February 18, 2025 • 32 mins
On this episode of Butternomics, we’re joined by F.L.Y.—the creators of the iconic Swag Surfin’. What started as a club anthem in Atlanta has transformed into a global movement, with everyone from Beyoncé to Taylor Swift and even the Kansas City Chiefs getting in on the wave. But beyond the music, there’s a business behind the culture. We dive into how F.L.Y. built a hit that refuses to fade, the unexpected corporate and global opportunities that came with it, and the lessons they’ve learned about ownership, publishing, and longevity in the music industry. From MySpace days to the Super Bowl stage, this is the story of how Swag Surfin’ became a cultural anthem.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Knowing your paperwork, you know what I'm saying, really knowing
what's in your paperwork? What's the splits? How long it's
gonna take you to recoup this deal?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
That deal?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
When we first popped off, I was just having fun.
It's music. We love making music. But it's a music business.
And so when I finally realized there was a business
I had to like. It made me take a deep
dive and to study the business itself. What are publishing deals?
What is a single deal? What is an album deal?
What are points? What is publishing?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Publishing is the most complicated stuff ever.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, so I think that was like the main thing
for me.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He everybody, Welcome to another episode of button Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, found the CEO of Butter atl And.
Today we don't just have a special guest. We have
special guests with an s plural. You know, I'm country,
So I say guests. There's an esselmat of that thing.
We got guests in the studio.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
And look, man, I'm be honest.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, I wish I could just start playing the music
right now, y'all would know who it is.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
But I'm gonna let these these these these gentlemen.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Introduce themselves, the one, the only, the inventors and the
originators of swag surfing itself.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Fl wives in the building. Fellas, how y'all doing this morning? Man?
Feel good?
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Feeling good?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It was great. Appreciate good man.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Oh good, appreciate y'all. Man. So just as we know,
introduce y'allselves. Who are we got in the building?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
What's up everybody? This is your boy move Man Shawdy
one third of fl Y.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
This is boy V one third of fl Y, and
I go by I make Fly of fl Y.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Gentlemen, gentlemen, thank y'all so much for pulling up. Now
I want to get into the swag surfing thing man again,
like this is like this has past the new electric
slide and you know. On on butter Nomics, we talk
about the intersection of business and culture. So we're gonna
talk about the song and how the song came about.
But I also want to just talk about, like the
impact has had on culture from y'all perspective, what it's
talked about from a business standpoints. We want to cover
(01:56):
a couple different things in this conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That cool, yep, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Cool man.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So again before we go back. What's it like now?
Because I'm just saying, man, you can't go to a
Falcons game. You got Beyonce doing it? Like, what's it
just like? Seeing a song that in my opinion, it
has the same place in culture as the Electric Slide.
It's like all these like iconic songs. Everybody's playing it
that cookouts at every college campus, Like, what's that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Just that like that experience, it's a blessing for one
to have a song that we put out fifteen sixteen
years ago and to have that song keep getting bigger,
Like it's something that I've never really seen like that before.
So I think if I was just just say how
I feel or whatever, it's a blessing for sure.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
For sure, how about y'all? Man, definitely a blessing. Good times,
it's fun, nobody getting hurt.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's a way.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Yeah, it's definitely a vibe.
Speaker 7 (02:55):
You know, you put it on anywhere, the energy on it,
the frequency on it is gonna do what it's supposed to.
But I also think it's more it's more corporate as
it is cultural.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Now, Yeah, I hit that mainstream.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
We've been our type of corporate events lately, Like uh,
I know one year we did so with AT and
T in Dallas.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Last year the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl forty nine
ers first round was it the first round first round,
So it's like it.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Might have been a comfort championship.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
We did what we what we do. The other day,
a lawyer had a party and we was performing at
a Christmas party. We was in there.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So it touched so many different sectors of life. NBA Yeah,
we don't.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
We don have been all like what about twelve thirteen
NBA teams in the last couple of years. So it's
just at a point where I think it doesne crossed
over finally, so now it's touching everybody and everything exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I mean, like we were talking about before we came on,
I mean this showed this song came out of what
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, right, so
you know again it's I know, if you if you're
from Atlanta and grew up out here, you definitely heard
a bunch particular point. It's definitely kind of like crossed
over now and kind of like hit a whole new
almost like a whole new battery in it's back in
a sense like you know what, when do you think
that moment was.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
I think it was a couple of moments actually definitely
definitely the power to Internet these days, and yeah, you
know what I'm saying, social media going viral and everybody
putting their opinion on it. You know what I'm saying.
I know more so last year to kick the year off.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
At church, the.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Church, Yeah about that one, it'd it.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
I forgot there was something else after that, and then
moving on throughout the year, Taylor Swift got a whole lot.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Oh yeah, the Swifty, Yeah, oh yeah, when the Swifty
started swagsurfing at they took it to a whole different level.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I'm sure I got in trouble last year I was
talking too much, but spight it up though all and
then the piggyback off.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What bro say?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I think it's had it's different moments where it was
crossing over, Like even before Taylor Swift, when Beyonce got
a hold, right, you know, that took it to a
whole different group of people.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What else was a big moment.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
We had a lot of HBCU moments.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That Howard, that one Howard moment that I was talking
about earlier, the one from twenty fourteen, where like the
resurgence really happened.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, it was a midnight basketball game.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So that's when I guess where the colors blue and
white or whatever they played each other. So I guess
at halftime or in between quarters they played swags or
everybody in the gym with swags are fans, the team,
the coaches, the referees. So that was like what took
it out of here?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So man, and so like when y'all came up with
this whole thing too, right, Like who came up with
the dance?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Like how did the dance?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Because again, it's not when you think about it, right,
Like the song doesn't even say what to do exactly right, like,
and all of a sudden, it just kind of became
a thing where everybody knows what to do, everybody knows
what it comes on. It's like, Yo, you get next
to the person, you lock our arms, and y'all start hitting,
Like where did that even come from?
Speaker 7 (06:05):
Well, the dance itself, it's two point zero in a sense. Yeah,
it started off as you know what I'm saying, something
that we've seen in the club. You know what I'm saying.
When we was going to the club, around that time.
It just never had a it never had a real
name to it. It just looked like that was surfing,
you know what I'm saying. So, and then even at
the time the dudes we seen doing it, we asked them,
(06:28):
you know what I'm saying, like, hey, y'all thinking about
doing this, But they was like, do your think man?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
We definitely did.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I know, they could have got they could have got
some more with it, you know what I'm saying. But yeah,
I mean like it just it's traveled, you know, even
moments like Kirk Cousins doing it right now, Kirk, I
don't know what Kirk was doing.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Shouldn't stopped doing it?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That might have That might have been the downfall of
k because I feel like he might have got a
little bit too comfortable.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Put a little differ, a little bit too much dip
on this.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We like Kurt, oh, because that was a big moment
too though, you know what I'm saying that was that
was a huge moment really because right after Kirk did that,
what like a week or two later, we interviewed with
Ron Clark on Sunday Countdown on ESPN. Yeah, so it
was just like that's one of them other moments that
took it to a whole another stratosphere.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Again, I think it's like I always say, like there's
just like an inflection point, you know what I'm saying.
And again I think like when you see one, it
speaks to I think the power of just Atlanta culture
in general facts because it was almost like when you
see a Kirk Cousins doing that, you know that he's
connecting himself with people that are in the clause. Otherwise
they weren't doing that in Minnesota. Like I've been to
a football game in Minnesota. Let me tell you something,
(07:37):
anybody dy jumping around.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I look at that like his first time seeing it,
like a whole stadium.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Full of people.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Swag servant was here, and he was like, Oh, this
is what that is. He probably heard the song before, yeah,
but when he's seen it like that, like oh this
is what's going on, and it just took him over.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Again, this is these moments, right, We're getting to your point.
It kind of it's crossed over because you just see
people that you know are getting like culture adjacent or
like you know, they definitely didn't notice. They definitely didn't
know the song growing up. But all of a sudden,
you know, again a teammate or a friend that's kind
of introduced them to it, and now it's kind of
taking on the whole different level. How does that feel
like when you see it pop up in places you
(08:17):
didn't really expect, Like, again, you're probably sitting at home chilling,
you scrolling on Eggs, so you on ESPN all of
a sudden you see a Kirk Cousin's doing it, or
you see Taylor Swift doing it, Like, just what do
those moments feel like?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
For me?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's always exciting, Like as long as this song been out,
I still get excited when I see it, especially when
I see it on TV. Because you just watching a
random Louisville versus Kentucky football game on a Saturday at
twelve o'clock and they turned up Swag service, I'm like,
damn yeah, like it's still going. And then I look
(08:49):
at it too, like it's touching like generations younger and
younger and younger and younger, to the point where kids
that wasn't even born yet that's just now in high school,
middle school, Swag Surfer Montary, Elementary, my nephew favorite song
gets Swag Surfer.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He just turned the living so it's it's dope.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Absolutely. Now let's take it back for a second. How
did y'all get started? Like, how did y'all form this group?
How did y'all even get started before swag surf and
all that stuff came about?
Speaker 7 (09:20):
In high school, me and V was in the group.
I used to have to fight to get studio times.
You know, whoever finished the verse first get on the song.
So a lot of times it was one of them things.
Him and like my cousin Yo was in the group. Okay, yeah,
she brought me to the stuff. I'm like, bring me
to the studio. Man, We'll be like, all right, we'll
bring it to the studio. So and I'm going to
(09:42):
the studio with.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Him killed dropped the verse I kill Killed.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
What was the name of the group? You remember?
Speaker 6 (09:48):
It was called Die Heart the Battery Heart. Yeah, in
the movie kind of you. You know, during that time,
it was like most songs were talking about fighting and
stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
It was an are all our songs were talking about.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
And shoot, we always had a love for the music,
and you know, we want to see everybody like have
a good time at the same time, and we just
find a way to come up with swag surface.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
And then uh Mo was in the group with where
the guy featured on the records in high school. Well,
we always collapsed in high school on different songs. But
it was once we got out of high school. Mook
hit me, he hit v. He was like, Hey, my
aunt got an ideal about this this group. Man, y'all
y'all the two I thought of. So we just thought
(10:36):
we already had chemistry.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Say it was recording hanging out every day too.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
Anyway, so once we started doing the series, and so
I think we probably did like maybe ten songs out
of them teen you get swagged.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, it's always crazy too, like because you never
know what the thing is gonna be. That's why I
can say somebody like you know, creates content and does
stuff like did y'all feel like SWA was a hit
when y'all first made it? Or you know, did you
kind of feel like you know, you're like, you know,
we got something here. Did you feel like it was
a hitter? Like what was your when you first heard
the beat? Like what was your first feeling? But then
also when it was a finished product?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Man, when we first we first heard the beat because
we heard we had on my space.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah, that shows how long ago.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
We found uh because we was listening to like young
La and you know what I'm saying, and we found
his producer on my space. Its named Kaye on the
track right, and so we told him, like, bro, we
want to work with you. We said on what fifty
dollars and he sent us a beat pat and the
first two beats on there was mister Lennox and swag Surfing. Okay,
(11:43):
so we like we knew like them, we're using them.
And then like after we recorded it, it was like
we knew it was five, like it jumped five, but
it wasn't. I didn't know we had some until we
let our friends here and was like like this is
(12:05):
and I think we are still kind of being artists.
Felt like it was something missing still. Yeah, so we
went back and added the intro and the ad libs
and then out of.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Here, where's the concept coming from?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Like you know, how do you come up with Like again,
I'm always interested to hear how you go from like
zero to one? Right, Like, because we're in Atlanta, man,
anybody talking about surfing? How do you even concept like that?
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Well? We kind of put in our song.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
We had a single mister Lenix before Swide Surfer, and
I kind of put it in my verse and kind
of piggyback off that.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
It's just like we're just gonna do a whole song
about it, you know what I say?
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Because I started off like extra clean, like detergent on
me right, and then uh, before the hook came in,
I said, swam when I serve watching service.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
And just and it just took a life of z
own for them because the beat itself, like once we
heard it, it was other novel. You can't play on this beat,
you know what I'm saying? This this this is one
of the ones.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And what he say, he described it like it's a
night in the club, like the whole hook, all the
verses hypnotic, isa it bad girl beside me, friend right
behind me. So it's what we were doing, literally, like
exactly everything we was doing because when we did the song,
we was all college age. I was, we were freshmen.
(13:33):
I think he was going into like his sophomore year.
Easter had just graduated from high school. So it was
like literally we was rocking polo clothes, going to wasted
all these clubs in Atlanta, Wasted Wednesdays, the Libro, all
these spots, and it just it resonated with everybody around
us because all our friends was in college too at
(13:54):
the time.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
And then that was that was a point of time
in Atlanta. If you're from the city, or even if
you're not, this how doing that point in time?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Man?
Speaker 7 (14:02):
We hitting three four five clubs a night, right, you
know what I'm saying, getting his record spent and broke.
You know what I'm saying from different DJs, It wasn't
a such thing as going viral in a sense then
outside real footwork for it.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, when did you all kind of feel like it
was starting to break through? Like you come out with
the song, you're hitting the clubs with it, Like when
did you all kind of start to feel like, you
know what, Like we knew we had something, but now
other people really starting to see it too.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Well, the first time we performed it, it was more
than us just wearing a polo clothes too, so and
then and a few people knew the dance too, so
it was like movement when we first seen it.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
You know, everybody want to be a part of song,
just like how the head bust move was. You know,
it was easy to do.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Everybody can do it east side stump et cetera, Lean
me the rock with it. And our first time we
performed it, we had like a it was like probably
about ten of us doing it, and then it just
kind of like a snowball effick.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
The next people that see us do it, they want
to be a part of it.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
They want to be a part of it, and it
just kind of spread it like that before everybody went
back to college.
Speaker 7 (15:01):
And then that's the thing, like you said, when once
everybody went to school from that summer because we probably
I think we probably dropped it maybe, So by that time,
everybody going back to college to all beneath for it, valley,
our southern wherever, they took it with them.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
By that fall, we're doing home.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, we was everywhere.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean because especially to your point right, like
everybody especially out here in Georgia. I mean I went
to Georgia Southern myself, you know what I'm saying. So
everybody comes back home for the summer, we get all
the music, you know what I mean. Like I remember
I used to come back up here and get the
music and take stuff back to school and then all
of a sudden, Yeah, all of a sudden, you know,
the school gets their hands on the fraternities and sororities,
starts stepping to it. Now you're doing homecomings, and then
(15:47):
those people are now taking it somewhere else, and so
it almost just seems like a snowball effect.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right right, And that's that's just like literally what it is,
because I think the first school we did have been
like Gordon, and so.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Like you know, that's only like forty five.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It's just seemed like every week we was getting further
and further outside of the East Side, outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So we in Gordon this week, West Georgia, then we in.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Valley Georgia, Southern Alabama State, Tennessee State, still Man Alabama,
and them south east South Carolina State. So it's just
like it was just it was like this, it was
like a I know, we're on radio, but it was
like just spreading like Witer and Roder and Rider like
(16:38):
every every day basically.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I mean it kind of reminds me of you know,
even how like when when Ti and them kind of
got rolling back in the day. But it's kind of
a similar thing to where you know, they took that
thing and hit all the colleges up and you know,
because again those things travel. Now you're going now you're
outside of schools and just Georgia. Now you're in schools
in Alabama and Tennessee and Florida. And then, like I said,
those people grow up and they kind of take this
song with them and all this up and it kind
(17:00):
of blows up like globally, though, where have y'all seen
this grow to? Like I don't know if people swagsurfing
in Dubai, Like, whe're some places that they haven't seen
that you didn't expect it to travel to that it
showed up.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And I was in Japan for my birthday.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I was just chilling, like chilling, and somebody ran up
on me like, oh, I know who you are, and
they started surfing. I'm like dang, like but they we
was out there, they played in the club. We've been
to Germany a few times, Dubai, Bahrain.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Kunnar else, the internet and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, the Dirty December in Nigeria, Canada is everywhere, bro
Like everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's so crazy to see.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's like, man, what they know about it out there now?
Y'all again, the song starts to blow up, things starts
to happen. But obviously there's a business side of this
stuff too. Fact like, what were some of the things
y'all were doing to help get the business in order
as this song was starting to take off and it
was getting more well known.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I know, one of the main things we did was
kind of build a team. So we had our manager,
and I think one of the one of the smartest
things we did was start a promo team, and we
had them basically like throwing parties and stuff around the city.
So whenever we would be in town, we would go
to they party and get some new music played or
(18:20):
perform swag at they party. We made it to where
basically we always kind of had a platform to put
on display. And then really even before that, like backtracking,
we got our first deal when we signed January two
thousand and nine and the song came out May two
thousand and eight. We signed with def Jam January two
(18:43):
thousand and nine, and I feel like making that deal
also helped the spread of the song definitely with the marketing.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
CUD Yeah TV, and that was one on system part
was kind of going crazy.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Yeah so they got they got a chance to see
has put the visual behind the song.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
And I think that was like one of the last
years that they did spring Bling. Oh yeah, we went,
we wented this, they got to do that.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, I mean that that was that was kind of
like the heyday of you know, all those shows again
B T one O six in part tr L. You know,
you kind of had these moments. Everybody was still watching
the music.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Videos and stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And again, I think like when those things happened too,
because now you know, and I'm not going to get
into like my over critique on music now, but again,
like now music comes out so quickly that a lot
of time it finds, you know, but like again, when
you kind of like build something so intentionally and organically,
you know, it's just got a better foundation to kind
of spread on. Like I said, you got people that
you probably probably saw y'all perform at Spring Bring that
(19:42):
now own their own companies, that now have their own families.
They're like, yo, I got to get these guys out here.
I remember this moment.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I want moment that's literally exactly what we happened.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And a lot of the corporate stuff we do is
from people that we came across at a party that
you know, people we knew from high school, people we
knew from college. But the one thing about it is
all of these people always remember exactly where they were
and what they were doing when they heard swag surface.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So it's like always like a point of conversation like why.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Find it, bring y'all to my company Christmas party and
introduce y'all to everybody, And.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
It always start with like me personally, like man, I
remember who I remember? Man, bro, I remember you know
what I'm saying. It's always that it always start with that, Oh.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Man, what's been for each one of you individually, like
what's been kind of your favorite moment in this journey?
Speaker 6 (20:31):
Well, for me, it's like seeing like some of my
favorite artists do it, players and coaches like oh, of course, Beyonce,
that was huge, Yeah, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, and like Roy
Williams the kind of crossover and then kind of let
people know like hold on, I know this old this
old guy can't dance, but it's like, you know, like
(20:52):
if he can do it, everybody else can do it.
And then when they see people like Roy Williams doing it,
they first thing to do. They were like, what was
that song that everybody doing the stadium and then they
gonna look it up for themself and they, you know,
they get the experience theyself.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, how about y'all?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I had so many.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
My favorite probably my most favorite morning I know, Mike
know what I'm about to say.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
It was Something in the Water.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That was for real, his first We did his festival
the first year he did it. So we went out
there really not knowing what to expect. But it was
like eighty thousand people on Virginia Beach. I ain't never
before then, I had never seen that many people in
one place, and so when the song comes on, the
(21:36):
crowd was so big, it was like we couldn't control
it and it just everybody lost their mind and it
was like the big It went viral.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So for me, that was like the biggest one.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
For me and as a reseller.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
Last February we did the Chief Super Bowl after party.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That was crazy.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
That was crazy, And in that after party, you got
the owners, you got the Season two get hold of,
you got the players family players families, and then the
lineup was Us, Ludacris, Red Hot, Post Malone, I think
Tiger Yeah, it was a moment, like you know what
(22:23):
I'm saying. Like I said, they had just won the
Super Bowl and for us to be able to do
that in front of them, and the feedback we got
it was, it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
What do you think is important, especially if y'all be
in a group for the last you know, over a
decade and and and kind of learning all these things
would have been some things that you all have had
to do to just make sure that y'all stay on
the same page and stay connected, because I'm sure lots
of opportunities come at y'all. You know, I'm sure that
I'm sure y'all don't agree on everything, right, nobody agrees
on everything. Just what do y'all do to make sure
y'all stay tight and on the same page as a
group so that y'all continue to stay on this wave
(23:03):
and keep winning, just keep going for real.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I'll say, we make sure we communicate, especially on the
important things, yeap when these deals coming across.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Or whatever, like we just did a.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Publish and deal with two years ago now with a
Rock Nation, So that was one of the things, like
we really had to sit down and decide if that's.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
What we wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
So when it comes to I think that's the biggest thing,
is like when it comes to cern stuff, we just
make sure we get each other's opinions and take it
to a vote and.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Just try to.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
You know, go about it that way so that way,
you know, nobody feels slighted or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
What's been one of the you know, biggest lessons that
you all have learned kind of on this journey again,
especially you kind of have it again the song pops
off and it kind of gets this whole second resurgence
years later, Like, what's what's kind of a big lesson
you off taken away from this whole journey.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
On your paperwork? You know what I'm saying, really knowing
what's in your paperwork? What's the splits? How long it's
gonna take you to recoup this deal?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
That deal?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Because I can, you know, speaking for myself, when we
first popped off, I was just having fun. You know,
it's music. We love making music, but it's a music business.
And so when I finally realized it was a business,
I had to like. It made me take a deep
dive and to study the business itself. On what are
(24:30):
publishing deals? What is a single deal? What is an
album deal? What are points? What is publishing? Like, publishing
is the most complicated stuff ever, So I think that
was like the main thing for me.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
And then even around even in the beginning, I can
say that we had good people around us that didn't
let us feel in a sense.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
As far as the paperwork, we went in to depth.
Jam l A.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
Reed.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
He was like, nah, I don't want they publishing, I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
So he even let us like, cool, we'll do the deal,
but y'all keep y'all publishing management at the time. Our
lawyer at the time made sure that that was situated,
you know what I'm saying. So after I mean years
not years later, but as time moves on, we learned ourselves,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
So you know, I mean that's Look, that's the recurring
theme I hear from a lot of people when they
come in on the podcast. It's just the importance they
having a team and the right people around you, and
like I said, knowing your paperwork, especially when opportunities are
coming fast. They came from all over the place. Everybody
wants that like they got your best interest in mind,
but they obviously got their own interest in mind, you
know what I'm saying, So me able to kind of
have those balances and whatnot. Like what do y'all think
(25:40):
is next though? You know what I'm saying, As y'all
can team to kind of you know, ride this thing
and grow this thing, Like how does swag surfing evolve
and go even bigger and further man.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Well, basically just trying to get him on bigger stages
like events like maybe the Olympics, stuff like that, bigger
stages where they can where it can be spread because
everybody you heard of it.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
That's the thing about it, Like it's still new to
some people.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
That's crazy. It's really crazy when you think about it,
Like it's.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Still different, different collages, Like you know, a few colleges
locking in, but different colleges, you know, get the Harvard's
and all those colleges, and just for the business spread more.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
For me, I think it's uh, movies and TV.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, for the song and for us, I think that's
like the main thing we've been doing these last few
years is like because the song took off so fast
that it was hard for people to put the song
with us If that makes sense. So it's like we've
been kind of running the song down since it came out,
But I think we getting to a point now where
(26:42):
people are starting to put us with the song, our faces,
you know, we getting recognized, We're getting invited all these things.
So I think movies and TV is like the next
and video games too.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Nah.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
You know, it was funny you said that because I
was gonna ask about video games, but to kind of
piggyback off what you just said about movies and TV,
I had, Yeah, I had my guy, mister Hanky in here,
you know, and he actually he actually made the beat
for butter Nom, he made the see and him we
were good buddies, and uh, that's one of the things
he was even talking about was just he wished he
would have known about like the movie game and like
(27:15):
all that stuff earlier, because he's like, yeah, man, these
movie checks are different, bro movie moments, Like I'm doing
one thing, but like you know, he's got his music
in movies now and other stuff and even to your point,
video games. You know, just there's so many ways to
kind of you know, distribute the content, you know, especially now,
like I said, y'all started this off man, it was
into MySpace day, Like I didn't think that the iPhone
(27:36):
probably wasn't out yet, it was just coming out.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Nobody was even thinking about, like.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know what I mean, because, like I was saying,
like the whole reason why I feel like I don't
necessarily think the song died down, but it was less
visible until the better phone started to come out. Yeah,
people could record it and now post it to any
everything ain't But.
Speaker 7 (28:01):
It was in a transitional space because even when we dropped,
we had just missed ring tongs, right, you know what
I'm saying. So music and the way you receive music
was changing at the time, and like like move said,
it wouldn't until it caught up when things start going viral,
you get your vines, you know what I'm saying, vine,
the first TikTok.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah for real, for real five second videos.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Yeah, So it wasn't until things like that that it
started catching up.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
You know, if y'all could again, because I'm just thinking about,
you know, all the stuff that's happened beyond saying everything else,
but like what's what's like y'all's dream show where y'all's
dream place to see swag surf. It happened like we
swaged surfing at the White House. I mean not probably
not right now.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
You know when the parties they danced to it, I think,
I'm I'm gonna roll with v. The Olympics is next, okay,
the Olympics like Royal Cup Olympics something where it's like
literally on the world stage.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Hey we got we got the World Cup coming there.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Lit you know, Hockey NASCAR is basically different sports where
everybody can have fun because they.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Auburn what's called what's what's it called with the horses question.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Of the question.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Yeah, the question last year too, So it's kind of
like more people catching on to it.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know again, it's it's just funny when you kind
of think about why things pop off and why things
go viral, because like even all these new dances and stuff,
like you got to remember all the moves and the stuff,
and you got to go practice at home and do
all this stuff like this, Like anybody can kind of
sway left and right, you know what I'm saying. They
might do it a little bit differently, but once they
kind of see it once or twice, you know, it's
it's very easy to kind of pick up and it
(29:43):
seems like very transferable at the end of the day too.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
It's just about having fun.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And I think that's what makes it work because, like
you said earlier, there are no instructions to the song, right,
so you kind of got to be like you.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Got to join in with somebody to know what to do.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And I think by us explaining it how to do
it in the song, it made the dance that much bigger.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Absolutely absolutely made it.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It made it that much bigger because again, it's spread
by you had to see somebody, You had to be
demonstrated how to do it right, you know what I mean. Yes,
it's not no I'm gonna step in and watch yours. Know,
like you know, there's no YouTube tutorial on it. You
know what I'm saying. It's just like I learned how
to do this by doing it, and it's something I
can do, my mom can do, my uncle with a
bad back. Can you posted at the nursing home person
(30:27):
that you can do it?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
At all type of events, uh?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Or was it that one time y'all, oh a gender reveal?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We did a gender reveal?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Bro like like what like and like right when the
beat drops, when they.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Revealed the gender of the baby.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Oh, weddings, birthday parties are missed for church. It's just
it's everybody can join in on this.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
My grandma loved a song like It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Man.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Look and I and I fully believe the Olympics as possible.
Looking if snow Dog can be the official, if Snoop
dogg in flavor flag can be like the official, you know, representatives,
there's no reason why we shouldn't be out there, swags surf.
I think we're gonna be in La next time. Anyway,
we're gonna be in the US. It's all set up
perfect for y'all. So yo, man, look man, I appreciate
(31:16):
y'all coming in. Congratulations on all the success again, just
watching how this song has evolved over the years and
how it's become again just like a cultural staple, you know,
like it's just one of those things to where I
literally I put it up there, like with the Electric
Slide and everything else. Is just one of those things.
And especially when you go to a game in Atlanta,
you go to any sporting event, you're gonna hear it.
I hope we all are proud of that. I hope
we'll get out that y'all continue to get the recognition
(31:39):
that y'all deserve and it gets goes bigger and better,
and I just love it. It's all coming from Atlanta, man,
So you know what that said. I appreciate y'all pulling
up to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And we out.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
You've been listening to button Nomics and I'm your hosts
Brandon Butler. Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show.
Send us an email today at Hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is producing it Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Casey Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki. Music
provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that
subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure
(32:10):
to follow us on all our social platforms at butter
dot atl Listen to better Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Knowing your paperwork, you know what I'm saying, really knowing
what's in your paperwork? What's the splits? How long it's
gonna take you to recoup this deal?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
That deal?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
When we first popped off, I was just having fun.
It's music. We love making music. But it's a music business.
And so when I finally realized there was a business
I had to like. It made me take a deep
dive and to study the business itself. What are publishing deals?
What is a single deal? What is an album deal?
What are points? What is publishing?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Publishing is the most complicated stuff ever.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, so I think that was like the main thing
for me.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He everybody, Welcome to another episode of button Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, found the CEO of Butter atl And.
Today we don't just have a special guest. We have
special guests with an s plural. You know, I'm country,
So I say guests. There's an esselmat of that thing.
We got guests in the studio.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
And look, man, I'm be honest.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, I wish I could just start playing the music
right now, y'all would know who it is.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
But I'm gonna let these these these these gentlemen.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Introduce themselves, the one, the only, the inventors and the
originators of swag surfing itself.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Fl wives in the building. Fellas, how y'all doing this morning? Man?
Feel good?
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Feeling good?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It was great. Appreciate good man.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Oh good, appreciate y'all. Man. So just as we know,
introduce y'allselves. Who are we got in the building?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
What's up everybody? This is your boy move Man Shawdy
one third of fl Y.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
This is boy V one third of fl Y, and
I go by I make Fly of fl Y.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Gentlemen, gentlemen, thank y'all so much for pulling up. Now
I want to get into the swag surfing thing man again,
like this is like this has past the new electric
slide and you know. On on butter Nomics, we talk
about the intersection of business and culture. So we're gonna
talk about the song and how the song came about.
But I also want to just talk about, like the
impact has had on culture from y'all perspective, what it's
talked about from a business standpoints. We want to cover
(01:56):
a couple different things in this conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
That cool, yep, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Cool man.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So again before we go back. What's it like now?
Because I'm just saying, man, you can't go to a
Falcons game. You got Beyonce doing it? Like, what's it
just like? Seeing a song that in my opinion, it
has the same place in culture as the Electric Slide.
It's like all these like iconic songs. Everybody's playing it
that cookouts at every college campus, Like, what's that?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Just that like that experience, it's a blessing for one
to have a song that we put out fifteen sixteen
years ago and to have that song keep getting bigger,
Like it's something that I've never really seen like that before.
So I think if I was just just say how
I feel or whatever, it's a blessing for sure.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
For sure, how about y'all? Man, definitely a blessing. Good times,
it's fun, nobody getting hurt.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's a way.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Yeah, it's definitely a vibe.
Speaker 7 (02:55):
You know, you put it on anywhere, the energy on it,
the frequency on it is gonna do what it's supposed to.
But I also think it's more it's more corporate as
it is cultural.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Now, Yeah, I hit that mainstream.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
We've been our type of corporate events lately, Like uh,
I know one year we did so with AT and
T in Dallas.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Last year the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl forty nine
ers first round was it the first round first round,
So it's like it.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Might have been a comfort championship.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
We did what we what we do. The other day,
a lawyer had a party and we was performing at
a Christmas party. We was in there.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So it touched so many different sectors of life. NBA Yeah,
we don't.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
We don have been all like what about twelve thirteen
NBA teams in the last couple of years. So it's
just at a point where I think it doesne crossed
over finally, so now it's touching everybody and everything exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I mean, like we were talking about before we came on,
I mean this showed this song came out of what
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, right, so
you know again it's I know, if you if you're
from Atlanta and grew up out here, you definitely heard
a bunch particular point. It's definitely kind of like crossed
over now and kind of like hit a whole new
almost like a whole new battery in it's back in
a sense like you know what, when do you think
that moment was.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
I think it was a couple of moments actually definitely
definitely the power to Internet these days, and yeah, you
know what I'm saying, social media going viral and everybody
putting their opinion on it. You know what I'm saying.
I know more so last year to kick the year off.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
At church, the.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Church, Yeah about that one, it'd it.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
I forgot there was something else after that, and then
moving on throughout the year, Taylor Swift got a whole lot.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Oh yeah, the Swifty, Yeah, oh yeah, when the Swifty
started swagsurfing at they took it to a whole different level.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I'm sure I got in trouble last year I was
talking too much, but spight it up though all and
then the piggyback off.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What bro say?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I think it's had it's different moments where it was
crossing over, Like even before Taylor Swift, when Beyonce got
a hold, right, you know, that took it to a
whole different group of people.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What else was a big moment.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
We had a lot of HBCU moments.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
That Howard, that one Howard moment that I was talking
about earlier, the one from twenty fourteen, where like the
resurgence really happened.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, it was a midnight basketball game.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So that's when I guess where the colors blue and
white or whatever they played each other. So I guess
at halftime or in between quarters they played swags or
everybody in the gym with swags are fans, the team,
the coaches, the referees. So that was like what took
it out of here?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
So man, and so like when y'all came up with
this whole thing too, right, Like who came up with
the dance?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Like how did the dance?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Because again, it's not when you think about it, right,
Like the song doesn't even say what to do exactly right, like,
and all of a sudden, it just kind of became
a thing where everybody knows what to do, everybody knows
what it comes on. It's like, Yo, you get next
to the person, you lock our arms, and y'all start hitting,
Like where did that even come from?
Speaker 7 (06:05):
Well, the dance itself, it's two point zero in a sense. Yeah,
it started off as you know what I'm saying, something
that we've seen in the club. You know what I'm saying.
When we was going to the club, around that time.
It just never had a it never had a real
name to it. It just looked like that was surfing,
you know what I'm saying. So, and then even at
the time the dudes we seen doing it, we asked them,
(06:28):
you know what I'm saying, like, hey, y'all thinking about
doing this, But they was like, do your think man?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
We definitely did.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I know, they could have got they could have got
some more with it, you know what I'm saying. But yeah,
I mean like it just it's traveled, you know, even
moments like Kirk Cousins doing it right now, Kirk, I
don't know what Kirk was doing.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Shouldn't stopped doing it?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That might have That might have been the downfall of
k because I feel like he might have got a
little bit too comfortable.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Put a little differ, a little bit too much dip
on this.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We like Kurt, oh, because that was a big moment
too though, you know what I'm saying that was that
was a huge moment really because right after Kirk did that,
what like a week or two later, we interviewed with
Ron Clark on Sunday Countdown on ESPN. Yeah, so it
was just like that's one of them other moments that
took it to a whole another stratosphere.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Again, I think it's like I always say, like there's
just like an inflection point, you know what I'm saying.
And again I think like when you see one, it
speaks to I think the power of just Atlanta culture
in general facts because it was almost like when you
see a Kirk Cousins doing that, you know that he's
connecting himself with people that are in the clause. Otherwise
they weren't doing that in Minnesota. Like I've been to
a football game in Minnesota. Let me tell you something,
(07:37):
anybody dy jumping around.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I look at that like his first time seeing it,
like a whole stadium.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Full of people.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Swag servant was here, and he was like, Oh, this
is what that is. He probably heard the song before, yeah,
but when he's seen it like that, like oh this
is what's going on, and it just took him over.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Again, this is these moments, right, We're getting to your point.
It kind of it's crossed over because you just see
people that you know are getting like culture adjacent or
like you know, they definitely didn't notice. They definitely didn't
know the song growing up. But all of a sudden,
you know, again a teammate or a friend that's kind
of introduced them to it, and now it's kind of
taking on the whole different level. How does that feel
like when you see it pop up in places you
(08:17):
didn't really expect, Like, again, you're probably sitting at home chilling,
you scrolling on Eggs, so you on ESPN all of
a sudden you see a Kirk Cousin's doing it, or
you see Taylor Swift doing it, Like, just what do
those moments feel like?
Speaker 2 (08:28):
For me?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's always exciting, Like as long as this song been out,
I still get excited when I see it, especially when
I see it on TV. Because you just watching a
random Louisville versus Kentucky football game on a Saturday at
twelve o'clock and they turned up Swag service, I'm like,
damn yeah, like it's still going. And then I look
(08:49):
at it too, like it's touching like generations younger and
younger and younger and younger, to the point where kids
that wasn't even born yet that's just now in high school,
middle school, Swag Surfer Montary, Elementary, my nephew favorite song
gets Swag Surfer.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He just turned the living so it's it's dope.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Absolutely. Now let's take it back for a second. How
did y'all get started? Like, how did y'all form this group?
How did y'all even get started before swag surf and
all that stuff came about?
Speaker 7 (09:20):
In high school, me and V was in the group.
I used to have to fight to get studio times.
You know, whoever finished the verse first get on the song.
So a lot of times it was one of them things.
Him and like my cousin Yo was in the group. Okay, yeah,
she brought me to the stuff. I'm like, bring me
to the studio. Man, We'll be like, all right, we'll
bring it to the studio. So and I'm going to
(09:42):
the studio with.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Him killed dropped the verse I kill Killed.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
What was the name of the group? You remember?
Speaker 6 (09:48):
It was called Die Heart the Battery Heart. Yeah, in
the movie kind of you. You know, during that time,
it was like most songs were talking about fighting and
stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
It was an are all our songs were talking about.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
And shoot, we always had a love for the music,
and you know, we want to see everybody like have
a good time at the same time, and we just
find a way to come up with swag surface.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
And then uh Mo was in the group with where
the guy featured on the records in high school. Well,
we always collapsed in high school on different songs. But
it was once we got out of high school. Mook
hit me, he hit v. He was like, Hey, my
aunt got an ideal about this this group. Man, y'all
y'all the two I thought of. So we just thought
(10:36):
we already had chemistry.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Say it was recording hanging out every day too.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (10:40):
Anyway, so once we started doing the series, and so
I think we probably did like maybe ten songs out
of them teen you get swagged.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, it's always crazy too, like because you never
know what the thing is gonna be. That's why I
can say somebody like you know, creates content and does
stuff like did y'all feel like SWA was a hit
when y'all first made it? Or you know, did you
kind of feel like you know, you're like, you know,
we got something here. Did you feel like it was
a hitter? Like what was your when you first heard
the beat? Like what was your first feeling? But then
also when it was a finished product?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Man, when we first we first heard the beat because
we heard we had on my space.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah, that shows how long ago.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
We found uh because we was listening to like young
La and you know what I'm saying, and we found
his producer on my space. Its named Kaye on the
track right, and so we told him, like, bro, we
want to work with you. We said on what fifty
dollars and he sent us a beat pat and the
first two beats on there was mister Lennox and swag Surfing. Okay,
(11:43):
so we like we knew like them, we're using them.
And then like after we recorded it, it was like
we knew it was five, like it jumped five, but
it wasn't. I didn't know we had some until we
let our friends here and was like like this is
(12:05):
and I think we are still kind of being artists.
Felt like it was something missing still. Yeah, so we
went back and added the intro and the ad libs
and then out of.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Here, where's the concept coming from?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Like you know, how do you come up with Like again,
I'm always interested to hear how you go from like
zero to one? Right, Like, because we're in Atlanta, man,
anybody talking about surfing? How do you even concept like that?
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Well? We kind of put in our song.
Speaker 6 (12:42):
We had a single mister Lenix before Swide Surfer, and
I kind of put it in my verse and kind
of piggyback off that.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
It's just like we're just gonna do a whole song
about it, you know what I say?
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Because I started off like extra clean, like detergent on
me right, and then uh, before the hook came in,
I said, swam when I serve watching service.
Speaker 7 (13:01):
And just and it just took a life of z
own for them because the beat itself, like once we
heard it, it was other novel. You can't play on this beat,
you know what I'm saying? This this this is one
of the ones.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And what he say, he described it like it's a
night in the club, like the whole hook, all the
verses hypnotic, isa it bad girl beside me, friend right
behind me. So it's what we were doing, literally, like
exactly everything we was doing because when we did the song,
we was all college age. I was, we were freshmen.
(13:33):
I think he was going into like his sophomore year.
Easter had just graduated from high school. So it was
like literally we was rocking polo clothes, going to wasted
all these clubs in Atlanta, Wasted Wednesdays, the Libro, all
these spots, and it just it resonated with everybody around
us because all our friends was in college too at
(13:54):
the time.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
And then that was that was a point of time
in Atlanta. If you're from the city, or even if
you're not, this how doing that point in time?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Man?
Speaker 7 (14:02):
We hitting three four five clubs a night, right, you
know what I'm saying, getting his record spent and broke.
You know what I'm saying from different DJs, It wasn't
a such thing as going viral in a sense then
outside real footwork for it.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, when did you all kind of feel like it
was starting to break through? Like you come out with
the song, you're hitting the clubs with it, Like when
did you all kind of start to feel like, you
know what, Like we knew we had something, but now
other people really starting to see it too.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Well, the first time we performed it, it was more
than us just wearing a polo clothes too, so and
then and a few people knew the dance too, so
it was like movement when we first seen it.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
You know, everybody want to be a part of song,
just like how the head bust move was. You know,
it was easy to do.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Everybody can do it east side stump et cetera, Lean
me the rock with it. And our first time we
performed it, we had like a it was like probably
about ten of us doing it, and then it just
kind of like a snowball effick.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
The next people that see us do it, they want
to be a part of it.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
They want to be a part of it, and it
just kind of spread it like that before everybody went
back to college.
Speaker 7 (15:01):
And then that's the thing, like you said, when once
everybody went to school from that summer because we probably
I think we probably dropped it maybe, So by that time,
everybody going back to college to all beneath for it, valley,
our southern wherever, they took it with them.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
By that fall, we're doing home.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, we was everywhere.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean because especially to your point right, like
everybody especially out here in Georgia. I mean I went
to Georgia Southern myself, you know what I'm saying. So
everybody comes back home for the summer, we get all
the music, you know what I mean. Like I remember
I used to come back up here and get the
music and take stuff back to school and then all
of a sudden, Yeah, all of a sudden, you know,
the school gets their hands on the fraternities and sororities,
starts stepping to it. Now you're doing homecomings, and then
(15:47):
those people are now taking it somewhere else, and so
it almost just seems like a snowball effect.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right right, And that's that's just like literally what it is,
because I think the first school we did have been
like Gordon, and so.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Like you know, that's only like forty five.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It's just seemed like every week we was getting further
and further outside of the East Side, outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So we in Gordon this week, West Georgia, then we in.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Valley Georgia, Southern Alabama State, Tennessee State, still Man Alabama,
and them south east South Carolina State. So it's just
like it was just it was like this, it was
like a I know, we're on radio, but it was
like just spreading like Witer and Roder and Rider like
(16:38):
every every day basically.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I mean it kind of reminds me of you know,
even how like when when Ti and them kind of
got rolling back in the day. But it's kind of
a similar thing to where you know, they took that
thing and hit all the colleges up and you know,
because again those things travel. Now you're going now you're
outside of schools and just Georgia. Now you're in schools
in Alabama and Tennessee and Florida. And then, like I said,
those people grow up and they kind of take this
song with them and all this up and it kind
(17:00):
of blows up like globally, though, where have y'all seen
this grow to? Like I don't know if people swagsurfing
in Dubai, Like, whe're some places that they haven't seen
that you didn't expect it to travel to that it
showed up.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And I was in Japan for my birthday.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I was just chilling, like chilling, and somebody ran up
on me like, oh, I know who you are, and
they started surfing. I'm like dang, like but they we
was out there, they played in the club. We've been
to Germany a few times, Dubai, Bahrain.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Kunnar else, the internet and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, the Dirty December in Nigeria, Canada is everywhere, bro
Like everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's so crazy to see.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It's like, man, what they know about it out there now?
Y'all again, the song starts to blow up, things starts
to happen. But obviously there's a business side of this
stuff too. Fact like, what were some of the things
y'all were doing to help get the business in order
as this song was starting to take off and it
was getting more well known.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I know, one of the main things we did was
kind of build a team. So we had our manager,
and I think one of the one of the smartest
things we did was start a promo team, and we
had them basically like throwing parties and stuff around the city.
So whenever we would be in town, we would go
to they party and get some new music played or
(18:20):
perform swag at they party. We made it to where
basically we always kind of had a platform to put
on display. And then really even before that, like backtracking,
we got our first deal when we signed January two
thousand and nine and the song came out May two
thousand and eight. We signed with def Jam January two
(18:43):
thousand and nine, and I feel like making that deal
also helped the spread of the song definitely with the marketing.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
CUD Yeah TV, and that was one on system part
was kind of going crazy.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Yeah so they got they got a chance to see
has put the visual behind the song.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
And I think that was like one of the last
years that they did spring Bling. Oh yeah, we went,
we wented this, they got to do that.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, I mean that that was that was kind of
like the heyday of you know, all those shows again
B T one O six in part tr L. You know,
you kind of had these moments. Everybody was still watching
the music.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Videos and stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And again, I think like when those things happened too,
because now you know, and I'm not going to get
into like my over critique on music now, but again,
like now music comes out so quickly that a lot
of time it finds, you know, but like again, when
you kind of like build something so intentionally and organically,
you know, it's just got a better foundation to kind
of spread on. Like I said, you got people that
you probably probably saw y'all perform at Spring Bring that
(19:42):
now own their own companies, that now have their own families.
They're like, yo, I got to get these guys out here.
I remember this moment.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I want moment that's literally exactly what we happened.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And a lot of the corporate stuff we do is
from people that we came across at a party that
you know, people we knew from high school, people we
knew from college. But the one thing about it is
all of these people always remember exactly where they were
and what they were doing when they heard swag surface.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So it's like always like a point of conversation like why.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Find it, bring y'all to my company Christmas party and
introduce y'all to everybody, And.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
It always start with like me personally, like man, I
remember who I remember? Man, bro, I remember you know
what I'm saying. It's always that it always start with that, Oh.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Man, what's been for each one of you individually, like
what's been kind of your favorite moment in this journey?
Speaker 6 (20:31):
Well, for me, it's like seeing like some of my
favorite artists do it, players and coaches like oh, of course, Beyonce,
that was huge, Yeah, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, and like Roy
Williams the kind of crossover and then kind of let
people know like hold on, I know this old this
old guy can't dance, but it's like, you know, like
(20:52):
if he can do it, everybody else can do it.
And then when they see people like Roy Williams doing it,
they first thing to do. They were like, what was
that song that everybody doing the stadium and then they
gonna look it up for themself and they, you know,
they get the experience theyself.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, how about y'all?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I had so many.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
My favorite probably my most favorite morning I know, Mike
know what I'm about to say.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
It was Something in the Water.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That was for real, his first We did his festival
the first year he did it. So we went out
there really not knowing what to expect. But it was
like eighty thousand people on Virginia Beach. I ain't never
before then, I had never seen that many people in
one place, and so when the song comes on, the
(21:36):
crowd was so big, it was like we couldn't control
it and it just everybody lost their mind and it
was like the big It went viral.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So for me, that was like the biggest one.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
For me and as a reseller.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
Last February we did the Chief Super Bowl after party.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That was crazy.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
That was crazy, And in that after party, you got
the owners, you got the Season two get hold of,
you got the players family players families, and then the
lineup was Us, Ludacris, Red Hot, Post Malone, I think
Tiger Yeah, it was a moment, like you know what
(22:23):
I'm saying. Like I said, they had just won the
Super Bowl and for us to be able to do
that in front of them, and the feedback we got
it was, it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
What do you think is important, especially if y'all be
in a group for the last you know, over a
decade and and and kind of learning all these things
would have been some things that you all have had
to do to just make sure that y'all stay on
the same page and stay connected, because I'm sure lots
of opportunities come at y'all. You know, I'm sure that
I'm sure y'all don't agree on everything, right, nobody agrees
on everything. Just what do y'all do to make sure
y'all stay tight and on the same page as a
group so that y'all continue to stay on this wave
(23:03):
and keep winning, just keep going for real.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I'll say, we make sure we communicate, especially on the
important things, yeap when these deals coming across.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Or whatever, like we just did a.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Publish and deal with two years ago now with a
Rock Nation, So that was one of the things, like
we really had to sit down and decide if that's.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
What we wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
So when it comes to I think that's the biggest thing,
is like when it comes to cern stuff, we just
make sure we get each other's opinions and take it
to a vote and.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Just try to.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
You know, go about it that way so that way,
you know, nobody feels slighted or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
What's been one of the you know, biggest lessons that
you all have learned kind of on this journey again,
especially you kind of have it again the song pops
off and it kind of gets this whole second resurgence
years later, Like, what's what's kind of a big lesson
you off taken away from this whole journey.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
On your paperwork? You know what I'm saying, really knowing
what's in your paperwork? What's the splits? How long it's
gonna take you to recoup this deal?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
That deal?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Because I can, you know, speaking for myself, when we
first popped off, I was just having fun. You know,
it's music. We love making music, but it's a music business.
And so when I finally realized it was a business,
I had to like. It made me take a deep
dive and to study the business itself. On what are
(24:30):
publishing deals? What is a single deal? What is an
album deal? What are points? What is publishing? Like, publishing
is the most complicated stuff ever, So I think that
was like the main thing for me.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
And then even around even in the beginning, I can
say that we had good people around us that didn't
let us feel in a sense.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
As far as the paperwork, we went in to depth.
Jam l A.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
Reed.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
He was like, nah, I don't want they publishing, I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (25:00):
So he even let us like, cool, we'll do the deal,
but y'all keep y'all publishing management at the time. Our
lawyer at the time made sure that that was situated,
you know what I'm saying. So after I mean years
not years later, but as time moves on, we learned ourselves,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
So you know, I mean that's Look, that's the recurring
theme I hear from a lot of people when they
come in on the podcast. It's just the importance they
having a team and the right people around you, and
like I said, knowing your paperwork, especially when opportunities are
coming fast. They came from all over the place. Everybody
wants that like they got your best interest in mind,
but they obviously got their own interest in mind, you
know what I'm saying, So me able to kind of
have those balances and whatnot. Like what do y'all think
(25:40):
is next though? You know what I'm saying, As y'all
can team to kind of you know, ride this thing
and grow this thing, Like how does swag surfing evolve
and go even bigger and further man.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Well, basically just trying to get him on bigger stages
like events like maybe the Olympics, stuff like that, bigger
stages where they can where it can be spread because
everybody you heard of it.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
That's the thing about it, Like it's still new to
some people.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
That's crazy. It's really crazy when you think about it,
Like it's.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Still different, different collages, Like you know, a few colleges
locking in, but different colleges, you know, get the Harvard's
and all those colleges, and just for the business spread more.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
For me, I think it's uh, movies and TV.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, for the song and for us, I think that's
like the main thing we've been doing these last few
years is like because the song took off so fast
that it was hard for people to put the song
with us If that makes sense. So it's like we've
been kind of running the song down since it came out,
But I think we getting to a point now where
(26:42):
people are starting to put us with the song, our faces,
you know, we getting recognized, We're getting invited all these things.
So I think movies and TV is like the next
and video games too.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Nah.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
You know, it was funny you said that because I
was gonna ask about video games, but to kind of
piggyback off what you just said about movies and TV,
I had, Yeah, I had my guy, mister Hanky in here,
you know, and he actually he actually made the beat
for butter Nom, he made the see and him we
were good buddies, and uh, that's one of the things
he was even talking about was just he wished he
would have known about like the movie game and like
(27:15):
all that stuff earlier, because he's like, yeah, man, these
movie checks are different, bro movie moments, Like I'm doing
one thing, but like you know, he's got his music
in movies now and other stuff and even to your point,
video games. You know, just there's so many ways to
kind of you know, distribute the content, you know, especially now,
like I said, y'all started this off man, it was
into MySpace day, Like I didn't think that the iPhone
(27:36):
probably wasn't out yet, it was just coming out.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Nobody was even thinking about, like.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know what I mean, because, like I was saying,
like the whole reason why I feel like I don't
necessarily think the song died down, but it was less
visible until the better phone started to come out. Yeah,
people could record it and now post it to any
everything ain't But.
Speaker 7 (28:01):
It was in a transitional space because even when we dropped,
we had just missed ring tongs, right, you know what
I'm saying. So music and the way you receive music
was changing at the time, and like like move said,
it wouldn't until it caught up when things start going viral,
you get your vines, you know what I'm saying, vine,
the first TikTok.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah for real, for real five second videos.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Yeah, So it wasn't until things like that that it
started catching up.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
You know, if y'all could again, because I'm just thinking about,
you know, all the stuff that's happened beyond saying everything else,
but like what's what's like y'all's dream show where y'all's
dream place to see swag surf. It happened like we
swaged surfing at the White House. I mean not probably
not right now.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
You know when the parties they danced to it, I think,
I'm I'm gonna roll with v. The Olympics is next, okay,
the Olympics like Royal Cup Olympics something where it's like
literally on the world stage.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Hey we got we got the World Cup coming there.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
Lit you know, Hockey NASCAR is basically different sports where
everybody can have fun because they.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Auburn what's called what's what's it called with the horses question.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Of the question.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Yeah, the question last year too, So it's kind of
like more people catching on to it.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Yeah, I mean that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know again, it's it's just funny when you kind
of think about why things pop off and why things
go viral, because like even all these new dances and stuff,
like you got to remember all the moves and the stuff,
and you got to go practice at home and do
all this stuff like this, Like anybody can kind of
sway left and right, you know what I'm saying. They
might do it a little bit differently, but once they
kind of see it once or twice, you know, it's
it's very easy to kind of pick up and it
(29:43):
seems like very transferable at the end of the day too.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
It's just about having fun.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And I think that's what makes it work because, like
you said earlier, there are no instructions to the song, right,
so you kind of got to be like you.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Got to join in with somebody to know what to do.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And I think by us explaining it how to do
it in the song, it made the dance that much bigger.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Absolutely absolutely made it.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It made it that much bigger because again, it's spread
by you had to see somebody, You had to be
demonstrated how to do it right, you know what I mean. Yes,
it's not no I'm gonna step in and watch yours. Know,
like you know, there's no YouTube tutorial on it. You
know what I'm saying. It's just like I learned how
to do this by doing it, and it's something I
can do, my mom can do, my uncle with a
bad back. Can you posted at the nursing home person
(30:27):
that you can do it?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
At all type of events, uh?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Or was it that one time y'all, oh a gender reveal?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
We did a gender reveal?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Bro like like what like and like right when the
beat drops, when they.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Revealed the gender of the baby.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Oh, weddings, birthday parties are missed for church. It's just
it's everybody can join in on this.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
My grandma loved a song like It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Man.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Look and I and I fully believe the Olympics as possible.
Looking if snow Dog can be the official, if Snoop
dogg in flavor flag can be like the official, you know, representatives,
there's no reason why we shouldn't be out there, swags surf.
I think we're gonna be in La next time. Anyway,
we're gonna be in the US. It's all set up
perfect for y'all. So yo, man, look man, I appreciate
(31:16):
y'all coming in. Congratulations on all the success again, just
watching how this song has evolved over the years and
how it's become again just like a cultural staple, you know,
like it's just one of those things to where I
literally I put it up there, like with the Electric
Slide and everything else. Is just one of those things.
And especially when you go to a game in Atlanta,
you go to any sporting event, you're gonna hear it.
I hope we all are proud of that. I hope
we'll get out that y'all continue to get the recognition
(31:39):
that y'all deserve and it gets goes bigger and better,
and I just love it. It's all coming from Atlanta, man,
So you know what that said. I appreciate y'all pulling
up to the podcast.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And we out.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
You've been listening to button Nomics and I'm your hosts
Brandon Butler. Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show.
Send us an email today at Hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is producing it Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Casey Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki. Music
provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that
subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure
(32:10):
to follow us on all our social platforms at butter
dot atl Listen to better Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Brandon Butler
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