September 21, 2023 • 28 mins
Ever thought about breaking into the music industry but felt overwhelmed by its complexities? We get it, and that's precisely why we're here to simplify it for you! Our prolific professor, who's juggled roles from student to role manager for a prominent group, brings to light the significance of setting achievable career goals. He unpacks fascinating insights from his journey, shedding light on the virtues of flexibility and openness to new opportunities in this dynamic industry. More than just talent, he emphasizes the power of small wins, scaling up, and celebrating your milestones, however small they may be.
Navigating the studio environment can be daunting, but we've got your back! Our chat revolves around the imperative of preparation and the essence of professionalism. Are you curious about the various roles and responsibilities within a studio? We break down the uniqueness of each, from producers to engineers, delineating what every service entails. But that's not all! We also offer an exclusive peek into the Music Entrepreneur Club - a platform where we dissect an array of pertinent topics.
Finally, we address the elephant in the room - the business side of music. It's more than just about making great tunes; it's also about building constructive relationships and mastering the art of selling music publishing. We delve into the dynamics of partnerships in the industry, the importance of doing your homework before collaborating, and managing expectations. Also, don't miss out on our bonus segment as we expose the realities of fame and its navigation. So, if you're gearing up to leave your mark on the music industry, this episode is a must-listen!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But that's what I'm.
So there is so much and it goesback to what I was saying
earlier a lot of musicians whostart out like I'm trying to be
a rapper, I need to hit thispinnacle, so I got.
They don't even realize thereare steps and once you start
taking those steps and you startreally celebrating your smaller
wins, you know, like I got myfirst page show.
(00:23):
It was only $100.
Great scale it up.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
That's amazing to celebrate that you go in my
studio you see that in a frame Igot a $20 bill.
In that frame that $20 billmeans more to me than just that
$20, because that was the firstactual money that I made from my
company.
So I was like I'm not gonnaspend this, I'm gonna frame this
.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And you have to do stuff like that.
Like we were selling CDs handto hand in the streets and it
was like if I made $50 in anight, I felt amazing because
there was my music.
I did that, I built that andthat's my creative intellectual
property.
I'm monetizing it.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
Now all I have to do is scaleit up.
(01:05):
So it took some time.
But if I compared myself tosomebody, if I compared myself
to Dr Dre, every day that I wokeup I'd be paralyzed, I wouldn't
get out of bed, right, and so Ireally I hope the people
watching this don't do that tothemselves.
You're gonna torture yourself.
Focus on getting 10 fans first.
Focus on getting one fan andthen just go to two, go to three
(01:28):
.
You know, we always talkingabout climbing the ladder.
It's one rung at a time.
We have all these metaphorsright and we don't follow any of
them.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So I guess the simplest way to say this let's
start by setting realistic goals.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Set all types of set short-term goals, set long-term
goals.
But law of detachment right.
Like you might think that, likefor me, you might think that
first big opportunity is gonnachange your life forever.
I had to pivot so many times.
I know people in the musicbusiness that started out as
(02:01):
rappers and like I wanna be arapper.
And they failed at that, but nowthey're successful as managers.
Or they're successful asproducers, or someone who became
a producer and then didn't dothat very well, but now they're
an A&R.
So you're working in the fieldthat you dreamed of working in.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And that was one of the things they told us too.
They were like okay, we'regonna go around the room tell us
what you wanna do, what are yougoing to school here to do?
So everybody went around andsaid what they was gonna do and
they were like nine times out of10, what you are going to
school to do right now it's notwhat you're gonna probably end
up doing when you graduate, asfar as like in the entertainment
(02:43):
industry, because it justdoesn't work that way.
You get in where you fit in.
This door might open up a bunchof doors and you'd be like, hey
, man, I actually like that.
Or you might get an opportunityand they say, hey, we want you
to be a role manager.
I went to an MMI, so we went.
All our professors were crazy.
One of my professors was aEminem's role manager and he was
a Dr Dre's role manager.
(03:05):
He was a 50 cent role managerand he was like man, I started
off doing something completelydifferent and then he got to
become the role manager for thebiggest group, for the biggest
act in the world, which wasYouTube at the time, and he did
their legendary tour and he wasa role manager for that, so he
(03:27):
didn't start that way.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was like J Cole was the producer.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
He was the producer and I look at him right.
Yeah, you didn't even say J.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Cole, I haven't worked with him.
I met him, but I can't put thaton.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I know I seen some video.
You was riding around in thecar with him or something.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, Wow, that was way back.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That was a minute ago yeah, but no, what's crazy was
he actually quit being aprofessor and went back on the
road.
He got a call and said hey, wewant you to come back on the
road, we want you to be some bigname group, you know role
manager and do you want to do it?
(04:05):
He's like yeah, and went backin Chris, Chris, I forget his
last name, but he's-.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I know who he was talking about because I was at
the camp.
I met him.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, chris, yeah, from Nine Inch Nails.
What's his name?
Marilyn Manson, so super cooldude.
And he was like man.
You know, my hands hurt rightnow.
He's like he needed a break,you know.
But he was like I still gottapay the bills.
So he just took this job, youknow.
Well, I learned a lot from him.
You know what I mean Telling uslike crazy stories about
(04:39):
Marilyn Manson.
You know how he's like, buthe's like a legit engineer, you
know.
First, I mean, he's a kick-assdrummer to a world-class drummer
, but he's a legit engineer.
He knows this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It helps to have different abilities too, right,
I mean, you provide value.
I think a lot of people, too,are afraid of pivoting or
they're afraid of expanding,cause it's like I love doing
this, I love writing music, okay, but maybe you could do this
over here and help yourself.
Like I learned video to helpmyself and then I was like, oh,
(05:15):
youtube, I can make my ownvideos for myself and create
this brand for myself and thathelps.
You know, and I know people whodid the same way, and then now
they're shooting music videosfor other people and making
money that way.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So yeah, when I was in college, you know, I was like
music, music, music, you know,yeah.
So I went there, so I was to bean engineer, and then my best
friend was, he was going toschool for video motion graphics
.
So he was like man, you know,let me teach you how to work
this camera.
So I went out, bought a camera.
(05:47):
He taught me how to you knowwork the camera right.
So I was like I'm thinking inmy mind well, maybe I can go and
do something that I used to seeRaphael doing riffraff.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Shut up to him.
You had the DVDs and all that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I'm thinking well, you know, he started off, he was
just in a club, he was thecameraman in the club, so he
would, you know, set up abackdrop, people come in front
of it, he'd take a picture andyou come out, you know, charge
him 10, 15 bucks for it.
I'm thinking I can do that whileI'm going to school.
I could be doing that for moneyon the side and I, you know,
got to learn a little bit aboutthe camera and then I started
(06:19):
taking some pictures and thenopportunity opened up for me to
do product photography.
So now I'm taking pictures oflittle cell phone clips, you
know, but I'm getting paid forit, you know.
So now I got that on my resumeand then I started taking
pictures of my kids and then Iturned that into a photography
business.
So now I'm, you know, chargingpeople to take pictures of their
(06:39):
kids, and you know, and youknow, so I was like, okay, cool,
so I started doing that.
And then my buddy is teachingme how to, you know, edit videos
.
So now I'm doing videos forpeople, you know.
So it's like I got a bunch ofdifferent little weapons that I
can use, that, you know, I canuse to help.
I can bring value to pretty muchany situation when it comes to
(07:00):
entertainment, and that's keyalso.
I can get on a set and be likeoh man, we need somebody to run,
sound, I can.
Oh, we need somebody to takepictures, I can.
We need somebody to, you know,hold a camera, I can, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
You know what's beautiful about that too.
So back to the originalquestion.
So if you're an artist andyou're building up your career,
the more you know, the more thestronger your team is when you
finally select them.
Because if you don't knowanything about the music
business, right, then you don'tknow what your manager's doing.
(07:33):
If you don't know anythingabout videography, then you
don't know who's good or not Ifyou want to hire them or put
them on your team.
If you don't know anythingabout engineering, you're not
really controlling the productthat's exiting the studio with
your name on it.
So once you've, at least to anextent, learn all these things,
you can hold people accountable,you can pick the right people
(07:55):
and you're spending your moneywisely.
You're not spending your wheels.
I've seen so many people spendtheir wheels, throw money at
again.
You can't throw money at amusic career and expect it to
grow.
That's one of the biggest mythsof it.
Like, oh, you can just get sometrash, put 100,000 behind it
and you're famous.
If that was the case, everyonewould be famous.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Okay, that leads to my next question how do you pick
the people that you personallywork with?
Now, I know we had aconversation off camera when you
were saying you know personalfriends, right, and it's like
okay, this is my homeboy,whatever he's got a budget, I'm
just gonna work with him becausethis is my friend.
But at what point is it?
(08:35):
This is my friend, but this istrash.
Like I can't really keep doingthis, bro, I don't wanna you
know what I'm saying.
Like at what point?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Oh, I mean.
I don't one.
I feel like I'm a great judgeof good music but I also am not
a perfect judge.
So what?
There are songs that I don'tlike that are popular and there
are beats that I've made that Iwas like this isn't great and it
goes viral.
So I acknowledged this, thatI'm not the end all opinion, so
I try to keep that out of it.
(09:08):
I mean, unless it's terrible orlike super offensive.
Don't want to judge my way outof a situation where you know
maybe you make the music andsomeone likes it and you know I
don't get it.
But cool, I don't have to.
As far as working with peopledirectly, I just kind of don't.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think that's why you do B star.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I do B stars because it's just now, it's a
international, worldwideaudience and it's just like.
It's affordable, it'saccessible to everybody.
I can work with tons of peopleand like some of the music that
I hear on my beats I'm like Idon't really think that's great.
But again, I'm not going toworry about it.
Some of it I think is amazing.
You know I've had major artistsget beats from me, from there,
(09:54):
and artists that aren't majorbut I think are just amazing
either way.
But as far as you know, Istarted just in at my parents'
house as a kid recording whoeverwould come by, because I just
was having fun doing it.
And then you realize, all right, I'm setting more of a standard
(10:16):
for myself after a certainpoint and you'll weed people out
.
I feel like it is my job as aproducer to speak my mind on a
record, not me being in thestudio, being like that's trash,
do it again.
That's not helpful.
But you know saying, hey, thisis off beat, this line doesn't
make sense, this is out of tune,do another take, and if people
(10:38):
can deal with me doing that,cool, but a lot of them can't
and so they'll just stop comingto me.
They'll go find someone else towork with and that's fine with
me.
I've had a lot of people stopworking with me because of that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We'll leave it there, Because if we go any deeper,
then we're gonna you know what Imean we might offend some
people.
You know what I mean Because,like you said, everything that
people put out isn't your cup oftea and it's not mine.
But one thing I learned aboutthis business is that we never
speak bad about our colleagues.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, and we don't have to like look, there are
people out there that will swearup and down that Beyonce can't
sing and that Drake is the worstrapper on the planet, which is
wild.
And the beautiful thing is, itdoesn't matter, doesn't affect
them, their fans are still theirfans.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I could swear up and down that someone's song is
terrible and it becomes a hittomorrow.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So what about the songs that you like?
Say, somebody does something onone of your songs, right, and
you actually like it, you'relike oh yo, this is dope.
Is there anything that youwould do to help?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
that artist.
I mean, if it's really amazing,I'd just be like let's just do
a whole project.
Because, I just I think that'san ardent of itself, doing an
entire project, either beatsthat I've already made but I
curate them for the artist, ormaking new stuff, just having a.
That's like the old schoolapproach.
(12:07):
Public Enemy had Bomb Squad,gangstar was a producer and an
emcee.
I think that's a lost art.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Actually putting together a cohesive project.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
With, just as a duo, someone that producer that
really knows the sound and therapper that really compliments
the sound.
Yeah, I do that all the time.
And then I'll just be like,look, I'll just give you a deal,
Like let me know how many PC1,whatever.
But yeah, I look at it, I'm asucker for talent and that's
gotten me in trouble, where you.
(12:38):
I'm sure you've experienced it.
This is why you're laughing.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, you become a sucker for talent.
You get so hopeful and then yousay, oh man, you start thinking
about the possibilities.
You know it's like man, let'sdo the soul talent thing.
If we could just give them ashot.
You know what I'm saying.
But talent doesn't alwaysequate to professionalism, and
that was something that we weretalking about before, like
(13:05):
proper studio etiquette and justhow you conduct yourself when
it's time to work, and that'swhy I think it's a red flag.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
When someone is incredibly talented, they've
been doing it for a long timeand they haven't made progress.
If someone just started andthey're talented, I'm like cool,
let me just sit back andobserve.
I'll help them out in whateverway I can, but I'm not Gonna
invest, I'm not gonna losemyself, yeah Cause you've done
that before A million timeswhere I'm just like, oh, this
artist is so talented, let'sbuild this together, you know.
(13:35):
And then I wake up one day andI'm like I'm doing 90% of the
work they're not even showing upto sessions.
They're not answering my calls.
I can't keep doing this.
Unfortunately, that's how ithappens.
So nowadays, the beautifulthing is we have all these
metrics.
So a lot of people will hate mefor saying this.
I'm sorry.
This is how we protect our time.
I have to look at an artist.
(13:55):
If they're talented, I have tolook at their numbers.
To an extent, I have to look attheir output.
If I go to their Instagram andtheir last post was from 2019,
I'm like oh, you're notconsistent.
Or if I look at their Spotifyand they have five monthly
listeners, I'm like well, why isthat when your music is so
amazing, what are you not doing?
(14:16):
You know what I mean, because,if I walk into the situation, am
I gonna have to manage yoursocial media market?
You, as well as produce, aswell as do all these other
things?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
that and be your road manager and be your therapist.
Yeah, and your human alarmclock.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But if I look, at someone and I see, oh, wow, look
at that.
You have music videos out.
You're dropping consistently.
You don't have crazy numbers,but they're growing.
I see the trajectory.
It's moving towards a goodplace.
Then that's what my investmentis based on and I think that's
fair.
A lot of people will say well,that's not fair.
You're not judging people ontalent.
It's like one talent issubjective, right, and two,
(14:57):
talent isn't the only thing thatwill get you places.
Talent won't move the needle.
Talent's like the minimum thatyou need in the music business
and in all things.
You know like you could be atalented.
How many people are amazingathletes in like certain
contexts, like at the park,everyone knows you can't beat
(15:18):
this person on the court.
That doesn't mean that they'regoing to wake up and put in the
work that it takes for them toget into the NBA.
So same thing with music.
You know you got to maximize.
You have to use your talent asthe foundation and build off of
that.
Talent is necessary, but it'snot the determining factor of
success.
So I mean I'm not just speakingto musicians and rappers and
(15:43):
producers.
This is like management peoplethat are aspiring execs, you
know, like people that want torun a label, that kind of thing.
You know they have that problemtoo.
They fall in love with talent.
They might spin their wheels.
Seen it happen.
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So I really want to touch on some of the things that
we were talking about offcamera as far as studio
etiquette, because I think it'simportant, right.
So a lot of the times, peopleactually get well, younger
artists and just some particularartists get it confused as far
as, like, how are you supposedto act in the studio?
(16:19):
First of all, the studio is nota club, right.
It's not a place where you'resupposed to be smoking and
drinking and kicking it andhanging out and stuff like that.
So one of the red flags that wewere talking about is when
someone comes into the studioand says, hey, I got this beat.
Can you pull it up on YouTube,right?
So that's why we say that's ared flag is because it's saying,
(16:42):
well, you didn't even believein it enough to go and purchase
it, right?
You're not even investing inyourself, right?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And you're not prepared.
Yeah, you should have just hadthe beat as a way to preferably
track out on a USB drive or somevirtual drive, and you just
pull it up so tell us some ofthe do's and don'ts of studio
etiquette.
Well, it goes back to the wholesaying if you want it to be a
job, you have to treat it as ajob.
You can't really show up to ajob unprepared.
(17:09):
You can't really show up to ajob drunk.
You can't show up to a job withyour friends.
No one takes their friends totheir job, so granted in a lot
of studio sessions.
People are high, people aredrinking their friends there
that don't necessarily need tobe there, but it's because the
artist is just focused.
So I think focus is the key.
You can tell when someone's notfocused.
(17:30):
So the studio's job is torecord you.
That's it.
If you're going to a studio torecord, that's what their
responsibility is.
That's where it starts, that'swhere it ends, I mean, unless
you're also paying for mixingand mastering.
But their responsibility istechnical.
It's a very clear cut service.
So when you show up and youexpect them to find you a beat,
(17:52):
I mean, if that's notpredetermined, you know, like
maybe, that there's a producer.
A lot of producers areengineers, so they can you know
they might see.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's the.
I think that's a bigmisconception of.
I mean, nowadays, you knowthat's what guys are, a little
sand too Like.
When people come to the studio,they think that the tracking
engineer is actually theproducer also.
So they want you not only torecord it, but they actually
want you to produce it right,because they're constantly
asking how does that sound?
(18:20):
You know what do you want to donext?
You know like, can we do myoverdubs?
You know how does this overdubs?
What do you think that we?
You know what kind of plug-indo you think we should use?
Or how did you know what I mean?
Like, like it's like now I'mnot even like recording this.
You know what I mean.
I'm actually producing this.
Which is two separate jobs.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It is, and Godzilla is a real producer.
I think you run the averageengineer who just says hey, I'm
a tracking engineer, is notgoing to produce your record, no
, and they're not going to makethe beat for you Because they
don't even.
That's not even what they do.
If you're lucky, you findsomebody like that.
Those are separate services.
You know you can't.
You can't come and say, Allright, I'm paying 50 an hour for
(18:57):
studio time.
All right, pull up a beat andgive it to me.
It's like no, that beat wascreated separately on separate
time.
That's a piece of intellectualproperty that has intrinsic
value.
So are you paying for that beat?
Well, if that's the case, nowyou're getting the beat and
you're spending your hours inthe studio writing.
(19:18):
You could have written at home.
Why are you writing in thestudio?
And some people have thoserelationships.
There's a lot of gray area.
But I would say, if you'restarting out and you're just
getting into recording with withan engineer, be over prepared.
Have the beat in multipleformats.
Have the song written, havememorized.
Have a yes, because if you'rejust yeah, you can tell you're
(19:41):
going to want to rerecord itanyway.
If you're just reading off thesheet of the phone, but have.
I was like I have a clearvision for how you want it to
sound so you're not relying onthe engineer.
That was a big mistake we madewhen we were recording, because
when you start out, you justdon't know.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right.
So I don't know what you don'tknow.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Exactly, and I give people the pass for that.
You should know that you needto beat them.
But anyway, we would go to thestudio, we'd record and we're
like, okay, cool, it's done.
I didn't even know what a mixsounded like, right.
I was like this sounds waybetter than my mic at home.
And so at the end of it theengineer would look at us and be
like, okay, what's next?
We're like what do you mean?
Put it on a CD?
Yeah.
And he's like, well, whateffects do you want?
(20:19):
You know what?
And we're like effects, right.
So beginner mistake we had tolearn.
That Beautiful thing now is youcan look up anything and be
prepared for whatever it's.
Go on YouTube, studio etiquette.
Someone's going to tell it,tell you exactly what to expect
that way, because otherwiseyou're going to waste your time
and your money, and I wouldrather you not do either and
(20:42):
even though the engineer mightcharge you for an extra hour for
all the, all the BS, they don'twant to be doing that.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Let's talk about your podcast.
What is your podcast about andwhat are some of the topics that
you address on your podcast?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, the name of the podcast is the Music
Entrepreneur Club podcast, mecpodcast for short.
It's co-hosted by Dame Ritterand Aaron Knight.
Aaron Knight is from Build yourOwn Dreams.
Dame Ritter is formerly of funkvolume and so he's famous for
all that.
We talk about that a lot.
Trust me, we have to becausebecause I did.
(21:16):
The funny thing with me is Ididn't like I knew who funk
volume artists were like, oh,you're a great artist.
Hopson can rap.
I was a fan of the music.
I didn't know about thereputation that came from that
fallout.
So when I met Dame, I just camein with an open mind.
I appreciate that.
I came in with an open mind andI'm like, yeah, let's work.
(21:40):
And, and, damon, I worked andthere was never a shred of I'm
better than you, I'm bigger thanyou.
No, no, because the because therumors.
When I went back, I finallylike it was like two years into
me working with him that Ifinally listened to a Hopson
interview and watched theIll-Mina Hopson 57, whichever
one it was where he goes off onDame Ritter.
(22:01):
I'm like none of this is true.
What are you talking about?
I've been on tour with this guy.
He's not hiding money.
What are you talking about?
There's a spreadsheet.
I know exactly where the budgetis going, so that's hilarious.
We talk about that.
We talk a lot about themanager-artist relationship.
We talk about pretty mucheverything we covered here.
But we'll discuss news.
(22:22):
We discussed Summer Walker'scontract when that came out that
she only got 80,000.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
As an advance, we talk about what are some of the
recent topics Did you guysdiscuss Megan Stallion's when
she and Harris came out?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, I think that was part of that same
conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Did you guys discuss the future selling his catalog?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That just happened, so that's going to be this
coming week's topic.
But yeah, we've talked aboutthat scenario selling off.
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's business it's going to happen.
That's the whole point ofbuilding a catalog is to at some
point sell it.
And then you make a new catalogand then you sell that.
You know what I mean?
Like it's, you're not sellingyour masters, you're just
selling the publishing.
So you're basically.
Basically what they're doing isthis let's say, you got five
(23:22):
years worth of music.
You build up a decent catalog,so it's a good catalog.
So they're going to use amatrix.
What times 12 times 24.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
They know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah.
So, basically, they're going totake that what it's worth, and
then they're going to you knowhow much you're going to make
for that years and times it by12 or times it by 24.
And then they're going to payyou out for that, right, and
they're saying, hey, we're goingto give you all the money that
you would make for 12 yearsright now, up front, and we'll
(23:57):
take the back end.
We'll take the money slowly,you know, we'll collect it that
way, and then you could takethat money and do whatever you
want to.
You know what I mean.
You could take that money andbuy back your original masters,
right?
You can buy out of yourcontract.
You could use that for studiotime.
So you can, you know, put thatmoney into another project.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
And it's 60 million Right, Because I think a lot of
people have opinions and they'relike I would never sell that.
It's like 60 million.
Yeah, you're going to sell it,I would sell a lot for 60.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Exactly, and people sold a lot less for a lot more,
for a lot less.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I would sell all my catalog for 60 million, right,
because I'm just going to keepmaking music.
I do it every day.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And it just makes more.
It just makes so much sense foran artist like Future, because
Future makes so much music,right, and he's like he's.
You know that what that catalogis worth right now, 10 years
from now, it's not going to beworth the same, no, right?
So it's at its peak right now.
So now is the best time for himto sell that catalog, because
(24:58):
all he's going to do is dropanother four or five albums
right now and guess what?
He's going to have a wholeanother catalog that he, that he
can sell, and it's not.
He's not selling his masters,he's.
He probably doesn't own those,though, to begin with, right,
but he's not selling that.
He's thinking, you know, oh man, he's, he's selling his masters
.
No, he's not selling hismasters, that's a publishing.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
He's selling his underlying composition.
The other copy right yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So it's like first you got to even know what you're
talking about before you knowwhat I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
That's, I think that's a problem, and I I talk
about this all the time.
If the music business this is agood thing to say right now, I
should have said earlier themusic business boils down to
this in one sentence this iswhat the music.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I've heard you Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
The music business.
Every song you record generatestwo copyrights the master
recording, slash sound recordingand the underlying composition,
commonly referred to aspublishing.
The music business is simplythe exploitation or sale of one
or both.
That's it.
That's the music business.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Ta-da.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And once you understand that all the other
stuff learning, all thedifferent royalty streams they
all just branch from those twothings.
I mean.
Even someone will say well,what about performing?
You're exploiting yourcopyrights, that's it.
I mean you can submit yourperformance sheets to your PRO
and get paid off that.
You're getting paid off theunderlying composition copyright
(26:27):
when you do that.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It all branches back.
It doesn't matter what, it isit all comes back to that.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So how do you deal with fame?
I?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
don't.
That's a trick question,because I got to acknowledge
that I have a lot of fame.
There you go, man.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I mean at the end of the day, man, you got to call a
spade a spade.
You know what I mean.
Like you are a famous person,right?
So I mean it is what it isright.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I was calling myself a public figure.
Well, and I'm glad the crazything is someone impersonated me
and was trying to scam peoplefor $50.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
That's the whole point ofverification.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
So this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And people were still having conversations with the
fake DJ Payne one.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
That's crazy.
So what's next?
What's next for Payne?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I really don't even know.
I know I'm working every singleday on a million projects.
Something's going to happen.
I've had bigger records comeout this year, like the Michi
Darko record and another recordon Atlantic I forget the name
but as far as just expanding thebrand goes, there's a lot I'm
(27:30):
considering that.
I don't want to say but I'mworking on it.
But the podcast will continue.
I have a new show on Beastars.
We just got I don't know how wegot half a million views in a
day on Twitch through theirpartnership and it's a
beatmaking show, a livebeatmaking show.
So that particular episodefeatured multi-planet producers,
beat demons, and that's everyTuesday, two PM Eastern time,
(27:56):
one PMR time, and I make atleast a beat a day, so expect
that from me.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Let me get a throwaway.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I mean you can get one.
It's not going to be athrowaway, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I'm playing, I'm D-Star, I'm DJ Payne one.
Until next time, guys.
But that's what I'm.
So there is so much and it goesback to what I was saying
earlier a lot of musicians whostart out like I'm trying to be
a rapper, I need to hit thispinnacle, so I got.
They don't even realize thereare steps and once you start
taking those steps and you startreally celebrating your smaller
wins, you know, like I got myfirst page show.
(00:23):
It was only $100.
Great scale it up.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
That's amazing to celebrate that you go in my
studio you see that in a frame Igot a $20 bill.
In that frame that $20 billmeans more to me than just that
$20, because that was the firstactual money that I made from my
company.
So I was like I'm not gonnaspend this, I'm gonna frame this
.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And you have to do stuff like that.
Like we were selling CDs handto hand in the streets and it
was like if I made $50 in anight, I felt amazing because
there was my music.
I did that, I built that andthat's my creative intellectual
property.
I'm monetizing it.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
Now all I have to do is scaleit up.
(01:05):
So it took some time.
But if I compared myself tosomebody, if I compared myself
to Dr Dre, every day that I wokeup I'd be paralyzed, I wouldn't
get out of bed, right, and so Ireally I hope the people
watching this don't do that tothemselves.
You're gonna torture yourself.
Focus on getting 10 fans first.
Focus on getting one fan andthen just go to two, go to three
(01:28):
.
You know, we always talkingabout climbing the ladder.
It's one rung at a time.
We have all these metaphorsright and we don't follow any of
them.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So I guess the simplest way to say this let's
start by setting realistic goals.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Set all types of set short-term goals, set long-term
goals.
But law of detachment right.
Like you might think that, likefor me, you might think that
first big opportunity is gonnachange your life forever.
I had to pivot so many times.
I know people in the musicbusiness that started out as
(02:01):
rappers and like I wanna be arapper.
And they failed at that, but nowthey're successful as managers.
Or they're successful asproducers, or someone who became
a producer and then didn't dothat very well, but now they're
an A&R.
So you're working in the fieldthat you dreamed of working in.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And that was one of the things they told us too.
They were like okay, we'regonna go around the room tell us
what you wanna do, what are yougoing to school here to do?
So everybody went around andsaid what they was gonna do and
they were like nine times out of10, what you are going to
school to do right now it's notwhat you're gonna probably end
up doing when you graduate, asfar as like in the entertainment
(02:43):
industry, because it justdoesn't work that way.
You get in where you fit in.
This door might open up a bunchof doors and you'd be like, hey
, man, I actually like that.
Or you might get an opportunityand they say, hey, we want you
to be a role manager.
I went to an MMI, so we went.
All our professors were crazy.
One of my professors was aEminem's role manager and he was
a Dr Dre's role manager.
(03:05):
He was a 50 cent role managerand he was like man, I started
off doing something completelydifferent and then he got to
become the role manager for thebiggest group, for the biggest
act in the world, which wasYouTube at the time, and he did
their legendary tour and he wasa role manager for that, so he
(03:27):
didn't start that way.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was like J Cole was the producer.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
He was the producer and I look at him right.
Yeah, you didn't even say J.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Cole, I haven't worked with him.
I met him, but I can't put thaton.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I know I seen some video.
You was riding around in thecar with him or something.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, Wow, that was way back.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That was a minute ago yeah, but no, what's crazy was
he actually quit being aprofessor and went back on the
road.
He got a call and said hey, wewant you to come back on the
road, we want you to be some bigname group, you know role
manager and do you want to do it?
(04:05):
He's like yeah, and went backin Chris, Chris, I forget his
last name, but he's-.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I know who he was talking about because I was at
the camp.
I met him.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, chris, yeah, from Nine Inch Nails.
What's his name?
Marilyn Manson, so super cooldude.
And he was like man.
You know, my hands hurt rightnow.
He's like he needed a break,you know.
But he was like I still gottapay the bills.
So he just took this job, youknow.
Well, I learned a lot from him.
You know what I mean Telling uslike crazy stories about
(04:39):
Marilyn Manson.
You know how he's like, buthe's like a legit engineer, you
know.
First, I mean, he's a kick-assdrummer to a world-class drummer
, but he's a legit engineer.
He knows this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It helps to have different abilities too, right,
I mean, you provide value.
I think a lot of people, too,are afraid of pivoting or
they're afraid of expanding,cause it's like I love doing
this, I love writing music, okay, but maybe you could do this
over here and help yourself.
Like I learned video to helpmyself and then I was like, oh,
(05:15):
youtube, I can make my ownvideos for myself and create
this brand for myself and thathelps.
You know, and I know people whodid the same way, and then now
they're shooting music videosfor other people and making
money that way.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So yeah, when I was in college, you know, I was like
music, music, music, you know,yeah.
So I went there, so I was to bean engineer, and then my best
friend was, he was going toschool for video motion graphics
.
So he was like man, you know,let me teach you how to work
this camera.
So I went out, bought a camera.
(05:47):
He taught me how to you knowwork the camera right.
So I was like I'm thinking inmy mind well, maybe I can go and
do something that I used to seeRaphael doing riffraff.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Shut up to him.
You had the DVDs and all that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I'm thinking well, you know, he started off, he was
just in a club, he was thecameraman in the club, so he
would, you know, set up abackdrop, people come in front
of it, he'd take a picture andyou come out, you know, charge
him 10, 15 bucks for it.
I'm thinking I can do that whileI'm going to school.
I could be doing that for moneyon the side and I, you know,
got to learn a little bit aboutthe camera and then I started
(06:19):
taking some pictures and thenopportunity opened up for me to
do product photography.
So now I'm taking pictures oflittle cell phone clips, you
know, but I'm getting paid forit, you know.
So now I got that on my resumeand then I started taking
pictures of my kids and then Iturned that into a photography
business.
So now I'm, you know, chargingpeople to take pictures of their
(06:39):
kids, and you know, and youknow, so I was like, okay, cool,
so I started doing that.
And then my buddy is teachingme how to, you know, edit videos
.
So now I'm doing videos forpeople, you know.
So it's like I got a bunch ofdifferent little weapons that I
can use, that, you know, I canuse to help.
I can bring value to pretty muchany situation when it comes to
(07:00):
entertainment, and that's keyalso.
I can get on a set and be likeoh man, we need somebody to run,
sound, I can.
Oh, we need somebody to takepictures, I can.
We need somebody to, you know,hold a camera, I can, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
You know what's beautiful about that too.
So back to the originalquestion.
So if you're an artist andyou're building up your career,
the more you know, the more thestronger your team is when you
finally select them.
Because if you don't knowanything about the music
business, right, then you don'tknow what your manager's doing.
(07:33):
If you don't know anythingabout videography, then you
don't know who's good or not Ifyou want to hire them or put
them on your team.
If you don't know anythingabout engineering, you're not
really controlling the productthat's exiting the studio with
your name on it.
So once you've, at least to anextent, learn all these things,
you can hold people accountable,you can pick the right people
(07:55):
and you're spending your moneywisely.
You're not spending your wheels.
I've seen so many people spendtheir wheels, throw money at
again.
You can't throw money at amusic career and expect it to
grow.
That's one of the biggest mythsof it.
Like, oh, you can just get sometrash, put 100,000 behind it
and you're famous.
If that was the case, everyonewould be famous.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Okay, that leads to my next question how do you pick
the people that you personallywork with?
Now, I know we had aconversation off camera when you
were saying you know personalfriends, right, and it's like
okay, this is my homeboy,whatever he's got a budget, I'm
just gonna work with him becausethis is my friend.
But at what point is it?
(08:35):
This is my friend, but this istrash.
Like I can't really keep doingthis, bro, I don't wanna you
know what I'm saying.
Like at what point?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Oh, I mean.
I don't one.
I feel like I'm a great judgeof good music but I also am not
a perfect judge.
So what?
There are songs that I don'tlike that are popular and there
are beats that I've made that Iwas like this isn't great and it
goes viral.
So I acknowledged this, thatI'm not the end all opinion, so
I try to keep that out of it.
(09:08):
I mean, unless it's terrible orlike super offensive.
Don't want to judge my way outof a situation where you know
maybe you make the music andsomeone likes it and you know I
don't get it.
But cool, I don't have to.
As far as working with peopledirectly, I just kind of don't.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think that's why you do B star.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
I do B stars because it's just now, it's a
international, worldwideaudience and it's just like.
It's affordable, it'saccessible to everybody.
I can work with tons of peopleand like some of the music that
I hear on my beats I'm like Idon't really think that's great.
But again, I'm not going toworry about it.
Some of it I think is amazing.
You know I've had major artistsget beats from me, from there,
(09:54):
and artists that aren't majorbut I think are just amazing
either way.
But as far as you know, Istarted just in at my parents'
house as a kid recording whoeverwould come by, because I just
was having fun doing it.
And then you realize, all right, I'm setting more of a standard
(10:16):
for myself after a certainpoint and you'll weed people out
.
I feel like it is my job as aproducer to speak my mind on a
record, not me being in thestudio, being like that's trash,
do it again.
That's not helpful.
But you know saying, hey, thisis off beat, this line doesn't
make sense, this is out of tune,do another take, and if people
(10:38):
can deal with me doing that,cool, but a lot of them can't
and so they'll just stop comingto me.
They'll go find someone else towork with and that's fine with
me.
I've had a lot of people stopworking with me because of that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We'll leave it there, Because if we go any deeper,
then we're gonna you know what Imean we might offend some
people.
You know what I mean Because,like you said, everything that
people put out isn't your cup oftea and it's not mine.
But one thing I learned aboutthis business is that we never
speak bad about our colleagues.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, and we don't have to like look, there are
people out there that will swearup and down that Beyonce can't
sing and that Drake is the worstrapper on the planet, which is
wild.
And the beautiful thing is, itdoesn't matter, doesn't affect
them, their fans are still theirfans.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I could swear up and down that someone's song is
terrible and it becomes a hittomorrow.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So what about the songs that you like?
Say, somebody does something onone of your songs, right, and
you actually like it, you'relike oh yo, this is dope.
Is there anything that youwould do to help?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
that artist.
I mean, if it's really amazing,I'd just be like let's just do
a whole project.
Because, I just I think that'san ardent of itself, doing an
entire project, either beatsthat I've already made but I
curate them for the artist, ormaking new stuff, just having a.
That's like the old schoolapproach.
(12:07):
Public Enemy had Bomb Squad,gangstar was a producer and an
emcee.
I think that's a lost art.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Actually putting together a cohesive project.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
With, just as a duo, someone that producer that
really knows the sound and therapper that really compliments
the sound.
Yeah, I do that all the time.
And then I'll just be like,look, I'll just give you a deal,
Like let me know how many PC1,whatever.
But yeah, I look at it, I'm asucker for talent and that's
gotten me in trouble, where you.
(12:38):
I'm sure you've experienced it.
This is why you're laughing.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, you become a sucker for talent.
You get so hopeful and then yousay, oh man, you start thinking
about the possibilities.
You know it's like man, let'sdo the soul talent thing.
If we could just give them ashot.
You know what I'm saying.
But talent doesn't alwaysequate to professionalism, and
that was something that we weretalking about before, like
(13:05):
proper studio etiquette and justhow you conduct yourself when
it's time to work, and that'swhy I think it's a red flag.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
When someone is incredibly talented, they've
been doing it for a long timeand they haven't made progress.
If someone just started andthey're talented, I'm like cool,
let me just sit back andobserve.
I'll help them out in whateverway I can, but I'm not Gonna
invest, I'm not gonna losemyself, yeah Cause you've done
that before A million timeswhere I'm just like, oh, this
artist is so talented, let'sbuild this together, you know.
(13:35):
And then I wake up one day andI'm like I'm doing 90% of the
work they're not even showing upto sessions.
They're not answering my calls.
I can't keep doing this.
Unfortunately, that's how ithappens.
So nowadays, the beautifulthing is we have all these
metrics.
So a lot of people will hate mefor saying this.
I'm sorry.
This is how we protect our time.
I have to look at an artist.
(13:55):
If they're talented, I have tolook at their numbers.
To an extent, I have to look attheir output.
If I go to their Instagram andtheir last post was from 2019,
I'm like oh, you're notconsistent.
Or if I look at their Spotifyand they have five monthly
listeners, I'm like well, why isthat when your music is so
amazing, what are you not doing?
(14:16):
You know what I mean, because,if I walk into the situation, am
I gonna have to manage yoursocial media market?
You, as well as produce, aswell as do all these other
things?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
that and be your road manager and be your therapist.
Yeah, and your human alarmclock.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But if I look, at someone and I see, oh, wow, look
at that.
You have music videos out.
You're dropping consistently.
You don't have crazy numbers,but they're growing.
I see the trajectory.
It's moving towards a goodplace.
Then that's what my investmentis based on and I think that's
fair.
A lot of people will say well,that's not fair.
You're not judging people ontalent.
It's like one talent issubjective, right, and two,
(14:57):
talent isn't the only thing thatwill get you places.
Talent won't move the needle.
Talent's like the minimum thatyou need in the music business
and in all things.
You know like you could be atalented.
How many people are amazingathletes in like certain
contexts, like at the park,everyone knows you can't beat
(15:18):
this person on the court.
That doesn't mean that they'regoing to wake up and put in the
work that it takes for them toget into the NBA.
So same thing with music.
You know you got to maximize.
You have to use your talent asthe foundation and build off of
that.
Talent is necessary, but it'snot the determining factor of
success.
So I mean I'm not just speakingto musicians and rappers and
(15:43):
producers.
This is like management peoplethat are aspiring execs, you
know, like people that want torun a label, that kind of thing.
You know they have that problemtoo.
They fall in love with talent.
They might spin their wheels.
Seen it happen.
It's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So I really want to touch on some of the things that
we were talking about offcamera as far as studio
etiquette, because I think it'simportant, right.
So a lot of the times, peopleactually get well, younger
artists and just some particularartists get it confused as far
as, like, how are you supposedto act in the studio?
(16:19):
First of all, the studio is nota club, right.
It's not a place where you'resupposed to be smoking and
drinking and kicking it andhanging out and stuff like that.
So one of the red flags that wewere talking about is when
someone comes into the studioand says, hey, I got this beat.
Can you pull it up on YouTube,right?
So that's why we say that's ared flag is because it's saying,
(16:42):
well, you didn't even believein it enough to go and purchase
it, right?
You're not even investing inyourself, right?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And you're not prepared.
Yeah, you should have just hadthe beat as a way to preferably
track out on a USB drive or somevirtual drive, and you just
pull it up so tell us some ofthe do's and don'ts of studio
etiquette.
Well, it goes back to the wholesaying if you want it to be a
job, you have to treat it as ajob.
You can't really show up to ajob unprepared.
(17:09):
You can't really show up to ajob drunk.
You can't show up to a job withyour friends.
No one takes their friends totheir job, so granted in a lot
of studio sessions.
People are high, people aredrinking their friends there
that don't necessarily need tobe there, but it's because the
artist is just focused.
So I think focus is the key.
You can tell when someone's notfocused.
(17:30):
So the studio's job is torecord you.
That's it.
If you're going to a studio torecord, that's what their
responsibility is.
That's where it starts, that'swhere it ends, I mean, unless
you're also paying for mixingand mastering.
But their responsibility istechnical.
It's a very clear cut service.
So when you show up and youexpect them to find you a beat,
(17:52):
I mean, if that's notpredetermined, you know, like
maybe, that there's a producer.
A lot of producers areengineers, so they can you know
they might see.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's the.
I think that's a bigmisconception of.
I mean, nowadays, you knowthat's what guys are, a little
sand too Like.
When people come to the studio,they think that the tracking
engineer is actually theproducer also.
So they want you not only torecord it, but they actually
want you to produce it right,because they're constantly
asking how does that sound?
(18:20):
You know what do you want to donext?
You know like, can we do myoverdubs?
You know how does this overdubs?
What do you think that we?
You know what kind of plug-indo you think we should use?
Or how did you know what I mean?
Like, like it's like now I'mnot even like recording this.
You know what I mean.
I'm actually producing this.
Which is two separate jobs.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
It is, and Godzilla is a real producer.
I think you run the averageengineer who just says hey, I'm
a tracking engineer, is notgoing to produce your record, no
, and they're not going to makethe beat for you Because they
don't even.
That's not even what they do.
If you're lucky, you findsomebody like that.
Those are separate services.
You know you can't.
You can't come and say, Allright, I'm paying 50 an hour for
(18:57):
studio time.
All right, pull up a beat andgive it to me.
It's like no, that beat wascreated separately on separate
time.
That's a piece of intellectualproperty that has intrinsic
value.
So are you paying for that beat?
Well, if that's the case, nowyou're getting the beat and
you're spending your hours inthe studio writing.
(19:18):
You could have written at home.
Why are you writing in thestudio?
And some people have thoserelationships.
There's a lot of gray area.
But I would say, if you'restarting out and you're just
getting into recording with withan engineer, be over prepared.
Have the beat in multipleformats.
Have the song written, havememorized.
Have a yes, because if you'rejust yeah, you can tell you're
(19:41):
going to want to rerecord itanyway.
If you're just reading off thesheet of the phone, but have.
I was like I have a clearvision for how you want it to
sound so you're not relying onthe engineer.
That was a big mistake we madewhen we were recording, because
when you start out, you justdon't know.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Right.
So I don't know what you don'tknow.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Exactly, and I give people the pass for that.
You should know that you needto beat them.
But anyway, we would go to thestudio, we'd record and we're
like, okay, cool, it's done.
I didn't even know what a mixsounded like, right.
I was like this sounds waybetter than my mic at home.
And so at the end of it theengineer would look at us and be
like, okay, what's next?
We're like what do you mean?
Put it on a CD?
Yeah.
And he's like, well, whateffects do you want?
(20:19):
You know what?
And we're like effects, right.
So beginner mistake we had tolearn.
That Beautiful thing now is youcan look up anything and be
prepared for whatever it's.
Go on YouTube, studio etiquette.
Someone's going to tell it,tell you exactly what to expect
that way, because otherwiseyou're going to waste your time
and your money, and I wouldrather you not do either and
(20:42):
even though the engineer mightcharge you for an extra hour for
all the, all the BS, they don'twant to be doing that.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Let's talk about your podcast.
What is your podcast about andwhat are some of the topics that
you address on your podcast?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, the name of the podcast is the Music
Entrepreneur Club podcast, mecpodcast for short.
It's co-hosted by Dame Ritterand Aaron Knight.
Aaron Knight is from Build yourOwn Dreams.
Dame Ritter is formerly of funkvolume and so he's famous for
all that.
We talk about that a lot.
Trust me, we have to becausebecause I did.
(21:16):
The funny thing with me is Ididn't like I knew who funk
volume artists were like, oh,you're a great artist.
Hopson can rap.
I was a fan of the music.
I didn't know about thereputation that came from that
fallout.
So when I met Dame, I just camein with an open mind.
I appreciate that.
I came in with an open mind andI'm like, yeah, let's work.
(21:40):
And, and, damon, I worked andthere was never a shred of I'm
better than you, I'm bigger thanyou.
No, no, because the because therumors.
When I went back, I finallylike it was like two years into
me working with him that Ifinally listened to a Hopson
interview and watched theIll-Mina Hopson 57, whichever
one it was where he goes off onDame Ritter.
(22:01):
I'm like none of this is true.
What are you talking about?
I've been on tour with this guy.
He's not hiding money.
What are you talking about?
There's a spreadsheet.
I know exactly where the budgetis going, so that's hilarious.
We talk about that.
We talk a lot about themanager-artist relationship.
We talk about pretty mucheverything we covered here.
But we'll discuss news.
(22:22):
We discussed Summer Walker'scontract when that came out that
she only got 80,000.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
As an advance, we talk about what are some of the
recent topics Did you guysdiscuss Megan Stallion's when
she and Harris came out?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, I think that was part of that same
conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Did you guys discuss the future selling his catalog?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
That just happened, so that's going to be this
coming week's topic.
But yeah, we've talked aboutthat scenario selling off.
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's business it's going to happen.
That's the whole point ofbuilding a catalog is to at some
point sell it.
And then you make a new catalogand then you sell that.
You know what I mean?
Like it's, you're not sellingyour masters, you're just
selling the publishing.
So you're basically.
Basically what they're doing isthis let's say, you got five
(23:22):
years worth of music.
You build up a decent catalog,so it's a good catalog.
So they're going to use amatrix.
What times 12 times 24.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
They know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah.
So, basically, they're going totake that what it's worth, and
then they're going to you knowhow much you're going to make
for that years and times it by12 or times it by 24.
And then they're going to payyou out for that, right, and
they're saying, hey, we're goingto give you all the money that
you would make for 12 yearsright now, up front, and we'll
(23:57):
take the back end.
We'll take the money slowly,you know, we'll collect it that
way, and then you could takethat money and do whatever you
want to.
You know what I mean.
You could take that money andbuy back your original masters,
right?
You can buy out of yourcontract.
You could use that for studiotime.
So you can, you know, put thatmoney into another project.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
And it's 60 million Right, Because I think a lot of
people have opinions and they'relike I would never sell that.
It's like 60 million.
Yeah, you're going to sell it,I would sell a lot for 60.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Exactly, and people sold a lot less for a lot more,
for a lot less.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I would sell all my catalog for 60 million, right,
because I'm just going to keepmaking music.
I do it every day.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And it just makes more.
It just makes so much sense foran artist like Future, because
Future makes so much music,right, and he's like he's.
You know that what that catalogis worth right now, 10 years
from now, it's not going to beworth the same, no, right?
So it's at its peak right now.
So now is the best time for himto sell that catalog, because
(24:58):
all he's going to do is dropanother four or five albums
right now and guess what?
He's going to have a wholeanother catalog that he, that he
can sell, and it's not.
He's not selling his masters,he's.
He probably doesn't own those,though, to begin with, right,
but he's not selling that.
He's thinking, you know, oh man, he's, he's selling his masters
.
No, he's not selling hismasters, that's a publishing.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
He's selling his underlying composition.
The other copy right yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So it's like first you got to even know what you're
talking about before you knowwhat I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
That's, I think that's a problem, and I I talk
about this all the time.
If the music business this is agood thing to say right now, I
should have said earlier themusic business boils down to
this in one sentence this iswhat the music.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I've heard you Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
The music business.
Every song you record generatestwo copyrights the master
recording, slash sound recordingand the underlying composition,
commonly referred to aspublishing.
The music business is simplythe exploitation or sale of one
or both.
That's it.
That's the music business.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Ta-da.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And once you understand that all the other
stuff learning, all thedifferent royalty streams they
all just branch from those twothings.
I mean.
Even someone will say well,what about performing?
You're exploiting yourcopyrights, that's it.
I mean you can submit yourperformance sheets to your PRO
and get paid off that.
You're getting paid off theunderlying composition copyright
(26:27):
when you do that.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It all branches back.
It doesn't matter what, it isit all comes back to that.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So how do you deal with fame?
I?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
don't.
That's a trick question,because I got to acknowledge
that I have a lot of fame.
There you go, man.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I mean at the end of the day, man, you got to call a
spade a spade.
You know what I mean.
Like you are a famous person,right?
So I mean it is what it isright.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I was calling myself a public figure.
Well, and I'm glad the crazything is someone impersonated me
and was trying to scam peoplefor $50.
And I'm like, wait a minute.
That's the whole point ofverification.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
So this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And people were still having conversations with the
fake DJ Payne one.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
That's crazy.
So what's next?
What's next for Payne?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I really don't even know.
I know I'm working every singleday on a million projects.
Something's going to happen.
I've had bigger records comeout this year, like the Michi
Darko record and another recordon Atlantic I forget the name
but as far as just expanding thebrand goes, there's a lot I'm
(27:30):
considering that.
I don't want to say but I'mworking on it.
But the podcast will continue.
I have a new show on Beastars.
We just got I don't know how wegot half a million views in a
day on Twitch through theirpartnership and it's a
beatmaking show, a livebeatmaking show.
So that particular episodefeatured multi-planet producers,
beat demons, and that's everyTuesday, two PM Eastern time,
(27:56):
one PMR time, and I make atleast a beat a day, so expect
that from me.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Let me get a throwaway.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I mean you can get one.
It's not going to be athrowaway, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I'm playing, I'm D-Star, I'm DJ Payne one.
Until next time, guys.
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