How To Get A Record Deal :: 20/20 Vision

Hey guys, okay, so let's talk about how to get a record deal. So many of you are asking me that question, and even though it's 2020 and I didn't know that you guys still wanted record deals, obviously there's enough of you out there who do. So I'm going to cover it. The best way to get a record deal— and there's many ways to get a record deal, right? But the best way to get one is to build a really strong regional buzz around you as an artist, and then the labels will come to you. Understand that this is a business, and even though you are talented— and I'm assuming that you're talented— even though you're talented, talent alone is not enough to remove the risk from a record label, a major record label, enough to get them to sign you to a deal, okay? Let me backtrack for a second because this is kind of important. Getting a record deal is not the goal. Even if you want to be signed to a record label, building a successful career is the goal. And getting signed to a label is just one of the ways to become successful in the music business. It's one of the ways to build a career for somebody who doesn't have an investor, doesn't have money, and absolutely doesn't want to market and promote on their own and needs to have somebody in place to help them do that or to do that for them, a record deal is the best choice. Okay, having said that, a record label is a business, and they're not looking to sign whoever is in the hot, most popping area of the time, or to sign whoever sounds like the next Drake or the next whoever, even though sometimes they say that's what they're looking for. They're looking for artists that can make them money. They're looking for artists who already are out there making money so that all they have to do is apply their pipeline and their staff to get you to the next level. So what you're doing as an artist is you're removing the risk from them signing you and showing them that that you've already got a fan base in place and it makes logical sense for them to give you money and sign you to a record deal. The more leverage you have, meaning the more you have going for you in your favor, the better your deal is gonna be. So what I mean by that is if a label is looking at signing you and they're gonna offer you $100,000 advance, and again, an advance is loan, right? An advance is exactly what it says it is. It's an advance. It's money that they're giving you that you're going to pay back out of your share of the royalties. That doesn't mean the money comes off the top. That means that you're paying it back out of your percentage. So let's say, let's say that the average deal is somewhere between $100,000 and $300,000 in advance. If you've got a royalty of somewhere between 12 to 18%, that means that for every dollar that comes back into the label after you recoup, you're going to get 12 to 18% of the income. You're going to recoup out of your 12 to 18% share. So for every dollar that comes in, you're going to pay back the money that they've spent to record, to sign you, to market, to promote. Whatever is recoupable, you're going to pay back out of your 12 to 18% share. And then once you've paid back everything that they feel you owe, that's when you start to make royalties and that's when you start to make money. So really getting signed to a label is an advance game. A lot of times the only money a newer artist is gonna see is that advance. So in that case, you wanna make sure that the advance is as high as possible. And the way that you get a large advance is you put out music yourself and you build your buzz to the point where you're getting shows and you're making $1,500 a show or $3,000 a show $5,000 a show or whatever, but you're making money from shows and from merchandise. You've got a large following in your region. People know who you are. And by region, I don't just mean your city. Like, if you're from Atlanta, you can't just be popping in Atlanta. You need to be popping in your entire region. So for an artist in Atlanta, that means the entire Southeast. So people will know who you are and be fans of yours in Florida, in Alabama, in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. That's regional. That's what regional means. You've got a big enough fan base to show that there's enough money out there for a label to dump money into you. And the great thing about leverage— and I won't beat this to death— but the great thing about leverage is if you're already making $500,000 on your own, when a label steps to you, they can't offer you a deal for between $100,000 and $300,000 for 12 points because you're never gonna— you're never gonna take that. If, if you're already making half a million dollars on your own, they're gonna have to step up their game, and they're gonna have to offer you at least, at least $1.5 million, $1.3, $1.5 million, somewhere in there, in order to just get, get your interest, right? Because you're already making half a million on your own, and then the deal becomes sweeter. Instead of a royalty point split, you might be able to get a joint venture, you might be able to do a 50/50 deal, or you might be able to get an 80/20 split where you make 80, 80% of the money and they make 20%. You know, that's what the Cash Money deal was back in the 1990s when I negotiated that. And if they could get that back then, you can certainly do better now. The music industry is still making money. If you look at all of the research, it still makes sense to be in this industry. You just have to understand it, and you have to get the best deal possible. And to get the best deal possible, you need to have leverage. And in order to have leverage, the buzz on your music has to be really strong. You have to already be making money in this industry, and then on top of that, you need to have somebody on your team that these labels want to work with. You've got to have an entertainment lawyer that is extremely well connected and that understands what to ask for in a deal. It's not always the stuff that's in the contract that's fucked up that can hurt you. Sometimes it's the stuff that's missing. So you've got to have somebody on your team that not only knows what to put into the contract, but to know what's missing if something isn't there. So you're negotiating points that are in your favor instead of just taking whatever the first thing thrown at you is. So that's how to get a record deal. I'm sure there are many other ways, but in every deal that I've negotiated in the past 28 years, the artist has always been able to retain their own publishing. They've always been able to retain their back catalog, which is really important, and they've been able to get deals that have kept them going strong in the music industry. You know, look at the guys that I've worked with, from Lil Wayne to Eminem to Master P, Twista. Like, these guys still exist and they still have viable careers in the music industry, and that's what you want. You want to build a successful career. The goal isn't just to get a record deal. If you're going to get a deal, get an amazing deal. Okay, that's it. Bye.