Dan Runcie - Trapital Media

Lawrence Peryer:  Hey, how are you?

Dan Runcie:          Pretty good. Pretty good.

LP:                        Are you a fellow Connecticut native?

DR:                       I am.

LP:                        I’m from Hamden.

DR:                       Okay, wow, small world. So I’m no longer in Connecticut, I live in San Francisco now. But I was born and raised in East Hartford. I actually went to school at Quinnipiac. So yeah, right around the corner from you.

LP:                        Oh wow, amazing. So Sleeping Giant Park?

DR:                       Yeah, I know did a number of hikes there.

LP:                        Oh man, what a great place that was.

DR:                       I know it’s beautiful. Are you pretty close to the park?

LP:                        Well I’m in Seattle.

DR:                       Okay, yeah.

LP:                        So no I’m not near the park right now.

DR:                       Right, right.

LP:                        I grew up not quite within a walk from the park, but I grew up in Hamden that end of town. And spent pretty much every day after high school in that park.

DR:                       Nice, nice. That’s awesome.

LP:                        But thank you for making time.

DR:                       Yeah, no thanks for reaching out, thanks for reaching out.

LP:                        So there’s a few things I want to cover with you, but I’d like to start by learning a little bit about [unintelligible 00:02:56]. One of the things that’s super interesting [unintelligible 00:03:02] as I dug into some of your work is that, not only is each article a super interesting take on the subject that you teach, so I’ll get into.

                              But there’s always at least one line that really just gets [unintelligible 00:03:19], really sorts of illuminates the topic. So I’m going to throw something of that one too.

                              But when I was looking on the [Trapital] site, something that I thought was really amazing statement or can be taken as a statement purpose, is this belief that we can learn as much about business models and strategy but [unintelligible 00:03:44].

DR:                       Right.

LP:                        I would argue maybe even more. I’d love it if you could talk about that?

DR:                       Yeah. First off, that statement itself stood as not just the inspiration but the belief behind Trapital, why it exist, and why I wanted to bring something like this in to not just to support the industry, but to help broaden the awareness and understanding of not just what’s possible but what’s out there.

                              For me, I started my writing work doing freelance. I started off with the medium blog. I was just going there by myself throwing a few ideas out there. And I remember at the time, I did feel like there was a void in the type of stories that were being told. And especially when I looked at hip hop, I remember it was around the same time I was in business school and there was a case study that was released on Beyoncé’s surprise album drop.

                              So the surprise album drop was in 2013, the case study was in 2014. And it made headlines everywhere. Everyone was talking about how amazing this was, and how much they learned from it. And because I was already in this case study mode, reading stories about crown court and Seal, and the New Coke and Pepsi, and all these other legacy, blue chip, fortune 500 companies. Here we are learning just as many insights about these things.

                              And then that stuck out to me about all the other lessons of learning about not just the strategies, but some of the mis-steps from past record labels, past artists and the business moves they made. And when we think about where a lot of the strategic stories lie, and who gets to tell those stories, how those stories get developed and crafted. It really ends up being much more of your Elon Musk’s, your Mark Zuckerberg’s, things from your traditional finance and tech worlds. And it’s not necessarily about hip hop as often.

                              And with that is also the representation about who were the folks that in hip hop. So by being able to have a more regular cadence than the occasional Harvard Business School deep dive, it would do a great job of being able to elevate, these stories, educate people within the music industry who are living, breathing this every day, probably think these things. But it’s helpful to have someone to synthesize it together and put it into a package on a weekly basis.

                              But then the people that are also thinking about what career opportunities may look like. What’s possible? So highlighting the people behind the scenes, or the work that happens behind the scenes, the artists themselves. And especially just the expansion that’s happened in the past decade, that gave me the push to say, “Okay, this isn’t just beneficial but it’s beneficial now.” So let’s put this out into the world and see what happens.

                              So I started Trapital 2018, started as a pilot that I was doing while I was working fulltime. It started to gain some traction, in roads with the right audience that I hoped it would resonate with. And then slowly built up the reader based, and then also the ability of myself to work on it full time, and I’ve been doing that for a little over a year now.

LP:                        That’s amazing. So Trapital’s your gig?

DR:                       Yeah, so Trapital’s the gig since February 2019, yeah Trapital’s been the gig.

LP:                        That’s amazing. And you say that with, I don't know if you can see yourself in zoom, but the look of pride that you have about that, that’s an amazing accomplishment?

DR:                       Thank you. Of course it’s still a long way to go with everything that I want to be able to accomplish with it, and where things can potentially go. But it was a big leap. I think for a while, I mean from a personal perspective doing something that was entrepreneurial was always something that resonated. But want to make sure that I was doing something for the right reasons, and trying to contribute to something that in many ways was bigger than myself.

                              There was a market opportunity for something like this, and there was a good way to be able to see where trends are heading, both from hip hop, but also from media perspective. And how digital media is now created, how things are being pushed and executed. So I said, okay there’s a lot of things aligning right now so this is a better time than never to push it out.

LP:                        Yeah, yeah. And let me wind back just a little bit, you said you did your undergrad at Quinnipiac?

DR:                       I did, yes. I did my undergrad at Quinnipiac. So I studied business there.

LP:                        Got you. And then where did you get your MBA?

DR:                       I got my MBA at University of Michigan. So I was in Ann Arbor for two years. So yes, so in between I’d worked at Traveler’s insurance company in Hartford. I started in one of their development programs for recent business gradates. Moved into market analysis role for a couple years, and then decided to go to business school. So did that, was in business school 2012 to 2014, and then 2014 is when moved out to San Francisco.

LP:                        Wow, and so was a there a delta in time between move to San Francisco and starting [unintelligible 00:09:14]?

DR:                       Yeah. So when I first came out to San Francisco my focus was much more centered around tech and the types of jobs that were a bit more traditional for that “post” MBA career path. And I had found roles in strategic partnerships, I had done a quick internship with a venture philanthropy firm when I was out there. Then ultimately was working with an Ed. tech organization that I was with in a strategic partnership role. But it’s around this same time that I had started doing the media posts, and then the media posts expanded into the freelance writing.

                              So for solid few years there it was continuing on the career path that I had, and I think for all intents and purposes was going well. I was following the standard path, it was moving into more managerial roles within the organization. And was doing the types of things that I did enjoy, but I also saw the opportunity of where things were going with Trapital. And although Trapital didn’t exist yet, I was starting to get picked up and was doing freelance writing for publications, like Wired, and Complex, and still starting to focus on the business of hip hop.

                              So it was this interesting blend of my fulltime job where I needed to use a lot of these skills and principles about how to think about strategy in a way where different organizations can come together. But then also being able to apply some of that logic in a completely different industry. And then learning okay, what makes sense in this industry? What doesn’t?

                              And I think it’s one of these interesting things where you think that yes because you’re coming in from a different perspective you may not have the “seasoned” background of someone that started their career at MTV, and then interned at Atlantic Records, and so on and so on. But by being able to come in from a different perspective it often gives you insights that others may not necessarily have, but then also making sure that I’m doing my work as well too understand what’s happened at those places that I didn’t necessarily work at. How those things continued. So I definitely done my best to try to use that unique experience that I’ve had and entry into this space as a unique positioning for myself.

LP:                        Well one of the things that stands out for me as well, you’ve definitely, your writing voice takes these, not necessarily complex issues. But you take a business issue and it’s in a very accessible voice. But it’s not dumbed down [unintelligible 00:11:58]. I find the writing very engaging. It tells me stories I didn’t [unintelligible 00:12:04] fresh angle on thing I thought I knew before.

                              But one thing that became clear to me is that you’re [unintelligible 00:12:13] about this music. And I stayed [unintelligible 00:12:18]. You know your history, I guess. And I’d like to just talk about that for a second, because maybe in the first 15, 20 years or so of hip hop the case was always made that there is no history. That there is no longevity, that it’s always a current music, whether it’s because it’s a commentary, because it’s news outlet. But there was a real resistance. And we can talk about whether it’s gay or [unintelligible 00:12:49]. Whoever the figure is that sort of allowed [unintelligible 00:12:52], there was this idea that it was strictly a young person’s game.

                              I’d love to hear your perspective on that, how that shaped how you think it was?

DR:                       Yeah. I do think that for a while hip hop was vying for legitimacy. And wanted to get some of that credibility and some of that, to use the same word again legitimacy, that didn’t necessarily exist before. Thinking whether it’s the NWA scene and that whole experience where they are going out and not just speaking on their own experience but they're trying to be the voice that wouldn't necessarily get any type of mainstream coverage.

                              I think you heard a similar aspect as well with Public Enemy referring to themselves as the black CNN. Like this is our outlet to voice what’s happening because CNN won’t let us be able to communicate those messages. So I do think that this stuck with hip hop for quite a bit. And even if you think about MTV and the whole history of them not wanting to play hip hop and black artists and things like that, there was always this kind of this like black sheep treatment that hip hop had to face for a while. And things stayed that way.

                              Even when I first got into things, even in the ‘90s, things were starting to turn, but it was still a bit of a pause. It was urban music. And even some of those classifications linger to a fair amount today. But I do think that there were a few turning points. Not to put it all on one person, you did mention Jay-Z, but it is hard not to acknowledge what he has been able to do. I think his transition, especially after Roc-A-Fella Records had split, you say him and Damon Dash as like two very different ideologs on how they saw business, how they saw partnerships. And I think the fact that Jay-Z was willing to partner and get a lot of that “legitimacy” from the big organization, your live nations.

                              And then that extending into having president and senior type roles in the music industry. Him being able to have a mix of someone that is both the owner and willing to partner with the big players. I think seeing his success and seeing his dual status as I am the GOAT rapper, but I am also the most accomplished business person in this game. I think that inspired a lot of people, and it was hard not to ignore the success at this point.

                              And a lot of those things too are also a bit, there was problematic things of course, the image. Like how rappers and how the media positioned a lot of them, let’s say in the ‘90s and 2000s, was in this off mainstream way where it didn’t necessarily affect the mainstream pop music machine to a deep extent. But I mean that dynamic is completely flipped now. So I mean by the time you get to the late 2000s, artists like Drake that are influencing almost every aspect of the industry, think you can look at several different types of records and ways to measure artists. It’s hard not to look at the past decade and look at him as being the most impactful artist that we’ve had.

                              Some people may say Taylor Swift, but I think when you look at that and you see the influence things really did start to shift then. And I think now, I’m interested to see where this next decade is going to be like, right. Because we see the trends and we that okay, hip hop is having more and more influence. And I think like that you’ll probably see more and more subgenres having even more stronger voice than they do now.

                              I’m just thinking about like how rock n roll continued to evolve into the different groups, or the different subgenres that took control there. But, I think for the time being this is an industry that continuously and growingly influenced by what’s happening by the biggest artists in hip hop.

LP:                        It’s really fascinating to me that, maybe you can articulate better than I will. But something happened along the way where definitely in sort of post gay, post Drake world where there was always the undercurrent, or always the alternative to the mainstream in terms of whether it’s things like, just sort of like alternative hip hop basically. Smaller, less mainstream.

                              But something happened along the way where it seems like the culture got its confidence to sort of [unintelligible 00:17:45] in the mainstream. And I think that that’s, that’s not a trivial point because I think it mirrors other music where once it gets comfortable with it’s legitimacy or feels like it can transcend what it was looking for out of legitimacy before, then it really starts to blossom in all those sort of [unintelligible 00:18:05]. It’s sort of loses and ideological period that maybe had a hold on it. Now it is going down [unintelligible 00:18:13]. And it’s an amazing time.

                              So you look at the spectrum of artists now verses 10 or 15 years ago that can show up in the top 10, really [unintelligible 00:18:25]?

DR:                       Yeah. I would agree with that. Because I think that there’s like the “chip on your shoulder stage”, right. Like when you always feel like you need to carry the burden of hip hop on you. And I think that created a lot of good music but, that could have held some artists back from being able to blossom in the way that they see someone like a Lil Uzi Vert who let’s say that he transported him 25 years earlier and it’s 1995, I don’t think he necessarily would have gotten the opportunity to do what he’s doing now, right.

                              So I think that the artist back then carried a burden that they don’t necessarily carry now. And to your point, yeah, I do think that we’re starting to see things blossom. We’re starting to see artists like him. We’re starting to see more artists like Meg Thee Stallion, who can really have her own lane and push things there.

                              Yeah, I’m very interested to see what will 2030 look like, right. And I know that I keep using the lifecycle of rock n roll as a bit of a comparison to see, okay is this comparable to hip hop? Is this what we could potentially expect from where things are going? I think things are different and not that I would necessarily pin like the popular culture of rock n roll on any one particular person or group, but it’s a little different.

                              I think that if the 2010 to 2020 range that we just went through was this accelerated growth phase, I think we’ll start to see a bit more of that accelerated growth continue into a more of a, I don’t want to say maturity, because that implies that there’s a decline. But I think that will start to see things just develop a bit more strongly. Especially on a global perspective. I think that’s where we’ll probably see some of the strongest growth in the next decade.

LP:                        Does American hip hop export well globally?

DR:                       It does. It does. I think it especially exports well in a few ways. One, the artists that are the biggest stars, they make more money. A lot of them make more money overseas than they make here. And it’s been this interesting dynamic where they feel that some of them shared a few direct quotes on this. They feel as if the artists in the US have high expectations. And there’s a little bit of this, who’s this person on stage? I could go do that, right. And we have a bit more of an abundance of being able to get the best rappers in the world to come to said music festivals, said this. And we’re a bit more of a critic, right.

                              It’s like for being in the US it’s almost like stepping into Twitter. Like I’ve heard that analogy before. However when US artists go to Europe for example, or they’ll go to South America perform for some of the music festivals there, the festival guarantees tend to be a little bit larger, the fans there are much more willing to cheer and they're less critical of what’s happening. So from that perspective I do think it translates well.

                              It’s interesting though, I think things are a little bit different in Asia and some of the other countries where English may not necessarily be the predominate or language that is spoken as commonly. But, I do see the influence of those hip-hop artists there almost following a similar lifecycle to what we saw in hip hop a few years back. Like some of the music now that’s coming from some of the regions in the Middle East that have been dealing with their own political up rise and oppression. And some of those governments trying to restrict the music that is critical of their government. A lot of that’s hip-hop music. So I’m hearing and researching those stories. This is literally what we were dealing with 30 years ago when Public Enemy was on their rise.

                              So see that, and I’m hearing those artists in those regions now saying that oh yeah, we saw what happened in the US, they're our inspiration for what we’re trying to get to. So I see that influence as well happening with the global artists, specifically within their own countries as well.

LP:                        Parallel drawn. That’s great historical context. Before I jump into a couple of your articles, I’d like to just revisit Trapital. Talk to me a little bit, give me the overview? So it’s a home for your writing, but it’s much more than that. Can you talk a little bit about the other services or the other things that [unintelligible 00:23:12]?

DR:                       Yeah. So Trapital as I broadly call it is a media company. And there are things that are expanding into research type work as well. But from the media perspective it started and still is the home to my weekly article. So those are the articles, the deep dives that I put out once a week that usually tackle one topic in the business of hip hop or it’s intersections. And mostly diving at the why or how.

                              It could be looking at a trend that’s happening in the future. Something that’s happened historical. A case study about someone that’s in this space. so that’s the main focus there.

                              And then I also have a podcast where I am sitting down and talking to the leaders and the movers that are shaping this industry. And a lot of the people that were decision makers behind the types of things that are talked about in Trapital. So that’s the concept there.

                              I also have additional content as well for paid subscribers. So Trapital from a business model perspective is freemium, where there’s free content available for everyone. And then those that want more there’s additional updates on Monday’s and Friday’s that cover some of the more specific up to date things that are timely happening in the past 48 to 72 hours. Here’s what you should know, here’s my take on it. So that goes out to a subset of readers as well.

                              And then also community building efforts with those readers. Because I think I realize that there’s a lot of value in being able to bring those folks together. So done a few different things. Back when we could convene before this virus broke out had a few in person meeting. Had a few in person meetings and dinners, and happy hours in different cities. Have started to do some of that virtually in the past month and a half with different members. Discussion forums as well. And it’s been good to hear some of the stories. There has been business opportunities that have been made between a couple different members. People meeting up after Trapital get togethers. So that part of it has been good.

                              And things that I’m also thinking through down the road, I’ve gotten a lot of request for additional content that is stand alone, but not necessarily the same written content. So I’ve started to put out different databases on the types of data that I would naturally use for Trapital, and including that in the membership offerings. So who are the investors in hip hop? Who are the main brand endorsements and who are the artists that they're partnering with? These are the types of things that I’m writing about and being able to have that in a database is helpful for the decision makers, because those are the people that are more likely to want to pay or be interested in paid content.

                              And then one of the more recent things that I have been pushing out is client services and helping folks on a more one to one basis, or Trapital to their company basis with consulting and advisory work. That’s something that has been requested a few times, just given like, “Oh, you did this analysis. It would be great to get your thoughts on this deal we’re doing, or this potential go to market strategy that we have.” So that’s something that’s been in the works that’s been slowly rolling out.

LP:                        [unintelligible 00:26:36]. This is the fun part, or another fun part. I want to talk about a couple of the artists because I’ve really enjoyed [unintelligible 00:26:47]. What’s Travis Scott and his team [unintelligible 00:26:51]?

DR:                       I like the way you frame that question. I think in general I’ll say that an artist like Travis Scott had a pretty good arbitrage opportunity right now. Because he operates in this space that I’d say a lot of hip hop media and a lot of media in general aren’t necessarily invested in. And I mean invested in because most of the people that cover this space, most of the people that are decision makers in this space, they do have a tendency to be much more reflective and understanding of what’s happening in their experience, right.

                              So the people that are rising in management roles they're starting to be millennials now, and maybe there’s a bit more Gen X as well, and baby boomers. Like these are still the people that I think are making a majority of the decisions. But Travis Scott, even though I think he’s technically a millennial he has this Gen Z hip hop audience that they're like, “This is our guy.” And how he communicates with the fans, ho he creates experiences with them, with his concerts, with his music festivals. He is willing to push the boundaries in ways that other artists aren’t.

                              And I guess I’ll put it this way, I think that there’s a tendency for artists that I feel like are in that like Kendrick Lamar, Jcole, Drake range, or these guys who are in their mid-30s now, they’ve been in the game for 10 years. There’s a bit more of a caution of what they're willing to do and how much they're willing to push things. And I don’t think that Travis Scott has that.

                              I’ve affectionally called him hip hops growth hacker. Because whatever he does, he’s willing to exploit the rules and maximize it. If it is an album that needs to go out and he wants to maximize his sales, and he knows that album bundles are one of the best ways to do that, I think the rules are arcane and need to be changed. But he’s like, “Okay, if those are the rules then I’m going to have a different product combined and bundled with my album every hour for a week and a half. And we’re going to role that out consistently.”

                              And seeing him do that people had issues with it, Nicki Minaj was frustrated with it. But if you looked at everything that happened after that, we literally saw someone become a superstar in a four-month period. He released that album and five months later he’s performing on stage on the super bowl. I guarantee you that two thirds of the people watching the super bowl didn’t even know who that guy was before that.

                              He does that, and then he has a documentary on Netflix. Not that many artists have documentary on Netflix. Because we now have an idea of how much they're paying, you have to be a certain level to be willing to do that. And what he’s now most recently done with this Fortnite event that he had last week. Brought together 28-million people, staged it as several different shows. Was able to bring his audience together, and I think a lot of his audience plays Fortnite as well because of that audience overlap and they type of person they're reaching.

                              I think he’s really tapped in and he’s really figuring things out. And I think it may take a while for people to really get a grasp for it, because I feel like the industry has spent so long trying to figure out Drake and figure out Jay-Z that all of a sudden there’s someone that is under 30 and doing their own thing, building their own empire. And even though he’s breaking all these records I still think that people are like, “Okay, but he’s kind of doing his thing over there.” And it’s like, “Ah he might be closer to being on their level than you might think.”

LP:                        And everything he does looks incredibly thought through. Whether it’s the hacking, the billboard chat. You have to imagine he’s sitting around with his team laughing. They're just laughing the whole time. Laughing because they're putting one over, or laughing just by the sheer creativity that it takes to do a new product every hour. That’s incredible?

DR:                       Yeah, it’s incredible, and I think it ties something back to what you had said earlier. You could tell this is someone that he doesn’t operate like he carries a burden or a chip on his shoulder in terms of a responsibility of what he necessarily feels like he needs to do.

                              I mean, I think he definitely has the competitive edge after watching his Netflix documentary, whenever it ended up coming out. He was pretty upset that he didn’t win that Grammy Award. Cardi B had beat him for rap album of the year, he was not happy about that. So I mean he’s still a competitive person.

                              But yeah, I think that him and some of the artists like I mentioned Lil Uzi Vert, I’d probably throw Young Thug and Tyler the Creator in that group as well. They're operating from a different perspective and I just don’t think that they necessarily, or that hip hop itself necessarily gets what they're doing.

LP:                        Yeah, yeah. Couple other pieces I wanted to talk about. I think it would be seriously remis to not talk about the Jay-Z, Damon Dash piece. So you alluded to it before. Before I ask any questions about it can you sort of articulate what your hypothesis was there or [unintelligible 00:32:24]?

DR:                       Yeah. So Jay-Z and Damon Dash of course they're two of the three co-founders of Roc-A-Fella. Started in ’96, they had their rise. The early 2000s were great for them. But then they started to have their issues and they ultimately split in ’03 and ’04. And they had two very different ideas on how wanted to go about things, and I think we’ve seen that now.

                              Dame Dash is much more of an ownership type person. He was the president, or tentatively CEO. But he was the management leader of Roc-A-Fella, and he wanted to be able to be the key person owning what was happening. He was Roc films, he wanted Roc sports. And even down to how he would manage things. I remember there was this one clip back when they had the Hard Knock Life Tour, they were handing out jackets and there were some jackets that said Def Jam on it, and even though they were technically under Def Jam, he was livid. He berated the guy. He was like, “No, these should say Roc-A-Fella on them.” So he was definitely more of that like, yes, if we’re building something, we have to own it.

                              And I do think that’s a very popular and common starting point that I think especially a lot of people, a lot of black people in the entertainment industry push, because there is things such as who has the ownership, and who ends up making more money. So it’s very understandable where he’s coming from.

                              Jay-Z on the other hand was much more willing to partner with the big organizations and look at the broader pie of the partnerships that could come, and how that could help benefit everything. And I think just thinking about the two of those mentalities, if Dame Dash is much more from the ownership perspective, he will have more control over the pie, but it’s going to be a much smaller pie, right.

                              But Jay-Z, he wants to have a chunk of the much larger pie and the much larger opportunity that percentage will be much smaller than Dame Dash’s is, but the pie is much bigger.

                              So I think we started to see things change for Jay-Z specifically when he became president of Def Jam. So this was right after he dropped the Black Album, so it was like in the mid-2000s. He was president of Def Jam, he saw some of the challenges there but eventually he formed the deal to start Roc Nation. Roc Nation then was a joint deal between Live Nation and him. And it was if I’m remembering it right 150-million? Yeah, I think it was $150-million. And then that gave him what he needed. One second I just need to get some water.

                              Sorry about that throat got a little scratchy there.

LP:                        We’ll edit you out.

DR:                       Okay yeah, we can edit that out.

LP:                        Never had a guest die on the podcast, so please.

DR:                       No it’s good. It’s funny, I read the show notes that you had, or the pre-notes that you have when you’re like have the water ready. And I was like, “Oh yeah.” Because when I film my own podcast, I always make sure to have it because if you’re talking for a while it can happen.

                              But like I was saying, he signed that deal and it was a $150-million deal. So it was still a relatively small size of the pie, but that type of deal gave Jay-Z the opportunity to then have additional money to then make investments. And then that money was able to be put towards starting Roc Nation, which gave him the ability to then make even more money tour.

                              So even though people hate on 360 deals, and rightfully so. He was able to make the best of it. And because Jay-Z was the person that ended up “winning” the beef because of how successful he became. His ideology was the one that hip hop ended up following. And I think we see more artists follow that path more than Damon Dash’s does.

                              So when I look at how Drake has been able to build his business, Drake has very much modeled his way after Jay-Z. Even you look at Beyoncé and some of the partnerships she’s been able to make. I think a lot of that has been modeled after what Jay-Z has been able to do. So when you see artists follow that path, I think that Dame Dash’s path kind of became the underdog. And it kind of makes me think about Kanye West to some extent.

                              He was the one that ended up siding with Jay, even though he knew that Damon Dash was more like him. So when you think about that it’s almost inevitable that they have the issues that they have now. But, it’s also interesting to look at how, what’s his name, Kanye West is now a billionaire, newly minted according to Forbes. But it’s not because of all these, it actually is because of a big partnership. I mean Yeezy’s big, but Yeezy wouldn't be Yeezy if it weren’t for Adidas. So it’s been interesting to see that. But yeah, I think that’s ultimately the deciding factor between the split between those two.

LP:                        Yeah, I think that that’s a super fascinating observation. [unintelligible 00:37:59]. The Kanye element in particular. And I mean shrewd on his part, right to understand where he might be more comfortable, or where he might feel philosophical alignment. But he views the right business path.

                              I thought the line that you hit that Jay-Z operates [unintelligible 00:38:23] private equity [unintelligible 00:38:25] brands he refuses to work with. And that was so dead on. And it really crystalized for me because for so long why does he work with the second-tier business? And you nailed it perfectly. That’s where the upside is?

DR:                       Exactly. Yeah, I think he knew that’s where the upside is. And I think he understood the brand of celebrity very well. And I think that’s something that people miss, right. If you’re already partnering with the biggest brand in the world, like if you partner with Nike, I mean Nike’s always going to be there. Like you can always get something, but you want to be able to, it’s going to work out better for you down the road if you can then be like, “Yeah, I was then able to make this deal and make this money. But helped this brand do X.” This gives you the bullet points you could use in future deals.

                              So, I remember people would drag on him like, oh, why are you partnering with Bing instead of Google? Why are you doing deals with Samsung instead of doing deals with Verizon, and all these types of things. And even to some extent title. Like why would you be the title instead of riding the wave of Spotify. He obviously hasn’t succeeded with every venture that he’s done. But yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.

                              And when I look at this past decade and a lot of the artist that have been investing. A lot of them I think about Diddy in this regard too. A lot of them are looking for opportunities where their brand can help elevate and make an impact beyond just the financial investment. And I do think a lot of that stems back to how Jay-Z thinks about things, for that underdog brand mentality.

LP:                        Did he develop that world view and that model? Or was there an existing precedent that he looked at and adapted?

DR:                       That’s a good question. I know that Zack O’Malley Greenburg, he’s the Forbes writer that does a lot of the cash kings list and those things. I know that he had looked into that specific part about it, interviewed him. I forget if that came from somewhere or that came from himself. That’s a good question. I think he’s researched that though.

LP:                        Yeah. I’m personally, I have some discomfort around that question, because I think the notion behind that then has somehow robbed him of the vacancy, and robbed him the ability to develop that. I think it’s a worthy question, but I also think it’s a dangerous topic?

DR:                       Right, yeah, because what it could imply, yeah?

LP:                        Yeah. But he’s such a fascinating man. And the thing is you talked about earlier when he went inside Def Jam. It’s so, we talked about sort of that notion of short memory in hip hop, he was sort of retired. And when he retired, he was barely in [unintelligible 00:41:24]. He was not this boring juggernaut. He could still have a hit record but he was not [unintelligible 00:41:32]. He could always make headlines but he was not what we know today.

                              And whatever he did for those few years when he went away, the idea, if you had said in 2003 Jay-Z going to be an arena headline around the tour, around the world by the end of the decade, I don’t think anybody would sign up for that.

DR:                       Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it’s a crazy growth and transformation. I mean I think about that ’01 to ’03 range. And this is where things, it’s like what’s your view, right? From a hip-hop perspective he was huge. But that’s still from a hip-hop perspective. He didn’t have a number one hit until Empire State of Mind, and that’s 2009. So you think about all the songs that may have been big within hip hop such as anything off of the Black Album or anything off of the Blueprint or Big Pimping, it was still centric in hip hop.

                              So I think a lot of that is relative to what we’re talking about earlier, right. Like hip hop’s legitimacy and hip hop’s growth, and all the things that happen. And I think a lot of that was able to ride that path and yeah. So him being president of Def Jam that helped to add some legitimacy. But then yeah, I think that big offer with Live Nation, and I think there’s some other deals around the same time that opened headlines.

                              Like I know that 50 cents isn’t looked at from the same business perspective. But when he was able to make a ton of money from that vitamin water deal, I think that was around the same time like ’07, ’08, lightbulbs started to go off there as well. And then yeah, I think that by the time that Jay-Z, because yeah, he had done the tours, and he had done the tours with Kanye, he’d done the stuff with Justin Timberlake, him and Beyoncé. Yeah, I think that by the time him and Beyoncé went on tour it was like no this is, like he. Because that was beyond arenas, they were in like baseball stadiums at that point, so yeah.

LP:                        So the last think I want to ask about, and I want to be mindful of your time is the piece about Death Row. The interesting thing about it is that it kind of revisits that theme you mentioned earlier between like the partnership. Although it’s sort of ownership in the extreme.

                              I want to read one sentence [unintelligible 00:44:01]. You wrote that, “Knight wanted the power that came with big names. And the control that came with total ownership, and none of the tradeoffs from either approach. Unfortunately for Knight business doesn’t work like that.”

                              So the power that came with big names. So sort of being the mogul that if you kind of think of like maybe [unintelligible 00:44:26] past, had the Rolling Stones, had Led Zeppelin, had Queen, was a stylish taste maker, a business artist. Could hang with the artists, could get a lot of his cache from being around the artists. The artists want to be around him because he’s stylish, sophisticated mover. So Knight wanted that, but he also he wanted to run the table too. It wasn’t enough to just rub shoulders. Those two things are required, they become incompatible or something?

DR:                       Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean he’s definitely one of the most interesting people that I think that has ever crossed through hip hop. I think to people that didn’t realize it, he’s almost like a borderline mythical figure in terms of how he’s talked about the stories and all that. I mean I will say that there were some things that were heads up.

                              Like a lot of people often try to trace back like when did the whole master’s ownership and thing become a public thing? And I do think people look at Birdman, people look at Master P, and people look at Suge Knight as three of the hip hop artists that were managers, CEOs of record labels that were adamant about these things. And it worked out well in their favor. They were able to get those things. I think all three of those people are different in their own regard.

                              But if we look at Suge Knight specifically, yeah, he wanted to be able to have all of the ownership, all of the control. Not just with what came to Death Row, but also with what he himself was able to keep relative to any of the other artists. And how he was willing to fray relationships in order to maintain that.

                              I mean him and Dr. Dre had their issues and split, not too long into things. By the time that Tupac had come on to Death Row, that relationship was fractured and pretty much done. I know we all look memorably at that Vibe cover with the four of them together with Suge Knight, Dr. Dre, Snoop and Tupac. But by the time that happened those relationships were already fractured.

                              So he wanted the ownership, but he also wanted the partnership as well. He knew that Interscope would be a massive channel for them to be able to pump the distribution and have the success. And I mean if you just look at it, three of the first I forget the exact number. But a few of those first albums were able to be regarded as classics, they did very well. The Chronic, Doggy Style, and then you have Tupac’s albums. You have with both All Eye’s on me. I believe Me Against the World is technically before. But you have those three albums being some of the first ones that your label puts out.

                              So that point, even though you have these challenges, everything is sky high. Everything is operating. But in order to get to that point you have to fracture relationships, you had to anger and rub a lot of quarters and make a lot of enemies in this industry. And I think that there was a way to achieve a good amount of that success. Maybe you didn’t necessarily get all of it, and still have a sustainable operation.

                              And I think that’s where things get a little tough. It’s like what is the cost that you’re willing to pay to get to these insane levels of success and height? And not that that was unattainable, but Suge Knight proved that yes, we got to this ultimate peak in the beginning of 1996, and the end of 1995. But, he had to both sever and make ties almost frustratingly bad with Interscope. He needed to frustrate the ties and fracture what was happening with Dr. Dre, and was willing to pretty much put everything on the line to get Tupac. And the Tupac wanted to do his own expansions. And all of that without necessarily worry about the infrastructure. It was almost built to implode.

                              And in some ways I often think about Cash Money in a similar type way. I think Cash Money is different because I do think that Birdman obviously was able to keep, has been able to keep this record label running. And the success that it’s had since the mid-‘90s to now is unmistakable.

                              That said, Birdman is someone else that wanted to have his cake and eat it with, he negotiated like anything to get that universal distribution deal back in the late ‘90s. But then he kept that same energy with the artists that he signed. And making them need to lawyer up in order to get their pay that they deserve.

                              So it’s interesting when people like this have come through hip hop. While I think there’s plenty of good things that hip hop’s been able to learn from their experience, I probably say there’s probably things I’d give, what’s his name, Birdman more credit for than Suge Knight. But still like I think we realize like anything, like business and strategy is a lesson of tradeoffs. And what you no to is just as important as what you say yes to.

                              I think that these are people that knew what to say no to. But everything that was on the table it was like I’m going to say yet to this that I want. And the things I’m going to say no to aren’t the things that I’m necessarily willing to accept, it’s more so the things I just don’t want to do. And that just doesn’t work. And I think we ultimately saw how that plays out.

LP:                        Well the other figure in that story that you mentioned being Master P. I thought it was really interesting to, I think Snoop did the work narratively in the piece where Snoop talked about, I forgot how he said it. But it was essentially Suge Knight took and Master P gave back?

DR:                       Right, right, yeah. It was Suge Knight made money in rap, and Master P put money in rap. Oh yeah, I actually forget the exact quote now that I’m saying it, but yeah, it was ultimately about what are you willing to contribute, verses what are you willing to take back.

                              And yes, Snoop would know better than everyone. I’ve also written about Master P and like how his success and some of the tactics that he used, and what would work. Then what may not necessarily work now. I do think it’s interesting because him specifically he’s one of those people that people often revered in terms of his run, and his epic 1998 where he didn’t even tour, he was able to just sell millions and was able to make millions off of putting out records every other week. It was impressive.

                              And I think that Nipsy Hustle, rest in peace, he was someone that always revered the work that Master P had done. He wanted to build the No Limit of the west. Yeah, so I do think that he’s probably the one that deserves more of the respect I think from a hip-hop perspective. But like any one of these successful record labels from the past that is no longer exited there is plenty of stories to be able to glean from them.

                              And that’s ultimately some of the things I enjoy to do with Trapital. Because I think not only do I get a lot out of it, but I think it helps a lot of the other people that are living and breathing this stuff that are like, “Oh how did so and so go about this?” And it’s like, boom here’s a Trapital piece for you.

Lawrence Peryer:  Hey, how are you?

Dan Runcie:          Pretty good. Pretty good.

LP:                        Are you a fellow Connecticut native?

DR:                       I am.

LP:                        I’m from Hamden.

DR:                       Okay, wow, small world. So I’m no longer in Connecticut, I live in San Francisco now. But I was born and raised in East Hartford. I actually went to school at Quinnipiac. So yeah, right around the corner from you.

LP:                        Oh wow, amazing. So Sleeping Giant Park?

DR:                       Yeah, I know did a number of hikes there.

LP:                        Oh man, what a great place that was.

DR:                       I know it’s beautiful. Are you pretty close to the park?

LP:                        Well I’m in Seattle.

DR:                       Okay, yeah.

LP:                        So no I’m not near the park right now.

DR:                       Right, right.

LP:                        I grew up not quite within a walk from the park, but I grew up in Hamden that end of town. And spent pretty much every day after high school in that park.

DR:                       Nice, nice. That’s awesome.

LP:                        But thank you for making time.

DR:                       Yeah, no thanks for reaching out, thanks for reaching out.

LP:                        So there’s a few things I want to cover with you, but I’d like to start by learning a little bit about [unintelligible 00:02:56]. One of the things that’s super interesting [unintelligible 00:03:02] as I dug into some of your work is that, not only is each article a super interesting take on the subject that you teach, so I’ll get into.

                              But there’s always at least one line that really just gets [unintelligible 00:03:19], really sorts of illuminates the topic. So I’m going to throw something of that one too.

                              But when I was looking on the [Trapital] site, something that I thought was really amazing statement or can be taken as a statement purpose, is this belief that we can learn as much about business models and strategy but [unintelligible 00:03:44].

DR:                       Right.

LP:                        I would argue maybe even more. I’d love it if you could talk about that?

DR:                       Yeah. First off, that statement itself stood as not just the inspiration but the belief behind Trapital, why it exist, and why I wanted to bring something like this in to not just to support the industry, but to help broaden the awareness and understanding of not just what’s possible but what’s out there.

                              For me, I started my writing work doing freelance. I started off with the medium blog. I was just going there by myself throwing a few ideas out there. And I remember at the time, I did feel like there was a void in the type of stories that were being told. And especially when I looked at hip hop, I remember it was around the same time I was in business school and there was a case study that was released on Beyoncé’s surprise album drop.

                              So the surprise album drop was in 2013, the case study was in 2014. And it made headlines everywhere. Everyone was talking about how amazing this was, and how much they learned from it. And because I was already in this case study mode, reading stories about crown court and Seal, and the New Coke and Pepsi, and all these other legacy, blue chip, fortune 500 companies. Here we are learning just as many insights about these things.

                              And then that stuck out to me about all the other lessons of learning about not just the strategies, but some of the mis-steps from past record labels, past artists and the business moves they made. And when we think about where a lot of the strategic stories lie, and who gets to tell those stories, how those stories get developed and crafted. It really ends up being much more of your Elon Musk’s, your Mark Zuckerberg’s, things from your traditional finance and tech worlds. And it’s not necessarily about hip hop as often.

                              And with that is also the representation about who were the folks that in hip hop. So by being able to have a more regular cadence than the occasional Harvard Business School deep dive, it would do a great job of being able to elevate, these stories, educate people within the music industry who are living, breathing this every day, probably think these things. But it’s helpful to have someone to synthesize it together and put it into a package on a weekly basis.

                              But then the people that are also thinking about what career opportunities may look like. What’s possible? So highlighting the people behind the scenes, or the work that happens behind the scenes, the artists themselves. And especially just the expansion that’s happened in the past decade, that gave me the push to say, “Okay, this isn’t just beneficial but it’s beneficial now.” So let’s put this out into the world and see what happens.

                              So I started Trapital 2018, started as a pilot that I was doing while I was working fulltime. It started to gain some traction, in roads with the right audience that I hoped it would resonate with. And then slowly built up the reader based, and then also the ability of myself to work on it full time, and I’ve been doing that for a little over a year now.

LP:                        That’s amazing. So Trapital’s your gig?

DR:                       Yeah, so Trapital’s the gig since February 2019, yeah Trapital’s been the gig.

LP:                        That’s amazing. And you say that with, I don't know if you can see yourself in zoom, but the look of pride that you have about that, that’s an amazing accomplishment?

DR:                       Thank you. Of course it’s still a long way to go with everything that I want to be able to accomplish with it, and where things can potentially go. But it was a big leap. I think for a while, I mean from a personal perspective doing something that was entrepreneurial was always something that resonated. But want to make sure that I was doing something for the right reasons, and trying to contribute to something that in many ways was bigger than myself.

                              There was a market opportunity for something like this, and there was a good way to be able to see where trends are heading, both from hip hop, but also from media perspective. And how digital media is now created, how things are being pushed and executed. So I said, okay there’s a lot of things aligning right now so this is a better time than never to push it out.

LP:                        Yeah, yeah. And let me wind back just a little bit, you said you did your undergrad at Quinnipiac?

DR:                       I did, yes. I did my undergrad at Quinnipiac. So I studied business there.

LP:                        Got you. And then where did you get your MBA?

DR:                       I got my MBA at University of Michigan. So I was in Ann Arbor for two years. So yes, so in between I’d worked at Traveler’s insurance company in Hartford. I started in one of their development programs for recent business gradates. Moved into market analysis role for a couple years, and then decided to go to business school. So did that, was in business school 2012 to 2014, and then 2014 is when moved out to San Francisco.

LP:                        Wow, and so was a there a delta in time between move to San Francisco and starting [unintelligible 00:09:14]?

DR:                       Yeah. So when I first came out to San Francisco my focus was much more centered around tech and the types of jobs that were a bit more traditional for that “post” MBA career path. And I had found roles in strategic partnerships, I had done a quick internship with a venture philanthropy firm when I was out there. Then ultimately was working with an Ed. tech organization that I was with in a strategic partnership role. But it’s around this same time that I had started doing the media posts, and then the media posts expanded into the freelance writing.

                              So for solid few years there it was continuing on the career path that I had, and I think for all intents and purposes was going well. I was following the standard path, it was moving into more managerial roles within the organization. And was doing the types of things that I did enjoy, but I also saw the opportunity of where things were going with Trapital. And although Trapital didn’t exist yet, I was starting to get picked up and was doing freelance writing for publications, like Wired, and Complex, and still starting to focus on the business of hip hop.

                              So it was this interesting blend of my fulltime job where I needed to use a lot of these skills and principles about how to think about strategy in a way where different organizations can come together. But then also being able to apply some of that logic in a completely different industry. And then learning okay, what makes sense in this industry? What doesn’t?

                              And I think it’s one of these interesting things where you think that yes because you’re coming in from a different perspective you may not have the “seasoned” background of someone that started their career at MTV, and then interned at Atlantic Records, and so on and so on. But by being able to come in from a different perspective it often gives you insights that others may not necessarily have, but then also making sure that I’m doing my work as well too understand what’s happened at those places that I didn’t necessarily work at. How those things continued. So I definitely done my best to try to use that unique experience that I’ve had and entry into this space as a unique positioning for myself.

LP:                        Well one of the things that stands out for me as well, you’ve definitely, your writing voice takes these, not necessarily complex issues. But you take a business issue and it’s in a very accessible voice. But it’s not dumbed down [unintelligible 00:11:58]. I find the writing very engaging. It tells me stories I didn’t [unintelligible 00:12:04] fresh angle on thing I thought I knew before.

                              But one thing that became clear to me is that you’re [unintelligible 00:12:13] about this music. And I stayed [unintelligible 00:12:18]. You know your history, I guess. And I’d like to just talk about that for a second, because maybe in the first 15, 20 years or so of hip hop the case was always made that there is no history. That there is no longevity, that it’s always a current music, whether it’s because it’s a commentary, because it’s news outlet. But there was a real resistance. And we can talk about whether it’s gay or [unintelligible 00:12:49]. Whoever the figure is that sort of allowed [unintelligible 00:12:52], there was this idea that it was strictly a young person’s game.

                              I’d love to hear your perspective on that, how that shaped how you think it was?

DR:                       Yeah. I do think that for a while hip hop was vying for legitimacy. And wanted to get some of that credibility and some of that, to use the same word again legitimacy, that didn’t necessarily exist before. Thinking whether it’s the NWA scene and that whole experience where they are going out and not just speaking on their own experience but they're trying to be the voice that wouldn't necessarily get any type of mainstream coverage.

                              I think you heard a similar aspect as well with Public Enemy referring to themselves as the black CNN. Like this is our outlet to voice what’s happening because CNN won’t let us be able to communicate those messages. So I do think that this stuck with hip hop for quite a bit. And even if you think about MTV and the whole history of them not wanting to play hip hop and black artists and things like that, there was always this kind of this like black sheep treatment that hip hop had to face for a while. And things stayed that way.

                              Even when I first got into things, even in the ‘90s, things were starting to turn, but it was still a bit of a pause. It was urban music. And even some of those classifications linger to a fair amount today. But I do think that there were a few turning points. Not to put it all on one person, you did mention Jay-Z, but it is hard not to acknowledge what he has been able to do. I think his transition, especially after Roc-A-Fella Records had split, you say him and Damon Dash as like two very different ideologs on how they saw business, how they saw partnerships. And I think the fact that Jay-Z was willing to partner and get a lot of that “legitimacy” from the big organization, your live nations.

                              And then that extending into having president and senior type roles in the music industry. Him being able to have a mix of someone that is both the owner and willing to partner with the big players. I think seeing his success and seeing his dual status as I am the GOAT rapper, but I am also the most accomplished business person in this game. I think that inspired a lot of people, and it was hard not to ignore the success at this point.

                              And a lot of those things too are also a bit, there was problematic things of course, the image. Like how rappers and how the media positioned a lot of them, let’s say in the ‘90s and 2000s, was in this off mainstream way where it didn’t necessarily affect the mainstream pop music machine to a deep extent. But I mean that dynamic is completely flipped now. So I mean by the time you get to the late 2000s, artists like Drake that are influencing almost every aspect of the industry, think you can look at several different types of records and ways to measure artists. It’s hard not to look at the past decade and look at him as being the most impactful artist that we’ve had.

                              Some people may say Taylor Swift, but I think when you look at that and you see the influence things really did start to shift then. And I think now, I’m interested to see where this next decade is going to be like, right. Because we see the trends and we that okay, hip hop is having more and more influence. And I think like that you’ll probably see more and more subgenres having even more stronger voice than they do now.

                              I’m just thinking about like how rock n roll continued to evolve into the different groups, or the different subgenres that took control there. But, I think for the time being this is an industry that continuously and growingly influenced by what’s happening by the biggest artists in hip hop.

LP:                        It’s really fascinating to me that, maybe you can articulate better than I will. But something happened along the way where definitely in sort of post gay, post Drake world where there was always the undercurrent, or always the alternative to the mainstream in terms of whether it’s things like, just sort of like alternative hip hop basically. Smaller, less mainstream.

                              But something happened along the way where it seems like the culture got its confidence to sort of [unintelligible 00:17:45] in the mainstream. And I think that that’s, that’s not a trivial point because I think it mirrors other music where once it gets comfortable with it’s legitimacy or feels like it can transcend what it was looking for out of legitimacy before, then it really starts to blossom in all those sort of [unintelligible 00:18:05]. It’s sort of loses and ideological period that maybe had a hold on it. Now it is going down [unintelligible 00:18:13]. And it’s an amazing time.

                              So you look at the spectrum of artists now verses 10 or 15 years ago that can show up in the top 10, really [unintelligible 00:18:25]?

DR:                       Yeah. I would agree with that. Because I think that there’s like the “chip on your shoulder stage”, right. Like when you always feel like you need to carry the burden of hip hop on you. And I think that created a lot of good music but, that could have held some artists back from being able to blossom in the way that they see someone like a Lil Uzi Vert who let’s say that he transported him 25 years earlier and it’s 1995, I don’t think he necessarily would have gotten the opportunity to do what he’s doing now, right.

                              So I think that the artist back then carried a burden that they don’t necessarily carry now. And to your point, yeah, I do think that we’re starting to see things blossom. We’re starting to see artists like him. We’re starting to see more artists like Meg Thee Stallion, who can really have her own lane and push things there.

                              Yeah, I’m very interested to see what will 2030 look like, right. And I know that I keep using the lifecycle of rock n roll as a bit of a comparison to see, okay is this comparable to hip hop? Is this what we could potentially expect from where things are going? I think things are different and not that I would necessarily pin like the popular culture of rock n roll on any one particular person or group, but it’s a little different.

                              I think that if the 2010 to 2020 range that we just went through was this accelerated growth phase, I think we’ll start to see a bit more of that accelerated growth continue into a more of a, I don’t want to say maturity, because that implies that there’s a decline. But I think that will start to see things just develop a bit more strongly. Especially on a global perspective. I think that’s where we’ll probably see some of the strongest growth in the next decade.

LP:                        Does American hip hop export well globally?

DR:                       It does. It does. I think it especially exports well in a few ways. One, the artists that are the biggest stars, they make more money. A lot of them make more money overseas than they make here. And it’s been this interesting dynamic where they feel that some of them shared a few direct quotes on this. They feel as if the artists in the US have high expectations. And there’s a little bit of this, who’s this person on stage? I could go do that, right. And we have a bit more of an abundance of being able to get the best rappers in the world to come to said music festivals, said this. And we’re a bit more of a critic, right.

                              It’s like for being in the US it’s almost like stepping into Twitter. Like I’ve heard that analogy before. However when US artists go to Europe for example, or they’ll go to South America perform for some of the music festivals there, the festival guarantees tend to be a little bit larger, the fans there are much more willing to cheer and they're less critical of what’s happening. So from that perspective I do think it translates well.

                              It’s interesting though, I think things are a little bit different in Asia and some of the other countries where English may not necessarily be the predominate or language that is spoken as commonly. But, I do see the influence of those hip-hop artists there almost following a similar lifecycle to what we saw in hip hop a few years back. Like some of the music now that’s coming from some of the regions in the Middle East that have been dealing with their own political up rise and oppression. And some of those governments trying to restrict the music that is critical of their government. A lot of that’s hip-hop music. So I’m hearing and researching those stories. This is literally what we were dealing with 30 years ago when Public Enemy was on their rise.

                              So see that, and I’m hearing those artists in those regions now saying that oh yeah, we saw what happened in the US, they're our inspiration for what we’re trying to get to. So I see that influence as well happening with the global artists, specifically within their own countries as well.

LP:                        Parallel drawn. That’s great historical context. Before I jump into a couple of your articles, I’d like to just revisit Trapital. Talk to me a little bit, give me the overview? So it’s a home for your writing, but it’s much more than that. Can you talk a little bit about the other services or the other things that [unintelligible 00:23:12]?

DR:                       Yeah. So Trapital as I broadly call it is a media company. And there are things that are expanding into research type work as well. But from the media perspective it started and still is the home to my weekly article. So those are the articles, the deep dives that I put out once a week that usually tackle one topic in the business of hip hop or it’s intersections. And mostly diving at the why or how.

                              It could be looking at a trend that’s happening in the future. Something that’s happened historical. A case study about someone that’s in this space. so that’s the main focus there.

                              And then I also have a podcast where I am sitting down and talking to the leaders and the movers that are shaping this industry. And a lot of the people that were decision makers behind the types of things that are talked about in Trapital. So that’s the concept there.

                              I also have additional content as well for paid subscribers. So Trapital from a business model perspective is freemium, where there’s free content available for everyone. And then those that want more there’s additional updates on Monday’s and Friday’s that cover some of the more specific up to date things that are timely happening in the past 48 to 72 hours. Here’s what you should know, here’s my take on it. So that goes out to a subset of readers as well.

                              And then also community building efforts with those readers. Because I think I realize that there’s a lot of value in being able to bring those folks together. So done a few different things. Back when we could convene before this virus broke out had a few in person meeting. Had a few in person meetings and dinners, and happy hours in different cities. Have started to do some of that virtually in the past month and a half with different members. Discussion forums as well. And it’s been good to hear some of the stories. There has been business opportunities that have been made between a couple different members. People meeting up after Trapital get togethers. So that part of it has been good.

                              And things that I’m also thinking through down the road, I’ve gotten a lot of request for additional content that is stand alone, but not necessarily the same written content. So I’ve started to put out different databases on the types of data that I would naturally use for Trapital, and including that in the membership offerings. So who are the investors in hip hop? Who are the main brand endorsements and who are the artists that they're partnering with? These are the types of things that I’m writing about and being able to have that in a database is helpful for the decision makers, because those are the people that are more likely to want to pay or be interested in paid content.

                              And then one of the more recent things that I have been pushing out is client services and helping folks on a more one to one basis, or Trapital to their company basis with consulting and advisory work. That’s something that has been requested a few times, just given like, “Oh, you did this analysis. It would be great to get your thoughts on this deal we’re doing, or this potential go to market strategy that we have.” So that’s something that’s been in the works that’s been slowly rolling out.

LP:                        [unintelligible 00:26:36]. This is the fun part, or another fun part. I want to talk about a couple of the artists because I’ve really enjoyed [unintelligible 00:26:47]. What’s Travis Scott and his team [unintelligible 00:26:51]?

DR:                       I like the way you frame that question. I think in general I’ll say that an artist like Travis Scott had a pretty good arbitrage opportunity right now. Because he operates in this space that I’d say a lot of hip hop media and a lot of media in general aren’t necessarily invested in. And I mean invested in because most of the people that cover this space, most of the people that are decision makers in this space, they do have a tendency to be much more reflective and understanding of what’s happening in their experience, right.

                              So the people that are rising in management roles they're starting to be millennials now, and maybe there’s a bit more Gen X as well, and baby boomers. Like these are still the people that I think are making a majority of the decisions. But Travis Scott, even though I think he’s technically a millennial he has this Gen Z hip hop audience that they're like, “This is our guy.” And how he communicates with the fans, ho he creates experiences with them, with his concerts, with his music festivals. He is willing to push the boundaries in ways that other artists aren’t.

                              And I guess I’ll put it this way, I think that there’s a tendency for artists that I feel like are in that like Kendrick Lamar, Jcole, Drake range, or these guys who are in their mid-30s now, they’ve been in the game for 10 years. There’s a bit more of a caution of what they're willing to do and how much they're willing to push things. And I don’t think that Travis Scott has that.

                              I’ve affectionally called him hip hops growth hacker. Because whatever he does, he’s willing to exploit the rules and maximize it. If it is an album that needs to go out and he wants to maximize his sales, and he knows that album bundles are one of the best ways to do that, I think the rules are arcane and need to be changed. But he’s like, “Okay, if those are the rules then I’m going to have a different product combined and bundled with my album every hour for a week and a half. And we’re going to role that out consistently.”

                              And seeing him do that people had issues with it, Nicki Minaj was frustrated with it. But if you looked at everything that happened after that, we literally saw someone become a superstar in a four-month period. He released that album and five months later he’s performing on stage on the super bowl. I guarantee you that two thirds of the people watching the super bowl didn’t even know who that guy was before that.

                              He does that, and then he has a documentary on Netflix. Not that many artists have documentary on Netflix. Because we now have an idea of how much they're paying, you have to be a certain level to be willing to do that. And what he’s now most recently done with this Fortnite event that he had last week. Brought together 28-million people, staged it as several different shows. Was able to bring his audience together, and I think a lot of his audience plays Fortnite as well because of that audience overlap and they type of person they're reaching.

                              I think he’s really tapped in and he’s really figuring things out. And I think it may take a while for people to really get a grasp for it, because I feel like the industry has spent so long trying to figure out Drake and figure out Jay-Z that all of a sudden there’s someone that is under 30 and doing their own thing, building their own empire. And even though he’s breaking all these records I still think that people are like, “Okay, but he’s kind of doing his thing over there.” And it’s like, “Ah he might be closer to being on their level than you might think.”

LP:                        And everything he does looks incredibly thought through. Whether it’s the hacking, the billboard chat. You have to imagine he’s sitting around with his team laughing. They're just laughing the whole time. Laughing because they're putting one over, or laughing just by the sheer creativity that it takes to do a new product every hour. That’s incredible?

DR:                       Yeah, it’s incredible, and I think it ties something back to what you had said earlier. You could tell this is someone that he doesn’t operate like he carries a burden or a chip on his shoulder in terms of a responsibility of what he necessarily feels like he needs to do.

                              I mean, I think he definitely has the competitive edge after watching his Netflix documentary, whenever it ended up coming out. He was pretty upset that he didn’t win that Grammy Award. Cardi B had beat him for rap album of the year, he was not happy about that. So I mean he’s still a competitive person.

                              But yeah, I think that him and some of the artists like I mentioned Lil Uzi Vert, I’d probably throw Young Thug and Tyler the Creator in that group as well. They're operating from a different perspective and I just don’t think that they necessarily, or that hip hop itself necessarily gets what they're doing.

LP:                        Yeah, yeah. Couple other pieces I wanted to talk about. I think it would be seriously remis to not talk about the Jay-Z, Damon Dash piece. So you alluded to it before. Before I ask any questions about it can you sort of articulate what your hypothesis was there or [unintelligible 00:32:24]?

DR:                       Yeah. So Jay-Z and Damon Dash of course they're two of the three co-founders of Roc-A-Fella. Started in ’96, they had their rise. The early 2000s were great for them. But then they started to have their issues and they ultimately split in ’03 and ’04. And they had two very different ideas on how wanted to go about things, and I think we’ve seen that now.

                              Dame Dash is much more of an ownership type person. He was the president, or tentatively CEO. But he was the management leader of Roc-A-Fella, and he wanted to be able to be the key person owning what was happening. He was Roc films, he wanted Roc sports. And even down to how he would manage things. I remember there was this one clip back when they had the Hard Knock Life Tour, they were handing out jackets and there were some jackets that said Def Jam on it, and even though they were technically under Def Jam, he was livid. He berated the guy. He was like, “No, these should say Roc-A-Fella on them.” So he was definitely more of that like, yes, if we’re building something, we have to own it.

                              And I do think that’s a very popular and common starting point that I think especially a lot of people, a lot of black people in the entertainment industry push, because there is things such as who has the ownership, and who ends up making more money. So it’s very understandable where he’s coming from.

                              Jay-Z on the other hand was much more willing to partner with the big organizations and look at the broader pie of the partnerships that could come, and how that could help benefit everything. And I think just thinking about the two of those mentalities, if Dame Dash is much more from the ownership perspective, he will have more control over the pie, but it’s going to be a much smaller pie, right.

                              But Jay-Z, he wants to have a chunk of the much larger pie and the much larger opportunity that percentage will be much smaller than Dame Dash’s is, but the pie is much bigger.

                              So I think we started to see things change for Jay-Z specifically when he became president of Def Jam. So this was right after he dropped the Black Album, so it was like in the mid-2000s. He was president of Def Jam, he saw some of the challenges there but eventually he formed the deal to start Roc Nation. Roc Nation then was a joint deal between Live Nation and him. And it was if I’m remembering it right 150-million? Yeah, I think it was $150-million. And then that gave him what he needed. One second I just need to get some water.

                              Sorry about that throat got a little scratchy there.

LP:                        We’ll edit you out.

DR:                       Okay yeah, we can edit that out.

LP:                        Never had a guest die on the podcast, so please.

DR:                       No it’s good. It’s funny, I read the show notes that you had, or the pre-notes that you have when you’re like have the water ready. And I was like, “Oh yeah.” Because when I film my own podcast, I always make sure to have it because if you’re talking for a while it can happen.

                              But like I was saying, he signed that deal and it was a $150-million deal. So it was still a relatively small size of the pie, but that type of deal gave Jay-Z the opportunity to then have additional money to then make investments. And then that money was able to be put towards starting Roc Nation, which gave him the ability to then make even more money tour.

                              So even though people hate on 360 deals, and rightfully so. He was able to make the best of it. And because Jay-Z was the person that ended up “winning” the beef because of how successful he became. His ideology was the one that hip hop ended up following. And I think we see more artists follow that path more than Damon Dash’s does.

                              So when I look at how Drake has been able to build his business, Drake has very much modeled his way after Jay-Z. Even you look at Beyoncé and some of the partnerships she’s been able to make. I think a lot of that has been modeled after what Jay-Z has been able to do. So when you see artists follow that path, I think that Dame Dash’s path kind of became the underdog. And it kind of makes me think about Kanye West to some extent.

                              He was the one that ended up siding with Jay, even though he knew that Damon Dash was more like him. So when you think about that it’s almost inevitable that they have the issues that they have now. But, it’s also interesting to look at how, what’s his name, Kanye West is now a billionaire, newly minted according to Forbes. But it’s not because of all these, it actually is because of a big partnership. I mean Yeezy’s big, but Yeezy wouldn't be Yeezy if it weren’t for Adidas. So it’s been interesting to see that. But yeah, I think that’s ultimately the deciding factor between the split between those two.

LP:                        Yeah, I think that that’s a super fascinating observation. [unintelligible 00:37:59]. The Kanye element in particular. And I mean shrewd on his part, right to understand where he might be more comfortable, or where he might feel philosophical alignment. But he views the right business path.

                              I thought the line that you hit that Jay-Z operates [unintelligible 00:38:23] private equity [unintelligible 00:38:25] brands he refuses to work with. And that was so dead on. And it really crystalized for me because for so long why does he work with the second-tier business? And you nailed it perfectly. That’s where the upside is?

DR:                       Exactly. Yeah, I think he knew that’s where the upside is. And I think he understood the brand of celebrity very well. And I think that’s something that people miss, right. If you’re already partnering with the biggest brand in the world, like if you partner with Nike, I mean Nike’s always going to be there. Like you can always get something, but you want to be able to, it’s going to work out better for you down the road if you can then be like, “Yeah, I was then able to make this deal and make this money. But helped this brand do X.” This gives you the bullet points you could use in future deals.

                              So, I remember people would drag on him like, oh, why are you partnering with Bing instead of Google? Why are you doing deals with Samsung instead of doing deals with Verizon, and all these types of things. And even to some extent title. Like why would you be the title instead of riding the wave of Spotify. He obviously hasn’t succeeded with every venture that he’s done. But yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.

                              And when I look at this past decade and a lot of the artist that have been investing. A lot of them I think about Diddy in this regard too. A lot of them are looking for opportunities where their brand can help elevate and make an impact beyond just the financial investment. And I do think a lot of that stems back to how Jay-Z thinks about things, for that underdog brand mentality.

LP:                        Did he develop that world view and that model? Or was there an existing precedent that he looked at and adapted?

DR:                       That’s a good question. I know that Zack O’Malley Greenburg, he’s the Forbes writer that does a lot of the cash kings list and those things. I know that he had looked into that specific part about it, interviewed him. I forget if that came from somewhere or that came from himself. That’s a good question. I think he’s researched that though.

LP:                        Yeah. I’m personally, I have some discomfort around that question, because I think the notion behind that then has somehow robbed him of the vacancy, and robbed him the ability to develop that. I think it’s a worthy question, but I also think it’s a dangerous topic?

DR:                       Right, yeah, because what it could imply, yeah?

LP:                        Yeah. But he’s such a fascinating man. And the thing is you talked about earlier when he went inside Def Jam. It’s so, we talked about sort of that notion of short memory in hip hop, he was sort of retired. And when he retired, he was barely in [unintelligible 00:41:24]. He was not this boring juggernaut. He could still have a hit record but he was not [unintelligible 00:41:32]. He could always make headlines but he was not what we know today.

                              And whatever he did for those few years when he went away, the idea, if you had said in 2003 Jay-Z going to be an arena headline around the tour, around the world by the end of the decade, I don’t think anybody would sign up for that.

DR:                       Right, right, yeah. Yeah, it’s a crazy growth and transformation. I mean I think about that ’01 to ’03 range. And this is where things, it’s like what’s your view, right? From a hip-hop perspective he was huge. But that’s still from a hip-hop perspective. He didn’t have a number one hit until Empire State of Mind, and that’s 2009. So you think about all the songs that may have been big within hip hop such as anything off of the Black Album or anything off of the Blueprint or Big Pimping, it was still centric in hip hop.

                              So I think a lot of that is relative to what we’re talking about earlier, right. Like hip hop’s legitimacy and hip hop’s growth, and all the things that happen. And I think a lot of that was able to ride that path and yeah. So him being president of Def Jam that helped to add some legitimacy. But then yeah, I think that big offer with Live Nation, and I think there’s some other deals around the same time that opened headlines.

                              Like I know that 50 cents isn’t looked at from the same business perspective. But when he was able to make a ton of money from that vitamin water deal, I think that was around the same time like ’07, ’08, lightbulbs started to go off there as well. And then yeah, I think that by the time that Jay-Z, because yeah, he had done the tours, and he had done the tours with Kanye, he’d done the stuff with Justin Timberlake, him and Beyoncé. Yeah, I think that by the time him and Beyoncé went on tour it was like no this is, like he. Because that was beyond arenas, they were in like baseball stadiums at that point, so yeah.

LP:                        So the last think I want to ask about, and I want to be mindful of your time is the piece about Death Row. The interesting thing about it is that it kind of revisits that theme you mentioned earlier between like the partnership. Although it’s sort of ownership in the extreme.

                              I want to read one sentence [unintelligible 00:44:01]. You wrote that, “Knight wanted the power that came with big names. And the control that came with total ownership, and none of the tradeoffs from either approach. Unfortunately for Knight business doesn’t work like that.”

                              So the power that came with big names. So sort of being the mogul that if you kind of think of like maybe [unintelligible 00:44:26] past, had the Rolling Stones, had Led Zeppelin, had Queen, was a stylish taste maker, a business artist. Could hang with the artists, could get a lot of his cache from being around the artists. The artists want to be around him because he’s stylish, sophisticated mover. So Knight wanted that, but he also he wanted to run the table too. It wasn’t enough to just rub shoulders. Those two things are required, they become incompatible or something?

DR:                       Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean he’s definitely one of the most interesting people that I think that has ever crossed through hip hop. I think to people that didn’t realize it, he’s almost like a borderline mythical figure in terms of how he’s talked about the stories and all that. I mean I will say that there were some things that were heads up.

                              Like a lot of people often try to trace back like when did the whole master’s ownership and thing become a public thing? And I do think people look at Birdman, people look at Master P, and people look at Suge Knight as three of the hip hop artists that were managers, CEOs of record labels that were adamant about these things. And it worked out well in their favor. They were able to get those things. I think all three of those people are different in their own regard.

                              But if we look at Suge Knight specifically, yeah, he wanted to be able to have all of the ownership, all of the control. Not just with what came to Death Row, but also with what he himself was able to keep relative to any of the other artists. And how he was willing to fray relationships in order to maintain that.

                              I mean him and Dr. Dre had their issues and split, not too long into things. By the time that Tupac had come on to Death Row, that relationship was fractured and pretty much done. I know we all look memorably at that Vibe cover with the four of them together with Suge Knight, Dr. Dre, Snoop and Tupac. But by the time that happened those relationships were already fractured.

                              So he wanted the ownership, but he also wanted the partnership as well. He knew that Interscope would be a massive channel for them to be able to pump the distribution and have the success. And I mean if you just look at it, three of the first I forget the exact number. But a few of those first albums were able to be regarded as classics, they did very well. The Chronic, Doggy Style, and then you have Tupac’s albums. You have with both All Eye’s on me. I believe Me Against the World is technically before. But you have those three albums being some of the first ones that your label puts out.

                              So that point, even though you have these challenges, everything is sky high. Everything is operating. But in order to get to that point you have to fracture relationships, you had to anger and rub a lot of quarters and make a lot of enemies in this industry. And I think that there was a way to achieve a good amount of that success. Maybe you didn’t necessarily get all of it, and still have a sustainable operation.

                              And I think that’s where things get a little tough. It’s like what is the cost that you’re willing to pay to get to these insane levels of success and height? And not that that was unattainable, but Suge Knight proved that yes, we got to this ultimate peak in the beginning of 1996, and the end of 1995. But, he had to both sever and make ties almost frustratingly bad with Interscope. He needed to frustrate the ties and fracture what was happening with Dr. Dre, and was willing to pretty much put everything on the line to get Tupac. And the Tupac wanted to do his own expansions. And all of that without necessarily worry about the infrastructure. It was almost built to implode.

                              And in some ways I often think about Cash Money in a similar type way. I think Cash Money is different because I do think that Birdman obviously was able to keep, has been able to keep this record label running. And the success that it’s had since the mid-‘90s to now is unmistakable.

                              That said, Birdman is someone else that wanted to have his cake and eat it with, he negotiated like anything to get that universal distribution deal back in the late ‘90s. But then he kept that same energy with the artists that he signed. And making them need to lawyer up in order to get their pay that they deserve.

                              So it’s interesting when people like this have come through hip hop. While I think there’s plenty of good things that hip hop’s been able to learn from their experience, I probably say there’s probably things I’d give, what’s his name, Birdman more credit for than Suge Knight. But still like I think we realize like anything, like business and strategy is a lesson of tradeoffs. And what you no to is just as important as what you say yes to.

                              I think that these are people that knew what to say no to. But everything that was on the table it was like I’m going to say yet to this that I want. And the things I’m going to say no to aren’t the things that I’m necessarily willing to accept, it’s more so the things I just don’t want to do. And that just doesn’t work. And I think we ultimately saw how that plays out.

LP:                        Well the other figure in that story that you mentioned being Master P. I thought it was really interesting to, I think Snoop did the work narratively in the piece where Snoop talked about, I forgot how he said it. But it was essentially Suge Knight took and Master P gave back?

DR:                       Right, right, yeah. It was Suge Knight made money in rap, and Master P put money in rap. Oh yeah, I actually forget the exact quote now that I’m saying it, but yeah, it was ultimately about what are you willing to contribute, verses what are you willing to take back.

                              And yes, Snoop would know better than everyone. I’ve also written about Master P and like how his success and some of the tactics that he used, and what would work. Then what may not necessarily work now. I do think it’s interesting because him specifically he’s one of those people that people often revered in terms of his run, and his epic 1998 where he didn’t even tour, he was able to just sell millions and was able to make millions off of putting out records every other week. It was impressive.

                              And I think that Nipsy Hustle, rest in peace, he was someone that always revered the work that Master P had done. He wanted to build the No Limit of the west. Yeah, so I do think that he’s probably the one that deserves more of the respect I think from a hip-hop perspective. But like any one of these successful record labels from the past that is no longer exited there is plenty of stories to be able to glean from them.

                              And that’s ultimately some of the things I enjoy to do with Trapital. Because I think not only do I get a lot out of it, but I think it helps a lot of the other people that are living and breathing this stuff that are like, “Oh how did so and so go about this?” And it’s like, boom here’s a Trapital piece for you.

LP:                        I’m looking forward to the Trapital book. Because I know there’s enough material to mine that I bet you there’s a great book it?

DR:                       Thank you yeah. A few people have asked, a few people have asked. Something I’ll need to think about.

LP:                        Yeah, I’m sure. I really, I appreciate your time. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I would love to do this again, maybe someday and talk more about music itself. I suspect we’ll have a great conversation [unintelligible 00:52:33]?

DR:                       Yeah, definitely. Now hopefully whenever we get back to the new normal of like, yeah, it would be great to connect.

LP:                        I’m looking forward to the Trapital book. Because I know there’s enough material to mine that I bet you there’s a great book it?

DR:                       Thank you yeah. A few people have asked, a few people have asked. Something I’ll need to think about.

LP:                        Yeah, I’m sure. I really, I appreciate your time. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I would love to do this again, maybe someday and talk more about music itself. I suspect we’ll have a great conversation [unintelligible 00:52:33]?

DR:                       Yeah, definitely. Now hopefully whenever we get back to the new normal of like, yeah, it would be great to connect.