Why Joe Budden is leaving Spotify, in his own words

Joe Budden announces he’s to leave Spotify, after two years of being an exclusive podcast. But what’s his story? Here’s a rough transcript of this portion of episode 375 of his show, where he explains his decision to leave the streaming giant.

Note: This was machine transcribed. It has been lightly edited but is not a complete nor accurate record of the podcast. In particular, this contains Joe Budden’s views, but may also contain passages spoken by his co-hosts.

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i can put this i can put it off no longer rory

slow down um

we got listen we have seven episodes left uh let me hit a round of applause let me know you know what was because a lot of people they they they hit us in our mentions and they ask what does that mean

so just tell them what that means even my own mom keeps asking what does it mean

do they yeah yeah my mom had that conversation uh

that’s interesting that’s interesting when you get toward the end of your contract and like have to let keep your mom abreast with things my mom is in the shit she would have never been into yeah

so listen it’s important that we talk through some of this stuff uh and before i get into any of that um yeah man don brown’s pop champagne pop champagne pop pop champagne

i don’t want i don’t want anything that i’m about to say to be lost

uh this is such a celebration this is such a celebration before i start i want to thank y’all all y’all here i know that i have done that in the past

but we do this thing man yeah we do this thing yeah and we coming in we talk about a lot of shit that maybe some of the time we don’t even want to get into

but the commitment the commitment when you speak to new podcasters the one of the things that they have trouble with early is the actual commitment yes

the commitment from you guys through thick and thin no matter the hurdle uh i know we joke around a lot that can’t be understated so i recognize that and i thank you all because without y’all i would be unable to make some of the some of the tough decisions that i’m forced to make

uh so let me explain it for the people that have no idea what i mean when i say there’s seven episodes left before you go on word thank you yeah you should get some thanks in in this this thank you fest a thank you fest thank you jam the thank you jam yeah man come on come on come on yeah

listen we are approaching what seven episodes left means is we are approaching the end of our spotify contract and for me that’s that’s really it’s an important milestone to note

because i gotta be honest with y’all in a moment of transparency and let me pause it right there if you are listening to this podcast for the normal banner and jokes and stupid shit you’re gonna have to fast forward for a little bit because this is a this is a sir this is a public service announcement

um at the beginning of this contract um i was fearful i might have mentioned this here before i didn’t know how two podcasts a week were going to produce yeah that was the biggest thing at first

i didn’t know if we would be able to produce at such a high volume twice a week for two years straight and it was a risk it was risking it was risk assessment involved in that that we took on august 20th not august september 23rd

what seven episodes left means is that september 23rd this podcast new episodes of this podcast will no longer be available on spotify exclusively september 23rd i cannot tell you where this podcast will be but as it stands i can tell you where it will not be and that is spotify

i know i know you guys whoa the backlash

the questions how could this be right you were number one yeah i understand oh no we were 17. last week 17. i understand it’s important for me to open it’s important for me to open some of these doors and report back to the people again i’m a humble servant of the people

so let’s let’s let’s let’s paint a picture let’s start at let’s start at two years ago two years ago before this contract began and again i’m only i’m only going to offer my perspective of things here across this timeline

as i said earlier there are a trillion different perspectives to every singular moment and this is just mine

two years ago let’s talk about what the market in podcasting looked like two years ago from my perspective there were many of us that were trying to figure out where the money would come from a lot of us went into ads but to get in the ad business you kind of have to know ad people and many of us creators do not at that time i was really hyped about the mid-roll deal that we were about to close mid-roll ad company

fast forward mid-roll has recently sold yeah but that’s another story for another time mid-roll deal two years ago that’s when in my story you guys were fucking fighting me down about the title offer that i was saying we shouldn’t take i know you guys stories different theories fine um

and spotify calls spotify calls i rushed to la and this is this is it’s important to note that a lot of us podcasters had information questions about the data along with economics questions um at that time these exclusive deals weren’t such a phenomenon it was a very new idea

so i go to la we sit in the mondrian and it’s me and it’s ian and it’s carl cherry and it’s about three other people from spotify staff and they begin to tell me about a vision that they have for podcasting and at the time that vision was very much aligned and in line with mine right

also important to note that this spotify deal was done as a whole to gain information to see what it felt like when you were able to centralize most of your entire audience to one specific dsp that would help us determine the true value of what we’re out here doing and without us actually being able to go inside the house we can all look at the house from outside of it and say it’s pretty but if we don’t go inside the house we’re just not going to know what the moldings look like

the picture that they were painting was of a company that was kind of in a disarray and was uncertain of what the future held why could that why would that possibly be expensive to operate because the licensing costs i would imagine for music you guessed it because music labels receive 70 of all income that’s not joe saying it that’s public knowledge that’s written in plenty of stories prior to this deal happening

insert podcasting talk about a low overhead talk about projections that in the next five years were through the roof and um in comparison to some of the radio ads talk about keeping a consumer on an app for a longer amount of time than music ever could

yeah the people at this meeting begin to tell me about this huge plan they had for podcasting

and first up the bat was who you guessed it amy schumer our label mate already that’s a bit disturbing to joe

again this is only my perspective already that’s a little concerning to joe because you’re fucking the market up

you who this move says knows very little about the market easily can disturb it remember i came in here a bunch of podcasts ago and i said i’m mad that will smith’s getting the content game and y’all laughed at me and called me crazy and said why that’s why because when celebrities enter a field it skews the market for the rest of us

and i’m saying us as if i’m not a celebrity but not on that of that magnitude you know what i’m saying right

so spotify is telling me we have amy schumer and they begin to divulge they had grandiose plans of amy schumer leading off the exclusive deal

and then me following up in my head i’m thinking this is two different audiences i understand

but boy this is fucked up because amy schumer isn’t a podcaster not only is she not a podcaster she’s a celebrities who i just watched go on this long rant about wage uh paid disparity at netflix that’s what was going on at that time

she was beefing oh it’s raining god knowing about yeah that’s right she was she just opened up whatever i just seen it that’s what i’m saying no it just happened yeah that’s right so so they had really high expectations of this and all of this is great

but i have to tell y’all that the corporate people go off of numbers as a creator all we have to go off is energy so even while all of that good shit is being proposed at that mondrian lobby table you know what i’m thinking

you guessed it hey what happened to tuma um we can’t even really talk about no business between us before i know what took place with my brother tuma

tuma for the people unaware built hop’s biggest playlist at spotify rap caviar uh and again i’m not divulging anything that’s private this is all this all played out publicly yeah he built that playlist argued with spotify about who who owns it what should happen being paid properly from an ip that you birthed

that’s right from an ip that you birthed they didn’t resolve that that that was odd to me that you could create the biggest streaming playlist and not be compensated so i asked and i got some little bullshit runaround story it wasn’t really important oh the tuma thing we can’t get into is complicated

cool that tells me all i need to know whole situation inspired the album i’m working on now

they then present an offer for this podcast and from the rip i have to tell you i was aware that they were valuing valuing improperly

they didn’t know but that was cool i knew they didn’t know because they had just told me that they had an amy schumer podcast that was coming that was gonna blow through the wall

so it’s cool they don’t no fine

here we go load them up launch date joe button podcast amy schumer podcast what happens you guessed it amy schumer has underperformed whatever you projected for amy schumer it didn’t quite reach wherever you hoped it would our podcast i don’t know what you projected we’re 900 above your projections

for the people listening along at home what 900 above your projections means is we’ve recouped an hour one

remember that jordan dock when he was talking about his uh nike deal we blew through the projections that’s what we did

day one hey the site crashed when we launched we had to call them biggest streaming eight in the morning and say save on right and say yo maybe y’all don’t understand how this audience works

but they’re serious about their shit and now you’re late and it’s a lot of them they had to make some major changes but if you think they were not watching while all of you were tweeting your dismay you’re wrong broke the system

awesome when was that that’s when we launched

for me it begged the question what’s a king maker and who’s a king maker is it the person that actually built the kingdom or is it the person in charge of running the kingdom

what did you guys answer to that

say one more time sorry king maker who is the king maker gatekeeper we have that gatekeeper conversation a bunch in this podcast

all right but let’s change it from gatekeeper to king maker who is the actual king maker here the person that builds the kingdom or the person that actually runs it uh to an extent both

i think you need uh if you build the kingdom then naturally you are the king but um you also have to run the kingdom as well to an extent both right when the system crashed

and spotify was totally unaware of what our fan fear would bring to their platform right

we are now at a crossroads agreed agree yes absolutely that that’s what something they weren’t prepared for yeah

if spotify were getting 30 of music income because all of the labels had a deal in place with spotify again public information then low overhead projection boosting podcasting would seem like it could be a resolution but from amy schumer something that did not work

inserting a celebrity into podcast land you might be hesitant to spend insert y’all insert the joe budden podcast and what do you have a successful business model

i think you have that doesn’t say anything i think you have the guinea pig of a market you have interest in bringing into your system but you don’t fully understand how that market works you have so no idea so you take that market works so you take someone that is established in that market and use them to see if this podcast thing is worth us putting money into how do we how do we monetize it

let’s just use this from an analytical perspective of a well-established podcast you’re 100 percent correct rory before you are on the money with that

they did did they purchase gimlet after first we’re gonna get to gimlet we’re not even nowhere near that yet

let’s get back to rory uh whatever rory you just say

uh you have a company that is interested in oh you are absolutely correct but as podcasters and creatives we never know right because it takes the addition of you pardon me plus technology to see the true value two things i’ve said well one thing i’ve said a bunch in this podcast is in my business travels they have sat me across from a lot of well-educated people and some of y’all know my history and my backstory i dropped out in the 10th grade

it wasn’t for me my education may be limited my knowledge is not all you got to do is know how to spot a liar

we get that from the underground level we get that from like the bottom of the bottom because we come from the bottom of the bottom i break america up into tears it’s the bottom of the bottom it’s the middle class it’s the high class we have a few tricks when we come from the mud it’s part of survival when we when we get it from the mud

you’re forced to realize things for survival that other people may not realize and those things come across when you start dealing with the higher class and in business not just in the mud those things still translate over and you realize them quicker because you come from a place that you have to survive to know these type of qualities and realize these things quick because you could be compromised with your life physically not just in a bad business deal

so we get back to what is a stream worth our age-old question and that’s an important question to podcasters especially right because in music they have set the rules and the rules are in place for three-minute bodies of work in podcasting we had hours you are on so i’m highlighting some of the confusion i’m just highlighting for the audience

why you want to go into two years ago you want to go into an exclusive deal with somebody who’s assuring you you’ll get all the information and analytics that you need but because i come from the bottom my analogy is the strip club for the people that are having a hard time understanding understanding and following me we’ve all been right yeah a few times you know on occasion a dabble what is every trip in a strip club what is your every strip every trip to the strip club worth to the strip club parks what is your every trip to the strip club actually worth to the strip club i present the same question of rory and any other gentleman that has that has lived here i’m going to play the lasagna oh please oh buying alcohol before i even throw money at women it’s priceless for the people that don’t know what i’m saying

and i’m admitting to some things here because i’ve been in the strip club quite a bit i’ve spoken to the women that worked work it i’ve spoken to the men that work it in the strip club you are taxed at every corner without knowing paper towel in the bathroom pull up hey you ain’t even got to pee yet yeah get in the door pull up ain’t no door valet you’re paying aggressive pat down the door you’re paying the co-check you’re paying the food on display right after you’re paying the drinks you’re paying plus the surcharge the hundreds that you order you’re paying plus the surcharge every 100 is 90. a table the 100 is 90. yeah it puts you in that weird predicament of hey do i do i pay the atm the fee or do i pay the strip club defeat which the atm fees are triple what they are the bartenders are beautiful you’re gonna keep ordering drinks

i’m taxing the bartenders i’m taxing the strippers i’m taxing the dj

at every single turn you’re being taxed that was my analogy for the audience that we brought to spotify an unproven prospect and platform because this is a music platform right in podcasting the way that they made the podcasting market sound because be advised this is all a market share game two years ago apple controlled it all of it without their knowledge hey by mishap yeah we got hardware and other shit over here

listen we’re just getting taxed too much money but we own all that shit podcast app has been on the iphone 3 when you bought it they without knowing were holding that market share yeah i don’t want to make this sound

i don’t want to make i don’t want to make this sound as if it’s a bad thing at all no trust me this isn’t a shit on it this is a great thing we both ran into the small percentage that we never thought we would two years ago they they told me that if they were able to get to three percent four percent five percent of the podcasting market then that this would be unbelievable shit it was almost unattainable

right that’s how much of the market share uh apple owned so that’s what they said two years ago the small percentage that we would have never guessed would happen is we hit all that shit right

i can’t tell you that at the lobby in the mondrian

all i can tell you is you’re projecting wrong you don’t understand podcasting and just move out of my way move out of my way and let us do what we have to do and that’s my problem to the two things that you said in this whole segment executives focusing just on the numbers and then the word value because the amount of people that we brought to spotify in the podcast market in the information they got from it back to the strip club is it it’s invaluable back to the price on that all you have to you don’t know how many people you have to put in the strip club for the strip club to turn a profit

yeah you might walk in and say this shit is horrible it’s a hundred people here on the back end the strip club is thriving with 100 people in there 20 of those people are athletes they done fucking threw money in the air for five hours

we got this we got this here but let’s get off of that for a minute the strip club we brought the people to the party the people with y’all round of applause for y’all yes hold ups round of applause for y’all thank y’all y’all’s contributions should not get lost in what’s going on here and a lot of times we may feel so insignificant we may think that we don’t have a grand effect on the totality of things i’m here to tell you you would be incorrect that is wrong

let me get back to year one

strip club analogy amy schumer fails from my perspective we fill up we fill up the strip club 900 above projection we’re starters this is year one of our contracts year one of our contract year one of our contract gentlemen how long do you think it took them to figure out that this was a really profitable business i’m asking you you fucking guessed it instantaneously instantaneously hey listen

crooked eye told me that i need to honor my contracts

crooked eye told me that i can’t be upset with a contract

i should honor it out and as a black man in this country you know what i live with i live with you being afraid of my response to anything right let that not be lost here the systematic oppression part is huge

let me not show these people let me not act like i don’t know how to finish out a contract right like i’m not professional professional enough to be here that goes back to the evolution this is all just the evolution of joe and spotify this is all cars for toast and we toast them soon

four months later exactly

four months later do you know what happened you fucking guessed it a gimlet acquisition

talk about hearkening back to my fear of being able to produce two podcasts a week and stay number one two times a week

february 2019 gimlet 250 million dollars gimlet is a company they have a million podcasts at def jam i learned this see and that’s the problem with these fucking dsps

i come from music fam some of these some of these rules that y’all are trying to put into effect it’s old game

it’s an old game i come from music which means i’ve been robbed and scammed for 18 years of my career in a game that i had no say-so on the rules that were being put in place podcasting not so much buddy this is new ground all you niggas is new here

spotify my contract with y’all i helped design it y’all didn’t know there’s an entire ecosystem here that you have to respect after if you’re looking to feed the soil see everybody’s not looking to feed the soil some are just looking to take the fruit

right

gimlet comes

250. guess what we took our little money guys none of y’all complained none of y’all said nothing to me we didn’t do what the average artist would do in that position because what we’ve been taught to do in this position is while the leverage is at an all-time high

threaten stoppage of work right the market at the time two years ago quickly changed two years ago podcasters didn’t know where to go to get a bag we didn’t have the relationships hey a few months in everybody was given out a bag it’s the reason most of you podcasters are rushing searching for a deal with some high numbers to fucking announce you don’t value the freedom the way that you should we’ll get to that part later

gimlet comes february 2019

april 2019 you know what else comes you fucking guessed it parcast slow down buddy

you now telling me that the joe budden podcast worked and in an attempt to scale up go find another one anyone just one and we rocking you now hire gimlet who produces podcasts in a mass in a mass abundance and in april you purchase purchase to own purchase parcast

parcast if you’re unfamiliar is a technology that you need to make a podcast

tell me what that says to y’all

while i’m quiet not saying a word oh wait i got everyone i got everyone i made a huge mistake in the store before i took the short from y’all because i was in it for the uh branding and uh the branding and the information before i took the short from y’all when i leave

complex

what happened was i got millions from everywhere don’t paint me out to be a hit boy here i’m not clout chasing don’t do that and neither was he i love hit boy followed him even

i did it i did it i did it i did it i followed him i’m not clown chasing that’s important to note because this is all poker and monopoly

so what i’m saying is when you don’t have when you don’t have the finances sometimes you may take a deal that’s not valued the way that you see it valued you follow me yeah of course

so i closed that spotify deal at whatever we got i won’t get in the numbers i have ndas everywhere

i’m gonna get fired i took that deal and you know what happened after that i got m’s from everywhere

everywhere

i used to be so confused when drake said your first million is the hardest to get and the rest of them come easy

i was home with twenty dollars saying how could it be it’s true one million put you in different rooms

that’s a fact it gives you some different relationships

sorry yeah i learned this is what i’m saying spotify deal came we took it branding and information and in the meantime joe got a m m it was reigning m’s m from viacom m from revolt m from over here m from over there it was lit

know what it told me whoa uh oh something’s wrong something’s wrong something’s wrong my time is my inventory

my time is my inventory what i’m spending the most time on is my podcast for me it’s my vote most valuable asset

also for me right now i’m being paid the least in it man i’m being paid the least in my most valuable asset and not numbers not numbers again time

it’s 102 episodes a year

i beat that doing eight pull-ups it’s crazy

i beat that doing x amount of love in hip-hops

i beat it everywhere revolt

i get paid more than this shit

joe is great changes things a bit sure changes a few things it’s hard to play poker bro parks yeah if you don’t have any money and you’re at that poker table i don’t care what hand you have you’re gonna think for a second yeah because you can’t lose all of these m’s came and granted i understand that because the greater that joe does outside this podcast this podcast does great right like i get it it goes hand in hand listen it’s no beef synergy no beef there

but you paid gimlet 250 april came

2019. you gave parcast 250. you have a whole streaming farm of podcasts you run blank air

podcast today doesn’t matter because everything is cool in year one our numbers are going through the roof we are rocking we are number one so much so we get approached eight months into a two-year deal to say hey we would like to further business

i’m applauding you guys i’m applauding you for the foresight of recognizing a profitable business and looking to lock in way ahead of time that’s awesome

but it wasn’t a podcast deal it was a podcast deal it was a pull-up deal it was a rory album deal whatever maul went and did on the side it was a mall deal we owned 50 of that parks you and gift throw that shit out the window

we own all of your shit eric you’re saying you’re not taping nothing are you because we own that too

that’s what happened eight months into this contract know what i said

it’s silly right

why would i acknowledge this when any graph that you pull up is to the moon foss they all up all the way up fat joe remy ma hey any graph it’s all the way up hey you know what

i said no quickly

brashly abrasively no do me a favor don’t present that to me again it’s common sense i have a year left on this deal right yeah if you’re offering me seven figures now for all of this bullshit why would i not wait the year to see what’s going on

master p gave it to you on solange album it’s the same thing i can’t quote this but it seemed they didn’t like that

of course you don’t say it i could be wrong in that me ian and i felt like they didn’t like that we could not confirm that and that was in july august a year ago 2019.

i’m just paying the timeline from my perspective september 2019 what our one year anniversary i was expecting a raise

[Laughter]

are we going to get into that hey real niggas a real niggas would have toured his contract up in month one and done right

yes that’s what would have happened we have earned you nine figures

i don’t need to get into the how

but i’m telling you for fact we have earned nine figures not low

not one

in sports this contract should have been ripped up it wasn’t september comes i’m old we’re owed a bonus because there’s benchmarks there

we have been number one for a year straight

yeah 500 000 just bonus just because guess what happened in september god damn it you guessed it not a bonus in sight i was confused any right decision that i’ve ever made in business only comes from something not feeling right and making me ask questions other than that i’m still just this 10th grade dropout without any information but the smart people are stupid so when we don’t get a bonus in september a year after being number one i say what happened and they give me a bunch of bullshit about the difference between a start a stream a unique start and however else fuck you calculating some shit

who the fuck are y’all

i come from the music business know what that is eerily similar to 1500 streams making a sale says who

[Laughter]

walked me to his office

[Music]

that’s real shit i want to talk to him we didn’t get a raise in september guess what i got fucking crooked eyes voice stuck in my head you honor a contract

i got ian’s voice stuck in my head you honor a contract

you show these people that you professional no matter what your personal grievances may be cause that’s when they paint you as threatening i’ve spoken to enough bill collectors to know how this goes

hey

fuck y’all know they said oh you’re getting irate gotta go yeah you don’t need to curse september comes we don’t get a bonus it’s cool i don’t ask start streams unique starts whatever listen i am also watching the numbers and i can assure you what we are doing in consumption and retention is not matched by many

that’s a fact

some of y’all are wondering why i kept this thing three hours for two years some of y’all have listened to us talk about parks collard greens

there’s a fucking reason that i’m sitting here talking for three hours because the past two years have been nothing but a fucking case study i’m watching i’m watching i’m watching how long will they stay they stay until the last hour

i come from hip-hop i know what that means for advertising

i’m sorry if i’m losing some of y’all that are here from the jokes come back to us on saturday we’ll get to it i promise you

this is important because there’s too many podcasters and creatives out there being led astray and making the same mistakes for 70 fucking years

uh where was that they did what uh after year anniversary

year anniversary well we’ll leave out we don’t we about the watches and vacation no we won’t rory no we won’t no we won’t this is a two last year review

that’s fucking that was in september

in december you know what happened the same thing that they’ve been doing to us in the music industry for our entire lives is taking all the money and giving you a fucking plaque

look at this shiny thing they put out a chart y’all are number one the fans applauded we rejoiced we did that shit what did we do nothing it’s a blank stat

put it put a name on a chart it doesn’t mean a thing

if your number one act for a year and a half was unable to meet the bonus something is skewed

something is something is off right what are you basing this off of we’re number one we didn’t hit a bonus fuck the bonus

i don’t know what number two is what’s three if i’m in the league and i’m the raptors number one record in the east guess what

i know what number two is behind me we didn’t get any of that none of it happened not only number one for exclusive deals for podcasting period on their their site it’s two different charts yeah that’s important not just the exclusive spotify stuff that all right whatever we’ll be number one there number one on podcasting period on spotify stupid me right because i come from the bottom

so like i never decided to manage an artist though plenty of them asked because i didn’t believe in the system that i would be walking them into and it would be difficult for me to sleep at night knowing that you’re just in the wrong infrastructure right and that’s kind of the same same thing here it’s hard to guide something for me for me and my personal goals i’ll just tell y’all some of my personal goals

uh

for me it’s about building a network

for me it’s about having quite a few of these

and if i can’t bring them to somebody that’s going to value that properly and respectfully then i’m the small percentage of podcasters that will say no to the money and not bring it to you

be very clear the money i’m talking about turning down and that i walked away from is substantial it is more money than i have ever been privy to in my entire life

i’ve never touched it i’ve never had conversations about it guess what so right it’s not right right

september comes cool we don’t get a bonus we in year two this is where things get interesting christmas comes podcast charts come out we number one the fans are going crazy spotify is going crazy everybody’s going crazy

but me i want to know what number two three four and five is what’s gimlet doing y’all just gave him a quarter billy

what’s podcast or what’s podcast doing you just gave me 100, 56 million whatever you get i don’t give a fuck with your game i know what you gave us and because i because i come from music

i know that i could be working a pump it up at radio and def jam be working or put it on me and uh what these bitches want and uh you’re in direct competition with your label mates of course please don’t get that twisted hey if you’re an athlete when you on the floor with your teammates the other team is pitting you against your teammates it’s all an area in which to be judged is what i’m saying

i hope i’m not losing people out there hope y’all following me this stuff is very important eric see anything i’m losing him

all right cool cool cool uh what happens next

oh my fucking god i bet you by golly wow no cause all of this shit is cool this is the normal this is like normal shit we all come from music this ain’t new to us nigga’s trying to rob us we know what this is but in december

but in december it gets interesting

it’s christmas holidays

new year’s is coming easter’s coming valentine’s day is coming most important patrick’s day shit is coming

we sat in this fucking small tiny living room and said hey you guys we’ve been busting our ass two pods a week we have been going hard out i’m so proud of y’all we have showed up and turned out at every turn twice a week

yeah savannah’s not wrong either between it new year’s eve is coming christmas is coming

let’s get a vacation why don’t y’all highlight some of the days that we went off so we can come back january one recharged full of the right podcasting energy

because again i’m still on energy here they can go off numbers i want energy right and we took the time and we highlighted those dates and i submitted them

crazy no

i’m gonna get tight again i kind of wish you didn’t even bring this part up

i’m gonna get tight again rory

i i can assure you i promise you listen do you trust me of course it’s nothing to be tired about

that shit there’s nothing to be december like i want to i want to assure you gentlemen angry don’t worry there is nothing to be tied about and we’ll get to that we’ll get to that later

we pick out some vacation time were we ambitious in that i don’t even think so no no it was one two okay it wasn’t no we weren’t missing more than three three episodes yeah

but the bottom line we wanted new year’s eve off we wanted christmas off new year’s eve i think fell on the actual day we recorded

so yeah those we stayed away from and i submitted that vacation time vacation we need it two parts a week three hours long we need a break we need a break we need a break we listen to that

we want christmas though it’s a no we need a break nah son yeah like we have families nah fuck your families baby hey yo you know you know the family thing nah fuck that fuck your face fuck your family niggas couldn’t get a christmas nope no wonder the household is in shambles no wonder sin left

yeah now now it all makes oh come on

come on i’m sitting there mary i gotta work i gotta work no you don’t no no you know i submitted those days for a vacation let me stop playing around and what i got back was nah nah nah no no you don’t need those like why are you trying to take a vacation everyone else is off you guys need to be on listen uh i know i understand it’s christmas and new year’s eve maybe there’s a way you can pre-record something

just put it out there i mean you don’t want your audience to just go let us straight

wait wait wait wait wait you white people are not telling me about my how my audience acts right

wait who you think know my audience better me or you they say no i wasn’t so upset about the vacation time

i can work for years straight i don’t have a personal life like say my job is my job is this my my off time is my job mm-hmm like i work yeah i work i get to it yeah we’re fortunate enough to our work is oh yeah we get right to work

listen i’m fortunate enough to be able to come sit on the couch talk to my friends and be paid for it yeah i don’t i don’t i don’t take that for granted that was uh that was our attitude towards it yeah yeah yeah we coming to work but on the flip side of that boy was it telling boy was it telling what it said to joe after your gimlet podcast acquisition acquisitions we need to recoup was y’all can’t afford for us to go on vacation

yeah we can pause right there because i know that sounds really stupid to think of that that sounds dumb at first that a fortune whatever company one of the biggest companies needs little ass us that’s real

for the overall numbers and for the people confused by that let me just add a little bit and i missed a huge part that i’m going to go back to but let me add some of that right now um spotify never cared about this podcast individually

don’t be angry at that it’s fine it’s great pot spotify only cared about our contribution to the platform

so when we’re talking about ads however many months in because that was my fight six months in six months in they delivered an ad back to m’s reigning everywhere and joe getting millions just from taking a shit they came back with some ads for us to put throughout our podcast

and the ads were like i won’t say the companies because i’m respectful and professional of course

but it was something like over the course of six to eight episodes you get 150 grand for a company that you may not endorse this is solely ad related right here eight episodes 150 grand some of you that are familiar with my story the ad fight was my fighter complex it’s how i ended up at spotify

if they would have just done any due diligence they would realize all this but no what i had to tell them was no i’m not taking your bullshit ad because you are devaluing me personally in the market space and that didn’t even make sense as far as our listenership yeah but even if they found one that made sense parks even if you name something rory loves and you come and say eight episodes 150

0. and joe is getting 1.5 for seven episodes

you can see something is off here right

i turned them all down turn every ad that they brought this way i turned it down i said you were devaluing me outside of this system and i cannot allow it unbeknownst to me and i’m sharing this with you guys

i don’t think there was ever a plan to get advertising correct

complex when my fight was ads they always blame it on our ad team sucks when i got to spotify i thought that the ad team this is spotify so you gotta have an ad team that’s fruitful we got the hottest podcasts in the streets this combination if you want to know joe’s calculations just so if our ad split i expected you all to be millionaires in year one yep well if we do uh if we do a 55 sell through rate of ads on a three hour product that’s holding retention well into the second hour yeah that’s insane and i know what our splits say in our contracts you’re about to get paid

we all hey yeah it’s lit that did not happen spotify painted that as if they were doing me a favor by saying we’re going to dead or we’re going to dead all that we’re not going to come to you with no ads we’re not going to come to you with advertisers we’re gonna let you all do what your thing because the listener experience is important the listener experience is important it’s all i’ve ever thought about

hey some of you that listen to podcasts out there will now see your favorite podcast the listening experience has interrupted quite a bit yeah

this is probably one of the only podcasts where you don’t hear ad nowhere but everybody’s paid

yeah it’s cause i guard this thing you can’t just come and pillage this thing

back to uh back to year two december comes

december comes we don’t get a bonus in september i’m spilling all the business december comes know what they say after they put their little fucking chart out they has us at number one that i don’t give two fucks about that they maybe think i do they say you guessed it

we would like to offer a token of our appreciation you guys have been killing this shit killing meaning we are still number one out of over 500 000 podcasts that’s important don’t get my self-deprecation fucked up when i come in here and just joke around with my friends i am well aware of our stature in the marketplace

i don’t discuss it because it’s business shit

uh damn where was that number one out of five hundred thousand number one out of five hundred thousand hey we wanna offer you a token of our appreciation can we get you guys watches rolexes ball out i love rolex it took me 10 years to get the rolex i have on my wrist hey

i even bought fake rolexes until i was able to get me a rolex that was up to my fucking stan stature yeah so when they said that what did we all go do come on y’all could share don’t be embarrassed before that

you know before that there was more women picked out something with a bezzy diamonds on more shit more picked out the greatest harlem rolex you could possibly pick out come on come on it had the globe in the face and that was being subtle i was going to the all gold apple were humbled yeah oh come on i gotta drop key

don’t hurt him i gotta give him the tea

you got it from here yay damn hey jay killing no no no he was chilling he was calm okay oh chill yeah he wasn’t even it wasn’t hype i got it from here yeah damn like he was like fam i was eating fucking cheese and crackers i wasn’t even going no nobody’s blood diamonds don’t mean a lot of me man no but he didn’t ask jacob that no he wasn’t jacob just got out of jail fake fake diamonds and what are you talking about is that jacob don’t lie to me man jacob’s lying to you it’s okay they’re not even diamonds

it was glasses no the funny part about that is hope didn’t care what that song was about as long as about blood diamond sierra leone

okay shit like it was a cool record you know

no i’m about to say both came on here to revisit that memphis bleak line blink could be one hit of ray’s whole career we heard you we know you’re going to hold him down kanye said dane was coming back in the middle of their beast talking about your crew in the middle of a blood diamond song

yes you know the next question dawg yo where dame yeah and while while we’re having this conversation i think that they that gnaws and hoes should have did black republicans over agree well like a whole different thank god whole difference but that was different from look how petty hov is man he said all right yeah i’ll let you get your black republican shit off that’ll be the first one but the good record success that’s going to be on american gangster sir they’re not even republicans listen man go back papoose black schooling man republicans yo y’all are stupid i feel bad about this only because i i understand that record and i’m not as mad at black republicans as everyone else’s triumphant horns you need with a collaboration of this magnitude that we’ve been waiting for for years but did i when that and when that comes you gotta let the beat rock for 90 seconds two minutes they did that and then they did both rip it just no they didn’t age it it sounded too much like that year and that year didn’t age well yeah that’s what happened and they should not be both they should do that again because you know what what i forgot about during all of this uh jay keeps releasing shit on nazi’s release dates uh is at the b-sides concert that you and i attended two years ago roy nas came out and and the building erupted i won’t say that again listeners is it a frenzy is pandemonium i was part of the eruption yeah yeah i definitely was whole man i erupted i think i had a different a different bitch my fiance was leaving me at the concert and i was like oh president [Music] is that kim and jim jones nas came out during that shit and it was all everything everything was great we need a black republican remix yeah we need to redo just remember yeah we need to redo all that all right so everyone picked their watches more picked something with more pick something with diamond of course yeah i picked that i mean a little light ap a little light ap quick 70. it’s quick 70. parks pick something light um super light uh rory gave something sam could feel like everybody picked a watch that was appropriate to them the bill was no more than 200 grand we wasn’t picking out a watch for uh dawn browse it was for us right and spotify came back and said how do you feel about used watches yeah yeah yeah yeah come on what are you doing what are you doing hey we’re not greedy people no we sent them our used watches hey i can get my shit used is 70 new maybe 40 50 used i’ll take it used watches for everybody we sent that sent that in what did they say you guessed it

have you have you seen the new g-shock

we don’t know number one number one podcast we don’t know it’s a lot it’s a lot okay you may not be able to afford parcast rory mall and myself just give me a list or use rolexes rubber bands yeah just like that hey you might not be able to afford us use rolexes but guess what we would love a trip to taloma and wasn’t that their idea i think it was we would look

no it was great damn we didn’t no it was gonna stop let me stop each of you we’ve been on instagram too much everyone we didn’t ask them for anything no we didn’t yeah this was all their height this was an offer yeah we we was my business going hey how about christmas hey what about the pod next saturday they came in hey rolex’s appreciation number one you’re lit we just gave mad money to the white people but you guys you get a watch i thought us saying no to the new rolexes was like us taking a mall harlem stand like fam we don’t need your new rolex yeah we are okay

when we sent the new uh used rolexes and they said no i thought we were taking a mall harlem stand i thought it was like fam you got us fucked up you don’t know how fly we are we can buy our own used rolexes

it’s okay like you don’t have to worry about this right um then we were tossing around the idea of private jet to greece mini vacation spot spotify bringing the gear yeah we was gonna record spotify pay for it we get our podcast in greece everything is cool

sent that up the chain of command guess what spotify says we don’t really have to i don’t know i don’t know but i don’t know about that greece how about queens i don’t know there’s a lot of greek students the story is very greek

that’s a lot of money too private jet greece what can we do to make everyone whole we want to show our appreciation to you guys but everyone should be made whole this is in december and i say to them you know what if you’re serious about truly showing us appreciation for being number one for two years and you’re going to give us a budget to celebrate what we want to do that’s when i came to yawns and how do y’all feel about giving money away to the fans in december

[Music]

i said hey this is their token of appreciation this money would go to us but i don’t believe that we could really honor any appreciation without appreciating the fans that got us here that came here to this undeveloped market

if you have 50 grand let’s give it to the fans if you have 75 grand let’s give it to the fans it’s the holidays you can’t buy more promotion than you can with that it’s a great gesture you’re doing the right thing in your heart and wow what a look mm-hmm nah

[Laughter]

nah we’ll hold that

now we got some more sightings coming up why give it back to the people that are subscribing to us that was the first time it dawned on me that spotify is pillaging you pillage the audience from the podcast and you’ve continued to pillage each step of the way without any regard for actually how the people feel the impactful people the people that are responsible for making all of this come to fruition is how i felt you will not give the fans money during a holiday christmas new year’s eve it’s fine

it’s your money it’s your business i didn’t ask for a rolex watch i didn’t ask for a trip to greece everything is cool did i mention the new offer that they presented in july i did or i did

let’s rewind a little bit briefly let’s rewind a little bit in july prior to the bonus hitting i was presented with a contract offer from spotify for our podca oh i did yeah 360. just for everything i said no cool beef arrives for rem we don’t get a bonus charts jersey charts come out we got over 700000 podcasts now we own this percentage of the market share and we’re not going to give you all any money to give away to the fans or all of that is cool that’s cool

we’re in year two now that’s in december but that flows all the way into by the time we get an answer from that no watches no grease trip

it’s february the pandemic has hit we continue to work the pandemic hitting we kept coming to work we didn’t stop we didn’t ask each other about covey tests we all just came because this entire time we all have been just married to the goal line

we know what needs to be do needs to be done head down to the finish line we say not a word until my dad gets really really ill gravely ill covet already had health complications i don’t need to paint this to y’all how it happens for people with existing health complications

my dad uh began calling his kids with uh the will like my dad thought that it was over my dad was calling me with all these i love yous and said i love you to me in 30 years like it’s not how you end the call with your dad

that’s right yo i love you i care about you like that’s cause it doesn’t happen yeah this is not what we do my dad was was so afraid uh in turn that made my mom really really really really scared while while i was having a lot of faith in god my mom was calling me just really really worried my entire family was concerned

uh so we stopped we stopped

we we stopped recording i used the global pandemic as a reason for us to slow down recording because my gran my dad was gravely ill dying scared for his life in palisades hospital um in new jersey and while my dad was first priority i would be lying to you if i didn’t say that the fact that we couldn’t take a vacation two months prior was well and well aware in my head it’s two episodes a week it’s two years niggas need a break for the energy to flow properly for you to discuss things properly for your mind to just be cleared gotta live for a second oh so my dad dying made me call him and say fam check this out we’re not recording it’s a pandemic

everything is fucked up what are you recording for niggas don’t know if they’re going to live and that was cool because what can you say to that right what can you say to there’s a global pandemic and people need to stay home and shit is contagious and mask and it was it was new it was the beginning the beginning phases of that and i’m checking on my dad and we’re talking every day and so forth and so on

and i start getting calls to say hey man when y’all coming back oh shit i skipped a part again in december in december i want to say we went on a little four show run tour yeah yeah it was philly you know

[Music]

new york that was the beacon so yeah three uh second year of our contract says that uh says that spotify does receive some type of passive participation in the touring

[Music]

which is cool because i’m with that you have all this technology that maybe will be helpful for us you’re going to help with the branding which will help for us to put people in the seats during tour

i don’t mind you passively participating at all but truth of the matter is you contributed nothing correct and you handed me some bullshit pull up in everyone’s rights offer in july and in september we didn’t get a bonus at all but when i tell you my phone and email and ian’s phone and email went off non-stop when we went and did those shows for them to receive their passive participation which maybe i’m exaggerating which it felt going through the rails like it felt like it was nine times a day for at least three four weeks and it wasn’t that much money especially to spotify well the at the the act here is the pillaging yeah

pillage is a proper word i want to use because that is what has been taking place for two years now but i sent that money whatever money we got from the tour and whatever money i agreed to send them i sent it get off my back but again creators going off the energy the corporate people going off the numbers i’ve now pointed out to you at least six different ways before the new year hit in 2020 that this relationship began to sour and that we were no longer aligned

not sour because we may do future business

but we weren’t aligned right anymore our objectives had quickly changed the people that i had been in communication with inside of this company they have reversed roles left the company played musical chairs they’ve been removed from any conversation

anybody i had a rapport with has been removed from any conversation used watches we say no cool that’s the end of that february 2020 what happened you guessed it bill simmons deal

250 million quarter billion dollars for his network yeah now what they’ll tell you is we purchased these things they belong to us we purchased gimlet we purchased parcast we purchased bill simmons we own those things

and i can understand some of that i get that this has been such a profitable business you are no longer in the licensing business like you were with joe budden and amy schumer now you need to own these things so the person that developed it has no right to say a fucking word they don’t know and i have a clue about the money that’s coming in yeah doesn’t matter to them at that point

yeah no not at all february 2020 bill simmons comes in let me interject in this story just to say as a nigger from jersey city with the number one product twice a week for two years in a row with the consumption and retention and retention being what it was i’ll be honest i thought that we were in lieu of a big payday yeah i did too yeah i did so did my mom and mine

[Laughter]

[Music]

my mom couldn’t wait talk about renovations the tub with the jacuzzi things they started borrowing more y’all need six thousand dollars

[Laughter]

i know the rent is 700. i know i know hey you started to get a better grip on what parents allowance meant yeah i mean you know con ed this month it’s the winner man my mom’s allowance kept going up

i understand how she felt when i was a kid i need about 1900 uh it’s wednesday who asks for 1900 on a wednesday you’re telling your parents what do you think money grows on trees i didn’t teach you about fiscal responsibility

yo bill simmons get paid i’ll be honest with you in a moment of transparency i think that our paid day is coming i’ve been shown no behavior to result in this right but i’m gonna remain optimistic and i’m gonna hope that if we just continue to do the job even though the exclusive company that we’re signed to is actively pitting against us with all of these signings guess what happened you guessed it we were still number one

couldn’t budge us it’s a good time to answer turn my music hot high high is what he was talking about one million two million three million four for eighteen months seventy million more whatever he said this was it hey hove has always been right

he’s been ahead of this shit he’s been he’s been that’s where we’re gonna right on time but this is then hey

[Music]

[Applause]

oh god i learned them like the back of our hands i wear all my i know hey the saint is sewn outfit homes send it up for you tell her no ferrari this ain’t a sewn outfit homes when you call them nigga holmes you’re well you’re up you’re well you have the upper hand in this yeah hey whatever you think it is hey what up marlon sound and wire and you think it’s that but it’s this

[Laughter]

holm’s like the nicer duke saying a fucking sewn outfit homes homes is about it i’m fucking rapping about no blood diamonds please my friends my crew

bill simmons gets quarter million dollars february 2020. spotify will tell you that they purchased these companies so they shouldn’t be compared to whatever it is you’re talking about

my reply to spotify would be whether you lease the car or finance the car the price is in the same ballpark

right yeah all it means is that at the end of the term who owns the car right who has the who has to pay for the damages that have happened to the car over the last three years right listen you can’t tell me i tried to buy a rose hey and when i got there i said well the least well

well what about the least the mileage hey how many hey 2000 miles i could just go i go to the city like twice hey hey i’m trying to stunt give me 500 miles i’m gonna drive i’m gonna drive on a full day and take it home and park it up yo y’all

bill simmons 250 million dollars they own it congratulations a round of applause yeah yeah round of applause for the fuck y’all wanted to love those not all the way for consumer facing i like him a lot i don’t know him i never met him like i told you i can’t vouch for these guys i never know i never met him i don’t know him i don’t know what he eats on thanksgiving does he have cranberry sauce there or not good question i would hope so but probably but it’s a good christmas

he looks like he would have cranberry sauce is it ocean spray or is it like ocean spray bill simmons 250 million dollars i think we’re about to get paid february 2020.

we’ve been in a deal that is vastly undervalued and undermined for the good course of a year and a half and the guinea pig to all these deals that they’re giving out now yeah now you’re just watching everybody get paid i watch gil watching i watch gimlet get a quarter of a million dollars i mean a quarter of a billion dollars i watch parkas get 70 million dollars i watch bill simmons get a quarter of a billion dollars

i’m not counting anyone else’s money because they’ve earned it along their journey of course but what i am doing is trying to figure out the appropriate value to the asset that i own yeah that’s not counting pockets

hey if you paid a quarter billion dollars for a company and they came in and still didn’t budge me out of number one or perform anywhere near us right we have to account for it

hey it got to a point i was welcoming any of the new signees hey get your bum ass in here let’s see what you do see because the big problem here is hey i’m just your button pump it up good tune i threw rocks at some kids they deserve uh moon music hey depressed people you love me listen no no no no no no no you do say it to culture i all i state the culture listen all the way under the struggle every day the perception of i said look at rory man you get another fourth quarter fourth quarter i’m throwing it i’m throwing it away he just keeps you yeah boredom hayward together rory we’re gonna fight together have you missed me have you i’m fighting for you jack i’m fighting for you jack um

where’s that here this is in this bill inviting other people with exclusive deals oh let’s uh let’s get off of bill simmons if you finance and lease the car somewhere around the same thing cool i take a vacation my dad is dying we weren’t granted a vacation in december i think this is a perfect time to not really stir the pot and for my guys to get the time they need and me needed it my dad is sick my grandpa was dying and died in april we did not stop recording because of covet we stopped recording because my dad was dying and four weeks into my dad dying who do i get a phone call from parks mall rory savon alex corey erickson all of you guessed it bill fucking simmons labelmate fuck my dick

dmx to your jay-z i’ve never spoken to bill simmons a day before in my life we’ve never text we’ve never dm’d email cc bc no we won bcc we wanted anything okay

how did this moment come to fruition where bill simmons is calling my phone if you’re here for the stupid instagram jokes i’m sorry there’ll be none of that right now

how did we get to the moment where bill simmons is calling my phone joe budden my dad is dying it’s a global pandemic and we are not recording what is happening what meeting took place up there where bill simmons has to say

i’ll call him hmm we back

we’re there two million let these niggas take vacation now they found a way to take a vacation and no bill simmons go it’s billy yo yo yo i’m thinking about my chicks hey how you doing this bill simmons i just got a quarter billion dollars but if i know you’re waiting on your money but listen here oh hey bill and clearly some pussy bill now mind you i wanted bill on my podcast before and i reached out to bill wasn’t the easiest to process sure not he’s bill simmons

yes it was tough

i will get back to that later

this time bill simmons is right on the phone

hey uh noticed you haven’t been potting you guys are right what’s going on over there man listen it’s a really simple process to record from home if you don’t know listen i owner of the ringer owner of 250 billion i just bought nine houses nigga fucks you doing i don’t even know where a pandemic could be yeah yeah in my house i have nine houses that i purchased if one gets a pack if one gets covered i just go the other one i can walk you and your little stupid friends through podcasting from home

if you and what shit mal rory i don’t yeah that at all so easy to pronounce if you and mal and ravi and park you went to a park i’ll do this in the park right

if you guys do this in a park if you guys can figure out if you guys are having a hard time with potting through the pandemic me sign to the ringer william simmons i can guide you and instruct you through potting from home mm-hmm thanks bill thanks bill you know you’re a stand-up guy even if you were sitting down around the ground for that crocodile audio genius wait so what’s it’s called zoom yeah how do you spell that bill how do you spell that wait he uses the internet it’s an s or a z this sounds crazy i said bill

[Laughter]

billy we stopped pawning because my dad is dying he’s actually in the hospital right now up the street i’m headed to go up there man see the soul is gone from spotify because if the soul is there you should be able to say that and somebody read between the lines and pick it up when i said that to bill simmons you know you know what he said

listen man uh i can i can send over the name of the equipment that we’re using to get our pod up and running and i think that’ll be really helpful for you you can facetime me i can walk you through potting while your dad’s dying know what i said bill i gotta go

thanks

yeah which is what you should say thanks all right cool i i highly appreciate it you’re a weirdo but thank you but thank you i appreciate that don’t call my phone again yeah don’t don’t text me you and i should never speak again but this was really really really helpful and that was in that was in february that was in february of 2020. we hated we all hated the zoom we got right back to in person recording um everything was great and at that point we’re just expecting to or i’m just expecting for our renegotiation conversation because for well over a year and a half now i’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to let you know that you have valued this thing improperly the entire time and through the course of two years i’ve been watching certain actions take place that are demeaning to us that are offensive

that is offensive to us it is disrespectful to us it is a slight to us again you’re looking at me as joe budden and and and what is happening is complete and utter disrespect not only to me and the gentleman that are some surrounded with

it’s disrespectful to all to all the people that believe in what we’re doing all all of the different areas of this network that we have built out for years so when you come to me and say all of this stupidity it’s not just a slight to me i have to think about my multiple production companies crews on both coasts that add to this this is not a joe button thing i have to think about our legal department that exists a bunch of lawyers that we just talk to every day

uh our finance department our department of accountants our social our social team our editors say vaughn and these niggas pod porosity there’s there’s way too many people to account for so when you present me some bullshit i’m not only thinking about myself and what it does to me i’m thinking about what it does to my company as a whole and you would be you would be ill to not think of it that way because us gentlemen in this basement have outperformed every acquisition that you have acquired in a year and a half since we have been there hold up gimlet came we didn’t budge number one still park has came we didn’t budge number one still influx of all of these user-generated podcasts we didn’t buzz number one still

bill simmons comes it’s february we’re damn near at the end of our deal we don’t budge we’re number one still that presents a problem for spotify

if you’re listening out there i may have lost some of y’all

it’s a problem for spotify that these two black dudes and these two white dudes from wherever the fuck they from i never gave a fuck about them to really find out have changed our entire business model we are a music streaming platform that is not paid from music streaming so we’re finding all of these consumer-facing tricks to trick people we’ve now diverted all of our energy into podcasting we’re meet where we make 100 of the pie news flash to anybody that was unaware out there the gentleman in this astoria basement have just effectively changed the entire business model and infrastructure of one of our main dsps

the i know sounds crazy

sounds nuts it’s not a coincidence that there are podcast companies at record labels now hey that’s not bite that’s not by chance it’s it’s a part of the chess game that is being played between the labels who have deals and equity in place with the streaming services and them oh you’re trying to get from up under us using podcast guess what we’ll do we will go and sign the fucking podcast bitch

if you’re not watching this thing accordingly it is easy to get lost february comes me and mo me and mo have our uh phantoms picked out hey royal blue for me would you guys do like uh cross country no listen mom don’t see me now he wouldn’t see me with a phantom no i don’t know what color he was getting some harlem shit um rory bought fucking a new engagement ring everybody’s just spending money that’s not here cool

we’re waiting on the renegotiation and that’s where this story will stop to this day i have not received a proper offer for the podcast individually and that’s where something is off

i have not received a proper offer in isolation for the asset that has gained you nine figures in profit it’s not up for debate

so when you come to me and talk about a renewal listen i don’t sit here for two years and just talk it i don’t sit here for two year two years and just preach it freedom is important absolutely and the offer that has been presented let me make myself clear

there has been an offer presented of money that i have never seen in my lifetime money that you gentlemen have never seen in your lifetime still not enough to make you sleep right at night with what was being asked for

audio video for the podcast audio video for the pull-up all of rory’s rights malls rights parks rights everybody’s rights well hold up a second man

why would i do that where the market stood two years ago versus where it stands today

let me tell you something spotify and creatives out there if you are if you are if you are assessing this improperly it’s because you are either too busy sucking your own dick and the head is amazing and that happens when you’re popping out here absolutely true you could get lost in a bubble thinking that your world is the only world lost in the source i want to take this time to shout out all of my people at all of these different companies that are tasked with making your senior level executives understand what’s happening in the creative space

there are so many of y’all where you’re talking to some 70 and 80 year old white people that just might not understand sometimes you have to crystallize it for them they may not get your vision they’re not the creative they are the numbers people it is our job to look at the energy and while all of these podcasters searching while unemployment is at an all-time high in our country is in a disarray are searching for just a way of means through sitting down and speaking with their friends for me it signifies something much bigger much larger and much greater than that

if i were to accept that bum-ass deal that spotify put in front of me i would not be able to sleep at night i don’t care how much money it is i couldn’t come in here and talk to y’all the way that i speak to y’all and be behind these doors moving in a way that’s not in accordance my words need to match my actions at all times and again

i do not want this to come across as angry upset or bitter because the reality of it is we both hit our goals spotify hit their goal listen where the stock price is today is where joe budden could have told you three years ago two years ago the stock price would be i told y’all i only get to have some punch when i’m the first one to it they don’t respect me enough to share with me another way so now because i’m fucking with the the silicon valley techie people now look what you forced me to do i gotta go learn about stock that’s a good thing i gotta go learn about stock and the first thing i learned at stock and whatever i learned in smart people world i have to equate to my my broke people experiences and monopoly and poker because it all relates there for me what i’ve learned in stock is have you gentlemen

ever been broke broke yes yes and went to somebody who wasn’t broke broke yes yes and pitched them yeah that’s all i did when i was broke and pitched to them about some ideas or some problems that you have that you can use some capital to fund yeah of course and if this works if this works if you could just loan me a g for man what imma do and sometimes if you lie good enough and pitch good enough you can get that g right from a few different people yeah that’s a fact stop and enhance wall street

hey yeah in a nutshell honestly i own a company i’m gonna go tell to all these people with money all these ideas i have for my company and if they believe in it the stock price goes up the stock price is doing exactly what the stock price is supposed to be doing now is gone the second we acknowledge the now it’s only in the now the stock price is in what you’re acknowledging now and if you’re too busy sucking your own dick or playing naive or ignorant to what’s going on outside the house you could be vastly and severely mistaken or that’s where i think we are today or think you have more leverage than you actually do when you’re dealing with people that will leave that’s where i think we are that’s where i think we are today ladies and gentlemen

we’re close to three hours and i’m sorry you better get a four-hour podcast but this was important you got to inform your people of what’s going on a lot of you have been asking this is what’s going on i can’t tell you where we’re going i can tell you where we will not be september 23rd

if you’ve been busy sucking your own dick and you’ve been busy only filling the headlines up with some of these grandiose ideas that you have fed your hedge fund people and your senior executive level staff and they buy into it the stock goes up and it’s up and then everybody in the company along with the labels and everybody who actually has stock options here put these headlines up and then they all get rich and then i’m looking at maul and rory and parks and erickson and save on and alex

no no no no no you did it in music the music business you all set the rules you’ll have these artists jumping up and down because they received a plaque and a number one placement on billboard and the back ends look very different i want to get us to a place where my white and black brethren can receive back end i want to get us to a place where we stop using that word talent for talent it’s demeaning it’s like calling you well spoken what does that mean you know how to speak what does talent mean am i to assume that people that are not in front of the camera don’t have talent

yeah i’m sure you guys come on god god gave everyone a talent but you’re calling me talent to keep me in this talent box talent talent what talent means is you don’t participate too much in the back end nor do you really know anything about it i’m the small percentile of podcasters that clearly understands everything that’s going on i want to do away with that word talent the talented people in this industry run this industry you wouldn’t refer to nick cannon’s talent know why he’s proved himself in a billion dollar with a billion dollar asset tell me if y’all would refer to kevin hart as talent tell me if if you do we can talk through it

no this is not an artist this is this is not this is not a talent thing and although this says the joe budden podcast and you may see a crew of six seven there’s hundreds of us this doesn’t get to be that successful of a pod without there being hundreds of us it is a slight it is an insult it is offensive and when i delve into that contract that you sent over and vowed to leave there till the end of our term because that money that we walked away from it’s still sitting there for us to take

dawn ostroff got on the phone said hey we love you guys i’m gonna leave this contract here for you to take also joe how’s la treating you it’s energy parks the corporate people go off of numbers right we go off for energy right so when the head of your senior level executive staff gets on the phone and says how’s la it should say something to you yes it’s a good question

i mean let me call my l.a people i know plenty of people in l.a i can tell you but if you if you can’t figure out how the nine-figure earning asset is doing in weehawken new jersey if you don’t know that we’re there the bronx journal square a story if you don’t know that this is where we are then we can’t negotiate right it’s nothing to discuss your senior level executive staff is disconnected and out of touch

and if they’re disconnected and out of touch and i only know that because i speak to all the creators so as soon as we ink that deal all the creators call me to talk about their woes they’ve spoken to me about some of the deals y’all have approached them about y’all whitewashed them all how you attempt to whitewash vin staples is beyond me anybody with with eyes and ears can make that a hit you whitewashed it

you took van who was the leading tokenized black voice at tmz somehow managed to put him underneath bill simmons a white man at your company that you gave 250 to it’s off is what i’m saying yeah now rogan got a bag so the fact that it’s off for him will not matter he got a bag right but when you’re offered something that says hey i know this particular asset made us nine figures but we need that audio we need that video we need to pull up audio we need to pull up video uh we need ads uh host red ads no you there’s no rev share no we don’t account for retention hey

you how can you not account for retention i used to work at the radio station tsl is a thing time spent listening when the top 88 come on if i listen to the whole 8 guess what that’s valuable to the radio station dick

[Music]

for you all to pay no mind to the amount of time that i get an audience to spend on your dsp as a minority market share holder it is vastly mistaken it’s a mistake that you can make when you’ve just brought in the biggest podcast in the universe be clear

joe rogan is the exception not the rule no podcaster out there should be comparing their numbers to joe rogan none of you us included yeah he speaks to a different demo a larger demo it’s a different audience yeah no no the largest it’s just a large no it’s larger it’s larger that demo has more people yeah but

you know how you y’all know how i feel about that there’s an ecosystem in podcasting yeah and if you want to join podcasting you cannot skip certain steps there’s an entire community on youtube september 23rd our youtube video is no longer a two-day delay we’re hidden instantaneously i know what that does what they failed to mention is there are projections for everything in the universe there are projections for what the joe budden podcast will do as not a spotify exclusive let me be the first to tell you the projections are tremendous for you

guys to not be able to account for those projections but you can tell me when 400 000 people farted throughout the course of a day something is off you are a tech company you are tracking all of us you are doing consumer facing tricks you are doing everything you need to do to make sure 100 of that podcasting pie comes to you but the mistake on my part was was thinking that a company that was robbed for so many years would then become whole and do the right thing

i’m not even going to get into what the wage disparity here is as i’ve said earlier we with with all due respect we outperform gimlet we outperform the ringer we outperform all the companies that you have put there to devalue us i come from music my experience is being devalued hey let me take it up a notch if i never came from music i’ve come from at least 10 different relationships where they took my finest attributes and stepped on them yeah that’s the thing yeah made me feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world for qualities that i felt were helpful to me that is where we are streaming advertising insertion

i’m gonna stop there because i’ve been rambling for long enough we still haven’t done our toast yet i’ve been i’ve told right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now i got a cup of water come on come on right now right now well listen before we toast just so i’m not talking to air you guys

my family my friends my crew my squad we know why we’re toasting right oh yeah we don’t feel bad turning down these millions right no no actually we’re not spending money that we didn’t attain we know what the value is we know what the worth is one day i want to come in here and spit that whole verse bleak made millions uh he made millions maul made millions parks made beans to tell you if you want and like i want to say that uh savona tell you if he wasn’t in his feeling you know he got feelings he went back he went back to the denver club yeah

that’s the empty dimmer club come on come on come on you know i want to come in here and say that to y’all one day and unfortunately that will that will not be able to happen here and i only and let me tell you i only lost one night of sleep when they made this offer because the one night of sleep i lost an ian to tell you y’all talk to him on your own time one day was hey ann i can afford to say no to this amount of m’s am i making the wrong decision for my people my crew that has not eaten the way i may have and they may have some big plans niggas got we got shit going on niggas as adults yeah am i making the wrong decision for them that was the one night that i lost sleep next day i didn’t feel like that so much that’s what i said to y’all a long time like like during our own shit that we won’t get into it’s my job to protect y’all from some of this shit that these dsps are gonna try

it’s our history it’s our experience then it’s silly of me to think that somebody who has been robbed their entire existence would get made whole and do the right thing it’s a mistake it’s a mistake now i’m not saying that we will not do few uh business in the future because we may please do not take this as a deterrent to spotify all that i’m telling you right now is that our views of where podcasting is taking us for the next five years are not aligned and we are not in a position where i am going to succumb to any bad deal any deal that is not working favorably toward the people that have created that path it’s just not going to happen and back to the point of sucking your own dick oh no before we get to sucking your own dick sais we severely missed value you guys are building a youtube you were building netflix then you were building amazon and now you want video and you’re building a youtube why the fuck would i bring you a million people that i have blood sweat and tears equity into on youtube and bring them over here after i watched what you did with the audio uh audience i watched your pillage

the joe cold promo code when it was renegotiation time hey pull up the numbers from the joe code know what they said you fucking guessed it hey we got hacked that was funny yeah we don’t have it hey let me tell you something on youtube you know what has been happening for two years on that joe budden podcast video and in the bottom right hand corner it says promo code joe spotify

so pro i have my youtube analytics so god forbid that was active this entire time you know what time it is it’s a stick up with no gun in the daytime of course you got hacked it’s the reason i didn’t go to title hey hope can we get information no damn all right fuck sorry gotta fight gotta find another way yeah if we can’t get information and we can’t get data and we can’t get advanced analytics then why are we here when the market is changed spotify

if you stop sucking your own dick for two seconds and you look outside of your own house it would be gravely ignorant and naive to believe that some of these other huge companies with the same amount of capital that you have don’t have something coming listen i know i’m talking to them all can’t tell you anything i have ndas but outside it’s nice it’s nice

i love outside well i would have loved to take all of my business to one place and they value you properly and you centralize your audience of course but you can’t expect the people that have been getting robbed their entire career to get hole and not rob you yeah it’s just it looks the robbery looks shinier because it’s more money but it’s still a robbery if you think i’m not paying any attention to the user the consumer experience you are sadly sadly sadly mistaken and essay eyes we can move on to a different conversation now there’s nothing to discuss when you talk to me about back loading my catalog with streaming ad insertions what that means is your rss feed is no longer the feed give us another feed and we’re going to layer some ads over the top of it back to that strip club theory go to the strip club they tax you everywhere put your podcast material over here and we’re gonna just add a bunch of shit we may even change the ad

it doesn’t matter people are listening so we’re gonna change them boy is there value there last week we had 20 000 people listening our first episode one one episode one no maul no rory episode one i remember just in case you need perspective on how this layout looks too many people out there to talk to too much of a profitable business spotify you don’t have to value it correctly i’m a walking proof of concept the conversations are different where y’all are two years removed is exactly where you want to be

and i’m grateful that where we are two years from where we started is exactly where we want to be of course that’s the most important part if two years ago we could talk to everybody out there who had a eight and nine figure budget we would have done so in podcasting it does not behoove you to lock into a long-term contract because the landscape can change daily especially when you’re dealing with people who have enough capital and enough power to instantaneously change it themselves i don’t think i have any more for you guys today toast i would like to i would like to toast come on bring it in bring it in you guys

i can’t i’m gonna try this one short ass white arms white arms you toast to freedom a lot of us talk it and don’t live it it comes up in a lot of other topics but it’s only really valuable when you when it’s applicable to your own life no my business this entire time has been ran off of what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong spotify you cannot tell me that podcasts are only profitable in two areas for you because ian and myself have counted at least 30 different ways where this is profitable and along with doing away with the word talent we need to put the word licensing into its proper perspective because what licensing means what i p ownership means is what you guessed it all the different stream revenues profit revenues that exist because i own it i wanna fucking participate bitch

if a fucking nickel bag gets sold in the park say it with me i want in that’s the fact and now yeah bottom line is and a lot of the stuff that i just said some some of this is your first time hearing this this stuff but i can’t sleep at night like that that’s what i got how about spotify hopefully we can talk later man yeah we can talk later but i got to tell you outside is sexy outside is sexy there’s a lot of companies with a lot of plans that y’all are just not factoring in which is weird especially being a company without a hardware y’all are the only ones

y’all don’t have an alexa you’re not serious you’re not in my fucking car what do you have nothing back to my original question who’s the king maker here the person that runs the kingdom or the person that builds it answer it on your own time i say suck my dick and fuck y’all when the person that built it can leave and feel fine about it that should answer your question when the first when there’s power in turning down more money than you’ve ever seen and being comfortable with it so that should answer your question oh man listen it’s called oppression it’s called depression it’s called uh wage inequality wage disparity yeah we didn’t get it there there’s a bunch yeah yeah there’s a bunch of words for all of this stuff hopefully i was able to provide some clarity for my audience out there erickson do you think so

yes a little long-winded but it’s important that i share this with y’all listen it’s too many podcasters that look up to me it’s too many podcasters that aren’t privy to some of the doors and i’m able to go behind when i talk sometimes it’s not from opinion it’s telling you what’s happening it’s it’s explaining the space out there how you navigate that space is totally up to you

i will not let any of mine ever be robbed for their hard work sorry spotify you are not the only dsp to exist actually you had a hindrance because what hardware do you have where are you taking this game in the next five years or are you looking to continue to pillage

do it with them not with joe