The Digilogue’s Co-Founder Drew De Leon Speaks On the Creation of His Community-Driven Platform
The Digilogue’s Founder Drew De Leon Speaks On the Creation of His Community-Driven Platform, Why He Decided to Get Into the Music Business, The Importance of Building a Strong Network for Creatives, What True Success Means to Him, And More.
Photo Cred: Instagram/@DrewCurator
It’s a great thing to see high-level music industry folks take what they’ve learned and apply it to their business model to help others. There is a list of people who have done this and continue to do so because they genuinely have a passion for lending a hand to the next creative generation. Drew De Leon, a man of many talents, spent years building up his label, Blank Label NY. Then he went on to continue elevating his music resume at the iconic Def Jam label and is now the VP of Digital at Alamo Records. He’s worked alongside artists like Nas, Pusha T, Valee, Teyana Taylor, and more. Over the last four years, Drew has taken what he’s learned and the relationships that he’s made and used it to put together his community-driven business, The Digilogue. The platform serves as a guide to connect and educate young music and tech creatives around the world. Since the creation of The Digilogue in 2016, the company has hosted numerous panels, live discussions, podcast episodes, Instagram Live sessions, and the list goes on. They also use Mondays as their day to help people find jobs during this pandemic called Music Career Monday, where they post open roles in the music business.
Drew and The Digilogue team will be celebrating four years this Saturday, August 15th. We spoke about it a few times during our conversation. Still, we mostly conversed about how Drew got into the music business, creating The Digilogue, upholding the mission to help more creatives, the importance of digital marketing, and more. Read the full interview below.
1 - Let’s talk a little bit about the beginning and your journey into the music business.
I feel like the music business has different trajectories. There are people who have family members in the music business who might’ve influenced them to be in the business. I didn’t have that. I’m Filipino with Asian parents. They’re very conservative. They pushed me to study hard and go to a great school with hopes of being a nurse. That’s like the cream of the crop for Asians as far as careers. It was that or work in finance doing some type of corporate job. The idea of being creative is so farfetched because I have immigrant parents that are very blue-collar. Fast forward, I’m like three years into my finance job and I hated it. While I was working I was promoting parties and helping my DJ friend book events and such. So, my career in music started in the music management space. I was managing my friend who is a DJ and that’s when I started Black Label, the management company I put together back in 2010. I quit my job at Morgan Stanley in 2009 and I ended up doing a bunch of side hustle jobs. None of those jobs were related to finance. I was doing anything that could pay the bills so I could pursue this music management space. After a while, I caught the bug. I love business, I love marketing, and I love the process of working with DJs. I then began to work with independent artists and just be in the studio with them. So, my first real start in music was on the creative side.
Photo Cred: Drew De Leon
2 - You began to learn more about the business side of music as well as the creative side. Is this what pushed you into creating The Digilogue?
For me, all of my experiences helped me. During 2009 and 2010 social media really took off. Around this time Facebook was about 5 years old. This was a huge transition because we had MySpace and everyone went to MySpace for music. Over time, social media just became this monster and I knew I had to take advantage of that. I knew we had all of these tools online so It was about figuring out how I would be able to market my artists and my DJ online. I needed to know how to build a website. Wix was fairly new at the time so I got more into that. I also needed to build relationships with people. I didn’t necessarily go to music events but I think being a part of the entertainment and nightlife scene was cool because I got a chance to meet other DJs and those surrounded by people who worked at labels. A lot of what I did at this time was like my internship. I then began consulting. I had all of these digital marketing tools so I started working with clients on digital marketing consultations; how to advertise their music, as well as help them with brand partnerships.
Fast forward to 2016, I was working at this co-working space here in the city and I had this idea with our co-founder for building a community of aspiring emerging artists, creatives, producers, etc. and bringing them together. This could also be a space for people who are more on the professional side as well, whether it be the music business or tech.
Photo Cred: TheDigilogue.com
3 - You mentioned in a recent interview that one of the main reasons why you created The Digilogue is because you wanted to create a space for like-minded music and tech heads to connect. At this point, 4 years in, do you think you guys have upheld that mission?
100%. I think we’ve done a lot more given the pandemic. We’ve actually taken things to the next level. Most people know who we are because of our big events but some of the brands that we work with were worried that we wouldn’t be able to pull off the same thing from a digital standpoint; they don’t understand that it’s not the events that we’re known for, it’s our community. We do enough events with consistency and we owe that to the community that we’ve built. It was up to us to strategize and figure out how we would be able to pivot during the pandemic. In March, the first thing we did was put together our first digital storyteller panel because we knew digital marketing was going to be something that people were going to need. From there, we started The Digilogue After Dark which is our Instagram Live series where artists can perform. We also started Self Care Saturdays. More recently, we launched a huge music career summit where we had 33 speakers and they talked about the ecosystem of the music business based around one artist. Overall, we’ve done a few things that have helped our community.
4 - I want to address what you mentioned previously about the correlation between music and tech and how you pushed yourself to learn more about tech to help promote your artists. How do you see tech impacting music going forward?
Tech has been a huge positive in the music space because it helps empower the artist. Despite the amount of resources and the competition, an artist can literally blow up tomorrow. You have platforms like Tik Tok and resources for distribution channels and such. Like, you don’t have to go through a major label to get your music on major streaming platforms. For this particular period in time, it’s about taking all of these resources and using them to your advantage. If your goal is to be a superstar then you’ve lost already. The goal is to build a fanbase. You can’t skip steps. Do you want to be famous or do you want to be an artist? Those are two different things. Artist development takes time. Most times, fame doesn’t necessarily translate to streams. More importantly, as an artist, you should be pushing yourself to understand the music business.
5 - We’ve seen a lot of creative and innovative digital marketing approaches artists have taken during this pandemic. How important, whether it be from the office or artist side, to know how to properly digitize the art?
It’s extremely important, especially for the artists. There was a period I think between April and May where everyone was indoors. As an artist you should be able to look at your calendar and see how you can properly communicate with your fan base on day-to-day. Every artist should be asking themselves “Outside of music, what are my interests?” Music is obviously the first thing that’s going to connect you to your fans but what else is going to make you stick? I always tell artists to explore different verticals. If you’re interested in fitness then you should do some sort of IG series doing that. If you’re a gamer you can have a designated day during the week where you go live on Twitch. This moment right here is about adapting and if you’re not adapting then you’re just going to be stuck in 2019, which is pre-COVID. Artists and the office have to ask themselves, “How do I market during COVID?”. It’s about being able to tap into different verticals that can still be based around you as an artist, your personality, and your music.
6 - I know you and your team have gotten to a space where you’ve adapted to our current situation. You mentioned the different things The Digilogue has done since the pandemic. We’ve gotten to a point now where things are open but we’re hearing it might be shutting back down. How do you prepare for this and keep your team prepared?
On the leadership side, it’s being able to scale my team. I understand that I have amazing people who are able to take ownership across all the different verticals. For me, it’s about providing consistent programming and providing the means to these resources. We have programs that allow us to talk to our different verticals. For example, Monday’s are Music Career Monday’s. The job market is bleak so we always post jobs every Monday. We have the music career summit. We know that a portion of our audience is going to tune in for that. We have The Digilogue After Dark which is our artist vertical that not only highlights artists domestically but internationally as well. We have a playlist vertical with Audiomack that allows us to highlight artists in different cities. We did Boston last week and we have a bunch of other cities coming up. Our educational series has always been our bread and butter. We’ve always been known for our panels. We’ve adjusted them a bit because everyone has been doing panels this entire quarantine. We started something new called Basics and Best Practices and instead of having people just talk, let’s make it grander and actually focus on a particular thing and have the experts from these companies talk about how to optimize these platforms. We have a ton of programs and the majority of it we learned how to do during COVID so now going forward it’s going to be seamless.
Photo Cred: Instagram/@DrewCurator
7 - What are you most proud of when it comes to The Digilogue?
There’s a lot to be proud of. I’m really proud of the team. I think in any type of institution or company, your team is everything. I’m glad that the team that I’ve been able to surround myself with is doing amazing things. They’re just as invested in the mission as I am. I wouldn’t be able to lead this organization if I didn’t have the right team in place. As an entrepreneur, people talk about sustainability and scale every day. For me, you can’t scale if you can’t sustain. I want to make sure the team does right first and build that foundation. It took a minute but once we got the team locked in, we hit the ground running. Secondly, I’m extremely thankful for the community. They inspire us every day about what they’re looking for and the opportunities and relationships they’ve gained because of these platforms. I enjoy being able to see people have better chances doing what they want to do because we offer that opportunity. We want to be able to facilitate opportunities for people.
8 - I wanted to ask about The Digilogue app that you mentioned you guys are launching. I’m sure the idea of it changes every day but has anything major been altered since our current situation? Things may not necessarily be back to normal by 2021.
It’s funny because we’ve been talking about this app for nearly two years. The app wasn’t necessarily going to be the core component of The Digilogue; it was just going to be complimentary. We knew that the community was always going to come first and the programming. The app is what’s going to keep people together. The idea of the app is like LinkedIn meets a dating app. LinkedIn is great as a platform but is very limited as far as creating that intimacy. We truly do want to help folks match with other people but on a professional side. From a creative standpoint, the creator can enter the attributes they’re looking for and within the community, they can match up with the person who best fits that criteria. That’s just the connection part. The community part is really what’s going to maintain the ecosystem. LinkedIn is a platform but isn't necessarily a community. We wanted to create something outside of what we do on social media to help connect folks, make them a part of the community, and maintain that communication. To simplify it, it’s about matching and messaging.
9 - What does your honest definition of success mean?
Waking up and having that honest conversation with yourself and you know you’re doing exactly what you want to do. For me, that’s success. I wake up and I’m ready to go. I remember that feeling of waking up every morning for my job and those Sunday scaries. You know, right before Monday came around and you’re like “Damn. Did I maximize my weekend?” My definition of success is being able to wake up and be honest with yourself. Ten years ago I worked a job that I hated but I had to make some sacrifices. My back was against the wall. Now, I’m in a position where I love what I do and I truly want to continue to give back and help people. I feel very grateful and grounded that I’m able to do that now.
10 - What is one piece of advice you would like to give to the aspiring entrepreneur?
Great question. I actually have a couple of things. Always be a student of the game. Don’t be complacent. When you reach a certain level of success it tends to happen but you can’t let it. As a creator, there are always opportunities for you to learn about new technologies and new ways to create things. That’s what creators do. Being able to adapt is also a huge piece of advice. Also, being able to be proactive. You have to wake up every day and motivate yourself. If you’re not motivated then how are you going to be able to motivate other people? More important, treat everyone with respect. You should be able to manage relationships in any sector. At the end of the day, your reputation is your resume.
11 - What’s next for Drew De Leon? What can we expect from The Digilogue from the remainder of 2020?
On the 15th we’re going to have our four year anniversary. We’re going to do a live stream with eight performers from the community. We’re going to launch two pieces of merchandise as well to help celebrate the anniversary. We’re going to put out a compilation video of people who have been a part of the community in the last few years. It’ll be a cool montage of what we’ve been able to do in the last four years. Also, we’re going to announce a huge partnership hopefully by mid-September. Conversations are currently happening right now with a tech partner. I can’t disclose it just yet but it’s definitely going to change the game a little bit when it comes to programming and changing the community. We’re excited because that’s been the missing component for us. Just taking what we’ve been doing and helping people on a much larger scale.