Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture
Welcome to "Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," where we delve into the essence of branding beyond the surface sheen. A brand is more than just a logo or a slogan; it's a reflection of identity, values, and reputation that resonates within our cultural landscape. Enjoy as we peel back the layers to uncover the raw, authentic stories behind the people and products that shape our world.
This isn't your average corporate podcast. Join Tom Frank, partner and chief creative officer at Merrick Creative, Mickey Factz, Hip Hop Artist and Founder and CEO of Pendulum Ink, and Jeffrey Sledge, a seasoned music industry veteran, for "Unglossy" as they get to the heart of what truly drives individual and organizational brand . In a world where where image is carefully curated and narratives meticulously crafted, we're here to explore the moments of vulnerability, pivotal decisions, and creative sparks that fuel the relationship between brand and culture.
Get ready for a thought-provoking journey into the heart and soul of branding – the unscripted, unfiltered, and truly Unglossy truth. Tune in to "Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod and join the conversation.
Unglossy is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios. Let your story take the mic. Learn more at https://merrick-studios.com
Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture
Stirman: Part 2 – The Intersection of Tech, Meditation, and Music
Get ready to be inspired by Stirman, a visionary who has left a lasting impact on the tech and mindfulness landscapes. He shares his transformative journey of building Medium, the platform that bridged long and short-form writing, and his personal story of discovering meditation amidst the high-pressure of Silicon Valley, leading to a more grounded family life. This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at Medium's creation and Sturman’s decision to leave.
Stirman also discusses his encounter with George Mumford, mindfulness coach to NBA legends like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and how it inspired him to found Lucid, scaling mindfulness training globally. With real-world success stories from athletes and executives, this chapter showcases the shift from skepticism to mainstream acceptance of mindfulness.
We also dive into Sturman's time at Facebook and the emotional journey behind the launch and closure of the Bars app. From childhood piano lessons to his passion for hip-hop, he reflects on the release of his album "Beats for Friends," featuring contributions from the Bars community. Tune in for insightful anecdotes, industry wisdom, and a celebration of creativity and mindfulness.
"Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Creative and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank, hip hop artist and founder of Pendulum Ink, Mickey Factz, and music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/.
Welcome to the "All About M.E. Podcast ," the podcast where music meets the...
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previously on on glossy, we built probably 10 or 11 different products, um, but the first one was, uh, what became medium? The blogging platform? Yeah, um, you know, and at the time, uh, you know, we we kind of joked and that ev had done blogger, which was long form writing. They did twitter, which was like short form writing, and it said, you know, maybe there's something in the middle, and so we called it medium, but also, like, the medium is the message and that's where the name came from.
Speaker 4:From the top.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm tom frank I'm mickey fax and I'm jeffrey sledge welcome to unglossy deconing brand and culture. I'm tom partner and chief creative officer at Merit Creative. This is Mickey Fax, hip-hop artist and founder and CEO of Pendulum Inc. And that is Jeffrey Sledge, a seasoned music industry veteran who has worked with some of the biggest artists in the business. We're here to explore the moments of vulnerability, pivotal decisions and creative sparks that fuel the relationship between brand and culture. Get ready for a thought-provoking journey into the heart and soul of branding the unscripted, unfiltered and truly unglossy truth. Unglossy is brought to you by Merrick Creative. Hooking to skyrocket your business's visibility and drive growth. At Merrick Creative, we solve your brand and marketing woes With big ideas, decades of experience and innovative solutions. We'll draw in your target audience and keep them hooked. Remember, creativity is key to success. Partner with Merit Creative and unlock your brand's potential. Learn more at meritcreativecom. And now part two of our conversation with Sturman. We pick up on his decision to leave Medium.
Speaker 1:So let's see, I'm just going to go through my story here. So I was at Medium for about five years proper. I ran a bunch of different teams. I was an executive there for basically the whole time and I got to a point where I realized I'd spent almost a decade of my life helping Ev facilitate the exchange of stories and ideas in the world and, as proud as I am of what Twitter and Medium became, that was really Ev's mission, that was his vision and, like I said, I'm generally not a good employee because I like to pursue my own shit. I like to pursue what I do.
Speaker 4:That's what you said at the very beginning, yeah.
Speaker 1:And at the time a few things were really popping for me. So one I had really gotten into meditation. And working in Silicon Valley, high stress, high pressure I really learned to kind of like take a breath, slow down, tune, tune into what's happening internally with me, learn to meditate and I got some calm, some peace, some happiness. I was performing better.
Speaker 4:Were you always a meditation guy, or is it something that now?
Speaker 1:Never, in fact, because um, at medium Ev started to get a little into meditation. We brought in this guy, will Kabat-Zinn and Jon Kabat-Zinn they're like celebrities in the mindfulness space. I didn't know that at the time but they came in to embarrass this guy that we're paying to be here. But, like, this ain't for me and I grew up in Texas, like you know, evangelical Bible, belt like, and, and at this point religion was really kind of a put off for me and, to my discredit, I didn't think I thought about meditation as like an Eastern religion thing and I had just moved to California. So I'm going to be open-minded, experienced it all.
Speaker 1:But I realized after a couple of sessions like man, I'd leave these little meditations just really feeling good and I started to, you know, really lean into it a little bit and I'm all in or all out on most things. So I just went all in on meditation. I'm going to like retreats, I'm going to like silent weeks and different things, and you know. And then my wife, I was all in and my family started like, I started teaching my wife and my kids and they started learning and seeing more grounded. Our family was happier. And so I knew meditation was mindfulness, and I knew mindfulness was going to be a thing, and so I was like I'm really excited about that. I knew I want to do another tech startup because that's just what I do, that's what you do, that's what I know and that's the networks that I built. And I'm a huge sports junkie. I'm a I'm an nba hoops head through and through, rocking my, my husa rockets.
Speaker 1:Uh right, now you can see, I got, I got a cabinet nba jams runner right here. I got the papa shot in the back like I'm a hardcore husa rock now.
Speaker 4:Were you at texas when kevin durant was there? That's the first thing that popped in my head. It was after you. He was a little after me I was, I guess you would be a little after yeah, yeah I was there, vince williams was a quarterback.
Speaker 1:I see ricky williams break the rushing record while I was there in the late 90s, so a little bit earlier, uh, there than him.
Speaker 4:But before you continue, I want to ask these two guys meditation have you guys have you? Are you guys in the meditation at all?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm like, I'm going to kind of say yes and no, Like I have a tendency to like, do some shit and then move to the next shit. You know so. So, while you know, I've I've been in that space, but then I'll just go to the next object. Oh cool, I did that. I'm going to go to the next thing. But I mean, when I was in that space, it definitely helps. And I've been thinking lately about to try to get back into that space. And you know, daily affirmations and all that it makes you, makes you feel, it does make you feel good and open pause when to start your day like that and I haven't done that in a while and I'm feeling kind of cloudy lately. That, and I haven't done that in a while and I'm feeling kind of cloudy lately. So, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to get back into it, Cause I, you know it, it worked, it works for me. I should say I don't know if everybody, but when I was doing it, it works for me.
Speaker 3:Um, for me I'm not. It's not really like a meditation thing, Um, more like I need to get back into the prayer thing and I think there's like this congruent space between meditation, prayer, yoga and just kind of sitting in silence and absorbing the atmosphere and environment. Now that you know, my son is getting on the bus in the mornings. He's getting up at 5.30 am with me, so from 5.30 to like like 6 30 is basically getting them ready, and then I just go straight to the gym and then typically I would probably go and pray. But I've just kind of, you know, I got my studio set up and you get busy in life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's where I'm at. I wish I did more of it, but I feel like I'm constantly on the run and I think I think you're right. I think it would the cloudiness or just the anxiety sometimes. I don don't know. Maybe, maybe you need to get help us get all into this again.
Speaker 1:Well, look.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest, like my own. You know, daily meditation practice isn't on point right now. I'm not sitting every day and meditating. But. But now I'll say, like when I, when I started my next company for it was, it became a mindfulness company for athletes I'll tell you about it in a second.
Speaker 1:But but this was right when there was actually, you know, studies and real science happening around the benefits of mindfulness. It is now well documented. You can't argue against the benefit of it, like the medical field knows that, the science field knows it. It was hard, you know, even five or ten years ago, to explain it. Because you know if you eat better, you lose weight. You know if you run on the track you'll get better, better cardio. You know if you lift weights, you'll get stronger. But like now, this, this guru is telling you like do nothing for 30 minutes and that should make you better. But it's like hard to quantify. Like it was. It was a little bit like selling snake oil back then. But I was at one of these.
Speaker 1:I was actually speaking at this mindfulness conference in San Francisco and one of the other speakers was this guy named George Mumford, and George Mumford has a book out there.
Speaker 1:He was Phil Jackson's guru. So you know, Phil Jackson's often thought of like kind of the Zen Buddha, Zen master. Well, this guy taught Phil Jackson what he knew. And so George Mumford was roommates with Dr J. They both were going to try to go to play ball but George blew out his knee, ended up in prison, came out, was really on this like Zen Buddhism kick and really realized in prison he was helping prisoners get right inside their head and he really kind of realized like that was something really special with that. So he ended up working with some basketball players, hooked up with Phil Jackson, and this guy was a mental skills coach for Jordan Kobe Shaq. I mean he followed Phil up from Chicago to LA, even to New York in his last stop, and so this guy was speaking at this conference about how he was using mindfulness to help these guys perform. And back in the 90s no one was talking about meditation.
Speaker 1:No one was even talking about yoga. This was definitely some Eastern art, mystical shit. But he knew he was onto something. And I'll tell you what Jordan knew he was onto something. Kobe knew he was onto something. At that level, you know, the real, true performers will find little differentiator to elevate themselves. And for Jordan and Kobe, it was practicing their mental game. They were meditating, they were visualizing. Practicing their mental game, they were meditating, they were visualizing, they were proactively working on building their confidence, while their peers were just working on their handles or working on the jump shot or working in the weight room, and so that was kind of their secret sauce. And so, the irony there is, they didn't talk about it because they didn't want their competitors to have it.
Speaker 1:Well, fast forward, 20 something years later, george is in his 70s, he's retired, he's now worked with all and he worked with all my NBA heroes you know like. And once his story became public and once Jordan and Kobe got out the league, they would talk about this guy. I mean, jordan said George Mumford saved his life, you know, and said that he wouldn't do anything without him. So this guy had incredible crab. He's getting older and when I met him at this conference, he just he seemed a little sad that what he knew wasn't bigger, like more people didn't know about it. And he said back then he was holding onto it because it was a competitive advantage he was selling. But now he just wanted the world to know you can work on you know what's between your ears, like you work on your body and your skills and everything else that can really help you. And that had this moment of realization like shit, that's what technology is great at. Technology is great at scaling things globally really fast. And so I said your wisdom, my tech chops, like I think we could bring this to people.
Speaker 1:And so I started a company called Lucid. We built some curriculum on a phone. It was like kind of like a Headspace or Calm type app. It was really geared at mindfulness for performance, because while this was happening, headspace was starting to get a little traction, calm was starting to get traction. It was really about like take a break from your day, take a breath, calm down, de-stress and like that's all great, but in an NBA court or in a Silicon Valley boardroom, you need to perform. When you're on a mic, you need to perform. You know when you're on a mic, to perform, and so there was something really magical to me about like utilizing these same skill sets to be better at something, and so I raised money on this idea to like use mindfulness to help athletes get better musicians perform better board members, you know, be more focused and confident in the boardroom and so created a whole company around it and raised some money, started working with his connections and some of the other mental skills coaches that we brought in started rocking with some young kids.
Speaker 1:Our idea was like let's figure out who's kind of next up coming into the league, because the older guys are already getting inundated with sponsorship deals and they're hard to get a hold of, and George Mumford's, you know the Kobe's and Jordan's were already out the league, and so I had this brought in this one mental skills coach who had worked with Aaron Gordon since he was 12 years old, when he was in junior high. He was working with Ben Simmons in Australia. He worked with Carl Anthony Towns before he came to the league, so this guy was already on it and he was teaching these guys. He said he had a crew of about four or five guys that he just knew back in 2017 or 18, like these guys are going to be something Now like fast forward. Jalen Brown finals. Mvp Aaron Gordon found his home in Denver and then won a championship.
Speaker 2:Cats dominated and got robbed in a dunk contest.
Speaker 1:Yo, I was there that night. Oh, you were there. I was there. I couldn't believe it. I was like dude.
Speaker 2:He's doing shit I've never seen done. This dude is catching the shit off the fanatic. He threw it under his legs. How is this? How is this not 20s, let alone 10s? I'm still mad about that and that's why he don't do the dunk contest anymore. He I'm still mad about that and that's why he don't do the dunk passes anymore. He's like you're going to rob me again. I mean, peace is at Levine, but Aaron got robbed twice.
Speaker 1:Look, taking nothing away from Levine. Levine's an incredible leaper, but I was in the hotel room with AG before the dunk contest. We were meditating. We were getting our head right rolling in the arena with him sitting in the stands. I watch, just like everyone else did, and I'll tell you that one iconic dunk like under both of his legs over there when it happened it happened so quick people were like what just happened.
Speaker 1:And then when they showed the replay on the jumbotron, people went apeshit. I mean that was like. You know I remember vince carter, jordan. You know spud web. I remember some like iconic dunkers back in the day, but that show that ag and and Levine put on, I mean we haven't seen anything like it since.
Speaker 3:No, we haven't. No, we haven't.
Speaker 4:And I'll tell you don't give up on it, Mickey.
Speaker 1:I still rock with AG. I just saw him a couple weeks ago, unfortunately, at his brother's reception for his funeral. His brother passed away. I had a driving accident recently, but I was there. I'll tell you anytime I hang out with AG. People are still coming up to him being like you were robbed man. You were robbed.
Speaker 3:Just like this guy he was he absolutely was.
Speaker 2:He absolutely was.
Speaker 4:Wow. So what then ultimately happened with Lucid?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Lucid man. It was an unbelievable. Ran Lucid for about three years, raised a couple rounds of money, got to hire some of my best friends, got to work with AGs and dinners with Jalen Browns, and for me that's like someone who grew up as a hoop head. I was living my dream.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you, I was maybe a little too overconfident, a little overambitious. I thought, after Twitter and Medium, you just build something cool and you got like millions of users. Well, lucid was inherently a different type of business. It was a different type of company Really. It was a content production business and we were like we had to build out a little studio and we were building these meditations, we were making mindfulness music. We had to crank it out all the time and keep the app updated.
Speaker 1:I thought it was a technology company. It was really a content and selling that content was a lot harder than I imagined. I experienced the benefits of mindfulness in my own life and after seeing Jordan and Kobe and these guys doing the same thing, I thought it was going to be an easy sell. But what I found out was, like I said earlier, these athletes already know they got to eat right, they got to sleep right. They got to get in the gym. They got to get in the gym. They got to get on the track. They got to work on their skills.
Speaker 2:They got to do media classes.
Speaker 1:They got all these things. They already can't do all that in a day, and now we're telling them now you got to sit for 30 minutes and close your eyes and breathe. By the way, it's hard to quantify the results of that. All the others are really easily quantifiable.
Speaker 1:It was a really hard sell, but what I learned was the potential market for that content wasn't as big as I thought, because really at each level, at the youth level, there's a slim tier, athletes who are really going to go play in high school. At high school, even a slimmer tier of athletes are going to go play in college. At college, a very thin tier of athletes are going to go pro, and those thin tiers are really the, the communities that are willing to try the things that no one else is. They want that competitive advantage. They're willing to pay. Those are the ones you know paying for dietitians and paying for private coaches and all these sorts of things. And so it was a hard nut to crack from a business perspective. You know, I think toward the end we really got some traction. We started rocking with Brandon Marshall the inside NFL you know probably a Hall of Famer receiver at some point, and he really had a heart for entertainment.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that.
Speaker 4:I think he's right on that fine line.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's still got the records, he's still got the most reception I don't know, yeah but anyway, brandon's a homie, but, but he really, you know there's a lot of you know inner city sports that you know have little budgets and we can start to teach us the kids even younger than we thought, because we you kind of went the pro level to really validate and legitimize the company but we ended up selling the product to. You know, some colleges would buy, some high schools would buy, but they'd buy, you know, even if we had every single collegiate athlete in the US on the program, that's 45,000 people. From a tech perspective, that's not a lot more than that.
Speaker 1:You know there's less than 5,000 professional athletes in the US, and so we ended up selling to, like you know, soccer camps and schools, and, like we were always successful because we could bring these guys in like George Mumford and they just all people.
Speaker 1:They inspire people. It's easy to sell, but it was also kind of a boots on the ground sales business. It wasn't a tech business that could scale overnight like I was used to, and so, long story short, I was really kind of burnt out creating content every day, you know, really trying to just make ends meet for the company. And so in 2018, we just decided like let's just disband the company, but let's just let the app run. You know, at that point we had thousands of people that were paying monthly subscribers and so it. You know, that thing was making money and just until I think last year, basically, but we stopped working on it. Um, my VP of design ended up going to Facebook and, uh, got there about a month later. It was like Sturman, you got to come check out Facebook and I was like hold on, hold on, like I'm a startup guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's going back to the evil empire right there.
Speaker 1:Totally. And I saw, you know, after Twitter got to a certain size it was, like you know, politics and bureaucracy start to creep in by nature the size of the organization. So but I did go to talk. I went to talk to Facebook and they kind of sold me to jump in and help them with kind of their zero to one innovation muscle internally. You know they had caught wind that the FTC was going to come down and impose some mandates on them. It was going to be harder and harder for Facebook to acquire companies. Now. Facebook acquired Instagram at the right time, acquired Oculus at the right time.
Speaker 1:WhatsApp the biggest communication platform in the world at the right time, and so, like, the acquisition muscle at Facebook was crazy. But it's going to be harder and harder to do that, and so the in-house innovation muscle was a little bit weaker and so I came in to kind of work on some different models to really attract entrepreneurial people, to challenge how big companies can work and scale and bring some new ideas to the table and real talk. I thought I'd be at Facebook for a year. I thought I'd get paid for a year, learn about big companies and bounce and start something else. Well, I just crossed six and a half years at the company, still working on interesting stuff. It's a crazy place. I don't know 70,000 employees it's wild, but I'm learning a bunch. I'm getting to work with really creative, smart people.
Speaker 4:Do you work right there at the Facebook offices? Do you go in or no? Not anymore.
Speaker 1:No, Not anymore For pre-COVID. Yes.
Speaker 2:I was driving 90 minutes one.
Speaker 1:Well, I loved being at the office.
Speaker 4:I loved working with Greg he did meditation for those 90 minutes, so he's good.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you what. That was a lot of time to be in a car, but as an introvert, between the craziness at work and the craziness at home, that was my 90 minutes where I was listening to my music, my podcast, and so I kind of miss it a little bit, but I want to go back to one thing you said which I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 4:I want to put an exclamation mark on that is you created something with Lucid that was content creation, whereas where you had success with Twitter and then Facebook and we're going to get into the Bars app was really creating a platform for others to create all the content, which seems like your key to success and where you want it to be A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And I think the truth of the matter is I realized that pretty late in the Lucid game and I was just so excited about what we were doing and every week we were getting a new pro athlete or a team that wanted to work with us, and it was kind of just blinding me to really step back and think about how is this business actually going to work? Because the truth of the matter is the thing that really gets me going and inspires me is empowering other people to share what's special about them with the world. And we did that at Twitter, we did that at media and we definitely did that at bars. And I think that's the thing I'm good at and, for better or worse, that's what I like to do.
Speaker 1:And so late in the game at Lucid, we thought, like you know, could this be a platform for, you know, maybe the, the up and coming mindfulness coaches, the executive coaches? You know that was kind of like an industry that was starting to bubble up a little bit, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, we did something really special with these athletes. We planted a lot of seeds. We'll see. We'll see how they'll bloom later, but truth of the matter is after three years I was just burnt trying to run a business that wasn't taking off like I thought, and so I decided to hang it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Wow, I respect it. Now here.
Speaker 4:I thought we were going to talk about music the whole time and we haven't even got to music. But I guess now I'm starting to realize where the Bars app came from. It's all like you're connecting the dots here.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll connect them literally. I'll try to do it quick. I know I'm being long-winded here, but music has always been a big part of my life. My parents put me on piano lessons when I was little. I started playing guitar when I was little. It's been my main instrument. I've always liked singer-songwriters. I always liked music as a way to move people and tell stories and um. So I was probably in.
Speaker 2:I think I was in sixth grade when my friend gave me a bootleg cassette tape of easy e and I was like I never heard. I mean well, the only album. Easy does it, the easy does it, easy does it.
Speaker 1:And I heard it and I was like my parents would not approve of this and I'm fucking rocking with this man. It just the beats the message. And you know I rocking with this man, it just the beats the message. And you know, I didn't realize this at the time. But the thing that really fascinated me was like he was rapping about shit that was happening in Compton. It was such a different life.
Speaker 1:I grew up basically on a golf course in a suburb of Houston, you know. So like this was not, you know, I was not getting shot at, I was not having these experiences. That EZ was in, in, in, uh, in, la, but it just was like I could imagine, I could see it, I could hear it and it was like, you know, his, his way to communicate what was happening in his life through clever punchlines and bars and dope beats, like I just was really fascinated by it. So after that I was like buying, you know, blank tapes at my little boom box with the record button and I was jamming 97.9 the box, shout out 97.9 the box in houston, like I think they're still going. I'd be listening for the Mad Hatter in the morning, yes, sir, and I'd be recording my little mixtapes, but my whole life I always played music. In college I was playing guitar with some little acoustic singer-songwriter bands, bands, and you know, hip-hop was always kind of my, my, my passion, my hobby. I didn't know if I could ever, you know, actually make anything. It's it's somewhat recently, really, since covid, that I thought, like I can fuck around with the drum machine and npc, like this ain't rocket science, I can learn some.
Speaker 1:I started to learn to produce a little bit, but after about two years at facebook, we had created a, a program called npe New Product Experimentation and I was in charge of running design and products for it for a while. So we were bringing in entrepreneurs from outside of Facebook to come inside. We had money, we had engineers, we had designers. We could help them pursue specific niche product ideas for certain communities, realizing that nothing scales global overnight Usually you find a pocket of people that really love your shit so much they can't stop talking about it. And so, you know, could we find those pockets of people and really grow something organically from the inside a company like Facebook?
Speaker 1:And so once we started rocking with that, you know I was thinking about, like what kind of communities, you know, could we support here and music for me, I was like I have the opportunity to work on music and tech like 100%. I'm definitely doing that, and at the time there was just a lot of criticism from really the black community around decisions Facebook had made and there was some ill will and some lost trust in those communities and I thought, and also just a few years prior to this, hip hop had surpassed rock as the most popular genre, I think, in the world or in the US or something so like sort of like connecting some trends together. And I was like you know what Hip hop has always been really powerful for me? Music moves minds. Facebook has the scale to really put this in the world in a way and build a platform for who are the up-and-comers that have something to say and they don't know how to get it to the world. And so we dorked around with a couple of different ideas and the Bars app was the end result. You're given a platform for dope lyricists and eventually producers would put their stuff on a product that they could get more ears, get more eyes and hopefully move minds and change culture and all the things that hip hop has done for me. I thought could we scale it through this product?
Speaker 1:It was hard because Facebook, at the time was not a trusted brand. Facebook had been in the news all the time for bad decisions or data breaches or privacy invasions or whatever it was. And so actually talking to a community that already felt burned by this company, and so I realized from the get-go this was a high risk, high reward situation, because one I'm trying to serve a community that in many ways, I'm not a part of. I mean, you can see me, I love hip hop. I don't know, you know it's hard for me to relate to, to what inner city black kids are dealing with, that they're loving this music, and so and Facebook was already under so much scrutiny, like you know, how would how would they look at this product being founded by a white dude who likes hip hop coming out of Facebook, like there were, like this is it could be corny was written all over it, you know. But I thought, look, I don't, I'm okay, embarrassing myself, I'm okay Failing, I'll learn a lot. I really think there's something special here.
Speaker 1:And so there is a lot of structure, infrastructure inside of Facebook. Now meta, we have, like the inclusive product council. We have the black act community, like there was. There was a lot of checks and balances and and uh, people that could kind of check me for my own, you know biases, both known and unknown, and I'll tell you some early versions of the product. We just use some language, like even in the app that was, like you know, the the, the product council was like you can't say that. You know, like that's, that you're using like lingo and slang, that, like you know, if, if we use it, it's cool, but when you use it it's going to be interpreted a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:And they acknowledged, like I didn't have any bad intentions but, like you know, I was serving a community I wasn't really part of, which is usually a disaster, you know, recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:But I also did really really believe in the power of this community and I think that people internally saw that and so let me run with this thing. And you know we ran it for a good couple of years. Working with Mickey was one of the highlights of the whole deal, but you know we also rocked with, you know, jadakiss and Rhapsody and Toby and Weequay shout out, h-town rapper coming up. Like you know, there were some people that got on that app that kind of legitimized it. Mickey was a huge, huge help and, just like you know, once he kind of signed on and we did the the the bars at Mickey fact challenge, uh, with him I think a lot of people in the industry that follow Mickey and a lot of the hip hop you know, die hard. You're like okay, like we heard about this thing but like we kind of thought it was cheesy or corny, but like once they opened it they realized like there was some real spitters on there.
Speaker 1:There was some real kids that, like, had an art form and had something to say and now had an audience to say it to. And so, you know, ran it Probably the most fun I've ever had in my my career. Getting to, like, make beats for rappers and like, build a product to make hip hop, you know, more impactful, was amazing. But the truth of the matter is, at the end of the day, you know, for a product to matter at meta scale, you know it's hundreds of millions of people at least I don't know if there's a hundred million wannabe rappers in the world, you know and like.
Speaker 1:And that said, like, we definitely could have branched out to other genres. We could have brought some, you know, the producer community in, like. I think there's still ways that that product could have scaled and continue to make a difference. But beginning of last year, meta went through a tough round of layoffs and really had to ruthlessly focus on what was going to be effective and efficient for the company to invest in, to move the business. And unfortunately, that whole new product experimentation Bars was one of 60 apps that we launched out of that group and the whole org just got wound down. So nothing survived from that.
Speaker 1:Well, no products did but I'll tell you one of the hidden agendas of starting that team at Meta we were a hundred strong when we closed it but one of the hidden agendas was, when you work for a big company like Meta like Facebook, like Twitter, like Google, like Apple there's so much process, bureaucracy, red tape it's really hard to get stuff done, and I came from a startup background where it's just me and a couple of homies in my garage making shit happen every day, and so I was convinced that there was better ways to get work done. So what we did in that org, I think, really helped inform the larger company in different ways to build products and serve communities. And I'll tell you, I still get thanks and appreciation and kudos inside of the company for stepping into a high risk, high reward situation serving a community I wasn't really a part of and building some real good will and trust and content and a product, and so I think that spirit is still very much alive in the company. Unfortunately, the product is not, but you know that's okay. Like you know, something just have like a natural life cycle. And, like you know, I still get and Mickey's probably not surprised, but I still get people all the time Like some of these guys are in that community, like yo, we got to get the bars up going. How can we, how can I restart this and, like you know, as as a passion project, I think it was really impactful.
Speaker 1:I think if it was a startup I was running, I think I could have really continued to invest in and pivot and try different things, bring in new investors, bring in new talent. But when this decision came down to to to ax the org, you know, so did we ax the product and, you know, nothing but gratitude and a full heart looking back. And it introduced me to you guys and to Mickey and I dropped an album last week mostly featuring guys from the bars community, you know, and so, like that is an absolute dream come true for me. I never thought I'd get to, you know, release music that people are rapping on, and so for me it was an unbelievable, huge win. I'm really, really proud of what we did in that product. And you know, sad, sad is gone, but you know, everything's got his life cycle well, let's tell the world about that album.
Speaker 4:It's beats for friends beats for friends. Hey, I listened to it today. Hey, what do you think? I liked it. Okay, I'll give you my favorite track. Okay, and and it's funny that this whole conversation because this is what I was thinking about back when I was listening to this was go far and for some reason, I put it on in the car and it was like the most calming beat and I felt like I was in meditation all the way home today.
Speaker 1:Well, I love it.
Speaker 4:I love it I'll tell you full circle, mickey full circle, you know you know, I didn't get.
Speaker 3:I didn't get a phone call for that album, man, I don't know. You know, when I heard it, heard it when he sent me the link, I was like, oh, you put out an instrumental album Because you know me. I'm like there's a lot of records on there, Jeff. I'm like, OK, I start listening. I'm hearing people.
Speaker 2:I didn't know about it at all. Y'all got to get to it, you got to get to it.
Speaker 3:I start. I'm like wait, I didn't get a call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you ain't get to. No bars, no bars. It's crazy, look ain't no shortcuts.
Speaker 1:In this game I got to start from the bottom and work my way up to the Mickey Facts and the Jeff Sledges in the game. I got to earn that feature. Homie, I got to earn that feature no bars is wild.
Speaker 3:You cleaned that up. Good you cleaned that up. Good you cleaned that up. Good you cleaned that up.
Speaker 1:Good man it was, you know, like it was really during covid I really started to think about like I got all this time on my hands, I'm at home. I really started, you know, fucking around with some production, learning how to use the software, started buying little drum machines and groove boxes and and really just started making beats. I liked and you know I still listen to a wide variety of music and for me, something about singer, songwriter music, hip hop, even some like ambient stuff, like anything that moves me, moves me. I don't know why, but it does. And so when I started really I started this project late last year I was looking my grandfather shout out Herman Sturman, believe it or not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, rest in peace.
Speaker 1:But he was. He was a pianist and he made gypsy music, which was a thing like back in Lithuania he was. He grew up in New York. He was a gypsy music pianist and I still have some his little 45 vinyls and it sounds like what you think it sounds like. It's like piano music, sound like you hear at a gypsy camp or something.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, maybe it was just time for me, but I really stopped giving a fuck what people thought about me, you know, and like it's one of the biggest blessings of getting older and I thought, you know, like I, I always had this creative pursuits and I had some validation that, like my technology, creative pursuits were validated because I was getting jobs, I was getting paid, I was getting, you know, noticed. But my music was just kind of for me and I think I just had this fear of like putting it out there I'd get clowned, no one would like it, no one would care. But just a couple of years ago I was like I don't really care anymore. I'm going to make music that I like. I make music that moves me. My kids will be able to point to a Spotify link not gonna be a vinyl anymore, although I should get it pressed to vinyl now.
Speaker 4:You should totally do that. I should get it pressed to vinyl.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:But it'll be just a moment in time, a snapshot of what I was into and the people I was rocking with. That I could like kind of leave behind. And so I thought you know what, like I know I've got a career I'm happy with. I got lots of hobbies. You know music for me is a passion project. I put it out there really as a just kind of a moment in time to to you know, show and share the kind of music that that moved me.
Speaker 1:And I got to rock with some of my homies. I met through bars and got to feature them and pay them which was really amazing to support their dope art from dope people, and so all those songs move me in some way. Even like when I was just scouting samples or like kind of bass stuff off or playing my guitar or playing the keys, if something a little chord progression or a melody, just made me feel something, I was like that's it. It. And so if you listen to it now, like I got some rappers on there but like go far is not, it's not a hip-hop track, it's like not at all, yeah, it's got, actually actually got some like praise and worship, like, uh, like a little christian thing on there.
Speaker 4:You know, it's not a weird stamp I needed. I needed something to calm me down, to get me in the right, the right place, and and that it did that. It did it for me.
Speaker 1:Well, man, I appreciate that. Like I said, if one other person liked it, that's icing on the cake. And since I put it out just last week, I've just been I'm not trying to run up my listeners, not trying to sell any merch or anything, but just getting hit up from friends and family and people just saying they rocked it, they felt me, that moved them, they heard something like it has just been an absolute pleasure, and so I'm already starting to gear up for, like man, I got to do this again and back to the rick rubin vibes.
Speaker 1:You know rick rubin talks about, like the real work is making art and sharing art. And going back to making art, and you know, you never know what's going to pop off and what's not, and so like kind of got out of my head and said you know, know what, fuck it, I don't care what people think. I'm going to make music I like and put it out there and if it resonates with people, cool, I'll rock with them. If it doesn't, cool too. Like we all like different stuff. Art is subjective, you know, and so. But there is something for me that was a big hurdle of you know that my friends and family and kids like Last question before we close this thing out, Hit me here we go, here we go.
Speaker 3:Why? Why are you? Why are you didn't give me the bars up, man? Why you just didn't give it?
Speaker 4:to me. We talked a lot about this, a lot about this.
Speaker 3:You should have just handed it over to me. Man. Yeah, Slipped out the back door.
Speaker 4:this you should have just handed it over to me. Yeah, slip out the back door.
Speaker 1:Nick, there's nothing would have made me happier to do that and, I kid you not, we had. I went to bat hardcore internally for that. Unfortunately, intellectual property laws and meta and Facebook all got in the way and it. You know, I probably shouldn't get into it, obviously for obvious reasons, but I'll tell you like.
Speaker 1:You tried, you tried, I tried but not being able to give that community what they were asking for when we had what they were asking for, that was a real hard moment for me. I still feel sad about it. But I also feel, like you know, like people will continue to find ways for their art to be heard. And, like you know, maybe there'll be another similar thing come up. You know, maybe I'll fuck around with engineers at some point and then spend some of on weekend. I don't know. Like you know, everything's, everything's on the table, but, man, I wish, I wish you could have had a Mick. I tried to make that happen, but I don't know.
Speaker 3:I mean, the gesture in itself was unbelievable and I'm appreciative of that, you know, because that community, you know the times that I did pop in and get a chance to see everybody working. I'm not sure if the other ambassadors came in and kind of saw, but I was in there, you know, and I got a chance to vibe with a lot of people and a lot of them transitioned over the pendulum and you know we created that community for them and we've had retreats where they got a chance to meet in person and I think that is the kind of thing that a lot of people yearn for. They needed that space and we provided it for them. You know we would have done it, you know we would have kept that, that space going and wave that flag. But obviously, you know the bureaucracies and legal jargon kept the culture from progressing.
Speaker 4:Mickey, this is a guy you need to get at the next graduation. Who Sturman?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've invited Sturman to both graduations.
Speaker 4:We need to get you out there. He has It'll blow you away what Mickey's doing, because it is kind of in some ways connected to what you were doing and it's very impressive what he's done. Well, it's it's, it's it's, it's very impressive what he's done.
Speaker 1:Well, I know that and I've seen the pictures from the graduation. It just it warmed my heart so much and I know a lot of those guys in the bars community end up in Pendulum Inc. They they talk about bars and Pendulum Inc really changing their lives, and not just because more, more of their art is being heard, but it was real therapy and healing for some of those guys going through some real rough times and be able to connect with other people with similar struggles, sharing their art in similar ways. Like. I'm really proud of what we did and I couldn't be more stoked about you know mickey is holding that torch and pendulum inc is moving forward with this. So, so, super stoked. But before we bounce, before we got on this, call jeff jeffery, a little teaser about like something we had in common. And now I'm curious well, well, curious.
Speaker 2:Well, now we've done this interview. I was actually shadowing you in your life, talking it because you're from Houston area.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, and.
Speaker 2:I A&R'd all the UGK projects.
Speaker 1:No shit really.
Speaker 2:No shit. And then you went to the Bay and I A&R'd E40 and Too Short. Then I heard your favorite group of all time Tribe Called Quest. Yes, sir, I A&R'd. I started with Midnight Marauders. I did a promotion on the ward on Low End 3. I started with. A&r'd and I did Midnight Marauders on. Except the last album because I was on Epic.
Speaker 1:Wow, I did not know that. Jeff, here I'm talking with Mick and Tom. I want to talk to you, man.
Speaker 2:They were babbling, they were babbling, I was letting them babble.
Speaker 3:That was Tom.
Speaker 4:I'm the babbling guy, I admit it.
Speaker 3:And then Jeff signed me, so like you got to yeah, and I signed Mickey too, so like this whole synergy is there. And last but not least, you know, Q-Tip will be at the graduation in New York City for.
Speaker 4:Oh, he's coming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we locked him Big announcement announcement I locked him in.
Speaker 1:I locked him in in april last year. Wow, the tip to come out nowadays. You know, that's just a big thing.
Speaker 4:I'm coming out you just you just reeled him in. If you have, you have me, I'm coming out, make for sure of course we, yeah, we have some fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, jeff, we got a lot to talk about man I always like I feel like h town doesn't.
Speaker 1:You know. It never shows up as a list of list of, like influential hip-hop cities. But you look at ugk, you look at ghetto boys, you look at dj screw.
Speaker 1:I mean, you got you know mike jones, you know I mean, you got people at ugk that came out of there. That really had a pretty big impact on the, on the path that hip-hop went and and uh, you know. So I'm always, always repping, repping h town and and they're still producing the artist there there I'm excited about. But but, jeff man, I'd love to grab a meal with you sometime and talk makes you work with all my idols, all my idols.
Speaker 2:Get into it. Tell you some tribe stories.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's crazy, that is crazy.
Speaker 4:All right, who knew who knew? All right, sturman, you got to tell everybody where can they find your music.
Speaker 1:I am at Sturman everywhere. S-t-i-r-a-m Sturman. I'm on Twitter, instagram, facebook, spotify. Look me up, jam my music If you like it. Send me a note, man. I really appreciate anyone rock with me If you don't. That's cool too. Also, quick shout out to my daughter. I started making music. My daughter's name is Greenlee G-R-E-E-N-L-E-Y. She put out her first single a couple months ago. She is 18. I just dropped her off at CU Boulder last week Freshman there and so she is starting a whole new chapter of life. But she's been DJing, creating some house music which she's teaching me a little bit about house music now. Some house music which she's teaching me a little bit about house music. Now she's got way more listeners than I do on Spotify. I'm like my music probably ain't going to be my retirement ticket, but her music might.
Speaker 2:I'm going to blow her up every chance I get House music is, I don't want to say coming back, because it never left, it just went back underground. It's starting to pop its head up in different places. It's going to have another run. It's going to have another run very soon. My theory is, whenever tragic things happen in this country, so like in the 20s right with Prohibition and all that shit and people were, you know, and the crash of World War 29. Out of that came ragtime.
Speaker 2:People wanted to dance, right. Then in the 40s, world War II Crazy, you know, people dying. Out of that came rock and roll, early rock and roll, you know, bo Diddley and that type of shit. Then in the 60s, vietnam War Strife. Out of that came that second iteration of rock and roll. Right, people wanted to kind of be free and party and have a good time. Then in the 70s, you know, gas crash, you know gas prices going crazy, da-da-da. Out of that came disco. So whenever there's really dark times now I'm talking about what we just talked about, which is COVID and that type of thing, trump and all that type of stuff Out of that is coming tempo. Again, people want to feel good. That's why your daughter's on to something, because that tempo and that feeling and that vibe that's coming back like the slow, it's not, it's not, it's not happening. So that's my theory. I just gave away my theory.
Speaker 2:I like that this tempo starts to kick in. I mean, it's not a theory, it's the truth. It's what happens over time, you know so.
Speaker 4:Oh, we've gotten into a lot tonight. This has been.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:This has been fun. Yeah, yeah, this has been fun. Thank you, sir. I'm so glad we got to reconnect. I'm I'm thrilled when I just dm somebody and actually get back to me. I owe that to mickey and jeffrey, so, um, it's been great. Thank you. I've learned a ton just sitting here and listening to you for the past hour.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. Thanks for letting me ramble, jeff that was dope it was, it was really man, I just feel honored to be connected to you guys and, like I'll be following y'all's story, always following the podcast. You know we didn't even talk about AI. I had this haws Like I want to hear what these guys think about AI-created art. That's a whole nother.
Speaker 4:Maybe we'll check, you know queue that I'd love to hear y'all's take on that, but man.
Speaker 3:I'll be rapping against AI on Friday. I'll be watching.
Speaker 1:Good luck. Good luck, homie.
Speaker 3:At Tabernacle in Atlanta. I'm hosting a whole event, and then Rick Ross is going to be performing after.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 3:Amazing. You know a little something.
Speaker 4:A little something. All right, folks, that's our show. Tune in to Unglossy, the coding brand and culture, on Apple Podcasts, spotify or YouTube, and follow us on Instagram at unglossypod, to join the conversation. Until next time, I'm Tom Frank.
Speaker 2:I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 3:Smicky, smicky.
Speaker 4:That was good.
