Wyshmaster Beats: I'm a firm believer in: If you build it, they will come. Everything we have pretty much is free, like social media and stuff. Now, there are sites that putting up your music costs you maybe a monthly charge or something, but if you believe in your music and you have good music and it's just going out there and blowing up, people are going to come to you. 

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.

All right. So I'm excited to be here today with Wyshmaster Beats. So Wysh is a Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum selling music producer. It's one of the pioneers of online leasing. He has worked with artists like Twista, Pitbull, Nelly, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, and many more. And he's active in song pitching for artists, labels, TV, music, games.

And he's someone that I think is absolutely slaying it right now in his domain in terms of who he works with, and also, he's someone that I'm looking forward to having a conversation with just about the current status of the music industry and where things are headed, in particular with AI and music generation tools. I think it's an interesting time to be alive and sort of witness how is that going to affect your world, especially in music licensing as a whole. So Wysh, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. It's awesome. I think we did this, what, like two years ago, maybe?

Michael Walker: It's been a hot minute. Yeah. It's been too long. So maybe to kick things off, could you just share a brief introduction about how you got started and you found your way to collaborating with artists like Pitbull and 2 Chinz and Lil Wayne?

Wyshmaster Beats: Sure. Yeah, I'll do a short version, but I basically am from Chicago. I was into house music and hip hop. And I had a love for music cause my parents used to just constantly play music in the car. So I knew I wanted to be in music. I just didn't know where. So the first place I went was a DJ. So I started DJing like house parties and did some clubs. I was at a really big club and I played a song, I forgot the song was called, but it just drew everybody to the dance floor.

Michael Walker: The Macarena?

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah. Yeah. [both chuckle] I dunno if you guys remember The Dip?  “When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip”. It was a huge song.

Michael Walker: There we go.

Wyshmaster Beats: And then I remember thinking to myself: I don't want to just play the music that's making these people move on the dance floor. I wanna create the music. So from that day forward… I was really into Timbaland, Dr. Dre, Neptunes and Three 6 Mafia, which is a little different, but I decided I wanted to be a producer. So I bought my first keyboard and I just started making beats there. We didn't have YouTube and all the things we have right now to be able to show us how to create these things. So I just listened to my favorite producers, started creating. And I loved it so much that I would just do it every day. I would just constantly be in my parents basement, just knocking out beats. The first, probably 100, probably terrible. But I think after I got to maybe 100, they started sounding pretty good. I had some friends that were rapping. And then I had some other, their friends, friends of reps. I just started a record label; like a little record label in my parents basement cause I had a little studio setup. And we just started doing shows and I started putting stuff out. And then I was doing security at the time and I rememberI basically just sit at a computer all day and just make sure people don't walk away with computers as a computer college. So I'm like: I'm going to see if a desktop computer comes out the front door. So I basically started searching online and looking for: what do producers do. So I found this website, it was called mp3.com, which is like the first SoundClick. If you guys are familiar with SoundClick and producers would just put their beats online and they would get paid per their streams. So I was like: all right, this is cool. And I had like probably 50 beats. I'm like: I'm just going to throw all that shit up there. So I put 50 beats up and I started getting some streams as people started liking my stuff and I started getting paid. I got my first check was like $50 or something. I was like: man, I got 50 bucks just from putting my beats on the sites? I just kept doing it and doing it. And then one day they stopped paying people to do it. I remember a funny story: I remember sitting in my parents basement and playing my music for probably a weekend straight. Every second I would just keep playing my stuff. Cause I'm like, I'm getting paid for this. I did not know about cookies and IP addresses. So I pretty much spent hours playing my stuff and only one would count per day. I decided from there because they stopped paying us, they had an internal messaging system, right? Like an email thing. And I went in there and I had all these messages from different artists and they're like: Hey, how much do you want for this beat? Or I love your beats. I was like, all right, and look it up. And I'm like, all right, this guy wants to buy this beat. I didn't really know about like exclusive rights or any of that stuff. So I was like, all right, I guess you just sell it outright. So I sold my first beat outright. I looked at my phone bills, 50 bucks. So I was like, all right, $50. So I sold my first beat for $50. And then from there, I just kept going through messages and putting up more beats. And then people would just constantly message me and saying: Hey, like how much you want for the, I probably got to $3,000 per beat. And that was just from independent artists and I was killing it. I decided to quit my job as security and just do music full-time. And then from there: the economy hits, I remember, and people didn't have as much money. So like it was selling exclusive rights. Like it got down to $400 - $500 bucks and artists would complain and be like: dude, I can't afford this. So that's when I came up with the idea for licensing. And I'm like: why don't I just sell the same beats over and over again? Give them the license power. It doesn't kill their budget. And they could still make money. I still make money and we're all happy. When I started doing that is when my fan base just blew up. Different countries everywhere around the world were just messaging me like: dude, you're the best. And just buying my stuff up cause I could afford it. So from there, that's when I got started getting noticed by bigger artists and bigger companies. And I remember my first big gig was Midway Games. And I got emailed by that guy, John Boniaki, who was running a… I forgot exactly his position, but he was doing a video game. He's like: Hey man, I got this one of a kind video game. It's called NBA ballers and it's different than any other game. You play basketball, but you also live the lifestyle of a basketball player and you upgrade your chains, your mansions, your cars and all that stuff. I’m like: that sounds cool. So they happened to be in Chicago, which is cool. So he took me on a tour and we want this to be real underground. I knew you’re really big online. So I ended up doing like 25 beats and 5 songs and I got a check for $25,000. So that was like my first big check from a big company. So it was pretty exciting. And then from there I started working with Ludacris. I worked on his Disturb the Peace album. And then I got noticed by a rapper named Nelly out of St. Louis. His production company wanted to sign me so I ended up moving to St. Louis, working with him full-time. And then I started getting noticed by other people. So I was just getting plays. That's when you see all these like different placements I had. They just start coming in. And then I did a song called “I'm on a Boat” by The Lonely Island.

Michael Walker: Nice!

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah. So it was a pretty big song and that was just a situation where I happened to be at Nelly's studio and there's somebody coming through looking for beats from Universal Republic and I ended up giving them that and it ended up being, I'm on a Boat. And then from there I just kept, growing and growing. I moved to Los Angeles and then I got into education and I wrote the first beat-making program for a college in St. Louis. So yeah, and I've done a lot of stuff since then. I don't want to go too crazy into the story, but yeah.

Michael Walker: Hey dude, that's awesome. Congratulations on your success.

Wyshmaster Beats: Thank-you!

Michael Walker: I love hearing stories like that in full detail. Cause the transformation is so huge from when you just started out and you're in your parents basement making those songs. I'd be curious, for you, if you could go back in time and you could go back to yourself when you just got started, maybe at like your most rock bottom/challenging moment. I don't know if you remember what that was for you.

Wyshmaster Beats: Oh, there’s tons of them, yeah.

Michael Walker: Yeah, so whatever that was for you… if you could give yourself one piece of advice based on what you know now what would you share with yourself back then?

Wyshmaster Beats: I would just say, don't listen to what people tell you. The ones that you're supposed to listen to: these high end managers, supposedly, or entertainment lawyers, sometimes they give you the wrong information. My biggest mistake in my career is I stopped doing online stuff. When that all started happening and I still had my online business, but I was like: man, I want to work with big artists. This is cool. I enjoy it, but this is my dream. And I remember I had management in LA and they're like: dude, you got to quit that shit. You don't want to be known as an online producer. And I'm like: yeah, I don't want to be known as an online producer. Like that sucks. So I stopped doing it. And now I like to this day, I'm like: Oh my God, if I would have kept my SEO going on my website and still had beats online, it'd be insane what I would have, and do the offline stuff. And I'm like, what is an online producer anyway? I'm like: why did that even bother me? I'm sitting there: who gives a shit? [both laughing] But back then, they made me feel like it was a small thing to do. I've listened to so many people giving me the wrong information and just try to guide me to do what they think is right instead of me just following my heart and no one was right.

Michael Walker: Man, that's really powerful. That's really good advice. How do you distinguish between… because sometimes feedback is good and sometimes constructive feedback is right, and you want to be open-minded and learn from other people. How do you distinguish between the type of advice that you're describing is the people downplaying something that in your gut or in your heart you know is right.

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah

Michael Walker: Versus something that actually is a good piece of advice that maybe is worth considering.

Wyshmaster Beats: So I guess it just depends on the person and where's this coming from? Did you just blast music out there and all of a sudden a bunch of people were like, started sending you hate mail or something? That's different where I'm like: that's different feedback. Cause there's people that have personal problems going on in their life. I'm sure you notice, we have email lists and when we send stuff out, you'll get people like: I just posted some dude told me to go kill myself. And I'm giving away free beats… That wouldn't be constructive criticism, right. [both laughing] You are going to get people that are going to hate on you, especially as artists and music. And you can't take that personally. But if you're talking to someone, let's say like Michael who's in the music business and you trust his opinion. And he says: Hey man, I like your song, but I would try maybe some different production or maybe try a harmony here or something. That would be constructive criticism. They're like, okay, I'm going to take that to heart. I trust his judgment. I know what he does. You know what I mean? Or if I'm working with an artist or a producer in the studio or something. I know they're not there to try to put me down, they're there to make music. We all eat whatever we create. That would be the construct of constructive criticism that I would take in, of course. So, I guess it just depends on your environment and where it's coming from.

Michael Walker: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah. And I know in particular, one of the points you just spoke to is really relevant to all of us as artists around criticism or putting something out and the trolls. The trolls, especially on the internet, they come out.

Wyshmaster Beats: Oh, of course.

Michael Walker: We touched on this a little bit, but I'd love to hear going a little bit deeper on this. Cause I know this is like a big pain point for a lot of our artists is dealing with negativity or dealing with trolls or feedback, even if it's from people who are just literally: go kill yourself. Obviously that's real bad. Hopefully, we don't take that too much to heart, but especially with some artists who are earlier on you in their journey, when they're still discovering their voice. You mentioned how at the beginning of your journey, like all of us, you made a bunch of beats and a lot of them weren't very good. You were figuring out your voice and how to get better at it. And I'm curious how do you recommend that artists look at trolls or look at negative feedback that they get in particular, if it's feedback that really just cuts through, because in some cases, like there might be an ounce of truth to some of the things that people are saying. That's part of what makes it challenging to face sometimes, but also, it's not something to dwell on or to take personally.

Wyshmaster Beats: So basically you have to put your music out there, right? You can't just let it sit there or you're not doing anything. You're just going to have regrets. You know what I mean? Even some of the beats, I was unsure. Even after that 100, there was some in there. I'm like: I don't know, but if I didn't try,I wouldn't know what was going to do good or whatnot. You know what I mean? As an artist, you try, you put your music out there, if you are getting a lot of negative feedback, it's either: your audience is horrible and they're not meant for you. You know what I mean? Are you making music for alternative Nirvana type, or do you make Nirvana type music and you have a bunch of rappers that are following you and are listening to you? That would be like, they don't listen to that stuff. Or are you doing hardcore hip-hop. And you're giving it to like some people that like spoken word, or a Christian crowd. You have to really know your audience, but that's how you find your audience too, is that you have to try to put it out there. And yeah, if you're getting some negative feedback, but anybody shouldn't be malicious, right? If someone's being malicious and saying “you suck”, that's horrible feedback. There's something else internally going on with that person. If someone's: Hey, I really like your voice, but I don't like the way you're doing this or something, actually giving you some criticism with some detail, I take that stuff in and that's the stuff I'm like: okay, cool. Thank you. And you could either. Or you can see what other people say as well. But like I said, I'm looking for more people that like: give me some detail or something. If someone's saying something horrible or saying trash, I know that's like the biggest word somewhere, but trash or something like that's just not positive feedback. That's someone that has some internal shit going on with them and they're just a negative-type person. That's how I look at them. But you have to try and put your stuff out there. I would say even as an artist, even in the beginning, you have to learn marketing too, because that's how you find your audience. You know what I mean?

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yeah, great stuff. So in terms of the opportunities that are opening up right now, one way that I look at the industry is like catching waves. We're like surfers in the sense that certain opportunities… like the internet, when the internet first came out, like a big wave in the ocean and if you swim along with it, then you can hit that momentum when it's first coming out. So you can get a boost. And there's a lot of opportunities that have already passed and we might spend a lot of time and energy trying to catch up to something that isn't quite the opportunity that it used to be. I don't know, like radio, for example. I'm wondering if you sense anything right now. Generally, I love to take the approach of imagining that we're surfers sitting on the waves and you can start to feel some of those waves that are coming or some of those trends, and if you swim along with them at the right time, then you have this opportunity that you can really gain some massive momentum or boost and in a lot of cases, like you described with the internet, the online thing, it can be challenging because there's not a lot of proof. There's not a lot of evidence, yet, that the thing is a thing because it's an upcoming wave. But, if you are in tune with it, you can use as opportunities to get a boost. So that's a long-winded way of asking: What do you see right now is some of the biggest trends or opportunities that if you were starting from scratch and you were looking to grow your audience and build a successful music career that you'd go all in on.

Wyshmaster Beats: Some of the things I didn't have… I did have them, I just didn't know that, is I didn't educate myself. So a lot of things that I could have had, I didn't know what they were. So I didn't understand publishing. I didn't understand what management did. I know what record labels really did. I just thought it's like doing music, get signed, rich, or whatever.

Michael Walker: [sarcastically] That’s not how it works?

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah. [both laughing] There's such a wide array right now of education, even through ModernMusician and stuff where you can get that education to understand what you're doing cause if you know what you're doing, first and foremost, you're going to be able to, when you get an opportunity, you can walk in there and feel confident about it. So if even, say, you've got a chance to work with a songwriter and the songwriter happens to have maybe a couple of placements out there, you're going to know going in there: Hey, I need to do a split sheet. Let's make sure everything's fair. This is going to be the publishing splits. Make sure I'm, I'm signed up with BMI, ASCAP, or Sesac or whatever. Some of those things are really like… I probably had hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from me, or even just that I didn't collect because I didn't know what I was doing. You know what I mean? So I think first and foremost, you have that now. You can go to YouTube right now and tell you how to copyright my music. You know what I'm saying? Like I had to go get a book, “all you need to know about the music business” or something. Or you have courses that you could take, and they're cheap. So those are first and foremost the best opportunities. The second is you do have the internet and you have social media and stuff, and it doesn't hurt to reach out to people, but don't just reach out to artists, right? I’ve seen a lot of people, even producers are like: Oh, I reached out to Justin Bieber and I never got a response. I'm like: dude, first, Justin Bieber is not running his own messages on Instagram or whatever. First thing: try to find the manager, right? Try to find a manager or somebody close that is tied to him, and then maybe reach out to them and maybe give them an opportunity first. I always like to give value before. I don't just ask, right? I'm not gonna say: Hey, I got some beats. Can I send 'em to you? I might say: Hey, I got something I could do for you. I'm really good at graphics or something. If I do a cool graphic for you, would you mind listening to some beats or giving them to Justin Bieber or something? And Justin Bieber might be someone hard to reach out to. So I'll just give you an example. Maybe shoot a little bit lower. And then if that doesn't work, then you can reach out to songwriters, right? Find the songwriters that write for Justin Bieber. They sometimes don't have the biggest following and they're the ones that might reach out and be like, Hey, it's cool. Send me some of your music. Maybe we can do some collaborations or something. You know what I mean? And people think: Oh, that's just too hard. And there's only a few songwriters I can find, but I'm talking about 1 artist. Let's think about all the artists out there and all the connections that they have to them. If you find one, just one connection and they get to listen to your music, you just won. So that's a big opportunity there. I'm a firm believer in: If you build it, they will come. Everything we have pretty much is free, like social media and stuff. Now there are sites that putting up your music costs you maybe a monthly charge or something, but if you believe in your music and you have good music and it's just going out there and blowing up, people are going to come to you. If you didn't hear anything from my story, I was just in my parents basement, making music by myself, sometimes in my underwear. And people would message me and come to me and say: Hey, I'd like to work with you. I love your stuff. You know what I mean? I'm still a firm believer in that. So many people are just like: Oh, I gotta get to the right record label and I'm like, you don't have to get to a label, just build it yourself and people will come! I hope I answered the question.

Michael Walker: Yeah. Yeah. That's super valuable. There's something about that mindset shift when you flip from like chasing to more like attracting and building something that, and this definitely applies to marketing as well, inbound marketing versus outbound marketing, but in terms of the leverage, if you reach out to 100 people that takes an enormous amount of time and energy and you start where you start so sometimes it's good to connect with people and to reach out that way. But the response rate is extremely low when it's unsolicited vs if you have an inbound strategy where you're providing value upfront and the value is the thing that is attractive. Then you focus on creating value and building systems around it. I also really appreciate the point that you brought up around: how do you network and actually connect with some of these more established artists? And, maybe the best strategy isn't to reach out directly to them because they're so inundated already with people reaching out and they have their own sources of trusted connections that they already have. And it does seem that's maybe an untapped opportunity is just figuring out who are the connections that they have to reach out to that maybe they're as not saturated with people reaching out to them. And so if you provide value to them, then you can start to build a relationship and start to network and connect.

Wyshmaster Beats: It's the same thing as when I lived in LA: you meet somebody who happens to be the friends of this person. And then you end up saying: Hey, I do music. They're like, cool, man. Oh, I actually am friends with this person. What do you do? I was like, Oh, I make beats, bro. Give me some beats. I'll send it to him. I've gotten so much stuff by that. And I know a lot of people have gotten things like that of that nature. But now it's like, everybody has Instagram or Twitter or whatever. Like now you can just reach out to them. But like I said, give value. Don't just: Hey, I do music. Let me send you something. I'm like, [exasperated] God! And then some people will message me and say: Hey man, I'm a new producer. I, and give me their story or something. And then I'm like, all right, that sounds cool. I'll listen to your beats. You know what I mean? And if they're really good, I might be like: Hey man, I'll do a collab with you or something. No problem. Not everybody's like that. Not everybody likes to help people though. So I'll just tell you that right now.

Michael Walker: Right. Yeah. It's definitely a core mindset shift that I think is extremely valuable when it comes to networking is what you described of you focus on providing value first. Just that one shift that you do already puts you in the top, like 5% of people that are reaching out because instead of it being like, “gimme gimme”, or “me, me, me”, it's about providing value to them. And that just comes across really easily. I'm curious if you have any other recommendations for… I know you get a lot of people reach out to you, for example. What is the iconic, worst reach out that you see over and over again, that is the wrong way to do it versus the best, quality reach outs that you've ever seen.

Wyshmaster Beats: That you received the worst is, I'm the best and you need to work with me. Everybody that I know, I have a fan base, everybody tells me I'm the shit or something. Or: I am the shit and you need to work with me and you're telling me I need to work with you. It's a different approach, you know what I mean? Do you know how many times we all hear that? “Oh, I'm the best at what I do And you need to work with me” and stuff like that. Or they'll insult you and say: Oh you gotta be stupid not to work with me. [both laughing] Oh man. I was like: all right. I guess I'm dumb. And then you have the people that will come with either some value or say: Hey, I do this on the side. It could be anything. It'd be like: Hey, this guy! He does custom Nike's. He does like Nike Air Force Ones with Gucci and Louis Vuitton shit on there. And I'm really into shoes. He reached out to me: Hey man, I love to work with you. This is what I do as a side gig. And he sent me all that shit. I'm like, bro yeah, I'm into that! I would definitely want to help you because he found something I was into. And I'm like, all right, I could definitely help you there cause I'm into what you're doing. You know what I mean? Or it could be, if you do graphics or, a lot of artists don't understand you're also a songwriter, right? If you write your own stuff, you're songwriter. That's another thing you could do. Like sync placements is huge. There's so many jobs out there that pay up to huge money. All you have to do is just: you're creating a song, but for somebody else. And I know sometimes it's hard as an artist and as a producer: I don't want to give this up. This is like mine. This is my baby. But you're going to lose that after a while. Somehow you're like, all right, this is, I'm not using this. Here you go. So yeah, maybe laid out this: Hey, I'm a songwriter. I write choruses. I noticed you sell beats. Why don't I do some choruses? Could I do a couple of choruses for you just to, so you can hear if you like them, we could sell them together? And now you're working with somebody that is working in the industry too. So if I make something that I think is huge with that person, I'm like: all right, I'm going to pitch this to whoever. I just did Tech N9ne’s album that's coming out here this year. I did 13 on there. And what if one of those people reached out to me and I did a chorus and I happened to give that to Tech? So I'd say that's the best: the value stuff or, or the story. If you give me a sad enough story… It doesn't have to be sad, but if you give me a cool story, sometimes I read into it, I'm like: all right, man, I'm going to give this person a chance to listen to something. Not everybody's like that.

Michael Walker: Awesome. I want to take things in a little bit of a different direction cause I'd be curious to hear your perspective on it. Right now we’re sort of in this age of AI and generative tools. ChatGPT came out a little over a year ago and changed the game. MidJourney for images and now Dall-E 3 is incredible. About a week ago, Sora got announced with the video generation. And that's a whole can of worms in terms of high-fidelity videos, especially in a political year. It will be interesting to see what happens. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts as it relates to beat generation and musicians and also as creators. There's a lot of fear right now that: Oh, I could, are we going to get replaced? I'm curious what you see the role of musicians and us being creators and building communities and, potentially around creating things, creating beats for other artists, what kind of impact does AI and generative tools make on this industry?

Wyshmaster Beats: First thing I was going to say is do not go into it with fear because fear is going to make you not do your passion, right? You're going to just make an excuse not to do what you want to do. Yeah, of course you have that. I have in the back of my head too. I'm going to embrace it. AI has been around forever. It's just not maybe not where it is now, but even with beat-making, we can go online and get like 50 million loops and change the instrument and do all kinds of stuff. That's kind of an AI thing. You know what I mean? Which was cool for me. And I was always like the guy who was like: I'm not using loops. I'm a real producer! This is bullshit. And then I found out Timbaland and Neptunes are using loops and shit. I'm the idiot sitting there doing all my percussion. I'm like: Hey, that's a cool percussion loop. So I've always embraced stuff. If we feared everything, even in music that came along and then streaming and like legal downloads, that would have killed all of us. We were like, I'm done. There's no reason there's no more money out there. But I think passion keeps us going. As far as like how to affect me, I don't think it's going to affect me as much as far as working in the industry, because I think people still want that human touch. People still want to get in the studio. Not everybody, but I'm saying like some of the bigger artists want to get in the studio, they want that producer to guide them along or give them that production that's catered towards them. So I don't think that's ever going to stop with that. It's fine. Yeah, it might get a little bit worse. Some people might get some AI Beats online. I think that's because you don't have the same type of connection. We're talking through email or social media cause artists they're not sitting there talking with you. So they might go to Beat-AI or something and go make their own beat or something. I don't know if they're going to do this, but I'm pretty sure AI is probably not going to keep the publishing on it either. So if as an artist, they're like, Hey, I get 100% publishing cause all I had to do is pay $20 a month to use this beat software that makes it for me. But I think we're far from beats being so good that it's like: Oh my gosh. I've heard a lot of them. I have friends that have tried out this stuff and they're like: they sound like a little kid just making beats. But I think one day there will be there, but I still think it's going to have a human touch. It's going to have a Timbaland or somebody that's going to feed information to it and give it: Hey, this is how I create this. This is the instruments I use. And then you'll be able to like ccreate beats around like maybe Timbaland or Metro but that might be a cool thing. What if it's like: Producer-based AI, where it's like: all right, you're getting Wyshmaster stuff now, but it's my software. You're still going to get my touch, but it might be monthly or you're buying the software outright or whatever it's going to be. I still think the AI is never going to not have that human touch with stuff. Eventually, of course, maybe 10-15 years, it might just…. we're all screwed, but I embrace the stuff. I always have. A lot of my friends, they don't produce anymore because they didn't like how things happen. Even think about engineers. When ProTools came, a lot of them quit. They're like, I'm not doing this shit. Like I'm an analog guy. And the guys that stuck with the ProTools, or girls, they are the ones killing it. They're the ones like, the Manny's and stuff. They're like, yeah, I do it all in the box. This is easier for me. And it sounds great.

Michael Walker: Yeah, that's a great way to approach change. It seems like that's one of the constants of life is evolution and change. It doesn't seem like it generally fares well for anyone that resists change.

Wyshmaster Beats: No. It doesn’t.

Michael Walker: It's almost like that's the wrong side of the battle. Almost always.

Wyshmaster Beats: Now we might turn into a world of Terminator where, they turn against us or I don't know if you've seen the movie WALL-E where everybody's overweight going on these little scooters. That might happen. [laughs]

Michael Walker: Yeah, I mean, hopefully those are like red flags or warning signs for us to help avoid creating that. But I also think: a beautiful thing about being human is that we can create things. We can create the future. We can decide: what do we want our lives to be like.

Wyshmaster Beats: Exactly. And if you think about it, AI is, of course they're going to be able to create whatever, but there's so much music out there and there's going to be so many lawsuits. Just think about AI: I don't think it'd ever be perfect and not be connected to some other song or something or make something similar where you're going to be able to do that, but I'm sure they make AI software that's going to be able… I think that there actually already is, but, it could basically go online and read every single song on YouTube/on any platform and be able to break down the percentage of what was used from another song. It's crazy. That’s already out there

Michael Walker: Yeah, I think it's super interesting. I think you can make the case that, as humans, like we're all influenced by our favorite artists. It's just not possible for us to look at the songs that we wrote and dive in to be like: okay, 7% of this came from TechN9ne and 20% of this came from my other favorite artist. It’s kind of like a recipe that we take these different pieces, but it creates something new. Like different DNA strands, or two parents coming together, but they create a new child. I think there's something interesting happening with AI too where it works in a similar way. They're starting to see these emergent properties that is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not directly like taking pieces but it certainly was influenced or inspired by it. And yeah, the idea that you could actually have a percentage based: “this was 3.2% Coldplay” is interesting.

Wyshmaster Beats: It'll be easier too, because I'm like with lawsuits and stuff, you won't have to go to court and you won't have to have like human judges be like: Oh, let's break this down. Oh, blurred lines. This is, whatever. Now, put through the software give you exact percentage. Yeah, here 20%. It'll be easier. Now we can at least rely on that. And say okay. All right. I owe 20%. Not just: I have to pay all this money out for the song, yeah.

Michael Walker: That's super interesting. Yeah. Like looking at it as a spectrum or like a scale, if you had a percentage base where it was like, okay, this is just like 49.99% is the amount that you can be similar, but you can't be closer than that, or maybe it's 20%.

Wyshmaster Beats: [sarcastically] Or you just be like Kanye West and just go sample whatever you want and don't clear it. [both laughing] I don't know if you saw, there's like all these lawsuits coming out now: Donna Summers and Ozzy Osbourne and all of that. It's getting crazy.

Michael Walker: One point that you brought up I think is really important is around the role of human creativity even if we have these tools that allow us to create things in an amazing way. It’s like: just because you have a paintbrush that is a tool that allows you to transform something into artwork or into the canvas, it's still a paintbrush and it's still about you communicating what's in your brain to create something with it that's meaningful. The message/what the artwork that you're trying to portray… that's the most important part. It does seem like these AI tools probably are moving us in the direction where it's much easier to become a creator. Even people who aren't traditionally musicians or even know how to play an instrument.

Wyshmaster Beats: Yeah, if you think about autotune… Autotune is AI. Autotune made a bunch of non-singers, singers, right? And that was a huge…. it still is. It's a huge trend for years of people using autotune and basically putting them in key. But there was different types of it. You have The Futures and you have the T-Pains and all these different artists that are using their own way. So it's not like there was 1 person that had that sound, right? It was just, everybody's using it, but they still had their own style to it.

Michael Walker: Awesome!

Wyshmaster Beats: Like I said, there's still that human touch to it, right?

Michael Walker: Yep. So lean into it and bring who you are, bring your creativity, make it unique and using these tools isn't something necessarily to be afraid of, but of something to lean into. Awesome. All right. One thing I'd love to do, granted that we did overcome some technical issues at the beginning here. So I'm, knocking-on-wood, that this is going to work as planned, but I think it should work based on the way that we've set this up now. I'd love to invite our community! If you're here live and you have a question that you'd like to ask to Wysh, feel free to click on your profile and raise your hand and we'll bring you onto the stage.

All right. So I see VoZ raise his hand. Let's bring on VoZ. Hey, Vaas, how are you doing today?

VoZ: Doing wonderful. Hello. This is fabulous. Woo. That is fabulous. 

Michael Walker: [plays sound effects] That was peaked!

Wyshmaster Beats: I was like, what is that?

VoZ: Wyshmaster. I just put in the chat, adapt and survive, refuse and lose. Technology is just a transition from one thing to another and I really appreciate your advice about facing the fear and just continue to do what you do, keep on going. One of the things what Michael's brought into our world, into mine specifically, is a mentor that helps us navigate into building a dependent client base through various technologies. And he diligently works with his team to improve and adapt. To hear what you were talking about being in your parents’ basement and I was just curious, you were in the infancy of this technology and you persisted. And I'm sure you faced much fear, but now it's matured into where,beats have become an industry, which it wasn't before you or it was a very small industry.

Wyshmaster Beats: It was a lot smaller, yeah

VoZ: and now Michael is actually pioneering bringing the independent musician to the marketplace of building a community through the various tools, and not only is he giving us an opportunity to connect directly, but he has also started to encourage us to use some AI tools to help with our creativity. So not so much for me, but what advice would you give Michael and ModernMusician as he's trying to pursue and do this on behalf of all of us? And that's all I've got.

Wyshmaster Beats: I would say Michael's actually doing exactly what he should do. He's embracing and telling you: Hey, you could use this. Like even for me… I write a lot of my own emails, but I've been using ChatGPT a little bit just to help me with like subject lines sometimes, or even rewriting stuff, because I'm like: I'm just a producer. I'm not this well spoken dude. So I'm like: all right, this is cool. And if you think about it… I don't like “it's going to hurt people's jobs”. Of course, there's going to be people… but it's going to help your business as well. Cause I'm pretty sure a lot of you guys are entrepreneurs. So just think about that. You don't have to pay somebody to do your copy or do this and do that cause you're going to have help. So you could do it all yourself. So if anything, I'd say what Michael's doing is awesome. Cause some people are going to shy away from that. And he's no, we need to do this ourselves. And he's saying: Hey, try this tool. This tool is going to help you here. Because if you think about it, we only have so much time in a day, so if we spend all our time doing let's say I, if I spent too much time, like reading all my emails and then having to deal with some kind of issue with audio or something, I won't have time to create anymore. So he's basically giving you stuff where you can actually have more time to create. And that's what we all want to do deep down. That's what we're in this for. So I say “Go, Michael!” [both chuckle]

Michael Walker: I appreciate that. And I appreciate the question VoZ. That was a very selfless question for you to come in here and ask on behalf of ModernMusician and what we're all doing here. But yeah, it's definitely an interesting time to be alive as it relates to AI. Just yesterday we had a chance to really geek out and talk about Neuralink, Neural interfaces and a vision pro, like some of the 3D stuff that's happening right now. But I do want to bring things back to a point that Wysh brought up early on that I think is extremely important, and it's something that you have an opportunity to have a lot of conversations with successful people like Wyshmaster, you start to see some of the patterns that come up over and over and over again. And I really appreciated the lesson that you shared earlier about trusting yourself and trusting your own way. Ultimately, it is extremely helpful to have references and have a role model and it's probably the best way to start out, just start out with a reference, but there is a shift that needs to happen at a certain point where it's like you do trust yourself and you don't necessarily believe anything anyone says at face value. It's about experience and it's about trying it. Because sometimes even if something works for someone else, it may or may not work for you too. So I just encourage everyone that's here as well to everything that I say, everything that all of our guests say, this is one perspective or one map and it's extremely valuable, but also Wysh brought up at the beginning of this interview, it's really important to find your own way and to create your own map and you'll discover things that are unique to you and then, you can share your map with other people as well. But yeah, it's important not to believe any one thing is the “ultimate truth”.

Wyshmaster Beats: And just to add onto that too is: you might create music now, that maybe it's getting a little bit of hate or something now, but maybe in three years it's going to be the number one sound, right? If you think I'll use Nelly as an example: he did his first album called Country Grammar. And when they first put it out, everybody was like: this nursery rhyme crap. This dude's doing gangster shit to nursery rhymes, and they didn't buy into it. It wasn't until 3 years later when it got picked up by a label and then turned out to be over 20 million records sold. It's happened to me too, where I've had production where people are not really into it, but a couple of years later, they're like: Damn, this is crazy; you have your own sound. Dude, I did this 2 years ago. Sometimes that happens. So just keep that in mind.

Micheal Walker: Super interesting. Awesome. Hey let's go ahead and let's wrap up the interview for today. Let's do a virtual round of applause to Wyshmaster for taking the time to come on here and share some of his insights and lessons that he learned. Oh, this is awesome. I appreciate you sharing your story and also talking about the future and where things are moving towards. For anyone that's interested in connecting more or going deeper into what you offer in terms of beat creation and all of your resources would be the best place for them to go to connect more?

Wyshmaster Beats: I say just go to my website, just Wyshmasterbeats.com or just Instagram @Wyshmasterbeats.

Michael Walker: Awesome. All right. Yeeeeaaaah.

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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