Russ Reveals Evil Secrets of Music Industry, How Artists FAKE Streams, & Problem with Drug Culture
03:50:10 Share

Why do the labels make the artists do those boardroom performances? Here's how those go. Who's the most fake? Yeah. Of course you're going to lose the art because people aren't doing it for the art anymore. They're doing it for the bag. This is not me speculating. This is me talking to like top five most streamed artists in the world and them talking to CEOs and CEOs admitting and me on the phone with like the dude who fakes the stream. Nicky spoke on Future saying when I talked to Future, he told me he wasn't even doing the...

drugs that he talks about. I think Future's music is amazing, but I also know that the reason why I wanted to try lean when I was 19 was Future. We have seen it live in the flesh. Juice WRLD said, I did drugs because of you. Juice WRLD died of a drug overdose by following somebody who does not even do the drugs.

the drugs that they said they did. It's y'all's fault for believing it. No, no, no, no. Start a chapter one. Why are you perpetuating something you're not doing? Bro, when this goes out, I'm getting flanked. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagrant. Now, listen, if you hate seeing stand-up clips all over the internet, we have brought the man that's responsible for that on the podcast today. Give it up for Russ, everybody. What up, Russ? What's up?

I've given you your flowers for this, so you know the story, and I talk about this quite often. But retell it. We haven't. There's never enough flowers. But no, I remember watching an interview with you and you saying that you were putting out a song a week, and at that point in my life, I was like, man, I'm not working hard enough. This guy's putting a whole fucking song out a week. You've got to write the music for it. You've got to write the lyrics. You've got to do it. And I could put a joke out a week, and I started doing that. I started getting success, and I tried to tell as many comedians as possible about it. And now there's stand-up...

all over the internet, so you deserve credit for that. So we just want to say thank you for putting us on to the hustle. And there's a lot of things I want to talk to you about. I'm very excited to finally have you on the pod. A lot of music industry stuff, a lot of personal stuff in your music. But before that, I need you to explain to us something. Okay. Why is it

Because you're uniquely positioned in the music world where, like, I don't feel like you're really indebted to anybody but the fans. So you can kind of talk shit about the labels. Right. And then you could talk shit about the artists. Right. Right. And the artists that are indebted to the labels can't say shit. Yeah. And the people that work at the labels can't say shit, but you can't. Right. Right.

Why do the labels make the artists do those boardroom performances? Is that like a... I don't think, like, the crazy thing is I don't think they make them do the performances. Here's how those go, right? Please explain this. The reality is, like, when you get signed to a label or you're trying to get signed to a label, in a way to sort of, like...

show you how much artillery we have and how much we fuck with you. - They bring the whole team. - We have digital in here, we have radio. They bring the whole staff, right?

And they sit them around this long table. Yeah, this is crazy. And they play. This is my favorite clip. Bobby wanted that label back. It's my favorite clip. Here's the thing. It's like they play your music. So it's like I've done that meeting. But like a sane individual, I sat at the table. You didn't get up at any point? And like we just listened to the music. Yeah.

So now some people want to stand on the table and go nuts, which is like that's their prerogative. That's what's up. But to me, yeah, I mean, it's like those people aren't like they're not there to fuck with you, really. So like doing all that is not going to make the deal better. So you can just sit in that level of awkwardness. Like if somebody played my stand up for me, I don't know if I'd be confident enough to perform it for them. But like I'd be like.

Can we not fucking sit here for this? Well, see, I mean, back then for me, it's like I was just, I mean, what was I, 23 when I partnered? So it's like I was in a different headspace of like so, so like...

uh beyond arrogant you know like just so gung-ho on my shit that i was like fuck yeah y'all should be playing my shit you know what i mean so yeah i mean i definitely never like stood on the table that never crossed my mind when i saw that i was just like what are y'all like right now it also is just like bro like these people don't care like that like so you're standing on the table it's almost like that's not gonna make them like go harder for

You know what I mean? Like it's not. Yeah. They got a house. Their kids have private school. It's a job. And it's also musical chairs in the business. It's like that person you're like doing all that performing and all that, like trying to get them on your side or whatever you're trying to do. They could be gone next week. Yeah.

They don't give a fuck. There's like conspiracies where people will be like, oh, this is like a humiliation ritual. Yeah. To check them. That is a choice. The truth is always. That is a personal choice that these people are making. The truth is always way more boring. That's what I realized. Like, I'd rather almost believe it was a humiliation.

I don't believe Russ. Yeah, good. Russ is dancing on that video coming out. And there's a video of you doing it. We just haven't seen it. We need all the dirt. Obviously, I want to talk about Santiago. I want to talk about the new single coming out. And I was telling you before we did the pod, it was truly...

- Beautiful, like go listen to the album because I think it took a lot of emotional work to get there. I want to save a time where we can have a long form discussion about that. But again, unique experience you're here and I want to know the dirt. How these labels fucking artists with the streams, I don't know how they're doing it but it feels like they're doing it. And how are they tricking us because I see these people that go crazy, album goes number one, but then they can't fill up a show.

So the math is not math. Right. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's what it is. Explain it. I mean, so it's...

It's one of those things that, like, everyone in the industry knows is going on. Which is? Faking the streams. It's a real thing. So the label buys the streams from Spotify? So here's the deal. When you talk to these people, because I've talked to these people, because I've been like, what is this? How are y'all doing this? They never disclose the mechanics of, like, how they actually fake the streams. There's, like, you know, rumors of, like,

streaming farms or we're delving out fucking computers in third world countries and hacking the back end to make it look like it's an IP from the US. Whatever. Like, oh, it's nutty shit. But the reality is the labels are spending money and

you know, devil's advocate. They're treating it like a marketing expense. Because in a sense, it like almost is. You're going to spend a hundred grand on billboards. You're going to spend a hundred grand on streams. Right. The streams is going to put you in a playlist. You're going to spend real money to get fake streams that equate to real money. So that's why they think it makes sense. Because it's like, okay, the streams are fake, but the money's real. So what do we care? Especially, they're not doing it with like,

up and coming artists who like you wouldn't believe it. They're doing it with people like where it's okay, let's say your song has 500 million streams, right? Organically.

But let's say with fake streams, now you're at 900 million. No one's going to sit there and be like, this is more like a 500 million stream. Yeah. They're just going to be like, this is a big song. Makes sense it has 900 million. Honestly, so smart. Yeah. They're not like they're not doing it to the dude across the street and giving him a billion streams. They're doing it to people who really can get half a billion.

but let's just pump it to get 900. Now you're getting number one. Now you get number one. So you can pay for a number one. Oh yeah. What? What does the number one cost?

I mean, that's crazy to even think about. I love that. What does a number one song in America cost? Look, the reality is this. You do have to have a real fan base to a certain extent. Right. You have to have people who are really consuming the music. And your song has to actually be moving around organically. Once it's that, then they'll push the button on it. And it just depends. Like, it's a campaign. It could be like, it's like a 12-week campaign and it might be...

60 grand, 70 grand, whatever it is. That's it. Oh, yeah. To have the number one song on Spotify. And that 70 grand, the ROI is crazy because that 70 grand might bring you back 200, 300. Yeah, and even just seeing the song number one, you're more likely to check it out. Right, because people are cheap. Yeah, if you see something successful. Labels are like, all CEOs at labels are obsessed with market share.

Like, who has the market share? Sony has 25%. Market share means the amount of streamed songs at that moment. Right. Total streams, how many percent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And there's like bonuses that are associated with it. Oh, because that's their incentive structure. If you're number one, you're going to get the trickle down, so they're going to try to boost. Right. Oh.

Now, maybe you can't quantify it, but you said you can't do it with any song. You could take it from number 10 to number one, or you got to be like three. No, I mean, look, Spotify even just put out this statement that said anything over, what was it, 80% and 90%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anything over 90 like in a call-out if we could be 89 percent right streams, but that's what that's a shit But over yeah, it's like that's that was Spotify's way of saying we know what's going on. We're okay with we're profiting off it It just can't of course because somebody doing a billion streams on your platform is a good look for you Yes, yes, because you're bragging about the amount of streams on your plan Think about where Apple music loses the Spotify one. They don't show the streams to and

when it came out, like, last year that there was only one song that has a billion streams on there, like, it just doesn't look as sexy as Spotify. And I feel like, as a consumer, oh, nobody's listening to Apple Music. Spotify must be better. I don't know shit. I'm just gonna go with the bigger one. So the big streams help the artist and the platform. Oh, yeah, and the label. So, like, everyone...

wins. That's why no one's going to say anything. Think about it. If you're invested in Spotify, if your money is in Spotify shares, you want to know that it's getting the most streams and it's beating Apple by X amount. And the labels are invested. That's the craziest shit. I remember when I was with Columbia and Columbia...

you know, there was a point in time where like they sold their shares of Spotify or whatever the fuck. But everyone on the label, just depending on how many streams you were doing, you got to check. I got a crazy check from Columbia selling their shares of Spotify. Yeah. So,

Huh? Why did you get the crazy job? Because I was doing a lot of streams on Spotify. You get your share of the stream money. Right, right. So this is crazy. Billy Corgan was on Rogan talking about this. Did you see that episode? No. Where he was like, and again, I don't know how factual this is, but this is what he said. He's like, the labels...

took equity pieces in the streaming platforms and then gave the streamer sweetheart deals on the artist's music. So basically, we're going to charge you less for the artist's music, which means the artist gets less, but we are personally going to take equity positions in those companies. So give me a little bit of Spotify, I'm going to give you this artist's

Music for little, but when your brand builds because it needs us to build, I get that, but you know who doesn't get that? The artist. The artist, which is crazy. But it's like the artist uses all of that for leverage to go get sponsorships, and it's all like fame-driven. Yeah, yeah. It's all like...

The streams might be fake, but me being perceived as a massive artist. Make money on the road. It's real. So now I'm getting this, now I'm getting that, and I'm monetizing it with this brand or with this sponsorship, whatever it is. So it's like it's all just a fucking finesse and it's all a scam. And there's some artists that are like, I'm just going to live off of my deal, right? They're like, I don't even care if I make enough money to pay back.

Right. The company or the label, whatever it is, they're going to give me my advance. That's what I make. Yeah. Right. And well, and it's so funny when artists are like, I haven't seen a check since I got signed. It's like because you're not making money. What are you so confused about? Yeah. It's like you didn't make the money back. Artists don't know. Oh, yeah. I think I don't think any of the artists know.

that their streams are being faked. Wow. No, but that's, and here's the thing, here's the thing, right? That's heartbreaking. Nah. But here's the thing, that's why, first of all, I encourage every artist, audit your label. Make sure there's an audit clause, like I'm auditing-

you know, who I was with and a lot of money being found. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the reality is like, you don't know. There's a lot of things that are just hidden in those statements and the marketing expenses. And the reason why, like, it's the, like, if you're assigned to a major label, right. It's so easy to just deny everything.

Because there's a buffer there's a label the labels the middleman between the fake streams and you so if it comes out That so-and-so is faking their streams. You can just play down be like I had no idea label must have did it Yeah, I didn't know what the label was spending their money on and when I have a hit song that has a billion streams I'm not gonna go. Oh, are we sure it's a look. This is not me like speculating right? This is me talking to like top five

top five most streamed artists in the world and them talking to CEOs and CEOs admitting and me on the phone with like managers of massive artists and on the phone with the dude who fakes the stream and them saying like what's going on. - Dude, you know what I just told you? - So this is not, it's not like a, I'm not sitting here like, - This is not conspiratorial, this is how it works. - I really think people are fake and like once you know, it's really easy to tell which songs are being faked. - Who's the most faked?

No, I can't say that. Come on. Listen, I'm not going to... We were talking on Brilliant Idiots and Charlamagne said it was a Drake song that came out. It was a Drake and SZA song? SZA, yeah. And he was like, it went number one one week and the next week it just fell off. Right, right, right. And he was like, listen, those are the types of things where you go, are these songs being pumped up by the label? Right. Because...

I think Doja Cat's song, "Paint It Sound Red," had been in that top five for weeks. That, you're not gonna keep faking streams for- - Yes, you are. - For real? - I'm not saying that she was doing that. - But you would fake streams for months? - I'm just saying, this is the thing. - Think of the perception you just had of Doja Cat and how big she must be. - It has to be a song that- - But there's gonna be diminishing returns if you keep having to spend 100 grand every month, no? - Well, it's not 100 grand every month.

Because it's really just spending enough money to hack the algorithm. So 6ix9ine was right. Is that what you're trying to say? What was he saying? Depends on what he said. Right about what? Fair enough. No, he said something about they took his number one by buying streams for some artists. Yeah, I mean, like, the reality is they're not going to do it, and it doesn't make sense to do it with something that's not already a moving train.

- Got it. - When it's already a moving train, the public won't know the difference. You know what I'm saying? Like if it's a song that genuinely has half a billion streams, if we juice it and now it has 900 million, like I said, you're not gonna sit there and be like,

No, I don't believe it has 900 million because it's massive organically. So Donda and what was a certified lover boy when we were all really fixated on who is going to be number one? Yeah. Whoever was number one, theoretically, they could have just paid. And for sure, for sure. And it almost makes me sorry. But it's like the labels are look, it's a business. They're looking at it like we're protecting our investment. Of course. One. Yeah. And we're trying to.

obtain as much of the market share as possible. And they also know, this is just like a psychology thing. It's like fake commotion ends up creating real commotion. You know what I'm saying? Like if I'm just over here making a spectacle, uh,

And it's a fake spectacle. The fake spectacle attracts real eyes. And now the real eyes are over here like, what is that spectacle? And now I have real people tuned in off of fake commotion. So here's a question because we all see academics post about who sells what in the first week or whatever. I think it was French Montana had like a really bad first week. Is that French Montana standing on his own honor and being like, I refuse to play into this, buy any streams? Or do you think the label might be like,

I'm assuming it's with a label. We'd be like, yeah, we're kind of done with you. And this is, you're going to have an embarrassingly low number because it's the real number. Whereas everybody else getting inflated. But your shit is going to sit low. I don't know what his situation. Well, I know like French is my guy and actually like helped him get the deal that he has. I think French is great. Yeah. I think he's, but it's like, yeah, either, you know, sometimes maybe it's not just so transparent where they're like, hey, do you want to fix your streams or not? You know what I mean? Yeah. Or it's like,

It's not a moving train. So we're not going to push the button on it because it's not a moving train yet. Yeah, if the album came out with some heat, then they could put the sauce on it. Put it like this, right? Put it like this. Full transparency. Now, I also know, and I've said this in interviews before, this is the thing I'm worried about.

is like me pointing the finger and calling shit out. All that's going to happen is people are like, no, no, no, you're faking your stream. You know what I'm saying? You know so much. Right, like how do you know? And you were on the phone, nine, you know what? Who even listens to Russ? You're faking your stream. Now you got people coming out to shows. I think that's the difference maker right there. Real bodies. But I will say this before transparency. This is the truth.

3.15 is a song I have that I put out, I don't know, two years ago, three years ago. And right now it's doing, I don't know, 500,000 streams a day on Spotify. There was a time where it was doing 800 and 900,000, right? And the threshold to go into today's top hits is like they want to see you getting like 1.1, right? And that's like once you're in today's top hits, see it, right? So we got on the phone.

Cause I was like Milan, I hit my manager. I was like Milan, see what this guy, like, cause I've like low key, I'm like planning like a fucking vice documentary. I'm like, I'm like Milan hit this guy. I'm like, what is the like, but it's like, so, so he talks to him and he's like, look,

- You gotta fake his voice. - This is the perfect song to do it because it's crushing organically. - Nobody's gonna know the difference between 200,000 streams. - No, 315 organically was the number, before TikTok and Billboard did the thing where there was a Billboard chart for TikTok songs, 315 was the number one song on TikTok in the world. You know what I mean? Organically. So once again, if I was to boost that, what is anyone gonna say? No, I hear it everywhere on TikTok, so it kinda checks out, makes sense.

And we talked to the dude, or Milan talked to him, and told us, you know, it's like an 8-12 week campaign. You spend $35,000, $40,000, and like, that's it. And then it's out of here. And now, guess what? Now it goes from, once again, it goes from 800,000 organic streams a day to now maybe it is doing that 1.2 million threshold. And now Spotify puts it in today's top hits. And now it's at 2 million. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

You see what I'm saying? And now radio's like, wait, this is a smash. It's a multiplier. And so all of a sudden, that extra 400,000 streams that are fake get a whole bunch of real ears. But I just could not live with myself if I did it because the reason why, and I'm going to be honest, it's so tempting. I've even tweeted about it before where it's like, wait a second.

if everyone's on steroids, am I an idiot? - Yeah, it's the baseball shit. - Am I an idiot, right? Like, am I being naive and almost childish where it's like, I'm sitting here still trying to like play the game the right way and everyone else is like, dog, what are you doing? Like, you know, we're all doing this, right? And so I start, you know, I oscillate with like yes and no every day,

But I just have faith and I know that that house is going to come crumbling down and I don't want to be in it when it does. Because guess what it'll do? It won't just be, oh, Russ, you faked the streams on 315. It'll send the whole catalog to the question. Right. Especially because. And that would fucking ruin me. Especially because you're independent. Right.

Right. If you're not independent, if you're already part of the label system. Right. Even if you put it all into question, they wouldn't be incentivized to tear them down. But to you. Oh, yeah. There are people I'm sure that are part of the industry that have heard all the shit that you said and then seen your success without them. And they're like, they're waiting for me to fake my the second if I did it. Second, I did it. Oh, it would be.

Russ is faking his strengths. And let this be a lesson to all other independent artists. Right, because guess what that narrative is? Now the narrative will be, see, you can't get real success independent unless you fake your strengths. You've got to be with a major. So, like, I just feel I owe it not just to myself, but to the whole, like...

independent community to do it the real way. And look, if that means that I have a ceiling here, then so be it. But at least this is real. Why are y'all doing billions of streams and the tickets don't match? - 'Cause that is, explain that. 'Cause I'll see certain guys that I think are these huge artists.

Well, girls too. And it's like they can do the festival shows. And people kind of know their songs at the festival shows. Right. But the festival is bringing in the people. It's a soft ticket. Yeah. Right. So how do you explain the discrepancy? Yeah. I mean, honestly, some of it I will say, like Devil's Advocate, I do think certain music is geared towards a certain environment. Certain music is club music.

You're not going to an arena to hear club music. Rap sucks live. Let's just be honest. Nah, not on this. It's awful. That is the worst music live. It's so bad. It's unbelievable. Give me an example of rap music. But Travis, I literally asked him afterwards. I was like, yo, usually rap sucks live. Like, why didn't this suck? And he goes, he goes.

He goes, I make music for the live show. Right. I'm specifically putting together these songs for this experience. That's a great point. Counterpoint, you also saw 50 Cent the night before, and that was also incredible. I'm sure 50. Your theory is falling apart pretty quickly. 50 was incredible. I'm sure. We didn't see 50 in Arena, but 50 in Arena would be incredible. Yeah, of course. There's no question. What I'm trying to say is,

I can listen to a random person sing karaoke and if their voice is amazing, it shuts it down. Yeah. Like you've seen those videos where people are singing a song in Italian and like in a restaurant, like they just come in and start singing. The whole restaurant starts singing. Walk in, try to rap in a restaurant. Right. And see your ass get arrested immediately. If it's great, it'll...

I think I could arrest. I'll start saying lose yourself. Get the fuck out of here. You know, I got a chicken sandwich. I don't want to lose that shit. I think generally, depending on the restaurant. But no, but to that point, to that point, it's like it depends on the music. The environment was made for. Yes.

So if it's car cruising music where you're by yourself chilling, maybe you don't want to hear that in front of 18,000 people. Right. And maybe it's like, I don't want to hear two hours straight of it. You know what I'm saying? So I do think it's some of that, but also, yeah, it's the faking the streams. It's, you know. Guys, Life Tour, Charlotte. Thank you so much for selling out the show. We added a second show in Charlotte. Also, Nashville, we are coming. Austin, we are coming. Phoenix, we add a second show. San Francisco, we are coming.

You saw that all four shows. That's incredible. We'll see what we can do about that. But thank you guys so much. More cities are also available at theandrewschultz.com. Go there. If there are tickets left, go check them out. And Philadelphia, you're up next. I will see you there soon.

Yo, San Jose, thank you guys so much. That was crazy. They had just expanded the club. We still sold it out and we had more people coming after. We filled up every standby ticket we could possibly fill. Other people still didn't get in. That was amazing. One of the best weekends of my comedy life. Thank you so much. Also, February 23rd and 24th, Oklahoma City. We're not doing the 22nd anymore. I have to film a little something. You will see what it is soon. But Oklahoma City, February 23rd and 24th.

And March 1st and 2nd, Greensboro, North Carolina. I'm excited to be in a place that might not be so cold in March. So hurry up and buy your fucking tickets to that. And March 8th and 9th, Stanford, Connecticut. April 11th through 13th, Tempe. And April 18th through 20th, Denver, Colorado. We're doing another 420 show at Comedy Works, this time at the bigger location. Let's see what happens. Get those tickets and more at akashsingh.com. Now let's get back to the show.

Can you break down independent? I feel artists throw out. What is independent? Because some people have a distro, but they're independent. I know. I have. Yeah, it's kind of gotten. Like you even said you were signed, but then you say you're independent. What is that? Yeah, I'll just be fully transparent, even though I've posted when I literally partnered. But I partnered with Columbia in 2016, summertime 2016. They don't say I'm not signed on part.

- Right, right. No, but I partnered because they didn't know my masters and the big piece was my back catalog that was on TuneCore. They didn't touch. So I had hundreds of songs. - TuneCore, can you tell us casuals what TuneCore is? First breakdown. - So, yeah. So TuneCore very quick is just, it's a digital distribution service. You pay $50 a year. You put up as much music as you want. You keep 100% of the profits, right?

So I had all this music up on TuneCore and I created all this leverage because shit was going crazy. I was already touring. And I partnered with Columbia because at that time in 2016, it was a way different landscape. It's like Apple Music didn't even come out until 2015. I remember I had like what they want was in Rap Caviar back when Tuma Basa was running Rap Caviar. And I didn't even know what the fuck Rap Caviar was. Yeah.

Like that's how new everything was. So I signed because I was looking around the game and I was like, I want to be a massive artist. I want to be on radio.

And I'm listening to everyone on radio. I'm like, they're all signed. So let me level the playing field. That was the intention, right? So I partnered, but I kept my back catalog. I kept 100% ownership. And everything I did with Columbia was y'all get 50, I get 50. Simple. And you keep the full master. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, that feels fair to me. Y'all putting up money, like whatever, let's rock out. And then in 2020, I believe, went just back fully indie, done with the deal.

Why didn't it work out? Why were you not? It just got to the point where I realized the juice wasn't worth the squeeze and they couldn't do anything for me that I couldn't do for myself. So that's my question. Like you gave them 50%, which means you need to essentially double your profits that you could do on your own for it to be break even. Right, right. Did you more than double being with them? Oh, so there was value in being with them.

Well, I was, like I said, it was a moving train. I was going to make money anyway. Got it. So, OCA, we're not counting how much you would have made off your next album with all the hype and everything. Right, right. So, you didn't think that they offered enough value to continue? I think at a certain point, once, like, the game sort of began to progress, and once I started to see, the big thing for me was, like, them getting told no. That was big. What do you mean? Meaning...

which I know a lot of up and coming artists think like this. Oh, well you get with a label and then you just get told yes to being on that playlist and yes to being on radio. Oh, so they're getting told no and you're like, the fuck am I with you? I'm like, so then you get with the label. I get told no by myself. Literally, that was the exact thought and I told him that. I said, I get told no by myself. That's crazy. Those boardroom meetings, right? Some of those people sitting around the table, one of them is the Spotify and Apple rep. You got to make him get on the table. It's just them calling.

Realistically, like, y'all should be on the table. Why are you trying to sell me? Get them to pitch you. I'm going to get you on RapCab. Once you realize, and once I saw that, all right, it's just a human being calling Spotify or Apple, like, hey, of our 70 releases we have this Friday, you guys should really consider us for these playlists. And they can get told no. And I was like, well, wait a second. I can also get told no. Right. And keep 100%. Yeah. You know, so...

And when you talk to these people at the playlist, who do you think they would rather talk to?

The dude at the label or the artist? Yeah. They're all in the music business to be cool with the artist. Yeah, they don't want to talk to the squares. Yeah, and who's going to sell it better? Yeah. Because guess what? The person at the label who's pitching your song to the playlist, right after he pitches yours, he's pitching seven others. And it's harder to tell you know than it is to tell the label, though. Exactly. Like, you're on the phone fighting for your shit. Right, right. They're not going to be like, nah. No.

No, but they have no problem telling this dude no. Also the ego stroke that they get when the artist themselves is calling them. Yeah, that's an element too. That's going to be on the playlist. Exactly. And to be honest, I would rather be in direct communication with who is responsible for maybe getting my music heard by more people. But yeah, once I realized, wait a second, y'all get told no, it's not a guarantee. Playlisting, radio, none of that's a guarantee with y'all. All you can guarantee is a big bag of money up front.

Which is the most attractive part to a lot of people, right? But that's your money they're giving you. And it comes with a crazy interest rate. And it's like, what are they giving you? That's the thing a lot of people don't realize. They're giving you, it's a loan with a shitty rate. But it's not even a loan because a loan wouldn't be taxed.

If you took a loan from a bank, there's no tax on it. It's not necessarily income. It's a crazy situation. Now, what I'll say. The government's taking half immediately, but you got to pay back the full thing. Right. I never understood that. You remember that Jay-Z line? Y'all still taking advances, huh? I was like, what's wrong with advances? Right. Now that I learned, I'm like, that's the dumbest shit ever. So let's just do, let's just, quick math. Let's say they front you $5 million. Sure. You take that $5 million. Government immediately comes and takes two and a half. No. But you still owe five.

No. Well, it depends what your deal is. So what you do is you get the five. Because you don't want to give as much money to the government, you pay commissions on the five.

Of course, you can write off your commitment. But most people have manager on 20, lawyer on five, business manager on five. So that's 30. So off top, what is that? That's 1.5 million. Okay, so you're at 3.5. Now you cut the 3.5 in half. You're at 1.75. 1.75. So you've got five. That's really what five is. And that's before you spend anything. And you've got to spend that on production. You've got to send that on feeds. Yeah, because that's your recording advance.

So just think about that. That's to me handcuffs. Now there is a way to kind of, because I've spoken to certain companies about deals, right? Yeah. And I'm like-

So what is the advantage of this? It seems like you're just giving me all the money up front, right? And I guess what I could do is if I was financially literate, which I'm not, I could invest it in smart ways. I don't know how to do that. I genuinely don't. And I just tell them straight up. So it's like, it seems to me what this does is just kind of shackles me to you. And I guess I get some money up front, but that money isn't my money. I have to make that money anyway. But what I did ask is, what if we did a loan instead of an advance? Because a loan...

is technically not taxable with income tax. You only get taxed based on what you make back against that loan. So you can, you know what I mean? There are certain ways around it. But it is kind of fucked up how- It is fucked up. Because it's- Think about five turns to 1.75. Well, and a lot of people also think, well, if they give me five, you know, that incentivizes them to get their money back. It's, no. The whole label is cross-collateralized. I mean-

Meaning, guess what? If I give you five and I give you five and I give you five and I give you five and these three flop and you make 50 mil back, I don't care that these three flop. And nor am I even going to pay attention to these three. You've got to think of it almost like a VC. Because you're the one keeping the lights on. It's a venture capitalist. It doesn't matter. We only need one of these investments to work out. It's the same now. What's the distribution do?

distribution deal is is more so there's no ownership of masters the splits are way more favorable so like you go to empire maybe you get an 80 20 which is just like it's a profit split like there's no they don't own the masters right and they usually offer label services so that's where it's like back to the very original like what is independent yeah i mean there's different variations because independent to some people is well i'm just not with a major label it's like

So you're not with a major label, but you're with that label who has major label services and you got an advance and they do label services. It's like, I guess, you know, I guess. Yeah. That like in a sense, if that is your definition of independent, I'm just not with a major. Then, yeah, you're independent. But for me, for a while, you know, before Columbia, I was independent in the sense that I didn't depend on anyone to do anything for me.

and even post Columbia, that's what it was up until the Santiago album where I've been putting music out. Similar with Tune Chorus, Vidya, right? Vidya is another like digital distribution, right?

I pay $50 a year because I have a great relationship with CEO. I pay $50 a year. I put out as much music as I want. It's the same shit as TuneCore. And will they collect the money on your behalf so they recognize every time it's been played on radio, streamed? Yeah, it's the same thing as TuneCore. Everything is like, yeah, monitored and registered and collected. So there's an RSS feed or something that goes back to those? Yeah, there's a backend. There's a portal and you log in and you can see what everything's doing and how much money you withdraw and send it to your bank account.

In Korea, it was played on this time 100 times. They owe you $10,000 from that. That all comes back. And I get paid every Friday. It's been like that since 2011. Gotcha. So instead of that going to the label and then the label distributes it to you, TuneCore can just do it so it cuts them out of the way. And artists on major labels, it's a semi-annual check if you're recouped.

So if you're recouped, you're getting paid twice a year. Twice. That's if you're recouped. You get paid in March, April, and you get paid in fucking September, October. You know what's fucking hilarious, which I make this joke with my team all the time, just because of when I left the deal and kind of how it works out. My birthday is September 26th.

And so every year, ever since I left Columbia, they like send me a check for a meal like on my birthday because it's like that's when the semi-annual date falls. So I always know that like on my birthday, they have to give me. Yo, that's sick. That's actually a nice little birthday present. It is. They hate that present. I know. I'm always like, I know they're fucking throwing up right in there. So the cross-collateralized thing is really interesting also because I imagine that that's

Part of the idea around the 360 deal. Mm-hmm, which is it's really just more protection from them Of course, so it's like I think we don't need your music to sell we'll get it on the merch So we gave you that five million we need five million Yeah, you only have one point seven five after paying commissions and taxes or whatever So so even if you paid us that back we still need the other three point two five, right? So if your album does nothing, but we throw you in these, you know, what's it called shows we send you around the world and

We're getting that 3.75 back off of these other things. I think our perception on 360 was they just want a little piece of everything. It's like, no, they don't even know if you're going to make money. But if you do, we're going to get it. That's like the interesting thing, right, is like this whole notion. This might come off crazy, but it's the reality. It's like, oh, it's a bad deal. For who? For who?

for the artist, the label signing good deals. - Oh, they're signing good deals. - You know what I'm saying? And that's what people are not, artists need to go into these meetings understanding it's business. They are not about to sign a bad deal.

You know what I'm saying? Which is why you need leverage to make them sign a deal that they normally wouldn't want to sign, but they don't want to lose out on your potential. It is funny how they get salty when they're on the wrong end of the deal, though. Of course. Yeah. Of course. I feel like we should understand it's business and they should understand it's business. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Can you talk about the dollars and cents when it comes to streams when you're independent and with a label? So if you get a million streams independent or a million streams with a label, how much money does the artist get? A million streams independent is like

On Spotify, four grand, give or take. - If you're independent? - Yeah, if you own 100% of the song. - Got it. And then if you're with a label, how much do you get? - You may not see anything.

Let's say you're already recouped. How much is a million streams? It depends on what your split is with the label. It's the same $4,000. It's the same $4,000. But I thought Spotify has deals with record labels where it's like they get bigger. Better rates. Yeah, sometimes it's like tier one rates or tier two rates. Yeah, but some of these, that's why you got to be careful which distro you go to because some of these distros don't have.

the tier one rates that the labels have. They might have tier two rates, so they're actually getting less money per stream than a major label. Oh yeah, like TuneCore, yeah, TuneCore, Vidya, you're getting what the labels get. You're getting the same rate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the reality is like Drake is getting more money per stream than the up and coming artists.

Why is that? Because he's bringing more to Spotify. Yeah, he's more valuable to the streamer. Oh, yeah, he's going to get more. He's got a better deal. He's going to get more. Yeah, he's going to get more. I'm not even mad at that, though. Like, once again, people never consider the other side. It's like, bro, this is a storefront, right, that is allowing you.

Stop with the entitlement. It's allowing you to sell your music in their store. You don't have any leverage to say, this is some bullshit. You got this dude who's bringing you way more money getting paid more than me? It's like, yeah. What are you talking about? They built the platform. They put the money up for R&D. Am I going to put Nike in the storefront or your fucking brand that nobody's ever heard of? Drake's deal. Oh, I don't know Drake's deal.

I'm sure. You have any ideas? Not re-signed to a major. Isn't he doing like something? No, I think he did re-sign. I think they gave him a crazy bag. The Apple one? No, no, no. Like he re-signed, I think with Republic and I think he got a disgusting bag as he should. What are the rumors of how disgusting? I think I know what y'all know is what was online. 300? Fucking three, four. Who knows? I mean, they're going to get it back.

That's the thing. It's a guarantee they get that back. And it might be cross-collateralized with his past stuff. Oh, it is cross. It has to be. That's how they get the money. So you don't get it back off of the old stuff anyway. Well, think about it. It's like if you're with the label for five years, right? Five years, five albums, and you've generated $200 million with that label. You go into another label, they

They can't give you 200 up front because you're starting from scratch. The label you've already made all this money with, that's your best chance to get the biggest back because they can just cross-collateralize it. Once again, same thing. They protect themselves with your past work. Each album is the investment. So guess what? If we own Drake or Nicki or Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift's catalog, even if her next album or next five albums flop...

We're making 500 mil off these last seven. Right, right. Doesn't matter. And Drake knows that too. So the number's going up. Yeah. With what he asked for. He's like, these albums don't even need a hit. No, because- These are going to get played for the next 20 years. And that's what I'm saying. It's more because it's macro. Exactly, yeah. In totality- It's the whole library. I'm a lucrative product. But doesn't he have enough money, incentive, and popularity to go independent after?

Sure, but he just, I don't know, he just may not want to. Because there is a, there's something to be said that's not right or wrong. Not every path is for everyone. Some people, like, they don't, being independent takes a lot of work, a lot of entrepreneurial spirit. Not saying that he or anyone else doesn't have it, but it's just, some people, they want to show up. Some people need a system. Yo, send me my big ass bag, make sure all my shit's on radio.

I'll talk to y'all when I talk to y'all. You know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with that. I get that. Me, I'm just like...

I'm just really, really obnoxiously hands-on. I like being hands-on. I like every aspect of my career. I like the business side. I like every... I really do. I genuinely have a passion for every side of it. There's certain comics that I'll talk to, right? And I'll explain, like, if I'm just trying to give them some game, I'll just explain what they need to do in order to achieve what they want. Right. And I'll really kind of spell it out. Yeah. And...

Then I'll develop different models for them. Listen, if you don't want to learn how to edit, if you want to learn how to subtitle, if you want to bring a camera, like I bring a camera bag to every show by myself, put it up in the back of the fucking room, move some tables out of the way. It gets knocked over halfway through the set. I got to ask some security guard to stand by it, like figure out how to do audio. It's a lot. Mm-hmm.

And sometimes I can tell they don't want to do all that. Sure. So I'm like, you know what? You might need a partner with somebody who's going to do all that. Right. Or you need to bring somebody up. In that case, that's what I did with Al. Put somebody, I was like, listen, I want you to handle this aspect of the biz.

And there's certain people that they just don't know how to do it. They're not industrious. It's not one of their passions, like you said. And it might be better for them to lose that 10% or that 20%. Right. Put your energy towards something else. Straight up. And I think to that point, a lot of people just like, be honest with yourself. You know, who are you? What are you willing to do? And the thing that trips me out is like, if you determine that you're not willing to be this industrious entrepreneurial type of spirit, if that's like, you realize that's not...

real to you. It's like, okay, you bring in someone or a company and they give you millions of dollars and take this massive gamble on you. Of course you don't have the leverage in the situation. They're taking all the risk. You know what I'm saying? Like if you determine that, oh, I just want to make songs and I want y'all to risk millions of dollars on me. Why would you have the good deal in that situation? They're taking all the risk. And I think

the reality, and maybe in the future this is what's gonna happen, but artists have a louder voice than labels. I'm not advocating for labels. I've never been anti-label. I've been anti-bad deals. I've been anti-exploitation. I've been anti-not owning your shit. I've never been, oh, anti-major label. It's just anti-bad deals. But the artists have a louder voice than the labels. So maybe in the future, labels will be famous. Like the dude at the label is famous, and he has a voice, and he's saying, like, look,

We spent millions of dollars. We risked millions of dollars on you. You had 10,000 monthly listeners and we still put up 2 million on your potential. Why would you get the bigger end of the straw? Makes no sense. Yeah. I think it's logical. Yeah. I think it makes sense. Just like remove the labels and all this shit. Like,

If you've got a friend who needs like, you know, they're a musician or whatever, and they're like, oh, I really want to do this music thing. Take away music. Do it with a restaurant. Restaurant. Okay, fine. Sorry, he's a restaurant. Excuse me. Go, go, go. And it's like they don't want to do anything but like run the restaurant, whatever the fuck it is. They want to cook food. They want to cook food. That's all they want to do is make food. But they need the money. They need two million to open up a restaurant. So you give them two mil, and then they're confused when the money comes in that you're getting more.

It's like, I'm cooking the food. Why are you doing it? It's like, motherfucker. Like this doesn't happen. Yeah. Not even this doesn't happen. It's like, I took all the risks. You don't get paid for work. You get paid for risks. Yes. Right. Exactly. And it's like, I think a lot of times artists forget that.

Now, that's not to say that they could take advantage of those situations. No, like I said, I'm anti-exploitation, but at the same time, be real with yourself. If you are somebody who's like, I'm not willing to do anything but go to the studio and you also take all the risk, that's fine. But then also know what kind of situation you're going to end up being in. It's going to be them. They're going to come out on top because they're taking all the risk.

Curious to hear what's your opinion on residencies? I feel like the look of them has changed. They used to be like- Your career is done. You're on the back nine of your career. Now it's like people want residencies. Like what Usher did,

Usher. Was fantastic. Britney Spears. Britney, I think, is a little loony bin, but like Usher. Why do you think that? She just got a. What makes you say that? She got kicked out of the Four Seasons forever because she went naked into the pool or something like that. Oh, that's fire. Yeah, yeah. Britney really going through it. That's all right. Let's go. Let's go.

Have you smashed? What? I don't know. You're famous, bro. You're a famous musician, bro. He said, I never met her. That's why. You know what's so funny? There's a clip of her running naked on the beach to what they want. No. Yes. That's why I asked that question, bro. It was in the ether, bro. Yeah, right. No, I mean, residencies for me, like, I'm not going to Vegas like that.

that Saudi though you could you could have a residency for the next and that's nothing against big I love the Vegas fans I'm just like the city to me is like I can't eat away I just don't like the environment like that it's like there's someplace else that um yeah I think I think if look caucus New Jersey I think if it makes sense for you yeah I

I mean, you know, you go somewhere six times a year and you already love the place anyway. Yeah. And they're giving you a meal or whatever. It's like, yeah, why not? Do you think younger artists should start doing residencies or have the... Yeah, because, I mean, it's soft ticket. You know what I mean? And a lot of times, like... Can you explain what that means for people who are outside of... Soft ticket is people who are going to be there anyway.

So if I perform at a club on a Friday night, it's a soft ticket show. Because guess what? If I'm not there, they're still there. By club, you mean if you go to Live or Eleven in Miami. There was already going to be people there. Exactly. Whereas with Vegas casinos, there's already people that are there. There's already people there. And they're going to look for something to do besides gamble. You're just the entertainment for the night. Exactly. So soft ticket as opposed to like, I'm at Barclays, pull up. That's like...

If y'all don't show up, no one's there. Nobody was at Barclays that night. Yeah. And then, oh, Russ is here? You are the ticket. Right, you're the ticket. So, yeah, I mean, it's a soft ticket play. So the pressure's off of you because there's going to be people there anyway. You don't need to do crazy promotion about it because there's going to be people there anyway.

- Yeah, I mean, smart. - You could save on like production costs if you park yourself at a destination or risk 10 arena cities or let me do a big up show at a place where we all know Vegas, everyone's coming in from everywhere anyway. - Especially if it's not a market that you're strong in with hard tickets. So you're not taking away, like I would never do it in LA because LA is my strongest market hard ticket wise.

But in a market where I'm maybe not so strong hard ticket-wise and they want to give me a residency, I wasn't going to sell tickets there anyway like that. Also, lifestyle. Usher is how old? 40? In his 40s, for sure. In his 40s, it's like, do you want to be on a plane every single night for this tour? Or do you want to park yourself for a month in Vegas, bring your family there, chill? Yeah. Yeah.

And a lot of them live in L.A. and fly. Or you're taking a flight that's 30 minutes. Yeah, it's definitely, yeah. It just has to align with, like, your lifestyle, for sure. For me, it doesn't really. Do you feel like the labels are mad at you for exposing and talking about the bad deals? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't bode well for them. So I'm sure they're not, like, thrilled. Have you felt any heat or pressure from them in any way? Yeah, yeah.

They've called radio stations and, like, you know, threatened radio to be like, you play his shit, I'm not giving you the new. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Really? Why don't you expose him? Because then what? Like, actually call him out. Well, I mean, because, like, because I think what I learned is it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. So I say that and then what?

Realistically, 'cause I'm on an island, right? So I say it, I dig my heels in the sand and I say,

These people over there, they're trying to fuck me. It's like, well, bro, what do you expect? There's this whole circle right here of people on the inside that are trying to protect this. And you're over here. You're surprised they're doing everything they can to shut this down. People don't like bullies. And it's like if we hear a story of a big bully is trying to blackball this independent young artist. Like, yeah, I think that would gather more people to support.

Maybe. But I think it would do more harm than good. Then you have other people who might be like, oh, he's complaining. He's making this up. It would more so be that narrative of you're just bitter. You're just mad. And it would also like the labels are in cahoots with everything and everyone. So you attack one, you attack the other. Yeah, it's like, oh, you want to come out and say this? Well, kiss your complex interview goodbye. You know what I mean? So it's like.

It just, it does more harm than good. And I've already said what I needed to say, you know? And is radio even still a massive driver of... Radio still is valuable. It's still, yeah. There's still a game there to be played, especially at Pop Radio. You make a shit ton of money on the publishing side. Okay. Yeah. Like, if you get a number one at Pop Radio, the publishing check is bananas. Yeah. There are some...

are still people. Yeah, for sure. And like, look, the reality is, you know, I did those three stadiums with Ed Sheeran and I saw firsthand like the difference between an arena and a stadium. When you look at Stadium X, radio. Superstars. Because you know why? I'll tell you why. Guess who's going to the stadium show?

and the kids. Yeah, it's W. Guess who listens to the radio? Parents. Parents. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. That's what takes you from like, like I did Hollywood Bowl, 17,000 people, right? It's like, all right, well, Rose Bowl, 70,000. Yeah, that's a big jump. It's a massive jump. What was the first stadium? Was it MetLife? Levi Stadium. Where's that? Santa Clara. It's like where the 49ers play. So you go- This dude broke this fucking Super Bowl record. That's unbelievable. He's not even from here. That's unbelievable.

You know what I mean? Okay, so break it down. So you and Ed are there. You're opening for Ed or you come out during his set? Okay, so you come out. I do a 45-minute set and then like 10 songs into his set or whatever, he brings me out and we do a song together. How many people are there when you go on? You know what? It was damn near packed because someone went on before me. I go on, I'm direct support, so I went on right before Ed. So maybe not at the first song, but halfway through my shit. It's cool.

It's pitch black outside and it's fucking, when I say put the lights up, it's the whole shit. But break down maybe early in your career. Sometimes the opening acts, people are still walking to their seats. Yeah, it's tough. Even in comedy you see this. And it's something where we try to really avoid it. Especially when you know they're not there for you.

That's the tough part. But what I feel like is with at least L.A., if it's your biggest market, Santa Clara is like how far from L.A.? A couple hours. It's like San Francisco. San Francisco. That's where the Niners play. Oh, I'm thinking Santa Ana. No. No, so I guess it's way more than a couple hours. It's very close to San Jose. But California in general is like a massive. Okay, so you went up there. There are your fans out there, too. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And did it feel like a Russ concert for those 45 minutes? No. No.

But what I'm saying is... What's the difference? What I'm saying is that... Where's the ginger? I'm like, what can I do with myself? And they're like... You got to sing all his shit. You are going to do it yourself. We're not singing nothing else.

We're not here. No, but what I'll say is with the stadium, there's so many fucking people that you can't even see. You really can only see the first couple rows. And the first couple rows for me, even at my own shows, it dictates the whole energy. And so the first couple rows at the shows, it was filled with fans of mine who are so like diehard. So I was right at home. It was fine. It was completely. Yeah. Yeah. You want more?

When in Rome, might as well. Okay, so any adjustment with the stadium, though? Size, does that... No, you know what? And I've said this before about arenas. Arenas and stadiums are easier to do than... Like, performing for 80,000 people, way easier than performing for this amount of people. Oh, yeah. Because this amount of people, like...

Y'all are all just right here. There's no hiding and there's no like, it's so intimate. 80,000 people, you're sort of, I don't know, it's like surreal. You're just kind of like, you're there and they're there, but y'all are not that connected. I don't know how to explain it. It's yeah.

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. I don't know what that is. And probably once you get them moving, too, it's like a trend. Like that momentum is so much. And the energy is so palpable. And like I said, it's just it's different than feeling like I need to personally connect with each seven people in the room right now because there's only seven.

There's 80,000 people. I just need to like crush this and be in my world and like feed off the energy and whatever. But yeah, I don't know. It was an experience. What's the smallest show you ever did? Oh man, probably like 40 people. Oh no, what am I talking about? Four people, Atlanta, 20, I'll tell you the exact date, December 6th, 2014. Okay, four people. Yeah. What's the venue? Masquerade in Atlanta. Okay, you show up, you do the whole show? No, so Diamond, the label that me and my boy started. Oh.

We were like gung-ho about the show, the showcase that we had set up. Like, yo, it's December 6th.

And everyone pulled up. We got a fucking, like my dad got us a fucking limo or something. No, no, no. We thought we were the shit. We're like in the limo with like champagne bottles and we're taking pictures of the marquee. We show up and literally four people. And we crushed. Oh, you did the whole show? Oh yeah. I mean, that was the thing back then, bro. It was like all you had to go off of was your delusional confidence in yourself. So that like for me,

It didn't matter who was in the crowd. I envy that person, sometimes characteristics of that person, because I was just happy to be on stage. I didn't care. Who was in the audience was irrelevant. I was just happy to be in a light that I always saw myself in. Oh, wow. So there's no embarrassment like these people? Oh, my God. None at all. None at all. Wow. None at all.

- I felt zero embarrassment for that night, more embarrassment for in a 7,000 cap venue if only 6,000 show up. - Wow. - Yeah. - Do you keep in touch with those four people at all? I assume you guys connected after the show. - Yeah, some of them are like, we call them, one of his name is Nick Everett. And like we call, me and Bugis, who I started Diamond with, like we refer to a lot of like people, I was like, oh yeah, he's a Nick Everett.

It's this dude from Tennessee. Yeah, he was the first one to get like the logo tattooed on him. He was at every show. Yeah, but it's like to me, I don't know, man. Like that's what makes all this so much sweeter is because like I wasn't one of those artists who, and I feel for these kind of artists who you blow up and you haven't even done a show yet.

Where are you supposed to go from here? Like, you got songs with hundreds of millions of streams and you haven't done a show yet. That's fucking terrifying. I would have been fucked if that happened. How long did it take you to get your show good? Man, it took me a minute and I'm glad I got to do it in sort of that, you know, circuit of when no one was really paying attention. Like, by the time I was really doing shows, I was okay. Yeah.

You know what I mean? But, like, I feel for people like Lil Nas X or, you know, Olivia Rodrigo. But Ice Bice got ripped. Like, it was her first time on stage. And she's not as compelling as... Was that her first time on stage? It was an outdoor show. She did something. And they were kind of clowning her. And it's like, she's literally never performed in front of people. I remember when Olivia Rodrigo, she blew up and the shit went crazy. And she posted her first tour. And it was, like, 2,500 caps. And, like, obviously she could have done arenas. And everyone was like, what the fuck? Like, because her fans are like...

There's so many of us. Why would you book such small rooms? - 'Cause she gotta learn how to handle it. - Yo, she's never done this. - Slippin' 2,500 is a lot for an artist for the first time. - Bro, when I tell you, I remember 2014, Dame from Funk Volume, which was the label that Hopps in and was on, right? I remember he had reached out 2014 and he was like, we were talking about maybe doing a deal. He brings me out to Colorado to do a set before Hopps in and Funk Volume and shit, and I brought Boogus.

And I remember being in the parking lot. The venue was Cervantes Ballroom. It was 1,100 people.

And I was freaking the fuck out in the parking lot, like 1,100. Whoa. And I remember getting up on stage. I remember asking Boogus, like, yo, can you just come up on stage with me? Because this is like, I don't even think I can do this. And I remember going up on stage and 1,100 people, it might as well have been a million. It felt so out of control. It felt like...

What's crazy is if I had never done anything past that point, that person would just think I made it. It's like, what do you mean? Perform for 1,100 people. It felt so crazy. Moments like that help me.

helped me maintain perspective on how big things have gotten and how real shit is. And it gives me the ability to have empathy for artists, like you said, like Ice Bice or Olivia Rodrigo. Any of these people, 2,500 people is insane. 1,100 isn't, 500 is insane. People don't understand, like if you haven't done this shit yet and you go up, you just get thrusted up on stage, you got 300, 400 people like,

You got to entertain us. It's a lot if you've never done that. There's a lot of pressure on that, especially if it's like, yo, we're here for you. We're the ones supporting your music. Don't let us down. It's a lot. What was the last show you did where you felt that pressure of that opening show with 1,100 people? Hollywood Bowl in Staples Center. I was a little like...

A little freaked out right before I walked out. It's weird because I don't get nervous before shows anymore because I know they're all there for me. Yeah. And like, it's like clockwork. Like I do this in my sleep, right? Staple Center was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, you got to bring it. And I wasn't nervous until like literally as I'm walking out and I was like, whoa.

Like, this is Staples. Because I'm looking up, and it's sold out up to the fucking boxes up top. I'm like, dog, like, this is the Lakers game. Yeah. Because, you know, when you do an arena, like, they customize the whole back area. So, like, on the ground, instead of, like, you know, a basketball or whatever the fuck logo they have, it's, like, circles with my name and, like,

The fucking owner of Live Nation has given me iPads with like, congrats, you sold out Staples and a theme show. I'm like, holy fuck. My parents are here. People are watching. How was the show? It was crazy. Could you, did you lock in during it? Or were there moments where you were actually reflecting on the fact that you were at Staples? I think a lot of times, and I wonder if artists do, I disassociate on stage sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

Where like, it's almost like y'all are watching me have a imposter syndrome attack in the middle of my set. Because I'm sad. Like a lot of times during songs, I'm like, I can't believe these people are here. I'm just like, what are these people doing here? And then you've got to like remind yourself, no, stay in it. Like, oh God, sometimes. Yeah. I mean, Stable Center was one of those ones I was like, whoa. Especially because that time I wasn't doing any of this.

In-ears means you have the song playing from the monitors? How do you not do in-ears? Yeah, so I fucking hated in-ears because I wanted to be a monk. Explain the in-ears for the people. So in-ears is this. If you do in-ears, traditionally, all you're going to hear, you're wearing headphones, right? You see the artists, they have that FBI shit in their ear while they're performing. All you're going to hear is the backing track.

You hear no crowd. It's like you're in the studio. So you're a little detached from the crowd. You're performing and you just hear your vocals that you're singing over the backing track, over the instrumental. And you're looking at the crowd and they're just like, what the fuck? Yeah. So I just never fucked with that. Right. So.

No in-ears. And so that's like crazy to people in the music business. Cause like, how did you even hear yourself? Like, and how did you, did you have the monitors high on the stage? Yeah. I always would have the monitor super high on the stage. So monitors, and I would just wing it. They're the speakers on the stage that actually face the artists. Yeah. And that's kind of how you can see how you sound. But I agree with you. Like,

feeling the audience is important and like that can be distorted if you're only hearing a backing track. Even now, I use in-ears, but I do one in, one out. One in, I was going to say, seems like a compromise. You got to hear them. That's what you feed off of. It's tough. Like I tried to do, you know, where your monitor guy sort of tries to like ride the crowd volume. Oh, I don't like that. You know what I mean? Like all of a sudden you're performing. Don't tell him. Tell him. It's like crazy. Every time when we're doing a walkthrough, I have to tell him, I go, I might get quieter.

- Leave it, leave it. - I'm doing that on purpose. - Yeah, exactly. - One DB, you'll know. - No, of course. - 'Cause it throws you off. - It does, it does. All of a sudden it's like, oh. - And you might be using your volume as a tool. - Right, right. - Also guys, I know you're enjoying this episode with Russ, but I gotta give you your prize picks for this week. Your sing locks for Super Bowl Sunday, that was very alliterative. Here we go, we ready? First of all, prize picks, shouts, giving you a free square,

♪♪

- Pricepix.com guys, and if you use the promo code Schultz, they will match your initial deposit up to $100. So you put up a hundred, you get a hundred for free. Why don't you gamble with a hundred free dollars? Pricepix.com, now let's get back to the show. - How was it at the pyramids? - Insane. - Yeah, can you explain like how that goes? Did you tell them you were Egyptian to get that? 'Cause you're a little bit- - Absolutely, yeah. No, I got a passport. - No, because that's a different, we looked into that for something and like, it's not an easy thing. - It's very difficult.

Because the government is like, you have to get approved by the government to do something like that. It's a historical site. Because these Danish motherfuckers did a porno on top of the pyramid. Did you hear about that? No. Some people like fucked on top of one of the pyramids. And after that, they really started. This is their Google search.

But okay, so you got to get government approval government approval certain songs you can perform like that You have to submit your set list which ones?

What songs? It was either there, somewhere in the Middle East, but I couldn't do Young God, because anything religious. Yeah. Yeah, so anything super vulgar you can't do, which is, once again, it's like people in the business know. There's a lot of artists who have tried to do it. And when I've talked to booking agents and whatever, it's like,

This artist submitted their 30 song set list and two songs got approved. Can't do it. Can't do it. What song did you know the audience wanted to hear, but you couldn't play for that show? None. No. Everything that I knew they wanted, I could do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. How, how big of a deal is cussing? Like,

You say vulgar, but... At the Pyramids, it's fine. Pyramids is fine, but I did the first ever rap show in Kuwait, and I was not allowed to cuss. Fans had to remain seated the whole time. I couldn't dance. Not that I dance, but I do a little two-step. There was none of that. What did it look like? So it was like... You have a podium? No. You look like a stand-up copy, pretty much. Do you have video?

Get us a video. I've posted every show I've ever done, but it was cool. Imagine sort of like the ballroom of a hotel. Okay. It's kind of that there was a stage and there were seats and everyone had to remain seated. And me just being like obnoxious at that time, I was like, fuck. I'm like trying to rile them up. I don't give a fuck. Even though I did well with not cursing, but certain shit-

Gets out of hand. Yeah. Type in. Yeah. Type in maybe Russ Kuwait. No. Oh, yeah. This is it. Yeah. See, I'm still dancing. I'm still hitting my feet. I would have arrested you. Yeah. I would have arrested you. So the craziest thing. So this is the boardroom. Here we go. Right. Look, everyone's sitting. Everyone's sitting down. And they had they had like, you know, officials from the government running through the middle telling people to sit down. See, someone stood up.

Wow. Crazy. Oh, my God. Now, the craziest thing that happened during this show is in the middle of my set, I turn around at this point, like my manager was DJing. DJing. He used to just plug in an aux to the laptop and we just rocked out. That's like how we did like massive shows. I love that. Yeah. And I turn around to him.

And I have to stop the show because there's like a, there's a royal family member who's like, my daughters want pictures. Wow. In the middle of the show. In the middle of the set. Crazy. Like, and he's telling me, he's like, yo, this guy, like, he wants his daughters to come up on stage and take pictures like you guys. I'm like,

I'm like kind of busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I just didn't do it. No. Yeah, which ended up being fine. Like after the show, I don't know if it's in this clip, but after the show, I talked to Alvin backstage and it was,

No, I guess it's not. It's on my Instagram. Wait, you talked to the daughters backstage? No, no, no. I talked to the diplomats and the officials. Yeah, are you pleading for your life at that point or what is that like? No, it was fine. It was fine. I just feel like back then, you know, I'm just coasting on like, it can't happen to me. It's all going to be fine. I told them this shit. Yeah, yeah. When we were in Abu Dhabi.

And we were doing the, what is it called? Like the little run through before the show. We were just doing soundcheck and shit. And I was kind of like wowing a little bit during the soundcheck. Right. And the promoters were getting a little nervous. Sure. I can't imagine what you're saying. Did you have to cut anything out? I ain't cut anything. We presented the list of what he couldn't say. And he violated every single thing. And I was like, yo, they're not going to arrest me. I had the same thought. It can't happen to me. This is a bad idea. On me.

But I remember them getting nervous. And then basically the way that they positioned it was that they would go after the promoter, I think it was. Yeah, like, you know, the promoter would be worried about this. They would be responsible as well. It's also, yeah, you want to go back, right? Especially when you know that the audience is great. That's what they really have on you. They got a great sense of humor. Obviously, don't talk about Muhammad, but like just talking about them. Like I posted a video.

I'm making fun of them for the first 10, 15 minutes. Like, nuance it just about their culture. They love it. Jesus Christ. We think that they don't want to make fun of themselves, but they don't want to laugh. They do. Don't talk about Muhammad. Talk about everybody else. And you never think that, but it makes the most sense when you pull it back because it's like God is God. We're not God. We're just people. So we can get made fun of. You know what traveling does? And, like, I just brought my dad on this trip that I just went on. He doesn't come around a lot. And it was so interesting to watch his trip.

sort of open, but to that point, it's like when you travel to all these different parts of the world, what you realize, everyone is a human. Everyone is just a person. I didn't see them as humans either, bro. I agree. Nah, dude. You know what I mean? Just white people. No, but it's like, you know, you watch the news and you see shit and you think that people are like... Yeah, Japanese people are this way. Yeah, they're this way. And it's like, bro, everyone has the same internal trauma or something.

We got to acknowledge that. Have you been to Japan? Yeah. They're odd. They're odd.

They're odd. They're the most odd. Just all of them. Every sense. What do you think? Every sense, they're the most odd. And I don't like how we can't acknowledge it. That's why we go, because they're odd. If they was normal, we wouldn't go. I think Japan is fucking awesome. I'll tell you why. You didn't say it's that awesome. I think Japanese people are moving off of a ill honor code. I fuck with it. You go out there, there's no one at the grocery store. It's just an honor code. Leave the money in the bag.

Ain't that odd? Odd or good? Nobody's eating? No, no, no. I'm saying no employees to make sure you're not stealing. Because they just know you're not going to steal shit. That's odd. That's awesome. No, it's awesome. There can be awesome. The food that they make is awesome. Right. It's odd that when I see two people on a date. I think odd has a negative connotation, but it is odd. Listen, there's some things that are good and some things that are bad. My boy passed out in the street. Shout out to Ben. Ben, he had passed out in the street. He woke up.

In Japan, he passed out in the street. Passed out in the street. Blacked out, passed out in the street. Woke up in the morning, they had his socks and shoes next to him and his socks rolled up and stuffed into the thing. Isn't that fucking incredible? That's odd because they were jerking off to his feet. That's the thing that you didn't realize. Is that proven? That's not true. You're speculating. See, now he's, is that proven? Where's the footage? Can I see that? Yo, travel though, your India clip was crazy. Can you talk to me about that whole experience? Bro, India, I felt like Justin Bieber. I was like,

Like, oh, this is like a little taste. That was a crazy clip, dude. Can we show it? It's rockstar shit. Yeah, I don't know if it's... Oh my God, bro. First of all, India is like the fastest growing market on Spotify. It's a massive country. The people are so loving, so supportive. I've not seen people...

go that hard for me. Like there's, there's only so many groups of people who really like match that level of intensity, man. I went to India. The second I landed, there's people at the airport, which like, I'm not used to like fans. NBA championship. Yeah. And like, but respectful, like maintaining six feet.

not like yo yeah oh they don't do that with us no like yeah but i don't it was just like whoa like y'all are clearly die hard fans but it was like so respectful and the shows were the level of passion of indians in general was just nuts bro it was bananas like the two shows i did i did one in mumbai and delhi and it was like

Oh man, this is fucking nuts out here. I think I saw the Mumbai clip, I think. It's nuts, bro. How many races try to claim you? I feel like you could pass with just about a guy tip. I'm racially ambiguous on the internet. No, it's facts, bro. No, but I think like that- I thought you was a Derek Jeter when I first heard about you when I first saw you. Isn't it funny? Does anyone know what he is yet? No, and you shouldn't tell them. You keep on lying about being Italian. You got to cut that shit out. What?

What are you really? Keep it in the whole. He's fucking Japanese. That's what he is. That's what I knew. You know, it's so funny. It's like that's what a lot of people thought and still think I was telling you off camera like before the interview. It doesn't even matter that I've told people like never lived in Saudi. Like, nah, I know someone who went to school with you in Saudi. It's like, OK.

Okay. I've gotten DMs from like, yo, my friend went to, no lie, real DM. Yo, my friend went to school with you in Costa Rica when you were like 14. Yeah, that's crazy. I just went along with it. I'm like, yeah, tell myself what's going on. I mean, your album is called Santiago. I know why, but they're not going to know. I'm just constantly throwing curveballs. Keep people on their toes. What race are you the most attractive? What does that mean? So like-

If you're a, okay, if you're like a, let's say, say again. Latinos. No, no, no, not what race is the most attractive. We know that. We know Latinos are obviously, yeah. So, no, but I'm saying it's like, for example, Dove, right? Dove is like an eight as an Italian. Sure.

11 is an Israeli. Okay. So what are you- That's really a Frederick. Wait, you think it's the opposite? No, I'm just kidding. That's great. Okay.

Okay, so what race? You're a bad person, dude. You're a fucking bad person. He does that to everybody. Anytime you call him, he sucks too. Anytime you call a dude good looking, both of them are like, okay. I think you're cute. Do you think you're cute? Mark, you're good looking. He's a black twat.

He's a black. He is an African 12. You wouldn't be least attracted to the black. It's interesting to learn the conversion rate. Yeah, what is the conversion? Like, what is he as half black, half white? That's a fine-ass half black with the good hair. He's up there, bro. And the eyes, boy, the eyes.

Two different colors. You have two different colored eyes? You gotta give me something. Stop staring so long. Sorry. You're a bad person. You're a bad friend. Shut up. I know who you are. Not to shift the silly topic to a real thing, but I do think this is an opportunity to actually talk about something.

- Sounds like you about to make it gay as fuck. - No, no, no, no, no, no. When I first blew up, there was so much like, what is he? And I do think that to ignore that is dismissive. Like that played a big role.

In my success. Oh that everybody felt like they can everybody felt like they could see themselves in me You know what? I mean 100% Yeah, because and I've said it before in an interview that they can't cuz they ugly Self in the being being white is

or racially ambiguous online makes it easier to reach the masses, right? Makes it harder to reach hip hop because hip hop is black, right? And so it's very clear I'm not black, but it makes it easier to reach the masses and to ignore that.

is dismissive. And I know that. When I first blew up, Saudi was like, the whole Middle East was like, oh, you're Middle Eastern, so we super love you. And then like, Hispanic people, yeah, right. He doesn't leave me. Give me a love fade in two weeks in the Mediterranean. Wait, do Italians really fuck with you? Yeah, but you know what's so funny? When I did a show in Italy,

I'm doing a show and it's like a regular show. It's fucking turn. And like halfway through the show, I was like, oh, fuck, I'm Italian. You got to play this card right now. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, oh, shit. I was wondering why I felt so much. Because you didn't grow up in. I don't know. It just felt like.

home in a different way. You know what I'm saying? Like every, cause it like dawned on me all of a sudden, like, whoa, everyone in the room is Italian. This is crazy. You know? Cause when you do a show in America, there's not the sense of patriotism where it's like, yo, like everyone's American in here. You know what I'm saying? But like doing a show in Italy and I'm Italian, it took a second cause I'm just running through the motions. But then I was like, whoa,

Everyone in here is Italian. So like six songs deep, I'm like, "You know, did I tell you all that I'm Italian? Did I mention?"

Everyone's like, we don't give a fuck. No, I do get that. Like when we did the show in Scotland, my mom's from Scotland. And when we did the show there. It feels a little bit different. Yeah, it felt like I wanted to hang out with them for longer to be, I don't even know. I don't even know. It's like your DNA lighted up a little bit. Yeah, and it feels like they're excited that you come from the same place that they came from. Right, right. And the same culture kind of bleeds through you. Of course. There's that connection point.

You guys are doing shows in India, right? Yeah. I mean, anytime I go to India, I'm like, oh, yo, this is, I know we laugh because I don't know enough about India. I don't speak Hindi well enough, but like my soul is like, yo, this is, I'm home right now. You can feel it. I'm like, yo, this is it. I'm home. No, it's incredible. What country smells the best? I'm going to go with Italy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a follow-up question.

I'll be a Scottish one. What could follow from there? I'm just saying, that's a follow-up question. What was the layup? Which Asian is the oddest? No, which is the oddest, though? Which is Asians are the oddest? They just are. They just are.

They just a little, they're not a little odd. Come on, bro. But see, like, I really think they're just like perfectionists at everything they do. Odd as in negative. I can tell you, you said yeah, but your soul said no when you looked at me and said yeah. You go, yeah. They are perfectionists in the culture of brief perfection. You want me to give you a gem my mom gave me? Yeah. Is when somebody has a perspective that's like unfamiliar to you. Yeah. Like a beautiful response is, that's interesting.

It's very open-minded. So it's like, they're not odd. Yeah. They're interesting. It's like, interesting. But you know what you mean. But interesting is way more positive. And you know what your mom meant. You know what you meant, and you know what your mom meant. But it's a different energy. Listen, it's a different energy. It's great. But then you go there, and you're like, these some odd ducks.

Ducks. They're interesting people. They're particular, maybe. But you can be interesting and odd. They're odd ducks, bro. They are a little odd. I was there. I'm there with my wife. We were there for like two weeks, and I was like, wow, you're more odd than I thought. Did you ever consider that you're odd? Oh, I'm odd. To them. I'm odd. To them. To them? That's what's so crazy. They are looking at me like you're odd. They're looking at us like, these people are fucking odd.

Yeah. They're like, they're crazy. These motherfuckers are crazy. What? Yeah. You do some weird stuff. I do plenty of weird shit. No, just Americans in general are like, we stick out. We do. He also is odd. Like a sore thumb. He bites his toenails. He said it's the whites. You bite your toenails? I can't do it anymore because I'm older, but I did back in the day. I gave up on that habit. But you did it though. No, I'm kidding. No, I was like, yeah, I used to do that.

I'm just saying, the Japanese, we appreciate them. We love them. They make great video games. They make great technology. They make incredible food. The pancakes, the fluffy ones. What is even going on there? Their integrity is incredible. They have great integrity and they take care of you. All that stuff is there. Very clean. But there's also some oddities that we can appreciate as people who enjoy misfits. I like misfits, clearly. So.

And I find that the Japanese are misfit. You guys are misfits? Look at you guys. Just calling your friend ugly on a platform in front of millions of people? We're odd. Dude, Mark isn't. Listen, listen, the word odd is a negative connotation. I don't want you using it that way. It does, right? The way he uses it, the way I use it is great. You said it with love. He said it with a little bit of vitriol. It's vitriol. Thank you. I'm talking about, yeah, odd is like, it's a number thing. You know who loves who? Who?

I'm not gonna guess. Right. That was the layup? Was that the whole setup? That was the layup. That was the layup right there. That was it, okay? But shout out to Japan. We love you. We appreciate you.

Have you been to Kyoto? Yes. Yeah, it's incredible. That place sucked. What? Dude, it was too fucking Japanese about it. Stop. But you know what? You know what's so interesting? It's like, I think for musicians, for me, a place can be boring or whatever. Not that Kyoto was. But I look at everywhere like, how fun would it be to make music there? No.

So it's different. Like I was sitting on my balcony looking at a koi pond making beats. Yeah. So I'm like, this is fucking awesome. It's inspirational. Did you say it like what's called a Ryu-Kan or something like that? No, I said it the Four Seasons in Kyoto. See, that's the thing. We had to go there for a massage. To the Four Seasons? Yeah, we had to go. What'd you think?

It's stunning. But we tried to be Japanese about it. We're like, we're going to stay in a Ryukan. I tried to buy the Diptyque hand wash. And they do sell it. That's the thing about the Four Seasons. They're fucking awesome. So here's the thing. I wanted to buy the Diptyque hand wash from them. No, no, no. I went to Toronto. I'm like, God, I got to get this hand wash that I smelled. The Four Seasons in Kyoto. I'm in the Diptyque shop. And I'm like, yo, here's the picture. And they're like, oh, that's exclusive to the Four Seasons.

Y'all got embargoes on hand wash? That's crazy. I can't fucking buy the soap. Do you know you could buy the mattress?

Oh, well, I had the pillows. I didn't know you could buy the mattress. That's how nice the Four Seasons is. These rich motherfuckers are smart, bro. They monetize the linens. They're good at it. They might as well. We got a massage at the Ritz once. We didn't even stay there, but we were like, what are these sheets? And then we went and bought those sheets from the spa. Not the hotel. Not where they sleep at. The way your face just laid on it. You were like, I need this in my home. But yeah, the Kyoto thing. My thing with the Kyoto was like...

I don't know, it just felt like a version of Japan for tourists. You know Kyoto used to be the capital? I didn't know that. Yeah, I felt the opposite. I felt Tokyo was like, oh, this is tourist. Kyoto felt like...

I'm really amongst, I don't know. The actual people. Yeah. It felt a little bit more real. You're also, I'm not all jokes aside. You're going for different reasons. You're going for inspiration. You're going to visit and not that you inspire. No, I'm honestly, I'm going for both. Like I'm very much so on the fucking, like, let me get the guide.

I want cultural immersion. Yeah. That's why I went to Kyoto. And I was like, I want to feel what Japanese people felt at this time in history where the city is kind of locked in. Like you still see the, what are they called? Geisha? Geisha, girls walking down the street and shit like that. And I guess it's kind of cool. But there were certain things that I saw in Japan that I was like, wow, this is completely unique to Japan. You will see no other form of this anywhere else. And that, I mean, that cultural...

That's just cultural shock that you experience when you're there. It's like something I've never experienced anywhere else. I love it. It was crazy. And because it was odd or interesting, it was exciting to me. But it was totally unique and different. And in order to get that, you can basically have nobody live there. They don't let anybody move there. Nobody can become a citizen. Is that right? Yeah, bro. I mean, good for them. Even if you're born there, you're not Japanese. How does that work? So what are you?

You're Korean, you're whatever. They keep it locked in. And then they have that kind of, that cultural, what is the word I'm looking for? Homogeny? And it was spectacular. The food was amazing. But they were so...

unbelievably different. Yeah. Where I haven't experienced that level of difference. Like you go into the Middle East, like, yeah, there's cultural differences, but like, there's just kind of like an awareness of how we all act. And they're so educated abroad that they know how Americans are. So they know they're aware. Bro, you go to Japan. Where have you been in the Middle East? Dubai? Just Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Oh,

- Oh yeah, you gotta, like, to me, I love Dubai and not Uganda. But it's like, it's the Vegas. - Egypt and Morocco. - Well, Egypt is Africa. I can say Egypt, Africa. - You gotta go to like fucking-- - But I did Egypt and I did Jerusalem. - Jordan. - Yeah. - Like, to me, traveling, 'cause I'm like, at my core, was such a judgmental person.

Yes. You know what I mean? So judgmental. Because I grew up, like, my dad's from Jersey. My mom's from Long Island. Oh, yeah. Loud Italians. Shit-talking Italians. Like, just grew up, like, judging. Yeah. That's just par for the course. Yeah. And traveling has been, it's given me the capacity to deploy empathy for shit I don't get. Like, for example? Yeah.

Just like in general, just like, oh, they do things different. That's cool. But that's why we go to see the different things. It's exactly why I just got back from Marrakesh. Amazing. Incredible. Was in Saudi. And it's just like just everywhere I go, I'm just trying to do what they do. Let's talk about Marrakesh. I love Marrakesh. Where did you stay?

The Shook or whatever? First time I was at the Royal Mansour. Second time, this time, I was at the Amman. Okay. Wow. Crazy. Yeah, Amman is nuts. Amman is the best. Yeah. It's incredible. But did you go into the Shook? Of course, yeah. We did the whole thing, and then we rode ATVs in the desert. How many rogues did you buy, to be honest? Did they get you? Bro, so here's the funny thing. If y'all are watching Marrakesh, I don't understand what's going on, right? When I stayed at the Royal Mansour in 2019-

You set up the guy because I'm like, look, I want to just go around to the authentic places. So they take you into like the big square, the Medina, and they take you to the rug shop and the furniture shop. And it was awesome. First time I was there, I bought a shit ton of rugs, bought furniture. Cool. Come back this time. Same thing. I'm like, give me a guy. It's a different hotel. We go into the Medina. We do the big square. He's like, I know the best rug shop. Mm hmm.

Takes me to the same rug shop. We walk in. I'm like, I feel like I've been here before. Dude comes out. He's like, my friend. And of course I bought a rug. I was not trying to buy a rug, but I buy a rug. My picture's on the wall. And then he's like, afterwards, he's like, I'll take you to the best furniture store.

We go to the same furniture store. Wait a second. All right, hold on. Now, Moroccans are the best. What sort of like, are we all in just cahoots? Yes. And you know what's tough for me is like, I guess when you travel, you want to, at least for me, I want to feel like I'm getting the authentic experience. I don't want to do the touristy shit. Getting scammed is the authentic experience. Well, I'll say this. It's like, it's what I was telling my dad. It's like, you know what?

Is that because the guys are telling you, look, 80% of the shit in the square is from Bangladesh, India and China. Right. I'll take you to the best one. They take you to the same one that four years ago they took you to.

I'm like, look, maybe this is fake. Maybe that's real. But you know what? I bought it in Marrakesh. That's it. It's real. What you really paying for? You know what I mean? He beats the music industry and then gets hustled by it. It's okay. It's true, shit. We all went for the France. Well, because it's like you're putting your trust in them. Yeah. And if you don't believe that this dude is telling you the truth. They're the label. They're the label.

We need nine grand up front. We'll send you the rug. So here's the reality. They're all made in Bangladesh. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. But I think you're going there. I bought them in Morocco. You bought them in Morocco. But I also, the way I look at it is like, I'm not here for where the rug is made. Yeah. I'm here for the dance. Yes. The guy telling me 800. Yes. And I'm like, oh, I can't do it. Let's do four. I'm going to give him 800 no matter what.

I was going to give him an eye. Exactly. I don't, like, I want him to make the money, but I understand that he likes his dance and this dance has existed for thousands of years. Right. Morocco, old culture. Right. And you get to take part in this dance. No, it's beautiful. To me, that's the authentic experience. It's just fun to, yeah.

I'm not here for that. Can I get you a tea? Like him setting you up for this rope-a-dope, you're like, oh, this is amazing. Like this culture has thrived like this. I know you're finessing me and I love every minute of it. Remember when we went in the store, the guy was like breaking up little pieces of crystal and telling us this is going to give you a boner. This is going to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's salt. Yeah. And then boom, boner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Salt day. Salt day. Salt. Okay, where else? What was one of the dopest spots that you went to that was completely unexpected? Lake Lucerne. In Switzerland. Yes. Okay. What's it called? Hotel Witz now. It looks like a Bob Ross painting. That's the best way to describe it. You're sitting there. It's a hotel.

It's on this lake. It's the trees that Bob Ross drew. It's the fucking lake with the perfect little ripples. And it's just like, it's so serene. There's nothing to do, but go to the spa and relax and look at your surroundings in the lake. You jump in the lake, you get out your skin. I don't know if you ever touched a dolphin, but you feel like a dolphin. Why?

It's just so smooth. It's like the water is like holy and blessed. I don't even, I don't get it. But it was just so serene and peaceful. It was one of those moments where you're like, this is what eyes were made for.

was to look at this. - Wow. - Yeah. - So Lake Lucerne, the Amalfi Coast- - Amalfi's crazy. - Is insane, but yeah, man, Lake Lucerne was just, I don't know. - Amalfi's one of those places that's popular and then you go and you're just like, I don't give a fuck. I get it. - I get it. You know where else I get is Santorini. - Oh, Santorini, Greece. - Because Santorini is one of those places where it's like- - You loved it. - Nowhere else in the world-

Looks like that. Yeah. You go to a lot of like cities in Europe and I love all these cities, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels. It's like, there's a familiar, it all sort of kind of, you know, jumbles together at a certain point. You go to Santa Rita, you're like, where the fuck

It looks like I'm inside the postcard. Yeah, exactly. And I remember thinking about Greek mythology. This part was actually in Athens, but the Temple of Poseidon, you're looking over the water that's similar to Santorini. And you're like, oh, I completely understand thinking there had to be a god for just this. Right. There is a god for just water because look at what I'm looking at. There's no other way around it. I'm kind of being a Malfi, and I think we were talking about that because you were in Santorini, and it's like –

Like, I get why people from certain places don't believe in God because you don't have this. Right, right. Like, you're looking at dog shit. You know what I mean? Like, if you were an atheist in Cleveland, I'd get it. You know what I mean? But you can't be an atheist in Amalfi because you're looking at this. If you're an atheist in Cleveland, it's crazy. Yeah, because I'm not judging you because you're looking at a smokestack, right? But in Amalfi, you're like, no, only God could create something like this.

Yeah. In Santorini, same thing. You know what this reminds me of? Like, I dreamed of having conversations like these. Yeah. I remember, like, I went to T.I.'s manager's house with Boogus, like, 2014, 15. And it was me, Boogus, Jason Jeter. Oh, Jason. It was me, Boogus, Jason Jeter, and Killer Mike. And we were sitting in Jason's, like, cigar room. And, like, I had no fans, no money.

And we're sitting there and Killer Mike and Jason are just talking about like, yo, Croatia. And I remember just sitting there like, I don't know.

And I remember going home and telling my mom, like, whoa, like, it was crazy. They were talking about Croatia. And me and her talked about, because her love, one of her loves is travel, too. And I remember me and her talking about, like, can you imagine what that would be like to be able to sit around and talk about. Have you sent her around? Sent her. She comes with. Every single time. Hell, yeah. Like, she didn't come to Saudi this time or Marrakesh. She's already been. You know what I mean? So it's like.

Yeah, bro, because to me, I dreamed of this shit. And the fact that I've gone down the rabbit hole before of I want to see my bank balance have more in it. But then I did the second step of that question, which is why? And when you get to the why, it gets confronting because it's like- What's the why? The why was, well, so that I have more money. And then it's like, but why? Why?

I guess no reason. You know what I mean? So then that's when I started just being like, bro, you know what? Like I'm making the money to, and this is a quote my mom gave me. If you have the ability to change somebody's reality, do it.

And I just use money to change my reality and people I love's reality. So I use money to just do fucking epic travel shit with my family and everyone I fuck with. Amen. That's it. Because it's like, yeah, bro, like I could show you the fucking tax document, whatever. I've made, and this is three years ago, so it's more than that. But three, four years ago, I had grossed 50 mil.

Gross. This is before you have to pay out people. Gross. Gross 50 mil. So I've made like I had made that much spent fucking 49. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? Because it's like, what else am I doing with it? Yeah. Like, I feel like I feel like the culture of like stack is so it's just you have no connection with the present. You're saving for what? Mm hmm.

Like a lot of people don't reverse engineer the lifestyle they want. I always tell people, look, instead of just being like, I want to be rich, that's too vague and it's not specific. What do you want? Specifically, what house do you want? What car do you want? What kind of life do you want to live? How much does all that cost? Now reverse engineer it. Now all of a sudden you don't need a billion. You need two mil or you need 500 grand or whatever. So like for me, I do that all the time with myself where I'm like,

Do I want more money? Yeah, 'cause I'm ambitious and I like seeing the numbers go up on a screen 'cause it's like a video game. But realistically, it's like me and my business managers talk about all the time, it's like the big purchases are out of the way. Everyone got a spot. - You got the house. - Everyone has a car, everyone has a spot. So it's like now I'm just on some like, bro, I'm just trying to go places and do ill shit. Like we were just in Marrakesh just because.

My dad fell off a camel. It's awesome. That's a high fall. You know what I'm saying? Like, it was on the way down. But it's just like doing shit like that, like for no other reason than being able to log it in your memory bank. Like that, to me, that's the only reason why I'm doing this shit. A wealth of experiences. That's it, bro. Because all this shit is just like, it's one big facade that people are just, I feel like me included was chasing such things.

Like approval and validation and like travel is for you. Travel travel. Stacking money is for them. Right. Right. Because who is it impressing? Right. Well, you know, you know who it's impressing. It's impressing the perception of what I think I should be. Exactly. Like I should what I've made 50 mil. I should have 48. It's like you could have had 48. But guess what? You couldn't have had.

is the trip to there, the trip to there, the trip. And I think about that shit all the time. It's like someone, you know, I said it on a song. It's like, uh,

Some like you may be richer, but have you ever left the country? You know what I'm saying? It's like, so how rich are you? Yeah. Like I'm I feel so rich in experiences. There's that. You know what I'm saying? Like my mom has been no lie around the world two, three times around the world, like everywhere documented. Like she's seen everywhere. And it's like.

What else, dog? I'm going to probably bastardize you, but there's that parable about the guy fishing and then somebody comes up to him and he's like... Oh, I know. Bro, please tell a story for the camera. You can probably tell it to me better than me, so you go. No, you can't because... Okay, so Guy sees another guy fishing and he's just like...

So what do you do? I'm an investment banker, whatever the fuck he is. And the guy's like, oh, I just sit here and fish. And he's like, what, that's how you make your entire living? He's like, yeah, what's wrong with that? And the guy's like, no, man, you need to like fish. You need to like sell fish, open a market, then maybe open an online e-commerce thing. Then you can try to make money. They can hire employees. And he goes through step after step after step. And then the guy's like, okay, then what happens? He goes, then you can just sit there and fish. And the guy's like, I'm all right now. Okay, well, time out.

Bro, that's it. It's like, because I've heard that and it's so true. It's like, bro, I sit at home and I make music. And money, it's mailbox money. I get paid every Friday since I was fucking 18. So it's like-

This is it. All right, guys, we're going to take a break real quick because we got to talk about your health. And when it comes to your health and the products you use, they need to be scientifically backed, objectively tested. That is not negotiable. That's what I love about Momentus. They set a high bar. They got a continuously expanding line of products designed by industry-leading experts and performance leaders such as our boy, Dr. Andrew Huberman. Big dick cubes in the motherfucker.

and building, testing these products, cosigning everything. Their favorite, one of my favorites, the Focus and Cognition Bundle, supports cognitive function and mental performance. It's a 60-day supply. It's got tyrosine, omega-3, alpha-GPC. All of these have an established role in helping your neural function. I don't take it consistently enough because I'm an idiot, and it shows...

when I make dumb ass comments on this podcast. And you know, the supplement world has got a lot of bullshit products out there that you can't trust. This is why you can trust Momentous. In addition to being NSF certified, which is the National Science Foundation. It also works with some of the world's leading scientists, including Big Dick Hughes, Big Dick Drew, to develop products and optimize mental health, physical health, performance in all aspects of life, sleep, whatever the fuck you need. 150 professional and college teams use their products. That means they gotta be good.

They also have contracts with the U.S. military, Tony Stark type shit. And Momentous has proven itself as an industry leader that creates best-in-class human performance supplements. So go to livemomentous.com. And here's what's even better. If you use the code FLAGRANT, you're going to get 20% off. That is L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com slash FLAGRANT for 20% off. Now let's get back to the show. So outside of music and traveling, what excites you right now? Like, um...

These guys have gotten into playing paddle. Oh, my God. You guys are paddle ball. Yeah, yeah. Fucking pickleball. Not pickleball. No, don't say pickle. These two. We're going to bring you and play some paddle. I went on a walk yesterday. It's 6 a.m. I see a bunch of people playing pickleball. Old people. I'm like, get on the basketball court. No, but I get it. But, no, what excites me, honestly, is, like, I've had to shift my,

And I talk about this on the album. I'm talking about it in my second book. It's like the pursuit for me now is just progress. That's what it has to be. What is progress? Progress is perpetual. It's forever. Emotional progress. How do you define progress? Everything. What's the parameter? You run down the categories. Physically, I want to be stronger. I want to be healthier. Mentally, I want to be more disciplined.

I want to make something that I love even more than what I did yesterday. You know, and it's, to me, it's things that are in my control that don't rely on the approval of anyone else but myself. And I got into a bad, bad space. And not to say that I'm out of it, but I got into a bad space where like,

The metric for me was if other people approved what I was doing. Yeah. And that's a bad place to be because you live and die by the booze and the cheers, you know? Yeah. And yeah, for me, like what excites me now, bro, is just honestly being present in progress. Like,

Waking up at 8:00 and going to the gym by 9:00 and by 10:00 I'm in the studio and by 11:00 I've made a song and by 12:00 I'm doing a call about a book I'm putting out and by 1:00 I'm on the couch with my girl and my two dogs and my mom's swimming in my pool in the backyard and like that's it. Yeah, like that to me is

That's it. Yeah. There's this guy, Naval. I forget his name. Harari. No, no, no. You were telling me about him. He's an Indian dude, actually, but he's like an investment guy. Yeah. He's made billions of dollars, but he had these three mantras that distills, I think, all of this. And I've been thinking about it a lot recently. And he was like, the three endogenous indicators of happiness. Everything else can marginally raise it or lower it, but the three biggest indicators, and the words he uses are precise, and I really like them. He said...

A calm mind. Wow. Not sharper, not quicker, not doing more shit, but calm. Calm. Calm mind. Yeah. Fit body, house full of love. He's like, if you get those three things, genuinely everything else is- I love that. I love that. Everything else is kind of like little parameters that can kind of tweak it. But those three things across any culture, any society, any individual is going to be the biggest indicator of what happens. I really hope that everyone watching this fucking hears that because that to me is

That's the epitome of what people should be chasing. And that's what Santiago is about. That's what the second book is about. Because all those things you said have nothing to do with anyone else. It has everything to do with things that we're in control of. And it's just, yeah, bro, that's it. That's it. Everything else falls into place. You know, it really does. That's what I've noticed. It's like, if I'm good mentally, physically, spiritually...

whatever bro whatever else therapy's worked on anybody faster than it's worked on you it's actually really remarkable i think because i needed it and i wanted it so bad yeah and i committed to it because i really for years and i would like trickle it in songs like i should probably get a therapist it's like yeah five years later still no therapist but um yeah i really i really did want help and um

It's so much deeper than just like the connotation of therapy. You know, it's really like a spiritual mentor, you know, because the guy I talked to, he's not even a licensed therapist. He's just a fucking guru. The wise dude. Yeah. And it's just...

I don't know, man. Not to get cliche, but being men, it's tough to feel, one, comfortable being vulnerable with things you're struggling with, two, to even have somebody that you can talk to because to your parents, that might feel like they're going to feel guilty because somehow they'll make it about them. To your friends, they're like, I don't fucking know. Just get over it. I got my own shit going on. You're doing better than me. Have you tried getting over it?

What did you say in another podcast? You said the measure of a man is how far he can... So that's something that my mentor told me. He said, you know, society measures a man by...

How much can you carry? How far can you carry it? And how alone can you carry it? And it's so real. And like, I think just subconsciously, that's kind of how men move throughout society. Is, you know, not to get fake deep, but when, you know, people ask me, oh, how you doing? It's like, can't complain. But when you really read into that, it's like, can't complain. Yeah, I can't. I'm in a position where I can't. Like you can't because we have not allowed ourselves

the space to even give ourselves empathy because we don't feel like it's a safe space with other men to be like, you know what? I'm going through something right now. It's fucked up. We also don't want to put that on the people we love too. Yeah, well, because we're men and we got to shoulder it and fucking brush the dirt off and move forward. You don't want your girl to worry. You don't want your mom to worry. You don't want all the people that rely on you to worry. You want them to know that they're going to be good and they're good when you're good. Right.

So you're like, all right, I got to hold this. And then you meet somebody you could talk to about it. And you're like, oh, it feels great to talk to you about it. Because these people are all going to be safe. But I get this off my chest. Right. And there's no judgment from there. And what I learned through talking with him is when you resist, resisting insecurities leads to self-implosion. And that to me was so true. It's like, you know, whether it was interviews or meetings or just in general, it's like,

Me resisting the feeling of like, you know what? I'm nervous. Like I was nervous coming on here. Yeah. Right. And if I would have tried to like overcompensate that, that would have led to maybe really like self-destructive, like outburst. Nah, you know, or just in general, not on camera. And it's like,

When you resist what you're actually feeling, which is what men do, it's what we've been trained to do because you push down, push down, it's going to come out sideways at some point, at a time when you don't want it to come out. What's that quote? Everything you want...

Is through the door you wish not to enter the most or something right? There's this quote about like everything you desire is through the thing that you're most out of what you fear the most is on the other side of what you fear the most yeah, and And it is true and also like you get into a place of comfort Which is like is privileged, but it can also be a prison in that like you don't have to do an interview You don't have to do anything. You don't want anymore, right?

And now you're in the position where you can avoid those things you fear, but what is on the other side of those things you fear is exactly what you want. I know, and you know what? For me, this is like a thing I've set as a goal, is like the year of just doing hard shit, because...

Like you said, I don't have to talk to anyone ever again. - And you're good. - And I'm fine, but it's like, guess what? But I want more and I'm ambitious and I want to express myself in different mediums than just music. So guess what that means? You gotta do the podcast. You should do the podcast. You fuck with Schultz, you like his brand. It's a good place for you to express yourself and be honest.

But yeah, it's confronting because now you got to like be yourself and people are watching. You're putting yourself out there for judgment. You can't control it as much. You can't control it. So it's scary. And like you said, because I'm good, I can just be like, what? I'm at the house. I was just in Saudi, the Americas. I could have just gone home. You know, like I miss my dogs. I miss my bed. But it's like, nah, bro. I have to do the hard shit. And then there's a joy that comes from that. Yeah.

Yeah. There's also like a fulfillment of purpose that comes from it. Because you're like, oh, shit. I was scared and then I did it. Right. Yeah. It's weird. Like, because that is, I guess. On the other side of fear is strength. Yeah. And so that is the thing. Like, when it comes to like money or stacking or whatever these things are, I think that like, like I have no aspiration to be a billionaire. Like that, the sound of it is like, okay, if it's cool, I don't give a fuck. I just don't care. Like, it doesn't mean anything to me. Right. Right.

But I do have an aspiration of having enough money where every decision I make is because I want to make it, right? Not because I have to. Right now, we're privileged enough. Like, we're the luckiest people on the fucking face of the universe. We get to do shit that is so much fun for a living. Like, this is a joke. It's even a job. Right. It's crazy. Look what we're doing. It's a joke. This is insane. It's absurd. We're in a random building in New York. We set up cameras to make it seem like we're doing something.

There's fake bricks here. Yeah. These are not even real. So like... No, it's insane. Dope combos. Dope combos, dope. But see, like, that's really what it's about. Exactly. But one of the things is like,

So we're very fortunate that through stand-up and all these different things, through music for you, you've been able to do a thing that you truly love to make a living. There is another level, which you might be at. I don't want to count your pockets, where it's like you actually don't have to do anything anymore. Your family's good. You're good. And everything you do is because you want to do it. Now, what you just described to me, I didn't even foresee, which is when you don't have to do anything, you will...

Have greater hesitation with the things that you fear to do. Yes. I didn't even think about that. Well, because for a long time, I've been at where you're talking about where it's like, I don't have to do any of this. And you're good. Because I've had the mailbox. I've been getting paid every Friday. You're going to be fine. So it's like, I know I've been financially secure for a long time. Got it.

And so now, like you just said, I've never heard it like that. Now it makes you really analyze the things you don't want to do because you're like, wait a second. Because before you've got to do that, you've got to do that uncomfortable interview because you're like, I want to push this album. I want people to see my work. I put a lot of effort into this. So I'm going to put myself in this vulnerable situation because there is upside and I have to risk that downside for that upside. You can't hide from fear if you're not rich. Right.

And that makes me think of the mega artists that are, they do the mysterious thing. And I'm wondering, are you just a little bit afraid? Like the Kendricks or the Travis's that like, you never see them. They're just, they're, they're just good. They're just like, they're fine. Maybe they, or maybe they're afraid, but maybe they're afraid, but it's like, I, yeah, I know for me, it's, it's just kind of like,

I don't have to do these things, but I want to do them because at this point, I'm just being driven by the fact that I'm scared to do them.

You know what I mean? But that's because your goal is personal growth. If your goal is like money, then you're like, no, I'm not going to do this podcast. I'm going to make more music. Exactly. How do you gauge how much you show the world? Because like you're very vulnerable in your music, but then like, you know, social media, just like surface level stuff. Like even right now, right? It's like, I have nothing to push. Yeah. We can make up things. Like I have a song coming out in two days. I don't give a fuck if we even, we don't have to talk.

I got a hair care. I don't give a shit. This is clever right here. No, no, no. Truthfully. Lock that up. I don't even have anything to do. Santiago is out, by the way. No, but truthfully, I genuinely wanted to come on here as an exercise and do the hard shit. It has nothing to do with any of that because I've learned that

All of these extraterrestrial things don't sell your music. I'll never forget. And this is no shot at Tyga. I love Tyga. I remember 10, 12 years ago. I don't know when the fuck it was.

Kim Kardashian posted like a Tyga mixtape. I remember we're on the come up. So we're studying everything and we're like, Dan, Kim posting the mixtape didn't even like really matter. It didn't like move the needle. Yeah. And, you know, certain things you just remember on your come up. And so forever we're just like, yeah, it just doesn't matter. Like, like Kanye right now could post me on his Instagram. I go listen to Santiago. Yeah.

It's not going to like... For 24 hours, it'll be like, whoa. Nah, but if he posted it with a picture next to that milk factory he got walking around with. Nah, but it's like, I'm telling you, bro. I'm telling you, it doesn't... The internet's so fast, it doesn't matter. The only shit that matters is like real, actual, human, consistent connection. And so for me, yeah, it's like, I don't have to do any of this. I don't care about promoting anything because...

I'm not entitled to your platform to promote my shit. So I know I have my platform. My fans know what's going on. I got a community. Y'all know what's up. Cool. I want to come on here because I fuck with you. Mm-hmm.

I wanna talk to y'all. And like I said, it's an exercise in like, bro, do the hard shit. This is like training my brain to do a cold plunge. See what I'm saying? Like this is the cold plunge. Selfish follow up. You talked about all I want is growth. And even in your music, all you want is growth. I was listening to a podcast where he talks, this guy works with like high level, like athletes, investors, whatever. And he talks about the people who excel, the Tiger Woods types.

They don't perform for ego reasons. They don't do what they do for ego reasons. A lot of us do. And that's why like embarrassment, like bombing on stage as a comedian is so fucking embarrassing because you're having an album flop. Maybe he talks about basketball players a lot of times, like they don't want to miss free throws. It's just embarrassment. And that really hinders your growth if you're doing it for your ego. Cause the ego is like, well, I don't want to get embarrassed. Right.

the people who are the best of the best are in it just for mastery. And that's all they care about. How do you, based on what I've researched from you, listened to with Santiago, you were ego initially and now it's mastery. How do you uncouple yours? Cause I'm in the process of trying to let go. It's not that black and white. It's still a little bit of both, but I'm in the process of shifting the trophy from

ego to self-mastery. That's part of the work that I've been doing and that's what Santiago is about, which is why the album ends on me singing It Was You All Along. I love that. It's because it's like everything you've been chasing is you. Yeah. You've been chasing yourself. You're chasing your tail this whole time. Yeah. And...

Self-mastery is the, in my opinion, it's the only thing worth going after because it's a game we can all play. It's a trophy we can all win. And it doesn't matter who else is playing. We can all win it. It's a weird thing, though. Sometimes, like...

Having money allows you to reflect long enough to realize what you truly wanted the whole time. Right. People who don't have that, they're trying to... They think that money's the answer. Because in the moment, it is the answer to their rent. It's the answer to their food, taking care of their family. Well, it's the three basic, like, shelter, food, water. Exactly. It's like, I can't think past that till those are covered. Exactly. But it's like the Jim Carrey commencement speech he gave. He's like...

it's not this verbatim, but it's like...

I wish everyone was rich and famous so they could figure out what they really want. Exactly. He's right, though. It's the truth. It's like everyone, and I don't blame people because I get it. Because like you said, it's like we don't have shelter, food, or water. Yep. Right? But it's like I wish everyone could get their money and get their shit straight. And then you'd really see what you actually want. It's important to position it in that way because I know that there's probably people who watch and listen to hear, they hear people say these things and they're just like, man, shut the fuck up. You got everything. Right. And it seems almost like condescending to

when it's said, but there is a lot of game in there. There's so much pro. I like how Jim said it where it's just like, I can't wait for you to have all that money so that you start tapping away at the end of the game. And what's so funny is we talk about Jim Carrey as like a manifestation example where he wrote a $20 million check to himself when he was broke and then he got paid $20 million for I think Ace Ventura too. But nobody leaves out the part where he goes, you know, he still wasn't happy after that.

Yeah. That's a really interesting thing. Well, because it's like, to his point, it's like you realize what you actually want. Yeah, what makes you happy? Is it creating things you're proud of? Or is it the people clapping? Well, the reality for me, right, to what you were saying with Santiago, it's like I got plaques and money and all this shit.

And there was a hole still. And the hole was the fact that I didn't approve of myself. So it didn't matter that the plaques were approval. They were signs of validation. All these symbols of success, sold out shows, plaques, money. They're just symbols of success. Real success. It's an inside job. It's do you approve of yourself?

And I did it. And the reason why is because at a very, very young age, like most boys, your metric of success is your dad's approval. And for me, my dad's standard was perfection and unmeetable perfection.

And so, therefore, I was never quite the standard. And as you grow up, my dad's voice became my own voice. And so his metric became my metric, which ended up being I'm not good enough for myself no matter what I do because it's not perfect. And it's a great motivator. It's a great motivator. Oh, because you know why? Because guess what? Yeah, you went platinum.

Why don't you go two? And so you'll keep succeeding. And from the outside looking in, it's like, damn, Russ, your work ethic's crazy. It's like, if only you knew what was driving the car. Yeah. Like, this is not a good energy driving the car. This is my shadow. This is my shame self.

behind the driver's seat, I'm just like the little boy in the passenger seat. And the shame is driving like you fucking loser. So I got to get us all the way to double because you couldn't. Right. So what do you do? What do you do to make that shift? Like, are there active steps you're taking, writing affirmations? Yeah. The active steps are first of all, like, and I think this goes overlooked. Step one is awareness. Just even being aware that you're doing what you're doing. I

I just wasn't even aware that that's what I was doing, that that was my process. So like step one is awareness. Step two is starting to, yeah, it's to modify the process. It's to sort of, it's to interfere the negative self-talk. It's to catch it. So when that shame and that shadow pops up and is like not good enough,

You got to tell yourself and tell that version of yourself, yo, chill. Like, I hear you. I know you just want the best, but we're not doing it like that anymore. But the first step is awareness. And a lot of people, me included, were just not even aware that I was like moving like that. I thought it was all positive. I'm looking at my life. I'm like plaques, money. I'm doing pretty good. Everything I'm doing must be right, especially when no one else around you

is at the level you're at, you feel like you must be doing something. Right. That like the average person, you know what I mean? They all think you're doing something right. Right. And so they're not going to tell you. They don't want to help you. Well, they want to help you, but they don't know how because it's like,

It's working. It's working. So I don't know, bro. It's like, shit. Keep doing what you're doing. And keep in mind, success... You know how many times you dap somebody up as a successful person and they just say, keep doing what you're doing? It's like...

It's not sustainable. Yeah. It's not angry. I'm still angry. No, it's not sustainable. Cause at some point you burn out. You know what I mean? And I talk about it in the book and I talk about it with my mentor, but it's like dark motivation versus light motivation. And I was just driven by dark motivation, which is like fear-based. Like I need to prove to everyone that,

that I'm really who I am and who I think I am. And it's all this, like, it's very combative and it's making enemies out of people and entities that don't even know they're enemies. - Yes. - It's not even real. - We've said it on here before. And it's like, I think we're just doing it wrong here. This American capitalist chasing after it. You go to these older societies in Europe where it's like, they get it. They get it. They had the calm mind, the love in the home.

the fit body, they got it already. There's less ambition for sure. There is less ambition. And an American will go over there and be like,

How are you happy? Yeah, you're all losers. Like, broke boys? Look at your life. Broke-y. It's like, what? I lived in Spain for a year, and I had— Really? Yeah, I was living on like 10 euros a day. Five of those euros were spent to get into a club, and I got a beer with the entrance fee. Beautiful. So the other five were like putting together the meal. We were cooking fucking the Spanish tortilla. It was just great. We were living broke together. We were playing basketball, and it was awesome. And I remember having this moment there where I was like, man, I could do this forever. Yeah.

And I had to stop myself and be like, hold on. No, you got to go achieve things. You got to go do things. You got to go back and finish college. And I'm glad that I did. But to what you were saying was I was at such peace with my life and with my friends and doing the things I wanted to do. It was something that I hadn't experienced in the same level back home. And you were fishing already. That's what I'm saying. I was fishing. But I'm glad that I was able to go and chase success here. Because I think sometimes the sacrifice

that you make when you have a society or a culture that's built around that, which sometimes they could scrutinize ambition and like,

The people that aren't cool just fishing, they want to go fish in the deep sea. The people that just fish and start going, Wyatt, you think you're better than us? What do you need that for? Yeah. And sometimes you don't think you're better than them. You just really want to see what fishing in the deep sea is about. You just want to challenge yourself. For you. Yeah, for you. And if you're doing it for you, I do think that that is valuable. Absolutely. I think everything should be for you. That's the whole key.

Figuring out what that is. That's the being in pursuit of progress. I've already caught the fish in this spot. Can I catch a fish in the ocean? That's why for me, sometimes people get confused when they're like, well, why do you still want a Grammy? Well, because I don't have one. And that's progress. I don't want it so that y'all clap for me. I just want it to see progress. That's it. But you see that as a form of validation? No, no, no. It's not validation. It's more so it's

It's a confirmation that progress has been had in a certain category. It's less about, see now, the intention is everything. If the intention behind it is, you know what?

I want a Grammy because if I get a Grammy, y'all will fuck with me more. Now, now there's a negative intention around it. You're going to get the Grammy and still be miserable because you don't approve of yourself. If I can poke a hole, it is still progress that is decided. It's other people deciding you've made progress. It's progress that's completely out of your control. Right. Externally validated specifically. Yes. And that, you know, what's so funny about that is when Santiago came out and Billboard like took away sales and I was so fucking pissed. Why'd they do that?

Complete horseshit because you're not allowed to this is billboards rules not even a lie. You look it up on the internet Billboard says you are not allowed to incentivize fans to buy albums. Hmm. You know what that is? What do you mean marketing? Incentivize fans to buy out. Yeah is marketing. Yeah, it's literally in the rules is Luminate is the company that verifies the sales for billboard. They're owned by the same company

So I'm like, okay, that's insane because you are allowing fake streams. Yeah. In merch bundles. How is a merch bundle not incentivized? What was your incentive?

My incentive was if you buy a fucking album, you maybe get invited to a desert listening, whatever it is. That's crazy. That's incredible marketing. Yeah. Why am I not allowed to market? A bundle is a tangible thing that every single person gets. A bundle is incentivizing fans to buy an album. Yeah. So they took away sales, right? Real sales while allowing fake sales. And I remember hitting my mentor. I'm like, bro, this is such bullshit. They're taking away my progress. And he said, no.

They're taking away the external knowing of your progress, but they can never take away your internal knowing of your progress. And I thought that was really profound. And to your point with the Grammys, it's like, yeah, that is out of my control, which is why I can't place too much. I can't personalize it too much. Fair enough. But there is something valuable about having a mountain to climb. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's ambition, purpose. Yeah. So it's like, it's a good mountain to climb.

But depersonalize it. So just to clarify. I won't take it personally when this doesn't get nominated for a Grammy or whatever. Is it an absolutely okay mountain to have if you just want to see progress? Sure. Okay. But don't personalize it to the point that, well, if I don't get it, then I'm a failure. So just to clarify, the album itself represents the progress.

Correct. Not the sales, not whether it's for them. No, the fact that I made it. The fact that you made it. The fact that I made it. Yeah. That's the thing that I always tell people. It's like certain songs, it's like, bro, this song was already a success before it went out. Yeah. Because I made what I wanted to make. Yeah. I already won. But when the thing that you want to make receives an amazing response,

It's a double win. It is a euphoric feeling. Oh, yeah, because. Because you feel like your artistic integrity is intact and the people are appreciating you for your most authentic self. That's the fucking. No, it's incredible. It's incredible. What song on this album was your biggest win without, just by putting it out? I Love You Boy. Yeah, I remember you saying that was really hard to write.

Yeah, I mean, that was the one where, you know, the whole album was me doing sessions with my mentor and him giving me exercises. Because, you know, I don't even lie. The first session we did, I felt bad because I was like, man, the whole time you're talking. And I told him, I said, the whole time you're talking, I'm thinking of songs I can write about this shit. And I felt bad. I felt like I was like almost using the situation. And he was like, no, no, no, no. Allow the creative side of you to come along for the journey.

And I learned that the creative part of me is sort of the part of me that tries to make sense of all the other parts of me. So he would give me these exercises and he would never say write a song. He would just journal. He said, you can journal in the form of a journal, a poem, a song, lyrics, whatever you want. Of course, naturally, I'm always gonna revert to the medium that he's most familiar with. So, so many times we would do a session on Zoom and I would do all the sessions in the studio right next to the mic 'cause it just feels safe for me.

And I'd get off the session and go right onto the mic. And that was I Love You Boy. I Love You Boy was like, the exercise was, I want you to journal and give your inner child the empathy that you wish you got when you were a kid. And that was I Love You Boy. And to me, it's the hardest song I had to write because I had to be, I had to be honest about everything.

feeling embarrassed about certain moments of my career, like in an interview where I drank too much and I said ridiculous shit or, you know, just whatever. And it was like, damn, man, like just having to be honest, like, you know what?

I think it gets way more vulnerable than that. You fucked up? Oh, no, way more, but it's like... It's a great self-reflection. Just having to confront things that I've never had to confront and be honest with like... What you want and what you did want before and a lot of times we're embarrassed of that. What I want and what happened and yeah, the shame. The shame that's attached to wanting something to happen so bad and wanting to be this perfect version of yourself and you didn't hit the mark all the time.

And having to be honest with yourself, like, yeah, you know what? You did fuck up. But you don't need to beat yourself to fuck up. Like, give yourself perpetual punishment. And that's what I've done to myself. I do that. Well, you would if you're a perfectionist, if that was put on you. Yeah. If it's not perfect, then it's a failure. And so now you see the connection, which is why I put out the song Perfections, because it's like that perpetual punishment comes from being a perfectionist. Because it's like, you know what?

You fucked up and that was then, but this is now and I'm gonna let you know that you really fucked this up for us. - Yeah. - Being this vulnerable and putting that much substance in your music, I was just curious, how did you feel about when Mos Def said,

Drake is surface level target music because I feel like this is the thing that's one of those things people have been asking of Drake for quite a while like yo we want to know more about you like what's going on one I think Drake has that in his music two I think the world is entitled

I think the world is tired. Naturally, I think social media has made people very entitled because we see your Instagram. Sometimes we wake up with you and we go to sleep with you. And it gives us this parasocial of the world. What is that term where it's like... Parasocial relationship? Yeah, just this weird like where we're best friends even though we don't actually fucking know you and we expect all these, you know...

entrances into your life. And it's like, yo, we don't know you and you don't owe us anything that you don't want to give us. And social media has ruined that. Social media has made people feel like we are entitled to know the ins and outs of your thought process on any and everything that has to do with you. And if you don't give it to us, we feel like you're bullshitting, fake, you're this. And it's like, bro, these people are artists and they give you what they want to give you. And if you don't fuck with it,

Next song, you know I'm saying but it's like I feel like one Drake has that depth. Yeah How would you break down hip-hop? What's what is hip-hop because most definitely saying that's not hip-hop I would think that's hip-hop but I think I mean the way I got introduced to hip-hop was like it's intelligent movement that's what it is, so I understand the The perspective of like you want there to be

some sort of intelligence behind the lyrics and not just sort of filler and fluff but the reality is like shit changes and disclaimer I'm not in any position to speak on what is and what isn't hip-hop because I'm white straight up but um

You're still a hip hop artist. Yeah. But the reality is, well, I'm ushered in. I'm a guest. He gave me like a plus one. I was the plus one. You got a pass. Yeah. You got not that pass. You got a different pass. I got the plus one pass. At any given moment, all the plus ones get out. No, but yeah, it's like I think hip hop went from counterculture to

and underground to mainstream. It's the most popular shit in the world. So naturally, it went from people doing hip-hop to express and rebel to make money. And Jay-Z talks about it in his Breakfast Club where there was a shift that happened where hip-hop became a get-rich-quick scheme.

and rap became a get-rich-quick scene even when that happened, of course you're going to lose the art because people aren't doing it for the art anymore. They're doing it for the bag. So it's like once you realize that, once again, it's just letting go of the resistance. It's like, look,

If I can just accept the fact that this shit got so big, which was the goal, that it's now become a plausible financial scheme. Okay, well, now I have to accept that there's going to be some people who are not doing it for the art. They're doing it for the bag. And what a great place that...

we've gotten hip-hop and rap to a place where it's so lucrative that people don't even have to be about it for the art. They're there for the money. They're there for the money, and there's still a bag in it. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but that is the... It just comes with the dinner. You know what I'm saying? It's like... And that's not just hip-hop. That's anything that gets popular. Of course. You're oftentimes shackled to the bag. And then once you find something that's lucrative and it provides a living for yourself, a lot of people don't want to...

move away from that. There's comfort from that. Of course. It's also on the people, bro. This whole fucking notion, it's so irritating. It's like, can we stop acting like there's this big fucking...

Ploy to like only push a certain kind of the truth is more boring the truth is always more boring what the truth is the truth is in General society is attracted to negativity more than positivity. Yeah period Yeah, so guess what?

Negative music glorifying negative behaviors and lifestyles will always feel a little sexier because it's a little more dangerous than peace, love, and prosperity. You know what I'm saying? We're drawn to danger, bro. That's just what it is. That's just what it is. And, I mean... If you're in a forest and you hear some branches break or some leaves rustle, you look around. Now, the real shit that no one wants to talk about, if I talk about it, I'll probably get canceled. That would be just the end of us. Go.

Whatever. It's really what I think people should be like looking into is white people's fascination with black trauma.

That is, to me, is very bizarre. Black people are also fascinated with black trauma. That makes more sense because it lands and it resonates. White people are fascinated with black trauma because it's exciting to them because it's over there. But they can get close enough to experience it. But guess what? When it gets a little too real, they go home.

So let me. So they can they can participate from a distance. From a safe distance. Let me ask you this, though.

No, come on. No, no, you're actually in a good place to speak on this. I think the mob movie rap correlation is such a reach. I wouldn't make it mob movie. I'll tell you why. Because mob movies, yes, they're based off of something real, but it's also very clear that majority of it is fiction. There's not that many of them, right? Rap, the whole attractiveness of rap is that it's real.

It's not that it's fiction. They're not playing characters. That's the appeal, right? Especially, like, I can speak on this, at least, is because I was a white boy in the suburbs. Yeah. So I saw firsthand what people like me were attracted to. It was that...

It felt real. It was dangerous. It was over there. And whoa, like he's really like, you see his face tats and like, yo, he just said he like slid on this op. Whoa, that's crazy. And you get close enough where you're like, yo, you see they're fighting over there. And then it gets a little too close to the railing and you're like, yo, we got to get out of here. And that's it. That's it. That's the reality. Like to me, that is crazy.

The perplexity of rap. The pushback I would give is that I think that, like you said, the umbrella is danger. We're drawn to danger. Like Jackass, the MTV show.

is danger, right? These people are gonna go prank people. Hold on, let me get that. Go ahead, make, yeah. They're gonna go prank people and they're gonna make people feel really uncomfortable and something that I would never do. I can't believe this is so embarrassing, but they're gonna put themselves in that position to embarrass them. Eric Andre, for example, does these great stunts and you're like, my God, this is so embarrassing. I would feel so uncomfortable if I was that person in that environment, but I'm drawn to it, I can't look away.

There is a fascination with the dangerous. In general. Even in the way that we're attracted to anime or even kung fu movies. I feel like white and black people are attracted to this Asian thing that was dubbed over, and we're still like, these are some badass motherfuckers. Maybe they're going out and killing all the people. I love this point you're making, because this is a conversation me and my boy have had. Okay. So I think that there is an attraction to the dangerous. Yes.

And we exalt those figures that are willing to do these dangerous things. UFC fighters, boxers, like the things that we fear, a bare knuckle street fighter, Kimbo Slice,

You made himself, but we also made him a celebrity simply off the fact that he was knuckling up in a backyard in Miami. So I think that we are drawn to these figures that are willing to do the things that we don't. And rappers specifically are rapping about these things that we're terrified of, but we are really intrigued by. I agree. I agree 100%. Everything you said, I agree. And you know what? This is what I think. I think...

rappers who are rapping about a certain traumatic experience and black lifestyle that's particular and specific to them, it's appealing to other people who have felt those same traumas and have been through that, right? To white people, we're just attracted to the danger. Danger, yeah. Why? It's because 21 Savage is John Wick to white boys.

Yeah. That's the reality. Rappers are the new action heroes. Yeah. To white people. Yeah. But to black America, rappers are, you're speaking our trauma and it lands for us and it resonates. Right. But to white boys, which is like, but the reality is the main consumer. We're interpreting it correctly though.

The black people aren't. The rappers are lying, so we're treating you like the liar, which is John Wick. If they're lying, then we stop fucking with them. If you're really about that life, how many of these rappers are lying and we still fuck with them? It would still be the difference between an action movie and a movie that's a drama. The main consumer, when I say consumer, I mean the people putting money into it. The main consumer, the main ticket buyer

of rap is a white boy, right? Those people are there not because the content lands, they're saying the N word. They're there because they're getting to watch John Wick up close. Meanwhile, John Wick is on stage like, this is real trauma. This is like, this is not a lie. No, now, okay. If he is. Okay, well, so now when we go down that road, right? Here's my issue with it. Let's go down that road. So you're lying about being John Wick. Okay. Okay.

If you're lying about being John Wick, promoting a negative lifestyle... Speak on it. ...for commercial gain... Speak on it. ...to me, that's fucked up. Now, if this is really your lifestyle and you're just expressing your trauma, I respect it. But if you're lying, it's a little fucked up. And so here's the real question to me. The real question is...

Are you publicly admitting to crimes you commit, which makes you dumb? Or are you lying about a negative lifestyle, which makes you a little evil?

Which one is it? I think it's a little bit of both. Maybe a little, which, guess what? It usually starts somewhere and they're like, hey, this is my truth. And then they get a little money. They distance themselves from it. But now they can still speak on experiences that they lived. That they had. Yeah. Which I think, like I said, when it's real to you, I think by all means, I think the policing of...

rappers, actual real life trauma is fucked. Let them talk about what they went through. Right? I think if you are making this shit up because you know what's popular is to talk about sliding on ops and popping perks, I think you're evil. But isn't that what you also just said? If any time something becomes the culture, there's going to be people who just try to profit off of it and that's okay? Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's not fucked up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, they're doing that, but that's fucked up. Now, what if they said, hey, Russ, you probably embellish things about your life and your music. I don't, in fact. Nothing? Nothing. There's no line about fucking bitches that you didn't exactly do? No. God damn it. I'll take a break from this podcast and bring you Blue Chew so you can fuck bitches like Russ does in his music. You see these blue lights, baby? You know what that means? It's Blue Chew time. Fellas, if you have a subpar dick game, like some of us,

Blue Chew is how you elevate it. That's how you step it up. First of all, it's got the same active ingredients and all those other hard dick medicines, but this one is chewable, so it releases even faster. And because it's flagrant and they love us and we love them, you got a free offer. All right? You get to try Blue Chew for free if you use the promo code flagrant at checkout. All you got to do is pay $5 for shipping. That's free Blue Chew at bluechew.com. Use the promo code flagrant at checkout.

and you get your first month for free. Just pay $5 for shipping. Again, bluechew.com, promo code flagrant. Read all the safety information and stuff just to make sure, but you know, your boys have all used it and it worked out great. So thank you, Blue Chew, for sponsoring this podcast. Let's get back to the show. I'll tell you, the only thing I ever lied about on a rap song was on Kill Them All, and I called my business manager and he talked me out of it, was on Kill Them All when I mentioned like, something, something, like run over these bloggers in my Lambo.

And I swear to God, I'll call my business manager right now. I said, bro, like, I don't have a Lambo. I have a McLaren. Like, I think I should buy a Lambo. I swear to God, I swear on my mom's life, on everyone's life. That was the only time I ever lied to my reps. Wow. And in fact, if we listen, maybe I changed the line, but.

Yeah, that was the only time I ever lied because I'm not making music to persuade y'all. You disgust me. I'm making music for me. So if I'm not really doing the drugs or if I'm not really having the trauma, I'm not pushing it. Okay, but you say it's a negative thing, but, well, we have movies. No, bro. Movies are fiction. There's a difference between saying this is my life and this is fiction. I love this debate. I love this debate because—

It doesn't land. I'll tell you why. There's no leg to stand on. Movies are under the notion that it's fiction, like you said. When you watch Scarface, you're going into the theater like I'm about to watch a story. The appeal to rap is that it's real. In fact, to the point that rappers make it a point to say that they're real.

So you can't, that whole notion of like, nah. That's the thing. It's like, you're selling art. So if I have a stage name, I have a persona. You're absolving accountability. You're absolving accountability. I don't think so. I think you are because the reality is, that's fine. But then make it clear that it's the WWE. Yeah.

But don't go out of your way to- WWE doesn't make it clear it's WWE. That's a great point. They received a lot of criticism for it. Watch, watch. It doesn't matter. No one says what they're doing is bad. No, no, no. WWE makes it clear to the people who-

At a certain age, you know Santa Claus isn't real. - WWE has never said publicly these are stage-- - Of course. - If you have eyeballs, you know. - But what I'm saying-- - You know the difference between-- - And I feel the same way when you see a rapper. - Nah. - 'Cause you know that shit is bullshit. - That's exactly how I feel about rap. - No, but realistically, right? A lot of the appeal of rap, this is what I'm saying, because when you keep in mind that the main consumer is a white boy who thinks it's real, you have to understand that the appeal is that it is real.

So like, even though they're not saying it, they're not not saying it. You see what I'm saying? It's like the whole appeal of like this slide or not music is like, yo, I think they really are.

And a lot of them really are. But wrestling's that. Like people thought Stone Cold hung out with his friends and went like that. No, but rap is not wrestling. Here's what I would say. The appeal of rap was that it was not wrestling. The appeal of rap was that it was real. Reality rap. Everyone is under the notion that it's real. I understand the point. I know because we're all grown men that it's not real. But I'm saying the appeal is that it's real. A lot of people still believe it's real. And also there are rappers who live that life. It's still real to me. Damn it. Have you seen that?

I think 70% of people at a wrestling show think that shit is real. No, it's not 70%, but here's what it is. I dare any of y'all to come out and say one of these rappers is lying about the shit they're rapping about. Because that rapper

will die on a hill defending the shit they're making up. I think most of us know. They say they're telling the truth. That's what I'm saying. It's like wrestling in that we know at a certain age, you know it's fake, but

We all just kind of, and I can't speak for black people, but I think the rest of us kind of buy into, look, we know most of this is bullshit, but let's all pretend it's real because it's just a fun thing. Like wrestling. It's just a fun storyline. We're all buying into, and I can't speak for the black consumer, but I think most of us at a certain age know most of these rappers ain't doing nothing. They got fucking Roth IRAs or whatever investment accounts. And we're all buying into this game. Oh,

We have aged out of the audience that is influenced the most by rap. We've aged out. So you're talking, right? We're talking amongst each other as grown men who understand that it's not Santa who's bringing the presents. The audience that's most influenced by rap thinks it's real. And the issue that I have is that if it is not real, then

don't push it because it's negative. Now, if what you're pushing is positive and it's not real, push it by all means. - That's Santa Claus. - Santa Claus isn't real, but it's positive. Your shit isn't real, but it's negative. And you're not even living it? Nicky spoke on Future saying, when I talked to Future, he told me he wasn't even doing the drugs that he talks about.

In the songs. I think Future's music is amazing. I'm grown enough to have the discernment to say, man, this shit is... Stick to the Models is like my favorite shit, right? Russ, watch your mic. Sorry. Stick to the Models by Future is my favorite shit, right? But I also know that the reason why I wanted to try Lean when I was 19 was Future. Was Future. And I'm not going to blame him. I'm grown. I did think the drug shit was real. I knew the slide on Ops wasn't, but the drug shit...

No, I'll tell you why the drug shit can't be real. Because you cannot do that many drugs and live this long. Okay, but not to advocate for a negative. Which is why when Juice WRLD said, I started doing these drugs because of you, we have seen it live in the flesh. Juice WRLD said, I did drugs because of you.

Juice WRLD died of a drug overdose by following somebody who does not even do the drugs that they said they did. Valid point, yeah. What the fuck are we talking about? Everyone wants to tiptoe around the fucking because certain people are Teflon and you can't talk on certain shit. Why is there a defensiveness around this? Al, what do you think that is?

Because people are trying to protect free speech even if this free speech is negative. I don't think it's free speech. Yes, it is. I think it's a cultural. That's what it is. It's like, oh, we should be able to say what we say. You can, but then also face the consequences. I think it's cultural success. And I think it's like, no, I think it's free speech. I think it's we should be able to say what we can say. But then that's fine. But you cannot absolve yourself of the accountability when you have to face the consequences of your actions and when the chickens come home to roost.

When Juice WRLD, who did drugs because of you, dies, that is a real moment of reflectiveness that needs to happen within the culture. - Oh, real quick, real quick, real quick. No, question, question, question. - That's the reality. Am I tripping? - No, you're not, but I don't think anyone like you. - When Alex Jones or when Tucker Carlson or any of these dudes that were

supposed to be taken on face value, right, as like news sources and they were telling the truth. When they back up and they go, I'm just doing this for entertainment, they get ridiculed. How dare you manipulate all these people? Right, right. But what I'm saying is you could make the same argument that Alex Jones, Tucker Cross, or any of these guys are. Right, right, right, right. I see what you're saying.

No, but I see where you're going. You want me over with Juice WRLD, but you can't go news because news is news. It is. I'm presenting this as news for you to consume as facts. But you have to understand, to a 17-year-old, to a 17-year-old, a rapper is giving them news on the culture. But it's the same thing. It's candy news. It's like sports is real. No, but like rappers are the fucking... I think we're kind of arguing two things. Like, no one's trying to absolve rappers' influence. Like,

a parent should raise their kids for sure kids can look up to somebody and be influenced by but at the end of the day it's up to the parents to raise your kid i agree so it's like this artist should be able to be an artist if they are actually and we gotta we gotta can't act like this shit isn't going on yes there are some rappers out of running but there are rappers that really are about that life like we see it happening for chicago we see for sure for sure there are so it's like

You can't put all the onus on the audience. No, no, no. And for a disclaimer, I'm not talking about the ones who are actually talking. Like I said, I'm not talking about the ones who are actually talking about the trauma. No, but even the ones that aren't. No, but see, that's where you have to start raising an eyebrow of like, this is a little bit evil because if you are...

purposely choosing to promote a negatively influential lifestyle that you yourself are not even living. This is fucked up. I'm not talking about the ones who are like, yo, I really lived this. I did X, Y, and Z. I'm using my music as a journal to talk about it. Let them express what they express. The ones who are not doing it

but they're doing it because it makes money and then they have blood on their hands. - I'm gonna further reinforce the stereotypes of the black community from my personal game. - And to their point. - That's a crazy intro. - But that's essentially what the criticism is. It's like, if you are living these things, that's incredibly unfortunate and you were born into a situation you probably couldn't avoid and you should be able to speak on your experience.

But if you did not live them at all and you were further reinforcing the stereotypes of the black community just so you personally can get money while those people continue to suffer. That's the definition of selling your soul. Yes. That's the definition of selling your soul. I think that criticism is good. But to what we're all talking about, because what I've heard from a lot of people sitting here is, well, but it's WWE. Okay, so-

What we're saying, what I hear is that majority of rappers have sold their soul, but it's okay because it's art.

No, I'm saying- I will say also to his point, it's not just negative reinforcement. It sets up a negative reward system where you think to yourself, if I want to make it, I got to be one of the real guys. Not even fake it. I got to be real. Otherwise, if I get my card called- Bro, this shit is- I'm phony. I might have to live that life. I think it's a little hypocritical to just call out that because this happens in society everywhere. There are people that are selling-

cancer to you. There's people that sit like tobacco industry. I wouldn't say it's hypocritical. I would just say, I would just say it's hyper. But there's a lot that don't like are killing people. Nobody's calling this shit out. I know, but that's like that. That's like that tweet where it's like, if you say you don't like oranges, someone's like, what? So like pineapples just get off the, it's like multiple things. We're talking about McDonald's has received so much criticism, bro. There's been so many documentaries. Supersize me as a documentary. Like,

There's constant criticism. No, but we're talking about music. We're talking about artists that are putting out bad music, and it's up to the people at home who consume that music how they live their life listening to it. If you're raised right and you know we can all listen to a future song and not be influenced by it, you said, hey, it made you wrong. That's because we're grown now. Yeah, but if your parents were a little bit...

closer to you, they wouldn't have let you have access to that. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

And especially in Atlanta, it was a different time. You know what I mean? Sitting next to two people that have never done drugs, didn't have sex before marriage. Yeah, but see, but everyone's not everybody's influenced by what they did. I agree. But to your point, not everyone is influenced by what they're, but some people are. So you can't just write up. Put it on the artist. No, no. Real quick. What I'm saying is you can't just.

say, well, these two people weren't influenced, so it's not at all on the artist. - Hold on, hold on. - Even though someone like Juice WRLD literally told Future himself, I started doing lean because of you. - One point, one point. Let's say there's-- - We can't absolve that. - I'm not saying there's an absolute yes. - It's not that black and white. - Let's say that there's zero influence, right? Let's say it doesn't impact a single person. Like nobody does drugs because of it, nothing, right?

everything's the same, society doesn't change at all.

You could still go, you are profiting off of a trauma that is not yours, that you are also reinforcing a negative stereotype, even if it doesn't turn into anything. That's true, too. You still are profiting off of- I agree. Do you know what I'm saying? That's kind of where I was coming from at first, which is- It's an icky way to make money. If it's not your real life- You could argue that that's the culture vulture. I'm just saying- I don't know. I agree. I agree. It's an icky way to make money, but there's a lot of-

people that make money. This is where you're missing the mark. This is where you're missing the mark. Nobody ever says somebody who works for Philip Morris didn't sell his soul. You sell cigarettes? You made it a point to sell cigarettes to kids? You sold your fucking soul. Nobody, if you call a cigarette company, is going to be like, bro, what about drug dealers? No, motherfucker, it's you. You sold your soul. So I just don't like that whataboutism of, well, what about these other, we're not calling them out. Of course we call them out. We call them motherfuckers.

fucking time. If you're McDonald's and you decided we want to eat chicken, you sold your fucking soul. Ray Kroc sold his fucking soul. We call them all out. I will agree. It's an icky way to make money, but at the same time, I think you have the liberty of being an artist where it's like, hey, you get to make whatever type of art you want to make. If it's not positive art, then don't consume it.

Or just admit you lying. No, no, no. Just admit you're playing a character. Look, look, look. I think to like close it out, I think make what you want to make, but also don't absolve yourself of accountability when it comes down to like, yo, if you're talking about something that's negative and pushing something that's negative that you didn't actually do or live, but you're doing it because that makes money, you sold your soul. Yeah, yeah. Simple as that. We can agree on that. And just own it. We can agree on that. But like this whole notion that like, nah,

Chill. People should be able to talk about what they talk. Oh, yeah, you can. But guess what? You're also not exempt from. It's criticism for selling your soul. The juice world thing completely flipped me. I only thought about violence. That's not my opinion. That is documented. Yeah. He told him that. And Nikki is in interviews saying, I think it was the Joe Budden saying that Future told her that he doesn't do the drugs that he talks about. So it's like.

That to me, like I said, I have a whole future playlist because I'm grown and I can like, you know, use the sermon. But it's still it's like when you see somebody like Juice WRLD and who their introduction to it was because you glorified it.

I mean, that's got to feel crazy. But then it's also, hey, where's your parents, friends, family, where are the people around you? Because then we're acting like, no, that's not true. You can't put it all in your heart. It's not only Future's fault. Because then we're acting like none of us were 19 before where even if you had good parents, you just didn't want to be 19 and wild out because that shit sounded cool. There are 19-year-olds that didn't want to wild out. I know, but then the ones who did— They're the vast minority, though.

No, no, no. But you can argue the foundation is set by the parents. Listen, minority and majority is irrelevant. The fact that there are 19 year olds who chose to while out because they heard he was wiling out, even though he wasn't wiling out, cannot just be ignored for the sake of an argument. That still has to be like, yo, that's kind of fucked up. Yeah. We're not saying that's the whole blame. We're not saying that that's

oh, that's what's wrong with the world. But there needs to be accountability. It can't just be like, it's all right, so some people died, big deal. It can't just be that because

Because that's the alternative. The alternative is like, so what? So somebody died because he followed what he said. Big deal. Where was his parents? It can't be that. You can also argue it's worse from an artist than it is from a Philip Morris because at least I know those guys are just trying to make money. Art is supposed to be art. The art that hurts people, that you're just saying, no, I'm just trying to make money and calling it art. And that's kind of like, as an artist, fuck you a little bit. And I was on your side. True.

20 minutes ago. But the guys at Philip Morris were spending money trying to convince people that this isn't bad for you. Dude, they're bad, too. They're bad, too. But you could argue. But to defend the artists and be like, dude, that's art. I'm telling you, as an artist, if your artist, if your art is killing people and it's not even real to you, I could argue that's even scummier. And I agree. You can hear the victory all I have for these cigarette companies. These are monsters. You could argue to say you can't argue that is wild.

You can't argue that. In the guise of art, I'm having people killed is worse than, hey, here's a product that I'm selling as a product and a consumer good that's killing people because I know you're a greedy fuck.

fuck. I know you. I clock you as a greedy cocksucker trying to drive up a share board. That's also what corporations are. I just think we're coddling humans to be like, oh, well, you don't have the wherewithal to know that you shouldn't do the thing that you're listening to. No, we're not coddling. We're just saying there is also accountability. I think we're, I think we are underestimating the

societal pressures to just be amongst and just be 18 and be 19. But why can you be 18 and 19 and watch John Wick and not want to go out shooting everybody? Why do you have that wherewithal? John Wick is in a documentary. It doesn't matter. Why do you have the wherewithal to know that? You're aware of the difference between a movie and a show. Hold on. Let me talk. Because

I hate that analogy. I always have because it's acting as if it's like gaslighting to me. It's trying to make it seem like future is John Wick. No, no, no, no, no. We got introduced. I think future is John Wick. Because you're grown.

I never heard a future lyric that made me want to do the thing with the ancient. This is when I was younger. When I was listening to March Madness, I did not. Kiano Reeves exists. Hold on, hold on. Kiano Reeves exists. That's it. It's over. This is a guy that was influenced by DMX as a teenager. To act like... Come on, dog. To act like...

Rappers are literally made up action heroes would then insult the integrity of rap. Yeah. So, cause, cause guess what? It should be. Hold on. So which one is it? Is future in 21 Savage? Are they gangsta licious? Are they John Wick or are they who they say they are? Which one? What's gangsta licious? From Boondocks, which was a dude who was playing and portraying the role of a gangster rapper, but

But it got defrauded throughout the episode. There's a lot of that. I agree. But what I'm saying is that you can't blame the consumer for not seeing through the image that they've been presented and saying, well, y'all are just dumb and absolving accountability of the person who's perpetrating the fraud.

That to me is crazy gaslighting. But I think you can't blame the artist for saying, hey, you're putting out this message. No, dog. Chapter one is... Hold on, hold on. They didn't have the way it was thought to be like, hey, I'm not going to be influenced by the message. That's almost like this. That's almost like this. Back to the Morocco story. Yeah. That's me selling you a fake rug and blaming you for buying the fake rug. You should know. Why am I selling the fake rug? I'm actually...

He's just not telling anybody to go out and do drugs. He's just saying what he does. He don't go tell you, yo, guys, everybody go out and do it. People are what they do, not what they say. He's saying his experience. He's not advocating for you to go out and shit people. Bro, do you know how a cosign works? Kids move off of what you do, not what you say. There's a reason influencers get paid, right? But they're selling it. They're saying you should get this fit teeth. Bro, it's not that black and white. Look, put it like this.

I don't need to promote tequila on this podcast with my words. If you just see me pour it, it promotes it. So to act like Future's not telling people, it's like, come on, bro. Can I ask a question? Here's a question, and you guys answer it. If Future said, hey, I just want to let you guys know, this is a character that I play. He's never going to say that. No, no, no, I'm saying, hype it up. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, you've given your answer. Yeah. So if Future can say, this is a character I play. I just want you to know my character's future. He does all this gangster shit, does all these drugs. That's not who I am. I went to Cornell. I studied business in there and studied music. And I'm an amazing musician. And I just choose to play this character. Here's the music. Do you think that his music would be more consumed or more popular if he was honest and said that?

Or if he was like, no, I am that character. This is who I am. You'll never see me break that character and I do all those things. What would make his music more successful? Is a magician so more attractive once you know how they do the tricks? No, he sucks once you know how to do the trick. No kidding. So exactly. They're never going to admit how they do. If that's the case, then he is profiting off of the illusion. Whether the kids do it or not, there is more profit coming from the illusion. And he's not saying 100% of the blame is on.

on the artist. - I'm not, I'm just saying that the fact that he can't resolve. - But he can make more money doing it. - This notion that there's no accountability for the person who's responsible for perpetuating the illusion is just gaslighting. It's like, it's your fault for believing it. No, no, no, no, no. Start at chapter one. Why are you perpetuating something you're not doing?

Also, even if I think you're fake, I still want to do it. It's not all of his responsibility, but he's not absolved of any responsibility. No, that's it. It's just what we're basically arguing. It's a beautiful, happy meeting. What's the percentages? What we're doing is, and right now it feels like there's zero percentage. Is it 50? Is it 49? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. But I think on social media, it's so extreme. It's like it's all his fault or it's none of his fault. The reality is it's like, look,

both parties play a role. Everything's going to play a role. Everybody's going to have a little percentage. We just got to figure out what it is. But like even suggesting that there is a percentage, I don't think is a bad thing. But I'm sure if I was, I'm sure if I'm a label, I'm like, hey, don't start this. This is how we make our money. If I'm an artist, I'm like, yo, don't start this. This is how we make our money. I'm getting flamed. No, I'm going to get flamed. No, no, no. You're going to get flamed. I'm getting all the flaming. You're like, no, I'm getting all the flaming.

But think about what Russ got to go through. Why are we allowing white people to speak on black culture? Not even that. Top comment. That's top comment. That's top comment. And it's fair. No, you got to think about to make your life interesting, you got to fuck all these bitches. You got to buy all these cars. You don't even want to do that. You talking to me? Yeah, think about all the shit you got to go through to buy Lamborghinis. Think about the suffering. You got to buy Lamborghinis. You got to have three

threesomes like crazy. You got to go to Marrakesh. You don't want to do none of that shit. But to compete with these liars, to compete with these liars, you got to spend all this goddamn money, bro. I'm really in the club. No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Yo, I got to pee. Can we pause this for one second? Listen here,

you balding bastards. You don't have to do that anymore. If you're losing your hair, thanks to our sponsor, Keeps, you don't have to do it anymore. This is now a choice, as Andrew always says. Keeps is an online subscription service that makes it easy for men to treat male pattern baldness. With Keeps, you can do a simple online consultation from the comfort of your own home and get matched to a clinically proven, affordable, and personalized treatment plan that helps you boost and regrow your hair. And best of all, Keeps delivers right to your door in discreet packaging. I'm going to be honest,

I don't even use Keeps for hair loss, but I got dandruff. It's kind of gross. I use their Ketoconazole shampoo. Dead ass. Keeps, I honestly need another shipment. Send it to your boy. Find a plan that works for you and your schedule. Keeps offers flexible delivery options that are, again, discreet, so you don't have a big fucking, your bald box getting delivered to your door. Keeps offers flexible, discreet delivery options that you can adjust, pause, or cancel at any time. Keeps has helped nearly one million men keep their hair, and you can be one of them. Why would you not be? One million and one.

So, hair loss stops with Keeps. For a special offer to get started, go to keeps.com slash flagrant. That is K-E-E-P-S.com.

KEEPS.com slash flagrant. Again, KEEPS.com slash flagrant. Let's get back to the show. All right, and we back. Quick little pee break. Completely separate conversation. Rick Rubin. I feel like Rick Rubin is having like another wave, actually. Yeah. Well, that book he put out is a classic. Is that why? Yeah, it's a classic. The book is great. I think- Oh, I gotta check this. I think, yeah, The Creative Act is a classic. I just always find it-

So important for people with such strong set of beliefs, visions, and ideas to put out a book, let alone an audio book. Like you can press play and just hear Rick Rubin. He could die tomorrow and you can just press play and hear him talking about his belief system. Like that's to me is so underrated. Yeah. The reason why he came up, I thought that was your guru person that you were speaking to. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But I mean, I,

I listen to Rick Rubin without him realizing I'm listening to him. Okay, so what does Rick Rubin do? For those of us that, you know, he's synonymous with music, but we don't exactly know what he is doing. That's the guy in the room who only has the purest intentions at heart, which is, I just want this to be the best thing it could be. And so people in the music business have called him like a reducer. I think Kanye called him a reducer, not a producer. Yeah.

You bring him in and he's just sort of like, nah. Cut that out. That should go. He's just, I don't know. It's like you very rarely meet people who are the source. Yeah. We talk about it. Like me and Bebe Borelli, who I had her at the house for like a month and a half when I was making Santiago. Who says Bebe Borelli? She's incredible. She's the one who wrote Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna. She's an incredible songwriter. Incredible songwriter. And yeah.

She just gives so many gems in the studio. One of the terms she kept saying was the source and pure, source, pure, source, pure. And kind of how she puts it, and I agree, it's like there's people who are just the source. They're the source of the sauce. Like they're in there just conjuring the ideas. And then there's people who deliver the ideas. But there's people who no one knows who are like,

We're the ones coming up with the ideas like people say Kanye is a source or I would say Kanye is a source I would also say Rick Rubin is a source. Okay, I think like people like Sia and

You know, the pop singer. Yeah. She's a source. That's someone who people call on her to write their songs. The way I interpret it right from the book and just from a bunch of his interviews, I'm curious what you think, is like he seems like a creative psychologist. Yes. Or like a creative therapist. I agree. It's like creative self-help. Yeah. Like you're coming to him being like, look, I have all these ideas and I feel really strongly about these different things, but it's all kind of nebulous. And he would be like,

This is where you should focus your energy. This is true. This energy you're feeling is honest and will connect with people. I'm always skeptical of these types of people, but I have so much respect for the people that admire him. So I give him that benefit of the doubt. But if he was anywhere, anybody else, I'd be like, what's this hustle, bro? I'm skeptical of a lot of them, but I've had a lot of benefit from a lot of them. So I think there's good and bad ones. Isn't that how it goes with anyone? Yeah.

Absent of credentials, aren't you skeptical of anyone and everyone? Always. So it's like, yeah, Rick Rubin absent of credentials. You're like, what is this? I'm not skeptical if you could dunk from the free throw line. I'm not skeptical if you're putting a 50. So it's like, if you know so much about making the music. But Rick Rubin has tangible, like you could be like 99 Problems and all these amazing. Yeah, but Jay had plenty of hits prior to that. No, of course. But once again, it's never.

Also, is he writing the music for it or is he there going, this is what, like. I think, you know what it is? It's tough for non-musicians to understand the contribution that people who maybe don't play an instrument or don't write lyrics have.

have but phil jackson i don't know if the triangle offense is that effective but he can take the egos the talent there was a time before the game moved to the three-point line the triangle offense was incredibly he was the game passed him by but he was incredibly he was effective with the lakers until 2011 was kobe's last championship 2010 but the three-point line didn't really change the way that people shot threes has changed you understand my point he takes the talent that can dunk from the free throw line he goes here's how you win a championship jordan doesn't win one before

What I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to discredit his X's and O's game. I don't want to get too far off from this, but like the triangle offense was something that was amazing. Now most NBA teams run one of two offenses. It's kind of the same thing. It's how you manage those players, which is what you're saying. But it was something novel and unique and really cool what he was doing. There was value. I think why I like resonate with Rick Rubin so much is because he preaches authenticity.

making music for you, the audience that is you. Yeah. And doing it for that reason. And there is no such thing as writer's block because writer's block is either you not being good enough for yourself or you not being good enough for them. It's just like, there's a lot of things that he just talks about that regardless if he had credentials, what he's saying is the truth. Got it. You know what I'm saying? Like some people, it doesn't matter. Like I don't like,

I don't know y'all from a can of paint, right? But y'all can say things that are just the truth. It doesn't matter if I know y'all's resume. And you know it when you hear it. You know the truth, you know? And I think the truth just rings out regardless if there's a resume attached to it. And I think also with him, it's just, it's somebody who's looking out for the artist, bro. It's like, I just feel like a lot of people are not giving game on really, like you said,

a self-help for creatives. It's fucking incredible what he's doing. So I'm all for it. Yeah, I'm almost looking at him like, in a way, like Tony Robbins-ish. Right. Where it's like, he can go into a business or work with an individual and all the people that have worked with him publicly that talk about him, Bill Clinton, you know, Agassi, they're like, yo, this guy changed my life. He helped my business. He helped me see the world more clearly. And it seems like Rick does that for musicians often. And to add on to that, the contribution factor of someone who like,

for people who don't make music,

It would be so incredible to have somebody in the studio who's knowledgeable, who's a visionary, who has great taste, who has no skin in the game. - Right. - And who has no bias because I'm in there by myself most of the time. And so I'm judging super hard or it's me and Boogie is my best friend. And like, we both just like love everything we do. And yeah, certain songs get this reaction, certain songs. But still it's like to have somebody sort of over here, who's like,

I don't fucking know y'all at all. This is the one, this isn't the one. Like when I met Rick Rubin in 2016, went to his house and we drove in his car. He was driving this, it was like a white Range Rover. We were driving down PCH and I'm playing him songs and I play him a bunch of songs and I get to what they want. And I don't know if what they want had come out yet, but for context, like what they want is like five times platinum now.

And I remember playing it, a bunch of songs from What They Want comes on. And he just instantly like ears perk up. And he's like, this is the one. Oh, wow. And this is like, you know, this dude at that time was in this probably in his 50s. So it's like not, quote unquote, tapped in to the youth and what would work with the youth. I was 22, 23 at the time. I remember listening to that song and being so upset you were white. And I couldn't believe this. But he was like, Rick Root was like, yeah, this is the one.

You know, and it's just like you can do that with a premise. Like you can hear a premise now at this point. I think that's a great that's a great. Yeah, I think I could do that with music. No bullshit. I think I mean, dead ass. I think you play me out. Yeah, this is a single. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing that he preaches, which like nobody is the thing that he preaches, which I absolutely subscribe to because it just feels like the truth.

Which is... How hard is it? They make the decision for you. But you're right. You're right. Because guess what he talks about? He talks about it in his Jay Shetty interview. When you take a bite of food, how long does it take for you to say, do I like it or not? Instant. Yeah. Same shit with music. He was like, it's just taste. I don't have to think about whether I like it or not. And so Rick Rubin has gotten to where he is off of his taste. And to me...

That is the flyest shit ever. That dude has gotten there. So you would love Rick Rubin is the point. Bro, you would love Rick Rubin. I think I would. I am oftentimes skeptical when I hear about these figures and the way that they're described, right? Because what a lot of times I think that they're, like, for example, it's really nice to have somebody, when you're an artist, tell you,

What you're doing is great when all the other people around you are trying to monetize you. Sure. So when the label is trying to make money off this and the studio is trying to make money off this and the people at the recordings is trying to make money off. And then someone who doesn't need your money because he's a multimillionaire so many times over comes over and he's like, no, I like this one here. You go, oh, I can. There's honesty here. Yeah. Like, so I understand the comfort that must come from that and also the validation from someone that we always respect. Yeah.

It's just learning about what that actual skill is. I'm ignorant to him. Yeah. The only thing I know is that people that I respect really respect him. Well, he also like started Def Jam.

which was like the first hip hop label. - Yeah, yeah. - Right? - But I'm just trying to figure out what he, what the actual tangible thing is and this creative consultant having taste, like taste is huge. - Taste is everything. - Dude, that's the thing like-- - It's not even huge, it's everything. The reason why you write the jokes you write is because your taste says they're funny. And the reason why you're huge is because there's a lot of other people who say, "Your taste is my taste."

And also just understanding what the people have. That's taste. Yeah, understand what people want. It's like understanding culture and understanding feeling. That's taste. And when you have taste, it's hard to imagine some people don't have taste. Right. And it's also, you can't quantify taste. You either have it or you don't. He did his 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper. Do you play an instrument? No. Do you know how this board works? No. I know what my ear's like. That's it. That's everything, though. It's like, for me, there was a lot of imposter syndrome, still is, with like...

Maybe I'm not the best pianist and maybe I don't know how to work all the equipment, but I feel like I know so, so well what a smash is. And like, that's just taste. And that's what I've been moving off. So for me, Rick Rubin is, it's just confirmation that taste is everything. I'm going to tell my wife this shit, bro.

There we go. Now we've said one. Now we've gotten to the real. I just got taste. It's like his wife has been watching Rick Rubin. I got taste, man. So he's like, I get it. I'm not going to pick the things out. I just know when I don't want it.

I know when it's not there and I know when it does hit me and it's there. You don't need to explain yourself. Yeah. But I just know it. I have a really strong opinion about these things. That's interesting. Calling it taste, yeah. That's what it is. The reason why you wore your clothes. No, but it's like, the way he explains it, it's so true. It's like, do you like...

I don't like it. Just taste. It's not like you put on what you put on right now. He really doesn't understand food. It's like a real sensitive thing. No, but it's like. He hurts me. This guy hurts me. He really hurts me. He does. We wear what we want to wear. Yes. We listen to what we want to listen to. We eat what we want to eat. We date who we want to date because that's our taste. Taste dictates all of our expression. And when our taste is confirmed by millions of people, objectively, you could say I have great taste. Rick Rubin has great taste. Mm-hmm.

That's why people fuck with him because objectively he has great taste. Who's the guy that owns the Louis Vuitton and all the other stuff? Bernard Arnault. Yeah, there's one thing that Kanye said that was intelligent maybe in his whole life and it was that Bernard, the difference between... This guy's crazy. I don't know if Kanye is a bona fide idiot but he does have good taste sometimes but as a man, he's an idiot. Incredible taste. Kanye has pretty good taste. Yeah, I mean, in women...

Hold on, hold on, hold on. You met one of the most prominent Kanye haters in the planet. For real? No, no, no, that's not true, that's not true. This is just recent. Non-Jewish. This is just recent. Non-Jewish Kanye haters. Let me tell you, the strongest form of currency that Kanye has to offer is his taste. No, no, that's why he's Kanye. It's because his taste is that when he does something, people are like...

Well, that's fly because Kanye did it. Not recently, though. Yes. What recently? What do you mean what recently? Milk factory. But you're not dressing your girl like that. Give it time. Kanye dresses his wife like that. You're not dressing yours. Give it time. Ain't nobody dressing their wife like that, sir. Give it time.

You gonna dress your girl like that? No. Okay. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm not the general public. His taste went sour. Kanye's taste went sour. Watch him. Hold on. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Kanye put up a snippet. As a rapper, you like his bars? Be honest. What? Of course. Kanye put up a snippet. In the mayonnaise-colored Benz, they call it Miracle Winter. That's crazy, man.

What are we talking about? Miracle Whist? I'm beasting off the re-sling. Nah. Nah, y'all are so gassed. Kanye's the corniest rapper ever. Kanye's the corniest rapper ever. Yo, you're crazy. I'm beasting off the re-sling. What is crazy? Guys, this is a beast. That was a hard-ass one. You also picked Earl. I love Earl.

Kanye rap. I don't like it as much now. All Kanye's raps is ass. All Kanye's raps is ass. He also hates Kid Cudi. Nah, bro. Hold on, hold on. Is it true, though? I never heard a Kid Cudi song, bro. You're tripping. You're tripping. I never really heard a Kid Cudi song. First of all, listen to the first four mixtapes and the first two albums. Bro, you'll have a hundred songs added to your playlist. Day and night or something like that. Day and night. But hold on. Day and night is incredible. When the sun, the sun.

The thing with Kanye, and this is the thing with great music, this is what's so funny. But tell me a bar that you like from him. Bro, there's so many. Tell me a bar. I'm telling you, right? Give me one bar, though. If you go, listen, I got to tell the aliens why Kanye is a good rapper because they think he's corny. Give me one bar. I can't even pronounce nothing. Pass that for Stacey. That shit is fucking awesome. Everything he does musically. You don't even believe in it now.

Are you kidding? Nah, bro. I re-listened to it. You're tripping. I caught the second verse, the Diamonds Are Forever remix, the second verse. Kanye, Kanye, Kanye was the antithesis to gangster rap when he popped off. Dude was in a pop,

up polo collar on Def Jam Poetry doing fucking All Falls Down. That shit was legendary. But what I'll say, and it goes not just for Kanye, great music transcends everything. I mean, his production is incredible. No, but here's the thing that's ridiculous. Here's the thing that's ridiculous with society, and I just find it humorous.

is that... He means you when he says that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'll take on society. No, no, no. I'll take on society. No, no, no, you'll see. I'll take on society. No, no, no, it's not you. You don't have to defend society. It's that a hit song

absolves all mistakes. Yes. It's crazy. I've said it and I know it's the truth. If Trump had smashes, nobody will care. No one cares. I always think about, I'm like, man, this is how fake mad society gets. It's like, dog, if you have a hit, do whatever. You think you got enough bangers? That's what people are. Hold on, hold on.

Do you think you got enough bangers? Like, no one man should have all that. You know what I mean? That's crazy. Do you think you got enough bangers? No. You can't get away with illegal shit? You can jaywalk. Yeah, I could jaywalk. You could bomb a car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Domestic violence, maybe. No, no, no. You could fight a bouncer. I could fight a bouncer. You could fight a bouncer. On Edward's lip. No.

If I was a trap, that's a trap. What they want, bro. Eminem. I just think it's interesting how society just picks and chooses who we're going to vilify. Music is primal, man. It makes us feel these different things. It's spiritual. It's something you can't touch. If it's fucking awesome, what did he do? And that's why we deify great musicians. And that's how people act. It's crazy.

Yeah. It gets in your soul. But bars, you like Kanye for bars? Yeah, bro. What? Really? Yeah. Yeah.

You're always off on this. Everybody in the room disagrees with you every time you take this thing. Nobody rapping Kanye by themselves. Son, there was a time where people were putting Kanye in the one, two, three category. Oh, my God. For sure. For sure. For the bars? Yes, he had a run where he was competing with Wayne and Jay. I'll tell you this. To that point, when Kanye dropped Yeezus and Kanye went on Swag,

And he said, as long as I'm rapping, no one's number one because no one's talking about what I'm talking about. It's the truth. When Kanye dropped Yeezus and he's doing black skinhead and new slaves, who was talking about that? No one. No one. What was he talking about? What exactly? What was he talking about? Shit that everyone is scared to talk about. Which is? I actually don't know this part. Oh, my God. What was he talking about? I don't want to talk about it because please explain it.

Because you don't know. Because you didn't listen to his bars. No, no. I know, but I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Nobody listen to his bars. Go, go. What was he talking about? He was just calling us slaves by being victims of consumerism. Vanity slaves. Vanity slaves. And then he went and sold y'all the same shit that he was calling you slaves for buying? No, listen. He made it, though. Listen, listen.

Nobody said he wasn't a fraud. Nobody said he wasn't a fraud. Okay, good, good. Hold on, once again. Once again, awareness is step one. Awareness is step one. So when you hear like Kendrick Lamar's song, Vanity Slaves, off of like EP, Kendrick Lamar or OD, whatever it was. When Kanye dropped new slaves from a mainstream level to be delivering bars about basically being vanity slaves.

That, bro, that's powerful. Now, did he turn around and sell this and that? But it's like, bro, you got to commend the audacity. And I think with Kanye, what people always respected. Yeah, right. And I think what people, what me, like what I always resonated with Kanye was like the audacity.

The audacity to just say some shit that you know you probably shouldn't be saying is, man, like Kanye is my angel investor for the battery in my back. Okay, I'll give you that. I'll give you that. He'll say it and he doesn't worry about the repercussions. It's admirable. Absolutely, absolutely.

No, I'll give him your haircut. Oh, Kanye West. He wants his haircut so bad. He cannot wait to get to say that. He ain't think about it. The best kind of say a shit is my favorite one is when he's talking about the manager or the executive. He's like, yeah, you know, there is an executive. I'm not going to say what religion he is.

He was Jewish. No, it was doctors. I was stoked by these doctors, but I'd say the doctors and which hospital they come from. The Jews. The George Bush doesn't care about black people thing is so funny, too. I like the audacity. That's so ill. That's like a glitch in the matrix. It's like, we can't account for this. It makes the whole system go haywire. Mike Myers was there for no reason. And then fucking Chris Tucker's like,

Anyways, that's awesome. I do miss the old Kanye. He gets mad when we say that, but I miss the old Kanye. No, but he's just become a guy that's inspired by the last YouTube video he watches, and that's just the only bullshit he regurgitates. And then once you see that, it's just hard to take anything else seriously. When I see him going on these rants, it's like, oh yeah, I too have stumbled across these videos on YouTube.

And I have chosen not to regurgitate this information or at least fact check it. And he's just not. And I also know some people that he was like getting game from that basically had to like hit him up afterwards and be like, we were just talking theoretically about these things, Kanye. Like I spoke to the dude that he literally went on TMZ after talking to.

And spit all the shit. No, no. He went on TMZ after he spoke to this guy. And it was just like... Before he talked to Van. Yeah, right. And then he talks to Van. And it's just like, oh, yeah. And nothing you say is thought about at all. You just heard something sticky or provocative or whatever. Yeah, but you do... You know what I'm trying to do, though, now? I think after being, like, scrutinizing the media heavy is, like, just deploy more empathy. That's it. Like, that doesn't mean that I'm absolving people of, like, fucked up shit they're saying. It's more so, like...

Before I go to shame, which is what I would usually go to for myself especially, it's like, where are you at? And I think that that's just a much more productive opening. So, yeah, I don't know. It's like two, three, four years ago, what the fuck is wrong? I'm more so now like, damn, I wonder what's going on. Mm-hmm.

That's it. Curiosity question. Who's Lucian Grange? Yeah. Who is he and what's his power in the music industry? I believe he owns UMG, Universal. But the way people speak about him is like he's...

pulling all the strings. Yeah, he's just like a popular name. I mean, he just owns a massive... So there's Universal, Warner, Sony, and whoever. I don't know. We've been drinking. But yeah, I mean, there's people who are just CEOs of these massive labels and companies, and they are in power. But it's like, he's just like an attractive, popular name. Who's the most powerful person in music? Probably the people in Japan who actually own the shit. What does that mean?

Oh, yeah. Like certain when I was with Columbia, certain deals, they went above. So like

Columbia has a CEO, but Columbia is part of Sony. Sony has a CEO, but above that is the dude in Japan who owns all of this. See, now we talk. So certain deals, they were above the CEO of Columbia and they were above the CEO of Sony. It had to get approved from the dude in Japan. And how did you do that? Well, it just goes up the pipeline.

And they just run numbers. Like, is this a good investment or not? Did you ever meet that? No, no, no, no. Those are the like, that's why it's so I don't know, like it's like thinking that the fucking head coach has that much say.

That's the face of the shit, bro. Jerry Jones is calling the shots. Yeah, and he's not going to die anytime soon, unfortunately. No, it's like... And I don't know enough about football to know, it's like, there's probably someone above him. There might be a board of people who gave Jerry Jones the money. The devil himself. No, but it's like... Fucking asshole. No, but it's like, bro, it's the same way politics work. Fuck you, Jerry Jones. It's the same way politics work. It's like...

Biden or Trump is the face, but there's a board of people who invested. And so it's like, those are the ones who really are calling the shots because it's like, we invested, so you need to do X, Y, and Z. Same shit with like the people in Japan who actually own Sony.

As a company, not just the music. Is that why you're afraid to call them odd? Is that why you call them interesting? What a segue. Because they fucking signed the checks? Is that what's going on? No, I have no association with them. Because I just want to apologize to all of you out there. When you start thinking macro, it's like a record label is just one of the arms of Sony. Yeah.

Sony also makes PlayStations. You know what I'm saying? They're making a TV. They're making a headphone. Yeah, it's like this is just another like what's so funny is the record label, that entity in and of itself is one artist. PlayStation is one artist. Like we just need one of these things to go crazy. Yeah. But underneath each one of these things is like so many people who are like, what the fuck? Like I need my thing. And it's like.

But these people don't give a fuck. What? Everybody thinks they're the biggest fish. They're sitting in Japan. Like, what does he want? Four mil? Like, how much has he made? Six? Give it to him. Whatever. Like, they don't give a fuck, bro. Are you kidding? These people are checked out.

They're not here with y'all. What do you think they're doing out there, those fucking weirdos? Looking at a koi pond. As they should. That's what I would be doing if I was bees up in Japan. Getting inspired. I'm at a koi pond eating fucking tapen yaki, just fucking minding my business. Give me the P&L. I'm blanking on his name, but

The Houston gangster that everybody. Jay Prince. Jay Prince. The legend. Have you ever had a run-in with? No. I've talked to his son before. But yeah, I mean, I've never met them. How much control and power do they have? I have no clue. It seems like they have a lot. I know what y'all know. Outside looking in, it seems like they have a lot. I mean, but you talked to his son. I'm sure you've shared things. No, it was just literally a DM. It was like, what's up? Oh, I appreciate you.

Did you ever have to check in? No. What? He just doesn't make, I don't think he makes music operates in that world. The other thing is like, it's not a question, but. He operates in hip hop. No, I know, but it's like, if you're moving around claiming to be the big bad wolf, well, like there's other big bad wolf. So like when you go to a city that you're not from and there's other big bad wolves, it just makes sense to be like, hey, big bad wolf, like I'm also here. Yeah.

Can we coexist? Who explained this? That to me is like basic courtesy. Who is it? Is that not basic courtesy? No, it is, but I'm just saying. I thought they just have control over hip hop. An embargo on a no-fly zone. Yeah, like any hip hop artists that are performing here, you got to check in with them. I've done numerous shows in Houston. It was completely fine.

The etymology of this is that back in the day, hip-hop artists could usually only perform in one venue in a city, and that venue was owned by the local drug dealer. So now you had to do a deal with the local drug dealer, and if you didn't come with your guys, the local drug dealer who was paying you all cash, who was basically trying to clean his drug money, knew exactly where you were staying, and you might get hit for your shit on the way out of the venue. So you had your guys reach out to them and say, hey. That's multiplayer.

So that's checking in. So it's basically like, yo, am I going to be good making this mic? Because back in the day, rap artists weren't getting to play in the fucking arenas or the crazy venues or whatever. I think it's different depending on the music you make. When I did Hollywood Bowl and I wanted to bring out YG,

And, you know, he hit me. He was like, man, like the venue's tripping because of who I am and like what I'm associated with. They're not letting me. Long story short, like he ended up being fine. But it's like they didn't give me a hard time. They gave him. They gave him a hard time. You know what I'm saying? So I think like it just kind of depends on what the perception of you is. Do you have to move around with security? I move around with security because it's smart, because I stopped thinking that it couldn't happen to me.

And also because after 2018, when there was a lot of like media hate and like cultural hate, I was just paranoid. I'm just like... You're also running up on people that talk shit. Right. So I'm just like, bro, like I would be dumb to think that somebody...

that all of these are just like baseless threats. So let me like move smart so that God forbid anything happens. So yeah. Oh yeah. Are you still moving like that? Hell yeah. No, but running up on people that you. No, no, no, no. I was never moving like that.

Yo, that shit works though, huh? No, but I wasn't like, I mean, it's... I was never doing it. Violence works though, huh? I think it's actually sad. It's an unfortunate reality that the language that some people speak is money or violence. Meaning like... Fire to put it on them.

Well, it's true. It's true. He was operated that way for a little bit. It actually exposes the nuts in people. Like how much you really believe what you're saying. So it's like you're ballsy enough to say something online, but you're not ballsy enough to really throw down when it happens. In person. And there was a time where I was just... I fell...

to myself for my rage of wanting to stop being fucked with. And so I was like, bro, enough is enough. Whenever I see any of y'all like, fuck y'all, you know? So that's just what, that's just, yeah. Cause have y'all seen anyone say anything since? Isn't that interesting? No, but that's, but that's what I'm saying. Like everyone speaks violence. Yeah. Everyone does. Everyone understands that language. It's like, and it's fucked up. It's like,

damn, y'all just weren't spanked like as a kid. Cause like, why did, I don't know. It's just like ever. I'm not going to say like when I was 17 or 18, I wasn't on Twitter talking shit as nobody, but it's like, I have never, I've never talked shit since getting on and famous and successful about anyone. And if I have, I always knew that there could be blowback, but this whole notion of like, I'm a talk shit and like, yeah, I'm good.

It's just like, damn, bro. Like, yeah, that's, I'm sorry that like, uh, you just didn't learn this lesson earlier. Hmm.

And it's not even a positive thing that I even want to promote because it causes me to have to look over my shoulder straight up. You know what I'm saying? Because it's like I also don't expect anyone that there was an altercation with to sort of just like take accountability and let it go. Like, yeah, you know what? I did talk shit about him. Then I got punched in the mouth. Like, all right, we're even. I assume they're like, fuck you. I'm going to get my get back. Yeah. And so it's like, damn, I wish I didn't do any of this shit. Right. But it's like I didn't...

I always talk about going to chapter one. I didn't start chapter one. I didn't talk to any of y'all. I don't know any of y'all. I just fucking...

on their ignorance. Real Italian mom boss. Those Italians have been the whole time. Unfortunately, the capital... No, it's... It was a lack of respect. No, it wasn't... It's not who I want to be. I mean...

You turned me into a man I never wanted to be. It's not. No, it's really not. It's not fly. Yeah. It's really not. It's not fly. And there's a long-term cost. The security is a long-term cost. There is, because I don't blame... Revenge is a dish best served cold, so I don't blame any of those dudes if five years from now they're like, you thought we forgot? Fuck you. We caught you in the Bahamas. You know what I'm saying? So I wouldn't blame any of them, but it's also like, whatever. They just lack accountability. If you were...

An evil individual, record executive that wanted to create a system that could extract as much wealth from the artists that you possibly could. Given the technology that exists right now, how would it look? Easy money. Okay. You create somebody who is the most radical persona and image possible.

of counterculture as possible and feed them hits. That's it. - Give an example. - So like me and Boogies talk about this all the time, which is, I think at its core, I think hip hop is black culture, right? And I think you've heard from a lot of different perspectives within the black culture. You've heard from the CEO, right?

Jay-Z, also you've heard from the artsy dude, Kanye. You've heard from a stripper. You've heard from the, it's like, what's the next extreme thing that you haven't heard from yet? What's the next extreme perspective you haven't heard from yet? Get that.

Look at sexy red. I think sexy red. I was just going to say that. I think sexy red is, I don't subscribe to this like it's like a weapon of mass destruction. I just think like it's the natural progression of things. It's like sexy red is...

I think represents the authenticity that everyone else is almost trying to push. She's like the real deal. She's the real thing. And that's why it resonates. Cause it's like, Oh, very, very small percentage of the culture. Very small, but it's, but it's, but it's impactful, but it's impactful and it's authentic. And so look at like the progression of the game, right? It's like, okay, but where do you go after sexy red?

At some point, me and Boogers talk about this all the time. At some point, you're going to hear, you've heard from the CEO, you've heard from the drug dealer, you've heard from the stripper, you've heard from the this. At some point, you'll hear from the crackhead. You'll hear from the this. You'll hear. Hold on. You will. Why would it stop at here? You're making a point. Think about it. Why would it stop here? You're right. Because you just get more. Because I've been exhausted, man. That's why women have been making the best music. No, it's like, think about it, bro. Like, we're not stopping here. Right.

It's going to go to the next level and then the next and then the next. It's more extreme. Oh, yeah. Bro, give it 10 years, a crack and legitimate, like where it's like clear that that's their brand. We'll have a number one song in the world and is a known crackhead. And we will be living in a Black Mirror episode where everyone is rooting and cheering on for the train wreck of a crackhead. What was the first thing you said, though? You said counterculture, right? Yeah. And counterculture is...

Anything that goes almost completely against whatever the mainstream popularity is. Well, and what in my, correct me if I'm wrong, the culture of hip hop at its core and at its inception was intelligent movement. What's the antithesis of intelligent movement? Being reckless. Reckless. Okay. We're like kind of close. Yeah.

- Well, no, no, to your point, I wanna-- - Everything right now, like why the old heads are like hip hop is dying is because what is happening is counterculture to the culture of hip hop's inception. - Yeah. - Okay. - The shit happening in hip hop is actually counterculture in the culture is hip hop. - To the counterculture, I'm curious about this. Okay, hip hop, I don't think had a number one album last year. - Right, until whatever it was, yeah.

There is a form of music that has gained mainstream popularity. And I sent it to the group chat. It was so spot on. I'm curious your take on it. And is country this rebellion that you're talking about? Is this this counterculture? If the mainstream culture, if everybody's listening to hip hop and hip hop is it might not be representative of every single person in America, but it is popular music now. Is country now the most rebellious or counterculture thing to hip hop? And is that why it's become so popular?

I think this. I think it's not that black and white, but I think there's a couple things. I think it happened with rock music, which is subject matter and rock music reached the ceiling where we had heard everything. And I think with rap, we have heard everything. Oh, you're also sliding on and off? Heard that. In fact, I heard it and it was better.

If you're selling drugs, I heard that. 50 did it and it was way harder. You're sad, you're emotional. You're sad, heard that. Cudi, way better. You know what I'm saying? It's like everything that's happening in rap, I've already heard the better version of it. So what haven't we heard yet? So it's reached this point of we've heard all of this. It's like at this sort of breaking point where what's about to happen is

And that's one layer of it. I think the other layer is people who listen to country and rock, they weren't on the streaming platforms at first. They were still on iTunes. Yeah. Right? They were still buying CDs. They were still buying CDs. This is interesting. They've migrated over. We're now...

My dad is on Spotify. See what I'm saying? That was the last genre of music that was still- Right, so now you're getting the audience that was basically country music's audience, in my opinion, was last to migrate to streaming. But now that they have, people are seeing that. Wow, there's a lot of them.

So it's not necessarily a rebellion. Just that they were the last ones to convert. And because of the conversion of migration, now we're seeing these numbers that look astronomical, but those were always

They were always there. That's interesting. Kenny Kennedy had been moving units. They were always there. They always had their own award show that was huge. They were just last to the party is all that happened, in my opinion. But also, I do think rap's subject matter has reached a ceiling where there's no new perspectives being introduced outside of the select few, which is why I know a lot of people had flack for Kendrick's most recent album, but in my opinion...

Father Time is like one of the greatest songs released in the past 10 years because I've never heard a mainstream rapper talk about, and I could be wrong, right? I don't want to like say that this is the God's honest truth, but it's like, I just have never heard a mainstream rapper talk about father issues in that light. I thought it was fucking profound. I've heard mother issues and all that. Or child abuse. Yeah, it's like,

I think introducing new...

into the lexicon of rap is powerful. And if you don't like the sound of it, that's fine, that's fair, that's taste, but I respect that. And that's why I did Santiago was because honestly, like Kendrick's album and really Father Time inspired me to speak on my issues because I was like, oh, you know, oh, so it's safe to do that? And then I think I also like talked about shit that's never been talked about before.

This is all forms of art. Once people see that it can be done, they feel way more comfortable doing it themselves as well. They just can't conceptualize talking about like an abusive childhood or a relationship with their parents, which they might also have. But they're too locked in this game of how can I replicate what's successful? Once you make something else successful, they start going, well, I would also like to try to do that. Sure.

The labels are hanging on by a thread. I'll tell you this. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The labels are not going to allow rap to fall by the wayside like that. They're going to keep boosting and juicing the stream so that it appears that... What are y'all talking about? Rap's not losing steam. There's country, sure, but we're still crushing. No, you're not. Wow. You're having to spend a lot of money to keep up the facade. This is...

A Star is Born, what is the Lady Gaga movie? It's that. - A Star is Born, yeah. - It's right now, the labels are doing everything they can to keep the makeup and the wig and the choreography going so that it looks like shit is popping, but it's not.

It's not. And how does that end? Do they run out of money? I think it's like every genre. I think, bro, to be honest, once again, the truth is boring, right? Here's the truth. You know what it is? Four years ago, every CEO was signing every SoundCloud rapper and their cousin. You know what they're about to do?

sign every country artist and their cousin and guess what the country artists like we talked about before they'll make enough money to cover the loss of the rappers that they're still fronting and so it doesn't matter it'll always look like a rap is still doing its thing country's booming yeah but rap is still crushing yeah but y'all are signing the country artists i know because i'm talking to the fucking i saw relationships with the people at the labels and some of them are are good people and we talk about it all the time where it's like

The whole focus is country artists. My theory is the whole focus is look at Morgan Wallen, bro. Are you kidding? He uses some words rappers use.

Bro, Morgan Wallen, bro, Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll. Shout out Jelly. Yo, that's the man. Bailey Zimmerman. Like all these dudes who are like dudes and women who are coming through this vessel of this singer, songwriter, country twang, alternative sort of space. That's who the labels are scooping up like they were doing six years ago with like Lil Tjay and Polo G and all those kind of guys. It's like...

That's what they're on now. It's musical chairs, bro. It's like thinking that these people actually give a fuck about you is a mistake. Now, now, now, real quick. If rap starts to, let's say, struggle and views and streams are harder to come by, do you think that rappers will resort to more extreme tactics in order to garner those views or streams? And that's how the art becomes...

the crackhead doing all these crazy things or the slide on the ops gets even crazier. I need to do something even crazier in order to get the reaction that I did before. Yes, but also it's like labels. I think labels are going to... Go like this right here. You got something on your chin. Yeah, you got it. Get it. I think labels are going to continue to prop up rap to attract newcomers. Because put it like this, right?

labels letting rap fall is a bad idea for them because now where the up and coming rapper is going to go to, they're going to feel like, well, no, I'm not going to go over there. I'm not going to sign because all these rappers are falling off. But if you keep seeing rappers doing crazy numbers, you're like, all right, so there's still a place for us. So they're going to keep propping it up. Knowing deep down, damn, we're having to spend,

30 grand every four weeks to keep all these rappers propped up, but these country artists are making millions. But you know what? At least we're still recruiting and persuading these up-and-coming rappers to come over here. And they want to keep the rappers so they don't lose market share? Yeah, of course. Oh, so you don't want to let an independent scene pop up? This is a fact. I might even get... I don't know. My lawyer will probably call me after this. But when I left Columbia, first of all, I bought myself out of the deal. What does that mean?

It means they wanted another album. Yeah. Right. And I said, I'm not doing another album. He said, OK, well, we need money. This is like layman's terms. All right, cool. Here's a million and some change. Y'all can have it. And also part of that was, well, we want market share on your first 20 songs or whatever the fuck it was that you put out independent. What do I give a flying fuck?

about y'all's little dick measuring contest in the industry. Meaning those songs... Meaning, like, after I leave the label, when I put out 20 songs independently and Hits Daily Double puts out the market share report where UMG has 30%, Sony has 20...

Sony wanted to be able to claim my first 20 or whatever songs independently as part of their market share. Even if they're not with Sony. What do I give a fuck about? Charles' weird dick measuring contest that you can flex to the other fucking weird CEO at the Christmas party. I don't give a flying fuck. I'm getting out of here. You know what I'm saying? But it's like...

Like that's what they're moving off of is market share. Yes. Because bonuses are attached with that. If you're number one in market share, get a bigger check. Yeah. You as the CEO or whatever. Of course. So my theory with music genres is that any new music genre, it's going to have its spike. Yeah. And then it's going to level out. Sure. People say rock is dead. Rock's not dead. It's just smaller. Yeah. They still rock stations. People still. No, no. I don't know. I don't think it booms again. I think it just levels out. So it's like.

Right now we're in the country boom.

and it's going to level out. Hip hop has leveled out. Can I say a hot take? Now we have Afrobeats, which is a new version of music that people haven't heard. I want to say so many hot takes. Country's not new. Country's been around for a whole year. I know what you're saying. New to streamers. No, just new to the marketplace where music's being consumed. This is the first time since streaming boom where country was cool to young people. Fair enough.

But to that point, I think, I think we're, once again, this is, this is a, this is really me holding up a mirror because I'm white. So I feel like I can speak on this. White people are the best. White people and white boys and white chicks with the colleges and sororities and fraternities, so enamored by black culture, right? And for a while-

And for a while it went from like, I remember being in high school and there was pockets of like the goth chicks and people who they listened to like a certain kind of music. There was people listening to like, you know, I went to high school, '06, I was a freshman 2010, I graduated 20 minutes outside of Atlanta. So like snap music and D4L and Soulja Boy came and performed at the pep rally. And so it was like that era, it's like, there was the people who were listening to that and whatever.

I think now what's happened with rap is that the people who would have been listening to goth music and goth artists and punk artists, whether it was Chemical Romance or whatever it was, here's Lil Peep, here's Juice WRLD. Hip hop gave every genre a representative. But now what's happening, the pendulum has swung where it's like, you know what? I think I would just rather listen to just the goth artists.

or just the country artists, not the country hip hop mix, not the goth hip hop mix.

There's enough art. It's time, right? It's time where it was also hip-hop dominated. We got to really think, right? It's been 2024. It's been 10, 11, 12 years since Trap boomed and it was a complete insurgence and takeover, right? Where rap and mainly the production of rap and the Trap influence was in everything. Ariana Grande was putting out albums that had Trap hi-hats.

You feel me? It's like you got the biggest pop stars in the world using hip hop influence and 808s and shit like that. So I just think now enough time has passed where people are like, oh, it starts with the artists where it's like, you know what? I think I just want to make like some punk, punk pop goth shit. Some fucking boys like girls, chemical romance, all American reject shit. Like I just want to do that. And then the same people who were listening to maybe like the emo version of hip hop are like,

oh, you know what? It was really this that I was looking for. This just wasn't there in 2014, but now it is there. And I think, I just think that that's what's happening. It's just, it's becoming a lot more nuanced in there. Yeah. It's becoming a lot more compartmentalized. Yeah. It's like, if you want,

pop punk emo shit, there's actually pop punk emo bands that can just fulfill that role. And if you want trap rap, there's that. I think the past 10 years, rap just bled over to everything. And so it was massive. And now I think you have people like

the Noah Khans who are singer-songwriters and the Lizzy McAlpines or whatever her name is. She's fucking incredible. And just, you know, Luke Bryans and Morgan Wallens and Bailey Zell. Just all these people who occupy real estate that...

that maybe five years ago belonged to rap fans, there was an overlap. But now it's just very clear to those same fans that actually this is just what I wanted. Morgan Wallen blew up, right? And I think within a year or two, not Morgan Wallen, Noah Khan, that song Stick Season, it's fucking incredible, sold out Fenway Park. Wow, really? Yes. Like I think two nights in a row. Jesus. Wow. And it's like Fenway Park, but like you say the name Noah Khan in a hip hop space. Nobody knows.

I don't know. I don't know who Noah Connors is. You've heard the song. But Stick Season is fucking incredible. They're also probably not buying as many fake streams. No, but you know what? To me, bro, I'm just so passionate about great music. And I think that is what will always win. It's great music. And I think a lot of artists and a lot of people, they get caught up in why things aren't working, why is hip-hop failing, why is this...

You know what? The greats are always going to be fine. The greats are always going to be fine. The people who were never that ill will always fall off. Sorry, this is not related to what you said, but I just didn't want to forget it. Can you talk about industry plants a little bit? Like I hear that term a lot. Yeah. What does that even mean? I don't even know what it means. You know what that means to people? And it's so funny because the prerequisite years ago used to be you had to be an industry plant.

And what industry plant means is basically like, we only know you because the industry planted you here. Well, that used to be the only way you could be known. Think about it, right? It's like the first time I heard J. Cole was '09 on Blueprint 3 on A Star Is Born. I remember I bought Blueprint 3 and Cudi's debut on the same day, September 9th, I think, September 13th, something like that. That was the first time I heard J. Cole. Then I heard the warmup and it was a wrap and I was a fan.

He was an industry plant by industry plant standards because first time I hear he was on a Jay-Z album, that's a crazy introduction. I think he was already signed to Jay. But it's like, that used to be the... I grew up in Queens and he went to St. John's, I believe, and he was like... I saw him handing out... Right, so you were like early in that way, but it's like... Before he was signed. It's like...

You used to only be able to find out about artists if the industry pushed them. And then the internet opened up and a lot of this like organic rise and guerrilla movements happened to the point where it was very clear. Like if you blew up via internet and guerrilla style, or if like an industry put, put you there. And so it started this conversation of, nah, you're not as real as them. And, you know, and for me, it's like,

It used to fuck with me a lot, to be honest. People call me an industry plant because... Discredits all the work you did. Bro, because I am the furthest thing from it. And I get mad because I'm like, one, discredits the work, but two, I'm like, damn, bro. Y'all are missing out on so much inspiration. Do you understand that if you actually...

realize the truth that you would realize you can do it too? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like, bro. They want the justification for why they didn't do it. They don't want to know how. Of course. They'd rather not do the work and have an excuse. Yeah. Yeah, bro. It's part of the Nepo baby thing. He's on because he cheated, not because you're nice. Right. And you're a worker. And you figured out the system and you did that. Well, your ex had money, so it actually doesn't count what you did. Yeah. Yeah. And it, bro, you should bother the fuck out of me.

because I prided myself on that. It was a part of my identity. It was my come up. You know what I mean? Like,

damn y'all about it like especially it came during a time where they were taking away everything else it felt like i was like damn y'all taking away that too yeah like that was the thing that was like teflon like wait y'all are saying this now what were they saying and i remember the dude who started the rumor straight up and i'm cool with him now what rumor what were they saying so the rumor was it started on kanye tila it was a forum yeah right and the rumor was my dad worked for columbia oh and that's how i got on first of all none of that makes sense

Right. It's like, so then why did I have to put out 11 mixtapes? Yeah. Oh, so he conveniently got hired after the 11th mixtape? Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. So I put out 11 mixtapes and I'll make you famous. Right. So yeah. Right. And I remember just being so pissed, bro. So pissed. And there's still people who like, you know, I get the comments of like, just fake independent shit. Talk about how your dad gave you all the, I'm like, what? What?

Where do you think this comes from in people? Not just you. This is a human... I think, you know what it comes from? It comes from an inability to look at yourself. Yeah. It's an inability to have accountability for the choices you've made and where they've landed you. And it's easier to say...

I haven't gotten to where I want to get to because I'm not cheating like he is. I would say it's a fear of looking at yourself. Absolutely. You know, even inabilities almost gives them too much credit. The fear provides that inability. Yeah. They're not dumb. They're terrified. It's scary to look at yourself and it's scary to realize those things. It's awful. Especially if you view yourself and your identity is tied to you being awesome. Yeah. And you being the man. That for me was like my downfall. Yeah. Was like, I got my...

I got my perceived confidence from thinking I was the man. And so when things would happen that would tell me I wasn't the man,

And I talk about it on the song Fraud on Santiago. It wasn't surface level where it's like, okay, big deal. People say you're not the man. It's like, nah, beneath the surface is it made me question, well, then who am I then? Yeah. That's the imposter syndrome shit. Right. Because if who I am is the man and something happens that's like, you're clearly not. Then it's like, well, who am I then? And it fucked with my head. Because deep down you're like, I'm not the man. I'm not the man. This thing is confirming that. And if I'm not the man.

I'm nothing. Do you ever think about how beneficial the insecurity was? Cause, and I'm curious, do you ever think like, yo, if I was fully secure, what would I be doing right now? Cause I don't think you'd be this. I think if I was, you know what, let me, let me actually answer it like this. I think there was a big, big part of me and still is where I compare my struggles, meaning like, damn, my struggles aren't valid because my struggles aren't that struggle. Hmm.

And I had to realize that, you know what? Yeah, maybe I didn't grow up a certain way, but I had my own struggles that are specific to me. That are difficult. And yeah, maybe my struggle wasn't my mom was an alcoholic and my dad left or whatever the fuck it is, right? It's like, but maybe my struggle was what it was on Santiago. And, you know, it's like to compare struggles also fuels that imposter syndrome where it's like, oh, so if my struggle isn't as tough,

perception wise as their struggle, his struggle, her struggle. That means that my shit isn't real. And that made me start like dismissing my own struggle where it was like, bro,

Bro, get over it. Right. Because your shit is not even as real as that. Yeah. And it's like that comes from comparing struggles and thinking that my shit needs to be that. Yeah. And it's like, you know. I think the fear might be if you put it out there and then people tell you that's not even a real struggle. Then you got vulnerable and then you get told the shit that hurt your feelings wasn't even worth getting your feelings hurt. And you're like, well, fuck. Oh, yeah. Getting gas lit by society is just par for the course.

You know what I mean? That's what that, I mean, cause that's what that is, right? When I canceled the European tour and I didn't even fully know why I needed to cancel, but I just knew I needed to, I was getting gas lit by the thousands. Oh, like for lack of better words, get over it.

Big deal. I'm going through shit too. My girl just left me. I just lost my job. It's like, all right, so fuck what I'm going through then. Because that's how men operate. That's how men operate. It's also men, but it's also successful people. It's like, nobody wants to hear Jeff Bezos' problems. If you got a problem with your girl, keep that shit to yourself. Straight up. And I get that. There is a lack of empathy. That's the cost of success. I've talked about it, and it is forever...

To use your word, odd, because it is awfully odd that as successful people, we are not allowed to experience the average human emotion without scrutiny. However, the average human expects us to act like we're not above them, but you treat us like we are above feeling what you feel.

And that's what's confusing to me, right? It's like, if the average person is like, you're so rich and successful, you're not allowed to be sad. It's like, okay, let's go with that. So you're telling me that in a way, you're telling me I'm above you. I'm so much above you that I can't even feel your peasant emotions anymore.

You know what I'm saying? I don't think they say you're not allowed to be sad. That's what it is. I think they say, we just don't care if you're sad. No, but even... No, no, no, no. It's literally like... You can't be sad about rich shit. No, it's not. No, no, no. It's not even rich. You could be sad about breaking up with your girl. No, you can't. I think that they would have empathy because they've went through that. It's just, if you're rich, all of your problems are like...

You literally just said Jeff Bezos. And so to me, if you got cheated on by his girl, you could talk about how difficult that was. I just think it's interesting how society holds celebrities to an emotional standard that's above their own and then act bizarre and act offended if a celebrity acts like they're above them. But you have literally told them who you think they are. You think they're above you because you think they are immune to feeling what you feel.

Because they've achieved something higher than you could ever achieve. Maybe they feel like, I think that's something important to understand is like,

achieving like wealth specifically is so monumentally difficult. Like there, there are people that are, they can't even fathom making what you might make in a month. Right. So the idea of having that, it feels if you don't have it, that it would solve all the problems because it's so like, it's so just farfetched. So they can't even conceptualize or empathize with

going through these other things because in their mind just like all of us before we had any money we were like man if i had all the money i'd be good fucking caring my girl breaks up with me i'm getting another girl i'm getting four girls i'm going on vacation to this so so there just probably is a lack of empathy for it there's a map and this is why i always tell like my fans and people is like listen i think the best level of understanding somebody could give you sometimes is understanding that you don't understand you just give me that

Like, cause in that there is understanding. Like you could tell me something you're going through and I may not relate to it, but I can at least deploy the empathy and understanding to know that I don't understand. And so therefore I'm not going to pass judgment and say, you should or shouldn't be feeling this. I'm just going to understand that I don't understand. That ain't what the internet's for. No. Commenting, hey, listen, I don't understand. Yeah.

is not going to happen. The people that don't understand don't comment. Exactly. No, the people that don't understand comment and say, this is dumb. Oh, I'm sorry. The people that understand don't understand. Yeah, exactly. The people of empathy are just going to not say anything. Well, and that's like, I saw this on, or I said this on Twitter earlier, it's like, social media birthed the rise of the haters because-

Being cool in a lot of people's eyes is getting views and retweets and negativity gets the most views and retweets. So you've got a bunch of people who want to be cool. And the quickest way to get there is by being a hater. Mm.

and passing judgment. So like, it's cool to like, we all laugh, me included, like see a quote tweet, if it's got enough retweets, it must be funny and it's hilarious and you laugh and it's like, damn, it's kind of crazy that like random people with no profile picture just like get popping and get paid now for being a hater. Like I'm not from that generation where it's like, you got literally applauded for being a hater. Yeah.

Because we would have just asked like, but what do you do with your life? And it's like, if your claim to your bank account is, oh, I passed judgment and I hate on Twitter. That's how like I get money. You're a loser. I don't care how you got your money. Like you're a loser. You're still a loser. Is that the cost of success?

Yeah, that comes with the dinner. It's like, yeah, par for the course. Like, I wonder if some of this is, like, as maybe annoying as it is, as, you know, we can call it behavior, loser behavior, whatever, part of the cost of being able to take your mom around the whole world. Oh, yeah, that has to come with it. Go to America, do it. There's going to be a negative to it. Has to be trade-off. Yeah. Has to be trade-off. Yeah, and it's like, if that's the trade-off.

So be it. You know why? Because it's like the positive is so much crazy. The positive is crazy. The negative. It's like, all right, so the negative is like maybe once in a blue moon, like something goes viral about you negatively. The positive is every day.

my mom is good in a beach house and I'm lit. So like maybe three times a year I get shit on, but 365 days out the year I'm living my dream. So like I win ever. You know what I mean? - And that's the thing to focus on 100%. - Perspective. - Yeah, yeah. I think it's easy to get too, well, 'cause we're so zoomed in. - It's also like when you create art or you really care about the thing that you're creating,

anything that is-- - It's hard to not personalize. - Displayed negatively about it, like it hurts you a little bit, you know? - Of course. - Absolutely, that makes sense. 'Cause we're so close. If we were creating a fucking power bar or we're creating some random product, it's not like our love and our passion is in it. We're like, how much protein can we get into this bar? Oh, do we get 40 grams? Okay, we got it in. - I also think that's our genius though, is having, and this is, Rick Rubin talks about this,

the antenna's being up. Yeah, the sensitivity is what allows that taste, to be honest. It's like, you look at somebody like Kanye, or you look at somebody like Drake, and it's like, no, but listen, you look at somebody like Kanye or Drake, and it's like, damn, why are they so big? Yeah, the music's great and whatever, but a lot of what's impacting and staying with people is the vulnerability.

and their ability to be sensitive to what they're feeling and express it in an authentic way, that can't happen if you don't give a fuck. The reality, though, is that that attribute doesn't live inside of a vacuum. It's going to also bleed over into other aspects of their life. And so you're going to get outbursts because they're sensitive. Because they're feeling what they're feeling. You can't be good at this if you're not sensitive. You can't be a great artist if you're not sensitive. No, it's like I used to be...

I used to feel for, it didn't last long, but it was for a little bit where I was like, man, like I'm too sensitive. I gotta let this shit go. And I was like, nah, bro, that is literally my superpower. Like my ability to have the antenna up and to receive the message and execute it without interference is the superpower. And if I start letting the outside world tell me that having my antennas up is weak,

Then I'll be y'all. I don't want to be y'all. Y'all suck. You know what I mean? You want to feel. I don't want to live y'all's life. God forbid. Russ, listen, we've been, I don't know how long we've been going on this. Is that the time right there? Yeah. Five and a half?

5.30. What time do we start? Jesus Christ. About 4 hours rolling. Oh my God. Okay, so then before we go, anything else? What is the next

20 years. In 20 years, when we come back and we reflect on this, when we're chilling on the Amalfi Coast and we're laughing about the last vacation that we went on and all the family is good and there's more family and that family even has family, all those things are happening. What is the conversation about? Where is Russ mentally? What are you creating? Honestly, I think for me, I just want to...

Get closer and closer to an authentic balance between my personal life and my career. And I think my whole 20s, I spent down the rabbit hole of feeding my career. Which is natural and it's good and it's paid off. And now I'm trying to incorporate some of this balance. And I think in 20 years, I'm never going to stop making music. It's like, are you ever going to stop thinking shit is funny? No. So it's like, I'll always be making music. I just think...

I want to get even closer to this place of like, just don't see me, feel me though. And that's it. Because to the fisherman fable, it's like, that's what it's about. I'm already living like that, but I want to get even closer to like, yo, I'm putting out music from this island and like, you know, that's that. You take seven years off, then you make an album. Yeah, because bro, to be honest, I'm also trying to show my fans and show people who

care enough to pay attention that there's an authentic alternative way to like do this whole music thing and sometimes i beat myself up for not playing the game more being in la and being on the scene and like damn i should have been at that party and i bet if i had a spot in la for three months i would have been here and it's like yeah maybe you would have been but then what you know and maybe it would have paid off here but it's like damn bro ask yourself the why

The why is so important. It's like, all right, so you could have moved there. You could have went to that party. You could have said something different. Why though? Oh, well then people will fuck with me more and they would know that I'm really who I think I am. So you don't think you are who you think you are. It's like, it's a lack of your own approval. And so I'm just trying to get closer to the point of like, bro, like y'all can run around and chase all this weirdo shit.

And I just, I want to deploy empathy to everyone. I wish I could talk to every artist who's popping and just be like, and just talk straight up because I feel like all of us are living inside of this fucking tunnel where we can't move either way. And we think we're the only ones in here.

And we see everyone else's Instagram and everyone else's success. And we assume that, damn, man, they haven't figured out. Not knowing that they're sitting there like this. Yeah. You know? And we're just all too prideful to, like, talk to each other. And, you know, I try and I try to hit up people. But I understand, like, the music business, it's politics. Yeah. You know? And I mean that not in the, like...

I don't know, in a weird way. It's like, everyone's a politician. And so you fuck with somebody based off of temperature right now and what they can do for you right now. Sure. And if it doesn't make sense, you won't even respond to the DM. But maybe you got a hit on radio. Hey, what's up? Keep grinding. Crush it. And all this shit. I just wish people knew my intentions. I wish people...

knew that they don't have to compromise who they are to reach the masses. And yeah, I'm just trying to get closer to feeling better about the person I'm choosing to be on a day-to-day. Amen to that, my boy. Russ, go check out Santiago. Go check out the single that's dropped by the time it's come out. I've already dropped. Yes, beautiful. Go check it out right now. It's another relationship problem song. Spin it. Peace.