Hi,
This week’s newsletter is an interview with Ransom - an independent hip-hop artist building a career on his own terms.
I left our conversation feeling impressed and inspired - it’s rare to meet an artist who approaches their career in such an authentic and bold way. He’s creating his career on his terms and doesn’t compromise for anything he doesn’t believe in.
His mindset and playbook felt applicable to artists, creators, and anyone looking to live life on their terms.
This newsletter highlights:
An interview with Ransom
Let’s dive in ⬇️
For those that may not be familiar, Ransom grew up in Jersey City, NJ and has been making waves in the NYC hip-hop scene for years.
His high-volume release output, strategic collaborations, and elite lyricism have helped cultivate and nurture a passionate fanbase that has allowed his profile to increase as his career has developed. He is now widely respected as one of the most talented emcees in the game.
What I appreciated most about our conversation was how he’s building his career on his own terms - literally, he’s doing it by himself with no management or team.
The gems Ransom dropped in this interview felt applicable to artists and creative entrepreneurs everywhere.
Here are some of my favorite takeaways:
Collaborative projects
One of the things I admire most about Ransom’s career is how he approaches collaborative projects with other artists and producers. He’s able to scale his output with these projects, helping to feed his fans new music while strategically aligning with other artist fanbases.
In 2025 alone, he dropped 4 projects, with 3 of them being collaborative:
The Uncomfortable Truth with Conductor Williams
The Reinvetion with DJ Premier
The Final Call with Dave East
Fast forward to this year and he dropped another joint project in February, this time with Boldy James & Nicholas Craven called “Salvation for the Wicked”.
I was impressed by how Ransom is not just scaling this strategy but approaching it in a really thoughtful way - there’s an emphasis on still making great music and not just doing it as a marketing gimmick.
“You don’t want it to be distasteful right? Just hopping on waves and stuff…but there are advantages strategically to working with artists with bigger platforms than yourself. With that being said…I try and find a tasteful way to align with someone’s fanbase and a lot of these collaborators are strategically picked.
I actually didn’t know Conductor before our joint project. Same with Premo. It’s funny, everybody I’ve done a joint project with I actually didn’t have much of a relationship with beforehand. I know that sounds crazy. And what’s crazier is the people I do have previous relationships with…we don’t have joint projects together. Conductor and Premo are top notch dudes so working with them was an honor”.
When I praised Ransom for how elite his lyricism was on those projects and how he delivered, his response was as humble as can be:
“With more ears comes more responsibility to make sure I show up in the right way”.
Having a North Star
After my conversation with Ransom, it became clear that he approaches his career with planning and savvy. I loved his goal-setting process - he sets a goal each year for how many streams he wants to do and then reverse-engineers how many projects he needs to release to have the highest probability of hitting that number.
“A lot of artists say - I put this album out and it didn’t stream that much. It only got 30,000 streams.
And I’m like…okay well, what’s your goal? Not just for that one album but for the year.
So if my goal for the year is 10 million streams for example, I know I can’t make that in one album. So…then the question is how many albums do I need to hit that goal? Then I just go and make those albums.
It’s a numbers game and I learned that from being in the game for so long”.
Because Ransom records, mixes, and masters everything himself, he owns the means of creating music and has the ability to scale economically. He can afford to release at that output because he owns the process himself. He’s built a system that he controls - it’s replicable and scalable to hit his goals.
Set the goal.
Reverse engineer it.
Lay out each step
Build a system to accomplish it.
This might sound simple (or obvious) but it’s so easy as a creative to operate without a North Star or hyperfocus on one project and put all of your eggs in that basket.
Ransom’s strategy not only reduces the pressure of any one individual project, but gives him a clear strategy that helps shape his business structure and how he operates. If he needs X streams per year and needs X projects to accomplish that, the means of creating those projects needs to scale with that output.
Living life on his terms + creating boundaries
I mentioned to Ransom how in a Rap Radar interview he did with B Dot & Elliott Wilson, I caught that he doesn’t like touring and makes a conscious decision not to tour. When I brought it up, his answer became the backbone for our conversation about being authentically true to yourself and setting boundaries for how you want to live your life.
“I would just say, you know, my life is different right now…
I’m married. I have kids. I just put my child through college.
I actually don’t fancy myself a rapper. I kind of hate when people call me that.
I live a regular life…I just don’t talk a lot. I don’t put on a rap costume and pretend to be someone I’m not. This is really me and to be honest, sometimes I actually think it’s hard for fans to accept the realest version of you. They think they want it but they’re not actually ready for it.
That’s why I don’t tour. To do a show, then a meet and greet…that’s just not the space I’m in and if I’m not in the right headspace, I don’t think that’s fair to the fans.”
To hammer home how “regular” his lifestyle is, Ransom explains:
“People see me outside and are surprised to see me at the grocery store. I shop for my own groceries. I cook for myself, my kids, and my wife. That’s the place of life I’m in right now.
When I do eventually tour, I want it to be set up a certain way. My family is going to be there and I want my daughters to see me. I want my true fans to be there. I don’t want to deal with any promoters.”
Content
When I asked Ransom how he approaches content + marketing, that same authenticity shone through again.
“It’s difficult for me because if I can’t do things the way I want to, then I don’t do them at all. If I can’t execute the way I want to then I just don’t do it.
I do put some things out because I know we need to market but for the most part…I’m an artist at heart and I’m crazy. I’m going to want explosions and shit, you know? Whatever is on my mind…I’m like, can we execute this? Can my videographer execute on this budget? Can this look like Stanley Kubrick? Could this look like a Christopher Nolan movie? If the answer is no, then I just shy away from it.
I pray and hope for the day and am working towards being able to do those things in the future. I think that’s the next steps for me - I’m really intrigued by visuals and videos.”
Introspection
“I’m big into reading…it’s why I don’t run out of stuff to talk about and never will.
I’m big into observing. Listening.
I will listen to any conversation, as foolish as it may be. I’ll still listen just to hear the words being said. What words are you using? In what context? What are you thinking? When you say these foolish things…that can even help me when I’m writing.
It could give me an angle of what certain people are thinking and saying. Now I know what the fool is thinking. I get to think from all aspects.
Like…why do people waste words? I’ll sit in the house and just be quiet and it gets to the point where meaningless conversation almost makes me want to fucking vomit. I can’t have them.
My brain thinks in metaphors. If I spill hot coffee on myself and burn myself, that could be a bar…what do I liken this to? This pain feels like…
I’m just so in tune with feeling and observing, man. I can’t explain it, but it happens when your brain is super quiet.
My phone never rings.
You could be around me all day and no one bothers me.
You miss things when it’s noisy.
My house is quiet. I’m quiet. I hear everything.”
Giving fans an experience
In addition to being a savvy businessman, Ransom is also an incredible marketer in his own right. He genuinely had one of the more innovative marketing campaigns I’ve seen in a long time for an album he dropped a few years ago.
For the release of his project “Director’s Cut Scene 4” in 2023, Ransom sold the project directly to fans on a platform called EVEN, giving them the option of buying in tiers. The highest package included a custom album intro with the fan’s name so the version of the album they received was personalized to them.
When I asked Ransom how the idea came about, he shared:
“I talked to Mag and his team from EVEN and they were like ‘oh that’s dope’.
They had never heard of that before. So we kind of coined it…I was like okay, make sure you know I came up with it first (laughs). I called it an audiograph.
I just thought of me having Biggie Smalls say my name in the beginning of Juicy or some shit like that, and it's like, whoa. You know what I'm saying?
Like, Jay-Z saying your name…it’s like what the fuck. That's unheard of, right?"
When I asked about the logistics of executing a campaign like that, it became clear that part of the reason Ransom was able to do it was because he owned the process:
“I'm so studio-savvy...I have my own studio whereas a lot of artists don't. I record myself, I mix myself, I do all that stuff myself, so I'm like, hey, I could quickly just put somebody's name in the intro.
Even if it's, like, a thousand people, I could just sit here and do it, because especially if they're paying a certain price point. You know, it's work."
Here’s the part I was most impressed by…I initially thought he was just swapping out the fan’s names in the same exact part of the song (same lyric, just different name) but Ransom took it a step further and made it even more personal.
“I'm not just saying their name - I let them tell me a little bit about themselves, so I can put it into the intro. Tailor-made for them, not just saying their name, but, yo, man, if you're from Michigan or wherever you're from, I'll say that.
Sometimes that shit just wakes me up out of my sleep…thoughts like that."
Little-known facts about Ransom
“I love to cook! Not only do I cook but I actually make everything from scratch. Like I don’t eat out of the jar and shit. I make my own mayonnaise, for example.
I’m very in-tune with what I consume - both food and information.
Spritually and mentally. What you consume is literally going to make you who you are.
I go to the grocery store and I’ll be there for like 2 hours…my wife will call me and be like “where are you"?” and I’ll be like…’I’m reading ingredients!’
The older I get, the more in tune with everything I get and want to be.
I make everything from scratch.”
Overall
My biggest takeaway from my conversation with Ransom is that he’s an artist who is truly living his truth. He won’t tour until he’s ready to do it his way. He stays out of the way. He collaborates with whom he wants when the time is right.
He’s building his career and living life on his terms. He is unabashedly himself, even if it’s in a way that’s not always understood by his fans. In my opinion, it’s a courage that more artists, creators, and people can strive to embody.
After our conversation, I now understand why he doesn’t fancy himself a rapper. That word doesn’t fully encapsulate how he operates and thinks. He’s also a businessman, marketer, operator, and more.
Stay tuned for Ransom’s new album “Price of Clarity” dropping next week 8/19 and support it directly from him HERE. Ransom was generous enough to share the album with me early and it’s genuinely incredible.
Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.
Thanks for reading, until next time.
