Rick Wonder: How To Become a Hard Ticket Seller. Do THIS To Create Dynamic Content! How To Make Record Pools Great Again!

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

• Building a brand requires strategic planning and execution.
• Consistency in content and engagement is key to growth. Spend the first hour of your day on what matters most.
• Record pools remain a vital resource for DJs.
• Content creation should reflect what resonates with you.
• Kanye West's actions have complicated his musical legacy.
• The current state of hip-hop is seen as stale by many DJs.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Guest Overview
• 3:38 Reflecting on Growth and Change
• 6:41 The DJing Landscape: Opportunities and Challenges
• 9:31 Building a Successful DJ Brand
• 12:42 The Importance of Teamwork in the Music Industry
• 16:09 Social Media Strategies for DJs
• 19:13 Content Creation and Brand Development
• 22:05 Investing in Skills for Long-Term Success
• 29:13 Prioritizing Passion: The Importance of Daily Music Practice
• 32:14 Evolving DJ Skills: Balancing Craft and Business
• 36:58 Adapting to the Crowd: The Art of DJing
• 38:58 Setting Goals: Personal and Professional Aspirations
• 42:05 Finding Your Sound: The Journey of Music Production
• 46:22 Navigating Music Platforms: Record Pools and Beyond
• 51:22 Innovative Content Creation: Engaging with Audiences
• 55:39 Kanye West: A Complex Legacy in Music
• 55:46 The Controversy of Kanye West's Music
• 59:38 Navigating the DJ Scene: Music Selection Challenges
• 1:02:21 The Evolution of Hip-Hop and Its Impact on DJing
• 1:05:29 The State of New Hip-Hop: A DJ's Perspective
• 1:09:08 Advice for Aspiring DJs: Just Get Started

Transcript

0:41

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the hundred and seventy fifth episode of the grow my DJ business podcast. My name is Kareem. Gary W here. We have a special guest today. Mr. Rick Wonder in the building. What up, Rick? that. What's up guys? What's going on? going on? you guys all know Rick, DJ, producer, headliner, music, exclusive artist. What else? Graphic designer. What other adjectives? New York resident. Yeah, fat kid, foodie, you know. Coffee, coffee connoisseur. Yeah, absolutely. You have our espressos here and our iced. We were talking about it before we started recording, man. You were on episode 17 of this podcast back in September 2020. A long time. Pre-video, pre-video, back in the day of just audio podcasts. that's the truth. was COVID time. Yeah, that was wild. third guest I'm looking at. was like Carlos, Melange, Kova, and then you. It's pretty wild. long way since that time, Really have then it was like are we gonna is DJing coming back? Are we gonna like hang out in person and now it's like What city were you in this weekend? What what happened? What's that? I remember specifically that conversation, you were sort of laying out like what you wanted to accomplish. And at that time, you were trying to really make a push towards being more of an artist and focusing more on house music and like focusing on your brand. And it's just really great to think back to that conversation of where you were thinking about doing it and planning it to now where your schedule is jammed out, your book through the summer, like you're playing all over the place and all these big shows. So like, it's so awesome to see. from that conversation to now your growth and sort of where you're at. Love it. You know what's funny? Until you said that, like I didn't really think about it. We literally documented talking before stuff was gonna happen and what we would do if things opened back up. now, yeah, didn't think about it until literally this very second. This is like a fast forward, shit, look at all this past couple years of stuff. That's a cool way look at it. I didn't think about that. We literally could talk about it right before prior to things opening back up and stuff. Yeah, you were killing it in the open format game and, obviously one of the best open format DJs in New York city. And then you're like, I'm getting heavy into this house thing, like on that episode. And you're like, this is kind of my roadmap. And you know, like you said, here we are. And like now you're, you're, you're, your edits and whatnot have taken off like crazy in the last couple of years here. And you could see all the hard work that you put in and it's really. Right. Right. Yeah, I mean it's it's been quite the I mean for all of us really it's been quite the journey quite the change We would have had this talk in 2019 No one would have thought we'd be like where we are now, you know in for better for better or worse have a business. We didn't even have get down like I wasn't traveling at all really like And now look how big Gethound has the university. We're now on a brand new, like we're on my DJ podcast, it's a whole other thing. You guys have interviewed so many people. It's cool, it's cool to look back. Kareem, you've been traveling all over the place. Gary, you run Florida now, that's it. If I gotta go into the state, I gotta check in first. It's cool. We're doing a boiler room set in a couple of weeks, that's gonna be awesome. Yeah, plug that right off the bat. is gonna come out and our Boiler Room 360 set is going to be on this Saturday. So if you guys are listening and you wanna come see Cream back to back Rick Wonder and then we got Timo and Two-Face back to back to start the night. Like super hype for that. We'll put the ticket link in the show notes. Did I tell you guys this is my first time ever doing any kind of 360 boiler room, like middle, moved stage setup kind of thing? I've never done any of these before, this one coming up, so I'm pretty hyped. Yeah, you're gonna be my first. No, no, this is gonna be fun. Sometimes I think that works out for the best though, is like when you kinda, you know you have similar styles, you know you guys are homies, but. you've never actually like played together. both know each other's styles and we will respect each other. like, so I think it's gonna be cool when we finally get to play together. We'll click, you know? Yeah. We've done two of these now and like I've never played with either of those guys Solano or Dario and like we just figured it out, you know, you just click and it's like a vibe and we're all good DJs and we're seeing what's happening in front of us and it's just like communicating back and forth. It's a cool, it's a cool thing. Yeah, for sure. I noticed with those, like the back to back sets, if you guys put the party first and not try to like worry about like wanting up the DJ or like worry about who's shining more, whatever, you just like, right, we're gonna make the best party possible. We're homies, let's just have fun. It's not about like, you know, whatever, like just me make the party shine. It's so much fun. you no, like you check the at the door and just have a good time. It's fucking great. this party is like a lot of work to make happen, but it's so worth it to me. Like, it's just worth it. I'll spend the time, I do all the whole setup and get the gear and all the extra sound that we bring in. It's just, it's worth it. It's so fun. I'm super excited, man. I'm excited, man. mean, Jersey parties, you know, like the room is set up for it, like moving it into the middle, it's gonna be intimate and cool. And I like that. they rock out. wish you'd live stream it, because I'm obviously not going to be up there to see it live. But I know you're going to record it, we'll record it so you can rewatch the set for sure. gonna record the whole set? Yeah, so we set up camera in front and behind, and then our boy Jules kind of puts it all together for us, and we post it on YouTube. So, yeah. I gotta make sure I play no Sony music. We will definitely get into that when we're going to talk some some record pool stuff later. We'll get into that. But so this this past weekend, I went down to Asbury Park, Shout to Class Kills. They put on a party and they brought it brought in Twinsic to Porta in Asbury Park, which is like Jersey Shore area. And it was super successful. They sold out the tickets. It was a Sunday of President's Day. So everybody was off on Monday and like you know, not a lot of that is happening around here. So it was super cool to see. So shouts at the class kills guys, shouts at olive oil, they open up that party. But really what I want to talk about is one of the manners of another venue was there and came up to me and said, cream, like, you're just as good as these guys. Like you play very similar music. Like how come you're not twin sick? And I'm like, you know, that's a great question. So I sort of wanted to pose the question to you. Like what's the difference between someone like a twin sick and a Rick Wonder or anyone else that's sort of working to get to that level. Like, what does it take? Why are they where they are? I think it's a few things. Number one, no matter what anybody wants to hear, there is a level of luck that comes into anything. Like luck and timing. Look at the career of John Summers, the perfect example. He was making tutorials in 2019, he put out a track in 2020. I mean, he's talented as hell, you know what mean? But you're putting out tutorials, you put out deep end, you're throwing out some DMs. and now you're selling out the planet. know what mean? Like part of that is luck and just being in the right age in the right place at the right time. And I think another thing is like for us what we can do is being aware of the team around you. All those artists have amazing teams in the background, like pointing the right direction, saying no to shit that they probably want to say yes to or you know, whatever. I think it's just like treating our DJ brands as a business and like how can you promote the business the best how can you get the most brand awareness what's your return on investment for all the different things you're trying to put out and stuff and hopefully all those 50,000 things connect at the right time to put you in an introductory to do that I think. part of it. Having that team behind you that is kind of guiding your career is such a huge portion of this, a huge, huge portion of it. We, we highlighted it in the Avicii documentary episode of the podcast that we did and how, how instrumental his manager was to pushing him to the next level. He believed in his music. Obviously you heard his music, you knew his talent, but like it's, you know, and it got out there online and in a bunch of different. avenues, but it was really his manager that pushed to get him into a lot of different rooms and like whether the people knew him or not, they were like, well, you know, I want to get a VG into this room and then send him the sent whoever the Booker was the tracks. And it was like, all right, well, we're to book this guy, obviously, you know what I mean? But it's having that that level of belief and that level of somebody pushing you and being able to get you to that, you know, to the next level is so important. Yeah, I think now, even more now than then, because then it wasn't as much social media. There was social media, but not as much. I think now too, it's just having the right team in place to know what to do when and execute it, when and seize opportunities. But it's also like, you know, having a manager that's going to tell you, hey, get on every interview, get on every podcast, do every mix, do every like, hey, look at me, look at me, look at me. It seems like now it's more of a numbers game than anything. You know, I can make a great Instagram post well thought out. The best shit ever, but if I posted at one instead of five, you know, it might, it's just timing, you know, and having the right team to, you know, tell you what gigs to take one and what stuff to do, I think plays a major role. People aren't aware of, they're like, I think this DJ just overnight took off. And it could be, you know, six years of planning with a team of like, what to do when to execute so that on year three. you're doing this, you know, I think plays a major role in it. I want to peel the curtain back real quick because I don't know if people realize how many people are behind even an act like twin sick, right? Let alone someone who's even bigger like a John summit. So twin six is going to have an agent, right? Someone that's trying to sell them into various markets, various venues. They have a manager who, like you said, will tell them this is the right thing to do. This is not the right thing to do. Take more, more interviews, whatever. They're going have a tour manager, right? Someone that goes on tour with them, make sure that right. Multiple tour manager. agents for different different regions. You have your manager You have your tour manager I'm sure there's multiple tour managers now and assistance because if you're doing it like someone John's like someone like John son if you're doing experts only show in veil, but you're also planning a WMC not they don't call WMC anymore. That's how old they call it like Miami music week now or whatever ultra week Yeah, you're also planning, you know an ultra week party Miami music week party you know, while also I'm sure in the back of his mind is March 2nd is his severe debut, which I'm sure is gonna be a whole, so you have to have multiple managers behind the scenes doing stuff, you know. videographer, social media person, social media manager. Like there's, there's, 10 people. And then at that level, when you're talking about albums and production and stage curations, you're talking about having an A &R or a creative director, literally just somebody that's like, this is dope, this isn't dope, this is what the stage should look like, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure there's a stylist thrown into the mix, at least one for all the outfits and you know. all that shit, might even be a PR person. you know, curating all the interviews and who's gonna, you know, I don't know there's like a Gucci campaign or like different brand campaigns, but there's so many things that go into that. Half that, and that's, you know, somebody at a twin-sick level or something like that. And then as you go down, the team gets smaller, but we're still building teams. mean, for the most part, all three of us have teams, whether we realize it or not, whether that's other, you know, smaller DJs supporting us would help. Agents manager, you know, it's still building a team It's a lot. It's a lot of shit behind the scenes. I feel like It's, and as someone sitting at home, right, listening to this, who's trying to grow, like you don't have any of that. You're just you, one person. So you have to figure out how to sort of manage all of those things. And like you said, creating a team, whether that is someone that is on your payroll or someone that you're just finding as a freelancer that can help you accomplish some of that stuff is super important. that's at that level. At a lower level, peeling back the curtains, just being a one man shop of, like you said, gotta be a graphic designer, videographer, music producer, promoter, marketer, all this stuff. And as you need little things here and there, the DJs will take it home, one person leads to two, and you build your team slowly. Yeah. I think the the twin sick comparison to like a Rick Wonder or whoever that's working on getting to be a hard ticket seller like their social media presence is also a big part of it, right? Their music is a big part of it, the tracks that they're remixing, because they do have originals, but I know some of their remixes kind of got big on socials. And and that's sort of part of the reason why they blew up. So so yeah, like We could be the best DJs, but unless we're doing all these other things and making people aware of what we're doing, you can't get to that level, you know? A lot of these DJs I see are like, what do I need to do? Like the up and coming DJ, the young kids are like, what do need to do to do this? Should I just, if I make my Instagram great, will that give me more gigs? If I put out mixes, that give me produce a song a week, will that give me more gigs? And it's just, I think it's just yes, all. Like no, literally, do all that. Make your mixes, post your social, like you have to. You know, like I said, treat it like a business. I have a calendar printed up right here. It says, you'll post this on Tuesday, work on this music on Thursday, know, structure it out and treat it like a business. I think from the jump, instead of worrying about when you get to that twin sick level or a John Summer level, like, oh shit, you know, you're so scattered with everything. you treat it from the ground up and just build slowly, you know. a big planner. So let's talk about how you go about your schedule. Like are you one week planned? Are you one month planned? Are you planning music and social media? Like what's your process there? for socials. for social or music or just like your day to day. Okay, gigs we try to book out as far and advance as we can. Socials, I have a general, mean, we've all been doing it for so long that it's kind of like, you you get into a rhythm and it gets easier as you go. I have like a loose outline weekly of like my socials and stuff. You know, I try to do like two carousels a week. I try to, you know, announce certain shows, update my links once a week, you know, whether it's know the link tree I just I checked through all my socials to make sure everything's up to date and stuff like that But as far as like scheduling out posts, I don't I don't like to schedule out like with the apps where it's like, okay at eight o'clock on this day this is gonna go live I I have my posts kind of Outlined or like I'm gonna do you know two reels this week a carousel This is what I want to promote. This is what I want to mention or whatever I like to hit live on the actual post myself. Maybe I'm old school just cuz I'll check my insights and it's like, you for Wednesday, the engagement's higher at this time, I'll hold back or, you know, it's also the little fun thing of like, let's see what happens. you know, that's for Instagram. Twitter and threads are more just like my thoughts or if I want to, I try to genuinely engage with people whenever I have like a free half hour throughout the day, I just try to remind myself, don't get fire emojis, write like something genuine on those platforms, somebody might engage with you. TikTok is my, my trial for reels and stuff. I just try to, mess around. TikTok's more like, all I'll just throw stuff at the wall and see whatever sticks and if it does, if it catches a momentum, then it might be worthy to go on my reels. And as far as music, I just, I really just try to, it's like almost like a quota for the month I at it, instead of like, have to get this done, I have to do that. It's like, okay, well, I try to update my sets every weekend for the most part. not full overall, but a little bit. So if I make two to three edits a week, that's gonna keep my sets fresh on the weekends. And then I try to do an original full on remix aside from the edits, like once a month now. And then the originals, for the last two years, I was like forcing originals out. Like I have to do one a month, have to do one a month. Spotify, Spotify, Spotify, and I realized that. It didn't really do, like, was like fun, but it wasn't like a crazy, didn't push, like move the needle as much. But my edits and my remixes moved the needle drastically. So right now this year, I'm still focusing a lot on originals, but more, I've been pitching to lots of labels, I've been getting lot of responses from labels. I self-released stuff for the last two years, so the originals is kind of. As they come, my focus has been edits and remixes more. now. That's my general plan on a monthly weekly basis with socials and music, I think. Kinda. If that makes sense. it's a great outline. mean, you talked about so many little aspects or not even little, like just the amount of different aspects of the DJ culture that you have to touch on and that we all have to touch on in order to be successful is tremendously overwhelming. And if you don't have some kind of general idea of what your, you know, what your scheduling is going to be like on your posts or like how you're going to post like it can be extremely overwhelming and then you wind up not doing it. And I feel like that sometimes what some young DJs get caught up in is maybe overthinking or just getting overwhelmed and not sitting down and really thinking about, what are the most important things? Like you said, it's like, okay, well, this isn't working. So let me push this a little bit more on this day. Let me test something out on TikTok. It's a great way to look at it, right? Like if, you know, your big audiences in Instagram reels and you can afford to test things out on TikTok, then that's a great route to go, you know? And you kind of start to gain a general understanding of what works and what doesn't work. I feel like when I look at your content, it's like Rick's the king of content. He's got a ton of stuff going on. And it's all very, you know, it all looks similar with the dark. You know, we talked about your content a lot in the last time you were on the show four years ago, and it's obviously gotten exponentially better, but You know, I think generally when I look at it, our thought is, like Kareem and I talked about this, our thought is like, who's shooting all of this? Who's doing all of this work on the back end? Like the in-booth stuff, the in-venue stuff. I mean, you have a ton, a ton of great work in there. Thanks. mean, well first, yes it does sound overwhelming when you just say it all out loud like that and be like, oh yeah, you should do all this stuff. Yeah, it sounds, like if you're a new upcoming DJ, you're just sitting in your bedroom right now and you're like, wait, what do I gotta do? It's really, it's not, it's, take a piece of paper, you write down Instagram, Twitter, X, threads, that's like a thing. TikTok and maybe like once you get a little bit on a higher level, you're putting out edits and stuff. I recommend YouTube a thousand percent, but it's not, you don't have to sit down every day and be like, okay, what's all these socials, what do have to do? It's like once a month, sit down and like, remind myself three times a week maybe to open up the text apps, reading like the X and the threads out. And you can kind of ping pong both things back and forth. but it's like just opening it up for a half hour every other day. And you don't gotta have this well thought out, over thought, know, priority level guidance post that's, you know, gonna give ultimate wisdom to everyone in the tri-state area on how to perfect, yeah, on how to perfect the kick. You don't have to do that. can, your post, your engagement on Twitter and threads can literally just be like a genuine reply. This is something the Get Down agency wrote on there. You know, instead of like I said, instead of like just three fire emojis, like, okay, cool, nice. But if you're like, well, what was the best venue in Jersey this weekend? Or whatever it is, well, that's kind of a pose that can spark engagement. That can create a relationship with new DJs. That's good. That's all you need. Boom, that's it. You don't have to do all this stuff. Instagram, it's a little bit more work because it's visual or whatever. But if you have a track coming up, you can, you know, take your phone, create a selfie video. DIY content is so popular right now. It's more popular than the well-curated videographer shit, but that could be your content. It's just having an awareness that like, if you want to get to a certain level, you have to play the social media game. It's like, that's it. There's no, it's not a question anymore of like, is this social media thing going to happen? Is TikTok going to happen? It's here. You either you do it or you're not, you're not going to be playing on that level. I think that's just that it. So with that in mind, it's just kind of. being aware of it. The stuff on the road, thank you. I cut over the last couple years, just created, I think I started on a couple of podcasts. I just created like a Rolodex of great content creators that get my style in each market. And when I'm visiting that market, I just tap into that person, hey, are you available? No, okay, the next person you're available, great. It's also how much you wanna invest in your brand, right? You wanna take the half hour to go on YouTube University and learn how to color correct your video? Because then you can make everything look great. It's not that hard, you just gotta take the time to go on YouTube. YouTube can literally teach you anything in the world. it's how do you color grade your videos? How to use Lightroom to tweak your pictures? Then anytime I get a video or a picture sent to me, I can curate it or edit it the way I want for my stuff. It's just taking the time to learn these skills that are out there. I Yeah, I think that part of that part of of what you do and like your Photoshop skills or canvas skills or just ability to sort of adjust things to make it look and fit your brand is super important. And I, I can't stress how important some of those things have been for me either. Just being able to do the little things. And it's not that hard. Like you said, you can learn any of this stuff. But having that feather in your cap makes all this content stuff a lot easier when you could go in. and adjust a photo or add a logo or just even like super simple stuff to help furthering your brand and furthering the way your brand looks and feels because we've talked about this a lot in the last few episodes. So I'm not going to dig too deep into it, but having that skill set makes you such a better artist or brand. And I just think that's so important if you're listening, like go learn Canva, if nothing else, like go learn School and Photoshop. Photoshop is great. and we'll be I mean, yeah, Gary learned how to use Photoshop over the years, right? I sucked so bad, so bad. I just don't have an eye for it. But at least I knew that. That's right. I started using Photoshop. in 2001. So that's why in 2025, I can do stuff at the level I'm doing. I've been practicing. Wow, that's a long fucking time. I've been practicing with Photoshop for a very long time to get it to the level that it's at right now. I didn't pick it up a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. It's a very, it took years of repetition and practicing. know, I granted I have another business that I get paid from doing that stuff with. So like it was, it paid repetition, paid practice. But that wasn't like a skill I just picked up a couple, you know, even a couple of years ago. It's, it's took me a very long time to get to this point, but I did start somewhere, you know, so that these DJs or whoever, you know, crack the program online or whatever, you know, just start messing around with it. You'll eventually get to love you have to start somewhere. If you can learn simply Canva and Lightroom, like you can do a whole lot. there's a, I'll give you guys a little cheat code. So Photoshop, you can whatever, buy or rent, or it's expensive. There's a program called Pixelmator. That's the exact same thing. And you could export as PSD files. And I think it's either free or like $20. It's the same program. And that's a hack that I'll throw out there for you guys real quick. That's cool. I also know there's a there's an Adobe subscription. I think it's like the photographer package. It's 19 bucks a month and you get full access to Lightroom, Lightroom mobile Photoshop and like their stock catalog and all this stuff. Yeah, but even like foot like assets so you can like, you know for four-year designs and stuff I think it's like 20 bucks a month something else. guys, gotta spend some money to produce the good content and well polished clean looking content. It just is what it is. Spend the time, spend the money. how far do you want to take your brand and how big do want to take your brand. If you want to be a local mom and pop shop, there's nothing wrong with that and that's fine. The amount of investment you have to put into it is going to be minimal. But then unless the luck we talked about fucking strikes right on you, you can't expect to be like, one day I'm going to play at Factory Town in Miami. It's not. there you gotta you know and like you said invest in your brand if you want your brand to be a brand you gotta do these things you know i think how much time and money it would like how much time and money it would take for me to create the end product that I want if I couldn't do it myself. Like you have to wait for other people to send you the content back. You have to make sure it's on brand with the style and the look that you're looking for. And only you really know what that is, right? It's hard to explain that sometimes. And then like paying for the flyers, paying for the video edits, paying for all that stuff. Like you would spend a fortune. So instead you just learn how to do it and you do it yourself. just gonna say that if I tried to pay for all the graphics and videos and stuff that I produce, I would be broke. would be working a job just to try to be a But you take a few hours. If you take one hour a day, or when you come home from work or whatever and practice a skill. to help your DJ career. If you have a full-time job and this is a thing, take one hour a week practicing a skill. Because I live the year, you spend 365 hours learning those skills to apply to this. I learned that from The Rock or somebody the other day, was a cool quote. But he was like, just do an hour a day. You think that's crazy. He's like, oh, shit, I'm not working enough on my music and all that of stuff. Well, look at it, know, longevity. By next year, you will know Photoshop great if that's what you picked for this year, or Canva, or Premiere, whatever. a little hack that I've been doing this year. Sorry, Gary, I didn't mean to interrupt. Real quick, and me and Gary have had these conversations like, need the first hour of my day so I could open Ableton and spend one hour at least per day making music because that's a super important thing for me to get to the next point of where I want to go. So it's like, Gary, I need the first hour of the day. Instead of starting at 10 o'clock, maybe we're going to start at 11 o'clock to talk about what we have to talk to you about for the business, but give me that hour to focus on music. every day and like you said over time that one hour every day adds up and you could actually accomplish a whole lot. So my advice would be whatever you're working on or you want to learn or that's most important, spend the first hour or two hours of your day doing that thing and then moving on to everything else and you'll be so surprised how much you can accomplish in that time. Sure. Especially first thing in the morning. sorry. Go ahead. I, it's going to be controversial, but like if you're, if you're spending two or three days a week where like you're practicing your craft, like you're on the decks at your house, like I hate to say this, but that's not the most important thing anymore. Like you can spend a day doing that and then spend the other two days doing practicing my social media, you know, editing, and then the next day producing music. Like you don't have to be practicing every day, like mixing. you know, or different, I don't know, just anything that has to do with like the DJ skill, because the DJ skill portion of it has become less important, which is crazy to say, but it's true. And, and this goes back to the Twinsic conversation that we had, because it's like, okay, like, yeah, we might be just as good technically and how you sound out, but it's all of that other stuff that we had just talked about that's so important. So maybe rein it back on the skill portion of it and go all in on these other aspects of the business. Picking you back with that too, just because you're not working on your actual skills on a mixer doesn't mean you're working on your DJ career or your artist career. Like all these other things are still practicing your craft. It's just the craft has evolved and changed over the years, you know? Yeah. Part of that too is like hunting for music and organizing your sets and folders in Serato if you're using a computer or your record box, if you're using sticks. That part, the time invested in that is just as important as the time invested in actual DJ skill. When I'm organized and my folders are clean and clear and I prep for a specific set, those are usually my best sets because I've put time and energy into thinking about how to execute that set, you know? For sure, yeah. I think because we all are, or came from open format backgrounds, we gotta be prepared for everything. gotta like, any scenario that can hit us, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, I wanna have the biggest blanket ever. But sometimes taking a minute and like, okay, I'm playing these two venues this weekend, or these three venues, or these four venues. Taking a half hour or an hour, that one hour of that day during the week to prep your four sets and prep, like actually like, Not song for song and order, but like, okay, I'm playing a two-hour set. I could possibly play 150 songs, tops. What's the, like having it set in a folder for each night, too, makes such a big difference. I just did the same thing. I was playing in Nashville this past weekend and I was like, you know what, let prep a new set. I had a lot of, a lot of cream edits. I had a lot of different edits I wanted to test in and stuff. I was like, you what, let me just rebuild that folder so when I plug in, I'm not like, shit, what am I gonna play? I already know the first like 15 songs, not the order, but like the idea. helps my set so much more. I'm doing the same thing after this. gotta play a set tonight. I'm prep for like a half hour. Just like, you know, throw a folder together and stuff. It makes a huge difference. I remember when we had we had drama on the show years ago, and he was like, I literally create a folder every for every single DJ set. was like, holy shit, if drama is spending time to create a folder every single set, like, maybe I need to focus more on this. And I started doing it. And like, I just felt like I'm a better DJ when I spend that time to prep for each weekend or each individual set for sure. I've been doing that more more. You can't predict every song I'm play or whatever, but I mean, again, a rough outline of the general direction. I'm a fan of Gary's approach to a lot of stuff, which is you wanna take a modern journey. I've heard it so many episodes where he's talking about, I wanna play these sets and go dip up and down and extended mixes and stuff. If you prep, you can genuinely enjoy that and carry it longer instead of... You're playing a song and you're like, fuck, what am gonna play next? I'm gonna look through my folder and I find it in this folder. You can just kind of be more connected if you're prepared, you know? Yeah, Kareem and I joke around though a lot because a lot of times, for years we would text like, I prepped all night or I prepped for like an hour doing this and like just blew up in my face the first hour. And now I'm in a completely different place. I was hoping for more bedrooms, man. It's tough. it always happens. never predict a perfect thing, but it's nice to have a little bit of an outlet. I still get hits all the time. I'll show up to venue, think it's going to be Old Tech House, and in middle of the night they're like, hey, so-and-so is here, do a trap set or do something, and you got to pivot. But if you're preparing your violins, then it kind of makes things a little bit... Either that, that's happening all the time too, even now. Like, I was going to if anybody's like, okay, this intro's gonna be awesome. And then you get there and it's a slower start and the dance was not as big as it was, you know, somebody's fucking playing Little Baby and you're like, shit, all right, maybe I gotta do 10 minutes of this before I do my big room intro. It's part of the game. just had this happen. We just had this conversation because I was up at Avalon Mohegan on Saturday and you know, I love playing there, great room. I usually come in with like a big intro and I hammer them off the jump with bigger tracks. And then you know, I'll dip down and play like one or two like little mini hip hop sets or whatever, but it was snowing like crazy. So we had a smaller crowd and I literally played it like. a 30 minute hip hop set to start my set because that's just what was working and who was in the room and like that's being a DJ, right? That's just what's best for the room, what's going to work. And because we've gone through the ringer as these open format DJs, like we're prepared for anything and we can do anything because we've been in rooms where we're playing 128 EDM and a manager or owner runs up to you and says, this rapper's in the building, play this song right now or you're fired kind of thing. want to keep your job you want to keep the crowd happy also, it's like Yes, we all want to play like these dumb dollar shows and stuff like that But if you walk into a room and there's a group of 15 girls saying funny that are hot and they want to hear Cardi B or Bad Bunny or whatever Are you really gonna forcefully piss off your crowd because you want to be that house guy or do you want to come back to that room and play again or maybe after that 15 minutes of hip-hop you pivot to a dope hip-hop tech house remix And you just got 15 new fans because you gave them their shit for a few minutes and kind of pivoted into your shit and they still liked you, they still rocked with you. know, it's important to kind of, I don't know, rock with everything when you have to, I guess. You know? it's a balance of being the artist and the DJ and also being paid by a venue to do a job. So like you have to sort of balance the two and until you're, know, Tiesto, or we always use Tiesto as an example, but until you're a bigger artist where people are literally there to hear the music that you've created, you got to do the job too. So. And if you notice all those guys like even John Sonneton, Donald Tiesto, David Guetta, they're all paying attention to what's popular on TikTok, what's trending with the Teenie Boppers. They're working all those stuff in, whether it's a Tiesto level editor or whatever. To some extent, they're still reading the crowd. You know, look at Diplo's says, they posted him on 1001 Tracklist. He fucking played Despacito last weekend. He's Diplo. You know, I'm not even making that up. It's on his 1001 thing. No matter at what level at some point you gotta, you you always read the crowd unless it's an experts only curated Vail set. And even then, you're still gonna tweak shit in. saw John Summers playing original version of Don't You Want Me Baby. You know, one of those songs, I'm sure, you know, he's in Vail. It's a certain kind of crowd. It's very different than a 5 a.m. space crowd. You're gonna, even John Summers is gonna tweak his set to make the crowd. He's in front of her. Yeah. Think about like the way we're gonna prep and play the 360 set is completely different from the way that I would play a casino headline set, right? It's just totally different. Like we're gonna go heavy and dark and dirty and you can't do that when someone is in a casino celebrating their birthday and they just wanna hear the Pitbull vocal EDM drop. Like it just is what it is. It's time and place for everything, you know. Absolutely. So let's, let's, how do you, what's a, let's put this out into the world. We've been trying to manifest things on this show. What is a big Rick Wonder 2025 goal and how do you get there? got a few that I'm trying to work. One is definitely, you know, I'm expand, I wanna play more on the West Coast and Vegas and stuff like that. I think I'm trying to work on everything I possibly can in my bandwidth right now. Whether it's just working, it's literally just rinsing and repeating the same things we keep talking about. It's working on myself, working on making sure my sets are... palatable enough to everyone can kind of relate but unique enough where like if you If you walk in you'd be like, that's a Rick Wonders set not like you can tell it's my it's me playing but it still is kind of making everybody happy that and My my goals are shifting a little bit more musically where like the certain labels I really like to get down with or i'm trying to produce i'm trying finding finding my sound and i'm trying to put it in the get into the right circles to expand more in the house direction. Those are my two goals really musically and DJ wise. And of course, I mean, every DJ is gonna say, I wanna play festivals. So of course, if I wanna do something like that, that's really it. The goals, I'm doing this. What is your sound? What are you working towards right now? What is the vision for your sound? producing a lot of Latin tech house stuff still, but also like the past couple of things I'm currently working on are like more like that odd mobby hood politics stuff where it's like a blur. It's kind of cool, like the open format stuff is leading heavy into like the dance music scenes like a tasteful way right now with like the proper remixes and you know, I really love the hood politics stuff. And also like the experts only. I know everyone's like, oh, John's something stuff, but even the Leighton Giannani stuff. I love Max Siler's stuff and West End and this whole commercial big room groove. don't know, because some of it's tech house, some of it's minimal, some stuff, but it's a cool new place where it's big room tech house with some commercial stuff mixed in, I guess is the best way I could say it. I don't know. Yeah. Well, think you've, anyone that listens to your edits, so you're an exclusive editor on Headliner Music, and anyone that listens to your edits, they all have a very similar style and sound, and people know what they're gonna get when they see your name pop up on the site. And I think that's a great way to let people know where you're going with your originals and your remixes, because you're making edits in the same style. And not only that, your edits are very playable for a DJ because you're a working DJ and you're making edits to make your set sound unique. like, you're starting to create this momentum and build this, this sound and this thing behind your production. And I think you're doing it the right way and, and people get and people want to download your music. And I play a lot of everyone plays a lot of your music, you know, so Your sound is definitely out there. think people understand that you're going down a certain lane and it starts with the edits. And I've been trying to do the same with mine where sort of pivoting and really only making edits in the sound that I want to create. Yeah, the edits helps my original, is helping, I should say helped, helping shape my original sound now. Because I'm like picking pieces of different stuff that I personally like for my sets. And I felt like this bassy stuff, this commercial vocal. But then I'm trying to replicate what works in my sets and what's playable and what I'm drawn to. I'm just trying to make a version of that originally for myself now in original productions. So I guess like the editing played a major role in shaping. my sound is not not even chasing trends just like I like borrowing this from here and borrowing that from here and like shit this is dope now I can make something similar for you know for myself or whatever yeah like I can't describe my sound I just I know it's like kind of shaping but I can't put a pin on it just yet you know put a pin on anything that's coming out. Like even now in downloading and organizing music, I'm like, well, I don't even know what to call this. Like, what is this? Is it progressive house? Is it melodic techno? Is it like, I never know. it's whatever it is for you. It's not like prepping a record box. I've been finding myself making these like, like new music crate and then like, like four sub crates where it's like, you know, Afro early, Afro late, melodic, late night climaxes, filler tech house and stuff. So I know like where in the night I would want to place it. But yeah, there's so many like cool sub genres now. I do the same thing with the sub genres and within my organization. I feel like I'm trying to get back to not being so sub genre E because like, like I'll throw any genre in my peak. Like as long as it's a peak record from that genre, I'll throw it in. Like I'll do my, my, my, folders by year. So like, I'll have just like a house peak, like 2025 house peak. And then like, if it's an Afro house track, if it's a melodic track, all goes into that peak. then there's also another folder that's like sub-genered out, like where it's Afro and then it's melodic. Because I don't know, just feel like sometimes things will get like, I get real specific. Like that peak will be all like big room, let's say. Like that's what it was a couple of years ago. And then I was having like a peak Afro thing, but I would never then cross them over at any point where like, where that's like kind of taking a chance. But if I throw them in the same folder, maybe I will take that chance. learn a new way to mix those two records together, you know? Yeah, I do both really. It's like what we were talking about before, like it's all in the prepping. I'll organize a folder, know, February, peak, you know, base house, know, afro blah blah blah, but then I'll still like, it's Friday, I'm playing like a real rave warehouse kind of party in Morgantown, West Virginia, I had to think for a second. And it's gonna be like real ravey shit. So I'll have those individual folders, but then I'll make a peak. or like a Morgantown set prep folder with stuff from all different genres. know, if I wanna, genres that I feel like playing bass house and whatever, and I'll blend them all into one. So yeah, so throughout the night, if I wanna go from a blaze house and hit them with an afro or a drum ear tech track, I'll have them all in one folder, seeing them line up together. But then I'll also have the other way so that if I'm in a room like, I know Saturday, I'm at somewhere nowhere, and they can... I could be blending multiple ones or they'll come to a part of the night where they just want like a melodic ride. So I know I can jump into that sub folder of afro melodic and literally hit them with an hour of that. Because sometimes I'll get excited, I'll like, shit, holy song, I'm gonna pick a song and it's not that. And it'll go from like afro to like fucking trance or progressive. The whole vibe in the room kind of just shifted when everyone's kind of like, you know, bouncing and grooving in one direction. I kind of, I mean. It doesn't cost actually to make more crates on a USB or a laptop, so why not just make three, four, five, whatever, you know? I always, like, every time I have a good set, I take that history, make it a new crate, drag it back in, you know, good peaks just in case, or whatever. Good advice. I think that's smart to just check back and see what worked and then recreate it if you can. Yeah, I have a folder on my USB always, just like, know, histories that work for me. So we sort of brought up your edits and we brought up Headliner. We're both exclusive editors on sites. Do you think record pools are still the best place to download music? For DJs or for... yeah, for DJs, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I still, every week I check HMC, DMP. Those are like the first two I always check. Then I check, you know, SoundCloud, it. Or hype at it or how do you say it. And I still love going on Beatport. I love taking, you know, an hour and just deep diving in on like just Beatport shit. like... Spotify's great, Mint and TechHouse operate and stuff, but they're so like, I know. I like Beatport, feel like. I feel like I find gems in there, you know? go down a B port rabbit holes like hours and hours, like thousands of records in a sitting. I love those hype charts too. It's like a little bit deeper dial. I usually find something, I'll find something there, I'll play it and a month later it's popping. You know, that's where I find a lot of instrumentals for my edits is in those hype charts. Yeah. I think the record pools are similar to like how we are as DJs where we're spread and we have to do a lot of different things. Like you can't just go to one record pool anymore and download your music. You really have to go hunt for stuff because I think the quality overall is sort of decreased a bit where there's like a lot of stuff you got to sort of sift through to get to the good stuff. I like searching out the exclusive editors that I like. So, you know, I'll go to the different record pools and sort of hit. all right, what did Rick put out this week and what did, you know, Deville put out this week and sort of go through my list of the guys whose music really resonates with me and do that. And then yeah, SoundCloud hyped it. I also use 1001 track lists a lot. I think that's a good place to go find like the trends of what people are playing in their sets across the country and the world. What new music people are playing in their sets. So I like to use that as a resource too, for sure. Yeah, even those on the side where it's you know, trending mashups, trending newcomers, top people, like those charts help a lot. Actually, too, I save, or like I'll screenshot a lot, is like the Instagram stuff. know, like Gordo has the thing, I think it's Taraka, it's like music you should know, or whatever. And that, and the TikTok, I love like the Angela Kid, Olive Oil stuff, and it's like, you know, the five top bass house remixes, or whatever. all that stuff too. all of them all the time. great. And Fox too. Yeah. There's a- that a good track. You Right, it works. Hahaha You know what I think about too? Like what content do I take screenshots of? What content do I actually sit there and watch? And like those lists, I always sit there and watch. So maybe as artists, we can be like, well, the content we consume, maybe we should create that content too, because if we're consuming it, other DJs and artists might want to consume it, you know? I always think about that. like natural to you. You know, like Angelo with the napkins and stuff like that. You know, I think it's playing into your strengths. I love like, even like what Solano does where like he does it a different approach. He just puts a camera and looks at his computer from a different thing and gives people like an audio description of like, you know, like this or whatever. think playing into his strength. Maybe he's not so good at being up in the front of the camera like this. He's gonna set up the side with his way. You know, I like it. now. Yeah, I like his style of doing that stuff because everyone's doing karaoke into the camera. He kind of is like, yeah, I'm just going to be over there, like, doing my thing. That's it. does not love the camera. So he's got to come up with ways to promote his stuff without doing that. So everybody's different though, right? Yeah, absolutely. I like that. the Patreon thing is sort of pulling away from the pool too. And it's it's segmenting sort of the market a lot because it's like, everybody's starting to create this Patreon thing where it's like, I gotta go, it's like cable TV. It's like, I don't get Optumon online or Verizon. I have to go to each individual HBO Max and Netflix and all this stuff. And it's like super, not segregated, super segmented. So, I'm thinking like, is there a way that you can create like a package on Patreon? Like five artists or I don't know, like I've been thinking about this a lot lately. feel like that's what a record pool is. A record pool is literally taking a bunch of editors and putting them all in one source for you. So I think that's what that is. The Patreon thing is cool. I'm new to it myself. I haven't really been on it that much. I just started one recently to grow and see what it's like. It seems like a great workaround, especially with the Sony bug. that like gets into everything and shit with, you know, or for certain edits or for certain things. I like Bandcamp too. I've been messing with Bandcamp and searching on there, finding a lot of like hidden gems. like Bandcamp more I think because you don't have to be a subscriber. If like, you know, if you put out one dope track, I can buy it for a dollar fifty or whatever on Bandcamp, but you know, if you're on Patreon, you have to be a tier subscriber and all this other stuff. But I like all these. different platforms, know, like, I like more ways to make money as for artists and stuff. You know, I think it's Patreon kind of seems like a professional only fans, but it's cool. I like it. Right? Yeah. I mean, I just, I just started like, I guess, post thing. I've been like posting on a little bit just to get myself used to like testing out the platform and getting used to how to make posts and stuff to try to, you know, make it as just another Something can't go on record pools. It can't go on sound cloud because of know certain restrictions or whatever. Push on and Bandcamp are good ways to still put your art out, you know. It's good ways to put content out other than music as well. When we talked to Danger Zone, we talked about his rundowns and going through his playlists and how he created content off of that. But I think there are some cool ways that you can sort of get other content out into the world and help DJs on those platforms as well. For sure. I have a, I made a sample pack, my first sample pack that's geared for not production, but for editors to like all the little bells and whistles that I use for my edits. I kind of sat down one day and organized everything, labeled everything. That's like, I'm gonna sell products on my Patreon as a storefront versus like a subscription thing. Where like, know, one time purchase to get that. I've working on. Ableton racks for like, you know, the perfect reverb, the perfect master for an edit and stuff. like, I think, you know, you can use these platforms to separate your different things, you know, so eventually, hopefully when they, my Patreon will be just for edit editors and producers as like a place for tutorial education stuff where, then band camp and sound powder for like my actual music and shit, you know, so kind of, you know, where to go for certain things, something I've working on. Nobody's ever done an edit pack or a sample pack for editors. So was like, it's finished. I've just been using it to kind of tweak it. Just different stuff, different things, different places. it. like it. What's your what's like? What is it just patreon.com slash Rick wonder? Let's promo it right now. We'll put it in the show notes. Everybody go follow Rick on Patreon and check out his patreon.com slash c slash Rick Wander. I'm still getting used to it. I got five people. Yeah, what's up? All right. I haven't really announced it. I've been posting things here and there just like I said, just kind of get used to being on another platform and being trying something else out. Same thing with Bandcamp. have to figure out and learn and spend time on, Yeah, yeah, it's like, who knows? All right, let's get into this music conversation. I think we have some tough topics here, but we gotta talk Kanye, because I think the three of us have all grown up in an era where Kanye, musically, this is Kanye the producer and musician, is a genius and one of my favorite artists, right? But I think he's just reached a point where like, No one can support him because of his actions and what he's doing beyond the music, you know? Cream, have to say I've come on this podcast and I said, it doesn't matter what Kanye does. I'll always play Kanye. said this probably like two years ago and no, gotta take that back. Killing us, it's over. I have a thought on this though. First of let me start this up. think everything Kanye is doing right now is fucking terrible. And he's cancelling himself and it's horrendous what he's doing. Let's just put that out there. I do think there's a difference in the music. the older shit I think is still okay to play. If it's like, you know, good life through the wire. all falls out, like the nostalgic old stuff from when he was the same human being making people party and dance, I think you can get away with playing, or if it's like a unique edit. But like just straight up walking through him and dropping Carnival, right now I think is out of the question. You know, I think that's my personal music split, separating the artist from whatever. Like I played an edit of, I missed the old Kanye. like this past weekend. And it's like, I do miss the old Kanye. You're fucking right I do. So I think that's okay to play, but then I have people come up on stage and they're like, drop carnival. I'm like, no, because that's too new and it still bleeds into his mentality of nowadays. But then I've been in other rooms and I'm like, yo, I can't play Kanye, right? They're like, gives a fuck musically. Like if you wear Yeezys, they're gonna curse you out. But if you play one of his songs, it's like they're separating the artist and the art. And I've been in other rooms. where I've queued up a Kanye song recently and I'm I don't want that shit in my club. I'm Jewish. I have grandparent. Fuck you, do not play that. I think it's I think it's a, their own subject, you know? For now. I think because it is so divisive, it's like, maybe just stay away from it for, for. Yeah. to, but I think that's how people look at the music. I'm staying, I'm staying away from this shit all day long. away from it too, as much as I love the old music for now. mean, it's, you know, like you said in the beginning, like nothing he's done is, is, you know, he's completely tarnished his reputation. He seems like an absolutely terrible, terrible human being for even thinking after the shift. So like, you can't even, unfortunately can't support it because it's just not supportable. it's. no, you're right. Like I I'm not defending him. I'm not saying like he's a hundred and he was one of my fucking like idols like Productualized I think he's a genius or was you know, he used to have a great style He used to have awesome. So like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's unfortunate. think for people that are our age that like grew up playing this forever, like playing Kanye since 2003. then like, even before that with this production on, know, Jay-Z shit and all that other stuff. Well then where does it stop? Like he's produced on so many artists, now is half of Jay's catalog gone? Is half of all this stuff? Or is it just... somebody did this, somebody yelled at me the other day, I was playing like a old school R&B set and like a brunch or something. And like a lot of my old school R &B is like total SWV, Missy, like all that stuff. And Diddy produced every single one of those tracks that I played that day, like every one. And it was like, well, I can't like if I can't play stuff that he produced, I can't play in this genre. Like there is so many, there are so many big records from back then. it's like, you're right. Where do you draw the line? It's like, it's, it becomes a little difficult. It's time and place too. Like if I'm playing, you know, a main set on Friday night at 1 a.m. and I can choose not to put Kanye in my set, I'm probably gonna do that, you know? Fashion Week last week, I played a 90s hip hop and R &B party. Straight, no EDM, nothing. And it was on Styx, by the way, what's up? Four hour R &B hip hop set on USB Styx. But, prepare, I prepared the whole day. But because it was that kind of party and the crowd that was in there, they wanted to hear every Bad Boy record. They're not Diddy supporters, they're R &B supporters of a time when that's a classic for that time. know, so I was playing the May stuff. I wasn't purposely trying to be like, hey, check it out, I'm playing Diddy. I was just playing my set of that era and it kind of fit in. But time and place, that kind of made sense. I wasn't like forcing you guys to listen to a Diddy track. I was playing 90s stuff that Diddy was a part of. You can't have a 90s party and not play that music, you know? Like, you just can't. Right. don't... I think there's people that are gonna look at Kanye and think R. Kelly, and think there's people that are look at Kanye and think Michael Jackson. You know? It's fortunate or unfortunate for however, you know, where you lie on that. I think there's certain situations where it's not appropriate to play Kanye at all. You know? I'm not trying to defend it. Like, the new shit I would never play. we're all on the same page on that part of it for sure. even Carnival, like I have my own remix that went viral. And I'm like, I like don't play it. Yeah, I'm not even playing it, you know. I think Kanye had a run similar to how Drake had a run where everything he put out was just playable and part of an era in the 2000s or 2010s, I guess you would say, where Kanye was sort of in the mid to late 2000s. Yeah, it's crazy. Bring up Drake. There's Drake, Rihanna, and only a few artists where you can play an almost entire dance or open format set of just that artist for an hour or two. And just smash it. Wherever Drake's at, you can still take a shit and the whole set. The night that Rihanna did the Super Bowl halftime show, I DJ'd an all Rihanna night. And it was like eye-opening about not how many records she had, but like how even like the non-dance stuff, I don't want to call it EDM, but like even the non-dance stuff, like the more hip hop stuff and the more reggae stuff, like how hard those records went with the crowd that was there. Like just everything, like ran the gauntlet of so many different genres. Like I was... But you're right, in Drake's, like you can have the same conversation about Drake too. And Kareem and I actually argued about Nicki Minaj as well about this on an episode a couple, a couple of months ago, you know? B too. Some of these artists have such great catalogs. You can do a whole night and crush it. What was our Nicky, was it Nicky versus Rihanna? Is that what we did? We did. took, I took the Nikki side because I'm more, you know, hip hop forward DJ than, you are. And you went to Rihanna out. So I think she's just more dancey. Rihanna has more hits, right? I would think. I mean, Nicki Minaj has a lot. argument that Rihanna had more hits. Like more playable stuff. Nicki Minaj has a lot of shit though, right? Like a lot. Yeah. It's so popular now too, like Starship, Super Bass, you know, all that stuff. Katy Perry too, she fire. Katy Perry's fire, yeah. Lil Wayne, Nikki era, all that stuff is prime time been working for a long time. questions for you guys. One, Chachi and I think that that whole dance party era, like the put your drinks up party thing is like slowly coming back because hip-hop is so bad and house music is so popular. I feel like it's forcing the general pop direction to be more celebrational, you know, or like party driven. exactly where pop crossed paths with EDM back in 2010, 2011. So everything in that time period is popular again. Yeah, but I think it's also because I think if you look back to hip hop back in that time, like who was hip hop, and people are gonna shit on me for saying this, but like Drake was hip hop back then. Yeah. Yeah. hip hop, but like, because hip hop wasn't as good as we were back then saying, well, this ain't, this ain't gin and juice. This ain't, you know, the pro geez, this ain't Jay Z. Like we were saying the same thing. hip hop's trash. So this is what this became popular. Yeah, even the, I'm saying even the new stuff though, like APT and look at, I can never say a name, Is it Chapelle Road or Chapel Road or Chapel? Like, right, Chapel Road, know, Lady Gaga's new track, Abra Kadabra, right? It's leaning more into that exact same lane that it was then. It's like the market will always find a way that I correct itself. It's like, okay, hip-hop's going, honestly, hip-hop's just such a trashy place. Like, it's just not good music, right? and dance is going more grittier, where like that void in the middle is kind of naturally getting filled up by pop. You know, at one point when EDM got so cheesy and pop was a little bit more, I guess, rocky, hip hop filled that void, you know? Which is cool to see, it's cool to see the pops. And secondly, how much new hip hop, KZ and I were talking about this, how much new hip hop are you actually working the sets when and if you do have to play hip hop? My hip hop sets are currently smaller and smaller, and KZ's is as well. And I was like, are you touching any new stuff? Like literally anything. Are you guys or? As I add music, like... rap, only the women rappers, that's kind of the only stuff that I really, really play. Yeah, that's what we got to do, three songs per month to my hip hop folder. I think the one song with Bruno and, is it Megan Thee Stallion, who is it? The Bruno Sexy Red Track works, but surprise, it's 100 BPM party record. Like, nobody makes 100 BPM party records anymore, and I think that's part of the problem. All the 60 and 70 BPM hip hop that's been coming out for 10 years. it's very hard to translate that to like an open format fun party set. And I think that's the problem. But even like the open format, I feel like it hits better. The no hands, the swag surfing, even some pop smoke stuff, which is old now or whatever. There's nothing like the last two or three years where I'm like, I want, not even I have to this, I wanna play this, I wanna edit this into something. Squabble up, TV off, they did okay. But then, there hasn't been an all I do is win or a got money or that kind of stuff. Like even whoopty, there's like nothing even like that that's been hitting, right? Yeah, I'm looking right now at one of my recent sets and of the reason why I don't play as much hip hop anymore is because I just feel like my hip hop sets are so stale because there are only, there's so many fewer songs that you can play. A lot of what I've been doing honestly is like, and I think this is the reason why La Prappa stuff's been working and the hood politics stuff is working because it's taking a lot of the hip hop anthems that we've heard, the original version for so long and making it a fun up tempo party record that sort of works into the 2025 dance music world. that's just been working, you know? And even like this 70 BPM, like Jersey Club or like Techno-y style has been sort of working, taking some hip hop stuff and just making it faster with a little bit of a beat behind it. about like not EDM stuff, it's like when you go to like a genuine, I'm gonna dip down 15 minutes to the hip hop set. Like Fiend might be my newest song. Not because I'm too lazy to download new music, but like if I open up Rap Caviar, I'm like. Yeah, just nothing's coming out. Yeah. going on? That's just my, I was just curious what you guys thought, sir. This case is, yeah. the Glorilla stuff. I mean, that hits. People get excited about that. And that's newer. When I go down to hip hop, I like that. I'm my best friend and there's that whole little Girls in the Hood, I think, is one of them too. That party hip hop stuff's fun. I've been finding myself playing Tyga stuff again, make it nasty and that fun shit. I can't find any... It doesn't make me excited at all, the newer hip hop stuff. The new pop stuff, awesome! But I was just curious. I've been asking everybody like what do you... Any hip hop? No. need Drake to drop a party, some party records. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll get back to it. Like you said, everything comes in waves and it's been a sort of down period for hip hop, think for a little bit, but hopefully at some point it makes a comeback and we get more party records. Yeah, it'll cycle, you know, people will get sick of the bros or they'll outgrow their bucket hats or whatever, scratch their sunglasses and before you know it, this is gonna go away and it's gonna be this again and we'll see what happens, you know. Yeah. That's funny. All right, I think this is a good place to sort of start wrapping up. We definitely want to kind of give you this time to just sort of drop like, if there's one takeaway or just something that you really want to share with the audience to help them grow their business or be better DJs. think we touched on a lot of stuff. would just say for the new guys, just think about it, but don't overthink it. You know what I mean? Don't let the thought of starting to do something, whether it's start a Patreon or open up Ableton or whatever, don't let the thought of starting cripple you. I think a lot of these newer kids are looking at these people that have overnight success, like the late Gerdanis or whoever, example. Fuck, they all sucked. Like, no, at one point, every single person who opened a Bebelton store for their Simon was like, what the fuck is this? Or they've all been the opener of the opener for the busboy in the club and train wrecked 50 million times. Don't overthink it, just get started. And that's it. know, you'll look back in six months or a year and be like, thank God I did that because I was trash but it's finally clicking. And that could be anything, whether it's having anxiety to post on socials or start a track. or reach out to a client or go out and network in a fucking venue that you want to play at. Don't overthink it, just go do it. That's it. Every single person you look up to, suck at one point. Whether they want to tell you that or not. That's really it. Yeah, literally. just get started, you get a little better every day, right? One hour a day or whatever you're going to contribute. Just get started. I love that advice. look like in 2002, if you saw the designs I was making for Team Bopper flowers in Long Island, you would be like, how is this translatable? you Dude, not only that, it took you a long time to get to the point that you're at right now just in your DJ career, right? It took me a long time, took Gary, it took everybody, it takes most people a long time to get to a higher level. And even then, like, you have levels that you wanna get to, we all have levels that we wanna get to that are higher than where we're at now. I started DJing when I was 15. I'm turning 40 this year. So that's how many years I've been practicing mixing two songs together. And I feel like I just getting started and I feel like I got so much more to go and you know, just, I don't know. So just do the math. I'm not gonna say it out loud, but like, it's a very long time. A lot of these people I think don't realize how long. I'm not saying I'm overnight or you guys or anybody like a lot of these people don't realize how long these overnight success stories like the ones we all look up to How long that night fucking actually is you know what I mean like like for all these artists I keep bringing up the late and judani max because they're like the new guys like the new big bubbles on the block right now But like you look at any artist and they've been doing this shit for a very long time You know Yeah, James Hype talks about all the time. We always talk about James Hype on this podcast, but he documented pretty well how long his overnight success took. Yeah, and he's literally one of us. Like he started out as a multi-genre open format DJ playing bars in wherever part of England, right? In UK, wherever he was, wherever he's from. He was doing exact same shit that we're doing and literally one day he was like, I wanna do this. And he was terrible at that for the next year and nobody wanted to book him or whatever, you know, but fast forward, he planted that seed and now it's where he's at because he made the decision to, I don't know. treat a certain way. to look up to from his journey, because it's so relatable. And it's still transparent. You can literally go online, see how shitty he was a few years ago. Shitty is wrong word. I'm saying in comparison to what he's doing now. His career is at a very different level, 2019, 2020, 2021, to where he is now. I know if you guys saw the new YouTube video with all the new visuals he's doing with like the touch stuff. It's insane. Yeah, that's it. I could watch James Hype videos all day. I love it. Not only his DJ videos, but his coaching videos are awesome too. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. See he so yeah, he's he's he's he's good for that stuff. Yeah, it's for sure. Alright, Rick Runder, yeah, anything you want to plug or come see us on Saturday night at Burch and Hoboken, that's for sure. 360 come see us on Saturday. Hell yeah. Yeah, we'll put all Rick's links in the show notes and in the email and wherever else, but follow Rick everywhere at Rick Wonder. I think that's the easiest. yeah, All right, that was awesome. That was fun. man, appreciate you jumping on. And we will definitely talk to you soon. And appreciate all you guys for listening at home. Thanks for listening to this episode. Thanks guys, Alright, peace out. Cool.