Digital Social Hour - Going to Therapy, Getting XXL Freshman & Upcoming Album I 24kGoldn DSH #358

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

24k Goldn comes on the show to discuss Therapy, Getting XXL Freshman & Upcoming Album. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Hostinger: https://www.hostinger.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXa... Sean Kelly Instagram: @seanmikekelly   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I actually didn't tell my parents I made music until like three years in. When you really like care about something, you want to keep it close to you and like protected from judgments or opinions from the outside world. I didn't really care what the kids in my school thought if they didn't like it. But if my mom or dad was like, that's dumb, that probably would have been discouraging. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. All right, guys. 24K Golden in the building. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, my pleasure. Absolutely.

You got a new album coming out? Yeah, I got an ep coming out um i don't know when this is coming out but around this time that we're speaking right now yeah yeah you're about to start touring and stuff too right i am about to start touring yeah you've been on tour before yeah this is probably gonna be like my fifth or sixth tour you have that at this point i feel like it man i feel like i've been to war yeah and you're only 23 right yeah 23 already five tours? Damn. Yeah. Because those last like half the year, right?

Nah, nah. It's usually like two months, you know? Yeah. And that's where you run up the bag, right? That's where artists make the bread out, the corn. Yeah, we do well on tour. We do well on tour. All that money at a young age.

What was that process like? It's interesting because it comes in waves. You know what I'm saying? You sign your first record deal, your first publishing deal or whatever. For most people, especially if you're as young as you were when I signed, I think I was 18, that's more money at one time than you've ever had in your entire life. Right. But it's not like you're working a salary job and you're getting a check every month.

It's just boom here's all this money good luck yeah basically so it's been um it's been a process to learn how to budget and how to like manage that signing at 18 that's got to be a record for age nah nah it's probably like nine just to be was like 13 you know what damn people are signing at 13 yeah so you were in high school when you signed. No, I was in my first year of college. Oh, college. UCLA, right? No, USC. USC, USC. So freshman

year, so from there you just dipped? Basically yeah, I was like, I'm out. Thank you for the experience, the college experience, because that was rare and I'm glad I got to experience that, but I had other places to be, other things to do.

And then at 19, I just saw you announced you were going to therapy on Instagram. So in that year. Yeah, I think I was like, yeah, I was probably like 19 or 20 when I started going to therapy. Damn, so a lot happened in that. Or was that from previous trauma? Nah, I didn't really have like a super traumatic childhood. Yeah. Like I definitely had my fair share of like struggles and things to overcome, but nothing

that I was like, I need to go to therapy because my mom didn't love me enough. Not that that, you know, isn't serious, but my just came with more so like growing up and after achieving some level of success. I think it's the success, but also the quickness of it yeah just all hit you your lifestyle just overnight right yeah that's a pretty good assessment yeah but it's a therapist i know right it's cool to see you be open about that because people in your space don't talk about that you know what i mean yeah and i ain't gonna lie like i used to not want to tell anybody that i went to therapy um like someone be like what you doing today and i'll be like i got an uh appointment and just leave it like that but i

think it is really powerful you know to to be open and transparent about that and just kind of like destigmatize it yeah because it's fire i mean for sure and with your following you could probably help out tons of people To be honest Going through some s*** Hopefully Everyone's going through their demons Yeah hopefully I saw on your Wikipedia

You were in choir In middle school and high school I was in choir in middle school And like one year in high school Yeah Dude that's dope I actually quit Because I got bullied

For being in choir Yeah as a guy You know what I mean It's all girls Yeah but that's the best part What I was the only guy in my class Yeah, but that's the best part of it. What? I was the only guy in my class.

Yeah, see? Ah, man. I wish you would have stuck it out. Yes, I gave in to the bullies in that situation. Yeah. Do you feel like going back, are you like, would you have done something differently? Would you have moved differently? Yeah, I liked it. I genuinely liked being in choir.

So looking back, it's kind of dumb trying to fit in. Yeah, because the greatest people that have lived on this planet Earth are never the ones that fit in. Right. Yeah. And you get made fun of if you're not fitting in. So it's kind of the game you got to play. Yeah.

Like, nah, fitting in. The birds. For sure. So did you not fit in school growing up um i would say i was very different than a lot of my peers but i owned it in a way that didn't like lead to extreme ostracization if that makes sense you know right so i was in the sneakers are you looking to start a new website look no further than hostinger hostinger is a top global web hosting and website creation brand where you can generate a full website in seconds using their AI website builder.

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and that also includes a free domain name which saves you additional money if you're interested check out hostinger.com slash dsh hostinger.com slash dsh and use code dsh get a discount on your order back to the show girls before it was cool and kids are like why are you spending all this money on shoes and i'm like because if i spend 500 pairs on this shoe then i can flip it two months from now for 1,000. People didn't get that. You know, I was very unashamed about making music and promoting it. Like, I would go around. I would print out flyers on the JROTC printers in my high school because I was a free printer. And, like, I would pass them out to random kids at school.

And people would be like, who does this guy think he is, you know? But that helped me build up a a thick skin and um it made people remember me that's dope did you have any support at all in the early days from friends or family yeah absolutely um i actually didn't tell my parents i made music until like three years in damn because it was one of those things where i don't know if you could relate to this but when when you really care about something, you want to keep it close to you and protected from judgments or opinions from the outside world. And I didn't really care what the kids in my school thought if they didn't like it. But if my mom or dad was like, that's dumb, that probably would have been discouraging.

Luckily, they were very supportive. And I definitely had friends and peers like peers that did my early but um yeah it wasn't it wasn't all bad and it wasn't all good yeah i feel that was it always the same style of music back then or did it evolve over time evolved crazy like i sometimes i'll go back and i'll just listen to my early stuff to see how far I've come. Nice. And I had some bangers back then. You know, Gucci Goyard, Gasha, Ballin' Like Sharif.

Everything was a lot more like rap and hip-hop influence. Yeah. And I still love rap music and hip-hop music and still rap. But my taste and my palate has opened up a lot more and you hear that a lot more in the new music yeah i've seen you say on other interviews you don't want to tie yourself to one genre you want to be open yeah which i think is cool because most people are just stuck in that one thing yeah and i get why because it's like yo you go to mcdonald's you expect a burger you know so if m So if McDonald's stops selling burgers,

people are going to be confused. It's going to be bad for business, but I don't want to be McDonald's. I want to be a Michelin star restaurant that changes its menu every season. Absolutely. Have you always had that business mindset? You mentioned flipping sneakers in high school.

Yeah. I didn't grow up with a lot of money. So if there was anything that I wanted, my parents were like, all right, if you can pay for it, you can have it. So to live the life that I wanted to live, I needed to develop that skill. I feel that. So when you started getting money, did you start investing in Redawa?

Yeah, I did. I've been investing in the stock market since fifth grade. Damn. Those are worth a lot now. Yeah, but I sold shit too that I'm like, why did I do that? But it was part of the lesson. It was part of the lesson. So I've always been investing.

I just bought a piece of fine art today. Oh, yeah? Which artist? At Freeze. His name is hard to pronounce, so let me look it up. I collect a bit of art too. You collect a bit of art. So this is this new dude. He's around oh go ahead what do you got artlana you know him

he paints the lambos you've never seen him no i haven't seen yeah he paints celebrities lambos mr e alec monopoly yeah yeah so this guy is collins obijiaku and he's from uh he's from nigeria young guy about our age okay he does uh nigeria that's dope yeah he did this joint it's like huge damn how do you even find this dude so uh i was just at freeze art festival today yeah art's a good one man because it a lot of it appreciates yeah hopefully right any other investments you're pumped about? I mean, crypto is kind of going crazy again. We're having another bull run. Yeah. So I've just been stacking Bitcoin and Ethereum in preparation for this moment. Yeah. And hopefully we hit 100K this run. Smart man, dude. A lot of people make money at your age and they don't keep it. Well, you know, trust me, I spent my fair share of money on dumb shit too.

But I think that's something you have to go through to develop good financial habits is experience the consequences of bad financial habits. Right. It's like, yo, if you get married to your high school sweetheart and that's the only person that you've ever been with, the likeliness of you cheating or, you know, having this, like, hold because you feel like you're missing out on something is much higher than if you've, you know, kind of already seen the world, traveled, been with all kinds of people, and, like, can't really pick the woman that you want because you want her and not because you're settling. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you feel like you've had to grow up kind of fast because of your lifestyle?

Yeah, I had to grow up hella fast. Yeah. I mean, I left the house at 17. Damn. I've been paying for all my own clothes, entertainment, stuff like that, video games, whatever I wanted since I was 13. Wow. And I had my first hit song when I was 18.

So everything has come really fast. And it's been a blessing, but also a challenge, a bit of a challenge. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That first hit song, what was that like? So my first hit song was Valentino. We put it out in December, I want to say. December 2018? 2019. 2018.

And literally nothing happened with it for probably seven or eight months. And I'm back home in San Francisco. It's the summer. I just got my wisdom teeth out. I can't do shit but lay in bed and watch movies, be on my phone. And I heard of this app called TikTok a couple weeks before. So I was just checking it out. And I was was like i wonder if my songs are on here so i typed my name in and i see valentino and it has like 10 000 15 000 videos to it and i didn't know if that was normal or not i was just like oh cool then i go check back like a couple hours later and it's like

17 000 a couple hours later 25 000. so i'm like oh something's happening here and um that song ended up being my first platinum my first gold my first platinum and my first double platinum wow song dude all because of tick tock and making a good song yeah yeah no tick tock definitely does it count as a play on tiktok like on spotify are the plays linked no i don't think so okay so even if you get like millions on tiktok it doesn't impact your your charts no only if it crosses over and people are like well i actually like this song and i want to listen to it not just this specific 10 seconds on a separate app but i want to listen to it in other situations and then they'll play it on spotify or apple music or whatever i feel that did you feel a lot of pressure after that one

to make another banger yes and no i knew i didn't want to be a one-hit wonder but i had to have at least two you know to feel good about myself um so there was definitely that drive but honestly it was really encouraging more than anything because it showed me that what i believed to be true with no evidence no proof whatsoever the the world believed too and that was that i can make music that enhances people's lives that's dope yeah and is that why you got doubleL Freshman a few years later? That song? I mean, it probably had something to do with it, you know? Yeah. What was that called? Like, that must have been nuts, right? Yeah. I literally remember exactly where I was. It was during the pandemic. I rented this Airbnb because I was like, man, I ain't trying to be in, if I'm going to die, let me die in style, you know? Let me die somewhere nice. So someone from my label called

me and they were like, Golden, you should sit down. And I'm like, oh, no, what happened? And they're like, you got to have a look so freshman. And I'm like, whoa, that's something I've always wanted. So that was a beautiful full circle moment. Yeah, that's like the pinnacle when you're that young to get that, right? Yeah, like, bro, I used to be in class watching the 2016 XXL freshman freestyle cypher over and over and over again. Like, telling the kids in my class, like, yeah, that was fire.

But, like, just give me a couple years. Wait till you see what I do. Yeah. And then it actually came true. You manifested it, man. I guess so. That's dope. Yeah, I guess so.

Other than your class, who's your favorite XXL class of all time? Probably 2016, bro. Like, you got 2016. 2017 was pretty good, too. But 2016 just has such a good hit rate. If you look back at everybody from that time, you know, even people that it took a little longer for them to find their footing, I think everyone from that class is doing pretty well. Which class was that?

2016. So it was Lil Uzi 21 savage little yadi denzel curry little dicky uh yeah i remember that one that cypher was nasty yeah it was beautiful yeah that's got like tens of millions of views it's definitely the most iconic one yeah so are you going in raw on those cyphers or do you kind of have an idea what you're gonna say well they played a beat a couple times so like you get a couple chances to be good got it and then they're like you know which which take did you like the best are you like your first take all right cool we'll run that and splice it with everybody else

oh but the one that we did i think everything that that we used was like from the first take because for some reason despite none of us really knowing each other, we all had a really good chemistry with each other, and everybody got along well. Me and Fabio was just goofing off. He taught me how to do the f***ing New York woo-wock dance or whatever. Everyone was mad cool. That's dope. Do you incorporate a lot of dancing in your shows?

Nah, not really. You just sing? Yeah, I move. I'm definitely active but um it's hard to sing and dance at the same time people don't realize that but you know what i am uh gonna start doing is i've been taking guitar lessons these last couple months so i'm gonna put that into the tour yeah that'd be fine yeah i don't know how the hell chris brown does it bro chris brown is a superhero he's like an alien you should not be

that good at that many things you know i'm saying basketball like he could do everything bro basketball dancing singing acrobatics are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest we'll click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode guys. Like he probably got a 1600 on the SAT too. I don't know, man. That guy's a different. He's different. Damn. When I took the, it was out of 2400. Oh, well it was like an extra section or something like that. It was the last year of it. Yeah. What did you get?

I got a 1460 out of 1600 you were good yeah i got a full scholarship to usc oh so you were book smart and street smart yeah the only thing i was missing was basketball okay you're gonna hope no no i was for or not no no not that good at sports so god was like all right i'm gonna make him singer and not athletic yeah you know it's a pretty good trade i'll take it I mean, you could probably make more money off. Actually, I don't know. There's Hoopers making a lot. Yeah, I think it's, you can be a successful artist and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

And there's way more people that can do that. But Hooper, you're either like making like $50 million a year or, you know, wash that at the YMCA. Like talking about high school days. Facts. It's very black and white. Yeah. Do you have a personal favorite song that just resonates with you the most, even though it's not like the most popular one?

Of my own? Mm-hmm. Like, okay, like an underrated favorite. Probably on some older shit, off my last album don't sleep is the last song on the project eldorado the song is called don't sleep and i just really like my vocal performance with the words that i was saying yeah it was one of those magical moments where what i was saying and how i said it aligned perfectly. I love that. Yeah.

What's your creative process for writing something like that? Is it all at once or do you space it out? You know, every time it's a little bit different, but generally I really respond to melodies in songs. So I start with the melody. And through that process of, you know, just putting out random melodies, saying gibberish, sometimes I'll say a couple words or a phrase or something that is like a hook for me to latch onto

and develop the concept around that. Nice. That's smart, actually. I never thought of it that way, but I thought of it like you write it on paper and then you sing it or whatever. Yeah, my handwriting isn't that good as we discussed before so no no paper no paper writing bro lil wayne doesn't write down anything that's insane yeah he's that's why he's one of the greatest like the memory you have to have to memorize hundreds of songs is just insane yeah like do you ever forget your own lyrics a couple times yeah okay and i don't even have hundreds of songs but it's it's when you have a deep catalog, I'm two, about to be three

projects in now. Yeah. That's a lot of words, man. For sure, dude. That's a lot of words. Damn. You got a favorite spot to perform at? I just like performing anywhere, bro.

It could be a karaoke bar, and I'm going to treat it like it's Coachella. You know what I'm saying? Damn, that's dope. You ever get nervous before a big crowd? Rarely. Really? Rarely, yeah. That mindset is impressive.

I mean, you know, I was a class clown in school. I like attention. So to have 20, 40, 50,000 people just there to appreciate what I have to say and what I have to share with the world, that invigorates me more than anything. You feed off their energy. Yeah, I feed off their energy, and it allows me to give them more, too, and it's just like a snowball effect. Yeah, that's awesome.

You've collabed with some huge names, but is there anyone else that's like your dream collab to write a song with? Man, there's so many talented people out there that I like to work with. Too many to name, honestly. I feel that. What about Drake? Drake? Yeah, that'd be fire. That's the go right there. Did you see the leak? Next.

Speechless on that one. Did you take a break from music at any point? Like, never too long. You know, sometimes I get burnt out because I've been in the studio for four or five days a week for months and months at a time. Yeah. And I think it's really important to live so you actually have like to talk about. Right. Rather than just like rapping about being a rapper or singing about being a singer you know yeah so i'll take i'll

take breaks every once in a while but i'm kind of addicted to making music like interesting yeah if i if i if i stop for too long i'll be like fiending to like go back in you know yeah is the driver the is it is money like the number one driver or is it more the recognition you saw? If money's the number one driver in art, your art's probably not going to be that good. And I think that even in my experience, when there was a time where I was really money focused, even though those songs didn't come out, I know that I made them and I know that they weren't as good as the songs that I was

making when I was just focused on having fun and making what I want to hear. Money definitely plays a role into it, but I like the idea that every time I walk into the studio, there is a chance. I don't know what percentage, how big or how small that percentage is, but there's a chance that I make something that changes people's lives and changes my life. Wow. Dude, for me, it was your song, Mood. I'm not going to lie. That just put me in such a good mood, and I used to bump that shit, man. Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah, that's how I found out about you. Well, thank you for listening. I'm glad I could do that for you. I mean, that song just took over the world, right? Yeah, something like that. mood and I used to bump that man oh hell yeah that's how I found out about you oh well thank you for for listening I'm glad I could do that for you that song just took over the world right yeah something like that I mean dude did you did you see that one coming for that song no honestly no wow I just knew that it was a good song and I had fun when I was making it and I liked it I like songs that uplift you. Yeah. Especially when you're feeling down, you just throw on a song, it just changes your day.

Yeah. That was one of those songs for me. Thanks, man. Absolutely, dude. Glad to help. Yeah. All right. So do you want to go back to school,

business school ever, or are you kind of over it? I don't like the idea of homework. Yeah. I don't want to do that. Definitely feel that. But I would be want to do that. Definitely feel that. But I would be willing to do it if there's enough reason to go back to school.

I'm like, oh, I really want to get into real estate or whatever, and this is 20 years down the line. And I'm like, I the knowledge to to do that but i feel like at that point in time i can probably know somebody that's really good at whatever i'm interested in and i'll just intern them or shadow them or something like that yeah yeah you get a lot of people trying to enter your circle i bet so how do you kind of vet out those people um i think it's just a process it's like you got to get burned to know that fire is hot. So just kind of like being forgiving of myself, with myself, for making mistakes on the people that I let into my life. And then doubling back and taking inventory of like okay who has always been there for me who really does care about me as a human beyond the music

and looking for those qualities within new people that may or may not potentially enter my life yeah it's hard to replace people that have been there from day one yeah there you can't replace people every person is unique you know so you can find somebody that fills that role but it's never going to be the same facts definitely agree with that yeah there's some people i part ways with that i looking back now i regret yeah but you know if if the friendship was really true and and you really feel that way i've also seen like that it's not impossible to repair either business has ruined a lot of my friendships actually why because you f*** them over not i mean it's all subjective right yeah so they they

would probably say that i did that yeah it's just like i think it's mainly expectations yeah true like i just work so hard i have high expectations and sometimes it's misaligned with other person i i feel that a lot because a lot of people say like, oh, we were friends and now you're doing well. So that means I should be doing just as well as you by proximity. Right. But it's like, no, bro. I put in so much work for this. If you want to be, of course, I'm going to help you out because I love you and I care

about you and I want to see you win. But you got to match that energy at least. Right. And if I give you a responsibility, you got to carry that out like it's your own thing because it kind of is yeah it kind of is yeah that must have been a tough moment for you kind of deciding who to keep and who to let go right yeah i don't think it was like that pragmatic of like all right here's all my friends these are the ones that i'm keeping these are the ones that I'm keeping. These are the ones that I'm leaving. But, you know, sometimes people grow apart.

Sometimes it's that misalignment of expectations. Sometimes it's ego. You know, sometimes it's jealousy. But it's just taking the blows as they come and, like, really doing my best to be the most transparent, the most transparent and the best friend that I can be, which being the best friend that you can be to somebody is sometimes telling them things that they don't want to hear. Facts.

And sometimes they take that as an insult when it's honesty and it's from the bottom of your heart. You're meaning well, right? Yeah. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you could sleep with what you did then i mean it's all subjective you know yeah it's all subjective damn i feel that but it must be tough because just having that success so quick your ego right have you had battles trying to keep that under wraps hell yeah yeah you give a 19 year old seven figures and a hit song and i was already good looking

and funny so like my head was already kind of big already um it definitely it definitely um i definitely had my moments you know to say the least and i think that leads to the downfall of a lot of artists yeah it's it's not being able to recognize that early on enough and accept it, you know? And, and I'm, I'm just really glad that I did have people around that checked me and like, we're like,

yo, what are you doing? Because I know they're not saying that for no reason. They, they love and they care about me and they want to see me win. Right. So that was like a nice wake up call. That's important. People like that around i think

because you see it with athletes when they have a bunch of yes men around them and they they're fighters or whatever and then they just get smoked yeah you know it's common any industry yeah yeah gotta keep it under check man and it's tough when you're killing it at an early age but yeah because it's like how are you gonna tell me something and i'm the one that's doing good but you know it's just about making the person that is telling you something or trying to tell you something is the right person to do that yeah and your industry is such a roller coaster it's such high highs such low lows and it happens so quick because like a hit song now it doesn't last as long as it did in the past you know most people with people's attention span these days so if you don't have a hit song every couple years, you're like out of the picture, right?

Not necessarily. You know, when was the last time Frank Ocean had a hit song? That's true. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people, there's two ways you can go as an artist. You can either live by the hit, die by the hit, or you can build your own world. Have a message, have a perspective, have a sound, and keep growing that and growing that and growing that over time.

Frank Ocean's never had a number one song, but I don't think anyone here is going to be like, nah, he's not successful or he's cooked. He hasn't dropped an album in like damn near 10 years yeah damn near 10 years but people listen to what people people can't stop listening to what he has dropped because it's so it's so powerful i still bump him in the hot tub exactly it's so relaxing yeah yeah um did you have favorite artists growing up i had a lot man i loved i love frank i love drake future young thug bruno mars t-pain akon and michael jackson damn that's a wide range yeah my mom is like a music fanatic oh that's dope so you got it from

her yeah she would go to the public library and take out i think the maximum cds they would let you take out at a time it's like 20 or something like that oh we talking old talking about yeah early 2000s cds she would take them and then she would rip them like all to her computer to her itunes library pirate them yeah she would jack this put it in her library return them and the next week take out 25 more damn so i had so much access to music pre-internet you know yeah not that the internet didn't exist i was just like too young to use it but i yeah i had such a wide breadth of like music to listen to that's super cool was she an artist also no she wanted to be a singer, but her parents, her dad specifically was like, no, you got to do something practical.

You got to go to college and get a degree in teaching. So she did. She minored in music, but she also was in choir, like you and I. And she traveled the world with her choir program, singing in different places. And she never really pushed that onto me but her love of music was so inspiring i think that it just kind of like bled into my wow that's cool so she broke the cycle for you to just crush it right yeah that's so cool she's probably so proud of you man that's awesome dude it's been fun anything you want to promote or close off with nah man just

if you like what i had to say listen to the music because i'm saying basically the same but it just sounds more pleasing to the ears so hopefully my ep growing pains is out now by the time you're watching this love it check it out we'll link it below guys thanks for coming on yeah my pleasure man have a great one guys