"Politics As Usual"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
One day somebody asks you,

(00:01):
Pete, what's the component for success?
Is it the way you think, the way that you talk,
how you dress, is it the people you meet?
The shit that you learn, who you impress,
is it your line of work and what or how much you invest?
I guess to succeed, you gotta overcome your fears,
battle your own greed, conquer your own demons,
become unsure, second guess everything you believe in,
survive through the suffering to figure out the meaning,

(00:23):
and go hard to the moment you bring the creaming,
you might lose sleep, but it's gonna feel like you're dreaming.
Keep your circle tight, always bring your team in,
you need them to hold you down when niggas start scheming,
cause you living life and why you posting what you purchasing?
Swarves on the horizon, vultures are ready circling,
get caught lacking, you the clown, bring the circus in.
Want your respect back, go on and put some work in it,

(00:44):
but violence scared the money off, see?
I don't work for them.
Big corporations like to treat you like you work for them.
You ain't really a boss until you boss some workers,
and if you don't do business to get rich,
what's your purpose then?
How you feeling? How you feeling?
I'm feeling good, bro. I'm feeling good.
I mean, I had a conversation just earlier that...

(01:08):
that it's just hard to hear.
Damn, I won't say his name on...
because I don't really want to put him on blast like that.
But yeah, I had a very close friend of mine call me from...
from the hospital and it just sucks.

(01:29):
And he's a very talented person,
a really dope musician and all that.
And it just sucks.
He struggles a lot with his mental health.
And it's just tough to get those phone calls.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I feel that.
Hopefully everything will be all right with him.
Yeah, I'm hoping, I'm hoping.
He says something to me that...

(01:54):
I've had this conversation with him before,
and I guess it kind of leads into this part in this episode.
But he says something that...
He said when he started making music,
when me and him first linked up years ago,
he said when he started making music,
he said he was more so kind of imitating artists,

(02:15):
and he necessarily didn't have his voice or his sound
or his perspective, I guess.
Yeah, I guess on who he was as an artist or creative,
only to years later struggle with that
and battle with that as an identity.
Where it's like feeling like he was supposed to be
an artist or a musician,
but not necessarily that being an actual reflection

(02:37):
on who he was.
And I've had that conversation with him before,
but it's years later now.
It's important to know who you are
before you jump into anything that's as intense
as the music industry or not even the industry,
just being a creative in general
or feeling like your identity is attached to your creativity.

(02:59):
You know what I mean?
Because you could get lost in that.
You could feel like you have to be this person.
If that's not who you are, it's okay for that not to be who you are.
Just, people, reach out to the people who love you, man.
If you're spiraling out, if you're going through shit,
please reach out to your friends,
reach out to your family before shit gets worse,

(03:21):
because those phone calls are never good, man.
I truly, truly believe that.
What's up, though, man?
But yeah, man, what we touching on first?
What we touching on first?
The dream is being accused of...
Nah, I don't want to talk about that.
I don't want to talk about that.
I'm tired of these allocations.

(03:44):
Yeah, they going...
Hip-hop, I'm tired.
It's the domino effect, man.
We living in the house of cards right now, so...
Yeah, yes, sir.
It's inevitable at this point.
Yes, sir.
Do you think a lot of it is genuine
or you think a lot of it is a money grab?
It's so confusing in this industry,
because it could be on both sides of the coin.

(04:05):
I think 64, I think 60 is...
Yeah, they really doing this.
And then the 40% is, okay, I see everybody else
jumping in the lake, so let me jump too.
So, yeah, yeah.
And we're in a time now where you can't not believe the victim.

(04:25):
Because we have that Cassie situation
was kind of a slap in the face for everybody
who was like, oh, she's just doing a money grab.
And not just because of that, I'm just talking specifically
in this time in this industry with what's going on.
Because you had this tons of entertainers
that were getting hustled, basically.
And then you have a situation as serious

(04:46):
as what went on with Cassie and Diddy,
and it's like, damn.
And she was being very honest and vulnerable,
I guess, what was going on with her.
Where now we have, I think, what?
They came out on The Dream, there was somebody else.
I can't remember.
It was some other artist or musician.
I think something with Kanye came out the other day.

(05:08):
Oh, yeah, Kanye, yeah, yeah.
The Kanye thing.
That was a little, I don't know.
I don't want to talk about anything about it.
The Shawn Kingston thing was fucking interesting, man.
That dude is...
Oh, yeah, yeah, that was crazy.
I heard something about that a couple years ago
with his mom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He been out here scamming.

(05:29):
He been out here scamming.
Hey, you get what you deserve.
Fuck that.
That's how I feel at this point.
If you and your mama is scamming people,
and you guys get caught,
I mean, it's Ja Rule and the Fyre Festival, man.
Everybody can't beat Ja Rule.
Somebody got to go to jail.
Yeah, that's crazy.

(05:51):
I mean, remember the G Herbal situation, too?
He was doing all these credit card scams and all that.
And then he got caught up, and then he tried to say...
He was saying that it wasn't him.
It was like his business partners,
and he was just making investments or whatever.
It's like, nah, bro.
You was...

(06:13):
You was part of it.
I heard a little bit about that, too.
Yeah, man.
That goes to show you, all the artists tuning in,
have your business right,
and have a diversified portfolio when it comes to your income,
because the music itself is not always sustainable
as far as finances and income goes,
and you don't want to be one of these guys out here

(06:35):
who are scamming and get caught up scamming,
and then you look crazy.
Man, speaking of brands and business,
let's talk about ours, man.
Let's talk about ours.
So for those who know me, know that the first brand I started with...
The first brand I started building
was a company called Autumn House Entertainment,
and it was...

(06:56):
In its inception, it was a multimedia production platform.
Well, not platform, a multimedia production company,
and the goal was to produce the multiple forms of media,
and the concept was this house of creatives, right?
That's where the house in the name comes.
Autumn, besides it being my favorite season,

(07:17):
autumn is the season of change.
It's one of the seasons where you kind of see the lifeline of things,
where you can see a leaf go from bright green to orange to red to brown,
and it crumbles and it falls apart.
To me, that was a reflection of what storytelling was, right?
That's where the name Autumn House comes from,
and I wanted to build this company

(07:38):
where I had all these different creatives,
and we did everything in-house,
and we didn't have to outsource much.
I was working this job up in a place called Maryknolls,
and I was doing janitor work,
and at the time I was reading...
What is it? Think and Grow Rich?
Mm-hmm.
And there was a line in that book where he wrote,

(07:59):
when you cross the bridge, you have to burn it
so that you have no opportunity to turn back, right?
And when I read that, I was like, oh, man.
It really, really hit me.
So I quit my job.
I quit my job, and I was like, all right, I'm going to pursue this.
I'm going to figure this out.
And essentially, I had another business idea I was working on before that,

(08:20):
and then artists that we still work with,
Taylor Moore, she came to me with this project that she had wrote,
this EP, R&B EP called With Love.
She told me she wanted to produce it and put it out.
She came to me because I was heavily in music
and making music and just had a big network within the music industry.
At that point, at a more underground level,
I kind of sped up the process on Autumn House

(08:42):
so that we could take on that project,
and that was kind of the birth of it.
I really just reached out to all my friends.
I reached out to all the people around me who were creatives,
who I knew were musicians, who even wanted to maybe,
to my experience with them, wanted to pursue a career in the music industry.
And I was like, hey, you know, I'm doing this company.

(09:06):
I could use, you know, I need some help.
So I brought along Beko, who's a big part of the entire structure
and what manifested with Autumn House.
Now we have B-Free Studios in Brooklyn.
There was Leo, who's the co-owner of the company,
and that was kind of it.
And Taylor Moore actually doubled as a photographer as well in the company.

(09:30):
Then Artist Washi was also an artist.
Then we had Elijah Rhodes.
Then we had Stevie Q.
Who else did we have?
That was kind of it, like when I was trying to build a roster as far as,
but it just started with Taylor Moore.
Elijah Rhodes didn't come until months later,
and we took him on as the flagship artist.

(09:51):
Yeah, that was kind of it.
The beginning of it, what Autumn House Entertainment did,
that with Love Project, Taylor Moore's first EP,
I developed this curriculum kind of of how to put out projects, right?
So it was like I brought in this whole team of creatives,
and we would be in the studio, and then, you know,
we would just kind of carve out the records, give input,
what we thought worked, what didn't work, and we would build the records like that.

(10:12):
And then for every record we did, we would do photo shoots.
I started filming the music videos.
I did all the branding. I did all the brand identity.
So it was like Taylor Moore's brand.
I would focus on what to highlight with her as a brand.
Then I built the brand concepts, the internet, brand concepts in person when she performed.
I did the websites. I did merch.
I did, you know, we built this whole ecosystem around the artists

(10:36):
because the goal was always to create an ecosystem for the artists
so that they can then move forward with that ecosystem.
And most of my experience, I come from being an artist,
so my experience was there was nobody to help.
Like when I was trying to be an artist, I had nobody to help.
There was nobody offering studio time.
There was nobody offering mentorship.

(10:58):
There was nobody offering anything.
I didn't even understand branding until I was a grown man
trying to build a business around it.
And I was like, I don't want, I wanted to be an element in that space
for artists and local artists and upcoming artists,
amateur artists who didn't have the information.
So I would provide the business structure.
I would provide the branding structure, the creative structure.

(11:21):
I just need, I just wanted the artists to be artists.
Like hold your own, but I understand, like I come from where the structure is in there.
So now you have a structure.
You have somebody who's invested into the project.
So if we really believe in the project, I rarely charge the people I worked with,
I wasn't charging them anything for my services.
I took a percentage of the projects we worked on
and a percentage of the brand because we were building it from ground zero.

(11:44):
So it was like, this is, we're all starting off with,
with just ideas and vision and motivation and music videos.
You know, music videos get expensive.
So for me, if the artists could cover the venue, cover props, cover all of that,
then I would do the videos and everything for free.
You know, and photo shoots, all that for free.

(12:05):
And I would help sometimes with studio sessions and all that.
So it was really just believing in, you know, the, the foundation was believing in artists
and being able to leverage ourselves as a brand and company for the artists to thrive,
because we believe in them.
And ultimately the goal was to have an incubation program within Autumn House

(12:26):
where artists could pitch ideas.
And if we liked it, we took it on and then we would give that whole process through.
With Taylor Moore was the beginning of what that felt like, you know,
after Taylor Moore, then the many projects we did with Elijah Rhodes and Stevie Q.
Oh, Soup, Soup like Soul Pop, man.
She was somebody I worked with as well.
You know, after Taylor Moore is like, okay, this is how we're going to build this and apply this.

(12:49):
And Elijah Rhodes, we built this and applied this this way.
Then it became, okay, this is an incubation company.
This has, we have an incubation service or hub where it's like,
how do we take people's ideas and turn it into something?
It's like, I want to highlight all the minor, minor details while that conversation would be forever.
But in the sense of the origins of the company and like what it was and why it was really about for me,

(13:15):
providing a service in an industry that was missing a bridge from the local amateur artists
to the professionalism of the industry.
And that's where we came in, really as a sense of being, if we believe in you, we invest in you.
I think that's what a lot of local artists, what independent amateur artists need.
Yeah, man, those are the humble beginnings of Audemars.

(13:37):
We could go into the treachery of it a little later.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to stay on humble beginnings myself.
We can go into the church, like you said, we can go into that.
That'll sound a little later.
But yeah, I was in college when I first started my first business.

(13:58):
It was VTC Visionaries of the Culture.
And that was more centered around just, you know, just doing YouTube, funny stuff.
That was I wanted to do, incorporate the film aspect.
I eventually wanted to get into music with it.
So I hit up a few artists that I listened to on campus.
But then it was time to take a more serious approach with the content.
And I started Gold Print Productions.

(14:19):
And I was just like, okay, let me develop this film.
Let me develop a film around a production company.
And that'll be the foundation of it.
And we build from there.
But then I was like, okay, let's get back into the music.
So that's when Gold Print Entertainment was birthed.
And I wanted to center it around music, the slogan and the logo.
Everything was built off music.
That was the model.
And so, yes, I was just like, okay, let me find someone that's knowledgeable in that field.

(14:44):
So I reached out to a guy that wanted to do A&R.
And so I was just like, okay, let's find an artist.
Let's find a local artist that we can build and we can help enhance their image and their sound.
Someone that's talented, someone that works hard.
So we reached out to an R&B artist named Diamante.
And that was more so the roots of the music side of Gold Print.

(15:06):
And yeah, that was 2020.
I was in my latter years of at USM in Hattiesburg.
And me just balancing just being a college student and just being in the music.
And so with me, I studied.
I'm a student of the game.
So I sought the knowledge, like, okay, what I need in order to do this.

(15:27):
And we all grew together in that aspect.
And so I ain't going to lie to you.
You want to get into the shit.
You said what?
I said you want to get into the shit.
I mean, I want to get, we're going to dive deeper into it.
I was going to say.
So yeah, it was just building the brand.

(15:48):
It was just learning from people's mistakes, people's success.
And I took that in and what I wanted to create.
It was like, again, I'm a person that seeks knowledge.
I'm a person that understands the art of storytelling.
I'm a person that understands these things.
And me being me is I want to put you in a better position.

(16:09):
I want to help you win.
So I'm going to do everything in my power and everything in my will to help you win.
And we're going to grow together in this aspect.
Like there was times where I gave people a percentage of my company because in that aspect, I believed in you.
And we can see this company grow to a much larger level than we can ever imagine.

(16:32):
So yeah, it was just throughout the years, it was just, I mean, it was growth.
It was growth in every aspect and just knowledge and independent success as far as just, OK, seeing things that we never saw before.
I mean, it was a lot of things involved to help us get there.
And of course, there were some things along the lines that like, OK, this and this and that.

(16:54):
But yeah, just keep it in Goldprint in general.
It was built off the music, but there was also other layers of that.
I think I was doing all podcasts and at the time I was doing working on a short film at the time and things like that.
So that was more to it than just the music. Music was just the driving ship that in my mind was it's going to help us get there.

(17:18):
But there was a lot of things along the line that made me retract that statement as far as I don't know if this music thing is really the driving ship to get to where I want to get to.
But then there was also a realization that I came to that it ain't more so about the music, but it's more so about the people and that's ego, integrity, that's dedication, that's hard work, that's that.

(17:40):
So when I wanted the moment I came to that realization, everything changed.
The whole company changed, my mindset changed and what I saw for myself in the future changed.
And that was that was maybe a year ago, this time a year ago when I came to that inception, I came to the realization.
When did you start VTZ?
VTZ? Visionaries of the Culture 2018 because I almost got fired from my own journalism job and I was walking.

(18:06):
I'll never forget it. I went there the other day as far as the location and I almost got fired.
And so I left out the building and I started thinking, started thinking.
Because at that time I was studying Nipsey. It was like 2017 and 18. I was studying Nipsey, listening to his music, watching his interviews and things like that.
And I was like, man, I had dreams and aspirations to be on ESPN or do some type of sports something, just sports something in sports and media and sports and journalism.

(18:37):
And then I came to the realization that, man, I want to start my own business and doing the things that I love.
And it was it was more so not working for someone else, someone else mentality. That's what it was for me.
I didn't want to be able to be under someone else at that time. I don't have that mindset now, but at that time, that's what led me into creating it.

(18:58):
So, yeah, man, similar to your story, like I hit up a few, hit up a lot of my friends and guys that I seen potential in and guys that maybe wasn't doing nothing in this field.
But when I asked, they wanted to get into it. So I was just like, hey, let's meet. I think we meet at McDonald's. I think. I can't remember. I think it was McDonald's.
Yeah, I think it was McDonald's and we just got no Barnes and Noble out there. No, not in that time. No, that's.

(19:22):
But yeah, we met at McDonald's and we just broke it down to everybody.
I was just like, hey, this is what we're going to do. You know, the funny thing, none of them around now.
None of them around. Everybody, everybody wants to get in it.
Everybody likes the idea. Everybody's with it till it's time to put in the work.
But I don't know, man. It's kind of I don't know. It's weird and hard for me to talk about certain stuff in that that happened in that aspect without getting into certain things.

(19:50):
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot that happened that like, yeah, that I think about and then I realized, damn, that happened.
Yeah, like I forget that it happened. But then when I talk about it, I remember I just get I feel away about it a little bit.
What worked and what didn't work with VTC and GoPrint?
I mean, with VTC with the first business, it was more so just restructuring.

(20:15):
VTC restructure into what GoPrint is today. So it was more so that.
But I can go into what did work with GoPrint.
I mean, it was just opening opening up a world that I wanted to get into and just in exploring different relationships within their world of people that I would have never thought I would meet.

(20:37):
So like doing creating the platform and talking to people with a platform and sending out music and sending out videos that people love and gravitate.
That was something that I was just like, OK, that's a really good feeling.
Let's lean on it and just building certain bridges that not only I still have today, but just something that was it just felt good in that moment.

(21:07):
Like just looking at just looking back on it, it felt good and just making moves, man.
Like I always hear about Jay-Z and Nipsey talking about getting on by doing things out the trunk and doing things like that.
And we live in a different age and our version of that is still doing the live shows, but it's also connecting with people on social media.

(21:29):
So that's how I looked at it, just getting it out the trunk in that aspect and just reaching out to people, following people, comment on people, comment on posts and things like that.
Just doing that aspect. And that was always fun to me because we was getting our art to the world.
We was getting the music out. We was getting these videos out.
We was getting these things out to the world. And also we was just seeing a high level of streams that were like, OK, people are listening to this.

(21:53):
We see the comments. Hey, I love this song. I love this. I love what you guys are doing and things like that.
And even though and that was more so the R&B side of things because throughout the gold print tension and what it is now, I work with R&B artists.
I work with hip hop artists and me first. I'm a hip hop head. That was what I grew up on.
I grew up on hearing my daddy playing Master P, Ice Cube and things like this.

(22:15):
So I grew up in that hearing my brothers playing Lil Boosie and people like this.
So I grew up hearing hip hop first and then I graduated into more so the R&B side.
So I wanted to dive into let me work with R&B artists. Let me work with a hip hop artist.
And the goal was to create an ecosystem. As you alluded to earlier, the goal was to create an ecosystem to where we have this platform.

(22:36):
We have we can outsource resources or we can bring people in to help us do what we need to do.
But we have to lean on it. We have to build on it. And we have to like, OK, we can't do this part.
Let's either find someone that can do this and bring them in or simply find a freelancer that can they can do it.
And so, yeah, it was a lot of ups and downs in that aspect to the point where, OK, we did this video.

(23:01):
I'm going to kind of get into a little bit of that. What I said earlier, it'll be kind of like you have.
I would have a situation to where we're up, but then something in that moment will bring it down.
So a lot of situations that on my name, it was kind of in between like, OK, we're excited about it in that moment.
Once we're in it, it's feeling away or something involved that just make the whole thing just go away.

(23:25):
So, yeah, it was a lot of instances, like a lot of situations to where I was working with people that, OK,
they had something going on inside of them that I couldn't understand. So I had to only support that.
So it was situations that, you know, there were people just, OK, they felt that they should be doing this or they should be doing that.

(23:46):
And they took a few steps back. And a lot of a lot of situations in that moment, it kind of felt like I felt the way as far as like, OK,
you have this gift, you have this thing that's inside of you that can not only change the people around you,
but can potentially change the world. But in order for you to do that, you can you have to be right within.

(24:08):
Like you have to be right within. And so later on, I really understand.
I really understood where that person was coming from. It took me a minute to grab step because I couldn't be I couldn't be I couldn't allow myself to be selfish
and just push the work, push the work, push the work, push the work, because there were times where I was work, work, work, work, work, work.
I was centered around business. I was centered around this and that because I understood what we had.

(24:34):
I understood what type of talent that was in the circle.
So I was just like, OK, let's build around it. And I looked at it like a franchise player on a team.
And I was just like, OK, let's build around that. But then I came to the realization of what I was creating.
I'm the franchise player. Yeah. Oh, that was situations to where I was leaning on someone to be the face of what I curated,

(24:57):
be the face of what I was building or per se be the face of Goldberg when all when all in when in fact, I built this brick by brick.
And like Franklin said, I'd be damned if I let another thing tear down.
I couldn't allow myself to harp on their ideology because I will be forever a slave or I will be forever a little puppy to you,

(25:22):
looking up to you, waiting for you to bark or waiting for you, waiting for your command.
So it was something that clicked inside of me that was just like, no, man, this bitch is going to be here with or without you.
No matter what type of success happens, this foundation that was built by me is going to be here.
It's going to last millenniums. That's what I'm creating it to do.

(25:43):
I'm creating timeless art that's going to last forever, because that is my goal when I created this.
So within that one, once that click, once that click, everything just mentally and just actions involved just changed overall for me
to the point where I had to create a back door and in the back of my head that, OK, this person, these people are not going to be here forever.

(26:06):
Or this one person is not going to be here forever. I'm not going to be in a situation to where when you leave, I look at what am I going to do?
I'm scrambling for change, trying to get a snack or something like that. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with things like that.
No, I couldn't allow myself to do that. So I created that back door before there was any situation involved that could have happened in the future.

(26:31):
So it was more so like a safety net that I created within the business and the infrastructure within the business.
And so within that, it was a lot of ups. It was a lot of ups.
There's a lot of things that we will celebrate to this day that we accomplished.
But the end of the day, to be honest with you, I still feel like what did we really accomplish?
What did we really accomplish within this business? Because everything that we set out, not even everything, a lot of the things that we set out to do, we didn't do.

(27:00):
And it was two things for that reason. And of course, I have my flaws and situations that I could have communicated better on certain things.
I could have spoke up on certain things. I could have pushed a little harder on certain things. I could have did this and that.
I will always own up to that. And what I saw my flaw was anybody else to have their own ideology of what went wrong.

(27:23):
And they will have their own ideology of what went right.
But it was two things of why certain situations didn't work within Goldprint. It was ego and it was integrity.
And I tell myself this every day that I built my company off integrity. I built it off integrity.
And within that, you can't, and I learned this a long time ago, you can't expect certain people to abide by how you think and how you act.

(27:49):
You can't tell someone how to react. You can't really just chain someone.
If they've been like this all their entire life and everybody around them telling them, hey, you this, you that, ain't nobody telling you the real, ain't nobody getting on you, ain't nobody doing this and that.
You're going to feel your ego is going to explode. Not necessarily explode, it's going to continue to grow.
It's going to continue to grow to where you're feeling entitled.

(28:12):
And the second someone tells you that, hey, your song is not good or this and that, you start feeling the way or you get emotional about it and things like that.
And that's where the ego comes in. And just the integrity part is just being a good person.
And I can only speak on certain situations of what I've been, of what my interaction was with other people.

(28:35):
I can't tell how they reaction was with their family member, their friend, their family. They're going to have a different opinion on it.
I can only tell you how that person treated me or how that person did, like was around what I was doing.
So yeah, it was just ego and integrity. And those two things would not only destroy your business, but it would destroy an empire.
It would destroy your city. It can destroy your village. And those two things are one of the most like that.

(29:00):
Like we can go on forever about the importance of those two things.
And if I had to say what went wrong within the business, it was more so centered around those two.
And I actually like I applaud myself for being aware of that because it was times where I was just like, I'm going to deal with it.
I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to deal with it. Yeah.
And then I like, I can't, I don't know what clicked or what happened, but I came to a realization that man, I can't, I can't no longer mentally.

(29:27):
I can't really just deal with this. And it was situations to where my anger got the best of me and it just affected things around me.
So I was just like, man, I just mentally, physically, financially, I just cannot, cannot deal with this.
And so I just had to take 10 steps back and just revamp the company and just what I want to do moving forward.
Because that's what you see Goldprint media today.

(29:51):
I had to take 10 steps back and just figure out, OK, what do I want to do for myself and my business and understand you built this brick by brick.
So you cannot let another man tear it down based off their lack of integrity, based off their ego.
And like I said, it was situations, it was times where it was a lot of good.
It was a lot of good. And we built off that. But man, it was, it was a lot.

(30:16):
It was also in that same breath that I just cannot get out my head of situations that could have been.
Because the small things matter to me because they often lead up to bigger things.
So you have to focus on that and that way I ain't going to get into too much details, but it was just situations to work.
Hey, I extended this arm. I extended this hand for this bridge. Like we have this bridge.
Hey, we have this is created this video piece is created.

(30:39):
This art form is created and the only person that's stopping the only person that can stop this is you.
And they get and they do it like that's crazy. That is like that's still crazy to me to this day.
That was a creative differences. It was ego and integrity.
It was it was them and then it had nothing to do with the actual piece of work.

(31:01):
And all because it was beautiful. It was it was it was cassette like a special. It was beautiful.
It was something that was created. It was things, multiple things that was created. That was beautiful.
And again, you can't really just put that on one person, everybody involved or any of us, including me, including me.
So, yeah, it was just those two things. And like what was I was going to ask you, was that the same?

(31:23):
Was that the same? I remember in the early days of VTC or at least around the time I met you,
you went through something with with some people you were working with as well or that was on the business.
And I've heard you talk about this in a long time. But what was that ego and integrity as well?
It was it was some creators you were working with back then who turned around.

(31:45):
I think they did like some videos about you afterwards. Yeah.
Eating cereal in the car. Something like that. I think that was more so.
And me and him, we still cool. We cool now. OK.
It was on this situation was more so.
Just wasn't like they wanted to create something.
Yeah, it was more so trying to be someone you're not and someone that like at the end of the day, I can lead you to the water, but I can't.

(32:09):
I can't force you. I can't teach you how to drink or I can't.
And that was something you dealt with. Yeah. So like in the business, I can't hold your hand through this process.
I gave you I gave you the blueprint of what to do and how to do it.
I can't continue to do this for you when all you need is your phone.
When you got your phone in your hand, like there's apps and things like that that you can do for you to put this out.
I can't continue to do this and do that. And however they went on with it, that's how they went on with it.

(32:35):
And later on with the issues you dealt with moving like in the gold print in the gold print era, that was that that became more that was a deeper.
Those were deeper rooted issues. Yeah, because I was.
Because I was working with Monta on a like a personal level as far as OK, that's what I was going to say.

(32:56):
It was a deeper investment. Yeah, that was more so deeper because we was talking a lot.
We was having these conversations and meetings. We was going places and things like that.
So it was more so this is the artist I'm working with. Let me put everything into this.
And that was my mistake by putting everything into this.
But at the same time, if I can go back and put everything into it again, I would because I believed in it.

(33:20):
Like I believe in the talent. I believe in the art. I believe in this.
But once you get farther down the line, that's where entitlement, that's when ego, that's when integrity kicks in and things like that.
And you see the true nature of work ethic. And once you see that, that's when you know when to move.
That's when you know what your next move to that's when you know what your next move should be.
What would you do different that you think would change the outcome of like what went wrong in that situation?

(33:47):
I don't think I just thought what you could control. Right.
I don't think I would do anything different as far as that because I know now it was more so the person instead of the business.
Got you. Got you. So, yeah. So it's like not a matter of compromising.
It's not a matter of changing actions like I guess on the company's behalf because the company people don't understand it sometimes.

(34:09):
Like if I'm functioning from a company perspective, if I'm bringing all this to the table, if we have plans and goals, it's like those things are going to get executed because it's the function of the business.
So they were in the function of the service being provided. That's going to get done.
The investment on the creatives and it's more of a personal level.
But when they don't treat these relationships like business relationships, that's where a lot of you lose ego and integrity.

(34:35):
Because never mind if you're not operating, if you're not operating from an integral place just on a human level, on a social level, if you're not doing that on a business level, those two things are going to like you say, it's always going to tear down an empire.
Another thing I want to ask you was moving after that situation or because of that situation, do you still do you still invest that much into creators or different acts and people that you that you deal with with go print at least?

(35:04):
It sounds like you blended too much of your personal investment rather than the company's investment.
Yeah, that's what it was. That's what it was. And me personally, I wasn't looking like, of course, we can have this business relationship that can supersede or they can venture off into something like, okay, we're friends or we're cool.
But I wasn't looking for no best friend. I wasn't looking for that. I wasn't at all looking for no best friend in this.

(35:29):
We have a goal that we have to reach and we have a goal that we set at the top of each year and my objective, my, my mission is to accomplish each of those goals and I'm going to do everything in my power to do that.
And the knowledge of loan, the knowledge and work ethic alone that comes with me is enough to lean on to okay, I have Darrell in my corner.

(35:50):
I know he's going to do everything in his power to try to help me succeed in what I'm doing. Because if I believe in you enough and I believe in the art and if you agree to okay, Darrell, let's work on this, you're going to see something you've never seen before.
Like I told Zev the other day, what makes him different? What makes him different from any of these independent local artists or just independent artists all over that are on the similar or same mantra or scale that we own is they ain't got me.

(36:19):
Yeah, and I said that like not in the, just, I said that the most humblest way I could and not just a two-tone horn or be this and that or be egotistical or.
But you know, you know what you bring to the table.
Right, I know what I bring to the table. And so in that instance, I know that if we set a firm foundation, we have these things jotted down or written in stone.

(36:41):
Yeah.
I promise you, I promise you the talent I just need, just give me the 70% to 60% to 70% I can work with that talent. But give me the work ethic.
Give me the work ethic that comes with integrity and I promise you we can take it to a whole different level. But that's how I look at it like work ethic. I can, I can find that.

(37:04):
I mean, I work with talent. We can find that. We can find that in the palm. We can go find that someone. We can find someone that can sing.
Everyone's talented. Everyone's talented.
We can find someone that can craft a song together. But out of those 20 people, let me pick you out of the line up and let's see. Let's see when the war is, when it's time to go to war.
Let's see if you battle tested. Let's see if you can stand firm on this ground and let's see if you can go to war about a, about a shit that you talking and the shit that you putting out. Let's see if you ready for that.

(37:34):
And it came, it came throughout what I've done and throughout the people I've worked with and when it was time to go to war, niggas wasn't ready. Niggas wasn't battle tested. Not even battle tested.
Not even battle rated. Cause when it was time to go to war, you retreated. You retreated. And that goes more so ego consistent work ethic, integrity that goes more so in there. I don't care about the life.

(37:56):
I don't, I don't care about how strong you are. I don't care about how skilled you are. I don't care about that. I don't care about that. That's just a small percentage of what we doing.
That's just a small fraction of this business. If we can't execute, it don't even matter. It don't matter at all. It don't matter. It don't matter.
It don't matter how talented you are. It don't matter how, if you can't execute on the, on the idea, then it, it don't even matter. You'll be the nicest dude in your bedroom. You know what I mean?

(38:27):
You'd be the nicest dude that nobody ever heard of. You'd be the greatest talent that no one ever saw. You know, so it, it comes a lot with, with the execution process. And I mean, I've experienced it myself where it's like, it's just a lack of that.
I mean, yeah, end of the day, that's what it was. When it was, when it's time to go to war, we really gonna see who battle ready. And throughout that, however that war happens, we gonna live and die by what we, what we putting out.

(38:52):
Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, the game is the game, man. Whatever we put out, whatever situation that we do, we gonna live and die by that. And that's what separates, like, the will to not give up and the will to just simply just keep going and be consistent at it.
Like that's gonna separate you from everybody else that's doing this. Like it can be someone that's doing music, doing film, doing something creative or just venturing off into something that requires you to be consistent and you can work like, you can be successful in it.

(39:26):
Because we don't see the end of the rainbow. We don't see it. If we saw what's at the end of the rainbow, we'll move different. And we've seen success around this road, we will move different. But I promise you, it's some people that can see the success down the road.
All they gotta do is go straight. They can see the success down there and they'll still go left. They can have someone that is, that is someone that is invested in them and doing everything in their power to see them successful and they will still fuck them over.

(39:55):
Or they will still find something that would alter their relationship or things like that. They will still find it.
Some people struggle with it with success.
Like we going to war with this. Not like physically fighting or killing or things like that. But mentally we going to war when we doing it.
Mentally and physically because physically you out there.

(40:17):
I mean, yeah.
It takes a lot of physical action to make some of these things happen.
Oh yeah, definitely.
I agree with you. I agree with you, man. So out of all of that, what did work?
What you see today. What you see today is what worked. And what I mean by that is what happened in that moment and what was being crafted is created the mindset that you see today and what you see the company moving forward to be.

(40:47):
Because again, I had to take 10 steps back and just realize, okay, yeah, like what do I really truly want to do with this business? Am I going to quit?
No, that's never been an option. So like what do I want to do with it?
So as far as the details of what worked and they're like just that. I mean, at the same time, just understanding the knowledge because I can't sit here and tell you we sold a million records.

(41:10):
We sold this and that. We got success on this because at the end of the day, like we still in this position.
So nothing technically worked. It was just a lot of lessons learned throughout the process. So yeah, that's how I can put it on my camera.
I'm going to read something real quick. This is something I wrote for some verse I had did. But it talks about, I talk about kind of some of the experiences.

(41:33):
I wanted to read it because some things you said, like I kind of spoke about in this part.
We are not the ops. We just opposite looking for a pot to piss in. I've been cooking in the kitchen. I've been booked and being busy. You just look and think it's easy.
I swear it isn't that hard. Envision what you want then break your back for it. You lazy baby. Ain't it crazy? You just want to ask for it.
While I work my ass for it. Still they act like I ain't shit. Noah's Ark of Floating Aw and still they sink the shit.

(41:59):
With Moses arm, I wrote these Psalms and split the scene quick. After all that shit we did, did it matter, dawg? Did the shortcuts get you there faster, dawg?
We are not ops. We just opposite. That's very important for me from all of that. Right?
Aside from the after all the shit we did, it didn't matter, dawg. The shortcuts get you there faster, dawg. Right?

(42:20):
What didn't work for me was I did a lot of what you did. I invested a lot. For me, I was personally and emotionally involved from day one because the people around me were my friends.
For people I considered damn near family, I had known the people around me for 10 years plus already.
I was always somebody when I heard that cliché, don't mix friends and business. I always looked at that like, oh, that won't be me. I'm not going to succumb to that.

(42:48):
I thought I could beat the odds with that. One of the biggest lessons I learned with Autumn House Entertainment was that, and I apply this for a lot of things in my life.
You can't involve people who aren't ready to take on the responsibilities that come with these roles. You know what I mean?
So I did the same as you. Like I gathered all the people I could think of, all my friends I knew could be involved in. And I saw the talent in them. That's the thing.

(43:15):
You see the potential in people. You see a potential based on the lens that you're looking at those people from. You know?
So when I involved those people, it's funny, one person who I eventually worked with didn't want to get involved at first. Right?
And then the other person who got involved with me right off the jump. I feel like he took on something that he wasn't really ready for and didn't want.

(43:37):
I think it was more ego to be a part of something. And maybe not because he pulled his weight at times, but then at times he didn't pull his weight.
My mistake was believing that people wanted it as much as I did. You know what I mean?
So when you're dumping all this into this business and this, like I was the same.
I went through the same phase that you went through, the same realization of like, I'm bringing all this to the table. I'm building it. It's me.

(44:05):
It's like those people assist. They're only building, they're only adding to what I'm already building. If I remove myself, they aren't building on their own.
And I should have looked at that from the beginning, but I believe sometimes it takes somebody to spark the inspiration.
I thought that was my role in it. That's far from the work I was doing.
And I expected people to put in as much work as I was putting in. And that just wasn't what it was. Nor do I think people looked at it the same way.

(44:30):
When you're dealing with creativity, when you're dealing with talent, with ego, with personality, jealousy, all of that comes into play.
I didn't think that would exist amongst friends. You know what I mean? Amongst family.
And when people are so talented and all that, you think it could work because everybody believes in each other.
But the reality in my situation, I don't, everybody didn't believe. I think people front it as a team, but they were really doing for themselves.

(44:55):
A big thing for me was I dealt with an artist who I didn't charge anything. This is the main thing of what didn't work and why it didn't work.
Right. I dealt with a first off, it was the element of friendship, right? Because of that and because I believed in the person as well.
I invested a lot into it and I invested my own, my personal connection to the person. So it was like, oh, this is my, this is a friend of mine for years and he's super talented.

(45:18):
Let me help him get to the next level. I believe in him that much. Right. My perception of what he was doing was working hard before I came in.
And then when I came into it, I just always outworked the situation. I think I'm always going to be like that when I'm, when I'm like passionate about something.
But the friendship aspect made me kind of look over all those things that were that were wrong, that I saw red flags from the beginning.

(45:41):
And it comes in a simple form, in a simple way. I can't care more and work harder for your career than you do.
That's just never going to work out. I shouldn't be in control of every little detail and aspect of your career.
I can't do everything, especially even more so when I'm not being paid, when really myself and the company is what's putting up more of the leverage.

(46:04):
You know what I mean? Like there's more at risk for us when you just as talent have to show up in a way, you know, and I found myself in that situation a lot with this particular artist.
It was just laziness, honestly, and ego, ego that didn't even really shouldn't have even been there because we weren't meeting goals.
We weren't, you know, like I had all these conversations with everybody who I worked with. I said, I handed out worksheets of like write down goals right there.

(46:29):
What are these things that you want to work towards? And those people never turned them back in. So it's never no identifying what are we working towards?
It's just kind of, oh, let me show up and do, oh, we have a session. Let's show up. Let's do this.
And that's cool when you're just when we're cutting records, right? If we're cutting records that works.
But what do you do with the music afterwards? You know, how do you build? What's the brand building? What's all of this? That's a lot.

(46:51):
It's a lot of work. If you don't if you don't have a vision for your own career, how can my vision for my career, my business take on the identity of your career?
Like that's what's going to happen because it's going to be, oh, I'm doing all this work and building all these things.
And it's just what you're doing is just attached to what I'm doing. And when I'm not doing it, you're not doing it.
To make it short and sweet about what didn't work in Autumn House is me working more for people's careers and then they are working for their own.

(47:20):
I don't even have to get into the personal details of it all. Of course, it's clashing of eagles.
Of course, there's a lot of that. It's it's a lack of appreciation for what actually goes into something.
I don't I don't believe that some of the people I was working with understood what what all went into creating everything we were creating, you know,
because they're only seeing it from one perspective.

(47:42):
They weren't looking at the totality of everything, you know, they weren't seeing the long nights.
They weren't seeing having to learn all these things. They weren't seeing all of that.
They're not seeing the networking. They're not doing all of that.
And the involvement of on their end is going to always come through because how far they get in their career is going to be a reflection of their work ethic, you know, and not a reflection of their talent.

(48:05):
And yeah, man, it's sad. It's sad. A lot of a lot of ruined relationships over over nonsense.
And another thing is money. Finances. Finances is a is is a devil man when it's not handled properly.
Something else that didn't work, which I could take and I take accountability for my end on everything.
I didn't always communicate the stress of finances in the company.

(48:27):
So even though I would cover the things I would cover, I was covering things that they didn't even know, because as the person who's running the business, who's operating, who's at the at the wheel, you do what you have to to take care of whatever got to get taken care of so that the goal gets executed.
I was just taking care of things and the financial stress was growing on me.
And then on the other end, it's like those guys were like complaining about finances and saying that he was spending too much money.

(48:53):
And it was like you're spending a fraction of what you'll be spending if you weren't getting all these free services.
And I don't think they really understand that. You know, I was 10 grand in the red before I brought anybody into it into the company, just off of equipment.
People don't see that. So they take it for granted. They take for granted the time and everything that goes into crafting things. And that sucks.

(49:17):
What worked with the company, Autumn House has evolved and it's at a point now where I'm focused less on music because we've built another ship for that, for music specifically.
Where Autumn House now is focused more on multimedia in the sense of podcasting, of visuals, of books, you know, and other different things that I want to create moving forward.

(49:39):
And I want to keep it that way just because dealing with music and musicians and artists and all that, it requires a lot that I can't commit to if I want to be doing all these other things.
Because like you, I want music because I love music. I wanted to make it the forefront.
But the reality is, it's especially where the music industry specifically is today. It takes a lot of other things to make music work.

(50:03):
I'd rather do everything music related at the studio with Beco and Be Free and be able to craft and do artist development, do everything through that system.
And then maybe take what other things need to be created as far as media goes around that through Autumn House.
And aside from short films and everything else, you know, that's where that company, that's where Autumn House is today.

(50:24):
What worked is the process work, the system work, the building content around these things.
All that work because when it was being pumped out, it was working, the efficiency, everything, the idea of having in-house creatives, in-house talent, in-house resources, all that works.
To this day, it works. The industry today is built off of that. Everything leans on the independent creative today.

(50:47):
So if you have all those elements, it works. So that worked. The understanding of communication with artists worked.
All these things that I was doing, like I said, I was giving out worksheets of what is your fan base, you know, what's the fan base you want to build?
What are the characteristics of fan base? I was asking artists and creatives, what is the career that you want?

(51:08):
All those things work because they help you identify what you're building. And when you can do that, you can then continue to build.
It didn't work in one with one artist. It don't mean it's not going to work with another artist.
It just requires the participation of that other artist and requires letting go of ego. It requires high integrity.
It requires being involved with the process of what you're building and artists, creators, business people, whoever is listening in this sense, you can't build a successful career if you have yet to identify what that career looks like.

(51:41):
Because then you're just kind of shooting in the dark and hoping something lands. And that doesn't, it just doesn't work for a sure thing.
You know what I mean? And nothing can be a sure thing, but you can have a higher odds and a high percentage of success if you do these things,
if you identify what you want to work towards and then you work towards, if you have goals, if you have all those.

(52:05):
What didn't work with that artist was that we didn't have that. We didn't have an identity of what we were doing.
I more so was creating an identity for that person. Once I remove myself, the identity crumpled and then nothing comes from that.
As far as business relationships, what didn't work in that was a lack of communication.
You should always communicate the things that you want and the things that need to happen in the business.

(52:29):
You got to be able to remove personal interests in things and look at things from a logistic standpoint because businesses run off of logistics.
The personal involvement, it can work on a sensible level, but on as far as like building culture and all that.
But when it comes to how this how the business functions and what needs to happen, that is 90 10 logistics.

(52:50):
And that has to be something that's clearly communicated between business partners on what's going to work, what's not going to work.
And you have to do your part. You have to be able to know if your role is CEO, CFO, if your role is finance manager,
if your role is A&R, if your role is that. You have to know everything that entails with that role.
And you got to hold each other accountable. Those are the things that those things work.

(53:13):
They're proven in the most successful businesses that everybody plays their role, their position.
And you're not flooded out by fame or lime or the limelight or how many likes you're getting.
The artist had an issue with was focused a lot on his perception online and not on the actual footwork and the reality of what was going on.
People might like your stuff online that doesn't translate into sales, that doesn't translate into movement, that doesn't translate into an actual fan base, into an actual career.

(53:41):
If you can't if you're not a hard ticket artist, does it matter how many people like your post?
If you can't sell a ticket for five dollars and those people come out to see you, you're not causing any debt in anything.
You know, if people don't show up, it doesn't matter. Online presence is not the only key.
That's not a career in a music industry, in the entertainment industry.
I mean, so those things, those are things that work didn't work.

(54:02):
The journey works, man. When you build it, when you stay committed, when you're honest, when you're genuine, when you have integrity, when you can remove ego, it works.
It works. It just is hard, is hard, hard work. And we don't get here without it.
So it's like I'm speaking from a place where I started as an artist. I transitioned into business.
I invested in artists. I invested in people. Some of it worked, some of it didn't.

(54:26):
It didn't stop me. Like you said, quitting was never an option. You know what I did after that? I put out a book.
You know what I mean? What I did after that, I did my Becoming Dad podcast that I started.
Then when I took a break and I'm coming back now, putting out my own music as just an artist and now building this brand and this podcast with you.
So it's like the road has always been what it was. It just, it shifts sometimes.

(54:48):
I forgot to mention we opened the studio in Brooklyn. We got other relationships and a whole other network now. So it never stops.
You might shift and you have to pivot and you have to remove the things that weren't working and try new things out.
But that consistency that you see in how I move with my businesses and my things, the consistency we can see when we look at you and GoPrint and the evolution of things.

(55:14):
That's if nothing else showing you what works. You know what I mean?
People I think associate fame to success and that's not always the case because there's a lot of famous unsuccessful people.
Fame is in the catalyst of success. Success is being able to execute these ideas.
Even with the failures we've encountered, we still have a high success rate because we haven't quit because we have a new product.

(55:37):
We have a new brand. We have new ideas that we're executing on and being consistent with.
So this is what works. The journey is not an overnight journey. It never has been and it never will be. You have to be able to put in that work.
I know you're big on creating experience and turning like records into moments.
With me personally, when I'm building something, when I'm doing something, I'm excited.

(55:58):
And that the excitement, my most exciting moment is the building process. That's why my film is called The Foundation.
So that is when I'm putting everything I have into this art is when I'm building it.
And so what I'm doing just that is never well, oftentimes it could be that.
But if I'm creating something, it's always going to be something that leads to something bigger.

(56:23):
So if I'm creating, if me and Zevon putting out the Gracious record, that's not just going to be we're putting out that record.
We're not going to touch it. It's not going to be something after it. It's always going to be something after that's connected.
I'm a big fan of Marvel. I'm a big fan of DC.
And I'm a big fan of the cinematic universes that they created to the point where everything is connected.

(56:45):
So I kind of model my business and model my creativity around the Avengers approach, the Marvel approach, the DC comic approach and things like that.
And so when I'm creating a piece of art or film or music, things like that, when I'm creating the Gracious record with Zevon, when we're doing the gospel record, when we're doing things that we have coming out soon, it's always a bigger picture within that.

(57:08):
So if I'm doing a record, if I'm doing a film, the film is connected to the music that we're creating.
So it's going to be pieces of content that's going to not only excite those that are invested, but excite us as well to where, OK, we're going to give you maybe an interview or maybe going to give you a detailed interview.
We're going to give you behind the scenes. We're going to give you a video. We're going to give you the type of film aspect within this and create a cinematic approach by doing that.

(57:35):
So that was my whole thing with the the foundation kind of like montage. It was going to be this film at the top. And under there, you have the album. Under there, you have the EP. Under there, you have records, videos, detailed interviews, merch, some type of capsule involved that we're going to give to the world.

(57:59):
And it's just the marketing is that's a part of the art. The marketing side is a part of the cinematic experience because we want to create something that's going to be timeless.
We like I'm not in a position to be to go on to go backwards. I believe that art telling is our greatest form of anything is the story like just storytelling in general. That is our greatest art form.

(58:22):
I truly believe that. And so I want to be able to tell stories through these records. I want to be able to tell the story of triumphant, the story of redemption, the story of faith, the story of someone finding themselves because that's essentially what the record, Grace, is about.
That's essentially what the record, the gospel is about. That's essentially what the album and the film is about. Someone finding themselves. So we're going to give you Grace's first and we're going to take you through a journey throughout this.

(58:49):
And if you truly, truly pay attention to what's going on, you will see that journey. Like of course we will give you Easter egg, we will give you this and that and just things like that. And even similar to this, this art piece right here.
It was essentially two hands. It was essentially two hands and a lot of the things that I alluded to earlier on the pod and I let my anger get the best of me with the situation and when that conversation ended, the statue was broke.

(59:14):
And that's why certain things I will never forget. And so when I looked at it, I didn't look at it as a broken piece that I'm going to throw away. I'm going to look at it as a sense of new beginnings. I'm going to look at it as a sense of not whole anymore or just a rebuilding process that has to be molded.
So that's essentially what we can get on. We can get with the next installment that we're releasing with Black Gold. That is what we've released in the past all coming together with also maybe two or three new records or things like that.

(59:47):
But we also want to give you something through, we also want to give you something visually because I'm a filmmaker. That's telling a story is something that I feel is my calling, something that is my purpose.
Like not only just putting people in better positions, but just telling certain stories that not only just give people motivation but inspire people, just something that they can just harp on or not necessarily harp on but just something that they can just live with forever.

(01:00:09):
Because again, like I can harp on and just talk about this. I'm not in a position of going backwards. So if I release something, the next thing is going to be bigger. The next thing is going to be better quality.
And what I mean by better quality, I mean the storytelling aspect of it, not necessarily the image quality or the 4K or something like that. When I mention quality, I mean the effort you put into it.

(01:00:32):
Like we talk about quality over quantity all the time. And for me personally, it's the effort that you put into it. And again, there's two sides to me. There's one side that say I understand.
I mean, I was in the same position and a part of me is an evolved form of it. And I understand that, okay, they don't have the knowledge to do this or they are at a point where I was.

(01:00:55):
But then there's that. I ain't gonna say a demon side, but there's a bad, like a sum on my left shoulder. Just look at certain situations and like.
The deemed ash.
That's the best way to put it. There's the dang bad side of me that look at certain things. I'm like, not only I knew you could have did better, but the words that you speak in and the things that you're putting out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or to the world is not adding up.

(01:01:24):
It's not the things that you put out or not. It's the words. It's not adding up. It's not balanced. It's not balanced. So there's a side of me that was just like, man, that's like, there's been times where I told people publicly that their music was ass.
Yeah, to this day, I still stand by that 10,000 and they change to this day. So when I stood by that, I promise you, I wasn't the only person that thought that that was just me leaping on. That was just me taking a leap of, okay, I'm gonna tell it how it is.

(01:01:55):
But also, like, if I say it, I stand on it. If I say it, I've made it to this day. There's no changing or going back or things like that. So I encourage people to seek the knowledge, like seek the knowledge.
If you want to get into a video, if you want to get into music, if you want to get into most of these things that you can do, most of these things that you want to do can be learned through YouTube.
And a lot of the times if you can't necessarily get a certain product, and if you have a certain life, you have a phone, like a modern phone or like a new age phone and things like that, you can do a lot of these things.

(01:02:27):
And that's just the technical side of stuff. In general, it's seeking the knowledge. If you take the time to plan, if you take the time to get a whiteboard, if you get it, like, get take the time to write things down in a detailed way and just lock yourself away and just create and just learn and seek the knowledge.
And I promise you, you will come out that cage, you will come out that house a better person because then you will be able to get inspiration when you go outside.

(01:02:51):
You'll be able to get influence and just take bits, like do what I do, just take bits and pieces of your favorite creators, your favorite artists, your favorite filmmakers and mold that into what you want to do.
Not necessarily to create their exact model, but just take a piece of that and create your own.
There's a great book on that called Steel Like An Artist.
Right, it's like I always say, like a lot of people say great artists, like good artists steel, great artists bar roll, good artists steel.

(01:03:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great artists bar roll, some shit.
There's a book on that whole, that whole psychology, Steel Like An Artist, Creatives People, and it's a great book for anybody to read, but it touches on that exact same thing.
Oh yeah, because like I'm in a position, I'm in a field of, I'm more so an artist helper now. So if I see an artist that lacks certain things, I want to be able to, let's work on this, let's like, where can I put myself in this position to where we can succeed by doing this.

(01:03:45):
And again, like when I say creating moments around the music, creating moments around what you're doing, it's like, people often have the ideology or the mindset that I'm going to drop this and I'm never going to promote it again, I'm just leave it there.
And you treating it like, you treating it how Robert Varatheon treated his bastard childs in Game of Thrones. Like that's how you treat it, you just cast it to the side.

(01:04:08):
I curated you, but I'm going to send you down to create swords and armor and I ain't going to never speak to you ever in life. So like that's how people treat the music. That's how people treat these pieces of art form that they're creating.
And I just look at it and I was just like, man, this was good, but build around it. I promise you, like you can do chat, GBT, you can do Google, you can look up these things that you can create one song and around that song, you can create 10 different forms of content from lyric videos, music videos, sit down interviews.

(01:04:37):
Zaki, my brother, very talented creative artist, Zaki, he called that process stepping on the coke.
Stretching the coke out. Yeah, that's what we said when we were building our first company, Sulfur, that was a philosophy in our camp and it was stepping on the coke and it was how do we cut this product up?

(01:05:03):
You know, how do we make this product stretch? So we got one song, we have a record, what do we do? Okay, we do a photo shoot associated with that record. We do a video associated with that record.
Behind the scenes. Yeah, we do behind the scenes. We do an interview, we do different content, we create a product that we can attach to that record.
We had this whole process and then we had this thing where we did a photo shoot, we take seven of those photos, each day for that first week we releasing a photo.

(01:05:34):
Oh, we did the video. Okay, each day leading up to the release of the video would drop behind the scenes or photos from the video shoot. It was such a great process.
And I took that, that was before Autumn House, I took that same process. That's how I developed my formula for Autumn House and creating content around artists.

(01:05:55):
It came from, I used the same phallus, I called it the same thing, stretching the coke.
Because like when you say, that's why you say building experience, to me that's stretching the coke out. So you figure out, you create all these different things.
I like how you put it, because you act, you have a way of intertwining everything together where it becomes like a living breathing thing, you know, where it's like all these things are existing at the same time and even all those other things that you're creating around that one thing can have things created around them.

(01:06:24):
You know what I mean? And it becomes like this whole entire like universe, like you say, of not just products and ideas, but of art pieces and things that people can appreciate and take in. And that's why I said when you work with people who don't take advantage of that.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like when I'm doing these, when I'm creating these products and things like that, it's often more so attached to a certain creator or things like that. And that's why I partnered with Zevin for this album process to create a joint album.

(01:06:55):
And so the talent that he possesses and things like that is just unworldly to me to want to a point where I was just like, man, the way I see TDE Punch, the way I see Knife Wander, the way I see these people talk about Kendrick and the way I see Guru and people like that talk about Jay.
Like, man, that's how I talk about people. That's how I talk about you to other people. And I was just like, man, what we're creating and what we have can potentially change lives and it can change the world. But we have to be right within. We have to change ourselves and do that.

(01:07:28):
And so, yeah, like he understands the concept and everything that we're creating. And as far as this album process, I've been working on this for like three to four years, this film, like three years. And it's just, I had to take some steps. I had to take so many steps back, but it was needed.
It was needed. I didn't like, if I look back and if I started this, if I started filming on this certain day, it wouldn't be right. Of course, in film, you have the ability to do reshoot. So that was always an option too. And so, yeah, like he understands the concept of what we're creating and what we're doing.

(01:08:00):
And so what we have coming next, it's all going to make sense of what we're doing because so far we've only released two records, Graces and Gospel, with a video coming soon and another project coming after that. And so everything is like, once you start in the universe, you can see D, you can see I put out Iron Man, I put out Captain America, I put out Thor.

(01:08:22):
But then the next few films, it kind of starts to make sense. We give you something at the end that kind of intertwines everything. When it's time, we give you the Avengers. So when it's time, we give you the album. So that's how I look at that. And that's what I took inspiration from.
Industry Tip of the Week, build a strong network, cultivate relationships with industry professionals, including producers, managers, promoters and fellow artists. Networking can open doors to opportunities and collaborations. Develop a unique brand, establish a distinct identity that sets you apart from others. This includes your visual style, music genre and personal story, which helps you connect with your audience.

(01:08:58):
Understand music licensing and royalties. Learn about the different types of music licenses and how royalties work. This knowledge can help you maximize your income from various streams such as streaming services, radio and TV placements. Invest in quality production. High quality recordings and productions are crucial for standing out.
Invest in good equipment, work with experienced producers and ensure your music is professionally mixed and mastered. Diversify your income streams. Relying solely on album sales is not sustainable. Explore various revenue sources such as merchandise, live performances, sync deals, crowdfunding and use platforms like Patreon is what I'm saying.

(01:09:33):
Basically, protect your rights and work. Ensure your music is legally protected by registering your works with the appropriate organizations such as the Copyright Office and Performance Rights Organizations. Understand contracts and seek legal advice when necessary.
And final, develop a solid business plan. Treat your music career like a business. Create a detailed plan outlining your goals, target audience, marketing strategies, budget and revenue projections. Regularly review and adjust your plan as needed.

(01:10:05):
I'm not gonna get too deep into all of that because I feel like we touched on every single one of those things in this podcast. And if you were looking for what worked and what didn't work, those things work. I've seen them work in my own experience. I'm sure Darryl you've seen them work in your experience. If you want to touch on them, you can touch on them.
I think we touched on majority of it. I mean the details is understanding music licensing and royalties. That's something that you gotta physically go seek the knowledge on. A lot of this is just going to seek the knowledge. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the days when we had to go to the library to go find this.

(01:10:46):
It made you work for it. Right, it's free. Go do it. I promise you.
Sounds of the Week, Vince Staples' Dark Times album. Yes indeed. Go listen to that. We ain't really gotta discuss too much on it. It's amazing. From my stance, it's an amazing body of work. I remember hearing, look at 745 on Big Fish Theory. Long time ago about Vince and I was like, man, who is this?

(01:11:12):
And I knew he was on the Black Panther soundtrack, the first one. But this album, man, it was a very well thought out album that you can tell that you can see the evolution and what he's talking about and where he's coming from and things like that.
So it's a lot of songs that I highlight from Lil Homies to I think this Etouffe and Radio. Those three records are my biggest highlights for that project. And like the Rapsody album, it's a very detailed, put together album that's amazing body of work and early candidate for album of the year for hip hop for me so far.

(01:11:46):
My highlights for this album. My favorite song is Shame on the Devil. I love that record. Shame on the Devil and Black and Blue were the two highlights. The album itself is amazing. But though I really enjoy those records, those are the records I go back to all the time just because maybe when I was listening to it I was in my introspective bag.

(01:12:07):
And I love Vince Staples when he's in that introspective bag. This whole album has that feel to it with a little, and you can bop to it. He knows how to add that west coast groove to it, which I'm a huge fan of. But Shame on the Devil.
He has some New Orleans bounce in that too.
Yeah, he do his thing, man. He know what he's doing. He don't put out music as consistently as I would like him to, but what he does is always top quality. He kills it. Plus he just got renewed for a second season for his show on Netflix.

(01:12:37):
Hopefully there will be more episodes, but the episode that gave was pretty good.
I mean, just go support Vince Staples, man.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that that's about it, man. I think this was a solid pop. Way longer than last week's pop.
Oh yeah, man. The topic that I was discussing, I could have went on a tangent.
Yeah, this has been another episode of I Hate This Industry. Follow us, click the link, man. Subscribe, tune in. Peace.

(01:13:05):
See y'all next time. We out.

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