September 16, 2022 • 36 mins
Adrian developed a following thanks to a steady string of projects in the mid-2010s, which featured musical assists from major acts like Destiny’s Child alumna Kelly Rowland and rappers Wale and Too $hort.
His debut mixtape, 2013’s 7 Days Of WEAK, was released under Universal Republic Records, and featured production by the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Beatroc and more. The seven-song effort introduced fans to the open, emotionally-driven lyricist Marcel continues to be.
Adrian tells us about his experience with label company, his decision to be an independant artist, building Marcel University, and educates about the contracts in the music industry.
Host IG:@itstanyatime
Guest IG: @adrianmarcel
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey, money Movers, Welcome
back to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our
(00:22):
next guest is an East Oakland native, a graduate of
the prestigious Oakland School for the Fine Arts, and he
is an R and B artist, the CEO of Third
Voice music group, an actor, a teacher. This young man
does it all. Money Movers, please welcome the platinum selling
R and B artist Adrian Marcel to the podcast. What's
(00:42):
going on? How is everybody doing? How you doing? Oh?
Good to see you, Adrian. Thank you so much for
being here today. Hey, thank you for having me. It's
a pleasure. Well, it is certainly a pleasure to have
you on here. Where are you you're calling in from?
Are you in Oakland right now? Or where are you? Yes,
I'm in the town right now. He's shot. Uh. Well
it looks beautiful. Um, super super happy to have you
(01:03):
here on the podcast. You know, on our podcast on
Money Moves, we like to learn about our artists and
how they've turned you know, their passions, whether it's in music,
entrepreneurship and all sorts of different backgrounds into a business
so that we can sort of lay the foundation and
road maps for other up and coming entrepreneurs no matter
what industry they're in. So I'm really happy to have
(01:24):
you here today because I know you've sort of worn
many hats throughout your career and yeah, you've done a lot.
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, you know, it's uh, it's
been a blessing, you know. Um, you know, with with
with everything, it's been a learning experience that I've done. Um,
I'm very big on kind of going through it, figuring
it out, finding out, you know, all the information that
(01:44):
that I need for me that's gonna help me, you know,
propel myself. And um, you know it's you take some
ills and which I look at as lessons not losses,
you know, and you apply them, you know, and you
and you move forward and you do better, you know.
So can you take a batch at the beginning? How
did you get your start in the music industry? Did
you always know you were going to be a musician?
(02:05):
You know what I want to say, Yeah, I want
to say yea because it was something that I've done
since I was a kid. You know, I've loved music
since before I even knew what it was, you know.
I mean videos of me dancing as soon as this
music comes on, trying to sing. You know, I wasn't
one of those kids that sounded really good at a
young age. But I think I think what practice makes perfect,
(02:29):
you know. UM, But yeah, for me, it was it
was something I think my my mom's and pops saw early,
you know, that it was something I had a passion for,
and they just stayed on me about it, you know. Uh,
they kept me in as many programs so I could
be in from Young Musicians programs at Berkeley, uh U
C Berkeley and UM Open School for the Arts, you know,
(02:52):
UM as far I mean, just just anything I could
I could get involved and I was in. So I
think it was always a thing for me young that
I knew that's what I wanted to do, you know. UM.
Of course I had other other endeavors that I wanted
to get into, but I feel like, you know, I
was always pushed towards music. I was always pushed there first,
you know. UM. And how I really got my start was,
(03:15):
you know, out here in Oakland, it's a very competitive place. Um,
there's a lot of talent here. I mean every corner
you turn, you can find somebody who's doing something pretty amazing,
you know, um and creative or organic, something that's true
to self, you know. And um, I was moving around
really young, going in club sneaking in club getting good
with the you know what I mean, getting real good
(03:36):
with the with the bouncers, you know what I mean.
And they let me in, you know, make sure you're
gonna go upstairs, make sure you stay right here. That alright? Cool.
I just want to perform, That's it. And um, I
would perform, and it would always it would always turn heads.
It would always have people like yo, who is this kid? Um?
(03:57):
And I think around two thousand and eleven, I got
a call from my first manager and uh, you know,
he called me. He was like, y'all want to bring
you out to Atlanta, you know, working on some records.
You know, see how that is. So I'm like, all right, cool,
I was supposed to be out there for thirty days.
It turned into five years. Yeah. Yeah, So I lived
(04:17):
out there in Lithonia for for a long, long minute,
you know, and a lot of those years I think
in Atlanta really showed me the business. You know, I
was able to be around, you know, all of these
other creatives and entities and and you know, it was
something different from what I was used to seeing in
in the Bay and in Oakland, you know. But for me,
(04:38):
I always messed the two, you know. And um, I
ended up working with excuse me, end up working with
Rafael Sadik, you know, we got in and um we
worked on a couple of projects seven days a week,
week after next. And then I had my head single
two Am that dropped. And then that that was really
like the takeoff for me in teen you know. And uh,
(05:01):
and then in a lot of that in that time
was a learning experience, you know, I was I was
paying attention to things, but there was there was a
lot of things I was still missing. Yeah, as a
as a young artist, I was more focused on getting
a hit record. I was more focused on you know,
the the attention and and all of that. I wasn't
kind of focusing more on how these things were coming about?
(05:23):
How do how do these opportunities come about? You know,
how do how do you make the revenue on these opportunities?
How do you make the most of them all? You know,
so It wasn't until I left from my label and
got out of all my after you had your mixtape,
you signed with Universal and so you were out of
major record label for a while. Yeah, I was there
for a good year since two thousand twelve to sixteen.
(05:48):
Was was when we we but we all decided, you know,
because you know in the labels, you know you have,
you know, disagreements, you have, you know, other visions that
you want to take on, you know. UM. And the
good thing about it was there was never any any
slight you know, in any like issues. It was just
we we knew that we couldn't come to um uh
(06:09):
an agreement on what the vision should be, you know.
And they still respected and respected what I what I did,
my talent, I respected everything that they had did for me.
So you know, we were able to walk away and
um and luckily me not get shelved and a bail
on my head, you know what I'm saying. So I
was good with that, you know. UM And even in
that in that time, you know, I think instead of
(06:31):
me being upset or feeling down about it, I really
took that as a time to take a take a
second instead of trying to look for a new deal
and really get to the just of what I really wanted,
you know. And um, I realized that I didn't want
to just be an artist. I didn't want to just
go back and get another deal and do it the
same way. You know. I wanted to be better if
(06:51):
I was gonna come back to it. I wanted to
know more. I wanted to be worth more, you know.
And um, so I decided to be independent, and I
decided to to really sit back for the next two
years eighteen. I just did a lot of research. I
did a lot of studying. I did a lot of
like self searching, and and that's when I started my label,
(07:13):
Third Voice Music Group. You know, I decided, I said,
all of these, all of these things that I've been
able to see and witness and be around, you know,
it's time to start applying them. It's time to start
putting them in motion. And so, you know, I feel
like sometimes, you know, the music industry, the record business,
starting independent labels, oftentimes like there's just not a lot
of guidance. You either have someone who like yourself, has
(07:34):
like learned from their mistakes. Um but you know what
I think is super interesting about this is you started
Marcel University, Yeah, which actually lays the foundation out for
so many up and coming entrepreneurs. And I don't think
there's a lot of places like that out there. This
is pretty revolution and that's the thing for me I
did when I was in even though I went into
(07:55):
open school for the arts, which was prepared me for
everything today, you know. I mean, I don't think if
I don't think if I would win somewhere else, I
would be able to do this job the way that
I do it, you know, or be prepared for what
you have to be prepared for in this career, you know. Um.
But one thing I noticed that they didn't teach us
(08:15):
was the music business. They taught us everything about the music,
you know, but not the music business. And I mean
to some extent, it wasn't like the teachers there were
used to the industry then themselves were right you you know,
you would you would you would hope, you know, and
these teachers were really young at the time, you know.
So for me, I started to think about the things
(08:39):
that I missed. I missed a lot of royalties, I
missed a lot of mechanicals, I missed a lot of
um information on copyrights, what it really means, like who
really owns them? You know? How do you obtain that? Um?
You know, the different payouts for producers and writers and artists,
split sheets and contracts and all of these things that
(08:59):
you don't pay tension to because you are you're so
focused on the smoking mirrors, you know, mirrors like building
a fan things that really don't things that really don't matter.
The fan base does, yes, but it's more about how
you obtain it. It's more about how you how you
sustain it as well. So you know, for me, I
(09:21):
start again. I just started diving into these things and
in the time if I was learning, and I'm like, yo,
you know how many kids would need this information? You
know how many people out there don't just it's just
by by ignorance, like you just don't more, we're not taught,
you know. And so many, so many artists now are
locked in contracts that have you know, horrible teams. And
(09:44):
it's continuous. It's continuous, I mean since to be since
the dawn of days, you know what I mean, even
still today there are people who are still signing ridiculous contracts,
you know what I mean. And I think I'm one
of those people who not only do I learn from
my experiences, but I also learned from other people's experiences
as well. I watched, I watch people's steps, and um,
(10:07):
you know, I just decided, I said, you know, I
want to have something where I can get back to,
you know, to the younger generations, because that's who's really
going to take over. It's not about you know, people
my age at this point. I mean, you know, of
course I want to teach everyone, but I really want
to go to the core of you know, who's up next?
And and and go ahead, you look like you have
(10:29):
no I mean, I just love this because I feel
like it's exactly that, Like you're looking to help the
core of who's up and nest and I feel like
there's so many basics that people don't really realize, even
honestly for someone not coming from the music industry. You know,
but I'm an entrepreneur. I invest in early stage companies
and businesses. You know the question of well, what's the
difference between a record label and an independent artist starting
(10:51):
their own you know, like, can you answer that just
point blank for most of these people and tell us
like some of the pros and cons So with the
difference between that a record label is a machine, there
are many many entities. There are many parts and and
things that go into this machine that make it run
the way it runs. When you are independent, it is you.
(11:13):
You are labeled if you're smart, because there's some people
who claim to be independent, but there's still other people,
other entities that are running their stuff for me. When
I said independent, I wanted, I truly meant me. You know,
everything is on you. You're talking about videos. You gotta
first of all, you gotta you gotta have a team
that's gonna write these songs with you. You know, you're
(11:34):
gonna have a team that's gonna produce these records with you,
an engineer who's gonna mix them, who's gonna master them.
All of these things cost uh if you're not doing
it yourself. Um, after you get it mix and mastered,
you have graphics. You gotta worry about your finding the
people to do the graphics. You're paying for them to
do the graphics. Then after that you have the promos.
You're paying for all of this stuff, you know what
(11:55):
I mean. Videos, you gotta get the videographers. You have
to know the vision, the treatments, all the rest. I mean,
being independent is just being detailed. That's what it is
in detailed, And I feel like the successes in the details.
No matter what business, it's in the details. You have
to get down to the nitty gritty. And for me,
when I first started, I was okay with bumping my head.
(12:17):
I'm like, look, this first project I work on, it's
more about the passion. It's not about it being the
best album I've ever created. It's not about it being
the most successful album I've ever created. It's about it
being a learning experience. For me. I want to know
how do I get from point A to point Z
and not miss B, C, D E F. You know
what I mean. Like, I wanted to make sure I
(12:40):
knew all of these things, and then even to this day,
I'm still learning. The other day I just um, I
just learned about broadcasting, you know, so when you have
music videos, I've always had music videos, but I didn't
have to do the placing it on TV, placing it
on you know, getting it to the radio stations, getting
into these things, and a lot of that has to
do with D M D S. So you have to
(13:01):
be you have to make sure you're signed up. You
have to make sure that all of these forms are
taken care of and information is properly put in. You
have to send it out. You gotta make sure it's
in by a deadline. And then from there two weeks
to I mean, there's all of these things that come
into play, and again it's still cost this you, this
is you playing into that. So I really just chose
(13:23):
this step of being independent because I was ready to
invest in myself and say, if I'm investing in me,
if I win, it's because of me, it's because of me.
I don't want to point no fingers at nobody, but
I think people getting misconscrued. You know that they think,
you know, a label automatically means success, and it doesn't.
A label just means that you have a team behind
(13:46):
you that will do all of this work for you.
That doesn't necessarily mean a good thing, though, because these
people are not coming to you to say, hey, Adrian,
let me show you what we're doing. This is we
do X, Y and Z. This is how you get
this done. No, because then that would mean you don't
need us no more, don't get we don't get paid,
(14:06):
so we don't really want you to know this information.
We don't want you to know all of this stuff
you have to do. And then on the other end,
you have artists that don't that don't want to know
it because it's too much, it's too much, and it's
a lot. Because honestly, when you describe it like that,
it's almost like you're the artist and you're the CEO
of this entire everything. You can't complain to anybody. You
can't go you can't go to nobody to say, you
(14:28):
know for nothing. You have to really be willing to
have have the endurance to take on the things that
you don't know, to learn them, to adjust quickly, be accurate,
uh you know, with the with with enough agility to
get it done in proper times, you know. And you
just have to be secure. Independent means you are secure
with a slow build. You have you're okay with the
(14:49):
building slow. And for me, that's fine because I'm taking
step one, step two, step three. I'm not going from
step one and it's a marathon. It's a marathon, like
Nip said, you know, And I feel like when you
when you're taking on these things, you automatically start to
learn new new things. You start to learn things that
you didn't you didn't understand or would never even fathom
(15:11):
had anything to do with this, and some of them don't.
Some of them lead you into other things, you know,
because of music. Again, we talked about Marcella University. I've
been led into teaching. I've been led into real estate.
I've been led into you know, UM publishing and UH royalties,
all of these different things that can build new avenues
(15:32):
of revenue, you know, UM, when you're on a when
you're not independent, when you're on the label, your contracted
to basically be like NA, we don't really want you
to do nothing else but in that studio and record
or show up when we tell you to. You know
what I mean? And it again, it's really all about
(15:53):
what you know, what you bring to the table, what
you're worth, you know. And I feel like when I
came into the game, aim, I wasn't really worth nothing,
you know, I didn't have anything. I feel like, you know,
you've had this long, illustrious career, you're going to awards.
What was it that inspired you to really give back
and create the university? Well, because I just feel like
(16:14):
I'm where I'm from, I'm I'm big on I'm big
on knowing that longevity doesn't always have to do with
you individually. Longevity and more life comes from what you
put in the soil, you know what I mean. So
I wanted to come back to the soil and put
and plant seeds. You know that years from now, it's
(16:35):
not about what I'm doing. It's about what I what
I helped someone else, do you know what I mean?
And not so that they could say, yo, Adrian Martell,
are Martill. It's not about that. It's about me being
able to look down the look up down the line
and say, okay, I added to this culture. You know,
I put something that was meaningful into this culture. These kids,
you know, I'd always say, so many talented kids there,
(16:57):
you know. And it only started there because that was
my that's where I graduated and I and again I
didn't have it there. So I knew that there was
a program that they didn't have. So we came up
with a curriculum that was to show them exactly how
the industry works and took them in real time. The
way I learned. I learned by hands on. I gotta
do it. I can't. You can't tell me all these things,
(17:20):
and I write it down and then I go try it.
It's not gonna work. It's not gonna work for me.
Like that. So that's the way I taught it. You know.
We we we came into the school, We held auditions.
We had about a hundred kids calm auditions. We picked
twenty of them, which was extremely hard, you know what
I'm more, um, you know, we we picked twenty of them,
(17:40):
and we broke them up. You know, we picked we
had producers, we had writers, we had art we had singers, rappers,
and we also had you know, some some that were
more focused on management, you know, who wanted to be
you know, they could sing or they could do this,
but they were more focused on being behind the scenes.
But we picked twenty of them, um, based on their
(18:00):
auditions and based on their correctords at the school, like
you know, how much they're doing and all that, and um,
I just broke them up. I broke them up in
the groups, and I made sure that I put them
with people that they weren't used used to working with.
You know. So a lot of these kids never performed together,
not even in the same classes. Probably didn't even talk
(18:21):
to each other, you know, what I mean on on
a daily basis. But it taught them. You know, in
this in this industry, you're not unless you're extremely lucky,
you're not gonna be working with everybody you love working
with everybody. That's how it goes. And you have to
make it work. And and in any business, you have
to make it work. You have to. You can't complain like,
you know, I don't get along with this person, Well,
(18:42):
then you don't get along with a check, because you're
gonna stop yourself. You're gonna stop yourself from getting money
because you can't control your emotions or your character, you know.
And with them, we would put them in groups, some
of them that would be all produced, maybe producers and
one one singer notes songwriter. There's no management that lesson
(19:03):
would come. There's a there's an engineer and another group
over here. So maybe you got to go over there
and go contract that person. What do those contracts look like?
What do those split sheets look like? What do they
you know? So we we broke it down into categories
and each class, you know what, we talked about copyrights.
Maybe one class, the next class we went away. It
was just gonna ask you this, can you outline your
(19:24):
core curriculum because the things that go into the music
business from copyrights to publish, So broke it down. We
broke it down copyrights, publishing and royalties, um. From there,
it was like artists development, um, contracts, splitsheets. We went
down from you know, I mean just just everything from again,
(19:47):
like I said, in the artist development field, you know,
and they would learn all of these things and then
with throughout the day after we would go through it,
you know, we would apply it at the end of
the course. So a they all of these things that
you that you've been doing, You've been taking these notes,
you've been in your groups. In the meantime in between time,
they're working on songs and records, because the whole goal
(20:09):
was to at the end of the course have an
EP have about five songs of one record from each group.
They could do more if they want to, but the
goal was to have one song for each and again
they would have to figure that out on their time.
It wasn't just during class because we would only meet
twice a month, you know, so in between that time
(20:30):
they would have to figure out how to get these
things done. You know, it's on you because when you
get in this business, it's on you. If you miss something,
you can't say they didn't teach it to me, you
didn't try to apply, you didn't try to That's not
how this business works. Every single Yeah, a lot of
it was was on them to be responsible for. But
(20:51):
in the but also at the end of the course,
we would have these files of contracts, split sheets. We
would have breakdowns of how this song was recorded where
I mean all of the details like we talked about
that would go into it, we had. That was how
they were graded. They were graded on the chorus based
on their finals, so not only the song. The song
(21:13):
could be great, but I don't see, like how was
it contracted? How was the split sheets? Robbed? Your p
R O s Who did anybody? Did any of you
join the pr oh as cat BM I C Sack whoever?
Even now for you, my mind is being blown. I'm like,
what are all those things? What's a p R oh,
what's a split sheet? And you know these are things
that are your publishing. You're publishing is how you know.
(21:35):
So with publishing, if you're on the if your song
gets on the radio, if your song gets placed on TV,
if your song is being used in any type of place.
It's like that that's publishing. You gotta check for that,
you know what I mean? And based on the percent
So in at like an ascot, they got to learn
bus downs. They got to learn that has to go
to the publishing and fifty has to go to the writers,
(21:57):
and and you have to break that up however you
can and ask uh b M I is two um?
I mean, so all of these different things they needed
to know. And then it was also breakdowns of how
people are paid out. Producers are supposed to get. Now,
if they have a manager or if they have somebody
an agency who's working with them, whatever they contracted to
(22:18):
split with them or to you know, their percentages that
they're giving up, then they give up that percent. But
if there's four different producers, y'all gotta figure out how
y'all bust that down. You know, for riders, you gotta
figure out how you bust that percent down. And if
there's an artist who's well known, maybe they automatically take
but they didn't write anything. That's the that's the game though,
(22:42):
you know, So we're teaching the real time. It's not
just the basics, it's the real thing you might. I mean,
the money's in the details. I'm gonna think about that
all day now, the moneys in the Yeah, it's all
in the details. And then on top of that, there's
different there's different avenues of revenue from one song. You know,
there's pub wishing, there's royal, there's your your your masters.
(23:03):
Masters are totally different from publishing. That's a whole different
check masters are when are are when you know, streaming
and and things like that you get, you know, and
then also teaching them the the what what a stream
counts for? I think you know, you're thinking it's this
big money, but it's like not for every million streams
you only get you know, maybe maybe about six thousand,
(23:25):
seven thousand, you know, I would have thought that was
way bigger. No, that's and that's just Spotify. I think
Spotify seven apples or Spotify is like five apples, like seven.
The one that pays out the one of the most
is titles titles about twelve thousand for every million streams
tubes they pay out. They're definitely nowhere near them. And
(23:47):
I think you get like a thousand, uh for every
million views that you get or something like that. You know, um,
but again, all of these things, all of these little
details that you can get paid for that they had
no idea, And a lot of them already have music
out benefit's registered. That means there's no way for you
to know if you have any money coming in, you
(24:08):
know what I mean, Like you're just putting music out
and one day somebody comes along because their mentality is
like mine was at the time, Well nobody knows me,
so what does it matter. It's like, no, you never
know when you're gonna hit. Yeah, and you want to
have all of that documented. Yeah, you you hit tomorrow
and then boom. You ain't got nothing registered, you don't
(24:28):
have nothing together, none of your stuff is aligned, you're
not even you're not even with the p r O.
So that takes about a month or two for them
to even approve you. So your song is doing numbers,
you know what I mean, And you know, and then
and then you only have a certain amount of time
that you're able to obtain those royalties, you know, because
after a while they go into a black box which
is called black black box royalties, which means it just
(24:51):
goes into a big galaxy of nothing where these p
r O s end up taking your money and using
it for other things, you know what I mean. Like,
so it's it's things like that you get and I
was teaching them that they get paid for performances that
you know, you can register your songs and your performances,
so if you do a ten city tour, you can
register register for those and your pr oh, depending on
(25:14):
who you're with, will pay you for your your shows
on top of the money that you made for your show,
Like you know what I mean. I feel like you know,
you're also like a very multi dimensional individual as well.
You've now partlaid this long career in music and you
started acting now too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think acting
(25:35):
was really my first love. Honestly. You know when I
went to when I went to always say I got
in for theater and for music vocal music, but you
have to pick one. And the funny part about me
is I started in theater, you know, because I thought
it was gonna be fun all the time. And uh,
the first week I was in there, my teacher hit
(25:58):
us up with four essays you know that we're like
about you know, I mean eight hundreds and you know
what I mean, Uh, all these different all these different
old school ideas and stuff, and I'm like, you know,
this is not what I was trying to get into.
So I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm ahead to vocal music.
(26:20):
So y'all do y'all thing. I'm gonna go up there.
And I ended up going to Vocal Music and I
spent the rest of my time there. But every year
I was always in the musical. I was always starring
in one of the musical. So my first year I
started as the scarecrow in the Whiz Chicago. We did
a play called The Wild Party. And then I also
(26:41):
started to actually do things that that didn't involve music.
And that's really when I knew acting was something I loved.
I didn't want to hide behind my voice, you know.
So tell me about the process now of like making
this transition. How were you able to like book gigs
and get jobs. Do you feel like you're learning curve
was just to steep transitioning to the acting world. Oh? Absolutely,
(27:04):
you know, um, you know, not having an agent, not
having anybody that you know, was even more knowledgeable on
on the subject than I was than I am. You know,
I had to do really what I've always done and
just kind of get it out the mud, you know
what I mean, like go out there and figure it out.
Go out there and go talk, go network, go get
(27:25):
in the get in front of people's face, because you know,
face value is one of the biggest things in this industry,
you know. And um, I have put some equity in
before just by taking some auditions, finding out, you know,
what shows were coming up, what movies were doing auditions for.
And I would just throw myself out there and I
would audition. I would drive down to l A. I
mean sometimes it would be like you get hit on
(27:47):
Thursday and they're like, we need you here Friday morning, Uh,
in l A to do an audition. And the audition
is only like three minutes. But hey, hey yr gas
or your car whatever, my ob down the l A.
You know, do it. And you know it was because
you know, especially in acting, it's it's it's even sometimes
(28:09):
to me a lot harder than the music industry because
there's so many people that are coming in at one time,
you know, And I really just looked up. I ended
up getting um getting a look for the Bobby de
bar story on TV one, you know, and uh, it
was actually one of the casting directors who I had
seen many times from me auditioning, and uh, I think
(28:33):
I looked up because it's not a lot of light
skinned singer you know the bar out there, you know.
You know. So it happened and they sent me that,
they sent me the audition knocked it out the park.
I instantly got the role and I got to really
see what set like. Was like, I got to see that, Yeah,
this is something that I really enjoy. And I think
(28:56):
the pay is different. You know, for for music, there
ain't no runt, there ain't there ain't none of that,
you know what I mean, unless you have leverage, unless
you you've already put some worth out there. You know.
It's a lot of back in um. With acting. It's
like you get them checks on time, you know what
I mean. We're gonna pay you for every day you here.
(29:16):
You're gonna get per diem. We're gonna feed you so
you don't gotta buy food. You don't gotta you know.
I mean, yeah, when you when you're hit to hit
the life, when you hit, you hit, you know, And
and that's really that's really where it started. That gave
me the ultimate bite because I was like, yeah, this
is something that I need to incorporate, you know. And
from there it was just met. Even though I was
(29:37):
on set. If I had time where they were saying, Okay,
y'all can hang out in your dressing rooms or trailers,
I'm like, no, I want to be around here looking
at talking to the cameraman. I want to be talking
to that loosers. I want to stood up here and
see what you do and how you do this, and
and for me, because my thing was Okay, I'm acting,
but I'm gonna apply what I learned in this music
business and what I feel I missed to this acting.
(29:59):
So I'm not gonna miss it if I'm sitting here
as an actor by the time I leave. I want
to be able to be prepared to be a producer,
to be an executive producer, to be understand the whole
industry againwriter, Yeah, I understand it all. So I was
big on sitting around people and chopping it up and
having real conversations that I could hold onto and apply,
(30:19):
you know. Um, And that's really where I where I
ended up. You know, I've been writing a bunch of scripts.
We've been working with different riends of mine. Where we
were we had. We're actually working on a script that's
a called bro Code, you know. So, I mean there's
a lot of things that you know that inspired me
from that one job, um, and also catapulted me to
(30:40):
more jobs. You know, there was a TV show I
did where I was able to do some sitcom type
of yeah yeah, which was really cool. I mean, a
bunch of short films that I've been working on, you know,
throughout this year now that are geared to come out.
A matter of fact, one of my one of my
short films that I did earlier this year, just one
(31:01):
I think like nine awards. Yeah yeah, I think best
best Romantic, uh seeing, best Chemistry. I mean, it's all
these different things and when I'm like, wow, a thirty
minute film that took me, you know, a day to
do start arean. That's really incredible though, And that's got
to feel good because you've been you know, you've been
(31:21):
in the game a long time. You put in your time,
you've given back, and you know you're you're on the
path to greatness. Do you have any tips as we
as we close out for you know, how people can
really break into the industry, maybe how they can find
an agent, but what would you tell younger Adrian today.
I would definitely tell younger Adrian to get up, stop
(31:42):
asking for so many things and go out there and
go do go out there and just go get to it. Creative.
It's in the world we live in today. You don't
have to you don't have to go by any rules.
You know, there's nothing that you have to follow. You know,
people are making it up as they're going. And there
are people who are being very successful at it, you know, um,
taking their own routes, taking their organic routes. And I
(32:04):
feel like so many of us at a young age
are taught that there's one way to do something, you
know what I mean, there's one way to do there's
one way to be successful, and it's not you know.
My My thing is really more about, you know, learning
as much as you can learn everything. You can talk
(32:25):
to everybody, find out what they do, why it's important,
how you can learn it, how you can do it.
You know what I mean. I'm I produce, I write,
I sing act um, I write scripts, UM, I'm learning
more engineering now, UM, teaching um into real estate, you know,
building a home, building my home right now. I mean,
(32:46):
you know, all of these things. I feel like, as
much as you know, the more you know, the more
you can do, and you can apply to every business
you create, you know, But as far as you know,
finding an agent, make them find you. I've been find you.
You know. I'm very big on I'm very very big
on people working with you that are fans or that
(33:09):
are inspired by you, or that even eager to work
with you, rather than you're going out and begging, you know, please,
I'm looking. I'm looking for this. I'm looking for that
that works, that can work. But for me, it just
it hasn't weighed as much as when I go out
there and I bring people to me. You know, I've
(33:30):
learned that you can send a million emails all day,
but people want to see what you're doing. That's what
brings them to you. They want to see that you
work and how are you making it work? You got lemons?
Did you make lemonade? Did you make did you make lemon? Chicken?
Did you make? I mean, what what did you what
did you do? You know what I mean? And I
think that's what it's about. That would be my advice
(33:50):
to anybody that's trying to break into the industry. Create
the industry around you, Adrian. I love that. That is
great advice because I think that you know if but
like yourself are truly you manifest so much, but you
put the time to work behind him to make it
happen right, And I appreciate your time today. Yeah, thank you,
thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a it's
(34:12):
been a pleasure to talk about it. Can you make
sure before we close out, can you tell everyone where
they can find you on social media and also where
they can sign up for your university, your mentorship programs.
We need to know all the details, absolutely, so, Adrian Marshall,
you can look me up on this thing called Google.
It has all this information that drops that drops underneath
(34:32):
the name, and tell you all of this. But Adrian
Marcelle on Instagram follow me. Um, also Adrian Marcelle, Adrian marself.
If I want on Twitter to get into the university
to a matter of fact, just to have a conversation
with me and with the team, you can actually call me.
I'm locked in with super phone. That's brought to you
(34:52):
by Ryan Leslie, another super talented and extreme and a
genius in my opinion. Um, But the number five one
oh seven three seven seven, five eight, or you can
just go to text Adrian dot com. It is my
real cell phone. It's sitting right here, I'm texting. I'm
talking to people in real time. UM. But yeah, the
(35:12):
best way to get involved in in Marcella University is
to call me to what to text me and we
can start the conversation and figuring out what it is
that you want to know, what you're trying to learn,
what you're trying to do, you know, um, and then
also you know there's more music on the way. Uh.
Marcell EP is dropping at the end of this year,
so I'm extremely excited about that. Just stay tuned. It's
(35:33):
a lot coming. We're locked in. We're locked in, all right, Adrian.
That's all we have time for today. Money Movers, Please
check out Adrian's music follow him on socio so that
you don't miss any of the new stuff that he's
working on any of his music drops. We look forward
to seeing it. Thank you so much, Thank you so
much for having me, Thank you so much for tuning
in Money Moves audience. If you want more or a
(35:54):
recap of this episode, please go to the Bank Greenwood
dot com and check out the Money moves cast blog.
Funny Moves is an I heart radio podcast powered by
Greenwoods Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts
on I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
(36:14):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from m
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey, money Movers, Welcome
back to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our
(00:22):
next guest is an East Oakland native, a graduate of
the prestigious Oakland School for the Fine Arts, and he
is an R and B artist, the CEO of Third
Voice music group, an actor, a teacher. This young man
does it all. Money Movers, please welcome the platinum selling
R and B artist Adrian Marcel to the podcast. What's
(00:42):
going on? How is everybody doing? How you doing? Oh?
Good to see you, Adrian. Thank you so much for
being here today. Hey, thank you for having me. It's
a pleasure. Well, it is certainly a pleasure to have
you on here. Where are you you're calling in from?
Are you in Oakland right now? Or where are you? Yes,
I'm in the town right now. He's shot. Uh. Well
it looks beautiful. Um, super super happy to have you
(01:03):
here on the podcast. You know, on our podcast on
Money Moves, we like to learn about our artists and
how they've turned you know, their passions, whether it's in music,
entrepreneurship and all sorts of different backgrounds into a business
so that we can sort of lay the foundation and
road maps for other up and coming entrepreneurs no matter
what industry they're in. So I'm really happy to have
(01:24):
you here today because I know you've sort of worn
many hats throughout your career and yeah, you've done a lot.
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, you know, it's uh, it's
been a blessing, you know. Um, you know, with with
with everything, it's been a learning experience that I've done. Um,
I'm very big on kind of going through it, figuring
it out, finding out, you know, all the information that
(01:44):
that I need for me that's gonna help me, you know,
propel myself. And um, you know it's you take some
ills and which I look at as lessons not losses,
you know, and you apply them, you know, and you
and you move forward and you do better, you know.
So can you take a batch at the beginning? How
did you get your start in the music industry? Did
you always know you were going to be a musician?
(02:05):
You know what I want to say, Yeah, I want
to say yea because it was something that I've done
since I was a kid. You know, I've loved music
since before I even knew what it was, you know.
I mean videos of me dancing as soon as this
music comes on, trying to sing. You know, I wasn't
one of those kids that sounded really good at a
young age. But I think I think what practice makes perfect,
(02:29):
you know. UM, But yeah, for me, it was it
was something I think my my mom's and pops saw early,
you know, that it was something I had a passion for,
and they just stayed on me about it, you know. Uh,
they kept me in as many programs so I could
be in from Young Musicians programs at Berkeley, uh U
C Berkeley and UM Open School for the Arts, you know,
(02:52):
UM as far I mean, just just anything I could
I could get involved and I was in. So I
think it was always a thing for me young that
I knew that's what I wanted to do, you know. UM.
Of course I had other other endeavors that I wanted
to get into, but I feel like, you know, I
was always pushed towards music. I was always pushed there first,
you know. UM. And how I really got my start was,
(03:15):
you know, out here in Oakland, it's a very competitive place. Um,
there's a lot of talent here. I mean every corner
you turn, you can find somebody who's doing something pretty amazing,
you know, um and creative or organic, something that's true
to self, you know. And um, I was moving around
really young, going in club sneaking in club getting good
with the you know what I mean, getting real good
(03:36):
with the with the bouncers, you know what I mean.
And they let me in, you know, make sure you're
gonna go upstairs, make sure you stay right here. That alright? Cool.
I just want to perform, That's it. And um, I
would perform, and it would always it would always turn heads.
It would always have people like yo, who is this kid? Um?
(03:57):
And I think around two thousand and eleven, I got
a call from my first manager and uh, you know,
he called me. He was like, y'all want to bring
you out to Atlanta, you know, working on some records.
You know, see how that is. So I'm like, all right, cool,
I was supposed to be out there for thirty days.
It turned into five years. Yeah. Yeah, So I lived
(04:17):
out there in Lithonia for for a long, long minute,
you know, and a lot of those years I think
in Atlanta really showed me the business. You know, I
was able to be around, you know, all of these
other creatives and entities and and you know, it was
something different from what I was used to seeing in
in the Bay and in Oakland, you know. But for me,
(04:38):
I always messed the two, you know. And um, I
ended up working with excuse me, end up working with
Rafael Sadik, you know, we got in and um we
worked on a couple of projects seven days a week,
week after next. And then I had my head single
two Am that dropped. And then that that was really
like the takeoff for me in teen you know. And uh,
(05:01):
and then in a lot of that in that time
was a learning experience, you know, I was I was
paying attention to things, but there was there was a
lot of things I was still missing. Yeah, as a
as a young artist, I was more focused on getting
a hit record. I was more focused on you know,
the the attention and and all of that. I wasn't
kind of focusing more on how these things were coming about?
(05:23):
How do how do these opportunities come about? You know,
how do how do you make the revenue on these opportunities?
How do you make the most of them all? You know,
so It wasn't until I left from my label and
got out of all my after you had your mixtape,
you signed with Universal and so you were out of
major record label for a while. Yeah, I was there
for a good year since two thousand twelve to sixteen.
(05:48):
Was was when we we but we all decided, you know,
because you know in the labels, you know you have,
you know, disagreements, you have, you know, other visions that
you want to take on, you know. UM. And the
good thing about it was there was never any any
slight you know, in any like issues. It was just
we we knew that we couldn't come to um uh
(06:09):
an agreement on what the vision should be, you know.
And they still respected and respected what I what I did,
my talent, I respected everything that they had did for me.
So you know, we were able to walk away and
um and luckily me not get shelved and a bail
on my head, you know what I'm saying. So I
was good with that, you know. UM And even in
that in that time, you know, I think instead of
(06:31):
me being upset or feeling down about it, I really
took that as a time to take a take a
second instead of trying to look for a new deal
and really get to the just of what I really wanted,
you know. And um, I realized that I didn't want
to just be an artist. I didn't want to just
go back and get another deal and do it the
same way. You know. I wanted to be better if
(06:51):
I was gonna come back to it. I wanted to
know more. I wanted to be worth more, you know.
And um, so I decided to be independent, and I
decided to to really sit back for the next two
years eighteen. I just did a lot of research. I
did a lot of studying. I did a lot of
like self searching, and and that's when I started my label,
(07:13):
Third Voice Music Group. You know, I decided, I said,
all of these, all of these things that I've been
able to see and witness and be around, you know,
it's time to start applying them. It's time to start
putting them in motion. And so, you know, I feel
like sometimes, you know, the music industry, the record business,
starting independent labels, oftentimes like there's just not a lot
of guidance. You either have someone who like yourself, has
(07:34):
like learned from their mistakes. Um but you know what
I think is super interesting about this is you started
Marcel University, Yeah, which actually lays the foundation out for
so many up and coming entrepreneurs. And I don't think
there's a lot of places like that out there. This
is pretty revolution and that's the thing for me I
did when I was in even though I went into
(07:55):
open school for the arts, which was prepared me for
everything today, you know. I mean, I don't think if
I don't think if I would win somewhere else, I
would be able to do this job the way that
I do it, you know, or be prepared for what
you have to be prepared for in this career, you know. Um.
But one thing I noticed that they didn't teach us
(08:15):
was the music business. They taught us everything about the music,
you know, but not the music business. And I mean
to some extent, it wasn't like the teachers there were
used to the industry then themselves were right you you know,
you would you would you would hope, you know, and
these teachers were really young at the time, you know.
So for me, I started to think about the things
(08:39):
that I missed. I missed a lot of royalties, I
missed a lot of mechanicals, I missed a lot of
um information on copyrights, what it really means, like who
really owns them? You know? How do you obtain that? Um?
You know, the different payouts for producers and writers and artists,
split sheets and contracts and all of these things that
(08:59):
you don't pay tension to because you are you're so
focused on the smoking mirrors, you know, mirrors like building
a fan things that really don't things that really don't matter.
The fan base does, yes, but it's more about how
you obtain it. It's more about how you how you
sustain it as well. So you know, for me, I
(09:21):
start again. I just started diving into these things and
in the time if I was learning, and I'm like, yo,
you know how many kids would need this information? You
know how many people out there don't just it's just
by by ignorance, like you just don't more, we're not taught,
you know. And so many, so many artists now are
locked in contracts that have you know, horrible teams. And
(09:44):
it's continuous. It's continuous, I mean since to be since
the dawn of days, you know what I mean, even
still today there are people who are still signing ridiculous contracts,
you know what I mean. And I think I'm one
of those people who not only do I learn from
my experiences, but I also learned from other people's experiences
as well. I watched, I watch people's steps, and um,
(10:07):
you know, I just decided, I said, you know, I
want to have something where I can get back to,
you know, to the younger generations, because that's who's really
going to take over. It's not about you know, people
my age at this point. I mean, you know, of
course I want to teach everyone, but I really want
to go to the core of you know, who's up next?
And and and go ahead, you look like you have
(10:29):
no I mean, I just love this because I feel
like it's exactly that, Like you're looking to help the
core of who's up and nest and I feel like
there's so many basics that people don't really realize, even
honestly for someone not coming from the music industry. You know,
but I'm an entrepreneur. I invest in early stage companies
and businesses. You know the question of well, what's the
difference between a record label and an independent artist starting
(10:51):
their own you know, like, can you answer that just
point blank for most of these people and tell us
like some of the pros and cons So with the
difference between that a record label is a machine, there
are many many entities. There are many parts and and
things that go into this machine that make it run
the way it runs. When you are independent, it is you.
(11:13):
You are labeled if you're smart, because there's some people
who claim to be independent, but there's still other people,
other entities that are running their stuff for me. When
I said independent, I wanted, I truly meant me. You know,
everything is on you. You're talking about videos. You gotta
first of all, you gotta you gotta have a team
that's gonna write these songs with you. You know, you're
(11:34):
gonna have a team that's gonna produce these records with you,
an engineer who's gonna mix them, who's gonna master them.
All of these things cost uh if you're not doing
it yourself. Um, after you get it mix and mastered,
you have graphics. You gotta worry about your finding the
people to do the graphics. You're paying for them to
do the graphics. Then after that you have the promos.
You're paying for all of this stuff, you know what
(11:55):
I mean. Videos, you gotta get the videographers. You have
to know the vision, the treatments, all the rest. I mean,
being independent is just being detailed. That's what it is
in detailed, And I feel like the successes in the details.
No matter what business, it's in the details. You have
to get down to the nitty gritty. And for me,
when I first started, I was okay with bumping my head.
(12:17):
I'm like, look, this first project I work on, it's
more about the passion. It's not about it being the
best album I've ever created. It's not about it being
the most successful album I've ever created. It's about it
being a learning experience. For me. I want to know
how do I get from point A to point Z
and not miss B, C, D E F. You know
what I mean. Like, I wanted to make sure I
(12:40):
knew all of these things, and then even to this day,
I'm still learning. The other day I just um, I
just learned about broadcasting, you know, so when you have
music videos, I've always had music videos, but I didn't
have to do the placing it on TV, placing it
on you know, getting it to the radio stations, getting
into these things, and a lot of that has to
do with D M D S. So you have to
(13:01):
be you have to make sure you're signed up. You
have to make sure that all of these forms are
taken care of and information is properly put in. You
have to send it out. You gotta make sure it's
in by a deadline. And then from there two weeks
to I mean, there's all of these things that come
into play, and again it's still cost this you, this
is you playing into that. So I really just chose
(13:23):
this step of being independent because I was ready to
invest in myself and say, if I'm investing in me,
if I win, it's because of me, it's because of me.
I don't want to point no fingers at nobody, but
I think people getting misconscrued. You know that they think,
you know, a label automatically means success, and it doesn't.
A label just means that you have a team behind
(13:46):
you that will do all of this work for you.
That doesn't necessarily mean a good thing, though, because these
people are not coming to you to say, hey, Adrian,
let me show you what we're doing. This is we
do X, Y and Z. This is how you get
this done. No, because then that would mean you don't
need us no more, don't get we don't get paid,
(14:06):
so we don't really want you to know this information.
We don't want you to know all of this stuff
you have to do. And then on the other end,
you have artists that don't that don't want to know
it because it's too much, it's too much, and it's
a lot. Because honestly, when you describe it like that,
it's almost like you're the artist and you're the CEO
of this entire everything. You can't complain to anybody. You
can't go you can't go to nobody to say, you
(14:28):
know for nothing. You have to really be willing to
have have the endurance to take on the things that
you don't know, to learn them, to adjust quickly, be accurate,
uh you know, with the with with enough agility to
get it done in proper times, you know. And you
just have to be secure. Independent means you are secure
with a slow build. You have you're okay with the
(14:49):
building slow. And for me, that's fine because I'm taking
step one, step two, step three. I'm not going from
step one and it's a marathon. It's a marathon, like
Nip said, you know, And I feel like when you
when you're taking on these things, you automatically start to
learn new new things. You start to learn things that
you didn't you didn't understand or would never even fathom
(15:11):
had anything to do with this, and some of them don't.
Some of them lead you into other things, you know,
because of music. Again, we talked about Marcella University. I've
been led into teaching. I've been led into real estate.
I've been led into you know, UM publishing and UH royalties,
all of these different things that can build new avenues
(15:32):
of revenue, you know, UM, when you're on a when
you're not independent, when you're on the label, your contracted
to basically be like NA, we don't really want you
to do nothing else but in that studio and record
or show up when we tell you to. You know
what I mean? And it again, it's really all about
(15:53):
what you know, what you bring to the table, what
you're worth, you know. And I feel like when I
came into the game, aim, I wasn't really worth nothing,
you know, I didn't have anything. I feel like, you know,
you've had this long, illustrious career, you're going to awards.
What was it that inspired you to really give back
and create the university? Well, because I just feel like
(16:14):
I'm where I'm from, I'm I'm big on I'm big
on knowing that longevity doesn't always have to do with
you individually. Longevity and more life comes from what you
put in the soil, you know what I mean. So
I wanted to come back to the soil and put
and plant seeds. You know that years from now, it's
(16:35):
not about what I'm doing. It's about what I what
I helped someone else, do you know what I mean?
And not so that they could say, yo, Adrian Martell,
are Martill. It's not about that. It's about me being
able to look down the look up down the line
and say, okay, I added to this culture. You know,
I put something that was meaningful into this culture. These kids,
you know, I'd always say, so many talented kids there,
(16:57):
you know. And it only started there because that was
my that's where I graduated and I and again I
didn't have it there. So I knew that there was
a program that they didn't have. So we came up
with a curriculum that was to show them exactly how
the industry works and took them in real time. The
way I learned. I learned by hands on. I gotta
do it. I can't. You can't tell me all these things,
(17:20):
and I write it down and then I go try it.
It's not gonna work. It's not gonna work for me.
Like that. So that's the way I taught it. You know.
We we we came into the school, We held auditions.
We had about a hundred kids calm auditions. We picked
twenty of them, which was extremely hard, you know what
I'm more, um, you know, we we picked twenty of them,
(17:40):
and we broke them up. You know, we picked we
had producers, we had writers, we had art we had singers, rappers,
and we also had you know, some some that were
more focused on management, you know, who wanted to be
you know, they could sing or they could do this,
but they were more focused on being behind the scenes.
But we picked twenty of them, um, based on their
(18:00):
auditions and based on their correctords at the school, like
you know, how much they're doing and all that, and um,
I just broke them up. I broke them up in
the groups, and I made sure that I put them
with people that they weren't used used to working with.
You know. So a lot of these kids never performed together,
not even in the same classes. Probably didn't even talk
(18:21):
to each other, you know, what I mean on on
a daily basis. But it taught them. You know, in
this in this industry, you're not unless you're extremely lucky,
you're not gonna be working with everybody you love working
with everybody. That's how it goes. And you have to
make it work. And and in any business, you have
to make it work. You have to. You can't complain like,
you know, I don't get along with this person, Well,
(18:42):
then you don't get along with a check, because you're
gonna stop yourself. You're gonna stop yourself from getting money
because you can't control your emotions or your character, you know.
And with them, we would put them in groups, some
of them that would be all produced, maybe producers and
one one singer notes songwriter. There's no management that lesson
(19:03):
would come. There's a there's an engineer and another group
over here. So maybe you got to go over there
and go contract that person. What do those contracts look like?
What do those split sheets look like? What do they
you know? So we we broke it down into categories
and each class, you know what, we talked about copyrights.
Maybe one class, the next class we went away. It
was just gonna ask you this, can you outline your
(19:24):
core curriculum because the things that go into the music
business from copyrights to publish, So broke it down. We
broke it down copyrights, publishing and royalties, um. From there,
it was like artists development, um, contracts, splitsheets. We went
down from you know, I mean just just everything from again,
(19:47):
like I said, in the artist development field, you know,
and they would learn all of these things and then
with throughout the day after we would go through it,
you know, we would apply it at the end of
the course. So a they all of these things that
you that you've been doing, You've been taking these notes,
you've been in your groups. In the meantime in between time,
they're working on songs and records, because the whole goal
(20:09):
was to at the end of the course have an
EP have about five songs of one record from each group.
They could do more if they want to, but the
goal was to have one song for each and again
they would have to figure that out on their time.
It wasn't just during class because we would only meet
twice a month, you know, so in between that time
(20:30):
they would have to figure out how to get these
things done. You know, it's on you because when you
get in this business, it's on you. If you miss something,
you can't say they didn't teach it to me, you
didn't try to apply, you didn't try to That's not
how this business works. Every single Yeah, a lot of
it was was on them to be responsible for. But
(20:51):
in the but also at the end of the course,
we would have these files of contracts, split sheets. We
would have breakdowns of how this song was recorded where
I mean all of the details like we talked about
that would go into it, we had. That was how
they were graded. They were graded on the chorus based
on their finals, so not only the song. The song
(21:13):
could be great, but I don't see, like how was
it contracted? How was the split sheets? Robbed? Your p
R O s Who did anybody? Did any of you
join the pr oh as cat BM I C Sack whoever?
Even now for you, my mind is being blown. I'm like,
what are all those things? What's a p R oh,
what's a split sheet? And you know these are things
that are your publishing. You're publishing is how you know.
(21:35):
So with publishing, if you're on the if your song
gets on the radio, if your song gets placed on TV,
if your song is being used in any type of place.
It's like that that's publishing. You gotta check for that,
you know what I mean? And based on the percent
So in at like an ascot, they got to learn
bus downs. They got to learn that has to go
to the publishing and fifty has to go to the writers,
(21:57):
and and you have to break that up however you
can and ask uh b M I is two um?
I mean, so all of these different things they needed
to know. And then it was also breakdowns of how
people are paid out. Producers are supposed to get. Now,
if they have a manager or if they have somebody
an agency who's working with them, whatever they contracted to
(22:18):
split with them or to you know, their percentages that
they're giving up, then they give up that percent. But
if there's four different producers, y'all gotta figure out how
y'all bust that down. You know, for riders, you gotta
figure out how you bust that percent down. And if
there's an artist who's well known, maybe they automatically take
but they didn't write anything. That's the that's the game though,
(22:42):
you know, So we're teaching the real time. It's not
just the basics, it's the real thing you might. I mean,
the money's in the details. I'm gonna think about that
all day now, the moneys in the Yeah, it's all
in the details. And then on top of that, there's
different there's different avenues of revenue from one song. You know,
there's pub wishing, there's royal, there's your your your masters.
(23:03):
Masters are totally different from publishing. That's a whole different
check masters are when are are when you know, streaming
and and things like that you get, you know, and
then also teaching them the the what what a stream
counts for? I think you know, you're thinking it's this
big money, but it's like not for every million streams
you only get you know, maybe maybe about six thousand,
(23:25):
seven thousand, you know, I would have thought that was
way bigger. No, that's and that's just Spotify. I think
Spotify seven apples or Spotify is like five apples, like seven.
The one that pays out the one of the most
is titles titles about twelve thousand for every million streams
tubes they pay out. They're definitely nowhere near them. And
(23:47):
I think you get like a thousand, uh for every
million views that you get or something like that. You know, um,
but again, all of these things, all of these little
details that you can get paid for that they had
no idea, And a lot of them already have music
out benefit's registered. That means there's no way for you
to know if you have any money coming in, you
(24:08):
know what I mean, Like you're just putting music out
and one day somebody comes along because their mentality is
like mine was at the time, Well nobody knows me,
so what does it matter. It's like, no, you never
know when you're gonna hit. Yeah, and you want to
have all of that documented. Yeah, you you hit tomorrow
and then boom. You ain't got nothing registered, you don't
(24:28):
have nothing together, none of your stuff is aligned, you're
not even you're not even with the p r O.
So that takes about a month or two for them
to even approve you. So your song is doing numbers,
you know what I mean, And you know, and then
and then you only have a certain amount of time
that you're able to obtain those royalties, you know, because
after a while they go into a black box which
is called black black box royalties, which means it just
(24:51):
goes into a big galaxy of nothing where these p
r O s end up taking your money and using
it for other things, you know what I mean. Like,
so it's it's things like that you get and I
was teaching them that they get paid for performances that
you know, you can register your songs and your performances,
so if you do a ten city tour, you can
register register for those and your pr oh, depending on
(25:14):
who you're with, will pay you for your your shows
on top of the money that you made for your show,
Like you know what I mean. I feel like you know,
you're also like a very multi dimensional individual as well.
You've now partlaid this long career in music and you
started acting now too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think acting
(25:35):
was really my first love. Honestly. You know when I
went to when I went to always say I got
in for theater and for music vocal music, but you
have to pick one. And the funny part about me
is I started in theater, you know, because I thought
it was gonna be fun all the time. And uh,
the first week I was in there, my teacher hit
(25:58):
us up with four essays you know that we're like
about you know, I mean eight hundreds and you know
what I mean, Uh, all these different all these different
old school ideas and stuff, and I'm like, you know,
this is not what I was trying to get into.
So I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm ahead to vocal music.
(26:20):
So y'all do y'all thing. I'm gonna go up there.
And I ended up going to Vocal Music and I
spent the rest of my time there. But every year
I was always in the musical. I was always starring
in one of the musical. So my first year I
started as the scarecrow in the Whiz Chicago. We did
a play called The Wild Party. And then I also
(26:41):
started to actually do things that that didn't involve music.
And that's really when I knew acting was something I loved.
I didn't want to hide behind my voice, you know.
So tell me about the process now of like making
this transition. How were you able to like book gigs
and get jobs. Do you feel like you're learning curve
was just to steep transitioning to the acting world. Oh? Absolutely,
(27:04):
you know, um, you know, not having an agent, not
having anybody that you know, was even more knowledgeable on
on the subject than I was than I am. You know,
I had to do really what I've always done and
just kind of get it out the mud, you know
what I mean, like go out there and figure it out.
Go out there and go talk, go network, go get
(27:25):
in the get in front of people's face, because you know,
face value is one of the biggest things in this industry,
you know. And um, I have put some equity in
before just by taking some auditions, finding out, you know,
what shows were coming up, what movies were doing auditions for.
And I would just throw myself out there and I
would audition. I would drive down to l A. I
mean sometimes it would be like you get hit on
(27:47):
Thursday and they're like, we need you here Friday morning, Uh,
in l A to do an audition. And the audition
is only like three minutes. But hey, hey yr gas
or your car whatever, my ob down the l A.
You know, do it. And you know it was because
you know, especially in acting, it's it's it's even sometimes
(28:09):
to me a lot harder than the music industry because
there's so many people that are coming in at one time,
you know, And I really just looked up. I ended
up getting um getting a look for the Bobby de
bar story on TV one, you know, and uh, it
was actually one of the casting directors who I had
seen many times from me auditioning, and uh, I think
(28:33):
I looked up because it's not a lot of light
skinned singer you know the bar out there, you know.
You know. So it happened and they sent me that,
they sent me the audition knocked it out the park.
I instantly got the role and I got to really
see what set like. Was like, I got to see that, Yeah,
this is something that I really enjoy. And I think
(28:56):
the pay is different. You know, for for music, there
ain't no runt, there ain't there ain't none of that,
you know what I mean, unless you have leverage, unless
you you've already put some worth out there. You know.
It's a lot of back in um. With acting. It's
like you get them checks on time, you know what
I mean. We're gonna pay you for every day you here.
(29:16):
You're gonna get per diem. We're gonna feed you so
you don't gotta buy food. You don't gotta you know.
I mean, yeah, when you when you're hit to hit
the life, when you hit, you hit, you know, And
and that's really that's really where it started. That gave
me the ultimate bite because I was like, yeah, this
is something that I need to incorporate, you know. And
from there it was just met. Even though I was
(29:37):
on set. If I had time where they were saying, Okay,
y'all can hang out in your dressing rooms or trailers,
I'm like, no, I want to be around here looking
at talking to the cameraman. I want to be talking
to that loosers. I want to stood up here and
see what you do and how you do this, and
and for me, because my thing was Okay, I'm acting,
but I'm gonna apply what I learned in this music
business and what I feel I missed to this acting.
(29:59):
So I'm not gonna miss it if I'm sitting here
as an actor by the time I leave. I want
to be able to be prepared to be a producer,
to be an executive producer, to be understand the whole
industry againwriter, Yeah, I understand it all. So I was
big on sitting around people and chopping it up and
having real conversations that I could hold onto and apply,
(30:19):
you know. Um, And that's really where I where I
ended up. You know, I've been writing a bunch of scripts.
We've been working with different riends of mine. Where we
were we had. We're actually working on a script that's
a called bro Code, you know. So, I mean there's
a lot of things that you know that inspired me
from that one job, um, and also catapulted me to
(30:40):
more jobs. You know, there was a TV show I
did where I was able to do some sitcom type
of yeah yeah, which was really cool. I mean, a
bunch of short films that I've been working on, you know,
throughout this year now that are geared to come out.
A matter of fact, one of my one of my
short films that I did earlier this year, just one
(31:01):
I think like nine awards. Yeah yeah, I think best
best Romantic, uh seeing, best Chemistry. I mean, it's all
these different things and when I'm like, wow, a thirty
minute film that took me, you know, a day to
do start arean. That's really incredible though, And that's got
to feel good because you've been you know, you've been
(31:21):
in the game a long time. You put in your time,
you've given back, and you know you're you're on the
path to greatness. Do you have any tips as we
as we close out for you know, how people can
really break into the industry, maybe how they can find
an agent, but what would you tell younger Adrian today.
I would definitely tell younger Adrian to get up, stop
(31:42):
asking for so many things and go out there and
go do go out there and just go get to it. Creative.
It's in the world we live in today. You don't
have to you don't have to go by any rules.
You know, there's nothing that you have to follow. You know,
people are making it up as they're going. And there
are people who are being very successful at it, you know, um,
taking their own routes, taking their organic routes. And I
(32:04):
feel like so many of us at a young age
are taught that there's one way to do something, you
know what I mean, there's one way to do there's
one way to be successful, and it's not you know.
My My thing is really more about, you know, learning
as much as you can learn everything. You can talk
(32:25):
to everybody, find out what they do, why it's important,
how you can learn it, how you can do it.
You know what I mean. I'm I produce, I write,
I sing act um, I write scripts, UM, I'm learning
more engineering now, UM, teaching um into real estate, you know,
building a home, building my home right now. I mean,
(32:46):
you know, all of these things. I feel like, as
much as you know, the more you know, the more
you can do, and you can apply to every business
you create, you know, But as far as you know,
finding an agent, make them find you. I've been find you.
You know. I'm very big on I'm very very big
on people working with you that are fans or that
(33:09):
are inspired by you, or that even eager to work
with you, rather than you're going out and begging, you know, please,
I'm looking. I'm looking for this. I'm looking for that
that works, that can work. But for me, it just
it hasn't weighed as much as when I go out
there and I bring people to me. You know, I've
(33:30):
learned that you can send a million emails all day,
but people want to see what you're doing. That's what
brings them to you. They want to see that you
work and how are you making it work? You got lemons?
Did you make lemonade? Did you make did you make lemon? Chicken?
Did you make? I mean, what what did you what
did you do? You know what I mean? And I
think that's what it's about. That would be my advice
(33:50):
to anybody that's trying to break into the industry. Create
the industry around you, Adrian. I love that. That is
great advice because I think that you know if but
like yourself are truly you manifest so much, but you
put the time to work behind him to make it
happen right, And I appreciate your time today. Yeah, thank you,
thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a it's
(34:12):
been a pleasure to talk about it. Can you make
sure before we close out, can you tell everyone where
they can find you on social media and also where
they can sign up for your university, your mentorship programs.
We need to know all the details, absolutely, so, Adrian Marshall,
you can look me up on this thing called Google.
It has all this information that drops that drops underneath
(34:32):
the name, and tell you all of this. But Adrian
Marcelle on Instagram follow me. Um, also Adrian Marcelle, Adrian marself.
If I want on Twitter to get into the university
to a matter of fact, just to have a conversation
with me and with the team, you can actually call me.
I'm locked in with super phone. That's brought to you
(34:52):
by Ryan Leslie, another super talented and extreme and a
genius in my opinion. Um, But the number five one
oh seven three seven seven, five eight, or you can
just go to text Adrian dot com. It is my
real cell phone. It's sitting right here, I'm texting. I'm
talking to people in real time. UM. But yeah, the
(35:12):
best way to get involved in in Marcella University is
to call me to what to text me and we
can start the conversation and figuring out what it is
that you want to know, what you're trying to learn,
what you're trying to do, you know, um, and then
also you know there's more music on the way. Uh.
Marcell EP is dropping at the end of this year,
so I'm extremely excited about that. Just stay tuned. It's
(35:33):
a lot coming. We're locked in. We're locked in, all right, Adrian.
That's all we have time for today. Money Movers, Please
check out Adrian's music follow him on socio so that
you don't miss any of the new stuff that he's
working on any of his music drops. We look forward
to seeing it. Thank you so much, Thank you so
much for having me, Thank you so much for tuning
in Money Moves audience. If you want more or a
(35:54):
recap of this episode, please go to the Bank Greenwood
dot com and check out the Money moves cast blog.
Funny Moves is an I heart radio podcast powered by
Greenwoods Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts
on I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
(36:14):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from m
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