Russ Reveals Evil Secrets of Music Industry, How Artists FAKE Streams, & Problem with Drug Culture

Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh

Comedy

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2024

⏱️ 232 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yerrrrrr, Russ came through to hang with the Flagrant crew and talk about how major musician labels are faking streams, what race he REALLY is, his new favorite place to travel and how he's handling his success. All that and much much more on this week's Flagrant episode. INDULGE 00:00 Intro 00:52 Russ responsible for standup clips 02:11 Boardroom Performances 05:07 Labels tricking streams + cost for a no. 1 10:17 Relationship between labels & streaming platforms 12:04 Audit your label 16:37 By pointing the finger, people question you 20:35 Major artists not selling tickets 24:04 Being independent + “Advance” economics 35:27 Worth of 1m streams & Drake's catalogue 43:27 Perception of Residencies + Soft tickets 46:42 Labels aren't happy with Russ 48:35 Radio's role, Stadiums + Ed Sheeran performance 52:54 Smallest crowd + delusional self-belief 55:02 Learning to make a good show 57:39 Feeling pressure + disassociating on stage 1:01:50 Pyramids, banned songs & Kuwait shows 1:07:12 Everyone's human + Japan is odd 1:09:03 Russ in India + racially ambiguous benefits 1:15:30 Fairly Odd Asians? Memories of Japan 1:23:20 Visiting Marrakech, Switzerland + Santorini 1:30:11 Using money to change realities 1:36:26 What excites Russ now? + Living by other's standards 1:39:55 Impact of therapy + discomfort is necessary 1:47:27 Gauging how much to reveal 1:49:41 Ego v self-mastery + process of achieving that 1:59:35 Billboard's rules took sales away 2:02:09 "I love you boy" was progress for Russ 2:04:53 Russ' thoughts on Mos Def v Drake 2:08:57 White people's fascination of black trauma 2:12:58 Faking dangerous lifestyles is evil 2:17:15 The only time Russ lied in raps 2:17:55 Real impact of faking v society's own accountability 2:42:44 Rick Rubin's true impact = taste 2:54:17 Kanye has TASTE 2:57:46 Good music forgives everything + Ye repeats without thinking 3:02:53 Using more empathy 3:04:20 Japan owns everything 3:07:12 J Prince's power + everyone understands violence 3:13:42 Creating next star + what is counter-culture? 3:21:37 Labels need Hip-Hop to succeed 3:25:26 Russ leaving Columbia + ebbs and flow of music industry 3:31:59 What is an industry plant? Benefits from insecurity 3:39:32 Success doesn't make you immune + sensitivity = super power 3:47:30 Where is Russ in 20 years?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Why do the labels make the artist do those boardroom performances?
0:04.0	Here's how those go.
0:05.0	Who's the most fake at?
0:06.0	Of course you're going to lose the art because people aren't doing it for the art anymore, they're doing it for the bad.
0:10.0	And this is not me speculating.
0:12.0	This is me talking to like top five most streamed
0:14.8	artists in the world and them talking to CEOs and CEOs admitting and me on the
0:19.2	phone with like the dude who fakes the stream. Nicki spoke on future saying when I talked to future he told me he wasn't even doing
0:25.4	the drugs that he talks about.
0:26.5	I think futures music is amazing but I also know that the reason why I wanted to
0:30.4	try lean when I was 19 was future.
0:33.2	We have seen it live in the flesh.
0:34.9	Juice World said, I did drugs because of you.
0:37.4	Juice World died of a drug overdose
0:39.8	by following somebody who does not even do the drugs
0:42.0	that they said they did.
0:43.0	And she almost fought for a believe in it.
0:44.4	No, no, no, no, no, no.
0:45.0	Start a chapter one.
0:45.8	Why are you perpetuating something you're not doing?
0:47.8	Bro when this goes out, I'm getting flamed.
0:50.1	What's up everybody, welcome to flaygrant. Now, listen, if you hate seeing stand-up
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.