What's up?
And welcome back to another episode of No Sealers Podcast with your host. Now fuck that with your loaw glasses Malone, So.
Now we can get back.
What was we talking about?
Six?
Yeah? So I was just saying, man, I think somebody must have sprinkled crack on GNX because I've just been playing that NonStop man in the car at the crib, in the gym, like NonStop flawless man.
It's really what's crazy is the first day I heard it, I was I woke up, I saw it was available, I was playing it at the crib. I start driving over here, so I put it in the web. I'm driving over I heard the whole record before we started.
The stream, and.
I got on the stream and I was like, this is by far the best Kendrick at the first day. And everybody was like, man, how are you gonna just say that? And it's weird because I'm trying to express them how much like I've been into hip hop and music at this point both, I've been going down both rabbit holes when it comes to music and hip hop at this point because they are a little different. Like hip hop is a cultural thing, it's an artistic cultural thing.
It don't even have to be music, I mean, and you can use music to apply the culture. Music is just music. But I've been studying so much of it that like, when I hear music, I know what's going on now for the most part, pretty much all the time. Obviously, I'm still learning more about singing, you know. I mean, I haven't quite knelt that, but I get what's going on. I know when it's right.
You know what it's wrong too, know what is wrong.
I can hear that, even if I don't quite know how to fix it, you know what I'm saying, I know what's going on. The first time I heard I was like, oh yeah, it's my four's best album. And I jumped on the live stream and I felt comfortable, Like I've listened to enough Kendrick's album, you know, I've heard them all first takes, all first takes, and this is by far this messed me up, Like this is by far, like way better than any first take. The second one
would be damn, this one is by far better. And I was trying to explain it, and people was asking me later about my take on it. They was like, why is this the best? And I'm like because this one he understands how to use the sonics to create theme, like I think Damn. When he was working on Damn, he understood sonics at that point, but he didn't understand sonics in the goal of creating theme. He only understood dialogue. Now, this could be wrong. You could be like GLA's you tripping.
I already knew, but I can hear his development in sonics to create theme. And we was talking about a good kid. Matt City is dialogue to take you to Compton. GNX is themed to like do the sonics to bring you back to Compton.
And that's why people felt dot was preachy in it.
And some people felt like that, like it was preachy because if you use dialogue to set theme, right, if you shout out to John trueby really dope author, he said, if you use dialogue to create theme, it could come across preachy. Gn Next is a Kendrick Lamar album, But it's not preachy because you and Compton when you're listening, like Whacked Out Mirrors takes you to that tam and
that is like fire, bro, Like that's so fire. I'm so impressed, you know what I'm saying, Like I had Dot outside of the best guys, and I thought I was fair, Like I wouldn't even put Dot in the same com I get why the next generation can hear DoD's music and put him. You know, they didn't get a chance to see ice Q. I mean they didn't see Prime Snoop Dogg. They didn't see Prime E forty, they didn't see Prime short. They have no idea what Prime quick looks like. We've had the luxury of with
the parent. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. You don't know that version when he's on rhythmalism and that joint come out.
You didn't hear that.
It's like when we talk about hoops, I mean you're being a coaching into it. If you didn't see Magic Johnson's career, you don't understand. To you it's a relic. Very few people take the time Bro to like, let me go back and think. What like when you watch Bob Coozy, Like a lot of even some professional hoopers shout out to the hommies in the hoop chat self and different hommies like they cannot understand my affinity for Bob Coosey. Bob Coozy dribbled the ball with one hand.
So they're like, oh, you know that, ain't I'm like no, but go back to the fifties. He was dropping people with one hand, so I'm looking at everybody. It wasn't like other people back then could dribble with two hands. Everybody dribbled the same way. He was just the best dribbler in his time and major dons. So if you don't if you don't understand how to set you know what you're looking at like, you will miss the genius and something that happened. And most humans can't do that.
Most humans can't go back and imagine, Oh, nobody else dribbling with two heads. They're like, oh, I'll just see the game now and I look back then. These guys are better, no, sir, these guys are the products of evolution exactly. So listening to this album like it went from like now like I did hear Dogs Dog Eachtyl when It's fresh. I did hear America's most Wanted brand New. I did hear the Chronic. I did hear straight out of Confident as a little kid. I did hear dog
Food and a lot of great records. I did hear Federal, I did hear Short's first album.
You know what I'm saying. But now when I hear this GNX, I'm.
Like, oh, this is as good as those.
Good Kid is not as good as those.
I understand again, the next generation they didn't get to They don't get the impact I saw it. So now I can feel it all and hear it all, and it's like, oh, yeah, this is like it's one of the ones challenging the niggas I grew up to.
Now, noweration, You're not outside the box no more. Here in there he and fucking the box up he in there. You know.
I just called and raving about it to him, and it's probably the first record I ever called.
Him raving about.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like, I've never called him raving about it now like good Kid in Mass City, I thought it was a great offering. I mean, I thought it was a fantastic first where we had time and space at that time. Same for the Pimper Butterfly. Those are really good albums, especially comparing to today. But I've actually heard really good jazz albums. I've heard really good hip hop albums.
So when this album came out, man, I can't get off of it.
I'm like, Bro, I can't play nothing else. This is I don't play my own stuff. I don't play nothing just.
Oh, I swear to god, bro, like I have like I have to go from like I might be playing like Marvin Gay I want you that album, and then back to gen X. You know how good your album has to be for me to switch off from the hall of those greatest hits.
Your fucking album. One of the things that I loved about that too is I had like this moment. I'm a huge like fan of old stuff too. Right, So the last couple of months, I've just been playing a lot of Anita Baker a lot, and I just spent bro a lot. You feel me. I told somebody, shit, they got so man good looks.
See no ciblings, no cilings, glasses below you know, I said, my brother Peter Boss, I got my homeboy six John in the house. This is somebody I really before I got into hip hop and was making music, he was making ways. He's a young man making waves and everything
from the land. He was on the radio station and he just always had a flare about records, and he became somebody that's really been instrumental in the development of Glasses Malone the true hip hop you know culturists and musician, Like, he's helped me understand so many things, not to mention he looked me up, he lacked me up with Brian McKnight, just fly things.
I said, so for one of your most most important songs in my life.
To me, it made me feel like real, it really vindicated my journey, you know what I mean, Like that was every day. I wish my mom was a lot bro blew her mind in a change, you know, a rocker. She'd have been in prison, like just losing it. But I appreciate that too though, man, my man. So it's like that's how it feels, bro Like, how do you go from these records to these records.
And to hear him say riding in my g and next with the need to yeah this bro feeling like the correlation. I'm like, oh, I was in that moment already to you know, two months before the album came out. So that just yeah, it just locked me in.
And it's crazy because I'm telling somebody, they're asking me about music, right, they like last you don't really listen to like modern R and B.
I'm like, they can't sing you know what I'm saying.
Like you know what I'm saying, Pete, It's like, how do I come from this mini Ripperton album to this?
Like you know what I mean?
Shout out to shout out to Frank Ocean. Obviously he got to be one of the greatest pins. He could write. Well, Frank don't sing well enough for me? Yeah, not not. He's a fantastic writer and he can hold a note.
But Luther, there's a period like because as a singer, even if you were to go to like oh three or something like that and listen to r Kelly, that guy can fucking sing it and died like he got like people stopped singing after him. There was forty years of singers there has who's the last good singer since that?
I mean there's some singers for sure that like like that. They got some singers that really can kill but they don't have the songs.
To kill it.
That's what I mean.
Remember that. That was the comment right now is like the it's the it's the to me, it's the better writers and the writers became artists. So like those songs that we're hearing Pete are from writers. Those would have been the guys giving the songs to the vocals. Back then, writers did not try to present themselves as singers singers. They would give it to the best vocalists, and that's
how they would have these gigantic records. But now I think you're creating an era of really forgettable R and B music because the best writers right are not giving their songs to the best singers, and the best singers don't have the best songs.
Didn't like Dream do the opposite.
Well that so shout out to Dream, who was one of my favorites of modern era.
But Dreams, it's gonna be forgettable. Can't sing.
I don't know how of the singers.
Forgive me, give me, Triggy, forgive me, everybody like, but he can't sing his penis. Imagine fucking Luther Vandross singing some of this ship, you know what I'm saying, Like, imagine like.
In some of this shit. Because when dream World for Beyonce sh is out of here, is out of here.
So I think that's what's happening so much in the space of music, right, And I think that's where gn X got it right.
It was like, oh, this is the hip hop being.
No, no matter what.
We say, it's a it's still a cultural party. You know, him putting on a party. Okay, he watched the party die. Then he remade a party, a better party. He was this, No, this is the party that party y'all been doing for y'all, buying bottles, y'all out on the floor, dancing and getting behind girls and making connections.
Let me kill all that. This is the new point. This is how we This is how y'all shop party.
I just saw a dope interview with Big Boy. You see that And I can't remember the dude's name, but your dog trainer. He was the one in the squabble up video that the dog was biting. I think his name like Smoke or something like that. So he was explaining that big Boy how he got the call to go do the video when they told him it was an AT and T commercial. So when you get there, he said, the girl that I guess that shot in that green room. It's like everybody is individual, so that's
all like post. So when he got in there, it was just literally him and the dog doing the dog bite and the dog run across the room. They do that he don't hear no music. He said he saw the girl that's like dancing in there. She got on like in ears, so he just saw her like dancing. Hell of horror. But he said, at no point did he ever see Kendrick. At no point did he ever
know it was a video shoot for him. And then a few months later his people called him like, yo, you in the squabble of video and he sees a scene and he sees, you know, Kendrick in there. Him and the dog shot the kid hitting the switches on the on the g body. It's like all these different elements and just the the mysterious value that you know what I mean, like just that approach of just And they said they shot it in like Augusta, So I'm like, oh, this was like well on the way for a minute.
Yeah yeah, No, he been figuring it out. I won't even everybody asked me to. I won't even ask him about this, Like there's a fanship in me that just wants to experience it. I don't want to be prepared for I want it. I don't want to be the person holding this. I won't even ask me, man Glass, what do you think about these? What lines are missing. I don't want to know. I want express feel. I want to experience it like fans like, And this is dope because I really.
Get to be a fan of Doc like like.
I'm a fan.
I think he's a tremendous talent, it's no question. But I get to be a fucking fan. I get to enjoy Like there's a Kendrick album I'm playing as much as I'm playing Made by Scarface, or I'm playing uh the Last Meal by Snoop, or or or the Ward did from Cube or the West Side Connection, now the first one bow down, chronic shout. You know what I'm saying, Like this is what I'm getting, and I'm so pleased, Like I'm so impressed.
I'm like wow.
But back to that thought of the marketing, right, because it is a surprise marketing that if nobody knows. I heard RJ tell the same story. RJ, who if you listening to this pod. RJ is the guy that walks across the stream with that crazy walk.
He said the same thing. He didn't know what it was for.
So after Calmatic because the videos fired, you know, they did a great job.
That was another thing not to cut you off but he said, and this might be true with RJ too, you might have to ask him, but they said that they was just going to the metronome. Yeah, so they didn't even know like like nothing they got in theirs, But it's just the tempo of the metronome that's crazy.
And so he used a level of surprise.
But I think I think hip hop does have to and this is what we were talking about before we jumped on the pod.
I think hip hop.
Does have to do a better job of creating exciting marketing, informative marketing, some way of to inject more spirit in the marketing, because marketing is getting lame. Like and again, like I told you, like we're in the space now to where as an independent you can't really spend your money to market a song because songs are not for sale, so you can never get the value out of them back. And this is something I want to tell you, but
I thought to tell you on air. Like let's say if you wanted to work a record, you know, to get a record into the top forty's, obviously your record has to work. Let's say the marketing budget is around a quarter million dollars, that's how much work it takes how many people you have to hire to get radio to play it, to keep calling them, harassing them. You know, you got to have a team across the country, you know what I mean. You gotta get posters in this area,
get flyers. You need to go to DJ's at the club. Hey, get this record. Going a quarter million dollars to become you know, to be in the top forty with the record that's actually working, because if it's a bad record, it may never work and it could cost you a million. If it did work, it'd just be crazy.
Right.
But you spend a quarter million dollars to get an audience exposure of let's say fifty to one hundred and fifty million people, right, that's pretty much roughly what a record would be exposed to. That made business sense, right because back then, you hear a record on the radio, or you saw a music video, or you heard a record at a party. You're like, hey, I like that record, I like that song. Your next thing to do is buy the fucking product. The product is a compact disc,
a vinyl, or a cassette. Right, So let's say if you heard EI, let's go as late as two thousand, if you heard not even Ei.
Let's say you heard Country Grammar. He's like, hey, I like this.
It cost you ten dollars to have it. You couldn't have it no other way. You had to wait till the next time radio play. You didn't have it. It wasn't yours. You had to wait for somebody else. You had to wait for MTV to play it. It wasn't on command. You don't have it. However, you got to expose you had the club. You got to wait for the DJ to play it again. Either way, you could
not have it. You have no command over it. So the only way you could have command over it, right p is to go down to the record store and say, here's ten dollars. They didn't even have it for two dollars. Like you couldn't buy Country Grammar as a single. You had to buy Country Grammar the.
Album album right, which worked out because they cast.
Probably probably like fourteen ninety nine or somebody tell me.
So, if it's fifty to one hundred and fifty million people exposed to let's say fifty on the light in fifty million people that a top forty record is exposed to, that song went top ten, right, Okay, point one percent. Ten percent is five million, right a fifty million? Peet, Right, A one percent is five hundred thousand. Point one percent is fifty thousand.
Right of fifty five million, A fifty million, A fifty million, Yeah, fifty.
Million, five million is ten percent. Yeah, five hundred thousand is one percent, and fifty thousand is point one percent.
That's five hundred thousand.
If point one percent buys a song after they hear they like it, point one percent.
Damn, I never thought about it like that, right, So think about it.
Fifty five hundred thousand gold in the day, right.
Ten dollars, that's five hundred thousand dollars. So if you spent the quarter million dollars, the product could recoup that.
That's worth it.
The lord knows as it keeps building per week per week, per week per week, and so you know, back then it took a single to go go one single. One hit single could take you go yeah, one hit single. So it's like today, you know what I mean, Because it's a different type of conversion rate, it don't have the same value.
Like again, let's say you spend the same.
Quarter million dollars, it will probably cost you more because radio are playing things that are not. Even the music is current, but the conversation of the marketing, the artist, the song topic, something has to be current just to get you a chance for radio because they don't have time to gamble. You know, their money comes from advertising dollars. So let's say you was able to spend a quarter million dollars and you was able to get exposure to
fifty million people. Same number, right, Let's say those saying fifty thousand people go stream that song. Fifty thousand people go stream that song. Let's say they like the song and they stream it based off of you know, streaming metrics is like one hundred and fifty times right, So if it's one hundred and fifty times times one hundred and fifty times fifty thousand people, that's seven and a half million streams.
Right. Guess how much money? That is? Not much?
About ten grandy, not even that.
Somewhere around forty to fifty grand. Oh that mus But I'm saying that same quarter million doesn't have the same value. So that's why I think it's just start to get back into tricky marketing. That's what I respect about. Even a campaign on GNX like for them to be shooting. They shot multiple videos. We just said it, right, they're just basing my figuring out how they're gonna work them right.
But it's like they use the surprise tactic of nobody could.
Say, hey, Kendrick is working on music.
Yeah, God no, I'm not going to people around him, like, I'm not gonna ask him bout no fucking music. I'm doing my own fucking music. To talk about your music, I'll send you some music.
What you think it is.
That'mna fuck a hard, Okay, I'm not. You don't need me to determine if his music good. This motherfucker knows what he's doing. So I think we have to get back into the bag. And that's when I'm hoping GNX really inspires, you know what I mean, people to get back in their bag when it comes to creating completely, not just in the records, you know what I mean, but even how I'm going to release it, the title of it, I mean, what culturally, what kind of cultural relevance does the title carry?
I like that you said that let's let's stop right there, because you got this like infinity for song titles. That like, what kind of messed the world up a little bit more, you know what I mean? Like, where does that come from? Panic at the disco? You know what I'm saying.
But but what's.
Funny is, bro, It's like we were just having the same conversation, Pete. I shared with you the same way. When you look at how music is being like how people are discovering music when it's just music, not when it's on Instagram and there's a dance happening. I mean, that's how I discover a lot of music. The dance everybody's doing. Okay, damn, everybody doing the same dance. Damn, Okay.
That's how I'm being introduced to music. But if I'm going on a playlist and I'm being introduced to music, you know.
It's tiny the picture. You know what's tiny the artist.
The only thing on.
That line that's big, especially if it's in the playlist, is the title of the song.
So I have if you even have the opportunity to look at your device, if you're in the car, you're at the gym, whatever the hell, you might not even get to the device.
So if you look at the title right on the playlist, only excuse me, if you're looking at the songs on the playlist, all you see big is the titles.
So I have to create a title right.
That is so.
Like, I don't do clickbait.
It's not rooted in like misleading you. It's to give you an oh okay. When we started making Kanye Shit have never married that bit, the idea was pretty much, you can't turn a hole into the HOUSEWIFD. That's the song. So when we start working on it, I'm finishing it up. I'm letting the record be the record. I'm not taking marketing into the record. I'm letting the record be the record. Right, we was working on it and I'm looking at it,
I'm like, damn, okay, that bitch belonged to the streets. People, that's so coach, really, dence bro, that's so coarse that people don't even know what that means.
She belonged to the streets. Who belongs to the streets? Why do they belong to the streets?
So what I realized on that title was like, what's the big example of going wrong if you marry the wrong woman. That's how I came to that conclusion. And again, panic at the disco, they already did this. Rest in Peace to extent on he did this different people at these titles that.
Were really long, and it drums up.
That's the only way marketing is about creating a story, So you need a drum up interest in the content. So it's like, Okay, what's the big example of somebody that thought they could turn a home to housewife?
Who would you know?
That's how I came over with it.
It's like, Okay, this is it, and then I just made sure at the end Kanye West should have never married that bitch that's the song that is right. So that's the thing in parentheses that Kanye West should have never married is in parentheses that bitch is the main song.
So it's like.
Again getting back into really hip hop and innovative marketing. Culture is driven by innovation.
You know.
Pete always talks about it like the need for something. Slang is the need to communicate. No, I do have a genuine fear of where hip hop is right now because there is no pride in poverty. Pride in poverty to me is the number one thing bro that drives hip hop. That's what drives the culture. Like Okay, I got these work pants, like my mom can't afford no pants. So I got these pants that they wear to the factories, dickies. I have these dickies. Yeah, like you know, yeah, I
could be sad. Let me just put them on. So I'm wearing pants at school. No, no, no, I'm gonna take a pride and I'm gonna put a crease in these motherfuckers. I'm gonna starts them motherfuckers down an put a crease in them, cuffed to bottom, you know, I mean, I could be that. I got these twelve dollars shoes, these Converse all Stars. Yeah, these cheap No no, no, no, I'm gonna go get these dollar laces.
Right, I'm gonna put these big laces.
I'm gonna flip my tongue down, and I'm finna rock these. That's where culture comes from, you know.
It's like I got a picture like that, me and my NPC on the railroad tracks, and I got all chucks and a thermal fat lace's tongue flipped down. Oh yeah, you gotta you gotta wear the clothes, let the cloth you exactly. So people think Dicki's is the culture. Now, it's not the crease and the cof of the culture. You think all Stars is the culture. It's not.
It's the fat laces in the tongue flip. It's a pride and like, yeah, this don't cost much, but look at me rocking this shit. Fuck It ain't the pendleton. It's when you leave them buttons open and that motherfucker. Yeah, it don't cost nothing, but you see me rocking it. And people can feel the pride in that, and even people with money want a piece of it. Be like, yo, how the fuck could them people be that pride?
Think about the concept of a low rider culture. This is an old car. Remember, it's not the shit.
When you have the most expensive version, the coolest version of the Impollo Pete is the base model. If you got bucket seats, your car is worthless on the low ride seam a supersport you know, factory. If you go to the factory and you order a super sports that all the accessories, that costs you a shipload of money. But today that's not worth nothing. You don't even want bucket seaton your low rocker. You want the standard based model and Palla based shit bitch staring wheels.
None of that other shit matter. And that's what you cut.
And that's the value because it's the same thing with the cuisine. If you start putting you know, rebbi and fucking tacos, why would you do that? Who the fuck lock the taste of a fucking ribi with a tor.
I mean, and any any idiot can cook the best piece of meat on a cow except steal. I just said that purely to take a shot of steel. The rest of it.
I was looking at something dope and they was talking about it. I wanted to send it to you, but I forgot to. But they were talking about how people had to overcook their food because it was the worst food. And we was telling still this. We was like, like, gravy is cultural because it's like you're taking the worst of something and then making something to bring it.
A bell curve and cooking meat like it starts off to chewing.
You cook it a little bit against soft for bridge, and then you you know, I throw piece of meat. You cook it and it gets real tough, and then you keep cooking it and it breaks back down again.
That's a good point, you know what I mean, It's actually really great. That's how you make it.
Like a brisket.
Yeah, anything slow cooked and long cooked and all those are bad pieces of meat, even like if you take like skirt steak for you never chew your jaw tired eating cans out of tacos, But if you cook it less you will.
Yeah, damn you gotta find a perfect spot. So hip hop is driven by that pride in that poverty, you know what I mean? And what I what I did appreciate about gm X, even in the place to where he had endless resources, he still figured out a way to simplify the challenge, Like he didn't overdo it.
Yeah, I mean.
And I think less is more like he I appreciate he trusted himself enough to be enough.
Yeah, I appreciate it. It he trusted himself to make whatever is cool cool to everybody.
We was dope about it too. Is like the approach of like you said, sonically right, like it feels like the feels like Compton sonically. And to be able to take the approach he's taken on these records, the TV off records and the squabble ups and not like us to make it feel like the more modern West, you know what I mean, Like the uptempo vibe and kind of cadence is a little out of pocket a little bit, you know what I mean, and just being able to do that, he just he's at a comfort level right
now that I haven't seen in a while. Oro hip hop is still a party. It's very festive. Yeah, it has spread out.
To be more.
But even the thing that we timestamp and we say, oh, hip hop is fifty one years is because we're talking specifically about a party. So to put out a song like watch party died and then come back and redefine the party in my own image, crazy shit fire. I'm so impressed. And I told him, and I know he like g tripping, but I'm not. I know when something
is good. I know when something is right, Like thank god, you know what I mean, Like this thing saved my life when I was able to go through this like rabbit hole of finding good stuff, you know what I mean. It's like this shit is amazing and I'm just so impressed. It's like as good as a record I've ever heard from hip hop parties like your kid madd City. For me, was like, oh, this is as good as this is better than a lot of shit today. Yeah, this could
be the best thing today. But like when I was compared to like the chronic I'm like, nah, it's not like that. It ain't dog styff.
It was impressive too, because he was telling stories that reminded me of my childhood, and I know I was way older suretelling was.
The dialogue Grove the car, you know, and again you can see him as quality MC at that point.
Even in a songwriter, he was already like ahead of the curve. But this shit right.
Here, it's like a nonchalant is like, yeah, I know, I'm that shit.
Even his like when you say nonchalant or just remind me one of the scenes in the Squabble Up video, he's so nonchalant his energy, like when he said something about homie popping and he just like barely even saying it, like.
Like Nigga y'all said, but but me in here talk about this.
Shout out the DJ head.
We talk about this a lot of what happened to hip hop in two thousand and nine, right, Pete. If you go to these concerts, these kids got to bounce around because the music don't have that, they don't have a festive energy. They're creating it. So they jump on stage. You get the bouncing and the crowd follow um yeah, this type of shit right here.
Yeah, this is going to pull it out no matter what.
You don't got to do nothing.
This energy and the sonics carry it and it infects humans and it brings out of festive energy. And that's what I think. You know, he don't need to be over the top. It's like, you know, just let this thing go with and the music is gonna do the work.
I find myself driving with my knees a lot because I just got to when I'm listening to it, I'm just in that mode. You feel me like, I'm like, damn man, that energy.
And I think he did a great job.
It's so many things that I appreciate about how they wrote this record out. And the record's gonna do well. They're gonna start marketing the songs to radio. They already doing it. I mean, it's gonna be a lot of records on this album that's going to perform. You know, again, the audience that's a streaming, it's not the same audience at radio, yep, you know what I mean. Those are not necessarily the same audience. Yeah, they do intersect right
people there since they're not the same audience. So like right now, we're looking at more reactions from just streaming
people that stream music. But man, when it finally gets to radio and those records get a chance to perform and it start to carry the weight of radio stations and keep people tuned in, and they're playing these songs, you know, because they're making their advertisement dollars and they're playing all these songs, and these songs are starting to infect regular mainstream America.
This album hasn't really hit mainstream America yet. It's still three four weeks.
In wait till February.
You know what I mean.
When you get you know, by Jane February, open radio back up and they super Bowl records.
Then he catapults himself.
These records are going to really move this album into a different space.
I got a question for you guys.
The one thing that was so interesting to me about this album and the greater like scope or arc of his other albums through time, it's almost like a reverse progression. It feels like it, you know, when people have their first album and it comes out as a smash, You really feel like kind of the newness.
The rawness, the freshness of where the guy's coming from.
All it has that first album energy, and usually the other albums after that.
Are more rhetorical, they're more produced and more whatever.
This is not his first, it captures that like a first album to me, which I thought was interesting relative to the other ones.
You know what point?
Yeah, but the great artists figure out a way to do that. Yeah, he joined, he joins a he joins a party of very few guys on the West.
Snoop dogg Ice cues with ice Cube was able to recreate with.
Bout Down and West Side Connection, when Snoop was able to recreate with the Last Meal, what Dre was able to create with two thousand and one, what E forty was able to create with My Ghetto report Card, when Too Short was able to recreate with A.
I forgot which record it is? Which album?
Forgive me?
Sure he got like seventeen or was it was a second one that was like that revitalized, It did something different. It wasn't a build as much as it was a restart. Yeah, alreadist make this happen.
Especially this many albums in, Yeah, yeah, just many albums in. It's tough. And shout out to butter Man. That's who taught me how to make beats. Man do yeah, west Side Connection three card Mally.
My favorite ice Q album is war.
Oh yeah, that Bud put an NPC. Early in my career, I was just getting started. I was probably like nineteen and I was giving up basketball. I was chilling them at Buzzs house. He had a big old mansion in north Ridge. He young, you know, Buzz was like twenty six at the time, and he had this big mansion that he stayed in by hisself. And he was like, come stay with me. We're gonna do your record or whatever. And I was really interested in making beat. I used
to always watch him make beats. And he put an NPC two thousand and set it up, set it up a little eight track recorder and gave me just like a whole bunch of records. So taught me how to sample from there, like watching him and knowing what he had done, and then you know, him putting NPC in front of me. That's if he had never done that, I would have never learned how to produce at all. So shout out to my brother Man. But that's really dopey man.
Cole, and it's dope to watch him become a producer too. Yeah, I got produced five.
Or six songs on this album. I saw his name on there.
And I know what he's doing. Like, that's why you starting to meet it.
Hear the sonics of him coming out, the Compton, the little Compton duty is coming out.
Once you do that as an artist, everything changed. I thought that with the Royce album when he was producing his own I was like, it's a game changer because now you know you can create your own feel. I knew that was gonna happen with you a couple of years ago because we was having the conversations and you studying baselines and stuff like that, we'll get out the phone. I'm like, oh yeah, he going into a stratosphere right now for me.
For me, and it's hard because my career is not at the mainstream level to where but like White Lightning is one thing, but when you hear Glasshouse too, you can hear like a different energy that never existed before. Yeah, So it's like I look at my career like in comparatives to like when when Dot like Glasshouse two was like when I really like damn, when I start learning sonics like before that, I used dialogue to carry everything. Why Lightning this dialogue Guido. Shout out to Guedo, my
first engineer. He knew production so he could make all that shit work together. But Dialogue carried everything at the beginning of my career and then Glasshouse two, like Damn is when I started learning sonics, like, oh, this is the thing. But by the time I got to cancel and this album that's coming out, which is one ten, there's one ten, I'm custom culture.
Like now you can see like it's.
Like my own GenX where it's like, Okay, not only do I own a sonic space, not only do I understand my place and the.
Culture, but here's everything together, including marketing.
Here is the This is my presentation of what I've been going through over the last roughly fourteen years as a creative, and I could relate to what's happening for him, you know what I'm saying as a creative, And I could see it in different times of different artist's career too.
Like a jay Z you know what I mean.
I like, remember.
Rockefeller doesn't have its own sound from ninety six to two thousand and one, so they're just competing against everybody with kind of the same tools everybody has until just Blaze arrives at the level that he's at kind of west shut out the being who inspired the sound, you know what I'm saying of Blueprint.
But like, now, guess what.
Now you can have Rockefeller breaking other acts because they have a sound that people identify as Rockefeller. They identify this sound as Rockefeller. Now you can get Cameron into the top ten. Now you could get Beans way further than he's ever been. Now you could you know, you could break out. Your producer can turn into the it gets act to ever come from the label outside of the main act jay Z right Kanye. So it's a
combination of both. But more than anything, man, it's the most impressive thing is not just the music, but it's also and this goes into what makes it something a classic, you know what I mean?
Like this can be looked at as a different type.
Of classic if if it hits that level, it's because you're not going to get away from this no time soon. Nah, You're not going It's like how how country grammar is, Like, You're going to run into this album for the next twelve months.
And if you if you start to get away from it, something else is just gonna he just gonna drop something else. Yeah, you know what I mean.
And I don't think you're gonna be able to get away from it, because again, this is what's driving this right now is purely it's purely people who stream music. Like again, mainstream America hasn't really been exposed to this album way you would think. It hasn't hit radio at like the bomb it is. It's going to be some of these songs are going to be the number one song at radio. They're going to be in the top ten, probably multiply.
I think I just read something that I don't know if it's Billboard or something, but he's like the first artist to have like every.
Song, every song for three weeks. But that's streams driving they like they're just now starting to work into radio, gotcha, and when interscope starts to really see if the song start to perform, all of these songs can perform, Like he did such a great job at making and crafting these records that they're going to perform, and that's why it is four and five producers on every song.
Do you think do you think he knew that this was this is what it was going to be like while he was making it or do you think it was just like my opinion without.
Without asking him, I would imagine there were some reservations. I mean there's like I really want to go up to me. This is important because this is true. This is him in time like I always thought good Kid was him presenting himself how he wants people to see him. I don't think it's not him. I think it's just him still presenting himself. And I think I think to Pimp was more of a move to get into his soul and feel more like what I realized is I've said this too.
Forgive me.
I know everybody gonna get mad, but like when Drake came through with the game, he kind of took soul out of hip hop, Like if you really think about soul in the baseline, like his voice active and the bass line was in the exact same place. So they will do a lot of other things, so he could be right there with the bass, but the bass represents the soul of music. The bass represents the soul of music.
So it's like in his situation, you know, I mean in his situation, Like in his situation, there was never a reason right to like he didn't use bass. Drake didn't use the bass guitar in a lot of songs because of his actor like shout out to forty that's brilliant. Again, it also depends on him to create the soul of a song, kind of which to me, he probably is the architect of vibe. Like everybody say they want to vibe, that's what they're looking for, looking for that this diet.
It's like, I guess what I call VI it's dyet soul.
Like these young don't really have soul like that, they got diets, so they're like, oh, vibe, Like, bro, just find soul.
You gotta warn me. Vibe is a trigger word for me.
It is because it's something I just want to vibe because they don't really have soul anymore.
You know what's crazy, Bro, Diet soul is the title for real. That's what.
So hey, what it's like? Watch you know that will not be a quick answer to that question, So I'll hold till later.
Okay.
So no, it's like it's like, so when he did that, I think Dot noticed that into pimple Butterfly became a direct response to that, to that, to that movement, gotchak that's it puts soul he wanted to put soul back into hip hop because MAYU, this is four or five years of this run from from Drake, like where their soul is getting away in hip hop, you know what I mean. And everybody's emulating the biggest songs at radio. So they're starting to make songs without a bass guitar
in there. And if you notice, that's kind of almost a standard crazy like even this album with GNX specifically, he made it a purpose to put basslines in the damn songs. And I know the producers initially who made those moves, they didn't necessarily have a base. Shout out to Muster because I always think Muster does a gate job of keeping the base in there, and.
They don't run the song like even it's just eight o eight like tune Day's like it's gonna be a base, but he'll still.
Have a bass.
Like if you go to like Roddy Richard's song Balling, there's a bass there. It's not it's not the main melody of a song.
It's there.
He still gets back to the soul of a song.
It's pronounced yeah yeah.
And still just popped in, still just popped in. So I got six here still was the word soul again. I think I think he took the responsibility of putting soul back into hip hop or the pimper butterfly. That became a task of responsibility, right, And then damn he started to understand sonics. Enough of us challenged him. It was like, and you gotta get back to making just good records. I get the storytelling from a from a dialogue perspective, and the responsibility, but where is the fucking jams?
That's right?
And I think he's put together, you know, put together damn as something to respond back to not having jams. And then obviously they do the you know the soundtrack, right, the black soundtrack. And then now it comes to mister Morales later and he does understand sonics, but he's going through kind of like his last part of developing into a grown man right where he needs to he needs
to really see who he is. I would imagine he went to therapy during that time, somewhere around that time possibly, or he was going through space.
It was the.
Pandemic, so who knows what we was all dealing with ourselves at that time. This one is the one where I feel like this is him understanding everything that he is, everything he needs to be, being okay with the mother fuck it that he is here. I am, this is me right here. I don't give fun with nobody else. Think this is me right now? And yeah, I don't give a fuck. And that's to me what I can hear.
So I do think he had reservations, you know, like damn man, But I think he's at of age now where it's like, y'all beat the nigga, I am fuck y'all.
Let me ask you something, bro, Yeah, would you do you think this is the best album you've heard in your life? The best hip hop album?
I probably will go that guy.
It's as good as I've ever heard of hip hop album.
John, And I'm asking this question for a reason, John, Yo, would you say it's a great album? Without a doubt? Man, it's a great album. But I think once you as you start going along in this journey at hip hop and you've heard so many great albums, especially as you know when they first came out, like listening to Public Enemy when I first heard them, was experienced, you feel what I'm saying. When I first heard them, I remember right down the street listening to America's most woman and
killing Will and I was just like, god, damn. I think after a wild Man it started making you listen to stuff different because we don't heard so many classes in our lifetime and it's kind of hard. I think this. I do agree with you. Lasses this is as good as it gets for me. It's a great album, right, it's but it's like this still and not the cuntry. Just hold that thought. It's like, you can't be better than Snoop. You could only reach Snoop or Jason exactly.
It's no better than that. There's no more successful album than Doggy Style. That's the pinnacle. And you just catch that right.
We were saying, like a couple days ago, speed of Light.
Yeah, there's no faster, it's just speed of light. And to watch artists get into that space like Kendrick. So it's not like about is it the I don't even know. I would say Doggy Style is the greatest hip hop album ever, But again, man, like I've heard albums as good as Doggie Style. Maybe the steaks aren't the same, like Blueprint is probably is just as greatest. Doggy Staf two thousand and one is probably right there. Next to Doggie Style. Four hundred degrees is just his greatest Doggie style.
You know, there's some records, you know, just his's greatest dog style. But I just don't think the college dropout it's probably just as great as dog Style. The Steaks was different culturally for Doggy staff. Yeah, so again it's always gonna be you get what I'm saying. Stive was like, remember like that everything that happened around the record mattered too,
Like he comes out catches a murder case. The weakest album comes out, you know what I'm saying, Like he has like he's the son of gangster rap hip hop.
It was the perfect storm broke, Yeah, and.
The record fit the occasion. So that's why.
That's why it goes down for me as the greatest hip hop album of all time. Not to mention debut, right, but you know, this is as good as I've ever heard hip hop, and those are very few albums that joined that category that they're as good as I've heard.
Of Now geez, just imagine this. There was a period in my life to where some shit was popping damn there every other week when stuff got released, right, and you know, looking back on it, there was a real special period because you heard there was a lot of dope shit coming up and wasn't nothing like it before. There was no precursor to the ship we was hearing.
Right.
So sometimes, like when I listen to records now and I try not to do that, Man, I listen to records, I can hear where influences come from in certain songs. You feel what I'm saying, Okay, this is this right here? Like like even listening to some like Roddy Rich's The Box, I could tell where they got that little melody from in the background. You feel what I'm saying. That's from Willie Hucks record. You know what I'm saying.
You know.
The Willy Hucks. And you start listening, it almost makes hip hop a little bit. It becomes so remedia after Wow, dog, I think that's why people, That's why I get not to get off the subject. That's why I get where Drey was trying to go with this last project, because it kind of after a while, you trying to start thinking like what else can we go with this shit?
Yeah, but you don't feel like this. That's the same thing even with Missionary. I mean, that's that's kind of that goes back to something we talked about before you came, the Pride and culture, like, dickies aren't new. How we rock Dickies was new. Chucks one knew how we rocked Chucks were new. So you know, even I would imagine if you was in the gospel in the fifties, in the late fifties and you heard Ray Charles, I got a woman, you probably like you fucking dirt bag.
You took Southern cones must be Jesus and made it this bullshit.
Yeah.
I think that's the quintessential concept of a pop record, but it is the calling card of culture, especially in hip hop, where it's like repurposing something into a better idea.
Exactly, a layer two, like hip hop culture is, it's like an L to the other layer one, which would be the manufacturer of the car, the writer of the songs in this original to create the dickies, who makes the pants, conversationshoes. Hip hop's an L two. It's doing something unique with those things above that.
So even even when we're talking about to thank You song on on a Missionary, make sure y'all listen to the missionary. If you listen to this podcast, you know, the slide in Family Stone, thank you for letting me be myself. I mean, it's it's standard. I don't think he went away from that, even dre where he's at now. I think that's standard in music, you know what I mean, Like, I think that's standard in melody, in the pursuit of a great record, you know, having something that you feel
like you can hold on to. I mean we could talk Thriller is fucking give it to me, baby, Billy Jean is holding notes exactly, Yeah, way th exactly.
Now.
I was going there just to come back to the point you exp you always talk about just making a layup, right. I think that's what make G and X so perfect, is that that did go back to just gonna make the layup. You feel what I'm saying, he ain't over rapping on the songs, and he almost like brought it back to simplicity.
You feel.
What I'm saying is to I think on some of his albums, I like the Mother albums, but they was too complicated for certain years. You know, it was too complex with some listeners.
I understood that the first album feel.
Yeah, and I think this one he took it back to simplicity.
Man. I think sometimes we just got to go back to shooting layers, Broy, but I always.
Show you that I think I think hip hop is is.
Like what made hip hop special was like we would bring people from other parties into this party. Like shout out to the to the era of hip hop that started using reggae breaks, and they brought people from reggae. Like, hey, we could do this too. Look at us how we're doing it with the break that you love, you know, the I don't want to be a player, No more recipes to pun you know, we bring a little sausa
to the breaks. Listen to this, you know, even all the way fast forward to Dre in two thousand, I could bring some classical So if you liked David David axel Rod, you know what I mean. He was like, oh, you know, hey check this out. Hey, you know, look look how we flipped the edge. You know, look how we flipped this no Doubt song. Right, Look at how we do this. We used to bring people to the party versus now in hip hop, where it's like we just kind of taking hip hop to try to make
hip hop. And that's also why we're not getting a new audience. That's what I do appreciate about the Debbie dev song on GNX, Spopple up Right and Van Draws. They're still an effort to pull from to bring people to the party. If you like Luther Vandross if This World Was Mine or Marvin Gaye's version of If This World Was Mine, the original with Tammy Terrel, you could come to the party. Somebody they called me about the Luther song. They was like, this song is really good.
So again, I think.
I think as much as this is probably the most like this is probably the most culturally free he's been, but it's also the most the greatest time he's bared the burden of all of this culture that we call West Coast hip hop. He really bared it specifically like if like if he like if he was Jesus he died on the cross for our sins with this culturally you know what I'm saying, Like if it didn't work,
it's like, yeah, you know what I'm saying. And not to reference it, I know you feel some kind of way, but like he really put his thing on the line, like yeah, I'm gonna just do what we do real.
Quick, go back for a few minutes you were saying, how like the streaming versus radio market expansion kind of growth curve in this age, in the hip hop age bracket, what is the market share of audio consumption that's still held by radio versus streaming? And how is that like like in the modern state, like does radio currently operate as a trampoline? Still most for sure? What's the hip hop listeners?
I'll give you an example, and you just think about this. Sorry to cut you off, bro, I'm so sorry, but name a superstar. Name somebody that's a superstar who ain't playing on radio right now? Radio so I would know, okay, But still radio was like the final used to turn somebody into a superstar.
Because it's yeah, because it's still a.
Studio superstar or doesn't Is it a metric that says because you're a superstar, now there they'll put you on radio.
No, No, there are no superstars. There are no.
Superstars out because you wouldn't be revealed to mainstream there's no way to be revealed to mainstream America as a whole. Hold on, Like streaming is still an underground thing as mainstay as it is, it's still an underground thing, Like like, like, you know what I mean, radio is still the biggest audience in America. Most people really can't afford music to the radio.
My wife is listening to the radio. Listen to the radio.
Mainstream America still li trust America with music, not just.
Listen to radio, you know. And that's what it is, you know, so we can.
Now do radio break records is different. I mean, I don't know if they take on the task. Definitely not in the hip hop space. I don't think they take on that task. But I think in regular you know, pop music, they still take on that task. Like I'm not watching records being broken on the internet for pop world again in hip hop, yes, that's how I'm catching all the new songs through Instagram or TikTok or something
like that. But yeah, it's like, you know, it's the difference between Taylor Swift and and uh uh, let's say Young Yeat No Yeat, Like Yeat is a big deal. He could be kind of close to a superstar, but he's not Taylor Swift, you know what I'm saying. And and Kendrick Lamar, who's been on the radio. You know it's finna go on the stadium tour. I mean, main street radio is still a mainstream American thing.
The only thing that radio doesn't break right now is personalities.
So I just I think, yeah, I think I think radio still matters in that regards. Like I think radio still is a huge asset to get to a buying population. I think a streaming population is a people. Don't you know, they already paid their money.
I want to hear the music. I think it's dope that Kendrick speaking of Taylor Swift, he worked with Jack Like.
I like his style, I like what he's doing. Yeah, they went in there and really made some really great records. Many they did a fantastic job. And so when you ask me, it's gn X the best hip hop album I've ever heard, it's as good as the best hip hop album I've ever heard.
Now.
Now, again, greatness is not always quantified when just music, right, it's like time and space, you know, things happening around the record.
You know what I'm saying.
It creates different It don't have that type of stuff. But again, because Country Grammar didn't have that type of stuff neither. Four hundred Degrees didn't have that type of stuff neither. But the music just you know, the culture. The culture started walking the dogs, the records start walking the dogs, and I think that's what's gonna happen on this album. Still, I think you know they're gonna work squabble up, squabble up. It's going to be huge at It's gonna be huge at radio.
I'm telling you. After the super Bowl performance, it's about to get tricky. Well, I'm gonna with the tour out of here. And that Debbie dav song wasn't no punk though. That Debbie dav song for it was my best still, but it was like the intro to Not Like Us was that song will Squabble Up, but we didn't know like what it was like he cut it off of the I don't know. Everything's so intriguing. I love listening
to his album because it's thought provoking. Uh I'll be you know, deep diving into like the information and just bars and stuff like that, and like, I don't know, it's fun. It's impressed. Man.
He created a real great Like the marketing is an underrated thing on what they're doing. I can't wait to see what they keep revealing. But I think that's what hip hop needs. It needs an injection of people not inspired.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know what I'm saying, Like I'm inspired.
So you know, people will be telling me like, man, it's the time, it was always the time for me.
I've been inspired.
She is an enemy. No, no, no, you know, like they're talking.
We said you need them a nemesis. Now we just need a nemesis.
One thing is you can bet that's coming. You know what I mean.
But yeah, people, But to answer your question, I think radio still holds the key to mainstream America. Sure, I mean, just to manage your America. But but again, we was talking about this earlier, and I've been telling still like I told six, Like I think I told you before, I don't think when people go to streaming sites they want to hear like the standard ninety year old record.
They will if you're like that type of artist, but I think they look if people that go to streaming apps are looking for something that they're asking specific.
It's like, oh, if I want to hear rap. They don't want to hear a hook. They want to fucking hear you rap.
And that's what I think I've been realizing, Like that niche audience that goes and it's a big audience. It's not I don't even know if it's fair to call it niche, you know what I'm saying, Like the audience that's going to Spotify, that's going to Apple, going.
To some numbers like as I was sitting there for twenty because twenty twenty three is a complete year. Twenty twenty fours aren't out yet, but like for twenty twenty three, and radio is down a percent to thirty six. Total consumption and streaming was up percent to twenty So obviously, you know, more than one and a half times the size radio free.
Yeah, there's people that don't stream at all and they go straight to radio to listen.
But to Pete, to Pete's point, there are people who don't ever listen to radio.
Me and I just don't know, like.
I would just figure if you're talking like age range wise, it's you know, you're still your fifty plus type of crowd or whatever. Probably muscle memories to radio disproportionately, which is outside of that genre's base, which is a younger base that might be more distributed outside of radio by percentage retive when it.
Comes to buying records, it's not outside the base.
That's the problem.
Okay, radio is still a mainstream things. It's just it's like television is a mainstream thing, like some things are just mainstream. The standard now, well the standard change, who knows, you know. I mean it looks it looks promising, but it's definitely uphill back.
The standards changed in cable television.
Already about to say that, but cable, but it didn't put out regular television. Remember cable was already a push up. Sure, I remember regular television. The news is still What's funny is I get more of my news from with her on social media, but a lot of people get their news from the news on the nose.
Basically it's still the largest.
But no, I was just gonna say, bro, YouTube is probably the biggest invention and the most important invention probably like the last outside of the car and up the ship. No certain, shiit dog, It's like it just changed everything.
Well and and but that's the point I'm saying to Peter's like I think, like so do I think radio?
Yeah?
Radio is huge?
Like if you if you trust me, watch what's gonna happen with this Kendrick, Watch what's gonna happen with GNX. When those songs go to radio and be number one, it's a different audience that has disposable income. Like the reason they put that stuff and they put that concert in that super Bowl.
They need time to work those records. And when those records kind of start to surface in mainstream America, is you know they're aware? Because they're not aware. There's no reason I keep saying this.
People keep talking about first weeks and like, if you put out album, how do people know you have an album coming out?
If there's no song flagshipped on radio?
If there's no song, how the fuck do people know you got an album coming out? Like you think they went to on Instagram? Everybody follow you. It's obvious. We all have Instagrams. We all have larger followings than we have engagement. It's not because people see your shit and don't want to gauge. It's because people don't see your shit.
So therefore, like if Kendrick Lamar puts out a record, right, if gen X comes out, Yeah, there's a conversation that's happening because he's hot at the moment, right, it's on fires, Like, oh, Kendrick gots a new album, Pete I think that probably represents less than twenty percent of America. I don't think most people know Kendrick Lamour has an album out.
That's crazy, you know what I'm saying.
Most Americans, why the fuck would they know?
They not in They not on black Twitter, they not on hip Twitter, they not on hip Instagram or hips.
When we make the mistake, sometimes man are thinking that shit, we follow us news because sometimes I find myself talking to like my cousins or my brothers about certain stings. They be like, man, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know who it is.
The gradiest medium still to this day, to discover music is radio. So when these songs become the most played songs at radio, that's when mainsteam America be abreasted, Like, oh, hey, this is Kendrick Lamar.
Guy, Hey, I.
Like this squabble up, squaw up. Let's go listen, let's go get that. Let's go down there and get that. Hey Zaffers, Oh he has a concert coming to the Cowboys Arena. Hey, we're gonna go down there see that squabble up song.
Turn his TV off?
You turn his TV off? You know what I'm saying?
Like these things are going to happen as they as these songs start to transition. So radio still the gradies medium to discuss people nobody trusted. Radio still the most trusted medium to discover music. Sure still to this day, you know what I mean. And it's far out there, But that's a lot of money to break because now it's harder. Like he's he's in a great position to make it happen.
But man like, and this is where I was telling six before we started the pile, like about hip hop used to be inspired marketing, Like we would have all the new things, we would challenge, all the status quos.
We would you know, so forth and so on.
Like if you notice, like people talk shit because Kendrick dropped this album out of nowhere, It's like, oh, it just came out of nowhere. It's like that is a marketing strategy in itself that creates a whirlwind of conversation. And they were able to try something unique and what they end up doing like three hundred some thousand records or.
Something like I mean, and he's been selling one hundred k a week since because.
If you think about it, bro, it's like people are just discovering and this is. This is what I've been saying to people like, oh man, with this person, they were talking about Snoop and Dre. I said, well, Snooper Dre's only done forty thousand records first week.
That's they said. The numbers said to be somewhere right around there.
How the fuck do people know?
Stupid Drake got album coming out?
Right?
We confuse our conversation with the conversation the real world is talking about Trump.
Yeah, real America is talking about Trump.
SnO drink Champs? That was it?
What the fuck is that they was on a view or something. No, you need to go to the view, you know what I mean.
So again, it's one of those things where sometimes we overinflate our value initially and we gotta do the work. And this is what I was saying, like, we need to really work harder at exposing ourselves to an audience outside of the normal conversation. This is where hip hop is really falling behind. One thing hip hop is falling behind is they're not going outside and bringing more people to the party. They just keep trying to, you know, make gourmet meals out of top ramen. Like top Ramin's
already a fantastic break down or something. Don't try to make meal out of that. So we try to use hip hop to make more hip hop is like that probably ain't the thing. And on another note, it's just marketing, you know, creating a reason to have a conversation. It's all these records coming out every day. I have no I'm not listening to no nigga album here. I got too much shit going on, Like you have to give me a vested interest into it just because music. Don't mean I'm gonna digest it.
I'm gonna tell you, bro, there are so many fucking great albums that you don't even know. Like I didn't even know pro j Pat had no new shit, Dog. I just happened to be looking for something else and found and he put out examining album by the year ago, Dog.
And you told me that, And that don't mean I'm gonna listen to it.
That's what I'm saying. The same thing with Scarface. Same Scarface probably dropped one of his best albums, man who was the one where he had the Guys record on there and all.
That deeply rooted. Sure that was a great album and.
I discovered that shit probably about a year late though, And I'm a Scarface fan because nobody knew it came out.
So I think I think that's what hip hop is falling behind, end is being inspired with marketing like now and again, you know, we can blame the record companies. We can say, hey, you know the they washed up on ari N but they still doing things for pop eggs.
But guess what.
And this is an example of becoming dependent on algorithms. Algorithms are not going to redefine anything.
They're pre defined.
So if you're relying on paying into a model that's algorithm dependent, that algorithm it's its own ecosystem, so you're restricted to the confines of that algorithm. And and and hip hop has really suffered from now and I come across a lot of stuff based on that, Like my algorithm is so bizarre, like just like just just my
my YouTube shit on TV. I watch an interview about some guy from a think tank talking about Chinese military innovation earlier today, and I discovered the killer mic and Project Pat and some other dude did a song in a parking lot in front of a liquor store.
In Atlanta this year. It was cool, cool project, but.
That's a very unique way for me to come across that. You know, so if if you're gonna be really and that's the same thing garbage in, garbage out.
With AI, you know, like.
We'll save an AI thing for another time, but it's the same principle.
You know what I mean what we're talking about.
I was talking the problem about this and I told him I thought he was depending on the on companies to market him, Like you're depending on Spotify to market you when you asking to be a part of the algorithm and YouTube you're like, hey market me, and they like why, Like we have other things that's drumming away more interest to market than you and the interest. So again to a conversation that I've been having with a lot of people. I had this conversation with currency killer
Mike hip Hop is not done colonizing even America. Like there's so many different Like we're still doing alcohol, like right now they just put out a new alcohol. Like why don't we have car dealerships, Why don't we have shout out to Butt and Bee who got a restaurant?
Right?
He has a burger chain, right, Like we should be all trying to franchise a burger chain, a trio.
Burgers Hip hop has so.
Much work to do in colonizing America with all this influence. If we don't the influence of flee, like what's happening in the rock and roll rock and roll lost its main influence and it didn't colonize enough. There's not enough things that are rock Like we could go out here and really colonize and back to the marketing. Like I said, we could really like infiltrate different places in a way that we never thought of if we make that the target.
Gee, not the interrupt you bros. You're making some very valid points. I'm gonna tell you what's happening too. People are getting too cut up in the economics making records, like they just dropping records zip three months, just dropping them, and I think they're not really given the first record they put out time. They're not even really you know, going in on that, Like I see a whole bunch
of rappers. You're dropping projects every few months. Man, It's kind of like it gets kind of overwhelming.
And people got money now, so they're risk conscious, they're ROI driven, and they're going low entropy.
And it's right because there is really.
So so you lower the quality of the music to put out more to try to make money, like if.
You're gonna more volume.
Yeah, that's how I lost money when I started looking at records. When I started looking at the record business. Instead of me taking time and waiting to get inspired to drop something right, I was just thinking, Man, I'm making seventy to eighty thousand dollars the first time I dropped some shit, right, so let me put some more shit out. It became like a like a like just like an assembly line, like I was pressing the T shirts and some shit. Dog. I didn't care about the direct.
A final company.
It don't work for hip hop because hip hop is not the business of record, it's the business of culture. Record companies are the business the business of records. Like hip hop, like deaf Row is not in the business of records, they're in the business of culture. So if you know you're selling culture, then you could change your output. But you have to keep finding ways to invite people and inform them culturally.
And that's the difference.
You can say, all right, I know that for my hundred thousand dollars in I can keep it within this confine and get two hundred thousand dollars out. But for me to go transcend that, I gotta get five hundred thousand dollars in. I might not get a million out. I can just do a one hundred thousand and five times and I'll get my million out that way, bro.
Just thinking about just think about when your return is I'm gonna spend ten thousand and I'm gonna make one hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah, it starts you start thinking different, man, and you really start thinking differently. You start kind of getting lost in that shit.
You just got to know what the ten thousand I think that's the thing. And it goes back to the point I was making before we win here. It's like hip hop has to realize what's happening. If hip hop thinks they're in the business of music, they're sadly mistaken.
They're not.
If hip hop thinks that they're in the business of selling like songs, Like like me and Pete talked about this, comics don't sell jokes. Comics sell funny. Some of the funniest things in the world are not jokes. Hip Hop doesn't sell songs, they sell culture. It's just in this art form But if you understand that, then you can start to trump up your you can start to trump up your output.
But if you get for two seconds.
Confused that you just making songs and you're like, oh, this is enough culture versus really taking the time to investigate how you delivering culture or what you're delivering that people can be involved with, That's where I think you go wrong, and I think hip hop really needs to if we understood our value. Shout out to people like
Adam twenty two, other people like DJ Vlad. They do get that culture roture tech, but you know what they get more than anybody, how valuable street urban culture is. See all of us inside of it. Don't see it that way. Were in the car, were driving a car.
You look at people.
Who join gangs that didn't grow up in LA. They are so enamored. Oh my fucking god. You know they'd be like, oh my, they wear the clothes they like, oh no, I'm addressed like I saw rocket.
They be enamored.
Bro, They be like I am in. That's how people feel about hip hop.
They be like, oh my god, I'm in.
You know, like like man, he you know, even them somebody who grew up in and he grabbing. But look at somebody from the outside, they're like, oh my god, they are enamored. So you watch these people build multi million dollar businesses off something that we innately have, Like Kentucky Fried Chicken is a multi million dollar soul food restaurant. Taco Bell is a multi million dollar idea based off skin food. So everybody else sees the value in it.
We just don't.
Like I said, the fact that not one hip hop artist has a car dealership in the name of hip hop is crazy. That cars are a big part. We got liquor, we got clothes, but we fucked with cars as much. I mean, where is that in every facet of life, every facet of life, we should have a fucking you know, hip hop should have a fucking flag and a dirt. Hey, this is the hip hop version. You don't need to go to Winchels. You could go to this donut place. What's hip hop donut? What's a
hip hop Who's who talks about some donut shit? Fuck Winchels.
Come here, fust that motherfucker that got the song. My cup was the dude to be sitting down on stage and we got breathing machines on them and ship.
Or you need you need donuts. You know.
Again, we should always have an answer for mainstream America because people love our style, our flavor, and that's to me what everybody outside gets. And I finally understand a lot of people in the hip hop don't understand that. I'll be like, bro, y'all are tripping. They're like, no, g you know you trip it? No, you trip it? Do you know how the media is?
Huh?
People don't understand the layers of like the mediums, like we were saying, like the conversation versus the telephone wire. Yeah, people are confusing I lay down telephone wire and I mind copper. No, he does copper, you do wire, he does conversation. And people think that the music. No, if they've confused the music as the medium and the content being put over the medium as being the same thing, and that the same thing.
His name is Dave Blunts. Man. I wish that boy could get him some help.
Man.
Let's really sad though.
Dave Blunts.
So again, it's like we don't have mainstay in too much mainstream America, but we should always have the urn version of hip hop of whatever life is because just like they got McDonald's, it should be a trill Burgers in every town.
Just like every it.
Should be a hip hop grocery store. I feel like they type caster. It's just like they're doing movies.
Yeah, but it's not that I don't even think it's them typecasts. Like that's probably why they're not coming to say, Hey, you know, people will go to hip hop grocery store, but that's not the reason why we should be opening up at hip hop grocery store.
Yeah.
And it's a thin line between type casting and branding. It's type casting, and when it doesn't work for you, it's branding.
When it does.
They're looking out for tuning into the No Sellers podcast. Please do us a favorite, subscribe rate Commonist Share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA. They produce about the Black Effect podcast network and now hard Radio.
Yeah.