GlobalGrind: Let’s discuss the visual album that you’re working on. What direction are you moving in with this, and how do you want people to talk about it when they reminisce on it years from now, like “ remember when Ryan Leslie dropped that album that he had a visual for”?
Well, I’m extremely biased towards this project only because I’ve immersed myself in this project 24 hours a day for the last, nearly year. (laughs) And I believe that, once we get the momentum going, it could be never ending. So, it almost becomes like a series of Friends or a series of Seinfeld, where as long as I can afford myself a salary to be the lead in the series of episodes, whenever there’s 10 or 12 episode season that’s finished they can have a compilation and look at it. In reality though, if I’m really adhering to what I say my strategy is, then fast furious frequency of consistent content extends beyond the normal album cycle and could extend for two or three years. So potential this album could be unfolding before the eyes of my audience and the global audience for the next 12 to 18 to 24 to 36 to 72 months. Because it just consistently continues to infuse new content into the marketplace.
So, fast, furious…
Frequency of consistent content.
Explain that a little more.
Fast, furious frequency of consistent content. I think that with every brand it comes down to consistency. And we can look at all of my favorite brands from Nike to Apple to Starbucks, Microsoft or any brand that I love, its because their message is consistent. And even my favorite artists – to be more specific, my favorite rapper artist – don’t get upset when it’s the same video over and over again because I’m buying to their persona, so to speak. And I’m interested in – for me – as I follow an artist I’m interested in how that persona responds to environments and experiences that inspire them. So this is what I’m doing. I’m taking everything that I love about my favorite interactions with artists and applying that to this process. So my video to an outsider, who’s not following along, could actually be the same video over and over again for all the songs.
Just a different backdrop, just a different city, a different set of experiences, the same message over and over again because I also believe that in the idea of me expanding my audience… I may have 300,000 fans now, if I was a million or if I want10 million, then I know I need to reach 9.7million more people who’ve never seen anything I’ve done. So every video might be the first time they see anything I do, so I want that messaging to be consistent with every video so that that’s their first impression. They get smacked with the barrage of the messaging that I want to smack then with: musical proficiency, travel, luxury, fashion, style, romance, philanthropy, [and] humanitarianism. I want to make sure that they receive that. And then if it insights them to dig deeper, I want them to not only receive that full body of messaging, but also in their research find that it’s a consistent message, so that I hope I am converting someone into an avid follower.
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You’ve been shooting in a multitude of cities. You’ve shot in Paris. Where else?
Paris, Switzerland, Milan, few [metropolitan areas], Miami, Vegas… We’re continuing on. We gotta do New York.
Of course.
Cracow, Poland. Uh, Thailand, Hong Kong…
And how are you planning on scheduling these? You’re just fully immersed in this.
Absolutely…I think the most beautiful piece of this equation though is, as the momentum grows and I’m presenting an alternative model to the traditional method of monetizing a brand, there have been people who have come to the table and have had interest in participating. So I believe that as of now, up till now I’ve funded everything myself, I believe that not only will there start to exist more collaborations on the record as people see what’s happening, I believe that people will come forward to collaborate in many other ways besides just musically. And that will eventually include financially as well.
