- Yo, what up, what up, what up, what up? Big love. I'm super fuckin' fired up
that you guys finally get to watch this entire thing. Some of you have seen clips,
Daily V quotes on Instagram, but man Nipsey Hussle. When you talk about
authenticity in the game whether it's entrepreneurship,
sports, music, teaching, parenting. I'm always so respectful of it. It's so interesting to me and
the admiration that I have for the authenticity of
Nipsey is incredible. We talk a lot about the themes that you're seeing me
play out about my belief in culture and hip hop and business and I hope you enjoy this clip, this incredible session as I'll call it, as much as I did in living it. (energetic music) (door opening) - [Gary] Hey, man. Gary. - Nice to meet you, man. - [Gary] Nice to meet you, man. - [Male] How you doing? Bean-o. - [Gary] Bean-o, Gary. - Good to meet you. - [Gary] What up, man? - [Bean-o] How are you doing, man? - [Male] I'm doing alright. (men chattering) - [Nipsey] What's up, bro? How you feelin'? - [Gary] Gary, real good, man. - [Nipsey] Good to meet you. - [Gary] Real good. - [Nipsey] This is Sophie. Thank you for the hospitality. - [Nipsey] Yeah, absolutely. - Nice to meet you, Sophie. - [Gary] Sophie? Gary. Nice to meet you, Sophie. - That's my engineer, G. - G. - Hey, how you doing? - Gary, pleasure. - [Nipsey] This is Fall-ey. - Fall-ey. - How you doing, man? - What's up man? Gary. My pleasure. - Tiggy. - Tiggy, what up, my man. How are you? Gary. (men chattering) - [Nipsey] So I hope the weed
smoke don't bother y'all. - [Gary] Never. How are you? - [Nipsey] I'm silent, man. Just finished my album. So we just tryin' to stay
creative while we get the marketing ready and all that. I don't want to stop
being in the music vibe. I just wanna keep recording
up until release date. - Stay in that zone? - Yeah, just -- - I love that. - I fell out before. I got off music and started
getting all like videos, marketing, and thinking
about selling the shit and it's like painful getting
back in the music mode. So I'm like -- - [Gary] So while you're in
it, you're gonna stay in it. - I'm making myself at home. - Uh huh. Is this where you record? - Well, we kinda bounce around. We built a spot in Burbank and we spent like a year and a half, it was like an open space. We built the walls out, built all the rooms acoustic from scratch and we ended up losing the
spot 'cause we had a sublease and we didn't know we had a sublease. We thought we was renting from the owner. - [Gary] (laughs) Fuck. That sucked, huh? - I got whooped. I went to court. - Damn. - Paperwork, I never missed the rent, everything was always on time. Judge was like, bro, your
name ain't on the shit. So since then we've just
been like renting shit. We was at Paramount for like three months. - Is that where you did most of the album? - That's where we finished it. - You started it back in that spot? - Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yep. - [Gary] What you started with
when I first walked in here about I got caught up in
the marketing and all this but the music stuff. Do you just love, you
know, Boyd's just like, wait 'til you two meet. - [Nipsey] Right, right. - Does it just come natural to you? Do you just love it? - [Nipsey] What, the marketing? - Yeah. - I mean, I'm gonna be honest, bro. I never looked at it as
marketing 'til after the fact. I looked at it as like -- - [Gary] Hustling and
getting it done? (laughs) - Or just context for the release, right? - [Gary] Okay. - Like, alright, if it's, I look at like albums
from like Jay-Z or T.I. or any big successful artists, some of they albums was really successful, some of 'em was just like -- - [Gary] Not really. - And so the difference
between the ones that were and the ones that weren't
was the narrative, like the I'm about to go
to jail album from T.I. - [Gary] Mm Hmm (affirmative). - Or the I just got this big movie, A-T-L, and I'm calling my
album King and the song, it was attached to a narrative. With Jay-Z I watched American
Gangster and I got inspired, I went to the studio whereas Kingdom Come, Oh, I'm coming out of retirement. That was the story or... - [Gary] Why do you think this last one didn't pop that much? - What? 4-4-4? - [Gary] Mm Hmm (affirmative). - I think it did pop. - [Gary] Sales wise, they're saying, like I mean culturally
you felt like it popped. - Yeah, I think that's
the only success to me. I don't count them other metrics. I think that's the (inaudible) to me. - Trading culture. - [Nipsey] That's it. If it penetrates, you did it. If it doesn't -- - 100%. That's basically all I think about. Attention arbitrage, hack culture. - Yeah, if, other than that, everything else can be manipulated. All that shit can be influenced. - [Gary] That's right. - If you go outside
and you hear the music, you come to the concert,
everybody's singing the words -- - [Gary] Then you're good. - It connected. That shit penetrated. - [Gary] Mm Hmm (affirmative) - To me but then also, you know, he did his shit through
title, through Sprint. Again, they did it as like
a unique release just to -- - They vig the numbers that way. - Yeah. - Mm Hmm (affirmative). - And I'm sure he got a nice check. I don't what -- - Well, you know, to your point, like there's no way he sold
all his shares to Sprint unless he was trading on fan and culture. - Right. - So we, Sprint's a client of the company that Mike works for for
me, like VaynerMedia. I know the CEO super
well, like he's trading, like fame is the ultimate
arbitrage in our society. - I agree. - You know? - I agree. - It's the ultimate arbitrage. - And like relevance
and like conversation -- - 100%. - And inclusion, you know what I mean? To be included in something
that is gonna be consumed on that level and it's gonna
be respected on that level. It's not gonna be like,
experienced is disposal. It's gonna be damn near consumed as art and to be affiliated with
that, you know what I'm sayin'? - Mm Hmm (affirmative), and then understanding
how to distribute it in the modern way. It's always gonna change. - I agree. - When I think about Instagram
and things of that nature, it's really no different than TRL, right? - Right. - Right? That's what Puff, I still don't, I was watching his
documentary the other day, I was hoping they'd
bring it up, they didn't. He hacked MTV. He would just show up on set. - And pull up? - Pull up. - I'm Puff -- - And like Carson, that's right, 'cause he was smart, he knew every single teenager's eyes were on that at 4 P.M., right? - Real sick. - People didn't understand
what he was doing. He was acting all goofy. All he was doing -- - Yeah, that's primetime. He was getting a million something. - 100%. Back then? He fucking owned everybody who's, if you're, what am I, 41? If you're 31 and under,
if you're 20 to 30, like you know exactly what that was. - Yeah, I remember TRL, Carson Daly, with the screaming crowd outside, yeah. - And he like, that's when all
the boy bands and the girls, but he walked right in there
and he started hacking it. - [Nipsey] Yeah. - That's what he's
always, if you understand, from Russell Simmons to
whoever you wanna talk about, everybody in hip hop who
understands how to penetrate underpriced attention, wins. - [Nipsey] Right, absolutely. - Right? So for me, right now, so
if you're taking notes, the number one thing, YouTube vlogs. You get the right hook or your project. You remember Madden when
Good Charlotte was on Madden when you're like making
your team in the beginning? - [Nipsey] They was playing a song. - Right and that literally
made them famous? That's how I think about vlogs on YouTube. I think getting one of these
16 tracks on the right vlog that gets three, four, five,
Casey, Jake and Logan Paul, you get the right, like in a scene, that in itself is so much
fuckin' underpriced attention. - [Nipsey] Yeah, absolutely. - And so that's how I think about shit. - [Nipsey] They're like
operating on a similar, not to cut you off -- - No, please. - 50's kind of doing that with power. He using power to like platform the music. - 100% - 'Cause I don't think
he was getting it off without the TV show. No disrespect to 50 at all but the TV show brought a new interest to his music. - 100%, man. That's like, that's exactly right. I was just with The Rock like an hour ago. That man just hacks
every fucking platform. Siri commercial, Ballers on
HBO, movies, social media. He's just -- - [Nipsey] What's up with The Rock, man? What is he doing? - He's trying to fucking,
he's trying to win the world. - [Nipsey] Yeah. - The Rock is like, right? He's just like, you know
what's crazy about The Rock is like everybody, like I'm even looking at everybody's face, this crew, Upper East Side,
58 year old white guy, everybody just smiles. - [Nipsey] Yeah. - And that's fucking dope. Like that's just like,
people fuck with it, he's hungry! - [Nipsey] What happened though? How'd he start going crazy? I just remember seeing The Rock -- - I was talking to him. It's kinda like, honestly,
it's the same shit I feel, I'm sure you feel it too, like sometimes you just know
and it's just a fucking, when people ask me about shit, all I do is ever point to my
wrist, just a matter of time. - [Nipsey] Right, period. - Just a matter of time. - [Nipsey] Yeah, that's right. - I'm with you for four seconds. I can see it in your face. Once, you just know. - [Nipsey] Yeah, no question. - You just know. - [Nipsey] No shit, I feel like that. - Right? - [Nipsey] That's real. - That's right. You know it's in there somewhere. Like to me, I really popped on Twitter. I was one of the first people in the world to have a million followers on Twitter. - [Nipsey] Right. - Then I got busy, did my thing and like, when Instagram and all that, then I was quiet for a little bit, YouTube, you know, and then it was like, just a matter of time
and then I got hot again. Like if you're good enough,
shit's gonna work out and that's what The Rock,
like if you asked me, if was the first time
we really chopped it up, it was just like when he was like, tried to play football,
when he went to wrestling, even when he was at wrestling,
when we was The fucking Rock, he still knew there was more. - [Nipsey] Right, no question. - Do you think that that
opportunity is something that everybody has access
to or if it's innate? - I think that every, today's world, there's no more old white
guy being the gatekeeper, so everybody's got an at bat. - [Nipsey] I agree. - I just don't think
everybody's got it like that but I think everybody
can maximize their shit. So not everybody's destined, listen, I love playing basketball,
I'm not fuckin' LeBron. - [Sophie] Right, right. - You know what I mean? So we've all got our talents but you know, what you guys do for a living, I mean, I'm looking at music and I'm spending a lot
of time looking at it, fucking Sound Cloud, Spotify,
putting music on vlogs, like no more Jimmy Iovine trips over you. No more fucking, like you got, you're fucking one song
away on putting out shit and you don't even need RapCaviar. You just need to put out music
and I think the one variable, the shit that I fuckin'
trade on is trade culture. If you're hungry and like trying
to think about your career, it's so hungry right now where you're at, young and like, right? - [Nipsey] Yeah. - And what's going through
your mind is the same shit that went through my mind 30 times. You saying to yourself, in your mind, this project especially
with this man, this project? Oh, this is what it's gonna be. This is when it's gonna
happen and guess what? It might not. I just did Apple's first show, right? Will.I.Am, Jessica Alba,
Gwyneth Paltrow and me, Shark Tank for apps, right? And me and my team, DRock'll tell you, I'm like this is gonna be it. They're gonna spend 20 million, I'm gonna be on every billboard,
it's gonna fuckin' pop. It's gonna be the next Netflix, they won't call it Apple music, they'll change it up before it comes out. They'll buy Netflix, it'll be big. Did it? Nope, they put out Apple music, nobody here's fuckin' watching
TV shows on Apple music yet. It's not how we think so fucking 30 years I've been working my fuckin' face off, I'm like this is gonna be
the moment and it wasn't. - [Nipsey] Right. - But when you know you've got it, you just go to the next thing. So I think, like for me, if I'm in music, I wish I could rap because
I know I could be humongous because all I would do is make music and then lay in bed for 11 hours, try to hack on social media. Gettin' my shit recognized, noticed. You're one person away,
one piece of content away. You just gotta fuckin' make it and what's amazing
about music and I can't, I think everybody, I don't like speaking
about shit I don't know so I don't wanna speak to
it but one thing I do know is I believe that every
artist that ever lived had a lot more songs in their fuckin' dome than ever saw the day of life because of the way it worked, right? Now everybody's fancy. Everybody's trying to
understand supply and demand? I don't think people understand
how busy the world is. The world's so busy, there's so much shit, that I'm a big fan of telling
people to put out music. Put out music, like fucking every week, like if you've got it like that? I mean, some people don't
have it, I don't know, but if you've got it like
that, put it out, put it out. People are hungry for it
and every time you put out, that's giving you another at bat. - [Nipsey] And it creates
momentum too, just by, it's like a fashion brand,
they deliver in every season. - [Gary] 100%. - Almost like a release schedule -- - But they gotta make the
shit, they gotta distribute it, they gotta make that hat,
they gotta make those kicks. It's slow. Like fuck, from studio
to fuckin' the world, it's just so crazy. I think there will be a big
time artist in the next decade that puts out a song a day. - I agree with that. We did a campaign last year
called Marathon Mondays, we dropped a song every Monday. - [Gary] Mm Hmm (affirmative). - And I saw the reaction to that more so than dropping an album. - 100. I'm telling you right now, somebody's gonna wake up
and do something called 365, - [Nipsey] Yeah. - And they're gonna start
on fuckin' January 1st and they're gonna fucking go. - [Nipsey] Who did a version of that, didn't Crooked Eye do a verse a day? I don't think he did a song. - [Sophie] Emilio Rojas did
like 30 songs for 30 days type shit but it wasn't, you really gotta be like
somebody, somebody -- - [Gary] I mean, you gotta
really have fuckin' talent, - [Nipsey] Yeah. - To drop 365 songs, discipline, hunger, you gotta have a team. Boyd! - [Boyd] What's up? - [Gary] What up, my man? - [Nipsey] What's up, O.G.? How you feelin'? - How you doin', man? It's good to see you. - Yes, sir, likewise, likewise. (slapping hands and backs) - But if you, somebody,
if you feel like (exhales) that'd be the first piece
of advice from fucking HOV to fuckin' some kid right
now who's never done -- - [Nipsey] (inaudible) every morning? - [Male] We could do that. - [Nipsey] Instead of -- - You think you could? I mean, like I'm telling you right now. I'm telling you right
now, you would, you could, especially if you're talented. Somebody shitty puts out (laughs), you put out 364 whacked shit, you put out 39 fuckin's bangers, another 100 like fuckin' solid shit, like you're gonna have a
throw away here and there. The reason I love 365 is
you can social commentate. Like what people love is relevance. I don't know how, do you write or do you
just go from the dome? - I do both -- - Right, so for me, like
just culture, right? Game seven in the NBA
finals, you slip a little, nobody can beat you to the market. You're just droppin' shit that
everybody gives a fuck about. Something pops on fuckin' Instagram and everyone's talkin' about
it, just one little line. That's what hooks people,
that's what hooks it, you know? - [Nipsey] It's current. - Real current. - [Nipsey] Yeah. - It's just, to have that discipline and to put yourself out there, to put yourself out there like yo, I'm gonna actually do this, that's hard. - [Sophie] Yeah, it's a risk. - It's a risk but the reward, I'm all about risk-reward, right? I did a sneaker like all upside, the sneaker I got coming out, if it fails like nobody expects a 40 year old fuckin' entrepreneur to have a hot kick, right? But if it works (laughs), right? I fuckin' had 2,000 people
at Shoe Palace on Melrose Tuesday night and the owner
walked in and he's like, "There's more people here than
when we dropped the Yeezys." Everybody heard that. - [Nipsey] That's right. - And that's it. That's what I keep doin', right? And the best part is you
just have to have humility. If there were six people
there, I'd be like, I lost and that's just when you get to that place where you just don't give a fuck about what anybody else thinks. That's how you put out 365 music, right? 'Cause that Sunday, February
9th, you put out something okay and people are like quack, quack you shouldn't have done this project. That's when you get punched
in the fuckin' mouth and are you gonna fuckin' drink that blood and just record the next
day and fuckin' get 'em or are you gonna fold like a cheap chair and be like fuck me? So you have to have the right DNA to go for those kind of projects. - [Nipsey] And that's what
they end up respectin'. - 100%. - You know what I mean,
is that you executed it. - And then all the upside, like if on day 311 (laughs), right? Like Thanksgiving dinner is the hit, - [Sophie] That'd be great. - [Nipsey] And what's crazy
is it's a streamin' game. So back in the day that probably
would be against they model but it's streaming to -- - Of course it was against the model. You had to make 12, you
gotta print the fuckin' CDs. You gotta get it to fuckin'
Wal Mart, Sam Goody. It wasn't real. Now, you know, it's just so different. Nobody's got control. It's you and the fuckin' kids
that got it in their ear. - [Nipsey] I think the biggest thing, the biggest restriction
is everybody thinking in the old mentality. - 100% 'cause there's a lot
of money in the old mentality. People are sad. - [Nipsey] People got
rich in the old mentality. - Are you kidding? Will, Will, I was with Will
and he's just like, he said, music, he was basically
complaining about streaming. I was like, yo, I'm like,
it's just 1984 anymore, man. Sorry that you can't put out Thriller and buy a fuckin' amusement park (laughs). - [Nipsey] I don't understand why people complain about streaming. I made more off streaming
than I do off sales. I'm sure everybody do. - I think the tip, truth is I don't know, I'm sure the tippy top of
the sphere might have gotten, I don't know, I don't know. - [Nipsey] I think that the label, I think that what they complainin' about it is the label contract -- - That's got them locked up. 100%. - Yeah, they don't have an agreement because this is a new platform. - How did your whole thing go down? When did you first like
hit the scene and how, I mean you were talking about
him in 2000 fuckin' nine. - [Nipsey] That's about when. - [Boyd] Yeah. - Yeah, right? I remember it was '09 'cause
we just started Vayner and I just remember your name. I love, hustle's my
favorite word on earth, so I was like whoever that
is, I like him (laughs). - You know what's crazy? Charlie Walk told me that
when we signed our contract, "Brah, I don't even
need to hear your music. "I'm signing you off your name." All the A&R has heard
the music but he like, "Fuck that, we gonna do the deal. "We don't need to hear nothing." We got The Weeknd, Republic
is like killing shit. - [Gary] He's got that
Hailey Seinfeld or whatever, she was an actress and he signed her. - [Nipsey] Yeah, it's like two
or three other heavyweights, I forgot the names but -- - [Boyd] Yeah, Ariana Grande. - [Nipsey] Right. - [Gary] Grande, yeah. - [Nipsey] There's a lot of
shit over there going viral. - But basically why I'm so
excited you guys are meeting is, I don't think there's anyone in hip hop who could really change
things like Nipsey can and the other thing about it is, I've seen you speak a couple times and then I've spoken to a
few people in the tech world that like set up these
speaking engagements or these conferences or
Gary speaks all the time. When I saw him speak, it was
like I've heard a lot of people say the same type of stuff. I've never understood it
until I heard him say it and so it's like because of
your firsthand experience and then because of your view, like your point of view and just the way you are able to communicate to people and just have people understand things, and then like the stuff
you're doing with the clothing and then when you, I watched the video when
you went into Starbucks and you met I and now
he's like your CTO -- - [Nipsey] Right, right. - Like how many rappers have a CTO, right? But when he walked in
Starbucks, yeah Igris was, the guy right over here -- - What were you just having a
coffee and just sittin' there? - No, he was doing his
work on the computer but he was doing like this
ADR stuff to like help like when the cars are driving themselves, like he's a genius,
like literally a genius. - What he's explaining, he had some technology
on a Starbucks table and I had my daughter, I was just taking her to the bathroom, and it was like some shit
I hadn't seen before. It was like reading the
bone structure of his hand off of a LCD piece of hardware -- - [Gary] So you just caught
this in the corner of your eye? - Well I just walked past him and seen it and I know enough about
tech to know that that's not no shit that's out so I just was like, bro, what is that? And then, you know -- - [Gary] Got to talking. - Yeah, we start talking,
he's a young dude, and he started explaining
that it was autonomous driving that he was designing for
Uber and he started telling me his story how he was like
President Obama's STEM specialist for the youth and how he was
offered a scholarship to MIT and turned it down and
has all these projects he's working on. He's 18 -- - (laughs) I love that. - And I'm like yeah,
we gotta sit down, bro. So we sat down and -- - What was the Star, right here, this Starbucks I just
stopped by or somewhere else? - We was in LA. It was on Figueroa and,
go ahead, Ig-ris, I mean, basically by us sitting
down after that meeting, he basically opened my
mind up to how we can, where we intersect as far as
tech and as far as hip hop and culture and just -- - Tech is the oxygen of our society. - [Nipsey] Right. - I don't think people understand. I'm sure you're gonna understand this, everybody in this room, looking around, everyone's quite young. We're all gonna live in
a mixed reality world, contact lens where we're
sitting here right now, fuckin' Pac and VR is
sitting right here with us, like people don't, people think this is, people have no clue. They think shit's crazy now? We haven't even started. This is the fuckin' national
anthem of a 19 inning game, like people haven't even
rapped their head around how fucked up shit is gonna be. - [Nipsey] Right. I agree. - [Gary] So your hardcore
AR, machine learning, is that like? Are you fucking around
with Blockchain yet? - Yeah. - [Gary] You enjoying that? - Yeah. - [Gary] You hacking
on top of Ethereum yet? - Oh, no, not yet. - [Gary] Not yet. - But -- - [Gary] But it's caught your eye, right? - Yeah, it caught my eye. - [Gary] Yeah, that
shit's gonna be fuckin'. - [Nipsey] Do you have
your laptop with you? Could you pull it in here
when you get a second. - Yah, and then they got
some other crazy shit where it's like everyone
is selling stuff online and they set it up where
like, so he has a store, like a successful store, physical store -- - [Gary] Bricks and -- - He has a real successful store and like when you pull the phone up and you point it at the shirt, it starts playing it
like an unreleased song. - A-R. - So there's a reason you
have to be in the store where everyone else is like
yeah, come to my store. It's a meet and greet. I might show up. It's like you actually
have to go to his store to get something. - [Nipsey] Right. - It's like they're -- - Where is that store? - [Nipsey] It's on Crenshaw and Slauson. - We need to go there. I wanna see it. - Yeah, for sure. That's the corner, like that's right the main intersection in my neighborhood where I grew up at. - [Gary] What was there when you were a, what was at that spot when you were a kid? - It was a vacant lot. - [Gary] The whole time
when you were a kid? - Yeah, we used to sell
dope and we coined it as the world's first SMART
store but it's basically, like he was explaining, you know there's like walls
that are content walls and it has a big logo,
the Marathon logo -- - [Gary] And when you go -- - Yeah and there's a -- - So what, your app triggers it? - Yeah, so the app is,
I just encoded the app, and so basically what you will do, and even on the actual, like say this was a Marathon sweater, there will be a logo -- - Yeah, of course, oh I know
this whole world real well. - So this the Marathon clothing app. So then you'll click experience -- - And then once you point
it, it fucking activates. - Exactly. - Yep. And what's really crazy is
you know the next iPhone has the AR kit built into it naturally. - Right. - So you don't even have
to download the app. - [Male] Oh, so it's -- - It's part of the operating system. - What does AR stand for? What do y'all mean? - Augmented reality. - Oh, right. - So like you know on
SnapChat when you look at it and all the cartoons pop up? The way it's all gonna play out and you know what virtual
reality is, right? - [Nipsey] Right. - The way it's probably gonna play out, I mean I'm not fuckin' a
futurist but it looks like it, is all of us 15 years
from now, contact lens, brain talks to it and
we switch from real life to completely being in
a virtual world or AR where all the stuff you see
on SnapChat and Instagram, there's just fuckin' shit in here. Like here's the butterfly. - [Nipsey] Right, right. - Like that's our life. - [Nipsey] Right. - You know what's really crazy about it, is it's just straight up true. Like it's not even guessing. - [Nipsey] Yeah, no, it's not -- - It's not even like,
yeah, it's not Star Trek. It's like everybody here in 20 years, bet. Banked. Locked and loaded. - [Nipsey] So what does that mean? What type of businesses are
going to be built around that? - Well, what kind of businesses are gonna get disrupted, right? Like if you actually think
you're at the Eiffel Tower by just closing your eyes, - [Nipsey] Why go? - Why go? - [Nipsey] Right? - Right? So then you start thinking
about shit like San Diego, like where are the places
where there's just nice weather and it's just chill? If everything's just kind
of happening like that, how expensive is New York City rent? Like that's where you start
debating shit like that, right? I think it's all about IP. I think everything is,
all the pipes are dumb, what you fill it with is everything. - [Nipsey] Right, so content. - Content. - Just what you say, I'm thinking, and even in my field of hip hop, I think when we look at Mickey or Disney or we look at like Hello Kitty -- - [Gary] Oh, there's so much. - It's like it started as content. - [Gary] 'Member BAPE the Bathing Ape? When BAPE was blowing up in like '08, '09, Mike, my brother and I, we had websites. We had something called
BAPE the Bathing Ape. We were just trying to like, just like hacking 'cause cartoons scale. Like Vince McMahon makes
money on Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. Andre's been dead for fuckin' 20 years. Vince McMahon makes money. - Right. Hip hop is the same. - 100%. - I don't think that Snoop
Dogg is any different than Mickey Mouse. - [Gary] I totally agree. - And he was content, the same way that Mickey
Mouse was a cartoon and it turned into a world, it turned into tangible products
and it turned into things that can be downloaded and can be sold. I think rap is in that point of view. I think that's why the Yeezys, I think Ye is doing that with Yeezys. - 100%. - And I feel like, to me,
I wanna be a part of that. I wanna be one of the ones
that take a cash register for the music and shift
it and use the music to bring attention to it. - [Gary] The music is the leverage. - [Nipsey] Right. - And right now people have to make money, the basic players have to go
on tour and make money that way because they're not deploying
what you guys are doing and like you've got a
scale and people are, they're renting, right? They're putting their name on something but the company's making all the dollars but Puma is actually not that
hard to replicate, right? Even the next, even the next
Yeezys is not gonna be done in conjunction with Adidas. - Thank you, homey. Please. - Because the infrastructure
costs are just not that high. - Right. - Like when you start
realizing it's a hell, the Kanye part's a hell of a lot harder than making this shit. - That's why I like Big Baller brand. I don't care what nobody
say about the ugly ass shoe. I fuck with the model. - I was on ESPN Sportsnation two days ago and they brought it, we're like, I want, my big thing for last 20, 10 years, I've been putting on the internet, I'm buying the New York Jets. That's my thing. - [Nipsey] Talk to me. - So they started with that. They asked me about Big Baller
and I'm like, he's smart. I'm like look, some of the
stuff he pushes a little far but like don't get it confused. The essence of what he's
doing is exactly right. - [Nipsey] Yeah, just the
model, not a design -- - You know what's, actually let me take you
somewhere that you're gonna like based now that I know
where your mind's at. - [Nipsey] Right. - I'm gonna throw something at the, I wanna get everybody's reaction. I think the NBA is the craziest shit. I actually think the way
the NBA is structured, that if tomorrow we woke up
and heard that Steph Curry, LeBron, Durant, right? - [Nipsey] They left to start they own? - 11, 12, let's call it
14 of 'em, Russ, right? If 14 of 'em were like
we're out (hands clapping) and now we each are the first
14 teams and our billionaire, there's a lot of billionaires out there -- - [Nipsey] And they ready to roll. - And they're ready to roll. So like if I'm a
billionaire and I take Russ and we're co-partners 50/50
'cause I'm putting up the money, we gotta rent arenas,
there's all that shit, 'cause teams own their arenas but like -- - [Nipsey] Start it off. - Not the NFL, not
baseball, not, but the NBA. If the top 14 guys left the league and started their own league, they'd break, they'd win. They've got the leverage. It's top heavy. We aren't gonna fuck with a
league where the best player is Porzingis. - [Nipsey] Right. (laughs) - You know what I mean? And I love Zinger and
he's my future and my hope and I hope he's the best but like if you, if the number one player left
in the league is Paul George, the NBA is not gonna
beat the other league. So that's why I fuck with -- - The model. - The model. What the Balls are doing. People don't understand. As technology continues to
change, the leverage changes. - And it's not malicious to me. It's like -- - It's business. - It's what the moment demands. If you aware, you will
have to go at it like that. - 100%. - It's not like I'm tryin' to -- - And that's why I'm trying to push you and your young man here and
everybody to debate this idea if the world is in an
issue of supply and demand then why not have the thesis
of just fuckin' pounding out, I have a man following me -- - What do you mean by that? What's the issue of supply and demand? - There is so much supply of
content that you can never be overexposed 'cause
everybody's gettin' pulled at so many directions. So the reason nobody wanted to put out so much music before -
overexposure, overexposure. That shit doesn't exist. There's nobody overexposed
'cause everybody's getting pulled in so many directions. - So like you think
that people just evolve to take in more info? - That's for damn sure but even at scale, I think that you can't be
overexposed as an artist if you're capable about
putting out a song everyday. - Right. - And that's where
everyone's fucked up, right? You know how it used to be, right? You come out, you do your thing. Then you fuckin' disappear,
gotta keep that balance right. I think that shit's so competitive, there's so much great content. There's so much shit going on that if you've got it like that -- - You gotta go. - You gotta go. - But that's interesting
because if you look at what may future pop, like shift gears and what may
like raw shift gears and like, what's up, Shep -- - What's up, man. - Tey, what up, bro. So this, Shep. This, Tey. - [Gary] Shep, Tey. Gary. - What's up, bro. Shep. - What's up, man. My pleasure. How are you? Real pleasure. - It was them pounding,
just droppin' music, bro. They went music crazy. - Droppin' music. Look how much fuckin'
music Drake puts out. - Right. - That's a lot of fuckin'
music by standards of what we all grew up with. He's putting out more music in 24 months than people put out in their careers. - I think the x factor is the quality. If you can manufacture the quality -- - Well, this comes down to talent, right? - Right, right. - Like this is my thing with you - you gotta push the boundaries
of how talented, are you? - Right, I agree with you. - Right? Like just how talented are you? There's always, like, like, especially something
as culturally relevant and as passionate as art. You guys do art. Like if you've got it in you to do it, then you do it. - Yeah. - Some people don't. Some people got different
processes, right? - Right. - They gotta like, you can't force it but if you've got it -- - Yeah, it's the -- - If your notebook is full,
if it's full with bangers, you need to put that shit out. - Right. - It can't be like Prince and you fuckin', when we find him dead, we go in a safe and there's 100
other great songs, you know? - Right, right. - That day doesn't exist anymore. Him and MJ didn't have it
like, they couldn't do that, they had to wait every three
years to put out 11 of 'em 'cause you're hacking distribution. - Right. I didn't know that that's
what we was doing -- - That's what you're doing. - And you know what's crazy? Like my whole thing -- - You know what's crazy? I apologize but I gotta say it. So my story is I grew up
in Edison, New Jersey. Good mixed culture. I'm 41 so I was there like, I was rockin' my Beastie Boys and all this but then I went to Mount Ida College which was a 90% African
American college, right? That's where I really got into it. That's when like, before the internet, my friend Moose was
like, this is Scarface, you need to know this and I was
like what the fuck? (laughs) It's funny. I am a super successful business man, I got D's and F's my whole
life and I still, to this day, believe the people that most understand how to hack distribution
are people that -- - [Nipsey] Hustlers. Period. - Period. - [Nipsey] Period. - Period. I think it comes natural to you 'cause whether it's what's
rolled in your mouth right now or whether it's a song, you're
always hacking distribution. - [Nipsey] You know I used to call it? Personality Sales Product Flows. - Yep. - [Nipsey] And to me, when I used to go hand to hand and grind, I used to bootleg CD's, I used to sell a lot of
this shit to drugs too. My CD, I used to sell and I used to
have to distinguish myself for five seconds. So I used to be like
bro, if this is garbage, throw it out the window and
that would make 'em be like, let me see this shit. You feel me? If it's trash, throw
that shit out the window right in front of me, I ain't trippin'. Just listen. You feel me? And it's free. Check it out. You know, if it's boo boo, throw that shit out the window, bro. - [Gary] Humility. - And just -- - Humility is the fuckin' anchor. - [Nipsey] Right and even just like -- - You know how to talk
to your audience though. - [Nipsey] And that's more
important than the product. - 'Cause you reverse engineered the way you would've reacted. - [Nipsey] Exactly. - 100%. - [Nipsey] And I think every
time we have a release, when you was talking about
marketing, if I love marketing, and I think that you
gotta reverse engineer how you would -- - How are you guys
thinking about the fuckin', the mutation of hip hop? Like so that's what's
real interesting to me. You got a lot of youngsters in this room but like the era that I grew up in, there was one narrative, right? If you weren't hard, you
made up that you were. That's why so many guys
lost 'cause they had to. There was no angles for, there was nobody dressing
like you're dressing now. Like when Bentley came
out with those umbrellas, everybody's like what? Now it's mutating, right? Like now shit is getting so, it's great, 'cause now it's the fabric of our culture. Like to me, hip hop is
the fabric of our culture, like America. What that means is it's
mutating so it really, it's more fruitful for the real artists, the one that have humility, the one, like I'm waiting for
like, who's the hip hop, who's the guy or girl
at the top of the game that embraces country music stars? Who's at the top of the game that like, there's so many hacks
still left to be had. It's real interesting. It's real interesting to me. Like everything's just like
mutating into each other. Like if you really look at hip hop, it's crazy that hip hop absorbed like white nerd culture, right? Like you wouldn't be wearing
those glasses 15 years ago. Now way, you would fuckin'
rather be blind as shit if you didn't have contacts. Like it's really interesting
if you really look at it. I think there's a lot of
white space in that, a lot. You know what I'd love to see? You know what would blow my mind, is if I heard you went to
Chattanooga, Tennessee, set up shop and fuckin' did it there and like fuckin' brought in local, there's a lot of hacks
still left to be done. - You saying Chattanooga
'cause tech hot spots? - Mm Hmm (affirmative),
Nashville and Chattanooga. Like there's just shit to be done. (group chattering) - [Male] Yeah, Gilmore. - [Nipsey] Ron in Nashville. - [Male] Ron Gilmore and them? - Yeah, Ron Gilmore's
fuckin', he's done a good job. You're right. - Yeah, like there's still frontiers -- - Like it hasn't even started, right? Just like it hasn't even started. I think a lot of people in hip hop, especially if you're born
from it, you're in it, I think are underestimating
how much it is fundamentally the underlining current of our society. - I mean the jig is up. I think it's pretty clear. All the stats came out
recently about streaming and about the biggest genre is hip hop so that's not just your instinct, that's a fact now too. - I think so too. I just don't think that
people have really realized that like every politician,
every tech developer, like every entrepreneur -- - They hope we ain't realized it. They know. - That's 100%. - Yeah know. - By the way that I can guarantee you. - They just hoping that
the content creators don't feel like what you
just said, is a fact. - Cat's outta bag, man. That fuckin', it's fuckin' over. Like now it's just a matter
of time, matter of time. - What you feel about direct
to consumer as far as like, not just music. - Everything? - In terms of retail, in
terms of just business. - So that's all I'm doing. I'm building a machine. I have 800 employees, building a machine to
go direct to consumer but I've got a little
bit of a different bet. So instead of starting a new bottled water or starting a new deodorant, 'cause I'm gonna buy businesses, I'm a big believer that nostalgia and IP is grossly underrated. So Marvel was a bankrupt
comic book company but when they took the business and they made it into movies,
it was worth a trilly. - Yeah, it was value floating -- - So like I think what's
happening in the sneaker game, I'm fascinated how fucked Nike really is because you can just see it but I think if you watch
carefully, everything's in place. Like I wanna buy Keds. I wanna buy Pony. - All nostalgia, I get you. - All nostalgia because right? Because once it meant something
it's worth a lot more money than people think. You could start something
tomorrow called N's but if you bought Keds
and rocked them properly and created distribution, it would speed up the process. Exactly what's gonna happen. - That's right. Yeah, I believe in that. - So that's really on my mind. Vans, I'm just like now, basically I walk through the airport and only lookin' at people's sneakers. I'm not even looking -- - It's changing right now
'cause I don't buy the same shit I used to buy. - That's it. - I don't got the same taste I used to. - I can't even believe how
much trouble Nike's in. I couldn't even think about
wearing something else. - I think they got arrogant though. - Of course they got arrogant. Everybody gets arrogant. - Yeah, 'cause that shit. I saw their designs go trash, bro. Even Foot Locker, just the whole Foot
Locker store turned trash. You used to go get fresh at Foot Locker. You could go buy fresh
shoes at Foot Locker. That shit is garbage in their now. Everything look like -- - [Male] Garbage. (group laughing) - Just like 10 million copies
of these two pair of Nikes. - [Sophie] Right. - And they put 'em all over -- - The other thing is the cat's outta bag. I'm looking at you right now. That Champion, like if Champion puts
out a sneaker tomorrow and it's fly as fuck and they
got the right influencer, the right hip hop star, the
right cultural fuckin' person, it's in the game. - Yeah, you 100% on
point with the nostalgia. - [Male] People are wearing
Champion like regular shit. - I see it! I see it! (group chattering) - Look at Puff and his
era with music right? It was 20 years later and
they sampled the 70's. - 100%, that's how it works. - It's 20 years later, they
samplin' the 90's right now. That's why all them brands is in. - Puma. - All them 90's, Starter's a 90's brand. - 100%. - Fila's a 90's brand. - You know who's ready? Timbo boots are ready to come back, right? - We doin' a Timbo collab. - Are you? - Yeah. - Timbo, that would be
a business I would buy. - That's a billion dollar
company, by the way. They own Sketchers. - I'm aware. They're huge but based on my thesis that hip hop rules the world, it's probably a $50 billion company -- - Hold on, stop right there. What's your thesis? - Hip hop rules the world. - Fuckin' with you, bro. (group laughs) That's how I really feel. I swear to God, if you hear the album, my album thesis is hip hop rule the world. All I gotta do is make
100% off any hip hop album, I'm global. I don't care what nobody tell me. I don't care what no
person tells me on earth. All I gotta do is make the most 100% authentic hip hop album
right now, I'm global. - While I got you guys here,
let me throw something at you. Do you like traveling or no? - I love traveling. - Well, some people, homebody,
I gotta ask the questions. - I got a daughter. I miss my kid when I travel so -- - Okay, well that's why I'm askin'. One of the things that you guys should be thinking a lot about, seeing you guys film, marketing. I've been paying attention. Boyd's been telling me stuff. What people don't, here's
what I would do if I were you, take some of the money you
make and whatever you're doing, the store, music. You guys should pick four countries - Portugal, Brazil. Pick four countries. - Like top markets or
like obscure countries? - Honestly, you're so creative, I'm not, normally I would be like pick this. I'm gonna let it flow here. I wanna see what you're about to do. Pick four markets, right
'cause you might say, my grandma's from there, I don't know, just pick four countries. - I would definitely go to the
country that my dad's from, that would be on the list. - Where is that? - Eritrea, it's in East Africa. - Love it. Pick four countries with
Facebook and Instagram ads and I'm talking five, $10,000
a month on four countries. You can, people don't realize how
global the world's getting. People don't understand
how inexpensive this is. Like I went to Hong Kong
and by the third day, I'm like on a pedestal. America is still the number
one brand in the world. - Absolutely. - America. - Culture. - Correct and so for you
to just pick Indonesia and fuck with it, run ads
on all your little videos, play that music down, bang
'em, bang 'em, bang 'em. - What was we just talkin' about? What was we talkin' about pulling
up in London and all that? Like we just need to pull up
and touchdown and fuck around. - Now London, it's noisy. You see where I'm going? That's why I'm like pick
Portugal, pick I mean -- - [Male] The Philippines,
no know one touches -- - And you know how much
Philippines ads are? Three cents. Like you'll get everybody
and then all of a sudden, here's how it works, right? You do the Philippines, it kills. Now fuckin' Manny Pacquiao
and you are doing, like you gotta hack, hack, hack attention. Hack attention and like
there's so much white space -- - What you mean by white space, unexposed? - That's correct. Nobody owns Peru and now
somebody will be like, well, Peru, but you don'
realize like then you go find some artist there and put them on, like there's so much of that. Right, what's that song that fuckin', the number one streamed song now like my daughter's singing all day, the fuckin' Beiber and the Latino -- - [Boyd] Despacito. - Yeah, that's hacking culture. That guy was fucking hot
down there but not here. Uh huh, uh huh. (group chattering) You know, that kind of
stuff and when you're like this creative and this entrepreneurial, that shit makes sense. - Absolutely. - Like you can reverse
engineer or you can see what's actually, there's just a, it's reverse engineering. - And what's crazy, they all coming onto
the internet right now. - Well, that's it. Everybody's, everything's mixing. - Yeah. - Everything's mixing. That's what I mean with like white nerd, like literally for somebody that's 41 that watches culture
every minute of his life, I cannot believe, cannot believe that like
N.W.A. merged with Urkel. That's what happened. - [Nipsey] What you mean by that? - I mean fuckin' if you look at 1991. If you're -- - [Nipsey] Oh, in terms of hip hop. - Yeah, like 2017 hip
hop is actually Urkel and fuckin' Ice Cube in 1992 having a baby and nobody would've thought that. Like that's how, go ahead. - I think that that's in
terms of where the world is. The world is at a transitional point and the message in culture is so powerful that a destructive message at this point, I don't believe could exist. I think that Drake was needed
on some love balance the world 'cause I grew up when 50
Cent was the hottest shit, we was shootin' shit, bro. You know what I mean? - [Gary] That's right. I remember. - It was gun culture and the
music influenced the streets. Now everybody got a
girlfriend and got tattoos and (inaudible). You know what I'm sayin'? Because the culture was that influential and I think that like the
world is like transitioning. You familiar with like physics? I don't wanna go way crazy -- - [Gary] Go ahead. - So they're looking in space and seeing where they're
drawing their energy to see what type of civilization they are so if you're getting your energy from the planets you live on, you're a type zero civilization. - Okay. - That's earth. - Yep. - But we at a point of
transition going to type one because we are getting into solar energy. We are harnessing the
atmosphere's energy right now so we are transitioning. In terms of physics,
when they explore space, they would say that a
civilization that harnesses energy from their atmosphere is type one. - Understood. - So we transition and Michio
Kaku's theory, not mine, this is what he said -- - I'm listening. - Is that what's happening is
that there's a technological evolution that's ahead of
the compassion evolution or the spiritual evolution
which is, in a way, it's moving up the vegan
movement all these things trying to catch up to the technology 'cause we got nuclear
bombs and everybody's armed and we can commit planetary suicide. So what has to balance that is the culture and that's why Drake is the biggest. I think and love is the
movement and togetherness -- - Positivity always wins at the end, man. This shit is so basic. When I look at what's going
on in the social realms, positivity always beat, negativity always wins the short game and positivity always wins the long game. - Right. - It's easier to be cynical
upfront and negative and people react to it, like
that's what you see on social, all negative, negative, like people would rather clown
on LeBron than praise Steph. It's negativity short term but long term, positivity always wins. Always. The human race just figures this shit out. I'm always on team human. - [Nipsey] Right. - We could've been gone a long time ago. - [Nipsey] Right. - I agree. - Yeah, man. I think it's exciting right now though. That's why I'm kinda going slow. As much as people tryin' to rush me, I'm goin' slow 'cause
I think that we ain't, there's no reason to rush. I think all the
opportunities are unfolding. - So SnapChat is a wild moment right now 'cause you know how it is, people overreact in each direction. Everybody's like clowning on it 'cause the stock's not doing well and Instagram copied all its features. Meanwhile $3 CPM and kids are
watching content at scale. Like under 30 -- - What does that mean? What does CPM mean? - Cost per thousand impressions. So you know, they're
gonna spend ad dollars, your partner, right? - So $3 per -- - $3 per thousand. It's nothing and more
importantly, on SnapChat, you have depth not just
width so this is in pre-rolls on fuckin' ESPN.com that
nobody gives a fuck about. People are seeing content in the middle and then when they're
engaging, it's at scale. So when you guys talk
and if I can be of help, if anyone wants to follow up with detail, SnapChat is grossly underpriced right now. - For marketing. - Uh huh, grossly underpriced. - And what is that -- - Because everybody's a
headline reader, right? Everyone's like oh,
Instagram killed SnapChat. Go open your app store right now. Tell me where SnapChat's ranked. - What does a SnapChat ad look like? It's a five second clip or something? - It can be yeah, it's a 10 second, in between like you're kinda like clicking everybody's
stories and then you'll pop and then with you, like
you should be like yeah, you know what's funny? You know what's funny? You should exactly do
exactly what the fuck you did when you were slingin'
your shit and being like yo, swipe up. Listen, if you don't like it. Fuck, that's it. You should fuckin'
refuckin' do that same shit. You just look right in
the camera and be like, yo, swipe up and listen
to it and if not, fuck it. (group laughs) Right? That is super underpriced. That can hack and everybody trades on, everybody's headline reading. Oh, Instragram's winning. They're not looking at the details. - Yeah, they got a smug
campaign on SnapChat right now. - We got so much running
on SnapChat right now 'cause it's underpriced. - No, I said a smear campaign. - Oh, who? - Just the press they talking about -- - Yeah, yeah, well
listen, they deserve it. They got punched in the fuckin' mouth. - And their IPO. - Killed. But I'm buying now 'cause it
went too far the other way. - Right. - Right? 'Cause everyone here living like, there's plenty of fuckin'
people on SnapChat. - Cal is still talking to
his flowers every morning. (group laughs) (group chattering) - That's how I built my whole career. I answered every single person that engaged with me on
Twitter from 2007 to 2011. All of 'em. 18 hours a day. Every single person
and so that one on one, it's depth. Everybody's worried about width. It's all about depth. - Right, I agree with that 100%. - And if you got the energy to grind, well then you can go wide and deep. - Absolutely. - I don't understand how all these artists have nobody give a fuck about them, they put out a post on Instagram, they have 11 people that give them love and they can't even reply to those people? You got no fans. Who the fuck you think you are? - They got a celebrity complex. That's what's stopping 'em. - You know that the
biggest thing I took away from the meeting with The Rock just now? Let's call it what it
is, The Rock has won. He's at the, man's got 100 million fuckin'
followers on Instagram. That man's still humble as
shit ready to put in work. And he's there and you got kids
that recorded one song once in a studio once and think they're fancy. It's crazy. - That's the difference though. - Some people fake it,
some people live it. - Everybody wants something
different from the game too. - Yeah, that's true. - (inaudible) want everything
the game want to offer, clearly. - 100%. - [Boyd] Can I interject? - You can do anything you want? - Responding to the Twitter followers for that amount of time
and going back and forth and 18 hours, how do you avoid losing those
people after you scale up to a million or two million? - Yeah, listen, everybody
wants to be that person that found you first
back in, like everybody, people like when somebody makes
it, they love, you sold out, this and that. Truth is, if you're true,
if you're intent's true, if you actually give a
fuck about people and fans, you'll always win that macro game. You're always gonna have that small group that they get a high on
discovering the next thing. They love being that person,
right, in their group? - And I think that the original
ones that you responded to gonna be so engaged that
they gonna be evangelists. They gonna go out and
campaign and create others -- - And to his, and to
your point and his point, and two out of 10 of 'em won't. Eight out of 10 will which is better than zero outta 10
'cause you didn't engage and the other two? They gotta find the
next flavor of the month 'cause they love being that person. That's how they get their rocks off. They're just like I
discovered the next person. I, you know? - I'm new on shit, right. - That's what I always loved about you. You always had that
ability to find new shit but if you liked something,
you liked it all, that wasn't the high. Can we hear a little something? - Yeah, yeah, I'll play the whole shit. You wanna hear the most recent
records of me and Bean-o or you wanna hear the album? - I'll fuckin', I'm fuckin'
happy I'm here. (laughs) I'll let you chop it up your way. I really appreciate it. - Send me that picture so
I can blast it off of mine. - Yeah, I'll do it right now. - I appreciate y'all. Bro, thank you. - [Boyd] Good seeing you, man. - And then also when we do sit down, I just have so many dope
concepts and just ideas. - Listen, I'm like always
traveling, always on. You got my number now. You text me three in the
morning and you're like, what about this? And I'm like cool, like I'm into it. - Say no more. - I want the action. - Say no more. - I want the action. (laughs0 - Say no more. (group chattering) - Told you. Now, what was the biggest
insight from this session? Leave it in the comments
because of the (laughs), uniqueness of it, I will be
reading every YouTube comment. Please drop 'em. Have a great life. See ya.
