Wendy Day breaks down how independent rappers build sustainable careers: make music that's great enough to compete with major labels, identify your specific audience, and treat it like a business, not a hobby. Women spend more on music than men. Your songs need to be relatable, catchy, and professionally mixed.
Chapters
2020, bisous! So here we are again. You know I love doing this shit. I just woke up. The first thing I did was grab my phone. I haven't combed my hair, no makeup. Grab my super bright, can't possibly get hit crossing the street because my glass is so bright glasses on, and life is good. So music, let's talk about music because this is the music business. And the one thing I haven't mentioned yet is that your music has to be great. Not good, great. You've got to make great music, and that kind of goes without saying. I'm going to say it because apparently it needs to be said. I know that a lot of this is marketing and promotion, but it really comes down to the music. Your music has to be really good. It's got to be different. You can't sound like an offshoot of somebody that's come before. Your music has to be unique. It's got to stand out, and it's got to be good. Not just good to you, not just good to me, but good to the fans. There have to be a large amount of people that are willing to pay money for your music, that are willing to stream it, that are willing to pay money to come see you live, that are willing to, to pay money for t-shirts shirts with your logo on it or with the name of the song or a lyric from the song. Your music has to be good and it's got to be mixed and mastered. It's got to have a good sound. It has to sound great when it's sandwiched in between two national recording artists. You're not a national recording artist yet. You're not going to work your music nationally. You're going to work it regionally. So you're gonna go bigger than just wherever you're from, bigger than your home city, but it's gotta have a big sound. It's gotta be clean. It's gotta be, um, like I said, mixed and mastered. It's gotta sound great between Lizzo and Kanye. It's gotta sound great between Lil Pump and Young Thug. It's gotta sound great between Future and Jay-Z. It just has to sound really good, not just the quality of the music, but the actual song itself. So when most artists go to record a song, they don't stop to think about who they're writing the song for. And you've really got to do that, because unless you're doing this as a hobby— and if you are, you shouldn't be watching my videos, because these videos are for people that want to make money with their music. These are not videos for people who who just want to rap and love rapping and fuck the money. This— these videos are not, I repeat, not for you. These are for the folks that actually want to make a living, hopefully, in the rap music industry as a rapper. That, that's my target market. So I know there's a lot of you out there that work with rappers. A lot of you are producers, DJs, you work in the music business, you're, you know, you're not an artist yourself, but I'm making these for the artist. I don't mind you guys listening, and I hope you take away a lot from it. But I'm talking to the rappers right now. Your music has to be catchy. It has to be relatable, meaning when somebody in the target market that you're going after hears it, they can relate to it. You're talking about something that they can relate to. If you're making a song about what it's like living in Antarctica and having to wear snowshoes and travel on dog sleds, it's probably going to have some interest for people that are interested in what that lifestyle possibly could be, but a whole lot of people aren't going to relate to it. That's why you're not listening to a lot of rap from Brazil and from Japan and from Korea and from all over the world. If you make a song that someone can relate to, like the struggle, you could still be from Antarctica and you could talk about struggling through the ice and the snow. But if your song is about struggle, Somebody in the Bronx can relate to that. Somebody in Atlanta can relate to that. Somebody in Des Moines can relate to that. Somebody in Compton can relate to that. Like, the struggle is universal. And if you've got a catchy hook that goes with that, something memorable and something that people can sing along to, you're in there, you know. Um, a lot of the artists that I work with make music for women because in the research they've done women spend more money on music and on shows than men do. Do the research. I'm not telling you to sell out. I'm not telling you to not be you. I'm not telling you to do anything different from what you're doing. I'm just telling you to give it some thought and think about it, because if you're going to treat this as a business, then you've got to really treat this as a business. You need to know who your market is. You need to know what music you're making. And, you know, thank God for the internet and social media because it's easier today than it has ever been. You can just read the comments on your page and figure out what songs are resonating with people, what they like and what they don't like. You know, you're going to have to sift through the haters. There's going to be a lot of bullshit on there too because that's just the nature. As you grow and get bigger, people become envious and they just somehow want to pull you down like crabs in a barrel. It's the most fucked up shit in the world, but it happens, right? So you have to overlook all the hate and figure out who your real market is and make the music that they want to hear, or at least sell the music that they want to hear. You can make anything you want, you know. If, if you're— if all you want to do is make depressing ballads, go for it. But understand that you're going to have to find a market of fans that want to hear depressing ballads, like people that just broke up with their, with their significant other. You know, there's a market for it, but the more broad you can go and the more people you can touch and the more catchy it is— because remember, this is entertainment, you know— the more catchy it is and the more unique it is, the more you're going to stand out. And, and that's really what you need to do. And then of course you need to mix and master it. You need to put forth the best music you can. You need to understand that if you're going to run ads on YouTube and Facebook, you're probably going to need a clean version because it's very hard to run ads on dirty versions in 2020. Um, if you're going for radio at all, it absolutely has to be clean. Not so much internet radio, but if you're going for like traditional FM radio, you've got to have squeaky clean versions, meaning not only can you not swear, but you can't really make any overt sexual references. You can't talk talk about guns, you can't talk about drink, there's— you can't say bitch, you can't say hoe. There's, aside from just the, the, you know, the, the swear words, there's a lot of shit that you can't say if you're going after a radio market. So understand your market and make your music accordingly. But overall, if you take nothing else away from the series, take away the fact that your music has to be great. Not good, Great. It has to be great. Bye, y'all.
