Join @thebuzzknight for this episode with Marcus "Bellringer" Bell, a visionary music producer and AI pioneer. Marcus shares his journey from aspiring musician to tech innovator, revealing how he's reshaping the music industry through artificial intelligence. He discusses the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into the creative process, offering insights into the future of music production.
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Taking a Walk.
There are practices, right, so, there are practices for fame creation, there are practices for wealth creation. There are practices for skill development, and there are practices for being able to communicate powerfully with your audience on stage stage presence.
There are all these different.
Skills that have to come together in order for us to have a recording artist that everybody knows or has heard about.
Welcome to this episode of the Taking a Walk Podcast, the show where your host Buzz Night talks with musicians inside us and entrepreneurs who are building the next generation of creative technological breakthroughs. Today, Buzz speaks with Marcus Bell Ringer Bell. Marcus is a producer, technologist, songwriter, and activist who's worked with folks like Katie Perry, Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Nicki Minaj and others. Marcus is the creator of the world's first AI Superstar, and he's going to tell us about that and his amazing career. Here's Buzz with Marcus Bellringer Bell on Taking a Walk.
Marcus Bell, mister Bell Ringer, it's so nice to have you on the Taken Walk podcast.
Sir, thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation together.
So tell us about your journey from a child prodigy pianist to becoming this successful music producer and entrepreneur.
Well, it started from my mother's womb.
From what I understand, my family told me that they used to play coastical music when she was pregnant, and every night they'll be costcical music playing, and I guess you know, when the embryo is forming and all of that. Right, It's like everything that's outside somehow ends up affecting the inside. And so so when I was two years old, they had moved my grandmother's piano to our place in Norfolk, Virginia at that time, and basically most kids when they go to a piano at two years old. I have a nine year old daughter. When she was two years old, I saw what she did. She like banged on the piano. When I went to the piano, I took one finger and pressed down the key, and then took two fingers and pressed down the key. And immediately they said, oh, my goodness, something different is happening here. That's not what we expected. And so they decided to put me in piano lessons at two years old and one of the capacities that I had that I recognize now is one of my unique abilities is the ability to focus for long periods of time. So they could put rocks in front of me and I could just focus on the rocks or put pennies in front of me, and those are some of the things that.
I used to play with.
I used to play with stacks, stacks of pennies and so forth, and so so basically I had this child prodigy upbringing where it was all about classical.
Music, and then I.
Wanted to do something else because the kids at school weren't really interested in my classical music. They wanted to hear Michael Jackson or whatever was popular in that moment, right, And I did not know how to play that, and I wanted to learn how to play that. And so my mother, who was a prodigy tennis player, So she was a tennis prodigy and played in the US Open. It was Forrest Green back then in the sixties, and she used to tour the country with Arthur ashe and it was two years from the moment that she had a racket in her hand to she was playing in the US Open. And so she was a tennis prodigy, right, So she recognized that in me as a music prodigy, and so she nurtured an environment for that to develop and flourish.
Did you also learn your intense curiosity from your mom as well?
Absolutely?
Absolutely, Because later in her life she became a grant writer, and so she used to write grants for organizations and she raised millions of dollars for different organizations. And I used to see her deep dive do what I call intentional imbalance, and that's when you have an interest in something and you basically go all in on that something.
Right, So I used to see her do that.
And because if whether it was an organization that was dealing with HIV AIDS or homelessness, or she would basically become a field expert. She would read all the books that she can get her hands on.
She look at the.
Research paper, she do look at the studies and all those types of things. Because of course she was gathering data to make proposals. And so I developed that capacity as well. And so when it came to me music, I would deep dive into a genre. So when I shifted to jazz, I deep dove into jazz piano. So Oscar Peterson and you know all these different jazz musicians I studied and imitated and then started to create my own style. And then same thing happened when I began producing. And I started producing music and writing songs when I was eight years old. And so I would deep dive into.
A producer's music.
So whether it's Quincy Jones, I would, you know, get into his catalog or or a recording artist, so James Brown, I would do so much James Brown. And so when I started producing and experimenting, I would go through what I call this kind of a three phase process, and that's imitation, right where you're imitating what it is that you're studying, Emulation where you do something that's kind of similar to, and then innovation, which is where you bring your unique voice into something. So for me, having that example of intense study and practice and having practice be a part of my upbringing is something that has carried through throughout my complete journey as an entrepreneur and also as a creative.
Does it blow your mind a little bit thinking about the deep dive aspect that you were just describing that your mom would take and then you would sort of take as well. Pre worldwide Web Internet.
Yes, yes, I had three library cards at one point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in different you know cities. And I'm just a lover of knowledge. I'm a seeker of wisdom. And I guess that's you know, that's the definition of a philosopher, right, is a seeker of wisdom. And I believe that there are people that have spent you know, decades or their whole lifetimes thinking about a thing, studying a thing, and so one of the the hacks is to read someone that's thought about a thing for a long time, because you get the benefit of their ideas that's based on where they've studied, right, or what they've studied, or their worldview or perspective on something. And so I like to yeah other people's thoughts who have thought a lot about a thing.
I have a dear friend, ted Rizzetti.
Is his name, and he's a brilliant researcher. He refers to what you just describe as OPR other people's research.
Yet there we go. I love it.
I love it, and most people don't do that. Most people don't do that. So I believe that if you read a hundred books on a subject, right, you then in terms of knowledge become more knowledgeable than maybe most people in that particular area. But then when you start applying the knowledge and start gaining experience in that thing. So take for example, branding. So I wrote a book called the Bell Ringer Branding Bible with my mother, and I was based on a process of you know, five years of us of her interviewing me about branding, about artist development and the things that that I, you know, have become an expert at. And in that process I realized, well, wait, wow, I've actually read pretty much every branding book you know that I could have found, you know, could find. And and so when we were working on the book, she had to level up in order to have you know, a meaningful conversation with me about branding. And so she again intentional home balanced deep dive researching and so forth. I gave her about fifty books of mine, and then she found other books of you know, from the libraries and different things and searching on the internet and so forth doing her own deep dives.
And it made our conversations so much richer.
Right, So, how can we condense all of this specialized knowledge down into an e book? So really that e book the branding the Bellering and Branding Bible is actually a chapter out of a bigger thing that we were working on. And she passed away in twenty eighteen, and we were able to celebrate having a bestseller in three categories on Amazon together, you know, before she passed. But that process really, you know, in collaboration with someone, when you study together with someone, it just increases the capacities, right, So you have you put two people together studying a thing, than a third thing he emerges. And in our case, it was that book.
Any particular favorite book that you studied that really you know, to you is the quintessential branding book that helped God writing your branding Bible.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, I know there's a lot of them.
I bet so, yeah, yeah, So it depends on what someone's aim is. Because what I've done with the Bowing or Branding Bible is really synthesize from a lot of different perspectives and my experience and working with, you know, celebrities around the world and being in conversations with stylists. There was a one period of time we interviewed for a project about fifteen top styles right clothing stylists for a project and and inside of that there was so much learning about branding rights as we're shaping the look of a particular artist. Same thing about all the senses and everything. So, you know, there's the the laws of branding. There's there's a book that is anti branding that is a good branding book. The name of the it's I think it's called No Label maybe something like that. And I met that author at a book fair and it was in the middle of when we were writing a branding book. It's like the anti branding book, but it's very valuable to see a different perspective, and so that hurts. So that woman's book, and the name doesn't come to me because it's been many years now of the author, but I engaged with her for a minute at that book fair, and I read her book, and my mother read her book, and we really, you know, like really considered, you know, what branding does. And then then there's the brain science aspect of it.
Now.
I don't get into that in the bell Ring of Branding Bible because I wasn't into that at that time, right. I didn't have friends that were neuroscientists and so forth that that I engaged with. But the whole thing with branding is about pattern recognition in the reticular activating system and so so that's an important part of branding, is the repetitive being in front of your ideal customer, right, your ideal client, your ideal od ants member, your ideal.
Fan and so.
But that's that's a neuroscience thing that a lot of branding books don't talk about.
Yep, I agree, I totally agree.
You know, you've worked with some major artists, you know, Nicki Minaje and Katy Perry, Timberland Snoop.
Is there any one takeaway from.
Artists like that that profoundly sort of impacted you as an artist, an entrepreneur, a teacher, you know, in your life.
Well as someone who has interacted with top of field in a lot of different fields. One of the things that I've seen is that there's kind of the myth of celebrity and this is this is a natural human being inclination. One of the things that I guess I was fortunate to have since my mother had celebrity and I, you know, had local celebrity in Norfolk, Virginia, because I was in the newspaper a lot and in the media and on stages and so forth. Is that that is a profession, right, that is an aspect of the profession, and there are practices, right, So there are practices for fame creation, there are practices for wealth creation, there are practices for skill development, and their practices for being able to communicate powerfully with your audience on stage, stage presence, so forth, being able to write songs, being able to create relationships with people so that you can get people that can write good songs or produce right. So there are all these different skills that have to come together in order for us to have a recording artist that everybody knows or has heard of, right, And it takes teams of people with specialized knowledge in order for that to happen. And so one of the biggest things that I've learned in my you know life in the music industry is that a lot of times the general public for sure doesn't know the thousands of people who have had hands involved in that successful song that they get to enjoy. So even with my ai Avatar Raven Light, yes she's an ai you know pop artist, right, but the same principles with you know, whether it's a Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. Right, the same principles, the same practices apply. So there's still the need to get a great song or great songs so that you can follow up your great song with another great song, with an even better song, and so forth. There's still needs to be some vehicle to get it in front of people, whether that's through ads or marketing or social media. There still has to be some branding plan, right, so you know what is the genre, what is the look and feel of this?
Right?
These these are like.
All the kind of building blocks, if you will, to creating, whether it's a human artist or whether it's a business, or whether it is an AI music avatar.
So let's go back to twenty twenty three when I think that project would rate and life was born. You lost your voice in an intense recording session, which as somebody who was you know, an artist, performer, and as an ex radio person and a podcaster, I can't imagine that. In fact, it's been a dream a nightmare at times that I've had where I'm opening the microphone and nothing comes out of my mouth. So I have my own neurosis here, but I can't so I can't.
Imagine what that was like.
But born out of that came you creating something magical and sort of solving a problem based on this crisis or opportunity. Can you talk about that whole experience and reflect on it right now?
Sure, my goodness.
When I think about health and losing voice and losing the ability to communicate, whether it's through speaking or singing, the amount of care to take care of that so that you know you, let's say, so that you can speak, so that we can speak to each other and communicate. It is something that I know I've taken for granted.
Until it's God.
And I was recording one hundred songs in one hundred days. I was doing one hundred song challenge when this occurred. So I was doing an unusual amount of work with my voice in terms of singing, and at the same time, I was still giving presentations and delivering speeches and so forth. And I think my daughter came home sick and gave me.
I got what she had.
In the middle in the middle of all of that, right, And so when I lost my voice, I said, Okay, Now, I've been using AI technology for about fifteen years now, and I realized that something was happening in the marketplace in regards to AI with audio, and I said, there must be a way, there has to be a way for me to clone my voice and keep going. And at that time, I was looking for a way to take my singing vocals and clone my singing voice and then somehow program my singing voice to be able to finish doing songs. And that took me in an intentional imbalance and deep dive study into what are the audio AI tools so that I can keep going? And I took some affirmations that I had created years ago and basically train a voice model, a Marcus bell, a bell ringer, a voice model, and then through the use of eleven laps was the program that I ended up using after trying a whole bunch.
Of different ones.
And I created some affirmations just by writing them into eleven labs and using my voice model. So I took that and then I started creating music around that. So inside of those one hundred songs there there is an affirmations album, you know, of meditations and so forth, and that let me down another path. So, okay, well, if I can clone my voice, and then later was able to do my singing voice, and then I was able to use some other people's voice models or voice actors models.
So now I can sing like a woman.
Now I can sing in Spanish, Now I can sing in twenty nine different languages.
And that just.
Opened up a whole world of possibilities in terms of being able to communicate and express. I had already been doing NFTs with programs like mid Journey and creating visuals, because as soon as that particular program came out, which is the image Generator AI image Generator, the day that came out, I was on that thing.
So I've done so many, maybe.
One hundred thousand images. So I started looking at that, and then I started looking.
At well, wait a minute. There are ways to animate.
There are ways to storytell, There are ways to create music, many different ways to create music with generative AI, but also the human AI.
Connection can create amazing things.
So I woke up one day and I said, well, wait a minute, I believe that an AI music artists could be created. The technology has now empowered the ability for the things that I care about, like compassion and empathy and mental health and well being and people thriving.
And so there are other.
Vehicles for that to get expressed. There are other vehicles for me to be able to communicate musically that is not just in this container, But I can create other containers in which that expression and those ideas and things can be communicated to audiences. So that's where the birth of raven Light came out of that thinking. Then the thought arrived to me that you know, we're only using music and sound at such a small percentage of the possibilities with it.
And because I've.
Been kind of studying neuroscience and what sound does to the brain and the body and so forth, I recognize that there was an opportunity for us to do something with raven Light and her artistry and her character, that is to create an aspirational character that actually when people listen to the music over and over and over again, they actually feel better because what's in the music is like good food.
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
I think it's so fascinating at a time when you know, AI for many.
People is a.
Curse word, and it's a fear, and the ramifications are unclear for many people as well.
Many aspects of its use case, but you.
Have brought AI forward in a way where you're transparent about it, you're embracing it, and you're constantly thinking and tinkering in a good way, like a mad scientist trying to you know, take it to that next level. How have people received this work and your great attitude about it?
Yeah? Yeah.
I was speaking on a panel at the Recording Academy, a new technology you know panel, and we talked about AI, and I recognized that there was a lot of fear in the room. And so my aim as an evangelist of the possibilities is to have people go from fear to curiosity. And because when you're curious about something, then you approach it completely differently than if you are in fear or something.
It's funny you.
Said AI is a curse word, because I'm very intentional about my language, so I'm known to not curse. But wow, if AI is a curse word, WHOA I swear like a sailor. I think it curse, I eat, sleep, drink curse words.
Okay, So what I recognize.
Was was that AI it's like an extension of our consciousness. It's an extension of our abilities, skills, as an amplifier of our capabilities. It took me a lifetime to create five thousand songs right me doing it, they know piano producing. I've done five thousand songs in my career different genres, you know, from pop to rock, to bunger music in India to uh, you know, mixing chronatic music too, like all of these different things, to recording, doing recordings with Buddhist monks, to uh, you know, writing big band arrangements and doing songs with big band and start writing string arrangements and having an orchestra do my music. So I've experienced a spectrum of creativity five thousand songs, Okay, bravos. In the past six months, I've generated sixteen thousand songs, sixteen thousand songs in multiple genres those songs.
Because I'm also an AI.
Prompt engineer and developed the capacities to create automations and things like that and have developed technology. I'm a futurist, and so as a futurist, I could see this enhances my capacity to meet the needs of people that are looking for songs, that are looking for music beds for their movies and their TV shows and things like like that. So it's been one of the most exciting times of my life actually, because I've been able to take my specialized knowledge and my experiences and my understanding of music, or my very little understanding of music, and taking that very little understanding of music and applying it with tools to create things that.
Would have required hundreds of people, you.
Know, a lot of travel, a lot of expense to happen just you know, very easily. So for those of you who are listening who have AI as something to fear, when you start playing with it, when you start seeing the ability for you to do many things more quickly. I've learned more, probably in the past two years than any period of time in my life, because I've created things in AI that I've learned from I give you an example. So I told you it took me five years to write the book with my mom. Right, Well, last year I wrote a hundred books with AI, one hundred in one year. Now, most of those books will not be released publicly. Yeah, I guess I'm like the prince. I got the voulte.
Of the vault of books.
I have a vote of music too, right, But with the vote of books, some of those books I generated so that I could learn something.
So I generated the book on how to use Python right to Code. So one of those books I wrote on screen because I wanted to develop more capacities as a screenwriter. So I generated an expert book, probably the best book on screenwriting that I've read, because I've read some books on books on screenwriting. But this is the step by step by step with the formulas and right, this is like a culmination of the best of the best. That is what is possible accelerated learning and engagement. And then one last thing that I would share about these possibilities.
So I remember my daughter.
We were driving on the way to elementary school, her elementary school, and she had mentioned to me that she had a new friend there that spoke Japanese. And she's like, data, can we bring up the AI because I want to learn how to say hello, and you know, can we be friends? And so on the way to elementary school, we're talking back and forth with chat GBT. She's learning how to speak Japanese. So the next day I asked her how did it go, and she said she was she couldn't believe I understood how to say hello and all these different things and my goodness, what a possibility, and that possibility is out of curiosity.
I'm going to unpack a couple of things here. First of all, what you talked about in terms of the amount of songs and music that you've been able to create that is set up basically this other vertical business inside the.
Bell Ringer productions.
Is really a fascinating storyline because you know, the sync business mu it Sincs and what's necessary for movies and TV shows is big business. So, first of all, I think that's something I want to highlight and compliment you on because that's a major business breakthrough through the use of AI. And Then the other thing that I think you're illustrating about AI, which I've always felt personally in thinking about it, is AI needs a human touch associated with it to steer it the right way.
Can you talk about that?
Sure?
The human touch and personalization is essential, just like any other tool.
It is values neutral, is not good, is not bad? Is what we.
Say it is and how we use it, just like we can a fork and use it to eat, you know, a great meal. A fork can be used to prop up a door, a fork can be used to.
Be a lever.
It could be used to get in between something to try and get something out right.
There are many different ways a fork can be used.
And the same thing is the case with the AI tools.
It's all about what our.
Consciousness is around how we use tools, what our aims are in the use of it. AI is not anything new, right. It first was kind of coined back in the nineteen fifties.
That's a long time right there.
We interact with AI before this AI revolution all the time. If you use GPS, that's AI, right. If you go to Netflix and you get recommendations or Amazon and anything in the online world from Google and ads and all these things our uses of AI.
But for the first time now it's.
Accessible for anyone to be able to use and leverage dependent upon what their aims are. So I have a couple of programs that I help support entrepreneurs in being able to use AI for you know, creating business, for optimizing the things that they're doing in their businesses, monetizing, etc. And the thing that I've seen is that these high conscious individuals, I think the oldest one is seventy three. She's created podcasts, she just had She's participated in a book where she's a national bestseller, right she has at seventy three. The things that she's been able to accomplish with the help of AI have taken others decades to do. And if she can do that, right, and my nine year old can generate some cartoon images and I can create, you know, some business verticals as well as create an AI avatar that has reached over fifty million people, hundreds of thousands of streams, et cetera. What is it that you can do with it for your life, for your world, for your optimization, for the betterment of those around you, for humanity? Can you bring a high consciousness to the activities and the practices and the use.
Of the tools.
Wow?
I want to close with a deep one, uh, which is how can you give some advice to those who are looking for that meaning and purpose that they don't have in their life or their career.
What advice would you would you give them?
Because clearly, uh, you haven't a meaning and purpose and joyfulness and the work that you're that you're doing and that you're loving so much.
Yeah.
One philosopher, there are many philosophers actually that arrived that life is empty and meaningless. If that is the case that life.
Is empty and meaningless.
And I was over at JP the Jet Proportional Lab and NASA a couple of days ago. We were looking at, you know, the exploration of life on other planets and the universe, the multiverses, right, and really that level of looking at things. I spent about four years kind of consulting in the space industry and so forth that I saw people working on things that they would not see happen in their lifetimes, right, Explorations that they work every single day on that they'll never see come to fruition. So from a universe perspective, if I look at my life in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty meaningless. But I love my life. And so we as human beings have this capacity that other animals and organizables don't have, which is we have the ability to bring meaning to something. We can bring meaning to a rock, We can bring meaning to a picture, and we can bring meaning to oh who you see that the stars went by? We can make a wish and have our wishes come true.
Right.
We can bring all kinds of meaning, So we can.
Also bring meaning into our lives. We can also bring purpose into our lives. We can change the stories that were given to us or that were handed down, and we can create new stories for our lives and those that we care about. We have that capacity and ability. And so I think that any meaning will do, because any meaning will give you access to a deeper meaning, lead to the same place.
And I actually have.
A tool and this is for for anyone listening, and that that tool, I created a GPT store, okay, where I house a bunch of my specialized knowledge in different areas. There is a GPT that I created called the purpose Finder, and I made it available free for for for anyone, and it's the It's on Wealth GPT store.
Dot com.
Wealthgptstore dot com, okay, and they can go in and they can put in You can put in whatever.
It is that you like.
You know, I like football, and uh I like you know, music, and I like so forth, and it will give you a list of things that could be potential things for you to do that will be meaningful based on what it is that.
You care about.
Bravo, mister Bell, Bravo, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
I could go on, I could go on and on. You are amazing, You are so inspiring. You love what you do.
And you love communicating it, and I'm just honored that you would take the time, Marcus, to be on and share your wisdom and your passions on Taking a Walk. Congrats on everything and keep on keeping on. Mister bell Ringer.
Well, thank you so much for having me, and people can find me at Marcus m A R.
C Us Bell.
Ringer b E L L R I N G E R dot com and you can access me there. And thank you for this wonderful walk in our conversation. It's been a pleasure of being here with you and I look forward.
To next time.
I hope we can do it again for sure.
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