Clarity Is Key For Branding 👓

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast, Cream & Gary W Discuss:

• A DJ's name can significantly impact their career.
• Educating venue owners about the value of experienced DJs is important.
• Building relationships within the DJ community is crucial for long-term success.
• Respecting booking protocols is important to maintain professional relationships.
• The music industry is evolving, and DJs must adapt to changes in audience preferences.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Weekend Recap and Venue Experiences
• 4:41 The Importance of Clarity in Branding
• 10:32 Navigating DJ Names and Brand Identity
• 16:45 The Challenge of Balancing Multiple Brands
• 23:12 Understanding Venue Dynamics and DJ Rates
• 32:53 The Impact of a Good DJ on Venue Revenue
• 36:00 The Importance of Experienced DJs
• 38:50 Collaborative Opportunities for Young DJs
• 40:18 Building Relationships in the DJ Community
• 43:37 Navigating Bookings and Respecting Protocols
• 47:18 Learning from Mistakes in the DJ Industry
• 51:40 The Role of DJs in Music Culture
• 52:11 Reflections on the Grammys and Music Recognition

Transcript

0:41

What's up guys, welcome to the hundred and seventy fourth episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast. My name is Kareem. Gary W here, hanging out. you doing Gary? Had a nice trip up here. You come up here and literally like the second you get off the plane to the second you go home is relentless non-stop like go go go. Just thinking about your weekend makes me hurt. I'm dead. Big shout out. was gonna put something, I was gonna record something earlier today and I still might for Instagram, but like big shout out to everybody, all the get down guys and girls that came out to our get together that we had in Jersey City on Thursday. That was a lot of fun. And then all my venues were, you know, it was beginning of the month, so a little slower in some places, but good to see everybody. Everybody worked hard and Lola was amazing on Sunday, our local kind of brunch spot, Hoboken. cool vibe for brunch over there. right on the water on the Hudson overlooking the city and Sunday brunch was amazing. kept people there until later than I was supposed to be and then went to the ranger game and a jazz club and just did too much too many things. and then something the next day and the next night. golf the next day. Yeah, it was just a lot. It was a lot, but it's good to be back here in Florida. Florida is Florida-ing right now. It is sunny, thank God. We're back to having 80 degree weather. It's not cold like it was when I left. So happy to be home and, you know, relax and then get back on the grind and the backend stuff. Yeah, we were talking about this past weekend. So the first Friday and Saturday of February, it was cold. It was raining. It's the first of the month and people are paying rent. Less people are going out. It's an economic down. Whatever you want to say. Like all the stars aligned have a bad weekend, right? So for those of us who had a good weekend and good spots, like you were in the minority, I'd say this weekend for sure. Saturday night was good for me, but my first three sets of the weekend were not good. Thursday night was a ghost town. Friday night, not good. Saturday afternoon brunch, not great. I was in Philly, it was pretty good. night was, like, the two spots I played, Pace and Blossom and Wicked Wolf Philly, like, always good. both nights were good, but definitely slower than in the previous times I played. Like, we still rocked out, we still had a dance floor, it was still fun, but you could just see it just wasn't what it could have been, you know? Yeah, but you get through February and here we go. Here we go again. love Philly, man. The food down there is ridiculous. And like, I will go and spend extra time just to go food to like the food spots. and Marty Dunston, aka Martin, grabbed dinner on Saturday, this place called Saraya, and it was so fire. It was like Mediterranean. It was awesome. It was like three course meal. It was fire. It was so good. Beautiful restaurant. Super dope. They do a good job. I Philly's got nice pockets where there is highly densely populated, very good restaurants in areas. with good competition comes good food for sure. And I love the history down there. As soon as it gets nice, I like to be down there and get to walk around and go walk around the old neighborhoods and the old cemeteries and all the historical end of the city. Yeah, it reminds me of where my family's from in Jersey City, like downtown Jersey City. Before it started going nuts and having all these new buildings and stuff reminds me of parts of Philly and like, I just sort of feel at home when I walk around there because it feels like Jersey City when I was a kid, you know. Yeah, it definitely does. Definitely does. So, let's start this episode. I wanna start this episode with a quote. Ferrari's like the king of quotes. I feel like he drops a quote every time he's on the show. He dropped two last episode, if you guys haven't checked that out, with Luke Alexander. But I wanna drop this quote. If you confuse, you lose. The confused mind never buys. So, I think about this a lot in my own brands, right? In Cream. in Get Down and in anything we do, like, how do we make this as simple as possible, as crystal clear as possible? How can we put something out that even someone who has no idea what it is can understand what we're putting out? And I think we've talked about it with venues, the venues that don't know who they are and don't have an identity. We've talked about it with DJs, but it really goes for anything, right? a restaurant. It's a Mediterranean restaurant, right? It's not a Mediterranean restaurant that does Italian food and does sushi and does all this other stuff. Like some of the best restaurants make one item, right? And they're just really fucking good at that one thing. And they get well known for that one thing. And I think we all need to start thinking about our businesses, our brands and our content in this way. Agreed. think as a consumer, you want to have a streamlined path to knowing what you're consuming, right? Especially in these very crowded markets. If we're thinking about this from a DJ's perspective, everybody's a DJ, right? Well, how are you going to stand out and stand apart from the next person? Right? And it's knowing what your brand wants to be. Number one, first and foremost, the kind of DJ you wanna be slash producer slash possible artist down the road and creating a path to having the consumer understand exactly what they're getting. So how does that come across on social media? How does that come across in your logo? How does that come across in your name? How many times do you and I talk about the DJ name? Right? Right, amazing DJ, we're gonna work with him, he's great, awful name. A lot, a lot, and a name says a lot, and a name can also get you or not get you gigs. Right, because maybe it sounds like you're a Latin DJ and their place isn't looking for a Latin DJ, but little do they know that you're not a Latin DJ, you're. name might just sound like it, right? Or, you know, take that and go with any genre, right? And that's huge. We've seen it done before. I mean, we can speak about, if you want to speak a little bit about yours, you're like, you know what I mean? But like, it's a little different story. But But like, you know, think starting out first of all with DJ name, that's huge. You have to think about what that DJ name says about you as a DJ and as the genre of DJ that you want to be. And then kind of build everything off of that. Because that is the basis for, that's the foundation for your DJ career. Yeah, I want to take this from two angles. From the first angle is if you're a newer DJ and you're trying to figure this stuff out, right? Try to pick something that's unique, that's easy to say. If I can't say your name, don't use that name. Like, if the way you spell the name makes it really confusing, don't do it that way. If there's other DJs that have that are well known or artists that are well known that are putting out music, under a very similar name or the same name, don't choose that name. You know, if you have to choose some Instagram or TikTok handle that makes no sense that people can't find you, then maybe you have to choose a different name, you know, like this is all stuff that you have to think about as a newer DJ. And also, it's okay if you choose a name and two or three years later, you're like, all right, this is not working for some of the reasons that I just said. Like it's okay to change your name. You haven't really built any brand equity. You haven't really built a name for yourself yet. Like, yeah, it sucks, but like just switch everything over to something else that does make more sense and is more unique and more marketable, you know? Yeah, I'm glad we talked about DJ Name, because it's so important, and I don't think we've ever talked about DJ Name on this podcast. And it's something that, you know, I know I joked about that you thought about recently. we let's get that's the other part of my conversation, right? The other part to talk about this and think about this is we're seeing a lot more DJs and artists either change their name or create a second brand for their name right now. Look at what Martin did, right? So Martin, he's using Marty Dunston as his open format, big like show local name. And then he's using Marty Marvel. for his music releases, for his artist shows, and that's the way he's separating things, right? Because sometimes, doing stuff as an open format local DJ hurts the artist that wants to be something completely different. So a way that a lot of artists are doing this right now are separating the two. I just talked to another DJ, I won't name names because I don't know if he wants me to talk about it, but he's a long time open format DJ that's now trying to do records on like Snake and with Snake and Mala and some of the other record labels, but he still wants to do open format stuff to pay the bills and make some money because he still loves it, but he just can't do it under the same name where he's trying to go play across the world and put out records on Confession and Snake's label and all these different labels. So it's something that's happening more and more often now, and it's something that I'm considering also. I won't dive deep into this, but... If nothing else, like I've had the same logo and sort of the same brand for a really long time and I just think it's time for a refresh, right? Maybe that's keeping cream and starting something new to do the artist path. Maybe that's mixing cream altogether, right? And just starting something new or I don't know exactly what it's gonna be yet, but I've even been thinking about it and it's okay. It's exciting. It's scary. Like. It's something that's been happening for a very, very long time, not super publicized. I don't think there's a lot of super famous DJ producers that have been doing it for such a long time. I mean, right, that's a good one. future house music and with high low he's doing more techno. I don't even know what you would call that just deeper darker faster music for sure. I really liked Way Out West back in the day and then later found out Jody Wisternoff was the brainchild behind that. then before that, Everything But The Girl, you the song Missing, that Ben Watt was behind that amazing, you minimal DJ. So, you know, if you're thinking about, if you're teetering on like doing these and making a change, maybe go back and researching people that have done it and kind of see the contrast of, you know, where they came from to like what they transitioned into. See how drastic it is or, you know, just get ideas. You you could grab ideas. I mean, because this has been done for so such a long time. Yeah, I mean, look at we've talked about DJ, we just talked about snake. DJ Snake is we all know and we know the music he's putting out. He started like a techno brand. I think it's called the Outlaw this year that he played a show and played all techno music. So who else Maurice West to Mao P and he was more electro house like more you know, I don't even know EDM I guess you would call it and now he's doing the Mao P thing which is a different vibe. And The reason why these artists are all doing this and why I'm thinking about this and other people are thinking about it is because having multiple brands allows you to do multiple things, but keeps those brands very focused on one thing, you know? So Snake can do his, what he's known as, as Snake, when he does the outlaws, everyone knows it's gonna be techno. You know, when Oliver Heldens does Oliver Heldens, you're gonna hear Koala and all his stuff that he did from 2015 to 2020, and Hilo is gonna be 136 to 140 BPM and a lot harder, you know? So think about that in your brands, even if you only have one brand. What are you, right? Do you wanna be an open format DJ? That's awesome. But how do you present yourself as an open format DJ? In your mixes, in if you're making edits, in the edits you're putting out, in the way your logo looks. Like you have to think about all of these things that create your quote unquote brand. Yeah. Agreed. mean, this is so this is so up your alley. All of this. You're so good. You love it. I know. we we've been having our team goals calls and a lot of my conversations with the guys we've been talking to, or we started talking to have been brand focused, you know, when you and I when you and I are booking DJs even right, let's put the Booker hat on real quick. When you and I are booking DJs, and we're going through all the people that we work with, the easiest people for us to book are the ones that we know what they do. We know this guy. plays the open format, hip hop house, Latin, he can play or she can play everything. We're to put that person in those rooms. Or this guy is more of a tech house, EDM guy, we're going to put that person in these rooms, where we struggle is like, we'll bring up certain names. And we're just like, I'm not really sure what they are, what they want to do, you know, and that's where we struggle. If Gary and I as bookers don't know what direction you're trying to take, or what type of gigs you're trying to book. it's less likely we're gonna book you because we're not sure where you fit. As a young DJ, right, you can be a very talented producer of one genre of music, but you just don't have a room to play that in. Well, make sure that you're, if you're a strong open format DJ, make sure that you're, and you want to gig locally, like make sure that it's known that you're a good open format DJ and not just this X, Y, and Z producer that you can't really play your stuff at. Like you have to kind of... And maybe that's where having two different brands would would benefit even as even as a young performer, as a young DJ, you know, it's. I could see where it can get really confusing for somebody who has the will and the talent to gig locally on an open format in an open format space, but also they're maybe producing something different. Like, what kind of advice would you give? a young DJ that maybe has this identity crisis, this issue. I think as a young DJ, you gotta kind of figure it out, right? You gotta do a little bit of everything until you really figure out what it is you wanna do. And even if you're a young DJ and you do know what you wanna do right now, in three years, it could be something completely different. And that's okay, right? It's okay. You don't have to do the same thing forever. But you just have to be very specific in how you present yourself, right? And especially if you're changing lanes. How are you gonna make people aware that you were once doing this thing and now you're doing this thing? Maybe it is a name change, maybe it's just a logo change. Maybe it's just the way you're putting out content, right? Because a lot of times the content you're putting out is how people know you and how they perceive you. They don't know you as a person, they don't get to hear you DJ, so what do they do? They go look at your sound club, they go look at your Instagram or TikTok. And like, that's a whole other part of this where... Those social channels need to sort of mimic what you want to be as well. It's hard guys, I know it is, it's a lot. It's confusing, it's a lot of work. We always say it's your resume, so it better reflect who you are as a DJ or an artist, right? Like you need to have all of that stuff in line. We have gone to book plenty of people and go through their Instagram and their TikTok and then their SoundCloud. It's like, nope, not a fit. Or, nope, this doesn't work. Like right off the bat. wow, they don't even have any DJ photos. Like, nope, next. know, it's... Yeah, so like, it's so important to keep that stuff so tight. I'm one to talk, like I don't have any DJ stuff on my Instagram or TikTok right now. But like, it's so important to keep that stuff. Like if you wanna evolve and you wanna continue to grow and you wanna be a successful young DJ and a successful young artist, the main thing that you need to get done is your branding and your content. This is the type of stuff that you probably are gonna have to pay for. And it's just the cost of doing business. And you pay somebody who can sort of execute your vision. And it's just so important, rather than you sitting there trying to do it, if you don't have the skills to do it, it's like, find a graphic designer, find somebody that you can strategize, then maybe you pay them once a month to get on a phone call for an hour, and you strategize on... what kind of content you could put out for social media this month. Or you have a strategy around your brand, right? You talk to a marketing person, it's like, hey, I need one hour of your time to figure out my colors and maybe do a new logo and anything that's associated with your brand, spend the money upfront. Look at it like, I'm gonna go work this DJ gig this week and all of that money is gonna go towards me moving my brand forward. It's important. most important. And you know, you were talking about our end of year meetings and it's funny, it's one of the main things that everybody deals with. It's one of the main things that everybody has an issue with or everybody feels like they could have done better. We ask, what could you have done better last year? And a lot of times it's content, didn't put out enough content, didn't put it, whether that's mixes, whether that's TikToks or Instagram reels or whatever it is. Content's usually one of the major, major ones. And that affects your overall brand at the end of the day. And if that's suffering, like I said, you're just not gonna be, as in demand as the next person. Yeah, you have to be intentional. This stuff takes time. And as a young DJ, like we talk about like protecting your brand. If you're a young DJ, you don't really have a brand yet, you know, it's very rare for a young DJ to have a brand. So don't worry about that as much, right? Like, I don't want to play this place because it's going to hurt my brand. Well, you don't really have a brand yet. Like where where you when you start growing, then you could start doing things to hurt your brand, right? If you've reached a certain level and you're still doing stuff that everyone knows is below, below, you know, where you should be playing or pays way less, why would the higher end places pay you at the top of the market, right? They're going to pay you a lower number because they know they can. So, You're not really protecting a brand until you have a brand and you've built a brand and that just takes time normally. I think it's a hard thing for people to understand when it's time to take that next step. I mean, I think owning your market, right? As a DJ, like owning your market, knowing that you've played all the best places in your market and you're in demand in your market, well, you should have an established brand at that point, right? Or... Yeah, I think that's what it is. When people start coming to you to book you, that's when you're starting to create a brand. And you might not even have a brand yet, you might just have a buzz, you know? Right. But you can start to think about it, right? And start creating it. this spot is below me or maybe I need to raise my rates or maybe I need to adjust my logo because my friend did this when I was 18 and it looks like shit. Yeah. Yep. I think that's a great point. That's a great time to start thinking about that when you're in demand. you see guys and girls start to think about this a little early, and now they're protecting themselves from gigs that may or may not help them down the road, where it's like, just go play those gigs. You never know who's gonna be in those rooms. Nobody's looking at you and saying, well, you played at that place. I'm not gonna book you. You're not big enough yet. So have to understand when that time is. The other side of this is, I'm thinking about somebody specifically, when your production becomes very, very, very good, and people are, and your production becomes in demand as well, and you're ready to try to push your production out to labels, you have to start to think about where you're playing and what that looks like as well. Yeah, mean, Mikey's talked about this a lot on here and we got into it a little bit last week. I think the production side of it, where I'll make the point from an open format DJ that's trying to go into more of an artist thing, because that's sort of the journey that I've been on the last few years, And even in the edits that I'm making. my edits used to be sort of all genres and whatever I felt like making. And sometimes it was electro house and sometimes it was tech house and sometimes it was trap. Sometimes I do a hip hop blend like and that was that's fine because I'm an editor that gets paid on a site and on digital music pool. And like I have to do a certain number of edits. But now my strategy is I'm only putting out edits that really fit the style of music that number one I'm creating. in remixes and originals, but also the style of music that I just wanna play when I go DJ. I want people to recognize when they say cream, they know the style of music that they're gonna hear when they hit play on Spotify, Beatport, or the record pools. And that's hard to do. And it's really hard to do when you're coming from another place, right? Open format or doing stuff in all genres. But. Once you do find that sound and find that lane that you wanna be in, everything you need, everything you're doing needs to be down that lane. It doesn't make sense for Cream to make a 100 BPM hip hop blend when all I'm producing right now is like 130 BPM bass tech house. So I think that's when you could start thinking more about that on the music side. Two Face has done a really good job with their edits and with their music. You sort of have a feel for what they're making, right? Kase's, same thing. All his edits, very similar. Even, you know, we talked about Martin, Marty Dunstan earlier this show. All of his remixes are very similar. Solano, his music is, you know it's a Solano track. So once you find that vibe in that world that you want to live in, everything you need, everything you're doing needs to be in that. style. I good points there. know what it is. You gotta do a lot of shit to figure out what it is. First. But then it's like full steam ahead and you're narrow vision on what you want to create. at ease. Again, I could talk about this all day, every day, but let's move to something we're noticing in our market right now. And it comes with colder months, slower times, less people coming through the doors of venues, but we're seeing venues asking DJs, both our DJs and other DJs, to either play for free, or to play for a discounted rate, half rate. We're seeing it happen a lot right now. I don't know, how should DJs, number one, DJs who are being asked to play for less money or for free, how should they approach it, number one? Number two, why is this happening? Well, I'm going to take a pretty aggressive stance on this. What I'm seeing and the owners that I'm talking to is that they're bringing in younger, younger, younger DJs who are like just kind of starting out, maybe fresh out of college, just turned 21. They have 30, 40 friends that they could bring out, right? We're kind of back to that. This happened, my gosh, this was kind of a popular thing 15 years ago, a little something like that, where you would go and you bring 40 people and they pay it $200, $150 and they'd give you, you know, some drinks and about like getting tickets upfront and paying for tickets and then having to go sell them to your friends too. So that's why it's becoming attractive to business owners because it's getting people in the door immediately. I think if I'm a DJ, a young DJ who's trying to break into a town, a city, a market, I'm taking that gig all day long. Like even if I know that there's a DJ group in there that's booking the DJs, I'm as a young hungry DJ that has 40 friends that want to come out, I'm booking that. that gig. You know, because that's kind of your break. That's their break into trying to DJ out somewhere. That's not the front house. I know this is not the popular also probably don't even know better. They don't know the politics of the game, so to speak. No, but I'm thinking about me as a 20 year old fresh, you know, in college and I have all these friends that want to come out party and I just want to go play out. I'm going to do it, right? That's not, yes, please do. All right, story time with Kareem. So the first time that I was ever booked to play in a venue was in Hoboken. I was DJing a Super Bowl party. The manager of a venue happened to be there came up to me said, Hey, you know, I like your music. I know that we know a lot of the same people. I see you out and about. Would you want to come play at my spot? Absolutely. I didn't care if it was for $1,000 or for $1. I could care less. didn't even ask about money. I don't care because all I cared about was getting an opportunity to instead of DJing backyard parties with my friends or Super Bowl parties with my friends or my bedroom, go play in an actual nightclub. And I went, had no idea what I was doing, had no idea about the flow of a night. All I did was brought as many possible people as I could. Early, the second I started playing, the minute doors opened, and just got through my set, right? Like, I brought 50, 60 people through the door and it didn't matter how bad my set was, I was gonna get another chance because of the sheer amount of people that I brought through the door. From an owner's perspective, they don't give a fuck about 10 to 11 o'clock if my DJ sucks and they brought 50 or 60 people, so be it, I know I have a strong DJ coming in after that person and I'll just have them go on earlier. to like save the music part of the night. Like I wasn't that bad, obviously, but like not mixing the cleanest and definitely playing songs that I should have been playing at 10 or 11 o'clock kind of thing. You see this happen a lot at places that are on the down, the down venues that are maybe on their way out, possibly closing, really, really not doing well. And they're just trying to cut corners left and right. I'll tell you a quick, quick story. I played Y bar in New York city was a prominent bottle service spot. I was like, this is amazing. Little did I know, like they were just on their last leg. They brought me in, brought 80 people in, had a great night. They wound up closing like a month or two later, but six months prior to that, AM played the room and know, Missy was hanging out there and all this, you know, a celebrity spot. like in my eyes, I'm like, this is amazing. It's hard for me to get mad at young DJs when they come in and they play for cheap. I won't because it's, we've all been a young DJ at some point, right? It's, that's not, I think what I, the way I look at it is I try to being in the position that we are in, try to, educate the venue owner that like, you might not make as much money as you would if you had a better DJ on. You might make up that $150 that you're trying to save. Because it's not always the DJ, right? It's not always the DJ that can bring the 50 people. Sometimes it's just the DJ that's gonna play for 150 bucks instead of the 350 that's getting paid. Right? So the venue owners looking at it is, I'm going to save $200 on my entertainment, but they don't realize that that money's walking out the door when the music shuts off or something goes wrong and the DJ can't save it. there are a multitude of things that can go wrong when inexperience is in the DJ booth. So, you know, we're in a different position that we can try to educate our venue owners with that stuff. But if you're a resident DJ somewhere and you see somebody come in and this happens, that is a conversation that you can't have with the owner or manager that is saying, hey, maybe we're gonna cut your Fridays or maybe we're gonna try this new guy out every other Friday. This is a good way to show a little bit of value and show a little bit of knowledge that, hey man, I know this place like the back of my hand. I know how the flow of the night is going to go and... you know, this is where we can make money. And just trying to save a couple bucks here, you know, might lose you in lose you money in the long run. So I think that's that's an advantage that you might have as a resident DJ. I love having the conversation of sure this DJ might be able to bring 20, 30 people. But if they bring 20 or 30 and 100 walk in and walk out because the transitions are train wrecking and the music's not right and they just suck. Well, what's the point of the 50 people if you lost 100, right? Or what's the point if your venue which stays open till 230 clears out by 130 and you lose an hour of revenue because your DJ is not that good. So like Whenever I'm selling myself or selling someone who's trying to make more than the market rate, let's say, that's how I sell it, right? Like, well, I'm not gonna, I'm older, right? I've been doing this for a long time. I'm not bringing 150, I'm not bringing 50 people, I'm not bringing 100 people. It's a good night if I could bring 10 or 20 people, you know? But where I'm going to make you money is your people are gonna stay longer. The people who are there are gonna stay for the extra drink, the extra shot at the end of the night so that your revenue increases by thousands of dollars, right? If you close by 130 and you lose an hour of time selling alcohol, you're losing a lot of money. And a good DJ can keep those people around and keep them spending and increase revenue over time. Maybe not on the front end, but on the back end. I think I'm thinking about my brunch on Sunday and how and just how strong it got, you know, at us at the on the back end. You know, after five hours or after five hours of DJ. Like it got stronger and stronger and stronger. And, know, somebody who's inexperienced, like they're just not going to do that for you. You know, you just don't as a young DJ, you just don't have a strong four hours or five hours. And that's the timeframe that these bars and these nightclubs are asking for right now. They're asking for four, five and six hour sets. And all that's going to happen is it's going to flatten out. You're going to hear the same old songs over and over again. And you're just not going to have that progression that you would with somebody that season with somebody that deserves the actual, what the rate is. Right. You brought up a really good point earlier in that this oftentimes happens in places that are starting to not do so well. an owner may think this is the right route to go because, we're not getting as many people. Like we need to get more people in the door in the beginning of the night. I would argue that it's even more important to have those higher end DJs in your place because whoever does walk in the door, you want the music to be so good that they stay and they tell their friends to come to this place because the music's great. Because again, if you have a DJ that's not that good, customers might not, they might not know the ins and outs of DJing, but they know if someone's good or not, if they like the music or if a DJ is mixing cleanly or not. So the venues that aren't doing so well, it's even more important to have a veteran quality, strong DJ playing your place more so than ever. Because when the people that do walk through that door need to have a really good time or they're never gonna come back again. You know, I didn't think about this and it's probably a good selling point for us. Like, why not partner with those young DJs, right? Why not partner with them and say, hey man, bring your friends out, play the first hour two, put them on even earlier, if it's a usual 9pm set, start them at eight, he can play eight to 10, and then have the veteran DJ come on. You could pay him the hundred bucks, the venue could pay him the hundred bucks to be there. He could bring his 40 friends and then have the veteran DJ go on to hold the room down and to keep those people there. And then, and then I feel like everybody wins there. Right. And then that, that DJ gets to meet the, the older DJ, establish a relationship and maybe something good comes of it. And they can maybe learn something from just being there. You know, it's, it's, I think that's, I think that's overlooked. It's something that just really isn't or hasn't been done all that often. Why does it have to be feast or famine? Right? Like a nice hybrid situation there. Everybody wins. Yeah, I like that idea. The reason why the venue owners or managers will go directly to the DJs because they know they're just hungry and young and want to work. And they know that they could offer them less money. Instead of saying, hey, Cream and Gary, we want to pay your DJs less. I'm just going to go find my own young DJ that can come on. And like that sort of defeats the purpose of working with us, right? Because we have all these operations and systems in place. so that we are finding the best DJs that we can, right? Not all the best DJs, but we're finding good DJs that we trust, that we know are gonna go into venues and do a good job. And like the owners just finding a random person off the street that who, they don't know anything. It works sometimes, Like it works sometimes. Like Dramas was a walk-in at the venue that we were residents at with a mix CD. It worked out for that venue. He wound up being one of the best DJs at that place, but it doesn't happen all that often. I just thought of him though walking in with a CD and it just made me laugh. But yeah, I think it's just, You're going to see this happen as alcohol sales decline as we keep saying, as people stop going out to the local bar and do, this is going to affect the industry as a whole and you're going to see it happen. I think it's just adapting to it and understanding how to make it work for you as well. Like coming up with an idea like I just came up with on the spot, like things like that, like how can we work together to make a better product at the places that we're playing at? And that's. That's just showing so much value. how can you show value to the decision makers in the venue? I sent something to our team like, you know, it be a good time to get into the venues early and clean the DJ booth this week because like, what are the little things that we can do right now to just show a little extra value during a slower season? But whenever you have good ideas like this, set up that meeting with the owner or decision maker and it really does show the value, right? Your idea of partnering with a young DJ, opening an hour early, giving them a shot. So now you're involved in the process. And the next time the owner thinks about something like this or an idea or using a different set of DJs, they're gonna come to you first because you've shown value, you've brought them ideas, you've shown your thinking about something beyond just yourself and you're thinking about the business and how we as a team, DJ, owner, manager, can create something that's successful. we constantly say power in numbers, I mean, it's just what it is exactly what our business is based off of. And it's probably a good thing to show these younger up and coming DJs that are, they might not know they're undercutting, but if they're, know, these younger guys that are coming in and playing at a lower rate, you know, showing them that there is power in having a team or having a good. a good community around you that can kind of open up even more opportunity. And don't just be a lone wolf out there cutting out everybody's legs. Because that's just a bad, it's a bad look at the end of the day. You're going to learn it in time as a young DJ. You'll learn in time. But, you know, it's important for the older guys, instead of bitching and complaining about it, you know, maybe take some of these younger guys under your wing and kind of show them the right way to do things. Also, if you're a young DJ and there is a promoter group or a get down DJs or someone that you know is in the venue and either booking the DJs or DJing there often, if an owner goes to you directly, it might not be a terrible idea to reach out to that group or that DJ or that person and say, hey, aren't you guys booking the DJs at X venue? This person just hit me up to book me. What do they normally pay you guys? They offered me this much. Like sharing that information, like, allows you to probably make more money when you get booked, right? If we're just using very simple numbers, right? If Get Down DJs is getting paid $400 a set and an owner offers you $200 a set and you just say, yes, you're taking less money than you potentially can be making. On the flip side, if you said, hey, Cream Gary, they just offered me this set. I'm really excited. I really want to work here. Like, is it cool or like, what do you guys think? And we'd say, well, how much do they offer you? And they say 200. And we would say, well, we're getting paid way more than that. So why don't you either book through us or ask for more money? And then you're making more money. You're still getting your booking. We're collaborating back and forth on this booking situation. And like, everybody's happy. And you make more money. Right. Yeah, because nine times out of 10, the only reason that if, the only reason the owner is turning around and looking for another DJ outside of the booking agency they currently are using or the booker that they currently are using is all, it's all money related. They're just looking for a cheaper way out, cheaper way to get things done. Nine times out of 10. there are those small instances where there could be an attitude issue or something like that. But nine times out of 10, it's all money related. Yeah, and, and, and just another example, right? If someone even hits me up, right? I'm not a new DJ, obviously, if someone hits me up for a venue, and I know that there's a booking agency or someone who's doing the bookings there, I'm going to text that person or DM that person if I don't know them immediately, because just out of respect, I know it's their spot. And maybe they said to the owner or manager, yeah, just hit up Cream and book him. But I want to ask that person if that's the case, or if they're trying to like, give me this other group's bookings, which you'll want to be careful about, right? Just having that open line of communication, think, unless you just don't give a shit and you just wanna take it and you wanna burn a bridge, then sure, just do it. But I would never say that that's the route to take. Any bridge I've ever seen burned has always come back to bite that person in the ass, always, 100 % of the time. Yeah, I agree. So kind of on the same, kind of on the same topic, right? Yeah, and this next one is a similar, it's a similar, it fits under the conversation we're having, but if you're also, if you're a DJ that's brought in by a DJ group, let's say Get Down DJs books you at one of our venues and it's the first time you're working with us or first time you're playing that particular venue. Let's say you go there, you crush it, you do a great job, you bring people out. and the owner or manager is there and they're super happy and they're like, we want to have you back. Like, can we book you for this, this, this and this? It's really important right in that moment to say, I had a great time tonight. I'd love to be back. But, know, Cream and Gary booked this place. So just tell them you want me back and they'll handle it. Like, I think that's also really important because if you just negotiate some deal around me and Gary, then we're never going to want to work with you again either, you know? Like, if we're the reason why you're in a particular place, we would expect you, the DJ, to bring us these things that an owner or manager are asking you. I think that's just good business and like, something that I do when I get booked for other stuff all the time, you know? Even if it's not a booking agency, it doesn't have to this big, huge thing. It might just be a promoter, but the person who is paying you, you don't want to screw over the person who's paying you. Think about it that way, and that's kind of what you're doing in that situation. And like that's the bottom line. Like it doesn't matter who it is, if you don't wanna screw your money around. there's, in our situation, there are so many other opportunities within our group. don't, to screw the group over, it's just a stupid move, especially if you wanna play at many places in the area. Yeah, if you were booked by someone or a promoter or a DJ group once, you need to book through that person or that group every time you're in that place. It just is what it is. It's the cost of doing business and like, It just is what it is. RM, RM, great example. RM books me up at Avalon Dohegan's son. He was the one who first booked me. He went to the manager and said, Kareem's a great DJ, great dude, we should get him in here. He got me in. And then the manager was like, do want me to like book through you? I'm like, no, book through RM. Like RM booked me here. He was the person who got me in here. He's the single reason why I'm here. I would not be here without him. Book me through RM. It's RM's account. Let him have the decision making power. I don't want to take that away from him. You know what I mean? And that's just good business. Right. It's sometimes overlooked. And sometimes as a young DJ, maybe you're just not even realizing. You're not trying to hurt anybody. Sometimes you just don't know, you know? it's kind of like... want to talk dollars, don't want to talk dates, you don't want to talk any of that stuff. That's why you have a Booker to take care of all that. right. Maybe it's a date and you say like, listen, let whoever know that I'm down for that date, sure. Or, you know, that's okay. Yeah. Happens all the time actually. So that's all right. But yeah, once you start talking numbers, cause my God, I just remembered a situation we had years ago. Yeah. And like, it's just a bad, okay. No, no, no. I'm not getting into that one. I'll let you go. I'll tell two stories. One is something that happened recently with a DJ we had never worked with before. They went into a venue, like I said, brought a bunch of people, did a good job. The owner was really happy. The DJ text me, him, and the owner in a group chat and said, hey guys, this owner wants me back here. Can we like set up the next date? And I'm like, this is just not like, this is not the way, like you should not be getting the owner's phone number, putting group texts together, like none of this stuff. And that was just like a simple conversation like, hey, this is the way we like to do things. Like moving forward, this is, you know, this is the protocol kind of thing. And he just didn't know. He was just young and hungry and excited. And I understand that, right? I get it. It happens. But like, there's a certain way to do things in a certain way to not. Yeah, because especially when you're dealing in a group of DJs, like you don't want to be stepping on any of those other DJs. So it has nothing to do with you and I as much as it has to do with screwing over another DJ who might have that date. Maybe it's his birthday and he's got that date booked for months. You you just you have to just be careful with the way you maneuver. Right, or sometimes there's a set number of DJs that are in the rotation. And if a new DJ is brought in, someone who's working their regular and expecting two gigs a month, let's say, is going to lose one of those gigs. So it's a it is a trickle down effect. And it affects more than just you the DJ for sure. I have one more story to tell. Few years back, this is pre COVID. I was booking DJs at a prominent venue. And whatever, was DJing there myself pretty regularly and another DJ text me and said, hey, Kareem, I thought you were booking the DJs at this place and I thought you were playing on these certain nights. Why is this other guy texting me, asking me about open dates when you're the guy doing stuff there? And I'm like, I don't know, that's a great question. Why is this other person reaching out? And that was just a situation where like this other DJ I guess was trying to take control and instead of like working with me to get regular dates just kind of was going around my back with ownership or management or whoever to sort of set themselves up. But because I have good standing with a lot of DJs, this person reached out and said, Kareem, I want to give you a heads up because it seems like something's going on behind the scenes here. And it was something was going on behind the scenes. I like, you know, lots of love for the DJ, give me the heads up because I that person didn't have to do that. But like even in that moment, it's like, all right, if I'm ever in this situation, I'm doing the exact same thing because I appreciated it so much coming from, you know, one of my peers. Yeah. just the right way and the wrong way to do things. And it takes a lot of experience and a lot of doing the wrong thing to learn how to do the right thing. Or we could listen to this podcast every week, either way. But I was just reading or listening to something and it was just like, yeah, like. How many times I fucked up. made my 13 year career to understand like, you know, how to do things the right way. You know, when you're fresh out and you're 22 years old and you've only been DJing for, even if you have been DJing for five or six years since high school, but like when you break into the industry where people are making a living, like there is a, you can piss a lot of people off fast. cause you're messing with people's life livelihood. gigs to pay their bills, you know? Like some people, this is what they do, period. And losing DJ gigs is literally taking money directly out of their pockets, you know? It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. So yeah, I don't know, we've had music, we are like music and culture podcasts, you we've had some guests. So Gary and I wanted to get back on and really like hammer out a coaching episode for sure. And for those of you listening, like that's why you listen to this show, right? Especially if you're a younger DJ and you're trying to figure out how to navigate this messy, complicated, intricate industry, right? And that's what this episode was. Let's end it though with a little Grammy talk. You know, can I just? shots. I just hate the Grammys. I just hate them. this, to be honest, this year we hammered home the fact that pop was huge. Specifically on this podcast. Because we had to play so many huge pop records. Like had to. There was no choice in or around it, whether they're remixes or originals. So it was... As much as I hate the Grammys, it's always nice to see people get the recognition that they deserve for the hard work that they put in to the art that they're creating. And I was hugely excited to see all of the girl pop stars get the recognition that they so rightfully deserved this week. Even though I could care less about the show itself and how the politics of it gets run. I think it's really nice to always have a night where you're recognized for something that you work hard for. Yeah, I totally agree. And I relate to the Grammys to like the Hall of Fame voting, right? Like someone's always gonna be upset and everyone has their own opinions and that's okay. And that's part of the reason why they do this, right? I didn't get to watch the Grammys this year, unfortunately. I do like to watch because I love to see the performances. I love to see the reactions of the artists, the other artists in the crowd when they're watching whoever perform, you know? Like I saw a lot of clips. People were like super hyped from the Dochi performance. What else? Like the Chappellrone speech. You know, there's certain highlights that I got to see that I didn't even realize that the Grammys were on TV and I didn't watch. But I do love to watch the performances. I just think it's like cool to see everything that goes into that and see who's highlighted and hear how they perform, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I was glad that's you got. glaring issue with the awards. Most of them, like, I could live with a lot of them, right? Like Kendrick won a bunch for Not Like Us, like, absolutely. I could live with that. Charlie got electric album, love that. The one that I just couldn't get over was Beyonce winning album of the year. I know she's never won an album of the year and like, Sometimes, you know, an artist and someone who's as talented as an amazing as Beyonce, sometimes they just get like that, a legacy award because they never got it yet, they haven't gotten it yet. And I think this might've been that situation. But like, we think about music from a DJ's perspective and from a crowd perspective and what songs are people gonna be excited about and what songs are we making remixes and edits of? And I don't know, I could name one song on the Beyonce album. Yeah, yeah, I there are there. I played a bunch of country bars this year, so I know a few. Do you think that like the. I we were just hating on her all the time. Do you think that the. I think she's great, but I hate on her still. Like I love Beyonce. I she's so incredibly talented, but I just hate on some of this sometimes. I play so much Beyonce, it's not even funny. And we're just sit here on this podcast and hate on her. Do you think like some of the politics is involved in this? Have to Yeah. Do you think like some of the politics in this and the innovation and pushing black country music forward? You think that had a little bit to do with this? This win? Beyonce, you know, I talk trash about two albums. I talk trash about two albums that Beyonce put out the dance album and the country album. And it takes guts to do those two things when you're known for doing something else, you know, and idiots like me with a microphone can talk trash on her when she's moving the music industry forward and sort of breaking some barriers. And from that perspective, I could recognize like It takes guts, takes talent, and it's awesome that she's doing these other things. Well, think about our industry and what we keep saying, right? Like people want to know what they're getting into, right? And they knew in those on those two albums, what they're getting into. They know they were getting this dance album that was inspired by black house music of the eighties and nineties. And then this one, they knew they were getting a country album and her fan base ate it up. They're going to eat anything she does up, but they really rode out like the theming on both of those things with the cowboy boots and the cowboy hats and they were coming into the bar, fully representing this album. And then also with the album prior, fully coming into the bars and the nightclubs, fully embracing the house music that not only was, not only the music that was on the album, but also embracing the house music that inspired the album, which was amazing. So I think it was their education lessons in music history when she puts things like this out. And maybe that's why, maybe that's why she gets the nod on this one, right? Yeah, but maybe the music wasn't that good. And maybe like all that other stuff is great and you could recognize it, but at the same time, like there were other albums where the music was just better overall, you know? And maybe it's not about the music. Maybe it is about all this other stuff and that's the awards and like that's okay too, I guess. We'll never actually know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, besides that, was all the, you like you said in the beginning, all the people we talked about, Tame Impala won. They put out a lot of really cool, awesome music this year. So that was cool to see. What else did we, we went through the whole list. What else was it? What other highlights for you, Gar? Well, you know, my highlight person, persons of the year, grateful, dead persons of the year. Yeah. I was pumped about it. I was, was glad that they got it. They got recognized because they, they just kind of fly and fly under the radar. that stood out to me was I'd been sort of out of the hip hop world for a while now, but like, I saw that Pete Rock and Common put an album out this year and like had no idea. Can't wait to go listen to that. Super hyped to check that out. I always find that after the Grammys, there are these hidden gems that I missed over the last year, because so much music comes out, you consume so much music from a professional DJ perspective, which far differs from what a lot of us listen to on our daily basis. So it's nice to find these newer albums that drop, that get recognized, that... it shows little notoriety so we can kind of dig back and get into the. Yeah, I'm gonna go listen to the Doche album for sure. I know some of the tracks, but I haven't sat through and listened to the whole thing. So I'm gonna do that. I brought up Thames before Thames one and I forget what the award was, but I'm a huge huge Thames fan, huge fan. So maybe just go dig into that album and some of some of that music a little a little deeper for sure too. I want to say it was it was African. Yeah. award was like African world music or something like that. such a strong Africa as a whole just has such a strong, strong musical presence right now. and that is just hit everywhere and it's been hitting everywhere for a couple of years now. so good to see that that's, that was recognized as well. Sweet. Little promo, Get Down Radio just came out with our boy Gino. So go check that out. Love this mix. One of my favorite mixes that has been submitted from the start of 2024. Like I've listened to this mix a few times, so guys definitely go check it out. It's really good. Shout to Marco from Two-Face. We are pumping out two mixes a month now, which is great. So you're gonna see. get down DJs and also some guys from outside the group and girls from outside the group and all different genres of music. So you might catch an open format, you might catch a techno, you might catch a deep house, who knows what you're gonna get. So check out the SoundCloud or on Spotify or anywhere that you listen to podcasts and check that out. And guys, drop us a follow or subscribe to this podcast, wherever you're listening, like take two seconds for us right now. and give a subscriber a follow. It's super important. It really helps us a lot. So, would greatly appreciate that. Yes, sir. All right, thank you guys. Thanks for listening to this episode and we will talk to you guys soon. Peace.