LIVE with Wendy Day #011 | Answering Your Questions Live

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 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 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 Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're going to get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's going to 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. Hi guys, how are you? I'm starting a little early tonight, I know, but at least tonight I don't have to leave early. Hi, how was your week so far? So, um, the music industry shut down today. I mean, in a good way, right? It's the holidays, so most of the lawyers and the labels and the accountants, um, they stopped doing business today. So my phone stopped ringing at like 3 o'clock. I thought I thought maybe I forgot to pay the bill, but I didn't. Um, it's just wonderful though. I love when the industry is quiet. This will go on till about— I think the labels come back in around the 4th of January, 3rd or 4th of January. Um, and then most of the lawyers come back that following Monday, so it's going to be a really quiet 3 weeks. I'm not going to go away this year. I'm gonna stay here, um, for most of it and get some work done. I have a list of stuff that I wanted to get to this year that I never got to, so that's what I'm going to be doing for the next couple of weeks. So, Martyr, am I saying your name right again? I practiced. I want you to know. So, um, let's get right to it, guys. And, um, are you guys ready for the holidays? You ready for, um, Christmas if you celebrate it, or, um, Hanukkah, or whatever you choose to celebrate this time of year? Um, I'm not much of a celebration person. I was raised Christian, but, um, I don't believe in mass religion. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't, because whatever works for you is good. Um, it just doesn't work for me. So anyway, um, I have a question from Dark Brothers Entertainment, and, um, I think you noticed I made a whole video around your, your question, right? Um, well, I'm gonna cover it here tonight too for those of you that didn't see the video. Um, Dark Brother Entertainment asked, um, could I talk about the importance of really learning the business side of music? It's not only important to create and make good music— great music, right? Not good, but great. It has to be great music. But to learn the business model and how it works and all the different components that go into this industry. And, um, I guess you can tell that it's kind of important if I made an entire video about it, and I'm still going to address it here because it's, it's, it's the weak spot of so many artists Like, so many artists love to be in the studio and they love to perform, but everything else is kind of secondary. And you can't do that. You've got to be able to market and promote and really learn each aspect of the business. Even if you have a team of people that are helping you and doing the work for you, if you don't know what they're supposed to do or what's necessary How do you know that they're doing their job? And how do you know that they're good at what they do, right? So many folks, when they come into this industry, decide that they want to surround themselves with people that they know, and they think that it doesn't take any special skill really to succeed in the music business. And that's kind of a recipe for failure, because while it's wonderful to have your boys around you, um, if they don't excel at marketing and publicity and shooting videos and some of the other things that you absolutely need in order to be successful in your career, you won't be successful in your career. You'll just be somebody that has their boys around them, right? So, um, it's really important to learn the, the business side of music. There are not a lot of books out here that Did you get whiplash from that? Because I just whizzed the folder by really fast. There's not a lot of books out here that explain all of the different jobs and all of the different things that you need in order to succeed in the music industry. So you got to kind of learn by doing or by reading as many blogs as you can, paying attention to stuff like this, watching videos. You know, learn as much as you possibly can so that you won't become a statistic or a tragedy in the music industry. You need to learn a little bit about marketing and building a fan base, promotions. You need to learn about websites and social media. You want to know what SOE is. This doesn't mean that you have to be able to do all this stuff, but you need a basic knowledge of what it is that you need and a basic knowledge of what each of those things is so that you are savvy enough to know who can help you and who's just blowing smoke up your ass. This is an industry where it's, it's, it's expensive, this industry, and it's an industry where you can lose a lot of money because there's a lot of people out here that are either con men and women, right? Um, I call them fuckboys. But there are a lot of people out here that will con people or that are just not great at what they do. They're kind of inept. So you might hire somebody thinking they're great at what they do and they, they really may not be. You need to understand publicity, publishing, and by publishing I don't mean book publishing, I mean music publishing. That's the ownership of the words and the music. Copyrights and trademarks. You want to make sure that you understand the ownership of your music and your name, which is what trademarking is. The PROs, which is ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. You want to understand what SoundExchange is. You want to understand a little bit about pressing, um, and, and that's for those of you that, that still want to put CDs in stores, or those of you that still hand out CDs promotionally. CDs are still about 30% of the market. So without them, you're basically just hitting 70% of the market and you're leaving money on the table. So until they're completely dead, why not press them up? They're 30 cents a piece to press up, roughly. You want to learn about printing your tools, your posters, your flyers, your postcards. Um, you want to learn about what other tools you need to market and promote yourself. Do you want to wrap the vehicle? If you do, how do you get a vehicle to wrap? Where do you go to rap it? What does it cost? You want to learn about distribution. You want to learn about production, like the producers that are making the beats that you're rapping to if you're a rapper. If you're a producer, you want to learn how to support yourself as a producer. It's not easy, as many of you know. You want to learn a little bit about contracts, about finance and budgets, a little bit about accounting. You want to learn about labels or staying independent, and if you choose to sign to a label or an independent label, um, you want to learn what type of deals exist so you know what's best for your needs. You want to learn about videos and web content, like what kind of content do you need for your social media, what kind of content should you be posting on your website to let your fan base know who you are. How do you grow your fan base? How do you build a buzz? These are things that you really need to know, and that's why it's important to learn the business side of music. Um, many of you who don't understand how the business side works, um, you will be passed very rapidly by your competition because they made the effort to learn the music business. And it's not hard, it's just time in. And if you really love this, why wouldn't you want to spend some time you know, reading and learning and paying attention. I remember when I was coming up, you know, back in the dinosaur age, um, when I was coming up, I read every rap magazine that existed. This is before the internet. I read every rap magazine that existed, any movie or TV show that had anything to do with the business side of music. I, I devoured it. I read The Big Payback by Dan Charnas, which is the history of the business side of the urban music industry. Um, if any of you are serious about doing this and you haven't read that book, there's something wrong, because it's about the history of what you're doing. And why would you not want to know how Def Jam got started, how Loud Records got started, how Chris Lighty became one of the best managers in the music industry? Why would you not want to learn all that? So, um, you have a break coming up. Over the holiday, you could read it. You've got time. Um, I read all of my books on my iPad or my phone. I can't remember the last time I read a real book. So, you know, I can carry around 10,000 books right here, and for me, that's just really awesome. Um, it just gives me access to so much. You know, when I have a question, I Google the answer. I don't I don't, I don't just accept the fact that I don't know the answer. If I want to know what publishing is, I'm going to Google music publishing. If I want to know what does ASCAP do, I'm going to go to ascap.com. So I suggest that you guys get a little bit aggressive and assertive with learning, and I know that it's in you because you're here, right? You're not just here to listen to me speak, you're here to learn shit. So, um, kudos. For you guys all being here. So, um, let me come here and ask some, um, questions. La la la la la la la. Um, I'm not familiar, Maid Law, with, um, Afton Show. I have no idea who that is. Um, how do you increase your shows? Um, there's a video that Tony and I did— hey, Misi— um, that Tony and I did, um, about how to get shows. And then we did one on how to get paid from shows, and that was about maybe 2 weeks ago, but it's in the feed. Um, if you guys are having trouble finding the videos, um, I set up rapjewels.com, rapjewels.com. And, um, it archives all of the videos there in order, and it makes it really easy to see anything that you've missed. Also with the archived lives, because every time I do one of these lives, it gets posted, um, right after we, uh, go off air. It gets posted, and I go in eventually. It takes me a couple days to do this just because, you know, I'm busy. I really do have a life, and you know, my own business. Um, but I go in and I list all the topics that we discussed, so you can just scan through the topics and see if there's anything that we talked about that you want to catch up on, and then go into the video and kind of figure out about where it is in the video. Hey, JP Sanchez. Wind Dizzle, that's funny. Okay, Blast Off Entertainment is saying that he has an— I'm assuming you're a he, you may be a her, um, they have an internet radio and would love to spin the independent artist, but they're so cocky that it's crazy. And, um, Blast Off would love to help build a fan base. You know, attitude is so important in this industry. Like, you gotta, you know, you gotta be somewhat humble. It's great to be— it's great to know that you're good at what you do because you've got to be great to survive. But what's not great is treating other people like shit. Like, remember, they're not here for you. You— they are doing you a service, and they have something that you want. And I'm not saying that you have to kiss their ass, But why not be respectful and why not build a relationship? You know, the successful artists are the ones that build relationships. The ones who are assholes don't really get very far. Okay, I know a lot of you are thinking Kanye got really far, but still. Okay, Young Diddy is asking me if Cash Money had a reunion tour, do I think it would be bigger than a Bad Boy tour? Um, it might be. Um, they certainly sold more music than— well, maybe not because Bad Boy's been around longer. You know, I don't know if it would be bigger. That's a great question. Um, I would go just because it would mean that BG broke out of jail. Because BG's got another couple of years in the feds. So if he was on tour with them, I'd go because it would be like, wow, BG broke out of prison. King Peevee is asking me, should you plan your shows before you release your project? No, you need to, um, you need to build your buzz before you can get the shows. So the music has to be in the marketplace in order for you to get the shows. And for you to, um, build— you're welcome, Voice— um, and for you to build your following to the point where they will come see you perform, right? Because the goal in performing live is to get them to pay to come see you. You can make a living doing this. Um, Caden Brands is saying that you heard trouble on Google Play. How is it possible to get on internet radio? Um, Google Play is not internet radio, right? Google Play is a streaming service Um, actually, Google Play might be a download service as well. Um, but our distributor gets the music. When you sign up with the distributor, they get you onto Spotify, they get you into Tidal, they get you into Apple Music, they get you in the iTunes Store, Google Play, Google— Google, is it called Google Locker or Google Play Locker? Um, they get you on pretty much everything. Um, I even noticed on Trouble's, um, royalty statements that there's a company called Aspire, and I'm like, Who the hell is Aspire? And it turned out that Aspire is the company that Jay-Z bought that he turned into Tidal, or what Tidal is today. Oh, you asked, um, how do you get on internet radio? You build a relationship with the internet radio stations and you ask them if you can come on, on their show. I just read a question from somebody who is looking to have artists on his internet radio show. Just don't come cocky. I'm sure you heard that. So be respectful. And if any of you guys are on internet radio or you have the connections, would you put them in the feed so that other people can see, please? Poc Riley is asking me, will the next empire out of the DMV— oh, excuse me, BSF OM will be the next empire out of the DMV, and you have a few questions, go ahead and ask them. Maria Garza is asking me, where do I see radio— rats, I hate when this jumps when I'm in the middle of reading. Okay, I should read them first and then say it out loud. Hey, Bubble! Oh, there it is. Okay, where do I see radio promotion going in the future? Internet radio versus terrestrial FM M, do I see any value in internet radio? Um, you know, I didn't used to see value in internet radio, and I have recently come around. And the reason I have recently come around is there is a report called DRT, Digital Radio Tracker. They're at digitalradiotracker.com. You can actually sign up for free, and when you give them your email address, they will email you the charts every week. So that you can see 9 different charts of internet radio. So, um, Maria, my problem with internet radio in the past has been that I don't know if somebody has 1 listener or if somebody has 100,000 listeners. With terrestrial radio, I can find out because they have to report what their audience is, right? And there's a company called Arbitron that will tell you, it'll back up what they say, is their audience. So I can tell whether it's 1 person listening or 100,000 listening. But with internet radio, it's a little more difficult. Well, in 2017, they're supposed to start putting internet radio in cars so that when you drive, you will have the opportunity to tune into internet radio. And I kind of was excited by that. And right about the same time that I heard that, I started getting these emails from Digital Radio Tracker so that I could see the different, um, internet radio stations that play rap music, right? By the charts, I could see who was charting. There were some artists like Tropicana, who is an independent rapper out of New Jersey— I think he's from Atlantic City— and I saw him charting on the singles chart recently. And then I started pulling charts to see what, um, Trouble was doing and to see what was going on with Key to the Streets, which is YFN Lucci's song that features Trouble. I wanted to know, well, what areas is that getting played? And it's worldwide, right, internet radio. So, um, and then I started noticing like Rick Ross has a radio station and Warren G has Regulator Radio, and all these different people from the music business have internet radio stations. And then here locally in Atlanta, Tampa Mystic has an internet radio station. And I noticed that Kingpin and, um, um, his whole team for the Promo Vatican have an internet radio show from 11 to 2. They call it the Wake Up Show because that's when they wake up. Um, but it's, it's, it definitely seems to be getting more popular. And now that I can track it I'm happy to work with the internet radio stations now that I know, like, that they really have a following and that when they say they're playing my record, they really are. You know, BDS and Mediabase don't track internet radio stations, so if somebody tells me that they're playing, you know, my song 10 times a day every day of the week, there was no way for me to verify that that was true other than listening to the station all day every day. Well, now with digital radio tracker reports, I can look at the DRT report and see that they indeed are spinning it. So I think terrestrial radio is, is dying. It's still relevant, but I think it's, it's decreasing, and I think it will continue to decrease, not because necessarily of internet radio, but because of all the different things that people have to do today. That pull them away from listening to radio, whether it's, you know, apps or video games or, you know, working on your computer or playing on your computer or reading or watching YouTube. Or there's just so many distractions today— Pokémon Go. I mean, there's so many distractions today that it just seems like radio is getting less and less important. Also, people are kind of tuning out of the commercials. You can set up a playlist at Spotify of all the music you like and have your own radio station playing. So, you know, why tune in to your local, you know, Hot 107 or whatever, you know, whatever your station is. Blast Off ENT. Oh yeah, absolutely, sweetheart. Um, Blast Off ENT is the person that has the internet radio station, and they're asking me if they can put it in the feed. Absolutely, you can go for it. Thank you, Poc Riley. Um, Poc is asking me if I had a plan before I started uploading to YouTube. Why does it look like I don't? And did I also have them prepared before I released the first batch? Yes. Um, and I even went in and changed my shirt so that you would think that I didn't do them all in one day. Um, Yes, there is a plan, believe it or not. Um, I actually have a list of ideas. Um, here it is. Uh, the ones in blue are the ones that I've done, and, um, it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pages of, um, music industry, uh, things that I want to talk about. And then I've got another, um, one page of like, uh, business that has nothing to do with the music business, like motivation, attitude, time management, um, credit, financing, like different topics that I want to talk about that I think will help you guys. Um, and when I first started, my goal was to shoot the entire week on Sunday so that like on Sunday I would shoot Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's videos. Um, life got in the way of that. So for example, this morning's video I shot at 9 o'clock this morning when I woke up. You'll see me wearing a black sweater and I think this shirt is underneath the sweater and you'll recognize that. Um, so yes, I had a plan, but my plan hasn't quite worked out, um, the way that I'd like it to. Um, somebody just volunteered to help me with these, and he's going to help me do some animation so that you're not just staring at my face constantly in the videos, which I think will help to make it a little bit more interesting and more fun. Um, but yes, you should have a plan before you do anything. And you're going to watch, like, as you guys go further with me in this You're gonna watch an entire website get set up to help educate artists called slavesnomore.com. Um, and this has been sort of like a prequel for me because I want to learn what's important to you guys. I don't want to just go in and make 100 videos of different topics when, you know, half of them you don't give a shit about. So what this is doing is it's helping me learn what matters to you and what questions you guys have so that I can make sure, um, so that I can make sure that, that I'm helping you guys. JB Sanchez is asking me about Derek G. Um, I'm not sure who you mean. Help me out with that. I'm not sure what you're asking me. You're the second person that asked about Derek G. Voice is asking me how I feel about the resurgence of vinyl sales over the past few years. Um, I believe that vinyl has made the resurgence because the music is so much cleaner. It's, it's very warm on vinyl. Um, when we went to CDs, it compressed the music a lot, and now that we're at the MP3 level, it's compressed it even more. So the quality of the music is not as clean for people that are really, um, audiophiles. I, I think that vinyl is very important. I think also there's a little touch of nostalgia for people that collect vinyl. I hate how expensive it is, you know. I was in a vinyl store in, um, where were we? I think I was in Tallahassee, and I was in a vinyl store, and I'm like, wow, some of these bitches are $23.99. Like, this is crazy. It's like It's like the price of old music, you know. Um, I don't listen to vinyl because I came up listening to vinyl. King Peavy is saying that he pushed an EP last year and planned a show that brought out 80 to 100 people, but he didn't know what to do afterwards. I feel you. Um, should I have just planned another show? Well, the problem with doing shows in the same area is— here, Gangster in the background going ram. Um, The problem with doing another show is that once somebody has already seen you in a certain area, it's going to be a little bit challenging for them to get them to come back and see you again. So you're going to have to expand your territory a little bit. Um, also when you put out an EP, you want to do more than just, um, a show in order to promote it, right? You're going to want to, um, maybe hit the college campuses. Um, you're going to draw like a 5-hour driving radius around wherever your centrally located, wherever your central location is, and you're going to start working from that area outwards within that driving radius and hit all the colleges, hit the high schools. Um, be careful when you hit the high schools because they really don't like you on their campuses. The colleges do. The colleges are pretty cool. Desario is saying, um, I started in the industry as a regional promoter for labels. Priority, perspective, relativity. Platinum, and we would utilize college radio to break singles. Um, KKC in Chicago was an amazing station. That's Kennedy College. Um, and when I was working with Twista and Do or Die back in the '90s, man, we broke everything at KKC. Um, is it still viable today? It depends on the artist. Um, understand that KKC in Chicago is not like any other station in the country, right? And back then There was also a station you went to, um, was it Northwestern? It was up like in the north, on the northeast side of the city. It was, it was like, it was like a 30-minute drive north. I can't remember the name of the station, but that was just like Kennedy College. Like, it really— they really broke records there, and, and they were really like a really cool FM station as opposed to a college station. Um, if I have an artist that's very, very lyrical, I will go to college radio. Um, when I first started working with Joyner Lucas, we went to college radio because his music wasn't quite ready for terrestrial radio. It was a little bit too lyrical still. Um, and rather than make him make different music, we just worked it at college radio. It was, eh, you got to use college radio as part of your marketing plan. It's like one piece of the pie, and there's 8 pieces of the pie, right, to make a whole pie. So as long as you use it as one piece of the pie, yeah, you're still reaching people. Um, my concern about college radio is there's no way to, um, measure it, right? You don't know if one person's listening or if 100,000 people are listening. Tori Gandhi is asking me, are cassettes a viable alternative physical product? With the lo-fi movement, especially in Europe. Um, I don't know because I don't work the European markets. Um, I wouldn't do cassettes only because it's a little bit costly and I'm not reaching enough people to really warrant that expense. If I wanted to have, um, like a, um, a product that was very special, um, I might do it, but I'd probably do color vinyl before I would do cassettes, because I think there's a bigger vinyl market than there is a cassette market, right? BMO, thank you. BMO just said thank you, and thank you. Pak Raleigh is gonna, um, is gonna screenshot so that I don't forget his name. That's very funny. Okay, it was Northwestern. Thank you. You know, the guy that used to be, um, the DJ there now works for, um, what's the, what's the label in Minnesota that has all the lyrical rappers? Damn, my memory is shot tonight. What is my problem? I don't even smoke weed. I can't even, um blame it on smoking weed. Okay, Derek Grant, I'm his mentor. Yay! I mentor a lot of people. Thank you, JB Sanchez. H702 is asking me how many— how much promo material should a solo artist with no street team pass out every day when promoting? You're gonna hate this answer, but like, as much as you can. Um, you know, you really want to blitz the marketplace. When you get to the point of trying to hand somebody either a download card or a CD and they're like, man, too much, then you know you've done your job, right? Um, with Trouble, we passed out— I think with his first mixtape, we passed out 30,000 in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina. Then we expanded to Northern Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina, and we went up to 40,000. And then with his third release, I think we did 50,000, if I remember correctly. And again, in Atlanta, you know, in the Southeast, it's still a CD marketplace, so it makes sense to give out CDs that it wasn't really— Rhymesayers! Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. The label in Minnesota is called Rhymesayers, and the guy who was the radio DJ at Northwestern now works for Rhymesayers. And if you said his name, I would know it too. Thank you, Father Jah. I also want to shout out Tito. Tito P hit me up today, and he was really helpful. He asked me a question, and And in return, I asked him to let me know, like, what his biggest struggles are in the music business. And, um, I thought he would send me back like 2 sentences, and he sent me back like a whole page of stuff, um, that was really, really, really helpful. Um, so I just want to shout you out because I know it took you a long time to write all that. Um, and if you're here, just thank you for that. You went above and beyond, and it was really, really, really helpful. Hey, Desario, you worked with Twist and Do or Die too. Did you work with Psychodrama as well? Yay! I loved Psychodrama. Psychodrama was a group out of Chicago in the '90s, and it was two guys and a female, and it was really like the first time— this is before Digable Planets, right? It was really the first time that somebody did that, and they were incredible. Uh, Martyr, I didn't say I was going to bring a guest on, um, for the live questions. If I, if I do this with somebody else, it's going to become an argument because I have my way of doing stuff and somebody else might have their way of doing stuff. So in the live, um, question and answers, I'm not going to bring on a guest. But what I am going to do starting in the new year— um, exactly, Bumo— um, what I am going to do in the new year is it's part of my plan to start leaving my office and going out and, um, interviewing other industry people. Like, I want to interview David— David— Deborah Manis Gardner about sample clearances because so many producers have asked me about that, um, and I want to, um, a lot of you songwriters have been asking about questions about songwriting that I can't answer because I don't deal with songwriters at all. My whole world is rap. So, um, I asked, um, Ray Daniels if he would come and do this with me. What we'll probably do is meet in a studio somewhere and then I'll just um, interview the shit out of him and break it up into a couple different segments. So Pac Riley is asking me, if you make edgy posts on social media that make people talk, would you even need to do endless promotional material? Um, I, I don't believe social media is enough, you know. Um, I still think you have to go out in real life and work. Um, I noticed when Young Thug was coming up, he was doing really edgy posts on social media. Like, I would see him in a hospital room and he'd have his arm around some guy and it would say, my hubby. And I'm like, wait a minute, is he gay? Like, it— like, is dude just outing himself? And although he did that, it wasn't enough to sustain his career. Um, he had to really go out and do promo tours and work the streets and have street teams. And get himself to the next level. Even with Baby managing him, um, wasn't he part of, um, Rich Gang at one point? He and Rich Homie Quan were part of Rich Gang. I mean, they were, but they weren't, but they were, but they weren't. Um, nobody really knew. Um, even with all that innuendo and people talking about him, it, it— that's still not what broke him. Like, he still had to go and market on the streets to build his buzz. Curtis, it is too bad they didn't get to drop their album. I think they did, actually. I think they did put out an album. Um, they were signed to Swishahouse, um, and I helped them do that deal at Swishahouse, and I begged them not to do that deal at Swishahouse, and Nuisance refused to sign. The female in the group said she wasn't signing to Swishahouse, so it was just um, Syd and Buck that signed, and then she appeared on a couple of the songs. I do believe they had a release. I'm not 100% sure, um, but I think Swish House actually did end up putting something out. King Peavy with Trouble, we did 3 promo tours. Um, with Trouble, we did 1 promo tour. Um, we didn't get as far as we wanted to get because he started getting money for shows. And there is absolutely no way when an artist starts making money to tell him, you can't take the paid date, you have to come do this free promo tour. So what we started doing when he started getting money for shows is wherever he would get booked, we would go in early in the day and, and promo that city, that area. And then if there was a city nearby um, he would stay overnight, he would get up the next morning and he would go hit that second city and then come back home. Um, with most artists, I do as many promo tours as it takes, and it's usually the second— it's usually by the second promo tour that they're starting to really bubble and, and they've got music in the marketplace. Because, you know, we don't just do a promo tour, we do social media, we do publicity, like we do all the marketing videos, like everything. We market on the streets, we market on the internet. Um, we really focus on building that buzz. So it's usually by the second promo tour when the artist is starting to bubble. Um, with YFN Lucci, he did, he did two promo tours that I can remember. Um, I'm Fly's mentor, so I wasn't really involved with that project like hands-on. I was just kind of in the back seat for that one. Um, but I think they went out with— I think Lucci went out with Bigger Rankin twice, and they looped through the South. And then he started getting shows. Um, and he didn't go out on his first paid tour until this past spring when he went out with Lil Uzi Vert, um, Lil Yachty. Uh, I think Kodak Black was, was supposed to be on that, but I think he was incarcerated for most of it. And I can't remember who else was on that tour. It might have been 21 Savage or somebody like that. But they went out and they did a national tour. It was the first one that they did. And he had to drop his price by like, like a third of what he was getting booked for on his one-off dates in order to do that tour. But it, it, it helped build him and it got him to the point where people knew who he was and he got a number one single at urban radio, right? BMO, I didn't remember that Mac-10 signed COG. Mac-10 used to be in Chicago a lot though back then. You might be right. Did COG ever do anything? I don't think so. Do you remember Snipers? And Quavo was a group called Quavo. They had the coolest logo. It was like a, um, it was like a circle with, um, hands underneath. It was, it was awesome. Okay, Pac Raleigh thinks you can get your first buzz with social media and then dropping on big platforms. But to keep growing, you have to go out and do your thing. Um, if that works for you, do it. I've never been able to break an artist on social media. For me, it's the other way around. I've got to get them popping on the street first and then bubbling on social media. I know there's guys like Hobson that started out on social media. I know Joyner Lucas has built most of his following on social media, but I just don't— I don't see any superstars doing it that way, and I'm not trying to build an artist who's just going to go out and make $50 grand a year. I— but if it's working for you, do it. Absolutely do it. And that's no diss, you know. Kudos for doing it that way. That's awesome. Yes, um, a promo tour, H702, is where you go into different cities and you hit the colleges, the high schools, the malls. The barbershops, any place where our market might gather. And it really depends on the type of music you make. If you make more street music, you're going to want to hit the hoods. If you make more, um, lyrical hip-hop, you're going to want to hit the colleges. You want to go where your market hangs out. And, um, you want to get up— you want to— what I do is I travel at night and then I get up in the morning wherever, wherever I am, usually like 10 or 11 in the morning. Um, I go and I hit any of the retail stores, I hit the smoke shops, I hit the barber shops, um, I hit pool halls, like any place where I know people are going to come later and gather. And I'm going to ask if I can hang a poster in the, in the establishment. Most people say yes. I don't know how long they stay up, but most people will tell me yes. Um, at the— where— wherever there's a counter, I'll put postcards so that when people come in, they'll see those. Um, depending on what type of store it is, I will leave, um, promotional CDs on the counter. Of course, I ask before I do any of that because I don't want to just leave a stack of CDs and then leave and then they throw them away, right? Um, I find out what high school has most of my target market in it. And whether it's a suburban high school or whether it's like an inner-city alternative high school, I'll find out what time they're letting out and I'll make sure that we pull up right before they let out. And then we'll give out t-shirts, posters, music download cards, you know, whatever we have to give out. It depends on your budget, right? Um, sometimes we have MP3 sticks. It just depends on the budget of my client. And then we'll hit— usually we'll hit colleges around dinnertime. We'll hit the malls after school, after the high schools let out. In between, you know, in between the high schools and the colleges, we'll hit the malls. If there's a movie that's playing locally that will attract our target market, like a Batman-type movie, or when the NWA movie was out, we promoted the shit out of out of the NWA films. We hit people coming out of the shows, and then at night we hit the nightclubs. We hit all of the clubs. Sometimes we'll do a meet and greet with the DJs, like at a Buffalo Wild Wings, and buy all the DJs, you know, beer and wings, just, just so that they'll get to know the artist. And then when the artists perform— and I saw somebody ask, like, how long is your set? Usually one song, whatever our single is, we'll get in and we'll get out. We'll leave them wanting more because the last thing you want to do when you're not known yet is to do 5 songs and bore the shit out of your crowd. They're not going to remember that you were great. They're going to remember that your set was long. So we usually do one single and then, you know, we'll hang around with um, we'll hang around with people in the club, and then we'll get on the road and go to the next city, hit the hotel, go to sleep, get up the next morning and do it all over again. And I usually keep artists on the road for anywhere from 30 to 90 days. Why do artists— Pac Riley's asking me, why do artists lie about the details on how they got on? I have yet to figure that out. I, I really don't know. Desario was asking me, um, about sniping. And sniping is when you hang posters. Is that what you're talking about? When you hang posters in a marketplace? I haven't done that in years. Um, I only do that in really dilapidated areas because when I, when I do that I put them up with wallpaper paste so that they stay forever, um, and I make sure that I only hit abandoned buildings. I don't hit like a building that has a, you know, somebody living there or a retail establishment in there. Desario says hit the roller rinks. Absolutely. If you're in a city where roller skating is big, uh, I know St. Louis has a couple of roller rinks. I don't know if they still do, but they used to. Um, JB Sanchez is asking me, with all this new technology, it's easier for artists to expand and get heard. With that said, how can managers get paid? Managers get paid a percentage of all of the income that the artist gets. So every, every, um, income stream that you can set up for your artist, you're going to get a percentage of, either 15 or 20%, whatever you've worked out with your client. So you're getting a percentage of the shows, you're getting a percentage of if you get a song in a video game or in a movie or a TV show or on cable, you're getting a percentage of that. If you've got merchandise set up, you're getting a percentage of that. You're getting a percentage of all the streaming income, all the sales income. So it's to your advantage as a manager to get your artist buzzing, popping, because that's when the money comes. Um, Maid Law is asking me, how do you perform at different high schools and colleges? Who do you contact? Um, with the colleges, if you're trying to do like a college tour, that is, um, student services. There is a fee in everyone's tuition that goes towards paying for, um, entertainment, and they actually have pretty hefty budgets. At a high school, you have to call the principal, and you got to do all of that in advance. When we do high schools, and it's very, it's very rare that I perform at a high school, not me but my clients, just because our, our dates kind of move around a lot for a promo tour, and it's hard to get that really advanced notice that the high— that the principals like. Also, when you perform at a high school, the show's got to be clean. I'd much rather promote to the high school than have the artist do a show. But when I'm pitching it, I pitch it as more than a show. I pitch it as, you know, the artist talking about staying in school, don't do drugs, you know, whatever topic is. And don't ever have a topic that your artist isn't with, right? Like We could never put Trouble in a school and tell him don't do drugs because that's just not him. He's not gonna tell somebody to do something or not do something because he believes that everybody has their own mind to make up. Um, so if you're gonna speak on something, you know, just make it positive and make sure the artist believes in it. Desario, I still do that. Um, Desario saying back in the record store days He asked the manager to hang posters and then he makes the displays unique. I still do that, but we don't do it in retail stores anymore because, you know, retail stores are kind of obsolete and their real estate has changed. Like, they're selling so much more. But I do that in head shops, like vape stores. I do that in pool halls. Um, I do that in hip-hop gear shops. Remember where you would take the posters and you would take 3 of them and you'd make like a triangle out of them, like stapling them down the side? We still do that stuff for, um, for retail stores. We do it in clubs too. Junior is asking me would I ever sell a checklist of an ideal promo tour. Um, I, I would, I would give you a checklist. I don't think I would sell you a checklist. I think that that's kind of— I think that That'd be pretty shitty to sell you something like that. Um, you do realize though that every city is different, right? Like, and every type of music is different. Like, if I have a street artist, my promo tour is going to be a little bit different than if I have somebody who's super lyrical. Like, the places I would take Kendrick Lamar are very different than the places I would take Kevin Gates, because I want to build credibility with Gates on the streets. I would have to take him I would have to take him through the hood, right? We'd go to hood clubs, the hood pool, you know, places where people shoot dice, people, you know, play spades. Like, we would, we would get down and dirty with it. With somebody that was more lyrical, my focus would be more on, um, like the Chicken Shack, colleges, um, the clubs that play, you know, um like the backpack type hip-hop. So I would just— my focus changes. So, um, I'm happy to put together a list, just understand that it changes based on the type of artist that you are. Poc Riley saying, um, he's a do-it-yourself artist. He shoots his own videos, he makes beats, so he's able to get— he's able to get free shit from people. He does graphics, he's got a team, he does his own PR. Um, absolutely. I mean, hi Angel. Um, I mean, the more you can do yourself, the better it is. Just understand that sometimes, like, with a, with a publicist, you're not hiring a publicist because you don't want to do the work. You're hiring a publicist because they have the relationship with the blogs to get your music posted and to get them to talk about you. But, um, I think you should do as much of this as you can unless you are independently wealthy, and I'm guessing that, um, I'm guessing that you guys aren't independently wealthy. In St. Louis, the Palace isn't around anymore, just Skate King. Okay, I didn't even realize there was still one, so that's cool. Junior is asking me, are there any street teams that I would recommend in Florida? Um, yes, I use Ice in Tallahassee. She does a really great job. Um, I use a guy, um, G in Tampa. He does Tampa and St. Pete. He does a great job. Um, I'm trying to remember who I used. I've used Lex in Miami before. Um, and in Jacksonville, um, I can't remember who I, who I use. I would have to call Grand Prix and ask him, um, who does, um, who does, uh, Jacksonville. But yes, we still use street teams in places where I don't have, um, good recommendations of street teams. Like, there's a lot of cities where either there isn't a street team or there's somebody that doesn't do a very good job, um, I'll usually bring along, um, my guy Barry, who is the street team here in Atlanta, and I'll bring him into other cities to sort of blitz that town or that city because I know he's going to do a good job. I know he's going to build relationships, and I know that he's got relationships pretty much everywhere. So the person that you work with doesn't necessarily have to be in that city. And also make sure that the person you hire has good relationships in that city. The last thing you want to do is hire somebody that everybody in that city thinks is an asshole. Curtis is saying boom bat clubs. That's funny. Yeah, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of artist open mics that you can do in different places. Um, I don't, I don't ever pay to have my artist perform. I prefer building a relationship with the promoter and, um, and getting on that way. Um, King Peavy is asking, should you, should he use a street team in Chicago? Um, I don't use a street team in Chicago. That's one of the cities where— I love Chicago, it's actually my favorite city. If it wasn't so damn cold, I would live there. Um, but in, in Chicago, um, I either use different people from different neighborhoods because of how volatile the city is, or I'll bring somebody in from outside to work that city and just get things in the clubs that I need them to be in and get them to the places we don't really go through the streets of Chicago like we used to, just because I don't ever want to put somebody in, um, in a bad, you know, situation. Um, and Desiree's saying, yeah, the climate has changed in Chicago. It has. Like, even the people that I had relationships with back in the day, they're all doing different shit in Chicago, you know. Um, there's some artists that I've got relationships with who are coming up now and they will recommend people to me, but for the most part, I don't hit the streets too heavily in Chicago. Ditto with Dallas. I don't do the streets in Dallas just because they're so spread out. What's another city I don't really hit the streets too hard in? Detroit. I don't hit the streets too hard in Detroit. There's just certain cities where I find it's not as effective as others. Desario says he was promoting Bone Thugs in a rap van and got bricks thrown at the van. I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to laugh, but that's funny. Bricks. Curtis Brassfield is saying that he has contacts with— connects, excuse me, with internet radio. His show Chuck's Corner is moving to FM, so anyone that wants to send music can. It's in the feed, and he's in Houston. And Desario saying he's glad it was bricks and not bullets. For real. They're actually out on tour right now. They're on the Puff Puff Pass Tour. I've noticed Steve LaBelle's feed in my Instagram. Somebody is asking me if I can listen to their music, and the answer is absolutely not. I don't listen to music. I don't have time, guys. I get too much music, so for me to listen to your music I would have to listen to everything because I don't want to play favorites. Like, I don't want to listen to your music but not listen to your music but not listen to your music. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't seem fair. So, um, I just don't listen to any of it. The truth is, me listening to your music doesn't help you and it doesn't help me. It's really just, you know, I can't help you by listening to your music, you know. Um, Cole. Hey Cole, how are you? Cole is asking me, in regards to download cards, do you think there is significant advantage to going with plastic ones over paper, um, if people perceive plastic as more valuable? Absolutely they do. Um, can you afford to do plastic? I mean, if you can, if it's in your budget, I would much rather see you do that. Um, you could even make them look like little credit cards, and that would get people's attention also. Broke motherfuckers would put them in their wallets because, you know, they'd want to look like they had a credit card, especially if you made it like a black American Express. That'd be cool. But anyway, um, yeah, but I could see where that would get really expensive. The, the reason we do the paper business cards is because we can get like 10,000 of them for $150, and the goal is to give out as many as possible. When you're handing them out, I'm figuring that maybe 1 out of 50 people are going to actually download. So for me, it's a numbers game. If 1 out of 50 people are going to listen to the music, I want to give out half a million of them. Do I just spit on my, on my computer screen? H702 is asking, what's the ratio of passing out promo material to potential fans? If I pass out 200 download cards— if I pass out 200 download cards— I know you wrote this before I said it. I promise you I didn't say it. How many of them actually check out your music and become a fan? I don't know, I've never counted that, but I promise you that it's not many. People are so inundated with music. If they know who you are and you have a buzz— like, if I gave each and every one of you a card that said, you know, here is some secret J. Cole tracks that you've never heard, or some secret Lil Wayne tracks you've never heard, or some secret Drake tracks that you've never heard, the listenership would be through the roof. But if I said to you, here are some Lil Bobo songs that you've never heard, you'd be like, thanks. But if you can build a buzz and get people interested in who you are, they will download your music. And all those little things that you do at the same time are the things that build your buzz— giving out music, performing, promo tours. Getting on blogs, every little thing that you can do, your videos, content on your social media, engaging people on your social media. And of course, you're not spamming them your music because like, that doesn't work. All it does is aggravate people. Paradigm says he sees a lot of independent radio promoters online. How can you determine the good ones from the bad ones? Regarding a college radio campaign, Paradigm Shift. Um, I'm not sure you can tell who's good and who's not online. I don't think I would trust any company that I found online. Having said that, every company needs a website, but I would get referrals from people that have hired radio promoters, and I would ask them, who do you use? And I would find out from people that have done it successfully, who they recommend, um, in order to start a campaign. For college radio, um, I used Mike Matthews in Houston. Um, I can't remember the name of his company. It might be Dominion Global. I can't remember the name of his company, but his name is Mike Matthews, and that's who I have used for, um, a college radio campaign, and I've used him for an internet radio campaign. In fact, we just finished an internet radio campaign with Trouble. Dark Brothers, it's all love in Detroit. Yeah, I haven't been to Detroit in a minute. I love Detroit. Are you on the east side or the west side of Detroit? Curtis is saying, me and Tony talk about that all the time. I'm nicer than Tony though. Tony's so funny. Like, if you ask him a question that he thinks that, um, you should be able to find on your own on Google, oh, he will so tell you, whereas I'll just answer the question, right? Thank you, Colmize. I appreciate you. Um, what is— Junior is asking me what the email address is to send beats for Trouble. It's in his, um, Twitter bio. If you go to his Twitter page, you can see exactly what the, um— you can see exactly what the email address is to send him beats. Um, but let me tell you how he records. Um, he records probably about once a week right now. It used to be like 3 times a week. Right now it's about once a week because he's doing a lot of shows. Um, and he'll go into his email and he'll start going down from whatever arrived most recently. So your best bet is to follow him on Instagram and see when he's going to the studio or when he's in the studio, and then send music. Um, because if you don't, it's just going to get pushed really far down. And he goes like from most recent to least recent. So, you know, he's only in the studio for 5 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours. If he doesn't get to your music, he won't even hear it. And I have no— I have no say over what he records. That's not my job. You're on the west side, Dark Brothers. Curtis is saying out of 10,000 CDs you may get 100, um, listens. I'll bet it's higher than that, um, for some reason. And again, I'm, I'm in the Southeast, so we have a different relationship with CDs than you do in Chicago. In Chicago, I don't think I would give out CDs. I don't think there's a market. There might be, but I don't think there's a market there for it. Um, I might bring a couple thousand with me so that I could ask people what they prefer. But in most cities, um, people prefer download. They're more like streaming people and download. They'd rather go to YouTube or SoundCloud than pop in a CD. In fact, I don't even have a CD player anymore, me personally. And again, I'm not your market, but, um, I stream everything. Even when I'm in my car, I stream. Thank you, Tori. Tori's worked at a label but is taking notes. And Curtis is making a good point. You may only get 100 listeners, but imagine those listeners become fans and are buying your stuff at $50 a pop. You know, the research says that the average— um, thank you, Maria. It's Radio Airplay Pros. That's who, um, that's who I've hired to do college radio and internet radio before. College— excuse me, Radio Airplay Pros. Maria Garza has put it in her— in the feed here. So whoever asked me about who to hire, there's your answer. I have personally hired them and they've never let me down. And Desiree is saying there is no market in Chicago. They use them as coasters, maybe small frisbees. Exactly. Um, what I do is I bring CDs with me whenever I go to a new market because I just don't know. I'll have both and I'll start asking people, you know, in, in the beginning, which do you prefer? And if everybody's telling me download, I want the download information, then I just put the CDs back in the trunk of the vehicle and give out, you know, I'll keep maybe 10 in my bag in case somebody looks at the download card like, what's this? Then I'll ask him, hey, do you want a CD? I, I like to give people the— I like to give people the, the access to the music the way they want to hear it. Um, for example, if somebody were to give me a CD, it wouldn't help because I, I would have to go and find my CD that hooks up to my Mac. I don't even know where it is. It's in a box somewhere, and I'd have to go through all these different steps to listen to it, and Like, why would I do that? I wouldn't, you know, unless it was some hidden secret music by my favorite rapper, then I might, you know, go out of my way to listen to it. But for somebody I've never heard of before, and most of the stuff that people hand out is whack— nope. Maria's saying, what techniques do you recommend to the new and developing artists that can't afford to put out thousands of CDs on the streets but need help to build their brand and get their music out there. Um, I would use download cards if I didn't have the money to put out 50,000 CDs. I would put out 50,000— I'd probably put out 150,000 download cards, and they're relatively inexpensive. This is not a cheap industry, Maria, so it's really hard for me to advise people with no money how to build a career because this is not an industry for people with no money. You've got to have money to record. You've got to have money to market. You've got to have money to promote. You've got to have money just put gas in your car to get to a show. So it's, it, it's just very hard for me to, you know, I try to be cognizant of folks that have limited budgets, but it's, it ain't easy. As I say every week on here, make a list of all the stuff that you want to do to promote yourself and then price it out. And one of two things will happen. Either you're going to cross stuff off the list that you can't afford to do, or you're going to go find an investor who can put up the money that you need to market and promote. And I know that sucks, Maria. I know that sucks. Desario saying that lighters with your brand printed on them is effective. They'll throw out a CD, but they'll use your lighter as long as it lights a blunt. That's funny. Um, absolutely, people still use lighters. I think that's a good expenditure for a promo item. Um, just make sure that you put more than your logo on there. Um, make sure that you— make sure that you have your— a place where they can go to hear your music, right? Either your website or maybe your SoundCloud. And if you guys use Bitly Um, not only will it shorten your SoundCloud, um, address, but with Bitly you can even like put your name, like it could be bit.ly/WendyDay. And it's very easy for people to remember that as they're meeting me. And then when they go and put that into their phone and they want to go to wherever I'm sending them, it's just easier for them to remember other than soundcloud.com/whatever/Wendy Day/you know whatever. You're right, Curtis, that is Tony Math. It's a shame he wasn't here because he does that so well. What Tony does is he breaks down, um, how many people are in a certain area, and then he'll explain what percentage of that total would be a potential rap fan And then he breaks down what percentage of those rap fans might like your type of music, whether it's street music or more pop or more lyrical, like Backpack type rap. Um, and then he breaks down exactly how, how many times you need to reach each of those people, because it's not like they hear your song one time and love you. They've— it's, it's repetitive, it's repeat impressions. So you want them to see you on the blogs, you want them to see you in person, you want them to see you on social media, you want them to hear about you in the burger— barber shop— burger shop, that's funny. Um, you want them to see your video, you want them to read about you on a blog, you want them to, you know, have as many different, um, impressions of you coming at the same time. And you want to try to do it all within the same time period. You don't want that spread out over 2 years because they're not going to remember who you are. Curtis, why are you gonna have to change your name? Am I pronouncing it wrong, or do I keep calling you out? You guys are kind of late tonight with the, with the, with the questions. King Peavy is asking, should, should you sell t-shirts the first go-round or hand them out? Um, I would try, I would try selling them, um, initially because I'd want, I'd want to fund my promo tour, right? So I might sell them for, you know, $7 or $8 whatever I could get. You're gonna spend about $5 to, to print it, so you definitely want to charge more than $5. Even if you just charge $5, at least you're breaking even, right? Um, but if you can't sell them, then you're going to want to give them out. But you're going to want to give them out to people that are going to really wear them. Um, most rappers seem to give shirts out to women more than men because they feel like the women will wear them more. I personally give them out to DJs and tastemakers because I just feel like if I give a DJ a t-shirt, he might be a little bit warmer to playing my record when I'm not there, my music when I'm not there. Cool. Okay guys, so I'm gonna end this here. This will appear in 20 minutes or so, it'll appear on the YouTube page, so it'll be archived if any of you were late and want to go back and check it out. Thank you for joining me, and I will see you next Wednesday night. Send in questions to thisiswendyday@gmail.com, and I will answer your questions. Anybody that I missed tonight, um, I apologize, and I will get to you next week. Okay, y'all, have a good night, have a good week. Bye!