Grow My DJ Business 📈

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00:00: Introduction and New Project
07:28: Launching a New DJ Business
14:44: Understanding Your Goals
25:32: Showing Value to Venues
33:53: Challenges and Strategies in the Nightlife Industry
41:13: The Drake and Kendrick Beef: A Battle of Opinions
46:54: The Impact of Social Media on Battles and the Hip-Hop Industry
53:27: Upcoming Events and Promotions

Transcript

0:00

What's up guys, welcome to the 150th episode of the newly named Grow My DJ Business podcast. My name is Kareem. Of course, always brought to you by Digital Music Pool. I know we've been gone a while guys. There's been a ton happening here behind the scenes. The name change of the podcast being one. But you know, Gary and I have been working on a new project and we were pretty much set to roll it out and... Things change. So here we are, you know, five or six weeks from the last time we recorded, we had full intentions of rolling out this Grow My DJ Business podcast, along with a brand new course and a Discord and the whole nine. But we're not really sure what we're doing. And we've sort of come to the podcast to talk about it, like everything else that we do here. You know, we bring it to the pod. I think that having this platform to be able to kind of talk through some stuff, though we've been talking through a lot of this behind the scenes, I think it's important to be just kind of like outright with how difficult growing a new business is and taking an idea and then actually putting that idea into practice and doing it in a way that's effective. And then also that is it what people want? Is it not what people want? Like what are the things that... are going to work for us. What do we want even? Right? Like, and that's sometimes part of, we're going to answer all these questions throughout this conversation, but you know, that's, that's, that's a huge part of it. Right? Like, what do you, where, where do you want to be? Where do you want to spend time? And, and you have to think about, like you're, you're putting your time and all this effort into things and you hope you can just like cross your fingers and hope that it's accepted, right. And so the world that you're putting it in, You know, as, as we know with this podcast that we're in extremely niche, we're in a niche world, right? Like the DJ world is, is small. it might not seem that way when you're in it, but it is an extremely small community in a small place. I mean, if you just think of the demographics of what the DJ community is, it's, it's predominantly male, right? It's probably 92 % male based. So now you're taking the population, you're cutting that in half and then it's. this very minute thing that we're talking about. And we know that with the podcast with our listenership and like how big that is and how small the nightlife community is as well. And you're trying to try to grow these new businesses and have these new ideas. And it's like, well, to grow numbers is hard and you kind of have to, these are the things that we're weighing right now. Yeah, to start anything new is hard, but I guess we can announce this. So we've created a Discord called Grow My DJ Business, and we're inviting any of you guys who are listening to join the Discord. We'll put all the links in the show notes and on the Instagrams and all over the place. So I think, you know, our initial idea was to create this Discord and also roll out a new version of our... course we created during COVID, which at the time was called Get Down University, but now is called Grow My DJ Business with the idea of creating these videos and various documents and things that can help you guys grow your DJ business, right? So it's networking and pricing and social media marketing and marketing and all the various things that we talk about on this podcast, kind of putting back into a course and housing it on a Discord platform amongst a bunch of other stuff, exclusive edits. You know, Gary's creating playlists and putting them out each week and all these extra things, right? A little bit of mentorship, a little bit of coaching, a little bit of music. And we invite you to join this Discord, right? Like that's, we know that much that we're gonna try to continue growing this Discord and create this community. But we wanna hear from you guys and get a better understanding of like, what do you want? What can help you? What... Is it, do you just want bookings? Do you just want gigs in New Jersey and New York City and this area? Do you want coaching content? Do you want to have access to me and Gary for one -on -one calls or group coaching calls? Like we're sort of trying to figure it out. And I think that's okay, you know? I think it's okay. And I think it's cool to kind of hear from you guys and grow something based on your feedback and what you think is interesting and helpful in your DJ journey. I'm really loving the free discord community. It's nice to see people connecting with each other. And I know a couple of the female DJs are trying to connect with each other because there's not a lot of, like, as I just said before, there's not a lot of female DJs. So like it's a great little community to meet people and, and get out there and network and go to different towns or cities or markets and, you know, get, just get to know people, right. And, and try to grow your, grow your network and get work that way. So definitely come into the free Discord and hang out and introduce yourself and say where you're from. And I'm sure there's, it's all like-minded individuals, right? And that's a great place to start with us. And then, you know, we have a little bit of the course going on right now that was released. And there's about nine to 10 videos in there that are, you know, they're baseline videos of kind of how to do certain things. And then we're, you know, we have our curated playlists and we have, Like you said, your edit pack is in there and all of our edit packs and all types of exclusive edits and things like that. So what we have going on right now, there's stuff happening, right? There's definitely stuff happening in the Discord. So we want to see people in there and getting involved. And then really get involved with, we have polls up and we want to know what you guys want to, what you guys want from us. Pretty much, right? I mean, it's like, that's what it is. Like you said, is it just gigs? Is it teaching? I think that a lot of our DJs that we have now went through the GDU course, a good percentage, probably like 50 or 60 % of our DJs have gone through the course from the pandemic, and they are growing, and they are successful DJs right now, as we stand. So, and a lot of them that we've talked to have said that the course was very helpful to them. and help them be professional and help them understand pricing, help them understand price gouging and whatever it might be, taxes and finances and all that good stuff. So it is of value. It's just, is that something that's for you, right? Because not everybody's gonna sit there and take a course online. It just is what it is. But if you do want to grow professionally, it is a great way to do so. So there's really nothing out there like it. I'm not... I'm not blowing us up and like, you know, town our head up and all, but like, I'm just saying there really is nothing else out there. A lot of DJ courses that are out there are very technical based. It's very hands on the DJ equipment and we're not talking about that. You know, we're talking about the business side of things. And a lot of times, you're gonna you're gonna take value from what the course videos. Exactly. Exactly. It's just a longer version of what our podcast is all about. So. this long -winded introduction and this cloudy description of what we're creating kind of transitions into how to launch a new project or how to determine where to spend your time. I think a lot of us, there's lots of options and lots of different things that are coming across our plates. But... The hardest thing to do is pick and choose what makes the most sense for you, right? When there's a lot of people asking you to do different things or play different venues, I think it's really important to understand what do you want out of your career, right? Do you want to be a DJ that's working all these different days? Do you wanna be an open format DJ? Do you wanna be just an EDM DJ? Are you okay taking less gigs to just be a house DJ? I think like whenever we launch something like this or we talk about a new project, it's really important to kind of take a step back and understand, well, yeah, I think this is a really cool idea, but does it fit into what I'm trying to create for myself? You know? I think it's questions you and I have asked and you know, Brennan has been a part of this. Brennan's kind of the guy behind the scenes that helps Gary and I with our podcast and creating the clips and coming up with ideas and various, you know, marketing. marketing ideas, and you know, we have lots of conversations around all these different things. So creating something new and figuring out what's important to you, it's a hard thing, right? It's hard for you and I. We're trying to figure it out just like you guys are trying to figure it out. Right. It's, I think I, you, what you and I have learned over time is your, you, you follow your gut, right? Whatever your, whatever the, whatever your gut really says is usually the, the right answer. Right. Like have you been putting something off for a long time because your gut says, don't do it. You know, maybe, maybe it needs to stay on the back burner. You know, does your, does your gut say, take that $200 gig because maybe it will grow your professional career instead of going to take, you know, maybe the $400 gig that is a lesser known venue, something like that. And then you kind of balance those things out. Like what is gonna help me long run? But not only what is gonna help you long run, but what is going to help you get to where you want to go? Maybe you do take that $200 gig. and it gets you a bigger nightclub, but maybe that's not really your end goal. Maybe you don't want to be the travel DJ. Maybe you want to have more time and you're just going to gig and you have fun locally gigging and you'll make X amount of dollar. You make more money in a short term that way. You're never going to get rich and famous, but maybe that's not what you want to be. You have to think about what you want to do at the end of the day and what is your long -term goal? And then you can make your short -term goals depending upon that. But the guts, a big thing. long term big picture goal constantly, you have to constantly remind yourself and ask yourself, does this fit into what my big goal is? And you guys can look at me as an example of someone who, you know, my goal has always been to be a bigger artist, you know, that's always been my goal. But there's been so many things along the way that have sort of pulled me off of that path for good or for bad, right? Like, Get Down was created and we never imagined our business to grow into what it's become, you know? And while it's taken me away from my ultimate goal of being a bigger artist and traveling and doing the tour thing, it's created another path for me, which I'm also really excited about. So, you know, for me, should I have said no to doing a lot of different things and said, no, I need to work on music, no, I need to work on my brand, no, I need to continue DJing? Maybe if my ultimate goal was to be that artist, then yeah, I should have said no to a lot of those things. And I think about that a lot, you know? I'm really proud of where I've gotten to as a DJ and an artist, but I do think about, well, if there was no get down or if there was no Hoboken hospitality role or any of the other things that we do, the million things, could I have used my time and could I have been further down my path as an artist, you know? And I'm sure we all... think about stuff like this. We all have these what if kind of introspective thoughts in your head and things you think about. I mean, all of these things, all of these questions are going to come up, especially when you're going to try to start something new. And then, you know, as you get further along and starting that, that new thing, it's kind of funny because we've, we've, we've tried to, we're like manufacturing this other part of our business right now, right? Where get down was a complete mistake, a complete mistake. Like it wasn't really supposed to happen, you know? It like this wasn't we didn't sit there with the intent of starting a company ever never ever ever not once was that that a thing I was just talking to somebody about this over the weekend. Now, like, how would he do for a living? I was like, well, I, I booked DJs and I DJ for a living. And I was like, but I taught before that. And but this before that, that was even a mistake. All of this is a mistake. You know, none of this was supposed to happen. And then it's interesting, interesting in trying to and then like, get down university was born out of necessity, right? Because that's because it was the pandemic, there was no DJ gigs and it was just a pivot. And now it's like, all right, we're trying to form this other, a 2 .0 version of, of get down university. And it's like, well, is it needed? Do people have that kind of time that they had over the pandemic? It would benefit get down DJ group a thousand percent, right? You know, in, in some capacity, hopefully, right? Right. So like it's there's there's all when you're trying to start something new, there's all of these questions like are you forcing it or you're not forcing it? You know, is it the right thing to do? Is it not the right thing to do? And you just got to kind of work it out and use those people that are in your in your network, right? Or in your, your, your small circle, if you will. and those people that you trust to, to talk about business decisions and life decisions, even. I think it's just all that, all that's important. The question I brought up to you, I forget where I heard it. I probably heard it on a podcast or I might have read it in a book, but I asked you the question, if we were starting Get Down tomorrow, would we be working on X, Y, Z? So I think that's a great question to ask yourselves in your businesses, right? If I was starting DJ, whatever your name is, tomorrow, what type of DJ would I wanna be? What type of events would I wanna be? Is that the same or different from what you're currently doing? If it's different from what you're currently doing, you can still get there, guys. You just need to kind of take a step back and say, all right, I need to start making decisions that can help me get to where I want to be and stop doing some of the things that are pulling me away from where I want to be. It doesn't mean step away fully from what you're doing right now, because you still have to continue that to have a career in what you're doing right now. But you have to just now allocate X amount of time to this other goal, right? I think it's very important to be clear about that. Right, unless you're willing to go complete like cold turkey and breaking off what you're doing and stopping all your revenue, which most people can't do, it's gonna have to be a slower transition. But asking that question of would I do this if I was starting with this business tomorrow, would I do this? I think that helps you start to make future decisions, right? If the answer is no, then the next time, like stop doing that thing, you know? Or the next time someone asks you to do... that private event that you don't want to do because you just want to be a nightlife DJ. Just say no. You know? I know that part of it. I know I stopped doing that years, you know, that was, that was a main goal of mine was to be able to gig enough in the nightlife circuits and never ever play another communion, christening dance, whatever you name it. I'm not carrying speakers into anywhere or dealing with all of that annoying shit, you know? but you just have to do it. You have to say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then. That time does open up to do the other things that you're more passionate about. It's true. It really is true. And I think the other part of this is a lot of times we're making decisions based on the fact that we need to make money, right? If you're a full -time DJ, sometimes you're making decisions on taking a gig or pursuing an opportunity solely for the reason of making money. And I think forever, forever, I was a huge proponent of if you want to be a full-time DJ, you got to go all in, quit your job, do this full -time, be fully immersed. And over the last five years, I've sort of stepped back from that, right? I sort of now take the position of keep your day job, have another way of making money so that on the DJ side, you could pursue only the things that make sense for you and for where you wanna go and your goals. And I'm really in that camp now, which is the complete opposite of where I used to be a few years ago. It's... of it is the landscape of where we are in nightlife as well. There's a lot less gigs, there's a lot less venues, there's a lot less like nightclubs, you know? The interest in nightlife has dropped dramatically in those five years, which is something that we're going to get to here is just kind of the state of nightlife. right now. This is a good transition to sort of get into the state of nightlife and where we're at and some of the things that we've been talking to our DJs about, you know, and what's happening in our business and what's happening all over the country in nightlife because I've talked to DJs from all over the place and it's happening everywhere. I know we've talked about this numerous times on this podcast over 150 episodes, four years. We've, we've talked about state of nightlife a lot, right? But I think we're, we've hit a point where it is front and center and it is in your face. And it is, there are less gigs than there were a year ago. There are less gigs than there were four years ago. Right. gigs than there were six months ago. Well, we're looking at three our personal business. We're looking at from February to now a drastic, drastic drop off in gigs. And it's not Friday and Saturday night gigs. But I can tell you Friday night gigs way slower than Saturday night gigs currently as far as crowd is concerned. I think that's been a trajectory or that's been a sort of happening here in the last since post COVID for sure. a trend, definitely. We came out of COVID strong, Fridays and Saturdays were good, and then Friday started to towel off, but Saturdays have been strong, right? What we're talking about from the February to the first week of May here is extra gigs. You know, Thursday nights, Sunday afternoons, Saturday afternoons, all of those extra gigs have definitely fallen away. What... is going to save grace a little bit for some guys is those private events come back here in our market at least in May and June. But I think I spoke, not I think I spoke to a few private event DJs and their numbers are also down. There is a economy issue. This isn't a nightlife issue, though there is a nightlife issue, which we'll get to, but there is an economy issue and If you're seeing people, you know, maybe not booked a DJ for the backyard wedding, and they're going to put a playlist on instead and save them a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks, whatever it might be. You're you're there's a trickle down effect to where we're a luxury item, right? Especially in the private event world, we're a luxury item in the nightlife space. It's still a luxury item on those off times. What like if I can just curate a Spotify playlist or an Apple music playlist or And I can have it DJ for me and it mixes into each other. And I kind of have some kind of idea of how to formulate a playlist. Why do I need a DJ to create vibes on a rooftop or something like that? I don't if I'm trying to be smart with my money, right? I think that we lose sight of as DJs what the percentage of what what is the percentage that we're making of the bar in those four to five hours that we're playing, right? So if we're making three hundred dollars, the bar has got to ring three thousand dollars. And we're still taking 10%. That is a huge number when it comes down to percentages and ownership, because we're just talking about it. Just us and liquor sales. We're not talking about waitresses that are getting paid X amount of dollars an hour or bar staff turning the lights on all of those other things. The high rents that that are that are killing the nightlife industry single-handedly. That's the major thing. And when you think about it in that regard, it's like, okay, this doesn't make sense for the business owner, for the bar owner, right? Three grand's a lot of money to bring for a four or five hour on a Saturday afternoon. It's a lot. So it's not shocking when you think about it that way. When you see rents going up, economy's going down, and you're trying to meet in the middle here. Well, cost of goods are going up as well. So restaurants and venues are passing their costs on to the customers, which those $12 drinks are now closer to $16 drinks. We've seen $20 vodka sodas. And that's not uncommon, guys. It's $13 high noon. It's just getting to a point where the customers are telling the venues that we don't... What you're... What you're providing in value is not worth what you're asking me to pay in the cost of a night out, you know? Yeah, it's an issue because when I'm paying $25 for a Manhattan, right, which I've seen more and more often recently, I expect this incredible level of service. But what am I really getting at the end of the day is just some person that is, you know, just trying to get by with their bartending gig. That's not their passion. They're there just to make a couple bucks and move it along. You know, but when you have these price tags that hide, you have to provide such a crazy level of service. So DJs, think about that. When you walk in and you think, I'm getting 400 bucks for this gig, it's not enough money. Well, are you worth 12 % of the place's profit? What are you doing? Are you bringing that value into the room? Or are you just standing there pressing play and mixing songs? You know, are you getting the crowd to go to the bar? Are you? working the mic, are you working the room, are you working the manager and the ownership when you walk in? What are you doing? You know, it's not, you can't just walk in anymore and get behind the decks and not say what's up to everybody and not make your presence known. And then command four or $500 and think that you're still not making money. You know, there's not many industries out there right now that are paying you $50 to$75 an hour, $100 an hour. So I think that's a huge part of it too. Like if you're, if you want those extra gigs and we all want those extra gigs, those rooftop afternoon during the summer gigs, we want those, but you have to figure out how to make that worth it for the, for the, the venue itself. Yeah, I think right now as DJs, we all need to be going the extra mile to show value, the extra mile to get there extra early and all the little things that we talk about all the time on this podcast that, you know, some people might think aren't important, but when venues are constantly saying, is it worth, should we have a DJ? Is it worth $400? Is it worth it? You have to make them say, yes, it's worth it. This DJ brings more than just pressing play. during their set. They bring people out, they interact with the crowd, they have a following, they're a great DJ, they use the mic, they keep people here an extra hour for an extra drink and make us an extra thousand dollars on the back end. Sometimes they make a flyer if we don't have a flyer. Like, all these little things will help keep you DJing. And right now, more than ever, all this stuff is more important than ever. So DJs, when you walk into these places, whether it's... a high end nightclub or it's a local bar, think about this as one of your most important gigs because that's how we have to approach all of our gigs. I've been doing it too guys, like, because I don't want get down to lose accounts. So I've been playing our venues more. I've been going into our venues more to schmooze with ownership and managers and ask questions, right? What's working? What's not working? What DJs are working? What DJs are not working? How, when are you guys making money? When are you not making money? Like, It's just so important to take that extra step right now and now through the rest of this year, because guys, the economy, nothing's changing anytime soon. So we're in this for the long haul. We're going to be in this rough period for a little while. As DJs, we have a competitive nature, right? We wanna be better than the next DJ. I think that's a great way to walk into every set. I wanna be better than the last guy that was here, right? I'm not gonna slack today, I'm gonna go 110 % and I wanna ring better than the next guy rang before me. Because these managers and these owners are checking the ring when you play. If you play a venue multiple times a month, they will go back and they will check. Cream rang $10 ,000 week one, $12 ,000 week two, and $8 ,000 week three, and Gary rang, you know, 2 ,000 below that every week. Well, we don't need Gary anymore. We need more creams, right? And that's what's happening. We're seeing it happen. In past years, we always said it. Why aren't the, why aren't the, managers doing their job and like checking the ring. Just go check the rig. You know, and then you could tell me what the night was like, but they're, they're checking now. the last two months that managers who've never one time brought up the ring on a particular DJ are now bringing that up and we're having those conversations. Usually I ask the question, well, how did we ring? Like, how did I ring? I always ask that question because I want to know how much money we make last night when I was there. Like, I want to know that. And I have a good enough relationship with owners that they'll tell me that information, you know? Right. But they're checking, they're comparing DJs rings, which is crazy. I never thought I'd see the day where they would call us or email us or text us and say, we got to do better here. This person's got to do better there, you know, and it's maybe they were a little lax and it's, it's all of a sudden like, well, something we've been saying that you should be doing for years, you're finally doing, but it's kind of come as a surprise, but that's how we know that. places aren't doing as well as they once were. So. I'm gonna pat myself on the back real quick. I, you know, one of the venues that we're talking about, I see the numbers, right? We see the numbers, we know what each DJ is making, like bringing in on the night that they DJ. And I looked at one of the places that we play and, Cream, 6 ,000 higher, 8 ,000 higher, 9 ,000 higher. And I'm like, Kara, I should ask for like an extra 500 bucks. Like, what's 500 bucks if I'm bringing six to $9 ,000 more into the venue, you know? And, and... We talked about this in the past. If you know the numbers, you could then negotiate with the owners because you know, well, if Cream is bringing in this much more money, then like, what's another hundred bucks per time that he's there? They're going to want me there more anyway, if I'm bringing more money than the other DJs. So you have in a rare situation, you have the ammo to ask for a raise and be able to back it up with actual numbers. That's why sometimes ownership won't or management won't share the numbers. They don't want to give you a negotiate. They don't want to give you negotiating power really at the end of the day. But I think we all know if the crowds having a good time, if we keep a packed place and that, and that usually translates to dollars. Usually. most GMs also, they're in the room every night that there's a DJ, they'll know the nights that are better, whether they see the numbers or not, because there's going to be more energy, the place will stay busier later or get busier earlier. And they know that most of them know the music, you know, like, they might not know the name of the song, but they know that it works and the crowd reacts to it kind of thing. Or if a DJ is going off the rails and playing some weird stuff, and the crowd's not reacting, they can see it, they're not, they're not idiots, just because they're not DJs doesn't mean they don't feel the energy of the room, you know? Yeah, no, they know what works in their room. They're like you said, they're there every week. So it's just an interesting time right now. And it, it, it's a time where I'm sure there are things that we've said in this podcast that contradict things that we've said in past podcasts. One of those things being make flyers, right? Where in the past, I'm sure we've said, if you're going to make a flyer, make sure you get an extra 25 bucks or 50 bucks for it, you know, but things change and you need to. You need to adapt to what the times are and you have to show value. Your value prop changes as the landscape changes. And we're seeing the landscape shift in a negative way and we have to bring more of a positive value prop. Something I've been saying to our DJs and something I had a conversation with one of our DJs the other day and I said, make the venue have to have you. Make the venue say, I need to have this DJ in my room. That's how you should approach every set that you go play. Make the staff and the decision makers have to book me here. If you have that mind state and you prep and you go in there and you're prepared and you're ready to rock, you're going to set yourself up for success. I've a, this might be a tough question, but what would you do if you're walking into a room and you want to set yourself apart? What is your, what's like your main objective? I'm going to play like a couple, like different songs than anybody else would play to really make myself stand out. Am I going to do a little more mic work than the last person? Am I going to, stay high energy for five hours and like really like, really keep really great energy. It doesn't mean like you're 138 the entire time, but it means that, you know, really feel good at the beginning and transitioning up and then staying up at a high level until 1130 and then you can kind of bring it down. Like what are the things you're thinking about in order to set yourself apart? I think now because I am traveling and playing rooms that maybe I only play once a quarter or twice a year or whatever the case may be, I don't have a whole lot to compare to, right? So I just have to go in and be the best version of myself. And when am I the best version of myself? When I'm making edits on a weekly basis that I could use in my sets. When I'm staying up to date on downloading the newest music. When I'm organizing my music and I'm preparing sets for that specific venue and I over -prepare. and I ask other DJs what they play in there and I get feedback and I, you know, do my homework. And then when I go in the room, like I said, just be the best, put on the best performance that I could put on. I can't compare to what the guy did last night or the girl did last night, because I wasn't there and I probably don't even know who that DJ is. So what can I do to make this crowd say, damn, that was sick. That DJ was amazing. I want to come back the next time he's here. And that's how I approach it, you know? I don't compare myself to who's there. I just compare myself to how I did the last time I was there or how I played the last weekend, you know? It keeps me out of my head and I know that I know what I need to do to be successful. And if I'm doing those things, I should have a good set. Now, the other thing will be, be a DJ. If you're, I'm trying to play mostly EDM and house forward sets, but if I go somewhere and I know that I can't do that on that night, I'm not going to be selfish. I'm going to play an open format set. That's going to be best for that room. I think that's the other part of it. So even if I am doing all this prep and all this work to do one style of thing, still being flexible enough and nimble enough to be able to go do what the room is calling for. Because like we've been talking about, they're going to look at the ring and they're going to look at all that stuff to see if it's worth bringing Kareem back to that venue in that state. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but even on a smaller, on a more local scale, like even a place that you know that you're comfortable in, that you know that they're gonna have you back. our venues that I haven't played in a while. And I did all those things and I got there early and I talked to the staff and I tipped a bartender and I, you know, I just am approaching gigs as if they're not gonna be here next month. Literally. Like that's how I'm looking at it. Like I'm gonna do everything that I need to do to get booked again the next month. Whether it's a Get Down account or it's not. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's it's interesting. I've been off now for two months. I'm going to go into next week, next week playing gigs. And. I'm thinking about all this stuff. Things have changed dramatically since the last time I was there, which is crazy, dramatically since my since my last DJ gig. St. Patty's Day 317 was my last gig. That was probably the only good weekend we've had from like the middle of January until, you know. I did one weekend in February, one weekend in March, and I haven't played since then. So I'm thinking about all of this stuff. How am I going to prep for the music portion of it? The other stuff is easy. That stuff comes easy, right? It's natural. I'm gonna be at those places early anyway. Hanging out, saying hi to people, eating at most venues that I'm playing at, just to spend some time. since there hasn't, I haven't been there in a while. but my style has been just to keep great energy for my entire set, right? I like almost to exhaustion, right? And know when to kind of like take, you know, put the foot on the brakes during the set. but not DJing for a while. I'm like, well, how, you know, how am I, how am I going to prep for that? And there's so much music right now that I want to download that I have screenshotted and shazam didn't. You know, all of this, all of these different ways that I'm consuming music, I have to like dig through everything and figure out what I want to play. And it's, it's really interesting. it's a different position to be in for sure. so that's why I asked that question. of like pure energy where when we were kind of on the come up and learning and playing rooms, it was always a, we have to rotate the room, right? We have to take people on and off the dance floor. Whereas venues don't want that necessarily anymore because if you pull back on the energy and you try to rotate the room, people just leave and go to the next place. there is no rotation. There's no next wave walking in the door. And that's the current state of nightlife that's scary. And that's why things had transitioned so much post COVID. After COVID, yes, the amount of people, we had this, everybody was excited to be back short period of time of that six to eight months. And then it went back to normal. And the nightlife trajectory has gone down and the amount of people that go out has gone down. because of so many reasons, like we always say, so keeping the people that are there is the most important part. You don't want anybody leaving. It makes me cringe when I watch groups walk out the door. Cringe, like I'm not doing, it makes me work a thousand times harder, number one, but like it hurts, it hurts my stomach. And that's why, like I'll burn records early. If I see that happening, I will burn big records early to keep people. can always revisit them in three hours. I'm not gonna remember anyway. But you know what I mean? Like, I do everything in my power to keep everybody in the room the entire night. Yeah, you've sort of had that mind state for a while now. And I've been fighting, not fighting you on that, but I've been sort of giving that different opinion of like, I still want to kind of pull it down a little bit. And I don't know if I want to do that anymore. No, because you know what, there's five people, a group of five that walks out, that could be $500 at the bar. And that hurts the business, because you're never getting those five back. Unless you're playing, and if you guys are listening to this and you're playing The Hottest Place in Town, that's a completely different story. I'm talking about places that are, but even the hottest, quote unquote, hottest places in town. They're still even struggling on certain nights, you know, and especially Fridays. Guys, like if you're playing on a Friday, like you you're facing an uphill battle no matter what happens. No matter where you're playing, no matter no matter what it is, so like you really want to keep everybody in the in the place on on Fridays for sure. I hate to be all doom and gloom this whole episode, but like it's it's just the realization of of where we're at. I can't remember a time where the nightlife industry has been in such a bad place. Yeah, I mean, there's still gigs, there's still high -end venues, there's still bookings. There's always gonna be bookings. There's still pretty good paying venues. There's just a lot less of them, you know? And with all the economic factors that we've talked about here. There's a lot less people coming out and it's just a scary time for us in nightlife and venue owners are looking at it like, how do we survive this downturn? Cause they know where we're at, where we all talk about it, you know? How do we survive? And it's just kind of surviving and advancing, right? How do we keep our place open? How do we keep our place relevant? Help your venues stay relevant. Help your places stay above water. That's the mind state that we need to be in. Yeah, because those little things like the flyers and the extra promotion throughout the week don't just promote on the day of the event, maybe promote all week long. Make sure you have everybody's Instagram handles that you work with so you can tag all those people and really push the place along because that's how everybody's finding, we've said this time and again, that's how you're finding the new place to go or a place that you haven't heard of to go is via social media. So the more that you put the name out there of the venue and yourself, the better the place is going to be. And if you don't do that, or if you're saying that you, you should be paid to do that or yada, you are being paid to do that. Number one. and number two, if that place goes away, well, now you have X amount of less gigs. So just do the extra work, you know, to help the place out. If you want, if you want to be at that place next season or next year, you know, let's say it's a rooftop spot, go the extra mile for those places, you know, cause we, I mean, we're going to have a place close soon, I think, that we're booking. And that's one less place. We're gonna see a bunch of places close between now and football season, for sure. I have no doubt in my mind. Yeah. Hopefully it's not a lot of our places. True. So let's get into a little music from the weekend because a lot of music news happening and I've. We should, we got to touch on the Drake and Kendrick beef. to. I've seen varying takes on the internet. I've seen, this is the greatest beef of all time that someone wrote. And I was like, I don't know about all that. I've seen, this is the most influential beef of all time. And then I've just seen like the opposite of that where like, this is, it's fine. Like it's nothing crazy. I finally like sat down and really listened. I listened to every song. back to in the order that they came out. And like, I still don't know if I have an opinion on who quote unquote won the battle. Was it good? It's fine. It's entertaining. It's good. as somebody who is well versed in probably all of the rap battles of all time. What do you what is your what is your not on who won or lost? Was it a quality battle? I think it was quality. It's the 2024 battle. Everybody's a little softer now than we once were. It's a softer battle. I heard that I heard that maybe this is a soft take that somebody took that they were like, like they shouldn't have said that, or they shouldn't have said like this or that. And it was like certain topics they shouldn't have talked about. And it was like, it's a rap battle. Like you could do, you could say whatever you, you. brought up like this missing lost daughter that apparently Drake had and then Drake said, I planted that information. It's not true. So like, there's some like good spicy stuff happening out there. I think this battle is tough for me to be like, I think this person won. For the simple fact that I'm a Drake fan, I like Kendrick, I appreciate his greatness. I just don't connect to his music that much. I never have. I've like sat in the car like, I know I should like this. I know it's good, but it's just kinda not for me kinda thing. It's just not my style of music that I... genuinely would want to listen to. These guys couldn't come from two, from more different places. Right, the Cole Kendrick battle, to me, would have been easier to be like, all right, I could judge this battle. It's two similar styled, introspective, you know, just smarter, not smarter, just, it's a different battle. Drake and Kendrick, it sort of works, but Drake's the pop guy. He puts pop music out, you know? He's a pop artist. We're not talking to be to park Jay Z, Nas. We're not talking any of that. Those like all similar. Those are similar artists like these guys couldn't be more different. Dramas had our friend in show Dramas had a great take on this. I don't know if you saw it on his on his feed and he was saying, can't Kendrick lost before this thing even started? He's like, you shouldn't. This shouldn't even have happened. How, like how Kendrick lets this happen? Right. Right. And if he doesn't bury him out the gate, being the rapper's rapper, as he, as, as drama said, you know, he is like the self proclaimed rapper's rapper. Like that's what he does. He wraps Drake sings. Not greatly. Right. And, and if you don't come out and bury him out the gate, like you've lost. Am I yelling? Is that what you're doing? You're adjusting me. just pulling up the chronological chronological order so I can kind of talk a little bit about some of the tracks I thought were better than others. But do you agree with that? Like this should have been over before it started. Like Drake should have no business being in this battle, quote unquote battle, whatever you want to call it. Because. Drake does though. Like he's like the king of the internet. Like he just, this is why Drake is so good. And because he can do all these different things, he can immerse himself in a battle with probably one of the best rappers lyrically of our time, right? Yeah. I don't know. what was, who was his last battle with Drake? It's like 10 years ago, something like that. Not that one. The Meek Mill, the Meek Mill one, the Meek Mill one that actually went longer, longer than I thought it should have as well. And there were some club bangers in there too, on both sides, which we played a lot of back then. so he can hold his own. Don't get me wrong, but in that last 10 years or nine years, whatever it's been, He's become even more of a pop star. So it's even, it does show his diversity and how, and just how versatile he is as an artist. It was entertaining to me. There's good lines and some good moments from each side. It's a lot of songs, guys. I think it's like six or seven songs. It's a lot. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight songs. to foreign each side. I don't know the number back and forth, but it's just like, it's a lot, you know? It's like... I was on vacation over the weekend. So I decided not to even touch this. I was on the beach. I was not, I was not getting involved in, in all this. I should have listened to it on the way home yesterday. but, so after this, I'm going to give a listen. I know that doesn't matter here, but I just, a hard line like this person won and I'm all on this side and I'm going to live to the fight for it. I just don't have that feeling. And as I was listening to this, I'm like, am I that disconnected to like hip hop right now that this doesn't like excite me as much as I want it to excite me? Or maybe it's just not that good. Nobody that I've seen comments on this has taken a hard line one side or the other. Nobody. Which leads me to believe it was very entertaining and you know what it was a good back and forth and But I like the take that Kendrick should have finished this thing immediately. hard to go up against Drake, right? Because of all the fans and fanfare and just social influence that he has that Kendrick just doesn't have. Yeah, he's talented too. Yeah, he's good. He's good. When I was thinking about this, like, I thought of, because of the East Coast, West Coast thing, I obviously thought about the Biggie and Tupac, and like in my eyes, like Tupac had no chance, I don't care what he said, because I was such a fan of Biggie and I was East Coast for life kind of thing, and like. At that time, that was like a real thing, you know? That was like, if you're from New York, like you fuck with the New York guys, and if you're from LA, you fuck with LA guys. And that was sort of the line in the sand, and that was it. And I used to always think that I appreciated Tupac for his skills and his lyrics and his songs, but I wasn't the biggest Tupac fan. Like, I, in the same vein of listening to Kendrick and thinking like, I know this is good, but it's just not really for me. The same thing with Tupac, when I used to listen to Tupac. This wasn't like a Jay -Z -Nas, which to me is the greatest battle of all time. But maybe that's just because I grew up and I was in high school and it was most influential to me. But to me that was the greatest. Yeah, when you go back and you see all of the other battles, like there are a ton of good, there are a ton of solid ones over time. And that meek one was good with Drake and maybe not the most commercially popular, but definitely it put out quality songs, which you don't always get with these. I mean, look at the, the Nicki Minaj one a couple of months ago was awful. The whole thing was terrible. Like they've forgotten about in three seconds because the music was so bad. They came out of it. People were like, when these songs have been dropping, like people get excited. I've been like, shit, like Kendrick just dropped another diss. Like I was excited to go hear it. And like that part of it makes me think that like there are some legs and this battle is decent, you know? Go look at the numbers, go look at the streaming numbers, they're huge. They're huge on both sides. Yeah. TikTok and like every other clip is like Kai Sanat listening to Kendrick's whatever this artist listening to Drake's diss track and reacting. So it's. said that they said the reaction, the amount of reaction videos that are getting, you know, views and shares, et cetera, is wild. So. It's a different time, right? Like it's a social, it's the social media time. This social media battle. And that's where the battle is playing out. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, I think it's great. I think this is a great thing for hip hop. I mean, I think it's, it gets eyes and ears on it. Yeah. It gets eyes and ears on it. And it, and you got, you got excited that somebody else was dropping a, a new track. And I think that was across the board. People were excited about it. So that's good. That, that can only be a positive, whether the songs are good or not. If we're talking about it and a lot of millions and millions and millions of people are talking about it, it can only be good for hip hop. I agree. Give me a three minute, like tough beat and just go eviscerate somebody. And then maybe you do one response after they come back and like call it a day. I don't need eight tracks. Like many of which were like six and seven minutes long for no reason. Jeez. I think like four, like two on each side. I think that's always good. Yeah, I think that's good. I think we're dragging out at eight tracks right now. tops, if after those two and two, you don't have somebody that's like a distinct winner and you're putting out quality tracks still, I could stretch it to maybe one more, but they have to be quality. Like you can't be putting out garbage. Like the Nikki stuff was so bad. I was offended actually. I felt like appalled that I wasted a minute, a minute of my life. I don't even know why it was like a Sunday or something if you dropped it and I was like, I got about 45 seconds in, it was disgusting. I'm not doing this anymore. Alright guys, Drop, I wanna know what your... Let us know what you think of the Drake Kendrick. If you have somebody, if you think strongly someone won, let us know. And if you think there was another battle that was your favorite, let us know. I'd love to hear people's opinions for sure. Let's do some promo. So Discord, join the girl, my DJ business Discord. Like we said, we're doing all kinds of cool stuff in there. Just a great place. We're growing this community. It's gonna be a great way for you guys to stay in contact with me and Gary, ask us questions, share music, you know, network with other DJs, and all kinds of cool music stuff, exclusive edits, playlists, all the stuff we talked about earlier on the show. So if you're interested in joining the Discord, it's free. Click the link in the show notes, check out on socials. I'm sure you'll be getting emails about joining the Discord. We would love to have you and... help us grow that community and figure out exactly what it's gonna be. And then I think the other thing we have, our networking event for New Jersey and New York City DJs, Wicked Wolf Tuesday, May 14th, starting at 7 p in Hoboken, New Jersey. You know, any DJs that wanna come, show what they got, open decks, or just come hang out and meet a bunch of other DJs and nightlife people, we would love to have you. It's a ticketed event, it's free, so you know. Go where you would go to find that ticket link as well. Rick Wonder. Yes, Rick Wonder is our special guest DJ, which I'm super excited about. I'm excited to watch it. It's going to be amazing. One final thing, Korean Friends Vol. 5, which Rick Wonder is also a part of, it's myself, Rick Wonder, Luke Alexander, Mark Anthony, we did the New York City squad for this one. Dope edits as always. These are all DJs that I love and I play their music and I think are dope, so hopefully you do too. Check out that pack. Big shout out to, I just want to throw this in here, and we don't usually do this, but big shout out to 4AM. Rick's part of 4AM and he's on your pack and coming to support this party and play this party. Got to hang out with Chachi down in Miami Music Week a month and a half ago, which was amazing. And I've been talking to Marty Rock a bunch recently, so just big shout out to those guys. told Chachi he's living his best life. He's been in Europe and Japan and he's doing his thing. Jet setting out here. stories on the socials. It's looking good. he's eaten a lot of good food, been to a lot of really cool places. So yeah, shout out to all the 4AM squad, all the DJs, Madison, appreciate you guys. All right guys, thanks for listening to this episode. I know it's been a minute, but you could expect sort of a regular schedule again now moving forward, so. All right, guys. We'll talk to you. All right, peace.