LIVE with Wendy Day #005 | Answering Your Questions Live

but I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some great information for you today. Hang in, I'm almost there. Pond 5. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Pond 5. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my livestream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we'll be right with you with some great information. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. On fire. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some great information for you today. Hang in, I'm almost there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my livestream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we're gonna be right with you with some great information. Pond 5. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm I'm so happy that you're here. I've got some great information for you today. Hang in, I'm almost there. Pond 5. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what? Hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my live stream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we'll be right with you with some great information. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm so happy to be you're here. I've got some great information for you today. Hang in, I'm almost there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe. Hey guys, how are you tonight? Hey, it's Wednesday, it's 7 o'clock. I'm right on time, I'd like to point out. How are you all tonight? I see a lot of you shouting me out in the, in the chat room. Thank you so much. I can also hear my dog snoring in the background, and he's really loud. So at some point, if you hear it, it's actually the dog, not Tony. So hi guys, um, what a stressful day yesterday was, huh? Did you guys vote? I did. Man, I'm not gonna dwell on it. Anywho, let's, let's, let's get right to it. What I've done is I've printed out a bunch of your questions that you've emailed me at thisiswendyday@gmail.com. These are questions that came in up through early this morning. I haven't checked my email in a couple hours because I've actually been putting some contracts together for clients, for producers. So I've been sitting here at my desk working on that instead of checking my email. So if you guys have questions for next week, anything that came in today or thereafter, I will answer next week. But we've got a whole bunch of stuff, so I'm gonna just dive right in. I have the same or similar questions from two different guys. One is Galactic Soul and the other is Divided Souls. That's pretty interesting, almost like the Soul Brothers, right? Um, and you're both asking me questions about booking agents, and I'm gonna do a whole— I'm gonna do a whole session on booking agents. I'm doing the research right now so that I can effectively answer, um, but I'm going to give you quick answers because I don't want to keep you waiting. So Divided Soul asked about, um, hey Wendy, can you talk about the elusive booking agent? Elusive is right. I know a good number of legends in the game and not one can refer any. This is crucial to stay independent and to make a living by doing shows on the road and to be included in festivals, etc. Thank you. And then, um, Galactic Soul said, my question for you is, what are the best ways to gain the attention of touring agents Or is there a way to solicit a touring agent as a new artist without much hype? So let's talk about booking agents and let's talk about, um, who and when. Um, it is hard to find great booking agents, and, and I feel like almost as soon as you find one, they kind of burn out pretty quickly. Um, and it really depends on what level you are at your career as to how effective a booking agent can be for you. For example, um, Killer Mike is in a great position with his career right now, and he has a very large fan base. When he performs, a lot of people pay money to come see him perform. He sells tickets. So it's, it's going to be much easier for him to find a booking agent than for an artist who is pretty new and doesn't have a buzz. You have to understand that booking agents make 10% of the money that they book you for, and it's actually more work to try to book somebody who's brand new than it is to book somebody that has, has made a name for themselves and has a buzz in the marketplace. Um, right now it's very easy to find shows for 21 Savage or for Kodak Black or Lil Yachty or YFN Lucci. Because they've been doing shows for a while, and promoters know that if they do a show, as long as there hasn't been a show in their area, um, somewhat recently, they're going to be able to sell enough tickets to make their money back and make a nice little profit by doing the show. But if you're an artist that doesn't have any buzz yet or any reputation you're probably going to need to do a whole lot of free shows to show people who you are, what you're about. You're gonna wanna build a buzz by passing out your music, passing out download cards, getting people excited and talking about you both offline in the real world and online at social media. So, um, I was kinda joking last week when I said to you guys that almost all of my answers come down to building a— I'm wiping up crumbs because I was eating cookies right before we started. Um, it all comes down to how much of a buzz you build. But that's the reality of the music business. Success goes to the people that work hardest and have the best music to back up that work that they're putting in. So you can be a super talented artist, and if you don't have the right attitude and you don't have the proper drive to get out there and really promote yourself, you're not going to be as successful as somebody who is less talented but is willing to get up and outwork you. And that's just the reality. It's always been that way. I know a lot of you are sitting back saying that's not fair, but understand that the people with a little bit less talent are sitting back and saying, woohoo! So how do you find a booking agent? Um, and, and I'm kind of going through this process myself right now because I'm doing research so that I can put together a video for you guys about booking agents. And great booking agents kind of cycle out every couple of years as the promoters change and also as their clientele changes. Somebody who works with a newer artist like a Scotty ATL or a Lil Yachty or an Uzi Vert or a Kodak Black or a 21 Savage, um, or even like a, um, an artist that's not quite as buzzing nationally yet, like a Joyner Lucas or Flawless out of New England, um, CB Smooth out of North Carolina. Like, you guys have a really hard time, um, once you find a booking agent and they sort of grow with you and you get to the level of, you know, a mid-level artist like a Kevin Gates, you know, the, the type of promoter that books you changes. So your booking agent is going to have different relationships. Um, instead of booking you at a local club that holds 1,000 people, um, you know, like Club Diva or whatever, um, you're now playing House of Blues, which holds you know, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 people, and then from there you're doing, you know, smaller festivals— not smaller festivals, bigger festivals. Um, your, your needs are changing and the relationships are changing. So as that booking agent becomes more effective for you, they may become less effective for a newer artist that's coming up under you. So what I've been doing— and again, I'm going to do a whole section on booking agents. Um, what I've been doing is I've been calling around to different artists at different levels and asking, hey, who are the booking agents that are calling you? Who's booking you? I'm talking to a lot of different promoters, um, around the country and saying, who— hey, who are the more effective booking agents? Because an effective booking agent is somebody that's going to call around and get you shows not just somebody that's going to sit back and answer the phone. You know, right now, um, Trouble's performing 2 to 4 times a week, and that's all based off of promoters that are calling Tony and asking him, um, you know, hey, what does it cost to book Trouble, and is he available on, you know, November 30th to perform? Um, but in a perfect world, you want to have a booking agent that is also going out and seeking tour opportunities for you and shows. Um, and this is a little bit more advanced for those of you that are brand new. Um, again, if you're brand new, you're going to have to perform for free a lot, and you're going to try to get on any show that you can. I don't think you should pay to open for somebody, but I do think that you should build relationships with, with the promoters in your area and get on some shows and start building your fan base through live shows. And make sure your live show is really good. You know, a lot of newer artists, you tend to just kind of stand on stage or pace back and forth or, you know, hold your dick and rap, and that's not enough. You want to leave people wanting more, and you want to leave people with the impression that your show was phenomenal so that when they go and talk to their friends or when they film you with their camera and put it on Snapchat Live or on YouTube Live or on Facebook Live that other people look at your show and say, wow, that, you know, I really missed something, that looked like a great show. And that way, um, they make sure that, that they don't miss you again. Um, when do you hire a booking agent? You're going to hire a booking agent as soon as you're making enough money. Remember, booking agents make 10% of your show. So if you're getting booked for $1,000, they're making $100. If you're getting booked for $10,000, they're making $1,000 and making a little bit more. So there's more incentive for somebody to work with you when you have a larger, um, fee that you're charging, when you're getting more money. And, and it's— you can't just wake up one day and say, okay, I'm $5,000 to do a show. You build up your level based on what promoters are willing to pay you, and that's based on what they feel they can sell ticket prices for, um, for your show. So have I— so have I, um, have I done that to death now? Like, are you guys cool with that for now? And again, I'm gonna do, um, I'm gonna do an episode strictly for booking agents. I'm doing the research right now. So let me see if there's any questions you guys have here. Oh, Domingo. Okay, I see one of you is promoting yourself, um, to be followed on Instagram. How can you get your music into playlists? I'm actually going to do an episode for that because it is so incredibly important. Um, Hustle Boy, you're asking about any ideas for having a good live show. I guess if I were you, I would attend as many live shows as I could, not just in rap but in all types of music, and just see, you know, what are other people doing that's great. You know, some of the best shows that I've been to— David Banner puts on a great show, um, MGK puts on a great show. MGK is just— he's like so live with it, like he climbs up on the speakers and he jumps into the crowd, you know, he's He's just very animated. Um, Trouble's Show is incredible live because he knows exactly where the fans are going to start, um, you know, singing along to his, to his music. And he'll put the microphone out to the crowd so that they can sort of sing back with him or rap back with him. But he knows just when to do that. I've seen a lot of people do that, and you know, you kind of hear the crowd going and it doesn't quite work. So you, you, you really need to work your crowd. You need to command your crowd, and the energy that they give you is what you're going to feed off of when you're doing the show. But even if they're standing there like this and kind of giving you the stank face, you want to make sure that you're still giving them 100% in a show. You want to make sure that you're going to convert those people people that may not be your fans into not only being your fans but become rabid fans. People that, you know, go and tell all of their friends and really support you, buy your merchandise, buy your music. Okay guys, how do you get your music heard online? Do I pay for online promo? Ronnie Lee, um, I hate the answer to this question because you've got to be at a certain level before you start paying people, or you're just going to become like an ATM machine for folks. Um, bloggers are important to, to rally to your side. DJs are a great way to spread your music. But if you come in and you don't build relationships and you just open up your wallet and start paying people, you're going to always pay people in your career. And the thing about paying folks to get ahead is that once you pay one person, you're going to end up paying everybody. It's just the nature of this music business. We all kind of talk to each other and, and we know who the people are to pay and who the people that we want to help, um, move through their career quickly for nothing because we believe in them. So my best suggestion would be, rather than just paying people to spin your record or play it online, why not hit the streets and really build a buzz? Hit the college campuses, hit high schools, you know, give out your music. In the South, we still give out CDs because they're still relevant. Outside of the South, I realize that that's an issue, um, in the Northeast, I suggest you give out download cards. And download cards are basically a business card that has your, um, social media on it, um, the links to your SoundCloud, your YouTube page, anywhere that people can find out about you. I would also suggest that you have a, an amazing website and have links where people can just click and go right to whatever you're trying to promote, whether it's your music, your videos, whatever. Um, people not only fall in love with you as, you know, through your music, but sometimes people can fall in love with you from who you are as a person. There are a ton of rappers whose music I don't necessarily love, but they're such great people or they have such an interesting backstory that I'm drawn to them. And the more I listen to their music, the more, um, the more I get into it and the more I like it. You know, repetition is the key. You want somebody— that's why radio works, right? Because they play the same songs over and over and over, like, until you're sick of them, but then you find yourself singing along to it in the shower. Well, if you're not at a point where you can pay for, for radio to work your record, then you need to find other ways to get people really listening to your music over and over and over, you know, whether your videos are so amazing that people get sucked in. Right now there's, there's the whole mannequin challenge, right, where folks are setting up these really cool poses where they're just kind of freezing and you have their music playing in the background. And, you know, some of them are really stupid and people pass by them, you know, on, on Facebook and on Instagram. But some of them are really cool. Like, there were a couple that, that I was looking at last night of these scenes where, like, a drive-by shooting, you know, there's a scene of a guy kicking in a door and robbing somebody's apartment. There was a scene of high school kids in their gymnasium doing gymnastics, and all of the people in the gymnasium— and there were a lot of people in the gymnasium— were all frozen. There was one at a, um, you know, there's one at a health club where people were in various stages of working out and they were frozen. But the, but the point of this is that it promotes the music that's playing in the background. So you may want to either set these up yourself or find some that are really cool online and reach out to those people and ask them if you can't repost it on your Instagram with your music You know, there's ways you can be creative without spending a lot of money. We have an artist here in Atlanta called Lil Donald, and Lil Donald makes these really catchy dance songs, and he posts people from all over the world who do the dance to his different songs. And it costs him nothing to do that except for time. You know, he's now on his Instagram— I've noticed every night he's been freestyling to show people who, who think that he can't rap— might have been something I said to him, um— people that think he can't rap, he's showing them that he's lyrical. He, you know, he comes from the world of battle rap. It's just that he can't make money battle rapping, so he makes songs that he feels will sell and enhance his career. You know, they're, they're, they're songs that are really in him. It's not like he's trying to be something he's not, but again, he's freestyling on Instagram every night, and I just noticed last night that now he's starting to ask his followers to pick the beat that he raps over. So there's a lot of different things that you can do in order to, um, in order to, um, get attention without spending a whole lot of money. Okay guys, um, and I'm going to do episodes on, um, DJs and radio play. Um, it's just that most of the people that follow me aren't quite there yet. You're not quite to a point where you should be paying people to play your record because you're not, you're not hot enough yet. There's not enough of a buzz or enough of a foundation. And I know you may think that there is, but there's not. And, um, that's just the reality of the music industry. Okay, this is from Money Baby, and Money Baby watched my copyright video and it led to a question. Um, and first of all, thank you for watching that. And thank you for not asking me questions about copyright, um, that I covered in the video. You're actually asking a question that I didn't cover, so I'm going to cover it now. Um, and you said the only thing you didn't cover is if you're making a mixtape and the songs that are freestyles that you wrapped on the hottest beats out— for example, if I wrapped on Trouble's Ready as a freestyle, can I get sued? And how do I copyright that material? Um, and the, the real answer to that is yes, you absolutely can get sued if you take somebody else's beat. It's sort of like, um, if somebody parked their car and you hopped in it and took it for a spin and you didn't give it back. Um, yeah, that's pretty much illegal, and you can, you can, you can get arrested for that. Well, in the music industry, when you use someone else's beat without their permission, you can absolutely get sued, even if you're not making money by using You know, the analogy that I give is if you steal somebody's car and you're using it to give out food to the homeless, you know, can you still get arrested for stealing their car? Well, yeah, even though you're doing good with their car, you're still stealing their car. So absolutely you can. If you jack somebody's beat, even if you rip it, um, you know, skillfully, it's somebody else's beat. And I know that this is hip-hop, we're always going to do that, but I'm giving you the real answer here. I'm giving you the truth in terms of what you legally can do and what you cannot do. Um, and, and I'm going to keep using Trouble's Ready as an example since you mentioned it. Um, Shorty Fresh made the beat, Trouble wrote the rap, and it's owned by Trouble's label. He and his partner that own 2 True Entertainment together So you need to get the permission of the label, you need to get the permission from Shorty Fresh, and you need to get the permission from Trouble. Now let's be realistic, you're not gonna do that in order to rip a freestyle. It's just, it's just logically you're not gonna do that. But if you're going to put it on a mixtape or an album, you should absolutely reach out because there are people out there that are just waiting for guys to take their beat and rap over it so that they can come and sue them and shut them down. And even again, even if you're not making money, you can still get sued because there's still streaming money, there's still money coming into SoundExchange, which you should sign up for. There's still money coming into SoundExchange if you're doing this, you know, on your website or on, uh, you know, on a freestyle at a, at an internet radio show. There's still money that is coming in And I would hate for your introduction into the music industry to be that you got sued. I think that would be really fucked up. So in answer to your question, no, you cannot technically take somebody's beat and rap over it, and you can't copyright somebody else's beat because you don't own it. You would have to go to everybody that was featured on that record and whoever owned it, get their permission, and then you could copyright your version of it. But it's going to be really hard to do that. There's very few labels and music owners out there that are going to be happy after all the money that they spent to buy the beat and record on the beat, you know, the original, and record on the beat and then market and promote it to get it hot to the point where it's attractive for you to take it it. There's very few people that are going to say to you, oh yeah, just, you know, take that shit for free and have fun, you know, have at it. I, I just, I, I, I don't see the value in that. Having said that, I know you guys are going to take beats all over the place and you're going to rap on them. You're going to put them up because you want attention. You can't afford to buy, to buy, um, proper beats, so you're just going to rap over whatever the hottest beat is out there. It's what we've been doing in hip-hop for ages. But don't do it thinking that what you're doing is right. Okay, yeah, Domingo says, I try to tell them, Wendy, but they don't hear me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, welcome to my world. Can a Kendrick-like artist find success in the trap? This looks like, um, STL, so St. Louis in 618. It looks like you're from, um, the east side of St. Louis, aren't you? Um, why would a Kendrick-like artist try to find success in the trap. If you're an artist and your fan base is, um, mostly college students, why would you market yourself to people that aren't necessarily your fan base? It's sort of like going to a Weight Watchers meeting where you're in a room full of people that are dieting and you're trying to sell cupcakes. You might sell a couple from people that are slipping, but wouldn't it be better to sell your cupcakes to people that were frequenting a bakery because they're kind of your market? Okay, that wasn't a good analogy. Um, I learned from a street dude a really long time ago that you don't sell heroin in a cocaine neighborhood. That's probably the best way that I can put it. You sell whatever your fans are looking for from you. So if you're a trap rapper, you're going to make trap rap because that's what your fans are looking for. You may every now and again do something lyrical. I remember when I was working with David Banner, he did a song with Talib Kweli because at the time, um, there weren't a lot of down south artists doing stuff with, um, conscious East Coast rappers, and they wanted to set the tone, and they did. So, um, Cameron Temple is asking me, what if I use a free YouTube beat and give credit? Um, provided that there is some sort of a statement when you take that beat that you can use it for free and do what you want with it. Um, I, I am— I'm guessing you can absolutely do that. I put out music to make money. Like, that to me, this isn't a hobby, this is a business. So I'm looking to advise you in ways where you can get paid and make money. And if you have a beat that somebody's given you, unless you've got the paperwork to back it up, it's not worth the risk. Why would you spend tens of thousands of dollars to market a song when the person that made that beat could pop up 2 years from now and say, you can't use my beat because you don't have the paperwork? So I'm guessing if there's a free beat on YouTube that you like enough that you want to use, um, that you could certainly reach out to whoever posted that beat on YouTube and ask them if you could use it in writing and get something signed that says exactly what they want, um, you know, in return for letting you have that beat. You know, there's so many great producers out here that I just don't understand why you guys can't find beats. Like, why you have to jack a Drake beat or a Kanye beat? Like, do you really think you're gonna do it better than they did? If you, if you feel that way, then I guess go for it. But you're, you're not just doing this to have fun. Or maybe you are. Maybe that's what you want to do is just jack beats and rhyme to them. And, you know, bless your heart, that's awesome. Go for it. But I'm, I'm trying to give you advice so that you can quit your day job, or so that you can make some money so that you can afford to support yourself and your family. And it's going to be very hard to do that on, on a Jack Beat. Um, you know, one of the conversations that I have with my clients when I first start working with them is, you know, if you're gonna continue to rap over Jack Beats, you're always gonna look unprofessional. You're always going to look like an amateur until you get to the level of like a Drake or a Kanye who could very easily take a beat and, and, and rap over it and, and get kudos for that because of who they are. Until you're at that level, you're still just some guy jacking beats, right? And, and it may, it may get your face out there but you want to get noticed from having great music and catchy songs that people sing along to. It's not like somebody's going to see you rapping over a beat and then go buy your album or stream your music, or, you know, it's just— it's, it's not— it's a great way to get minimal exposure, but there's just better ways to do it. And again, if you're going to jack a beat, just get permission. Just get permission. It's not that freaking hard. Okay, is East St. Louis dead? Um, I don't think that it's dead, no. Um, I don't think any area is dead. I think sometimes when you don't hear, um, when you don't hear music coming out of an area, it's because there's no money in that area and the artists don't have the money to market and promote. This is a really expensive industry. And sometimes the areas that kind of stand out from the other ones, like the Atlantas, the Houstons, the Miamis, you know, the cities where there's a little bit more money for the artists to either find an investor or street money or whatever, there are ways for them to find budgets in order to market and promote themselves, and they get a little bit, um they get a little bit more, um, known. The area starts to blow up a little bit because the artists are blowing up. You know, I spent a lot of time in St. Louis. I remember when Nelly first came out, you know, the area was hot, and it was because Nelly was popping and he was bringing attention to all of the other artists that were doing something. And the label started to come look, not because, not because they wanted to like jump on Nelly's bandwagon, but because they saw that not only was Nelly popping from that area, but a lot of other smaller groups were popping at the same time. So Jason Williams is asking me, are there any directories or trade groups where music supervisors can be found and pitched to? Um, last week, um, when I was answering questions, I told you guys that I would, um, start putting together directories for you, um, and I've I've put up two directories at rap-resources.com. It's R-A-P-R-E-S-O-U-R-C-E-S.com. I hope I spelled that right. Um, it's rap-resources.com, and there are contacts for— contact lists for, um, music supervisors. I put that up today. I think it's $25. Um, I put up a list for video game music supervisors. And then of course there's still the same radio lists, contacts for radio and contacts for labels for those of you who want to get record deals. And none of that is free, but there is a free resource there that those of you who run your own businesses should check out. It's a list of really good books for business people that are in business and for entrepreneurs, and that's free, and that's over at rap-resources.com too. Um, thank you, Jason Williams. You kind of just enabled me to, um, do a little Wendy Day commercial, and that was not a setup. Can you copyright the lyrics that you, the artist, would be putting on their jacked beats? Um, you can copyright the lyrics, but you can't copyright them on the jacked beat. Because you don't own the Jack beat. So you can write out the lyrics and you can copyright it that way. You can put it on original production and copyright it that way, but you cannot copyright a song that another artist has already copyrighted. And Sperm Banks, I, I hear you saying, what if you give them credit for it? Um, credit is not enough. You need to have something in writing that allows you to use their beat. I think that's what you're asking me. I think that's what you're asking me. Is featuring an artist with a buzz good for getting my own buzz? Um, Ronnie Lee is asking me. Um, not to my— not to— not in my experience, no. Um, you need to build your own buzz. When nobody knows who you are and you feature somebody who is known and has a buzz, it doesn't bring attention to you, it brings attention to them because people already know who they are. And I know that every rapper in America wants to do a feature with somebody who's known because they figure that that prominence will rub off on, on that song for them. And it just doesn't work that way. You know, very often you'll have fans who will listen to just the artist that they know. Or sometimes they'll listen to the song and they'll move on because it's not, it's not necessarily a great song, you know. It's just a, it's a, it's a feature. It's basically you giving somebody money in order to bring attention to yourself, and there's just better ways to get that attention. There's better ways to market and promote yourself. So, um, no, I, I don't believe that that works. Once you've got a buzz, like a little bit of a buzz, and once people know who you are a little bit, then yes. And I don't mean a little, little bit. I mean once people in like a 5-state area kind of know who you are and they're attracted to you, then yes, you can feature a bigger artist and you'll be able to, um, you'll be able to get a ton of attention from focusing that bigger artist. But for the most part, um, until you're at a level where people know who you are, it doesn't help you. I say the same thing about WorldStarHipHop, by the way, for those of you that, um, think your goal in life is to put videos on WorldStar. When people know who you are and they recognize who you are, it works. When you're completely unknown and only a handful of people know who you are, the only people that notice you on WorldStar are those handful of people. You've got to have some renown for people to make the connection between seeing you on WorldStar and wanting to watch your video and become a fan. That doesn't mean no one will become your fan. It just means that if you're paying for it, you're spending a shit ton of money that you shouldn't be spending because there's better places to spend that money. Okay, Sean Cole sent me an email. He said, not sure if this will be too long to answer on your YouTube channel. Like I'm afraid of answers that are too long. All of my answers are too long, um, but here it goes. I'm a rap artist from the United Kingdom. I'm aware that the market is very different between here and the US. I've been making music for 15 years and I'm getting to the point where I'm scared I won't achieve my dream. Well, that's real. However, as a conscious rapper, I have my reservations about success due to songs I've heard in the past. Rappers like Eminem and J. Cole I've heard speak about not being happy even though they're so successful, and this makes me wonder if there's something in the industry that I'm not aware of that they're talking about. I'm very much aware that fame is a big pressure and burden. You ain't kidding. But it seems like more than that when I hear their songs. I know a record deal is very hard to, to, for, for the artist to win in terms of recouping their money, Is it that maybe they're in debt? Are they just talking about people in the industry who will backstab you? I'm just trying to get a rough idea of what you walk into when the success comes, as watching some of your videos has opened up my eyes to some things that I was clueless about before. Any advice would be appreciated. Okay, Sean, um, this is really a great, a great question because sometimes when we want to do something, we see only the glamour and the glitz. We don't necessarily see the downside, and there's absolutely a downside. There's a downside to fame, and there's a downside to wealth, um, even though most people would be happy to have those problems, right? But you're going to deal with haters, you're going to deal with having to please your fans. You know, most of what we talk about is building a buzz because that's the level that most of you guys are at at point in your careers. But once you build that buzz, you've got to maintain that buzz. And then as you maintain it, you want to bring in more fans so that your career gets bigger and bigger and bigger as you ascend in the music industry. And that's a lot of pressure because you're constantly having to please fans. You know, it gets to a point where you're not really making music for yourselves anymore. You're really starting to make music to keep your fan base happy. And that's a really hard thing to do because you can't please everybody. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's next to impossible to please everybody. It's impossible, I'll say that. Um, you've got support staff once you get to a certain level in your career. Eminem is a great example, you know. Eminem has an entire empire that he's built of people that are dependent upon him. So if he doesn't go out on tour his staff suffers because the money isn't coming into the company the way that it needs to, or the way that it can when he goes out on tour. When he goes out on tour, he can make a couple million dollars in a month, or, or, or in 2 months, right, while he's on tour. So he's got the pressure of having a lot of people to keep working. You know, money itself is a burden. Once you make a lot of money, it becomes almost a full-time job to invest your money. As, as an artist like at J. Cole's level, he's getting royalty statements that are coming in from all different places, whether it's monthly or whether it's quarterly or whether it's semi-annually, that he needs to go through. And he needs to understand, and he needs to know, you know, am I getting paid properly? Is the money that is coming in, is it the correct amount? Um, he's going to have a team of accountants and financial advisors that are going to help him. But then there's the question of, you know, who do I trust? Do I trust these guys? Are they— or, or women— are they doing a great job? Are they doing a shitty job? You know, how do I know? So there's got to be some, um, learning on his end to know what to look for on both the good side and the bad side of, of investments and money. You know, he's got to worry about paying his taxes. Um, your loss of privacy is really frustrating. I can't imagine being at the level that Eminem is because it's not like he can even go overseas to escape the, the fans, you know. No matter where he goes, he's still Eminem. So he's gonna have to put on a disguise just so that he can live, you know. And, and a lot of, a lot of us don't think about that as we're building our careers and as we're becoming successful, we don't think about the downside to building our careers, right? We just think about how we want to get to the top and we want to stay there as long as we can. We don't think about what it's like at the top, you know. Um, I hear artists all the time saying that they don't know who their real friends are, they don't know who they can trust, they don't know who is around them because they have a lot of money all of a sudden. Um, Joe Buttons has a song on his first album that's amazing. It's, it's called Come and Take a Walk with Me, and it's such an amazing fucking song because in it he's talking about he doesn't know who he can trust. Like, at the label, he doesn't know, are they just pimping him or do they really care about him? The friends that he grew up with, you know, they're, they're telling him, you know, hey, you don't come around as much. Well, he's busy. You know, having a career in music. So of course he's not coming around and hanging out as much. And I think that as you, as you look at the lives of guys who have made it, or what your, what your concept of making it is, you don't stop to think about everything that it takes away from them to hold that position. You know, you don't see what what they're giving up in order to have that success. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be successful, you should, but just understand that it comes with, it comes with a lot. It's not, it's not like you become rich and famous and your life is perfect. It's probably going to be better, but there's still some, some learning and some traits that you're going to need to have in order to handle that burden of being, you know, something as simple as being a role model. You know, you got to be careful what you say and what you do. And, you know, are you going to lose your endorsement deal because you were on Wendy's YouTube channel and you said fuck out loud and you lost your FILA deal? You know, you gotta, you gotta take all of that into consideration. Um, and then the last thing I'll say about that, because I don't want to beat a dead horse, Sean, is that there's a point where you become so big in your career, like Drake, like Nicki Minaj, like Eminem, like Rick Ross, like Jeezy, where your life becomes about taking opportunities and doing new things because you need to keep your lifestyle, you need to keep your status, you need to keep your career at the level that it's at. You know, the last thing you want to do is spend 10 years becoming a successful rapper to get there and then say, "Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't, you know, this isn't fun." Or to really want to keep it and your fans say, "Mm, I don't like you anymore. I'm gonna go listen to this guy over here because I don't like you anymore." It becomes a struggle to stay in position. You know, sometimes the most dangerous position to be in is number one, because there's nowhere to go but down. You know, I've seen many guys and I've worked with many guys who had huge careers at 18, 19, 20, and then they lost their prominence, and at 22 they feel like a failure, you know. And that's a really horrendous position to be in. And please don't use any of this as, you know, an excuse for why you're not going to shine and why you're not going to do your best. Because you're all going to handle it when you get there. But just know that it may not be as rosy as you think it is, and there's nothing wrong with you for feeling that way when you get there. It's okay. And you can have people around you, you can hire people that are great at what they do to help make your life easier, and you learn who you can trust and who you can't. But it's a different skill set. It's not the same skill set that you have today sitting in your crib at, you know, 18 years old and hanging out with people that you think are kind of cool. You know, that it's, it's a different skill set that you're going to learn to figure out who are the gold diggers and who aren't. Okay, Pac Riley is asking, can consistency with barely any budget grow a fan base? Okay, so, and I saw the second part of your question and I'll handle that later. Okay, so consistency is necessary with or without a budget, right? Whether, whether you have all the money in the world or whether you have no money, you need to be consistent. Because if you're not always in front of your fan, they're going to forget about you and they're going to move on. You know, even, even, um, producers or those of us that work behind the scenes If nobody sees us for a while, they forget about us. I find that when I go to industry events, because I spend so much time working, I'm not out all the time. So when I go to industry events, people will come up to me like, oh, Wendy Day, are you still in the music industry? And I laugh because I'm still spending 20 hours a day working. So it's funny to me to hear that, that, that reception that they give me. But consistency is necessary in anything that you do. Um, in fact, I'll go to the other extreme and tell you that if you're not consistent, you're not going to be successful in the music industry. Because the one thing that people look for when you're new and you first come on the scene, because so many people that came before you kind of popped in and then disappeared, those of us who help build careers, whether we're DJs or bloggers or people that just work in the music industry or managers, we're not going to take you seriously the first few times that we see you. We're going to have to keep seeing you, and it may even be like for me, I've got to see you almost for years to take you seriously because so many people use the music industry like it's the new dope game. Like, they come into the music industry, they try to hit a lick, and then they try to leave to go do something else, and I've been burned by so many people that I've put time into helping that never went anywhere, that my, my barrier to entry has really risen. So somebody has to kind of already be here before I can even start working with them, just because I've wasted my time so many times before. So, um, a fan base, right, are people who like your music and tell others. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to build a fan base. You're trying to build up a lot of people that like your music and will be willing to spread it with others. And then you want to get to a point where your fan base is willing to buy tickets to come see you perform, maybe buy a t-shirt off of your website or at a show. They're going to stream your music. They're going to download your music. If they still have a CD player, they're gonna pop your CD in to listen to your, your music. But a fan is someone who likes what you do and is willing to tell others about you, okay? And that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to build a fan base. And to build a fan base, you're gonna have to stay consistent. If I just came onto YouTube and and did one video and then disappeared, that video would get no hits. It's the consistency. It's me doing this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 AM and posting videos, and then live every Wednesday night at 7 PM. You know, it's— it— this is my fifth one, so you guys are learning that I'm, I'm here. I'm here for the duration, and you know that I'm going to be here. Okay, let me ask some more questions. Thank you, Courtney Jackson. Is there a need for producers to build a buzz to gain placements in the same way? Absolutely there is. Um, I would say that there's even more of a need because there are so many more producers out here than there are artists. Um, basically, um, producers are— it's so oversaturated that producers are out here giving away beats for free in order to gain exposure. And if you just have one hot song with one artist, it's not enough. You need to have your beats in as many places as possible so that your name keeps coming up over and over and over and over. You know, I think that, um, I'm here in Atlanta, so I'm going to use Atlanta examples, but I think that You know, Metro Boomin and Sonny Digital did a great job building their careers from guys that nobody had ever heard of to just constantly doing work and putting in time and giving out beats and spending time in the studio and working together and, you know, spending time on the scene and learning who's hot, who's not, who's got a budget that's really going to promote their, their music so that the producer's music can get heard. To a larger audience. You know, these are all things that you have to look at as, as a producer. You should also go back and watch— it was either my— I think it was my first live video where I talked a lot about producers because I had gotten a lot of questions from producers. So you should go back, it's somewhere on my YouTube page. It's the Live 001 where I talk a lot about producers and how they can build their buzz. I love Corey Black. That's so cool that you mentioned her. Do you need a manager? Um, Jarvis is asking me, and forgive me if I'm pronouncing your, your name wrong, it looks like Jarvis and Candy Morton are asking, do I really need a manager, a manager, and can I just manage myself? Um, you absolutely should manage yourself until there's something to manage. When you're a new artist, um, the level of manager that you're going to attract is not really great yet. So unless you can't do it yourself— and my thinking is that you can— um, you should definitely manage yourself until you just have so much going on that you can't do it anymore between all of the shows that you're booking and all of the work. Don't confuse having a team with needing a manager, right? A team are people that are willing to help you move forward in your career. They're the people that help you make moves so that you're not doing it all yourself. Um, a manager is someone that runs your team, and until you're at a level where you need someone to do that, I think you should manage yourself. Remember, managers get paid 20% of your income. So if you don't have a lot of income yet, um, you might not be able to attract a top-level manager that has great connections and the experience to tell you where to go, what to do, and how to do it, right? Um, so I, I would wait. I would wait. Um, I have— which question should I ask first? Let's do this one. Um, I have two people that kind of asked a similar, um, question about building a fan base. Um, Lowkey1000 and Ronnie Lee. Hi again, Ronnie Lee. Um, Ronnie Lee is asking, who should an artist with no buzz pay for marketing and promotion of a single? And Lowkey is asking me, um, what are the most effective approaches to building a fan base? I did the passing out of mixtapes on the block and to friends, but I haven't really seen any feedback. So could you help me with a more innovative way to gain some traction? And what is a good starter budget? Should I throw free shows a couple times a month? And would you pay DJs to spin your records at the club? I understand it takes some cash to get ahead in this oversaturated market. I just need to know whose palms I should grease first as a new artist. Artist, and with a lot of music that's just lying around who needs exposure? Thanks for all the guidance you've been delivering so far. Um, thanks, Loki, appreciate that. Um, so let me— you have, you have like 5 different questions in there, so let me kind of take them in order here. Um, and I'll answer you and Ronnie both at the same time. So, innovative ways, um Yes, you need innovative ways. You mentioned that you've already handed out your mixtape, um, to your friends and people in your circle. And, um, one of the things that I suggest is that you go bigger, because let's just say that in order to find fans, you have to reach 1,000 people in, in the world to find one fan. That means if you want to have 10 fans, you're going to have to reach 10,000 people. If you want to have 100 fans, you're going to have to reach 100,000 people. You see what I'm saying? So you're going to have to scale bigger than what you're doing. When we give out mixtapes for the artists, or CDs for the artists that I work with, we almost always give out somewhere between 20,000— 20,000 on the low end somewhere up to $60,000 to $70,000 on the higher end. And we do that usually in a 5 to 7 state area. So if you're based in Atlanta, you're going to want to hit Macon, Columbus, Columbia, South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina. Um, you're going to want to hit, um, Alabama, Birmingham, uh, Montgomery, Mobile, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Valdosta, Jacksonville, Florida. Um, do you see what I'm saying? So you're going to want to work an area bigger than just your city. You're going to want to be able to draw a circle around your city and like a 5-hour driving radius. And again, that depends on your budget. If you don't have a healthy budget, maybe your driving range is only an hour and a half. So you're going to hit all of the towns that are within an hour and a half drive in either direction, right? So that's like a 3-hour radius. Um, you're going to hit as many small towns and actually work your music. You're going to give people the music, whether again, whether it's download cards or whether it's CDs. So yes, you want to do innovative ways, but you also want to make sure that you're going in, you're going wide enough in what you've already done. Like, I don't want you to just hit a 5-block radius around your house and a couple of clubs where you did open mics and say, okay, I'm done, I've done street promotions. You haven't. You're not done. You know, you got to get back there and give out tens of thousands of, of download cards and tens of thousands of CDs. You've got to give out more download cards than you do CDs because there is an inherent value in a CD when you hand it to somebody. A lot of people just throw them on the ground, but a lot of people won't. A lot of people will feel like, wow, this person spent anywhere from 30 cents to a dollar to press this up, and there's going to be some, you know, unwritten obligation that they may feel to listen to your music. And there's nothing wrong with that. Um, I think more than innovative ways of spending— of, of sharing your music are innovative places, you know. Hit college campuses, hit middle schools, hit high schools. If you hit middle schools and high schools, make sure your music is clean that you're giving out. You're gonna piss off a lot of parents. Um, ask me how I know. Um, if you give out, um, rap music to kids that are too young and you're, you know, fuck this, fuck that, you're gonna have a problem. Um, but I think your approach needs to be a little bit innovative too. You can't just walk up to somebody and just hand them a CD, you know, and move on. Like, oh, here, here, you know, here, take this, you know, oh, this is for you. Um, you want to stand there and have a little bit of a conversation. You want to engage somebody. Same on social media. You don't want to just spam out your, your links to people. You want to engage them. You want to have a conversation. You want them to know a little bit who you are as an artist. You want to find out a little bit about them. You know, in talking to them, you may find out that they don't really like rap, they don't listen to rap, you know, in which case, you know, politely thank them and move on. Unless they're an interesting person, then have a conversation just for the sake of having a conversation. But don't look for fans where fans aren't, you know. Don't try to convert people that don't like rap. Don't give your music to somebody who's 50 or 60 years old and then come back and tell me, oh, everybody likes my music, the 50-year-old guy down the block really liked it. That doesn't mean you should be hitting 50-year-olds with your music. It's just, it doesn't make sense. I am somebody that's in my 50s and I listen to rap music. I like rap music, but that doesn't mean that I am your market, right? Because it's not something that I buy or spend money on. And again, you're trying to do this as a business. Um, what is a good starter budget? This is really, this is really a hard question because it depends on what your goals are. You know, the folks that I, that I work with with have budgets of $150,000 to spend on marketing and promotion, and we do it in a 7-state area. But the reason that I work with people with such high budgets is when they come to me, the expectation on me is very high to make them a return on their investment. And if somebody's got $10,000 to spend on their career, I don't know that I can make them a return on their investment. In fact, I know I can't actually. So I will pass working with somebody that doesn't have a proper budget, but that doesn't mean that you should give up and go do something else if your budget is small. What you need to do is make a list of all the things that you need to do based on the area that you're targeting, and then add up the price to do all those things, whether it's printing, you know, t-shirts or posters or download cards or, you know, whatever it is that you're doing to promote yourself. You know, maybe you're still hanging posters. A lot of people still poster up the outside of clubs when they're performing. Um, there's some markets where stickers are really effective. You know, there's a lot of people that put stickers all over their laptops. So on college campuses, stickers might be a good way to promote yourself. Um, whatever you're doing to promote yourself Make, make a list of all those things, price them out, and then that's the budget you need. And that budget might be $10,000, that budget might be $150,000. And then once you know everything that you need, either you can go get that money by getting an investor, or you can say, you know what, I'm not going to get that kind of money, let me bring my list down a little bit. Maybe instead of pressing 1,000 t-shirts to hand out you print 100 t-shirts to hand out. You know, maybe instead of working a 7-state area, you work a 2-state area. And then as the money comes into your company, you take that money and you invest it back into yourself, and you build your career that way. Um, you asked about doing shows every week. Um, Scotty ATL is somebody here in Atlanta that does that. I think it's once a month. Um, and this shows you how much I don't go out because I don't know exactly how many times, um, he does it. But he does events, and he's not only known for being a rapper, but he's known for his events that he does around Atlanta. They're, they're pretty amazing. So should you do shows? Yeah, why not? You know, if you've got the time and the energy to promote your own show, why would you not want to build your name doing shows? You know, just don't, don't let the fact that you're an artist lapse. Make sure that you're using the club event to promote who you are as an artist. And, and if you're gonna do that, why not make some money? Why not promote a night and build to be the hottest thing in your town or in your city and make money and put that money into your career? You know, that makes perfect sense to me. Should you pay DJs to spin your record? Absolutely not. There's too many DJs in this industry, and I know all the DJs watching this are like, oh, I can't believe she just said that. But why not build a buzz and get yourself really hot? And then why not align yourself with DJs and do things that can help make them money? So instead of handing them $500 to pay your record, or $1,000 to pay your record, why not when you're hot, offer to come and perform for free at one of their nights so that there's incentive for them to play your record more and play your music more so that people will want to come and see you perform at their event. And then let them keep the door money, you know, let them, let them make money with you instead of off of you. Um, instead of paying a DJ, why not do a meet and greet? Why not, you know, when you first meet DJs, you're going to want to you know, buy them drinks in the club. You're going to want to show some sort of, of effort to get to know them, whatever that takes, right? So you may want to buy them some wings or buy them a couple drinks, or, you know, whatever, whatever they're into. Show attention towards whatever it is that, that they're trying to do, you know. Um, I have a friend that, um, became friendly with a DJ because he was struggling to pay his cell phone bill. And my friend paid his cell phone bill, which was like, you know, $50 or $60, um, to pay. But the guy was struggling. And when you're struggling to do something and somebody does it for you, it means so much more than when you're not struggling, they do something for you, right? You remember it a lot longer. Um, do a meet and greet with the DJs. You know, you have to build a relationship with the DJs, or you've got to have somebody on your team that has relationships with DJs where you can, you know, take them all to a Buffalo Wild Wings and buy them some food and talk about music and, and, you know, play your music for them. Leave, leave your music with them, you know, build a relationship. Don't just look at the DJ as, you know, the enemy. The DJ is who you need to build your career. And even better, the DJs are such an amazing resource for you because they can tell you which songs you have that are great and which songs you shouldn't be spending money on because they play music for a living. They are on the front lines of the crowd, so they're going to be able to tell you like, dude, this isn't it, or you know what, this beat just, it sounds too outdated. Or, you know, you're marketing towards people that are 18, 19, 20 years old, but in your music you're talking about concepts and you have a sound that sounds like you're 36 or 37. Like, DJs can be so helpful to your career, so why not build relationships with them to get to the next level? Why just hand them money? And yes, I know that DJs need to eat, and I know that I'm causing them stress by saying this, But why not build relationships with them instead of treating them like they're paid help? Because they're not. These are the guys that can make them— make or break your career. So why don't you treat them with the respect that they deserve, right? Um, whose palms should you grease on the way up? Um, I hire street teams. I hire people that have relationships with people so that I don't have to come into city and start paying people I don't know. I come in with people that already have the relationships and have a little bit of, um, success doing what they do so that the DJs will take my artists seriously. Social media— I think it's important to have somebody on your team who's a social media guru that knows how to get you more followers without buying them, that can teach you how to engage with your artist that can teach you how to place Facebook ads and Google ads to bring attention to yourself and your music or your videos. I pay radio promoters, independent radio promo people, to spin records when they get to— when my artists get to that level. I hire those people to do that, and they actually pay for the radio spins. And the last thing that I spend money for is our promo tours. I want to get my artists out into the marketplace where they can interact with fans in the marketplace. To me, it's, it's just like running for office. I want my artist out there, you know, kissing babies, shaking hands, and taking pictures with people and posting it on their social media. Okay, so the last question that I have printed out here, and then I'm going to go and answer some of the questions that you guys were kind enough to put into the, um, into the chat box here. This is JC Kush, and JC Kush is asking me, as a producer who uses samples, how should I go about clearing those samples? Who should I talk to? I know one would usually look up who owns the masters, but what if they're not reachable, and is there any way around that? There is no way around clearing samples. You can do interpolations instead of samples. Which is where you have somebody come in and replay the music. That way you only have to make one clearance on the song instead of two. When you sample music, you have to clear the publisher, which is the owner of the music, and you have to clear the right to use it, which means you have to go to the record company that put out that, that, that original song that you're saying that you're taking the sample from. And you have to get their permission as well as the publisher. Sometimes there's more than one publisher. I don't believe in clearing samples myself. I clear all samples, but I don't do it myself. I actually hire a woman named Deborah Manus Gardner. If you Google her, you can find her online. And what I'll do, if you give me a couple days, I will put the link down below this video so that you can come back and look for it. But her company is dmgclearances.com. D like Deborah, M like Manus, G like Gardner. Clearances.com. dmgclearances.com. Um, she will do the clearances for you. You want somebody that has the relationships with the publishers and the labels so that when somebody gives you a price, you know if it's fair and acceptable, right? Because if I just call somebody and say, hey, I want to use the horns from your song, they could tell me, okay, it's 5 grand, and I wouldn't know if that was a good price or not. So I would be paying 5 grand to use those horns when Deborah, who does this for a living, might know that no, that only costs $1,000, or it might cost 10 grand and I'm getting a deal. I don't know, but I would rather pay her a couple hundred dollars to go and do the work for me because she knows where to look, she knows where to go, she can talk the talk, and she can get you the best price possible because she's doing this on a flat rate basis. She's not getting a percentage of the money that she's making you and that she's saving you, so she's doing it for a flat rate. Um, should you clear a sample? Always. And I'll do a, I'll do a video just on sample clearance because it's so important. But the last thing you want to do is have music out there in the marketplace and then somebody shuts you down because you didn't clear a sample or a piece of a sample. And again, there's interpolations where you can replay the music and then you just have to clear it through the publisher. And again, I would still use— I would still use Deborah Manus Gardner because if you go to the publisher yourself How do you know what is a fair price for that song? Why not pay somebody a couple hundred bucks to do that for you and tell you, hey, this is good, or this, or this is not good? There's a lot of people out there that won't allow people who rap to use their music. You know, Anita Baker is a great example. It's just very difficult to clear certain samples.. And Deborah is somebody that you can reach out to before you sample something and say, hey, how difficult will it be to clear this or that? And she can give you, you know, she can give you feedback and tell you, I wouldn't use that, it's going to be hard to clear. Or, you know what, this will be easy to clear because this person believes in hip-hop and believes in sampling. So, um, it's just a lot of what we do is relationships So I think that it's, it's really, it's really kind of important. Domingo saying Deborah is the best. It's true. Deborah has cleared everything from Kendrick Lamar to Biggie, you know. She's been around for a long time. She's based in Wilmington, Delaware, of all places. But she's, she's, she's great at what she does, and she's been doing it for years. I spoke to her last week and asked her if I could interview her. For my, um, for the YouTube here. And she said not live, but, you know, pre-recorded. And she said that she would be happy to do it. So it's just a matter of us figuring out a time that's best, and then we'll record one. And, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep all of these questions that you guys are asking me, and I'm gonna ask her when I interview her, and then I'll post it up so that, um, it'll, it'll not only be interesting, but it'll be helpful. Okay, how much should you be looking to spend on street promotion? Should you hire a street team? You're based in the UK. Um, DIY Ent, DIY Entertainment, um, it's, it's challenging for me to answer that because I've never hired a street team in, um, in the UK. I've spent time in the UK, I've even gone out with, um, a street team, but that was 12 years ago, so I'm guessing that they don't exist anymore. Um, street teams are sort of an entry point for people into the music industry. They don't make a lot of money. Um, you're basically paying somebody either $500 a month or $1,000 a month to go out and hand out your music to people, post posters, hand out flyers, give out music, um, go to the clubs and interact with the DJs for you. It's a very hard job. It's a 24/7 type of job. Um, so I would find out, you know, ask, ask the DJs and the promoters in your— in, in the UK, in the city where you are. I'm assuming that you're in London. You are. You said right here you're in London. Um, sorry, a little slow on the uptake. Um, I would ask the, the club promoters in London, like, when they're doing a show, who do they hire to spread the word. And you definitely want to do that. You want a street— you want it not only a street team on the streets, but you also want people online that are acting as a street team. Not people that are going to just spam your links because that doesn't work, but you want people that are out there, you know, talking, um, on blog posts about you, talking on Facebook about you, talking to people on Instagram and Twitter, starting up conversations with people, letting them know who you are and where they can go to find your music if they're interested, but in an engaging way, not in a spammy way. John James is asking me, if I were to put $5 grand behind promoting a music video, where is the best place to allocate those dollars for the highest return on growing your buzz? If you really want to grow your buzz, the best place to put money is into your music video, not necessarily just promoting it. One of the things that's problematic about music videos is that they've been around so long that so much has already been done, and so many people have really boring, mundane videos. If you could make a video that's a little bit different and that stands out, to me that would be the best way to to spread a video because somebody's going to see it and say, wow, this is really cool, and they're going to send it to somebody else. And the great thing about the internet is that we can share videos just by texting a link or putting a link in an email, like, or, or a link on Twitter. Like, it's so easy for me to share a really cool video with all of my followers, but I'm not gonna just share a boring mundane video. I'm not gonna share a video of my artist. I'm not gonna share a video of somebody who's asked me to share a video. I have to really believe in it and think it's something worthy of the share for me to share it. So I guess that's my best answer would be that's where I would do it if I were trying to build a buzz. Um, once you have a buzz I would suggest hiring somebody who does video promotion for a living. I use a guy named Noah Joel out of New York, and, um, he charges about half that, a little more than half of that, to promote a video and take it to BET Jams and take it to Fuse and take it to Revolt and get it on, um, the video networks that, that still show, that still show videos. There aren't very many. Um, but I wouldn't do that until I had a buzz. Like, I wouldn't just waste that money, um, to do it blindly. Uh, Travis Harris is asking me, um, about a publicist, and I answered a bunch of publicist questions, um, in my first week's video. Um, and if I don't have a video that specifically is about publicists, I don't think I posted it yet. I think I've recorded it, but I don't think I've posted it because I want to go back and interview a publicist. Um, you, you heard Tesbo speak on how they blew up Drake and they used a publicist. Um, publicists are extremely important to blow up any career once somebody has a little bit of a buzz. When you're starting from zero, it's very hard to find a publicist that's going to help you get to the next level. A publicist is a megaphone. It's somebody who kind of shouts from the rooftops what you are doing and what you're about. But you have to be doing something, and you have to be about something in order for them to, um, to, um— hey, Coop DeVille, Coop de Trill— um, you, you need to have something worthy of using the megaphone for. Because there's just so much, there's just so much competition out here and there's just so much drivel. You gotta, you gotta rise above. Okay, cute with the, with the Donald Trump jokes. I'm still hurt. Is making music for video games and movies and companies— how should you approach them to see if you can submit music? Um, it's like anything where you're, where you're building a relationship with somebody, you want to get to know who they are on social media. And, and I say this almost every week about some different angle of meeting people in the music business, but how amazing is it that we have social media? You know, when I was coming up, we didn't have social media, so I couldn't really get to know somebody unless I knew somebody who knew them. Today you can go in and you can read somebody's Twitter feed, you can check out their Instagram feed, you can follow them on Facebook for, you know, a couple days and start to know who they are and what they like and what they're about, who they interact with, what they talk about. You can really start to find areas of similarity between you and that person, and then once you find some commonality, Reach out to them, you know. I mentioned in one of my live broadcasts before that one of the values to me about this election, as hellacious and long as it was, was that so many people in the music business were not pro-Donald Trump. So there were a lot of conversations that, that were sparked by outrageous things that Donald Trump said. And I met a lot of people through my shock and my dismay at a lot of things that he was saying, you know. So people will post memes on their, on their, um, on their social media, you know. If there's stuff that, that somebody that you want to get to know, if there's something that they've written that you want to comment on, send them, you know, send them an email, send them a tweet. You know, every time I read something that, that really moves me, I reach out to the person who wrote it, no matter what industry they're in, because that's just who I am. And I'm not doing it to meet them, I'm doing it because I know how hard it is to write articles and keep them coming and be sharp about everything that we write. So I really admire that trait in other people. And when I see people just doing that, like, I can't help but reach out to them. You know, there's, there's different people in the industry that I don't necessarily keep in touch with, but I'll reach out to them maybe once a year and just ask them how they're doing, how's their family. You know, I have a terrible memory, I'm horrible with names, but for some reason I remember the people that have families or that have lost talked to somebody lately, and I have the ability to reach out to people and say, hey, how are your kids doing in school? Because they may have told me 6 months ago that their kid was struggling with math or something. I can remember stuff like that, I just can't remember their names. So use whatever your strength is. Get to know people on social media, strike up a conversation. Don't be shy to ask them, hey, what do you look for in music that you place? As a new artist, how do I build a relationship with you so that you can learn to depend on me when you need this type of music? And, you know, whatever it is that, that you make. But get to know who they are. Ask them questions about what they do. You know, I, I posted the list at Rap Resources today, um, for, for those of you that are interested. But I was extremely nervous to do that because I put their phone numbers and their email addresses in there, and all I could think was somebody going down and copying like 250 email addresses and doing a blast at them through MailChimp. Not everybody on that list is gonna work with dance music or rap music or country or whatever music you make. You've got to learn from that list who are the people that can, can benefit you and that can be benefited by you. Remember, once they get to know you, it's a two-way street because now they can make money with you. But until they know you and they know they can depend on you, it's going to be a little more challenging. Um, and guys, I'm going to close with this. I went to— I went to a, um, I can't remember if it was ASCAP's conference, um, or whether it was South by Southwest, but I went to a panel, and there were these supervisors, music supervisors, sitting on the panel. And the one thing that they said really stood out to them about who they choose to work with— it wasn't based on the music, it wasn't based on how they reach out to them. They were most interested in people that could move quickly. So when they found a song that they liked and wanted to place in a commercial or in a movie or in whatever, they wanted to know, can this person sign off on it immediately? Is this somebody who checks their email regularly? Is this somebody who will answer their phone when I call, even though I'm calling from a number they may not recognize? So their focus was not only on people that had the type of music they were looking for, but of those people, who could they depend on to clear the music quickly? And what clear means is when they want to use your music, they're gonna send you a licensing agreement. And if you can— and if you can get that to your attorney very quickly and sign off on it like in 24 hours or 48 hours, you're gonna have more value to them than them working out some sort of a deal with, with somebody like Drake where they're going to have to clear the usage through all of his publishers, through his record label. It can take 3 months to get a record label to sign off on a license agreement. So if you're an independent artist or an unsigned artist, or you have an independent label that you're working with where you can send it right to them immediately and get a signature back, a yes or no back within, you know, 24 hours, that makes you golden to most music supervisors. So thanks for tuning in. Thanks, guys. I don't think I got to answer all of your questions here, but I will go through them, and if there's any that I left out, what I'll do is answer them next week. Please make sure you email me. I answer email questions first. This is Wendy Day at gmail.com. Let me know if you want me to say your name. When I answer it, because I'm not just gonna call you out if you don't want to be called out. I'm happy to let people know that you're asking, but a lot of people don't want people to know. So, um, just let me know, and, um, in the subject just put, um, YouTube question and let me know that you want me to answer it live. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. Go back and check out my other videos. Make sure you hit subscribe because my subscribers are the ones who know when I'm going live. It's every Wednesday night at 7 PM, and if you subscribe, you will get a reminder. Thanks guys, take care. This will be reposted, um, here in about an hour in case you were late. Um, about an hour from now it'll be reposted, and it's, um, Wendy Day Live number 5, I think. Okay, take care guys. Good night.