Pod Insights Scam Goddess A Star Wasn't Born w/ Justin Halpern About this episode CONgregation, Laci is joined today by producer and writing genius Justin Halpern (Abbott Elementary, Harley Quinn). Together, they listen to the music and dig into the story of this week's scammer, Mike Smith, a suburban dad and aspiring musician who made $10 million by creating thousands of fake listeners to stream his (also fake) music so he could rake in the royalties.
Plus, in this dad-centric episode, Laci asks: Are love, credit, and tax accountants a scam, a scheme, or the real thing? Stay schemin’!
Keep the scams coming and snitch on your friends by emailing us at [email protected] .
Follow on Instagram:
Scam Goddess Pod: @scamgoddesspod
Laci Mosley: @divalaci
Justin Halpern: @justinshalpern
Research by Kathryn Doyle
SOURCES
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/streaming-fraud-fake-streams-mike-smith-1235500686/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-bots-streaming-music/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RpxiEuGuUw
Transcript 12,926 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:49 Laci Mosley? What's poppin', congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess, back with another installment about the podcast about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them, but we will always laugh at them because this is a comedy show, but never the victims, hey? Congregation, what am I? Excited? Yes, thrilled. Thank you for the call and response. I am thrilled to have our guest today. He is a new member of the church. This is his first time at service, so please give him a warm welcome, even though he's probably already been welcomed into your homes and your lives for a long time. He is the hilarious Emmy-winning co-showrunner of Abbott Elementary.
2:32 Laci Mosley? He co-developed the acclaimed animated series Harley Quinn. He gained initial fame from creating the Twitter feed and bestselling book, Shit My Dad Says, A Man, and is releasing a novel called Get Lost, a fast-paced and hilarious thriller about a young woman who reluctantly teams up with her deadbeat dad to find her missing mom. When does he sleep? And he is a dad? Y'all know dads could be scams, but obviously, Justin Halper is not. And congregation, please get up out of your seats. Stand up in your cars at the red light. And welcome, Justin Halper, to the show. Hello, Justin.
3:12 Speaker 04 Hello. Thank you for having me. What an intro. Wow.
3:15 Laci Mosley? Thank you for being here.
3:16 Speaker 04 I'm very excited to talk scams.
3:18 Laci Mosley? I'm really like trying to do intros as a metaphor in my own life for my own funeral. I hope someone does my intro to my funeral like this.
3:28 Speaker 04 Wow, that would be...
3:29 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
3:30 Speaker 04 That would really be like an amped way to start a funeral. I feel like usually people go low, but I think pumping up a funeral...
3:37 Laci Mosley? I don't even want my casket to be there when people arrive. I want it to be announced who's dead, and then they roll out the casket with music.
3:46 Speaker 04 Like the beginning of like a Lakers game?
3:47 Laci Mosley? Yes.
3:48 Speaker 04 Where they're like, "At five foot nine..."
3:50 Laci Mosley? Yes.
3:51 Speaker 04 Wow.
3:52 Laci Mosley? "At five foot nine, about to be six foot under."
3:58 Laci Mosley? "Lacy Moses." You know, yeah.
4:00 Speaker 04 That's pretty great.
4:01 Laci Mosley? Like a little reel of my greatest hits.
4:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe the lights go dark first and then...
4:07 Laci Mosley? Yeah, and then we get some build-up music.
4:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:09 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
4:10 Speaker 04 But now I want to go to a funeral. Now I really want, yeah. You can outlive me by about 30 years, but I still want to try.
4:16 Laci Mosley? Oh, who knows? Who knows? And Justin, you might need to be responsible for writing my intro. You're very good at writing.
4:23 Speaker 04 Thank you.
4:24 Laci Mosley? That much is for sure. All the Emmys and accolades and shows that I watch and love. So, uh, yeah.
4:30 Speaker 04 I found the one thing I can do.
4:32 Laci Mosley? That was the whole scam here, was to get you here, so you could write my...
4:38 Laci Mosley? No, but I want to know about your relationship with scams. And lately on this show, I've been asking my guests their opinions, their expert opinions on three random topics. And I want to know for each topic, is it a scam to you? Is it a scheme to you? Or is it a real thing? So is it a scam, a scheme, or a real thing? The first one is tax accountants. Scam, scheme, or real thing? And I will define that a scam is like in arguably a grift. A scheme is a little scammy, but legitimate. And then a real thing, obviously, is a real thing.
5:15 Speaker 04 Uh, I would say if you make over $5 million a year, it's a scam.
5:19 Laci Mosley? Ooh.
5:21 Speaker 04 And not the rich person getting scammed. It's, it's all of us, everyone else getting scammed.
5:28 Laci Mosley? I know where you're going.
5:29 Speaker 04 Under that, I'd say a real thing.
5:31 Laci Mosley? Oh, it is a scam when you get richer. Because then it's harder to tax you.
5:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's impossible.
5:39 Laci Mosley? And the IRS is criminally underfunded. And like, when you get so rich that you could just send U-Haul trucks to the IRS and be like, try to find the needle in the haystack.
5:48 Speaker 04 Yep, you send a thousand pages of documents, all reporting losses. That is a total scam.
5:55 Laci Mosley? I am so poor. Don't look at me on my yacht, I'm poor.
5:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:58 Laci Mosley? This is my poverty yacht. I'm so poor, I have to live on water.
6:01 Speaker 04 That's right.
6:01 Laci Mosley? I can't even board land.
6:03 Speaker 04 Yeah. I'm always floating back and forth.
6:05 Laci Mosley? I have to be in Greece. There's nowhere else I can go.
6:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:08 Laci Mosley? Because of my poverty.
6:09 Speaker 04 Also, if you have to send your money to another country on a one stop, then that means that you're, you're a scam.
6:15 Laci Mosley? Honestly, a dream of mine.
6:17 Speaker 04 To, for your money to live somewhere else?
6:18 Laci Mosley? Oh, yes. I'm trying to get to Switzerland. I'm definitely trying to get to the Caymans. Uh, like, I remember visiting the Cayman Islands. And I think that they're probably the least friendly tourist spot in the islands, in that area. And I was always wondering why. And then I was like, oh, because they don't need tourism that bad.
6:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:41 Laci Mosley? They have everyone hiding their money there. They were like, listen, little white girl, we not gonna braid your hair and put puka shells in it. We don't give a fuck.
6:49 Speaker 04 That's right.
6:49 Laci Mosley? And I love that for them.
6:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, they have no kids' clubs there. There's no, yeah, they don't give a shit.
6:56 Laci Mosley? Kids, fuck your kids.
6:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right.
6:59 Laci Mosley? We're not your kids, Justin.
7:00 Speaker 04 No, mine too. Let's just.
7:07 Laci Mosley? Oh my goodness. Okay, my next question for you, scam scheme or real thing, Justin? Credit.
7:13 Speaker 04 Oh, that's a scam.
7:14 Laci Mosley? Mm-hmm.
7:15 Speaker 04 That's a total scam. Because it just preys on people who can't afford to pay off their bill every month.
7:21 Laci Mosley? Mm-hmm.
7:21 Speaker 04 And then they use all that money that they get, all those late fees and stuff, to, you know, subsidize all the other bullshit they do. That's a scam.
7:28 Laci Mosley? Right? And it was invented in the 80s.
7:32 Speaker 04 Anything invented in the 80s is a scam.
7:34 Laci Mosley? Anything invented in the 80s, you know somebody was on cocaine when they made it.
7:38 Speaker 04 Yes.
7:39 Laci Mosley? And they're like, what about this? Numbers. We make numbers.
7:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:42 Laci Mosley? And those numbers aside, who we give the houses to? Hey, everybody? Sounds great.
7:47 Speaker 04 That's right. In the 80s, you did cocaine, you either created Die Hard or a scam. That's it.
7:53 Laci Mosley? I would rather create Die Hard, but maybe I would love also to make a scam.
7:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's just true.
7:58 Laci Mosley? It might be the best time for scams. I mean, Madoff was doing well in the 80s, you know?
8:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:03 Laci Mosley? And he made off with everybody's money.
8:04 Speaker 04 That's right.
8:05 Laci Mosley? So maybe. I, I, I happen to agree with you on that, for sure. Uh, the last question, scam scheme, real thing, love.
8:14 Speaker 04 Oh, real thing.
8:15 Laci Mosley? Oh.
8:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's a real thing. Doesn't mean we all get it, but it's a real thing.
8:23 Laci Mosley? Damn. Maybe you can't have none, but Justin, Justin over here saying like, it is real. Y'all don't know about it, but I do.
8:31 Speaker 04 That's right.
8:31 Laci Mosley? Oh, that's beautiful. Why do you think so?
8:35 Speaker 04 I've been happily married and in real love for, for, well, I should know this if I'm happily married, uh, 16 years.
8:42 Laci Mosley? Wow.
8:43 Speaker 04 And I, I 100% feel it's a real thing.
8:46 Laci Mosley? 16 years?
8:48 Speaker 04 That's right.
8:49 Laci Mosley? That is a long time.
8:52 Speaker 04 It is a long time. It does feel like a long time. We were at a wedding and they do that thing where it's like, oh, if you've been on the, been married more than five years, get off the dance floor, you know, to see. And they keep going up and up every year. And I was like, damn, we're one of the last ones here.
9:05 Laci Mosley? I actually love that. And perhaps if I ever trick someone into getting the government involved in a relationship with me. We'll do that because I inadvertently actually did that for my friend Taylor Mishak. I was making cards for like, I did this like whole wedding decoration in her trailer and stuff. Because while we were shooting Going Dutch, the first season, she had to fly home, get married, and fly back. And so her husband came with her on the way back. But we, obviously, you know, when you book a flight, you'll book a job. And sometimes I guess when you book a wedding, you'll book a job.
9:40 Speaker 04 That's right.
9:41 Laci Mosley? And she was like, this venue is way too expensive. Y'all gonna have to get move some stuff around so I could at least get home. So they gave her like an extended weekend. So I decorated her trailer and got a bunch of like bridal stuff and gifts and things. But then when I asked people to sign cards, I had three different cards. There was one for the cast, there was one for the crew, and then there was one for anybody who had been married over 10 years.
10:10 Speaker 04 And how many was that? Was that like a large section? Or was it, you're surprised to find out a ton?
10:15 Laci Mosley? It was. But, but it was, it was funny because I had to do what your, your friends did at their wedding. Where it's like, if you've been married for five years, get off the dance floor. I had to literally hold the card up to people and be like, hey, how long have you been married? Okay, hold, sign this one, not that one.
10:31 Laci Mosley? But then for like people who had long lasting marriages, like sign this one with.
10:34 Speaker 04 So were they signing or were they writing a little message too?
10:37 Laci Mosley? They were writing a little message.
10:38 Speaker 04 So what group wrote the best messages?
10:40 Laci Mosley? Oh, it was absolutely the people who had been over married over 10 years. Joe Morton wrote the best mess. Like, he's just a poet and a genius and a savant. He doesn't really watch TV, he just lives life.
10:54 Speaker 04 That's shocking. I can't do that.
10:57 Laci Mosley? I can't either. I love TV.
10:59 Speaker 04 Me too.
10:59 Laci Mosley? He's like doing falconry. And I'm like, you sure you don't want this VPN? Because even though we in Ireland, we can tell everybody we in New Jersey, so you can download these shows.
11:09 Laci Mosley? Yeah, my, my bad. I did watch a lot of Abbott from New Jersey.
11:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, that's right. Listen, any way we can get it.
11:16 Laci Mosley? Okay, it's still, I think it's still counted as a stream.
11:18 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, it counts. I think I still see something from it.
11:23 Laci Mosley? Oh my goodness. Well, thank you. I love, I love those opinions. Have you ever been scammed, Justin?
11:27 Speaker 04 I'm sure many, many times. I've been part of scams.
11:31 Laci Mosley? Oh.
11:32 Speaker 04 Yes, yes, I-
11:34 Laci Mosley? Wow, you jumped from victim to participant real quick.
11:37 Speaker 04 I know, I know. I, I was, sometimes, one time, I used to work in an internet company. This company called Break.com, which doesn't exist anymore. It was like a video sharing company. Maybe you remember?
11:47 Laci Mosley? No.
11:48 Speaker 04 And, yeah, that's probably better.
11:50 Laci Mosley? But you started by calling it an internet company, which already told me it was a scam.
11:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, right, right, right. And-
11:55 Laci Mosley? Break.com.
11:56 Speaker 04 Yeah. And they would be like Coca-Cola would like wanna place their ad on the video page and they would promise they'd say, okay, you're gonna get 100,000 views and you pay us money for those 100,000 views guaranteed. But what we would do on our side is we would go to, we had to deal with this super nasty porn site. And on their site-
12:17 Laci Mosley? Super nasty porn is crazy.
12:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right.
12:19 Laci Mosley? Porn itself already sounds bad.
12:21 Speaker 04 I felt necessary, yeah, that's right. I felt necessary to clarify that's what this porn site was. It wasn't just one of your mom and pop porn sites.
12:28 Laci Mosley? No, no, no, no, no.
12:29 Speaker 04 One of your nice, down the middle porn sites. This was nasty.
12:33 Laci Mosley? This wasn't your suburban porn site.
12:34 Speaker 04 No, no.
12:35 Laci Mosley? This was super nasty, okay?
12:36 Speaker 04 That's right.
12:36 Laci Mosley? And so y'all had to deal with them?
12:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, and so what we'd do is on their page, on their site, it would be like, uh, gangbang of four chicks and two, like, whatever. And it'd have a thumbnail of that. But then when their users would click it, it'd be like Coca-Cola, the brand blah blah. And so, and then it would, we'd get all these views, right? We'd get like a, because nobody's gonna actually click on a Coca-Cola ad, but they will if they think it's a gangbang. And so, uh, my job was to put that video up and then send it to the porn company.
13:08 Laci Mosley? Not the gangbang video, the Coca-Cola.
13:09 Speaker 04 No, no, no, I didn't put up the gangbang video. I was on the A side of that. Um, and-
13:15 Laci Mosley? Wow, Justin, you were the original bot.
13:17 Speaker 04 That's right, yes.
13:19 Laci Mosley? That's, see, that's kinda botting I can appreciate. Now it's just random and they're just under everything and they're saying random stuff. I would appreciate being tricked out of, you know, what, what if my super nasty porn, uh, affliction ended because of a Coca-Cola?
13:35 Speaker 04 You think we brought people to the light?
13:40 Laci Mosley? This is how I stopped doing super nasty porn watching.
13:43 Speaker 04 I'm gonna say they weren't holding that when they clicked the ad. They were holding something else. But-
13:50 Speaker 04 It was, uh, yeah. So then, actually, the way we got caught, and by the way, it wasn't my idea. I was just pushing the buttons. But, um, the way we got caught is the, the, the company was like, "Hey, how come people are only watching our ad for .004 seconds?"
14:06 Laci Mosley? Oh damn, they started looking at the reach.
14:08 Speaker 04 Because people would click it, see it wasn't what they thought it was, and then click out.
14:11 Laci Mosley? And then they went back. They weren't, they weren't Coca-Cola.
14:14 Speaker 04 No, no, they were, or they were, but not in that moment.
14:17 Laci Mosley? But not in that way, or in that moment.
14:19 Speaker 04 No.
14:20 Laci Mosley? Oh, wow. I mean, but, but I think that they couldn't get upset about that, because this, to me, like, it is scamming the, the nasty porn watchers, but for the company who paid for the advertisement, they got the views.
14:34 Speaker 04 That's true.
14:35 Laci Mosley? What if you finish your session, and then all of a sudden, you're jonesing for an ice cold Coke?
14:39 Speaker 04 Maybe people are, nobody's in a better spot to take, uh, in advertising than maybe the person who clicked on that ad. Like, they're susceptible to anything in that moment. They're really open.
14:50 Laci Mosley? They are really open, and in more ways than one.
14:54 Speaker 04 The jerk-off demographic is really underutilized.
14:57 Laci Mosley? Honestly, if someone had advertised to me while I had my cootie out, yeah, that's, that's like memorable. That's a memorable experience. I'll never forget it, because I'm very vulnerable in that moment. I'm gonna remember everything.
15:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:10 Laci Mosley? You, you got your lotion and your tissue, and you, and you, and, and what, maybe you're in the bathroom hiding from your bed? Adrenaline is up. You're gonna remember.
15:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, you're gonna know. And then afterwards, you're gonna want maybe a Coca-Cola.
15:24 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
15:25 Speaker 04 Yeah. So maybe you're right. You know what? Maybe it wasn't a scam. Maybe this all, maybe this is all legit.
15:31 Laci Mosley? I mean, I think break.com was, was giving everybody a break.
15:34 Speaker 04 They were. Until they went out of business, but yeah.
15:38 Laci Mosley? I think we should bring them back.
15:41 Speaker 04 It is a business model there, for sure.
15:43 Laci Mosley? It is.
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17:18 Laci Mosley? Oh my gosh, tangent, but we'll get into the story. But that also makes me think of like how, you know, certain websites, like porn websites, have like communities and comment sections.
17:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:28 Laci Mosley? And I'm like, who is bonding over this? Who finishes whatever they're doing to themselves and is like, I need to leave a comment?
17:36 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah.
17:37 Laci Mosley? I have thoughts.
17:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly. That I couldn't keep to myself. But I needed other people to know. Also, when you finish doing that, the ability to do anything usually is pretty tough. So the magic, you know.
17:50 Laci Mosley? Right. Which makes me think these are like, super type A people.
17:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:54 Laci Mosley? Who like, maybe schedule their diddling in their day. And there's like, "Time to diddle. Alright, seven minutes out the window."
18:02 Laci Mosley? "Time for me to leave a response."
18:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:04 Laci Mosley? "I really enjoyed this video. I thought we got great to the point."
18:08 Speaker 04 I think it's people on both ends of the productivity spectrum. It's the people who probably don't get anything done an entire day, and the people who are like, the CEOs of companies.
18:17 Laci Mosley? You're absolutely right. I think it's exactly that. It's how they always say that if you are miserable, you either have not enough money, or way too much.
18:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right. Yeah. If you're leaving a comment on a porn video.
18:31 Laci Mosley? Yeah, you're on that spectrum.
18:32 Speaker 04 Too much time, or not enough.
18:33 Laci Mosley? Or not enough.
18:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:36 Speaker 04 Sometimes I think about this one comment I saw once on a porn video, and it just said, "Hey, great job."
18:42 Laci Mosley? Oh.
18:43 Speaker 04 And I thought, wow, they, like, I was like, they must think that the person in the porn went back and, I guess, read the comments.
18:50 Laci Mosley? They might have. People look at their views, and people like, you know, wanna make sure that they're spreading, you know, the, disseminating the, um, the, the work.
19:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
19:00 Laci Mosley? The, the products. Oh my gosh, I sound like such a prude. But, the work, the, the pornographic cinema.
19:09 Speaker 04 Pornographic cinema, yes.
19:11 Laci Mosley? No, but, but, but I, I think that's lovely. You did say, Justin, there, that love is not a scam.
19:16 Speaker 04 That's true.
19:16 Laci Mosley? And so, that was very sweet of them to say, "Good job, guys."
19:19 Speaker 04 You know, might have cheered up that person. They were having a tough day. They went and looked at the comment section of the porn that they're in.
19:24 Laci Mosley? Yeah. You know what? You guys get on Apple Podcasts and leave me a good job. And five stars, okay? Break.com isn't here anymore, okay? But if it was, I, I would advertise on it. I would love for it to be like, "Nasty sex binge before it scam got it." And then, maybe you would listen to the podcast afterwards. But let's get into my favorite segment here. Historic hoodwings. This is where I will regale Justin with a famous con caper scheme. Maybe it's a group of criminals, a single actor, a couple. We don't know yet. And we'll get his opinions all throughout. So, today, keeping up on our dad theme.
20:04 Laci Mosley? Because we've talked about all the things that dads love.
20:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, we got porn and then I think something else.
20:09 Laci Mosley? Coca-Cola. Love being tax accountants.
20:14 Speaker 04 It really is a dad-centric start to this.
20:17 Laci Mosley? Making up credit in the 80s, definitely someone's father.
20:22 Laci Mosley? So we're talking about a suburban dad and aspiring musician, Mike Smith, who made $10 million by creating thousands of fake listeners. Was he also a brick, a brick.com? Justin, was this you? No, no, I'm playing.
20:40 Speaker 04 Wow, I wish.
20:41 Laci Mosley? Were you Latino?
20:42 Speaker 04 No, but I wish I could pull off that hat.
20:45 Laci Mosley? I don't know, Justin, it's giving. You might have had a tan and you had some biceps.
20:51 Speaker 04 That is the best I've ever looked.
20:56 Speaker 04 By the way, why, every photo musician, they can never look at the camera. It's always like off into the distance.
21:01 Laci Mosley? Honestly, musicians are the only people who can get away with fedoras. It's still icky.
21:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:06 Laci Mosley? It's still icky. But when a musician wears it, it's like, oh, are you Santana? Like, we'll let this happen. Other than that, stop wearing them, especially if you're approaching people for threesomes. I told you, it's always a really beautiful woman who approaches me and a man in a fedora in the corner like, yes. And I'm like, no, her, sure, you, no.
21:27 Speaker 04 Well, that's why he's gotta send her over.
21:29 Laci Mosley? Yeah, but also he could not wear the fedora.
21:32 Speaker 04 Yeah, but I feel like once you're into threesomes, you have to have some kind of hat. You can't, you can't just have your regular hairstyle.
21:39 Laci Mosley? But I feel like that's not the hat that convinces me you're good at threesomes.
21:42 Speaker 04 No, I don't know why I'm defending this hypothetical guy in the threesomes.
21:46 Laci Mosley? Are you a fedora owner, Justin?
21:47 Speaker 04 I'm not, but I'm bald and I like hats.
21:51 Laci Mosley? I like hats too. But I also love that he's posed in front of this graffiti wall, holding his guitar, looking like he's mid-strum. It's really giving. It's giving, Jason. It's giving Jason Maras.
22:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
22:05 Laci Mosley? I agree, Jess. It's also giving Jason Derulo. I feel like he could do a flip. Look at all that white he got on. You know he can do a flip.
22:14 Speaker 04 Has he got a vest on, too?
22:16 Laci Mosley? Mm-hmm. A white vest over a white t-shirt with white pants. Is that not Jason Derulo? Okay. I bet you he could do a flip and the fedora stays on.
22:28 Speaker 04 See, that's the kind of guy I want in a threesome.
22:31 Laci Mosley? Okay, okay, okay. Now you're, don't, don't, don't make me like that.
22:37 Laci Mosley? Now, if I get into the situation, Justin, I'm going to call you. They're like, I didn't, I can't believe it.
22:42 Speaker 04 It happened. He did a flip right in front of me. Now all three of us are naked.
22:45 Laci Mosley? And the hat was on and I was like, okay, give me your hotel room key. I'll come. Okay, I'll be there. So this, this suburban dad, an aspiring musician, Mike Smith, he made $10 million by creating thousands of fake listeners to stream his also fake music. So he could rake in the royalties. So Mike was a dad in his 40s who wore tight shirts and owned a chain of urgent care facilities.
23:10 Speaker 04 Oh, man, that was not where I thought that was going. Wow. Really, anybody but, anywhere but there.
23:19 Laci Mosley? Oh, you didn't think it was gonna go from tight shirts to urgent care?
23:23 Speaker 04 Tight shirts and also rescued dogs.
23:26 Laci Mosley? Right? Like, I don't know if I wore tight shirts and I'm like, I think I have strep. And then just the tightest-shirted man.
23:34 Speaker 04 This is such a specific kind of person in their 40s, really, though. As a man in my 40s, you have to make the decision that you're never gonna wear anything super tight again. You have to.
23:45 Laci Mosley? I know you have a good bod.
23:46 Speaker 04 I don't, but thank you.
23:48 Laci Mosley? I know you do some type of recreational sport. What is it?
23:50 Speaker 04 No, I don't, no. It mostly just looks like I have cancer. But I... But I don't, and I appreciate and support everyone who does. But I don't, but I look like I do. And, and so that's why I wouldn't wear it. That's why if something looks tight on me, it's simply just because I'm, I'm deathly skinny. But this man, I think, he obviously works out probably no more than two days a week, but none of them are leg day.
24:18 Laci Mosley? No, no, no, you know those calves are skinny.
24:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, they are. But I think he like feels good enough to try to wear that tight shirt. And I think as a guy in your 40s, you have to just transition out of this shirt.
24:28 Laci Mosley? I mean, there are people who accept that they're in their 40s and they hang out with people of their own age and their own ilk because they enjoy the camaraderie of talking about things with people your own age. And like, my little sister moved to Los Angeles to go to grad school. And I realized, like, cause I was like, oh, I was, I was going out of town again to shoot Going Dutch in Ireland. I do that for like four months a year. And I was like, oh, I don't know anybody. Like, I need to find some friends for her because I'm gonna be gone and I don't want her to be alone. And so then I started thinking like, who are my friends in their early to mid 20s? And I was like, I don't know anybody in their early to mid 20s.
25:10 Laci Mosley? I literally had to ask friends and then be like, can your cousin, you wanna do a cousin date with my sister so they can meet and they could, they could be friends? Like, I didn't know anybody. But that guy, that guy in that tight ass shirt, he knows all the people in their 20s and probably some club promoters still.
25:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, and that's probably really problematic. I don't know that he's probably had one good interaction with one person in their 20s.
25:34 Laci Mosley? I don't know. Sometimes when I was in college, there would be an old person and like, there was this, this football player who, ex-football player who owned a chain of check cashing places.
25:46 Speaker 04 Well, see, I didn't think he was going there either.
25:48 Laci Mosley? See? And, and that's the same with him. He's a tight-shirted man who owns some urgent care. So maybe that's the formula is you gotta have one thing that don't go with the other. And then you stay in the pocket. And he was in his 50s. He would take us to the clubs, he would take us everywhere. And, uh, you know, one time, uh, he did trip and fall. And that's when I really realized how old he was. Because when he tripped and fell, like, we were all out and drinking and stuff. But if it had been a younger person tripping and falling, I think we all would have laughed and been like, "Oh, bitch, get up." The gasp and the silence when this old man fell, we was like, "Oh, my God, is he gonna die? Is he dead?"
26:29 Speaker 04 By the way, that was his nightmare. Because he would have felt so much better if everyone laughed. But the fact that you were seriously concerned about his health, that's what that, that, nothing is more sobering than people recognizing how old you are.
26:42 Laci Mosley? Right. When you start tripping and people are concerned if you're okay and not making fun of you, yeah, you turned a corner. You've turned a corner. And so, you know, he got the tight shirts on, he's got the urgent care. And this is when he decided to start self-rising, or self-financing a rise to music stardom, because tight shirts and urgent care were not enough for him. So, he lived in a big house in Charlotte, North Carolina with his six kids and wife, until that stopped inspiring him. And he got a divorce.
27:10 Speaker 04 I didn't know we had to be inspired to stay married.
27:13 Laci Mosley? I mean, you've been married for 16 years. I think you've been inspired.
27:16 Speaker 04 I guess that's true. You're right.
27:18 Laci Mosley? And, and Mike, Mike said, "I'm not inspired by my family no more."
27:24 Laci Mosley? Y'all ain't got the riz no more, okay? They stopped wearing tight shirts. He was like, "I'm out of here." "You fruit of the loom ass bitches, I can't be with you no more." So, he reconnected with and married his college girlfriend, which reminded him how much he liked a jam session back in college.
27:44 Speaker 04 You're describing the saddest man in the world.
27:48 Laci Mosley? He should've stayed with his family.
27:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:51 Laci Mosley? Because he went and married somebody who encouraged his corniness. And I'm sure his friend in college, who is unmarried at this age, was like, "Mm, you know what? He got them urgent cares. I'm gonna ignore the fact that his nipples are rock hard in every room we go into, cuz I need financial stability in a person of my own age." And then she was like, "Yeah, baby, get, get back into jamming."
28:12 Speaker 04 Duh, man.
28:13 Laci Mosley? We do the garage.
28:15 Speaker 04 No one's ever been more divorced than this guy. This is, wow.
28:20 Laci Mosley? That does feel like a divorced man's hobby.
28:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, no one jams but divorced dads. They're the only people who jam.
28:25 Laci Mosley? Divorced dads jam and dads who have been married and you know for like 40 years, they put like together boats and bottles.
28:34 Speaker 04 Yes, yeah, and intricate train sets.
28:37 Laci Mosley? Intricate train sets, yes, and that gives them the thrill up their leg that they need. So he knew how to play the guitar, banjo, piano, drums, bass, mandolin, and the dulcimer?
28:49 Speaker 04 Wow, I've never heard of that.
28:50 Laci Mosley? I don't know if I've heard that in my ear or heard of it at all, but and he always thought that he could be a star. So this newly.
29:00 Laci Mosley? God, Justin, don't laugh at him.
29:02 Speaker 04 I'm sorry, keep going.
29:03 Laci Mosley? He could be a star, Justin.
29:04 Speaker 04 He could, you're right.
29:05 Laci Mosley? So this newly divorced guy used the money from his medical business to fund his music career because he thought treatment, treating people for ailments, that wasn't enough for the world. He said, fuck that, I actually need, my music is gonna heal y'all even more.
29:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:23 Laci Mosley? Even more.
29:24 Speaker 04 Not my urgent care.
29:27 Speaker 04 That's gonna rack up the bills to pay for this.
29:31 Laci Mosley? He decided he was the Patch Adams of music. Say, all y'all need is a little music, y'all gonna be okay.
29:39 Laci Mosley? So Mike linked up with a music publicist named Hay, best known for promoting.
29:44 Speaker 04 Wait, what?
29:45 Laci Mosley? His name was Hay, this is Hay.
29:47 Speaker 04 Yeah, that is absolutely Hay.
29:50 Laci Mosley? He looks like Hay.
29:51 Speaker 04 Yeah. He looks like he's made of hay.
29:55 Laci Mosley? Yeah, like this is the straw man.
29:57 Speaker 04 When has this guy ever been introduced into a story and things got better?
30:01 Laci Mosley? Why do I feel like I'm on like the Wizard of Oz? Like we've got Mike, he's Dorothy in the two tight shirts, we've got Hay, he's giving me like.
30:09 Speaker 04 The Cowardly Lion a little bit?
30:11 Laci Mosley? Cowardly Lion or Scarecrow.
30:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, oh yeah, you're right, Scarecrow, a little of both.
30:17 Laci Mosley? He's giving Scarecrow as well, and Hay was best known for promoting a false rumor that Rihanna had hooked up with Jay-Z to boost attention for her 2004 song, "Pond Replay."
30:28 Speaker 04 He is famous for that?
30:29 Laci Mosley? Yeah, he's a famous industry liar.
30:33 Speaker 04 Wow, I didn't know that you could, like, is that a business?
30:37 Laci Mosley? I mean, what is Perez Hilton?
30:38 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, but this guy just did it once.
30:41 Laci Mosley? That's what TMZ used to be, and now they want to be real journalists.
30:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, you're right.
30:44 Laci Mosley? TMZ knows if you're dead before you do.
30:49 Speaker 04 I hope so.
30:49 Laci Mosley? We used to not trust them, and now when they pop up, I'm like...
30:52 Speaker 04 Now they're the most trusted. I'm like, I'll wait to see what TMZ says.
30:57 Laci Mosley? That's how you know our news outlets are fucked by the government, when you're like, "I'll wait to see what TMZ says." And sadly, that is a real thing in my brain. I kept seeing rumors that Erica Kirk was at Coachella, and I was like, "Mm, I'll wait to see if TMZ has a video before I believe this." So, SMH Records. Shaking my head is what that sounds like to me.
31:20 Speaker 04 Me too.
31:20 Laci Mosley? But in this case, it's, uh, Mike and Hey. I don't know what the S stands for, we'll find out.
31:28 Laci Mosley? They started a music label called SMH Records, and plan to work their way through the industry as producers, while also making Mike himself a star. Mike had the money to open the label, sign artists, and produce their albums, because remember, he left people who needed healthcare behind.
31:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, sure, as we all do as a country.
31:46 Laci Mosley? Yes.
31:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
31:47 Laci Mosley? To make money being a star.
31:49 Speaker 04 That's right.
31:49 Laci Mosley? Yes. And this is SMH Records' social media page.
31:54 Speaker 04 It's pretty sparse.
31:56 Laci Mosley? Uh, yeah, and...
32:00 Laci Mosley? Y'all need to get my king sway off of here, okay?
32:04 Laci Mosley? Get him off of here, don't do my king like that. T.I., he belongs on this page, that makes sense to me.
32:08 Speaker 04 Oh, that's rough.
32:09 Laci Mosley? Is that a... What's that old man's name? The light-skinned one who's old? People are gonna get really mad about this. Not Mr. Worldwide.
32:19 Speaker 04 Mr. Worldwide?
32:20 Laci Mosley? No, uh, he's a old, like a Motown crooner, with light green eyes, who had a weird sex album recently, but he's in his 80s.
32:32 Speaker 04 Oh.
32:33 Laci Mosley? Damn, I know somebody is screaming right now. Smokey Robinson.
32:39 Speaker 04 Wait, he has a show here?
32:40 Laci Mosley? He does. Smokey Robinson has a show here? It's a channel.
32:43 Speaker 06 Smokey's Soul something or other, yeah.
32:45 Laci Mosley? Oh, Lord.
32:46 Speaker 06 He hosts a channel on Sirius XM.
32:48 Laci Mosley? Wow.
32:49 Speaker 06 That's our coworker.
32:49 Laci Mosley? Y'all listen to Smokey still.
32:52 Speaker 04 And we brought him up because we love him.
32:54 Laci Mosley? Yeah, and it might get weirdly horny, but don't worry about that.
33:00 Speaker 04 There's not another way to get horny in your 80s. It's only weirdly horny.
33:03 Laci Mosley? Yeah, but I'm happy for them because I hope to be weirdly horny in my 80s. So SMH got a distribution deal with Capitol Records subsidiary. And a Universal Music executive left a senior vice president position to be their chief operating officer. So they got some real backing behind this.
33:22 Speaker 04 And with these meetings that they were taking with Hay and the other guy?
33:26 Laci Mosley? Yeah, Mike and Hay and maybe S. Maybe it's ZS. We don't know who S is. So Mike and Hay made two albums together. One was called Fear of a Pink Planet.
33:39 Speaker 04 Is that about women?
33:43 Laci Mosley? Maybe.
33:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:45 Laci Mosley? Maybe that would be a good insel bop album.
33:47 Speaker 04 That feels like a good insel. That's like a clavicular bop. Like, that's a...
33:51 Laci Mosley? And it was inspired, like, it was credited to this group called Pink Grenade, which also feels like men being afraid of like,
33:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:59 Laci Mosley? what if a coochie was a bomb?
34:01 Speaker 04 Well, what if it was?
34:01 Laci Mosley? That's what women leadership feels like to them. Oh, no, we have a coochie bomb, boss. Oh, no. And then they had another album called When Music Worlds Collide, which is...
34:15 Speaker 04 It's not as catchy.
34:16 Laci Mosley? No.
34:17 Speaker 04 The other one was catchier.
34:18 Laci Mosley? Yeah, Fear of a Pink Planet, I might tune in.
34:20 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:20 Laci Mosley? But When Music Worlds Collide feels bad. And credited to Mike and Hay and the Bay Area hip-hop artist DJ King Tech.
34:32 Speaker 04 So that's not one of the Bay Area hip-hop artists I've heard of?
34:35 Laci Mosley? No, I have not heard of King Tech.
34:36 Speaker 04 It goes E40?
34:39 Speaker 04 And then DJ.
34:42 Laci Mosley? Then it goes DJ King Tech.
34:43 Speaker 04 Yes, those are the top two Bay Area artists.
34:46 Laci Mosley? I would throw in, um, oh gosh.
34:48 Speaker 04 Too Short.
34:49 Laci Mosley? Too Short, and you can't forget, um, Wuss's face with the pant hammer, MC Hammer.
34:56 Speaker 04 Oh, that's, that's true. I think he certainly wouldn't forget it. Yeah.
35:00 Laci Mosley? No, and I'm scared of him. People don't know. Don't let them funny pants fool you. That man was a gangster.
35:05 Speaker 04 Is that true?
35:05 Laci Mosley? Yes, and very feared and respected.
35:07 Speaker 04 Really?
35:07 Laci Mosley? Yes.
35:08 Speaker 04 You're being serious?
35:09 Laci Mosley? Yes.
35:10 Speaker 04 Wow.
35:11 Laci Mosley? MC Hammer was, he, he was out here at Hammer Time, but then everywhere else, they were like, it's the Hammer, run! Like, yeah.
35:19 Speaker 04 That's like hearing like Mickey Mouse fuck people up. Like, that's crazy. Wow.
35:23 Laci Mosley? It is comical. That's why I love that sketch in The Chappelle Show where, uh, it was Wayne Brady and he was like, it's Wayne Brady, bitch. And everybody was like, it's Wayne Brady, run away! Like.
35:33 Speaker 04 Wow, I didn't know that.
35:35 Laci Mosley? So, both of these albums had tons of features, including one from Parliament Funkadelic drummer Jerome Brayley, and uncredited monologue from Johnny Depp on one song. Johnny Depp went on there and did a monologue.
35:49 Speaker 04 Did he know he was doing it for, like, did they take it from a movie or he actually went on and just did a monologue?
35:54 Laci Mosley? You know, sometimes in our careers, sometimes you just show up places and they tell you you're gonna get money and then you just, you just do it. One time I was on camera and they were like, we'll give you $5,000 to open this ruler. And I was broke at the time. I don't know how I got this job. And I thought maybe they was gonna kill me when I went. And, but I was like, gotta risk it. And I went and they just wanted me to comically open some very complicated science thing for a tech conference. So it was probably to be like, look at this hot dummy who can't understand this complicated ruler. Look at her, how dumb and hot and on TV she is.
36:30 Speaker 04 Man.
36:30 Laci Mosley? I wasn't the only one who did it. Cecily Strong did it too. They told me.
36:33 Speaker 04 You both opened, you both opened for this tech company?
36:36 Laci Mosley? Yeah, it was filmed. It only took 30 minutes.
36:40 Speaker 04 Wow.
36:41 Laci Mosley? I don't know what they did with it.
36:42 Speaker 04 I gotta get a new agent.
36:43 Laci Mosley? It was probably on Nasty Boy.
36:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:47 Laci Mosley? I'm right in front of a Coke commercial right now.
36:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:50 Speaker 07 Robbery.
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38:24 Speaker 07 And fraud.
38:26 Laci Mosley? The Avila brothers, songwriters and producers best known for their work with Usher, recorded one of his songs with Billy Ray Cyrus and Snoop Dogg. That makes sense to me because Snoop Dogg just be doing anything.
38:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, he'll do whatever.
38:39 Laci Mosley? He be doing anything.
38:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:42 Laci Mosley? And so the song is called Lipstick. It's a song about Kim Kardashian and features Ashley Holmes, who was famous for being one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. And let's just hear a little bit of Lipstick. Jonathan Hay and Mike Smith.
38:59 Speaker 04 Oh.
39:00 Laci Mosley? Lipstick, pink grenade.
39:06 Speaker 07 Hey. I hope my mom didn't hear this song.
39:13 Laci Mosley? What?
39:16 Laci Mosley? What?
39:25 Laci Mosley? They're also doing foot fetish stuff?
39:27 Speaker 04 There's a ton of foot fetish shit in this.
39:33 Laci Mosley? Oh! And she's licking a white phallus?
39:42 Laci Mosley? Okay.
39:43 Speaker 04 Wow. That's... Yeah.
39:48 Speaker 04 Is that what you did for the tech company?
39:54 Laci Mosley? I know you want your ruler in my pool.
39:57 Speaker 04 It's a little bit of the, like, low mama lip gloss vibe.
40:01 Laci Mosley? Yeah, my lip gloss is popping. Maybe that's what they were going for.
40:04 Speaker 04 But it's all about sucking a dick.
40:07 Laci Mosley? Dipstick, which...
40:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, which is like a... Nobody even says that. It's like, ah, your 1940s dipstick. Like, that's... Nobody uses that phrase.
40:17 Laci Mosley? And it's meant to be grotesque, but it's actually kind of, like, funny.
40:22 Speaker 04 Why is she stepping on lipstick over and over again?
40:24 Laci Mosley? Because she's gonna put it on her toes so she can put the toes on the dipstick. With the lipstick.
40:29 Speaker 04 Has a music video ever been made for less than this?
40:33 Laci Mosley? They've cut back to the shot several times.
40:36 Speaker 04 There was... It's literally taking place in, like, one room, in one part of one room. Like, the other part of the room is probably, like, people in cubicles.
40:44 Laci Mosley? Right, and you're so right about dipstick being so outdated. It's giving, like, "I know you want my pouch on your paddy whacker." Tonight.
40:55 Laci Mosley? What are we doing? And why? So...
40:58 Speaker 04 They wrote this.
40:59 Laci Mosley? I would hope so.
41:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:01 Laci Mosley? So, now, if only Mike's music had been good. This system would have worked. We have another song that we want to show you, Justin.
41:12 Speaker 04 Oh.
41:12 Laci Mosley? If you're okay with it.
41:13 Speaker 04 Please.
41:14 Laci Mosley? It's called "Let's Take It Naked." Maybe it's better. This song is crashing my computer. Hold on, here we go. Okay. "Due to our strong personal convictions, we wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the Illuminati."
41:31 Speaker 04 I've never seen a warning like that before.
41:35 Laci Mosley? It's like the beginning of a VHS tape.
41:39 Laci Mosley? Uh.
41:40 Speaker 04 Oh.
41:40 Laci Mosley? Oh. It's her again.
41:45 Laci Mosley? Okay, it's a lot of cocaine.
41:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, so much cocaine.
41:49 Laci Mosley? But like, not in the way that you would think, uh, people would do cocaine.
41:53 Speaker 04 No. It's like he's doing cocaine with a crazy straw, though. Like a straw from a children's birthday he grabbed.
42:00 Laci Mosley? Yeah, like a milkshake straw to do cocaine.
42:03 Speaker 04 It's like, come in this Swans and have a big sundae straw.
42:06 Laci Mosley? We don't need to see anymore of Let's Take It Naked. It's actually crashing our computer, which makes sense. It's so bad, it's imploding things.
42:14 Laci Mosley? So, let's get to the rap reality competition show. You knew that was coming up next, right, Justin?
42:19 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
42:20 Laci Mosley? Mike and Hay have to do-
42:22 Speaker 04 Does the Zeus Network come up anywhere in this?
42:24 Laci Mosley? Baddies!
42:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:28 Laci Mosley? It's terrible for the world. Obviously, I've seen it.
42:32 Speaker 04 I have to say, Quinta Brunson will not let me watch anything on the Zeus Network.
42:36 Laci Mosley? Oh.
42:36 Speaker 04 She's banned me from looking at it.
42:38 Laci Mosley? You know what? And I appreciate that Quinta did that.
42:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:41 Laci Mosley? You know, we both worked on a black lady sketch show. That's how we met. And, uh, she's protecting you from a gaze that only black people should see.
42:49 Speaker 04 She said that I shouldn't see it.
42:51 Laci Mosley? It's shameful and we don't need you to think about any of us that way. Too many wigs flying and, and all, all they do is give them ladies tequila and the occasional Dorito. And tell them to street fight. And I feel like now I'm selling it.
43:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, you just did the worst job of not getting people to watch the Zeus Network.
43:12 Laci Mosley? I'm gonna admit it. I do, I have, I've seen the things. But for me, it's cathartic, because I was like, if my acting career ever, or any of my performing careers went south, I feel like I could get on Baddies.
43:23 Speaker 04 But yeah.
43:23 Laci Mosley? I'd be okay.
43:24 Speaker 04 Can you slap the shit out of someone?
43:26 Laci Mosley? Oh, that wouldn't be my role. I feel like there's no one on that show who, like, it's, it's like very prideful to like win a fight and stand on business.
43:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
43:35 Laci Mosley? I feel like I could sit on shenanigans and, and I could run away. Like, like every fight would just be me running away, like, no! And if they happened to catch me, I'd be like, ah! Ow, ow, my body, ow. Like, I feel like that would be good for me. So, the rap reality competition show. This is where Mike continues to pour money into his dreams, even though these songs were objectively terrible and somewhat terrifying. So, and they don't even turn to be good, bad, they're just bad.
44:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:02 Laci Mosley? So, next, he fully self-financed a rap reality competition show called One Shot. He made it himself with no network attached in 2014, and we have a little bit of the trailer of One Shot. I'm guessing that Eminem was popping and he was like, "You only get one shot."
44:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:19 Laci Mosley? We set up one stage. Let's get it. We set up one stage. With one chance to impress our celebrity judges. Lot of work. Each week, MCs move on. One will go home with 100K and a record deal. The others just go home. Sway, King Crooked and King Tech. Did that man break his neck? Crown one undisputed king of the mic. DJ Khaled. This is the start of them fulfilling their dreams. Who will make their one shot count? This is reality, it's our life. One Shot premieres 27 September at 7 on BET. On BET, I knew I had heard of One Shot. God damn it, it got me.
44:53 Speaker 04 By the way, that is a who's who of people who will do anything for money. That is like, yeah, DJ Khaled.
45:02 Laci Mosley? I feel like, Justin, when you're writing the eulogy for my funeral, we can definitely get DJ Khaled on the mic to say, "We the best."
45:08 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, absolutely.
45:09 Laci Mosley? Or, "We was the best." Heavy on the "was."
45:12 Speaker 04 We could, yes, we can get TI there, too.
45:14 Laci Mosley? Oh, for sure. You can die whenever you like. Yeah, we, yeah, yeah, we got it, we got a whole lineup coming. So, Mike and his main collaborators, or collaborators, Crooked, Teen Kek, and Sway Callaway, oh my God, it's my.
45:32 Laci Mosley? They held these nationwide auditions and they got TI, RZA, The Game, Tech N9ne, Twista, and DJ Khaled to do the guest hosting. Crooked says that they filmed nearly 80% of the show themselves and used that footage to create a sizzle reel and sold it to BET before completing the production.
45:50 Speaker 04 Sure.
45:50 Laci Mosley? Me too was like, yes, we love these shenanigans. For the winner of one shot, they promised $100,000 in a deal with SMH Records.
45:58 Speaker 04 Oh, God.
45:59 Laci Mosley? The coveted. So because he paid for it, Mike got seated at the judges' table, though he's barely in the trailer, and it's often unclear why he's on the show at all. He wanted to be in front of the camera as well.
46:12 Speaker 04 Did he wear his fedora?
46:13 Laci Mosley? There he is, in the corner. Not wearing his fedora, but definitely looking out of place.
46:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, no, he does.
46:21 Speaker 04 I mean, that's a pretty motley crew.
46:23 Laci Mosley? But you know what? He probably took inspiration from Diddy, because Diddy used to always be in his artist music videos unnecessarily, and everyone had a problem with it. Like, that was the thing that Suge Knight talked about. He was like, if you don't want your producer in your music video, come to Death Row Records.
46:40 Laci Mosley? They knew he was a menace for a long time. So around the time the production on the show started, Mike and Hay got in a fight. Hay started to suspect that his buddy's finances were not all in order. He and other SMH employees sent their business associates a 111-page document accusing Mike of financial mismanagement. Mike replied with one sentence. How would you reply, Justin?
47:06 Speaker 04 Wow.
47:07 Laci Mosley? To your business partner, who's now outed you to the entire company, saying that you're mismanaging finances? What's one sentence that would just shut it all down?
47:17 Speaker 04 I mean, did he reply with his bank statement?
47:20 Laci Mosley? Wow, Justin, you're a real class act.
47:24 Laci Mosley? He said, "You got a tiny penis."
47:27 Speaker 04 Oh, well, that's the next best thing. Yeah. You got, I like when you call it a penis. You got a tiny penis.
47:35 Laci Mosley? His words for phalluses are interesting.
47:37 Speaker 04 Dipstick and penis. Shlong, like.
47:43 Speaker 04 This dude has never referred to a dick.
47:46 Laci Mosley? No, he's never sexted.
47:49 Speaker 04 No, no. Or he has, but it's ended very quickly.
47:55 Laci Mosley? I'd love to be the speculum in your half smear. Like, I feel like, it's like when we found out Prince Charles was calling Camilla to talk about, "I'd love to be your tampon." It's giving that, like, sir, what?
48:07 Speaker 04 Check out my hard weener.
48:09 Laci Mosley? Oh, weener's terrible.
48:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right.
48:11 Laci Mosley? Weener's awful. So, the show aired its only season, shocker, on BET in 2016, which feels too close to the present, even though it's 10 years ago. It didn't turn Mike into a star, but at least he made up with his friend Hay and they kept trying, so...
48:27 Speaker 04 The friendship out of it, is it?
48:28 Laci Mosley? No, they made up.
48:30 Speaker 04 Good, I'm glad.
48:32 Laci Mosley? He said, "You had a tiny penis," and Hay was like, "What?"
48:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, you had a ti- you had- do you think they had a real heart-to-heart after that?
48:38 Laci Mosley? Love is real, see? Just, love is real. So, let's get to the fake listeners that sparked all of this. In 2017, Mike started to use fake email addresses to create bot accounts on streaming platforms that could play his music on repeat. Now, he's started to get some traction with the royalties. The bot accounts started running up the streams. At one point, he had 1,040 accounts, each one streaming approximately 636 songs a day, with his music accruing about 661,440 streams a day. And the average royalty per stream was half a cent.
49:15 Speaker 04 Whoa.
49:15 Laci Mosley? So, yeah, this is back, yeah. So, Mike estimated he was earning about $3,307.20 a day.
49:23 Speaker 04 Wow.
49:24 Laci Mosley? So, like, $99,216 a month, and over 1.2 million a year.
49:30 Speaker 04 Damn.
49:31 Laci Mosley? Yeah, this is making me think differently about Dipstick. Should we write a song?
49:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
49:36 Laci Mosley? Pattywhacker?
49:37 Speaker 04 Yeah, Pattywhackers, we have you stepping on lipstick.
49:40 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
49:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
49:41 Laci Mosley? Yeah, some- something, something in that area.
49:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, this, this feels like I, I'm, I've turned a corner on this guy. I feel like this doesn't seem like someone with a tiny penis to me at all.
49:52 Laci Mosley? No. Or maybe.
49:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, or maybe the tiniest penis.
49:56 Laci Mosley? Yeah, he needs to distract from the penis.
49:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
49:58 Laci Mosley? It's constantly calling to him, like, "Make more money."
50:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
50:02 Laci Mosley? I'll get bigger.
50:03 Speaker 04 Yeah. I'll never be big. Make as much money as you can.
50:06 Laci Mosley? And then they'll think I'm big.
50:07 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:08 Laci Mosley? So between 2017 and 2024, he had as many as 10,000 active bot accounts streaming the music. 2018, he and his boy Hay released, Tiny Penis Hay, released the jazz album. They've moved on to jazz. They love Negro genres.
50:23 Laci Mosley? They're trying them all. They're like, black people have been very successful with this. We can't do hip hop. Let's try jazz. A scoopity bop bop a dee. And it hit number one on the Billboard charts. Their jazz album.
50:34 Speaker 04 What?
50:35 Laci Mosley? Yeah. But the next week, it wasn't on the chart at all. There were no tweets or online comments about the songs on the album. Hay looked at Spotify's dashboard for artists and saw that listeners appeared concentrated in faraway places like Vietnam.
50:50 Speaker 04 Well, jazz is huge in Vietnam.
50:51 Laci Mosley? Oh, they love it in Vietnam. A scoopity bop bop a dee. Yes. That's how they won the war.
50:57 Speaker 04 That is how they won the war. It was through jazz.
50:59 Laci Mosley? It was through jazz.
51:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:01 Laci Mosley? That's what the movie La La Land is all about.
51:04 Speaker 04 It's about how jazz won the Vietnam War.
51:06 Laci Mosley? Yes.
51:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:07 Laci Mosley? For the Vietnamese.
51:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, that's right.
51:09 Laci Mosley? So that's when he started getting notices from distributors and companies that handle the licensing of indie artists' music, flagging their music for streaming fraud. Meanwhile, Mike was celebrating, finally making it big because he had something on Billboard charts. And they don't know how, but he did. And also, it's the jazz Billboard charts. I feel like it's probably pretty easy to scoop.
51:29 Speaker 04 It's like Branford Marsalis and no one else. Yeah.
51:33 Laci Mosley? Yeah. And maybe like Miles Davis just keeps coming back up the charts.
51:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:37 Laci Mosley? You know?
51:37 Speaker 04 And then Mike.
51:39 Laci Mosley? Bitches Brew just is constantly a hit, you know? Yeah, and then Mike.
51:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:43 Laci Mosley? Everyone's like, Mike? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it goes Miles Davis, Disney Gillespie, Mike.
51:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:50 Laci Mosley? The greats.
51:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:51 Laci Mosley? So Ella Fitzgerald, Mike.
51:54 Speaker 04 Mike and Mike.
51:55 Laci Mosley? So Mike is celebrating, right? June of that year, he shared a photo of his Spotify stats on Instagram with 214,875 monthly listeners. And Mike loves to be specific. We've got his money down to the cent here. And he said he had more than 72,000 listeners on that specific day. And the caption was, "That's crazy."
52:18 Laci Mosley? And thanks to everyone who listens. Truly grateful. Look how humble he is.
52:25 Speaker 04 Wow.
52:26 Laci Mosley? He's so humble.
52:27 Speaker 04 He's so humble.
52:28 Laci Mosley? He said, that's crazy.
52:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, you put in the work.
52:31 Laci Mosley? Yeah, that's not crime. That's crazy.
52:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
52:35 Laci Mosley? Thank you for listening.
52:36 Speaker 04 Wow.
52:37 Laci Mosley? Bots. So fraud flags start popping up. And Mike needed a new tactic to keep from getting caught. A billion fake streams for one song looked suspicious.
52:48 Speaker 04 Sure, from Vietnam.
52:49 Laci Mosley? Yeah, from Vietnam.
52:51 Speaker 04 Well, there's like four million people there total.
52:54 Laci Mosley? Who love jazz.
52:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, who do love jazz. That's undeniable.
52:57 Laci Mosley? And they need to listen to it billions of times a day. So, but a fake billion fake streams spread across tens of thousands of songs is more difficult to detect. So, artificial intelligence songs were still a new thing in 2018. And Mike got in early, working with the CEO of an AI music startup to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs to send to streamers. Once again, AI, improving the planet.
53:21 Speaker 04 Wow, he was really ahead of the game.
53:22 Laci Mosley? He really was when it comes to crime. He was like, AI definitely a scam. Let me get involved.
53:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:26 Laci Mosley? So in 2024, Mike had made $10 million with this scheme. And that's when he finally got arrested by the FBI.
53:34 Speaker 04 Dang, flew too close to the sun. Wow.
53:36 Laci Mosley? Honestly, fake, the industry, music industry has so many scams going on.
53:41 Speaker 04 I know. I'm like, why is he any worse than anything else?
53:44 Laci Mosley? And I would be on his side if he wasn't using AI. You poisoned a black people in Memphis to do Scooby Doo bop bops from Vietnam. So we can't be serious. And now we have his mugshot here.
53:56 Speaker 04 No Fedora in the mugshot.
53:57 Laci Mosley? No, but he looks really alert.
54:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, he does. He looks the most awake anyone's ever been.
54:04 Laci Mosley? This was quite the sobering experience for him. Because he's looking directly in the camera. It feels like the Mona Lisa of scams, like the eyes follow you around the room.
54:13 Speaker 04 Wow. That, do you think they raided his house?
54:18 Laci Mosley? What were they gonna get? Probably the computers and stuff.
54:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, maybe.
54:21 Laci Mosley? Oh, man.
54:22 Speaker 04 Wow.
54:23 Laci Mosley? And the AI songs have largely been scrubbed. But much of the music Mike released is under his own name and still wildly like available. The AI music startup isn't named in court documents, but it was probably booming.
54:36 Laci Mosley? And that finally is how Mike Smith became a famous man, which is what he wanted from the start. So he got famous from being arrested for making AI music and making millions off of it.
54:47 Speaker 04 Is he still in jail?
54:49 Laci Mosley? Uh, well, he was arrested in 2024.
54:51 Speaker 04 Oh.
54:51 Laci Mosley? Yeah, so you know, it's 2026. Uh, he made music history as the first person in the United States to face criminal charges tied to streaming fraud.
55:00 Speaker 04 Who stole more music, him or Elvis?
55:03 Laci Mosley? Ooh.
55:04 Speaker 04 Wow.
55:05 Laci Mosley? We gotta ask, we gotta ask Big Mama Thornton. No, that's a ooh on the right side of history.
55:09 Speaker 04 Okay, thank you.
55:10 Laci Mosley? Justin.
55:10 Speaker 04 Thank you.
55:11 Laci Mosley? You better be making a show with a black woman.
55:12 Speaker 04 That's right.
55:13 Laci Mosley? And know that, that Elvis was ripping off everything.
55:16 Speaker 04 That's right.
55:16 Laci Mosley? He was a hound dog, but that was Big Mama.
55:20 Laci Mosley? Honestly, I think Big Mama Thornton was the name that they gave her in Dreamgirls, and that's not actually her name. But, uh, we, we all, we all know where I'm getting with this. Um, yeah, but yeah, so he was, he was really thieving hardcore. Arrest documents say he fraudently inflated his streams on platforms like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. Poor guys, poor all of them. Can, think of the Bezos.
55:42 Speaker 04 Can anyone look out for YouTube?
55:44 Laci Mosley? Can anyone look out for Q Ball Jet? No shade, Justin.
55:48 Speaker 04 They, they, listen, any kind of bald representation, I'll take it.
55:54 Laci Mosley? You got Professor X.
55:55 Speaker 04 That's right, it's, it's, yes, yes. It's always good when, when Professor X is the first bald man people think of. The made up character. Think of a cool bald guy. Well, I can't think of any that are real. Let me go to Professor X.
56:11 Laci Mosley? Damn, you right, you right. I could have thought of a real bald guy. Yeah, my dad's, they're bald.
56:18 Speaker 04 Okay, that's something.
56:19 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
56:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
56:20 Laci Mosley? And you're pulling it off. A lot of white people can't pull off bald.
56:23 Speaker 04 Thank you.
56:23 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
56:24 Speaker 04 I appreciate that.
56:25 Laci Mosley? Looks like you moisturized your head a little bit, too.
56:27 Speaker 04 I, you know, not as much as my wife would like, but some, yeah. Gotta do a better job of it.
56:33 Laci Mosley? Looks hydrated, though. I see a little light coming from the ceiling.
56:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, a little shine.
56:36 Laci Mosley? Yeah, that's good. So there have been reports that Smith's music, Mike, uh, Mike Smith, also popped up on SoundCloud, Pandora, Tidal. Now you got Beyonce.
56:47 Speaker 04 You knew she'd make an appearance.
56:51 Laci Mosley? Honestly, Beyonce performed one of the songs. I want to hear one of the songs. Okay, and, uh, part, part four, part three. No, part three, part three. Yeah, part three, give us some scam AI. So, um, and even Boomplay, a popular streaming service in Africa. So in responses, like Spotify said, its preventative measures like caught Smith early, minimizing the royalties they paid out to just $60,000 for Smith's own music and the AI-generated tracks. Now, I love that Spotify is saying that they caught this early, almost in a way that like they were the fraud stoppers. But I feel like it was more that Spotify was like, we don't like to give people money. So we had to look into why we had to give him some.
57:32 Speaker 04 That's what it was.
57:33 Laci Mosley? And stop that.
57:34 Speaker 04 It was just, it, red flags came up when they had to pay someone.
57:39 Speaker 04 That's what it was. There's nothing to do with anything other than that.
57:42 Laci Mosley? It's a corporation, it's corporations, dude, we can't be out here.
57:45 Speaker 04 Somebody burst into someone's office and said, do you know we're paying someone?
57:49 Laci Mosley? Like a lot, like a wage.
57:51 Speaker 04 Can somebody fucking stop this?
57:53 Laci Mosley? They're fucking living off this wage, bro. No, we gotta get after it.
57:58 Speaker 04 That's right.
57:59 Laci Mosley? Pandora also said that they paid out $1,500 in royalties to Smith. Why Smith, Robert Pandora, we love them.
58:16 Laci Mosley? It's really quite easy to pull off this kind of scheme. You can look up videos on how to make fake music on YouTube and guides for creating bot listeners on Reddit. What's surprising is that Mike Smith is the only individual who has been caught for it. That might be because a lot of powerful businesses are also engaging in this kind of fraud. Or at least benefiting from it. So there's really no reason to stop it. Mike was to piss somebody off.
58:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, I think it was, it just like, he didn't cut them in, it's the mafia. It's like, they didn't get their cut, it wasn't financially worth it for them.
58:49 Laci Mosley? Right, exactly. He should have just made some phone calls with some of these larger companies and, and made them in on the scheme.
58:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
58:55 Laci Mosley? Cause maybe this helped with quarterly reports.
58:57 Speaker 04 Absolutely, he becomes the CFO.
59:00 Laci Mosley? Investors, like, are looking, they're like, look at our, we are in the black and rising. And billions of people in Thailand love our platform.
59:08 Speaker 04 Number go up.
59:09 Laci Mosley? Number go up.
59:11 Speaker 04 That's right.
59:11 Laci Mosley? That's probably why they're quiet about it, number go up.
59:13 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:14 Laci Mosley? Yeah.
59:15 Speaker 04 They don't care how number go up.
59:16 Laci Mosley? They don't care how number go up. Who number go up?
59:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:19 Laci Mosley? Number go up.
59:20 Speaker 04 Exactly.
59:21 Laci Mosley? So, the Dow's at 50,000.
59:25 Speaker 04 That's right.
59:26 Laci Mosley? Why y'all worried about the war? And food? And the straight who move? And then people getting kidnapped on the streets.
59:33 Speaker 04 Dow's at 50,000.
59:35 Laci Mosley? The Dow's at 50,000.
59:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:36 Laci Mosley? That mean something to you?
59:39 Speaker 04 We all know what that means.
59:40 Laci Mosley? We all know what that means.
59:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:42 Laci Mosley? Every day, I'm like thinking about the Dow.
59:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:45 Laci Mosley? And if it's not at 50,000, I'm distressed.
59:46 Speaker 04 I'm like, what's happening? Yeah.
59:48 Laci Mosley? Why am I even alive?
59:50 Speaker 04 I don't even want to live in a world where the Dow's under 50,000.
59:54 Laci Mosley? Uh, the ghetto.
59:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:55 Laci Mosley? Not everything else. No, no, no, no, no.
59:57 Speaker 04 No.
59:57 Laci Mosley? The Dow. So, streaming fraud, some have argued that Mike Smith is actually the Robin Hood of streaming fraud. The little guy playing the same game the big labels play every day. I mean, ain't that why Drake suing his label? Because he said that they were streaming, uh, Ain't Like, They Ain't Like Us? He said the label was running up the streams. He said, I know, because we did it with my songs. And they were like, how you gonna sue about that? How you gonna sue when you was like?
1:00:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, when you're a part of the lawsuit.
1:00:29 Laci Mosley? Yeah, I know, because y'all did it to me, and I'm also been doing it to everybody else.
1:00:32 Speaker 04 That's why I'm popular. Wait, did I say that?
1:00:34 Laci Mosley? No. Anyways. So, label streamers and distributors and rights holders all make money on the royalty stream, whether the song and listeners are real or not. Damn, do we all need to start making fake music?
1:00:47 Speaker 04 Well, here's the thing, though, about calling him Robin Hood. There's another, the other part of Robin Hood is that he gave the money to the poor.
1:00:53 Laci Mosley? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Minor DJs.
1:00:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, that part seems like it's missing.
1:00:59 Laci Mosley? But you know what? He was giving his music to the ear poor.
1:01:03 Speaker 04 Oh, that's true. That's true. For all the people who had to live in a world where, like, because at that time, the Dow wasn't at 50,000.
1:01:10 Laci Mosley? No.
1:01:11 Speaker 04 So, we were all needing something.
1:01:13 Laci Mosley? And that's why he had to shut down his medical clinics.
1:01:14 Speaker 04 Right.
1:01:15 Laci Mosley? Because.
1:01:15 Speaker 04 Did he shut them down?
1:01:17 Laci Mosley? I don't know, but it doesn't seem like.
1:01:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's probably not also operating those.
1:01:20 Laci Mosley? He must be getting this money from somewhere, so. But he wasn't there anymore to see him, obviously. So in current music, like the current music economy landscape, subscription and ad dollars for music and streaming are pooled in one big pot. And royalty money is allocated based on each artist's share of the total streams. Bot streams generate money for whosever behind them and leave less in the royalty pool for others, which does not sound like Robin Hood to me. It sounds like robbing artists.
1:01:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:01:48 Laci Mosley? Yeah, you robbing the hood.
1:01:49 Speaker 04 I was kinda with the scam until that part.
1:01:52 Laci Mosley? Yeah, especially like smaller artists that already get so little for the streams, like. So Spotify itself has been accused of doing this, stacking their playlists with cheaply licensed music to rack up plays and take money out of the royalty pool. I'm gonna stop you there because every rap, listen. Before there was Spotify, before we had, what is the one that I'm thinking about that's like orange? SoundCloud. Before we had Spotify, before we had SoundCloud, we had rappers with CDs in the back of their trunks.
1:02:25 Speaker 04 That's right.
1:02:26 Laci Mosley? So now, maybe Spotify is just creating a space for the rappers with the CDs in the back of their trunks to get their music into the world.
1:02:37 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, I remember, you know, walking down Hollywood Boulevard. People handing me their CDs.
1:02:42 Laci Mosley? Mm-hmm. I remember like a thing where we used to call people SoundCloud rappers.
1:02:47 Speaker 04 That, yeah, that's right.
1:02:48 Laci Mosley? Yeah. In a way, I deeply identify with that because I think starting an acting career is just like starting a rapper career. Like, we are SoundCloud rappers. I was trying to get people to come to my improv shows. Or watch my, watch me in the show. I'm in it for 30 seconds. At minute 1548. Don't miss it. Tonight on Fox.
1:03:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's, it, it's tough because they've given them this opportunity, but then they also pay them dog shit.
1:03:15 Laci Mosley? Yeah, but you know, Mike Smith was a true fraudster. Even the actual businesses he used to bankroll for his music label, reality show, and fake bot streams. Oh no, they were also a scam. And Justin, we're getting to the end. We're getting back to his, his medical businesses.
1:03:34 Speaker 04 Does he end up in one of his own urgent cares?
1:03:38 Laci Mosley? I feel like if he did, he'd be like, get me out of here.
1:03:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, no.
1:03:41 Laci Mosley? Get me out of here.
1:03:42 Speaker 04 No.
1:03:43 Laci Mosley? All he got is tongue depressants and Q-tips and nobody has a medical degree. Help.
1:03:49 Laci Mosley? Well, the same year, One Shot aired on BET, Mike and his company, Cali- Carolina Comprehensive Health Network, sounds legit to me.
1:03:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:03:59 Laci Mosley? Lots of words. Carolina, you know where you are.
1:04:02 Speaker 04 Which is a place.
1:04:03 Laci Mosley? It's a place.
1:04:04 Speaker 04 Health.
1:04:04 Laci Mosley? And we can verify that. Comprehensive, so they can do.
1:04:08 Speaker 04 They can do it all.
1:04:09 Laci Mosley? Whatever you need.
1:04:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:04:10 Laci Mosley? Health.
1:04:11 Speaker 04 Which is being alive.
1:04:13 Laci Mosley? What you want to go there to leave with.
1:04:15 Speaker 04 Don't want to be sick.
1:04:16 Laci Mosley? No, you want health when you leave, for sure.
1:04:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:04:19 Laci Mosley? And network.
1:04:20 Speaker 04 Which is a lot of things together.
1:04:22 Laci Mosley? It's a lot of things together.
1:04:23 Speaker 04 That's right.
1:04:23 Laci Mosley? And you need it.
1:04:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, a comprehensive network.
1:04:26 Laci Mosley? Mm-hmm. They were accused of Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
1:04:30 Speaker 04 No.
1:04:30 Laci Mosley? In two separate lawsuits.
1:04:32 Speaker 04 See, I didn't see that coming at all.
1:04:37 Laci Mosley? Whistleblowers in some of his clinics said that they were told to carry out tests and procedures that were not medically necessary and then submit false reimbursement claims.
1:04:49 Speaker 04 See, this is why I always have a rule that I'm not gonna go see a doctor who's also a jazz musician.
1:04:59 Laci Mosley? I don't know, it might like, they might be, they can improvise, you know what I mean?
1:05:05 Speaker 04 You know what, that's true. It's the medications that they don't prescribe.
1:05:09 Laci Mosley? Scoopity-ba-ba, azithromycin, I don't know, it could, it could be a thing. One of the two losses claimed that SMH Records directly benefited from this fraud. Well, duh. By September 2015, Carolina Comprehensive Health Network, I was gonna say Compromise Health Network, which is what it is now. Had allegedly paid SMH, so he's paying himself, Robin Peter to pay Paul from his own businesses, $150,000. In September of 2020, Mike settled one of the fraud cases for $900,000 while the other one was dismissed. As for streaming fraud, Mike is out on bail. And has pleaded not guilty.
1:05:53 Laci Mosley? He could get up to 60 years in prison if convicted.
1:05:57 Speaker 04 Wow, that feels like a bit much to me.
1:05:59 Laci Mosley? Mm hmm.
1:06:00 Speaker 04 60 years.
1:06:02 Laci Mosley? Well, he's scheduled to be sentenced by a judge on July 29th, 2026.
1:06:08 Speaker 04 And that Judge, Judge Branford Marsalis.
1:06:12 Laci Mosley? Oh, man, I hope that judge went to school at the comprehensive university network. And that he doesn't face any jail time because this is pretty creative. And when you think about it, like, yes, the artists are being harmed, but it's not like the music business is harming them first. You know? That's like if you, if you get robbed, that's like if, if your car gets the tires taken off of it. And somebody comes in later and steals your air freshener, you know?
1:06:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's like it already wasn't a working car.
1:06:44 Laci Mosley? Yeah, we were more worried about the tires. So, uh, Smith, Mike, Mike Smith has also agreed to forfeit over $8 million in royalties he gained from using bots to stream. And he's going to be paying that out from 2017 to 2024. And I bet you he's probably figured out how to get his fake AI streaming service back up so he can make some money to do so.
1:07:08 Speaker 04 I'm, I, I think this guy and AI haven't seen the last of each other.
1:07:12 Laci Mosley? No, no, instead of SMH, maybe it's S and P 500.
1:07:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's ahead of his, that's right. He's just ahead of his time.
1:07:21 Laci Mosley? He is.
1:07:22 Speaker 04 He was just like a click too stupid.
1:07:24 Laci Mosley? The only thing that I wish he would have done is like not use AI to make the songs. I think it's a complete waste and we don't need it. But, and obviously he was covered on the show many times, so I'm not going to hop on some soapbox at the end here. But I wish that he would have just made terrible songs all day long.
1:07:45 Speaker 04 I mean, that's what everybody else does.
1:07:48 Laci Mosley? Right?
1:07:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, I wonder if it's just like the, the amount he needed to make in order to spread these streams across so many songs. And then finally he was just like, I can't make them fast enough.
1:07:58 Laci Mosley? He could have kept remixing, I want my lipstick on a dipstick.
1:08:02 Speaker 04 That's true, the most remixed song of all time.
1:08:06 Laci Mosley? There's a jazz version, it's great. It's actually very classy. My lipstick on his lipstick.
1:08:17 Speaker 04 Wow, I'm just floored.
1:08:20 Laci Mosley? It's Tuesday night.
1:08:23 Laci Mosley? My mouth is right. I don't know.
1:08:27 Speaker 04 I'd be like, we put that up on Spotify and we see what happens.
1:08:30 Laci Mosley? I think we do and we remix it.
1:08:32 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:08:32 Laci Mosley? And we also rap.
1:08:36 Speaker 04 It does feel like AI use is the real like shit thing he did. But like, I mean, I don't think you, this is just a personal opinion. I generally don't think you can scam up.
1:08:49 Laci Mosley? Whoa.
1:08:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:08:52 Laci Mosley? That is a huge bomb to drop at the end of this show.
1:08:54 Speaker 04 I know, but I think it's like, like you just said earlier, though, like, think about everything the music industry has done to performers. Like, if you're scamming the music industry, is it really a scam if you're scamming someone more powerful than you?
1:09:08 Laci Mosley? So you do agree you can scam up?
1:09:10 Speaker 04 I wouldn't consider it a, I mean, in the technical term of scam, maybe, but like, in the spirit of scamming, I don't think it's a scam.
1:09:20 Laci Mosley? Wow, you just threw me on a roller coaster. At first I thought we were gonna have to fight.
1:09:27 Laci Mosley? And Justin, I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to break his glasses. Kick him a little bit.
1:09:32 Speaker 04 You'd be right, too.
1:09:33 Laci Mosley? But no, that's like the most ethereal way to say it. It's not a scam. I say scam up, but you're right, it's not a scam if you're scamming up. It's really only a scam if you're scamming down.
1:09:44 Speaker 04 That's right. The power dynamics have to be taken into account.
1:09:47 Laci Mosley? Yes, I say that all the time, but I've never phrased it that way and it really was a shocker. Sure, some people crash the cars. I'm sorry, y'all. Bill it to Justin's insurance.
1:09:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, which is a scam.
1:10:01 Laci Mosley? So I was like, yes, it is. But, oh my goodness, thank you so much for being here, Justin, and for offering so much.
1:10:07 Speaker 04 Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.
1:10:09 Laci Mosley? And would you like to tell anyone where you can be found and where they can watch, see, read?
1:10:14 Speaker 04 Yes, I have a novel coming out called Get Lost that comes out July 7th. I think it is a fun beach read. One of the characters is a big scammer.
1:10:24 Laci Mosley? Oh, I love a beach read.
1:10:26 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah, it's a fun kind of father-daughter story. Father's a, yeah, kind of a big scammer, a little bit of a piece of shit. And him and his daughter have to find the missing mother.
1:10:38 Laci Mosley? I love that. I'm definitely going to be beach reading this.
1:10:41 Speaker 04 Thank you. Yeah, I, I'm excited about it. And if, if you watch Abbott Elementary.
1:10:48 Laci Mosley? If you watch Abbott, if you've heard of it, if you watch it.
1:10:52 Speaker 04 Please watch Abbott Elementary and Harley Quinn on HBO Max. And that's all I got.
1:10:57 Laci Mosley? Yes, absolutely. And y'all, when you're taking Justin's book Get Lost to the beach, bring Scam Goddess as well to the beach.
1:11:06 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
1:11:07 Laci Mosley? I don't know if I'm a beach read. I might be more of a, um, a hospital waiting room read. You know, those wait times are long.
1:11:15 Speaker 04 Yeah. My book you can read in like.
1:11:18 Laci Mosley? You get lost with some sand under your toes with Justin. And then when you get sunburned, you gotta go to urgent care. You bring Scam Goddess.
1:11:26 Laci Mosley? And you'll love it. You'll love it the entire way. Um, guys, you can watch Going Dutch streaming now on Hulu. New episodes on Thursdays. And you can watch the first season of Scam Goddess on Hulu as well. Get into that. I might have something else in store for y'all soon. And congregation, I want y'all to get out there and stay licking them nipsticks.
1:11:58 Speaker 07 Scam Goddess stars and is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. Our producer is Jessica Cisneros and our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is conducted by Kate Doyle. Stay scheming.
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Previous The Baddest Bitch Bandit of the West w/ Vanessa Bayer & Jonah Bayer (Fraud Friday) Next The Sweepstakes Scammers w/ Tone Bell (Fraud Friday) Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated