Speaker 1: R and B Money.
Speaker 2: Honey, we are.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Think about the time. We are the authority on all
Speaker 3: things R and B. Ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Speaker 3: taken down time and this is the R and B
Speaker 3: Money Podcast, the A Thig Oh no things, R and B.
Speaker 4: What we doing man?
Speaker 3: Oh we're betting on ourselves today.
Speaker 1: We know this it from top to bottom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we're going back to.
Speaker 3: I'm saying this ship. You can't hold me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't hold me back.
Speaker 4: You no ball from the stove.
Speaker 3: Holl won't ball from the stove. If you're going to
Speaker 3: get it, you gotta come get it from me.
Speaker 1: Come in the back yard, in the back.
Speaker 3: Notes, and gentleman in the building us.
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Larrussell, I'm always say Larrussell. I know people be
Speaker 3: trying to shorten your name. Your name has some equity
Speaker 3: on it. So I'm gonna say lar Russell the whole
Speaker 3: time we're here, if you don't mind, l Russell. Before
Speaker 3: I knew who you were and what you were, I
Speaker 3: would hear you speak about what you were on what
Speaker 3: people should be on. I had never connected the two
Speaker 3: that you were an artist. I'm not gonna call your
Speaker 3: rapper because I heard you vibrather, so you're with us too.
Speaker 3: They can't help. Before before I was even privy to that,
Speaker 3: I was privy to the information that you were giving out.
Speaker 3: That's what crossed my algorithm first fire, while I was scrolling,
Speaker 3: and I was like, hm, hm, this shall nigga talking
Speaker 3: that talk, and it would always come by that way.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until he was like, well we getting them on.
Speaker 3: We can oh, I gotta, yeah, I gotta. I gotta
Speaker 3: jump down this rabbit hole and make sure I understand
Speaker 3: who in the fucks isn't it? And and then it
Speaker 3: got way different because it was like the information and
Speaker 3: the artistry are at an elite level.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, it's fucking scary.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: That's how the beautiful you said that because I had
Speaker 5: set a goal to like, I don't like music, isn't
Speaker 5: my four front Every meeting I used to have, I
Speaker 5: used to be like, my goal is to make l
Speaker 5: Russell as big as possible. I don't care if somebody
Speaker 5: just likes to hear me speak. They don't have to
Speaker 5: ever listen to a song. I just want them to
Speaker 5: embrace and respect Larussell. And we get so many people
Speaker 5: who like, man, I never heard the music. I just
Speaker 5: seen this, and it's like that's the beauty of it
Speaker 5: because that connects out of level. Everybody might not like
Speaker 5: a song, but if you say some real ship, it
Speaker 5: ain't no beating rhythm to that.
Speaker 1: Anybody can ingest some real ship. Life. Life is universal absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So like for me, like and Jays, you know
Speaker 3: you got share of.
Speaker 1: My stun. Yeah, hold on.
Speaker 3: I had a moment right head on because when I
Speaker 3: went to he had a birthday party in the bay
Speaker 3: that's your dairy birthday party. And we all on stage
Speaker 3: and I don't know who it was and started rapping
Speaker 3: quin started the hard way and they started getting low and.
Speaker 4: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what it was, but I felt like
Speaker 3: I needed to be off and.
Speaker 1: I was what the Yeah, I gotta have it and
Speaker 1: get in your body and get in your body.
Speaker 3: So y'all share that, right and and and and Jay
Speaker 3: is I'm gonna allow Jay and you guys nuance to
Speaker 3: really really tackle this thing the right way because you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's a lot of soil attached to it that
Speaker 3: you guys can speak to. But I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 3: tell you for the for a lot of this, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be the why guy because I want the I
Speaker 3: want the nuance from you know, from in set option
Speaker 3: two ideas to consult to application. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 3: I want to. I want to because because you gotta
Speaker 3: think like I'm forty years old. I've been in this
Speaker 3: business since I was seventeen him nine, and the music
Speaker 3: business has changed in such a way.
Speaker 4: It's not the same as all.
Speaker 3: We never dreamed.
Speaker 2: Possible to go on to app and see, oh so
Speaker 2: I made I mean one thousand dollars a day, I
Speaker 2: made two thouars a day, I mean un dollar that
Speaker 2: no direct to.
Speaker 3: Consumer was literally door to door, literally knocking on your
Speaker 3: door at the trunk cash money master peeing them Trump Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: And now you are processing this ship like a supercomputer
Speaker 3: in a way that is like, it's the coolest shit
Speaker 3: I've ever seen. Because I'm all. I love when my
Speaker 3: niggas get it, and then I love when my niggas
Speaker 3: get it right.
Speaker 2: So we embrace it, and we embrace it. We don't,
Speaker 2: we don't, we don't fight it at all. We're not
Speaker 2: We're not We're not those guys, all that new music
Speaker 2: business and all that. Man, tell us what's going on.
Speaker 2: Come on, so we can be a part of it,
Speaker 2: so we can understand it, so that we can continue
Speaker 2: to grow in it. And that's why it's so important
Speaker 2: for you to be here today because you you literally
Speaker 2: are a poster board as a grown man. But you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying when I say that for this
Speaker 2: whole thing, man, Like, it's so many people who talk
Speaker 2: about it, they don't actually live it. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: live it, bro in all aspects. And before we even
Speaker 2: get into the journey, we just want to say congratulations, gratitude,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying for really sticking in there.
Speaker 2: This ship is not easy. It is not easy, we know, yeah,
Speaker 2: from all levels of it, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 2: it's not easy, and most people give up and most
Speaker 2: people just.
Speaker 4: You know, they may take the easier route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's start, man, Let's let's let's start in Valayo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's start.
Speaker 3: There, man.
Speaker 4: We know, you know, we know what the soil is
Speaker 4: and just and just.
Speaker 2: Even the background of Valao, right because I understand that
Speaker 2: it's you know, at times are forgotten city in the bay.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like y'all, y'all city has
Speaker 2: had some tough times, so for you to kind of
Speaker 2: rise up out of that and also to give more
Speaker 2: hope because they were there were there were pockets of
Speaker 2: time too, from you know, the E forty and a
Speaker 2: click to the max dre to the s O B.
Speaker 4: A R b E.
Speaker 1: I mean that s O B R b E you
Speaker 1: know some her Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. But there were pockets though
Speaker 2: where it went up, then it got quiet, then it
Speaker 2: went up a little bit more, then it got a
Speaker 2: little violent, you know what I'm saying, Like just kind
Speaker 2: of give me, give me, give me your layout and
Speaker 2: your understanding of it. And and also being a young
Speaker 2: man who came up through the Hyphee movement like that
Speaker 2: was your adolescence.
Speaker 4: You really grew up on it. Like nigg you just saying,
Speaker 4: go dumb, you.
Speaker 5: Know what I mean.
Speaker 4: You know, most people gonna sing I'm sprung around the world,
Speaker 4: but if you're from the.
Speaker 2: Bay, you got your I'm sprung, You're going straight to it.
Speaker 2: So you know, give us, give us that man.
Speaker 5: Man that that really is it, Like that lineage you
Speaker 5: just said, including Neftter Pharaoh you know, after Pharaoh played
Speaker 5: a major lord, here was another that brought a big light.
Speaker 1: Back to the city. But just like Valeo is.
Speaker 5: In the Bay Area, there's like a bunch of cities,
Speaker 5: but there's Staples that really played the part in the
Speaker 5: culture of what the Bay Area is received as. And
Speaker 5: if you remove a Valleo, you lose so much culture.
Speaker 5: Like the way we talk dre and forty like our lingo. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that's dre and forty, you know, curated, so the
Speaker 5: way we dance. Everybody in yep I cannot wind over. Yes,
Speaker 5: but it's like if you from the Bay you dance
Speaker 5: like dre you know when you hear it's a certain
Speaker 5: lineage that that would just pass through through Valleo. It
Speaker 5: played such a pivotal part and the culture and like
Speaker 5: being able to grow up in the heart of it
Speaker 5: different different, like I'm I've been able to like I
Speaker 5: feel like I've been able to revolutionize Hyphi in a
Speaker 5: way that the world is able to consume it without
Speaker 5: the judgment that used to have like some people used
Speaker 5: to be like even still people like man, how music,
Speaker 5: we don't want to hear that no more. But I
Speaker 5: go all over the world and I'm I'm on tiny
Speaker 5: bans like this because that energy and that beat that
Speaker 5: we live by.
Speaker 1: It's like you like you said, you was there and
Speaker 1: you had to It's.
Speaker 5: Contagious, and you know, I've been able to package it
Speaker 5: and bring that contagion across the world and get other
Speaker 5: people to see it and feel it. So where people
Speaker 5: fly in from different countries to the backyard than the
Speaker 5: V to Valaos. We ain't never people ain't never flew
Speaker 5: into Vlayo but nothing maybe.
Speaker 2: Marine to take a trip, you gotta take a trip.
Speaker 2: You get off the plane, you gotta drive. You know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: There's no airport right there. What you mean how far
Speaker 4: from San Francisco.
Speaker 1: And Oakland with no traffic? Yeah, with no traffic.
Speaker 5: And then you really you're going to a city that
Speaker 5: has nothing else there. So if you're going to Valao,
Speaker 5: it's for a very specific cause. It's not like Frisco
Speaker 5: where it's like I'll just go to the piece.
Speaker 3: And do all.
Speaker 5: Ain't no sight seeing inter V maybe, but it ain't.
Speaker 5: You know, it ain't no sight seeing NV. They come
Speaker 5: into the crib. They come into the crib.
Speaker 4: What made you say I'm gonna do it in my backyard.
Speaker 5: I was throwing the show in Oakland at New Parish
Speaker 5: and it was my first time doing like Proud to
Speaker 5: Pay where I was like, I'm gonna let people pay
Speaker 5: at the door and just see what they pay, right.
Speaker 5: And the owner caused me the day before or earlier
Speaker 5: that day, and he was like.
Speaker 1: I don't know about this.
Speaker 5: I'm taking a risk with you, and this to just
Speaker 5: hell the negative, just hell a negative energy because it
Speaker 5: was new for him. He didn't know, and he's older,
Speaker 5: he's a white and he didn't get it. And it
Speaker 5: just like threw me off to have somebody be able
Speaker 5: to pour that in my pot like before show. It
Speaker 5: just made me like, bro, I don't want to do
Speaker 5: nothing there. And it was a successful show to succeed.
Speaker 5: Now it's funny because I got a golden pass, a
Speaker 5: new pair. I just call and say I want this
Speaker 5: date and I'm in, you know. But he's the reason
Speaker 5: I was like, I'll never go through that again. I'm
Speaker 5: building my own venue building.
Speaker 4: But the venue became parents.
Speaker 1: That's all I asked. That's what I had, You what
Speaker 1: I had?
Speaker 4: Man shout out to the first investors. We always got
Speaker 4: to shout out the first the parents, parents, because I
Speaker 4: don't know if I'm letting do a concert.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, the concert, the conflict, and it
Speaker 3: was the I think the key line that you just
Speaker 3: said was it was all I had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So.
Speaker 3: It's it's these, it's these, we're gonna work with what
Speaker 3: we got. That turned into these unconscious genius moments where
Speaker 3: it's like now it's like, I want to do a
Speaker 3: concert in my backyard. Now everybody want to do something
Speaker 3: in the backyard, wife.
Speaker 1: But everything.
Speaker 3: How many people have you seen now copying this new.
Speaker 5: One because they starting to get it. It's like we've
Speaker 5: been as artists, we own maybe one percent of the
Speaker 5: infrastructure we have to use to thrive as artists. Your
Speaker 5: whole career, you gotta do shows, but you don't own
Speaker 5: no venues. You don't own no booking agencies. You don't
Speaker 5: own no promotion companies. As an artists, you gotta do marketing.
Speaker 5: You don't own no digital marketing. You don't own no
Speaker 5: ad agencies. You don't own no seating companies. You don't
Speaker 5: own no playlists. As an artist, you gotta travel. You
Speaker 5: don't own no sprinter van, you don't own no as
Speaker 5: you no truck. As an artists, there's so many things
Speaker 5: you gotta do in your career, and we don't have
Speaker 5: the infrastructure to actually do it. We gotta go ask
Speaker 5: somebody else to do it every time we want to
Speaker 5: do it. How am I selling out this venue? But
Speaker 5: I gotta ask you to use it? It don't make
Speaker 5: no sense. We It's literally like all the infrastructure that
Speaker 5: we used to thrive as artists we should have access
Speaker 5: to Like this. My backyard was that for me, it
Speaker 5: was a money tree. I could wake up any day.
Speaker 5: The backyard became so fruitful that I rehearse every day.
Speaker 5: I usually rehearse every single day, right, so some days
Speaker 5: I was like, man, I'm gonna get paid to rehearse. Today,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do open rehearsal. Hey, it's tickets online right now,
Speaker 5: I'm starting that too. A hundred tickets gone. Like that,
Speaker 5: I get paid to rehearse. How many people get paid
Speaker 5: to practice? Only if you go to the NBA, not artists.
Speaker 5: Most artists don't even practice let alone.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get it.
Speaker 1: I made it somewhere.
Speaker 4: It's like I can stare at him.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, boy. If I could tell.
Speaker 5: You I be upset I be at shows like this
Speaker 5: that's not rehearse.
Speaker 1: What are we doing?
Speaker 5: Even if it's like not rehearse because my show I
Speaker 5: don't have a rehearse set. I don't have any any
Speaker 5: type of set, but I've practiced so much it don't
Speaker 5: need it.
Speaker 3: You you have, You have pieces that can go anywhere.
Speaker 3: Players are set, the puzzle can go, you can play it.
Speaker 1: If they move here. I could go here. You move here,
Speaker 1: I could go here.
Speaker 2: It's called counters. It's counters and anything else. It's called
Speaker 2: the counter. It's like, oh you stop that move, Oh
Speaker 2: somebody fail. I'm spinning through it. Whatever it is. But
Speaker 2: it's just because it's been rehearsed.
Speaker 5: We made those moments monetizable to where it's like, bro,
Speaker 5: I get paid to rehearse if I want to, because
Speaker 5: I own my own infrastructure. You know how many people
Speaker 5: want to see a little And the dope thing is like,
Speaker 5: the shows are great.
Speaker 6: You know how many people want to see The shows
Speaker 6: are great, But the rehearsal was more intimate because it's
Speaker 6: just us here might be only a few people, and
Speaker 6: it's like what you trying to hear?
Speaker 5: Hey, you hear about my mom coming out. You want
Speaker 5: to hit them, you want to go.
Speaker 1: What you need, you you in it.
Speaker 5: That's a different experience than the show with four hundred
Speaker 5: and five hundred one thousand people. So people some people
Speaker 5: pay mode for a rehearsal because it's like, man, I'm
Speaker 5: getting to chill. I had some people going to rehearsal
Speaker 5: whore like, hey, we got a venue, we got a spot,
Speaker 5: now we connected.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm finna go do y'all on y'all shit. But
Speaker 2: the other thing that that that that for me that
Speaker 2: sticks out too, is that the new world of entertainment,
Speaker 2: him and I came up in this world where everything
Speaker 2: had to be quote unquote perfect, quote unquote curated. You
Speaker 2: did you didn't even see female artists without makeup on?
Speaker 3: Did you ever think about that?
Speaker 1: Crazy?
Speaker 2: Think about when we grew up, Bro, it's just see
Speaker 2: have a face every time because that's how it was
Speaker 2: presented to us, right, which was that's cool, But that's
Speaker 2: not real.
Speaker 4: That's not authentic.
Speaker 2: And the things that you are talking about now are
Speaker 2: real and authentic. People like to see fucking something stripped,
Speaker 2: like yo, nigga, I missed that note. It was funny
Speaker 2: when I when I was watching your tiny desk. It
Speaker 2: was a couple like with young fellow rapping. He kind
Speaker 2: of it was like and he laughed it off because
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is that that's real.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 4: Yes, you're gonna fuck up.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we miss because we hit so many. We shoot
Speaker 1: so many, I can't make them all.
Speaker 4: You can't.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing, like then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: We missed him. Not because we hit so many.
Speaker 5: Man, they were selling perception then, And that's what I learned,
Speaker 5: Like I tell everybody, when I was a kid, I
Speaker 5: didn't think that like you could be successful a star.
Speaker 5: I thought Snoop Dogg was like a character. Like I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I see him, but I never thought it. But I'm saying,
Speaker 5: you know, I never thought in real life, like, no,
Speaker 5: that's a person, that human who grew up like this
Speaker 5: with a family like this, and he became this because
Speaker 5: he did the work. That don't ever hit you because
Speaker 5: you don't actually see that part of it. That's why
Speaker 5: we show it, man, I don't I be in the
Speaker 5: middle of a show and I slipped words and I
Speaker 5: tell the crowd.
Speaker 1: They throw me something, you don't.
Speaker 5: I don't care about the judgment because it's like, you
Speaker 5: can't do what I'm up here doing. It don't matter
Speaker 5: if I'm missing shot. I'm doing something that most of
Speaker 5: the population cannot do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, I want to go to the Why here's
Speaker 3: one of my wives, you're working this job. Where were
Speaker 3: you working when you when you decided to quit?
Speaker 5: I was working at an aerospace plant or what an
Speaker 5: aerospace plant?
Speaker 3: What were you doing at the aerospace.
Speaker 5: So I got there through a temp agency, and I
Speaker 5: started off in production on the floor doing like packaging
Speaker 5: and just like making short product go out. And then
Speaker 5: I like learned everything the systems and the standards, and
Speaker 5: I was able to move up to do like contracts
Speaker 5: and ad man. I was like one of the first
Speaker 5: people on that floor that didn't have a degree because
Speaker 5: somebody believed to me and seemed like my potential was like, man,
Speaker 5: you will thrive up here. And I was thriving up
Speaker 5: there when I was on the floor there, I did
Speaker 5: something that changed the trajectory of the company and didn't
Speaker 5: even realize my own value and worth then because I
Speaker 5: was just working, you know, but that I was at
Speaker 5: the aerospace planning that was my last job.
Speaker 3: Why why do you say you're in this job, you're flourishing.
Speaker 3: You're in a space that you are underqualified for, but
Speaker 3: just based on your work ethic and your thought process,
Speaker 3: you qualify yourself and then you say, this is cool.
Speaker 3: But this ain't it.
Speaker 5: I was unfulfilled. I was unfulfilled. I was so good
Speaker 5: at what I did. I used to spend my time
Speaker 5: there working on everything at home, building my PR list,
Speaker 5: getting email, gathering everything I needed, going through venues, getting bookerdy.
Speaker 5: So because I was doing my work there, I'd be
Speaker 5: working on all of my stuff, and it got to
Speaker 5: a point to where it was like, I don't even
Speaker 5: want to do this on you all time. I need
Speaker 5: to be home so I can get everything done I
Speaker 5: need to get I'm giving y'all eight hours, ten hours,
Speaker 5: twelve hours of my day, and I'm losing twelve hours
Speaker 5: for myself. I'd rather not get paid for these twelve
Speaker 5: and be able to put it all in here and
Speaker 5: eventually get paid on the back end from my own work.
Speaker 3: That was my next question. Yeah, because you take that
Speaker 3: financial dip, right, losing those twelve hours to bet on
Speaker 3: that back end.
Speaker 4: At this point, are you still at your parents' crib?
Speaker 1: YEP?
Speaker 4: You still stand at the crib too.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 5: That's what made it even easier because it's like, man,
Speaker 5: I got my parents and I got to support, but
Speaker 5: it was like I still had to go hustle and
Speaker 5: get my paper to bill.
Speaker 1: You feel me like we working people every day people.
Speaker 5: So it's like when I quit, we had like a
Speaker 5: tax return check and I kind of like ran through
Speaker 5: that doing building and one of the HR agents from
Speaker 5: my last job hit me was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 5: you got like some four one K left.
Speaker 1: You might need it on your journey.
Speaker 5: It was like the UNI dropping it in me and
Speaker 5: I ended up getting a check and it was like, man,
Speaker 5: that took me even further, and I started being able
Speaker 5: to do more shows.
Speaker 1: I start.
Speaker 5: I used to film and do production for different companies,
Speaker 5: and eventually I got to the point where I was like,
Speaker 5: I can't even do that no more because I'm unfulfilled.
Speaker 5: I don't want to get paid to do anything I
Speaker 5: don't love to do. And you know, and as I
Speaker 5: start grinding more shows coming, I get a little more
Speaker 5: and as you go low, like there was a point
Speaker 5: I went and applied for another job and I got
Speaker 5: the interview and I ended up getting a job, and
Speaker 5: I just didn't take it. But I was like hurting.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I gotta go back to work. And then
Speaker 5: COVID hit, and you know, COVID had some money coming in,
Speaker 5: so it was like, Okay, we're gonna build through this
Speaker 5: or through that process. I kept building. I built my
Speaker 5: whole company. During COVID, we started doing live sessions. I
Speaker 5: had a little shop. My homie was written. I had
Speaker 5: everybody in there doing live sessions. Like you probably seen
Speaker 5: one go viral back then and didn't know it was us.
Speaker 5: I was behind a lot of artists going viral from
Speaker 5: the region just through our live sessions. We end up
Speaker 5: losing that shop. I came back to the crib and
Speaker 5: my mom was like, man, y'allould just use the garage.
Speaker 5: We turned my whole garage around and start shooting more
Speaker 5: lives sessions. I have more people go viral, and it
Speaker 5: just start growing. And then twenty twenty one, I end
Speaker 5: up having a viral moment and it just since then,
Speaker 5: it's been up.
Speaker 1: We ain't stopped.
Speaker 4: How long have y'all been in that house?
Speaker 1: Since I was like four or five, so since like
Speaker 1: ninety eight, ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, Wow, are you are you are you consciously
Speaker 3: when you quit your job and you need more time
Speaker 3: for what you're building at this point, are you consciously
Speaker 3: thinking independence or are you thinking let me build this
Speaker 3: up to see who notices and we'll figure out some
Speaker 3: type of strategic partner along the way. Are you are
Speaker 3: you at this point thinking nah, this.
Speaker 5: Is I wasn't thinking that far into it. I was
Speaker 5: just waking up every day and doing the work, and
Speaker 5: I knew eventually something would come of it. But I
Speaker 5: was never thinking like, man, maybe i'll get sign, may
Speaker 5: I'll go indy. I end up being indy off just necessity,
Speaker 5: Like I didn't have no one who was trying to
Speaker 5: sign me, and I need an infrastructure, so I start
Speaker 5: building it all. And as you start building these platforms
Speaker 5: and catching attention, then people start coming to you and
Speaker 5: you like, you know, one of my first offers was
Speaker 5: for like ten thousand dollars, and at that point I
Speaker 5: was already going viral moving, so it's like I got
Speaker 5: ten thousand dollars, that's not gonna really help me, but
Speaker 5: it may have helped me if someone would explain to me, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's not really about the money. If we can give
Speaker 5: you this marketing and this digital we might be able
Speaker 5: to help you make fit. But nobody gave me that,
Speaker 5: you know, so number. I just heard the number and
Speaker 5: it was like, that's not what I'm worth, you know.
Speaker 5: And you don't realize until you get older that like,
Speaker 5: there's no amount of money that you're worth.
Speaker 4: You're worth, you.
Speaker 1: Know when you a certain caliber and shaker.
Speaker 5: It ain't no amount of money that you're actually worth
Speaker 5: because you're gonna always exceed that number.
Speaker 2: You're doing things that may lead to something else, and
Speaker 2: that's that's I think that's the thing, like you said,
Speaker 2: and it's information because nobody gave you that information at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 4: To say, hey, this could lead to this. Like you said,
Speaker 4: I may need more marketing, I may need promotion.
Speaker 2: In this space, and this ten thousand dollars is really
Speaker 2: just to kind of put on top of the deal.
Speaker 2: So I have a couple of dollars in my pocket
Speaker 2: more so than somebody coming to you and say, mm hmm,
Speaker 2: all you worth is ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: No, that's not what they're saying. They're saying, I'm.
Speaker 2: Willing to put up some bread to sweeten the pot,
Speaker 2: to just show you I'm interested and bring you into
Speaker 2: everything else.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to get all that in this game, you know,
Speaker 5: in every still later, until later or until you enoun
Speaker 5: it right into.
Speaker 1: I got on the job training I had to learn.
Speaker 5: I had to learn how to market, how to run ads,
Speaker 5: how to see what deceiving platforms was, how to start
Speaker 5: your own platform and distributed, how to honestize your content,
Speaker 5: where to go collect your royalties, what's a pub deal,
Speaker 5: what's a pub admin that?
Speaker 1: These are all things I had to learn on the job.
Speaker 4: So were you were you?
Speaker 2: Was there certain literature, certain books you were reading? I mean, like,
Speaker 2: how were you gathering this information? Just so for the
Speaker 2: for the for the new artists that's looking at this
Speaker 2: interview now and it's like, I want to try to
Speaker 2: find these things. I mean obviously you can always google
Speaker 2: everything for sure, but for you personally, like you said,
Speaker 2: it was on the job training where there are places
Speaker 2: that you went specifically you get this information.
Speaker 5: My inception into it. I had got two books, A
Speaker 5: New Music Business by Ari Hurstan and uh I think
Speaker 5: it was like Music Business one on one Everything you
Speaker 5: Need to Know by Donald S.
Speaker 1: Passman. Those two books taught me so much about.
Speaker 5: Torn legal deals, publishing at everything. They put everything in
Speaker 5: those books that you can you need to know to start,
Speaker 5: and then everything else you get. You have to go
Speaker 5: do some work so you understand it, you know, because
Speaker 5: you can only read about so much before you got
Speaker 5: to go actually shoot a shot. You read all day
Speaker 5: about this, but you go shoot them and then you
Speaker 5: start learning more and more.
Speaker 1: But those two books really like set my path.
Speaker 5: And when I met Tea, when she was like, man,
Speaker 5: I want to help you build, the first.
Speaker 1: Thing I did was gave it those two books.
Speaker 5: I said, if you're serious, you will read both of
Speaker 5: these and highlight anything that you don't understand that's real.
Speaker 2: Do you still go back to those books for context?
Speaker 2: Like are just like, you know, just to make sure, like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know what, let me go back and just see
Speaker 2: it sell on you.
Speaker 5: Because I've superseded information that was relevant at that time.
Speaker 5: We're in a whole new industry and I operated in
Speaker 5: a new industry that I've really helped cultivate as well.
Speaker 5: So it's seldom I go back because it's a completely
Speaker 5: different space now. But just recently I went back because
Speaker 5: I was on you know, I throw my own shows
Speaker 5: all of my shows. I throw myself and you know,
Speaker 5: we do deals, but I do my ship. And I
Speaker 5: was just I be in a space sometimes when you
Speaker 5: meeting with the live nations and the ag so much, you.
Speaker 1: Start to forget, like the basis.
Speaker 5: When you meeting with the industry in general, you start
Speaker 5: to think about they rules and forget the basis. And
Speaker 5: the other day I have went back to Indy on
Speaker 5: the Move. Any any artists out there, if you booking
Speaker 5: and you want your own shows, Indie on themove dot com.
Speaker 5: It's a database of every venue and all their bookers
Speaker 5: and all their contacts, everything you need to know. And
Speaker 5: I just went back for the cities. That was like, okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go hit these cities. And it just reminded
Speaker 5: me of the repertoire that's available for me to use
Speaker 5: as an independent artist.
Speaker 1: You never need the industry.
Speaker 4: No, you can do it on your own.
Speaker 1: Everything there.
Speaker 2: But now, okay, because I don't. I don't want to
Speaker 2: gloss over it. I don't want to make it seem
Speaker 2: like it was always sweet, right, like let's let's let's
Speaker 2: talk about these first shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like we could.
Speaker 2: Some people would think, well, l Russell said, he could
Speaker 2: just get a hundred people to show up to his
Speaker 2: rehearsal well, most of y'all can't get out of people
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 3: Nowhere, right, hundred people don't sound like a lot of people.
Speaker 4: It's a And then you.
Speaker 2: Realize, like, okay, three showed up, how do I get
Speaker 2: the other ninety seven?
Speaker 4: Because I didn't promise somebody? But man, your your your
Speaker 4: first kickoffs? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Was it just you and the homies? Was it just
Speaker 4: your friends showing up?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: How did that go for you?
Speaker 1: Crazy? And did you take l crazy thing? My very
Speaker 1: first show?
Speaker 5: I had released my first album in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 5: then started moving around the city and it just gave
Speaker 5: me this crazy confidence. I was like, I could do
Speaker 5: a show, and it was my first time getting the
Speaker 5: venue and everything. So I went to a local theater
Speaker 5: and I rented out the venue. It was a three
Speaker 5: hundred cap and I just felt so confident. How much
Speaker 5: as the venue three thousand dollars in my pops, me
Speaker 5: and my pops pieced up on it. We haven't had
Speaker 5: So let's let's talk about the numbers in that. For
Speaker 5: you to make that that on, three tickets have to
Speaker 5: at least do ten dollars ahead just to cover that day.
Speaker 1: Just to cover right.
Speaker 4: Okay, so we're there, right.
Speaker 1: So we end up doing that show.
Speaker 5: Probably about eighty people came, and I was real we
Speaker 5: was guerrilla marketing and we out handed tickets, were putting
Speaker 5: posters up, and it just showed me that was my
Speaker 5: first time ever performing too.
Speaker 1: I remember coming off the stage and people was like, man,
Speaker 1: how many how long you been the shows? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is my first show. It was just me.
Speaker 5: I never really did like a bunch of support acts
Speaker 5: of anything beyond my homies. We're all like share the stage,
Speaker 5: but it was always me and we killed the show,
Speaker 5: and I like, I didn't even leave on like a
Speaker 5: man out and sell it out. It was a hard
Speaker 5: for me. It was like, man, I want to do
Speaker 5: this again. I know I could get bigger. I didn't really.
Speaker 5: You start experiencing that low when you start trying to
Speaker 5: go to the other cities, like when I decided to
Speaker 5: go to Sack and it's like, man, it's only nine
Speaker 5: people here. And then I go to Frisco and it's
Speaker 5: like it's more of us than people in the crowd.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: I remember that Friscal show the five people at the show.
Speaker 5: I had rented a sprinter van and everything to get
Speaker 5: the team there and all that, and I remember the owner,
Speaker 5: not the owner, but the booker for Brooklyn Mortar. He
Speaker 5: was like, man, we'll strike a deal together. I remember
Speaker 5: going to him after the show. I'm like, Man, how
Speaker 5: much I owe you? He said, Bro, don't even worry about.
Speaker 1: It's like, Bro, you can't know me if you want
Speaker 1: it told me, you know. But he still believed in
Speaker 1: me after that.
Speaker 5: But I remember being backstage and I was hurt, and
Speaker 5: the team was back there and they was like, man,
Speaker 5: you just just go out and give it all right,
Speaker 5: don't worry about it. And I gave the best show
Speaker 5: ever that night. And recently I just went back to
Speaker 5: that venue. We sell that venue out in like nothing now.
Speaker 5: And one of the ladies I was at that show
Speaker 5: was like, I was one of the five.
Speaker 1: Crazy shows, right man.
Speaker 5: And those shows are so beautiful because it's like it
Speaker 5: humbles you and just reminds you of like you have
Speaker 5: to earn support, you know. I got to a point
Speaker 5: where I thought I could just announce something and post
Speaker 5: a flyer and it's gonna be sold out.
Speaker 1: No, do what you did? For your first show when
Speaker 1: it meant something to.
Speaker 5: You still go out there and move them tickets and
Speaker 5: run the mads and tell people about it. I'll be
Speaker 5: telling the homies like, if you not excited about the show,
Speaker 5: I'm not excited about the show. You can't just go
Speaker 5: to the point and post a fly and it's just cool.
Speaker 5: Like have that enthusiasm about your own work. And I
Speaker 5: learned it taught me like, no, you got to get
Speaker 5: out there and market if you want people support.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: One just has to show up for you at any
Speaker 1: level in your career.
Speaker 4: That's real. How long were your sets?
Speaker 2: I go like you, I'm talking about when you first started, though,
Speaker 2: then if it's five people in the crowded you're like,
Speaker 2: all right, man, we're gonna cut thista.
Speaker 5: I think then then I still win an hour. My
Speaker 5: first show was an hour plus. Yeah, that's my that's.
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I'm doing I'm doing that.
Speaker 3: You got you doing everything since we're here.
Speaker 5: I made sure nobody nobody ever leave feeling like, man,
Speaker 5: I was a waste of my time and money.
Speaker 1: Ever, You're never gonna you're gonna leave my show feeling
Speaker 1: like you didn't pay me enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm definitely where two or three are gathered. Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take my shirt off'm my hips. I don't
Speaker 3: know how many we're gonna come on. We did the
Speaker 3: New Addition tour. Yeah, it was like they was like,
Speaker 3: we want you to open. I said, open open the door.
Speaker 3: I ain't open in over a decade. I said, you
Speaker 3: know what, let's get come on And I fucked them
Speaker 3: seats up for the love of the game. When I said,
Speaker 3: I fucked them ushers and enjoyed us. Now he was
Speaker 3: cool because by the time he came out during my show,
Speaker 3: I don't already worked to get at least four thousand
Speaker 3: people in there. Now he walk out and.
Speaker 5: This motherfucker and that that's the beauty of the moments
Speaker 5: that it just teach you. It's like paper, like if
Speaker 5: somebody give you ten dollars and you do what you
Speaker 5: need to do with that teen, you could turn it
Speaker 5: to twenty. You do what you need to do with
Speaker 5: that twenty. It turned the foldy. So it's like it's
Speaker 5: start with five, but that's.
Speaker 1: Never the endpoint.
Speaker 5: As long as you do what you need to do,
Speaker 5: that five always gonna come back.
Speaker 2: Reciprocity and it's and it's a testament to how much
Speaker 2: you really love this because what I'm finding. What I'm
Speaker 2: finding is there are a lot of quote unquote artists
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 5: If it's only by people in the crowd, there's some
Speaker 5: niggas who won't perform.
Speaker 1: They blame the crowd. That's wild. That's wild.
Speaker 4: That's wild too.
Speaker 2: Are they blaming promoter or they blame everything so they
Speaker 2: don't have to go and do something that they they
Speaker 2: consider a job. You left the job to go after
Speaker 2: what you loved, and if you really love this, you
Speaker 2: will have success in it at whatever level. Everybody's level
Speaker 2: success is different. But the true love for something positive
Speaker 2: always comes out of love.
Speaker 4: It's just what it is.
Speaker 2: And like I was saying, I think that as I've
Speaker 2: been in this music industry a really long time, I
Speaker 2: don't see as many artists that love it. And it's
Speaker 2: so interesting because I've had those backstage conversations and I'm
Speaker 2: looking at the artists who I consider to be successful
Speaker 2: in that space talk about it as if this is
Speaker 2: not something they get.
Speaker 4: To do for a living that is a blessing.
Speaker 5: Like it's because the labels convince people and the people
Speaker 5: convince people like music is in a product phase, Like
Speaker 5: how many niggas you know, soul crack, that love crack.
Speaker 5: It's just product that they push. You feel me, And
Speaker 5: that's what music has become. It's like, this is how
Speaker 5: I make my living. It's the product I pushed. So
Speaker 5: it's like deteriorated because we've allowed people to make money
Speaker 5: in it without being passionate about it, or without having
Speaker 5: that love, or without even having to do.
Speaker 1: All the steps it usually takes.
Speaker 5: Like you can't get to the NBA if you suck,
Speaker 5: but you can make it in music if you do.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, this is true, damn right, this is true.
Speaker 3: You don't you do not have to be qualified at
Speaker 3: all to make money in music.
Speaker 1: At all at all.
Speaker 2: On both sides too, on both sides. On both sides, Hey,
Speaker 2: you know what's hell?
Speaker 3: Look crazy?
Speaker 1: You don't really understand.
Speaker 5: Like when you coming up, you think everyone who's successful
Speaker 5: or in a certain position is because they're of a
Speaker 5: certain tier or quality. And when you meet people and
Speaker 5: you go on these labels and have these meetings, it'd
Speaker 5: be like no way, But it starts to make sense.
Speaker 5: This is why the culture is in the state. It's
Speaker 5: in you driving. It's some niggas that I'll see pull up.
Speaker 5: I ain't getting in that car.
Speaker 1: You'll sign. It's like, Bro, that's him, you got him.
Speaker 4: Once you sign, you gotta ride with him. You gotta
Speaker 4: ride with him once you sign. And then now you're
Speaker 4: in the car.
Speaker 2: With a nigga who can't drive, with a nigga who
Speaker 2: can't drive. Talk. This is bro, This is why you
Speaker 2: were so important to us and why we wanted you
Speaker 2: on this show. Bro, this is why I hit you
Speaker 2: and I'm like, hey, and we were talking about some
Speaker 2: other shit too, but I'm like, Nigga, you have to
Speaker 2: come to the podcast, like, because what you're doing is
Speaker 2: so important and it's honestly, Bro, it's revolutionizing the industry
Speaker 2: because the other part is that which I love, Bro,
Speaker 2: is that you can articulate it.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It goes back to the beginning of this, Like, Nigga,
Speaker 3: I heard you speak for right, right, I heard you
Speaker 3: speak first, and that was the goal for me.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm right.
Speaker 3: The artistry was like, but that was the explosions and ship,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, But the foundation of it
Speaker 3: was was it was here. That's what I.
Speaker 2: Get because most creatives can't tell you why they're created right,
Speaker 2: or how they created it. They're just like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I just did the ship and then it dropped music.
Speaker 2: It's like, but you know there were steps, right.
Speaker 5: Can't replicate it, they can't redo it over and over
Speaker 5: and over because they don't.
Speaker 1: Know what happened.
Speaker 5: They know what for real, you haven't seen a nigga
Speaker 5: lift up the hood and scratch his head, like, give
Speaker 5: me my keys back, nigga, give me my goddamn keys back.
Speaker 5: I already know what youll script back, put my ship
Speaker 5: back on.
Speaker 3: How long it's been making that stuff?
Speaker 1: So you so you dip this all right?
Speaker 5: Right, that's the game right now, that's the game, bro.
Speaker 1: They have marketing meetings.
Speaker 5: We get pitched marketing stuff sometimes like we just laugh.
Speaker 5: But they have marketing meetings on how to like replicate
Speaker 5: what we do and they don't understand we do what
Speaker 5: we do because we are who we are. You can't
Speaker 5: replicate authenticity like it can't. You can't just do it
Speaker 5: and it happens for you.
Speaker 4: I'm going to give you an example.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We had a viral moment some years back with with
Speaker 2: a record for Tank called when We What they didn't
Speaker 2: understand is that he had already tapped into this space
Speaker 2: where he was already connected to the dance community. I mean, first,
Speaker 2: he's married to a professional dancer, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: His wife is toured the world and done the whole thing.
Speaker 2: So he already had it insight to this whole dance
Speaker 2: community and what they were doing and how they would
Speaker 2: take songs and they would teach classes to these songs
Speaker 2: and all this like and to the point where he
Speaker 2: was showing up.
Speaker 4: To their classes.
Speaker 2: Genius, right, And then it was reciprocated by these young
Speaker 2: ladies who grabbed the record and killed it right, took
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 4: So we took it a step further.
Speaker 2: We said, oh, the next when he's seen doing this,
Speaker 2: those girls will be with him.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So we found them, put them on the show, put
Speaker 2: them on the Soul Train Awards with him. It went up,
Speaker 2: all these crazy things right then, from the business and
Speaker 2: the measurement side, I start in phone calls from labels.
Speaker 4: Hey we got this song.
Speaker 2: You think those girls And I'm thinking to myself, do
Speaker 2: you know that you can't just manufacture that?
Speaker 4: This is?
Speaker 2: This has all been put in place by multiple things
Speaker 2: that had to align.
Speaker 1: But you can manufacture, but in their most don't field
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 2: And now, but it also feels manufactured, so it just
Speaker 2: it don't stick.
Speaker 5: But you know what's crazy, the masses don't really care
Speaker 5: if it's manufactured or not. And that's what I found
Speaker 5: out they aim for. They don't aim for the people
Speaker 5: who know it's fake. They aim for the people who
Speaker 5: don't care that it's fake.
Speaker 2: Hmm okay, well in your opinion is that as sustainable
Speaker 2: though to market people who don't care.
Speaker 3: I think from a big business standpoint, they don't.
Speaker 1: Mind about sustain it hits and.
Speaker 3: Moving on to the next hit because they're gonna bet
Speaker 3: on so many of them.
Speaker 5: That thing is like if I can make ten million
Speaker 5: right now, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1: Wait for this thing to make me fifty.
Speaker 5: I'll take this ten and make another twenty and then
Speaker 5: I'll take this twenty.
Speaker 1: So for them, it's like.
Speaker 4: It's a numbers game. Yeah, it's a numbers game, and
Speaker 4: they got the capital.
Speaker 2: But they're but they're doing but they're doing that with
Speaker 2: people's livelihood. Yes, And that's where now it gets tricky,
Speaker 2: right because, like you said, what about the artists that
Speaker 2: you dumped this, this, this, this, this budget into that
Speaker 2: didn't even want to do that dumb ass shit that
Speaker 2: now has to come back and pay that back if
Speaker 2: it don't work, and it may not even really be them,
Speaker 2: or it may not even really be what their brand is, right,
Speaker 2: Like Larissa is a brand. There are certain things that
Speaker 2: you have solidified that represents you.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's it's a reason why you're your
Speaker 2: label's called good company. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 2: you really put your pennies in this there are right, Like,
Speaker 2: but the average the average executive won't even look.
Speaker 1: At that because they don't have the same investment.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know what I mean, They don't have the
Speaker 3: same life on the line, like they check come every.
Speaker 1: Two weeks regardly exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, they gotta they have a you know, they
Speaker 3: got their their stock options and there and there and
Speaker 3: their severance paying all of these things. Like you know,
Speaker 3: you you get fired from these types of positions, you
Speaker 3: land softly, whereas in with us, with our lives on
Speaker 3: the line, ain't no soft And so I think, you know,
Speaker 3: artists need to or all creatives, regardless of how you're
Speaker 3: going about it, whether it be whether it be building
Speaker 3: or independence, you're going to need to be al rustle hm,
Speaker 3: whether you're in that building or you're doing it on
Speaker 3: your on your own. You have to understand how this
Speaker 3: shit works and you have to have a mind of
Speaker 3: filling in the gaps where needed, feeling in the spaces
Speaker 3: and understanding where the fuck they are.
Speaker 5: And you have to, like, even if you go major
Speaker 5: like for the system to really work for you, you
Speaker 5: have to have your own system in place. That's why
Speaker 5: we see so many because it's like they don't even
Speaker 5: have a system that allows them to keep having moments
Speaker 5: and keep making things happen. And labels want those kind
Speaker 5: of artists, Like when they take the TikTok hit niggas,
Speaker 5: it's like we'll get this quick bag, but they really
Speaker 5: want the niggas who can't do it.
Speaker 1: But the niggas who can do it is like, I
Speaker 1: ain't doing that deal you feel me?
Speaker 7: So it's like it's it's a void at the boy.
Speaker 3: You didn't seek out chasing independence or ideal or anything.
Speaker 3: You were just you were just doing what you do right,
Speaker 3: And tell me when you realized that me as d
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent the way that I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: with this. What is the moment that that defines that
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 5: When I had got like the rock Nation offer and
Speaker 5: kind of that situation, it was really kind of disheartening
Speaker 5: to me, like how I perceived it all to where
Speaker 5: I was like, man, if hole handling me in this capacity,
Speaker 5: then I ain't even I ain't gonna fuck you feel me.
Speaker 1: It was like, ou don't.
Speaker 5: I'll just kind of right, it don't even really make
Speaker 5: sense because I felt like, this is a situation where
Speaker 5: it's a nigga, who's us one of us coming in,
Speaker 5: So I'm like, this is gonna be handled, you know,
Speaker 5: with a certain level of care, especially being me who
Speaker 5: I was, So when it wasn't and I felt opposite,
Speaker 5: it was really like, man, we just gonna rock. And
Speaker 5: it's been that since, and you know, we have our
Speaker 5: meetings and we do you know, distro deals and shit
Speaker 5: like that. But for the most part, if it don't
Speaker 5: make sense, I really I can do everything, like we
Speaker 5: really figured it out, and it's like, you know, even
Speaker 5: having a radio team, like getting to the point where
Speaker 5: you can pay for radio promotions and shit, but at
Speaker 5: the point where it's like I've embraced everything as a
Speaker 5: I don't need it.
Speaker 1: If I get it, I'm grateful for it. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep on going.
Speaker 4: It doesn't stop.
Speaker 5: You ain't never got to play me on the radio.
Speaker 5: Everybody still know me. It's some artists who on the
Speaker 5: radio every day. And if we walk down the same street,
Speaker 5: you gonna say La Russell and.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be like who with you?
Speaker 5: And they on the radio every day, you know, Like
Speaker 5: I really we just was like, man, we're gonna take
Speaker 5: this in stride and we're gonna really build something that
Speaker 5: people can't ignore.
Speaker 4: No, you really are for the people. Mm hmm, seriously, bro,
Speaker 4: like you have. You have created a space and a
Speaker 4: brand that people connect.
Speaker 5: To at a human level, at human level, at a
Speaker 5: human level. It ain't even about having their favorite song.
Speaker 1: It's just on some human shit.
Speaker 4: Tens, twenties, fifties, is my your hear that's my shit?
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, that's my favorite you know what
Speaker 4: I mean? But I get it.
Speaker 2: I completely I completely understand even more now right that
Speaker 2: you're sitting with us and just listening to you. It
Speaker 2: just it all makes sense, bro, It all makes sense
Speaker 2: and and I think my the reason I want you
Speaker 2: to come here too, though, because I'm in tank.
Speaker 4: Will tell you this.
Speaker 2: I'm a person that I recomment, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: And I see sometimes when people don't get it, like
Speaker 2: I'll read your comments, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I'm like, Damn, they don't get it.
Speaker 1: They can't see it.
Speaker 2: They can't see it, like they're confused on what he's saying,
Speaker 2: or they trying to like put some type of ego,
Speaker 2: Oh he should have just well, one, you've never been
Speaker 2: in this situation, so you can't just say what the
Speaker 2: next person should have done.
Speaker 4: And you don't know, and in these clips, you can't
Speaker 4: fully grasp.
Speaker 2: The magnitude, the magnitude of that of the person that
Speaker 2: maybe you looked up to that damn you thought it
Speaker 2: was gonna be different, and you just you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well you know what this is gonna put me in
Speaker 2: an overdrive in a whole nother place, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: focus my attention here, which for me, I look at
Speaker 2: it and I'm like, oh, that's that was God telling
Speaker 2: him you on the right path with what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Nothing against whoever offered you anything, Yep, but no, no, no, No,
Speaker 2: your path is this?
Speaker 3: That was? That was confirmation? Yes, yep, that was. And
Speaker 3: let me show you, Let me show you what this
Speaker 3: is so you can you can say no on your own.
Speaker 3: I already needed you to say no. But I'm gonna
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw something at you that's gonna make it
Speaker 3: make it impossible for you to roll.
Speaker 5: And it took me so much to grow and understand that, Like,
Speaker 5: it was never a personal attack from anyone who's ever
Speaker 5: offered me anything. They just wanted to assist in a
Speaker 5: way that they could assist. It just wasn't a way
Speaker 5: that worked for me. And get into that point and
Speaker 5: you start to understand, like, I'm so happy none of
Speaker 5: it worked out because I ended up here. If I
Speaker 5: would have gotten that venue with ease, I wouldn't have
Speaker 5: built the backyard. If I would have got one of
Speaker 5: them deals early, I wouldn't have did all this and
Speaker 5: allow people to buy shares in my songs and allow
Speaker 5: people to buy gold cards, and allow people to get
Speaker 5: paid royalties off of records for the first time ever.
Speaker 5: This is the first time ever a fan could get
Speaker 5: paid off of a song they play in their car
Speaker 5: every day. That wouldn't have happened if I would have
Speaker 5: signed and I didn't have stake and ownership of how
Speaker 5: my music is being released and could allocate that.
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful for it. All I realized it was
Speaker 1: like it was no knock. It was no knock.
Speaker 5: Everybody just did the best that they could, and the
Speaker 5: best that somebody could do may not be what's best
Speaker 5: for you.
Speaker 4: Can we speak on the on the gold penny, I
Speaker 4: mean on a good penny goal car?
Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, So let's let's speak on the perks
Speaker 2: of that, because that's what the cards were built on.
Speaker 2: The perks, right, It's a reason why you're using It's
Speaker 2: a reason why you use certain cards more than others.
Speaker 4: You're like, oh, it's gonna help me get flights. Who
Speaker 4: shall know.
Speaker 3: Who shout not to Delta? Okay, now have shake Shack
Speaker 3: in first class starting to sympathy. Yeah, those are the
Speaker 3: perks cards. As a three sixty member.
Speaker 4: I just come on, I'm more with the John and Vinnis,
Speaker 4: but I respect the Shakeshack.
Speaker 3: You gotta respect the teas fright.
Speaker 1: You gotta respect the teas fright on the plane on the.
Speaker 4: So let's let's talk about the gold card that you
Speaker 4: got you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So I started the first ever artist membership with the
Speaker 5: Gold Card, and I really I just wanted to get
Speaker 5: people an opportunity to buy into me perpetually. The people
Speaker 5: who seen the value on what I was building and
Speaker 5: was going to be around. It was like, I do
Speaker 5: so many shows a year. If you really love me,
Speaker 5: you gonna want to see me. But I didn't want
Speaker 5: you to have to pay every single time. So it's
Speaker 5: like I'm gonna set this membership and I let people
Speaker 5: invest in early. Some people got a gold card for
Speaker 5: like one hundred dollars and they be into twenty thirty shows.
Speaker 5: They hundred thousands with me. And the Gold card is perpetual.
Speaker 5: So when I'm doing an arena one day, if you
Speaker 5: got one of them, you just pull up, Hey, I
Speaker 5: got let me in whatever seat you want. The backyard
Speaker 5: shows they be sold out. Now that you got a
Speaker 5: gold card, you still in there, still get in, man,
Speaker 5: they get first did and free tickets, And that's like
Speaker 5: perk could being a Gold card members like, you have
Speaker 5: access to me like shows that would be hundreds of dollars,
Speaker 5: so whatever, you have this access, But beyond that access,
Speaker 5: some of the gold Card members, they got my direct line,
Speaker 5: like they hit I'll go play pickleball with their families
Speaker 5: and go hang out when I'm in certain cities. Like
Speaker 5: it's just it's real community that's built. On top of that,
Speaker 5: I add them to a royalty list. So sometimes I'll
Speaker 5: be releasing music and I got extra and I just
Speaker 5: be like here, let me allocate. I'm here here, So
Speaker 5: you'll get a random split in something that's just like
Speaker 5: just something for being invested in l Russell.
Speaker 4: Amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Brond yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So what Okay, So to
Speaker 2: be a member, to get a gold Card, what do
Speaker 2: you charge for?
Speaker 1: It's off for base? Oh what's it worth to you?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: So people bottom So people make offers.
Speaker 3: You you get decided if you want to accept the offer.
Speaker 5: And it's been scaling. So, like I said, my very
Speaker 5: first gold card, some people is getting up for one
Speaker 5: hundred dollars and it's like they've been at twenty shows.
Speaker 4: Is that one hundred dollars flat feet that they.
Speaker 1: Want trying flat? So the gold card is one time.
Speaker 5: So as I scaled, that price goes up of course,
Speaker 5: because it's like you know, I can't do them for
Speaker 5: one hundred dollars. No more, it's more invested, but I
Speaker 5: still I select the rains you feel me. People put
Speaker 5: an offer for what it's worth. What is a lifetime
Speaker 5: it shows worth?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So every day we get.
Speaker 5: Offers and I go through and it's like I don't
Speaker 5: feel like that's accommodating for what I'm building anymore, or
Speaker 5: it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I fuck with that, lest you do it.
Speaker 4: How high an offer has been.
Speaker 1: I've gotten five thousand dollars for a gold card.
Speaker 4: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Bro, that's amazing, Bro, jaremy jarmy. Yeah, and I've been
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 5: Currently we got like one hundred and forty members that's
Speaker 5: on the gold car side, so mm hmm, yeah that
Speaker 5: is so, you know what's really dope to Ebro was
Speaker 5: one one of my first gold car members seen what
Speaker 5: I was doing when I first announced it. He was
Speaker 5: one of the first office Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah people thinking from the east coast. He really from
Speaker 4: northern Calgia.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, support it early in cop that. So
Speaker 5: we did the gold cars and then I do royalties.
Speaker 5: I allow people to buy a percentage of royalties from
Speaker 5: songs because I was just like, you know, I like,
Speaker 5: I like love crocs and I bought so many. I
Speaker 5: was like, man, it'd be crazy to be able to
Speaker 5: get paid every time I buy a pair, you know,
Speaker 5: and you could buy stocking cross, but that's not the same.
Speaker 5: It's like supporting this thing and you get paid residuals
Speaker 5: from it. So I was like, imagine if you could
Speaker 5: be able to invest in the song you love, like
Speaker 5: you play this song every day on your way to work,
Speaker 5: but you don't never get to make no paper from it.
Speaker 5: I opened the door to where now you can. It's
Speaker 5: some people who bought stock in ten twenties and baggage,
Speaker 5: Like I just can't. You said ten twenties, My shit,
Speaker 5: it's somebody getting paid every time you play your shit.
Speaker 1: That's not a russell, just because they believed in it.
Speaker 1: And they thought that too.
Speaker 3: Why where are you sitting, nigga? What do you smoke?
Speaker 3: What's going on? When you say? Well?
Speaker 2: He said first he had the crocks, I'm gonna just
Speaker 2: get niggas, Get niggas FM rot.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 5: I my first I did a project called Cook Together,
Speaker 5: Eat Together, and I was like, man, it would be
Speaker 5: really dope to give people splits who just supported me
Speaker 5: through this journey.
Speaker 1: I didn't charge it nothing.
Speaker 5: I just gave them away to a whole bunch of
Speaker 5: people who used a comment, who came to early shows,
Speaker 5: who just was like, man, we fuck with you.
Speaker 1: I just show up.
Speaker 5: I gave hell of different people splits and that because
Speaker 5: I was already giving my team splits. And it was like, man,
Speaker 5: you get this percent for this, and I always have
Speaker 5: a remainder and I'm like, I don't need all this.
Speaker 5: Let me, you know, share some wealth. And then it
Speaker 5: got to the point where that was so dope, and
Speaker 5: people was like, wow, this is new and innovative. It
Speaker 5: was like, bro, these are sellable assets. Every song got make.
Speaker 5: I got one hundred percent, and I could sell every
Speaker 5: percent one by one stuck. I got thirty five albums.
Speaker 5: Every time I make a new song, you can go
Speaker 5: put an offer in and say I love that song
Speaker 5: so much, I want this percent of it.
Speaker 1: Can I get it for this? And I counter and say, here,
Speaker 1: you can have it for this. And now you're getting
Speaker 1: paid perpetually off your favorite song that ain't never existed.
Speaker 4: You really are fortunate five hundred companies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so crazy, man, because it's just something completely different.
Speaker 4: But you remind me of.
Speaker 3: A og we had.
Speaker 2: It was one of my father's really close friends and
Speaker 2: was super business minded. But you couldn't see it on him, right.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you do that purposely, where
Speaker 2: you just like, yo, I'm just vibing, I'm chilling. Someone
Speaker 2: doesn't just see you and go, oh he got thirty
Speaker 2: five albums.
Speaker 4: Oh, you don't wear it on you? Right? And crazy enough.
Speaker 2: This guy was one of the biggest hustlers ever in
Speaker 2: San Francisco who most niggas in San Francisco don't even
Speaker 2: know him to this day. His name was Robert d
Speaker 2: He was one of my daddy's best friends. Crazy and
Speaker 2: I didn't really know how Richie was until he got
Speaker 2: married and he brought out the Lamborghini as a gift
Speaker 2: to his wife.
Speaker 4: And this was in the eighties. What he was having
Speaker 4: long paper, but it was very.
Speaker 2: I'm the everyday man, but you know his was he
Speaker 2: you know, he was getting his money in a different
Speaker 2: way at that at that point, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: It stat your limitations is, you know, a long time ago.
Speaker 2: But it's so funny, bro talking to you and even
Speaker 2: just you dog, you remind me of him, so much.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, damn, bro, this name is Roberty.
Speaker 3: Because I know you can get I know you can.
Speaker 2: You know you can't, but you choose not to because
Speaker 2: you have chosen to continue to scare your business, to
Speaker 2: build up all the things that you're doing.
Speaker 4: Man. And it's like, but you hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 1: I ain't hiding at all. I don't watch it.
Speaker 3: When I'm watching him and I'm like, nigga, He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm putting on the VIP wristbands. I was like, what hey,
Speaker 3: I'm at the dough. I'm at the dough that's taking
Speaker 3: me to church, the pastor greeting. He's greeting the sheep.
Speaker 3: Come y'all, come on there. It's gonna be a beautiful Sunday.
Speaker 5: How every show is sold out with half recurring fans
Speaker 5: half new. I got people who come to, like I say,
Speaker 5: twenty thirty shows, I've seen the same people. You don't
Speaker 5: go to it once you experience the show. Most people,
Speaker 5: it's like you don't never go again because you're like,
Speaker 5: I've seen it. But my show is different every time
Speaker 5: because there's no set. People see me every time. It's
Speaker 5: like church and I'm outside before once the door is open.
Speaker 5: Before the show, I'm walking around take bit greeting after
Speaker 5: the show, I'm house. I didne stood outside until the
Speaker 5: sun with down.
Speaker 1: You feel me like it? I I'm fully invested in
Speaker 1: what I'm building and the people who support me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to. I want to talk about team building,
Speaker 3: right because as you start talking infrastructure and and and
Speaker 3: building up around you, these are people who have to
Speaker 3: believe the way you believe and have to be willing
Speaker 3: to sacrifice the way you're sacrificing. What are those early
Speaker 3: conversations like and and then you allude it to like
Speaker 3: giving your team interest in your songs and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: Like what like what are those conversations like?
Speaker 5: Man, I make it easy to believe in me because
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do everything with or without you. So like
Speaker 5: I was always pushing this line and throughout the journey,
Speaker 5: all my homies that's around me. It's like, if you
Speaker 5: coming to hang, I'm pressing shirts. So if we're gonna hang,
Speaker 5: you pressing shirt, you come to hang, I'm finna be filming.
Speaker 5: So if you're gonna hang, you might as well come film.
Speaker 5: I'm just what I'm owned, So you know, so early
Speaker 5: it was really like all of my homies just embracing
Speaker 5: what I was doing. I always had ideas flowing. You
Speaker 5: can't really hang around me without being integrated. Like my
Speaker 5: daughter's mom, y'all, y'all. All of my first company logos
Speaker 5: was us drafting logo together and writing scripts and everything,
Speaker 5: because it's like, that's that's.
Speaker 1: What I'm owned.
Speaker 5: So if you around me, just naturally you take that on.
Speaker 5: And early on, like we ain't had no paper, So
Speaker 5: it was like I needed everybody to help me. But
Speaker 5: it's like I can't really pay you, but what I'm
Speaker 5: gonna do, i'ma buy food. I'm gonna make sure everybody eat.
Speaker 5: If you need gas, I'm gonna give you gas so
Speaker 5: you can get here to and from. I'm gonna make
Speaker 5: it as easy as possible for you to support me.
Speaker 1: And then I came up.
Speaker 5: It was like, man, I'm finna give everybody shares. If
Speaker 5: you help me shoot a music video and people watching
Speaker 5: that with my song get It, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 5: a percentage in the song because I know that they
Speaker 5: listening to the song because they seen that video and
Speaker 5: they loved it. My directors, my engineers, my producers, my
Speaker 5: Homie and my management ad man, if you touched a
Speaker 5: project that I worked on, you getting something. So it's like,
Speaker 5: if I can't pay you up front, let me pay
Speaker 5: you perpetually. And that might not equal nothing now, but
Speaker 5: I know where I'm going and who Lar Russell gonna be,
Speaker 5: and there's gonna be a point where you don't have
Speaker 5: to work today because of work you did five years ago.
Speaker 4: That's a great trade off if you truly believe.
Speaker 1: If you truly believe, it's an exceptional trade off.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So that was my way of really getting people in
Speaker 1: to rally around early.
Speaker 5: And like I say, I was always I'm the person
Speaker 5: who I'll run out the booth here, record, run back in,
Speaker 5: do my own thing. I hit the pord on camera,
Speaker 5: go to the front. All of my early live sessions,
Speaker 5: I was working with a bunch of different artists. They
Speaker 5: even though I did music. Some artist's introduction to me
Speaker 5: was me behind the camera just telling them, hey, this
Speaker 5: is how we run this to play. They ain't even
Speaker 5: know until I enviral one is like bruh, that was you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm behind it. I played whatever role it's necessare to
Speaker 5: get a w Still till this day, my little homie Malachi.
Speaker 1: I'm a sit azide. Let him eat. This is his turn.
Speaker 1: I don't I never mind sharing my platform in my space.
Speaker 3: I just want to get a w Do you think
Speaker 3: it's important for I mean me and myself? Like I
Speaker 3: would tell my daughter, I say, you know, I want
Speaker 3: you to sing, I want you to use your gifts,
Speaker 3: but I also want you to understand how it all works,
Speaker 3: so that when it comes to articulating what you need
Speaker 3: and what you want and the vision of a thing,
Speaker 3: you know exactly who needs to beware in order to
Speaker 3: accomplish that thing. And I feel like more more artists
Speaker 3: need to understand more than just being an artists like
Speaker 3: they have they have workshops like like at some of
Speaker 3: the acting schools right where well at uh, I think
Speaker 3: it's my at my at my daughter school, it was
Speaker 3: where you have to you have to play a part.
Speaker 3: You have to play every part in the production. So
Speaker 3: you don't just get to be an actor. At some
Speaker 3: point you have to be part of the glam squad.
Speaker 3: Another point, you got to be part of wardrobe. No point,
Speaker 3: you got to be part of lighting. Another point, you
Speaker 3: got to be behind the camera, like you being very
Speaker 3: hands on with all of those things, I think makes
Speaker 3: it a lot easier for people to follow you, yes,
Speaker 3: because they.
Speaker 1: Respect so differently.
Speaker 5: Man, I think every artist is different, and if like
Speaker 5: you're not going to be that, make sure you have
Speaker 5: someone in your team who is.
Speaker 1: But I've been able to like do what I.
Speaker 5: Do because everyone, everyone who's on my team, I taught
Speaker 5: how to do their role. Like I didn't have anyone
Speaker 5: who had experience coming from the game. Everyone who's on
Speaker 5: my team we learned it together because I had to
Speaker 5: do it. I edited album covers, I did the photo shoots.
Speaker 5: I've edited videos, I direct video. I still edit posts
Speaker 5: and schedule posts, and I administer my own public I
Speaker 5: go in and submit myself. I've done every role, so
Speaker 5: it's like no one who can come in and tell
Speaker 5: me we can't get that done.
Speaker 1: You can't get that done. I can get that done.
Speaker 1: So if you can't, you in the wrong spot.
Speaker 5: I need somebody who can't get it done, because I
Speaker 5: could get it done, but I can't. I wouldn't have
Speaker 5: that respect and be able to speak like that if
Speaker 5: I didn't have that experience. But I think you doing
Speaker 5: every role gives you a certain respect for different people.
Speaker 5: I don't walk into a building and not greet everyone
Speaker 5: from the janitor to the president because I've been a
Speaker 5: janitor before. I'm not gonna walk past you because I've
Speaker 5: been one of them and I was walked past. I've
Speaker 5: been the president too, so I don't need you to
Speaker 5: give me a certain level of reverence because I've been
Speaker 5: that too.
Speaker 1: You feel me.
Speaker 5: If you don't do every role, you don't have the
Speaker 5: same respect and value for the people in those role
Speaker 5: to give them what they need to do with successfully.
Speaker 1: I can't nurture you if I don't know how what
Speaker 1: a success ful arussell man. I think I'm living it
Speaker 1: every day, you know.
Speaker 5: I get to I go do stuff like this, and
Speaker 5: I get to go home, and I get to go
Speaker 5: see my child, and I get to go to the
Speaker 5: school and see the kids, and I get to see
Speaker 5: my parents, and I get to help out my family,
Speaker 5: and I get to waiving a new generation of talent,
Speaker 5: and I get to see my homies and positions that
Speaker 5: they've never been in. Like me and Tea both start
Speaker 5: teas from clear Lake. I'm from Valleo. Most people don't
Speaker 5: know what those two cities are. There was no resource,
Speaker 5: no infrastructure there you walked out and you was like, man,
Speaker 5: I know you, I see you. That ain't never occurred, Like,
Speaker 5: these are experiences that we don't We are beyond grateful
Speaker 5: for that.
Speaker 1: We really sit in.
Speaker 5: So I'm living in Like, success for me is this
Speaker 5: being able to show up as myself and be valued
Speaker 5: and appreciate it as myself. We start doing like daily shows.
Speaker 5: Because I was telling the homies, I was like, man,
Speaker 5: I just want to get paid to live. I don't
Speaker 5: want to have to rap and perform. I don't want
Speaker 5: to have to dance. I want to get paid to
Speaker 5: be Larussell. So let's just document Larussell and share the
Speaker 5: moments that we think is special and people gonna pay
Speaker 5: me to be me, not to do a specific thing.
Speaker 5: Some rappers don't get interviews in podcasts because they can't
Speaker 5: come speak. You just want to see in rap. If
Speaker 5: they ain't rapping, the opportunities is going in, you feel me.
Speaker 5: So for me, the success is being able to show
Speaker 5: up as myself every day and being able to monetize that.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's fair, and now that's great. The singer girls
Speaker 3: crazy that you head on to this Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Monster, Yeah she was cooking.
Speaker 1: And Chante's another like my ears and eyes.
Speaker 5: You know, some days I'd be like, man, I need
Speaker 5: to take a job at the label, just so I
Speaker 5: can have the opportunity to give infrastructure and change what
Speaker 5: the culture looks like. Because I could see it and
Speaker 5: hear it. He found Schantay. I was shooting a live
Speaker 5: session for another artist and she was singing background and
Speaker 5: I was like, Nah, you need to be on one here.
Speaker 5: She did her session that day. I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: finna hit you this week. I'm gonna call you an uber.
Speaker 5: Come to the crib.
Speaker 1: We did a whole ep in that day. Help write
Speaker 1: all the songs.
Speaker 5: I mixed everything, myself, recorded everything, released it and landed
Speaker 5: on a decent side playlist. Start moving, start building her
Speaker 5: buzz and her energy snooped all reposted. The Lion said,
Speaker 5: way before he even knew who I was, just off
Speaker 5: that work. I put so much time, investment, energy and
Speaker 5: money and work into her because I seen it and
Speaker 5: I felt it, and as a real she tried. She
Speaker 5: whipped me on tiny desk from me and it's like
Speaker 5: I never I just have to. When I see something special,
Speaker 5: I gotta help in whatever way I can. And I
Speaker 5: can't do everything, but I'm always do something.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Tiny Desk, I want to thank you what
Speaker 2: I do. That's my nephew that plays saxophone for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what, that's my name. That's my nephew, Trey. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. I mean, you know, I didn't
Speaker 4: say his real name out here, but but this is
Speaker 4: like that's family.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 4: So to see him. I remember the day he picked
Speaker 4: up the saxophone.
Speaker 2: I remember his grandmama, Diane, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: taking him and taking him to little jazz clubs and
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, and in him this becoming
Speaker 2: a career for him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And to see him on Tiny Desk was like one.
Speaker 2: Of my proudest moments, bro, because I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: when they would come to LA because I was already
Speaker 2: out here and I remember going to like a Grammy
Speaker 2: camp that he played.
Speaker 4: In in high school.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Now seeing this, it's amazing, Bro, It's amazing. Julie with
Speaker 2: Julie bro in a backyard, which is a whole.
Speaker 4: Nother legendary moment.
Speaker 2: Richie Rich blowing out his knee in the backyard, like
Speaker 2: it's crazy the things that you've been able to set
Speaker 2: up man and put together for the crib. One for
Speaker 2: yourself absolutely, but just even for the crib man, of
Speaker 2: how you have brought this really positive spotlight on home,
Speaker 2: it really means something to me, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because you know, everybody that would find out my background
Speaker 2: over the years would always be like, nigga, what the
Speaker 2: fuck when they start really finding out what I came from?
Speaker 2: And really what the Bay is? Right, and we know
Speaker 2: it because we grew up in it and you know,
Speaker 2: we experienced all of it. So to for me, I
Speaker 2: always wanted to do things in a certain manner so
Speaker 2: that the you know, I was a representation of a
Speaker 2: light that came from home because it was a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, a lot of shit going on right.
Speaker 2: So to see you now as a young artist who
Speaker 2: has fully brought people to your backyard and shown this
Speaker 2: very positive thing, man, like, I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2: Like it makes me feel good to see, like you said,
Speaker 2: people flying from around the world, artists that we never like.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 2: We know what cash money note none to the two
Speaker 2: thousand men to the Bay Area, oh god. And we
Speaker 2: know about that legendary concert that got turned upside down
Speaker 2: back in the days. You know what I'm saying to
Speaker 2: now him being in your backyard and it being so
Speaker 2: much love and appreciation.
Speaker 1: And what's crazy is people don't understand like the sacrifice
Speaker 1: it takes to make culture happen and represent it in
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 5: I love it so much. Like Juvie was in the
Speaker 5: backyard because they was coming to Frisco, and I was like, man,
Speaker 5: I told his manager, shout out to dame manager. I said,
Speaker 5: I'll do the Frisco show with you. You could throw
Speaker 5: me on the bill. I don't need no money, just
Speaker 5: have Juvie come to my backyard. I do shows at home,
Speaker 5: and I could make you know what I make easy.
Speaker 5: But it was like sacrifice that because I know this
Speaker 5: moment is special. Just give me that, and we would
Speaker 5: end up rocking and selling out midway.
Speaker 1: You feel me.
Speaker 5: I didn't get no paper from that because it didn't
Speaker 5: matter because I knew what we was gonna build. But
Speaker 5: just for these cultural moments to exist, it's like I
Speaker 5: put whatever I got to put on the line so
Speaker 5: people could have experienced this. Because we don't have one
Speaker 5: on six in Park no more. We don't have Rap City.
Speaker 1: The basement.
Speaker 5: We don't have nothing that truly represents us and our
Speaker 5: culture and how we be outside. You can't look on
Speaker 5: TV now and see us not in our form. You
Speaker 5: can see us fighting and shouting and doing and all
Speaker 5: this other shit, but you can't see us in our
Speaker 5: form being godly and right, how we rocked, why we
Speaker 5: were bringing it back.
Speaker 4: You've brought it back.
Speaker 2: You brought it back, and not even just even bringing
Speaker 2: it back like you've You've brought just like I said,
Speaker 2: a different light, you know what I mean. Like people
Speaker 2: that come from my generation and era of the Bay Area,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of artists who wouldn't even come
Speaker 2: to the Bay They would skipping over because shit was happening.
Speaker 4: Niggas was trying to get out of them. The niggas
Speaker 4: are coming to your backyard, Brofferent. You know it takes
Speaker 4: to get a nigga to.
Speaker 1: Come to your crib on God, we don't go to
Speaker 1: parties at houses. What we ain't going at your house?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So for you to be able to establish that man
Speaker 2: and make people feel so comfortable and feel like they
Speaker 2: were a part of it and they're part of your family,
Speaker 2: you know, what I mean. Like, I watched the clips
Speaker 2: of like you and your Mama in the garage, Bro,
Speaker 2: I've seen it. I've watched y'all talk about how y'all
Speaker 2: had to get the press machines, and I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 2: this is amazing, this is amazing. You talking about your
Speaker 2: daddy was hustling back in the day, like the whole
Speaker 2: I get it. I understand it, Bro, I get it.
Speaker 2: And You've brought the world to your crib man man.
Speaker 5: And that was my goal, Like, I just wanted people
Speaker 5: to be able to witness humans in a way that
Speaker 5: we see them and interact with him every day. I'm
Speaker 5: a regular, everyday nigga like you. I'm somebody you can
Speaker 5: go outside and see somebody just like And I just
Speaker 5: felt like that representation was lacking. It was like, where's
Speaker 5: all the regular niggas that I grew up around that
Speaker 5: I see?
Speaker 4: Where's the good time?
Speaker 1: Where is that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: If you have kids there demo five to sixty five
Speaker 5: don't exist. You can't go to no other hip hop
Speaker 5: show and get people from five to sixty five of
Speaker 5: all different races. I don't have a core demographic. You
Speaker 5: go on to one of my shows, you're gonna it
Speaker 5: looked like it's like what the hell the world? Five
Speaker 5: to sixty five every race, Congra.
Speaker 3: You're elevating, like you're elevating the stock and positivity and
Speaker 3: doing things the right way. Like it's it's not that
Speaker 3: you're by yourself, it's that people have been afraid to
Speaker 3: be it and you're leading the charge. You're giving. You're
Speaker 3: giving those people, those creatives, even those businessmen and women
Speaker 3: you're giving. You're giving them the hope that they need.
Speaker 3: You're giving them the gas that they need to step
Speaker 3: out into the forefront. People want to be like yeah,
Speaker 3: people want to be loved, People want to be positive,
Speaker 3: and sometimes they just need they just need the right example.
Speaker 1: You need to see it.
Speaker 3: They need the right push.
Speaker 1: You have to see it. You have to see it
Speaker 1: in your life, like represented representative.
Speaker 3: And so you're galvanizing certain troops and a certain thing
Speaker 3: that is making this world a really cool place. Man.
Speaker 4: What's next for good company?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 5: We did our first like we're throwing festivals next year.
Speaker 5: So this year for my birthday, I was able to
Speaker 5: do Solona County Fairgrounds, which is the fairgrounds at my home.
Speaker 5: They haven't had a hip hop show there since the
Speaker 5: eighties and nineties, Like this was the first time that
Speaker 5: we had people in there in that capacity, and now
Speaker 5: it's kind of opened the door. I've been really working
Speaker 5: with my city, meeting with city managers, meeting with the police,
Speaker 5: meeting with the fire, meeting with the council, like I
Speaker 5: had a council meeting at my house for all the
Speaker 5: upcoming council members, Like I'm really integrated in my city.
Speaker 5: Goal next year, I'm doing even more residencies. I'm home
Speaker 5: all year for the most part, just building that community there,
Speaker 5: having people come in so we can experience what I've
Speaker 5: been able to experience. When I come to LA I
Speaker 5: usually think I was gonna have to move because I
Speaker 5: didn't have infrastructure. So I'm building all the infrastructure so
Speaker 5: all of our artists can come back home and we
Speaker 5: can still get the same reverence and respect and still
Speaker 5: get the same opportunities, but we could do it at home.
Speaker 5: So my goal is really just we're building all of
Speaker 5: that at the spot. I just wake up every day
Speaker 5: and I do my work, and whatever comes from that
Speaker 5: I accept.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't. I don't really dream too far ahead.
Speaker 2: No, that's great, bro, You really, you created your own residency.
Speaker 2: At your residence, it's everybody trying to get to Vegas.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be heard, and it was beautiful about
Speaker 1: what we built.
Speaker 5: Like all of our tickets is offer base, right, So
Speaker 5: I never wanted to charge people a certain That's why
Speaker 5: it'd be hard for me to do like the deals
Speaker 5: with certain shows, because I never wanted to tax people
Speaker 5: for an experience that was priceless. So when I started
Speaker 5: offer base, my average ticket price started at like seven
Speaker 5: dollars ten and it's just slowly scaled up and up.
Speaker 5: You know, there's gonna be a point to where it's
Speaker 5: so in demand. And I don't scale up in venue.
Speaker 5: I keep doing small venues, like I sold out fonder
Speaker 5: like two years ago, and I never went back to
Speaker 5: a thousand plus cap so I keep it small.
Speaker 4: So people, what type of venues do you like to
Speaker 4: do as far as like cap wise.
Speaker 5: For two fifty three hundred, because I could really build
Speaker 5: a certain intimacy. Five be cool too, But I can
Speaker 5: really build a certain intimacy how I do my show,
Speaker 5: and I could see everybody and I could speak to everyone.
Speaker 5: When it gets beyond that, it's just hard for me
Speaker 5: to really be able to give everyone the experience.
Speaker 1: How I like to give them.
Speaker 4: You start looking at the exersign.
Speaker 5: Right right, it'd be too much. So I love the
Speaker 5: intimate shows because it's real. Everyone who leads really feel
Speaker 5: like they had a moment with me, and I pulled
Speaker 5: people on stage and give testimonies, and I give some
Speaker 5: people chances to wrap and sing.
Speaker 1: It's just a different style of community.
Speaker 5: I've been able to build through that, so I've been
Speaker 5: trying to keep it there, and it's built a demand
Speaker 5: within the price to where it's like, you know, I
Speaker 5: never wanted to charge people crazy, but with the offer
Speaker 5: based system, some people just come straight in. They like,
Speaker 5: I want one hundred and fifty four a ticket, and
Speaker 5: it's like, that was my dream to be like a
Speaker 5: top tier artist that's worth that. But I never want
Speaker 5: to attack somebody that. So it's like I do shows
Speaker 5: and some people get in for ten dollars and some
Speaker 5: people pay one thousand dollars, and it's such a beautiful
Speaker 5: thing because the people who pay a thousand don't have
Speaker 5: an issue with it because they know their thousand dollars
Speaker 5: allow somebody to get in here for one dollar.
Speaker 1: I had to show.
Speaker 5: One time, I passed the mic around and Bro was like, man,
Speaker 5: I paid one dollar to get in this show. I'm
Speaker 5: going through the roughest time in my life. I would
Speaker 5: have never been able to see nobody else for a dollar.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And it just was like I can never change that,
Speaker 1: Like that's what makes it so special. It's like I
Speaker 1: can't do everyone for a dollar, but I get to
Speaker 1: integrate those in. I get to do a big melting
Speaker 1: pot of people who are never getting experienced. When I
Speaker 1: was young coming up, I didn't go to live.
Speaker 5: Shows, right, I didn't get I didn't get those experiences
Speaker 5: of opportunities. But I get people that chance now to
Speaker 5: maybe experience something that might be life changing for amount
Speaker 5: that makes sense for them in their life.
Speaker 2: But you're you are a real representation as a child
Speaker 2: of hip hop. Yeah because j Cole Dollar, the Dream,
Speaker 2: Nipsey Hustle, Proud to Pay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like these are things that have been that that that
Speaker 2: were started and implemented that you have grown into your
Speaker 2: own brand. Is that that is a part of you
Speaker 2: are and are even you know Ryan Leslie with superphone
Speaker 2: where people could call him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like all of the things that we've seen over time
Speaker 2: you've implemented all of those into your brand and your
Speaker 2: business plan of really touching the people, of really touching
Speaker 2: the people, Bro, Like you said, for someone one person
Speaker 2: in the crowd to in a sense, man, take care
Speaker 2: of the tickets for people another ten twenty people in
Speaker 2: the crowd because they can they can afford it. But
Speaker 2: then then those other people that are just like Bro,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have been able to see you.
Speaker 4: It's amazing, Bro.
Speaker 5: And it's just like I've really taken everything that once
Speaker 5: worked on the block and just added technology and infrastructure
Speaker 5: around it. When we're younger, it's like, hey, this is
Speaker 5: for twenty end, bro, Like, oh I only got fifteen,
Speaker 5: give me fifteen.
Speaker 4: Give me fifteen.
Speaker 5: But next time you see you here gonna be like, man,
Speaker 5: I appreciate you for getting me right here fifty you
Speaker 5: feel me after Trunk still works, Everything that once worked
Speaker 5: still works. It's just they've convinced everybody that that has
Speaker 5: been rid of, and it's like that's insane. I still
Speaker 5: go shake hands and do physical product and I'm still outside.
Speaker 5: That's still work when people want what you got. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So the people who like who ain't out there doing it.
Speaker 5: No moments like no, you don't stop. You don't stop
Speaker 5: that part like at the digital aspect, but still get
Speaker 5: out there. These people came to see you and you
Speaker 5: hiding backstage the whole show.
Speaker 1: How that makes sense? You know, you really have to.
Speaker 5: You gotta get back to their roots if you want
Speaker 5: something that's rooted.
Speaker 2: Because if you're a star, you're a star regardless. You're
Speaker 2: a star regardless, it don't matter if you are a
Speaker 2: hitting star or somebody who's shaking every hand. And the
Speaker 2: person that showed me that with him, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. If you go back on our careers. Tank
Speaker 2: was already tanked before I started working with him and
Speaker 2: managing him and being a part of the business with him.
Speaker 2: And I used to just remember, I'm like, Yo, this
Speaker 2: nigga really shaking every hand, he's really signing every autograph,
Speaker 2: he's really taking every picture, and Nigga, we gotta get
Speaker 2: on this flight.
Speaker 4: And every now and then I have to nudge him, like.
Speaker 2: The door door, but the people, but the people on God,
Speaker 2: but the people right, And it never dimmed his light.
Speaker 4: It actually brought a brighter light to him.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, right where you have these certain artists
Speaker 2: that think in their mind they can't see me, or
Speaker 2: they got to drive me up to the plane and
Speaker 2: then they got.
Speaker 1: To put me on the plane after.
Speaker 2: Everybody's a ridiculous and it's like, actually, you know the
Speaker 2: flight attendant, it is treating him better because he spoke to.
Speaker 4: Her, you know what I mean? Or are they wait
Speaker 4: on that this week? Maketure?
Speaker 1: Want you get off this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's justlte. It's all good.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 5: When we get people back conditioned to like humanity, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you could be famous and all that, but you're a human, bro,
Speaker 5: You're a human. Like, let's let's get on the basis
Speaker 5: level of that. Let's just let's be on that first.
Speaker 5: Then you know, you could be everything else, but on
Speaker 5: the on the check and work box, Like, let's just
Speaker 5: be human first.
Speaker 1: It ain't no way. You walked in there and you
Speaker 1: walk right pack ask him and you see him there.
Speaker 1: You can't be that big. We're the same height. You
Speaker 1: feel me like, you gotta be human?
Speaker 4: Yeah, nah, I love it, bro, I love it well.
Speaker 1: We got yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Brother Larussell, Brother Larussell, what you're doing is amazing out
Speaker 3: here in these streets. Some would call it Superman, it's
Speaker 3: the Superman music. You're a brand man, you're a business man,
Speaker 3: but you a gift that hard. I want to know
Speaker 3: some of the music that has inspired you along the way.
Speaker 3: Here we call that show what we call it.
Speaker 4: Top fun.
Speaker 1: Your top five, yea, come on, top five.
Speaker 4: You're tough on me, easing.
Speaker 1: Worry.
Speaker 4: We got to know though, you go get all this
Speaker 4: shows a co you.
Speaker 3: Brother Larrussell, your top five R and B singers.
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily have a top five, but I'm gonna
Speaker 5: give five that's been really impactful on my journey. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna go like Jennings, that album must be nice and
Speaker 5: stick up kids, and she got you.
Speaker 1: I know that whole a you.
Speaker 3: He appreciate this God absolutely that album.
Speaker 4: It means something.
Speaker 5: It means something and this life. If you're watching this,
Speaker 5: forget the desk, come to the backyard, come to We're
Speaker 5: gonna give you that moment that is deserving that you
Speaker 5: that you earned it, your workfow and it's gonna be
Speaker 5: so culturally representative. Come to the yard and play with
Speaker 5: our homies and just we need that. Outside of that
Speaker 5: t paying three Rings album, hmmm.
Speaker 3: They don't give his credit.
Speaker 4: Paying a bad.
Speaker 5: Man, from the songwriting to the singing to the performance.
Speaker 1: And let's lead. Let's lead a performing and go to
Speaker 1: just human. I was on the road with pain.
Speaker 5: I see him going to these places in Greek and speak.
Speaker 5: I see him walking to his hotel through the street as.
Speaker 1: A human just and you can't. It's just different. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go.
Speaker 5: Lauren Hill mis Education, one of the greatest albums ever,
Speaker 5: one of the greatest writers ever. I gotta go, Michael Jackson,
Speaker 5: you do, you gotta go Michael Jackson. And then I'm
Speaker 5: gonna go. I'm gonna go Oldest Reading because sitting on
Speaker 5: the Dock of the Bay is one of my favorite
Speaker 5: songs ever.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, interesting young man. Yeah, ready, come on like that? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: your top five R and B songs.
Speaker 1: It could all be so simple.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You'd rather make it off.
Speaker 5: Amy Winehouse mm hmmm back to black Yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: Amy wine House tears dry on their own. M life
Speaker 5: Jennings must be nice. And then I'm gonna do Joh,
Speaker 5: I'm not letting out, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Joh. We need you in the yard to the yard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to go get all.
Speaker 3: All come on that's my guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love you.
Speaker 3: I like what you're doing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Ain't saying no names, Scott, I ain't saying no names.
Speaker 3: I ain't saying no names. I ain't saying no names
Speaker 3: for you. Was who used what you need? Don't say
Speaker 3: she ain't saying no names.
Speaker 4: You're gonna break that damn keyboard.
Speaker 3: Get another one.
Speaker 4: So we had a very important part of the show. Bro.
Speaker 2: The segment is called I Ain't Saying No Names, where
Speaker 2: you tell us a story funny or fucked up? Are
Speaker 2: funny and fucked up? The only rule to the game
Speaker 2: is you can't say no names.
Speaker 1: I feel like every time you get put in situations
Speaker 1: like this, like everything just kind of go out.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, hm hmm.
Speaker 4: Don't worry, we'll edit. We won't give you the clock.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Mo.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Some of these some of these you know, these travels,
Speaker 2: these these offers. You know, somebody that walked past you.
Speaker 1: It got like an industry story or just like it's
Speaker 1: up to you. It's you got something.
Speaker 5: Just yesterday, we was moving around all day and my driver, Tito,
Speaker 5: the cool ass nigga, we met him on our trials here.
Speaker 1: Oh my driver r were moving around and we come
Speaker 1: out the building and hop in a truck and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is that? He was like, it's the food.
Speaker 1: It's the food. And we looking around the car. There's
Speaker 1: no food in the car, and we were just like
Speaker 1: the food that came out your ass.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 5: It was like the worst male possible. Like Mally was
Speaker 5: behind me and his old face was like, what the
Speaker 5: fuck is that?
Speaker 1: That was like some recently funny ship that just had
Speaker 1: us dead.
Speaker 4: So blamed the imaginary food that food said it was
Speaker 4: the food.
Speaker 1: There was no food in the truck, just just it
Speaker 1: was the wind. Guys rolled up.
Speaker 4: And give me a couple of minutes. Guys, don't get
Speaker 4: in he himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had to go in on that.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 1: Hold are you thirty?
Speaker 3: I just turned thirty, young legend, Come on, young legend, pioneer.
Speaker 3: And you you're you're you're you're building, you're trailblazing, bro.
Speaker 3: And it's admirable at your age, your wisdom and your
Speaker 3: understanding even beyond that, your application not just saying a
Speaker 3: thing but doing a thing and and leading by example,
Speaker 3: like crew, that is what we own. This is how
Speaker 3: we do it. Yeah, and if we don't know. We'll
Speaker 3: learn it together. Like let's build community. All of that
Speaker 3: is you're going to live forever, you want to live forever,
Speaker 3: somebody is going to be it's going to have an imprint,
Speaker 3: a Larussell imprint, the Book of LaRussa on them as
Speaker 3: they move forward in life. Yeah, and that's really the
Speaker 3: goal of all of this, right to lead, leave something
Speaker 3: really good behind. And you're you're you're you're well, well
Speaker 3: on your way man, and we salute you, We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: I know, I know the I know the Bay Area homie.
Speaker 3: He's he has an affinity for you that that's just
Speaker 3: out of this world. Man. And like he said, thank you,
Speaker 3: brom because because this is not like for us. You know,
Speaker 3: this right here is about you. It always is about
Speaker 3: who's sitting in that chair. And whoever sitting in that chair,
Speaker 3: we learned something from m and for lack of a
Speaker 3: better word, we steal stuff from you. Got oh, we're
Speaker 3: gonna be pulling some l Russells, come on.
Speaker 4: The difference is we wish you.
Speaker 3: Were absolutely oh yeah, we got we're gonna throwing but
Speaker 3: we we are learning from you, King. So it is unlimited.
Speaker 3: This appointment, man, keep going to keep keep killing.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: What's the name of the book you wrote? I wrote too,
Speaker 2: so my first okay, I was just gonna say the one.
Speaker 5: Okay, come on, Yeah, your first one is called The
Speaker 5: Bullshit We Tell Ourselves, and then my last book is
Speaker 5: called Limitless, and I'm working on the third.
Speaker 3: The Bullshit We tell Ourselves Hard truths. Come on, you
Speaker 3: gotta be tough when you're looking in that mirror. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna keep it honest.
Speaker 4: Can't lot to yourself, can't lie to you.
Speaker 3: Don't love a lot of anybody else, I don't a
Speaker 3: lot of yourself. Yeah, there's no progress in them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a whole. That's a whole. Other part, that's a wholes. Second,
Speaker 3: I'm My name is Take And this is the R
Speaker 3: and B Money podcast, the authority on all things R
Speaker 3: and B. Yeah, and this has been the education Yes Ugglers.
Speaker 1: Fire R and B Money.
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