Connor Price and his wife Brianna join Sam and Shaan to break down how they built a 650M+ stream music career entirely independently — no label, no traditional marketing, just TikTok skits and a globe-spinning content formula. They walk through every revenue stream (Spotify, YouTube, brand deals, syncs, merch, live shows), their creative process, and how Brianna’s marketing brain from running ads at a pet company became the engine behind Connor’s music career.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host), Connor Price (guest, independent rapper/actor), Brianna Price (guest, Connor’s wife and marketing partner)
Cold Open: The Money in Independent Streaming [00:00:00]
Connor: On average, a million streams is around four thousand dollars USD on Spotify. And we’re averaging like 60 million streams a month right now. Things are just pretty crazy. And I don’t think most people know that there’s that potential, because in music you hear “there’s no money in streaming.” But I’m like — that’s because labels own 80% of your songs. If you own your songs, there’s a ton of money in streaming.
Shaan Fanboys Out [00:00:20]
Shaan: Okay, welcome. So I don’t know what the real intro of this is going to be, but I wanted to introduce this to you guys. Sam had put this on the calendar like, “Hey, we’re recording with Connor and Brianna.” I think he met you guys in person at some point, and he kind of loosely said — I was like, “Is that the rapper, the music person?” And then when I was doing the prep for this, I was like, “Oh, it’s these people.” Oh my God, I love your stuff. I am so excited for this.
You can probably tell because I’m screaming, but I’m so excited because I think what you do is literally amazing. I think it’s so smart and so impressive. You know, we’ve had the chance to talk to Mr. Beast on the podcast, we’ve talked to Hasan Minhaj in the comedy world, we’ve talked to Cody Ko on the YouTube side — who you kind of look like, I think you know that. But I gotta say: I think you are playing TikTok like a fiddle.
Every platform that comes out, there are people who come from the old world and just try to do the same thing but shorter or faster or video or whatever. And then there are people who figure out that medium for what it is. I think you figured out how to do music on TikTok like nobody else. I don’t know if you’re a marketing genius or if you fell into it, but either way it’s working. Last night I was binging your content and I was just so inspired — and I don’t do anything in the music world, I bet 99% of listeners don’t either — but I was so inspired by what you were doing. So that’s my intro. Just fanboy. I can’t believe how good you guys are at what you do.
Connor: That was the nicest intro. Thank you so much.
Brianna: Yeah, as far as the marketing stuff goes — that’s all Brianna. Which is why it’s so fun to do this conversation with her, because we do everything together. So many of my ideas that have gone viral are her ideas. Let’s give people a little context. We could either explain it, or I think it would be better to literally just show it.
Shaan: I love the show method. I have a bunch that I liked. Dude, you know how much I like this? Last night I was on my laptop, not logged into TikTok, and I kept hitting the like button. You know how it’s like, “Create an account”? I almost created a second account just to give you the like, because I felt like you deserved it.
Brianna: Oh, thank you!
Shaan: Even when you feel like someone earned it — that’s how I felt. I love it. Play a video. Play one of the videos.
Watching the TikToks Live [00:03:10]
[Shaan plays a Connor Price TikTok — the carrot flute skit into a rap verse]
Shaan: Yo, yo, yo — what is he doing? Oh yeah, so he was telling me that if you cut a carrot a certain way you can play it like a flute. He really thinks it’s gonna work. Apparently it’s a thing. Just ignore him. Ready?
[The rap drops]
Shaan: Okay. So you create these little opening skits, and you don’t hit them the traditional way. Somebody wants to be a musician, they fire up TikTok and just play their song. Maybe they play it with a music video already baked in. And if it’s me just hearing the opening of a song, it’s usually pretty slow — there’s a little bit of a build-up, just a little bit of instrumental at the beginning, or they might say, “Hey, I’m Sean, this is my new track, give it a listen.” Kind of boring. Begging for attention.
Whereas you have these little opening skits that get you curious about what’s going to happen. You’re playing all these characters — like Eddie Murphy, Tyler Perry — you’re playing all the characters. And then you hit them with a track that’s actually surprisingly good for how simple the intro is. I don’t know how to explain it, but this is how you got famous for doing this on TikTok. So walk me through it.
Brianna: Yeah. So Connor makes music, specifically in the hip-hop/rap world, a little bit of pop sometimes. And the whole goal with these videos is to not make it seem like you’re selling someone — especially on TikTok. The moment you feel like someone’s saying, “Hey, check out my song,” you’re going to swipe away. So you have to provide entertainment first. We found the best way to do that is through skits.
And it was really easy because Connor’s been acting since he was six years old, so it was the perfect way to merge those two worlds. And it worked.
Sam: Yeah, I saw you were in a bunch of films — Good Luck Chuck and a bunch of others.
Connor: Yeah, I started acting when I was six in Toronto where I grew up. Started with commercials, and when I was ten I did a movie called Cinderella Man. I played the son of Russell Crowe. That was kind of the first huge project I was ever a part of — the first time I went to LA for the premiere, signed with a US agent. From there I’ve just been doing TV and film my whole life.
Then when COVID hit and production shut down, Brianna was like, “What do we do?” I was working at Alpha Paw at the time — the pet company. I left that job and Brianna was like, “Connor’s really good at rapping. He’s loved hip-hop for so many years. Why don’t we try marketing that?”
Brianna: And he didn’t want to, because he thought TikTok was kind of lame. It was in the era where people just did those little dances. So I took some YouTube videos he had filmed, turned them into vertical pieces of content, and he’s like, “I’m a thespian, I’m not going to be on TikTok. I’m an actor. Film is my thing.”
Connor: My biggest regret is not starting sooner on social media. I’d always been anti that. But once I saw a video go viral and it translated to streams the next day, I was like, “Okay. Maybe we can do this.” It changed everything.
The Alpha Paw Origin Story [00:07:20]
Sam: Wait, we gotta say the background here because people heard “Alpha Paw.” Basically, I’m friends with Ramon, who became friends with me and Shaan. Ramon is on episode two or three — he had a soap opera company and then a pet company. He bought this pet business that seemed outlandish at the time, turned it into a successful business. I went to Vegas to hang out with them, went to the office, and Brianna was his right-hand woman running marketing and everything else.
And then Ramon’s like, “Connor is Brianna’s husband. He’s actually just gonna help us move.” He’s trying to make it. Are you trying to make it? Everyone told me you showed up like you were high on drugs because you were afraid of flying.
Connor: I hated flying and I took too much medicine. Still figuring out the dosage. I got to the office, I was like, “I gotta go to sleep.” I was all messed up. I’m sorry, guys. I was like intoxicated. But I do remember meeting you.
Sam: Yeah, he was moving boxes. Because you were an actor and in between gigs. Then like months later, Ramon was like, “Hey, remember Brianna’s husband? He’s trying to actually become a rapper and he’s actually good.” And I’m like, “The guy moving boxes? I don’t buy it.” And then you had like some traditional rap music videos and I’m like, okay, he actually is quite good.
Then Ramon was like, “Hey, Brianna left Alpha Paw and she’s gonna take over his stuff.” I start seeing TikToks and I’m like, oh my God, this guy is the best. And then you blew up, and now it looks like you have like eight million monthly listeners on Spotify. He’s telling me your revenue numbers are outlandish. You can say them if you want. Top song “Spinning” has 105 million streams, another one has 74 million. You guys are killing it.
I knew you as this nice guy who was moving boxes. This was only — when did we first meet?
Brianna: The first time we met was at a comedy show, five years ago, 2018. It was like a Chris D’Elia show. And then you came to the office.
Sam: Right, and then I saw your work before we ever met because you were behind a lot of the ads at Alpha Paw. That company scaled like crazy. Ramon bought this dog ramp business — literally called Sausage Dogs — and these ramps are for little dogs to get up on the bed or couch. I have four of them in my house.
And I was like, how do you even sell these? People aren’t searching for them. He’s like, “Most people don’t realize they want it, so we gotta make ads that teach them that they want it.”
Brianna: Exactly. We would just try to pull at someone’s heartstrings. We would start a video with an injured dog, and then instantly a person with an injured dog relates. Then we show the solution, then a cute little dog. We literally bought a Chihuahua just to use for marketing ads. We would show her trying to jump up on the couch, and instantly everyone with a Chihuahua is like, “Oh, my dog does the same thing.” Boom — here’s a solution. It just freaking worked. It was wild. We went from an office as big as a bathroom to a 20,000 square foot warehouse within a year.
Sam: Connor would help film, help edit the ads.
Connor: Yeah, it was a family production.
Brianna: And then all the high-performing ads were filmed in our living room or Chloe’s living room. And then when I was like, I really want to do my own thing — we want to start a family, I need to leave this pet company — it broke my heart. She’s my best friend, but I had to ultimately leave.
I was trying to start other companies. I started a coffee brand, a Christian brand. And then our friend Cliff Weitzman — he’s the CEO of Speechify —
Sam: Oh, we know Cliff. I love Cliff. He says hello. I was talking to him this morning.
Brianna: Cliff was over for dinner and I was just venting my frustrations about product boredom, and he’s like, “Bree, stop. This is your product.” Like, Kris Jenner the heck out of him. So the next day, I stopped. I had a huge order of inventory for the coffee brand and I let it go to waste. And I was like, we’re going all in on this. I pretty much just used the same mindset I used to sell the dog ramps to sell his music. How can we hook someone in? How can we tell a story around this song?
A lot of music these days is just a really cool beat and some generic lyrics. There’s a lack of storytelling. And I think that’s what music online is missing. And we did it independently.
The Early Content: Connor’s First Song [00:13:50]
Shaan: So you can see it — because as I was doing my binge, I did the Tour de France down your profile. The first video on your YouTube channel is pretty dope. Sam, have you seen the very first song they posted? Is that the one where you rap about having a stutter?
Sam: Yeah, yeah. What’s it called? The “S” song?
Connor: Just the letter S. I used to have a stutter, and in the song basically every word starts with S. By the way — you sent me down a Watsky rabbit hole last night.
Shaan: Love Watsky. Huge inspiration for that.
Sam: I’ve never heard of him. He’s dope.
Shaan: So anyway, that’s the first song. And it’s like, okay, this person clearly has talent. But also — it’s different. And now it’s never been easier to go on GarageBand or Fruity Loops and make a beat and try to rap 15 seconds of something good. Is it more competitive than ever?
Connor: Totally. There are roughly 60,000 to 100,000 songs uploaded every day. The ease of making music, especially in hip-hop with programs like Fruity Loops where you can find samples — a lot of people are making music way more efficiently than ever.
Shaan: You can almost draw a line in your content timeline and be like — then they figured out how to create hooks for these videos. The presentation was different after that. Is that when you joined, Brianna? Is that when you Kris Jenner’d the heck out of him?
Brianna: Yeah, that’s when I really stopped trying to do a million things and focused just on him. And the biggest moment for us was creating a series. That’s when we started the Spin the Globe series — where he would spin a globe, land on a country, and collab with an artist from there. That took us from here to — yeah. That took off like crazy.
The Spin the Globe Series [00:17:00]
Shaan: Explain that video.
Connor: So, it was an idea where I had this song with an artist named Killa — an independent artist from Zambia. When we first worked with him he had less than a thousand monthly listeners. 189 monthly listeners. And now he’s over a million because of that song.
Brianna: How can we market this? We need a strong hook in the first two to three seconds.
[Shaan plays the Spin the Globe video]
Shaan: “All right, I’m gonna spin this globe and wherever my finger lands, I’m gonna find an artist from that country to collaborate with me on a song and see what happens. Zambia…”
Shaan: So that whole thing in five seconds — the speed of that initial hook. You’re already mid-word, you’re doing something visually interesting, you set up the premise and the stakes. And I’ve never heard of that before. How much time did you put into getting that first five seconds right?
Brianna: I was literally at the gym with Connor’s mom and I thought of it. I texted him: “I’m stopping at Target, we’re grabbing a globe. Here’s the idea.” His mom parked the car, I ran in and got it — it was like $19.
And honestly, at the time we didn’t realize it would blow up. We posted on a Sunday and it got three million views the same day. I’m like, “Oh. Okay. This is a series. We have to do this again.” I instantly went on my phone like, what country’s next? I searched hashtag Dutch rap because I really wanted a Dutch artist, found this guy named Benz, we did episode two two weeks later — and boom, that’s “Spinning.” That song now has over 100 million streams on Spotify in less than nine months.
Shaan: That’s insane.
Brianna: It really was just: how do we make content around the song? What’s the contentable moment? What’s something visual we can do? For Spinning, the contentable moment was: we have this artist from Canada and this other artist from Zambia, a country most people don’t even know where it is on a map. So we reverse-engineered the story.
For the carrot flute video, our brother-in-law Christian was making a carrot flute at Christmas and we’re like, “You’re an idiot, what are you doing?” And it actually ended up working. And I’m like, “What if we bring that into the video?” Now people call him “the carrot flute guy.”
Shaan: Every couple of seconds there’s just something new. If you’re thinking of leaving, you’re like, “Okay, wait — maybe I’ll stay. Oh, he’s about to start. I’ll stay.” Every 45 seconds to two or three seconds, the attention is about to lapse — then something opens up a new curiosity. Even with the Music Creation: if Connor’s writing a verse and the flow is the same for too long, I’ll be like, “That’s not contentable. I need you to switch your flow up faster.”
Connor: Once we started seeing how well the content was doing for the music, I started approaching my creative process for writing thinking about what the content would be. A lot of times the content came first. The carrot flute video did so well, we started thinking, “What other weird instruments could we use?” We wanted to do one where a fire alarm goes off mid-recording session. “Wait, that sounds sick.” They bring out the beat pad and make a song, rap over a fire alarm.
So a lot of times we would think of the content first and then make the song.
The Revenue Moment: First Six-Figure Month [00:24:00]
Brianna: My dream was to make ten thousand dollars a month from this. If we can make ten thousand dollars a month, I’ll be the happiest person in the world. And on average, a million streams is around four thousand dollars USD on Spotify. So you do the math.
Sam: What was the first month of sales after that pop? When the first video really worked?
Brianna: There’s a three-month delay in accounting, so whatever you get from January, February, March, you get in April. That pop moment got us our first six-figure month.
Sam: What were you making per month before that?
Brianna: Under a thousand dollars. To over a hundred thousand. Yeah. The Globe series — if I showed you the chart of my Spotify for Artists, you see my daily streams were here and then it just explodes way up.
Connor: And what’s really cool is that a lot of people have a big moment and then slow down, get comfortable. But the second we had that big moment, I’m like, “We’re pulling all-nighters. We’re going harder than we’ve ever gone.” The chart goes up and it stays up.
Brianna: We didn’t stop. Our baby was sleeping — he was four months old during the Globe series — and we would take turns pulling all-nighters. Connor would be editing videos, go give him a bottle, keep editing. We were on crack. I don’t know how we did it.
How They Met [00:27:10]
Sam: So I’m curious — how did you guys meet? At the time, was it like, “I’m gonna be a rapper,” and you’re like, “You got it, honey, go for it”?
Connor: We were ten and eleven years old. We lived in the same apartment complex. So after the Cinderella Man premiere, I started staying in LA for a few months every year for auditions. We stayed at this apartment complex called the Oakwood Apartments, which was kind of infamous for having a lot of child actors. Brianna’s little sister Chloe used to act, so her family and my family lived there at the same time. I was ten, she was eleven. We swapped AIM addresses.
Brianna: We stayed friends. And then it’s just a cool story because he was supporting me — his acting was quite lucrative. When we first got married, he was on a series called X Company, three seasons, he was a lead. At the time he was more supporting me. I was working as a nanny, so I wasn’t bringing in huge amounts. Then I did the pet company, and during that time he wasn’t working, so I was supporting him. And now we’ve come to this even ground where we’re working together and supporting each other.
My sister, my brother-in-law, my little brother — everyone quit their jobs and they’re all working on our team. It really is a family operation. We go to coffee shops every day, they help us edit, they help manage the house. My brother-in-law Christian mixes and masters all the music, produces a lot of it. That whole carrot flute — he played that on a recorder. We swap who supports who.
Revenue Streams Breakdown [00:33:00]
Sam: You just did a tour as well — you and Hoodie Allen did like three weeks in Europe. And you have all these revenue streams. Walk us through them.
Brianna: I actually wrote them down because I didn’t want to forget. I figured Sam’s gonna ask about revenue streams.
Sam: Go for it.
Brianna: Streaming is number one by far. YouTube is number two. YouTube actually pays quite well. I was pretty late to YouTube Shorts — I watched a Mr. Beast podcast where he was talking about Shorts being the future and I was like, all right, let me try this. I took all my popular TikToks, repurposed them on Shorts without the TikTok watermark, just reposted the originals. And YouTube emailed us and said we were the most subscribed-to artist in November — all artists, the whole month of November.
Sam: You just replied, “Is there like a plaque for that or something?”
Connor: I said exactly that!
Brianna: We got 800,000 subscribers in one month just from posting every day for a full month. And now because of YouTube, that’s an extra five-figure monthly income.
Shaan: Which one grows faster — YouTube Shorts or TikTok? Which horse do you see winning?
Brianna: It’s tough because the TikTok algorithm changes so much. But right now we’re more excited about YouTube because YouTube lets you pin a comment with a link to stream the song. TikTok removed the pinned comment feature, so it’s harder to convert TikTok views to streams. I had a call with TikTok and said bring that back — hopefully they do.
Also, on TikTok, even if you try to write the word “link in bio” or “Spotify,” they’ll hide the comment. We’ve tested this. I’ve written that comment under my own video, logged into a different account, and the comment is gone. They don’t want to encourage anybody off the app. Obviously business, but still.
Brianna: Okay, so back to revenue streams: streaming, YouTube, then brand deals. Recently we can negotiate six figures, high six figures depending on the ask. Then syncs — getting your songs into commercials, TV, video games. Then publishing.
Sam: Can you explain publishing real quick?
Connor: A song has two parts. There’s the master, also called the sound recording — that’s what streaming royalties are. And then there’s the publishing side, which is the songwriters’ piece. You get paid for performance rights — if it gets played on the radio, if someone wants to cover your song and use your lyrics. So it’s sort of like a different part of the pie. Then merch. Then live shows.
Sam: Seven streams of revenue. Are you negotiating all this yourself?
Brianna: Up until about three months ago I was doing the syncs myself. I still do — if he needs to get his stuff in a TV show or movie or a game, I’m still doing that. But for brand deals, we brought on a brand agent team because I just don’t have the bandwidth. Being a mom comes first. If Jude is sick or having a tough day and things are due, I need someone else to take that. But everything else is us.
Touring: Why It’s at the Bottom [00:38:45]
Sam: Most of the time I’ve heard touring is number one for a lot of artists. You put it at the bottom.
Shaan: We were just talking about this on a walk last night — how are we going to talk about touring, because it’s just not…
Connor: I don’t like to speak confidently on anything we’ve never done ourselves. Of course if you’re at Drake or Taylor Swift level, you’re bringing in hundreds of millions. But just for context: we opened on the European tour, and we basically just broke even. Because you have to rent a bus, pay a tour manager, pay for everyone to travel, your DJ, merch — think about the effort. You’ve got a little baby at home, you’re probably reducing your TikTok output because touring takes so much time. You break even, but there’s the fan love. And that matters.
Shaan: Me and Sam experience this at a very small level with the podcast — we did a couple live shows. They’re fun, but they’re a lot of work, you don’t make money, and it’s kind of like, we could have just done so much more in that same time.
Brianna: We found a really good middle. Connor’s booking agent, Kara Lewis — she also reps Eminem and some other incredible artists, she had Travis Scott at one point, she’s got Ice Spice right now — she’s literally the best. There’s an article about her called “The Most Terrifying Woman in Music.” I’m like, I want that to be me.
So we’ve concluded that right now, while Jude is in these early stages and we’re really just trying to build build build, we’ll do pop-up shows. We’re doing one in Chicago, then Toronto, his hometown. And he’ll accept festivals — like a month ago he went to Calgary for a rodeo, played 45 minutes, got paid, gone for two nights. Easy. And these shows are purely for the fans. I know a lot of artists charge for VIP meet-and-greets — I’m like, why would you charge a fan to say hi to you? They’re the reason you have a career. He’ll stand outside and talk to everybody for free, go to the merch table, sign merch.
Sam: How big of a venue can you sell out right now?
Brianna: Honestly, we’ve never tested that because we’ve never done a headlining solo show. I’ll get back to you in a few weeks. Our hope is somewhere between 900 and a thousand.
Shaan: Hey, you know it’s like — technically you could sell out a 5,000 venue, you never know. But in the touring world you have to build a proof of purchase first. You can’t go from zero to booking a massive venue. You start here and then your booking agent negotiates up from there.
Connor: Touring is too complicated of a business to be like, “I can go from here to here.” You have to build. It’s not like TikTok where you can go viral overnight and your life changes.
Shaan: Mike Posner went to my college. When he kind of came back from his dip in popularity and was reinventing himself — he walked across America, he’d do pop-up shows in parks, just start playing. And the content would always pop off. His brand became “the people’s champion.” Rather than filling venues, he just did fan things on his own terms, optimized for content. Because content’s his game. And if you’re just building that mountain — that’s what Mr. Beast does. Just build the mountain. Everything in this business is like, what’s your goal?
Connor: If your goal is to be a mega superstar and perform in arenas, then yeah, sign with a label, dedicate your life to building your touring resume. But that’s just not our goal. We’re focusing on making as much music as possible. This artist named Mike Stud compared songs to real estate: if you can buy a piece of real estate every two weeks, why wouldn’t you? Some of them will remain shacks on the beach, but some of them will be mansions in Laguna. That’s our mindset right now.
Goals: What Number Is On the Whiteboard [00:47:30]
Sam: What’s the goal? Do you want to do this for 30 years? You trying to get super rich? What do you write on the whiteboard?
Brianna: He loves the art, we love to make good music. But ultimately the goal is to scale this like we would scale a business, and then potentially sell the catalog someday. It can be evaluated like a publishing asset.
Sam: What number excites you?
Brianna: 50 million. In three or four years.
Shaan: I’ll be your advisor, no charge. Just add a zero to that number. You’re already fingertips away. What did Bruce Springsteen get?
Sam: I think Bruce Springsteen got 300 million.
Shaan: 500 is the number.
The “New Lane” Conversation [00:49:00]
Shaan: I want to say something that’s a little bit of a gentle critique. When I watched you on YouTube, I didn’t have the same fun as I did on TikTok. I watched the full songs and was like, “These are good songs,” but I wasn’t hooked the same way. The things you guys are doing on TikTok, I’ve kind of never seen before. It felt so original — almost like a different thing than music.
Do you feel the same way? And is there any part of your ego that’s like, “I want to be taken seriously as a traditional rapper,” versus, “No, this TikTok quick hooks thing is my lane and I’m actually creating something new here”?
Connor: The goals are different on those platforms. On TikTok, our goal is to reach new listeners. YouTube is more to nurture the listeners we already have — and to nurture the platform because it pays well, more views equals more AdSense money. We’re not approaching those long-form YouTube videos with the goal of reaching new people. It’s hard to explain.
And sometimes the videos are a bit more polished. Like, I did a song with Baby No Money, and that was a very polished music video. That was Baby’s team saying, “If we’re gonna do a song with Connor, Connor’s gotta jump into our world and do a music video.” And I was like, “Great — then you gotta jump into our world and do a skit.” So yeah.
Sam: The thing about your skits: I see a TikTok video, and then I listen to you when I work out. I associate it — video first, then I listen while exercising. That’s her goal. But when I see the video, you have this amazing thing where you’re clearly an actor. You have three characters: the producer, you the rapper, and then the nerdy brother or cousin — the guy who wears the turtleneck. And you do such a good job that I forget it’s you. I’m getting to know the characters. The weird brother pops in and I’m like, “Oh, he’s about to do something funny.” The carrot flute one — when I listen to the song, I’m remembering that video. That’s what makes me like it.
The skits add so much meaning to it. It’s like, “Oh, this is the carrot one.” And the funny thing is, Kanye’s College Dropout album had these little skits between songs, but they weren’t that good. They were kind of long. So that concept’s been around — how did you come up with the idea for the characters?
Connor: The characters were really just — we don’t have anyone else. We couldn’t think of anyone who could play these characters as well. So I’m like, just put on some glasses and be the character. I film it all myself, I set up my iPhone, film them late at night when the baby’s asleep. You can’t coordinate that with other people — “Hey, can you come over at 11 PM for a TikTok?” Nobody’s gonna do that.
Shaan: Our dream is to almost make a show — like The Office but we’d call it “The Studio” — where we can extend these characters a bit more. Bring on a few guests. If we have an episode where Connor’s playing all these characters and then Idris Elba comes in, and Courtney Cox comes in the next episode — use these connections Connor has from acting to elevate his TikTok skits.
Brianna: And I have a dream of pitching Spin the Globe to Netflix. A 45-minute episode of Connor spinning the globe, then actually flying to that country, meeting the artist, seeing their culture and the music scene. For Zambia — you would not believe. The artist couldn’t send us his video clips because he only had 12 hours of electricity allotted per day. “Until we get heavy rain, the government will not increase our electricity.” So we were waiting to post that episode because he didn’t have electricity to send the video files.
Staying Independent by Choice [00:58:30]
Shaan: There’s a few paths here. One example — not as an insult — is Weird Al Yankovic. I’d bet Weird Al out-earned most artists from the 90s. And then there’s Lil Dicky — he’s got the show Dave, he’s done a really good job of parlaying this into more than just music. But the thing I would say that’s different about you is: you’re not cutesy or comedic in the way those guys are. I actually view you as significantly more serious. I’m laughing with you, never at you. You’re relatable and aspirational. You’re still serious but also funny.
I think you have more potential than either of them, honestly. And the reason I said add a zero is — we don’t know anything about music, but we’ve hung out with a whole bunch of successful people, you see certain patterns. “Oh, this is one of those.” We don’t know how big this is going to be, but it’s going to be significantly larger than it is now if you have a little bit longer time horizon and just keep doing pretty good.
Brianna: How long does it take to create a video? What’s the creative timeline?
Sam: Yeah, for like one of these that you make — when a song isn’t even made yet.
Connor: It varies a lot. A song could take me three hours or it could take weeks if I get stuck on something.
Brianna: For videos, I’ll script something in 20-30 minutes, then he’ll film himself for a few hours, then edit for a few hours.
Connor: On average I’m probably filming for one or two hours, editing for one to three hours.
Sam: Do they all have to be full songs, or do you do shorter ones just for TikTok?
Connor: From now on we only invest time in a TikTok if it can convert to streams. Otherwise it’s just not lucrative. For a brand deal like Ruffles — they only requested a 30-second demo, so for that one specifically I only had to write 30 seconds. But normally it’s a full song or we won’t post it. TikTok doesn’t pay you for views, but it does indirectly — if something goes viral, your fan base grows, and the next video you put out with a song is going to pay.
Shaan: We’ve talked to every major label.
Brianna: Yeah. It’s not like we’re independent by default. Our friend Nick said, “You’re independent by choice, not by default.” Because you’ll see in the comments, “Why hasn’t anyone signed this kid yet?” And I’m like — they’ve tried. We will not. Because that’s not our goal. Our goal is to do this ourselves, do things the way we want to do it, and honestly prove to other people that it’s possible. I had no idea this was possible, and I’d love for other people making music to know it too.
Sam: How old are you guys?
Brianna: I’m 29, Connor’s 28.
Adjacent Opportunities They See [01:05:00]
Sam: Now that you’re winning in this lane, what I’ve found is that people start seeing the game a little differently — like Neo in The Matrix. You see opportunities that other people could be taking. Do you have any what I call “adjacent opportunities” you see?
Brianna: There’s this guy Kevin who has an account on Instagram called Icon Brick. He makes Lego animations for rappers’ songs. Big rappers and labels hire him to make these animations. But he’s also an incredible songwriter. I was telling him the other day: “Put out your own music and use this platform you’re building to promote it. Every ten to twelve videos you’re doing for other rappers, slide in one of your own.”
Sam: I’m watching one of these videos now. They’re incredible.
Brianna: We’re actually releasing a song with him soon. He only has 127,000 followers — we’re buying early. He’s insane. It’s a double revenue stream — labels are paying you to make Lego animations of their songs, meanwhile you’re pocketing Spotify revenue for your own music.
Shaan: You know what’s crazy? On TikTok, sound bites are becoming songs. There’s that one where some lady at an award show said, “I want to thank my man, thank you for my man” — just said it — and that became a clip and then a viral sound. There’s this guy with a 30-second video rapping about something and it’s a million likes on Instagram Reels. I’m Googling for the whole song and there is no whole song. It’s literally just a 30-second clip.
The corn kid — “I love corn” — that became a viral song on TikTok for like six months.
Connor: That’s something we’ve actually clocked and been careful about. Sometimes people have their song go viral as a sound, but people don’t connect that sound to the artist. There were a couple of viral sounds where if you asked me who the artist was, I’d have no idea. So we’re very cognizant of making sure that we attach Connor to his songs as much as possible — which is why we’re so focused on long-form skits rather than trying to make a sound pop off. It could be a moment and a spike for a song, but long term the goal is to attach Connor to his music.
The Low Years: Judgment Fear and Moving Boxes [01:10:30]
Sam: On your way up — when you were moving boxes at the Alpha Paw warehouse, in between acting gigs, trying to make it in music — and it’s not obvious you’re gonna win. I spent many years doing startups that failed. Did you dread going to family events? Because I dreaded it. You’d get the “Hey, how are things going? How’s the little music thing?”
Connor: Yeah. People would be like, “What’s the new one?” Because they’re so used to me every year having a news story about the new thing that’s gonna be the big thing. And I was like, “Oh damn, you’re right. There is always a new one.”
Were there any moments from the bottoms that stick with you? A decision you made, a talk you had with yourself, some advice that helped?
It was just Bree. I don’t have a huge friend group — I’m a very social person and I get along with everybody, but my core circle is very small, and I spend 90% of my time with Bree. Whether it’s working together or going on walks at night and just talking.
When COVID hit, productions halted. I’d already been struggling to get acting work for a year before that, and then there weren’t even auditions. I was at a low point. And I had shown Brianna my music early on — prior to any of this, I used to just record at home by myself, just a hobby, because I loved hip-hop. I was afraid to put it out because I was afraid of the judgment. I even had an alter ego, I used to upload music on YouTube anonymously just to see what people would think without attaching my name to it. I was afraid what my friends would think: “Of course, the actor wants to be the rapper now.” I was frozen with judgment fear.
Bree has always been my number one supporter and has given me the confidence. When I was in that low point, she was like, “Go all in on this. Trust me. Try TikTok. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? Nothing’s going on anyway.” She instilled that confidence to just go for it.
Brianna: And Ramon instilled that confidence in me. I got hired at the pet company as a social media assistant. A month later he’s like, “Yeah, no — you’re my creative director.” And anything I ever wanted to start, he’s like, “I’d be your first investor.” He believed in Connor so much. So I was taking that confidence from Ramon — who was my mentor — and I instilled it in him.
And Ramon told me, “I’m whatever they’re doing, I’m in.” And I’m like, “You’re an idiot, man. There’s no money in music. What’s there to invest in?” And he was like, “I don’t know, but there’s something here. I’m in.”
Homeschooling and the Creative DNA [01:16:00]
Shaan: Were you homeschooled?
Brianna: Yeah, up until high school. And do I think it helped? I think so. When I was homeschooled I used to start businesses. I had a business card: “Brianna Peterson — violinist, pianist, vocalist, dog walker, pet sitter, babysitter, hire me for anything.” I would write children’s stories. I have old videos from the apartment complex — I wanted to be a director, so I would go around filming all the kids, documenting their lives.
Being homeschooled gave me a lot of time on my hands and a need for creativity that most kids don’t have. When you’re in school, you’re constantly entertained by other kids. I just had my siblings. So we had to come up with ways to entertain ourselves. We would remake Spy Kids. We would remake Disney movies and film them ourselves. No one’s ever asked the homeschool question before, but now I realize — homeschooling really did correlate. It forced me to be creative.
Sam: Well, we have a large male audience, and the takeaway here is: get yourself a strong woman as your partner. This is a really great marriage. I’m a huge fan of Alex and Leila Hormozi. They’re a superpower couple. They live in Vegas, right?
Brianna: I think so. I want to run into them at Milk Bar one night.
Sam: They’re a huge inspiration for the husband-wife business relationship. There’s really nothing cooler.
Connor: We have our moments. It’s really easy to fall into the co-workers mentality when every so often it’s important to remember we are husband and wife and we need to find that balance. We’re co-workers who kiss.
Sam: No big deal. We all do it.
Baby Advice for Sam [01:20:45]
Shaan: Sam’s about to be a dad. Any advice?
Brianna: Number one: be so present in those newborn days, because they flew by. We look back at old photos and a baby photo of Jude will make me cry instantly, because I wasn’t enjoying it enough. I was too focused on business. I would hold him and wait for him to nap just so I could go work more. I wish I had just been present.
And don’t go on tour for three and a half weeks when you have a newborn. He missed a lot.
Connor: I think you’re doing it right. Even if there were moments where you weren’t as present — I have a feeling, just watching you on social media, you’re doing things wonderfully. You’re crushing it in business and in life.
Shaan: I look at those photos and I don’t even remember it. I’m like, “I don’t remember her looking like this.” Kids are this funny thing where all day you’re like, “Oh my God, I can’t wait for you to go to sleep,” and then as soon as you have free time, all me and my wife talk about is — we’re talking about the kids anyway. You can never spend enough time, but it’s not about duration. Did you actually sink in and appreciate it? I’ve had days where I spent hours and hours with them but didn’t really let it sink in. I was kind of passing the hours.
Brianna: I don’t know if I want to go through the whole pregnancy thing again. It was really tough on me, especially mentally. I’m already a very anxious person. Having a newborn to care for while recovering from giving birth at home was pretty intense. But we do want to adopt. I’ve been looking at adoption websites, I literally lay in bed and cry because I want to adopt all of them. I’d love to adopt a little Vietnamese baby, from where my grandma’s from, and honor her in that way.
Connor: We need to make sure they can rap though.
Brianna: If they can’t rap, they’re not in. If they can’t play three different characters in a skit by age three, they didn’t pass.
The Kris Jenner Comparison and Closing [01:26:10]
Sam: Speaking of Kris Jenner — people hate on her, but in my opinion she’s done something impressive. Her kids and her have a great relationship. I was once interviewing a nanny that had worked for them. By the third interview she had figured out I only wanted to ask her what it was like there. She was like, “Not really” — and I was like, “Okay, I respect you for that.”
Brianna: We like the Kardashians. I once made Connor binge-watch a whole season with me.
Connor: I didn’t know how to feel at first, and then afterwards I was like, “Oh, they’re all just killers.” They seem like they have a great room. The loyalty of that family seems strong.
Sam: Well, thank you all for doing this. You’re amazing.
Brianna: Oh my God, we appreciate you guys having us. This is an honor.
Shaan: I feel inspired talking to you. Producer Jonathan was texting me: “I’m loving this, they’re so damn likable.”
Brianna: That was my biggest fear — not being likable. Because I never really come on camera or do stuff like this. But I knew Sam, so I was like, okay, I can do this.
Shaan: I think you need to start your own personal brand. You’re so knowledgeable in the music space and you’re always behind the scenes. No one knows who you are, no one knows how impactful what you do is. I think you need to start putting yourself out there.
Brianna: That’s very nice. I actually just got the Instagram handle “home studio” because I want to start a newsletter for independent artists and eventually turn it into a home studio kit — everyone asks “what mic do you use?” — I’m like, just buy Connor’s kit. It comes with the mic, headphones, interface, everything you need to make money from home. And I’ll record all my songs using that kit so it sells itself.
Sam: That’s amazing. Well, you guys are awesome. Thanks for coming on. I have a feeling the next time you come on, you’ll be ten times bigger. You have the talent for it and you’ve stumbled into something really amazing. If you just keep going, it’s gonna get really big.
Connor: Thank you so much.
Brianna: Thank you. Everybody — Connor Price on TikTok, Instagram, and just type my name into any streaming service and all my songs will be there.
Connor: And one more thing — any streamers or video game content creators watching: all of Connor’s music is DMCA safe. I have a playlist on Spotify called something like “DMCA safe, copyright free” — all the songs you can use on your YouTube videos, podcast intros, whatever. I don’t do YouTube Content ID on most of it because I think the long-term value of having creators use your music is way more than trying to get a few dollars every month when someone uses your song in a vlog.
Sam: That’s the episode. Thanks, guys.
Connor: Thanks for having us.
Brianna: Thank you so much.