♪ I remember sleepin' on the floor, yeah ♪
♪ I remember bein' broke, yeah ♪
♪ I know if all this money go ♪
♪ I'm gon' look up like where everybody go ♪
♪ Yeah, I remember sleepin' on the floor ♪
♪ I lost everything but hope ♪
- You know, it's a huge day for me, man,
just because I don't geek out.
I don't geek out with musicians or anyone but Gary Vee.
I'm such a huge fan.
You can tell, I've got my books sitting here, man.
- And the way you said, Vay-Nur-Chuk,
that's the tell.
I'm like, okay, this guy's real, he's in.
I appreciate it, Trav.
- One thing I found super-interesting,
is you are like the A&R of entrepreneurs.
You know what I mean?
You're the dude,
you see all the entrepreneurs out there.
You're giving them advice.
You know, very similar in the music industry.
But now, you're actually bringing artists to your office.
You're sitting down with Tee Grizzley and having
30 minute conversations and putting them on your youtube.
Did you think, when you were starting, you know,
Wine Library, you know, doing youtube videos about wine,
you'd be sitting down with the biggest superstars in music,
giving them advice?
- If you told me that I'd be the coolest I ever was,
at 42 years old, I would have laughed you out of the room.
It's so crazy.
And it's fun to have Mike Boyd, here in the corner.
Mike went to college, with my brother, AJ.
Literally, for the last decade, in some shape or form,
I've been bankrolling and we've been jamming on
hacking, enjoying, managing, creating content.
First, we started a ...
First, he, I don't even wanna say we.
I paid, but he started a blog called Hip Hop at Lunch.
He was writing articles about Wiz Khalifa,
Nicki Minaj, Mac Miller, Nipsey Hussle,
long before they became who they were.
So I'm like, okay, he clearly knows.
Then he worked at VaynerMedia.
Then I helped him get a job somewhere else.
Then he came back.
And then, it's just, it's really interesting.
He came back, and it was no thought, really.
It was more of like ...
Oh, then we managed Rome Fortune.
Then, he came back and was,
after two years of Rome,
just living the management life,
trying to break an artist,
big shout out to Rome Fortune,
you know,
him just coming back.
He's like, you know what, I need another cool off period.
Let's just, let me just work at VaynerMedia for two years,
then we'll reset.
I don't think either one of us could have saw
that I would start penetrating.
It makes sense, right?
As entrepreneurship and business
have been built up, as a zeitgeist,
the way an athlete and a rapper,
now, all of a sudden, you're in that conversation.
And much, just like athletes and rappers co-mingle,
and Joel Embiid wants to high-five Meek Mill,
as much as Meek Mill wants to high-five Joel Embiid,
now the entrepreneur's part of that conversation.
- [Travis] 100%.
- So for me to think that, Killy,
Gunna or, you know, Tierra Whack or whoever it is,
they think I'm cool, that's funny to me.
And what's real fun for me, back to your A&R part,
between Boyd's ability to do music,
between my funny earwear,
I kind of know what everybody's gonna like.
And then, to your point,
knowing when I sit down with Pee Wee, does he have the,
or YG, do they have the business chops.
And what's funny, is you could be a great,
like when I sit down with Tee Grizzley,
I know that he's well on his way
to being a big time hip-hop artist.
But when you're walkin' into my room,
that wall, that room, you're comin' to talk business.
- [Trav] Yeah.
- And so, for me, I may like your music,
but if you suck at business, I'm gonna let you know.
Right?
But more importantly, I'm not gonna let you know
by diss tracking you.
I'm gonna try to be like, no, have you thought about this?
Nicki Jam, if you really want,
if you're an entrepreneur and you wanna really, if ...
Let me rephrase.
If you're listening, right now, and you're an artist
that is also an entrepreneur, or just an entrepreneur,
you have to watch that interview.
Because there, I really break down,
and if Nicky goes and executes what I told him to do,
he'll be in a different place.
I think you should be thinking about getting equity,
in a startup beverage, like Dirty Lemon, who's smart enough
to know that you're exactly what they need.
You get a point of the company, on the back end.
They market you properly, not on dumb billboards,
cheesed out, vanilla'd out.
Right?
You win twice.
Or someone super-artistic like Big K.R.I.T., right?
If you go watch the K.R.I.T interview,
if he goes and listens to what I'm gonna do,
he'll be put on in a more artistic business way.
I have a concept that I haven't seen.
- [K.R.I.T.] Okay.
- Song comes out, album comes out, project comes out.
Something pops.
In movies, they come out with number two quick.
You put out, right?
Guardians of the Galaxy, you know, what the fuck ever?
It blows up in the theater.
They're fuckin' in production on number two, from the bat.
(speakers drowning each other out)
- [K.R.I.T.] Just like Fast and the Furious.
- [Big] Right after it.
- So, for me, again, back to lyrics.
You write a song, it's about what you're going through,
with your girl, with your best friend,
with somebody sick in your family, and it goes.
Well, it's been some time in between you writing that
and now it happening.
To write the update and piggy back off the momentum
is something I've never seen.
Where as Nicky may make the kind of money that, you know--
- [Travis] He'll be in international pop money,
like world money.
- No, if he really listened to what I said,
he's gonna make Dr. Dre Beats money.
- [Trav] Okay.
- People are hittin' me up.
- [Travis] Nispey's a real business man, too.
- Correct.
And he's a thoughtful,
I'll tell you that Nipsey is more of a psychologist
and kind of a thinker, that way.
Trading culture.
- [Nipsey] That's it.
If it penetrates, you did it.
If it don't, you didn't. - 100%
That's basically all I think about.
Attention arbitrage, hack culture.
- Yeah.
Other than that, everything else can be manipulated.
All that shit can be influenced.
- [Gary] That's right.
- If you go outside and you hear the music,
you come to the concert, everybody's singin' the words--
- [Gary] Then you're good.
- It connected, that shit penetrated.
- And so, I win on psychology.
The reason I can go from the board room, on Madison Avenue,
to the studio in the hood, and, Ralo--
- They just don't be thinkin' about it.
They just don't give a fuck.
Cuz everybody can be rich if they put they mind to it.
I ain't no better than the next man.
I got the same hands, same blood,
same eyes as another person.
They just don't want it.
- If you ever looked at my calendar,
where I'm meeting a 68 year old billionaire,
you know, CEO of like, Budweiser,
and then four hours later, I'm in studio with Ralo,
I'm playing so high-low.
But the one connective tissue is that
I'm trying to bring people value and I have empathy.
- I believe you man.
Because, you know, watching your videos and
watching you go throughout your day to day life,
you don't change.
Whether you are in a billion dollar meeting, with a CEO,
or you're in with Ralo, or Yung Bans, or Killy,
it's Gary Vee, all the time.
- And what's interesting is,
one can be listening, right now, and be like,
yeah, but he can edit it.
The only person that really knows that,
is Iris, in the room.
- [Trav] Yeah, holding the camera.
- 'Cause she's with me all the time,
like DRock and Babin.
And they're the ones that really know.
And you're right, because I don't give a fuck.
Look, here's what I would say.
You can't be authentic if you pander
to anything other than yourself.
The reason that people break through,
is whether through their own weirdness or adversity ...
Why did Tee Grizzley break through?
Because he was in fucking jail for four years.
- So, I get locked up, off the rim,
my first time going to prison.
I was in a whole different state,
very far away from my home, in Kentucky.
- And he got sent to a bunch of different jails,
and he started picking up on flavor outside of Detroit.
- You know, you get talkin' to people, you get to mingling
and you get some emotions, out there going.
I was out there rappin' at social hour.
Oh yeah, let me hear somethin' then.
So, I would rap for 'em.
I would rap somethin' to them
that everybody in the city loved.
And they was like, nah bro, that ain't it.
And I'm like damn.
I'm like, maybe that's what's missin'.
Damn, this is why I don't connect with everybody.
Because this is some super Detroit shit.
- And then, when he spit it in the yard,
they're like, that's whack.
It's because he used the terminology for a car
that other people didn't use.
Because that's how they said it in Detroit.
So, what happened is he got empathy.
I got locked up in so many different states,
and this one time I had a taste.
- [Gary] Oh, they kept moving you?
- Yeah, they kept on movin' me.
(laughs)
- You built your fan base and you literally crafted it
and got context, that makes so much fucking sense.
So by the time he came out,
he understood a lot of different people.
Now he can make a hit, right?
But, the kid in Detroit, right now,
who's gonna copy Tee Grizzley, lost,
because he's not authentic already.
And that speaks to patience, right?
He had to give up four years of his life,
have the stigma of bein' locked up.
All the things that come along with it,
slowed everything down,
but it opened up another opportunity.
Do you have a good time in your own lab?
- I had a great time, man.
- Give me, like, what struck you?
- [Trav] I wanna say Rich the Kid.
Just seeing the response to someone like Rich.
And, you know, I've been a fan for a few years
and I've kind of followed him throughout his whole career.
And so, just to see the payoff, the reward, you know.
- He hacked, boy.
One of the first meetings we had was with Rich.
And you know, that's like two and a half years ago, now.
But now, hip-hop kids are gonna be hundred millionaires.
Because they're gettin' out.
They're playin' at the highest levels, just like athletes.
You go back to the 60s and the 70s,
athletes, they had jobs in the off-season.
The biggest quarterbacks in the 50s, 60s, 70s,
they hoped to coach when they were done.
Now these quarterbacks, they want to own the team.
You know, hip-hop kids coming up 20 years ago,
they were like, oh, maybe I'll get a good deal.
Now they want to own the label.
They want to own a fashion brand,
sneaker deals, start-up companies.
Everybody's in for whatever,
and that's huge, that's game-changing.
So for me, the big thing now is, what I want to be,
and I think it's so fun to say it, right here, right now,
if I can be the Jimmy Iovene
to all of them.
If they're all Dre.
That's why I'm meeting all of them.
You know, I don't know how wired in,
and what you've heard or not heard,
I'm not askin' for shit.
I don't want anything.
If I can be the Jimmy to all this collective,
if you're 15 to 30, and you're about to hit,
or you're kinda comin' up,
if I can just keep spitting value into the system,
that's gonna work out.
And whether you're far along, like Nipsey and YG,
where I can talk about that next, next, next step,
or when Bans came into my office,
he's still got somethin' around his fuckin' ankle.
You clearly have your shit together.
The only thing that's gonna fuck you up,
because you know it's gonna happen, you can feel it.
Sometimes youngsters are just like,
fuck, why hasn't it happened?
Like 13 months from now happened.
That song that completely changed shit.
And then they start doing shortcuts.
This, I'm tellin' you Gunna's--
- So I'm gonna hand the man, like nah, I ain't tryin' to--
- Nah, New York's very simple.
Hey, free cd.
Where's my 20 bucks.
Listen, I know we're talking a lot about music,
which is probably the most I've talked about music,
- Dude, but I'm sayin',
this is why I wanted you on the show.
Because you know what the fuck you're talking about.
- But I know about it in some interesting ways.
So, for example, somebody who would never,
I don't have the audacity,
I don't wanna disrespect the audience.
Someone who, I don't feel, understands music
the way we understand music.
Most of you, when I say we,
a lot of you people that know music,
I understand music in like a pure human sense,
meaning the lyrics, the hook, the beat.
I very much understand that little sandwich.
I understand it real well.
So, for example, I know that I am a lyrics guy.
The reason hip-hop got me,
is because I didn't come from shit.
Because, I've always been underestimated.
People spit in my fuckin' face.
I love competition.
I hate that I'm not a rapper
because all the shit that I really want to say,
I can't, the way a rapper can.
To me it's the story.
This is why I fuckin' fuck with Biggie so much.
So, the truth always wins, man.
The truth wins.
This is what I say to artists all the time.
They're like, oh, fuck it, I need to get put on.
Nuh-uh.
If your music's good enough, especially in 2018,
put that shit on SoundCloud and Spotify and show me,
fuck you.
Nobody's stoppin' you.
You don't need Zane to put you on rotation.
You don't need Rap Caviar to put you on.
You don't.
If you're good enough, you'll eventually get there.
You might not be poppin' the way you think,
right now, it's just a matter of time.
- Gary Vaynerchuk, I appreciate you so much man.
Thank you so much.
- [Gary] Thank you, bro.
- You are a man who knows it all
and definitely, definitely knows music, dude.
- [Gary] Yeah, thank you man.
That was a pretty good ...
I'm impressed with my music.
I think I impressed myself.
♪ Yeah I remember being broke ♪
♪ Yeah I know how far this money go ♪
♪ I'm gonna look up like where everybody go ♪
♪ Yeah ♪