The Pomp Podcast - #1483 Murda Beatz Is ALL-IN on Bitcoin

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Murda Beatz is an award winning DJ, producer, and solo artist. In this conversation we talk about why he thinks bitcoin will hit $1 million, his journey into crypto, investing, his portfolio, business and revenue streams around music, building his brand, and what he wants his legacy to be.=======================Franzy makes franchise ownership accessible for dreamers, go-getters, and investors alike. With the AI-powered Franzy Fit Score, match with the best brands for your financials, experience, and goals. Explore franchise options, get pre-qualified, and access expert coaching to guide your journey. Ready to own a business? Visithttps://franzy.com/pomp today!=======================Polkadot is a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Created by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot empowers users to build decentralized applications with ease. Backed by industry leaders, making it a preferred choice for big names, Polkadot stands out as a leading choice for investors seeking a reliable, future-proof solution in the growing world of Web3 technology. Learn more athttps://polkadot.com/.=======================Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/=======================View 10k+ open startup jobs:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's going on, guys? I've got a very special surprise for you. I've got a conversation with Murder Beats. He is an award-winning DJ, producer, and solo artist, and he also happens

to be one of the smartest people I know in the music industry in terms of his ability to not only monetize his music catalog, but also to invest. He's got all kinds of investments from Bitcoin all the way to real estate and traditional stocks. This conversation is filled with lots of insights that you probably won't hear anywhere else. On top of that, Murder thinks that Bitcoin is going to a million bucks, so you better watch the whole thing so you can learn something. All right, here's my conversation with Murder Beats. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast

are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

Today's episode is brought to you by Franzi. If you're a dreamer, a go-getter, or someone looking to own a business, you better listen up. Franzy is the ultimate platform to make franchise ownership accessible and achievable for everyone, from corporate escapees to side hustle seekers and investors. Franzy does more than just list franchises. It's equipped with the Franzy Fit Score, an AI-powered matching tool that finds the best brands for you based on your financials, your experience, your risk tolerance, and your goals. You can also get pre-qualified to see exactly what you can afford,

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one of the co-founders of Ethereum and the creator of Solidity. Polkadot aims to build an internet where users have full control over their data and their applications. Polkadot offers tons of unique features, a shared security model, along with a new auction model and significant implementations like ASIC banking. Given these characteristics, it's easy to understand why Polkadot is gaining more and more traction in the cryptocurrency world. Some people even are talking about it as the AWS of Web3. Now, companies such as Mythical Games, Astro Network,

and over 50 other independent blockchains with hundreds of applications already leverage Polkadot's technology to power their platforms. If you're looking for a reliable, scalable, and cutting-edge solution, Polkadot seems to be the top choice for industry players. Go check them out today at polkadot.com. All right, guys, I got murder beats here. We're going to solve the tariff war between the United States and Canada. But first, you told me previously that you think Bitcoin is going to a million dollars a coin.

I think it's definitely going to a million dollars a coin, probably soon. Soon? Maybe sooner than later. Really? I think so. What is your logic for why you think Bitcoin is going to a million? I think that once it's fully integrated in the banks and they put 2% to 4% of people's net worth or whatever portfolios into crypto is going to fucking shoot to the money.

Yeah. So the banks are the big thing. Because it's funny. It's one of them for sure. It's funny. Bitcoin was created to be outside of the banks. But obviously, the banks participating is going to be a huge boom. They can't hate on it.

Yeah. Nobody can hate on crypto in general anymore. You know what I mean? All right. So what have you done? Because I think people will be very surprised that don't pay attention every day to what you're tweeting and stuff. That you're into Bitcoin, crypto.

There's an intersection with music. There's a lot for us to talk about. but uh talk a little bit about your journey into uh getting excited about bitcoin and crypto so my one friend shout out jermaine you know i'm saying my boy jermaine he's been talking about crypto and bitcoin for like years um i think it was like around covid 2019 2020 ish he's like bro you got to get bitcoin bro it's like 6k and like i remember like being in i remember being in new york 2017 with offset and these guys were going crazy about bitcoin about like the first like kind of like bull market when it was getting crazy what were they saying they were all buying

it it was going crazy and shit and like i was just like kind of peeping what everyone was saying yeah i never bought and then i crashed so i'm like okay thank god like but and then you felt smart when it crashed because you thought like i was just peeping it i don't think it was wrong but i just like it's new you know i'm a young kid and stuff so i never really like had any exposure in like bear and bull markets before so like just like kind of like peeping it you know you kind of like educate yourself before you get into anything right yeah so i feel like that was like my education and then 2019 2020 my boy kept telling me to buy so like my friend actually like moved out to la started living with me during covid and that's when like he was like

heavy into crypto and shit every day man like you gotta get in bro 6k you gotta get in 7k you gotta get an 8k so 8k he's like bro i'll even sell you something just to get you in the game so you know how it feels so like bought some cash off him and then it's like yo this is fucking crazy like a week later it's like 9k a week later it's like 10k so i started buying like chunks at the time. And then during this period, he's like, yeah, man, you should follow some people on Twitter. This guy, Anthony, Anthony Apom, you should follow him. He's like, yo, just DM him right now. He'll probably hit you back. So I'm like, all right. I'm always just like, you know what I'm saying? You never know where things can, relationships can start and where

they can take you, right? So I just hit you up. I'm like, yo. So from my side, I don't know, it was at night on the East Coast and pandemics happened. We're all locked in our house. all of a sudden i get a dm from what looks like a real murder beats account and i'm like wait what like murder on the beat like uh this can't be real this got to be about like this guy he had to get hacked something like something's going on and so then uh i responded but like kind of cautiously and then you're like nah man just call me like here's my cell phone number and i was like well if i call there's no way i could get hacked just from a phone call all right fine i'll call and then it was really you and actually the first conversation i think my biggest impression was

like, yo, you were, had to spend a lot of time learning about stuff. You had some very, very intelligent questions. And I think the part that actually maybe like intrigued me the most was you were like optimistically skeptical, right? So you were like, Hey man, I own some already. This is interesting. I'm not going to go put all my money in this thing, but like, help me understand a couple of things I don't understand. I thought it was just like a very kind of mature, uh, clear eyed way to, to, to approach something that obviously most people just, you know, YOLO, uh, into. I'm definitely growing up. Yeah, that's good. Um, all right. So you got Bitcoin.

You've been holding Bitcoin now for years. That's gone very well. You also told me that Trump coin comes out. You bought that. Are you like just deep in the meme coins? What's going on? No, I feel like I get rugged a lot in meme coins if I like play around with it. But like the Trump thing was like unique situation.

You know what I'm saying? Like Trump was in, they got an office and dropped a coin at a fucking crypto ball. Like, and so it's like, it's just like the timing and just like who it is and stuff. I was like, this is crazy. So just off the vibe alone, you bought it. yeah like when it dropped i had a couple people hitting me up actually my boy my boy jermaine in our twitter chat was like bro this shit's seven dollars you need to buy and like i kind of like ignored i was like getting packing for like i was like going to like a show in indianapolis or

something i was djing so then i kind of like ignored it and then after i was unpacking my other boy calls me he's like yo like can you like can you like just like the banks are closed right now can you like lend me some money to like get no way to get the trump coin i'm like look at the trump coin again like what the fuck's going on here and then like so after i'm done packing said i go downstairs i'm like playing video games or whatever and i check and it's like 15 16 and i'm like what the fuck i gotta get in so like i run whatever figure out figure out my soul whatever and i put in some money um so a good little bag and uh i got in at like 17 and i was like watching it all night like this just holy fuck 21 like 22 it's just going fucking

crazy i'm like what the fuck like i knew it like you know what i mean and then i remember i didn't even sleep that night because i had to get up in the morning and i had to go fly to indianapolis to dj a show and like i'm in the airport it's like 56 dollars like i'm like oh man this is going to the moon like because like at first like people were saying like trump coin 100 trump coin to 50 i'm like 50 would be crazy and like it cleared like it cleared 50 um i remember being in indianapolis i'm on stage like i literally have the fucking deck screener open i'm watching the chart when i was dj and i swear to god and this shit was just like green candle green candle i'm like this is fucking insane hold on hold on you are on stage dj and you have dex screener up yeah while you're

dj watching the trump coin going up it was so funny i was like shouting out trump coin like on stage i'm like yo whoever's got crypto makes it so funny and then um yeah i got pretty lit it was a fun show and then by the time i got to my room it was at like 73 74 and like phantom wallet was like glitching out and shit so i was like i just like sold it all right there it's pretty much like top ticked it yeah it was actually like pretty good yeah and then like and then like i like threw some in like the next day a little bit and then it kept like falling down and shit but like i did pretty well all right well all right so like uh you said that you have a twitter chat like what you just got some friends in there and they're all talking crypto all the time no we got

we got like a twitter chat like we just like usually send memes or anything informative and like music or like anything crypto and stuff you know what i mean like it's like a regular group chat. Yeah. I try to get all my friends and everyone around me in crypto, like these guys here, Kai and Amit and just like kind of everybody. I try to get everyone into crypto. I feel like it's very important. It's like finding gold early or something. You know what I mean? Well, so like a lot of people are going to hear you talk about crypto and they're like, oh, okay, got it. Like, you know, murder is just YOLOing into crypto. That's the only thing he owns. That's not true though. You've got real estate. That's like a small, like a little part.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about how you've thought about investing in stuff, you know, and kind of building a whole portfolio. And from my perspective, like, you know, I think you're doing it pretty smart in terms of you're pretty diversified. Yeah, for sure. Like obviously like the stock account, like, you know what I'm saying? I have portfolio managers, a couple of different accounts and stuff. More like some conservative, some aggressive, because I am still young, you know what I mean?

So I feel like that's important to be kind of like aggressive, especially in the markets and how the markets are today. You know what I mean? And then also just like real estate in Canada, real estate in America, real estate in LA. um it's funny when we were talking about the crypto stuff when we first talked you were like yo is there any other industries you want to get in i i brought a real estate to you you connected me with some athletes you connected me with a ex-pro skater mikey taylor which i ended up getting

in business with at commune and we have like a huge like complex we're building apartment buildings that we're building in santa monica in california so appreciate you for that mikey and you were doing all that that's a mikey but so you connected us and stuff you know i'm saying i appreciate that man so yeah all that stuff and then startup companies and stuff like good wipes we have like the number one disposable wipe company yeah talk about that like how because i think that there's a lot of folks who are starting to realize as athletes musicians etc like hey you got money but you also have influence you have uh you know a network of people there's things that you bring to the table with these startups that can have kind of an outsized impact for sure you know you

know like the startup stuff it's it's kind of like it kind of like gambling in a way too you're kind like invest in your money in certain places and you don't know if you're even going to get anything out of it but it's like you know i mean like it kind of still helps like from like a portfolio standpoint so getting into like good wipes and like psychedelic water we got like like a great like psychedelic like cover root blended drink and like air one and like ralph's and like all these stores and stuff all corner stores across america you know i mean even corner stores but my house has it so it's pretty cool man just like i feel like diversifying just like using your brand and just being able to open doors and stuff.

It's important. Yeah. In the stock portfolio, what are the things that you're doing there? Is it mostly S&P or are you actually trying to pick individual stocks or just outsourcing it all to fund managers? Yeah.

I have my managers doing a pretty good job at what they do. I know I have a little bit of bonds, but we kind of delegate that for how well-taught the market is or what's going on in the market. S&P and then, yeah, just a bunch of other stuff.

If somebody asked me, hey, what is this strategy? The way I would describe it based on what I know is it's almost like you've given some money to like professional managers and you're like, Hey, don't lose this, but grow it. Right. And then you've got things like real estate, et cetera, where you're much more involved in terms of picking what you want to do, but still relatively safe. You know, it's backed by Fizz Glass and all that kind of stuff. A hundred percent.

Crypto is like a hundred percent you and your friends. But that's like the best part. Cause it's like the crypto, it's like, you have all these people telling you what to do and how to do things from like our parents and before our parents on how to do things right and like i come from a family like my family didn't even have enough money to like be doing the shit i'm kind of doing right now which is super blessing i'm super grateful to be doing everything i'm doing in my life but yeah man i don't know it's just like the crypto thing it's it's just crazy because like you're going kind of like against the rules kind of like a rebellious kid again kind of like going against like society and

like kind of making like the the most returns i would have i was gonna say you're probably outperforming the professional managers pretty fucking crazy but that's kind of the role of why you're doing it right is like their goal is to not lose the money you're saying hey look let me go generate a lot of money here with this 100 it's just the future man like crypto is the future is people are kind of like nobody's late to the party like i feel like everyone's early like even when bitcoin touches like 100k and stuff people are calling me like man i'm late it's like you're still early that's what people don't understand like everyone's still so early why do you why do you think it's going to a million you said because the banks are going to get involved

and then what just supply demand takes over i think like supply demand and it's like there's only going to be 20 million bitcoin right so it's like once that's fully mined it's like supply demand is going to go crazy all right um let's talk about music are a lot of other musicians and stuff into bitcoin and crypto or it's kind of hit or miss um and i wouldn't say so no you saw that right and and also was in it early talking about it early um i tell all my peers to buy buy crypto man yeah i don't know they think you're crazy uh they probably did when it was like 20k i don't know about now yeah when it was at 100k you didn't send any like uh you know i was right text we me and quavo were talking about it when it was like 100k because

i was like always saying i was gonna throw 100k party like the bitcoiners do 100k party but then yeah like i need 100k party you know what i'm saying you guys are all welcome it's gonna be fun tacos like hopefully it's a tuesday you know all right and so uh you also sold part of your music catalog, which I think is pretty interesting. Talk a little bit about that. I did a partial sale 2020 during COVID. Interest rates were great. So it was like the multiples were really high and stuff. And just diversified that into real estate and stocks and stuff. And then just going to keep diversifying, already building my new catalog and stuff. And just keep everything flowing. You know what I mean? You don't want to keep all your eggs in one basket.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about how the catalogs come in. So you produce a bunch of songs. Some of them are singles where it's actually under your name. Sometimes you're a producer or you're providing music, et cetera, to the songs. And then what you just bundle them together and somebody is buying the revenue stream off of them. Yeah. So there's like, there's like, there's like royalty revenue stream. There's there's publishing revenue stream and there's like neighboring writers. Like there's so many different revenue streams. Right. So like a lot of people, like when they do catalog sales, they're doing their royalties with their publishing. I just did my publishing and kept my royalties. So it's like, yeah, like yours, every time your songs are

stream played on radio and stuff it's collecting money and then like they can like they can like scale that and like do multiples on that and like all that i feel like it's just good like it's like for like billionaires that want to like own a piece of like a record it's cool for them to own this instead of tesla when like for us it's like cool to get capital and like build something when you're still young you know yeah basically they're just paying you up front for what you were going to get anyways with a little bit of a arb in it yeah they make instead of like waiting like 20 years to make an x amount of money you can get it now and like work on that yeah of course um all right and so once you do that then you say you're building your new catalog you're just

creating more music put in a catalog do it all over again yeah hell yeah i've been yeah it's going pretty well all right well what does it mean going pretty well how do you measure whether it's going well or not um well like i already have like a lot of big records in my new catalog as well so just keep building and having fun it's like yeah i don't know man there's so many good like even like before i sold my catalog like i was like really curious on it and i was like talking to a lot of people i was like calling pharrell calling timbaland calling like a lot like people getting people's advice on and stuff so and what do they shout out to poo bear like a lot of people a lot of people are like man sell that like build your other one like a lot of like

they were saying a lot of legendary people they sell their catalogs every year or two so it's like you know what i mean it's like it's a good it's a good business man i don't know it's like these this is like the financial literature that like people don't teach you when you get into the game you know like they don't even tell you to pay taxes when you get in the game you sign you sign deals and people live their lives and that's like five years later They're like, hey, you got to like- You owe $5 million to Uncle Sam's calling or something. I've always been good to have a good head on my shoulders and good people around me that are like,

yo, you got to pay taxes on time and do all these things. It's even good to overpay sometimes, right? Yeah, of course. So how do things like Spotify and streaming and various new things in the market over the last decade or so changed the business? I think of music, that's your core business. and then as you monetize these assets you're creating you're then going and doing the whole investing game but like i don't know you probably spend majority of your time on music 100 um so

yeah i've been making beats for like 15 years i started on mixtapes and there was no money in mixtapes it's like kind of like you're just selling mixtapes like that right so when i started making beats and stuff and making music like there wasn't really like money in it i was like selling beats through western union to guys on the internet and like a couple hundred dollars here and there it's like it was hard to like really think of like it actually being a career but it was like what i love to do so that's like what i wanted to do but my high school principal was telling me like there's only one dr dre pick a different career path like it was like everyone was like there was it's like for this to work it was like very like slim chances because like people were like there's

there's no money in it you know so streaming brought that other that like it opened up the industry for people to like be able to like make money on what they're doing you know what i mean like a lot more so your principal in high school said there's only one dr dre pick a different profession yeah it reminds me of i think it's steve harvey every year he sends a tv to one of his old teachers because they told him they asked him what he wanted to be he said on tv and i said you'll never be on tv so he sends him a physical television every year as a reminder like hey you were wrong that's crazy like like there was always money in music you know people buy albums and stuff but then it's like then the illegal downloads came and like they they couldn't really they

didn't know how to stop like the illegal like i was like always on limewire and like bear share and stuff so it's like we all were you know what i mean so it's like how does i guess the industry how do you stop that and i think like the solution was streaming right yeah and that's where you were like getting paid for your streams and paid when you click the songs and download them and stuff this slide i remember in college is a dat piff was like that it was where i was on all that everything was leaking all the time on there or whatever and it felt like people almost like testing stuff right as they would leak see what the reaction was then the album would come out But a lot of the stuff, like the trap stuff I came up with, like, like people were dropping mixtapes and like people are touring off the mixtapes and stuff. But for a producer, it's like, you gotta, that's why I made a brand. I made sure produced by Murder Beats on everything tag. So people would hear the tag and they would hit me up to buy beats. That's how I started. You know what I mean? But definitely, um, it's like, we're getting paid like cents, like fractions of cents on streams and stuff. And I feel like that's definitely wrong.

you know like it's a blessing to be able to like make money off music and stuff but there should be so much like these these companies are making billions and billions of dollars off music and the creatives are getting like a fraction of that so i feel like there needs to be a change in a way i feel like that's like one of the industries like i know like there's definitely like shady parts of every industry but that's definitely pretty fucked up for musicians and creatives and stuff you know i mean how do you think about uh the brand right so where did murder beats originally come from is that you just were sitting there one day and just thought of it or yeah pretty much so like i so like i was like starting to make beats and stuff and i want to

put on youtube and someone was telling me that like yo you gotta like you gotta like have a name you gotta like tag yourself so people don't steal your shit so i was just like fuck i'm calling myself murder beats because i'm a murder beats and it was just like like just like just like not even like just effortlessly just like doing it you just repeated that was the first thing yeah and then just like three months in i'm like working with guys in the band i'm working with all these like i sold your boy on some shit i'm like fuck like that's just what it is and like honestly like even like coming in the game like signing my first deals and stuff like people were like oh you should change your name like why should like just murder yeah like just murder

beats like they're like you could change your name like you should go by like shane lindstrom my government and stuff like i just like work my ass off to build this brand i like got through the whole chicago scene atlanta i'm getting into toronto everyone knows me as murder like it's like i'm like that white kid with blonde hair and like trap music it's like why would i like change that did that help you 100 i think it hurts me a little bit because it's like murder so it's like sometimes like if i was at like a basketball game they don't want to put my name on the camera because it's like violent or like if it's like i'm like donating in a way and like some some news stations don't want to like put my name on the media just because of that but no i'm saying

like uh being a white guy in a hip-hop and especially going to whether it's atlanta chicago or wherever like uh that is not the norm right and so does that help you or did that actually you had to like do extra to break in um i think it's a little bit of both there's pros and cons but i definitely think it was like there's like a wow factor to it it's like oh shit this kid's from canada making fire beats it's like it's pretty cool yeah you know it is uh i think as people learn your story it's like how the hell does this guy end up making you know fire beats right for all these artists no it's pretty dope man um i'm just grateful to be able to do this stuff you know i was i love music from such a young age so just like to be able to like to

still be doing music is amazing yeah and what about the like audio tag that you put in uh all the songs like where the same thing is just hey how do i just brand myself and just make sure everyone knows it's me yeah shout out to fucking j neutron i like um there was a guy on on twitter making like everyone's tags back in the day and uh i paid him like 20 bucks he made my moment murder tag and i just like ran with that no way yeah he sent me like two for 20 or something like that and then obviously over the years I was like building the brand and I got like shout out Baka Sambert on the beat so it's not nice like Drake co-signing that like then like everyone else like Melly giving me a tag free Melly like Kodak give me a tag like I have like a meek one I've never

used like a bunch of artists I've been like saying my little baby said my name and like a bunch of songs and stuff so it's pretty dope and when they're doing that stuff how much of that do you think is strategic versus they're just creating some sort of rhyme or whatever and the words fit nicely i think it just sounds good and it's like fits nicely and it just like makes sense for what we're doing one of the things that um you and i talked about this one time and it kind of put me down this rabbit hole i was like no way this is happening is uh a lot of times the artist could just record on their phones and then the producer is stitching it all together and you know i think for the people who aren't really into the music scene they're like oh obviously you guys are all

going into the booth you're doing all the stuff and you're like sometimes but a lot of times like it's crazy man we were literally just meeting with band lab before this shout out to band lab but um there's kids like it's literally like an app on your phone and like you can just like download it pick up pick a loop or pick a guitar sound or whatever you want to do and you can literally just record with your headphones and like upload it to dsps and like kids have like billions of streams some like the new kids like successful artists in the music industry are literally just like making songs on their phone who's like the hottest artist you think doing that stuff um there's a kid david it's like d4 uh david whatever and then uh there's another kid

little tyler i'm pretty sure he used band lab too for his first song shout out to him there's a couple other ones but it's pretty crazy man yeah and and like to you the artists that are using tiktok like what's a uh what's the guy a little tiktok i heard that you can't even get tiktok on new phones now i don't know man i'm not using it you got tiktok yeah i do got it yeah i was like your music is global for sure then. No, I was like using it a little bit here and there because like you got to like appeal to like the youth, you know what I'm saying?

So I know like the youth is on that and stuff. But what about the artists that are using it to like hijack the trends or the viral videos or whatever and get their music? I think that's what Lil Nas X did, right? So he just kept changing up the music, just kept, you know, iterating until it started to take off.

Yeah, definitely. And so it feels like a different distribution model than when you were coming up. For sure, yeah. Like TikTok is definitely its own model and own tool to like promoting your music and stuff. So you just got to like utilize like what's hot and i feel like tech in the music industry and every industry is always changing so much now

so it's like you just kind of got to like maneuver with with what's going on and use it to your ability the same way how i was like early on twitter and like i still like a couple couple years like a couple years ago i'm still hitting you up on twitter the same way i hit up nipsey also to get in the studio with with nip in like 2015 so it's like some models stay the same but then like you just got to like appreciate and like move adapt with times on the more modern stuff nipsey was into bitcoin right i'm pretty sure we never like got to talk about like bitcoin or anything because like that was like super early but um we may i got the chance to work with him in la we made grinded all my life which was an amazing record i do remember he had like um

whiteboards up in his studio of like financial and like specific quotes and stuff i don't remember exactly what ones but i'm like man this guy's a very smart guy yeah he's thinking ahead yeah he was he was on it shout out to nip rp nip so um when you think about music today uh where do you make the most money it's through uh the spotify and the streaming it's through things like tiktok youtube but how do you think about what the business looks like today so yeah there's there's multiple ways to scale your business right so like for me it's like you got the publishing you got the royalty revenue i have like touring from djing and stuff um you could do like bigger sales and advances you could do merch you could do like there's like you could do like brand

endorsement and brand deals and stuff like there's like there's so many ways i feel like you could like as a producer you could sell drum kits you could do vst plugins you could do collaborate like collaboration products everything yeah it's just like there's just so much stuff to do i feel like it's just important to like scale that and make as many lanes as you can and then you don't need to keep making music but you do how much i have to make music i love music that's what i'm saying like financially you don't need to keep making it but from a desire standpoint you can't stop doing it i love like without music i don't even know what i would do honestly you trade meme coins exactly i don't know that's cool but you know i'm saying i just

like i don't know something about music but yeah so i like my lifestyle so i like to like make music and that's like my bread and butter you know yeah and then how much of the touring so i know you go and do a lot of these uh different events um how much of that is like the epicenter of the business in terms of you know even if you're not getting paid nearly as much as maybe selling your catalog or whatever you're actually out there in front of people they're seeing your face you know it's just it's very important for brand building i feel like you know what i'm saying for people like see you and like see like your brand physically like see you're that like if i'm the brand i'm i'm i am my brand so like to see physically in person and we're partying

turned up having a good time playing playing the classics that i've made it's it's great but um yeah definitely scaling the touring too like this year i'll probably do like 30 to like 60 shows that's a lot like all over the world like korea everywhere everywhere where's the like craziest place this year or just just in your career um that i did a show probably coachella coachella Coachella was lit, like 50,000 people. I did Coachella 2019. I brought out DMX. I brought out Rich the Kid, Tidehouse on ASAP for, it was pretty crazy.

There's probably some people listening to this right now that were there. Yeah, I've done shows, other crazy shows I've done. I've done like India. That was definitely crazy. What's that like? Crazy. Yeah, but like there's just like tens of thousands of people there? Yeah, it was like nightclubs and shit.

It was pretty cool, but just like India is like different. it's like culture shock a little bit so it was like cool to experience different cultures i love being able to travel off of music you know what i mean like i've been like australia i've been everywhere man like i've been like going to japan like every like once or twice a year so like that's been like really fun too i love japan yeah i've just been having a lot of fun just traveling around making music and just i'm in a good creative space right now creating a lot gonna start dropping some singles soon and stuff so i'm excited this is exciting times man how do you think about doing the singles versus the stuff that maybe you came up with yeah so like the way i

came up was like producing records for people and like now it's like i like kind of like use my network to like work with people that are upcoming and then like put someone on them that i've been working with and then like drop my own singles like murder beats featuring artists so it's more of like taking like an artist approach and like a mass have like a another like side of it you're like kind of like owning more of the masters and stuff as well so it's cool because i think the part that you never told me this but like it feels like you are uh now somewhat of a master of understanding how the music industry works and you're realizing that you can make money in all the different positions kind of on the team but there's definitely advantages to some positions

versus others and you're very uh i think expertly navigating how to you know morph over time yeah for sure but like this wasn't like i didn't like have this vision when i was a kid like oh i'm gonna like dj yeah and do all this like it's like i just like i literally like started like yo i want to do this i want to like make it out of canada i want to become a hot producer i like stayed focused on like really like grinding my brand building my brand on the internet making like making sure like people in atlanta knew who murder beats was people in canada knew murder beats was people in chicago and like to like now it's like japan walking down the street people know who i am and like and if i'm in india at the Taj Mahal someone might bump into me so it's pretty

crazy that is right get from get from toronto and stuff yeah yeah you know what i'm saying so when um when you go to atlanta or chicago or any of these kind of like hot spots for music or whatever what is it what was the experience like you just going to a studio or are you like walking down the street what's going on um i walk down the street sometimes i walk down the street today in new york and it's pretty cool but uh people come up to you right yeah for sure like you know um that side of it's just amazing like just like off of like music and like something i want to do when i was a kid to people to recognize and like appreciate what you've done like i feel like music's the universal language like you can go to a country and like people don't even speak english

but they know the words to songs like i mean like i know how to like rap bad bunny songs i don't even know spanish so it's like that's like i feel like that's like the gift of music you know and it's like it's a feeling too so you make people feel a certain way you attach music to like moments in your life like good and bad moments and i feel like that's like very important and uh it's a good role like as a as a musician like it's like something we should appreciate that like we can make something that people attach to like some like significant moments in their lives you know the uh you see the video of bad bunny doing the concert on the gas station i was talking about that with my puerto rican friends in fucking chicago that's like the best thing i've ever seen

i got one it's just so cool bro i got one friend he's from puerto rico and he lives in miami and i saw it and i just sent it to him i was like bro is this like this is real is this ai like what he was like that is like everyone's talking about this thing bro like how cool is it that like you could be an artist from somewhere and get so much love then you go back home and you're performing on like the roof of a gas station for a free concert for like people that's in the neighborhood like that's like amazing it's incredible could you do that in canada yeah i hope so i wonder or like an SO gas station or something.

You gotta go in the summer though. Yeah. You can't be doing that in the winter. New York's like kind of cool but I kind of like it. Yeah. It's a little different

because LA always had all the fires and stuff so it's like LA's like always going through like a environment shock or something. What has been like the music industry

anything changing because of the fires? Obviously a lot of people are affected by it. I feel like I feel like the music industry changed a lot during COVID. I feel like it kind of like

moved a lot. A lot of people moved to Miami and stuff when they were like saying the crypto capital and all that stuff. know so um things are always changing man and like the industries are always changing i don't know you know this like coming from a business side like where do you see like your side of things

changing you think it's like moving around well a lot of it like kind of went to the cloud right so um definitely there's certain spots where you could you know new york city's got very dense area uh san francisco very dense la miami uh austin texas you know there's those density spots but um there's plenty of people who just they're you know in an extra bedroom in their house with a laptop and they're able to get connected and you know build companies or do whatever what do you think about other coins like ethan solana this is why you came now look bitcoin's the biggest position i've been very public about uh we sold all of our ethan december of 23 uh bought solana um bitcoin is something i'll never sell right it's like i'll

give to my grandkids whatever uh solana to me was just like hey this is like the best tech you know kind of trade of this cycle um and so obviously that's done very well and then like the meme coins the ai coins i got all that stuff uh i pay attention to it just because i want to understand kind of where the industry is or whatever um but it's not a focus right it's not something that i'm like hey let me go and do this i thought the trump coin was interesting because uh i just thought of it as an extension from the djt stock that he's got in the public markets right like that stock trades like a seven billion dollar valuation it's got four million dollars of revenue like obviously that's crazy right like no matter but there's like a trump premium now is the

premium should it be you know six billion dollars seven billion dollars probably not but um then if you just look at the meme it's like well screw we don't even need a business like just like launch the meme right and so you know there's one argument which i fully agree with and understand which is like hey these things are worthless like there's nothing underlying it that's going to give it value um at the same time when i go talk to all these you know young especially guys in their 20s if everyone believes the same meme and they're all like yo i bought whether it's trump or some other coin and nobody's selling because they're not looking at fundamentals right they're just like yo we all hold this thing because it's cool man you can go on generational

10 20 year runs i mean how long were beanie babies cool how long were you know uh certain different uh assets cool and so from that perspective you're like i understand why people are doing it it's just maybe not my thing right so you just gotta like hey people want to do that with their money let them do what they want with their money so for all like the like music people that are going to be watching this stuff what gives bitcoin value well i think the biggest thing is um there's 21 million and there's something called sound money principles so gold the reason why gold's got you know value is uh nobody can create more gold and it's outside the system, right? It's not controlled by the government or anybody else. Bitcoin is the

same thing, right? It's outside of the system and then nobody can create more of it. And so just that alone, think of it like real estate, right? It's like, hey, how much real estate is available? And if there's more demand for fixed supply of real estate, real estate goes up in price, right? It'd be no different than if you go to sell your catalog and you're like, yo, there's only one murder beats catalog available, but there's 17 people who want it. You're going to sell it for a higher price than if only one person wants it, right? And so when you think about Bitcoin, it is also got something I call it like my friend Marty Bent once described it as the immaculate conception, which is like an underrated point about Bitcoin. Nobody was

paying attention. Now, I mean, you're in the DJ booth with Dex screener up, right? Like everyone's looking for the next coin, but at the time nobody was looking. And so nobody even thought like, what is this thing? So this new thing comes out and it had years with really no one paying attention. So it could kind of slowly grow this decentralized network. And then the fact that nobody knew who the creator was. All these different details come together and you're like, oh, I understand why this worked. And so I really do think that Bitcoin will over a long period of time separate itself from all these other assets. And people will make money buying the other stuff, but it's more like kind of tech stocks. They're trying to figure out, hey, which one's going to

go up in the short term or whatever. Whereas Bitcoin, I look at that as kind of like the Indian culture. If you think of like what happens in India, somebody in the family bought gold and whether it's jewelry or bars of gold or whatever. And they pass it down from generation to generation. And like, if you sell the family gold, you're an asshole, right? Don't do that. And so they just keep passing it down.

And that's how the families get really wealthy. In America, historically, it's been real estate. Like, I think it's something like 80% of millionaires in America made some or all of their money in real estate. So, okay. And then you look and you say, well, what do they do? Like the really rich families,

somebody somewhere got bought real estate and they start handing it down generation after generation. The problem now is like home affordability is really low. and people don't have the money for the most part to be able to buy big commercial buildings or anything. So this Bitcoin thing is something that you can buy $5 of, and you can keep dollar cost averaging into. And then if you have a really long time horizon, just pass it down like gold or real estate, I think it'll end up being pretty good. Yeah. That's important what you said about the dollar cost average, because that's what you were telling me to do at the beginning too,

just keep buying and just dollar cost average it out. People always try to wait for the right time to buy, but you might be waiting forever. Well, I mean, it's like whether some big crash happens or not, if your dollar cost averaging, if the crash happens, they'll be buying lower prices, you'll be happy. If the crash doesn't happen and your dollar cost averaging, they're going to be happy that you were buying before. So it's kind of like a regret minimization more than trying to optimize for the perfect price. And then the other thing that I think is really important, and I think you're a good example of this, is most people that are younger than I see, is they really think of themselves as only an investor. And so I actually

think this whole pitch that people have gotten of just become an investor is a horrible pitch. Because think about your life. You've got a business, even though people see music, there's a business that cash flows, you're able to sell the asset, get more capital, and then you go and you invest and you're investing across traditional assets and new assets. And so really what you've done is you've built a machine to a degree. It's like cashflow, I've got capital appreciation when I go to sell, then I'm able to invest and protect some of the money and I'm able to be really aggressive and try to grow it. That's like the holy grail, right? And so what I usually tell young people is like, how do you get in a position where you could

operate a business, whether it's your business or somebody else's business that you own some equity in or upside. And then also you want to be able to take whatever you're earning and then be good at investing. But now we live in a world where you got to do both. You can't just do one or the other. You got to be able to do both. You got to diversify. I feel like that's so important. Yeah. And also there's an ambition thing, right? There's a lot of people who frankly probably had some momentum behind their music careers and they just say, yo, this is good enough. Just give me the cashflow. I don't want to sell the catalog. I don't want to learn investing. They might not even spend that much money, right? But they're just happy with kind of one component. but I think that you have ambition where you were able to say, okay, well, what, how do I level up? Right. Let me go to call all these guys who came before me. Hey,

what do I do? I'll sell the catalog. How does that work? What are the risks? How do I negotiate that? Who do I talk to? Like all those things really, were you learning and it puts you in a position to, you know, be successful. Yeah. We all have the opportunity to make business fun, right? And like, we all have the opportunity to like expensive shit. So, you know, scale the business. If you look, let's fast forward 20, 30 years and you look back, what do you hope that people see as your career kind of trajectory right what is like the legacy you leave or what what is the impact you leave on whether it's the music industry or society more generally i just want to make people see that like you anything's possible it doesn't matter where you're from

or like what you look like or anything just like anything's possible like it doesn't matter if you're from new york city or you're from a town of 4 000 people like if you want to do something and you're passionate about it i think you just follow your passion and that's probably like the most rewarding thing you'll get out of life you think canada and the u.s will still be friends i don't know man i don't know it's pretty crazy though there's a lot of crazy what are canadians saying about trump becoming president i live in i live in i know but you don't talk to anybody back um you know people like it people don't like it it's all mixed yeah i don't know the uh uh the thing that i do think is uh hilarious is that this all now plays out on twitter right twitter's

in a twitter's a great place it's pretty crazy right we met right uh you look at the entire product you know yeah i know elon overpaid whatever but i think he's gonna end up making money on the i think he's doing great honestly i don't know i feel like trump surrounded himself with a lot of good people too yeah you should do a deal with them so that every audio spaces starts with the audio tag that'd be crazy right i gotta i gotta tap into the spaces i know like a lot of people are into spaces and they use it to their advantage and stuff i gotta kind of like get into that and like discord communities and i know like the telegram communities are popping and stuff yeah it's definitely a lot more for me to dive into i got some ideas for you i think i'm

excited to see like where everything goes to i feel like everything's just always like moving and tech's getting more integrated and ai is going to start getting integrated and stuff too so it's exciting times man all right where are you going to send people anywhere to find you on the internet uh murder beats m-u-r-d-a-b-e-a-t-z so you google that wherever x yeah where's the music like all the new stuff you're going to release music's everywhere it's going to be on

it's going to be on like SoundCloud Spotify Apple Music is going to be everywhere so just make sure to look out for us yeah

and buy Bitcoin buy Bitcoin we'll talk soon laser ass