00:00 SPEAKER_01 I think that it has changed, but I think that that change is coming to masticate folks in the gluteuses. I don't think that that's gonna be a problem. You know why? Because when you gain a following and then you try to translate that into reality and you set up a show and a million people buy tickets and you go out there and you don't actually have the charisma it takes to capture an audience for
00:25 SPEAKER_02 more than 20 minutes, then they're not gonna come see you again. They're not gonna tell their friends. And I'm gonna tell you why. It's kind of shitty. They have the charisma to come out and yell and scream and they just change outfits a lot, but then they hire people like me to do all the
00:42 SPEAKER_03 work and be on stage all the time. What are you talking about? Let's get right down to it. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, welcome to Slap the Power! I'm Rick Barrio-Dill. I am Maya Sykes. And today on the show in studio, we are beyond privileged to have the one and only TikTok, YouTube. You might have seen her on Instagrams. You might have seen on the Facebooks, all the stuff it's called, the one and only Olivia Cooper-Harris. So Maya and I had previously been talking about how there's three generation, if not four generational sort of rules going on in the music business, right? There's vintage acts that can tour. Nobody wants to see their, you know, listen to new records, right? And then there's things that are in between, say like vintage trouble and, you know, kind of under the bands. And then there's- Like niche audiences. Yeah. And then there's your sort of kind of people that are on the rise, your one hits. And then there are people that make it all happen in a virtual world. I've been watching you from afar for a long time. I've been admiring your work on socials because that's ultimately how we receive so much music, you know, nowadays as opposed to the radio generation or the, you know, the iTunes generation as such. And so my first question to you is for everybody that doesn't know you, tell her, you know, kind of tell about yourself a little bit, but for me, you've come up from in social media in a way that I consider you one of the G's on how to master your art and control it on social media. And that's what I'm going to be interested in chopping up today. So I appreciate it.
02:40 SPEAKER_01 Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I will introduce myself. Olivia, I'm Olivia. I'm a musical
02:45 SPEAKER_02 artist and a songwriter, producer and actress. She has many projects as well. She's got many, a few of her own independent albums out. And she also works with a project. Tell us about your girl
03:01 SPEAKER_01 group. Oh my gosh. I was just talking to them. I have a girl group. We're called Dear Ivy. We all just grew up loving those girl groups like Destiny's Child, TLC. I love singing with people. I grew up doing choir and all that. It's just, it's a blast. These women are so incredibly talented. It's with
03:21 SPEAKER_02 Danielle Withers, who you know, Joanna Jones, who you know. Danielle currently works, she's worked with everybody, but she works a lot with Adam Blackstone. And currently she's, I want to say that she's a soprano backup singer on American Idol. And Joanna was the Eliza on Broadway in the third revolution of the cast of Hamilton. She also has her own independent music out.
03:46 SPEAKER_01 So shout out to my ladies. They're out here doing it. Yes. Y'all, we have a single. We're just talking about the music video right now. We're shooting it on Saturday. We have a single coming out. Yeah,
03:58 SPEAKER_03 check us out. It's a good time. These women are incredible. It's so talented. Can you tell us anything like on the concept, where you're at with it on a video? Because we just finished trouble. We just finished one that it's interesting. Even the thought about what goes behind the video, I almost think about it as multiple shorts now. Right? And I think about it conceptually like that. If I'm thinking of a storyboard in my head, can you tell us anything about the theme or
04:22 SPEAKER_01 anything like that? How you guys are approaching it? Well, I like to approach it story first these days. Or sometimes I approach it with the vibe. Are we going to go like what era? What's the vibe? In this case, I think because of what we're trying to throw back to right now and how this particular record sounds, we're doing like early 2000s, 90s thing. It was actually inspired by our space. So we started off wanting to do like a 70s glam thing. And it changed once we found the location for the shoot. So we're just going with the flow. We're letting it tell us what it is and not trying to force it and control the video to be something that it's not. As all the different pieces come together, I think that's actually that can be across the board for creating things, creating videos, creating songs, producing things. Something, it comes down through you and it tells you what it is sometimes. And then you have to just go with the flow because you can't force things. So this video is going to be dope. We're going to be on, we're using this great rollerblading rink in North Hollywood. Where are we going around? It's going to be great. Yeah. And I think with my own videos these days, I've been wanting to go more story so that there's, I like to include like a little comedy these days. My last video, I wanted it to be funny. And I'm just trying to, I think, spend less than I have in the past and say more. And just-
05:56 SPEAKER_03 By spend, you literally end metaphorically?
06:00 SPEAKER_02 I mean literally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Spend less dough to make it. Well, that's kind of the one of the things that I wanted to segue into what I know about you. And what I kind of wanted to tell our audiences about you is that I know you from winning Post Modern Jukebox Star Search situation. So I feel that, and correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like the visibility of you is what has helped you start to rise your star. So I've noticed that in all of your independent music projects, there's always a video component. There's always a social media aspect. There's always a hashtag. There's always a, so what did you, did you learn some of that from Post Modern Jukebox or did you know just to do this and that was how to be a part of this
06:43 SPEAKER_01 game? I think as I was going along my journey, it just all started coming to me. And because I'm a crazy person and I'm really, really ambitious, I'm always trying to creatively think of new ways to, oh, and it'll just come to me, oh, I got to do this. I got to add this. It's never enough. It never ends. If you're going to go about it in terms of I'm going to get new people based on using hashtags or I'm going to get new people based on trying to attack new audiences in this way or that way. It's like, it's never, that's a negative side of social media is that it's never enough. But not to get too far off of the question, I don't think I was really thinking about it in that way. I think I just started on this rolling ball and then I couldn't stop rolling. And I was like, I got to do this. I got to do this. I'm one of those people who wakes up with an idea and then I feel like I have to go do it. Chase it. Chase it. So I wake up and be like, I'm like, that's the way it came to me where I was going to do my album. And it's just because I have these dreams deep down inside me. And suddenly, if I feel like suddenly I have a platform to make them come possible, I'm like, well, let me grab, take the advantage of this while I can. After I won that talent search, everything kind of changed for me because I had basically no followers on Instagram
08:03 SPEAKER_02 and I didn't really care either. Or I wasn't consumed by that. Well, but I also know that Postmodern Jukebox has its fame largely in part to their social media. So it's almost like you couldn't help. And then going on to other groups like Scary Pockets where same thing, there was almost the, you see what I'm saying? So it's almost like once you get into that social media aspect of it, I find that there's two sides. They're the people who have become popular, but can't execute. So they can't really do a show. And then they're the people that have utilized social media well enough to get their popularity, but they can also execute. They can also do a show. Does that make sense? Because I came up without social media, really, I was spending all my time and energy on just trying to be able to do the thing. Well, I thought that that was what you were supposed to do. Me too. So I had performance. Maya, don't you know it's changed. But that's the thing. I feel like it's changed. I don't think you're wrong. That's my point. I think that it has changed, but I think that that change is coming to masticate folks in the gluteus. I don't think
09:15 SPEAKER_01 that that's going to be a problem. You know why? Because when you gain a following and then you try to translate that into reality and you set up a show and a million people buy tickets and you go out there and you don't actually have the charisma it takes to capture an audience for more than 20
09:35 SPEAKER_02 minutes, then they're not going to come see you again. They're not going to tell their friends. Yes, they are. And I'm going to tell you why. It's kind of shitty. They have the charisma to come out and yell and scream and they just change outfits a lot. But then they hire people like me to do all the work and be on stage all the time. What are you talking about? Let's get right down to it. I can't. I signed many hefty NDAs. But I have, I can tell you by experience, I have been making
10:03 SPEAKER_01 tone deaf white girls sound good since 2003. That's a background, that's a back up vocalist thing though. That's been around for, since the beginning of music. But I'm telling you,
10:13 SPEAKER_02 what I'm telling you right now is it is getting so much worse. Really? And as somebody who was seeing this in real time, I'm like, I just sit up there like I have to, I don't have a very good poker face. So a lot of times I just be looking like, the fuck? Like I just look, my whole face
10:31 SPEAKER_01 be looking like, fuck you mean? You remind me of my mom. People love it when my mom is at a show. They love it because there is no lying. I've seen her. She got no filter. I was doing the thing with some people at the Americana. Is that what it's called? In Glendale? Glendale. She was in the front. My castmates were like, you know what? We love her. We needed that. We needed somebody to look
11:02 SPEAKER_03 at us like, so we can get our shit together. No, fuck you mean? But when she loves it, she's like. It really is, kind of to pull it back, I feel like you know instantly when somebody can't sing.
11:13 SPEAKER_02 And I feel like for 20 minutes that will translate though. But now you don't. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Almost every time I've done these gigs, and I'm not even talking about. No, but I'm thinking about your Ariana Grande's. This is what I'm trying to explain. Let me explain this to you. Explain this to me please. The Ariana Grande's, those kind of people, even if they are singing with a Pro Tools rig, they can actually sing. So they're just doing it to last two hours or whatever. No tea, no shade to that. No tea, no shade to that. That's production values. I'm not hacking on that. Some of these Instagram and TikTok people can't carry a tune at all. You're killing her. It's true. I'm dead ass. Listen. And what they do is they have a TV track that's like hella auto-tuned, and they just lightly sing to that while we sing along. And I've done that. That doesn't bother me because. It should bother you. But because, is that sustainable? There's no longevity there. Yes, because. We'll be here at the end. These people are going behind talent lines up. That's what we do. But what's happening is that we're not getting a big enough cookie for the amount of labor that we are doing to support this lie. That's what I'm saying. And so why isn't that the more talented people who also are using blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, aren't getting the same reaction as some of these people? You're right. It isn't sustainable. But what they are given because they have millions of views, like TikTok stars now have gotten record deals. They have gotten product lines. They're not sustainable at all. You're right. But just the fact that somebody spent millions of dollars giving this person who couldn't execute any of this stuff a development deal for a record. This is happening right now. Capitalism for that to some degree. But at what point does that system fall in upon itself? That's what I'm asking. And at what point is the influencer God? Because right now it seems like the influencer is God. And there's a certain degree of if that's where the hustle has moved and that's where the game has moved. I got to respect the hustle and kind of move that we all have to adapt. That's fair. That's as a musician. But something that's built on a it's hard to adapt on something on a foundation of lies. I don't know how to adapt. That's where I'm coming from. To some degree. Mm. No, because back in the day, yes, there was a lot of smoke and mirrors. But at the end of the day, the more famous people were talented. And now the most famous people are popular. They're not talented. They don't do it. In fact, not only are they not talented, they don't really do anything.
13:50 SPEAKER_03 Our presidency has become a talent contest, a popularity contest. I think so many things in America become popularity contests. The only music show that works is our contest that are based on popularity contests. That's why I want to analyze it. Because I don't want to become the guy that's like looking back and I don't want to be mad that they moved the cheese. I want to kind of cut it up into like how can we have an Overton window where this crosses over? Because I think you're right. There's no getting away from hacks, getting record deals. We were literally, shout out to Don Waz, we were in his office at the top of Capitol Records building and he's in, I won't say who, look at this. When we were playing it back, he's like this is just awful, awful, awful. Universal sign in it because it's got 100 million streams. This was six, seven years ago. So much has happened just in between that. And I think somebody like yourself that kind of stays, you've managed to be in this time period where in the generational sort of crossovers and the rules of physics that are in there, in our business, I'm interested in that because traversing that is, it seems to be the prescription for the future. If we want a way out, even for us, it's been a struggle. If you want a way out, you've got to adapt.
15:10 SPEAKER_01 Yeah. If you can't beat them, join them type of thing.
15:13 SPEAKER_02 Sure. Yeah. No, no, not- I feel like if you can't beat them, you have to recreate a new system. There you go. And that's kind of where I'm at with it.
15:20 SPEAKER_01 Yeah.
15:21 SPEAKER_02 I like that. That's innovative. What would it be? But I don't feel like you don't have a choice. I almost feel like you have to be at the cutting edge of what the next precipice is. That's why I'm a little reluctant to join. Yeah. Because I've noticed that the people who get on that are talented, if they anticipate, like, okay, the people who knew that TikTok was going to blow up and anticipated that and jumped on right away, got capital gains. 100. Sure. It's true. So it's almost like you have to keep your nose to the technological ground to see, because it changes in real time every two to three years, especially social media platform-wise.
15:58 SPEAKER_03 Have you, whether consciously or not, felt like you're constantly having to change based on where the algorithm's power moves?
16:06 SPEAKER_01 That's one way to go about it, is to be chasing the next trend, the next hot thing. I've tried to get away from that and not fall prey to that. I'm in doing that, I'm probably hurting myself, because I think playing the game and jumping on every trend and every like, oh, this is something we're all doing. We're all singing a verse to this song right now. And then two days later, it's over. I never do that.
16:30 SPEAKER_02 And it's another one. I don't do that either. I ain't done none of these singing challenges. People be tagging me in these hoes. I don't do nary one. Like, I'm so sorry. Listen, I'm going to tell this to your face. Listen, I love you. I love you all so very, very much. I'm saying this in cameras and multiple cameras, just so I don't get this twisted. Okay, because my singing community, I love you all like carbohydrates. But please stop tagging me in these singing challenges. First of all, I barely have a working tripod. And when I'm using it, I'm using it for like taping auditions and whatnot, or this crap. You know what I'm saying? I'm so bad at it too. I'm terrible. No, and I'm not going in my garage and doing 100 takes for something I ain't going to make no money on. I don't care. I'm so sorry. I love you all so, so very much. But I will repost all y'all's. So if you want me to repost it and you tag me being like, hey, yo, Maya, can you repost my John? Got you. 100 P. But stop being like, this is the bloop la, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep challenge. I don't have time. I have many jobs and I am tired. Thank you.
17:36 SPEAKER_01 Just trying to hang on. I may be, this may be dumb. I don't know how people feel about this. I may be approaching it from an ignorant, almost like ignorance is bliss, spiritual standpoint, but I'm chasing myself and what is me. And it's a lifelong journey to try to find out what is authentic to me and my sound. Like that Miles Davis quote of like, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself or whatever the quote was. So my head, as maybe you have mentioned, you maybe saw on social media, I might be a changing course sometimes. I think that's where my head is. But shouldn't that be what an artist should do? Sure. Sure. It's a different medium. That is what an artist should do. I mean, there's no should, but that is what I'm trying to do, but that's probably because my age and my desires in life and what I'm seeking now in my life versus like what I may have been seeking 10 years ago. So in that scenario, in that case, I may not be the best person to ask about following the trends, chasing them and what that can do for you. But I think you're the perfect person to ask for that reason. But I know that I need, but there's a part of me that is in a space where I've been, I've always had a love hate relationship with social media, but there's a part of me that's in a space where I am going to be maybe transitioning into doing more social mediaing because I'm getting signed. I have this deal and it's going to be really important that I am promoting it in a way that is making everybody happy and me. And luckily- Can you tell us more about what your deal is and what's going on? Yeah. Although I have no idea if I'm allowed to. I have no idea. Let's maybe put that on. I didn't sign an NDA. I have no idea if I'm allowed to talk about it, but all I know is that it's the sweetest, it's the most wonderful guys. I think it would be cool. I have no idea. But they, I just don't think they would, the reason I signed with them is because they are more organic. You feel good in the room. They're more about maybe what I feel like I'm about, but I'm not, I never say never. I'm not opposed to anything. I'm not opposed to jumping into the shit storm of chasing trends. If it's authentic to me, I'll do it. If it's not, I think it's cool to be knowing what's going on. I think it's cool to see what everybody's doing, but it's really dangerous to get caught up in that. If you want to be an artist, it's really like, it's a lot in your
20:16 SPEAKER_02 head about what things need to sound like. Yeah, because I can take the singing challenge thing. I make a joke and I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid. But for me, sometimes I always feel like, well, I am a singer in Los Angeles and am I a deficient one if I don't do these? And then I had to look at it a different way. And I feel like looking at social media a different way is kind of the way for me anyway, and saying, it's gotta make sense and be fun for me. The reason why I didn't want to participate in those challenges is I didn't find that to be fun. I love watching other people's and I love seeing the joy that it brings to them. Yeah, so you can't do it. But I wouldn't get that same joy. Only do it if you like it. And I just didn't see that I needed to, that needed to be my testimony. So sometimes I just realize that I don't, especially the older I get, my trending is like, okay, how does this bring purpose to my life? Bring me some happiness. It can't just be to push a product or to push a show or push a song or push a whatever. It's got to have some kind of engagement where if I'm talking to people, sometimes people reach out and they talk to me in broken English and stuff. And I'm like, okay, let me figure out what you said and say something back. Just because I'm like, okay, at the end of the day, if it's social media, shouldn't it make us social? Shouldn't it make us closer in some kind? You know what I mean? Shouldn't it make us not just be placards that come on a phone, but shouldn't it actually be engaging? And for me, I'm searching for, okay, if I'm going to do it, I can't do it, song's purpose.
21:52 SPEAKER_01 I think whenever I've taken a break from social media, it's been so that I can come back and like you're saying, have an intention, a purpose, an authenticity and know what I'm doing there and understand why I'm even there and say things that matter to me, even if the caption is two words, I just need to feel that way. Not everybody does. I think people who really capitalize on their social media pages don't really, it's a job for them. It's a full-time job. I think it's a full-time, I mean, that's why people who are musical artists have people doing their social media a lot of times. Sometimes they're doing it themselves if it's just fun for
22:31 SPEAKER_03 them, but they usually have an entire team. Lizzo does most of hers and she genuinely enjoys it. Yeah, and I think I would enjoy it too if I had all that praise coming at me. And the ability to put together a team.
22:44 SPEAKER_02 I think that that's a misnomer. I think that you see the praise because now she's gotten to a place in her career where she gets that, but one day just go on some of her posts and read what they say. In the comments, you mean? I don't read comments. I can't let comments into the energy of it all. But I'm just saying, just as a social experiment, try so that you can see specifically what a plus size black girl is getting that now has front. No, but I kind of need you to so you can understand. But that she has to be that tough to still be that bright. I was about to say, it takes bravery. To be that bright, she has to put on the suit of armor of life. And I think if more people understood what that took, like the vitrole that gets thrown at her on a daily basis.
23:41 SPEAKER_03 We opened up for her in Miami and I take that back. It was actually a dual thing and she was coming up when we were still on CAA and she was always even bouncing around. So the one thing I remember was she was so light and so happy and I think in it. And I feel that in her social media posts. I feel, you know, and I wanted to kind of get to this because I do think there's a mental health issue that became apparent during the pandemic. And then coming out of the pandemic that, you know, evidenced by a lot of artists coming off a tour. They had the whole time and then they went back on tour and was like, yeah, no, we're cutting this tour in half. There's a mental health part about it too that I know, you know, as a guy who the ups and downs of being on tour and having to change time zones and there was a lot of depression. There's a lot of all kinds of things that I see if you don't like it. And Liz, I don't mean to, but it seems like she has figured that out to be impervious because she's had to lift the weight of the world for so long that now she's just like fucking Atlas.
24:53 SPEAKER_02 Oh no, but have you seen what happened recently? No, no, tell me. Okay. So recently she did a tribute to Tina Turner and somebody said, I wonder how she's still that heavy but moves that well. Sorry to put comments. But that's the thing, like she's been so like blocking the haters. And for one moment that put a chink in her armor that hurt her so badly, she was like, you know, some days I just want to quit. Some days I just want to be with my man and just go to a farm and say, fuck this because I get this shit every day by the hundreds.
25:31 SPEAKER_03 But you gotta know, you gotta know, like, for example, the way that the right has taken over power, not to get metal with it, but the way that right has taken over power is trolling, just trolling the left and trolling the left and getting the left fired up. Right. And that is the
25:44 SPEAKER_02 because they don't have ideas. They don't have concepts. And going back to this point, what hurt her about this man's comment was not this man's comment. It was the 9,000 likes of this man's comment. So what I'm trying to tell you is even in this social media context, it can exacerbate self-esteem more so than anything. And we're looking at, okay, I should ask you this because you're still of a generation that didn't directly grow up in social media. But there's a whole generation that's coming up where that's all they know. Data shows they ain't doing so well. Mental health wise. The data shows that they ain't doing so hot. Yeah, mental health wise. So let's, so I'll just, because our whole thing here is we are talking about positive ways that we can look at these issues. Okay. So in your own social media, I've noticed that it's not always light and bubbly. And I've really appreciate that. I appreciate that sometimes you're like, I'm having a math day, or sometimes you're like, I'm having a silly day. Or sometimes you're like, ah, I screwed up, whatever. You know what I mean? And I think that that has an element of, you know, just humanity that I think is really beautiful. How do you choose which moments of your humanity you want to put on a social media context? My entire relationship to social media is based on where I'm at in my mental health that day. All right, cool. I can feel better now. It's not just me. Yeah. So, yeah, that's great. If I'm dark for two weeks, I'm busy. Yeah, but also I just don't have it. I feel it. I feel it. I could document my life, but I just don't have it. This meme that sums up my whole like last two weeks, even though things have been going well, like I can't, I'm not even complaining, but I've just been like on 10, like, you know what I'm saying? And so this meme was like a text from a friend to a friend and a friend said, do you have anxiety prime? And she said, yeah, why? And then she put a little storm. She said Amazon. She was like, oh yeah, I got that too.
28:02 SPEAKER_03 And I was like, me. Yeah. I got anxiety prime and Amazon too. Anxiety, depression, prime, my best friends. For example, Beethoven's fifth, I think has like two million thumbs down, right? Can you imagine if there was social media back then? No, well, that's the thing. It's like, you're an idiot. Like that's fine. What I've learned is I can just, if I can do the horse thing, you know, like this, it helps. I'm like, that's why I had to stop getting on Twitter because anytime I would turn on Twitter, I would actually feel the chemicals in my brain, like being combative and being stirred up to be combative just by the things that was coming into
28:43 SPEAKER_01 my eyes. Right. Yeah. Social media definitely does affect the way that your brain works and affects the perspective that you have as you leave social media and go about and live your life and talk to people. I mean, think about how you start to see the world if and when you've ever been on a dating app, for example. It's like, if you go like this all day, swipe, swipe, I'm looking at credentials. That's how I'm judging, sizing these people up. Then you go to Trader Joe's at the end of the day and everybody's like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Because like you've been in this headspace in your mind. At least that's when I was on the apps for two seconds before I was like, I cannot. When I was on the apps, I was like, I was like, it just made, I didn't like the way it made me look at men or the world. And I didn't. Also,
29:23 SPEAKER_02 can we just, I don't know why men need to hear this, but don't send a picture of your dick until you are prompted to send a picture of your dick. Don't send that. No, no, no. Are people still doing that? Yes. And this is why I was like, you know. They are. They are. I got one. I was just like, sir, we haven't even had coffee. It's like a business card nowadays. It's a young dumb foolish thing to do. Guys who know what's up, they don't do that. Listen, I get it. Cause Bob the Drag Queen told me the gay dudes trade, you know, dick pics like Pokemon cards. I understand. That's a different culture. I understand. But we are not that. I don't want to see your dick until I say, let me see your dick. Let me ask. Let me ask. Exactly. But don't be saying also, how do I know
30:16 SPEAKER_03 it's your dick? Right. That's the other thing. Google. Put your face in it. They're like, nah, I don't want to. Ty used to be at the beginning. I hope I'm not out. He would probably appreciate I tell this story, but he would be so great. We'd get to a city and then you just Google image the city and then you can kind of make it look like your day, you know, from everywhere. It's all these drone shots. Oh my God. Yeah. So you know, did this, did this. Oh my God. That's so funny. And it's like, it's, it's, uh, you know, that's even for another line of thought that I have,
30:44 SPEAKER_02 which is AI and that's a whole nother, you know, um, the lady who ran the, um, cause I watched that, I don't know if you watched that documentary. It was on HBO and it was, um, basically about like creating Instagram, like fame. I forget the time I'll find the title and send it to you. But basically they were talking to, they, they do as a social experiment. They get these three, like just random people and they see how they can like make them famous through social media. And it works. Like, I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. What do they do? Oh my gosh. Okay. Like I've actually stolen some of these because they were kind of epic. Okay. One of them was a picture of your butt. No, no, no, none of this, none of this, none of this, but what they would do
31:26 SPEAKER_01 which one of my posts get the most. Okay. Isn't that sad though? No, true. True. Like if I, if I have, if I have the girls, more people listen to one of my songs that I put out when the cover was so scandalous and I was so mad. I was like, y'all didn't give a crap about my EP because I
31:43 SPEAKER_02 was all clothed. Okay, go ahead. I fit. No, but that's something like, and okay. So this is what this documentary did. Cause it was like, it was, I think it was called making famous or our faking famous. That's it. Faking famous. Okay. So this is what they did. They got like a kiddie pool and they put all these rose petals and they rented this really nice house for the day. And then they get a close up on the kiddie pool, but like they cut out the kiddie pool part. So all you saw was the rose petals and they had a turban on the girl's head and some cucumbers. And then they just tagged the four season spa and she was like, spa day. So, so is getting, is getting followers about being like living a bougie lifestyle? No, but here's what, here's what was interesting. Okay. This is why y'all should watch this, but y'all should watch this because what it showed was they bought followers for her, right? Oh, they paid for followers. No, no, but here's what happened. They did that initially and then they kept putting all these fabulous boats. So then she actually started getting real followers. Then she started getting people who, um, wanted her to do product placement ads. Then she started getting people who wanted her to do like commercials or da da da da. Then she started, and she was an actress, right? Then she started actually booking work. I'm done. So I am dead. The faking famous is not faking famous. That's reality. But I'm making myself famous. It's like a set cargo hanger that they made to look like a jet, like a private jet. And you would be surprised how many, and now you can clock it. Cause if you Google search image, you can tell which is the same. Yeah. The girl, the girl,
33:16 SPEAKER_03 I think that's been rented by the hour. This is the thing I love about Los Angeles, right? To me, Los Angeles represents planet earth in the way that it's the most multi-cultural, multi-racial democracy that I dig. Right? I dig that. That's where we live as a center of the universe. Yes. Well, I say, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean it like that. I don't want to sound like a pretentious douchebag. I'm sorry. I just, I made you that way. I'm so sorry. No, no, no, no, no. No, it's okay. The thing I love about it is the delusional energy for my first like 10 years here. It grows on trees, right? And it's crazy. And if you feed into the negative part of that, it is, it will feed you all. It'll chew you up and spit you out. Whether you love LA or hate LA, either way you're right. When I figured that out and then only put people around me to figure that out on a consistent basis, it changed everything for my world. All kinds of things started opening up. And in that respect, I think it is make believe. This is what your, what's your dream, right? They just gave Tupac Shakur a star. Shout out to Tupac on a walk of fame today. It's like,
34:15 SPEAKER_02 make believe, but it's also, it means something to people. It's symbolic. I mean, it's poignant because yes, he did deserve that. I'm not talking about Tupac, but I'm saying is the city itself. Yes. Having being make believe. It's part of the show business. That's my point though. It's poignant because he deserved that, but also the city is profiting on his legend. And that's why they did it. Fair. It's a glamorous city and it's a dark city. Equally. I'm born and raised here. So sometimes people are like, I hate LA. I'm like, man, get the fuck out of my city. You got to learn how to walk. I love that you're from LA. I did not know that. Born and raised. Did you tell by she came in, she comes in hot? That's a good girl. Yeah. I love it. I love it too. I was born in Long Beach. I was raised in Watts, South Central, Hancock Park, Silver Lake. I went to high school in Santa Monica. I am from LA. So I'm like, listen, you got to rock with my city. Like any city, you got to learn her curves and her ends and her edges and her outs. You can't just be sitting up here being like, no, you can't do that. LA has so much to offer if what you're looking for is an offering. The problem is people are looking to take so much. And then when there's not enough to take, they're like, this is a shitty place. But that's people chasing, not generating it from inside. Back to your point. So before I forget, with all of our esteemed guests, we like to play silly games. Silly games. Silly games help. You know, it'd be the equivalent of me wearing a scandalous. It's a scandalous. It's a scandalous for a podcast. Yeah. So this one is from a wonderful sponsor of ours called Table Topics. So what we are going to do is we're each going to get two cards and we're going to let you as our esteemed guests go first. And we each get to read and we
36:10 SPEAKER_03 each get to answer all of the cards. Okay. No. If you are like, I'm not saying this fucking answer on an open mic, you do have the option to pass, but do you have to answer the second question?
36:20 SPEAKER_01 All right. So Olivia, go ahead and turn, turn the first one over and read, go ahead and read that one. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? Oh, that's just such a softball. Do I answer it? Yeah. I wanted to be a singer. It's so boring. No, but from what age? Literally, I don't even have like a memory of not wanting to be a singer. Really? I was like singing around the house all the time. I was singing, just walking around singing, my family is just ignoring me just all the time. When I was 10 years old, when I was 10 years old, I was like, I made a pact with my best friend and we were going to move to LA together and just like, I don't know, at the same time, we're going to like still live at home, but we're going to move, all move to LA and live next door to each other. Amazing. And I did move to LA. I did end up moving to LA.
37:14 SPEAKER_02 Yeah. See, she's provisioned. What about you? Yes. Okay. So I wanted to be a singer and a judge.
37:22 SPEAKER_03 I feel like you are that. You are that. You're sitting right here. You're about to be that,
37:25 SPEAKER_02 because you'll be slicing up these people's on the ones and zeros. I even think there's like a video, like in my sixth grade graduation, they were like, what do you want to be? And I was like, when I grow up, I want to be a Supreme Court justice and a Grammy Award winning singer.
37:40 SPEAKER_03 That's right, girl. Get it. We're going to get it. We're going to manifest that shit right in here. You already are a Supreme Court justice. Yeah, exactly. The justice system of this room, baby. Yeah, that's what's up. You know what's funny? This is going to sound weird, but my earliest memory was of being a DJ. That's kind of apropos, though. No, it was. And I used to have like, I'd have the record player and then I'd have another recorder to the side. And so what I'd do is I'd be coming out at the end of the song, you know, drop it in and then record that part. And I'd be, all right, yeah, you just heard, you know, whatever. You just heard Marvin Gaye. Plus you have radio voice. And it almost seems like, yeah, it fell into that. But I realized this as I got older, the thing that I always wanted to be was I was chasing the feeling that music gave me, that nothing else gave me. And that ultimately led me to, you know, be a musician most of my life, which seems like that's the one thing where I feel like I've been able to touch the hand of God, because when you can do something you love, you know, and something that you're good at for a living, it is the greatest. I feel like it's the most sort of, at least in this capitalistic structure in 2023 as human beings, it's probably the best thing you could ever get. And so it's funny, I've just been chasing that. And this is actually a manifestation of that too, because I feel like the evolution of the mediums have changed. That's what I'm interested in is, you know, if we make a song and we can make it, it's going to be a 10 second TikTok as where it might actually get some new traction. Otherwise, we're just talking to our old, to our same fan base. And so, yeah, I feel like I kind of always wanted to be here and I'm kind of always, you know, figuring out, but it definitely, the more I just listen from the inside,
39:25 SPEAKER_01 I feel like the healthier and the stronger I get. That's a beautiful thing. That's like, all we can do is try to like go in the direction of what we're called to do and just try to do that with our lives. That's really all we can do. It's like, chase that. That's what we should be chasing. Yeah. Purpose. All right, Ms. Maya, grab one. Damn, okay, it's backwards. What was the best vacation you ever took? These are cute. See, these aren't weird questions. No, they can get bad. They can get spicy. Yeah, they can get spicy.
39:54 SPEAKER_03 So that's why I'm saying you have to have, yeah, you have to have a softball that hopefully you want in the background, but sometimes you get too spicy. I want a bad one. No, I'm just kidding. We'll come back. Next one, we'll do that. We'll do another one. Girl, we will find it. No, no,
40:07 SPEAKER_02 I'll get it back. See, no take backs. It's a tie between when my mom and I went to Costa Rica and the time I went by myself to Italy because the time I went by myself to Italy, I had gone to Italy a lot, but I had never really vacationed. So I specifically took a week off and just went around and just like got lost in places and that was really dope. And then the time I went to Costa Rica with my mom, I took my mom as a Christmas present. And so we spent our Christmas in Costa Rica. It was just cool because we were out on vacation and we're two very, very hard working black women. And there was something about the pride of being able to pay for that vacation and know that I had enough money and to know that I wasn't going to be worried about where we're going to eat or how are we going to get anywhere or any of that. That was probably one of the first times in my life I could say I could do that for my mom. And it felt really nice. And I was like, I'm going to do this more times. It also put in my head, this is something you need to do more often because this is something that is, it's the thing. We all travel for work, but not a lot of times do we just sit in a place and say, just even seeing the people, what they were about, how it worked. Just appreciating our place. And really honing in my Spanish enough to be like, oh, I can really get by in a Spanish speaking country, which I didn't know. I was like, oh, okay. I know enough ghetto Spanish to not die
41:39 SPEAKER_03 in these ports. So yeah, that was mine. What about you?
41:43 SPEAKER_01 It is one thing to have, as we all have, traveled the world, but you'll be in a city for a day and you see the back. I know what the Ramada looked like. I know what the backstage of a theater looks like. And I know what the hotel looks like. And I smell the air and I'm like, that's both different. So I've been to all these amazing places that I definitely want to go back to on vacation. I don't do a bunch of vacations because I'm usually traveling to work. But I will say most memorable one thus far that I can think of in this moment is went to Colorado with a group of my closest girlfriends from childhood. Those the four of us. How old were you? Well, this was just in 2021 when I went with them. But I mean, we've known each other since forever. They're my girlfriends from Dallas. And the four of us planned this trip as young women, which we had never done a little ladies trip like that. And I don't know, it was amazing. We were in Vail, Colorado. We went on all these hikes and just bonded and got that special time because a lot of my relationships here, I would say, are professional relationships. It is a very professional town. You know, and sometimes it's like, I also need to make sure I have a life and that I'm living and I have like meaningful relationships because that is what makes you a better writer and singer and artist is having a life. And for so long, like my own like ambition, it could get in the way of me actually living. Yeah. Yeah. And so that just felt like this thing I never would have done in my past. But after touring for so many years and missing things, there's that moment you hit where you're like, I'm not going to take a tour. I'm going to go on this trip with my girlfriends who
43:25 SPEAKER_03 soon they'll be married. They'll have kids like this is our time. Yeah. Take the opportunity. It's special. Ariana Grande, I saw it came across. She was like, I have people think I'm a singer. She said, no, I have, I have one job. My only job is self care. If I can't, if I do not do self care, everything underneath that falls in some way, shape or form. I love that. And it's almost where you're simplifying it down, you know, into a way it's like, that's all I got to keep telling myself. Am I giving myself self care here? You know, when I get upset about something and I, and I get into a reactory state rather than a proactive state. Because we give, we give, give, give a lot. Yeah. Especially if you're empathetic and you're open and you're kind of always trying to channel like
44:02 SPEAKER_01 as artists, I feel like. That's our job on stage. Right. If we're depleted, there's nothing left to give. Uh, we fail at our job. Yeah. That's just how it goes. Yeah. Self care is this, you know,
44:14 SPEAKER_03 it's not selfish. My favorite vacation, uh, was one that I just had because we, you're right, we were on the road for so long. The only time that we could get time to do it was in December in between the, because my wife is in the entertainment industry as well. And, and it was, it would be this small window. And what we realized after a couple of years of doing it is we're moving at such a fast pace all the time. Like our lives are based on a dynamic I-Cal schedule, you know, that is, you know, this is way long. This is just the modern day at which you figure out and you use the tools to, to work and it works. And we've kind of figured that out, but the first five days of the vacation, six, seven days would just be coming down off the ride. That the, the sort of down of just trying to, trying to detox. And for me, for me, I was like, I noticed a specific place and observing each other where it was like, we needed four or five days because we've been doing this for so long just to get there. And then by the time you do it, it's time to come back and get right back into it. So it wasn't until the location that are like three weeks long. Well, the, you're exactly Europeans. They figured out the sort of the spirit part of it. It's baked into the culture and everything, but I, I, my favorite vacation was to just to Mexico where get down, I just need to see water and, and, you know, detox and, but now post pandemic, I've realized that the detoxing is something I have to do every day in little bits, you know, because you play tennis, right? I do. I play tennis, I smoke weed. I do whatever I got to do to, to not kill some people because some people deserve an ass whooping a lot of times, you know what I'm saying? And, and it's like one of those things where I've, it was also Kabbalah day one of Kabbalah, shout out to Ty Taylor. You know, anything happens, anything, anything you just pause. What a pleasure. And when I actually internalized that, you don't just, you don't make a move. And when you find yourself making a move, that's automatic, like that motherfucker, he caught a cut in front of me in traffic, right? It's like, no, peace be with him. Paul's what a pleasure. No, I'm lucky to be here and alive and be, and it just changed. And it, so you shut that down and it's like, pause. What a pleasure. And if it changed my life. So I've, I've found that now in a lot of other, I just finished reading the Bhagavad Gita and it was like, I found this in other, especially Eastern religions and stuff like that, but it really is, it's all, you know, it's, we are each other and it's, you know, it's God or whatever you want to call it's inside. And then there's this field on the outside that is energy that is, you know, we know it, we know it. It's there's the scientific part and then there's the hoodoo, voodoo part, whatever it is that gets you to connect to it or whatever. We're empathetic people. So we're, we're really, we really, it, you know, it comes through and I, and I know, it takes, I like this, this has actually been a therapy today for, for myself. And I appreciate that because it's, because it's, I don't know that we actually get to talk about a lot of the
46:58 SPEAKER_02 frustrations that are just baked into this entertainment industry. Well, I think that that's the whole point is that, you know, and hope, I hope that in this podcast, we're setting up forums to be more supportive of artists and of each other because you're right. Comradery is what
47:13 SPEAKER_03 gets us through and what gets us by. So I think we have time for one more card and Rick hit it up. What are your favorite apps? Apps? Apps. Appetizers or apps? Apps like, like computer apps. Like mine's easy. Come on Tinder. Shout out to fucking, no, no, no, it's Grinder. No, I'm just playing. Yeah, no. My favorite app is, although I actually enjoy watching on the road, both of those apps operate through other people. It's, it's amazing. It is an amazing thing to watch. Like you could make a whole show out of that, but my favorite app is probably the voice recorder. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like, like you lose so much in text, you lose so much in email, you don't know tone and anything like that. And I've just, I've just become where voice memos are sort of my love
48:03 SPEAKER_01 language. And that's a huge one. Yeah. I was gonna, those are not my love language, but I adapt to y'all. That's like, like, like when you have an idea, when you're writing a thingy, I don't know, I was just talking to somebody last night about how, how do people write songs before a voice note, before a voice recorder. Exactly. Anyway, what's your favorite app? Probably notes. That's all right. I mean, I write down just, it's like anything I need, reminders. I'll think of
48:26 SPEAKER_02 like a joke or something. Yeah. I feel like notes is more like, I don't even feel like that counts as a favorite app because like, cause my favorite app is eBay, but like I need notes. Notes is like my left hand. Like I can't live without notes, but like we talking favorites. Like, well he said voice recorder that I was like, Oh, we're going there. See, but that's again, I love voice recorder and I need that. I need her. She's, she, she on my day one, like she, she on my team team, but like favorite, favorite, E, Bizzle, my, and is all that's different from me. Cause I also need that rain app. Like, you know, when you're, oh, dang it, I forgot, no, I forgot to bring it for you. I got you a thing specifically this, cause you know how I, yes, because no, I've been on tour with you and I was like, I'm gonna kill her. She leaves the phone off the hook or she leave like the door. I like, you would leave like the light on or something. I was just like, no, it was you, you would make me like, or you leave radio noise on to like have white noise. And I found this thing and gives you eight different tonals of mission. And I forgot it, but I will give it to you.
49:31 SPEAKER_01 Cause I bet I have it. No, it's a portable one. So you can put it in your little luggage. I love white noise. I know I hear silence and I'm like, yeah, and then I know it comes out.
49:42 SPEAKER_02 And I'm like, I'm the exact opposite. So being your tour mate was like a living nightmare because I wear headphones. Now you do. But when you first toured, no, you did not. Was that me? No. Yeah, baby. Me and Danny, Jack, Danny, we trained to juice as well. We trained to do well, but you know what? Use an adaptable, adaptable, wonderful, wonderful, shwundable persons. And I want to big shout out to you because you are phenomenal and it's a pleasure to watch you elevate and grow for a few reasons. I've always believed one that you do best in your life when you have mentors that are both 10 years older than you and 10 years younger than you. So I know you think of me as like somebody that you ask for for advice, but I think the same of you. So thank you. And two, it's a pleasure to see you be the architect of your growth because I think that's very important. So before we go, how can everybody find you and what are all your social handles and
50:47 SPEAKER_03 what are the best ways to connect with you? Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming in studio. It means a lot to be in the same energy space. It's more different
50:59 SPEAKER_01 than zoom. We're by so fast. I know. We'll do this again real soon. Happy to. Instagram is the best place to find me. Olivia.cooper.harris. My middle name is spelled like super with a K. And it's just spelled differently with a K. It's just Olivia.cooper.harris. And from there,
51:19 SPEAKER_03 you can kind of find everything because I have a link in my bio. Perfection. Ladies and gentlemen and non-binary pals, Miss Olivia.cooper.harris. Thank you again so much. Slap the Power is written and produced by me, Rick Bario-Dill and by Maya Sykes, executive producer, Duff Ferguson. Our senior producer is Sabrina Seward, associate producer, Bree Corey, audio and video engineering and studio facilities provided by Slap Studios LA with distribution through our collective home for social progress and art, Slap the Network. If you have ideas for a show you want to hear or see or you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info at slapthepower.com.