Ghostwriting :: 20/20 Vision

Hey everybody, today we're going to talk about ghostwriting. Um, ghostwriting seems to be an area of the music business that's still somewhat taboo, and it's— that's a little surprising to me because so many rappers have people ghostwriting for them, yet for some reason it's— we're still not supposed to talk about it. So I won't call anybody out, I won't mention anybody by name, but I will tell you that ghostwriting is a great way to make money. This is a topic I do not know a lot about because I do not represent any songwriters or ghostwriters, so I'm only going to be able to tell you what I know about it, not what I've actually done. And that, as you know by now, that makes me a little uncomfortable. So in order to, um, become a writer, you need to build relationships with A&R people or with artists directly. These are the folks that can hire you to write for the artist. And there's a multitude of ways that this happens. There's writing camps where, um, an A&R person will invite a lot of different writers and producers into a room so that they can all kind of collaborate together and make a cohesive song. Um, I'm not necessarily a big fan of that because that means that each song has 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 writers on it, and I don't think it takes that many people to write a great song. I think that, um, you can shop for songs and find content that you feel represents the artist that you're working with as an A&R person. You can find somebody who can write a great song for that artist, um, and that's another way to do it. There are folks that will reach out to different rappers and say, hey, could you come to Atlanta or New York or Miami or LA, where, you know, wherever the artist is recording, and demo some songs so that we can share them with the artist and see what they like and what their sensibility is and see if we can get them on board to buy a song from you. For newer writers, there's backend. You own a piece of the publishing. It's very rare that you're paid any money up front. For a writer that's got a little bit stronger of a track record, they will receive an advance against the publishing up front. But as a writer, the great thing for you is that you're able to go into the studio, write a song for somebody, and then you don't have to do anything else in order to collect money. The checks just come in as that music is released into the marketplace that the other artist is singing or rapping, as the publishing money comes back in, the checks just come to you. So if you're a writer for a larger artist like a Beyoncé or a Drake— and I'm mentioning artists by name because they've been very open about how they have people write for them— Rihanna, people like that. If you're writing for them, one hit record that you own a piece of the publishing on can mean millions of dollars for you and your children and your children's children, etc. Um, publishing is where the money's at. And if you don't know what publishing is yet, um, please go do some research on that because that's an area that you really want to understand as best as possible. So that's about all that I have to say on ghostwriting. I know this wasn't a lot. It's an area where you guys hit me up all the time and you ask how you can become a ghostwriter. And it's very much a relationship business. You're going to have to get, um, to the different A&Rs and to the artists, and they're going to have to believe that you have the ability to write hit records. It's very difficult for you to convince somebody if you don't have a hit record under your belt. It's very difficult for you to convince somebody that you can write hit records for somebody else. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. I hope this was somewhat helpful. And, um, tune in tomorrow and we'll have another topic that can impact your career. And have a great day.