LIVE with Wendy Day #014 | Answering Your Questions Live

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. Minutes. So just chill out, kick back, and we'll be right with you with some great information. I know you're anxious to get started and you're saying, where is she? But I'm filling up the cup with Diet Coke. I'll be with you in a minute. You're gonna get some great information today. I'm really excited about this. Hey, I'm almost there. Bear with me, it's gonna get started in a minute. Hey, thanks for tuning in though to the 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 Hi guys, how are you tonight? It's Wednesday! Yay! Okay, so I have a lot of questions to answer this week. Um, last week I had printed out a bunch of questions and then, um, like an idiot, I left them in the printer. So, um, there were like 5 questions that were sent to me that I didn't get to answer. Um, and, and guys, it would be helpful if you would send me your questions, um, not on Wednesday. Like, if you would send them to me ahead of time, I've got a folder right here where I keep them all so I won't lose them. Um, and that way they won't get, um, left in the printer. So, cuz once I'm, once I'm on here, I can't run downstairs and, um, pull them out of the printer. My office is upstairs and the printer is downstairs. Um, my office is normally downstairs. If you guys have watched my video since the beginning, you can see that this is kind of a different background. Okay, let's get to it. So Charles Wilder, Third Floor Carlos, asked me, um, I wonder if you could help me with an idea I've been tossing around. The problem I'm experiencing is trying to get my artist some shows with promoters. Yeah, it's always hard when you're a new artist to get shows. He's requested by the ones they have here in the Cleveland area, but they all want you to sell tickets to perform. Okay, if they're asking you to sell tickets, it's because they don't think that you can bring in enough of a crowd for them to actually pay you to perform. And that's something that I know a lot of new artists do. Um, I've never done that with my clients. I don't— if the, if the artist has to sell tickets, um, we don't need to do that show. Let me preface that. If, if you're a brand new artist and you don't have a lot of experience in performing, I see the, I see the point of doing that because you want to hone your show and you want to practice in a place that's safe. Where you don't want to get up in a crowd, in front of a crowd of 1,500 people and do your first live show. You want to kind of build up on that underground circuit, the open mic circuit. And, um, sometimes in order to perform, you've got to sell, you know, 10 tickets for $10 or, or whatever. But, um, I'm, I'm not a big fan of you having to sell tickets to perform. Most of the time when you do that, it's all other artists in the, um, in the audience. And what's the point of you performing to other artists? You want to perform to fans. Your goal in this is to build a fan base. Whether you want to do this independently or you want to get signed, um, to a label, you've still got to build some sort of a buzz, some sort of a fan base. So, um, Anyway, let me finish reading this question because that's probably not what he was asking me. I feel it's time for us to move past this and start doing paid shows with the understanding that we can comp some to let a promoter know what we can do. The idea I had was to become the promoter myself, book some artists, and add mine as an opener. It's a good idea. I want to start small with artists that are up-and-comers, have a low booking fee, but at least have a small buzz going to help entice people during the promotions and the marketing of the show about the same as mine. I was wondering if you know of any artists that fit this mold and how to contact them. Um, most artists have their booking information in their bio on Twitter or Instagram. Um, they almost always have an email address, so you can always reach out to them directly and ask what they would charge to do a show. I think that's a great idea to promote your own shows. Because if you pick the right artist to promote, um, not only will your artist get to perform with that person, but you'll make money, and then you can put that money back into your project. So I love that idea. I support that wholeheartedly. Um, with my clients that have a little bit more hustle, I always suggest that they do like a weekly night, like, you know, Tuesdays or Thursdays, you know, pick a slower night when you don't have a lot of competition. Like, don't do Friday night or Saturday night, but pick a night where you won't have a whole lot of competition and do a show, you know. Do your own weekly event for up-and-coming artists. Don't make them sell tickets, um, but do an event for other up-and-coming artists. Bring people in from out of town that have like a nice buzz, not too big. I don't want to see you spend $75,000 to get, you know, Thug to come through, but you could certainly keep it in the $5,000 to $10,000 range to book artists. Um, and if you don't have the $5,000 or $10,000, maybe 5 of you could come together and each put in $1,000 or $2,000 and then promote it properly and split the money. Um, in fact, I think it's a great way to do it by, um, putting a whole bunch of people together to promote a show. I just think that's— I think it's a wonderful, um, idea. Um, and I want to, I want to take this opportunity to thank Stan Smith. He is my first, um, Patreon patron. Yay! Thank you so much, I really appreciate you. So this, um, entire episode, this Wendy Day Live, is dedicated to you. Thank you, Stan Smith, you're awesome. Um, Chris Coles, I missed your, um, I missed your question last week. It was in the printer, so I'm answering you right now.. And, um, I don't know if you're here or not, but maybe you could, um, view this later. I'll send you an email to let you know. Um, Chris Coles has a question about publishing. Um, he says, I'm currently in the process of joining a PRO, which is, um, performing rights organization. That's like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. Um, I chose to go with ASCAP. There you have it. Um, but it has two forms for signing up, one as a songwriter and another as a publisher. I'm a hip-hop artist, so I know I have to sign up as a songwriter, but should I also sign up as a publisher as well? Absolutely you should. Um, how do you feel about an independent label or major getting a piece of the artist publishing? Okay, let me answer— that's two different questions, so let me answer them separately. Yes, you're going to sign up as a publisher and as a songwriter. Um, the publishing has two parts. I think I talked about this last week on The Live, um, the publishing has two parts. It has the writer's share, which is, um, the actual you writing the words to the, to the, um, or the music to the song. And then it has the publisher's share, which is the ownership of the words and the music to that song. So you actually own both. When you do a publishing deal, um, you sell, and you don't give away your publishing. You sell your publishing. You never give it away. It's not— it's like real estate. If you own land, you're not going to give away the land for free. You get to rent it or you can sell it, but you don't give it away for free. If you do a deal with a major publisher or an independent label or a major label, when they do that co-pub deal, you're going to split the ownership in the publishing portion of what you own, and you'll do like a 50/50 split on that, just so you know. Okay, I hope I said that right. Okay, um, Greg Matthew asked me, what does solid foundation mean? Um, he watched my, um, buying success video, and I said that you have to build a solid foundation. You can't buy the foundation. And he asked me exactly what I meant by that because it wasn't clear. So, um, a solid foundation is a fan base. Whenever I'm talking about building a foundation, I'm talking about building your fan base. And, um, it's not something that you can necessarily buy. You shouldn't buy views or likes. And I think that was in the context where I actually said that phrase, but I'm going to go into more detail in a second. Um, in terms of building a solid foundation If you buy fake views or bots or fake followers or fake friends or likes or whatever, um, it might make your ego feel really good when you've got 100,000 people on Instagram, but unfortunately, when you start talking about what you're doing and the shows that you've got coming up and buying your merchandise and you try to interact with those people, because they're not real they're not fans. And basically, it's like having 100,000 people out there that don't care about you, or they're not paying any attention to you, and it makes all the work that you're going to do on social media obsolete. So don't buy views and likes and followers because it's really not about your ego, it's about building a fan base. And that's what a solid foundation means, um, The, the foundation of your career is also the basics. It's, um, choosing your name carefully. Like, run a search to make sure that the name is unique and wasn't used in the '80s or the '90s, you know. Um, and just spelling something differently doesn't work. Like, you can't be Jay-Z and spell it J-Z-E-E. You can't do that. There's already a Jay-Z. Um, it just kind of makes you look stupid to do that. So when you're deciding on what your name is, or if you've already got a name, like you want to use the nickname that you've had, you know, ever since you were coming up, just check the name to make sure that you can use it. You know, Google the name, um, check iTunes to see if somebody else is using the name, check the, um, the Trademark Office. They've got like a free search that you can, um, that you can utilize. Um, to see if somebody else has trademarked that name already. Because if you start using it, they will sue the pants off of you. Um, go to Genius.com and do a search, see if there's lyrics out there by an artist that has your name. Go to a domain registrar like GoDaddy, um, or Google Domains and see if the name— the Google, um, the domain name, excuse me, not the Google name— the domain name is available. Um, search the name on social media platforms to see if somebody else is using it, because in a perfect world you want your website and all of your social media to have the same name. Like, um, on Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat, I'm @rapcoalition, and my website is rapcoalition.org. Well, I have a bunch of websites, but one of them is rapcoalition.org. And I just wanted to make sure that in building my brand that I reconfirmed that name everywhere that I, that I was posting. Like, I'm not @wendyday on Instagram. I'm not @wendyday on, um, on Twitter because for me it's all about building the brand of Rap Coalition and helping artists. Like, everything that I do on Instagram and Twitter is kind of like what I do here. I'm teaching, you know, I'm letting people know. Um, I was really, I was really salty when I couldn't name my YouTube channel @rapcoalition, um, because I already owned it. I already took it like 10 years ago when YouTube first came out, but I couldn't remember in what name I signed up. And when I went through Google to try to get the name back, they weren't helpful. I had to at least remember the email account that I used to sign up, and I've had so many email accounts, you know, over, over my lifetime that I couldn't do it. So I wasn't able to name my YouTube channel Rap Polish, and I was really pissed off because, you know, I've spent 25 years building this brand. So, um, another foundation is um, building a social media following by engaging people so that they follow you and become fans. Build fans out in the real world by promoting yourself in your local area. Increase awareness of your brand and your name by performing everywhere that you can for free. You know, perform at neighborhood events, showcases, you know, any open mics where you don't have to sell tickets, um, clubs, etc. Make sure you tighten up the quality of your music. Make sure that it's professionally mixed and mastered. These are the things that you do when you're building your foundation. I wrote an article about the 10 things that you need to do before you put out your music, even if you're putting out your music for free. So it's important to, to read that and follow that. It's talking about copyrights and signing up for a PRO and SoundExchange, you know, make sure you're monetized, that you're getting your money. And then get to know and interact with the DJs, the music industry, and the tastemakers in your area, you know, reach out to them, get to know them, build relationships with them. You need relationships in this industry. It's the relationships that are going to get you through, um, to the next level. Okay, I just answered that one. Yay! Okie dokie. Oscar, Oscar, um, from New Money Entertainment asked me, um, Wendy, I just watched your video about being a manager. I'm an up-and-coming manager from Delaware. Like you said in the video, it's hard to reach out to industry people. Yes, it is. Um, he said, my question is, how to get— how do I get to work under someone if I can't even reach out to them? And, um, yes, it is a challenge. If it were easy though, um, everyone would be, would be doing it. So, you know, when I started, when I started in the industry and was building my brand back when nobody knew who I was and I couldn't get them to return my calls, um, I used to stalk them. I would either find them at industry conventions and, you know, they'd be speaking on a panel and I would step up to them after they were finished speaking and, and, you know, at least let them see my face and pitch to them what I was doing and, you know, build a relationship that way and then follow up by phone. And, you know, not everybody was open to that. Like, after, after I came back to— I lived in New York at the time— after I came back to New York and I had a stack of business cards, you know, I'd wait about 2 weeks and then I'd go through and I'd call everybody, and maybe only a third of the people would take my call, but it was a third more then took my call before I went to the industry conference and got to, you know, and got to know them. And as I met them, I got to know their friends, so I was able to increase my circle of industry people. And I know that if you're, if you're trying to work underneath of an established manager, somebody who's a very well-known and well-respected manager, you're gonna have to do something to stand out. You know, first of all, get to know them on, um, on social media. You can get to know a lot about somebody by just going through their timeline and their feed on Facebook. Find out what's important to them. Ditto, um, Instagram. Ditto Snapchat. Ditto Twitter. Like, you can really learn about somebody and learn what's important to them and find common ground, you know. And, and if there's something that they, they have as a hobby that you have as a hobby, then it gives you a point of similarity to reach out to them and talk about whatever that, that hobby is, right? For example, Hurricane Dave, who is the program director at one of the stations here in Atlanta, you know, he's really into flying drones. And if you're also into flying drones, you know, you can find out exactly where he's going to be on weekends flying and you can go fly your drone. Not that you should like invade his space, because that would be stupid, but there's no reason to be flying— why you can't fly drones with him. And then after you get to know him a little bit, you know, let him know that you're an artist. You know, don't push up on him, don't make him uncomfortable, don't stalk him for God's sake. But you know, there's no reason why you can't share something in common with somebody and build a relationship, um, from that. Also, you can stand out by just doing stuff out of the norm, like stand out from everybody else. I remember my very first intern, um, her name is Joey, and Joey was super cool. This is back in the early '90s. Joey was super cool, um, but I didn't have interns and I didn't want interns, and, um Joey sent me a shoe. She FedEx'd me a shoe, a box with one shoe in it, brand new shoe, like a Payless Shoe Store shoe, like an $8 shoe. And when I opened the box and I'm like, what is this one shoe in this box? Like, it wasn't even a shoe box, it was like a box the size of one shoe. And then I saw there was a little note in, and I pulled the note out, and in really nice calligraphy, really nice handwriting, it said now that I've got my foot in the door, can we, can we sit down for lunch? Can I buy you coffee? And I'm like, oh shit, I thought that was so clever. And she stood out, so I made time for her. And she ended up— she, she worked with me, I can't even remember how long, like maybe 6 months, 9 months. Um, but I paid her. She wasn't even like— she was trying to work for me for free, but she was somebody that had value to me, and I felt that I wanted her as part of my organization. She ended up, um, going on and starting a limousine company in New York for the, you know, that took artists around, um, that were signed to the major record labels and made like a gazillion dollars doing it. Good for her. But she really stood out, and that's how she got my attention. So do, you know, do creative different things to stand out if you're trying to, you know, if you're trying to catch somebody's attention. Let me come over here and, um, wow, I missed a lot of stuff. Wow, was I talking this long? Goddamn, I will just ramble, won't I? Hey, BMO, thank you, Frank. How are you? Um, Louis, um, Tony's actually in the studio with trouble right now, so, um, he's not cooking. That steak last week, guys, oh my God, it was good. I was hungry too, I hadn't eaten all day. Tone Ross is saying college radio is, is the way to go. Um, not for me, it's not. I, I haven't had a lot of good luck with college radio. Um, college radio seems to be better for, um, lyrical artists than street rappers. Um, but I have to admit to you, I haven't had a lot of— I haven't had a lot of luck with, um, college radio. With the more lyrical guys that I work with, I still, I still go to college radio and I still do it. But the problem with college radio is I can't tell how many people are listening. So if somebody's doing an interview, you know, are there 10 people listening or are there 100,000 people listening? You know, you just, you don't know. There are some, um, there are some cities where college radio does really matter. Tallahassee has a really great college radio station. So there are certain cities that when I go to, I make sure that we hit college radio. But for the most part, I don't spend a lot of money promoting to college radio because I just, I haven't seen the money come back in from that. Thank you, Louis, about Gangsta having his treat. He's snoring if you listen really careful. You will hear him snoring. You can hear him in the background of a lot of my videos because wherever I am, he's like right there with me. Fat Boy Bands, King Vega. So Manager Ank, is it hard to find, um, when I'm live streaming? I didn't realize it was hard. Um, you might want to subscribe because I think when you subscribe and you accept notifications It sends you, um, a blast on your phone and you can just press the button and it brings you right here. Genre, am I saying your name correctly? I had trouble with it last week too. Killer Fuse, welcome back! Hi, Hera! Ah, thank you, Stan. This is your episode, you know that, right? Harry's diet liquor, that's funny. Um, actually today I have diet root beer from Zaxby's. No, this is not a commercial. I haven't had root beer in so long and I didn't know they had diet root beer, so I was really excited. So independent or signed hip-hop artist, um, this is Ryan Fink asking me, um, what are good platforms to advertise your music and how much should you charge when doing shows? Um, you've asked me two questions that I really can't answer because it depends on your— the type of music you make and what your budget is. Um, when I start working any artist, whether they're signed or independent— and I don't work with artists that are signed to major labels because the major labels have that, like, that's their job. Um, But we work the streets and we work online. I look at the internet like it's another market. I promote very heavily on the internet. We do Facebook ads, we do Google ads, we engage people on social media, we upload videos, we hit the blogs, we use SoundCloud, we use Audio Mac. When I put out a mixtape, we do DatPiff live mixtapes Spinnrilla, mymixtapes.com. So we do the full gamut, but how heavy you do one over another depends on the type of music that you make. And how much do you charge when doing shows? I've got two videos that Tony and I did together that we posted that talk about just that, about making money with shows. But basically you charge whatever you can get. If you don't have a buzz, you're not going to get paid to do a show because the promoter wants to bring in artists that will make people come to the show and pay money for tickets, right? So unless you've got a decent buzz, it's going to be really hard to get paid for a show. Um, when Trouble started getting shows, um, we had Ready at radio. We knew that we had a single coming with Young Thug on his album on Thug's album. We knew it was going to drop in January. Um, we were radio for August, September, and October of last year, and his show price started at $2,500 when he started getting paid for shows. Then it went up to $5,000 pretty quickly. And then once the Thug song dropped, um, which was Thief in the Night, um, it went up. I think it went up to $7,500, and then it went up to $10,000 pretty quickly right after that. Um, he was on Key to the Streets with, um, Lucci on Lucci's album, which, um, helped a lot. Diamond Gotti, how are you? King Vegas asking where a good place to get customized memory sticks is. Um, the price of memory sticks seems to change daily. Um, what I would do is I would suggest Googling promotional MP3 drives and then just getting prices. I would get prices from like 20 different places before I picked one. That's how volatile the prices are right now, and it's just because the, the dollar is fluctuating— the yen is fluctuating so viciously. Okay, you guys are talking to each other more than you're asking questions, so let me, um, let me come here and handle some more of these. Okay, Extra Large Fury asked me, in the event an artist is not able to break even with their investor What usually happens with the investment? Does the artist end up owing the investor? And no, um, the artist does not end up owing the investor. Investments by nature are high risk, so if your investor invests in you and your project doesn't go the way, um, he thought it should go then he takes the loss. And it depends on your contract, because if you sign to somebody for 7 years, then technically they have 7 years to put out your music and try to make the money back. But if you've got a clause in your contract— and you guys are all really smart because you come here every week, so you know that you're gonna have a clause in your contract that says that if you don't reach a certain level of success success within a certain time frame, like a year or 2 years, then you get to walk away. Um, but no, you don't— if they invest in you and then you don't make money and they want to walk away, um, no, that you don't have to pay it back. And that's the same with a major label. If they invest in you and, um, you don't do well, they're going to drop you, they're going to release you, and you don't have to pay back what they spent, but they're going to keep the rights more than likely to everything that you recorded when you were with them, which means if you go somewhere else and blow up, they're going to make money because they're going to put your old album back out. You could always buy it. Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z bought it from Freeze Records and, you know, had it at Def Jam, so you can always buy it. You can always buy it back, but why, why not walk away with it? Why not negotiate it out when you're out of the deal? Okay, I want to save this question because that's a long answer. Okay, Wally is asking me— oh, Dark Brothers Entertainment— when you buy a beat from a producer that's exclusive, do you still have to have a split sheet? Yes, with the producers to get the permission or the licensing? Yes, you do. You should always have an agreement, whether it's, um, an exclusive beat or whether it's a license. You should absolutely have a piece of paper that allows you to work that beat. And you guys all know how I feel about, um, leased beats. I don't like them. When you hire somebody to direct your music video if they've got their own channel and they have more subscribers than you? How does it work if they're getting money because of a larger audience than you? The money comes to you. When you put your video up on YouTube, it monetizes to you, which means you own the rights to that video. And they've got Content ID at YouTube, so it tracks wherever your video is being played and the money comes back to you. So if not all of the money, but a bulk of the money. So if I'm posting your video on my channel, um, which I don't do, so don't ask me, but if I'm posting your video on my channel, you're still getting paid. If, um, if it's being— if it's on the filmmaker's page, you're still getting paid. The value of that, the value of letting people post your video, is that they may have more or different followers. Like, the same people are already in your fan base, and they're the ones that are going to go to your YouTube channel regularly. But if you put it on, like, my YouTube channel, I have different followers than you do, and they might watch your video and become a fan, and they might go over to your page and subscribe and watch your videos and discover other music that you have and really like you a lot. So, um, it's not bad for somebody to post your video on their page. It brings in extra eyeballs, and you're gonna get paid for it regardless. At least we hope you are. So make sure that, you know, when you put your video up, that you, um, that you monetize it. Okay, I think this is Chris King. You didn't sign this, so I'm not sure. I, I I figure your name is Chris. I, I don't know what your last name is because there's a whole bunch of letters going on here. Um, but you asking me, should an artist keep their personal and music social page separate? I'm guessing you're talking about Facebook. And absolutely, um, you don't need a personal page. You should only have the fan page. Personal pages max out at 5,000, and you need way more than 5,000 people checking out your, um, your page. So I suggest that you don't have a personal page and that you only have a fan page, because you can still interact with family and friends on your Facebook page, whether it's a fan page or a personal page. You can still interact, right? The whole point is to engage. Okay, Dark Brothers Entertainment. You asked me about song charts and what it exactly means, and do they have a monetary value, or is it just meaningless, something that the industry came up with as a hype machine? Yeah, going to number one is sure, it's certainly some hype, right? The Migos are feeling that hype right now. Um, all a chart is, and I'm not a big fan of Billboard, I've never been a big fan of Billboard, especially now. I just, I don't see the point of Billboard. But what a chart does is it tells you who's getting the most spins at the radio stations that Nielsen tracks, that BDS tracks, and they put them in order. So if you're getting 4 spins and I'm getting 3 spins and um, this little monkey here is getting 2 spins, then you're number 1 on the chart, I'm number 2, and the little monkey guy is number 3. So it's a ranking system that was developed to, um, to sort of give labels a way to track the work that their radio guys are doing. If you're number 1, obviously, or if you're even in the top 5 or the top 10, It gives you bragging rights. Um, does it mean more money? In a way, yes, because you're going to get paid by ASCAP and BMI, and then maybe you're going to get extra eyeballs because there are people out there that want to know what the top 10 songs are of every week. I don't know who those people are, but there are people that want to know who the, you know, who are the top songs. Um, rather than focus on ranking though, I focus on audience. So when I go for radio with an artist, I'm only going in a regional area. I don't go for radio in the whole country. I just do a region at a time, and I focus on how many people are listening at the time that that record was spun, because my goal is to get as many ears to hear the record. And I want repetition. I want them to hear the record over and over and over and over.. So that matters more to me than where it falls on the charts. Also, when you're, when you're buying radio, um, in a region, the highest you can get on the chart is like, you know, number 40 to number 80, somewhere in there. So if your goal is to be number 10, you can't just buy regional radio. You're going to have to buy national radio, which means your, your budget's going to have to be super healthy. Um, for a song like, um, when Lucci went to number one, um, back around Thanksgiving, they spent over $200,000 at radio to get that, to get that reaction, you know. I'm sure they made more than that in streaming and publishing and sales and touring and merchandise and all that stuff that having a number one record led to. And I think it took them about 9 months. Um, let's see, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November. It took him 7, a good 7 to 8 months to get to number 1. Um, but, but to think it's a game, it was worth it. You know, he wanted the bragging rights of being able to say that, you know, he, he got to number 1 with Rich Homie Quan the year before, and he wanted to be able to say, you know, hey, I'm an independent label. And like, he's truly independent, he's distributed through Empire. So he got to say, you know, I'm an independent label and my artist, you know, two of my artists, two different artists got to be number one, which is amazing for an independent label. You know, before Rich Homie Quan got the number one slot, an independent artist hadn't done that since 2002. So that was kind of impressive. You know, it broke a 13-year streak of the majors only having an artist at number 1. So it was kind of cool. Okay, I'm gonna answer this one, but I'm gonna answer that one with that one because it's kind of the same question. That's kind of the same question. You guys are all asking me about building a buzz. Okay, I think I answered this one last week, but just in case I didn't, this is Dark Brothers Entertainment again. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but you Um, asked me about the percentage and the breakdown for management when it's an artist overseas. Do the same rules apply internationally? And yes, as a manager, you're going to get a percentage of whatever that artist owns, whether it's domestically or internationally. So if you're, um, if you're managing, um, Young Thug, for example— I'm just bringing him up as an example because I mentioned him before Um, if you're managing Young Thug, you're going to get 15 or 20%, whatever your agreement is, of everything that he does. And that includes if he's on a world tour and he's performing in Japan, you get 20% of that or 15% of that, again, whatever your agreement is. So, um, if you're an American artist and you're managing, um, an artist overseas, yes, you're gonna get whatever you agree upon, a percentage 15%, 20%, whatever the agreement is. Um, Afropop seems to be getting bigger over here, so if you manage a Nigerian rapper, then you're gonna get— again, whatever your agreement is, whether it's 15% or 20%— you're gonna get that percentage of everything he does worldwide, whether you bring him to the US, whether he stays in Africa, like wherever he is. And whatever he's doing, you get a percentage of that income. There's a joke out there that says, um, that managers get 20% of everything, even if the, um, rapper has to take a job at McDonald's. It's not funny, is it? I don't think it's funny either. Okay, let me come back here. Frank is saying he has a hit on his hands. What's the best way to get spins in the Atlanta club scene. Build relationships with the DJs. Go right to the DJs and see if they'll spin your record. Some people say social media marketing, not to get, um, not to get in the clubs. Social media marketing isn't going to help you. Social media marketing is going to help you build your fan base, um, at social media, right? Yes, there are DJ groups. Yes, they charge money. Um, you can go to the Coalition DJs and pay them to spin your records in the strip clubs, um, if you're going to pay the DJ crews, just make sure you have a record that is going to react, because it's a great way to lose money if you don't have a great record. I, I see that you said that you have a hit record on your hands, um, just know that everybody thinks that. I've thought that about records and been wrong. I've been right, but I've been wrong too. King Peavy, I'm good, thank you for asking. DeCarlo's asking, how long should you focus on an area? Um, that's a— that's another really hard question to answer because if your record isn't catching on, is it not catching on because it's a bad record, or is it not catching on because it's just too crowded in the marketplace? Or is it not catching on because you've only been working it for 6 weeks? Um, you just heard me use Lucci as an example where they took Key to the Streets to the, to radio. It took 7 or 8 months to get it to number 1 at radio, but they worked that record on the streets for 6 months prior. Okay, maybe not 6 months, maybe it was closer to 4 or 5, but they worked it on the streets, um, first and in the clubs. So you should focus on the area until either your song grows legs and starts to react, or until you've worked— you've done everything you possibly can with that record and it's not taking off. Hopefully you've built relationships with the DJs so that when you bring it to them, they don't just tell you, hey, it's hot, it's hot, um, and it's not. Hopefully they'll be honest. You know, I love when DJs tell me that a record isn't good because they're saving me money and they're on the front lines. They're the ones that know what's reacting on the streets and in the clubs. So for me, they've got a better ear. And I don't just ask one DJ, I'll ask 30 DJs about a record. You know, I test every record that I work because too many times I've thought that I've had a hot record and it wasn't. You know, Stan is asking me, um, what are some good street teams I'd recommend in the Northeast? You're gonna have to build your own street team in the Northeast. Um, there is— I don't work— first of all, I don't work enough records in the Northeast to be able to recommend somebody in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Connecticut. Um, and secondly, when I was working with Joyner Lucas in Massachusetts, um, we had to do it all ourselves. We built our own street teams. There wasn't really somebody that we could go and hire that was, um, really well connected. Um, there was a DJ that he worked with, um, I think his name is E-Dub, that was really, really, really helpful out of Boston. And, um, he hooked him— he hooked Joyner up with a lot of people that were very helpful. But for the most part, um We had to, we had to bring our own street teams into the marketplace. There aren't a lot of great street teams out there anymore, you know. So many people have, have gone to the internet, which is great. I mean, you need the internet, absolutely, you know. I'm not, I'm not shitting on the internet. It is extremely important. But, um, I don't break artists just on the internet. I, I break them on the streets too. It's just, it's faster for me to build. It costs money, but it's faster for me to build a career when I do both. Killafuse is saying he's dropping Killa off of his name. He thinks people look at the Killa in a negative light when he raps about more positive things. Um, I used to manage C-Murder, so I completely understand. Um, he would have gone so much further in his career if he didn't have murder attached to his name. There were so many times where I had deals on the table for him with sponsors and they backed off because the murder scared them, you know. And then, you know, you've sometimes got to become what your name is in order to have credibility in the music industry. Not saying that C's fake because there's nothing fake about C-Murder. Okay, answered that one. Ronnie Lee's asking, when pushing a single, do you just have one song on the CD that you hand out and download cards? Um, no, I usually, I usually put 5 or 6 songs when I hand something out because not only do I want somebody to have the single, and the version of the single is you put the clean version first, you put the dirty version second. And you do that because if you're giving it to DJs and they happen to be at a radio station and they want to play it, it— you want them— you want to make it easy for them. They want to play the first song, which is always the clean version. And then after the clean and the dirty version of the single, then I put like 4 or 5 other songs on there so that when I give somebody the single, they have, they have, um, other music to judge you by. And they can see, you know, what you're about. And very often I give DJs MP3 sticks. Ditto download cards. I don't give DJs download cards. And usually with the download cards, I focus on the single on the front, and then on the back I link to whatever project is in the marketplace, whether it's a mixtape or an album or whatever. King Peavy is asking if he should use his credit as a way to fund his career, and have I ever done it to fund a business venture. I have not. I have never worked on a project where somebody used their personal credit. Um, I'm really nervous to tell you to do that. You know, what if something goes wrong? You know, you could really— you've got to pay that back, so I, I would rather see you give up a piece of your company and use somebody else's money just in case something goes horribly wrong. And, um, it's hard for me to say that, you know, you know, it's not hard for me to say that when I think about it, because even if Drake had come to me before he blew up and said, Wendy, should I fund my company with my personal credit? I would say no, I do not think you should fund your company with personal credit. So there you have it, there's the answer. Thank you, Grand Prix, that's a good answer. Grand Prix is saying that, um, he's found that you're able to introduce yourself to a lot of guys by following them on Instagram and then taking advantage of Instagram Live, and the moment they go live, you can stop what you're doing and connect. Nice tip, Grand Prix, my man. I've known you a long time. He was a rapper and he was everywhere in Jacksonville. He was hanging up posters. Was it a roller skating rink? But you were everywhere, like your hustle is undeniable. John Ferg is saying he has a lot of songs that he produced that he wrote the hooks, but he's got a raspy voice and these songs are hot. Do I, do I not know anyone to do the reference tracks for him? Should he do them himself? Um, I think it's a great idea to get somebody to do the reference tracks for you, especially if you are, um, especially if you're writing songs for women. I don't, I don't know that you want to to do the reference track yourself. You might want to have a female sing it. I mean, guys that, that buy music and songs, like, they get it. They can hear anything. They could hear like a dog barking the lyrics and get it. So it doesn't have to be overly tight, but I just feel that if, if you make it as easy as possible for them to latch on to something instead of having to like listen with ears that are fixing songs and connecting the dots. I just think the easier you make it for somebody, the better chance you have of success. Louis is saying, um, Wendy gives great info, but the best thing I think Wendy will tell anyone is to learn it yourself. Oh my God, yes, yes! Yes, take what I'm saying but build on it. Go listen to— because this is my opinion, right? So go listen to other people. That doesn't mean— like, if we say opposite things, that doesn't mean that somebody's wrong. It just means that I'm giving you information from my 25 years, so I can only tell you what I know and what I've done. You know, there's guys out there that have built careers and blown up on the internet, and that's not what I do. And I just, you know, my point of view is that I want folks to have a lasting career in the music business, and I just haven't seen anybody blow up solely on the internet that's got a, a great, really deep career. You know, I'm looking at Hobson, and I'm looking at you know, guys like him that have really blown up, and I'm watching them, but I want my artists to be bigger than that. I want more success than what they have. And what he's done is amazing, you know, that's not a diss to him at all. And, and I'm just pulling him out of the, you know, out of the sky randomly, but I just feel that I want to talk about what I know. I'm not going to talk about stuff that I don't know. So definitely get a whole bunch of information, read as much as you can, you know, talk to as many people as you can, build relationships with people and ask them great questions. Thank you, Louie, for, um, for saying that. Yes, Dan, um, we, we, um We do use Facebook and Google Ads. Um, Twitter ads are a little costly, so we don't use them. I use Instagram ads for, um, you guys know that I've got, um, lists, contact lists that I sell for like labels and for, um, music placement and blogs. And I use Instagram ads for those because they work pretty well, which are like Facebook ads but pictures. Desario is saying, um, that you were contacted by iHeartRadio and they wanted to do a tour with a legendary artist, but getting in contact with that artist was an exercise in futility. Absolutely, I feel your pain. DJ Bilal says that I'm gonna have everybody sending shoes to people. That's funny. Hi, Kelly. You know, it's funny because very few people will really go hard to get what they want. And that's so funny to me, you know. Um, when I first started in this industry, um, when I first started, I had a chunk of money to start, but that money went away pretty quickly. Like, within a year and a half to 2 years, um, I was poor again. And I would do whatever I had to do to attend conferences and conventions, you know. I did not miss one. I went to all of them. And this is like back before I could speak on the panels. Once I got to a point of prominence where I could speak, I could get in for free, and sometimes they'd even fly me in and put me up in a hotel, right? But before that, you know, I couldn't afford like $5.99 to go to Jack the Rapper or, you know, How Can I Be Down. So I volunteered and I made sure that I was able to see the panels that mattered to me. But I would, you know, I would go and make copies of papers that the panelists would want to give out at a conference. There were even times where I would go to Kinko's and one of my friends would have a badge and I would go to Kinko's and I would make a color copy of their badge and put it in the little holder, and I'd walk around with a bootleg copy of their, um, of their pass because I couldn't afford to buy my own pass. And I just feel like some of you guys, like, you're not going to go to that extreme. You're not going to take Greyhound to a conference, to like South by Southwest, so that you can meet people. You're not gonna like even go out of your house and go across town to go to an open mic so that you can meet up-and-coming artists and interact with them. If you're a producer, you've gotta, you've gotta like go hard if you want to win. You've got to outwork everybody in this industry. And you know, I was willing to do, I was willing to do what it takes. I still am, you know. I still go out on promo tour with my artists. I go out with them for the first 2 weeks to set the tone, and I'm always the first person out of the van, you know, handing out flyers, posting posters, handing out music. You know, if you want this, you've got to go hard and you've got to stand out. Just my opinion. Ozzy saying— is it Ozzy or Ozzy? Ozzy is saying, um, you're trying to do voiceovers for cartoons and video games. But every company you call say they don't take unsolicited air checks. Um, you build relationships, and this is a little bit out of my expertise because I've never tried to do this, um, but like everything in this industry, you've got to build a relationship, find out who the person is, who the decision maker is within that, um, animation company that does the cartoons, or within the video game company. Um, find out who the person in power is and then get to know who they are. You know, pull up their LinkedIn page, pull up their Facebook page, pull up their Instagram page, um, get to know them. Find something that you have in common, reach out to them, build a relationship. And don't just hit somebody once and when they don't answer, go, oh well. You know, this comes back to what I was just saying about going hard. Thank you, Kelly Jacobs. Yes, Louis, branding, branding, branding, branding. Yes, yes, you're a product. Your music is a product. You're building a brand. Diamond Gutty's asking me, what if you're coming from a small town? Okay, so I'm assuming you're not willing to move someplace where it'll be easier. So you want to stay in a small town and blow up. Um, in a way, it's a lot easier to blow up in a small town because you're going to be a big fish in a small pond, right? And you don't want to blow up just in one town. You want to work all the towns around your town, and then once you've blitzed them, you want to work all the towns around those towns, and you want to keep going further out and further out, kind of like when you throw a pebble in the water and it, and it moves out, that's what you want to do. You can't just blow up in your town and succeed. You can't just blow up in Atlanta alone and succeed. You won't make enough money to be able to pay back what you're spending to promote. You're going to spend more money to promote than you will ever make in just one town. But yes, you should, you should build your empire there first and then take over and then spread out. You nailed it, absolutely. I love that you guys are all talking to each other. This is awesome. You heard me last week when I talked about unity. I'm touched. Bubble on deck! Oh, Stan, great question. How many people do I usually bring on promo tour to help promote with the artist? Okay, remember, if you bring a lot of people on promo tour, then you've got to feed them. They need some place to sleep. Um, and, and I'm pretty kind when I do a promo tour. I don't put like 8 people in one room. I know a lot of you guys do that, but I want my team to be well rested. So that they can get up the next day and, and really go hard. Um, and I want everybody in one vehicle, and usually we'll use an SUV or a van, um, like a small van, like a, like a soccer mom van. So for me, 4 people is ideal on a promo tour because if you're really poor, you can fit 4 people in a room. And I realize guys don't like to sleep next to each other, so one goes under the covers, one goes over the covers, you know, or you flip, you know, heads at one end, feet at the other. Um, but you, if you had to, you could fit 4 people in one room. Ideally, you want them in 2 rooms so that they're comfortable, each person having their own bed. But having said that, um, I want somebody who can drive. I would like more than one person in the vehicle that has a driver's license so there isn't just one person doing all the driving. Because it can get very tiring and very stressful to do the driving. Um, I'd like to have somebody who has some ability to film, um, and have an eye for video and be able to edit on their laptop at night. Um, I would love to have a video person there. And, um, some artists want to have a DJ with them or a hype man. So there's your 4 right there. And of course the artist. And if you're a group and there's 2 of you, then you've only really got room for 2 more people. But I try to keep the numbers as low as possible. Um, you can figure on promo tour you're going to spend somewhere between $200 and $300 a day, a day on the road. That includes hotel, gas, um, everything, roughly. Also, the more people you have, the slower it is to move around. I noticed that with Trouble. Like, when Trouble brings like 4 or 5 people with him to a show, um, he can, he can kind of move a little bit more easily. But when he gets like the 15-passenger van and brings the homies and there's like 12 people on the road with him, everywhere we go we run like 30 minutes late because getting everybody to move at the same time. Even stopping for gas is a 30-minute chore because 2 people want to go into the store, somebody wants to go pee, then they come back, and then somebody else wants to go. It's just, it's never, it's never easy, you know. When you've got 3 or 4 people to worry about, you can kind of move around quickly. You, you meet in the lobby at 8 o'clock at night, you're in the vehicle by 8:05. When there are 12 of you or 10 of you or even 8 of you, you meet in the lobby at 8, you don't get out of the lobby till 8:15. I promise you, for some reason you're always waiting for somebody, and it's just— it's annoying. Denise, you had a rough day. I love you, girl. Frank is asking me what my process is for breaking records in the club. Um, it depends on the city. There are cities where I don't have the relationships with the DJs to break records in the club. So I will hire somebody that is well respected from that area, um, and, and this is kind of where my experience comes in handy because I've been doing this for so long and I've been in so many different, um, cities that I've got relationships. And then if I don't know somebody in that city, I certainly know somebody who knows somebody. Right? I can go on my Twitter and say, hey, does anybody know somebody in San Marcos, Texas, which is a town like this big, right? And, and inevitably, out of the 30,000 people in my Twitter feed, somebody will know somebody or two people in San Marcos. So I'm kind of fortunate in that respect. But when you're starting out and you don't know somebody, um, Your goal is to find out who the legitimate people are in that area. So if you're working Birmingham, Alabama, and you're from Atlanta, you might not know anybody in Birmingham. You're going to have to find somebody that's entrenched in the industry who's trustworthy, and this is where your network comes in really handy. Um, and you're going to get to know people pretty quickly, um, when you do this, because you're going to— you're going to need to come into that city, and you're going to need to have somebody that can be the ambassador and show you around. And it can't be somebody who's a fuckboy, because you don't ever want to be in a situation where you're being introduced to people through somebody that they don't respect. Because guess what happens when you do that? You don't get respect. New Vintage is asking how you build a street team. Um, the way that I do it is I find people that are hard workers and I engage them to come and help us for a couple days, like right before we come into a city and then right after we leave. Um, I use colleges a lot and high schools There are people at colleges whose sole function is to find jobs for their students, and I'll reach out to them. Or if they're— this is where College Radio comes in really handy. I know we were talking about that Grand Prix, but I'll reach out to the College Radio folks and I'll say, hey, you know, who are some people on your campus that you feel would be great to you know, um, hand out posters and flyers and help us when we come to town with trouble. And when your artist is a little bit bigger, it's a lot easier because they know that they're going to get backstage and they know that they're going to be in a situation where they're helping an artist who's already got a little bit of a name. When you're brand new, it's a little bit, um, intimidating, right? Harris saying $200K on the radio. $200K is nothing. You can spend a million dollars at radio. Do Coalition DJs, um, this is Manager Ank, do Coalition DJs give you a listing of what clubs they'll spin at, what days they're there? Um, yes, they do. And then they will screenshot their Serato as they're playing it and put it on their Instagram so that you can see that they're really, um, spinning your record. And I think they have, um, their prices are like $5,000, $7,500, and $10,000 if I remember correctly. Grand Prix saying all the great street promoters that he knew have retired because there's not enough money in it anymore. Um, yes, that's true. You know, it's always been that way, Grand Prix, though. You know, it's it's, it's something that always cycled through pretty quickly. Like, my street team guys would be great for 6 months, like they would go hard for 6 months, and then after 6 months I'd be looking for new people because they would have a little bit of a different attitude about their job. Either they would really hate it because it's a lot of work, or they would be trying to get to the next level and grow and they'd want to do radio, or they'd want to do marketing, or they would want to do jobs that I didn't necessarily need them to be doing. So, um, street promoters always, always cycled through pretty quickly. Ulysses, I don't listen to music. No, if you sent me a song, you'd be wasting your time. I get way too much music from you guys, so instead of playing favorites and just listening to some of you, I don't listen to any of it. Um, also, the truth is, Ulysses, um, it doesn't help you for me to listen to your music. It doesn't. There's no benefit. What matters is you building a fan base. I, I wouldn't know if your music was good or not, honestly. I would need the feedback from DJs and fans to know if your music was any good. Desario saying assemble some of your biggest supporters is a street team. Absolutely. You know, that happens a lot whenever, whenever we go into a different city. You know, Tony and I are always on Instagram talking about like what we're doing. So if we're in Birmingham, we're talking about the fact that we're just pulling into Birmingham and people will come and find us. And it's amazing because I never say where we're staying, but somehow people always find us. And if you have a wrapped vehicle, you're not hard to find. Desario saying, um, assemble your biggest supporters, get them to wear your branded t-shirts. Yes. Um, hand out product and blitz an area and give them some sort of incentive. Establish a presence. If they're really great at what they do, hit them with some money too, because obviously you're going to feed them while they're working for you. But if you can incentivize them by paying them for what they've done the next time you come into the city, they're, they're going to drop whatever they're doing to come help you. New Vintage is asking me the best way to get a buzz on a debut project. There is no best way. It's just work. Blitz the streets, blitz the internet, put your project up on all of the, like, every site where somebody could download it or stream it. You know, it's funny, it all comes down to that one question: how do I build a buzz? It's amazing to me that's the question you guys ask. Um, Sun Twisted is asking me, are business cards worth giving out anymore? Um, I haven't given out a business card in so long because so many people pull out their phone and ask me for my number. Um, I use business cards as download cards. I use business cards to put all the links for my artists on, and I give them out the way I used to give out CDs. I still give out CDs. I was Grand Prix, I was, um, helping Blood Raw. Yep. Genre is asking, is $2,500 a month a good enough budget to build a fan base with? It's going to build a small fan base. I'm not going to tell you no. $25,000 a month would be better, but you gotta, you gotta use what you have. Do, you know, do the best you can. BMO is asking me about a music seminar in Chicago, and he's never been to one. Are there any tips, and what can you expect to get from this? Um, I don't know what that, what that conference is. I'm a little bit nervous because you're saying that it's featuring Universal, um, executives, and there's a huge scam out there where, um guys get people to pay to come to an event that has A&R guys from a label, and you get in there and you get to meet them, but they're being paid to be there, so their goal isn't necessarily in building a relationship with you. But it's up to you to get in there and build that relationship. Get to know them. That's your goal, is get to know them, learn as much as you can, you know, listen to what they say. And, um, react accordingly. I'm gonna do, um, I'm gonna do a video about, um, seminars. I was gonna do it about a month before South By, which would be in the middle of February. Um, BMO, let me know the date of the event in Chicago and I'll put together a video about how to network, like how to how to network before you get to the conference, how to network at the conference, and what your follow-up should be. So tell me the date and I'll make sure that I post it, because I'm going to do it for South by Southwest anyway. Desirée is saying that the relationship portion cannot be stressed enough. You're absolutely right. Louis, exactly, exactly. That's what we did, you know, we still hit the streets. And the, the great thing is, um, D-Day is an excellent example because with D-Day we came back through every area like 2 or 3 times, and we could tell we were making headway because when we came back in the second time or even the third time, the reaction was much different to him. It was much more positive than the very first time that he came through. And he's still plugging away, like he's about to drop a mixtape with, um, Kid Kid in the next, in the next couple of weeks. I love that Grand Prix is saying that he used to, um, get his CDs in bags. He would volunteer, um, to street promote so that he could sneak his CDs in bags. That's brilliant. Yeah, volunteering is great. It's a little bit harder with, um, South By to volunteer. You still can, it's just that it's so expensive to stay in the hotels in, in Austin during South By. You could be spending $400 a night to stay in like a, a Motel 6, you know. So it's, it's a little bit harder to volunteer for South by Southwest, but, um, it's the, the panels at South by are incredible, especially for the internet side of South by, which is, um, like 5 days before the music portion. I think it's called Interactive, South by Southwest Interactive. It's without a doubt one of the best conferences I've ever been to. Ronnie's asking, who should an artist build relationships with besides producers and engineers? Gosh, everybody. DJs, You want to build relationships with everybody, you know, the tastemakers in your area. You know, they can be so helpful because people turn to them to find out like who's hot and poppin'. So you want relationships with the tastemakers, you want relationships with managers, you want relationships with everybody, like people like me, so that you could ask questions. You know, for those of you that have realized, when you send me questions by email, I actually answer them. So, you know, use me as a resource. Don't, don't hit me with like 8 million questions, and don't hit me with something that you could have learned on your own, or you could have watched a video, because I'm just going to send you the link to the video. Indio Prather Music is asking me, how can you learn college radiometrics as an independent newcomer? I'm not sure what you mean by that. Um, it's very hard to learn college radio, like the, the data behind college radio, because it's not tracked. You can use, um, Digital Radio Tracker, DRT, um, which is at digitalradiotracker.com. They have, um, they, they track internet radio. I don't think they track college stations though, unless unless the College Station has an internet radio station. Um, I don't know how you would learn college metrics because there, there's, there's nobody they have to report to. They're owned by the college and they're funded by the college, so they don't depend on advertisers, so they don't need a tracking system to tell them how many listeners there are. New Vintage is telling me I need to start an indie label. Oh, what do— oh, thank you. I do not need to start an indie label. I so misread that. Okay, let me try this again. New Vintage is saying, hey Wendy, what do you need to start a brand or an indie label, what's the best way to begin somewhere like Monroe, Louisiana? Um, actually Monroe would be a great market because it's a strong music market. You've got Alexandria and Shreveport, Lafayette, Lake Charles, um, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans all relatively close by. And then you've got the bigger cities like Dallas right there. You've got access to Houston, um, a little bit of a drive away. You've got Oklahoma if you go north. So you've got, you've got access to some great areas where you can just drive, you know, 2 or 3 hours to get to the next town in order to promote. Um, what do you need to start an indie label? You need, you need money. You need funding. What a label does is they market and promote for the artists, and then they share revenue that they collect with that artist based on the money that they've spent. But you need, you need a budget to, um, to be a label. People sign to you because you've got money to market and promote them. Dante Jones, thank you. Yeah, I have no reason to lie. Okay, your name is Sun Twisted, but I'm thinking it's more Twisted Sun. Um, but anyway, you're asking as a producer, how should you approach rappers at open mics? Um, you should walk up to them and tell them you're a producer. And if you've got headphones and your music and a way for them to listen to it right there, you know, how cool would that be? A lot of people won't, but a lot of people will. You know, artists, artists need beats. You know, it's, it's like food or water. For them. So, um, the way to approach them is respectfully, um, preferably with, you know, not a screw face on. You're gonna get a totally different response that you might not want if you come up to them with the angry face on, you know. But be friendly, be respectful, and then have a way for them to get in touch with you. And maybe have, you know, a couple of memory sticks for the folks that seem really interested. I wouldn't just give them out to everybody because you're going to end up paying like anywhere from $3 to $7 for one. So, um, you might want to save that for somebody that you feel will actually buy tracks from you. Did I post a video today for producers? I think I posted a video today for producers. You should go watch that. Thank you, Denise. You guys always ask such great questions. Ulysses is asking, who would I say is the most successful artist you have worked with? Eminem, Tupac. Stan, what tools do you use or bring with you on promo tour? Tape, staple gun, etc.? Um, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Um, we still press up posters. Um, if I have an artist who's a little bit more pop than street, I'll also press small posters like the size that would go in a kid's locker in high school because we hit a lot of high schools. Um, we still use postcards, download cards. I'm in Atlanta and, and my— I spend most of my time in the Southeast marketing and promoting, so we still use CDs. Um, yes, tape, a regular staple as well as a staple gun. Um, I don't use wallpaper paste on posters anymore, um, but if I wanted to get really gangster with it, I would do that because nobody else is doing it. I would hit like abandoned buildings with, you know, put the poster up and the, and the wallpaper paste. I put it on with a broom and then it's on there for life. You can come back 5 years later and still see you know, pieces will be missing as people tried to pull it off. Don't do it to somebody's house or the, you know, or their, or their store or whatever. Be respectful. February 7th. Okay, yeah, would you, um, send me the— send me the flyer on that. Let me see if it's some bullshit, BMO. Thank you, Desario. Okay, Flo Boy. Is a Taxi account? No, I'm not a fan of Taxi. I don't know any rap artist who has, um, gotten signed through Taxi, and I'm not into rock, so I don't, I don't know if it's great for rock. I— they've been around a long time, but, um No, taxi is, um, taxi is not useful. Build a fan base, boo. Build a fan base. The light in my house is flickering. Did you see that? I thought I was about to pass out or something. The light bulb, it's going in and out. Racio Texas Boy is saying, should I come out with a mixtape first or an album, or should I put out two singles first? You should put out— you should work a single, but you should put out a whole project, um, either an EP or a mixtape or an album. I don't see the difference between mixtapes and albums because I use all original material. I don't ever, um I don't ever suggest that you rap over somebody else's beats. So, um, no, Julian, that does not sound legit. It sounds like a scam to me. You should never pay a manager. They get a percentage of what they bring in. Desiree, it's next to impossible to rip a poster down. The last time, um, I wallpaper pasted some posters, it was in Memphis, and I think it was Mary J. Blige, and it was a long time ago, and those posters are still there. Ronnie Lee, the most interesting thing I remember about Tupac is his sense of humor. He was funny as hell. He was really funny, like, like hurt your stomach laughing type funny. He was very funny. Frank is asking me how effective would wrapping a vehicle be. Um, I do it for some artists, I don't do it for others. Um, to me it's like a moving billboard. If I'm in an area where there's still a lot of people that do it, then I don't because I want to stand out. But if I, if I'm in a place where nobody else is doing it, then, um, I have no problem. I know a lot of people think that that's old school, but it's— to me, it's still like a moving billboard. Like, people notice it. Desario, that's funny, the Belly posters. I think I still have Do or Die and Twisted posters somewhere on the west side. Tori Gandhi is asking, does the original— does the original producer get— question— do signed artists pay advances and royalties to the producer? Yes. Okay, yes, I understand what you're asking now. Yes, Tori, um, an advance— when you pay a producer, it's an advance against the royalties. So if somebody's charging you $500 for the beat What they're really saying is they want an advance of $500 against the back-end royalties, and then once you make that $500 back from their royalties, then you start to pay them royalties, and it's whatever you agree upon in the contract. New Vintage is asking how to find a budget for starting an indie label. It's really hard to find a budget to start an indie label. Um, Usually an accountant will charge you $5,000 or $10,000 to put together a budget. Your best bet is to get an investor or somebody who will invest in helping you put together a business plan and then pay somebody that has done this before to, um, to put a business plan together for you. Racia, there, there is no best site to build a buzz. Um, you, you got to be everywhere. You, you see, there isn't one site where everybody goes to, to listen to music. So you've got people who have Spotify subscriptions, you've got people who have Tidal subscriptions, you've got people that subscribe to Apple Music. Um, since they're each $10 a month, it's almost safe to assume that somebody that's at Apple is not also on Spotify. So If you only promote at Spotify, you're going to miss all the Apple people. And then if you only promote to streaming, streaming is still only like a third of the market. So let's say it's 30% of the market. If you don't put your music on iTunes for the people that still download MP3s, you're going to miss 28 or 29% of the market. So you've got to be everywhere. You need to put your music where people are, and then you need to promote it online and in real life to get them to go wherever they want to hear the music to check it out. And that's what download cards are for, because it'll have your link to Spotify, to Apple Music, to, um, SoundCloud. And that's not enough. You can't just do one thing, right? It's very much like a pie, and there's 8 slices of pie to make up the whole pie. You can't just take the slice that's blogs and put it in the pie pan and expect it to make the whole pie. It's just one piece. You've got to hit the blogs, you've got to hit the DJs, you've got to hit the streets, you've got to hit the internet. Um, you want to advertise— there's that light again. Um, you want to advertise, you want to hit the clubs, so— and radio if you've got a radio record. So there's many pieces to that pie that you've got to work all at the same time. When you're working a record. And I've got a ton of videos on marketing and building a buzz. I see I'm gonna have to do a ton more though because you guys are all asking the, um, the same questions. Um, Julian Murphy, no, selling CDs out of the trunk doesn't work anymore. It hasn't for like 10 years. Sorry. Music's free now. You make money with the shows and, um, you make money with the shows and with merchandise more than you do selling CDs. I mean, you can still sell some CDs, but, um, you're not going to sell enough to, to make it worth your while. New Vintage is asking me, um, you're in school, what might be some courses that you need to take that can build you, that can benefit you in building an indie label. Take a course in accounting, take a course in finance. Um, you need money and you need to be able to track your money properly, so those two courses will help you greatly. Marketing will help you a lot. Um, any courses in leadership, like management or leadership, would be really helpful because you're going to have to lead a staff. That would be really, really, really helpful. And then while you're in school, if there is a label in your area, why not intern for them for free? You know, maybe 3 times a week or 4 times a week, and after your classes, go and work for them for free and learn from doing. You know, why not? Desario, I can't remember the last time I was in a record store. When I go out on the road, we don't hit um, we don't hit record stores anymore. We hit the, um, the vape, the vape stores, the smoke shops. We hit pool halls. We hit hip-hop gear shops. Um, we hit the movie theaters depending on what's playing. We hit the, the flea markets. Um, we hit the hood. I think a squirrel just slid down my roof. I heard like a ehh noise. Okay guys, so I've been doing this for an hour and a half and I'm a little bit tired now, so we're gonna call it a night. Thank you for tuning in. I do this every Wednesday night at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time, as you know, and I post videos on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I'm gonna post a networking conference video before February 7th, and we'll talk about like how to get ready for South by Southwest and for your conference in Chicago that you're going to be attending. Guys, thanks for tuning in. Um, I appreciate you guys so much, and I will— this will post, so if you missed any of it, you can go in the archive and you will be able to pull this up. Um, it takes about maybe 15 minutes and it'll archive there. Thank you guys. Or you can find it at wrapjewels.com. Have you guys found Wrap Jewels yet? Wrapjewels.com. It posts all of my videos, um, in order because I know it's a little disorderly on YouTube. Okay guys, take care.