LIVE with Wendy Day #006 | Answering Your Questions Live

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 livestream. 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 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. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me. It's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the livestream. 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.

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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'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 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 livestream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so 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. 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, hi guys, how are you tonight? Can you hear me okay? Hit me in the chat and just let me know that you can hear me okay. I got a complaint after last week that I wasn't speaking loudly enough. Good. Okay, good, good. You guys can hear me. Thank you, Ronnie Lee. Um, so I'm gonna answer your questions tonight. Last night— last, um, last week I had a little difficulty balancing the chat with the questions, so this week I'm gonna go a little bit more heavily on the chat. So ask me whatever questions you want, I'm happy to answer them. And just in case you can't think of anything, I have some here that folks were kind enough to email in to me. Um, give me one second, guys. Bubble on deck! Tamara Bubble, how are you? I don't think you've missed one of these, have you? I think you're there every Wednesday. In fact, I just can't do it without you. So if you're ever not here, I'm just gonna sit here like this and wait for you to show up. Okay, what do I think is the best way a songwriter can get signed to a publishing deal? That's from DJ Triumph. And a little bit later, I'm going to— not later tonight, but later in the season, I'm gonna do an interview with Ray Daniels, who manages songwriters, and and I'm gonna ask him a ton of questions because that is, um, his specialty. That's his field. I don't specialize in songwriters because I work mostly with rappers, so I can only answer that to the best of my ability, but I'll give it a shot. Um, the way that a songwriter gets a publishing deal is based on the amount of songs that that person has written that have gone out into to the world, right? Um, a publishing deal is a chunk of money that a publishing company gives to you in exchange for a percentage of the ownership of your music. And the ownership of your music only has value if it's actually making money in the marketplace. So if you're a songwriter and you haven't placed any songs yet, it may not it may not be, um, as easy to get a publishing deal as it would if you had written a couple of songs for up-and-coming artists, or if you'd written a song for Beyoncé or Mary J. Blige or Rihanna. Um, you know, obviously that's probably your goal as a songwriter, to write music for the bigger artists. Um, but that's really what publishing deals are for. They are a split that somebody does with you where they take ownership. Um, usually it's half, it's usually a 50/50 split. Um, and I'm not a fan of publishing deals. I just don't think you guys should sell part of the ownership in your music because you're giving up the rights, um, for usually 5 to 7 years, um, in terms of ownership. And I, I would hate to see you do that. I mean, you're giving up ownership on those songs for life that you're writing in that 5 to 7 year period. Um, and for something as stupid as money, I just don't see the point of that. Usually when you get an advance, the money's gone in 6 months, 9 months, a year, but they still have ownership for the next 5 to 7 years, and I just have a problem with that. Um, there are things called admin deals that you can do with a publishing company where for 10% of the income, they will collect your money for you. I know every publishing company in the world, when they do a deal, says that they're going to bring you work. Most do not bring you work. You kind of got to do that on your own, either by yourself or with a manager that specializes in songwriting. Again, and I'm going to ask Ray Daniels to join me in one of these not live, but I'm gonna record him talking about being a songwriter and how songwriters make money, etc. So I know that was kind of a half-assed answer, but I work with rappers and rappers don't usually buy songs from people. Ask Meek Mill. Okay, I'm looking for more questions. Bear with me, guys. Hey everybody, thanks for all the kind, um, comments. What's the best way to start a buzz? Um, First Degree TV, I actually did an entire episode on how to build a buzz, um, and I'm going to put together an in— a more in-depth, um, video, probably a series on how to build a buzz, because it's a little bit— it's a little bit more— it takes a little bit more time than what I'm doing here. But the best way to build a buzz is to get people talking about you. And as an artist, the best way to get people talking about you is through your music and your videos. So it's always a good idea to market and promote yourself properly in order to build that buzz both online and in real life, to go out into, you know, your area. But check out the video on how to build a buzz. It was a couple weeks ago, and I know it's archived here, but I go into, into some, some pretty basic detail of how to build a buzz. And like I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna definitely go into more detail in another series. It's just gonna take a little bit longer than we have here. Do I— Ronnie Lee wants to know, do I have any thoughts about an artist blowing up after one song? Do I? Ronnie, I assume that you're— you mean like one-hit wonders? You mean like guys like the Shop Boys who did Party Like a Rockstar? I'm watching Desiigner right now, who had Panda. I'm waiting to see if he's gonna be able to deliver another hit. Yes, I think that singles are great for making money short-term, but they're not great for having a career. So if you blow up with just one song— Trinidad James is a great example, All Gold Everything— um, his, his song did amazing, but then when he tried to come back and follow it up, um, the fans wanted more music exactly like All Gold Everything, and that wasn't the sound of his music. So it became a little bit problematic for him. He ended up leaving Def Jam, and now he's independent. I think he's signed to somebody, um, besides Think It's a Game, but, uh, and he's still releasing music, which which is kind of cool because his music definitely has a market. It's very artsy and hippie-ish. But I like Trinidad James. I think that— I think his music is good. It just doesn't sound like all gold everything, which is either a blessing or a curse. But sometimes when you blow up that quickly, it makes it a little bit difficult to come with a follow-up. And I just, you know, I'm in this for the long term with artists. I hate to see anybody just kind of like spark, explode, and then go away. Thank you, Bubble. That was funny. She said that she's gonna be here till she blows up. She's out of here. It's very funny. If you are unsigned, should you broach the discussion of publishing splits and/or upfront fees if you're in the studio with an established artist? And this is Judeum. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. I'm a little bit blind and the type is this small, so forgive me if I'm mispronouncing your names, guys. Um, no, I, I, I don't think you should be shy in, in doing splits, um, with somebody who has a little bit more leverage than you, like an established artist. I think that You need to get it out of the way because you can't decide whether or not you're gonna put money into promoting it until you know what percentage of the song that you own. If somebody wants to take ownership of 75%, and I've never seen this happen, I'm kind of exaggerating to make my point, but if, if somebody wants to take 75% of the song, are you still gonna put, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars into blowing the song up? Yes, it'll probably start your career, but you could do the same thing with a song that you own all of, right? So I just don't— I don't see the point in why you wouldn't discuss the publishing splits. You got to know, and it's better to do it right then. You know, the worst-case scenario is you wait and the song starts to blow up, and as soon as the song starts song starts to blow up, people kind of get selective memory, and I would hate for somebody to take more than what they're supposed to take just because they see something really blown up. Thank you, Maria. You guys are really, um, very kind with the, with the comments, and I appreciate it so much. As an independent artist, should that artist seek a distributor? Doc Holla, um, absolutely you should seek a distributor if, if you're trying to make money with your music, which is kind of the goal. You should definitely have distribution. The easiest place to get distribution is TuneCore. They're at tunecore.com. The benefit of TuneCore is that you pay per song or per album that you upload to their site. They get it out there to all of the digital retail stores and all of the streaming services like Spotify. A digital retail store example would be like Apple Music, Amazon. The streaming services are like Spotify, Tidal. You also want to get it on Pandora, which TuneCore will do. Most legitimate digital distributors will get it on all of the platforms that you need to be on. Then they will collect the money for you. Most distribution deals are an 80/20 split where they give you 80% of the income, you keep— they keep 20% for doing the work. Except for TuneCore. The great thing about TuneCore is they'll give you 100% of the money that you make because you're paying them a flat fee to upload your music. So yes, I think every independent artist should put their music up for sale because that's the whole point. Now remember, when you put it up, that you actually have to— that's funny, Ron, about the Shop Boys. When you put it up onto a distributor, you actually have to market and promote your music to sell it. You can't just get it onto the services and then sit back and wait for life to happen. You've got to actually drive fans there and get them to download it and stream it and purchase it, right? That's even if you're on the free sites like DatPiff, Live Mixtapes, MyMixtapes. You should still— Spinrilla. You should still sell your music because there are fans out there that are going to want to support you and spend money. DJ Triumph is asking where I think the next place music will be consumed. Music went from 8-tracks to streaming. I think streaming is the future, Triumph. I'm not sure what's going to come after streaming, but I do know that that's absolutely where it's coming, where it's, where it's going, right? They've been streaming music in Europe and Asia forever on their mobile phones, so it's not rocket science to see that we're gonna follow. Another cool trend that's happening in Asia right now, especially China, is that people are paying for goods with their phones so that people aren't really carrying their wallets anymore. They're carrying their cell phones and they're paying for stuff through WeChat, which is the Chinese version of Facebook, I believe. But how cool would it be to just be, you know, have Facebook up, walk into a store and pay for your stuff with that? I think that would be really cool. TuneCore, CD Baby, which one is a better choice? Killafuse is asking. They're both different, so it's not like one is better than the other. CD Baby does an 80/20 split and they sell CDs as well as having digital distribution. TuneCore is strictly digital. You pay to put your music on TuneCore and then you get 100% of the money. So it just really depends on what your goal is. Do people discover music on TuneCore? Sometimes, but not really. I know people do go to CD Baby to discover music. They'll go to CD Baby and they'll check out, you know, a certain genre of music that they like and see what's in there. So I mean, that's a, you know, it's a personal decision. They're both legitimate companies. They're both real companies. They're both trustworthy companies. I would suggest that you go to both of their websites and do a little research and see what is better for you. DJ Triumph, I'm feeling a little bit like I work for you right now. You're killing me with all these questions. How do rappers avoid being one-hit wonders? Triumph, it's a great question. You work your music. If you have one song that becomes a giant smash hit, you want to make sure that you've got other music coming. In fact, I would test the music prior to putting out my first single. If I were an artist, I would make sure that I had at least 3 or 4 songs in the chamber that had the same feel, the same vibe, and that could take me to the next level. A good example of that would be Fetty Wap. Trap Queen was a slam dunk hit record, and it could have, it could have made him a one-hit wonder. But he was able to follow that up with a couple of other strong records and, um, build a career. So that's really how you do it. Killafuse is asking me if, um, he should copyright the songs before dealing with TuneCore. I absolutely would. I would suggest copywriting your music before you put it out into the marketplace just just in case somebody hears it and jacks it, you at least have that— the fact that you have copyrighted it through the Copyright Office. There is a video, guys, on copywriting, and there's links below to the Copyright Office and the phone number if you want to call and ask questions, the email address if you prefer to email, and of course their web address. The link is right there, so that you can do what you got to do. And again, do the research for yourselves prior to— do the research for yourselves. Don't just take my word for it, right? Like, go and do the research on their website and see what they're about, you know, read other stuff, and then make a decision for yourself as to what's best for you. I'm sitting here giving, you know, you guys general information based on general knowledge. I don't know your specific situation, so take what I say as a foundation and keep it moving. One St. One Music, hey, I see you're popping bottles over there. That's a beautiful thing. Bomb Productions is telling me that CD Baby takes a 9% commission on digital sales. However, they don't charge a re-up fee every year. Okay, there you go, there's the answer. If you're going to sell a lot of music, it may be to your advantage to do a flat fee. If not, then it may be better to take the 9% commission if you don't have the $20 to $40 to put your music up on TuneCore. And, and by the way, if you don't have $20 to $40 to invest in yourself, you've got a bigger problem than whether to choose between TuneCore and CD Baby, because you absolutely have to have money to market and promote. DJ Triumph is asking again about, as a producer, how does he market himself and gain fans and a strong following. If you check out my first live question and answer session, I answered a lot of questions about producers, you're actually asking a question that I've already answered. So if you don't mind, I'm going to send you there to check it out so that I don't lose time answering a question that I've already touched on pretty much at length. Okay, Danielle Swinton is asking me, I know you guys touched on the social media thing, but can you go a little deeper into the branding of a new artist? I can. So a brand is a commodity, right? Which means you as an artist, you're a brand, you're a commodity. And I hate to say that because you're a person, whether you're a producer or whether you're a singer or a songwriter or a rapper or a reggae artist, right, or a pop star, a gospel artist, a country artist, you're a brand. And when you start your career and you're introducing yourself to the world, you are showing people what you stand for and who you are as a brand. And what you want to do is show the potential fans how you are different from every other artist out there, right? You want to stand apart. So in order to promote your brand brand, you want to make sure that there is unity in everything that you have going on. So for example, if you are a pop artist and your goal is to reach young people, because it's mostly younger people that listen to pop, right? It's mostly kids from like 8 years old to adults at, you know, 26 to 30 years old. That's the market for pop. But the majority of pop fans are under 18. They're younger people. So you wouldn't want your image to be gun-toting, and you wouldn't want to pull a, a mask over your face like a bank robber, right? You want to send a consistent message and you want to make music for the marketplace that you're reaching. Or you can look at it the other way and figure out the music that you're making— who is it marketed to? And that's who you want to target in your, um, marketing and promotional campaign. So as a brand, you want to make sure that whatever you stand for— and let me use David Banner as an example, um, if most of you guys know who he is Killa Mike is another great example that I could utilize for the point that I'm about to make, but both of them are very pro-human being. They're very pro-Black. They're very conscious. They're very anti-Black-on-Black violence, anti-drug, anti— anti— racism, right? That's, that's their, that's their core philosophies. It's also part of their brand. So when they make their music or they're making videos in order to highlight who they are, they make sure that they stay within the bounds of what they personally believe because it's part of their brand. So you will never see Killa Mike or David Banner, unless they're acting in a film, you will never see them, um, pimping women or beating women down or, you know, doing things that are the opposite of what they stand for as human beings because that's their brand. Okay, my brand as Wendy Day, my brand is to help artists and to advocate for artists and help artists get to a point where they can experience the lion's share of the money from their own career. So you will never hear about me selling out an artist into, you know, a bad deal, or you will never hear about me screwing over an artist and taking all of their publishing. There, there's certain things that occur in the music business that I'm against, and that's part of my brand. My brand is how people see who I am, and it's your job to go out there as an artist and show people who you are one by one, or via blogs, through your videos, through live shows. But you need to have some consistency in that brand, and once you figure out who you are and how you differ from all of the other artists out there in the marketplace, you can then figure out what the best way to spread your message is. Like, for me, as a brand that wants to educate artists, YouTube is an ideal resource, right? And, and I want to have interaction with artists, so I can go live on Facebook, I can go live on YouTube. But what I can't do, for example, is go live on Snapchat because it's, it's not a platform that's conducive to what I'm trying to achieve. I don't even remember what it was. I kind of went on a long way around on that one in terms of branding. There's a couple of really great books out there about branding that I should, I should definitely recommend. If you guys can give me a couple days, I will put links to them underneath this video, because until you understand what your brand is— and I can't tell you what your brand is, nobody can tell you what your brand is, it's got to come from you, from within— but until you figure out what your brand is, you shouldn't be marketing or promoting yourself because you don't really quite know what you are yet. And I think people notice when you get out there and you flip-flop, like if one day you're making trap music and then the next day you're making gospel, there's a problem, and, and you're going to alienate the fans rather than attract them. JC Kush is asking me, once you have a solid product, how would you go about reaching out to investors? I hope that you checked out the video that I did on, on how to attract investors because I went into quite a bit of detail about that. Um, but once you have a solid product, you should definitely start to market and promote yourself so that you have a little bit of a buzz, because if you've got some renown, it'll be easier to find an investor than if you have no music in the marketplace and you can't show somebody how fans are already embracing you. You want to have a little bit of a following, um, and, and I don't go find investors for my clients. They come to me with their investors, so I can't speak firsthand about how to find investors, but I can tell you that with them, every single one of them had music out in the marketplace already when they met the person who funded them, and they were able to convince somebody with money why they were a good investment. They got to see their work ethic, they got to see them hustling, they got to see how they were passing out their music and how they were, you know, grinding in order to build their career, as well as the fact that, um, that the music was good, that they embraced the music. A lot of the investors that I've seen take a personal liking in the person's music. There are a few that I've dealt with that were strictly money guys and didn't know about music, but most of them were people that felt passionate about the music that somebody was making, and then they agreed to invest in their career. Um, and a lot of the folks that I have worked with, they have gone to the investor already knowing that I'm willing to work with them, and they've been able to raise money based on the fact that I've been doing this for 24 years and the bulk of my clients have had tremendous success in the music business. So it makes it a little bit easier to pitch somebody in giving you a couple hundred thousand dollars when you've got somebody on your team that has done it before and knows what they're doing. It's— the risk is a little bit less for them. DJ Triumph is asking me, when an artist gets dropped by a label, why is the label still profiting off the artist if they go to a new label? The artist— the label, when the label signs you, they advance money to build your career. They put money into marketing and promoting you so that if you don't do well, they're willing to let you go, but they want to keep all of the income that was made while you were signed to them. And there are occasions where— and I don't recommend this if you're trying to get away from a label— but there are occasions where they will want a percentage of everything that you do going forward. In my opinion, that's some fuckboy shit. I don't think an artist should agree to that. But I realize that if you're trying to get away from somebody that you signed a legal agreement disagreement with, that sometimes you're gonna do whatever you have to do to get away. But I don't think a person should give up a percentage of what they do in the future just because a label wasn't able to help them become successful, especially if they go on to blow up. Steve Chermont is asking me, um, what is my take on a major label distributing your single that's a hit. Most major labels don't just distribute one single. I have seen single deals in my past that have turned into artist deals once that single blows up. It's rare. I can give you far more examples of, of artists who have taken on a single deal and failed than any who have taken on a single deal and succeeded. And the reason for that is when a label signs you to a single deal, they usually only invest about $50,000 into your single, and that's just not enough money to really succeed. They see it as enough money to throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. My opinion is if you've got a great record, then you should sign to somebody that isn't 100% committed to your success. If they're offering you a single deal, what they're really saying to you is, "We don't think you can make it, but we're willing to test you out with one single." And I don't like that mindset. I like the mindset of, you put out your own music, you build a really loud buzz on the streets, and if you still want a record deal after that point, then you do a deal with somebody that really wants to build a career for you, and once you've got a buzz, the leverage shifts a little bit more in your direction, so you are able to sign a better deal. Maria Garza is asking me, what do I think about internet radio and its role in today's industry versus commercial FM radio? Maria, that's an excellent, excellent question. I love that you asked that. I actually spent the afternoon researching internet radio. So how ironic, unless you were watching me through this camera, how ironic that you asked me that. Internet radio has really been growing over the years, and so many artists are starting their own internet radio stations or channels, right? Rick Ross. Warren G has one. Ruff Ryders are starting one. Def Jam is talking about starting their own internet radio station. So internet radio is really growing in popularity, and my understanding is that the new cars starting with 2017 are going to be— they're gonna have Wi-Fi so that you can actually stream music from the internet in your car if you want, you know, if you're so inclined, right? And you're asking me this in context of like versus commercial FM radio, terrestrial radio. And in the studies that I looked at about traditional FM radio, it's still, it's still effective, like it's still reaching people and it's declining, but it's declining like ever so slowly. Slightly. In fact, I'm surprised at how much of a stronghold they still have, because the truth is most people would rather choose what they listen to, right? They'd rather stream their music on Spotify or through iTunes or, you know, whatever method they choose to get their music, you know, without commercial interruption. They get to choose the music they want. But I think with commercial FM radio, is it plays in so many workplaces, and it's such habit in so many cars that people still tune into the radio. They still see it as a way to discover, um, what's hot in their area, and I don't see it going away anytime soon, right? Um, but I just wrote an article today about Digital Radio Tracker which is a company that started sending me charts like 3 years ago. It just started hitting my, my inbox, and at the time I was not a fan of internet radio. In fact, I hated internet radio because I couldn't tell, you know, who was listening or where they were listening or how many people were listening, and it was very frustrating because different internet radio DJs would want to get music from my artists. They'd want to interview my artists, and I couldn't tell like how many people they were reaching the same way that I can tell with, um, you know, with terrestrial radio, with FM radio. Also with FM radio, I'm able to pull Mediabase or BDS and see how many times someone is spinning the music for the artist, but I couldn't do that with internet radio. Well, today I can, so I'm really excited about it. Um, the company is called Digital Radio Tracker. They're at digitalradiotracker.com. You have to— if you're looking to find out where the music has been streamed, um, you have to purchase a report in order to do that. But they're something like, um, like $20 a pop. Like, they're very affordable compared to like Mediabase or BDS, which is tens of thousands of dollars in order to subscribe to. So, um, I'm excited about internet radio. And the truth is, Maria, I am excited by, um, I'm excited by any way that artists are able to reach a fan base. So whether they have to stand on a mountain and sing, or whether they can send music to an internet radio station and reach a couple thousand people, like, it's all good to me. However you, however you can reach people is awesome. And if it's internet radio, that's great. If it's through Spotify, that's great. That's another place where people go to discover new music by getting in playlists, or whether they meet you on a— on the street and you hand them the music. However you have to get the music to somebody is fine by me. And I'm just really happy that I can track internet radio and find out where it's spun, what day of the week it's spun, how many times it's spun. And then it also tells me the, the audience that I reach, so I I can tell how many people that I reached. And, and to me, that's the most important part, because when somebody says they have an internet radio station, you don't know if there's 5 people listening or 5,000 or 500,000. So, um, that was a little long-winded too, but I think, I think I did that one to death. Yes, um, Triumph, uh, streaming really is the future.

Dakala!

I'm missing questions again. My little chat board is annoying. Femi Onus— am I pronouncing your name correctly?— is asking me— yeah, that'd be awesome— is asking me, does my street strategy apply for pop singers as well. Yes, the street strategy applies for spreading music to anyone, to any potential fan, no matter what kind of artist you are, whether you're a gospel artist or whether you're a trap rapper. And I'm using them as like the two extremes, right? Obviously you wouldn't try to sell trap rap in a church, but you might want to— you might want to build your buzz in the church and if you're a gospel artist, so you've got to be a little bit smart with it, but definitely, but definitely, yes, no matter what genre of music you have, I do believe that you really need to hit the streets and reach people one-on-one. I think people genuinely want to get to know who you are. Hey, Dantana! They generally want to get to know who you are, and they absolutely want to interact with you, find out how you think, you know, look you in your eyes, see what kind of person you are. You can get a lot of fans to check out your music. You can't make anybody love you, right? But you can get them to check out your music because they like you as a human being, and then you hope that they love your music as much as they love you.

Femi Onus had another question.

Okay, Femi, hit me.

He wanted to know if you had $5,000, if I had $5,000, right, how would you best allocate that for marketing and promoting a pop or R&B singer?

Wow. First of all, it's not enough money, but I know you know that based on how you just asked me that question. For pop and R&B, it's live performances more important than for a rap artist, right? So I think if I only had $5,000, um, I would probably break that up. And I don't quite know how. I would have to listen to the music and know where you're from, um, to be able to answer this intelligently. But I would divide it somehow between a social media campaign in order to bring awareness to my artist and my artist's video, hopefully. Hopefully I had enough money to shoot a video. Shows— and I wouldn't pay for my artist to open for somebody, but I would use that money for gas money and for cheap hotel money if I had to go— if I had to drive far enough from home where I had to stay overnight. But I would definitely secure shows and put that person in front of as big an audience as I could, hoping that they'd be really impressed and want to find out more information on my artist. But bear in mind that $5,000 is not enough. It's not nearly enough to market and promote any artist, especially R&B and pop, which are more expensive than rap.

Okay, DJ Triumph again.

Hey Triumph, why don't you ask me any questions? You're You're so damn shy.

Damn, he got a couple of good questions here.

He has great questions.

How does an artist get on FM radio playlist? Is it payola or only through a label?

It is payola. Um, it's not through a label, and I can prove that easily to you because the top 3 records in the country this week are all independent artists. Um, one is Young MA, she's at number 3, I think. Um, number 2 is Chance The Rapper, and number 1 is YFN Lucci featuring Trouble. So yes, payola does exist. I'm going to do an entire video on how to get radio play, but I will shortcut it by saying to you that you want to get your song really hot on the streets and in the clubs first, because if you can't get it hot on the streets, you shouldn't be spending money at radio. And that when you consider going to radio just to do a regional campaign— and by regional I mean like for the Southeast or the Midwest, right? If you're gonna do a campaign here in the Southeast, you're gonna start at about $30,000, and that's start, and that's for about 6 weeks, 6 to 8 weeks worth of airplay. You're gonna pay in an independent promoter who is the middleman between you and the radio station, and then they go and get it onto the radio. However they do it, I don't know, but it does cost you money. So therefore, to me, it's payola. And I will answer that in a video in the next couple of weeks at length because it's a pretty important topic, and I would hate for you to go get radio lose a ton of money. It's the area where most people lose money in this business. I wrote a really long-ass article. If you go to industryreport.com and you search radio in the search box, it'll pull up an article. It's called something like the most important article you'll ever read on radio. It's long, but if you go and read that, I went into explicit detail about how to get radio play. If you're someone who doesn't like to read, I will make a video, but it'll probably be— it'll probably be sometime in December because I don't— I'm kind of covering the basics right now. I don't want somebody to think that radio is something they have to go for right away.

Okay, Malik Green and Doc Holla have similar questions. Okay, Malik asks asks, how important is DJ servicing compared to radio play? Okay. And Doc Holla wants to know, is it still beneficial for an independent artist to use a digital record pool service such as Digiwax?

Okay. I'm going to answer them backwards and I might need you to repeat the first one.

Okay.

The first question. That's Tony, my husband, by the way, that's fielding these comments. Thank you very much, babe. Um, I think that the digital, the digital services are really great once people know who you are as an artist. For example, I think if Lil Wayne were to release a record or, or whatever he's doing, the fastest way to get it to the masses is through the DJ service pack companies, right? Um, when you're a new artist and no one knows who you are, it's very hard. I've tried many times to go through the Digiwaxes, the Vertigos, um, and I don't want to embarrass anybody because they do a wonderful job of getting the music to the marketplace, to the DJs. And in order for the DJs to be able to, um, stream the song or download the song, they have to give feedback. But just getting feedback isn't really enough to get somebody to start playing your record. 99% of the DJs out here don't play music that their crowds don't know. It's very hard to get a new song played, especially in its entirety, by a DJ when nobody knows who you are and they've never heard your song before. You know, when records are broken, they are mixed in with other records for a couple of weeks. You know, maybe a verse will be mixed in. It's very rare that a DJ is just going to throw on a new song and, and fuck up the vibe of the crowd, because what happens when they don't know the song, they just kind of stop. It's, it's not— people don't People don't succeed from having really great music, unfortunately. They succeed from having really great music that has repetition. So when a song is played a lot and people start to know it and they can sing along, that's when it starts to spread. So I think that when there's recognition to your name and, and there's a budget behind the record that you're working if there's recognition to your name, that the DJ service pack companies are great for spreading the music because you're reaching all DJs. But to just make a song and shoot your wad on getting exposure through that, I just don't think that's the way to go. It's never worked for me or my clients. Okay, can you tell me the first part of that question? Oh, I did. Yes. Hallelujah!

So Judeim, Judeim, he asks, do gospel labels give their artists better than industry standard record deals?

How you would think, right? No, they're worse. I don't know why that is, but gospel labels seem to have more douchebaggery attached to them than regular labels, maybe because they make less money and it's a little bit more competitive of an industry because there's less money in it. But you would think that because gospel is close to God that people would be a little bit more, you know, treat people how you want to be treated. But that's not the case. No, I can't say that gospel artists get better deals. In fact, I'll go even as far as to say they get worse deals than mainstream artists.

Steve Chamont wants to know your thoughts on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis using Warner Brothers pipeline to push their singles, being that they're independent.

I think it's brilliant. Um, they're not really using Warner Brothers, they're using ADA, which is the independent branch of Warner Brothers. Um, I think anytime that you can benefit from the areas that a major label has, um, without having to sign to that label, where you just pay them for their services. I think that's great. I think everybody should do that. I think it's phenomenal. If I could do that with Trouble, I would do it in a heartbeat. I think that Warner has, um, or ADA has a proven system. I think RED, which is Sony's independent distribution arm, I think they have a formula that, that works in terms of how they work records. And I think that if, if Macklemore can get the staff of ADA to work his record as if he were a superstar and bring him to superstardom, but he can still make the lion's share of the money, I'm all for that. I think it's wonderful.

One Saint One Music wants to know, what are some good social media marketing companies?

Wow, I'm not sure I can answer that. Um, I know there are a lot of good companies out here. Um, we do everything in-house for my clients because I've had a really hard time finding, um, a company that's consistent and that can deliver the results that I'm looking for. Um, so Tony has been doing pretty much everybody for the past 4 years, 5 years now, um, and his company is called A Scratchy Throat. But I'm not advocating, um, his service over another person's service because that's not what I'm here to do. I'm not here to really promote my own shit, um, but I, I— there are a ton of people out there I'm sure that are great at what they do, and I just haven't found them yet. You know, I spent 3 years looking for a great social media company, and a Scratchy Throat was born out of the fact that I couldn't find anybody that was great, but I had to deliver because my clients were depending on me to deliver. So Tony and I ended up spending all of our efforts trying to move our clients' careers further in social media. You know, he did 99% of the work and I did 1% of the work, but thank God that he did that because he kept me from looking like an asshole to my clients because I couldn't find a company out there that was consistently good at what they did. They would be good for one month and then they'd fall off, you know, or they would just take the money and do nothing. And I can't tell you how many times that happened to, um, to me with my clients. This is 5 years ago. It's probably gotten a little bit better out there, but like I said, we do it all in-house because that's the best way for me to be able to control the, um, effort that my artists get. Thank you, Tony.

No problem. You got to give a better, uh, assessment of a Scratchy Throat too. We're amazing. So, um, Scratchy Throat and his team is amazing, says the voice off screen.

Yes.

How— Malik Green wants to know, how should rappers properly market their brand well and find their target audience?

Um, I kind of touched on how you market your brand when I started tonight, but I didn't touch on how you find your audience. And you know, as you— when you first start it's really hard to figure out who your audience is. You might only have, you know, 50 followers on Twitter, so you can't kind of look at them and figure out, you know, who they are, right? It gets a little easier when you, when you grow some legs, because as you step on stage and you perform, you can look at the audience and you can see who it is that came and spent money to see you perform. But how do you figure it out before you get to that point, right? That's where it takes a little bit of work, a lot of bit of work on your part. Um, the way that I do it for my clients when they're brand new is I look at the music, the type of music that they make, and I figure out who out there makes music similar to them. So are they more like J. Cole Or are they more like Yo Gotti? Are they more like Drake? Or are they more like, um, Riff Raff? Are they like— there, there are lanes for lots of different types of artists. You have to figure out what lane you're gonna fit in and then see who else is in that lane. And then what I do is I pull the market research on them. I look at, I look at who are their fans on Spotify, who are their fans on Twitter, who are their fans on Facebook. I pulled their SoundScan to see where they're selling. I pulled their BDS and their media base to see where, where are they getting the most radio play, what stations. And because I've been doing this for so long, when I look at that I can tell which stations they're getting that they paid for and which stations they're getting because they had enough of a movement for that radio station to pick them up and start spinning their music. I look at— I'm working with an artist right now that's very much like J. Cole. So I pulled all of the history in Mediabase on all of J. Cole's music. I looked at what markets started to embrace him first. And surprisingly, it's not North Carolina, as you would think that it would be. You would think because he's from Fayetteville that the radio station in Fayetteville would have shown him love first, and they didn't, not even close. They ended up playing him more than most other radio stations, but not the way you would think. It's a little bit surprising. And, and I analyze all the data that has come before in order to figure out what my audience is. If you don't have the ability to do that, if you don't have the money to be able to do that, because you got to pay for all of those resources to pull information, you're gonna need to do a little bit of an in-depth study on who is listening to you, who is— aside from your inner circle, because they don't count. They love you, so they're not objective. But look at the people who don't know you. What songs are they embracing? Where are you meeting them? Are they in the hood, or are they on a college campus? You know, are they dressed in, in tight jeans or saggy jeans? You know, or do they have dreads, or are they white kids? You know, it's kind of up to you to figure out who is embracing your music. You can do this through your social media, and you can do this by the feedback that you're getting from people who are enjoying what you're doing. I'm gonna use myself as an example here on YouTube. By the questions you guys are asking me, I can tell who my audience is. My audience isn't rappers who are making $10,000 a show already. My audience are people that want to get get to that point. You guys want to get your music out there, so it's a matter of opening yourself up to the folks that you're interacting with, like, like me with you guys, and finding out what is it that you like, what is it that you don't like. You know, I got feedback last week. I answered a ton of emailed questions, and I only answered a few from the message board, and through feedback I learned that people didn't understand that they were supposed to email the questions in, and they didn't understand why I ignored their questions. Well, I didn't ignore them, I was just busy answering the questions that had been emailed to me. So this week I flipped it, and I'm answering more from the message boards. Next week I'll probably go back to the email side. Um, the trick is to figure out who's following you, who likes you, and try to find more people that are of that mindset, the more like-minded people. And once you figure that out, you know how to target them, and you'll know how to find them and how to approach them, and you know what kind of music that they'll like, blah blah blah.

Okay, so my phone died.

Uh-oh. Okay, I have it.

Modiggity would like to know—

Modiggity, how are you, sweetheart? I love Modiggity.

Um, with a producer should they seek to work with— and I'm paraphrasing, okay— should a producer seek to work with bigger artists or break their own artists?

Both. Both. You should work— you should try to work with bigger artists that have a budget, because once your song comes out and the masses get to hear it, you're gonna get more work. And you're going to get paid for tracks. Because right now, I'm guessing that you give away a lot of tracks for free. Um, and that's kind of the second part of the answer, where you want to work with as many people that are up and coming, even though they can't afford to buy your beats. Really, you want them to put the money into marketing and promoting themselves so that more people can hear the production. Because the way that most people buy beats, not Lease and not Jack, but the way that most people purchase production is they look at whatever's hot in the marketplace and they say, who did that beat? And then they go to them and they try to get a similar experience from that producer because they figure that that producer has some sort of knowledge or some sort of magic that makes it makes them able to have a hit record. So I would suggest that you do both. You absolutely should do both. Mo Diggy, did I answer your question? I think I did. Go back and watch the very first live video that I did because we answered a lot of production questions. And at some point, I'm also gonna do some interviews with guys like Metro Boomin and Sonny Digital Digital, and probably Drumma Boy because I'm close to him. And we will get them to state in their own words how they started and how they went from giving away free beats to getting a couple of thousand dollars per beat to whatever, you know, whatever they're making now at the level that they're at.

Okay, you ready for another question?

Let me, let me answer Sean Cole's question and then I'm ready for another question. Um, I'm probably going to go like another 10 minutes or so. You haven't eaten, are you okay? Okay, okay. Sean Cole asked me, um, in regards to record deals and investment opportunities, I was very surprised to hear you say that most artists you've worked with have never recouped from their recording deals. The reason I say this is because while I'm aware that a lot of artists do end up in debt or shelved due to not selling enough, I don't understand how some artists manage to continue their careers if they never recoup from their deal. For example, Kanye West lately has been saying how he's $63 million in debt. I assume part of this debt would be from his record deal, as Roc-A-Fella was a major label. Um, he signed to Def Jam, I believe, through Roc-A-Fella, right? Um, so it is a major label, yes. But if this is the case, How has he managed to continue his career? Wouldn't he also have been shelved due to the label taking a loss on him? You're gonna hate this answer— actually gonna love this answer. And does he still have to pay the record deal money back in monthly installments, for example? I know that you're very much against record deals in this day and age. I'd like to know your personal opinion on investment opportunities. I feel part of the reason I haven't been able to get my— some of my music to where I want it to be is due to lack of funding for radio, etc. Do investors work the same way as record labels, and do you have to— if you don't recoup, do you still have to pay them back? Let me start with the, with the label portion of, of this question, and I'm just making a note so that I don't forget to answer the investor part of it. The way that record labels labels work with guys like Kanye, who were signed before 360 deals, is they get advances. And Kanye would get millions of dollars advanced to him prior to recording and delivering a record. So he lives advance to advance to advance, right? But his advances are coming in big chunks. So when he gets a big chunk of money for his recording advance, or if he announces a tour, he's gonna get an advance for the tour from the touring company, whoever he uses— Live Nation or whoever, you know, whoever books his tours. And, and he's going to use that money for whatever he wants. If he doesn't recoup that money, that doesn't mean that he's not gonna get an advance the next time he he's putting out music, it just means he's gonna go further into debt. It's called the advance game. I call it the advance game. I don't, I don't know who else calls it that, but I call it the advance game. Once you get sucked into that mentality, it's very hard to get out of it. People ask me all the time, as successful as Jay-Z or Puffy or Rick Ross, why don't they leave their major label when their contract up and then put out their, their music independently? And the answer is because they're so used to those big advances that for them to take income that streams in monthly, it's, it's, it's kind of them taking a financial hit. They would rather have $5 million upfront than, say, $10 million that would come into their company over a 5-year period or a 10- year period. You can do more with chunks of money— in their mind, you can do more with chunks of money than you can with streams of money. I think the opposite. I would rather have $10 million come in over a 5-year period than $5 million today. If I had $5 million, could I flip it and make $10 million? Yeah, I probably could, but there's some risk involved with that. I would rather have the sure thing of knowing that I have money coming in and my ownership of my own art form 100% than to be beholden to somebody else who gets to make decisions and input opinions on my music and how I'm gonna market myself. If I were an artist, that's just my own personal opinion. And when I say the artists that I've worked with haven't recouped, that's doesn't mean the labels didn't make money. If, if you're signed to a label and you make $5 million on your sales and streaming of your music, that just means that you have to pay back whatever was spent out of your share, and your share is usually somewhere between 12 and 18 percent points, right? So you've got to pay back— if it took a million dollars to make that $5 million, you've got to pay back that million out of your share. And that just may mean that you don't make money, but they do. And that's what I don't like about record deals. Kanye makes a lot of money for Def Jam, and if he didn't, they would have shelved him or let him go. I mean, look how much work he is he says like whatever's on his mind. He's a liability as a business to them, as an artist to them. The fact that they tolerate him and coddle him and help him grow tells me that they're making money with him. Um, the second part of your question was if you have an investor and you lose money. Let's say, um, you— an investor gives you a million dollars and you spend, um, all of that money on marketing and promotion, and now you have to make back $1 million just in order to break even, right, before you start to make money, and you only make $500,000 in sales, um, does that mean that you have to pay them off on a monthly basis for the next 30 years and probably 100 years? No, it does not. It's an investment. They're taking the risk when they give you the money They know that they could very well lose it, but they're betting on the fact that, that you won't lose. They're betting on the fact that you'll win. And when you take on an investor, you're getting far more than 18 to, you know, 12 to 18% of the, of the retail selling price of your music. You're usually doing like a 50/50 split or somewhere thereabouts. So you're making far more money when you have an investor. More importantly, you get to call the shots. You get to say how you're gonna market and promote. Do you have another question for me?

Cursor TV.

Cursor TV.

Cursor TV wants to know, how important is age if you're not trying to get mainstream, and does age matter in the underground indie hip-hop scene?

Age matters, um, and here's why age matters. And, and I'm actually gonna make this, um, my last question for the night. Um, age matters. Most fans are 14 or 13 to 26 years old. That's where the bulk of the fans fall, right? And if you're older, like let's say you're a 35-year-old rapper to a 26-year-old, you're going to look old. To a 14-year-old, you're going to look like their dad. In order to get people to support you, they have to relate to what you're talking about, they have to relate to the music you're making, and they have to relate to you. And if you are far much older than your fan base, it's going to be really hard to get them to, to, to vibe with you, just be, you know, just because of the fact that you're going through different things in life than they are. You're feeling different things, you're reacting to different things, you're talking about different things in your music. Yes, there are older fans. I'm in my 50s, I still listen to rap, I still buy rap, you know, I still love rap, but I've got car payments, I've got a mortgage, I've got a lifestyle, you know, I've got repairs that I have to do around the house, I've got obligations to my family, you know, I've got a little dog to spoil. So I've got places that I need to spend my money other than whatever the hot new shit is that's coming out on Friday. I can't buy music the way that I did when I was in high school, or when I was in college, or when I first was in, you know, my first job, where my expenses weren't so high. I'm 50 years old. It's not fun to go to a nightclub and hang out with 18 to 25 year olds. It's, it's just, I don't enjoy that. So there's a lot of times where I'll forego going to the club unless I'm working. I'll forego going to live shows because I just, I don't want to be around the drama. I don't want to be around the bullshit that occurs when people are in their 20s and they want to party and have a good time. You know, I'm at a different place in my life, so it's not as enjoyable for me to spend money. Um, most human beings on this earth have children. Once you get older than 25 or 30, you start having kids, so your money goes to them. And if they're at an age where they want to go see Justin Bieber but you want to go see Beyoncé, unless you can afford to do both, you're probably going to— you're probably going to give up what you want so that your child can have. It's what you're supposed to do as a parent, right? So music is— the target market for music skews much younger, and if you're an older artist Yes, you can find a fan base. Yes, you can probably make some money, but you're probably never going to be a superstar. And I know a lot of you are sitting there saying, oh, Jay-Z is in his 40s, but let me remind you that Jay-Z started rapping and started experiencing success when he was in his early 20s. So he has built his fan base already that have grown with him. But for you to come out at 40 years old and try to rap, it's going to be really, really, really, really hard to do. Are there anomalies? Are there one or two rappers that do it? Absolutely. 2 Chainz. 2 Chainz started to pop when he was 38. Of course, you know, when he, when he put out Duffle Bag Boys, he was probably 34 or 35, so I could argue that he was a little bit younger. But still, you know, it was, it, it was hard for him And he's an anomaly, you know. I can think of— I can think of crap. I can think of one artist that has blown up at that age, you know. So are you gonna roll the dice and, and do all the work and put everything into having a career? You know, it takes upwards of $150,000 to break an artist. Are you going to give up everything and, and and roll the dice that you may be successful? I don't know. I think that if you're a great rapper and you're older, you're in your late 30s or 40s, why not put your effort and your money behind somebody younger and be their investor, be their record label, be their mentor, be their coach? There are plenty of places for you to still fit in that don't involve trying to be a star at 40 years old. It just, it just, it just doesn't make sense to me. And I'm sorry if, if I'm depressing anybody, but I'd rather you hear it from me because, you know, my heart's in the right place. Okay, thank you guys for tuning in. Um, this is being recorded. It will be up on my channel probably in the next hour or so. Um, over the next week, I'll go back through and listen to it and watch myself being like Stevie Wonder while I talk to you guys, looking all over the place and bobbing. And I will list underneath the video all of the topics that we covered. And if I mentioned any websites or articles that, that, you know, that I directed you to, it will be underneath this video. Thanks for tuning in. I drop videos Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00 a.m. on different topics. And then I go live every Wednesday night at 7. Thank you guys for tuning in. I appreciate you. I'm so happy I'm spitting, but thank you very much and have a good night and keep coming back. Email me your questions. This is wendyday@gmail.com. Email me the questions that you want me to answer for next week. Okay guys, take care.

Peace.