Featuring A Famous Rapper On Your Song | Wendy Day

Hi guys, Wendy Day here again giving you more inside secrets to the music industry. Seriously, what we're doing here is sharing inside information, secrets if you will, so that you can succeed in the music business. And today we're going to talk about features. Um, and a lot of you artists out here aren't going to like what I'm going to say, so let me just forewarn you that this may not please you, but it's something that you need to know. Um, features. Most artists get into the music industry because they love the music. They're fans, and they feel so passionate about it that they want to share their music with the world. And when you're passionate about music, um, you also tend to have favorite artists. So as you start moving forward in the music industry, um, you want to be able to feature artists that you respect, artists that you're fans of, or that you know— either somebody who's at the same level as you, um, or even sometimes somebody who has more renown than you have. Most artists want to do a song with an artist who's known that they respect because they feel that by putting somebody famous on their song, it will bring more attention to them. And that's sometimes true, but more often than not, not true. It's true once people know who you are, and you've got a little bit of a buzz and people have heard of you before, when you feature a known artist on a record, then people notice you. If you're brand, brand new and you're only known in your own area or your own state or your own 2 or 3 states and you don't have a large body of work out there that people are familiar with, then you just become another artist trying to buy your way into the music industry, and fans don't usually check out your song. And, um, if they do, they're usually checking out the verse by the artist that they know and skipping over your verse. So it just doesn't have the desired effect that you think that it has. Remember, you're not a fan of you. You're you. So you see the world from your point of view. You don't see the world from the point of view of somebody who is just a fan, who doesn't eat, breathe, sleep, and, um, make music their entire life. Music is, um, an asset to most people. It's an accoutrement. It's not necessarily their entire world the way it is yours. So make sure that you look at this from other perspectives and other points of view. And this is kind of what I'm doing here is letting you know another point of view. Um, additionally, if you feature another artist on your song, you have to then clear the rights to use that artist. You need the permission of the artist that you're featuring and you need the permission of their record label. If they're signed to a middleman label, you need their permission too. You need permission from everyone that has a financial stake in that artist. For example, if you are making a song and you happen to bump into Meek Mill, let's say you do a Meek Mill show in your town and you offer him an extra, you know, $5 grand, $10 grand, $15 grand, $20 grand, $25 grand, whatever he charges, or even if you don't have to pay him— let's say he is your cousin's cousin and he's willing to get on a song with you for free— you still have to clear that Meek Mill usage with MMG and with Warner Brothers, and you have to have Meek Mill's signature on a paper as well, on a contract. You cannot use that song even if you're giving it away for free on a mixtape site. You cannot use the likeness or the music or rap of an artist who is signed to another label without them giving you permission in writing to use that song, even if you're just giving it away for free, even if it's promotional, even if only 20 people are gonna hear it. You absolutely need to get the permission of the their label in order to utilize that feature. And then another thing that you want to take into consideration when you're doing a feature, for those of you that don't have a track record yet, you don't have a history of songs yet, when you're performing that song live, What are you gonna do during that verse? Let's say you've got a song and it features Rick Ross and you want to perform that song, and let's say he is on the third verse. So you're on stage, you're performing the song, you get into the first verse, you do the hook, you get into the second verse, you do the hook. Okay, now what happens when it's time for that third verse? Because Rick Ross is not performing with you? Do you rap along to it? Do you set up a video screen and have him performing in the background? Do you just let the audience rap along? Because if they don't know the song yet, um, they're not going to be able to do that. They're not going to be able to rap along to that verse. So what are you going to do, just stand there on the stage or pace back and forth? So this is something that you've really got to take into consideration when you're new and you're working a single and you're doing a show, you're usually not doing more than 1 or 2 songs. So if your only song has 1 of the 3 verses missing, what do you do? How do you perform that? You know, how do you, how do you effectively show people that you've got a good show when your show is interrupted because you've got a verse by somebody who's not there? Then the last point that I'm going to make about having a featured artist on your record is if you put them first and then you put your verse afterwards and you're not known yet, what's going to happen is if somebody does like the song, they're going to play the verse with the person who's known. You know, the Meek Mill feature or the Rick Ross or 21 Savage or whoever, whoever your feature is from, they're gonna play that verse and then start playing, like, mesh it in with another song. Because why would they give airplay to somebody that's not known? You know, remember, with DJs, their goal is to get people on the dance floor. Or if they're a radio DJ, their goal is to keep people from tuning out of the radio program by changing the channel. They don't want people to change the channel, so they're gonna play music that is known as opposed to new music. So while you're struggling trying to get your song played, there's a very good chance that they're only going to play the verse by the established artist. If you do decide to ignore this warning, and you absolutely can. It's your career, it's your life, and if you do it, I won't think one way or the other about you. It's, it's certainly your choice. If you do decide to feature an established artist, please make sure that you get that verse from that artist. There is never, I repeat, never a time where a producer happens to have a spare verse laying around that they have the rights to, and that's what they're gonna tell you because they know they can sell it to you. But they do not have the rights. No one but the artist whose voice you are using and their label have the rights to tell you yes or no, you can or cannot use a verse by that artist. I have an artist friend who bought a track that featured Gucci Mane, and then he bought another track that featured Pimp C, and we're trying to clear both of those tracks right now, and it's next to impossible because the artist didn't give their okay. And with Pimp C, it's extra hard because whether Pimp C wanted him to have it or not is irrelevant because he's passed away. Everything goes through the estate. So now it comes down to what the estate says. If the estate says yes, you can use it, then you can use it. If the estate says no, then it's no. But regardless of whether the answer is is yes, you can use it. And even if you've already paid the producer for it, I'm guessing there's going to be another fee that you're going to have to pay to the estate to be able to use that track. And then on top of that, you're going to have to clear the rights to use that through whatever label he was signed to before he passed away, whoever has the rights, whether that's Rap-A-Lot or whether that's Jive. I don't know. Jive is now Sony, so I don't know. You'd have to do a little bit of work But you'd have to get the estate to sign off on it first, and it's very hard to get past that step. You know, when a label builds an artist's career, you know, when MMG builds Meek Mill, or Def Jam builds Rick Ross, or Interscope builds Kendrick Lamar, they spend millions and millions of dollars to do this. So you can imagine how they may feel if an unknown artist comes along and wants to jump on their bandwagon and use the artist that they've invested millions of dollars into in order to ignite their own career. You can absolutely understand that they may feel some kind of way about that. So it may be very challenging as an unknown artist to get the rights. And you can absolutely put it out there by yourself. I know that's what you're sitting there thinking. You're sitting there thinking, I don't give a damn about a release, I'm just gonna put it out. I'm gonna put it up on DatPiff, I'm gonna put it on my website. And you know, like I said before, you can do what you want. I'm not gonna think one way or another about you, but understand that if you get caught doing that and the label sees that you don't have a clearance, the label sees the song, they know you don't have a clearance. Do you really want your introduction into the music industry to be getting sued? By a label or sued by an artist who's bigger than you are. I just, I, I don't see the upside on that. And again, if this were a way to really make your career take off and explode and get millions of eyeballs on your music and, and make people really love who you are, then I would say that it's worth it. But in all the times that I've bought features for artists, it hasn't helped anyone except when an artist already has a buzz and they're already starting to get known. And by starting to get known, I don't mean just in your city. I mean really starting to get known. They're at a point where they're getting $5,000 or $10,000 for a show outside of their own market. Um, I noticed when in working with Trouble that when he featured on a Young Thug record, it really benefited him. First of all, it was on Young Thug's release, not on Trouble's release, and there was a budget put behind it, "Thief in the Night," and it was a great song. But when he was featured on it, many people already knew who he was. And so naturally there was attention to the song because people definitely knew who Young Thug was and they kinda knew who Trouble was, and it was their first opportunity to really get to see him side by side with another artist, kinda going pound for pound. Holding his weight. You know, ditto with YFN Lucci's Key to the Streets. Trouble was featured on that, but it wasn't on Trouble's release, it was on YFN Lucci's album. So a feature can benefit you more when it's an established artist featuring you on their project, more so than you trying to buy a feature from them with the intention of gaining part of their fan base. It just— it— unless you're known, it just doesn't work. Okay guys, I hope I saved you some money here. Um, again, I know many of you are going to try it. There's some sort of misconception that if you buy a verse from a famous artist, it will give you the opportunity to befriend them or hang out with them or become as famous as they are. Um, I wish it were that easy. It's not. Many of you are going to go try and see for yourselves, but for those of you that, um, heed my advice, I'm happy save you that money. Put that money into marketing and promotion to build yourself up, get the attention of those artists, and then have them want to get a feature from you because you're close to the streets and they want your fan base. Okay guys, hope this was helpful. Bye!