Josh Brown – The Reformation

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This podcast is sponsored by CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals whose mission is to lead the investment profession by promoting the highest standards of ethics, education, and professional excellence for the ultimate benefit of society. CFA Institute serves a global community of investment professionals working to build an investment industry where investors' interests come first, financial markets function at their best, and economies grow. The Chartered Financial Analyst credential is the most respected and recognized investment management designation in the world.
The views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent the views of CFA Institute.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfieldguide.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:59)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is a principal and portfolio manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (1:21)
My guest this week is one of the reasons this podcast exists because he helped me find an audience several years ago. I sent him a research piece which he kindly shared with his rapidly growing follower base.
Today he is the avatar for the next generation of investors.
His story reads like a myth, trials and tribulations, reformation, transformation, and a commitment to share what he has learned.
Josh Brown and I discuss his journey and have a lot of good laughs along the way. You can find show notes for this episode at investorfieldguide.com forward slash brown. And in this episode, I asked the most important question first. So please enjoy. All right, Josh, thank you so much for doing this with me. By far the most common question people wanted to know is in the world of hip hop rap, top five, dead or alive.

**Josh Brown** (2:09)
This is where we're starting? All right.
Dead or alive. I mean, that makes it easy. Everyone's one and two has to be either big and pock.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:18)
Yeah, but who's one?

**Josh Brown** (2:19)
Well, I'm from the East Coast, so it's big.
I respect the pock arguments. They're wrong, but I respect. I think you have to round out the top five with East Coast, though. I think you have to keep it real. It's where it started.
KRS and Rakam are easy. The fifth slot's a little bit tougher. I typically default to Jay-Z. Yeah, early Jay-Z. It's a crowd pleaser to end with him, but I will say like six through 10 is harder than one through five.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:48)
How about right now? Maybe top two.

**Josh Brown** (2:49)
Well, you know, like who I'm listening to a lot. I'm not that far afield, I guess, from the mainstream. I'm listening to Kendrick and Kanye a lot, but some of the newer guys are really interesting to me.
I think maybe the most fun rap record to have come out this year is by Dram. A lot of people know the track he did with Yachty called Broccoli, but the full record, that's a fun record. We don't really make hip hop records anymore, they're fun.
The top selling rap record this year is Drake, which is the most depressing thing, and I don't hate it, but it's mopey as hell. So this is like the polar opposite. There's live instrumentation, it doesn't make you wanna kill yourself. So there's a lot of new stuff coming out. I think the hurdle is higher for any of the new guys to ever break in. When you ask somebody, top five live or dead, I don't see how somebody that comes out now ever ends up in that list.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:46)
Well, it's kind of like classic rock, right?

**Josh Brown** (3:47)
It's the same, right.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:48)
The origin.

**Josh Brown** (3:49)
It's the same paradigm.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:49)
People that were the trailblazers. It's just gonna be hard to beat that paradigm.

**Josh Brown** (3:53)
Yeah, like you could say Pearl Jam's awesome, I love Pearl Jam, but you're not gonna kick the who out of the top five.
You know what I mean? I mean, you can, I guess, but you're gonna get sidelong glances.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (4:05)
So I think it's an interesting question because it's the kind of question that gives people an opportunity to give an answer that says something about themselves versus what the actual truth is.