This week on the ONE37pm podcast Monday to Monday, Mike Boyd sits down with rapper/dancer/icon TisaKorean and his manager Marcus Ecby. The episode covers Tisa and Ecby's realtionship. You can hear in their voices how much they respect each other, and it ultimately makes for an unstoppable team. The duo dives into going left when everyone else is going right, Tisa’s mindset when making music, how they make brand deals and the best advice they got from Lil Uzi Vert.
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Talking Honesty, Positivity and Building Your Brand with TisaKorean and Manager Marcus Ecby
“We’re too busy chasing the vision to worry about competition”
Tisa is full of unbelievable quotes. When speaking about his mindset for recording music, he tells Boyd, “I never wanna create the same thing I just created. Never.” His process prizes staying dynamic and trying to give fans some kind of emotion. Whether it be happiness, sadness, dancing, Tisa just wants to make the people feel something. On happiness, he tells Boyd, “I believe in happiness bringing success, not success bringing happiness.”
A running theme throughout the episode is Tisa and Ecby’s emphasis on honesty. They both say multiple times that “honesty is key.” This ethos fuels their process of making deals with brands, how Tisa interacts with social media and how they interact as a manager-artist duo. Ecby’s advice for managers is this: “Find someone that matches your energy, matches your vibe and matches what you can deal with.” They address the importance of thinking alike, and how sometimes managers try to force their artists to think a certain way. But that isn’t the case for Tisa and Ecby.
Find someone that matches your energy, matches your vibe and matches what you can deal with.
- Marcus Ecby on choosing talent to manage
Courtesy of Mike Boyd
Courtesy of Mike Boyd
Tisa tells a story about Lil Uzi Vert giving him some good advice for getting a read on artists. Uzi apparently told Tisa, “If you wanna know what’s really going on, look at the manager.” The relationship is totally symbiotic. Ecby also notes the importance of both parties doing the work: “If you’re waiting on your manager to make it happen for you, you need to get out the business right now. It’s all about what you put in—your sweat equity. If you don’t bring nothing to the table, I can’t work with nothing.” The manager is there to amplify the artist. “We’re the microphone,” says Ecby.
They also spend some time talking about Tisa’s commitment to positivity and how it has been a huge contributor to the duo’s success. Ecby tells Boyd, “That’s why he’s working. Because he’s a ray of positivity in a negative space.” Tisa’s response to dealing with negative comments embodies this idea. His response to the haters: “I be laughing. It make me laugh. I like laughing.”
This episode is truly amazing; you can feel the relationship between Tisa and Ecby and can infer why they’ve been so successful. Boyd closes the episode by asking the duo what advice they’d give their younger selves. Tisa again emphasizes the importance of being honest. And Ecby, who packs the episode full of so many inspirational quotes, perhaps closes with his most insightful of all: “I would tell my younger self that it’s seven days in a week. And someday isn’t one of them. So you gotta apply the pressure now.”
I would tell my younger self that it’s seven days in a week. And someday isn’t one of them. So you gotta apply the pressure now.
- Marcus Ecby, Manager of TisaKorean
If you loved this episode, make sure to check out last week’s interview, when Boyd sat down with Cuco's manager, Doris Muñoz.
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