Walker 23:13 Thank you. That really means a lot. Thank you. Dan Runcie 23:16 Yeah, well, um, I know that, you know, we've covered a lot in this. But before we let you go, I do want to get a quick take from you on what are you most excited for? What's coming through the QC portfolio for the rest of 2022? And I guess portfolio, that'd be more on the artists side. Specifically, what are you excited for on that front. Dazayah Walker 23:36 I'm just excited for the continued growth of Quality Control as an empire. It hasn't even been 10 years that QC has been in existence. And for us to have made so much leeway, create so much history have so much impact within that 10-year window. I'm excited to see what the next five years look like for us. But even just in the next year, in the next 12 months, I'm excited to see the continued growth and effort of our team, like our team has grown dramatically. So if we were able to do and accomplish so much with such a small team, I'm excited to see what the next 12 months look like for our expansion and our growth and just everything to come and everything that we're building, publicly and silently. I'm just grateful for the position that I'm in and be able to be a part of that and even say those things. So the next year it's going to look like a lot of wins continued success and growth and expansion for all of us. Dan Runcie 24:38 That's exciting. I feel like the past decade for QC has been incredible. I think it's so tough for indie labels to be able to have that type of run in the fact that they have says a lot. So I'm excited. I mean, as a fan of all of this, I'm excited to see what happened. But yeah, before we let you go, is there anything else you want to plug or let the Trapital audience know about? Dazayah Walker 25:00 I should say this is great, Dan, I absolutely love what you're doing what you're building, you're spreading a message that needs to be heard by so many. And you're not only inspiring me, but you're inspiring people that you may not even know that you're touching. So keep doing the work that you're doing. This was awesome. Thank you so much. Dan Runcie 25:19 Thank you. I appreciate that. Appreciate that. We'll do. Thanks, Dazayah. Dazayah Walker 25:23 All right. Thank you, Dan. Dan Runcie 25:28 If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review, tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 02 Sep 2020 | Donald Albright on Building a Podcast Network, Hip-Hop Marketing Tactics, and Tenderfoot TV’s Future | 00:45:53 | |
Tenderfoot TV cofounder and President Donald Albright came on the Trapital Podcast to talk about how his company has amassed 500 million podcast downloads. Tenderfoot is behind this hit shows Up and Vanished, Atlanta Monster, To Live and Die in LA, and more. The company has partnered with HBO, iHeartMedia, HBO, and others. Before Tenderfoot, Donald was a music exec in Atlanta where he managed LaFace Records’ street team, managed August Alsina, and worked closely with OutKast, Goodie Mob, and others. If you are interested in podcast strategy, partnerships, and ownership, this is def the podcast for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Donald Albright, @dabright03, tenderfoot.tv Link: How Donald Albright Became Atlanta’s Podcast Kingmaker - Atlanta Magazine Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 17 Dec 2021 | Chris Taylor on MNRK's Rebrand, Managing Death Row Records Catalog, and Music's M&A Market | 00:47:50 | |
Chris Taylor is the president and CEO of MNRK, a record label that was formerly eOne Music. In this episode, he walks us through his journey from being a touring musician to having a legal practice to starting an independent label to heading eOne’s music division through its rebranding. He shares what it was like to sell Last Gang during the pandemic, to represent Drake and other Canadian artists, and to manage the Death Row Records catalog. He also offers advice as a record label executive to developing artists. Get thrown back to the pre-streaming era and see how the music landscape is changing from the eyes of a veteran in the industry! Episode Highlights [02:18] What MNRK has been up to since its rebranding and the process of how eOne sold its music business to Blackstone [08:40] On leading MNRK now compared to 2016 [15:52] The synergy opportunities that Last Gang and eOne lost because of its strategic partnership and the onslaught of COVID [19:02] Chris’ thoughts on the music landscape from the perspective of music companies and record labels, legacy copyrights, and [25:28] The highlights of his legal career [31:58] What buying and listening to music was like in the early 2000s [35:48] On managing the Death Row Records catalog [40:15] On the opportunities for developing artists in the era of streaming and social media [48:02] Why some record labels have gotten into trouble Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Chris Taylor, @solicitorct, MNRK Music Group Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 03 Nov 2022 | The Culture Report, and DICE President on Making Music Ticketing Less Transactional | 00:46:51 | |
At the top of the episode, I talk about Trapital’s new Culture Report and our opening section on hip-hop’s “decline.” This report is sponsored by DICE, and it was a great chance to chat with DICE President Russ Tannen about the future of ticketing and live events. Russ moved to New York City in 2021 amid the pandemic with one lofty goal: grow the music ticketing platform’s business inside the competitive United States market. If that wasn’t challenging enough, this was all while live musical shows were still hard to come by. More than a year later, DICE is still in growth mode, not only in the US but with aspirations for other international markets too. Russ was a day-one employee of DICE when it started in 2013 in Europe. What separated the platform then — and to this day — is its laser focus on the music fan. Unlike its major competitors, DICE is as much a discovery platform as a point-of-sale. Using the app’s own internal data, fans are recommended local shows to attend. The recommendation system was created with the intent of improving the live music-going experience for fans. This same reason is also why the ticket price you see on DICE is the final price, no extra fees added at check-out. DICE tickets also can’t be resold outside of its app, ensuring true fans, not ticket scalpers, will have first access to see their favorite artists. Russ joined me on the show to discuss the inner workings of DICE, from the app’s unique benefits for fans, artists, and venues alike to its overarching growth strategy. Here’s everything we covered: [0:35] The Culture Report [13:01] DICE entering the US market amid pandemic [15:26] Competing against other ticketing platforms [19:58] Re-wiring consumer behavior around attending events [22:15] Prior partnership with Kanye West [23:37] Has there been any artist pushback? [25:16] Showing ticket price upfront, not at checkout [28:10] How DICE deals with ticket-buying bots [35:57] DICE’s investment in data science is paying off [35:37] Partnering with Ice Spice [38:21] Early signals that an artist is on the rise [40:22] Correlation between social media and streaming numbers on ticket sales [43:16] Differences in ticketing in US vs. other markets [46:18] Sales strategies for low-demand shows [48:46] DICE’s plans to tap more into Latin music market [52:27] Expansion is DICE’s primary focus in 2023 Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Russ Tannen, @RussTannen
Download The Culture Report here: https://trapital.ck.page/a23b7a6a4a
Sponsors:
MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital
Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.
Sponsors:
MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital
Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Russ Tannen: At one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50 capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, many of the best 100 to 200-capacity venues that exist in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that. [00:00:42] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:01:02] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Russ Tannen. He's the president of DICE, which is a ticketing platform for live events that's working to make ticketing fairer for fans of live music. They're also working to make sure that there's personalization, so that fans have a better understanding for the music and the concerts from the people that they want to be able to see. And they've been using a ton of analytics to address some of the challenges that the live entertainment industry has faced over the years. DICE is one of the presenting sponsors for Trapital's 2022 Culture Report that is out and available. You can get that on the Trapital website or if you're on the email list. And it was great to talk to Russ about some of those findings and also get a better understanding for the main problem that DICE is trying to solve. There are several aspects of the live ticketing business from scalpers and bots that are raising prices, with artists and fans not necessarily being able to have the most direct connection possible, and fans not always necessarily knowing what concerts are in their area, other people that they may want to see, and being able to get personalized recommendations there. So Russ really brought us under the hood, painted us a picture of what the events business looks like. This is a company that started in the UK, was able to get a good amount of market share there, and is now expanding into the US. So we talked about how they're focused on the venues, specifically, that have capacity from 200 people up to 10,000, what that looks like, what the opportunities are, what some of the challenges are, and what he's ultimately looking forward to most. Here's my chat with Russ. [00:02:36] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Russ Tannen, who is the president of DICE, a company that is on a mission to help solve a number of the challenges right now in the ticketing and live events business. And I give you a lot of credit because this is a difficult business for a number of reasons, and you're entering a US market where I think there's so much opportunity for improvements with things. So it would be great to hear from you all, and for the folks listening, what your strategy is and why the US market's been so important for you. [00:03:08] Russ Tannen: Thanks Dan. Thanks so much for having me on. It's really good to meet you and to get a chance to have this conversation. I don't know why you think it's difficult. It's it's been so straightforward. It's been such a breeze the last nine years. No, it's definitely complicated. Before we jump into it, and I do want to tackle that one, I wanted to ask you a question first actually. What was the first concert you went to, Dan? [00:03:27] Dan Runcie: Ooh, the first concert I went to. So I am Jamaican and my parents are Big Harry Belafonte fans, so I must have been nine or so, and we all went as a family to a Harry Belafonte concert. I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, so he had come through, so that was the first one. [00:03:44] Russ Tannen: Wow. What was the first one where you, like, bought a ticket or you were, like, going with your mates and you were, like, excited to go? [00:03:49] Dan Runcie: Okay. The first one where was actually, like, me going, it was a 50 Cent concert. He had come through, they had this concert venue, the Meadows in the Hartford area. So, yeah, we went to that. This is like right when he had, like, blown up. [00:04:00] Russ Tannen: How was it? Amazing? [00:04:02] Dan Runcie: I mean, at that age, it was amazing. I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, this was the person that everyone was talking about, Oh, you know, he got shot nine times. He's this mythical legend. And then you get to see him in this venue. And of course, you're also, you know, you're young, you're with your friends, you're finally, like, getting out, like, people are finally starting to go different places. So I really enjoy that. And yeah, I mean, that was with my own money for the first time. [00:04:25] Russ Tannen: Yeah. I love thinking about those memories. I found a picture of me going to my, like, first proper concert, which is, like, I used to have hair, obviously, when I was a teenager and it was, like, dyed green, and we were going to see Deftones and Linkin Park play. They were playing in London. And I remember just being with all my mates going, it was like the most exciting thing ever to, like, go to that show. And I love like, thinking about those things and that feeling and that emotion 'cause I think, like, if you have, like, a really amazing experience early going to a concert and feeling all of those emotions about going to see live music, then it can really stay with you, like, your whole life. And I think a lot of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to capture is that feeling for as many people as possible and to get more people having those types of experiences, like, more of the time, really just spending less time at home. Like that's what we're really, that's what DICE is all about. Like, more than being an app or being a company or all the other things that we're doing, like, it's really, like, how do you get more people to feel like they're going to the 50 Cent concert and just, like, this is it, like, but thanks for sharing that. [00:05:26] Dan Runcie: Oh, definitely. [00:05:27] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I moved to the US in April last year. So I'm joining on the call from New York at the moment. And we already had a presence here. We'd been building up the business in LA for a few years before, and obviously, the pandemic hit. And I think coming out of the pandemic, we realized that there was an opportunity to start working with a number of partners in New York and really focus on our growth here and building out a team. So when I got here in April, there were three people on the team here. We've built that out to 70 people in this office and a hundred people in the US team overall with other little posts in Miami and Nashville as well as the team in LA. And, yeah, I think it's an extremely competitive market, obviously, but I also think that one of the great things that the pandemic really showed us was just how big and how strong the independent music scene in the US really is. And a big part of that, I think, was the work that Dayna Frank did and founding NIVA and really uniting all of those independent venues together to lobby for the grants that they got to keep the businesses going. And I think that that was just like a really interesting thing t o come out of it and something that will go on for a long time and last for a long time. Now, that organization, and I think it helped to show everyone, you know, how strong the independent music scene is here and what a large opportunity for a company like ours that works only with independent venues and promoters has to build, you know, a very big business here, too, and to support all the artists that are playing in those venues. So we really focus between. 200 - 10,000 capacity. Those are the types of venues we work with. And for people that are listening that don't know what DICE is, you know, we're a mobile event discovery and ticketing app that's working directly with venues and promoters to, you know, increase sales for those shows and to do all the things you'd be expecting a ticket company to do. So, yeah, but that's really where we play. It's a very competitive space, but it's a bit different to thinking about arenas and stadiums and you know, maybe that part of the live business. [00:07:19] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. I do think that, of course, that you have, whether it's ATG or Live Nation, having those arenas and stadiums and a lot of the partnerships there, the independent opportunity is much more flexible and I think there's less pure ownership there from a lot of the big players, but I do know that there's still competition from, whether it's your folks like Eventbrite or others. How have you been able to work and gain market share given that dynamic with some of the other players from that 200 to 10K capacity venue? [00:07:51] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think that we've been going for nine years now. And we had originally worked as promoters, we'd also run venues. We were working in artist management before starting DICE, and I think we had a number of different perspectives from day one in building the company and the kind of foundational things that we focused on were probably a little different to someone who's maybe more coming from a technology background and seeing a market opportunity and looking at how to build for the venue client. Whereas we always kind of still had a management hat on the whole time. And also we're really thinking about how to build for the fan, and we've had this kind of laser focus on building for the fan experience and that started all the way back with making it a completely mobile product, making the actual purchase of the ticket extremely easy, always showing the full price upfront so you don't get that sticker shock at the end of the purchase when it's suddenly more expensive, stopping the tickets from being sold on resale, introducing functionality like the waiting list where if a show sells out, you can join a waiting list and if tickets get returned to that waiting list, you can just pick them up at the same price. All these things that we did very early that just built a lot of trust very quickly, I think, with fans to become like their preferred platform for tickets and then through time thinking even more about social functionality connecting with your friends. We talk to fans all the time and fans would tell us the number one reason that they wouldn't buy a ticket for a show would be that they wouldn't know who to go with. But we would know that from all the fans that we had using the product, that there must be some that were already friends. So we made it so you could connect with your friends through the app, through your contacts, and then on an event level, you can actually see who from your friends is going to the show, who's been to see that artist before, who's saved that event? You can also go on a view where you can just pick, so me and you could pick this page where it will show us events to go to together based on both of our musical tastes and shows we've been to before. So there's all these things that we've built that are really just nothing to do with the person sat at the venue who's the ticketing manager, and they're all about the real end consumer being the fan. And I think that's just been a different approach to most ticket companies in the US previously that have built been more transactional. And so when we pitch, it's all about how do we actually significantly change how people are discovering the events at the venue and how do we increase the number of shows that they're going to by focusing all of their experience on the actual ticket purchase. And that's really paid off and that narrative is paid off. And when we think about a city like New York, where, you know, last when I got here, it was still events weren't happening. So obviously, you know, the number of users on the app was extremely low. We only had a few partners signed that think people were starting to think about putting shows on sale, but it was really early days. We were really selling a vision of what we could do in terms of driving sales and making people go to more shows. But now that we're 18 months in, we can see, you know, over a million people in New York City using the app every month. We can see over 40% of sales coming through discovery, which is sales that we are driving. That's really significant for the venues and promoters that we're working with and of course for the artists playing those venues. So I think that New York's a great case study for us, and we're excited to do it even more across the rest of the US and also around the world. We're already in London and Spain and Germany and France and Italy, so, yeah, we're just getting started really. [00:11:17] Dan Runcie: Let's talk a bit more about that consumer behavior aspect of this because this is where I think you make the distinction. So many of the other events promoters, it's more focused on their relationship with the artist, right? They're essentially the end consumer or the venue itself. But then it's the fan that then sees the after effects of it, whether that turns out in how tickets are resold or how they're initially sold and offered in the first place and the fees and all the other things that come up. And you all are making it more so of the destination for someone that wants to come to a show and wants to check that out, and by also with some of the other measures you mentioned, not having scalpers, resale value or resale, in general, going directly to someone on the waitlist, how do you feel like this piece of it has been? Because I think so much of this is just rewiring the psychology of how consumers think about attending live events. So of course there's the business aspect of it, but there's also a bit of retraining the customer because I think for so many years we've been trained to follow the way that it's been. [00:12:23] Russ Tannen: I know. I also think that everything is always in flux, right? And everything's always changing and shifting. And I think that the moment you stop innovating is the moment you start, like, failing, right? You've got to keep kind of pushing things forward and thinking about keeping the right north star, I think. And for us, keeping the fan experiences a North Star has been the thing that's really led to, I think, a lot of our success. And I think that with the resale piece, that's a really interesting one, how that's evolved even in the last kind of nine years since we started. And I think where we're at now is that we are so at odds with how, you know, some of the other ticket companies are doing it with integrated resale and this dynamic pricing debate that's obviously going on at the moment. And we're really at the complete opposite end of that, where we really believe that if you really rip off fans or give people an experience or perception that they're being ripped off, then the next time they think about what they're going to do with their spare money to spend on social activities or with their free time, they might not pick going to a concert, and we think it's such a short term view to be doing those behaviors. And I think definitely in the sort of capacity size of shows that we're doing and the types of independent festivals and promoters that we work with, it's just not what people want either. So when we are pitching to those partners or talking to artists even about how we do things, which is really about stopping the resale of tickets and having this completely fair waiting list platform, then a lot of them love to hear that, and that's what they want to be pitched. They don't want to be pitched that we've built a system that could squeeze every dollar out of a fan who can happen to afford it. So I think that's a better approach to be doing it. I think, like, with the resale piece, especially, a lot of the early success we had with artists was also on the fact that we could stop the resale of tickets. I was just thinking of when we worked with Kanye on the Project Wyoming launch parties around the US, it was very early for us when we just launched here. And, you know, that was one of the massive reasons that he actually wanted to use the platform was to stop the resale of tickets. So there's been lots of case studies like that that we've had where just really big artists are trying to use us just to stop resale, and I think it's a misconception that, you know, larger artists are actually all trying to just make as much money as possible from the fan using that dynamic pricing or participating themselves in resale. [00:14:39] Dan Runcie: How did the Kanye partnership develop? [00:14:42] Russ Tannen: It was really very last minute and unexpected, and it was all happening from LA, and Andrew who's on our team and was in LA at the time, running there and setting up the business there had a call very late. And so it all happened while we were asleep in London, and he'd been told to set up some links, no event details, all super secret. And then we were all in a meeting the next day and I remember him texting us saying, go to kanyewest.com, and it rerouted to a DICE ticket page for the show. So it was pretty wild. But yeah, it was via promoter that we'd been working with in LA who'd been sort of brought on to find you know, locations for those shows and stuff. And there's been lots of other examples of that, but great example of a large artist using the platform for protecting their fans, and, yeah, it was just a good one to do. [00:15:27] Dan Runcie: Do you ever experience or see any type of pushback from any artist specifically? Because one of the underlying things about scalpers is that a lot of times it's the artists themselves who also benefit from the secondary market, just with the price that is seen as what people perceive as the value for going to a particular show of theirs. And also, since some of these artists have also participated in buying their own tickets and selling them on the secondary market. Have there been any artists or instances where artists have had any pushback on that? [00:16:02] Russ Tannen: No. Like, the way that we see it is we really focus on attendance. So by having the waiting list, we're making it easy to return a ticket if you can't go, then we're going to be very, very close to a hundred percent attendance on any sold-out show. In fact, what we normally see is about a 15% increase in attendance when a venue switches from a traditional ticket company to DICE, which makes a big difference when you're in the room. And I think the artists get that. The other thing with the waiting list data that we have is that you can really see the true demand for an artist. So an example recently in London would be with Little Simz, where we did this small show and we had 11,000 people on the waiting list for her, and it's just, it was so easy for her to add another date on that show. So there's been thousands. We've had millions and millions of people on the waiting list and millions of tickets returned. But the really exciting story, I think is always when an artist sees those waiting list numbers building and actually adds a second date, and that's when they're really making money. That's a better way to do it, right, really fulfill the full demand, actually have the right number of people in the room, not just a load of tickets unsold on secondary, or use that data properly to make sure that the next show on the tour is going to be the right size, so not missing opportunity on the next go-round or on the next album. And that's one of the data pieces that we really pioneered and a lot of artists have used very successfully at this point. [00:17:22] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. On the pricing piece of things, does the fact that the ticket price, once it's set is not going to be any higher and it's not going to change, does that change either how you or the artist think about what that initial dollar amount should be relative to what they may do with a more traditional platform? [00:17:41] Russ Tannen: Well, I think that the way that ticketing fees and fees in general on to tickets has kind of evolved, has made it sort of less relevant, I think, to have it kind of separate. It's kind of all part of the pie in a way. And we just always thought that the best way to do that was to show the fans the full price upfront and explain that that includes any fees that related to the ticket. We also fight to keep fees kind of as low as they reasonably can be. So we hope that, you know, the tickets are as low as they can be, but the idea of a face value ticket in a world where that ticket is not available at that price anywhere, there's no box office to go to to buy a ticket from. There's no, you know, that ticket is never available at price. So to show that price anywhere to us feels a bit disingenuous to fans and really the, I guess, the theory is that you hook people in with the lower price, and then you just sort of surprise 'em at the end and they won't care because they're already down the journey. What we decided was that actually fans are smart, and once you've been to one show, you know that's what's going to happen. So it's better just to be upfront with people and say, look, this is the full price of the ticket including any fees that need to be added. And, you know, that's it. That's the price you're going to pay at the end. In terms of how that informs pricing, you know, we don't actually inform pricing ourselves. That's always down to, you know, the venue promoter, agent, artist. And I don't know. I don't know, maybe sometimes, because we see shows coming through now where they'll say, actually, let's put it up in 10 and make sure that that includes any of the fees. Or let's put that up for 20 or 30 and make sure that includes all the fees. So maybe a little bit is starting to happen. And, you know, I hope that's the way that that it goes 'cause people should really always be thinking about the final price that people are really going to pay. And, you know, that's another thing that fans tell us all the time that they like about the platform. It felt a little bit, I think, to begin with, counterintuitive to show people a bigger price. Like, it feels weird, almost, like, to start, but then actually if you speak to fans, then they'll say, no, It's better to know. Be upfront. How much is it going to cost me? Don't surprise me at the end. [00:19:38] Dan Runcie: And this extends industries as well, right? It's like the Airbnb thing. No one wants to be surprised to see the price double because of the cleaning and service fee ends up being twice as much as the rental. [00:19:49] Russ Tannen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's just the way that we think things should be, you know, so it's a change. Like, it's been one of the big things we talk in length about with partners, especially new partners coming on board. They've done it a certain way for a long time. But actually, you know, there's all types of legislation getting passed now to actually enforce upfront ticket pricing. And I do think this will be the way that everyone does pricing for ticketing, you know, over the next five years or so. [00:20:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how that all develops. I know that DICE has invested heavily in analytics and how you think about offering the best service, and so much of this also ties back to ensuring that consumers themselves are the ones that can get their hands on tickets. So how do you address bots? Because I know that's an ongoing concern for ticketing. [00:20:35] Russ Tannen: Yeah, with bots, in particular, we were very fortunate that we started the company when we did, and we built this from scratch as a mobile company. The main thing for us really with any bots or any really anti-secondary measure is that for the most part, you know, everything is happening on mobile. We actually have two of the founders of Google Deep Mind were seed round investors of ours. And very early day,s we were terrified that one of the reasons that the company would fail would be that we would crash on a big on sale. And we used to call it the Radiohead test. Like, if we could survive a Radiohead on sale, we could survive anything sort of thing. And we actually worked and we had our CTO at the time go into Deep Mind and like work with a couple of the developers there, thinking about the architecture that would support, you know, hundreds of thousands of transactions to support on sales, but also to think about how we could protect against, you know, fake people trying to buy tickets. So we've done a lot there, a lot around security. And yeah, we haven't had a problem with it to date. So we hope that that continues. But I think, honestly, the biggest thing is that we've built this all ourselves. We have this huge, amazing product team who blow my mind every day, every year that we do this. And yeah, I think that they've built something really special. That's not something like many other ticket companies have been building on the same, they've been building on the same platforms for many, many years. And I don't think it's as, new or as, you know, as capable of handling some of these bad actors as we are. [00:21:59] Dan Runcie: And I think, too, on the analytics piece, you've also used a lot of that to inform how you think about whether it's helping artists or venues or promoters think about capacity or other dynamics involved with selling a show or with putting a show on together. Can you walk us through that process and how that informs the end product that the consumer sees when they go to a show? [00:22:22] Russ Tannen: Oh, totally. Yeah. Our first hire was a data scientist, so I don't know. It's, like, we're starting a ticket company, what do we need? Okay. Like you might think, I don't know, someone from another ticket company or, you know, an operations person or like someone from a venue. Like, we were like, no, let's hire a data scientist first, 'cause we knew that our superpower would be personalized recommendations and building an algorithm that was extremely sophisticated, that was going to show people the right shows for them., Shows that we know that they like and shows that we think they're going to like at the right time. And, yeah, so we hired this amazing guy, Greg, who still works for us and, shout out to Greg, and he's been part of the team now for many years that's been working on how to ingest all the different data points we have, starting with our onboarding process, which is all about you know, syncing with your music library, but also, you know, onboarding process, showing you different artists and genres and everything, and then starting to record all of your different behaviors in the app, which shows you're going to what you've been on a waiting list for, what you've saved, what you're browsing a lot of, and using all of that to inform your discover page, which is really the heart of DICE and the home screen when you go in there. And when we have like a critical mass inventory in a city that we're in, like, in London or Paris or Barcelona or New York, once we have that inventory, then you have an extremely personalized experience that feels almost as personalized as your streaming experience can be where there's enough inventory that you're going to see things that you're really passionate about and excited about. And we're going to package that up in different ways for you. We're going to show you things that your friends are going to, we're going to show you the genres you like, your favorite artists. We're going to show you things from your music library. We're going to show you all the shows that have been announced for you from the last seven days. Fans are always missing these announcements because there's no coordination between venues or promoters on when things announce. It's just all getting announced all the time, every day, hundreds of announcements. So, when you're looking at putting up, like in London, we're maybe 1500 a month. In New York, it's not far from that either. There's so many shows, right? Like, how as a fan are you supposed to filter that? So we filter for them using the data and the algorithms that we've built, so that we're only telling them about on a Thursday, here's the shows that announced to you this week. And that's really where all of that. You know, that's the biggest piece from a fan perspective of where that all that investment that we've made in data analytics really comes to life, away from the numbers and the stats and everything. That's, like, the real-world use of it. And that's what's driving, you know, that massive percentage, that 40 percentage of sales that we're seeing come from discovery and from the push notifications we're sending. And, like I said before, I think the person, the people that really benefit from that is the artist because that's just sales that are just happening organically through the product that we've built and not another post that they have to do or another ad they have to pay for, which always comes out of their pocket eventually. So, yeah, that's where that investment pays off. [00:25:09] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That 40% number is quite high, and it's impressive, I think, just given that this isn't something where people are necessarily consuming their product itself on the platform, right? And I think sometimes that discovery versus on-demand breakdown, you would likely expect that more from, as you mentioned, streaming something where you aren't consuming the actual product there. So the fact that you've been able to do that there is quite strong. And I do have to assume that given the investment that's been put into the data science and the fact that you can direct people and understand what people like, are there any desires or goals to be able to use the platform and the insights you have on these customers to offer them things in addition to concert ticket notifications or things like that, or other ways to leverage it knowing that you're reaching music fans? [00:25:58] Russ Tannen: Yeah, there's two. There's two parts to that. One is, I think, uniquely with DICE, we've built it in a way that what we saw before was that people would discover the show in one place, then they would listen to the artist on their streaming platform. They would invite their friends through their messaging app, and then they'd buy their ticket from the ticket company. And what we tried to do was build that stack into DICE. So you're going to open DICE and discover the show. It's all integrated with Spotify and Apple Music to preview the artist, so you're going to listen to the artist in the app. You can invite your friend directly through the app and then obviously buy the ticket there as well. So what we see is more of the journey happening there. Obviously, the event itself happens off of the app, but a lot more of the actual process of the functional and the emotional parts of like, going to the show, like who you're going to go with, for example, that can all happen within the app and people just spend a bit more time in the app than I think that they would on a traditional ticketing site where it's more like search to purchase is the normal journey, I'm sure, almost all of the sales. So I think that's where we've managed to extend the amount of time people are in there. We are really excited about sort of commerce in general, and we'd made an announcement previously around merchandise and sort of doing more merchandise and things like that, and that's something you're going to see a lot more from us in the new year as well. So, absolutely, and that's something that we already do. We do some really interesting things with Rough Trade Records in New York and also in London where we'll do, like, vinyl bundles with album launch tickets and things like that. So there's already other parts of commerce kind of happening through the app. And ultimately I think the product is well-designed to make it very easy for people to buy things. So yes, whether we're selling them a ticket, or we're selling an artist something alongside the ticket, or we're adding something onto the ticket, I think that it's a natural progression for us and something that we're excited about exploring more. [00:27:44] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I know a lot of the data analytics discussion leads we've had here is focused more so on the consumer side. Does it inform as well things on the business side, such as the artists, thinking about what size venues that they may want to be in or the promoters thinking about how best to organize things? [00:28:02] Russ Tannen: Yeah, we've been working, I'd say that there's definitely some artists and teams who have been really tapped into that. And, you know, we have a whole artist development team based out of London, New York, LA, and they're working directly with artists and agencies and managers on these data reports where we're really showing them not just where we're seeing a lot of activity from their fans, but we're doing things like suggesting support acts based on other shows that the artists' fans have been to see that might be smaller shows, or we're looking at what cities we think they should play there. We're doing a lot of that on a very kind of bespoke level with artists and also working with artists on getting them into more of the DICE venues and thinking about really make sure that from day one, they're treating their fans well and building that community on DICE, using that waiting list data to plan the next show. There's been lots of successful stories and artists that we've done that with, but just one that's top of mind, a New York artist that's coming up would be Ice Spice, who we're working with on just doing a first show somewhere, so it's not announced yet. But our artist team here is working closely with her team on planning something there, and I think that's really exciting, like, an artist that's blowing up, who's also really keen to make sure that the experience for the fans is going to be amazing from day one, from show one. [00:29:11] Dan Runcie: So with someone like Ice Spice who is clearly having a moment right now, what does that onboarding, the initial process, look like? Is it similar to the Kanye example where these things happen, or did someone on your team looking and scouting to see who's bubbling and then reaching out to be like, hey, let's make this happen? [00:29:28] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I guess I kind of take it for granted now 'cause we've been doing it for so long, but, you know, we literally have a meeting that probably looks more like an A&R meeting at a record label where we are really saying, okay, what are people hearing? What arts are coming through? And that's how we've really, like, you know, a ton of artists now over the years, we've really identified very early as artists that we want to support and have worked with very closely on different types of shows that they want to do. Like, another example that's kind of top of mind would be someone like Cuco, who he identified very early and worked with on this huge block party that he did in LA a few years ago and continue to build that relationship with. But there's really, like, thousands of examples now, so, probably over a thousand artists this year. By the end of the year, it'll be over a thousand artists would have really worked with us very closely, not just on having a show through the platform, but whether we've informed which venue they play or which promoter they're working with or helping them with the marketing on that event or some other really tangible thing that we've done with them. And really that artist development team, I think is, part of kind of, like, the special source of DICE that's like just a bit different to what a traditional ticket company would do. And I really think the fact that we're able to do that is because of the brand that we've built around DICE, and it is a platform and a brand that I think artists do feel comfortable with and want to be associated with as well versus, like, maybe a traditional ticket company that wouldn't have that same kind of feeling to it. [00:30:46] Dan Runcie: Right. For the A&R piece of it, 'cause I think that's interesting and I think that it makes a lot of sense, what are the factors that go into the decisions that you're looking at? Because I know I talked to a few folks and there's been a bit of debate around which stats make sense to follow, which stats don't make sense, what's more signal versus noise, how do you determine that? [00:31:06] Russ Tannen: Well, I think, we obviously have, obviously, this really interesting data ourselves. So a lot of the venues we work with at the smaller level. And at one point I was booking in London a 150-capacity venue, and I thought it was amazing when 400 people would show up for the hundred 50-capacity show, and we try and cram them all in. And I always saw that was an amazing sign. Those shows were always free, but obviously, now we are ticketing around the world, you know, many of the best 100 to 200 capacity venues that exist in, in some of the best music cities in the world. So what's fascinating for us is to not just be speaking to the people that are running and booking those venues, but to be looking at the data of, okay, which shows sold out on and out at that level, and who's got the biggest waiting list at that level. And we see a complete global picture of that. So some of the data points that I think we are finding most interesting are actually the ones that we're seeing very early come from our own data. And then I think that that's always going to be the debate on the, you know, the taste versus, or the gut versus data kind of thing, and a lot of that comes from hiring amazing people, like, we have on our artist development team whose judgment we trust very much to pick the things out that are really going to cut through. But yeah, I definitely think seeing some of those early signals, which may, in the grand scheme of things, look quite small, but I think if you are playing a hundred-capacity show and you have a hundred people on the waiting list, that's a great sign because if you're already driving 200 fans to a show, and you are brand new then, I think that's harder than going from, you know, 3,000 to 5,000 and finding those 2,000 people, I think those first 200 is really difficult. [00:32:39] Dan Runcie: How important is streaming data or social media engagement or following in your analysis? [00:32:47] Russ Tannen: I have to talk to the team about how much they're tracking that. I think it feels more like, Ice Spice is a good example of this. So we are talking about Ice Spice, Morgan on the team who's working with her team is telling me about this track, and he thinks it's going to be big, and we're talking to them about doing a show. And then in the time from when we first started speaking to her team to today, you know, her Instagram following has gone from, you know, in the tens of thousands to in the millions. And so it's more like a, we're right about this one moment. It didn't matter a few months ago or whatever, that there was only 10,000 followers or whatever. We wouldn't have ignored it 'cause it didn't have millions of followers already. But I think that now it's more like, okay, yeah, that is a good signal that this is really going to blow up. [00:33:27] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think just given that large number, it's hard to ignore that. It's been interesting though. I've talked to agents on this platform and they've said that they don't see as much of a correlation between streaming numbers and ticket sales. And of course, I think there's nuance there. Yes, someone like Drake or Bad Bunny that's doing 10 billion streams a year is obviously going to be in arenas and stadiums, but I think it was more so highlighting that some of the newer artists, it can be tougher because you have people that have, you know, so much of a strong following, but they may not necessarily have that following because of their music or because of other things about them. So, and I think we've just started to see more and more of that. So it does create, in some ways, a bit of a unique opportunity for the promoters or events companies that can be able to determine, yeah, like what is the true signal and what are the things that have less weight? [00:34:19] Russ Tannen: Yeah. We really want to try and work with managers and agents more and more on providing this data that we see so that they get a sense of what is really happening 'cause it is just so different. I think if someone's put their hand in their pocket and spent $30 on going to a show versus hearing a track on a playlist, obviously, like, it's just not the same type of commitment at all. So we're working to keep growing that team and expanding the number of artists that we're having that type of relationship with. And, yeah, anyone listening who wants to get in touch with our artist team is very welcome to as well, and you can do that through the site. But, yeah, we are keen to be talking to as many labels and managers, agents everyone really who's interested in kind of digging into that, especially if their artists already have shows on DICE as well on in any of our venues. We'd love to get into that with them. [00:35:04] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Switching gears a bit, going back to the entrance and really expanding things in the US market, one of the things that stuck out to me from your past interviews was how you talked about how live events and concerts is much more of a localized business, and I'm sure that the experience that you all had in Europe and everything in the UK, there's slightly likely some differences considering things being localized, whether it's in New York City or some of the other markets here. What are some of those notable differences that you've picked up on in the US and some of the cities in the US as opposed to things in the UK? [00:35:41] Russ Tannen: I'd say that one of the biggest differences is more of a technical thing, I guess, for us, which is that in European markets, the people who actually control the tickets, it's much more spread. So on one show you could have 10 ticket companies selling tickets for the same show, and then it's really just like on the fan to have a preferred outlet or who's, you know, boosting their link the most, honestly. So it's a little bit different versus the US where it's exclusively with the venue. So every show pretty much has one ticket company and it makes the market difficult to break into honestly because of that. It's very binary. You're either working on the show or you're not. Versus when we started in London, we could say, hey, to a promoter, we want 10 tickets to the show, and we would be able to list the show. So if you were going onto the app, you could see all these amazing artists playing. But we didn't have more than 10 tickets sometimes or 20 tickets versus US, where you really have to have the whole inventory and you have to be in a position to do it. I also think that how the market worked in Europe was one of the reasons that we invested so much in the discovery piece because we were competing on every single show. We had to sell our allotment of tickets versus in the US. I think the ticket companies as soon as they've signed the venue, they're almost more lazy maybe about it. So they haven't spent so much on discovery piece. And I think that's why, you know, our discovery story here and the way that it's working here is kind of a rich one and honestly just better for fans. But we needed to do it that way around. I think it would've much harder to start here and then go into Europe. So I'm glad it works the way it did. But that's been one of the big differences. I think for us, really, we're just excited about finding all of the best kind of quality independent operators, whether they're promoters or venues, and really helping them grow their businesses as well. And we love venues that have just really well-curated programming, like, we love the programming. Elsewhere, for example, is another New York venue that we work with where super diverse, amazing program that just kind of ticks all these different boxes, but always hits this quality bar that just seems like almost impossibly high, like, every night. It's really special. So we are really, like, excited about working with people like that. And New York such, it's an amazing city for music. So it's nice that this is kind of our main base here at the moment in the US. [00:37:55] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And given that in the US, things are much more all or nothing, does that have any type of impact on how the tickets may go throughout the entire process? I know at least in the US, I've seen a few things. If a ticket is on for a while. And we talked a lot about scalpers and just their influence when tickets and the demand increases, right? We haven't talked as much about when the demand decreases 'cause I know that at times, I've seen things where artists will have their tickets go on Groupon and places like that where they'd be offered for a much lower price. How has that piece of it been in the US where, let's say there's a show that you've wanted to put on and if the resellers are needing to sell for the same price, but the demand itself may not necessarily reflect where it is, or if the artist is struggling to sell, how does the pricing dynamic impact that? [00:38:43] Russ Tannen: Yeah, I think you obviously see that, and not every show can be a sellout with, you know, tickets being sought after. I think that there's different strategies around that always. I think that for a lot of our partners, they're more used to handling all of that themselves where maybe we might be able to work on doing like competition strategy or just doing discounts or looking at other marketing channels or extra support that we can give to a show, whether that's really checking that we've done and reached all of the different audiences we think might be interested in a show and really keeping that as mobile and really trying to stay away from email, honestly. I think that one of the changes, if you think about how event marketing has changed through the years from kind of posters to magazine adverts to heavy social media to email, I think those email days are very much on the way out and really focusing on our push notification strategy and just having a very sticky product that people going to keep coming into naturally to check. That's going to be the best way to really thinking about increasing sales on low-selling shows. I think it was also a really interesting summer for people just being very honest about their ticket sales. Like, there were literally artists just coming out and saying, you know what? We're canceling these shows. We haven't sold enough tickets. Like, that was kind of new. I think people haven't been that straight up before, but that was definitely happening a bit this summer. And I think that it was a hard summer for lots of artists and lots of events and also some people had some huge success. So it's definitely a kind of uncertain time still, only obviously one year or so out of COVID and shows being back. I think that people are still feeling some of that after effects. There was a, obviously, huge rebound last summer that we really felt here as we were putting together the team still, and then suddenly we had all these venues turning on and using the product for the first time. So that was an interesting experience. But this summer I think things kind of bounced the other way a little bit, and we're going to hit a steadier stride coming into the end of the year, and I think next year is one that people are going to find easier to plan for, hopefully. [00:40:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I bet. And I think that we saw a few things happen this summer. As you mentioned, there was some success, but I think it definitely was a bit subject to that power law, right, where the folks at the top were able to sell out and have their tickets sell for whatever the dynamic pricing set them at. And then a lot of the artists that were either your middle class of artists or emerging definitely struggled. But one area that I do see huge amount of opportunity is Latin America and in our Trapital Culture Report 2022, we talked a lot about how much growth Latin Music has had. Of course, Bad Bunny, but there's many of other artists as well. What does your Latin American strategy look like for DICE? [00:41:11] Russ Tannen: I saw that in your report and, yeah, it totally reflected what we have been seeing as well, actually pulled the stats to share with you as well as you've done such great work. So it was fun to kind of pull something back. So Latin ticket sales for us increased nine times in the past year, so, 829% 2022 to 2021. And Latin events listed on DICE have quadrupled 2022 from 2021. So we are absolutely seeing the same. It's obviously huge. We've been working with people like the Paramount in LA and for a long time, been working with lots of Latin artists. We just did a show last year with Karol G at United Palace, with the Cuco show I mentioned, we did Bad Gyal in Spain. And also we haven't touched on it yet in this interview, but last year we bought Boiler Room, and they've also had a lot of success with Latin and Reggaeton programming, and worked with many artists, especially at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, which was another one of the festivals we work with where we had Boiler on stage this year. And they had this amazing program there, which included lots of Latin acts. So I think that, yeah, like, I think the whole industry's feeling it. I think it's super exciting. I think it's so cool. And I think that people are still discovering a lot of this incredible talent, and it just feels like a nice moment to have that exposure. I think for us more on the venue side. We're also doing this big push into Miami, and we just signed our first venues in Miami. And we're really excited about building that up there. And we just signed Club Space there, but there's many, many more venues there that we're looking to sign. So yeah, I think this is just like an interesting time. We're probably a little bit further away from actually launching in Latin America itself. But, you know, our partners Primavera Sound are just doing, over the next couple of months, are doing their first festivals down there, which are selling really well. Like, they're going to be really, really well. So definitely got my eye on maybe trying to make it down for one of those and checking it out. But yeah, it feels exciting, doesn't it? [00:42:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it definitely does. 9x is impressive, and it's especially impressive because I think that a lot of the folks in the music industry are seeing the top line numbers on Latin, and they may assume, okay, well, yes, the Bad Bunny effect, his album is dominating. The difference for you all though is that you don't have artists that are like the Bad Bunny level. Well, I know you're working with them, but since you're primarily focused on that 200 to 10,000 capacity, it means that you're seeing this at that level, too. And that says, and I think that should instill a lot of confidence that this isn't just one or two artists that are pulling up everything. This is an entire movement. [00:43:30] Russ Tannen: It's a really good point. Yeah. I think that's a really nice way to look at that data. And that's, yeah, it's absolutely what we're seeing and I think definitely it's hitting that point where it's not just that kind of trickle-down effect, but it's also like this bottom-up ground swell of artists coming through. So, yeah, that's definitely the right way to think about that, I think, that's awesome. [00:43:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think that Africa, with what's happening with afro beats and some of the other sub-genres there, that's next up. It's only going to, I mean, it's already happening, but it's only a matter of time. [00:43:58] Russ Tannen: It's happening, yeah, yeah. [00:43:59] Dan Runcie: You know, we see those numbers start to have even bigger and bigger market share. [00:44:03] Russ Tannen: Yeah, it gets me excited 'cause we're, you know, it takes so much every time we launch into a new country, and we kind of have to do it kind of one by one, and it's a big focus. But we really want to build DICE into being a global business and be truly global. And that doesn't mean just the kind of markets that have this really established touring infrastructure, all these other things. We want to be everywhere and explore all of these different genres and cultures in a way that makes sense. And, yeah, we're excited to be everywhere in the next few years. But in the meantime, yeah, we are helping, you know, do what we can to support all different types of music and sub genres of music and subcultures within music, and we just keep an eye on what we think the next big thing is going to be as well. [00:44:42] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Well, Russ, this has been great. Before we let you go though, what's one big thing that's on your radar for DICE that you're focusing on for 2023? [00:44:52] Russ Tannen: I think for us the big thing for us next year is really going to be expanding across the rest of the country here. We are really excited to be in tons of cities, and there's so many amazing music cities in the US as you well know. And we're excited to keep building and be everywhere because we want to be sat having conversations with artists where we can talk about doing a full US tour with them, playing all in venues that we work with, and helping them to plan how to grow across the country. So that's going to be the big push for next year. [00:45:22] Dan Runcie: Nice. Exciting stuff. All right. Well, if people want to follow along with DICE and if they want to set up their own profile, where do they go? [00:45:30] Russ Tannen: They can go straight to dice.fm. So that's the best place if you want to partner with us, if you want to get in touch with the arts development team, if you are a promoter or a venue that wants to work with us, everything's there. If you want to buy tickets and play around with the app, then head to, you know, the app store, iOS, Android, and download the app and have a play around with it. And yeah, let us know what you think. And people are more than welcome to get in touch with me directly as well. So it's just russ@dice.fm and they can email me directly. It's great. [00:45:57] Dan Runcie: Nice. Sounds good. And yeah, the next time that Kanye throws one of these impromptu listening parties or these Wyoming get-togethers, I'll look to see if I see that DICE redirect. [00:46:09] Russ Tannen: Yeah, oh, well, I'll let you know if it's going to happen. I'll give you the heads-up. [00:46:12] Dan Runcie: Right. Sounds good. Thanks again, Russ. It's a pleasure. [00:46:14] Russ Tannen: Thanks so much, Dan. Thanks. [00:46:18] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 02 Jul 2021 | Call Me Ace on his Indie Rap Career, Building His Brand, and Still Working Full-Time | 00:44:48 | |
Call Me Ace, hip-hop recording artist who has charted on Billboard, returns to the podcast to talk about his album “Out Of Office”, his participation in the BET AmpliFINd contest, and other things he has accomplished this past year while working a full-time job in tech. He shares his personal approach to making content and engaging with his fan base, High Grade Society. He also gives a sneak peek of a book he is working on. If you’ve ever wondered how people grew and established their creative careers while working a day job, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights: [ 02:13 ] How the pandemic affected Call Me Ace [ 03:15 ] About “Out Of Office” [ 06:26 ] The importance of community and making connections [ 08:50 ] Utilize the right platforms that align with your brand [ 13:38 ] On becoming a Top 10 semi-finalist in “BET AmpliFind” and the opportunities that followed after that [ 23:42 ] Call Me Ace’s partnership with Insider Studios and Ford [ 27:55 ] On text messaging as a platform [ 32:04 ] On sharing knowledge [ 39:00 ] Vanity metrics are not everything Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Call Me Ace, @callmeacelegit, Call Me Ace Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 06 Jan 2025 | Spotify’s Road to $100B and Profitability | 00:34:20 | |
Spotify went from a $14 billion market cap in 2022 to crossing $100 billion toward the end of 2024. A lot has changed in two years, but there’s more to the story than just the past 24 months. Join me and Sleepwell Capital, an investor, to break down Spotify’s journey to profitability. Hope you enjoy! 04:59 Spotify vs Big Tech DSPs 10:16 Spotify's growth signifies change in music distribution. 14:26 Netflix comparisons 21:44 YouTube vs Spotify 28:19 Is Spotify's PE ratio too high? 32:31 Major label’s challenging 2024 This episode is presented by State Farm, the home for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Don't forget to follow Sleepwell Capital on X and Substack for more insights. Listen in for our Chartmetric Stat of the Week. If you enjoy Trapital, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform! | |||
| 12 May 2020 | Trapital Mailbag #3: How Hip-Hop Makes Money in a Pandemic, Superproducers in the Streaming Era, What’s Next for Fortnite + Travis Scott, and more! | 00:32:01 | |
Round 3! Here are the most pressing questions from Trapitalists: Do smaller indie acts fare better during the pandemic? Is Tekashi 6ix9ine worthy of a marketing case study? What’s next for Travis Scott + Fortnite? And a whole lot more. Tune in! Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Link:
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| 08 Dec 2023 | Adidas: Sneakers, Hip-Hop and Culture | 01:03:34 | |
Adidas has one of the most insane backstories of any major apparel company. From its ties to the Nazi party, and its turbulent relationship with Kanye West, to its partnerships with Hip-Hop, and its influence in soccer, we cover it all. We also talk about the brands rise, its strongest years, Beyoncé, Ivy Park, and why celestial star power isn't always enough. In this episode I’m joined by friend of the pod Zack O’Malley Greenburg as we break it all down. We examine Adidas’ story history, strategic moves, missteps and more. 03:40 Adidas’ history with the Nazi party. 20:04 Adidas' turbulent 1990s and missed opportunities. 34:12 Adidas’ Yeezy deal with Kanye West. 41:07 The Yeezy anti-semitism controversy. 47:19 Brands need to reconsider celebrity partnerships strategy. 58:20 Why Beyoncé and Ivy Park didn’t work. Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. This episode was brought to you by Audiense. Take your marketing strategy to the next level. Trapital listeners can start a free trial of Audiense. Learn more here. This episode was brought to you by Bevel . Get 20% off everything sitewide until 12/22! Visit getbevel.com. | |||
| 29 Sep 2022 | Inside Hannibal Buress’ Pivot From Comedy To Rap | 00:41:34 | |
Hannibal Buress has carved a name for himself in comedy over the past two decades. But now he’s foregoing that part of his career for a fresh identity — Eshu Tune, his rap alter-ego. The name pays homage to a “trickster god” in Nigerian mythology. A rap career has been in the back of Hannibal’s mind but the career pivot wasn’t seriously put into motion until 2020. Earlier that year, he put out a comedy special, “Miami Nights.” While promoting it at home during lockdowns, Hannibal felt a spark missing. That, plus the added alone time from not performing at comedy clubs, finally pushed Hannibal into the studio. Since then, Hannibal has largely dedicated himself to rap and rap only. His eight-track, self-titled EP dropped earlier this year. Live rap show performances followed that. An agency deal was inked with UTA this summer. And soon, Hannibal will hit the studio to prepare for his debut album, which he plans to drop on his 40th birthday next April. Hannibal took me through his comedy-to-rap journey over the past two years on the show. Here’s what we covered in our interview: [2:54] Introducing Eshu Tune the rapper [4:17] What led Hannibal to the career pivot [6:53] Goals of debut EP [10:11] Benefits of being independent artist [14:34] Following Too $hort at a Bay Area show [19:52] Getting a performing residency in LA [21:29] Challenging himself with music [26:52] Difference between Hannibal’s comedy and rap fanbase [29:08] Will Hannibal still do comedy? [31:36] Has the changing climate of comedy impacted Hannibal? [34:01] Previous comedians that went into music [37:50] Response from rap community to Hannibal’s career pivot [38:52] Eshu Tune’s next album drop Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Hannibal Buress, @hannibalburess
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Hannibal Buress: I got some stuff, I got 'em locked and loaded, just, you know, got to go get 'em out. That's one thing too, is since I am independent, I don't feel, I just kind of do it when it feels right, when it genuinely feels right to do. It's no pressure. It's just like, okay, do I truly want to do this? Ain't no exec, hey, you got to do, there's nobody doing that, so I have to make that decision, which is a gift. I wouldn't say it's a curse, but it forces that accountability. [00:00:35] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Hannibal Buress. You likely know his name from his comedy and his acting, but this episode is all about his music. Hannibal Buress has released an eight-track EP under the name Eshu Tune, and that is his artist that is creating hip-hop music. And we talked all about why he chose to start this new chapter in his career, why music was important to him, and how he sees things moving forward. Hannibal had had a career of dabbling in music every now and then. He actually had beaten Open Mike Eagle in a rap battle a couple of years back. And it's something that he had tapped into, but it really wasn't until the pandemic, and a lot of us had the time to really think and tap into what was most important to us. And he was able to take this on not only as a new challenge for his career, but as a new opportunity to do something that he always wanted to do, but knowing that he could both continue to leverage the platform that he has as a comedian and as an actor, both from a financial perspective, but also from an exposure perspective. We also talked about his upcoming residency, how he's been positioning himself to get booked on shows and other things, and how important this is for him right now. So it was great to tap in. This was also the first episode recorded in Trapital's new home. I have a new office and studio here, and it's been great to get everything set up, and it's been great to record these in person, too, because, listen, it's great to do things remotely. A lot of them have been that way, but it's just a different chemistry that you get when you can do them in person. So it was great that Hannibal and I could connect while he was in town. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it. All right. Today we got the one and only Hannibal Buress. [00:02:41] Hannibal Buress: What's up, man? [00:02:41] Dan Runcie: Mr. Eshu Tune now, though. [00:02:43] Hannibal Buress: Eshu Tune, yeah, yeah. [00:02:44] Dan Runcie: Last we talked, it was all about comedy. We're getting ready for a special that you had Miami Nights, but now we're about to talk about your music career, man. [00:02:52] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, for sure, man. [00:02:53] Dan Runcie: So who is Eshu Tune? [00:02:54] Hannibal Buress: Eshu Tune is my musical alter ego. Eshu is from Yoruban mythology, Nigerian mythology, the trickster God. I was looking for a stage name there, so I just looked up African mythology and I just connected with that description. It kind of felt like me and some of the things I've done and, yeah, it just felt right. It really was a big help to kind of separate the worlds a little bit just 'cause now I look at, you know, Eshu as, okay, we can build them together 'cause now, I can if I want to do a little bit of comedy on this shows, it's like, Hey, yeah, they'll both be there. [00:03:34] Dan Runcie: Right, right, right. [00:03:35] Hannibal Buress: I changed shirts. You know, I can think of you like, you know, Hannibal's t-shirts. Eshu's in a red shirt or something, you know? So it's been fun. And so I'm excited for the growth, and performing has been really exciting, and a lot of dope stuff coming up. [00:03:53] Dan Runcie: So talk to me through the journey a bit because I know this is something that you spent a lot of time on in the pandemic. And last time we talked about it, you were getting ready to release Miami Nights, and this was around the same time that you had started working on music. So what was your mindset at that time? You got this big comedy special coming out, but you also are thinking about this new career opportunity. [00:04:17] Hannibal Buress: My mindset? 2020, putting out the special during that time was hella weird just because it wasn't the usual motions and movements that you have with putting out a special, doing events, doing press in person. You know, I did The Daily Show, but it was on Skype. And it just felt weird doing television from my place 'cause you still get wired kind of, but then you're just wired at the crib. It's like, man, oh, I'm not getting in the car to go somewhere else, you just there like, oh. [00:04:54] Dan Runcie: Right, right. [00:04:55] Hannibal Buress: I remember doing, I did First Take with Stephen A. Smith. Something for Last Dance, just talking about Last Dance. And I remember just, I kept messing with them changing jackets. [00:05:08] Dan Runcie: Oh, I remember that. [00:05:13] Hannibal Buress: Molly was giving me sass. Oh, thanks for being so professional. I'm trying to, like, you want me to make a great statement about Last Dance? Look, oh, yeah, Last Dance. What's up with that? I'm trying to have some fun, make some real memories here. Nobody will care about my take on... [00:05:30] Dan Runcie: It's a documentary, right? It's not like it's an event that happened last night. [00:05:35] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. If I make a great point about the '96 Bulls, '98 Bulls in 10 years, but people don't care if I'm was chaotic as hell. I need to put that clip back up actually. That was really fun. I was sweating and shit. Yeah, it was a good time. But, yeah, putting out the special then, it was weird, man. And I wanted the music, I started really diving in in November of '20 when I was out in Hawaii. I kind of, it was nice to be able to lock in, focus. I've always wanted to do it and would finally find the time. And the time was always there, honestly, but I wasn't as good as maneuvering time as I am now. 'Cause looking back, I could have been on the road after gigs, instead of going to the club, could have been booking studio time, that type of thing, or, you know, I'm glad it happened when it happened. [00:06:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I think, too, I've looked a lot about how you chose to roll this out, right? It's not like you just did one single, let me drop in and see what happens. You had an eight-track LP, oh, EP that you put out specifically for it. What was your goal in terms of the release? Was there a certain response that you wanted to have or a certain emphasis you wanted to have with how you chose to put it out as an EP? [00:06:53] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. And initially, I was going to do singles, the single strategy, but then I had a bunch of songs and I said, let me just get these out and see how I want to do it. Like, if I want to do videos for stuff, which I am still going to do the visuals on things and get 'em out. But it was just after a while. It was just, let me just do it. And I didn't follow the proper practices of, you know, get it to the DSPs with this much time, to the best time, like, all the stuff that I know you're supposed to do to give your release the best chance. But I just feel like it'll get its due when it's due, you know what I mean, whether it is when I put out videos later this month or next month or down the line. It's my first project. So whether it's crazy now or crazy in five years, it's always my first project. So it'll be there and it just felt good to get it out and have it out ' cause then the music got better afterwards, the stuff I started recording. And I still like the song, like 1-3 Pocket. I like 1-3 Pocket. And that was 1-3 Pocket, that's the motherfucker hit. Like when we made it, yeah, this bowling song's going to go crazy. Hell yeah, we made a bowling banger, but now I got other songs. I'm like, okay, I was wrong. Well, maybe I wasn't wrong, but it's just, the music is getting better. And so it's nice to feel that and feel that improvement and the progression. And so that'll keep on happening indefinitely. You know, if you keep on working on it, keep on releasing, keep performing, it's going to get better. So it's nice to have that feeling and, and hear that in the music and like even hearing how the music sounds. If I record the day after a show, that music sounds good 'cause you can kind of hear the clarity, you know, you already got the energy. So it's been exciting, man. [00:08:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I get the feeling that 1-3 Pocket was a song you thought was going to be the one and that's a one, but I feel like Veneers is the one that I feel is your anthem. [00:08:57] Hannibal Buress: Veneers worked before I even put it out, and I performed it 'cause the hook is slower and the beat is chill. It feels, yeah, Veneers is the one I think people like more than the song that has really inside bowling terminology in it. Surprise the song about teeth is more accessible than the song about the bowling pins. Like, even people that love bowling have said to me, what is the 1-3 Pocket? [00:09:33] Dan Runcie: 'Cause some people would think you're talking about like billiards or like, you know, like shooting pool or something like that. [00:09:37] Hannibal Buress: Nah, it's just a, yeah, it's the headpin and the pin to the right. I got to put out a video for 1-3 Pocket. I got the lyric video out. I got to get the official video out, a couple of them. I might, you know, we'll see if I get on stubborn mode and start putting out three, four videos for a song. That's when I really, I'll start really lighting up, just going crazy with the visuals. Yeah. I was waiting to see the music videos. I'm glad you mentioned that you got the lyric video up. [00:10:02] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And of course, you know, like that's a great way to get the views and engagement up, but yeah, seeing the Eshu Tune visual character, I feel like that is, you know, the next piece of this. [00:10:11] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, I've been holding off a bit on the music videos 'cause I know when I got to know, when I do officials, that's when things are really shifting in a way. And so I don't want to rush it, but, you know, they come in over the next month or so, is when the visuals start. I got some recorded already. I got some for Back In The City. I recorded in Thailand actually. When I was in Thailand and I looked on Eventbrite and it was a restaurant packaging conference at the convention center. I was like, let's just go here. And I went and it was all this interesting, just different machinery and robotics. Me and my lady just walked through, something just to, you know, just a different environment. I said, man, well, I'm over here. What else am I going to do in Thailand and it's a convention? I have to shoot a music video. So I came back two days later, shot the video there. And so I got that. We got one for Closed Mouths. We got a Pocket video, got a version of the Veneers video, but I want to do a story version. So, yeah, I got some stuff, I got 'em locked and loaded, just, you know, got to go get 'em out. That's one thing too, is since I am independent, I don't feel, I just kind of do it when it feels right, when it genuinely feels right to do. It's no pressure. It's just like, okay, do I truly want to do this? Ain't no exec, hey, you got to do, there's nobody doing that, so I have to make that decision, which is a gift. I wouldn't say it's a curse, but it forces that accountability. [00:11:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah, with that, too, I feel like, with you, you're an independent artist who also has the luxury of this platform of your comedy that has given you not just the resources, but the platform to be able to get booked on shows or to be able to get at festivals or other things like that. How do you look overall in terms of how you view your career as an independent artist and wanting to see that through? Do you see a major label in the future? Do you see building what you have clearly with the resources that you have from your comedy and acting to be able to push off for that? [00:12:19] Hannibal Buress: I think the major label thing isn't something I'm chasing. I would hear them out, you know what I mean? I would take a meeting or a call just to hear the right pitch and see. But before I even would do that, I would have to give myself at least a year or so of operating full speed. [00:12:42] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:12:42] Hannibal Buress: 'Cause now I'm in the coast, I'm doing a good amount of shows and having fun, done a couple of festivals this year with, you know, no visuals out. So I would have to give myself all of 23 of like going, you know, with a full staff, you know what I mean? My whole infrastructure, putting out everything, like really, really going crazy merch, all the whole thing, and then see how I like that. And then see what we could do from there. But for now I kind of got an idea of how I want to do it. And a lot of the things that a label can provide, I've been to some of these spots before while I promoting standup or touring or different things, I've been around. I'm sure there's other things or different cracks and crevices they can operate in, but there's a lot of things that, you know, I'm able to pull off 'cause I'm independent, but it's not a true, like in the same kind of thing. 'cause I've got the visibility. So it's a good help. The music still has to be good, too, and I'm cognizant of that, where I want to be, you know, I don't want to just be in the spots to be in them. [00:13:52] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:13:52] Hannibal Buress: I want to be in the spots and really doing my thing and having a dope show and, you know, justifying the spot. [00:13:59] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:14:00] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. [00:14:00] Dan Runcie: Because I think the thing that works out for you with it well is so many folks signed with the record label because they want to be able to get the distribution that can at least get them some global recognition in reach. But then that also gives them to being able to do shows, right? And you are able to get a lot of these shows on your own, just given the connections and the influence that you have. What has that process been like specifically with you getting out? 'Cause I know that you were up in San Francisco a couple of months ago. You did, you know, we had the 420 thing up here. What has that process been? [00:14:34] Hannibal Buress: That's through friends, you know, old friends that I've worked with before or talk with and people that, yeah, my homie Normani helped put that together, the 420. So it's just people that believe in what I'm doing, that I have a history with, that, you know, see some opportunities. So Too $hort went on, I forget who the DJ from the Bay was, but Too $hort went on and I was like, oh man, I'm going on after Too $hort in the Bay? With friends? [00:15:07] Dan Runcie: Blow the whistle finishes and now... [00:15:10] Hannibal Buress: It was crazy and I got brand new music. Brand new. That was two days after the project dropped. But it was a fun time. I enjoy it so much, man. Even that show didn't go how I thought it was going to go, but it still was fun, you know? [00:15:34] Dan Runcie: Wait, how did you think that show was going to go? [00:15:36] Hannibal Buress: How did I think it was? I thought it was going to, in my mind, and it's the blessing of being mostly optimistic on the performance side might just drop the project, it's circulated, two days after, it's the Bay. I'm going to hit the stage going Veneers. Yeah, get out there, and then, you know, they didn't, they was listening, but it just wasn't, you know, it's just new rap sometimes it's tough. And so also then I still, my music performance chops are a bit more developed now, too. It's been some time, so I'm better at engaging the crowd, even if they don't know the music 'cause I think, at first, bringing a lot of standup energy into it, meaning, you know, you get the, Hey, yeah, say, yeah, but, you know, you got to, and so getting used to just monologue and even just the body language, too, microphone holding, body language, like, you know, that whole thing. Still a bit rusty now. And there's a lot of room to grow. I like coming back to spots, too, after you did, so it will be some folks, they had a good time there, too. It was dope. Had another show that night too. I did LA later that night with the full band. So it was just a dope experience to have two shows in the Bay, LA, same night, 420. I'll never forget that at all. [00:17:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an interesting crowd too, because their crowd is high as hell, and it is a midweek thing, too. So it's not the same way of, let's say a music festival where it's like, oh, three o'clock at the East stage, Eshu Tune is going to be there, right, so that's definitely a little bit of a different vibe than I feel like what that event is. [00:17:21] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, it was. But the one good thing, another good thing about is that I rehearsed right before. Like I landed, went to a rehearsal space, and then I ran through it. So when I got on stage, I felt good 'cause I was freshly rehearsed. So even though I wasn't rocking out, I kind of was in the zone, in a good space. But when I had a show in Philly for Adult Swim Fest, that one we were tapped in, had the band. I love having the band up there just because I feel like, you know, when you got the band, that's just a lot of energy on stage and you got to, I feel like, giving them a reason to be like, okay, why are we playing for this motherfucker? So then you got to bring the energy up even more to justify the band, you know, so that's always fun. [00:18:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So how often are you doing shows right now? [00:18:15] Hannibal Buress: My last show was I popped out at this open mic in LA a couple of days ago, then before that was, what? [00:18:24] Dan Runcie: An open mic for music, to clarify. [00:18:26] Hannibal Buress: Open mic for music. Yeah, open mic for music, did a few songs. And doing Wild 'N Out next week in Atlanta and probably do a popup or something in Atlanta, maybe. And then I'm starting up a residency in LA, six weeks at Grand Star Jazz Bar. That's going to start on September 26th, every Monday until October 31st 'cause I wanted to get that structure in. And then, you know, I used to host at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn and that kind of, like, having that consistency of doing a regular spot. I hadn't done that in a minute. And so when I did the last show at Knitting Factory, that location closed down, I did and so it reminded me of that energy and just of that, you know, having that regular spot where people know they can see me 'cause you can't always link up with friends or grab lunch and all of that. So you can kinda have the residency, people know where to find you. So I want to do that. I'm excited about doing that 'cause I think that'll help the writing 'cause it'll be like, okay, I got this show. I definitely have this show on Monday. Maybe I'll try this new song there. And then the rest of the week can kind of flow off of that. So I'm super excited about these six shows. I put 'em all on sale at once and it's nice to see they're flowing, you know? And so it is going to be, it's going to be a good time and then we'll see how we want to operate from there. But definitely doing those six in a row, man. [00:19:47] Dan Runcie: What was it like to get that process going for the residency specifically? [00:19:52] Hannibal Buress: It was, you know, I went to the spot at Grand Star. I saw something there I've been there twice. It is really close to my spot. And then I just reached out to the owner online, walked over there, talked to him, told him what I was trying to do, told him I wanted Mondays. He was like, all right, you take the door, I'll take the bar. I ain't dealing with your ticketing, like this it. And then I was like, all right, let's get it. It was pretty straightforward and simple, you know. ' Cause I realized I wasn't, something about LA, it was making me stagnant on a live performance side and I was doing more gigs out of town. And I've done some stuff, but I wasn't really consistent locally. And so I just realized I had to create that. I couldn't be, you know, annoyed with the nightlife or performing if I wasn't really trying to do something about it. [00:20:45] Dan Runcie: Right, right. [00:20:46] Hannibal Buress: When I have that ability, it's not that tough to like, Hey, this is the place I do a show, you know? So I'm really hyped 'cause they'll be, you know, have a comedian or two and two or three music acts and get the book stuff that I'm a fan of and tape 'em. And the excitement of doing a show, like putting on a regular show after doing it for a while and doing it now with knowledge and knowing how to build the vibe and promote and all those things. It's going to be a blast. [00:21:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah. With that type of show specifically, you are also staying in the same spot. And I know that probably helps from a lifestyle perspective too. You have a young daughter, you know, you're not trying to, you know, be on the road, maybe, to the same extent. [00:21:29] Hannibal Buress: Yeah, just the consistency of this is what, you know, for everybody, for the team, for the camera people, by the third show's, like, okay, this is my spots right here. Everybody being, you know, the timing of it, and it's just, I got to create that consistency for myself and that external pressure to do 'cause they're not all like everything else. 'Cause then once like, okay, Monday, this is what Mondays are no matter what. So then it's like, okay, well, it's Tuesday now since we only got six others. So like, okay, one of those has to be a studio day or this type of day or that. Or, you know, it forces the structure for the rest of it. So it's something I haven't had in a while like that consistency. So, you know, when I did have it in New York, it kind of led to the most productive times in my career and, yeah, the most profitable. [00:22:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, I feel like I'm seeing, hearing more artists talk about that, especially, we're seeing what's happening in Vegas. So many more artists, especially while they're still in their prime, taking the residencies there, too. And you're starting to see them more in different cities. And I like how you did where you're like, yeah, you essentially created your own opportunity where you're at. So and I feel like we're going to start to see more of that as I'm just seeing trends of how artists are thinking about doing things and where it makes sense to monetize in and where it doesn't. [00:22:50] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. Just, you know, it's like, Hey, I booked myself for six, you know, I'm here. But even, you know, with that, it's a bunch of different things. And look, you could change up the core each week, you know what I mean? Change up the merch or change up the drinks or change, you know, all these different elements to keep it fresh since you learn in the space and learning the crowd. And you get to know the fans 'cause I'm sure, you know, folks go return, you know? So and having that data, too, of seeing that, you know, yeah, who you see exactly who I'm seeing, who’s buying the tickets and blah, blah, blah, and so can reach out direct. Thank you for your time, who are you listening to, you know? now it's like a kind of, It's going to be a new phase, man. And that's one thing, too, with the music is that younger hunger, 'cause it's a newer thing. It still has that feeling of I don't know what's going to happen. Right. You know, I could try to make things or put things, but the other parts of it, when you do that, make other things happen when you just, you know, action cause reaction. Even going to that open mic that I did the other night and ask this other person, Hey, come to this show, you know, shows beget shows. And so it's nice to have that momentum and that feel because the comedy side, I don't want to say it's predictable, but the goals kind of are, you could change up your special and, and different things, but the goals like, oh, blah, blah, blah, special, blah, blah, blah, move and you do this, too, but it feels super blank canvas a little bit. [00:24:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I get the impression from you that there's part of that that is enjoyable. It's that challenge. It's like what keeps it fresh in a way, because, at least for comedy, you mentioned the predictability of it. Like, you knew what would work, you're getting the calls. Like, you know, you're still getting them up to this point. So this is an opportunity to be like, no, this is something I've always wanted to do. Let me tap in here and explore the unknown because, at least from the comedy side, even though that could be unknown to someone else, but you've been in this for decades now, you know? [00:24:50] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. At the open mic, it was a bunch of other artists, that was having the same conversations. Like, I didn't know you rapped, I didn't know you rapped, I didn't know you rapped. Like, yeah, I guess that's why I'm here. So now you know I rapped. And so to have, you know, it's still building that, you know, through word of mouth, through performing and, you know, a solid amount of time, but it's happening piece by piece where I'm, you know, seeing folks in public. Oh, I see you doing the music, yeah, keep doing, you know. Yeah, it feels good, man. It feels exciting. And it is just going to get better and keep learning and, you know, I got my drum set, you know, practice more, got keys, got to, you know, I want to in five years be full on musician be able to move around the whole kit, the whole, you know, all the instruments and, and really do a show show, you know? [00:25:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. By show show. What do you mean? [00:25:47] Hannibal Buress: Like, being able to, you know, like even have a band, like this one, I'm on keys, for this one... [00:25:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:52] Hannibal Buress: But not fucking around on keys. Like, actually killing that shit. This one I'm hopping on the kit and like, not bullshit. I don't want to, you know, half-ass it like, oh yeah, he's up there. He's having fun. Then get the picture. No, I wanted to, you know, actually, be technically proficient at it. And I'm willing to work to get to that spot too. You know, but you got to lock in for that. So that's the real, real goal is to be able to even, in seven years, pop in on somebody's set only for drums and, like, nail it, you know what I mean? Like, okay, like he playing on somebody else's music, you know, and it like, yeah, that's the goal. Even if I'm 47, 50 when I'm able to do it, that's what I want to do. [00:26:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like with you, too, you talked a little bit about the fan base piece of it, and you be able to see who's coming to the shows and seeing who the fans are. Do you feel like the fan base is slightly different in any way from your comedy fan base? [00:26:52] Hannibal Buress: It will be. It will be. Right now, there's a lot of overlap 'cause people that might be thinking, they're getting the comedy show and show up for the music and then they like, oh, okay, that was better than that. I didn't know that was happening. But there'll be some folks that weren't into my comedy at all that was like, okay, I like this I'm seeing some folks, I did Sway In The Morning, the freestyle, some people are like, I like this better than his comedy. And now I'm thinking me too. I do too, yeah. And then there'll be people that never knew I did comedy once, then when the music is discovered, if they find it through the algorithm or something, they'll be some folks like, what? This guy got four comedy specials, you know, especially when things start tapping on an international scale. If When I started touring in Asia, going over, you know, folks that they just find the music through the promoter or whoever, and then they like, what? You do music? So I'm excited for that part of it too, man. It's nice to, you know, and then I might rerelease Miami Nights, but just put music videos in between that shit. [00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:28:05] Hannibal Buress: Like, oh, y'all want Miami Nights? Well, here. And it’ll be like, and so, and then I said 2Chainz and like Veneers, Veeners, 1-3 Pocket, you know. There's a lot of moves to, you know, that just because I have that this older stuff and this older material to be able to maneuver and, you know, run ads against and all these different things, man. So it's just a lot of possibilities and ideas. It is fun, it's a fun time. Every day, I'm lit up, like excited, just because, you know, there's so much to do and so many different ideas. I'm and so it's just, I'm fully locked in, yeah. [00:28:45] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Where do you feel like your comedy itself fits within your career? 'Cause I know I've listened to past interviews you've done and you've said that, nope, I'm locked in on music right now. But I also know that you had said in other interviews that okay, maybe in three years, if I do another comedy special or make it all even stronger. So where does your comedy fit in for you right now? [00:29:08] Hannibal Buress: I could still do it. Because I did it last night at this private gig. And I did it when we did the last night at Knitting Factory, I planned on doing 10 minutes and I ended up going on a couple of tangents, did it in 20, 30. That was partially 'cause of the history of the room and that energy there and that's where I built that soul. And I still can write, you know, I do banter in between. I just don't think I foresee just me kind of grinding out in the clubs or, you know, trying to do for weekends for a while, unless it's just purely to pay for some last-minute music expense. It would be just purely that, if I'm at an improv or doing it if I'm billed as a standup publicly, that's where it's at right now. Even I did for the gig last night, I brought a keys player, Preach Balfour, he plays for my show sometimes, but it was just, I didn't feel like having the emptiness of just pure waiting for laughs. It's not going to be with a keys players the whole time and I'm telling these stories, these jokes, but it's not going to be dead in the room just because. It's like, I'm not giving y'all that as an audience. I'm not giving you the ability to have this shit be silent at the very least after I say something, it's going to be beautiful keys planted as motherfucker. So it's just that exercise of just the grind of what it takes to stay sharp as a standup, I don't feel like doing that anymore. I just find the music to be more enjoyable. And just, it has more, yeah, you just can go into a different direction, like everything don't have to be funny or everything don't have to be one level, you know what I mean? And so maybe down the line now, another one or, but as far as like working, working, I don't see it happening, yeah. [00:31:15] Dan Runcie: Has any of the reaction to how comedians have either been perceived or how they're being called upon to respond to particular things, especially in the past few years with how things happening on Twitter, has any of that impacted how you feel are your relationship to comedy or making it at all? [00:31:36] Hannibal Buress: No, man. 'cause you just have to, you don't have to do anything out here unless you're on a show where you do that and you're contractually obligated. But even that is still a choice, you know what I'm saying? Everything is a choice. We could live in the woods, man, with no electricity if we choose to. We choose to be out here and perform, play video games, move about, you know, born into this, but you don't have to do none of the shit, all of it, all of it's made up. [00:32:11] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:32:12] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. [00:32:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, because I feel like as you mentioned, yeah, a lot of it being made up probably makes people almost forget that they do have a choice in a lot of this because I feel like what I've seen or what I've heard from other comics sometimes is that just because of how things are with the climate or how people feel like they need to respond to particular things that there are comics that feel different, especially how things have happened, post-pandemic. But I feel like your mentality is a bit more like, Hey, we really don't have to like, just like whether it's people being canceled or people having backlash for things they say like, comics don't need to fit into fall into that. [00:32:51] Hannibal Buress: You can just do what you want, you know? And that's one thing. And it's not to judge or say, oh, it's wrong. I see why people would feel pressure. And I get that, too, but it's, after a while you just really like, oh, it's now that I know exactly what I enjoy, and I know the spots where I am truly having fun and losing track of time and enjoying life. And so I just try to spend as much time in those spots and spaces as I can and leave the other shit alone. It takes practice. It's a great theory. It ain't fully perfect, but it's a solid system for me. [00:33:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, yeah. Has there been a bit of a connection to other comedians that have went into music? Thinking about something like a Jamie Foxx or someone like that, that, you know, someone else like yourself, multi-talented and has, you know, had success in both areas. Is there kind of like a, okay, you know, you see that others have done this, or do you really feel like, no, this is even more unique thing? [00:34:01] Hannibal Buress: I respect, definitely respect what they've done. The timing is different for how I'm doing it. So that's why it's kind of, it's tough to compare a little bit the approach because it is been a minute. But it makes it interesting for me just from having stuff to talk about, too, for doing it so long 'cause sometimes I'm like, maybe I should have started when I was 23, but I think it happened when it was supposed to happen, and it happened when I was ready for it to really happen. But yeah, I watched, you know, like Jamie is amazing, you know? What Gambino's done, it's really dope. I saw Lil Duval write his Living My Best Life, was popping. I saw him. [00:34:42] Dan Runcie: That was a good song. [00:34:43] Hannibal Buress: He did good with that one. He was at the Stress Factory in Jersey as the song was peaking, and he was definitely too big for that room, but it made the energy... [00:34:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:34:55] Hannibal Buress: He was, like, crazy. He hit the stage to it. Like it was dope to see, man, like I was genuinely excited, and you could feel that he was hyped about it too, man. So it is dope to see when people just go for it in that way, and then we just making this shit, you can really do anything. I have to remind myself of that, too. Just really do anything, man. Just, you know, just go for this shit. I got this song, No Whip. It is a freestyle. It's a 7-minute freestyle about how I was living in Hawaii last year. I bought a car there,, and then I took a trip and then we ended up moving, but I didn't go back to like send the car and I've been planning to, but it's just kind of one of them things where I just, out of sight out of mind. And it ain't really, you know, causing a strain on my life, right? But it is, it's kind of, I bought this whip left in Hawaii, blah blah. And it's like, it's a loose freestyle. And I'm like, you know what, man, I'm going to shoot this part here, part in Hawaii, and just keep it at seven minutes 'cause you can just do that. The instinct is like, oh no, maybe I need to, I'm being repetitive, so maybe I should cut. I'm like, no, shoot that shit rough. Like, make it look as dope as possible. Like, shoot it rough freestyle dope and have fun and then just let it fly and just don't put the constraints on yourself unnecessarily. It's easy to try to overedit sometimes or get it. And so it's just, getting better at trusting myself, which was the initial hurdle It was just, okay, let me do this. There was nobody like, you can't make music, man. What are you, like? It was kind of me battling initially. And then once I dropped it and then, you know, now, okay. And then just rewiring my brain to, okay, I am doing this and keep doing it. It's like, okay, well, we are doing this for real, you know, no matter, no matter what. That's why I find it, like, absurd when people reach out and like, stop. That's weird. Like, you realize I'm a very, I'm a very stubborn person. Like, I'm not doing it to show you up. Like, this is like, I'm already way more locked in than you could ever imagine. So, you know, why you would ever tell me to stop. It's weird. But then I know that that person's not locked in on whatever they want to do if the time to tell me to stop. Yeah, but it's that I don't even get mad is just more like what, what? That's a weird thing to like, why stop? You realize even if my music was completely trash, I would still be able to figure it out from a marketer standpoint. I'd still be able to work some angle in this shit. But it's, you know, it's exciting, man. [00:37:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an exciting time, man. What has the response been like from the hip-hop community? [00:37:50] Hannibal Buress: It's been dope, man. Went on Sway In The Morning, did my written freestyle. I bothered Questlove when The Roots were performing at Pitchfork. They let me rock up there. So I got to rap with Black Thought, you know. It's been good, man. The Sway, the Sway interview helped, you know, I got a bunch of friends that I've worked with that I send stuff to sometimes. So the people that really know me, like know me know me, know that I've been working on things for a while and been building. So they've been super supportive and especially the ones that know what the grind has been and know how I've been working. So it is been dope, man. I'm just, I'm excited to just keep pushing, putting together shows and it's a fun time with just lots of possibilities and shit. [00:38:40] Dan Runcie: Exciting time, man. Exciting stuff. So before we close things out, what should the audience stay in tune for? What does the next year look like for Eshu Tune and what should they keep locked in for? [00:38:52] Hannibal Buress: The plan is to drop the full album on my 40th birthday, February 4th, '23. So I got a couple of songs done for it, going to start the sessions for it next month in November and December, hopefully, shoot videos, December. January, drop a single on New Year's Eve. And then 40th birthday album, I don't know what the title is going to be yet. 40-year-old freshman, 4 HB, 4 Eshu, 40, 244. I don't know, something like that, but I feel like 40th birthday is a good, drop date. Yeah, so that's the plan. And so I'll use the time leading up, you know, to start purging old stuff, you know what I mean? Use that to kind of, you know, drop loosies and different things and even drop some of the older comedy stuff I got, I've been hoarding. And so I want to also, in addition to having the Mondays residency, use the Mondays as a drop date, you know, for new content, old content to start just really, really getting stuff out and start just to free my brain up, 'cause there's a lot of, even though I'm making stuff and dropping stuff, there's a lot of other stuff that I think needs to just be let go, let the birds fly and then it'll help the creativity more. [00:40:12] Dan Runcie: I hear that. In terms of other stuff too. I think I remember seeing you, you had a song called Numbers. Is that a kid song? Is that one of those things you're going to be putting out there? [00:40:21] Hannibal Buress: I don't know if I'm going to lean too heavily into the kid songs yet, or maybe under an alias. I might start dropping, but yeah. I've been seeing some of, who's it, Gracie's? [00:40:29] Dan Runcie: Gracie's Corner? [00:40:30] Hannibal Buress: Gracie's Corner and then another one where they got the trap kind of kid stuff. Maybe Numbers was fun to do. I did that, yeah. Shout out to Shaliek on the beat for Numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. One robot, two robots. The robots is an ongoing theme in my music also. [00:40:51] Dan Runcie: Hey, man, we're excited for all of it, man. [00:40:53] Hannibal Buress: Yeah. [00:40:54] Dan Runcie: Tons of respect for you, man. [00:40:55] Hannibal Buress: Hey, thank you, man. Thanks and good talking with you, Dan, for sure. [00:40:57] Dan Runcie: Always been. [00:40:58] Hannibal Buress: Yep. [00:41:00] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 28 Sep 2020 | The Best Hip-Hop Marketing Campaigns of All-Time with Marcus Collins | 00:52:21 | |
This is the audio from the webinar with Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. We broke down the top five hip-hop marketing campaigns of all time (and a few honorable mentions). We also talked about Marcus’ favorite ad campaigns from his days as an advertising exec at Translation, Doner, and other agencies. At the end, we broke down Travis Scott’s McDonald’s campaign and took questions from attendees. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Marcus Collins, @marctothec, marctothec.com Links to discussed campaigns:
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 08 Feb 2023 | Rihanna, Roc Nation, and the Super Bowl Halftime Show (with DJ Louie XIV) | 00:53:57 | |
The biggest stage in music is still the Super Bowl Halftime Show. In 2023, that stage belongs to Rihanna. This is a noteworthy show for multiple reasons. Rihanna hasn’t released an album since 2016’s ANTI, which was a TIDAL exclusive! Seven years is a long time. She has since built two billion-dollar brands with Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty, and recently became a mother. Could this be the start of a music comeback for RiRi? A few years ago, Rihanna famously turned down this opportunity citing her support of Colin Kaepernick. But that was before Jay Z’s Roc Nation entered into an agreement with the NFL to produce the show in 2019. That relationship — Jay signed Rihanna to her first record deal at 16 — likely patched things up. This performance is also noteworthy since it's Apple Music’s first year as sponsor, taking over from Pepsi’s decade long-run.
To unpack it all, I brought on Louie Mandelbaum aka DJ Louie XIV. He’s a pop music connoisseur and breaks down the genre on his Pop Pantheon podcast. Here’s what we covered on the episode: [1:38] How Rihanna has stayed relevant without releasing music [4:49] Factors behind Rihanna’s cool factor [13:18] Where will Rihanna’s performance rank among Super Bowl halftime performances? [18:03] Evaluating Roc Nation as halftime show producers [26:47] “Chaotic” MTV-era producing halftime shows [28:59] Apple Music’s impact as first-time show sponsor [32:52] Is performing at the Super Bowl still the biggest stage? [37:15] Is Rihanna finally returning to music? [45:32] Predicting future Super Bowl performers Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Louie Mandelbaum, @DJLouieXIV This episode was brought to you by trac. Learn more about how artists can bring web2 and web3 together for their fans at trac.co Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Louie Mandelbaum: I would say there's three moments that really stand out to me, maybe four. the first is I do believe from the jump, she always had the coolest records from Pon de Replay on like Rihanna, Pon de Replay, SOS, Unfaithful. These were like very state of the art cutting edge, well-made. Cool pop songs. She always had that going for her. [00:00:23] I think from the jump, but I don't know if that necessarily translated into her celebrity persona. I think that began to emerge around her third record, which is 2007s Good Girl, Gone Bad. I think Umbrella kind of to me stands as like the moment where Rihanna went from sort of upstart to like true. [00:00:39] Kind of a-list Pop Star, that record is obviously widely considered to be one of the best pop songs of the 21st Century For Good Reason. [00:01:15] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is a Super Bowl special. This is all about Rihanna, the halftime show, and how this show has evolved over the past few years. I was joined by DJ Louis the 14th, who is the host of the Pop Pantheon podcast, and him and I talked all about what do we expect from Rihanna? This is the first big music thing that she's done in quite a few years. [00:01:35] What do we think? Where this show will sit in terms of other performances that have been historic in the Super Bowl, this is now gonna be the fourth Super Bowl that Rock Nation has done. What do we think about the job that they've done? This is the first year for Apple Music. How have they been doing and what do we think we'll expect from them moving forward? [00:01:53] And also, We all know about the Super Bowl bounce, what artists do the year after the show. So what do we expect from Rihanna for the next couple of years after the show? What do we expect to see from the show moving forward? And we make some predictions at the end on who we think would be some dope Super Bowl performances that we could likely end up seeing in the next couple of years. [00:02:14] Here's the episode. Hope you enjoy it. [00:02:16] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have the pop culture expert himself, DJ Louie the 14th here with us. Today he's hosted the Pop Pantheon podcast, and he was the best person that I had that I wanted to talk about this upcoming Super Bowl halftime show with the one and only Rihanna. So Louie, we're talking a little bit before we recorded just about her and how, I know she's someone that you can riff on for a while, but it would be good to start with where this fits with Rihanna's career right now, because she's someone that, I think it's almost gonna be seven years since Anti came out at this point, that at least the Super Bowl halftime show would've happened. I know she had the Black Panther song, but it's been so long since she's released new music, but she's still stayed so current. [00:03:04] What do you think it is about her that just keeps that. [00:03:08] Louie Mandelbaum: Dan. Thank you so much for having me on the show. So glad to be speaking with you. What I think is Rihanna's number one currency as a pop star, you know, like lots of pop stars have sort of a thing that. Is the engine behind their stardom, you know, for someone like Taylor Swift for instance, I would say it's her songwriting chops. [00:03:28] That's like the thing that everybody turns to about her. For Beyonce, it's kind of her epic performance abilities. Like, not to say they don't have other attributes that, you know are working towards their success, but they're sort of like a main thing with all of them. I tend to think, and to me Rihanna's has always been her cool factor, like Rihanna is the coolest pop star of her generation, and she's never been the most traditionally talented at any of like the musical aspects of all of it. Like she's not like a generational songwriter. She's not a particularly like gifted dancer, you know, she's a very distinctive, but not traditionally powerful vocalist necessarily. [00:04:13] So Rihanna's thing has always been that she is genuinely cool, like in a way that isn't put on or try hard in any sort of way. And I think that allows her to have a certain amount of interest in everything that she does, even when she's not making music. And of course, she's done a really fantastic job of building out her brand identity outside of just being a pop star through the success of her various fashion lines, Fenty Beauty, Savage, all of that stuff. [00:04:47] Has allowed her cool factor to like disseminate through culture without her necessarily releasing music. But I think the most important part when it comes to her returning to music is that unlike other pop stars of her generation, say like a Katie Perry, who definitely does not run on Cool factor, I think that Rihanna is appealing to pop's core fan base, which has shifted out of her specific generation. So like since Rihanna's released new music, like there's an entire new generation of pop fans that are now like the kind of core center of pop music that were very, very young last time that she released music. But I think Rihanna's cool factor. [00:05:28] I guess my hypothesis is that Rihanna's cool factor can allow for her to potentially be someone that they'd be interested in engaging with on new music in a way that they wouldn't, for somebody like Katie Perry or even someone like Lady Gaga, or even someone maybe even like Beyonce, I think that her cool factor creates the circumstances where perhaps people will still be engaged and interested in her releasing new music, despite the fact that it's been such a long time. [00:05:56] Dan Runcie: When do you feel like that cool factor emerged? Because I agree with you. I think there is something intrinsic about her that just pulls people in and thinking about her career, it's almost been 20 years now. She came on the scene as a teenager and, of course, I think that in the early years we do start to see a bit more of the record label created person, and you don't see as much of the personality, but over time you start to see that. [00:06:20] When do you think that shifted? Whoever's like, oh, here is the Rihanna that is showing us why she's the shit and other people aren't quite at that level. [00:06:30] Louie Mandelbaum: I would say there's three moments that really stand out to me, maybe four. the first is I do believe from the jump, she always had the coolest records from Pon de Replay on like Rihanna, Pon de Replay, SOS, Unfaithful. These were like very state of the art cutting edge, well-made. Cool pop songs. She always had that going for her. [00:06:53] I think from the jump, but I don't know if that necessarily translated into her celebrity persona. I think that began to emerge around her third record, which is 2007s Good Girl, Gone Bad. I think Umbrella kind of to me stands as like the moment where Rihanna went from sort of upstart to like true. [00:07:09] Kind of a-list Pop Star, that record is obviously widely considered to be one of the best pop songs of the 21st Century For Good Reason. It's an incredible song and something that really allowed her specific kind of reading nasally voice to like shine through and like she gave that song a Life that I think even other vocalists couldn't necessarily. [00:07:30] That was a song that famously like got passed around to Britney and Mary j Blige and acon and a lot of other artists. So it's really her plus this song that sort of came together and it was like her cool factor and her specific brand of Rihannaness that really made that song what it was. But I also think in a sort of, weirdly, maybe this is like a sticky and difficult or chewy idea. But I do think in the wake of what happened between her and Chris Brown, which was obviously like a horrific public experience, and you know, a very difficult thing for her to parse through. And for the public who, you know, were experiencing her at like one of many zeniths of her career, her experiencing this huge public, you. [00:08:16] Incident with her boyfriend. I think the way that she emerged out of that as this kind of like titanium, no fucks given sort of, brand of like pop heroin or anti heroin in some ways. I think that was the moment in which like the Rihanna persona really crystallized like somewhere between rated R and loud and the kind of caval kid of albums and songs that came after. [00:08:41] She emerged as this very specific brand of turn of the 2010s pop star who was kind of like middle finger in the air, like kind of gave off the air of like, I'm not even trying that hard, but like everything I do is amazing. Like that was another thing about her that I think really like codified her pop star. [00:09:00] Every pop star is working really hard. It's a very hard job. So I don't wanna make it sound like she's not doing that, but there was a way in which she made it feel. She wasn't even kind of trying and like everything she did was a smash, even though she was kind of like casual about it, she never gave off the air of someone that was just like gritting her teeth and working really hard in the way that like a lot of pop stars can seem. [00:09:22] So I think it was those combination of factors around that time, oh 9, 10, 11, that like the full embodiment of the Rihanna, like pop heroin slash anti heroin. I don't know exactly how to frame that, came into full, like being at that point. [00:09:40] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think another thing that happened right around that same timeframe was the accountant that she had and how she had almost went bankrupt from trusting someone that was very shady with her money too. And that's where I think a lot of that zero fucks given as well. You combine that, the Chris Brown, you know, domestic violence and abusing her and then. [00:10:02] That combination. Yeah. I do feel like by loud sonically we also started to hear a little bit, it almost felt like there was a bit more of like a tone in a oomph in some of the music there, which has been cool to see ever since. And I think like over time, she's just leaned more and more into that. And she also was someone who I think for every year, for up to at least the middle part of her career, she was releasing an album pretty much every year. [00:10:27] But then I feel like by the time that Anti comes around, Slowing down. She's starting to put more into her. And we kind of saw similar transitions with how Beyonce, maybe it started to do, releases that word bit more, you know, less of the general, here is what you're getting. But no, let me be a bit more myself and tap into something like what we saw with formation and the self-titled. [00:10:50] I think you started to see that a bit more with Rihanna and I feel like this. lines up with it as well. And I think another piece that I think about with her too is social media and just how we saw another side of that personality was just a bit how cutting and how, you know, direct she could be with people, whether it was her online, back and forth with Sierra, or even, I think there was one of the Kardashians, or maybe it was like Kendall Jenner had said something about, oh, That I hear this song played at the Rihanna concert, and then she's just like, then don't come if you don't want to hear that song. [00:11:23] And little things like that. It's just like, okay, all right, here we go. You know, throwing a little spice everywhere and slowly making people realize that this is who she is. [00:11:33] Louie Mandelbaum: Yeah, the social media thing is like definitely critical. I'm glad you brought that up because she kind of was like the peak celebrity of Peak Instagram, Twitter, years. Like she was the one that made it all like really enticing. I mean, her Instagram persona in the early 2010s was like the reason to be on Instagram. [00:11:52] And of course all of those clap backs. Our legendary and still cited it to this day. Another one of my favorites is like when some tabloid like tweeted something about, you know, something derogatory about her and she said something like, your pussy's too dry to be riding my dick like this, or something like that. [00:12:09] It was just, you know, we. I think that that was, first of all, she's very clever and smart and good at that stuff, so you can't fake that. But I do think the era of the social media celebrity has been all about creating an accessible persona or something that feels relatable as opposed to like the idea of pop stardom being something that's sort of like cordoned off or celestial or like, you know, something that is untouchable. [00:12:33] You know, the transition that pop has gone through in the 2010s has been toward stars that at least give the patina of relatability or accessibility. And I think her persona on social media and in tandem with the fact that she, I think the fact that she isn't a virtuoso in the way that Beyonce is so defined by her virtuosity created or helped kind of pave the way for the way that Pop stardom has evolved over the 2010s into something that's more about a brand of personality that feels accessible somewhat. [00:13:09] Like relatable, that they could be one of your friends that you know stuff about them, that they don't have to be perfect and manicured necessarily, even though that imperfection can be perfectly manicured in and of itself. But yes, no question about it. Those were all things that she played an integral role in creating that have only become bigger and more prominent aspects of pop stardom in the latter part of the 2010s as she's been kind of pulled back from pop music. [00:13:35] Dan Runcie: and it was interesting to hear you talk as well about the things that set her apart in thinking about the Super Bowl performance coming up. Because this is a stage where so many of the best performances lean into people that are the best performers or have that musical ability that transcends in a lot of ways and for her, even though that cool factor is something [00:13:57] Louie Mandelbaum: Remember Maroon five. [00:13:59] Dan Runcie: Oh man. It's funny, before listening to this, I was listening to where you had ranked a lot of them and I was like, I wonder where he has the maroon five one. And then eventually I was like, oh yeah, like, I'm sure it's closer to that one. I mean, we could talk about that one for a while. I do think that this rietta performance should be, better arrangement and spectacle than that one. [00:14:22] I am curious though, because of course, from a range of, let's say that, "The Who" or the Tom Petty. I mean, I wasn't as much of a fan of those, and I know you weren't either, but of course, Princeton, Beyonce are more of the highly regarded ones based on what you know about Rihanna and where you think she'll fit, where do you feel like this performance would likely end up in terms of where the, where she ranks compared to other halftime perform? [00:14:50] Louie Mandelbaum: Well, I'm awfully curious, Dan, because we haven't seen her do much in a long time, so it's definitely going to fill in some blanks and some curiosities that I think a lot of fans are wondering about where Rihanna is as a pop star and performer. Prior to kind of hanging up her pop star crown, let's say in like, you know, after the Anti tour, let's say in like 2017 or 2018. [00:15:12] She had made great strides as a live performer. I think early in her career she was sort of a weaker performer. Her vocals weren't that great live. She was kind of a listless dancer. Again, she pulled out a lot just based on her swag, but like she had made really huge strides in her performance ability and her vocal ability. [00:15:31] I mean, she was singing so well towards the, you know, end of the promo cycle for auntie when she was in her like Love on the Brain live performance era. I mean, she was shutting it down in a way that I never had imagined she would. She sounded amazing. So I'll be curious to know where her voice is. The thing is that Rihanna's going to do this in the Rihanna way, I would imagine, like, I just don't think, again, prince and Beyonce are two artists that are defined by virtuosity. [00:16:02] They are artists that you know are going to get on stage and be the Absolut. Apex of musicianship of performance ability. They're two of the greatest examples of those things in the most untouchable way possible. Rihanna's like a very different type of pop star. She kind of just gets on stage and grabs her dick, you know? [00:16:21] And like everyone's like, yeah. You know, so that's like what she does. So and I also want to pinpoint that again, and I've said this before, the things that she makes easy look easy or tossed off, or casual or not, like, don't be fooled like a lot of effort and thought and work goes into all of that with her. [00:16:40] So I would imagine we're gonna get some version of "the Rihanna thing" in a Super Bowl performance, which of course, every Super Bowl performance in the modern era is gonna be highly choreographed. It's gonna have massive production values, but I can't imagine her turning in something, again, even akin to like Jennifer Lopez and Shakira's, which is another one that I think is fantastic, but two other performers that are just like impeccable dancers, like super tight performers. [00:17:06] I have a feeling we're gonna get some version of like something that actually maybe relates a little bit more to a rock stars version of the Super Bowl. Not that she's gonna turn in like a Tom Petty-esque performance, but Rihanna can actually just stand there and sort of swag in a way that like, you know, your Beyonce's never gonna really do so. The question is, Is it gonna be up to snuff? I don't think anybody knows that. I think that's part of the fun of waiting for this thing is that we haven't seen her do anything in so long. She's had a baby. It'll be interesting to see like where she's at as a performer. I wish I knew more about it, but I'm just as curious as everybody else's. [00:17:47] But I would bank on the fact that someone of her pedigree and experience is going to turn in something epic and God knows like she's got the production budget and all of the help that she needs to like make that happen. So Rihanna can do a lot just by being Rihanna. So I would say that, I'm sure it's gonna be epic. [00:18:08] My guess is it will probably be epic, I guess. [00:18:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I do think that putting her in the top half of performances is a pretty safe bet, I think you could say. I think that comparing to the Prince or the Beyonce, to your point, I think there was so much that you expected from them based on what they're known for before going into it, that you already had that heightened expectation there. [00:18:31] With Rihanna, there's a lot more unknowns. Before this, I was going back and looking at, okay, what are the signature Rihanna performances that are out there. I was looking back at past VMA performances, past Grammy performances, and again, it's so long since you've seen some of those, so it's tough to compare. [00:18:48] And even some of those songs, I mean, she's doing some of the songs that she had done with Calvin Harris, which I'm sure we'll hear at the Super Bowl. But she's also done stuff from Anti that we just hadn't seen in that, you know, grand of a estate, at least in some of those, settings before. It'll be interesting to see. [00:19:06] I'm definitely expecting at least on the top half, but I've thought a lot about just the Super Bowl at all because you brought up the J Lo and Shakira one, which I do think was great on the performance perspective, just given where they are, and that was actually the first. Super Bowl that Rock Nation has done since they had took over as the lead to help the NFL with entertainment for the halftime show. [00:19:30] So that was the first one they had. Then they had the one with the weekend, and then you had last year the West Coast hip hop ensemble with Mary J. Blige and Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Kendrick and 50 cent was one of the guest acts there. And then you have this one with Rihanna. How do you feel like the Rock Nation era of the Super Bowl halftime show has been? [00:19:51] Louie Mandelbaum: Well, it's definitely been putting a focus on artists of color and artists that are, many artists that are adjacent to r and b and hip hop in a way that the previous iterations like touched on but weren't so focused on. So that's been really good and I think that's been needed and an important pivot. So that's been good. I think the J Lo and Shakira Super Bowl halftime show is one of my all-time top favorites. I think it was absolutely spectacular. They were both incredible and they both managed to make their like two six minute sets that they had to split up, like feel com comprehensive in this way that I was just like floored by. [00:20:26] It was just every moment of that was thrilling. So I love that one. I did not care very much for the weekend's performance. I thought I've never found him to be an incredibly compelling live performer, and I felt the same way about his Super Bowl performance. it just didn't do that much for me. [00:20:41] But I think he was a, a good choice. I mean, he's a massive superstar. He certainly deserved the slot and it made sense. And I thought last year's was great. I mean, I grew up in that era of hip hop, so seeing Dre, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg. I'm never gonna be unhappy about that. And I thought they did a really nice job of threading those all together in a way that made sense. [00:21:05] And it felt like, you know, if you grew up on that music, like how are you not gonna love that? I don't know. It was hard to deny. But that was a very unconventional Super Bowl performance because in the last, let's say 10 to 15 years especially, they've become very codified as this. Artist Showcase for One superstar, they become this kind of like elite performance showcase for these upper echelon pop stars. [00:21:31] if you get that slot, it sort of says something about how culture sees you as, as we would say on my podcast, as like a top tier, pop star. So the last year one was definitelylike an anomalous one in the sense that it I guess it was a celebration of Dr. Dre's, you know, production work on some level, but it wasn't necessarily like the traditional pop star extravaganza that we were used to. [00:21:55] So they've tried things, which is nice, and I think it is nice to shake it up, but I am excited for it to be back to this like one artist sort career capstone thing because I think that that's been a really fun and fruitful mode for the Super Bowl halftime show. So I'd say they've done a good job and I think that I am, you know, I mean they landed Rihanna, which is like interesting considering that she had sworn off doing this because of Colin Kaepernick, which I know was another topic you wanna talk about, but clearly there's something that Rock Nation's involvement with this has. Changed in her mind about her willingness to participate with the NFL on this after she had pretty publicly said that she wouldn't. [00:22:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah, there's been a few things that Rock Nation has done here that I think have been good. I think that they were able to create themes around the event and try to tie in the location in some way, right? They had the Super Bowl in Miami, so they went deep on K. How can we get more music involved with Latin culture even though JLo herself is not from Miami? [00:23:01] That was the tie in there with her and Shakira, and I know that after watching J Lo's Netflix documentary, she was upset about the fact that she had [00:23:10] Louie Mandelbaum: yeah. [00:23:11] Dan Runcie: to share the stage, not against Shakira, but just Kind of like you said the past decade before that, was this is a capstone on a singular pop star, and then here you have J Lo, and now she has to share the stage with someone else. [00:23:23] I know she was upset about that, [00:23:24] Louie Mandelbaum: Which she very easily could have done. She very easily could have done that. I just wanna put that out there. Like J Lo definitely could have held down a 13 minute halftime show by herself. [00:23:34] Dan Runcie: I think so too. I mean, we've just seen her perform at all these different settings and in so many hits in. people can have issues with her as a vocalist or things like that, but in terms of the performance, it was top notch. [00:23:45] So I'm with you on that one. And then with the weekend one, I do think that's the weakest of the ones. And there was less of a tie in, I forget the location of that Super Bowl specifically, but I know that, he had a huge years, the middle of the pandemic and the only person that was really like, you know, elevating as a superstar in the pandemic to a new level was him. [00:24:05] So I understood that. And then, yeah, the West Coast ensemble, that Super Bowl was in LA definitely didn't see it coming just from what we expected, but it was cool, and I do think that a lot of this speaks to the relationship piece and this taps into maybe a bit of that factor about why. They were able to get Rihanna in a way that they may not have been able to get her in 2016, 2017. [00:24:28] I think of course, when they had done that, this was right after Colin Kaepernick was kneeling and the league had a lot of heightened f a lot of people were heightenedly frustrated with the league because of not only its stance on police brutality, but this was also a moment where the league's relationship with domestic violence was getting more underlied. [00:24:49] It was only a couple of years after the Ray Rice incident. The concussion discussions were more and more, the NFL, at least from a public perception place, was probably in its lowest point that I could remember, at least in my lifetime, in that mid 2010s era. So to ask Rihanna then was rough. And I think another thing too that stuck out to me with how Rock Nation went about things, Jay-Z had said this in one of the press conferences that the NFL would ask three of these artists at the same time if they wanted to do the show. So then if someone comes back and then someone says yes before then now you have to go rescind the offer to the other person that said yes, which is a very. Bad way to go about this, especially if you tarnish relationships with things like that. [00:25:33] So I've always kept that in my mind, like if there's certain artists that haven't done it yet and you're like, oh, why hasn't this artist done it? Part of me wonder, is it because they like asked three people to do it and then two of them said yes, and then now they need to go, you know, renege on a deal with someone. [00:25:48] So I knew that Jay-Z was very deliberate about, we ask one person at a time, and then if that person says yes, then great. But if that person says no, then you move on to the next person. It sounds so obvious, but that's how they did it. And at least I had heard close to, some sources that told me that Rihanna was the first choice that they had for this year. [00:26:07] And then she said yes. So that was cool to see. And yeah, I mean, I think it speaks to it as well. Jay-Z obviously had signed, Rihanna's, her first record deal with, Def Jam. She was with Rock Nation. After that, they've always been in business together. So it was cool to see [00:26:24] Louie Mandelbaum: Well, I think part of the problem too is that there's like, we're running out of these superstars who are deserving of this capstone performance. Like there really only is like a handful of those super, super top tier pop stars that haven't done it at this point. It's like Rihanna was an obvious one. [00:26:40] Taylor is obviously one that's sitting out there, I'm sure. Ariana could probably do one at this point. There's like a handful of them left in the mix. But like Drake, drake, absolutely. But there's not that many and you know, there's a whole, you know, extra conversation we could be having right now about the state of pop stardom and how we aren't minting superstars in the same way that we used to do it. [00:27:04] But I think that was another reason why perhaps they felt the need to shake up the format a little bit, including with last year. And maybe even with the Shakira and JLo one and find ways to like do other versions of this because there really aren't, like we've burned through the like a-list pop stars, really, like a lot of them have already done this, so it'll be interesting to see if they continue to kind of like mix it up or like, you know, [00:27:32] hopefully like Billy Eilish and Little Nas X and Olivia Rodrigo, like just really turn it out over the next four or five years so that they're ready, like, you know, in the mid to late 2010s, 2020s to take over for the Super Bowl. halftime show life. I don't know. We'll see. But maybe we are gonna get like more of these. [00:27:49] different themed ones or mis mix and mashups. I mean, that's how they used to be like in the early 2010, early two thousands when MTV was doing them prior to Janet's situation. they were doing these kind of like huge ones, like people don't remember, but like Janet's Super Bowl performance was not like the ones that we get now from superstars, even though obviously she could certainly have done. She did two or three songs, really you got Nelly and Kid Rock and I mean, Justin Timberlake, like a panoply of other artists were involved in those shows. So they used to be more of like a smorgasboard, or at least sometimes they would be kind of like these conglomerations of sometimes very loosely connected stars. [00:28:33] Louie Mandelbaum: There was [00:28:33] Dan Runcie: Did you like those MTV halftime shows? [00:28:35] Louie Mandelbaum: And No Doubt. I mean, they were incredibly chaotic. Like I just think that they were so random. But yeah, I mean, they had their own charms. Like there was the one year that was like Aerosmith and Britney and Nsync, and Nelly and . I mean, they were fucking weird, but like they had their own charms, I guess. [00:28:52] But just a different kind of show, I guess. [00:28:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah, going back and watching some of those, the fact that Nelly did two Super Bowls is [00:29:00] Louie Mandelbaum: I know it's so weird. [00:29:01] Dan Runcie: thinking about that moment, right? But. [00:29:04] Louie Mandelbaum: the two Super Bowl clubs is like Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, and Nelly. [00:29:12] Dan Runcie: I know, right. And maybe Tony Bennett did like one or two from the older ones if I remember correctly. But yeah, [00:29:18] Louie Mandelbaum: No, 90s ones are fucking psychotic. The nineties ones are like out of their minds. Truly like, Chaka Khan, I think like doing like Indiana Jones and Indiana, it was like psychedelic fever dreams. Or maybe it was Patti LaBelle, not Chaka, Patti LaBelle doing Indiana Jones, like themed Super Bowl Halftime performance is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in my life. [00:29:44] Dan Runcie: Man, and it just makes you think about how far this show has come along and I think to that, even if we see these ensembles, I like the fact that there will be a bit of a theme to them moving forward. And I think there are so many creative things you can do. And I'm also curious to see how the show will continue to shape with the sponsor that's leading it because I feel like that's another element to this. This is Apple Music's first year. As the primary sponsor for the show after Pepsi had had it for the past decade, and we knew that Pepsi chose not to renew. They wanted to put more money into digital, and Apple was willing to pay more for the show. And I know that a lot of these streaming services are trying to get into the livestream business. [00:30:30] Apple was one of the more public companies I was trying to get NFL Sunday tickets. So there's always this association, both with music and entertainment that they've wanted to do to try to essentially sell more AirPods, sell more iPhones or whatever the exposure ends up getting them. [00:30:46] But I am curious to see, is there gonna be any type of integration or any other type of thing that we'll see that is a shift because I feel like this Pepsi era gave us so many of these singular pop star capstone shows. I feel like I think about Beyonce when I think about the Pepsi era of Super Bowl halftime shows. [00:31:02] What will this Apple Music one look like? I'm not sure, but what do you think? Is there anything that you expect to see moving forward now that it's kind of new chapter, new sponsor, [00:31:12] Louie Mandelbaum: Like Rihanna just like comes out wearing a pair of AirPods or like, I don't know, like she she sits down at like a MacBook Air and like in the middle of the stage. yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I think, well, what's interesting maybe that you were making me think about earlier is that clearly having an artist like Jay-Z involved and Rock Nation involved is gonna be like a more artist friendly way to program these things that's gonna like value, cuz Jay-Z is a music artist, so he's gonna have some form of respect for the people he's booking. I think part of the issue sometimes here is that this is such a huge opportunity. This is the biggest stage in media for any star to get a chance to do this. Is such a huge moment in their career that I can understand why, like prior to Jay-Z. The NFL or whoever was programming these things in the past, like felt like they had all the power . Cause really there's very few opportunities in media. Where like someone like Beyonce feels like, oh, I should do this. [00:32:12] I mean, Beyonce barely does anything at this point. Like there's very few things that would feel like she didn't have the power in every situation. I was just reading an article the other day about how like the Grammys are so desperate to have her perform, but of course like why would she, I don't know what would be like, what would be the benefit of that to her at this point? [00:32:27] So the Super Bowl was really one of the last remaining things that feels like. Oh, like this is exposure that like you get once in a lifetime and it's so humongous. So I can see how that power dynamic works in terms of like what Apple's gonna do versus Pepsi. I don't know if I have any clearer thoughts on like how it's gonna be different except to say that like, again, perhaps Apple is like more of like, in the music industry, like is like more part of the music industry in some way. [00:32:54] They obviously like have been an integral part of like music consumption for the last 10 or 15 years. Whereas like Pepsi, like, you know, aside from like their iconic ads, like really, anyway, Pepsi's not exactly like, you know, music driven necessarily in the same way, so maybe that's gonna have an effect. Do you have any thoughts on that? I'm not totally sure. [00:33:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I'm not a hundred percent sure either, I do feel like apple's Dream would probably be to be able to have some type of live stream where you could watch it directly through Apple Music if you're on your computer or if you're on your phone or something like that. I know that the networks that broadcasters show are probably holding onto those rights and want them exclusively, whether it's Fox NBC, CBS, so I don't know if that would actually happen, but I'm sure it's something that they want just thinking about where things go. but beyond that, it'll be interesting to see. It's something I'm definitely gonna be looking out for, but I think it's still a little early to put any predictions on that. One thing you did say though, that was, that touched on something that I was thinking about earlier was just where the Super Bowl sits within pop culture within media and its importance because I do think that for a long time. We always thought of this as, yes, this is the biggest stage in entertainment, and I still do think, especially for a US artist, I think this is still the biggest stage that you could have, but thinking about someone like Beyonce, I think most people would probably look at the past 10 years and say, okay, Beyonce did perform the Super Bowl twice, and what's her signature performance of the past 10 years? [00:34:27] it was her Coachella performance and that's probably not something that we could have said about a artist 10 years before that, cuz I know Coachella has just grew and grew and definitely became an even bigger thing the past decade plus. And I'm now thinking, okay, in this next decade with where things are going, even just now where the Super Bowl sits, how are things shifting? [00:34:49] Is the Premier Music Festival and doing a great performance there, especially since they're now all being live streamed. Could that ever rival or get even close? Are there other types of opportunities that are engine closer? I feel like the Super Bowl probably will always still have that stranglehold just because of how many eyeballs you get, but that's something I've been thinking about, just how these things are shifting and what that may look like. [00:35:13] Louie Mandelbaum: Well, there's no comparing giving somebody a two hour concert to like do the most in the way that Beyonce obviously like now, has defined the most that you could possibly do with that. And of course that is her most well regarded performance ever. And like probably the. Most well regarded live performance of all time question mark. [00:35:33] So no question about that compared to like getting 15 minutes, but. There's the amount of people that are watching the Super Bowl is unmatched. Like no matter how many people are watching that Coachella live stream, like for instance, my parents, my parents still haven't seen Homecoming like they're not big Beyonce people, but my parents see every single Super Bowl halftime performance like, so I still think it's one of the rare instances where monoculture like still exists. [00:36:00] It's like one of the only things I mean I watched the Super Bowl and I could care less about sports. I have zero interest in football. I've never watched another game the entire year, but like I'm there like, you know, with it on mute until , until the halftime show happens. So it is one of the rare instances where monoculture still exists and people still tune in and you're still getting in front of people. [00:36:24] like for better or worse, the people that are watching Coachella are people that are already having some sort of interest in the artists that are performing there. This show puts you in front of a large group of people that like may not give a shit about you and wouldn't like choose to watch you perform even on the Grammys or anything like that, but there you are, so I think it is a level of exposure and a reminder to people and I think the way that these songs burn up streaming charts and Apple,you know, iTune store charts immediately following this, like, the artist that performs at these shows, like tends to like, have humongous streaming and, you know, download boosts following the show bears out that like you're getting in front of people that like just wouldn't seek you out in other instances. [00:37:06] And we have so few examples at this point of like actual monoculturelike functioning in this way, but I do think the Super Bowl is one of the rare moments where that still does happen. [00:37:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, you're right. And I think too, just thinking about how media has changed, especially since the pandemic, if anything, all the other stuff from a broadcast perspective, people are watching less and less, and that's becoming more niche in the N FL even compared to other sports is still the dominant thing. [00:37:36] So I think the Super Bowl, if anything, is probably just having more and more importance from that perspective. So I think it'll always be number one there. You brought up the thing about the bounce and the impact. [00:37:45] Louie Mandelbaum: And prestige. I mean, I think the other thing is just the prestige of the, of getting chosen for it is also something really important. Like yes, getting a Coachella headlining spot is like a big deal, but like people who wouldn't get. Super Bowl head. Letting spots yet like a Billy Eilish last year are still gonna get that Coachella slot like getting that Super Bowl slot is a badge of like honor and confirmation of your like superstar, A-list legendary hall of fame status as a pop figure in a way that like very few other things can coordinate in this day and age, I don't think. [00:38:21] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that's a good point. And I think the other point you mentioned too, about the impact that this show has, of course, the week after the Super Bowl or the day after the Super Bowl, we'll see the streaming numbers or the downloads or even the record sales. But I think the thing that I've paid more attention to is some of the ways that these artists are making even more money from their tours or other things like that looking at someone like the Weeknd, he goes from performing in arenas to performing in stadiums and having one of the biggest tours of the year and even last year's West Coast hip hop ensemble. I think Mary J. Blige had the biggest tour that she had had. Dr. Dre, I know he didn't go on tour, but he just sold some of his music and maybe some of the high end interests there could have helped. [00:39:04] And even Snoop Dogg sold a bunch of NFTs afterward and launched his record label that was aligned with this. And if we could think about Rihanna who hasn't released music in seven years, what do we think this next year post Super Bowl will look like? Do you think we'll get a tour? You think there'll be a collaboration? [00:39:22] Do you think we'll finally get that album? [00:39:25] Louie Mandelbaum: I hope so. I mean, I tend to wonder like why she would be doing this if it wasn't to set something up because it doesn't seem like she has interest in just sort of like maintaining like she hasn't done anything in so long that I don't know why she would just do this, like randomly. So one has to imagine that this is the kickoff to an era of some sort. God knows she could launch a humongous tour without having a new album, and I think it would be massively successful like I wonder if Rihanna could play stadiums at this point. Just doing kind of what seems to be the new trend with all the girlies right now, which is doing their greatest hits. That's like Taylor's doing that. [00:40:04] Madonna just announced that she's doing that. I mean, Rihanna could certainly be like, Hey, you know, let me perform my greatest hits, which also constitute like the 25 best singles of the last, you know, 23 years or whatever. So like I have to imagine that it's setting something up. I don't know what to say about the album. [00:40:25] I mean, like I feel like I'd be getting in front of myself to say that she's gonna release something because she's really been adverse to releasing new music, and I wonder if there's anxiety about reentering a streaming marketplace that has changed quite a bit even since 2016. As I mentioned earlier, as much as I do think she has the capacity to appeal to the current pop fan base, cross section. She is certainly, you know, eight years has gone by, like, you know, things have really changed. I wonder if there's like trepidation about like how to work this system. I mean, you look at some of these seasoned pop acts, like even Beyonce. Like Beyonce did well with Renaissance. I mean, she did nothing to promote it, which is like a whole other conversation we could have about that. [00:41:14] But like, you know, the record sold well but isn't doing numbers like Taylor's doing and you know, isn't the sort of like jugg, you know, A-list, A-list, A-list juggernaut that like Bad Bunny is, or that, you know, some of like the new Vanguard of pop stars are. So I wonder if there's a feeling on Rihanna's part in terms of like someone who's had a career that's churn so much on. [00:41:38] A cavalcade of number one hit singles over and over and over and again. Album after album, after album, after album. About like how she's supposed to work that. Exactly. Cuz things have just changed so much and the guard has changed. And so that's a long-winded way to say I don't. No, if you had a gun to my head, I would say tour an album or forthcoming as a result of this, or like on the back of this. [00:42:05] I can't imagine that there isn't. But I will remind people that in 2013 when Beyonce did the Super Bowl, she didn't announce any, like there was nothing new happening. Later that year in December, almost a full year later, she dropped the self-titled album Out of the Sky, but, It felt like that performance just sort of existed in a vacuum when it happened, so it's not as if that doesn't happen. [00:42:28] So it's a little bit hard to say, but if she was smart, I would say given the amount of years that have gone by and how much like she could use of refocusing on the music and that the Super Bowl's gonna give that to her, I would hope that she's using this as some sort of direct launchpad. [00:42:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah, my prediction is Tour. Yes. Album maybe. And the album point is in large part for some of the reasons that you mentioned too, because the last album, I believe there was a botched release with Anti, I think it leaked [00:43:00] early on title cuz I think it was a early release or something like that. It was messy and I know that she was pissed about that and I'm sure that many fans were too And. [00:43:10] People can't escape leaks. I mean, Renaissance leaked early. these things are still happening. And to your point, yeah, there's a whole new system on how these things are being done. And SZA, she's someone who I think kind of perfected this system, but she's with a record label that has. Literally adapted its strategy to be able to understand how to perfect this thing. [00:43:31] And she had this whole waterfall release thing and you need singles leading up to it to kind of make that happen and Rihanna hasn't released music recently, so there's so many things that would need to happen before anyone would really expect, okay, boom, day after the Super Bowl, here's an album. [00:43:46] Like I do not think that's gonna [00:43:48] Louie Mandelbaum: Two things. One is that, I don't know though, cause here, two thoughts I'm having. One is you are right about the anti rollout and it wasn't just the leaks that were the problem. There was a series of underperforming lead singles that led that record off until they landed on work. It was, you know, Bitch Better Had My Money, didn't crack the top 10. There was. You know, the, kind of weird Lucy with Kanye and Paul McCartney. I mean, there was like, you know, a series of singles that like, didn't quite do the job that like usually Rihanna lead singles were doing at that moment where every single one you could to a number basically were like generation defining smash hits. [00:44:25] So that's one element of it, but I kind of think the the SZA thing is an interesting comparison to me because yes, SZA released singles before the record came out, but like Shirt didn't catch fire in the same way that Kill Bill has since the album came out. And there's a big thing now with records that come out where. [00:44:44] Fans pick the hit, you know, you dump the record and fans, I mean, it's the same thing that's happened with Cuff It on some level. Like yes, you know, Break My Soul, hit number one, but Cuff, it's actually been a bigger hit than Break My Soul. If you go look at Spotify numbers, it's got more streams. It's a bigger song. [00:44:58] It's got it got the organic TikTok element that came into play. If she had done literally anything to promo it, if she had performed it or made a music video, I'm sure that song could have hit number one easily. But of course, that's a whole other thing about why Beyonce is doing nothing to promo any of this, but I think Rihanna might benefit from removing herself in the same way that Beyonce did with her self-titled Record and Lemonade. [00:45:24] To some degree, I guess, formation notwithstanding from the sort of like trying to find a lead single prior to dropping an album. I think Rihanna's in a phase, especially with Anti, which is her most critically well regarded work, an album that I think like expanded the possibilities for Rihanna being like a sophisticated and intriguing albums artist to come forth with a full record and sort of like see what catches fire from there might actually be a better strategy for her than trying to locate. In a boardroom, like a single that's gonna function like an umbrella or only girl in the world or whatever. Cuz this marketplace is just way more fickle and difficult to figure that out in than it was during her peak era. [00:46:06] So I actually think her dropping an album like literally after the Super Bowl with no notice, like, could be actually like a pretty effective strategy. But again, I don't know that she's gonna do that, but I'm just pontificating on like what I think could work for her. I actually think that might be a better strategy than like doing some more traditional rollout. [00:46:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it'll be fascinating to see. I mean, there's so many unknowns to the same way where I think even before Beyonce reformed, we kind of had an idea of what to expect. we don't know what to expect in a lot of ways, so I'm excited for that. But, Louie, before we let you go, let's make a prediction. [00:46:39] So we talked a little bit about maybe some future ensembles that we could see, or some artists that we could see perform. who do you think would perform, I don't wanna just say next year, because that might be a bit too. Keeping it contained, but what is a artist or a mix of artists that you could see doing the halftime show in the next couple of years? [00:46:58] Louie Mandelbaum: I think the obvious answer is like Taylor is obviously going to do this at some point. It's actually like somewhat surprising to me that she wasn't doing it this year. She's having a massive year. This record is gigantic. She has her biggest hit in a long time. This album is a juggernaut in a mainstream way for the first time in like, you know, a series of interesting kind of career diversions that were all huge. [00:47:20] But like, this is definitely like, feels like a big, big moment for her. And she is such a classic Super Bowl artist, not in maybe the Rock Nation era, but she is white country, you know, blonde, critical darling, rock bonafides, like whatever, like, so it's truly surprising that she hasn't done it yet again, Ariana seems like another obvious one. [00:47:41] At some point, I'm assuming Ariana's gonna come forth with a new record. She's due. It's been, I think, Two and a half years or something since her last album. So one has to imagine she's due for a new era soon. She feels like she's of the caliber and of the stature at this point to do one of these by herself. [00:47:57] So those seem like two obvious superstars. And Drake, I think Drake is on the other one. You brought him up. He's obviously seems like a slam dunk. You know, generational superstar. Literally, I don't know how he'd pick the hits, which is another thing with Rihanna, like how's she gonna pick what she performs in terms of like groupings of artists? [00:48:15] I think that's really interesting. I mean, I wonder like what a version of like the MTV format would like look like in the modern era like how could you like bring a group of artists together? Again, the Dre thing was really an interesting sort of like roll of the dice on that idea, but I'm wondering like how you might do that. In other contexts, like, I'm trying to think of like other rap crews, like obviously the other ones that comes to mind like, ha, why hasn't Jay himself done it yet? I mean that's an interesting one to me too. I know Jay famously said, you know, I don't need the Super Bowl, but now he is intrically involved in the Super Bowl. [00:48:53] He feels like another obvious artist and obviously someone that could like kind of corral and very interesting stable of guests. So. it's like Jay-Z and Friends seems like it could be an interesting one. Unfortunately, we've lost another obvious either co headliner or headliner himself in Kanye who was now radioactive and would never get the slot anymore. [00:49:12] I don't think so. He's someone that certainly deserves it on a musical front, but like I think is just, you know, persona non grata in most spaces at this point. And. I don't know. I'm trying to think of like good groupings. Do you have any ideas of like, what could be like a thematic grouping? [00:49:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I was just looking here at some of the upcoming locations to see if that could give us any clues. But before I get there, you brought up a few things that I was thinking about the Taylor thing. I agree with you. I think that will happen. I think she's waiting until all of the re-recording come out. [00:49:45] So I don't think 1989 [00:49:47] Taylor's version came out. I don't think that Reputation Taylor's version came out. So I think once those come out and she's like, yes, you can play all my non-Scooter Braun owned music wherever you want after that, then I think [00:49:59] she'll do it. so I think she's kind of waiting there. [00:50:02] Louie Mandelbaum: Yeah. I think [00:50:03] Dan Runcie: do it. I don't think that I mean, there's no Super Bowl team in Canada, so there's no tie in there, but I wanna see him do it. I mean, I've been a fan of his for a while, but some upcoming locations. So you have this one in Arizona. The next one is in, Las Vegas, and then the one after that is in New Orleans. [00:50:19] New Orleans could be interesting. I feel like, you know, a whole bunch of, you know, culture with vibe there. I don't know. what artists necessarily, I know you have a lot of, hip hop [00:50:27] Louie Mandelbaum: Big Freedia Super Bowl halftime show when? [00:50:30] Dan Runcie: Big Freedia would be something, oh man, I feel like they'll do something with that. Assume that, you know, rock Nation is still involved. I feel like we'll get something cultural there. But, the one person that I do wanna say, and I think you mentioned this on a podcast as well, I think I love Bruno Mars as a performer. It was too early though, and I think you're right about that like he performed before Uptown Funk, before 24K magic. [00:50:54] And I think that he may have done like a snippet of those songs at the Coldplay one that he guested it on with Beyonce. But no, [00:51:01] we have a [00:51:01] Louie Mandelbaum: whole next. [00:51:02] Yeah. He did Uptown Funk. I. [00:51:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, we have a whole next set of those to do. And maybe if it's too bland to do him again, maybe you mix him with someone else or something like that, you know, him and Cardi B have done a few songs, like something like that could be kind of cool. [00:51:16] Louie Mandelbaum: Yeah. What about Nicki and Cardi? I mean, like we haven't had a female rapper headline on her own. [00:51:22] Dan Runcie: I mean, can you get those two in a room though? [00:51:25] Louie Mandelbaum: No, not together. Not together. Not together. I mean like what about one or the other? I mean, Cardi, maybe not, but Nicki certainly is a generation defining pop artist who like certainly deserves her own show. I think that'd be an interesting choice. I think the New Orleans one is really interesting because you're like, all right, you could have like Wayne as like one of the primary headliners of that, you know, and then you could like mix in. [00:51:50] I don't know, like other famous, you know, there's so many famous New Orleans artists. You could do like a Cash Money, Drake, Wayne, Nicki, [00:52:01] Dan Runcie: That would be special. That would be special. [00:52:04] Louie Mandelbaum: Mm-hmm. [00:52:05] Dan Runcie: All right. Well, we're calling that now. That's our prediction. We'll have to check back, but that's our prediction for when is this? February 2025. So two years from now, Drake, Nicki, and [00:52:14] Wayne. The Cash [00:52:15] Louie Mandelbaum: Right on. We'll have to check in about. That seems like an obvious good one. I mean, honestly, great show I That would be amazing. [00:52:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No, that would be something that would be good. But no, Louie, this was so much fun. Thank you again for coming on and for the folks that are listening and want to hear more about how you break down pop artists, where should they go? [00:52:35] Louie Mandelbaum: They should subscribe to Pop Pantheon wherever you get your podcasts. It's really a taxonomy of pop stardom. We take them all one by one. We have really in-depth discussions about their careers and disc photographies, and then we rank them in a series of tears called the Pop Pantheon. So if you are interested in pop music, I think it's both informative and fun and smart and stupid at the same time. So if you like to talk about pop music and to overanalyze it as we do, follow us at wherever you get your podcast, Pop Pantheon, and also we're on Instagram and Twitter at Pop Pantheon pod. And I'm @DJLOUIEXIV on Instagram and Twitter. [00:53:18] Dan Runcie: Awesome. Great stuff. Thank you. Appreciate it. | |||
| 18 Nov 2024 | AI and Music - Trapital Summit | 00:29:10 | |
Here’s another great fireside chat from our Trapital Summit. Listen to Warner Music Group’s chief digital officer Carletta Higginson and MIDiA Research’s Tatiana Cirisano discuss AI’s impact on music, and the ongoing tug-of-war for startup founders asking for permission vs forgivenes. Higginson has seen it from all sides of the table; as an attorney, at YouTube, and now at a major label and rights holder. Enjoy!This episode was brought to you by Too Lost, the all-in-one technology solution for musicians and record labels. Learn more here. | |||
| 01 Sep 2023 | Napster's Impact on Music and Culture | 01:22:21 | |
Napster. The name alone brings back memories of the wild, wild west of the dot-com bubble. We'll take you back to the late 90s and early 2000s. Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning’s creation was a game-changer. But was its influence bigger than its actual impact? Who won and lost the most from Napster? Could the situation have been handled differently? We break down all that and more I’m joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. Here’s everything we covered this episode: [00:002:13] Napster's rise [00:8:25] CD boom, internet growth, Sean and Shawn [00:13:43] Internet culture in the late 90s [00:18:21] Napster's early growth in users. [00:25:07] Artists picked sides on the Napster debate [00:36:55] Legal and business model challenges. [00:42:13] When Napster shut its doors [00:48:32] Asking for permission vs forgiveness [01:00:10] Limewire, BearShare, and KaZaa [01:08:16] Life after Napster for Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker [01:14:41] Where Napster is today This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | Motown Records: The Hit Factory That Changed Music Forever | 01:18:33 | |
Few record labels have left their stamp on the industry quite like Motown. This assembly line churned out hit song after hit song in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. With a who’s-who roster — Marin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, among others — The Hitsville U.S.A. sign Gordy put on Motown’s front door became warranted. This episode is the story of Motown Records — it’s formula for success, what led to its decline, and where it stands today under Universal. I’m joined by friend of the pod, Zack O’Malley Greenburg. Here’s what we covered in this episode: 0:38 Berry Gordy’s origin story 8:08 Motown museum in Detroit 9:20 Cultivating a culture of creativity 13:05 Shifting the sound of Black music 20:12 Motown’s knack for discovering talent 34:29 The beginning of the decline 36:12 80’s decade of transition 39:48 Post-Gordy struggles 45:51 Motown’s uncertainty today 53:59 Best signing? 55:16 Best business move? 568:45 Dark horse move? 1:01:58 Biggest missed opportunity? 1:07:13 Motown big-screen picture 1:09:22 Berry Gordy won big 1:10:41 Who lost the most? 1:14:56 Zack’s Jay Z index Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Zack Greenburg: Berry Gordy created with Motown and sort of the Motown genre, which I think really like more than any label has become synonymous beyond just sort of like the name of label itself, you say Motown music, and a testament to the sound that he created, [00:00:13] Dan Runcie Audio Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:38] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is a deep dive into the one and only legendary Motown records. At its peak, Motown was the most successful black business in the country. It peaked at 30 million dollars of revenue in 1968 and Barry Gordy and his team assembled a sound. a unique genre of music that produced hit after hit after hit and Hitsville USA lived up to its promise. So in this episode, we take you through the origins of how Motown came to be. What are some of the business principles and strategies that worked in its favor? And then what are some of the challenges that Motown faced too? It's now been 50 years since the peak of Motown. And this record label has had plenty of ups and downs and plenty of journeys that we went deep on in this episode. And I'm joined by Zach Greenburg He is a biographer of Jay Z and several others, and he also wrote about Michael Jackson. And in that he talked about Michael Jackson's time with Motown, especially in the Jackson 5. So we had a lot of fun in this one. So come take a trip down memory lane with us. Here's our episode on Motown. [00:01:42] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're back with another case study style episode, and we're going deep into Hitsville, USA. Motown, baby. Let's do this, Zack, I'm excited for this one. [00:01:53] Zack Greenburg: Thanks for having me as always. [00:01:55] Dan Runcie: Berry Gordy is so fascinating because At one point, this was the most successful black business. They're the most successful black entrepreneur in the country invented a genre. And it's so hard to be able to do that. And that legacy still lives on today. We know so many record labels that have taken inspiration from what Berry Gordy built with Motown records, but let's start from the beginning. What inspired Berry Gordy to even want to get involved with music in the first place? [00:02:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. So, you know, Berry Gordy, and his family were in the Detroit area, you know, a bunch of serial entrepreneurs, get a record shop early on, but he was actually like semi professional boxer coming up. And, think one thing led to another and you just kind of saw that, you know, there was a market that was not being served in music. you know, certainly like the business was concentrated, on the coast and particularly in New York at that time, you know, eventually more in LA, but. you know, there was some stuff going on in Chicago. there was some regional acts, regional labels, things like that. But, you know, I think he just basically saw an opportunity, to start something. And, you know, sort of in the way that if you look at, Richard Branson or Puffy or, you know, what are those types of entrepreneurs? It's almost It doesn't really matter what they get into. They find a way to make it work. and they're just always on the lookout for a new sector. That's, kind of, you know, right for some creative destruction, know, and some refreshing or some freshening, some revising, I don't know, whatever you would call it. And, you know, in the case of Berry Gordy. Kind of amazingly, when you think about music over the past half century, he looked around and he thought, well, this is actually, this is a sector that is very promising amongst all the sectors that I could possibly get into. So, that's how Motown came to pass. [00:03:36] Dan Runcie: That point about whether it's Diddy, Branson, Gordy, and I think a lot of the tech CEOs fall in this category as well. You're going to put them in any generation. And I do think that these people would have found a way to make things work. And that's the same point you're making, right? He saw an opportunity to music, but let's say he came 30 years later. It could have been another aspect. Let's say he came today, probably could have been trying to do something in AI or even figure it out, how to make AI, be transformative with his music. And I think a lot of his work, whether you think about how he built derivative work or how he had this process with artists that we'll get into so much of it taps into, okay, here's an opportunity to optimize things. Here's how we can make things work. And music just happened to be the format. He chose it. [00:04:21] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And even, you know, when you think about it, he got started sort of mid century 30 years later, he was looking into other things, getting involved in film and TV. And You know, moving the business out West, but, you know, we'll get there eventually, but, he certainly did, you know, find other ways to extend the Motown brand as time went on. [00:04:37] Dan Runcie: So he starts off, he has this record business and things go okay with that. specifically talking about the store. And that was a lot of it was connected a bit more from the family perspective, but then he ends up getting the job at Ford specifically working with that Lincoln mercury plant. And that's when he was only there for 2 years, but he then sees how the process works and the whole concept of Ford is, which is that assembly line process that Henry Ford has been famous for. He sees that and then he taps back into his opportunities with music and he's like, okay. Okay, there's an opportunity to do the same with music. So he sees this assembly line, essentially have all these parts go through the inputs. And then the output, you get this car, he wanted to be able to pull some kid off the street, bring them into the Motown and bring them into this record label facility. And then outcomes a star. And he felt like he had the ability to be able to create that type of dynamic. And it took some time to get there, but that's essentially what he did. And a lot of the creations of what we saw from Hitsville USA was that exactly. [00:05:48] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And, he'll tell you that, I've interviewed him a couple of times. Once for Forbes, once for my book, Michael Jackson Inc, where he talked a lot about that. And, you know, he really has a formula, for making a hit song. And, you know, it's sort of like the song has to have a clear beginning, middle at an end. The chorus has to have a sort of grand arc that summarizes the song every time it happens. And then there's a sort of like grand finale bridge ending thing that, brings it all together, always at the end you hear the artist shout out the song's name almost, you know, invariably one last time and you know, that's like pure marketing, right? And you think about it in those days, this great songs on, you're hearing it, but like, you know, maybe you're in the car, it's on the radio, maybe you're artist and a record player. It's not popping up on your phone. So you know what it's called when you hear Michael Jackson shout out, I want you back at the end and I want you back. what you're going to go out and buy, you know what, you're going to call in, you know, to the radio station and ask them to play. So, it's very calculated, it really works and it's proven and, you know, if it sort of seems like, gosh. You know, this is like a cliche. This is obvious. I think part of it is because he helped create this cliche, obvious thing, right? I mean, things become cliche or obvious because they're smart or necessary most of the time. So, you know, at some point it was novel and, you know, very corny, I think was part of, making that whole song structure novel. And, you know, really. When you look at how he executed it, you know, I think a modern day analog, we talked about this, you know, before on our bad boy episode, but so, you know, his role was very much like the Puffy role, or at least the early Puffy role in production. So, you know, he had a hand in songwriting and production, but, you know, mostly he figured out who he wanted to have producing his labels, songs and sort of who he wanted to be in charge of authoring that certain type of sound. So for Berry Gordy, it was a handful of, producers called the corporation, just like Puffy had the Hitmen. And, you know, then he would kind of come in and do his own little thing on top when he thought it was necessary. But, you know, in a way it kind of adds that whole assembly line aspect, right? Where, you know, that there's going to be a certain level of quality, there's going to be like a distinctive sound, whether it's a bad boy or Motown, or, you know, even going back to, you know, what a Ford car was, you know, in those days you had kind of an ideology to get. And I think that's one of the things that really set Motown apart. [00:08:08] Dan Runcie: Exactly. And I think with that too, you have him going through the process of starting this. So this record label started with an 800 with 800. That's what he had initially. And he uses that to then start Hitsville USA. So that's the location on Grand Ave in Detroit. Have you been to this museum by the way? [00:08:30] Zack Greenburg: I did. We did a special event there. One time we had the Forbes 30 under 30, Summit and we did this like, special, like one off private interview where I went there with Quavo and we sat in Motown studios, you know, where Michael Jackson and all them had recorded. and we did a little like video discussion on the state of the music business, I think it's floating around the internet somewhere, but, it's a really cool building. I mean, I think what strikes. Me the most, you know, like the first time I went in is like the fact that just a house. I mean, it really just looks like a house. the rooms are sort of like room size, you know, it's not some sprawling like, you know, I don't know, institutional type place like a lot of modern, recording studios, you know, it's just a converted house but you know, you kind of walk through each room and it's museum and everything now, so you can kind of get a feel for it. It's very different from the modern day glitz and glamour of the record business for sure. [00:09:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah, been there twice. it was really cool because just like you said, you feel like you're actually in a home and that's the vibe that the studio gives you. And I felt like the people that were the tour guides as well, they clearly knew their history in a way where it should sound obvious, but that could obviously be hit or miss with museum sometimes. So I felt like that piece of it was good. And it ties back to a few things that tap into the culture that it is. Gordy wanted to create that. I think make it work. He lived upstairs. Studio is downstairs. So he has everything there and he wanted to make this somewhere that creativity could spawn at any particular moment. So he wanted to create a 24/7. Set up where he had made sure the vending machines were always stocked. So people could stay there year, you know, day in day out. If creativity comes to you at 3 p. m. or 3 a. m. you can go right there and do what you have to do. And you could keep things moving there internally. And this is one of the things that I do think worked really well for them because. Although I think the music industry has gotten away from this, there was this era where the culture and the vibe that you could create from a label and all that continuity really helped things. So when you saw how deliberate he was from an assembly line perspective was essentially keeping his product in place and keeping all the materials in place so that it can produce outputs at any given moments to just increase the likelihood that you could have hits coming time and time again. [00:10:49] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I mean, he certainly spoke a lot about, quality control, which is, it's kind of funny, you know, given the eventual QC relationship, but, you know, I think that's a really big part of it. And when you're that hands on and, you know, in some cases you could say micromanaging, but it does enable you to really have a unified. We can also get into this, fact that at some point it can become a bit of a creative constraint for artists as they mature. [00:11:14] Dan Runcie: Right, because with quality control, there was someone on the team that listened to everything that came through Motown and they essentially picked the best. They brought it to this weekly meeting and most of the Motown artists weren't writing or producing their materials necessarily, but they were going in and you had all these artists that would essentially sing. The same exact song and then they would pick the best version that came out of that to then release the song. Sometimes they had multiple artists that would end up releasing a version. And we saw different versions of this where you had both Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye have their versions of Ain't No Mountain high enough. Granted it was a few years later in different songs, but a lot of that stems from that quality control aspect. And there's this one quote that, was here from One of the books that was written about, Berry Gordy and Motown, where they talked about quality control and they said, quote, the artists were a means to an end in a way, end quote. And that's exactly what we're talking about how the downside is that it could limit creativity, but the upside is that it gives you the opportunity to get the best polished diamond from all of the creations that come from this studio. [00:12:24] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And man, there were quite a few, right? I mean, when you look through, I mean, the heydays, Smokey Robinson, the Miracles, Diana Ross, the Supremes, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, coming into, you know, Michael Jackson, the Jackson 5, you know, think we've talked about in our previous discussions about hip hop, you know, like sort of the staying power, of different labels and, you know, and how you can kind of keep identifying talent and keep it coming. I mean, that's quite a breadth You know, of like musical accomplishment that they've got, that you could say that Berry Gordy identified over the years. So, you know, I would really, obviously I'd put him up against any other, identify any A& R, any, you know, music mogul in the history of the business, for sure. [00:13:05] Dan Runcie: I agree. And I think the other thing that's interesting too, is This taps back into the whole process and quality management things. Berry Gordy really wanted to help shift the sound and direction of this label because at the time, black music and music that was made by black artists was quite segmented where people didn't feel like it could reach beyond a certain audience. And he experienced some of this himself. One of the reasons that his record stores closed was because he was focused primarily on jazz music. At the time, even Black folks weren't really into jazz at that particular moment. So he just didn't have the market to be able to continue this. So I think that helps Chase Motower. He says, okay, I want the music that's able to be listened to by everyone. I want Black people to ride with it. I want white people. I want anyone in America to be able to ride with the same way that people would listen to the Beach Boys. And he had a few more interesting things that were part of this process. One, everyone had an etiquette coach. And these are things that we're teaching them, essentially, how you have black people essentially speak to white people. Granted, I think there's a lot of that that is problematic. That probably wouldn't fly into the same ways today, just given some of the language there. but then additionally, he also had white salesmen that were essentially the ones that were promoting the records in different areas, going to different radio stations. And he would go as far to insert in records that he's promoting to not even show the artist on the cover because he wanted the record to reach. And he didn't want people to necessarily immediately see or relate it to a black artist, which I thought was interesting, but lined up with a lot of these things. So, even though some of the choices clearly were problematic, it probably wouldn't fly at the same way today. That's how he was about process and wanting to essentially be able to sell this talent anywhere in the country. [00:15:01] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and it's especially remarkable when you sort think of the cultural context of, you know, of when this is all happening in the 60s. You know, I mean, this is a time of great polarization and social change and, you know, really like turmoil, in a lot of ways, disunity, but, what Berry Gordy created with Motown and sort of the Motown genre, which I think really like more than any label has become synonymous like a genre, you know, beyond just sort of like the name of label itself, you say Motown music, and you're talking about like a genre, as much as you're talking about a label, the fact that you'd be able to sort of create that it like in the 60s, even the late 60s, when things were really why we think we're polarized now. I mean, the late sixties, oh my gosh. Like what a testament to the sort of the sound that he created, which, you know, just like bridged all these divides and, you know, you obviously still go to any wedding, black, white, you know, at anything. And, you're gonna hear Motown all over the place. So I think that kind of goes back to what he created, you know, even at the time. being so accessible to so many different audiences and, you know, one of the things he told me, when I interviewed him, he said that, Martin Luther King came to see him, in Detroit, at the peak of the civil rights movement. And apparently, according to Gary Gordy, MLK said, he said, what I'm trying to do politically and intellectually, you're doing with your music. I love the feeling people get when they hear your music. And so maybe we can make a deal. And they made a deal to actually put out some of MLK's greatest speeches. They put out three albums on Motown and Gordy kind of summed it up by saying, if you do the right thing will come to you. So I thought that was such a cool. Little nugget that people don't necessarily realize. and, you know, I think people don't, think of Berry Gordy as like avant garde, you know, civil rights activist or anything, but, he kind of approached it in his own way, which was to make this music that could, you know, that could really bring people together. They could also get black culture, you know, into the mainstream us culture, at the same time. And, you know, I mean, we saw that, you know, decades later with hip hop, but. Berry Gordy, you know, he made that blueprint, you know, very, very, very early on. [00:17:03] Dan Runcie: It's a great story because I think it highlights the complexity and that people just aren't in these corners. And as you mentioned, Berry Gordy wasn't known for his civil rights activism. In many ways, people would often point to things that he may have shied away from, where I remember, especially in the 70s when you started to hear a bit more of a pacifist and things like that, there was a push and people wanted Motown to lead more into this and he necessarily wasn't as eager at the time and I remember even Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, one of the biggest records that was ever made. There was tension leading up to that because Gordy was like, wait, what is this? you want to do this? Like, what are we doing here? And then it eventually gets made. And then you see how I feel like every time that one of these publications has one of the greatest songs ever made, I'm sure it's come up on number one, or at least on several, one of these. So you see that, and you've seen other areas where he clearly has leaned into this, but I do think that his. Place in his role at that time, often highlighted some of that ongoing tension that we've seen from black leaders over the years about people want progress, but what's the best way to agree with this? And you date back to some of the more public debates between folks like Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois about what is the best way for black progress and group economics and things like that. And I feel like Berry Gordy clearly was on a Particular side of that, that not everyone may have agreed with, but he clearly still wanted to be able to help progress things in a particular way. So he's a very fascinating figure as we look at this progression, especially in the 20th century. [00:18:42] Zack Greenburg: Well, that's right. And, you know, I think there's a reason you see him put out MLK speeches. I don't, think he put up Malcolm X's speeches, you know, but that was just sort of his approach, right? He was more Martin than Malcolm. And, you know, obviously you could speak to the merits of either method, but, Berry Gordon definitely, had his preference there. [00:18:59] Dan Runcie: The other thing that I want to talk about, you mentioned it earlier, but the talent and the breadth of talent that was in this place is such a constraint and such a valuable time. It's one of those things where just imagine walking through on a, some day in, let's say 1964, you're just walking through Motown and all of the names that you could just see there making music on a Wednesday afternoon. It's crazy to think of the names and also how he found folks because. Look at Smokey Robinson and Smokey Robinson, the miracles essentially end up releasing shop around, which I do think ends up becoming the first true hit that, or the first, hit single that comes from Motown. He found that he found Smokey on a street corner performing almost, and in many ways, it feels similar to. What we see decades later with Sylvia Robinson driving around the New Jersey tri state area, finding hip hop artists for Sugar Hill Gang. This is how these early entrepreneurs did it. They were the talent development. They saw things and granted it was a much less crowded market. So the people that were pushing music onto folks had a little bit easier time breaking through, but it was still tough, especially at the time. And he was able to make it work in that way, which was, cool. [00:20:13] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, he actually did. And, you know, of course, like the one group that we haven't talked about too much yet is Jackson and sort of the way that, different groups were signed in those days, you know, they're all the stories about, well, you hear, you see somebody busking and you sign them and this and that. And, sort of some of the stories, though, if you talk to a lot of different people, you get, you talk to 3 people, you get 3 different stories. Right? So, I think for my book on MJ, I talked to. His dad, I talked to Berry Gordy and I talked to the guy who signed them to this little record company called Steel Town in Gary, Indiana. And they all had three different versions of, you know, how it went down, right? And so, there's that old saying, basically that the winners get to write history and, you know, Berry Gordy won. So, you know, whether his version is a hundred percent, accurate or not, that's kind of the version that, you know, we tend to hear I think his version is usually correct, but there's definitely some, you know, embellishment or some showmanship from time to time. So, you know, I think, for example, with the Jackson 5, Berry Gordy decided to put out, I think it was their first album as Diana Ross presents the Jackson 5 and, you know, she had this little thing where she's like, I discovered this group from Gary, Indiana and like blah, blah, blah, and that wasn't really how it happened at all. And it was really, you know, depending on who you ask, but I think what happened is Suzanne DePasse, who was one of Berry Gordy's lieutenants, had discovered them, and I think it was, there's another band who heard them, like sent them along to Suzanne DePasse that like, she kind of did the legwork for Berry Gordy. And it was like many times, many. Kind of connections later that Diana Ross, you know, became connected, to the group. but, you know, it's such a better story, right? Like Diana Ross has found these kids from, from the Midwest and, you know, bringing them out, onto Motown. So. I always think that's, kind of funny how, the stories end up getting presented and, you know, when you hear it from everybody else involved, I mean, and Diana Ross, of course, did become, really instrumental and especially Michael's life, as time went on, moved to LA and I think she, he actually lived with her for a little while while they were, you know, making the move and all this stuff, but, you know, it, didn't exactly start out that way. [00:22:18] Dan Runcie: Right. And the Jackson 5 is interesting because they, in many ways were the last group that came through in the heyday of Motown because the heyday we're really talking about is that 50 to 60s run that we've been talking about with a lot of the groups and the artists that we mentioned, especially young Marvin Gaye, young Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes. And then Jackson 5 comes along. But they come along towards the end of the decade. And just for some context setting, in 1968, Motown is doing 30 million in revenue. And they at one point had a 65% hit rate on the songs that they released in terms of actually being able to chart. So the highs were quite high and they were, killing it. The thing is, though, in the early 70s, this is where things start to shift a little bit, because at this point, Berry has his eyes set much bigger, and he wants to move beyond things in Detroit, because of course he was in the Hitsville, U.S.A. house, solely, after the riots that happened and there was some damage there, they ended up expanding things closer. they ended up expanding further in Detroit to just get a bigger size studio there as well. But then, he eventually wants to go to Hollywood so that he could get more into film. He wants to get into production for plays. He wants to bring these artists on the big screen. And it makes sense. We see why this is a huge medium. You saw how much, popular this talent is. And if you can get people to see them and buy into this, visual image that he's clearly curated, no different than we saw someone like Diddy decades later curating things, he wanted to do that. And I think that in many ways, this was one of those big challenges that any leader can have. Do you stay with the thing that's working really well? Or do you try to expand? And when you do expand, how do you find out? How do you make sure that you have the best talent around you? How do you make sure that you're well equipped? And I think that bowtie really started to strain because as things started to grow for the label, a lot of the artists started to feel like they were getting neglected because of these broader ambitions. And that in many ways, now we're dating 50 plus years ago to like 1972 timeframe. That's when a lot of ways was the beginning of the end, at least in terms of the Motown that a lot of people grew up with and knew. [00:24:41] Zack Greenburg: I think so for sure. And, you know, I think as an entrepreneur, you have to seek the next thing, right? I mean, you don't want to stagnate and you kind of have to take the risk and go for the next big thing and maybe you succeed and maybe you don't, and I think that's at least the way we've been conditioned to think. On the other hand, there could be an argument for like, we don't need to have this growth at all costs mindset as a society, you know, what's wrong with having a really awesome business that's just like constantly, you know, successful has happy employees, you know, that kind of thing. But, I guess that's, you know, this is, you know, Trapital not, you know, Trapsocialism, I dunno, we're talking within a certain realm of, you know, of economic, styles and systems. So that's what's gotta happen. And that's what Berry Gordy decided to do, you know, by moving everything to LA but we talked, a while ago about John McClain, and his role in kind of in, in the past few decades as an executive. He's somebody who rarely talks, but somebody interviewed him at some point. He said that he thought that moving to LA was, kind of the beginning of the end for Motown, because it, kind of changed Motown from being a trendsetter to being a trend follower. And, I think I agree with that. And, you know, that's not to say that there wasn't additional success, especially, you know, beyond the recorded music business that occurred. And that moving to LA kind of, you know, like supercharged some of that, but yeah, you know, I mean, I think when Motown was in the Motor City, in its namesake place, like, You know, it was sort of like, I don't say the only game in town cause there were other labels, but I think it was sort of, the main game in town and, being in a place that, you know, wasn't sort of the epicenter of the music business allowed it to have kind of its own unique style and not sort of be influenced as much by what else was going on. And, you know, don't forget in those days, it wasn't like everything was, you know, it wasn't like we were all tuning into the same social media channels. you know, we weren't even like really tuned into cable TV or anything like that, you know, there wasn't the same kind of like national culture that there is today that, you know, where trends just kind of like fly across in a second. And things did kind of take time to move from one place to the other. throughout the country. So, you know, there was like a certain regionalism to it that I think set Motown apart and, you know, maybe you lose a little bit, you know, once you're out in LA, but, you know, certainly around that time, you really start to see some of the artists who wanted more creative freedom, leaving, you know, some others pushing back, you know, I think even within, a few years of moving to LA, the Jackson 5, we're kind of, having some issues with Motown and in terms of, you know, can we make some of our own types of music? You know, do we really have to stick to quite the assembly line? So, yeah, I do think it was a mixed bag for Berry Gordy to head west. [00:27:20] Dan Runcie: And this is where things really started to struggle because a lot of what worked for Berry Gordy was so perfect for. The Hitsville USA West Grand Ave mentality of building everything there and not to say that he was only an early stage founder that couldn't necessarily progress. But I think a lot of the processes he had were more fit for that era. So naturally, you see the growing success of the Jackson 5 and Michael is no longer 9 years old. He is at this point now a full on teenager, but unfortunately, it just didn't quite. Progress in a few things, as you mentioned, you wanted more, they wanted more creative control. They also wanted to have a bit more ownership. There were disputes about royalties. And I remember reading something that said that the Jackson 5 had calculated how much they got. And it was only a 2.3% stake of how much revenue was either coming through or would be coming through in the future. And they see this and they're like, okay, well how can we see our opportunity to get more of that? So then they leave for Epic. And then you also saw a handful of artists at this point were already on their ways out and things were definitely starting to look a little bit more bleak because by the time you get to the end of the seventies, the beginning of 1980s, The music industry was already, granted things are cyclical, but they were starting to sour a bit on black music. This was the end of disco and people wanted nothing to do with that genre. And even though Motown wasn't disco necessarily, there was vibes of the types of artists they were trying to naturally capture in the 70s. So then that had all of black music taking a hit in a lot of ways and there were groups like the barge and others that I think they tried to make work. Obviously, I think Stevie Wonder was a mainstay during all this and that worked out really well for them, but he was really just 1 mainstay. You did have Marvin Gaye, but again, still, it just wasn't necessarily. The same, and I think that they definitely started to struggle even more at that particular moment. And even as early as the 80s, you start to see more of that narrative that honestly, you still hear today about recapturing that Motown magic or recapturing that Motown journey. People have been saying this now for 40 years. [00:29:40] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And I think one thing that people forget is that even though the Jackson 5 moved on to Epic, you know, and that's where MJ ended up, you know, Epic and CBS, and, that's where MJ ended up launching a solo career, people forget that Jermaine actually stayed at Motown initially. He had married Berry Gordy's daughter and, you know, they had this whole wedding with like, you know, 150 white doves were released and, you know, they had this, you know, kind of fairytale situation. And apparently, Berry said to Jermaine, like, Hey, you can go with your brothers and stay with me, whatever you want. And, you know, knowing Berry, I think he maybe didn't put it that delicately or, you know, that was kind of a huge break from Motown because you know, he had really taken the Jackson 5 under his wing. They used to have, Gordy versus Jackson family, baseball games. Michael Jackson would play catcher. It was very So, you know, I think Tito was like the big power hitter, is what I heard. but yeah, for, you know, I mean, these were two families that were really intricately linked. And I think ultimately it kind of came down to, you know, there was some creative control issues, but, you know, Joe Jackson was, pretty controlling, Berry Gordy was pretty controlling and at some point, you know, it just, I think it became impossible for them to coexist. And so, Joe kind of guided them over to Epic to get that big deal, but, you know, Jermaine. It wasn't obvious that Michael was going to be, you know, by far the superstar of all the Jacksons. And, you know, Jermaine did seem at the time to be like the one who had the most promising solo career, or at least it was, you know, pretty close. And, you know, he never really found his niche is a solo act and eventually it would go on to get back every night with his brothers and go on tours and that sort of thing. [00:31:22] Dan Runcie: I think that's a good distinction because people will often point to and think about what are the big nine and then he drops off the wall. This isn't what happened. There's a pretty big difference between those few years. No difference than anyone where naturally there's a difference between a 15 year, but there were others that experienced. So many of the artists that ended up leaving at that particular year old artist and a 19 year old artist. You're a completely different person at that point. And that's exactly what we ended up seeing with Michael. So missed opportunity for sure missed opportunities that Motown had, we'll get to miss opportunities in a minute, but you often hear people talk about them not being able to keep Michael, but to your point, the Jackson 5 leaving Motown in 1975, 76, isn't the same as. Them leaving in 1970 time ended up having greater, success once they were able to have a bit of freedom after leaving Motown, which was a bit unfortunate because obviously, I think it would have been great to see them continue that success under Berry Gordy's umbrella and continue to see them grow. But not everyone is going to be Stevie Wonder. Not everyone is there to say, Hey, I'm with you until the end. And I'm going to be riding with you during this entire journey. It just doesn't work that way. People have careers. No different. You see them today where people see a bigger opportunity and the grass is greener. They want to take advantage of that, especially if they don't feel like they are being put in the best position to thrive. So in the 80s, Motown is now officially in its transition recovery mode, trying to recapture what was there and we see a few things happen. So they start leading in on debarge. And a lot of people, DeBarge did have a pretty big hit with Rhythm of the Night, but I do think that they tried to make the DeBarge family replicate some of this Jackson family, where you had El DeBarge, and you had all of these others, but it just didn't quite click, at least in a mainstream way to that perspective, but then you did have Lionel Richie, who did end up having a pretty big career, especially with everything he had done since the, Commodores and, but then you also had Berry Gordy's son that they were also trying to work into the mix, who performed under the name Rockwell, who had had that song, somebody's watching me that Michael had sung the hook on. So you had a few things there, but just didn't exactly click because again, it's stuck in two models. Berry wanted to continue to have complete control over it. And the artists just didn't want that anymore. I think that worked when you were literally giving artists. No giving artists in a region of the country like Detroit a platform and opportunity, but they had no other options. But now they had leverage. Now they could go talk to mca Now they could go talk to CBS Epic and some of these other labels. So Berry's mentality just didn't work as much. And then by 1988 is when we see him transition on from the label, at least as the CEO level. And then we start to see the new blood come in to run the record label. [00:34:30] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. I mean, I think it is important to note that, you know, although you could characterize the 80s as sort of like musical decline era for Motown, you know, in the way that many artists are entrepreneurs, like, seem to be in a period of delays over some decade or whatever, they actually get much richer during that period of malaise, because what they had built before was so good. And there's still kind of like, they're finally cashing in on it, whereas maybe they didn't cash in on it when it first happened. But like, enough of the sort of like older, wealthier decision makers who can pay them more are like, finally getting hip to the fact that, you know, this is a big deal. So, I would definitely think about Motown that context and that, you know, when Berry was able to sell, you know, a huge chunk, of the company kind of like step back from it, that was after like a a period of time when Motown was not as hot as it had been. But you had things going on, like Motown 25 in 1983, that special. Put together, where MJ came back and reunited, with his brothers and the whole Motown crew and he had, you know, all these other artists, but that was actually the first time I think that MJ moonwalked, you know, sort of in public, like you know, he sort of like the popular debut of the moonwalk and it just really kind of, Created, so much buzz around that, that then kind of rubbed off on Motown and didn't really matter whether he wasn't on Motown anymore, but it just kind of gave a little more shine to the label and gave it sort of like, a relevance, I think that helped kind of carry through to the end of the 80s and helped get Berry Gordy, this really big payday. So, I wouldn't discount like You know, I don't know the sort of like delayed reaction that sort of the half life of fame or whatever you want to call it. But, there were still some of these moments that were created, that kept paying dividends as the time went on. I think [00:36:13] Dan Runcie: That's a fair point because he also sold at this smart time when right as we're seeing in this current era that we're recording, it's a very hot time for music asset transactions as were the late 80s and early 90s too. That's when you saw Geffen do many of the deals that he had done and Gordy. Did the same where I believe he made 61 million from the sale, or at least his portion of the sale in 1988, which is huge. You didn't see people, especially black business owners that fully owned everything being able to cash out at that level. So that's a good point. I'm glad that you mentioned that. And with this is when we start to see the transition of leadership. And we start to see a few things that do ring true. Where the first person that takes over is Gerald Busby, who was leading black music at MCA at the time. And even though Motown had had a bit of its malaise in the 1980s, MCA did not, in many ways, it was seen as the leader in black music. And Bubsy was able to. Have quite a good amount of success there with all of the work that he had done. the thing is though, he had started to run into some issues because he was in this weird dynamic where this company, Polygram had owned part of the label, as did Boston Ventures, his private equity group, and Bubsy was at odds with the folks at Boston Ventures about. some creative control. And he had this quote where he says he'd rather quit Motown president than see the label become a cash cow for a huge corporation trafficking off of nostalgia. And that was a quote that was said back in the 90s just thinking about how. Similar, some of those quotes now come to today. And this was someone who was largely credited from helping to say blast black music from that disco era. But unfortunately, I think a lot of those tensions that he had had, at the time just made life a little bit more difficult for him at Motown. So he eventually we Left. And while he was there, he was able to at least get a few things under. Like he was the one that had brought in voice to men. He had Queen Latifah there. He had Johnny Gill, who was another artist at the time that was quite popular, but maybe hadn't necessarily lived on in the way. And his dreams were, he wanted to have Motown cafes, the same way you had hard rock cafes. He wanted to have the young acts going and touring around at different places to recreate that vibe. And this is something that we'll get into. I think we see time and time again, where these leaders have all these dreams and visions for what they see. Motown can be, but because of the powers that be because of other things, they just can't quite get there to make it happen. [00:38:51] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. And I think that one of the things that set Motown apart early on, you know, as sets many startups apart early on, and many record companies are early on is that they were independent and they could do whatever they wanted. And, you know, Berry Gordy was, sort of like the unquestioned leader and, you know, things kind of, in the way that things kind of get done, let's say more efficiently, if not, more equitably in dictatorships, like he could just get shit done, move things around, have it happen immediately. And so when you started to have, you know, these corporate parents, parent companies, you know, you'd have to go through all these layers of approval to do anything. And, kind of like stop being able to be agile. and I think that's especially important in the music business when, you know, you have to. Not be reactive, but proactive, right? You have to be ahead of things. So, you know, if you're getting to a point where you're having to wait on approvals and things like that, you've already lost because you should have been out in front to begin with. [00:39:48] Dan Runcie: And this is something that I think plagued Motown time and time again, because Gordy didn't necessarily operate in this way. He had so many people that wanted to replicate what he did, but they didn't have the same parameters and the same leeway to make those decisions. As you mentioned, they're now working for corporations that now have their own vested interest. And to be frank, one of the tensions that we see often in music is that these brazen, bold leaders want to be able to take big swings and do things that are innovative and off the cuff. And these corporations are hard set pressed on efficiency. They don't want to see overspending. They don't want to see over commitments, or they want to be able to feel like this is being run in a strategic way. This is something that in the Interscope episode that we talked about, Jimmy Iveen struggled with this as well, even as recently as his tenure with Apple music. But this is one of those frequent tensions that happens with music executives. And we saw that continue with the person that replace Busby, which is Andre Harrell. We talked about him a bit in the Bad Boy episode, but Andre, of course, at this time was coming fresh off of Uptown Records where he was working in collaboration with MCA and he was able to build a little bit of his own fiefdom there where granted he still had people he had to answer to, but I think he had a pretty good relationship with the folks at MCA up until the end there. Then he goes to Motown and he sees this opportunity. And there's a few things that stick out about this because. As early as a year ago, he was starting to get rumored as to be the next person to then take over. But then he gets 250k as an initial announcement. He takes out this full page ad, New York Times. And then he has this ad that essentially says from Uptown to Motown, it's on. And it's him sitting in the back of the chair and you see a sweatshirt in the back. And people hated it. People grilled him. The way that they talked about him, the trades and even Russell Simmons and others coming in and giving him shit about it. He had pretty verbal flight fights with Clarence Avon, who was pretty powerful at the time. And Clarence even said he had swung on him at one particular point and was quite critical of him as well. There's this one quote that I think was really funny here, where this was from the Netflix documentary that was, The Black Godfather, which was about Clarence Avon. And, or actually, no, this is before this summer variety interview, but they talked about this as well. The doc, Clarence says, Andre and I didn't get along. And then he pointed to an image of the Motown boy band, 98 degrees. And Avon says, Andre wanted to send these white boys to Harlem to make them sound black. And I was like, you're out of your fucking mind. And it's a funny quote, because I do think that 98 degrees. Maybe didn't exactly have as many hits as they probably would have thought, but in Andre Harrell's defense, and sadly, but true, the mentality wasn't necessarily wrong because of the 90s, the most successful Motown act that you had was Boyz II Men, and we saw at the end of the decade that, what's that guy's name, the con artist that had the boy bands, Lou Pearlman, like, he literally modeled Backstreet Boys and NSYNC after How can I find white boys to men and make them see modern contemporary and make this happen? And that's how he was able to have success there. And that was before, what's his name? That was before Andre Harrell was really getting going. So he saw where things were going. But it just didn't click at the time. It just wasn't right. And obviously 90 degrees ends up having some decent success, but that's well after Andre Harrell had left the label. So he ended up leaving and the press was not kind to him. Literally headlines were. Andre Harrell gets fired from LA Times it's a type of headline that we probably don't see now when record label execs get fired in the same way. I think the industry is much more controlled in its PR sometimes to a fault, but it was very interesting to see that, come through. And another interesting quote from that, Lucian Grange had called the Andre Harrell at Motown relationship, an organ rejection. In terms of the relationship there. [00:43:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, I mean, and it's kind of interesting if you think about, you know, around that same time. What was going on in the music business, what would have been a great fit at Motown that didn't happen, would have been to sign Eminem, right? I mean, rather than try to do it with 98 degrees, if you really want to go and sort of like figure out what the kids are listening to, and do the thing where you have a white guy making black music, like. Holy shit. There's Eminem from Detroit, you know, doing his thing. But, you know, I think it took different kind of Andre to pull that one off. So, you know, in a way well played, you know, I mean, in a way it was like Andre was maybe Andre Harrell was taking some risks, but he wasn't taking quite enough. Like, he wasn't going far enough. He wasn't going way out enough on a limb. So, if you were really going to try to read that Motown, then that then go all the way at the same time, though, I would argue. I mean, if you look back, it's sort of like what worked with Motown and what did it, I think one of Motown's greatest attributes is also a limiting factor. And that's the thing we talked about before it, it's a label, but it's also a genre. And so if you have Motown making hip hop, it's like, wait a minute this isn't Motown. Like this isn't the genre of Motown. Like this is not the thing that I heard at my aunt's wedding, you know, this is something different. So, I think that they got kind of caught in between and I know that they've done all this stuff in hip hop over the years and, whatever, but it still doesn't feel like quite a fit because Motown, I mean that, you know, Motown was Motown, Motown wasn't hip hop and, you know, maybe if it had started getting into hip hop in the early days of hip hop. you know, it would have felt a little bit different about that, but, you know, hip hop is Def Jam, hip hop is is Roc-A-Fella hip hop is Bad Boy, and I just, you know, for all the efforts that Motown has made to get into hip hop, I think, it, has had a hard time, you know, fully sticking in the way that it would need to for Motown to replicate its, early success. [00:45:51] Dan Runcie: And one of the things that I think that a lot of these post Berry Gordy leaders struggled with was... As you mentioned, yeah, with Andre Harrell or others, there was the desire and opportunity to be able to do more, but the combination of the corporate structures in place that just didn't give them the same freedom that a Berry Gordy himself would have had. And then secondly. The business structure of how Motown itself as a company was set up didn't necessarily allow that because even things like radio or promotion and things like that, they still relied on other labels under the corporate umbrella, even to this day to get some of those things in place. So it really wasn't. Given the same freedom, even though their name, especially in the late 90s early two thousands was used in, especially back then it was the whole universal Republic Motown group or whatever the amalgamation was at the time. It really wasn't given the same freedom as some of those other record labels were. And I think we saw those challenges come in from time with some of the other leaders as well, because. Afterward, after, Harrell left, you had George Jackson who was there, felt like a bit more interim there for a couple of years. And then you had Kedar Mazenberg who was there late 90s early 2000. And that was a bit more than Neo soul vibe. You had India, Ari and a few others, but he has this quote that he gave to the independent, 2000 where he says, but we're not going to dominate the pop charts. Like we used to, how can we, there are too many other companies out there for that. So please don't compare it to the Motown of yesteryear. This is someone that is in the leadership role saying that exact quote. like How do you get past that? And then he talks again. I think they made a comparison to Def Jam where he said, you know, Def Jam, it took 10, 20 years to get to this established guidance, the way that you did with someone like a Lyor Cohen. And you essentially had that with Berry Gordy. But again, Lior was doing this before Def Jam ended up, you know, becoming under the whole Island Def Jam group and everything happened there. After that, you have Sylvia Roan, who was rising up the ranks herself. Still one of the most successful Black women in media and music right now. She's currently at Epic, but she had her time at Motown as well. And I'm going to get into her because I have something I want to say for missed opportunities there. And then you get more recently to the era of Ethiopia Habtamirian, who was there from 2011. Up until 2022, and she's 1 of those that I do feel like was put in a pretty hard spot because on 1 hand, she was able to essentially double the market share. Thanks in part to the partnership that she had made with hip hop through quality control to be able to help. them succeed And this is especially when the Migos are first starting to pop off, and then that transitions into the success of artists like Lil Yachty and Lil Baby and City Girls and others. But I think that also some of the overspending and things like that were quite critiqued. And especially from a PR perspective, the same way I was mentioning earlier when. Andre Harrell's challenges were bright front and center for the entire industry to read. Ethiopia's necessarily weren't in the same way. And even in some of the aspects of her leaving, the media had they called it a bit more reflective of, oh, Ethiopia has chosen to step down. When, yes, that's true, but there was also a pretty large severance package from Lucian and others at UMG. And again, I don't think she was necessarily given as much leadership either, because Motown was kind of, and still is kind of under capital, but now they've essentially moved it back. They had announced that she was solely the CEO back in 2021, but that was a pretty short lived. And to be honest, it felt like. Yeah. 1 of those announcements that the industry made in this, like, post George Floyd era to try to highlight and support black CEOs, which was great to see, but she's someone that's talented. You don't want to see her just become a tokenized person to have this. So, even though, like any CEO, I think there was things you could point out that she probably could have done differently. Still wasn't given the most leeway to begin with it. Now we're back in this point where what is Motown who's leading Motown. It's essentially the subsidiary under capital, but it's now a brand. And who knows where things are going to be. And it's quite unfortunate, but given everything that we've said up into this point, it also, isn't that surprising just given the dynamic. [00:50:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think, you know, like you mentioned the the partnership with quality control. I mean, I think. That was a smart way to get more involved in hip hop because that was a brand that did have roots in hip hop more that, kind of resonated. and so when you sort of like, build as a partnership and look at it that way, it seems a little more credible than like,you know, Motown is doing hip hop now. so it's too bad that, you know, things kind of turned out the way they did, but, it's an interesting asset, right? I mean, it's a brand that has a lot of value. But it's not exactly clear, you know, how to sort of monetize it. And I think with Motown right now, it's like, it's probably about more, than the music, right? Like that's maybe where most of the monetization opportunity would be, whether it's, you know, Motown branded, you know, I don't know, films and, you know, I don't know, products, whatever the case may be. It resonates more, I think, than it does, as a record label. And people don't care so much about record labels anymore. Like we've talked about this, you know, in prior episodes, but it's not the same. You're not going to put on your record on a record player and see that big Motown logo on it, you're having something pop up your ear. And there, there's no visual, like, you don't know whether it's on Motown or Def Jam or Universal or Sony or, and you don't probably don't care. Right. I mean, and I think as things have kind of blurred together, genres are blurring together, you know, different, labels are gobbling each other up over the years, you know, people have just kind of like lost track and, you know, sort of like the idea of a label just isn't as important anymore. So, I do think that it's. a valuable piece of IP and, you know, there's things to do with it still. But, you know, I think, Berry Gordy certainly like squeezed, you know, all he could out of it and, did a great job of sort of ultimately profiting off of what it was that he built. [00:52:04] Dan Runcie: Right. Because what you have right now is this brand where they do have Motown the musical, which I do think has been pretty successful, both in the US and in Europe and elsewhere that it's traveled. but that's it. I mean, quality control partnership doesn't exist in the same way since they've been now bought by hive. Hopefully, Ethiopia and those folks were able to at least retain some type of revenue for helping to set the framework to make that deal possible, but we'll see I, where I landed with this is that. The way to quote unquote, I don't want to say save Motown because that can just seems like such a blanket statement, but if you were trying to improve it from its current inevitable state, it would be finding a way to spin off the asset and the catalog from Universal and having it be in the hands of someone else who can make it work. The challenge is Universal isn't going to want to give that asset up. That's one of their most valuable back catalogs that they have. So. I was thinking through it in my mind, the same way that you have someone like a Tyler Perry, who are these modern moguls that have a bit of that Berry Gordy vibe to them. The way that Tyler Perry is, we'll see whether or not he ends up buying BET, but could that same mentality be applied to a record label? And then with that, you're able to then build up your own promotion. You're able to build up your own talent, and then you take things in a slightly different way. I still don't think that guarantees success, but at least you shake things up in a particular way and you still give it that black ownership mentality. You give it a bit more of that independence and the autonomy and you could potentially see what happens because. We all know what the continued fate is as a legacy entity of a catalog holder that it would be under the UMG umbrella. [00:53:50] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, a hundred percent. Totally agree. [00:53:52] Dan Runcie: And with that, I think it would be a good time to dig into some of these categories here. So what do you think is the biggest, this will may be obvious, but what do you think is the biggest signing that they've done or that Motown ever did? [00:54:04] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think I'd go with the Jackson 5 I mean, you know, although Motown did not ultimately profit off of MJ's solo career, in the way that it would have if it had retained him for a solo career, Motown did profit off of the association as he became the biggest musical star, but basically entertainer of any kind in the world. and, you know, going back to the Motown 25 moment, you know, other kinds of associations. So I would say like good process. Not really a bad outcome, but like signing the Jackson 5 could have been the path to also signing Michael Jackson as a solo artist. And then, you know, just because that didn't work out in the end, does it mean that that wasn't a huge signing for them? [00:54:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I was going to say Jackson 5 or Stevie Wonder, which is the one that I had and I say him because of the longevity because even when times were rough, Stevie Wonder still had arguably his best decade in the 70s But, he had a number of them that were there, especially in the seventies. I think that was his strongest run and he stayed through. And I think that in a lot of ways helped bridge the gap during some of those low moments when other artists did come and went. Did come and go. So that was the one I had there. What do you have as the best business move? [00:55:18] Zack Greenburg: Well, okay. This is something we haven't talked about and maybe we should talk about it but more, but here we are, we'll talk about it more now. I think it was Berry Gordy setting up, his publishing company. So, I mean, maybe that's cheating a little bit because it was outside of, Motown itself but of He set up Joe bet, publishing, you know, pretty early on. And he didn't realize, you know, his big payday for it until later 1997, but he sold it for 132 million for just for half of it. so the EMI, and then he sold another 30% for I think 109 million. And then he sold the rest of it for, something like 80 million in, what was that? It was like 2004. So, you know, we're talking like over a quarter billion dollars and that's not inflation adjusted. you know, for the publishing and that, you know, that dwarfed whatever he got for Motown itself. So, and, you know, think about if he held onto it until, the recent publishing Bonanza, I mean, I mean, it could have been close to a billion dollar catalog, right? I mean, you know, there's nothing, really like it out there. So. He was always very smart about ownership and I think Michael Jackson knew that and, you know, studied him as a kid growing up. And that's kind of what convinced Michael to want to own his own work, and also in the Beatles work, which then became the basis of Sony ATV. And that was another massive catalog. So, yeah, I think the publishing side of it definitely gets overlooked and, you know, was ultimately the most, financially valuable part. But, even though it was sort of a separate. Company, you know, I would argue it, for sure it wouldn't have happened without Motown happening. [00:56:51] Dan Runcie: That's a great one. And I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause definitely could get overlooked and doesn't get talked enough about in this whole business. I think publishing in general is something that people don't understand. And so they just don't, dig into it, but he wrote it. I mean, he owned everything. And obviously when you own the value. When you own something that valuable, it has its assets. And I think why publishing continues to be so valuable in the industry is because I think that the origins of the industry have always had this thought of, well, you could get anyone to go sing the song, but it takes a true genius to write the actual underlying product. And I think we've seen that continue time and time again. So that worked out in his favor. The one thing that I'll say is on the production side, this is one of the specific things he did that I did think just helped from a, output perspective, there used to be a rule at the time where a record label could only have, whether it was like one song shared in a particular time period with the radio station. So he was the one that created all these sub labels, whether it was Tamla records or others that were all still, labels that he owned, but he would then release them time and time again and promote those. So it was a different record label that was pushing things onto the consumer, but it was still that Motown vibe. It was still everything that was coming from Hitsville and that helped them just continue to gain and grow effectively and reach the audience. I think as well, combining that with how they were able to maximize derivative work. We talked about this a little bit with the bad boy episode, but so many ways that did he was huge on having the part one and part two of songs or having the remixes or getting the whole bad boy through on this song that was already successful, very Gordy was doing that stuff 3040 years earlier and was able to reap the rewards for that. So I put that as one of the business moves we haven't talked about that I do think is up there for them. That's a really good one. I like that. Yeah. dark horse. Do you have one that doesn't get talked about enough? [00:58:51] Zack Greenburg: Ooh, I'd probably say the publishing again, but, Yeah, I think it applies because you barely hear about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a big deal that I kind of have a hard time not, but you know, I guess, to switch things up, I mean, I would talk about maybe, I mean, you could say Motown 25 certainly, was something that Motown produced. but I mean, I'm almost say. you know, I think like the whiz is an interesting one. Not because it was that necessarily profitable, but because it, you know, it represented Motown's expansion into film and, you know, like, I don't know what you can do with a cast, of musicians. I mean, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson were in there, obviously. that's like a seminal film and I think it was important, you know, culturally, to sort of like an immeasurable extent, you know, even if it wasn't like the most profitable film ever made. It was like, very expensive to make it all that. But yeah, I would kind of look at that as something that was important, just for what it was and not necessarily for what it made. [01:00:01] Dan Runcie: That's a good one. I was thinking about mentioning that earlier, but the timing just didn't work. So I'm glad you mentioned that here. Dark horse, I talked about them a little bit, but I do think the success of Boyz II Men in the 90s for Motown gets overlooked. This was the biggest group in the world at one point. I mean, they were huge. They were everywhere. And they were so commercially successful. They made music for everyone. And I know sometimes people may laugh at it and call it middle school music sometimes, but I think they were. Just able to hit the right note, the right time for what it is. I feel like they really, of any group that has really come since the, I'd say my lifetime of actually being a music consumer, they were the ones that felt the closest to, okay, this feels like a modern continuation of Motown. If you were to say, okay, what does the success of Motown look like, but in a 90s package? It would be Boys II men. They actually had them in an era where it was competitive, and they were quite successful. Unfortunately, it didn't last forever, but I mean, they lasted arguably longer in popularity than a lot of the boy bands and others that came after them, in just in terms of how long that their run was. And, you know, some of those groups may have been more commercially successful, but it's good to see them still thriving. And the fact that they've been in Vegas, they have a good living. They're able to just continue to essentially succeed at this residency model that others have caught on to themselves and have made plenty of money with, I think that they worked out pretty well for Motown. [01:01:32] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And I think they really fit with the Motown ethos, even if it's not like the same genre exactly as, what Motown was before, it's like, you could hear it at your aunt's wedding, right? I mean, you can hear it at your cousin's wedding, whatever. I don't know why I say aunt, like everybody's aunt is getting worse or something or like, it's only recently getting great, but, whosoever wedding it is, you know, you could hear Motown, you could hear Boyz II Men, and I think, you know, that's kind of the continuation of the identity. I think that's a really good point. [01:01:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, so for missed opportunity, I want to go first with this one. And this is what I was holding out on. I was going to share it in the Sylvia Roan focus, but I want to share it now. So in 2007, that's when Sylvia Roan starts have, she's the head of Motown just from a timeline perspective, she's head of Motown at this point. She starts having the conversations with Drake and there was actually some type of deal in place. And this was Drake right around that comeback season era. So far gone, wasn't there. And according to Drake, Drake says that she says that he didn't quite have enough to be able to, you know, make it as a true superstar. He, of course, takes light to that he ends up working with Cash Money and then ends up working with, you know, Republic and thereafter. But this has to be a huge sliding doors moment because he has held it against where he calls Sylvia out on the song. Say what's real the opening track of so far gone. He ended up apologizing because he said some unkind words about her. So he didn't apologize necessarily for the ethos behind what he said, but he apologized for his word choice. He brings it up again, two years later at like some type of award show. And then, you know, he has that song, we made it from the mixtape where he's like a 2007. I was in the lobby at Uptown or whatever. So he goes back to it almost in the same way that, you know, Jordan would go back to being cut on his freshman year, or Kobe is listing all the people that were drafted ahead of him. And then when you think about that in the context of the Michael Jackson, Jackson 5 thing, not working out. Motown almost has this like Portland Trailblazers history where I feel like not getting Michael Jackson and making that work was almost like them drafting Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan 1984 draft. And then years later, them not signing Drake when he was there and wanting to come through is like drafting Greg Oden over Kevin Durant if you're the Portland Trailblazers. And can you imagine how much different Motown's fate would be the past? 14, 15 years, if they had signed Drake, we would be having a very different conversation today. [01:04:07] Zack Greenburg: That's a really great, connection. And I hadn't really thought about it that way. Yeah, absolutely, and you know, for mine, the missed opportunity was, MJ as well. So, you know, you kind of connect it with that through line, I also wonder if like Jermaine was something of a missed opportunity. I guess he was given kind of every opportunity, every advantage you could have had. But, you know, he had the name recognition, but it used to really connect as a solo artist. I mean, I wonder if, they'd maybe given him more creative freedom, maybe given him less creative freedom. I don't know that he could have really been the standout solo artist. But then again, I guess, you know, looking back in the fullness of time, you know, he was never going to be the biggest Jackson brother. So, you know, man, I mean, I know Michael and Berry had a really good relationship. and I think that Michael's dad and Berry you know, didn't necessarily. So. If that had been a little different, they could have stayed. and maybe you would have seen Michael, you know, coming out of the whiz, you know, not profitable movie into making some very profitable records for Motown. But, you know, then again, I mean, and I think that's the big question, right? Like Michael Jackson's records did so well because he was able to be Michael Jackson. Would Berry have sort of like prevented him from taking some of these weird risks? Like, I mean, Thriller is a weird, like, campy song, you know? and it does not fit anything in in the Motown vibe. Do you think Berry Gordy would have been okay with this sort of like, like, you know, very bizarre music video, like dead people walking around. I mean, it's not really in his, assembly line, you know, there are no zombies in the assembly line, for Motown. so who knows how it would have turned out, if MJ had stayed, but, you know, I, I think one way or the other, as with all the Motown artists, right? These are all creative people and they were able to make their own, sort of, you know, put their own stamp on the world. And I think MJ would have been able to do that if he'd stayed too. [01:05:55] Dan Runcie: And I think the same could be said about Drake as well with that timing too, of course, we're talking about now in this context of Drake, in many ways, becoming the most commercially successful artist of the past 14, 15 years. I know you can say Taylor and a few others, but one of. But what would that look like on Motown? We don't know necessarily. Would they have tried to turn him into Trey Songz, and then he's following that path, or something like that, which is something that Drake has spoken to himself. There's clearly something about that continuity of the Cortez Bryan, and then Wayne and Young Money, and being able to have that ecosystem working together, combined with the, with Baby and Slim, combined with the folks at Republic. There is clearly an energy there. And then, you know, if Drake was on a label that didn't even have its own promotion or its own tools, how could that have worked out for him? So some of these hypotheticals don't always necessarily line up, still missed opportunities, but don't necessarily always line up. [01:06:55] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think that cash money gave Drake An edge that he would not have had at Motown, you know, and simply by having that side of the hip hop world, you know, kind of cosigning him, I think it evened out, some of his tendencies in a way that, made him a more well rounded artist. [01:07:13] Dan Runcie: Agreed. before we get to the last piece about who won the most, who lost the most, do you think that we would ever get Motown truly on the big screen? And part of me isn't sure because obviously Dreamgirls, which people have debated whether that's loosely veiled on Motown or not, I probably lead more to yes than not. Berry Gordy hated it. And so many people that were associated with it hated it because of how he was presented. And if that's the reaction to Dreamgirls. Then what would the final output be of something that Berry Gordy did give his blessing on, especially if you want to be able to tell a story as nuanced as the one that we've been talking about now? [01:07:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, I don't think, he would ever greenlight anything that was like, you know, completely 100% accurate, even if it didn't reflect so well on him. But, you know, then again, I mean, you know, his story, it might not be a hundred percent the real story, but it's a great story, you know, so, I guess you could kind of look at it anyway. I don't know. What do you think? [01:08:17] Dan Runcie: It would be a great story and I think that in the right hands, it would be really magical and unique to see something. So many of we've seen so many biopics now done about figures who have had complex histories. And there's always some things that have been debated and nuanced with it as well. I do think that for instance, I think that Elton John Rocketman one was one that I actually thought was better than most people give it credit for. And I think it was honestly better than like Elvis, the more recent movie that had made a ton of money. But I see those, I'm like, okay, they found ways to tell these things. I don't know if Berry Gordy himself, getting back to just him being, wanting to be in control, wanting to have everything be to a certainty. How much creative control is he going to want to offer in that way? Granted, he's now 93 years old. I don't know if I'm seeing him rolling up the sleeves, getting in the weeds in the same way, but it might be a while until we actually see something grace the screen like that. [01:09:13] Zack Greenburg: I think so, too. Just wait for the Baz Luhrmann version. It's coming. [01:09:19] Dan Runcie: Oh, goodness. who do you think won the most out of Motown? This is probably easier. Yeah, I think there's [01:09:26] Zack Greenburg: no way to argue anything other than Berry Gordy, you know, you could make an argument for MJ. I mean, you could say that, he learned so much, that he then took out of this environment where he was really not able to earn that much money. And then, you know, applied it in his own way, applied the lessons, not only to the music, but to the music asset buying, which was, you know, for him, I think, just as lucrative as the music itself. I mean, that's all stuff he got from Berry Gordy, he got from Motown. So, you know, you could make an argument for MJ. I mean, he earned by my calculations, and, you know, I have to go back and look at the exact number, but it was over a billion dollars in his lifetime. And I think it's over 2 billion dollars since he died. And I think that's not even adjusted for inflation. So, you know, I mean, Berry Gordy, made hundreds of millions, you know, MJ made billions. Would he have done it if he hadn't been in Motown? I don't know, but, let's say, I think he always had the talent. but, you know, the business acumen, I think he really picked up in, to a large part from, Berry Gordy, of course, he had some negative business tendencies as well. and some other stuff, of course, that we could have a whole other episode on, but, I think at the end of the day, yeah, he learned a a lot from Berry but, you know, you still got to say Berry is the clear winner from Montana. [01:10:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I agree. Nothing else to add there. I think that was the right take. It's Berry but there's a case to be made for Michael. Here's a new one. who do you think lost the most? [01:10:43] Zack Greenburg: Oooh Jermaine. Yeah, Jermaine. Man, you know, I mean. I don't know, like, why didn't it work? Can we go back and do a whole episode on that? I mean, he had the fandom, the infrastructure, he had like an international fan base. I mean, I guess, I guess it's a matter of, you know, it's always the risk when you have somebody who's part of a really big group and they go out on their own and it just doesn't, you know, have quite the same resonance, but, you know, I mean, he put everything, on Motown, you know, both in his personal life and in his, music career. And it just didn't really quite turn out, I think like anybody had hoped. So. I'll go with Jermaine. [01:11:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think it's fair because even if you look at Janet, right? It's like she may not have had the career that Michael had, but it proved that there was an appetite for other Jacksons, like, people wanted to see this come through, and did he put it, did he bet on the wrong horse? That might be strong, but it wouldn't be a wrong takeaway, I would say, mine is on the executive side. I could be blanket and say every executive that led Motown after Berry Gordy, because I just don't think they were positioned the best for success. But I do think specifically Andre Harrell, because I think if you go back to that era, he was big time. He wasn't even in the. I mean, even beyond just music, because of everything he had when he had that Uptown and MCA deal, and he had that Strictly Business, Strictly Business movie and others, they were elevating him the same way that they were looking at this renaissance of black talent and art, whether you looked at folks like Spike Lee, especially in the post, he's got to have it and do the right thing era, he was in that era. He was in that frame. And I think that everything. Yeah. In a lot of ways, went downhill, at least from a public perception of, you know, global influence. Granted, I know he's still at Harrell Records after he ended up working with Diddy again, but it was more so one of these more journeyman roles of, you know, I have this small thing that can make it work instead of being on a path to being one of the most successful black entertainment moguls from the US. And I think that before Motown and before everything for him. A lot of the challenges and dirty laundry and things that, you know, he obviously was criticized for inefficiency as others were. But I think that there would have been an opportunity for him to be able to realize more of that potential. And it kind of makes me think of just not just categorizing him, but the same way that we look at sports where there's certain franchises that just haven't been able to Get beyond a certain point. I look at the New York Nixon granted up until this point, this year, it's been a pretty tumultuous past 20 years, especially in that post, you know, Riley, Jeff Van Gundy, 90s era. I don't think all the coaches they had were bad, but you have this broader infrastructure with the owner and everything else going on. Like, I don't care if you had, you actually did have Phil Jackson come through. I don't care if you had Steve Curran, Greg Popovich come through. I think they would have struggled as well. And I think that some of that exists with Motown, but just given the structure, you have someone talented like Harrell. And I think a lot of the image got put. On him as someone that couldn't cut it as opposed to this broader structure, that made it tough to succeed. [01:13:58] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think that's a really fair point. And, you know, I think that was sort of the moment when it was like, is Andre going to sort of like, continue staying ahead of his mentor, Puffy or not. And, you know, obviously he did not, and then he went from being the boss to the employee again, you know, not a bad situation, to be in working for Puffy necessarily. I mean, I guess it could be a little tough to work for Puffy sometimes is he referred, but in this case, you know, yeah, he ended up being surpassed by his own. But his own protege, shall we say, which, you know, I guess is also a mark of good mentorship to some level, but he did seem like he got kind of stymied, or hit a ceiling at some point. [01:14:33] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. All right. Before we wrap things up on Motown, anything else that we didn't cover that you wanted to talk through about Motown? [01:14:40] Zack Greenburg: I think that does it. I think, you know, well, I think we could have like five more episodes, but you know, for the purposes of, the listenership, you know, probably we covered it pretty darn thoroughly, I'd say. [01:14:49] Dan Runcie: Agreed. Yeah, and I think this is good. All right. Well, before we wrap things up with this episode, I know you have some new stuff that you've been working on. So tell us about the JayZ index I know this is something you've been working on. We talked about it, a little while ago when you were brainstorming the idea, but it's come to life and you shared it this week. So tell us about it. [01:15:06] Zack Greenburg: That's right. So, you know, back in the day, I was a personal finance reporter at Forbes, and that was even before I, you know, started writing about hip hop and the entertainment business and doing biographies of Jay Z and what have you. And so, when I was a personal finance writer, I used to do these things we called money manager profiles. And basically you just find somebody who managed private assets in an interesting way. Maybe it was like an endowment or something, and you would kind of like try to put together, something that was representative that, you know, retail investors could buy. And so it occurred to me the other day, like, you could do that with Jay Z. He has his hands and, you know, so many different pies at this point, so many of the companies that he's been involved with are now tied to, publicly traded companies. And, you could actually create like a Jay Z Index. So I kinda, I just sort of like started as a thought experiment. and then I dug a little bit deeper and I came up with 11 different stocks and, you know, I did allocations based on sort of what his, percentage of his overall net worth they represent. And, you know, so it goes from, you know, something as small as luxury vehicles, 2%. I put Rolls Royce, which is publicly traded, which makes jet engines in addition to cars, because Jay Z has, you know, a private jet in addition to his, automobile collection, you know, all the way up to some of the companies that he does business with, whether it's, you know, live nation and the rock nation partnership, LVMH, which is now, you know, his partner on Armand de Brignac, there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there. So I put it out on my sub stack, which you can find at Zonglong.com. It'll take you right to the thing and to check it out. But, yeah, I just, you know, we always have put the caveats of like, investing involves risk. This is not a solicitation to buy securities or whatever, but, you know, I just thought it was really fun exercises. I talked about it like, it's not the same, obviously you can't create Jay Z's portfolio. a hundred percent, because that's the point. That's why a billionaire cause he does these things. He seeks them out. He attaches his name to it and they become more valuable. But I like to call it, you know, like you could build a Lego model of the empire state building, you can do that equivalent, with this portfolio. And, so actually I created a Google Finance watch list, and I'm going to track it and see how the JayZ index performs against SOP and some other benchmarks. And, you know, maybe we can talk about it again in six months or something. [01:17:19] Dan Runcie: That's awesome. So for all the people out there that would rather take a dinner with Jay Z instead of getting 50, 000, maybe we should check out this index. Then you can see how it compares. And maybe your money would actually be better off investing how Jay Z invests instead of passing up 50, 000 for the chance to talk to them. [01:17:36] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, what's his line at, I'm trying to give you a million dollars worth of game for 9.99 so trying to give you a billion dollars worth of game with the Jay-Z Index. So check it out. [01:17:46] Dan Runcie: Nice. And yeah, we'll link to it in the show notes for sure. Very good. Very good stuff, man. Always a pleasure. [01:17:52] Zack Greenburg: All right, Dan, as always, have a good one. [01:17:54] Dan Runcie: You too. Take care. All right. [01:17:56] Dan Runcie Audio Outro: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast. Go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 05 Nov 2021 | Dave Mays on The Source's Legacy, Launching Breakbeat, and State of Hip-Hop Media | 00:49:49 | |
Dave Mays is the founder and former CEO of The Source Magazine. In today’s episode, he weighs in on the magazine’s legacy, the evolution of media, and what hip-hop is all about. He then talks about Breakbeat, a new podcast network that he co-founded and heads. He also discusses the success of the podcast “Don’t Call Me White Girl”, the boom of podcasts, and the projects he is working on now. If you want to get into podcasts that are all about hip-hop, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights: [03:10] About The Source Magazine and The Source Awards [11:15] Some lessons that can be learned from The Source [14:15] What led Dave to start Breakbeat [20:55] His future plans for the podcast network and a hip-hop-based app [25:22] His transition from behind the scenes to being a voice on the network [27:08] How he met his business partner and how he measures success [34:00] Dave’s observations about the podcast landscape [39:32] What Breakbeat is currently working on [45:05] The process of creating a docu-series on Larry Hoover Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Dave Mays, @therealdavemays, Breakbeat
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 17 Sep 2021 | DJ Semtex on Donda, Certified Lover Boy, Podcasting, and UK Hip-Hop | 00:49:02 | |
DJ Semtex is an author, a podcaster, a radio host, and a DJ. In part 2 of our conversation, he shares his thoughts on Donda and Certified Lover Boy, diving into how these albums reflect on Kanye West’s and Drake’s artistry. He then weighs in on music journalism, fan feedback, and the gradual comeback of live performances. He also talks about podcasting and compares it to doing radio shows, going into some of his interviews. If you’re a fan of DJ Semtex or you’re just looking to start your own music podcast, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights: [02:35] DJ Semtex’s thoughts on Donda and Certified Lover Boy [09:15] Why Donda is a masterpiece [16:25] Music criticism in the era of social media [22:32] What music events are like now compared to pre-pandemic [28:45] Whether or not hip hop will reach a saturation point [34:05] Podcast interviews versus radio interviews [42:50] How hip hop has changed the podcasting scene and online consumption [52:55] Some UK artists to watch out for Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: DJ Semtex, @DJSemtex, DJ Semtex Links:
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 24 Feb 2022 | The Future Of Live Music with Kevin Shivers, Partner at WME | 00:34:09 | |
It’s no secret that touring is the lifeblood of most modern-day musical artists. But while most fans only see the finished product — a head-bobbing performance at Coachella or a sold-out nightclub — few get a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work being done by professionals like Kevin Shivers, a partner in WME’s music division. Let this interview with Kevin be your inside look at what goes into the live performances that fuel the entire music industry. Kevin has been with WME since 2008 after a stint in Hollywood. While with WME, he’s worked with stars such as Tyler The Creator, Summer Walker, Kid Cudi, and plenty more on their touring strategies. Of course, Kevin’s world — much like every other industry — was dealt a massive blow during the past two years. But with live shows seemingly back (knock on wood), Kevin has his eyes toward the future. And the future is an even better fan experience, says Kevin. NFTs, virtual concerts, removing the frictions of going to a real-life show — these are all ongoing evolutions that will better connect superfans with their favorite artists. We covered this near-term future in our interview, plus a whole lot more. Episode Highlights [2:15] How Kevin Broke Into The Entertainment Business [4:00] How Has the Music Business Changed In The Past Two Years? [5:25] The Go-Forward Plan For 2022 [6:40] What Spurred Tyler The Creator’s Big 2021 [9:35] What Data Goes Into Entering New Touring Markets [13:10] Festival Strategies With Artists [14:56] How Has Streaming Changed Touring Trajectory [17:10] The Biggest Touring Mistake [18:30] Social Media’s Influence On Touring [19:30] Touring Difference Between Hip Hop And R&B [21:02] How Kevin Measure Success For Himself [23:00] Why Kevin Is So Vested In Mentorship [25:19] Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives Within The Music Industry [28:46] The Impact Web 3.0 Will Have On The Music Industry [31:20] Will Virtual Concerts Replace Live Shows? [32:30] Five-Year Predictions For Music Touring [34:43] How Many Days Will Kevin Spend At Shows In 2022? [35:40] How Do You Find The Next Musical Star? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Kevin Shivers, Instagram: @bellmeadallstar
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands _____ Transcription: The Future Of Live Music with Kevin Shivers, Partner at WME Kevin Shivers 00:00 You gotta ask yourself after arenas, then what? Where are you going after that? I mean, like, you know, you might already have that plan in your head, but like these careers are, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Dan Runcie 00:18 Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast! I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Kevin Shivers. He's a partner at WME, and he represents some of the biggest artists in the game like Tyler, the Creator, Summer Walker, and more. We talked about how he was able to maximize the big year that Tyler had last year. I feel like Tyler headlined so many music festivals, and had so many appearances. Kevin talks about what it took to make that happen, especially given how turbulent things were with COVID, and all of the restrictions and variants that came through and how he was able to still make it happen. We talk more broadly about music festivals in the strategy that Kevin has for making sure his clients can get certain buildings on the roster. We also talked about Summer Walker and how he was able to do the same for her. Then, we talked more broadly about what it's like as a black executive, especially in representing artists. There are not too many people at agents that are at Kevin's level that look like Kevin, so we talked about that. Some of the advocacy work and mentoring and giving back that he's done and he's prioritized in his career, and so much more. It was great to have Shivers on here. I hope you enjoy this. Here's my chat with Kevin Shivers. All right, today, we got one of the most powerful agents in the game. Kevin Shivers partner at WME. Welcome to the pod, feels like we're long overdue. Kevin Shivers 01:49 Thanks for having me, Dan. It's a pleasure. Dan Runcie 01:51 Yeah, it's funny because I feel like this time of the year, I always see the festival posters come up for all of the music festivals. And I'm sure you've seen the one where they replace the names of the festivals with the agencies that they're all part of. And whenever I see the WME, I'm like: Man, Kevin was on his game this year. Kevin Shivers 02:10 It's definitely not all me, man. There are so many great agents at work here. Happy to be a part of this team. Dan Runcie 02:15 So you've been in the game for a while now. But let's take a step back. Because I know you've been working at the agency for some time. But what was it that first attracted you to the business? Kevin Shivers 02:27 I had to say it was my mother. When I was a kid growing up, my mother would drag my brother out of movies every weekend. And that's the first time in my head where I got: Wait, I would love to work in entertainment because I love the movie so much. My mother loves movies so much. Even during COVID, she was still going to the movies. And that's like the really, my first interest into the business. When I graduated from high school, I went to college at University of Texas. I majored in film with the plan of moving out to LA and being a producer. And I did move out to Los Angeles, I started interning at The Weinstein Company at the time. And then I went on to this Company Cost of Beanie films, they had a deal at Weinstein. And from there, I kind of entered into the film business, and I got my first taste into: This is not for me, this is not what I want to do in my life. Partly because I was really bad at my job, like I tried, but I didn't want to read 30 scripts a week. This is not what I wanted to do. And then I pivoted, I left there. And I went to this place called Cats Media Group, which is like they did TV sales. And I knew that, that wasn't long term. And I went there to stay in Los Angeles, and to figure it out. And from there, I figured out I wanted to be an agent and WME. I had some experience in music and in Austin like going to shows. I knew a promoter, this guy Charles Adler, Ramsay Three. And at the time, it was the William Morris Agency. And that's my first interest into entertainment. Dan Runcie 03:56 Nice. And I feel like the past year and a half, almost two years now. It's probably been unlike any other time period since you've been in this. What's that been like for you? Kevin Shivers 04:05 You mean like COVID, and the ways impacted shows? It's been wild, right? Like if I go back to 2020, there was so much going on in the picture of even the world and in all of our lives. You had George Floyd, you had Trump and you had COVID and uncertainty. So 2020, being an agent, it was moving shows from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. That doesn't work for all the social things that are going on in the world to 2021. The first six months were kind of the same of 2020, and the first light in the tunnel I think was Rolling Loud, like Rolling Loud played, and then Lollapalooza was maybe a week or two later. And then you start seeing Austin City Limits and Outside Lands playing off in some tours. And then we started; it started to make sense, then Omicron came along, and we're like back for a period of time back at square one. But it seems like 2022 is gonna bring a lot of joy, you know. Shows are planned, Superbowl is happening in a few days, Pro Sports are going along. So it seems a lot of positivity. Dan Runcie 05:10 What do you think will be different for 2022 and 2023 thereafter? Because I feel like it'll be this gradual shift where eventually things will start to feel like the touring schedule is maybe back to somewhat of what it was before COVID. But how long do you think that will really be like? What do you think will be the first year that we can look back at and say: Okay, this is the first year that doesn't feel like it was impacted in any way? Kevin Shivers 05:36 I think there's some hope in 2022. If we just changed the way that we’re thinking that this is the new world. Things might pop up, the virus might flare back up and flare back down. But let's try to figure out how to move forward. I think I'm starting to see that people are out and about in shows, they are playing sports, you know. The NFL season went through the whole season, they had ups and downs. And I think that like we're starting to see some positivity, lots of hope for 23. Hopefully 23, we get back to some sort of, or we get to some sort of a new normal, where we're living in this new world, and we're just going with the punches. Dan Runcie 06:12 I hear that. So I think the good thing for you though is that even, until we got to that point, you've been moving a lot. And I know that Tyler the Creator is one of your bigger clients and 2021 was a big year for him. Headlined a bunch of festivals, dropped his album. What was it like making sure that everything could line up and that you could have everything set for him despite everything else that was going on with the touring business? Kevin Shivers 06:38 First of all, I want to say Tyler's a star and a one of a kind of talent, and he knows exactly what he wants. I'm lucky to be a part of his team, and he has an excellent team around them. It starts with the managers Chris and Kelly Clancy, who are amazing people. The business manager, Joe Colone, amazing lawyer, my partner James Ruby, who does International Day watch after her at the agency and all the other people that touchTyler. But 21 was a great year; we got the headline target the headlines for festivals, but it was also we had some goals from, it was also challenging. First thing is the record comes, the record is amazing and it's also finding a window when we can go on sale when COVID is not surging, and I think that the team and I,we all got lucky because we found a window.We knew Tyler was going to headline Lollapalooza and the goal was after you get all the media, the media hype coming from Lolla. We knew he was going to bring an amazing show; that Monday after Lolla, finding that window where we can go on sale and luckily for us, no COVID spikes out Lolla, nothing crazy. And there's no COVID spikes in the world. So that was the first thing, right? I think the second thing when we thought about touring, is trying to find the markets for him to play Tyler, somebody that wants to push the envelopes. And we ended up putting up 35 arenas, breaking in some new markets. I saw last night a show in San Diego. He was like: I could have done 50 shows. I mean, granted, it was nice to have, you know, the tour. And I was like: Okay, we'll see how you feel at, like, night 33 or something. But we were able to break into new markets. Columbus, Vegas, El Paso, Pittsburgh, to name a few. I think the third thing is that Tyler really, really wanted to give the fans the ultimate experience. This is the lineup: Teezo Touchdown, Vince Staples, Kal Uchis. And I think the last thing is, you know, making sure that we hit the sweet spot in pricing. So we, you know, give the fans a place where they can feel happy, a place where they can buy tickets, but also maximizing the gross, keeping ticket sales in the gross. And this was a joint effort with the managers, Chris and Kelly, Michelle Bernstein, who's an excellent marketing ticketing person and AG team led by Cody over there. Dan Runcie 08:56 Talk to me a bit more about the new markets and picking those.You mentioned in Pittsburgh, you mentioned El Paso. What are the data that insights are the field that you look for when you're like: Hey, this is somewhere that we want to consider going to that we haven't gone before. And if we do it, is this the type of venue that we should go in this market as opposed to somewhere like LA or New York where he's already proved himself? Kevin Shivers 09:20 Well, I think there's a few things, so one is whenever Tyler, any of my clients, I'm always trying to figure out, I want them to play as many places that they can. Just reach all the fans and maximize the opportunity we're on the road because if it's a Tyler recording or whoever it is, or Cody, you're not gonna get to see them every single year. That is a unique experience. But to answer your direct question, it's one looking at the data if it's from Spotify, or our past sales. Two is looking at the markets and seeing if there's a building or venue that makes sense like Columbus. We know that's a place, there's a college town where Tyler's played there before, played there, sold out. I think a smaller room on the onsale, knew there was demand, didn't realize, I mean, the Columbus sales are insane. But this didn't realize like: Wow, that's, I mean that is really like that's a smaller market that has turned into a market, right? I think it's looking at our diverse lineup of talent on the bill, you know, going to a place like El Paso and looking at: Oh, there's probably going to be some Kali fans, and Vince fans and Teezo fans, right? That's a good place. And that's also a place that doesn't get a lot of entertainment. So like, and that ended up being like a home run. So it's like, kind of looking at the whole picture of what you got and talking to a lot of people that are smarter than you in kind of coming up with a plan. And also just working with good people that have a point of view. Dan Runcie 10:47 What are the trade-offs that you have to make for those kinds of decisions? Because I imagine that there's the ones that do cross the threshold to be like: Okay, let's make this happen. But you know, kind of like you were saying before, it's tough to try to do 50 shows in a specific short amount of run or whatever it may be. What are some of those considerations you may have to make in terms of the markets that you can't pick? Or the ones you know, that you may not be able to put in this time, right? Kevin Shivers 11:11 I think there are a few things. One, it's like really talking to your clients and letting them know, we might, we're going to try to go in this market. This possibility, it might not go the way that we want, but we have to, to me if you're not trying if you're not putting risk on the line, and what are we doing, right? It's like, I'm actually somebody who's okay with failing, right? And I’m not saying that we fail or anything, but I'm okay with doing that risk for the bigger reward. So it's like really, really like getting in there and talking to them about, you know, the strategy, right? And like, the goal, I think the goal should be like, when you go out every two, three years is gaining new fans, gaining that new network. Dan Runcie 11:50 Right, especially now. I feel like for someone like him, it's probably been interesting. I know, you've been with him to see the rise and just to see how the fan base has continued to evolve over time. So I imagine he probably even sees things where he's like: Okay, these are the Tyler fans that ,you know, have been with me since the Globin days. If I go to this city versus, you know, you go to this other city. They may not have discovered me as much until Flower Boy or something like that. I'm sure he does. Yeah, it's fascinating. And I think with him too, if we talk a bit more about the festival side of things, he obviously was a headliner, as you mentioned, his Lollapalooza show was broadcasted. I didn't go to the show, but I was able to see it through Hulu, because they had it coming through there. When you're trying to have someone like him, obviously, you have many different artists and they have different levels that they may want to perform at. And ideally, you want to have everyone maximizing and performing at the highest level or being like the highest row on that festival poster. But for someone like Tyler, is it going into the year like: Hey, headline or buster; if we can't be a headliner for this festival, we're not going to do it. Or does it depend on who some of the others are? What are those conversations like? Kevin Shivers 13:07 I think when you start a campaign with any artist, it's just like sitting down with the team and figuring out what the goals are, right? And it's all a trajectory and building on the last. I think you want to, the goal is always to build on the last time you were out, to build on the last year, right? And having that conversation. And you know, different artists have different things. Some people want to specifically target these particular festivals, or you know, you're going out in his window, and you could maybe use a festival to route in and out to get the gross-up for the whole tour. It's just like, really just, it's really spending time with the client spending time with the manager to find out, figure out what the goal is in maximizing the opportunities. Dan Runcie 13:49 Is it any tougher to do that though? The way that artists can just rise so fast now, especially in the streaming era. Because I know that there's normally the standard, you know, you do your clubs, you can do a, you know, ballrooms or amphitheaters, and then maybe if you get to arenas or stadiums, that's their trajectory. But with people just getting so big, so fast, does that change the dynamic? Or it's like: Okay, how do you still balance what they may have done last time and use that as a reference point versus how quickly they can rise in this era? Kevin Shivers 14:19 I mean, look, you have to have a point of view, and you have to have a plan. And you have to have some thoughts, right? And I think that people can really jump up really, really quickly. But we like to use this thing: don't skip steps, right? You know, sometimes if, you know, you can go play in an arena, why not go play multiple nights at a smaller room and build the momentum, build a buzz, meet people on the streets, leaving, not being able to get to the show. So that when you come back around, you still have gas in the tank. I mean, there's no one size fits all plan. It's like, you have to just know who you're working with, spend time and really kind of draw that. Draw that sketch up and map it out and let it listen. A plan is just a, it's just a roadmap. It can be amended along the way. There's no like set in stone thing, but other than like, no knowing where you want to go, knowing what you think, you know, going to be doing the next year, the next five years. That is what's most important. Dan Runcie 15:13 That makes sense. And that reminds me of something I heard. I think it was Olivia Rodrigo, who said in some recent interview when he announced her tour. And someone must have asked her something along the lines of: Hey, you had one of the biggest years in pop music this past year, could you have done arenas? And I think she said that same line, you said: I don't want to skip any steps. This is where that is. So I think that's something that definitely rings true. And we're seeing examples of that. Kevin Shivers 15:39 Yes. And you gotta ask yourself after arenas, then what? Where are you going after that? I mean, like, you know, you might already have that plan in your head, but like these careers are, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Dan Runcie 15:49 So what do you think are some of the mistakes that artists can make? Like, I mean, you don't have to drop any names. You don't got to put anybody on blast. But is there anyone that you think maybe made a touring misstep? Or there's something where you can look back and be like: Ah, if they had done that a little differently, things could have worked out a little bit, you know, whether it's better or worse, or however for them. Kevin Shivers 16:09 I think sometimes when people overthink it and end up doing nothing, that's like a bummer for everybody. That's a bummer for the artist. That's a bummer for the fan, that's a bummer for the culture, like, like you're hot, you're popping right now. We really need to see you really, really need to see you show up and pull up on us and see what you have. I think that, that's a mistake, not a mistake, but that's just a bummer for everybody. We want to see, we want to see you do your thing. And I would love it if instead of doing nothing that artists, sometimes people would do something. Dan Runcie 16:39 So you think part of it is that there's a hesitancy to try to capture the moment, or sometimes they can be a bit more resolute or hesitant to do things when there is an opportunity to go back out there. Kevin Shivers 16:51 Or they just don't know, or they just are trying to get it perfect. And like, you know, you're going to we're all going to make mistakes, there's going to be ups and downs. I think sometimes you just got to go play, you know, you got to give the fans what they want. Dan Runcie 17:04 Do you think any of this has become any more challenging in the social media era? Because one thing that I've heard both on the talent side is that artists are even more so particular about how everything looks from a live perspective, because that shot that goes on Instagram or that shot that goes on Tik Tok, that influences ticket sales, especially from, you know, whether it's the first show or whatever it is. Do you feel like artists are feeling like they need to have things more perfect even though deep down, you know, that it shouldn't be that way? Kevin Shivers 17:33 I mean, it's got to be really, really tough because the cameras are always on somebody always, you know, whether you like it or not, is documenting things that you do. So I think that I couldn't even imagine how much pressure that is and how tough that has to be. You know that social media can be good. And there can be some other sides where you're like: Wow, this is tough. Dan Runcie 17:52 Yeah, I know, we've talked a lot about Tyler and about hip hop overall. But I know another one of the major artists you represent is Summer Walker. And you know, she had a big year, last year as well. And I wanted the differences whether you're planning a tour for, or you're planning live events, in general, for R&B artists, as opposed to someone in hip hop. Kevin Shivers 18:14 I don't think there's really many differences, I just think you have to just, it goes back to the same. There’s no any artist planning and really just get, you know, in figuring out what the goals that they have and how you can best service them, right? I don't really think there's a different strategy or a different lane. I think if you love Summer Walker, you love Summer Walker, you're gonna go out and see it, right? And she has, she has an incredible fan base. Dan Runcie 18:40 Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Because one of the things I was wondering with someone like her.Knowing how passionate her fan base is, I was wondering if there was a connection of like: Oh, you know, the streams may show this and the data may show this, but because of how R&B fans are, there may be a bit more likelihood that that could translate to ticket sales or purchases as opposed to other genres. Kevin Shivers 19:02 You know, I think the fans are going to come out that they love somebody and Summer respects our fans. People like Summer Walker followers, or they just, they love her. I think they're just going to come out and show up and see her play. Dan Runcie 19:14 Now. That's real, that makes sense. So for you, I mean, I know, you got a full roster, and you're always making sure that you can maximize them to the best of their abilities. So how do you measure success for yourself as a partner and as someone that's representing them on their behalf? Kevin Shivers 19:30 The answer is really simple: Helping others, right? I got into this business because I wanted to help artists grow. And it's like, it starts with the clients like you start thinking about, about people that I work with, like: What can I do to help them? What can I do to help them grow or give them everything that they need? Are we, you know, from last year to this year? Are we showing up every day to help them get to that next level? That's the first thing. I think also the way I measure success. It's like the same thing with helping others. Like it starts for me every day when my assistant Ebony, I think she's gonna be a great executive one day, but am I showing up for her? Do I slow down enough to answer her questions? Do I mentor her? Do I spend time with her? Because like, that's important to me. We have many, many amazing young agents that work here. Am I showing up enough to help them sign up clients? Am I giving them what they need? I think you know, measuring success. Is everybody around you doing well? Are you doing what's good for the organization? I co-run hip hop with Zach, Isaac, Caroline and James Rubby. And Caroline's always saying we got to take care of youngs, you know, it's Justin neighbor's getting what he needs? Is Sarah and Ronnie getting what they need? And then I think it's just, it's really about creating that culture, creating a universe, that the people you will arise into the next level of being selfless. And then also from a DNI perspective of like: What diverse people can we grow? Can we hire? Are we retaining them? These are all the ways that I measure success. I try not to look at what other people are doing. Because I mean, it doesn't really matter. I want to make sure that the organization and the people around me are set up for success. Dan Runcie 21:14 I hear that. And I think a lot of the themes you mentioned there align with mentorship, and whether it's being a mentor or support for the artists that are looking to you for guidance, your co-workers and your colleagues. Can you talk a little bit more about why that's so important to you? Because even in reading and hearing other interviews, I know you've been active on that front, making sure that you can use your platform and where you are to pass the torch and help others along the way. Kevin Shivers 21:40 I think mentorship is one of these things like, if we're not mentoring, then what are we doing? Why are we even showing up? You have to always be trying to look out for other people. I've had people that looked out for me and my career, people that still look out for me. And I think that is one of the key things. One of the reasons that makes me want to get up every day and come into the office is, like, helping others. I think that's one of the reasons why we're put on this earth to help people. A non-negotiable thing is mentorship. I mean, the crazy fact about, I'll go do an interview, or I'll do a panel and everybody that writes to me on IG or LinkedIn, I write everybody back, everybody. I mean, I probably send more people to the HR department here for jobs than anybody. Because I just want everybody back. I think that's important, because I was once the young kid who wanted to figure this out. And like I didn't know, I had no clue and people helped me. So I think that's a very important aspect of the job. Dan Runcie 22:35 100%. And even on a personal level, I remember the first time you reached out to me, Hey, love what you're doing. Hey, how can I help? And you're just like: Oh, who do you want to interview? Oh, I was listening to them yesterday, boom, let's get this done. So even on a personal level, I need you out. You're looking out for me, man. I appreciate that. Kevin Shivers 22:52 Yeah, I mean, well, you're doing it. I listen to your podcast every week. I think it's amazing. I think what you're doing for the culture is great. And I just wanted to get to know you and just to help where I can and, and that's just, that's what I think is important. Dan Runcie 23:05 Definitely, definitely. And one of the things that you had put out, because a couple years back, but it really stuck out to me was this was right after George Floyd's murder and the music industry had the show must be paused response. And you had written these guest posts on Pollstar and you were talking about how this industry just needs to do better by its black execs specifically on the recruiting front. And I know you were just talking about how, you know, you're always pushing things forward to HR. And I'm sure this must be really personal for you as well, you are one of the few folks that looks like you in the position that you have in this whole industry. So I'd love to hear how you feel like the industry has responded since everything had happened after George Floyd's murder and the response to where we are now in 2022. Kevin Shivers 23:57 You know, in response to your comment about I wanted a person who looks like me in the industry. I always say to everybody, I'm amazing, but I'm not that amazing. There's, there should be more people that look like me doing what I do and and you know, partners in hire, right? And I think we still have a lot of work to do. There's good news though. There's positive conversation around DNI, people are aware, people are aware that there needs to be more black people and more diverse people need to have more opportunities. I still think that we need to keep pushing the envelope, we still have a lot more to do in terms of hiring and creating opportunities for black people. The organization's know they have to do better, but they have to buck the old status quo. They have to go outside of the norm. And today to some people, it might be like: Oh, we're taking a risk. No, DNI has to be inside of your lifeline, inside of your blood, inside of your everyday practices. It's not something that you can just talk about once a quarter, you gotta live it, you got to be in it every day. And I believe that the black people need to be promoted, they need to be elevated. They need to be given the same opportunities and shots. When we were interviewing for jobs, I think in any, in any industry, not just entertainment, you need to be interviewing black people, people of color, LGBTQ, there just needs to be more opportunity. We need more Sylvia Rhone's, more Ethiopia's, more tons Jay-Z and Def Jam. We need more leaders, more partners. I mean, we have to just keep our foot on the gas, keep pushing the envelope because this, we're not there yet. But we're going in the right direction. And we need to keep the momentum. Dan Runcie 25:30 Right. And I think even an example of that, the folks you just mentioned, I think a lot of folks in this industry are all on a first name basis. And as incredible as all those folks are, how do we get to the point where they're not on a first name basis, because they aren't just the few black execs in there. I mean, it's definitely going to continue to take time. And I think whether it's conversations like this, or the efforts you're doing will help. But I'm hopeful that it can get there eventually. Kevin Shivers 25:55 I'm hopeful, too. I think we got to stay targeted and focus. But also at the same time, remember, like, this just didn't happen overnight, right? It's not going to change overnight. But we have to like, we have to keep, we have to stay on this because it can change and it needs to be better. Dan Runcie 26:11 Definitely. So let's switch gears a bit. Let's talk a little bit about the future, specifically with regards to touring and technology and what things will look like in, the potential with Web 3.0 and the metaverse. Because now you have agencies that are specifically I'm sure WME likely also has a division where they focus specifically on digital environments, or getting artists lined up on that perspective. How do you look at that? Specifically, with the artists you have on your roster, what the potentials are for them in these digital worlds. Kevin Shivers 26:50 I think Web 3.0 is just it's massive, huge, huge opportunity. You know, if you think about the evolution started in virtual, went over to Fortnite, but I just think it brings control back to the artists in a way. Artists had an act like this the whole time, these music artists, they've had fan clubs, they've had social media, but what Web 3.0 does, it gives more control to them. It's gonna give them more power, but like, it kind of cuts out the middleman and I think you know, things are gonna change in the next six months, next five years, it's gonna be an exciting world. If you look at what Coachella did, by selling the NFT, a lifetime Coachella pass. I mean, I think artists are gonna come up with these things where, you know, if you want to be in the front row of my show, here's the NFT for the chance to buy the front row tickets, or maybe it just goes inside of there. And they figure out what to promote, but I just think like, it's an exciting time. Like, it's the, it's endless. I was just on the phone with A Jones the other day, I love what he's doing with Royal. And I think the deal that he did with Nas and Antony Silay is, like,amazing; that looks like where things are headed. I mean, it's just, you know, like any of these things, it's gonna be ups and downs, right? In the Web 3.0, but I just think the opportunity is endless. Dan Runcie 28:01 Yeah, things are early, things are also moving really fast. Six months from now, it's gonna look completely different. And I am excited for the artists that are taking advantage early. I feel like I can already imagine Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival having some type of digital environment or some type of experience in the metaverse. Kevin Shivers 28:21 I'm sure it will, I'm sure Lollapalooza and some of these other properties. That's where they're headed. I mean, it's gonna be a really exciting time. I just hope people get off the couch, you still come out to show. Dan Runcie 28:35 Is that a concern you have though? Like, do you wonder about that in the future? Kevin Shivers 28:39 No, no, I was just joking. I mean, I don't think anything can replace the live experience, just like the Zooms are great, right? But I think when you're in a meeting with somebody, it's 10 times better. And I think a concert is 100 times better. I love, I love going to festivals, I've been to them all over the world. And I love seeing the reactions in real time on people's faces from their favorite artists hidden in the stage. So I don't think anything can replace it. I think it's going to only enhance the experience. Dan Runcie 29:07 Agreed. That's what I always go back to. Everything in these experiences are additive and isn't a replacement for anything. And I think it'll probably just force more creativity for every aspect, because you're not just trying to have something be a catch all. So I think I'm interested to see how it'll continue to shape live performances and what that can look like from the, you know, the IRL experience. Yeah. And on that note, do you have any predictions for what you think the next three to five years or so will look like specifically in the lifespace? I mean, pandemic notwithstanding, I mean, obviously, I think we'll continue to see the after effects of that, but any type of, you know, evolutions are any type of future changes that you think will see over time. Kevin Shivers 29:51 Yeah, I think 2022 is going to be bigger than we thought. I think that hopefully, I think we're headed to a healthy tour environment. I think there's going to be new players in terms of buyers and festivals. And I think the fan experience will that's going to be the thing of the future. I think everyone has realized they have to zero in on the fan from artists curated weekends and festivals to I think even super service in the fan. Think about this, think about a world where service lets you buy a ticket, has a car that picks you up, dinner reservations, great seats, even find you a babysitter.I think that's where we're going, we're going to this place, we're like: Okay, I can't even be, I'm busy. I didn't want to deal with this, boom, hit a button. And this is where we're going. I think that's exciting. Because you know, getting inside of the mind of the fan, what they really want is going to be the next evolution. Dan Runcie 30:42 Yeah, even you mapping that out. If you literally could press one button and solve that, I think you'd also just increase the amount of people that can come through, right? You mentioned the babysitter, the amount of people that have young kids, and it's like, you know, just the thought of them needed like, oh, you know, we got to find someone for this to cover for this night. Like, yeah, if all that can be taken care of. Kevin Shivers 31:00 Because I think people love live music, and live music is such a treat. But when you think about the hurdles you have to do, you got to put on some clothes, maybe, you know, show starts at seven, get homework, feed your kids, do this, do that. And if you could just take some of that away from them. That's like, you know, bringing the fan experience to a new level. Dan Runcie 31:21 Definitely. So I know that you're always on the go with festivals. And you know, I know you love going into them. But I know it's also for your work as well. If you have to guess, how many shows do you think you'll go to in 2022? Kevin Shivers 31:33 I can tell you this. I'd rather answer this way. How many days I plan on hitting a lot of festivals in 2022. So I think I'm going to be, I call it 50 to 60 days watching music, right? That's what I'd say. Dan Runcie 31:48 Okay. Yeah. All right. And even that, I mean, that's a lot more than the average person. But I mean, it's just incredible. Because you get to just see all the fine tunes, you get to just see everything. And like you mentioned, this is interesting, you're traveling all across the world for this stuff. Kevin Shivers 32:02 Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one of the reasons I love doing what I do. I mean, like, really, I get to go see live music in different parts of the world. I mean, I can't even imagine anything better than that. Dan Runcie 32:12 Yeah. So last question. Before we let you go. I know we talked a lot about Tyler. And I know from our conversations, just the uniqueness of you seeing that star power and star potential, even from the first time you connect it. How do you find that next tile? Or how do you find that thing to know? Okay, yeah, this is the one that we need for this next generation. Kevin Shivers 32:34 Oh, wow. I think when I'm looking to sign somebody, I'm looking for somebody that has a unique point of view, for somebody that is fearless, and then wants to do the work. Dan Runcie 32:43 That makes sense. Hear that man. Hey, before we let you go, man, this was great. I'm glad you could come through and make this happen. But is there anything else you want to plug? Or let the Trapital audience know about it? Kevin Shivers 32:54 I think everybody should go out and see some shows this year. I think 2022 is going to be a good year, and then one thing I want to say is to somebody who wants a career in entertainment, I think you should go for it. I think you should move to LA, move to New York, move to Atlanta, move to Nashville. Call, email some people; call, email me. I'll probably write you back pretty soon and just go for your dreams. Dan Runcie 33:15 What's your email address? Kevin Shivers 33:17 Kshivers@wmeagency.com. It's all good. Dan Runcie 33:23 Now appreciate that, man. I welcome man. Thanks for coming through this as a pleasure. Kevin Shivers 33:27 I appreciate you Dan. Dan Runcie 33:31 If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, posted to your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review and tell people why you liked the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 21 Jan 2020 | Fantasy Record Labels? We’re Skeptical. (a Trapital - Water & Music Collaboration with Cherie Hu) | 00:46:54 | |
Water & Music creator and music journalist Cherie Hu came on the Trapital Podcast to discuss why “fantasy football for music” hasn’t taken off. Her and I did a mutual newsletter takeover where we both researched the topic and wrote separate articles in each other’s newsletter. On this podcast, we recapped our findings, and shared key reasons why the concept is limited in its reach. We also had some fun and answered a popular meme on how we would spend our $15 if we’re drafting a record label. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Links
Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co/welcome | |||
| 28 May 2021 | Tarik Brooks, President of Combs Enterprises (2020) | 00:44:51 | |
Combs Enterprises President, Tarik Brooks, came on the Trapital Podcast to talk his role managing the Combs Enterprises portfolio of brands, which includes Ciroc, Bad Boy Entertainment, Revolt, Sean John, AquaHydrate, and more. We talked about how to measure Diddy’s value-add as an investor, Tarik’s experience working for both Diddy and Robert L. Johnson, and why Diddy sought mentorship from Ray Dalio, and more. This episode originally ran on February 4, 2020. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Tarik Brooks, @tarikamin, combsenterprises.com Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. trapital.co/newsletter | |||
| 03 Jul 2020 | The Steve Jobs of Gap? | 00:12:55 | |
An audio version of the Trapital essay: Why Kanye West’s Gap Deal is a Risk to Yeezy. Yeezy’s new partnership with the struggling apparel company is a threat to the brand that Kanye West built. | |||
| 26 Nov 2021 | Independent Artist Life with Flawless Real Talk (2020) | 00:47:04 | |
Rapper, producer, and entrepreneur Flawless Real Talk joined to talk about how he manages his rap career. He was the runner up on Netflix’s hip-hop competition show Rhythm & Flow, which boosted his career trajectory. But despite all the industry attention, Flawless is still an independent artist. He talks about that decision, the tradeoffs he’s had to make, and what his goals are as an artist. He recently hosted a livestream concert on LIVIT, where he had over 1 million fans join in. If you’re interested in how artists manage tradeoffs between being signed and indie, building a fanbase, and resiliency, then this is the episode for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Flawless Real Talk, @flawlessri, flawlessri.com Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 05 Jun 2020 | Hip-Hop's Role in the Fight for Justice | 00:13:09 | |
This Trapital Podcast is a solo episode in light of this week’s events, the music industry’s actions in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and this week’s Trapital article, “How Hip-Hop Pushed Companies to Fight for Racial Justice.” Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Link:
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| 05 Apr 2024 | Do Music Festivals Have a Superstar Problem? | 00:33:38 | |
Despite the all-time record highs for the live music industry, music festivals haven't quite had the same post-pandemic recovery. Several well-known festivals have closed up shop, and others have had slower than usual demand (even Coachella!) To break it all down, I'm joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research. Hope you enjoy! Make sure you check out our Chartmetric stat of the episode! | |||
| 19 Feb 2021 | Ted Lucas on Slip-N-Slide Records, Miami Hip-Hop, and R&B’s Comeback | 00:44:33 | |
Slip-N-Slide Records founder and CEO Ted Lucas came on the podcast to talk about his influential record label. Slip-N-Slide was home to Trick Daddy, Trina, Rick Ross, Plies, and many more. We talk about the early days when Ted had to pay major record labels for distribution! We also talk about why his label stayed independent, why his artists had major deals with other labels, and R&B’s role in modern music. We also talk about SuperFest, the music festival he runs in Miami, and his rising artists Sebastian Mikael and Teenear. Lastly, we talk about Miami--it’s role in hip-hop and its role in tech, and all the VCs and tech folks moving to his city. If you’re interested in how an indie record label can make moves in the music industry, this is the podcast for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Ted Lucas, @slipnsliderec, slipnsliderecords.com Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 23 Nov 2022 | Investing in Web3 Music with Coopahtroopa | 00:54:02 | |
Cooper Turley, better known as Coopahtroopa, is betting big on ushering a new generation of music. In September, he announced a first-of-its-kind investment fund focused squarely on web3 music projects and artists themselves. Coop Records raised $10 million and Coopah will be the sole general partner. He’s hesitant to call it just an investment fund though. That’s because Coop Records is also a record label and incubator. Coopah will invest directly into web3-native music artists in a “seed round” — turning emerging artists into venture-backed startups. Structuring an artist’s company is what Coopah sees as web3’s biggest opportunity: resetting ownership dynamics. NFTs are another vertical of the Coop Records fund, in addition to the seed-stage investing in both companies and artists. Coopah joined me on the show to give us an in-depth look at how Coop Records is eying its investment opportunities. Here’s everything we covered: [0:00] How Coop Records started [2:06] Focusing on emerging artists, not established ones [3:35] Coop Records’ investment thesis [7:24] Investing in artists during “seed round” [9:50] Structuring artists as a holdings company [11:40] What does an exit look like for artists investors? [15:00] Artists as CEOs [20:11] What makes a music NFT historical [22:28] NFTs as a replacement for masters and publishing [27:18] Accredited investors vs. fan investors [29:30] Artist success stories with community building on web3 [31:40] Focusing on story when marketing NFTs [34:25] Optimizing for engagement not reach on social [39:24] How tokenization changes the artist-fan relationship [47:00] Predicting the year that music NFTs go mainstream [48:25] Coop’s big question for web3 Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Cooper Turley, @Cooopahtroopa
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Cooper Turley: And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them. [00:00:24] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Dan Ruey. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. [00:00:49] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Cooper Turley, aka Coopa Troopa. He is the founder of Coop Records, which is a new venture fund, a 10 million fund that is focused on investing in the future of music, specifically in web three. He is someone that has made a name for himself as a thought leader in the space. He was involved with the Dow Friends with benefits and he's now started this fund to make economics better for artists and ultimately help them take more advantage of the opportunities that are around them. So we talked about a lot of it. We talked about how he views the space right now, why he started this fund, and what the fund's investing in. There are three main areas that we go into. We talk about investing in music startup. Investing in artist seed rounds and investing in NFTs themselves as an investible assets that him as a general partner and little Bited partners would wanna see returns from. So we talk about what the economics of that look like. I think that. Cooper stands out in a lot of ways because he has a much more nuanced understanding of how Web Three fits in with the broader ecosystem of what's happening right now in music, what some of the trade offs are with the financials, the relationship with fans, what services it offers versus the traditional record labels and more really insightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. Here’s our chat. [00:02:07] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're joined by Coopa Troopa who just launched Coup Records, which is his fund that is investing in the future of music and Web three specifically. And first off, congrats. I saw the announcement, it's really dope. So walk me through the process from thinking about you wanna start this fund to where you are now, today with it. [00:02:28] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I've been in music for the last 10 years in crypto for the last five, and so I've seen everything from ICOs to Defi, to Dows, and not most recently NFTs. You know, throughout that time I've been active across public markets as a trader, behind the scenes, as an angel investor, as a community builder, and as an operator. And when I started to think about how to connect all the pieces together, I've always been a fan of music. I felt like there was never really a clear vehicle to help elevate and amplify the space. And so I found coop records to be the best way to really just zoom in on this niche that I'm so excited about and figure out how to really help the founders, artists, and builders that are supporting this space everyday. [00:03:05] Dan Runcie: Makes sense. What were the conversations like getting buy-in from LPs? [00:03:10] Cooper Turley: Basically helping to explain what music NFTs are, why this is a vertical that you'd wanna invest in at this time and day? You know, historically I think that music has gotten a bit of a bad rep, cuz it's very antiquated in a lot of ways. You know, there's a lot of systems that are very complicated and hopefully we can unpack some of those on this episode. But, I think we through presents a new opportunity for artists to monetize in creative ways. You know, as someone who's been a curator my whole life, it's very easy for me to understand the value of investing in songs, artists, et cetera. But for someone who's not music savvy and not passionate about this sector, you know, the majority of those conversations are why would anyone wanna collect a song? Why would someone wanna invest in an artist? And trying to help people understand why there's an opportunity here that I think is. Influential and paramount for the next chapter of music. But once people get over that line, you know, I've kind of been able to build a brand for myself that I think speaks very clearly to why I'm so excited about music. And so for investors that are looking to get exposure to the space, coop records is a great way to get that exposure without them having to get as deep in the trenches as I am. [00:04:07] Dan Runcie: Right. And I gotta imagine that that probably took a few conversations just given things that I'm hearing too, from folks. People, they understand the promise and the opportunity of what NFTs and what web three offer, but there's. Hesitation, there's still perception about what's going on and some of the headlines that people see. How did you communicate or address some of those concerns while still sharing the value add for what you have? [00:04:32] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I really focus on emerging artists. You know, I think that this is where the vast majority of value will accrue over the next couple years with Web three. And so when you think about investing in music, most people's mind goes to like, how do we get Drake to drop NFTs? I actually don't really focus on that at all. Instead, I think about how do we develop the next act that becomes Drake using Web three tools? And so for investors that are kind of hesitant about getting involved in the space, I point out early examples like X copier people, you know, crypto artists who really made a brand and a name for themselves on the back of selling their nfts. And obviously in the case of people, he had a major brand before, but it wasn't until the existence of NFTs and sort of these community based assets that they started to see monetization aspects with their fans and with their collectors. And so trying to highlight that there's an opportunity here to develop and support emerging artists new to Web three through music, I think it really made a clear case that. This isn't about trying to get your biggest celebrity to drop NFTs. I think that will happen at some point in time. But this is about investing in the infrastructure and the artists that are going to make this space very valuable over the next couple years. [00:05:31] Dan Runcie: And one of the things I like too about how your fund is structured or reminds me a bit of Matt Pinkus and how his music fund is structured. It's not just focused solely on startups that are trying to build the next tech platforms. You're also looking more broadly. The NFT space itself and what that opportunity looks like and it'd be great to break each of those down. So let's start first with the music tech companies, cuz I know that's 85% of your fund looking at preceded seed stage companies. What's your thesis for the type of company that is a coop records company that you're looking for? [00:06:04] Cooper Turley: I'm a really big fan of composability. So in Defi there's this concept of money Legos or protocols and platforms that could plug into one another. I believe the same thesis will play out with music, where we're gonna have music legos, where there's different marketplaces, service providers, tooling, infrastructure that can help sort of amplify what an artist can do with Web three. And so when I think about investing in a music tech company, I think about culturally, is this company aware and active within the pocket that I'm spending a lot of my time in? And then beyond being aware of sort of the artists, the songs, the type of platforms that are doing well in this space, do they have the open mindedness to wanna work in collaboration with those other platforms? So in accurate, we can kind of create this toolkit in this stack where if I am an artist who's new to web three, it's not about choosing Spotify versus Apple, it's actually about trying to develop a presence across many platforms. And hopefully those platforms. The life of the artist easier by making everything connect together with one another. [00:06:56] Dan Runcie: And I feel like this speaks to one of the broader themes that I know you've talked about before, is. It can't be this approach of web three versus web two. These things need to be collaborative. No more zero sum games. How can you think more broadly about the opportunity there? How do you view that more broadly, not just with the fun, but also likely how you're seeing the space with any artist that you're working with too? [00:07:21] Cooper Turley: I'm really laser focused on web three platforms because I think there's a lot more room for change within those platforms. You know, I have nothing against legacy platforms like Spotify have done fantastic work for artists and I think there will be at a time and day when they're able to enable music, NFTs to be purchased, collected, listened to within their platform. But the reality is these companies are so sophisticated that trying to move the needle is very complicated. And so for someone like. I'm running this fund as a solo gp. It's a relatively small fund, and so when I think about where I can have impact and leverage, it's typically working with very early stage founders. You know, I can get in the trenches and help to develop the product. Think about how we're onboarding artists, think about new marketing strategies. And so for me, I think right now it's about cementing the cultural relevance and value of this emerging wave of Web three music. And once that's been clear and established, we can take those same values, ideas, songs, artists, and help to bring those into the traditional industry in a more clear way. Because right now I think that a lot of the bigger players, let's call it major labels, et cetera, they recognize that there's value to be captured in Web three, but I don't think that they have the same level. Boots on the ground cultural awareness that maybe someone like, um, myself or some of my colleagues have. And so I think the challenge here is a, making it very clear what that culture is so you can start to translate it to larger players. And then once that they agree there is something of value there, you know, being able to act as a connector where you can say, Hey, maybe instead of going and doing a 500,000 or a million dollar drop for the biggest act on your roster, let's go ahead and find an emerging artist who's curious about the space and develop them with the course. Five or $10,000 drops and instead really build that community and that collector base in a very organic way. [00:08:56] Dan Runcie: And I think that gets to this artist development piece more broadly is that you're trying to start the process much earlier, much earlier than I think a lot of the major record labels are starting now. Because I think they often wanna see artists having some proven. Track record before they're willing to sign them. And in some ways your approach isn't too much different. Maybe it's just a bit of a different stage because one of the other areas that you're investing in is artist seed rounds. And can you describe. What stage an artist would have to be in order to be at the seed round, and what types of things you're looking for there from an artist? [00:09:33] Cooper Turley: I think it's very similar to what I look for in companies. You know, has this artist been able to prove a little bit of traction? You know, have they demonstrated that they're culturally aware of where this industry is headed? You know, different things that I feel like are interesting to kind of describe. Cause it's not very concrete. Like you can't point to like a specific amount of sales or a specific amount of volume and say, okay, this artist is ready to be invested in. But it's really just a development process of like, is this person making web three a focal point in their career? I believe that that's something really important for me personally, cuz that's where I had the most leverage. But once they've demonstrated that they've been able to release on some of the bigger web through platforms, you know, once they've been able to collaborate and onboard other artists to the space, you know, you start to see that these people have like a little bit. Leverage was sort of their career. And at that point in time, instead of signing a traditional record deal, co records can really be the one to say like, Hey, let's go ahead and set up a company for you. Let's think about how we wanna do a cap table. Let's bring on some partners to give you the capital that you need to go and hire a team around you. So instead of selling your next three albums to a major label, you can instead fund this through accredited investors. And then over time think about the ways you wanna bring other partners into the fold, but not need to be so reliant on the capital to do that in the first place. [00:10:38] Dan Runcie: And with the artists specifically, cuz I know that you've started the fund. Maybe for the people listening, is there a particular artist that you have made a seed investment in just so people can get a good idea for, okay, this is someone that we invested in, this is where they're at in their career, and this is what the opportunity is [00:10:56] Cooper Turley: Not publicly. I think by the time this comes out, we'll be right around there. You know, I can say that privately, behind the scenes we're working. The first round, you know, we've had some very serious progress on it. Investors are excited about it. We're going through the whole corporate structure, but for me, this is a very different lane because it's not as simple as just investing in the safe note of a precede company. You know, there's a lot more complexity around IP ownership, around revenue sharing around. Kind of how this artist thinks about their company and what kind of rights they're giving back to people. And so it's a slower process, but it's one that's currently in motion. I expect that we'll probably have the first one announced within the next one to two months, but I can definitely say there's one in motion that I'm really excited about. And I think, you know, by the end of this calendar year, we should have that one announced. [00:11:37] Dan Runcie: I think part of this too is also the structure of things. You mentioned this earlier, and I think for a lot of artists it's probably. Not necessarily a new way to think about it, because I think in general, artists do think of themselves as having multiple revenue streams, but in order for this to work, in order for you to be able to make an investment, there needs to be some type of, whether it's a holding company or some type of structure in place so that you can make an investment that would touch all of these things. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like on the artist side? [00:12:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's a fantastic question. I wanna start by saying, This is early days and so this is the first stab at it. I think that this model will evolve and change over time. The way we're thinking about it is there's one Hold Co, that represents the artist ownership across their various income streams, uh, that hold co owns subsidiary entities, one of them being a music entity, which owns the masters in publishing for that artist. One being a live entity, which owns touring and merchandising, and then one being a Web three entity, which owns NFTs and. And so all of that wraps up into the larger hold cow. But the reasons those subsidiaries exist is because we wanna limit liability to each of those different vertical. If there's an issue across web three, we don't want that to end up touching the masters. If an artist wants to go and sign a record deal, they shouldn't have to figure out what to do with their touring or what their NFTs to be able to enter into agreement with a different party. And so we've kind of split up the different verticals into buckets that make sense relative to the type of partners and the type of work that it is. But all of that rounds back up into this holding company and when it comes time to invest in the artist, quote unquote, that artist is selling anywhere from five to 10% of that hold cow to accredited investors so that they can have exposure and pass through to those underlying revenue streams. But there's not this sort of majority ownership, creative control, et cetera. It's really, here's capital and exchange for you to go do what you do best. In exchange for that, we have exposure to these underlying entities, which represent the artist brand in its entirety. [00:13:27] Dan Runcie: And for an investor like you, I think most people listening have a good idea of what an exit looks like for a startup, but what does an exit look like for you as an investor, for an artist, if you're going in at that seed round? [00:13:39] Cooper Turley: I think there's a couple ways it can pan out. You know, one I think would be IP acquisition. Let's say that there's a buyout of someone's masters or publishing, et cetera. You know, there's kind of larger capital inflections that can happen later down an artist's career. I'm more excited about this idea of taking artists public cuz it's something that hasn't really been done before, but I think will happen eventually. Where right now, if you're a fan, you can't really invest or bet on an artist. I think we're starting to see us at a very granular level with music NFTs, and it's something I would love to cover as the last bucket next, but to me, I think an exit here is helping an artist really take this company that we structure for themselves and explore what it means to go public. And so rather than only accredited investors being able to buy into that five or 10%, how do you invite fans to participate in that convers. I think that there's a lot of, uh, legal nuance there that needs to be figured out. And so I don't have that answer today, but I would say that more broadly, the two ways that this could happen is a, investors are seeing a return from the IP becoming more valuable, and they're being capital injected into the whole co. Or B, more optimistically the artist, quote unquote, going public by either, you know, listing on a traditional market or what I think is more likely is creating some form of a token, which represents exposure to this entity that's been set up to represent the artist brand in the first. [00:14:49] Dan Runcie: Got it. And then from a structure perspective, do you ever hear any type of pushback or comments from artists who feel like, oh, you're getting a slice of all these revenue deals. This feels similar to a 360 deal. Do you hear any of that at all? [00:15:04] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I mean, it is a 360 deal, and I think that that's really important to like zoom in on, because 360 deals have gotten a really negative rep because of the percentage ownership that they typically encompass. So traditionally with 360 deals, it's anywhere from 50 to 80. When we talk about a 360 deal in this context, it's five or 10%. And if you start to look at the way that companies take on dilution and precede and seed stage rounds, it's kind of the same concept. You know, like that company is basically taking all of their revenue into this central entity and they're selling off dilution to investors. And so I think for artists, this is particularly scary because there's been such a history of people taking advantage of 360. But I don't think the structure with 360 deals incorrect. I just think the ownership targets that those deals are typically set at is what's really predatory. And so if we can zoom out a bit and instead say, Hey, five or 10% can give you a couple hundred grand, maybe a million dollars to go invest in a team around you, there's ways for that capital to be really value added where the dilution is actually necessary and valuable because it helps you advance your artist career in a way that you simply couldn't do without it. [00:16:04] Dan Runcie: I agree with that. I think that that's, Testament of some of the challenges with the broader major record label system as well, right? It's not that people shouldn't be willing to trade some level of ownership in exchange to get a boost from the company. It's how much ownership, it's what the terms that the actual economics look like, not the economic agreement itself. [00:16:28] Cooper Turley: Yeah, it's correct. And I think that it's something that is really important to help educate artists on. And this is the area that I'm actually most fascinated by is like artists really thinking about rights ownership, thinking about dilution, thinking about cap table management. And just with that in mind, I wanna highlight, it's a very specific type of artist that is willing to enter into this quote unquote, artists seed round. Because I think that most artists are not thinking about their brand as a ceo, but I think there are very selective artists who think about their entity as a business and for those specific artists being able to demonst. There's value in having employees. There's value in giving them long term options and equity, and having these ownership incentives be a little bit more aligned. I think traditionally music has existed in this weird ballpark where we've basically only ever sold masters in publishing. We haven't really experimented with equity or any of these other ownership vehicles that startups have been taking for the last couple generations, so I'm excited to explore it. You know, I by no means have all the answers, but I think. My time investing in precede and seed stage companies has given me a little bit of context on how things work behind the scenes, and I'm hoping that with a little time and effort, we can sort of mold those same practices and help apply them to artists more broadly. [00:17:34] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I have to imagine too, with artists as well, there's some artists that love the mentality of being the business person themself that can be the CEO and wear multiple hats. There's other artists who I. As much as they want the business to work for them, they just wanna focus on the art. So there's specific things that you're looking for to determine, okay, is this artist gonna be wanting to be the ceo? Or maybe making sure that they are partnered with someone that may wanna be in that role instead [00:18:05] Cooper Turley: Yeah, I mean, you just touched on it perfectly. I think that there's situations where artists have partners that are acting as their ceo, you know, and in many typical startups you have a ceo, a cto, a ceo, et cetera. Um, the artist isn't the only person that's responsible for their success. They're obviously the largest player in that. But it's less about, is this artist capable of being a ceo? It's more about is this artist capable of building a team around them that can. In tandem as a unit and as an organization. And if that artist is uncapable of operating as the CEO, because they're phenomenal at making music, it's very likely that there may be a manager, an agent, a business partner, et cetera, that could step into that role. And I think the biggest thing that I'm excited about is to realign incentives around the service providers around an artist. So whether that be a manager, an agent, a business manager, a lawyer, et cetera. Typically, all these actors are just operating on commission, you know, and they have five or 10 clients because there's no guarantee that they'll be with that artist in 10 years time. You know, these contracts aren't really a center aligned for those key players. But if we can instead start to create an instrument where a managers may be able to take a salary and then have equity that's vested over four years, I think there will be more situations where artists would be willing to enter into a full-time quote unquote agreement with their manager, because that a manager is now incentive aligned to actually spend all their time developing one. Instead of needing to commission off of five or 10 different artists just to be able to make a living. [00:19:24] Dan Runcie: It's a huge point because there's so many managers I've talked to that just talk about how thankless that job is, and that's purely just from how they're treated, not even getting to the economic aspect. You start thinking about the economics about how managers are treated and yeah, maybe you'll get 10 to 15 to 20%, but if that artist levels up and then they wanna level up their manager too, they can just be like, Hey, sorry, I wanna move on. And you, the person that brought them from zero to 40. Now you have nothing. Right? [00:19:54] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, it happens time and time again from smaller artists to the biggest acts in the world. I mean, I don't have to name names here, but I think we all know examples of this happening time and time. And it's really just a game of incentive alignment. You know? And when I think about the term web three, to me that means ownership. And so for all of these different deals that I'm doing, it's about how do you create ownership incentives so that everyone who's contributing value to this entity is able to capture that in some way, shape, or form. And so I think it's a very difficult conversation to tell a manager, Hey, instead of taking a 15 or a 20% commission, you're gonna get a base salary and then have a couple equity percentage points that best over multiple years. But when you start to zoom out a bit, you start to see like, hey, maybe 1% of equity can actually be more valuable than 20% commission. Because if you're operating a multi-million or multi-billion dollar business, you know that's a life-changing amount of money. And so I don't expect this is something that's gonna happen in the short term. I think it's gonna take a very new class of partners, managers, agents, et cetera, that are willing to enter into these type of. Situations and these type of organizations. But I'm very excited to work with the emerging class of talent that's willing to try something out a little bit differently because I think that new class of talent is looking for an opportunity here. And I think that we've seen time and time again that the systems that exist today work, but I think that there's a lot of room for improvement and I'm excited to use some of the artists that we're working with help push the needle on what that could like. [00:21:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think the other point that you mentioned too, was aligned as well, just in terms of artists being able to have that team around them. We've seen so many examples where whether it's Jay-Z, having someone like a Dame Dash next to him, or you have Jay Cole and e Bama, they've been working together for years. Kate, uh, Kendrick Lamar, and the whole Top Dog team. These artists are doing it themselves, and oftentimes the ones that try to get stuck, so no different then. Yeah, a startup, if you're trying to raise money, they're gonna push back. If you have the technical co-founder being the same one that's trying to go raise money, right? Like you need to have some expansion there. So I think so much of that makes sense. I do wanna talk about the other piece that you mentioned though, the NFT piece of it, because the way that you're investing in these, I think could be eyeopening to some of the folks listening because you're looking. And I heard you referred to historic NFT opportunities and NFTs as collectables. Can you talk a little bit about what you're looking for if you're investing in NFTs through this fund and how that may separate from what a lot of people may assume when they think about an nft. [00:22:18] Cooper Turley: Yeah, so there's a really amazing market of songs that are being released as collectibles right now. You know, there's platforms like Sound xyz, where every day an artist is releasing a song with 25 editions as NFTs. And I've been really active across these markets for the course of the last two years. Personally, you know, biggest collector on Sound today, one of the biggest collectors on catalog. And I'm really excited about being able to collect these early songs from artists that are building in Web three. You know, the analog I'd make here. Music, rookie cards. You know, we have rookie cards for basketball players, for baseball players, et cetera. We don't really have rookie cards for artists, and I think in a lot of ways these early music NFTs are sort of the equivalent of an artist rookie card. And so personally, I've been doing this for the last couple years. I recently just put out a post called the Music NFT Collector Thesis. This is how we're thinking about collecting from the fund. But to really break it down, we're thinking about how do we sort of acquire early NFTs that represent historical relevance of this. Web three and Music NFTs have been around for maybe a year at this point. I think that there's a huge opportunity for fans to start getting involved by collecting the songs that they love and for the fund. I almost look at music NFTs as the new form of like masters and publishing. You know, it's not quite one to one, but there's almost this new market being formed of Tradeable assets that you can buy for something like 50 bucks when it drops, and then hopefully have the ability to resell at a later. And I think for the fund, you know, us being able to participate in these markets and say, Hey, we are aware of what's happening on the ground floor with the next generation of developing artists, we're actively collecting these songs that we can show that were there from them, beyond needing to set up a company and needing to do some crazy type of investment situation. And I'm really excited about the opportunity just to have. Ownership over some of these really early collectibles, cuz I think they're very historic in the development of these artists' careers and I believe they're extremely valuable and will continue to demonstrate. So in the years to come. [00:24:03] Dan Runcie: You brought up an interesting point just about how you feel like NFTs could replace what we are naturally thinking about masters in publishing. I guess in terms of how artists are monetizing and what their ownership looks like. Can you talk a little bit more about that and specifically how that could look or what that could look like? Years down the road. [00:24:23] Cooper Turley: I mean, I'll start by saying that, um, masters in publishing are extremely valuable. You know, I think that this is a system that has worked for generations. There's a huge trend around catalog acquisition. I think that will continue to exist for many, many years to come. I think for someone like myself, me trying to get in the catalog acquisition game is not a smart move. You know, there's a lot of players with a lot more experience. There's a lot of people with a lot more money. The one unique advantage that I do have though, is developing thesises within this small pocket of web three artists, and the best way to get exposure to them is to simply buy their nf. You know the way that this looks is if there's the first song an artist ever released their artist rookie card, and there's 25 additions of that being sold for 50 bucks. If you zoom out and one of these artists becomes the Weekend, Drake Post Malone, Jack Harla, whatever it might be, there's a very high likelihood that those early additions are gonna be worth a lot more than $50. And so instead of trying to invest in the masters in publishing rights, those songs can also go on Spotify. They can stream extremely well. You can have relationships with major label. But I believe those early collectibles have a market of their own. These markets are not tied to any sort of royalty rights because it's just collectibles. You know, there's 25 additions of this digital vinyl. I can buy it for $50 and then sell it for whatever price I want in the future. And I think this is a market that not many people are paying attention to right now. But I think when it comes to new and creative revenue streams for artists, I think that collectibles are gonna be a very, very big market in the years to come. I think it's the most clear way that fans can start to get involved with sort of, Collectible nature of getting involved with an artist and as a fun, I think we're really excited to be participating here to say, Hey, we're really excited about this. I think there's some really amazing plays out there right now, and we're gonna continue to support artists on the ground floor to help develop this thesis. [00:25:59] Dan Runcie: Why do you think that a lot of people aren't paying attention? Or what do you think some of the, if there's friction or if there is just in a bit of a natural adoption curve, like what do you think's going. [00:26:12] Cooper Turley: It's just new. I mean, this entire market has only been around for a little bit more than a year at this point. You know, in total, I think we have less than a thousand artists that have ever minted a music NFT before. There's probably less than 10,000 people ever collected one before, and so. Relatively speaking, it's just a very new and small market. And I think for a lot of players that have bigger fish to fry, it's probably not worth their time to invest buying records for $50 because they have multimillion dollar record deals in place. You know, and so for someone like myself, um, a lot of what I do is help educate artists that there's a lot of value to be captured in web through right now based on how early it is. You know, I think that there's a lot of unlearning that can be done with the way artists are releasing music in Web three. And so traditionally, when you're putting out a song on Spotify, most artists I know here in. They'll take eight weeks in advance to think about what distributor am I gonna put this out through? Am I gonna sign this to a label? What's my advance? What's my marketing rollout? What's my TikTok campaign? How am I getting pre saves? How am I making the music video? And what I've been preaching is like, Hey, if you have a song, you should put that out tomorrow. You know, like there's people out there that would probably wanna collect that record. And if you can 5 25 people to come and collect music in FT for 0.05 E, they're basically $75. That's the equivalent of half a million streams. And so I think trying to teach people that you don't need to have this giant rollout process to make this headline moment with music. We've gotten really conditioned to trying to shoot for the new Music Friday playlist. You know, all of these emerging editorial playlists. One of the beautiful things about the SoundCloud era was people were just uploading music in real time and if you had your finger on the trigger, you could go and just repost something and be part of a wider movement. And I think what's happening with music and FTS now is artists are gonna start to see that you don't need to have a six week rollout to put out a collection of 25 songs. If you make that song on Wednesday and put it out on Thursday, you can immediately get funding from your biggest fans and use that funding to go and market the rest of your career and instead be able to obviscate the need for a lot of those major capital advances that typically get artists caught up in a weird position in the first place. [00:29:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like if the funding's in place and you can replace early on, because I think for a lot of artists, the economics don't really work out either. Unless A, you own the underlying masters in publishing to begin, so you're just bringing on a. You know, revenue per stream or just general from what you're getting from streaming or on the other side, you're just massive, like Drake or someone like that. And your billions of streams per year brings in plenty of money. But for a lot of other artists, it ends up being either A, a loss leader if you're focusing solely on streaming or a, or you're leaving money on the table some type of way. So I feel like that approach is something that makes sense for a bunch of. On the investing side though, I have a few questions on this, but the first one, on the investing side though, how do you feel like the appetite will be for, let's say an artist does have early investors, the likelihood for those investors to be folks who are accredited, folks that just wanna be able to get a return, versus people who are actual fans of that artist. Any thoughts on what that mix may look like for the average artist that's going through the web? Growth cycle and the rep do growth curve? [00:30:19] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I mean, I can speak on this from the artist seed round that we're doing right now. Every investor in that round has been an active collector of this artist for many, many months. Prior to that, they all have personal relationships with the artist. You know, they may be an accredited investor, but they're not just bringing capital. They've been active and supportive of this artist's career way before the seed round even started. And so I think if we zoom out, there will definitely be situations. Investors just want to put in a couple hundred grand and not really worry about getting involved on the ground floor. But given how early it is right now, most of the investors who are interested in participating in these capital markets are ones who want exposure to both NFTs and to the artist equity. And so I think that over time, collectors to me are a little bit closer to like early investors. Think about them like almost angels or sort of like seed round investors. Over time, collectors will start to mirror more fan behavior. But I think for right now, a lot of the collectors I know, they're just excited to get exposure to an artist's career and to go and support them more so than they are to really go to their show or to buy their merchandise, et cetera. And I think that's where a lot of the pushback comes for web through music is like, oh, these people aren't actually fans. They're just, you know, buying NFTs. But if you zoom into what that means, it's almost a different form of fandom where they're providing capital to be able to have exposure to an artist's career. And their expectations are a lot less on the fan side. I need you to collaborate with this artist. I want you to put out this type of music. It's more so like, Hey, we just wanna support you and your career however we can. Because the more that you're able to identify your vision and create a brand around it, the more valuable our NFTs are going to become. And so it's a very mutual relationship I think hasn't really existed in music in the past. [00:31:50] Dan Runcie: You're really getting at this aspect of community and how artists can foster that, how they can build around them. We've seen the power of that in the SoundCloud era, so we've seen a lot of these things happening and what streaming in general has enabled to happen. What are some of the success stories that stand out to you when you're thinking about artists to be like, oh yeah, they've nailed community, or they're nailing community, like that's how you do it. [00:32:13] Cooper Turley: Yeah. I would say a couple artists to check out. Daniel Allen, I think has done a fantastic job of this in the web three space. Latasha who started something called Zora Topia has done a fantastic job at this Early nft. Artists like Matt Cha os. Grady bloody white. I mean, the list goes on and on, but basically you see. The small pocket of artists that are really making web through a centerpiece for their career, and they're leveraging that into creating more community conversation. Where typically all these artists have a collector chat where once you've bought a music nft, you can get into a private chat with that artist. It's typically 20 people, 25 people, and that artist is in there every day saying like, Hey, what do you guys think about this demo? Hey, I'm thinking about dropping a song next week. Which one do you like more? What do you think I should do for the supply? Do you think we should do an airdrop? And that conversation is a lot more interactive. And I think in a lot of ways artists have typically maintained separation from their fans to kind of uphold this like form of mystery and this like storytelling aspect. But what I'm seeing now is that collectors are getting really close to the artists that they know and love, and those artists are realizing that for a very specific demographic of their audience, they can be very value added, asked the right questions. And so instead of just doing a meet and greet or doing like, you know, 50 people standing in line to say hi, back to back for an hour and a half, it's like, hey, if we wanna have a valuable conversation about the future of my career, These other people that I can turn to, cause I know they have exposure to my brand and they actually typically have experience That's very valuable and it's something that I think is gonna happen more and more with the next generation of collectors to come. [00:33:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a good way to just think about the framing of it, right? Meet and greets can be great, but it's so transactional. It is really isn't an opportunity. And it kind of has a bit of this like hierarchical thing. Like, oh, I paid $500 extra at this concert to like take a picture with you. Versus no, like if you've really been with this person, then how can you help shape that in the same way that someone that was really early on can? So I feel like there's so many principles there and there's so much that aligns with, especially on the financial side. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the marketing side of it, because I know that's a piece that a lot of artists have had questions about, but I also think that we've seen from. Project specifically with Web three projects like outside of music where whether it is the creator themselves who's been able to market or get the word out effectively, or they've been able to just find ways to build their distribution themselves. What are some of the ways that you've seen artists who've been successful on the Web three Path have been able to replicate, or at least make up for some of the marketing that they would get from a major record label, but otherwise they're recreating on their own. [00:34:47] Cooper Turley: I think it starts from the story, you know, like first of all, what is the music that you're releasing and what is the story behind that? But more importantly, like what is the narrative with how you're using the technology? And so almost fusing together like the creative side with the tech side, you know, whether this be something as simple as like creating your own artist website where people are mentioning s from, or it's something like, hey, we're using on chain splits to reward and compensate. 15 different contributors, five of which didn't touch the music, but were helpful in the development or the project management or the visual assets, et cetera. You know, I think there's new creative channels to help bring more people into the table, but I would say generally Twitter is kind of the main resource for all web three artists. You know, the ones that I see doing really well are typically putting out tweet storms, talking a lot about the drops that they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they're doing it. I see a lot of artists doing these sort of collector chats and more private investor relationships. If they have a bigger release coming out, it's not only about posting the tweetstorm, it's also about going and finding time to talk to some of your bigger collectors one on one and being like, Hey, what do you think about this? How can I get you involved? What are some feedback you would have on this drop? Are you excited or not excited? And I think typically with music, traditionally, how it's released, Artist makes a song, they have their internal team, and then they put it out to the world. And when it's out to the world, everyone forms an opinion on it. With Web three music, a lot of the time, there's a lot more happening behind the scenes before the release actually comes out, so that when it is time for one of these releases to happen, you start to see these things sell out because there was a lot of work put into the record before it came out, and that's not untraditional from typical music, but I think the difference there. Active conversations with your collectors is very new. You know, typically it's like people around a table at a major label that are talking about like, how are we gonna market on TikTok? But this is different because it's going and having very direct conversations with the people that are supporting you the most. And in aggregate that sort of. Neural net of all these different people talking about your drop in tandem. It creates this sort of network effect where when it does come out, there's almost a rippling effect that helps to make the drop become more successful. And I think that's something that I'm seeing being replicated time and time again. [00:36:44] Dan Runcie: And I know that, as you mentioned, Twitter has been a great space for artists to be able to share things. There's so much. There's so many people in the one three community that are active there, and I think have added to a lot of the discussion and narrative around it. But as someone who's active on Twitter myself, I know how small sometimes those circles can feel. What other platforms or what other areas are you seeing some of these conversations happen, and how long do you think until we're starting to see it not just becoming necessarily a Twitter thing, but it is expanding to more platforms and it's becoming a bit more of. Early majority, at least being able to catch on. [00:37:22] Cooper Turley: I think it'll be Twitter for the foreseeable future. You know, I think that's just where the vast majority of Web three people live. And I think it's actually the one social platform where you can talk about Web three and not get ridiculed for it. You know, I think across nft, TikTok, et cetera, it's very taboo to talk about NFTs, and I don't think that those users are really as tapped into sort of like the valuable aspects of Web three. And so I think for the immediate future, let's call it the next one to two. Twitter, I think is gonna be the source for all of that. And to your point, some of these communities do feel very small, but I think that's actually one of the biggest differences with Web three. You know, I think with traditional marketing platforms, we optimize for impressions, we optimize for plays, for eyeballs, et cetera. On Twitter, if you have 50 people that are consistently showing up to each of your drop, you're doing an amazing job. You know, I think that this is the biggest thing that shows why Web three is valuable is you don't need to have a million monthly listeners to make a couple thousand bucks. If you have 25 people that are willing to come and support you, you can make the same amount of money and have a deeper relationships with those individuals. And so I always say to artists, Even if you're only getting three, five reactions on your tweets every single time, that's very impressive because the benchmark to move the needle and Web three is a lot lower because every individual person is much more active and the quality of those conversations is much higher than what you could expect from a TikTok, Instagram, et cetera. [00:38:36] Dan Runcie: And I think in general, like with those platforms, you're more likely to reach people who are just casually following or passively engaging versus whether if you're already in that audience that's Twitter, you're likely reaching a more active fan base to begin with. And it gets to this whole concept of where can you not just reach followers, but reach people who are actual fans of their music? And a lot of the platforms that have grown tremendously large in the past few. Are much more overindexed on followers and less overindexed or or under indexed rather on true fans. [00:39:08] Cooper Turley: Yeah. And so there's still a lot to be done there. You know, I do believe there's a world in which artists that are using Web three and music NFTs become viral acts that have fans in the traditional sense. I try not to like focus on that too much because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get there. I think that will happen, but I don't think it's healthy to think. What that looks like today, because frankly, we're just far away from it, you know? And I think for me, helping an artist get a thousand collectors is much more important to me than how do they get 10 million streams on Spotify? You know, if the ladder happens, that's great. But I think the former's actually a lot harder to do because it's a much smaller design space. But, you know, I think there's something really exciting there. And a lot of the work that I do as a collector is really just educating fans on like, why would I wanna collect music? Like, why would I wanna participate on the other side of these? I think from the surface, a lot of bands got really bad experiences with NFTs because artists were just selling random drops that didn't really have any merit to them. They didn't actually care about the output. They were just kind of doing something to be cool at the time. But now what I'm starting to see is that these emerging artists, they really care about their NFTs. They care about them just as much, if not more, than their release strategy on Spotify. And for those demographic of artists. If you are a fan that's looking to sort of develop a brand for yourself around. I believe that this web through music space is a great opportunity to do so. And what we're now seeing is a very small group of music collectors who are building their entire Twitter brand around collecting drops on sound, or writing newsletters or writing mirror posts, et cetera. And I think those are the type of people that I want to try and amplify in Spotlight because it's a very much two-sided marketplace here. And in order for these artists to be successful, you also need to have collectors that are willing to be active in these markets and see success from the music they're collecting as well. [00:40:42] Dan Runcie: This is one thing that I keep in mind. More broad trends about like what's happening in music, but I also keep it in mind with artists and creators who are trying to expand beyond the folks that they're naturally reaching. Because if you're only going to try to focus on the people that you naturally reach on a regular basis, it, it can work. And I do think that it's kind of like shifting a bit of the psychology, because I think so much of us have been conditioned to just focus. Who is the next person you're gonna reach? What is your customer acquisition cost? It's not just artists, it's the whole industry that's thinking about it this way, but you can build a sustainable business if you are just focused on the pub shot reach. I know it's a bit of that thousand true fans mentality applied to web three, but I think that there's plenty of nuances there. And sometimes it could be less than that. Sometimes it could be more than that. But I think there's some really unique things. One thing. Interested to hear your thoughts on though is just with artists specifically and fans and just the nature of that relationship and whether or not the tokenization of their relationship changes anything. Right. Because I feel like with fans, there's a lot of this conception that because they don't feel like there's nothing that's like financially tying them to them, maybe that brings up, you know, a different relationship than they would if they do feel actually, you know, financially tied to the. Is there any downsides or is there anything that you think of in terms of how that broader tokenization of the relationship changes any of that dynamic or expectations? [00:42:21] Cooper Turley: I definitely think there's downsides, and I think there's a lot of pressure that comes with it. You know, I think for artists that are selling nfts, you need to think about new mechanisms. Like, what is my floor price? What is my volume? Is this asset trading above what I sold it for in the first place? That's a lot of pressure, you know, and that takes a lot of time to get right. I think that over time people are gonna recognize. Collector is getting mad about floor prices. The same as a fan being mad about the type of song that you're releasing, where that's just kind of the name of the game. You know, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it's not like there needs to be a huge reliance on that. I think the one thing the artists need to focus on is actually being consistent with what they're putting out in releasing. If you're giving it your best effort and you're doing things to add value back to early collections, to be able to engage with your community and doing things that show that you're being intentional, that to me matters a lot more than like, what is the price of the tokens themselves, because I think over. We need to recognize that not all fans are the same, and it's not like all music is only gonna exist as NFTs. What's gonna happen is that all these songs are gonna be available on Spotify. If I'm a passive fan, I can go and just listen to that song. There's no expectation for me to ever have a financial relationship with that artist. But the new unlock here is if I wanna go deeper on that relationship. This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, and I believe many others do. I can now collect something that represents a limited version of that song. And for other people that are excited about that artist's career. Not only can we share on our Instagram story, we can now go into a private collector's chat and say, Hey, I was able to pick up this sold out drop. I was able to pick up one of their early rookie cards, and I think what we start to see is that the fan base gets a little bit more. It's delineated across different verticals where there's some vans who are just showing up to a concert, you know, all the time. I go into GA at a show and I'm like, how do I get these people to buy music and FT use? And the reality is most of them probably never will because they just wanna go and have a good time. They wanna party and forget about their nine to five job. And that's perfectly fine. But I think for the small subset of people who are really passionate about music, those active listeners being able to answer into these more deeper relationships, it's really gonna empower curation in a very new way. And I think the analog I would make here, Sites like Height Machine really drove the success of SoundCloud in a very massive way. You know, there was a demographic of curators who were saying, Hey, we love this type of music. There was all these different blogs, like This song is sick, you know, all these EDM blogs, pigeons and planes, et cetera. They were adding cultural zeitgeist to these songs. And I think the financialization of these assets is not only gonna incentivize people to wanna curate and write about these different article. It's actually gonna give them the means to sustain themselves on the back of doing so. Or if I'm a curator who's really successful at identifying talent, I don't need to go work for a major label as an a and r because I can simply spin up a newsletter on sub stack, go and look at the drop calendar on sound, xyz, and then the event that I'm able to really identify. Successful drops, I can actually start to make a living on the back of my taste. I think that's something that hasn't really existed before and something that I'm personally really excited to see happen more and more in the industry at large. [00:45:08] Dan Runcie: That last piece is huge because it makes me think back to the blog era, especially at hip hop with just. How popular it was when, whether it was sites like Two Dope Boys or Now, right. And their influence on being able to have a mix tape that they're putting out. They're putting their stamp for approval. They're the media channel that's sharing the tape, that's being released from Dap Piff and being like, Hey, here is this new kid Cutty record that you need to listen to a kid named Cutty. You know, this is the mix tape. Check it out. Or the cool kids, or Charles Hamilton or whoever, one of these artists, The difference though, is that even though the artists in the blog era and the people who ran these websites in the blog era were so influential, and I think at a time they even had more influence than the major record labels did. They didn't capture the upside. They created the culture. They created the influence, but they didn't capture the upside. This allows that to happen in a way. The next version of Two Dope Boys could essentially be the one to, like you said, they could start up a newsletter, they could be able to release this and be like, Hey, I'm the one that is putting this investment in and then this is gonna stay there from here on out. That's something that's really special. And to be honest, I don't feel like there's enough discussion around that. So I'm glad you brought that point up. [00:46:26] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. And I think the one, the one thing I wanna zoom in on there, That doesn't require the artists to sell any of their masters. You know, them putting out 25 editions of a collectible song that a curator can go and buy and then help spread the word about within their pockets. There's no conversation around like, what percentage master publishing does this curator now have? Do I need to bring them into my creative decision, et cetera. It's a new market that now exists on the back of taste and curation, and I think in a lot of ways, music NFTs get pushed back cause they say, oh, you don't actually own the rights. Why do these things have value in the first place? I'm a big believer that community has a lot of value to it. You know, I don't think that art needs utility or needs IP ownership or Masters or publishing to be valuable. I think these curators are able to tell very compelling stories about the impact that music has and being able to add a new market into the equation through music and fts, it really unlocks a new mechanism for artist fandom that I think is very simple to understand. I don't think the average fan will be able. Rationalize what a master or a publishing right looks like. But I think they can understand what a rookie card or what a limited edition of songs looks like. And so I'm very excited to watch these markets mature. And I think that ties back into why the fund is collecting music, NFTs, cuz we believe that. More people are going to be able to understand what it means to own a collectible than they are going to know what it means to own masters or publishing. And so you sort of have these two different sides of the equation. I think they can both work in T and in unison with one another to make the aggregate music market more valuable as a whole. [00:47:51] Dan Runcie: And I think your fun will be a, a test to see how well that works. So, It'll, it'll be, it'll be fascinating. I feel like the structures make sense. You have each day, each piece of it there. I'll be very interested to see what the returns end up being like for each of those categories. Right. Of course, you know, most of the fund is looking at your precede and seed stage music and web three startups, so I assume that it's naturally gonna be what the expectations would be for any young startup. But I'm very interested to see what those expected multiples or the exits will be for the NFTs and then, The artists seed round investments themselves. [00:48:26] Cooper Turley: Absolutely. I will say that the vast majority of the fund is going into web three companies, but time and time again, people get really excited about this idea of investing in artists. Again, do not have the answers whatsoever, but. I'm noticing people are really excited about that ballpark. So I'm excited to at least start that trend with this first fund here and in the future. I'm hoping that we can create playbooks for many artists who don't even use nft, use their web three to also start to enter in these agreements as well. But you know, I'm really excited about it. You know, like I said, I've been in music for 10 years, crypto for the last five. I feel like this fund is a great way for me to really fuse those two passions together. And it's a very small market right now, but if you made it this far in the episode, I hope that this is something of interest to you and I would love to keep the conversation going if you have more. [00:49:06] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Before we wrap things up and let you go, one of the quotes you had mentioned, you referenced this earlier, the conversation too, that we're not at the point in Music Web three, where Drake is gonna come through and drop an album or a Bieber or a Post Malone or one of those artists. If you had to pick a year that you think that will happen though, what year would you pick? [00:49:26] Cooper Turley: Uh, 2025. Okay. And I think what's gonna happen is that a lot of the biggest artists in the world will just happen to have NFTs under the hood. You know, I don't think it's gonna be like one of those major superstars doing their first drop as NFTs. I think there's like a developing culture of artists right now that are gonna really gain a lot of momentum over the next couple of years. And when they release that major album, you're gonna look back and see that their first songs actually happen to be minted as the collection of 25. A lot of major artists are really excited about this. You know, I spend a lot of my time talking to artists who are currently signed to deals that are saying, Hey, I wanna drop, but I can't because the major label doesn't let me. And I think what's gonna happen is that major labels are gonna wake up to how valuable these early collections can be. And instead of blocking their artists from doing these drops in the first place, they're gonna start to really ramp up and get engaged with them too. So instead of just like, how do we put this album out on Spotify? It's gonna be, how do we develop a relationship with these platforms and onboard our catalog into the. So the biggest thing that I see as a question mark for web three is do we recreate the same systems of Volt? You know, is there going to be a world in which the major labels are just driving the vast majority of NFT sales? I think you're already seeing early examples of this like Warner's partnership with Open Sea, and one thing that I think is really important for us to recognize is that artist independence is very, very valuable. You know, I think that artists owning their own rights and knowing how to run their own companies and run their own business is extremely valuable. And so I'm hopeful that there's a world in. Artists can coexist with labels in a more free form matter. You know, I'm hoping that there's a world where artists can upstream their most viral song to a label, but still retain the rest of their catalog. But I think what's gonna happen over the next year or two is there's going to be. A shuffling of different power dynamics from artists to label relationships. And I think the most forward thinking labels are gonna recognize that it's okay to give up a little bit of control so that an artist can run their business more properly. And if you have 20% of the biggest artists in the world, that's probably more valuable than having 80% of someone who's not really doing much with their career. And so I'm eager and excited to see what those relationships look like and hopefully try and, you know, form some of those early stage relationships along the way. [00:51:41] Dan Runcie: But it's to your point, yeah, they would rather have 20% of that than 80% of the field at this point, so, mm-hmm. , I think we'll see more of that and actually we'll see more of that, not just involving multimedia, but involv. More merging technology. So yeah, it's only a matter of time. 2025 is earlier than I thought you were gonna say, but things move quick, so we'll keep the, we'll keep an eye out for it.Cool. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. This is great. [00:52:07] Cooper Turley: Thank you, man. I just wanna say, I really appreciate this podcast because you're so well versed when it comes to both the music side, the tech side, and the financial side. I think that it's, Um, difficult for me to find pockets to really talk about the financialization of music. You know, there's a lot of pushback that comes from it, but you know, the way you structured this conversation I think really gives a clear picture of why I'm excited about more of the financialization of music. I think it gives a lot of credence to emerging artists and sort of the way I'm thinking about collecting. So really appreciate you making this happen. I think it was a fantastic episode. I'm excited to share with all my friends. [00:52:37] Dan Runcie: Likewise, no. These are the conversations that need to happen, right? The more that people can talk about it, the more it just gets in the open and the faster things get to where it should be.So thank you for making the time. This is great. [00:52:49] Cooper Turley: Yeah. The last thing I'll say here in closing, I write a weekly newsletter called This Week in Music, NFTs. If you're interested in any of this conversation, every Monday I publish a short edition that talks about upcoming drops, top stories, bonus read from the community. So if you're looking to get more involved in the web three space, that's where I'd recommend getting started. And then if you are a founder or an artist that's building something and looking for investment, the best place to reach me is via email coop Coop records xyz. But again, thank you so much for having me, man. This was a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate your time. [00:53:18] Dan Runcie: Thank you. And if you're not following him on Twitter and you reactive on Twitter, make sure you do that. What's your Twitter handle? [00:53:23] Cooper Turley: Twitter is at kooopatroopa. Good stuff. Thanks man. Thanks for having me. | |||
| 01 Dec 2023 | YouTube’s Impact on Music | 01:10:59 | |
It’s hard to imagine what music would be like today without YouTube. The platform has done more to lower the entry barriers to music creation and distribution than any other platform. From the early days when acts like Soulja Boy harnessed the raw power of YouTube to drive their careers, to modern narratives like NBA YoungBoy mastering Creator culture, in this episode we delve into how YouTube's become an essential player in the music industry. In this episode, I’m joined by Tati Cirisano from MIDiA Research to discuss the origins of YouTube entering the space, the rocky relationships with music rights holders, the importance of UGC (User Generated Content), and so much more. [00:01:23] YouTube Enters The Music Industry [00:08:37] Google Acquires YouTube, DMCA [00:21:12] The Monetization-Exposure Trade Off [00:28:36] YouTube’s “Value Gap” [00:44:48] Improving Relationships With The Music Industry [00:49:49] Content ID [00:56:44] YouTube and AI This episode is brought to you by Downtown Music, the world leader in music services with over 2 million clients. Visit Downtown today to learn more. Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. | |||
| 10 Feb 2021 | J. Erving on Human Re-Sources, Sony Music's Acquisition, and How to Evaluate Talent | 00:36:40 | |
Human Re-Sources founder J. Erving came on the podcast to talk about why he recently sold the rising indie distributor to Sony Music, where he’s now EVP of Creative Development and an EVP at The Orchard, where Human Re-Sources now sits. We also talked about his experience managing artists like Jeremih, why record labels and indie distributors partner with each other, how to evaluate and develop talent in today’s era, and more. If you’re interested in the “role of a record label” in today’s landscape, this is the podcast for you. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: J. Erving, @human.re.sources, human-re-sources.com Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 13 Oct 2023 | Trapital Report coming soon! | 00:01:51 | |
No new episode this week. We’re working hard on this year’s Trapital Report, which is out at the end of October! Make sure you’re signed up for our email newsletter to get the report once it’s live. Next week we’re back with another deep dive episode. Listen to this brief episode for a few hints! Talk to you next week. | |||
| 16 Sep 2022 | How Roy Wood Jr. Is Evolving His Comedy | 00:44:32 | |
Returning to Trapital for a second time is comedian Roy Wood Jr. We last spoke in mid-2020 when lockdowns curbed his usual comedy performance routine. On the outside, it might not seem Roy has changed much since our first convo — he’s still a regular on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah — but internally, Roy is amidst another career evolution. Roy made a successful comedic career — three specials on Comedy Central over a five-year span — out of finding unique angles to discuss external events such as news and politics. But now, Roy wants to talk about himself. Spurred by an appearance on PBS’ “Find Your Roots”, Roy is more introspective about the relationship with his father, a civil rights activist, and how it influences raising his own son. How and where Roy delivers this refined message hasn’t been decided yet. For now, Roy is taking time for himself to think through how he’s changed, and so has comedy and the entertainment industry at-large. In our discussion, Roy hinted at some of those major changes. Here’s what we covered: [3:15] The state of live comedy in 2022 [5:32] Roy’s insane performing streak from 1998-2020 [6:27] Why the comedy club isn’t the right venue for Roy right now [11:45] Comedian expectations have changed [13:35] Morality vs. profit [17:05] Roy’s partnerships [18:42] Roy’s criticism of Netflix and streaming [26:27] The new superstar is an assemble cast [31:08] How Roy chooses comedic topics [34:43] Roy’s most personal joke [35:24] How much does Roy’s son know about his comedy career? [37:39] How Dick Gregory changed Roy’s life [40:48] Roy starring in Confess, Fletch movie Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Roy Wood Jr., @roywoodjr
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Roy Wood Jr.: You can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe, you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup? Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour. [00:00:36] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Roy Wood Jr. This is his second time back on the podcast. The first time we recorded a podcast was back in the middle of 2020, middle of the pandemic. And we talked a lot about how the closure of comedy clubs and the closure of everything was affecting his life as a comedian and what he saw the world would be like on the other side of the pandemic. And now we're starting to be here, so it was a great opportunity to check in, hear how things are going for him. And we talked a lot about how the past couple of years have reshaped his perspective on the type of message that he wants to be able to. What are the best venues to do that and how he might change his approach up a little bit in the next few years. We also talked about streaming and what it's been like from his perspective as someone that is acting in movies, acting in TV shows, writing and producing shows as well, and how it's been like navigating these streaming networks, what their goals and incentives are. What his goals and incentives are and what he has seen from others in this space. We also talked about his upcoming movie Confess, Fletch. It's out in theaters on September 16th. It stars Jon Hamm. This is a reboot of the classic Chevy Chase Fletch movies from the eighties. So we talked about what to expect there, what he's excited about and more. Roy's good people, man, plain and simple. If you listen to the last conversation that him and I had, you know that if you've watched anything he's ever done on The Daily Show, ever seen him perform standup, you know that as well. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it. [00:02:30] Dan Runcie: All right. We are joined today by a return guest to the Trapital podcast, the one, the only, Roy Wood Jr. How are you doing man? [00:02:38] Roy Wood Jr.: You're back. I'm back. You're welcome. You're all welcome. I apologize in advance for my voice. There's things that happened this week that I did not plan on happening. And this is the result. It was either this or cancel, and I didn't want to cancel it. [00:02:54] Dan Runcie: No, I appreciate you. Hey, it's either this, or, you know, this is part of getting back on the road, right, 'cause I feel like the last time we talked, we were talking about what the other side of this whole pandemic was going to look like and what it was going to be like for comics returning to the stage. And now you're in it. What has it been like to return to the stage and with everything? [00:03:15] Roy Wood Jr.: What's wild is that I can't tell you too much. You know in 2022 I've only done four or five road gigs. Most of my gigs this year were COVID makeup dates from '21. So I've been blessed enough to be able to, you know, have a podcast that I'm able to do for myself, and sell a couple of scripts, and just create other revenue streams for myself, when the pressure to go back out on the road wasn't there. Also, creatively, I'm just in a different spot, bro. And I know that the stuff that I want to talk about, I don't know if the comedy club is the right place. It's part of the process creatively, but I just haven't been in a rush to get back out to figure it out yet, you know? It's been a really weird year for me in that the thing that I've done for 23 years is the thing that I did the least this year. And you know, that part of it's been really odd. It seems like the clubs are doing well though. You know, I still talk to a lot of comedians that are in the clubs because I'm still kind of that on the outside looking in. So I see all the comics who are touring, there's guys who I didn't know were headliners yet, but apparently, they are now. They're out there, they're doing their thing as well. So, you know, I'd say, all in all, it seems like the comedy club model got through it okay. But I don't know how sustainable it is as an entertainer to continue to be a part of this standup comedy model. You know, a lot of these new cats, you know, they're finding their own venues and they're figuring out their own way through the internet to get shit popping for themselves. But, you know, I will say this about standup. Since the shutdown, this idea of having one magical five-minute set on late night, and that being the thing that definitively becomes the new pivot point in your career, the likelihood of that happening is definitely less and less as the years go by. [00:05:09] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I could only imagine how big of a life change it is for you. I remember you saying in the past, from when you started this once out of every 10 days, you were doing something on the road, right? Whether it was a standup show or something, and for you to be doing this completely different now, and just thinking about what the adapting is a complete life change, let alone anything on the business side of things. [00:05:32] Roy Wood Jr.: Until the shutdown, until a federally mandated government shutdown, from 1998, I'd never gone more than 10 days without performing, period. [00:05:41] Dan Runcie: It's huge. [00:05:43] Roy Wood Jr.: And I've gone months. I look forward to it for months at a time. I don't have another gig right now. And I have a corporate gig in three months and I'm like, perfect, perfect because it gives me the time, it gives your brain the time to settle. I can only imagine, you know, when you look at guys like Chris Rock, who have said, you know, you need time to go away and live and see the world and experience things and have something to come back and report on. I understand that now. [00:06:13] Dan Runcie: You also mentioned too, that there's material that you want to talk about, topics that you want to discuss that the stage may not be the best place for that. What are the things you want to discuss and why isn't the stage the best format? [00:06:27] Roy Wood Jr.: It's not the stage it's comedy club specifically. Like, alright, so I did Finding Your Roots over the shutdown and found out a lot of new truths about my father and, you know, some stuff on my mother's side, but as a father, myself, I often feel this attachment to my dad and then looking at how my father lost his dad when he was four. My granddaddy was gone when my dad was four. So when I think about that type of stuff, how that will inform the type of man that I will be to my son, and just family, and bonds, and the men who raise me in my father's absence. And there's jokes and there's stories, but as I figure out what the heart of the story is first before I make it funny, I don't know if the comedy club is always the right place for that because the comedy club, motherfucker, we want the jokes. I've been drinking. Me and my wife got dressed. I came here to be happy. You up there talking about your dead daddy and trying to figure out what that means for your son, motherfucker, I don't want to hear all that shit without jokes. So I think there's a place to go and develop that, you know, New York has a lot of different places, but also I think it's important for me to do my standup in venues other than comedy clubs because I think that sometimes, depending on the venue, you know, jazz club or black box, little theater or some improv house, I believe it changes how the material is received. You know, it changes how people listen to you sometimes. This is a terrible analogy and it's not going to be a perfect analogy, but it's like how food tastes better in church. You know, like when your grandma will pull a peppermint out of her purse, and she gave you that peppermint in the middle of a long ass church service, and that peppermint tasted like a pizza hu meat lovers. Like, it was just an amazing, so where we are sometimes can change the experience and the connection to the material. And so as I start mining this material, I'm going to have to figure out the best places to put it all together 'cause I feel like I'm teetering into some one-person show territory. And, you know, every comedian that I know that did a one-man show, you know, they didn't build it in a comedy club. You can sure present it at a comedy club, but you cannot build it there. That's why I've been meaning to talk to Jerrod to figure out where he built up Rothaniel 'cause, you know, that one was definitely a blend of the two skill sets. [00:08:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a good example of it. Just how he was able to be so raw, be so personal and different than anything he had done before leading up to this. I got to imagine, too, that part of this may also be linked with just the evolution of comedy and some of the other topics you've talked about recently and how people, especially nowadays, are looking for comedians to be truthsayers or they're also looking for them to be the ones that can tell them certain messages and how there's some people that believe that should be the case, but there's others that, I know you said this before, that it shouldn't necessarily be that way. So I feel like there's some of that that could also be potentially in line with some of the broader feeling about what is the best message to communicate where. [00:09:39] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. And I think once you figure that out as a performer, the people will come find you. You know, I don't really think it matters where you go once people love you, they will follow you to wherever, you know, so I think that's it. They went to a farm to see Chappelle. So you can come up with different venues, you know, once you have the ideas that are worth hearing. So it's my job first to get the ideas together. [00:10:02] Dan Runcie: Right, yeah. There's something about that comedy club setting, like you said. You're going with your significant other, you got the two-drink minimum. No, like I'm trying to get these laughs out that just doesn't, that works there. That doesn't necessarily translate elsewhere that could obviously work to your benefit going elsewhere. [00:10:18] Roy Wood Jr.: You can get deep in a comedy club, but you really have to stack the show properly. The people have to know who they're coming to see. And I'm still a comedian where, you know, with The Daily Show, unfortunately, this is a lot of people's first discovery point for me. So you don't know the previous 15, 16 years before I got with Trevor. So, you know, even those people come to a show and they want me to be a little more political than what I am on this show. And I'm like, sorry, that's not who I am. That's not what I do. So even within the construct of just regular standup, they still want something more specific. So, you know, it's about just figuring out, you know, the right places for that. But if you put that person in a setting they've never been to before, well, now you don't know what to expect. And I just think it just changes how you see and analyze things a little bit. You know, I'm going to try to experiment with, you know, different venues in '23. [00:11:15] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. You mentioned the politics piece of it, too, and just , given what you and Trevor are doing on The Daily Show, people coming to you for that. But I assume part of it also is channeling back to that truthsayer thing and seeing some of the things that Chappelle and others have talked about. Do you think that the way the current climate is that when people are expecting you to speak on these things, do you think that this changes and continues to evolve, or do you feel like this is kind of the place that things are right now? [00:11:45] Roy Wood Jr.: I don't think that the role of comedian has changed. I think that the expectations of a comedian have changed. Some for the better some for the worse, but I can't think of any one standup comedian that I know that is, like, set and looked themselves in the mirror, okay, today these jokes are going to change everyone's and change the world. You know, comics are more outspoken. Comics are more, you know, quicker to say what they feel on stage, especially the young ones, which is good. But I don't feel like when people say this climate, the climate is about the people reacting to what the comedian said, but most of these comedians that people get mad at, they've been saying shit like this for a long as time. But they're groups of people that have decided, you know what? I want to hear that shit no more. So they got something to say and they got a right to that. But I think at the end of the day, I don't think comedians have changed. I mean, Louis C.K. Back, he's cooking. Chappelle got another three special re-up from Netflix after all of the outrage or whatever. So that should show you where the corporations stand. And for as long as you are an entertainer that has an audience of some sort, you know, they're going to find a place for you regardless of whether or not that pisses off another group of people. You know, that's just kind of where we've always existed as a society. It's capitalism, baby. [00:13:10] Dan Runcie: Does part of you see someone like, let's take Chappelle, 'cause you had mentioned him, him still getting these deals even after the backlash or even after the response. Does some of that almost feel like, okay, we're not necessarily just responding to what people may get mad at, there's still clearly an opportunity or there's still people that want to hear what we have to say, even if the expectations from our viewers have changed? [00:13:35] Roy Wood Jr.: I think that as a society, you know, it is very difficult to place the expectation of morality and profit on a corporation. Most corporations have to choose between one or the other. And when I say profitability, you know, we're talking gross levels of profitability. I don't think many companies care to a certain degree about people in general. You know, this is bigger than just entertainment and whether or not you can say something that pisses off a group of people. Delta Airlines just started paying their flight attendants for when the plane doors open and they're boarding passengers. It's nothing moral. There's nothing moral about that, but it's definitely profitable. And only when it became embarrassing, which is not profitable, that they become a company with morals. If you can't attach profitability to morality, more often than not, you're not going to find a corporation that's going to make moves like that. I'm not surprised that Netflix gave Chappelle more specials for the amount of people that were mad at it, clearly, somebody was watching it and this is Netflix. Netflix cancels shit while you are in the middle of watching the episode. The second episode of a 10-episode show will come out and Netflix about, yes, cancel. What? Damn, can I finish? Season one? Nah, we've already looked at the metrics of the first episode that tells us everything we need to know. So, you know, that's a company that, you know, like people say that, oh, it's a FU to the LGBTQI community. It's definitely a slight to them for them to rebook Chappelle after they had said what they said and everybody had protested, whatever, whatever. But also Netflix is a company and that's about profit, which means somebody was watching Chappelle. And that's all they care about. That's all most companies care about is eyeballs. So, you know, unless you're getting into just straight-up criminalistic behavior of someone, morality versus profit is always going to be a tug of war that most corporations, they just do not have the heart that people do. [00:15:34] Dan Runcie: That's real. That's real. I mean, and even thinking about Chappelle specifically, because of how Netflix tracks the performance, a lot of the backlash likely helps those episodes because you have some that are tuning in because they want to hear what he has to say. But you have others tuning in because now they want to see or hear what he said that is causing all of these headlines. [00:15:55] Roy Wood Jr.: And that's all Netflix cares about. So the surprise on the backside is that can you believe this company didn't care? Yes, I can absolutely believe this company didn't care because more often than not most companies don't care. And that goes into women's rights, that goes into race, and George Floyd, and every company putting up black lives matter, whatever the fuck on the top of their website, and black squares and Instagram. So, you know, when it comes to a bevy of social, it is just, you know, it's interesting because corporations are now rocking a heart because now being moral. if it's profitable and cool, they'll jump on board. But if it's not, they're kind of like, eh, we'll see. [00:16:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. You've experienced this, you've worked with a number of these networks and seen the decisions that you've made. How has this impacted you at all with any of the partnerships you've made? I know you have the deal with Comedy Central that you've had. I know you had a special that came out with them, but we'll talk about that in a second. But how has that been with regards to you, and your specials, and your content, and how that works for you, both with the things that you want to do with the networks, and how you're able to still produce and create? [00:17:05] Roy Wood Jr.: You know, from the standup side, you know, it's fine. We're Comedy Central. You know, we had a, I call it The Trilogy. I had my first three-hour specials with Comedy Central and they were good. And now, as I think about what that next block of content will be, you know, we'll figure out where that's supposed to go once I figure out creatively, what the fuck it's going to be? But, you know, on the scripted side and selling scripts, I've been very blessed to have opportunities to sell stuff, not just the Comedy Central, but you know, Fox and NBC in the last couple of years and HBO Max as well. but the thing is that it's very difficult to predict how COVID is going to affect a network's creative strategy when it comes to scripted, you know. Like scripted is, that's where the glory is. That's where the fun is, right? But, you know, I had one script, Jefferson County: Probation. Aaron Magruder was my, you know, executive producer and co-creator on it. And as soon as we got the script together and shot the pilot, there was a merger between Viacom and CBS and they changed their strategy. And then right after that COVID hit and they changed their strategy again. And at both of those mile markers, scripted shows were the first things to get cut from the budget because they're the most expensive. So the pressure to be profitable fast or to have a cultural impact fast is greater now on the content that, you know, that we have because the thing that I don't like about Netflix is that what streaming has removed from our zeitgeist is the concept of a cult hit. You know, like a cult hit TV show. Cult is just a nice way of saying underground and not a lot of people watch it, but the ones who watch it really, really love it. But there are shows that sometimes do not pop until season three. Sometimes season four and it takes people a while to get on board, but then you have a network that has creative execs who want to stay in that pocket. And now we believe in this show. We're going to give it another season, give it another season, give it another season. This don't happen with black shows. I'm talking about Arrested Development and you know, shit like that. And maybe The Wire, if you want to count that as a cult hit. But I feel like The Wire was more by the time they got to season four, everybody was on board, but at that point, HBO was like, wrap it up. Streaming, the analytics that are attached to streaming companies deciding whether or not a scripted show lives or dies has eliminated the ability for certain shows to germinate over a year or two, and really have an opportunity to find their audience, get the word of mouth. Everything is now, now, now. And so because of that, you know, where scripted is concerned, you have to have an idea that pops now, that sails, now that gets on TV now. And if you're really lucky, it also touches the vein of what is happening in the now. That's why Abbott Elementary is what it is. You have a great creator. You have a great writer. It's well cast, it's shot beautifully, it's funny, but also educators are at the forefront of a lot of the bullshit that's been going on the last two years. It's perfectly on the pulse. It's perfectly on the pulse. So, you know, word of mouth isn't enough. You also have to have the numbers. And so, you know, I'd say that for me, when it comes to coming up with scripted content, you almost have to find something that lives. You have to have the idea that lives at multiple intersections, because if it's just a fun, cool, nice idea. That might not be enough anymore. That's 2015 ideology. [00:20:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The closest thing that seems like it's comparable to that cult classic of discovering it seasons later is when something gets picked up from a smaller network and then gets put on one of these big streamers. For instance, I'm thinking about South Side. Season Two. It's on HBO Max. And I think that made a lot of people that weren't watching South Side Season One discover it. [00:20:57] Roy Wood Jr.: Correct. Like, there's a show that was on in Canada that came over to Netflix called Kim's Convenience and that was a fucking hilarious sitcom that somebody like me, I would've never discovered had it not come over to, but it had to live over in Canada for two years. But you need execs who care about the IP and care about the idea. And a lot of these execs are under the same pressure as the creatives. You better be bringing this studio, some hit shows and you better be signing and buying scripts from the best creators 'cause if you aren't and we don't have a hit, if we're not getting nominations, and we're not getting talked about it's your ass, too. So if you have an exec that is betting on a show, that's just has midling numbers versus just canceling it, and bringing in something new, there's also job security in that for them as well. And I think that's why, you know, to a degree, you know, you don't see shows that get an opportunity to build and grow their audience, either you a hit out the gate or you got a target on your back. [00:21:57] Dan Runcie: The other challenging thing about this is knowing what those numbers are and whether or not the streaming services are sharing them with you. From your perspective as someone that is doing the scripts, selling shows, do you feel like you're getting any true quantitative aspect to be able to compare and say, okay, I see what I would've been able to hit or what the target is or how that compares, 'cause that's the piece that feels so non-transparent at all right now. [00:22:26] Roy Wood Jr.: That part of the game is still above my pay grade because I haven't gotten anything that's gone to series. I've sold a bunch of scripts that have all gone to pilot and most have gone to pilot at least. But even with the stuff over at Comedy Central, you know, we're on basic cable. So it's Nielsen. So, you know, that's more above board than companies giving their streaming numbers. But I wouldn't even be able to speak to that, unfortunately. I hope to be able to one day, but not today. [00:22:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. There was some interview I had seen it was Steven Soderbergh or someone like that. And he was like, I have no idea how well these movies do. They literally just tell me, yes, this was good. You can make another one or no, we're all set. Thanks. And he's just like, okay, then that's when he decides to make another movie. [00:23:08] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, that part of it, yeah, you are totally flying blind as a creator. You know, at some point there's going to have to be some equity in this, but, hey, sooner or later, all of these streaming sites are just going to keep merging and folding into one another. It's like airlines in the eighties. Go Google up how many different airline carriers we had in the eighties. And then here we are now with United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, and, what, American. Spirit and JetBlue emerging. So, okay, so you'll have, what, four or five major carriers? In the eighties, there was like, well, over 30. I could Google it real quick, but I know for sure I can name 15 airline companies from the eighties and I bet you the numbers are higher than that. [00:23:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's that whole industry. Even the big ones have done so many consolidations, even in the past 20, 25 years, they've done a bunch. It's been wild. [00:23:59] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. My point is that all those streamers are going to eventually all keep folding into each other and it's going to be basic cable all over again. [00:24:05] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. And I think, too, even how they're making decisions is starting to stand out. I'm sure you saw the Batgirl news when the movie's done, they just decide not to run that thing and just put it as a write-off. That's not going to be the last time that happens. [00:24:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. It's literally cheaper to not release this because the landscape keeps changing, bro. My heart goes out to that whole team. They are crushed about that. You know, as they should, but you work hard on a film, spend 90 million, at least you could do is put it out. But, you know, I just think that, you know, corporations like it's, again, it's profit. The right thing to do would've been to release the Batgirl film, but if projections and analytics have already told you that this film more than likely will underperform in the top tier markets where we need it to perform above money, profitability, it ain't profitable. Morality ain't profitable, man. So fuck them folks. We ain't going to release the film. Oh, but we should, they worked really hard. It's a black woman get to be black. We don't give a fuck. Cancel it. That's how a lot of places think, man. And you know, as they say, the game is the game, but that don't make it right. That don't make it hurt less. I just think that that's where a lot of companies are coming from, you know. They want bankable stars or an idea that's high concept and easy and quick and catches on. I still think that, you know, when you look at a show like Squid Game, which was such a breakout, you know, hit for Netflix, I think that the new superstar is the ensemble. You know, if you can't get a single star to carry your thing, then you need a great idea with a bunch of people nobody knows anything about. And then that's how you get people to invest, get people to invest in the concept and not the face. [00:25:47] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I can see that because I feel like there's so many big-name movies that you see on Netflix and they have all of these actors that you would consider to be A-list, but they come and go. But yeah, the magic of Squid Game is that it didn't have that, but it had this fascinating topic that people just wanted to have more and more of. It created a bunch of memes. And I'm sure not only they're trying to create a sequel, they're trying feel like, okay, what is the next thing like that that's going to take off. And sometimes it's random. I mean, I don't know if people thought that Queen's Gambit was going to take off the way that it did or any of those things. I feel like Netflix, especially, it feels like it could be very, you know, we'll see what happens. [00:26:27] Roy Wood Jr.: I mean, when you look at shows that have sustainability and have expanded their universes, like Power, there isn't a single actor in Power that is such a behemoth. Like, and I don't say that as a slight, it's an extremely talented cast of wonderful A-list actors. But when you look at how they try to anchor a show around one person, where Power is, it's always been a universe of people all working together. Of course, you have Mary J and Method Man in it, but it's not Mary J and Method Man alone to, it's not Joseph Sikora alone. Abbott is an ensemble cast. It's not a singular person. And so I think that concept will, I don't know, man. Why do you think people get so excited when Idris Elba comes back to do another round of Luther? It's 'cause, oh, my God, it's him. You get Idris every scene being badass, but he's busy, he's got movies to do and stuff. So I just think creatively, we're probably in a world where, you know, by and large, I feel like we'll just see more and more, you know, larger groups of people unless you have a network willing to pour millions of dollars into one person. You know, I don't know. [00:27:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think, too, we talked a little bit about how this is part of the evolution. Part of it, too, they want to have something that's quick to capture people's attention. And I think some of this has impacted how comics, and you as well, have talked about how it may approach your shows and how you're delivering certain information. And I know you've talked a lot about both the balance of having the timely topics, of talking about something that's current versus having those evergreen things that you need to, or you want to be able to tap into. And I feel like, you know, why actually Imperfect Messenger, you did a good job of that with just being able to balance things, you know, whether you're talking about current topics or just evergreen things. How conscious is that when you're thinking about the topics that you want to cover in a special? [00:28:22] Roy Wood Jr.: Well, for Imperfect Messenger, my comedic philosophy up until now, it has changed now 'cause I want to talk about myself and not the world. But the creative excavation process of a joke for me boils down to what is everybody saying about this topic. And is there anything new I can say? And if the answer is yes, then I continue down that road of exploration and then I put that joke on stage and then the best jokes win. As I like to call it, those are the jokes that make the 25-man roster, like baseball. Like, these are the start. 12- man, if you want to go basketball. So, you know, if the argument is A and B, is there a C side to it that I can introduce? Like if you look at my second special, No One Loves You, where I talk about the national anthem and the debate at the time with Kaepernick was should people stand for the anthem or should you take a knee? And my angle was why is that song the anthem? That song sucks. And then an exploration into what songs could replace it. What, if you won't stand for that song, is there a song that people would stand for? And so that's kind of my approach, you know, to a lot of this. You know, and if we're going to talk about Imperfect Messenger and we talk about policing and, you know, the issues that lie in policing in America now. Okay, fine. It's going to take bureaucracy and a lot of bullshit to try and get that changed. But in the meantime, in the interim, what are the small things cops could do to help? And then the joke is just essentially, a run of those things. You know, every now and then just let a black person, someone who should have gone to jail, let them go. If there's Stop Talking in Code on the radio, I forget my material. Like, literally the night I do a special, that material just turns into Thanos dust in my brain. But for me. That's how I've always tried to approach standup and my material rather than just arguing from the conventional positions that have already been presented to everybody because if nothing more, I want you to leave with a different perspective. I'm not trying to be right or wrong. I am just trying to make sure that you get something that you hadn't considered. [00:30:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I always got that impression. I feel like that's a good example. I also think about, from Imperfect Messenger, your piece about Leonardo DiCaprio and Django Unchained and even though that movie, you know, I think like eight years ago at that point, still everyone knows exactly who you're talking about. It's timely. It's not dated in this way of a comedian still referencing, you know, pop culture from the nineties, but you have it. And you're able to weave that in with everything that's happening. And I feel like even though that was a movie that was a few years older, you're still relating it to all the topics we're talking about now, like allyship and all those things. So I feel like people may not see the subtleties, but when you really break it down, you can see how much goes into constructing a good joke. [00:31:08] Roy Wood Jr.: I appreciate that, man, 'cause you get paranoid about that type of stuff, 'cause you don't want to be dated, but are there evergreen examples of a point that I'm trying to make that could help me parallel and boil this down, you know, a little bit more? You know, that special was also very interesting because the story that I told near the end about a childhood friend that's in prison for the murder of a person I know, but, you know, he was the getaway driver. You know, like that was a joke. He was a getaway driver in a robbery that turned into a murder is what actually happened in real life. And so he never went in the store, but in Alabama, the law is set up where everybody gets the murder charge. If a murder happens while your crime is being committed. And that joke was set up in a way where it was really about him and the sentencing and how it's all messed up and blah, blah, blah. But you know, there's part of me that's, you know, I love Birmingham. I love Birmingham, Alabama. I love the people there. And I've tried, you know, for the entirety of my career since 2001, when I came home and started at the radio station and started doing stuff in the community with the radio station. I've always tried to be a person that's of the community. And so that joke carries a different level of responsibility when I'm home because everyone remembers that murder. Everyone remembers Mr. Muhammad being murdered at the Music-N-More store and that man was a pillar of the community. So if I'm going to speak on his legacy, there's got to be balance to that. And you know what. I probably should reach out to his family before I put this on national television. And so when I did that and I had a conversation with his son, it completely shifted what that joke was and it made it the right version of what that joke needed to be. And that's the thing that I really enjoy. And it's part of really what's triggered so much more of where I am now creatively because that just wasn't an A, B, and C observation. This was a legitimate issue that I was having within myself of feeling like my friend should not be in prison for the rest of his life for being an accomplice, but also feeling empathy for the family, because I knew them. Like, they carry my CD and I'll spare the story here, but in the special, you know, I tell the story of my relationship with this store as an independent music artist, like this store supported local rappers and, like, they help people kickstart their career. So it's not as cut and dry. So when you look at a law, like, the one that Alabama has set up and then you start talking to the victims, then you start understanding why these laws are in place. And so that will always be my favorite joke isn't the word, but it's definitely the most honest joke that I've told on television to this point. [00:34:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, definitely link it to this one to make sure that people can see it, that or listening to this episode right now and just bringing it all full circle. I can see how this is informing the type of content or the type of message that you want to be able to push forward, whether you're telling it in a different setting, whether you're finding new ways to tell it, it has been really cool to see how so many of our favorite comedians have been able to find new ways to be able to share different messages or even things that they may have to give a little piece of and seen that that's where they want to move more into for the next stage of their career. So I'm excited for that. [00:34:43] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, it's going to be fun. You know, it's going to be fun, talking more about my father, my relationship with him talking about, you know, raising my own child. My son is six. So you know, that is definitely a new and scary place to be as a parent. But yeah, yeah, I'm excited about what's down the road, but I'm just not in a position anymore where I feel like I need to rush. You know, I was very blessed, but also probably very crazy. I put out three one-hour specials over the span of five years. That's a pretty healthy clip, you know? So I feel like I should go sit my ass down somewhere for a second and really think about, you know, what it is I want to say and what I'm trying to do. [00:35:24] Dan Runcie: What's your son's relationship with your comedy? Is it something that he goes and checks back in looking back at old clips, just to see the history of where you came to things, or is he not allowed to look at all that just yet? [00:35:37] Roy Wood Jr.: He might catch me on the couch every blue moon watching old episodes of The Daily Show. Like, I binge our show every week, 'cause I don't get to always watch it every night 'cause of whatever's going on. So he may pop in and see me on television. Like, if you ask my son what his father does for a living, he'll say my dad works on TV and he's a comedian. Like, he knows that much. He's been with me to sound checks early in the afternoon for, you know, theater shows and stuff. But the idea of bringing him around this and exposing him to it for the sake of this is what you're going to do, this's a family business. Nah, not really. I'd like for him to see some of the cameramen and the editors and the computer stuff. I don't think my son will be a comedian because he has two loving parents, which is already the worst thing that could happen to a comedian. To be a good comedian, you can't have both of your parents love you. What trauma you got? We want to know what's wrong with you. [00:36:32] Dan Runcie: Right. What is the source of the comedy then? [00:36:35] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, so we're trying to raise him as pain-free as possible. So I think that's going to make him ineligible for most comedy clubs. [00:36:41] Dan Runcie: maybe he'll go back and look at the old stuff. He'll go back to that. You know, the Last Comic Standing run, then he'll come back to see, okay, all right. I can see this trajectory here. I can see what dad's been up to. [00:36:52] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. I mean, he's funny. He has a sense of humor. He's cognizant of that, but it's not something I encourage or discourage. It's just, you know, whatever you feel like doing today, bro. Then that's what you're going to do. Like right now he's into the BattleBots. So let's watch and do things that are related to mechanics and STEM and see where that goes. [00:37:10] Dan Runcie: I'm hearing a lot from you in this conversation that talks a lot about both mentorship and the relationship that you have with others in your life, especially family members and important figures. And I know that from a comedian perspective, Dick Gregory was an important person in your life. And you had referenced in a past interview life-changing conversation you had had with him and it would be great to hear a little bit more about what that conversation was like and how that changed, how you ended up approaching comedy. [00:37:39] Roy Wood Jr.: I only saw Dick Gregory, I only opened for him twice. And the first time was in Selma at the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. It was a banquet that he and Jesse Jackson were speaking at. And then the other time was in, I opened for him proper in a comedy club in Zanies in Nashville. And he said something that just always resonated with me. You know, I'm butchering the quote, but he said people always ask me, Dick, why you always on the road? Why are you always out of town? And I said, because the battle for justice ain't at my house. And so that always stuck with me in terms of his tenacity right up till the end. You know, he died the way that, that every comedian wants to die and that's with dates on the books. I think it's the biggest compliment that, you know, any comedian can have is to die with still having more work and gigs scheduled because you got to get the message out there. You got to make people laugh. You got to try to heal people. In Dick Gregory's case, you know, he was doing things that were far above and beyond just telling a couple of shuck and jive jokes about police reform. This man was out there really doing the work, you know, concurrent. This man would have had a full itinerary all day and then go do two shows on a Friday night. It's not like he was just posted up in the hotel, watching Maury Povich till 7:30. So, you know, when I look at his career and everything that he did, that was a beautiful thing to see. It was a beautiful thing to see a dude knocking on 80 that was just at a comedy club on a Friday night, and it's 350 people ready to pay him and ready to hear what he has to say. And to be able to still say things that are resonant and that are on the pulse of what people are feeling, you can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour. And, you know, I saw Dick Gregory do that twice and Selma was even more amazing 'cause he did it from a podium and I cannot explain to anybody how hard it is to do standup comedy from a podium. Jokes do not go over a podium, lectern, whatever the hell you want to call it don't matter. The jokes don't go over it. The moment you standing at one of them damn things, you look like a preacher and none of your jokes are funny, but Dick Gregory demolished, demolished, it was a good time. [00:40:19] Dan Runcie: That's special, yeah. He's someone that always stuck out in a unique way with everything that he did. So and I think a lot about that, even with artists or anyone that's performing on stage, if you can still do this when you're 70, 80 years old, that's where the real magic comes. And I know many of the younger artists now want to get there and it's great to see. I think, you know, you're in a generation of comedians that I think are going to be doing the same thing as well., [00:40:44] Roy Wood Jr.: Trying to, that's what I'm trying to get to. [00:40:48] Dan Runcie: All right. Well, before we let you go, we do got to talk about the film that you have coming out, Confess, Fletch out in theaters September 16th. And I have to ask, you're a detective in this film, you're opposite Jon Hamm, is Jon Hamm, a white ally that we could trust in this movie? [00:41:07] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, yeah, in the movie. Yeah, I'd say in real life as well. I'll go ahead and hang that on him. No, it's dope. I also had to give a shout-out to our director, Greg Mottola, and Greg, you know, really worked to create something that totally feels different from the bright lights and the big demonstrative jokes that were the eighties Chevy Chase version of this character. And so, you know, it plays right into Jon Hamm's warehouse. I'm just happy. I got to play a cop in Boston and they didn't force me to do a Boston accent 'cause that would've been insulting. That would've been very terrible. [00:41:39] Dan Runcie: Was that a conversation at all? Did anyone even broach, Hey, should you try to do this? Or should we, 'cause I know that Jon Hamm with The Town and all that stuff, I know he's done it before. [00:41:48] Roy Wood Jr.: It was breached briefly during my audition and at the audition, they said don't even try it. We've watched a tape on you. I'm like, well, just let me know if you wanted the cop to be from Alabama. I can nail that one, man. [00:42:02] Dan Runcie: Sometimes I feel bad. The ones that they try to do, like, when Anthony Anderson was in The Departed, love Anthony Anderson, but I feel like they try to make everybody in that movie. What was it, Mystic River, I feel like that was another one where they try to have everyone do a Boston accent. I'm like, all right. I don't know, you know. Let's have a few signature characters maybe, and I think everyone else is fine. [00:42:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. Yeah. It was fine. It was definitely a good time. It was a good shoot, you know I think just murder- mystery- comedy, you know, I think it feels light enough and fun enough in these times. And so, you know, we don't get too woke in it and I know everybody is scared of the woke and the woke mob is coming. A, it's a cop trying to catch a criminal or a guy that he thinks is a criminal. It's a cop trying to solve a murder and a private detective trying to solve the murder as well. So, you know, I think it's a good film. [00:42:48] Dan Runcie: And we talked a lot in this conversation about streaming and everything releasing there. This is not debuting on streaming, out in theaters, available on demand as well. Did that change to the creation process at all? Or does that change your relationship at all with this movie? [00:43:05] Roy Wood Jr.: No. I think that it'll be interesting to see how quickly people see it and when and where. You know, I do think that coming out on demand, in addition to theaters, I think it only helps word of mouth and I think it still brings profits for the film itself. So, you know, in that regard, you know, I think it'll be fine. But when you make the movie you're, as an actor, my job is to just make the movie y'all can figure out the rest of that shit after, you know, two months from now in post-production, you can decide how many theaters and blah, blah, blah, and all of that. [00:43:34] Dan Runcie: Exciting stuff. Well, we'll definitely look out for that, but Roy, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for coming on, keeping it real as always. And if people want to follow you and stay in touch with everything you're doing, where can they find you? [00:43:46] Roy Wood Jr.: Oh, it's Roy Wood Jr. I put an @ sign in front, .com on the backside. Also visit me online, my podcast, roysjobfair.com. [00:43:54] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Appreciate you, man. Thanks again. [00:43:56] Roy Wood Jr.: All right, will do. [00:43:58] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 29 Jul 2021 | Steve Rifkind on Loud Records, Spring Sound, Wu-Tang Clan, and the Family Business | 00:40:07 | |
Steve Rifkind is the founder of Loud Records, SRC Records, and his new label Spring Sound. Loud Records, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last January 2020, is one of the most influential record labels in hip-hop with artists like Wu Tang Clan, Twista, and Akon. In this episode, Steve shares what it was like when he first started out in the industry, walking us through the changes he has seen since then until now. He also talks about Loud Record’s anniversary event and his close relationship with DMX. Reminisce about the ‘90s and early 2000s, and see things from the perspective of a legend in the music industry. Episode Highlights: [ 03:28 ] What the music industry was like 40 years ago compared to now [ 07:52 ] On Akon’s popularity and the rise of Youtube [ 12:38 ] On leveraging joint ventures with artists [ 17:28 ] What Steve is capable of offering and doing as a record label executive [ 19:58 ] Why the emergence of CDs led to a downshift in the industry [ 23:35 ] On the brand and identity of Steve’s artists [ 28:15 ] The importance of music in culture [ 30:25 ] How Steve is preparing his daughter for the role of CEO [ 32:02 ] Loud Records’ 25-anniversary event [ 33:58 ] On Steve’s close relationship with DMX Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Steve Rifkind, @steverifkind, Spring Sound Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 14 Jun 2024 | Why Now Is The Best Time to Be An Artist | 00:35:08 | |
Depending on who you ask, it's either the best or worst time to be an artist. There's plenty of evidence on both sides. Today, we're breaking down all of that and more. I'm joined by beatBread's Peter Sinclair. We covered it all:
This was a jam packed episode. Hope you enjoy! This episode is presented by State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Listen in for our Chartmetric stat of the episode! | |||
| 20 Apr 2023 | Rerun: Investing $200 Million In Music with Matt Pincus | 00:55:01 | |
This week, I’m running back an interview with one of the most popular episodes we ever did with Matt Pincus from 2022. Matt Pincus is without question one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry. He sold his independent music publishing company, SONGS, for $160 million five years ago. And now, the music holdings company he co-founded, MUSIC, just raised $200 million to invest in music and music-adjacent companies. Though, Matt doesn’t see MUSIC as an investment fund, but rather a holding company. That’s because he’s taking an operator role in the companies he funds. And unlike the splashy catalog acquisitions that’ve dominated the space over the past few years, Matt is looking forward with his investments and targeting brand-new growth opportunities instead. In particular, Matt sees big opportunities in the technology sector, web3, and even record labels and publishing. At SONGS, Matt was able to spot and develop up-and-coming songwriters, inking early deals with the likes of Diplo, Lorde, and The Weeknd. He’ll be tasked with finding similar success at MUSIC. Matt and I dove deep into a wide-range of topics during our conversation. Here’s a few highlights of what we covered: [2:47] Why Matt created MUSIC [7:19] MUSIC’s investment thesis? [13:22] What Matt doesn’t like about the music business [19:36] Recent inflow of capital into the music business [20:54] Two lanes to entering music business [24:08] Finding left-of-center opportunities among musical talent [27:30] The structural problem of the music business [30:44] Continuity was key to SONGS success [35:59] The Weeknd as a business blueprint for other artists [36:53] Sync business opportunities [43:46] Have streaming subscriptions peaked? [48:12] Tiktok brought back music frequency [51:13] Matt’s five-year predictions Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Matt Pincus, @mpinc Sponsors: MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital Newsly is your all-in-one audio super app to hear the trending topics on the entire web. Download newsly.me for free and use the promo code ‘TRAP’ to receive a 1-month free subscription. Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Matt Pincus: Defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works. [00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is with one of the most successful music entrepreneurs of the past few decades. His name is Matt Pincus and he is the founder and CEO of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invests in music tech and music-adjacent companies. MUSIC just launched a 200 million fund to invest in this space, so Matt and I talked all about it. He's looking for companies that still have a clear understanding for how music gets made and understand the art behind it. He's also looking for startups that have a true defensible moat that is something unique that they can do. And he's also looking for the companies that have a huge total addressable market that can clearly grow and expand as we're seeing things continue to grow in this space. Our conversation covered a bunch of topics in this space. We talked about sync and the impact of that. We also talked about how much further streaming can go. And we talked about a bunch of insightful music trends. Really fascinating conversation. I feel like every few months we have one of those conversations where people reach out to me and say, Hey, I took a bunch of notes in that conversation. Thank you for this. And I have a good feeling, I have a good feeling that this is going to be one of those conversations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Matt Pincus. [00:02:16] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we're joined by Matt Pincus, who is the founder of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invested music and music-adjacent companies. Matt, I'm really excited to have this conversation because you have had a very impressive career with what you did with Songs and everything that you had done in publishing specifically. And what always stuck out to me about you in this space is how you've identified opportunities where others didn't see them. So I know when I saw the announcement for MUSIC and the $200 million fund you launched, I said, okay, he's seeing something and he's seeing an opportunity to dive in. So what did you see? What made you want to get involved with this? [00:02:58] Matt Pincus: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm a big admirer of Trapital and your work in general. And I'm really happy to be with you here today. So, you know, I started music, it was sort of an organic process. I sold Songs after running it for about 13 years. And it was a fairly abrupt end. So we decided to sell the company and neither me nor my two partners really wanted to run it for somebody else. So we decided that once we sold it, it was time to step away and it was fairly quick. So, you know, I ran the company for 12-plus years. And then 90 days after the sale, I was out in the street, like, what am I going to do with my life? So it was a bit of an organic process. It started with meeting a lot of really interesting founders of music businesses and companies that were around the music business. It's obviously an interesting time in our business in a number of different ways. The streaming market has matured. There are a lot of music tech businesses with interesting founders cropping up over the past four or five years. The web three crypto business has, you know, started the early days of really coming online. And the way that labels, publishing companies, management companies reach audiences is really different than it was like, you know, six, seven years ago. So I met a lot of really interesting people. The first one was Steve Martocci, who was the founder of Splice. He and I hit it off particularly well. And I sort of said, listen, I've been, you know, doing talent deals with young people, you know, in the early twenties for the past 12 years, I think maybe the next chapter is working with founders of companies that are more like 10 years younger than me, as opposed to, you know, 20, early 20s. And taking the experience that I had in the last, like, four or five years of songs when we were trying to figure out how to really realize returns on the business and build on that to try to help people do the same thing. So I was out looking for, you know, are there interesting companies that I might be able to work with in some way or another? And the answer to that quickly became kind of yes, on the music tech side originally, in growth companies, when online music and music technology was shifting to a subscription-based backbone as opposed to a packet software business. And then also on the music side of it, you know, interesting independent labels, music companies operating in a different way. And so the first thing was, are there interesting companies out there? The second is, do they need capital and where would they get it from? And the third was, how am I going to get the money to invest in these businesses? So it was kind of a bit of a bootstrapping exercise where I would go find an opportunity to invest in a company, put some of my own money in LionTree, which sold songs for me and has been a partner and champion of mine since I sold the company, would invest some money too, and then we'd find some other people to round out the investment. We did that first with Splice, put about 20 million into the company over a period of time. We also did in the same way, made an investment in a company called HIFI, which is a FinTech platform benefiting artists in a bunch of different ways, and also with DICE, the ticketing business. And you know, they started, a couple of them did well and actually, they all did well. And so I decided that I wanted to raise some capital and have my own sort of, it's not really a fund. It's more of a holding company 'cause I'm less of an investor and more of an operator. And so the question became, how are we going to raise the money? Now Aryeh Bourkoff who runs LionTree is somewhat of a magic maker, and he took me on and introduced me to two families, the Schusterman Family and JS Capital, which is Jonathan Soros's capital vehicle. And they agreed to invest in a four-way partnership. So it's between me, LionTree, Schusterman Family, and JS Capital. And we formed MUSIC, which is a $200 million holding company. We do deals in a couple of different areas, music tech, which is sort of where I spent most of my time after Songs. We also invest in independent music companies like Songs. So labels publishing companies, management companies. Increasingly, a few of those functions are in one company, as opposed to when I was running Songs, it was like you were either a publisher or a label or a management company. And then we partner sometimes with a larger private equity firm if we are interested in acquiring something that's, you know, of a larger size. And so we're in the middle of one of those right now. And so we were able to find a bunch of interesting opportunity, a bunch of interesting ways, and it seems to me to be, you know, a really good time to be putting money to work in the music business. [00:07:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an exciting time to be investing in these companies and to be acquiring them too. And you mentioned something there about the types of companies you're looking at and whether they are modern music companies or whether they are doing something that's unique in the space. Can you talk a little bit more about your investment thesis and what you're looking for, and specifically, because, as you mentioned, you're not a fund, you're a holding company, so you're not necessarily just doing, you know, angel investments or early stage. You're trying to make investments for the long haul. So how does that shape your strategy? [00:08:07] Matt Pincus: Very good question. And I think the answer to that depends somewhat on the different areas of investment. So the first is in the technology side of the business, which is kind of where I started as an investor. So, you look for a couple of things there. So first of all, you need to invest in companies, not products. So some of the music startups can be sort of, it's an interesting widget, but can it be a scalable business? So you need to make sure that you have a couple of things in order to know that you're investing in a company that has the ability to grow. So the first thing is you need your own tech stack and it needs to be built to suit whatever market you want to be in. So for example, with Splice, one of the reasons, and there were several, but one of the reasons I invested in the company was because Steve had built this subscription stack from day one of the company. So it was a native SaaS company in a world where the rest of the market needed to move from the old way of doing business to the new way of doing business. Splice was always in the new way of doing business, so it was going to be ahead of the curve. And so you need to make sure that your technical capabilities and your technical assets are going to, you know, be where you want to go. The second is that you need to make sure you're in a part of the market that has a big enough user base to make a real company out of it. You know, it's great to make a widget that, you know, 1500 people love, love, love, but 1500 people is not a lot of people. So you need to make sure that the addressable market around the business has a lot of users. And again, in Splice's case, you know, they are the content business in music tech. So they can be used in an infinite amount of applications across the business, which gives them, you know, a really solid user base. And so, you know, that's kind of the second thing. And the third thing is that you need to kind of own where you live or have the ability to own where you live. So, you know, it's great if you get into a category in the technology side of the business, that, you know, breaks some ground and shows everybody what can be done. But if then, you know, Apple or Google just says, thank you very much and does it instead of you, it's not so great. So you need to have a defensible business that you can build and scale. And again, back to Splice, you know, they are the content leader and I'm a music publisher by trade, so content is the water supply in the music business. You know, in publishing, it's the song that starts the whole conversation. Splice owns music. And so no matter where the market is going to grow, no matter where it ends up going, they have the supply that feeds the music tech business. And so it's inherently defensible when it gets up to a certain level. You know, at this point they have 3 million works in their database. To catch up to them is, you know, difficult, if not impossible. And so you need to be defensible now on the music side of what I do, which is investing in music companies, there's a couple of things I look for. So first of all, I don't do catalog acquisitions. I invest in people. So the first thing is that you need to have really talented executives that understand music and know how to find repertoire and make it bigger. I tend to like businesses that give advances to artists. There's a certain way, like at Songs, we built a catalog over a long period of time, but we built it through signing young writers and giving them advances. So I call it a mattress out of sheets. If you do that one after another, over many, many years and you do it well, all of a sudden you wake up, you know, 7 to 10, 12 years later, and you're like, holy shit, it's a big catalog. And so I tend to like businesses that advance money to artists and build catalog that way or manage catalog that way. There's a certain magic to understanding how to compensate artists and doing it fairly. So I tend to look at that. You know, the music business has changed a lot. It used to be that if you wanted to be an independent, you needed to own your own vertical. And you know, at Songs, we had our global administration business that we owned and built. We had our own technology. So we were self-contained, standalone competitor. Now I think, you know, solutions have become available everywhere. There's a lot of good publishing administration, a lot of good record distribution solutions. There's a lot of off-the-shelf stuff you can get. It's really about music. It's really about understanding artists and the music that they make and connecting them with an audience. So I look for people who uniquely understand that. Now that can be, you know, somebody who has a geographical lock on a particular kind of music. It can be somebody that has a particularly unique understanding of how the studio works because I think if there's one big change in the music publishing business lately, it's that it's gone really back to the studio. And the interesting companies are actually making songs in real-time in a studio environment. So it can be that. It can be that you have another business that you do and music is associated with it. So why not, you know, get into the music business while you're doing whatever else you do, but you need to have some reason why you have access to a particular group of artists in a particular kind of repertoire, and you're helpful to that in some way or another. And so it's quite a different set of things that I look for on that side than on the technology side. [00:13:34] Dan Runcie: And with the way that your firm is structured, too, I see parallels with the types of companies you're looking at, right? You're not just focused on one particular type of investment area. You have the music tech companies that you're looking at. Splice is an example. You also have the companies that are working more directly in music itself, whether that is giving advances or companies that have a unique edge on who they're reaching. And I think that translates as well when you're talking about the types of companies you're looking at because a lot of times, especially 10, 15 years ago, as you mentioned, there were more silos and now you're starting to see companies have different types of roles that they do or different divisions to try to be this nebulous term that I've heard several times as broader entertainment company. And while I think that that's effective, I could also see how that could challenge some of the challenges of being able to have a business that is defensible or having a moat and the focus that comes with that. So how do you balance that and what are the things that you look for when evaluating companies that are both trying to do it all, but also are trying to have something that they can be defensible with? [00:14:40] Matt Pincus: Well, so on the music side of it, you know, it's about relationships. You know, the good companies, their equity is their relationships with different people around the business. And it's really a human-centric business. So, you know, defensibility often is correlated with reputation in the independent music business, at least. That was certainly true of Songs. One of the big success factors of the company and in fact, like, kind of our asset was that me and Ron and Carianne had really good relationships around the business that we built over many years, and that allowed us to punch above our weight class. You know, when we were a very small business, you know, we acted as a bigger business because we were able to get champions that helped us along the way, both in terms of the artists that were willing to sign with us, but also in terms of, you know, other people around the business that took us on and helped us out. Oddly enough defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. You know, on the tech side of it, it's a little bit different. You have to make sure that your innovation curve is constantly there. You have to make sure, like, I would not invest in a business that did not have a technical co-founder. You know, ideas are great. Everybody's got ideas. You know, there's an app for anything. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works, which when you get into the crypto side of it's really interesting 'cause a lot of people understand the implications of it, but they have no idea how the shit works. They don't actually use it. And they get kind of confused thinking that it's much more complicated than in fact it really is. Or, you know, they get so fascinated with the technology that they don't make a product that stands on its own bottom and has value to the end user. So it's a little bit different in the different areas of the market that you look at. And one of the reasons why I like the field that I play on and I feel very lucky to be able to do the different things that I can do with music is because some of it is about sort of analytical, scalable technology-oriented investments. And some of it is just about people in tunes. And so you're kind of mixing a lot of different things together. You know, the one thing that I don't like so much about the recent music business is somehow we all slipped into talking about music as assets and fractional finance and cash flows and securitization. And I'm like, listen, if I wanted to do all that shit, I do it not here. You know, the music business is not assets and finance and cash flows and, you know, securitization. The music business is moving people, motivating people, creating an audience, assembling humans to want what you make, and distributing that and delivering it and all the rest of that stuff. You know, the fact like, listen, what I'm doing is either really smart or really dumb because either you can make a real investment business just out of the music business. And I think you can because there's lots of different types of investments in music and there's lots of growth and lots of possibility. But also, you know, it's a pretty small business. And I live in, play, you know, a neighborhood, the size of a postage stamp. We'll see if they can be done, but I think originally, you know, it starts with the creative and it starts with the means of delivering the creative to the people that want it. And then all of the rest of this stuff, you know, yield, debt payments, multiples on equity, bonds, all the rest of this stuff just is a happy accident that comes from doing your job well. [00:18:35] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned this because there's a version of what you do that could easily look more like a traditional private equity firm, where they are just going in and doing all of the things that you just mentioned and they're coming more from that perspective, but in many ways, your defense is having this laser focus on music, but you're going deep within all of the areas that it encompasses. And with that, I have to assume that this also maybe has a bit of a flavor on what your take is about the money that has come into the music industry and some of those other non-music companies or those that are purely looking at it for the financial opportunity or for the noncorrelated opportunities and how that in a lot of ways, even though on paper, someone that's fundraising may see the money they can get from you versus the money they get from others. But I'm hearing it from the record labels. And especially the independent ones they're getting reached out to all the time now about acquisitions. And a lot of those calls are coming from non-music related companies that are trying to make those moves. So it's been fascinating to see how that shapes, but I do feel like you are going about this in a much more unique way than a lot of them are. [00:19:49] Matt Pincus: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I will say that the recent, like, huge inflow of capital into the music business has one very good byproduct, which is it's giving a lot of money to songwriters and artists. Some of these catalogs getting valued at 20 times, 30 times, you know, NPS where they would've been valued at 10, you know, four or five years ago, maybe 10 years ago. It just results in people that make great music, making a bunch of bucks. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. On the catalog side of it, it makes a little bit more sense that some of these like larger capital vehicles are coming into the market and, you know, bidding things up and structuring the leverage in a certain way that makes sense. There's a big difference between what's going on now and what was going on when this first happened, like in 2006, 2007 timeframe because the people that are doing it now can afford it. They've got lots and lots of money. They don't need big returns on that money. They have the ability to structure this stuff financially in ways that don't make no sense. And so it makes, you know, more sense that people are doing that with the IP catalog acquisition business. When it gets to new music, you know, I think it's still a human business. I think you got to know the people, you know, and you have to understand how it's really about managing what I refer to as the working capital of the business. So, you know, you need to advance money, you need to collect that money, you need to reinvest the money. And so a lot of that, you know, it's not a big enough business that you can structure it like a bunch of bonds. You need to kind of understand the market that you're in, how many deals you could possibly get, and what about you ought to pay for them, and what kind of infrastructure you need to address all of that to do a good job. And that's hard to know from outside of the business. It's even hard to know, like there's sort of two lanes in the music business. There's people who came up through the building where they started at majors and they kind of built their career, you know, up from coordinator to director to senior director to VPs, SVP, EVP. And then they end up running the company, a lot of great people who came up that way. And then there's people who kind of feed in the wild. Like, come outside of the building and need to figure out, like, what's available. And there's some real differences, you know. Sometimes they cross over like Ron Perry who was an instrumental person at Songs from, you know, the very beginning to through time we sold and now runs Columbia. So sometimes that happens. Or Carianne who, you know, also was my partner at Songs who now runs Warner Chappell with Guy Moot. It's like there, you know, it happens, but there are really two lanes. And I think in the independent side, it's a lot about systematic A&R so about looking at, listen, none of us are overfunded with tons of money. So, you know, everybody's stretching the dough. And it becomes about how can I build this system in the world that I live that can do deals inexpensively, and then find the ones that are working and invest and push them forward. And all the great independent music companies, you know, Chrysalis, Jive Zomba, A&M Rondor, all the great ones throughout history sort of did that really effectively or were usually like the other ones. So everybody goes to the majors to get their offer. And then there's these other cooler guys that are there, like, you know, kind of fucking with the majors by picking off all the left to center stuff that was us at Songs. You know, and all those other companies I just mentioned were kind of some version of that. But there's kind of, all of these mechanics that come both from history, so understanding the history of the business, but also understanding the people and how they sort of work 'cause as much as the world is changing and it's changing a lot, it's still kind of about A&R. It's still about creative in some way or another. I mean, Carianne's superpower, which she's got many, but the original superpower was understanding not only what works well to picture, but the people that choose music in film and television, advertisements, video games, she's particularly uniquely talented at that. And that's still a core skill that people need to understand. So, you know, I'm the guy that kind of pulls the pieces together. I don't do any of those things. I, you know, originally hired some great people and now I try to invest in great people that do all that stuff, but it's still about understanding it and if you're coming purely from the outside, I think it's challenging. [00:24:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think your career experience speaks a lot to this, right? You mentioned being able to find the left-of-center opportunities when you're at Songs, whether it was Lorde or The Weeknd. And you saw how those turned out. It worked out brilliantly. I'm curious to hear what you think about the way things are right now because, especially with the way that TikTok is and so many of the companies, whether it's the major labels or the independents, they all have access to the same information. So the cost of acquiring and being able to find and develop those same artists is much more expensive. So what do you think those left-of-center opportunities look like today in the current environment where it feels as if there are more and more outlets to find different types of people, but the way that people are going about it, it does seem like a lot of people are now playing a pretty similar game. [00:25:13] Matt Pincus: You mean like a moneyball... [00:25:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:25:15] Matt Pincus: ...type of, yeah. So, you know, again, I go back to like, there's sort of in the building and there's outside of the building way of thinking. So in the major system, it makes logical sense that they want to sort of hang back, see what reacts, and go and get it when it reacts, the more predictable something is the more you're willing to pay for it. That makes logical sense. There's nothing wrong with it. They're not idiots for doing that. It's just the way that they traditionally operate. And now it's about, like, seeing the shiny pennies and then grabbing them right away, whatever the cost, because music is much more efficient than it used to be. It used to be that you'd have to, like, release a whole album and sink a bunch of capital into seeing if something works. Now you can kind of tell pretty quickly if something's going to work. So it makes sense to pay a lot for something predictable, as opposed to, you know, paying a little bit for stuff that is wildly uncertain. So, you know, that makes total sense. I think on the independent side, and I really count in that like A&R mentality, like people who are finding artists and developing artists. So it's not just like, you know, independent labels, but it's also like, you know, Electric Feel is a really interesting company that does this, Hallwood. You know, APG is obviously the really great example of this, of finding artists really early and developing them into something or representing people who do that. A lot of, you know, that is about iteration and about understanding, you know, what makes a good story in a particular market. Now, part of that is the music itself. Part of that, most of it is the music itself, but part of that is also all the other stuff around it. You know, how you unfold the narrative, how you stage market entry for an artist. You know, all of those things, again, I come back to the stick to your knitting thing where it's like, as much as the world changes, it kind of remains the same to some degree. So, you know, the interesting and frustrating thing about the music business for people that run companies like I did at Songs is that there's just not that many good, really good, talented people, you know. If there's one structural problem in the music business is there's not enough, really good A&R people, promotion people, you know, creative people. [00:27:29] Dan Runcie: And why do you think that is? [00:27:30] Matt Pincus: I think it's hard, for one, I think it's hard. And as much as people try to play moneyball, now I'm a big believer in systematic A&R, which some people would consider, you know, moneyball. So in other words, like having a funnel that gives you a group of things that might work, that I'm a big believer in that as a starting point, but that only gets you like 51% confidence. That's not much more than a coin toss. The rest of it is really doing the work of developing the product itself, the music itself, and then the story around it. And it's just a hard business, plus you got to know everybody, you know. So it takes a while to develop those relationships and those skills. One of the things that's interesting when I look on the music tech side of it that I think is one of the great things is that the technological development in music production is allowing people to learn how to use the gear quicker. So you're going to have hit singles coming from 13-year-olds within no time at all. And that used to not be possible because it would take you four or five, six years just to learn how to twist the knobs on a board. Like, it was hard. Now with like, you know, presets, with things like Splice, with AI-assisted creation, you know, anything that makes it easier for an artist to get what's inside of them out, the learning curve is becoming less steep. And that's a good thing because talent shines in that environment. You know, it's one thing to be able to, you know, have a knowledge-base to tweak things. It's another thing to just be a talented and expressive artist with urgency. And so maybe some of that will happen. And on the executive side, like on the A&R side, as things like radio, you know, radio's been so monolithic and so hard to penetrate. And now maybe it's loosening up a little bit, but it still takes a while to figure out what's going to work. It's very hard. And it is one thing to be a fan and be like, this is good, this is not good. It's another thing to take a look at something that doesn't yet exist and be like, this is what it will look like if we can pull it off. I don't have that talent, you know. I'm not an A&R person, but I watch people do it and it's pretty miraculous. And it's not just A&R, it's also promotion, which is an undervalued piece of the equation and increasingly, marketing, digital marketing, like the first cut of it was just, you know, sort of advertising on Facebook. Now it's much more sophisticated than that. And so I feel like it's just hard and I wish there were, you know, there's also the part of the problem in the music business is nobody trains anybody. There's no HR infrastructure. You know, I went to Columbia Business School and I had been in the music business. I didn't have one single meeting about a job that came through the school. [00:30:14] Dan Runcie: I'm not surprised. That wasn't the case for me either. [00:30:17] Matt Pincus: That’s what I'm saying like, nobody trained you. I mean, I remember going on a job interview when I was like 21 coming right out of college or 23 coming right out of college with a guy at ICM. And he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to be an A&R .He said, great, find a band. That was it. That was the interview. And so it's like, it's that kind of business, which is kind of wonderful in its own way, but it doesn't train people really. And so that's also part of the reason. We don't develop our talent, executive talent pipeline in a really great way. And that's why people like, you know, Mike Caren at APG is so special. You know, the LVRN guys are so special because they bring along executives in a really concerted kind of way. And I wish there was more of that in the business in general. [00:30:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity for it. And I think you see a lot of it play out when there are executive shake ups and who gets picked for certain things and why people get picked for certain things. And to some extent, you see this in other places too, whether there's a mix of internal hires versus external. But one thing that I have noticed is the units that do tend to stick together, or there is some continuity there. You do see a lot of success happen if they understand what works, everyone's into it. And I think some of these other places where it could be a bit of revolving doors with who's in leadership, who's trying to get where it's very tough to have that infrastructure. [00:31:35] Matt Pincus: And that was one of the great blessings for me at Songs, which is not, doesn't speak well for the industry, particularly, but, you know, Ron and Carianne were two of the most talented people of their generation for sure. And the business didn't know what to do with them. The fact that I could get the two of them and we could all stay together for 12 years and build a company is like a miracle. And that was a big part of the reason why it all worked is because we knew each other really well and people knew us as a unit. We had different things we did. It's a little bit like, you know, kind of what's going on with the professional sports a little bit too, is, you know, it's great that all these individual players are celebrities. And again, great that athletes are making more money, but great teams don't stay together in the same way that they did before. And I think that's changing a little bit now because you don't have to do a deal with a major and get your money the traditional way in order to build a company. And that's one of the reasons I exist as MUSIC, is because there's opportunities to bring outside capital into the business under terms that look a little bit more like sort of venture capital or private equity, which is in a way more fair than the traditional music business has been on a per transaction basis. There's natural reasons why the major music companies finance the music business for as many decades as they did, and it's not to rip people off, it's because nobody else would do it. But now it's a different world and so hopefully some of these things will change. You know, when you have really great entrepreneurs that own their own business, as opposed to, you know, in some JV with a major that's really a compensation agreement, then it's in their interest, like it was in mine when I was running Songs, to bring along really talented people and find new ones. And so that's one of the things that I've sort of hoped for in some way. [00:33:24] Dan Runcie: Are there any artists that stick out to you as examples of yes, they're building their business and they're doing this the way that could be a blueprint for what we'll see more frequently moving forward? [00:33:34] Matt Pincus: Ones that I talk about all the time is The Weeknd, which we were involved with, you know, from fairly early on. And Sal who's, you know, has been his manager for a very long time, and Cash. You know, I think you're going to see what they did with XO happening in a lot of different ways going forward, where you get a group of people that form a partner and distribute responsibilities between artist, manager. You know, there's people like La Mar Taylor involved with those guys that does all the visual. There's a lot of cooks that need to be in the kitchen to make something really successfully work. The label model of sign to a label, they'll do everything that existed in, like, the nineties is way long gone. Even management where you sort of have somebody who's a commission person that's just doing the business of an artist, that's not true of the good ones anymore. The good ones get in it with the artist and really help them build an entrepreneurial life. I mean, to be an artist now, you need to, like, be like a 140-character joke writer. You need to be an accountant. You need to have a corporate entity. You need to deal with all these different vendors. And you need to be like, you know, P. T. Barnum, like, step right up, step right up, check this out, you're going to love it. It's a complex skill set. And so I think one of the things that you're going to see in the talent representation business, like the management business is I think you're going to see more entity partnership formation, where people are going to go into partnership together. Managers and artists will be like Sal, Sal and Abel have been together for, how long now? Like, I mean... [00:35:08] Dan Runcie: It's at least a decade, right? [00:35:09] Matt Pincus: Yeah. And they've been able to scale and grow and make a lot of money and still be together. And that's because everyone provides value. I'm sure they adjust their relationship, however, over time, I don't know. But I think you're going to see that approach because it takes a village in a way to make really durable stuff. I mean, if you're talking about a viral hit that's here today, gone today. That's one thing. But if you're talking about really building a franchise over a period of time, it requires a lot of work from a lot of people. So I think you'll see sort of, you know, entity formation with partners that include business people and artists in with interest aligned. You know, Diplo's another one. I mean, you know, TMWRK and Diplo have been together for again, going back to since I started working with them. So that was 2011, you know? You look at firms like CRUSH, Jonathan, Daniel has built franchise after franchise of artists that stay with him forever. And he works with him as a partner and that's why it works. So I think you're going to see more of that going forward and and I think that's a good thing. [00:36:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The Weeknd's a very good example because even from the origins of his career, you could see the mentality of where he saw things. Drake famously offered him the opportunity to come on OVO Sound. They had the whole Toronto connection, Drake put him onto that blog post and everything, but then he was like, no, I don't want to be under another artist when I think I can be just as big as that artist, even bigger and do my own thing and look what he's been able to do now. So I think a lot of it... [00:36:41] Matt Pincus: And by the way, the record deal is a distribution deal. [00:36:43] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:36:44] Matt Pincus: You know, I mean, there you go. And so in terms of distribution of value, you know, if you can do it, if you're smart enough to have a cool head and plan like those guys did, you know, you can have a much larger enterprise than you normally would. So I hold them up as an example of, you know, what I think is going to happen and is happening really in lots of different areas of the business now. [00:37:07] Dan Runcie: One of the other areas that has gotten a bunch of attention right now has been syncs, and this has been growing, I think, especially given what we've seen with people, especially from outside the music industry, trying to get more involved, but especially this past summer with Kate Bush being featured in Stranger Things. This conversation has been happening more and more. This is another example where it's a mix of that art and science of what does finding a good sync looks like and what happens with it. And I think so much of it, there's maybe a little bit of luck with just how the internet works and how things take off, but there's also a good amount of work that's put into finding the right type of placement for the right type of artists that could make all those things work to make it happen. So how do you view the opportunities for sync right now? [00:37:53] Matt Pincus: You know, it's interesting. I was sort of a student of Carianne. She taught me the sync business. I literally remember she had a binder where she kept every single interaction she ever had around a song and a placement. And she not only showed me how it all worked, but then we made a software platform out of her own process of how she did it. So I was trained by the best. One of the interesting things about sync is how it always comes back in cycles. You know, when we started Songs, it was like 2004, sync was the whole game. Like, between 2006 and sort of 2009 timeframe, it was the most important thing in a pitch. You know, it was responsible for a lot of our really early successes. And then when it became a largely pop business there in the early days of streaming, it was like sort of radio and super reactive and viral repertoire. It sort of stepped to the background for a minute. And now with the way that kids are bouncing around on a playlist from like, you know, Taylor to like a hip-hop track to, you know, Kate Bush back to Metallica and they don't care. It's become all of a sudden, perhaps one of the top, most important ways repertoire gets discovered now. It's amazing the enduring power of synchronization over time. The thing about sync that I think is interesting is part of it is selection. Like, is this song going to work to picture? But there's a lot that goes into making the deal happen. I mean, that Kate Bush deal as my understanding, I was not involved, but my understanding from, like, just hearing about it was that it took 'em forever to get the clearance done. So a lot of it is not only just is this going to work the picture? Is it the right BPM, the right mood, you know, the right tonality, the right cultural notes, which is a very special thing that music supervisors are particularly good at, but it's also the real politic of like getting the fucking thing cleared. And one of the things that I look at, I tend to have thesis sort of areas when I look at investing in the music business, and one of them is just how fuck the sync business is. That, you know, there should be a buy it now button in the music business if you want to use something for your film, buy it now. And if it was easy, people would pay more. But the problem is they have to roll around a glass to clear a copyright, getting the same deal with 13 songwriters and the master side and it's horribly inefficient. So I think part of the interesting thing with sync in the next generation is how do we do right by the music by making it more usable. Because there's also a couple of different ways this sync business cuts. So, you know, you have stuff that's used in a more traditional sense, and that has a real, like the standard pairing of like, it matter, it makes a huge creative difference and it's very hand selected. Front title and title, you know, big placement in a film television advertisement, but then you have this huge blanket sync business where a lot of the new promotion platform are AV platforms. It's technically synchronization, TikTok, YouTube, you know, Instagram it's technically sync. And I would argue that if there's one element of the business that gives radio a run for its money, it's AV platforms because what happens is people use it in so many videos that you end up hearing the song a thousand times, however many times it takes for you to be like, oh, my God, I have to hear it again. That's really the only place it happens and that's sync. There's a couple of different ways it cuts. You know, the great, like, placements of all time, and we had quite a few of them at Songs that sort of are like, you know, really make a song and make a film. Those are works of art. But also a lot of handling everything else is like maybe 50, 50 at best creative to handling. And so a lot of it is understanding, having those relationships, understanding how to price things, understanding how to clear repertoire, getting permission from the artist to do it. There's a lot of process that goes into it. [00:41:49] Dan Runcie: Is there a sync from your days that song that you look back on that you were like, yeah, that's the one. It took some work, but looking back that's the one. [00:41:56] Matt Pincus: Wow. That's really, that be would a really better question for Carianne than for me. In terms of like the stuff that really made a difference to us as a business, one of the things that I think was meaningful was when Lorde did the Hunger Games soundtrack in the follow-up movie. That gave us a really good look at how music can be a content element in overall entertainment. The Weeknd did a similar thing with Black Panther where, so it was those sort of tie-in, you know, big-ticket where our music was woven into the substance of the film or the ad in some cases. That I think are really the special moments. Those are two that pop out. There's always like the random one where you have a relatively smaller artist and you get them a sync and, you know, it changes their life. It gives 'em more money than they ever thought was possible. There's also the ones, we had an artist who had a very high level of ethic and I won't name the artist, but independent artist, good earnings, but not a pop artist. And we got a $90,000 ad and for very good ethical reasons, he said, fuck, no, it's not going to happen, not going to approve it. And as much as I was like, it was to do early days of the company, it would've made a huge difference to write 90 grand into my books in a quarter. There's some beauty in the level of control that artists have over their own work in the music business that they don't in a lot of other media that I was like, you know what good for him, I guess we're saying no. There's this artisanal component to it that's really special. [00:43:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Being able to have that power and knowing when it isn't right. I've heard similar things as well from other podcasters I'll talk to when they get pitched with certain deals and stuff, and they'll be like, you know what, that's just not a product I'm willing to do, or that's just not an endorsement I'm willing to have. And it could have been a game changer for them and their business and everything. But I think we're going to see more of this with creators as they just are leveraging their own independence and being able to make their own decisions. [00:43:59] Matt Pincus: Yeah, exactly. [00:44:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:44:00] Matt Pincus: Exactly. [00:44:01] Dan Runcie: I want to close this conversation out talking about streaming 'cause I know this is a topic that you've shared a number of insights on over the years. And one of the things that you've said before that has always stuck out to me and resonated is this path that streaming has been on where it has been growing year over year, but a lot of people, especially in recent months, have started to question how many more subscribers out there are willing to pay the full price for streaming services and even if there is growth in some of these other regions where the revenue coming in is only a fraction of what it currently is now, what does that growth necessarily look like? So I hear that there's two camps there. Some people are skeptical about the future, but others are looking at smartphone adoption and just the way that things are trending as an indicator of where things are going. But how do you view the opportunity and especially streaming's growth from here on out. [00:44:55] Matt Pincus: Okay. So I think there's a couple of different things there. You know, one is just on-demand streaming and what the growth curve looks like for on-demand stream. I think the broader question is what does overall growth look like for music consumption going forward? And I'm not sure those are totally the same thing. So, you know, listen, Spotify's done an epic job growing that business. It's a difficult business from just the word go, you know, you're relying on content licenses, you're inherently undifferentiated. Like on paper, it looks like this is impossible. And yet they build an unbelievable business out of it. And I really, you know, sort of think it's worth, you know, whatever opinions people have about streaming, to take a step back and realize that the people who did this originally, you know, Larry Jackson and Apple Music, the people who did it originally did a really fucking tremendous job of making it work. It will mature. There's some debate over whether it may have already started to mature in some distinct ways in Western, you know, sort of developed economies and even maybe in some of the larger sort of secondary territories. The really interesting places that we used to see at Songs in our own data are high population, low discretionary income countries, Indonesia, Philippines, a lot of the African continent. I'm not sure it's necessarily in all of those places going to be an on-demand streaming function that, you know, ultimately wins the day. There are people fucking with a model in a bunch of different ways over mobile. Boomplay in Africa is doing a buyout model. You know, it can be woven with other kinds of entertainment in a bundle in a bunch of different ways. So the question of where on-demand streaming goes, it is a little bit like anyone's guess, but there are different opinions between reasonable people about how the growth curve looks. You know, one of the things that I really love about the web three thing, and I think it's in the early days of really grinding the gears to figure out what actually works, 'cause like this sort of, you know, sucking on the laughing gas tank and you know, watching your crypto go up or over now. So it's entering into like a moment where people actually like have to figure out how it works. But the thing that I think is true is that it's unlocked a premium, that people are willing to pay over the cost of consuming music permanently. How big that premium is, we'll see. I think it was overinflated and inorganic in some of the early times of crypto, not a lot, humans are doing it and they're doing it for high ticket prices, you know, but if you look at some of the stuff, for example, that's going on in Asia, where people are throwing money at artists they like just because they want to you know, people paying sort of eye of the beholder price to be associated with an artist that they feel strongly about, that they love early in their career. Like, that's not going away. So whether, you know, the subscription fatigue is a reality, whether effective penny rates, times units of consumption are going up, flattening, going down. You know, we'll see. I mean, the Goldman Sachs people think they're going to go up forever. I'm not sure I totally agree with that. But what is true is that the willingness of people to invest in artists they love is increasing. And I don't think that's going back to zero, so it may not be, you know, that subgrowth continues on forever and on-demand streaming, but it may be that there are other ways that people can figure out how to engage with artists that keep the value, you know, exchange going up. Now, the one thing about streaming that's interesting is that, you know, the TikTok thing, in ways that people, like, talk shit about it all the time, whatever, but the thing that's interesting is that it did introduce frequency back into the equation. And one of the things about music that's unique is that you need to hear a song a number of times before you like it. Like at first you're like, I hate that. And then you hear it like five times and you're like, maybe I want to hear it again. And then by like, whatever end time you hear it, you're like, I can't get it out of my head. I got to hear it. It's like, Barry Weiss used to call it a record finding its bottom, where it would kind of come out and people would spin it, and then it would drop and then at some level would start to rise again. That's a function of promotion. That's a function of frequency. And in the early YouTube time and on-demand streaming time, you didn't really have that. Like, the people couldn't make something frequently play. And the AV platforms, not only TikTok, but also Snap and Instagram changed that equation and that music needs that. The thing that I'm wondering where it will happen, where it will come back into the equation though, is the music press, which has largely disappeared. And so I'm looking for who, on a consumer level there, people like yourself covering the business, part of it, that are doing an extraordinary job, but who sort of tells people what's good, gets it in front of them, filters it and what does that look like? It's probably not printed on a page. It's probably, it's sort of associated, I think in some way with what's going on with the NFT world, you know, with getting people to buy in, getting a community of people bought to projects, but it's still that same mechanism of filtering. And so I'm wondering where that's one of my thesis areas that I have my on. Where's the next one of those? [00:50:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think this is a role that, of course, MTV and so many other places own and were able to do so well decades ago. And now the commonality I've always referred back to is that TikTok in many ways is the new MTV, but it's more so in the broader sense of just the cultural appeal, but not in that solo aspect of yes, if you want to know what this group of people are pushing, or what is the thing that's in, this is the place to go to find that. And I think it's very tough, the way that things are right now, just with how fragmented things are. But people are always going to want to feel like they're part of what's in or feel like they know what's in that desire also isn't going away. So I think there were always be a space for this, no matter how fragmented. [00:50:53] Matt Pincus: And people don't always know what they like. I mean, who knew that all these people love Kate Bush? [00:50:58] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:50:58] Matt Pincus: We all understand why. She's amazing. Song's amazing, but people don't always know what they like until somebody shows it to them and repeats it. And then all of a sudden they can't get it out of their head. And that's the magic of music. So how that happens, you know, the cool kids like it up from the bottom, you know, like to be selective, know about the stuff first. The general audience likes to hear things multiple times and then, you know, be addicted to it. And I think that those things will reinvent themselves in a bunch of different ways going forward. [00:51:27] Dan Runcie: For sure, Matt, before we let you go, do you have one big prediction for us on where you may see things in the next five years or one thing that you think will change from where music is right now to where things will be come 2027? [00:51:40] Matt Pincus: Well, I think as I touched on before, I think younger and younger people are going to be making music that the world reacts. And that is going to be miraculous when it happens. And not necessarily in like a sort of criss-cross Whip / Nae Nae type of way, but in a real, like expressing the core thoughts and feelings they have and getting them out there in a way that sounds good to the world. I think that's going to happen in a bunch of different ways. I think the way that repertoire moves across the planet is going to be revolutionary in the next five years. If there's one thing that's really going to change, you know, it used to be that sort of music went west to east and technology went east to west. Now, I think that's all scrambled eggs right now. If you look at stuff, like, you know, some of the music that's coming out of West Africa right now and how it gets into the global culture. It's not like in a, you know, used to be like you had like a world music business. Like, that's ripped up and thrown away. And so I think, you know, the way that the in-country community relates to the diaspora community in around the globe is going to be really different. You know, I think if there's one thing I have my eye on, it's sort of how all that stuff travels. And obviously, there's some obvious examples like BTS. But I think this is going to happen anywhere and everywhere. And one of the things that I heard somebody say the other day that I felt was really interesting is that the music business thinks about countries in its marketing. You know, they've Europe and Asia and Australia, Canada, US. It should be cities because music is about scenes and it's going to travel that way. And so your Amsterdam strategy is going to be different from your Seoul strategy is going to be different from your São Paulo strategy. And so if there's one like broad thing, I think we're going to look at the way that music travels around the planet in a completely different way. [00:53:37] Dan Runcie: That's spot on. Look at the way we think about music here in the US. That should be an indication of how it should be looked at elsewhere, right? We know what Atlanta hip-hop sounds like compared to what you may hear in LA or even the New Orleans bounce sound. Like, it's so different place to place. So you look at a country like Nigeria, which is soon going to eclipse the US in population. What you may hear in Lagos would be completely different from other parts of the country. So that's a really great point. [00:54:05] Matt Pincus: Yeah. So that would be like, if I, you know, sort of, if I had to obsess about something, it would be that. [00:54:10] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of people listening probably will too. This is a good one. I think that you got a bunch of notes for people to jot down. So Matt, thank you for making the time for this. This is fun. Thanks for coming on. [00:54:21] Matt Pincus: Thank you so much. I just really appreciate your thinking to me. And it's a pleasure to talk to you about all this stuff. [00:54:27] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 14 Jun 2020 | Build Your Table | 00:11:45 | |
Another solo episode in light of recent events, and an audio version of this week’s Trapital article, “Why Ownership Matters More in Hip-Hop.” The system hasn’t always had hip-hop’s best interest at heart, so its artists are more likely to take control.Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Link:
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| 16 Dec 2024 | The State of Hip-Hop with Def Jam CEO Tunji Balogun - Trapital Summit | 00:27:27 | |
Here’s my fireside chat with Tunji Balogun, Chairman and CEO of Def Jam, and our Trapital Summit. We talked about the evolving landscape of Universal Music Group, fluidity of music genres, the state of hip-hop, and the role of artist development. Hope you enjoy! 04:31 Def Jam's evolution 11:32 Hip-hop’s current state and influence across genres 20:29 Artist development 28:11 Afrobeats' global rise. This episode was brought to you by music creation platform Splice. | |||
| 24 Sep 2021 | Karl Fowlkes on Becoming an Entertainment Attorney, NBA Agent, and NIL Opportunities | 00:38:31 | |
Karl Fowlkes is an entertainment attorney, the founder of Fowlkes Firm, and a certified NBPA player agent under Firm Sports. In this episode, he walks us through his journey to where he is today. We talk about some of the artists he has worked with, the challenges of properly communicating information, and how athletes are missing out on revenue streams. Karl also weighs in on NFTs and cryptocurrency. Tune in for insight from a lawyer/agent who has established a name for himself both in music and in sports. Episode Highlights: [02:52] Karl’s transition from law school to building a network and starting a law firm [08:08] His process for raising funds [10:02] About Section 8 and his partnership with Lil Baby [13:40] Creators need to focus on the following when it comes to their contracts: length, obligation, money, and ownership [17:00] On content creation [24:45] Why Karl decided to become an NBA agent [28:45] On NIL (names, images or likeness), brand building, and maximizing one’s community or alumni base [37:00] Karl’s hate-love relationship with NFTs Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Karl Fowlkes, @esqfowlkes, Fowlkes Firm Links:
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 26 Aug 2022 | How Virtual Characters Are Done Right | 00:42:29 | |
In less than a week, AI-powered rapper FN Meka became the first virtual rapper signed to a major label and then released by one. Capitol Records dropped the virtual act for being a complete caricature of black culture — glorifying police brutality in lyrics, dropping the n-word, and other cringey behaviors. However, FN Meka’s utter failure shouldn’t be a write off for ALL virtual characters. In fact, a prime example of how to do it right is Aku. Aku was created by Micah Johnson — a former MLB player and now a full-fledged artist, both in the virtual and real world. The kid character is a black astronaut, which was inspired by Micah’s four-year-old nephew asking his mother, “can astronauts be black?” Unlike FN Meka, Aku is a vehicle to promote what one artist wants to see in the world. A symbol or hero for a better tomorrow. This week, I’m running back an interview I did with Micah in 2021. It was done shortly after Micah first released the character as an NFT collection, selling $2 million right off the bat. And no, this was not just a FOMO-fueled drop amid the NFT crazy. Aku has lived on since then, and only a few weeks ago, the lifestyle fashion label Paper Plans announced a snapback collab with the Aku character. This comes on top of prior partnerships with major brands like Puma and Billionaire Boys Club, plus Aku appearing on the cover of Time Magazine. Unlike FN Meka, the creation and intention behind Aku is an uplifting story. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Micah Johnson, @Micah_Johnson3
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 09 Sep 2024 | Trapital Summit: October 3 in Los Angeles | 00:03:27 | |
A few big updates on our Trapital Summit in LA on October 3! Tickets are available here. Use promo code RUNCIE for a discount. You'll hear from Issa Rae, (writer, producer, actress), Denis Ladegaillerie, (Founder and CEO, Believe), Kakul Srivastava (CEO, Splice), Tunji Balogun (Chairman and CEO, Def Jam), Sherrese Clarke Soares (Founder and CEO, HarbourView Equity Partners), Eliah Seton (CEO, SoundCloud), and Troy Carter (Co-Founder and CEO, Venice Music), Larry Jackson, (Co-Founder and CEO, gamma.), Carletta Higginson, (EVP Chief Digital Officer, Warner Music Group), and Tatiana Cirisano, (Senior Analyst and Consultant, MIDiA). Thanks again to the companies who supported our summit to help make it possible. Our platinum partner is Splice, gold partners are Tidal and Warner Music Group, silver partners are SoundCloud and Too Lost, and our bronze partner is Luminate. We still have some tickets available. You can get them here using promo code RUNCIE for a 10% discount! | |||
| 16 Sep 2024 | Where Does Drake Go From Here? | 00:37:08 | |
It's crisis management time for Drake. He's in rare territory right now as his reputation has taken a hit. What should his next moves be? What's realistic and what's not? How did we get to this point in the first place? I'm joined by journalist and author, Sowmya Krishnamurthy. We break down Drake's career and what's ahead for Aubrey Graham. Enjoy! Thank you to our sponsors: Songtrust - Start your music publishing journey today Chartmetric - Providing our Stat of the Week! Check out Sowmya's book, Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion | |||
| 28 Jun 2024 | Quincy Jones: One of Ones | 00:44:36 | |
We're introducing a new series in Trapital called One of Ones! We'll break down some of the most important moguls and executives in music, media, and entertainment. Our first one is on Quincy Jones. We discuss how his upbringing shapes his strategy in business, his leadership style compared to Motown founder Berry Gordy, Michael Jackson, two truths and a lie, and more. This episode is presented by State Farm, the home for your small business needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Make sure you check out Chartmetric Stat of the Week. | |||
| 04 Jan 2021 | Why Artists Are Selling Their Music Catalogs (with Karl Fowlkes) | 00:50:14 | |
A recording of the Why Artists Are Selling Their Music Catalogs webinar from December 19. We broke down the reasons why so many artists sold their catalogs in 2020, the companies that want them, and where this trend is heading. Karl Fowlkes is an entertainment attorney whose clients include artists, musicians, athletes, producers and creative companies that have amassed millions of streams, RIAA certifications. He's also a music industry professor at Rowan University and Drexel University. To learn more about his work, visit: https://www.fowlkesfirm.com/ Dan Runcie is the founder of Trapital, a media company that covers the business of hip-hop. Learn more at: https://trapital.co | |||
| 15 Aug 2023 | Unpacking the Economics of Taylor Swift | 00:55:59 | |
Taylor Swift is on track for the first $1B+ tour ever, but that’s old news.. In this episode, we look beyond the public drama surrounding her masters and unpack the questions that have been overlooked. How valuable are the original recordings compared to Taylor’s Version? How will that change once '1989' is re-released? How much money will Ithaca Holdings, Shamrock Capital, Big Machine Label Group, and Taylor herself make in the end? Can anyone else in the music industry pull this off?? Join me and Tim Ingham, founder of Music Business Worldwide, as we unravel the complexities and explore the various stakeholders involved, offering insights and analysis from industry experts. 02:48 Taylor Swift’s record sales and tour results 10:47 Taylor’s NDA with Scooter Braun and 13 Management 17:18 Scooter Braun buys Taylor’s Masters 23:47 The Value of Taylor’s catalogue overtime 28:02 Shamrock Capital ownership of Taylor’s original versions 29:18 Taylor Swift's re-recordings 41:31 Tim’s experience writing deep dive articles on Taylor This episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fm Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. | |||
| 23 Apr 2021 | Shawn Prez on Bad Boy, Black Rob, and PowerMoves Inc. (2020) | 00:47:15 | |
Music executive Shawn Prez came on the pod to talk about his days as Bad Boy’s VP of Marketing, what set Bad Boy’s Street Team apart, breaking hit records, starting the Ciroc Boyz, his work at Power Moves Inc., and why he decided to launch an award shows to recognize DJs. This episode was originally published on April 7, 2020. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Link: | |||
| 10 Jun 2022 | Stem CEO Milana Lewis Wants To Get Artists Paid | 00:35:36 | |
Joining us on Trapital for the second time is Milana Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Stem. She last joined me at the end of 2019 and Stem has been in hyper-growth mode since then. Stem helps artist get paid in a clear and timely manner — not only through online-based financial tools, but music distribution too. As a former talent agent for UTA, Milana noticed it wasn’t exactly cut and dry how artists were paid out. That issue is exacerbated inside the music industry due to murky record deals and no-so-transparent streaming numbers. And these problems are affecting artists of all sizes, from the Meek Mill’s of the world, to independent ones. Enter Stem, which just raised a $20 million. With the the fresh injection of capital, Stem wants to extend its digital tools across the industry even further. It’s a completely new level of transparency inside a industry that’s notorious for being the opposite. Here’s everything Milana and I covered in our interview: [0:49] Stem Raised $20 Million In Latest Funding Round [7:03] The Differences Between Label And Independent Artists Are Becoming Smaller [11:07] Music Labels ARE Becoming More Artist Friendly [13:05] Companies That Stem Models Itself After [16:19] Payments Are An Issue Across Entertainment, Not Just Music [19:29] Technical Workers Pivoting Into The Creative Side [23:03] Stem’s Unique Positioning In Music Distribution [33:47] Asking Artists “Why?” Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Milana Lewis, @milana
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION TRAPITAL 129 [00:00:00] Milana Lewis: I think a lot of people assume that, oh, you can get your music out there. And that's the only role of the distributor, but that's really a delivery company, right? There needs to be that distinction that people need to realize that, like, there's delivery services. And then there's like distributors and distribution services. And distribution services is not just getting your music into the store. [00:00:16] Milana Lewis: It's about positioning it. It's about being an advocate, thinking strategically about how you structure marketing plans. And there are a ton of services that even our clients expect from their distributor and that cannot be commoditized. [00:00:34] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Milana Lewis, the founder and CEO of Stem, a company that's on a mission to provide clarity and accountability to the music industry through modern financial tools for artists, labels, and the people they collaborate with. Milana is a return guest to the Trapital podcast. We did our first episode back in 2019, this was actually at Stem's office and this was down in LA. This one we did remote though. It was great to catch up because Stem just raised $20 million to further its mission. So in this episode, we talked all about the plans for that money, where things are going with Stem, where things are going in the music industry, and why this is so important. [00:01:31] Dan Runcie: And one of the reasons it's important is because of a op-ed that Milana recently wrote in Billboard which highlights the difference between artists independence and artists autonomy. And Milana's case is that artists really want to have autonomy with their careers. And they may still be willing to partner with others. [00:01:52] Dan Runcie: So we talked about the distinction there, what that means truly. And there are a few artists, examples that she use that we brought up here and also what that means for Stem in the future that it's building towards. So, we talked about that, and we talked about where Stem sits relative to other distribution services, what customer acquisition looks like for them, and some of the other ways that the business is structured, what's in place for the future. We also talked about a few recent trends happening in the industry, which is great to talk to the actual operators in this space building it. So I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do, too. Here's my chat with Milana Lewis. [00:02:31] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have a return guest, Milana Lewis, who is the founder and CEO of Stem, which just raised $20 million. So Milana welcome back to the podcast and give us an update. How are things going? And what's the latest, especially with the new round you all have? [00:02:47] Milana Lewis: Thank you, Dan, for having me back. I love sort of seeing the growth of the show, too, and the audience, and just more and more people appreciating the work that you're doing. So it's fun to come back. 20 million, we raised it, gives us more runway fuel to continue building what we want to build. And we've been pretty heads down, just scaling up the team to execute. [00:03:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that in terms of scaling. I mean, I know that last time we had talked, it was shortly after a raise and a pivot that you all had as well. And I feel like post pandemic though. Now the market's a little bit of a different place, but there are more and more independent artists that want to create, that want to use things and want to build. [00:03:29] Dan Runcie: So how has that influence been, especially with you all and the plans you have and where you want to take things? [00:03:35] Milana Lewis: Yeah, for sure. It's funny, you sort of used the word pivot again, and we never really pivoted. So the vision for Stem has always been about how do we ensure a music future where people can expect to get paid in a clear and timely manner, right? And that's not one that exists today, quite frankly. And I think if anything, music has the worst reputation doing that out of if any other industry. And so when we think about how do we bring that mission to life, what we realized the best way to enter the market for us was to start a music distribution company. [00:04:05] Milana Lewis: If you think about it for an artist as a business owner, it all starts with the song. The song is the first product that they create. Without that song, there's not much of a business otherwise. And the innovation we brought to the market really was around how they split the earnings from that song. And for many different reasons, that was something that became really attractive to all types of artists, right? [00:04:26] Milana Lewis: Artists that are independent but larger and leaving a major label system, as well as artists that are just starting off their careers. And what we realized is that the problem that we wanted to solve was really one for the artists who were operating more like a business, so there was a team of different people around them who needed to get paid a percentage of their earnings. [00:04:44] Milana Lewis: There were various collaborators coming in and out of projects, and the complexity there is very different than the complexity of an artist who's more of a DIY artist. And when you and I last talked, we had to make the really hard decision to part ways with the clients that, you know, fit the profile of more of the early stage artists, where their complexity of the payments was a lot more simplified, where we felt like they already had enough tools they were using to do that. [00:05:08] Milana Lewis: And we wanted to serve the more business-type of artists. The artist has a business, we call them the entrepreneurial-like ones, where they're a little bit above sort of just figuring out where they're going and have an existing management team and lots of collaborators. So it wasn't necessarily a pivot as more of a refinement and focus on our core customer. [00:05:27] Milana Lewis: And the reason we started the music distribution business is because we needed to create our first client of that software. So we built a music distribution services company that was the first client of the software we were building 'cause back then in 2015, people didn't really understand what we were trying to do, right? They sort of thought about the world of royalty counting, the world of business management, and the world of distribution as being one that's completely different from each other. And what we were trying to do is sort of integrate all of these workflows and processes into one platform and build a tool that all of these people could use, with the end goal of an experience where, whether you're an artist, a songwriter, or producer, you can open up your app or log into your dashboard and you can see exactly how much money you're making off of the products that you helped create, which is your music, right? I hate calling music a product, but it's an incredibly valuable piece of content that has both cultural value, but also has enterprise value. [00:06:23] Milana Lewis: And we're obviously seeing that happening as it's being traded across so many different types of transactions, whether it's catalog buyers buying music rights or fans buying portions of earnings through NFTs of their favorite artist, like, related to their songs so that we know that there's a lot of value in the song. [00:06:41] Milana Lewis: And so how do we bring that to life? Well, one, trying to go and pitch that as an offering to the existing music labels and distributors was really hard. They were like, why do we need this? It's their problem, not ours. And creating the messaging around the experience for an artist is really compelling to the artists, but it didn't give enough of a business reason for anyone else to invest in these types of tools or developing them at the time. [00:07:03] Milana Lewis: So we thought, let's go build our own distributor. Let's set the precedent of what an incredible experience. It can be for an artist producer, songwriter, manager to know what they're getting paid when they're getting paid. So we did that, and that's what we've been focused on for the last, call it, five or six years of the business is really changing people's expectations around what it means to be artists-centric, clear, not transparent, but clear, and timely. [00:07:28] Milana Lewis: And I think that we've done a pretty tremendous job at that. We've witnessed other people emulating our features, right, which is now a thing that many distributors offer. We've seen major labels increase the cadence in which they're paying their artists, right? We've seen sort of more transparency happening across the board. [00:07:45] Milana Lewis: And yet it doesn't feel like it's enough. And so the reason we raised this round is really to take the tools that we've built for ourselves and our distribution class. And make them work for other labels and other distributors who want to be as clear with their artists, with their creators being producers, songwriters, et cetera, and not have to make the investment in building and maintaining those tools themselves. [00:08:08] Dan Runcie: And thinking about the importance of that, there are so many artists that are signed to major labels, we see them tweeting or share their thoughts often about how they don't necessarily know what's coming in, when is it coming in and how all of those things line up. So I do feel like for you all, there's a huge target audience there that, even though many people may assume that it's the independent artists that need to see this and major label artists would be fine, no, in many cases, it's likely the opposite. So there is that black box and the fact that a lot of the artists, especially the A-list ones, want it. That means that there's a need for it. [00:08:44] Milana Lewis: Yeah. Well, the thing that I'd love to sort of dive in on with you on what you just said is you're kind of creating a distinction between a major label artist and an independent artist as being two different types of artists. And I think when you look at the landscape today, it's not so black and white. Most artists are autonomous. [00:09:02] Milana Lewis: They choose which projects are with a major label and which projects are independent. And they want that autonomy. And if that's true, then this need becomes even moreso because now they're getting to a place where they're having to have that information come into them from so many different sources, distributors, platforms that just having one place to centralize it all is going to be really important for them to make good business decisions or just be in the know. [00:09:27] Dan Runcie: Right. So do you think that when artists are like, okay, I want to be independent, they're really saying they just want to have more control in general and that they just want to still be able to have the support of others, because I do think that that's kind of what it's getting at, right? It's not that the artists don't want to partner with others. [00:09:45] Dan Runcie: It's not that they're not willing to split things or that they want to wear every single hat themselves. They just want to be able to push things forward or be able to have a little bit more direction. And you had written a piece, it was a guest column in Billboard, that highlighted this, and you used Meek Mill as an example of this exact story. [00:10:05] Dan Runcie: Are there any other examples that come to mind that distinction? Especially because I do think that you hear so much about independence, but what it really is is people wanting to have a bit more push, even if there is someone else that they are dependent on. [00:10:21] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I think it means something different for every artist. And I think it just depends on their previous experiences, right? When we sit with our clients and we ask them like, why do you want to be independent? Why is that important for you? We hear one of these following reasons, right? Control is one thing you talked about. We've also witnessed people say they actually don't care about control. [00:10:39] Milana Lewis: They just want more money and have more of the economic participation in that projects, right? That's another one that we hear a lot. The third one is not necessarily control, but more like creative autonomy and flexibility there where they don't really want some, they don't need to be A&R, right? Like, they just want someone else to help execute the activities that they are putting together as part of the release plan, or they know exactly they're going to collaborate with, like, they don't need a lot of the A&R services they're getting elsewhere. So why, why give up the freedom and being able to move agile and quickly just by partnering up with someone else, right? [00:11:16] Milana Lewis: So I think it's a combination of those. They either want to keep more of the economic upside. They want the creative liberation and freedom, and control is a big piece of that as well. And then the last piece that I actually think is pretty important is visibility, right? There's a lot of artists who are independent because they don't trust the existing system. [00:11:34] Milana Lewis: They're okay with giving up control. They're okay with giving up more of the economic upside to someone else, but they just don't feel like they can trust the way that the industry will work. And so they want to be maybe in control or they want to be just having that visibility. [00:11:49] Dan Runcie: Right. That creative piece is a big piece because especially now we're hearing the wave of major label artists that don't want to be forced to put out TikToks to promote their music. [00:12:01] Milana Lewis: Halsey, last week. [00:12:02] Dan Runcie: Yup, and Florence from Florence + The Machine, too. [00:12:05] Milana Lewis: Totally. Yeah. I mean, those are absurd, but that's the reality is like the minute that you work with a major entity like that, there's other people who are going to have a say in various parts of the rollout, which was in sometimes that's a good thing. And sometimes it's not, it just, once you hand over the project, it's theirs, it's not yours anymore. [00:12:24] Milana Lewis: And I don't believe that that's always the case. Like, I think in my op-ed I tried to make it really clear. Like, I don't think labels are bad. I actually believe that if anything we've seen happened in the last six or seven years that we've existed, is there, how do I say this? Their desire to become more aligned with their artists that they're working with, they want to be more artist-friendly. Like I just had a call today with someone who's pretty senior up in the c-suite at Sony. And, like, they're going through so many big initiatives internally to be more artist-friendly, to pay their people faster, to be more transparent. I mean, they made an announcement today where they're forgiving a lot of unrecouped debts. [00:12:59] Milana Lewis: Like, we're seeing the behavior and the nature and the sentiment of these entities changing and evolving, which is an amazing thing. It's just, how does that trickle through the whole entire ecosystem? And while they might have the resources to build it, there's so many other smaller entities and labels that provide incredible artist development services that are not capable of investing in their own infrastructure to keep up. [00:13:23] Milana Lewis: And I think that's really the opportunity for us is creating a turnkey solution for these companies that are so invested in being great partners for their artists, but just don't have the capacity to build their own technology. [00:13:35] Dan Runcie: And that makes sense. And in your piece, too, you talked about how other industries have done a better job of this. [00:13:42] Dan Runcie: And I agree with you. I think music has come a long way, even someone like Olivia Rodrigo being able to get a more favorable deal. Like, she got early on as a sign of how far things have come along. But in terms of other industries, can you talk more about that and what are some of the other things that you've seen about how others have done it better? [00:14:00] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I mean, you know, Square's a company and you look up to, and it's one that I referenced quite a bit, but what's been amazing about what they've been able to do is not only provide the tools, but also provide the education for a small business owner to become more financially literate about their business, right? [00:14:17] Milana Lewis: It's amazing how much quicker and better decision-making you can make when you're looking at the numbers consistently, and they're being surfaced to you where you don't have to like haul, haul through spreadsheets to figure out what's going on. And I still think that we're very much in the universe, in the music industry, where people are hauling through spreadsheets at every level to figure out what's going on. And that takes a lot of time. And I think what Square did so brilliantly is it took really complicated business decisions and surface data so that the person who's running the business can look at it and make more actionable decisions. Right. But it started with speeding up the ability for those people to accept payments in a digital form. [00:14:54] Milana Lewis: So when I first discovered Square is because I loved food trucks, and food trucks started off as a cash business. And then quickly it started seeing everyone being able to accept credit cards because they had that little Square attachment. And so now you're transacting all that data's being put into a system in real time. [00:15:09] Milana Lewis: So when you go to close your books or you look to see about your income at the end of the day, it's all in your Square app, you can see that happening there. You know, on a more sort of like enterprise level, it's incredible what Square and Brain or that Square, sorry, Stripe and Braintree have been able to allow startups to do, right? A lot of the whole on-demand economy, everything from Uber, and Lyft, and Airbnb could exist because of Stripe and Braintree, right? It took the headache away from a business that's trying to scale quickly and create an offering from having to figure out how you can accept credit cards, how you can transfer money between the customer and the person providing services and the platform. [00:15:47] Milana Lewis: And it did that in a way that super seamlessly. It didn't have to become something that every company had to figure out. It became something that companies could partner with them on and build everything else around it. And that enabled a lot of innovative things to exist. And music industry just hasn't had the benefit of that kind of infrastructure to enable a lot of the innovation that's happening right now. [00:16:07] Milana Lewis: Like, you know, we're spending quite a bit of time with a lot of the companies in the NFT space that are promising to share their royalties with their fans, but like they're struggling to actually make that happen because, in reality, those artists are making money from so many different sources in the real world. [00:16:21] Milana Lewis: How do you translate that income in a way that's accessible to transfer to someone else? And not just one other person, but thousands of other people? [00:16:28] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I do think that music has a long way to go on that front. And I'm curious what you think about other areas of the entertainment industry, and if you think it's any better there, I know that you were in UA before this, so you definitely, you know, saw a lot there. What are your thoughts? [00:16:45] Milana Lewis: No, like TV is the worst place. I think more than anything, especially because a lot of the streaming services and television don't pay a backend deal and they don't, they don't pay backend because they don't want to. Just for them, like that's a headache. [00:16:55] Milana Lewis: They don't want to have to figure out. . Film as well. Like, payments is a huge problem in our team and across the board. Music to me is just the easiest place to solve for it primarily because it shouldn't be as complicated as it is. It's a much more dynamic industry. Believe it or not. [00:17:10] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:17:11] Milana Lewis: And the partners, the platforms provide a tremendous amount of data to supplement the income that they're paying out. Whereas like, if you're trying to figure out how much your show is being streamed on Netflix, when they pay you whatever they owe you, like they're not giving you that reporting data. [00:17:25] Dan Runcie: Right. I was listening to a podcast. They were talking with Steven Soderbergh and he was talking about how, the only way that he knows that he's doing a good job, or if he's making something else, they literally are like, Hey. The movie did well, do you want to make another one? And, okay, if you're Steven Soderbergh that may work, but if you're most of the other people trying to do stuff, there's no security. There's no way to feel like you have any sense of autonomy at all with that. [00:17:51] Milana Lewis: Yeah, and honestly, like, the visibility problem isn't one that's just like limited to the artists' experience, right? [00:17:57] Milana Lewis: Like, the artist is at the center of it. It impacts the songwriters and producers and the publishers. It impacts the manager and their ability to support the artists that they're helping manage the careers of. And more importantly, it impacts the label. I mean, one of the things that I wrote about in the article that I did for billboard was just like, in reality, like I really laughed at myself thinking about being that marketing person or like that finance person at Meek Mill's label, having to figure out like, what do we owe him and how much have we spent on him? [00:18:25] Milana Lewis: Like, do they know, right? Like, how were they tracking the expenses? ' Cause every label we've talked to and done customer interviews with, they're using Google sheets. Maybe they're using QuickBooks. If they're super organized, they might have some sort of internal system for budgeting that they felt, but not everyone's touching that system, right? So there's just so much inefficiency and it, and to me, that's the part that I'm really excited about solving. Don't get me wrong. Like, I love the artist development side. We have a whole artist relations team that works on the distribution side of the business that cares a lot about the creative element of the work we're doing as well. But to me, all of that still needs really good infrastructure in order for those decisions to be more streamlined. And I think it's because everyone who comes to work into music wants to be as close to the artists or their creative process as possible 'cause that's super attractive. [00:19:15] Milana Lewis: It takes away from people who actually want to solve the, you know, the infrastructure problem that exists. One of the things we've noticed and is kind of like a funny, but also painful thing we deal with is like, we hire tons of people on the technical side, whether they're engineers or product people. [00:19:31] Milana Lewis: And I can't tell you how many of them have taken the job at Stem because they love music and want to be building solutions for artists only then to find out a couple months in that they actually don't want to be engineers. They want to be in the artist relation side. [00:19:45] Dan Runcie: Wow. [00:19:45] Milana Lewis: It happens all the time. And I thought that we were crazy. And then I talked to someone who was at Myspace back in the day, running engineering over there, and they had a similar problem. So people want to work in music because they want to be closer to the creative process of it, which is incredible. And it's so powerful to do that 'cause you're legitimately servicing people who create and shape culture, right? [00:20:06] Milana Lewis: But not enough people want to actually build the picks-and-shovels of the business. [00:20:10] Dan Runcie: Definitely. [00:20:10] Milana Lewis: And we're sure looking for people who want to. [00:20:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And that point too reminds me of some of the thoughts I've heard for people that have looked at a lot of these newer solutions that have come up trying to solve particular problems, or helping people support artists, or just connecting fans to artists more directly. [00:20:28] Dan Runcie: And some of the critiques I've heard from people in the music industry is that these people, they may understand their business, or they may understand tech or investing, but they don't actually understand music beyond, you know, actually wanting to be in the culture and not like, as you said it, actually, you know, picking up the shovels and doing the work. [00:20:47] Dan Runcie: And I feel like that has grown even more. I mean, even more since the last time you and I did a podcast where you're just seeing more and more of that, and it's great to see the investive activity. It's great to see everything, but there's still a disconnect between the actual solutions that need to be solved. [00:21:04] Dan Runcie: That it's not always, you know, the person that finds the artist as the investment opportunity, being able to snap photos with them and post them on Instagram or whatever. [00:21:14] Milana Lewis: Yeah, I mean, that's why we have the distribution business, right? Like, we created an internal customer that we can continue to build and evolve for who feels a lot of the same pain points, encounters, the same challenges that other labels and other distributors have. [00:21:28] Milana Lewis: And so we have them right next to us as we're building and developing. The other thing too, is when we hire people on our product team, you know, we've had a couple of people that come from. The finance world and FinTech, but the majority of our product managers and product leaders and designers come from the music business, right? [00:21:44] Milana Lewis: Like, one of our senior product managers, this woman, Sarah is incredible. She spent years working at Virgin Capital as a product manager there, but not product manager on the technical side, more on the creative, like, marketing side. So she's done that job working really closely with artists and she understands those painpoints and was a manager herself. [00:22:03] Milana Lewis: And then actually made a career pivot and decided to get into like technical product development, worked at other tech companies and is now at Stem. So, like, I think one of the things that puts us in a unique competitive advantage really is the fact that we're able to find these like unicorn humans who have the skillsets that like grew up in music, understand the music business intimately well, but have also developed pretty deep technical skills and understand how you built in scale technology offerings. [00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's the combo right there. I feel like everyone's after that, but when people have those people, they keep them close. They don't want to let them go. Understandably so, right? [00:22:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Shifting gears a bit because you did talk about distribution and that, of course, being one of the big parts of your service, I want to talk about growth and just what that process is like for customer acquisition, because I do know that music distribution has become a even more crowded space. [00:22:54] Dan Runcie: There's a lot of competitors, a lot of people try to say, Hey, this is the place you can, you know, distribute through or rehab what you need to help you. How has it been navigating that? And what are some of the things that have been most effective for you from a acquisition perspective? [00:23:09] Milana Lewis: Yeah. So a couple of things, we built the distribution business for an entirely different purpose than many other people do. [00:23:14] Milana Lewis: So the things that many of the distributors care about, we don't. We don't care about market share. So you will never see us on the peeling of an artist. You will never see us taking claim over their releases. And the way that we think about our distribution service and offering is really intentional about how can we super serve clients. [00:23:30] Milana Lewis: So again, we don't take anyone. We've been incredibly intentional about the types of clients we want to serve. And it's because we really have a point of view for them. And we think that we can help position them in a way that other people can't. So growing and scaling the distribution business isn't our biggest priority. [00:23:46] Milana Lewis: Our biggest priority is going and scaling the tools that enable the distribution business to be successful. That doesn't mean that we're not going to continue to expand that team. I mean, a lot of the use of proceeds of this fundraising round is going towards hiring more people to service our clients on that. [00:24:01] Milana Lewis: And that's a direct response to the demand that we've seen in this space and just the fact that we legitimately have not had enough people to be able to take on the clients that come to us. So we've had to be a lot more intentional and turned down a lot more business than we can take on. So we want to be able to meet the market and, you know, but do it in a way where we're so conscious of our capacity, because the reason we started the distribution business is because we saw this, like, gap in the market where so many other distributors are going after market share and growth, that a lot of artists were just lost in the shuffle. [00:24:30] Milana Lewis: They were lost in the volume and our distribution offering is a direct response to that. And we're going to keep it boutique in that way, because we think that there needs to be a place for artists to get the attention they deserve at a price that's the right value exchange for the services they're getting. [00:24:46] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I hear that. I mean, and I think for you all specifically, having the distribution service be either not necessarily a testing ground, but just having a place to be like, Hey, this is serving the other tools and services that we have. I guess there's a few other models like that that we see. [00:25:03] Dan Runcie: Like, of course I think that UnitedMasters has, you know, their version to some extent where it does serve what they do on the ad side. And I think some of the others do, but I think that the tough thing is, if you're not either building the business in some type of way, you have some other type of thing that is one of the main value adds that you offer. [00:25:22] Dan Runcie: It's a commodity and just being able to differentiate yourselves in that perspective. And I feel like that's what, at least it's been not necessarily missing, because I do think it's a very real challenge, but it's a long tail. It's a long tail for a reason. But I do think that the companies, like yours, I mean, you obviously made the switch a few years ago to focus more on the select artists that were fitting that profile. [00:25:45] Dan Runcie: That ultimately I think is where the most successful companies can be. Otherwise you're trying to just jab anyone you can. And I mean, as you know, that could be a very costly game. [00:25:55] Milana Lewis: Yeah. And quite frankly, the commodification of distribution really pisses me off because it's not a business that's easily that, like, it shouldn't be a race to the bottom on fees. [00:26:05] Milana Lewis: I think a lot of people assume that, oh, you can get your music out there. And that's the only role of the distributor, but that's really a delivery company, right? There needs to be that distinction. And people need to realize that, like, there's delivery services and then there's like distributors and distribution services. And distribution services is not just getting your music into the store. [00:26:21] Milana Lewis: It's about positioning it. It's about being an advocate, thinking strategically about how you structure marketing plans. And there are a ton of services that even our clients expect from their distributor and that cannot be commoditized, but that also makes it challenging because a lot of it is relationship driven. [00:26:36] Milana Lewis: It's hard to scale because you have to be able to be attentive and give the right focus to the clients that have a point of view. So I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of confusion from sort of the market around, like, the difference between a distributor and a delivery mechanism. And I just want those to be clarified because yes, delivery is commoditized. Distribution should not be. [00:26:57] Dan Runcie: That's a fair distinction. That's a fair distinction. So when new artists are either considering you or they're considering others, or you do want to bring them on board, what's your pitch? What is the big thing that you and the artist relations team say to bring them on and make them feel like this is a place where their career can level up? [00:27:16] Milana Lewis: Yeah, I wish I had Kristin on here with me 'cause she does the pitch so much better than I do. And she's the president of that side of the business. So she spends the most time thinking about it and kind of consistently refining the offering there. But the unique thing is is that we don't actually start pitching unless we understand what that client is looking for. [00:27:32] Milana Lewis: Because again, like we have the ability to shape our value proposition to our clients, depending on what their needs are. So some clients come to us and they say, we just want someone that's going to pick up the phone. We need them. We want you out of our way, and we want money, and we want that money as cheap as possible, and that's it. And it's like, great. We're going to give you the tools so you can handle it yourself. You'll have a dedicated account manager that will get on the phone with you whenever you need them to, you can text them. You don't have, like, a support line you call, you have that human being's phone number. And they're very responsive because they're not servicing hundreds of artists at a time. [00:28:04] Milana Lewis: And we're going to show you the options that we can give you as an advance, but you're going to control the terms. So if you want the cheaper fee, take less money up front and take in tranches. You can take the same exact of my money, but instead of withdrawing, call it a million dollars at once, take it out in tranches of a hundred thousand, you need to spend a million dollars next week, right? [00:28:21] Milana Lewis: Like if you're not, don't do that. And we're going to pay you every single month and we're going to pay all the people you want us to pay on your behalf so that you can stay focused on the things you want to focus on, right? That sort of like the tried and true, like keep things, easy pitch. Those are the most exciting clients to work with, but there's enough labels that feel that way. [00:28:39] Milana Lewis: And every so often they maybe want to get advice and strategy from us and that's great. But for most clients, they come to us because they want a real thought partner, right? I think one of the reasons why a lot more artists are not independent, quite frankly, is because them and their management team don't want to take on all the work on their own, right? I think people have, like, the criticism of, like, they always want someone else to blame. Like, they want to be able to blame the label. That is a direct statement and quote that our mutual friend says a lot. But you know, what they really want is someone that's going to understand the narrative of the artist and the positioning and advocate on their behalf to the DSPs. [00:29:15] Milana Lewis: And our pitch for them is that we're not delivering, again, hundreds of songs a week or a month or pitches for that reason. When we deliver something, the DSPs pay attention to it because we're so intentional and curated. So your pitch is going to stand out. It's going to be delivered. People are going to hear it. We can't guarantee you're going to get placement, but we're going to go out of our way to make sure that the positioning is there for your client. [00:29:35] Milana Lewis: So we've done a lot of unique things, too, with our clients to build those relationships with the editors. Everything from sending curated boxes to renting suites, suites at big sports games and inviting people out to build that relationship personally with the artists. Like, we try to be a lot more hands-on and experiential than I think many other distributors are with their clients. [00:29:57] Milana Lewis: So we take that, like, indie label approach to supporting the artist, but we don't overpromise and say, Hey, we have a big radio team. Hey, we have a whole in-house digital marketing team. Like, all of that stuff, we're very clear that we're going to outsource that, but you're going to be in control of how that money is being spent and you're going to be in control of picking the right partners. [00:30:15] Milana Lewis: So we're really more dot connectors and strategists, and we're just upfront about what we do, what we don't do. And I think a lot of people find that refreshing and that builds trust and people like that. [00:30:25] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I know a lot of this has been focused more on the streaming side because that is where so many of these playlists pitching and that type of conversation happens. [00:30:34] Dan Runcie: But do you get a lot of interests from artists who are focused on what support you may be able to provide if you all do on vinyl or some of the other non-streaming music revenues? Just because of how much... [00:30:47] Milana Lewis: No, we have vendors that we can partner with for vinyl distribution and physical. It's not a core competency of ours, and it's not one that we want to handle either. [00:30:55] Milana Lewis: So we're honest, we're just like, we don't do that, but here's why people who do, and we've worked with them, we've had great experiences and we'll help you pick the right one because, if you're only looking to print this number of units, they're probably not the best partner this person is. If you're in this, like, there's so many considerations. We have a whole strategy team that we've built out where this is their full-time job is getting to know the landscape of all of these service providers and vendors, vetting them out, understanding what they're good at, so that when clients come to us, we can make the right recommendations. [00:31:21] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And does the same thing exist as well for artists that may be reaching out to you, whether they want NFTs or they want to do something Web 3.0 related? [00:31:29] Milana Lewis: Everything. Yeah. So we have a whole digital strategy team as well, where their job is getting to know all of the digital platforms and tools and new companies emerging that if anyone wants to partner with Snapchat in an interesting way or Peloton or Royal or Mint Songs, like whoever that could be, whether it's even like Discord and other platforms, like they're an expert and they can talk, they can be a good conduit but also just educate our clients on that as well. [00:31:55] Dan Runcie: Right. And I feel like a lot of their jobs who is likely just sifting through the noise and what actually is worthwhile and what isn't. How do you feel about that? [00:32:03] Milana Lewis: That was my job. I mean, that was my job at UTA, right? My job was getting to know every single technology company that could possibly partner with any of the agency's clients. Started with me as a person that I grew into a team of like, I don't know, like 30 or 40 people today that do that. There's a lot of land to cover there. [00:32:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's, every new day there's something else. And I do think that in general, it makes, at least from my perspective, as you know, more from the strategy perspective, like, having the focus is there. And I know everyone is trying to incorporate something into their web, something in Web 3.0, especially if they're trying to, like, raise money and stuff. [00:32:37] Dan Runcie: But I feel like after a while, like that stuff gets old, not old in a way that obviously that is the future, but old into like, okay, you can't just put lipstick on a pig, you actually needed to have something. So yeah. [00:32:49] Milana Lewis: Yeah. I mean, for us, the number one question we ask is why. Why, like, why do you want to do this? Because that'll determine, it's like, if you don't know why and you want to do something because you want to jump on it, you want to understand it. Then we realize that you're still in discovery mode, right? You're still trying to figure out why you want to do it so we can change the way that we approach it with you and take you more on an educational journey versus taking that as directive. [00:33:10] Milana Lewis: And I think it just like being really, again, like, intentional with your client. And you can't do that across thousands and thousands of them, you have to be selective because that's the level of servicing that those people require. [00:33:23] Dan Runcie: How often do you feel like you get a good answer when you ask why? [00:33:26] Milana Lewis: You know, it's a really great question, is that I'm not present in a lot of those conversations. So I'd love to have someone else answer that for you. [00:33:33] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I got to imagine that at the level of artists you're talking to anyway, there likely is some of that built in to begin with. But every artist is in discovery mode to some extent, right? So I get that. Yeah. But yeah, this was good. [00:33:47] Dan Runcie: It was great to recap and just hear how things are going and get a pretty good idea of where things are heading in the future. But what are some upcoming milestones or announcements? What are some things that you can share that we should keep our eyes out for? [00:34:01] Milana Lewis: Oh, that's a good question. When is this podcast gonna be posted, we think? [00:34:05] Dan Runcie: End of June. [00:34:06] Milana Lewis: Cool. Okay. So you'll be hearing about some of the first few labels we're partnering with to power their dashboards and payouts because we're actively developing that right now, quietly with a couple of big players. So we're excited to announce that. Some are independent. Some are part of the major label ecosystem. [00:34:23] Milana Lewis: So pretty excited to get people's reactions on that. The advance is business. The scale product is growing pretty tremendously. So we're going to make some exciting announcements about how we're positioning that moving forward. And then just continuing to keep our heads down and building an expanded team. [00:34:40] Milana Lewis: There's a lot of new, exciting people that have joined us that we haven't talked about yet, but we will soon. [00:34:44] Dan Runcie: Nice, good stuff. Good stuff. Well, Milana, thanks for coming on. This was great. [00:34:49] Milana Lewis: Thanks for having me. [00:34:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And for the people following. They'll know to find you and keep up with everything, but keep up the great work. It's great having you on. [00:34:57] Milana Lewis: Thanks for having me again. And thanks all for listening who made it this far. [00:35:01] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group. Chat, posted in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. [00:35:14] Dan Runcie: continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use apple podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating. And we've reviewed tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you. In advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 20 Aug 2021 | 24kGoldn on TikTok Success, Investments, and Record Label Deals | 00:34:35 | |
24kGoldn is a chart-topping hip-hop artist and songwriter who was born and raised in San Francisco. In this episode, he talks about the opportunities he has gotten since “Mood” shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the middle of the pandemic. He shares how he leveraged Tiktok to stay relevant and what innovations he has done with his music. He also dives into his current investments and the business aspect of his brand. Get to know the genius behind the TikTok hit “Mood” and see what other options artists have when it comes to making money. Episode Highlights: [02:32] What it has been like for 24kGoldn since the pandemic began [05:25] The pros and cons of going virtual or working remotely [08:55] How much work went into making “Mood” a hit through TikTok [10:25] About the #BlackTikTokStrike [12:25] The different ways you can get your music heard [18:52] 24kGoldn’s musical inspirations and aspirations [22:00] His investment portfolio [24:42] The opportunities in getting artists to endorse and invest in consumer products [31:28] On playlisting and signing with record labels Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: 24kGoldn, @24kGoldn, 24kGoldn Link: Public.com (Code: trapital) Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 18 Mar 2022 | How Kevin Liles Built 300 Entertainment Into A $400 Million Business In Under 10 Years | 00:45:33 | |
Kevin Liles didn’t co-found 300 Entertainment just to sell it. He created it, first and foremost, to fill a void he saw in the music industry — a lack of talent development. Ten years after starting the 300 record label, it’s safe to say Kevin and company filled that void. By developing culture-shifting artists like Gunna, Megan Thee Stallion, Young Thug, among others, 300 has become one of the hottest commodities in all of hip-hop. This led to WMG buying the formerly-independent label for $400 million at the start of the new year. In WMG, Kevin believes he’s found a partner with the “mindset of an independent, but the muscle of a major.” As the one-time EVP of WMG, Kevin would know this first-hand. And even with an influx of $400 million, Kevin isn’t going to change the way he makes decisions. For Kevin, it’s always been about prioritizing the cultural incentives rather than the financial ones. This mindset has followed him from Def Jam intern to its President and now as CEO of 300 & Elektra Music Group. In-between running the label, Kevin has also invested resources in creating a pipeline for future music and entertainment execs with diverse backgrounds. In particular, Kevin has tapped into HBCUs, helping set up a $250 million fundraising campaign for his alma mater, Morgan State, and connecting students directly with the FBI. Kevin and I covered a lot of ground in this episode of the Trapital. Here are the show chapters: [3:23] Behind 300 Entertainment’s Sale To Warner Music [8:29] Gunna’s Meteoric Rise [10:29] How Phrases Like Hot Girl Summer & Pushin P Became A Thing [13:08] What Changes With WMG Partnership? [15:58] New Def Jam Video Game In The Works? [17:27] Launching 300 Studios [20:17] Kevin Thinks The Best Is Yet To Come For Hip Hop [22:10] Hip Hop’s International Opportunity [24:23] Major Differences Between Running Def Jam vs. 300 [28:10] The Power Of Diverse Execs Making Cultural, Not Financial Decisions [30:25] How Music Industry Has Handled Diversity Issues Since George Floyd [31:00] Kevin’s Attempt To Create Diverse Talent Pipeline [32:14] The Rise Of Hip-Hop Media Personalities [40:35] Young Thug’s Role As Chief Innovation Officer [43:49] Keeping Narrative On The Future, Not Past This episode is brought to you by Koji, the best “link in bio” tool. It is trusted by Grammy winners, chart-topping hitmakers, and more. Join 185,000+ creators. Check it out for free: koji.to/trapitalpodcast Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Kevin Liles, IG: @kevinlileskwl, Twitter: @KevinLiles1
Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands _____ TRANSCRIPTION Kevin Liles 00:00 When you put diverse people at the head of the company, and you allow that person to make cultural decisions and not financial decisions on something that they don't know, so that young people run a company, they don't know they might go to a concert, but they don't know when a kid could come in, like I came in. And I saw Russell, I said, “Oh, he's the boss.” So you mean if you're the boss, you can move stuff that you want to people not only want to be an employee or work in music, no, they want to run companies. And until we as an industry, and really this is not just about the music industry, this is about the world. Until a CEO that looks like them, act like them talk like them, you know, that's when you unleash the true power of where we are in our culture. Dan Runcie 00:56 Today's episode is with Kevin Liles, the Chairman and CEO of 300 Entertainment and Electro Music Group. Kevin's been one of the most influential record label executives of the past few decades. He ran Def Jam for seven years in the late 90s, early 2000s. And almost 10 years ago, he started 300 Entertainment, which he just sold to Warner for a $400 million deal. So we talked about everything that went into that decision, what it was like to sell the record label what a partnership with Warner looks like and how the record label can maintain its independent spirit under the umbrella of native record labels. We also talked about Gunner and how he's having one of the biggest years in hip hop right now and Pusha P and everything with that. We talked about Megan Thee Stallion and we talked about Thug. Did you know that Thug is Chief Innovation Officer at 300? When we talked all about that and what that means and a whole lot more. He also gave us the latest update on Def Jam Vendetta. You know the people that ask him at Def Jam Vendetta, they want to see the video game come back through. So we talked about that. We also talked to broader about IP. If you follow me on social media, you know that I want to see the story to hip hop record labels get the same type of TV anthology breakdowns that we're seeing now about Thera Nose and WeWork and Uber I want to see the same about Def Jam and Bad Boy and Rockefeller. And we talked a little bit about that too. It was a great conversation. I think it's always inspiring to talk to one of the most influential execs in hip hop that I believe really helped to make this culture what it is. Here's my chat with Kevin Liles. All right, today we got co-founder and CEO with 300. Entertainment Kevin Liles with us today. Hey, Kevin, I got to give you a shout out man, it feels like you've had one of the strongest starts to this year sold the record label, Gunner’s hit starting the year off strong. How does it feel? Kevin Liles 02:43 It feels like another day at the office. People ask me all the time, Kevin, what's new, every day is new. Every day is a new opportunity. God woke me up and I feel there's a bigger purpose. And I feel the steps that we take, I don't look for number one albums, I don't look for to be, accolades or to be the best this or anything. I really just strive on doing this work that day. And I joke with somebody I said no with me, I'm never gonna be up too upset, they'll never be too sad. I will flow like water. And water is a very powerful thing because it helps grow. It changes direction with the most people around the world. So I feel like what is great about me. Dan Runcie 03:23 I hear that. So talk to me a bit about the sale because that made big news, there was rumors about it happening towards the end of 2021. But walk me through that process. When did you first think about selling 300 and what went into the decision for you? Kevin Liles 03:39 I never thought about selling. I don't build things to sell. I'm a serial entrepreneur, but I build things to change the world. And I find a void. And the void was the creation of 300 co-founders, the void was there was no true artist about it. When we talk about our students. I'm not just talking about developing a sound or developing of a person I'm saying we're raising young kids, young men, and women into the world. And so they need to have some have dads and we have moms and we had by my dad, but some have not, you know around them. So we need to be of service to their growth. So when people say what are you thinking about selling, I always was thinking about who was my best partner that I could have the independent of my mindset of independent, but the muscle of a major who's the best partner that independence will be in their DNA, who's the best partner that I could actually administer around the world, the good, the bad, the right the wrong and treat the body want to be treated. And so I'm not for sale. 300 as an entity I sold because I wanted entrepreneurs to learn what intrapreneurship was to add what tools in a toolboxes around the world, but you know, people can't be sold a company what I did was sold an asset that I felt could be a bigger asset to the world. I'd say do you think Steve, isn't a Jeff Bezos is still sitting in his garage. No. Do you think that guys are still in a dorm room? Yeah, I mean, Zuckerberg in a dorm room? No, no, we actually have a great idea, a great business, we're acquiring things, starting different things. So I believe the sale is something that people put too much emphasis on. Now, with that being said, I wanted also to create history. So if you think about Motown selling for 61 million, if you think about Def Jam, selling for 140 million on the face, on 425 million getting sold for 325, or even a man selling for 500 million in 27 years, eight years, we sold a company for $400 million. And so to me, I also think about legacy and history and what that means. So if people want to talk about the sale, talk about it in a way, that is historic for an African American, historic for a company, but it's also profitable for shareholders. And as a CEO, you know, we got to make sure the shareholders and the board a great, but I think the culture needed to see that it is a possibility to build something, sell something, become a bigger brand by doing it, but never lose the mindset of an independent. Dan Runcie 06:13 I think that's an interesting good point, because so many of the big, whether it's the catalog sales, or the record label sales that we've seen over the past two years that we've seen this run happen, a lot of them haven't been with executives that are black, or executives that, you know, are just non-white men in general. So I think that the fact that you were able to do that shows and signals not just what you're capable of, but also what your artists are capable of, too. And I think as well on the partnership side, it's interesting because I think that 300, maybe, you know, relative to a lot of the other labels that were independent before people may have thought that “Oh, well. 300 is just as powerful as some of the majors or you know, definitely has the same firepower behind it.” But it sounds like what you're saying is that, yeah, even with all that we've accomplished, there's still more that we can have, you know, with the backing and with the further partnership of a company like a Warner. Kevin Liles 07:11 We shocked the world where we had more Grammys than the majors but magazine three Grammys, you know, we shot the world that we put out and we're up against a major and had the number one album in the first week out as this little independent thing, you got to realize all the stuff that's happening now is still stuff we've set up last year. And so as we go into this year, just look for us to be doing hashtag bigger family business, not just family business, but bigger family business. Dan Runcie 07:37 Yeah, I hear that. And I think too, talking about the artists that were able to do things, I mean, Ghana has been the poster child so far this year, at least when it comes to hip hop, I mean, not just him getting the number one single but him being the weekend, but then had everything surrounding around Pusha P and everything there. I mean, I assume that has to feel pretty good. Because I think it's so tough, especially in this era, to have superstars and people that are on the verge of superstar status to kind of grow in get there with so much noise and so much other artists that are coming through whether it's independence or others. So the fact that he's able to, you know, not show to he compete, but outsell other superstars, I think shows a lot of not just the potential, but also that this is still possible in this era, we can still have the biggest stars continue to reach further heights. Kevin Liles 08:29 Yeah, I think you'd want to talk about true artist development and from the dropping of drip Season One, two, and three, and one. And all those things, you got to realize that young kid was just sitting by bug in the studio learning and he never stopped learning, we never stopped evolving. And when you saw him perform with commitment to balance, open up the brands, you know, one year, he's all things that became attainable to him and through by us the work that went into ds for the thoughtfulness of how it started, ebb and flows of it, of how many girl records should I have on it? What am I trying to say? I can't say I'm dripping. And I'm not really drip. So I have to be in every fashion show or it just you know, the thoughtfulness. We're not just putting out records, if you want to do that, that's not 300. 300 is thoughtful. 300 is taking the time to understand where an artist is in their career. Where is it a mixtape time isn't an album time? Is it collab time? These are all things that because people don't have the relationships with the artists, then if the artists house or going on vacation, they can't really communicate. You know, obviously, you can't hand me something without an owner's name. I have to know everything about it so I can assist. You know, Gunner is more than an RC you can, he's a human being but he's also a very good friend. You know, Evany his manager is not just a manager. She's a system that could be a daughter to me, and I have a responsibility to develop another young woman in our industry. So to me, what are we Pusha P whenever we have Hot Girl Summer, well we attract cooling it or you know, Savage in it, whatever you whatever one you want to a week bad and bougie in it. But everyone you want to pick up. We don't just, you know have moments we make movies. Dan Runcie 10:15 I like that you mentioned that because you have had so many I feel like every year every other year, there's some moment that 300 is able to capture some term that they're able to introduce something in the water like power, y'all always the ones that have the terms on lock. Kevin Liles 10:29 You know, I think it's a great commentary to the great artists and the great creators and the great executives that we have run if we don't make this shit up. We didn't go to FedWatch and say, Yo, do trap boo. We didn't go to mag and say have a hot girl summer. We don't go to yo, guess what the Gunner we go, Pusha P, that's not how it happens. It happens because we provide a safe place for ideation, creativity, and opportunities for people to fail. But failure is a learning experience. You know, when Marvin Gaye wanted to do what's going on, and it was an appointment, and what his biggest-selling album, it was just where he was in life. ps4 is where Gunner is in life. Punk was where thug was in life. You can't go through manufacture in the ship. And it's not cultural. And if it's not cultural, then it really can't be 300 to me, and that's really the message and one of the great things about being able to take over the electrode of entertainers we've also it's in their ethos, we have great labels like FBI, FDR, Roadrunner, iconic labels that started with founders that had a point of view. And so to me, as long as I have a point of view, as long as it be cultural, as long as I could have the independent mindset, I'm good. And I'm doing it all, again to raise great young men and women, web executives or artists. But I really believe God wakes me up to change the world. I really believe it is not even a question in my mind. And so I want to get better. I want to be a better father, a better operator, a better friend. And if you always challenge yourself that there is more, that there is more to do. If you reimagine and rethink and things you will see God will answer you in so many great way. Do you think that the VR sold a company eight months ago now months ago, Mary Jane, you connected? Did you think she was performing at the Superbowl? Do you think that the Super Bowl, who would be it they'd be run by Jay Z? Do you think that like, we don't make this up? This is I can't tell you, I can just thank God, and thank the people around me for believing that they do have a bigger mission. Dan Runcie 12:37 And I think with this too, you build something so special, you talked a lot about that independent spirit that I think carry through with artists development with how your artists became the culture-makers that they are. And I gotta wonder, though, with the partnership with Warner now, of course, you're giving up a little bit of control in exchange for the power, it helps you put behind the artists. But is there any concern or any thought about okay, what will that look like? Or how may that potentially shift if we're seeding some of that control or some of that power? Kevin Liles 13:08 Then, you see, I'm the wrong guy to accept because I never felt like I worked in the back. I always feel like give me the mission, give me assignment. And let me do that. Again, great thing about this opportunity, Julie Greenwald. And I ran Def Jam together along with Leah, Julie was an assistant I was starting to enter. So she knows everything about me. She knows where the bodies buried, she knows the good, the bad, the ugly, maximum side I work with as a concrete colleague for 9, 10 years, you know, he knows the good, the bad. And so I'm a position player. So if I need to be the coach to quarterback, the running back, then I have enough tools in my toolbox to play whatever position and so I never give up control. Because nobody does what I do can't keep that and so I never look at it. But we can you know, you have a boss now. Okay, what does that mean? They have a great employee. Oh, Kevin, Kevin, for your artists. They can't know we do what we do. But now we do it. It's hashtag bigger family business that it's just again, I'm not the guy that when you take on additional investment that you change, I believe the thing about 300, thing about Def Jam, these were things that were built out of necessity, and we curated them in a cultural way, not in a financial way. Not we saw a need to do Def Comedy Jam. We saw a need to have fat farm and baby fat. We saw a need to make Def Jam Vendetta and Fight For New York. You know, we saw a need to be heavily involved in political races and important countries. We saw a need that the State's Attorneys in every city can help us change the narrative around who's going while going and why they're in jail and they should be out of jail. We just saw see things because we're out in the streets without it every single day. That doesn't mean everybody has to be Mona, what it means is you have to be in touch with who you are, why you are, what your purpose is. And that is what I challenge. But listen, I don't deal with coke cans and cigars and shit talk back to me. These are real people in, my people know they have the freedom, the freedom to disagree, the freedom to try. And when you have a bunch of risk-takers, like we have in Max and we have and Julie and we have and the rest of the team and I have two great kids and rating Celine that most people wouldn't give them the power that I've given them. But remember, they may be president and CEO of Def Jam at age 30. So, to me, this is just a great opportunity for us to do what we do never change who we are. Dan Runcie 15:42 I hear that. And you mentioned Def Jam Vendetta. So we got to talk about that. Because I think it was last year, you put out a little teaser. You said hey, do you all want another sequel? You want another one? So where's that ad? What are you thinking about for the future of the Def Jam video game? Kevin Liles 15:58 I don't know if you saw the tweet about it yesterday. But he said, Man, we need another one. Because back and Snoop it oh my god, it's timing. For me. It's working with the right partner. At that time, Electronic Arts was the right partner, they allowed me to curate it without the limitations of “Oh, but we're Electronic Arts. Oh, and you know,” so when I find the right gaming button, and if you're out there, let me know, when I find the right gaming partner that wants to experience gaming in a way that I see it culturally, it'll come back out. But until then, I'll keep having the conversations until I find the right one. Dan Runcie 16:34 That makes sense, because I think what we're talking about at the end of the day is just how valuable the IP and the brand is, and everything that you all had created, whether it's what you had done at Def Jam, or what you've now done this past decade with 300 and one of the things I've started to take notice to now is we're this way right now with media TV, where we're seeing all of these TV anthology series about the rise and fall of these tech companies. Right, we got the Theranos one, we got the WeWork one, we got the Uber one. And I want to see the same for the Def Jams and the Bad Boys. And I want to see all of that. And I feel like if we're having the conversations about the video games, it's only going to be a matter of time before we're going to see those as well. We want to get back to the early 2000s Def Jam or the Rockefeller run and see who would all play you all I feel like that's it has to be happening in at least a couple of years. Kevin Liles 17:27 So one of the reasons why I created 300 Studios is because I haven't told full stories in a long time. And so you can check the credits for whether it was how high the show ended things that we did back in the day rush hour. And those things that we've been able to be a part of why did I get married a Tyler Perry was daddy's little girl and go down to this though, things that we've been able to help curate. There was a reason why I wanted him studios to not only tell the audio stories around 300, but I wanted to tell digital stories. And I had the great pleasure of finding Kelly Nolan. And they believe in the vision. And you know, within two years, we had our first doc on February 26 called Race, Bubba Wallace. And it was the only African American Cup Series driver and his trials and tribulations of not having any sponsorship to now winning races and changing the current federal flag and mascot. I didn't say hey, here's the script. But here's what's gonna happen NASCAR, here's what you're gonna have a guy come in and actually curate and trust in the brands of 2311 racing, you know, with Jordan, and Denny, Toyota, McDonald's DoorDash, all these things with the background of raising a young kid in a sport that you can't even afford to be in. You know, I mean, you just 20, $30 million, you have to have caused the crash. I know that. So again, I wanted to educate people on the sport but also wanted to take them on a journey that a lot of people have never taken with NASCAR. So I appreciate everything. And yes, there will be a story, there will be more Word docs. And I do plan because I'm going for decades in the business now telling the true stories of all of these iconic brands and iconic people and friends and people who shaped the world and conversation. I do plan on telling the story. Dan Runcie 19:14 Yeah, I think people would love to hear that. I feel like that is where things are obviously heading with all of the IP that's being created. And I feel like especially for you all I mean, it's interesting now because we just see the histology of how everything is, you know, we're looking back and people are talking fondly about that late 90s, early 2000s run and it's only going to be a matter of time before people look back at this particular era. Not even just with hip hop, but music more broadly. And just seeing how many shifts this music industry has had. And I feel like the past few years, we're on the verge of another one as well. The revenue has been, you know, the highest that it's been at least since the CD era, and that I think has influenced a lot of these deals that we've seen and we're now seeing all This activity with web three NFTs and everything else. I mean, as someone who has seen it, you know the highs and the lows of it as you said, you know, you're definitely have the you know, be like water mentality. When that said, it must be really exciting to also see all the possibilities of where you could tap into. Kevin Liles 20:17 Listen, all I can tell you, I was at the Super Bowl, the biggest stage in the world with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige at the Super Bowl. So if you don't know the possibilities, we have the number one music in the world when they used to tell us, you'll be a fad. They used to say we play more music and less rap. Now everybody's saying we're just stationary hip hop, and Baba, Baba. And everybody when people didn't realize, and I'm sure they're not sure how old you are. But when I was in the car growing up, I was listening to the Temptations, and Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin because that's my Mom, listen to. But now, as adults, what we listen, I listen to hip hop. So that that's been for the last 30 years. So now you have hip hop parents, you have a President of the United States, in Iraq, who knows hip hop, you have mayors and governors and lordships and keep losing, that grew up on hip hop. So you have not seen the greatness of our culture, yet, you're starting to see the seeds being planted. I truly believe that with the continent coming into play with India, coming into play, these underdeveloped nations, oh, man, this will be so many stories to be told, in a way through a hip hop lens. So I'm just excited more say, I just hope they'll still let me be around. As long as God keeps giving these gifts, I'll stay with the rope. Dan Runcie 21:44 I hear that, and I think the international expansion is just being so key to so many record labels, moving Making Moves, whether it's in India, in East Asia, in Africa, as well. And I know that you all have, you know, made moves in that perspective as well. What do you see is that opportunity, especially in the next few years? I mean, I know that having Warner behind can definitely help from an international push from that perspective. But what do you see as an opportunity. Kevin Liles 22:10 One of the biggest issues that I was having is I didn't have my Rolodex is 40,000 people, but I only had 75 people working for me, couldn't reach those, I got the calls from the biggest artists in France and the biggest artists in Germany and the biggest artist in London, and I couldn't serve them in a way that they need to be served. Remember, early on, I knew where hip hop was going, Leon Russell, we thought about your Def Jam UK, Def Jam Germany, Def Jam France, Def Jam Japan, we were just too early. And those countries did not have the voice. They didn't have their own voice. They were emulating what we were doing, because we were starting the creation of it. But now you go to any of those major territories, they have their own voice, the biggest artists in that territory is from that territory. It's not us coming there. And so as a proud steward of our culture, I think the opportunity is on steroids right now, because I'm going to be able to not only help artists, but also help creators and executives realize that set up their own iPhones in their own territories, because they can say shit 300 to do that. The guy was this is his third time. Oh, if they can do it, look what we could do. And so we're starting that also. So I can only thank again, you know, Max and Julie for believing in what we're creating, loving, independent spirit, but also remembering that Do It Yourself, DIY thing, nobody does it themselves. You know, that's like saying you gonna have a baby by yourself. No! You will get married by yourself. No, you don't do, you don't do anything by yourself. And there's not one global artists around the world that did it ourselves. So I believe in collaboration, I believe in partnership. But again, the mindset has to be independent. Dan Runcie 23:50 I think the piece that you mentioned on the differences of when you're running Def Jam 20 years ago, versus now especially on the international front is key because as you mentioned, a lot of those regions didn't have the developed music ecosystem that they do. So it was often, forget your artists there as opposed to now they have their own superstars. What are some of the other major differences that you've experienced from now being a major label executive in this decade as opposed to what it was like for you Def Jam 20 years ago? Kevin Liles 24:23 People didn't notice them. What the fuck was talking about? They didn't understand the cultural thing. They understood the numbers, but they didn't understand what I was somewhere why I would say no, I don't want to pay, when I want to go play a tape in London to small club that I will do that 10 times before I do it. They didn't understand why. I mean, even inside the company, he said, Well, we shouldn't take Trey Songz to London, because he doesn't have the big radio record there. And I'm like, people stream their people buy music. They're people and I know when I go there, and I'm doing 500,000 to 2000 or 5000 people in shows that they just do. He's not developed enough to understand that shit moves without all the triggers sometimes. And so it was funny. We went there, and somebody said, boot camp, you know, I know you want to play, you know, 5,000 seaters, but we sold out two nights on it. So maybe we should start playing arenas? And my answer was no because we're not ready for it yet. Let me keep curating keep going through the process. And seeing and I've seen bands that haven't had one hit, but they can sell out in a real way. And that that to me, I'm so excited. There's a young lady from the UK named Pink Patras that I'm so excited about where she's going her aesthetic who shipped to the capital labor, there's no label you can put on I'm excited that if you take a look at Megan Thee Stallion schedule for the next year, she's paying every major festival around the world. So think about what that what's that gonna do for her development, allow her to become a product of her experiences, not just her limited environment, think about what she's going to write. I remember a long time ago, Lulu, Chris and I went to Africa. And then I hate the song, the best women for Africa. Oh, yeah. Jay Z, and I took our first private plane. And then you start talking about the airport, you don't mean your first trip to the South of France, you don't mean? These are the experiences that allow for great storytelling that allow for evolution, not just of an artist, but also the narrative of the employees and executives that take those journeys with. Dan Runcie 26:30 That makes me think too, about snooping around with the music and the beautiful music video and that spot a landmark, you know, like, people want to go there and take pictures and be like, No, I was as powerful. It really is. I mean, for me, one of the other things I think about too, that's just changed so much from you know, back when you're at Def Jam to now with 300 is because of streaming and the Internet and so much, now, people respect much more what you were trying to do then because they realize it and I think obviously streaming helped level a lot of the playing fields side, big hip hop and r&b soul. So many lot, so much black music was able to reach more of its true potential in terms of just how easily it could spread, because there's less gatekeepers, right. And I think I'm interested to see, okay, how that continues to go. And what are the things that may continue to rehab that, you know, whether it's boost further, or have it reach even more of its potential? Because to your point, I agree with that, we still haven't reached the maximum point or we still have it, you know, really been able to have the whole world really tap into what's happening here. So I'm curious to you know, as I'm thinking through what the next decade looks like, what are those things going to be the same way how, you know, streaming and social media help level the playing field for a lot of this genre of music like is whether it's, you know, Web 3.0, or NFTs or the Metaverse is that going to be the next thing that'll help even more of the hip hop artists in r&b and soul reach their full potential. Kevin Liles 28:01 It's an output to you so straight that all that shit is good and as always, we evolution that we're going to go from the small two way pages to now the cell phone game and remote control, all that shit, technological change cassette to CD and all that stuff is gonna change our biggest power. And I'm a living example of it is when you put diverse people at the head of the company, and you allow that person to make cultural decisions and not financial decisions on something that they don't know. So that young people run a company, they don't know, they might go to a concert, but they don't know when a kid could come in, like I came in. And I saw Russell, I said, Oh, he the boss. So you mean if you're the boss, you can move stuff that you want to people not only want to be an employee or work in music, no, they want to run companies. And until we as an industry, and really, this is not just about the music industry, this is about the world until the consumers today see a CEO that looks like them, act like them, talk like them, you know, that's when you unleash the true power of where we are in our culture. The C-Suite does not represent what we're selling, and until you get that you're not going to maximize it, but it's coming because I plan on my fucking changes. I'm gonna let them know now that guys, I'm nowhere near done. This is just a, I'm on chapter one. Fuck it. I don't care what what we say. And I'm going to make sure part of my legacy is to make sure I have planted enough seeds that you know, the next CEO, CEOs of tech companies and men of various and this first in that verse, whatever you want to call it, they have representation of a culture that's using it. Dan Runcie 29:38 Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned this because I do think that that is what makes the change at the end of the day and that could influence so much it will influence so much. And I'd love to know what your perspective is on the movements or activities that the music industry has done on this front the past two years. So after George Floyd's murder, there was a bunch of announcements and funding that when after the show must be paused, and all of that in the call was exactly what you're saying, we need more black executives that are making decisions that are the ones that are really pushing this culture forward, especially since it's their culture that is making this industry what it is. So how do you feel that that progress has been since a lot of those announcements were made by the industry? Kevin Liles 30:25 Not enough, and there's more work to be done. And it's one of the things that we hired a global diversity inclusion, the I would ever call officer named Dr. Smith. And when I came on, he's the first person to reach out, he said, we have $100 million, help me, help us change the world. We're not going to have a department, we're going to create the first-ever DEI Institute, and we're going to train people, we're going to go and find people in the organization and make them leaders in teaching cultural, cultural relevance, as far as it accompany cultural relevance and diversity of mindset and diversity of thought, not just color, we're going to find these change agents. No, I don't make this shit up. There's a lot of work to be done. But the reason that I'm at the more music group, and the reason I chose them is because Steve Cooper and Len Blavatnik have made in their mindset that we're going to change the world, and people who consume our products, who love our artists who buy our T-shirts, we want to have people in the C-Suite that look like them. And so that's a lot of fun work to be done. And once you're you know me, I'm not quiet. So I sit in the room and I tell everybody not charged. I said, “Guys, you can't announce $100 million and do things that don't change things.” Just not check the box. We're not doing it at the Warner Music Group. I never did it. I don't know how to check a box. I know how to create other boxes. I let everybody else do with it. Oh, we just did this? No, no, we created the DEI Institute around pingy equity, which is just amazing man, but a lot of work to be done all across the board. And I challenged every CEO, every chairman, every shareholder of a major corporations to challenge the company to allow that diversity to be in the C-Suite. It will change the company and it changing the company, will make more money. Dan Runcie 32:14 Couldn't agree more. And I think too, this speaks to a lot of the work you've done, even you know, outside of just you know, running the music part of the record label, you've been active with HBCUs as a graduate of wind that you've wanted to make sure that mentorship programs and entrepreneurship supporting programs are there because you see that pipeline that you want to make sure that whether it's executives that want to go on to succeed in music or other places, the more that you can use your platform to help them the better off they'll be. Kevin Liles 32:44 I think it's very important. I did a centennial raise from Golden State. Dr. Rosso, shout out to Florida State HBCU person myself, and we raised $250 million. So we knew that was the biggest institutional raise of HBCU went on to had a big conversation. I speak on a circuit a lot. And it had a big conversation around what's the pipeline to get to be a state's attorney, or a FBI special agent or a CIA, you know what, and really, I didn't know, I got to be a police officer. That's what I saw, you know, but I didn't know I don't be a basketball player, football fan, because that's what I saw. And so another program that I launched two years ago, I think, maybe last year is what I had 60 presidents of HBCUs meet with the head of the FBI, and to show that when George Floyd happened, when Freddy Gary happened, the FBI came, but people who were looking into it, when people like us, they wouldn't play for communities, there was no trust. So I want to make sure before I'm done, there will be somebody every place that will affect our culture, and have a cultural point of view, and not just a title point of view. And so that's been and I'm a big advocate of education and entrepreneurship, I believe the school system should be blown up. And we should be teaching more entrepreneurism, and not teaching people how to go work for somebody, but teaching people how to join and actually want to be change agents and not just employees. So I'm going to continue the big fight between 15 and do the work. And again, I don't do that by myself. So shout out to Dr. Smith. Dan Runcie 34:24 That's good to hear. And I mean, I think you're right so much bad taps back into see where the pipeline they see how you can build it up in making sure that that leads to a promising career so people can whether it's they want to be their own boss or they want to do their own form of intrapreneurship whatever it is, the opportunities are there. One thing that I did want to talk about shifting back to music a bit. There's been an interesting movement I think happening right now where there is more of these, I call it the hip hop media personality that has come a bit more to rise and some of them You know, even some of the, you know, the artists that that 300 have definitely pushed back on some of these folks as well for someone, whether it's the things they've said or other things like that, it would be good to hear from your perspective, because I think this is not necessarily that these types of people didn't exist before. But I think social media obviously just makes the dynamic a little different. So what's your take on that dynamic? Kevin Liles 35:21 No different than, we used to write on a graffiti walls now, we write it off Facebook, was used to hand out flyers and posters. Now you have Instagram and WhatsApp and this Snapchat and all these things. And when you talk about these personalities, you don't remember Starbuck while how they were. Dan Runcie 35:38 They were wild. They were wild. Kevin Liles 35:41 You don't remember how if you did any bit of R&B. You had to go to video. So with Donnie Simpson, you don't sit remember how sway and tech can wake up showing them what they were there. They just went on what one thing now with social media, it could be everywhere around the world. And we want those opinions. We want those pushbacks, we want those perspectives, because those things allow us to evolve as people we're not sociated for not some of them, we wouldn't be addressing some of the issues think about what Charlemagne and The Breakfast Club dude don't for mental health, you want that pushback, you want that conversation because we don't want to become stagnant as a people. And so to me, I put your nine out of 10 of my friends, Joe Biden, I signed him to be your I mean, Noriega, drink champion. Besides me, you don't mean to get Fat Joe, us you don't need to go down the list of these guys and girls around the world that have an actor that you need the crazy one, you need him to say what he wants to say, just to be thought-provoking, you know, but if you really get to know him, you know, he's Howard Stern, hip hop. That's his thing. And we don't want to do we don't not have a stern. There might be you do you're like it, you know, but you need the conversation. And I think even, what this happened with the Rogan guy, we need that conversation. As long as it is acceptable for you to use a word that you need the conversation the corporation's needed. And you need a Spotify to say, hey, we made an investment. We're gonna learn from this and teach from this, and you needed him to come on. I don't think he just apologize for his sponsors. I think that he felt that damn, you know, I never thought about it that way. Because I'm just repeating No, but even repeating is wrong. And so this is in the people that listen to him, trust me that backface was going on, they dress it up like this during all the shift is going on still. But I'm open. But I went all the smoke, bring me the motherfucking smoke because I want to have the conversation. I want to and the problem is we don't have the conversation. And so we operate in five items around things. No, I want to taste monster ball soup, which I want you to take some collard greens to I want you to go I want to go to the Trinidad festival and hang out Mardi Gras and all this. But yes, I want you to come to the hood celebration we build into the basketball is that to me, we don't have enough of the intermingling of cultures. And the lack of compensation has led to suicide, the lack of compensation has led to racism. And I knew when Barack Obama spent eight years I said, Oh, the next thing is gonna go left and be extremely other way. And then you got Donald Trump, I knew it was going to go in. But I also knew that we had to swing it back to the middle of the pendulum because he went too far left, and I can't wait to see some of the great leaders that will be born and find out of the conversation. You know, I always say we're living in biblical times. And was Moses, just a farmer competence was Job justice was married justice. No, damn, Max was the prophet. That shouldn't be a book of Acts, that shouldn't be a book of Jay, it shouldn't be a book of Todd. Because in these biblical times that we're in right now, when Moses parted the Red Sea for other people to get, there were some casualties of war. I gave my only begotten Son for us to move forward. And believe two people don't relate what we're going through as true biblical scriptures because we haven't put them all together. We call it the Bible. But there was a George Floyd in the Bible. There was a Freddie Gray in the Bible, and God bless their families and their soul. And all of them have taken on the mantle and said, his death, her death, this moment is meant to shift culture. It's meant to get people thinking a different way. And that's why again, I applaud all the noise, all the smoke, all the conversations that I have to have, and I do have a smile. Dan Runcie 39:30 That's a good point because if we think about the evolution of Howard Stern, I think about the evolution of a Charlemagne there's kind of this like, you start off and you say, the stuff that makes you be like, What did he just say? And then like, a few years later, I mean, you listen to more recent Howard Stern interviews, I mean, he sounds like you know, almost like a therapist on the couch, like, you know, just talking through things and we said similar stuff about Charlemagne, given some of the books that he's written and just how much of a topic that is for him, and he definitely doesn't do interviews the way he did back in 2013. All right, is the evolution there? So thinking about it in that perspective, yeah, we'll be very interested to see like, where ACC or you know, where some of the others are, you know, seven years from now because I think I agree with you, you know, I don't necessarily think that, you know, he is a bad person or anything like that. I think if anything, it's more so this is a product of the internet and what everything has incentivized no different than, you know, Starbuck wild were incentivized to say wild shit on you know, power and you know, back in the day, and then now, you know, whether it's activated on twitch or on YouTube or whatever channel, yes. Kevin Liles 40:35 You got to be doing it for rabies. He's doing it for reach. He's doing it. It's so much noise out there that you have to sometimes it's like, our chief innovative officer is Young Thug, so Young Thug, wearing a dress that people know I'm fashion, fashion shouldn't be limited, you know, but think about prints with his ass out. Think about Michael Jack and think about these guys. And again, why shouldn't we allow people to have an opinion to that that's the problem I have with a lot of people. People are really afraid of freedom. Because freedom comes check too, there's good and bad and freedom. But you're free. You're free to say and be and act and we should not judge. But we should know that people are doing things for certain reasons. The bigger your audience becomes, the bigger your reach, the bigger you become. And we can't just have Howard there by himself, can't get him broken down by itself. So what did they do to get there? What did they do to get there? I got Russell call me 10 times. Dan Runcie 41:35 Oh, man, I do want to talk quick because yeah, I was gonna ask you about Thug being Chief Innovation Officer. So what does that role include? So what's what's on the agenda? Kevin Liles 41:45 Change the world, change the perspective, change the conversation, changed the ideation process, don't limit yourself be as free of a person as you can be. And I actually run stuff by him. I'm thinking about doing a hot challenge with HBCUs. And my goal is to help these bands raise money. So I want to do $25 A night and campus did it. I did some around Pusha P and I kept that's not p. I said to him, I think we should do you know, I have family business. But I think you are the biggest family with lash out. So we made it out. When you have an innovative officer, there's no limitations. There's no job description, it’s to touch taste and tone of his very existence that allows people to come up with new ways and things to do. You know, when Mary J. Blige said good morning, gorgeous. It was therapy for that young person that gets bullied, but it was also therapy for her coming off the ship that she came off for. And I kept her I said, guys, this is not a song. This is going to help people get through life. And people have started adopting it and dads are now looking at their daughter saying good morning, gorgeous, looking at their wife that they take for granted in the morning, and saying good morning. Gorgeous. I don't make this shit up. Everybody, be free. And Thug, I'll check with you later on about what I'm thinking about next. Make sure I got the cool factor on it. Dan Runcie 43:08 Love it. Yeah, make sure he doesn't treat you like that pirate. He said, Alex, you're up. Kevin Liles 43:15 You couldn't make shit up. You couldn't make none of this up. You know what I mean, Dan Runcie 43:19 It's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, perfect timing for that. I mean, and just lining up with the album and everything. That was perfect. Kevin Liles 43:25 But it was not scripted. It was really cool. People started to show up the shows without you posted this thing. Dan Runcie 43:36 Oh, man, that's what you know, you got a movement as well. You know, you got something. I will. Kevin, this has been great. Before we let you go though, is there anything else that you want to plug? Let the travel audience know about that 300 Hands on Deck. Kevin Liles 43:49 I don't know if it's a plug. But I'm in search of the truth. There's a lot of talent in the world. And the reason why I feel what it means we partnership 300, Electra Entertainment, Sparta, 300 Studios, I'm creating possibilities and platforms for you guys to come and help change the world. So I would just like to enlist your audience to say you don't just have to be an artist. You don't have to just do marketing, or digital or finance or legal. There is some place for you with us. And so I'm sure I'll come in and hang out and you and I finally get in the same space. We can have a dinner, but let's keep the narrative or where we going not where we were. Dan Runcie 44:33 Sounds good. And yeah, let's definitely do it. And Kevin, thanks again for coming on. And congrats to you again on great start to the year, big sale and everything. Keep trailblazing Kevin Liles 44:42 God bless you, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Dan Runcie 44:44 Thank you. If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review, tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 28 Apr 2020 | Zack O'Malley Greenburg (2019) | 00:35:44 | |
Since Kanye West is now a billionaire, let's revisit the podcast I recorded in September with Zack O’Malley Greenburg, Senior Editor of Media & Entertainment at Forbes. We talked about Forbes’ annual Hip-Hop Cash List, why artists like Cardi B and Meek Mill who question the results, the integrity challenges with self-reported data, and the amount of work that goes into reporting a single number. Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog, forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg Links referenced:
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| 21 Jul 2020 | Peter Bittenbender on Mass Appeal’s Rise, Holding Brand Partners Accountable, and International Expansion | 00:39:58 | |
Mass Appeal CEO Peter Bittenbender came on the Trapital Podcast to talk about the company’s content strategy, the 2020 climate, holding partners accountable, international expansion, and Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary. Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Overcast | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Peter Bittenbender, @bittenbender, massappeal.com Link: Wu Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men: Mass Appeal Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Learn how it impacts your business. Join the execs, CEOs, and moguls who read Trapital: trapital.co | |||
| 04 Feb 2022 | How Junae Brown Became the ‘Beyoncé of Marketing’ | 00:54:20 | |
Junae Brown is a marketing expert and the founder and CEO of Browned 2 Perfection agency. She started her career in music and had worked for several record labels like Sodi Layla's, Columbia, and RCA. She gained the skills and expertise while working for these companies and set herself to start looking at the opportunities to have more control over all the exciting projects she wants, which is primarily why she started her agency. In today's episode, June shares her experiences way back in the music industry and how it paved the way for her to create her agency. She talks about the secret behind her signature, "Beyonce of marketing," that stood out in the marketing realm. She also shares her insights on building brands and creating a scalable business in the music industry. We had an insightful talk about her and her business ethics, which makes her distinct, making people want to work with her. Episode Highlights [01:36] Looking back at Junae’s previous roles in the music industry [06:06] Junae’s take on the royalty rate of streaming [09:16] Her thoughts on the previous and emerging labels in the music industry [12:57] Using the internet to maximize what artists are selling and get better compensation [15:40] What is it that attracts people to work with her agency [21:47] Bridging the gap between building a following and building a brand [24:11] What does “Beyonce of marketing” mean [32:57] Junae’s business ethics and commitment to legacy and impact [33:53] Who is her dream client? [39:34] Junae’s talk with Yoh Phillips on music’s record label misconceptions [44:30] Junae’s insights on having marketing strategies to make a music brand marketable [47:56] Her closing advice on making great business with music Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Junae Brown https://www.instagram.com/junaebrown/ https://www.instagram.com/B2PAgency/ Trapital is home to the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 27 Aug 2021 | A Campaign Breakdown on Tyler, The Creator’s “Call Me If You Get Lost” with Amber Horsburgh | 00:39:13 | |
Amber Horsburgh is an artist coach, a music marketer, and the founder of Deep Cuts—a go-to resource for early-stage musicians. And in today’s episode, we talk about Tyler, The Creator and break down his “Call Me If You Get Lost” campaign. We weigh in on his rollout strategy to use alter egos, the brands he has partnered with, and his business model. Amber also shares her thoughts on Tyler’s strengths, what he could improve on, and how present circumstances have posed a challenge for artists. If you are a fan of Tyler, The Creator or just curious about how music campaigns work, this episode is for you! Episode Highlights: [03:28] My thoughts on Tyler and his “Call Me If You Get Lost” album [05:52] How he has changed over time [08:32] 3 ways to stand out as an artist [10:55] About the Tyler Baudelaire persona [14:22] On Tyler’s brand collaborations and his “slow and steady” climb thanks to his fans [19:35] My expectations for Tyler’s campaign [21:02] How the “Call Me If You Get Lost” campaign is visually appealing but lacking in creative activation [29:00] The importance of merch from a fan perspective [31:15] How the pandemic has affected the music industry [34:45] On Tyler’s acceptance of his position in hip-hop Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Amber Horsburgh, @amberhorsburgh, Amber Horsburgh Links: Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||
| 03 Jun 2022 | Bay Area Hip-Hop with Rexx Life Raj | 00:37:44 | |
Bay area artist Rexx Life Raj (real name Faraji Omar Wrightz) is in album mode with “Blue Hour” set to drop soon. The new album is his most personal yet. It was largely recorded after his mother passed away and before his father did too — which was within a three-month span of each other during 2021. The personal grief of both losses influenced the sounds of the new music. While recording this music was one way Raj coped with his grief, he also wants the album to do the same for others going through similar pains in their own lives. The deeper purpose behind Blue Hour is to create a safe space to talk about grief, especially amongst black men, where the topic of mental health can fly under the radar. Raj wants Blue Hour to honor his parents, who instilled in him an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. The album will be his fifth — all released independently. A tour will follow later this year too. For a closer look at Raj’s process behind his art, listen to our full interview. Here’s everything we covered: [3:03] Bay Area’s Influence On Raj’s Music [4:51] Rexx’s Entrepreneurship Spirit Stems From Parents [7:07] Did Rex Ever Consider Taking A Record Label Deal? [8:13] The TikTok Effect On Artists (Pros & Cons) [11:25] Content Strategy For Raj’s Newest Album [14:25] Why Grief Is Such A Big Theme In Rex’s Music [17:40] How Raj Is Coping With The Loss Of His Parents [24:10] Personal Goals For The Upcoming Album [25:53] Post-Album Tour Plans [30:40] How Tapped In Is Raj To Local Tech Scene? [32:42] E-40’s Entrepreneurship Skills [36:37] What Is Raj Most Excited About? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Rexx Life Raj, @rexxliferaj
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Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Rexx Life Raj: When it comes to numbers, like, you can buy followers, you can buy comments, you can buy likes, but a lot of people will tune in for the spectacle, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a lot of followers who are just like there for the show. Like, you're really good on the internet so we just want to watch you on the internet. [00:00:15] Rexx Life Raj: But it never translates to anything real. It's like, that's why looking at engagement is such a big thing. Like, I'll look into followers, but then I'll look at how many comments, like, I'll be looking at that kind of shit. Like, how many comments you got? Like, how many people are really tapped in? What's the engagement like on all platforms? 'Cause that's how you can really tell [00:00:39] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:59] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Rexx Life Raj. He's a Bay Area artist known for the Father Figure trilogy and his upcoming album, The Blue Hour. In this episode, Raj and I talked a lot about the inspiration for this album and what brought him up to this point? Raj, unfortunately, lost both of his parents in the past year so one of the big focuses for this album was grief. [00:01:21] Dan Runcie: What are the things that Raj had done to process that, him being able to navigate that and some of the coping things that he had done over the year and how that prepared him to be in the mode to create this album. So we talked about the process for that. And we also talked about some of the things he's done to market and push the album. [00:01:38] Dan Runcie: He has a blog, he has a trailer, and being able to truly document the process. So we talk about some of that balance that a lot of artists have between the marketing they need to do in the actual product that they need to put out and share with their fans. We talked about that and we also talked about how that relates to TikTok. [00:01:57] Dan Runcie: TikTok has been one of the growing debates with a lot of artists in terms of how they put their content out there and record labels wanting to push them to do things, but Raj is in a different position. He isn't signed to a record label. He is independent. He still does distribution through EMPIRE. So we talked about that decision as well and how he looks at some of the broader trends, whether it's TikTok or, thinking more broadly, he does have a tour coming up as well to promote the album. [00:02:24] Dan Runcie: So we talked a little bit about what it's like doing festivals versus doing tours yourself. And this was a really good episode. I think a lot of the independent artists will appreciate this. A lot of the independent creators will appreciate this as well because a lot of you are taking a more bootstrapped approach. [00:02:42] Dan Runcie: You know, it's going to be a longer game, but a lot of the decisions you make need to line up with this strategy and Raj to someone that's doing it on a successful level. So I hope you enjoy this chat. Here's my conversation with Rex life, Raj. All right, today we got the one and only Bay Area native Rexx Life Raj here. How are you doing, man? [00:03:00] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah. I can't complain. How are you doing? [00:03:03] Dan Runcie: I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited for this. And it's good to talk to the artists that are from here, and especially you because you have always had the Bay Area such a clear and prominent focus in your music and your music videos. And I really feel like it's a character in your art in a lot of ways. Can you talk a little bit about the influence Bay Area has and how it shapes what you put out? [00:03:25] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man. I think that the Bay Area is just like such an influential place and you see it in terms of just the way, like our lingo spreads, that the sound of the music spreads, you know, the dancing that comes from here, everything is so like cultural and impactful that I feel like if you're from here, it just comes out of you without even trying. Because you know, people always tell me, [00:03:45] Rexx Life Raj: like, they get that from me and I don't even be trying. It's just like who I am. So I think the Bay Area is tight 'cause it's like a blend of so many different people, but at the cooler of the culture, everybody HiFi for real, you know what I'm saying? And that's really what it is, you know. So, yeah, I love the Bay Area, man. [00:04:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's like not everyone needs to do HiFi straight up music, but I feel like you kind of find your own spin on that, right? Like, you can see the origins, but you took it in your own direction. [00:04:10] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, it was like, I think that's what's dope about art is that like, to me, art is people living in this life and taking these experiences and it goes through your filter and it comes out how it comes out. You know what I'm saying? So I took an artist of life around me and this is how it comes out. But I think you could still feel like the Bay Area in it just 'cause, you know, this is who I am and where I'm from. [00:04:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. And I think, too, looking at your background, I know that your father was a big influence. Not just in your music, but also how you approach your career as someone that owned businesses and I feel like I see a similar thread with how you've went about the business side of music, especially as an independent artist. [00:04:51] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, for sure. Like, like you said, my dad was an entrepreneur since I was born. I think he had, like, he worked at Coca-Cola up until I think a couple of years before I was born. And then after that, it was pure, like, entrepreneurship. He got tired of working for people. He wanted to set his own schedule and kind of just be in control of his own destiny. [00:05:09] Rexx Life Raj: So that's all, I really know, like my mom worked at Cal up until I was like three or four, but then she started fully working with my dad in the business. So it was kind of like where I come from. I don't even really know what it feels like to work a job. Like, I worked for a summer job while I was in college, but everything I know is kind of like building it from the ground up, building it from scratch and, you know, nurturing it and watching it grow. [00:05:32] Rexx Life Raj: And it's kind of what I do in every avenue in like in music, in the brands I have outside of music and just kind of all I know. [00:05:38] Dan Runcie: Right. And I know with that path that takes a lot of patience and likely a lot more patience than you're seeing from some of your peers that may be doing other things, whether it's with major labels or others. [00:05:48] Dan Runcie: And I can speak to that too, from running a bootstrap business and just seeing how it is with others that are going a different path. But how has that been from your perspective? Just balancing obviously the patience, but knowing the long-term outcome that's on the other side. [00:06:04] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man. I think it's just something that's kind of ingrained in me from, you know, seeing my parents 'cause they had that business for like 30 years and with was so many ebbs and flows in the business, but just knowing, like, it's something sustainable that's going to carry you for the rest of your life. It puts a different perspective on it. And also it's like, I come from a football background and I was the o lineman. [00:06:26] Rexx Life Raj: I'm used to not getting, like, no shine and no glory and just putting in the work, you know what I'm saying? It's kind of what I come from. So I feel like it's like that with music and for me, and you could probably relate when you doing something like this, it don't feel like work. You know, you're just having fun. [00:06:41] Rexx Life Raj: So I'm not looking at it like, oh, this is hard. This is tedious. It's like, nah, you're, you're building something. It's a blessing, bro. I get to build something from scratch that people resonate with, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, people are finding value and meaning in it. So it becomes like, even more purposeful for me. So I was just like, bro, I'm blessed, bro. I can't complain about too much. [00:07:00] Dan Runcie: Was there ever a point that you did consider doing a more traditional record label deal? [00:07:07] Rexx Life Raj: Not really. I mean, we, I want to say a few years ago we took a few meetings with some bigger record labels, but I think my situation with EMPIRE, for me personally, is just, you know, it's ideal, you know? 'Cause I can move out when I want to move. I can kind of do what I want to do. There's no restrictions on me. You know, you hear stories about the majors. You're on a schedule, or you're shelved, or you can put out something. People have been waiting for, like, a year to put out music and, you know, it's such a big system that people get lost in it, you know what I'm saying? You're just banking on having somebody in a building that's rocking with you and you hear stories about those people leaving and now you just kind of, you know, up in the air. So it's like, you hear a lot of weird stories, but for me, the situation I'm in is just, it's solid. I can't, I can't speak on what happens down the road or if it makes sense, maybe it don't makes sense then, but for right now, it's like, what I have is pretty tight. [00:08:00] Dan Runcie: I hear you on the weird stories. The one I keep hearing right now is people talking about the labels, trying to make them put out TikToks, right? Label wants them to put out a TikTok before they released the track, before they released the album. What do you think about that? [00:08:13] Rexx Life Raj: It's interesting, but I think about that a lot. It really makes me sad, you know what I'm saying? Like, when I really think about, like, but it makes me sad cause it's, like, if you're an artist and you don't want to do that, and that's kind of, like, 'cause some people have that persona and personality where it plays into that, you know, they're good at the internet. [00:08:30] Rexx Life Raj: Some artists are really good at the internet, but I feel bad for the artists who just want to make music. And now they feel like they have to do Tiktok and be less organic and it don't feel right. Like, to me, that's not tight, but at the same time, it's a platform that's enabling so many up-and-coming creators because the algorithm over there is crazy. [00:08:49] Rexx Life Raj: Like, I remember when I first got on TikTok, I had, like, 50, 70 followers who just followed me over to TikTok, but I will post things and they will go, like, fake viral, like 30,000 views, 40,000 when I only have 50 followers. So I'm like, it's a game that you have to play. Like, you can go over there and bullshit and fake go viral by accident, you know what I'm saying? But it's kinda like, it's kind of contingent upon the artists, but I see, you know, it needs encouragement on both sides., [00:09:16] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think we're also still just so early that we're likely going to see more types of content that can be put out when someone puts out a TikTok, right? Because I feel like when it started, it was people doing these dances that are just in this like vertical screen. [00:09:32] Dan Runcie: But, all right. They've expanded the timeframe. Like, it doesn't have to look like that. It reminds me of, like, when MTV first came out, you started to hear a little bit of that, right? Everyone thought it was just going to make people to these, like, phonies that just did these, like, Milli Vanilli dances and stuff like that, but then it, then it evolved. So I feel like that could still happen, right? Just 'cause like you said, the reach is so massive. [00:09:55] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah. No, I think it's happening right now because I feel like from what I've learned in my experience is that fans, like, people who are fans of you are, who are becoming fans of you actually want to know you. And I feel like, you know, with TikTok, it's a place where you could be, you could be dancing and viral and all that, but you can really be personal and show people behind the scenes, like, I look like a LaRussell out of Vallejo. And he's really good at, like, at the internet period, but like, he's not really TikToking like playing a game, he's just getting on there and rapping, you know what I'm saying? [00:10:28] Rexx Life Raj: And people are receptive to that 'cause there's a whole demographic who just want to hear people rap. So I think it's really about finding like a little niche, something that's comfortable for you, and understanding that, like, you're not making content for everybody in the world. You're making content for your people and finding your people. And like I said, knowing what's comfortable with you and you can win for sure. [00:10:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I agree with that, and that's a good example of that, right? Like, I was just reading an article, I was talking about, yeah, the platform's maturing and it's going to be more niches and the more niches, yeah, the less people that are going to want to see these standard TikTok dances, more people are going to want to see bars. [00:11:04] Dan Runcie: They're going to want to see people wrap. So that's a good point there. Shifting gears though, I want to talk a little bit more about your album, The Blue Hour and what you have coming up. You have the trailer for it. You got the vlog. I really like how you've built up and had the rollout for it. Can you talk to me about the strategy or the plan for how you want it to execute that all? [00:11:25] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, for me at this point, bro, cause I just understand like, everything is about content and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about with TikTok. Content is king, you know what I'm saying? And for me it's just, I want it to have as much content as possible. So I had the cameraman, you know, my boy filming all these sessions. And then, anytime I'll have a show, I have somebody film it or anytime I have ideas, it's, like, let's try to do this idea, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause the more content you have the better. And so it's just literally when I went into it, it's just like, bro, follow me with the camera and just get everything. [00:11:59] Rexx Life Raj: Then it'll be shit in here that we could just slowly roll out and turn into a vlog. And then turn it into a documentary, like I'm actually shooting a real documentary right now that we're starting to drop trailers for, but it's just like, anytime there's a camera, turn it on, you know? 'Cause you could choose whether to put it on or put it out, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's not like you have to put it out, but people want to see the process, like they want to hear the music, of course, but people want to see the process. They want to see how you create. They want to see the thinking behind it. They want to see who you're collaborating with. [00:12:29] Rexx Life Raj: It just makes that connection to your fans I think that much stronger. So it's like when me, I'm just trying to involve them in as much of the process and my thinking as possible to really, you know, make them connect as much as possible. [00:12:41] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. Do you ever feel any tension with that approach? Because I know I've heard from other artists where they feel like when the cameras are out, they need to do this stuff. It makes them feel like they're more of a marketer than they are an artist. And obviously, it's a combination of both. But how was that for you? Especially as, you know, you want to be in album mode, you know, you obviously have a concept that you want to be able to do purely from an artistic person. [00:13:04] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, I don't really have that problem, right? And it might be, 'cause I did have the camera on me at this point for a while. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've always had people following me with cameras, but also it's like, I think, you know, if you have a good videographer, they're not all in your face with the camera, like they might ask you questions every now and then. [00:13:20] Rexx Life Raj: But the people I work with, they're planning the cut. You know what I'm saying? It's like, they're almost not even in the room. To me, that's the best kind of cameraman. It's just like behind the speaker or you're not even paying attention to him. And he's kind of shooting you while you were in the booth 'cause it could be like a distraction. I think as soon as the camera comes on and you're very conscious of it, it changes everybody. Like, this conversation with us will be different if we weren't on camera, it'd probably be more candid. But since we know people are watching, like you kind of changed. [00:13:47] Rexx Life Raj: So like, I think it's really just, like, having a good cameraman is just like, they're not really in the room. And then maybe after, you know, luckily I've had the camera videographers who are like, afterwards, they'll contextualize it. Like, they'll ask me a question or, like, let's elaborate on this afterwards. But during the process, it's really kind of like playing the clip and just recording. [00:14:07] Dan Runcie: Right, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think for you as well, thinking about this album, specifically, a lot of the focus you're talking about grief, and you want to be able to not just process your own, but helping other people with it. Why was that an important focus for you with this album? [00:14:25] Rexx Life Raj: For me, because I think my music is very much grounded in reality, in my real life. And I feel like for me, like this past year, year and a half was the most insane, impactful year I've personally ever had in my life. And I feel like there's no way that it wouldn't come out of me, you know what I'm saying? It's just, so much happened and there was so much emotion and everything built up in me and it came out in the music. And for me, it was almost like, you know, you went through all this shit and you felt all these feelings. There has to be a way that you can transmute this into something that can help people going through the same thing. [00:15:04] Rexx Life Raj: And for me, music has always been like my favorite songs aren't really the turn-up songs. They're the songs that cut all the way, you know, I'm going through some shit or I need to cry or I'm in my feelings or something. And it's like knowing that music has that capacity and knowing that it could be that like music has helped me in times where I was going through whatever I was going through and knowing that I have the potential to do that. [00:15:27] Rexx Life Raj: To me, it feels only right to put that into my music, because like I said, I've done songs where like Moxie Jova, Shit N' Floss where people turn up and it's crazy when I perform it. But then I do songs like Time where it hits people on almost like a spiritual level, not even almost, it is a spiritual level in that feeling. [00:15:46] Rexx Life Raj: That's how I know this is my purpose 'cause I'm so attached to that feeling that people get where they're just like turning up and having fun. So it's like, I want it to create a space for people to be able to talk about grief, to be able to talk about it, especially for black men, because the experience is so much, but how we talk about it, like, with the homies, to me, it's kind of like crazy. Either we talk about it, very surface level, or we don't talk about it. And we hold these feelings in and we harbor it. And that's why for me, like, going back to everything outside of the music, the music is one thing, but my rollout has been to be focused on like, letting people know, like, yo it's okay to express these feelings if necessary, to talk about these things, you know what I'm saying? So that's kind of been my whole thing with this, with this album. [00:16:31] Dan Runcie: Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor. Yeah, I feel like this is generally gotten better over time where we are seeing more artists like yourself and others sharing their thoughts and being vulnerable. And I think we've seen it just more broadly in culture where people are becoming much more comfortable. And there is less of a stigma, especially with black men around checking out for your own mental health, being able to get awareness with things. But I still feel like there's plenty of room to grow with that. So you, of course, you know, not just using yourself as an example, but being able to communicate that through music is going to help a lot of people. I know you mentioned that the past year and a half has been tough and I'm sure that a lot of people could likely relate to that for their own respective reasons. So there's a timeliness here as well. And there are so many things happening that I feel like we've almost become immune to whether it's things happening our own life or things happening in society where no, it's helpful to pause because that doesn't happen as often as it should. And things just keep going and going. [00:17:40] Rexx Life Raj: Literally, man. I mean, for me too, it's like for people who don't know, just to kind of like give you a synopsis of what's going on. I lost both of my parents last year. I lost my mom in May, and then my dad in August and the majority of the album wasn't really right before my dad passed. So it is sort of three months right after my mom passed. And it's crazy because I remember something that she said to me that stuck with me, it's like, when she got diagnosed with cancer, we had a conversation and one of the things she said was no matter what happens to me, I know you'll, you'll do something good, like whether it be music or whether it be, you know, just you talking about it or whatever. She's like, I know something good comes from this. And I feel like one of the biggest things for me when it comes to grief is finding ways to honor the people you lost, right? So for me, it's like, the album honors her. Me talking about, you know, when I'm going through honors her and that's one of the biggest things for me, that's why I'm so open about it because it's like, yo, it's one thing to go to the cemetery or, you know, wherever your place is where you honor the people you lose. [00:18:50] Rexx Life Raj: But to me, like, I want to take action in some way to honor my mom, you know what I'm saying? So that's kind of what all there is to me. [00:18:57] Dan Runcie: I mean, I could only imagine how you felt. It's so sad just losing both of them in such a short amount of time and obviously, this album has been a point of catharsis for you. [00:19:08] Dan Runcie: I'm sure. Just the process. And like you mentioned a few of the things you've done as well, but what are some of the other ways that you've been able to the best that you can cope and manage your own stress and grief with the losses and any and everything else in your life. [00:19:22] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, man, music has really been a main thing cause it was really therapeutic for me, but I think being around friends and family, for me, and being able to talk about these things and cry when I need to in front of the homies and just get things out is important. [00:19:35] Rexx Life Raj: I try to stay on top of like meditating. Like, I try to meditate two or three times a week, you know, I pray a lot, you know, anything that I could get these feelings out of me. One of the biggest things for me, it sounds funny, but it's the Peleton, you know what I'm saying? For me personally, when I'm going through anything, working out is such a stress reliever, you know what I'm saying? [00:19:55] Rexx Life Raj: So I had got a Peloton right when my mom got sick and it was something that like any time I built up extra energy or anxiety in my body, I'll just go hop on the Peleton. And outside of me losing a little bit of weight, it just helped me mentally, you know, just working out. I'm really thankful for the Peloton, shout out to all the instructors and stuff on there. [00:20:15] Rexx Life Raj: That's really tight, but yeah, just find a way to get it out of me. Like, I do all the little stuff. Like I journal a lot, you know what I'm saying? Anything that could get my thoughts out and just kind of figure out what's going on. 'Cause I feel like people have these things in their head, but when you write it down and you can reread it and really see what's going on in your mind, you can have better understanding of what you're going through. [00:20:34] Rexx Life Raj: So I did this thing called morning pages, which at one point I was waking up every morning. So what you do is you wake up every morning and you just journal for like two or three pages, whatever comes to your mind, you know what I'm saying? Like, no matter what it could be, because when you first wake up, it would be shit like I'm tired. [00:20:49] Rexx Life Raj: And I really don't feel like writing this. I didn't get a good night's sleep, but the more you write, the more real feelings and thoughts come out. And what happens is if you do it for a long enough period of time, you start to see consistencies and you're thinking in your feelings, right? So you might, for somebody who might be, you know, in a relationship, they keep having these problems in their relationship, and they noticed that they write about it every day, you know, or that you're having problems with your dad or your mom or something that keeps coming up. And what it allows you to do is see it like, yo, this thing keeps happening and then you have the choice to take action, because if it keeps happening and you don't take action, nothing's going to change. [00:21:27] Rexx Life Raj: But by you writing it every day, like you've seen it seven days, seven days, it forces you to take action and you can clearly see what's going on in your life. So I really believe in that, I read that in a book called The Artist's Way. I highly recommend like that for any artists or anybody just in the creative realm for sure. [00:21:44] Dan Runcie: That makes a lot of sense. And I've heard similar with people doing voice memos as well. You know, just being able to have that steady, consistent thing that you're putting out there because, yeah, over time it is going to be a reflection of where things are and just that habit of it's one thing to journal, but it's actually having a common practice with it. [00:22:03] Dan Runcie: I'm sure that's been huge. And I could imagine that even some of that has been a helpful reflection for you as you were putting this album together as well. [00:22:11] Rexx Life Raj: For sure. It's crazy 'cause when I was going through, you know, basically being a caregiver for my parents, cause I was taking care of both of them. I didn't really have time to do music because I was so consumed and taking my mom to chemo or radiation. [00:22:26] Rexx Life Raj: And then my dad, he was already sick. So I'll have to take him to dialysis and the Kaiser and I was, you know, cooking the meals and staying at the house, make sure everything is right. So I really was so overwhelmed with life that I didn't even have the capacity to do music, but what I always did was I have a, in my notes tab, I have a note just called life notes. [00:22:48] Rexx Life Raj: So anytime something would happen, like, I'll have feelings, a lot of different feelings and emotions. I would just jot it down in the notes. So in my phone, I literally had, bro, just so many life notes because there's music in everything that songs and the conversations you have with people are songs. Like, these feelings that you feel, these experiences that you have can now be turned into music. [00:23:10] Rexx Life Raj: So even when I couldn't necessarily make music, I was just taking notes. So when it became, like, after my mom passed and I started going back to the studio. Like, I had just so much to draw from, you know what I'm saying? So it's not like I had to sit and even think about now, what am I going to write about? What am I going to do? [00:23:29] Rexx Life Raj: It's all in the notes. So it's like the album was written before it was written and it had to piece it together. [00:23:34] Dan Runcie: Right. That makes sense, right? It's like documenting the process, like, like anything. And I do think that just being able to have that likely helped the product of it, too. So, and I know that that was coming out soon. You're definitely excited about where things are heading. [00:23:49] Dan Runcie: Do you have any particular milestones or goals that you have that you're trying to hit with this album? I know that you're not signed to a major record label, so some of those same types of things may not exist, but a lot of it may be a bit more on the personal side for what you have. Is there anything that you have that you're shooting for, that you have as a particular milestone? [00:24:10] Rexx Life Raj: Not necessarily numbers-wise 'cause I feel like as soon as I do that, I can set myself up to not be happy if I don't hit those things. So I don't really be tripping off numbers. Like my thing, when it comes to numbers is as long as we're on the up and it's better than what we've been doing, then we're doing something right. [00:24:26] Rexx Life Raj: But my whole goal and intention with this album was to help people who are going through what I was going through. Like, that's all I was thinking about. And I see it, you know, in the songs that I've released, my DMs be crazy with people who are either, you know, it's a lot of people in my DMs whose parents are ill right now. [00:24:44] Rexx Life Raj: So they resonate with the music. It's even more people in my DMs who are going through grief. And the music is helping them process in any way. So to me, that's the win for me, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the win is the music helping people navigate through life and shit. The numbers are just numbers and the numbers be fake a lot of times, like, you know, so I don't really be concerned about the numbers, you know what I'm saying? [00:25:05] Rexx Life Raj: But for me, it's just being intentional in what I put into the music and just hoping that it resonates with people. [00:25:11] Dan Runcie: And it sounds like it already is, like you said, if you're having the folks of the DMs hitting you up and responding to it, that's great. And I got to imagine that being able to potentially see that impact in person at some point would likely be an ideal thing that I'm sure people would connect with as well. Are there plans to tour, do live shows after the album's released? [00:25:33] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, we already got the tour locked in toward the end of the year. I've got a few festivals, actually have a festival on Sunday. I just did one in Sacramento. So we got a lot of little festivals and shows coming up but the actual tour is set for the end of the year so I'm super excited. [00:25:49] Dan Runcie: Nice. Do you prefer festival performances or do you prefer your own tour stops? [00:25:53] Rexx Life Raj: I prefer my own tour, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause what a festival, especially for artists at my level, you never really know how many people are there for you and it's tight because it's a bigger crowd so you can win new fans and festival experiences are always super fun, but like you alluded to earlier, just the connection that I've made with the people that I know I've made that connection with is different. [00:26:17] Rexx Life Raj: You know what I'm saying? It's, it's spiritual. That's the only word I can have for it, bro. 'Cause I've had shows where, you know, I'll perform a song and people cry, you know what I'm saying? It's like they came for that song, you know what I'm saying? That came out of my brain and for whatever reason, it resonated with them. [00:26:33] Rexx Life Raj: To me, that's just, you know, and to have people sing songs in unison. And it's just like a different type of connection when it's your own show, but festivals are tied to them. And I love festivals. [00:26:44] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like, especially for independent artists, a mix in general is what people do thrive in. And I feel like that generally makes sense, but especially for independent artists, your career is already built on the long game and touring is a much longer game than a lot of festivals, right? Festivals, their upfront cash should be great. It could be bigger than what you may get from an initial stop, but like you said, you don't know if they're necessarily there for you, but you could be reaching out to new fans versus at a tour, even if the total audience may not be what it may be in that festival crowd, all those people are there to see you and you build on that and you're going there with the next album. And the one after that, like, that's where that long game is that lines up with that independent mentality. [00:27:29] Rexx Life Raj: Literally, man, and I'm happy you said that 'cause I be trying to preach that to, you know, any up and coming artist that asked me for advice. It's like, that's what I'm focused on. You know, the touring. That's what I look at. Like, even when, you know, everybody has a moment and niggas be laid on the internet and shit look cool. My first thought is like, can I sell tickets? [00:27:48] Rexx Life Raj: Are they selling merch? 'Cause in real life, that's, what's going to sustain you. Like, have you built maybe another business or brand outside of yourself? Because the internet shit is cool, but real life is what's going, what gets you paid in the long term. So, yeah, I'm happy you said that. [00:28:05] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. I had this piece that had gotten some traction recently that was a breakdown on why your followers are not your fans and the followers, exactly, it's the internet shit that you're talking about, right? It just doesn't always line up. And we both know people that have millions, tens of millions of followers, but they can't sell when they actually go to show things and makes you question, okay, were all those true numbers, legit stream numbers and all those things? And you can't fake actually, to have actual bodies there, like watching you perform a concert. [00:28:38] Rexx Life Raj: It's the only thing you can't fake, man. That's what I'm saying. Like, the internet is really, but at the same time, like if you play the internet correctly, you can make money off the internet as well. [00:28:47] Rexx Life Raj: Like, you know, don't get it twisted, like there's money to be made on the internet. But as far as sustainability, like, I've only seen it this way, you know what I'm saying? And like you said, everything can be manipulated. And even when it comes to numbers, like you can buy followers, you can buy comments, you can buy likes, but a lot of people will tune in for the spectacle, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a lot of followers who are just like there for the show. Like, you're really good on the internet so we just want to watch you on the internet. But it never translates to anything real. It's like, that's why looking at engagement is such a big thing. Like, I'll look at the followers but then I'll look at how many comments, like I would be looking at that kind of shit. Like, how many comments he got? Like, how many people are really tapped in? What's the engagement like on all platforms? [00:29:30] Rexx Life Raj: 'Cause that's how you can really tell. 'Cause it's been harder to, like, for instance, on Instagram, I think I got like 80,000 followers, right? But there's been artists who I've seen that had like 20,000 followers, 30,000 followers, even less, their engagement is way higher and they're selling way more tickets than me. [00:29:47] Rexx Life Raj: And I'm like, damn, dude. Like, that's it. Cause you damn near made all your followers believe to the point where we following you not only on here, but we following you in real life to the stage, you know? And that's crazy to me. So yes, it's an interesting game for sure. [00:30:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's a good example. I mean, you're seeing it that way because you see it the other way, too, people that, you know, you got tens of millions of followers and then less than a thousand people, like the last photo, what, like, no. [00:30:18] Rexx Life Raj: Something's not clicking. Something's ain't right. But, yeah, for sure. [00:30:22] Dan Runcie: So you're the Bay Area, and of course we know there's a lot of tech investments happening out here. And I know that you are interested in things outside of directly making music as well. What does that side of things look like for you? Have you got involved in the investing side, looking at different startups and companies? [00:30:40] Rexx Life Raj: I'm kind of tapping in 'cause I have friends who are really in that world. Like my girlfriend works for Facebook, so she's fully in it. One of my best friends, he works for Google, so he's fully in it. And then one of my good friends who I went to college with, Jason Robinson, he has a VR/AR software, it's called Playbook Five. [00:31:00] Rexx Life Raj: And so he actually just did a pitch in Menlo park, Denver last weekend, pitching to investors. It's lit, it's really tight. Like, you put on the Oculus or whatever, and it's for kids to learn, like, kids in high school and middle school who are trying to play any sport in college. It teaches you all these schemes and game plans and everything you can learn through a software, but what's he trying to do is make it accredited. So say, like, they're trying to go to Cal to play football and Cal runs a three, four scheme on defense for the players who aren't like four or five stars who are getting directly looked at by the school. They can look at Playbook Five and be like, oh, let's check this kid out. [00:31:37] Rexx Life Raj: He's fully accredited in our scheme. So they bring him in and he fully knows what's going on. And so like this, seeing the homies do stuff like that, you're automatically drawn into it because that shit is the future, you know what I'm saying? And then he's telling me like, like I said, how he's pitching and he's looking for investors. He's down in Austin 'cause he knows Bowman down there now and he's moving around. So I feel like this being out here, you get consolidated in that and you've learned shit on accident, you know what I'm saying? So I haven't actually invested in any companies, but I'm for sure, just like watching and learning the landscape as much as possible. [00:32:09] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. You get up with E-40 at all? I haven't linked up with E-40 in a while, but anytime I hit E-40, he pick up and he chat with me, Gmail, like, real cool dude. Man, like I love E-40 'cause any, like I said, anytime I hit him and ask him for tips and wisdom. He's always there for me, if I need them on a song, he always did. So shout out to E-40. [00:32:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah. 'Cause like, think about the investment thing, I mean, obviously both in Vallejo and... [00:32:34] Rexx Life Raj: He's the man. [00:32:35] Dan Runcie: He is the man. Anytime I see it, I'm like, I see his name everywhere. I'm almost surprised when I don't see him at certain deals now. [00:32:42] Rexx Life Raj: E-40, he's going to sell you anything. He sells sausages. He sells lumpia. He got E Cuarenta Tequila. He got burritos now, the hood burritos at the store, like, when you think about entrepreneurship and just real rap independence, like, E-40 is the pinnacle, bro. Like, he's giving niggas the blueprint for so long and he's been doing it. That's what I'm saying. Like, pure longevity, you know, he's like, who's been doing this independent shit for as long as he has and has been that great at it? [00:33:15] Rexx Life Raj: It's not too many people, you know what I'm saying? So shout out to E-40, man. He's been ahead of the game for a while. [00:33:20] Dan Runcie: And his products are good, too. I mean, we know that there's a lot of artists out there that have stuff that doesn't always click, but his Earl Stevens wine is award-winning, like, it has gotten a shout-out from all those like Napa and Sonoma County celebrations, whatever they call them. [00:33:36] Rexx Life Raj: And it's gonna get you faded. I didn't, boy, I, like, take some of that and be, oh, like, oh God, E-40 is crazy! What is it called? [00:33:46] Dan Runcie: I know what you're talking about. [00:33:48] Rexx Life Raj: Yeah, it ain't no joke, bro. You trying to get drunk, you gotta bring some of that. It's crazy. [00:33:54] Rexx Life Raj: Oh, man. That's wild. That's wild. But Raj, man, I'm excited for you. You got a lot to look forward to this year. Obviously, I know that a lot of it hasn't been the easiest, but when you're looking at the rest of this year, then also in 2023, what are you most excited about? What's getting you excited, looking forward to where things are heading and where you want to, where you want to take things? I'm just excited to drop the album and just see where it takes me, hit the road again, go to Europe, you know, do all the things that come with dropping the album, because I feel like for the last year and a half, I've really missed that. [00:34:27] Rexx Life Raj: So just like everything that comes up on our music, you know, like, I think the next phase of my career is like really focusing, focusing on other artists from the Bay who I think I have a lot of potential and kind of like giving them game and wisdom and putting them on. So I'm working with, you know, a bunch of different artists in the Bay and just kind of focusing on them and giving them a shot 'cause it's, I think it's a Renaissance happening in the Bay, you know, in the underground music scene that not too many people know about. I feel like it's really coming to light and you get to see how diverse the music scene in the Bay is 'cause I feel like for a while we were just known really for one thing, one sound. But it's so much dope shit happening in the Bay, you know what I'm saying? Like, from bills like Elujay, to, there's this singer in Vallejo, she's really tight, named Tyler Lauren. She's really cool. My brother, The Dakota Wytefoxx. Michael Sneed who's doing all that shit. My boy, JAMMY, you got, you know, I think her username is thuymusic. She's doing a lot of jazz. It's like, it's so much going on in the Bay, you know, and I'm happy to that it's actually in the light that it deserves at this point. [00:35:30] Dan Runcie: I know, that's legit and thinking about all the activity, too, I'm sure you saw it as well. The Golden State Warriors started their own record label and I'm like, if there's any sign that there's something... [00:35:40] Rexx Life Raj: I did not know that. [00:35:41] Dan Runcie: Oh, you didn't hear this? [00:35:43] Rexx Life Raj: No, tell me about it. I did not know. They started a record label? [00:35:46] Dan Runcie: Okay. I'll send you the link to it after we're done, but yeah. So the Golden State Warriors started a record label and they are planning to sign and support the artists that are local in the area, right? Like they want to invest in the talent here and using their arena and using the concerts that come through as a platform, maybe some of their own documentaries. They're trying to use that and use that as a platform to push these artists. [00:36:10] Rexx Life Raj: That's crazy. No, I did not know that. That's actually insane. That's tight though. That's interesting. I need to read the article because that's crazy. [00:36:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I'll send it to you. Yeah, because I actually just interviewed the guy that's running it, David Kelly. He's their Chief Business Officer over there. So yeah. I'll send you the link to that too. [00:36:26] Rexx Life Raj: Dope, man. I appreciate that. That's clean. [00:36:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. But Raj, before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to plug or let the Trapital audience know about? [00:36:37] Rexx Life Raj: Man, I'm dropping The Blue Hour soon. Appreciate you having me, man. I appreciate anybody who's watching this who's been a fan of me for however long and, you know, stay tapped in, and I appreciate y'all. [00:36:48] Dan Runcie: Yes, sir. And where can people find you? [00:36:49] Rexx Life Raj: Anywhere, man. Google. I'm on every platform, Rexx Life Raj, R-E-X-X-L-I-F-E-R-A-J. You know, if you know how to use the internet on your phone, you can find me. I'm everywhere, man. [00:37:05] Dan Runcie: That sounds good, man. [00:37:07] Rexx Life Raj: All right, man. I appreciate you. [00:37:09] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week. | |||
| 23 Mar 2023 | The Short-Form Video Wars: TikTok vs Shorts vs Reels (with Tati Cirisano) | 00:49:22 | |
Short-form video has exploded in popularity the past three years, buoyed by TikTok. Copycat apps and features are now the norm across social media sites — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Instagram. MIDiA analyst Tati Cirisano joins me on this episode to break down the ongoing war between short-form video’s main players. The music industry is certainly keeping a close eye on the battle. Short-form video has been a boon for music discovery. Though, many music execs would also argue music has played a big factor in the rise of these platforms, and the industry wants to better monetize that. Tati and I covered all this and more on the show. Here’s everything we hit on: [02:59] Vine paved the way for short-form video [05:56] TikTok filled void in social media [06:53] Factors behind TikTok’s success [10:19] TikTok is an entertainment platform, not social [13:20] Potential pitfalls for TikTok [23:10] YouTube’s biggest advantages [25:53] Overlap between YouTube’s short-form and long-form audiences [29:37] Facebook and Instagram Reels are picking up steam [35:19] Instagram Reels more natural to the platform than YT Shorts [35:35] Meta’s advertising is both a pro and a con [36:39] Active creator vs. passive watcher user bases [38:35] In what scenario does TikTok lose top spot in short-form video war? [41:50] Best platform for artists? [43:08] Best platform for record labels? [44:05] Best monetized platform? [47:11] Will there be a new form of content consumption in the next five years? Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guests: Tati Cirisano, @tatianacirisano This episode was brought to you by trac. Learn more about how artists can bring web2 and web3 together for their fans at trac.co Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital’s free memo. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Tatiana Cirisano: One of my pros to talk about something that I've just, I don't know if this is still true, but something that I've heard from marketers, music marketers in the past is that, Instagram just has more trust with brands than TikTok and other platforms that are new because they've been using it for so long. [00:00:13] They know what the deal is like. It just has, better relationships in that respect. but if that's also leading to more ads on the platform, then it's kind of a pro and a con. [00:00:42] Dan Runcie: All right, today we have a jam packed episode that is about the short form video wars, which platform will come out on top. And I'm joined by none other than Tati Cirisano from Video Research. Welcome. [00:00:55] Tatiana Cirisano: Thanks Dan. Good to be back. Thanks for entertaining another rant of mine, [00:01:00] Dan Runcie: No, this is good. And with what you write about what you cover, you're the perfect person to have this conversation with. There has been so much focus as anyone listening to this podcast, who knows about the influence of short form video, what it does for discovery, for music, for artists, how record labels and all these companies are tackling it. [00:01:19] Now we have several companies that are vying for that spot with similar but different products. But before we jump into TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, I feel like we gotta give props where it is and give a shout out to Vine because I don't know if we were to be here if it weren't for Vine paving the way, so, oh, gone too soon. [00:01:41] Tatiana Cirisano: you're giving me flashbacks to the Water Malone guy. I don't know if anyone else is gonna remember that, but the specific things that went viral on that platform. Oh God,yeah. We have to give the shout out to Vine. [00:01:53] Dan Runcie: It was the perfect example of constraints, breeding, creativity, six, seven, second videos, and people had whole narratives of storytelling there. It was so unique to see what people were able to do. I feel like at its peak I saw it was 200 million monthly active users, which obviously is a drop in the bucket compared to the services we're about to talk about. [00:02:17] But at that moment, that felt huge. It really was the platform. And obviously I know that Twitter had other objectives and things there, but. It's almost like a little too early as well. I just don't know if culture was like right there. And even music itself with artists, I feel like there was a lot of influencers, but there's a few artists, but not as many that really tapped in where it was really a huge discovery platform. [00:02:41] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, and I think also like people weren't so comfortable with creating content at that time, or it wasn't something that was like so readily available. Like now I feel like every teenager just kind of create, thinks of creating content as, you know, just part of the social toolbox. Or maybe they want to be a content creator and that's, you know, that's like a sort of a new aspiration. [00:03:02] But I think at the time of Vine, maybe that's another reason it didn't pop off, is it wasn't like the consumer behavior wasn't there. There were some people that loved to make videos, but I think most people were just watching. [00:03:11] Dan Runcie: Right, and I feel like too, the people that really popped off on that platform, They never quite got as big as some of the people that are on the platforms. We're gonna talk about, thinking about whether, you know, you mentioned someone where thinking about Alphacat or like King Bach, some of the others that were big there, and I know they had moments, but again, it was almost a little bit ahead of its time in terms of them being able to really take off the way things did in the late 2010s and ever. [00:03:39] Tatiana Cirisano: Mm. I'm also trying to remember now because one of the major things that usually comes up for me talking about like why TikTok was so impactful is how it's such, it was such a big deal that it opened to the for you page instead of like a feed of people, content from people you already know. But in my mind, it was kind of like the first major social media platform to do that. [00:03:59] But was Vine actually the first, I don't remember how the feed worked. Was it people you followed or was it just random? [00:04:05] Dan Runcie: I forget. That's a good point. I forget someone listening probably will ping back and say that, oh, it was this way. But yeah, I completely forget. I feel like I remember there are videos I knew from people that I would go back and follow cause they easily wanted to go watch it. But yeah, I completely forget. And even if it was there, I don't think the algorithm had quite enough content to be able to make that happen. [00:04:27] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, that's true. But yeah, the history is really interesting cuz you had Vine and then Twitter shut it down and there was kind of this void for people that loved the platform not having something similar. And then musically came around, but it wasn't really the same. It was kind of all focused on lip syncing. [00:04:44] It wasn't, you know, people just making random videos. and I feel like it also had kind of a younger audience, like it was more like middle schoolers than high schoolers. And it just kind of didn't have that same, it didn't reach like the critical mass of, no offense to middle schoolers, but like it didn't have that cool factor [00:05:02] so it's interesting like that happened. And then the timing is so important because I feel like we can't ignore the fact that TikTok launched in the US a few years before the pandemic and kind of reached that critical mass of users right when Lockdowns began. so yeah, I'm glad that you started with Vine cause I think the history is really important to look at. [00:05:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think the TikTok piece is unique because before TikTok ends up launching in the US, Instagram and Snapchat have stories, which obviously isn't the same as what we're gonna talk about with Instagram having reels. But that vertical video, and I believe that when Instagram first came out, it was 15 seconds, I believe was the limit. [00:05:44] So there was a bit of that trying to copy what Vine was doing to that extent. But then TikTok comes up with, you know, an entirely new platform. And I feel like the concept of a TikTok post is what then brings you to it's, For You page, and just [00:06:00] having that endless content role. Which a reel is, but a Instagram story or even a Snapchat story I tried to do at points, but never quite got there, which is why Instagram and Facebook more broadly has tried to make a pivot into that. [00:06:15] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. And it was more about like from music's perspective, it was about users engaging with the music that they're fans of like when TikTok first started to blow up in 2020, it was all dance challenges. It was all people kind of putting their own spin on the songs that they loved, and I feel like that's also different from stories and like the other sort of video, sort of short form video, tools that we had before where it was maybe about [00:06:40] sharing music, but it wasn't about actually engaging with it and putting your own spin on it. And I think that was the other thing that TikTok did that was really powerful from the music discovery standpoint, is inviting people to actually put their own spin on the things that they love. [00:06:54] Dan Runcie: Right. There was a culture that was created around the music and around the content [00:07:00] generation that did not exist in those platforms, right? Like to your point, yeah, you could have had music playing while you're sharing some video that you naturally wouldn't have wanted to share on your Instagram feed, but that wasn't the same as trying to do your own rendition of Old Town Road, right? [00:07:17] Tatiana Cirisano: And there weren't trends like TikTok is so trends focused, which is a key reason why songs tend to go viral on the platform. So, yeah. [00:07:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And on that note, we should dive into it. So for everyone listening, there's three companies that will do our breakdown on, so TikTok Meta. and YouTube and what they're doing respectively in short form video. And on that note, let's start with TikTok and just highlight some of the pros and cons there. [00:07:43] And I think we talked about a few of them, the cultureyou also talked about just the likelihood of users themselves wanting to engage and create in a way that they wouldn't on others before that, what are some other things that stand out about, like why TikTok has been able to have a strong position here.[00:08:00] [00:08:00] Tatiana Cirisano: I mean, definitely their algorithm, their algorithm is scary good.I know a lot of people will say like, oh, TikTok knows me better than I know myself. And it's true, I get recommendations that are so hyper-specific. and if, you know, it's such a major tool for discovery for that reason. [00:08:16] It's not just showing you things, it's showing you things that you will probably like. So I think, TikTok's algorithm is a huge pro for them. but I also think. at this point, aside from the algorithms, all of these platforms pretty much look the same or have the same user experience. I don't know as much from the creation standpoint in terms of like video editing tools, but from the consumer standpoint, they're all pretty similar. [00:08:40] So I think at that point, the thing that will differentiate you is the culture, and I think TikTok just has a lot more cultural capital than shorts and reels do, maybe because it was first, like so many trends tend to start on TikTok and then trickle down to the other platforms, to the point where I remember like a year ago [00:09:00] or months ago, there were so many reels, users posting TikTok videos that still had the TikTok watermark that reels actually deprioritize them in the algorithm to like try to get people to not do that. [00:09:11] So I think it's something that's hard to measure and can change very quickly, but right now I think the cultural capital is with TikTok and that's a huge pro for them. [00:09:22] Dan Runcie: Right when you're the dominant player, when people are watching videos on other platforms and they're repurposed for yours, that's when you know, we rarely see the opposite of that happen with TikTok and that speaks to it, right? I feel like the other part of where TikTok, I think just stands strong and further proof of that cultural piece is, I think back to the analogy I know that I've said, and others have said about how TikTok is the new MTV and just in terms of its cultural influence on where people find things, and even though it's not the only place that is that artists or, [00:10:00] creators can post short from videos, it's similar in that even back in the MTV days, MTV wasn't the only place that posted and released music videos. You could watch them on VH1, you could watch them on BET. [00:10:13] There were other channels that had it. And while I do think that, at least with BET specifically, there was a culture around there specifically for the black audience and a lot of the people that were interested in those artists themselves. The MTV itself was able to have a bit of this more like mainstream pop rock aspect that also they were able to reach into. [00:10:35] And I think even if you look at VH1, I think that trended a bit older. So even though I think there was still success to be had with some of those other areas, you still saw that MTV ended up still being seen as the dominant player, clearly not to everyone. I think that, as I mentioned, you know, BET still was more relevant to some audiences than others, and I feel like. [00:10:55] There may be some of that. could be true with the short form video aspect too, where I feel [00:11:00] like TikTok is still the dominant player, but are there certain types of users that may be more likely to find success on YouTube shorts or Instagram reels? I don't know if that's necessarily true yet, just because and we can talk about this. [00:11:13] I don't know if we see the same breakdowns there, but that's one thing that I was thinking about as well. Even if you are the main cultural place, are the other areas finding their own folks. [00:11:23] Tatiana Cirisano: Totally. No, and I wanna, think about that question of what platforms benefit, which artists. But you also just reminded me of something else cuz of your comparison to MTV, which is that TikTok considers itself an entertainment platform, not a social platform. And that's so key to me. [00:11:39] And so interesting, like you'll see even in, in news articles and interviews, people will call it social platform and you know, the CEO or whoever's being interviewed will say, no, no, no, no, no, back up because we are an entertainment platform. And that's really different. I think, you know, YouTube shorts is a bit similar because most people don't go to YouTube or social. [00:11:58] They go there to again, like be [00:12:00] entertained. But that's something that pits it sort of, or puts it in a different playing field, I guess, than something like reels because people have usually gone to Instagram to see content from people that they know, to the point where when Instagram like introduced a, you know, a TikTok like feed, a lot of people are like, I don't want this. [00:12:15] I wanna see what my friends are doing. and I think that's changed over time with like influencer culture like I definitely follow a lot of people that I don't know at all. But in general, you know, these other spaces that might try and launch short formm video like Instagram are social platforms that people use for social reasons, and TikTok kind of puts itself in a different playing field by labeling itself as an entertainment platform, which also kind of, I think one of the benefits to that for them is, you know, I think it's part of the reason that people spend so much time on TikTok like there are stats for the average amount of time people spend on the app is ridiculous. It's something like an hour, like nobody does that in one sitting on Instagram, and it's probably because you run out of content. [00:12:57] If you're following a certain number of people, [00:13:00] I run out of, you know, stories to watch or people's content to view. There's only so much you can get out of a social platform like that. But with TikTok, if you're there for entertainment, you can scroll forever. I've done it . So, you know, I think that's a key distinction. [00:13:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's a great pro and I think we can talk a little bit more about that when we talk about like who wins out, whether it's, you know, platform versus artist versus company. But, cause I feel like there's a tie in with that too. But that's a great point. What do you think some of the cons are about TikTok? [00:13:28] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. I mean, I think the kind of obvious one is the threat of it being banned. but I don't know that's an interesting one because I feel like it's not talked about that much. It's always kind of an aside, and a potential, but it's unclear whether that could actually happen. what might end up being a bigger inhibitor is just the attitudes that that inspires like if parents are like, oh, the government might is trying to ban TikTok, it must be bad, let me tell my kid they're not allowed to [00:14:00] use it like I think the perceptions that people have about the app and their safety on it, they might be influenced enough by the threat of a band to be scared of using it. [00:14:08] Like I know some people that kind of feel freaked out by it. so I think that could be a real threat or it could be an imagined one, but it could have impact either way. [00:14:17] Dan Runcie: I thought a lot about the threat piece. I think the most likely scenario would be that it's similar to the discussions that we saw three years ago, where is there a US company that would potentially take over TikTok us and could that be the outcome? I know that a lot of that had pretty much died down with the US presidency transfer of power, and those discussions stopped. [00:14:40] But I do feel like if anything I could see that, likely happening as opposed to a full on ban. We'll see though. I mean, because I feel like that could address some of the concerns. Hopefully if that happens, we'll see how whatever company that runs it would go about managing it. But that's how I see that piece of it, particularly playing out.[00:15:00] [00:15:00] The other con that I've thought a lot about is, it's something Lyor Cohen, who runs YouTube, or at least he runs YouTube music, has talked about, he did an interview in, music business worldwide a couple months back, and he has, and I quote, he says, "Short form video that doesn't lead anywhere is the most dangerous thing I've seen in the music business in a long time." [00:15:23] A lot of people are very familiar because it was one of those quotes where he didn't say the company, but everyone knew he was talking about TikTok. And the thing is, many of us know that TikTok is avidly trying to build up has its distribution service, but it's trying to build up its own streaming service so that traffic can go somewhere and that it can do that. [00:15:42] It already has RESO in other countries, but it's actively trying to do that in the us but it still hasn't been able to do that. We know it. These are very cost intensive things to be able to do and do, right? I think it's worth talking about whether or not we think that is as big of a threat as positioned, but I do know that [00:16:00] that is one of the conceptions out there that you have this top of funnel that doesn't directly lead anywhere. [00:16:05] So if you are obviously, record labels and others are tracking the pipeline of TikTok data that then leads to streams and things like that. But is the fact that that is a non-connected platform, at least the way it lives today, is that a risk in your eyes or a con? [00:16:24] Tatiana Cirisano: I think it is a risk. I mean, I think that issue is getting worse. I feel like I brought this up maybe on another podcast we did too, but the fact that the same things that made TikTok so powerful, like having this for you page and having such a good algorithm also means that it's a completely lean back experience. [00:16:42] I don't have to follow anyone on the app. I don't have to take any actions at all. All I have to do is open it and keep scrolling. So there's very little motivation to follow anyone. So that goes for content creators, but it also goes for artists who are trying to, you know, actually build and retain long-term fans, rather [00:17:00] than just having a hit go viral on the platform, maybe it translates to a streaming bump and that's the end of it. [00:17:05] so I think that that is a bit of a threat. there's something else I was gonna say about that too. oh, that I think another point in all of this is, these platforms are no longer just competing for users. They're competing for creators because that's who's actually supplying the content, especially if you're an entertainment platform. [00:17:22] TikTok is kind of like, if Netflix was like, we're not gonna actually create any movies, we're just gonna have users upload their own, you know, like the users are supplying the content, the creators are who they need, and they need to appeal to them. So I think if enough creators get frustrated with feeling like they can't build a following on TikTok, musicians include, they might try migrating to a different service, and maybe if other services can do that better, they'll stay there. [00:17:46] So I think for that reason, it is a risk yeah, it's clear. I think it is something that TikTok is thinking about. [00:17:52] Dan Runcie: Yeah, It does need to be acknowledged. I think as I've thought about this a few ways, I think that the challenge that was presented by [00:18:00] Lyor would imply that there is a higher conversion rate from YouTube shorts to YouTube, and that they have the data to be able to prove that. Theoretically, I do think that that makes sense in terms of absolute numbers though, it would be very interesting to see how many streams absolute it actually leads to, just given how much more massive TikTok is relative to YouTube shorts in terms of just the amount of people actually watching videos on that platform on a regular basis. [00:18:29] And I think the other cod with YouTube, just to underscore something you had said was that, if artists themselves, or whether it's more broadly creators do start to feel like they're being more marginalized on the entertainment platform, where their name gets smaller and smaller and it's less important about who they are, and it's more important that they are just someone that is providing content on this platform, then they may be more likely to go some. [00:18:56] Like a YouTube, which we could transition into now, but go more sort like a [00:19:00] YouTube, which has tried a position itself as more friendly to its business partners as opposed to primarily itself. [00:19:07] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. And I mean, TikTok is, presumably trying to prove right now that it doesn't need music as much, the music industry believes with the kind of experiment they're doing in Australia. So I think that, relationship aspect is really important to all of this. [00:19:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And then one last thought on TikTok too that this just made me think of. I know a couple weeks ago, Snoop Dogg had re-released the Death Row Records catalog, at least the album he owns. Exclusively on TikTok. it was a window wink thing one week before he released it more broadly elsewhere. [00:19:40] While I do think that's probably more likely to be a one-off thing, just because it's a unique scenario where he is an artist, non-major record label that owns his content exclusively, he can choose to do with it what he wants. I'd be interested to see if that changes things and if TikTok does get more involved with exclusivity, especially if it builds out its [00:20:00] own music streaming service. [00:20:03] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, a hundred percent. [00:20:04] Dan Runcie: So we'll see how that one goes. But let's transition over to YouTube now, and I think we talked a little bit about this, but I think some of the pros that it has is that it clearly is YouTube short specifically is clearly a top of the funnel for YouTube. And YouTube already has this algorithm and everything built in there that makes it very easy for creators to be able. [00:20:28] Actually monetize and we've seen many artists be sustainable success stories with how they've tailored their music releases to working on YouTube and be a young boy is one artist that comes to mind there, there are several others and the fact that this can essentially be a way for them to just spread more awareness to others on the platform to then capture more eyeballs and at least of what we've seen, it feels like there is growth, at least of what YouTube has publicly shared. [00:20:54] I believe I saw the most recent number was 30 billion views per day for videos that were being [00:21:00] posted there. So there are a few things that seem to be working in its favor on. [00:21:05] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, and I think the sort of, what Lyor Cohen was talking about, like that ecosystem play that YouTube shorts has, is, it's a major pro for them whereas on TikTok, an artist is kind of posting an isolation on YouTube, maybe their shorts. [00:21:21] It's all on the same platform, and shorts can lead to their music videos or their vlogs on YouTube. And that could, in turn, you know, lead to their music on YouTube music. And I think that ecosystem is really powerful and that's what TikTok would be going after if and when they do launch a Western streaming service. [00:21:39] So for right now, I think that's probably YouTube Short's biggest advantage. And it's biggest sort of, way to like convince creators of its value, convince artists of its value and get them on board. and I think they're clearly trying to do that. [00:21:53] Dan Runcie: Great point. Another one too that that made me think of is another of YouTube's strengths is [00:22:00] they clearly are as I mentioned before, they are artist friendly in that it is a place where you can grow, monetize, you have the people that you're trying to reach there. But I do think that the fact that they're just stronger relationships that they have with the industry overall. [00:22:18] Does tend to play in, I mean, YouTube is very vocal about how much, or YouTube music specifically is very vocal about how much money it pays out to the music industry. It's made it a clear goal that it wants to surpass Spotify to be the platform that generates the most for that. And I think a lot of that transfers as well to on the artist side, whereas you mentioned a platform like TikTok, trying to be less reliant on music. [00:22:40] YouTube is actually trying to double down more than that, and the fact that there's just more stability in general. Obviously TikTok is the opposite of this, where we're still not sure will there be a band, will there be another company owning it? But with YouTube, it's the rare platform that 18 years into its [00:23:00] existence, people are still discovered it, people are still finding ways to be able to tap in. It competes with so many other entertainment platforms in so many ways that whether it's for attention, for content, for revenue, at least from a revenue perspective, it's not too far behind Netflix, if not in the same category, and it's all free content and the international reach, there's a lot there, and I feel like that's stability and that longevity, there's something to be said there. [00:23:29] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, that is something that I was gonna bring up too, is just how massive and far reaching YouTube's audiences. it's, you know, one of the most global platforms and one of the top like, the platforms that have the most penetration, I guess is how we put it in the data terms of, you know, weekly active users, globally. [00:23:48] And a question that kind of comes out of that for me though is like, how much overlap there is, I guess between the YouTube audience and the YouTube shorts audience. and I don't really know the answer to that. I mean, you would think that [00:24:00] a lot of habitual YouTube users trickle down to using shorts, but I'm not sure. [00:24:06] I think YouTube is, a lot of people use, YouTube on a desktop or on a smart tv, not necessarily on the app, on their phones, which is kind of the main place for using shorts. I think Shorts has, I know actually that Shorts has, a younger user base than YouTube as a whole, which also makes sense cuz YouTube just has more users in general. [00:24:24] But that's like an open question that I have too is how much overlap there is there, because that would impact this ecosystem strategy that they have. [00:24:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's a good con to highlight and I feel like. ties into with just user behavior on the platform too. TikTok, there already is this mind thought of this is the place where I can just scroll and get lost for hours. And on YouTube, if you're using the app on the phone, it's a separate tab that you have to click into to get to shorts because they're all at the bottom, whether it's shorts or regular videos. [00:24:55] You click into shorts and then you hope that it's a similar type of experience. The [00:25:00] difference though, is that YouTube's algorithm is very YouTube overall, that algorithm is very much based, a bit more on YouTube itself is now the second largest search engine we have, and at least from a YouTube itself standpoint, there's a bit more of a likelihood of it giving you repetitive content and repetitive information of, if you've seen one thing, you've probably seen all the things from this type of niche that you're interested in. Almost in the same way that Spotify can do that, because I know that's a very streaming thing to give you so much of what you already know to keep you sticky. But sure, from video it's different especially if you're trying to optimize from an entertainment perspective. You're trying to keep up with the new trends. You're trying to see what's there. This is your opportunity to just scroll and do that. So can YouTube shorts optimized for that as well, because optimizing for that type of algorithm is different than optimizing for the destination music streaming service, especially from a consumer [00:26:00] behavior perspective. [00:26:01] Tatiana Cirisano: No, and, as you mentioned before with Vine, if you have a smaller user base, you also just don't have as much content to continue serving so that the user can scroll forever. You don't have as many niches to go into like, I think part of the reason TikTok works so well is because since it has. [00:26:16] like what does it have? Like a billion users more. since it has so many users, every possible niche is on there. So whatever hyper-specific thing you're into, TikTok can serve you the content for that. But I don't know if that's something that these other platforms maybe reels more than shorts, but I don't know if these other platforms really have access to that level of niche. [00:26:36] Dan Runcie: That's a good point. And on that note, let's talk about Facebook and Meta and everything that they're doing, both with reels on the Instagram side and reels on the Facebook side. I feel like one of the pros there that works out for them is that, it is so well monetized just from an overall business perspective, what they're able to do from ads and how they're able to generate that a bit more so on Facebook than [00:27:00] Instagram, but still they're able to monetize that quite well, and I think that that does work into their favor because at the end of the date, this is obviously less about the artist and the industry perspective, but more from the company perspective. [00:27:14] Your ability to make that have a high ROI is strong. And at least from recent reports we've heard from Mark Zuckerberg, whether it's at earnings calls or some of the Meta town Hall meetings, it does seem like reels both on Facebook and Instagram are a growing source of eyeballs. And even though that is less money now relative to the more established streams that would only naturally grow over. [00:27:37] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. you know, you're reminding me too that Facebook did roll out that ad revenue sharing program for creators. and for the music industry for rights holders, which I don't think that that's available on reels yet. I've seen some reports that it could be in the future, but, you know, that is what it seems like the music industry is trying to get TikTok to agree to. [00:27:58] so, you know, I would imagine that's a better [00:28:00] deal, you know, from the music side of things, and that's definitely important to all of us. [00:28:03] Dan Runcie: For sure. Any other pros from Instagram or Facebook? [00:28:08] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I think, they already have huge built-in user bases, which is, useful. They're kind of, they don't have to ask users to download a new app or like open a new tab the way, or I guess it's the same as YouTube shorts, but it feels a bit more built into what users already doing on the platform. [00:28:28] But that kind of also leads me to another point that I've been thinking about with this is, it's so interesting how like TikTok is an app, but on these other platforms it's a feature. Like TikTok is a standalone app for short form video, but when you go on Instagram reels, it's just another feature in the toolbox. [00:28:43] Kind of similar to how, you know, when Snapchat had stories, originally had stories, Instagram just added that as a feature and kind of stole the concept away. And it was, it worked because it was just another tool in the toolbox for its users. I don't know if that's a pro or a con, but it's an interesting [00:29:00] differentiator to me. [00:29:00] they're positioning this as just another tool. I don't know. [00:29:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think you maybe think of two things there, so I think that new features like that do work best when there is a audience that is either searching for this answer or searching for this type of solution that's already tapped in with how they consume and how they naturally engage with the platform. And I think that's been one of the differentiating factors between the copycat attempts from Facebook that work and the ones that don't work. [00:29:31] Like why I think that Instagram stories took off in a ways is because, In a way, even more so than it did for a Snapchat, is that you had this core group of people, influencers, who were already using Instagram, but there's just so much pressure to post these perfect photos on the main feed. So stories helped, co helped solve that, and it helped solve that in a way that. [00:29:54] even more so for that target audience on Instagram, because Snapchat didn't really have as many [00:30:00] influencers, at least to the same extent. Instagram still had a much larger group. So it's like that group that our, the group stole the feature bin, that feature was even more relevant cuz they had more of the target audience than you ever did. [00:30:11] That was already relevant to like, how they were going about it in a way where I feel like some of Facebook's other things like facebook dating for instance, that they've like started and I don't even know if it's still going on. But sure, you have all the active users that naturally would want to, like most of the people using Match or Tinder probably already have Facebook accounts, but that isn't like tapped into like how they naturally use the platform. [00:30:34] And I bring that up in this case because I think that reels is a behavior that is more closely aligned to the Instagram experience than shorts is to the YouTube experience because there was already a mindless nature to some extent of how Instagram was being used. Sure, I know there's differences based on to the point you mentioned earlier of people saying, Hey, I wanna see [00:31:00] my friends. [00:31:00] Not necessarily all this to other stuff, but there's still a mindlessness to seeing your friends or just scrolling through the [00:31:07] feed and. [00:31:08] Tatiana Cirisano: that's a really point. [00:31:09] Dan Runcie: And YouTube didn't really have that scrolling through the feed dynamic. Sure, the algorithm could suggest things, but the algorithm suggested things in a way that was almost closer to Spotify's algorithm suggesting things than it was to Instagram. [00:31:21] suggest you the next thing. [00:31:23] Tatiana Cirisano: That's such a good point. And it reminds me about how I was saying before, like people on Instagram will run out of stuff from their friends to look at. So maybe reels is the solution, maybe it's like going back to what you're saying about like solving a user need. Maybe it's you run out of things from your friends. [00:31:40] Here's reels where you can scroll mindlessly forever and see content from people you don't know. I don't know. That's a great point. [00:31:48] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, thank you. It's something I've thought about too, because I feel like, yeah, running outta content is clearly a thing, cuz I feel like we've all had those moments on Instagram where, we're taping this now, it's almost March. You'll see posts [00:32:00] from the end of December that come through on something and you're like, wait, what? [00:32:03] Why am I getting this now? Like this isn't even timely anymore, but it's something that went viral then. And that obviously isn't something that happens on TikTok in that same way. [00:32:11] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, you you don't get a thing on TikTok that says you're up to date. When I get that on Instagram, like , when I get that on Instagram, I'm like, that's how I know I've spent too much time on this app. It's the equivalent of Netflix going, are you still [00:32:23] Dan Runcie: Right. You still there? [00:32:25] Tatiana Cirisano: you don't get that on TikTok if you got that on TikTok, like I need, someone needs to help you. [00:32:32] That's such a good point. That's such a good point. So yeah, [00:32:35] Dan Runcie: Some of the cons, I will say just with reels, both from Facebook and with Instagram, though a lot of ads and a lot of ads, and this is part of the double-edged sword about how well it's monetized, right? But a lot of ads that I don't hear people complaining as much about ads on the other platforms. [00:32:53] Tatiana Cirisano: Mm-hmm. , that's something, I hadn't even thought about here, and you're totally right. many more ads on those platforms for sure.[00:33:00] [00:33:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah, and I think too, just given that point I mentioned about influencers being a core demographic for Instagram overall because that's been the core audience there. How does that translate necessarily as much to artists? And I know that there's some overlap there with some artists who very much position themselves as influencers. [00:33:18] But if you're an artist who really isn't about influencing in that way, is ls going to be as effective, relatively speaking, compared to some of the other short form video platforms. [00:33:29] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, and I think that also gets to the, cultures that are different on these platforms like I think similar to what you were saying about how Instagram influencers like stories because they could be more off the cuff. I think reels still has a feeling of being a bit more professional and less casual than TikTok. [00:33:47] TikTok feels a bit more casual, off the cuff weird. You don't get as much weird content on Instagram reels. It's a lot more curated and, professionalized. and it's interesting because I actually had, as one of my [00:34:00] pros to talk about something that I've just, I don't know if this is still true, but something that I've heard from marketers, music marketers in the past is that, Instagram just has more trust with brands than TikTok and other platforms that are new because they've been using it for so long. [00:34:12] they know what the deal is like. It just has, better relationships in that respect. but if that's also leading to more ads on the platform, then it's kind of a pro and a con. [00:34:21] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. That's a great point. The brand piece too, and I know that TikTok is clearly trying to do it with some of the reports they've put out some of the positioning trying to get itself to be seen as a home for brands to be able to tap in. But Instagram has owned that space for quite some time. [00:34:37] Tatiana Cirisano: Exactly. [00:34:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah, any other pros and cons on reels before we move? [00:34:42] Tatiana Cirisano: Well, I guess one other thing I'll say, this kind of applies to everything, but you've made me think during this conversation. I would love to know what percentage of people on each of these platforms are lurking versus also posting content. cuz I think that would impact our idea of like how deep the trove of content can go and how that impacts the [00:35:00] algorithm and the niches you can get into likeI sort of have a theory that because TikTok is a bit more casual and off the cuff, it might have more of a, percentage of its users are posting content. Like I've never, I don't think I would ever make a reel. It feels very influencer to me, but I would post a TikTok cuz whatever, like, it just feels a little bit more casual. [00:35:17] So I think that's an interesting question to me is what percentage are creators and what percentage are just like passive users? [00:35:25] Dan Runcie: That is a really good question. Yeah, it would be good to see that, right? Because I feel like TikTok kind of has two things going forward one, it does seem less formal from a content release perspective of just being able to share it. But on the other hand too, anytime you get into the absolute numbers of over 1 billion, approaching 2 billion monthly active users specifically on this feature of the short form, you know, For You page, it does lend itself to likelihood. [00:35:56] Each time you go outside of that like concentric circle, I feel like it's a higher [00:36:00] likelihood of attracting more lurkers than hardcore users. But it'll be great data to be able to see. That's a really good point. [00:36:06] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. We'll have to put that in a survey. [00:36:09] Dan Runcie: I know, I know. We'll have to get those answers somewhere, but so now that we've talked about each of these, TikTok is the company that is clearly in the lead, both from a reach perspective, how long it's been established with this particular platform itself, and outside of the potential government sanctions or anything there, is there anything that you could see that could change the likelihood of that continuing relative to these other two services? [00:36:34] YouTube shorts and Instagram and Facebook reels. [00:36:37] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, the thing that immediate. Comes to mind for me is it's licenses with music and its relationships with music knowing that those are negotiations that are happening as we speak. I think if TikTok were to suddenly, I guess this is the thing that they're kind of trying to test in Australia, but if TikTok were to suddenly lose a lot of popular music, what would that do to the platform? [00:36:59] [00:37:00] so I think that's the first question that comes to mind for me, just from, you know, music industry stand [00:37:06] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I hear that. I could see that I thought about this too, and I had a tough time thinking about something that could really shift things. I do wonder about, If monetization itself and revenue generation does become an issue for TikTok moving forward, how that can shape the nature of the experience of the platform, right? Because meta and Google being YouTube's parent company are both so much more established. They've been around for years generating revenue at a pretty steady clip. And while at least the way TikTok is right now, it does have the advantage of being under bite dance, which has several, you know, has a lot of money coming in as well. [00:37:49] I do wonder how profitable that will be. And obviously we saw how meta adapted to try to make money, where we're complaining about how [00:38:00] many ads there would be on the platform, could any potential changes there from the need to get more money, change that user experience in a way that could decline the user experience for this core demographic. [00:38:12] So that's definitely a risk for TikTok. [00:38:14] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. And also kind of going off that, if any of these platforms were to provide a much better way somehow for the creators on the platform to earn money from it, and then the creators were to go to that platform, that's where the audiences would be. So I think that creators actually have a lot of leverage right now, with that, because I think you can tell that all of these platforms are kind of competing to be the most sort of creator friendly, TikTok is updating, its fund, its creator fund. after getting a lot of complaints about how it was working, YouTube shorts, I think announced an ad revenue share program. So I think that could shake things up is I, I don't know what it would be, but if one of these platforms had ways superior monetization tools for the [00:39:00] creators, I could see the creators migrating there and their audience is following. [00:39:03] Dan Runcie: Right. Yep. Good point. They all have funds to some extent, but you clearly need more than money if everyone else has it too, right? Like how is it gonna be used in an effective way? So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. [00:39:16] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. But at the same time, it's like, even if another, say that another platform say that YouTube Shorts had way better monetization for creators, but it still has a smaller audience. Will creators migrate there and hope that their audiences follow them? Or do they feel like they, it's better to have the larger audience for, you know, leveraging brand deals and things that are outside of the app like. [00:39:36] Dan Runcie: True. Yeah. [00:39:37] Tatiana Cirisano: I don't know what would be the better deal. [00:39:41] Dan Runcie: Yeah, no, that's a good point because I think as we saw in the Spotify era, it was very easy for artists that didn't care about streaming and Spotify to ignore it and be very proud about them ignoring streaming back [00:39:52] Tatiana Cirisano: Exactly. Yeah. [00:39:53] Dan Runcie: 16. But all those artists are now on Spotify because they were like, can't beat 'em join them pretty much. [00:39:59] Tatiana Cirisano: [00:40:00] Right. Like will TikTok always be the place where you can't afford not to be? [00:40:04] Dan Runcie: Yep, exactly. [00:40:06] Tatiana Cirisano: I mean, not forever. that's the thing about social media. nothing stays. It's popular, I don't think forever, but you know, how long can it last? I don't know. [00:40:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah. No, we'll see. We'll see. All right, so a few, quicker questions here as we're getting to the tail line butwanna break this down for which of these platform do you think is in the strongest position for each of these groups? Artists, record labels, and, the parent company, the company itself overall. [00:40:30] So let's start with artists. Which of these companies do you think creates the most value for artists? And let me not just say companies be clear. Let me talk which short form video platform. [00:40:41] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. Well, it depends how you define value, I guess. Because if you were saying for having a hit or influencing streaming numbers? I would say TikTok getting discovered, I would say TikTok, but if you're saying for developing a [00:41:00] sustaining long-term fan base, no matter what the size is, I might say YouTube shorts because of that ecosystem that it has. [00:41:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:41:09] Tatiana Cirisano: yeah. [00:41:09] Dan Runcie: I think that's a good way to frame it cuz I TikTok down as well, just because of the absolute numbers part of the algorithm, how many people you could reach. But I think that your per user approach or even the ability to do conversion of actual fandom. YouTube probably has a bit more tight in there. [00:41:27] It's kind of like a short term versus long term [00:41:29] Yeah, definitely. And it's like, okay, do you want this absolute number or do you want who you're most actually able to have as a real super fan down the road? [00:41:39] Yeah.What about record labels? [00:41:40] Tatiana Cirisano: That's a good one. Because I mean, we know that by far, YouTube as a whole is generating more for the music industry for record labels than any of these platforms. But when it comes to shorts, I'm not so sure it might be TikTok [00:41:56] Dan Runcie: Yeah, [00:41:56] Tatiana Cirisano: in terms of the bottom, [00:41:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's tough. I was stuck [00:42:00] on that one too. I think my answer still leaned YouTube, but that's probably thinking about, A the overall tie in and the clear [00:42:07] connection to have it feed into the broader video platform, but then also what it seems like Leo's goals to make that be a clear thing. [00:42:16] So that was the thought there. And then most value it created for its parent company. Which one would I be saying. [00:42:24] Tatiana Cirisano: okay, so we have TikTok bite Dance, YouTube, Google, Instagram, Facebook. that's a really good, that's a tough one. [00:42:32] Dan Runcie: I went with meta for this one because I [00:42:34] Tatiana Cirisano: That's where I was leaning. That's where I was [00:42:36] Dan Runcie: it's. , I think it's the most well monetized, at least from what a social media user is able to do and what they're able to generate from a sole Facebook user on average is so much higher than any of these other platforms. And the fact that this could potentially be a funnel into that is strong. [00:42:55] And I know a lot of people may roll their eyes, if you're a certain generation the thought of a [00:43:00] Facebook reel even as opposed to an Instagram reel. But there's an audience for it and there's a reason why it's there. And that may not line up with contemporary artists, but that may line up with some, you know, other established artists that are clearly trying to reach that base. [00:43:12] So I feel like there's something there. [00:43:14] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, I think that makes sense. That's where I was leaning to. These are good questions. [00:43:18] Dan Runcie: And then I just to close things out, we talked a little bit about this earlier. Well, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but will there be a new form of consumption, content consumption that could take over as the place for music discovery and its top of funnel in the next five years? [00:43:35] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, that's a great question. What did I touch on earlier that related to. [00:43:39] Dan Runcie: You were mentioning that there's a new social media platform like every few years that like comes through. So even though TikTok is in like a [00:43:46] Tatiana Cirisano: yeah. [00:43:46] Dan Runcie: today, we don't know what it's gonna look like in the future. [00:43:49] Tatiana Cirisano: So I have a couple answers to this. One thing that I've been really, it's so funny, every time we do this, I always have a timely report coming out on the topic. I don't know how you have like [00:44:00] this somehow, this telepathy to know this, but I was wor I'm working on this report right now that's very related, which is about how potentially the next step for all of this, for music and social media could be, not only are you opening TikTok and adding, you know, a Taylor Swift song to your post, but you're also remixing the song, or you're adding your own vocals or you're actually changing it. So going a step further in what I was saying about, users engaging, creating their own spin on the music that they're fans of, they would be actually changing the song as well. [00:44:33] Dan Runcie: you wrote about this recently, right? About like [00:44:35] Tatiana Cirisano: yeah. [00:44:36] Dan Runcie: and like, and music having its Instagram moment. [00:44:38] Tatiana Cirisano: Yes, exactly. So the same way that Instagram brought kind of mainstream photography tools to the average consumer, and TikTok did the same thing with videography. when will music be part of that? When will music making and recreation tools actually be part of these platforms? And when I've talked to people who know way more about this than I do, and said, you know, why hasn't [00:45:00] this happened? [00:45:00] A lot of it is about how hard it is to simplify music making into a mobile screen, let alone like, put it on top of a social app. and that's why, you know, I had the AI tie into my blog post is because, there are companies that are using AI to simplify that process and make this possible. So like Snapchat is a company that is like semi-related to short form video that we haven't talked about, and they have an integration right now with a company called Mini Beats, where you can remix the song that you're putting on your post. so I think that's not necessarily like, it's not a new platform, but it's a new way of consuming like I think creation as a form of consumption is like probably the next step. [00:45:44] Dan Runcie: And that ends up being the catalyst for how so many of these platforms grow. We talked about TikTok and just how it was able to attract this group of music in some way was the backbone for user generated content. And then it just attracted so much, and everyone's talked about what AI looks [00:46:00] like, I was watching some video the other day about some guy that looked and sounded nothing like Kendrick Lamar had this voice alteration thing that made him sound just like him. [00:46:09] And while it's not quite AI, I think there's a lot of elements there. So whoever taps that and then that can then be the launchpad for the next thing. Something like that could easily overtake and become the next dominant social media player. But we'll see. It'll take a couple years to get to 1.5 billion [00:46:26] Tatiana Cirisano: Probably more than five. [00:46:28] Dan Runcie: probably five. [00:46:29] Tatiana Cirisano: probably more than five just because of licensing really. But, I mean, I think the interesting thing to note there is this type of behavior is kind of already happening like I notice a lot of with sped up songs and how the music industry actually adopted that after sped up clips were going viral on TikTok, like users are already modifying the songs and then uploading those modified versions. [00:46:49] So imagine if that capability was actually part of the platform itself. [00:46:52] Dan Runcie: Right, right. It's like everyone saw DJ Screw make a, you know, huge influence with this for this chopped and screwed music. [00:47:00] So it's only about time that you make it easy to make that accessible for users. [00:47:04] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah. So we'll see. [00:47:05] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So we'll see. But Tati, pleasure as always. Thanks for coming on and yeah, we'll definitely have to stay tapped in with what you have coming up next on this topic. [00:47:14] So relevant to this discussion. [00:47:15] Tatiana Cirisano: Yeah, thanks for having me again. Always a pleasure. [00:47:18] | |||
| 06 Aug 2021 | Anthony Martini on Royalty Exchange, Music Royalties, NFTs, and Managing Lil Dicky and Tyga | 00:46:29 | |
Just last March, Anthony Martini became the CEO of Royalty Exchange, a marketplace where buyers and sellers can trade music, rights, and copyright. He explains how royalties can benefit middle and lower-tier creatives in this economy of hit records, highlighting what Royalty Exchange is capable of as a platform. He then talks about the practical applications of NFTs. He also weighs in on what he has learned as a former artist, an artist manager, and the founder of an independent record label. Whether you’re a musician looking for funding or an investor searching for an asset to park your money in, this is the episode for you! Episode Highlights [03:50] The opportunities in selling music catalogs and publishing [06:48] How Royalty Exchange has grown and what it has to offer as a platform compared to other investment funds [10:08] About multiples, the “dollar age” metric, and why music royalties are attractive assets [14:40] Anthony’s insights on hip-hop from a streaming perspective [17:18] The advantages of getting into the NFT market and the importance of really collaborating with artists [22:32] On the legal feud between Roc-A-Fella co-founders Damon Dash and Jay-Z [29:55] On setting up deals with digital distributors, artists, Youtubers, and Twitch streamers [36:36] What it was like to work with big record labels, manage Lil Dicky and Tyga, and founding Commission Records Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Anthony Martini, @realantmoney, Royalty Exchange Links: Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. | |||