CEO Of Atlast Records: Alex Johnson AKA Superstar Boss – S2E21 (#49)

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Boss Uncaged Podcast Overview

CEO Of Atlast Records: Alex Johnson AKA Superstar Boss – S2E21 (#49)
“I would say just keep perfecting your craft. You know, everything you hear any time you get it right, you’re going to get all types of ideas. You’re going to get all types of inspiration. So whenever you get it, nurture it and build on it.”
In Season 2 Episode 21 of the Boss Uncaged Podcast, S.A. Grant switches up the format again. He gives his listeners a behind-the-scenes look at another 1-on-1 growth strategy coaching call with the CEO of Atlast RecordsAlex Johnson.
A spirited individual with a music background, Alex is ready to take his business to the next level and he’s looking to S.A. for marketing strategy techniques.
Want more details on how to contact Alex? Check out the links below!

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Just speak to your Alexa-enabled device and say, ”Alexa Open Boss Uncaged.”

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Boss Uncaged Podcast Transcript

S2E21 – (Bonus) Alex Johnson – powered by Happy Scribe

May be learning how to start mixing and producing my own stuff, and we got several aspects of the game as to where we started putting our Olmert in and just hitting the streets with it. But I think the downfall was that to one.

Welcome back to Boss uncage podcast. And I’m your host, S.A. Grant. Today’s episode is a boss-up Q&A. And on the other side, the microphone we have I know him better as Alex Johnson. So why don’t you give people a little bit of who you are and your background and what we’re be talking about tonight.

All right. What’s going on? Family is definitely good to be here. Alex Johnson here, a.k.a. Cainkar, allow better known as Kristen Carlyle or just call on the Mikis Carlyle baby. So I like I said, it is a pleasure to be here. Just a little background about myself. Man is a music legend. Just charge, because basically I come from a music background. Hala was always in the gospel band as long as I could stand up. My mom played the piano in the church, so we was pretty much forced to be in church and sing and learn instruments and things of that nature. So naturally, it just it grew on me. So since I can remember, I’ve been a music teacher and I’ve I’ve been able to as we’ve grown and as I’ve gotten older, you know, I tended to go to rap and hip hop and Rap and all these other different genres, you know, and it was just in my soul. So, you know, the creative part of me was able to write any genre type of a song. And, you know, I you know, I may not be just like as a person, a country artist, but I can appreciate good quality music. And, you know, I can actually kind of write to that or, you know, I can vibe to just about any genre. So pretty much as far as my background is this. That’s where I come from. And it inspired me to. Purchase my own equipment, and we just started getting a little bits and pieces here and there until we start to learn how to make our own music, Mastamho music and just getting heat presses and things of that nature and, you know, getting submerged together and push it into the street. And we was just I was pretty much just going off the floor with everything, you know. And I finally started reading a lot of self-help books. I started reading a lot, getting a lot of information about the history and background of the music industry. But when I was just out there at the peak of my see my younger years, I was just shooting in the dark and, you know, we had to had to had the stage presence. We had the fans. We had, you know, seem like we had everything going for us, except I had too many hats. So, you know, I really didn’t have the direction or the ideas, you know, to teach me to go to the next level. I was pretty much the one that was telling everybody what they need to do, and I wasn’t receiving any information for us to grow. So that’s just a little bit about me. And I would say what we’re about to talk about is really that that would be I know I’ve known, you know, through other businesses and we’ve been able to partner up. And I feel like we aspire to each other to go to and reach higher levels. And if the companies and I can respect your T’s and some of the things we’ll be talking about, I know that before you’ve gave me a list of things that I have. You got this together, you’ve got that together. And it’s really just what I wanted to discuss tonight would be just a basic blueprint on some things to you would have to have in order to be an independent artist, run an independent record label.

Got it, got it, got it. So, I mean, I got this first off top. I currently like what kind of marketing strategies do you have, like what do you have in place? How are you marketing yourself right now?

OK, right now, of course, I’m blasting everything on social media. OK, so and just before I just blast and of course, I am using an approach as far as just engaging with my fans. Now open conversation and then, you know, asking them to view the music or tell them tell them to check out the music. Also using YouTube, YouTube Mafia is a paid advertising company that will blast all, you know, your content across several different platforms and of course, Facebook ads and. Instagram has as well.

You so you’re running Instagram, you’re running Facebook, as are you tracking the analytics? I mean, do you know what the results are based upon the ad spend that you put out so far?

Just to be honest, I just started running ads on about 30 days and my video has been posted longer than ads and they’re running. So I’m actually just in the starting phases of this, the analytics to where I can be able to just get good feedback and look at it.

So, I mean, just, you know, I was there, like you said, I’ve known you for a period of time and I know you’ve been in the game. And, you know, you recently sent me a YouTube video. Everybody wants to be a superstar. And, you know, I comment you on it is a great song and great track. And the fact that you’re stepping outside of the state of hip hop and you stepped into the country a little bit of soul all combined and one and obviously the video quality is good and everything else. But the one thing that I’ve noticed in just kind of looking at, like your YouTube channel and just looking at your presence is that you’re not branding it right. And so think about like your brand presence. Like one of the things that you can kind of see when somebody is branding themselves, you see that their name and their logo is always present. I think a bit like Nike, for example, if I go into the store and I see a pair of shoes that I want to pick up. Well, right away inside the store, above the shoe section, it’s a Nike logo. There’s a Reebok logo, there’s the logo. And then inside of that, I’m looking at the Nike shoes. And then if you look at a pair of Nike shoes, right there is the Nike mom. Tongue on the side, on the bottom, inside, on the laces. The logo is like super redundant, even though you already know it’s Nike shoe. The logo is completely blasted at least seven to 12 times per shoe. Right. So think about your video. Right. How many times in that video did you represent your brand? Now I hear your voice. I hear your lyrics. I see you. But where’s your brand awareness? And I think that that’s kind of where right now you’re missing the mark because you have the content like you’re saying, you’re blasting on social media. But in all reality is when I was looking, I was trying to figure out, like, what’s your stage name? So the video, if I was you, I would start of the video right away, like the stage they like like think about the old school 1990 videos, right? Like video, music box, classic joints. And they would start off right away. It’s a full tank video. You see the whole tank logo. Right. Or starts off with the name of who you’re listening to. And then it goes into the track. And I think of like D.J. Kylie, right. He says his name like ten thousand times. That’s one hundred percent brand awareness. He’s just making sure you know who the hell he is before he does anything else on that track. And think about his consistency. Right. The guy went from being behind the scenes kind of producer D.J. to where now everybody is reciting his lines. Right? Everybody is saying is hooke’s everybody saying, you smart, you special D.J. kylie, another one. That’s all branding, right. That’s 100 percent branding. So just look at it from that standpoint. So think about all the stuff you’re doing right now on the marketing side. Is it branded a hundred percent?

Got you, got you, got you. Yes, sir, I’m actually I’ve been kind of thinking about that, and it just confirmed what I was the idea that I had for this kind of like just a preview of this escala, it’s that I have a little cagey way of saying, and it’s actually my kids going to see it. And every time, you know, and got the logo for and everything so big up on that, definitely you’ll see that pretty soon. So you’re the 100 percent brand presence and awareness. You better you better get a whole your and all of that.

Got you. So I mean what’s the meaning behind the name as well to I mean obviously, you know, Alex is your government. So how did you come up with the brand of karlyle?

karlyle was actually my middle name. My first name is Alexia’s Carlyle. And we’re look, we got to, like, teach our brand that we’re working on right now as well called Alexia’s Carlyle. And so I just went with my middle name as far as my stage name and which is Carlyle, formerly known as King Carlyle. I was into the hardcore hip hop rap scene. So now with kids marriage and, you know, and in ministry, I’m also, you know, is a cleaner cut, you know, so and but it’s still you know, it’s still me, you know, and still karlyle. But I just wanted to be more family-oriented. But everybody can still have some fun, you know what I mean?

Got it. Got it. So, I mean, in addition to that, some other things that I think that would definitely help you. Right. So you’re saying you’re going to work on the branding. You really know you’re going to plug in like the logo and also the audible of your name repeatedly, not to the point to where is annoying. I’m not saying that D.J. Kelly, when he first started doing it, was kind of annoying, but then it became kind of catchy. But that’s all part of the marketing strategy. Right. So if you’re looking at your YouTube channel, you’re looking at Facebook, you’re looking at Twitter, you’re looking at Instagram, you need a cross-brand. So if you’re on Facebook, you should also make everybody aware on Facebook that you have an Instagram page. If you on YouTube, they’ll let them know. Hey, I also have Instagram page. I have a Facebook page. I have a Twitter page. And you will all these pages to co-exist and work with each other because your demographics will be different. Right. So if you’re going to. Right. Tell me you want Twitter. You are Tik-Tok, right?

Yes. No, not not. No, no, no, I’m not.

Yes. A tick tock. Tick tock is like, you know, obviously they got some ownership issues going on. Right. But ticktock in the market sector is huge, especially for like emcees, because not only is the music, but it’s the music with the visuals. Right. So think about was the guy, the everybody, the cowboy, the cowboy horse. I forget the name of a real little.

Was it.

Yeah. So think think about his joint. Right. So here’s his video and his his brand. Right. Was one hundred percent driven based upon the visuals. Right. He was dressed up like a cowboy. He was doing a couple of steps and then that kind of took wildfire with his gifts and then those gifts didn’t turn into tick videos. So think about that space. Right. Your target demographic, I would think, is probably anywhere from young kids up to middle age people. The demographics of Tic-Toc is kids up to like age twenties, like early thirties. Then you have Instagram is kind of like the overlapping cohort between like the twenties and thirties. And then Facebook is kind of like the widest gambit because they have the most range. But that’s more like, you know, late thirties, even like early 60s. So you kind of have to think about your market sectors and you want to feed into that. So right now, you’re up and coming. You want the biggest way for you to kind of move forward is to get kids hooked on it. I mean, that’s like the bottom line. If you think about all the emcees that are in the game right now that are all making their living from it, they target their demographic really hard through those platforms day in, day out. So if you’re not on Tic-Toc, you want to get a ticket out like yesterday.

Got you, got you.

What are you, like, a list of questions, what do you have on your list?

Right, right. OK, as far as. Social as far as this promotion’s. Promoting, promoting, I know, marketing, the marketing aspect and promoting this is, of course, is separate, but only on a grassroots level. Is do you think fly or do you think like something would you just use social media for promoting or would you actually still go old school fliers and things of that nature?

So, I mean, that question is very the way I look at it, like, you know, back in the early 90s, Yutang was kind of growing out the trunk. Right. You know, they kind of went and they pushed series and they push CDs. And that was a cool way of doing it back then because we didn’t have the technology to support the game now in today’s market. Right. Well, Facebook is like there’s billions of people on Facebook. There’s like one point five billion on Tic-Tac. So think about that. So if you can say you’re in Alabama, let’s say in Alabama, there’s a million people in a city you live in a say, one hundred thousand people out of that. Hundred thousand people, maybe 10 percent of those people would even listen to your music. And out of that 10 percent to be another 10 percent. So you’re really that’s like a thousand people, right? If you to hit the ground every single day, day in, day out, maybe you get a thousand physical sales or you could take all the time and effort and you could put it on a global scale because there’s probably somebody in Japan right now dying to hear your track. There’s probably somebody in South Africa dying to listen to your track. So why would you limit yourself to just grassroots locally? You say you’re not a local storefront. It’s not like you’re a mom and pop smoothie shop and you’re trying to sell to the community and you’re on a global platform. So then make your outreach global. It makes no sense for it to be localized in today’s world with the technology behind you. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you’re doing shows, do local shows, that’s going to give you content to project out your global image. So if I have opportunity to do 20 shows locally in my hometown, I’m going to go to every show and do my best. I’m a record them. I’m going to take my camera on the stage. I’m going take shots of the audience. I would take selfies, I’m going to sign autographs. I would do everything humanly possible in that crowd to make that audience. If it’s one hundred people, I make it look like it’s ten thousand people. Right. If I want to to show them and make two shows like twenty shows and you’re going to project that on LA because perception is the value, right. So you’re going to give a perception to the world that you’re doing these sold out shows, these huge audiences and they’re going to be like, who’s this guy? Right. And then you start getting into, OK, well, who is this person that you saw reaching out to people overseas or reaching out to people in other states? And then you start getting that snowball effect, you know what I’m saying?

Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, man, so another thing as far as merchandise is merch, the approach with merch, I mean, it’s pretty much. What would you what would you say the best ways to. To handle the orders or would you would you design and press your own immediately or would you I mean, obviously, if you don’t have the order for a thousand or even one hundred services, you wouldn’t just go and buy that many shirts. But as far as dropship and as far as as far as just setting up the whole stage for to be prepared for it, as far as your website and, you know, just being prepared for after you do a local show and people go to your website and, you know, everything in place and available for them to support you, what’s your what’s your viewpoint on that?

Yeah, I’m happy to. You asked that question because, I mean, obviously, this is a very debatable topic when it comes down to, like, merch. Right. Some people say don’t start merch until the supply is there. Right. Because at that point in time, then you can kind of buy merch at wholesale. You can have like a warehouse and you can get the shirt that Costco at a cost. Right. Then you have the grassroots way of doing it. OK, you go to a concert, you may have you may print some shirts and bring it with you and sell on the spot, which is which is great. But again, that’s local sales. Right. So if you have an opportunity to market yourself on a global platform, you don’t want to deal with the shipping you want you don’t want to deal with the returns. Right. Because when you come out to physical products for the physical products, it’s a pain in the ass, to be honest with you. Right. You want to think more so in a digital space, right? So you have music that’s digital. You have videos that’s digital. You can kind of sell that all day, all night. Concerts nowadays are pretty much digital. You can sell that all day, all night. And it’s not really about the returns. It’s about the experience, the user experience. It’s about giving somebody some happiness or some joy. In those moments, they rocking out to your music now, a shirt. On the other hand, I could be a female and I may think that I’m medium, but in reality I may be a small or maybe a large. I’m going to ordered medium shirt is going to come. I’m going to try it on. It’s going to be the wrong size and then you have to deal with return. So just dealing with the human factor of that situation, you don’t want to have any surplus whatsoever in your grasp. The only surplus you’re going to have is like your top selling shirts. When you go to a concert, you’re safe, you’re doing a concert. You may preorder some shirts, ten, one hundred, five hundred, whatever it may be, and bring them with you. But as far as your general day to day sales and marketing strategy, my recommendation as of right now in today’s world is always going to be print on demand just because now you have zero overhead, you have zero overhead. Right now, the margins are going to obviously be smaller. But keep in mind, the more products that you sell to a drop shipping model is, the more you can negotiate. So if you start selling a thousand units, then you can go back to the manufacturer to say, look, I’m pushing a thousand units, I want to get some more margins. I don’t want to go my cost. If it cost me ten bucks, could you take off 10 percent? Let me get you shirt Bonanos. Now you have a 10 percent difference or you can say, Hey, I want the shirts eight versus ten. You can negotiate and say, okay, I’m going to do more marketing on my end. I need some more money upfront and I don’t want to give away so much of my margins. I just understand that once you get to that point, then you have leeway to negotiate. But until then, if you’re buying a shirt for 13 dollars and you’re selling it for 25 minus the shipping, you end up walking away with five dollars. That’s a good day, right? You may sell 100 shirts. That’s five hundred dollars of net profit. And just look at it from that standpoint versus if I have to create shirts, if I have to do one hundred shirts, you’re not going to be in a studio. You’re not going to be thinking about your next photo shoot, your next video shoot. You’re not going to be writing songs. You’re going to be in the basement pressing shirts. If you have a surplus of shirts now, you are not going to have five thousand dollars because I want to buy one thousand shirts and I you may get the shirts of five dollars a unit, but then you’re going to have a thousand shirts. And if you go to a concert or if you try to sell shirts, you may not sell all one thousand shirts. You may end up being stuck with at least 50 percent of those shirts. So then your revenue was kind of held up in your inventory. You see what I’m saying?

Absolutely.

So you want to look at a model like, you know, my recommendations, but I work with all my clients is I always recommend Shopify because it’s a standalone platform. It has pretty much everything that you would need to start a store like ten days, ten days flat. You can have a store up and running with your shirt, designs, hats, and they have like a thousand different products. Right. And second to Shopify, the plugin that I always recommend is print for now is not the cheapest, but they’re reliable. The quality may not be the best, but the quality is good. Right? So if I’m looking at a checkbox, I want shirts to be decent quality. I want the printing to be decent quality. I want the shipping to be decent quality. I want the customer service to be these at least at the minimum, decent quality. And that’s that’s the bare minimum. And then after that, everything else is plus. So print full gives me opportunity to I don’t have to deal with returns. I don’t have to do with shipping, I don’t have to deal with products, I don’t have to deal with printing them, it’s all in one stop shop solution. So that’s why I always go that route and you kind of get started. And again, you start selling ten thousand shirts, then you can kind of pull it from print is a good way to test the market to put the product out there.

All right, that’s good. And that was actually my next question, which company did you did you ever refer or so Shopify? OK, got you.

Yeah, Shopify Privileges is obviously both of them have competitors. Right. You can kind of start up a new commerce through WordPress, but then you have to know development. Right. Or you going have to hire like a company like Matsuri 360 company to build out the WordPress site to build out the OR shopping cart. And then we’re going to have to make all the connections right. That’s the other beauty of Shopify, is that you don’t have to deal even with the the credit card processing. Once you set that up, all the processing is going to be handled straight versus if you try to control the processing on your end. So you do PayPal and you have to plug all that into the commerce and then you have to make sure all the things are working right. Make sure all the plugins updated. Shopify does all that for you so you really don’t have to really deal with that. And it’s one less thing you have to think about right now. Granted, you can hire a company to manage all that. But from the point to where you are right now, the less money you have to put up front and the more money you can put into a system that you can scale later on is going to be way more fruitful. Shopify. Twenty-nine dollars a month.

Indeed, indeed. OK, another question for you would be the first branching out and reaching out to or jazz or music managers or actually just finding the right people. I know this may be a kind of tricky question, just finding the right people when you develop a team, because we both obviously dealt with team building and building in your taproom. They’re trying to find the right the right people around you, the obvious and, you know, unfortunately, in Alabama at the moment. So in a small town in Alabama, so finding the right people. But again, we have technology, we have the Internet, but finding the building the right team, because I do want to stay independent. I don’t really want a record deal. I don’t want to do that. I mean, it would be crazy right now to actually just sign a deal and it would just, you know, just and you’re not going to get I don’t believe there’s even offer a deal that would be great enough for you because of the Internet now. So just build team building to find the proper people, you know, if you got any input on that, because there’s so many different aspects of the record label. And, you know, as far as delegating responsibilities, you have to have somebody to delegate to. So just finding the right people, you know what I mean? Because it will get a little stressful on one person trying to run it all by itself.

I mean. Yeah, so I mean, obviously I try to keep myself not biased because on one side, you know, I’m an owner of an agency. And what you’re talking about is what that company does. Like our clients, they’ll give us money and by giving us money, will aim to give them results. And what that really looks like is like what you’re saying, OK, we want to have a press kit. We want to have a website. We want to have a shopping cart and they can come to us the one stop shop, to kind of help them and be their key resource. Right. But on the other hand, right, if you’re trying to do a grassroots well, you could use Internet all day. All night. Right. I mean, there’s so many different tools out there. Right. So even old school tools like Craigslist, there’s no reason why you can not go on Craigslist and just put ads out there to find somebody. And I would even look at them as look. Right going. I mean, in today’s market right now, a culvert, you can kind of do zoom videos and zoom meetings and you can interview people left and right. You can kind of have it set up to where you’re making payments through, for example, like Wells Fargo has deals with Zeil, or you can do PayPal and you have protection on either platform. So you can kind of set it up to where, you know, even companies like what’s the other one, like five or for example, if you’re looking for somebody to just like a pay is five or is a great platform to find a personal assistant, you can find them USB so you can find them overseas. But if you have a lot of step and repeat work and comes back to your system, so, for example, every single time you go to the studio, you record something. You may want to post it online. Right. You can kind of find software that can do automation for you. And then you want somebody to kind of say, hey, take my content, do these simple edits and put it in. This platform is like mind numbing work is repetitive work. But then you can find a pay for like pennies on the dollar to do that repetitive work that takes care of some of your administrative stuff. But that way you focus on the big picture that you’re talking about. Mortel proven right. I mean, you and I like we were in the recruiting game. We were huge because we were fearless. We didn’t have any shame or remorse if they wouldn’t understand the opportunity. The same thing right now. So you have an opportunity. You’re an M.C., you’re building a record, you’re building a record label, you’re building your image. I would go back to the old method of call every single body act if they want to help. Same lobby back in the day, like, hey, do you want to help me? Let’s start with that, do you want to help me? And then obviously they’re going to be like either yes or no. And then after that is what do you have? And that’s what you want to hear when you say, OK, I need help with X, Y and Z is nonmonetary. If more so, time and effort stick to that. As you continue to keep doing that, you’re going to find the right people. You’re going to find people, is going to raise the hand. I mean, think about political campaigns, like majority of the campaigns are run because the people are emotionally attached to the points and what they want, which they know that this candidate can pretty much beat them or at least try to deliver on that promise. So by default, there will be no comment all day, all night long. You go to vote everybody, and then I get paid. All that’s free from that standpoint is no reason why you couldn’t you’re not promising anything but the reality. You make it big. Right. And the goal is for you to make big. Everybody will be your team is going to go along with you for the ride. It’s going to climb, which in the long run. Right. Somebody may help you become a I’m a producer down the road because what they help you do that somebody may become a video producer or video director down the road because what they help do that. Does that make it sense?

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s golden, golden. OK, so let’s cut to the last question I would have for you right now. Startup funding. Of course, I know about the you know, the go companies and the stock markets and stuff like that. So what are your ideas on that or as far as for me,

I mean, obviously, angel investments always go that right? So that’s kind of like a grassroots way of thinking about it. But in that sense, you don’t really have anybody that’s liable to have payback to for example, you can go to a bank and say, hey, I need a loan. That could be like for what? You tell them what? And they could pretty much kick you out the door like they’re not going to fund music. Like that’s not going to happen. Right. Unless, like, you’re talking about you opening up like a studio and you have clients lined up outside the door and you can kind of show the orders waiting to come in. Otherwise, they’re not going to do that. So then you have Angel Investments, which is essentially just, you know, like you said, the go fund me. Right, the crowd-funding. But then you also have another particular thing that I think people just don’t even realize is like crowdfunding. Right. So crowd-funding and you’ve been the crowdfunding dotcom essentially is a platform that say I have I have a new iPhone and I’m calling it like the iPhone. Right. And it has everything that Apple didn’t have, has everything the Samsung didn’t have everybody to hate samsung hates Apple. I’m going to play into that market like, hey, guys, I got a new phone. This is who’s backing me. Anybody that puts money in over a hundred bucks, you’ll get the first phone off the assembly line. It’s the same principle. Like, why could you not do the same thing with your record? Right. So you can kind of create a video telling your story, telling your music, telling who you are. Even that last video, you know, everybody wants to be a rock star. You can kind of present that. And again, there’s no shame in it, right? It’s just put it out there and seeing who’s going to raise your hand. So you may put it out there and say, hey, you’re trying to raise three thousand dollars to not only help you get in the studio, but, you know, some of your proceeds may go back to helping kids in in school, learn about music outside of school alternatives or whatever it may be. You set it up in that way, put it out there and see what happens. Right. And then you can say, OK, what’s going to what what if somebody’s going to get right? Well, the first person maybe they’ll get a poster, right. If they spend more than 50 bucks, maybe they’ll get a poster and they’ll get a download code for for the album when it releases. Maybe they’ll get a signed autograph on a poster and a CD you could mix and match. You got merch, you can get about T-shirts, you can do anything that you have tangible that you may take for advantage, that your audience and your fans may be dying to get their hands on. You could do that shit all day, all night and make five or six different packages and have twenty dollars, ten dollars, thirty dollars, two hundred bucks, whatever it is, and and build up to where you hit the five thousand mark. So that’s an ingenious and indirect way of creating your own funds that you’re not giving any money back. What you’re giving is things that you really have access to.

Oh yes, sir. Yes, yes, yes. So one other thing, though, also, of course, Inexplicitly took his album out and so on. And so I don’t know, we just kind of touched on that, the sales and of course, digital sales, but. Do you think that their protest is do you think is dead? I mean, because I mean, it’s kind of a downer question, but that wasn’t that long ago when he did that, I think is part about four, maybe four years ago or maybe not four, but doing so. Thousand units, four hundred bucks a night when you think about that.

I think history repeats itself, right? I mean, it’s like saying, is radio dead? And the reality is it just transformed, right? Is is TV dead? Is is cable TV. That is Blockbuster Video dead. Yeah, it’s but the format has changed. The physical delivery of DVDs, DVDs in itself don’t really exist unless you go to a Redbox. And and even that’s fading out. It’s taking DVDs and making it more convenient, a lot easier. So why don’t you look at that formula? Right. OK, so he was selling one hundred dollars per CD. He sold a thousand CDs there. But that’s that’s good money. Why could you not do the same thing in a digital format, right. In today’s market. Right. Give people up to think about it from old school. Like, you know, back in the day with DMX was doing videos. He had everybody in mom in the video. Right. So you you can do a video. So you got everybody in the amount of video. You could have them by the seats in the video if you want to be in the video. If it’s ten dollars ahead, it’s like a block party. Right. And then you give some of your proceeds back to the neighborhood or whatever it may be, you may donate it to some kind of local corporation that’s going to help raise awareness for inner city youth, whatever it is. But you could easily do that and shoot a video like the last video that I saw of you. I mean, you know, you was riding around and you was kind of like showing like the country lifestyle. But think about like, what was the guy? I think he was from North Carolina. All right, people will have the video when he was waving around his head like a helicopter, but I guarantee you, like 95 percent of people in that video, in that particular scene were people that he knew that were from the block. So think about that. You have a mass scale of people that you know. Right. You’re given an opportunity to be in the video, maybe even, you know, get the first LP off the album, whatever it is, download sales, if everybody chips in five dollars, 10 dollars, whatever it is, if you get a thousand people. Five miles ahead, that’s ten thousand dollars right there overnight. Well, same same principle as the hundred for a thousand. You got to think about your community, what can they afford and then scale from there. And that’s that’s the small that’s like the nickel and dime. And then from there, you kind of scale up. Now you’re talking about if you want to do it, one hundred who is going to be willing to pay one hundred and what are they going to be paying one hundred for? And then you step and repeat that or

what you always come through with the nuggets. I’m telling you so. No doubt. No doubt, man. Yeah. I mean, you gave me a definitely a hat for man to go off on a. And that didn’t let me down at all. This is exactly what I was expecting, and so it really opened up my eyes and like I said, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I do know, but sometimes it’s good to just, you know, have a familiar voice or familiar presence to reassure you all some stuff that it actually does reignite the boogeyman. Get you out there and get you going, man. So shout out to you, man, to your company, to your brand. And so I’m definitely going to take the stuff that you’ve given me these nuggets, man, and pass him up in Perfect McLaughlan. And you should start seeing a lot of these if these tactics, which you just gave me implemented here. And next time you check for me, man, you’ll see some. You’ll see some see some numbers, baby.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I definitely appreciate you reached out, man. And if you don’t mind, I mean, it’s actually actually a couple of quick questions before.

No doubt. No doubt.

So I mean, obviously the hip hop game and and the irony is, is like throughout my life, obviously, I have several different friends that have stepped into that space. And I’ve had people that were actually on on the Boss uncage podcast that were MCs as well. So my question to you, right, is. What made you decide or what made you think that? Going into it like it’s like becoming a basketball star or football star, like, why did you decide to step into that market space,

the music as far as an artist? I’ve been doing like I said, I’ve been doing it all my life. I’ve been and I actually, you know, like I said, I’ve been writing songs. And before I was even writing songs, I was just making beats. And I wouldn’t I never really had the equipment or anything, but I could make a beat. And I was like, it was just something in me. This as I was getting older and, you know, it just like I said, I gather the pieces of musical equipment and beat machines got and PC got the little the little toy machines and stuff. I was just making beats. We used to be boxes school all the time, just going down a hallway, slowing and jam and all that. So but you know, the lyrical side of it was up to par. So, you know, and once I started getting other, you know, aspects together, you know, and it sounded good. So, you know, I made a lot of a lot of traction. And I’ve been on a higher, you know, platform that I actually own now. I’ve been on a bigger stage in scale, but I kind of buried it, you know, because I got, you know, the black kids and, you know, their dreams and stuff like that. But it wouldn’t it just wouldn’t. It just kept growing. I’m saying so. And then, you know, one day I go out, look in my studio, I’m like, man, I got all of this stuff and every time I’m trying not to do it. A solid idea, probably, you know, I’ve seen so it’s like, you know, I’m at the point now, the whole goal, though, is, you know, I want to I want to become a talent agency for the youth I know in order for me to be able to do that, because I got a lot of kids around me, which we also have a ton of, kind of like a Christian fraternity. Boys go Affinia Omega. But and that’s going to be one of those outlets that, you know, we’ll be invested back into, like you were speaking of earlier, the proceeds to events or stuff that we may do, but I couldn’t bear and ideas for songs was coming. It was high pitch. And the people that I made, what do you waiting dropped. So I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just stop and not do it. So that’s what inspired me. Motivated to go ahead and finish this journey. I said I got to do it one more time and I got to go all the way.

Fair enough, fair enough. So let’s say I’m in middle school, right? Twelve years old, and just like you said, I’m Reimann, I’m writing, I’m always in the music, I’m in the band, I’m playing the drums. You know, I hear like music and I’m trying to, like, recite it to play on a piano. What words of wisdom would you have? Somebody in that age group decided to step into the space. Right? Because, I mean, obviously, you’re in an older demographic than to say a brand new movie coming out is like maybe in the early 20s. Right? You mean like in your 30s. So if I’m going into that space, what words would you tell me that I should know that that I could take action on at that young of age?

At that young age? I would say just just keep perfecting your craft. Just just, you know, everything you hear any time you get it right, you’re going to get all types of ideas. You’re going to get all types of inspiration. So whenever you get it, nurture it and build on it. Add on to and every information, anything that you can read on, anything, you know, get the history of whatever instrument you play and the best drummers, the best saxophone players understand the history of what your passion is. And it’ll it’ll give you a respect for the game and that type of energy that you put now. You know, it’s going to like your success is going to gravitate towards you because you won’t be ungrateful. You know, you’ll put the right energy out in the atmosphere and you know, the right people will come to the right opportunity to come to you is because you’re not arrogant. You you know, you’re respecting the game and you you’re diligent and doing your due diligence with learning how to master your craft, you know, and you know, and never give up. Because when nobody say they don’t like it, who cares? Keep on doing it. Keep rocket.

Great. So the last question I have for you is, I mean, being that like I said, I like I know you from like a business standpoint, I that you are a hell of a salesperson. Right. Like I mean, you’re headstrong, you’re in the game, your focus, and you don’t take no for an answer. So where do you see yourself in the music game 20 years from now?

In a music game 20 years from now. I will be pretty much. Looking at, you know, my nieces, my sons, my nephews, my daughters, and just being a Bizer, you know, I’d be a music adviser at that point to where, you know, I’m just helping them strategize the best biggest next move in their careers, you know, just being there for, you know, for that type of support, maybe financial backing and, you know, just being being available will be and available resource to, you know, some of the talent and people that was affiliated to the talent agency of last reactors. I want to be that presence, putting them to where they can. They know that they’ll have someone that they can lean on, you know, and give them some good and wholesome instructions and directions to be successful.

It’s great. Great. Well, I mean, I definitely has always been. I wish you the best man. I’m definitely happy that you reached out. I mean, hopefully you got some solid nuggets, action items that you can take from this call. And again, I’m looking forward to see what you’re going to do with it.

Absolutely. Man, thanks for having me on, man. Hopefully next time we do it, man, we will be able to do the video side of it, man. And and we’ll just keep on rocking, bro. I appreciate any time,

brother. Have a good one.

same to you

S.A Grant over now