Ryan Leslie Takes Music and Tech to the Bank

Ryan Leslie is a man of the people. He’s also a man of many talents. Grammy-nominated record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur and child prodigy are just a few of the titles that the Washington, DC-native currently holds, which reflect both his diversity and creativity. Over the past several years he’s also quietly added tech titan to his ever-expanding list of accomplishments and skills.

Attending Harvard University at the age of 14 after earning a perfect score on his SATs, Leslie has always been ahead of the curve. So while the music industry has been slow to adapt to the numerous advances in technology, he’s been successfully merging the two worlds to his advantage for years.

Way back in 2006 he saw the potential of social media and played an integral role in leveraging singer Cassie’s massive MySpace following to result in over 650,000 sales of her self-titled debut LP, which was spearheaded by the Leslie-produced single “Me & U.” At the time, no other artist had been able to directly translate online fans into loyal consumers on a one-to-one ratio.

Today, Leslie has completely sidestepped the traditional business models of his industry and uses technology to forge a unique relationship with his fan base, which he’s affectionately dubbed the Renegade Club. By giving his core audience the opportunity to share their personal information with him, Leslie is able to build an on-going database of supporters that he interacts with across multiple social media platforms and even direct email.

Through his latest venture, Disruptive Multimedia, the entrepreneur has continued to position himself as an ultimate influencer of technology. The company has quickly become a facilitator for artists who are looking to engage with their fans without any middlemen or red tape. To date Talib Kweli, Raphael Saadiq and Maino are a few early adopters who have used Leslie’s model to release new music and set up shows.

Taking his passion for all things tech even further, the 35-year-old recently taught himself how to code and is currently developing new apps for the world’s benefit. Given all his trendsetting moves in the digital space, Ryan Leslie makes an ideal addition to the Gentlemen’s Project sponsored by Hennessy Black, which highlights the accomplishments of influential men whose impact helps shape popular culture in innovative ways. HipHopWired caught up with the über-talented Leslie who shares how his entrepreneurial trek through tech began.

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Photo: Andrea D’Acquino/Brian Gregory

HipHopWired: Did your interest in technology develop out of a natural interest or was it something you felt you needed to survive as an artist?

Leslie: Being a Harvard undergrad in the late ’90s, that’s really when email had started, and everyone was so excited. It was like, “Man, I don’t have to write a letter home, I can just send an email.” So my interest in technology was a natural process. In fact, I started building my own websites all the way back then in school.

HipHopWired: Guess that explains how you got into coding. How beneficial has that skill been to you in your career and business?

Leslie: I get a lot of young people who say, “Yo, I want to rap, I want to produce, I want to be a dancer, I want to be famous…” but at the end of the day what they’re really saying is that they want to be able to make money entrepreneurially doing what they love. I tell people they need to fall in love with coding because one of the other observations that I’ve made from being out in Silicon Valley is that there is no shortage of demand for great engineers. So I did what I needed to do to learn what I needed to learn. I already had some proficiency from building websites in my Harvard days. That’s nearly 15 years of building sites, so it’s very easy to learn new computing and programing languages when you have that type of foundation, but I spent extensive time in the Coding Academy teaching myself how to code.

HipHopWired: But you’re in a position where you could have easily paid someone to do that for you. Why was it so important for you to actually learn how to do it yourself?

Leslie: So I can understand how to make these different services talk to one another. The way that programs and web services talk to one another is through an API. I wanted to understand how I could get a store API to talk to a mailing list API. And how a mailing list can talk to a voice and SMS API. So this is what I wanted to understand and to see for myself how I can connect all these services together.

HipHopWired: As you’ve delved deeper into the tech space, I’m sure it hasn’t been a smooth journey. What are some of the hurdles you’ve faced and what have you learned from those experiences?

Leslie: It’s the same way as with any start-up. When you’re doing it on your own, or setting out on your own, what I would really recommend is if you have the luxury of time to do your best to invest that time in building relationships with people who have gone down that path so you don’t have to make the same mistakes they did. If I had known someone who could have led me down the path and said, “If you’re just interested in making sure that when someone texts you it actually goes to email, then you could use this service or that service.” There’s a lot of time I invested in building solutions that already existed. For anyone interested in this path I would definitely say find some mentors, or some people who are in this space already so you’re not reinventing the wheel or making mistakes that have already been made.

HipHopWired: What have been some of your biggest successes in regards to using technology in your career?

Leslie: Probably the biggest to date was the success we enjoyed with Cassie. I believe it was a foreshadowing of what was to come because that was really the first time that an artist actually sold a number of albums commensurate with their social media following. We built Cassie’s MySpace friends to about 650,000 and she actually sold 650,000 albums. Us being early adopters of using social media to promote the record was revolutionary and I don’t believe at the time or even since then has an artist been able to sell a number of records that is equivalent to his or her social media following.

HipHopWired: Would you consider that to be a breakthrough moment for you as a trendsetter in the tech space?

Leslie: Yes, and I’ve taken everything that I’ve learned from that experience and reapplied it. Technology has really developed a lot since then and become more accessible and affordable. So any artist that is not adopting these strategies for success and building their infrastructure will cease to be successful in the future. That is the mantra of my new company, Disruptive Multimedia. It’s going to set the standard for the way the music business should operate in the future.

HipHopWired: Can you elaborate on that a little more?

Leslie: The function of the brand is to provide a platform for artists to finally take control of the relationship they have with their fans. Up to this point, what we found is that when artists have a product to sell, they’re using third parties whether it’s Instagram, FaceBook or YouTube to own and manage their relationship with their fan base. We’ve created a system that allows us to use all of the best technology that exists, put it all together as an ecosystem for artists to finally own their relationship with their fans in a very direct way.

HipHopWired: How exactly does that work?

Leslie: I basically created an address book separate from my personal one, of every single person who supported my last album. I know them by name, I know where they live, and any other information they’ve chosen to share with me, so I can provide them with better service as an artist, better feedback, and better customer service. Whether it comes to tickets, album sales, downloads, merchandise, whatever it is I can provide the highest level of customer service by owning the relationship with every single supporter. That’s really what the concept or the idea behind Disruptive Multimedia is.

HipHopWired: Has there been any push back from fans about giving up their personal information?

Leslie: Here’s the thing, if you’re buying my record you’re giving it to somebody anyway—Amazon, Apple, etc. So if you can do that with them; why wouldn’t you want to do it with me so you can be counted on the roll call of people who actually supported Ryan’s new album? All I’m asking people to do is to buy directly from me and get iTunes out of my pocket. They didn’t pay me any money to make my record; but they get $3 a record from me. I’m not interested in that, I’m interested in people. If they actually want to support me, I’m interested in acknowledging them directly. Unfortunately when you buy on iTunes you’re anonymous to an artist and there’s no way for me to thank you.

HipHopWired: How did you come up with such a revolutionary way of getting around that?

Leslie: I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley and I looked at every successful business, the outliers like Google, Amazon, Delta Airlines, Verizon… Every single one of these businesses has a one-to-one relationship with their consumers. For instance, Verizon can press a button and send an update to every single one of their subscribers directly in their email, without social media, without tweeting them, without sending them a FaceBook message. Really their idea of social media is growth and engagement, but it’s not required communication. So when I looked at all these other companies, Starbucks, Dell, Dropbox… They know every single one of their customers personally. And when I realized that Dropbox was able to manage 200 million users, and as an artist if I’m selling a couple 100 thousand records, and Jay Z sells 10 million records, unfortunately he’s not able to manage those people, because he’s not collecting the data.

HipHopWired: As you continue to build this direct relationship with your fans, you’ve made a habit of inviting groups of people to hang out with you at your studio. Why have you chosen to open yourself up in this way? 

Leslie: Man, I just want to show appreciation for the people who are supporting my art. So in many ways, I listen to the feedback of the fans. And they say, “Man, we want to see the process.” So I opened up my process to visitors. It has proved to be very successful. People really enjoyed it. A lot of folks are still in the antiquated ages and days of a star having to be untouchable or a star’s gotta be a star. The only time I’m untouchable is if I have to do it for safety or timing reasons. That’s the only time where I feel like I need to manage my interactions. But if not for that, I’m 100% accessible and it’s proven to be very successful.

HipHopWired: You call your fans the Renegade Club; is it true that you’re building an app for them under the same name?

Leslie: Yes, I want to build an app for the actual club, where members can interact with one another. How cool would it be if you were from Paris or Detroit or Italy or Germany and you landed in New York City and said, “I’d love to be able to connect with other Ryan Leslie fans. Does he have a show coming up?” So, we’re going to actually build an application that allows members of the club to interact with one another. I’m very excited about it.

HipHopWired: It sounds a little bit like Foursquare but specific to your fans around the world.

Leslie: Absolutely, and we want to use all of these best practice, all of these solutions and apply them to our industry. In the music industry we’ve been running around in the dark all this time. I refuse to continue running around in the dark, and I refuse to have anyone around me being cool in the dark. I’m interested in actually building the infrastructure, building the pathway, and blazing the trail. I’m going to bring everyone who is willing to listen to the Promised Land. I am the musical messiah.