When To Level Up 🔼

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This week on Grow My DJ Business Podcast, Cream & Gary talk about:

• Understanding your skill level and compare yourself to other DJs in your market before making a push for higher-level gigs.
• Being in demand and turning down gigs can be a sign that it's time to raise your rates and start playing at higher-tier venues.
• Branding, marketing, and having a professional image are important for attracting higher-level gigs.
• Strong DJ skills are necessary to back up your marketing efforts and ensure success in higher-level venues.
• The recent moves made by BPM Supreme to sign high-end editors and mashup artists highlight the importance of talent and exclusivity in the record pool industry. BPM Supreme's acquisition of top editors from other pools has caused a shake-up in the record pool industry.
• The move has raised questions about the quality and variety of edits available and the potential impact on other record pools.
• Being selective with edits and focusing on quality over quantity is important for DJs and record pools.
• Progressing from edits to remixes and original music is crucial for DJs who want to establish themselves as producers.
• Creating magical moments and parties often requires starting your own event and playing the music you love.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
• 09:04 When is the Right Time to Level Up?
• 24:14 The Importance of Strong DJ Skills
• 27:19 The State of Record Pools: BPM Supreme's Strategy
• 36:19 Quality vs. Quantity: The Importance of Selective Edits
• 39:39 Progressing from Edits to Remixes and Original Music
• 46:03 Creating Magical Moments and Parties in the DJ Industry

Transcript

0:01

What's up guys, welcome to the hundred and fifty first episode of the grow my DJ business podcast. My name is Kareem. This episode brought to you by grow my DJ business discord as well as digital music pool. threw me off in the beginning. I'm not used to it yet. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking. are you, man? You were up here this weekend, you are your first time DJing in like what five, six weeks or something? Or two months? What? What was that like? 17th till, what was it, May 19th, May 20th, whatever Thursday was. It was a long break. I learned that my body doesn't bounce back as quick when taking that kind of time off. And then also being super healthy while I've been home for two months. And then going into like one meal a day. drinking a lot of different drinks. we all are and how hard it is on our systems and bodies. my system's still not recovered. I mean, I'm still like, it's not used to eating three meals a day and getting regular sleep and I felt sick for two days. So I'm just kind of bouncing back now, which is good. It took me a long time to get rehydrated because you know what, too, being two months out, like you see people and what do we do in our industry when we see people? What's the first thing, that right, that's the first thing somebody says. wow, haven't seen you in a while, like let's do a shot. All right, fine. Because it's just the most communal thing that you do in our industry. For whatever reason, that's like the handshake. Anyway, so a lot of that. But outside of all of this, getting to see everybody, which is amazing, getting back on the horse of DJing was easier than I expected. The one thing about our industry and about a lot of the places that we play, not a lot changes in, or in our market I should say, not a lot changes musically in short periods of time. Right? There are like, in a two month period, there might be four to six records that you have to play. Right? definitely less so now than ever before, for sure. And just like our market isn't really used to or isn't really, they don't accept change all that much in their DJ sets and what they're going to react to. And you know, what you could start the night off and what you can end the night off with can be a little different, but that the meat of the important parts of your night, you're not going to ruin it with a track. Like if you're going to sprinkle in a new track or try something new, right? Like it's not going to, I'm not recreating a whole DJ set in two months. It's not happening that way. Right. I did learn about that new Nina Sky sampled track. Now I can't think of it. And I played it in every set. Every set. It got the biggest reaction in all of my sets. I have to look it up now. Give me one second. It's the Move Your Body sample. After Hours, the Kalani track. Kalani After Hours. Why I haven't played that once is it goes off. Yeah, I played it. So my rooftop set, both my later night sets on Saturday and Sunday, and especially my Ashford set on Friday. There was my biggest record. sample, you can literally put anything over and it's gonna go off. It was great. Like it was great because I got to, I forget about playing that track sometimes and it's a great track to play, the original. And it like transitioned me into getting into, if I wanted to do reggae set or like if I wanted to do, you know, anything like that. So anyway, so getting back in and then also having the Rangers and the Knicks playing while I was up there at home, I think both times, was great. been a great New York sports run here. I know the Knicks just lost but I was super happy to get to be around the atmosphere while it was happening. You know, it was the tail end and game six of the Rangers was Thursday and that was super exciting with Crichter's hat trick in the third and then the Knicks unfortunately lost the next night, took the wind out of the sails a little bit on Friday night, but we wound up having a very, very good Friday night anyway in the Ashford all over the place. The crowd was really good. They were into it. It was nice. We had a really nice weekend. Not just weather -wise, it was just a nice weekend. Great turnout to all my gigs. Great turnout. I had a fun time. team after this weekend like, hey guys, like this was the first weekend it's felt like good in a while and it was nice. We had good weather. All the venues were busy. It was a good, it was a good change up here before Memorial Day coming up. My three offsets, which means not the peak hour sets, not the Friday night, not the Saturday night set, but my other off -peak sets, I had to play longer in all of them, which is just great for the morale of the venue. It just showed me that people do want to go out and stay out and have a good time. I felt like if I had left the DJ booth at the time I was supposed to leave, it would have been a disservice to not only the people there but also the bar that I was working at because who knows, people would have maybe left then and maybe they wouldn't have stuck around for another drink or two. And that's the stuff that we talked about last week where it was, hey guys, go the extra mile to kind of stand out. If you guys didn't listen to last week's podcast, I just listened to it this morning, it was so good. A lot of really good information in there about what you should be doing in your venues weekly. because I came up and I thought about all of that stuff and that's why I played an extra hour and a half one night. Played an extra hour the other night. And then the other, and there was another set that I put like an extra 45 minutes. But it's just those little 45 minutes that that venue probably made an extra 300 bucks. I could have shut the music off and walked off. But then I just paid for myself. You know what I mean? So like, it's just, and I know we, you know, it's not. everybody doesn't own a DJ business. So, you know, maybe you don't worry about the venue as much as I might, but at the end of the day, you want to get asked back to that venue to work again. And maybe if you don't, you don't go that extra mile, but like if you care about the business and you care about, you know, the bar staff that you're working with and the weight staff that you're working with and the management that you're working with. Because like we always say, you don't know when those other people are gonna go work at other venues. Maybe it's not that venue that you're particularly into, but maybe you just made that bartender an extra $100. And the next place that they go work at, they're gonna be like, well, Gary was a great DJ that day. He stayed a little extra long. We made a little extra cash. We need a DJ next week. Maybe we'll hit him up. It's all that little stuff that always comes back around in this industry. It always does, always, always, always. Yeah, and just don't just power through and keep playing or don't just stop the music when you're there's about 15 minutes left. Just go grab the manager really quickly and say, Hey, it's really busy. I'm I can stay for an extra hour. Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to stay an extra 30 minutes? Or do you want me to shut it off? Let them make the call. At least you have the the wherewithal to go and ask that question. You know, they'll appreciate it whether they want you to stay or not, that you're aware enough of being able to recognize, hey, maybe keeping a DJ for an extra hour might be a good idea. Right, and you can negotiate a price. I did it, I did it, and I didn't negotiate a price or anything. I mean, I could talk about that with management after the fact, but that's the difference in the position that I'm in than most DJs, right? So anyway, great weekend, really great to see that the industry is alive, and it was good up there, it was really solid. I know, that's the one thing, like last week, it's like, who were so doom and gloom and then I get up there and it was pretty lively. bad for a long time. That's why there was a lot of doom and gloom, you know. Yeah, well then I spoke to people and they were like, well, the weather has been terrible the last six weeks. It's been so rainy and so gloomy and so overcast and people are cold at times and people don't want to go out. I'm like, I don't even know. I'm so disconnected with just what the weather is like and all of that stuff. But great, great stuff. I'm happy to do it. glad it was good for good for you. Good for our venues. Good for our business. So good. Good trip all around. So I want to get into sort of our first topic here. We talk a lot about like DJs leveling up and how to go from the bedroom to gigs and from one gig level to the next gig level. And I think we haven't really talked about when is the right time to do this, right? When's the right time to make a push for that level up? Because I think there is a right time and there's a wrong time, right? So what are some of the things that if you're a DJ out there and you're even for us, right? Any DJ that's looking to grow and start playing better rooms for more money, when do you make that push? How do you make that push? I think the number one thing is understanding your skill level, understand what you do well, right? What kind of DJ you are, what you do well, and then how am I comparing to somebody that's kind of on the same wavelength as I am in their career? So they don't have to be playing the same venues, but they're playing equal venues in your market. Well, are you a bigger name than them? Are you more active on social media than them? Are you putting out more records and mashups than them? How does my overall social media presence stack up against that person? We could touch on each and every one of these things and we will, but I think understanding the barometer of where you stand to people that are your peers that are equal to you. If you're doing everything better than those equals are doing, well, it's time to ask for more. It's time to go for that next level and that next place. Now, like, I'm gonna give myself for example. So like, if I came up there and I'm like, I had a great weekend this weekend. I had a thousand people at the Ashford on Friday. I had X -Man people and I'm doing a great job. It's like, I think I should go play marquee next week. It's like, yeah, no, that's not how it works. It's, you know, like, you know, I don't do any, my social media presence sucks. My, you know, my marketability sucks. Like, I don't put out mixes. Like, why would I deserve to go play at that next level up place? You know what I mean? Well, if I'm not A plus at all of those things, well, I don't deserve to step out of where I'm at currently. You know, and that's me personally, just knowing you have to self -assess and know. exactly where you stand within all of these important parts of being a professional DJ. Yeah, I mean, you said a lot there. So I don't know where to pick up. But I think I would say the first point of where you can start thinking about, all right, I can start making a push to the next level would be our bigger and better venues knocking on your door to book you, right? Like if you're playing the mid level spots, and some of the high level spots in your market are saying, yo, Gary or Kareem, we want to book you. and you start booking that next level, use that as an opportunity to now reposition yourself, right? before that really quick, let's go back to that, but I think really quick, are the venues that you're playing at right now, do they need you in their venue? Because there are people that want to level up that I've spoken to that they wanna start to make that next step, but the places that they're playing at, they're not banging down the door for that DJ, right? Like you have to be wanted and needed to a point where the place wants to give you more money than their regular DJs. Hey, what is it going to cost for me to have cream in X venue next week? Because I don't care what it's going to cost. I need him here because he because when he's here, we make more money. So I'm willing to give more money. If somebody's not willing to give you more money off Jump Street that you regularly play at. Then like, you know, You're just kind of like every other DJ in the place, though. Right. That's kind of like a good starting point to not the money portion of it, but like, are you needed? Part of it is creating a local fan base, right? Do you have people that are coming to your venues or to your gigs? Are they bouncing around the city that you're playing in, coming to where you are? Are they buying tables? Does the staff know that when you're there, you bring people out? That's like step one, right? Then, of course, you're a good DJ, you play the right music, you know how to work the crowd, you make more money, like you said, on the given nights that you're playing there, like, That's how you start to create that buzz. And that one venue is going to say, well, we need Kareem here more because he, people are calling and asking who's DJing. And when they say Kareem, they say we're coming. That used to happen. Like who's your DJ? It's Kareem. all right. We're going to book a table tonight then. It happened with one of our DJs recently that a place called, people have called that place and requested them. So. Yeah. So that's, that's the kind of feedback and what you what needs to be happening during your gigs in your market in order for you to start taking this step. When that stuff starts happening, right, the venues you're currently playing in really want to keep you. But as I was saying, the higher level venues or the better venues are going to start knocking on your door, right? Someone is going to take a chance on you or someone's going to recognize you as someone who's making noise in the market. And they're going to want to book you maybe they're going to want to book you as a headliner. Maybe they're going to want to book you as an opener and closer in a higher level venue or maybe support for a big artist. And at that point, you promote the shit out of it. And now other venues know you've taken a step up. You started playing this next better venue that other higher end DJs are playing. And then you could now it's on your resume, right? Now it's like, well, I play this X this venue now and my rate is now this. So that sort of sets almost the new standard of where you could negotiate from. Or where you could actively go out and say, well, I'm now starting to DJ or I'm now a resident at this high level place. I want to play at your place, which is on that same level, you know, and that's how you break out of a particular level of market or level of venue that you're currently playing. It's a momentum thing, right? And once the ball starts rolling, you have to take advantage, right? Maybe you have people coming out, you're getting good feedback, you're making music and putting mixes out, you're active on social and then the big venue calls, right? And now it's like, hey, what other venues can I reach out to and try to capitalize on this momentum that I have? It takes a lot. It takes a lot of patience, you know? It takes a lot of patience to get to that point. Well. all of this is based on the work that you're putting in. You know? Like if you're just going to DJ your DJ gigs and that's it, you're never gonna grow. Like the amount of work that I used to put in and still put in just in a different way. But the amount of work that I watched Angelo the Kid put in for five years or four years or however long it was until he started booking headliner gigs. Like you guys, people don't see how much it takes. It takes making music every day. networking every day, focusing on all the stuff that's important to growing your business. And if you're not doing it every day, don't expect to grow. Don't expect to get booked in the better venue. Yeah, it's the, the DJing portion of it is actually the hardest part. It is growing within the DJ community is probably the hardest part. And then once you start getting a little recognition and you, and then you really have to make sure you're doing all of that other stuff. The outside of the DJ booth stuff, the production, the marketing. DJ no matter what. That's the only way you're gonna get booked and continue to get booked. And you can improve your skills. Right, but that's only the starting point. You know, because if you don't, you can be the best DJ but not do anything else, you're never gonna grow. Well, I think we're seeing it the opposite way where people are focused so much more on the other stuff where sometimes that supersedes the actual skills and then they get booked and it's like, well, this DJ has all this other stuff, but they're not very good as a DJ. I think when we're talking about bigger acts, that just skipping the entire, just skipping the line kind of a thing, and just getting thrown into $15 ,000 gigs, that's different. There's a popularity, there's a 15 minutes of fame that's coming along with a lot of that stuff. A lot of that is tagged with having that 15 minutes of fame, having that viral whatever it is. that's also part of the reason why our industry isn't in the best shape because instead of booking DJs based on talent and skills, but that also have that other stuff that's important and are marketable, people are mostly caring about, does this person have a social media following? Like think about how many of those DJs are being booked. And some of them sure are great. Some of whom I'm sure aren't, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of DJs not getting booked because their social media following is lackluster. Yeah, we've seen it time and again. that person only has X amount of followers. I don't know if we want to book him, right? We don't agree with it. You and I don't fully agree with it all the time, but the decision makers are making decisions based upon these facts. Right. And one hand, one thing has to do with the other, right? It's not all on the high end. This is happening on the low end too, unfortunately. But it's all the more reason why people should be getting their face out there and their name out there as much as they can because the more you attach your face to a bigger venue, well, when somebody goes and looks at your social media, you had 2000 followers, but you've played the top five places in your market, well, you're gonna get booked, right? So you have to work on all of that stuff. It's an all -encompassing thing. Right, we've said it many million times, right? Like there's so much more that goes into being successful right now and there's so much more that we have to focus on as just not just being DJs, right? We can go down that path every podcast, right? Like we can talk about that stuff every time. So I wanna circle it back and talk a little bit more about some of the other things that you can use as, all right, it might be time for me to like really make this push to go level up. turning down gigs, right? If you're so booked out that you have to turn down gigs, number one, you should start raising your rates. Number two, you have to start assessing, well, are there certain places that I'm playing that I don't need to be playing anymore? Maybe it's a lower level spot that pays less money. Like, if you're turning down gigs, you're in demand. You're definitely in demand. And I think that's another sign of... Maybe it's time for me to raise my rates. Maybe it's time for me to start making this push into a higher tier of venue. And guys, like, you don't need to have a million followers. You don't need to have this post every day. You just have to have some sort of a brand, right? Whether it's colors, whether it's the way you present yourself. Like, it just has to look nice and neat and like, professional. You just have to be professional. There's so many ways to do it for free even these days where years ago it cost money to look professional because you had to pay a professional. I mean it's a good investment still. If you can't afford it every week, it's a good investment once a month, right? Get a photographer and go shoot pictures once a quarter. That's all you need. Because you're gonna get enough pictures that you can use for all your promo, for anything you wanna do on social to make your pages look nice. Like, it doesn't take a lot. That's like 300 bucks, let's say. 250 bucks, I don't know what it costs. Whatever it costs to get a photographer. If you have photographer friends, it's probably less than that. So yeah, those, I know we could talk about the marketing and branding side of this and the social media side, which we harp on constantly, but I think it's knowing where you're at, I think professionally in the DJ booth first and foremost. You know, we harp on all of the other stuff in so many episodes, you can go back and listen to all of that stuff over and over again. It's just the self -assessment is overlooked, I feel. And we all wanna get to that best place. We all wanna get to that marquee or. or whatever it might be, but it's understanding where we sit and where we are in our market currently. couple things that you guys can do out there. If you're not sure where you sit in the market or you're unsure if it's time for you to start making moves to try to level up, go ask another DJ, a mentor, an older DJ, maybe somebody that is at the top end of the market and say, hey, I need some honest feedback. Like, where do you see me in the market? What do you think I need to do to get to the next level? And if it's somebody that you trust, they're not gonna, they're not gonna beat you up. They're gonna give you honest feedback. And you could use that feedback to help you fix some of the things that maybe you need to fix. You could also go ask a manager if you're an opener at a higher end place, let's say, and you want to be a headliner there, ask a manager, what do I need to do to go from being the opener to being the headliner? They'll give you honest feedback. They'll say, well, you need to sell more tables. You need more of a following. You need to be able to transition from hip hop to house better. Like whatever the feedback is. And at least you now have a clear understanding of what you can go work on to get better and to present yourself as a higher end DJ. Don't be afraid to ask guys, like, as long as it's somebody that you have a decent relationship with, like, they'll give you good feedback that you can use. Yeah, I think I like that opener. If you're an opener, you know, ask management or ask ownership, like, what do I have to do to be the headliner? That's huge. give you a headliner gig just for asking guys. Like, well we have Memorial Day weekend coming up. It's a little slower. We're only gonna book one DJ. Why don't you play the full night that night? Like, stuff like that happens. Yeah. Yeah. I like this portion of it. I think we don't talk about this portion enough, right? And because we do, we stay out of the DJ booth a lot on this, on this podcast, right? We talk, we talk about all the other intangibles and the DJ booth is still important at the end of the day. Being able to work a room is still important. Being able to wow the management and the bar staff that's... in there seeing other DJs night after night, week after week. Like if you're not wowing the people that are there, like, you know, what makes you think you're going to do a great job in the next level up? Right? One of these podcasts, we said like DJ skills aren't important anymore. To an extent, right? We're sort of playing on words a little bit there, but it is important in the fact that your DJ skills have to at least, it has to live up to every, like it has to match your marketing, right? It has to get you, you have to like, I don't know how to say this, I'm sputtering here. Your skills have to back, everything else that you're doing. Your marketing stuff can get you in the door, but your DJ skills are worth going to like punch you through the door. Right. I think that's true. I think DJ skills are at an all time low is true at that $10 ,000 booking level, that $5 ,000 booking level. I think somebody that is ground up trying to make it like your DJ skills are getting you off the ground. And then understanding when is the right time to ask is when you're wowing all the right people. Right? I think we talk about very mid to high level here and don't often get to that very low level. Like that guy that's playing the local bar. Well, how does he get to the local lounge? And then how does he get into the local? Bigger nightclub or opening for the bigger nightclub. And this is how you do it. You do it with your DJ skills, with wowing people, you know, and. Right. it's just the, it's just what it is. If you wanna be one of the better DJs, you gotta be good at a little bit of everything. That's it. And if you don't like it, don't be a DJ. Yeah, I mean like, this is what it is right now. So you either step up or you step out. All right, so let's jump in topic. So I'm gonna preface this entire conversation by we are obviously really closely linked with Digital Music Pool as you know, our record pool, we, anything that they do, we're a part of anything that we do, they are a part of. I'm an exclusive editor on their pool. We have an incredible, incredible lineup of exclusive remixers on DMP. I'm super proud of who I get to share that. title with, you know, the Angel of the Kids, the Armada Verus, Castra, there's like 12 of us or 15 of us at this point. I'm not going to list all of them. Jump in. I think DMP has done a really great job in recognizing, you know, having really strong, exclusive artists and a lot of them is great for the pool, you know. So what I really want to talk about is sort of the state of record pools and what is happening right now at BPM Supreme because... They've sort of made a little bit of a wave here in the market by scooping up a bunch of the really high -end editors and mashup artists that were on other pools. So BPM Supreme picked up Revis and Beatbreaker and Alex Dynamics, who were all exclusive on other pools, right? And I just think it's a really interesting, from a business standpoint, it's a really interesting marketing tactic and a way to attract customers where... They said, we're gonna spend a bunch of money to sign these artists. We're gonna pay them more money than they're getting anywhere else. And we're gonna hopefully attract a lot more DJs to come and subscribe to our pool because we have some of the best talent, right? It's very similar to like what a Nike would do. Let's bring on the best athletes, right? We wanna bring Tiger Woods and we wanna bring Jordan. and Derek Jeter, and we want people to bring more customers to buy Nike products because they want to associate themselves or wear products that these really high-end athletes wear. I think it's a similar strategy, right? It's a statement. It's a statement. They want to attract as many people as they can by making this statement. Everybody knows that those editors put out great edits and they live in everybody's seratos. They live in everybody. They live in everybody. You know what too? Big shout out to those three because they've all been on the pod. I just realized. Because I've told them all the same things. You guys all live and have lived in my Serato crates forever. I said it to each and every one of those three. And when they're going after those three guys, and they've gone after three guys that have different styles, which I think that sometimes... There's a good and a bad to that, right? There's a lot of record pools that I'll go to for certain things. They do really well at one specific thing, in my eyes. Now, this is different for everybody because, you know, music is so subjective and everybody DJs differently and everybody's styles are different. But in my eyes, like, I go to one place for one genre, I go to another place for another genre. And I think by bringing those three on, they brought in three different... editors that do really well in three different styles. Yeah. I mean, they brought more than those three on they they I think they got anthem kings from DJ city like they got a bunch of they went and sort of cherry picked off of the other pools. So not only are they creating this really strong roster on their own site, they're hurting the other rosters of of pools and hurting their you know, the customers that go there. I think what we saw a couple months ago and a conversation that was had a few months ago is our record pool's getting stale, right? I think there's an oversaturation of editors, period. There's a ton of people that are just doing edits, right? And I think with the oversaturation of editors and people standing out in the marketplace, it then leads to that question, are record pools getting stale? Are they becoming over saturated? Is the quality going down? And so now they come in and they're like, well, we're gonna cherry pick all the best and we're gonna keep our quality super high. And whether that's true or not, whether Beatbreaker or Revis is putting out a banger every single time, the perception, Them having the highest quality edits is what they're doing here They're putting out the perception that they have the highest quality editors. You know what I mean? Whether whether that's true or not like I said Yeah, I just feel like nowadays, like you said, everything is watered down. And personally, I'm going to the various pools that I'm subscribed to for the exclusive artists. Like, that's why I go to the pools. Because I can go to Beeport, I can go to 1001 Tracklist, and I can find out the new songs that are coming out, the originals that I need for my sets. But I want certain artists, there's certain artists that... I fill my DJ sets with because they fit my style or I just think they make great edits. So I go to each of the pools that I'm subscribed to for those editors and You know, if you're collecting all the good editors that people go to other sites for in one place, why would you not go get a subscription there? You know what I mean? Did they do, I should have done a little research on this before. Did they move their pricing as they were doing this? Like increased it? Well, I mean, just wondering if that was like part of the move there. Like I'm I currently don't have a BPM Supreme subscription, but I'd go check it out just to see what's on there. You know, like I got fucking six pools. What's another one? You know, like what's it? So I just think it's interesting. I think another factor is that a lot of the editors are just going and doing their own thing. They're going on Patreon and saying, hey, I'm going to do all my own stuff. Why should I go through a record pool when I can get subscribers to come directly to me? You know, and I subscribe to a bunch of DJs on Patreon too, because I think they're dope. So it's just not that it's like completely changing. We're going to have record pools, right? I just think this is a little wave in the in the pool that we haven't seen in a long time. It's been a long time coming. We've had record pools since before the internet, guys. So I put something out in our Discord actually about this and just gave a little rundown on the history of record pools. They've been around forever. And they used to be, you get three or four or five records sent to your house, like actual vinyl records. And that was big. I remember Funkmaster Flex had his, which was a big deal. And then it evolved into this, with Crooklyn Clan and you... right? That was his franchise record pool. forgot what it was called, honestly. And then Crooklyn Clan kind of made a big splash as Serato got big and then the EDM wave came and you know, mashups weren't a huge thing during that wave, but Beatbreaker was doing a great job doing his thing and still stayed prominent. And then it's been like 10 years, 12 years, and it's time for something to shake up, right? It's just a matter of time. Clan strategy, right? Like, let's go get all the best guys. Right. Right, but then as anything popularizes and grows, there's gonna spawn other pools out of that, right? Crooklyn Clan was the biggest, and then there's other pools that come out of it, and then they offer their biggest guy, Beatbreaker, I forget who it was, he said it on the show with us, I forgot who he went to. who was the number one on Crooklyn forever? Beatbreaker was. Yeah. Crooklyn and then somebody came and picked him from Crooklyn and gave him more money to leave there. You know, and that was kind of a shake up at the time. And then, so it's just, it feels like, you know, as soon as we posed the question months ago, are record pools stale? It was like, there was time, I think a lot of people felt that it was time for something to shake it up. Yeah, I think also the the back end, like the business side, right? Nobody talks about the deal, anyone's deals or the money or any of that. Like some pools, they don't pay anyone anything. Some pools will pay you to put out X amount of X amount of edits per week. Some pools will pay you per week. Some pools will say, hey, we're going to give you this flat rate and I need you to do this many edits for the month. So there's like, there's a number of ways to do it. But I think This is probably a good thing for editors, the high -end editors right now, you know? Definitely. It's like the live golf thing. Like, hey, we're going to come buy you out, and then depending on your performance, we'll pay you. Like, per edit or whatever. for record pools and anybody listening that like runs a record pool or is, you know, choosing the edits that go on the record pool. I just think we need to all be a lot more selective, right? I don't need 30 edits to come out in a day. Give me 12 like really good ones, you know, like let's put the best stuff out, not the most stuff. Quality over quantity for me is way more important. Number one, it's less time I have to spend sorting through edits because you're putting the best out there. And I don't know, I just find that, especially lately, it's just been not that interesting to me as far as what's been out there. And I'm trying to do better with my edits and be more consistent and put out higher quality edits too, just to help the cause kind of thing. It's tough because people have their formulas and they slap their music together quickly. And, you know, I think it's okay for editors to have your formula and slap a couple things together and put it out when you want to just do something for your set. But like, I don't know, I wouldn't mind hearing some edits that I'm like, wow, that was more intricate. There's more fills in it. There's more... complexity, there's more depth, and I know that's not what an edit is for. That's what making an original is for. I get that. yell at us because he's been yelling at everybody that it's a mashup, not an edit, so. God, okay. He's gonna go on his Discord tonight, but just kill us. But so, yeah, I wanna see a little more depth in mashups. I really do, because you can hear it. You can hear when something's lazy, and you can hear when there was some time put into it, and it took more than 30 minutes. And just like... You don't have to slap five tracks together. That's not what I'm talking about. That used to be a thing. But really take two tracks and pick them apart and throw a couple fills and sounds and whatnot into it and make it sound a little more complete. Yeah, I think it's just getting a little creative, right? I mean, there's been plenty of edits where I've just taken a vocal and put it over an instrumental and it sounds good and I play it and it works. There's also been plenty of edits that I've like fully produced out a track and I'm like, this might as well be a remix, like I should just create a new drop and just make a remix instead of putting it out as a mashup because I put in four hours on this thing. So it varies. I mean, Some of my best edits I ever made were very simple, and then some of them were not. So you never really know. A good is good, whether it's super intricate or not. Yeah, but I think picking some of the stuff, you're right, it needs to be a little more selective. just having more of a mind state of, like, I wanna make this cool and interesting and different and it's not just another black eyed peas vocal over an instrumental kind of thing. I think that, it's sort of a state of where we are in nightlife, right? It's like the same vocals and the same. What did I just say? I get to take two months off and come back and be completely comfortable. Right. It's just what people people want to hear what people want to hear. I challenge the editors instead of creating edits of what you think people are gonna like, what do you like? Make something that you like. And if you're making something that you like, you're gonna be, spend more time on it, you're gonna be more proud of it, you're probably gonna play it more often in your own sets. And if you're making edits and not playing your own stuff, like what's the point? I yell at myself, like, I'm like, fuck, that was a great edit, I played it once, ever. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Make stuff for your sets. Like, what track do you love that doesn't have an edit that fits into your sets and make that edit? What vocal do you love that's 100 BPM hip hop record that you could turn into 128 or whatever. You could turn into a Speedhouse record or you can turn into a trap song or whatever you like. Make stuff you like and the finished product will be better. Not what is the shitty customer on the dance floor like. Fuck them. They suck. That's why I'll never make music, is I'll never play it ever, anywhere. do you mean? We used to make stuff all the time. We would play a lot of our own stuff, no? You played a bunch of our stuff. Yeah, well, yes, I, when we were coming up and, you know, trying to make records and play bigger rooms. Absolutely. Right. Like going back to our last conversation, like when I was like actually trying to DJ and actually try to become a bigger DJ. Yeah, that was important. You know, that stuff was very important and we make great, great, great edits. Those edits were very complex and that's why I said that a couple of minutes ago. Yeah, they were. And because those were not lazy slaps together edits. Those were, you know, making builds and making drops and doing all types of mashups per hour. We know. and, and, and really building out a track. And that's why I think when I hear some stuff now, it's like, meh, it's lazily slapped together. Yeah. The other thing I'm going to say is, and I wish there was somebody in my ear, like yelling at me as a younger producer, like edits are just a step. Don't get stuck just making edits and mashups because at the end of the day, like some people can make money off of them and some people can get booked from them, but it's very unlikely. So make edits. I think it's a great starting point. It's a great way to learn Ableton. It's a great way to get your name out there, but progress into making remixes. progress into making your own music and it's gonna suck at first and that's okay. But if you want to be a producer and you want to be a DJ playing nightclubs and big stages, it's the only way. It's the only way. Beatbreaker, he's making music now too, but he built a name for himself and created an incredible artist profile without really producing original music. That's not gonna happen very often. Very, very, very, very rarely. So work on remixes, work on original music, push yourself, realize that that's the stuff that's gonna move the needle. You need to be able to put songs on Spotify, not on record pools. Think about it that way. You need to be able to put music on Spotify, not on record pools. Yeah, the record pools matter. You want them to post your original stuff too, but you wanna say, go to my Spotify profile, not go to my SoundCloud profile. Right. I don't know why I'm thinking of. It's just kind of random thought, I'm thinking of Volvo and like they had a start with doing like country mashups, right? And then they evolved into doing country remixes and then they kind of cornered the market of doing that and blew up like that's a great path, right? Like it's like figure out what your sound is in your mashup. Graduate that into doing remixes and then you can build originals out of that, right? And if you corner the market, like as they did with country music, it's well, now you can pitch, now you can pitch to record labels, real legit remixes and get a couple things signed and you can grow quickly that way. We talked about momentum in your DJ career. The same momentum applies to your production, right? Create the edits to get your name out there, build some momentum, get your stuff on the pools, get some DJs knowing your name, even if they don't know who you are, and then graduate to remixes. And if they know your edits and mashups, they'll be more likely to play and download your remixes. And if they're playing and downloading your remixes, they'll be more likely to play and download your original music and progress people. through your production in that way, your skills are gonna grow in that way anyway, right? The original music is the hardest thing to do of those three things. So in progressing in that way, your skills are gonna get better and you're gonna be able to make those original songs. Yeah, definitely. Love it. I mean, I'm passionate about this stuff, man. This is what I love about being a DJ and an artist, right? Like, the music side of it and the record pools and putting music out, like that excites me. And leveling up, like all these conversations get me fired up and excite me. Alright, so I wanna talk a little bit. I was eating sushi a couple weeks ago by myself before a gig and somebody that I knew from the city came by and was like, yo, Kareem, what's up? And we were just like bullshitting and they were like, man, remember your Tally Ho Thursday party? That was like the best party that I can remember. I used to come every week. It was so much fun. Like there are no parties like that. What was your, that was like a magic party for me, right? I created this thing where I was playing the music that I wanted to play and I created fans from that party that would come see me other places. And it transformed. It was like this shitty Thursday night that turned into this like, lying around the block at 10 o 'clock thing. And in the moment, I didn't realize how like special that was. And that might be like a once or twice in your career type of thing that you create. Like, did you ever have a magic moment or magic party like that or something that you were a part of that was like, damn, in the moment, I didn't realize how great this was. I think that is this was a short stint for all of us. Rick Wonder included was in this. I don't know if you remember that. And we had a stint at Troy in the Meatpacking District and they had a sister venue that they shared a kitchen with. It was owned by the same people. Rick would play one side one night, I would play the other side. You would play one side, I would play the other side, whatever it was. I think this went on for six months to a year -ish. It was pretty short stint. That Friday night and Saturday night was a, those were some special nights in those places because it was, first of all, it was in a basement. I just love a basement venue. Everybody's on top of each other. It's close. The DJ booth is essentially in the crowd. Right. There's no stage or anything. You're, you're in the crowd. You're in the crowd. It's all level. And the place next door with the turntables had a little step up. So you were kind of above it. It was more of a bottle service. They were both bottle service venues, but because of the setup of the room, the crowd was on top of you, and they hung on every last note that you were playing. And it was just an incredible... like I said, sweaty, it was an experience. The whole thing, it smelled some nights and it was just like, obviously the booze is flowing, the music's good, you're playing on vinyl some nights, some nights you're not, depending on how you felt. And there was a rotation of great DJs in those places that are still DJing now. And you know what, I guess some of that comes with, I... grew up, I made my chops in basements, whether it be a frat house basement, whether it be my basement, or I threw my parties when I was in high school. So I have I have a special place in my heart for that type of setup of having the DJ booth in the crowd pre this is pre boiler room guys. This is way before that was cool. I think those are some really fun and special moments in the meatpacking district at a point that the meatpacking district was kind of I don't want to say on its way out, but it was declining for sure. I remember one night I was off and with a bunch of my friends and we came to that to Troy while you were DJing and it was like sausage, like not sausage and feta with a lot of guys, like sardines in there and it was hot and sweaty and it was like one moment that I can remember being one of the more fun nights that I had out not working because it was just a vibe, like it was just a good time. I had that's right when I back ago I have it in my sorrow it's one of my best DJ sets I've ever played. I feel like these days, the only way to create this sort of magic is really if you like start your own party, right? And, and you're playing the stuff that you love and your friends are coming and supporting you and your DJ friends are coming and playing your party. I think like in 2024, that's sort of the only way to kind of get that magic. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but, or maybe I'm just old and been in the game too long and sort of jaded on being able to recreate that at a venue. Like in I don't know. It's funny you're talking about this because I was thinking about this on my run yesterday and I was like, is it ever going to be like that again? Where I'm going to look forward to going to see. I was thinking some random JP party that I went to that like was different and weird and out of the box, but it wanted to be in a really good night. I think it's just the fact that this is what we do for a living at this point, right? Like every day all day and to be impressed anymore. It's very difficult. Yeah. Well, I don't even mean as a customer. I just mean as like a DJ. Okay. as a DJ anymore, it's very difficult. But there are those, we do have some parties that go on that have this potential. And I'm thinking of one venue in particular that like, you can go off the rails in any which direction of music and things could get special real quick. But it's not consistent. Consistency is a little tougher these days. Yeah, I'm talking like every time you're there. And I guess, you know, I think also some of that magic had to be because I was there every week, right? It wasn't, it was a weekly residency. And it was an off night on a Thursday where like, a lot of DJs were coming out. So not only were you DJing for people that came, your regulars, like your fans that came out every week, you're also like putting on a show for DJs that get to see this cool party you created and like come and be a part of it sometimes like throw out a little mini set. It was just like a vibe and. knowing your crowd and you knew your crowd in and out from the minute, from whatever it was, 10 p till 2 a you knew what to play every minute and what you could get away with or what you couldn't get away with. And it's such a big portion of having a residency and then building a party around your residency is knowing all that stuff. That was Turntable. would be like, yo, I can't believe you play turntables in here. I'm like, yeah, this is the last place standing that I played turntables really. We had a great run at a place in Mars Town was just a bar. So in a 13, we talked about all times. You and drama's talked about it the other night. We knew the formula of that place left in, you know, from from 10 p to 2 a You know, we could still tell you recite to you that formula. And that was also always a great party. But that was the heyday EDM. And in this random bar in Mars Town, we could play an hour's worth of Swedish house mafia, Avicii and dead mouse. And it's like this. doesn't really make sense in this venue, but it was just a moment in time, right? Where I don't, it'll happen again, where like something takes over. It's country music right now. Yeah, country's crushing. part I think part of those magic moments, it seems like the staff and the venue and the managers and the owners were were also all in on those venues, you know, like, it was, it sort of felt like you were going to hang out with your friends in those places, right? Like Troy, we were really close friends with the GM and the Booker and we started to get to know some of the bartenders at Tally Ho, like I went to one of the bartenders weddings, like, So it was like a family vibe and I think they were excited to be there, they were making money. I was excited to be there. The owner was excited because they were making money as a business. So like, it's like those perfect storms that are just really hard to recreate, especially right now. I'm gonna shout out, this might shock you a little bit. I'm gonna shout out Fat Taco. I was just talking to one of our DJs who's a regular DJ in there and says, I'm friends with the bartenders, we hang out outside of work, we have a friendship, and they're all in on their party and they've built a really nice party in there, which was really, there wasn't much happening in the first couple years that they were open, and now they're establishing a line around the block, and the DJs, you're doing a great job of having regular DJs in there, which helps. build something special. Whether they get to that next level, those people that are involved only kind of know. You know what I mean? Like... Well, they're getting a sound upgrade over there, so that should... We've been trying to get some new sound in there for eight months, probably, and that's gonna, I think, drastically help the situation as far as progressing that party forward, so... Shout out to those guys that are building that little community in there. Because I think that's what it's going to take. And gosh, those small rooms are just so fun to do it in. All right, cool. I think this is a good place to wrap. I wanna invite everybody listening to our Discord. So it's the Grow My DJ Business Discord. We're creating a little community over there of people that listen to this podcast, people that come to our shows, anybody that's really kind of consuming any of our content. We're creating this really cool community and sharing music and putting up some coaching videos. There's a lot of cool stuff going on over there. I think it's a great way to sort of get involved with anything that we do. We promote a lot of our music and parties and anything cool that we're doing there. We have a course going up in there and we're posting videos and exclusive cream edits and all kinds of cool stuff. So if you want to join the discord, we will put the link to join in the show notes. You can find that link also on any of our socials, get down DJ group or the grow my DJ business podcast. And we just appreciate you guys for listening. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Alright guys. Talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening to this episode. Peace. Peace.