Humility is the Key to Winning in 2026

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with Nicky Jam (a meeting from 2018) to talk about why humility is the key to the game and how the math of attention travels across every country and platform. We discuss why so many people lose once they win, and how to rinse and repeat a playbook. I also share why loving yourself starts with 100% accountability for your shortcomings, and why the brands need you more than you need them. You'll learn about: • The Legacy Of The Process • The Math Of Attention • Reversing The Brand Leverage • How To Love Yourself

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey, this is Nicky Jam. Listen to Monday to Monday. You're gonna love it. Nicky Jam.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  I only like the process.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  It's the only thing for me. Like, I'm addicted to... There's nothing else I like. I don't like stuff. I don't want stuff. I just want the legacy of the process. You know what I mean? And that's why yours is so good compared to other things. Like, when it's just like this...

• 0:24Speaker 00

  You don't miss the process?

• 0:26Speaker 01

  I'm only about the process. I always put myself in the process. Like, that's why I jumped from different businesses. Like, once I won wine, I bounced. Cause I was like, "What am I gonna do? Just milk it for the riches?" That's what most people do. They only wanna do each... to get to the stuff. They're willing to put in the work for Lamborghini, or the girls, or the chains. But once they get it, they're out. That's why so many people lose once they win.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  And he's tight with brushing.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I know, I know. That's my guy. I love that dude. He's a good guy. Like, good people. He is sharp. He's got great instincts. That's a really good way to put it. What's really interesting, though, is it's your time now, right? Like, you were born at the right time. Like, you guys are taking over the world. Like, the whole, like, Latin... Like, the Latin invasion of America is forever over. It's not going backwards. It's only... Like, this is just the beginning. People don't get it. Like, the demographics, it's just math. It's over. It's over. It's really cool. It's really cool. Yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, and one thing, we were, um... I introduced Sid to some of your team, but you didn't get a chance to meet... So, this is Sid right here. He does international strategy for Gary. One of the coolest things to me was when you were talking about how you went to Colombia and you were like, going hard after YouTube to like, get your numbers up. And like, you were really, like, got all your followers and everything else.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  See, the thing is, when I went to Colombia, I saw it was 65 million people and my career was in a downfall. So, I said, "If I can make this country love me and I could be the number one national... If I can make a national hit, number one national hit, in this country, I'll get 65 million people to back me up. And if I get 65 million people to love me..." Other people from other countries are like, "Why this guy has so many views?"

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yo, I gotta be straight up with you, straight up, real quick.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It's my favorite thing about you. How, you, you understand that that's a talent that will never go away from you, right? Because whether it's Colombia, or Snapchat, or esports, or this famous person, it's just the math of attention. To have the understanding to get up, go, execute like that.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  That never will go away from you.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  That's, that's.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  It's the same game. It's all I ever do. It's just attention.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. And that, that's, that's the thing. I had to study the country and make the country love me. Not, not me not being from that country and not being active in the music in the moment. Cause Colombia was listening to reggae to music, but they were listening to the guys that were active in the moment. Right. So I had to go there and make, make them fall in love with me. But it was easy because they were like, yo, this guy's living in our country. He loves us. You know what I'm saying? Why, why isn't he living in the States? Why isn't he living in Puerto Rico? And he's coming over here. And I started doing videos, 15 second videos. And I'm like, yo, I'm over here in the streets of Medellin, walking and da, da, da, da, I'm doing this. And I just bought my new Mazda 6. And normally rappers brag about Bentleys and I'm happy because I have a car again.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  So, so they fell in love with my story and, and, and it worked exactly how I wanted to. I didn't have one number one hit. I had six number one hits in, in Colombia, national hits. And my views were incredible and I started jumping from Colombia to the world.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny. I think about hunting and farming. Now the key for you to have like a 50, 100 year career, like at this, at this new level, because you've had a career. You need to be very thoughtful of forever giving love to that country.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  I always.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Everything you guys, right?

• 4:03Speaker 00

  I always.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Like the number one thing for you to be able to win in Asia, on Mars, on a new platform. You need to be real thoughtful about how you continue to give love there forever.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  You have to, you know what you should do? You should, uh, you should make the day you put your first video up in Colombia, like a, a nat, like a holiday within your world and your mind and with your fan. And like literally always do something special on that day. You should go back, look at the first day you posted something on YouTube in Colombia. If that, if that's what you give credit for when you first started. Look at that date and you should throw a free concert every year on that date for life.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  That's awesome. That's really awesome.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Another thing is like what he was saying about how humble he was in Colombia and like what Gary loves is the lyrics and the story. And I know that you were saying in Puerto Rico it was more about beats and this and that.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  No, really, I don't understand like beats and producers like that well. I really don't. Like, I get it. Like, if like, if the music, like, I get it. But I know that I'm not thoughtful about that. But the story, that's.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  That's everything.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  For me, it's everything.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  That's everything, that's everything.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Like, for me, that's for me. Like, I think everybody has their own thing. For me, and then the story of the person. That's why usually I love people's first albums. Because that's their origin story. That's their first issue of the comic book, right? That's when they're telling people like, this is what happened and this is what happened. I think it takes a lot for somebody to have that second or third, like, it's the person that knows how to storytell of what they're going through. Because the first one, that's your truth. It's kind of how my keynotes work on YouTube, my business talks. Like, it used to be easy because I'd just tell you I was born in Russia and lived in a studio apartment with this many family members. This is like how I grew up. Like, you know? But then, uh, then it got harder because that was established. And now you gotta come back with some hits.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, he started his keynotes the same way you started your album. Like, telling the story, like, you know, like, telling everything.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  So now what? Because it's white-hot right now. You guys must all be like, okay, we need to be like.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Well, you know, my mentality is, first of all, in my music, in the general music of reggaeton, it was kind of hard, you know, to, uh, work and do big things because they didn't, you know, they saw us as street singers, you know what I'm saying? So normally, like, you'll see Ricky Martin or Luis Fonsi or any, it will be easier for them to, you know, work with brands and sponsorship and all stuff like that. So I'm breaking those boundaries, you know what I'm saying? I'm pushing it. And I'm being the first, you know, I'm just, I just worked, I just signed with Hublot, I just signed with, uh, I'm doing the Netflix thing, I'm doing, uh, I got something big working with Will Smith, I'm doing the movies, I did the movie with Vin Diesel, I did. I'm doing, I'm doing things for my music and I want to be, like, you could say, the Jennifer Lopez of my music, you know what I'm saying? I want, because I'm bilingual,

• 6:51Speaker 00

  I'm good acting, and that's what I'm trying to do.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  That J-Lo money is interesting money.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  It is.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  But you know what's amazing about her and amazing about like, cause I've been really digging into you last couple of months? Work. I just wish J Lo, I get so mad at culture, like when I hear J Lo's name, literally the first thing I think of is working gangster.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  She is.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Hustles. She fucking works. And like when everybody talks about her, like they talk about her being a celebrity or or like whatever and I'm like such dislike, like she's fucking working. Like J Lo's out working 99.9999% of people. Will Smith is working. The reason you got something brewing with Will Smith is Will Smith's smart. He realized the game he was playing for the last two decades was time was up. You can't make the same movie 15 times in a row and get paid 20 million.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  This is the game. He looked around, it felt authentic. You got plenty of attention in the game. You're fucking pumped because he's a fucking icon. One plus one equals two, right?

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Exactly. Exactly.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Listen to me, that I'm telling you right now, because I can tell that you know everything, so I don't have that much to give. That first, that first day, you made a piece of content, throw that free concert. Your only kryptonite, kryptonite right now is if you forget about Columbia.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, no, I would never.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I'm being dead serious though.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  I have said it in the songs everywhere.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  You're so, you're so natural to grow. You know, like you're like me, like your, your natural move is to grow. You're gonna win Asia, you're gonna do the same, you're gonna rep, you know you're gonna run this same racket over and over, right? Like you're gonna win China the same way. You're gonna win some new platform the same way. This is over. Now that you've tasted it? Like it's over. You're just gonna rinse and repeat and the only vulnerability is if it feels manipulated.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  It is true.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Right? Even the way you talk about, you know what's funny? I wouldn't have given you the advice. You're like me, you're transparent. There's a lot of people who did what you did that would never say, I decided to go to Columbia for that reason. 65 million, if I could make them love me. It worked exactly, like you have to understand, if you're on the other side in Columbia, humans are cynical.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  They're like, "Oh, you just came, got it?" So you need to go hard the other way.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  No, of course. I mean, you know, Colombians come to the States to, you know, to look for their dream. I went, I went to Colombia to get my dream.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Just need to go back.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  I got, they looking for the American dream, and I was looking for the Colombian dream for the world, you know what I'm saying?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  And by the way, your model's right. Sid, what do I keep saying about a country in South America? What's my new thing? Where do I want to be famous? Nope.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Peru.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Peru. Yes, like this-

• 9:39Speaker 03

  You want to be famous.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  I want to be famous everywhere, but, but, the reason I keep saying Peru, and I have, I have no idea how many people live there. It's more, it's not a joke, it's more of a, a religion, which is, what you did is one of the first examples of like, this works for everybody, man. Like, this is the right model. Like, if you're a creator right now out there for music or videos, taking a step back, especially if you're young and you can live anywhere, and if you're willing to live humbly, taking a step back and looking at different places around the world, because YouTube and Facebook and these platforms work everywhere, Saudi Arabia?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Now with Snapchat and with this new Prince? Like, every day I wish I was like 24 and had no responsibilities and no family, I'd pick my ass up and go to Saudi Arabia right now and fucking kill it.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  That's nice.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  That's what you did?

• 10:27Speaker 00

  I mean, that's what I felt when I went to Colombia, exactly.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  You had even a bigger advantage, because you already had an up and a down, so you had a chip.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Even better than being a young kid. You had experience and a chip.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  I lost my ego.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Correct. Once you go, once you triple down on humility, and still have ego, and hunger-

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  As long as humility is just .1 bigger than ego, you, it's game over. That's what Will has. All that Will Smith has just done is he let his humility go a little bit further than his ego. That's why he was willing to vlog and be on MySpace, on, uh, MySpace, on Instagram. I'm old, guys, I'm old.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Come on, Tom.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  You know, the fact that he had the humility to go on there, most A-list stars don't want to go to Instagram and YouTube because they have to start at zero and then there's other people out there like you and that have more followers. They don't have the humility. Humility is the key right now for the next game.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  I have a question for you.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Go ahead.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Obviously, you told me that you get bored and you want to do new things and new things, but have you, out of all the success you already have, you never just like, "I'm tired"? Like, you never feel tired?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Not yet. And I say yet, right?

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Never feel bored?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  You know, never bored. Never bored. I'm too...

• 11:47Speaker 00

  What takes the boredom away is doing something new.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I'm always doing, always doing. Yeah. If I get, like, I'm pretty disciplined, which is why I can build big companies, but, and they'll tell you, I'll just make up new... That isn't big. Like, I'm building a Twitch studio right outside my office. That's me being bored, right? Just needing a little action, a little hit of something new, but I keep 89, 92% got it. And it's that, it's side dishes. My steak and my chicken, it's proper. But sometimes I need some cauliflower or some, you know, something new, right? Side dishes keep me going. Plus, I'm just great, honestly, I'm grateful. Like, to me, I'm just grateful. Which never gets me down or negative or bored or just grateful. I'm just hungry, you know?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  You love yourself.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  I love myself. I love myself. That's a really good way to put it. And for most people, that's a difficult thing to say because the world doesn't accept that super well. But that's the answer for everybody in this room and everybody behind that camera. My biggest thing, if you look at my content, I'm trying to get people to love themselves. The way you love yourself is you become 100% accountability for your shortcomings because everybody, everybody in here is done, done. Every one of us has got shortcomings. So first you get there, but yeah, man, I do love myself because my mom made me that way. And, uh, and no voice has been able to penetrate me to tell me the alternative.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Incredible. You know, it's, it, I, I believe in that a lot about loving yourself. I mean, and it was hard for me because I came from, my mom, she left me when I was eight years old. She was a drug addict and a prostitute. My dad was a drug addict himself. And, uh, it's kind of hard for you to love yourself when you come from that situation.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  It's very hard.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  But, uh, I was trying to blame the world when I, when I was in drugs and I was in all messed up and blame my parents. And when I started to love myself, everything changed for me.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  How'd you get there?

• 13:41Speaker 00

  I mean, I was tired of, of, of, I was tired of looking at myself and blaming people and saying my life was a piece of and, and nothing was happening for me. So one day I said, okay, first I was fat. I was like really fat. I was weighing almost 300 pounds. I, I, I was taking so much perks a day and the perks, it's not like other drugs that will make you not eat. The perks will make you eat more than, than the last. So, so I was, I was like the worst drug addict. I was a fat drug addict. And then you normally you don't imagine.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And you're fat.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? It's like, at least take the weight off me. You know what I'm saying? So I was a fat drug addict and I was tired of, uh, of that. And I realized that when I started losing weight, the attitude of the people when they started seeing me was different. It was a different vibe. It was like, hey, Nikki, hey, it was good. Hey, want to go eat something? They didn't say that when I was fat and all messed up in drugs. They want to go, they want to take me out because they felt I looked good. So everything, so I said, okay, this is the beginning.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  How did that even start? Like, what's this, who like, what did you see or what like, I'm always fascinated by that, the tipping point.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Okay. What did I see for, for the weight thing?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  I think, I think, well, first of all, I was, uh, I was, I was at a Denny's actually eating and a fat girl came to me and said, what happened to me? And it pissed me off. And that's the same shit happened to you. You fat. What do you mean? I was eating and I got fat?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  You knew, you knew her.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  No, she knew me because I was in the music. You know what I'm saying? And you gotta understand, I was so skinny when I was famous in Puerto Rico the first time. So when I got fat, I was deformed. You could say like, this guy's not the same guy. So obviously it's okay for a fat girl to tell me.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  She rolled up on you and was like, what happened?

• 15:14Speaker 00

  What happened? You know what I'm saying? But it was like, uh, you know, and it felt bad. It felt kind of bad, you know? And I was like, and then I said to myself, what happened? You know what I'm saying? And, and, and then I said, okay.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  She started tripping away.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  So I said, I'm gonna start with the weight thing. And then when I and I started eating like the the cleanest thing in every menu.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Honestly, like, like, it's funny, it doesn't, you know, that was your story. My big thing is like bald, short dudes and like overweight people like like you've got to figure out how to like not make anything else the way you justify your hat like it's gotta be an inside game. Like, listen, being healthy is just a good idea to live longer, but it's crazy to me. Being secure and being insecure, it comes in every shape and size. It's wild. I'm just thinking about some friends who are both overweight, underweight, rich, poor, you know, tall, short, athletic, not like, you know, and you go through that in life. Like, I remember somewhere in high school and then early

• 16:16Speaker 01

  college when I was like, wait a minute, pretty people are insecure too?

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Of course, they're the most.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  And it just runs the gamut. I'm, yeah, you just got, I'm just desperate to get people to stop judging themselves.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  That's, that's what you see a lot, you know what I'm saying? And it's crazy. And I mean, musicians are the worst. Like, you could see them have, they could be number one right now on the billboard and depressed, you know, and just.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  What, honestly, with the whole team here, is there anything I can help with? Is there anything we can help with? Like, from anybody's perspective, your perspective, or anybody on the team that might have one?

• 16:46Speaker 00

  I mean, I mean, there's a lot of things.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Throw them, throw them, throw them. My natural, like, just so you know me a little bit, my natural default is I love to give first. Cause I don't, I'm perfect for giving. I don't expect shit in return. And I know it also works in the end. And if it works two out of eleven, like, he'll tell you, ten years we're into this journey now.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I was telling him a little background, you know, he's in Miami, so there's that.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm there a lot. Yep.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, one thing really important for me right now, like I was saying, I was, I was, I'm trying to be like the first

• 17:22Speaker 00

  for my general music to, to, to work with these.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Mogul, the first mogul.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Work with these brands, you know what I'm saying? So, I mean, I, I've been working with you already, like, in, in, in Latin America, but I would love to be the Latin. Uh, face of, you know what I'm saying, in the US. In the US, and sometimes, and sometimes, you know, it's kinda hard being a reggaeton artist, you know what I'm saying, so you know, if you guys can help me with anything of that, it'll be awesome.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  The interesting thing, though, is that your music is great and your music isn't like offensive.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  It's not, it's not, it's not at all.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  It shouldn't be hard in that sense.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  But sometimes they go by the image.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  It's been an image thing in the past, because our branding team has always been pitching them since they won. It's the background, it's because of, you know, some of the...

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Let me ask you, I get it, I get it.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  But we just see a lot of people with more...

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Brother, I live this...

• 18:06Speaker 03

  This question will pass.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Brother, brother.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  That's what has been the reason.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  We know, we know what it is, we know, we all know what it is. Let's go a different route.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  I think you're making a mistake. Let me explain. You're not, first of all, you're making the least mistakes, but it's funny. In some places, you're going real new wave, and other places, you're looking at it traditional. I don't think you should do [BLEEP] because [BLEEP] is not gonna do anything for you, except be a short-term check.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And I get it, like, I grew up with Michael Jackson, and we all know where [BLEEP] sits. I get it. Let me throw a different one at you. I think you should be thinking about getting equity in a startup beverage, like Dirty Lemon, who's smart enough to know that you're exactly what they need. You get a point of the company on the back end, they market you properly, not on dumb billboards, cheesed out, vanilla'd out, right? And you win twice. To me, you've pat, you know what you and I have?

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Cause their mentality is that we don't need you. You're already an organic, uh...

• 19:11Speaker 01

  You know what's funny? You know what's funny? It's not even that they think that they need you or they don't need you. They don't know how valuable you are, right? And then it's just like, what? And more importantly, I think we all have to start debating how valuable they are.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, makes sense.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Like, what's good about [BLEEP]? You get paid and you get national exposure. You can get national exposure now. Your fucking YouTube videos are seen by a hell of a lot more than every fucking [BLEEP] commercial that runs this year globally combined. Let's just take a second. I want everybody here to take a second and listen to me real carefully. Your [BLEEP] video that you posted two weeks ago is consumed more, consumed, not aired. There's a lot of [BLEEP] commercials being aired. Nobody's [BLEEP] watching them.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I just think you need to get yours,

• 19:59Speaker 01

  your value worth. I think you need to start thinking about like how much leverage you have. For you to be the next J-Lo within this, you can't do the same blueprint that J-Lo did.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  I gotta go my route.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  You gotta play a 2018 to 2023 route. You need to be worried about kids that are playing on Twitch and getting your music into their channels. You need to be thinking about startup brands that are going direct to consumer, that are targeting the Latin American consumer. You need to be doing you. You need to reverse it. They need you. And their check is getting less and less interesting, thank God, right? Making a couple of dollars.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  And more importantly, the more you realize how much or how little you actually need. The reason I'm dangerous is I don't need to make a lot of money every year, which means I'm putting it, the energy into the bank. Giving myself long-term leverage.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  So you got the number of the lemon company you're saying, so I could call?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  I do, I do, but we need you, you, we, we'll be happy to help. You need to look at all of it. There may be a very authentic, first of all, you start with authenticity. Like if you drink an orange soda, like we need to look at Fanta's US strategy first. You wanna talk about a brand that could really get popping because of you? And needs to, like Fanta should team up with you and three, four others? They could be off to the races. Like Fanta is the most interesting soda brand to me because it's actually culturally relevant outside the US. They wanna do more business in the US, but they don't have the right faces. So I think you have the options. I think you have the leverage now. It's all so new. It happened so fast this second time around. You have to be thoughtful about it, but I'd go backwards.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I would literally with the team, sit down and think about everything you actually like. And just know that you could actually jam with them. Because then it's gonna be a better relationship anyway, because it's not a check, it's authentic.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  And whether that's a Kleenex or a sneaker or what have you.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Anything.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Anything. And if it's neutral, like if you don't give a, then I would go to something new, not old. Like you better really, like for me, if I started from the beginning, you need to love Hublot, like love it. Love it. If not, I take a step back. I mean, you, listen, there's more ears on your music right now than Jay-Z's music when he dropped that song.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  It's just, it's real, it's hard to comprehend because it all changed. And so when you, when you deploy humility like you're deploying, it's sometimes hard to wrap your head around.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  But like, you can build the next Hublot with one mention. Could.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  You could. Now, you can't do that for every category, you gotta be thoughtful. Sometimes it's good to take the check, sometimes it's good to have the back end, sometimes it's good to floss, I get it. But you need to be really thoughtful about your brand strategy. And it needs to be forward-thinking, not what has happened.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  And if you own a part of a company like that, you'll be like, looked at as the business guy, you know? You'll be like, wow, he's so smart, like, Nicky Jam the businessman, like, taking part of this company, blowing it up, that jacket, whatever, like, even that is valuable.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  This has been huge for me. Is here. This has been huge for me, like, right? K-Swiss. Hadn't been hot for 20 years, Iced Tea's a long time ago.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  K-Swiss?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  K-Swiss, I did a collaboration.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  You did a collaboration with K-Swiss?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  That's his sneaker, that one.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was the first one, right? And this was a limited edition thing I just did.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  This is a date to book now. That's classic. Always looked good.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  And that's what you need to be thinking about. If I'm you, I think you think you're having your second act. I think you're looking at Hublot and fucking, whether it's Supreme or fucking Pepsi as like the thing that's anointing you, I'd reverse it. I would think about your life over, your whole life and think about what you fuck with. Or if you're neutral, look what I did. I was neutral, but I didn't want to do Nike and this other stuff, I went to K-Swiss because I'm getting the juice for bringing it back. If you bring back Nautica, you win.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  That's true. Champion.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Got it? Well, that's already been back, right? But if you were the reason Champion came back, your career would be different for the rest of your life. Not just riding Supreme or Off-White. Got it? You've got too much juice right now. I would, back to me, just throwing out some ideas, I'd go really look at some brand in Colombia and bring it to America.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  If you make, if you build a brand here in America around something in Colombia that makes jobs for everybody, now you're talking about, now you're starting to get into...

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Kind of like when we were with the Chinese brand.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Or like Under Armour did for the Baltimore area. They haven't left, they rejuvenated that area with jobs.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  The thing is about these brands having respect for the Spanish music, because you know, for some reason, I'm gonna give you an example, and no disrespect. This is what I think, I mean, you know, I was trying to work something with Adidas in a...

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Two minutes.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  I was talking to my god, not you.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  I'm like, shit.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  I gotta go fast. And I'm good freestyling, my god damn.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Dude, I know, my man, let me save you time. I know what's gonna come out of your mouth. Listen to me, you're much more valuable than they understand, because they're not as hip to the streets as you think. Adidas is a corporation.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  They will give first a deal to Pusha T that has 1 million followers than me that have 22 million.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Brother, we see it every day. When I told K-Swiss who we should with, the list they gave me in hip-hop, I laughed. I'm like, you're just thinking, big companies look backwards.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  You're asking people who don't have a pulse.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  So it's not a language barrier?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Definitely not, because they've picked other people. And honestly, to be very honest with you, you already went through this path. You stopped making excuses.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  If I'm you, you know how lucky corporate America is that I'm not a rapper?

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• 26:13Speaker 04

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• 26:17Speaker 05

  Nah, I got this. Hmm, okay, I don't got this.

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• 26:50Speaker 01

  Adidas is hot right now for another few minutes. They have a moment. Adidas.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  But the truth is always the thing to sing on. You know what I mean? I think it's gang, I mean, like, I think the number one thing I would do is fuck with the establishment. Like Adidas and Supreme would be at the top of my list of things I'd go after not fuck with.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Especially if I had a reason. I wouldn't just do it. But like, if you have a reason, and you can do some silly stuff, like, you don't have to be like, like, you could do it, you could do it your way, but I'd have something for three stripes. I'd make some sort of, you know, I'll make my fourth stripe. You know, like, you know what I mean? Like, you see where I'm going?

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Or do you, like, Colombia's three, yeah, like, I would, I'm, this is just being creative, like, I would, I would like be like, three stripes didn't want to fuck with me, the only three stripes I fuck with are the colors of, then you list off the club, colors of Colombia. That's me, that just fucking sums up exactly what I would do. If you listen to everything I talked about for the last 30 minutes,

• 27:56Speaker 00

  I'm recording everything.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  But see where I'm going? You do that. If you diss Adidas for not fucking with you heavy, and you gave love to Colombia, all in one line, explode. And then, God forbid, sales of Adidas declined by 4% in Colombia, after that dropped, now you're showing your power.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  And all the Colombian-American people.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Listen, you've been through this game. Take every, you've taken a macro no. You got a macro fuck you. And that's why you rose like a phoenix. Take every micro no you have right now, and fucking let that feed you. You're looking for one last validation that the top 50 are playing at? That top 50 doesn't mean shit. It's over.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  And I don't give a fuck about getting cosigned by the top 100. I'm the new top 100. It's just a matter of time.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  And he's doing cool, organic, I know we gotta go, but he's doing a song with Vin Diesel. And that's because they're actually friends. You know what I mean? Like, like real

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did my homework. You've won. The second you drop giving a about this last 1%,

• 29:08Speaker 01

  right? Pepsi, Adidas, those celebrities, that network is the second you take that next step. That dangerous step.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  I'm going there. Thank you so much. You have a good day. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention. And thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.