Ani Sanyal

And I empathize, you know, with all kind of independent artists who are going through that now.

And until you've seen it, you know, on the other side, it's hard to tell.

Both.

So predominantly making our own music.

And so I was in a group called Green Street.

It was two emcees and a producer, kind of like a tribe called Quest for, you know, the new generation type of vibe.

So I was I was an emcee, meaning I was on the microphone as well as managing and doing the entire marketing for the group.

And so I think and that's kind of where I realized that, you know, though I was I would say I was talented on the mic.

You know, my talents really went a little bit deeper than that, because, you know, even at I want to say by the time we were 21, 22, we were doing a lot of brand deals.

We went to Japan toward, you know, two months in Tokyo.

Sure.

So a brand deal money wise was essentially a company like, for example, Marlboro, the cigarette company out there.

They were doing a new activation where they wanted to have artists licensed music.

you know, and, and have that become a part of their rollout.

And, uh, they would basically pay us upfront to license music and then also provide us with tour support and things in Japan.

How much did they pay upfront?

Per song we were getting around 5,000 at that time.

Um, so you do three songs, you know, you net a little bit of money, you go over there and make some more money on merch and, um, hand to hand, you know, sales and things like that on tour.

And, um, that was kind of my first introduction to, um,

I'd always been an entrepreneur, so to speak.