And the way I look at it is is like almost like a download from God, like somebody's connected to something that is just beyond any normal level of performance, and almost like in this flow state, there is certain people who live in almost a constant flow state of creativity.
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Troy Carter to the show. Troy is the co founder and CEO of Venice Music, a technology and media company focused on powering the business of music via distribution services and data analytics. Formerly, Troy was the founder and CEO of Adam Factory, where he rose to prominence nurturing the careers of global superstars, including Lady Gaga and John Legend. He most recently served at Spotify as its global Head of Creator Services, overseeing
the company's growth strategy for artists and record labels. In this episode, I talked to Troy Carter about spotting creative potential. Working in the entertainment industry has given Troy an eye for talent, but that's not all it takes to become successful. Hard Work, determination, and letting your personality shine through are also key components. Troy and I talk about musical geniuses and the future of the music industry with the advent
of sophisticated AI tools. It was really great chatting with Troy. He's like my brother from another mother. I just adore Troy and think he's done such legendary work for the music industry, and he's just so humble and just so cool. It was also really cool talking about mutual connections with high school. Turns out he went to the same high school that my grandmother was the vice principal of in West Philly high She wasn't vice principal at the time,
but he went to that high school. So we both come from Philadelphia, and it was just great to just connect with him and riff on how to spot creative potential. So I know you'll really enjoy this episode. So without further ado, I bring you Troy Carter. Troy Carter, Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, Doctor Scott.
How are you.
I'm good Man good. I'm looking forward to doing like a podcast improv jam today with you on creativity.
Is a complete freestyle session.
I completely said that doesn't matter what we talk about, wherever you want to go going.
That's true. We have literally no agenda, nothing in the to do list. But I am fascinated with your the whole arc of your journey. And you know, we both grew up in Philly. You grew up in probably some would say proper Philly was the main line, main line of Philadelphia.
That's what we call it.
Yes, proper, proper, proper Philly.
But uh, you know my grandma and grandparents that grew up in proper Philly. My grandma was a vice principal of wes Philly High and you went to West Philly High.
I went to West Philly High.
Yeah, I think she. I think she was before your time. But yeah, you know, you grew up just in such an amazing era of creativity and flourishing within the hip hop community. Within I mean, I I love hip hop. So I'm just well, I'm enjoined to nerd out with you today about hip hop, not psychology. We'll get to some psychology, but can you there's almost what do you describe as like almost a renaissance there in Philly during
that time period. Take us, can you take us back to that your middle school days.
Let's say, yeah, it absolutely was a was a renaissance. You know, I got lucky to be born when I was born and where I was born because like coming up in like the early eighties and Philly hip hop
was like really at as golden age. So you figure like nineteen eighty seven, nineteen eighty eight, you think about the clothes, you know, the Dapper Dan through, the Gucci sweatsuits, the big name belts with your name on it, you know, the Khazell glasses, everything that you saw on RNDIMC music videos with that didas when no shoestrings, graffiti was you know, becoming you know, an artistic medium and djaying, So you had all of these things sort of happening that one time.
It was this generational shift from sort of the music that my parents and my aunts and uncles grew up to to this sort of generation of music that we called our own. And so it definitely was a renaissance on every block in a neighborhood.
By the way, I would.
Give to have been a part of that. Wow, you met you knew DJJZ Jeff right, yes, yeah, and you knew Will Smith and you knew Boys to Men right right when they were starting. That must have been around nineteen eighty eight, that feels I feel like that's around their first record, right, Yeah, we used.
To You know, we had a rep group me and my two best friends called to Too Many. You know, we met in high school ninth grade and it was three of us, and you know, we called ourselves too too many because it was only enough money for one of us at any given.
Time, so it was always too too many.
And but we used to do these local little talent shows and Boys to Men was part of that sort of talent show circuit, and they went to the Creative and the High School of Creative and Performing Arts. It was a band called Square Roots that was part of that circuit that later changed their name to the Roots. And of course we know what happened, you know with
those guys. It was a local rapper who was a friend of ours who also worked at a clothing store called City Blue in Philly, and you know, she moved to Atlanta. We didn't hear back from her, and we turned on TV one day and he has this condom over one eye and it's Lisa from TLC.
Oh my gosh, it.
Was left eye. So you know, that's that's the sort of creative community.
You know, Philly's so small, such a small like as a big small town, and you know, so we all knew each other, and it was beautiful just to see, like early in my childhood, these thoughts of endless possibility, because no one really experienced.
Failure, you know, at that point in their lives.
Yet, so like, you know, seeing your friends and peers become you know, break Elvis Presley's records on the charts.
Or become the biggest.
Girl group of all time, and watching well, you know, go from a local rapper to you know, movie star.
It just was you just thought anything was possible.
Were the seeds of your legendary talent management clearly evident around that time? Like do you feel like you had like a keen eye even as a kid, like to spot talent and spot potential?
Yeah, you know, my I think my talent back then that sort of carried over wasn't necessarily the spot talent at that point, it was protecting my friends, you know. So with my group, I ended up being like the default manager because I wanted to read the contracts and sort of understand the business of it. And so I always was like the one who would organize everything, and so I wasn't the most creative person, but I was really good at organizing, and so being around creative people led to.
Sort of creative organization. But I really it wasn't.
About spot and talent as back then as much as it was how can I organize this chaos? And and and I think the other thing that carried over from that period of time. I've always been good with managing crisis, you know. And and I think from you know, having to live through trauma and struggles and things like that, I always tried to be this sort of calm in the midst of the storm.
And I think that's one of the number one qualities.
But like a good manager is somebody who can you know, really be be that calm voice and that that and that people feel like they could depend on when when things hit the fame.
Yes, yes, not you know, not just in the music field, but I feel like you're good to have around in any context. It's not just musicians that need that. Psychologists need that too. Brother. So you were you were signed to will Jam Records. People might not have heard Jam Records. Dude, I'm a real I'm a real nerd. I'm a real nerd about hip hop, especially the early days.
Only person in the world who knows that I love that and you didn't even tell me that, Yeah, because I believe Will Smith and James Aster were part of that record label.
Yes, yes, well well Jam Well and James.
Yeah yeah, well there you go. So, I mean, how many people could have possibly been signed by Will Jam Records? I mean you must have been such a small group of up and coming hip hop artists.
Right, it was grand opening, grand closing, It.
Was right right, right right?
We were the first and only act that was signed to them.
Was just yeah, yeah, it was just.
The record probably felt we probably bankrupted the company to record this.
Oh that's so great. But if I remember correctly, did you do? You ended up working with James Lost later on in your career, is that right?
Yeah?
You know, James is still a good friend and mentor, and you know I had dinner with them last week. You know, so it's been you know, over over almost thirty three years. You know, he's been in my life. But he was a guy who was the most mature guy in the in the neighborhood. Sort of got the job, you know, being Jazzy Jeffery Fresh Prince's manager, you know, because he was the only guy with a car and a fax machine and so James has always been like the buttoned up guy. But he he just saw some
potential in me. And even when I was really rough around on the edges, and he gave me these opportunities, and even when I screwed the opportunities up, you know, he gave me second chances and third chances and fourth chances and help me see the potential in myself.
Well, that's that's beautiful. And I assume you carried that forward, and you know you now have you have such a good eye for spotting potential in artists. I am so excited to announce that registrations are now open for our self Actualization Coaching Intensive. While the coaching industry has taken great strides over the years toward integrating more evidence based coaching approaches, there's still a lot of work to be done.
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and get twenty percent off. Don't miss out on this very special event. Go to SA coaching doorg. That's sacaching dot org and get twenty percent off today. I look forward to welcoming you in December. I mean you would you say that, what would you say is actually your your superpower within what you do. I don't want to tell you what it is. I want you to tell you what do you think it really is?
It really is about potential and really being able to see something within people and willing to take that chance.
I'm really drawn to underdogs, don't me too? Yeah? I love underdogs. You know.
So most of the artists, if not pretty much almost all the artists that I've ever worked with, were either starting from the very beginning of their careers before anybody knew who they were, or they were at some sort of midlife critical point in their career trying to figure it out. And so being able to sort of see the potential and dive in and do the work and not let the not let the end results scared the shit out out of me.
You worked with the notorious Big Yes, And I'm a huge Biggie fan. So what was he like? Is you know, behind the scenes, Like, did you like actually like party with him?
You know?
I was so Biggie was funny with Biggie, I was I was promoting shows in Philly and like little neighborhood shows at like places to help you know, two three hundred people. And when he put out his first music, I tried to book him for a show and he was ended up being a no show because he was shooting the Big POPA video in New York. And but we ended up after that doing like two or three more shows.
With him and Junior Mafia.
I got the no Puff Puff gave me an internship and it was like being able to see this guy's creative process. But also he was this guy who was incredibly quiet, incredibly charming, incredibly funny as well, and whose life was just cut way too short before we saw, you know, the best of what he had to offer to the world.
You know, because when we look at jay.
Z now, you know, we got a chance to see jay Z go through you know, the roughest periods, you know, so the coming out of Marshie projects super rough around the edges, you know, misogynistic, you know, all of the things that people would say to seeing this guy become you know, a leader, activist, father, business titan, you know. And the same thing with Diddy, same thing with Doctor Dre. You know, we got to see these guys through their full potential and with Biggie, you know, I think we
would have seen it. We would have seen the same thing, and it's just too bad it was cut short.
I assume you were absolutely gutted when you heard about the news. Do you remember where you were when you heard about the news.
I do.
I was at my house on Dewey Street in Philadelphia, Wow, with my I think my son was one and a half years in the room with him and my girlfriend at the time.
My son's mother walked in the room and told me what happened. It is still.
Unbelievable because and you know, because nowadays you hear about rappers getting killed once a month, but you never heard about celebrities getting killed back then. It's like you might have heard like overdoses or like, you know, Jimmy Hendrick getting you know, Jimmy Hendricks overdosing. You know, like you heard things like, you know, these sort of stories like that, But for celebrity to be murdered, you know, sort of
cold blood, it just was not normal. And you know, so it's still to even to this day, it's still still kind of haunts me that that could happen.
Do you know who killed him?
No?
And I don't want to know.
Yeah, yeah, I don't want to know either.
You know what it's like because those days, I remember I was working for for Diddy when Supac got shot in New York. This isn't when he got killed in Vegas, when he first got shot in New York.
And I remember, you know, I.
Was an intern, so I would have to answer the phones, and I remember like the death threats like bad Boy Records, Man, I help you. Oh yeah, I'm going to kill everybody in the building. Okay, I'll take I'll take the message.
Thank you for calling.
But you know, the security everywhere, and you know, it just was a rough time in hip hop where it was a dark time in hip hop. You know, you just never want to go back to it.
But the streets were so closely aligned.
With the music back then, and you know, so you know, to come out of that period, you know, for myself, coming out of that period, it's just not something I ever want to go back to.
Oh I hear you. I totally hear you. So zooming in on the creativity of these individuals though during that period, I mean, there was this real special kind of creativity. I'm just wondering how much do you think like the East coast West Coast sort of came petition upped the creativity or was it Do you think it was just completelynnecessary?
Oh, you know, it up the creativity, Like you know, it's it's the that's the beauty about hip hop. It's almost like the WWE. You know, outside of the corner cases of violent beefs, it's always been this battle rap.
You know, that's that's just the culture rap.
And so with battle rap, it's all about the bravado. You're better than this other person, and so you put so much into your craft that whatever record that you're making has to be better than that last record that your rival made. And so it's this ongoing rivalry and music that keeps up in the level of music.
I think we really never saw that in music before.
Like you know where like hip hop is almost like a competitive sport, Like you know, where is one year where Ye West won the championship, then Drake comes along and wins the championship. Way want a championship. Jay Z won a championship, Cardi B won a championship. So it's like every year you want to see, like who's going to own this summer.
Next up, watch out Doctor.
Scott, Doctor Scott. Forget next to to dre.
So for doctor Scott. Next year, next year, watch out, watch out.
We should do a versus with doctor dre versus doctor Scott.
I'm like, I'm obsessed with this notion of the X factor. You know, there's this kind of assumption that you either have the X factor or you don't have the X factor. You know, you have come across so many people. Have you come across situations where you didn't think someone really had the X factor when you first met them, but they worked their ass off and they kind of developed
something really special. Or do you really kind of believe this this myth so to speak, that you're either born with it or you're not.
I don't. I don't believe you're born I don't believe you're born with it or not.
Like you know, I think some certain things, you know, come with some level of God given ability.
But music, I don't think that's the case.
Like this as an example, you know, like Lady Gaga, she was a piano singer and she got signed to def Jam, and def Jam dropped her from the label within less than a year because the CEO of the label didn't get her, and after she got dropped, she met a friend of mine, Vincent Herbert, who and Vince introduced her, you know, he introduced the two of us, but Vince helped her develop into who she eventually became. Introduced her to Lori Anne Gibson, who was one of
the best choreographers in the world. And Gaga wasn't a dancer, and she worked every single day hours to learn how to dance. She watched so much tape of David Bowie interviews and Madonna concerts and like all all Michael Jackson print she was studied a great even down to songwriting.
She studied pop songwriting.
So it was a lot of work that went into what she was able to create. And so she just didn't wake up one day and was born Lady Gagash. She was born Stephanie Germanada, and developed into that through the work as nobody what a harder work ethic.
Something's really interesting about that, though, is that, yes, like she developed into the person she wanted to be, or that the person she saw in her mind to be. And that's what's interesting about this. And you see this a lot with all the legends you know, is this sort of like vision that are falling in love with an image of the future. That is to connect it
to psychological research. That's Epaul Torrence's famous creativity study found the elementary school kids that grew up to be the most creative for those who fall in love with the future image of themselves.
Wow.
Yeah yeah. So so just focusing on the lady Gaga because you really, you know, a lot of ways you discovered her. You believed in her, you know, you believed in her potential. You told me something once that you know, even before she was famous, she would walk around like she was famous. Yes, that's that's that's clear that she had a vision of who she who she was meant to be.
We called the delusion and because you know, you have to be semi delusional, you got to have a healthy percentage of delusion to really truly believe. You know, you're going to become the biggest star in the world, and nobody just sees it yet, and your team has to buy into it as well. So it's like, you know, we have the scared delusion of what the future is going to look like.
And of course you have to your delusional if.
You don't work towards it, or you don't write the right music or you know, you know, so it's work. You got to put into it, into it every day, but you have to be so clear.
And being able to see the vision.
And you know, it was and it sounds super corny, but one of the things that you know, she and I bonded over was I was seeing that that remember the movie.
The Secret, Yeah, of course, yeah.
And because since a kid, you know, since ninth grade, we always me and my best friends had this thing about how thoughts become things. And I used to write down everything, like everything that I wanted to accomplish, you know, probably since I was like nine or ten years old.
I used to write everything down. And it's crazy.
My mom saved like my old scrap books and notes, and it's is it like blew me away to go back and see some of some of the things.
And so that was a scared thing like for the two.
Of us to have was that we knew, we know how you can uh envision something and through execution and real, real focus.
You can make it happen.
And I can tell you some craziness, but like you know, even how she came about into my life like just through.
You know, I had gone through a really terrible time in my life where I pretty much had lost everything, and I started just meditating and doing a lot of inner work, and I started putting together sort of vision boards of what my future wanted, what I wanted my future to be, and I put up these pictures of like Beyonce justin Timberlake, like all of these big pop stars, and I'm like, I want to be in a pop
star business. So this is something I started working towards and like going down this deep rabbit hole and then you know, here she comes popping up in my life. So it's almost like the preparation. So it was waiting for the opportunity.
Yes, there's something really that I really fully understand scientifically about this, But I've noticed that as well, because I can't say the secret is completely scientifically accurate in the sense that if you don't do any thing, you know, you just vision something, it's manifested automatically. That there's no real good science suggesting that's true. That's almost like that's magic. That's like, uh, hey Genie, Hey, Genie, I have three
wishes I'm gonna make you know. But being able to There is something really true about when you have a certain vision and you believe in it so much, the universe kind of starts to come together, you know, to make it happen in some way that just is beyond my comprehension.
I just I wish it was something that was taught in school and that kids like that every kid knew that that that this existed, because like I got lucky because I was I was this kid with this crazy imagination and just sort of make up these wild, crazy stories. And you know, like I always had this wild imagination so must around means never dictated like in.
My mind what my future was going to be like.
So so it was weird, like I was sort of locked within my own imagination and so I got lucky with it to sort of stumble upon it. But I just wish it was something that that just was sort of an in basic everyday learning.
Yeah, me too. You said something in one of your interviews that I yes this, yes this, and you said you said the following, be willing to bet on yourself. Yeah, so much stems from that one sentence so much, right, Like, there is something to the idea that you create your own reality for good or bad, you know, And a lot of people don't want to hear that because I think like a lot of people want to outsource their happiness to that group or that group or that group,
you know, like anyone but myself. But you know, kind of that kind of response ability is well, it's scary. It's scary because.
Scary, it's so much easier to think that God is going to decide every single decision for you, and yet and it's not on you, it's it's it's it's it's so much easier to sort of default to that. So I understand, you know why religion is super is super important.
But when you realize that, you know a lot of this responsibility for your life falls in your own lap and that you know, the sort of decisions that you make today dictates what happens you know, tomorrow, essentially, you know, it requires a lot of discipline, a lot of inner work and constant iteration and learning, and so that's hard.
You know.
So so for me, you know, I came to this conclusion that life is really short, man, life is really short, and a lot of people and like you know, super personal story. You know, my mom, she passed away almost ten years ago, and she was young, she was sixty three years old, and her dream was to go to Alaska and.
She never got to go.
And you think about how much stuff we defer in our lives, you know, because we think tomorrow is going to be here. But those aren't guarantees. So in my mind, the way I look at it is, I gotta figure out, like I gotta, I want to live the life that I want to live. I want to wake up doing what I want to do every single day, and which which I do. And you know, meaning it's everybody works for somebody. I work for my customers and you know, and my employees and family, but you know, but ultimately
it's something that I truly enjoy. I just figured that, you know, what if at the end of the day, worst case scenario, if if, if it doesn't work out, I'll have a nice place to live in West Philly at my grandmother's house.
In the meantime, I'm I'm a bet. I'm a bet on myself all day.
Oh I love that that on yourself. Yeah, So what let's talk with some of their characteristics You've noticed among people that would approach genius status. I mean are there are there that many people you think you've encountered in your career you would actually put at the genius level?
Yes, like there's is a ham, it's a handful that I would put at genius level creativity, Quincy Jones.
You remember when I was at your dinner party, I would just like mention people like, is this personal genius? We played it, we played a little is this person a genius?
Game?
Do you remember that? I was like, I was like, is this person a genius? Is that person of genius? And uh? And you God bless you for going with it. But I won't do that today. I won't do that today. Okay, continue, but I won't. I won't. I won't do that today, I promise.
Okay, some people are genius that some people are lucky, right, Quincy Jones is an absolute musical genius.
Like, no, no, no doubt about it.
I think John Mayer is a genius at savant at guitar. And the way I look at it is it's like almost like a download from God, Like somebody's connecting to something that is just beyond any normal level of performance and almost like in this flow state. And when you see people who it's certain people who live in almost a constant flow state of creativity and they're able to
go in and out of it. You know, certain people will see will be project based and it's like they'll make a really great album and then you never hear anything great from that person again, essentially because they were in that genius state at that particular time.
And then there's certain people.
Who who's consistently gone back to that to that state. Quincy Jones, by far, in my life, has been one one person who's just has been consistent. I think in hip hop, doctor Dre hands Down is just a genius music like music producer.
I think I'll leave it.
I'll leave it there when we talk about sort of like levels of consistent over generations, you know, so like we're talking over decade over decade, over decade. And so I think a lot of talent that I work with, I think they have a lot of genius possibility, and I think a lot of genius potential, and but the body of work is so young that we haven't been able to see it and all within that category of of what I can call a Quincy.
Yeah, yeah, hey, that's totally fair.
Prince was a genius through by the.
Way, Oh yes, yes, I won't ask you to confirmer deny this, but I think Michael Jackson was a genius.
Absolutely one Michael Jackson was was a genius.
And glad we're a great on that. It seems like the thing that is so special about him is something similar that is so special about like Michael Jordan, and it is It does get down to this flow sort of idea. Something seemed so effortless, something seemed so god given.
No, no, no, what's funny. I think geniuses are so good at what they do they make it look effortless because when you think about like a friend of mine told me a story, you know this is I think this was Kobe Bryant's second year in the league, and he was working on a music project in New York, and he was staying with a friend of mine, and he was telling me how every morning Kobe would get up and go out to the basketball court with his trainer, and the trainer would put his hand in Kobe's space
and Kobe would take these blind jump shots, and what he would do he knew it was somebody that was going to be defending him this upcoming season. And he wanted to be able to make this shot pretty much with his eyes closed, and he practiced this shot constantly, constantly, constantly.
So when you think.
About the level amount of hours that like a Kobe Bryant spins in a gym, and the amount he studies other basketball players and historically and currently and how much he knows about the game when he steps on that floor, he's way, way, way more advanced than everybody else because of the effort that he put into it off the court makes it feel like it's effortless on the court.
And so, like, you know, I think that's a lot of what I see just across the multiple spaces that I work in, the sort of the amount of behind the scene work that goes in and that go and that runs super super deep. From a domain expertise standpoint, that makes it seem super easy. Uh, you know, when when when when when?
When? When? When people see them do it?
Sure, I would say not either or but yes, end they have extraordinarily talent times and you multiply that by the effort. You know, a lot of people without the talent can't sustain that effort because they're not getting any return on their investment, so he was able to get at talent.
Think about how much talent Alan Iverson had. You know, I would bet that he had more talent than Kobe Bryant.
Comes at both of them coming into the.
League, so talent, and Kobe surpassed him on a talent level by multiples, by the work that Kobe put in versus you know what, the work that Alan and Alan's one of my favorite players. But the what's real is real Kobe. Kobe put in a lot more work.
I hear you. I hear you. But creativity is something more than just effort and work. Where does creativity come from? Where does the drive to innovate? You can't practice it?
Yeah, I don't think you could practice it? I think so what's interesting in creativity? I love watching.
One of my favorite things to do is I love watching. I love being in the studio when songwriters are writing songs. And I love doing artist video artists visits to like visual artist painters or sculptors, going to their studios and watching them work. And it's like it's almost like the sort of download from from God in.
Terms of the like ideas and where these things come from.
And one of the things that I've heard multiple songwriters say is that if they're not in this sort of quiet place and if they're not tuned in, somebody else is going to get that song.
That song is going to come like that song comes from somewhere, and you.
Got to be tuned in, whether you know, whether you want to call it spiritually, you know, whatever, You've got to be tuned in to be able to.
Put forward to be downloaded through you. So like the other thing.
Though, like sort of taking that sort of that intangible piece of it. It's also like some of the best creators understand theory, and they understand rhythm, and they understand sounds, and they always sort of pushing what's next, and like you know, like is certain producers who like a Max Martin, who I feel like is another genius.
It was just one of.
The best pop music producers and history from all the way back through Britney Spears Hit Me Baby One More Time, all the way up to the weekend I Can't fill my Face, you know. So he's like been doing this over decades and has had more number number one hits, but it's like he knows pop melody and justsonically tuned in and he studied pop music, so it's like, and
that's that Michael Jackson study pop music. Michael Jackson studied the history of music, So it's like, so I think it's this sort of the amount of work that goes into it and understanding the craft has to be married to sort of the intangible piece as well.
I agree completely, And you know, forgive me if I'm going outside my lean for a second, but I am really trying to be a pop really a real pop psychologist, and I study pop music because I think there's a lot I can learn from other fields. I don't know if it almost sounds crazy for a psychologists to say that, but I love I love hip hop, I love pop music.
I love pop culture. And the more that I can learn about you know, what sticks in that world, I think I can actually apply that to know how to frame things so people really get interested in certain psychological concepts.
Were great pop songwriters know and that you know it applies to your world. Is like we know about writing books and we know how important it is because melody and hook you want people to make to be able to remember it, you know. And what I'm saying that the repetition, like you know, so in your world of talk shows and what everybody remembers and you get a car, You get a car, You get a car, right, and you know you people sign off of TV shows, right yeah, Oprah.
You think about repetition, You think about simplicity and and and messaging. The other piece I think that pop artists do incredibly well, and probably better than any other field, is it's this connection between the person and fans and sort of how do you build a connection, how do you bring audience along with you? How do you build this this sort of emotion, these emotional ties in between and so and and and and that's a part that that I feel like pop stars have done incredibly well.
You know we we've.
Done a lot of work and a lot of studies around like iconography and so you know, like you know, there's there's things like.
You know, in pop.
Culture, what we what we would say is a pop star is somebody that you could dress up ask for Halloween and everybody, you know, everybody.
Knows who you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Know, it's like everybody knows who you are. So and I think, you know, in terms of what you do, it's like it's a million podcasts out there, but making sure that everything that you do stands out so it doesn't blend in with the wallpaper.
I teach an eight week online course called the Transcend Course, and I once had a Halloween like I had all the students, I asked them to dress up, and so one of my students did dress up as me. That's great, that's great, that did happen. He actually like took a cardboard cutout picture of me and put it on his face and everyone know it was me in the room. Yeh, that's so funny. Let's talk about the future of the future of this business, because I think you're very prescient.
You see a very you really see that things are changing in the music industry. You right now you work for you Q and A. It's if I believe it's called Q and A.
Right, Yeah, Venice is are operating company Q.
And A Venice Venice Innovation Labs, right as a full the full thing. So I love the name of that. First of all, I love innovation. Can you tell me you know some things you think are on the horizon for the future of the industry. I've read, I've read a lot of your thoughts about it, but I'd love to hear it from your own mouth and then and telling our listeners what you where you see it's going or where do you think it needs to go?
It's coming, It's coming really quick, and it's it's stuff that I didn't think I would see within my lifetime. And but I think AI is really going to change the face of music.
And you know, we're seeing these tools.
That are created that that people are creating have created already where they can take the voice of your favorite artist, sample three seconds of that voice, and then record into the phone or whatever, like you could sing into the phone and it comes out in the same voice.
As that artist.
So essentially, if I wanted Adele and Sam Smith to make an album together, I can just sample both of their voices, go in and and sing these parts, and you know, all of a sudden, you got this duets album between Sam Smith and Adele.
And when you take that and when you layer, when you.
Layer on all of the AI and deep fakes around video and this auto generated content to go alongside of it, we won't be able to tell real artists from fake artists anymore.
And so yeah, we won't be able to tell.
And so you know, one of my concerns is that, you know, when you when you listen to platforms like a Spotify or Apple Music, the average listener doesn't really care what comes on that, so they listen through playlists, so you know, so you may enter on your favorite song and it might be, you know, an ed sharing song, you know that kicks off your Today's Top Hits playlist, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're cleaning your house and you hear a Bruno Mars song and
then you hear a Beyonce song or Drake record, and what you're not going to realize is is not even them, It's just all sound alike.
Who gets the money, whoever.
Creates the sound alikes?
And so, you know, my guest is, you know, with platforms like TikTok, who's like way ahead of everybody else in terms of AI, companies like that are just going to create their own artists because they don't want to pay for music. Music is expensive for those platforms, so they're not going to want to play for music, so pay for music. I think we're going to see a lot of these platforms create these sound alike artists that sound like our favorite artists is.
Almost going to be like stores.
You go to supermarket and all of a sudden, every supermarket start to create in their own brands.
So it's like, well, we welcome, welcome to to save a lot, to save a lot of music.
But do you think people will buy it, like not just physically buy it, but but buy that premise, Like, don't you think they always will want the most authentic version of it?
No?
I think I think there'll be artists that will stand out that people will still want to buy into and become fans of, that have a point of view that they want to see in concerts. But I don't, like, by no means do I think this is going to permanently replace real artists.
But I do think there's going to be.
A huge, huge, gigantic market for fake artists.
Hmm.
And because under copyright law and trademark law, you can't trademark your voice. You can trademark you know, the yeah yeah, yeah yeah, your likeness, and and you can copyright songs, but you can't you can't trademark a voice.
That is so interesting. How will that affect master who owns the masters and stuff? It'll just be the whoever created the program.
Whoever creates the whoever creates the program control controls the master, and it makes the money.
It could be like a some fifteen year old in the basement of the grandma's house, you know, with no friends, who becomes a pop superstar.
You know, yes, yes, And what I and what I see is is going to be bot factory. It's going to be bot factories, right, you know, you look at bot farms and all of this is AI generated. So they're just gonna sample who are the most popular artists. AI can create these songs. You know, pretty much instantly. You could go to chat GPT and say, write me a song about X y Z and the of this person, and.
They're going to write. You know, they're going to write that.
Song, and you know these bots are gonna spit these things out.
But what if, like the authentic artist, the real artist like changes changes their style, changes their mind. Like I had someone try that, like some New York Times calumnists. He's like, is this what Scott parrk Aufman would say about creativity? And they showed me something that they generated from chat GPT and he wanted my comment on it, and I was like, that's pretty good, you know, like, yeah, I guess it is something I would have said ten
years ago. But you know, I don't know, if you know, I've changed my thoughts about it a little bit, you know, but I feel like there's something deep here where it's not allowing artists to evolve and grow because it's doing so much prediction.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the stage that we're at with chat GBT, we're at the.
Very very very beginning stages, very beginning stages. So we're at aol down.
Up stage right now, and look how it is, you know, like when you when you see how advanced this thing is and how fast it is, and this is very beginning stages. But the end the next year is going to be way beyond where it's at right now. So I think, you know, as fast as an artist can move, it's going to be as fast as artificial intelligence can can adjust, you know. So I think what's going to be important though, is this is when artists are going
to have to build real emotional connections with fans. This is when putting on live really great live shows and having real point of views as an artists are going to count. And because I think, you know what we saw during the streaming age of music is one hundred thousand songs a day being uploaded on Spotify, a lot of artists who who hadn't invested and really building careers, you know. So we've seen a lot of not so
great music. So it's gonna make it's going to force artists to be better at at at this point, and so I think we'll get a lot of standouts from you know, from artists who.
Are real Yeah, I totally see that. What do you see as the future of talent talent spotting, you know, not not just management, but I'm talking about spotting, you know what. You know, how can we the kids that don't have the privileges, don't have the opportunities to get their stuff out there, but they have the talent, What can we do to really kind of increase the chances that they'll be discovered.
The beauty of platforms like like a like a TikTok and YouTube as well, is that these are these are tools where you can upload things yourself, let people connect with your personality. And thing I found with artists, it's never been just about the music.
You can't build stars that way.
You can build a you can build a catalog, but it's hard to build stars. Building real stars has always been about does this person have a unique.
Point of view?
Are they going to be able to connect Like so when you look at like like one of the things like somebody like Megan trainor who I love like she's like a little sister Megan. When she came out with all about that base, she was straight about like I'm
not your average pop star. I'm going to talk about body shaman, I'm going to talk about being proud of your size, you know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna show girls that it doesn't matter what shape you are, how confident that you could be, you could be bad.
And that's who she was.
And people they didn't just buy into the song, they bought into her and that's why she's still sustaining to this very day. And like, you know, when you think about like John Legend's activism and like people like he had, he has a very real point of view on things, whether you agree with them or not. He's open about his positions on the world. Gaga with lgbt Q issues from the very beginning, you know, and and you know, she was a voice for a very young generation.
You know, pre don't ask, don't tell, you.
Know so, so like I think, you know, just being able to express your point of view alongside of your creativity, I think is a thing that builds emotional connection between an artist and their audience.
So it brings it shows your personality.
So I think being able to use these sort of self upload tools like a TikTok or YouTube or you know, whatever that medium may be.
We're seeing a lot in the podcast space.
You know, my friends from Philly, Gillian Wildlife, this podcast million dollars worth of game, and these are guys with you know, just these would be the guys that are in the barbershop just you know, talking shit all day with a strong point of view about sports, pop culture. You know, relationships they have, you know, one of the biggest podcasts now but you know, because people bought into their point of view and their personality.
So I just would use the tools that are available.
Man, I want you to be my manager.
I am your manager. What are you talking about?
Oh? I mean, I mean, I mean you are. We want to make that announcement. You and my dad. I love your dad, you share he shares that with you. Yeah, I love he's my best friend and you met him, you know. Yeah, I think probably my last question is about independent labels. You know, I don't think they as much love as they should. I think you agree with that. What's what's the next wave? What's the next wave of independent labels?
You know, it's just is me back in that state of uh rooting for the underdog.
Yeah, come on, come on.
I just saw, you know, these these.
Independent labels and independent artists or a sort of getting a short end of the stick throughout the industry, and it was a very sort of hard, long road the travel and a lonely road to travel. So you know, we we just kind of looked at the space and said, you know, how can we help advocate, you know, behind the scenes first to be able to get them better royalty rates, better terms, make sure it's competitive with you know, with the major labels, and then sort of built this
company that sort of helps them build their businesses. So, you know, when I looked at what Stopify and Square were able to do for like independent entrepreneurs and sort of like not just sort of build the point of sale systems for them, but how can we teach them and give them the information and tools to become better entrepreneurs. You know, we thought about, like, how can we help
independent artists and independent labels do that? So, you know, we built the technology and the services to help them accomplish that.
Well.
You know, we feel like, you know, just being able to empower people to be able to bet on themselves, to work for themselves, to wake up in the morning every single day, you know, doing doing what they love
to do. You know, I got inspired by I did a trip to Cuba with my team from Spotify, and everywhere we would go, we would go to these restaurants and bars, and it was like these amazing musicians and all of these like I mean, like some of the best musicians I've heard, like on every instrument vocally everywhere I was going, and I was asking to guide us everywhere.
I said, I made that comment, and he said, he says, one of the one good things.
About socialism is that they get paid to do, you know, to work on what they want to work on every single day.
And he said he said this to capitalist, by the way, But.
What I walked away with was when you're able to work on your craft like that every single day, you just get better and better.
And better. And when you think about and what creatives in America, for the most.
Part, you got to be an uber driver half the time, or a lyft driver, or you're working, you know, two or three jobs to sort of pay for your recording studio time. And so you can't do that Kobe Bryant thing and be in the gym twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. You can't be in a studio working on what you want to work on. So, you know, we we've been able to give artists ability that st to quit their jobs and make money by doing this
full time. And like every time an artist tells me that they were able to leave their job and do music full time, it's just, you know, it's just it fills me up.
Well, I love what you're putting out in the world, you know. I I'm creating this program for self actualization coaching and you're kind of you're the og self actualization coach over there. You never maybe have framed it that way, but that's what you are.
This is a delusional.
That's what you are. No, well, delusional until it's not right right, you know, dead on yourself better than yourself. Yes, well, Troy, thank you so much for being on my Showtaal is a real, real honor.
Thank you, Thank you man. I always love talking to you.
You know, I just think your your geniuses, yourself, your one, your one of one has been great getting to know you, and like you know, I just I want I want to be able to look back in twenty years and and be able to stay. You know, I really saw this journey because I think I think out of everything that you've accomplished so far in which you've accomplished a ton, man, you got so much runway in front of you.
I can't wait to see.
Thanks Troy, that I mean, that means the world to me. So thank you, No, thank thank you man.
Let's let's let's let's have some fun together.
Hell yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.