Revolutionizing Music: Don Rodriguez's Vision for Independent Artists and Ownership

In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we welcome Don Rodriguez, a visionary music producer and founder of the iandi Music Studio. Don shares his transformative journey from real estate to the music industry, where he has redefined the traditional record label model to empower independent artists. With a groundbreaking contract that allows artists to retain ownership of their masters and compositions, Don is changing the game for musicians looking to navigate the complexities of today's music landscape.
Join us as we delve into the importance of having a record label, the challenges independent artists face in being heard amidst millions of new songs, and the necessity of quality production in achieving musical success. Don explains the unique features of his studio, the value of publishing, and how he is building a catalog of independent artists' music to connect them with opportunities in the entertainment industry. This episode is a must-listen for aspiring musicians and anyone interested in the evolving world of music production.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The importance of independent artists owning their music
- How to navigate the challenges of being heard in a crowded market
- The role of a producer in an artist's career
- Insights into the music publishing process and why it matters
- How Don's innovative contract model benefits artists

Transcript

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome, to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by Don Rodriguez, who is a music producer and founder of the I Music Studio. It is a recording studio, record label and music publisher for independent artists. Don has created a new contract to where the artists keep their masters in publishing and the record label collects the points. This is a 180 degree flip from how the industry has been ran for the past seven years. I'm definitely looking forward to this conversation. And for all of you artists out there, independent artists tune in as well, because this is going to be interesting. So Don, thank you for joining me.

>> Don Rodriguez: 1:10

Thanks for having me, Curtis. It's an honor to be on your podcast and talk about my music studio and my new contract.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 1:16

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

>> Don Rodriguez: 1:20

Well, I was born and raised in Houston and moved, to Las Vegas when I was 22 years old. So I've been here for about 30 years. And let's see, I've, been in real estate and real estate development and construction for all of my time in Las Vegas up until the last two years when I decided to take a, a new turn, a pivot in my career and put all of my attention into my music and producing the music of other independent artists.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 1:53

Well, talk to the listeners about your recording studio and record label and tell us how you got started.

>> Don Rodriguez: 2:00

Yeah, so originally, I started as a rehearsal studio. Well, actually even before that, it started as just a jam session place where my friends and I could get together and jam out. I'm a second, generation musician and my father plays, a host of instruments. He plays by ear. I play by ear as well, but I only play a few instruments. But, so we would gather here and jam out. And then, when my son was taking guitar lessons, they needed a rehearsal studio for a, what do you call that when they all get together and do a. Oh, gosh, it sips my mind. Anyway, they were gonna, they were gonna host a recital. That's it. So my son's guitar lesson group was going to host a recital and they were looking for a rehearsal space. So we went into Vegas to find one. And the rehearsal spaces in Vegas were not very pleasant, kind of in CD neighborhoods and just not a place you wanted to bring your kids. So then after that experience, I decided to turn in my jam session area into a recording studio. This is a commercial facility by the way. a rehearsal studio I should say. And so then we started using it as rehearsal studio. And then I would say about two years ago I decided to turn it into a recording studio which is, if you know anything about recording masters, it's a completely different setup than what you would do for rehearsals. We went from a studio in which we would record our rehearsals to a studio where we record masters now. So, that's where we are right now. We're on the soundstage where we record instruments. we have a couple of MIDI devices here, but for the most part, I would say 99.9% we use instruments. The big heavy things that you see behind me. We play with our hands and sing with our voices all.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 3:49

Ah, right. Well, talk about why you feel like it's necessary for independent artists to have a record label.

>> Don Rodriguez: 3:58

Yeah, so when I first got into the music industry, or into the music scene, I should say, I was going to produce my own music. And I'm a little bit of a deep diver, after being a 20 year entrepreneur. So I, I kind of dug into the ins and outs of the music industry and I found that for starters, having a record label gives you a sense of credit credibility, unlike being an independent artist. The easiest way to put it is, I'll say it this way, if the record industry and the music industry, the pros have any idea or have any inclination that you might be funded by your grandma, then it's less likely to get your music into the big arenas and the big playlists and, and get a big spotlight on your music. and that's really important because today's challenge is being heard. It's not so much a challenge of making music anymore. I've got a record, a recording studio here as you can see, but there's probably five other recording studios within a 10 mile radius of here in people's homes. It's not like when we were younger, becoming a, music artist and getting into a recording studio seemed like something that was impossible. Today lots of people have recording studios, but the new challenge is being heard. And I find that to be exponentially harder because there's about a hundred thousand new songs uploaded to streaming platforms a day. So that's a million songs in 10 days. So if m, if I as a music artist am, on an aggressive schedule of releasing one new song a month and any artist will agree that's an aggressive schedule, then I have to know that I am one song among 3 million songs going up that month. If I have a more realistic schedule of one new song every two months, then I am one song among 6 million new singles going up that month. So that's when we talk about, being heard is so important and being identified among the millions of songs going up. We start to take steps and measures to make it to where we have the best possibility of being heard. One of those is being a label. So I registered as a label, right. So that we could get that credibility. So we could be listed, our artist, could be viewed as independent artists. Yes. But, among a label with other professionals. Right. And that's really what a label says. You are among professionals. And professional musicians don't really work with a whole lot of people. You would be surprised. You might think that, okay, well, in today's music industry, I need some bass players and some drummers and some guitar players and I'll just call some people up and pay them. You would be very, very, very surprised how difficult it is to find quality studio musicians. And when you do, if you're an indie, they don't really want to work with you because believe it or not, they've worked with lots and lots and lots of people. some of the drummers and guitarists and pianists that I've worked with have worked with some of the biggest artists in the country, in the world. And so it's not so simple as to say, well, I'll just pay somebody to play the guitar. Right. So that becomes a challenge in and of itself, getting studio quality musicians. Which is why the world shifted over to MIDI devices. And MIDI devices, if you're not familiar, these are the computer generated sounds. This is a guitar that is programmed in a computer, a program. And when you hit a button, it makes a guitar sound in the key of C, then C sharp, then D, D, you know, so on and so on. And so these, these devices are very clean sounding and a lot of kids, a lot of implemented them into, and they're great. Why? Because it's been very difficult to find, good quality musicians. Anyway, I'm kind of all over the place.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 7:59

Talk about your record contract. Let, let the listeners know about your record contract and how unique it is and how you got it started, how it works.

>> Don Rodriguez: 8:10

Thank you. I shall. In my record contract, the independent artist owns their masters in compositions. And this is essentially 180 degree turn, flip from what the record industry operates now in today's modern record industry, typically the label owns the masters and the publisher owns the composition. And that's a fancy way of stating that, your music's not owned by you. And the reason it's not is because typically the music is produced, in the studio by the label and it's distributed by the publisher. And therefore because of that they have certain rights to the music. And one of the things that the music industry does right off the bat to perpetuate their ownership of music in general is to offer artists a sign in bonus. And this signing bonus, let's say it's a million dollars, the signing bonus is basically an advance against the future earnings of your record. But in addition to that, it's going to cost money to produce your record in the studio and the label is going to pay for that as well. But in addition to that, it's going to cost money to put you out on the music festivals and touring with all the other people so that you can get your name out there and you can start to get followers and listeners, fans, etc. And all of that costs money. So by the time you actually make a record and you actually have some songs that sound great, your music is in debt well over a million dollars. And so for modern day artists, the only way to get out of that debt is to perform, perform, perform. It's such a penny in a barrel in today's society to perform your way out of music debt or contractual music debt. Because many of them, today's music contracts have 360 deals in which what that means is a fancy way of saying that the label takes a cut of wherever you perform your music, even if it's a live venue not associated with the label or the publisher. And so it becomes difficult for the artist to recoup all of their money and pay off all of that debt. in addition to that, you know, they run into things like, you know, performing other people's music. That was a big thing when I was, when I was young. Artists wanted creative license. That means that they wanted to record only the songs, that they wanted to record only their music, they didn't want to be forced other people's music. And so that became a thing and that was great and it went their way. But, but even so, if a label has a 10 song minimum and they've had you on tour for the last year and they say, okay, hey, you know, we're right, we're ready to exercise this option, which is another red flag, for another record, we need another 10 songs and say, well, I've, I've Been on, I've been on tour. I haven't really had a chance to write. I've got about seven songs. Well now all of a sudden you need three songs and you're up against the deadline contractually and so I guess it looks like you're going to be singing other people's songs. So this is kind of how the record industry works and this is how artists kind of get pigeonholed and stuck into these contracts. Contractually they're in debt against their music. they don't own their music outright because the funding of the project itself, the recording studio and the publishing was done by the label and the, and the publisher respectively. And so the artist is just there essentially. they become an employee of the record label. And so in my contract I explain all of that just to come back to my contract. In my contract the artist does own 100 of their masters, the sound recordings and their compositions which is the publishing 100 of the time. And the label is, takes the royalty and not the other way around. we also do not offer a sign in bonus. We do not give you money against future earnings of your, of your record. that's just putting your, your record in an unfair disadvantage. What we do instead is give you studio credits. so what I'll do is I'll say hey, I'm going to give you 120 hours in the studio for you to make your record. That is recoupable by me. So in a way it's debt but it's a, it's not out of pocket debt and it's not you know, cash debt. So the other thing is, labels are notorious for recouping that debt 100%. before the artist is able to recoup anything. And that doesn't happen here either. At my studio we have ah, our contract, our recoupment. If we fund a studio credit we recoup that at 50% while you also get paid 50% on your M music. That's from day one. and then second to that are publishing. I started a publishing company because that was another one of those tiers that made independent music stand out. if you're associated with the a real publisher and sound exchange, or I'm sorry sungtrust is great. but they're an online publishing. They're, they're not really a concierge publisher. You register with songtrust and they are a great publishing agency and all their music is there. For more astute independent artists. I find that they are registered on Songtrust, which is great. At least you're among the 10% of artists that understand what publishing is and how you need it. but what we did is start a more concierge publishing agency. And so in addition to have an independent artist record their masters here, we have independent artists joining our publishing catalog. And with this concierge catalog, we're going to go out and hit up, you know, music supervisors for Hollywood and other producers and other agencies and try and get the music placed in, documentaries, movies, series, that kind of stuff. So that's kind of our approach. if you're, if you're following along. I've kind of built the model of a record label publisher and contract that I would want as an independent artist because I am an independent artist. So when I was building the contract, this was what I had in mind. What would I want? And I'm not going to go ahead and say that it works, you know, because we're, we're still getting started, you know, I would think that the big labels are probably looking at a label like mine and laughing and saying, this guy's going to be out of business in three to five years. And they might be right. But, I'm a 20 year entrepreneur and so I did take a different angle, at the revenue source for the label. And what I mean by that is, the reason that labels, own the music of the artists and they won't let it go is because they have put all of the product in the music itself. Right. So the only thing that the label produces is just this music by an artist, that's the only product they have. And everyone's writing the coattails of that one product. And so at my label I've created different revenue streams that are the label itself so that I'm not writing the coattails of music that's produced here. So that's a long, probably a long winded version of explaining kind of how my studio works. But hopefully if you're following along, following along, if you're an independent artist, you probably understand everything that I just said.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 15:36

Well, something that you said that was interesting. You say only 10% of what others know about publishing and why they need it. So explain for the 90% who don't know, what publishing is and why they need it.

>> Don Rodriguez: 15:51

Publishing is probably one of the more confusing M careers and confusing product models, that are out there. I'm going to try and explain it as simply as I can. right now we are Creating this podcast in video and in sound, and it is live and you own the master recording of this podcast once we are done. However, if it were only live and television and recordings did not exist, the only thing that would matter is that one live airing. But that's not the way reality is. Reality is that we can replay these things over and over and over again. And because of that reality, it creates a different side of every piece of art that is created. It creates recorded art, I should say, both video and audio. It creates not only the recording itself, what you hear with your ears and the version of it, but it also creates the underlying composition of that same recording. The music, the text, the vocabulary, the melodies, the harmonies if it's a song, right? So because of this, for every song that a songwriter creates, there is two sides to that one song coin, right? What I like to say is $2 to every piece of music there is the master recording dollar that you earn from streaming and, and downloads and, and, and that stuff that everybody likes, right? Most of the independent artists that you know will record their master and upload it to Distrokid and they'll say, awesome, it's out there. And maybe perhaps if they've, if they've properly set up the payment channels, they'll collect some streaming revenue from the playing of that song. But as any independent artist will tell you, it's very limited. Almost nothing. That is $1 that you could be collecting off of that piece of music. The other dollar comes from the composition, which is the publishing side of the same piece of music. And in that dollar, you need to register with pros and you need to get your song, collecting. You need to make sure that the channels, with your professional rights organizations are also collecting for your publishing. And this is where most artists do not know. They do not know how to register with BMI or ASCAP, SoundExchange, MLC, these other places where the publishing dollar comes into play and every time a song is streamed, you also begin to collect that dollar. So here at my music studio, we created a recording studio, a, ah, record label and a publisher, all for independent artists. And we collect both dollars of the music, right? Both sides. And we collect a royalty as a label on the music, not ownership. We don't own it. We only collect a, royalty points.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 20:20

Well, I know you talk about how important it is for an independent artist to have a producer these days. Why do you feel that way? Why can't they just learn how to make their beats and mix and Master their own stuff,

>> Don Rodriguez: 20:35

you know, they can. And it just depends what level you want to reach. Right. I've been. I was a contractor for 18 years, a general contractor, with the license commercial. We built commercial buildings, right? And there was a point in time where I was a handyman. And when I was a handyman, I did everything myself. And as I grew and reached other levels, I began to hand off things. For example, I remember, as a young contractor, the very, very first thing that I wanted to get rid of off my plate, I never wanted to do it again, was drywall. I never wanted to hang drywall again. I never wanted to spray texture tape. None of it, not any of it. And so as a young contractor, I would think as soon as I can offload drywall, I'm, going to. And so eventually I did. But not only drywall, other things too. Eventually I became a general contractor where we were building large, multi million dollar commercial projects. Right? So I would apply that same logic to the music industry. If you want to produce one song every six months, and I just described you one song among 12 million uploads, or maybe that was 24 million uploads, if we're doing the math, then by all means do it. But if you have more music than that, if you have. Right now I was talking to an independent artist here in my studio. We're talking about recorded masters. He says he's got 20 songs. Pardon me, that's my computer. He says he's got 20 songs. If you've got 20 songs, you absolutely have to have a producer because you're never going to get to all 20 of those songs by yourself. The reason you have a producer, the reason an artist needs a producer, is because artists are artsy fartsy. And we would just go around gigging for free and talk about our lyrics and what they meant and, you know, get pats on the back and stuff like that. But, if you want to achieve the next level, if you want to make multiple songs, if you want to create an album, if you want to release an album a year or two, then you need to offload a lot of those responsibilities. And now in this day and age, it's even harder than it's ever been. I hear a lot of people say, oh, you don't need a label. Okay, maybe that's true. But you cannot get away without a producer. You just can't because you have all of this social media content to create. So if you are going to be right in the lyrics and writing the melodies and putting the chord progressions together. And you're going to be in the studio recording and you're also going to be creating social media content because it's not the producer who's creating social media. Nobody wants to see him or her. Right. It's you in the social media content. So that's got to be you too. Then, then how many songs are you realistically going to make in a month? In six months? So I would say if you are an independent artist who wants a career in music, you need to find a producer and you need to find a studio. And the reason is because you need a studio to go to when you need to go to a studio. and there are a lot of home studios. I'm not knocking that. This just happens to be a commercial studio with commercial business and scheduling and, and open to the public. You contact me and we'll get you scheduled. So. But you do need a studio, right? Even if it's your home studio. So you need a studio and you need a producer who can take all of these tracks as they come in and say, okay, there's a song in here and we need to get a guitarist and a bass player and we need a violin and maybe a harp goes right here. And producer hears these things and, and understands what this the song should be. And you may not always agree with the producer. That's. That happens, right? So it's important to find someone who hears music the way you hear music. That would be question number one. For, for, for any producer that you're interviewing is, not who have you worked with? Because right now there's so many young, young producers, right? Okay, fine, maybe you've worked with no one. That doesn't exclude you. But who do you like? Tell me who you grew up with. Tell me your musical influences as a child and tell me who you like now and then let me see if we have things in common, because that's where we're going to understand if you hear what I hear, right? I have a, composer that I work with named Lisa's awesome. I mean, I love working. She, she hears what I hear without saying it. Oh, there should be a crescendo right there. Oh, boom and decor. You know, she hears it, I hear it. We don't have to, you know, this is what you need to find if, if you are an independent artist looking for a produce, someone who hears music like you do and can, take off of your shoulders a lot of the production work of music because you can do those beats and you can, you can sit there in your computer all night long and drink, coffee and burn bone, burn both ends of the candle. I do all the time. Last night, night before. But you know, it's hard to make music if you're doing that too, you know. It's hard.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 26:10

Well, speaking of that, you talked about the studio. what is the difference between your studio and a home studio?

>> Don Rodriguez: 26:19

well, there's more space here, so I don't know. I don't have any, any effects on the microphone at all. And you can probably hear I have a natural large studio reverb. It took me a long, long time to, to get that perfect sound reverb off my voice with nothing else. And I had to build sound baffles and stuff like that. So I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, I guess, I have a, a sound booth here. So if you want to record vocals in a sound booth, if we, if we need really tight vocals, we'll go into the sound booth and record vocals there. We have a podcast studio there. Also behind the big logo, I have what I call Studio B. In Studio B is a dance studio and a photography studio. So we do electronic press kits in there and choreography. We'll bring in dancers and choreography if, if you're a pop artist and you're into that. So that's the difference with my studio. podcasting, vocals, full band mic, microphone, drum kits, that kind of stuff. At a home studio, I guess I would say you're probably more computer generated devices right here. I have these real congas right here and they're mic'd up and we play real instruments and real drums. It gets super loud in here. I've cleared off this entire stage behind me and put in an entire 10 piece mariachi band with overhead microphones. We recorded and everything. We had microphones like this right in front of the violins. So my studio is, is bigger is for that. Right? It's that design, to take on full bands. As we're in a home studio. You know, you might have a really good location for recording vocals, which is important. That's good. Again, I'm never dogging home studios. Home studios are great. but you're, you're usually pressed to get a lot of band members in there. And, and if, and when you do, the room is smaller. Right. this here I have 12 foot ceilings and we're 30 foot wide by 100 foot deep. So here is, it's a bigger space, but not, not as big as like an auditorium space where you would get a ton of reverb that you're going to have to filter out in post production. And in a house or in a garage, you have the opposite problem. You need a ton of compression while you're recording in those spaces because you've got the drummer and the bass player and the guitar player and it's all noise and it's a tie. You're going to be fighting compression problems all the time in post production. So, if you're in that small studio and you're, you're working with live instruments, compress the hell out. Everything going in compress. Every feed, every single one of them over compress. You cannot have enough headroom if you're playing live in a small room. Anyway, now I'm, I'm going off in the technical end.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 29:21

Well, can you help, artists who've already released music?

>> Don Rodriguez: 29:25

Yes, yes. As a matter of fact, it's my favorite thing to talk about. Because if you've already released music, that's fine. I would love to include you on, in my publishing catalog. Right. So like I said in the beginning, I'm building a publishing catalog of independent artists. And it is free to onboard right now because I just started and, I say free, quote, unquote. That's assuming that I don't have to fix anything. And for the most part, if I listen to your music, I'll tell you right away if we need to fix anything. there's two things to fix. Usually it's usually the master engineering and then, maybe, or maybe not the metadata, the information assigned with your music.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 30:03

Right.

>> Don Rodriguez: 30:04

But, but yes, if you have already released music and you need it copyrighted and you need it, you want to, you want to, you think it'd be great in a documentary or a Netflix movie or something. Yeah, this is what I'm going for. I'm building a catalog of independent artists and their music because I believe, and this is just my own theory, Curtis, but I believe that the reason that AI music is so prevalent is because Hollywood needs that music. And the reason that Hollywood needs that music is because as an independent artist, I'm over here fighting for streams and followers and stuff. But think about if you're like Sony Pictures or Netflix or Amazon, you are fighting for millions of viewers every single day. And, it's like this huge battle on this big epic level, way above our heads. And so the reason I say that is because. Because they're in this epic battle of content and production at all these major studios around the country and around the world. They're constant. They're in constant need of music. They are in constant need of music. Just turn on your favorite random reality show or quiz show and just listen to how much music there is in, in a documentary or regular show on Netflix. There's a ton of music. Every scene change, it's about, honestly, because I, I know a little bit about TV production. It's about 10 to 12 seconds. Sound of music change, background music change, change, change. And because of that, there is a constant need for constant music in all of these productions in these big huge studios. We're not talking about us. I'm talking about big major players. And I believe that has given rise to AI music because those studios are producing content on an epic level way above our heads. They're in constant need. And we don't have our. As independent artists. We don't have our ducks in a row legally. I mean, we have music. And I could pick up this guitar and we can, I can play something. Hey, you want to hear a song? Here I wrote, blah blah blah. Here's a song.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 32:15

Great.

>> Don Rodriguez: 32:16

Awesome, Don. But who cares? you need, you need to be able to trade that commodity on the open market. And publishing is the way you do that. Publishing is a way that the entertainment industry, industry trades these commodities of compositions and TV shows, music, documentaries, you name it. And let me give you a for instance and because I know this stuff is kind of over people's head, but have you ever noticed that a show will be on Netflix and then something will pop up and it'll say, this is the last month this show is going to be on Netflix, and then the following month it's on Hulu. You're like, okay, it's on Hulu. Now this is publishing. These are big, huge publishing houses trading catalogs, buying catalogs back and forth. And they do it all the time because they need to, because they can't just have the same crap all the time. And so this is the magic of publishing and this is what I'm saying. We're going to get your music into that trading market of music that's out there. That's what publishing does.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 33:27

So, if somebody wanted to artists wanted to get into your publishing catalog, what do they need to do?

>> Don Rodriguez: 33:33

They need to email me at admin Studio. That's a D M M I n at I A N D I M M U S I c dot S T U D I o adminimusic studio and just say, hey, I heard about your publishing, man. I want to be in your catalog and say, man, that's great. I love you because I'm building a catalog. You know, we want to get up to 100 compositions and then after 100, a thousand compositions. And I think once we get to a thousand, well, once we get to 100 compositions, we can start registering on some major platforms around the world as, as a publisher. And once we get to a thousand compositions, then we will, we will be able to qualify to get into some, some music supervising houses and some publishing houses. And, and what that means is the larger our catalog becomes, the more people start to take a look in there. All right, let me see. What kind of music do you have in there? Do you have anything I can use for a western? Do you have anything I can use for a murder mystery? You see what I mean? And so that's what we're doing. And I'm trying to bridge that link. If I didn't communicate that well enough, I'm trying to bridge that link between the demand that Hollywood has for constant music and all of this freaking independent artist music that's out there. I mean, it's crazy how many songs, just independent music is out there. And if we can clean it up and we can get our metadata in place and we can get registered with the pros, and if we can get, get our music included as part of a publishing catalog, then we can bridge that gap between the demand and all of this supply of independent music that's sitting over here. But it's unsellable because it's not, it's not clear in the. You call it clear. Music is cleared, right? Means it's ready to sell. There's not going to be a hassle of, well, I got the beats from this, I downloaded the beats from this thing over here. Oh, and that little piece over here, it's like a, a clipped out of a movie. Blah. You can't have that. Right? I'm just, just going to tell you. If you're an independent artist and you're like, oh man, I want my music. If you have a bunch of sampled beats that you purchase off the Internet, this is, this is one of those scenarios that would create work and that would eliminate the free right. And I'm just going to be honest with you now, you can, you can clean it up yourself. But there is, there is some legal, some legalities, to be had with, with how you acquire that music and get in the proper releases so that you can also sell your music. And now I'm talking about specifically people who have downloaded beats off the Internet, who or who have used AI because now it's been deemed that AI music is not copyrightable. So if. If this is some of your music, either beats or underlying harmonies or melodies have been created by AI or you downloaded them as samples, we've got to clean that up. And I'll tell you how we do that on the sample side. If you downloaded them, you just got to tell me where you downloaded them. I have a checklist. I'll email you and say, all right, let's talk about your music. Tell me where you downloaded the samples. We'll contact those people a lot of times. A lot, A lot of times. As long as you can contact them and get a release, you'll be fine. secondly, if that doesn't work, then guess what we do in this studio. We recreate the underlying beats as our own. We create new beats, that are very, very, very super awesome. Very similarly close to the ones that are in your music already that you downloaded, if that makes sense. and then with regard to AI, it's that second option also, right? If you say, well, I got this song, it was a poem, and I put it to music, I had AI create some music, It's a poem that I wrote, and now it's a song. Okay, great. No problem with the music that AI created, we've got to recreate here in the studio, right? The option B. So option A is getting releases, option B is recreating the music ourselves here in the studio and then getting your music out there. So sometimes it can be some work. If you've done, like, all of those beats and stuff and you've downloaded stuff. Might be a little bit of work. Not going to say it's not. But this is the, this is the other level I'm talking about. If that sounds like too much work for you, it's fine. Then stay creating your beats and downloading your beats and making your stuff and, and being the hit at parties, which is great. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with being a handyman. It's just, what do you want? That's what I would ask.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 38:10

Well, throw out your contact info so, people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

>> Don Rodriguez: 38:15

Thank you. I'm passionate. Thank you, Curtis. my contact info. Yes. So again, the email address is admin at I and Imusic Studio. That's a d m m I n I A N D I M M U S I C Studio St U Dio. And, that's the easiest way to contact me. And you can follow me on Instagram. That's also I and Imusic Studio, Super Simple Facebook and I, Music Studio. And if you want to check out the artists that we work with, if you'd like to check out the, artists that we work with, you can visit our YouTube channel. And that is the I and I Music Studio, all spelled out one word, the Eye and I Music Studio. And, there you'll find the Soundstage Live playlist. And, that's where, we host artists here on the Soundstage and they play their original music. So we've got more, we've got videos out there already of some of our artists and we've got more and more coming out every day. And, if you are an artist that needs to make music, contact me the email address or DM Me M on Instagram. I'm on Instagram more than anything. I'll be honest with you. Tik Tok is a little, it's a little too much for me. And you know, I'm a boomer, so Tick Tocks is a little, a little too much. And Facebook is a little too slow. You know, I'm a generous Generation X guy. So Facebook is a little too, you know, a little too slow for me. And, Tick Tock is just way too fast. I'm a, I'm a side street guy. Instagram.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 39:50

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. So our artists want to get into that, publishing catalog and keep up with everything that I and I and Don is up to. There's the contact info. Follow Rate Review Share this information to as many people as possible, especially them independent artists. Visit www.craveball337.com if you haven't already done so, sign up for the newsletter. If you have any guests, suggestions or anything like that, that's the place to leave it. Leave us a review. Share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Don, thank you for all that you do for independent artists. And thank you for joining me.

>> Don Rodriguez: 40:30

Thank you, Curtis. It's been a pleasure. Wichita. I love you.

>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball): 40:34

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.crave curveball337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.