Shawn Cotton on Charleston White Betraying Him, Why NBA Youngboy Hates Him, Go Yayo Drama & More

7:25Shawn Cotton:But do you think it's like hard for people to really want to listen to your music when you're just blowing yourself out doing eight hour streams a day?

7:31Adam22:that's it's a it's a it's a it's a thin line yeah and it's kind of like it's a thin line you once you become that streamer uh content guy yeah it's kind of hard to be taken serious as a rapper but

7:42Shawn Cotton:think about something like finesse is like if he has a song do good is gonna get a million plus views but then meanwhile he might be on stream to like a couple hundred people that's like your hardcore fan base and i don't actually know how many viewers he has or whatever but it's like a very small amount and the only stuff that the mainstream or the people really on social media you're going to see is when you have a clip that goes nuts.

8:02Adam22:You have a clip that goes nuts, yeah.

8:03Shawn Cotton:But the thing with somebody like Finesse is that, like, every time he's streaming, he's going to get some clips. Exactly. Because he's f***ing entertaining and just always wild. And I asked him if he takes SSC pills before he hops on the stream, and he said no, which I felt like it was a 100 % chance that he was. I think he takes some type of pill. He's speeding or something. Yeah, he takes some type of pill. When I seen a clip of him crying about the contract.

8:22Adam22:I think it was Adderall.

8:23Shawn Cotton:Something has to be right. Yeah, I think it's Adderall.

8:26Adam22:Yeah, I think Rainwater told me it was Adderall. You said something. You said you threw out$50 ,000 to Jello to try to sign him, right? Well, I asked him what would it take for us to distribute the record, and he told me$50 ,000. That was the first offer, and then everybody came after me, but he liked that. He already knew who I was and what Say Cheese was, and we were so homegrown and indie, and he could come direct. He liked that idea, but he was getting thrown. he ended up signing a multi multi multi multi million dollar deal but to me to this day he should have just did a uh a distro with that so let me ask you this how often are you looking to sign talent and how many people are currently on your roster um i probably only got like four to six on the roster now um the music thing is not really you know yeah what do you attribute

9:18Shawn Cotton:with that too?

9:19Adam22:Through Hitmaker. So good, so good, so good. New markdowns up to 70 % off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. And that means so many new reasons to rack. Because I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands.

9:34Shawn Cotton:Because there's always something new. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. No, but I mean like What do you attribute the sort of State of despair? Oh, the fans.

9:56Adam22:The rap game is like The dunk contest now. Remember Back then you could do a 360, the crowd would go nuts You do a 360 now, it was just Whatever. And the fans are more like Peers now to the artists I remember back in high school looking at We were looking at Soulja Boy back then like How the f*** did you do that? It's no more ah to it The fans, they've caught up on game. Like the other day I hear two young guys, they're talking about how much artist advance was and how much young boy did, like the fans are so, they know so much now, it's no more awe factor to it. The fans have caught up, they're not dumb, they know 98 % of rappers are broke.

10:39Adam22:The fans know, they've caught up, the information is out. And I feel like the next superstar that breaks is going to be from the street and then it's going to come to the internet like Kodak. Kodak, when Kodak blew up, he already had Skrilla in the club going crazy. And he was being booked from Georgia to Miami constantly. And he had a region behind him. But when you kind of blow up on the internet, they can create the narrative for you. Anybody can say, Polo G fell off. And then now that's a whole narrative. So I feel like the fans are the reason why rap is dead.

11:13Shawn Cotton:Because we would love for the whole like watching album sales trend to not be as prevalent as it is. But like with somebody like Polo G, I didn't even know he dropped the album until the narrative became he dropped an album and it sold poorly. So he's a loser. But now how does he outrun that narrative? The only real way that he could do it is by dropping fire music. And realistically, like how many people are even tapping in with the album to listen?

11:38Adam22:I don't even I don't even think fans care about music anymore. Oh, I don't even think they do.

11:42Shawn Cotton:How is that even possible?

11:44Adam22:Do you say that? No, no, no. People still listen to music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't feel like people, I remember when cover arts used to come out and we would just analyze the cover art for 30 minutes. Yeah. And lyrics. And I remember getting with my boys, we talking about punchlines and what he said and like music, it's not, it's not what it is. It's not what it's not.

12:03Shawn Cotton:And I hate that I am part of this as well, because like I went for a walk. I'm doing some cardio. I decide, you know what? I'm not listening to the podcast. I'm listening to J. Cole album. And it's like I really should want to pay attention to this and care. I listened to three songs, and it was just so obvious to me that I didn't care, that I just didn't really have it in me to really care about what the fuck he was talking about. And that's one of the most prevalent rappers. I know he did 300K, super good. He's one of the top guys still in the game. But I just couldn't really bring myself to even want to spend an hour and a half listening to this shit.

12:39Shawn Cotton:It's a double album. It's a double problem.

12:41Adam22:It's too much. It's just too much out there. I like what he's doing with the going out to sell the CDs and stuff like that. Yeah, that's cool. That's so him. Yeah, it's his brand. He is that guy. So then as someone who owns, this is a question for both of y 'all then, someone who owns platforms as big as you guys' platforms, what do you guys think that you guys could do to help the music space get back in a better position? I think first it starts with the fans. The fans, they just don't care. like fans, we've seen everything from gay artists to fat artists to skinny artists to artists that got shot a hundred times to we the fans have seen it all.

13:21Shawn Cotton:You're not going to be gayer than Lil Nas X. You're not going to be fatter than Big X the plug or the or the lean dude. Dave Bluntz. OK, you're never going to be. That's the king of we've seen.

13:31Adam22:We've seen it all. This is this we're in the music space when remember when it was Wiz Khalifa. It was Big Sean, the whole blog error that they always talk about on Twitter. and then Chief Keef came and disrupted the market. Somebody has to come disrupt the market. And it's not going to come from the internet. It's going to come from a space where it's real and then their neighborhood, block, city, region can come behind and tell the internet that this is the real thing. It's going to, everything, look, when an artist signs now, they do the same four things. They're going to go do a rap radar.

14:05Adam22:They're going to go do a mic hanging shit. they're gonna go do a TikTok campaign there's no new everybody's doing the same thing they're all spinning them through the same wheel you know what I'm saying the next big star is gonna be from his space he's not gonna run to a rap radar or do a dirty glove back and this is no hate to those platforms but the next star is gonna be so against what everybody else does he's gonna do it his way and the people are gonna gravitate to him he's not gonna go beg and scream and try to get those fans. They're going to come to him.

14:42Shawn Cotton:But I mean, when Chief Keefe came out, it's like, hey, he's so rebellious. He's way more gangster than most of the established artists, and he's like 16. So that was very mind-blowing for a lot of people. We didn't even know

14:54Adam22:that these kind of kids were really like that. And he was rebellious. When he did the 50 Cent shit, he didn't even show up to the shoot. Come on, man. Kodak Black. When Drake wanted to do the song with Kodak Black in the beginning, was it a skirt, skirt, skirt. Drake wanted to get on that. But Kodak was like, no, I'm going to do it my way, the hard way. Now you're building a foundation. Now your fans know you won't sell out. Now your fans know, you know, that's you can smell it. You can just smell when something is real. And that's what is missing. Like everything's too funneled through that and seeded through blogs.

15:31Adam22:And don't get a twist. the blogs are great. Like me and Remo, we do, you know, we do good business. But, nah, it gotta be from somewhere real, bro. Yeah. It ain't been from nowhere real lately.

15:42Shawn Cotton:Yeah, that's crazy.

15:43Adam22:And the fans are not dumb.

15:45Shawn Cotton:Wiz Khalifa blew up by just being like a cool guy who smoked a lot of weed. Cool guy smoked weed. Nobody gives a fuck about that anymore. He's not gonna be the weed guy.

15:51Adam22:He did vlogs, brought you to his world. Chuck Taylors with cargo pants.

15:56Shawn Cotton:but he was internet forward at a time where everybody else wasn't. Now everybody's knee deep in the internet shit And it's kind of like, how do you create like a sense of mystery and intrigue with the people? But then also, like you just said, like, you can't just be a rapper. You got to be a streamer. You got to make content, you know?

16:12Adam22:The fans are nosier than ever, bro. Like, that's another thing I feel like artists do wrong. They try to force their music on the blogs. And people got to know who you are. You know what I'm saying? Or where they want to know your story. You have to be packaged right. And I feel like a lot of these people are too music first. I know a lot of people who make great music that are on their mom couch it's not the music it's not talent don't pay the bills no more people want to be entertained and you just have to package it right and it's a weird balance that people just have to figure out but I feel like the fans have caught up and you know they can see through everything now.

16:51Adam22:Let me ask you this how much do you think Kendrick and Drexbeef

16:54Shawn Cotton:played a part in Hip Hop Separation? Because I've seen academics kind of use that take a lot

16:58Adam22:I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I feel like people love the competition. Competition has always thrived in hip hop. I don't get that narrative to academics.

17:10Shawn Cotton:I think it's more so people saying, or I think ACT might have been the main person pushing this narrative, but Kendrick kind of made it where Drake can't really collab with as many artists because he's getting called out for being a culture vulture and taking everybody sound.

17:25Adam22:But Drake was giving everyone these stimulus packages and blowing them up.

17:28Shawn Cotton:But now he's kind of like having to do the solo thing that maybe the music is not like, I don't know, maybe people aren't getting the stimulus, the Drake stimulus packages. But a lot of people too, it's like, you know, you might want Youngboy's fan base. You're not getting a Youngboy feature. You're not getting a Cardi feature. These people are mega protective of their image and their ability to, because they know what they could do for an artist. Yeah. Uh,

17:51Adam22:I don't think, I don't think cosigns help anymore. I don't think cosigns help. I don't think, I don't think I just really feel like the fans don't care as much anymore and I feel like I get what y 'all are saying but I'm looking at a consumer standpoint and people just don't give a f*** bro the kids I got an AAU team the kids aren't talking about rappers right now they're talking about streamers rappers just aren't the thing it's so bro you gotta understand like people are people and it's funny I was talking to Ken Yell about this the other day but people will rent a Lamborghini and think they're on the same playing field as a little baby.

18:30Adam22:Just because they rented a Lamborghini or people have access to the same thing as rappers do now. It's like, like I said, fans look at rappers as their peers now. They're no longer up here. You know what I mean?

18:43Shawn Cotton:The thing that fans were getting from Chief Keef in 2011 is the thing that a lot of those same type of kids are getting from Rakai because he's a young ass kid who actually is really rebellious. He's really seeing hella money. He's super famous. And if you want to be a fan of him, you don't have to buy into the music. Like, I don't know if Rekrazer made music, but it's like he his music is would not be as impressive. But meanwhile, as a streamer, he can be very engaging. He's edgy. He like clearly doesn't give a fuck. And I mean, that's kind of almost the problem is for a certain era of streamers is like like it's just very quick how these next dudes come up.

19:18Shawn Cotton:And streaming is like a zero sum game more than music. You know, you can listen to a lot of rappers, but as a fan, you're probably going to sit around and watch one streamer for a couple hours. Yeah. So does that make you want to change your business model? Like, maybe I'm not going to sign more rappers? Because I hear labels are getting into the signing streamers thing.

19:35Adam22:Yo, like that's why I said earlier, I mean, shout out to 26J. Shout out to Hit Kid Fish. Shout out to YB and Lil Bro. Man, it's a, oh man, Tay Barber, Brooklyn Love. Like, shout out to the artists that are on the roster. A name that you didn't say, not to cut you off. Go Yale. We did our thing. We had did a, I had got him a big, big bag for two projects, and he turned them in already. You know, that's. All right, yeah, let's talk about that.

20:11Shawn Cotton:All right, so the last time me and Adam actually was in Dallas, we linked with you. Yeah. Before Buttholegate. Exactly Butthole gape So His girl posted it first But were you the first blog to I tried to stay away from it

20:30Adam22:But it just was inevitable But I blew up I mean I woke up and my phone was blowing up And I don't know What had happened and then I seen somebody Bending over and at first I thought It was a video I didn't know what it was my mom was just racing like bro what the hell um but you know that that shit just came out and um you know he handled it how he handled it i would have handled it a different type of way but i don't know what anybody would do in that situation i don't know what i would do in that situation what did he do he just made jokes about it he just made jokes about it but i felt like he should have just hit it up head up and laugh at yourself you can't beat the internet um he was a little angry at people too.

21:13Adam22:Yeah, like once you show that you're angry, you lose. So he just should have joked with it. He still haven't addressed it in an interview. So that's why I feel like that's still a conversation. If he would have addressed it, it would have been old news. But it's still, he never addressed it. He should have, I told him, I said, go back to academics, go to No Jumper. I told him that.

21:32Shawn Cotton:He got mad at us and unfollowed us. I still been talking to him. I didn't even know that.

21:38Adam22:I don't know. I honestly don't know but I felt like he should that was my advice to him address it once you address something it's old news but it's still up in the air he just never really addressed it nobody knew what he was doing

21:52Shawn Cotton:because let's be real just showing your girl your asshole doesn't make you gay it doesn't it doesn't so there is like a way to joke around about it if he had been like penetrating his own butthole yes I did get unfollowed that's crazy oh yeah I went to your fucking neighborhood with you and you gonna unfollow me over us just posting your booty hole scandal? Like, how can we ignore something like that?

22:14Adam22:You unfollowing back or nah?

22:16Shawn Cotton:You know, I'm gonna let him see this. I'm gonna give him a week to follow me back. If he don't, we're gonna hang on a sauce walker.

22:22Adam22:I don't do that unfollow back. I just let it ride. But I noticed it because I was like, he hit me up about it like, man, I'm on some bullshit. But then he was like, cause you know, little CJ Casino's applying pressure for people to post it. For weeks. He was going with him. So like, I'm like, bro, like just keep in the fear. I'm posting both sides. I know he's getting a little mad about it because he don't follow everybody. What's your relationship currently? It's really a gray area for real. I mean, he was mad at me too. But I can't. I have a business to run. And people see that when you're being biased.

22:58Adam22:And the fans are not dumb. I'm going to keep saying that this whole interview. The fans, they see everything. I just can't. I can't. It is what it is, bro. Your girl got mad at you. she caught you in a vulnerable position and that's what it is. I can't be biased though. I can't do that. That would fuck up the brand.

23:16Shawn Cotton:I see an act talking about how Offset was mad at him for posting about the Selena Powell thing. It's like what are you gonna do? It's on every other fucking blog. What is me posting it make a difference? And if anything like if his version of it on stream or whatever is gonna be a little bit more comforting than the way that a lot of other people might be inclined to cover it. I mean you gotta be thankful for him doing anything.

23:38Adam22:But the crazy thing is when you post something that benefits the artist, they never say thank you. True. When you post their music or post this or post that or them giving back or something to help their brand.

23:47Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

23:48Adam22:They never say, hey, Remo, Adam, thank you. Yeah. Appreciate you. I got lunch on me, dinner on me. Yeah. They don't do that for the good. So why you hit me up during the bad when you don't hit me up during the good? It's always during the bad. Yeah. Don't hit me up during the bad, my nigga.

24:02Shawn Cotton:Okay, there's a battle rapper, Geechee Gotti, from out here. Geechee Gotti? I know. but he's had the name for a long time before the geechie had that meaning i think he's like a straight he is oh he's straight yeah yeah super but he's a battle rapper too he's like the top crip battle rapper period but especially in california but he just got caught allegedly like they robbed a pharmacy they pulled him and his boys over they had thousands and thousands of pills on them i think i've seen that so ak posted it and i'm looking at the comment section and i'm seeing the battle rap community coming out to basically be like oh this is lame as you you posting this when you never post about battle rap or whatever it's like think about how much more salacious and interesting him getting busted with thousands of pain pills that he probably stole is then like the best battle rap that you ever posted and and right there you kind of understand why the fans are so burnt out the fans used to love battle rap that shit dead as yeah the fans used to like be really intrigued by just rapping and who had the best punchlines and shit now they want to see real life drama.

25:03Shawn Cotton:They want to see the body camera footage of you running away from the cops when you get pulled over. How did they catch him? They just pulled him over. I don't know if the cops were watching him the whole time or whatever. I'm still not 100 % sure if he robbed the pharmacy or allegedly robbed a couple of pharmacies. But they were all the way on the East Coast too, which means that they went and caught a flight to go do this which boom, it's federal, I'm sure. Dang. Crazy. Yeah.

25:25Adam22:He's from LA?

25:26Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

25:27Adam22:You interviewed him before?

25:28Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

25:28Adam22:Oh, okay. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. No, the Yale shit is... We're leaving today and entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving, princess meeting and greeting,

25:41Shawn Cotton:lightsaber clashing,

25:43Adam22:the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror dropping, Banshee flying, Space Mountain launching, galaxy rewinding, what's the whole death of galaxy rewinding,

25:54Shawn Cotton:fireworks igniting, world of other worlds. For whatever you love, infinite worlds await at the most magical place on earth walt disney world resort i don't know man that shit is uh because yale was already in like a interesting position as a rapper too because he you know he you could kind of tell that he feels like he's on the back foot um to use a little bit of a boxing metaphor because he does have like some of the bigger rappers from texas coming at him over and over like even when we do that that vlog in his neighborhood and stuff a big part of the narrative is these people don't like me and i don't give a look how much love i get in the hood etc so that to then have a scandal come out in which like the most logical response is like yo that's kind of zesty like what the you're doing bro i mean i get it that's like that's a tough spot for him to be put in but but to my to your answer um

26:46Adam22:as far as the business model is I'm thinking about going extremely hard with the media. Going harder with concerts? Yeah. Starting March, because YouTube is a little slow, January, February, but starting March, I really want to double down with media because I'm looking at how much Say Cheese is making in the media side and I'm like, man, if I can double down on just media, oh man.

27:21Shawn Cotton:Were you talking about interviews primarily? Because I feel like the interview space is having a very similar problem to the rap game right now where for a long time, all the legends were getting interviewed. You were interviewing up and coming artists, et cetera. And now we're in a weird space where it's kind of like every legend that there is to interview. Has a podcast. Has a podcast slash already did Drink Champs a couple of years ago. So now everything is current events. If you're going to get an older rapper on the podcast, it only really makes sense if there's like current shit going on that they can commentate on.

27:50Shawn Cotton:Obviously, you've seen Vlad. He's got his repeat guests, people like Boosie, that it really makes sense. Every time they come on, they got like a nice hearty list of topics to talk about. And it just puts you in a weird spot where like there's less FYB J Mains to be discovered. There's less Crypt Max. You know, if there was another Crypt Max lurking around L.A., we probably already would know him. so it's like unless they're just new they're 18, 19, they're like freshly off the porch there's just not that many new characters to discover

28:19Adam22:I agree man it's really tough to even like with the broilla situation I was going to interview her and she ran me like it was around like 4 or 5

28:35Shawn Cotton:grand and then she

28:37Adam22:went to go do the stuff in Chicago which is

28:39Shawn Cotton:cool but she didn't go there right did they do it over, like, did they do that remotely? I'm not sure. She did it with some other dude, too. She did DJ you. She did some other dude that I didn't even watch. He's a comedian. Skimbo. Because, yeah, I'm talking to her, too.

28:53Adam22:And now she's charging$10 ,000.

28:54Shawn Cotton:Right, because she's telling me, like, you know that if I come out there, I'm going to need three, four plane tickets and the hotel. I'm immediately, I just stop paying attention. I'm like, what am I even talking about here? It would make way more sense for me to go out there, but then as soon as I'm going to pay her$10 ,000, hell no, that don't make sense. And that's a random...

29:09Adam22:So she charged you 10 grand too?

29:11Shawn Cotton:She didn't mention the dollar amount. Oh, okay. She did call in on the show.

29:14Adam22:Yeah, she went from four to 10.

29:16Shawn Cotton:How do you, all right, so you just said that you're going to double down on media this year. How do you feel about these prices, these...

29:22Adam22:Vlad has opened something that's just getting worse. Oh, my God. It starts with Charleston too. Like Charleston White went around, was name dropping how much he was making off, you know, Say Cheese and Dan's a project. And then everybody else wants to match that. when Charleston's a 1-1.

29:41Shawn Cotton:I think Vlad announcing his prices, he f***ed the game. He doesn't really say the dollar amount for the most part, but he said the 6-9 is the most he ever paid somebody. Yeah, I figured out how much

29:52Adam22:he paid them.

29:52Shawn Cotton:Yeah, he told me too. Everybody's minds go wild trying to figure it out, you know?

29:56Adam22:And I think people think these clips make more than what they actually make too.

30:01Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

30:02Adam22:Like, bro, this shit is really hit or miss. We don't know. It ain't like we're paying you a royalty per view. Right. Like, we don't know. We could give you$1 ,500, but the interview makes$700. Yeah. Like, you don't really fucking know, bro. And these people think we're making, or our YouTube's making, which we do make decent money, but it's not what they think we're making.

30:26Shawn Cotton:I was sitting there with Unk the other day and we were talking about Charleston and your situation. And he's like, he's saying like, Seichi's making$200 ,000 a month off of interviews. I'm like, do you know how, You're talking about like 20 million plus views. I'm pretty sure if I go look at everything that Say Cheese ever did, they're not getting 20 million views a month on average. Maybe during the pandemic or at the height of your shit, but not right now. And even like you always saying that 10 ,000 for a Charleston interview, even that seems like you might kind of break even on it sometimes.

30:57Adam22:Nah, with Charleston, because with Charleston, I was really playing the watch hour game. See, I don't play views. Everybody's looking at views. I'm looking at watch hours. and YouTube pays you more by the watch hours.

31:09Shawn Cotton:So you drop a two hour Charleston interview.

31:11Adam22:Drop a two hour Charleston interview. His interviews will make about 20 to 30 sometimes. Sometimes it does break even. And then you can do the clips too. Then clips. So I mean Charleston interview man fuck Charleston though.

31:24Shawn Cotton:That's someone who's like local. He's down the street so it's easy for you to do it. You don't have to worry about plane tickets and hotels and everything but yeah there's a lot to talk about.

31:31Adam22:So one thing I seen was Charleston did his last interview with you and on the last interview he was kind of shamed, he was kind of shitting on you. He was like, you know what everything on Say Cheese that's posted about me is negative. He said brands is reaching out to him saying that everything on the Say Cheese platform that's posted about him is negative but when he goes over here with Aiden Ross it's all positive and shit. He kind of basically said that he outgrew the Say Cheese platform and he don't need you anymore. Then he did an interview with some random person and then I think the views were like 2000 and I seen you make a post about it and you was kind of trolling him like oh uh Charleston come back come holler at me you see this ain't what it is all right what's y 'all relationship right now and how serious was that conversation uh uh y 'all didn't hear what happened what happened in in New York uh I had uh I had got them well he had got kidnapped by the mafia what yep in New York City nobody knows about this or what I had I had hollered at the mafia.

32:32Adam22:Why would the mafia want to kidnap him? I told them to.

32:36Shawn Cotton:The Italian mafia.

32:38Adam22:It happened at 3 o 'clock in the morning. He was in that dark alleyway. And they called me. They said, we got him.

32:45Shawn Cotton:And what did you want them to do to him? Torture? Oh, shit. He got the Charleston. We got the Charleston white eye. I hope this ain't Pete. It was a little sticky. Damn, you're like 607 Ong pulling up with a cauldron. So, Chaucer can't see no more.

33:05Adam22:He out here in one eye right now, man. That's the original eye. They called me. They called me. I heard him screaming. And I said, don't hurt him. I said, I still got, don't hurt him. They was like, do you want his jewelry? I said, no. Just give me his eyes. Just give me the eyes. Crazy. He had the jewelry on, too? They had, my boy. What up? They had the, yeah, he had his jewelry on, too. I'm like, just give me his eye. I still got love for him. Just give me his eye. And two days later, they showed up to my doorstep with his eye. Damn. Yep. Wow. So we won't be seeing, will we be seeing another Charleston White say cheese interview?

33:43Adam22:I don't know, man. Because he walking around telling people I'm the reason he's staying beef. I got a long list at home. Damn, I wish I would have brought it. It's like this long of people he's beefing with.

33:54Shawn Cotton:Yeah. I mean, okay, so then the clip that I just did.

33:58Adam22:5 % of those, no, no, no. 95 % of those people, I never even, like you, he's beefed, like, I don't have. Now we're cool. Okay, now.

34:06Shawn Cotton:Until this interview, I don't know where that goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, I went, when I was talking to Ong, I went through the whole, I searched Charleston White, Say Cheese, and I read, like, 10, 15 titles, and none of the titles were, like, anything, like, none of them were titled unfairly. Every single one was like basically what he talked about.

34:27Adam22:He's mad about he's mad about Oskino, bro. Because Oskino said what about Oskino? Just Charleston, this Gilly son. Right. Who died. Yeah. Oskino son died, too. Right. In a car wreck. So Oskino went after Charleston for dissing Gilly because Oskino is real respected in Philly and shit like that. Right. And then that's really, really what led on to it. Oskino really never liked Charleston. But Charleston can come on my platform and say whatever. But the one time somebody comes on my platform and people like, because people like Oskino, then it's a problem. It started with the Oskino shit. And then he called me.

35:08Adam22:I'm out Christmas shopping. Charleston White called me three times. We were supposed to do an interview. I'm waiting on my camera, people. I didn't answer. And then he says he feels betrayed. He got in his feelings about that. That's really that, bro. That's really that.

35:22Shawn Cotton:So you think the other reasons, like the titles or whatever, that's kind of imaginary?

35:27Adam22:No, bro. What the? Goals. People are doing that to him after our interview. Right. He just did an interview doing the same shit. Right. So I don't. With Charleston White, it's like, he's like, I don't know, man.

35:48Shawn Cotton:No, you're good.

35:52Adam22:with Charleston White is more so and shout out to the Mafia too man that's like they did me a favor they owed me a favor and they got it done they got the job done he was in a dark alley at 3 in the morning bro by himself and you know he only weighed 95 pounds so it was easy

36:17Shawn Cotton:but I mean does that fuck up your, because I mean that's like the biggest star that you ever created through Say Cheese and I mean I know this feeling well, like you build somebody up on the platform over and over and over and then at some point they just kind of turn on you and it can be kind of frustrating to be like damn I spent all these hours and all this money like building this person up and then they just spit in my face

36:38Adam22:It kind of hurt that he was putting Aiden Ross on a pedestal

36:44Shawn Cotton:like

36:45Adam22:Aiden Ross having done anything think for him that I haven't. I told him how to build his Instagram page and his, the whole everything that, everything like the dudes and he kept getting his Instagram page deleted and I was just trying to tell him like the do's and don'ts and stuff he should do and building his own platform. Like he, to me, Charleston White should have his own platform like, cause he's super smart, but I don't know. Like, is this one of them things where I don't know I think he was more so mad about the Oskino shit and just throwing other shit that built up over time you know but I don't it hasn't hurt us like last month we still did decent and I don't have to spend as much as I used to so it was like I may have to do an interview or two more to get to where that was but it don't hurt at all.

37:40Shawn Cotton:Is there part of you that wants to reach out and patch it up even though you think that he's in the wrong? Because that's what you kind of have to do. We've text.

37:49Adam22:We've text a few times. It ain't like we haven't spoke. He'll comment on the post and shit and say stuff, but

37:59Adam22:we've text. He threw me an alley-oop after that. He threw me an alley-oop after that, but I'm going to make him I'm going to make Charleston White realize I'm going to make him realize some shit. But he got to get his eye back at least. Yeah. I may give him his eye back.

38:20Shawn Cotton:He's supposed to fight again. He going to need that. Well, I guess he can't see anyway, right?

38:28Adam22:Supposed to fight Boosie, right?

38:30Shawn Cotton:That's the one I heard they were trying to make happen, but imagine how much Boosie going to want for that shit.

38:34Adam22:No, Boosie's not going to do that.

38:36Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

38:36Adam22:I don't think Boosie's going to.

38:38Shawn Cotton:Me, you, and Charleston White have each done one boxing match. The difference between us and him is that he won. Yeah. Yeah. Damn.

38:46Adam22:That ain't that fucked up.

38:48Shawn Cotton:Did you see Adelman? Did you see Adelman? Did you see Adelman's box of play?

38:53Adam22:Yeah, I seen it. Oh, you watched it. Anybody that gets in that ring has one loser draw, bro. Because there's a lot of people who this, this, and that that will not get in there. Because they know if they lose, that's their career.

39:05Shawn Cotton:Right. Me and you could lose. Right. I think if I had thrown a couple of punches, I probably would have got a lot more respect. It's the fact that it was so one-sided. Yeah. I didn't really get any respect for it.

39:16Adam22:You got in there, bro.

39:17Shawn Cotton:Yeah, against a f***ing giant. Yeah, that dude, big as shit. I don't remember who you fought, but I think it was probably a little bit closer to a fair fight.

39:25Adam22:The sauce dude winning dude, he's decent. But you was hanging in there. I was hanging in there, but that dude, he's been in the pen for 10 years. Yeah. A little small little motherfucker, man.

39:37Shawn Cotton:I don't really see why it should be embarrassing. like the whole point of a boxing match is to kind of like figure out who's better yeah and if the other guy's better is what it is like i don't pride myself on being a fighter and i never had my whole life so what do i care nah man you got in there it's a lot of people who have shit

39:54Adam22:to say that would never get in there yeah especially the people who are on a pedal stool or people who are on some type of stature because they know if they lose they can never do or say some of the shit that they'll ever say like look at little baby academics yeah Lil Baby's charging him what? 40 million? 40 million for the fight.

40:11Shawn Cotton:I mean, to me, that's just like saying no. Because obviously brand risk. Brand risk will never even pay a fighter a million.

40:16Adam22:If academics punch Lil Baby one time, Lil Baby can't say nothing. Yeah. Lil Baby can win, but if academics punches him one time. Yeah, that's bad. It's like you, rappers have to keep that superstar persona.

40:30Shawn Cotton:And I don't even think that AK like really wanted to fight Lil Baby. I just think that AK 100 % knew that Lil Baby would never fight him and he could say whatever he wanted and Lil Baby was never going to actually do it? I think there was a little bit of him being mad about the situation. Oh, for sure mad. I just think he always knew that there was no possible way Lil Baby was going to do this. And I think Lil Baby pricing himself out like that is basically him ducking the face. Yeah, for sure.

40:54Adam22:Let me ask you this. How many... All right, so the Lil Baby academics situation stemmed from academics feeling like he was backdoored by costing that homie Talil who brought up one of Lil Baby's entourage members

41:06Shawn Cotton:who supposedly tried to slap Apple. He claimed he slap Apple. I'm saying slap. He said that he like swung in the car, hit academics in the face, whatever. Accent, he never got touched. How do you feel or how many moments have you had like that where you've been around rappers and -

41:22Adam22:I mean, Kevin Gates swung on me. Wait, mid-interview or where? This was like in Dallas like 10 years ago. A few years ago, right?

41:28Shawn Cotton:Yeah, I did his first interview. And this happened mid-interview or after-interview?

41:32Adam22:This is a week after the interview.

41:34Shawn Cotton:Okay.

41:34Adam22:Atlantic Records has set me up.

41:36Shawn Cotton:So you dropped it? Wait, wait. Oh, I remember the story.

41:38Adam22:Yeah, I dropped the interview. I titled it, Who Inspired You More to Rap, Boosie or Wayne? And then he said something in the interview. He went back to Baton Rouge, got approached about it. And then Atlantic Records called me the next week to do another interview. And then this was when Kevin Gates was on Lean and I had seen him. And then long story short, he came up talking to me. He was like, hey, didn't I just do an interview? with me? I mean with you? He was like pull it up on YouTube. Yeah. Because he wanted to make sure he was going to go off on the right person. And he seen the interview.

42:10Adam22:He was like yeah that is you. And then he swung at me. Wow. And what happened after that? Break that down. And then the dude with one arm, the booby black. Yes. They start like his whole entourage start chasing me through the restaurant. Oh shit. And I'm like dodging through the chairs and shit. Wow. And then I get outside and then and then it was. You and Kevin Gates spoke. When he was in prison I think he mentioned wanting to do another the one with me back in the day when he was in prison. But I was just like, nah, I'm cool. I don't ever know. The only one who got me was Russ. This nigga got a Joe Budden CD in this.

42:41Shawn Cotton:Yeah, somebody actually gave me, Danny from the stop gave me that, yeah. That's a classic too. Yeah, I ain't heard it in a long time. That's funny. Russ is the only person who got one over on me for the record. Which Russ? White Russ? White Russ? Yeah. He hit you? Not him, but he sent some Nigerian goons after me. I remember that shit. I didn't know for a year. And then finally he told Ak, he said, Adam 22 got touched too. At that moment, Ak hit me up and was like, bro, because I don't even know if Ak knew about the fact that I got jumped in the nail salon. But then Ak told me like, yo, I think that was Russell.

43:16Shawn Cotton:What were you doing in the nail salon? Getting a manicure. Yo, wait. I know. And then some Nigerians dude ran up on you? It was like, I'm sitting there getting my manicure. Yo. I just hear you, Adam 22. I look up. It's just a random black guy. He goes, bow. and I like kind of like fell out of my chair and I think he hit me like one more time in the head and by the time I got up it was like they were already skedaddled out of there

43:40Adam22:and that came from Russ

43:41Shawn Cotton:yeah wow yeah we passed it up soon after but what did you do to him made fun of him pretty viciously on Twitter for a couple years yeah once I really looked at the tweets it was like damn that was pretty bad yeah Russ is Russ is one of them guys that has I shouldn't have underestimated him really I mean shit he was willing to do that a lot of rappers ain't willing to do that that's true I had my chain on at the time too which is crazy they didn't see that because they probably would have that would have been a good imagine Russ on Instagram holding that up that would have been crazy Russ had the chain so you ain't really had too many just altercations besides the Kevin Gates because you you was outside

44:20Adam22:early early on like you know getting these first interviews on the block damn man um

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45:08Shawn Cotton:But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at

45:19Adam22:getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. Nah, not really, because I'm kind of, I always try to play chess, but... Yeah. I mean, just a little Chicago shit would happen, like, just... But not with really rappers. Like, YTB Fat keeps dissimining his records, but...

45:38Shawn Cotton:I be hearing that.

45:39Adam22:Yeah.

45:39Shawn Cotton:And that's... And that...

45:40Adam22:I mean, I see why he's doing it, but I don't know... He ain't wrong. Because you signed his cousin, which is his op. Yeah. But at the time, I don't think... Did you know that there were ops? No, Mud Baby was bigger than him. I didn't even know who YTB Fat was. They ain't coming. They're cousins. Shit. Yeah, they're cousins. Yeah. I didn't know.

45:56Shawn Cotton:I interviewed him... Forever ago. Oh, that makes sense. That's his artist. Okay, I didn't even know. I interviewed him way before you signed him, I think.

46:02Adam22:No, it was after. Nah, you said him up. I just played the back roll, so you don't know. Yeah, yeah. I think he might have. Yeah, regardless of the situation. So, Fat is mad at you because you signed his cousin, which is my baby. And then I did an interview with my baby, and my baby wanted to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about it. It just happened. Yeah. Like, yo, what's up with, you know, damn. him like that shit strange like you and your cousin this is an interview it's something to talk about

46:30Shawn Cotton:so I interviewed him at the end of 2022 you had already signed him at that point? I had him at the beginning of 2022

46:36Adam22:that's crazy but yeah they're blood cousins and they don't like each other

46:40Shawn Cotton:but what do you do when you sign someone and it just doesn't really work out and you still like them you still feel like the music has potential or whatever like do you just keep working it or are you just throwing the towel at a certain point?

46:50Adam22:you just kind of know you know when it's time you kind of know when it's time and they just go figure it out like you just tell them like hey you know or like yeah yeah we did the two projects and it was cool why it lasted if you don't anything in music if it's not going up is dead if it's anything going like that is dead if it's not going up yeah if it's not going up anything going sideways is dead so it's just kind of you just kind of just got to keep moving

47:21Shawn Cotton:yup it's crazy to think about in the 90s and shit just how much of a runway labels were willing to give artists free and they still dumped them really fast but they were willing to dump a lot of money and spend quite a bit of time labels aren't spending anything i mean tiktok campaigns and blog posts but outside of that and then hanging mic shit but it ain't really they're

47:43Adam22:not really developing the artists anymore yeah and you can develop the artists and you could do spend millions on artists and do all this stuff but if the fans don't really care it's like they just don't care. Yeah, that's why I always say it comes from outside. Like, people gotta start going outside again. Like, I'll sign an artist and tell them to go to the club and promote their music and they look at me like they just don't get it. Like, go to the club, bro. Build a relationship with the DJ because that shit still matters. That's how, like, New Dallas and all them blew up D-Baby. Going to the club, bro.

48:17Adam22:Spending that shit every night. Especially if you got that market where

48:20Shawn Cotton:people rotate in and out of.

48:22Adam22:Yeah, but people don't want to go outside. Everybody wants to pay for a post. They want to be on academics, no jump or say cheese, but they don't want to get them the foundation, build the foundation and touch the people. You have to touch the people, bro. How important is the say cheese Instagram to your business? Oh, man, it's so important. It's so important, bro. Because even between me and you, I send you$1 ,000 a month. so I could just thousands with an S yeah thousands between me and you so I can just imagine what the labels are sending you man I just and the labels need to do better with their content god damn the labels are terrible with what they the narrations the narrations yeah they just don't the labels just don't understand how to package the artist bro and how to build a story with the artist bro people want to be entertained like the music is cool but you just can't keep plastering your music and spamming your music online it don't worry like that but to answer your question the Instagram is everything we have over 120 fake pages on Instagram I've seen that like if anybody know somebody a Facebook rep a meta rep let me know I will pay you like I need a rep I need somebody to look over how many fake pages y 'all got there's only one that comes

49:47Shawn Cotton:to mind we got one big one y 'all don't know any Facebook reps I have never been able to get rid of that page. Remember, our page was gone for the longest. Yeah, we had no page for like six months.

49:58Adam22:Y 'all still use the backup page?

50:00Shawn Cotton:It's currently sitting dormant, I believe.

50:02Adam22:Yeah, he still uses sometimes.

50:04Shawn Cotton:But I was thinking about using it to like, because I know like with Ak, he has the main page and then he has the second page. And the second page, he kind of chose to focus more on streamers, which is its own world, you know, like all those clips. But then it is weird posting the streamers too, because you're like, am I just a Clipper account doing it for free? Yeah. Because all these other clippers are getting paid.

50:22Adam22:So how much are streamers making?

50:24Shawn Cotton:Shit, I feel like a lot of it is cash. Huh? Do you stream? We're actually doing an IRL stream all day today at the Blueface event and then King Pills fight. So we're going to do an IRL stream all day. I do kind of feel like, because you know what I just found out about? There's this white boy streamer, Ice Poseidon, that I've known forever. And he gets$1 ,500 an hour from Kik to do IRL streams. And he has about 5 ,000 viewers. I mean, the No Jumper show we do every Tuesday, that'll have 5 ,000, 6 ,000, 7 ,000 viewers. And we are making a lot less than$1 ,500 an hour, like dramatically less. So when I heard that, that he's making 10 bands a day, just walking around in a city, hanging out on IRL stream, I was like, I mean, shit, that sounds pretty good to me.

51:07Adam22:So Kick is paying him, or he's getting paid from the subscribers?

51:10Shawn Cotton:No subscribers. The subscriber shit is a completely different thing. He's just getting that from Kick. They have a program where you get X amount of dollars per hour based on how many average viewers you have. And that's kind of crazy too because Kik doesn't have ads. They don't have ads on there. So they're just dumping money into it, I guess, to build a platform.

51:25Adam22:So when you stream, what do you look for? Subscribers or like what is a lot of subscribers? Is a thousand a lot?

51:35Shawn Cotton:I mean, if you're making five, if you have a person paying five bucks, but then you're really only getting like maybe three. So, I mean, you could have a thousand subscribers and make three grand a month, which is nice, but it's not really like changing the game or anything so what so what is it because i seen

51:50Adam22:you say something about sauce walker that i didn't understand like you said that he only had 200 viewers but what if the subscribers are paying so he definitely probably has a decent number of

52:02Shawn Cotton:subscribers i would assume but yeah i i checked actually a couple days ago he's still averaging a couple hundred uh viewers on his live streams i mean i'm just saying that's kind of crazy he's

52:14Adam22:really put his life into this bro you're wrong for that because why i'm pocket watching we all pocket watch no but i'm saying like i just asked chad but we don't know how many people are subscribing though that's my thing like that's because i was arguing with my homeboy about it's not how many people are watching your stream it's how long they're watching it right maybe because it's about how many ads they're watching but i'm saying like if you have 200

52:35Shawn Cotton:viewers on average then you ain't making no money no regardless but how if you if you're

52:39Adam22:streaming for eight nine hours and you're putting ads all over it right yeah you could make a decent amount of money, right? I mean,

52:46Shawn Cotton:I would be shocked if he was making $1 ,000 per eight-hour stream. I don't think it's even close because he's on Twitch, too. So, I mean, and I'm not...

52:54Adam22:So, Twitch is better than Kik? Twitch is the Apple of the streaming world.

52:59Shawn Cotton:I'm not going wrong. Yeah, I mean, Kik is, like, still growing, but, like, more of the streamers are on Twitch and Kik is, like, the underdog where, like, Aiden Ross and a few of the other guys, they're on there, but, like, for the most part, Twitch is, like, the more prominent one where everyone's on there, but like kick is still doing this and i would never be clowning somebody like sauce for trying to get something like the streaming shit going if it wasn't for the fact that he chooses to talk shit about me so i really feel like it's on me to explain to the world out there like hey nobody who has money is spending nine hours a day on stream to make like 800 bucks with sauce i don't

53:33Adam22:think it's more of a i think it's more of a hobby i think hold on wait wait because i feel like since he's been streaming his brand is is grown people are looking at him in a different light now I don't think he's doing it.

53:44Shawn Cotton:He has to pay the Clippers. He's probably losing money as a streamer. Because you got to pay the Clippers. I don't think he's paying Clippers. He's pulling the clips on his own page. Yeah, but I mean, somebody got to be clipping it and shit. Somebody got to be watching that shit, trying to find the narratives and shit. Because people like Aiden Ross are paying tons of money to Clippers. Which, granted, he is a big streamer. But he seems like he's even more big because of the fact that he's got. You can see him. Yeah, like I saw him. You can just be on Twitter and see him. I saw Aiden doing like a celebratory post about getting X amount of views in a month or whatever.

54:16Shawn Cotton:And he's like, you know, shout out to my clipper army. It was like 80 dudes. It was like 100 dudes who are like clipping his time. He's paying them.

54:23Adam22:Yeah.

54:23Shawn Cotton:So fans don't clip shit to make their shit go up. Some fans do. And I think you used to be able to count on that. But now streamers don't just assume that anybody's going to just clip their shit. And like, you know how like you'll log on to Twitter one day and you'll just see Aiden Roz over and over and over and over. I mean, that kind of explains it, right? Because it's like people are only going to clip your shit so much unless they're incentivized in some way. OK.

54:46Adam22:OK. So, OK. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad I'm asking y 'all this right now. So you need at least 10 ,000 subscribers to make some real money. I should say.

54:56Shawn Cotton:If you're getting three bucks per subscription and you've got 10 ,000, then that means you're getting$30 ,000 a month, which is obviously pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. And then in addition to that, you got the ads from streaming. And then with Kik, you get like X amount of dollars per month. So that's what I'm saying about sauce. And then you can get sponsorships on top of that. The thing with Sauce is that he has 200 average viewers, which basically makes him like a nobody.

55:16Adam22:I'm going off subscribers, though. I don't give a fuck about viewers if 3 ,000, 4 ,000 people are paying me a month.

55:23Shawn Cotton:Yeah. And he probably has to rely on that as well. But I'm just saying it ain't that crazy. I was on the phone. He showed me some bread. He showed me. That's what these rappers do. They show cash to avoid the fact that they're drowning in debt. He showed me a count like$10 million in it, I swear. I got all kinds of screenshots on my phone too

55:42Adam22:I don't I really doubt Sauce is in need of money I really feel like you should talk to his baby mamas yeah you know his baby moms

55:54Shawn Cotton:I don't but I know somebody who has a very close relationship with multiple of his baby mamas and I've heard a lot of tales so I feel

56:03Adam22:man they may be some bitter baby moms

56:05Shawn Cotton:for sure my perception of his streaming career and his overall wealth is probably a lot different. Because he's the kind of guy who invests a lot into making himself look successful. That's really what streaming is about.

56:19Adam22:I get what you're saying, but I like what he's doing though because you say he gets 200 viewers now and this and that, but if he stays consistent in a year, whatever he has now is going to times 10. The thing is that his average viewers

56:33Shawn Cotton:are the same right now that they were a few months How much work does that take? I go to ChadGBT, I say, how many average viewers does FlatWalka have? It says 200 to 300. Chad's not always accurate, though. Yeah, but it's pulling it from the analytics sites that basically track the views that are reported on these sites. I could just go to the site and actually check it like that, but Chad is even, it's easier.

56:54Adam22:Ask Chad, how much does DDG get? Ask Chad about somebody else. Let's see what it says.

57:01Shawn Cotton:How many viewers does ddg average on stream which by the way ddg was doing a stream with blueface at the gym that i was training boxing in and uh i went and looked and he had 8 000 people watching at 10 a.m so that did stand out to me quite a bit according to this ddg averages 5 500 or so over the past 30 days on twitch which is pretty huge from my perspective you know like if you have 5 500 people watching on average that's that's pretty impressive but and i'm not accusing ddg of this but you got to understand a huge percentage of these streamers are paying for fake viewers because that makes it go up higher in the in the leaderboard on twitch or on kick or whatever so it's like one of the main ways that you can get exposure is by having fake live viewers so you would not believe the number of people who are doing a lot of these guys are buying their views so they can like this

57:59Adam22:shit no different than rap. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's exactly like rap. You know Zias? Yeah. I went to high school with him. Oh, word? Yeah. Zias made the second Say Cheese website. Zias is a genius, bro. He made the Say Cheese website and he made the Say Cheese website and I was talking to him the other day and he was just telling me like why he streams from YouTube and he doesn't really do Twitch like that but his following is already on youtube and he was like yo he was like yo sean if you're gonna start streaming just stream on youtube yeah i agree really yeah just because that's where

58:39Shawn Cotton:your existing fan base is and like you know i know a bunch of people like uh you know i dubs is a popular youtuber and i've seen that like he streams on twitch and i was like 300 viewers like a couple hundred viewers and it's like from my perspective you should be doing that from your channel and doing it twitch like multi-stream the same thing because for somebody like me who's probably been subscribed to idubs the channel for 10 years it's like i would have never known that he was streaming in general i don't think people should be scared of doing that because the the it doesn't even show up on your video exactly it's gonna show up in the live tab so if you're not like a real hardcore fan who cares yeah it's like a separate thing yeah but for sure we're the irl stream we're doing today we're gonna do on youtube and if we ever do make kick our or twitch our primary streaming platform.

59:23Shawn Cotton:I'll do that once I've like built up a lot of momentum on YouTube.

59:26Adam22:So, because I know you were streaming for a minute. You used to do the video review stuff, right? Still do that, but the demand is so much lower now. People don't... There's so many less... So what I'm saying, gotta be kind of we keep saying, we keep going back to the people not... Exactly. Look, this is not me coming at the artist. It's... You can do... Rap is one thing where you can do everything right and still lose. You don't control your own destiny and rap. You could put in your 10 ,000 hours. You could pay the right producers and the right music video people and dress nice. If the people don't choose you, they don't choose you.

1:00:03Adam22:So it just goes back to what I'm saying about the demand too.

1:00:07Shawn Cotton:I used to sit on stream and average like$2 ,000 an hour listening to people's music and now it's way less. 2 ,000 an hour? I had streams where I would sit there for 10 hours and leave with 20K, 22K by the end of it. why'd you stop all the demand i mean we just kept going and honestly it was like it started to dip a bit in like 2019 there was less interest and like we weren't getting as many donations but it was still cool and then covid hit that's when it really got fucked up i could have never imagined that that shit would kind of run out but now there's just a lot less rappers trying to be rappers because think about it coming off the soundcloud wave people saw a little pump and they said i could do that you know they were just i can be him it was crazy yeah for anybody that

1:00:52Adam22:comes out of school if if a kid was to ask me what to do i would just tell them to get in media i would really i really feel and media is just not uh adam 22 uh academics but media is uh reaction videos like one of my friends he's doing an ai youtube channel making 60 000 a month just his voice is doing documentary you don't see him yeah but he's doing like ai voice youtube voiceovers and shit like that media to me is is the way to go now if you love rapping if you love music do it i would never tell nobody not to but if you're trying to make some money yeah i would tell people

1:01:28Shawn Cotton:to get in media it's just so competitive that now if you want to make something out of yourself if you want to be a rapper cool but you should be trying to do filming yeah editing like social media, clipping shit, whatever. You got to just really try a lot now. But even, don't you feel like the media space is even oversaturated? Yeah, I do. Look how many blogs in Texas right now. Texas has more blogs than anybody. Texas and Florida. But meanwhile, the podcasting space feels like it's kind of sparse now though because there are so many but there's so few successful ones. We were having this conversation recently.

1:02:03Shawn Cotton:How many, what are the biggest podcasts that are just people talking about shit that aren't you know, guest oriented because that's always going to kind of inflate. Maybe Joe Budden. Yeah, Joe Budden. Jim Jones had his show that is currently on hiatus, but I think it's coming back. Then you got somebody like, you know, Fat Joe and Jadakiss. They got a good one. Cameron and Mace. These are all like superstar level rappers. You know, it's like really like ours was kind of the biggest one that we could think of that didn't exist from a big rapper. It's just like, I don't even think people really start podcasts that much anymore.

1:02:36Shawn Cotton:They want to be streamers now. Because I even seen Blast on your channel that, well, your show, that he doesn't interview rappers like that anymore. If you really look at it.

1:02:46Adam22:I'm looking at everybody.

1:02:47Shawn Cotton:It's a pretty small percentage of his total interviews that he does. But I'm looking at everybody.

1:02:52Adam22:When it comes to rappers to a certain stature, nobody's interviewing rappers no more.

1:02:56Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

1:02:57Adam22:Why is that, though, you think? For one, it's two things. Rappers don't bring in the views they used to. Yeah. And then on the flip side of that, once rappers get to a certain level, they want to have this mystique.

1:03:13Shawn Cotton:You know what I mean? Like Dochi's huge, but Dochi's not out doing everybody's podcast. She'll do one and then chill out for a year or two. You see what I'm saying? Or she has the opportunity to go do all these big mainstream looks that she probably thinks are a lot cooler than doing a Vlad or No Jumper or whatever.

1:03:30Adam22:Yeah, Push Iced, he charged me$50 ,000. What? That's the same number there's throwing out there?

1:03:35Shawn Cotton:And you can do it? I laughed at it.

1:03:38Adam22:Yeah, I can't do that. I laughed at that.

1:03:39Shawn Cotton:Actually, somebody on his team was trying to negotiate with me, and I honestly think it was like 70, but this was like right when he got out.

1:03:45Adam22:Nah, man.

1:03:46Shawn Cotton:He still ain't done one, or did he do a million dollars worth of – no, he did XXL. He did a million dollars worth of game too.

1:03:50Adam22:Oh, he did?

1:03:50Shawn Cotton:Yeah, he did. But he didn't really do anything.

1:03:53Adam22:Nah, man. And no disrespect to him. I mean, your worth is what you feel like you're worth, but it just doesn't make sense on the – I don't feel – I laugh at that because it's like I don't feel like people – Like 6ix9ine did great for me. Yeah. I don't know what y 'all business was, but it was cool. But it did good. Finesse did good.

1:04:14Shawn Cotton:But that's the most I ever paid for an interview was 6ix9ine. Really? Yeah. Hmm. Push, I see a million dollars worth of game, hour and 16 minutes, 1.4 million views. So you could assume that that might be what, like, you know, 15 grand or something maybe. Maybe 10 grand. So 50 grand is like, what is that? You said 15 or 50? 15, yeah. like you know$10 ,000,$15 ,000. So where's the 50K supposed to come from? Exactly. But to be fair, they have a bunch of ads all over their shit. Million dollars worth of the game has like infinite ads.

1:04:44Adam22:I would have paid Pusha Steen max$20 ,000. What's the most you paid for interview? Ryan Garcia, biggest flop ever. Yeah, that's what he said last year. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was the biggest. How much was it? $20 ,000. And it's just, I don't think it flopped because of him. But I feel like at the time he was saying so much shit on Twitter that YouTube had like blackballed his name. Like when you, it was so fucked up when you, it didn't even come up in the search engine. So I was like, damn, I just got to take this L.

1:05:14Shawn Cotton:That is weird how that happens sometimes. Because when we did the reality show where we were trying to find the guy to bang my wife with me, that shit was invisible in search. Like it was monetized, green icon. It was earning money. but when we would search for it, it was almost impossible to find. I bet if I search for it right now, I can't find it. Yeah. How do you feel about 6ix9ine's resurgence?

1:05:35Adam22:Because at first, I think I initially hit you up to do the interview and you wasn't really. You did. Back to the Charleston White shit. When Charleston White did the interview with me, he said 6ix9ine didn't want to come on the platform. I don't know if you even watched the Charleston White, the last one.

1:05:49Shawn Cotton:I've seen it.

1:05:50Adam22:He said that 6ix9ine didn't want to come on the platform. That's a lie, right? Because you hit me up about it. Yeah, I'll hit you up and start to line it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're turning the first one down. Because that was like the same week he did him, Vlad, Aiden Ross. So I was like, nah, I don't want to do 20. I can't do 20 while all that's going on. I got him at a little cheaper price because I did it right before he went to jail. But I only did 6ix9ine interview because Charleston White said in my interview that 6ix9ine didn't want to come on and say cheese. That's the only reason why I did it.

1:06:24Adam22:And no, it was a good interview. I'll interview him again, but I just wanted to show Charleston like, bro, you just be saying anything.

1:06:30Shawn Cotton:No, that was always on the table.

1:06:31Adam22:Yeah, but he came in our interview saying, that's why 6ix9ine don't want to come on and say cheese, because you will start beefing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. He's just an old geezer. You know what an old geezer is? Yeah, I do. He's an old geezer. Unc was saying. So I had the mafia come.

1:06:49Shawn Cotton:Unc was saying that Aiden Ross told Charleston to not go and say cheese anymore. So I hit up Aiden Ross and said, hell no, I absolutely did not say that. He's like, why the fuck would I care about what Charleston's doing with that?

1:07:03Adam22:It's just Charleston, he's just so smart. He's like, I don't know if y 'all realize this, but Charleston has, he has a cult now. Yeah, true, true. He has a cult following. So whatever he says is gold. Most of his cult following is like 40. Everything he says is gold. Like I got old people cussing me out now because Charleston.

1:07:26Shawn Cotton:Say what he said.

1:07:26Adam22:I got people that I put, nigga, how you mad at me? And I put you on Charleston.

1:07:30Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

1:07:30Adam22:You know what I'm saying?

1:07:31Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

1:07:32Adam22:So it's just with Charleston, he's so smart. But if you're dumb, he will manipulate you. He knows how to throw these curves. And he like, bro, what? Like, Aiden Ross is this and that, bro. Stop sucking this, nigga. Come get your eyeball back, nigga.

1:07:53Shawn Cotton:Let me ask you this, because there's been a few people who've been outspoken about, I guess, you recently. Rob4N9 is one of them. Yeah. What's the situation with him?

1:08:02Adam22:I guess you were early on with helping him get his deal? Yeah, I was wrong for that. I put, I was wrong for going public. Because the question with me was, what's our relationship? and me and Rafa and I, we really don't have a relationship. He told, like, I did get him signed and stuff like that, but...

1:08:25Shawn Cotton:When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like... because at Hilton, hospitality feels like

1:08:44Adam22:your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels?

1:08:46Shawn Cotton:It matters where you stay.

1:08:50Adam22:Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton for this day. Me and the label at that time, we weren't seeing eye to eye. They owed me like a quarter, half a million dollars. So I kind of fell back until I was paid. And, you know, Rob Fournette, he was having like Vulture Island concerts and welcome home city concerts and I wasn't invited to. And I kind of felt like, damn, like me and his, like his mom would reach out and invite me to stuff. Like, but me and Ralph 49, we really never had a relationship. And that's all I was saying to where like in that interview. But I have no, I have no beef with Ralph 49. I mean, he's doing this thing.

1:09:33Adam22:I have no beef with Ralph wave. I just really want to get away from that because I don't want people to ever feel like I'm chasing that. for clicks, but the person did ask me in an interview about Rob 49 and we don't really have a relationship. And it kind of made me upset with the Mud Baby shit too, but...

1:09:50Shawn Cotton:My advice is when the hosts leave, it can be very, very tempting to air out your side of the story and make them look bad, etc. But all of the hosts who left No Jumper, it's like a bunch of them came back, but the ones who didn't come back is almost always because I just disrespected the fuck out of them after they left. and I think that almost all of them would have came back if I had just played it cool. So from now on, I'm going to try to really stick by that because realistically, if I had just not gone off the deep end, they all would have came back and it would have ended up making the platform look bigger and better.

1:10:25Shawn Cotton:Yeah. So I appreciate the theatrics with the eyeball for sure.

1:10:29Adam22:Yeah, no, that's a real story though. That's a real story. I just want to figure out what was he doing in New York in the alleyway at 3 a.m.? By himself too By himself Probably getting some Zah

1:10:42Shawn Cotton:That's what I'd be doing if I

1:10:43Adam22:But yeah with Rob Farnan I just want to say that again too Like that was I'm just taking accountability You know what I'm saying cause It is what it is

1:10:54Shawn Cotton:I know you don't like saying this or listening to people That you feel like you helped but I still just want to ask you Who do you feel like

1:11:00Adam22:Outside of Rob Farnan maybe YTB Fat And everybody else Who do you feel like you've helped the most that people might not even know or you might not even get credit for with your platform that you like. I help these people love. It's so many. I think maybe Kwando, Rondo, maybe Tay-K. Tay-K, easy. I was salty because when Tay-K blew up, this motherfucker got an exclusive record with him. That was the Atlantic power. Did you make any money off that at all?

1:11:28Shawn Cotton:It was on the YouTube channel, right? You know, like Atlantic gave me a dance, or advance. And then we started putting records together. And that was the first record. And no, I definitely didn't make any money off it. Presumably they were just like paying off the advance through that. But also like, that's when I realized how serious fake views were because that's like the most viewed video on our channel is like 27 million or some shit. That's real.

1:11:51Adam22:You don't think so?

1:11:52Shawn Cotton:No. Cause I'm sitting there watching it come in. You can go look at the comments, like the oldest comments, fakest comments ever. Cause I was watching it as it came in.

1:12:00Adam22:Okay.

1:12:00Shawn Cotton:And it was the biggest spike ever on our channel. And I'm watching the comments as they come in. And I'm thinking like, does Black Boy JB and Tay-K really got fans like this? And I'm realizing, like, at that time, I didn't really understand fake views. But looking back on it now, I get it. Because you see so many people sign the labels. And all of a sudden, their views go through the roof. That's like one of the main things that the labels do. Is they just juice your stats on everything, you know? They do. Yeah. Yeah. They'll never admit to it, but. Never. Facts. So what's your relationship with Youngboy at this point?

1:12:31Shawn Cotton:Have you ever reached out? Are you trying to get that interview in again? They hate me. They hate you, right? Youngboy hates my guts, bro. What is the root of that? I'm scared. I'm scared. He did the first G Money interview.

1:12:39Adam22:I'm scared of Youngboy. Oh, wow.

1:12:40Shawn Cotton:He did the, you did the G Money interview where he, and he talked about smashing Youngboy's sister, right?

1:12:45Adam22:Yeah, no, I didn't know about it. I interviewed him over the phone. That was back then when I was interviewing people over the phone that I couldn't get to. Yeah. Speaker phone. Speaker phone, but I had the camera on them. Brad still does that all the time. A lot of people do it really. Yeah, but not on speakerphone. I was interviewing him. I didn't even have a mic on.

1:13:00Shawn Cotton:Oh, you could just hear it? Yeah.

1:13:03Adam22:And he said it. He was like, he said something about a f***ing young boy's sister. And I'm like, bro, what? And then it went up and then he died. And then I got the blame for it. But G-Money, Ben, he, like, I don't want to say begged for an interview, but he wanted to do the interview. And we did it and he said what he said. And I still get the blame for it. But now Youngboy had blocked us eight years ago. I don't think we've... Youngboy has blocked us over eight years. I don't think...

1:13:34Shawn Cotton:I hate how that shit happens too. I interviewed EBK Jabo's op while he was locked up. Totally. I thought that he appreciated the music and the beef and everything enough that he wouldn't care. And then he totally cared. He didn't go in on me, but he just dubbed me. I was supposed to meet up with him when he got out of jail the most recent time. And I think because I interviewed this dude, bands that he had smoked with that like that just kind of ruined it for him which i thought that he would like i thought we had a good enough relationship and i thought that he didn't give a fuck about that shit to the point where it would have been cool but i'm pretty sure that was the x factor yeah yeah yeah people get um it's kind of you know it's hard in media you i try to

1:14:17Adam22:get both sides of the story yeah but in media you can't play they they they don't want you to get both sides. They want you to play their side. You know what I'm saying?

1:14:26Shawn Cotton:Yeah, especially if they're clowning their op. It's one thing if they run through the details of the situation or whatever, but if they're sitting there joking on them, saying some shit about their mom and their girl and all this, it's like average rapper is not going to be able to just take that in stride. It's against their code.

1:14:43Adam22:YB, they don't fuck with me at all, man. I think he's an amazing artist. I kind of give him criticism on the music side where they get mad again, but you still post them a lot though

1:14:55Shawn Cotton:I don't ever see anyone what's the main criticism

1:14:59Adam22:he just puts out a lot of BS music and I feel like he could be more creative with his albums I feel like back then we used to when we used to hear Wayne and Dipset and all the locks and we used to hear skits on albums and I remember when Wayne used to just a whole song just talking on a song just talking like to me that's like that makes people more of a fan when you bring us to your world and I feel like Youngboy has no creativity with his albums and if I knew Youngboy and I was in the studio with Youngboy his albums would be a full it would be like a book his album should be I just feel like he's just trying to run through and he's just throwing us music and he's too big for that

1:15:45Shawn Cotton:you see it in the vlogs and stuff that they were filming at Grave Digger Mountain and stuff where like him making a song is him just like literally just hopping on the beat saying whatever he wants to say for a minute or two and that's it but it's like some of my favorite young boy sounds like the son that he did with juice world i mean that's just like because juice world was more hook oriented more songwriter oriented and like they made one of the greatest songs of that era and i feel like young boy i wish he was humble enough to sit in the studio with a songwriter and put together some cool hooks.

1:16:17Adam22:He has the fan base. Whatever he does, they're going to like it regardless. But he has the fan base call to be creative, take his time, and make something timeless. Yeah. And he only gives us time. He only gives us a hit maybe every... It's just a lot of fluff in there. Yeah. And he's too big of an artist to be doing that. But you see... And they get mad when I say that. They're going to hate me for saying this right now,

1:16:44Shawn Cotton:but I want him to be great. Did you see his concert live? Which one? When he did the arena tour or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went. Oh, I didn't go live, no. Oh, I went and it was astounding how even in LA, which is not exactly close to where the nexus of his fan base is, is like you hear the beat come on for every song and they're losing their fucking minds. And yeah, I mean, it's still like a small criticism because obviously he's doing a great job of serving his fan base, but I do feel like he could make a little bit more memorable songs. You said you too scared to go. Do you think it'd be a problem if you pulled up to the Young Boy concert?

1:17:16Adam22:Nah, I mean. I wasn't backstage. You just don't know which day. You know, you could see somebody on the, but it's just like, okay, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12. He got like 20 albums, right? It's like, damn, bro. I just want him to slow down because the last album was 30 songs, right? His fans are eating it up, but it's just like, Give us a skid or two bro Have your mom talk on one song Young boy Montana What's Alex his manager If y 'all watching this Half his mom just cuss everybody out On the skid in one song bro It's little shit You know what I'm saying It's little things that can bring us To the album bro Outside of just 30 songs

1:18:02Shawn Cotton:Alex Jannier or something like that I want young boy to do this Super Bowl halftime show in the next couple years. But we're going to need some bigger hits in order for that to happen. You know, it's like we're going to need stuff that sounds a little bit more palatable.

1:18:15Adam22:Yeah, I feel like future, I feel like right now future, future, Kanye, and Chris Brown. Those are the only three we should be talking about. I don't think Chris Brown is marketable enough

1:18:28Shawn Cotton:for the mainstream audience. Man, people done did way worse shit. I think that's not... Play the halftime show? I mean, Snoop was allegedly involved with a murder, but that was like 20 years before he was on that. I don't think that's holding Chris Brown back. I think what's holding Chris Brown back from the Super Bowl is that Jay-Z runs it and he hates Chris Brown. Yeah.

1:18:47Adam22:Is that confirmed that he really hates Chris Brown? I mean, that's what Chris Brown thinks. It's a Rihanna situation and Jay-Z and Rihanna still like this. He made a mistake years ago. He was a kid. But he ain't exactly been a schoolboy since then. And he just did the highest grossing tour in America.

1:19:04Shawn Cotton:I would love to see him do it, but I think Jay-Z isn't rocking Chris Brown. I don't think the NFL wants all that negativity. I don't think anything negative will come out of that. Every woman on earth is going to lose their fucking mind. He's just the highest grossing tour. I know, but that only appeals to his fans. The Super Bowl is for everybody. You have everybody in the entire country and the world with eyes on you. And you don't think this Bad Bunny shit was bad? But it wasn't because the worst thing you can say about Bad Bunny is he's zesty. Or he's like anti-American. Or he didn't speak English.

1:19:32Shawn Cotton:Yeah, what's the argument that he's even anti-American? It's kind of hard to even put that argument together. Okay, I get what you're saying. I think that people are being kind of ridiculous.

1:19:40Adam22:Young Boy would never do a halftime show. You don't think? Hell no.

1:19:44Shawn Cotton:I don't think he has big enough songs yet. Yeah, but I think he could get there. And I think, honestly, he dropped, and I'm a young boy. I think he should have had, with him going on this tour, the album that he dropped after the tour really didn't live up to the hype.

1:19:56Adam22:This was his Carter III moment. So am I wrong for saying what I'm saying? No, you ain't wrong at all. Okay, because they're going to say I'm wrong. They're going to say I'm hating when I just want to see the nigga be great. Like Kodak Black. I was supposed to do an interview with Kodak Black. He running around mad, talking about I said something dumb or out of pocket. No, nigga, I just want to see you be great. Get off the drugs and give us another motherfucking institution, nigga.

1:20:18Shawn Cotton:I also feel like Youngboy might already be too, like he might never be able to do the Super Bowl halftime show just because of like the video of him throwing his girl on the ground was bad back in the day. That was back in the day, though. But then also there's like a trap lore video about him having 12 bodies or whatever.

1:20:33Adam22:Yeah, the NFL's not letting nobody with that background image going to jail, being pardoned. They're not touching that. He'd have to start on an image rehab program right now. You could have big enough records, but just his background, bro, like they not. And they don't even want rappers on this shit anyway. Hell no.

1:20:48Shawn Cotton:You know, they want Sabrina Carpenter. They about to go back white again. Miley Cyrus is the one who's predicted as most likely to do it next year.

1:20:54Adam22:No, what about the other girl? The white girl that became naked? Sabrina Carpenter? No, the rapper. Sabrina Carpenter. Daw The white girl that's That's bald headed

1:21:05Shawn Cotton:Doji? No no Doja Cat She could do it She's from out here She's from out here

1:21:17Adam22:She's not white though Doja Cat hell though Doja Cat is white bro I thought she was light skinned black chick She claims she black but she white

1:21:25Shawn Cotton:I don't know Is Doja Cat white? Is she white? Try GPT. Doja Cat is not white. She got a lot of backlash because she was in those chats with those white guys. Oh wait, but she is half, she's biracial. Her father is technically.

1:21:37Adam22:Any hood you take her to, they gonna look at her like she white, bro.

1:21:40Shawn Cotton:For sure.

1:21:41Adam22:Sometimes it ain't what you is, it's on the outside. Yeah, yeah.

1:21:43Shawn Cotton:People don't talk about yellow bones anymore. That's still a thing. Yellow bone? Yellow wolf? Yellow wolf. Oh, yellow bone. Oh, okay,

1:21:50Adam22:okay, okay. Red bone, yellow bone. Damn. Yeah, but Kodak mad at me about some shit I had said or whatever and he, we supposed to do interview, then he kind of backtracked about it and shit. Were you talking to him directly? I was just doing an interview about him, but it's like, bro, that's what's wrong with these niggas, bro. These niggas want yes men. They don't want to be challenged. They don't want to be great, bro. They don't want to be pushed, bro. They want to be comfortable and they want to just be where they are at. But a nigga like me, I want the greats for everybody, bro.

1:22:22Shawn Cotton:So if you could talk to Kodak and help him out, what you think Kodak need right now?

1:22:26Adam22:I think he needs a rebrand. I think he should cut his hair off. I think he should get off drugs. I think he should lock in. That's what I would tell him. Kodak Black, cut off your dreads, rebrand like he always does. You know, he'll cut it off, grow it back, cut it off. I think he should go back, get the gold teeth again. And I think he should drop Institution 2. 30 songs, no features, all hard shit. And I think a lot of his old people, because I haven't listened to a Kodak album in five years. I think Kodak has dropped five tapes. Let me go back and look. I feel like he lost a lot of his fan base and I think he can win them back if he just go back and give the people what uh like he dropped Just Getting Started I didn't listen to it.

1:23:06Adam22:Gift for the Streets didn't listen to it. Trillbill I didn't listen to it. Octave didn't listen to it. Culture Vulture didn't listen to it. When I was there I didn't listen to none of this bro. I want him to go back and be the artist of love and rap again. I hate a rapper that said they not a rapper. I don't want to I don't want to listen to a rapper that's saying they not a rapper. I love a nigga who want to rap and want to be the greatest rapper. That's why I love Wayne. I'm the greatest rapper of all time. I'm the greatest rapper of all time.

1:23:35Shawn Cotton:Dead or alive. But with somebody like Kodak, they don't love him for his lyrical dexterity. They love him for just saying real shit, passionate, soulful shit, and making hits, but it does feel like he's not necessarily as devoted to the hit-making process as it used to be. But yeah, I remember he dropped the album in 2018, 2019. Crazy. It was the one that had the features from Pump and Juice WRLD and shit like that. Yeah, paying pictures. That was the last one that I felt was really like a cohesive project. Yep, hold on.

1:24:07Adam22:Dying to Live. Yeah. Yeah, what are you listening to nowadays? What's on Sean's playlist? Damn. I listen to a lot of old shit, bro. I'm an underground type guy, so I'm listening to a lot of old shit. like old Wayne I'm listening to a lot of old Wayne I ain't gonna lie I'm still stuck in that like 2015 2021 bubble so like who from that era shit Uzi um Cora I don't know if y 'all know who Cora is she from Philly I'm just like I don't know like so none of the new music is I like Baby Tron I love Baby Tron early Baby Tron

1:24:56Shawn Cotton:So none of the new music really resonates with you

1:24:59Adam22:I like J.D.R. Breezy

1:25:06Adam22:Refreshing Wild Cherry Cola Meets Smooth Cream

1:25:12Adam22:The treat you deserve Pepsi Wild Cherry and Cream Treat Yourself Are you dreaming of the perfect prom That there's just one thing holding you back? Speak English, mom. Welcome to Ethnosync. Ethnic modification. What is this place? We help you reach your true potential. How are you feeling?

1:25:36Shawn Cotton:It's good to be white.

1:25:38Adam22:Hey, new girl.

1:25:39Shawn Cotton:Hey. Look at what you've done to yourself.

1:25:41Adam22:For a new plant to grow, the seed has to die. Slanted. Rated R. Only in theaters March 13th. Side effects may occur.

1:25:51Shawn Cotton:Would it be fair to say you're at an all time low for hip hop listening? Because I for sure. Everybody is.

1:25:59Adam22:That's not a Sean Cotton thing. It's just everybody is. I mean, this is the first time that a hip hop song hasn't been in the top 40 in like how many years? It's crazy. Like the people have called on like. Like. When people it's like everybody's like when J. Cole dropped everybody on Twitter. Nobody just enjoys the shit no more. You know what I'm saying?

1:26:22Shawn Cotton:It's all about having your opinion. Yeah. His shit sold super f***ing good. I don't know. I just personally just didn't really care.

1:26:31Adam22:J. Cole, I'll probably go to sleep listening to that shit.

1:26:35Shawn Cotton:It felt like too much of a homework assignment. It's like, I know that this was written over this long period of time and I know that all these songs are conceptual and about different things and I'm like putting it on and I'm just like, damn bro. I don't give a fuck.

1:26:52Shawn Cotton:Draco I still listen to. And I listen to EBK J-Bo. I listen to Poo Shiesty.

1:26:58Adam22:Yeah, I fuck with Poo Shiesty.

1:26:59Shawn Cotton:But besides that, when I go to work out in the morning, I've been listening to Black Sabbath.

1:27:03Adam22:I love Young T.O. from Da Bay. S-O-B-R-B. I listen to a lot of his shit too. He's dope.

1:27:11Shawn Cotton:I realized how bad it is the other day because every year I make a playlist and my playlist for 2026 currently has two songs on it and we are a month and a half into the year. That's not a good sign. No. How do you feel about, so Rainwater was getting a lot of backlash because when R.P. Z the Wizard from the New Dallas scene, when he died, he was on, Rainwater was on the internet kind of like not really mocking him, but just like really just saying like Mo3 is the best. Like during that time of them grieving, he was just bragging about Mo3, kind of saying some shit that I guess some of the New Dallas guys probably wasn't feeling.

1:27:50Shawn Cotton:What was your thoughts about the shit Rainwater was saying and how he took that time to do what he was doing?

1:27:56Adam22:I told Rainwater he should chill. Everything he makes about Mo3 and I get it, but it's a new era, bro. You got to let people have their time. And then the GoFundMe shit, like...

1:28:08Shawn Cotton:Oh, yeah, it was about the GoFundMe. About them having...

1:28:11Adam22:Because the thing is... Zita Wizard's mom had put out a GoFundMe.

1:28:15Shawn Cotton:For like$100 ,000 or something?

1:28:16Adam22:Yeah, but then, you know, New Dallas is always promoting money.

1:28:19Shawn Cotton:And they got, like, even Montana 7100, KMCO interviewed with what,$100 ,000? $500 ,000. $500 ,000, so I guess they're looking at it like, wait, why is his mom having to even do that?

1:28:28Adam22:Yeah, but New Dallas, they told me that, like, they took care of the funeral and everything. Like, everything's taken care of. The niggas is getting money. They getting money. They getting book shows and shit. Yeah, they doing their thing, but Ryan Waters is just, he's still grieving, and he doesn't know how to accept that Dallas has moved on to other artists. Because Mo3, he's like, he's the heart of like Texas still. Like people in the prison cell, in prison, in the streets, in the traps, they still listen to Mo3. And I think Rainwater doesn't know how to accept it, that it's some new regime in town.

1:29:03Adam22:It's some new cats. You got to let people do their thing, bro. You know what I'm saying? and it's like Rainwater, if you're trying to find a new artist, you can't be on people's bad side because then they're going to root against you every time.

1:29:16Shawn Cotton:You think it's over for Rainwater or you think you're going to be able to put that?

1:29:19Adam22:No, I think Rainwater's finding his way. He got finesse right now. He's managing finesse and he's doing his thing. Yeah, he's doing his thing. Rainwater's just, he's just finding his way and trying to build his personal brand.

1:29:30Shawn Cotton:I like him a lot as like a podcaster. Yeah, Rainwater's super entertaining. Yeah, super good personality. The manager or label guy. It's kind of a different conversation, right? He's got it in him. He had O.C. Chris. I think O.C. Chris should have stayed with Rainwater. Of course. Yeah, of course. I feel like him leaving Rainwater was a bad mistake.

1:29:52Adam22:People start listening to people in their ear and shit like that. But no, Rainwater made O.C. Chris. I mean, we've seen that. Rainwater, one thing about him, he's going to dive on the floor and get the loose balls, no diddy. He's going to hustle. He's going to go out in these clubs. He's going to do all the different things where it takes. He's not trying to go viral. Rainwater, and one thing I like about Rainwater, he doesn't want his artists to go viral. He wants to do the little small steps to get DJs and putting up things, doing this, doing that, to get them to fuck with you. Going viral sometimes is bad for artists because once they go viral, they always want to go viral and they forget about the little small steps.

1:30:35Adam22:You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But nah, the Rainwater thing, I told him he should chill out, man. People are grieving.

1:30:42Shawn Cotton:Facts. Yeah, you know, Rainwater, he be popping it. When I seen him on there, I'm like, man, he going too crazy about the situation.

1:30:50Adam22:Yeah, Rainwater, he's an asshole.

1:30:53Shawn Cotton:Because at one point, y 'all wasn't seeing really eye to eye and then y 'all kind of pieced it up in y 'all interviews.

1:30:57Adam22:Yeah, I mean, me and Rain are always bump heads, man. He's, like I told you, he's annoying. Like, he's super annoying because he wants it so bad. But, yeah, me and him, we always bump heads and shit, but we good. I want to see dude win, man. I definitely want to see him win.

1:31:13Shawn Cotton:How do you feel? Oh, they're saying that Yellow Beasy might have to testify in the Mo3 trial?

1:31:17Adam22:Man, bro, yo, all that shit is crazy. The Mo3, Yellow Beasy, the Tranny interview, all that shit going, I don't know none of that shit, bro. Like, that shit is crazy. I even got pulled over one day about that shit, I think. Like, right when that shit, yeah. I had, like, nine to 12 guns in my car, and they checking them, making sure they all, like, I don't know nothing about that, bro. Like, I don't know.

1:31:45Shawn Cotton:It's like you thought the Mo3 story was over, and then you get this insane plot twist of, like, oh, no, actually, we got this big-ass rapper for it, and we're going to put him on trial. Like, damn.

1:31:55Adam22:Which was kind of crazy because you see somebody gets killed on the highway, broad day, you kind of feel like it's a narrative. I mean, a motive behind it. Yeah. But I never thought that shit would come down to that. You know what I'm saying? I kept thinking it was about like a bitter baby dead. That's what I was being told.

1:32:15Shawn Cotton:That's what we were told for such a long time. It was like, oh, this is some girl and her boyfriend got mad. Yeah. Yeah. What's your relationship with Ami and the Hellcat? Because I've seen.

1:32:23Adam22:That's my guy. I bought his car. I'm actually about to ship it back tomorrow. His Hellcat. Yeah, he's out, right? He's out, yep. He's coming home to some crazy. He told me he's coming home to$28 million. Yeah. This is what he said publicly. I'm only saying because he said in our interview. But he said he's coming home to$28 million.

1:32:40Shawn Cotton:Damn.

1:32:41Adam22:I know Nike had hit him for$8 million. And then I know restitution and shit like that. But he's going to come home and have it his way.

1:32:50Shawn Cotton:You think he really made that much off those shoes?

1:32:53Adam22:$8 million? Yeah. Yeah. Them shit was moving. I was at his crib one day and they was just, shit was like a factory. They was working that shit. Wow.

1:33:01Shawn Cotton:Yeah. Insane.

1:33:03Adam22:He was selling them for so cheap too. How much? He was undercutting, maybe he was doing$40 to$100.

1:33:09Shawn Cotton:I know a guy who was basically doing the exact same thing, making shoes that were like the same design basically and they didn't come for him but I guess they didn't sell enough. Yeah. Nah.

1:33:18Adam22:Omi was running it up. Damn. Yup.

1:33:23Shawn Cotton:Got anything else, Remo? Yeah, let's end it with this.

1:33:27Adam22:Why are you being more outspoken than you usually have been? Because before, Sean was usually in the cut. Not really saying so much. Because one thing, people will create narratives that's not true. You kind of just got to do some shit. You kind of just got to address it. But then two is just working on the Sean Cotton brand. Just, you know, like how Adam and academics, they could, you know. My homies just be in my ear like, yo, you need to work on your personal brand, bro. And I'm on Twitter and I'm seeing Adam22 with a million followers on Twitter. And I'm like, you got a million followers on there, right?

1:34:04Adam22:Something like that. And I'm like, all right, man, I just need to get my personal brand. Because when your personal brand is big, you can do more collabs and shit like that.

1:34:11Shawn Cotton:Yeah.

1:34:12Adam22:And for years, like I told you on the last interview, I was just trying to be incognito and just put say cheese out there. But when you are your brand and then you have a brand, you kind of dib and dab in more shit. So it's not like I'm just clout chasing, but just being more opinionated on shit that I would say to my homies. It's not like I'm doing anything that I wouldn't do. You hurting right now with the Bitcoin crash? Nah, I'm actually buying more. You need to get to one Bitcoin and stop playing. I think I got one. You finally got one afterward? I got way more than one. Good. Yeah. But I mean.

1:34:44Adam22:But in our last interview, you acted so clueless.

1:34:47Shawn Cotton:No, no. I mean, I've been had Bitcoin. I got like half a million in crypto or some shit like that. But I mean, it definitely like when I see you saying that Bitcoin is going to 30 million, I'm like, OK, I'm not in this category. No, no, no.

1:34:59Adam22:I think when I said that, because people did take that and run with it, I think by the time your kids are grown, it's going to be at$30 million. When we're not here no more and Bitcoin is the world currency, I think that's when Bitcoin is going to be at$30 million. I feel like that's the peak. But I don't think that anytime soon. I think the first time we'll get to a million dollars is maybe 2032. too. But I think now we just hit the bottom at$60 ,000 and I just feel like anybody who wants to, you know, look out for their kids or for their future, they should at least get to one.

1:35:40Shawn Cotton:How much money are you calling behind with the drop in Bitcoin? Like how much you lost?

1:35:46Adam22:I don't pay attention to that. I just keep buying. I just keep accumulating and accumulating until until everybody in my family has at least one Bitcoin. My mom, my sisters, my kids. I at least want everybody to have one. So I'm just buying.

1:36:04Shawn Cotton:What are you doing also while you're out here?

1:36:09Adam22:Just sightseeing. Family vacay.

1:36:12Shawn Cotton:You don't want to pull up to the Blueface press conference right now? Nah, I'm cool. You don't want to go do some hip-hop shit. It's a press conference? For his next boxing match, yeah. Him and Swaggy P boxing in May, so it was like a press conference. Oh, really? I don't know exactly what this is going to be like, but we're about to pull up.

1:36:28Adam22:Damn, my mate. Just send me the address. I'm going to see what they want to do. Yeah.

1:36:32Shawn Cotton:It'll be cool. It's not the actual fight. It's just like a press conference. Yeah. The W in Hollywood.

1:36:36Adam22:Yeah. So let me ask y 'all this before we leave, right? What time is the press conference? Two. Two o 'clock, and it's one right now. What advice do y 'all have for streamers and people that want to get in this space? Because that's the whole thing now about media and streaming and rappers are streaming and OGs are doing podcasts.

1:36:54Shawn Cotton:What is your advice? Well, I mean, I'm still figuring out the streamer thing and I still feel like I'm still figuring out content creation in general. But I would say that when you look at the way that platforms like No Jumper and Say Cheese was granted are still very valuable and relevant. But we have, I think, lost traction to a certain extent. Like when I look at my views right now versus 2017, 2018, it's definitely a difference. And I think the number one reason why is short form content. And so anything that you're going to do, if you're going to make content, you need to be short form minded.

1:37:25Shawn Cotton:When I walk by three, four Mexican dudes sitting on their phones, eating lunch on the street while I'm doing cardio, what are they doing? They're looking at TikTok and reels. So I have a ton of the people that I've put on through No Jumper have basically like became streamers became IRL streamers or podcasters or whatever but none of them have ever really leaned into making short form content and the people I see winning are the people who are actually encapsulating what makes them valuable in 60 seconds on TikTok on reels etc you got to figure out how to do that or at the very least you got to be able to adapt your streams or your podcast

1:38:00Adam22:to short form so you're talking about YouTube shorts yeah and reels right all that but that

1:38:09Shawn Cotton:doesn't make money though right i know but it's still like the number one source of advertising and all you can hope for is to convert some percentage of those into a lot of these kids that's just growing up they aren't just like looking at the traditional media shit so like they're on tiktok so i say just stay in front of those kids because they're going to determine what's hot in the future and that's what's crazy about it too is that a lot of the people who are up and coming that i meet they're getting pretty known on social media they don't got no money at the very sometimes they'll be like yeah I'm making like 1500 bucks a month off TikTok and they're big on TikTok and I'm like damn you like almost maybe kind of paying your rent that's a big difference from like if you were a lit YouTuber in 2017 you were making a good amount of money yeah how do you feel like

1:38:55Adam22:you interviewed 1900 Rugrat right yeah yeah shout out Rugrat and other rappers too right Like who's the last few rappers you've interviewed?

1:39:07Shawn Cotton:Let's go take a look. But yeah, Rugrat is definitely somebody that I believe in him. I think he's going places. Let's go to the interview tab. Okay. Lil Speedy out of Chicago, who I was kind of surprised. His clips did very well. Shout out Speedy, man. Jay Wick out of Atlanta, the white dude with the long hair. Okay. Yeah, he's been going nuts. We have Bruh Bruh, who's kind of like a Dirk affiliate. there's a guy named Top Hat 33k out here who's not actually a rapper just yet

1:39:37Adam22:and do you feel like the demand for rapper interviews are down?

1:39:40Shawn Cotton:oh yeah of course

1:39:41Adam22:why is that?

1:39:43Shawn Cotton:the demand for rap is low so the demand for rapper interviews is gonna be low but I still feel like it's

1:39:49Adam22:there's stuff to be done but it all comes from these rappers they don't put in the footwork all these niggas are tiktok niggas they're not doing meet and greets they're not outside Adam you gotta remember in your heyday was functions right you had to go to the function you had to go out and do meet and greets you had to do the shows with 50 people these motherfuckers are not doing it I was only lit

1:40:13Shawn Cotton:because well because I was just outside I was going I was backstage at every single underground show hanging out with the people do they still have shit like that it ain't what it used to be I should still be in that environment I remember like it's still going on like a year ago went to a laser dim show Bronny James was there What happened to Lazer Dem? I don't know He's still out here But I'm not sure I mean he's somebody Who's You gotta adapt You gotta make great music If you want people to stay tuned But he's still doing his thing He's doing his thing But as far as like Staying in the public eye You gotta make Good music Yeah I mean he seems like He's kind of married To that iPhone rap I don't agree that There's not a demand For hip hop interviews I believe that It's just oversaturated With how many people Are doing interviews And rappers Are being selective On like Alright Why go do this platform I'm going to just try to go do an Aiden Ross interview.

1:41:00Shawn Cotton:So I think rappers who are going to fuck with streamers are kind of like fucking up the game because they'll go like with a streamer that has like 70 ,000, 100 ,000 people, but they might not even be a true hip-hop fan. And Plackboy Max is not going to ask you about your ops. So that's, I think, you know.

1:41:16Adam22:Yeah, and then it's like who watches streaming interviews? I'm asking like do people watch that?

1:41:20Shawn Cotton:People like Jace and Rugrat, you know, they're all on Plackboy Max and shit. like he's somebody who's but he's kind of music oriented you know somebody like kai a rapper is just a celebrity to kai you know he's like really trying to put people on but somebody like max with the engineering on stream and shit that i i think that's that's amazing content that shit i actually like sit down and watch i think a huge percentage of rappers who used to like do audiences with like traditional media like you guys is they're like all right let me just hop on this stream with this streamer who has 60, 70 ,000 followers so they can hop in front of the kid audience but half the time the streamer is not even like a big journalist or really care about the art that much.

1:41:59Shawn Cotton:But we talking about Baby Tron like when I watch Baby Tron on Playboy Max I fully got reminded of like this guy is it. Like he's amazing as a rapper and watching him just bust out bars over and over and over like that I was like endlessly impressed by that.

1:42:13Adam22:Yeah Baby Tron he's a, I like Baby Tron a lot man. Yeah for sure. But I appreciate y 'all for bringing me. Charleston White, come get your eye back. Come get your eye back.

1:42:24Shawn Cotton:We'll hold on to that for you, Charleston.

1:42:26Adam22:In the, like I said, the mafia, they owe me a favor. Mafiathon? No, the mafia from New York. The ones that got the eye.

1:42:38Shawn Cotton:They called me an alley at 3 a.m.

1:42:39Adam22:They owe me a favor. I did some work for them back in 07.

1:42:44Shawn Cotton:Nice.

1:42:45Adam22:They owe me a favor and delivered it right to my doorstep. so y 'all want to hold it? Y 'all want to hold on to it or I can take it? We can put it in the famous yard.

1:42:54Shawn Cotton:Yeah, we can put it up here right next to Crypt Max Old English which honestly they look like they're essentially kind of the same liquid.

1:43:01Adam22:I appreciate y 'all for having me. Chauncey, you gotta come up here to get the eye back, man.

1:43:06Shawn Cotton:The legend himself eating Cheez-Its. Gotta love it. Shout out to Remo. Nojumper, coolest podcast in the world. Like, comment, and subscribe. We need to read those comments. We out. Thought Sweetgreen was just salads? Think again. There's a new way to do Sweetgreen. Wrapped and ready. These handheld wraps pack bold flavor and 40 plus grams of protein into something hearty, satisfying, and built for life on the go. From craveable sauces to satisfying textures. They're designed to keep you going without slowing you down. So put that fork down. Try the new wraps today in app or at order.sweetgreen.com.

1:43:46Shawn Cotton:Available at participating locations only. Thank you.