Sidney Eugene: Love the obscurity. Love the obscurity. Like love the fact that no one knows who you are right now while you're learning and going through your mistakes. It's so beautiful because you get to learn all of this stuff without the world watching you, you know I like the quote when Alicia Keys says: it took me 12 years for overnight success. I just I love that quote so much because it really speaks to the life of the artist

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

 So, I'm super excited to be here today with Sydney Eugene. Sidney is the founder of LearnMBE, which stands for Learn Music Business Essentials. And it's a company whose mission is to instruct creatives on how to think like a major record label. Sidney has a lot of experience in the world of record labels. He actually got his start working at Warner Brothers during the golden age of the 90’s music. He actually helped facilitate a 52 million dollar record deal at the age of 19. We've had him on the podcast before. I've always really appreciated our conversations, Sidney, and just like your general mindset and positivity. First of all thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Sidney Eugene: Pleasure is all mine, man. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Michael Walker: Awesome. And when we were talking backstage about the conversation we're about to have today you brought up this term artist intelligence. It's a different kind of AI. If you're a fan of the podcast or if you're, you're connected here, then you know, that there's been a lot of energy and a lot of discussion around artificial intelligence and machine learning and the future as it relates to musicians. So I would love to have that conversation with you as well. But I also really appreciate this concept of artist intelligence and I would love to hear a little bit about what that means to you in terms of the landscape of right now. You've experienced the major record labels, the traditional path of the musician, and now there's this new path of the musician.

So I'm curious to hear your perspective on the current state of things right now, especially as it relates to AI both in terms of artificial intelligence and artist intelligence. Sidney Eugene: That's awesome. Well, first and foremost, thanks again, man, for the opportunity. I do want to take it back a step, though, because I actually didn't get my start at Warner Brothers… but yes and no, right?

So, yes, I became an exec at Warner Brothers at 16. But I was signed to a Warner sub label when I was six, so really that's where my start was. And yeah, indirectly it was Warner but it wasn't in the executive seat where all of my juice now comes from. It's like, oh, I was in the executive seat, I have all these connections, all these opportunities that came from affiliations with all three majors and tenures, every department, but really, I think the reason the artistic or artist intelligence resonates with me so much is that I started as an artist. That's, that's really who I am when. When you're six… who knows what's happening when you're six? But for me, what was happening was studio life and traveling and performing and being on the radio and living the life of an artist, and so I do my best to always remember where I came from. It just so happens that I'm very steeped in this other side of it. I look at it as a blessing. I look at it as: when I was six, you couldn't tell me anything. When I was seven, you can tell me when I was seven I had more accomplishment in music than most adults that I knew, and so, I mean, you couldn't tell me anything, but there was this world that was obscure to me, even though I felt I owned it, even though it's like: Hey, I'm the one they're coming to see. Hey, I'm the one that they're interviewing. I'm the one on the radio station. I had that artistic ego because I'm a child, I'm six years old, and it's like: Oh, none of my other peers were doing that. So it was just one of those things where you can't tell me anything. This is my space.

Michael Walker: [laughing] Must be nice to have the world figured out atuch a young age.

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, yeah. It certainly was to be like, Hey, I did it. Everything I said I wanted to do, I did it and I can't even buy anything on my own. [laughing]

Micheal Walker: That's amazing. Yeah. Amazing story. I don't know why, in my own mind, I sort of think about you in relation to that music business on what you've created now, but the fact that you actually got your start at six years old, with a major record label experience is incredible.

Sidney Eugene: Absolutely. The reason I say that it's a blessing is because I was shelved. So for those of you who don't know the story, I was shelved. We had a run for about a year and then I learned the business from the receiving end and we were shelved. I was in a duo, they shelved us. We were competing directly with Chris Cross, which some of you guys may or may not remember. And they say, we're going to rock with Chris Cross. And that's the way it went. But the point there is that it opened the door because about nine years later, I became the exec at Warner Brothers and it opened the door for me to learn about the industry that I said was mine nine years ago. It was like, oh, okay, so you really want to know this industry? You really want to make this claim? You really want to say this is your space and no one can tell you anything? Well, here's your education. And so then I really got a chance to see all of the things that go into our industry that make it a real industry. It's like there's this thing, business is business, but industry is totally different. Like we can be in business today, whether or not we're functioning by the regulations and prospering according to our industry is a whole nother subject, right? I mean, but we could be in business today. Like I can start a business. I can keep it moving. I could do whatever I want to do. I can have customers. I could advertise, but whether or not I fully get the industry aspect of what I'm doing is a whole nother subject. Okay? And so, that's the part where I think I bring a different piece of the puzzle to the table because most artists never get that opportunity. They learn it mostly from the artist's side, right? So they learn like, Oh, you mean I'm not getting paid? Like the TOC scenario is like: Oh, what happens to my money? Oh, well, maybe we should have agreements, and so then they, maybe we should have an attorney. Maybe we should talk about what's on the split sheet. These types of things that you learn really in a hard way. Because: I'm not getting paid. Oh, I have to recoup all of this? Oh, that's what ex an expense means. These things that they learn through trial and error. Whereas for me it was: Hey, take out this notebook, I was told to sit down with the notebook and start taking notes. And so it was: okay, this is how a play works. These are the qualifiers for certain deals. These are the certain things that need to be taken care of if someone wants to write their own deal, and so being able to learn that equipped me now to be able to go back into that artistic space and do what I say: that artistic intelligence, that artist intelligence, where it's: okay, guys, if you're going to play in this industry, there's a little bit more to it than having a business. There's a little bit more to it than being a businessman, or a businesswoman or a business person. There's more to it because you actually are in the industry that's clearly defined. It would be like saying you're going to go into the food and service industry and just start selling food when there's codes and all these regulations. Is the food safe? How are you storing the food? Are you cooking the food to the proper temperature? So there's all these things that go into actually being in that food and service food service space that you really need to take into consideration. And I think for us, there's this illusion, maybe, that we don't have all of those regulations. Oh, I'm just going to make my music and I'm just going to put it out into the world and then success will find me. And that may be the case, but it's going to find you in a proven path, right? It's going to find you in a way that it travels, right? Which is pretty well defined. And so I know when we were offline, I was saying: our industry is the same and I was meditating about this earlier cause I knew I was talking to you and I was like: no matter how many advancements, no matter how many technological feats that we accomplished through AI and all these other things, it's just like, oh, my music could be in Moscow tonight, or it could be anywhere in the world tonight if I decide for it to be. All of these things that we used to not be able to do or couldn't do before this tech, not technology and going to the digital space, it really didn't change the industry. It may have changed the way people receive music… It may have changed your reach and your ability to touch more people. But the industry has really been the same. The laws are the same, the deal qualifiers are the same, the paperwork is the same, everything is the same. Okay? And so I think that's the part that we tend to overlook, because we just see: Oh, well, now I can put my music out in 24 hours and it could be on in every DSP known to man. And, but it's like, well, did you know that there are three royalties associated with your streaming music that the minute you decide to allow it to stream, you give up one of those? You give up one of your revenue streams to participate in this new way of letting your music travel. So if you don't know the industry, you're thinking: Hey, it's a pretty good deal. I can just put my music out. Everybody can hear it. But if you know the industry, you say, well, yeah, everybody's going to hear it at the expense of a revenue stream. Now, when you get into the business aspect of this, it's just like anything else. It's: how do you maximize your business? How do you increase the bottom line, right? How are you better today than you were yesterday? And so it's not saying it's a bad thing for streaming, some people think I'm anti streaming. I'm not anti streaming. I just think if you're going to do the streaming game, you at least need to know that you're giving up a revenue stream to start with. Right? I mean, now everybody's talking about the whole Spotify policy and what Deezer's doing and all these other DSPs that are getting in bed with majors and how will that affect us? And, 70-80 percent of the music is all backed by majors and this whole thing. And it's like, it doesn't change anything. The industry is the same. Okay? Now, whether or not you allow yourself to play along with it is… That's where you need to have the thinking cap on. So, initially we were thinking like a major label. That's what, that was our whole thing. Think like a major label. But there was some pushback to that from some of my major label friends. [both laughing] So then we switched it to thinking like a music exec. So, in the process of thinking like a music exec, one of the first things we must do is realize it's a polar opposite play from an artistic mindset. Just an example, an artistic mindset is how do I get my music to the world? Like I want people to hear my music. Most artists I know really want people to hear their music. An executive mindset is how do I do it again without paying for it the next time? How do I get my music to generate the revenue to take care of itself, to pay for itself, right? Because it is a business. And if we're not approaching it like a business, yhen it's a hobby and I hate to say that. I heard people say that to me like, oh, it's a hobby. I hated that. It's like who are you to tell me it's a hobby? Really they were wise because they realized: you're not treating it like a business. And if you're not treating it like a business, it's a hobby, and so there's this very fine line between doing this for fun and doing it for profit because in our industry, you just about can't do it without there being a profit. I was meeting with a label in Japan and they said, Sydney, we want to be a nonprofit label. They want to bring me on to be a consultant to help them set up a nonprofit label. And I just realized how challenging something like that is when our industry is already defined. Our industry is clearly set up as a profit industry. [both laughing] Everything is all money based.

Michael Walker: Yeah. Our whole society…

Sidney Eugene: That's right, but charity works, so there's nothing wrong with charity. And I'm certainly a philanthropic in every area that can be. So I'm all about that. So I'm not saying you can't do this in a benevolent way just because you want to do it right. You can, but there are laws that you would be essentially violating if you were just to do this as a hobby. And you might not be violating them on your behalf. You may actually be violating them and putting someone else in jeopardy. Okay, so that's where this whole Spotify thing came from. People think that this is a new thing. Spotify is trying to figure out this payment scenario. They've been talking about this since the beginning. This is something we've been trying to figure out since the inception, essentially, how do we handle the pay scales? How do we handle the money that is associated with this? Do you know why? Largely because of artists who don't know any better, right? So what you have essentially is someone that keeps coming to you and just giving you money. Okay,? Think about if right now, like every, every day when Michael goes on at 1 pm. Eastern, if Michael just gives everybody $100. Just every day, here's a hundred dollars for showing up.

Michael Walker: [laughing] Yeah, everyone put a cash app in the chat.

Sidney Eugene: [laughing] Yeah, I think they would like that, Michael.

Michael Walker: What's actually funny is I genuinely believe that these conversations that we're having are worth at least a hundred dollars or more. Yeah, it's probably worth like, like genuinely, if you look at business return, you being here right now for each of these interviews is probably worth somewhere in the vein of, I would say $500 to $1,000 maybe more like you mentioned. I mean, it literally could be a priceless thing if you're talking about saving your time, because like literally one of these conversations can save you a year of your life. And I guess it depends on how you value a year of your life. How do you value your fulfillment and happiness? How do you value dying without your music still inside you? Right? To that point, I guess you're getting more than just a hundred dollar bill by being here.

Sidney Eugene: Yes, and one of the main reasons it's priceless, and we'll get back to that hundred dollars, is because it's residual. In perpetuity. See, these are words that artists sometimes… I almost feel like every artist should tattoo these words on their body somewhere, like you should have on you somewhere “residual in perpetuity” to keep in the mindset that what you're doing today will continue to perpetuate to the end of time as long as you do it correctly- So let me put the disclaimer right there. It's not residual in perpetuity if you're just playing around, but back to this hundred dollars. So, if Michael was to do that: Literally give 100 every time somebody showed up the first couple times. It's cool. You're like, yeah, that's cool. After a few months of doing it, you start to figure out or wonder what's up with this whole play Michael's got going on with this money? It's kind of like is he gonna ask me for something to return? Pretty soon he's gonna probably ask me for a sizable favor because he's been giving me hundreds of dollars for months now. It just keeps going and keeps going. Now, imagine if it's not just Michael. Imagine if it's every podcast that you listen to, if it's every show that you watch or every feed that you participate in, there's a transaction every time, every time, every time. After a while, you start to accumulate all of this. And then what happens when someone says: Hey, I want what's mine. Can you give me what's mine? Now you're trying to figure out: how do I give him back what's his because I have so much from everybody. I don't really know who's is who anymore. I just have all of this extra money.Okay. And so this is essentially what's been happening with the DSPs, guys. You've been giving them $100 every time. And maybe it's not 100, right? For you out the gate, but you've been giving your money to the DSPs every time someone listens to your music. So someone comes, they listen to your music. And I don't know why I did the phone signal that maybe old days, but someone's listening to your music and there's an exchange there, right? Because this is the industry, right? So, this is out of hypothetical. This is not a hypothetical scenario, guys. There is literally a revenue exchange every time your music is played. Okay? Period. It's the law. Okay, it's been happening before any of us were born. Okay, unless we have some really old people on this call. But it's been that way. So there's this exchange happening every time. And then, by law, there's this cash out that needs to happen because you can only hold the money for so long. And I need to say, okay, well how much of this money is Michael's? How much of this money is this person's? How much is it this persons? And I'm really having a hard time figuring this out. And so then what I do is I just say, you know what, I don't know how much to pay anybody. I'm just gonna stop until I figure this out. And then once I figure out what to do here, then I'll get back to paying people. Okay, so this is essentially what's taking place with the DSPs and mainly Spotify because obviously they're the big kid on the block and everybody wants to point to them. But actually Deezer has a significant reach. So guys, if you're not up on Deezer, definitely look into Deezer and they certainly favor artists. But this is the case where Spotify is saying, look guys, we don't know who to pay. We don't know how to pay you guys. We don't know whose money is who. We've just been getting all this money for so long. We don't even know who it goes to anymore. And so then they say, well, one thing we're going to do is we're going to minimize our payouts, right? We're going to put in a threshold. And if you don't meet the marker, then we don't even have to worry about you anyway. 'cause you probably didn't even do this intentionally, right? You're probably just one of those people like: Hey, I made a song, I put it out, go listen to my song. But there are some people who were intentional that said: Hey, I'm gonna start up a label and I'm gonna put out my music to the world. And they were very intentional, but they just didn't know how the industry works. And so these people got loud. Because they realize, wait a second, I have all these streams, I have all these views, I have all these things going on, but I'm not getting paid. And then they start being really loud and say, hey, I'm not getting paid, I'm not getting paid! And then, the powers that be say, hey, well, we clearly figured this out years ago, how you're supposed to get paid. You're just not playing along with it. And so then you put the pressure on the DSP, who is then forced to accommodate your lack of understanding of the way the industry works. Right? So this is where it gets challenging when you meet someone who says, Oh, I make art for art. I don't make music for money. I make music for art. And I'm not saying you should make music for money. What I'm saying is it's impossible to make music and release it in the world without there being an exchange. 

Michael Walker: If you’re listening to this then you likely already know that being an independent musician is a lonely road. And maybe your friends and your family don’t fully understand why you do what you do, or why you invest so much time, energy, and money achieving your music goals. And especially early on, it can be hard to find people who really understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how to make it happen. So, that’s where Modern Musician comes in!

My name’s Michael Walker and I can understand and relate to that feeling. I’ve been there myself, and so has our team of independent artists. The truth is that basically everything good in my life has been a result of music. It’s the reason I met my wife, my 3 kids, it’s how I met my best friends. And now with Modern Musician, we have seen so many talented artists who started out with a dream, with a passion, without really a fanbase or a business. And you’ll take that and turn it into a sustainable full-time career and be able to impact hundreds, maybe even thousands or millions of fans with your music. We’ve had thousands of messages from artists who told us we’ve helped change their lives forever. It just gets even more exciting and fulfilling when you’re surrounded by a community of other people who get it, and who have shared their knowledge and success with each other openly. So, if you are feeling called into making your music a full-time career and to be able to reach more people with your music, then I want to invite you to join our community so that we can help support your growth and we can help lift you up as you pursue your musical dreams. You’ll be able to interact in a community with other high-level artists, coaches, and industry professionals, as well as be able to participate in our daily live podcast, meet these amazing guests, and get access to completely free training. If you’d like to join our family of artists who truly care about your success, then click on the link in the show notes and sign-up now. 

Yeah, I think a good point to sit on here, I'd love to hear your perspective on this is, sometimes, especially with the music industry, I think as artists we want to be seen as authentic; we want to be perceived as original and unique and the thing that we're most afraid of is that this idea of being like of selling out or being seen as like caring about money and it's led to this starving artist mentality or this idea of it's somehow wrong or immoral to make money with your music. And so I would like to hear you speak to two different things. One is, along with all of this business talk, you and I understand this. I think anyone that is running a business that's actually creating positive impact on other people understands this. Most businesses do. Their whole function is to provide value and make money. And guess what? Like money is a way to objectify value. Money isn't inherantly an evil thing and it can be a really great thing. It's really about providing value, but at the same time, in order to provide value, in order to have a business, in order for the music stuff to work, you have to have a high quality product, you have to have something of value to share. So it does come back to the song as well and like really honing your music and honing your craft and having something valuable that's going to be able to move people. So I'd love to hear you speak to those two things around that relationship between the art, and the money, and how those can come together to provide value for everyone. 

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, absolutely. So I certainly want to dive in there, but I want to say something really quick to the point you just said in regards to a high value product or something sounds amazing and polished, something that is the top notch quality. And I'm going to speak to that solely because I don't think that's necessarily the case out the gate. I think it's okay. Like, don't you guys remember music, how it used to be when people made it themselves? Remember it didn't always come out the best. I mean, Outkast recorded in a bathroom with a mattress. Nirvana, that wasn't the cleanest sounding and Nirvana is one of my favorite rock bands of all times. Were their levels always on? No. If you meter the old Nirvana stuff before they got all the studio stuff, no. The levels are not going to be perfect. Things are going to peak sometimes. Maybe the mic is a $2 mic and you can't afford the $2,000 mic, right? What people are really interested in when it comes to that is a soundtrack for their lives. What they're looking for is their melody. They're looking for their music. They don't want cookie cutter music. It just so happens that cookie cutter music is easily accessible, right? But I guarantee you, if you put out a song that's your personal truth, even if it sounds like garbage, the person that hears it is going to resonate with the personal truth that's there. Yeah, they're going to wish that you could upgrade from the $2 mic. And they may even very well help you do that by patronizing you, right? I liken it to being a baker. Like just having bread… I live in a pretty traditional spot. And it's like we have neighborhood delicatessens. It's like we still have the baker. Like we still have the neighborhood baker, it's not a big grocery store. It's a bakery. It's a baker, like he goes in and makes fresh bread every day. And so, I think about that and I think about just the little small guy that's just making bread for the neighborhood. No one is going in here and getting the bread from the guy and saying, well, how many followers do you have? Are you using the industry standard stove? [Michael chuckles] What type of, what type of gear are you cooking with? What, are you using non-GMO, organic grass fed, are you using the creme de la creme of the ingredients? It's like, no, he's a baker. He's just, they just go, they, they get the fresh bread and donuts and pastries or whatever with their coffees. And they enjoy the day and they patronize this guy every day. He's a community staple. Every day they're gonna go get their pastries and they're gonna go get their coffee.

And I think about this and I realize it's really the same for us as artists, man. The only reason why we're so infringed upon by the “powers that be” is because of those two words I gave you guys: Residual in perpetuity. Okay, so the difference is when that baker's time is up on this planet, that's going to be the end of the bread that he's going to make, right? It's not the case with us. Now, maybe he teaches his children how to make bread. Maybe this thing goes on for generations and generations to come, but the difference is if he was making music, he doesn't have to teach his children how to do it. Once he's done it and he's put it into the marketplace…. Right now, you guys, I know you're doing it. I know you're listening to holiday music from people that are deceased. I know you're doing it, because people are doing it right now. They're listening. There's holiday music all around from deceased people. The law is still the law. There's still currency attached to it. There's still three revenue streams on both sides attached to it. Okay, so these things are still happening.

What's the difference? The difference is perception. What happened? See, I have both sides of it, guys. I don't want to date myself. When I started at Warner Brothers, it was 1993. Okay? It was the golden era of music, is what they called it. And they called it the golden era of music because there was more money coming to the labels, not to the artists. Okay, so it wasn't golden era for artists. It was the golden era for all of the labels, okay? But then you had the artists that were disgruntled by this, and then you had the influx of technology, introducing Pro Tools and these other things that said: Wait a second, maybe I don't need a major. Maybe I can do this myself! Maybe I can come out and start putting my product into the world. And then you have all these other constructs that basically monetized off of that ability, like that possibility. The bottom line is it never changed. The industry never changed. I'm telling you, the art is everything. If you only have your community, if you only have your regular people that are coming to you for the bread and the coffee every day, that's perfectly fine when you're doing it as a business. It's not so good if you're doing it as a hobby. It's not so good if you don't realize the revenue streams that are possibly attached to that. If you don't see that I can take one revenue stream and turn it into nine. Maybe it's not the best play for you. Maybe then you are thinking: global domination. Maybe you are figuring: how do you become Krispy Kreme, right? Or how do you become Dunkin Donuts, right? But that's not where you're going to start, right? So I really think we've gotten away from our humble beginnings. The obscurity process for an artist used to be the most golden time in an artist's career. Like, that was it. That's what made the artist. That was where all the dance moves came from. That was from all the stuff that you see that you're like: Oh, I love it when they do that. Yeah, that probably was perfected in obscurity. But it's this whole thing about social media and being about the perception, and: I want to matter to the world. I want my followers up. I want the blue check by my name. I want the world to know who I am. It's going to happen if you're doing it the right way. And by doing it the right way, I mean being intelligent; The artistic intelligent part. And there's another “I that I really think goes along with, and I've said it already, is the intentionality behind it. We’ve really got to start looking at our music careers as though you're starting a business. And that kind of goes to what you were talking about, Michael, in regards to the art and the money. It's like when you start the business, you're not starting the business thinking: Oh, I'm going to get rich. I mean, maybe there are some people who do that and I know some of them and maybe their businesses do well for a little bit, but they fizzle out because they don't have the passion, right? They're not doing it because it's genuinely what they want to do. All right. So I'm weeding out all the people that are just doing music for money. I'm talking to the passionate people that are doing music because they love it. When you add the passion in with the business, the understanding, the intelligence, according to how the industry really works, in regards to how the revenue streams make it to you, you're inevitably going to be successful. Like you say, you may just be the neighborhood baker, but the neighborhood bakers turn into the household names in music. That's how we got all of our people. Prince was a neighborhood baker basically at first. This is how it happens.

Michael Walker: Right. It doesn't just happen out of nowhere. A tree magically shows up and: Oh, it's like a fully grown tree. It's like, no. It starts with the seeds and it starts at the roots and then it starts to blossom. And it's, at the beginning it's tender and it's smaller and it's growing. But yeah, like it doesn't, I think you're right there, there's sort of a perception that: It's like all or nothing. You certainly have more experience in this world, but with record labels: the way that they used to break artists and how basically every successful artist was a household name just because of the way that the model worked. It's not really the case anymore. A lot of people sort of expect that they're just going to look around and see the fully grown trees. If it's not a fully grown tree, then it's not successful. And clearly that's not the case anymore.

Sidney Eugene: Right. And it has a lot to do with our mentalities now, and like you say, this whole digital age, which I'm certainly leaning into. Here's the thing, and I think I've said this to you before, in 2013 I said: Hey guys, you need to figure out how to eat if every venue closes down. A lot of artists were saying, man, that would never happen. What are you talking about? We're going to keep this moving. We don't need to figure out how to eat without venues. Years later, we have COVID. All the venues shut down. A lot of people came back and said: Sydney, you know exactly what's happening. The same thing happened: 2014, 2015, I say: hey guys, everybody's running to digital. You really need to be honing your community. You really need to be touching babies. You really need to know the people in your base. Giving hugs. Kissing people. caring about the fact that they care about your music. And people said: ah, Sid, streaming is everything, physical is dead, none of that stuff will ever matter. And now, here we are, with everybody saying: hey, I don't know what to tell you to do, but you need to probably start with your community. You need to start getting back into physical. I know you guys are shopping. You see that physical is out now; Vinyl's everywhere now. Like in my world, vinyl's everywhere. Anywhere I go, I'm gonna see vinyl. Anywhere I go a play that I'm a part of is gonna have vinyl attached to it at some point because it's one of the highest profit margins. Okay? And if you're a rocker, then you're all about the vinyl because rockers are the ones buying the vinyls right now. Okay, the highest genre. I mean, everybody's buying it, but in regards to genres, the rockers are buying more vinyl than anybody else. So, it's the idea of realizing that all of this smoke and mirrors, not to call it smoke and mirrors, but all of the changes in our industry are literally accompaniments, right? The core is the same. Our industry is the same. The regulations are the same. The laws haven't changed. Even the laws that are coming out to update the older laws are still on the backs of the older laws are still on the backs of the older laws. So they're still there. One of the laws I like the most is attached to the mechanical royalty. This is the law I like the most. And if you really get this, it really starts to make you think like, hold on, what's going on here? Because the mechanical royalty law basically says: Any time your music is played, you get paid. It's attached to a lot of other things, but that's pretty much the core of it: Anytime your music is played, you get paid. Okay? Now if you really let that sink in and you think about how many times people have heard your music and maybe you didn't get paid, then you start to figure out… I mean, how much longer do you let it go? Like, how much longer do you let it go until you start to figure out that: I'm not getting paid, which is a direct violation of a law that was put in place to protect you as a creator. You get what I'm saying? So, if this law is in place and you're doing everything, you're creating the music, you're getting it played, where's the disconnect? And guess what? That's you. That's your responsibility as a business owner. You just consider it. You're a homeowner. You're a homeowner and something goes wrong in your house. It's your responsibility to figure out what's going on. Clearly, you have a leak. Where is the leak? Why is the money not making it to you? And so as artists, what we saw in the community was we saw the artist that said: Hey, I'm okay if I don't get the money. And then the whole industry followed suit:  Well, it's okay if we don't get the money. Like, what? So just because you decided it was okay for you to not get the money doesn't mean that the laws changed. It's just like if I decide I'm going to go punch the gas on a red light, I can make that decision myself, but the law still stipulates that I'm running the red light, right? So just because we decide to change things ourselves, doesn't mean that we change the fundamental element that makes our industry run. And so that's the thing when I say artistic intelligence, it's make yourself…. And like I said, guys, I'm weeding out the people who are doing this as a hobby and notdoing it for money. I'm talking to the core group. I'm talking to the people that know you are only breathing oxygen because you are here to do music. Those people, you are now charged with making yourself a pupil. You must become intelligent in regards to our industry to connect the dots, figure out why you have a leak, figure out why when people play your music you're not getting paid, figure out why the industry is saying your music is valued at $0.003. Where did that come from? Where did that number come from? Figure that out for you. Did you set that number? Do you think that's a fair number for the amount of value that you put into that record? Is that the number you're comfortable with? These are things we can control directly, right? But we've surrendered our power as an artistic community and we've just said: Hey, I'm just going to go along with the powers that be when everything that we have is here because we are the ones that put it in place, right? The laws were put there to protect the creator. They're there for you. So now, if you don't exercise them…. I don't know what to say. Right? There's something there.

Michael Walker: One thing that I so appreciate about what you just shared, Sydney, is just the emphasis on claiming ownership for ourselves and responsibility for ourselves. I see some folks in the chat right now who are like: yes! Agreed. We're responsible. And that's such a powerful mindset. There's this concept of locus of control that basically means, like, where do we assume the responsibility for our life experience and our life situation? Do we have a “victim mindset”? Do we think that external environment, external circumstances, things that we can't control, are responsible for our own life and our own situation? And there's like a direct correlation between the people who are high achievers, who are successful. They take ownership. Even things that  are a gray area. You could say: well…. it's like someone else… They still take responsibility for that. They take responsibility for their own role in that situation. And miscommunications. They take responsibilities for themselves. And it's not necessarily about a blaming mindset, like: Oh, I'm at fault and I'm awful as a human. It's not about victimizing yourself for it, but it's about claiming your power. And actually, when you blame someone else or external circumstances, you're literally giving your power away. You're saying that this other thing has the influence, it has this power to change my situation. So I do think, in line with everything that you're describing around taking ownership and being responsible, there's such a huge mindset shift and life shift that happens when we truly sit back and we say: yeah, I am taking responsibility. I'm taking ownership of everything that happens to me.

Sidney Eugene: Yes. And that's the whole thing. It is that! It is taking the ownership. It is our life, right? It's ours, right? So think about it like this. So now if you're charged and you're sitting in that position of power and you're charged, you're now more responsible for finding out about your clients, your customers, your fans, your listeners, your listening family, whatever you want to call them. You're more charged with figuring that out than you are: How many followers do I have? Does this person think I look good? How am I matching up to the next celebrity that I see? Your whole thing is… the reason the neighborhood baker's in business is because he cares about the people that come in there. He knows what they like. If all of a sudden one day, everybody goes in there to get the glazed donuts, and the next day they go in there and there are no glazed donuts, but today he's serving up cornbread, and you're just like, cornbread doesn't go with coffee? He's like, today it does. And you're just like, well what happened to the glazed donuts? It's like, clearly he doesn't have the intel that's necessary for him to have a successful business. What I can tell you is that baker has been there for years, long before I got here. But the point is once you become very diligent about mining your base, finding out why are people listening to you? These are simple things as artists. I think we complicate it. This is super simple. This was an assignment I was given on music row. You literally go to every listener that you have and you say: Hey, what do you guys like about me? One of the challenges we do at Learning BE is a thousand DM challenge. If you don't have a thousand followers, do however many you have. If you have 10,000, do 10,000. Who cares? Do what you can do, right? Maximize it. If you really care about this, even if it took you two years to talk to 10,000 people following you, isn't it worth it? Couldn't it be worth it? It's worth it, right? Especially if they tell you they all like glazed donuts, because now you know you're onto something. But the point here is that one of the things you can do is just basically ask. You can just say: Hey guys, what do you like? What do you like? Do you like upbeat songs? Do you like ballads? Do you like it when I sing? Do you like it when I rap? What do you like about what I do? You want me to scream more? Is this microphone okay? What do you like about it? Which one of my songs is your favorite song? How are you consuming my music? Get so granular with your base, they're going to tell you the secret sauce. You guys have heard of surveys. Why do people pay millions of dollars for surveys? Why do they do that? It's risk analysis to some extent. It's minimizing risk. We don't want to put out this color blue if everybody's favoring this other color green. But how will we know? What we're going to do is we're going to survey our base and they're going to tell us. And then we're going to put out the color that they like, and it's going to look like you hit a home run, and like, it's just magical. But really, all you did was do your homework, okay? But there's something really, really important that I want to give you, because I don't know how much time we have, Michael. So there was only one thing that I said I wanted to make sure to leave you all with and that's this important thing, and it goes right along with artistic intelligence. It's the importance of you and the necessity for you to have a will, okay? You must have a will if you are one of those passionate artists that I was talking about that's putting music into the marketplace. Why? Because of those two words again: residual in perpetuity. Now, I'm not the will guy, right? I'm not pushing wills on everybody. I don't have a will company or whatever, [both laughing] so I go to will.com, it's like, no, that's not my play here. But what I'm saying is will’s matter for people who leave things behind. Okay? If you don't have anything you're going to leave behind, then you don't really need a will. But remember residual in perpetuity, okay? So if you were putting out your music the right way, which means it's going to be in the marketplace, I can give you a low hanging fruit way of making sure your music is always current. You do the plays that we see right now. Why are people listening to holiday music? Because they're gonna do it every year. So this is like a low hanging fruit play that we do. It's like: have a holiday song that your base really likes. Because guess what? Next year they're gonna listen to it again. I mean, I'm listening to holiday music from my base that I hadn't listened to since last year this time. But I'm gonna listen to it.

Michael Walker: Everyone here should probably do that. Get yourself a holiday song.

Sidney Eugene: Yes. Yes. And even if, if you get the people that are like: I'm not a holiday person, do a season, something about a season. People play summertime by Jazzy Jeff and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Michael Walker: Do a song about how you're not a holiday person. That would be timely for the holidays. That’s really how I feel about the holidays.

Sidney Eugene: Yes, whatever your thing is, but the point is these are cyclical plays, right? They're going to come around every year. So this gives you an opportunity to stay current. The reason that will is so important is because that music is going to continue to generate residuals in perpetuity. What happens now with all those babies, because I like to look at our songs and our babies and all those babies you have now in the marketplace, what happens to them? Like, what is your last will and testament? Do you, do you know what is going to happen to that music? Okay. And so I really wanted to give you that because it's just something that people don't talk about. They don't talk about that you need a will. And for some reason, we tend to think that we're not going to die, you know what I'm saying? Everybody has their own belief and I'm certainly an energetic believer: I believe energy doesn't decease, it transmutes into something. 

Michael Walker: That’s just physics right there: Energy can’t be created nor destroyed

Sidney Eugene: Right. So even if that's your thing, like you are going to transcend or transmute into something else. But guess what? You're still not going to be in this physical scenario that you're in right now. Even if you switch into something way better, your music that you created as the person you are now is still going to be in play. So that's why that wheel is so important. Because you need it. Now, a few people that didn't have wills is super surprising. Michael Jackson didn't have a wheel. Prince. Amy Winehouse didn't have a will. Jimi Hendrix. The list goes on. So many people just never thought about it. Just never thought about what's going to happen to all of this amazing music when I'm gone. And it matters for us because it continues to generate revenue. That's the only reason why I'm saying it. I'm not saying it because it's a keepsake. I'm saying it because that revenue… where does it now go? Who gets it? Right? Who gets the revenue that is rightfully yours? Okay, so, so get yourself a willl. Everybody just start with a wheel. At, at LearnerBE, we do living trusts. That's our thing because we know what it is. Everybody needs to be set up for legacy plays. I'm all about a legacy play because coming from Music Row, coming from a major background, having tenure at all three major labels, I know that you only need to do it right once. This is something that we would always say, you only need to do it right once. And what that means is when you do it right that one time, you better be prepared for it. Because say that you did it right once, but you weren't prepared for it. It's not so good. It's a scary scenario. It's like getting everything you ever asked for and not being able to receive it. It's a really bad play. But let's say that you are prepared. You do everything the right way. You're set for life. You're set for life. And so now it's just: how do you have a container to package that? There's this weird thing that comes in play when you start talking about music. One side of the spectrum where you have people think there's not enough money in music, right? That's what Michael was talking about the whole starving artist thing. And that's just because people they maybe haven't traveled or they don't know about other industries because that's really just an American thing. I've never heard somebody say starving artists outside of America. That's more of an American play. In several countries, artists are esteemed as high as doctors Because they say well, wait a second these artists, they give us what we need. They give us our medicine. They give us the music that gets us through, and so they're esteemed very high. And so the governments make sure that they're taken care of and they have everything. I'm thinking about Germany in this case where GEMA is going to make sure you have a retirement. GEMA is going to make sure you're taken care of and your music's protected. They don't even allow you to play in their space without being protected. But this is the same thing that's going on across the board. So you have people on one side thinking there's not enough money. And then you have the other side where you're thinking: Oh, I'm going to make a million dollars off of my song today. Oh, when my song comes out I'm going to go viral. And the world is going to know who I am. I'm the next Lil Nas X, or I'm the next this, I'm the Billie Eilish, I'm the next this, and so there's that side of it. But what's lost in the middle is you. You… and you're the most important part of it. So it's that tunnel vision thing going back to the community and just saying: okay, what makes my donut special? What makes my bread special? What can I do to keep people coming back to me? What can I do to make sure that I'm better today than I was yesterday? What can I do? What added value can I give? They really like the glazed donuts. Maybe they will like these donuts with these sprinkles on it too. Maybe it's just a way of stepping it up a notch for you and your people that starts to spread the word. They start to say: Hey, I'll tell you, I heard a song last night for the first time and I literally shared… I looked at my, my phone today, I couldn't believe I shared it with 10 people. I don't think I've ever done that in my life. But the song touched me so much last night, I literally got on my phone and texted the link to 10 people. No preface, just, yo, boom, here's the link.

Michael Walker: You should share it in our Modern Musician community on Discord. Sidney Eugene: Oh, I will do, I will do that for sure. The artist is amazing. The album is amazing. It's just next level. Her genre is something she made up. It's called Gospel Trip Hop. Very interesting.

Michael Walker: Put a link in the chat for our Discord, Sydney. But I'd love to invite you to the community.

Sidney Eugene: Oh, she's so dope. Yes, please.

Michael Walker: Dude, that, share your music channel. It's, personally for me, it's been awesome. It's been my favorite source of new music since… a very long time. And it even got me thinking that, like the music relics, we really need to get on creating a super simple: upload your music, create your music relics, so that we can share those in that channel. Because personally, I would love to go in there and just scoop up a bunch of your guys music relics that you're putting out. Both because I love the music, and also I think, long term, that's gonna be a really cool source of collectibles, is to own all those. So, that's something on the forefront, that we're gonna be creating a really good integration, so you can easily create your music relics. And then you can share them and you share your music and I'll probably personally be scooping up some of my favorite ones that you guys are sharing. But Sydney, I'd love to hear the artists that you're referring to and just like sharing a link in the Share Your Music channel. 

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, absolutely. So I'll shoot it to you and then by all means. So I would give you a name right now, but I don't want to, I don't want to go through my phone. But yeah, my point is it rises to the top. Like she did her due diligence. There was no advertisement for that song. It was a random song that I heard and it touched me and I shared it with people. This is what people will do. They will share it. That's the reason this guy has all of the people coming in to get his bread, because the community knows: hey, when I moved here and I said, hey, where's the best places to eat? The community told me where the best places to eat were. Here's the best place for you to eat because it's happening here. It's just one of those things of being very careful to not get beyond yourself. Be a fan of yourself first. Literally go through this full process for yourself. Love the obscurity. Love the obscurity. Love the fact that no one knows who you are right now while you're learning and going through your mistakes. It's so beautiful because you get to learn all of this stuff without the world watching you. I like the quote when Alicia Keys says: it took me 12 years for overnight success. I just love that quote so much because it really speaks to the life of the artist and if you think you don't have 12 years, I'm going to tell you do you know you have 12 years because the time is going to pass anyway, right? Think about the last 12 years, right? You didn’t think you have 12 years then but at times gone, it's so now it's just being intentional, doing the due diligence, realizing that you're in an industry that's clearly carved out. Clearly carved out. The laws are there. The way for your success has been clearly made. Become a pupil of your industry, okay? Mind your base, okay? So another low hanging fruit too I can give you guys, you're probably already familiar with it, is sound charts, okay? The alternative would be something like chart metrics but I'll let you know that sound charts is used by all three majors: Sony, Universal, and Warner all use sound charts. So it's what we use. And Sound Charts is a great way of just being able to say what the people in your base are into. I mean, there's other things you can do too, obviously, asking is the best way I think. Just ask them. One, it's involvement, right?

It's interaction, it's their exchange there with your base. They're going to love that because you're actually talking to them. But two, the intel is next level because they are telling you what they like. They're giving you. They're saying, here's the way you're going to keep me as a satisfied customer. Here's the reason I'm in your world and then you just give them more and more of that and guess what? They're not the only one of their kind. What they end up doing is sharing it with their “birds of a feather” and the next thing you know, you have a full community of people who only like you. They don't care that you sound like this other person that's maybe got the blue check and has 10 million followers. They like you for that. They're like, no, you're my guy. You're my person. You're the reason I listen to this type of music. And so it's just taking our time to really put something solid together. And we're doing that because it's perpetual, and these residuals are going to come forever.

It's going to happen forever. When you leave, it will continue to happen. So that's what I say. We have a member in our base: He's 75. He's an amazing guy. And I think he's the oldest member in our base. We have some elders in our base. But one of the things I said to him that I think was one of the decisive points made that allowed him to make the decision to come into our base was I said: you think you're too old, but you listen to dead people's music.

Michael Walker: That's a great point.

Sidney Eugene: You think you're, you're too old, but you're listening to dead people's music right now. So there's this thing that… it's not going away. Like it's going to be here forever. The best thing we can do is get in front of it and make it ours. Learn from it. Put the pieces of the puzzle together. We need to know what happens to your music when you're no longer here, and you need to know that too. So that's the main thing. Everybody get a will. Get a will and start  taking ownership of your career.

Michael Walker: This is a phrase that's been circulating. It's been like a theme of the last several weeks for me. It's been the phrase: better late than never. And it's a common phrase and everyone's heard it a million times, but there's a lot of wisdom in that: better late than never. It's like, okay, dang, like I wish I had started sooner, but it's better late than never. And it's always going to be better late than never. And so it's like, yeah, like it's okay. Better late than never. Start. Do it now. Like we're, yeah, we all learn. We all have our own journeys and make mistakes, but better late than never.

Sidney Eugene: Yes, yes. And people try to be hard on artists, but there's no reason for it. There's no reason for it. And I think it's just because we're so powerful, because we do things that people can't see. So it's a little bit different. It's like you do something that no one can really see. Artists are just about up there with the most divine beings we can think of, because what we do, you can't really see. You can see the guy building the house, right? You can see it. You drive by, you keep watching, there's another wall, and next thing you know there's a front door, and you're like: wow, that's actually a house, but the artists you don't really see it all the time. You don't really see them going into the studio and writing and building and creating this psychic space for other people to come and be attracted to. You don't really see that, right? Yeah, when they play those arenas or when they play these venues and the people show up, you can see the impression. You can see that people are touched by this. But you still don't really see the music. You can't really just tangibly say: I'm holding this song. And I know, that's when the NFT played when they tried to really attach to music. That was my biggest… it's gonna be really challenging. Which is why most NFT plays in the music field attached themselves to the cover art because it was something that we could say, here it is, you see it, it's tangible, here it is, we have it. Whereas with this music, you don't really see it, but you feel it. You feel it so much. And so that's the thing. I think that's why artists get pushed to the back of the line because like, well, we don't really see your value. But try and watch a movie without music. It's not the same. Try and have an amazing event. I don't know if you guys are into sports, but try to try to find one sports broadcast that doesn't have music. It's just, it doesn't happen. Commercials. Music is everywhere. Movies, commercials, broadcasts, anything, sports, it's always there. Music is the fabric of our lives. And so for someone to try and downplay your contribution to our society and to the world at large by saying, oh, you're just an artist? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's like, no. You're giving something that will never pass away. Like, you're giving something that will be here forever. Like, who does that?

Michael Walker: Yeah, it's, it's amazing. Hey, Sidney. So how about before we wrap up, maybe we do one question here from the audience. So I see you coming in here. Sidney Eugene: Absolutely.

Michael Walker: Let's see. We've got a few good options. K had asked: You were describing earlier about the three revenue streams. You're talking about revenue streams and about losing out on one of those revenue streams when you put your music out, could you describe a little bit more detail about that revenue stream and what you're referring to?

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, absolutely. So, so I, I won't go into my teaching mode, even though I'm probably….

Michael Walker: I see people in the, yes. See, that's the example of us being here live, and being able to connect in real time and being able to listen to your questions and hear them. Cause it sounds like that was something that I would bet that people are listening to this podcast that's recorded on Apple Podcasts or Spotify later they might have had that same question. And now we're going to be able to answer it directly. Pretty cool.

Sidney Eugene: Excellent. So you guys, there are actually three. Whenever we start talking streaming music, obviously, you can see I'm not going to go too deep into the teaching part of this, but whenever we start talking about streaming music there are three revenue streams on both sides. Specifically, because I singled out Spotify, we'll just focus on the recording side. And the other side is obviously the publishing side? Which would be the composition. But on the recording side, there is a reproduction royalty that you pass up by saying you're gonna let your music be on Spotify or other DSPs that have made the same deal where they are legally not required to pay you that reproduction royalty. The reproduction royalty has never been violated. And it really can't be violated. It's only violated now by our consent because you don't have to put your music on Spotify, right? Spotify's not making you give up that royalty. They're not making you, they're just saying if you're going to play on our platform. You're not going to get that royalty, right? So, they're not violating the law because they're being clear about their terms and conditions, and they're saying straight up, if you're going to be on our platform, you're not going to get it. Now, how many of you guys really read terms and conditions? Like, how many of you really sit there… how many of you all have an attorney that you trust, that before you put out any music on anybody's platform, you send over the terms and conditions to? And you ask, do I use DistroKid? Do I use TuneCore? Like, every time you give your project to them, you're engaging in a legal transaction. It's a legally binding play, right? So why wouldn't you have legal counsel? Why wouldn't you, right? I mean, you need legal counsel, right? I mean, unless you're just really good at reading terms and conditions, which, I can't stand those things. So we give them to the attorney, right? Because it's in the terms and conditions that you're giving away your reproduction royalty.

Michael Walker: When we talk about reproduction royalty, real quick, what's the scope of that? What proportion of the revenue is that? And how much were you sacrificing with that? 

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, so, the rates are determined by the different boards, right? So, every rate is gonna be different per DSP. So it's not really a blanket answer on that. But but just know that I'm the guy that likes pennies, I like all the money, you know what I'm saying, like, if you're telling me, hey, every time you put out your music, there's going to be a penny associated with it in every revenue stream, but you're going to not get this one penny because you're not going to do the revenue stream, I'm very concerned about that, because pennies turn to nickels and nickels turn to dimes and so forth. Before you know it, you're in the billions. It's all by adding up those, those pennies.So it's nothing wrong with playing with the Spotify's or the Deezer's or the Tidals or what have you. It's just putting them in their proper place. But I do want to get back to those royalties really quick. So the two royalties that you will get will be the performance royalty and the mechanical royalty. So you're going to get those two but you're, you're, you're going to bypass the reproduction royalty. Even if they were all equal, it's money that's yours that you're not going to get. I want all the money that belongs to me, and not just because it's mine. I like money and I'll give it to my descendants and it'll go into helping someone else in my family because it's rightfully mine. Right? So this is the play here to then strategize in a way that you include the DSPs, but that you don't anchor on the DSPs.

Whenever people say: I'm gonna anchor on a DSP, it's the scariest thing in the world. That, to me, is scarier than the lottery. We had a session where we said, bet on yourself because you will never lose if you bet on yourself. It's only when you bet on other things that there's these variables, but it's like the lottery. If you say you're going to bet on a streaming play, like if you're going to anchor your entire strategy on a streaming play.  Now look, we have people in our base who make more money in streaming than they make performing. That's where they get pretty much all of their money from their streaming plays, right? So I’m not anti-stream. That's why I have to be very clear, but, I am pro-artist. And so if someone tells me that, Hey, the artistic side of what you do is going to suffer by means of this Avenue, I'm already not a fan of that Avenue just because of who I am and what I stand for is artistic empowerment, artistic intelligence, anything that's against the artists. And to me, taking a royalty, whether it's $0.00008 of a cent to me, is inappropriate because of the laws that have been put in place specifically to protect the creator. These laws came because of this. They knew it. They saw at one point they realized, Hey, these artists are going to get taken advantage of if we don't put these laws in place to protect these guys. And so the laws are there, but we're going around them, we're intentionally going around them, whether we know it or not. But step your game up on those terms and conditions because you're giving away royalty revenue streams when you play with some of these powers that be. So hopefully that answers it without being too teachy up here. But yeah, man, if we got time for one more, let's take another one, Michael, if we got some, you got something else?

Michael Walker: I think we've we've spent some good high quality time here. We're actually about 20 minutes over the allotted time that we have for interviews. [both laughing] but I think we're probably good to officially wrap it up. But let's all give a round of applause for Sidney. Yeah! Yeah! Thank you, Sydney.

Sidney Eugene: My pleasure! Always

Michael Walker: It's been awesome having a conversation with you. I really appreciate the experience and like the wisdom that you bring from your background to today's music industry. And for anyone that's listening or watching this right now, who's interested in learning more or diving deeper into learning the music business essentials where would be the best place for me to go to dive deeper? 

Sidney Eugene: Yeah, just go to learningmbe.com. We’re transitioning. I just started a whole new platform, so we're getting everything cooking over there, but I think you could find what you're looking for, at least a way to get in touch with us at learnmbe.com. There is a new music release schedule that's on there that if you don't have, it could really be helpful in regards to putting out music this upcoming year. You gotta put in your email, and I'll be in touch with you after that. You'll get the little download. It'll be amazing, so.

Michael Walker Awesome. Well, thank you for putting that together. I think all of us, as musicians, learning how to release our music successfully, having a schedule for it, is super helpful. So, like always, check out the link in the show notes. We've got it here if you're watching this live in the community, in the chat. And Sydney, you're awesome. Thank you for being here. 

Sidney Eugene: Same, man. Same. My pleasure. 

Michael Walker: Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

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