Ryan Leslie is one of the most intelligent artists in the game.
Not only does he boast the honors of having a degree from Harvard University, but he’s damn near a musical genius.
EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Leslie Talks Producing Movies!
Not to mention that he teaches a class at the prestigious New York University. GlobalGrind sat down with Ryan to discuss the effects of digital media in today’s world, as well as being a teacher.
Check out the exclusive interview below!
GlobalGrind: Let’s talk about your digital media and how it’s affecting what you’re working on now, because you’re going in a completely new direction.
Ryan Leslie: I wouldn’t say it’s a completely new direction. I would say that it’s the direction that I’ve always turned to, only because traditional media has been so elusive for someone that so stubbornly does not want to conform to any specific box that people expect me to be in. So when you are intentionally being a “square cog” in a series of round interfaces, you find that you run into challenges becoming a part of the fabric of traditional media.
When I discovered YouTube, I realized that was going to be a distribution channel that I could control and have a direct audience and have a direct channel, excuse me, to my audience. And so, I immediately did any and everything I could to exploit it. We started and pioneered I would venture to say, the first music industry video blog.
On a daily basis, we… well I (laughs) – me, myself, and I – would film everything that I did throughout the course of the day. Come home, film and interview, that I could cut all the content with, and infuse some music, and begin a diary of what I was doing. Just because, as much as I loved all the specials “Behind The Music,” “MTV Diary,” those MTV documentaries that you know all my favorite artists have received, I just felt so far removed from being on that radar that I still wanted to share that with whatever audience I had.
I expanded the team to include some interns and we were able to build the audience to where we are currently, which is hovering right around 300,000 Twitter followers, 300,000 Facebook likes and 110,000 YouTube subscribers, and over 44 million views on YouTube without ever having a major Top 40 hit.
This is the medium that I have always turned to. It’s the medium that gives back exactly what I put in. So if I’m working tirelessly, doggedly, to create content, I know I have a distribution channel for that content, and my audience which is steadily growing, not only consumes that content but also becomes engaged, activated and excited to share that content.
Do you ever worry about over exposing yourself through that medium?
Absolutely not. Because I am my own filter, number one.
And number two, based on the fact that in internet land the number of options, even if we went online right now, the number of options that you have whether it’s from a search perspective, or a video perspective, or even if you narrow it down all the way to music video perspective, the number of new options that you have daily becomes a very easy distraction for even the most die-hard fan. To the extent that I can follow through with what I tell my students at NYU – the Triple “F,” Double “C”: fast furious frequency of consistent content – I believe that without, or that I believe that borrowing mainstream massive exposure, that formula is the only way to keep your fans engaged for any given period of time.
What is the main thing that you take out of your experience teaching at NYU? Do you learn from the students as well as teaching them?
Yeah. I mostly learn what the next generation of music entrepreneurs and content creators are worried about. I learn what that generation is concerned about. I learn what that generation is excited about. And in our dialogues – which I consider them dialogues, which are a couple hours long when I go and speak there – I think the learning definitely goes both ways.
