about a month ago I covered industry plants that failed artists that were obviously picked up by labels as an attempt to get in on a dying Trend but a lot of people wanted to see me talk about some successful industry plants so I decided to do it however the issue with this topic is depending on how you define it really any artist signed to a label could be considered an industry plan and in my last video I had some pretty strict guidelines but for this one I'm just going to be looking at artists that a lot of people call industry plants and we're gonna see whether or not these accusations are true also I just want to clarify a few things make a couple of rules for this video first of all I don't dislike any of these artists and I don't use the term industry plan negatively I think all of them make good music but I also think it's really interesting to see how a lot of these people got their start in the music industry and for the sake of this video I'm going to use much more broad definition of the term industry plan and that definition is the one that Google promotes which is artists who have only just started out in the industry established a small fan base in the depths of SoundCloud or bandcamp and are then picked up by a major label and groomed to be a star with this definition a lot of artists could qualify as industry plants and honestly a lot of popular artists could which is why I'm not a huge fan of the term in the first place because these days it's pretty rare for Independent Artists to just blow up completely organically but I'll touch more on all that later so let's get into the video in the comments under my last video I spice was probably the number one person mentioned with tons of people calling her an industry plan and it's kind of understandable seeing as how her huge rise came out of seemingly nowhere so let's look into it she didn't start rapping until 2021 when she was in college during her freshman year of college she met the producer Riot USA and they eventually started making music together however before even making music she first went viral on Tick Tock and Twitter for a video of her doing this Tick Tock Trend after that video went viral she released her first ever song called bully freestyle in March of 2021 and she continued releasing music she utilized Tick Tock to promote her music and it definitely helped with the types of videos she was posting most of her early music was produced by Riot USA and make sure to keep his name in mind going forward anyways in August of 2022 I spice released a song Munch which as we all know absolutely blew up it was released on Worldstar and it was played on radio stations like Hot 97 and it was going majorly viral interestingly enough before this song even released Drke tapped in with icewice and told her he was gonna play her song on his radio station the DM was supposedly leaked but that has raised him suspicion from people who think it was intentionally leaked as some sort of label promo strategy Drke also mentioned her on the radar freestyle which was a freestyle that she did with on the radar radio and it is somewhat interesting how she was getting all these connects with media Outlets before her major blow up but it is also possible that they were just tapped in early and they were enjoying her music anyways about a month after a month's released I spy signed a record deal with 10K projects following her viral song she released Bikini Bottom her debut EP with the song in her mood and then later released a song boys are liar part 2 with Pink Panthers that's how I've been saying her name this whole time Pink Panthers I don't know how you actually are supposed to say it so let me know if I'm correct Down Below in the comments more recently though she released the song in Princess Diana with Nicki Minaj which also went crazy so like I said it is understandable why some people may see her as an industry plant because she just has been going insane recently but she did sign after her viral song so she can't be a plan right well after I did some digging it's a little bit more complicated than that there have been a lot of Industry plant comments floating around about ice spice but I haven't seen one with any actual proof most of it is just people hating saying she probably slept with someone in the industry to get to where she did but again there is no evidence for that if you look at the comments on YouTube videos or Reddit posts it's just baseless accusations mixed with hate but from the digging I did I found a tinge of possibility that she is an industry plant the producer Riot who she worked with on the majority of her early music and most of her music in general has some industry connections he said his mom used to work in the music industry I'm not sure what she did and if she still does but he also said his dad is DJ enough from HOT97 DJ enough is known for being Biggie's Road DJ and also helped promote artists like 50 Cent Kanye and future in their early careers so with all the connections I spice had early on it is indeed possible she had some help from some people that she knew because of Riot especially since her marketing has been so amazing it's either she's a genius when it comes to marketing her music or she had some help behind the scenes however like I said she did also sign after her original blow up we also don't know who her parents are she did say her dad was an underground rapper so it is possible that they may have some connections there but again we just cannot say for sure so do I think that I spice is an industry plant possibly I wish I had a more clear answer but there just is not enough information I do think it's entirely possible she had some connections to help her get on Worldstar and other media Outlets to promote her music or it all could have happened organically because of tick tock we've seen this more and more recently so it is very possible as far as I'm aware there is not enough solid evidence to call her a plant so please stop saying it so confidently online as if you know what you're talking about because you very well could be wrong Ian Dior is an artist that began blowing up like crazy in 2019 and has seen massive success since then I've heard his verse with 24K gold and probably a million times in the grocery store I used to work at so that's how you know you've made it but because of his massive blow up many people have accused him of being an industry plant so much so that he named his first album industry plan so are the accusations true or did Andy or just get very lucky well let's look into it and Dior began releasing music under both the names Little Rock and olmo in 2016. he said his first song received 10 000 plays and he decided to keep releasing music he put out a ton of different songs and was even in a collective called classic kids you can actually still find some of these old songs on YouTube to this day and they are pretty decent and you can tell that he has a really good voice and lots of potential he even released a whole project called Dance with the Devil I believe under his Alias Little Rock you can still find videos of him talking about his music or with his friends and old Tweets in the Deep abyss of the internet edit this summer end of the summer everybody anyways in 2019 after releasing a ton of music and making a few industry connections and Dior was discovered by internet money and they helped him with his image changing his name from omo to Ian Dior supposedly before this he had around 300 000 plays total on Soundcloud his old image was white from the internet then he released a handful of songs and his second song emotions absolutely blew up then the others followed suit I remember around this time finding him when he only had a few songs out and a pnb rock feature and I was pretty surprised he had all these plays a pnb rock featuring was just going that crazy with so few songs but since I liked his music so much I didn't really care enough to question it after Ian dior's explosive growth in his first month or so of releasing music he immediately began getting called in Industry plan someone spearheading the E and Dior industry plant movement was a YouTuber named progress a guy who basically just covered artists who were industry plants he made a video about endr which blew up and had tons of people talking about him being an industry plan progress pointed out how Ian Dior was a month into releasing music had very few followers and hardly had any plays on YouTube however he had hundreds of thousands of plays on SoundCloud and all of his songs were on multiple promotional channels on top of that Ian was weirdly being heavily promoted by FaZe Clan and other Affiliates of FaZe like nelk and Alyssa Violet the promo did seem a little bit fishy but it is also possible they just really enjoyed his music he pointed out that like I said he was working heavily with internet money and two months into his career signed to 10K projects this became such a big deal with all the accusations that Taz Taylor the owner of internet money had a very long beef with progress and Ian even named his first album industry plan the reasoning behind this title was provided by Taz who said if people want to focus on instead of the music so bad we'll call ourselves it so you can't say it anymore and you're forced to just take the music for what it is and honestly I thought this was a pretty decent plan because if you're saying yourself hey I'm an industry plant I don't really care here's the music listen to it and then the music's really good most people just won't care to summarize everything in a simple sentence internet money somehow found Ian early on helped him develop his image and style and then proceeded to blow him up and sign to a label but if you're not familiar with internet money that's exactly what are known for they find small artists with promising Talent so they help develop them and blow them up they did it with juice wrld little teca Ian Dior and recently have been working a lot with Dr Kenji so like I said internet money just found Ian really early and just kind of helped develop his style and His Image and then they helped blow him up so do I think that Ian Dior is an industry plant well by the definition that I provided for this video yes but do I think that he was talented enough to Warrant the assistance of Internet money of course I love his music so shout out to Andy Orr so one of the biggest and most recent artists to receive industry plan accusations is claro following her breakout success with pretty girl and her massive success afterwards it's pretty understandable why so many people think she's a plant it also doesn't help that her dad is a fairly wealthy guy with connections to the music industry but personally I'm not so sure if she's an industry plant and here's why so claro began making music at the age of 13 mostly just recording and Performing cover songs she continued posting covers in original songs on her SoundCloud YouTube and other platforms for a while she put out multiple EPS throughout 2014 15 and 16 slowly growing her fan base she also posted YouTube videos of her playing music and in the description for changing she said wow just realize how many of you actually watch my YouTube videos a lot of you have been asking where my other music is and you can find it on my SoundCloud so she clearly wasn't very known or very popular and she definitely wasn't being marketed by a label however everything would change for Clara when she released his song Pretty Girl in 2017 it began to go viral and she had a huge influx of fans that went back to check out her previous this work however it was shortly after the massive success of pretty girl that people would begin to claim she was an industry plant so people found out that Claro's dad was a man named Geoff Cottrell which I just learned is pronounced Jeff how do you how do you say Geoff yeah he's a marketer who had worked with Procter Gamble Coca-Cola Starbucks and Converse he currently is the chief marketing officer at Topgolf because of his high positions he's very obviously wealthy he was even behind Converse rubber tracks a project where Converse built a recording studio for musicians Geoff Cottrell had some help from his good friend John Cohen John Cohen is a man who is very well connected in the music industry he's worked with Columbia Records and has done a lot in the industry but he's probably most known for co-founding the fader with Rob Stone the fader is a very well-known magazine that covers things like music and pop culture they also have their own record label which is where people took issue with claro after the viral success of pretty girl she signed to the fader label which made people think she had been with the label or abused her dad's connections to go viral these accusations led to a ton of hate for claro for portraying herself as a DIY Indie artist despite being backed by major labels if you look at any Reddit post or YouTube video calling her planned it's full of people saying they're disappointed and even some saying they don't want to listen to her music anymore these industry plan accusations clearly and understandably upset her so she denied all of them but in reality despite all the claims that were made pretty girl was actually made for an EP that was released by an indie label called father daughter records it was a song that was recorded on GarageBand with a very DIY music video that seemingly just caught the YouTube algorithm on top of that she signed after pretty girl went viral she caught the attention of major labels like Capital Records and Columbia Records but decided to sign to an independent label ran by a family friend the fader label isn't even connected to any major labels aside from distribution after signing to faders you've seen a ton of success and has multiple songs with hundreds of millions of plays so I can understand why people may think she's a plant but it does seem to me like her original blow up wasn't because of Any label I think she just got lucky with the YouTube algorithm sure she may have had access to fancy equipment through her dad's wealth and worked with Converse rubber tracks but she can clearly play an instrument and sing just fine without the help of any fancy equipment like I said it was definitely easier year for her to get in this position but I don't think it was because of a label claro herself even said in an interview with rolling stone I definitely am not blind to the fact that things have been easier for me than other people's experiences it would be stupid of me not to acknowledge the privilege I had from the start to be able to sign somewhere where there's trust to be able to sign a record deal that doesn't revolve around keeping myself afloat financially so do I think that claro is an industry plan probably not do I think she may have had it a little bit easier than your average bedroom pop artist sure also real quick want to mention that in my last industry plant video I released some industry plant themed t-shirts to go along with it so I'm making the website live again if you guys are interested in picking one up here are all the colorways they're a high quality t-shirts they're slim fit the size chart is on the website so make sure to check them out on www. maddyballs.
com I'll probably keep these live for a couple of weeks so if you want to get one make sure to check it out soon and let's get back to the video the kid Leroy is an interesting case because most people probably found out about him because he toured with juice world and following that he released a ton of huge hit songs due to his meteoric rise in his mysterious past of course a lot of people began calling him an industry planned in fact his past is so mysterious that it has led to multiple YouTubers like hello Yasin Patrick CC and progress to thoroughly investigate his past career which may provide some information relevant to whether or not he is a plant so let's check it out so the kid laroy originally started making music when he was just 12 years old at first he was just recording raps on his mom's phone and putting them on Soundcloud but then he met a guy named DJ Marcus Jr who helped him out of town in his early career however the kid Leroy has avoided talking about or simply lied about his early career which is what makes people think his come up is so fishy one of the main claims that people contest is that the kidleroy was poor because his dad actually worked in the music industry his name is Nick Howard and he's a songwriter and producer who's worked with tons of popular artists like Jay-Z Nelly Fat Joe and more however Leroy has said in a few interviews that he isn't really close to his dad so it is possible that he didn't use his dad for connections but it's also possible he lied anyways while he was 12 he began working with DJ Marcus who had a little bit of local Buzz Marcus provided recording and Engineering Services to Leroy because he thought Leroy had some promise however for some reason Leroy always referred to Marcus as some dude or some guy in interviews but they made a collective together called The Dram Team and it was managed by Leroy's mom and she was heavily promoting them on Facebook which made it seem like she really wanted her son to become a huge artist hello you seen who did some insane research on this topic by the way discovered that Leroy's mom was also friends with an extremely rich man who lived in La named Eugenio Alonso it seemed like this kind of undermined the narrative that loroy was extremely poor he could have been but it just seems like there's some conflicting things going on with his story anyway some information that wasn't in yasin's video I think it came out afterwards is that a guy named Khalid rohim a grammy-nominated producer saw laroy at a studio when Leroy was just 12. now I have no idea how Roy was getting into these Studios with people like this when he was 12 years old with no money but Khalid said he helped him out and was in the studio with him a lot he was also possibly the guy who helped Leroy get his development deal with Sony in 2017 when Elroy was just 14 years old however back in 2016 Leroy was hit up by a guy named DJ Ziggy Ziggy managed big Australian artists like Manu Crooks and wanted to manage and develop the kibble Roy as well this was around the time that Leroy had left his Palin producer Marcus in a dust then in 2018 he released his debut EP 14 with a dream with collabs with artists like Manu Crooks and high quality production following these connections he got he was seen posting Snippets with Lil skies and he eventually signed to grade a Productions in 2019. grade A was juice world's record label and Leroy even toured with juice wrld in 2018 in 2019 before most people even knew who he was a lot of this information was revealed in yasin's video and what makes this situation even more fishy is that the kid Leroy's team had yasin's video taken down with a false copyright strike as if there wanted to hide something regardless it does seem like Leroy had some connections very early on following everything I just said he started recording and stacking up on songs he released hit after hit after hit and blew up super quickly with songs like let her go diva Addison Rey and more following all that he just continued blowing up as we all know so I probably don't really need to cover that too much so based on everything I just said do I think the Kindle Roy is an industry plan Again by our definition yes in 2016 a year into releasing music and still being relatively unknown Leroy was picked up by people in the industry eventually he received a development deal and labels helped him prepare to blow up Leica label does and this is again why I'm not a huge fan of this term because in reality this is just how the music business is they find artists early a lot of the time and sign them and help them blow up that's the whole point of signing to a label or at least one of the points but in my opinion what makes Leroy's case in particular so interesting is how mysterious his background is and how he's kind of lied or covered up things about his past so Billy eilish is another person who has received industry plan accusations after her massive success and rise to fame but her come up is actually a lot less hidden than any other artist on this list so let's check it out so Billy eilish whose real name is Billy eilish pirate Baird O'Connell Pirates pretty cool I think for a middle name she began making music when she was 13.
her brother Phineas who was already in the industry he was in a band and making his own music helped her make all of her music as well they recorded a couple of songs and put them on Soundcloud for fun but everything changed when they made the song Ocean eyes which was released on Soundcloud like others but this time it got hundreds of thousands of plays following this phineas's manager hit him up to talk about Billy's potential and then a few months later in 2016 they helped Billy sign a deal with platoon that was kind of like a development deal they helped her Make Her Image made a music video for ocean eyes and released a much more professional song called six feet under later that year following that she signed to Interscope Records not even a full year after releasing ocean eyes and of course after that she released a ton of music and absolutely blew up over the next couple of years so obviously this already looks pretty plantish especially with our definition but now let's take a look into her family her dad Patrick O'Connell was an actor who played mostly minor roles in a handful of movies TV shows and video games her mom Maggie Baird is an actress and teacher who also had a handful of decent roles throughout her career both of her parents also used to make music and right now they still help her a ton with her career and her brother Phineas is a successful singer songwriter producer and actor like I said he was the one who first apparently got Billy her industry connections which led to her eventually blowing up his band The Slight leaves was also fairly successful and they played The Warp Tour in 2015.
