LIVE with Wendy Day #012 | 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. 1, 2, 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. Pond 5. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you share this with your friends, and you know what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my live stream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we'll be right with you with some great information. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited 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 what, hit that little subscribe button. I'd love to have you subscribe. Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for coming to my livestream. We're gonna get started in a couple of minutes, so just chill out, kick back, and we're gonna be right with you with some great information. Pond 5. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Pond 5. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the live stream. I'm 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 guys, how are you tonight? Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Happy holidays to everybody. I hope you're well. I've got lots of questions here from, um, you guys, and I got a lot, lots of you guys already streaming questions for me. Um, let me start with the most obvious question. Um, one of you guys was kind enough to write in that you had watched the video that I posted, um, today, and you saw that there was something wrong with, um, half of my face. And yes, On Christmas Eve, oddly, the entire right side of my face just started to droop. It's not painful, it's not anything other than just weird and no explanation. I've been diagnosed with Bell's palsy. There seems to be no cure for it. It seems to last a couple of weeks. I still have feeling in my face, it just kind of droops. And when I say the F words or S words, I feel like I'm saying "fufferin' fuckatash," and it comes out really kind of funny. But I'm not in pain, I'm okay, and I'm not gonna stop doing videos, and I'm not gonna stop going live. Um, and hopefully it'll pass sooner than 2 weeks. Again, they don't know what causes it. It happens to like 1 out of 10,000 people. And I just got lucky. Why can't I win the lottery instead? I don't know about that, but I feel good and I'm happy. And, um, I hope you guys can put up with the droopiness on this side. See, when I smile, it just— it— I can't really— I, I just— I need a little help, but I'm okay. Okay, so let's answer some questions, and you guys have to be a little patient with me and, um, just privately laugh at how it sounds, because I laugh at how it sounds. Okay, Stephen Kerr is asking me about finding a manager. Um, he needs someone that's going to guide him with his career decisions, and he's wondering if going to an industry conference might be helpful in terms of finding somebody to manage him. And, um, my answer to that is that while you can find a manager anywhere, you don't want to be in a position where you're kind of begging somebody to manage you, right? You want to be in a position where the person looks forward to managing you because you've got something going on. Remember, this is a business, and managers are going to make 15 to 20% of the money that you make as an artist. So you want to have something happening in your career, some sort of buzz, some sort of reaction in the marketplace to warrant somebody to want to work with you, because 15 or 20% of nothing is nothing. And a manager, remember, is bringing their connections and their know-how, but they want to work with artists that have some hustle in them, right? They want to work with somebody that's got something going on. And if you've got a little bit of income coming in through shows or merchandise or streaming or whatever, at least they know that you've got the potential to make even more when they apply their connections and their know-how. So it's not hard to find artists out here that have something going on. There's a lot folks out here already hustling. So if you're trying to attract a manager that can really benefit your career, you're going to want somebody that is doing this for, for a living. And you want to attract somebody that's great rather than settle for somebody who maybe is not. Remember, this industry is not based on talent. I know how much that sucks, um, but the industry is not based on talent. It's based on your ability to make money. It's a business. I know that sucks. Thank you, Measy. Measy's gonna find me a cure. I love you guys. Okay, Miller, thank you so much. Um, you know, I think I do have a guardian angel, as crazy as that sounds. I actually, um, I actually live a very charmed life. I'm a relatively fortunate person. So, um, okay, KDST is saying, hi, I'm a Black transgender Jew. How can I use that trait as marketing here on YouTube? Um, I'm not sure why you would want to use that as a trait. I think you might want to stand out for who you are instead of being looked upon like you have a gimmick. Um, I think the fact that you are a Black transgender Jew makes you stand out, certainly. Um, but I don't know that I would market you as that. I wouldn't hide it, don't get me wrong. I think that's awesome that you're different than most people. Um, but I certainly wouldn't use it as a gimmick to help you get on. I think that it would just be, um, like the fact that I have graying brown hair or that I'm a fat girl. It just happens to be something that I am, and my skill is in helping to educate you guys, right? Thank you, JB Sanchez. I love you too, and I saw your question. I'm going to get to it in a second. Um, I'm just— I want to get through some of the folks that emailed me because I seem to spend more time in the chat box than I do answering emails, and you guys point it out to me every week. Okay, um, on one of my YouTube shows, I said something about artists doing shows at colleges, like a college tour. It's probably the one that Tony and I did about, um, about touring and making money with shows. What would I recommend as the first steps in trying to get on the college circuit to perform? We have tons of colleges in our area, and I think my son should use that to his advantage to build his buzz. Great idea. Um, and Merry Christmas. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas to you too. Um, there are two organizations that target college campus activities, and one is called NACA, N-A-C-A, and their website is naca.org. And the other is the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities, A-P-C-A, and I think that one's .com. If it's not .com, it's .org. I'll pull them up at the end of this and I will list them down below. When this posts so that you will have it. But I would suggest joining both of those organizations. Those organizations are for the people at the colleges that book shows and events. It's their, it's their organization. And once a year, each of them has a convention. And, um, what I would suggest is that you join the organizations, both of them, and get to perform in front of these decision makers that are all going to be in the convention together. Um, the NACA convention is in Baltimore, February 18th to the 22nd, and the APCA convention is in Orlando, um, I think it's March 9th through the 12th, which is also at the same time as Interactive South by Southwest for those of you like me that are geeks. Um, it feels like going to the dentist, like, like it's a little bit, um, numb and annoying, but we're just gonna, um, power through this. All right. Um, I would join both of those organizations. I would attend their conference, and I would perform in front of those decision makers so that they could see, um, the ability of my artist and would be interested in booking my artist. Um, if you don't want to do that, because it's not free to join these organizations, um, if you really don't want to spend the money or the time, um, I would reach out to each college in your area. I would ask who is the campus director for activities, and then I would speak to that person. And bear in mind, that person's that person's going to change every year because that position changes, um, annually. So you're only going to have the same person most likely for 2 semesters before somebody else comes in and takes that position. Okay, let me answer some questions in the chat box. Kill a few is good for you for having a job, that's awesome. Income is a beautiful thing. Um, JB Sanchez is asking me how managers get paid. Artists have many resources now they can use to get their own money. Um, managers get paid a percentage of everything the artist makes. So if your artist is making $1,000, as a manager you're going to get paid anywhere from 15 to 20% of that. So out of that $1,000, you're going to make $150 or, um, you're gonna make $150, or you're gonna make, um, $200 on that. Um, I was trying to do a Facebook Live thing here on the side, and it wasn't working for me, so I just shut it off. So forgive me. Um, and I did a, um, I answered this question, I think, last week live, and I suggested that you have the money come into an accountant and then let the accountant split the money so that if $1,000 comes into the artist, the accountant will automatically pay the manager $150 or $200. And then also, um, at the end of the year, that accountant will do the 1099 form so that, um, the manager can pay the taxes on the money the manager made, and the artist can pay the taxes on the money the artist made. And if you wanted that accountant could even do the taxes as well. Okay, I can't pronounce your first name, but it's Lucci Gotti Savage. Wow, you've got a lot going on in your name. Um, I have a business plan and great music. Will this help me with investors in today's industry? Absolutely. Okay, Nino, thank you for making it easy. Um, Nino just asked Um, with a business plan and great music, will it help with investors? Absolutely. It's basically all you need. Once you put a business plan together and you get yourself in front of people that have money to invest, um, you should be fine. You just want to pitch them. Make sure in your business plan that you lay out exactly how you're going to do what you're going to do, how the money is going to come in, and how they're going to get repaid, because that's really what they're looking for. And then Nino's also the producer, the artist, the engineer, and the CEO. And how will this benefit me long term? Um, long term, you won't have to split the money with anybody. Just make sure that you're good at all of those things. Um, like, I can build my own websites, but I'm not great at it. So if I were just to spend— if I would just spend the money to have somebody design my websites, they would look a lot better than they do. Um, so just, you know, be aware of what you're good at and what you're not, and make sure you hire people that can pick up your slack, the areas where you're not great, especially on the music side, because your music can't just be good, it's got to be great, right? You said you had great music, but it's got to be amazing to compete in today's marketplace. Okay, Holly GMG Richardson is saying, we release all of my artist music through record union, in which makes everything else proper for the song, correct? I'm not sure what you're asking. Um, and do we still need to copyright the songs? Absolutely, you need to copyright the songs no matter who is distributing you. You want to make sure that you are the person filing, um, the copyrights so that you make sure that you're keeping your ownership. Um, I'm not sure who Record Union is, so, um, I'm not sure if they do make everything else proper for the song. God, I hope I'm answering what you're asking, um, but I'm not familiar with them, so I would suggest putting that together, a list of everything that needs to be done for the song, for the registrations, um, and then ask them if they do all of those things. And then anything they don't do, you can do for them. Meezy's asking me how many more years do I think trap rap has before the general public gets tired of it. Um, you know, people have been asking me that question about street rap since the early '90s, and I keep thinking that it's only got a few more years, a few more years, a few more years, And here we are in almost 2017, and it's still selling a shit ton of music and streaming a shit ton of music. So I don't know that it's ever gonna go away. Keenan Taylor is recording a CD for commercial release, and you're asking what is an example of a traditional money Split slash artist credit split. Um, this— okay, I'm not sure what you're asking, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to answer it. If I didn't answer it correctly, would you let me know in the feed if I'm answering the wrong question? Um, but on a release on a song, you're gonna have 50% of the ownership go to the producer, and then 50% of the ownership that goes to the artist. So if the artist is you and somebody else, then the two of you are going to split the artist's portion of that song, and the producer's still going to get his 50%. Now, somebody helped him with the song, or if there's a sample in it, that's going to cut into his share, but for the most part, it's 50/50, and then you each own 100% of your own publishing. Does that make sense? So the producer owns 100% of his publishing, and that 100% is half the song, so 50% of the song. Does that make sense? Good. Okay, Nino, yes, um, You can send it to thisiswendyday@gmail.com. Kay Miller is asking how to get someone, um, experienced. I think that's what you're asking by saying my level, um, somebody experienced to manage you. Um, I kind of answered that in the very beginning where if you're trying to attract somebody that does this for a living, you gotta have some sort of um, you got to have some sort of traction because an experienced manager is going to make a percentage of the money that you're making. And if you're asking them to come in and manage you and you've got absolutely nothing going on, for most people like myself, that's a huge warning flag. Because why haven't you already done something to kind of build your fan base initially. So most managers are looking for artists that are going to do some of the heavy lifting themselves and not just depend upon them to do everything, um, for them, right? Tada! G is asking, um, how long should you spend pushing a single? And this is a hard question for me to ask sitting here in my house because it depends on the reaction on the streets and in the clubs. If, if my song is reacting, I'm gonna push it till the wheels fall off, and then I'm probably gonna make a remix for it and then push that till the wheels fall off. But the last thing I want you to do is push a song that's not reacting for 9 months to a year or, or longer, right? Um, and it's hard for me to tell you how long it— you could push it for because I don't know how it's reacting. So when you start working a single, you're gonna see whether the DJs are playing it because you're standing there next to them asking them to play it, or if they're playing it when you're not around and it's starting to really resonate. Once a song starts to resonate, you're gonna feel the buzz start to climb. You're gonna start getting offers for shows. People are gonna start jumping on your bandwagon. Your social media is gonna start to increase. And then when— while all those things are happening, you're probably gonna want to get a remix ready to go so that it's, it's there and you can pull the trigger whenever you're ready. Um, and you may also want to get a second song ready to go, like a second single, so that when the one that you're working starts to fall off and decline on the charts, you can then start working the second record so that they'll kind of pass each other on the charts, and you'll always have something kind of in the top of the charts, meaning something bubbling on the streets. You see that all the time when somebody like Drake Drops music, you'll see he's got like 3 and 4 songs on the chart at one time. That's what, that's what his label's trying to do. They're trying to keep him bubbling at all times. Frank is asking me, um, you see, I, I specifically didn't try to pronounce your last name. Um, Frank is asking me, when you're trying to build a buzz, what does most of your budget typically go towards? And for us, we spend most of the money on— actually, there's two things that we spend a lot of money on. One is product. I always want to put product in the marketplace. I'm in the Southeast, so CDs are still relevant. So we give out like 50,000, 60,000 CDs. And I have a question that's gonna ask me exactly how many. In a second. Um, but we, we hand out download cards. We still do posters and flyers and postcards. We still do street team work as well as online social media. Um, we spend money getting on playlists at Spotify and Apple Music. Um, and then the second area that we spend quite a bit of money on, um, I always put artists out on the road. I, I think the music industry is a lot like politics. Where you need to get out there and shake hands and kiss babies and take pictures with your potential fans. I think that when people see you and meet you and feel you and they are on the receiving end of your charisma, I think that it makes them more apt to check out your music and see what you've got to offer. So we spend, um, and it costs about $200 a day to go out on promo tour depending on how many people you bring with you. At the bare minimum, you're probably gonna spend— even if you go out just by yourself, between hotel and gas and food, you're looking at like $100 to $150 a day to be out there on the road. So, you know, that, that's a huge chunk of the budget. Holly's asking me, what advice would you give an up-and-coming manager who's managing an artist that's growing at a good rate? Um, the best advice I can give you is to build your network with other managers that have been very successful so that they can help connect you into the people that you need to get on tours to get endorsement deals, sponsorships, um, anything that you need in order to do your job better. If you don't already have the connections, um, you should definitely have people that you can call to help you with that. Frankie D is asking me, um, if he should go straight to a radio VP of programming or get a consultant. Frankie, the way that radio works. And there is a video on my YouTube page that explains exactly how to do this. But you want an independent radio promoter to take your music to radio, because if you go to radio with it, they won't, they won't react. They may yes you to death, but they're not gonna, they're not gonna take your money. It's— payola is illegal. So you need to have somebody that's got a relationship with them already in place in order to win at that. And by the way, in order to go to radio, you really need to have your music really hot on the streets and in the clubs, or you're just gonna waste your money. Hey Denise, how are you? Tell your son I love his video. Um, what is the best route of getting on a college-type tour? It's really relationships. So the best thing that you can do, um, and I think you missed it because I just really answered— I just answered your question that you had sent me, um, but the, the best thing you can do is reach out to whoever's putting that college tour together and see if you can't get booked on it. Again, you're going to want to have some sort of a buzz in your area. There's going to want to be some benefit to put the artist on the tour, meaning that people will want to see him or her perform. Did I answer that? Harris telling me the song Cheerleader took 2 years to blow. Um, like I said, once it was remixed, it went number 1. Um, yeah, that happens a lot. Um, Nelly's Country Grammar They serviced that in November of the year before that it caught on, and they worked it all through till the summer, and it finally caught on, um, that summer and took off, and it was a number one single for Nelly. So yeah, I mean, timing is crucial. You could, you could take a song to radio that's great and they don't embrace it because it's a new artist, because it's too crowded at radio. You know, that happens a lot in the fourth quarter. Rip Jones is asking me, what advice would I give to an upcoming artist from a very almost non-existent market to gain traction in the music business? Um, you're gonna have to work very heavy on the internet. Really, the real advice that I want to give you is to tell you to move, but I realize that's not realistic. You might have family wherever you are, and you might not be able to just pick up and move to an area that is a little bit better for your career. So you're gonna have to rely heavily on the internet, and you're gonna have to just travel a lot. You know, if you're in Iowa somewhere in a very small town, you're gonna have to travel to St. Louis and into the bigger areas, the bigger city in Nebraska and Des Moines. Like, you're gonna have to really get on the road and work this because you need fans. You need to have a fan base. In fact, somebody asked me that, so let me segue into that right now. And This is the year DC7. Um, how many download cards do you pass out in each city or town? For example, Atlanta has a population of half a million people, and that's just the city, right? Um, Atlanta is actually much bigger because you've got the suburbs, which are great for marketing and promotion as well. Um, Macon has a population of 90,000. So what number of CDs and download cards do you pass out in a big city like Atlanta and a small town like Macon? Well, it's not— there's not a set number. It's not like you pass out 50,000 CDs in the city of Atlanta. It depends on the type of music you make and how many potential fans you think you have in that area. I press 10,000 at a time. I never press more than 10,000, even though we end up giving out 50,000 or 60,000 CDs. I press them up 10 at a time, and I make sure that we hit all of the events where potential fans of the type of music that I'm working are hanging out. So if I'm working an artist that's like a Yo Gotti, I'm gonna hit the streets really hard. If I'm working an artist that's more like Kendrick Lamar, I'm gonna hit the colleges really hard. I want to go where my potential market is hangs out. And, um, it just depends on— like, with the streets in Atlanta, I'm going to give out more CDs than I am at the colleges because the streets are more populated than the colleges. In an area like, um, DC, there's more college kids than there are street folks, so I'm going to give out more product at colleges there. Um, so start with what you're financially comfortable with, whether it's 5,000 CDs or whether it's 10,000, and start giving them out. And when you get down to about 2,500 left out of the 10,000, or you get down to like 2,000 left out of your 5,000, you're gonna have to re-up, and it's gonna take you another 4 to 5 days to receive the CDs. So you have to kind of factor that into what your plans are and you just keep the stream coming. You know that you're saturating the marketplace when you go to hand somebody a CD and they say they already have it, and then you go to hand it to somebody else and they already have it, and then you hand it to somebody else and they already have it. You want to give out the, the music on CD and download card until the market is saturated. That's really the answer. So I can't sit here and tell you how many that is. Um, I can tell you that in Macon I'm probably going to give out around 5,000— 2,500 to 5,000 CDs, but not just in one trip to Macon. That's going to be over a period of, you know, going back into the marketplace a couple times, maybe 3 times. So, um, in Atlanta I could give out 5,000 CDs just in College Park, you know, just on the south side. So press, press slowly, um, and just know that you're probably going to end up giving out a hell of a lot more than you think that you will. And this is DC7 again, it's a twofer. Um, a brand new artist is getting ready to launch a single into the marketplace to build a buzz. Should he form his LLC company immediately Or should he wait until he builds a buzz first? Um, this is really more of a budget question than anything. Um, yes, I think you should form a company as soon as possible because you want to protect your personal holdings. Um, but it really depends because it, it's going to cost you anywhere from $250 to $500 to incorporate. Depending on what state you live in. And you guys can go to Corporate.com to incorporate. Um, it's the cheapest place I found. Don't spend money on all the ancillary stuff. They're going to charge you for FedEx, they're going to charge you to set up your employee identification number. You can do all of that stuff yourself. You don't need, um, all the extras that they're going to bill you for. But that's the cheapest place I have found to incorporate a company I always, for my clients, I always incorporate them right away. Um, we need a bank account. I need the corporate papers in order to get the bank account. Um, but then the folks that I work with all have budgets. So if you're working with $5,000, am I going to advise you to spend $500 to incorporate? You know, I'd rather you spend that, that money on the music and get the buzz going and get some income, and then the first thing you do is incorporate, right? Um, on the video I made with Tony about getting paid to perform, we mentioned about having your LLC with a business bank account ready for the touring company, and he wondered if it was the same, um, for your regular company. And yes, they're going to be separate, so I'm glad you asked that separately. You want to keep the touring company separate from everything. Um, if I were a rapper, I would have Wendy Day LLC, and then I would have Wendy Day Tours LLC, and I would set them both up as I got started. But I approach this a little bit differently because I know how expensive this industry is. I would go and get an investor, and then I would have in my budget the money to incorporate my publishing company my record company and my touring company. That's what I would do. But I know a lot of you guys don't have, um, really deep pockets, um, but set up the touring company as soon as you start doing shows. You got to do that because if somebody gets hurt, they're going to sue you personally. Okay, answer those. I answered those. I answered those. Blast Off Entertainment, go to helpfulangel.com. You're asking me how, how you work with me, and you're asking how do you get music on the charts. The music charts naturally by the number of spins you get and the amount of attention that you're getting on social media. If you're underground, you're probably not going to chart. If you're getting internet radio play, you're going to chart on Digital Radio Tracker, DRT. Thank you, Kay Miller. Um, it was a great plan. You know, I'm still using, um, a version of that same plan, and you can see it in Trouble today, like in what he's doing. It's just an offshoot that's been updated for, you know, the new music industry. Knight Rider Films, thank you. Um, I'll be looking out for your email. If you guys email me and you don't get a response from me within 24 hours something's wrong. It means I didn't get the email. So don't be shy, like don't be afraid to hit me and say, hey, did you get my email? Phone calls I suck with, but emails I'm really good with. Knight Rider Films, what are you asking? You're asking me to answer? Oh, you sent me a question that you— um, okay, I can't, I can't check my email because I I would have to— like, I'm going live right now, so I would have to pause this to check my email. I can't pull anything up on my screen other than, um, the camera. Like, I physically can't. It's— it, it overpowers every other program on my laptop. Keenan is asking me, how does the credit and money split, differentiate if the beat is leased compared to bought exclusively? Um, it's different with every producer, but my understanding is that it's cheaper if you lease it. The problem is if you lease it, somebody else can come and lease it too. And why are you going to spend money to market and promote something that somebody bigger and someone who has more money could come and use that same beat and blow you out of the water, you could have just wasted all the money that you spent on the beat and on marketing and promotion. Um, I don't lease beats. I only get exclusivity. If I can't get exclusivity, I don't use it. And if I have to pay more, then so be it. If it's really released as a single or within a body of work, um, the contract that you're going to put together or that your attorney is going to put together is going to stipulate how much you pay and, and what the splits are. So you get, you get paid based on the popularity of the song. So if the song is streaming or selling, you're going to get paid better than if it's just album filler within an album, right? I hope I'm, I hope I'm answering what you're asking. When a— when you buy a beat, the money that you pay is technically an advance against the royalties. So if somebody's charging you $100 for the beat, that $100 is an advance on what they're gonna make on the back end, and the producer owns 50% of the song, so they're gonna make half of the publishing money from the song. In terms of sales, like, like album sales or album downloads, in the contract it's gonna stipulate what percentage of sales they get. For an established producer, that's around 3 points, that's around 3%. For somebody who's not established, they usually don't get points. And they make mechanical royalties, which is roughly 9 cents a song. Kiara Lyon is asking me— I hope I pronounced your name right— what advice would I give to an artist who has recorded a dope song to an original beat but the producer has not made a response to inquiries in regard to purchasing the beat? Would I release the song or would I wait for a response? That's a really tough one. Um, did you pay for it already, or did you find the beat online and now you can't get them to sell it to you? It really depends on the situation. Technically, until you have an agreement with that producer, you can't release it because they own the beat and you need their rights to release the song. Um, if it's somebody that you used to work with, for example, and they gave you the beat or they sold you the beat and now you can't find them to get the paperwork signed, but you have a little bit of a relationship with them, I would be less hesitant at that point and I'd probably put the song out. But if it was somebody that I didn't know very well and I couldn't get a hold of them, um, I would probably— the real answer to that is I'd probably go to another producer and ask them to make a beat that was similar. Not copy the beat, but similar enough that I didn't lose the feeling of the song, but it was still a different beat. Okay, Harry, I said the same thing. Thank you, Native. He said happy New Year to my boo-boo gangster. Gangster's over on the sofa snoring loud as hell. I can't believe you guys can't hear it. Thank you, Holly Richardson. Um, what are the best places to track videos? What, what are the best places to track traffic on video websites? Um, I'm not sure what that means, Kevin, but Kevin's asking me about traffic, about following videos or tracking videos. Views on YouTube and Vevo are the best ways to track videos. If somebody embeds your video from YouTube, it's still gonna affect your views on your YouTube page because it's, it's, it's tied to it, right? Like, if I put a video, if I put a Drake video on my page right here, he's still gonna get paid for that video even though it's on my page. So if he gets a million views on my page, he still gets paid for that. I don't, right? So with the videos, as long as they're embedded in YouTube or Vevo, they're going to be easy to track because the company's going to do it. Um, if you shoot a video and you just put it up on somebody's page, I don't think there is a way to track that. Blastoff ENT is asking me, do I help play songs? No, I'm sorry, I don't. Coop the Trill is asking me, how was it working with Bizzy Bone? I actually liked Bizzy Bone. He's very down to earth. Other people have complained that he's got a bit of a drinking problem. I never saw that personally. I found him to be very open and, um, very warm, like easy to relate to. I like Busy Bone. I didn't work with— I didn't work with him though. Like, I didn't market and promote, um, Bone Thugs or Busy at all. Um, my relationship with Busy— with Busy was just one of a friend, really. Um, I used to listen to him Um, I used to listen to him complain really about the music industry, as most artists do when they're signed to a major label, right? Kiara saying the producer emailed the beat to an artist via email. See, even though they sent it to you, they didn't give you the right to choose it. What they're doing is they're pitching you on buying the beat, and they're trying to, um they're trying to get you to buy their beat, but the fact that you chose one and you recorded it, you still don't have the permission. I think I'd wait, um, and I would just try to get a hold of that producer any way that I could. Marcus Stax is asking me any advice for a starving Las Vegas artist. Um, Vegas is a tough market to, to break. Um, I guess my best advice would be to get some sort of an income, get a job to support yourself, because if you're starving, you're not going to be able to— you're not going to be able to win in the music industry. First of all, you're going to be desperate, and you're going to make decisions based on needing money instead of decisions based on what's best for you. Lowkey 1000 is asking me if you release music through a PRO— it's a performing rights organization like BMI— do you also have to push a single or albums through SoundExchange? Yes, you asked that kind of— you asked that kind of funny, so let me answer what I think you're asking. When you sign up with BMI, it tracks your money at radio and live performance venues. When you sign up with SoundExchange, it tracks your streams on the internet. They're two completely different, um, streams of income that each one tracks. So they don't compete with each other. They kind of work— I don't want to say together because they're separate companies, but you need them both. You need SoundExchange separately, and then you need ASCAP/BMI or SESAC for your performance royalties. Frank is asking me how effective, um, paying to be on WorldStar is to gain traction. If you're unknown, it's a waste of money. Um, if you're known, like if you're, um, like a Lil Wayne, or even the level Trouble is, or YFN Lucci is right now, um, first of all, they don't pay anymore to get on WorldStar. Um, people are gonna check for them because they know who they are. If I post an unknown artist on WorldStar, I'm just gonna get a bunch of trolls hating on the artist. It's not gonna gain any traction. Um, the artist will be happy. Every artist I've ever worked with has always said to me, Wendy Day, I want to be on WorldStar because they go to WorldStar, um, and they think that everybody else that goes to WorldStar cares about music. But unfortunately, people don't go to WorldStar to see new artists. They go to WorldStar to watch bum fights and chicks, you know, fight each other with the clothes falling off and shit. Harry, you're so welcome. Um, lowkey, um, BDS and Mediabase and Digital Radio Tracker, they track radio. Spins, BMI, and ASCAP collect money from radio stations and live venues for your music playing there. They're also separate entities. And I know it's a lot. There's a lot of different organizations that you have to sign up with. You guys might want to check— a couple days ago, maybe a week ago now, I did 10 Things You Need to Do Before You Put Music Out, and low-key, that explains exactly what you're asking me here. Tell Briggs Crawford he's welcome, Denise. Kiara has been following me since 2011 when I was college music director, and it's a blessing that I'm still so accessible. You know what, when I started in this industry, I couldn't, um, I couldn't catch up with people that I needed to, um, and I got very frustrated. So I swore as I built my career that I would always stay accessible. So, um, I've kind of stuck to that. Your Vision is asking me how everything is. I'm good. I have a little droopiness in the right side of my face from Bell's palsy, which um, afflicted me on Christmas Eve. I'm not in any pain. I just have a little trouble talking because I sound like Thufferin' Fuckatash when I talk. Um, eating soup is really funny. Um, drinking out of a straw is funny because it ends up on my shirt sometimes. My understanding is that this will last about 2 weeks. It's some sort of a viral infection that occurs in like 1 out of 10,000 people. Lucky me. Um, it's frustrating, but I'm not in pain. I'm still very coherent. I'm not having a stroke, but, um, the entire right side of my face is droopy. Watch me try to smile. See, I, I, I, I, I need some help to smile. Hehe. See, it's just, it's, it's like the nerves are drooping. It's called Bell's palsy. Lucky me. Yeah, how are those? Um, WorldStarTrolls are no joke. Marcus is saying, I'm starving. As far as hungry, you must be very thin. Um, why is Vegas hard to break? Because Vegas is a tourist town, and the bulk of people that are there at any one time are tourists, and they all go home to different areas. And when you're working a record, you want to be able to get maximum impressions on people in one place. And if you constantly have a turnover of people that you're hitting with your music, even though they're going back to their respective areas and they might spread your music, you're not able to control the spread of your music. And it's very hard to market and promote to people that have left, and you can't get a second impression or a third impression or a fourth impression. Frankie D is asking me, um, which matters more to the labels, BDS or DRT? BDS, because it's the old school. They've been around forever. Um, but remember, labels don't just care about radio play. You've got to be popping on the internet. You've got to be getting paid to do shows. They want to make sure you're getting money outside of just your home market. So it's really, um, much more when you're trying to target a label. Dave Vids de View is asking me, when a popular artist jumps on a remix of a hot song like, um, Young MA's single, does the original writer and producer get credit and paid for those plays and spins. Um, it depends on who jumps on the song and what deal you work out, because you get what you negotiate. You don't get what's fair, you get what you negotiate. Um, but very often when a famous artist jumps on a song, they're not doing it for the money, they're doing it because you've got the streets and you got a fan base that they feel they've gotten kind of far away from. And they want to gain the streets back. That's usually why they do it. The producer gets paid regardless because they own half of the song. But if you take one artist off of the original in order to put the new artist on, that new artist is going to own whatever they brought to that record. And it's important, guys, and pay attention to this, because when you do a remix, you're going to have to change how you name it.. So if your song is Ooh Wee and your remix is called Ooh Wee the Remix, they're a little bit close and they can get confused. You may want to change it to New Ooh Wee or something so that there's a differentiation besides just the word remix, right? You want it to really stand out so that you can control the payments on the two different songs. KDST is asking if there's a chance for Asians to break out on the hip-hop scene. Um, yeah, if they're hot. I, I think that, you know, when you're white or Asian, you need to work a little bit harder because it's just, it's just the nature of the music industry. But yeah, absolutely. I think that, um, I think anybody can break out as long as they're talented. I think hip-hop is the one form of music where a lot of the bullshit that occurs in other genres just doesn't happen in our genre. And I think that pretty much as long as you kick in the door, um, anybody can win in hip-hop. It might be harder, but anybody can win. I figure if I can win, anybody can win in hip-hop, right? Big Head, life happens. You're right about that. We just take it as we, as we can and we keep it moving. Made Laws asking who you can talk to to perform at colleges in Florida. Again, at colleges, it is the person who's in charge of the events that decides who comes in. Um, if there's a show off campus, it's the promoter. You're going to want to make friends with the promoters in your area, and if you're building enough of a buzz, um, understand that they're going to come to you to ask you to perform, and that's the position you want to get to. You want them to, um, come to you. Okay, I think your name is Genre. Jeanry, I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. Forgive me if I'm not. As an artist that makes their own beats, what would I think about producing to get a foot in the door and then going the Kanye route? Um, David Banner did that beautifully. Kanye did that beautifully. Um, I think it's harder to get on as a producer than as an artist though. I think you're kind of going a little bit, um, backwards. Hera, thank you. Beautiful. Okay, um, I like garlic actually. I don't like the way it makes my breath smell, but, um, I'll try that. Thank you. Made Laws asking, are there dependable booking agents for indie artists? Not until you've built a buzz. Um, once you've built a strong enough buzz, um, Ujamaa will probably be the first booking agent that reaches out to you. Um, I know NU used to book, uh, newer artists. I don't know if they still do. That's N-U-E. They're out of New York. Um, I don't know if they still do or not. We book all of our artists in-house just because it's a little confusing for us when too many people are trying to book shows. So everything that Trouble does is booked through Tony. So there is no opportunity for somebody to say, hey, I spoke to so-and-so and they offered me, you know, a price $2,000 cheaper. No, if you didn't come through Tony, it's not happening. Thank you, Hera, for answering that question to KDST Blastoff ENT. It's hard for me to answer how much money it takes it takes to— for an artist to pop off. Um, for the artists I work with, I have never been able to do it for less than $150,000, and that's usually spent over a year to a year and a half to a 2-year period. Um, but it depends on how hot the music is. Um, JuJu on the Beat certainly didn't take $150,000 to pop off. Kier is asking, what are you looking for in a music festival website? Um, I don't know. I don't look at music festival websites. Um, you mean to get booked on a festival, or are you planning on doing one? Um, I guess the best answer I could give you is to look at all the other music festival sites and compare them. And if I just answered the wrong question, would you ask me that again? But I don't really go to music festivals, so I don't go to their websites. I hope I answered everything in the stream. Did I miss anybody? Guys, let me talk a little bit about, um, this is kind of my own question that I'm gonna answer. Um, we need more unity in hip-hop. Like, you guys really need to, to all work together. You need to find people out there that can bring to you what you're not great at so that you can get better at it. Um, definitely, you— thank you. Um, thanks, Kier. Um, if you're, if you're a rapper, you need to reach out to producers and build relationships so that you can rap over different types of tracks so that you can find the sound that's best for you. Um, if you're a songwriter and you want people to demo your songs, you really need to build relationships with people that can sing and demo songs for you. Um, with the advent of the internet, I really thought that it would make it easier for people to work together, and it's almost made it harder. It's almost like segregated us so that we don't interact with each other. We just kind of exist in our own little bubble, and we don't, we don't take the chance on sharing something with somebody else because we're afraid that either they're going to steal it or some money is going to come and we can't have all the money, we got to share it. Guys, it's so much better to have 50% of something than 100% of nothing. And I'm not telling you to get taken advantage of, people, that's not what I mean. What I'm saying is that we've all got to learn to work with each other. And if you're an up-and-coming producer, you're going to want to build relationships with producers that are better than you so that you can find where to go to get better mixes, to get better, um, sounds to put in your songs, right? At some point, you're going to hit that ceiling and you're not going to be able to grow because you can only grow so much on your own. You need the input of other people, and this is especially true for rappers. You need the, um, input of, um, other artists to really challenge you to get better at your craft. You know, if you're an artist and you're going to start doing interviews, you want to be able to freestyle because everybody's going to ask you that.. And rather than say, no, I don't freestyle, no, I don't freestyle, why not really hone that skill? And what better way to do it than to freestyle with somebody who's better than you and can help you rise to their level? It's just, you know, it's, it's kind of common sense. And maybe, maybe it's common sense in business but not in art. You know, in business you hire people that are great at doing the stuff that you're weak at. Because you want to make sure that your company is the best that it can be. And I think that in art we all need to do that too, you know. Unity is important. Again, you don't want to get in bed with somebody who's going to take advantage of you, so you've got to kind of pick and choose and use your intuition and trust your intuition. But in order to get better at what you do, you're gonna have to come out of your comfort zone and start interacting with um, with other people. So, um, that was my own little— I'll put my soapbox away now. Yeah, it should subside. Um, your vision, they, they said 2 weeks. Um, I'm gonna go and get like a CAT scan, um, next week and do all that health shit that, um, that I don't want to do this week, mainly because I want to be in a new health year. Like, I want— I have better healthcare coming January 1st. I'd rather do it January 1st. And again, it hasn't— like, I'm still sharp. It's not like I'm having a stroke or anything. It's just, um, I want to go and, and I want to see better doctors when the health plan— I'm getting rid of the old health plan and taking on a new health plan. So I'd rather just do it after the first of the year, and I feel fine. Thank you, Denise. I love you for that. Harry, the funny thing about that is instead of creating, um, um, Harris said we don't create, we just compete. The funny thing is there is no competition because nobody's winning. It's like, it's like you're competing on the first step and the goal is to get to the 30th step, but you're so busy like fighting each other on the first step you can't get to the second, to the third, to the fourth. You know, and there are a million artists. Um, I, I think sometimes we have more artists than we have fans, and that's a huge problem. And there's even more, um, there's even more producers than there are rappers. Holly Richardson saying on Facebook, my artist has around 3,300 fans, um, plus 4 other active pages. They are saying how they are staying. However, they interact well but not as much as I would like. What would you suggest for more interaction? Um, the best way to interact on social media is to just get on there and engage. Um, I think everybody needs to engage as much as possible. You don't want to— you don't want to annoy people by always having your feed, you know, constantly popping, but you got to talk about stuff that's interesting, that will engage other people, and not just post shit but actually engage people, like start conversations, have conversations, you know. Blast off, ENT! Um, I love you for that, that's funny. Thank you, Denise. Yeah, theft, you know, I understand that theft stops you, um, but I also think that as human beings, you know, we have intuition. And every time that I've ever gotten screwed in the music business, I've seen it coming. It was never, ever, ever, ever out of left field. So if I had just trusted my intuition, I wouldn't have gotten jerked. So I think that we have to learn to trust our intuition and we need to come out of our comfort zone and trust the fact that we're not going to let ourselves get jerked. But on the flip side, like, I got jerked by Cash Money and it was a blessing. Like, that was the biggest thing of my career, and that was one of the things that allowed me to really rise to the next level. And I sued them and I got paid. I mean, nobody wants to go through that. Nobody wants to go through having to sue somebody to get paid, but If I had it to do all over again, guys, I wouldn't do anything differently. Like, I knew, you know, at the end of that deal, I knew I was going to have a problem with them, and I kept going because the deal mattered more to me than the money. I don't make decisions based on money. I make decisions based on opportunity. And that's why I was saying earlier, if you're a starving artist, you're going to make really bad decisions because you're going to do things based on having to pay your rent and not get evicted, or pay your mortgage and not get foreclosed upon, or, you know, something as simple as needing to, to eat a meal. You know, who wants to make a decision from a position of weakness? You want to make a decision from a position of strength. I'd rather go get a job, make a shit ton of money, and then come back into music and launch my career than struggle broke you know, jumping on every opportunity that I thought could put a sandwich in my stomach. It's a very, um, it's a very shitty way to, to exist. But guys, thanks for tuning in. We do this every Wednesday night at 7 o'clock, whether or not my face is sagging. Um, and of course I post videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 AM. Um, thanks for tuning in. Have a great New Year. If you guys go out for New Year's Eve, please be safe. It's amateur night for drunk drivers, so just be really careful out there. I love you guys. I don't want anything to happen to you. I want to see you win. I want to see you back here next Wednesday, and hopefully my face— well, probably not. It says that they say it takes 2 weeks, but hopefully I will make a speedy recovery. But I feel great, and that's really what matters. Okay guys, take care. Happy New Year.