July 1, 2025 • 59 mins
Glasses Malone and Rose Gold Peter celebrate the energy and creativity that hip hop culture brings to every corner of expression—from music and fashion to cars and community. The speakers trace the evolution of hip hop in New York, reflecting on cultural pride, the rise of customization, and the influence of style as a statement of identity. They explore the connections between hip hop, blues, and rock music, considering how these genres have shaped—and been shaped by—the times. The dialogue also digs into the challenges of today’s music industry, including revenue streams, distribution hurdles, and the pressures of visibility in the digital age. With a call for authenticity and innovation, the conversation underscores the importance of preserving individuality and reimagining business models so artists can thrive on their own terms.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Watch up and welcome back to another episode of No
Sealer's Podcast with your hosts Now fuck that with your
loaw glasses Malone.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What's going on, big Dog?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Very little? Very little?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I just got back from New York. How was that,
I'll be honest, man.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
The one thing about New York when it comes to
hip hop, the records themselves only capture probably the greatest records,
like juicy like Cream, at least for me, juicy Cream.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Why all the dessert references with the song titles coming
out of that town.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right shook ones the greatest records, you know, the message
that's only at the greatest level ten percent of the
energy that's in New York. Like when you get to
feel true hip hop energy in New York, it is
(01:09):
really unique compared to any place in this country. Actually,
we went to this event. It was at a gaming center,
so it was a it was a it was a lounge,
a gaming lounge where they had a bunch of computer
rigs where they could play video games. And there was
(01:31):
an event that they were throwing for a new death
Jam fighting game and people were competing against each other.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It was a tournament and Redman was hosting it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
And when I tell you, even though it was in
such a tech space, the hip hop energy was prevalent.
Like they had this big wall where they had a
bunch of graffiti on the wall. But man like, it
(02:05):
wasn't that as much as the engagement with other human
beings in that space, Like it didn't matter that they
were all tecked out and geeked out. You could tell
they came from the same type of struggle as everybody else.
And and when I tell you, man, that shit it
inspires me every time. Every time I go to New York,
(02:28):
I'm inspired in a different way when it comes to
hip hop. Even I was going to do a podcast
with Heineken and Esso a back few podcasts, and I
decided to catch the Sea train.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Obviously this crip.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So I'm staying in Midtown right Hell's Kitchen, and I
catch the Sea train up to one hundred and twenty fifth,
an eighth right because I have to walk to one
hundred and twenty seventh in Lenox.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Just standing. It was a brother I was talking to.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I didn't even catch his name, but just standing talking
hip hop with a brother on the train. This mother
brothers walked up and I'm talking to brother's on my way,
you know they recognize me, but just to have a
real conversation about the space of hip hop.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The concern.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's it's like something you'll never like, people could never understand,
and no matter how much time you sit there, it'll
never be enough time for you to truly, you know,
get the full experience of New York. I think people
who've lived in New York their whole life still don't
get the full experience of New York.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It is a really remarkable place, Pete.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And so like when you say it inspires you, like,
how does that manifest Like how do you bring that
back to California and channel that through a completely different
style type of energy like all the rest, you know
what I mean, Like there's a difference in the artistic
expression side, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, ironically, one big thing for me is, you know,
everybody else is just trying to take advantage of hip hop.
They're just trying to make some money. They just want
to gone shows and get paid to show up. Like
my mind since I first started, has always been I
want to give people a really great experience. Watching that
(04:34):
shows me that I can give an audience who wants
to support the things that I do, the experience I
want to give them, like I'm not as.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Scared like before, and it helps a lot of other people.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
When I show other people the things that other people
are able to pull off, they get more inspired.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm always inspired.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Like one of the biggest things coming up for me
in this series of records, I'm about to release this
rap revot right, which is kind of revolting against the
current pay the current pay scale of records, and you
know which means the medium at this point would have
to be at the end of my sword. I wanted
(05:20):
to start doing concerts right, and now the opportunities are
starting to be present. I think people are starting to
feel the energy. They starting to hear about different League songs,
Ludacris leak the verse he did on this really great
record I got, and people are starting to see like, Okay,
Glasses is cooking something up. But like one of the
ideas I had, instead of doing a traditional concert at
(05:41):
a club, right, I wanted to do a backyard boogie,
whereas like a barbecue effect, you can eat all the barbecue.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Won't you know?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You might pay for the drinks the bar but it's
a true backyard boogie. That's the type of stuff I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I want to do things on Krinshaw Boulevard, like like
on a special cruise night where you know, people get
to really come see the culture, like even at the
highest levels. I want to build a drag strip that
literally is a hip hop drag strip, you know, a
for quartermot drag strip. You'd have these big festivals or
(06:20):
hip hop and and automotive mix. And going to New
York and seeing that again reminds me of how possible
it is. So as far as what does it do
for me here, it allows me to see, like, oh,
I could cross my lifestyle that I've lived since I
was a little kid, right with this artistic expression, whether
(06:43):
it's the songs or dancing or anything else, the rap, whatever,
it just reinforces the possibilities to me.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Goshcha, no seilings, gl my brother Peter Boss and now.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, without a king? Say who I said no king
to that? We're a nation without a king?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I know, right went to the Northwest. Honestly, Pete Man,
I promise you dog like you know, sometimes I worry
about hip hop. I worry to myself, like man, you know,
(07:34):
no matter what. Right, when it comes to street urban culture,
you know, it's rooted in this pride of poverty.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
If you get what I mean when I say that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It's like people think dickies is culture hip hop or
street urban culture in Los Angeles, and it's not. It's
how you crease the dickies and cuff the dickies. You
start to treat these pants like they're seventy eighty dollars slacks,
not twelve dollars work pants. It's not the converse itself, right,
(08:05):
It's how you buy the thick laces and you put
them in there, how you lace the shoe, you know,
how you flip the tongue down, colors, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's all of those things.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
It's how you wear things, and it's usually rooted and
taking so much pride and something so cheap and mediocre,
like we always talk about it, no different than spaghetti
or tacos or anything else. It's the pride you put
in something in theory that's suld be.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Low quality, and in a time where.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It feels like the whole country, you know, even in
some of the most disenfranchised places, you know, they're trying
to overcompensate with buying things that are too expensive that
really don't need pride. Sure, if you get a pair
of Balenciaga's, there's no reason to put a thick laceism
them that it don't look good. And that definitely concerns
(09:08):
me about where hip hop is right, because it's like,
how does it thrive if it if you start to
cross it over with pop with pop stuff, Like it
was one thing when Dapper Dan, you know, used to
use Gucci print and make you know, custom things that
(09:29):
that is hip hop. But if you just go to
Gucci you buy a fucking Gucci outfit, that shit don't
got nothing to do with hip hop.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
True.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
We were having a good conversation about it, probably a
little earlier, and it was a lot of critigue for
it's a lot of critique for early eighties hip hop,
you know, the first generation stuff people like Uzi, and
it's like we forgot that this thing is rooted in entertainment.
You know, like if you go back to the seventies
(10:00):
and sixties, when you know black bands or white bands
would take you know, their designer would design something that
was one off for them. It looked like some of
Barry White's outfit was like somebody tore down the couch
and made the material and used the material from a
couch to make his jackets or his suits. Sure, it
was like it was a costume. You understood it was entertainment.
(10:23):
Like when you look at some of the like it's
a great video I watch on YouTube all the time
with Ron Banks and the dramatics, and what you see
is what you getting. They're performing on Soul Train, and
you could tell that outfit was one off. You couldn't
(10:44):
go to you know, Macy's or J. C. Penny's or
wherever people was buying clothes at that time and buy
that outfit, and that is what kind of made them
a star. It was this unique look versus now hip
hop where I just saw recently about four years ago,
everybody went to a war show and everybody had the
same tweater on like five people. So the only thing
(11:10):
that's separating people now in hip hop when it comes
to marketing, right is how much money they spent.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Sure, it's like.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The car don't really have a pizazz, is just really expensive. Yeah,
and I think it's watering down hip hop. I think
it's watering down hip hop like it was one thing
when NWA wore Dicky's and T shirts and Chucks, nobody
(11:43):
else in the landscape or entertainment was dressing like that.
It represented you know, it represented a movement of people
who didn't have a voice, who didn't have you know,
main state in mainstream. They didn't have a position in
(12:03):
mainstream for people to even see their stories or their struggles.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So it was unique.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Then run DMC wearing tracks and shout out to jam
Master j Rest is so understanding. That's how the average
quintessential d boy dressed in New York and was like,
we're gonna wear this. We're not gonna have to wear
those costumes that let's say Grand Master Flash War or
Houdini shout out to Ecstasy and all the brothers. That
was dressing fresh. But it was like we still look
(12:30):
unique because this is not something that entertainment is wearing.
It just reponed this group, this niche culture in New
York street urban culture his niche pocket. And now we've
gotten so spoil Like right now we look at yg
(12:51):
yg has so much custom stuff, Like I think he
may start with a basic but then the way it's fitting,
the way they flare it and do differ with things.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It makes it like a costume trans entertainment.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
It kind of almost like if you go back and
look at like the generation one degeneration two evolution of
like the Blues, So you have like I don't mean
like way early like Robert Johnson, but like like your
Muddy Waters and your bb King. You know, they kind
of wore just like a nice suit that a guy
with a night like. It was much more relatability across
(13:28):
the medium, early hip hop. Same thing. By the time
thirty years later you get to buddy guy, You've got
this huge band behind him, he's got this glittered out
suit and sunglasses and that, like all the rest of it,
it becomes it's like we've will you lose? Like like
the relatability element gets worn off to a degree and
(13:52):
has to be exchanged out for you know, an entertainment,
just just anything entertaining. And I think that'll also goes
to as you expand your market, commonalities within the consumers
diminish as it broadens. So the one thing that is
more common for the consumer is you know, something extremely
(14:15):
just like louder essentially for lack of a better word.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But I think I'm still okay with that, Like, I agree,
you do for sake commonality, for uniqueness, but now we're
not even going to uniqueness. We're just going too expensive.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
That's what I'm saying. I think that's what happened before.
It wasn't even like I mean, it was unique, sure,
but it was just only unique because expensive stuff is
a little bit more unique because there's less of it
and it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, but I don't know. Again, it's like you couldn't
go to a store and buy what they had.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
True.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
True, it was still a costume creator. Like Elvis stuff
was very much a costume. Yeah, Little Richard stuff is
very much a costume. It was created. Now it's just douchey.
M Like like Elton John wasn't douchey.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Sure, sure it's pretentious. Now it's fun. It's weird, but
it's like a weird bizarre.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, it's John wasn't pretentious.
It was like, hey, I'm an entertainer, I'm centric, I'm
trying exentually. I stare at me. Yeah, you couldn't go
to Gucci or Louis Vuitton and buy his outfit. It
was like, you know, somebody made this to exaggerate who
I am and what.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
My brand is as an entertainer.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, now is it don't even matter what your brand
is as an entertainer. It's like, let's go by the
most expensive stuff, put it on, and it separates you
from you know, the mainstream American person or even the
cultural person you supposed to represent.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And I think you lose a lot in that.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, I agree, I ain't. A lot of it comes
from the fact that, quite honestly, not a lot of
people are putting out any shit that's better than the
other shit that everybody else is putting out very few
examples exceptions. I mean, so a lot of consumers don't like, no,
this is fine, that's fine, whatever the hell. Well, that
guy's draped in money, so he must be better because
(16:26):
clearly more people like what he's doing than that guy shit.
So I just like that guy shit.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Ironically, I can't even.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Like now when I dress like in the traditional West Coast,
it's just unique.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Ain't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Like this is how far we got away from it
to where it's like if I wear a penalton, some cutoff.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Dickies and some vans.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Out and I'm talking about if I'm walking through Los Angeles,
if I'm walking through New York, I just stand out.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Because nobody wears that anymore. Like I don't see who
were wearing that in LA when I'm out there.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Are we to the point where if you wear a
Dickey suit and some chucks, if they're tailored in, you
kind of people like, who is that nigga?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
That that probably would work, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Cause no one has worn that in a long time.
I don't see it, like I go, like I'm in
I've touched all the corners of the city when I'm
in town, just passing through just to get if not
to get food, to see different people, whatever the hell,
I don't see anybody like standing behind somebody in line
getting a getting lunch anywhere in the city is wearing
a Dickie suit.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
It's it's it's it's like it's it's almost dipping into
like the vintage world, so to speak. Not that if
you bought it from a vintage store, but it's like
a vintage is more look mmm like I don't see
like like like because the culture is driven by the youth,
I don't see like eighteen nineteen year old kids wearing
(18:10):
Dickie suits like out.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But that's so crazy that something so culturally niche at
one time has now turned into very much a costume.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
It was, yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Went from it went from a uniform to people living
the street life in southern California to a costume.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, but it was still it was still a fashion
trend with time parameters like all other ones. M because
it wasn't the trend in nineteen seventy five probably or
whatever year.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
You know, Yeah, I could dig that.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I think think that's part of something also that hurts,
like hip hop culture insofar as it transfers into cars now,
not only like the what's the term, like the modularity
of old cars, Like they had basic bones. You could
do a lot to them, but it would look really cool,
Like the car that was a basic cheap car that
(19:20):
was just like an any American car from nineteen sixty eight,
nineteen seventy one, whatever, all those years, like probably twenty
five years of them. We're great looking cars. So if
you buy one that's twenty years old because it's for
sale for a ham sandwich, you can do cool things
with that's gonna look good.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But that's the cornerstone of a dunk. That's the cornerstone
of a lowrider.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I understand it. But that only could exist in a
time frame that was specific. Because if you do that
now and you want to go buy a nineteen ninety
nine Honda Civic, that's buying a nineteen sixty eight Chevy
in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Well, you know what that You know what the cars
is now? It's the ninety six and Pola. The ninety
six and Pola is the classic right now. Still you
could buy cheap right now, you still could buy those
anywhere between five and fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Still weird Monti Carlo with that tire thing on the
back whatever from the late nineties whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That one hasn't quite hit you. I don't know if
that's going to be a classic. The two thousand and
eight Dodge Challenger, the two.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thousand and eight Dodge Challenger, is it classic?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
It's funny, it's going to be a classic.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
I'm giving you, like how you give me financial tips,
I'm giving you advice on cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I mean, I can say, yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But if I was you, the ninety six and Pola
is the one to buy, Like you could buy the
ninety six and Pola right now, they're still low like
the G bodies.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So what are you doing to it, though, is the question.
You can have it looked like five or four boys.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, No, you could stock it back up.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
You could redo the stock interior, repaint the car backstock color,
you know, put some you don't even have to put
in the wheels.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It could actually be stocked.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The only thing I would do, I would put an
LS in it, m LSS engine, you know what I mean,
the kind of the next generation of Chevrolet engines once
you got out of the LTS, which is in the
NPOLLA sure, and you could do that stock and ten
years that car is a thirty thousand dollars car if
not soon.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
But like in so far as it applies to, like
the hip hop cultural applications to car life and like
lower tier economic demographics, like you know, you could custom
up a car that you got for not a lot,
do things to it to change it that don't cost
a lot, but they cost some. Yeah, Like what how
(21:52):
does that customization move forward? As cars over generation? At
least in my opinion seems kind of a common opinion.
Cars don't look as cool. There's been a handful of
cars lately that looks cool, but there was a period
of time where cars didn't look so cool when they
were coming up there.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
No, yeah, yeah, that's probably the issue with the two thousands.
But shout out to Mopart for getting it right. Mopark
went through a change where they got it right. You
I mean Dodge Chevrolet. I mean you have the Supersport.
It's like a supersport, sit Dan, that's going to be something.
It's a couple of cars.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Christ or three hundred, we'll have that, or it's too soon.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
No, that ain't gonna happen. It's not that kind of car.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Magnum, the Magnum, you could buy the Magnum's cheap,
Like I would buy a Magnum and put the new
Challenger front end on it. That's gonna be something. Okay,
the Magnum is gonna be something. I think Dodds nailed
it the most. Camaro, the Chevy Camaros. You know when
it gets to the two thousand tens, you know, when
(22:57):
they come out with the two ten's, that's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Something cool. But what's funny is.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
When you build an Impala, a low rider the one
you want is the most base model in Pola. You
don't want the supersport. Sure, it's not cool to have
the bucket seats, and you're Impoala. I gets something like
people cut them in, they low ride them, but they
don't have the same value like people kind of ask
the buget seats, you want the bench seat. You don't
(23:31):
want the floor shifter in that low rider because we've
been conditioned. So it's that pride of again taking something
really cheap and turning it into something really nice because
you started off so little and you're right and now
building Impala, like even building my Cadillac, my Lacab, my convertible,
(23:56):
it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I'll be in that course seventy thousand dollars that is.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That would be almost like I mean, Christ, it would
be like buying because now they're you know, there's like
that arc there's like shit's new, so it's expensive. Then
it's old so it's not expensive. Then it's really old,
and most of them have been destroyed, so the ones
(24:21):
that you're still there are expensive again, but that's like
forty years out. It would be like probably a nineteen
forty two Packard or something like that.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Any of that shit expensive, any of that shit's fucked up.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, I'm saying it would be like doing that in
nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Like you, you know, you know what you like that,
you know what was like that for a while. I
always tell you about the G bodies. So the G
body is a it's.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Built on a General Motors platform.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So that's Pontiac, that's Buick, old GM Chevrolet. If I
remember correct this about five mates, right, So it's the
it's the Cutlass, that's eighty one eighty seven. It's the
Malibus seventy nine to eighty seven. It's the El Camino
seventy nine eighty seven. It's the Mighty Carlow. It's the Regal,
(25:14):
the Buick Regal eighty one to eighty seven, it's the
Pontiac Grand Prix eighty one to eighty seven. And when
I was coming up right now, mind you, this is
I graduated high school and I'm coming to my adulthood
late nineties, early two thousands, you could get those cars
for five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Sure, I think so. Now it helps you, yea.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Now, the motherfucking cars.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I'm trying to help sticks from watch find one right now,
a fucking cutlast that's clean. I'm not even talking about
the four four two like the special models. No four
four two also is uh. I think it's four barrels
two will drive four four to two cent for different
(25:58):
how the car was built. But a standard clean eighty
seven colors could cost you fifteen twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
They're more than what they cost.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, I think that's something that actually helped like Houston's
hip hop scene. And they didn't say it helped it,
but like they made the most of it. Was like
when screwbas was coming out in the eighty fours and
all that shit. They were buying eighties Cadillacs in the
year two thousand. Then nobody wanted, you know, and they
and they were putting candy paint on them, those big
(26:27):
vertical chrome grills and they're putting the fucking eighty fours
on the wheels. So like, you know, you could make
that work, but it's it's hard, Like it would be
hard to find the right kind of car to do
that with, you know nowadays at like where the where
it can have a good look and the entry price
is low.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So if I had to buy carn from two thousand
and five to two thousand and eight. I build a
Dodge Challenger, Yeah, I build a Dodge Challenger. I'd find
a two thousand and eight, like an SRT. Maybe just
a Dodge Challenger supercharger, whale wheels, that's kind of the
(27:13):
modern hot rider. Maybe a Magnum I try to find
a Magnum Wagon. You barely see those now. I think
the Magnum Wagon is like two thousand and five, four
or five six, something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
The Magnum Wagon gives off malleible wagon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Man, the Dodge Challenger, that's I think a challenge with
it with with those cars like that series, like the
they did change the other one more the other Dodge.
But like I pull up the twenty twenty three in
the two thousand and eight, like just.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Now very similar mm hm, which is good.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's good and it's bad. They're gonna have a hard
time buying it. Like you can buy a two thousand
and eight and do a lot of work to it
and it's still might look not that much, like it's
not a three year old car, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I Well, that's why you can get a little bit
more customized to it. But what I'm saying it's definitely
not gonna be the same effect. It's not gonna be
the same effect that then Poba had. Sure, that's what
I would build. I would take a two thousand if
(28:34):
I had to go twenty years, It'll be a magnum
or a challenger, and I'll build a hot ride out
of it. I think that's the car you look at
in twenty years. That's gonna be thirty forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Sure, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I worry about where hip
hop is and I'm concerned, but then there's moments where
I'm like, you know, it's always a new it's always
a new niche part of the street, urban culture that
(29:11):
needs to explain themselves.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's always a new version that we can always catch
up to. But I don't know. Besides that, everything else
is mm hmm. I worry. I fucking worry, Pete. I worry.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
How would you compare? Like, just from the simple artistic
expressions standpoint, And I'm gonna saying compare better or worse,
it's just whatever. It's just simply contrast whatever you know,
like hip hop and and the blues.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
How would I compare hip hop and the blues? You
know what's funny, I'm not well versed in the blues,
Like I know where the blues started as recorded music.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I'm not super well versus either. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
I know it started right now.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This makes one hundred years of black blues records recorded
records this year. Mamie Smith came out with a first
record in nineteen twenty five, so this makes one hundred years.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I'll fit hold on, let me find a date to
tell you the date right now. I still have it
right here. I was studying it not too long ago.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I guess that's probably like Robert Johnson.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
What was the first Mamie Smith? Was the first Mamie Smith?
Mamie Smith, she recorded the first black recorded records. It
was in twenty five, gotcha, let me tell you the
(31:10):
exact day. I'll take that back. It was in nineteen
twenty sesh, it was in nineteen twenty so it's one
hundred and five years sure.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
And that's something I also don't know.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I could said like a second solo of quick Wikipedia,
like she recorded.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Jazz and blues, I know, like similar roots, but like
the separation point, you know there with those two like
genres in general, So.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Blues will be tough. Rock and roll I can compare it, Yeah,
rock and roll. I'm a little more versed in it,
you know what I mean. I wouldn't call myself an expert,
but I do know some fundamental things about it, and
that's what I like to compare hip hop to. But
hip hop might be just a little bit better off.
(32:10):
I mean, there is a few things that are concerning
right obviously where we're at right now. I'm looking at
everybody's numbers on Spotify for records that are like supposed
to be current, and the numbers are not like crazy,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's a record I really like. It's from an artist.
Her name is.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Flipp A T and it's called My Affirmations. It sounds
like glow Realer a little bit. I think she's from Georgia.
But I was looking at the record and the record
was at like two million strings on Spotify. And then
there's another record called Faery and it's by a young
lady named Maya p out of Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Rest in peace to Twinemac, my boy twine Mak. He's
been all the part.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Remember twine Twayn passed away, but Twinta's from Milwaukee, and
I used to always tell I'm really in love with
the things coming up from Milwaukee at the time, Like
they had their own rock, their own movement, the way
the kids was dancing and people was having fun, like
they had their own way of having fun.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And Maya p who was one of.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
The first people I followed in that movement, maybe two
three years ago, and she finally got a song that's
doing well. It's called Faery and like the song was
that like three and a half million streams on Spotify,
and I'm like shit, like they have really tightened how
(33:42):
much they're going to market someone's song, you know, Spotify
the company or as people say, put it in their algorithm.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Man.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
You know what's interesting from a time frame standpoint, like
hip hop and rock and roll are about twenty five
years apart in age, and you see a similar track
of the two because, like I remember, late nineties into
(34:14):
early two thousands, it was like you could start to
feel like this isn't working anymore, and both of them
started becoming really dependent on these big like we call
(34:36):
those big concerts, like festival concerts. Oh like like uh yeah, Lollapalooza.
You had all these then you had like Corn and
like method Man and all these different just jamming people
into these giant travel arena mega things all the time,
like they're just trying to find like, what's another reason
(34:58):
we can tie to this ticket to make somebody want
to pay to go see that guy because he's losing value,
you know, Like and I feel like I haven't been
a live music concert and I don't know how long,
but I see on the news, you know that there's
like a lot of festival concerts in like the younger
(35:21):
kind of hip hop space like that, which I think.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Is kind of an interesting are four million, hm, there
is a four million, four million streams and it's such
a big song. But like I could tell Spotify or
even people are not going to like something is happening,
And that's kind of what has pushed me, you know,
(35:46):
into a space too, like hip hop is very much
back in the eighties where you don't have we were
just talking about it today, like when ninety three, ninety four,
ninety five, ninety six bust everything over and it went
mainstream because before.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That you didn't really have hit records.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
You didn't have hip hop records that was going number
one or in the top ten, like it might be
a one off. And then it just started being a
bulk of records. Right ninety four. You know you have
Gin and Juice, right, you have Doggy Dog World. You
have Juicy that's in the top forty. You have Julio
Take a Ride that's in there. You have all of
(36:25):
these huge records, Warren g Regulators in the top five.
You know what I mean, You just have all these
records that are now competing with all the rest of
the records. It means not just the rap charts, of
the R and B charts, of the black charts, I
mean the hot one hundreds, the big records. These records
are competing with Eric Clapton and Garth Brooks, the biggest.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Records in the country. And we got spoiled. But in
the eighties it wasn't about that.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And I think again, like I've been saying, I think
we're back at that time.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
We're back at that.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Time to where it was like maybe some of the
hottest records are not exploding, Like I remember a record
like Fairy ten years ago, a record that hot that
that kind of in the know, in the in the
in the position, that record would have been at twenty
million by now it had been at twenty thirty million.
(37:27):
But now Spotify has clamped down so tight. I don't
know if it's a combination of Spotify just clamping down
so tight on what they want to market, or is
it people are just not.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Going to Spotify to hear their music all the time.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
I don't know what the aggregators are like as far
as you know across platform numbers, but there's it's fairly
monopolistic as far.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
As where you can listen to shit, you know. I mean,
you can get around it, but you'd have to really
put your mind to it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It's still already put my mind to it for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I don't mean you, I mean like Joe consumer, Like
if I wanted to listen to a song, there's a
few surveyed five hundred people. If you want to hear
this song, where are you gonna go? Listen to it?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
On?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
You're gonna get three answers one hundred and fifty times.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I mean so, but I'm saying, maya peased audience got
to be somewhere between twenty six thousand twenty six thousand
and one hundred and thirty three thousand. I mean, even
(38:55):
though they have a.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Monthly listeners listening at five seventy, does it make sense.
I mean, I guess what monthly listeners.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, maybe maybe across that time, but it's taking somewhere
between thirty thousand and one hundred and forty thousand people
to drive a song to four million streams. And my
thing is, even with that exposure, you know, that level
of exposure, like, we have to be able to make
(39:29):
like and it can't just be like we're back into
a slave time to where its like we have this
really great product. You know, imagine McDonald's making a fire
ass burger and it's like, well, we can't really make
too much money off this burger. We got to actually,
you know, do something else to make money. And that's
what everybody is trying to tell you in hip hop,
oh man, the music is just it's just a commercial.
(39:58):
People pay people to make commercials of their business, yes,
and it's like we're accepting it.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And that's the one thing hip hop didn't do in
its exception. We didn't accept that.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
And you know, I don't want to sound like this
and I don't need this terminology because slaves went through
a lot, but it's definitely turning people into modern slaves
to some degree, Like you can't make a living unless
you're going to go out and do a thousand shows
rap on a bunch of people's songs, because they've been
able to demonetize the record so crazy mind you you
(40:33):
know they have multi billion dollar businesses built off records. No,
I guess in their mind they'll tell you it's built
off technology.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But I think that's the historical norm. I think you're
looking at this brief blip of time over the course
of ninety years and thinking that that's the norm and
everything else is the exception. When that's the exception.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Which part is the exception?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Not having to go tour a whole pantload of shows
to get all your money.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Well, remember the record labels was making the money then,
not the art, at least at least Barry Gordy was.
Even if the Temptations wasn't making a bunch of money. Shit,
Barry Gordy was making a bunch of money smoking Robinson.
They didn't have to go tour off of Temptation records
that they produced, wrote promoted they made that money there, shit,
(41:26):
ain't nobody making no goddamn money.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
At this point, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Like, yeah, well the platforms are.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
So so they did at New Regular Yeah, And that's
the tricky part, Like right, it's like.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
There's two that's the issue.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
The issue is the vertical supply chain effectively has changed
from drum to ear and there's too many intermediaries. You
got to be cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
So you think that's the problem. Yeah, you wanting music, No.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And then if you wild to create it, the distance
between the creative not the music producer, the IP producer,
the person whose brain creates the sound, and the ear
that consumes the sound has too many different channels in between.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
But even if it's oh, well, I guess that is true,
because you can't go straight to Spotify. You have to
go through a middleman, right, which is a distribution company
to many wholesalers. You have to have a phone, you
have to have a service. You have to pay for
(42:51):
the other service, the music service. So you pay Apple,
do you pay t Mobile? And then you pay a
Spotify m hm, and then Spotify pays themselves, then they
pay the record company or the distribution company and then
they pay you.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
And Spotify pays Apple and Google a ton to be
on there. I mean Spotify's biggest check per month that
goes out of that office is going to Apple because
they charge them fortunate to be on the play store
or the like whatever the live store.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
See.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
To me, the catch is converting people into more money
through Spotify. Like in the perfect world, you could get
every artist together and say, hey, you know what, when
you to stop putting our music on Spotify, we need
to tell Spotify, hey, you guys need to have an
iTunes service to well, we could have our singles for
stream but if people like the singles, they have to
buy the album more different than iTunes.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Screw that.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I would cut them completely out of the equation. You
need to verticalize your own self like who's microwave famous
to getting money for fucking nothing these days social media
figures right sure, and they don't do anything. You need
to figure out a way to go work with Instagram
(44:13):
and TikTok or whoever else, so as you can advertise,
you're bringing people to your page, they're seeing you. You're
advertising yourself and your music at the same time, and
then at the top there's your playlist pow, and then
you can put together a playlist within Instagram, and then
Spotify dies in about an hour and a half because
(44:34):
people are going to you to see what you're doing
on Instagram. Instagram, they're there anyway. They're gonna find what
you're doing because you follow them and they see some
girl bounce around and tights, and then glasses alone pops
up on the next story, and then you press a
button and there's your album playlist right there in the
Instagram interface. And then you could collaborate and link or
(45:00):
organically between artists within Instagram and create playlists or features
or whatever else that way, and you've cut everybody else
the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
You don't think that would take a mass movement of artists,
because people.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
It takes to work. Uh, it takes to work. Drake
did it? It already be done. I don't think he could
do it, though maybe not because contract contractually he might
be bound to not do it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I mean not even contractually like they have.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
They have, they have things like that called even even
as a company, even Dabis is a company where you
go to pay an artist and for his work, right,
whatever you want to pay him. But the problem is
the audience that is looking for music is looking to
consume music on Spotify, So I think you have to
have a stay there. To me, my thing is, even
(45:52):
when you look at Spotify, Apple title, they're not meant
to market albums.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
They're not in that business.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Your Instagram is marketing the album and sending them to Spotify.
That's my thing.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, but okay, but how would they play the music
if they were to get it from.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Spotify or let's say, let's say the single. Huh, they
don't get it from Spotify. No, I'm saying, how would
they get it from you on Instagram?
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Play your ship on Instagram? Like you that was something
you'd have to work out a deal with Instagram to
be able to allow. And I wouldn't even require that
much tech. But you know how they have like how that
shit even is they? You know, you have like your
regular posts, your story and then like reels and yeah,
(46:45):
it would have to be somewhere like the reels.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So kind of like how Kanye use it on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Maybe I've never seen Kanye swear so.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Kanye released his music on Twitter. As I have this idea,
Iron and you could do it on Twitter. Kanye's bran somehow,
Like I don't know. That's why I know he's not
completely crazy, and I know he's tuned into God because
we get some of the same ideas. Like one of
the things is like I've decided on my new project,
I'm going to release the video on Twitter. It makes
(47:14):
no sense to release the video a place where people
stream music, like YouTube, because then I'm spending a bunch
of money on the music video to give you the song.
You don't have to go anywhere else. People play music
in their car and they house from YouTube. Yeah, a
music video is an advertisement for a record to go
buy a record. So even if I want you to
(47:36):
advertise it to go stream a record, I have no
business placing the music video where you actually stream music from.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah, that's like varsy what I'm saying the same people,
like any of these smaller niche platforms or have to
start the new platform. You have to train your consumer
to go there. The consumers already going to Twitter, Instagram,
et cetera. They're already on that, They're already going to Spotify,
(48:09):
but they have to leave the one to go to
the other. You can cut one out by just having
your stuff here. You're taking the time to put crap
up on all your channels to drive people over to Spotify,
as opposed to just driving them to the next button
at the same place they're already at.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
M I've almost thought I've almost thought of a few
things where it's like, like with the one ten album,
like is it really do I just put the single
up and then I like, do I put snippets of.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
The single you know on on streaming apps? Right?
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Do I put snippets on of the of the album
on Spotify?
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
And then just put thirty second snippets And then at
the snippet you listen and you like, you know, at
the end of it, you faded out, and you be like,
head over to www. Dot thecripstore dot com and buy
this album if you like this single, and then all
the songs you just get a snippet and tells you
to go by. But then again, if people don't play
physical product, or if they can't download a digital product
(49:21):
and a player that they play music from, I might
kind of be I mean, it really should it shouldn't
be a fear of how you do business.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
If you believe in the records.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah, I mean, like, let's take like just reals for example,
Like like if you put all the singles out, they're
a real can accommodate that you would have the rights
to it anyway. So it's say thirteen three minute songs,
just pin them in order as your top thirteen and
(49:55):
everything else that you do that's new at whatever. It
stays below them, but at the top. And then after
a month, if there's ten million views or whatever the
hell it's been consumed ten million times in the aggregate,
you can say, hey, Spotify ten million, what do you
want for it?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Hey you Spotify ten million? You mean, what do they
want to give you for the album?
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Yeah? See, I don't need you. I got ten million
on Instagram of these songs full length in my reels
in order pinned like an album. It got viewed ten
million times. Do you want ten million views next month
or twenty million views next month or whatever or listens
(50:44):
whatever the hell it is on your platform or do
you not want them there? That's ten million ads at
the end of each song that your company's not gonna
get paid for. What do you want for it?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
That's interesting? I'm not mad at that thought, that's how
you got it. I just think, and I think that's
why I've been telling you I need you, you know,
to do the business like I need your help with
doing the business, because we're just at a time where.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
We're at a time where.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Not only should hip hop be as creative and when
it comes to making records, but it needs to be
just as creative with doing business.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
And that's the thing I think about. What made hip
hop hip hop was two things, creativity and entrepreneurial verticality.
What is the modern day virtual tech equivalent to selling
cassette tapes out of the trunk your car? Like low flip.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
That's the problem. There is no modern version of it.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Because the trunk of your car is now your social
media page.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Well, the problem is, at that time a cassette was
still ten dollars.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Sure, I get that.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It's hard to do business without that actual product for sale.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, so how do you do it? Then?
Speaker 3 (52:16):
The what you're replacing with like the modicum of margin
that you're gonna get from those you're making up for with.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Scale to access access to more people.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, so now the trunk of your car your virtual trunk,
you might not get your two dollars per unit. But
you're gonna not do thirty thousand cassette tapes out of
the trunk of your car. You're gonna do thirty million
you know, views or whatever, impressions whatever. The term dajour
(52:51):
is across the country and you just have to transfer
that value into you know, revenue on the backside.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
But how would you do that if okay, agreed, Right,
you have a greater audience, right that you have access
to without you have to spend money. You have to
spend money. Like let's say for one hundred tapes. To
press up one hundred cassettes, it costs five dollars each. Yeah,
so you know if you press up one hundred tapes,
(53:25):
it'll be five hundred dollars, right, and then it's the
gas money to go out sell the tapes, eat food,
blah blah blah, Oh, sello tapes.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Let's focus on that.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
You spend fifty dollars to go out and sell tapes.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So that's five hundred and fifty dollars if you want
to go sell so many tapes a day, right, But
those five hundred tapes, right would make you your five
thousand dollars so if it's if it's so, if it
costs you, let's let's make a Let's make a reasonable number.
(53:59):
Let's say you're go. I used to have I used
to tell Quiz this. I used to get Quiz. I say, man, Quiz. Look,
I convinced Quiz to quit his job. Now, some people
think it's crazy, but I'm like, yo, you gotta take
your chance on this. For a time, I said, you
have a great crap, like a quality CD. You could
sell ten to twenty CDs a day if you went
out right, that's the ten dollars, one hundred to two
(54:19):
hundred dollars. And it just happened to be at the
end of CD. So he was able to still do
a good job. But if he would have came around
the time that I came, or we would have came
before in two thousand, it was even more money.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Right, you could make a living.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
You could make two hundred dollars a day selling your music,
especially if the music is good. Right, So let's say
that number now is let's say it's twenty cassettes. Let's
say it's two hundred dollars, right, and you know, if
it's twenty CDs and to press up twenty CDs. He
(54:52):
had a machine. We might have spent a dollar twenty
to make every CD. So it was like twenty seven
dollars in gas, maybe twenty five dollars in gas, you know,
forty bucks. So if you spend forty bucks, how do
you still turn that into two hundred dollars on Instagram
even though you have access to a bigger audience, Like
(55:12):
you would have to kind of convert the bonuses, you know,
the Instagram bonuses to where it would make you two
hundred dollars a day, sure out of out of only
forty six dollars.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
What do you get for five hundred thousand views of
a thing on Instagram? Of one particular.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
Piece, not the total just one let's see.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Then beyond that also, like I think what it's doing
is it is demonstrating the IP value. So if you
had made because how many, how many of the same
tape album? You're really going to sell in one city?
You know what I mean? Like you're not going to
do platinum numbers. You're not going to make a million
of these damn things.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
No, I'm just talking about a simple thing.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Sure, But like so with that, what you would do,
like as an upstart who could get the capitol flow
from just selling their own stuff, You're you're demonstrating the
value of it to bigger players. So then you're getting
(56:18):
a deal, or then you're getting this, or then you're
getting that, or a show or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
So Shop of Fire article says.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Influencer pricing suggests that a nano influencer five hundred to
ten thousand followers might earn ten dollars to one hundred
dollars per post, while macro influencers one hundred thousand, five
hundred thousand followers could charge five thousand to ten thousand
dollars a post.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Okay, well, if each post is a song on an album,
and you do twelve songs and you get sixty thousand dollars,
that's about as much as you're gonna get net selling
tapes out of the trunk.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Of your car.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
You really crush.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
One source average rate per real one source suggest that
creators with ten thousand and fifty thousand followers might earn
an average of two three hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Dollars per real. Okay, so maybe maybe were looking at
it wrong.
Speaker 3 (57:22):
But then also if you control but those reels That's
the other thing is there's no backdoor value to that,
because that's a typical reel. If you're real as a song,
you have now demonstrable value and total total access control
for consumption. So that's where you can say, Okay, there's
seven figure eight figures of people who consume this album, Spotify, YouTube,
(57:45):
whatever the hell? So what has been lost in the
novelty of people hearing for the first time. I'm not
going to get that value back. But if you want
this for the rest of the listeners and the ads,
sharing and all the rest of it on your platform,
if you.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Go to a distribution or do you go to Spotify.
At that point, I'd go to Spotify.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
You can do either one. I mean, you've proven value
and been paid for it either which way at that point.
But if you were talking about the issue with the
Spotify model, then just don't deal with Spotify and do
that or use it to demonstrate a different model for Spotify,
(58:28):
because now it's like that that's the thing. Everybody's perceiving
them as doing the artist the favor by promoting them,
So it's like, Okay, you're just getting empty fame. At
some point, you're just getting anything. You're putting your shit
everywhere to promote the music, and the music's not paying
you hardly anything, but they're driving all the listens, so
everybody knows you, but nobody's paying you, you know, So
(58:50):
you have to stick a you know, wrench in the
spokes and stop the spinning of that wheel. Someway.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Good looking out for tuning in to the No Sellers Podcast.
Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate, comment, and share.
This episode was recorded right here on the West coast
of the USA and produced about the Black Effect Podcast
Network and Notheart Radio.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah
Watch up and welcome back to another episode of No
Sealer's Podcast with your hosts Now fuck that with your
loaw glasses Malone.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What's going on, big Dog?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Very little? Very little?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I just got back from New York. How was that,
I'll be honest, man.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
The one thing about New York when it comes to
hip hop, the records themselves only capture probably the greatest records,
like juicy like Cream, at least for me, juicy Cream.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Why all the dessert references with the song titles coming
out of that town.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right shook ones the greatest records, you know, the message
that's only at the greatest level ten percent of the
energy that's in New York. Like when you get to
feel true hip hop energy in New York, it is
(01:09):
really unique compared to any place in this country. Actually,
we went to this event. It was at a gaming center,
so it was a it was a it was a lounge,
a gaming lounge where they had a bunch of computer
rigs where they could play video games. And there was
(01:31):
an event that they were throwing for a new death
Jam fighting game and people were competing against each other.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It was a tournament and Redman was hosting it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
And when I tell you, even though it was in
such a tech space, the hip hop energy was prevalent.
Like they had this big wall where they had a
bunch of graffiti on the wall. But man like, it
(02:05):
wasn't that as much as the engagement with other human
beings in that space, Like it didn't matter that they
were all tecked out and geeked out. You could tell
they came from the same type of struggle as everybody else.
And and when I tell you, man, that shit it
inspires me every time. Every time I go to New York,
(02:28):
I'm inspired in a different way when it comes to
hip hop. Even I was going to do a podcast
with Heineken and Esso a back few podcasts, and I
decided to catch the Sea train.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Obviously this crip.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
So I'm staying in Midtown right Hell's Kitchen, and I
catch the Sea train up to one hundred and twenty fifth,
an eighth right because I have to walk to one
hundred and twenty seventh in Lenox.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Just standing. It was a brother I was talking to.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I didn't even catch his name, but just standing talking
hip hop with a brother on the train. This mother
brothers walked up and I'm talking to brother's on my way,
you know they recognize me, but just to have a
real conversation about the space of hip hop.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The concern.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's it's like something you'll never like, people could never understand,
and no matter how much time you sit there, it'll
never be enough time for you to truly, you know,
get the full experience of New York. I think people
who've lived in New York their whole life still don't
get the full experience of New York.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It is a really remarkable place, Pete.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And so like when you say it inspires you, like,
how does that manifest Like how do you bring that
back to California and channel that through a completely different
style type of energy like all the rest, you know
what I mean, Like there's a difference in the artistic
expression side, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, ironically, one big thing for me is, you know,
everybody else is just trying to take advantage of hip hop.
They're just trying to make some money. They just want
to gone shows and get paid to show up. Like
my mind since I first started, has always been I
want to give people a really great experience. Watching that
(04:34):
shows me that I can give an audience who wants
to support the things that I do, the experience I
want to give them, like I'm not as.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Scared like before, and it helps a lot of other people.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
When I show other people the things that other people
are able to pull off, they get more inspired.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm always inspired.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Like one of the biggest things coming up for me
in this series of records, I'm about to release this
rap revot right, which is kind of revolting against the
current pay the current pay scale of records, and you
know which means the medium at this point would have
to be at the end of my sword. I wanted
(05:20):
to start doing concerts right, and now the opportunities are
starting to be present. I think people are starting to
feel the energy. They starting to hear about different League songs,
Ludacris leak the verse he did on this really great
record I got, and people are starting to see like, Okay,
Glasses is cooking something up. But like one of the
ideas I had, instead of doing a traditional concert at
(05:41):
a club, right, I wanted to do a backyard boogie,
whereas like a barbecue effect, you can eat all the barbecue.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Won't you know?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
You might pay for the drinks the bar but it's
a true backyard boogie. That's the type of stuff I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I want to do things on Krinshaw Boulevard, like like
on a special cruise night where you know, people get
to really come see the culture, like even at the
highest levels. I want to build a drag strip that
literally is a hip hop drag strip, you know, a
for quartermot drag strip. You'd have these big festivals or
(06:20):
hip hop and and automotive mix. And going to New
York and seeing that again reminds me of how possible
it is. So as far as what does it do
for me here, it allows me to see, like, oh,
I could cross my lifestyle that I've lived since I
was a little kid, right with this artistic expression, whether
(06:43):
it's the songs or dancing or anything else, the rap, whatever,
it just reinforces the possibilities to me.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Goshcha, no seilings, gl my brother Peter Boss and now.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, without a king? Say who I said no king
to that? We're a nation without a king?
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I know, right went to the Northwest. Honestly, Pete Man,
I promise you dog like you know, sometimes I worry
about hip hop. I worry to myself, like man, you know,
(07:34):
no matter what. Right, when it comes to street urban culture,
you know, it's rooted in this pride of poverty.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
If you get what I mean when I say that.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
It's like people think dickies is culture hip hop or
street urban culture in Los Angeles, and it's not. It's
how you crease the dickies and cuff the dickies. You
start to treat these pants like they're seventy eighty dollars slacks,
not twelve dollars work pants. It's not the converse itself, right,
(08:05):
It's how you buy the thick laces and you put
them in there, how you lace the shoe, you know,
how you flip the tongue down, colors, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It's all of those things.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
It's how you wear things, and it's usually rooted and
taking so much pride and something so cheap and mediocre,
like we always talk about it, no different than spaghetti
or tacos or anything else. It's the pride you put
in something in theory that's suld be.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Low quality, and in a time where.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It feels like the whole country, you know, even in
some of the most disenfranchised places, you know, they're trying
to overcompensate with buying things that are too expensive that
really don't need pride. Sure, if you get a pair
of Balenciaga's, there's no reason to put a thick laceism
them that it don't look good. And that definitely concerns
(09:08):
me about where hip hop is right, because it's like,
how does it thrive if it if you start to
cross it over with pop with pop stuff, Like it
was one thing when Dapper Dan, you know, used to
use Gucci print and make you know, custom things that
(09:29):
that is hip hop. But if you just go to
Gucci you buy a fucking Gucci outfit, that shit don't
got nothing to do with hip hop.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
True.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
We were having a good conversation about it, probably a
little earlier, and it was a lot of critigue for
it's a lot of critique for early eighties hip hop,
you know, the first generation stuff people like Uzi, and
it's like we forgot that this thing is rooted in entertainment.
You know, like if you go back to the seventies
(10:00):
and sixties, when you know black bands or white bands
would take you know, their designer would design something that
was one off for them. It looked like some of
Barry White's outfit was like somebody tore down the couch
and made the material and used the material from a
couch to make his jackets or his suits. Sure, it
was like it was a costume. You understood it was entertainment.
(10:23):
Like when you look at some of the like it's
a great video I watch on YouTube all the time
with Ron Banks and the dramatics, and what you see
is what you getting. They're performing on Soul Train, and
you could tell that outfit was one off. You couldn't
(10:44):
go to you know, Macy's or J. C. Penny's or
wherever people was buying clothes at that time and buy
that outfit, and that is what kind of made them
a star. It was this unique look versus now hip
hop where I just saw recently about four years ago,
everybody went to a war show and everybody had the
same tweater on like five people. So the only thing
(11:10):
that's separating people now in hip hop when it comes
to marketing, right is how much money they spent.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Sure, it's like.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The car don't really have a pizazz, is just really expensive. Yeah,
and I think it's watering down hip hop. I think
it's watering down hip hop like it was one thing
when NWA wore Dicky's and T shirts and Chucks, nobody
(11:43):
else in the landscape or entertainment was dressing like that.
It represented you know, it represented a movement of people
who didn't have a voice, who didn't have you know,
main state in mainstream. They didn't have a position in
(12:03):
mainstream for people to even see their stories or their struggles.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So it was unique.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Then run DMC wearing tracks and shout out to jam
Master j Rest is so understanding. That's how the average
quintessential d boy dressed in New York and was like,
we're gonna wear this. We're not gonna have to wear
those costumes that let's say Grand Master Flash War or
Houdini shout out to Ecstasy and all the brothers. That
was dressing fresh. But it was like we still look
(12:30):
unique because this is not something that entertainment is wearing.
It just reponed this group, this niche culture in New
York street urban culture his niche pocket. And now we've
gotten so spoil Like right now we look at yg
(12:51):
yg has so much custom stuff, Like I think he
may start with a basic but then the way it's fitting,
the way they flare it and do differ with things.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It makes it like a costume trans entertainment.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
It kind of almost like if you go back and
look at like the generation one degeneration two evolution of
like the Blues, So you have like I don't mean
like way early like Robert Johnson, but like like your
Muddy Waters and your bb King. You know, they kind
of wore just like a nice suit that a guy
with a night like. It was much more relatability across
(13:28):
the medium, early hip hop. Same thing. By the time
thirty years later you get to buddy guy, You've got
this huge band behind him, he's got this glittered out
suit and sunglasses and that, like all the rest of it,
it becomes it's like we've will you lose? Like like
the relatability element gets worn off to a degree and
(13:52):
has to be exchanged out for you know, an entertainment,
just just anything entertaining. And I think that'll also goes
to as you expand your market, commonalities within the consumers
diminish as it broadens. So the one thing that is
more common for the consumer is you know, something extremely
(14:15):
just like louder essentially for lack of a better word.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But I think I'm still okay with that, Like, I agree,
you do for sake commonality, for uniqueness, but now we're
not even going to uniqueness. We're just going too expensive.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
That's what I'm saying. I think that's what happened before.
It wasn't even like I mean, it was unique, sure,
but it was just only unique because expensive stuff is
a little bit more unique because there's less of it
and it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, but I don't know. Again, it's like you couldn't
go to a store and buy what they had.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
True.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
True, it was still a costume creator. Like Elvis stuff
was very much a costume. Yeah, Little Richard stuff is
very much a costume. It was created. Now it's just douchey.
M Like like Elton John wasn't douchey.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Sure, sure it's pretentious. Now it's fun. It's weird, but
it's like a weird bizarre.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, it's John wasn't pretentious.
It was like, hey, I'm an entertainer, I'm centric, I'm
trying exentually. I stare at me. Yeah, you couldn't go
to Gucci or Louis Vuitton and buy his outfit. It
was like, you know, somebody made this to exaggerate who
I am and what.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
My brand is as an entertainer.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, now is it don't even matter what your brand
is as an entertainer. It's like, let's go by the
most expensive stuff, put it on, and it separates you
from you know, the mainstream American person or even the
cultural person you supposed to represent.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
And I think you lose a lot in that.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, I agree, I ain't. A lot of it comes
from the fact that, quite honestly, not a lot of
people are putting out any shit that's better than the
other shit that everybody else is putting out very few
examples exceptions. I mean, so a lot of consumers don't like, no,
this is fine, that's fine, whatever the hell. Well, that
guy's draped in money, so he must be better because
(16:26):
clearly more people like what he's doing than that guy shit.
So I just like that guy shit.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Ironically, I can't even.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Like now when I dress like in the traditional West Coast,
it's just unique.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Ain't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Like this is how far we got away from it
to where it's like if I wear a penalton, some cutoff.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Dickies and some vans.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Out and I'm talking about if I'm walking through Los Angeles,
if I'm walking through New York, I just stand out.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Because nobody wears that anymore. Like I don't see who
were wearing that in LA when I'm out there.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Are we to the point where if you wear a
Dickey suit and some chucks, if they're tailored in, you
kind of people like, who is that nigga?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
That that probably would work, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Cause no one has worn that in a long time.
I don't see it, like I go, like I'm in
I've touched all the corners of the city when I'm
in town, just passing through just to get if not
to get food, to see different people, whatever the hell,
I don't see anybody like standing behind somebody in line
getting a getting lunch anywhere in the city is wearing
a Dickie suit.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
It's it's it's it's like it's it's almost dipping into
like the vintage world, so to speak. Not that if
you bought it from a vintage store, but it's like
a vintage is more look mmm like I don't see
like like like because the culture is driven by the youth,
I don't see like eighteen nineteen year old kids wearing
(18:10):
Dickie suits like out.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But that's so crazy that something so culturally niche at
one time has now turned into very much a costume.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
It was, yeah, it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Went from it went from a uniform to people living
the street life in southern California to a costume.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, but it was still it was still a fashion
trend with time parameters like all other ones. M because
it wasn't the trend in nineteen seventy five probably or
whatever year.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
You know, Yeah, I could dig that.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
I think think that's part of something also that hurts,
like hip hop culture insofar as it transfers into cars now,
not only like the what's the term, like the modularity
of old cars, Like they had basic bones. You could
do a lot to them, but it would look really cool,
Like the car that was a basic cheap car that
(19:20):
was just like an any American car from nineteen sixty eight,
nineteen seventy one, whatever, all those years, like probably twenty
five years of them. We're great looking cars. So if
you buy one that's twenty years old because it's for
sale for a ham sandwich, you can do cool things
with that's gonna look good.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But that's the cornerstone of a dunk. That's the cornerstone
of a lowrider.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I understand it. But that only could exist in a
time frame that was specific. Because if you do that
now and you want to go buy a nineteen ninety
nine Honda Civic, that's buying a nineteen sixty eight Chevy
in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Well, you know what that You know what the cars
is now? It's the ninety six and Pola. The ninety
six and Pola is the classic right now. Still you
could buy cheap right now, you still could buy those
anywhere between five and fifteen thousand.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Still weird Monti Carlo with that tire thing on the
back whatever from the late nineties whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That one hasn't quite hit you. I don't know if
that's going to be a classic. The two thousand and
eight Dodge Challenger, the two.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thousand and eight Dodge Challenger, is it classic?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
It's funny, it's going to be a classic.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
I'm giving you, like how you give me financial tips,
I'm giving you advice on cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I mean, I can say, yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
But if I was you, the ninety six and Pola
is the one to buy, Like you could buy the
ninety six and Pola right now, they're still low like
the G bodies.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So what are you doing to it, though, is the question.
You can have it looked like five or four boys.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, No, you could stock it back up.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
You could redo the stock interior, repaint the car backstock color,
you know, put some you don't even have to put
in the wheels.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It could actually be stocked.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
The only thing I would do, I would put an
LS in it, m LSS engine, you know what I mean,
the kind of the next generation of Chevrolet engines once
you got out of the LTS, which is in the
NPOLLA sure, and you could do that stock and ten
years that car is a thirty thousand dollars car if
not soon.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
But like in so far as it applies to, like
the hip hop cultural applications to car life and like
lower tier economic demographics, like you know, you could custom
up a car that you got for not a lot,
do things to it to change it that don't cost
a lot, but they cost some. Yeah, Like what how
(21:52):
does that customization move forward? As cars over generation? At
least in my opinion seems kind of a common opinion.
Cars don't look as cool. There's been a handful of
cars lately that looks cool, but there was a period
of time where cars didn't look so cool when they
were coming up there.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
No, yeah, yeah, that's probably the issue with the two thousands.
But shout out to Mopart for getting it right. Mopark
went through a change where they got it right. You
I mean Dodge Chevrolet. I mean you have the Supersport.
It's like a supersport, sit Dan, that's going to be something.
It's a couple of cars.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Christ or three hundred, we'll have that, or it's too soon.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
No, that ain't gonna happen. It's not that kind of car.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Magnum, the Magnum, you could buy the Magnum's cheap,
Like I would buy a Magnum and put the new
Challenger front end on it. That's gonna be something. Okay,
the Magnum is gonna be something. I think Dodds nailed
it the most. Camaro, the Chevy Camaros. You know when
it gets to the two thousand tens, you know, when
(22:57):
they come out with the two ten's, that's gonna be.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Something cool. But what's funny is.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
When you build an Impala, a low rider the one
you want is the most base model in Pola. You
don't want the supersport. Sure, it's not cool to have
the bucket seats, and you're Impoala. I gets something like
people cut them in, they low ride them, but they
don't have the same value like people kind of ask
the buget seats, you want the bench seat. You don't
(23:31):
want the floor shifter in that low rider because we've
been conditioned. So it's that pride of again taking something
really cheap and turning it into something really nice because
you started off so little and you're right and now
building Impala, like even building my Cadillac, my Lacab, my convertible,
(23:56):
it's expensive.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I'll be in that course seventy thousand dollars that is.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
That would be almost like I mean, Christ, it would
be like buying because now they're you know, there's like
that arc there's like shit's new, so it's expensive. Then
it's old so it's not expensive. Then it's really old,
and most of them have been destroyed, so the ones
(24:21):
that you're still there are expensive again, but that's like
forty years out. It would be like probably a nineteen
forty two Packard or something like that.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Any of that shit expensive, any of that shit's fucked up.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, I'm saying it would be like doing that in
nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Like you, you know, you know what you like that,
you know what was like that for a while. I
always tell you about the G bodies. So the G
body is a it's.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Built on a General Motors platform.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So that's Pontiac, that's Buick, old GM Chevrolet. If I
remember correct this about five mates, right, So it's the
it's the Cutlass, that's eighty one eighty seven. It's the
Malibus seventy nine to eighty seven. It's the El Camino
seventy nine eighty seven. It's the Mighty Carlow. It's the Regal,
(25:14):
the Buick Regal eighty one to eighty seven, it's the
Pontiac Grand Prix eighty one to eighty seven. And when
I was coming up right now, mind you, this is
I graduated high school and I'm coming to my adulthood
late nineties, early two thousands, you could get those cars
for five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Sure, I think so. Now it helps you, yea.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Now, the motherfucking cars.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I'm trying to help sticks from watch find one right now,
a fucking cutlast that's clean. I'm not even talking about
the four four two like the special models. No four
four two also is uh. I think it's four barrels
two will drive four four to two cent for different
(25:58):
how the car was built. But a standard clean eighty
seven colors could cost you fifteen twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
They're more than what they cost.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, I think that's something that actually helped like Houston's
hip hop scene. And they didn't say it helped it,
but like they made the most of it. Was like
when screwbas was coming out in the eighty fours and
all that shit. They were buying eighties Cadillacs in the
year two thousand. Then nobody wanted, you know, and they
and they were putting candy paint on them, those big
(26:27):
vertical chrome grills and they're putting the fucking eighty fours
on the wheels. So like, you know, you could make
that work, but it's it's hard, Like it would be
hard to find the right kind of car to do
that with, you know nowadays at like where the where
it can have a good look and the entry price
is low.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So if I had to buy carn from two thousand
and five to two thousand and eight. I build a
Dodge Challenger, Yeah, I build a Dodge Challenger. I'd find
a two thousand and eight, like an SRT. Maybe just
a Dodge Challenger supercharger, whale wheels, that's kind of the
(27:13):
modern hot rider. Maybe a Magnum I try to find
a Magnum Wagon. You barely see those now. I think
the Magnum Wagon is like two thousand and five, four
or five six, something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
The Magnum Wagon gives off malleible wagon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Man, the Dodge Challenger, that's I think a challenge with
it with with those cars like that series, like the
they did change the other one more the other Dodge.
But like I pull up the twenty twenty three in
the two thousand and eight, like just.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Now very similar mm hm, which is good.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's good and it's bad. They're gonna have a hard
time buying it. Like you can buy a two thousand
and eight and do a lot of work to it
and it's still might look not that much, like it's
not a three year old car, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I Well, that's why you can get a little bit
more customized to it. But what I'm saying it's definitely
not gonna be the same effect. It's not gonna be
the same effect that then Poba had. Sure, that's what
I would build. I would take a two thousand if
(28:34):
I had to go twenty years, It'll be a magnum
or a challenger, and I'll build a hot ride out
of it. I think that's the car you look at
in twenty years. That's gonna be thirty forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Sure, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I worry about where hip
hop is and I'm concerned, but then there's moments where
I'm like, you know, it's always a new it's always
a new niche part of the street, urban culture that
(29:11):
needs to explain themselves.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's always a new version that we can always catch
up to. But I don't know. Besides that, everything else
is mm hmm. I worry. I fucking worry, Pete. I worry.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
How would you compare? Like, just from the simple artistic
expressions standpoint, And I'm gonna saying compare better or worse,
it's just whatever. It's just simply contrast whatever you know,
like hip hop and and the blues.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
How would I compare hip hop and the blues? You
know what's funny, I'm not well versed in the blues,
Like I know where the blues started as recorded music.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I'm not super well versus either. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
I know it started right now.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
This makes one hundred years of black blues records recorded
records this year. Mamie Smith came out with a first
record in nineteen twenty five, so this makes one hundred years.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I'll fit hold on, let me find a date to
tell you the date right now. I still have it
right here. I was studying it not too long ago.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I guess that's probably like Robert Johnson.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
What was the first Mamie Smith? Was the first Mamie Smith?
Mamie Smith, she recorded the first black recorded records. It
was in twenty five, gotcha, let me tell you the
(31:10):
exact day. I'll take that back. It was in nineteen
twenty sesh, it was in nineteen twenty so it's one
hundred and five years sure.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
And that's something I also don't know.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I could said like a second solo of quick Wikipedia,
like she recorded.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Jazz and blues, I know, like similar roots, but like
the separation point, you know there with those two like
genres in general, So.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Blues will be tough. Rock and roll I can compare it, Yeah,
rock and roll. I'm a little more versed in it,
you know what I mean. I wouldn't call myself an expert,
but I do know some fundamental things about it, and
that's what I like to compare hip hop to. But
hip hop might be just a little bit better off.
(32:10):
I mean, there is a few things that are concerning
right obviously where we're at right now. I'm looking at
everybody's numbers on Spotify for records that are like supposed
to be current, and the numbers are not like crazy,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's a record I really like. It's from an artist.
Her name is.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Flipp A T and it's called My Affirmations. It sounds
like glow Realer a little bit. I think she's from Georgia.
But I was looking at the record and the record
was at like two million strings on Spotify. And then
there's another record called Faery and it's by a young
lady named Maya p out of Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Rest in peace to Twinemac, my boy twine Mak. He's
been all the part.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Remember twine Twayn passed away, but Twinta's from Milwaukee, and
I used to always tell I'm really in love with
the things coming up from Milwaukee at the time, Like
they had their own rock, their own movement, the way
the kids was dancing and people was having fun, like
they had their own way of having fun.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And Maya p who was one of.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
The first people I followed in that movement, maybe two
three years ago, and she finally got a song that's
doing well. It's called Faery and like the song was
that like three and a half million streams on Spotify,
and I'm like shit, like they have really tightened how
(33:42):
much they're going to market someone's song, you know, Spotify
the company or as people say, put it in their algorithm.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Man.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
You know what's interesting from a time frame standpoint, like
hip hop and rock and roll are about twenty five
years apart in age, and you see a similar track
of the two because, like I remember, late nineties into
(34:14):
early two thousands, it was like you could start to
feel like this isn't working anymore, and both of them
started becoming really dependent on these big like we call
(34:36):
those big concerts, like festival concerts. Oh like like uh yeah, Lollapalooza.
You had all these then you had like Corn and
like method Man and all these different just jamming people
into these giant travel arena mega things all the time,
like they're just trying to find like, what's another reason
(34:58):
we can tie to this ticket to make somebody want
to pay to go see that guy because he's losing value,
you know, Like and I feel like I haven't been
a live music concert and I don't know how long,
but I see on the news, you know that there's
like a lot of festival concerts in like the younger
(35:21):
kind of hip hop space like that, which I think.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Is kind of an interesting are four million, hm, there
is a four million, four million streams and it's such
a big song. But like I could tell Spotify or
even people are not going to like something is happening,
And that's kind of what has pushed me, you know,
(35:46):
into a space too, like hip hop is very much
back in the eighties where you don't have we were
just talking about it today, like when ninety three, ninety four,
ninety five, ninety six bust everything over and it went
mainstream because before.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That you didn't really have hit records.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
You didn't have hip hop records that was going number
one or in the top ten, like it might be
a one off. And then it just started being a
bulk of records. Right ninety four. You know you have
Gin and Juice, right, you have Doggy Dog World. You
have Juicy that's in the top forty. You have Julio
Take a Ride that's in there. You have all of
(36:25):
these huge records, Warren g Regulators in the top five.
You know what I mean, You just have all these
records that are now competing with all the rest of
the records. It means not just the rap charts, of
the R and B charts, of the black charts, I
mean the hot one hundreds, the big records. These records
are competing with Eric Clapton and Garth Brooks, the biggest.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Records in the country. And we got spoiled. But in
the eighties it wasn't about that.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
And I think again, like I've been saying, I think
we're back at that time.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
We're back at that.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Time to where it was like maybe some of the
hottest records are not exploding, Like I remember a record
like Fairy ten years ago, a record that hot that
that kind of in the know, in the in the
in the position, that record would have been at twenty
million by now it had been at twenty thirty million.
(37:27):
But now Spotify has clamped down so tight. I don't
know if it's a combination of Spotify just clamping down
so tight on what they want to market, or is
it people are just not.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Going to Spotify to hear their music all the time.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
I don't know what the aggregators are like as far
as you know across platform numbers, but there's it's fairly
monopolistic as far.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
As where you can listen to shit, you know. I mean,
you can get around it, but you'd have to really
put your mind to it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It's still already put my mind to it for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I don't mean you, I mean like Joe consumer, Like
if I wanted to listen to a song, there's a
few surveyed five hundred people. If you want to hear
this song, where are you gonna go? Listen to it?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
On?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
You're gonna get three answers one hundred and fifty times.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I mean so, but I'm saying, maya peased audience got
to be somewhere between twenty six thousand twenty six thousand
and one hundred and thirty three thousand. I mean, even
(38:55):
though they have a.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Monthly listeners listening at five seventy, does it make sense.
I mean, I guess what monthly listeners.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, maybe maybe across that time, but it's taking somewhere
between thirty thousand and one hundred and forty thousand people
to drive a song to four million streams. And my
thing is, even with that exposure, you know, that level
of exposure, like, we have to be able to make
(39:29):
like and it can't just be like we're back into
a slave time to where its like we have this
really great product. You know, imagine McDonald's making a fire
ass burger and it's like, well, we can't really make
too much money off this burger. We got to actually,
you know, do something else to make money. And that's
what everybody is trying to tell you in hip hop,
oh man, the music is just it's just a commercial.
(39:58):
People pay people to make commercials of their business, yes,
and it's like we're accepting it.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And that's the one thing hip hop didn't do in
its exception. We didn't accept that.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
And you know, I don't want to sound like this
and I don't need this terminology because slaves went through
a lot, but it's definitely turning people into modern slaves
to some degree, Like you can't make a living unless
you're going to go out and do a thousand shows
rap on a bunch of people's songs, because they've been
able to demonetize the record so crazy mind you you
(40:33):
know they have multi billion dollar businesses built off records. No,
I guess in their mind they'll tell you it's built
off technology.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But I think that's the historical norm. I think you're
looking at this brief blip of time over the course
of ninety years and thinking that that's the norm and
everything else is the exception. When that's the exception.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Which part is the exception?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Not having to go tour a whole pantload of shows
to get all your money.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Well, remember the record labels was making the money then,
not the art, at least at least Barry Gordy was.
Even if the Temptations wasn't making a bunch of money. Shit,
Barry Gordy was making a bunch of money smoking Robinson.
They didn't have to go tour off of Temptation records
that they produced, wrote promoted they made that money there, shit,
(41:26):
ain't nobody making no goddamn money.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
At this point, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Like, yeah, well the platforms are.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
So so they did at New Regular Yeah, And that's
the tricky part, Like right, it's like.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
There's two that's the issue.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Now.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
The issue is the vertical supply chain effectively has changed
from drum to ear and there's too many intermediaries. You
got to be cleaned out.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
So you think that's the problem. Yeah, you wanting music, No.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
And then if you wild to create it, the distance
between the creative not the music producer, the IP producer,
the person whose brain creates the sound, and the ear
that consumes the sound has too many different channels in between.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
But even if it's oh, well, I guess that is true,
because you can't go straight to Spotify. You have to
go through a middleman, right, which is a distribution company
to many wholesalers. You have to have a phone, you
have to have a service. You have to pay for
(42:51):
the other service, the music service. So you pay Apple,
do you pay t Mobile? And then you pay a
Spotify m hm, and then Spotify pays themselves, then they
pay the record company or the distribution company and then
they pay you.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
And Spotify pays Apple and Google a ton to be
on there. I mean Spotify's biggest check per month that
goes out of that office is going to Apple because
they charge them fortunate to be on the play store
or the like whatever the live store.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
See.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
To me, the catch is converting people into more money
through Spotify. Like in the perfect world, you could get
every artist together and say, hey, you know what, when
you to stop putting our music on Spotify, we need
to tell Spotify, hey, you guys need to have an
iTunes service to well, we could have our singles for
stream but if people like the singles, they have to
buy the album more different than iTunes.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Screw that.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I would cut them completely out of the equation. You
need to verticalize your own self like who's microwave famous
to getting money for fucking nothing these days social media
figures right sure, and they don't do anything. You need
to figure out a way to go work with Instagram
(44:13):
and TikTok or whoever else, so as you can advertise,
you're bringing people to your page, they're seeing you. You're
advertising yourself and your music at the same time, and
then at the top there's your playlist pow, and then
you can put together a playlist within Instagram, and then
Spotify dies in about an hour and a half because
(44:34):
people are going to you to see what you're doing
on Instagram. Instagram, they're there anyway. They're gonna find what
you're doing because you follow them and they see some
girl bounce around and tights, and then glasses alone pops
up on the next story, and then you press a
button and there's your album playlist right there in the
Instagram interface. And then you could collaborate and link or
(45:00):
organically between artists within Instagram and create playlists or features
or whatever else that way, and you've cut everybody else
the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
You don't think that would take a mass movement of artists,
because people.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
It takes to work. Uh, it takes to work. Drake
did it? It already be done. I don't think he could
do it, though maybe not because contract contractually he might
be bound to not do it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I mean not even contractually like they have.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
They have, they have things like that called even even
as a company, even Dabis is a company where you
go to pay an artist and for his work, right,
whatever you want to pay him. But the problem is
the audience that is looking for music is looking to
consume music on Spotify, So I think you have to
have a stay there. To me, my thing is, even
(45:52):
when you look at Spotify, Apple title, they're not meant
to market albums.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
They're not in that business.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Your Instagram is marketing the album and sending them to Spotify.
That's my thing.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, but okay, but how would they play the music
if they were to get it from.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Spotify or let's say, let's say the single. Huh, they
don't get it from Spotify. No, I'm saying, how would
they get it from you on Instagram?
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Play your ship on Instagram? Like you that was something
you'd have to work out a deal with Instagram to
be able to allow. And I wouldn't even require that
much tech. But you know how they have like how that
shit even is they? You know, you have like your
regular posts, your story and then like reels and yeah,
(46:45):
it would have to be somewhere like the reels.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So kind of like how Kanye use it on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Maybe I've never seen Kanye swear so.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Kanye released his music on Twitter. As I have this idea,
Iron and you could do it on Twitter. Kanye's bran somehow,
Like I don't know. That's why I know he's not
completely crazy, and I know he's tuned into God because
we get some of the same ideas. Like one of
the things is like I've decided on my new project,
I'm going to release the video on Twitter. It makes
(47:14):
no sense to release the video a place where people
stream music, like YouTube, because then I'm spending a bunch
of money on the music video to give you the song.
You don't have to go anywhere else. People play music
in their car and they house from YouTube. Yeah, a
music video is an advertisement for a record to go
buy a record. So even if I want you to
(47:36):
advertise it to go stream a record, I have no
business placing the music video where you actually stream music from.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah, that's like varsy what I'm saying the same people,
like any of these smaller niche platforms or have to
start the new platform. You have to train your consumer
to go there. The consumers already going to Twitter, Instagram,
et cetera. They're already on that, They're already going to Spotify,
(48:09):
but they have to leave the one to go to
the other. You can cut one out by just having
your stuff here. You're taking the time to put crap
up on all your channels to drive people over to Spotify,
as opposed to just driving them to the next button
at the same place they're already at.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
M I've almost thought I've almost thought of a few
things where it's like, like with the one ten album,
like is it really do I just put the single
up and then I like, do I put snippets of.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
The single you know on on streaming apps? Right?
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Do I put snippets on of the of the album
on Spotify?
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
And then just put thirty second snippets And then at
the snippet you listen and you like, you know, at
the end of it, you faded out, and you be like,
head over to www. Dot thecripstore dot com and buy
this album if you like this single, and then all
the songs you just get a snippet and tells you
to go by. But then again, if people don't play
physical product, or if they can't download a digital product
(49:21):
and a player that they play music from, I might
kind of be I mean, it really should it shouldn't
be a fear of how you do business.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
If you believe in the records.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah, I mean, like, let's take like just reals for example,
Like like if you put all the singles out, they're
a real can accommodate that you would have the rights
to it anyway. So it's say thirteen three minute songs,
just pin them in order as your top thirteen and
(49:55):
everything else that you do that's new at whatever. It
stays below them, but at the top. And then after
a month, if there's ten million views or whatever the
hell it's been consumed ten million times in the aggregate,
you can say, hey, Spotify ten million, what do you
want for it?
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Hey you Spotify ten million? You mean, what do they
want to give you for the album?
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Yeah? See, I don't need you. I got ten million
on Instagram of these songs full length in my reels
in order pinned like an album. It got viewed ten
million times. Do you want ten million views next month
or twenty million views next month or whatever or listens
(50:44):
whatever the hell it is on your platform or do
you not want them there? That's ten million ads at
the end of each song that your company's not gonna
get paid for. What do you want for it?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
That's interesting? I'm not mad at that thought, that's how
you got it. I just think, and I think that's
why I've been telling you I need you, you know,
to do the business like I need your help with
doing the business, because we're just at a time where.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
We're at a time where.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Not only should hip hop be as creative and when
it comes to making records, but it needs to be
just as creative with doing business.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
And that's the thing I think about. What made hip
hop hip hop was two things, creativity and entrepreneurial verticality.
What is the modern day virtual tech equivalent to selling
cassette tapes out of the trunk your car? Like low flip.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
That's the problem. There is no modern version of it.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Because the trunk of your car is now your social
media page.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Well, the problem is, at that time a cassette was
still ten dollars.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Sure, I get that.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It's hard to do business without that actual product for sale.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, so how do you do it? Then?
Speaker 3 (52:16):
The what you're replacing with like the modicum of margin
that you're gonna get from those you're making up for with.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Scale to access access to more people.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, so now the trunk of your car your virtual trunk,
you might not get your two dollars per unit. But
you're gonna not do thirty thousand cassette tapes out of
the trunk of your car. You're gonna do thirty million
you know, views or whatever, impressions whatever. The term dajour
(52:51):
is across the country and you just have to transfer
that value into you know, revenue on the backside.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
But how would you do that if okay, agreed, Right,
you have a greater audience, right that you have access
to without you have to spend money. You have to
spend money. Like let's say for one hundred tapes. To
press up one hundred cassettes, it costs five dollars each. Yeah,
so you know if you press up one hundred tapes,
(53:25):
it'll be five hundred dollars, right, and then it's the
gas money to go out sell the tapes, eat food,
blah blah blah, Oh, sello tapes.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Let's focus on that.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
Now.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
You spend fifty dollars to go out and sell tapes.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So that's five hundred and fifty dollars if you want
to go sell so many tapes a day, right, But
those five hundred tapes, right would make you your five
thousand dollars so if it's if it's so, if it
costs you, let's let's make a Let's make a reasonable number.
(53:59):
Let's say you're go. I used to have I used
to tell Quiz this. I used to get Quiz. I say, man, Quiz. Look,
I convinced Quiz to quit his job. Now, some people
think it's crazy, but I'm like, yo, you gotta take
your chance on this. For a time, I said, you
have a great crap, like a quality CD. You could
sell ten to twenty CDs a day if you went
out right, that's the ten dollars, one hundred to two
(54:19):
hundred dollars. And it just happened to be at the
end of CD. So he was able to still do
a good job. But if he would have came around
the time that I came, or we would have came
before in two thousand, it was even more money.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Right, you could make a living.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
You could make two hundred dollars a day selling your music,
especially if the music is good. Right, So let's say
that number now is let's say it's twenty cassettes. Let's
say it's two hundred dollars, right, and you know, if
it's twenty CDs and to press up twenty CDs. He
(54:52):
had a machine. We might have spent a dollar twenty
to make every CD. So it was like twenty seven
dollars in gas, maybe twenty five dollars in gas, you know,
forty bucks. So if you spend forty bucks, how do
you still turn that into two hundred dollars on Instagram
even though you have access to a bigger audience, Like
(55:12):
you would have to kind of convert the bonuses, you know,
the Instagram bonuses to where it would make you two
hundred dollars a day, sure out of out of only
forty six dollars.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
What do you get for five hundred thousand views of
a thing on Instagram? Of one particular.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
Piece, not the total just one let's see.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Then beyond that also, like I think what it's doing
is it is demonstrating the IP value. So if you
had made because how many, how many of the same
tape album? You're really going to sell in one city?
You know what I mean? Like you're not going to
do platinum numbers. You're not going to make a million
of these damn things.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
No, I'm just talking about a simple thing.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
Sure, But like so with that, what you would do,
like as an upstart who could get the capitol flow
from just selling their own stuff, You're you're demonstrating the
value of it to bigger players. So then you're getting
(56:18):
a deal, or then you're getting this, or then you're
getting that, or a show or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
So Shop of Fire article says.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Influencer pricing suggests that a nano influencer five hundred to
ten thousand followers might earn ten dollars to one hundred
dollars per post, while macro influencers one hundred thousand, five
hundred thousand followers could charge five thousand to ten thousand
dollars a post.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Okay, well, if each post is a song on an album,
and you do twelve songs and you get sixty thousand dollars,
that's about as much as you're gonna get net selling
tapes out of the trunk.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Of your car.
Speaker 3 (56:59):
You really crush.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
One source average rate per real one source suggest that
creators with ten thousand and fifty thousand followers might earn
an average of two three hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Dollars per real. Okay, so maybe maybe were looking at
it wrong.
Speaker 3 (57:22):
But then also if you control but those reels That's
the other thing is there's no backdoor value to that,
because that's a typical reel. If you're real as a song,
you have now demonstrable value and total total access control
for consumption. So that's where you can say, Okay, there's
seven figure eight figures of people who consume this album, Spotify, YouTube,
(57:45):
whatever the hell? So what has been lost in the
novelty of people hearing for the first time. I'm not
going to get that value back. But if you want
this for the rest of the listeners and the ads,
sharing and all the rest of it on your platform,
if you.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Go to a distribution or do you go to Spotify.
At that point, I'd go to Spotify.
Speaker 3 (58:06):
You can do either one. I mean, you've proven value
and been paid for it either which way at that point.
But if you were talking about the issue with the
Spotify model, then just don't deal with Spotify and do
that or use it to demonstrate a different model for Spotify,
(58:28):
because now it's like that that's the thing. Everybody's perceiving
them as doing the artist the favor by promoting them,
So it's like, Okay, you're just getting empty fame. At
some point, you're just getting anything. You're putting your shit
everywhere to promote the music, and the music's not paying
you hardly anything, but they're driving all the listens, so
everybody knows you, but nobody's paying you, you know, So
(58:50):
you have to stick a you know, wrench in the
spokes and stop the spinning of that wheel. Someway.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Good looking out for tuning in to the No Sellers Podcast.
Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate, comment, and share.
This episode was recorded right here on the West coast
of the USA and produced about the Black Effect Podcast
Network and Notheart Radio.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.