Speaker 1: Okay. That is bar None. That is our friend Isaac Sierra,
who should be on the line with us. Isaac, are
you there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm here. How you doing good? How are you? Man?
Speaker 1: Good? Welcome, welcome back. It's been a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I'm happy to be back on the show.
Speaker 1: Is that your now? That's your newest right? Is that
your your newest track? Bar None?
Speaker 2: That's the newest music video that we have just released.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay. Has that been out for a while?
Speaker 2: The song has been out for a couple of years
and we just released the music video for it. We've
been developing a media company and that's the first full
production as far as music videos that we've done.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that makes sense. Yeah, it's very well done.
So yeah, so tell us about that, tell us about
the media company. This is a new development.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. The media company is called Manifest Media. So
we are aiming to do music, television, film, even developing
video games and eventually we will be wanting to rep talent.
So some of the newer music that I've been doing,
as far as the vocalists, we've been exploring other genres
outside of hip hop music. A lot of different rock
genres new metal, punk rock. We've been doing a little
bit of more traditional metal as well, which has been exciting.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Now, has this always kind of been the
goal long term or is this something you decided on recently,
because you know, in the past when we've talked, you know,
you're pretty focused on on your hip hop career and
the music that you were making. But it sounds like
you've really taken a big step into expanding what you do.
Have you always wanted to kind of branch out like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, it's very interesting that I ended up becoming
a rap artist. When I was younger, I always felt
like I would be in bands, and I tried to
put those projects together. It was just a lot harder
to maintain all of those moving parts. It's like being
in a big marriage with like five different people. And
so I ended up becoming a rap artist because not
only did I develop the passion for like hip hop
music as far as the culture and am seeing, but
it was just easier to manage myself as a solo
artist that way. And nowadays you have producers that are
putting out fully constructed rock music the same way that
you might find like a rap instrumental, sure, and so
I just kind of got inspired to expand my songwriting capabilities.
And if you were gonna you were gonna ask me
when I was a kid what I really wanted to do,
I would have told I would have told you I
wanted to be like a movie producer. And that's what's
kind of developed this this release. As far as like visually,
we really went for it and said cinematically, what can
we do? And I had a lot of help from
my team. I want to give a big shout out
to UH to UH Rocky, which was the cinematographer for
the video. You can find the video on YouTube the
song of bar None. We're still using the hashtag m KOT,
but we do have a new channel for the company,
which is Manifest Media. Oh okay, be releasing all of
the other rock music on all the major string platforms soon,
but you can find us on SoundCloud under Manifest Media
as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh excellent, excellent. Yeah, So this is a big
this is a big change for you. This is a
big switch now. And it's interesting too what you said
about the way that you became a rapper because somebody
else on the show, I wish I could remember who
it was, but somebody else on the show had said
something about being in a band is like like, if
you're in a band with four other people, it's like
being in a relationship with four other people who are
also in a relationship with four other people. And what
you said reminds me of that, and that happens with
a lot of For example, some of the singer songwriters
that we've had on the show over the years sort
of a similar trajectory and that, you know, they were
in a band and then it got to be too
much and they said, you know, I want to do
something on my own because I just think it will
be you know, kind of streamlined and easier to manage
and schedule around and everything if I'm just doing my
own thing. So it's interesting that you took that path,
but of course now you're now you're taking a whole
bunch of stuff on it once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because when you were working in a
big production in general, it takes teamwork, and so I
guess as far as that's the thing that interests me
the most about I've never been part of a film crew,
but I do have people that have been in the
film industry and worked alongside you know, numbers of different
productions and it does take a village to get those
things taken care of. And so yeah, it's it's like
being in a band, but in this situation, not everybody
plays an instrument. You know, some folks are doing a
little bit more administrative work or you know, handling different
things as far as you know. I also edited the
video myself, which is something that I've grew a passion
for recently. You know, we vlog everything as far as
when we're traveling, and I try to document like all
the making of the music and everything that we're doing now.
And so, you know, I could only afford so much
through the music production as far as like the beats
and publishing and all these different things, and so I
started to like take a crack at editing myself. And
so this was a challenge as far as like editing,
trying to figure out how to get the mining and
the performance shots to match the lyrics in the song.
And it was a fun process. We got to partner
up with the Breaking Bad Store, which is like a
novelty gift shop here that's all themed around the Breaking
Bad television show and they allowed us to come and
film in their museum. They have a bunch of different
memorabilia and things from the like the filming of the
TV show and some photo op opportunities, and so if
you get a chance to watch the video, you'll see
like some backdrop from the Too Armanos like restaurant from
the TV show. And that was really exciting for us
to be able to partner with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's that's huge, right, I mean, that's that's
that's fantastic. So do you have are are there specific
artists on the roster that you're that you're working with
now or is that still sort of developing.
Speaker 2: That's definitely developing. We don't have anybody signed with our
company yet, but I am I have my eye on
a few different artists. I've been in the Midwest a
lot this year, and there's a few artists out there
that I've had my eye on. One in particular, his
name is rock Hey. I've been working with another artist
that's really solid. His name is The Revel. And then
another friend of mine that I've made in the last year,
his name is Baggs. He's an incredible artist. We have
a single that will be coming out later this year,
and so I've been just kind of keeping my ear out.
We also did host some showcases, some unofficial showcases in Austin,
Texas earlier this year during the south By Southwest Festival,
and we discovered some incredible bands. One is like a
pop punk band by the name of calmer Seas and
they really kind of have the same message as far
as like speaking about the mental health and different things
like that. They stood out to me a lot. There
was another band that my sister's really good friend is
in called the ETCeteras Okay, and they're amazing as well.
So many different artists.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you look for in terms
of who you're interested in working with? What do they
have to have? Because, as you know, there's so much
talent out there, you know, like like people ask us, uh,
people ask Jenny because she does the booking on the show,
how do you find these how do you find all
these great artists? And it's like, well, there's so much
talent there everywhere, Like, so what do you look for? Like,
like you must have somewhat of a criteria in mind,
because not everyone you encounter is necessarily someone that you
can work with.
Speaker 2: Right right. So the thing that I work that I
look for first off is I guess you know, I
have a very eclectic taste, and so I want to
like the music first off. And then as far as
wanting to do business with folks, you know, I'm not
really I don't really have a preference and genre per se.
But when you start to do business with folks, I
I the way that we're trying to approach things is eventually,
we would love to be able to provide the same
opportunities that a major label would be able to provide bands,
but also without changing people. And so like we would
like to have like the type of company that's providing
the vackuing that a major label would provide to you,
to any type of artists or if they want to
go di y and they just need a little help
and assistance in some areas, we allow you to do that.
And so what I do is I usually sit down
and say, you know, what is your end goal? Whereas
the the top for you, you know, and so if we
sit there and we decide, you know, let's play with
these different strategies as far as marketing or promotion, and
they're not filling some of the suggestions, they are merely
a suggestion, because I think that where some companies fail
is they see something work for somebody and then they
automatically want it to be the blueprint. And I don't
want to take away from an artist or a band's artistry.
I want them to develop naturally. And so that's like
basically the purpose of Manifest Media is because we're not
only doing like music, We're also we have like a
division that does like marketing and advertisement. So when I
take on a client, I'm saying, you know, what do
you want? What is your vision? And how do we
help materialize that?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Do you ever
have anyone approach you who you have to kind of say, hey,
I'm sorry, but I don't I don't think you're ready yet,
like you've got you know, because we all know with
major labels, for example, and it's been this way for
a couple of decades at least, right there's there really
is no There really is no A and R anymore,
there's no development. Major labels want. They want people who
are already all ready to go, who've already done all
the work, which which people criticize Major labels for but
I actually think it kind of makes sense. But from
a business standpoint, and then of course independent labels, you
know there are generally a lot more interested in, you know,
kind of putting in the work of the development of
the artists and whatnot. But but but do you ever
have anyone come to you who you have to say
you need to do a little more on your own
before we can help you to get to where you
want to go because you're not ready yet to take
that step to try to get to where you want
to go? Does that ever happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, that's a great question. I have a answer
found myself in that situation where I've kind of just
tried to give advice to a developing artist. But artists
development is very important, and I don't feel like all
artists should be left on their own to learn it,
because it can be very discouraging to just be told no.
And so I was actually just recently on a podcast
that a friend of mine in Supeaka, Kansas, puts on
with a They have like a recording facility out there
called sound Peak Studios, and so they have a podcast
called sound Peak after Dark and you can find their
channel on YouTube while was just on an episode on
the twenty first of December, And so what they do
is they allow artists to perform and they give them
feedback from a few different perspectives. And what I'm trying
to do personally is I'm trying to develop programs to
educate an artists where they can learn not only artists development,
but business development as well, because I feel like it's
one thing for an artist to be able to present
themselves as far as their craft, but it's another thing
to navigate through the business world of music or other platforms.
And so that's what we're also trying to do, which
is kind of going into what we've spoken about before,
which is my kind of therapy community is I'm not
sure if we're going to name it my kind of therapy.
I think we're trying to develop the programs and name
them Stroke of Genius, which was also coined by Roquel,
our cinematographer, Okay, and those programs would be available to anybody,
not just folks that are within our company or signed
to our our label, but the general public would be
able to come and be involved in those programs and
developed not only they're musical crafts, but visual art crafts
because I also do visual art acrylic on canvas in
different multimedia types of art forms like that, and so
we're trying to do that from like the nonprofit perspective
of things. And so yeah, you know, I as far
as a short answer, I haven't countered artists like that.
And I do agree with you that the major labels
aren't really put in a lot of time. I don't
know if that the indie labels are either, but it
can be from a business standpoint, time consuming, and it
can take a lot of money to develop an artist, yes,
And so that's why we've said, you know, how could
we approach this from a standpoint of business where it
makes sense and we're not necessarily trying to line our pockets.
But you know, we're still trying to decide whether we're
going to accept grants to these programs or if we're
going to be independently.
Speaker 1: Funded, right right, Yeah, And I think I think too
it's more important than ever too. Well, let me put
it this way. I think there's there's now more than
ever a need to, you know, to have resources where
people can kind of learn.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's not like I mean, I'm old enough to remember
when you know, we didn't mind. I'm gen X, so
my generation was really the last generation to grow up
without the internet, so you know, I can I still
remember when you you put out, you know, you try
to get signed. You're in a band, or you're doing
a solo thing, whatever it is, and you're you're trying
to get signed to a label, and then you get signed,
and then the label releases your album and hopefully they're
able to get you on the radio and hopefully they're
able to sell some records for you. But today there's
so much more to do, which is good in the
sense that with social media and everything, there's so many
ways to get your music out there and to really
market yourself, not just market your music, but really market
yourself as a brand.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So there's so much more opportunity there. But it's also
because there's so much more opportunity that's a double edged sword,
because there's also so much more that you have to learn,
and some people don't like to do that part. I'm
I'm unusual in that I'm someone who, right from the
beginning of my career in the music industry, I've always
been fascinated by all of it. You know, I've played
in a bunch of bands, but I also the business
of music has always been really interesting to me. But
most musicians don't want to have to deal with that,
or they don't, you know. I hear people complain about, well,
I don't want to have to try to become a
TikTok star. I just want to make my music. And
it's like, Okay, the music is the main thing, sure,
but these are just things that you need to do
to market yourself, you know, unless you have the luxury
of having a major label do it all for you.
So so I think that for what you're doing, or
other organizations that we know, like you're in New Hampshire,
there's up in Nashua, our friends Eleanor and Andre, they
run something called New Hampshire Underground, which you know, provides
education for artists and help for artists. But I think
that's I think that's more important than it's ever been.
Speaker 2: I agree. I will admit that I was not focused
on the business portion when I was a young artist myself,
and even I was actually very stubborn as far as
my uncle was already a very experienced musician and was
trying to give me a lot of perspective when I
was just becoming an artist and he saw talent in me,
and he tried to give me some advice that I
did not want to hear because I was like, I've
got a message, like you know, he would he would
try to give me tips on like, you know, develop
your appearance or you know, how you want to present yourself,
and I did not want to hear it. When I
was younger, it wasn't intel. I had basically turned down
all the majors and in the label offers that I
had on the table, and kind of it felt like
I had nowhere else to go. And a friend of
mine basically was like, what are you going to do?
You know, become a manager at a fast food chain.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anybody that does that,
I respect anybody who you know does anything in in
any workforce. But what I said to myself was, well,
if I go take on a different type of career path,
I'm gonna have to learn skills anyway, and so why
not learn the skills that it takes me to be
involved in the business that I want to be in,
which then has developed all of these different new avenues
for us to now have founded, not only manifest Media,
but these other to Lanthropic you know, things that we're
trying to do through the nonprofits and stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should talk a little bit more about that too,
especially for people who have not heard our previous conversations
on the show about about what you've done and what
you've been doing in terms of uh, mental health and awareness.
I know that, uh, you know, you had had a
friend who had committed suicide and you did a song
about that and whatnot, But yeah, can you talk a
little bit more about that, about about what you've been
doing in that zone and how that relates to the
to your music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so, yeah, I do remember that is how
we met is. I had put out a song about
five years ago called how could You about two different
friends of mine that had passed away. One of them
was confirmed a suicide and the other we assume that
it was a self inflicted overdose, but it was never confirmed,
and that had began the expansion of I Guess what
is now our mental health advocacy brand and community, the
hashtag MKOT, and this last year in twenty twenty three,
I guess I just said, advocating isn't enough. Not that
I have any issue with anybody that purely advocates, but
I said, you know, let's see how much we can
do or how much more we can do. And so
I didn't really know where we were fitting into the
nonprofit world at that moment in time, and my first
idea was, well, I have a lot of background an
event organization. Let's see if we can create an annual
mental health awareness events. And so we do a mental
health awareness festival every May, and we've been doing that
for two years now. It's called the Mcott Bash. Okay.
So what we usually do is we'll pick an already
existing nonprofit and we'll raise money for them. And we've
been very successful in being able to put on these
productions in the last couple of years, and we hope
to continue to shed light on even centralized topics. Folks
have asked us if we would be willing to do
events that were more focused around particular brain functionality that
folks are dealing with, like schizophrenia or you know, any
other different particular I don't like to use the word
mental illness or disorder. I particularly like to use the
phrase brain function. I feel like everybody has brain functionality,
and we particularly are trying to develop programs to help
folks that are dealing with traumatic brain injury as well.
I know that it's very hard to continue with employment
after you sustain the brain injury, and so we're trying
to develop programs to help folks with employment and like
employment protection as well. But for right now, we just said,
can we help some other programs that already exist, and
so we raised money for a couple of different local nonprofits.
And as these events developed, we are hoping to not
only just spread awareness through the music, but we would,
you know, hope to have seminars where folks are giving
testimony and we have professionals coming and talking about, you know,
how they might be able to, you know, give some
insight on just different forms of brain function and where
they might be able to find an outlet to help,
you know, find services and aid if they're dealing with
certain things. And so that's all a developing process, but
we're just happy to be able to have done what
little we could do in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's uh. I think that's great,
very very positive stuff and and what about as far
as your own uh material, as far as your your
hip hop have you been uh, have you been touring
at all in the past couple of years? I think
the lot.
Speaker 2: Actually, we have a tour it's going to be coming
up this next year in probably the middle of February
till about the end of March and April. We're hoping
to get out to your neck of the woods, and
if we do, I would love to come and visit
you in person on the show. But we're going to
be continuing to push the bar Nun song and music
video and also promoting some new hip hop records that
we have out. We uh, we are always producing rap music.
That's so funny actually, is that I started doing so
much rock music, people are like, do you rap anymore?
And so we are trying to create a balance as
far as putting out more hip hop and rap records
as well as uh, you know, developing developing these other genres.
As far as myself as a vocalists, I have a
lot more in the vault that we'll be releasing this year.
Speaker 1: Oh excellent, excellent. Where do you record? Do you do everything?
Do you do everything yourself? Or do you have a
studio that you work out of.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of different facilities. One facility that
I use in Albuquerque is called On the Moon Studios.
Nick Johnson is the founder of On the Moon Studios
and the engineer that I work with over there, and
he's an incredible, incredible individual and I've been working with
him for probably about four years now. As far as
being on the road, I do use sound peak as
far as when I'm in Topeka, Kansas or you know,
if somebody has a studio and we can just hop
in there. Because I try to stay as productive as
possible when I'm on the road, I don't really party
like I used to. I used to be kind of
a you know, a party animal, but now I just
try to make sure that if we're gonna be away
from home, we're working right. Yeah, And so to say
that is also I said all that to say the
reason why I started doing the rock music is because
I did have a home studio available to me at
that moment in time, which was something new. I never
really wanted to do that. I liked a little bit
of a a creative exchange. You know. People will always
ask me, like, do you make your own beats, or
do you record yourself? And those were things that I
kind of wanted to leave up to folks that specialize
in those areas. But when I had the availability to
record myself, I would just knock out two or three
songs in a night, and my roommate was was like
always pretty surprised because he would be just like, Wow,
you can just do any genre, because I'd be like, look,
look at this song that I did, or look at that,
and he would be just kind of excited that there
was just like always something creative happening around. Because he
was making records with me, rap records. He had been
in like different hardcore bands as a vocalist and dabbled
in rap music himself. He was the one with the
recording setup, and since it was around, I was like,
let's let's see how this works. And so I started
to get a little bit more experienced and like mix
mixing and mastering and different things like that and editing,
and which gave me an even more deeper respect for
folks that have to do all of the recording and
the post production, because it's not easy to do any
of these things and to create a final product. So
that was very exciting for me to be able to
get my feet wet in that area. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, No, that's great. That's great. Well, Isaac, You've you've
got a lot going on. So let's before we before
we close out the segment, and I'm gonna I think
I'm gonna end with light work, the track that you
did with Jewels Santana. The collab from this is this
is from a few years ago, right, I think we
had we had played this on the show before and
I was like, really pretty blown away by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a really cool collaboration that I was
able to do a few years ago. I think that
is the last time that I was on the show.
I don't want to uh have that large of a
gap uh for the next one. So oh, I agree
out to you and I should have actually probably sent
you one of the rock records. I don't think that
you even knew that we were doing that. But even
just for your listening pleasure, I'll send you some stuff.
Oh yeah, you can check out the other thing we're doing.
Speaker 1: Send us, uh, yeah, send us anything you want and
and uh and if it if it's something that hasn't
been played on the radio before, make sure make sure
you let us know that because we can do. We
like to do world radio premieres where we're the first
radio station in the US to play something. That's a
thing that we do. So if you've got if you've
got anything like that, I mean, send us anything. But
if you've got anything like that too that hasn't been
played anywhere, let us know. Or if it's been played
on a podcast or something, fine, but if it hasn't
been played on the radio yet, let us know.
Speaker 2: And uh, actually one of I love premiering the records
on your show, and I really appreciate and I'm very
honored that you had allowed me to do that for
a few of these releases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, excellent.
Speaker 3: Jenny, did you have you know you're you're you're one
of my personal favorites.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I just remember it almost forgot Yeah. Yeah
the hoodies so Isaac, we still wear those hoodies that
you sent us. And yeah, and you see the picture
I tagged you in, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did get that picture.
Speaker 1: Was that was a news story?
Speaker 2: Surprise?
Speaker 1: Yeah that that.
Speaker 3: I did not know they were going to pull that
photo either, And I'm really glad that they did. I
love that photo. It's you and I are are brother
and sister when it comes to that issue and trying
to help people and you now, as you know, I
have CRPS. So it's a real important part of my
heart that you do that work, and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And I'm honored to wear that shirt. I love that sweather. Yeah, absolutely, very.
Speaker 2: Honored to have you. You know, it's it's a big
issue that always needs to be addressed. Yeah, and so
I'm very honored that you've supported over the years and
still have the the headies. We're trying to produce more
and we're trying to at some point give a portion
of the proceeds from the sales of that merchandise to
different programs for suicide prevention as well.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Yeah, that's outstanding, very good, very good, Isaac. So
before we let you go, like I said, we're gonna
play light work. But what should people know about where
to find you online, how to find manifest media, anything
that you want our listeners to make sure that they
know so they can keep up on everything that you're
doing or you know, and there might be somebody listening
who wants to work with you too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So right now, Manifest Media does have an Instagram
page Manifest Many, and we also have a Facebook page
which is Manifest Media. The YouTube and uh SoundCloud if
you want to hear some of the music right now,
is also under Manifest Media, and you can also contact
me personally if anybody ever wanted to reach out through
any of the Instagram. We also have an Instagram for
my kind of Therapy now which is uh m k
O T underscore dot org and uh, you know, I
manage all of those accounts, so if anybody ever wanted
to find me, uh, that's that's how they would be
able to get a hold of me. Also through Isaac
Sierra is my personal page on Facebook that's attached to
all So the the Truth Facebook page and True to
the Rhymes t r U E the number two d
A r H y m E s all one word
on instagrams outstanding.
Speaker 1: All right, Isaac, So we'll let you go so we
can hit this track, but yes, let's do this again soon.
You've got a lot going on. Send us any music
you want to send us. We love it, we love
premiering new music. And we'll let you go for now,
and and I'm sure we'll talk to you soon, but
thank you so much for calling us today.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on the show again.
Speaker 1: You got it all right, all right, you got it.
Speaker 2: Take care, good morning, Bye bye, bye bye