A (3:05)

And so, man. So did you have aspirations as a kid to be like, a producer? Were you, like, admiring certain producers out there and certain types of music?

B (3:14)

Yes, and music is in the family on my mom's side. God rest his soul. Rest in peace. Art Stewart. You can Google Arthur Stewart and you'll see a lot of black and white pictures of him kicking the studio with Tina Marie and Marvin Gaye and Rick James, all that. And he's related, you know, that's family. He was one of the producers in the Motown. And it's so interesting how life kind of comes full circle. And I remember one time. This is gonna give you goosebumps. I had the honor to interview him twice before he passed.

A (3:47)

Wow.

B (3:48)

And it was through this show. Omnifocus podcast was the first time. And then when it turned to radio in 2019, I had an honor to interview him. I think it was either just before COVID or just after it, but I had an opportunity to talk about the history of Motown and how he was able to work with some of the most iconic names in the industry. And just having that opportunity to learn from him. He was heavy on songwriting and just the process and just how he got into producing himself. So long story short, I would say people like him helped me along the way. I mean, family reunions on my mom's side of family. I remember one time, I mean, he was the dj, right? He was. He was. He was killing it. Like it was lit, man. It was fun. Hit songs, all that. And he. I remember one time he sat down with me, he was just showing mixers and eqing tips and compressors and all this stuff from the tech side of music production. And he used to show me things. And I'm always going to be forever grateful for that because I know that is definitely has made a positive impact in how I produce today, because I will give it back to you. But real quickly, I will say, when it comes to my job, my day Job. I've been with this job for 10 years. I start from the very bottom to, you know, nice full time and potential growth, the ladder. And that's due to people who believe in you and they plant seeds in you. They give you a lot of wisdom. But the secret sauce is you have to actually apply it. And that's kind of a little splish splash around the timeline of how I got into the creative space, especially as a producer.

A (5:37)

And so how long were you. Did you get into, like, producing music and doing it professionally?

B (5:44)

You can say I do as a hobby, because I do want to make that disclaimer. I'm not like making beats and stuff for like your most favorite top rappers or anything, but I have. But I'm not in it for the fame or to be famous or whatever, but my music is worldwide. My music is on the radio. My music is in the hands of DJs, and I have receipts to prove that if anybody wants to follow me and shoot me a dm. But I don't do it for, like to make it like my professional breadwinner job. It's more something. I just love creating music. I just have the passion to do it. And I've worked with others in the industry who are massively successful. But my point is, it's not just music for me. I'm in, obviously, podcasts. I'm in video production. I actually do consulting with some people in the creative space. And I can't say too much because I signed NDA. But 2026 is going to be pretty nice because I have a big project that is going to be international in Canada. Oh, in the music part, it's gonna be video because I always had a passion for audio and video. And I have an opportunity to do a collaboration with a film company. And more of that will be coming soon. But that was a independent thing where they're gonna be the ones leading with the brand. I'm more like a consultant, but that's something I always was into. I was always into action movies. I was always into like TV series, like 24 on Fox, you know, stuff like that. PR, like that stuff is my passion. And through the radio program, I've been blessed to talk to a lot of those big celebrities. You know, people who played on Prison Break, people who played on Fresh Prince in Bel Air, all that. You know, Jazzy Jeff, Karen Parsons, you know, sister to sister with Jack Gay and the daughter Tamara. And Tamara and Tia is hard to separate because sometimes they just like, all right, which one am I talking to? Cause they look exactly the same. But that's been the blessing I've been able to do. So it's not one dimensional. It's not like, oh, I just like making beats or whatever. It's like anything that has to do with behind the scenes, building something, building the brand, building YouTube. Because I manage like six YouTube channels for clients, so it's like, it's bigger than me. So I told someone like this yesterday, I shine best when I'm behind the scenes because I'm helping other people's dreams become reality.

A (8:19)

Yeah. So, yeah, I like that.

B (8:21)

I know there's a lot going on there, but that's.

A (8:23)

No, I like that. What was. You know, so you can be creative and have a passion and you would do it for free but still make money at. It was like, is the music producing music? Is it hard to make money in it? Like, because at the end of the day, like, if. If you can figure out that you don't really work, but you're making money from it. You know what I mean? Like, so is it difficult or is that. What's the situation there?

B (8:44)

I would say for me, like, the music industry, I can only speak for myself because there are a lot of people are making good money because they're like getting sync licenses and songwriting, all of that. Since I purely am doing it personally just for the passion of just being creative, I never set my goal to actually make money money because I made pocket change, if you will. But it's never been like, okay, I gotta. This gotta be my breadwinner type thing, maybe in the future. But I don't see it right now because for me personally, I just love music from a creative space.

A (9:23)

Yeah.

B (9:23)

And I know most artists gonna be like, oh, well, me too. But the point is, the music industry is very saturated. Everybody has tools. AI. I mean, some of my work has been featured in the local news here in San Antonio because the stuff I've been doing with AI, it got featured. I did a wimby song and it made the news. So it's like. And on top of that, the CEO, their team hit me up and was like, wow. It was early on, before it got crazy where everyone's doing it. I was kind of like the OG doing it before it was popular. And some of the tools that they have and the features now is crazy. Like, it's so much easier. But back in the day, it was like you had a lot of different things you had to put together to actually make it work. I have a system. Like, I still make Music, you can shame this plug. Find me at Shaman Reed, my government name on x and on YouTube and you see my work. And that goes with do Fresh media. I'm using animation because I have an associate's degree from Ann Arbor, Michigan, 3D animation. And I'm getting back into AI from a visual standpoint because I'm using that to express my music side. And I have a different process. So basically, like, I take music, the prompts, the writing is all like, original thought. I'm not just spitting something out and saying, g in the bottle, come make it happen.

A (10:44)

Right?

B (10:45)

It's more like, I have an idea. I write it, ChatGPT helps me edit, but it doesn't change my voice, it doesn't change my tone, right? And then I have a tool. I won't drop brand names on the show, but I have a tool that I use and I export out. But I don't stop there. See, most people that stop there and they put on Spotify and blah, blah, blah. And that's why everyone's like, AI slope. Well, it's because there are people that are using it because they just trying to use it, but there's other people like myself who are doing it from a more deeper meaning. So I told you about being able to do sequencing, music arrangement, all that stuff at a young age. Well, that paid off because my next step, after I get the stems, I go in my daw and I have plugins that I pay for a month. I have a subscription. I won't drop the company name, but I use that as tools for equalizing and compressor and all that.

A (11:36)

Really refining it.

B (11:37)

And management. Yeah, I really customize it so I'm not just spitting something out in a MP3 and WAV file and go upload. No, I'm mastering the audio because I have years of experience working with other smart people and having the opportunity to execute what I've learned. So that's a little teaser, but that's just a little snapshot just while I'm doing the audio format. But it's been fun because, I mean, my stuff has been in Africa. Like, it's crazy. Like, yeah, People look at success like you gotta have $2 million or more. I look at it differently because success is what makes you happy. If you're proud of what you're doing, you don't get paid. Like, like I said, I have a day job. So I'm blessed to be with a company for the last 10 years and still have side hustles. And for me, it'll Remain side hustles until I'm ready to go full time.

A (12:33)

And is the day job the radio, or is that something separate?

B (12:37)

Yes, it's radio. Plus, I'm a producer for all these clients.

A (12:41)

Okay. Gotcha, gotcha.

B (12:42)

So that's the blessing that I have is to be able to have a job that not only believes in you, but allows you to have all this freedom in the credit space, but not just that, deliver quality work for their own clients.

A (12:56)

Yeah.

B (12:57)

So I'm working with people in the top of their field and health industry, military, first respond. You know, it's. The list is long.

A (13:04)

And what is. You said your government name Shamay Reed, but what's your radio name? Do you have a different radio name?

B (13:09)

Oh, no, no. My. My radio name is My Re.

A (13:13)

I didn't know if you use. I didn't know because, you know, I have C Rock because my last name is a long Italian last name. So I didn't know if you had.

B (13:18)

A nickname for the music, though. I'm known as Sotb Shiman the Beat.

A (13:23)

So gotcha.

B (13:24)

That's where that comes from.

A (13:25)

Okay.

B (13:25)

But it's the process that I've been able to understand is that you get in what you put in. I mean, you get out what you put in. You. You can't just say, I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna get rich in doing this. I mean, of course everyone who's watching this and listening is going to be like, well, of course I want to make it, but my point of view is slightly different. What is your purpose, though? Like. Like, why are you doing it? Like, are you trying to leave a legacy? Like, you try and change lives. Like that, to me personally, means more than anything because I'm, like I said, I'm blessed to be able to be where I'm at. I'm working. Of course. I'm like everyone trying to find ways to scale up. I mean, who isn't. If you're. If you're not trying to scale up, then what you're doing, you're wasting your time.

A (14:13)

You're not growing, you're dying.

B (14:14)

Right. So don't despise the small beginnings.

A (14:16)

Yeah. So did you watch the 50 Cent Netflix on Diddy?

B (14:21)

Not yet. I heard a lot about it, but.

A (14:25)

I watched the original thing that somebody created. I don't know who produced the first one. And then this one's really intense. And he got video when. When Diddy was in New York City six days before his arrest, he was. He went to Manhattan and stayed In a hotel. And he had a videographer following him around while he was doing that. And when Diddy got arrested, somehow 50 Cent got hold of that video. And so you get to see this behind the scenes of all the stuff that was going down. But then, you know, obviously they interviewed a lot of people, and what was it? Lil Rod was a producer for Diddy's latest album, and you got to see behind the scenes of, like, how that goes down. And it was, like, seven months of work. And. But. But the music industry, man, like, I guess it's any business, but it's just the music industry so sensationalized. Like, he was promised $250,000 plus the credits, and then they. They ended up trying to pay him, like, 29,000 or something. And he didn't even get that. But yet he put all this work in, sacrificed his time away from his family. Like, it's crazy how the music industry is like that, and it's cutthroat, if.

B (15:27)

I can put it that way.

A (15:28)

Yeah, but, but, but, but, like, it's not like Diddy didn't have any money.

B (15:33)

Oh, yeah.

A (15:34)

But, like, if you take care of people, they'll take care of you. But if you don't, guess what happens? They turn on you right when they need to, and that's what happens. There was some good lessons in there. I was watching it for the lessons. I wasn't really being nosy. I was more like, what good can I get out of this thing? And then also looking at, like, somebody like him and saying, like, what good did he do? Not the bad stuff, but, like. Like, in growing the business and brand, what kind of things can you pick up but do it the right way, you know?

B (16:00)

Yeah. And when I mentioned earlier about my mom's side of the family, Arthur Stewart, the best way I could put it is music was not, like, derision way. I wanted to make a living in life.

A (16:17)

Yeah.

B (16:18)

But it was definitely, like, on the bucket list. Like, okay, if this was a choice option I had, and I hit the lottery down, riding with it. Like, I'm not gonna be crazy. I'm not gonna pursue it. But it wasn't something I aggressively said, you know what? I gotta, like, this gotta be my number one priority where I have to make a living doing this. But one thing I learned from Arthur Stewart was that he talked about the importance of, you know, owning what you do, showing up, keeping your word, songwriting, you know, owning copyrights, you know, all that stuff. Syncing, licensing, all that. But he was. He was killing it as Far as being part of the whole movement with Motown as a producer. And part of his success is obviously due to his work ethic and him being super locked in, in into what he wanted to do in his career.

A (17:16)

And not to mention, did he ever talk about the connections and having a great network?

B (17:21)

Yes.

A (17:21)

How important is that? Like who you know, right? Who knows you?

B (17:25)

Yes. Because when he shared about working with Marvin Gaye and Tina Marie and all those people, the best thing that you can have as a creator is receipts. So your work ethic will speak louder than anything else. Like, words are magical sometimes. But until you have receipts of what you actually done for others, you won't be advertised by word of mouth. Word of mouth will always be a heavy part of anyone's success because it goes faster than a YouTube ad or Instagram ad. You know, like, word of mouth is something that we all live or get cut from. So the faster you get better at networking with people and showing up for them when they actually do need you to show up, dangers start to scale up. And for example, time back to what I'm doing with Refocus Network. I had to rebrand, right? So I told you in the green room, I started from a podcast to I'm refocused podcast to I am refocused radio podcast, and then we're on the airwaves. It's a whole different responsibility. You got to watch what you say. You got no rules. There's a lot of rules of the game. So it's like every level, you're graduating to another set of responsibilities. So it's like the higher you go, the more important the small details are. Like, they don't change. Like, small details don't change. Some people think that celebrities just happen to be living a great life because they got lucky. No. Maybe, maybe a few, but most likely no. They had to work the tail off and they had to scale as they kept getting these new opportunities. And it's going to be new responsibilities that's going to test your integrity and all this other stuff. But the only way you actually grow is you navigate through what the rules are in the industry. So, for instance, I'll throw it back to you. But when we were rebounding to OmniFocus TV to refocus network, I wanted to build a team of like minded creators. So I was pitching people, hey, you want to join my network? All is I put your channel on my YouTube homepage and we just kind of feed each other views. You know, in the beginning, people like, what the heck is that got paid for it. Oh, finally got paid. It's not valuable. So it was like, man, you got this great idea.

A (19:57)

Wait a minute. So you were doing it first for free, just inviting the right people?

B (20:01)

Yes, and I still am because it's invite only.

A (20:03)

Right, Right. But they were like, if I'm not paying for it, what the value is? Let's see what you're saying.

B (20:06)

Exactly.

A (20:07)

Yeah, yeah. But they just didn't get.

B (20:09)

Now everyone's trying to ask me, can I join? Because I have 30,000 subscribers. So obviously my strategy is working. And to give you some context, in 2024, late last year, we started doing video. Before, it was just radio and podcasts. Audio only. I'm an introvert, but no one believes me. Yeah. I said, well, I appreciate that, but it took a lot of work for me to get to where I am right now. Because when I first started YouTube video, it was trash. I didn't have the right lighting. I didn't have the right anything. It was just like, I still have it. But it's funny because, like, whoa, you came a long way. Because it was terrible when you first started. But everything is. That's construction. When there's roads being built in the city, it looks ugly. Everyone's mad because there's a lot of traffic. Well, we gotta get through the process of trying to build something that that's worth keeping. And that's what was happening with. With us in the new year when I introduced the network thing. People are like, I don't know about that. You know, And I'm like, I get it. Cause you. You know, you don't know. It's like someone's telling you, highways we built, and all you see is barrels everywhere. It's like, well, gee, when, you know, people are very impatient with your vision and your dreams, right? They just want to see receipts, and then they want to join. Well, long story short, I started attracting people like, I'm Gil Shadow. I wrote some notes. So Bare Life tv, adoptive Pinkston. She's. She's supportive of the network. Rebecca Fitzsimmons, speaker and former NCIS special agent. She is on the network. I have a friend who does sports in San Antonio. Box Score Studio tv. He's on the network. Pam Dwyer, speaker and author. She's on network fight and psych podcast, MMA coverage. And they can as superstars. All right. On this show, they're part of the network. And last but not least, I have Love God Ministries with Pastor Vera McEwen. She's on the show on the network. So all this came with just having a vision of wanting to build and scale the show from just one on one interviews to how can we create a team of creators? All they gotta do is pitch their content. That's basically what we're doing. No one's advertising necessarily each other's.

A (22:31)

So how so? By the way, I know Rebecca, by the way.

B (22:34)

Oh, really?

A (22:35)

And I thought I saw Athena on your show too. You know Athena, she was a professional.

B (22:40)

I do, I probably do. And probably will see her face and say, yeah, I know her.

A (22:45)

Yeah, I think she was on your show. But so how does it work? So you have a YouTube channel, right? And then they have a show and then they provide you with the content and you post it on the Refocus network.

B (22:56)

I'm glad you asked that because in the very beginning that's what I was doing. But you know what? After all the interviews on all the smart celebrities and CEOs and business leaders that I've been able to talk to, the most common thing they always talk about is, you know, don't work so hard. Just set up your systems and let that machine work on its own. So yeah, in the very beginning, I was doing all the work, right? I'm like stressed out. I gotta read people's bios, I gotta prepare for a show. But I got all this tasks, so the whole list of stuff I gotta do for all people in the network, whatever. And it got boring. Not boring, it got very tiring because I'm like, man, I'm losing sleep, I'm up all night, I'm trying to get this done and this is not working. The Internet just went out and now I can't get the video on my channel. Like all this stuff. So I had to figure out how can I trim the fat. I said, this is not working. It's not helping my health, it's not helping my passion. It's just killing me. Like it's draining me. Like I can't be good for my show, I can't be good for my guests. I'm not. I'm not able to have the right energy. So I had to create a system. So what I'm doing now is I make playlists. I'm like, you manage your channel. I put the players on my channel and boom, it's on autopilot. When you update it, my channel's updated. And YouTube has a new feature where you can invite another channel to be a collaborator and you copy and paste that link. They open their inbox or email, whatever, they click it Clients are logged in on the dashboard. It'll say you've been invited as a collaborator and you as the owner of the channel, depending whose video is right. If it's my video, I'm asking the collaboration link. If it's their video, they're going to send me the collaboration link. You get to control how much they see. If it's zero stats on the video, or you can share the stats of the video. Okay, which is cool. But what's great about that is on autopilot. So whoever's the person who's producing the content, they now distribute that to the partner. Right. The network. So it's. It's either through that or building a playlist and having them just have it on autopilot. The other strategy is RSS. YouTube is leading the way with video podcasting and also audio podcasts. Because now you can take your RSS feed and add it as a podcast on YouTube because it doesn't have to be video. It can still be audio with the graphic of your show logo or the guest headshot. So that's another strategy.

A (25:26)

So on the podcast part on YouTube, if you don't use just your video in the normal video section, if you're going to the podcast section, does it only do audio in that section or does it do the video there?

B (25:38)

It only does the audio for that particular section. But I have my audio and my videos combined into one podcast list. And all you have to do is basically have your podcast. It's like you set it to forget it. So as long as you have your. Your playlist set up right, every time you have a new podcast up, I'm with Spreaker. So when they pop it up, it's kind of like work perfectly to where it just goes on the podcast list automatically, right? It's just set it and forget it. Now, some maintenance might be needed, but not much.

A (26:20)

So it's. The YouTube podcast part is like Apple podcasts, right? Because Apple doesn't have video, does it?

B (26:27)

I'm not sure. I know Spotify does video.

A (26:30)

So when you go on Spotify and you listen to a podcast, if it's video, you can sit there and watch it, or you can just listen to it. Apple, I think there's audio and then YouTube has a video section on YouTube like it always has, but the podcast section is just audio, so I didn't know that. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. So.

B (26:45)

And what's great about it? Oh, go, sir.

A (26:46)

No, no, no. Go ahead, finish. Yeah, you're good.

B (26:48)

I was gonna say what's great about it is you're basically attracting audience who either like video or just like audio. And when YouTube was first doing this it was kind of limited, but now it's exploding. I mean look around you, there is a lot of athletes out there who are starring their show.

A (27:08)

Yeah.

B (27:09)

And they got some deep pockets so obviously they're gonna get those sponsors pretty quickly. The cool thing is that I've been in the days of having sponsors and days of not having sponsors. I'm at the point where I'm building value first. I'm building with like minded creators. So like when I have all these people who are on my network, it's because they believe in this whole idea of building with other content creators. And it's only one year in. Like imagine what it would look like five years from now, ten years from now. It's probably going to explode.

A (27:44)

Yeah.

B (27:45)

Not probably, it will explode.

A (27:46)

Yeah.

B (27:47)

And one more strategy I'll tell you, I'll throw it back to you is I run small little ads on my YouTube when I have a new show come out. I'm about to drop some gems for you, man. I've been able to reach a worldwide audience on pennies. So you and your listeners getting some free game right now. I don't have no courses. I'm bleeding courses. And that's a fad. I think it's a fad that's going to end pretty soon. So you don't have buy my course. Just tune in right now. Next. 5 sec, 10 seconds. I'm gonna spill some beans. YouTube has a feature. When you finish uploading video, there's tabs right in your dashboard. So when you go to content and then I think it's like promotion, promotion, whatever. YouTube has a built in system to promote your ads on the platform. That's game changer. And some people have mixed reviews. It's done nothing but bless my channel.

A (28:44)

Yes.

B (28:45)

2,000 to 30,000.

A (28:46)

So when you do that, when you do that it shows the whole video on an ad or it just shows the preview of it.

B (28:52)

Just a preview.

A (28:52)

Okay.

B (28:53)

And what's great about it is you get to target your age groups, you get to target your countries and if you want to spend less dollars, go international. I started doing targeting for United States later this year. But early part of the year my strategy was to get massive and that's global because it can be a lot cheaper. Like you can get a thousand views for $4 just by targeting to India in those countries in that area. Because it's so cheap.

A (29:30)

Yeah.

B (29:30)

But if you only target the United States to get a thousand views, maybe seven to ten dollars, maybe.

A (29:36)

Maybe twice as much.

B (29:38)

Yeah. So you get bang for your buck. Going international, that's my strategy. May not be good for your brand, that's fine. But for me is about how many. How many ads can I get?

A (29:49)

Now? Does that show the views on your video, though? Like, when you do that and you run the ad, does it show those views on your video?

B (29:56)

It does.

A (29:56)

Okay, so it makes it look better.

B (29:57)

Yeah, it does. Now I will say disclaimer. This will not get you a YouTube partnership fast. It won't do that. But it will help you get as many eyes seeing your brand because we also rebranded our logo Omnifocus Radio. We just had an old mic for my podcast days, and since we changed the logo and revamped it, our numbers are just skyrocketing. It's crazy. I'm projecting 35,000 by April.

A (30:38)

Yeah, well, it's obviously working and I appreciate you dropping that knowledge there on that. So as we wrap up here, because we're up against the clock, where do you want to send people? The YouTube channel, Refocus Network.

B (30:49)

Yes, that's the main one. That's. That's booming. We got a lot of great content, a lot of celebrity guests on there. But the main thing I want people to know while we have time here is you. First of all, you gotta keep building what you're building. Stop worrying about, oh, they got millions. I don't want to make millions. That's fine. I'm not telling you, like, don't drink. I'm not telling you, don't drink big. I'm not saying don't worry about millions and all that stuff. That's what you do. Do it, do it. But I'm saying stop trying to be so desperate to be there. Because, like, I love watching people like Gary Vee and he's a genius when it comes to marketing. And one of the things he preaches all the time is love. Like, love yourself, man. Be happy for change, you know?

A (31:33)

Yeah.

B (31:34)

Because we get so caught up into this grind that we just lose ourselves in this. Like, we lose who we are. Like, let everyday funnel through your purpose and everything else will come to you.

A (31:46)

Love it, man. Great advice. Maya, thank you so much for joining us today on the what do you made up show, man. Appreciate you.

B (31:52)

Yes, sir. I appreciate you, Mike, for allowing me on, man.

A (31:55)

All right, hang tight while I wrap this up, folks. That's Shamai Reed sharing what he's made of. On the what He Made of show. We're in that one studio. Make sure you hit the subscribe Follow button at the top of your favorite podcast platform. Go check out refocus network on YouTube and I am refocusedradio. Com as well. Until next time, be that one.