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PODCAST

Trapital

Trapital is where technology meets culture. Hear breakdowns on the most important trends in tech, media, and entertainment. Trapital founder Dan Runcie and various guests break down the moves that shape the rest of society. Learn more

technology

All Episodes

46:23

Where Web2 and Web3 Meet (with Cardin Campbell)

Trapital ·

2023/02/23

In music, web3 hype may have cooled over the last year but there are still builders in the space making moves, like trac’s founder, Cardin Campbell. Trac is one of our sponsors for Trapital, and it was great to have Cardin on to discuss how music tech startups see the big picture and are approaching this. trac is a music distribution service, but it wants to bridge web2 and web3 together in a way most distribution services aren’t.Cardin sees an opportunity to digitize how royalty payments are made

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50:07

Investing in New Music Startups (with Bob Moczydlowsky)

Trapital ·

2023/02/16

The Techstars Music accelerator just announced its 7th cohort. As the program’s Managing Director Bob Moczydlowsky told me on this episode, they don’t invest in music companies. They invest in companies solving problems for the global music business. There are 10 companies that involve music in some way, including — education, web3, and even wedding celebrations. Each startup gets a $120,000 check from Techstars and hands-on development for 90 days. Past portfolio companies include Community, Endel,

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53:57

Rihanna, Roc Nation, and the Super Bowl Halftime Show...

Trapital ·

2023/02/08

The biggest stage in music is still the Super Bowl Halftime Show. In 2023, that stage belongs to Rihanna. This is a noteworthy show for multiple reasons.Rihanna hasn’t released an album since 2016’s ANTI, which was a TIDAL exclusive! Seven years is a long time. She has since built two billion-dollar brands with Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty, and recently became a mother. Could this be the start of a music comeback for RiRi?A few years ago, Rihanna famously turned down this opportunity citing her

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49:09

Why It’s Not Too Late to Start on TikTok (with Sean...

Trapital ·

2023/02/02

The playbook for artists to go viral on TikTok has changed a lot since 2019. Sean Taylor aka “BrandMan Sean” has written and executed that playbook for his clients since the early days of TikTok. He’s the co-founder of the ContraBrand Agency, which specializes in TikTok marketing for music talent. The agency has helped artists like Macy Gray, 24kGoldn, and Trap Beckham, among others.Sean and his team just released a global report on How Artists are Going Viral on TikTok. The report is packed with

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62:28

How Cash Money Records Pulled Off Hip-Hop’s Louisiana...

Trapital ·

2023/01/26

Everybody’s got something to say about Cash Money Records and the brothers who co-founded the label —Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. To paint the full Cash Money full picture, good and bad, I brought on Zack O’Malley Greenberg who has interviewed the brothers at-length while working at Forbes.Cash Money has one of the deepest catalogs in the game with several classics. And unlike some other upstart hip-hop labels, Birdman and Slim maintained control as they rose up. Their 1998

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52:18

Why Algorithms are Getting Smarter with Ari Herstand

Trapital ·

2023/01/19

I had a great chat about the future of streaming and more with Ari Herstand, who isan independent artist who also runs Ari’s Take, an education business to teach others artists about the industry. He just released the third edition of his book, How To Make It In the New Music Business.Ari joined me to discuss how artists are navigating new music releases. It's increasingly getting out of the artist’s hands in favor of the uncontrollable algorithms powering the likes of Spotify and TikTok. Ari

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51:49

How Diddy is Underestimated as a Businessman

Trapital ·

2023/01/12

Sean “Diddy” Combs is one of hip-hop’s most serial entrepreneurs. His business track record stretches 30 years with successes in completely-different industries — music (Bad Boys Records), clothing (Sean John), spirits (Ciroc and DeLeon), media (Revolt), among many other ventures. To take a closer look at Combs' empire, I brought on Tarik Brooks, who is the president of Combs Enterprises. Many chalk up Diddy’s entrepreneurial success to his influence and brand alone. While Tarik doesn’t deny

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53:25

NYU Keynote: Music, Streaming, and Second-Order Effects

Trapital ·

2023/01/05

I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at New York University’s Annual Alumni Event for its music business department. Big thanks to Larry Miller, a professor and director of the program, for inviting me. It was a free-flowing conversation focused on how technology is reshaping the music industry from top-to-bottom. We’re well into the streaming era now, but some of the second-order effects are barely starting to ripple — particularly the oversaturation of content. It’s easier and cheaper

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38:28

Trapital Mailbag: A.I. in Music, Future of NFTs,...

Trapital ·

2022/12/15

I’m digging into the mailbag for today’s episode. For the first time in over a year, I asked Trapital listeners and readers to send me their most burning questions about the music industry. I’ve pulled out nine questions from the bunch to cover on the show. We’re covering everything from NFTs to artificial-intelligence-assisted music creation to investing in music catalogs going forward and a whole lot more. I’m hitting you with my honest thoughts on each. Here’s a look at the topics:[0:54] State of

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55:03

Turnover at Motown, Berner's Billion-Dollar Weed...

Trapital ·

2022/12/08

This episode is a two-parter. At the top, I talk about the news at Motown Records with Ethiopia Habtemariam stepping down from her role as CEO and Chairwoman. After that, I talked to Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Hip-Hop’s wealthiest artists of 2022. After years of compiling the list for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg released the 2022 edition independently. This time around, he used insights from Columbia Business School to better grasp on the wealth of the industry’s biggest moguls.Jay-Z tops the

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36:53

Why The Next 10 Years Of Rich Homie Quan’s Career...

Trapital ·

2022/12/01

Rich Homie Quan was one of the defining rappers of the music era that preceded the industry’s shift to streaming. He — along with the likes of Future and Young Thug — made “mumble rap” a hot commodity in the mid-2010s. But while Future and Thugger continued their careers, Quan took a hiatus from the game, until now.Quan dropped his first project, “Family & Mula”, in almost three years back in October. During the long layoff, Quan admits he lost both his confidence and heart for rapping. He

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54:02

Investing in Web3 Music with Coopahtroopa

Trapital ·

2022/11/23

Cooper Turley, better known as Coopahtroopa, is betting big on ushering a new generation of music. In September, he announced a first-of-its-kind investment fund focused squarely on web3 music projects and artists themselves. Coop Records raised $10 million and Coopah will be the sole general partner. He’s hesitant to call it just an investment fund though. That’s because Coop Records is also a record label and incubator. Coopah will invest directly into web3-native music artists in a “seed round” —

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71:37

What Spotify and YouTube’s Billions Playlists Tell Us...

Trapital ·

2022/11/17

Today's episode is a two-parter. Part 1 is on Spotify and YouTube’s billion streams and views playlists. After reviewing both lists, there’s a lot to learn about the streaming era and the strategy for both platforms respectively. I broke it all down with Tati Cirsiano, a music analyst at MIDiA Research.Spotify’s list is more reflective of passive consumption. Spotify’s top-performing songs are more correlated with radio hits than YouTube, which is a more active consumption experience.YouTube’s

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46:43

How a16z’s Cultural Leadership Fund Is Putting More...

Trapital ·

2022/11/10

Megan Holston-Alexander is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz Cultural Leadership Fund. It’s the first VC fund that raised money exclusively from Black leaders — from entertainment to sports to business. The fund co-invests with a16z’s other funds and has raised more than $60 million across its three funds to date.The overarching purpose of CLF is to create generational wealth opportunities for Black communities. It’s a two-pronged approach. The first is getting Black dollars directly on the cap

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46:51

The Culture Report, and DICE President on Making...

Trapital ·

2022/11/03

At the top of the episode, I talk about Trapital’s new Culture Report and our opening section on hip-hop’s “decline.” This report is sponsored by DICE, and it was a great chance to chat with DICE President Russ Tannen about the future of ticketing and live events.Russ moved to New York City in 2021 amid the pandemic with one lofty goal: grow the music ticketing platform’s business inside the competitive United States market. If that wasn’t challenging enough, this was all while live musical shows

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46:28

How HitPiece Rebounded and Relaunched After Controversy

Trapital ·

2022/10/27

Rory Felton has spent most of his past two decades in music being pro-artist. He developed talent and sold millions of records under his Militia Group label that he co-founded and eventually sold to Sony. In the early days of social media, Rory worked with Top 40 artists and majors to monetize on these new platforms. That’s why it was ironic that Rory was recently criticized for being anti-artist. Rory founded HitPiece two years ago. HitPiece is an NFT marketplace focused solely on music

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57:35

How Curren$y Played The Long Game With His Career &...

Trapital ·

2022/10/20

Most artists want career growth and they want it fast — sometimes to a fault. This is where Curren$y is an outlier. From the jump, Curren$y set out to grow both his career and fanbase slowly but steadily. He successfully did that and it’s a reason why he’s not only stayed in the rap game for almost twenty years, but is now still earning more money, and at a career point where most of his peers coming up have already fizzled out.Curren$y and his longtime manager, Mousa, joined me on this week’s

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36:39

Rap Capital: The Rise & Reign Of Atlanta’s Hip-Hop...

Trapital ·

2022/10/13

The dominance of Atlanta’s hip-hop scene has been discussed often, but not in the way Joe Coscarelli covered it in his new book, Rap Capital. Joe, a New York Times music reporter since 2015, spent four years and interviewed over 100 sources to get the contemporary story about Atlanta’s culture-defining music scene.Characters are what move the story forward in Joe’s book, not discography, record sales, or cultural relevance. Lil Baby is featured prominently, as is his mom. Joe’s relationship with the

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37:28

Mona Scott-Young’s Influence On Culture Goes Beyond...

Trapital ·

2022/10/06

Mona Scott-Young is best-known for producing the Love & Hip Hop reality TV series on VH1. The franchise debuted in 2011 has remained a TV fixture today through industry-wide changes with TV and around 30 different seasons aired. However, it’s Young’s ability to permeate hip-hop culture into the mainstream that’s been the true calling card.Before Love & Hip Hop, Mona managed talent in music. She was a co-founder for Violator with the late Chris Lighty, and was behind memorable brand

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41:34

Inside Hannibal Buress’ Pivot From Comedy To Rap

Trapital ·

2022/09/29

Hannibal Buress has carved a name for himself in comedy over the past two decades. But now he’s foregoing that part of his career for a fresh identity — Eshu Tune, his rap alter-ego. The name pays homage to a “trickster god” in Nigerian mythology.A rap career has been in the back of Hannibal’s mind but the career pivot wasn’t seriously put into motion until 2020. Earlier that year, he put out a comedy special, “Miami Nights.” While promoting it at home during lockdowns, Hannibal felt a spark

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304 results

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