Episode Title: Hip Hop & Digital Music Marketing Feat. Faheem Smith
In this episode Durell is joined by digital music marketing expert Faheem Smith. Durell and Faheem begin the episode talking about his early memories of music and his love for hip-hop. Faheem and Durell talk about his early experiences entering the music industry professionally as an artist but then getting burnt out and deciding to make the pivot into wanting to learn the business side of the music industry. Faheem talks about his work building street teams for a variety of different major labels which lead to him branching out on his own and starting his own company called Off Spring Entertainment. Faheem shares that while he had a lot of fun working the labels he eventually decided to leave the major record label music space and transition into working with several international brands like BET, Nike, Verizon and Pepsi. Durell and Faheem talk about him deciding to make another pivot and enter the digital marketing space in 2014. Faheem and Durell talk about the early days in digital marketing and their respect for Ryan Leslie and him ushering in the era of caring about data and being able to use the data to make better decisions. Faheem and Durell discuss what makes ads so powerful for independent artists and why he chose to really make that his focus within the space. Durell and Faheem end the episode talking about some of the most common mistakes and misconceptions he has when working with his clients and what he has been working on and coming up with next for him as a digital marketing expert. For more information on Faheem Smith, please visit his social media profile below: Instagram @strikefirstent