Scoutda on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 6/25/25

The episode is part of The DJ Sessions presents The Virtual Sessions, hosted by Darran Bruce, broadcasting from Seattle with guest Scoutda (Scout the Psalmist), an underground hip-hop artist and podcaster based in San Antonio, Texas.

 

The conversation starts with playful small talk about Seattle’s famously gloomy weather before Scoutda shares the origins of his podcast, Flows for You. The show began in 2019 as a creative outlet when he decided to return to music after years focused on raising his kids. The podcast format is unique: Scoutda interviews interesting guests, then performs an improvised freestyle rap about them or their topics on the spot. He explains the confusion many have today between true freestyling — off-the-top, unscripted rhymes — and “freestyle” as used for pre-written, loosely structured verses that appear spontaneous.

 

Scoutda recalls his roots in Christian underground hip-hop and how he was inspired by artists like Pigeon John, LA Symphony, and Arrested Development — musicians who fused positivity, playfulness, and deep lyricism without explicit language. He talks about the tension between his meticulous “writer” persona and his silly, fearless freestyler side, which makes him comfortable improvising raps for crowds or even ordering food in rhyme to score free meals.

 

They discuss the impact of technology on music, like recording lyrics on phones and how AI-generated music challenges artists to innovate. Scoutda shares stories of performing at Austin City Limits for the past five years, where he runs interactive hip-hop workshops for kids — making up personalized songs for hundreds of children each day alongside beatboxers and DJs. He reflects on the joy of inspiring the next generation, the unexpected connections backstage, and his priorities now as a parent and working artist.

 

He and Darran trade insights on the grind behind podcasting and performing — the countless hours that go into producing, promoting, and sustaining creative work, especially in an era when instant gratification and AI tools can make the effort feel undervalued. Scoutda stresses that his longevity comes from embracing every chance to perform, taking risks, and not being afraid to look silly. He shares that he now earns more doing children’s music than he ever did running a label.

 

The episode wraps up with Scoutda teasing a new season of Flows for You, which will include comedic music videos built around his off-the-cuff raps, plus his hope to keep inspiring kids through hip-hop and live shows like Austin City Limits. Darran closes by praising Scoutda’s authenticity and work ethic and encourages listeners to check out his podcast, Instagram, and upcoming projects.

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darren and right now I’m sitting in the Virtual Studios in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way from San Antonio, Texas, we have Scout. How’s it going this afternoon?

[Scoutda]
I’m awake, I think, mostly. Is it sunny and rainy in Seattle right now and not raining? No.

I thought I would throw it out there. There was a small chance.

[Darran]
No, it gives us the perfect. Oops, I gotta turn my audio off on that server. No, it’s not sunny.

What were you saying though?

[Scoutda]
Oh, I said there was a chance that it maybe was sunny. I said one of my best friends and a music partner lives in Seattle. And so I’ve been there and been like, okay, this is always sad all the time.

And so it looks like it’s sunny from the light, but I guess that’s just.

[Darran]
It looks like it’s sunny because it’s diffused light. No, it’s overcast right now. I can see some blue sky.

It’s not bad here. The saying is I’ve lived here for 50 years. The saying is we tell everyone it rains here and it sucks so they don’t move here.

But unfortunately, that didn’t keep everyone away. And when you got Amazon here, Eyes on Us here, Microsoft here, a lot of tech, a lot of stuff like that. And they force them to move here sometimes.

It’s like, oh, it’s not that bad. But no, you get used to it. It’s not all that bad.

But no, it’s nice, actually. It’s perfect for filming because you get a lot of diffusion from the cloud. So sunlight doesn’t ruin a lot of what you do here, which is nice if you’re into filmmaking and stuff.

But I can talk all about that in my career in the industry here in Seattle. But we’re here to talk about you and what you all got going on, Scout. You do a podcast series.

We knew it for a few years now called Flows for You. Tell us about that podcast series.

[Scoutda]
What’s it all about? Well, so honestly, what happened was I hadn’t been rapping for like five or six years because I was raising my kids. And I was like, I want to get back into music.

And so if you’ve ever heard of South by Southwest before?

[Darran]
Oh, absolutely.

[Scoutda]
So I’ve got to do South by Southwest many a time in my 25 years of doing music. And my buddy was like, hey, you want to come perform with me at South by Southwest? And I was like, cool.

But I was like, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if I had a podcast that I could talk about when I’m there? And I recorded one right when my son was being born, but I never released it. So I just put all the episodes up, put 15 episodes, and that’s how it started in March of 2019.

I started the podcast, which pretty much it’s more throughout the times, but it’s a music podcast where we interview cool people. And after we’re done interviewing them, I make up a freestyle rap on the spot. And that’s what we do.

[Darran]
All right. I mean, that’s, you know, I would not say that I’m a rapper or a hip hop artist and by any means, but, you know, growing up in the 80s, you know, I got heavily influenced by rap. One of the first productions I ever worked on was a hip hop television series called The Cool Out Network back in 92, right out of high school, started working on it.

So I was pretty into hip hop culture, rap culture back then. And, you know, just looking at now where it’s gone, where it’s changed, I kind of got more into electronic music as I got older. But, you know, me and my friends, we would try to have our own freestyle rap battles back in the day.

We were kids and it was enjoyable. It was fun just making up stuff on the fly. Yeah, so I could definitely kind of see where, you know, the enjoyment of doing something like that is, you know, it’s like free floor, free form poetry that just whatever’s coming off the top of your head, you just say, you know, well, it’s crazy now because that definition, right?

[Scoutda]
Freestyle is definitely not used the way it is. So like most of the stuff that goes viral on the internet, we’ll say it’s a freestyle, but what it is, it’s a freestyle, which means that it’s a free flowing, pre written lyric that doesn’t have a set situation. And that’s what they call a freestyle.

But that which is hilarious, right? Because I do off the top freestyle, and where it’s off the brain off the dome, there’s a little girl trying to sneak in. And that’s the the differences in but it’s like, you know, Coast Contra is?

No, I don’t. They’re a really cool group in Chicago. I think they’re Chicago.

And they they went viral because they did a thing where it looked like they were in a podcast. And they just started freestyling, but it was a written bars. But it looks so cool.

And it was a freestyle because it was a free flowing, no topic set. freestyle, which is fine. But I even talked to him.

I even talked to him the guy that went viral. And he was like, Yeah, it’s funny how people don’t know the differences between the two definitions. And I’m like, Yeah, because it’s the same word.

Why would they know the differences? But that’s what you’re hoping for. You’re hoping that somebody goes, Oh, that dude’s just making it up.

But you know, especially if they’re pre recorded. It’s like, Come on, that’s not off the dome. That’s not the dome.

[Darran]
Well, you know, and that’s the one thing that I always felt that was unfair between my friend and I is that he would go back and he would write lyrics down. And then when we came to time to like flow battle, he’d come up with with rhymes and stuff. But he was pulling from his arsenal.

Yeah, he was never just free flowing. And I’m like, Dude, that’s not cool, man. Like, I mean, yeah, it’s between homies.

But still, you know, the whole thing is, is like, you’re supposed to be just free flowing with what you know, not using lyrics. Like you think some of these hip hop artists when they’re sitting down, how many rhymes do they have in the rhyme books? When they’re writing down other lyrics, they don’t just have 12 songs for one album.

You know, that’s all they ever wrote. You know, lyrics beyond lyrics beyond lyrics, and then they go, Oh, I can pull this lyric over here in the rhyme with this lyric to rhyme with this, you know, and make something happen. So, you know, you see a lot of it’s interesting, they can be make really great MCs as well, almost like onstage comedians, where you have to be quick on the draw, especially when you get a heckler or something, you got to know what to say what to do to defuse that and move on, you know, as a performer.

So I’m really cool. I get a lot of props, people can really just do that off the cuff.

[Scoutda]
Have you heard of pigeon john before?

[Darran]
So I’m so out of the hip hop game. I’m embarrassed.

[Scoutda]
You would like pigeon john. He’s like a he pretty much does like I don’t know what it’s called. Pretty much, I would say like, he has tons of commercials.

Anyways, blah, blah, blah. One of my favorite rappers had him on my first record that I’ve released. Anyways, I remember talking to him asking him about what I could do to be a good rapper.

And he said, What you should do is you should write songs until you can’t write anymore, hide the songs under your bed, and then come back and turn them into songs. Because you might think that you have 10 good songs, but you need to write 100 songs to get the 10 good ones. And I remember hearing that.

And it was like, Oh, man, this is hard, because I’m a rewriter, right? And so it’s, it’s just so fun. But it’s true is it’s as a hip hop person, it’s like you’re writing more than you when I meet a kid or have somebody come into the studio, right?

They’re like, Oh, I just wrote this song today. It’s my first song to be dope. And I’m like, it’s gonna be your first song.

It’s not gonna be dope, but still record it and be cool with it. But it’s like, you just got to keep going. Like it’s a movement and a flow within it.

And it’s it’s so fun how it works.

[Darran]
Exactly. You know, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, I don’t have the similar thing where I’m writing shows, necessarily, and putting them away. But my friend who I started with in the hip hop show, he always asked me, and asked me this question for years.

Do you ever go back and watch your old episodes? I’m kind of like, nah, dude, they’re in the can. They’re in the bag.

They’re done. They’re out there. I might go back and watch some of the exclusive mixes we get.

But I’m producing so much content moving forward. If I went back to watch my old episodes, I’d never have time to make any new episodes. You know, and I kind of look at it as like, I was there in the moment, I recorded it, I looked at it, you know, and I saw it, I pushed it out there.

You know, it’s like, you know, I guess from a musician standpoint, I can see how you would store those songs. It just reminded me something popped in my head is, we’re watching the movie Purple Rain. And you know, he goes, Prince is kind of going crazy, because you know, what happened with his father, and he goes in the basement, he starts throwing all this stuff around.

And then he comes across all his father’s songs that he wrote. You know, and, and so that was kind of a, what’s up?

[Scoutda]
Bud, could you come back in a second?

[Darran]
And so, you know, you know, he’s going through all those songs, and he’s coming across all the lyrics of the songs, not really knowing that his, maybe he knew his father was a musician, I never got the knowledge in the movie that he knew his father was a musician, there was something in there, some references that he played the piano or something, but failed, or his father was getting on him for trying to be a musician, didn’t support his career, whatever. But, you know, that was very interesting.

So I guess, maybe your son will go underneath your bed one day, basically, and pull out all these songs, and my dad wrote all these. What’s up?

[Scoutda]
Yeah, probably my daughter, my son is more about building buildings than he is rapping. My daughter’s like, I want to rap with you. My son’s like, he’ll do it just for because he’s done with me.

But in general, it’s so funny how it works. But yeah, it’s, it’s funny. I mean, now it’s like, there’s no paper, right?

Now it’s just like all of my phone with dictation stuff, right? So it’s crazy now that now I can literally just wrap it to my phone, and it will type it all up. And it’s like, okay, that was I wish that existed 20 years ago, you know, I would have got more stuff done.

[Darran]
Yeah, it’s kind of funny that I, I remember back in the day, I was working for a company. And it was like when the BlackBerry come out, the iPhone hadn’t been announced yet. And I had a BlackBerry and my boss was telling me, you know, we were taking notes, we’re working in the hotels, and doing shows in the hotels and everything.

And he’s like, you know what, carry a pen and pad with you. Because you know what, pen and pad will never, the battery doesn’t ever die on that. And, you know, he had a point there, because it’s like, oh, if you have your phone, you put all your notes in your phone, and then your battery dies, what are you going to do with your show notes?

I’m like, yeah, okay, bro, I guess you really don’t know how these things work. And I do backup to a computer. So it kind of saves it and puts it all into, you know, here, here and here.

I get what you’re saying. But you know, I guess the battery dies, then I go to pen and paper. But it was just, you know, having accessibility to technology.

Yeah, instantly record. I mean, now they got these new AI necklaces that you wear, and basically records everything you say. So if somebody comes back to you, you’re not really recording, but it’ll break it out.

You know, it’s crazy. And it’s like, I never said that I have exactly what I said right here, you know, that way, you don’t have to like, I’m recording this conversation right now.

[Scoutda]
But you know, that’s, you know, yeah, I freestyle my whole life, right. And before I did the live show, like, I’ve done millions of songs, right? Where I don’t remember what I said, somebody will be like, my wife will make fun of me all the time, because she’ll be like, I’ll be like, I’ll try to sweeten her up with like a sweet poem.

But then she’ll just look at me and be like, you’re making that up right now, aren’t you? And I’m like, yeah, she’ll go, Hey, could you just tell me what you said? And I’m like, No, I don’t remember now.

It was cool at the moment. Now, you definitely got to get one of those AI necklaces. I would, I would, it would be very helpful in my life.

I again, I laugh because I think about people that do this all the time now, like, what’s his name? I forget his name now. The white dude, Freddie Mac.

The white dude, he’s a content creator. What he does is he like gets on Omegle and all those sites. And then he freestyles for kids, or freestyles for people, or he goes on the streets and freestyles, and he records it all.

And I’ve been doing that for 25 years. But I never thought, hey, I should make content out of this. I just used it to get free Chipotle, you know?

Because, you know, that works, like 50% of the time, well, I get free Chipotle, if I wrap my order. And so what is the funny, they only literally give you a free order if you wrap 50% of the time? Yes.

Oh, well, and the trick is back in the day, Chipotle secret is actually a part of management was that you had to give away at least $100 worth of burritos every day, just as a part of customer service. And so that was one of the cool parts. But in general, you know, it’s pretty impressive when somebody’s like, ordering their full order with wrap, and it’s not one of those, you know, you’ve seen the videos where it’s like, the dude’s doing like the McDonald’s order or whatever.

But that’s a well written, you know, but it’s fun where I’m just like, add a little extra sour cream on that. And they’re like, Okay, okay, man. Here’s your free burrito.

Yeah, what’s that?

[Darran]
You’ve been doing this for about 20 years. Yeah. What was it?

What was one of your main inspirations for getting into the hip hop genre? What, what, what really was a catalyst for you? I’m pursuing this.

I’m going down this road.

[Scoutda]
Well, so when I started, I was a, I was a Christian rapper. So I did Christian underground hip hop. Right.

And so the weapon was I just got tired. I love hip hop my whole life. And I just got tired of hearing curse words.

And so I was like, Hey, I’m going to find something new. And then I figured out there was a sub sub sub genre of music that was like a boom bap. But it talked about Jesus, but not really like pigeon John, like he really just talked about how you couldn’t get a girlfriend on most of the songs.

But that counter this Christian music because nobody listened to it. And so it was awesome. And I loved it.

And then I was like, man, I like doing this. And I remember as a kid, in middle school, I could freestyle about whatever. And I was like, man, I really want to pursue music.

And so it was that, I don’t know, I just always did it, right? Like, it’s always been something that I loved. And I just, it was one of my happy places, right?

Like, especially when I first started, the funny part is, is I have two, two different parts of me, right? I have the writer version, and the freestyle version. And those are two separate guys.

The freestyle guy is funny. And the writer is a hip hop snob, who wants every lyric to be perfect, and every word to be as big as humanly possible with every but the freestyle guy could care less, he’ll just make fart jokes. And that dude, but the but the hip hop dude is like, man, I want to show my love.

Because one of my favorite things about hip hop is that it’s a, it’s a collective culture, right? The idea that they let other people into this culture, like a big white guy like me, has the opportunity to be in this amazing hip hop culture, because I was let in, because my friends who were part of that culture were like, yo, we want you to be here. And I always want to show my love for being allowed to be a part of it.

Right? Because it’s something I’ve always loved. But you know, especially, you know, you know, this in the 90s was like, you know, you had Biggie and Pac and all this stuff where it was just even Shaq, right?

Like it was all this stuff was coming out. And it was like, just hip hop looks so cool. And it’s Wu-Tang Clan, and all these things.

And it was, I just, and I’m just this kid in Texas in a trailer park, right? And all I had choices on was like vanilla ice or snow or all that stuff growing up. And it was like, I didn’t see any white dudes doing it.

Now I never, you know, you know how people are like, Oh, I’m doing it because I want to show me. Nobody needs another white dude rapping. That’s not that was never my heart.

I just wanted to, I just wanted to tell a story that other people couldn’t tell. Right. And so I just started doing it.

And I remember my first album, I recorded it. I wrote it, recorded it, and pressed it in a week. Oh, and I was just like, I’m just gonna make this happen.

It was just a thing I just wanted to do. And I just did it. And I released it.

And I pressed 100 copies. I sold 100 copies. And I was like, there, I’m done.

You know, and then I met a bunch of dudes. And then I started a group and then just kept going. At some point, it was like, I just didn’t have a choice in the matter.

I had already got myself so deep into it. I had to release albums, or I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Because it was like, and the hilarious part is, is as a kid, I used to always lie about wanting to be a rapper, that I was a rapper, that I would, I was in the studio and all this stuff.

So I guess there was that part of me that’s like, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna be true to that. Instead of lying anymore, I’m gonna actually go be that. And so then I went and became that.

I remember the first time I performed and got paid. I started crying because I was like, I’m not a liar anymore. I’m actually a professional rapper, finally, at 20.

[Darran]
So and your name, your name is not just Scout Duh, like Scout Duh, like Duh, Duh standing for Duh. It’s actually the full is Scout the Psalmist. Yeah.

And is that is that the original name that you started with years ago? And now you’ve mentioned pre show, you kind of shortened it a little bit. But um, yeah, Scout the Psalmist from you know, your early Christian rap days?

Is that where that came from?

[Scoutda]
Yeah, exactly. So the one of the ways I got into rapping, is that I would read the Psalms, and I would rap them. And so in Psalm 57, and it could be wrong, but it says, my heart is stirred for a noble theme, and I recite my verses for the King, my tongue is a pen of a skillful writer, you are the most excellent.

And, and that’s literally just, that’s just a Psalm from the Bible. That’s not even my rhymes. Right.

So I would just read those. And then I would just rhyme them together when I had fun. And I just did that a lot.

And I just loved that the Old Testament, I loved the writing style of David and the other people that wrote the Psalms. And so for me, that was just a cool thing. Now the truth is, is I got the name, because I look like a Boy Scout, not a rapper.

Um, and that’s how I got Scout, right. But then you can’t just be Scout because there’s a zillion Scouts, right. So I had to add the Psalmist part, because I love to freestyle the Bible.

And that’s, it’s kind of been like that ever since.

[Darran]
Who would you say would be your biggest influencer or influence when it comes to your career as an artist? And why?

[Scoutda]
Well, that’s hard, because right, like, so old school hip hop, right? Like, I mean, it’s so funny, like, it’s so funny to think about, like, all these amazing rappers, right, that everybody knows of, like Rakim, or, or Big Ear Tupac, or, again, all those dudes were cool to me, like, that was fun. And I enjoyed it.

Like, I, but I was the funny part is, I think I like more of the one hit wonder people like Paperboy, or other people that were just like, one songs, even a Seattle guy was, I was his name. He had an album called Seatown Funk. And it was actually, I forget his name now.

But he was a, he kind of sound like Domino. Not that you know, these references, but I know I should know these references. See, now I’m going to do the search too.

I forget his name, but he had one really good song.

[Darran]
Kid Sensation.

[Scoutda]
Yeah, Kid Sensation. There it is. Kid Sensation was one of one of Mix-a-Lot’s team.

Yeah. And so all of that stuff, it’s, it’s okay. You did it quick.

You did it faster than I could have done the reference. But, um, so those guys were cool. But again, because I started in Christian music, I started really focusing on those guys.

So there’s a group called the LA Symphony. And there are a bunch of rappers out of LA. And one of the main guys is this guy named Pigeon John, which is my favorite rapper.

And now he has like, you know, he’s nationally known. He has done some commercials and songs like that. But he used to, one of his verses was this, I’m so handsome.

You could take me for ransom. The fine jean will trickle down to my grandson. And it was just ridiculous.

They had another song called, there was a group called Brainwash Projects and that same crew, which is Pigeon John, another dude. And one of their verses, one of their courses was, um, uh, uh, I have to go get a cream cheese bagel in San Diego. It was dumb, but I don’t know, for some reason, that silly playfulness was something I enjoyed.

And I always wanted to be silly and playful with the things I did. Right. And I wanted to enjoy that.

So it’s like, as I grew up and I see more musicians do the thing, but if I’m going to be honest, it would probably be LA Symphony, Pigeon John, those kinds of guys that did, uh, Christian music, but then did it where you didn’t really, you wouldn’t really know if I, if I gave you one of their albums, you wouldn’t say they were a Christian group because you wouldn’t know. Um, unless you listened to the entire album and you just heard their hearts, right. Or notice that they didn’t curse or whatever the situation was, but they were, they were also not like, you know, Lecrae or something where they were just like Jesus every five seconds.

They would, you would, again, you wouldn’t know, like they would be talking about hitting on girls or things like that. But again, it just was playful to me. And, uh, I think that that’s the kind of stuff that I, um, gravity gravitated to, right.

Like was just that again, and I’ve always been an underground dude. So I enjoy, uh, you know, underground hip hop in general, like all the old, all the, even the, uh, old school non-Christian dudes, right? Like that lyricism stuff in the nineties was one of my favorite things, right?

As many syllable words as I could put in was fun to me. And so, I don’t know, it’s hard because it’s like, uh, as, as I grew up, somebody changes it, right? Like, like now even it’s hilarious, but like somebody I think is awesome and is not really hip hop per se.

Um, but he’s doing a really cool thing and I’m not going to get the song, the name of his name now. Um, Oh, Connor Price. Do you know that is?

Yeah. Connor Price is a Tik Tok guy. And he’s just a white dude that was an actor that’s been in a bunch of stuff.

And he’s, he would do, he would release a song, but then he would do a bunch of sketches about him in the studio, recording them. And then it blew up and it just, uh, what he does is this positive thing. You’ve heard his songs.

He has a song called splat, um, uh, where he talks about his girl breaking his heart. Uh, he, you know, but anyways, it’s just funny because again, it’s that same thing, right? That playful, positive, not negative hip hop has always been a thing in my heart.

And it’s funny as I moved to kids music, right? Like it was always important for me to people realize that hip hop isn’t just, isn’t negative, right? Like it’s this collective culture.

It’s this amazing culture of these amazing people and, and a cat. Um, and it, it is a thing that deserves joy. And Oh, Oh, I’m sorry.

I did all that. And the real answer is speech from rest development. I’m sorry.

All of that to answer the real question is arrest development. Again, the idea of this funny, playful, but standing on their point. And like, he’s another example of somebody that was always doing Christian music, right?

Or not really, but he always talked about his beliefs, uh, in his music. And I thought it was cool. And then later he became a friend.

And so it’s so fun that that works, but in general, yeah, that’s easily one of my, I forget that that was that music as a kid was one of the things that I was like, if I can make music like that, dude, I’ll do it like Mr. Wendell and all that stuff. Like, again, the idea that you could write a song and be a hundred percent honest about it, like that was something I enjoyed about hip hop. And sometimes, and, and it, you know, we were talking about freestyle battling earlier, right?

It’s like M and M, right? Like, I’m not here to, uh, M and M has all this stuff has written jokes within his battles too, but he also could destroy you off the dome. So it’s either, or, but it’s, it’s funny how that works.

And so it’s just fun, but yeah, that’s all of that to say, yeah, just positive, fun, having things have always made you go, I want to do that kind of music, right? Like I want, I want kids to know that hip hop isn’t bad. And hip hop is an amazing thing because it allowed a lot of people, especially like when hip hop started, right.

It allowed a lot of people that didn’t have a way to express themselves to respects as well. And it’s not just rap, right? There were dancers, graffiti artists, all these people, all these people got to be a part of this amazing community.

Um, and it’s, it’s just so awesome. And it’s like, it gives me happiness all the time. And it’s like, I get to speak to older people or other groups that wouldn’t normally listen to hip hop and tell them how awesome it is.

Right. And that’s, that is something that’s the joy, right? Like the idea of getting to tell people why it makes it, I imagine you as a musician is the same way, right?

Like even doing the show, right? Like the joys of showing the music that you love and showing that it’s not just rave parties is, is a big deal. Like, because people can do that, right?

They can do the same thing as they do with hip hop where it’s like, Oh, it’s all gangster rap. And it’s not, it’s, I mean, again, that is still talking to a community and that’s still to its point is still something. Now there is that point where, you know, those things are all commercialized and strengthened up.

So they’re worse, but there is, there is truth to those statements. Uh, as I said, one of a good example is as a Snoop dog, right? A good example of still just being true to him.

He now, he’s like, instead of seeing him as a gangster rapper, uh, who murdered somebody, right? He’s, he’s everybody’s grandpa. Yeah.

[Darran]
I mean, he’s hanging out with Martha Stewart. Yeah.

[Scoutda]
Well, I don’t know. Martha Stewart’s a good example in that situation.

[Darran]
I know.

[Scoutda]
Like he’s hanging out with the other felon, you know, it’s like, yeah, right.

[Darran]
You’re right there. So this is Doja. This is Doja the cat, uh, DJ sessions mascot.

He likes my eyes being on him or he’s in the middle of the show and that’s his grand entrance. You came by to say hi. So, uh, Doja the cat comes in the studio, kind of does what he wants to do.

Just wanted to let you know he wasn’t interrupting the show. We let him, and they purchased right back there. He’s like, I’m part of the show.

What’s up?

[Scoutda]
Yeah. Yours are less disrupting than mine. My, uh, during my show, my five year old and my four year old and seven year old will just show up and just want to like share YouTube videos, which is always fun.

It was like, I’ll be like, after I released the thing, and it will be like, you’ve sent, we were silenced. And I was like, I know why. Cause you know, some random YouTube video.

[Darran]
But so, you know, what would be your worst habit? And are you planning to get rid of it?

[Scoutda]
Yeah, no. Um, so the funny part about that is right. My forced habit.

We’re talking about musically, right? Not just real life.

[Darran]
Yeah. Career wise. What’s your worst habit career wise?

[Scoutda]
Not remembering my lyrics. This is how I became a freestyle rapper, right? Like, like I would perform in front of people.

We would have album we released. I was in a group called concept seven, and we released this album and we will perform it. And me and my friends saw Paul who now is a Grammy nominated children’s musician and all this cool stuff.

Uh, but me, him and a bunch of other people would rap and I would do the lyrics and they would be cool. And that was awesome. But then I would always forget it.

And then I would be like, nobody here cares or knows this song. So I’m just going to make it up as a go. And I just did that.

And then that’s, that’s what became the second person in my hip hop life. There was a serious guy and the funny guy, but then sometimes they would combine and shows and do things like that. But yeah, that’s probably my worst habit.

It’s just not remembering my lyrics. Um, as an ADD kid, it’s a hard thing, but once something’s in there, then it’s good. I, I always think about like, um, little Wayne, like people like, Hey, why little Wayne, aren’t you doing the song?

And he’s like, cause I don’t remember it. Like I have, I have like, he literally has like four or 500 songs that are popular. And so what, what do you expect him to do all those songs?

Like what he can do is, again, that’s another great example of a, of a do that freestyle. Like, Oh my gosh, that guy’s so stupid, talented. And it’s so cool to see him still do his thing.

Uh, but it’s, but yeah, I never get mad at him if he doesn’t know his lyrics for the song. Cause it’s like just 80 songs, but yeah, that’s probably the one, uh, uh, probably the worst habit when it comes to hip hop.

[Darran]
And you go to Austin every year and, and, and tell us about your experience, what you set up there, what you do when you’re in Austin. I was very interested to hear about this. I didn’t want to lead into anything with it.

I wanted you to tell our viewers all about Austin, what you do when you get there. Cause it sounds pretty amazing.

[Scoutda]
Well, so I’m from Austin, right? So like when I first started, uh, hip hop, I was in Austin and all my crew was in Austin. And so that’s where I’m from.

Like, and then it was like, I moved to San Antonio and then the funny part is I became more popular rapper in San Antonio than I was in Austin. I don’t know what that’s about. But anyways, uh, all these years later, um, what, like, uh, 2019 or 20, like 2019, I get a phone call, um, from my buddy Saul Paul.

Um, and he’s like, Hey, would you like to perform at, uh, Austin city limits? Now, as a kid that grew up in Austin, uh, and knowing about a 70,000 person concert that, uh, happens every day for six days. Uh, yeah, of course I would love to perform at ACL.

And so I’m like, yes, what is up? And what it was is that, uh, there’s this, there’s this hip hop collective in Chicago, um, named the Q brothers and they, they do like hip hop, Shakespeare and stuff. They’re pretty cool, but they’ve been doing Austin city limits.

They have a hip hop workshop that they’ve done for, uh, like 15 years or something. And they had handed it off to their DJ, um, who did this thing called hip hop house party. And their DJ was looking for more rappers.

Cause he was the only one. And he wanted the freestyle rapper. Uh, and Saul Paul sent to me.

And, uh, so he’s like, yo, I want to get you in here and I want you to perform in ACL. And again, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t even, I don’t even think he explained what it was.

He just told me, we need you to freestyle. And so I get there and we’re doing five sets a day, um, hour long freestyle sessions where we’re going through like, like we’re going through like 20 kids an hour. Um, and we’re making up a song for each kid and then we’re going.

And again, and then I hired somebody, he hired somebody. I, I hired somebody else to rap with us and they both didn’t want to do it. They were awesome, but they were so afraid that, uh, the kids songs would mess with their rep.

Um, so they didn’t want to freestyle and they didn’t want any recordings of them freestyling, which was crazy cause that’s why we hired them. Right. But, uh, so they just sat there and me and him had to do all the work.

So just me and him rapping for, uh, for all days. And, but anyways, I was able to then, uh, the next year hire my friends. And so now I have like a beat boxer.

I’ll fly my friend from Seattle. His name’s Danny Figgins and he’ll fly down and beatbox. He was actually, uh, he was actually in a, uh, uh, what was it called?

A, uh, what is it? What is it? What’s the, uh, what’s the beatboxing?

Like the, I mean, the, the music style where everybody doesn’t have an instrument. Oh, acapella group. Okay.

With Blake Lewis. All right. Yeah.

And so when he was a kid, he led Blake Lewis’s, uh, uh, his acapella group. Anyways. So he flies down and he beat boxes, uh, for all these songs.

And, uh, but yeah, that’s what we do. We, uh, we make up songs for kids on the spot and we’ve got to do it for the last five years. And, uh, it’s really cool.

Like the idea of teaching these kids to do, um, hip hop. Um, and the other insane part is that they’ve been doing it for 15 years. Right.

So there are kids that have done the song every single year for 15 years and they have a track that they’ve done with the guys or now with me, right? Like there are kids I’ve seen every year for the last five years perform with us, um, at Austin city limits, which is insane. And then the other cool part about Austin city limits is that I get a, like one of the cool perks of it is not only do I get to perform in the kids section, I’m not on the big stages or anything, but I get a backstage pass and I get fed like I was that artist.

So I’m in the back and, uh, I’ll just meet random people. I’ve met some extremely cool people throughout the, uh, was that last, this last time I met Barry Manilow’s driver for his bus and he’s been married, Barry Manilow’s driver for 10 years or something. And, uh, he was cool dude, but it was just so funny.

The people that you meet in those situations, I met a lot of cool DJs actually there. Um, and, uh, different because they have the, uh, one thing at ACL is they have the silent disco. Um, and they’ll bring in big, uh, like there’s this one DJ I met was a DJ, your honor.

And he’s a DJ out in New York and he had did a set and he was, and so I just saw them at lunch and I was like, yo, what are you doing? And he was doing his promos. You know how that is.

You’re doing your, while you’re taking a break from working, you have to do your promos. You can put them on Instagram. Um, and so that’s what he was doing and that’s what everybody’s doing when we’re down there.

But it’s fun. It’s like you could spend two weeks in Austin, uh, eating there, performing there, hanging out with all the artists and just seeing that life. It’s a weird thing to do at this age.

I wish I was doing it when I was younger, but you know, it’s cool. It’s weird. Not, uh, oh yeah, I’ll tell you that’s the second, but it’s, it’s so weird cause it’s like my priorities have changed.

Like a good example is last year I was in the, I was in the, the green room and Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto and, and yeah, we’re playing video games right beside me, but I was more focused on talking to my three year old at the moment, didn’t even notice that they existed. And my buddy was like, you know, they’ve been psyching you for the last hour. And I was like, no, I didn’t know.

I was just talking to my kids. But my priorities have changed, right? Like instead of focusing on the fame, I’m focusing on making sure my kids are happy.

Cause you know, I’ve been gone for two weeks and they’re like, daddy, I miss you. So sorry, long winded answer.

[Darran]
I’m glad you answered all that because I always love it when a guest on the show goes and answers a question they don’t know that I’m going to ask them. And you didn’t get any questions before the show knowing what I was going to ask. But my next question I was going to ask you before you just went into all of that was name the most inspiring person you ever met backstage and tell us why this person has inspired you.

And you’re just like, this is why I’m backstage. This is who I’m meeting. And one of the most important people was my three year old kid.

[Scoutda]
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s crazy. No, don’t get me wrong. There’s another what there’s a ton of hundreds of stories of that, right?

Yeah, my, my second year, I actually met Eminem’s barber. Um, but the funny part is, is I’m sitting there and you know, just for fun. I’ll be like, Hey, you want me to freestyle for you?

Right? So I see this guy. I’m like, Hey, you want me to freestyle for you?

And he’s like, I love that. And I’m like, Hey, you don’t mind if I send this to Eminem, do you? And I’m like, I do mind.

Please do not send this to Eminem. I don’t, I don’t want that. I wasn’t here to impress Eminem or not be impressed, impressing Eminem.

I just was being dumb because I, it’s my thing that I do. And so, but it’s so funny. Or I even met the dude that Oh, do you remember the holographic Tupac?

I met that dude, the dude that was in charge of the team that designed it. Oh, wow. He was in charge of the graphics for ACL.

And so I’m like, literally for years now, I’ll just hang out with him. He’ll just be like, I’m here too. Do you want to come hang out with us?

And we’ll go hang out with them. And it’s just, it’s so funny. The people you meet in those situations.

And I tell people all the time, it’s like, you need to be willing to do that. Because it’s like, what are you doing? Like, it’s like, I’ll meet people, especially South by Southwest is a good example of this, is that I’ll meet artists that are performing a South by Southwest, and they don’t go to any classes, they don’t do any of the stuff that is a part of their, their badge that they get.

And the truth is, is you have an opportunity to go to the classes where the A&R that you want to come visit you is already going there. And you have a chance to sympathize that dude, and listen to the same talk as I mentioned, that was cool. And then the dude remembers you when you’re performing like, Oh, that guy was nice.

Like, you just don’t know your opportunities until you have them. It’s like, I laugh because I’m still doing this because I just kept showing up. Right?

[Darran]
Like, yeah, I can relate because you know, a couple years running, I went to what’s called ADE or Amsterdam dance event. You know, it’s 250,000 people for seven days in Amsterdam. And the networking, I kind of say is I’m not looking down my nose at anyone.

It can be a little bit of an expensive a trip to an independent artist. Yes, no, maybe so. There’s ways around it.

But, you know, if you are an electronic music artist, you really want to make you don’t want to be your hometown local DJ. And that’s your claim to fame. That’s it.

You want to really branch out and get out there in the world and go to those seminars where, you know, I’m sitting in a seminar, I’m in there. I get press clearance. But, you know, I’m sitting there and there’s Karl Cox talking about what he’s reinventing himself on and it’s not being sent out to the world.

It’s just in that room to 150 people who managed to get in that room and see for the first time what he’s doing brand new and what he suggests artists should to do, do to reinvent themselves rather than just maybe being a disc jockey. Anyone can be a DJ now. It’s it’s there’s still special, there’s still talent and everything to that.

But you’re just spending other people’s music. And if that’s all it is, just putting music together. What differentiates you from this person, this person, this person, this person, and Carl was kind of sitting there going, I’m doing this again and reinventing myself.

And I’m going to make one half of my setup is a live laptop. And I’m I got a CDJ here. And I’m going to make live music.

Here, I might bring in that hit song on the CDJ so I can mix it in. But you’re never going to see the same show for me twice ever again. That’s awesome.

I can maybe make something similar using similar stuff. But you’ll never see me do the same show twice. And it’s like, whoa, you know that and that’s giving it back to the to that, you know that that crowd whereas now you see the DJs going out and not knocking anyone not knocking the big festivals or anything like that.

But they’re playing pre recorded sets. Everyone knows it now they’re not wearing head they’re not even mixing when they’re playing they’re not wearing headsets. They’re up there just dancing around but they can’t.

People now know that they have the scale are getting smarter. You can’t have a live DJ set with the kind of light shows and everything that they’re doing because everything’s orchestrated to on now if it’s a smaller venue, smaller club, smaller stage, yes, you can have that live element going on. But when you have something like these major festivals lighting just you can’t have a DJ train wreck up on stage or mix something out or not do something right and on the fly pick a song and something goes wrong.

No, it’s it’s hit play and let this light show go. And those people are just sitting there in awe. You know, but you know, I was talking with somebody today and it’s kind of they’re cheating their audience, you know, yeah, totally.

You know, in that sense of things, you might as well go well, why am why don’t I just have an AI performer go up here our hologram performer go up here and pretend and then play music and have an awesome fireworks show? Yeah, no. And again, I’m not knocking it.

It’s the industry I get that’s what it is. I mean, there’s a lot of artists that have gone on stage, and they lip sync during their performances. Yeah, you know, you can’t move around and do all the dancing and do all the motions do everything up there.

And then expect to have breath for all of that as well. You know, and they know right when their cue points are on and when the mics going to turn on there. Hey, Seattle, how’s it going?

You love that? All right, cool. Boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, it goes but and then you know, and they got their backup seniors that are on the stage with the lights aren’t really on them carrying a lot of the notes of the extra guitar player back there, you know, or the extra, you know, all this stuff that’s still on the stage back there, but the lights are out on those people, you know, yeah.

So anyways, I’m not trying to knock anyone. But yeah, it’s, you know, seeing the art of live performance do what that does. You know, what now would you recommend a career in hip hop, as a hip hop artist to young kids?

No, what would be some of the pros and cons of that? Okay, no, right out the gate. There we go.

[Scoutda]
No, so so one of the funny stories is, so for the for four years, I did a podcast, I still do my podcast for years. But my co host was DJ sound effects. And he’s a DJ.

And he’s a beatboxer. And but the funny story about that is when I first met him was like, in 2017, I think, or something like that. Probably earlier than that, like 2015.

I don’t remember exactly when I met him. But it was at some big conference. And he told me that what he’s the moment he met me, he goes, Hey, I want to get into rap music.

What do I do? And I said, don’t do it. There’s no money in it.

So seeing Christian music, you’re never going to make any money, you’re just going to always sit around and do nothing. So don’t do that do something else. But the funny part is, I don’t remember that.

And so I meet him like, three years later. And he’s like, Yeah, I still remember the day you told me just to give up on my dreams. And but it was cool, because I was able to take this guy that was doing he was doing beatboxing on fortnight things.

And I was like, I saw one episode and I was like, you know what, why don’t we do a show together where you just beatbox and I do a thing. So it was fun to be able to like, give this kid that I did tell not to follow music to get into the thing that he wanted to do, which is be live in front of people doing his thing. But all joking aside, I I feel like if you’re passionate, if somebody asked me, should I get into music?

I would tell them no, especially now. Like, have you heard of Riff Fusion? Riff Fusion is just one of those AI full creation software where it just makes full songs with a singer.

And you just tell you just tell it to make a song about like I was playing around with a few days ago, and I said, Hey, make a song about puppies about finding the puppy and how it changed your life. And it did. And it was it made me want to quit doing music altogether.

[Darran]
So you’re talking about an AI song maker?

[Scoutda]
Yeah.

[Darran]
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Scoutda]
Yeah. And so just seeing that happen, right? Like is disheartening at first, because you’re like, oh, man, that sounds way better than me in my room.

Like they don’t even have they don’t have to spend any time making the studio thing. They already have autotune like this. This is this just not as fair, right?

Like, and so it can be disheartening at first going, what’s the point? Because I literally, literally, I mean, I even took one of those songs and rewrote it with all my lyrics. And it’s still something cooler than me.

Right? Like, I mean, yeah, no, not really cool. Because my real rap voice is pretty awesome.

And they don’t have that voice. And so there is that. But in general, because my real rap voice is this.

Now I can see here all together, but I still can’t see. I made the metaphor, but you’re waiting back for me. I never get what I’m doing.

And I’m waiting to see. But anyways, that’s my, that’s my original rap voice. That was the one I spent years learning to make.

Now when I freestyle, it changes right to different vocals or whatever the situation is. But yeah, so with all that, you can be like, what’s the point? But I do, I believe if you still are fighting for it, sure.

Try, do the thing, because you never know what’s going to happen. Especially now, like you see guys going viral on TikTok or whatever the situation is, because they’re talented at what they do. And because they have a cool point of view.

And that’s the one thing I’ll tell people, like, you feel like AI can like, take your job? It can’t. It can’t.

All you can do is copy people. It’s not going to innovate. It’s just going to, like, when you listen to like, like, when I asked to do it, really, all it’s doing is giving me gym class hero songs is what it’s doing.

It’s just making really good gym class hero songs. Well, before gym class heroes, it wasn’t gonna be able to pull that off because they didn’t know it existed. And so it’s like, as long as you’re willing to innovate and make new stuff, AI is not gonna be able to handle you.

And so yeah, if you have that kind of passion, and that’s the thing is, I’ll meet people all the time, they’ll be like, I want to do it. And I’ll be like, don’t. And then I see him again, and I’m still doing it.

I’m like, cool. Well, now I’ll help you. Right?

Like, it’s like saving a podcast, you know, this, doing a live show, when you first start, like most people that do a podcast last about 10 episodes, and then quit when they realize nobody cares. I mean, nobody cared about Joe Rogan either when he started. Like, it’s, it’s not like it just started where it was like, he like these people now that are like, famous people that start podcasts.

That’s not how podcasts started, right? Like, you didn’t already have your fan base and just blew it up. You had to learn it and go.

And same thing with music. Like, you just got to learn who you are and move it forward. But yeah, I would still say find something else to do.

But, but again, can’t fight somebody that loves their dream. Right? Yeah.

But again, I laugh because I’ve been doing music for 20 years. I made more money in the last five years doing kids music than I ever did running my own record label, releasing records.

[Darran]
You know, I mean, yeah, like, oh, and that’s, you know, it’s interesting how you see it. Like, the thing is, you kept it going, though, and found something on the back end that does that supportive stuff. You know, some people, they go out there for that.

I’m going to be the rapper. They don’t understand there’s so much more in the industry, you could be doing as well as a creative. Yeah, they could help pay the bills.

You know that, you know, I know a lot of DJs that I talked to, they do producers, they do a lot of mastering, they do a lot of ghostwriting. They do a lot of consultation on works, you know, people hire them say, Hey, how’d you get that? And like, Hey, man, I’m 250 an hour, I’m 500 bucks, you know, you know, it’s a 2500 bucks per song or something, you know, or, yeah, you know, they might do, you know, 2030 songs a year.

And they’re like, cool, you know, um, you know, so I hear you, you know, it’s, it’s, I think that’s a lot of people think that what I do for a living is, is I just turn on a camera and go, Hey, Scott, what’s up? Blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s so easy.

Let’s put this up. Like, no, if I put a camera up in my office, you’d be like, this guy wakes up at seven o’clock doesn’t stop him pave until 6pm takes a break for dinner comes back. Okay, now he’s on the computer for another three, four hours.

And this is, you know, five, six days a week. He all the back end stuff that nobody knows what goes on. You know, I just had to realize the other day I have a team of like 10 devs that just helps me with so many different apps like this.

And they have their specific like website dev, mobile app dev, sure Roku dev, distribution tab, you know, this, you know, all these different virtual reality dev, you know, these different people that, you know, you can’t just have one person focus and do it all. I’ve tried that before and burnt myself out. And I got to still and I got to have conversations with people.

So I’m having virtual reality conversation, like conversation, mobile app dev conversations. And I’m like, here at the top, like, in charge of understanding all this, but, you know, it just takes time to build a lot of stuff goes on in the back vaccine that people don’t count on, or understand. But you know, you found a way to do something in the back, which is awesome.

[Scoutda]
That’s also how they get disheartened, right? Like, because you think, I just turn on a camera. And at first, that’s all you do, right?

You just turn on the camera, and hope that something works out. But you don’t realize that, like, and I’ve done that before, where it’s like, I had a really good, you know, 10 interviews, I was excited about, but I did nothing to promote them. I did nothing to make them happen.

I just recorded them hoping that magically somebody would know that they existed. And not realizing the hours upon hours of work it takes to get people to know it existed.

[Darran]
Exactly, exactly. And, and I think that, you know, looking back, it’s like, how do you have so many episodes? Or how do you like, well, you know?

Yeah, you’re right. The instant gratification, I think, is what kills a lot of people, especially, you know, I knew when Pandy hit, and I watched everyone jump online, they said podcast jumped 200 to 300% for podcast productions. Every DJ I knew everyone started streaming live, I got an idea for a show.

And since I’m home, I might as well do something that I’m like, you’re gonna see the content go out there. And you’re gonna see the content go. When panties, everyone’s gonna go, I don’t want to be at home anymore.

I don’t want to be in front of the computer. How are you out doing stuff? And my podcast didn’t get any viewers anyway.

So what does it matter? And, you know, it’s like, Oh, I had a podcast series. Really?

How many? Some I don’t want to sound pretentious. But after the years, it’s kind of like people want to start out like here, you start out, but you have more than 100 episodes?

No. Okay, well, why don’t we get you up to speed so you can have good production quality, at least some good production quality. And then let’s talk when you get about 100 episodes under your belt.

Because you know, that’s at least you’re doing it once a week. It’s a 15 to 30 minute podcast. All right, cool.

You know, I mean, you don’t really need to go further than that. I mean, I try to go for an hour with mine, but I’m dealing with artists that are halfway around the world that I’m never gonna get. And I’m gonna even come here sometimes.

So I don’t get them on the red carpet and get a talk with them, put them in a green room, and sit there and go back and forth. You know, and they’re in their home, I can talk with them, get some more in depth questions with them, rather than rather than being backstage with them. But, you know, I tried to do a little bit of coaching here for people.

But it’s like, if you really want to know that you’re doing this, get 100 episodes in, you know, keep it going with all the distraction, you got work, play, dating, hobbies, football, sports, games, whatever it is, financial, up and down, stress, and, you know, and then you’re kind of know that you’re gonna break that point. And then all throughout that time, you’re gonna be doing research, you’re gonna be looking at other podcasts go, well, what are they doing? What’s going on over here?

Maybe I can increase, maybe I can get a better microphone, maybe I can get a little bit of a lighting, maybe I can set up my backdrop a little bit better, you know, you know, and do something. And maybe I can do a little bit better research. And, you know, I have better questions.

And I can go seek out some experts, you know, all that stuff you can do. I mean, maybe I can go get the podcasting for dummies book for $34.95 latest edition from Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Yeah, you know, and read the book make my podcast better.

You know, it’s always that one question. How do I get more viewers? How do I get more viewers?

You know, well, are you spending any money on marketing? Are you hiring any? And even they say, influencer marketing is kind of going down a little bit now.

But you get somebody that you take, give them 250 bucks. And if your podcast good, and they say, Yeah, I’ll totally promote this boo. And it’s in front of 400,000 people, you know, and then all of a sudden, your numbers go up.

And it’s like, wow, every time I spend 250 bucks, I’m going to get that kind of plug. Cool. I mean, one plug I did back way back in the day I had I was on Kevin Smith’s podcast, he did a commercial for us, and read us on the mic with his co host.

I think it was his wife. He’s doing this, but he had just started his podcast series, a smog cast. And we were like an episode number seven or something like that.

And he read a whole thing, we got to take a break to pay the bills. And we’re going to talk about that. We’re gonna talk about itv.

Live the DJ sessions. It’s like I first got started. Yeah, it’s on YouTube, you can find on our YouTube channel.

It’s pretty cool. And I’m like, Kevin Smith’s giving us a plug. But I paid for that.

But he did this nice little talk about what we’re doing as well. You know, with some of the concepts of our show, give us a nice minute or two on his show. And I was like, that was cool.

I paid for that.

[Scoutda]
Yeah.

[Darran]
You know, I mean, and so, um, you know, so you got to look at those kind of factors, those kind of things as well as what are you going to put into it? You know, are you going to get a website? Are you going to have a domain name?

Are you social active? Are you not just saying look at me, look at me, look at me? Are you pointing doing stuff that falls the 8020?

Anyways, I can go off about this stuff.

[Scoutda]
No, I have to teach myself that all the time. Because I’m like, you know, it’s like the podcast always is like never really making money, but it allows me to be creative. And so I stick with it.

And it’s got me more jobs. Like I’ve made more money just because of the podcast. Because that’s how I got all these other all the other things happened.

Because I had the pod. They’re like, Oh, you freestyle on a podcast. We let me check out.

That’s why my friend interviewed introduced me, right? Like it was like, this silly podcast is what got me all my jobs. And now she’s trying to figure out how to make more money with it.

Right. And now starting birthday parties is the same idea. Like doing it’s just cost money to get in front of people like it’s not.

It’s not free.

[Darran]
What Yeah, what has been the best businesses business decision in favor of your career, your artist career, and or, you know, your overall entertainment career that you’ve ever made?

[Scoutda]
That’s a hard one, right? Like, because I feel like most of my decisions were bad ones. Like, especially since I’ve kind of went off and on, like, you know, when I first started, it was like, I always tell people all the time, because it’s like, now that I’m older, I don’t know if I would have done what I did, right?

Like when I, my first album I released, it took a few years of my second album, I released, it took a few years. It definitely, there are definitely samples that I definitely didn’t get cleared in there. You know, um, and it was I remember, I remember sending the message to a speech from us, rest development.

And I was like, What do I do? My producer refuses to clear the samples. But they’re dope.

It’s a cool album. And he’s like, just release for free and get email addresses. And it was like, I released it.

And it turned out pretty good. I didn’t really see much of a, I didn’t really see much of a emails per se. But I did see tons of downloads, right?

And it was like, Oh, that was cool. And later, I probably could have now knowing what I know, now I could have probably still released it and been fine. Like a good example is le symphony, they literally had, they had an album where it was just all Star Wars samples.

And nobody cared because they were only at the peak 100,000 people listen to their music. And so they just didn’t, they weren’t looking. Right.

And so it’s like, there is that part. But anyway, so don’t be afraid to look like an idiot. Like, like, that’s the thing is like, when I go to these events, ACL like again, I’m a 40 year old man going to ACL ACL for the first time as a performer, like there’s definitely insecurity.

Like, maybe the people don’t want this. Maybe kids don’t want this. And it’s like, no, they do.

They want to anybody has passion for something, that passion will come out. And so that’s why you have to not be afraid to look crazy sometimes like was it last year, a year before I wrote, wrote, produced and directed a hip hop puppet show, teaching kids about hip hop. It was dumb and silly.

And but I did it and I’m never regret those things. Like it’s like, just not being afraid to look dumb, has been the best things ever done. Because, again, if I get too insecure about what people think about me, then I’m just not going to do it.

Right? Like I’m just gonna sit in my room and not worry. And again, when I was younger, I didn’t know any better.

Like when I did Christian music, I released all this music. I didn’t know that only 1% of Christian rappers make money. I just assume they all did.

Right. And so I just released it. Now I go, what’s the point of me spending all this money on an album and nobody’s gonna buy it?

Right. But then I didn’t care. And so I think it’s that thing where it’s like, don’t care.

If you really have passion for something, move forward and, and love it. It podcast worked that way. The again, getting to be an artist at ACL every year for five years.

That’s insane. Like, even if it’s in the kids section, I always laugh because I’ll be talking to somebody and I’ll be like, Yeah, I’m performing at ACL. No, you’re not.

Yeah, I’m looking at my badge and all my stuff. And it’s like, it’s a thing that I always wanted to do as a kid, who knew I was gonna be doing it. But I kept dreaming.

And I got to that point. And now I get paid to make rap songs about narwhals and about kitten kitty cats, you know, cheese. It’s dumb, but I, I love it.

[Darran]
You know, if Hollywood were to make a movie about your life, who would you pick as the main actor? Well, at this point, we all know it’s gonna be Jack Black.

[Scoutda]
But if I had to choose, right, like, I mean, I don’t know if I don’t know how to handle can handle him going shooby doo doo with my freestyle raps. But it would be the most obvious pick at this point in my life. But uh, you know, you know, when I was growing up, it would have been cool if like, Tom Cruise played me in some way or you know, because you know, we both have a broken nose that counts, right?

Like just like him. Um, no. But in general, like, I don’t know.

I mean, I feel like I would, I’d be fine with Jack Black playing me as long as he was true to hip hop. But I feel like he would definitely spend his time learning to freestyle. Like he had already freestyle, right?

Like with the scene, like that dude’s skills are insane, like peaches. I mean, come on, dude, like, or the or the lava chicken thing, you know, that took him like five seconds to come up with. What was it?

Oh, yeah, this is gonna tell you. So one thing I do is when I do the kids shows, I have a little mini deck, and a little DJ deck. So I can like, so they could learn to scratch, right?

And so now I’ll be like, but but you never know what I’m gonna do, right? So like, I’ll have a booth or next thing I’ll be DJing for somebody. So I ended up DJing for a friend.

And I definitely did a chicken jockey, DJ mix in the thing and everybody in their mama lost their mind with some chicken jockey from Minecraft movie, DJing. So it made me laugh. But it was there’s my one DJ story.

Nice.

[Darran]
So is, you know, I haven’t seen the Minecraft movie. I was actually just gonna watch the night. That’s, that’s, that’s a world of its own.

I’m sure your kids are all into it.

[Scoutda]
Yeah, yeah. Well, the crazy part is, right. I remember, when I got into Minecraft, right, like there was a dumb YouTube video, where this dude was like, there were two dudes, and they would have cardboard outfits.

And they were in Minecraft. And they were like, yo, I give me a pork chop. And I just thought it was hilarious.

And I was like, whatever this is, I want to check it out. So then I had to go to the server and send, then I had to send money to Europe using PayPal, I think. And you had to buy it, you had to be it in heroes.

And then you got a little copy of it. This is way before Microsoft. And then I was playing it.

And I was just playing, I didn’t know my kids were gonna think it was the most insane thing in the world. But I remember playing it just because the YouTube video was funny. And, but it’s, it’s so funny.

Now. No, no, I didn’t know. But yeah, no, it’s a whole thing.

Like both my kids like that stuff. And it’s fun, because they’ll be like, I used to build stuff all the time in there. And they’re like, Oh, really, dad?

You know?

[Darran]
And, you know, if there’s anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know, before we let you get going here, what would that be?

[Scoutda]
Well, you know, make sure that you check out flows for you. The new season is coming up here next month. In July, I think July 15 is our first reiteration of the podcast.

We’re not doing it. This next season will be pre recorded, which is weird for me, because I’ve done it live for so many years. But I’m really adding some more stuff where I’m doing.

Instead of just freestyling, I’m actually adding a music video for each one. And again, our songs are very dumb. But it’s, it’s fun, like, you know, I think we did one about Bigfoot falling in love, you know, things like that.

And these days, you know, I can make a sweet, sweet Bigfoot ball of love music video with no power with AI. So, so I’m excited about that. So go make sure you go flows for you the number for the letter you.com or any place that you look for podcasts flows for you. Check it out. That’d be cool. And if you’re in Austin, Austin limits, I should be there this year.

I haven’t got my I don’t get my official confirmation until the beginning of July. But I’m pretty sure that I’ll be doing it. So if you’re there, and for some reason, you brought your kids to the show, make sure you come say hi to me.

Oh, you’ll see me. I’ll be sitting in a chair rapping. And that’s, that’s an insane thing, too, because you get to meet all these as a now a children musician, I get to meet the guys that are the top tier children musicians do ACL.

So it’s like, it’s so cool to like meet those people. And I already know them because I’m in the same group as a lot of them. But it’s funny how that works.

But yes, check out the podcast flows for you. And if you want to check out my Instagram, I do fun cooking things and wraps and send you to my podcast often. So that’s all the stuff.

So scout to Instagram. There you go. Or scout to anywhere.

So awesome.

[Darran]
Well, thank you again, Scott, for coming on the show. We’ll definitely follow up with you here in the future. I’m looking forward to talking to you.

Congratulations on your long term plan, your success, you’re you’re still doing it. You’re staying in there and hanging in there. And it’s good to hear that, you know, and if I make it down to Austin, I definitely would love to come by and check out check out see what’s going on down there and see what you’re all about.

And yeah, let us know when you drop that new album or the new pod is new album and podcast or is a new new season of the podcast new season of the podcast.

[Scoutda]
And I’m always threatening that I’m releasing a new kids album, but that hasn’t that hasn’t happened yet. But it’s still in there. I just don’t know when it’s gonna happen.

So but right now the podcast is definitely happening July 15, or sometime in mid July, once I get home from a vacation.

[Darran]
Awesome. Well, on that note, we’re gonna get going here. I’m Darren for the DJ sessions presents the versatile virtual sessions.

That’s Scout coming in from San Antonio, Texas. I’m in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington. Don’t forget to go to our website, the DJ sessions.com find us on find all our socials there are stores there. We just launched a new music section there, which I might want to talk to you about scouted later on in a bit after the show. And, you know, we got over 700 news stories that go to their everything and more at the DJ sessions.com. Go there, tell a friend follow us contest giveaways, and more at the DJ sessions.com.

Once again, I’m Darren. That’s got to for the DJ sessions presents the virtual sessions. And remember on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.