Beyond the Grammys: 25 Years of Art and Independent Success

The recorded music business is a small part of the entire music business from education straight through to all the ways that music in is involved in our lives. Grammys and charts are a fraction, a small fraction, and yet we look at that as the measure of success. We're indoctrinated every single day that this is the definition of success. If my bank account doesn't have this many zeros or

I have to do X Y and Z to get ahead and if that is at the cost of another human being or one of my morals maybe I'll just take that chance. I number one I think it's redefining on what that word means. The independent music scene is probably more difficult than most people would know. Robotop is celebrating 25 years of existence and they've created great art, great relationships, great

artist even grabing the awards but it doesn't mean that everything is a bit of roses. Hey guys and welcome back to the sound connections podcast. Today is a different episode than what I usually do. We're talking about actual music uh and not just technology and Innovation. Oh well it's a part of it. Leis and Fabian welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us pleas be

here it's great to be here. So rope a doe is a label or community of labels you can describe it best how what that is that has existed for 25 years and seen immense success uh but you've through been through an independent Journey where you've had a take that's been a bit different. So I'm very excited to talk about running independent Rec labels releasing music um sort of your nation

your selfers and most of all your philosophies on the way and sort of dissect that and how it relates to today but um leis and Fabian if you could each tell me who are you and what do you do in whatever order you choose maybe I'll let you begin. Oh my goodness I'll ask you to begin. Well thanks Jacob I really appreciate uh you

know giving us some time here in front of your audience um uh it's really an honor and you know Fabian Brown nobody's special by any means I've been with Roo uh knocking on a decade you know so 10 years in this crazy thing called the music business industry um actually no business in music business uh I'm a saxophonist I play I'm a creative and uh you know found a

friendship with Lewis and you know who was running uh roob at the time and um got into a situation where uh was seg out of the education the music education industry and uh you know Lewis was open to some help around the office and here I was and you know almost a decade a decade later um supporting and advocating for artists

you know our Independent Artists on the label um you know celebrating 25 years uh this year in uh in music which is uh incredible and extraordinary and you know all that time meeting some great musicians um you know and just helping them do what they do best getting out of the creative you know minutia of what it is to create an album and just really helping on the business side of things

and helping them you know gain further reach to Their audience. Great yeah my name uh I'm LS marks uh I got involved with rad op in a chaotic time in the music business um that would have been 2001 or two I began uh creating clothing for rope uh apparel that was kind of the

buzzword at the time to help artists uh increase their revenue um and uh in 2006 I purchased the label and began to take uh take the Rings If you will uh and uh I would call myself a really bad serial entrepreneur um somehow in the process of all this my philosophy and my heart

end up interfering with the Commerce uh in some way or another so really thank you for saying that we're extremely successful and I would say that's actually true when it comes to the creative and the cultural things that we've built uh and yet it is still uh an absolute struggle to um ma maintain in the independent sector of the music

business. As I as I talk with you guys before we sort of started recording I was uh looking through a website and the audience can go through the website and read sort of 25 years of updates of what happened in the company and I think there was one point in like late tens there was a comment like uh struggling uh to some degree I can't remember and I thought it was a really interesting contrast because the section before and the section after was like

want a Grammy like kind of thing so uh I would love to understand um sort of why and how to sort of um elaborate on that thought and that process. I think everyone who listens to podcast knows that the music industry is um not an industry would go for just purely monetary gain or that would be at least a very weird motivation um but

especially in dependent actor on I would say the world that you operate within there's a lot of risk and the upside is somewhat limited which means you need to navigate Waters in a in a different way so let's understand that um but before we get into that I think well actually could you elaborate on it what is it how does it feel like how do how is it to operate as an

independent company in the current landscape of Music even if you're quote unquote successful. Simply put chaos um it's very chaotic uh what we've learned in the last couple of years they've been a time of deep reflection as we come up on 25 years also we had you know that pandemic thing where we asked we all

asked ourselves what is the purpose what are we doing why are we doing it do we want to drive to work or do we want to work from home you know what's the real meaning of all this um where we are right now very simply at looking at the I would I'll say very clearly that in the time that I've been doing this from 2003 when Napster happened to 2008

and the crash and all you know all the things this is the most challenging time there is W without a doubt this is the most challenging um what we've done in this process of reflection is to recalibrate uh our perspective and you just mentioned one year was down and the next year was a Grammy and then the next year was down

so when you recalibrate your perspective and realize that winning a Grammy is not the end game and doesn't mean everything that you think it means uh then you begin to reassess how you view this and I just want to say one more piece on that um the- recorded music business is a small part of the entire music business and it has

an outsized influence in people's minds uh we're from education straight through to all the ways that music inv is involved in our lives. Grammys and charts are a fraction a small fraction and yet we look at that as the measure of success so that's where we are today. Interesting

interesting well I can see that the same philosophical Vibe as I got from the website is going to continue in this talk I love that no I love that um but I would love to do sort of a run through of a history and it doesn't need to be extensive because I think we're going to have a few stops uh with philosophy and perspectives throughout your hor Journey um but can youy tell me about the start like how did

this come into play robod do and your label and soort how did it develop the early days. Yeah so I want to add just point out to listeners right away that in the coming months we are creating a website that will narrate this story wow it be it'll be a beautiful uh scolling documentary show if you will that will take time that will describe it but ROP

up began in 1999 when DJ logic decided that he wanted to use a turntable as a solo instrument in a jazz band and they took that to some record labels and there was a lot of headstrap that went on and a lot of NOS cuz it just didn't make any sense however on the street in the Knitting Factory at the downtown New York clubs and on Festival

tours it was everything people just went nuts so you know after releasing the record the founders uh Andy herwitz John meski uh had to fill out a form to export CDs to Japan and they asked what label it was on so they said oh we need a label name so they came up with the label name

after much uh back and forth uh and the label was born and you know it was almost immediately signed by uh Ahmed ergan uh at Atlantic Records uh they had offices in Midtown and started creting out some absolutely wonderful projects The Philadelphia Experiment tin hat Trio featuring Willie Nelson uh sex mob uh even Sor Charlie hunter from bloe so

they just you know came out swaying uh and then of course ran right into the wall of the Napster years uh so that's the early the Early part of the label um it moved on with sorry go on we can break this up in pieces it's all good. I have an interesting thought because already here um there's something about having a subculture that you guys

are sort of serving you know the major labels the commercial uh Believers didn't really believe in the first product I guess this sort of sets the tone for the rest of a journey to some degree. 100% you Lou always is always telling me that when he receives a phone call or an email about hey you know I got this i got this record I got this project you know nine out of ten times I don't think it's uh the first

calls openid do as in to say they've shopped this bad boy around for a minute or two and then you know here it comes right and maybe that's through the proxy of their you know um their friends or other artists that have on label or maybe not but you know it really is interesting that you say subculture my time my entrance point for ropa do was a little bit around the same time the Philadelphia Experiment kind me kind

of put me onto the vibe at ropa do at the time I was I was in college at University you know uh in Philadelphia the whole Neo Soul movement even though I wasn't called that at that point but that was emerging and there was a lot of um excitement in Philadelphia There's a lot of uh you know momentum you know live music and Hip-Hop and the fusion of all these things were

really were really coming together and you know my entrance point on the business side of ropa do really came later on with artists like Chief AA and terce Martin which yet again you know were creating um a fantastic blend of what really spoke to them you know for me from my from my point of view robot hope is a destination for artists

to uh creatively express what they want to what they want to what they want to express you know create something new something fresh without guys like me and Lewis you know getting into that creative piece. Yeah and that's I guess uh in many degrees that's the fundamental difference between you know these very hyper commmercial projectss and what you guys do is sort of facilitating the environment in which they can succeed

within their creativity um well that can go for anything but I think you do uh in a different way but let's continue the story a bit um so this happened there was sort of a an immediate launch that made sense yes and um yeah you know I mentioned the abster years those were times when uh suddenly the forecasting and the and the and the

sales uh perspective changed drastically I mean when I entered the business a typical CD pressing was 5,000 units uh I think the minimums were a th000 at that point uh that has changed dramatically um there were a couple of points where there was a possibility of a buyer um emis record St Goldberg was one

in the process uh there were other groups of uh Venture capitalists shopping around uh but nobody was comfortable the founders of both the record label and the clothing business who were then working together uh really were not comfortable uh and to have such buyers what was the attractive side of it um was there

financials at the point that was interesting or was it just simply the brand um I there were definitely some record sales uh I'm not sure that translated through to a solid balance sheet uh due to the amounts of money that were spent on some of the records uh but uh look I mean I you know just I gotta give a shout out to Andy herwitz so like you don't you don't run

into people like this they're cowboys they're Rebels there he's Everything James Dean and Beyond and you know uh Dean warri arti and you know he just shoots like he calls it and just goes you know he tells a great story of the accounting people came in and said youo let me see your pnl and he's like what's p&l Philadelphia loss like what

is that you know so it was you know there was a there was a there was a lot of like let's just go uh and that Spirit it can be and there definitely been down times but that spirit is really the kind of spirit that you need when you're deal with create creative output whether it be art or music right

um so you know and we've and we've tried to keep that but also keep the balance sheet uh from being a disaster so um I think that people were looking at potential revenue and liking it um but the but the amount of ownership that they would have taken the amount of creative control and business control that they would have applied to the label was not going to be acceptable

and that's when I stepped in um and that was right around 2006 and uh the big record that year was King Brit present sister Gerard Morgan which is a New Orleans Roots record combined with Philadelphia uh musical Artistry and electronics uh it's pretty wild

album and you know it's in the library of Gus for a reason um but that record was due out on the Tuesday uh after Hurricane Katrina yeah so you know I would call that time one of like you know almost despair uh the challenges were just you know we were we were on the ropes so to

speak and uh that was and right afterwards we released an album from DJ Clark who magically took his own life right when the record was coming out it's you know what it was like we so we're no stranger to the challenges you know that knock you down and so that began the next phase of attrition and

Caution, uh, for a good four years of releasing local artists from Philadelphia and New York, maybe a couple from overseas, but nothing, you know, nothing of the scale that you see later on in the label, uh, and then we signed a little band out of uh University of North Texas who had five people in the audience by the name of Snarky Puppy, and you know, began the

road to supporting them and some others and bir the groundup label, and again things started to grow. So that's kind of chapter two or act two of the play is 06 to 1. For me, I grew up with a very um casual relationship to music. Uh, my family was musically inclined but

nothing beyond, you know, they can play piano. Um, and Snarky Poppy for me was I think one of the first bands to really broaden my horizon on what music means besides just the mainstream commercial. Like, I, they had so much influence on a whole generation of musicians and music professionals. Uh, it's quite, it's quite fascinating again still to this day. I'm, you know, even though I love

music and I'm definitely a music industry person I think that is one of the bands that still stands most strong in my memory of sort of defining my understanding what music can be so that must have been an amazing time to sort of be a label and be be with them or was it still a struggle and didn't really translate into business what was the what was the case there was 100% a struggle yeah I mean like I said

there were five people in the audience, but um they rel relentlessly uh revisited communities. They would play Hattisburg, Mississppi, they, you know, they would come back to the same place again and again and again, and you know, we were, we were preparing the fourth album for release by the time the Grammys happened that, and it's their eighth

album that we were preparing, we like it here. So it was years, uh, and I'll tell you, I mean, I have the email receipts. I mean, no one replied to us. I'm talking about the major magazines, you know, I'm not going to name some names, but you know, as soon as the Grammy happened, then suddenly people were started to open our emails. Yeah, um, so in that sense it was

you know, very successful, and that's probably why the upbeat note at the end of, at the end of uh 2013 or 2012, sure, right in there. But you know, um, but it was, it was, it was, it was a struggle, there's no doubt. Sa, I'm G to ask you a question. Um, obviously this was right around the time you sort of joined, as far as I remember. Um, but what is the underlying mission or

drive that makes you take these risks over and over again? Oh man, that's a loaded question. I don't know if there's an answer to that question. What's the underlining? Here's what I've learned from working with Lewis and working at rope dop, uh, people first, right? It's always people, it's always about, if I had a dollar for every time I

heard Lewis in, you know, enrolling your, bringing an album in before he heard one note of the album, I mean, I could probably just retire off of that. He's, he is definitely a person that is most interested in what makes that person tick, who are they as a human being, right? And then we can discuss the music, and then we can discuss your goals, and then we can discuss on where you want to

go, right? Um, you know, Lewis has helped build a brand um that will last long beyond any of us here on this, on this podcast, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure of it. You know, that's again based on the type of music and that we're curating and the type of people that were, you know, associating with, to be quite honest. So the mission, you know, that's a great

question, Jacob. For me personally, I just love being in a space where I'm around creative people that are saying something significant through their voice or through their instrument or through their compositions, right? For me that's extremely exciting, you know, understanding these playing mus, you know, I don't, never really had that gear, really never had that button. So when I'm around a space of people that have that

it's um I admire that right and usually what comes with that is a is a void in other areas like avoid in you know how to put their metadata together and how to deliver that to you know dsps like there's always there's always a disconnect you know there's always write the spreadsheets you know there's yeah I mean that's the truth right there's these creative masterminds that we get to spend time with and like oh my gosh

you know there's this Aura around them and then all of a sudden you say Hey Google Drive and they're like What's that you know it's like it's not that bad but it really is a disconnect um so I like being able to support from a position of knowing something that they don't so we can all Advance you know and grow their Community grow Their audience you know grow their reach and you know

growth doesn't always happen and look like that. I got to be honest, not every release happens that way. Sometimes it takes several to build the momentum. Uh, but for me, you know, my personal piece, my personal what drives me to be a part of this collective called rido is just playing a small part in the growth of where they want to go, understanding their goals, and really just getting behind that and guiding them in a

sense, you know, I couldn't guide them creatively uh through their cre creative process, but we can definitely guide them through, you know, the infrastructure of business and, you know, growing a reach and growing a brand. Yeah, I think it's really interesting to think, I think a lot about um pioneers, uh, because there's something very unfair about that term most of the time where

it's people who lead the way, uh, early adapters that are not necessarily seeing the fruits of their labor on many different uh fronts, but then again, when it comes to what actually matters to people, um, the legacy leave behind, they're the ones who remembered, but you know, that's not something that pays the bills, being remembered or recognized,

and I think they, especially for you guys as the um business infrastructure side of a lot of these people, I think that must also be a struggle, like knowing that youis might be a pioneer and we do every bit we can to make sure that you can survive, but most likely, you know, we won't provide much other than whatever leacy you leave behind. That must be a

very um interesting uh thing to navigate. Interesting. Okay, I will, yeah, no, I mean, I would love to jump right in on that. So I'll start first uh by demonstrating what I want to say, and that is Aden Brown talks about, you know, being part of the thing, and it's so, it's just good to be your creatives and this and that, but here's a man who had zero knowledge of how to do

publicity and marketing uh within the music business, who has developed a network uh to where, you know, I've been told by, you know, magazine editors that he's one of the top publist in the world, and you know, so he, his ability to connect with people and to be real, both creatives and business types, is unmatched, right? So the reason I

bring that out right now is it, we don't have to accept the notion that people who are uh quote pioneers, who are leading us forward, are going to get their flowers some time in the future. We live in a world where we're talking to, we are, we are directly reflecting at every moment. We have the ability to do that, and I would, I just, I don't accept

that's the way the world is. I think that people should be motivated at present to acknowledge what's happening in real time and celebrate the people and get on board with them instead of getting on board with whatever the last tech billionaire told us is the future. You know, let's do it now. I have a question which is future oriented, um, and I work a lot with

technology and I uh interview a lot of people who are thought leaders within new technology space, and I actually today I just released an article, Linked In, sort of what I, a prediction, the future, a music creation, uh, and I might be completely wrong and I might also be arrogant for releasing that uh LinkedIn article, but I'm just going to St behind all of my guests who said something, but one of the really interesting um

observations and beliefs we have is that the craving for human connection is going to uh increase a lot as we're got to be flooded with content, uh, not knowing how to navigate what is what. Um, do you believe that the financial value of that is going to benefit the type of use you're working with, or is it still not going to translate if you believe that the human connection is going to be

the most sought after the thing in a moment? You want me to go, Lewis? Because that's a, first of all, Jacob, you got some really good ones there. You know, I have this, I have this love hate fear uh hope when it comes to technology. It's really kind of like depends on what day you catch me and you know what article I just read or what podcast I just listened to, right? Um,

there are some, listen, it's a tool, technolog is a tool, and you know, you can give one guy a hammer, he's going to build a phenomenal house, you give another guy a hammer, he's going to go out and murder somebody, right, and everything in between. So I think the tools are up to the people who are using them and how they go, how they go about that, right? What we've seen is a lot of people that have a lot of power with technology can not do so many

so much good things, you know, maybe it's good things for the few, it's not good for the independent, it's not good for the people who are creating, and I'm going to say it, creating art, right, creating contemporary art, not creating music, not creating pop hits, creating art, right, something that will last the test of time, something that in 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now you can, you can

relisten to that music and it means something to you, right? That's the type of music that rope represents and that we want to get behind, and technology can advance that and maybe they can support that financially, but we have evidence that it's not advancing that, we have evidence already today that it's hindering that, it's to the selected few, um,

and you know, uh, this is where I can go down a rabbit hole. I'm going to, I'm going to stop talking and maybe let Lis sa here, because I can, let me go down the, yeah, I can, I can feel myself getting, you know, it's a good question, Jacob, thanks for leading me right to the edge. Yeah, um, I hear completely what Fabian is saying uh about the technology being

able to be used for good or not for good, uh, and that people will be different, but I don't want to leave it up to, you know, as if people don't have a choice or an ability, and I want to give people a clue, right? If we look back over the last few years of advancements in technology, uh, we saw uh the metaverse rise, we saw cryptocurrency rise and fall

and rise again, uh, we, and now everyone's talking about AI. The persistent message that comes from these platforms and the people who are advancing these tools is this is your future, get on board now, and what's happening is everybody's just doing that

and jumping on board, uh, and then finds out that they have no privacy, they have no ownership, and they're just being swept along. So the mental decision has to be made, it is your hammer, you can use it, and this, the first thing that has to happen is think about how you would like to use it and what you can use it for. Uh, I started on AI a year ago and was like, okay, let's go, and then I went

wait a minute, what's happening here, how long will this last, how is this going to unfold, how are we going to use it properly, and I just backed off, I just took a break and I'll come back to it, we'll see what it is. Um, but what we know so far is that every single song that we have ever released has been scraped by the likes of ani company, and I've done the tests because we had

some very unique music. I said, you know, make me a Snarky Puppy Colonel Bruce Hampton mashup, and I can tell what it's drawing from. It says that it's not, can't be Snarky Puppy, but I know where it's com, I can, I can hear it, right? So the question, the first thing that I think has to happen is we need to stop and refrain it. We are humans, we have control of our destiny, we have to think about

the future that we want and take the steps necessary in order to preserve it, and the rest will do what the rest does. Huh, there's the rabbit hole. No, and it's really interesting and I'm very much in it. I lean towards, I don't have an opinion on it, but I'm very much technical curious to see what the future hold from a commercial perspective and

not because I didn't necessarily belong to that belief, but you know, as an entrepreneur, I think it's my responsibility to explore what it means to the livelihood of creating businesses, but it's a very interesting perspective. Okay, let's go a bit back to the story. We went through some rabbit holes, which is what I love, but I would also love within the time frame we have to um get a bit

further into the story. So you sign Snarky Poy, I told how uh changed I was in my music perspective, a lot of people was, but what happened after that? Well, I go back to the time, um, I mentioned that it was a challenging time, uh, with attrition was the word, and when I say attrition, I mean there is no office, that's, I'm working from home and

that's the existence of robadope at that point, right? Wow. Um, we put out uh we like uh tell your friends from Starky Puppy, um, we talked about the future, we talked about, you know, what uh would be beneficial to Michael League and the band, uh, and uh he, you know, we started

the ground up label because he wanted to release problems from his friends, uh, at the time we also, uh, I was traveling down to Atlanta to meet some people, or then I traveled to Dallas to meet the, that core that really made Sari Puppy not just your college bed, right? Um, talking about Spud C, right, and RC Williams and

those cats, right, and Sha Martin, um, and I saw music communities, basically, and I saw music communities that were disconnected from each other. It was interesting, like they all have the same goals and were doing the same kinds of things and the same kind of exploration, but people, you know, if, unless you knew somebody in Atlanta, you weren't, and the fans definitely weren't connecting. So uh my

vision at the time was to try to build the music community, connecting a connected tissue, if you will, to bring these people together. We, you know, we started with groups, I don't think we had slack at the time, but we had something, can't remember what it was, what the first tool was that we grabbed on to and said, hey, this is this a cool free tool that we can all communicate, and that's what set the explosive

growth uh if you will from 2013 after the after SAR puy gramy win into like 2018 and 19 we're talking about Mark de clelo Christian Scott tunday AA we're talking about terce Martin we're talking about Eddie palmier like all you know uh Ramsey Lewis like you know big memes uh Unknown People I think at one point

we were releasing 70 albums in a given year with a, with a crew of five or six people and just hooking, uh, and it was beautiful and it really, it wasn't just us going and getting it, it was just a reflection of what was really happening in Contemporary Art during those years, so you know that brings us up to

the time that fan came on board and you know we're really going, I look back on it and I'm just exhausted, it's a lot, it's a lot Louis, it's a lot, you know, and again my perspective is it's a lot of good stuff because you know you talk about preserving art and you know, um, you know

and this is a good segue here, you talk about you know the Charlie Parkers and the Louis Armstrongs or you know the Whitten marcelis or the, excuse me, the miles davises, right, and you got guys like Whitten who's like you know we're uplifting this, um, this tradition, right, we're paying homage to the greats, right, and that's important, that's

extremely important and just as important I think is looking at what the contemporary artists are doing today and capturing that, right, and honoring that today because with the technology kind of going back down this Rabbit Hole a little bit, you know anyone and everyone is a composer, right, with a couple of keystrokes, with some, with some

great tools you can do some phenomenal things, so where's the separation, you talked about, is AI going to be a tool to help monetize and help you know, you know, commercialize, you know, I don't even like those things, I like, here's what I like, I like great music, great art and putting that into the, into the hands, into the ears people who really appreciate that and the byproduct of that hopefully

the byproduct of that is dollars and cents and there's some people out there, there's some, uh, what's a good word for you know, some philanthropists, there's some people, some organizations that really see this art as like oh we have to preserve this, we have to perpetuate this, right, you know I would encourage artists to see and understand what their music is speaking to and connect with organizations and

collaborate with people who that resonates with and bring those, bring those communities together, you know, if anything I think that's the future of music, you know, with the assistance of tools like Ai and all these other things, but really it's that Community, you'll never go, you'll, I think it was a podcast I was watching, I think it was yours as a matter of fact, I forget to guest, but you talked about

that you talked about all this stuff, at the end of the day, you know what you can't replace with, uh, technology is community, you know, the desire for people wanting to get into a room and have an experience, you know, so, um, it's not just going to be one thing, I think it's going to be several things in conjunction with one another

man I have a question and I have a bit of a leadup to it, so I have a luxury in life and that is that I started music very late, I was 17 and I at full-time music when I was 19, but I was never a good musician, uh, I didn't had anyone around me that, uh, Knew music and I made a living for music running a music studio

and I studied at one of the greatest schools for contemporary art and music at my bachelor, but I was never really a part of that group, uh, I'm now I'm a Founder, raise Capital, all that kind of stuff, but I never really a part of that culture, so I'm in this interaction where I've been exposed to a lot of different worlds but I don't really place myself in any of them and I feel myself an observer, uh, really, which gives me a

lot of benefit and a lot of, um, disadvantages when it comes to community, um, but my question is how would you describe art, because to me I intellectual, intellect understand the concept and I and I can feel it when I experience it, but I'm not quite sure how I would Define it, so could he

help me understand what does art mean for you and why does it matter, could I, could I next question please, yeah, that's a big one, that's a big one and that what cross my mind was do I really want to go on record saying answering that question, um, and yet it intrigues me, first thing I want to say is that if you're a perial Outsider then

you are 100% ridot, um, so well good feel, I feel that, I feeling good, so and the benefit to maybe agree, but the benefits of being an outsider is the ability to see, uh, outside of what those who are insiders, uh, are stuck with, right, the narrative that they're stuck

with, I view art, there are a lot of things that come to us in this world, U, that we don't understand, uh, and there are a couple of ways to view the world, um, you can either see how absolutely beautiful and ridiculous this little

thing, this set design is that we live in, it's phenomenal, I mean the light changes every few minutes, it's never the same, then water moves and trees and you know all the beauty of Nature and life and humans as well shining buildings, it's just amazing, right, so you can look at it that way, but most of the time we look at it another way of self-interest

and planning for the future and feeling that we're not going to achieve anything, I'm in the rabbit hole now, right, and so we look at it from the other perspective, this does tie into my original stat, when someone is listening and is able to get into that head space, uh, where they hear something beautiful and then translate it or see

something beautiful and then learn the skills necessary to take that thing that they felt and can see and translate it into a piece of music or a painting or a photographed or an act of kindness to give it out to the rest of us, it's a little reminder, it's a little reminder of reality, the real thing, not what's in

our head of I not going to make it across the river or I'm going to die, which is basically where my brain is most of the time, you know, you got to run out of, yeah, you know what's going to happen, you know, um, so that's what art is or at least that's the role of the artist, you know, had a great conversation with someone, you know, I turned on the tap and I said everybody thinks this is where the water comes

from, everybody does, it comes from the tap, well we all know you as an artist know it's not coming from there, it's coming from somewhere else and you and an artist and art is an artist is a person who goes and finds the source and Rays it to us and hopefully uplifts us, oh that was a much better answer than I

expected today, no, amazing, well done, okay, it's so funny, I, this is small irony, while getting ready to this podcast I just put my kids to bed, I just need to put a new t-shirt on and the top teacher they had was this one, it says best nights VC, a venture capital firm, uh, doing investment Space by a bank

backed by Jaga MAA and it kind of feels really funny, that's sort of to some degree, um, the opposite end, not really, but there's so many contrasts to music and light life and experiences, um, but art as the thing bringing us back to

reality is quite striking, I've actually never thought about it that way and I think a lot of the founders of do rers listen this podcast are chasing something different than that and I'm not saying that's wrong, it's, I on this podcast I keep on getting reminding that as I pursue a knowledge I often forget the

base, right, um, and I think you can translate to anything within careers, music, as we pursue success, commercialization, we forget the base is that, is that why you keep on going, because of that base, people need reminding, I don't know if it's man you're good, I don't know if

it's people needing reminding, it's like, um, and it's not, it's not anyone's fault, we're indoctrinated every single day that this is the definition of success, if my bank account doesn't have this many zeros or I have to do X Y and Z to get ahead and if that is at the cost of another human being or something, you know, one of my morals, you know, maybe I'll just take that chance

and take that risk, it's scary out there, but then we have art which grounds us, which makes us, you know, at least for me, you know, allows us to express in a certain way or we look at someone's art or listen to someone's art and we have an experience through their expression, it kind of brings it back to the basics, right, and again I said

this earlier, this is why I love, you know, the artists that we attract is because they are really trying to say something that's on their mind, but they have all the other problems, right, how are they going to pay for their bills, how are they going to put food on the table, how are they going to get their kids from here there, they have all the same problems everyone else has, but they had this crazy dream, sometimes delusional, that if they just did this or they just did that they're going to find

success, so number one I think it's redefining on what that word means to everyone, right, two I think it's being a little bit open and diversifying on how you're creating your art and where are those sources and resources coming from, um, and I don't think there's just one answer bro, I really, you know, I don't know, I don't know, you know what

what I do know, there is a lot of things that won't get made, there's a lot of art that won't get created if it continues to perpet the way that it's happening right now and that's the risk, you know, we all take this for granted as if it's going to be here forever, but give it some time, AI will be making all the music and where's the real art going to go, I don't know, I'm kind of exaggerated, I want, I want to segue, I want to segue off that if I can because

you know bring it back to reality, so little story, um, the Impressionists, uh, the pagers in Italy and France, uh, in the 1800s, uh, there were new technology, amazing new technology developments at that time in the range of colors that a person could paint with, there were, it was technologically driven

and yet completely rejected by where the culture had in their M that art could go and what it was about, so they worked independently, it's very similar, they had their own exhibitions that failed repeatedly, uh, and they were kept alive through patronage, uh, if you study Albert B, uh, he would fly to Paris and pay the

rent for a couple of months and Mon and Renoir would hand him a couple of paintings and he'd bring him back and he was ridiculed, uh, by the art establishment, no one understood what he's doing, uh, you know, and now it's billions and billions of dollars, uh, I say that just to say like we can re set the frame and look at Contemporary Art and Ai and the

technological developments, but just reset the way we go about it in order to have a financial model that works, but we can't do that if we continue to run, I don't have a problem with the technology, it's the messaging that you have to run into the future because that's where everybody's going and you don't have a choice, stop for a second, think about what's valuable and then apply

cautiously and proceed, I have a difficult question that is right now I have, I think a lot, uh, and I have one concept I'm struggling with right now that I'm trying to research from a more academic perspective and that is the concept of value of music or, uh, Market valuation, whatever you want to call it, like there's a disproportionate amount of impact from music that reaches

people from the monetary value it receives and there's a lot of things that plays into that, but do you have an idea of what should or need to take place in the future in order to bridge the gap between the impact and the value, uh, received by artists like

yours, what needs to happen to make this more sustainable, that, uh, that doesn't sound like a difficult question to the other, the other one difficult, um, because I'm leading up to it and this like the, I you chop it right in, go for, um, for me the reason that music is devalued, uh, currently is because of the

tech platforms because they've set the price right um 100 million s for $10 a month that's they just you know it's just like uh cryptocurrency that's the price or stock shares that's what they did right um what needs to happen is patronage so there needs to be a direct pathway a platform that connects donors with musicians in a responsible way and

in a powerful way and music needs to reconnect to community, um, and all of this is very confusing, it seems simple, but the problem with music also I'm recognizing as you ask the question, uh, I mean what is the value of the cheeseburger, right, so think about that for a second, well it depends on where you get

it and it depends on who's selling it, the value of a cheeseburger at a Wendy's and the value of a cheeseburger at an organic farm restaurant are two completely different things, the problem is we're all at the Wendy's, all the musicians are all pushing all this, they're selling it through the Wendy's drive-thru window, so no one can tell the difference between what's good and what's not and their

tastes are being curated by an algorithm, right, so three steps, one, patronage to connect it back to communities, and what I mean by that is artists should be playing in Towns at the state fair and not at the Blu out, for a jazz artist you should play at your local community center, uh, where people are gathering to

talk about social and town issues you know connect with humans um that three uh well you said community platforms through patronage I don't know if they're tied together uh Patron patronage um connect with Community yeah I'll come back to I was going I was going to say more of a an

Educational or unlearning of the things that we are being told every single day, I'm not sure that's your, where you were going, Louis, but for me it's like, it's definitely again, Jacob, you're on a quest, it's very obvious that you are a sponge, you host this podcast to get like-minded people and learn and extract information, right, you are a, you

Know, you're like the, where's the encyclopedia branica, you're probably too young to remember what that is, but you're on that route, dude, you know, I can see it, right, um, and I think there's a bit of maybe undoing some of the things that you've learned that may also help for all of us, not just, I'm not picking on you, I'm just saying for all of us, no, that's amazing, um, and I, and I'm still on a journey for

That particular question to sort of find a source of clarity, I think what Lewis is getting into is definitely what resonates with me, um, and but again on the flip side, I never experienced community, you know, for me it's a theoretical thing, like I can, I can recognize it through numbers and history, and I think I'm not just speaking for myself when I say that, I'm 31, I

don't know what Community Music Community feels like huh I have no idea what you're talking about other than you know I can transfer it to you know I grew up in a religious upbring I know what that means uh I can assume it's something similar but I think that's where a lot of people get lost we don't know what it means well this is a good three

Then so the, I view that as symptomatic of the modern music business, um, you know, I have this conversation with people, uh, often when I talk about music from the 60s or 70s, pre 80s, when production values started to change, and I said, well, you know, they're doing a full lush song and there'll be a horn section, and people will say, I don't hear that, you just

Have a great ear, and the key is you have to work to develop, uh, start with your own human algorithm and start to think about what the music means to you, what you do like and what you don't like, I'll take it back, and the reason I'm really passionate about this is I grew up in a family of 10, I was number eight, so I saw

The culture, the way music changed the culture, from my oldest brothers who were listening to blues music and early rock and roll, to my sisters who were listening to motel, it affected the way they dressed, it affected the way they danced, it affected the way they socialized and who they dated, uh, and then that, my next brothers

Next three were diverse people anywhere from, you know, Fairport convention at English folk to The Kinks to yes and prag rock to slide the Family Stone, so I mean, I live through a golden age where music was not just, um, something to do as a form of

entertainment it but it have formed your values and your style and when even further because I nowadays I guess say I was radicalized I mean you know but yeah I mean I at a very young age at camp at the in 1967 6869 I'm hearing all this music that the

Counselors are playing, and I adopted a pretty radical perspective, now it's qu to who I was, I suppose, but it just affirmed that I could be independent and I could be different and I could be an outsider, and I'm talking, you know, these songs are not a game, when you talk about Fortunate Son from CR and you talk about the Rolling Stones and you even talk about Bowie and The Kinks and Lou

Reed embracing and telling an entire generation of, uh, gay people that they were okay, they're cool, like it is so powerful, but we've somehow forgotten, so that is the true power of music, um, well, and so I suppose it's just an excavation, it's a process of going back

And putting the song on and really thinking about it, and you know, when we do it, when we're in trouble, when we go through a breakup, a divorce and death, something like that, now we're like, okay, now Bill Withers is speaking to me, you know, I get it, you know, um, or whomever it may be, somebody caring, it doesn't have to be an older

Person, this just the time that I grew up, you know, but it's work, but it's worth it, yeah, you touch about something now and since we started with the end of the podcast, I'm think I'm going to stop the journey here and ask and a question at the end, um, and I'm going to, I'm

Going to ask you guys for some advice, um, and premise for the question is that as I told, I started late with music, um, and I thought for a long time that I was in love with music, um, but what I realized is that I fell in love with creating stuff, um, and music, um, became the craft I was good at, I was

Knowledge about music, I'm a guy who catches things fast, so music is what I knew, which means I had a love for music at one point and I still do above the average consumer, uh, I definitely love the music industry because of its complexity, but what I hear here through this talk and through many conversations Happ before is that

There's a love I haven't quite found yet, cool, uh, and if that's the art we're talking about, um, I think I might repres represent a lot of people in my generation or just in general, where the question is, how can I fall in love with music, what do I need to do to desensitize whatever is around me, and I know I love creation, sure, I think a lot

Of people love lot love a lot of things, but how can I fall in love with music again, because at the end of the day, the appreciation, the value of music comes from that, I guess, so what's your advice, how do we need to go about it, I think we're going to have two different answers, fa you want to start, we are definitely probably going to have two different answers, I mean, Jacob, I Hear What I Hear justes like

Um, there's a desire, there's a, there's a destination that you want to get to, there's a, there's something that you want access to that you feel that you don't have access to, I would argue that I would probably ask you a bunch of questions that I would probably uncover that you actually do have a source of, uh, creativity inside of you and you are probably connected to some great people, um, and that's where I would, that would be my advice, my advice would be, dude

Open up your phone or go through your email or what, wherever your people, wherever your contacts are, right, and call somebody up and like, let's get up for coffee, let's get up for dinner, let's have a, let's have a whiskey, like whatever that looks like for you, and start hanging out with some creatives and start ask them some brilliant questions and ask them about their process, and you know what, even take it a step further, hey, the next time

You're creating, can I hang out, can I just be a fly on the wall, like what's that all about, I think sometimes just getting immersed in something is this the way to do it, right, you wanted to grow your entrepreneurship chops, what are you going to do, you're going to hang out with some entrepreneurs who are a little bit ahead of you, know who've been there done that, who made some mistakes, so you got to make those same mistakes, I mean, it doesn't mean like you have to be a wicked guitar player to

Hang out with musicians, so you could just be a good human being that wants to hang out with some creatives, so go and do that, go and hang out with some people, and I, and I could just knowing and listening and watching your podcast, I, you already got that man, you got some creatives in there, so go, so go do, go do that, you'll be fine, that's my two cents to what you're saying, I don't know going to say l it's

Great, yeah, it's going to be totally different, right, so I'm going to, I'm going to say go within, um, go within and think about what, think about people that are in your life that are important, you think about people that have passed, think about what the meaning of all this is while listening to some music, um, I'm a heavy lyric person, so I think that read

You know, reading lyrics, um, if you find a lyric of a given artist, now you can use the tool, have the algorithm lead you to some other ones, and then just, you know, you got to constantly adjust it, um, but understand the words, the poetry, um, another interesting trick that works for me, and this happened to me once as a young man, I was driving up the, uh, this W

Me you for where you are, the New Jersey turn bike, I guess everybody's heard of that, right, what actually it, uh, I happened to be driving up new Jersey turn bike in the 80s and, uh, Duke Gan came on the radio and a police officer pulled onto the highway, so everyone slowed down to 45 miles per hour and the synchronization of the traffic and the

Music was an amazing dance, it happened, it has happened to me repeatedly in my life, it happened the other day when I put on, uh, Nia Simone at the gym and suddenly every single person in the gym is exercising to the rhythm of the music and you're just like, what is happening now, um, so I'm going to go with lyrics and I'm going to go with rhythm, so like if you try to find a song that fits the rhythm of the activity around you

Whether it's natural or human activity and understand that, get in that zone, then you're going to find other things that'll put you in that Z, amazing, well guys, I asked that question on behalf of myself and the listeners, I think we need to get reminded about what this is about, um, but I really appreciate this talk, I think this is, um, something I need to talk more

About, uh, I need to talk more about art because as technology develops and comes and, uh, entrepreneurs need to make viable businesses, um, we can forget too fast, too quickly, uh, what this starts with and probably also what it ends with, um, so thank you for your time, Jacob, thanks so much for having us