- First of all, let me start over.
Your talent is gonna fill the Garden.
The time in which you fill the Garden
is gonna have a whole lot more to do
with the shit you do on those platforms,
than YouTube, and podcasts. - Yeah.
- It's just the truth.
(static buzzes) ("Disrespectful" by GASHI)
(sputters lips)
♪ Movin' it quick ♪
♪ Tryna get rich and I'm dodgin' these sticks ♪
♪ Got head in the Uber, then call me a Lyft ♪
♪ She pissed, but it is what it is what it is ♪
♪ Girl, I'm stuck up in my ways yeah ♪
♪ Get the fuck outta my face ♪
("Disrespectful" by GASHI)
♪ Yeah, and every single chain ♪
♪ And my diamond rings ♪
♪ The way you walkin', the way you talkin' ♪
- When did you know you were good?
For real?
- When I got in the booth, like a real studio.
- How did that happen?
- I was in Florida on house arrest.
I wasn't supposed to go outside.
(laughs)
I didn't have the bracelet on, right?
- Yep.
- And I had a schedule,
and I told 'em I was gonna say, "Just throw it away."
(laughs)
And I went to the studio with my producer,
but I ain't care, man, I had to do that.
- It just was, you just had to get it?
- Yeah, I never even told nobody that.
(both laughing)
- That's amazing. (laughs)
And what, literally, as soon as you were done,
you were like, "Fuck, I got this."
- Yeah.
I mean, I was panickin'.
I was in the studio a lot.
I used to tell my momma, "No lies,"
tell my mom, "I'm goin' shoppin',"
and then, after a while, I started tellin' her,
"I'm goin' to the studio."
(laughs)
- I love that.
- I was just gettin' up outta there.
- I love that.
Are you giving any of your music
or jamming at all with any of the Twitch stars?
- Who's that? - What's that?
- So, Twitch, what, you guys don't know Twitch?
Twitch is a platform where people, so.
- Oh, the series?
- No, people play video games,
and people watch them play.
So, one of the most interesting places
I think you can win on.
So, I said, Boyd's heard this
too many times, so has D Rock,
but it's just, I can't get over it.
I'm a little older.
Good Charlotte, the band, they got put on,
because they were the music when you were picking your team
on Madden back in the day, 15 years ago.
Nobody knew who the fuck they were,
but when you were picking your team on Madden,
and you heard the hook over
and over for five minutes, ten minutes.
- I was definitely one of them, 2K.
- Right, right.
It's continued since then.
I don't get to play as much anymore,
so I don't know who's been put on and who's not,
but I can tell you flat out,
they got famous just 'cause.
I believe one of the great moves
right now for more exposure,
more than you're naturally gonna get with Instagram.
You're gonna win.
That shit's on lock.
You're gonna win.
You've won, and you're gonna win more,
but when I hear you say, "I wanna spread out
"and be a more impactful brand,
"that's not just gonna naturally come to me.
"I want to go like this, not just deep,
"but I wanna go a little wider."
If you wanna go wider,
you can go through the process
of Viacom, Nickelodeon, agents, CAA, WME, Netflix.
You can go through the machine.
You've done it.
You're on a record, you know,
but that has so much speed to it,
or you can go directly to what you're lookin' to do.
I think one thing that you guys
should give a lot of thought to
is figure out who the top 500 Twitch players are,
top thousand Twitch players are,
figure out how many of them,
I'm gonna tell you right now,
seven of 'em fuck with you and love you.
Reach out to them, same as this right now,
them playing games to sell your songs
and things of that nature has a profound effect
on more reach in new areas,
achieving the same thing that you're
thinking about from broad brand standpoint,
in a way where there's no friction.
It's just somebody that's just like you,
except they know how to play FIFA. (laughs)
- FIFA isn't me.
(sneezes quietly) - Bless you.
- Thank you. - 'Cause 2K is more like me.
So, FIFA is outside the box.
- How much do you guys think about that?
- I've played FIFA over time.
- How much do you guys think about
what's naturally gonna come to you,
'cause it's just part of that culture,
versus how you think about somebody who loves country music,
or somebody who lives in Brazil?
- I try to think like that a lot, outside the box period,
'cause if you think, for example,
I'm a rapper, right, from America.
I'm gonna use any other rapper.
2 Chainz, I was with 2 Chainz last night.
He's from America, young thug from America.
We all, no matter how much fans we get in America,
we all kinda have the same fan base.
- That's right.
That's exactly right.
- So, if we step outside the box,
there's no, it's a different race now.
- Uh huh, you got more land to grab.
How do you guys think about volume music?
One thing I'm spending a ton of time on
is I'm fascinated by people's strategy
on how much or how little music they put out.
How do you guys think about that?
I'm so fascinated, because I think
it's so hard to be overexposed,
'cause the world's so fragmented now.
- Yeah, exactly.
- So, I'm tryin' to push kids to,
I'm like, "More, more."
I'm like, "You gotta fuckin' hit in your head right now,"
like, "More, more, more,"
and a lot of people get precious.
They're like, especially when they get albums,
"I've been doin' mixtapes.
"I've been puttin' out a song on Spotify every day."
- So, what is a fan base, like Steve Love,
when he puts out a whole body of work?
- And it's all about timing, too.
You can't just put out a whole album.
It's all about your reactions and timing.
Time and reactions.
If I drop my album, and I get a great reaction,
if I sell 150 in a week,
I might drop another album,
but if it's doin' bad,
I want that album to keep on growin'
until I drop my new album.
- I understand.
- Those are little things.
- This is actually where somewhere,
we might be able to help.
When it goes bad or an album or song goes bad,
which, for you, it's never bad,
but not where you want it to be.
- Yeah.
- What the fuck do you guys do to make sure,
like just sitting, do you sit and wait,
because you have such great brand that it'll just get there,
or you proactively try to produce content
around that music to get it there?
- Yeah, we do, but you see how
some people do publicity stunts.
- Yeah.
- We try to move away from that and be more natural.
- Yeah, 'cause people think that's corny.
- Yeah, be more natural with it.
So, I mean, we look for little things.
- You know what I think is a big opportunity
that nobody's exploding in that vein?
So, I agree with you,
'cause it looks like desperation, right?
One of the things that I think you guys should think about
that I haven't said, finally gettin' some new stuff,
but I've been thinkin' about this one.
I think that's where the last two things
I asked you about could combined.
I think, instead of doin' somethin' cheesy
or tryin' to jab it up,
this is where you can give access to your fans.
I still think, so you got a song
that you really believe in, right?
And it's just not goin' that way.
That's where I think you can use social,
just out of nowhere, be like,
"Tonight, I'm gonna give you two more hints.
"I'm just gonna perform in the middle of some,"
like here, in this alleyway.
(group chuckles)
You play with your fans a little bit.
People get their juices goin',
and then you get 3,500, 6,000 people there,
but you record it, and you give love
to your fans a little bit,
spend an extra 10, 15 minutes givin' a couple selfies,
it's a way for you to give real love to your fans,
and it could lead to the piece of content
that puts that song on,
'cause everybody's gonna share the fuck out of it.
So, somethin' to think about.
I spend a lot of time not wanting to do the cheesy move,
tryin' to do the hard move.
- [Rapper] You're more strategic then.
- Yeah, I did meetup in Washington State Park.
I was like, I hit up Shyla Guy,
"You have your new book comin' out?
"Me and you, let's just Tweet at each other at 3:00.
"Let's meet somewhere."
People got goin' a little bit,
hundreds and hundreds of people showed up,
pictures, content, da da,
and you know what's crazy?
600 people were like, "Oh, my God.
"Yes, I knew I loved him.
"He's real, he's good, he gave love,"
but the amplification of those 600,
and their content, and your content, D Rock filmed it.
It might be a way for you to really put a little bit
of a match on something, and you won twice.
Instead of goin' cheesy, you gave love to the people
that put you here in the first place,
and you gave that song another chance,
so, somethin' to think about.
I'm an extrovert.
I wanna be around people,
so it's a tough piece of advice,
because I don't know how everybody rolls.
You don't want maybe 600 people clammin' on you.
I don't know, but that's somethin' to think about,
or just callin' people, Facetiming them.
I'm obsessed with depth versus width.
I'm obsessed with that.
I think people, and you said it earlier, right?
"Listen, I got 2.2 million followers.
"I'm thinkin' about 2.3."
You can't help it.
That's human behavior, but I think it's super important
that those 2.2 get, you know?
What are you doin' on social besides Instagram?
- [Rapper] Twitter, a little, Snapchat,
a little here and there.
I gotta step up my game.
- You really should, 'cause I knew we were getitn' together,
and obviously, that's my whole world.
I'm like, "Fuck, man, this guy puts in a,"
because that's, honestly, that's how
I think you'd fill the Garden.
First of all, let me start over.
Your talent is gonna fill the Garden.
The time in which you fill the Garden
is gonna have a whole lot more to do
with the shit you do on those platforms
than YouTube and podcasts. - Yeah.
- It's just the truth.
Back in the day, MTV put you on.
BET put you on, fine, cool.
That's how it happened.
The source puts you on the cover, good.
That's just not the world we live in.
- Right. - The fragmentation.
And that's the best, 'cause that was your control.
♪ Know this yet ♪
♪ Look back at it ♪
♪ She ain't never do this before, but she good at it ♪
♪ Said she never made love, but she good at it ♪
♪ She make a nigga feel good ♪