Speaker 1: I'm TT and I'm Zakiah and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no debate that Kendrick won the rap Beep with Drake.
Speaker 1: I mean, hands down. TKO called the Sandman lights out.
Speaker 1: Drake is a corpse, okay, and we can't ignore that.
Speaker 1: It feels like a real sucker move to.
Speaker 2: Issue a lawsuit as soon as you rise up from
Speaker 2: the dead.
Speaker 1: But maybe, just maybe those allegations deserve a closer look.
Speaker 2: Maybe they do.
Speaker 1: So this week we're diving into the state of streaming.
Speaker 2: So what do we know?
Speaker 1: I feel like if you've been paying attention to anything,
Speaker 1: or if you just remembered downloading songs that say aol
Speaker 1: music at the beginning of them, you know, the streaming
Speaker 1: services were at one point seen as the saving grace
Speaker 1: of the music industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw where b York. You remember her mm hmm,
Speaker 2: singer song.
Speaker 1: I remember what she looked like in those outfits.
Speaker 2: Well, so she's like a Swan, she's very edgy.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, she just said streaming is one of the
Speaker 1: worst things to ever happen to musicians. The tides have changed, okay,
Speaker 1: and so now it's time for us to kind of
Speaker 1: change how we're looking at things. So we're putting those
Speaker 1: streaming services like the one you know y'all might be
Speaker 1: using to listen to us right now, we're putting those
Speaker 1: under the microscope. Okay, So what do we want to know? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I know for sure, I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Are the streaming platform is good for the artists or not?
Speaker 1: Drake was the king of pop and R and B
Speaker 1: and whatever other you know genre he chose, you know,
Speaker 1: the genre reggae, the hispanic, oh gosh, everything, all of it,
Speaker 1: and so he was dominating Spotify and Apple Music and
Speaker 1: now y'all are mad at him.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: So, like, you know, my main question is is some
Speaker 1: of this just sourenness from public humiliation by Kendrick or
Speaker 1: is there actually some merit to his claims. Drake is
Speaker 1: really seeming like a poor sport. But maybe he's just
Speaker 1: saying the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2: That's fair. I think that's fair.
Speaker 1: And if everyone is getting so many streams and we're
Speaker 1: all listening to their music, why is everybody so grouchy.
Speaker 2: Is being number two that much worse than being number one?
Speaker 1: Or is the key to actually making it as an
Speaker 1: artist having your own masters? Because you know, Maggie Stallion
Speaker 1: was talking about that, yup, and some other people have
Speaker 1: been too, so like, is that why everybody's a grumpy?
Speaker 1: And what lies ahead for streaming? When we consider AI
Speaker 1: and bots? I mean, ai've been taken over so many things,
Speaker 1: and I mean including Drake.
Speaker 2: We heard that Ai, Drake m h ay y'all.
Speaker 1: Taking off everything except the dishes in my sink. Hello, Okay,
Speaker 1: nobody's doing this laundry. The laundry just pile up on
Speaker 1: the bed. I'm sleeping on top of it. Okay, who's
Speaker 1: gonna fold these clothes?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I think they're using it in the wrong areas. But
Speaker 1: that's a lot of questions, and I'm not ashamed of
Speaker 1: those squestions. I don't know a lot about all of
Speaker 1: this me either, But that's fine because that's just what
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is for. Let's jump into the dissection. This week,
Speaker 1: we're talking to Professor Eric A.
Speaker 2: Drott.
Speaker 1: He's a professor of music at the University of Texas,
Speaker 1: Austin and author of streaming music streaming capital. His work
Speaker 1: dives into the political economy of music streaming and exploring
Speaker 1: how digital music platforms have reshaped the way music is produced, distributed,
Speaker 1: and consumed. We'll start with some streaming platforms like Spotify
Speaker 1: and Apple Music. They really have revolutionized how we listen
Speaker 1: to music. When I look back, it seems like these
Speaker 1: services crept up and they were the music industry's way
Speaker 1: to recapture a lot of the market after LimeWire and Napster,
Speaker 1: which I am guilty of and I think, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: somebody is my desktop was smoking with all of my loads.
Speaker 1: So when we see how they brought the music industry back,
Speaker 1: that's great to see, but at what cost to artists.
Speaker 3: So I think it's important to recognize that there are
Speaker 3: a lot of positives about the advent of streaming.
Speaker 4: I mean, definitely on the consumer side.
Speaker 3: And if you told me when I was fifteen twenty
Speaker 3: years old that you know, in a few years time
Speaker 3: you'll be able to just like click a button get
Speaker 3: access to anything I have, you know, just been in
Speaker 3: heaven at the very thought of it.
Speaker 4: So that's great from the perspective of artists. Creates a
Speaker 4: global marketplace.
Speaker 3: So if you blow up, you blow up at a
Speaker 3: global level, right, I would.
Speaker 1: Think that blowing up at a global level is a
Speaker 1: good thing. You know, more people, more streams. When I
Speaker 1: was checking the stats, it said that there are over
Speaker 1: six hundred and forty million monthly active users on Spotify,
Speaker 1: and that Spotify captures the majority of the market, but
Speaker 1: Apple is only a couple percent points right behind. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of people listening. And if I'm an artist,
Speaker 1: I think I like those odds. I'm not really seeing
Speaker 1: the problem yet.
Speaker 4: There are several problems of from the perspective of artists.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: One, there is this phenomenon. It's not new to screaming.
Speaker 3: It's known as winner take all markets.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: A good example of the sort of dynamic is something
Speaker 3: like a sporting event where we're talking about fractions of
Speaker 3: a second, and so like fractions of a second from
Speaker 3: you being the world champion to you not even being
Speaker 3: on the podium. And so one of the things about
Speaker 3: winner take all markets is that you get this dynamic
Speaker 3: where these tiny, tiny differences in absolute terms lead to
Speaker 3: these massive disparities and relative terms.
Speaker 4: Okay, you see in the world of.
Speaker 3: Music very vividly, where you know the top artist you
Speaker 3: know is going to make basically two times probably like
Speaker 3: the next top artists, and then you know it will
Speaker 3: go down kind of exponentially from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is kind of like when Ricky Bobby
Speaker 1: was intelligent to Night saying, if you're not first, your last.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that movie had economics in it.
Speaker 3: The more you know, Yep, the Beyonces, the Taylor Swift's,
Speaker 3: these are the global superstars who were like doing very
Speaker 3: well by the current system. But it drops off Pray radically,
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 1: I feel like now Drake's complaints are making a lot
Speaker 1: more sense. If you're not number one, your pockets are
Speaker 1: being affected. If this is a winner takes all market.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3: So I mean basically, several months after Not Like Us,
Speaker 3: which was kind of the last word in the beef,
Speaker 3: It's very hard to see how Drake could come back
Speaker 3: after that.
Speaker 4: After that was released, he filed a couple of lawsuits.
Speaker 4: I mean the first couple they were like pre litigation.
Speaker 4: I'm not a lawyer, so I don't.
Speaker 3: Really understand some of the nuances here. They weren't really lawsuits,
Speaker 3: but they're like pre litigation, there's something like that.
Speaker 1: But Drake dropped those pre litigation submissions and really honed
Speaker 1: in on Universal Music Group. That was strange because that's
Speaker 1: his label. What's he saying about them?
Speaker 3: It's basically accusing Universal of a few things, one of
Speaker 3: which is that they engaged in a defamation against him.
Speaker 4: Since you know, essentially Kendrick is.
Speaker 3: Calling pedophile, right, and you're saying, that's affirmation that because
Speaker 3: Universal agreed to release this right, because they gave the
Speaker 3: green light for the supubilis that they are a party
Speaker 3: to that defamation.
Speaker 4: So that's part of it.
Speaker 3: But then another part of is that, you know, he's
Speaker 3: saying that they did certain things that were either questionable
Speaker 3: legality or just playing illegal. I'm not sure, but you know,
Speaker 3: definitely dubious.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So this is a legal side from Drake to Universal
Speaker 1: Music Group or UMG about Kendrick saying he's a pedophile
Speaker 1: and likes young girls. And I mean, T T I
Speaker 1: get that, because if that's not true, this SE's and
Speaker 1: desist or whatever, you know, stop it, Okay.
Speaker 2: Stop that.
Speaker 1: You can tell we're not lawyers, but seriously, separate from
Speaker 1: the defamation. What's wrong with UMG? Promoting a song like
Speaker 1: they have a vested interest in it doing well.
Speaker 3: So one thing he says, which I think is one
Speaker 3: of the most interesting things, He says that you know, UMG,
Speaker 3: whitelisted the song, which means that basically, UMG, they have
Speaker 3: the right to exclude other people from using it unless
Speaker 3: you pay the money, right, And so, like, if I
Speaker 3: were a TikToker or a YouTuber, Instagram reals person, I
Speaker 3: want to put like this song up there, you know,
Speaker 3: basically Universe will come in and block it, right, flag
Speaker 3: it saying this has an unauthorized recording here, Okay, But
Speaker 3: basically whitelisting is Universal saying no, We're just gonna withdraw
Speaker 3: all those copyright protections temporarily because you know, basically one
Speaker 3: of the things that the lawsuit sites is all these
Speaker 3: reaction videos to the song, right, and basically those would
Speaker 3: have been subject to copyright claims from Universal. But you know,
Speaker 3: Drake is saying, or Drake's lawyers are saying, like Universal
Speaker 3: wanted you know, this to generate buzz, generate like discourse,
Speaker 3: and what better medium to do that than like reaction
Speaker 3: videos for people, which it's like, you know, oh shit,
Speaker 3: what does this guy.
Speaker 1: Saying, so put that thing up. You know how on
Speaker 1: YouTube sometimes it'll say this head is a copyright claim
Speaker 1: or there's music in this that can't be used. Drake
Speaker 1: is saying, why didn't y'all put that up for Kendrick
Speaker 1: Lamar song exactly?
Speaker 3: And then the other thing he says again like this
Speaker 3: is actually technically illegal, you know, he basically says that
Speaker 3: they engage in payola, which there have been controversies for
Speaker 3: I mean decades, the concern record labels paying. Back in
Speaker 3: the day, it was radio stations. Now it's streaming platforms,
Speaker 3: and there's actually laws against that. So basically you started
Speaker 3: saying that that this is what Universal did in or
Speaker 3: to sort of give the song a boost out of
Speaker 3: the gates right by sort of artificially inflaming number of streams,
Speaker 3: either by using bots or by using click farms or
Speaker 3: paying people to stream it, you know, which some.
Speaker 4: Of the stuff is outright illegal. All that is like
Speaker 4: very questionable.
Speaker 1: If this is illegal, why didn't it blow up even bigger?
Speaker 1: Why aren't other artists outraged that UMG is doing this
Speaker 1: and that it hurts their streams? Aren't the other labels
Speaker 1: outside of UMG? Upset I would be right, or were
Speaker 1: people just fixated on the actual beef. Hmm, that's a
Speaker 1: good question.
Speaker 3: I Mean the thing is is that, like this is
Speaker 3: kind of an open secret that this happens, right, and
Speaker 3: it happens with the major labels, right, I mean yes,
Speaker 3: a lot of of you know, young up and coming
Speaker 3: artists will try to use bots or paid streams in
Speaker 3: order to give their stuff a boost and get a
Speaker 3: bit of traction, bit of visibility.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the hardest things about streaming platforms is like
Speaker 3: getting heard because there's just so much music. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is going back to like, what are the problems
Speaker 3: streaming platforms? That's a big one, right, because it's just
Speaker 3: so hard to break through. But you know, even though
Speaker 3: for the past few years, you know, all the major
Speaker 3: labels and a bunch of other stakeholders have been you know,
Speaker 3: making a hue and cry about you know, the problem
Speaker 3: streaming fraud and how there has to be a crackdowns
Speaker 3: about this, you know, there's anecdotal evidence. I mean I've
Speaker 3: heard from pretty reliable sources who have worked for major
Speaker 3: labels that this is something that they have at least
Speaker 3: engaged in the past. I won't be surprised if they
Speaker 3: still engage in it in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: So Drake is kind of onto something and highlighting a
Speaker 1: problem that you're saying is kind of systemic. It's not
Speaker 1: just a personal thing, it's it's something that has been
Speaker 1: going on for a long time that does cause issues.
Speaker 1: So do you think that these actions, the lawsuits and
Speaker 1: the refilings and everything like that, are ultimately going to
Speaker 1: do more harm to his reputation than good for the
Speaker 1: music industry?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, definitely. I mean it looks bad. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, like it just like, I'm no expert in rappies,
Speaker 3: so this is like to me, this looks pathetic, right,
Speaker 3: I mean it looks sad. But you know, I you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, Kendrick just to play the Super Bowls, right like,
Speaker 3: I mean, like, you know, I don't know how much
Speaker 3: more attention like can be drought to this song. But
Speaker 3: you know, well, okay, fine, you know you're accusing UMG
Speaker 3: of using these questionable methods, methods of questionable legality.
Speaker 4: To boost Kendrick. You're also a universal heart, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we can put to you know, you
Speaker 3: may have benefit from this in the past.
Speaker 4: You probably have benefit from this in the.
Speaker 2: When he was beefing with Meek Mill, probably yeah.
Speaker 4: Or or just for any song that he's released, right,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, and there have been cases like I remember, oh,
Speaker 3: I can't remember which album it was, but like they
Speaker 3: had the entire Drake takeover of Spot five's homepage, where
Speaker 3: like every playlist had his picture on it, and wow,
Speaker 3: you know, like so it's like I want to listen to,
Speaker 3: oh no, like Beethoven and so like a picture of
Speaker 3: Drake's on it, you know.
Speaker 2: A minute, Yeah, what's happening?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is Beethoven black?
Speaker 4: That's also a debate.
Speaker 2: We'll bring you back again for that one.
Speaker 3: The thing to remember, right is that these platforms are
Speaker 3: really dependent upon the major mabel's catalogs in many ways, right,
Speaker 3: And it's not just like the current catalog like what's
Speaker 3: popular right now, which obviously they dominate, but also the
Speaker 3: massive back catalogs.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It doesn't really make sense to call like Universal Record
Speaker 3: label because what it is is like kind of a
Speaker 3: holding company for all these smaller.
Speaker 4: Labels that it's acquired over the years.
Speaker 3: So jazz labels like VERV, labels like Island Records, which
Speaker 3: really s all the like Bob Marley recordings in the
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, Interscope right, big hip hop label, and the
Speaker 3: list goes on. You know, platforms really rely on all
Speaker 3: that music. You know that these major labels have managed
Speaker 3: to gobble up over the decades, and so that means
Speaker 3: that they will basically do things in order to appease
Speaker 3: the labels.
Speaker 1: You're helping us really understand, because I think too often
Speaker 1: people are talking about the streaming platforms as being the
Speaker 1: big dogs here, but really the record labels with these
Speaker 1: extensive catalogs, like, somebody's got to populate your platform, so
Speaker 1: they have the ball and if you want them to
Speaker 1: stay in, you want them to keep playing. And so
Speaker 1: it does feel like this kind of tug of war
Speaker 1: of power or the recording each other to keep music
Speaker 1: streaming as we know it. Yeah, and that also makes
Speaker 1: me think about how some artists own their own masters.
Speaker 1: So Steve Stout has been a vocal advocate for artists
Speaker 1: owning their own masters. Artists like Jay z Rihanna, Frank
Speaker 1: ocean U two, they own their own masters. And then
Speaker 1: we see stories like Taylor Swift where she comes out
Speaker 1: with Taylor's version because Scooter Braun owns her masters, and
Speaker 1: Jojo also came up put her album from back in
Speaker 1: the day so that she could own those masters. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that and is this
Speaker 1: a realistic solution for most artists or does it only
Speaker 1: benefit those at the top?
Speaker 3: I think obviously it's better to own the masters than
Speaker 3: not to own the masters. And this is obviously one
Speaker 3: of the main ways at the record labels. Why have
Speaker 3: they become so powerful, right, is because the additions of
Speaker 3: getting access to a the funding that you know, record
Speaker 3: label usually provides in the form of an advance and
Speaker 3: be then the marketing and the promotion that you know,
Speaker 3: especially major labels are able to provide. The sort of
Speaker 3: cost of all that is that you usually have to
Speaker 3: sign away your rights. This isn't just restricted to the
Speaker 3: music industry. I don't own the rights to either of
Speaker 3: the books I've written. Doesn't really matter since they're not
Speaker 3: making any money anyways. That's part for the course for
Speaker 3: academic books. But you know, it does become very consequential
Speaker 3: when we're talking about valuable music rights.
Speaker 1: That's a tricky trade off though, because how can you
Speaker 1: see into the future, Like I got my masters, but
Speaker 1: maybe I needed that marketing and promotion.
Speaker 3: The thing is, it's in a lot of cases, for
Speaker 3: the overwhelming majority of artists, you may own your rights,
Speaker 3: but they may not be worth very much because you
Speaker 3: didn't break through, right, And this gets back to that
Speaker 3: question the winner take all kind of nature of music
Speaker 3: economies in general.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to rewind is something you mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: because you briefly mentioned this FBI case where this guy
Speaker 1: he uses AI to make music. Then he gets all
Speaker 1: these bots to stream this music that he's making with AI,
Speaker 1: and he makes well, he should have made like millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. Yes, yes, and so considering this case, but
Speaker 1: also considering this technology in a winner takes all market
Speaker 1: I feel like he carved out a pretty good spot
Speaker 1: for himself. I mean, aside from jail that might need ahead,
Speaker 1: not a good spot. How do you see AI and
Speaker 1: technology kind of shaping the music industry even further? You know,
Speaker 1: especially as we think about these metrics, and one of
Speaker 1: the known or unknown knowns is that like all these
Speaker 1: streaming numbers, this stuff is not as reliable as it seems.
Speaker 1: So people are bragging about being number one, but that
Speaker 1: might not even be real platform to platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we don't even get much visibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what do you think this means? What do
Speaker 1: you think is next? What do you think we're gonna see.
Speaker 2: More of this?
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that at least right
Speaker 3: now is a comfort probably for a lot of artists
Speaker 3: is that even the most sophisticated AI generators and music
Speaker 3: that produce is still pretty right, and so you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think there's much competition, and like people listen
Speaker 3: to music for all kinds of reasons. Just as important,
Speaker 3: i'd say in a lot of cases is like a
Speaker 3: sense of connection with the artists, right, So.
Speaker 4: You don't have that with like AI generating music. Right.
Speaker 3: So I think that the idea that this is going
Speaker 3: to like displace artists is you know premature. Let's say,
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows what's going to happen ten twenty
Speaker 3: years from now, but I think right now, I think
Speaker 3: I think one thing also to bear in minds, like
Speaker 3: when we talk about AI, we can be referencing all
Speaker 3: kinds some different things. I think a lot of times
Speaker 3: people think about you know, AI generate songs, it could
Speaker 3: also mean things like the sort of vocal clones.
Speaker 4: Right, So there's the Fake.
Speaker 3: Drake song that came out almost two years ago now
Speaker 3: Hard on my Sleeve, which was kind of the big
Speaker 3: wake up call for the industry that this technology had
Speaker 3: reached a certain point where you could have somebody basically,
Speaker 3: you know, create a track and use one of these
Speaker 3: vocal masks in order to like emulate the sound and
Speaker 3: style of like a major artist. You know, I think
Speaker 3: it's telling there that we haven't had any other kind
Speaker 3: of big breakout moments since then, right, And it's not
Speaker 3: like the technology's bad, it's it's like it's kind of gimmicky.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I Saebob sing Luther Vandra style, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that SpongeBob Patrick.
Speaker 5: Yes, Patrick, I think there are two main concerned So
Speaker 5: that one is that already when you look at the
Speaker 5: catalogs or the databases of these major platforms, you know,
Speaker 5: the number of tracks.
Speaker 3: That they have is absolutely eye watering, right, Like, I
Speaker 3: mean Spotify has over one hundred million tracks. And you know,
Speaker 3: we were talking before about how hard it is to
Speaker 3: get heard, right, and if people are uploading forty thousand
Speaker 3: tracks a day, right, it just makes it all the
Speaker 3: more difficult to break through. And you know, maybe some
Speaker 3: portion of those are AI generated block but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's just adding to the noise that you have to
Speaker 3: get past. So that's one problem. I think the other
Speaker 3: problem is, like it's a little more indirect. So about
Speaker 3: two years ago, the head of UMG Loosing Range, comes
Speaker 3: out with like a letter that he publishes just this
Speaker 3: sort of state of the union for the music industry,
Speaker 3: and he said streaming has been great, helping the record
Speaker 3: industry get back on his feet, but the revenue sharing
Speaker 3: model is broken. And he cited the fact that you know,
Speaker 3: there's just so much garbage now populating streaming platforms. You know,
Speaker 3: all the white noise playlists to help you sleep, you know.
Speaker 2: Which, Yes I'm playing this, yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4: I'm a fan.
Speaker 3: But he cited AI generated music right, AI slop right.
Speaker 3: And so basically what UMG started pushing is what they
Speaker 3: call artists centric model, where it's basically, in order to
Speaker 3: get any kind of payment from a streaming platform, you'd
Speaker 3: have to pass a certain kind of threshold of monthly listeners, right,
Speaker 3: and a certain number of listeners listening to your music, right,
Speaker 3: and so like if you only get nine hundred and
Speaker 3: ninety nine streams one month. Right, you're not a real
Speaker 3: artist acquarding to this, right, which you know, like there
Speaker 3: are a lot of like musicians working in more obscure yeah,
Speaker 3: genres that you know, they're not pulling in huge numbers,
Speaker 3: but they may be super talented musicians.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So you know, AI in this case is being.
Speaker 3: Used as a kind of pretext in order to like
Speaker 3: restructure the way in which streaming economies work.
Speaker 2: I don't like that though.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the music industry, in the podcast industry
Speaker 1: is not sounded so different. I don't know who wrote
Speaker 1: the letter for podcasting this year, but take away some
Speaker 1: of the microphones. Not ours, but some other people. We've
Speaker 1: gotten a lot from you to think about, and it's
Speaker 1: really got our brains going.
Speaker 2: We are lovers of music, like.
Speaker 1: Zakia, and our friendship has introduced me to a lot
Speaker 1: of music. Now I'm trying to think of somebody you
Speaker 1: put me onto I can think as a win and
Speaker 1: it's actually relevant right now too. Our homegirl, Rachel Lizzy.
Speaker 1: She just got roasted on the internet for not liking
Speaker 1: Anita Baker. But you know, when I first met you,
Speaker 1: you didn't know the difference between Nita Baker and Josephine Baker.
Speaker 1: I said, do you want to hear some Anita Baker?
Speaker 1: And she said, is that the lady with the bananas?
Speaker 1: And I almost lost it. But as soon as I
Speaker 1: realized who Anita Baker was, I am now I'm a fan.
Speaker 2: I love her. Bake me up, I love it. She
Speaker 2: is just chefs kissed.
Speaker 1: She is on every playlist that I have that to
Speaker 1: get me in the right mood.
Speaker 2: And so I'm very grateful to z A Kia for that.
Speaker 1: And we're very thankful to you, Professor Drot, for explaining
Speaker 1: all of this because t T we really didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going on. No, we just knew that we
Speaker 1: were team Kendrick and that was but now we know
Speaker 1: that it might be a little bit deeper than rap.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's good to know.
Speaker 1: All this talk about music is making me think about
Speaker 1: my favorite songs right now, tit. You know, I always
Speaker 1: want to know what you're listening to, go ahead and
Speaker 1: give it to me what you're feeling right now? Okay,
Speaker 1: So honestly, it's the entire Chromacopeia album by Tyler the creator.
Speaker 2: H Lyrically, it's just perfect.
Speaker 1: I feel like the way that Tyler raps and the
Speaker 1: things that he raps about speaks directly to me. There's
Speaker 1: so many good one liners. I feel like I quote
Speaker 1: him on a daily basis. So, Yes, that is the
Speaker 1: music that makes me happy currently. I like it. I
Speaker 1: like it and pretty much everything by boss Man Dilo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about j Zee? What are you liking right now?
Speaker 1: I think right now I am in I'm definitely in
Speaker 1: my love Girl era. Okay, So I've been listening to
Speaker 1: all the R and B and I liked this artist
Speaker 1: a while back. When we were in New Orleans for Suspith,
Speaker 1: we saw Ombre and there's a song Ambre has that's
Speaker 1: called Superstitious. I just saw her live recently at City
Speaker 1: Wannery and she sang it in like it's been my jam.
Speaker 1: So Superstitious and all kinds of other stuff, and bre
Speaker 1: Dustin Conrad Fabo Destin Conrad, a sleeper, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Super sleeper.
Speaker 1: Also Leon Thomas, Leon Thomas. There's more than just mut
Speaker 1: I know y'all are using this Instagram. There's more than
Speaker 1: being used a lot. There's more than mud. Yes is
Speaker 1: a very good song though. Okay, so we've talked about
Speaker 1: our favorite music, but we want to know y'all's favorite music.
Speaker 1: Make sure you send us a message, a comment, a
Speaker 1: DM letting us know what you're listening to right now
Speaker 1: and make it good because we love a good playlist. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 1: Labs podcast, tt is on X and Instagram at d
Speaker 1: R Underscore T s h O, and you can find
Speaker 1: Zakiya at Z said So. Dope Labs is a production
Speaker 1: of Lamanada Media. Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour
Speaker 1: and our associate producer is Usara Savez. Dope Labs is
Speaker 1: sound designed, edited and mixed by James Farber. Limanada Media's
Speaker 1: Vice President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive
Speaker 1: producer from iHeart podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is
Speaker 1: Alison Canter. Original music composed and produced by Takayasuzawa and
Speaker 1: Alex sugi Ura, with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope
Speaker 1: Labs is executive produced by us T T Show Dia
Speaker 1: and Zakia Wattley.