Achickwitbeatz presents ⁠the Instrumental Intel podcast⁠, bringing you information instrumental to your artistic career including music industry news & tips, insights & interviews, and beats for your inspiration. Listen on Saturdays at 7 pm EST on ⁠⁠⁠Grander Radio⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Achickwitbeatz.com⁠⁠⁠.
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Instrumental Intel Podcast

Achickwitbeatz brings you information instrumental to your artistic career including music industry news, insights, interviews, and beats for your inspiration. Listen on Saturdays at 7 pm ET on ⁠⁠⁠Grander Radio,⁠⁠⁠ Achickwitbeatz.com⁠⁠⁠, and your favorite podcast platform.

Transcript Generated by Riverside

00:00
Hey, thank you so much for tuning in to Instrumental Intel. I'm your host, music producer, Achickwitbeatz. And I've got a special episode today featuring insights from some of the music tech executives that I've had on the show so far. Jonathan Oudekerk, Founder and Chief Business Officer of Smart Label. Ralph Tashjian, Founder and Chairman of Intercept Music. And Jesse Flores, Vice President of Artists and Label Partnerships at Intercept Music.

00:26
So I'm excited to be bringing this episode to you. And before I go ahead and kick it off with those interviews, I got to give a shout-out to my home station, Grand Radio out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And then there's a brief pause for the cause and then we'll jump right into those interview highlights. All right, here we go. Hey, I'm Achickwitbeatz, multi-genre music producer and strategist to indie artists and labels. Visit achickwitbeatz.com for resources for artists and instrumentals in various genres available for songs, vlogs,

00:56
blogs, podcasts, themes, TV, film, commercials, and more. Once again, that's achickwitbeatz.com. That's A-C-H-I-C-K-W-I-T-B-E-A-T-Z.com. Let's make something happen. Jonathan from Smart Label. If you could just give everybody a little bit of background as to who you are and what Smart Label is and how you put the dots together. Yeah, of course. First of all, thanks for having me. Like you said, my name is Jonathan. I'm one of the

01:26
founders together with Joost Rode of the tech company the music industry named Smart Label. We are launching a worldwide alternative for parties like Spotify, so a new DSP. But then I always say in a way that it should be. So that as an artist you have 100 % control and transparency about your fan data, but you have also something to say about the valuation of your IP.

01:55
and a way to directly connect with your listeners because nowadays as an artist I don't know who I'm selling my music to and I cannot determine the price I'm doing it for and that is basically the only business in the intellectual property space this is the case. So yeah that's why we are building this. Absolutely and it's so important especially with all the different things that are happening now.

02:23
Since we've been connected on LinkedIn, I've seen some of the things that you've shared your insight about as far as intellectual property. And so for those who may be listening and not fully understand, because I know a lot of times there are people who aren't creatives who think that sometimes artists are overreacting to the AI and it's not that all artists are against it. You know, it's just kind of like, hey, this is my intellectual property. How can I be compensated for it? So yeah, if you could talk a little bit more about the importance of actually valuing.

02:52
Yeah, I would say to really flatten it out, intellectual property is everything that has value you cannot touch. the things, ideas, words, lyrics, melodies. We have laws and legislation in Europe, but also where you are in States to protect that.

03:18
Currently, if you look at how companies like Suno and Audio are dealing with intellectual property, we are absolutely against that and not per se from the creative aspect because we love AI, we want to use AI, but it's about the datasets they use to train the model and that is trained on stolen music.

03:46
That means as somebody who is in the data set, you don't know you are in the data set and you won't be credited. You can not even think, start about thinking being compensated. And there is no way to say this output, this song I created with this model is influenced by me in, well, 5%, 10%, 80%. So there is no legal framework.

04:16
The thing that frustrates us sometimes a little bit is that the option to do it the right way is there. Like we are not against innovation, we are not about pushing boundaries, we are not like when the calculator came that, the math teachers went on the street and say nobody can do math by heart anymore. That's not the thing. The thing is that you are entering the game from let's say a deceiving perspective and we want not to

04:46
repeat history again, where if we now look at the position of the creator, the one who's doing all the work, the one who's creating the outputs, is coming in last, even if he's coming in line, to be credited and to be paid. So all the people who know the law, all the people who are working at the corporations, all the people who have the financial backing to invest, they can reap the fruits of your hard

05:15
work, sweat, creativity, and you are lost in line to be paid. And I'm advocating to not repeat this with AI. And a lot of people are not seeing the difference. It's really about making sure creditors get credited and get paid in a fair and more or less transparent way.

05:39
Right. And I mean, that's one of the things that I typically see people say, you know, well, you can't fight against it. It's like, well, no, it's not trying to fight against it. Like you said, the capability is there. So why not just do the right way? So, you know, again, this just kind of helps people put in perspective, you know, when you're talking about intellectual property, exactly what we mean by that. And so now, especially since the pandemic, I feel like it's been I'm not sure what you've been seeing since, you know, your

06:08
closer to the industry than I am, but there have been a lot of catalog purchases. And so to see an opportunity like that arise, I guess, for independent artists or independent labels, I think is a huge thing. So can you talk a little bit more about? Yeah, I can. I don't think that opportunity is there for individuals or small labels. I think this is a highly professionalized, let's say, a business where only the big bucks and the big bucks

06:38
have the power to purchase and or sell catalogs. And that's also one of the things we are trying to change with our music exchange that is a feature on tracks that as a retail investor, you can directly support the artist and the songs you love. And as an artist, you don't have to sell your master rights to a record label to have access to capital. But you can say, hey,

07:07
Instead of selling it to a record label for the rest of my life, I will share 5 % or 10 % of my future royalties with my fans, with my listeners for a period of let's say 3 years or 5 years. And that brings, let's say, that's evening the playing field. Because currently as a retail investor you have almost no option to invest in music rights. And as an artist...

07:34
And if you want to directly sell your music rights or find access to capital, chances are, let's say, zero to none. absolutely. So yeah, I think it's a great thing that you're doing. Who, if you could describe, who would be the ideal type of artist or label to benefit from something like this? I would say that is very broad spectrum.

08:01
And that's also when we created this company in 2022. We learned from all the music tech initiatives that are on the, I call it the music tech graveyard. well, how people say it, like let's say the way to hell is full of good intentions. that's also with this because if you look at

08:30
the situation.

08:35
how it currently is for a small label, for an artist. You need to have direct contracts to distribute. Most of the people don't have that, so they basically use Tunecore or whatever. And nothing against probably like the Sturkiz, CD Baby, Tunecore, they are great advocators, but they are maybe not really built to scale this for the artist.

09:00
And even if you have, let's say, only 10 songs on Spotify, you have 50 monthly listeners, you have 50 people, apparently, we don't know because Spotify is not transparent, but it says 50, so let's believe them, huh? Who are listening to your music, but you cannot connect with them, you cannot reward them for listening to your music, and you cannot ask them maybe to invest in you, even 10 bucks.

09:30
to have the opportunity to rent some studio time or to make a cool video clip. Maybe you're going to make the video clip even with AI. But you don't have that option to grow your career. So I think that's a very important wall currently. It's a brick wall in the music industry, in the creative sector. And we are trying to build a door there. We are trying to build a way you have access to capital. You know who your fans are. You can interact. You can chat. You can ask. You can reward. You can do whatever.

09:59
Also for the beer labels or for catalog owners or rights managers. They are also not aware of the data that's available. DSPs have no intention of giving you that data on your fans. Publishers will also have no intent to give you insights on how they are matching their statements.

10:28
And because everybody is sitting on his own big mountain of data they see as their gold and other initiatives are always trying to build something around the music industry. That means one, or you are ignoring the rules and legislation. So you're not complying. So you're not scalable. You cannot really build a big company because you are basically breaking the law or you are building something that's

10:55
not very interesting for all the music that's already released. Well, I gotta tell you, we did a lot of market research. The percentage of new music people listen based on old music they love and repeatedly listen is very in the advance of the old music, let's say the evergreen economy. So you need to be compliant with that.

11:21
That's basically how we started building Smart Label and then we came to the conclusion, okay, if you really want to do something different, then we need to put our money where our mouth is and we need to build a world-wide, decent, decentralized, open source infrastructure-like company as Spotify. But where we don't own it ourselves, we are transparent about the data and the artists and the rights owners are...

11:49
de facto always in control. So that means you know who's listening to your music. If people want to share that information, you can tell you your own IP. So you can say, if you want to stream my music, this is what I want for it. Maybe you need to pay me once. Maybe you can spin it 10 times. And if you want to spin it 11 times, you need to pay something. All those metrics you can set for yourself. And I think that's the way we can change things and not overnight. It's not done by Monday next week.

12:18
Also not by Monday next year, but if we do it in right way and we show the industry that you still can make money, because that's the thing, people think, oh, you cannot make money, it's open source, I got to be attacked in my wallet and I want to protect that. If you show them a way how you can do it, you can even bigger the pie because there are going to be new income streams and new ways to monetize your music and your fandom. Then I think we will be on the right trajectory with each other.

12:47
That's incredible. So like I said, mean, what you're offering is amazing and it's definitely needed. Are there any other like special features that you would kind of want to, so like I said, most of the people who listen to this are independent artists. Some run labels, but yeah, any special features to kind of like, I guess entice them to go ahead and find out? Yeah, well, I think,

13:16
I think the majority of the people will do it because it benefits you. And then it's like a no-brainer. But a few things I think are very cool myself is that payments are direct and instant. So the moment somebody plays your song, the money will be available in your account and can also be extracted from your account. So you don't have to wait.

13:44
longer than in this case I think seven seconds after the play is done. So I think that's a big game changer. The other thing is also a project that comes really from my heart.

13:56
It's connected to Smart Label of course, but we call it Smart Label Academy because I've been in the business for many years, if you know, always people from all levels in the industry, I would say. So that can be a producer, a starting artist, a successful artist, a label manager, somebody who has a big ass catalog and want to sell it. They all are basically clueless how music rights work. Nobody, nobody knows. And there is like a terminology that's...

14:25
completely off. So some people call it an X and some people call it a Y, but they are basically talking about the same thing. And sometimes you check it out and they are both wrong. So we said we need to create one, well, one, one cool free open place where you have access to all the information regarding the music industry. And we're going to launch that in a few months. We are now in the building building phase.

14:52
So if people want to connect with me and feel on this, just shoot me an email and then I will get you in the loop. But basically it's an academy where you can find fair, transparent information about how things in the music industry work. So how do I register my rights? How do I protect my brand? But also where can I, you can download a template contract with default settings.

15:21
where we say, hey, you can watch to this or watch to that or a checklist what you need to release or how it works with a certain aggregator. hey, somebody says I get 100 % and you think I get everything. But the question is 100 % of what? All those standard pitfalls I needed to learn in the past decade by also going on my, well, flat on my face sometimes. I want to bring that to one place.

15:49
So at least as a creative industry professional or aspired professional, you have a place where you can just double check your things, what little videos, intro things, just have a safe haven of correct information that's not trying to sell you anything. So no commercial intent, no nothing of that, just a fair and safe, trustworthy place with

16:20
information you need or information you would love to have before you put your signature under something you did not really understand. And a lot of people are afraid to ask for information because then they think they look stupid and they're gonna google it or gonna use ChatGPT and they're gonna ask the wrong questions so they will have the wrong answer.

16:46
Yeah. So that's maybe some, yeah, that's a really a project I love to do. And I'm very glad that now after a few years it's going to become a reality because I think it's just cool. I think it needs to be there. It definitely does. And that's very incredible. I've had a lot of music conversations.

17:07
interviews, I've read a lot of press releases, and never have I once heard of anyone say, hey, I want to give you a transparent way to manage what you're doing. And I'm not looking for anything in return. yeah, that's definitely awesome. So yeah, I'm noticing that the time is kind of winding up a little bit. And I want to make sure that if there's anything else that you want to share to make sure that people know

17:32
No, would say Traxx Manager will be live as from September or global launch of the Worldwide alternative for Spotify. We call it Traxx, a decentralized open source client-side running music streaming app will be available in January. Currently we are in connect with a lot of people. have our onboarding team ready. So you can go to the website smartlabel.media, book a meeting, just shoot us an email.

18:01
And we will get you in the loop. so you well know what's up and get your music, get your rights sorted out. then, well, train is leaving time to jump on. Ralph Tashjian, the founder and chairman of Intercept Music. And so, you know, first of all, want to thank you for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to come and speak with me and the listeners. And if you could maybe give people a little bit of background on.

18:29
What Intercept Music is? Well, actually, let's start with you first, the man behind it all. Your relationship with music and how you got started with this. Sure. know, Achickwitbeatz, thanks. I appreciate the time. I love this. You know, a big part of who I am and what I've done in my life and this great career that I've been fortunate to have, it's important to give back to me. So,

18:58
If I can, you know, I hope there's some words of wisdom here somewhere that could help young developing artists and labels to, you know, help enhance their career and have growth. So that's really important to me. Thank you for the opportunity here. Absolutely. You know, I started as a young guy here in San Francisco, California. I'm currently here now. I spend my time.

19:21
between Mexico City and San Francisco. We have an international company, Intercept Music, that I'm the chairman of, that I co-founded. But I started my career here in San Francisco promoting records. I got very lucky. I was a young musician, a drummer, a bad one at that. And there was no career for me as a musician.

19:46
So I was able to get the next best thing and that was promoting records. And at a young age, at 24, 25, I went to work for MCA Universal here in San Francisco and got promoted to Seattle and ran that market and then got promoted to New York and ran that market and have nothing but wild stories to tell about that. then I got hired by a company.

20:15
20th century records and about the mid 70s and I ran that promotion department for a number of years and what an incredible journey on that one because I was right behind and responsible for you know two Academy Award winning singles with Maureen McGovern the morning after and there was another one in there and then all of the Barry White stuff Love Unlimited I marketed

20:43
and promoted all of that from the right from the inception. So that's my you know, I have a few gold records behind me and those are my favorites. Okay, so I was very fortunate and then went to from there went to Ireland and spent some time at Ireland before it was Def Jam and Marley and Robert Palmer and all of that stuff. And then from there

21:13
And about 1980, I went to, I started promoting records independently. At that time, there was, you know, people that had real relationships with radio stations, it could actually move the needle and get records played. I did that for quite some time, for about 10 years. And that was like a, it was like a hired gun, right?

21:36
just going out and getting records played. And I was, remember exactly where I was. And I looked at myself in the mirror and I go, wow, this is not what I want. This is not what I did. It was like, let's make a deal. I've lost, you know, the whole, the love that I have for music. So I started my own label in...

22:00
uh, 2000 and it was a hip hop label primarily out of the bay and we had a lot of Killer Mike. had some international stuff. had, um, um, rock you and then all of the local stuff, the, uh, uh, you know, a lot of the local hip hop stuff, West coast hip hop stuff. We did really well for a lot of years. We did really, really well. And if you know, one of the things that, that I like to tell young people, uh,

22:29
and anybody in general that you know was building their career, building their business, when you're an entrepreneur you just go right and you have to be able to have the instincts and the savvy.

22:46
look at the marketplace and know when it's time to and maybe to reinvent yourself. Maybe if it's a creative thing, maybe your beats are dated, maybe you need to look at, maybe you need to update your sound. I don't know. I'm not a creative person, but what I've been able to do, it's a gift, is that I've been able to reinvent myself. And when I saw that things weren't going the way that...

23:15
there was any future, I was able to adjust. So I had the label and it was, you I had some hits and I saw a big hole in the Latin market. So I started to move into the Latin market and do a little bit of that. Had a top 10 hit with a Daddy Yankee protege, little kid named Miguelito. He was the youngest person ever to win a Grammy. And we put out a record and

23:44
We went to top 10 in Billboard and I think we sold about 2000 CDs and I said, okay, it's either take your toys Ralph and go home or it's time to reinvent yourself one time and one more time. And so here I am, there's said music. So I knew I had to go into the digital space. The writing was on the wall. We had the old traditional deals at record companies where they really owned everything.

24:12
accounting to you six months after the release and paying you 90 days after that six months. Well, that was virtually impossible to compete with a digital distributor that was paying the artists every 30 days. Right. You don't compete. So here we are. said, OK, well, this is what we've got to do. And I started to build Intercept Music along with my partner, Turner. And I want to make sure that I talk about something

24:42
that I want. It was a miserable failure for about two and a half years. I completely had the wrong developers. I had the wrong people. I had the wrong thing. I was able to adjust and get out of that. And until I found my partner Todd Turner, who's a tech genius, we weren't able to build a company now where we have billions of streams.

25:12
hundreds and hundreds of artists and independent labels. We built a platform that we think is second to none with respect to two things that are critically important in everything that you read about independent music, independent distribution, independent distributors and the digital world. That is transparency and customer service.

25:42
And we've done those two things and we do those two things, which separates us from our competitors. Absolutely. I know at least as far as distribution goes, um, I've seen and heard so many different complaints and those are the top two complaints that people have with some of popular distributors. No question. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, your experience lets you know that that's kind of what you needed to focus on. Um,

26:10
You know, can you talk a little bit more about what the distribution process is like using Intercept Music? Yeah, you know, we like to call it technology with transparency, you know, how to transform.

26:28
Transform how you release your music.

26:33
Um

26:35
We created a dashboard that allows, let's say you're an independent label and not just not an artist, but a label. We've created a dashboard where an independent label can come in, sign up as a label, and then have all of the artists that they sign underneath them, basically white label come through our system. And with their dashboard, they can manage their label and inside of their label.

27:05
they could show their artists what their streaming numbers look like and what kind of revenue they generated without them seeing all of the other artists on that independent label. Nice. So it's designed and created for the independent labels and artists as well, but we like labels.

27:33
And there's another component that we put to it that we're really proud of and that's the merch component. So we have merch on demand. We have a direct link through Shopify. The artist gets 30 % right off the top. So if they sell a $20 t-shirt, they make 30 % off of that, which equates to about 5,000 streams. So every t-shirt you sell,

28:03
financially is the equivalent to about 5,000 streams. Wow. You know, that's just so bizarre, you know, looking at the way that things are set up these days. And so, yeah, well, mainly with the experience that you have for going back to when you started through what you've seen now, how challenging do you think that is for us to actually understand the economics of it and how streaming is set up to, you know, benefit? Yeah, it's,

28:33
Everything like in life is a double-edged sword. You know, there's pros and there's cons and there's believe it or not, there's a lot that's the same. Okay. So if you had a single in the sixties, you still had to market it. However, you marketed it was whether, whether it was radio or whether it was going around to DJs yourself and bringing it to them. Now today you have social media. You still have to market it. I don't know how many million-strong songs a month are coming out.

29:03
Right. And you're just you have to rise above the noise. That's a term we like to use.

29:12
It's marketing is a critical key to, and social media is a critical key into the success of an artist and a label today. And how you communicate with your artists, with your fans is critical. And so we think that that's a big part of growth. One thing we've been able to do is we've incorporated some AI, not AI music, but

29:41
AI that could help you create a marketing plan designed for you. Rather than a marketing plan designed for an artist that doesn't, you that you can always create an elaborate marketing plan with an endless amount of money, but nobody has that. You need to create a marketing plan for yourself, how to advertise, where to advertise.

30:06
what playlisting you should do in order to get from here to there. Something that makes sense based on your budget, based on your socials, and based on how many followers, listeners you have, monthly listeners you have on Spotify. So we've incorporated some of those things. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that because there are a lot of positive uses for AI in music. I think a lot of times lately it's just kind of synonymous with generative, but there are so many other ways that it can help.

30:34
with technology. yeah, aside from, you know, just writing music, just to be able to market it and, you know, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of different things. actually did a blog post about it a while back, just because I kept hearing so many things like, okay, AI is bad for music. Well, you know, there's other ways to use it besides what most people are thinking with that doesn't replace creators. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. And if it's used,

30:59
properly it can really, based on your, you if you plug in the right information and we had to create that, how to speak to it, right? But you create what kind of, what genre it is, country, urban hip hop, pop, rock or whatever. And you know, how many followers you have, what your socials look like and how you should market to take yourself to the next level. It'll give you a pretty accurate outline of some things that it recommends that you should do.

31:28
Now that doesn't mean you do them all, but it means that you pick and choose and at least you have something to base whatever you're spending the money on. One of the other things that we use AI for that is really interesting because one of the things that we've noticed with independent artists, especially not label so much, because if it's an independent label, there's your normally some sort of a label manager that's making sure the artists do their, you know, posts.

31:55
frequently or the right way or get their messaging out, right? So we use AI to help you create posts. And we have a technology in our platform that allows you to post on all of your socials from our dashboard, scheduled out for 30 days in advance. And you could use AI to help you create the posts, maybe using the lyrics of the song or whatever you program into it. We have that in our system.

32:25
And then it'll give you 30 posts to put out and you could edit those posts. Oh yeah, that's corny. I don't want to do that, but at least it gives you ideas or something to think about. You take them or you leave them. Right. So it's a, it's a sophisticated platform. That's excellent. Um, and just to think about the time that it would save. Cause I know how long it takes to, you know, kind of consider like, am I going to post? You're thinking, you keep it, you need ideas, right? In order to keep it fresh. So I think it helps.

32:55
Absolutely. So yeah, I would like to ask about the recent 50 million that you have for music catalog acquisition. First of all, congratulations. Big deal. Yeah, it really is. It's a big deal. And it's interesting because...

33:17
There's a lot of money out there for catalog acquisitions.

33:23
Now, you know, our company, Intercept Music,

33:31
is you would consider us somewhere in between a Virgin, Universal, and a Distro Kid, for instance. We're in between. We're that company that's a little bit more that we feel that we're more, you know, it's about, we're not there to just put out a single and we're there for the artists and the labels that are a little bit more serious about their career, right?

34:01
Right. And these catalog acquisitions that are happening at a high level, okay, are really for these are really just to make it. These are primarily Wall Street people. They're not necessarily music people because they see an asset. Asset is like a piece of property, right? You know what you.

34:28
hope that it goes up in value based on what's going on around it. So they're big deals, right? They're catalogs that are being acquired and they're able to be monetized because they're X amount of monthly listeners and how much money it's generating every month. And there's a certain multiple that they use as a formula and that's how they come up with a number. But there's a whole new part of the catalog

34:57
pieces which kind of where we fit that's in between just like our company. Our company's in between, you know, a tune core and Virgin. There's catalogs out there that are in between some that aren't generating a lot of money, but there is a long-term value to them. Some are gospel catalogs, which I've got two great ones right now. And so some of them are monetized currently and some of them

35:27
I had a call this morning with one that just has all of the content, some on that, some on real, some on quarter inch, some on different, you know.

35:41
And here it is. So yes, we're here. It's like a self-propelling model for our distribution company. That makes sense. Yeah, it does. Okay, so I'm going to try to be careful with how I word this question because I'm not trying to get you to give out the secret sauce or anything. But what are some of the things that you look for with these acquisitions?

36:06
You know, you mentioned like with the, you know, bankers and stuff actually coming in, investing in the assets, a lot of this stuff kind of tends to be evergreen. So are you looking for like a certain feeling or, know, just the talent base for when you choose? No, we're looking at potential revenue. Okay. So, so there, so some like the financial, like the, uh, the, institutional financial company, the names of the world that have gotten big funds to go out and do this. They have a formula.

36:35
right now, let's use Springsteen as an example. They can probably come up with a valuation to buy the Springsteen catalog, not that that would be for sale because it's probably still with Columbia, but just using that as an example based on what they're currently streaming.

36:57
Those numbers are there. Get the statements, a year or two of statements from Columbia Records and they can see that every Springsteen title, how much Springsteen's generated and that's how they would base their offer. It's pretty much sometimes it's six times, it could be up as high as 10 times yearly revenue. Now, other ones that are on DAT and

37:24
quarter-inch tape. It's kind of a little bit more of a kind of a gotta get a feel. You know, we had one this morning that had great gospel content, Reverend James Cleveland and a number of different things. And, and you know, we'd have to kind of guess along that, right? We'd have to guess that. So it's a formula and, and some of their companies that just appraise some of these catalogs as well, just like you'd go out and get a house appraised. Yeah. lot of people

37:54
listening probably don't know this, but my background before actually diving into music, I got my bachelor's in marketing and my master's in finance. so yeah, it was actually, yeah, like the, price-to-earnings ratio and all that. yeah. So yeah, get what you mean. And, um, you know, it's just kind of been interesting to watch all these deals and stuff that have gone down. So yeah.

38:20
that again, congratulations on the 50 million. Thank you very much. It's been a, Hey, listen, we've, you know, I want to just, this is, this is hard work. You have to have determination. You have to believe in yourself. You, you, you, have to, you have to not give up. You know, you've got to keep moving forward no matter what. And, um,

38:46
That's my number one message to people, to entrepreneurs, people that really believe. You know what it is? You can't live in fear. You have to live in a world of faith and looking at things with limitless possibilities. Now, the trick with that is not being delusional at the same time. So you've got to watch the signs around you. But common sense

39:16
Hard work, belief, that's the formula to success. So many excellent gems. really appreciate you for coming on and sharing your story, your experience and you know, just kudos to you. I'm not seeing a lot of people who have the experience that you have, but still willing to share and teach so freely. So yeah, thank you for that. Thank you. You know, it comes from the heart and it comes from love.

39:45
I love what I do. It's it's I wouldn't do it if I didn't love it. And so to me, it's it's just what I do. My kids say to me, say, Dad, you know, you're going to retire. I what am I going to do? What a Home Depot and buy a drill. What would I do with it? What what to do? Right. Especially, you know, don't forget, there's a lot of opportunities out there for young artists today with YouTube, with the Internet. You know, let's just one thing before we

40:15
that people are discovering music today in ways that we never could imagine music would get discovered. Back in the day, there was only one way, and that was probably through some DJ on a radio station. Today, it's multiple ways. And the other beauty about today is that young people today, when I was young growing up, was either there was listen to an urban station, an R &B station, a top 40 station, a country station, right?

40:44
Kids today are hearing everything and they don't put things in those kind of genres. If they hear a country track they like, they like it. If they hear an urban track they like, they like it. It doesn't matter. They're not programmed like that. So there's endless opportunities and it's always about, and it always will be about, from the beginning to the end, about the music. Jesse Flores, Vice President of Artists and Label Partnerships for Intercept Music. you could just give us a little background on.

41:13
who you are, how you got involved in music, and what led you to where you are today. Thank you. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. I am a music lover like many of us when I was young. I wanted to be in the music business. Wasn't sure how to figure that out at the time. I was raised in Florida, grew up there, went to high school, college out there. And when I was in college, you know, I was performing music. I played the saxophone, but I didn't want to like major in it. And there wasn't no music business major or

41:43
any type of classes at my school at the time, University of Florida. So what I started to do was sell mixtapes. My mom's from the Bronx, so we used to go to New York every summer. And I used to love going there because I get all my clothes, all my gear, and also all the mixtapes that were out right now at the time, I'm sorry, from all the big time DJs like DJ Clu and Ron G and SNS and Doo-Wop, Tony Touch, all these guys. All these mixtapes, we didn't get down there in Florida. So I would go up there.

42:11
I made a connection with a guy in Fulton Street in Brooklyn. He had a store called Fat Jams, a guy named Joey. Told him who I was, what I wanted to do, and he would send down to me mix tapes and CDs every week or so to sell. And I'd get them from UPS, COD, and I just kept calling him and calling him every week. He's like, man, you're doing great things down there because you're constantly hitting me up. So I did that for a while, which was great. And I found out that our school had an agency that booked shows.

42:42
and they had a budget of like 250,000. So I signed up for that. was a student-run agency called Student Government Productions. And through that, we were able to book some amazing shows, especially in the hip hop genre. During my time there, we brought The Far Side, Tribe Called Quest, Lost Boys, Redman. So some really good names back then. It was a great learning experience. And while was at SGP, we used to get CMJ Magazine.

43:09
and CMJ had some classifieds and they said that one of the distribution companies, Polygram Group Distribution, was looking for a college rep in Florida. So was like, man, that looks like a great opportunity. Let me see if I can apply for that. I was a senior at the time, so I wasn't sure how that was gonna go, but I met with the guy hiring for that position and after a couple times talking to him, he eventually hired me, which is great.

43:37
And I officially became a college rep for Polygram. And at the time Polygram had Def Jam, they had Motown, they had Island Records. So a lot of great music labels at the time. And it was on and popping from them because I became the college rep, I graduated, I got a job offer in Detroit and LA to be a field rep. And I chose to go to LA, which is a great decision on my part, because that's kind of like where everything kind of springboarded for my career.

44:06
moved out to LA and rose up the ranks from college rep to artist development rep. And after being in LA for about maybe eight months, Universal Music Group decided to purchase Polygram. So it was a big merger. And I was fortunate enough to stay on board with Universal Music Group going forward. Same situation as with Polygram, field rep, marketing rep, and then

44:35
got a job as a sales rep for Universal and that was great because I got to work with a lot of good retail stores out here in Los Angeles like Tower Records and Virgin and all the cool indie stores out here as well. So it was just an amazing experience. Did that for a few years and in 2004 I got a job opportunity at EMI Music to be their head of urban marketing which was a huge step for me because that was an actual natural

45:03
natural progression in my career, as well as a national position where I was just a regional sales guy prior to that. So at EMI, I was able to spread my wings and, you know, really work with some great artists. And we also started doing something interesting, which is different from what a lot of companies were doing at the time, the three majors, which was offering independent artists distribution deals where, you know, EMI or whatever label's capital or version, they didn't own the masters, the artists owned the masters. We just provided services for them.

45:34
So that was kind of the impetus of this whole distribution deal with Indies because we had a lot of great success there. I was able to sign Ice Cube, I signed Trina, Bobby V, Raekwon, Twista. We just had a really good artist roster at the time. And Tyrese was another big one. We gave Tyrese his first No. 1 album, believe it or not. So from 04 till like 2012 was a great run with EMI.

46:02
bringing some independent artists and having success with them as well. Another merger happened, Universal Purchase EMI. So I went through that whole situation and after that, I decided to join Ingruus, which was a distribution company based in Los Angeles in San Fran. And I had another great run. I was doing label development and management there for a lot of great artists for several years. I was at Ingruus for about nine, 10 years.

46:28
And then they got bought by Universal Music Group. So another merger happened. Universal merged in groups with Virgin Music Group. And after that, I separated from the company and found a great opportunity here at Interset Music with the co-founders, Ralph Toshian, who you know, and as well as Todd Turner, also our co-founder. And I've been here for a few months and it's been great. I love it. First of all, that's an amazing journey.

46:55
especially some of the artists that you got to work with. Absolutely. You've named a huge range of people, say from the time that you realized that you wanted to be in the industry, who would you say were some of the artists that kind of influenced that most, like before you got to doing what you're doing now? You mean as far as like artists that I grew up listening to? Yes. Oh, wow. Everybody. My mom, was really into Motown, so going up I heard a lot of

47:25
all the Motown artists, know, Supremes to, you know, the Jacksons to everybody. She loved music and always played music, especially going on little road trips or whatever on vacation. So I don't know if that's where I found my love for music, but you know, it was always something that I was interested in. And then growing up, I grew up in Florida. So a lot of the Florida artists were very instrumental into, you know, my love for music and I loved hip hop and rap. So.

47:50
You know, it everybody from like 2 Life Crew, to Poison Clan, to Jam Pony Express, to DJ Uncle Al. Like all these guys that were kind of bubbling locally, you know, I was a big fan of. And then just going up in the South, heavily influenced by like Outkast and UGK and 8 Ball and MJG, those type of artists. then, you know, having ties to New York, to my mom's side of the family, everybody in New York was, you know, obviously a big influence. And that's everyone from like Rockham to...

48:19
Wu Tang to Nas to Jay Z, all the greats. So a big influence. And you know what, I loved West Coast music as well. know, because when I was in high school was, you know, it was a lot of Ice Cube, a lot of DJ Quik. So those type of artists were influential as well. Absolutely. So, okay, since you mentioned Wu-Tang as part of your influences, how did it feel once you actually got to work with some of the members?

48:46
I had to pinch myself. could not believe that I was getting paid to do it. It was a dream of mine. I think the one artist that really had a big influence on my career was Ice Cube, because obviously I was a fan as a kid. And then when I got a chance to work with him, I got to shout out Tony Draper, who was very influential in bringing that partnership to Emon at the time. Obviously working with a living legend as far as I'm concerned, but then the guy was the consummate professional.

49:15
Like he was always on time, whatever opportunities we brought to the table, he approved them. He did everything, you know, to a T. Like I was just amazed at how the work ethic he had. Like he was nonstop. Like this is a man that, you know, in my opinion, he does things his own way and he does it to the best of his ability. And, you know, he does whatever he wants to do and he does it the right way. So.

49:39
You know, that's the one I think Ice Cube would say is the one person, if I had to name one, that had a big influence. It's amazing. I know at least for me sometimes, depending on who it is, I get a little star-struck. You know, they might kind of throw me off my game for a minute. So, yeah, to, I guess, come from admiring them, to being able to work with them and do it smoothly, I commend you. I don't know if I could do it that smoothly, but yes.

50:05
Okay, you from the time frame that you started getting involved till now, what are some of the biggest changes that you say that you've seen, know, pros, cons, or bad in the industry? So my entire pedigree in the business has been distribution and over the past 25 years it has changed drastically. You know, when I got in the business, you know, it was all about retail for distribution. So all the physical retailers had a big part in it, the indie retailers.

50:33
You know, the Best Buy's, Target's, the Sam Goody's. Walmart at the time was big. Even Kmart was selling music. So it was all about, you know, selling that record into those stores, making sure they buy a decent amount so you can have a really strong first week sales. And there was also a lot of pricing wars at the time too. I was young, but at the time, like, you know, that was when Best Buy and Walmart were like selling CDs for like, you know, $6.99 to $9.99, which is really, really...

51:02
low as far as price range considering if you're an independent rep or store and you're buying your product from a one-stop distributor, a lot of times the prices that Best Buy and Walmart were cheaper than the one-stop. So why even go to the one-stop? Just go to Best Buy and buy all your stock, because you're getting a better price. So that's kind of what was going on at the time, and that was a big challenge for a lot of people. And then in 2001, I think that's when iTunes opened their store.

51:32
which was a game changer because they were selling digital downloads and nobody had done that before. They also had the hardware to support it with the iPod. So that was a game changer. And we noticed that this is gonna obviously be a big player going forward. And then in 2011, I believe that's when Spotify came to the US and that was another game changer because now you just stream music and you have to download it. You can access music and have...

52:00
you know, to touch your hand, know, the millions of songs, you know, and add them to playlists and create your own playlist and be your own, you know, editor basically when it comes to, you know, the type of music you listen to. So it was, it's definitely changed, you know, to be honest, the industry's been cut in half since I started in the late 90s, you know, there were six major distributors and now there's three. So, you everything's been cut in half. There's a lot of consolidation.

52:27
But at the same time, there's a lot of growth for the independent sector. That's why independents are, I think they attribute maybe 48 to 50 % of all the recorded music business is coming from the Indies, which is amazing and great news for a company like Intercept Music that super serves the indie artists and label community. It really is. So can you talk a little bit more about that for anyone who may have missed the interview with Ralph, but the opportunities that you guys provide? Yeah.

52:55
So Intercept Music is a next generation distribution company for indie artists and labels founded in 2018. And I like to think of ourselves as a perfect mix of music, tech, and people. Music because that's our core business, distributing your music to the masses. Tech because that's the backbone of our company, our platform and our dashboard is second to none. And people because we have a team of great employees and you know,

53:24
just incredible people that are there to super serve our indie partners on a daily basis. So all that combined, you know, we're poised to really have a great run going forward. You know, we do extremely well with Latin music right now. We're building up our best repertoire as well. And now's the right time, you know, it's really a great time to be independent and be with a company like Intercept Music if you really want to grow your business.

53:52
because we're not just a distributor and there's a lot of just people out there, a lot of companies out there that can distribute your product from A to B, but there's more to that. We want to be your strategic growth partner. We want to be there to help build your career. We're to be able to talk to you, discuss your least strategy, kind of help you go through the woods and just kind of figure out how do you rise above that noise. It's really incredible work that you're doing. So since most of the audience.

54:20
kind of falls into that category of independent artists. What type of advice do you have for them when they're, I guess, looking to make that decision? Like you stated, there are a bunch of distributors out there, but I mean, not all of them cover the same needs. What advice would you have for artists that are looking to kind of narrow it down, figure out who to choose? Well, I think you got to have a vision, you know, and you also got to have a plan, you know, in order to be successful in a competitive business like the music industry, you really need to

54:49
Separate yourself from everybody else. Why should anybody care about what you're putting out? know, you really got to build a fan base that's fully engaged You know you have a story to tell you know, whether it's with your music, you know For example, you need to have a consistent flow of releases you can't like, you know put out music for a year or two and then Go away and not put anything out for two three years and then oh, I want to start putting out music again That's not gonna work because you're essentially gonna have to start to start over

55:19
especially as a developing artist, know? Music is always changing, it's very competitive, there's so many tracks being released every day. You gotta be there for your fans and let them know what you have coming out, be consistent with that. Also with your messaging on social media to support your releases, be consistent with that as well. Gotta have a plan, also have a good team around you. I'd say a good team of about five people, which I call the Fantastic Five. It's a good manager, a good entertainment attorney.

55:48
distributor, publicist, and online marketing and social media specialist. Having those people in your corner helping you develop that plan is vital in my opinion for success. And you also gotta be patient and resilient. It's not gonna happen overnight for lot of people, for most people. You gotta be able to stay in the game, have that vision, and be really up for the challenge because it's not gonna be easy.

56:15
Thank you so much for that. That's some excellent advice. Appreciate you dropping those gems. Of course. Yeah. So especially considering your career, with all the different changes that you've been through and witnessed, all the buyouts as the labels were consolidating, how were you able to just keep rolling from one thing to the next without hesitation?

56:38
Well, you know, it's the music business. It's always about the next best opportunity. Believe it or not, it is kind of a small world and it's getting smaller. You know, it's crucial to have relationships with good people. And for example, Ralph and Todd, the co-founders of Intercept, you know, I've known Ralph for about 15, 17 years and we've kept in touch. You know, he knew me when I was at EMI and he was always, you know, a great person to kind of, you know, talk with and catch up with.

57:07
discuss things about the business. And then when I became a free agent, it was only right that one, he reached out to me and two, I seriously consider what he has developed his vision and where he's gonna take the company forward in the future. And I thought this is a great opportunity for me. The time is right now. Let's partner together and really grow this company and take it to the next level. Thank you for that. I had to ask, because a lot of times as creatives, we might be kind of nervous to...

57:35
keep going. So yeah, your career is a good example of that, how you just kept pushing through. It's really commendable. Yeah, I've been through about five mergers, survived three of them. So there's been a couple of times where I've been laid off and, you know, I could have laid down and given up and gotten outside the industry. But I'm thankful that I'm blessed to have a lot of good friends that, you know, care about me and what I've done in the past and believe in me, trust in me and wanted to give me an opportunity.

58:06
So I don't want you to give away any secrets that you can't, but what's next on the pipeline for what you're doing specifically in your department? Whatever you can share. Well, it's really trying to better our service offering for our partners, artists and label partners. And a lot of that is with our dashboard and the tools that we provide. If you join Intercept Music, you'll be able to obviously upload and

58:35
distribute your music to the masses, but you can also provide a merch store. Say you have a new release and it's a catchy single with a catchy hook and you wanna put out some merch. All that can be done within our dashboard with our integration with Shopify, which is amazing. You can also use AI and a marketing capacity on our dashboard. So say you need to come up with some social media messaging for some posts coming up to support the release, or you need a bio or a

59:05
you know, maybe a press release, all that can be generated through AI within our dashboard. Same thing with the marketing plan. We're getting to that too. That's on the roadmap for AI on our dashboard. You can also book advertising, know, digital advertising, Spotify advertising, outdoor advertising, YouTube advertising, all that can be done within the dashboard. So all these tools which are created for artists and labels to use are very helpful in helping build their career.

59:33
Alright, that's a wrap for this episode of Instrumental Intel. I've been your host, music producer, Achickwitbeatz, and I want to thank you for tuning in. Once again, as always, I appreciate the guests for coming on and sharing their insights. And I'd like to thank my home station, Grander Radio out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Make sure you come back next week. I got more goodness lined up for you. So, till next time, you know where to find me. Tune in, tell a friend, and I'll see you then. Peace.