Episode 73 - From Dreams To Brand Deals

Nicky Saunders  
whats poppin whats poppin whats poppin. Welcome to Nicky and Moose. I'm Nicky, that's moose,whats up moose? and welcome to episode 73. And we have a jam packed episode we're going to start off with companies and brands. In a whole new inclusion way of disabilities, we're going to talk about two individuals that are killing the game right now. Then we're going to be talking about a big, big, big, big buy in Jersey company, not jersey, like New Jersey, like jerseys like the clothing and some famous rappers, a famous CEO buying into it, we're going to talk about it and what that means for the culture. course we're going to talk about the halftime show from the Super Bowl. And last, but definitely not least, Kanye West and how he is changing everything once again, when it comes to streaming, and owning your music. Moose How are we feeling about this episode?

Mostafa Ghonim  
I'm excited for this one I'm examine there's a lot of topics that double down to one specific area. So for those who like socially conscious brands and things that have been around forever, but are still relevant and growing, you're going to enjoy this episode.

Nicky Saunders  
Let's get into the intro.

Jaymie Jordan  
Two kids from Queens cut from a different cloth. Now joining forces helping you to elevate your personal brand. Yeah, I'm talking about Nicky and moose, bringing you a never before seeing perspective into the mindset, the mentality, the behaviors, the driving force, for more importantly, the stories behind the people and brands that you know and love the most.

Nicky Saunders  
And we're just gonna get right into it. So first and foremost, shout out to all our audio listeners, all our video viewers. Brand new. Whether you listened since day one or day, I don't know 72 Whatever it is, we appreciate you continue to leave those reviews. I know we're skipping it. But we just got a lot to talk about moves. How're we feeling? First and foremost,

Mostafa Ghonim  
man, man feeling really good really goes so much better. I know, when we spoke earlier, I was like, Yo, I'm a little beat up right now. Things are rough. But now I feel great, man. I'm excited and happy. We'll get into it.

Nicky Saunders  
Ok look at you! Um, me, um, I'm still hurt about this $900 frame that I paid for. If you didn't listen to the after show, I bought a new frame. And it just costs a lot. And I wasn't ready. And so I'm still a little hurt about it. But I don't know, maybe we'll get sponsored by a custom framing situation later down the road. Like that, but let's get into this episode. All right. So first and foremost. I personally think this is huge, right? Victoria's Secret is doing a new campaign. But the model that they got, they got like, several models, but this one particular one, man, it is not only a Puerto Rican. So that's huge. On my end, give me um, but it is a 24 year old Down Syndrome model the very first Victoria's Secret model with Down syndrome with dreams come true campaign, literally making history this week, or whenever you hear this, right. And it's amazing because she said one day i One day I dreamed of it. I worked for it. And today is a dream come true. I can finally tell my big secret. I am a Victoria's Secrets first model with Down syndrome. Thank you, Victoria Secret for seeing me as a model who has hashtag no limits and making me part of the inclusive love cloud collection campaign. Inside and out. There are no limits. Now, this is huge, I believe because this is now and what we're going to talk about as well is putting pressure Sure, to brands and companies on some, oh, no, you got to, you got to add everybody now, like, nothing should be excluded regardless of your race, your background, your sexuality, and now your disabilities are non disabilities. We've never seen anything like this, like we've seen, like, the only time they get real love is, you know, Special Olympics and those different types, but nothing anything on a more mainstream and a commercial kind of look. So, now that Victoria's Secret is, is starting to trend of, Oh, we got to, if I could believe that. Next up, we're going to see other top brands include people with disability, I'm not just going to just say Down syndrome, but people with disability, put them more in the forefront rather than us normal people, whatever your definition of normal is, you mean?

Mostafa Ghonim  
Yeah. Yeah. Nice, beautiful man, I mean, to think about just how much damage industries like this have created in the lives of many, many girls before. So I think now that we're realizing that there are no limits, similar to how she put it right, and we can be more inclusive, and show that beauty is not specific to one specific type of body shape, skin color, religious background. You know, like, even as you mentioned, disability, it's really cool. So I like it. I think we said it specifically on the intro to like brands becoming more socially aware, and just recognizing their impacts. That's cool. It's like you're taking ownership to maybe correct a mistake that you've done for a while, so no longer covering up or saying, oh, like we know what's happening, but we're not gonna speak about it publicly. Right. There's like no owning up to it and given that, so it's beautiful. It's obviously a great accomplishment.

Nicky Saunders  
yeah, And on the same topic, there has been an individual from a basketball standpoint, that has been making a lot of noise, just a lot of noise, a lot of highlights. I was, I think I got wind of him last year, and just found out that he's Dominican, so Now that excited me even more. I've listened Puerto Rican, the miniguns. The Hispanics are just taking over this particular segment, but who I'm talking about is Hansel Emanuel, who is a high school basketball phenomenon right now. And he just recently partnered with Jay Cole's dreamers, right? They're putting out a whole Mitchell and ness jersey line, where they're replicating all the NBA jerseys, the same kind of style and everything but it's saying dreamer. And of course he is going to be the face of it. Now for those who are not very familiar with Hansel, he is the high school player who has one arm and has been killing, super killing the game And we were watching an interview earlier. And there's this one part that I had to put a hat to put it in the in the podcast, because like I said this is going to put pressure on brands on companies on teams on yeah you got to you got to get better. So let's, let's get right into this clip.

Unknown Speaker  
These players is 20 Pushups. And then the whole, the whole team was quiet. And they all looked to me like okay, what are we gonna do now? And he goes to the floor I'll help him. He do 20 Push Ups. On one hand. Everybody goes to the coaches, my coaches. My players, they all was like oh I want to be better

Mostafa Ghonim  
crazy crazy. Reminds me a lot of like, Tim Tebow to like I think there's a lot of sports. Some athletes not a lot, but some athletes that come out that are like really, really favorites of the fans already right like their fan favorites. For whatever reason they might have been an underdog their whole career or you know, they've just done things that you're like, Yo you can tell this is a truly good person who works incredibly hard as a fanatic. story. And then people start rallying behind them, which in a way, it's going to push his opportunity or it's going to open up some opportunities for him. So when you think about college colleges or even professional teams starting to consider, okay, is this someone that we can take on, and you amass this large following on social media, you're talented, again, your work, you're a hard worker, and all of these things, these are only good things that contribute to it. So it was cool, because, you know, You're quick to hear in the media about athletes who don't work hard, or who are lazy, or they try to spin a bad image on him, like, you know, they, there's definitely athletes who have gotten caught up in that situation. So I think to see the polar opposite of it being highlighted, and the people are accepting it like there, there aren't any real nasty comments, I think he's rose above all of that noise. So is incredibly credibly cool to see man. And yeah, we'll only see what his future looks like. I know sometime soon.

Nicky Saunders  
Yeah. And was was amazing is recently, he got picked up for a full scholarship at Memphis, right. So my man's going to college fully paid. So that's amazing. But what this clip really showed is like, if you add, instead of exclude these people, but add them, to your roster to your team, whatever it is, from a professional sport standpoint, whether it is from a nine to five situation, you'll be really shocked how that actually pushes your your other team members, you know, um, to see somebody with one hand, do 20 Push ups, when people who have to can't do five, you know, um, and to see that a Down Syndrome person can become a model. You know, first it was before, you know, there was a lot of body shaming. And so now they're adding plus size models and all that great stuff. Male, adding the LGBTQ plus community, but now it's like, everybody should have the right to be a part of things. And when we show that this is going to make everybody better. So all I could do is like shout out to Victoria's Secret shout out to the college that picked you know, Emmanuel up, and of course, J Cole for making him the face of dreamers because this is now what we have to get used to. And it's still going to be very uncomfortable for some people. Um, but for others, like I got inspired. Like, for some reason, I was like, Hold on, let me work on my push. You know, but you for the people who are in audio. The the guy who was speaking about him was literally in tears. like, Yo, this made us want to be better. Like there shouldn't be anything we can't do. Because he's making everything possible with what he has. So yeah, it was a definitely had to be covered definitely have to be covered. Um, but a quick transition since we did speak about Jay Cole's dreamers Mitchell Innes collection, we have to talk about this. This recent buy of Mitchell and ness for $250 million. Come on loose talk about a little bit

Mostafa Ghonim  
crazy man crazy. I mean, first off, we all know fanatics have been in the media a lot lately just because of the acquisitions that they've been making. So they're growing I mean, they are expanding to collab with or at least include sports betting onto their portfolio. We know they run a huge merchandise licensing deal or business model that is able to integrate them. I think they said there they cover like 900 sports or like a variety of things like that, which is like incredible. Think about that, that many different leagues, and teams are trusting them with their merchandise to add their unique spin to it. So this specific deal here comes, of course, as they're integrating into E commerce and bringing back some local stores. And you look at just a roster that brought this whole collab together. So of course, Jay Z is already an investor into fanatics. You know, there's relationship there being that it's a Philly based brand with Meek Mill, then of course, math Carter, we know the relationship between LeBrons camp and J and Mathcad are someone who references Jay Z as like that advisor, friend, you know, mentor that has helped them kind of stay together and build. So you're bringing a very progressive brand. That's that's acquiring a lot of businesses. They're like dumping money into industries to acquire your business. And then you have people who represent the culture in a wide variety of way. Now, granted, they only I believe they only have about 25% ownership amongst J little babies also on there, there's a Tik tok family as well, that got that got in on the deal. So they're sharing 25%. But when you think about the reach, the fact that they're allowing some some individuals from Tik Tok who have exploded to come in on the deal that lets you know, how, how far ahead, they're thinking about utilizing different platforms, different influencers, and even brand names or just individual personal brand names, to be able to push and get their return back. So I think is super cool. I mean, obviously, an incredible brand, but just the fact that a lot of these different layers are coming together to make something happen to this magnitude.

Nicky Saunders  
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. But for those who don't know anything about Mitchell and Ness, and I haven't seen a single jersey, or anything like that we got we got the story behind it.

Unknown Speaker  
The company began stringing tennis rackets, making custom golf clubs, and producing uniforms for local teams like the Eagles and Phillies. In 1985, a customer has Mitchell and Ness to prepare his game worn jersey, sparking the idea to produce an established clothing line. Today, Mitchell and Ness specializes in authentic and lifestyle apparel with the major leagues such as the National Basketball Association, as well as the NHL MLB and NFL.

Nicky Saunders  
Now, as a New Yorker and and hip hop fan, I'm very, very familiar with Mitchell and Ness, because it seemed like every rapper wore the jersey right. For our audio viewers, we have pictures of everybody from outcast to Jermaine Dupri fabulous little bow when he was little bow wow Dipset Jay Z Dame dash Snoop Dogg all wearing some type of Jersey, um, it's just been part of the culture for the longest and so it makes sense that you know, hip hop stars do own a percentage of this and you know, um, which we had conversations offline about it I was very shocked that fabulous is not part of that lineup and I would almost be very interested to to ask why because I believe he's part of the rock nation lineup so it would only make sense on he would be a part of it because he was a huge roll on you know, making that him and Jay and a whole bunch of other people but we always saw a fabulous in a jersey real quick fast in a hurry so you know, he even talked about it in a in wallows podcast where it's like, Yo, we went from, I actually just like buying it to they started giving me discounts to then it started being, you know, some business deals, where, you know, we would do this, but he also explained that on tour when he was out with Jay Z, he used to see it, see Jay Z, every city were different Jersey based off the city. So he looked at that, like, Yo, I never seen that before. You know what, I'm gonna do this more as a lifestyle. So like, of course, hip hop, like embraced something that was such, you know, just in sports, you know, they made this as you have to have a jersey I think I forgot what year was but everybody had a jersey.

Mostafa Ghonim  
Yeah, remember back back in like school junior, a middle school, high school and everyone was wearing it backwards. The last name was in the front.

Nicky Saunders  
It happened it I didn't do that. But I've seen it. I've read it. Yeah, it was a thing people would. But some of those jerseys, it's still to this day 300 $400 For an authentic Mitchell and ness jersey. Um, but I think this is huge. And I'm very interested to see what do you think is going to? You kind of alluded to what could possibly happen. But what do you really see happening with this one? Yeah.

Mostafa Ghonim  
Well, I think the fact that they run in like the Vintage Space, right, and they're getting with fanatics who, who have built their entire business model around licensing. Now, just to kind of break it down around the basic licensing is basically, I see your hat nicky. It says, you know, Nueva York, and you may be licensed that or registered that look, as an official look, right? It's almost like as a patent, if you will. And I'm like, you know, what, rather than me, starting my own clothing line, I'm just gonna use people who've, who've already produced cool logos, clothing, brand, whatever, and just license that clothing from them. And I'm going to get really good at the other things, I'm going to get good at distribution, being able to come to market or production, you know, a lot of these other things, marketing, of course, and I'm going to make my money like that way I'm going to split. So they've grown tremendously. I mean, the, the owner or the founder, where he's not the founder, really. But Mike Rubin, he bought the company sometime back fanatics, that is, he's a billionaire now, because of this model. So I think now going into that space, having a lot of those relationships, it can only help scale the company. So at one point, a lot of people were thinking Mitchell and Ness was going away, because they weren't really as popular as they were, you know, back then. But through and I started seeing their stuff, believe it or not more, so unpacks it so like, I don't know if you've ever shopped there? Yeah, believe it or not, like they'll have a lot of their either shirts or like things pop up in them. Like, yo, it's crazy. They're still around and shout out to cat too. I know cat used to design for them for some time. Yeah, yeah. So So just to kind of see that happened. So I think it only makes sense. They're going to be able to scale the licensing with those relationships in that business model that they have down, packed, help them to explode and make all these acquisitions. And then all of these people involved, it's, it's only going to help them scale from a marketing standpoint. So I can see them making a really big push to make sure that Mitchell and Ness become, you know, as popular if not more than it was before.

Nicky Saunders  
A fact. So congratulations, and shout out to Jay Z. Little baby. Meek Mill. Mav Carter, which I'm surprised you didn't really dig into a little bit. I'm surprised because that is your guy. But you know, shout out to them The Tik Tok family, all that great stuff. Oh, of course, Michael Rubin because I mean, he has 75% of the joint. Right? 75% Sheesh, um, but, man, we can't, can't go without talking about this amazing performance. And if you don't know what we're talking about, where we're a little late I get it understand, but it's still relevant and trending. So we're going to talk about it. And we're talking about the Super Bowl halftime show with Eminem, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, special guests, 50 cent, and Kendrick Lamar. Um, man. Can I say that was one one of the best Superbowl joints I've ever seen. I'm just not gonna lie. I've seen a few. A few interview. I intentionally saw this one I actually bought. Shout out to peacock. That's the only time I've talked about it. But Peacock, so I could watch it on my phone while I was doing other stuff. Right. Um, and yeah, it was really good. I will say 50 cent shouldn't shouldn't have been upside down. No, no, sorry. I don't believe he should have been upside down. But moose How do you feel about the show?

Mostafa Ghonim  
Yo, I believe it or not. My favorite part was first of all, I didn't know Dre could play the keys like that. So like, the part was with Dre was playing the keys. I was like, Yo, that's fire. So I love that part. And Eminem killed it, man. I just feel like he brought I don't know like the way he came on and just kind of with that whole song lose yourself. It was just like, okay, hold up, it takes you back to a different that's what I love about a lot of these either halftime shows or even some of the deals. You know, when we cover something like Mitchell and Ness there is that form of like going back to a time in your life that, you know, it has some very fond memories. So it's like that song. It's like, of course, that's a part of everybody's, you know, catalog or one of the favorites. So to see it happen like that, that was pretty cool. I'm surprised it didn't give Mary Jay a little bit more love or a little bit more time. But you know, it worked. And she's the only female there too. So when I guess it worked,

Nicky Saunders  
she killed it. And it didn't matter. It did not matter. She did go on different interviews saying like, Yo, I literally only had like, two minutes. Because they were they were questioning the, you know, the song choice. Like, why did you? Why did you pick? No drama? And why did you pick this song? Why not real love? Why not all this stuff. And she's like, first off, I had like two minutes. But a second I had a big family affair because of Dre. He produced it. And then no more drama because, you know, I had, um, I'm tired of what's happening in the world, the people are tired, you know, with the mask, the pandemic, all that great stuff. You know, I felt like it was fitting in Dre thought it was fitting with that, you know, but we do have a clip of Mary J. Blige speaking on if she got paid or not. And I know, in a past episode, we did talk about Super Bowl. And if they got paid, I can't remember if it was the live or if it was a podcast, not really sure. But we did speak about you know, being on a platform like Super Bowl and what that does for people. This is what she said about getting paid on Superbowl.

Mary J. Blige  
They always say you don't get paid to do the Superbowl Is that what's happening is that it's just a major look, right? I mean, I'm not trying to get paid for the rest of your life off of this. Yes, ma'am. People be knocking at your listen. They opened so many doors they dont have to pay me, But if it was paying, it would be a lot of money. Yeah, absolutely. I'm good for you to say that. it pays in itself.

Nicky Saunders  
Now, yeah first off I want I will say this. Not only did their streams go up, and I'm going to show but I think and I wanted to mention this. And I didn't know how I was going to add it. But I think this is the perfect spot. Right? Ah, brands are very strategic with the performers, and knowing that this is going to be a long lasting situation. Right? So I can't believe and this is this is my conspiracy theory people. I can believe yes, they didn't get paid. Um, as far as the upfront performance, but I feel either one. Nike paid Eminem, right to wear a particular sneaker if you didn't see it, right. I don't know. For our YouTube viewers if you zoom in, right, um, you can see that he is wearing these Cardinal Jordan threes that just by coincidence came out. Yeah, came out the Saturday afterwards, right and sold out everywhere. Because of course now we're looking at it as the Eminem sneaker right? We want what Eminem wore? Um, so either one, Nike paid, right? Or two. You know, Eminem just felt like wearing those because he does have a whole bunch of Jays. And Nike said, Yo, we got to capitalize on this right now. I don't even know. Can we rerelease this? What's happening everybody? For Monday through Friday. We are saying this is dropping. Let's go right. So either one could have happened. But of course, when we look at the charts, a Billboard Top 200 You're seeing 50 cent. You're seeing Kendrick you're seeing Eminem, you're seeing Dr. Dre and then of course, from an iTunes standpoint, they're all on the charts. Like, all the singles, everything that was played on halftime, it was there. And I think this goes back to talking about the whole, do we get paid upfront for an opportunity? Or do we allow the effect to happen? So, a good, you know, another good example we always cover is versus, you know, before versus was an I don't know about now, because now they're going to different venues and stuff. But before vs was free, they will get the artist for free, but all their streaming numbers would go up, all of them, right. And so they called it the vs effect. Now we have the Superbowl effect, which is been proven time and time again. And I think that's why Mary J. Blige said, Im gonna get paid for the rest of my life. I think Janet Jackson is still getting paid for that situation. You know, um, Destiny's Child getting paid for the rest of life because they had a great performance J. Lo, shakira. Bananas. Yeah, there's there's a lot of great performers that were on the halftime show. And you know, what, when is time for Super Bowl? What do you think happens? Now, we're rerunning all the old Super Bowl performances, and we may want to hear the album again, the songs again. So I think it's a good look. But how do my question to you is, how do you think we can identify the big opportunities, because sometimes we think everything is big, based off the level that we're in, you know, this is, this platform is huge. This one's great. And then when you're in the midst of it, you're like, this is this, isn't that that good? is not good. I should have asked something, something by now. But yeah, what do you think?

Mostafa Ghonim  
Now? I mean, one of those biggest metrics, man is history. Like numbers don't lie in that standpoint. So when you look at the viewership of the Superbowl, for however many years, it's been around, you're talking about 56 years or something like that, you know, and for as long as I can remember, the Superbowl halftime show, or just that game in general. It's a showstopper. It's an event that everybody plans like, what are you doing Superbowl weekend? Right, like, it's a big deal. So I think that's the biggest really driver for anyone who's considering or looking to evaluate an opportunity that is unpaid. It's like, okay, well, what's the viewership? Like? what's the, what's the size of the audience that typically, that's expected to be there? And what is it on average, you know, like, we can say, Oh, we're expecting 100,000 people to be there. But if it's your first year doing a show, or doing an event of some sort, 100,000 it's like, okay, I mean, I could trust you, maybe you did put in a lot of money into marketing and things of that nature. But there's no real history to back it. But when you look at something like this, that for years, at least, let's just say the last safely the last decade, it's usually the most viewed sporting event of the year. So it makes sense, you know, I'm saying this like, okay, yep, I'm going to do it, because I know that the size of the audience is going to be there. So how we how they're able to leverage it is it's like it provides great opportunity because all these people are putting you or your your, your, your music, your talent is in front of people's eyes and is presented with the opportunity for you to to show off I think that's what you've noticed towards the end there are a lot of people will go on versus and they would release an album. So it's like they're announcing new albums on versus after they played their catalog and then they're spilling over, you know, that fan base or new listeners into a new into a new project as well to help kind of, you know, stimulate that so I think that's one of the biggest metrics that I think would you know, make the most sense is to look at numbers of course, and then the history especially if some exists to to know does it make sense, does it not? But yeah, this uh, the one that comes to my mind always is Jay still declining that like a pass. He said like that's, that's that's an interesting topic.

Nicky Saunders  
But did he did he pass in the time that they were doing the whole kneeling thing

Mostafa Ghonim  
I want to say it's, it had something to do with that like, around like it was it seemed to be like a race issue. But you know, of course that was debatable because I think they he later came back and collab with the NFL and Roger Goodell or whatnot. And then they were like, yo boy happened to the situation but cap so it was a little it was a little debatable, but I just think He's also at a status where I don't know that additional revenues from the Super Bowl is going to really? I don't know, it's hard to say, I don't know, he's, you know, saying it's just like he's making big money. So it's not like he's in need of additional eyes on him. He's made, he's made a living off of being discreet.

Nicky Saunders  
I mean, I think a lot of things have played for it. And then, you know, Jay works a lot in in the background. So maybe at the time, you know, that was his stance, and then yo, let me make a change. Let me collaborate with the right people. Whoopty Woo, maybe had a conversation with Kat, we don't know, we don't know a lot of things about Jay.

Mostafa Ghonim  
And he's always there, like, he's religiously at the game. So I do, I do think but for where he's positioned in some of those businesses, I'm sure from a sporting standpoint, the relationships are intact, because even with, you know, this last deal fanatics, I mean, obviously, it's a sporting thing. So there's some involvement there. How do you how do you think, you know, a personal brand, or brands in general can prepare for opportunities like this? Because like, because, because I feel like with every situation, no matter how much you try and say, okay, okay, okay. We got everything in order, this is hard to be you know?

Nicky Saunders  
I think it's the catalog is the catalog, whether it is products or services, you know, your art of some way, shape or form, you know, that has to be all already there, I mean, you're given the opportunity because of that, right. So I just think it needs to be in place where it is easy to access, right afterwards, you know, merchandise, things like that books, whatever, you have a tour coming up artist sales, open the exact day, then, you know, you appear in this particular opportunity, you know, but 9 out of 10 times, you are in these opportunities, because of the work that you've already done. So, is not so much preparing, as if you are probably auditioning for an opportunity, or, you know, pitching an opportunity, you know, is that's a different thing, then you have to prepare way more, but if you are presented with an opportunity that, as you said, data and history has proven that has taken people to whole new levels, from a brand awareness standpoint, that in the backend can pay off later. You know, it's it's already something that you have, and you just you just got to make sure it's in place. Like their music is easy, because a majority of those people who are, who were there already have, you know, their music on streaming platforms. You know, but and then I, we covered Snoop Dogg's of buying of death row. And I think that's all of a timing situation. You know, I think, with his album back on death row, you know, doing the Super Bowl with Dre, you know, with the new death row chain. I think everything everything's done on purpose, and with intentions, but that was all in place, as well. So now that people are searching for Snoop, regardless if you're a fan or not, you looked at it like, okay, oh, he bought Death Row. Oh, let me look into that. When Is anything going to drop? Let me you know, let me keep in tune with that. So I think everything shout out to even though I will say 50 cent. You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to

Mostafa Ghonim  
you know, was dope though. The fact that he was one of the first people to repost that me, you know, saying like he, I love just a swag because he's like, okay, you know what, I messed up. Yeah, im im a little You know, I'm not saying 50 That did back in the day, but I'm gonna laugh along with y'all. And I think if anything that killed that meme a little bit faster than if he would have just tried hiding it. But uh, ya know, he's, he's, he's definitely one of account when it comes to that.

Nicky Saunders  
Oh, big facts and then and, like, like we talked about earlier, he's back. His album is back on on the charts. its at 184 when this is being recorded get rich or die trying his very first album crazy so you know shout out that was an amazing halftime show. I think it was up there I'm not gonna say it's the best but it definitely was up there um the transitions how they went from one person to the other super fire and Nike you aint slick slick I spent money today because of you just I'm just saying, but let's talk about it. Last but not least, Kanye West okay, can us so we know that the coming of his second Donda album is coming soon by the time you hear this, the album may have we're not going to say did may have dropped because we know how Kanye rolls Okay,

Mostafa Ghonim  
good move next.

Nicky Saunders  
Listen, I'm here. I'm here for Right. Um, but he did do something very unusual. Not unusual for Kanye, but very unusual as far as when you release an album and that is not putting it on streaming platforms and putting it on his stem player. So if you remember, when we talked about Donda before we talked about the this technology that he have with a creating a stem player where it's literally just this round thing. As you can see on the on the screen for our audio listeners, this is brown brown thing that allows you to manipulate vocals, bass, different instruments, whether you want to fast forward rewind record, you can do this all on the stem player. Now, the reason why I'm bringing this stem player up is because he is releasing Donda 2 only on his stem player he posted on his Instagram Donda too, will only be available on my own platform, the stem player, not on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or YouTube. Today's artists just get just 12% of the money the industry makes it's time to free music from this oppressive system is time to take control and build our own. Go to stem player calm now to order sound like a infomercial. That was amazing right? Now, let's break this all the way down. Right? Where well what happened with Apple Music? And he said after 10 albums being under 10 contracts, I turned down $100 million dollar Apple deal. No one can pay me to be disrespected. We set our own price for our own art. Okay, all right. Now, one more thing. Let's look at the stem player. This is a picture from the actual website and you'll see this price $200 Okay $200 For you to listen to Donda 2 Okay. Now were in any other album, you could listen to it for a small fee of 799 or 999 on a monthly basis, right. Which will give you unlimited music. Kanye is saying now for you to listen to Donda 2, you have to purchase this thing that's in my hand, which is the stem player, right? Of course, I got one because I bought one in the very first one feel me. pretty addictive. I love it. However, um, before I do, deep, full thought in my head, moose, what do you think about this? This move of making you listen to an album for $200? Pretty much

Mostafa Ghonim  
yeah, yeah, no, I mean, of course. I actually I'm not gonna say what I think because I think I think you're gonna say what I think so I'm gonna go in a different direction because I'm gonna let you say what I think yeah, okay, I know what you're gonna say. Okay, but no, I think the first part of it for me, right like the lesson that I take away from it. You put yourself in decision to have ownership first. And then you're able to make these kind of moves. You know, I know, I know, ownership is a big part of the conversation right now, in our culture in our community. And we're big advocates of it on this podcast as well. Yeah, but I think some, at some point, we have to do a little bit less talking, and a lot more executing. And you see that this move I'm not gonna say was premeditated, meaning that it was in the plans all along. But what a way to leverage something that he already has in place, and bring it back in style, in a unique element to drive traffic in that direction. So now was just playing, you know, simple supply and demand, or I know that you guys want this, just as just as many people do with everything Kanye comes up with, right, there's always high demand for it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna market it. I'm gonna raise turmoil on social media and talk about all the different crazy things that are happening. And I'm gonna pull it back from you and say, Oh, you want it? you got to get this product right here for 200 bucks. Right? So very, very, very well thought out. I mean, some people might, I guess, feel some type of way about paying $200 for his art, but you got to admit he's done a lot, or at least created a lot of incredible music that I think if you're a true Kanye fan, you should support you know, saying like, it's still it's still a good time to invest back into what he's doing. So I do appreciate just how unique it is. And of course, him be in position already in a place of ownership to do something like that. You know, that's, that's incredible.

Nicky Saunders  
Yeah, I'm, clearly I spend my $200, I spend it twice. Yeah, I got it, I got one in the in the stash, just in case, just in case anything happens to mines, or there's just this high demand, And the Demand cannot be met by Kanye maybe you know, But here's my take on it, folks. So of course, we haven't. Like this isn't the first thing. First time we've seen something like this. So this, of course, reminds me of the proud to pay campaign that Nipsey did as far as selling his mixtape his physical mixtape for $100. Now, this is literally making music, physical again, and doing it in an innovative way. Because like I said earlier, this allows you to manipulate the tracks, not only just play it fast forward, rewind, but you can remove the vocals, if you don't want the vocals, you can remove the bass, you could, you could turn and remix it on your own way. So creating a new, innovative way to experience music. I think Kanye has always been big on experience. So from a physical standpoint, raising the bar of if I'm going to not put it on streaming platforms, I'm going to give you an experience and a different way to listen to this particular thing and carry it every way round. So it's like memorabilia, or however you pronounce it, because I always suck at saying that word, but I think I said it correctly. Right? Um, and so because even when I picked this back up, I was like, oh, man, I'm listening to the, to the song again. I'm like, Oh, I could download the other album that he had the the Jesus album, right. And it allows you to replay some of the things where now music is going so fast, like something drops, and then something else drops next week, and you totally forget about the album that you supposedly loved and thought was a classic. Yeah, right. This is reminding you and letting you play this over and over again. Whereas before your your phone, or however you listen to your music is bombarded with brand new music every single week where this player necessarily isn't unless you upload new things. Now the the thing that I love about this is because this the the stem player isn't new. The stem player came out in the first album, but didn't get enough shine. Like people talked about it if you were a true Kanye fan, or listened to Nicky and Moose feel me if you are a true Kanye fan, you knew about the stem player. Right? Um, it was, it got announced around that whole confusion of when Donda was actually going to come out. It shipped several months later, like everything of Kanye right? So it didn't get enough shine that it was supposed to.

So here is a way of repurposing your products and services that didn't get enough love before, by attaching it to something new. So what he did was okay, this product didn't get enough love. People are going to, there's a demand for this album, let me attach it to the product that didn't get enough love. So there can be a demand now, instead of just letting this sit on the shelf. So I look at that, as this was a whole lesson for brands, on some, there's going to be some things that you drop, that may sit on the shelf for a little bit because it got overpowered by something you were already doing. Right? It just didn't get love at that time. You didn't have the right audience. But how can we relaunch this particular thing? And make it more into a need instead of a want? Because now this is a need? You need this player in order to listen to the album and everybody wants to listen to the album because the way he's been marketing it is, is he going to talk about Kim? Is he going to address the marriage? Is he going to address Pete and Cudi is he going to discuss Cudi? Like there's a lot of hype around this particular album, the listening party, the tickets went on sale, I think the highest one from a VIP standpoint was about 1000 some dollars. Right? You can get in for as low as I believe 90 something dollars. Right? See. So he's he's doing a lot. Once again. We're going to talk about it on another episode with the documentary. There's a lot of things happening. Right. And so with him knowing that there's a lot of things happening, he probably understood that the player was going to get drowned out again. And he probably invested a good amount of money, because it's pretty dope. Right? Yeah. So now he's like, Okay, I'm going to make this. I'm going to say I totally not putting it on streaming platforms, even though I believe he will eventually, eventually, for sure. Eventually, I believe he will, right. I'm not putting it on streaming platforms. I'm putting it on my own platform, which is an actual product. Right? Um, which now people are curious. What, who does that? Right. But it costs $200 To listen to an album.

Mostafa Ghonim  
Yeah, I was gonna say it's like, it's like, what you always call repurposing content. He repurposed his product. You know, I'm saying like, he was like, oh, okay, let me drive traffic back this way. The other thing that came to mind, from like a business standpoint, I know that most tech products, average have, say, a 30 to 40% profit margin. So if I and in this case, it's probably higher, because what it cost to make the album is something that you are going to probably produce or pay just one time, and it can be downloaded onto the technology forever afterward. Yep. So if if he's saying that, through traditional music deals, he was only able to see 12% back from what the industry made off of his music, he's going to triple, quadruple, or maybe even make more than that, for a limited time, like you said, push the popularity of the product. And then I'm sure certain at some point, he's going to let it you know, give it back to or put it on a streaming platform at some point. So he doesn't necessarily miss out on it. But he does increase his profit margin, which is a huge benefit benefit when you think about it from a business standpoint.

Nicky Saunders  
But also, when you start making it back into a physical standpoint, now you can count sales way easier than streams. Yeah. So he can become platinum, maybe even before the album drops. You know, because How he reported it. It was like 67, when he dropped his 67,000 were available and he was making 3000 Every single day. You know, my producing, producing it. Yep. Now I'm interested to see when it gets actually shipped. That's going to be interesting. I need somebody, one of our listeners or viewers, please buy the stem player and keep us tracked with how long the shipping was because I think shipped for me two three months after the album. Yeah, it was, uh, yeah, it was very interesting. But I got mines And so on the day supposably, it drops, I can plug it and just download it immediately. Which is pretty cool. Because it makes you think they got my brain thinking. What is something that you could create that can always add value to your customers? So customers too, right? Yeah. So it of course, like I said, it reminds me of Nipsey. Because when we think about the marathon store, back in Crenshaw, if you scan the tags at the store, it would give you exclusive content. And he can upload content at any time and say, Yo, all the people who have the blue Crenshaw shirt, rescan your tag, um, I just added some new new songs. Right? So now Kanye is literally doing the same thing. Yo, anybody who has a stem player, upload the new joint when the Andre 3000 Song leaked and everything. And he officially released it it released on the stem player. Oh, nice. And then it released on the, the, you know, the streaming platforms and everything like that, but you're able to listen and manipulate it on the actual player. So not only does Kanye teach us, okay, how to repurpose a product or service or a piece of content that maybe didn't hit the way it should have? And just attach it to something new that has that has demand. But he also teaches the the importance of always over delivering to your customers always over delivering to your followers in a unique way. Right? What is something that you have that can always deliver things? The first thing I think about is NFT's. With this whole new craze with with NFT's one of the abilities is you can AirDrop new content, new NFT's to the holders. So I think this is pretty cool. I appreciate it. I love it a lot. I'm looking forward to whenever the album drops because I'm not sure when the album drops, but it's going to be fire. So that's what I say. Alright, people, we appreciate you listening to the super dope conversation. Follow us everywhere at Nicky and Moose, especially on fan base that has been growing and we appreciate you shout out to those who have subscribed to our YouTube channel. That's over 5000 subscribers, depending when you hear this, so appreciate you, But moose final words.

Mostafa Ghonim  
Yeah, every every example we've covered today shows that greatness doesn't go out of style from the greats who performed at the Super Bowl Halftime Show to Mithcell and Ness brand that was established a long time ago. Let's just say that. So no matter what's going on, just know that never go worried about doing things that you know, are going to impact generations to come