Trapital

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 movieListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Roy Wood Jr., @roywoodjr 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] Roy Wood Jr.: You can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe, you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup? Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour.  [00:00:36] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Roy Wood Jr. This is his second time back on the podcast. The first time we recorded a podcast was back in the middle of 2020, middle of the pandemic. And we talked a lot about how the closure of comedy clubs and the closure of everything was affecting his life as a comedian and what he saw the world would be like on the other side of the pandemic. And now we're starting to be here, so it was a great opportunity to check in, hear how things are going for him. And we talked a lot about how the past couple of years have reshaped his perspective on the type of message that he wants to be able to. What are the best venues to do that and how he might change his approach up a little bit in the next few years. We also talked about streaming and what it's been like from his perspective as someone that is acting in movies, acting in TV shows, writing and producing shows as well, and how it's been like navigating these streaming networks, what their goals and incentives are. What his goals and incentives are and what he has seen from others in this space. We also talked about his upcoming movie Confess, Fletch. It's out in theaters on September 16th. It stars Jon Hamm. This is a reboot of the classic Chevy Chase Fletch movies from the eighties. So we talked about what to expect there, what he's excited about and more. Roy's good people, man, plain and simple. If you listen to the last conversation that him and I had, you know that if you've watched anything he's ever done on The Daily Show, ever seen him perform standup, you know that as well. Here's our conversation. Hope you enjoy it.[00:02:30] Dan Runcie: All right. We are joined today by a return guest to the Trapital podcast, the one, the only, Roy Wood Jr. How are you doing man? [00:02:38] Roy Wood Jr.: You're back. I'm back. You're welcome. You're all welcome. I apologize in advance for my voice. There's things that happened this week that I did not plan on happening. And this is the result. It was either this or cancel, and I didn't want to cancel it. [00:02:54] Dan Runcie: No, I appreciate you. Hey, it's either this, or, you know, this is part of getting back on the road, right, 'cause I feel like the last time we talked, we were talking about what the other side of this whole pandemic was going to look like and what it was going to be like for comics returning to the stage. And now you're in it. What has it been like to return to the stage and with everything? [00:03:15] Roy Wood Jr.: What's wild is that I can't tell you too much. You know in 2022 I've only done four or five road gigs. Most of my gigs this year were COVID makeup dates from '21. So I've been blessed enough to be able to, you know, have a podcast that I'm able to do for myself, and sell a couple of scripts, and just create other revenue streams for myself, when the pressure to go back out on the road wasn't there. Also, creatively, I'm just in a different spot, bro. And I know that the stuff that I want to talk about, I don't know if the comedy club is the right place. It's part of the process creatively, but I just haven't been in a rush to get back out to figure it out yet, you know? It's been a really weird year for me in that the thing that I've done for 23 years is the thing that I did the least this year. And you know, that part of it's been really odd. It seems like the clubs are doing well though. You know, I still talk to a lot of comedians that are in the clubs because I'm still kind of that on the outside looking in. So I see all the comics who are touring, there's guys who I didn't know were headliners yet, but apparently, they are now. They're out there, they're doing their thing as well. So, you know, I'd say, all in all, it seems like the comedy club model got through it okay. But I don't know how sustainable it is as an entertainer to continue to be a part of this standup comedy model. You know, a lot of these new cats, you know, they're finding their own venues and they're figuring out their own way through the internet to get shit popping for themselves. But, you know, I will say this about standup. Since the shutdown, this idea of having one magical five-minute set on late night, and that being the thing that definitively becomes the new pivot point in your career, the likelihood of that happening is definitely less and less as the years go by.[00:05:09] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I could only imagine how big of a life change it is for you. I remember you saying in the past, from when you started this once out of every 10 days, you were doing something on the road, right? Whether it was a standup show or something, and for you to be doing this completely different now, and just thinking about what the adapting is a complete life change, let alone anything on the business side of things.[00:05:32] Roy Wood Jr.: Until the shutdown, until a federally mandated government shutdown, from 1998, I'd never gone more than 10 days without performing, period. [00:05:41] Dan Runcie: It's huge. [00:05:43] Roy Wood Jr.: And I've gone months. I look forward to it for months at a time. I don't have another gig right now. And I have a corporate gig in three months and I'm like, perfect, perfect because it gives me the time, it gives your brain the time to settle. I can only imagine, you know, when you look at guys like Chris Rock, who have said, you know, you need time to go away and live and see the world and experience things and have something to come back and report on. I understand that now.[00:06:13] Dan Runcie: You also mentioned too, that there's material that you want to talk about, topics that you want to discuss that the stage may not be the best place for that. What are the things you want to discuss and why isn't the stage the best format? [00:06:27] Roy Wood Jr.: It's not the stage it's comedy club specifically. Like, alright, so I did Finding Your Roots over the shutdown and found out a lot of new truths about my father and, you know, some stuff on my mother's side, but as a father, myself, I often feel this attachment to my dad and then looking at how my father lost his dad when he was four. My granddaddy was gone when my dad was four. So when I think about that type of stuff, how that will inform the type of man that I will be to my son, and just family, and bonds, and the men who raise me in my father's absence. And there's jokes and there's stories, but as I figure out what the heart of the story is first before I make it funny, I don't know if the comedy club is always the right place for that because the comedy club, motherfucker, we want the jokes. I've been drinking. Me and my wife got dressed. I came here to be happy. You up there talking about your dead daddy and trying to figure out what that means for your son, motherfucker, I don't want to hear all that shit without jokes. So I think there's a place to go and develop that, you know, New York has a lot of different places, but also I think it's important for me to do my standup in venues other than comedy clubs because I think that sometimes, depending on the venue, you know, jazz club or black box, little theater or some improv house, I believe it changes how the material is received. You know, it changes how people listen to you sometimes. This is a terrible analogy and it's not going to be a perfect analogy, but it's like how food tastes better in church. You know, like when your grandma will pull a peppermint out of her purse, and she gave you that peppermint in the middle of a long ass church service, and that peppermint tasted like a pizza hu meat lovers. Like, it was just an amazing, so where we are sometimes can change the experience and the connection to the material. And so as I start mining this material, I'm going to have to figure out the best places to put it all together 'cause I feel like I'm teetering into some one-person show territory. And, you know, every comedian that I know that did a one-man show, you know, they didn't build it in a comedy club. You can sure present it at a comedy club, but you cannot build it there. That's why I've been meaning to talk to Jerrod to figure out where he built up Rothaniel 'cause, you know, that one was definitely a blend of the two skill sets. [00:08:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That's a good example of it. Just how he was able to be so raw, be so personal and different than anything he had done before leading up to this. I got to imagine, too, that part of this may also be linked with just the evolution of comedy and some of the other topics you've talked about recently and how people, especially nowadays, are looking for comedians to be truthsayers or they're also looking for them to be the ones that can tell them certain messages and how there's some people that believe that should be the case, but there's others that, I know you said this before, that it shouldn't necessarily be that way. So I feel like there's some of that that could also be potentially in line with some of the broader feeling about what is the best message to communicate where. [00:09:39] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. And I think once you figure that out as a performer, the people will come find you. You know, I don't really think it matters where you go once people love you, they will follow you to wherever, you know, so I think that's it. They went to a farm to see Chappelle. So you can come up with different venues, you know, once you have the ideas that are worth hearing. So it's my job first to get the ideas together.[00:10:02] Dan Runcie: Right, yeah. There's something about that comedy club setting, like you said. You're going with your significant other, you got the two-drink minimum. No, like I'm trying to get these laughs out that just doesn't, that works there. That doesn't necessarily translate elsewhere that could obviously work to your benefit going elsewhere. [00:10:18] Roy Wood Jr.: You can get deep in a comedy club, but you really have to stack the show properly. The people have to know who they're coming to see. And I'm still a comedian where, you know, with The Daily Show, unfortunately, this is a lot of people's first discovery point for me. So you don't know the previous 15, 16 years before I got with Trevor. So, you know, even those people come to a show and they want me to be a little more political than what I am on this show. And I'm like, sorry, that's not who I am. That's not what I do. So even within the construct of just regular standup, they still want something more specific. So, you know, it's about just figuring out, you know, the right places for that. But if you put that person in a setting they've never been to before, well, now you don't know what to expect. And I just think it just changes how you see and analyze things a little bit. You know, I'm going to try to experiment with, you know, different venues in '23.[00:11:15] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. You mentioned the politics piece of it, too, and just , given what you and Trevor are doing on The Daily Show, people coming to you for that. But I assume part of it also is channeling back to that truthsayer thing and seeing some of the things that Chappelle and others have talked about. Do you think that the way the current climate is that when people are expecting you to speak on these things, do you think that this changes and continues to evolve, or do you feel like this is kind of the place that things are right now? [00:11:45] Roy Wood Jr.: I don't think that the role of comedian has changed. I think that the expectations of a comedian have changed. Some for the better some for the worse, but I can't think of any one standup comedian that I know that is, like, set and looked themselves in the mirror, okay, today these jokes are going to change everyone's and change the world. You know, comics are more outspoken. Comics are more, you know, quicker to say what they feel on stage, especially the young ones, which is good. But I don't feel like when people say this climate, the climate is about the people reacting to what the comedian said, but most of these comedians that people get mad at, they've been saying shit like this for a long as time. But they're groups of people that have decided, you know what? I want to hear that shit no more. So they got something to say and they got a right to that. But I think at the end of the day, I don't think comedians have changed. I mean, Louis C.K. Back, he's cooking. Chappelle got another three special re-up from Netflix after all of the outrage or whatever. So that should show you where the corporations stand. And for as long as you are an entertainer that has an audience of some sort, you know, they're going to find a place for you regardless of whether or not that pisses off another group of people. You know, that's just kind of where we've always existed as a society. It's capitalism, baby. [00:13:10] Dan Runcie: Does part of you see someone like, let's take Chappelle, 'cause you had mentioned him, him still getting these deals even after the backlash or even after the response. Does some of that almost feel like, okay, we're not necessarily just responding to what people may get mad at, there's still clearly an opportunity or there's still people that want to hear what we have to say, even if the expectations from our viewers have changed? [00:13:35] Roy Wood Jr.: I think that as a society, you know, it is very difficult to place the expectation of morality and profit on a corporation. Most corporations have to choose between one or the other. And when I say profitability, you know, we're talking gross levels of profitability. I don't think many companies care to a certain degree about people in general. You know, this is bigger than just entertainment and whether or not you can say something that pisses off a group of people. Delta Airlines just started paying their flight attendants for when the plane doors open and they're boarding passengers. It's nothing moral. There's nothing moral about that, but it's definitely profitable. And only when it became embarrassing, which is not profitable, that they become a company with morals. If you can't attach profitability to morality, more often than not, you're not going to find a corporation that's going to make moves like that. I'm not surprised that Netflix gave Chappelle more specials for the amount of people that were mad at it, clearly, somebody was watching it and this is Netflix. Netflix cancels shit while you are in the middle of watching the episode. The second episode of a 10-episode show will come out and Netflix about, yes, cancel. What? Damn, can I finish? Season one? Nah, we've already looked at the metrics of the first episode that tells us everything we need to know. So, you know, that's a company that, you know, like people say that, oh, it's a FU to the LGBTQI community. It's definitely a slight to them for them to rebook Chappelle after they had said what they said and everybody had protested, whatever, whatever. But also Netflix is a company and that's about profit, which means somebody was watching Chappelle. And that's all they care about. That's all most companies care about is eyeballs. So, you know, unless you're getting into just straight-up criminalistic behavior of someone, morality versus profit is always going to be a tug of war that most corporations, they just do not have the heart that people do.[00:15:34] Dan Runcie: That's real. That's real. I mean, and even thinking about Chappelle specifically, because of how Netflix tracks the performance, a lot of the backlash likely helps those episodes because you have some that are tuning in because they want to hear what he has to say. But you have others tuning in because now they want to see or hear what he said that is causing all of these headlines.[00:15:55] Roy Wood Jr.: And that's all Netflix cares about. So the surprise on the backside is that can you believe this company didn't care? Yes, I can absolutely believe this company didn't care because more often than not most companies don't care. And that goes into women's rights, that goes into race, and George Floyd, and every company putting up black lives matter, whatever the fuck on the top of their website, and black squares and Instagram. So, you know, when it comes to a bevy of social, it is just, you know, it's interesting because corporations are now rocking a heart because now being moral. if it's profitable and cool, they'll jump on board. But if it's not, they're kind of like, eh, we'll see.[00:16:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. You've experienced this, you've worked with a number of these networks and seen the decisions that you've made. How has this impacted you at all with any of the partnerships you've made? I know you have the deal with Comedy Central that you've had. I know you had a special that came out with them, but we'll talk about that in a second. But how has that been with regards to you, and your specials, and your content, and how that works for you, both with the things that you want to do with the networks, and how you're able to still produce and create? [00:17:05] Roy Wood Jr.: You know, from the standup side, you know, it's fine. We're Comedy Central. You know, we had a, I call it The Trilogy. I had my first three-hour specials with Comedy Central and they were good. And now, as I think about what that next block of content will be, you know, we'll figure out where that's supposed to go once I figure out creatively, what the fuck it's going to be? But, you know, on the scripted side and selling scripts, I've been very blessed to have opportunities to sell stuff, not just the Comedy Central, but you know, Fox and NBC in the last couple of years and HBO Max as well. but the thing is that it's very difficult to predict how COVID is going to affect a network's creative strategy when it comes to scripted, you know. Like scripted is, that's where the glory is. That's where the fun is, right? But, you know, I had one script, Jefferson County: Probation. Aaron Magruder was my, you know, executive producer and co-creator on it. And as soon as we got the script together and shot the pilot, there was a merger between Viacom and CBS and they changed their strategy. And then right after that COVID hit and they changed their strategy again. And at both of those mile markers, scripted shows were the first things to get cut from the budget because they're the most expensive. So the pressure to be profitable fast or to have a cultural impact fast is greater now on the content that, you know, that we have because the thing that I don't like about Netflix is that what streaming has removed from our zeitgeist is the concept of a cult hit. You know, like a cult hit TV show. Cult is just a nice way of saying underground and not a lot of people watch it, but the ones who watch it really, really love it. But there are shows that sometimes do not pop until season three. Sometimes season four and it takes people a while to get on board, but then you have a network that has creative execs who want to stay in that pocket. And now we believe in this show. We're going to give it another season, give it another season, give it another season. This don't happen with black shows. I'm talking about Arrested Development and you know, shit like that. And maybe The Wire, if you want to count that as a cult hit. But I feel like The Wire was more by the time they got to season four, everybody was on board, but at that point, HBO was like, wrap it up. Streaming, the analytics that are attached to streaming companies deciding whether or not a scripted show lives or dies has eliminated the ability for certain shows to germinate over a year or two, and really have an opportunity to find their audience, get the word of mouth. Everything is now, now, now. And so because of that, you know, where scripted is concerned, you have to have an idea that pops now, that sails, now that gets on TV now. And if you're really lucky, it also touches the vein of what is happening in the now. That's why Abbott Elementary is what it is. You have a great creator. You have a great writer. It's well cast, it's shot beautifully, it's funny, but also educators are at the forefront of a lot of the bullshit that's been going on the last two years. It's perfectly on the pulse. It's perfectly on the pulse. So, you know, word of mouth isn't enough. You also have to have the numbers. And so, you know, I'd say that for me, when it comes to coming up with scripted content, you almost have to find something that lives. You have to have the idea that lives at multiple intersections, because if it's just a fun, cool, nice idea. That might not be enough anymore. That's 2015 ideology. [00:20:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The closest thing that seems like it's comparable to that cult classic of discovering it seasons later is when something gets picked up from a smaller network and then gets put on one of these big streamers. For instance, I'm thinking about South Side. Season Two. It's on HBO Max. And I think that made a lot of people that weren't watching South Side Season One discover it. [00:20:57] Roy Wood Jr.: Correct. Like, there's a show that was on in Canada that came over to Netflix called Kim's Convenience and that was a fucking hilarious sitcom that somebody like me, I would've never discovered had it not come over to, but it had to live over in Canada for two years. But you need execs who care about the IP and care about the idea. And a lot of these execs are under the same pressure as the creatives. You better be bringing this studio, some hit shows and you better be signing and buying scripts from the best creators 'cause if you aren't and we don't have a hit, if we're not getting nominations, and we're not getting talked about it's your ass, too. So if you have an exec that is betting on a show, that's just has midling numbers versus just canceling it, and bringing in something new, there's also job security in that for them as well. And I think that's why, you know, to a degree, you know, you don't see shows that get an opportunity to build and grow their audience, either you a hit out the gate or you got a target on your back. [00:21:57] Dan Runcie: The other challenging thing about this is knowing what those numbers are and whether or not the streaming services are sharing them with you. From your perspective as someone that is doing the scripts, selling shows, do you feel like you're getting any true quantitative aspect to be able to compare and say, okay, I see what I would've been able to hit or what the target is or how that compares, 'cause that's the piece that feels so non-transparent at all right now.[00:22:26] Roy Wood Jr.: That part of the game is still above my pay grade because I haven't gotten anything that's gone to series. I've sold a bunch of scripts that have all gone to pilot and most have gone to pilot at least. But even with the stuff over at Comedy Central, you know, we're on basic cable. So it's Nielsen. So, you know, that's more above board than companies giving their streaming numbers. But I wouldn't even be able to speak to that, unfortunately. I hope to be able to one day, but not today. [00:22:51] Dan Runcie: Yeah. There was some interview I had seen it was Steven Soderbergh or someone like that. And he was like, I have no idea how well these movies do. They literally just tell me, yes, this was good. You can make another one or no, we're all set. Thanks. And he's just like, okay, then that's when he decides to make another movie. [00:23:08] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, that part of it, yeah, you are totally flying blind as a creator. You know, at some point there's going to have to be some equity in this, but, hey, sooner or later, all of these streaming sites are just going to keep merging and folding into one another. It's like airlines in the eighties. Go Google up how many different airline carriers we had in the eighties. And then here we are now with United, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, and, what, American. Spirit and JetBlue emerging. So, okay, so you'll have, what, four or five major carriers? In the eighties, there was like, well, over 30. I could Google it real quick, but I know for sure I can name 15 airline companies from the eighties and I bet you the numbers are higher than that. [00:23:50] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's that whole industry. Even the big ones have done so many consolidations, even in the past 20, 25 years, they've done a bunch. It's been wild. [00:23:59] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. My point is that all those streamers are going to eventually all keep folding into each other and it's going to be basic cable all over again. [00:24:05] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. And I think, too, even how they're making decisions is starting to stand out. I'm sure you saw the Batgirl news when the movie's done, they just decide not to run that thing and just put it as a write-off. That's not going to be the last time that happens. [00:24:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. It's literally cheaper to not release this because the landscape keeps changing, bro. My heart goes out to that whole team. They are crushed about that. You know, as they should, but you work hard on a film, spend 90 million, at least you could do is put it out. But, you know, I just think that, you know, corporations like it's, again, it's profit. The right thing to do would've been to release the Batgirl film, but if projections and analytics have already told you that this film more than likely will underperform in the top tier markets where we need it to perform above money, profitability, it ain't profitable. Morality ain't profitable, man. So fuck them folks. We ain't going to release the film. Oh, but we should, they worked really hard. It's a black woman get to be black. We don't give a fuck. Cancel it. That's how a lot of places think, man. And you know, as they say, the game is the game, but that don't make it right. That don't make it hurt less. I just think that that's where a lot of companies are coming from, you know. They want bankable stars or an idea that's high concept and easy and quick and catches on. I still think that, you know, when you look at a show like Squid Game, which was such a breakout, you know, hit for Netflix, I think that the new superstar is the ensemble. You know, if you can't get a single star to carry your thing, then you need a great idea with a bunch of people nobody knows anything about. And then that's how you get people to invest, get people to invest in the concept and not the face.[00:25:47] Dan Runcie: Interesting. I can see that because I feel like there's so many big-name movies that you see on Netflix and they have all of these actors that you would consider to be A-list, but they come and go. But yeah, the magic of Squid Game is that it didn't have that, but it had this fascinating topic that people just wanted to have more and more of. It created a bunch of memes. And I'm sure not only they're trying to create a sequel, they're trying feel like, okay, what is the next thing like that that's going to take off. And sometimes it's random. I mean, I don't know if people thought that Queen's Gambit was going to take off the way that it did or any of those things. I feel like Netflix, especially, it feels like it could be very, you know, we'll see what happens.[00:26:27] Roy Wood Jr.: I mean, when you look at shows that have sustainability and have expanded their universes, like Power, there isn't a single actor in Power that is such a behemoth. Like, and I don't say that as a slight, it's an extremely talented cast of wonderful A-list actors. But when you look at how they try to anchor a show around one person, where Power is, it's always been a universe of people all working together. Of course, you have Mary J and Method Man in it, but it's not Mary J and Method Man alone to, it's not Joseph Sikora alone. Abbott is an ensemble cast. It's not a singular person. And so I think that concept will, I don't know, man. Why do you think people get so excited when Idris Elba comes back to do another round of Luther? It's 'cause, oh, my God, it's him. You get Idris every scene being badass, but he's busy, he's got movies to do and stuff. So I just think creatively, we're probably in a world where, you know, by and large, I feel like we'll just see more and more, you know, larger groups of people unless you have a network willing to pour millions of dollars into one person. You know, I don't know.[00:27:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think, too, we talked a little bit about how this is part of the evolution. Part of it, too, they want to have something that's quick to capture people's attention. And I think some of this has impacted how comics, and you as well, have talked about how it may approach your shows and how you're delivering certain information. And I know you've talked a lot about both the balance of having the timely topics, of talking about something that's current versus having those evergreen things that you need to, or you want to be able to tap into. And I feel like, you know, why actually Imperfect Messenger, you did a good job of that with just being able to balance things, you know, whether you're talking about current topics or just evergreen things. How conscious is that when you're thinking about the topics that you want to cover in a special?[00:28:22] Roy Wood Jr.: Well, for Imperfect Messenger, my comedic philosophy up until now, it has changed now 'cause I want to talk about myself and not the world. But the creative excavation process of a joke for me boils down to what is everybody saying about this topic. And is there anything new I can say? And if the answer is yes, then I continue down that road of exploration and then I put that joke on stage and then the best jokes win. As I like to call it, those are the jokes that make the 25-man roster, like baseball. Like, these are the start. 12- man, if you want to go basketball. So, you know, if the argument is A and B, is there a C side to it that I can introduce? Like if you look at my second special, No One Loves You, where I talk about the national anthem and the debate at the time with Kaepernick was should people stand for the anthem or should you take a knee? And my angle was why is that song the anthem? That song sucks. And then an exploration into what songs could replace it. What, if you won't stand for that song, is there a song that people would stand for? And so that's kind of my approach, you know, to a lot of this. You know, and if we're going to talk about Imperfect Messenger and we talk about policing and, you know, the issues that lie in policing in America now. Okay, fine. It's going to take bureaucracy and a lot of bullshit to try and get that changed. But in the meantime, in the interim, what are the small things cops could do to help? And then the joke is just essentially, a run of those things. You know, every now and then just let a black person, someone who should have gone to jail, let them go. If there's Stop Talking in Code on the radio, I forget my material. Like, literally the night I do a special, that material just turns into Thanos dust in my brain. But for me. That's how I've always tried to approach standup and my material rather than just arguing from the conventional positions that have already been presented to everybody because if nothing more, I want you to leave with a different perspective. I'm not trying to be right or wrong. I am just trying to make sure that you get something that you hadn't considered. [00:30:26] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I always got that impression. I feel like that's a good example. I also think about, from Imperfect Messenger, your piece about Leonardo DiCaprio and Django Unchained and even though that movie, you know, I think like eight years ago at that point, still everyone knows exactly who you're talking about. It's timely. It's not dated in this way of a comedian still referencing, you know, pop culture from the nineties, but you have it. And you're able to weave that in with everything that's happening. And I feel like even though that was a movie that was a few years older, you're still relating it to all the topics we're talking about now, like allyship and all those things. So I feel like people may not see the subtleties, but when you really break it down, you can see how much goes into constructing a good joke.[00:31:08] Roy Wood Jr.: I appreciate that, man, 'cause you get paranoid about that type of stuff, 'cause you don't want to be dated, but are there evergreen examples of a point that I'm trying to make that could help me parallel and boil this down, you know, a little bit more? You know, that special was also very interesting because the story that I told near the end about a childhood friend that's in prison for the murder of a person I know, but, you know, he was the getaway driver. You know, like that was a joke. He was a getaway driver in a robbery that turned into a murder is what actually happened in real life. And so he never went in the store, but in Alabama, the law is set up where everybody gets the murder charge. If a murder happens while your crime is being committed. And that joke was set up in a way where it was really about him and the sentencing and how it's all messed up and blah, blah, blah. But you know, there's part of me that's, you know, I love Birmingham. I love Birmingham, Alabama. I love the people there. And I've tried, you know, for the entirety of my career since 2001, when I came home and started at the radio station and started doing stuff in the community with the radio station. I've always tried to be a person that's of the community. And so that joke carries a different level of responsibility when I'm home because everyone remembers that murder. Everyone remembers Mr. Muhammad being murdered at the Music-N-More store and that man was a pillar of the community. So if I'm going to speak on his legacy, there's got to be balance to that. And you know what. I probably should reach out to his family before I put this on national television. And so when I did that and I had a conversation with his son, it completely shifted what that joke was and it made it the right version of what that joke needed to be. And that's the thing that I really enjoy. And it's part of really what's triggered so much more of where I am now creatively because that just wasn't an A, B, and C observation. This was a legitimate issue that I was having within myself of feeling like my friend should not be in prison for the rest of his life for being an accomplice, but also feeling empathy for the family, because I knew them. Like, they carry my CD and I'll spare the story here, but in the special, you know, I tell the story of my relationship with this store as an independent music artist, like this store supported local rappers and, like, they help people kickstart their career. So it's not as cut and dry. So when you look at a law, like, the one that Alabama has set up and then you start talking to the victims, then you start understanding why these laws are in place. And so that will always be my favorite joke isn't the word, but it's definitely the most honest joke that I've told on television to this point. [00:34:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Well, definitely link it to this one to make sure that people can see it, that or listening to this episode right now and just bringing it all full circle. I can see how this is informing the type of content or the type of message that you want to be able to push forward, whether you're telling it in a different setting, whether you're finding new ways to tell it, it has been really cool to see how so many of our favorite comedians have been able to find new ways to be able to share different messages or even things that they may have to give a little piece of and seen that that's where they want to move more into for the next stage of their career. So I'm excited for that. [00:34:43] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, it's going to be fun. You know, it's going to be fun, talking more about my father, my relationship with him talking about, you know, raising my own child. My son is six. So you know, that is definitely a new and scary place to be as a parent. But yeah, yeah, I'm excited about what's down the road, but I'm just not in a position anymore where I feel like I need to rush. You know, I was very blessed, but also probably very crazy. I put out three one-hour specials over the span of five years. That's a pretty healthy clip, you know? So I feel like I should go sit my ass down somewhere for a second and really think about, you know, what it is I want to say and what I'm trying to do. [00:35:24] Dan Runcie: What's your son's relationship with your comedy? Is it something that he goes and checks back in looking back at old clips, just to see the history of where you came to things, or is he not allowed to look at all that just yet?[00:35:37] Roy Wood Jr.: He might catch me on the couch every blue moon watching old episodes of The Daily Show. Like, I binge our show every week, 'cause I don't get to always watch it every night 'cause of whatever's going on. So he may pop in and see me on television. Like, if you ask my son what his father does for a living, he'll say my dad works on TV and he's a comedian. Like, he knows that much. He's been with me to sound checks early in the afternoon for, you know, theater shows and stuff. But the idea of bringing him around this and exposing him to it for the sake of this is what you're going to do, this's a family business. Nah, not really. I'd like for him to see some of the cameramen and the editors and the computer stuff. I don't think my son will be a comedian because he has two loving parents, which is already the worst thing that could happen to a comedian. To be a good comedian, you can't have both of your parents love you. What trauma you got? We want to know what's wrong with you. [00:36:32] Dan Runcie: Right. What is the source of the comedy then?[00:36:35] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, so we're trying to raise him as pain-free as possible. So I think that's going to make him ineligible for most comedy clubs. [00:36:41] Dan Runcie: maybe he'll go back and look at the old stuff. He'll go back to that. You know, the Last Comic Standing run, then he'll come back to see, okay, all right. I can see this trajectory here. I can see what dad's been up to. [00:36:52] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. I mean, he's funny. He has a sense of humor. He's cognizant of that, but it's not something I encourage or discourage. It's just, you know, whatever you feel like doing today, bro. Then that's what you're going to do. Like right now he's into the BattleBots. So let's watch and do things that are related to mechanics and STEM and see where that goes.[00:37:10] Dan Runcie: I'm hearing a lot from you in this conversation that talks a lot about both mentorship and the relationship that you have with others in your life, especially family members and important figures. And I know that from a comedian perspective, Dick Gregory was an important person in your life. And you had referenced in a past interview life-changing conversation you had had with him and it would be great to hear a little bit more about what that conversation was like and how that changed, how you ended up approaching comedy. [00:37:39] Roy Wood Jr.: I only saw Dick Gregory, I only opened for him twice. And the first time was in Selma at the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. It was a banquet that he and Jesse Jackson were speaking at. And then the other time was in, I opened for him proper in a comedy club in Zanies in Nashville. And he said something that just always resonated with me. You know, I'm butchering the quote, but he said people always ask me, Dick, why you always on the road? Why are you always out of town? And I said, because the battle for justice ain't at my house. And so that always stuck with me in terms of his tenacity right up till the end. You know, he died the way that, that every comedian wants to die and that's with dates on the books. I think it's the biggest compliment that, you know, any comedian can have is to die with still having more work and gigs scheduled because you got to get the message out there. You got to make people laugh. You got to try to heal people. In Dick Gregory's case, you know, he was doing things that were far above and beyond just telling a couple of shuck and jive jokes about police reform. This man was out there really doing the work, you know, concurrent. This man would have had a full itinerary all day and then go do two shows on a Friday night. It's not like he was just posted up in the hotel, watching Maury Povich till 7:30. So, you know, when I look at his career and everything that he did, that was a beautiful thing to see. It was a beautiful thing to see a dude knocking on 80 that was just at a comedy club on a Friday night, and it's 350 people ready to pay him and ready to hear what he has to say. And to be able to still say things that are resonant and that are on the pulse of what people are feeling, you can be funny, you can get away with being funny for a little while, but true career longevity as a comedian, I believe you have to make people feel, you have to give them an emotion. Sooner or later they have to leave feeling a certain way. It's not just a matter of the tactile Xs and Os of did they laugh at the setup Did they laugh at the punchline? Okay, next joke. It's what are you infusing into that person's heart on the backside of this experience that you all had together on stage for an hour. And, you know, I saw Dick Gregory do that twice and Selma was even more amazing 'cause he did it from a podium and I cannot explain to anybody how hard it is to do standup comedy from a podium. Jokes do not go over a podium, lectern, whatever the hell you want to call it don't matter. The jokes don't go over it. The moment you standing at one of them damn things, you look like a preacher and none of your jokes are funny, but Dick Gregory demolished, demolished, it was a good time. [00:40:19] Dan Runcie: That's special, yeah. He's someone that always stuck out in a unique way with everything that he did. So and I think a lot about that, even with artists or anyone that's performing on stage, if you can still do this when you're 70, 80 years old, that's where the real magic comes. And I know many of the younger artists now want to get there and it's great to see. I think, you know, you're in a generation of comedians that I think are going to be doing the same thing as well., [00:40:44] Roy Wood Jr.: Trying to, that's what I'm trying to get to. [00:40:48] Dan Runcie: All right. Well, before we let you go, we do got to talk about the film that you have coming out, Confess, Fletch out in theaters September 16th. And I have to ask, you're a detective in this film, you're opposite Jon Hamm, is Jon Hamm, a white ally that we could trust in this movie? [00:41:07] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah, yeah, in the movie. Yeah, I'd say in real life as well. I'll go ahead and hang that on him. No, it's dope. I also had to give a shout-out to our director, Greg Mottola, and Greg, you know, really worked to create something that totally feels different from the bright lights and the big demonstrative jokes that were the eighties Chevy Chase version of this character. And so, you know, it plays right into Jon Hamm's warehouse. I'm just happy. I got to play a cop in Boston and they didn't force me to do a Boston accent 'cause that would've been insulting. That would've been very terrible. [00:41:39] Dan Runcie: Was that a conversation at all? Did anyone even broach, Hey, should you try to do this? Or should we, 'cause I know that Jon Hamm with The Town and all that stuff, I know he's done it before. [00:41:48] Roy Wood Jr.: It was breached briefly during my audition and at the audition, they said don't even try it. We've watched a tape on you. I'm like, well, just let me know if you wanted the cop to be from Alabama. I can nail that one, man.[00:42:02] Dan Runcie: Sometimes I feel bad. The ones that they try to do, like, when Anthony Anderson was in The Departed, love Anthony Anderson, but I feel like they try to make everybody in that movie. What was it, Mystic River, I feel like that was another one where they try to have everyone do a Boston accent. I'm like, all right. I don't know, you know. Let's have a few signature characters maybe, and I think everyone else is fine. [00:42:20] Roy Wood Jr.: Yeah. Yeah. It was fine. It was definitely a good time. It was a good shoot, you know I think just murder- mystery- comedy, you know, I think it feels light enough and fun enough in these times. And so, you know, we don't get too woke in it and I know everybody is scared of the woke and the woke mob is coming. A, it's a cop trying to catch a criminal or a guy that he thinks is a criminal. It's a cop trying to solve a murder and a private detective trying to solve the murder as well. So, you know, I think it's a good film. [00:42:48] Dan Runcie: And we talked a lot in this conversation about streaming and everything releasing there. This is not debuting on streaming, out in theaters, available on demand as well. Did that change to the creation process at all? Or does that change your relationship at all with this movie? [00:43:05] Roy Wood Jr.: No. I think that it'll be interesting to see how quickly people see it and when and where. You know, I do think that coming out on demand, in addition to theaters, I think it only helps word of mouth and I think it still brings profits for the film itself. So, you know, in that regard, you know, I think it'll be fine. But when you make the movie you're, as an actor, my job is to just make the movie y'all can figure out the rest of that shit after, you know, two months from now in post-production, you can decide how many theaters and blah, blah, blah, and all of that. [00:43:34] Dan Runcie: Exciting stuff. Well, we'll definitely look out for that, but Roy, it's been a pleasure, man. Thanks for coming on, keeping it real as always. And if people want to follow you and stay in touch with everything you're doing, where can they find you?[00:43:46] Roy Wood Jr.: Oh, it's Roy Wood Jr. I put an @ sign in front, .com on the backside. Also visit me online, my podcast, roysjobfair.com. [00:43:54] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Appreciate you, man. Thanks again. [00:43:56] Roy Wood Jr.: All right, will do.[00:43:58] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

TikTok has reshaped the Internet in under a three-year span, but if its parent company, ByteDance, has its way, the platform’s dominance is just getting started. This week I brought Stan founder Denisha Kuhlor back onto the show to discuss TikTok’s ambitious plans for total media domination.In the past few months, TikTok has announced plans for several new features — each aimed at competing with current media giants such as Google, Spotify, and Ticketmaster. Features include extending video-length capacity to 10 minutes, the TikTok Music streaming service, better internal search capabilities, and a ticketing platform, among many others.Recent history in Western culture is not kind to companies trying to be an all-in-one platform. Google and Facebook stumbles come to mind. To predict how TikTok might fare, Denisha and I hit the new features point-by-point, weighing TikTok’s advantages and disadvantages at breaking into each. Here’s our main talking points: [0:50] TikTok’s masterplan[7:02] Prediction: 10-minute-long TikTok videos[11:50] Prediction: TikTok music streaming service[15:43] Prediction: Enhanced TikTok search[22:00] Prediction: SoundOn music distribution[25:42] Prediction: In-app ticketing [29:46] Are consumers creator or platform loyal?[33:18] TikTok’s impact on creator economy [37:22] TikTok’s geopolitical issuesListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Denisha Kuhlor, @denishakuhlor  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] Denisha Kuhlor: It has become this trend where we have more affinity to the platform and the platform's ability to curate the content than some of these content creators themselves. And in a world where I think these content creators are so driven to following the algorithm and getting promoted by the algorithm, what they don't realize is kind of the uniformity in content that is created.  [00:00:30] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:50] Dan Runcie: All right. We're joined again today by Denisha Kuhlor, who is the founder and CEO of Stan. And today we're going to talk all about TikTok. And TikTok has been a topic I know you and I have talked about offline, we've both covered it and have our opinions on it, but I want to talk today about talk's grand plan to try to take over everything. Just to name a few headlines from the past couple of months, TikTok is planning to extend into 10-minute long videos. It is launching its own music distribution service called SoundOn. It filed a trademark for its own streaming service called TikTok Music. They are enhancing their search function to identify key terms. They're also adding in a text-to-image option as well so that people can start to do that. And it sounds like a lot, the company has grown quite a bit, so it's understandable. But do we think that TikTok is going to be able to do all of these things? What's your thought? [00:01:47] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. So TikTok's been really interesting to watch these last few months and honestly, really from inception, my initial hunch is that it's hard to do a lot of things well. And as TikTok grows and somewhat through replication and also a bit through innovation, I do think they're going to struggle to really get to scale for all the new features that they want to launch. [00:02:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the tough thing with this, and it's something that has been ingrained with big tech companies for a while is when the big social network grows and they have this huge following. TikTok now is the fastest to reach 1 billion monthly active users. We can see the trajectory of it potentially getting to be as big as Facebook is now. And Facebook, of course, is another company that has tried and is still trying to do every possible thing under the sun. But I think the part that's important is there are a few examples when these companies have succeeded. Instagram copying Snapchat is of course the primary example that people often look back to, but more often than not, most of these attempts don't actually work that well. And one of the reasons they don't work as well is because they don't necessarily solve a true need that the core users are looking for to be solved from that app. And I think that's one of the important things about Instagram Story specifically because Instagram Stories copy Snapchat worked because Instagram already had a hub of influencers as its core users. And these core users wanted to be able to both post pictures, but they also didn't want to feel the pressure of needing to have this polished picture that was on their feed all of the time. So their thought was, okay, if they could copy this feed that they see Snapchat's doing, they already had the core users there and having something that's more ephemeral. It can go away in 24 hours was perfect. It worked as good as you could probably expect it to. And honestly, it worked better than Snapchat because Instagram already had the home base of those core users whereas Snapchat, at the time, they had a bit of penetration from Gen Z, a bit of DJ Khaled here and there, but it just wasn't to that same level. And I think when you look at a lot of the other attempts that Facebook has tried to copy from others and even Instagram as well with seeing with Reels, that's the piece that I go back to. If these successes and these copycat attempts haven't worked, it's usually because there's some type of disconnect between what the core users on that app are looking for and whether or not that new feature helps them do that.[00:04:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Totally. And I think it creates a culture even internally for these organizations of duplication versus innovation, right? So now you see these organizations going and seeking the desire to duplicate and get to market as quickly as possible, whereas before they had no choice but to be innovative. And to do that, I think they really had to listen to their users and the folks on the app. So it also just even changes, in a way, the culture of what the app is about because now folks are so used to see or expecting to see things that have already been done before, rather than excitement towards really where the platform could take things. [00:05:01] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it's interesting because, on one hand, I do understand the aspect of copying what's already successful. You see it's there and you know that you have those users on your platform already. So why not make an attempt, why not use your resources, especially because of how much money these companies print on ads, then, yeah, you could take the chance with Google having its Google X or Facebook opening up its own VC firm or in many ways, treating all these new initiatives as its own VC firm. But to your point, you do lose the innovation and that's exactly why these apps became relevant in the first place. They offered something newer. They did it in a truly unique way. And when you think about why TikTok has blown up, the genius of it is that For You page. They made it so frictionless to be able to stay entertained, to scroll. You don't have to think about who to follow. You don't need to do any of those things. And that is its biggest strength, but I think it also makes it very challenging to have any type of new feature that is harder or requires more user- input or more activity than the mindless scrolling that has worked in its favor up to this point.[00:06:11] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like the For You page really was the magic and to, in some ways, see them stray away from that, or even improving that in other ways does feel a little unfortunate. Some of the features that you listed, while exciting, I think are just not necessary in the sense that so many other folks are out there doing it. But it will be interesting to see how it fits within maybe the grand scheme or the grand vision for TikTok users and creators. I mean, when it comes down to maybe offering a more seamless experience, then it gets a little bit more interesting. But how big of a problem is that right now for creators, especially when you think about, like, some of the plays towards distribution and features around that? The problems don't seem prevalent enough to justify the investment. But maybe there's a grand vision within all of that, in which it makes more sense. [00:07:02] Dan Runcie: So let's break those down. Let's go through each of 'em. Let's start first with TikTok extending into 10-minute videos. I do feel like this is probably the least friction out of each of them, but what's your thought on this expansion and clearly a move to compete more directly with YouTube? [00:07:18] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think this one is interesting because it really, in some ways, is probably the least painful in the sense that if content is compelling enough, you could argue that an individual is just going to keep watching, if the initial, you know, piece of content is compelling enough. What actually is, like, somewhat fascinating to me is that in some ways you could argue that TikTok took away or has hindered people's ability to focus for that long of time. So going to like the corollary of now having 10-minute videos, I do think will be interesting 'cause it's like a different habit, right? Even just focusing on something for 10 minutes versus like 6 seconds is a very different habit. So to see how or to see what type of users actually adapt to that, I think it will be interesting. I do think though there'll probably be some niche communities that emerge as a result of that feature who do want to take deep dives much to content, right? There's folks that like read casually about the music industry and then folks that like really, I think, deep dive, much as a testament to Trapital's content. And so I do think, like, some interesting, like, subsections of the feature will rise. However, I think the bulk of the users aren't even, like, able to watch a video for that long.[00:08:33] Dan Runcie: I think that if it is extending the videos into that length, I agree with you. This is the least friction one. I think it does have the highest likelihood of success. But if I'm thinking about music videos specifically or something that ends up being at least that length, it changes the format to look like what the videos for the most successful YouTubers often look like and the science that goes behind that. I'm picturing what NBA YoungBoy does in the beginning of his videos or even someone like MrBeast. There's some hook there that gives you some tease and that keeps you engaged, just to make sure that you end up watching the whole thing to see what it is. So I feel like if artists start creating music videos or start creating videos in general to be more like 10 minutes. And I think the format of how those videos look will be a lot different and everything will be how do we keep people engaged so that, okay, if we keep them for the first 15 seconds, how do you get them for the next 15 seconds and after that. Like, you can't have these long buildups that I think you can have for certain types of videos on YouTube, just give the audience. But I think it will change things in that format. No different than when MTV blew up, there was a type of video vibe that people tried to go after. I think that if this is the route that TikTok is really trying to go. I think we may see videos lead more into that where, yeah, everyone does start creating videos where you may look like you're trying to be a YouTuber. You're trying to be a TikTok dancer, whatever it is. But I feel like that's where it could head if it's as successful as it could be. [00:10:04] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, that's actually really interesting in the sense that a lot of folks, like, point to their desire to use TikTok because it does feel like less polished, in a way more authentic. I was listening to a podcast where a TikToker says she makes more content on TikTok because she has to like, yeah, just be less prepared in a way or prepare herself to get on TikTok in the way you would for on Instagram. So I think if that does happen, it'll probably have an effect they don't want, which is a longer timeline to people creating and posting content. And like, just a harder barrier to entry because now folks will feel like, well, I don't have all the things needed to start a TikTok or to really start posting on TikTok, which is really against, I think what the platform did in its early days. [00:10:50] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah, you're right. That whole instant, making it easy as possible is part of it. It almost brings me back to Vine to an extent. Maybe that's a better comparison for what this looks like 'cause of course someone like a MrBeast or NBA YoungBoy, they have big teams at this point. But some would be able to take a Vine and having this whole narrative story in that 6-second, 7-second clip, maybe it's getting a bit back to that. But even that takes time and there's clearly a difference between that. And, you know, while Vine was popular, it didn't blow up the way that TikTok has blown up. So I feel like you're right. It may change the app in a way that users aren't ready for. But we'll see. I obviously know that this is kind of what happens when you're trying to do everything. You're going to risk having some type of frustration that comes from the core users. [00:11:37] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Much to your point, I do think there will be a really active, like, community or communities around that in which like 10 minutes of content works really well and TikTok is just like an easy medium to do that [00:11:50] Dan Runcie: For sure. All right. The second one here, this one I will be interested to dive into. TikTok Music and TikTok filing this trademark. It clearly wants to launch its own music streaming service. We had heard rumors about ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, wanting to do this, but how do you see this one playing out?[00:12:09] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, this one, I just kind of felt like, okay, like another music streaming service You know, one, I don't think people realize or really think through just like how complex streaming services are as a business. I mean, thankfully, you know, a lot of platforms have kind of, pioneered some of the heavy lifting that came with making deals with labels and really like getting the content onto the platform. But that's all still to be said that it's a very unique and complex business model that's driven on another party, right? And how another party feels about giving you access to your content? What does seem somewhat interesting about it is, in the same way that TikTok democratizes content creation and the barrier to entry to post, you could probably argue that it in a way, democratizes that for music, and so more artists are able to get more volume or traction as a result. And so I do think if they focus on maybe content from newer creators or newer musicians who don't necessarily have some of that on the platform, that could be interesting, like in terms of a new streaming platform being able to get access to these independent artists at rates that could be favorable. I think that's interesting, but I don't know if that works at scale. And frankly, like, songs from independent artists, I don't think, is enough to keep a consumer satiated. And there's an even harder barrier to entry to have two streaming platforms at once. [00:13:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah, this is the one I'm probably the most skeptical of its success and for very similar reasons. Say what you want about Spotify. I know people have a number of issues about how that platform is operated and how it distributes its money. But the fact that it's helped the music industry, A, get to this point, says something and just the type of deals it's been able to negotiate to make it all work the way that it has that's enabled all the other types of revenue-generating opportunities that have came from it. And then additionally, it's hard to get to that point. Again, you may not agree with all the decisions that they make, but it is very hard to get to that point. And while I understand, from a strategic perspective, why TikTok may initially want to do this. Of course, if you have and you own the top of funnel that exists in the industry today, why wouldn't you want to at least think about what it could be like to keep that attention on your platform? If your platform is where discovery is happening for both the new fans, for artists to get initial exposure, and for that, you know, the record labels are already seeing, I understand why you would want to think about keeping more of that in-house. But it is a lot tougher than they think for the reasons you mentioned. And also going back to the usability of the app streaming services are a type of consumer experience that requires much more active engagement. People don't just scroll through Spotify and Apple Music. You're going there actively to find something that you're looking for. I mean, I don't even know that many people that are actively relying on that discover weekly playlists to find anything. You're still searching for the things that you want. Even if you're looking for a playlist, it's probably that's much more catered toward the mood or genre that you have. So I think anything that requires that level of agency or action from the consumer side will always be a bit of a challenge for TikTok there. So yeah, I'm skeptical on the success of that one. Unless it tries to go more of the YouTube route of things, which ties back into the 10-minute video things that we talked about before. There's some potential there, but even there, I think there's still some question marks.[00:15:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. I'm aligned with you there. [00:15:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. The next one is TikTok Search. A lot of us had seen the viral tweet that someone had. I don't Google I TikTok. And a lot of that spoke to how a lot of folks in Gen Z are looking for information and I get it, I've even done it myself, my wife and I were recently searching to buy a new mattress. And you know what? I didn't want to go through a Google Search and just read some sponsored content about a mattress. I wanted to see a video of someone unboxing this thing to see what it looks like. [00:16:10] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. [00:16:10] Dan Runcie: And TikTok was the quickest place to do that, even quicker than YouTube. YouTube's going to show me a mix of explainer videos and then also concept from the company. I just wanted to see some random person be like, oh, hey, here's what I think about this bed. And here's what I think about that bed. It was quick, it was easy. So I do think that that works, but I think there's a few caution flags with it. A, I still think that even though TikTok was able to offer that, there's still deeper search functionality that went into how Google got to be as good as it is, even going back thinking about 20 years ago about like why Google succeeded where Lycos and AltaVista and all those other go.com, .com era search engines didn't work. So I don't know if TikTok has all of that baked in to really go beyond just, you know, people like me looking for random purchases that they want to look through here or there or just want to look up a certain topic. And I also think the other bigger, more important pieces, the misinformation, and just being able to correct for that because that's already been an issue on TikTok. And I think that could potentially continue if there isn't some way to relegate what's happening in search. So, high likelihood success, but still some trepidation. [00:17:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, this one is one I'm actually a little bit more excited about. I do think it's really interesting, like in the sense of search, because it is something that we naturally do more. I first started to search on social media using Instagram. And I think they've even done a greater job of like adding more functionality to do that search, whether it's by location and showing you things surrounding that location or even venues or event spaces. So I think that it's a growing feature and a great feature. Like you said, the reviews, whether people sought them to be that way or just inherently more, right, they're showing you video. Most times they're talking through it and you can just consume and walk away with a more educated viewpoint for a time that's favorable, right? A 30-second or 1-minute video can really give you a lot of feedback about whatever you're searching. I think, honestly, this is where a TikTok should spend some time doubling down. I think we want to see more of that functionality from them playing around with maybe the highest use cases, whether that's locations or certain venues, or even like festivals. As I think about it, like, I see so often on TikTok, like you can see a certain event from multiple vantage points and understanding what it's like at a festival from someone in VIP versus general admission versus backstage, even, right? Like, Rolling Loud, you see, like, every single vantage point, even sometimes down to the artist manager with them. So I think, like, them doubling down on a few use cases that really highlight the immersiveness of search is something that excites me. And I think just naturally follows up on what the users are already doing on the platform. [00:19:02] Dan Runcie: That ties into the another announcement I saw from them about enhancing its ability to search for things locally, or being able to find things from that level because to your point if you are seeing multiple vantage points at Rolling Loud or at Coachella, you may want to meet up with someone that is there, or you might be able to see their vantage point. You might have times I've been to a music festival and it's like, where are you? I'm at the main stage. But what part of the main stage, you know, they got this quarter over here, they got that quarter, but if someone could just do a quick, like, boom. And maybe that could be even easier than them trying to send me a FaceTime video or something like that, where there's no service, but if they could at least post it up on TikTok or wherever, then it could be like, okay, I see your angle. I'll be there. I'll come see you in a minute.[00:19:44] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think that's great. And to that point, too, it kind of like puts on other users in terms of like, okay, wow, I didn't enjoy my experience at like Rolling Loud 'cause I was GA. So maybe VIP is worth it to me or I should consider doing that. And so I actually think more artists should be embracing and recognizing that search feature. The only thing is too is because so many people are using it, you in real-time, right, seem to get updates. So like, Kizz Daniel who's come under fire in Tanzania for not showing up to his performance. I already, like in my mind was like, well, Kizz Daniel was four hours late to his DC show. And how did I know that? Or DC or New York? I'm sorry, but how did I know that? Like, because I saw it on TikTok and so that's like twice in a row. So how likely am I as a fan to justify the cost of a ticket in the event that he is going to be near me? So I think it's like a good maybe transparency or accountability measure. But with that search, we maybe do sometimes need to recognize like, what do they say that like, people are most likely to post or leave reviews when they either have a really great experience or a really bad experience. And so sometimes you might not just get what the true experience is in the case of like a service-based search. [00:21:02] Dan Runcie: That's true. That's a really good point. And that goes back to the quality of the results and how they can find a way to measure that piece 'cause I think that's the piece that ties back into why Google has been good at what it does over its competitors. So that TikToks can actually survive and not, you know, become someone else that may do video search even better. [00:21:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. And maybe, you know, to the extent they would consider this, like, there's an opportunity for collaboration, right? Like Google's done a great job of, you know, when you ask certain questions, they have a definitive answer, but they also pull like multiple sources. And so what if, like, on a Google search, you search a restaurant and you're also seeing like TikToks in the area? I think the aggregation of that repository of information could be really great. And also a way for them to continue to like maintain their dominance in search. [00:21:55] Dan Runcie: Let’s take a quick break to hear a word from this week’s sponsor. [00:22:00] Dan Runcie: Definitely. So the next one, this one's interesting, music distribution. TikTok recently launched SoundOn, which is a service that in many ways is set to compete with a lot of the music distributors. And I think similarly, it could be seen as its opportunity to capture its top of funnel attention as well. You already have the artists, why not make it easier for artists to use your platform, to distribute the music that they have? What are your thoughts on this one? [00:22:31] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, and this isn't personal, but I'm just not really excited by music distribution. Nowadays, like in a lot of ways we're listening to a song on a streaming platform is a commodity, right? Like listening to Drake on Apple Music sounds the same as, like, Spotify. I feel that way with music distribution, like, as a consumer, the consumers have no idea, right? They just know they go to their streaming platform and the song is there. The reverse engineering of how it got there and the back end is really not of much interest to them. On the artist side or for them to do this, I think it requires a really deeper investment in artist education. And so I'm curious to see, you know, especially as they double down on creator programs and things of that nature how willing they are to invest both on a content and community side, but also a capital side, in artist education to incentivize users to distribute through that platform. When you think about switching costs in terms of getting set up on a new platform and just probably some of the like new things you have to adjust to by doing it. I feel very underwhelmed hearing about this, and I'm really curious to see how it goes. [00:23:39] Dan Runcie: I think you called it right in the beginning. Music distribution is a tough business. It is purely a commodity at this point. And I think you can win a few ways. You win by trying to achieve massive scale with it, which Distrokid clearly has just given everything else. But if you don't have that scale, you try to find something unique to position yourself with. I think we've seen that a bit with United Masters, but even that's a bit of a unique business model because, A, they've done a bunch of partnerships with different platforms and companies in sports and entertainment to try to use that as a way both to attract artists and give them an opportunity. But it's also attached to an ad agency with translation, which essentially can, you know, offset any costs or anything like that if there are already losses that come through with the business. So that part of it is unique there. But then even with some of the other services, I think a lot of them have adapted their business models over time because that customer service piece is so timely. It's so expensive. And yeah, when you have an artist that maybe generated less than $20,000 a year, and they're calling your service every other week because they're trying to feed their supporters and making sure that every one of their fans can get their music. How do you justify that cost when you want to be able to support the fans? But the economics of it don't make sense if you're also trying to compete with Distrokid where it costs very little money to be able to use their service on a regular basis. And the same could be said about TuneCore and the others. So it's a tough business to enter. [00:25:16] Denisha Kuhlor: And I think, you know, artists and management teams don't really have any particular affiliation to, you know, to like any platform. Maybe there are things that they like about certain platforms or that keep them there. But when you talk to artists and management teams, it's kind of just this is what we use, it works, it gets the job done. And it's not an area of the business as long as things are working, they're going to particularly spend a lot of time overly evaluating. [00:25:42] Dan Runcie: Right. The next piece of this and the next thing that TikTok's been trying to do is ticketing. And while this is less of a big initiative the way they have it right now, it's an integration with a Ticketmaster who, of course, owns most of the medium size to large venues from a ticketing operation, given their relationship with Live Nation. I have to imagine that TikTok's ultimate stream would actually be trying to do what we just saw from Spotify to try to launch its own ticketing service. But even that has plenty of issues and challenges there, but what's your take on at least this first step of the Ticketmaster integration for TikTok and where it could go from here?[00:26:23] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. On the ticketing side, it's interesting. And just like having a background in venture and tech and startups, like, I've seen a lot of folks try to solve ticketing in many areas, right? The curation that comes with ticketing, ticketing from all over the world and in different currencies, and just a better user experience overall. I will say while I don't think I'm, like, particularly mad at TikTok's, like, foray into ticketing, I do think it's a missed opportunity to probably focus on like events that have organically grown through the platform. And something that's like so interesting is I think you've seen more and more promoters or even event producers, like really like leverage TikTok to create those events and grow their followings in their community. And that's not what TikTok's ticketing platform is really targeted with as evidenced by, you know, a partnership with Ticketmaster. And so while I feel like it's somewhere in the direction, I do think it could be a bit more directionally accurate by focusing on, kind of the, yeah, the smaller organic events that just naturally have grown through TikTok and like TikTok partnering with those events to help users produce more content and like, it can truly be mutually beneficial in a way that I think some of those event organizers would welcome. And so while I could understand why they went for the validity and reputation that comes with a bigger brand, such as Ticketmaster, I think they could have got more bang for their buck with a smaller, more targeted partnership with folks that already found interesting use cases to grow ticketing for the respective events.[00:27:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel like there's a bit of a balance there because I hear you and I do think that it ideally would be, yeah, great for them to double down on the creative uses of the, especially some of the more emerging artists that are using this platform to bring folks together, right? Almost similar to what you may see people trying to do, whether it's seeing things virtually in Twitch or bringing those types of audiences in real life to particular things. I think that's really cool and unique. I do feel that for TikTok though, specifically with what we're seeing them do on the music side, in the back of my mind I always wonder, okay, if it weren't for Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion and some of these other major artists that are using the platform, what percentage of their impact is making up the overall pie of TikTok Music? Just thinking about that, they had that pie chart from a few years back about the genres and how hip-hop was over-indexed and how Megan Thee Stallion was the most popular artist. So if you're trying to cater to the biggest artist on your platform, you know, Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat are definitely at the Ticketmaster level of what they're doing. So if they are going to have an event, could you have something that keeps them in, right, because I think that the more organic things that we've seen likely are more of a direct competition to what we see from Eventbrite, let's say, which I think is much more in that sweet spot of everything from like a birthday party up until you get to like, you know, a small club concert or event, right? But then obviously Ticketmaster is everything else. So yeah, it's like, my heart wants to be like, oh yeah, stay with the types of cool events you've had. But also just thinking about how YouTube leaned into its biggest customers and like, if you're TikTok then yeah, it's the Megs, it's the Dojas, and ones like that. [00:29:38] Denisha Kuhlor: That is interesting and I think a good corollary. Maybe it does, like, trickle down on more of like a hybrid approach. Yeah, that's interesting. [00:29:46] Dan Runcie: I do think this taps back into something that you had mentioned before just about the platform itself and as this platform continues to grow, where does the loyalty sit for the consumer, right, whether it's with the artist or with the platform. [00:30:03] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. I think this is such a big thing, right, and that comes with building a fan base or even just like your notoriety on TikTok. You see the changes that were made to Instagram and kind of everybody from the Kardashians, right, calling them out. And I think it has become this trend where we have more affinity to the platform and the platform's ability to curate the content than some of these content creators themselves. And in a world where I think these content creators are so driven to following the algorithm and getting promoted by the algorithm, what they don't realize is kind of the uniformity in content that is created. Even when it comes down to, like, some of the events or experiences or those types of videos, sometimes, like if you've seen one, you've seen them all. And I think that's why there's other creators, whether it’s, like, more comedian-focused or other topics that really excel because it forces them to kind of have to do something different, even if they do have to be relatable. And so unfortunately I think that, you know, artists who are employing TikTok and kind of using this, especially as they build their name and their brand, need to think a lot about like, okay, I have X amount of followers on TikTok, but the barrier to entry to get someone to follow you on TikTok looks very different compared to other platforms. And then taking that a step further, it's like, what does that mean? Because while people might like you, how willing are they to migrate to another platform? They ultimately have that ultimate affinity and loyalty, in my opinion, to TikTok. [00:31:38] Dan Runcie: I couldn't agree more, and it makes me think about how I use these apps today. For instance, we're recording this now August 26th, and this is a few hours after DJ Khaled released his album and Jay-Z had his four-minute-long verse on GOD DID. And I've seen everyone from ESPN's account to all of the hip-hop blogs and everyone else posting about this. And of course, you get it. And it's all these memes you see about people posting, okay, what Hov did on this track and they're getting photos of LeBron's best games or LeBron's game six against the Boston Celtics and things like that. But I bring that up because speaks to the uniformity of how all of these platforms or all these accounts on these platforms end up doing the same types of things because they know it works and they know what is effective. And it comes to the point now, when I'm scrolling through Instagram, I don't really know who the account is that is there that's posting something that I see unless it's something that's super specific to that person, right? Like if a friend is posting something from, you know, one of their kids starting in kindergarten, then it's like, okay, I know that that only comes from you. But if someone's posting something that's happening in media or something, that's happening in the news, you have to, like, look at that account at the top to really know who it is. And I think that's something they probably got from TikTok more so that, unless you're really looking to see where that account's coming from, it's a bit hidden now, right? Like that's part of, I know some of the frustration people had had, whether it's with Google searches or how social media was sharing links and they made all the links look the same, whether it's something from The Wall Street Journal or your friend's blog, right? And it kind of goes back to that point. [00:33:18] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah. And it probably has like real implications for the creator economy now that we're talking about it, like, I think, you know, living in New York, I see, I like casually probably see a few TikTok creators a month and maybe even sometimes I follow them. But you know, what's interesting? Like, rather than noting, other than noting to myself, like, oh, I follow them on TikTok, kind of the like je nais se quois or like the magic of like, oh my God, like I'm seeing this person in real life feels like it's disappeared a bit to me in a way that used to exist with YouTube or some of these other platforms where it felt like a weird, like breaking of the screen. But now that everybody's behind the screen and as a result, even some of the content they're showing is so accessible. I do think it probably, like, leads to this dynamic of where we're just like, okay, let's just see interesting things. The people creating said interesting things are no more interesting in some ways than like you or they just did a great job at doing this. And I see that with, there's a lot of debate and, like, discourse around some of the lifestyle blogs or, you know, like people showing their lifestyle, like waking up in the morning, like obviously, you had to set the camera up before to do that. But a lot of folks in the comments argue like this is just a type of content. Like, it's a type of cinematography that people like to view and people like to see. And so as a result, these people are continuing to make these videos, but if that's just a type of content that people like to see, TikTok is simply going to provide that content all the time, regardless of really any affiliation to one creator, which makes it a lot tougher on these creators, I think, to build these networks and conversely artists.[00:34:55] Dan Runcie: Right, and this brings me back to the whole issues that people have with Web 2.0 to begin with and why they wanted to be able to solve some of this with Web 3.0. It's because the platforms commoditize your content, and then in return, they're the ones that hold the power. [00:35:10] Denisha Kuhlor: You know, I think though folks have to be honest. In some ways, it's what the user likes or what the, yeah, the users do like this because if not, you know, we're long past exclusives being standard in the industry, but if not the exclusives would've worked. Like having, you know, Chance the Rapper's album on Apple Music for two weeks, that would work. But the industry shied away from that because ultimately consumers cared more about choice and the ability to choose and experience and be exposed to all types of artists. And so I do think it's a dangerous game because it doesn't recognize like that's why malls exist, right? Like, you go and you want to go to multiple stores. And so I do think sometimes while I understand and recognize and very much like honor the need to, you know, differentiate and be able to have your core audience and provide to those things, I think we'd be remiss if we also didn't realize, like, natural human behavior comes from choice and like the brevity of choice. And so that's sometimes the interesting thing between Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 and with crypto, for me, because ultimately, like, the barrier to entry is so high, right, to get someone, a true fan to download an artist NFT because that insinuates their true fans. And I think a lot of artists have actually had to face the music in some ways with realizing their perceived fan base isn't as big as they thought and the mechanism to realize that has been some of these drops.[00:36:40] Dan Runcie: Well said, well said. The engagement piece and what you need to have a true fan is harder than people think, so, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Well, we're getting to the tail end, but before we close things out, we have to talk about the elephant in the room for TikTok, and that is its geopolitical standing and all of the things that it wants to do while, whether or not they will be successful, a lot of it depends on the company's viability in the US and whether or not it's current status, especially given the fact that the Chinese government does have this data and there are unknown questions about what that means, what it can do with this data, how do you see this piece it?[00:37:22] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, I think it's tricky in some ways, because, you know, as consumers, we're now kind of privy to the implications of tech and big data. And even just being on our phones, being on our phones in general, what I will say is and a lot of the like research indicates that true, like avid TikTok users are just, like, hooked in a way where they don't or they might say to you they don't care. Now how much is that true, I guess we'll find out. But I do think it's concerning because maybe to some extent, we don't even fully realize everything and all the factors that are at play here, right? Like, you're just giving that summary, I'm like, whoa. But as a user coming on every day, you're not thinking about that. And so often with big data and some of these platforms, in a way, you don't realize just the implications it had until it was too late, right? Until we're now talking about the ramifications of a platform existing in that way. And so I think it's going to be really interesting to see how, seriously consumers want to take it and beyond consumers, like the US, the US in general. I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't say that some of the data is concerning, right, learning about some of the data TikTok has access to is concerning. But ultimately like as more and more people post and the ecosystem grows larger and there's now 10-minute videos and your favorite artists are on there and they have a streaming platform and all these things in this ecosystem, it starts to get hard to really stray away. And so I think that's going to be a challenge because it feels like it almost has to be a collective push for folks to disintermediate from the platform. But I'm really curious your thoughts on this, too.[00:39:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. So the first attempt of this was in fall 2020. So it was around two years ago at this point, when Trump had tried to shut down TikTok. That didn't work for a number of reasons. There were a number of things going on in the world that the attention just wasn't there. And I don't think that the argument was made in a concise and effective way that could have necessarily gotten the job done. And TikTok had other challenges at the time, Kevin Mayer had his short term and then he had left shortly after. So there were a number of issues there. This though, I think that even though you're starting to hear some senators say certain things about it, I think things will be pretty mum, I would guess, until the 2022 midterm elections coming up just 'cause think from a strategic perspective, they want to keep momentum on things that they can confirm can get votes. So while I think I've probably heard more of the concern, if I'm being honest, coming from democratic senators, their biggest concern right now is okay, how can we continue to try to celebrate Joe Biden's victory so that they can not lose seat coming up with this election, I feel like. And because of that, like, we kind of see how this whole thing plays out. I do think though that we could be facing a potential situation where it's almost like the Facebook thing where people know that this is an issue, but it's not going to happen proactively. It happens reactively. It's going to be like, when shit hits the fan and then people are going to be like, oh shit, now we need to do something. [00:40:27] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. Exactly. Out of curiosity, how do you think TikTok, and I'm sure it'll vary, right, but how do you think TikTok is going to be used with the upcoming election cycle? [00:40:37] Dan Runcie: Oh, good question. I don't see it impacting 2022 as much, but I could see it playing a factor more so in 2024 because I just think that even though there's plenty at stake coming up with this election, the presidential elections always get more in place. I do think that, especially as this group of voters does tend to grow and as more and more older people do get on TikTok, a lot of the same types of activities and nefarious behavior that we saw on Facebook here is going to make its way onto. TikTok. The bigger challenge is though, I think, it's even tougher to navigate all those things. I mean, we even saw that there was misinformation back in 2020 when you had a lot of the Black Lives Matter uprisings and people, they were censoring certain things related to those hashtags. So I do think that those things are going to cause big problems. I think the difference though, and this is part of it is that when these issues happen for Facebook, it's one thing if you have mark Zuckerberg coming to Congress and it can kind of be this thing where he could be media training, he can kind of have these like, you know, haha moments where it's like, Senator, we sell ads, that's how we make money. That doesn't exactly work with the Chinese government in the same way 'cause I don't think that that type of congressional hearing would necessarily work in the same way. So it would have to be some type of, you know, harder crackdown that happens with it. So, yeah, it's tough. I feel like we're not going to see anything actually happen until shit does hit the fan. And unfortunately, that could be the 2024 presidential election in the US, but maybe it could be something sooner. [00:42:19] Denisha Kuhlor: Yeah, no, we'll definitely have to see how it plays out. I also think we could potentially see, like, new candidates that come to the result from easily being able to build followings on a platform like TikTok. So I'm curious to see what, like, TikTok- native candidates emerge as well. [00:42:36] Dan Runcie: Right, like kind of like how Obama was the Facebook champion in 2000. [00:42:41] Denisha Kuhlor: Exactly. [00:42:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's funny, right? Because I feel like, you know, back then it was like, oh, look at all the great things that Facebook could do with 2008. And just, I think given some of the political leanings at the time, but then 2016 in many ways was a very opposite case with it. So I do feel like we're a bit more jaded and cynical of the powers of social media than we were then. But there is always a candidate that rises up with these things, that does these things, right? Like, I don't know, thinking back to the days of candidates that are just entering a different thing or new platform, whether it's Bill Clinton going on the Arsenio Hall Show playing his saxophone or something like that. Like, who's going to be that on TikTok? I don't know. I don't follow any politicians on TikTok. I'm sure they have accounts, but I'm sure they'll probably be doing that. And who knows? They'll probably have a debate on Hot Ones for all I know. [00:43:35] Denisha Kuhlor: It's definitely going to be interesting. [00:43:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, this was great. We covered a bunch in this, so we'll definitely have to revisit this topic at some point. And we'll see how TikTok succeeds over this for the next few months. I think we both have our internal scorecards ready, but we'll definitely have to touch base on this again at some point. [00:43:54] Denisha Kuhlor: Agree. Thanks so much for having me.[00:43:56] Dan Runcie: For sure. Thank you.[00:43:58] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry is, without question, Matt Pincus. He sold his independent music publishing company, SONGS, for $160 million five years ago. And now, the music holdings company he co-founded, MUSIC, just raised $200 million to invest in music and music-adjacent companies. Though, Matt doesn’t see MUSIC as an investment fund, but rather a holding company. That’s because he takes an operator-centric role in the companies he funds. And unlike the splashy catalog acquisitions that’ve dominated the space over the past few years, Matt is looking forward with his investments and targeting brand-new growth opportunities instead.In particular, Matt sees big opportunities in the technology sector, web3, and even record labels and publishing. At SONGS, Matt was able to spot and develop up-and-coming songwriters, inking early deals with the likes of Diplo, Lorde, and The Weeknd. He’ll be tasked with finding similar success at MUSIC.  Matt and I dove deep into a wide-range of topics during our conversation. Here’s a few highlights of what we covered:[2:58] Why Matt created MUSIC[8:07] MUSIC’s investment thesis?[14:40] What Matt doesn’t like about the music business [19:49] Recent inflow of capital into the music business[21:15] Two lanes to entering music business[25:15] Finding left-of-center opportunities among musical talent [27:30] The structural problem of the music business[31:35] Continuity was key to SONGS success[33:34] The Weeknd as a business blueprint for other artists[37:53] Sync business opportunities [44:55] Have streaming subscriptions peaked?[47:50] Tiktok brought back music frequency[51:40] Matt’s five-year predictionsListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: 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. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:00] Matt Pincus: Defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works. [00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:56] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is with one of the most successful music entrepreneurs of the past few decades. His name is Matt Pincus and he is the founder and CEO of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invests in music tech and music-adjacent companies. MUSIC just launched a 200 million fund to invest in this space, so Matt and I talked all about it. He's looking for companies that still have a clear understanding for how music gets made and understand the art behind it. He's also looking for startups that have a true defensible moat that is something unique that they can do. And he's also looking for the companies that have a huge total addressable market that can clearly grow and expand as we're seeing things continue to grow in this space. Our conversation covered a bunch of topics in this space. We talked about sync and the impact of that. We also talked about how much further streaming can go. And we talked about a bunch of insightful music trends. Really fascinating conversation. I feel like every few months we have one of those conversations where people reach out to me and say, Hey, I took a bunch of notes in that conversation. Thank you for this. And I have a good feeling, I have a good feeling that this is going to be one of those conversations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Matt Pincus. [00:02:16] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we're joined by Matt Pincus, who is the founder of MUSIC, which is a holding company that invested music and music-adjacent companies. Matt, I'm really excited to have this conversation because you have had a very impressive career with what you did with Songs and everything that you had done in publishing specifically. And what always stuck out to me about you in this space is how you've identified opportunities where others didn't see them. So I know when I saw the announcement for MUSIC and the $200 million fund you launched, I said, okay, he's seeing something and he's seeing an opportunity to dive in. So what did you see? What made you want to get involved with this?[00:02:58] Matt Pincus: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm a big admirer of Trapital and your work in general. And I'm really happy to be with you here today. So, you know, I started music, it was sort of an organic process. I sold Songs after running it for about 13 years. And it was a fairly abrupt end. So we decided to sell the company and neither me nor my two partners really wanted to run it for somebody else. So we decided that once we sold it, it was time to step away and it was fairly quick. So, you know, I ran the company for 12-plus years. And then 90 days after the sale, I was out in the street, like, what am I going to do with my life? So it was a bit of an organic process. It started with meeting a lot of really interesting founders of music businesses and companies that were around the music business. It's obviously an interesting time in our business in a number of different ways. The streaming market has matured. There are a lot of music tech businesses with interesting founders cropping up over the past four or five years. The web three crypto business has, you know, started the early days of really coming online. And the way that labels, publishing companies, management companies reach audiences is really different than it was like, you know, six, seven years ago. So I met a lot of really interesting people. The first one was Steve Martocci, who was the founder of Splice. He and I hit it off particularly well. And I sort of said, listen, I've been, you know, doing talent deals with young people, you know, in the early twenties for the past 12 years, I think maybe the next chapter is working with founders of companies that are more like 10 years younger than me, as opposed to, you know, 20, early 20s. And taking the experience that I had in the last, like, four or five years of songs when we were trying to figure out how to really realize returns on the business and build on that to try to help people do the same thing. So I was out looking for, you know, are there interesting companies that I might be able to work with in some way or another? And the answer to that quickly became kind of yes, on the music tech side originally, in growth companies, when online music and music technology was shifting to a subscription-based backbone as opposed to a packet software business. And then also on the music side of it, you know, interesting independent labels, music companies operating in a different way. And so the first thing was, are there interesting companies out there? The second is, do they need capital and where would they get it from? And the third was, how am I going to get the money to invest in these businesses? So it was kind of a bit of a bootstrapping exercise where I would go find an opportunity to invest in a company, put some of my own money in LionTree, which sold songs for me and has been a partner and champion of mine since I sold the company, would invest some money too, and then we'd find some other people to round out the investment. We did that first with Splice, put about 20 million into the company over a period of time. We also did in the same way, made an investment in a company called HIFI, which is a FinTech platform benefiting artists in a bunch of different ways, and also with DICE, the ticketing business. And you know, they started, a couple of them did well and actually, they all did well. And so I decided that I wanted to raise some capital and have my own sort of, it's not really a fund. It's more of a holding company 'cause I'm less of an investor and more of an operator. And so the question became, how are we going to raise the money? Now Aryeh Bourkoff who runs LionTree is somewhat of a magic maker, and he took me on and introduced me to two families, the Schusterman Family and JS Capital, which is Jonathan Soros's capital vehicle. And they agreed to invest in a four-way partnership. So it's between me, LionTree, Schusterman Family, and JS Capital. And we formed MUSIC, which is a $200 million holding company. We do deals in a couple of different areas, music tech, which is sort of where I spent most of my time after Songs. We also invest in independent music companies like Songs. So labels publishing companies, management companies. Increasingly, a few of those functions are in one company, as opposed to when I was running Songs, it was like you were either a publisher or a label or a management company. And then we partner sometimes with a larger private equity firm if we are interested in acquiring something that's, you know, of a larger size. And so we're in the middle of one of those right now. And so we were able to find a bunch of interesting opportunity, a bunch of interesting ways, and it seems to me to be, you know, a really good time to be putting money to work in the music business. [00:07:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's an exciting time to be investing in these companies and to be acquiring them too. And you mentioned something there about the types of companies you're looking at and whether they are modern music companies or whether they are doing something that's unique in the space. Can you talk a little bit more about your investment thesis and what you're looking for, and specifically, because, as you mentioned, you're not a fund, you're a holding company, so you're not necessarily just doing, you know, angel investments or early stage. You're trying to make investments for the long haul. So how does that shape your strategy?[00:08:07] Matt Pincus: Very good question. And I think the answer to that depends somewhat on the different areas of investment. So the first is in the technology side of the business, which is kind of where I started as an investor. So, you look for a couple of things there. So first of all, you need to invest in companies, not products. So some of the music startups can be sort of, it's an interesting widget, but can it be a scalable business? So you need to make sure that you have a couple of things in order to know that you're investing in a company that has the ability to grow. So the first thing is you need your own tech stack and it needs to be built to suit whatever market you want to be in. So for example, with Splice, one of the reasons, and there were several, but one of the reasons I invested in the company was because Steve had built this subscription stack from day one of the company. So it was a native SaaS company in a world where the rest of the market needed to move from the old way of doing business to the new way of doing business. Splice was always in the new way of doing business, so it was going to be ahead of the curve. And so you need to make sure that your technical capabilities and your technical assets are going to, you know, be where you want to go. The second is that you need to make sure you're in a part of the market that has a big enough user base to make a real company out of it. You know, it's great to make a widget that, you know, 1500 people love, love, love, but 1500 people is not a lot of people. So you need to make sure that the addressable market around the business has a lot of users. And again, in Splice's case, you know, they are the content business in music tech. So they can be used in an infinite amount of applications across the business, which gives them, you know, a really solid user base. And so, you know, that's kind of the second thing. And the third thing is that you need to kind of own where you live or have the ability to own where you live. So, you know, it's great if you get into a category in the technology side of the business, that, you know, breaks some ground and shows everybody what can be done. But if then, you know, Apple or Google just says, thank you very much and does it instead of you, it's not so great. So you need to have a defensible business that you can build and scale. And again, back to Splice, you know, they are the content leader and I'm a music publisher by trade, so content is the water supply in the music business. You know, in publishing, it's the song that starts the whole conversation. Splice owns music. And so no matter where the market is going to grow, no matter where it ends up going, they have the supply that feeds the music tech business. And so it's inherently defensible when it gets up to a certain level. You know, at this point they have 3 million works in their database. To catch up to them is, you know, difficult, if not impossible. And so you need to be defensible now on the music side of what I do, which is investing in music companies, there's a couple of things I look for. So first of all, I don't do catalog acquisitions. I invest in people. So the first thing is that you need to have really talented executives that understand music and know how to find repertoire and make it bigger. I tend to like businesses that give advances to artists. There's a certain way, like at Songs, we built a catalog over a long period of time, but we built it through signing young writers and giving them advances. So I call it a mattress out of sheets. If you do that one after another, over many, many years and you do it well, all of a sudden you wake up, you know, 7 to 10, 12 years later, and you're like, holy shit, it's a big catalog. And so I tend to like businesses that advance money to artists and build catalog that way or manage catalog that way. There's a certain magic to understanding how to compensate artists and doing it fairly. So I tend to look at that. You know, the music business has changed a lot. It used to be that if you wanted to be an independent, you needed to own your own vertical. And you know, at Songs, we had our global administration business that we owned and built. We had our own technology. So we were self-contained, standalone competitor. Now I think, you know, solutions have become available everywhere. There's a lot of good publishing administration, a lot of good record distribution solutions. There's a lot of off-the-shelf stuff you can get. It's really about music. It's really about understanding artists and the music that they make and connecting them with an audience. So I look for people who uniquely understand that. Now that can be, you know, somebody who has a geographical lock on a particular kind of music. It can be somebody that has a particularly unique understanding of how the studio works because I think if there's one big change in the music publishing business lately, it's that it's gone really back to the studio. And the interesting companies are actually making songs in real-time in a studio environment. So it can be that. It can be that you have another business that you do and music is associated with it. So why not, you know, get into the music business while you're doing whatever else you do, but you need to have some reason why you have access to a particular group of artists in a particular kind of repertoire, and you're helpful to that in some way or another. And so it's quite a different set of things that I look for on that side than on the technology side. [00:13:34] Dan Runcie: And with the way that your firm is structured, too, I see parallels with the types of companies you're looking at, right? You're not just focused on one particular type of investment area. You have the music tech companies that you're looking at. Splice is an example. You also have the companies that are working more directly in music itself, whether that is giving advances or companies that have a unique edge on who they're reaching. And I think that translates as well when you're talking about the types of companies you're looking at because a lot of times, especially 10, 15 years ago, as you mentioned, there were more silos and now you're starting to see companies have different types of roles that they do or different divisions to try to be this nebulous term that I've heard several times as broader entertainment company. And while I think that that's effective, I could also see how that could challenge some of the challenges of being able to have a business that is defensible or having a moat and the focus that comes with that. So how do you balance that and what are the things that you look for when evaluating companies that are both trying to do it all, but also are trying to have something that they can be defensible with? [00:14:40] Matt Pincus: Well, so on the music side of it, you know, it's about relationships. You know, the good companies, their equity is their relationships with different people around the business. And it's really a human-centric business. So, you know, defensibility often is correlated with reputation in the independent music business, at least. That was certainly true of Songs. One of the big success factors of the company and in fact, like, kind of our asset was that me and Ron and Carianne had really good relationships around the business that we built over many years, and that allowed us to punch above our weight class. You know, when we were a very small business, you know, we acted as a bigger business because we were able to get champions that helped us along the way, both in terms of the artists that were willing to sign with us, but also in terms of, you know, other people around the business that took us on and helped us out. Oddly enough defensibility in the music business is not a patent or a technology or some special recipe you have someplace. It's your understanding of music, the people that make it, and then your ability to develop relationships with people around the business and to keep your reputation such that people want to be with you. You know, on the tech side of it, it's a little bit different. You have to make sure that your innovation curve is constantly there. You have to make sure, like, I would not invest in a business that did not have a technical co-founder. You know, ideas are great. Everybody's got ideas. You know, there's an app for anything. But the real key in, at least in the music technology side of it is you need to be able to spin the technology yourself and understand really how it works, which when you get into the crypto side of it's really interesting 'cause a lot of people understand the implications of it, but they have no idea how the shit works. They don't actually use it. And they get kind of confused thinking that it's much more complicated than in fact it really is. Or, you know, they get so fascinated with the technology that they don't make a product that stands on its own bottom and has value to the end user. So it's a little bit different in the different areas of the market that you look at. And one of the reasons why I like the field that I play on and I feel very lucky to be able to do the different things that I can do with music is because some of it is about sort of analytical, scalable technology-oriented investments. And some of it is just about people in tunes. And so you're kind of mixing a lot of different things together. You know, the one thing that I don't like so much about the recent music business is somehow we all slipped into talking about music as assets and fractional finance and cash flows and securitization. And I'm like, listen, if I wanted to do all that shit, I do it not here. You know, the music business is not assets and finance and cash flows and, you know, securitization. The music business is moving people, motivating people, creating an audience, assembling humans to want what you make, and distributing that and delivering it and all the rest of that stuff. You know, the fact like, listen, what I'm doing is either really smart or really dumb because either you can make a real investment business just out of the music business. And I think you can because there's lots of different types of investments in music and there's lots of growth and lots of possibility. But also, you know, it's a pretty small business. And I live in, play, you know, a neighborhood, the size of a postage stamp. We'll see if they can be done, but I think originally, you know, it starts with the creative and it starts with the means of delivering the creative to the people that want it. And then all of the rest of this stuff, you know, yield, debt payments, multiples on equity, bonds, all the rest of this stuff just is a happy accident that comes from doing your job well.[00:18:35] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned this because there's a version of what you do that could easily look more like a traditional private equity firm, where they are just going in and doing all of the things that you just mentioned and they're coming more from that perspective, but in many ways, your defense is having this laser focus on music, but you're going deep within all of the areas that it encompasses. And with that, I have to assume that this also maybe has a bit of a flavor on what your take is about the money that has come into the music industry and some of those other non-music companies or those that are purely looking at it for the financial opportunity or for the noncorrelated opportunities and how that in a lot of ways, even though on paper, someone that's fundraising may see the money they can get from you versus the money they get from others. But I'm hearing it from the record labels. And especially the independent ones they're getting reached out to all the time now about acquisitions. And a lot of those calls are coming from non-music related companies that are trying to make those moves. So it's been fascinating to see how that shapes, but I do feel like you are going about this in a much more unique way than a lot of them are.[00:19:49] Matt Pincus: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I will say that the recent, like, huge inflow of capital into the music business has one very good byproduct, which is it's giving a lot of money to songwriters and artists. Some of these catalogs getting valued at 20 times, 30 times, you know, NPS where they would've been valued at 10, you know, four or five years ago, maybe 10 years ago. It just results in people that make great music, making a bunch of bucks. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. On the catalog side of it, it makes a little bit more sense that some of these like larger capital vehicles are coming into the market and, you know, bidding things up and structuring the leverage in a certain way that makes sense. There's a big difference between what's going on now and what was going on when this first happened, like in 2006, 2007 timeframe because the people that are doing it now can afford it. They've got lots and lots of money. They don't need big returns on that money. They have the ability to structure this stuff financially in ways that don't make no sense. And so it makes, you know, more sense that people are doing that with the IP catalog acquisition business. When it gets to new music, you know, I think it's still a human business. I think you got to know the people, you know, and you have to understand how it's really about managing what I refer to as the working capital of the business. So, you know, you need to advance money, you need to collect that money, you need to reinvest the money. And so a lot of that, you know, it's not a big enough business that you can structure it like a bunch of bonds. You need to kind of understand the market that you're in, how many deals you could possibly get, and what about you ought to pay for them, and what kind of infrastructure you need to address all of that to do a good job. And that's hard to know from outside of the business. It's even hard to know, like there's sort of two lanes in the music business. There's people who came up through the building where they started at majors and they kind of built their career, you know, up from coordinator to director to senior director to VPs, SVP, EVP. And then they end up running the company, a lot of great people who came up that way. And then there's people who kind of feed in the wild. Like, come outside of the building and need to figure out, like, what's available. And there's some real differences, you know. Sometimes they cross over like Ron Perry who was an instrumental person at Songs from, you know, the very beginning to through time we sold and now runs Columbia. So sometimes that happens. Or Carianne who, you know, also was my partner at Songs who now runs Warner Chappell with Guy Moot. It's like there, you know, it happens, but there are really two lanes. And I think in the independent side, it's a lot about systematic A&R so about looking at, listen, none of us are overfunded with tons of money. So, you know, everybody's stretching the dough. And it becomes about how can I build this system in the world that I live that can do deals inexpensively, and then find the ones that are working and invest and push them forward. And all the great independent music companies, you know, Chrysalis, Jive Zomba, A&M Rondor, all the great ones throughout history sort of did that really effectively or were usually like the other ones. So everybody goes to the majors to get their offer. And then there's these other cooler guys that are there, like, you know, kind of fucking with the majors by picking off all the left to center stuff that was us at Songs. You know, and all those other companies I just mentioned were kind of some version of that. But there's kind of, all of these mechanics that come both from history, so understanding the history of the business, but also understanding the people and how they sort of work 'cause as much as the world is changing and it's changing a lot, it's still kind of about A&R. It's still about creative in some way or another. I mean, Carianne's superpower, which she's got many, but the original superpower was understanding not only what works well to picture, but the people that choose music in film and television, advertisements, video games, she's particularly uniquely talented at that. And that's still a core skill that people need to understand. So, you know, I'm the guy that kind of pulls the pieces together. I don't do any of those things. I, you know, originally hired some great people and now I try to invest in great people that do all that stuff, but it's still about understanding it and if you're coming purely from the outside, I think it's challenging.[00:24:22] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I think your career experience speaks a lot to this, right? You mentioned being able to find the left-of-center opportunities when you're at Songs, whether it was Lorde or The Weeknd. And you saw how those turned out. It worked out brilliantly. I'm curious to hear what you think about the way things are right now because, especially with the way that TikTok is and so many of the companies, whether it's the major labels or the independents, they all have access to the same information. So the cost of acquiring and being able to find and develop those same artists is much more expensive. So what do you think those left-of-center opportunities look like today in the current environment where it feels as if there are more and more outlets to find different types of people, but the way that people are going about it, it does seem like a lot of people are now playing a pretty similar game.[00:25:13] Matt Pincus: You mean like a moneyball...[00:25:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. [00:25:15] Matt Pincus: ...type of, yeah. So, you know, again, I go back to like, there's sort of in the building and there's outside of the building way of thinking. So in the major system, it makes logical sense that they want to sort of hang back, see what reacts, and go and get it when it reacts, the more predictable something is the more you're willing to pay for it. That makes logical sense. There's nothing wrong with it. They're not idiots for doing that. It's just the way that they traditionally operate. And now it's about, like, seeing the shiny pennies and then grabbing them right away, whatever the cost, because music is much more efficient than it used to be. It used to be that you'd have to, like, release a whole album and sink a bunch of capital into seeing if something works. Now you can kind of tell pretty quickly if something's going to work. So it makes sense to pay a lot for something predictable, as opposed to, you know, paying a little bit for stuff that is wildly uncertain. So, you know, that makes total sense. I think on the independent side, and I really count in that like A&R mentality, like people who are finding artists and developing artists. So it's not just like, you know, independent labels, but it's also like, you know, Electric Feel is a really interesting company that does this, Hallwood. You know, APG is obviously the really great example of this, of finding artists really early and developing them into something or representing people who do that. A lot of, you know, that is about iteration and about understanding, you know, what makes a good story in a particular market. Now, part of that is the music itself. Part of that, most of it is the music itself, but part of that is also all the other stuff around it. You know, how you unfold the narrative, how you stage market entry for an artist. You know, all of those things, again, I come back to the stick to your knitting thing where it's like, as much as the world changes, it kind of remains the same to some degree. So, you know, the interesting and frustrating thing about the music business for people that run companies like I did at Songs is that there's just not that many good, really good, talented people, you know. If there's one structural problem in the music business is there's not enough, really good A&R people, promotion people, you know, creative people. [00:27:29] Dan Runcie: And why do you think that is?[00:27:30] Matt Pincus: I think it's hard, for one, I think it's hard. And as much as people try to play moneyball, now I'm a big believer in systematic A&R, which some people would consider, you know, moneyball. So in other words, like having a funnel that gives you a group of things that might work, that I'm a big believer in that as a starting point, but that only gets you like 51% confidence. That's not much more than a coin toss. The rest of it is really doing the work of developing the product itself, the music itself, and then the story around it. And it's just a hard business, plus you got to know everybody, you know. So it takes a while to develop those relationships and those skills. One of the things that's interesting when I look on the music tech side of it that I think is one of the great things is that the technological development in music production is allowing people to learn how to use the gear quicker. So you're going to have hit singles coming from 13-year-olds within no time at all. And that used to not be possible because it would take you four or five, six years just to learn how to twist the knobs on a board. Like, it was hard. Now with like, you know, presets, with things like Splice, with AI-assisted creation, you know, anything that makes it easier for an artist to get what's inside of them out, the learning curve is becoming less steep. And that's a good thing because talent shines in that environment. You know, it's one thing to be able to, you know, have a knowledge-base to tweak things. It's another thing to just be a talented and expressive artist with urgency. And so maybe some of that will happen. And on the executive side, like on the A&R side, as things like radio, you know, radio's been so monolithic and so hard to penetrate. And now maybe it's loosening up a little bit, but it still takes a while to figure out what's going to work. It's very hard. And it is one thing to be a fan and be like, this is good, this is not good. It's another thing to take a look at something that doesn't yet exist and be like, this is what it will look like if we can pull it off. I don't have that talent, you know. I'm not an A&R person, but I watch people do it and it's pretty miraculous. And it's not just A&R, it's also promotion, which is an undervalued piece of the equation and increasingly, marketing, digital marketing, like the first cut of it was just, you know, sort of advertising on Facebook. Now it's much more sophisticated than that. And so I feel like it's just hard and I wish there were, you know, there's also the part of the problem in the music business is nobody trains anybody. There's no HR infrastructure. You know, I went to Columbia Business School and I had been in the music business. I didn't have one single meeting about a job that came through the school. [00:30:14] Dan Runcie: I'm not surprised. That wasn't the case for me either. [00:30:17] Matt Pincus: That’s what I'm saying like, nobody trained you. I mean, I remember going on a job interview when I was like 21 coming right out of college or 23 coming right out of college with a guy at ICM. And he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to be an A&R .He said, great, find a band. That was it. That was the interview. And so it's like, it's that kind of business, which is kind of wonderful in its own way, but it doesn't train people really. And so that's also part of the reason. We don't develop our talent, executive talent pipeline in a really great way. And that's why people like, you know, Mike Caren at APG is so special. You know, the LVRN guys are so special because they bring along executives in a really concerted kind of way. And I wish there was more of that in the business in general. [00:30:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity for it. And I think you see a lot of it play out when there are executive shake ups and who gets picked for certain things and why people get picked for certain things. And to some extent, you see this in other places too, whether there's a mix of internal hires versus external. But one thing that I have noticed is the units that do tend to stick together, or there is some continuity there. You do see a lot of success happen if they understand what works, everyone's into it. And I think some of these other places where it could be a bit of revolving doors with who's in leadership, who's trying to get where it's very tough to have that infrastructure. [00:31:35] Matt Pincus: And that was one of the great blessings for me at Songs, which is not, doesn't speak well for the industry, particularly, but, you know, Ron and Carianne were two of the most talented people of their generation for sure. And the business didn't know what to do with them. The fact that I could get the two of them and we could all stay together for 12 years and build a company is like a miracle. And that was a big part of the reason why it all worked is because we knew each other really well and people knew us as a unit. We had different things we did. It's a little bit like, you know, kind of what's going on with the professional sports a little bit too, is, you know, it's great that all these individual players are celebrities. And again, great that athletes are making more money, but great teams don't stay together in the same way that they did before. And I think that's changing a little bit now because you don't have to do a deal with a major and get your money the traditional way in order to build a company. And that's one of the reasons I exist as MUSIC, is because there's opportunities to bring outside capital into the business under terms that look a little bit more like sort of venture capital or private equity, which is in a way more fair than the traditional music business has been on a per transaction basis. There's natural reasons why the major music companies finance the music business for as many decades as they did, and it's not to rip people off, it's because nobody else would do it. But now it's a different world and so hopefully some of these things will change. You know, when you have really great entrepreneurs that own their own business, as opposed to, you know, in some JV with a major that's really a compensation agreement, then it's in their interest, like it was in mine when I was running Songs, to bring along really talented people and find new ones. And so that's one of the things that I've sort of hoped for in some way. [00:33:24] Dan Runcie: Are there any artists that stick out to you as examples of yes, they're building their business and they're doing this the way that could be a blueprint for what we'll see more frequently moving forward?[00:33:34] Matt Pincus: Ones that I talk about all the time is The Weeknd, which we were involved with, you know, from fairly early on. And Sal who's, you know, has been his manager for a very long time, and Cash. You know, I think you're going to see what they did with XO happening in a lot of different ways going forward, where you get a group of people that form a partner and distribute responsibilities between artist, manager. You know, there's people like La Mar Taylor involved with those guys that does all the visual. There's a lot of cooks that need to be in the kitchen to make something really successfully work. The label model of sign to a label, they'll do everything that existed in, like, the nineties is way long gone. Even management where you sort of have somebody who's a commission person that's just doing the business of an artist, that's not true of the good ones anymore. The good ones get in it with the artist and really help them build an entrepreneurial life. I mean, to be an artist now, you need to, like, be like a 140-character joke writer. You need to be an accountant. You need to have a corporate entity. You need to deal with all these different vendors. And you need to be like, you know, P. T. Barnum, like, step right up, step right up, check this out, you're going to love it. It's a complex skill set. And so I think one of the things that you're going to see in the talent representation business, like the management business is I think you're going to see more entity partnership formation, where people are going to go into partnership together. Managers and artists will be like Sal, Sal and Abel have been together for, how long now? Like, I mean...[00:35:08] Dan Runcie: It's at least a decade, right?[00:35:09] Matt Pincus: Yeah. And they've been able to scale and grow and make a lot of money and still be together. And that's because everyone provides value. I'm sure they adjust their relationship, however, over time, I don't know. But I think you're going to see that approach because it takes a village in a way to make really durable stuff. I mean, if you're talking about a viral hit that's here today, gone today. That's one thing. But if you're talking about really building a franchise over a period of time, it requires a lot of work from a lot of people. So I think you'll see sort of, you know, entity formation with partners that include business people and artists in with interest aligned. You know, Diplo's another one. I mean, you know, TMWRK and Diplo have been together for again, going back to since I started working with them. So that was 2011, you know? You look at firms like CRUSH, Jonathan, Daniel has built franchise after franchise of artists that stay with him forever. And he works with him as a partner and that's why it works. So I think you're going to see more of that going forward and and I think that's a good thing.[00:36:13] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. The Weeknd's a very good example because even from the origins of his career, you could see the mentality of where he saw things. Drake famously offered him the opportunity to come on OVO Sound. They had the whole Toronto connection, Drake put him onto that blog post and everything, but then he was like, no, I don't want to be under another artist when I think I can be just as big as that artist, even bigger and do my own thing and look what he's been able to do now. So I think a lot of it...[00:36:41] Matt Pincus: And by the way, the record deal is a distribution deal. [00:36:43] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:36:44] Matt Pincus: You know, I mean, there you go. And so in terms of distribution of value, you know, if you can do it, if you're smart enough to have a cool head and plan like those guys did, you know, you can have a much larger enterprise than you normally would. So I hold them up as an example of, you know, what I think is going to happen and is happening really in lots of different areas of the business now.[00:37:07] Dan Runcie: One of the other areas that has gotten a bunch of attention right now has been syncs, and this has been growing, I think, especially given what we've seen with people, especially from outside the music industry, trying to get more involved, but especially this past summer with Kate Bush being featured in Stranger Things. This conversation has been happening more and more. This is another example where it's a mix of that art and science of what does finding a good sync looks like and what happens with it. And I think so much of it, there's maybe a little bit of luck with just how the internet works and how things take off, but there's also a good amount of work that's put into finding the right type of placement for the right type of artists that could make all those things work to make it happen. So how do you view the opportunities for sync right now? [00:37:53] Matt Pincus: You know, it's interesting. I was sort of a student of Carianne. She taught me the sync business. I literally remember she had a binder where she kept every single interaction she ever had around a song and a placement. And she not only showed me how it all worked, but then we made a software platform out of her own process of how she did it. So I was trained by the best. One of the interesting things about sync is how it always comes back in cycles. You know, when we started Songs, it was like 2004, sync was the whole game. Like, between 2006 and sort of 2009 timeframe, it was the most important thing in a pitch. You know, it was responsible for a lot of our really early successes. And then when it became a largely pop business there in the early days of streaming, it was like sort of radio and super reactive and viral repertoire. It sort of stepped to the background for a minute. And now with the way that kids are bouncing around on a playlist from like, you know, Taylor to like a hip-hop track to, you know, Kate Bush back to Metallica and they don't care. It's become all of a sudden, perhaps one of the top, most important ways repertoire gets discovered now. It's amazing the enduring power of synchronization over time. The thing about sync that I think is interesting is part of it is selection. Like, is this song going to work to picture? But there's a lot that goes into making the deal happen. I mean, that Kate Bush deal as my understanding, I was not involved, but my understanding from, like, just hearing about it was that it took 'em forever to get the clearance done. So a lot of it is not only just is this going to work the picture? Is it the right BPM, the right mood, you know, the right tonality, the right cultural notes, which is a very special thing that music supervisors are particularly good at, but it's also the real politic of like getting the fucking thing cleared. And one of the things that I look at, I tend to have thesis sort of areas when I look at investing in the music business, and one of them is just how fuck the sync business is. That, you know, there should be a buy it now button in the music business if you want to use something for your film, buy it now. And if it was easy, people would pay more. But the problem is they have to roll around a glass to clear a copyright, getting the same deal with 13 songwriters and the master side and it's horribly inefficient. So I think part of the interesting thing with sync in the next generation is how do we do right by the music by making it more usable. Because there's also a couple of different ways this sync business cuts. So, you know, you have stuff that's used in a more traditional sense, and that has a real, like the standard pairing of like, it matter, it makes a huge creative difference and it's very hand selected. Front title and title, you know, big placement in a film television advertisement, but then you have this huge blanket sync business where a lot of the new promotion platform are AV platforms. It's technically synchronization, TikTok, YouTube, you know, Instagram it's technically sync. And I would argue that if there's one element of the business that gives radio a run for its money, it's AV platforms because what happens is people use it in so many videos that you end up hearing the song a thousand times, however many times it takes for you to be like, oh, my God, I have to hear it again. That's really the only place it happens and that's sync. There's a couple of different ways it cuts. You know, the great, like, placements of all time, and we had quite a few of them at Songs that sort of are like, you know, really make a song and make a film. Those are works of art. But also a lot of handling everything else is like maybe 50, 50 at best creative to handling. And so a lot of it is understanding, having those relationships, understanding how to price things, understanding how to clear repertoire, getting permission from the artist to do it. There's a lot of process that goes into it.[00:41:49] Dan Runcie: Is there a sync from your days that song that you look back on that you were like, yeah, that's the one. It took some work, but looking back that's the one. [00:41:56] Matt Pincus: Wow. That's really, that be would a really better question for Carianne than for me. In terms of like the stuff that really made a difference to us as a business, one of the things that I think was meaningful was when Lorde did the Hunger Games soundtrack in the follow-up movie. That gave us a really good look at how music can be a content element in overall entertainment. The Weeknd did a similar thing with Black Panther where, so it was those sort of tie-in, you know, big-ticket where our music was woven into the substance of the film or the ad in some cases. That I think are really the special moments. Those are two that pop out. There's always like the random one where you have a relatively smaller artist and you get them a sync and, you know, it changes their life. It gives 'em more money than they ever thought was possible. There's also the ones, we had an artist who had a very high level of ethic and I won't name the artist, but independent artist, good earnings, but not a pop artist. And we got a $90,000 ad and for very good ethical reasons, he said, fuck, no, it's not going to happen, not going to approve it. And as much as I was like, it was to do early days of the company, it would've made a huge difference to write 90 grand into my books in a quarter. There's some beauty in the level of control that artists have over their own work in the music business that they don't in a lot of other media that I was like, you know what good for him, I guess we're saying no. There's this artisanal component to it that's really special.[00:43:32] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Being able to have that power and knowing when it isn't right. I've heard similar things as well from other podcasters I'll talk to when they get pitched with certain deals and stuff, and they'll be like, you know what, that's just not a product I'm willing to do, or that's just not an endorsement I'm willing to have. And it could have been a game changer for them and their business and everything. But I think we're going to see more of this with creators as they just are leveraging their own independence and being able to make their own decisions. [00:43:59] Matt Pincus: Yeah, exactly. [00:44:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah.[00:44:00] Matt Pincus: Exactly. [00:44:01] Dan Runcie: I want to close this conversation out talking about streaming 'cause I know this is a topic that you've shared a number of insights on over the years. And one of the things that you've said before that has always stuck out to me and resonated is this path that streaming has been on where it has been growing year over year, but a lot of people, especially in recent months, have started to question how many more subscribers out there are willing to pay the full price for streaming services and even if there is growth in some of these other regions where the revenue coming in is only a fraction of what it currently is now, what does that growth necessarily look like? So I hear that there's two camps there. Some people are skeptical about the future, but others are looking at smartphone adoption and just the way that things are trending as an indicator of where things are going. But how do you view the opportunity and especially streaming's growth from here on out. [00:44:55] Matt Pincus: Okay. So I think there's a couple of different things there. You know, one is just on-demand streaming and what the growth curve looks like for on-demand stream. I think the broader question is what does overall growth look like for music consumption going forward? And I'm not sure those are totally the same thing. So, you know, listen, Spotify's done an epic job growing that business. It's a difficult business from just the word go, you know, you're relying on content licenses, you're inherently undifferentiated. Like on paper, it looks like this is impossible. And yet they build an unbelievable business out of it. And I really, you know, sort of think it's worth, you know, whatever opinions people have about streaming, to take a step back and realize that the people who did this originally, you know, Larry Jackson and Apple Music, the people who did it originally did a really fucking tremendous job of making it work. It will mature. There's some debate over whether it may have already started to mature in some distinct ways in Western, you know, sort of developed economies and even maybe in some of the larger sort of secondary territories. The really interesting places that we used to see at Songs in our own data are high population, low discretionary income countries, Indonesia, Philippines, a lot of the African continent. I'm not sure it's necessarily in all of those places going to be an on-demand streaming function that, you know, ultimately wins the day. There are people fucking with a model in a bunch of different ways over mobile. Boomplay in Africa is doing a buyout model. You know, it can be woven with other kinds of entertainment in a bundle in a bunch of different ways. So the question of where on-demand streaming goes, it is a little bit like anyone's guess, but there are different opinions between reasonable people about how the growth curve looks. You know, one of the things that I really love about the web three thing, and I think it's in the early days of really grinding the gears to figure out what actually works, 'cause like this sort of, you know, sucking on the laughing gas tank and you know, watching your crypto go up or over now. So it's entering into like a moment where people actually like have to figure out how it works. But the thing that I think is true is that it's unlocked a premium, that people are willing to pay over the cost of consuming music permanently. How big that premium is, we'll see. I think it was overinflated and inorganic in some of the early times of crypto, not a lot, humans are doing it and they're doing it for high ticket prices, you know, but if you look at some of the stuff, for example, that's going on in Asia, where people are throwing money at artists they like just because they want to you know, people paying sort of eye of the beholder price to be associated with an artist that they feel strongly about, that they love early in their career. Like, that's not going away. So whether, you know, the subscription fatigue is a reality, whether effective penny rates, times units of consumption are going up, flattening, going down. You know, we'll see. I mean, the Goldman Sachs people think they're going to go up forever. I'm not sure I totally agree with that. But what is true is that the willingness of people to invest in artists they love is increasing. And I don't think that's going back to zero, so it may not be, you know, that subgrowth continues on forever and on-demand streaming, but it may be that there are other ways that people can figure out how to engage with artists that keep the value, you know, exchange going up. Now, the one thing about streaming that's interesting is that, you know, the TikTok thing, in ways that people, like, talk shit about it all the time, whatever, but the thing that's interesting is that it did introduce frequency back into the equation. And one of the things about music that's unique is that you need to hear a song a number of times before you like it. Like at first you're like, I hate that. And then you hear it like five times and you're like, maybe I want to hear it again. And then by like, whatever end time you hear it, you're like, I can't get it out of my head. I got to hear it. It's like, Barry Weiss used to call it a record finding its bottom, where it would kind of come out and people would spin it, and then it would drop and then at some level would start to rise again. That's a function of promotion. That's a function of frequency. And in the early YouTube time and on-demand streaming time, you didn't really have that. Like, the people couldn't make something frequently play. And the AV platforms, not only TikTok, but also Snap and Instagram changed that equation and that music needs that. The thing that I'm wondering where it will happen, where it will come back into the equation though, is the music press, which has largely disappeared. And so I'm looking for who, on a consumer level there, people like yourself covering the business, part of it, that are doing an extraordinary job, but who sort of tells people what's good, gets it in front of them, filters it and what does that look like? It's probably not printed on a page. It's probably, it's sort of associated, I think in some way with what's going on with the NFT world, you know, with getting people to buy in, getting a community of people bought to projects, but it's still that same mechanism of filtering. And so I'm wondering where that's one of my thesis areas that I have my on. Where's the next one of those? [00:50:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I think this is a role that, of course, MTV and so many other places own and were able to do so well decades ago. And now the commonality I've always referred back to is that TikTok in many ways is the new MTV, but it's more so in the broader sense of just the cultural appeal, but not in that solo aspect of yes, if you want to know what this group of people are pushing, or what is the thing that's in, this is the place to go to find that. And I think it's very tough, the way that things are right now, just with how fragmented things are. But people are always going to want to feel like they're part of what's in or feel like they know what's in that desire also isn't going away. So I think there were always be a space for this, no matter how fragmented.[00:50:53] Matt Pincus: And people don't always know what they like. I mean, who knew that all these people love Kate Bush? [00:50:58] Dan Runcie: Right. [00:50:58] Matt Pincus: We all understand why. She's amazing. Song's amazing, but people don't always know what they like until somebody shows it to them and repeats it. And then all of a sudden they can't get it out of their head. And that's the magic of music. So how that happens, you know, the cool kids like it up from the bottom, you know, like to be selective, know about the stuff first. The general audience likes to hear things multiple times and then, you know, be addicted to it. And I think that those things will reinvent themselves in a bunch of different ways going forward. [00:51:27] Dan Runcie: For sure, Matt, before we let you go, do you have one big prediction for us on where you may see things in the next five years or one thing that you think will change from where music is right now to where things will be come 2027?[00:51:40] Matt Pincus: Well, I think as I touched on before, I think younger and younger people are going to be making music that the world reacts. And that is going to be miraculous when it happens. And not necessarily in like a sort of criss-cross Whip / Nae Nae type of way, but in a real, like expressing the core thoughts and feelings they have and getting them out there in a way that sounds good to the world. I think that's going to happen in a bunch of different ways. I think the way that repertoire moves across the planet is going to be revolutionary in the next five years. If there's one thing that's really going to change, you know, it used to be that sort of music went west to east and technology went east to west. Now, I think that's all scrambled eggs right now. If you look at stuff, like, you know, some of the music that's coming out of West Africa right now and how it gets into the global culture. It's not like in a, you know, used to be like you had like a world music business. Like, that's ripped up and thrown away. And so I think, you know, the way that the in-country community relates to the diaspora community in around the globe is going to be really different. You know, I think if there's one thing I have my eye on, it's sort of how all that stuff travels. And obviously, there's some obvious examples like BTS. But I think this is going to happen anywhere and everywhere. And one of the things that I heard somebody say the other day that I felt was really interesting is that the music business thinks about countries in its marketing. You know, they've Europe and Asia and Australia, Canada, US. It should be cities because music is about scenes and it's going to travel that way. And so your Amsterdam strategy is going to be different from your Seoul strategy is going to be different from your São Paulo strategy. And so if there's one like broad thing, I think we're going to look at the way that music travels around the planet in a completely different way. [00:53:37] Dan Runcie: That's spot on. Look at the way we think about music here in the US. That should be an indication of how it should be looked at elsewhere, right? We know what Atlanta hip-hop sounds like compared to what you may hear in LA or even the New Orleans bounce sound. Like, it's so different place to place. So you look at a country like Nigeria, which is soon going to eclipse the US in population. What you may hear in Lagos would be completely different from other parts of the country. So that's a really great point. [00:54:05] Matt Pincus: Yeah. So that would be like, if I, you know, sort of, if I had to obsess about something, it would be that. [00:54:10] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of people listening probably will too. This is a good one. I think that you got a bunch of notes for people to jot down. So Matt, thank you for making the time for this. This is fun. Thanks for coming on. [00:54:21] Matt Pincus: Thank you so much. I just really appreciate your thinking to me. And it's a pleasure to talk to you about all this stuff.[00:54:27] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

In less than a week, AI-powered rapper FN Meka became the first virtual rapper signed to a major label and then released by one. Capitol Records dropped the virtual act for being a complete caricature of black culture — glorifying police brutality in lyrics, dropping the n-word, and other cringey behaviors. However, FN Meka’s utter failure shouldn’t be a write off for ALL virtual characters. In fact, a prime example of how to do it right is Aku.Aku was created by Micah Johnson — a former MLB player and now a full-fledged artist, both in the virtual and real world. The kid character is a black astronaut, which was inspired by Micah’s four-year-old nephew asking his mother, “can astronauts be black?” Unlike FN Meka, Aku is a vehicle to promote what one artist wants to see in the world. A symbol or hero for a better tomorrow. This week, I’m running back an interview I did with Micah in 2021. It was done shortly after Micah first released the character as an NFT collection, selling $2 million right off the bat. And no, this was not just a FOMO-fueled drop amid the NFT crazy. Aku has lived on since then, and only a few weeks ago, the lifestyle fashion label Paper Plans announced a snapback collab with the Aku character. This comes on top of prior partnerships with major brands like Puma and Billionaire Boys Club, plus Aku appearing on the cover of Time Magazine.Unlike FN Meka, the creation and intention behind Aku is an uplifting story.Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Micah Johnson, @Micah_Johnson3 Links:Aku | Micah Johnson’s character to inspire kids to dream without limits  Sponsors: MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo.

Before Abe Batshon started BeatStars in 2008, a handful of superproducers had a quasi-monopoly on selling beats, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars per song. Top producers still get paid today, but the concept has become more antiquated with platforms like BeatStars democratizing beat-making. Creators can sell instrumentals — either under an exclusive license or not — to artists around the globe for a fraction of the previous cost. With $200 million paid out to creators to date, BeatStars has reset the entire economics of beats. Abe started BeatStars without any VC funding during the Great Recession. This was also pre-steaming, when the music industry was in its dark days. Bootstrapping the company, BeatStars would redefine the music landscape along with other DIY distribution platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube. Abe’s goal from the get-go was to break the relationship-driven nature of creating music and open opportunities for creators around the globe.Fourteen years later, it’s safe to say Abe has created more opportunities and then some. Famously, Lil Nas X bought the beat for viral sensation “Old Town Road” on BeatStars for $30. BeatStars’ producers have also been featured on songs released by Drake and Ariana Grande and ads for adidas, the NBA, and many more. BeatStars’ fingerprints are all over media, not just the independents but the majors too. Here’s all the noteworthy moments during our conversation:[3:27] Recognizing BeatStars instrumentals online [6:18] Starting BeatStars amid 2008 music landscape[7:28] Receiving pushback when BeatStars began[10:02] What finally changed for producers[12:20] Resetting economics of beats[16:25] Typical earnings for BeatStars creators[20:36] Music syncs in mainstream media[23:44] BeatStars growth trajectory[28:20] More competitors in the marketplace [31:22] VC money’s impact in the music industry [36:03] BeatStars cap table[39:30] Roadmap for the futureListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Abe Batshon, @AbeBatshon  Sponsors: MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital Enjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:00] Abe Batshon: for us, it's never been about the money. It's always been about these young people all over the world and old people, creators from everywhere. Like, can we liberate the idea of songs? Can we help push people to be more experimental with their words and their messages and their art and something that's so personal for them. I don't see any of these like venture-backed companies or big invested-type of companies actually having a genuine approach to how they treat or deal with their community. So I'm really not worried about it. I definitely keep them in mind in terms of continuing our fight to liberate music. [00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's episode is a topic I've been wanting to dive into for a minute and this is about the business of buying and selling beats. It's a fascinating marketplace that has shifted considerably over the past few decades. So I wanted to bring on an expert himself to chat about it. Abe Batshon, who is the founder and CEO of BeatStars, which is a marketplace for buying and selling beats. He joined me on this topic, and we took a trip down memory lane. We went back to the 2000s, we talked about what it was like. You remember when Timbaland was bragging about getting half a mill for his beats and Neptunes had 40% of the songs on the radio? As great as it was for them, there really wasn't a lot for the other producers and other people that were trying to come up, so BeatStars came up in this post-YouTube era to make it possible for having this marketplace. And Abe talks about what it was like back then and just given some of the challenges that existed with the music industry, searching for its own business model at the dark days of piracy and trying to navigate that. But then also with the early days of the streaming era and how that has lifted his business. In the past two years, BeatStars has made more money than it made in the past 12 years before that, and it's on track to have another one of its biggest years yet now. So we talk about what that journey's been like, what led to that, and how this marketplace and how this business has evolved. When Abe was starting this, people laughed at him because they thought it was crazy what he was trying to do. Today, there are plenty of investors with bigger pockets that are trying to come in and eat his lunch. So we talked about what that looks like and why he still thinks that BeatStars is well positioned there. We also talk more broadly about the amount of VC money that's come into music tech, and how he looks at that, and what it looks like for other opportunities. If you're as fascinated about this topic as I am, you'll love this conversation. Abe kept it real and it was great to talk to him. Here's our chat.[00:02:55] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we have Abe Batshon who is the CEO and founder of BeatStars. One of the premier places to buy and sell beats and wanted to have him on so we could have a conversation about this entire process, this landscape, and right before we recorded, Abe, you were just telling me about how you were listening to a different podcast. And you could hear when you hear that BeatStars beats on a podcast, Trapital podcast, of course, mine came from there. How do you know that the beat for sure came from BeatStars as opposed to somewhere else? [00:03:27] Abe Batshon: Well, yeah, I'm a dude. I listen to so much music on the platform. Like, I process everything so much and I kind of, I don't know if it's photographic memory in terms of when you hear something, I just retain that information around that piece of music forever. Like, I know when I've heard something. Yeah, so, yes, I'll randomly, like, you know, turn on the TV or turn on the radio or turn on, you know, TikTok or turn on SoundCloud or turn on anywhere. And I'm like, holy shit. Or Spotify, you know? And I'm listening to, like, some of the trending viral songs or the top Billboard songs. I'm like, yeah, I know those beats. I know those beats. I've heard those before. Yeah. [00:04:04] Dan Runcie: Do you feel like there's a distinct brand or sound that has BeatStars sound that you can pick up on almost in the same way that well-known and established producer has that sound like you could hear a track and be like, oh, that's a Neptunes track even if I'd never heard it before, do you feel like that's the case for a BeatStars beats? [00:04:21] Abe Batshon: Good question. You know, maybe eight years ago, nine years ago, yeah, I could have, you know, been like, okay, that's definitely an influence from the marketplace, from the sound, from the platform, but today with the amount of variety and just so many different genres, and sub-genres and styles of music that's getting uploaded to BeatStars, it's impossible to just define it to one, sound anymore, but maybe 10 years ago, for sure. Yeah, not now, not now. [00:04:49] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense from the timeframe perspective 'cause I could imagine, especially in the early days, there are artists you have that are likely championing the service. And if they're bringing on others that want to have that artist-type beat there, then there's going to be a lot of that similarity. But over time, especially with where you are now, over 200 million paid out to artists on this platform that just speaks to the reach that you have and everything that you've been able to do from it. [00:05:16] Abe Batshon: Yeah, man. so fulfilling, so fulfilling to just like know that's the kind of impact the technology and platform is making for, you know, for creators' lives. I'm definitely not satisfied with that number at all. But it's a great, great motivational indicator for me to keep going for the team, to keep pushing. But, you know, our aspirations are a lot bigger than that for sure. [00:05:37] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Let's actually go back a bit because I think that could be a way to have the arc of where this is going. Of course, you started this company in 2008, but in the 2000s, it was such a different landscape for producers, beat makers. And I look at that era as being quite top-heavy, right? If you were one of the super producers. If you were Timbaland, if you were Pharrell, if you were Kanye, then you almost had a, you know, quasi-monopoly in a particular area of just what you could charge, what you could do. But for everyone else that wasn't a superstar, it was a much more challenging landscape, I could assume. Can you speak to what it was like that time frame? [00:06:18] Abe Batshon: Oh, so challenging then. So challenging, you know, I was working at INgrooves prior to me starting up BeatStars and, you know, I'd work with a bunch of artists, and labels and I'd get to know, like, the producers behind some of the work that's being released. And even for those top-heavy guys that I was talking to, they started definitely feeling a shift in how operationally the record labels were approaching licensing of beats and the development of an artist. You know, I think I just saw a recent article. I forget which publication, oh, maybe Billboard just the other day about how everyone's a distributor now. All the majors are just, you know, they're distributors. Each one of their kind of like sub-companies under the parent companies are all, you know, competing with each other, actually as distribution companies, and it's creating like a healthy competition of distribution. And so, you know, that wasn't the case back then, man. You know, back in the day, like, the major record labels weren't operating from a DIY, you know, distribution mindset of like mass distribution, mass releases of content. That wasn't the mindset. So, yeah, it was a much more controlled environment with which producers actually were contributing to, you know, these songs or these albums that were, you know, the majority of what we were listening to back in 2008. And I think you know, what changed at all was, was the emergence of probably YouTube, right? The emergence of YouTube, and SoundCloud, and, you know, and BeatStars, right? And the accessibility and the ability to now reach a broader and global audience of collaborators and music creators. And we were kind of laughed at. We were kind of laughed at in the beginning, you know, everything different that goes against a grain, that goes against a traditional way of how things are done, there's always going to be some resistance to that model or any resistance to those ideas. And it used to bother me back in the day and I used to get some of these super producers, you know, some of them would send me like dirty messages, like you're fucking up the game. You're saturating, you're devaluing our art. And I didn't see it that way. You know, I didn't see it that way. I was seeing it as a new opportunity to create more and broader reach of intellectual property for the independent creator that can actually sustain themselves in a world where it's controlled by a few different organizations, you know. [00:08:36] Dan Runcie: Definitely. Thinking about those artists themselves. I'm thinking back to that time, there was that stat, maybe it was in 2002 or 2003, where they said that 43% of the songs on the radio were Neptune songs. And I think you could have said the same about Timbaland. You could have said the same about Max Martin or any of these people that are just on the radio so much, but you come in with this platform that very much speaks to where we were in the music industry and where things were with technology with hip-hop specifically. This is the blog era, it's really starting to pick up. You're starting to see more of that DIY distribution from the artist side. SoundCloud was just launched and even Spotify was still in the early days, but streaming still didn't take off the way it did. And I can imagine that some of the pushback or some of their response you got was from people feeling that you were likely ahead of the curve, and because of that, there were still several years before things really took off in streaming. So it was probably interesting just to see the landscape evolve. And then as you had success, you saw other competitors come in and other folks see the landscape and you're like, well, you know, I've been trying to tell you all, this is what the vision has been since the 2000s. But back then, the industry was just in such a place of people were still trying to push CDs. Like people were still trying to fight piracy. And like, when you think about that, I'm not surprised at all that you had faced some of that pushback you did. [00:10:02] Abe Batshon: Yeah. I'm trying to kind of go back to those days in hip-hop, you know, everyone was the plug for certain things. Everyone was the plug for certain things. And you had to go through this person or this company in order to achieve some of the, like, artistry goals that you have as an artist, you know? And there was a determined route that you had to go, you know. There was a determined route that you had to go and you had to go through certain gatekeepers in order to, you know, achieve success. And it just bothered me from a human level. You know, it bothered me from a human level that we're not allowed to experiment and develop art, you know. Closed environments, the outcome of those. Like you said, how many more Neptunes hits can we have continued to listen to? Nothing against the Neptunes, I fucking love those guys, right? They're amazing, they're geniuses. But even them, they would tell you that, yeah, that kind of monopoly was probably unhealthy for music, for artists all over the world. You know, I'm sure they will tell you that that opportunity was, you know, scarce, you know, opportunity was scarce. And yeah, it was relationship-driven industry, you know, so it was a different time, different time. And I think my goal was to just completely break it.[00:11:16] Dan Runcie: Thinking about that time too. You had the people that were the top producers at those times, and they could charge handover fist for a beat. I mean, there's the line where, you know, Timbaland's like, I'm getting half a mill for a beat. And if I'm thinking about just from the competitive dynamic, what happened there, you did have this very top-heavy landscape. And in some ways they're telling you, Hey, you know, you're fucking up our money. And in some ways you are, but not necessarily in a bad way because you're letting everyone else that couldn't eat at all at least get something, right? So when you now introduce this marketplace and no, you don't necessarily have to pay half a million for a Timbaland beat to get on the radio. You could pay under a thousand dollars, a few hundred dollars to have one of the biggest songs of the summer on your music, and being able to do that lifts it up for everyone else. So I think whether it's your Timbaland's or your Mike Will, other folks could still get, you know, six figures or a lot of money, but I don't know if they're getting that 2006 or those 2003 checks that they were for the type of beats they did.[00:12:20] Abe Batshon: But, Dan, superstars are superstars in terms of creation, right, in terms of music production. Even on BeatStars, right, even on BeatStars, maybe, yeah, there's some producers on a platform that don't have that type of name recognition in a game of only a handful of producers. It's kind of different now to gain that kind of name recognition, but there are superstars on BeatStars. There are superstars that are generating half a million dollars in cumulative earnings in licensing revenue from one beat on BeatStars. So those days of like earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on one track is still happening on the platform. It's just happening in a different model. It's happening in a non-exclusive model where thousands of recording artists are, you know, licensing that same production and have the rights to create another master version of that production. But at the end of the day, that producer generated hundreds of thousands of dollars just from that one piece of content that lives as a catalog item in their store. Yeah. And I'm hearing like huge songs now on the radio that those beats are still available, non-exclusively on the platform, they're still available. So producers are becoming less and less willing to let go of their intellectual property exclusively because there's just so much backend earnings and recurring revenue, business building and, you know, forecasting of earnings for themselves, that it doesn't make sense now for them to kind of give up the rights to just one rights holder anymore. So now it's super competitive and it's gotten to a point where I think competition is healthy in song making like, Hey, here's the beat, $20. By the way, some of these beats, a lot of these beats that live on BeatStars, if they existed back in those 2000s, when it was the heyday of license revenue of 200,000 a beat or 500,000 a beat from Timbaland. Like, these beats are competing with those beats or even beyond them, right, 'cause these kids are pumping out content like crazy, right? They're bending this software in terms of DAW, the accessibility to digital VSTs, and effects, and processing, and sound libraries and, like, their ability to, like, craft, you know, sonically, like, amazing, amazing records that penetrate every market around the world. Like, it's much easier now. Back then it was harder. But, yeah, I think the earnings potential is still there on BeatStars. You know, I think it's still there. It still exists and that's why we're still seeing producers that have had tons of success, you know, licensing to major recording artists still maintaining and developing and building their online presence on BeatStars. Like, it's still a major income stream from them to the point where they can't neglect it. And they can't completely immerse themselves in the traditional way of like, you know, music licensing within the industry. It's cool to see. It's cool to see a balance. You got to have both. You got to have both today. [00:15:07] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah. And I'm glad you brought that point up 'cause that's an important distinction 'cause, of course, we're talking before about the upfront money that the super producers were getting in the 2000s, but people were rarely talking about the totality of it, and what it looks like. And that's what you're talking about here and being able to measure it in totality makes so much more sense because, with the way it currently is now, with an artist releases something on BeatStars, there's so many ways that they can generate money from that, whether that's, especially if it's non-exclusive, as you mentioned, people can pay for it directly. Anyone that is then using that beat, you could earn revenue directly, you know, from anything that's there, depending on the arrangement. But then I think you have this additional benefit where people, especially with TikTok and all these other platforms, they want to be able to remix and make their own versions of songs and being able to do that and how that can compound on each other. That's what makes the platforms like this successful. And maybe it would be helpful to hear you mentioned that, you know, there are superstars on the platform that are making and exceeding a lot of those, you know, revenue totals that we had seen before. What does a typical breakdown of that look like in terms of how much of that comes from upfront sales of people purchasing versus how much of it is the recurring and maybe ballpark? We don't need anything too exact, but maybe to give an idea. [00:16:25] Abe Batshon: Yeah. So I guess we can only attribute the upfront micro licensing revenue on BeatStars, right? That $200 million, that micro licensing. But if we wanted to get very, very technical, we can talk about the earnings that were actually, you know, generated from those, you know, derivative works, those songs that were made from those beats. And if you calculate the earnings from the millions of songs that are created on the platform every year that get distributed to DSPs and DIY distributors, you're talking probably billions of dollars of earnings, music copyright earnings from, all of these non-exclusive licenses, cumulatively. So I wish there was a way to calculate all that, but it's hard to like quantify that. But I think today, from a platform earnings potential on BeatStars. I think the average seller producer on the platform generates over a thousand dollars a year, you know, which, Hey, a thousand bucks is, you know, not the craziest amount, but if you compare that to the average earnings of artists on these DSPs or some of these, some of these other ways of earning revenue from music. I don't want to poke too many holes at platforms that are, you know, kind of not building their businesses and products with the music creators in mind. I wish they would. I wish they would, but we're not going to get too deep into that. But I think I'm proud. [00:17:53] Dan Runcie: I was going to say there's somewhat listening right now that is backing into the math of how many streams does it take to get a thousand dollars a year?[00:18:01] Abe Batshon: Right. Exactly. Yeah, I think if we were to calculate the stream versus earning ratio on BeatStars, yeah, our million streams are definitely generating a shit ton more, shit-ton more than what you would earn, you know. But again, it's a different concept, different way of consumption. Things are happening differently than compared to, you know, the more bigger consumer products that are out there, which, you know, we're going to keep up with them at some point though, I think, and that's one of our goals is to build a more consumer-friendly product that actually is not just niche to artists and music producers. So we're excited about what the future of what we can do for our creators, yeah. [00:18:41] Dan Runcie: Can we talk a little bit more about that? What would that consumer side look like? 'Cause I think as you mentioned, a lot of the creators themselves are the ones that are using the platform, getting the most out of it, but what would the more creator side focus look like?[00:18:56] Abe Batshon: Like a more creator-focused platform that evolves, what the evolution of what BeatStars could be? Yeah, I mean, you know, we are already starting to do it. We're already starting to do it in terms of adding publishing administration, global publishing administration, and partnership with Sony Music Publishing and giving our creators the ability to go and collect on, you know, all their royalties worldwide. I think is a big one from all of these copyrights that are made on the platform that they still have ownership and rights to. You know, we don't take ownership of anything on the platform. Our creators right now keep a hundred percent of all their sales on the platform. They maintain all of their ownership. They dictate and decide what their license terms look like. We're just a technology layer just facilitating this collaboration. And I think, we'll definitely get into a lot more, a lot more businesses that are complimentary to music licensing. So we do allow our creators to sell sound kits and samples as well, too. And I think we're, you know, we're going to build a more sophisticated product around that. Major companies are already licensing for syncs already off of the platform indirectly, even though that's kind of not the primary function on the platform. That's something that, you know, we're exploring and, and going to expand on as well 'cause just another revenue stream opportunity, you know.[00:20:12] Dan Runcie: I was going to ask you about syncs next because I feel like that is so current and top of mind, especially the explosion of video streaming right now in all those projects. And so many people see the benefit of having a good sync. And I think we're having these conversations before, but ever since the Kate Bush song on Stranger Things, those conversations have happened so many more times, more frequently than I've at least heard before then.[00:20:36] Abe Batshon: For sure. For sure. Yeah. We used to have a, man, like eight years ago, we did have a sync license and I don't know why we took it away. We just kind of wanted to laser focus on just the non-exclusive licensing of artists and producers. But yeah, we're already seeing our music and Netflix documentaries. We're already seeing our music, you know, synced on movies, TV shows, independent, films, commercials for Adidas and Madden video games. We're seeing our content already being used in that way. You know, it makes sense to develop a product that's, you know, tailored for that community for sure. [00:21:06] Dan Runcie: Has any of the explosion of music rights buying and selling, has any of that changed and shaped your business in any way? Because I know that there are super producers themselves that have sold theirs, whether Tableland or Darkchild having done deals themselves. Has any of that shifted anything or have you seen any result of that in your business or any of the transactions that are being made there? [00:21:31] Abe Batshon: Yeah, so I'm not too aware of too many producers on the platform that have kind of sold their rights away or anything like that. It hasn't happened on the platform, but I'm sure, I'm sure there's been, you know, those investor, kind of like investor copyright types that are out there acquiring rights of music, whether it's, you know, from the producer's side of things. But I'm sure they get approached all the time. I just, I don't know of any, like, specific creator producer on the platform that's done it yet. But I'm sure, like, a lot of people are having those conversations with them for sure. [00:22:03] Dan Runcie: Yeah, 'cause I know the artists' side, artists get reached out to all the time now about this whether it's from the main investment firms that we know, or even some that in my experience don't really do much in music, but have reached out because they'll reach out to me to see if I can reach out to these artists, right? And I got to imagine that in some ways, not only are they looking for the artists themselves, they're looking okay, where are these artists? Where are the catalogs that they own? So it's fascinating to see, I assume that it's likely a conversation that, especially given the way your business is, I know you said that a thousand dollars is the average payout annually that artists or that the beat makers and producers get on the platform, but I'm sure that it is quite top-heavy itself where, you know, there are the few that are just bringing in so much, and I'm sure that they're probably hearing some of those conversations every now and then. [00:22:54] Abe Batshon: For sure. For sure. Yeah. I'm sure it's happening a hundred percent. [00:22:58] Dan Runcie: Yeah. One of the things that I had seen, especially with BeatStars, we talked about how growth you've had recently, and, I believe this was at July 2020, you had $85 million in payouts that you had done to beat makers specifically at that point since you had launched a platform in 2008, and then you had recently announced a few months back here now in 2022, that you had had $200 million. So quite a big jump, it’s almost double in less than a two-year span. One, it would be great to hear what that was like and also, what are the steps that happened or what are the things that you all had done that helped you, you know, double everything that you had done the past decade-plus in the past two years?[00:23:44] Abe Batshon: Yeah. I mean, our growth trajectory, even the years prior were a hundred percent year over year as well, too. So we were already kind of pre-pandemic move, like, that was our growth trajectory prior as well. It just took us a long time. It just took us a long time. We did it the slow and steady way. And the last two years, I would say, for sure the pandemic put a priority, yeah, I guess I guess people started questioning their existence, man. You know, like we started questioning our existence and we're like, am I not going to explore my art, you know? Like, I know I was doing it. I was making more music during the pandemic. And I would, you know, meet a lot of our creators and I and I would hear their stories and like, I started singing during the pandemic, or I started making beats more seriously, I'm home and I needed an outlet to kind of license and sell them. And so I think the pandemic definitely kind of accelerated the priority or like top of mind of creators to take it more seriously or to kind of, you know, explore more serious options for monetizing their music. So it's been a blessing to kind of see the platform and marketplace grow globally all over the world, and yeah, the marketplace is still booming and still going crazy. And I think, you know, we'll achieve over 70 million this year for sure. That's kind of our projection, could be more. So yeah, the licensing activity is continuing to go great. I'm excited. I'm excited about the future, man.[00:25:06] Dan Runcie: That's good to hear because I am not surprised to hear the growth in the pandemic. I think there's so many things we can look back on the past two and a half years where especially something like this, where the art of doing it is something that people could do at home. So many people that are creating products, or creating services, or music, or medium putting out into the world, so much of that picked up and there was so much that was successful. And I think we saw that with the way the stocks went and the way everything was. So you had this run from March 2020 pretty much up until let's say November 2021, when everything was booming, right? The past six months, we saw certain things come back down to earth a bit. And I think there were a lot of the pandemic stocks and a lot of the companies, even the ones in the music industry that had had sky-high valuations, coming back down to earth a little bit, but at least for you all, I'm getting the impression that that hasn't necessarily impacted you from that perspective, given I think you have a different business model than a lot of the companies that had, you know, challenges there, but how the past three to six months been specifically?[00:26:10] Abe Batshon: Yeah, I think our growth has kind of leveled off a little bit. We're kind of, you know, I guess, the normalization of things are happening for sure. And we're having to work harder to like retain our subscribers and users. It's just shifting our approach and adjusting and pivoting to more accessible business models for this time and this moment in our history. I mean, it's for sure a recession. It's happening globally. It's impacting a lot of people's lives and we need to make sure that we kind of still factor that in mind and create products that are are still useful and accessible and functional for anyone with any economic status that they're in, you know, because it breaks my soul if someone can't afford a BeatStars subscription and can't explore their art and can't develop themselves and meet those goals because of this current space that we're in right now. So we're definitely pivoting and adjusting and thinking about new and better accessible business models that can cater to anyone with any kind of economic status. So, we're definitely adjusting things though. [00:27:11] Dan Runcie: I could imagine. I do think though that these things aren't permanent and, of course, we'll see things pick up, again it's just a matter of the timing there specifically. I do feel like for you all, it's interesting because the future of where this all is heading right now, you, as you mentioned, I think that you were a bit ahead of the curve. So, you know, growth in the early days may not have been as fast, but now we're in this place where people saw the success you have, people see the potential of where things going and now more companies are starting to launch their own beat marketplaces and ones that we're establishing other places. Have you seen that impact, what you've seen in your businesses? Because I know that, at least from other people I talked to that are in streaming of the DSPs, they've talked about how we've switched from this herbivore market where everyone's just capturing people that are generally wanting subscriptions to now they're in this carnivore mode of competing with each other. Have you seen any of that where you feel like the people who are beat makers now, it's not so much capturing new ones. It's essentially positioning yourselves from the competitors who have come after you. [00:28:20] Abe Batshon: Yeah, I'm definitely, you know, definitely aware of the competitors, and a lot of these guys were admirers of what we've done. And you know, I know them personally. It's flattering, you know. It's flattering to see in terms of people being inspired by the things that I create and build and what we do here as a company as well too. And it's part of being in a capitalistic society that we're in, you know. Monkey see monkey do, you know. I feel like it's increased our kind of our competitive spirits here at the company to want to be more innovative. I think it's a blessing that there's other folks trying to come into our space. For me, I've been doing this for almost 15 years, right? So it's, I need a kick in the ass in terms of where I want to go in my career and the aspirations where I want to see BeatStars. I mean, we've always been driven and always been the hardest working and most caring community that you'll ever see in terms of the music producers. But yeah, I just use it as a competitive chip to keep moving and pushing and pushing for our creators to provide even more fair and useful products for them. I haven't seen a shift in like our business or anything like that because of the competitors, you know. It may take a while for that to happen. If they do something super unique or whatever it is that they're doing, but I haven't seen anything that's like, exciting from an innovation standpoint. It's just monkey see monkey do, copycats. [00:29:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That was going to be my next question, you see, if are there new things that you're seeing the competitors do that make you say, oh, that's interesting, right? 'Cause that would definitely validate the ass-kicking or the bit of the push there. It reminds you of that sports analogy, right? Like how. Michael Jordan had to go create these demons out of thin air because there was really no one at this level, and anytime someone tried to say, oh, Jordan or Drexler, he just like squash it that immediately. So you all having that, yeah. [00:30:04] Abe Batshon: I've always had that. You know, I'm a sports guy, huge sports guy, played sports my whole life, too. And so I definitely was competing with myself in terms of wanting to be better and extract more capacity of myself and see myself and my team's dreams continue to grow. But yeah, I just use those as just another factor into, and I'm not to say anyone's intentions are bad or anyone's intentions are good, but it's a little suspect. It's a little suspect. It's a little bit, I don't know, what's the word, but it feels ingenuine. It feels like a land grab. It feels like a money game. And for us, it's never been about the money. It's always been about these young people all over the world and old people, creators from everywhere. Like, can we liberate the idea of songs? Can we help push people to be more experimental with their words and their messages and their art and something that's so personal for them. I don't see any of these like venture- companies or big invested type of companies actually having a genuine approach to how they treat or deal with their community. So I'm really not worried about it. I definitely keep them in mind in terms of continuing our fight to liberate music.[00:31:13] Dan Runcie: How do you feel in general about the amount of VC money that has entered music and music tech and the platforms and companies that have been launched? [00:31:22] Abe Batshon: Dude, where was this money when I was in, like, Silicon Valley? You know, I mean, I'm from the East Bay, Hayward, California. And you know, Silicon Valley was just right down the street. And when I was building BeatStars, man, I couldn't even get a meeting with these guys. Like, I created 12 of the most amazing decks throughout my career that no one ever actually saw. Like, I couldn't sell anyone on the concept of investing into music. But like I understand that at that time, the music industry was going through a huge transitional moment. Like, everyone was really scared about the future of music. So it was pretty disastrous in terms of where music was at that time, and if I wasn't an investor, I probably wouldn't have invested in me either. But I never even got an opportunity to even you know, meet investors or pitch the ideas of BeatStars. We had to bootstrap this thing the whole way. And our creators invested in us, our customers did, we built this thing together with them. We just continue to reinvest every little penny that we made back into the platform. And so I think it made the journey a lot more satisfying, but it's exciting that there's much more investment and people willing to believe and other entrepreneurs and their ideas. I think it's cool. It pushes all of us, you know, pushes our creative boundaries and it's cool to see money flow. And I I'm happy that, you know, other entrepreneurs are not going to have to struggle the way that I did for 13, 14 years before I was, you know, able to kind of like sustain ourselves. So it's like, but you know, we kind of always figured out ways to sustain ourselves build organically, which has been beautiful. And we've been profitable since day one and we just continue to run lean, you know, and just not be wasteful and just, yeah. So it's exciting. I don't know where it's going to go. I mean, I don't know where a lot of the money is actually flowing in music tech, really. You probably know more than me, Dan. I don't pay attention to a lot of that stuff. [00:33:06] Dan Runcie: You're too busy building to track this stuff. [00:33:08] Abe Batshon: I'm busy, man. [00:33:09] Dan Runcie: That's my job. [00:33:11] Abe Batshon: Busy, dude, too busy. [00:33:12] Dan Runcie: Yeah. With that though, do you get more interest or offers from any of these tech companies now, because I've started to hear from a lot of the companies that rose up the same timeframe that you did that. Now, when all this money pours in, now they're getting the attention, too, and the interest, too, from these investors that wouldn't have paid attention before, but now it's much less about the initial investment. Now they're trying to either acquire and now they're trying to do a joint venture, do these things. What have those conversations been like? [00:33:48] Abe Batshon: It's definitely getting aggressive for sure. And I think because of where we are right now, economically, you know, investors feel like they can come in and get a good deal right now for all these startups or companies that have existed even prior to the pandemic that are still thriving through it as well. I'm seeing a lot of acquisitions happen, a lot of private equity stuff happening. And it's interesting. It's interesting. We don't need the money, Dan, in terms of like where we are financially. We're, you know, we're self sustaining. We've got a ton of money in the bank and we have our investment plan internally to kind of finish our, you know, not finish, but continue our roadmap of all the things that we dream of wanting to do and build within our goals at BeatStars. So, thank God I'm healthy. I'm feeling good. I'm in remission. I I battled cancer the last couple years during the pandemic. And you know, that was a shaky moment for me during that time. It was really up and down. I didn't know where my future was and still kind of in it, but I'm thankfully feeling really well and just energized and I'm enjoying independence, I'm enjoying independence. And I really feel that we're in a good spot to kind of push through this kind of down moment of the economy and head down and focus on our creators while everyone is just focusing on profit and revenue. And we're going to do the opposite and just build something that's going to be a utility for people for many years to come, hopefully. [00:35:07] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely, I mean. [00:35:08] Abe Batshon: They're coming though. They're throwing checks. They're, you know, they're throwing checks at us. They're making offers, but, yeah, we're just not ready right now. We're just not ready. [00:35:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And like you said, you have the vision for this and the amount that you've poured into it, the amount that you've gone through, as you mentioned, especially in recent years, like all that comes through with the story, and I think that is what connects with both the artists and what connects with anyone that may be interested from a business perspective. And I think you do have the control, the autonomy to make those shots when you want to, and that's the power of bootstrapping, right? We all know the trade-offs where, yeah, it can take time as you very well know. But if you're able to get through the other side, the autonomy you have. You could make decisions like you don't have to have, you know, the investors reading it out of your deck or anything else are trying to wonder why you're not pumping more Facebook and Google ads to go do this or that, right? Like, you're able to do the things on your terms and to clarify, is the ownership a hundred percent you for the company or? [00:36:03] Abe Batshon: No, it's not a hundred percent me. Some employees have ownership in the company. We did take a minor, a very small, minor investment from Sony music publishing when we did our joint venture together. They've been great partners. They've been awesome. And they've been helping us kind of strategize and scale our publishing business, which I believe in the last 16 months, we've had 26 Billboard 100 hits that are from our BeatStars publishing roster of creators. One of our producers has two songs on Beyoncé's new album. And I know we had Megan Thee Stallion's new single, Pressurelicious, with one of our producers, I believe, it was HitKidd with Future. So it's like, it's so cool to see that our business is touching so many different parts of the music business. It's not just the independent creator like we're powering songs, even for the major, major superstar artists, which is awesome to see. So yeah, I'm excited about the future, man. I think we're just getting started, Dan. [00:36:53]Dan Runcie: Yeah. and it's always fascinating to hear how companies like yours think about the compensation and things like that for employees because with a lot of the other competitors or even others in the space, especially with the amount of money that support and people are getting, you know, equity in these companies and they are getting them because if they're VC backed, then they have an exit in the mindset and you aren't coming from that perspective. So it's always interesting to hear, okay, what are the other things you're doing? So, yeah, it sounds like you're still doing equity, I know. [00:37:22] Abe Batshon: Oh, I forgot to mention like there's 400 creators as well. 400 creators that invested in BeatStars when we partnered with Indiegogo back in 2016 to be one of their, actually their initial kind of equity crowdfunding launch partners. And it wasn't because we needed funds or needed money at that time. We did it because I loved the fact that our creators can actually, like, buy ownership into the company, and I can like, continue serving them, man. I can continue feeling like, you know, I have to make sure I'm reporting to these people because these are the people that keep me grounded. These are the people that keep me focused on, you know, how we impact all the other creators' lives. So yeah, we have 400 other creators from the platform that invested like $150,000 total during that campaign. So it was pretty cool to know that they're also on our ownership structure.[00:38:11] Dan Runcie: That's great to see them on the cap table. That's great. I'd like to close this conversation out. [00:38:16] Abe Batshon: Hopefully, make some money at some point. [00:38:19] Dan Runcie: Well, I mean, that depends how some of these conversations go with these, you know, companies breathing down your back. [00:38:23] Abe Batshon: Exactly. [00:38:24] Dan Runcie: So we'll see.[00:38:25] Abe Batshon: For sure.[00:38:26] Dan Runcie: But I like to close this conversation out of it and talk about focus because you talked a lot about creators and how you're focused on serving them. We're talking primarily about the people who are buying beats, the people that are selling beats, and anyone involved with that production or engineering process. But for you, I know what it's like to build a company. I'm sure there's been plenty of times where not just you or some of the people you're working with are like, oh, what if you did this? What if we did that, right? But you've been able to stay focused on I'm sure, part of it was likely a function of you're building as fast as you can. Given the fact that you're bootstrapped, some of your focus is by design, but then on the other hand, now that things are starting to come in, you're starting to see the success in reaping the rewards. I'm sure there's likely some thoughts of maybe that thing that you had in the back of your mind for a few years, but now maybe it's a little bit easier to do if you're going to be, you know, hitting nine-figure payouts annually soon enough. What are some of those things, if there are, that you have on the roadmap for where things are going for other things you might be doing?[00:39:30] Abe Batshon: Yeah, we definitely want to make some acquisitions for sure. We're exploring some of that too. We're exploring some potential acquisitions, and I think maybe we'll do our first one by the beginning of 2023. Never know. So we're definitely thinking about how can we acquire some technology or companies or communities that really would help elevate what we're doing. So definitely, definitely thinking about that. We're investing a ton in technology, man. We're, I mean our engineering team, we're probably, we'll double by next year. I think we're at like 40, 40 people on the engineering team now. So we have all of these cool projects that these engineering pods are working on and it's exciting to see. So you'll definitely start seeing a lot more innovation more frequently from BeatStars soon. We have spent, and it may look like focus, but really it's been just kind of a restrain of our technology for the last four or five years. We've been rebuilding our whole tech stack, the back end, front end, the whole thing, because, you know, we were still using legacy platform from 2008 when it was just, you know, me and our founding members of the company, Joseph Aguilar, one of our engineers, you know, building it together and we're just some kids, you know, just going crazy. We didn't think that this thing was going to scale to millions and millions of creators all over the world. So we had to kind of pivot four years ago. And we're about 95% done in terms of the full platform rebuild. And from a technology standpoint, we're competing with some of the biggest music services in the world in terms of our tech stack. Now we're prepared to really do some damage now and build on top of what we're doing and optimize our offering and also get into some different verticals as well, too. So, yeah, it's kind of like a new rebirth of BeatStars in a sense, a whole new team, a whole new technology stack, a whole new drive, and purpose. And we're building out our executive team right now, too. It's been just me in terms of executives. I was wearing all the hats, and I don't know why I was doing that. And we just hired a Head of People, Sarah Simmons, who just joined us. We have our CTO, Nader Fares. We hired Damien Ritter as our President of Label. [00:41:37] Dan Runcie: My guy, Dame. [00:41:38] Abe Batshon: Yeah, man, Dame is legend and legend to me in terms of what he's done on the independent record label front, you know, and what he's been able to do, the dude's one of the smartest guys I know. And I'm excited to have him lead the initial kind of kickoff of what a BeatStars record label can look like. Like, so many amazing artists have been discovered on BeatStars, even just from our competitions. You know, like we discovered Ali, Ali Gatie, won one of our song contests and he's got billions of streams, you know, Joyner Lucas, and Anees. Anees is an independent artist right now that's doing some amazing things, touring, you know, he's got a hit song called Sun and Moon and just killing it on TikTok and just so cool, man, just so cool to see all of these amazing artists take and utilize the platform the best way and build careers. And, yeah, so it's cool to see all these different things happen and finally bringing some like seasoned leadership to, you know, bounce things off of and build with and collaborate with. And I think I've come to a place in my career now. I feel like almost 15 years in, I can let go of some control and I think I've matured enough as an executive to now understand and articulate what the company needs and what we want in our dreams and now do it in a collaborative way with a bunch of amazing people that have the same kind of mission. So it's exciting to see what this new phase of BeatStars goes into. [00:42:55] Dan Runcie: Making moves. Love to hear it.[00:42:57] Abe Batshon: Trying to, man.[00:42:58] Dan Runcie: Hey, hey, that says that's the journey. That's the journey. Well, Abe, this has been great. Appreciate you for coming on, and before we let you go, we want to make sure that people that are listening know to find you, so where can they go to either follow you or to follow BeatStars if they want to tap in more? [00:43:14] Abe Batshon: Thanks, Dan. Dude, I'm some big fan of yours, like I told you before the podcast. Congratulations. Amazing to follow your journey as well. Follow BeatStars at @BeatStars, B E A T S T A R S everywhere. My personal social media shut down everywhere for the last few months. I shut it down, but I'm going to bring it back, just @AbeBatshon and excited to hear the feedback from this episode from folks listening to it. Appreciate you having me on man. [00:43:37] Dan Runcie: Of course, and best luck to you and best luck to you from health, most importantly, and with the business too. [00:43:43] Abe Batshon: Thank you, sir.[00:43:45] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Post Malone is the definition of a streaming-era superstar. He exploded onto the scene with the viral hit, “White Iverson” that was uploaded straight to SoundCloud. That was followed up with a record deal with Republic Records, four feature albums, world tours, and now he’s one of the world’s most popular artists. My guest on Trapital this week is Cheryl Paglierani, a partner at UTA, who became Post’s agent a few short weeks after the release of “White Iverson.” The duo, along with manager Dre London, have engineered one of the fastest and most successful come-ups for an artist during the streaming era. The keyword in the last sentence is engineered because Post’s resounding success was deliberately planned out. Cheryl prioritized live exposure early in Post’s career. “To see him was to fall in love with him,” she said, which meant getting Post in front of as many different people as quickly as possible was the key to building a fanbase with longevity. This live strategy helped make Post a must-see attraction — whether it’s on his upcoming 33-city Twelve Carat Tour or at music festivals, including his own-created Posty Fest. For a first-hand look at Post’s enormous rise over the past seven years, you’ll want to listen to my interview with Cheryl that covers strategies on touring, social media, sponsorships, and more. [3:15] Cheryl And Post Malone’s Joint Rise-Up[5:13] Post’s Upcoming Twelve Carat Tour [6:44] Exposure Was Key To Post’s Early Success [9:11] Post Malone Being Genre-Less By Design[10:32] Dynamic Between Post, Dre London, and Cheryl[12:42] Post Headline Strategy [13:52] Factors That Influence Festival Headliners[15:50] Touring vs. Festival Shows[17:57] Main Trait Cheryl Looks For When Signing With An Artist [21:29] Philosophy Of Artist-Branded Music Festivals [23:07] Post Malone Brand Deal Strategy [24:18] Correlation Between Social Media Followers & Ticket Buyers[26:01] TikTok’s Value-Add For Artists [28:00] The Trap Of Overperforming At Nightclubs[32:03] How To Prevent Artist Burnout [33:28] Could Virtual Experiences Help Avoid Burnout? [34:43] Cheryl’s Personal Wishes For Post’s CareerListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Cheryl Paglierani, @cherylpags  Sponsors: MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital 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] Cheryl Paglierani: I always say, like, you need to start the build from the beginning because you're not going to want to go backwards. So I think that's where the disconnect can take place if you're not building and doing it all. Like, you have to be smart enough to strategize and say, okay, I'm going to go play the 500 cap or the thousand cap. I'm confident that I can sell it out. And when I do that, I'm going to make the club the after party. And I'm going to kill two birds with one stone, but they don't always do that. And I think that's where you see certain artists that will stream really well and have a lot of hits but have never built proper touring history fall into that trap. [00:00:37] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:57] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Cheryl Paglierani. She is a partner at UTA where she represents some of the biggest names in music. She does booking for Post Malone, Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, 21 Savage, Offset, Flo Milli, Dominic Fike, and many more. But today's conversation. We talked a lot about her rise with Post Malone. Back in 2015, she met Post at South by Southwest after hearing his music and wanting to meet him in person. And she knew that there was the opportunity then to help develop a superstar. And since then Post Malone has grown into one of the artists that in many ways represents what's possible in streaming. Here's an artist who doesn't necessarily fit in one specific genre, but he's collaborated with so many and his music identifies and resonates with the vibe that is so relevant for today. So we talk about the journey with Post Malone. What it means for artists like him that are doing festivals versus touring and how she looks at some of the opportunities and advantages with both. We also talk more broadly about touring and how artists can make a tour off of a strength of a single, the importance of that. We talk about how she views social media, some of the pros and cons there. And so many other future trends with artists doing live performances. She shared a bunch of insights in this one, very relevant to where the industry is right now and where things are heading post-pandemic. Here's my chat with Cheryl Paglierani. [00:02:24] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we are joined by Cheryl Paglierani, who is a partner at UTA, represents a number of big artists in hip-hop and music more broadly. But today I want to talk to you about one of the artists you've been able to see rise up the ranks and that's Post Malone, and he sticks out because I've talked to many agents over the years and so many of them talk about that dream of finding that one artist that they can rise up with. And you found that with Post Malone and it was really inspiring hearing the story of you meeting him at South by Southwest, back in 2015, but it would be great to see and hear since then. What was the moment that it hit you that, wow, we did it. The dream and the vision that I had seen back in 2015, we accomplished it and here we are, let's keep going.[00:03:15] Cheryl Paglierani: Right. You know, that's such a funny question because we all started together, right? Like, Post was essentially my first client, like, on my own. And so through rising, like, trying to pinpoint one moment, almost every moment every step of the way felt like that because you had never been there before, so take it back to just him supporting Justin Bieber. I remember being at the Madison Square Garden shows and you're hearing thousands of kids singing White Iverson, and you're looking around and you're in an arena. And even though you're not headlining that arena yet, you're thinking, wow, this is really on the right track. And then I remember on the Stoney Tour when he played in his hometown in Dallas and we played the Bomb Factory, that was a 4,000 cap room. And at that point we were like, my God, we just sold 4,000 tickets in Dallas. We're like, we're popping, right? So you feel then that feels like a really special moment. Up until, you know, we're playing two nights at The Hollywood Bowl, that felt really special. And you look like, wow. It never feels like the end, if that makes sense. It always just feels like a new height to be reached, and it just makes us more excited for what's next. Two nights at Madison Square Garden felt amazing, like, wow. Now we just sold out Madison Square Garden ourselves or AT&T Stadium was then another one of those moments. Every time we reach one, there's another one to be reached. And we're always looking forward to that and, and planning and just excited for what the next one will be 'cause that feeling just never gets old. [00:04:33] Dan Runcie: Madison Square Garden, it was a great one because that's such an iconic venue. And I think for so many musicians, being able to sell there, being able to sell out there is huge. It's one of the biggest arenas and the most notable arenas in the country. And when looking at where a Post is now, he recently announced a tour that he has over 30 cities, whole arena tour. He's done them before. This one, I'm sure, probably felt a little bit different though, because you're booking in the middle of the pandemic. You're hearing so much, from cancellations and what venues are being available. What was it like finding space for him just given everything that happened with touring in the past few years? [00:05:13] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, well, lucky for us, like, we had been planning throughout the pandemic, right? So, you know, it's like there were certain tours where I had to rebook them and rebook them 'cause you wanted to be ready to go when tours were back. I think we had a little bit more leeway on this one for when we were planning, but it definitely got challenging with in terms of just avails. Because you're not only competing with all the other tours to be going out at this time but competing with sports and just different things that's all coming back at once. And so, I mean, that made it a little, a little bit more challenging, but also just making sure that, as we're booking, we're following all the right COVID protocols and that we're being cognizant, too, of just where people are in their lives, and how we're going to price it. And, and just trying to think of it holistically of where, not just he's at, but where the fans are at and what's going to set us up for success. And I think that we did a pretty good job. We had a very successful on sale and we're looking forward to starting in just about a month from now. [00:06:04] Dan Runcie: Yeah. He's one artist where I see the tour go up, I'm like, I know that tour is going to sell out. There's other artists, not going to say names, but you'll see the announcement and you're like, I hope they can sell that one, but he's not one that I ever have that thought with. And I'm sure for you, obviously, you'd seen the, from the beginning, but in those early years, like, especially in the Post, White Iverson era, I'm sure there was a lot where you, Dre, him, you see the vision, but likely may want to sell and get people to see the potential of where it's going. What was it like selling at that perspective and trying to build the image when not everyone on the outside maybe was fully bought in and saw things the way that you may have seen it? [00:06:44] Cheryl Paglierani: I mean, I can't really say that I remember selling Post ever being hard. I think it was always about how can we get him in front of the most amount of people as quick as possible because to see him was to fall in love with him. I think the second that anybody saw him live, they would always come back to me and be like, wow, this guy's the real deal. The performance was never really a factor. I mean, I think it was really just finding the right opportunities and making sure that we were strategically building him to be able to be in a position to really build the right fan base and build to longevity I think a lot of people don't know this, but Post actually supported three times before we have a headline. So he supported a DJ called SBTRKT. It was only a couple of shows, but it still, it was like EDM. It wasn't what you would expect him to be doing at that time. And then we went on tour with Fetty Wap and so that was a hip-hop tour. So he supported Fetty Wap through, through that tour. And then it went straight from Fetty Wap into Justin Bieber. So we had built a foundation that would almost touch multi-genres before he ever even went out and headlined. So I think that it was just being strategic in terms of how do we get him in, in front of not only the most people but different types of people, because he really is so eclectic. And we wanted everybody to be able to see that 'cause he really does have something to offer to everybody. [00:07:50] Dan Runcie: That's the piece that sticks out to me the most 'cause I've had so many conversations with people and they'll ask me what type of genre do you think Post Malone is? Do you think Post Malone is hip-hop? And it's always this ambiguous question and I think that's by design. He can go and have different types of collaborators. You see it with who he's worked with. You'll see it with who's featured on his album. Can you talk a little bit more about how that piece has helped shape his career and maybe his ascension as well? [00:08:19] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, I think that, like, you just hit the nail on the head, right, in terms of who he works with. Post is going to work with artists that he's actually genuinely a fan of. I think that you'll see sometimes artists will work with people just because, oh, this is the new hot guy right now. You should go make a song with this person, or this is who everybody expects you to work with so you should go work with this person. But Post is going to work with artists like Fleet Foxes 'cause it's his favorite band ever, who I didn't even know who they were until him, so he's putting us onto them or he's going to work with artists that, that really touch and resonate with him. I think, I don't if you saw but this was record a while ago, but it kind of just started going viral. It's his video singing a Brad Paisley song, like, his videos have gone viral singing country songs, but, you know, then he can, can go make songs with, hip-hop artists. And we always laugh when we see like a headline will write hip-hop, where he gets categorized as that because he's so versatile that it, it isn't that. But to pinpoint it is difficult because he touches so much. [00:09:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I also think that his position highlights what makes the streaming era work in a lot of ways. I've heard people refer to him as a post-streaming era artist or someone that's a symbol of what's possible now in streaming. And I was talking to a friend about this recently about, in a lot of ways, we're moving past in genres. We're moving towards moods and vibes. And I think that in a lot of ways probably captures Post Malone, but it also captures what people are looking for. You see that in how Spotify looks at playlists, right, it isn't just genres. It's moods that what you're after. And I feel like he speaks to this piece a lot. [00:09:48] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, he, he completely does. It just goes back to, I think, his love of music, right? He really loves so many different genres of music and you see that come through in his music. And I think that's why he makes music that that's so relatable to so many people. [00:10:03] Dan Runcie: And I think a lot of this, too, is the management of leadership behind. So it's you, who's the music agent, you also have Dre London, who is his manager, and you have Post as the artist himself. And it seems as if the three of you have a very strong dynamic that's been intentional and clear about how you're growing him as an artist. Can you speak to that in the different roles that you all have beyond the obvious pieces of where you stand there, but how you all work and how that dynamic clicks together?[00:10:32] Cheryl Paglierani: No, absolutely. I mean, yeah, of course, it's like me and Dre. And Dre has become one of my best friends in the business, like a brother to me. I mean, we have like the best dynamic, of course. It's me and Dre and Post, but we have a whole team. There's Bobby who's Post’s day-to-day, and Jay who manages everything on the road, and Austin Rosen who's Post's co-manager with Dre. And I think really we've become like a family. And I think what makes us work so well is that we all have a role and a pivotal role, but everybody's role is different. And I think, like, we all trust each other to be able to handle it. It's like if you're building a house, right, you need to be able to trust that the pillars in each position are going to hold you up and prop you up. We've been able to build like this beautiful foundation, this beautiful house together, just off the foundation of our, trust for each other and, and how everybody works together.[00:11:17] Dan Runcie: Yeah, it seems like it because I think it's so rare that you can see all three of you really be able to work in sync because we know how many times changes happen in this industry and how many times things shift as well. And I do think that continuity is one of the things that get so underrated. There's so many aspects of music that can be a revolving door or things change quickly. But the fact that there is, in many ways, a tight unit where the three of you can work together. I honestly wish we saw more of that in the industry because I think sometimes the continuity hurts the potential of or the lack thereof hurts the potential of a lot of artists and how far they could go.[00:11:55] Cheryl Paglierani: What's also interesting, I think, Dre and I have our birthdays are a day apart, so it's almost like, even though we're so different in a lot of ways, we're actually so much alike. We can literally look at each other almost and know what the other one is thinking and not have to say a word which has become just this beautiful dynamic between us and I mean, just, you know, working with them, their whole team, I couldn't have asked to be on this journey with better people. I just feel really lucky that they let me be a part of it. [00:12:17] Dan Runcie: No, that's special. Speaking specifically about his live performances and how he goes about things, we talked a little bit about festivals in the beginning piece, and obviously Post is headlining several festivals in the US. When people reach out or you're looking for spots now, do you even consider anything that isn't a headline slot or this point, or you're like, no, if we're not getting a headline slot, sorry. [00:12:42] Cheryl Paglierani: No, not Post anyway. I mean, he's just a bonafide superstar at this point. I can't even really think of any acts that would make sense for him to play in front of. So for him, definitely not. For others, I mean, of course with other acts, it's really just a strategy and sometimes more about the look than necessarily the exact position. You know, you want to obviously be billed properly and be in the right slot. But for someone like at Post-level, it's a headline or it's not at all.[00:13:06] Dan Runcie: That's what I figured because sometimes I'll see for certain music festivals, again, I'm not going to say a festival or names, but you'll see people slotted in. You're like, really? Well, they must have a superstar agent that made that happen because I would think that they would be a third row or there's people that are also on that lineup that I think could have been in that headline spot instead. And I'm sure that, you know, the mechanisms of so many of those things more than anyone, and probably think a lot about that, too. What are your thoughts on that piece of it and how the artists do get chosen for headline slots? And I'm sure you sometimes may see it yourself when the festival Posters come up and you're like, okay, that makes sense, but, huh, really, that person? Interesting. [00:13:52] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. And like, look, I think every market's different, right? A lot of it comes down to hard ticket sales usually, and I mean, when, when a promoter's booking a festival, there's two, usually, two things that they're looking at the closest and that's how many tickets have you sold in the market and how fast can you sell them? So while you might look at a lineup and scratch your head and say, how is this person headlining? It could be because it's that person's hometown or because that person's show in the market blew out, there could be a number of different reasons. But you know, there's certain artists that can blow out a show in LA that might not blow out that show in New York. Or a certain artist you might see headline in New York festival because they're from the East Coast or they're from the Northeast that would never make sense to headline in LA. So I think some of it has come down to digging a little deeper as to what's that artist's connection to the city or to the festival, to the market, what's their history, have, they done there before 'cause plays a lot into it. [00:14:38] Dan Runcie: Yeah. That makes sense. Certainly, there are artists that just aren't going to work everywhere. Again, you mentioned the venues that Post Malone has sold out, whether that's his hometown, doing the stadiums, or even the arenas in other places, this isn't as much a discussion point for him. So I do think that that does play a factor. There are other times where I still do see wow, you know, great agent, you know, hats off to them. But it's fascinating though. [00:15:03] Cheryl Paglierani: I think that sometimes, too.[00:15:05] Dan Runcie: It's fascinating though. And I think the broader growth. And as we've seen, especially the past decade-plus proliferation of music festivals has been great. And I think it's created more opportunity for the bigger artists to really decide how do you want to prioritize the opportunities. Of course, there's some artists that are strictly for the most part, only doing festivals. They may get the bigger guarantee up front, but there's a chance they may not be playing in front of as many true fans as they could have if they did their own concert. And there are plenty of pros and cons there, but I'm curious from your perspective, what's your philosophy on balancing touring versus doing the festival shows, and how do you look at it for the artists you represent?[00:15:50] Cheryl Paglierani: You hit it right on the head with the word you just used. It's a balance, right? So I think you never want to say, like, I don't believe it's ever too early to play a festival. Sometimes people are, you know, you'll hear that said, or it's too early for you to play or you need more momentum. But I think there's certain opportunities and certain festivals to be targeted when you're a new artist and through your journey. So let's say you're a new artist and you're ready to go do that 500 cap tour and you're ready to go, you know, start selling tickets at the bottom level. Yeah, you're probably not ready to then go pitch for the Coachella slot 'cause you want to be in the right position when you play a festival like Coachella or a major one, but you could still be perfect for the Thursday night at Bonnaroo. That is great for showcasing new artists. So I think you want to find that healthy balance of like, okay, what festivals can we target that might be in a market that we wouldn't necessarily go headline, but could still put us in front of a lot of bottoms in that market. And that's what I usually try to find from the ground up is, okay, what festivals are we targeting this year? What's going to be our target next year? What's your plan with the music and how are we building our headline shows around that so that we can be growing as a headline artist at the same time? And then with every artist, it's different too, right? 'cause some, it might not be you're building festivals into, headline or some artists it's going to be, it makes sense for them to find a support slot first. You might need more time to develop your show. You might need, you know, you might not have a full set that's long enough to headline. You haven't put out enough music yet. So I think every artist is different. It's just about your strategy to where the artist is at in your career.[00:17:12] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And especially with the balance piece of it, too. And I know that you represent a number of artists that are at different stages of their careers as well. Do you have any that lean more into the festival-heavy and touring light because I know that's another thing I've heard from many artists where they feel like touring is a bigger risk and they don't necessarily want to do that. They would rather do things a bit more on-demand or do things a bit more when the opportunity comes up, as opposed to having a set time to have an event where, yeah, they're doing a 500 or 2000 cap event that they go around. Are there any artists you have that lean towards that way? And how does the strategy shift at all for any of them?[00:17:57] Cheryl Paglierani: I just think it through my personal roster, I actually don't think I have anyone that's more only a festival-centric artist. I think, you know, just for me personally, too, when I'm looking at artists that I want to sign and who I want to work with, it all first and foremost starts with passion. Like, to me, I'm not really looking at streaming numbers. I'm not really looking at stats that most people would. I'm looking at do I love the music? Do I believe in the artist? And do I think that they can grow into arena selling headliner? So I'm always looking for that from the start. So it's almost like it would be very strange for me to end up with artists that only play festivals 'cause I always try to get involved, you know, very early. There's some artists I work with now that haven't been day one, but almost my whole roster has been day one and, and builds from the ground up. And even though every strategy is different, the goal is pretty much always the same in terms of how are we going to build longevity, how are we going to build a real fan base that wants to keep coming back and keep seeing you over and over again. If maybe the live show's not great from the beginning, the things that we can do to help you amplify your show, can we help with connecting with performance coaches, can we help with bringing production people into the team? Like, how can we help add value to get the artist where they need to be so that there's not a ceiling because if you've reached a point where you can only go play festivals, you've hit a ceiling. If you can sell the festival yourself or you get to that point, you want to be able to get to the point where you can book the area out yourself and, and do an open-air show and sell it all on your own. That's where you want to get to. So there's always going to be a ceiling, I feel like if you cap yourself there. And I say it's kind of similar to, like, artists that you see only play nightclubs because I think it can be hard, in the beginning, to turn down nightclub money. If you're a new artist and you come out and you have a song that's big and all of a sudden, clubs, want to throw a check at you to come play your song and three songs in a nightclub. Like, sometimes that's hard to turn down and they'll take that over, playing the small venue and trying to sell the tickets 'cause the money isn't the same. And so I think like that's just always the trap that I tell every artist avoid, avoid, avoid. You have to go build a fan base if you want longevity. [00:19:50] Dan Runcie: Where do artists starting their own music festivals fit in this dynamic? Because Post obviously has Posty Fest. He's had it, it's a success. And obviously again, now that we're at least coming on the other side of the pandemic, where do you see that fit in with this dynamic in that balance? [00:20:07] Cheryl Paglierani: There has to be a connection. There's so many festivals now, right? That if you're an artist and you want to start your own, you have to have probably a good amount of the draw, or I would like really advise against it. But I think that, you know, with Post and creating Posty Fest, he just had such a strong connection to Dallas and a passion for wanting to build a lineup that was multi-genre like him and, give artists an opportunity that he believes in and kind of create something where his fans could really step into his world. And we have an incredible brand team who is able to help us really turn Posty Fest into what Post world would be and bring in all of his partners. And create that without it feeling like overly branded or forced, it felt very authentic to him. And yeah, we're excited to just see how we can keep growing it.[00:20:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And especially with a festival like that, the hometown, the audience, the fan base is there. I'm curious how it's viewed from a business perspective because I've talked to some folks in the industry that feel that the artists-run festivals are almost more of a passion play project. The economics may not be necessarily better than what they could do elsewhere, but it's just actually a unique opportunity to be able to create something like that. But then others feel well, people run their own music festivals for economic gain, obviously. And if you have it there, then there is plenty of upside to be had. So how do you view it? [00:21:29] Cheryl Paglierani: Listen, what you said is absolutely right. I think for starters, you need to start it off as a passion project because to have a festival that's profitable year one, year two, usually isn't very realistic. You have to be able to build it up. With Posty Fest, I mean, we were pretty smart about it. And like I said, his brand team and my partner, Toni Wallace absolutely killed it. We were very lucky to be able to make Posty Fest profitable. And both times that we've done it, just because Post has so much love in the brand space, but it's expensive. It's expensive to create an event like that and to book talent and you just have to be willing to make sacrifices in certain places and be willing to really put in the work to build it year after year, to get it to a place where it's going to be economically profitable.[00:22:10] Dan Runcie: You mentioned the brand piece. And I imagine for Post that's huge. Can you talk a bit about how that factored into the profitability? [00:22:19] Cheryl Paglierani: Of course, as we're selling tickets, but, you know, every time we do a brand deal with Post, we would build Posty Fest into it. So it's like, okay, you're going to do your deal with Bud Light. Bud Light, we're going to need you to come onto Posty Fest. You're going to do your deal with, we had Nerf, we had Crocs, there was just a laundry list of all of his partners, but every time we would be doing deals, we would be building the festival into it. So come time for the festival, we had economics and, and money from all of his partners to come in and create activations for us, so it's authentic to him, but they're coming and they're creating activations and they're helping us create the experience. And that just took a huge cost off of us to have to create those things organically.[00:22:55] Dan Runcie: His brand partnership with Bud Light feels like one of the most authentic artist-brand collaborations. I can't think of anyone else. Like, so many people are like, oh, Post Malone being the ambassador for Bud Light is perfect. [00:23:07] Cheryl Paglierani: Perfect. Like I said, he is not faking it. He really drinks Bud Light. That's his drink. And you know, he's always going to do what's authentic to himself.[00:23:14] Dan Runcie: I could imagine what the success of that. Something else that I think has been fascinating with touring has been the influence of social media. And I think there are a number of people who have strong social media followings that people couldn't actually assume that, okay, you had millions of fans that are following you on Instagram or TikTok or wherever that would then translate to those millions of people coming out and buying tickets for your show. And while there's some correlation there, I've always thought there's a bit of a disconnect to some extent because while having a large number may be great, your followers on socials may not always be the fans who are buying tickets for your show, but I know that when you're making decisions for these shows, there's all the data. There's also that instinct factor that you have when deciding who to pitch in, book where, but for you, how important is social media and the numbers or metrics you see from social media in the live performance decisions you're making, whether that's for touring or for festivals?[00:24:18] Cheryl Paglierani: It's definitely a factor, but it's by no means the factor because there are artists that have millions and millions of followers who can't sell a ticket and there's artists who can stream really well, but also can't sell a ticket. Like, there is definitely not any proof of a direct correlation between the two, but I do think that being on socials is really important. It also depends on how you are using your socials. Are you using your socials to connect with fans or are you just posting when you have to post something, right? Are you just posting a flyer to a show or you're not going on your Insta stories and talking to them, or you're not responding in the comments and they don't really feel like, for artists, I feel like we use it as a connection point. We'll see it translate more into, you know, the live side. But I haven't seen yet where I feel strongly enough that, like TikTok specifically, like if you have millions of followers on TikTok, are you going to be able to go sell out a show? That I don't think directly correlates. I think that to build yourself and start being successful in live, there has to be the live piece there. You have to have the live show, you have to have the music, you have to have the connectivity with an audience more so than just creating like cute Insta videos that are going to go viral. But it is going to be interesting to see, I think, as we're getting back into touring and more tours are going out and if that changes at all, but I haven't seen it be directly correlated just yet. [00:25:36] Cheryl Paglierani: I'm glad [00:25:36] Dan Runcie: you mentioned TikTok because there's been so much talk about how influential TikTok has been in the music industry. It is the place where so much music gets discovered that ends up performing well on streaming, but given the way the algorithm works, you can have tons of followers or tons of engagement proposed, but like you said, it doesn't exactly translate to having fans that are actually going to buy tickets. [00:26:01] Cheryl Paglierani: There's no question, right? There's no question at all that TikTok has become super important to breaking new music and bringing awareness to new music, whether you're a brand new artist or your Post Malone, the label's going to try to push TikTok because that's where so many kids are. And that's how you can just make things more visible. When you talk about breaking records and stream, like, I think TikTok can really add value into the streaming side of things and just being heard. But in terms of it, like, translating over into hard ticket sales, I don't think there's a direct, I think it helps, but I don't think there's a direct correlation where you can say, oh, okay, if you have X amount of views or followers on TikTok, you're going to sell this room now. It's not realistic. [00:26:37] Dan Runcie: And Post has talked about this too. I saw a quote from him recently that was like if I was a new artist that was being pushed to use TikTok right now, maybe there'd be a little bit of pressure to try to find a natural way to use it or even he himself wanting to find a natural way to use it. How have those discussions been? Because on one hand he already has the fan base that was there long before TikTok blew up, but there's so many established artists that are leaning into the platform now. [00:27:03] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I mean, lucky for us, Post has an incredible creative director, Bobby, who is also his day-to-day. I'm not really involved so much in the what goes on his TikTok, but Bobby's really good at finding authentic ways, whether they're out somewhere and Post is just there doing some of capturing those moments and then helping translate them over to TikTok. But even though it wasn't around while Post was on the come out, so it's a relatively new thing. I think they're figuring out really cool ways to still have him featured on the platform, and there's been a number of videos they've put up there that have gone viral. [00:27:34] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. There was something else earlier that you mentioned about streaming specifically. We talked about how there's some disconnect between social media and being able to sell tickets. But you also mentioned that there's some artists that stream well, but can't necessarily sell tickets as well. What are some common or things that can have that type of dynamic exist or that is the reason why that can happen that you've seen? [00:28:00] Cheryl Paglierani: The nightclub situation, I think is one that can be a total killer, right? So like, there's so many artists you'll see that will come out. They'll have a song that will get really hot in a nightclub. And instead of going out and doing the work and building the fan base, they'll go take the 10, 20, 30 grand to go to the club, just play the song. It's not their real fans. It's just people that want to party. And then they'll feel like, you know, they'll get to a point where, okay, now you've had two hits. Now you've had three hits. But going backwards to start at the beginning, to really build the fan base and sell the rooms and the money you're going to make to play a 500 or a thousand cap just feels to them like a step backwards. And so they hit that ceiling. I always say, like, you need to start the build from the beginning because you're not going to want to go backwards. So I think that's where the disconnect can take place if you're not building and doing it all. Like, you have to be smart enough to strategize and say, okay, I'm going to go play the 500 cap or the thousand cap. I'm confident that I can sell it out. And when I do that, I'm going to make the club the after party. And I'm going to kill two birds with one stone, but they don't always do that. And I think that's where you see certain artists that will stream really well and have a lot of hits but have never built proper touring history fall into that trap.[00:29:07] Dan Runcie: That lines up with something else I've heard you say, which lines up with how artists now can build a tour off of a song or off of a single that does really well. And you don't necessarily have to always rely on going after the short bag or trying to do the short-term things. No, if you have the single that works, you can build on that. Can you speak a little bit more about that? [00:29:30] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah. I think like when you're a true artist, like, I remember when we first started building out Dominic Fike's first tour and his EP was incredible. He had a real fan base. We had no doubt that the shows were going to sell. But I think the whole thing was under 30 minutes. Like it was almost going to be a struggle to get a show to where, you know, you want to be at least a 45-minute set if you're going to headline. But having the creativity that, okay, I'm going to throw in a couple of covers that are unexpected so that I can stretch this out and really go, build from the ground up and do that tour, and that's what they did. They figured out a way to make the show entertaining and interesting and with the band and to fill that time, even though it was only one project and, you know, 3 Nights was a big radio hit for him. We were able to still get out there and, and do that tour and start building it the right way with him as a headliner from the start.[00:30:14] Dan Runcie: Yeah, that's great. I mean, I think, now, especially just because there are so many hits where you can clearly tell that, okay, I don't know if that one's really going to last, but other times he'll hear hit, be like, no, you can truly build something off of this. And that's what I think is unique about this era. And that's what I think is unique to see artists like Post and others as well who've literally been able to say, okay, I have the awareness. I have the exposure. How could we continue to build on whether you're taking your time for whether it's the album or the launch, whatever it is. There are so many unique ways to be able to continue to just build momentum and build the fan base today. And I think that's one of the more exciting things about where the industry is right now. [00:30:55] Cheryl Paglierani: Yeah, absolutely. Shout to Dre and to Post, we talked about this a lot in the beginning because of course when White Iverson came out, we were getting all the clubs that were reaching out and me and Dre were totally aligned and on the same page of like, that's not what we're going to do and we're going to build this the right way. And here we are. [00:31:11] Dan Runcie: For sure. And I'm sure part of this, too, with the artists you represent is that so much of the booking and so much of the time can be reflective of just them feeling burnt out, right? Maybe burnout isn't as much of a piece on the touring side, at least for Post, just given the fact that you're touring in arenas now. He's not necessarily doing 200-plus arena shows a year, but there are other artists that are doing nightclubs or doing smaller venues that are doing that clip or potentially even. How is it with some of the artists who that clearly is the phase that they are in their career, but there's just so much more awareness right now in this industry of how do we prevent burnout, how do we support the artists without having them be on the grind that, I think, in many ways became so standard for artists in the industry? [00:32:03] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's actually really important. And I always, personally, when I'm putting together a routing or I'm thinking about what are we doing, I try to put myself in the artist's shoes and think would I be able to handle this? Could I play four nights in a row? Like, am I going to get burnt out if there's not a day off after this many shows in a row? We think about that a lot with Post 'cause even though you're not playing 200 arena shows a year, even playing two nights in an arena back to back and be really exhausting, and that's going to take a toll on him and on his voice and on his body. And I think, like, if you're an artist and you're getting up on stage and you're giving it your all. That's going to wear you out. So, it's always something that we're thinking about when we're routing of, like, okay, let's not make sure that we got this amount of time. We're going to fit this amount of shows in. We're going to make sure that there's a proper amount of days off. And I'm always thinking about that when I'm routing as to how is this going to physically be on the artist because that's first and foremost is keeping them healthy and keeping them wanting to do it. We never want an artist to start feeling like, oh, this is just too much. I can't take it. So we try to make it as comfortable as possible. [00:33:03] Dan Runcie: Do these VR and metaverse experiences help with this to some extent? I know he recently had the VR experience for his project, the Twelve Carat Toothache, and I know that he had had the Pokémon collaboration that he had recently. Do these types of things help a bit? Because there obviously is less travel and you could still reach an audience and potentially a growing audience based on the way things are heading. [00:33:28] Cheryl Paglierani: Absolutely. I mean, I don't think it helps per se in a sort of like taking anything off the touring side 'cause the touring's still going to be there, but those opportunities are just easier to pull off because you can do them in LA or like he did the Nirvana live stream from his house in Utah, things like that, where through the pandemic and we were able to still stay out there in a real way without having to go anywhere. So that definitely helps when there is something like that that can be done and adds so much value to your album rollout and just be really cool and really different. The VR experience, I mean, they built out different sets almost for every single, so like that was a full two-day production to film all of that. So it was still a lot of work, but it was again, staying in one place made it easy to pull off. [00:34:09] Dan Runcie: So five years from now, when Post is still headline status and is booking all the top festivals and touring around the world. What do you think shifts? Because obviously so much has shifted in the industry since White Iverson came out, streaming and all of the other types of opportunities for artists to go direct with their fans or anything else has expanded as well. And we'll continue to see more evolution on that front. What do you think will change specifically in the live performance or, more broadly, how Post and some of your other artists may go about it? [00:34:43] Cheryl Paglierani: What do I think is going to shift? I mean, I hope that one day with Post and you say, what will change, well, he's always been a one-man show. He's never played with the band. It's always him. And he gets up there and he kills it. I kind of hope that in the future we're seeing him, he might hear this and say, why would you say that? But my personal wish, I hope that like one day we see the show shift into him playing with a full band or maybe playing, you know, everyone always says to me, when's Post making a folk album? When's Post making a country album? I almost hope that maybe we see him shift and actually take a stab at a different genre completely. And just do something that's completely unexpected. Does that happen? I don't know, but it could be a shift. And I also think he has the potential and will reach stadium status. I hope somewhere in the next five years we maybe see. Like, we're able to go into baseball stadiums or something of the sort. Maybe it's not a full tour, these are just like my aspirations and my, my goals and what I want to see, whether, you know, that aligns with him, we have to discuss, but I think those are a few shifts that could be really interesting and cool.[00:35:39] Dan Runcie: Well, Cheryl, this has been great. I think that there's just so much that's happening in this space and I'm excited for you. I'm excited for Post and all the other artists you represent, but before we let you go, is there anything else that you'd like to plug or let the capital audience know about?[00:35:57] Cheryl Paglierani: Anything else I want to plug? I probably should have something for that, but nothing comes to mind. I'm not much of a self-promoter. I don't know what I have to plug.[00:36:04] Dan Runcie: Or where people can find you if they want to follow you.[00:36:07] Cheryl Paglierani: People can find me on Instagram. I'm just @cherylpags. [00:36:10] Dan Runcie: Okay. And then big things coming up for Post, obviously, we mentioned the tour, a few festivals coming up as well. [00:36:17] Cheryl Paglierani: I don't know if you saw, but we also announced we'll be doing stadiums in Australia with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in January. So we're really excited for that also. [00:36:24] Dan Runcie: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Another collab that makes a bunch of sense. All right. Well, Cheryl, this has been great. It's a pleasure. Thanks again for coming on. [00:36:32] Cheryl Paglierani: Thank you so much for having me.[00:36:34] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Music exec Benny Pough has shaped the hip-hop industry in a career that’s spanned from Motown Records to Def Jam to Roc Nation and now his own entrepreneurial pursuits. Benny joined me on Trapital to discuss his 30-year journey and where it’s heading next.The defining feature of Benny has been his ability to spot and develop musical talent. He’s responsible for signing the likes of Future, Jeremih, and Yo Gotti, among others. That skill was initially forged from having an ear for what would catch on the radio, but has evolved in the streaming era. Despite this radical shift in music consumption, Benny says “stars will always be stars.”After working at seven different record labels, Benny left the corporate world in 2019 and dove full-time into entrepreneurialism. He runs two separate companies — DVERSE Media and Kandiid. The former is a global music distributor and publisher, while the latter is a mobile app for creators to monetize their content. Benny also manages a diversified real estate portfolio. Like Benny’s own career, our conversation covers a lot of ground. Here’s our talking points: [3:13] How Benny Developed His Eye andEar For Talent[4:42] Differences Between Hit-Makers andSuperstars[6:10] How Has Streaming Changed Superstar Development?[7:33] Record Label’s Role in Talent Development [13:07] Inside Def Jam’s Business Turnaround During Mid-00s[16:02] Aligning Business andArt at Def Jam [18:15] Teairra Mari and Rihanna Coming Up at Def Jam[21:37] Balancing Short-Term andLong-Term Business Goals[24:39] How Did Benny Adapt To Working At Different Labels?[27:00] Why Benny Became a Full-Time Entrepreneur [28:34] How Does Benny Split Time Across His Business Ventures?[31:26] DVERSE Media’s Pitch To Artists[33:15] TikTok’s Role In Talent Development Today[34:43] Monetizing Content On Kandiid[36:07] How Benny Got Into Real Estate[38:54] Benny’s Upcoming BookListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Benny Pough, @bennypough Sponsors: MoonPay is the leader in web3 infrastructure. They have partnered with Timbaland, Snoop Dogg, and many more. To learn more, visit moonpay.com/trapital 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] Benny Pough: You can have a star, but if you don't have people who can market it and promote it and put the music together, then it's going to take that star a little more time. Or you can have great executives, but you have artists that don't have drive. They're kind of confused on who their identity is. They write good songs, they don't write great songs, then it's kind of off balance. It's that marriage of really strong executives and really great artistry.  [00:00:35] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:55] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is Benny Pough. He is a music industry veteran. And when I'm talking about people that understand promotion, understand what it takes to make an artist go from sixty to a hundred, this is the person to talk to. He has identified talent over the years, working at Motown, Perspective, Arista, MCA, Def Jam, Epic, and Roc Nation Records. He worked at Def Jam during one of the turnaround eras for the record label from 2003, all the way up to 2011. So we're talking about that stretch where you had Rihanna, and Jeezy, and Kanye, and so many artists that made a huge impact there. Then he also worked at Epic where he was able to see Future, and Jeremih, and Travis Scott, and Yo Gotti. And so many of the artists there. And now he is building his own company. He works at Diverse Media, which is a music distribution and global publishing platform. He also has an app called Kandiid, which helps content creators and artists connect more directly with their fan base. We also talk about some of the ventures he has outside of music. He does a lot in real estate. We're talking about some of the real estate he does, even in my hometown, which was pretty dope to hear how he understands the neighborhoods pretty well. So this is a great interview. If you want to talk about a mogul that understands each point of this industry, and with this upcoming book where he is sharing these insights as well. This is the interview for you. Here's my conversation with Benny Pough. [00:02:27] Dan Runcie: All right. Today, we got one of the music executives that has seen this industry and seen hip-hop through so many pivotal moments at some of the most storied record labels. Mr. Benny Pough. Welcome to the pod. [00:02:40] Benny Pough: What's up, Dan? Been waiting, man! I don't know why you kept me out here so long, but thank you for having me today.[00:02:47] Dan Runcie: People have been asking for this one, people have been asking for this one. [00:02:51] Benny Pough: Yeah. Yes, sir. [00:02:52] Dan Runcie: And I mean, I think one of the reasons that people have been asking is because of your track record. You have identified some of the best talents in this field. Yo Gotti, Future, Jeremih, could go on with the list, but it's clear that you understand what you're looking for and you have an eye and an ear for this. What are you looking for when you spot talent? [00:03:13] Benny Pough: So, you know, being a promotions person is how I started in the business. Like, my first entry point was at Motown records, doing college promotions. And at that point, I realized that, you know, music changed my life when I was able to take a song, and from a college level, and have it played across the airways, 'cause you have to think about over the decades, the mass means of communication was radio. So that changed everything. If you got on the radio in any capacity, you know, it could take you from zero to sixty. So for me, listening to the radio and listening to music one way or another, my ear just got refined to what sounds good on the radio. So with the artists that you mentioned, I heard their music before I even met them. So it's something about, you know, obviously the spirit, you know, that ooze through them that comes out in their music that always just resonated with me. So the next step would be, you know, to meet them and obviously the artists that you mentioned, you know, from Future to Jeremih, Gotti, F.L.Y., it was something special about them that they'd already created for themselves. They just needed, you know, that opportunity to present itself for them to move on to the next level. [00:04:23] Dan Runcie: And I'm sure meeting that adds a whole nother layer 'cause you could have the voice but you're not just building someone that can record an audio track. You're trying to identify stars. What is it from meeting them in person that adds to it? Or is there something extra that you see when you're face to face? [00:04:42] Benny Pough: I think what's probably problematic now is that people can become instantaneously popular just from streaming. But never been in, you know, never really been in a studio 'cause you can record in your house. Never performed at a dive because that's not what's required. Never actually performed in front of an audience. So they're great songwriters, maybe producers, but the bar is so much lower on the entry point now, because any and everyone can do it. The difference between the people who make just hit songs or records, and the ones who are superstars is that they have the full package. Not only do they write or they perform, but you know, they have that whole je ne sais quoi, something special about them that people want to hear more and more, see more and more of them. And that's what the key is. And always has been, you know, since the beginning of music, of those people who attract and draw you in.[00:05:37] Dan Runcie: You mentioned streaming and how it is easier and how it's very different from having a hit record as opposed to being a superstar. But do you think that even some of the visual aspects are becoming easier to replicate, too? Thinking about how someone could do so much of the production of music videos, or even the visual of what they can do, whether it's through Instagram and developing a following, but there's still, there could still be a disconnect between having that piece of it as well and really being someone that can push a record label and push themselves. [00:06:10] Benny Pough: So the power is probably the best time, music and arts, the power's in the creator. You know, ultimately as a consumer, we'll choose what we like at the value point that we will or not. But ultimately as a creator, you can get in where, before you couldn't, because there were, you know, gatekeepers. So now that you have the access and the ability to take your art to the masses. It's great. Now the level of what you have, meaning, you know, whether it's your music or your visual, if people like it, they're going to like it. And if they don't, if they feel it's inferior, then that's your presentation to the masses. So ideally you can't look at it as a negative, but, you know, obviously, as you grow, and you develop, and you have success. All of those levels start to heighten as well. [00:07:02] Dan Runcie: And do you feel like this has made it easier or harder or how different it is for the people that clearly have superstar potential, but they are coming up in this era where there is more noise? But on the other hand, because some of that noise can filter away some of the artists that don't necessarily have that potential and let the cream rise to the crop, I've heard people use both arguments about what it's like for superstars right now, but what's your take on the current stars now?[00:07:33] Benny Pough: Stars will always be stars, and we're going to find them if that's the true course of action. You know, I worked with L.A. Reid, and I remember him always just telling me the story about Outkast. He didn't sign them the first time they performed for him. It might have been the second or the third, but because they had it and when they finally brought it back to him, you know, the rest is history. Did it make them lesser stars because they weren't signed the first time? No. What they went back and did was hone their skills, hone their craft. And at some point, the rubber hit the road and the rest is history, and that's happened countless times. Look how many times Michael Jackson was passed on. So I don't think the internet or that we're in a technological, you know, era that it changes the pursuit and the passion for people who truly have the desire and commitment to their art. You know, it just doesn't happen that I designate myself to be an artist today. And since I'm going to be an artist today, I'm going to be a star tomorrow, right? It doesn't quite work that way. And the people who have the wherewithal and the gifts, they're going to find it. [00:08:38] Dan Runcie: Do you think it's harder for people to hit those Michael Jackson levels though? Because I do think that he, of course, I can't think of anyone that was more famous at that particular time. And even some of the artists that you have now. Yes, some of the biggest stars you've seen, they're breaking records and streaming, but culture is just so much noisier and there's so many other things like it's hard for any one artist to reach those same levels. Or do you think that that's still possible? [00:09:07] Benny Pough: It's just different iterations of it. And I don't think you can ever take the greatness of one artist and measure other artists to that, right? Now you can look at stats and go, well, did you, did this person have this many accomplishments as is that one? Then you start getting to the, you know, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe, right? It's just all different. So it's not the same measurement, but also just realize everyone has greatness and in their time of what was available and what the market was, they exceeded everyone's expectation. So that exists and it's going to exist beyond, you know, today until tomorrow. So it's really about, you know, how do you maximize the moments and all of that is really consistent on how much you commit to your craft.[00:09:56] Dan Runcie: I agree because I think about some of the stars right now, we still see it. It just may not be necessarily the most traditional sense the way people see it. I look at what Bad Bunny is doing right now. We haven't necessarily seen someone like him do what he's doing at the level that he's doing, whether it's the streaming records or even the sold-out concerts. Or even if you look at BTS, I think there's something to be said there for just how popular and strong that fan base is. And then you have your Drakes and your Taylor Swifts, these artists that I think even in 10 years will still be some of the biggest artists of their generation. [00:10:33] Benny Pough: And that's all catalog. You know, artists that have great music, amazing songs, and are true performers. So, you know, once you get to that level, it puts you in a category by yourself, [00:10:47] Dan Runcie: Right. And so much of this goes back to the work of these artists working with record labels, and a lot of the names that we mention, they got big pre-streaming. And because of that, I think they entered a phase where record labels did do a lot more of the development to help bring them along to the area that they are now.[00:11:07] Dan Runcie: But I think what we're seeing now is, because of all of the tools and all of the do-it-yourself functions that we're seeing that artists have the ability to do, by the time you're ready to join a record label, the hope is that you at least have some footing behind you, right? This isn't necessarily the place that's going to bring you from zero to a hundred. But if you could get from zero to sixty, you sign with them and then that can hopefully get you to a hundred. And I think that's the piece of it that's a little different than even what we may have looked at 10, 15 years ago with some of the names you mentioned where it was still a bit harder for them to break out without having the additional support earlier in their career. [00:11:49] Benny Pough: That's the equivalent. I don't disagree with you. The entry points probably are, you know, different, but in some very similar. Ideally you are a thousand percent correct. You can't look to a label to develop you at this point, but when you think about, you know, some of the earliest stars they were developed outside of the label as well, right? So, you know, that kind of overlaps in that perspective. I think the root of all of this is starting with talent, regardless, whether you were, you know, in the past and things weren't as technologically advanced or right now, you know, you have the ability of all of technology. But you don't have all of the components that are going to help you, i.e. great songs, great producers, you know, and all of those true means that are going to really push you to the next level. [00:12:35] Dan Runcie: Agreed. And I think, for you specifically, you've seen it with so many of the labels you've worked out, whether it's Motown or even the run you had with Def Jam as well. And I do want to talk specifically about the Def Jam run because, as someone that loves business case studies, this is a turnaround story and you had a front-row seat to push that forward. Tell us that story and let's walk through that process. What are the key things you think that really helped Def Jam turn things around from that '93 to, you know, going on into the 2000s run?[00:13:07] Benny Pough: So the crazy thing was, you know, for me getting into Def Jam was, it was amazing. The fact that they were a closed shop. You have to realize Def Jam never really let outsiders in. Everything was homegrown. They were one of the very few labels that was truly closed shop, right? Like, the people who started there from interns elevated all the way up, you know, into the higher senior positions, I mean, i.e. Kevin Liles, who is, you know, the person who reached out to me to come over to the organization. So given that opportunity and I was on the West Coast and wanted to get back home, I was at MCA Records and I wanted to get back home. So when I got the call, I was like, wow, I can go for one of the most renowned hip-hop labels in the world and get back home. So it was a no-brainer. Shortly thereafter I came on, Kevin and Lyor exited the building and L.A. Walked in. And that was, you know, an interesting dynamic because, one, I'd, you know, heard a lot about him and knew, you know, his abilities, but I didn't, wasn't certain on what my outcome would be because he didn't bring me in.[00:14:10] Benny Pough: It was a great union because he was an amazing, as we all know, music maker, hit kind of guy. I was a promotion guru, you know, at that time in my career. So, it gave me a great opportunity to, one, work with one of the best, which also made me one of the best, great music, strong promotions, i.e. put it all together in a pot, stir it up, you got to hit artists, right? And the talent was insane. We had one of the best A&R teams in the business, one of the best marketing teams in the business, one of the best promotion teams, publicity, et cetera. And then we all played as a unit. And I think that's, what's really important in any business, including the music business. When you get a real starting fire and the goal is to really bring on the gold, it's unstoppable with incredible artists and amazing music. So, you know, that's how all of that came together. And through that, you know, between Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Rihanna, Ne-Yo. We had Fabolous, Justin Bieber walked in, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was just an amazing, amazing time in music for us and that component of those artists, that team, and everyone wanting the big win put us right exactly where you have in this conversation. [00:15:31] Dan Runcie: Yeah, definitely. And the other key thing with this, too, is that you also had a few leadership changes, as you mentioned. You had Kevin Liles, and then you had L.A., and then you were there during the Jay-Z stretch as well. And I'm sure with each of those, you were able to keep things moving just with the amount of talent that was coming through, but I'm sure that there were different things, whether it was leadership styles or things that the label needed at a particular time that was able to help it get to where it was during those 2000s. [00:16:02] Benny Pough: So what's important, what people have to realize, and, you know, we put entertainment as though it's its own kind of business. It's still business. And you know, you have to learn how to manage up and manage down. And obviously, all the bosses have their own idiosyncrasies, but all of their goals is about winning. And obviously, you know, the people component is very important 'cause they're all specific on identifying the right talent, but also the right executives because true leaders understand, in the music business, the combination of both is what's going to help. You can have a star, but if you don't have people who can market it and promote it and put the music together, then it's going to take that star a little more. time Or you can have great executives, but you have artists that don't have drive. They're kind of confused on who their identity is. They write good songs, they don't write great songs, then it's kind of off balance. So when you get that real true alignment of both business and talent, that's when you have, and you look back at it, like go through the history of all of the strong labels. It's that marriage of really strong executives and really great artistry. So it doesn't change, right, where our business isn't different. We have just a non-traditional product. [00:17:22] Dan Runcie: Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, there's something that you're trying to sell. You understand the customer, you're trying to get what you can get out there. [00:17:29] Benny Pough: Yes, sir. [00:17:30] Dan Runcie: Looking back and you talking through some of these stories with these leaders making me think of that time as well. One of the stories I know that often gets talked about going back to around 2004, 2005, Def Jam is figuring out, okay, who is the artist that we want to propel, especially who is the woman artist we want to propel. And there was so much about whether the label is going to push Teairra Marí, or if the label was going to push Rihanna. And so much of that, I know that you were, had a front row seat in, what was that process like? And what is it like now just thinking about how it went and how, whether you could discern what we eventually saw play out, or if it was still tough to know at the moment how either career would've went?[00:18:15] Benny Pough: So let's be very clear. And especially in my upbringing in the music business and how I've always been disciplined and even in just me as an individual, I don't play sides. I have to give my all to each and everyone because we don't know. Like, I can't say this one is a hit and this one isn't. My responsibility in the pipeline is to make sure that I do my best to expose the product to the marketplace. In both of those scenarios, the company was behind both artists. Ultimately, the public is going to decide who are they going to weigh in more or not. But sitting here today, I wouldn't tell you I did more or less for either of those other than provide an amazing system for them to go through in order to have the opportunity to live their dreams.[00:19:04] Dan Runcie: And that makes sense. And I think that's the most fair way to do it. [00:19:07] Benny Pough: Yeah. [00:19:07] Dan Runcie: Were you surprised at all by the outcome or how things played out in terms of the public's response? [00:19:14] Benny Pough: Rihanna's one of the greatest in the world. I mean, it speaks to its own, right? That speaks to itself and also realized she had, when you think about it, and there's very few artists, when you talk about classics, right? When you can go through hip-hop or R&B, like, classic albums, her first album was a classic album, right? So ultimately the people weighed in on what they appreciated from her at that point. And that in turn is about once where we started in this conversation, the artistry, it's the music and it's the team. So you got to think about a lot of artists who came through Def Jam through those years. We talk about the ones that, you know, went on and had massive success, but there were artists, too, that had great success. There were artists that make a good living and then there are artists like, it didn't work out because, obviously, the people did decide, not us.[00:20:06] Dan Runcie: Right. And that's what makes it so tough, I think, in any type of business, whether you're looking at other areas of entertainment, everything else, you could do the best thing that you think you want to put out. But there has to be some type of demand. There has to be something that is pulling artists through. And I think we saw that with the other singles that came off of Music of the Sun, Rihanna's first album. So fascinating times, it's really special to go back and think about it, especially now. I mean, who knows when we'll see the next album, but hopefully sooner rather than later. One of the things that stands out to me though, with the Def Jam time specifically, is just how much market share the record label was able to grow as well. And I wonder from your perspective, we're talking so much about balancing the business versus the art, so much of the work is focused on, okay, who can you promote? How can you push things? But there's also this zero-sum game of how can you get more market share than the other record labels that you're competing against and all of that. Was it ever a feeling like a bit of a tug of war between the art and the business of pushing these things knowing that there's this ultimate metric that the label's shooting for. But there's this longer-term aspect of trying to build and grow artists 'cause I know with other companies, it's kind of one of these things where you have the long-term goals, but how does that work with the quarterly earnings and I do think that market share is essentially that for record labels in the music industry. [00:21:37] Benny Pough: So, a lot of that's going to be predicated on leadership. And, you know, the companies that I worked for were very artist-driven. And what was most important about having the artist was making sure that the artist got their best shot and performance. And so that was a driving force for us at Def Jam. You know, it's not being irresponsible, it's just a matter of, you know, investing in giving the music, the artists enough time to breathe. Everything is not going to just be determined in black and white. Everything's not going to be determined in dollars and cents. And the people who are aligned right from the business end, gas on, gas off. Someone has to read it, how much to invest in this artist because of what the tea leaves are versus investing in this artist, predicated on what the tea leaves are. If you have something that's not talking back or something that's not performing, then you can't throw enough money at it. They don't like it, but if you have something that's incrementally or even starts to just explode, then, you know, that's a better bet to hedge your money on. And the executives in the leadership, in the companies that have a really firm grasp of knowing when to gas on and gas off on which particular artist, as well as you know, the whole perspective of the business unit are the ones that have wins in both the artistry, people want to come in because, with the success of the artist, that's what people are excited about. No one signs to a label going, oh, you have the largest market share. They go, oh, Future's over there. Travis is over there. Gotti's over there, you know what I mean? That's what they're going to say. Khaled's over there. They're going to say that they're not going to go, oh, you guys had 11 share? No, they're not going to do that. [00:23:22] Benny Pough: But in essence, all of it does work hand in hand, right? And on the other end with having successful artists, you have more market share, bigger profits. You know, now the executives, you're going to attract executives 'case they want to be there, right? Because good bonusing, good salaries, et cetera. So, a lot of that is really, really determined by the leadership. [00:23:43] Dan Runcie: I'm glad you mentioned the Future, Travis, and Gotti 'cause that is your time at Epic. You were able to see this run. You were able to see those artists just push through as well and, obviously, a different record label. I'm sure things were likely different there, but you had worked at several beforehand. What is it like when you obviously know exactly what you're doing, you understand what's required to succeed in your role, but you know, that you're shifting into a different culture, shifting into a different environment? How do you adapt yourself as someone that has already seen success in different labels, but you're moving on to other companies and still understanding that, yes, you know how to make this artist pop, but there's different folks in charge and there's different things that are happening that you also need to be aware of as you're wanting to execute the best promotional campaigns possible?[00:24:39] Benny Pough: So Benny Pough is a brand. I'm not interchangeable in that way. My core values are my core values. And if people are hiring you or bringing you into their organization, they want the best of you. And obviously, and it's no different from going from, you know, the high school football team to the college football team. You have to learn how to adapt, but football is football. And in essence, you just learned in different plays from a different coach, and what they expect you and why they recruited you to bring you over is to bring your talent and show us exactly what we need to be done in order to win. So it doesn't become that complicated and don't forget once again, it's learning how to manage. Like, you can't come in with a crazy ego. You have to be adaptable, amenable, and willing to learn in someone else's environment, but also bring your best game to play. [00:25:28] Dan Runcie: Were there any of the record labels you worked at where you feel like the culture or the way that they operated things was very different than the others? I know you were at Roc Nation Records after Epic but was any of them truly unique in this area? [00:25:41] Benny Pough: I worked at seven different labels. All of them were different 'cause it's seven different leaders. And I think, like, the common thread with all of them is that they had an insatiable desire to win. So every person that I worked for wanted to win and they all saw a different path to winning, but that was the common thread. And then systems, you know, obviously, the ones who were successful had winning systems, and the ones who kind of meandered out had different kinds of systems. So I think a lot of it comes into play to the individuals, right? If everybody could you know, coach the New England Patriots, then everybody would be doing the job, right? It's the best of the best it's going to get, you know, to do that and sit in that seat. [00:26:29] Dan Runcie: Right, exactly. And I know that sitting in that seat and having so much control over understanding what needs to be done is key with this. But I also recognize that you specifically with where you are in your career right now, you've worked at many different labels, but you're no longer working for a label. You've since left, you've left Roc Nation Records a few years back, and you are now building your own companies. Can you talk to me about that process, that transition, and why this was the right time for you to make that leap?[00:27:00] Benny Pough: Man, it's an amazing time in my life because now I have the opportunity of everything I learned, right? Think about the talent that I've identified over the years, the executives that I've groomed over the years, and realizing business and talent is something that I've been blessed to do. So now I can take all of that, what I've learned, and now apply it and reap the benefits for my family and friends. So I'm super, super excited about this time and being in the marketplace and having the freedom and flexibility to chase different and identify different kinds of talent, you know. Had I been at a major label, I wouldn't have invested in an app, right? Had I been in a major label, I wouldn't be launching my first conference. Had I been in a major label, I wouldn't be releasing a book. So it gives me, you know, the freedom and the latitude. But since I'd spent so much time learning the system, I am now approaching this from both a corporate perspective and entrepreneurial perspective, blended to now give the artists that I've signed as well as the ones that, you know, I manage and the business that I'm involved in, you know, the best opportunity to win because I've seen a lot of winning along the way.[00:28:19] Dan Runcie: Exactly and for you right now, you have Diverse Media, you have Kandiid, you also have real estate, and a few other business interests. How do you split your time right now? And writing a book as well, how do you split your time between each of these?[00:28:34] Benny Pough: Organization. It's no different than anything else. You know, whether you're working for someone or working for yourself, it's all time management, allocation of, you know, what needs to be done for this particular company today. You know, the things that need to be responded to, but most importantly, making sure that I'm reading the tea leaves properly because I'm the one that's investing. So it's, you know, being fiscally responsible is important and also taking the signs from the marketplace. As we talked earlier, the things that you learn along the way, just because I love it and no one else does, at some point I got to go to what they say versus how I feel because it's my resources, but I'm having a great time in this section of my life.[00:29:15] Dan Runcie: I got to imagine that's the biggest change as well, right? You're working for these record labels, part of these bigger corporations, someone else is always giving the final checkoff. And some of that may line up with what you want. Some of that may line up with what you don't want, but here, the buck stops with you, and there's sure there's so much freedom with that. How has that piece of it been? Because I know that that is likely one of the bigger changes or bigger shifts that comes with being able to run these types of businesses yourself. [00:29:46] Benny Pough: It's exhilarating and scary at the same time. You know, what you realize or what I've realized along the way is, you know, was always indicative of having someone on the team to go, what do you think, or let's go through this one more time, you know, to help you formulate that opinion because all the opinions aren't yours and all decisions aren't just made by you. The buck stops with you, but you know, you can lean in and on other different resources inside of the company. When you're independent, it may not be as rich as far as having those qualified people to assist you in the decision-making. So I'm very tactical on how I approach things. Obviously, you have to get more analytic in determining, you know, how to proceed in situations in the companies that I'm invested in. And at the end of the year, it has to make sense, right? It's the bottom line. It has to make sense in order for it to continue. [00:30:39] Dan Runcie: So let's walk through each of these 'cause I think there are ways to talk a little bit more about each of them, with Diverse Media specifically, global music, distribution, and publishing. This is your insights you're bringing. And you're like, I've been doing this for decades. I'm one of the most experienced people here. And I know what it takes to run the ship. What is the pitch then to artists who may want to, as you kind of put it yourself, they see the superstars that are still at the major record labels? You may not necessarily have the stable of the superstar yourself, but you're pitching yourself as your experience as well. How has that pitch been? 'Cause I'm sure that pitch is a little different when working for yourself as opposed to having the major label behind you. [00:31:26] Benny Pough: So it's not for everyone, but it's for the right people. I've worked with some incredible talent as an independent now that I have been able to help groom them, teach them, develop them in a process that, one, a major label wouldn't look to them for. So we have different needs. It's a smaller investment for me in investing in someone who's at the beginning of their career. And we are more of a partnership because I'm going to be very specific as well of who we're going to give my time to. And for them, they get direct contact to someone who, guess what, can make a call and help them move a little bit further and faster than they would've on their own. So I enjoy that, that element of it, and it gives me the ability to stay very connected in the music space, but also grow and develop talent at the pace that they primarily would not get at a major. 'Cause once you get on the conveyor belt, it's your time. It's your time when they say it's your time. And I think what we're lacking now is the development, the true artist development. So that's what artists get the benefit from. And it works.[00:32:26] Dan Runcie: That makes sense. And I think, especially with the type of artist, you're looking at the sweet spot as well. There's so many artists that look at the technology medium as the means of growth or the means of exposure, right? I got to get on the streaming services. I got to get on TikTok. I got to start making reels and things like that. How much importance does that play for the artists that you serve? Because on one hand, as we're talking about at the beginning of this conversation, there can be so much emphasis on just having these songs or having these videos that are being put in this place, so you can write it up in numbers, but that still doesn't quite develop you as an artist, but it is one of these chicken and egg things. So how much of a focus is TikTok for you with the artist that you're working with? [00:33:15] Benny Pough: TikTok is pretty much the hand were dealt in the music at this point. So you can't ignore it because that's what everybody's leaning into, but then there's a whole other means of developing talent outside of TikTok. And it all depends on what's specific for what you're looking for as someone in the executive seat. I mean, if I can see it on TikTok and everybody at a major label can see it on TikTok, okay, it's cool. But everyone's not going to see the same thing. Like, although it may have all of the mechanisms, it's making all of the growth, you know, week over week. It just may not be something comfortable for me unless you're doing, you're in the commerce game, right? You're just chasing money and that's fine, right? People do that well. I've always been someone who's been more about the artistry and people who are going to have staying power. So, you know, if you get lucky and you get one that becomes lightning in a bottle, that's great. But more importantly, you know, I'm a time over money kind of guy. You know, I'll develop you, you know, spend time with you, you and I like, yo, we figured out, you know, we committed to each other. And when it's okay, we might not have made the billion dollars, right? But we lived a good life and that's equally as important as those who, you know, get a couple million, then they go away. [00:34:31] Dan Runcie: Right. And I feel like this lines up as well with Kandiid, which is your social media platform that you have. What role do you see it playing for artists and content creators? [00:34:43] Benny Pough: It's the equalizer. It gives artists the opportunity to monetize on their content, which was crazy. When the pandemic started, we were one of the first platforms to actually introduce that, that people could actually pay to monetize their content. And obviously, you know, OnlyFans took on a whole other different dynamic, but also, too, that was web-based that wasn't an app. Like, we were an app that was in that space, you know, to put us into a different ball game and then having Soulja Boy come on and endorse the company and is also one of the co-founders involved, just opened up all kinds of vehicles and avenues for us as we started to grow and develop in the space. [00:35:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's crucial. It's needed. And I think having the artists themselves as backers helps push it into a whole other level 'cause it goes back to the why does someone want to sign with the record label, they see who's involved with it. Why would they want to use a social media app or a new platform, they see who's involved with it. So that makes sense. The other piece of this, though, and we're talking about this a little bit before we recorded is what you're doing in real estate. You own a number of properties, even in my hometown, which I thought was pretty dope to hear about. Talk to me about that piece of it 'cause obviously very different from music, but there's so many wise reasons why it's a smart investment, but we'd love to hear what that journey was like for you, how it started and how you see it continue to develop.[00:36:07] Benny Pough: Mentally, I fell in love with real estate. If there was a passion, first thing I ever wanted to do was be a truck driver, just like my dad. And then the second thing was to own a home because we lived at a five-family home in White Plains, New York, where my parents had an opportunity to purchase this home from the owner who was moving back to Kansas. And when I realized the freedom that having a multi-unit at that time, you know, what it gave our family was exceptional. My father had the freedom, didn't have to work. My mother worked at the post office and was able to take care of us with, you know, the benefits from the health perspective and the building paid off the mortgage and put money in their pocket. So one day I said to myself, you know, I just want to be like my parents like when it's time for me to retire, I don't want to have to worry about how to make ends meet per se. So that was the impetus to this. Once I got into the music business and realized that, you know, it's one of the few businesses, especially for us as minorities, where, you know, you walk in and six months or a year, you could be making six figures, right? As a young person, there's no guidance, there's no financial planning, you know, there's no one telling you what the value of six-figure you might be making more than your Senator, right? [00:37:23] Benny Pough: As a music person, so for me, staying in lockstep with what my parents were doing, I realized making this money, I had to prepare for my exit. So every bonus I bought a piece of property, you know, I bought a single family. I bought a single condo. I bought multi-units. I bought buildings. And to the point we were talking about, you know, I had even owned up to a city block at one point. So the benefit of the business was very, very giving to me and realizing that at one day it would end, that you'd have to create no different than any other entrepreneur, people who are out on their own in their own small business, you have to create your own retirement because one day you can be making a six figures or a seven-figure salary. And then the next day that's gone. It may never come back. So you can't live in the moment of just what you're receiving. You need to think about what you're receiving, also to be planning for the day when that's not there, right? So it's important, very, very important for young people or old people who are now, in their careers, figuring out the next steps is that you should always plan for the future. [00:38:33] Dan Runcie: Well said, and I feel like I can hear some of the insights already that you're likely going to be sharing in the book you have coming out.[00:38:40] Benny Pough: Oh, absolutely. [00:38:41] Dan Runcie: So talk to me a little bit more about the book. I'm sure that this conversation highlights some of those things that you want to share, but what are some of the things that we may not have covered that are the key themes from the book that you have coming out? [00:38:54] Benny Pough: So On Impact spawned from a near-death car accident that took place in 2014, hit a tree at 90 miles an hour, sustained a level two concussion. That's when you black out from one to five minutes, L3-4 vertebrae fracture, bulging disk in my back, lacerated liver, and severed two feet of my small intestine. And in that moment, God put a book inside of me called On Impact, which is an acronym for intuition, mastery, pivot, authenticity, connection, and teamwork. And what it does is takes the reader for me with my first job that was, at 11 years old, delivering newspapers to modern day with an undercurrent of music because the majority of my life, I spent in the music business. And at the end of each chapter, I put together what's called a hit list or takeaways from each chapter for an individual to now apply to their daily lives and say pretty much if Benny could do it, I could do it, too. So it's a roadmap for interns to CEOs because I've done both. [00:39:52] Dan Runcie: Nice. When's the date for it coming out? [00:39:57] Benny Pough: September 27th, 2022. [00:39:57] Dan Runcie: Exciting stuff. Exciting stuff, man. I feel like it will be, and I'm sure it already feels like it's going to be a ton of work leading up to it, but I am sure that once you're actually in the thick of it, you're seeing people resonate with it, like that's where the real reward comes from, right? You wanted to be able to share these insights, of course, life-changing and life-threatening challenges and accidents that you have to go through. But that's what gives you the clarity to be able to share this. So hopefully it can provide someone else and hopefully many others with the same insights.[00:40:31] Benny Pough: I think what happens for us is we don't get an opportunity to get the lessons when we need them. So, what I want this to be is a roadmap of giving people an opportunity to see, guess what, there are a lot of similarities for others just like myself. And now you don't have to struggle to figure it out. This is here for you. So I'm excited to share this with the world and give those who just need that little extra push and insight. Come get it. [00:41:00] Dan Runcie: And they're in the right spot. Good stuff. Well, Benny, this has been a pleasure. We covered so much in your career, what you've been doing since then, especially on the entrepreneurial front, and also with other ventures, but for anyone that wants to keep tabs on you and follow what you're doing. Where could they follow and keep up with you? [00:41:19] Benny Pough: All my socials are @bennypough, B E N N Y P O U G H. And come visit my website. bennypough.com anytime. [00:41:27] Dan Runcie: Good stuff. Benny, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. [00:41:29] Benny Pough: All right, Dan.[00:41:31] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Best-selling author Zack O’Malley Greenburg and I took a break for a new Dad-girl duties to talk about the latest headlines in the music industry — namely Irv Gotti selling a 50-percent ownership stake in Murder Inc.’s past music recordings. He got $100 million from Iconoclast for the deal, plus another $200-million credit line to fund future media endeavors Irv has planned. After the sale, Irv did an interview with Billboard and quipped that monetary-wise, the music industry is the “lowest form” in entertainment compared to film and television. Zack and I debated that during our episode comparing top-line revenues for each entertainment vertical, plus how Irv’s deal compares to other splashy catalog sales in the past two years. We also dived into a guest post on Zack’s Substack about how “moods” has become the new classification for music, not genres anymore. Discovery algorithms deployed by streaming services have pushed listeners toward moods — and away from regionalism (e.g. Houston-style “chopped and screwed”) and loyalty to particular record labels. It’s also another tell-tale sign that Gen Z is more fluid, less rigid than prior generations with their labels. Below are all the music-industry topics Zack and I covered throughout the episode, plus a special segment on becoming Dad’s in the past two months:[0:55] Baby Duties For Zack & Dan[4:11] Irv Gotti Calls Music Industry “Lowest Form” In Entertainment [6:09] Zack Still Gets Royalties for “Lorenzo’s Oil”[7:52] Top-Line Revenues: Music vs. Movie Industry[8:59] New Artist Perspective Skewing Perception Of Music Business[11:04] Did Irv Gotti’s Deal Get Made Before Market Correction? [13:08] Irv’s Deal Was For Masters, Not Publishing[13:50] Crowning Jewel of Murder Inc’s Catalog[18:23] Why Mood Is The New Musical Genre[19:26] Gen Z Uses Labels Less Than Prior Generations[25:53] Post Malone The Genre-Agnostic Artist[27:10] Did Streaming End Regionalism In Music? [29:53] Fan Attachment To Record Labels Has Disappeared[32:30] Stories From Two New Girl Dads[38:21] First Music Show For The New Babies?Tiffany Ng’s article on music being categorized by moods, not genre: https://zogblog.substack.com/p/why-mood-is-the-new-musical-genreListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Zack O’Malley Greenburg, @zogblog 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] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Our generation, in general, is pretty hung up on labels. You know, everything from music to sexuality, to whatever, you know, it's like things have to be classified and, you know, there's kind of an obsession over putting things in buckets. Whereas I think Gen Z has a lot more about fluidity and sort of like, you know, questioning why we need these labels at all to begin with, or at least, like, maybe we should just loosen up a little bit about them, which I think makes a ton of sense, you know? [00:00:34] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:55] Dan Runcie: This episode is the first one I'd done in a little bit, took a quick break from recording. My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world last month, so took some time, focused on family, and finally, ready to get back into the swing of things. And there's no better person to do it with than my friend, Zack O'Malley Greenburg, who recently is coming back from paternity to leave himself. Him and his wife just had a kid in May, and the past couple of months, Zack and I have been talking about our journeys, both leading up to this moment and after. So, and given what we cover in both music and entertainment, it was a good time to catch up on a few recent headlines. First, we talked about Irv Gotti and the $300 million deal he did for selling his Murder Inc. Catalog, doing a deal with Iconoclast for further stuff in media, TV, and film. And this statement that Irv Gotti made about music being the lowest-monetized form of entertainment. Zack and I had some thoughts, so we broke that down. We also talked about one of the articles that was a guest post in Zack's ZOGBLOG that he had published that was about moods in music and how moods and music are definitely taking over genres, especially in streaming, and how that may shape the future of how music's released and monetized. We're getting away from these genre legacy terms like country, rap, and pop and moving more so into chill vibes, or other things that are named by hyperspecific Spotify playlists. And Zack and I saves a little bit of time at the end for Girl Dad Life, where we chatted about some of our mutual experiences and some funny moments that we've experienced so far with having kids and what's that's been like with newborns specifically, so hope you enjoy this episode. Here's my chat with Zack. [00:02:42] Dan Runcie: All right. We're back with another episode. And I'm joined by my guy who is also probably with limited sleep, fresh off of paternity leave himself, Zack, how are you holding up these days, man?[00:02:54] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Not too bad. I think we got eight hours last night out of Riley, little Riley. So life is definitely getting a little bit more normal but it's, it's all good. sleep or no sleep. It's just a blast. [00:03:06] Dan Runcie: Ah, love to hear it. I'll hopefully be at that eight-hour stretch soon, a couple of weeks behind you with a newborn, but we'll save some time at the end to catch up on Girl Dad Life. [00:03:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: All right.[00:03:17] Dan Runcie: Let's start things at the top though. We got some big topics we want to dive into, but this first one that caught my eye, and it sounds like it caught your eye, too. This quote is from Irv Gotti, who just did this huge deal. Of course, Irv Gotti, CEO, one of the founders of Murder Inc. He was able to do a $300 million deal recently with Iconoclast, where he was able to sell his share, his 50% share of Murder Inc.'s masters for $100 million. And plus he also got a $200 million line of credit. That's going to be specifically used for future TV and film projects that are likely going to be based off of some of the Murder Inc. IP or other things. But in an interview that he did talking about this deal with Billboard, he said this quote, and I've been thinking a lot about it.[00:04:11] Dan Runcie: He said, "Entertainment industry is music, TV, and film," right? "The music business is the lowest form, and I just bagged a hundred million dollars for some shit I did 20 years ago." And the interviewer then follows up and it's like, you know, can you say more? And he says, "It's just the facts. More money is made in TV and with movies than music. It’s a non-disputable fact. We love the music industry and I love the music industry. There’s money to be made. But [it’s dwarfed by] the money made from TV and film. If I have 100 episodes of television and I own it, they’ll probably put a worth on it at $300 or $400 million. With $300 or $400 million, I could sell it at a 10 to 20 multiple. That’s three to six billion. This is why Tyler Perry is a billionaire. That’s why I sold my masters and did this deal with Iconoclast." So I pause and, although I get what he's saying and I think there is some interesting discussion there, I think there's a lot of nuances there. And I'm not quite sure if I'm completely on board with him on this. That said, I think Irv Gotti is great. I always loved what Murder Inc. did, but I think that this particular statement is a bit more nuanced, especially with what we've seen happening in music the past few years. [00:05:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I mean, you know, and I think he got into some fuzzy math there at the end. I mean, I don't know, you know, to multiply what by 10? And we're talking how many billion dollars? Like, when Disney pay a billion for the entire Star Wars library, so, I know that was a great deal for them and it's worth a lot more now. I think the math might be a little bit off, but I would kind of flip it and say, you know, sure. You know, there are movies that gross billions of dollars or, you know, hundreds of millions or into the billions, low billions. But like, there aren't albums that do that. Okay, but, you know, in terms of libraries, I mean, we just saw Bruce Springsteen get half a billion dollars for his.[00:06:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I mean, we're seeing, you know, masters in publishing go for hundreds of millions of dollars. The fact that Irv Gotti got a hundred million dollars for half of the Murder Inc. catalog. I mean, that's a wild number. No, not to sort of sleep on the Murder Inc. catalog, but, you know, it's not Bruce Springsteen. So, you know, I think that actually, the fact that he was able to get a hundred million dollars shows that the music industry is actually alive and well, right, in terms of the valuations. So yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure how much I, I, I agree with that, especially when you look at, you know, like for example, I was in a movie when I was a kid. The movie's called Lorenzo's Oil and I played Lorenzo. It's a, a big role, and I still get checks for 60 bucks, you know, every few months. And that's nice. And I'm sure that Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon who were in it get much bigger checks, but, you know, they can't really go and, like, sell that catalog. You know, you don't have masters as an actor. I suppose you could go and sell the royalty streams or companies let you do that now, but it's not the same in terms of intellectual property. There's not like an equivalent to, you know, songwriting you know, like the sort of, the same kind of IP that, you know, at least, if you are an actor or an artist, or, you know, you would have access into your, to your masters in a way that you wouldn't as an actor unless maybe you're Tom Cruise and you negotiate some crazy backend deal. So, I think the grass is a little bit greener on the music side than Irv is, is giving credit for. [00:07:42] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I think the difference that you're highlighting is that it's not so much the top-line number. It's more so just how the business model under that number is distributed between who owns the underlying content and who doesn't. And I think if you're Irv and you're trying to compare this from this perspective of, if you're in music and you're trying to do a deal with Universal, whether you're an artist or you were an indie label at the time, trying to do a distribution deal or some type of joint venture. I forget exactly what Murder Inc. had at the time. But comparing that isn't the same to comparing what Tyler Perry is doing because even what Tyler Perry's doing, he is very much a unicorn in that right. There's not that many actors that are owning the underlying IP of the work that they're doing. Tyler Perry is the writer, the director, the producer for all of these things. That's why he is getting those things. And that is a very unique use case because in most cases, those are all different people in television. And I think, to be honest, TV is likely getting even murkier now because so much of the money that was going into these projects was based on this concept that these video streaming services could just have infinite growth and just keep growing and growing.[00:08:59] Dan Runcie: And now we're kind of reaching this point where people are like, okay, Netflix had 220 billion people paying $10, $15, almost $20 a month. Maybe that was as high as it could potentially go. I mean, I think there's plenties to break down there, but if those dollars aren't going to be as high as they may have been in that perspective, then we're going to see the shift. I did look at some top-line numbers, which are, I think, a good way to kind of balance things out. The music industry almost made $30 billion last year. I think it was around $28 billion last year for recorded music overall. So that does not include concerts or any of those things. I know that Irv isn't referring to that, but then if you look at the box office, I mean, that's more money than the global box office made, granted last year was a pandemic year so I know it's a bit tough to compare these things. And there's a lot more other things there, but it's not so much that this industry itself doesn't make as much money 'cause, yeah, you mentioned Bruce just got half a billion for all of his stuff. He owns this stuff and you know, that, you know, Born in the U.S.A. is going to be playing for decades, at least with, you know, as long as your Baby Boomers, and Gen X, and I guess even Millennials that are big Springsteen fans continue to listen. But I think that's different than how Irv might be looking at it. The thing is though it's not just Irv. I think that has its perspective. I think a lot of other folks have that perspective too, but I think it stems from when you are at the lowest rung of being the talent in the particular industry, I think music at that stage is likely a bit less advantageous than it may be for, you know, an actor per se. And maybe that's a bit of the difference where if you're a musician that's just signing on for a deal, it's going to take a lot longer for you to maybe recoup that money than an actor would, you know, signing on for an equivalent level size of something. But that's definitely very different than putting that as a global claim about the broader industry. [00:11:04] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's true, but I, I would still argue that if you are an artist getting into the game as a, as a musician, the default would be that you would probably have shared ownership of your masters. If you were an actor getting into the acting game, the default is like you get an okay chunk of money for one movie, you know. It doesn't come with IP in the way that it would. And so it's not until later in your career that you can start to say, Hey, I want to be a director. I want to be a producer. Until you start to get, or, you know, or maybe you're kind of DIY from the beginning and, and you're doing it, all of it yourself, but that's, that's so unusual. You know, I don't know. I mean, I, I think the other thing too, is that like, and maybe this is part of what Irv was alluding to, I mean, that a hundred million dollars that he got, that to me seemed like a number that was more along the lines of the stuff we were seeing, you know, six months to a year ago before interest rates doubled. And we kind of stopped hearing about these big deals. So I wonder if that deal, and I kind of asked around a little bit and I couldn't get a, a firm answer, but I would suspect that that deal, you know, was agreed upon you know, like last fall or something before the economic environment changed and, you know, and it just didn't close until now 'cause these, these deals can take six months to a year to close and, and that's why, you know, you've got such a good multiple. But like these days, you know, when the interest rate is, like, gone from 3% to 6% or whatever, I guess it depends on the kind of deals you're doing, but, you know, that's a huge difference. And it sort of like makes buying music assets a lot less interesting because you know, when just, like normal financial instruments, you know, and not to get, like, too nerdy about it, but, you know, in the bond market are generating something closer to what a music catalog would do. I think, like, these big financial institutions are going to be more inclined to kind of like lean on their expertise rather than trying to, to do these exotic things or, you know, get involved with, with music catalogs and intellectual property and that sort of thing. [00:13:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I could see that. I think the other piece of this, too, that may get lost in some of the details, especially, is that this isn't a publishing catalog deal. This is masters, at least partial ownership there, or not partial ownership, but at least the revenue generating from at least half of what Irv had, and at least in streaming, your recorded revenue from the master side is at least three to four times higher than what the publishers are getting. Of course, there have been some, there's some recent changes where the publisher royalty has increased. I think increased from 10 and a half percent to 15.1% recently. So that'll help, but still, that piece of it does in many ways, so even, let's say you were to compare this number for the Murder Inc.'s masters to let's say what Justin Timberlake got for his catalog deal. You can't necessarily compare that because Timberlake's was for the piece of the music sound recordings that were less valuable, relatively speaking, at least currently than this. So I do think sometimes, like, those things do get lost in it, but it would be interesting to see, yeah, what would that be like now if those deals were starting to shine a closer look if those conversations were happening? I think it would be interesting and also a bit unique because this deal is with Iconoclast. This isn't one of the standard players that we've seen that are handing out, you know, the nine-figure checks to these companies. Who knows what the conversations could have been like with Hipgnosis or Round Hill or some of the others. I feel like he may have alluded to that to some extent in the interview, but it was hard to get a sense specifically.[00:14:52] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. And you also wonder, I mean, how much, if it was about, you know, being able to say, oh, now we have a catalog that, like, there is some Jay-Z in there. There's some DMX in there. I think there's some J.Lo in there. You know, in addition to like a lot of Ja Rule and Ashanti, and you know, but that's kind of like a trophy to have that. You know, I don't know that it's quite so often that you know, anything by Jay-Z comes up. I think it was, there's a piece of Can I Live on there, which, which is pretty cool, so, you know, that that might have added, you know, a certain premium to it. [00:15:23] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I was going to ask you that. What do you think is the crowning jewel of this catalog? I mean, every one of these catalog sales, it has the typical 80- 20 or the power law thing, where there is a few big songs that are really generating everything. I mean, you mentioned J.Lo. I mean, I'm Real has to be one of the biggest Murder Inc. songs they had, or maybe Always On Time with, you know, Ja Rule and Ashanti. Are there any others that stick out?[00:15:48] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I mean, the Jay-Z one for sure. Which DMX song was it? It was a pretty big one. I think it's What's My Name? [00:15:54] Dan Runcie: Oh, What's My Name. Oh, that, that was on X's catalog. That was Ruff Ryders and Def Jam. [00:15:58] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh, that was. Okay. [00:15:59] Dan Runcie: But Jay-Z, they, they were on It's Murda though, right? It's Murda from Ja Rule's Venni Vetti Vecci that had Jay and DMX. [00:16:07] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's right. Okay.[00:16:08] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Is that right?[00:16:09] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: It was, it was some, it was like somewhere in the discography. I was looking at it though. Oh, well, I'll track it down someday. We'll have to talk about it the next time. But there was, there was a big DMX single that somehow ended up on there that caught my eye. But, you know, like a lot of the Ja Rule stuff, I think. I think maybe Livin' It Up was on there. [00:16:26] Dan Runcie: Oh, yeah, that was big.[00:16:27] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: That's a huge one.[00:16:29] Dan Runcie: Yeah, like Down 4 U, like Down Ass Bitch, like, you had a few of those that were in it. I think Ashanti had some big ones, too, like Foolish. Foolish was huge. [00:16:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Oh, yeah, here. Okay, it says What's My Name. It said that he produced What's My Name. So that's why, even though it wasn't...[00:16:45] Dan Runcie: Oh, interesting.[00:16:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. What's Luv? That's a huge one. [00:16:50] Dan Runcie: Oh, that's a big one. Yep. With Fat Joe and Ashanti, yep. [00:16:53] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Yeah. Can I Live, Holla Holla, you know, so there's, there's some really good stuff on there. And I think you're right. It's probably, there's a couple, you know, without us having a, a look at the statements, it's hard to know, but it, it wouldn't surprise me if one of those songs is just like a sleeper hit that just continues to, I mean, we know it's a big hit, but it, it could be, like, way more lucrative than we ever imagined. Or one of those could have been in a movie, you know, more, more than the others or something like that. So, you know, I think a lot of these songs are going to be, actually, that's what one of the lawyers I reached out to about this said. He was like, you know, there's a lot of stuff in there that is very interesting from the sync perspective. You know, to the sort of like Millennial, Xennial crowd that grew up on that that would love to see it in movies, and TV, and video games, so yeah, that could be part of it, too.[00:17:38] Dan Runcie: Big on sync. Also, big on the likelihood of being turned into some viral TikTok trend. I don't know if that is a quantifiable metric they're using, but I would, I think it is. I just think of so many, the TikTok things that blow up and that era of early 2000s, late 90s hip-hop has done really well in a lot of ways. And sometimes it's so random, but I do think that that Murder Inc. sound captures so much of that. It's only before long that someone finds some, like, weird thing that happened in one of the music videos, and then that then becomes viral, and then it becomes like a whole TikTok viral campaign. [00:18:16] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yep. Yep. Although don't know how, how much they'll be getting paid from TikTok, but that's a whole other, that's a whole other story.[00:18:23] Dan Runcie: We'll have to save that one for our next, for the next chat. We got to see how that whole situation firms up. But so the next topic that we want to talk about is a fascinating piece that was a guest post that was written by someone that you had worked with, Tiffany, and she wrote a really interesting essay on why mood is the new musical genre. And when you picked me on this, I read it, and it stuck out because I was like, you know what? It's a hundred percent right. If you look at Spotify and you look at how all these streaming services have shifted, how music is being consumed and listened to. Yeah, it isn't rock, pop country, hip-hop. It's a lo-fi chill vibes. It's, you know, backyard barbecue hang. It's all of these super niche things that reflect a lot more of where music listening is going. And I could only imagine there's so many broader implications that it can have, but I'd love to hear what you think about it. [00:19:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, absolutely. So I've been out on paternity leave and, you know, not really writing, but Tiffany who's a really great writer and, and was doing some research for me while she was a senior at, at my alma mater, at Yale. And, and she and I were actually, we worked on the same, basically, arts and culture desk on the school newspaper, you know, whatever it was, 15 years apart. So she, while I was out, she wrote this great long piece kind of talking about how, you know, from her generation's perspective, this idea that, yeah, that you would classify things by genre or really identify yourself as like a hip-hop fan or a rock fan or whatever, is all kind of moot. It's like an old people thing. And that her generation is more about moods and, and like you say, it's backyard barbecue or whatever it is. And people don't, you know, really care about genres so much anymore, you know, amongst the sort of Gen Z crowd, and she, you know, really kind of dug into some, I think, great examples of it and talked about Spotify classifications and how they put together, Audio Auras that give you your kind of, like, yearend picture of your listening tastes. And I think it's a really great point. And I think that, you know, our generation, in general, is pretty hung up on labels. You know, everything from music to sexuality, to whatever, you know, it's like things are, have to be classified and, you know, there's kind of an obsession over putting things in buckets. Whereas I think Gen Z is, is a lot more about fluidity and sort of like, you know, questioning why we need these labels at all to begin with, or at least like, maybe we should just loosen up a little bit about them, which I think makes a ton of sense, you know? I mean, I remember when Halsey put out that song, New Americana, and she talked about being raised on Biggie and Nirvana. And I was like, yeah, that's me. Like, I get that. But that always felt weird when people were like, well, what kind of music are you into? And I was like hip-hop, and grunge rock, and like some other stuff. That was always sort of weird, but I think it's good to see the next generation kind of embrace that more and that's what the article kind of dug into.[00:21:22] Dan Runcie: The label and generation identification is a huge thing. Do you remember growing up when the labels of how we were and folks were in middle school and high school was such a thing that people went down the road, it was like, oh, you're a skater? Oh, then you listen to Linkin Park. Then you listen to this and you dress, and you wear like JNCO jeans, like with the chain hanging from the back of your pocket to the front or whatever. You're a prep? Okay, you shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. You're probably wearing Adidas Superstars and you probably, I don't know, clothes from, like Structure or like Express, and stuff like that. Like, there were all these buckets, too, and then it extended as well. If you listen to hip. You probably wore Timberlands. You probably had Nike Air Force 1s, Ecko, or whatever the popular clothes were at times. Like, all of these things and this generation and timeframe is just like, no, that's not the case. And I think this mood thing factors in a lot of that. I think we're almost seeing this to some extent with things we've kind of just seen, like regionality as well. [00:22:29] Dan Runcie: Like, I've heard a lot of people talk about how from, you know, certain generations it's like, oh, like, well, people in Seattle, they dress like this. Like, you could go to Seattle, walk or like, you know, the Pacific Northwest and everyone's wearing flannel like it's a Nirvana music video or whatever. Or if you go down south, like I would visit my cousins in Florida growing up and they would be listening to Ying Yang Twins and all these other songs that were popular at the time. And we just weren't listening to that stuff nearly as much growing up in the Northeast. And it hit that vibe. And I think now, too, because of the internet, so much of that generationality piece just, or not the generationality, the geographical identity is also dissipated, too, where people in Seattle can, you know, feel no different, especially from a youth perspective, could feel no different than someone growing up in Miami or Fort Lauderdale or whatever it is. So I'm curious to see how is that going to shape? Even the legacy labels that we do have on things. I think that the Grammys is, you know, clearly an institution that has prided itself on the number of options that it's given particular artists to have and celebrate their particular genre of music based on these legacy labels. I think it takes a lot of time for those things to change, but will we see that? Could you eventually see things where I think pop radio in a lot of ways? And radio, in general, is still one of the things that's still holding onto this generational, you know, label divides much to a fault because I think there's still certain types of artists that are precluded from being heard on Z100 or being heard on your mainstream stations, so, I think that it may still take time to get there, but I'm curious to see what did that look like 20 years, 20 years from now? Will we still see the same restrictions on radio and in award ceremonies? 'Cause I think those are the two areas that feel harder to disrupt than the broader culture that already has been disrupted by it.[00:24:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. And one of the other things that Tiffany wrote about in this article which you, oh, you can read it, just it's zogblog.com, and you can go through the newsletter. It's the latest post. I'll be back writing in a week or two, I think. But anyway, it's up there on zogblog.com and she said, she pointed out the IGOR one for best rap album, even though it's not really a rap album. Like, it's already happening, right, like, in categories at the Grammy's. So, right, like how, how soon until we start to change that or, or even have sort of like, broader, you know, kinds of labels. Like, what if it's like, you know, best chill album, you know? Best barbecue album? I don't know. So I'd love to see how that, how that kind of turns out. But, man, I remember, you know, in the nineties, when you would sort of put on your AOL profile what kind of music you listen to. A lot of people sort of also define themselves in opposition to certain genres. They're like, I listen to anything but country and rap, you know? That, I remember a lot of people that, anything but rap, anything but country. That was sort of their battle cry. And you know, I just don't see too much of that anymore. And I think that's a great thing, you know, like, why should you have to limit your taste? It's like, you know, you don't want to be a traitor to, to your emo, whatever, by, by listening to hip-hop. But now we have like emo hip-hop. It's great. I think it's cool that we have, you know, all these kinds of like mixings and subgenres.[00:25:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah, if anything, I think I'll see the angst more for particular artists themselves and not necessarily the broader genre, right? Like, I know there's people that, you know, they just don't like Post Malone for a number of reasons. And it's like, I get it, but you can't put Post Malone in a musical category to be like, oh, I don't like this type of music 'cause I guarantee you, whatever, you know, genre of music, you want to put him in, there's going to be an artist that sounds like him, may not look like him, may not have a fan base that, you know, vibes the way that his does, but you're probably going to like something of that, you know, type of thing, right?[00:26:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've gotten into so many arguments about how to classify Post Malone. Some people say he is hip-hop, which I don't really, I wouldn't classify him as hip-hop. Is he pop? I guess. I guess that's what you'd call it, but, you know, I wouldn't really say that he's rock.[00:26:45] Dan Runcie: I would call him pop, yeah.[00:26:47] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Pop yeah. Pop or sad frat party or something, you know? I mean, mood. I think mood is a great way with him, too. [00:26:54] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I mean, is there any other broader implication that you can think of with how moods will just continue to shift over time and how moods may play a bigger role in music, either how it's consumed or how it's monetized? [00:27:10] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: You know, I mean, I think really what's on my mind about that right now is I go back to what you were saying about regionalism. And, you know, I wonder if sort of this movement away from labels of genre, more toward labels of mood has to do with the fact that you know, there's sort of like, you know, national moods almost that you can attach to music in a way that you couldn't when things were sort of regional. And, you know, there was that whole moment where radio, sort of like the consolidation of radio, that kind of switch over to like the clear channel model. And you, you had sort of like the same, you know, whatever it was, KISS-FM or something like that, and you had these big playlists that were just kind of on rotation, the same playlists like all over the country, and you kind of lost a little bit of that local flavor. But actually, you know, as people were lamenting that the whole thing shifted over to streaming. And there's no regional streaming, right? And so I think it sort of follows that mood would sort of like become a new means of classification because once you eliminate the regional aspect to it you know, I don't know, it's, it's sort of like it maybe unnecessary movement to happen over time. And I think, you know, There's some cons to losing the regionalism and, you know, you get some unique sounds and certainly within hip-hop, it was really cool to see like Houston versus Bay Area, you know, like very specific microclimate-type sounds that you could get that, that, you know, within kind of bubble up and percolate into different like more mainstream hip-hop sounds. But you know, then again, I think it's cool to just other genres meld into other genres and have that be kind of the mixing that happens too. So, you know, pros and cons, but I think, I think there are a lot of pros to the mood thing over the genre label thing.[00:29:00] Dan Runcie: So before long, we're going to have to pour some out for the dirty south hip-hop playlist. Got so much play over time.  And maybe this regionalism trend or trend away from regionalism is just the way things are going. This is a sports analogy, more so, and there's other reasons behind it. But I look at what's happening in college sports right now with these major teams joining the Big Ten, joining the you know, or the Big East no longer really being a thing, and how so much of that is just a sign of where things are right now. And so much of what people really appreciated about what these conferences could tell you about a particular place in the country, that's not necessarily going to be the case if, you know, Texas and its whole culture is coming and joining, you know, joining the ECC, right? It's just very different. [00:29:53] Dan Runcie: And I think to bring this conversation full circle, too, it's like, I've heard through the grapevines about record labels that had wanted to start their own metaverse experiences and being like, okay, this is the record label's metaverse experience. And then someone wisely told them, Hey, no one cares about your record label. Like, that's not the draw here. Like, I mean, in the folks that are inside the industry, of course, you can share the accolades and stuff like that. But the fans care about the artists. They're not going to be drawn. Like, the days are done of people being like, oh yeah, no Def Jam, like, in the heyday, I'm there. Like, that's just not how it works anymore. [00:30:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. You know, I mean, if you're really in the business, you know, which labels have which ethos. But, you know, it, it really has blurred together more and more. And yeah, I think in the old days, you know, people would be like, oh, I'm an Atlantic records fan. You know, because when they pulled out that vinyl, you know, they saw that logo, and they knew that there was a certain type of artist and that Atlantic Records were a curator of the type of music that they liked. And maybe it wasn't the same genre always, but there was, you know, they knew that it would be good. But if you're a casual listener, there's not really even an opportunity to easily know what label anybody is on. So why would you care? And I think, especially since you know, I mean, I think there was a heyday in the nineties of hip-hop artists shouting out the record labels that they were on or that they owned and that was sort of, you know, important. Definitely, like Ruff Ryders had a very different ethos from Bad Boy. And, you know, you might classify yourself, you know, more in one bucket or another and identify with that. But I think so much of that has just dissipated in the streaming era, 'cause yeah, you're not looking at a physical thing. So you know, who knows, who cares what labels anybody on, and why the hell would you really want to go to an individual label metaverse thing? I'm glad somebody told them that they shouldn't be doing that anymore. [00:31:43] Dan Runcie: Definitely. No, definitely. All right. Well, we saved some time at the end for the section that's near and dear to both of us, as, you know, if you followed either my writing or Zack's writing recently, you know, that we both had kids very recently. So Zack had his daughter in May. I had mine in June, and it's been great to just, you know, connect and bond and hear more about how things were for both of us leading up to this point and now after. So I figured now that we're on the other side of it with relatively newborn and young children, we could have a little section here called Girl Dad Life, where we each share one interesting or funny experience that's happened for both of us trying to navigate fatherhood here. So Zack, I'll let you start. What's your experience been like? And what's yours?[00:32:30] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. You know, less than a, like a specific story, it's really more about an overall vibe mood, if you will. Man, I know it sounds corny, but the moment you become a parent, this compartment opens up inside of you and it's just filled with a new capacity to love that you didn't know was in there. And it just is like overwhelming and beautiful and is, is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I think that one of the things, you know, like I think the best advice I would give is, is that there's no, like, right way to do it. And people have been having babies for a very long time without all the gear and whatever, and we've survived, as the human race. But I think the thing that, that always surprises and delights me is that you know, Riley, despite being eight weeks old, I mean, from the very beginning, has been a little human who, who knows what she wants. And it's like pretty straightforward. If she's crying, you know, she needs to go to sleep. She needs food or she needs a diaper change. And if she doesn't like that, it's time to put on, like, any number of different songs or albums that she likes. And she's, talk about a musical omnivore. Oh, my God. She loves, like, Shirley Bassey, Big Spender. She loves Biggie, Mo Money Mo Problems. You know, she's really like, no genre constraints when you're an infant. And I think it's just really cool to see that, you know, she could be crying and then that beat comes on and she starts smiling, you know?[00:34:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: I would also say like, I, I read this book called Bringing Up Bébé, and it's all about the French method of child-rearing. And they're really big into this idea of, like, the baby is a human with thoughts and preferences the minute they come out of the womb and sort of just like paying attention, you know, and, and also giving them a second to try to figure whatever it is out. Like, if your baby starts to cry, you know, don't necessarily just, like, drop everything, rush in and, you know, give your baby a second to try to figure it out. And sometimes they won't. And then you go and tend to them, but, like, if you don't give them a chance to figure it out as babies, then they'll never be able to sort of figure it out on their own as adults. So I thought that was a really cool insight. How about you? [00:34:43] Dan Runcie: Yeah. It's funny. You recommended that book to me, a couple of other friends did too. And I read it and yeah, it was a really an interesting read and it was a good reminder of, like, yeah, people have been doing this for plenty of years, and just because your baby doesn't have the newest, fanciest insert whatever, stroller, bassinet this and that, like, the fact that you're thinking about this to this extent means that you'll probably be fine and the baby will be fine. But a few funny stories that we have that I could share, so one of them when we were in the labor delivery phase, one of the folks that was in the room with us, she was a volunteer doula that was helping with a few things. She had asked me, she was like, oh, did you want me to take pictures? Because she could see I was trying to, like, multitask. My wife had wanted me to take some pictures and I was like, yeah, sure. So then not only did she take pictures, she took a video of everything, from like the moment of, you know, when my wife started pushing to everything after. And then I remember like when, you know, my wife was still recovering, I watched it, and I was like, oh wow, I did not realize she captured everything. And then my wife was just like, I do not want to see that. And then I think she heard me watch it. And then she was like, okay, I have to see that. She was like, was that me? Like? I was like, yes, yes, that was you. But it's okay. You know, completely normal, unexpected. So that's, what's there. But, yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more on, you know, everything from the love, life-changing perspective, you know, something we had wanted, and, you know, it's been so good from that perspective and just pick it up on cues and stuff. There are definitely a few funny moments that we'll always crack ourselves up as 'cause you have to, right? It's like, I mean, you know, we both know what it's like with the whole sleep deprived, everything and, and all that. But you do start to notice the baby's patterns and stuff. And like how they'll react to, you know, when you're either about to feed or when you're about to give a bottle or any of those things and just the instant reaction, so. It's something else. But, you know, it's been good. I mean, we're recording today. Today's actually one month since she was born. [00:36:38] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Oh, my gosh. [00:36:39] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Time has is flown by, time has flown by. And this is, like, the first podcast I had done since then. Everything else up to this point had been pre-recorded stuff we planned, so slowly getting back into the swing of things. I think I'll most likely be back in like a full-time perspective, maybe sometime later this month, but I think, you know, just going slowly week by week there. It feels good to have the work stuff to mix in with everything, but like, life-changing in the best way.[00:37:03] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, well so you're coming up on five weeks and actually one of my favorite moments so far happened at five weeks. My wife and I went out with Riley  and we went out for dinner at a sidewalk cafe in New York. And, you know, Riley's, like, sleeping, we're having a great time and chatting and eating. And you know, after maybe like an hour, she starts crying, and so I take her out and I'm kind of rocking her, and she's crying. And there are these ladies sitting next to us  and I was like, oh, I'm so sorry.  And they're both like, no, really don't worry, we have babies at home. And my wife goes, do you have any advice for us? And the one lady goes, how old's your baby? And Danielle says five weeks. And she goes, honey, you don't need any advice. You're at a restaurant with the five week old.  Like, God bless you.  And that was exactly, exactly what we needed to hear. And I think it's also like a great indication of, you know, your old life isn't over. You could still do stuff. You just have to plan it a little more carefully and be flexible. And  I was shocked like if you had told me a couple months ago that I'd be doing that at five weeks, I wouldn't have believed you. But it's been really cool to just have the summer to chill out and spend time with Riley, and it's so cool to be having like the same timing as you would kind of like  go through the milestones, so. [00:38:18] Dan Runcie: Definitely. When do you think you'll bring Riley to a music festival or some type of event like that where she's wearing the headphones and you and Danielle enjoying yourselves?[00:38:29] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: We already got her headphones.[00:38:31] Dan Runcie: Ear muffs, I should say. I said headphones.[00:38:33] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, right, right. Ear muffs. Well, we put them on, we did a trial run on the 4th of July. And initially, she smiled a lot and I think she thought they were pretty cool. And then she was like, get this shit off of me. So I don't know. We actually were thinking of venturing into Central Park to SummerStage. A couple of weeks ago, I think Trombone Shorty was there. And then our plan just got blown up with like the various feeding schedules and things like that. So I don't know. I think we're ready to try. I think it just has to be a SummerStage thing, and it has to be like not too hot or too cold, and go for it. But I think the first time we're just not going to buy tickets. We're just going to stand outside, and see how it goes, you know, for like a half an hour. And then if that's okay, then maybe we'll work our way up. But yeah, I mean, so great to be in a, in a place where live music is just, you know, a short walk away. She hates being in the car, so it's a good thing we're in New York. [00:39:29] Dan Runcie: Perfect. No, that's great. [00:39:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: When's your first concert plan? [00:39:34] Dan Runcie: It's funny because last year Outside Lands here in San Francisco was in October. So in my mind, I was like, oh yeah, we could do it in October. But then I forgot that it was a pandemic year and Outside Lands is in August. So that's like two weeks from now. It's, like, the first weekend in August that Outside Lands is, and a concert might be a little much in, you know, two weeks if you're listening to this one week from recording. But I'm hoping that, you know, some early fall, hopefully, we could do something. [00:40:00] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Yeah. Fingers crossed for both of us. [00:40:03] Dan Runcie: Definitely, definitely. Well, Zack, this is a pleasure. Appreciate you coming on. We'll make sure that we link to Tiffany's post in the show notes and, yeah, so next time, we'll hit you up and then, you know, we can definitely save some stuff for our next Girl Dad Life quarter, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of stuff happening in the industry. Everyone's on vacation right now, relaxing, but soon enough things will be ramping back up. [00:40:26] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: Amen. Well, thanks for having me on Dan as always, and best of luck on fatherhood on your end, too. [00:40:31] Dan Runcie: Likewise. Thanks, man. [00:40:32] Zack O'Malley Greenburg: All right.[00:40:34] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

Twenty-four years after their debut album, Black Star — the duo of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey — is back with its sophomore release, “No Fear Of Time.” Talib joined Trapital to discuss the long-awaited return album (which dropped in May) and why it was released exclusively on the paid-subscription podcast platform Luminary. Spurning traditional streaming platforms like Apple Music or Spotify was about serving its true fans, Talib told me during our interview.The pair was already in business with Luminary, hosting an original podcast “The Midnight Miracle” alongside Dave Chappelle. The way Talib sees it, the group’s most dedicated fans — one’s that care about them on a personal level beyond just spitting bars — were already rocking with them on Luminary. And after a career that’s spanned four decades, Talib is more interested in engaging his core fanbase rather than reaching the masses. Disruptive art is on-brand for Black Star. Similarly, Yasiin’s latest solo album was exclusively distributed inside a 10-week art exhibit in Brooklyn. For Talib, he’s blended different musical genres and sounds his entire career. “As an artist, it’s my duty to try everything I can,” he told me on this episode. For a closer look at Talib’s creative and business approach, you’ll want to hear our interview in full. Here’s all our talking points during the episode:[3:16] Black Star’s New Album “No Fear Of Time”[4:10] Why The Album Released Exclusively On Luminary Podcast Network[8:07] Why Talib Moved Away From Patreon[10:37] Art Vs. Business[14:11] What Talib Has Learned In Different Creative Pursuits [15:55] Yasiin Bey Makes Talib “Step Up”[19:23] TikTok’s Influence On Modern-Day Music[23:00] Why Talib Avoided Clubhouse [25:12] Talib Doesn’t Miss Twitter[29:41] Speaking Out Against Online Trolls[33:51] Putting Out Music On “Own Terms”[35:24] Talib Did 200 Shows A Year For Two DecadesListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Talib Kweli, @talibkweli Sponsors:beatBread is your music platform to get funding and stay in control. You can get advances from $1,000 to $2 million, and you keep your masters. To learn more, go to beatBread.com 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] Talib Kweli: Most of my music is available for free on YouTube. On Kweliclub.com, you can get all my mixtapes for free. You can get the album Fuck the Money for free. My biggest song Get By, you could, if that shit came on in the store, you could Shazam it and listen to it on Shazam for free, you know what I'm saying?[00:00:16] Talib Kweli: Like, it's got 15 million views on YouTube. You could go listen to it on YouTube for free. You mean to tell me I can't get $10 or $5 or $30 with a new Black Star album with all this free music you're getting? What are we even talking about? You know what I'm saying? Like, how are you ignoring all of this, to complain about this?[00:00:42] Dan Runcie: Hey, welcome to the Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:01:03] Dan Runcie: Today's guest is the one and only Talib Kweli. He is one half of Black Star which is back with its second album since their debut 24 years ago, 24 years. It's crazy how long it's been. But it was great to talk to him about why he chose to release it now and also why he chose to release it exclusively on Luminary.[00:01:25] Dan Runcie: Luminary is a paid audio platform, specifically known for podcasting. So we talked about that decision, why it was important for him and Yasiin to release it on a platform where they already had a podcast and what that means for him moving forward. And what it ultimately focuses on is the quest for autonomy and control and independence in being able to reap the rewards that come from it.[00:01:49] Dan Runcie: This is nothing new to Talib Kweli. He's released music on his own website, Kweli Club. He's used Patreon as well to release his music. So we talked about what the decision was like to release on Luminary and more broadly what this means for him as an artist. He's someone that has toured a lot over the years.[00:02:07] Dan Runcie: So we talked about what it's been like since the pandemic. What it's been like finding the right sound and themes given so much of the conscious rap that Black Star and Talib himself were known for over the years. And we talked about a whole bunch of other trends in the industry. Great conversation, really insightful.[00:02:24] Dan Runcie: Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Here's my chat with Talib Kweli. All right. So today we have the one and only Talib Kweli, one half a Black Star, which is back with its latest album, No Fear of Time. So the album's been out for a little bit, man. How are you feeling? How do you feel about the response? [00:02:41] Talib Kweli: I feel grateful and blessed, and I'm happy that the fans have gotten a chance to hear it. I've been listening to it or iterations of it for a number of years now. And I'm just happy to have gotten it out. [00:02:53] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I bet. I think too, I'm glad that the fans are hearing it 'cause one of the big discussion points about the album, which stuck out to me, was how you chose to release it. And I give you so much respect for doing it on your terms and not necessarily following the main path because we all know that artists have their own autonomy and independence. Like, you don't have to just do the standard thing. So credit to you on that. [00:03:16] Talib Kweli: Well, yeah, you know, all praises due to the most high and really, I give the credit to Yas he was the one that really stuck to his guns on that. You know, my music is widely available or many platforms, not all of it, you know, some, some things I have exclusive, but we've had offers as you can imagine all through the years to ways to put out the Black Star album in a more traditional way.[00:03:37] Talib Kweli: Yasiin stuck to his guns on that. And by default, just me, me being in a group with him, I benefit from that. Because the situation absolutely was a beneficial situation to me and, to be frank with you, one of my most favorite situations I've been in business-wise in terms of my relationship with my art and how it gets out to people.[00:03:59] Dan Runcie: That's good. That's good to hear because I know that you've done a few different things independently. You've released albums on your own website before, you've done Patreon. What made you choose Luminary this time? [00:04:10] Talib Kweli: Well, we were already in a very fruitful relationship with Luminary due to the fact that we had the podcast on Luminary with Dave Chappelle, the Midnight Miracle Podcast.[00:04:19] Talib Kweli: And it was attractive to us, the idea that fans who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, fans that are already spending money with us, fans that are following us enough to know where we at, fans that are interested in our conversation, right? Fans that are interested in us as men, as human beings and not just like feed us, feed us, feed us art, feed us content, but fans that are really interested in what we think and how we see the world and how we see art. [00:04:50] Talib Kweli: Those fans, I feel like, that niche was either already on Luminary rocking with the Midnight Miracle or if they had heard about the Midnight Miracle, that would be exciting to them. And so just automatically it weeds out the people who are like, Nah, I'm not interested in you as a human being. I'm not interested in how you feed your family.[00:05:11] Talib Kweli: I'm not interested in your, your thoughts on the state of the industry. I just like them bars and the beats. I just want to hear the music. But that's not the fan I want, you know, and that's not a fan. That's pop music. Pop music is like a blanket, trying to blanket and cover everything and get every single ear.[00:05:28] Talib Kweli: And I don't need every single ear and I don't need all eyes on me. I just want to rock with the people who want to rock with me. And that, that's the first thing beyond the fact that, you know, the business of Luminary is, that we're in is a fair arrangement. It's not, you know, it's not ownership.[00:05:45] Talib Kweli: It's just fair. It's the antithesis of what happens with most of these streaming networks, most of these DSPs. So it's, it's just a, it's a good situation. And it's not, you know, the news was, was announced that Dave Chappelle at other people had been invested in Luminary. So it's not just something where it's like, we're asking people to come to something that we personally don't put our money where our mouth is, you know what I'm saying? [00:06:11] Dan Runcie: Yeah. Because that's what I saw. I saw that Dave Chappelle was an investor. I assumed that maybe you and Yasiin were as well. And 'cause I know some people, I wondered, okay, well, if I was going to do $5 a month, is that $5 that I could just put directly in Talib's pocket?[00:06:25] Dan Runcie: But you're like, Hey, we also want to support the people that have clearly been with us, paying for Midnight Miracles, paying for our content. So it's not just about the monetary aspect. It's about being able to share and celebrate with the people that have already been with you. [00:06:39] Talib Kweli: Yeah, exactly. And I can't speak for Yasiin's investment to what he do with his money. You know, that's, that's really his business. I really don't know. But for me, I, I have Kweli Club, as you mentioned, and I'm very proud of Kweli Club, but people are not there. You know, I've never been on Bandcamp. I just started a page on Bandcamp this week for the first time because I've heard about Bandcamp.[00:07:02] Talib Kweli: But in my mind, I'm like I could do that with Kweli Club. I could have my own Bandcamp. And Kweli Club is still rocking and is a unique experience to sell books there, there's product and information and things you could get from me there that you can't get no place else. But now you can also get my music, some of it on Bandcamp and the Black Star album is on Luminary. And I think I'm going to probably do some more things with Luminary. [00:07:23] Talib Kweli: It has all these other podcasts and it's like, whether you're into those podcasts or not, right? Like, you might not want to hear Trevor Noah, or Roxane Gay, or Russell Brand, or some of the other podcasts they have there, or the People's Party, or Midnight Miracle. But you can't say, well, we're just asking you to pay for this album. You can't say that 'cause that's not accurate. What you're paying for, you're getting a lot more than an album. [00:07:47] Dan Runcie: I agree with that. And I think the distinction here, too, that I think about, I know you mentioned on your website, of course, you could do it there, but that's not necessarily whereas many of the fans are, as you mentioned, how does this compare to Patreon? For instance, I know you've used that in the past to release art and release your work specifically.[00:08:07] Talib Kweli: I respect the Patreon audience, and the Patreon people, and the people who started it. It's a very good idea. That is very artist-centric. But for me personally, it was Patreon just like everything else is based on your level of engagement. It's a social media platform, right? So the more you engage there, the better it's going to be.[00:08:25] Talib Kweli: And they got, what, the Discord. They're plugged in LinkedIn with, and it's just for me, we're already engaging on other social media apps to then take that time. And I engage where I enjoy, right? I don't do it just for business. Like, I'm talking about things I enjoy. And also that, because I enjoy the engagement, it's also rewarding to me.[00:08:45] Talib Kweli: It brings followers and listeners, whatever, but you just to add time to do it on Patreon, I didn't, I couldn't get into the engaging in the social media part of Patreon. And I feel like for me personally if you're not going to, I feel like if I wanted to engage to the level of some of the other creators on Patreon, I probably would've done better there, but my interest never, never quite got to there.[00:09:11] Talib Kweli: And so that's what this is, there's no disrespect to that platform. I just think it's a personal taste or what you enjoy doing. And I see, I see people who do very well on Patreon. [00:09:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. And I feel like for you specifically, we are talking about being able to invest in a platform, not just with your money, but with your time as well.[00:09:32] Dan Runcie: And if you're going to get the most out of a platform, you got to put a lot into it. And you already had work in luminaries. So I feel like that connection was there for you. And this also makes me think back to when you had released your Gutter Rainbows album. This was back in 2011, and I feel like at least of what you had written at the time, this was a bit of a, a turning point for you because I think what we're talking about is the autonomy, and the independence, and the impact of that, especially from an economic perspective where you're like, you know, you put up your own money, you tripled your investment in a few months, and you're like, even at the more commercially successful albums you had before that, you never saw something like that. And I feel like that shaped a lot of your experience and outlook forward.[00:10:15] Talib Kweli: Yeah. And it's even in 2022, it's even more like that. I'm still learning, and growing, and bending, and shifting. And the space I'm in now is even a lot more independent than I was when Gutter Rainbows came out. Now it's just like the industry's completely broken down. Like, when Gutter Rainbows came out, it was like on the way to really, really breaking down.[00:10:37] Talib Kweli: But now it's completely broken down. It's like the wild, wild west. And it's like really about what you invest in yourself. It's really about focusing on the business aspect of it, like where you completely leave the ego out of it. And that's so difficult for a lot of artists because a lot of art can be, for better or for worse, ego-driven. And it can be, you know, people say that art is reciprocal. You want people to like your art, you put it out in the world, and you search around to see who's feeling it. And that could really have an adverse effect on your ego and what your value system is, right?[00:11:10] Talib Kweli: And, you know, me as an artist personally, I've spent money. I've invested in things that I knew I wasn't going to see no return on, over and over and over again, just for the sake of the art, just for the sake of the culture. And I'm not just talking about my art. I'm talking about other artists on Javotti Media, you know, there's things that I've invested in and I'm like, I don't see a path to making a profit here unless by some stroke of luck or miracle, something, someone feels as strongly about this art as I do.[00:11:39] Talib Kweli: And it gets a placement somewhere. Someone picks it up for a movie or something, like that's possible, or use it in a commercial, stuff like that. But I mean, those are long shots. That's not a guarantee. That's not like a plan for success, unless you're going into those situations where you're, you're knowing how to pitch those things and have those relationships, which I did not and do not, you know, so yeah.[00:12:02] Talib Kweli: My thinking on it now is not that at all. Because I've done that. I've done the artist thing for so, so, so, so long, and I'm not really a businessman at all. I'm a businessman by default. I'm a businessman because I have to be, I love, I love this art so much. I love this culture so much. And in order to sustain myself, in order to live the life I want to live and to feed my family, offer this art I had to learn a certain degree of money management, time management, business management in order to just do what I do, but I don't enjoy it.[00:12:32] Talib Kweli: and this is why this conversation was in, in doing this podcast was interesting to me because I think it's very important whether I enjoy it or not.[00:12:41] Dan Runcie: I think that's an important distinction, because I do think that we see artists now that clearly you could get the sense that music is an afterthought for the bag that they're trying to get. But at the end of the day, I still believe that most of the people in this want to do it primarily because they love the art and they are much more aligned with you where it's like, they had to do this because they didn't want to get, you know, taken advantage of by the system.[00:13:05] Dan Runcie: They didn't want to not have things work out in their favor. So by default, you have to have some, you know, cursory level of knowing what works and what doesn't. And as you kind of mentioned earlier, that bar has increased a lot since Gutter Rainbows, that has increased a lot since so many of these things.[00:13:22] Dan Runcie: So the landscape forces you to do that, or else you may likely get taken advantage of unless things work out luckily in your favor.[00:13:31] Dan Runcie: I think, too, for you, something else you mentioned with this, just thinking about needing to reach so many fans, if you are relying on this major system, so much of that relies on taking you away from the core people that are really rocking with you, because if you're trying to reach the masses and you're trying to do what a major label may want you to do to try to reach the masses.[00:13:53] Dan Runcie: then you may have, they may want you to either shift your sound. They may want you to try to do all these things, which further take away from the autonomy and control that you clearly want to be able to have. So I get the sense that this more recent stage of your career has likely been more freeing from that perspective.[00:14:11] Talib Kweli: Yeah, I mean, as an artist, I really, really, really want to try everything. I've definitely tried in my music to make music, to take aspects of what I do, who I am as an anti-racist person, as a pro-black person, as a person who likes a certain type of what they call underground hip-hop and take those sensibilities and stretch them, expand them and find global audiences.[00:14:34] Talib Kweli: And I've worked with artists all over the world from different genres. I've tried many different styles. I've sang. I've done double time. I've done, you know, I've round over trap beats. I've done it at all. I've tried every single thing because as an artist, not only is that my right, feel like it's my duty to try everything I can.[00:14:52] Talib Kweli: But in that trying, what I've learned is is that the more I try different things, the more I start to lean towards being comfortable in being the best at what I do, finding that thing that what it is that's unique about me and finding that. And I've tried that through my career.[00:15:09] Talib Kweli: People, there's albums of songs, things that people are, like, maybe be like, I don't like when Talib did this, or I don't like when Talib did that. And some of that, some of it worked and some of it didn't. There's some of it that I love that people hate. And some of it that people hate that I love, I don't even know if I just said the same thing twice, but you know what I'm getting at.[00:15:27] Talib Kweli: But in this state, business-wise and creative-wise, I'm closer to the vest and more about what is it that I do best. And try to put that on display. [00:15:40] Dan Runcie: Right. And that last piece you talked about in terms of doing things you loved that the fans didn't like, or the fans not doing things you liked, but then you actually liked it yourself. Did any of that influence how you and Yasiin went about this latest album? [00:15:55] Talib Kweli: Well, the good thing about Yasiin is that he try, he does try as much as I do. He tries different styles. Absolutely. I've heard him rap and sing on all different types of things. But what really helps shape the Black Star sound is I'm the steward of the beats and the administration.[00:16:12] Talib Kweli: Like, I'm going out and finding the beats, and looking for producers, and booking studios. I'm doing all that. But what Yasiin is doing is he's trying to get closer to God in his lyrics. You know, all his albums, all his projects start with Bismillah and all his bars and where he is trying to go lyrically is always about a higher level of self. And trying to get closer to God, whatever that is for you. And so it makes me step up, frankly, and it doesn't make me just step up, but it makes me because let's not get it fucked up. Like I don't slouch from my, on my other projects. You know what I'm saying? So it's not just about stepping up, but it's also about the focus.[00:16:54] Talib Kweli: It's just different. And it's like that when I worked with Styles P, it was a different type of focus. When I worked with 9th Wonder in them, it was a different type of focus. When I work with Hi-Tek, it was a different type of focus and, you know, even on my solo albums, even the producers I work with, whether it was DJ Scratch or Kanye, will.i.am, whoever. Like, wherever I go with that person is is pulling some out of me. And what Yasiin pulls out of me is wanting to be closer to God. [00:17:19] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I definitely get the sense of that. And even listening to y'all two conversations, hearing it from the album and even just, you know, his own evolution with religion, I always got the sense that, for you two, like spirituality and the importance of that was always going to have a theme through its music.[00:17:36] Dan Runcie: And it's been interesting to see how, like, that piece from a tonality has evolved over time as well. The debut album you had, there were so many things that were timely to that era. And I think in this album, too, we're kind of seeing so much of it because I think that there's a lot of things, whether it's about, you know, black liberation, freedom that I think were relevant then, relevant now. However, it looks different in a way that I feel like you all are able to keep a lot of the same themes, but have more of a modern shift to it, which I don't think necessarily applies to a lot of people that are still creating music from the late nineties and putting it out today.[00:18:13] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I hear you. And I think that was very intentional on our part. This album was formed over a lot of conversation and, you know, it's 24 years since the last project in them, you know, there was a lot of attention to detail. A lot of attention to detail, but also with the idea that it's got to sound loose. It's got to sound organic, and raw, and loose. It can't sound overproduced. [00:18:37] Dan Runcie: Right. And it has to be timely as well in a way that it can both stand, you know, the test of time. But it also, you know, whether you're talking about millennials and how people are relating to particular things, it has to relate to that piece.[00:18:51] Dan Runcie: And I feel like that resonated with me, at least, for being able to hear things as well. But there was something else you said even earlier in this conversation that I was thinking about in terms of doing things and you always willing to try things, whether it's going with EDM, working with different producers. I'm curious, how does that shift with looking at different formats as well to put out music? Because I know that there's this ongoing debate right now about artists and whether or not they should be forced to use TikTok or not, and whether or not people like to use TikTok. How do you feel about that?[00:19:23] Talib Kweli: Yeah, I was watching the Billboard Awards and that's when I first, I knew in the abstract that everything was moving towards TikTok, right? But watching the Billboard Awards, it hit me when they were introducing every single artist that was popular. Most of them I hadn't heard of or heard their song, but every single thing they were announcing was like, this is how it performed at TikTok. And for how I grew up, that was the radio.[00:19:43] Talib Kweli: And so I was like, now we're an era where the radio is not on his way to be obsolete, but completely obsolete. And let me be clear. I don't mean radio as a concept. I mean, commercialized pop radio and that system. Because clearly what you're doing is radio, you know, what I'm doing with People's Party and in Midnight Miracle is radio. So that's driving, right?[00:20:04] Talib Kweli: I feel like we're in almost in a golden age of radio, but as far as, like, with the music business, man, oh, man. Yeah, TikTok is, I just posted something today from, or that Earn Your Leisure poster about Isaac Hayes Jr., for Fanbase, talking about the algorithms and Instagram, and how, when it first started, you could gain 300,000 followers, very quickly, a million followers very quickly, but then once they had video and once they had ads, well, now you could be a network and now, the advertisers are going to come to you instead of coming to Instagram. So now they've made it so, that's why they shadowbanned people and limit content. I have a million people following me. If I post something, maybe 5,000 people will see it or like it, I don't know who, how many people see it.[00:20:44] Talib Kweli: I have to look at the insights, but I'm definitely not reaching everybody who I'm supposed to reach. And they'll be like, oh, well you could, if you pay us, you know what I'm saying? And so it's just interesting to see how with TikTok, which is Chinese-based if I'm not mistaken, I don't think they're doing that. I think they're allowing the content to reach who it's going to reach, or I might be mistaken about that. I don't know. [00:21:05] Dan Runcie: I think that's going to shift with TikTok as well though, because I think we kind of saw the early stage where you could put up a song and, you know, like a Megan Thee Stallion song could blow up or whoever song could blow up.[00:21:16] Dan Runcie: But I think now they got over a billion people using it every day. I think we're going to see or using it every month rather. I think you're going to see the same type of shift happen there, too, eventually. [00:21:27] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I mean, I post on TikTok and no one follows me on TikTok. It's like 4,000 people following me on TikTok. But again, it's the same thing with the Patreon thing. I'm not there, right? I'm not engaging with the people. I'm not clicking on videos, and scrolling through it, and, like, commenting. And I'm not doing anything. I'm just posting things, trying to get some engagement because people are there. I'm putting things up. But that's not really where my fans are looking for me yet at this point.[00:21:54] Dan Runcie: Right. Yeah. And especially with the demo that you're reaching, and they're not looking at you to go do some TikTok dance or something like that, right? [00:22:01] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I saw The Game doing a TikTok dance. I mean, I hope that that's what he really wanted to do, you know what I'm saying? I hope that he's like, yo, I think that dance is hot, and I'm going to do that dance. Instead of like, damn I got to get on TikTok and do a dance, you know what I'm saying? [00:22:15] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I do think even that piece of it's going to change too, though, because kind of like we saw on YouTube, right? Like people avoided YouTube for a while because they're, okay, I'm not going to go out here and go dance like Soulja Boy and try to do some viral video, but it eventually matured. And I think we're going to see the same with TikTok where, yeah, you don't have to do some dance that could fit in a vertical video, but you're going to see, you know, folks that you know, are trying to reach your demo, doing whatever the version is that's relatable to them. So it'll take time. In some ways, I feel like it's already happening. Yeah.[00:22:47] Dan Runcie: For you, I do think about even, you know, we're talking about spending time on different platforms. Did you dip into Clubhouse, especially when, you know, the hype on Clubhouse was big or? [00:23:00] Talib Kweli: Oh no. They kicked me off at twitter for, they didn't like the way I was talking on Twitter. If they can't take what I write in text, they damn sure ain't going to be able to take my voice, you know what I'm saying? Clubhouse got popping right when I got kicked off of Twitter, and so I started getting like, you know, you got to invite people, right?[00:23:17] Talib Kweli: So I started getting like, literally I would get 15, 20 invites a day of people like, you got to join. People would take time out of their day to call me, be like, yo, you should be at Clubhouse. It's perfect for you. And because of that, I was like, there's no way I'm ever going on Clubhouse. because nah, like me talking to these things? Nah. That would go left quick. [00:23:41] Dan Runcie: The wild thing is I do think that people can get away with saying wilder shit on audio than they can on written text on Twitter, at least from some of the stuff I've heard. [00:23:51] Talib Kweli: Yeah. That's exactly right. That's exactly right, which is why I don't need to be on it. That's exactly right because here's the thing, here's the problem with me, right? I'm a very intersectional person, you know, I'm not out here, slut-shaming. I'm not here calling women bitches and hoes. I'm not out here using the R word or using the F word. I don't do none of that. I'm not a bigot. I don't use bigoted language.[00:24:14] Talib Kweli: But I'm very good with words. And so with the shit that I write in text, and I'm very blunt and direct. And so the shit I write in text, I feel like it triggers a lot of people in terms of, like, because I'm like, Hmm, nah. And I'm just very blunt and direct. If you come at me wrong, I can be insulting without lowering to this vibration of bigotry, right? Or, that's not true. Every man has fucking bigotry issues, but I try my best. I feel like I try more than most of the people I converse with, right? And so, that me, that shit just comes off as snark, bro, and people just be upset, 'cause they feel like you making 'em look stupid and they get very upset and very tight. And that's what it would be for me at Clubhouse. I would say some slick shit and people would get very upset very quick. [00:25:04] Dan Runcie: No, I hear that. I hear you on that. It's been, what, almost two years since you've been off Twitter. [00:25:09] Talib Kweli: Yeah, it's been since 2020. [00:25:11] Dan Runcie: Okay. Do you miss it? [00:25:12] Talib Kweli: No, I don't. It was time. I had been on Twitter for 10 years. I don't miss it at all. I enjoyed my time there though. But, you know, I don't miss it because I honestly, for real, in my heart of hearts, I really, truly, truly, truly do not want to be someplace where I'm not wanted. Like, I stand by that. Like, mm-hmm. Like, if they don't want me there, I don't have no desire to be there.[00:25:35] Dan Runcie: Yeah. You're not missing much. I'll be honest with you. As someone who spends too much time on that place, you're not missing much. [00:25:42] Talib Kweli: Yeah. What I do realize is that being on Twitter, as much as I was on Twitter and then not on Twitter, is that the things that I was talking to people about on Twitter, and these things, let's not get it twisted, right?[00:25:53] Talib Kweli: These are things that are shifting the culture. And these are things that are shaping the world. The things I was talking about in particular, I wasn't talking about frivolous shit. I wasn't talking about rat beefs or whatever I was talking about, you know, real things. The things I was talking about on Twitter became mainstream news years later, things that I was ringing a bell on, and a lot of us were ringing a bell on and people were just not paying attention.[00:26:14] Talib Kweli: But what I realized was a lot of the things that were elevated in my mind to a level of super I importance that we have to talk about this, people who are not on Twitter, not thinking about none of that shit, not talking about none of it. And so that's why a lot of the stuff that I was going through on Twitter, a lot of stuff that became so ugly and toxic, part of it that I wasn't understanding was when I was like, yo, how is this happening? How's the community letting this happen? Because the community really didn't care, really didn't care. And I'm not saying that to disparage anybody on Twitter. I don't want to seem like now, now, cause I'm not on Twitter, like, haha, oh, y'all whack up being on Twitter. I'm not saying that because Twitter is still a very important tool.[00:26:57] Talib Kweli: That's why all the conversation about Elon Musk and all that stuff is so prevalent and so important. There are people who still use Twitter in amazing ways. Absolutely. But I agree with you. Twitter is a cesspool and it was a cesspool when I was there. It's just a lot clearer not being there and a lot more understanding for why people didn't give a shit about it, you know, now looking at the engagement. I'm glad I was there. I learned a lot. I gained a lot. It was a gift and a curse, but mostly a gift for me. But yeah, it was time for me to go and they decided that before I did, but they were correct. [00:27:31] Dan Runcie: And I think with that, too, it's a bit of that double standard that I think public figures like yourself are kind of put towards, right? People can, you know, reply at you and talk all sorts of shit to you and take what you say out of context. But if you go back at them, then they're going to say, okay, he's putting his fan base back at me. He's doing this. [00:27:47] Talib Kweli: Yeah, that's such an important part of this conversation, right? And I want to be clear here because like I said, I'm an intersectional person. So, you know, I don't want to be the guy that he's here to protect black women. And, well, what about men, you know what I'm saying? Because as a man, I'm a member of a privileged, oppressor group, I'll go as far to say. But there's a phrase, black men are often the white men of the black community, right? Now that phrase is funny, is hyperbolic, right, but it's based in some truth. And I understand why people would say that. When women be like all men are dogs. Yeah. I get it. I don't personally feel like I'm a dog. I've done some dog shit before, but I don't personally look at myself like that. I don't feel offended by that, but just because black men can and often are the white men of the black community, if we're going to be hyperbolic, right? [00:28:37] Talib Kweli: Doesn't mean that we're not still part of a marginalized group of people. It doesn't mean that we're not still under attack. Doesn't mean that we're not still faced with many threats and that we don't still need protection, 'cause we absolutely do. And the conversation in our community has to be about the black community, has to be about women, and children, and men, and gay people, and disabled people, and rich people, and poor people, has to be about all of us.[00:29:07] Talib Kweli: If we're talking about the conversation around systemic oppression. And so the idea that because I've earned an extra layer of privilege, 'cause I'm already born with some privileges. I'm already born in America, born as a man, but because I've mastered my craft, worked hard to master my craft. And it's earned me a degree of fame, and a degree of celebrity, and a degree of money that a lot of people can't earn or not in a position to earn resource and all that, because of that, I'm now supposed to allow people to disrespect, not just me, but my family and particularly the women in my family?[00:29:41] Talib Kweli: And I'm not allowed to be a human being and want to respond and have a response? The things that people say about celebrity is that they're disconnecting, that they don't engage. I don't view myself as celebrity. I view myself as an artist. Well, as an artist, I'm going to talk to the people and for better or for worse, you know? What I realize now is that me talking to the people has put a target on my back because a lot of these people don't even deal with these people. They just block people, look and call 'em trolls.[00:30:10] Talib Kweli: They don't even talk to anybody. And I'm not built that way. And I understand the logic behind it, but I also, there's also a method to my madness as well. And so the idea, I push back hard against the idea that you have a pass to undervalue my humanity or to not treat me like a human being because you haven't earned what I've earned in terms of cultural currency, you know, because you choose to be anonymous, or because you are not famous, or because you are not, I don't know, whatever, like, I can't abide by that. I can't. I find myself inclined to speak out against that idea that we lack humanity, or we are less human, or we deserve to be treated less than because we're famous, or because we have a million followers, or whatever the metric is, I don't know. [00:31:00] Dan Runcie: And I think this point brings the conversation full circle, right? Because so many people, when you and Yasiin decided to release the album on your terms, they're like, oh, well, you're not going to put it on streaming. You're missing out, that you shouldn't be doing this. And y'all are like, This is our music. You can't tell us what to do. Like, this is our craft. And I think it just goes back to the entitlement of people feeling like they have the ability to dictate what you do when you are the one that is in control of what you do. [00:31:31] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I mean, that's, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause for me, those conversations are difficult, right? Because I'm an advocate for artists. I'm a fan. So when we talk about fans, right, we're not talking about, I'm not separate from that group. When you see me post on Instagram videos of me with Bun B, and I'm jumping up and down just like any fan would. I'm not playing it cool, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I'm a fan as well. And me as a fan, I'm a fan of these artists as human beings. That's why I wrote that article In Defense Of Ms. Hill ' cause it's like, if I'm a fan of her music, then yo sis, take your time. If you don't feel like showing up at the show tonight, Hey, I guess we got to eat that one tonight.[00:32:09] Talib Kweli: But you're still Ms. Hill, you're a human being. You're not some product that rolls out on stage. You press a button, it just goes. If you're having a human issue, you're a human being that's having a human issue. Let us know when you got some new shit and I'll be happy to support. I likely, if you give me an option, I'll overpay for it.[00:32:25] Talib Kweli: How about that? Because I can't quantify what you've given me, and that's honestly how I feel. So it's hard for me to relate to these fans, be like, I want, first of all, that's even the wrong language to be using with me, talking about what you want, you know what I'm saying? If you want the Black Star, I'm going to make the Black Star out.[00:32:41] Talib Kweli: And if you can't, then meet us halfway, bro, and come to where I'm at, because guess what? The first Black Star album, Universal says they own and they don't own it. We've never signed a contract for that album. So they've been profiting off of that. So if you bought that or listen to streaming, you've been paying some rich white company that has nothing to do with Black Star.[00:33:01] Talib Kweli: Every song in that album is available on YouTube. Most of my music is available for free on YouTube. On Kweliclub.com, you could get all my mixtapes for free. You could get the album Fuck the Money for free. My biggest song Get By, you could, if that shit came on in the store, you could Shazam it and listen to it on Shazam for free, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's got 15 million views on YouTube. You could go listen to it on YouTube for free. You mean to tell me I can't get $10 or $5 or $30 with a new Black Star album, with all this free music you getting? What are we even talking about? You know what I'm saying? Like, how are you ignoring all of this, to complain about this?[00:33:39] Dan Runcie: Right. It's like, you've had so much up to this point. It's not like you haven't had anything, you know, like, if you want to be able to put this one out on your terms, then yeah, here it is. You know, you don't owe anyone anything. [00:33:51] Talib Kweli: Yeah. I find it hard to relate to the people who don't understand that, which is why, if you notice, when I've been on social media and people ask about it, my response has been, well, this album is not for you.[00:34:00] Talib Kweli: And maybe I should stop doing that because that's such a triggering thing to say to people. And I've been saying it a lot 'cause I mean it. But then it starts these long arguments with me. Fuck you and you're mean to the fans. It's like, nah, my fans are listening to the album. Now whether or not they like it or not, that's subjective. [00:34:18] Talib Kweli: My fans were listening to Midnight Miracle. And if they weren't, if you are a fan, who's watching this podcast right now and you didn't know about Midnight Miracle, go listen to it because you're a fan. You want to hear what we got, you want it. If you are a fan of us, be a fan of us.[00:34:33] Talib Kweli: I don't believe to separate the artists from the music. I don't do that. I feel like that's a cop-out. Let me not say that because, let me just speak for myself. You can't do that with me because I am what my music is. All them lies they be telling about me, it doesn't go with my music. It doesn't go with my actions.[00:34:51] Talib Kweli: It doesn't go with the truth. i I am what I say in these bars. I stand on that. I'm very proud of that. [00:34:57] Dan Runcie: Right. And I think the other piece of this, too, that I think has now just become the norm in music is that so many artists are predispositioned to be like, okay, lemme just put my music out on streaming.[00:35:07] Dan Runcie: Treat it like it's marketing, get it out there. And then let me make my money when I go on tour. But the way that you all have it set up, I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. You can get the money from the art, and you could also get the money, you know, if you and Yasiin choose to do a tour together.[00:35:24] Talib Kweli: I mean, I was touring, I was touring before the pandemic. I was doing 200 shows a year. So that's more than anybody, you know, like I was, that model right there. Think about it. I got 16 albums out, doing 200 shows a year. So that's what, 'you're describing my life. That's exactly what I was doing. And I don't do that anymore, and I don't plan on doing it again.[00:35:43] Talib Kweli: But when I look at pictures or videos for myself from that time, I don't even recognize that person. Like, how was I doing that? That's not sustainable. I was on some super human shit. I don't know what, I don't know how I was doing this. I don't know how I was dropping music and touring at that pace.[00:35:57] Talib Kweli: And still, like, doing activist work, and supporting my family, and just being me, and being on Twitter, you know what I'm saying? Like, all of it, I was doing all of it and I don't know how I was doing all that. [00:36:06] Dan Runcie: How many shows do you think you'll go back to? If 200 was a lot, what do you think is the ideal range?[00:36:13] Talib Kweli: As you're saying, as I'm saying this to you, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, damn. I got a lot of shows coming up, but I can't let it get back to 200 a year. [00:36:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I mean, 'cause at that rate, yeah, I mean, you're talking, I mean, like more than half of the days of the year you are out there putting it all out there. I mean, yeah.[00:36:29] Talib Kweli: 20 years straight, I did that for 20 years.[00:36:31] Dan Runcie: And it's wild. It's wild. I mean, I think at least the position that you're potentially in now, you can earn more money from the actual music you're putting out. You clearly have, you know, a bit buy-in with a platform that has other people that are invested in it as well.[00:36:45] Dan Runcie: And then with any other business interest that you may have, like, this is something to build up on, right? It's clearly, like, recurring revenue that you have and if you and Luminary continue to grow, then you can also tour and do any of that other stuff on your own terms. [00:36:59] Talib Kweli: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:37:00] Dan Runcie: Yeah. I feel that's the way to go with it. Well, Talib, this has been a great conversation. I feel like we covered a bunch just in terms of the importance of autonomy, importance of independence, and where you see things going. But for the people that are listening and they do want to follow, I'm sure they already know if they're listening, but where should they go to check for the latest of what you got going on?[00:37:18] Talib Kweli: Man, just follow me on Instagram. If they don't kick me off Instagram, 'cause they be threatening to kick me off Instagram too. They don't like when I talk about racism on Instagram. So for as long as I'll be on Instagram, follow me there. I just joined Fanbase today. So I'm looking forward to exploring Fanbase.[00:37:32] Talib Kweli: But I mean, you got to come see me in the flesh or don't actually, you know, like just, I don't know. Like, I've been out in the flesh a a lot, man. I don't know. I don't know. Just holler at me when you see me, and I'll try to make my presence known. For the near foreseeable future, I'm definitely going to be at Luminary. So I definitely encourage people to subscribe to Luminary. [00:37:52] Dan Runcie: Sounds good. And I appreciate the Fanbase shout out too. Shout out to Isaac Hayes III. I had him on the podcast couple of months ago. Love what he's building. [00:37:59] Talib Kweli: Yeah, me too. I've been knowing about it for a minute, but now as I'm starting to, like, really assess what's valuable to me, I'm, like, starting to look at things a little different, and I'm like, yeah, Fanbase. We can't keep talking about it, right? At some point we got support. [00:38:14] Dan Runcie: Right. Exactly. We know that this is the culture that pushes it forward. It's our culture. I mean, have the people that are about it to be the ones that actually own it in, we can see what happens.[00:38:22] Talib Kweli: Yeah. Word up. [00:38:24] Dan Runcie: Yeah. All right, man. Appreciate you. [00:38:26] Talib Kweli: All right. Peace. [00:38:27] Dan Runcie: All right, man. Thanks. [00:38:29] Dan Runcie: If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend, copy the link, text it to a friend posted in your group chat, post it in your slack groups, wherever you and your people talk. Spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcasts, go ahead, rate the podcast, give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.

This week’s special guest on Trapital is entertainment lawyer Karl Fowlkes. As part of his own The Fowlkes Firm, Karl represents entertainers across many domains — from music to sports to media, including hip-hop’s rising star, Blxst. He pulled double duty, not only appearing on the podcast, but guest-writing for the newsletter about the need for the artist contract to evolve.In particular, Karl predicts shared equity between not only artists and record labels, but also with other parties like distributors or fintech companies. The days of record labels having 100-percent ownership of an artists’ masters could slowly be phased out over the next decade in favor of a split much more friendly toward the artist.Karl also has advice for an artist, or any content creator for that matter, signing a new contract — LOMO. The acronym stands for length, obligation, money, and ownership. These are the top-line items creators should prioritize when inking deals, according to Karl. Karl has a ton more insights into how artists and creators can maximize their long term value, plus how deals will change in the near and distant future. Here’s everything we covered during our interview:[4:13] The Future Of The Artist Deal[5:50] Changes With Major Record Labels[7:36] Will Record Labels Exist In 10-20 Years?[11:20] Artists Wanting A Partnership, Not Signing [15:50] Karl’s Advice To All Content Creators Signing Contracts[19:18] The Issue With Music Royalties[22:42] The Hip-Hop “Middle Class”[24:47] Building EVGLE Brand Alongside Blxst[25:08] Blxst Partnership Status With “Major” LabelsListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuest: Karl Fowlkes, @esqfowlkes, Fowlkes FirmEnjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapital Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop’s biggest players by reading Trapital’s free weekly memo. TRANSCRIPTION[00:00:00] Karl Fowlkes If you're making $20,000 to $30,000 a month off music. I mean, damn, that’s pretty, you know, that's solid money. No, that's nothing to shirk off. And some of these people, if they were independent, they might not be the global superstars that they are, they might be a little bit more in control, they might have less obligations, and they might still be able to put out the music that they want to put out. And all that stuff sort of creates sort of a concoction of, man, and maybe I will be happier, maybe I wouldn't have to get fake teeth, get a bunch of gold chains. I wouldn't have to do that because I'm living a lifestyle that's conducive for long-term success. [00:00:38]  Dan Runcie Hey, welcome to The Trapital podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more, who are taking hip-hop culture to the next level. [00:00:58] Dan Runcie Today's episode is all about the deals that artists sign. There are so many more options and ways that artists can level up and types of companies that they can partner with. It's no longer just the record labels. There's alternative finance options, their distribution platforms, and more. And I broke this down today with my friend and well-respected entertainment attorney, Karl Fowlkes. And he runs an entertainment practice called The Fowlkes Firm where he represents artists like Blxst, producers, entertainers, athletes, and more. [00:01:30]  Dan Runcie So I talked to Karl about his experience with this and what he sees as the future landscape. And Karl has this phrase that I think he needs to trademark, he has this phrase called LOMO, which is focused on the four key elements that artists should be focusing on when they're signing deals. The important thing about LOMO. And more broadly, this conversation is that this doesn't just apply to artists, look at all the different types of creators right now. There's so many deals that they're doing, there's so many opportunities from different companies that want to partner with them. And whenever those things happen, there are more and more contracts that aren't always set up in the easiest way for you to be able to understand and break this down. So we talked about that and where things are heading and how it really is shifting to a place where artists aren't just giving the keys to a big corporation to handle everything. Let's have them, build the businesses around themselves, partner with the different companies to fill in the different roles you need, and build up from there. This was a great conversation. I think it's really insightful for all the creators out there. So I hope you enjoy it. Here's my chat with Karl Fowlkes. All right, today, we got Karl Fowlkes with us who's back on the podcast from The Fowlkes Firm, you represent Blxst and a bunch of other artists. But we're here to talk about this guest piece that you wrote for Trapital, a really great piece about the future of the artists deal. So let's start at the top. Why did you want to write this piece?[00:02:56] Karl Fowlkes  I think right now, you know, historically, there's, there's been a few players. And those few players are really just record labels. So it kind of pigeonholes what the what the deal is going to look like, you know, now, there's so many different players out there. Technologies is infused all through the music industry. So there's, you know, there's distributors, there's advanced companies, right, they're just trying to like, you know, model what they can give you based on streaming algorithms, you know, companies like beatBread, for example. And then you still got those major labels, they're sort of offering a lot of those services. So the landscape is so different, I think, because there's so many different parties and so many different solutions. I think the deal has to change with the times that we're in. And oftentimes, you know, what I'm seeing, you know, I'm not seeing, you know, those changed deal terms. And, you know, I just think it's something that we need to get ahead of.[00:03:48] Dan Runcie  Yeah. And I feel like now you're hearing more than ever, people talk about ownership artists, whether or not they may have enough behind it, want to make sure that they're owning everything when they're coming to try to negotiate contracts. Do you feel like that's shifted the landscape? I mean, I feel like it's definitely improved the conversation around it, but do you feel like that's actually having an impact on the deals that are being made?[00:04:13] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, and it's been quite effective. You know, I think most people who are in my position, you know, doing deals on the attorney side are seeing contracts that, especially if there's any built-up leverage that almost exclusively, you know, have a license period, right? So instead of the full transfer of ownership or work-for-hire language I've seen in the past, I'm seeing a lot more 20-year licenses, 25-year licenses, 15-year licenses. So the artist is you know, almost exclusively, you want to get the masters back. Now some of the other top line terms might not be that different in terms of the royalty rate, or some, you know, the ancillary income. But you know, the ownership paradigm is definitely, definitely changing. And I think that's the unique thing about it today.[00:04:59] Dan Runcie  Yeah, because I feel like, especially with the major record labels is kind of two things happening, right? On one hand, you're streaming revenues are continuing to grow. And you have all these other revenue sources from outside of the digital streaming providers, whether that's with Peloton or Roblox and all these other partners that want a license deal. So while that's increasing, but on the other hand, more and more artists are not going to want to  just give up their masters in perpetuity. So the labels are also counteracting that piece of it. So I see them in a lot of ways, they're hoping that the revenue from all of these areas can offset the loss that's eventually going to come from the masters, because eventually you can earn money from the back catalog forever if the current artists are going to keep that back catalog, and the labels aren't going to be able to have it.[00:05:50] Karl Fowlkes  3,000%. So I think, I almost wonder why some of the record labels out there don't sort of take from their publishing counterparts, right? Because the co-pub deal is sort of set up as a joint ownership structure, 50-50, right? So the songwriter usually owns half the composition, and the publisher owns the other half of the composition. And, you know, when the term is up, the kind of, the songwriter can go do what they want with their 50%. And they can have, you know, whoever collects on it, and then you know, the record label can, sorry, the publisher can take their 50% and go collect on it as well. So it's a shared equity model. It's something that I think tends to work for better parties. I know, there's some mechanisms that are a little bit different, you know, as it relates to distribution of music versus collection of music. But I think that's sort of a precursor to, you know, maybe something we'll see, you know, happen over the next 10 to 20 years.[00:06:46] Dan Runcie  What do you think the next 10 to 20 years will look like? Because I often have this conversation with a lot of people, some people go to the extreme of being like, no record labels will be extinct by then. And I've never quite gotten to that perspective, just because the people still ignore the desire that people have to be the biggest star in the world and where they feel like they need to go in order to do that. But I do think that we'll likely see more of these shared equity or more of these flexible options because I feel like one of the things you highlight in the piece is that it's great that there's so many distributors and places that you can release your music, but it's still a pretty big difference where it's like, okay, you either got to give up everything, and we'll make you a superstar, or you try to do it your own. But it's still hard to get to that level without some additional support.[00:07:36] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, I think the next 10 to 20 years are going to be a very interesting time. And I don't think anything's going to be figured out in the next 10 to 20 years, just because I think there are so many different emerging business models, right? Like, I keep talking about these music tech companies, kind of coming in and offering using algorithms and, you know, formulas to sort of create an estimate on, you know, what your royalties could be, will make in the next three to four years. They'll give you a big advance, right, and now to reference beatBread, because, you know, I just saw they did that for a massive artist recently. And they're, they're not really they're not offering service or anything, we're just going to give you that funding element. And I think historically, if you look at startups, and you know, there's always been a lot of artists, our founders’ conversation in the past five years, but when you look at a lot of startups, it's really hard to scale a business without capital. So capital is always going to be sort of the driving force on any decision I think you have to make in your business journey at a certain point. So I think what will happen is labels will realize I think the all-or-nothing approach of sort of either doing a license deal or completely owning the masters isn't really probably in anyone's best interest, including theirs. And I think we'll see more shared equity, right, and more investing in artists, you know, being in business with an artist forever, like in a tasteful way, right? Like, owning 20% of somebody's master for perpetuity seems a lot better than owning 100% of someone's, you know, master in perpetuity, right. There's, there's like a natural, if you’re an artist, you might be able to live with that, hey, this person gave me a million dollars. They have different access, resources, and funding opportunities throughout and they have a history of helping artists, you know, why don't I, we can we could share this thing forever, but you know, I'll be in control. I think that makes a lot more sense.[00:09:32] Dan Runcie  Yeah. And what I think it does is it itemizes how to look at the value add that you're either getting from a record label or from another type of partner, right? Because at its core, a record label deal is very similar to a private equity model. I know a lot of people make the venture capital comparison. But I think it's a bit more like private equity or even more so an M&A deal where you are essentially selling yourself as the business, at least to the recorded music business of what you're doing, to this company. And then in return, they are paying you for the services, and they're obviously going to try to maximize it as much as they can with everything they offer, from marketing to promotion to all the other services that you can essentially get counsel advice, so on. But I think the shift and what we're seeing a lot more artists do, more so I'd say on the independent side, I think we'll see some of the bigger artists do it, too, they want to create the business, they want to be the one that is doing the actual tasks, and how can they have, you know, things set up around them in order to do that. And it's something we see with all creatives to some extent, right? I feel like some people are always going to, maybe they want to gravitate more towards the business side of things, maybe they want to gravitate more towards the art that they actually do need to make. But still, if you're going to take the business side of it, then yeah, there is likely going to be a company you go to for marketing support, there's going to be a company you go to for PR or for distribution or for those things. And if you do it that way, then you're likely going to have a better approach about how you're making deals. And I feel like this is one of the key things that, like, you and I've been talking about for years now, just in terms of like how these things get set up, and how these things should be set up, especially for the artists that are willing to put in the work.[00:11:20] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I think what artists and their teams, too, are realizing are, you know, they're still doing a ton of work, even after they signed to the record label, right. And I think some of those things, historically, that we may be thought or attributed to regularly, but whether it's right or wrong, are things that in this generation, you know, teams, managers, other team members on that direct artists’ team are being tasked with, and, and they're executing, you know, to some extent, right? We're seeing TikTok campaigns being launched. And then that being the driving force of, of an artist being signed to a multimillion-dollar license deal, right, because that artists and their team leverage, you know, that music technology to create some moment, momentum and drive the price of that deal up. We're seeing a lot of that. So I think all that's making artists and their teams do is say, hey, if we're going to do a lot of the strategy and, and work to get signed, maybe signing doesn't necessarily make sense, maybe we're looking for, for something else, maybe it's not traditional, we signed to you model. It's like, let's partner, I need you for a few things. The rest we can take care of, we need some funding, and you know, we need some support on you know, a radio, we need some money, some of your tools that you might have and your staffing, but you know, eventually, we think we'll be able to do that stuff down the line. I think that's kind of the fut ure more and more sort of artists’ companies. And you see some of these catalogs, you're like, yeah, that's like, that's, you know, that's a mini-company. You know, I know, we talked, we saw Justin Timberlake’s catalog sold for, I believe, roughly $100 million. But you think about companies that could sell for $100 million, like, they have more than, like, two employees, where it's actually a company. Like, there's people driving marketing campaigns, there's the Human Resources Department, there's, you know, so I always think it's funny, because when you actually look at the valuation of the IP, and what something is actually making year over year, and, you know, that's like, that's a pretty sizable company, that that's probably not staffed correctly. I think that's probably what we'll see in the future is, hopefully, these companies and they can get staffed correctly.[00:13:35] Dan Runcie  And it makes you also think about, okay, let's take the Justin Timberlake example, obviously, someone that had a very successful and still has had a very successful solo career. But how much more value could there have been if he had created things in the way that, you know, we're talking about here? Obviously, there's a trade-off there, because I do think he's clearly someone that benefited more than the average person for a number of reasons from the major record label system and the broader media system that we're in. But yeah, $100 million, like, you think about a startup that is reaching $100 billion, you already have the idea of how big that startup is, what’s that startup’s trajectory looks like. And obviously, this is a little bit different because it's based on that recurring revenue stream. But still, I mean, it's huge,[00:14:22] Karl Fowlkes  Right? And I think like it's when we talk about sales and you know, when a company has to do get due diligence done on them, right so you look under the hood and you know, you're trying to see what that company actually owns. Do they even own the rights? Do they own the pub rights? Do they own the likeness? Do they own the trademarks, right? But if a company, for an artist, you know, driven company It doesn't have to be one artist. I think, you know, obviously, there's going to be a lot more collective and smarter labels, I think, in the future that are successful and, you know, running this model. But, you know, if you do due diligence on a company, and they do own all the IP, they do own all the trademarks, they do own the pub, and they do own the record, and there's employees in place, and there's procedures in place, and there's a history and books to sort of show what's happening over the past 5 to 10 years, you know, you're right, like, you know, these, these evaluations are probably being done on just raw numbers. But if you were to factor in some of this other stuff, it's like, man, this is like a, this is a well-oiled machine, this might be worth a little bit more.[00:15:22] Dan Runcie  Yeah, for sure. And I feel like once we were able to get there, a lot of it is focused on the type of deals, people can make and how specific they're getting about these. And you have been pushing and promoting this acronym about how artists, and I think this even extends beyond artists, how anyone that is creating content or making any type of deal should be looking at things. So what's the advice there that you give for that? And what are the elements to look out for?[00:15:50]  Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, yeah, you know, a strategy I've sort of been using and I created, I believe it was about a year and a half ago in talking to a few clients was, you know, length, obligation, money, and ownership. And those four key things are sort of the top line things you need to worry about when you're forming a contract. And also, I like to think about, you know, clients and people I'm talking to, when I'm discussing LOMO, just prioritizing those things, right? Because you're not going to have, you're not going to have the perfect deal where you have a short term, you get, you get a lot of money, your obligations low, and you get to own everything. That's just not, that's just not realistic. But what I do think is realistic is, you know, putting together a strategy that you can sort of, you know, put those things in order and you know, 5, 6, 7 years down the line, be happy with whatever sort of business you set up for yourself because you knew what you were getting into. You knew what your priorities were and you knew what you were signing. So I think those four top line terms: length, obligation, money, and ownership are the driving force of, they’re for sure the backbone of every contract, and for better or worse, I think those terms have decided whether an artist is going to be on Twitter in five years, talking about how they hate their contract, or they're going to be, you know, being able to sell their catalog for $50 to $100 million in 10 years, right? So I think LOMO is really important, and they'll help you sort of prioritize your needs if you are an artist. And again, that's not just for the artists, that's for the artists’ team. That's where these collectives that are coming up, I think those are probably will be the ones enforcing that strategy. But you know, LOMO is very, it's very useful, I think.[00:17:35] Dan Runcie You got LOMO trademarked?[00:17:37] Karl Fowlkes I haven't gotten LOMO trademark, man, that's crazy. Maybe after this episode.[00:17:42] Dan Runcie  I mean, I feel like you got it, I mean, because that's so many of these things, right? How do you, like, simplify things to just make it clear and take away so much of the legalese that I think is in there, and many times as a tactic itself to confuse artists?[00:18:00] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I mean, and again, like some of the legal, you hire an attorney to do the hard legal work, right? That's like the job of, you know, when people are generally saying artists, you need to understand your deals, we're not saying you need to become an attorney overnight because you still need an attorney, you need someone who's, that's someone else's job. Your job is to sort of run your company, you know, have a little bit of insight on some of these objectives and stuff that you're building. But you should really have a key indicator of those top line terms, that's what you really need to know. You're not going to know what the indemnification clause is, or you're not going to get into the warranties and representation. That's not the best use of your time. But you should know how long the contract is. You should know how much money, how much royalty you're going to get, or how the royalties are even paid out. You should know what you're required to do. You know, all those good things are the core of a contract. And I think that artists need to focus less on some of the nitty-gritty of the contract. You're not going to read too much legalese in a contract. But you know, those four things will help you sort of, you know, understand what you're signing.[00:19:03] Dan Runcie  Yeah, I agree. And you mentioned earlier about the artists that are going to be on Twitter complaining about their deal. Is there an area of LOMO that you think they're most likely to complain about or have an issue about?[00:19:18] Karl Fowlkes  Oh, yeah, that's a really good question. I think oftentimes, it's a combination of usually two things, but I think it's the maybe the way royalties are paid out. I think once you really understand recoupment, you know, it's not like a net profit. It's not like an off top thing, and what I mean by that is, if you're recouping at the royalty rate, I mean, If you have a 20% royalty rate, you got to make five times, you know, to recoup, right, to get even, right? because, you know, you're, if a dollar of money is generated, only 20 cents of that dollar is counting toward, you know, paying back the label, right? So you got to make five, you got to make 25 times over. I think that's the part that really rubs people the wrong way, right? Just because if it was a net profit situation, or an off top, right, you know, all costs go toward recoupment,, and then you get 80. And I get 20. and still be bad, but it'd be a little better, it'd be, it'd be a little less bad. So I think it's that part of the money that really, really gets people upset, because I'm not even sure that, you know, these companies really don't have to do that. Like, that is just, and I'm not, I'm not in the business of, I don't care. Like, that's just stupid. That's a bad business model. I think that's the reason why a lot of disruptions happen, because that just so that's so one-sided.[00:20:36] Dan Runcie  Yeah, it makes me think of Meek Mill, when he had posted, at some point earlier this year, I don't know when I'm going to get paid, or I haven't gotten paid for this. And this is someone that, you know, could sell hundreds of thousands in his first week with, at least to do with Championships, or whatever the album was when he, llike, first came out of prison, but he still doesn't know, and he's also someone that runs a record label himself, or he has the joint venture with Roc Nation for his Dream Chasers. So it's like, even at that level, artists still don't know.[00:21:08] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, I mean, Benny The Butcher, definitely a favorite rapper of mine. But you know, I was listening to a Freestyle yesterday, he did, I think, with Charlie Sloth on London. And he said, these rappers, you know, they're doing 100k first week, but you know, he's still not recouped. And I always, that is interesting, right? Because, you know, we all care about these sorts of, these first week numbers, but, you know, how much money is it taking to get to those first week numbers? And, you know, still, you're still probably in a hole, depending on the advances you've got. Advances are good, but it's also a way for you to continue to be locked in that contract, right? Would you rather. have some people want that $5 million check. But you know, you lose leverage me the more money you take. That's just the reality of it.[00:21:56] Dan Runcie  Right. Yeah. I, I think that Benny, of course. And I think Griselda overall, they figured it out in a model that actually works for them. And I think Russ probably falls in this category as well, where it's like, okay, you know, we don't care about the first week numbers. We actually want to have a business that runs, right? So Griselda could sell $75 or $100 vinyls or, you know, butcher cleaves, or whatever it is, in order to, you know, have, like, high-end merch that people are going to want to buy. And I think for a lot of artists, yeah, there is at least a bit of a trade-off to some extent, like, do you care more about the revenue? Or do you care more about the fame and the accolades and the media and stuff? And I don't think that's as black and white for most artists as they think it is.[00:22:42] Karl Fowlkes   Yeah, because like, the real metrics that people should care about, you know, we're not in this all for money, but I think money and ownership, if you have those things, and you're building a model that sort of is conducive, and not just because you're doing shows all the time, like, you know, I'm not sure Russ passed pop out ar nightclubs, you know, just to pay his bills, I know for a fact he doesn't have to do that, right. And that sort of the flexibility and freedom that I think guys really want when they hop into the rap game. They want to be able to, you know, sit down sit by the Dame Dash Calls it that “by the pool money,” right? You know, I want to be able to put my feet up by the pool, have their residual income coming in, and you know, and really be a boss really be a CEO not have to perform in Shreveport, Louisiana, you know, at a nightclub to pay my bills because I'm not getting any money from my music. Streaming is not the best model yet, from a payout standpoint, but because of how often and consistently people are streaming music, it's still an effective way for you to get money, right? So I think, when Russ posts TuneCore statements, you know, that is, obviously not everyone's going to have that sort of consistency and hard work. But you know, a lot of that's real, I mean, if you have five, I always talk about that, that hip-hop, middle class that needs to emerge, and you need to be happy and we need to celebrate those people. And because if you're making $20,000 or $30,000 a month of music, damn, I mean you could talk, you know, that's solid money. No, that's nothing to shirk off. And some of these people, if they were independent, they might not be the global superstars that they are, they might be a little bit more in control, they might have less obligations, and they might still be able to put out the music that they want to put out. And all that stuff sort of creates sort of a concoction of, man, and maybe I will be happier, maybe I wouldn't have to get fake teeth and get a bunch of gold chains. I wouldn't have to do that because I'm living a lifestyle that's conducive for long-term success. So I think that I think that's really important, too. I mean, that's, that's kind of where I am. And that's not the sort of education that I'm putting out.[00:24:47] Dan Runcie And I feel like that's also how you're building the businesses that you have and what you're associated with, right? I look at what you and Vic and the team are building, with Blxst as well, and what you're building with Evgle, and I feel like this is exactly that. Like, you're building the company that structured around this. Can you talk a bit about how you all have things set up?[00:25:08] Karl Fowlkes Yeah, so Evgle is a company that I am an equity partner in. It's me, Victor Burnett, who was the president and is also Blxst’s manager. And then you obviously have Blxst, who is the key cog, the creative genius, and really someone who's sort of, you know, been patient, and made this all possible. But, you know, the way we're set up is, you know, we were, we're a company, privately-owned, and we've been able to partner with entities in, you know, retain 100% ownership of IP, make sure we're getting, you know, some of that mail, that by the pool money at all times, and in putting ourselves in a position for us to, you know, not just build vertically, but horizontally. We're building out, you know, we have a full staff, you know, we have health care for everybody. We have office space, all those, all that fun stuff, that I think that, you know, isn't probably celebrated enough in building a company and particularly in hip-hop. So that's kind of how we're building. And I think long term,  we're empowering our artists and the people that come next, to do the same thing. It's not going to be, hey, you signed with Evgle, or we're taking your masters, and you're taking ownership and control of everything. That's, that's just not what we're doing. And, you know, I think Vic and Blxst in particular, are very, very cognizant of that. And so I think, I think we're trying to lead the way in that regard.[00:26:34] Dan Runcie  So is the plan to continue to build the company solely around the brand of Blxst himself as the creative or do you also want to bring on other artists, too?[00:26:46] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, so we already signed another I’ll call a multi-hyphenate, you know talent as well. He's an artist and producer. So we'll be rolling him out sometime later this summer, maybe early fall, then we have another producer signed on or partnered on, sometimes I use old terms, but partnered on the publishing side. So there are two other creatives already, you know, in-house, and I think the goal will be to get bigger, you know, as time goes by[00:27:14] Dan Runcie  And then in terms of Blxst specifically, what does his relationships look like with the major record label system and being able to amplify the work that he does?[00:27:25] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. You know, we obviously have a public relationship with Red Bull Records, who's our partner on the record side, and it's been a super fruitful partnership. You know, Blxst has, you know, elevated his career. They've been really helpful in allowing Evgle to stay, you know, 100% independent, and building what we built. So, kudos to Red Bull. And those guys over there, in Red Bull’s distributor, is The Orchard. So we do have a, I guess, major label tie, righ?. So you know, but that's really kind of, you know, I think all three of us, you know, Blxst is a multi-hyphenate to the truest extent ever, you know, he's, he can edit his own videos, he does his design work, he can produce his songs, he engineers it. You know, Vic, similar type of talent, you know,  he's, you know, he's, he's a merch guru, you know, great leader, great manager. And same with myself, obviously, I'm a lawyer, but, you know, as an operator, and someone who builds businesses on the sort of technical and admin side, you know, I love that part. So we're talking about three people who are multi-hyphenates. I think when you have people like that, you don't have to outsource as much throughout the different phases of growth. And we've been able to resist some of the pitfalls that other companies have had to go through because we've been able to scale to  2x to 5x by doing a lot of stuff in-house and I think I don't think that's going to change. And you know, our growth has been incremental and positive, you know, year after year and I think that's because we're taking the steps and we're not trying to build something really quickly.[00:29:11] Dan Runcie  Yeah, you're trying to build for the long haul, right? And if Blxst’s someday going to have his triple-figure catalog sale, if he want ever wants that, that's going to be done by, you know, building step by step. You're building for the long term, even though I'm sure, right now, especially after the Kendrick feature, and he's just been blowing up especially I feel like for the past two years now, but I feel like especially the past, like, 12, 18 months, you've been seeing more and more, at least publicly, I feel like, it may seem like it, you know, things are going fast, but I feel like, you know, talking to you all, yeah, you know, this is a long game.[00:29:46] Karl Fowlkes  Yeah, it's a long game. And you also know, like, you know, behind the scenes, we've been aggressive, in know, diversifying our company profile and our portfolio and what we're trying to build, you know, outside of music. You know, I think all of us also realize the entertainment industry is also just a vehicle, to impact the world. So, you know, at some point, your vehicles change. And I think we're also we also realize that, you know, everything that we're building today, you know, has to be bigger than, bigger than just the industry that we that we exist in. That's just not, it wouldn't be fulfilling for for any of us. So, I think that's it, we're very cognizant of that.[00:30:23] Dan Runcie  That makes sense. That makes sense. Good stuff, man. I am excited to see not just more change in the industry, but obviously, I think you wrote this piece for a really timely reason. And we're gonna continue to see the impact of that. So yeah, if you're listening, definitely go check out The Future of the Artist Deal. It's up now on the Trapital website. And Karl, before we let you go, anything else that you want to plug? Or let the listeners know about now?  [00:30:50] Karl Fowlkes No, man. I mean, honestly, just keep your eyes out for everything we're doing at Evgle, I think there's going to be a lot of fun, disruptive stuff that we announced, and we do over the next couple of months to a year. And, you know, personally, you know, The Fowlkes Firm is growing as a disruptor in the law firm space. So, you know, look out for those two things. And, you know, I just challenge everyone to challenge the status quo. You know, that's, that's what we're all here for.[00:31:17] Dan Runcie That's the only way the industry grows, right? [00:31:19] Karl Fowlkes Yeah.[00:31:19] Dan Runcie  Exactly. I appreciate you, man. Thank you.[00:31:22] Karl Fowlkes All right.[00:31:24] Dan Runcie  If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share it with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups, wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review. Tell people why you liked the podcast. That helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.