00:00:00
that that video so so the video was shot before the song came out and it shows you at like um one of those blue sky
00:00:05
parties or whatever it is so so you were performing don't worry about it you know
00:00:10
generally yeah yeah he does the brickfish on George good dude good friend good friend of mine like I I he's
00:00:15
a family friend actually so he was helping me get into the music scene um I dropped a few songs with Dan Ox from
00:00:23
Georgia fil as well and Jim Lee was like bro do you want to come to Fiji and I was like [ __ ] like [ __ ] yeah let's go uh
00:00:30
sweet and like they pay for the ticket and everything and I MC and I thought while I'm here why not cuz I'm so MC
00:00:37
asn't like rapping rapping yeah yeah like Rapp singing and U see there's a
00:00:41
performer but no one really underr mate yeah for sure I was not Kings at the time and um yeah so I I just thought I'm
00:00:49
never going to be in Fiji again I should film a music video here and um that was
00:00:53
the inspiration literally I was walking around with the camera Lee was kind of like bro you're B like what are you
00:00:57
doing come and chill with us I'm like Noah no no this is my only because I'm
00:01:00
never going to make it to Fiji again you know um and I shot that music video there so so then how does this how does
00:01:07
the song get out like do you Geor yeah okay so do you put it on Soundcloud or whatever or you just give like Lee a
00:01:13
copy or Dan a copy yeah I chucked it on Soundcloud um which for anyone who does a SoundCloud or thing anymore I don't
00:01:21
even know if yeah SoundCloud kind of like before Spotify um yeah I checked it up on my Spotify page oh [ __ ] sorry my
00:01:28
SoundCloud page Georgia F gave it a couple spins because I was general's friend and Dan ox and um nothing
00:01:36
happened bro to be honest three months ago by nothing happens it gets like maybe 2,000 spins I'm thinking that's a
00:01:41
lot of spins for me 2,000 um and I would say in the 3 four month Mark [ __ ] just started getting
00:01:50
crazy like i' would get an email from Capital Records being like hi did you release the song toor about I'm like
00:01:55
yeah like would like to talk to you about a deal and I'm like what like Capital Records and Island records and
00:02:01
Warner and Sony and just from just from being played on George just being on yeah just being out
00:02:08
was was there a moment that you felt the sort of ground swell like oh I don't
00:02:11
know where this is going to go it was about 3 four months in yeah yeah so again like a normal release you just
00:02:15
drop a song and then you hope for the best right um and that's what I did and
00:02:19
I just did not expect it to do what it did and yeah really yeah that's interesting because I feel like it's
00:02:25
it's one of those songs as soon as you hear it as soon as you hear those opening oo and
00:02:30
just makes you feel a certain way I feel like you know it just RS of a hit yeah yeah I me yeah did did you not feel I
00:02:38
can confidently say no I didn't think it I was I was sure I liked it that was all
00:02:44
I knew I knew I liked it and I knew that I was happy with the beat and that's it bro yeah so you just
00:02:50
had no expect I suppose you had nothing to go on like no I know what exactly bro
00:02:54
I didn't know what a hit was yeah so yeah so um so play plays on George and then other radio like um the Ed where I
00:03:02
jump on that's where we got the catch up yeah and ZM they they jump on it as well
00:03:06
and um yeah how fast do you think that was from there cuz I feel like that was quick like once I got on the edge and ZM
00:03:15
cuz you guys were the at the time the stations like the mainstream we hit you guys it's like game over cross over
00:03:22
exactly yeah do do it's radio still important does it still have a place oh man it's hard to like so the reason I
00:03:31
bring this up because I I noticed um when I was researching this interview um so don't worry about it massive on
00:03:37
Spotify but you've got a song called six figures which i' hand on heart never
00:03:41
heard of yeah right that's got more listens on Spotify that's had no radio
00:03:45
play that did pretty well too yeah uh mym jumped on that actually oh did they but but I don't think it was the success
00:03:51
of that song was um I guess the same thing bro like I really enjoyed the process of making it I like the song it
00:03:58
was the first time I'd seen six figures in my bank account that was literally
00:04:01
why I wrote the song six what was that from like an advance from uh uh it was a deal that I did yeah wow a deal when it
00:04:07
was yeah just it was over six figures it was a six fig deal um [ __ ] from from who
00:04:14
uh yeah without getting into too much that was just like a a couple contracts one after the other I can kind of say
00:04:21
what it it was like a so the E New Zealand thing was like a big thing we don't have to talk about that but I did
00:04:25
it oh the safety video that was a pretty big that's right I forgot about the
00:04:28
safety video yeah and was it Julian Dennison Julian Dennison and um another rapper called I forget the name oh
00:04:35
mayard mayard [ __ ] no way you got like 100k for no no no I say exactly what I say I would say that um but I will say
00:04:43
it was a culmination of things in that time right okay so you just had the money just started piling up did it did
00:04:50
yeah you look back now did feel like it happened quite sudden suddenly quite quickly from don't worry about it
00:04:56
yeah like just like an exponential curve yeah yeah bro really did yeah yeah yeah
00:05:01
for sure I don't think anyone could be prepared for something like that to be
00:05:04
honest I put I put on a bunch of weight yeah it was crazy I remember I remember not being sure who to trust do you know
00:05:13
what I mean like even some of my friends that I hadn't talked to in a long time
00:05:16
popped up again and I was like how cool but then I'm thinking like wait why are
00:05:21
they popping out I didn't even ask the question cuz you you don't and then you
00:05:24
kind of see them hanging around more and weird things and you feel like always saying your name like oh yo yo bro the
00:05:31
bro yeah and I'm like we wenten this close I don't remember being this close
00:05:36
yeah uh I mean I I I I can't relate but I can imagine that's a level of um
00:05:41
sudden Fame could be quite isolating yeah it was isolating that's actually the right word I felt alone in a time
00:05:46
where I was surrounded by people um I never get it it well I think I think yeah so um here number one for 33 weeks
00:05:56
how how does that happen so the previous um longest stay at number one I think was Lord with Royals which was like 16
00:06:02
weeks how does it I and I I went back through to look at some of the chats and it's it's not like it was a dry spell
00:06:07
and music where there was no competition you know there was some big names bro yeah it was probably when Justin Bieber
00:06:13
was at his Peak U chain smokers were at their Peak there was a lot of competition how do you st is that from
00:06:18
like radio airplays or spotifly listens or I'll give a shout out to Warner for
00:06:22
that one what Warner I've signed to Warner for that single um huge shout out
00:06:26
to Warner shout out to Marty shout out to Phil uh they they orchestrated that whole thing they actually taught me how
00:06:33
to create a hit the song was a hit like as you said you heard it as a hit but there's a machine behind it bro and it's
00:06:40
like it's so exciting to watch you know you got this radio onv at this time we
00:06:45
going to do a photo shoot here that that's going to talk to Nike and Nike's
00:06:48
it's like this beautiful machine uh that I had the privil privilege of watching
00:06:53
them do for don't worry about it and I emulated it for six figures yeah see so
00:06:58
had so had had War come along so they hear they hear it on George or the ede or whatever and then y so shout out to
00:07:03
Matt hland who was my first manager my first proper manager oh was he yeah you know I love M oh yes he's good he looked
00:07:09
after me he's the one who started my my thing I don't know that of course you
00:07:13
would know him actually from no no think I first met him when he was at um maybe
00:07:17
at Warners and um we we went on a trip to beach coll Fiji with fur Patrol he was looking after fur Patrol at yes he's
00:07:24
been looking after a lot of artists and so I got a um an email from J bulletproof has passed away since over
00:07:31
peace and he said yo you got to talk to Mt hin um he will look after you with all these emails coming and he he's the
00:07:37
guy so got on a call with Matt I think he was on his honeymoon uh with step and he goes well I'll call you back next
00:07:44
week and he calls me next week we do a deal and within a month he's like got a
00:07:49
deal with war a good deal too like a really cool deal and don't worry about it comes out and the rest is kind of
00:07:56
history from from there on like but don't worry about it was was already out
00:07:59
right yeah yeah sorry no no no sorry no yes don't worry about it was already out
00:08:04
on my SoundCloud but it hadn't officially been okay uh released to radio yeah yeah yeah and and did they
00:08:10
they try and were they okay with the music video no no they [ __ ] hated it cuz like I mean it's um you look at it
00:08:19
now and it's like there's there's apps on your phone where you can put a video
00:08:21
like that together but um I was the first one to do it yeah I was going to say that you were the innovator no one
00:08:26
else was doing this at the time I feel like you know so fny say that a lot of people thought that it was
00:08:32
corny because it like if you look at it it looks like a home style video it's
00:08:35
like quite Hy almost but I remember thinking like this is cool because it encapsulates what it was it was a dude
00:08:42
on holiday in FG like it wasn't a music video with a super budget but yeah War
00:08:48
hated it War were like ah this [ __ ] sucks what did they want to do did they have like a treatment that they wanted
00:08:56
to do yeah yeah they did it was [ __ ] um they wanted me to be around some pretty girls and be singing
00:09:04
on a beach in camera and I politely turned it down I just thought it cuz you don't like beaches you
00:09:11
don't no I justo it just was dumb just felt dumb where where did where did that
00:09:18
confidence come from to say no to that CU you know I was saying before that was around where my dad came in that's I say
00:09:22
that's the walk walk T stuff I came around there cuz my dad was was around and he used to ask me questions and
00:09:28
that's kind of how he fathers he'll be like he won't even say no he'll say what
00:09:33
do you think and like you know so similar with the music videos like do you want to shoot another video and I'll
00:09:38
be like not really you'll be like why and I'll be oh I think the video is go
00:09:42
as itself okay cool that's your answer so then I'd go back and say I think the video is good
00:09:48
by itself but that that that takes a lot of confidence I I think to to stand up for that you know because you're like
00:09:55
the this is their job they know what they're doing what the [ __ ] do I know
00:09:59
yeah um to have I think that says um says a lot about you because it' be easy
00:10:02
to just just Buckle yeah confidence is a cool word like ignorance could be another way of putting it like stupid
00:10:09
and ignorant like I mean POS as confidence I uh I appreciate the compliment bro yeah I I like to think
00:10:17
now more confident but I think back then it was a lot of ignorance and probably me thinking I
00:10:23
knew what was right like you said in front of someone who's done this for years I thought I knew it was right and
00:10:30
a bit Kanye of me I think a bit Kanye wsty of me to to try to do that oh no that's really cool and then um so so
00:10:37
when a song goes to number one it stays there for 33 weeks do you get much money
00:10:41
from there no no so the money comes from like like the Year New Zealand deal doing live shows yeah yeah yeah so yeah
00:10:49
so so what do you what do you get like it's the biggest song ever you know gets
00:10:52
played on the radio every 3 hours or whatever for couple of months you get you get like some money from there yeah
00:10:59
yeah for sure it's like a royalty um H out just [ __ ] all no it's just it's a
00:11:03
bit way to say it is like it's quarterly so so it's in the long term it's actually a lot of money
00:11:11
but in the short quarterly period it seems like not much you know um for a number one hit song like everyone's
00:11:16
saying yo you got the number one hit I'm like do I kind of get guess so yeah it's if I could put a
00:11:25
figure on it back then I can barely remember but it was I want to say 1,500 every two months yeah it's not a
00:11:34
lot eh no it doesn't sound like much but like still today it's kind of like that
00:11:39
right so like since six years ago that's plus the other hit songs plus the other
00:11:43
songs it starts to make sense but um at the time it's like I got a number one
00:11:47
song and this is this is all you get in roties yeah okay so so that's um from
00:11:52
Radio the money that radio pays and then um so SP Spotify it's like 25 million
00:11:57
listens or something you get much money bro it's 0.008 cents per Stream So I mean do the
00:12:04
math I don't even know what that is I think it's like 257 streams for [Music]
00:12:18
$1