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The New Way Artists Can Chart on Billboard · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: Earners.
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  Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank,
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  Speaker 3: So let me ask you this as far as what
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  Speaker 3: is the significance of you guys partnership ut Illuminate.
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  Speaker 1: Luminate, which allows artists to partially chart on Billboard?
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  Speaker 3: How does that work?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Luminate is interesting. They for context right. Luminated
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  Speaker 1: is the agency that does all of the reporting for
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  Speaker 1: the recorded music industry, not just within the United States
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  Speaker 1: but from around the world. They put out a report
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  Speaker 1: every single year. They used to be called Nielsen Sound Scan,
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  Speaker 1: and they've gone through a lot of names over the years,
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  Speaker 1: but they are the agency that reports to Billboard. So
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  Speaker 1: when you see number one on Billboard or charted on Billboard,
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  Speaker 1: Illuminated is the actual company that's doing the auditing on
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  Speaker 1: those sales. We've been talking to Luminate for eighteen months
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  Speaker 1: trying to get, you know, their stamp of approval, and
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  Speaker 1: just eight weeks ago they basically gave us the thumbs
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  Speaker 1: up to be able to report to them. So we've
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  Speaker 1: been an official reporter to them for four weeks and yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we just finally made the announcement. It's something that the
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  Speaker 1: industry I think is really excited. I got way too
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  Speaker 1: many calls today when we made the announcement, just I
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  Speaker 1: think a lot of people were skeptical. Right, there's only
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  Speaker 1: twenty two total US digital reporters to Illuminate, and we're
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  Speaker 1: one of twenty two. And this includes like Apple, Spotify,
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  Speaker 1: all the major DSPs, and then the major labels. So
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  Speaker 1: to be the first super fan app quote unquote to
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  Speaker 1: be Illuminate eligible towards Billboard, I think it definitely raised
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  Speaker 1: a lot of eyebrows, right, because it's really bringing the
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  Speaker 1: control and the power to an artist where the only
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  Speaker 1: way you can chart to Billboard is by using iTunes.
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  Speaker 1: Or using a DSP and now they can do it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, l Russell will probably chart on Billboard this year.
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  Speaker 3: So it is it a one is it one album
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  Speaker 3: for one?
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  Speaker 1: One for one? Yeah? So the for context, for an
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  Speaker 1: album to be considered one album sale on streaming, you
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  Speaker 1: need a two hundred and fifty streams to equal one
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  Speaker 1: album sell. So you would have to listen to that
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  Speaker 1: album four times a day for a full year just
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  Speaker 1: to give that artist one album sale. But one fan
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  Speaker 1: can buy one album and it equals an album sale
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  Speaker 1: on illuminate.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So okay, question that I have is you
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  Speaker 3: have this platform where it's a one for one, one
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  Speaker 3: for one, you can pay whatever you want, right, correct?
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  Speaker 3: You guys are the only platform that is credited on
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  Speaker 3: the Billboard from uh this.
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  Speaker 1: Company on the super fan side. Yes, so like you
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  Speaker 1: know the term superman. Uh it's a hot word right now.
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  Speaker 3: And how did you how did you become the only platform?
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  Speaker 1: I kept bugging them to let us in.
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  Speaker 3: What's the like they had to vet you guys. You
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  Speaker 3: got to go through like a So there's a couples
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  Speaker 3: where they know your numbers are correct.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a couple of integrations, right, So the way
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  Speaker 1: that there reporting works essentially they measure our sales from
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  Speaker 1: an accredited data processor. So in this case Stripe, all
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  Speaker 1: of our sales happened through Stripe. We hand over all
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  Speaker 1: of our Stripe data from IP address basically where the
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  Speaker 1: user lives, how much they paid, transaction time, transaction date,
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  Speaker 1: and then from there they vet those transactions directly through
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  Speaker 1: our Stripe report.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a metric of how many users or how
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  Speaker 2: many downloads a week or a month that are needed
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  Speaker 2: to qualify.
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  Speaker 1: No, we just have to report every single week. So
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  Speaker 1: you have to report every single week to stay eligible.
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  Speaker 1: The moment you don't report one week, you can't report
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  Speaker 1: for four weeks, and then you have to try it
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  Speaker 1: all over again.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So, like, let's just take French was on the platform.
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  Speaker 2: So let's say French, if he sends ten thousand, I
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  Speaker 2: think that puts him in the top one hundred album.
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  Speaker 1: Hundred for Bilbo for sure. So French was actually our
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  Speaker 1: second artist on the platform.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, talk about that, I mean, because this is a
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  Speaker 2: guy who obviously we know as a mainstream artist, has
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  Speaker 2: signed with major labels, but chose your platform to put
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  Speaker 2: out the one of the latest projects. What was that
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  Speaker 2: process of convincing him or we didn't even tak convincing
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  Speaker 2: to get him on the platform.
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  Speaker 1: You know, French is I think normally, I mean when
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  Speaker 1: we think of our right, we don't think of them
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  Speaker 1: as like thought leaders for some reason, right, But artists
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  Speaker 1: are some of the most innovative people and they see
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  Speaker 1: the full landscape every single day, and they really influence
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  Speaker 1: culture in so many ways. French has been not only
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  Speaker 1: I mean talking about the crypto space, like French was
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  Speaker 1: in the D two C space for a while, right,
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  Speaker 1: he would dove into the crypto space very early. And
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  Speaker 1: when I literally did like a fifteen minute call with
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  Speaker 1: him right before I met l Russell, and he was like, yo,
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  Speaker 1: I'm down. Once I got an album ready, let's do it.
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  Speaker 1: And we did Larussell on October first, and we did
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  Speaker 1: French Montane October twelve, and probably the easiest release we've
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  Speaker 1: ever done in the sense of like no hassles. He
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  Speaker 1: sent me files, he sent me the artwork, all of
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  Speaker 1: the metadata. We plugged it in. I usually have to
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  Speaker 1: chase artists to get them paid. Like he set up
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  Speaker 1: everything in advance, and he already understood the format. He
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  Speaker 1: understood the messaging, what he had to tell the fans,
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  Speaker 1: how to tell the fans, you know the message, and yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was it was exciting, It was really interesting. He
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  Speaker 1: also helped us really with our conversation around the importance
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  Speaker 1: of Illuminate and being able to report to Illuminate. He
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  Speaker 1: was like, man, I wish these sales will count towards Billboard,
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  Speaker 1: and that's why we didn't do his last album. He
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  Speaker 1: just dropped this here just because at artists at his level,
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  Speaker 1: he wants to report and we weren't reporting yet. It
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  Speaker 1: was like a two week difference between could have did
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  Speaker 1: the most latest project.
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  Speaker 2: But has there been conversations with other artists I guess
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  Speaker 2: from mainstream that have gone your way or are are
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  Speaker 2: about to go your way now that this has now
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  Speaker 2: been a change.
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  Speaker 1: Where you can report one hundred percent. Yeah, I mean
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  Speaker 1: we've talked to maybe every every major artist that you
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  Speaker 1: can think of, probably reached out in our first six months,
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  Speaker 1: and then we've been able to maintain a relationship. And
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  Speaker 1: this honestly was a big deal breaker for them. It's
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  Speaker 1: not being able to report to Billboard, where now that
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  Speaker 1: we report to Billboard, you're probably going to see some
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest albums of the year this quarter and
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  Speaker 1: the next quarter. Dropping on the platform because you know
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  Speaker 1: an artists sells one hundred thousand copies, you're number one
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  Speaker 1: on Billboard and even allows you to do that, all right,
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  Speaker 1: instead of requiring millions of people to actually go listen
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  Speaker 1: to your music.
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