LIVE with Wendy Day July 7, 2017 | Answering Your Questions Live

Okay guys, I'm almost there. I'm coming, I promise I'm coming. Hey, I've got a lot of great information for you today. I'm so glad you're here. Okay guys, there's a counter there. I'm trying to beat that counter. As soon as it gets down to zero, I'll be there. Right now I'm filling up my cup with unsweet tea and extra lemon. Guys, thanks for tuning in to my live stream. We're almost ready to go. I'm so glad you're here. I've got such amazing information to share with you tonight. I'm so excited. I'm so happy. Hi guys, it must be the first Wednesday of the month. Okay, Richie Porter wants to know, how do I get my followers up so I can build a social media fan base? For my music on Instagram. Tony West, how are you? J-Star, how are you? Odd Man Out, yay! Oh, Absolute Johnny Holiday, how are you? William Fisher. Okay, Richie Porter, how do you get your followers up? Um, okay, let's start with the basics. Make great music, right? You want to engage with your followers. You don't want to always be, uh, putting music up and, and being Mr. Promoter all the time. So you want to definitely talk about your life and talk about different things that are going on, ask people questions, interact with them just like you do in real life when you meet somebody. Um, the way that I built my following on both Twitter and Instagram is I went into the accounts of people that are similar to me. For you, it would be other artists that have a similar sound. Don't go after Drake, don't go after Nicki Minaj. Go after the, um, smaller artists that are similar. Meaning, if you're a street artist, then follow the accounts of the followers of somebody else who is a street artist. If you're very lyrical, go into one of the artists that's part of, uh, Team Backpack and follow them. You're going to want to go through and follow as many different accounts as you can within a day. I think it maxes out at 500. Do a little research on Google to find out the number of people that you can follow before you get shut down, or in— on Twitter it's called Twitter jail. And then in a few days, go back in and unfollow anybody that didn't follow you back and do it again. There are apps programs that actually help you do this, that do it for you. Tweepy might be one of them. I can't really remember because it was so long ago that I did this. But once you get like a decent-sized fan base, like a couple thousand people on each platform, the more you interact with them and the more you post interesting shit, the more people will follow you. Um, good to see you too. Well, I can't really see you, but good to know that you're there. Odd Man Out. Paulie Foster. I have an artist who sent his music to TuneCore and his artist profile is linked to another artist of the same name. How can I fix that? Um, you have to go into TuneCore. TuneCore is a little challenging because you can't just pick up the phone and call them. Um, well, you can, but it's, it's very convoluted to find the phone number. So you're going to want to, um reach out to them through their support and let them know that the two artists are different but they have the same name. But you've got a bigger problem than you think. But let me answer your question first. So let's say your artist, um, is named ABC Rapper. Why he'd have such a horrible name, I don't know, or she. Um, but let's say there's already an ABC Rapper. You're going to want to go in and ask TuneCore to separate them into two different accounts. But here's the problem with an artist having another name, they can stop you from using their name. Um, there is a group on iTunes who just popped up. I think they're a rock group and they're called Trouble, and Trouble owns the trademark for his name. And his label is now getting ready to send a cease and desist to the other band called Trouble because they're infringing on his trademark. And you don't want somebody to be doing that to you once you put a shit ton of money into marketing and promoting yourself, you don't want to have to change your name. So definitely run a trademark search before you put music out and put it up on TuneCore, um, and then do the basics like a Google search. Um, you know, when I first started working with Trouble, the first thing I did was Google to see who else was out there. I went into iTunes and put Trouble in the search bar. Um, I went to Spotify, I went to all the different platforms, and I saw that there was nobody else using that name. So we went ahead and applied for his trademark and we received it. Um, and then all of a sudden this other group called— this rock group called Trouble popped up, and now it's a problem because every time they post something or he posts something on iTunes, it gets pushed to the other artist, and it's always— it's always a problem. And I'm sure that Trouble doesn't want to be an asshole about it, but it's a problem. It's annoying, and he owns the trademark, so he's just going to shut them down. So it's— your problem is a little bit bigger than just fixing it with TuneCore. Um, definitely run a trademark search. If you go to the trademark website, um, I don't know the exact web address, but it ends in .gov, .gov. So if you just Google, um, Trademark Office Washington, DC, you'll find their website. They have a search engine on their website where you can do a basic preliminary search. It won't hold up in court, it's really basic, but But it's, it's important to do if you're working with an artist with a name like Trouble or an artist named Lyrical or an artist named, you know, anything that's, that's kind of generic. It's probably not so much of a problem if you choose a name like, um, Bamboozled Link as your rap name. Probably nobody else is using that, but most people, um, tend to choose easier names to remember than Bamboozled Link. King Peavy, I'm great, thank you for asking. Wavy Pluto, Pipeline TV, how are you? Emily Gerard, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Polly Foster was just watching Tony on Facebook Live and he jumped off because you're going live. My husband is not a duck. That's awesome, I love him to death for that. You guys have to talk him into doing not only Facebook Live but maybe, maybe YouTube Live, because then he can archive them and you can go back and rewatch them. Because he dropped some amazing jewels, and he's a little bit more gutter than I am, and I mean that in a good way, where he knows a lot of tricks around things and over things and under things, whereas I tend to play by the rules a little bit more than he does. Um, for the most part. Not always, but for the most part. So we're kind of a nice balance to each other. But I would love if he would archive his stuff so you guys can go back and watch it and rewatch it. Or if you miss one, you can, you know, you can catch up. Coop to Trill, how are you? Um, King PB is asking, should I make an agreement with the studio I'm doing business with before I record music? No. The studio is the vehicle. They are, they are the place that you utilize, and you're paying them for a service, which is to record your music. He who pays the studio owns the masters. So as long as you're paying them, um, the only time I could see you needing a contract with the studio is if you work out a deal where maybe they give you 10 free hours of studio time in exchange for putting their logo on your artwork, or maybe you make a song about their studio and they give you, you know, for that you better get a lot more than 10 free hours, but they give you some sort of a deal. You're going to want in writing exactly what each other's expectations are if there's no money involved. But if you're just paying, you know, $60, um, if you're just paying— wow, that's a glare— um, if you're just, if you're paying like $60 an hour or $50 an hour or $100 an hour or whatever you're paying $30 an hour. Um, you don't need a contract with your studio. They, they don't own shit. They just record. Pipeline TV said InstaFollow is good. Thank you so much. Um, so, uh, Polly, that's for— was it Polly who asked me that question? Man, I forgot that fast. Richie Porter, um, that answer's for you.

Insta-follow.

And XL the Truth is saying social envy. And Richie Porter, you're so very welcome. Bubble on deck! El Visionero is asking me what part of Georgia do I live in. Hotlanta, and it's hot today. Coop to Trill is asking everybody to post their Instagram names so that you can all follow each other. Ronnie Lee was kind enough to post the trademark search for the Boolean search that you can do. L2 Cold, how are you? I'm wonderful. You're laughing because I said he wasn't a duck. York Williams, I don't have time to meet with people. It's very, very, very hard to get a meeting with me. Lucas, is that Liva? Lelva? Liva? I'm sorry, I just butchered your name. Um, and you're very welcome. You're asking if things differ in terms of publishing as a producer from the UK and not the US. I'm sure that it does, but I only work in the US, so I can't really be helpful to you. Wow, it's late there. Um, I can't really be helpful to you in terms of UK law because I, I don't know it. Um, I do know that you definitely have a place where you can copyright your beats. I just don't know where that is, and I don't know, um, British law. So I'm not going to be very helpful to you. I'm sorry. Odd Man Out Music, could I explain to the younger artists the importance about copyright ownership and publishing? A lot of them are still just posting music. Um, yes, I've got a video about copyrights and about 4 videos about publishing, so I'm just going to refer them to those videos because I could sit here for 3 hours and just barely touch the edge of publishing. But publishing is the ownership of the music, and the copyright is the proof of ownership of that music, so that if somebody steals your beat or your lyrics you can sue them in a court of law. But yeah, guys, definitely go and check out, um, the videos are actually called Copyright Publishing. Um, you can go to rapjewels.com to find them more easily because then you can just search, or you could just scroll through my YouTube, um, channel and they're there. I promise I did them pretty early on, so I probably did them back in October, November, December, sometime in there. And then there are some, um, sites just for producers. Um, I interviewed Deborah Manis Gardner. I interviewed Rico Brooks, who manages Metro Boomin and, um, Sunny Digital. Um, I'm trying to think if there's any other producer. There's probably about 5 or 6, um, videos just for producers, specifically for producers. I know that's not many but, you know, there's only so many ways I can say shit. LOL LOL, which is very funny, by the way. Do you think it's best to go to competitions in your local area and make a bigger impact as you go? That's a tough call. I think the great thing about competitions is, is it sharpens you, and it, it's a, it's a way to practice your skill, right? And you become a better performer, you become a better rapper if it's a beat battle, you become a better producer, you get feedback on your material, you learn how to deal with the crowd, you learn how to ride the crowd, you learn how to handle shit if the crowd turns ugly, right? Um, there's so many things that you can you can get out of performing locally at a competition, but I don't think a competition really builds your name unless you win all of them. You know, like, I can't tell you who the number one battle rapper is right now. I can't even tell you the, the biggest and most important battle rap competition, but I can tell you who the top 10 rappers are in terms of sales and income. You know, I think it— as you, as you do this for a living, you tend to focus more on doing the stuff that can bring money into your pocket, as opposed— not that you should just do stuff for money, but if you're going to do this for a living, at some point you want to be able to quit your job and do this for a living, like full-time, like feed your family, you know, and, and build credibility for yourself. And, um, I think sometimes that winning competitions doesn't translate into income. It may translate into awareness, but it only benefits you if that awareness turns into fans of your music, not fans of you competing, whether it's a beat battle or a, um, a rap battle or an MC battle, like a lyric battle. But I definitely think that you should compete in your local area because you need to hone your craft, and I think that's a great way to do it. Look at all you guys putting your Instagram shit in here. Boo-boo, somebody's asked me where Gangster is. I think he's downstairs because usually when I call him, he pokes his head up from the blankets, and he's not. Thank you, Knight Rider Films. DJ, nope. Christina Reed, it's so great to see you guys here. Superplug, um, Superplug is thanking me for the reports that I recently posted. Um, you're talking about the Instagram posts. Um, I did it either late last night or early this morning, I can't remember, my time is kind of blending together right now. Um, but I posted different statistics from BuzzAngle. BuzzAngle puts out reports at the end of every year, so like December 31st, and it really does come out like December 31st, January 1st. They have no life. I love them. BuzzAngle is a company that measures sales, streams, and movement in the music marketplace, in the music industry in the US. And, um, their half-year report came out on the 4th of July So I happened to have time, so I read it and I posted the charts that I found the most beneficial for you guys. So if you go to @rapcoalition, my Instagram feed, you'll be able to see— you're probably gonna have to go back a couple of posts, but you'll see the different statistics on who sold the most. Like, for example, Bad and Boujee by the Migos was the number one streamed song in all of streaming, um, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal for the past 6 months. And that, that kind of shocked me, I have to admit to you. It's a, it's a great song, but there's other great songs out there. So it really surprised me that it was the number one streamed song. But you're gonna find all sorts of stats like that, um, on my Instagram page. And wait, there's more to your question, I think. Do I feel that it's better to release singles versus albums? Um, nice plug for your YouTube so everybody could find that, and I will. Um, I do both. I release singles and then I release entire projects, and the reason that I do that is really more to get people talking. Like, every time you drop a song, people are talking about you, and then you drop a video and people are talking about you, and then you drop a body of work and people are talking about you. And I feel like if we just drop songs and video, songs and video, songs and video, we're missing the opportunity to talk about the whole project. And I just, I feel that it's another opportunity to get in front of potential fans and in front of your fans to get them thinking about you. You know, there's information comes at us so fast with the internet. It's just like everything's just flying and things don't stick. They don't last as long. So I just feel like even, even on the artist where I drop a song a week, I just feel like if I drop on Monday or Tuesday, by Friday people are talking about what else has dropped, and they're talking about The Weeknd, and they're talking about— not The Weeknd the artist, but their weekend. They're talking about, you know, what they're gonna do and what movies are coming out and what video games and this and that and this. And it's, it's like all of the attention leaves the release that dropped like on a Monday or a Tuesday, right? So I just, I just feel like it gives the— the— as the— the most you can be in front of somebody is more beneficial, and the less of a clown that you look like when you do it. Meaning, um, you know, the whole thing that transpired online today with Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian, like, like, nobody looks good. T.I. doesn't look good. Tiny doesn't— like, nobody is looking good, but everybody's talking about them. So I'm saying get people talking about you, but in a good way, not in a clown way. Like, you don't ever want to look stupid in front of the world, you know. Sometimes you can't help it because as humans we, we do dumb shit, but you don't want to go out of your way to overly look stupid, right? So to answer your question, I release singles and whole projects, albums, whatever you want to call them. And to me, a mixtape is an album. I don't differentiate. To me, a project is a project. King PB saying, I saw Chance the Rapper make his name an LLC. Would that be a good move as an indie artist? Absolutely. Trouble LLC, um, Trouble LLC exists. So yes, I do think you should incorporate, but I think you should do it because you want to protect yourself. You don't want to get sued personally, like if you forget to clear a sample, or if you're performing and a fight breaks out at your show. You don't want somebody to ever take your house and your car and everything you own. Chance has too much to, um, to lose right now. York Williams, my sister is cool. Okay, is your Uncle Paul by chance, by chance But welcome, York Williams, nice to see you. Are you in New Jersey? Okay, Lucas, it's just past midnight. Okay, that's not so bad, that's not so bad, right? This time of year, so what, you're 5 hours ahead instead of 6, or is it 4 instead of 5? I don't know, but good for you for tuning in. I love you for that. Um, El Visionero, I will let Gangster know that you said hello. He, he must be downstairs because he would have heard his name by now and poked his head out and like looked at me like, hmm. He's a funny little dog. He hates the Fourth of July. He hates really loud noises, which is kind of weird. He's 9 years old now, and it's only been the last 3 years or so that the noise has bothered him. He's a Chihuahua, so he shakes like this, right? And last night around 9:30, all the, um, all the thunderous, uh, fireworks were going off and he was not happy. He just like curled up next to me and kept pushing into my leg like he's trying to get under my leg. Thank you, York Williams, I appreciate that about my YouTube videos. I'm so glad they're helpful. I've been so busy I haven't shot any, um, and I know you guys keep asking me for them and I keep telling you that I'm I'm about to do them. It's just that I— it's— I've been so busy, I can't, I can't begin to tell you. On a happy note, um, you guys know Trouble Sign to Interscope, right? So Tony West is asking me to touch on receiving a payout from the download services. Um, yes, when you, when you're on a streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music or a download service like iTunes, you get there by going through a distributor, and the distributor is who makes sure that you get paid. Like, you can't just go to iTunes and ask them to put your music up. You have to go through either a distributor like, like a Universal or Sony or Orchard or 1RPM. I mean, there's a million distributors out there, some legit, some not, so do your research. And, um, some of the newer artists use TuneCore and DistroKid, which isn't bad. Tony just told me that Lander, which you producers are very familiar with because they master Apple quality— when you're on Apple, you can master your music through Lander— and Tony just told me that they just started their own distribution service that's like DistroKid and TuneCore where they pass along 100% of the income. They take their split and then they take their, they take their cut and then they give you 100% of the income, whereas most distributors do an 80/20 split, meaning they give you 80% of the income and they keep 20% as a fee. Now understand that with companies like TuneCore and DistroKid, they don't offer any extra services. Because they're bare bones, right? They're making their business model, they're making their money on that $30 or $40 you pay per album to upload. That's their business model. So they're not as focused on how good the split's going to be. They're not going to fight as hard as, say, a distributor that's making 20% because they're going to want to make as much money as they can. They're going to try to get you as much money as they can so that their percentage is quite good. Okay, L2 Cold, how many artists do I work with? What, what do you do to grow exposure? It's like you need a brand or a hit song these days. Sadly, it's always been that, and that's what you're really doing. You're, you're building your brand, you're building awareness of who you are, and you have to do that through repetition, right? Like, if somebody doesn't know who I am and they're cruising by on YouTube and they watch one video, they'll be like, eh, whatever. But if they watch a series of videos, that repetition, they begin to know me and they begin to know how I think and how I explain shit. And they learn that I curse like a sailor, um, and they learn that I give it to them straight whether they want to hear it or not. You know, you don't always want to hear what I have to say, but the one thing you can say is she gave it to me straight, right? So, um, you need repetition for people to know who you are, and your music is what's out there to have people learn who you are, what you're about, what you stand for, how you think, what your swag is— oh, I hate that word— what your style is, um, and, and how you interpret the world. Right? Like, that's what you are as an artist. And if no one knows that, then you're kind of an artist to yourself, you know? Once you start building your brand and people know who you are and they like your music— provided you have really good music, you know, good to them, not good to me, not good to anybody else, you know, here on the, on the, on the live, um, in the feed, you know— what we think doesn't matter. What matters is what your fans think.. And once you start building a following, your goal is to expand that as large as possible. How many artists do I personally work with? I usually work with somewhere between— definitely one a year. The most I've ever worked with at one time is 3. That's a lot. I like to keep it around 2, and I always stagger— I always stagger my hirings. Like, people can't— everybody can't hire me in January. I, I make sure that people are staggered so that I am, I am busy all year long instead of busy like up and down. And I don't ever want to be like releasing two projects on the same day. I would never do that. I make sure that everybody gets 100% of my attention.

Yay!

Odd Man Out Music just posted the US Copyright and the British Copyright Office. You rock for that. I love how you guys like all help each other. You are my heroes. One Golden, how are you? How are you? I just saw you last week, didn't I? I'm having fun following you on Instagram too. Oh, Ronnie Lee, we don't have enough time for me to answer that question. Mr. Mac, how are you? Okay, there we go. J-Star, gonna bring this one back. No spam. You might have missed it. I heard— I probably missed it. I've heard arguments for both sides. As a solo artist, when should you establish a business for your music? From day one. I've heard both. I've heard both immediately and when you have money coming in. If you have a budget, you should do it as soon as you can. But if you don't have a budget, if you're an artist that doesn't have an investor and you don't have a lot of money, do it as soon as you can. Is that a good answer? It's more important than you think it is as an artist, but it's not going to kill you if you don't have it set up right away. But I will say this: as soon as you get a check, it's probably going to be made to your company name, and you're going to need a corporate bank account, and you're going to have to set up your company in order to get a corporate bank account. So as soon as you make money, that would be the very first thing that I would do. Mr. Mack, what are some effective ways for producers to publish a catalog? Um, I'm not exactly sure what that question means. A catalog is all of your back music. Um, you own it, so it's already published if you're a producer, unless you have a production deal with a company, in which case they're going to publish it for you. It's going to be part of your contract. So I'm not sure that that's exactly what you're asking me. If, if I'm answering the wrong question, would you ask me again? Um, and I promise I'll answer it. I don't leave here until I answer all the questions, so you might have to sit around a little bit. But, um, I want to answer exactly what you're asking. But as soon as a producer makes a beat, um, he or she owns it, and you're going to copyright it and you're going to put as many beats into one unit as you can so that you don't have to spend, you know, $40 or $50 to copyright each beat. I think it's $55 now to copyright. So I would hate for you to copyright each beat, especially because as a producer you probably have thousands of them. But I would, I would put them together into a unit and I would copyright them that way. And I would save a copy of that file so that if somebody stole my beat, I could go through all of my files and find out which one had, you know, which one it's on. And then I could produce the copyright that proves that it's my beat. Um, well, your beat, not mine, but you know what I'm saying. Um, but when you have all of your songs together, that is your catalog and you are the publisher. You don't have to physically do something to publish a catalog. When you say that you own a catalog as a publisher, it means that you have the rights to the— of the ownership to that music, right? So that you can choose what to do with it. You can lease a beat to somebody, you could sell a beat to somebody, you could score a movie with that beat. You're the one that grants the license for somebody to use your music. And you get paid for that most of the time. The bigger you are, the more popular you are, and the more successful your track record as a producer, the more money you're gonna make with those beats. J-Sar, when you're starting to make a count— oh, this is the end of your question. I've heard one person say it isn't necessary, wait till you're making income. I'm gonna agree. I'm gonna say that too. I'm gonna tell you to wait until there's money coming in unless you have an investor. When I started with Trouble, there was an investor who was more than happy to pay for the trademark, the incorporation of the record label, the incorporation of Trouble's touring company, the incorporation of Trouble's company. So, um, I, I would hate to tell you to do— I mean, to incorporate in the state of Georgia, I think it's like $225 or $250. So if you have a choice between, you know, you're going to an event and you want to press up postcards and you've only got $200, I'd rather you press up postcards and hand them out at the event than to incorporate your company. You know, when you don't have any money, there's, there's nothing for somebody to get if they sue you anyway. So you're kind of protecting nothing. But as soon as you have income coming in, now there's something to protect. You know, when you get to the level of Chance the Rapper, you really need to protect your assets. If somebody were to sue him, they could take everything he owns, the businesses that he owns, you know, if they're not incorporated. They could take his car, they could take his house, and I, I just don't want to see that ever happen to somebody. I haven't yet. I haven't seen somebody lose everything, but then most of the artists that I work with, we incorporate them pretty early on because they have budgets. But you're right, I hear it both ways, and I know that's frustrating. So do what's best for you. How's that for an answer?

Super plug!

Oh, thank you, honey. I appreciate you so much. That's so kind. Um, York Williams is asking how many songs somebody should put on a mixtape or an EP. An EP, it kind of defines itself. An EP has usually 9 or less songs, and anything larger like 10 or more is usually an EP. Um, music is consumed so quickly now that I usually suggest 10 songs for a release. I don't put out EPs. Now, this is, this is one of those things, um And super plug, this will make your head spin around the next time you want to answer a question because there's two answers to this one too, right? I mean, there's many answers to everything. We all have ways that we do stuff, but I'm sharing with you the stuff that I actually do and it works for me and my clients. So I've tried it, I know it works. Um, we release projects more frequently than most people. Most people put out 10 songs a year. If I could put out a song a week, I would, or a song every other week, I would. So I really am a fan of people that drop at least 2 projects a year, if not 3, 4 projects a year. Um, 4 is probably the max because you want at least 3 months to really work a project. But I just find that things turn over so quickly that if you don't have a song that catches on for you to like really put a budget behind— and I mean like a good, you know, $80,000 to $100,000 budget behind it, like, when, like, really catch on. Um, I just feel like people want new music faster than they ever did before. There's more music out there, and I just feel like more people want it. So, um, that's why I don't put out EPs. Also, an EP sells for $6.99, an album sells for $9.99. I'd rather— and it costs the same to promote them both— I'd rather make the $9.99 than the $6.99, personally. And with streaming, they're just streaming songs anyway, so that's kind of irrelevant. Um, people don't know when you're streaming, they don't know if it's an album or an EP, they just hear you in a playlist most of the time. So thank you, Ronnie Lee. But I like 10. I usually put out 10 songs at a time. Wow, El Visionero, you can, um, you can retract messages. I didn't know that. So many times I've posted stuff and it came out all convoluted. Okay, Brandon Webb is asking for great sites to post new videos. Um, we actually don't look for sites to post videos on. What we do when we drop a video is we release it to the fans. We usually, um It depends on the artist. Some of the artists that I work with are large enough where WorldStar will post it for free because the artist is large enough where they bring eyeballs, and that's what WorldStar wants. They want as many people coming to their site as possible. And a brand new artist who's not known yet doesn't bring anybody to their site, so they charge you, right? They charge you like $750 or $700 to post your video. Um, I don't do that. I never pay to post a video because if you're not known enough yet to get a free post, it means that the fans aren't coming there to see who you are. Like, it's not a music discovery site, right? It's a place to go to see, um, drama and messiness, right? It's not a place where people discover new artists. We tend to send the videos to the blogs. We hope that some of the smaller blogs will post the artist videos at first. If the video is good enough, they usually will. And then once the smaller blogs start to know who the artist is, we'll go for the bigger blogs, and then we'll go for the super big blogs like the, you know, the AllHipHop and the HipHopDXs and Fader, uh, Complex, you know, the, the big, big, big boys. Uh, but we don't start there. We start— we, we break the artist at the smaller blogs. We always start small and build. Okay, Ronnie Lee, I've avoided this question long enough. Ronnie asked me what are my thoughts of Trouble signing with Interscope. Um, I'm a little bit sad because he was doing really well independently he was making money. Um, but I think he felt like in order to grow bigger faster, he needed to have a machine like Interscope. And I'm not mad at him for doing that. It's his career and it's certainly his, you know, his choice. And I love him regardless, no matter what he signed to or where he is. Um, but I just wish he had retained ownership of his music. And he was in a position where I believe if we had just put out one more project independently that he could have done an 80/20 deal and gotten like a distribution type deal through a major inst— or even a joint venture like a 50/50 instead of signing as an artist. I just didn't understand why anybody would want to give up that amount of ownership, but Sometimes artists are blinded by the money, and you know, I, I don't know exactly how much money he got because I didn't negotiate his deal, but I'll bet you anything it was somewhere between $1.5 million and $3 million. That would be my guess. And sometimes people are blinded by getting a check up front instead of it taking a year to make that same amount of money. Although if you wait the year, you still have the ownership, you know, it's, it's, it's a trade-off and people have to do what's best for them. And, you know, my goal is for him to become a superstar, so I don't care whether he does it himself or whether he does it through a label, right? I'm happy for him either way, but I would have stayed independent if it were my career. But you know, that's also not fair to say because I've lived in both worlds. He hasn't. He's new to this. So, um, Mr. Mack, I don't work with producers. Um, back in the day I used to manage David Banner when he was, um, producing. I'm sure he's still producing. That was a fucked up way to say it. Um, in the mid-2000s I managed David Banner. Um, oh wow, earlier than that, like from '98 till about 2004, up until about Katrina, I worked with Banner. And it's a very thankless job, not because he didn't thank me, he used to thank me all the time, but it's a lot of work for very little pay to manage a producer. I'd rather build a label for somebody and help them become a superstar than to sell tracks or place tracks. For a producer. Emily just said it really nicely. She said, um, independence isn't always wanted. Absolutely. Not everybody is meant to run their own label, you know. It's a lot of work. Sometimes people just want to sit back and let somebody else, you know, steer the ship. And I don't know that that's the case with him. Um, we haven't really spoken about it. But, um, knowing him, he would be happy just being an artist and just being the best artist that he can be, as opposed to having to wear many hats. And you guys all know what that's like. Every single person watching me right now, you know, wears the business hat, the artist hat, the, um, the, uh, husband or wife hat, the boyfriend or girlfriend hat. Like, you all wear many hats, and you know how hard it is to juggle everything and be balanced. It's really hard. Kyle BW1, if you were going to spend $500 on ads for a music video, would you boost it on Facebook social media? Absolutely. Or would I hire a PR company? Nope, I would go with social media ads. I don't have to think about that. You're currently, currently going on a tear of releasing one music video per month per month, one music video month? Yes, I think you, um, absolutely should build your social media. Um, and if you came late, go back to the beginning. I think that was the first question I answered. Build your social media as large as possible. And then I would use— if I had to choose between those two things, I would absolutely choose, um, buying Facebook ads, Google Ads, et cetera, rather than hiring a publicist, because I just don't think blogs break music anymore. You guys will be shocked to know that we did not even use blogs for the first 12, maybe even 18 months that I was working with Trouble. We just didn't send shit to the blogs because when we first started, they didn't post anything. So we got frustrated and said we're going to find a different, a different way. So they post them now. You get to a point where they can't ignore you anymore, you know. Wow, I just jumped way ahead. I bumped my computer and I jumped like like an hour ahead. Hi Jess, thanks for coming. Can you get neighboring rights if a portion of your song was recorded? Absolutely you can. I know where you're going. If a portion of your song was recorded or produced in a country that adheres to the Rome Convention, absolutely. So if you record half of the song in Canada and half of the song in America? Yep, you sure can. Um, I, I suggest that, as a matter of fact. Um, I know artists that record outside of the US for part of their album just so they can do that. I, I think it's, I think it's very smart. Nick West. Oh, this is Money D sending you a major shout out from Seattle. I am a godsend. Thank you so much. So kind. I cater to the little guys and I bless with all the industry dos and don'ts that the majors won't tell you. And thank you, I love you too. Um, you know, Money D, my problem with this industry is that nobody shares information, and I don't understand why. Because it's not like if I'm successful it means that you're not gonna be. Like, there's enough money for everybody in the world. It's not something that we all have to hoard. And there's just, you know, I make a wonderful living doing what I do, and I love what I do, and fortunately I'm good at what I do. And I just feel that just because somebody can't afford to hire me doesn't mean that they shouldn't have access to my knowledge and my information. And I feel very strongly about this, as you can see. And thank you, Money D. That means a lot to me. Spade, thank you. Spade is saying that DistroKid has worked very, very well and you've made good money. That's awesome. And I try— York Williams is funny, he just said swag to me because you know I use that word and I hate it, right? I like DistroKid too. I haven't tried them for distribution, um, but what I did when they first started was I signed up with them and then I told them that I didn't want to be with them anymore to see if they would give me my money back, and they did, and they gave it back to me in full. And I really respect a company that if you change your mind, they'll actually give you your money back. So I have nothing bad to say about them. I know artists that are distributed distributed by them and are very happy. Um, I know a lot of guys that have samples in their music though and got shut down by DistroKid. So there's a lot of people out there that will say they suck. Um, same with TuneCore. There's just companies out there that if you have samples or if you're using somebody else's beat without permission, they won't distribute your music. York is telling me to stagger my swagger. Thank you, Odd Man Out. Yeah, a lot of people don't appreciate my honesty, but, um, I don't give a fuck. I'd rather tell you the truth and then you can figure out how to either ignore it or how to maneuver so that you can benefit from it. But if people lie to you, like I've sat on panels with countless A&Rs that say, "Send me a demo," and I always look at them like, you know, you know you're not gonna listen to that. You know that's not how somebody gets a deal. So I'll do something shitty like ask them what's the last artist that they signed who didn't have a buzz, that just had great music, and 9 out of 10 of them can't answer that question because they don't. They sign artists that are bubbling, you know? So I just don't see the point in lying. Like, tell people what the rules are, and then they can choose which rules to break and which ones to follow. Smoke with Me TV: Is it effective to do freestyles or remixes of songs that are buzzing, or just put out original content? Um, I'm not the one to ask that, love, because I, I believe that you should get paid for what you do. So if you put out a freestyle over somebody else's beat or remix, you can't monetize that. You can get eyeballs from it, and somebody might see your freestyle and be so impressed with you as a rapper that they'll check out your other music, but you can't actually sell that freestyle. So it's kind of like up to you, you know, would you rather— would you rather get attention of people and make money, or just get attention? And then hope that you make money elsewhere. It's, it's, it's your call. Um, I think anything you do to catch somebody's attention is effective. Personal opinion. Um, there's a rapper, Myson, and I've known Myson for years, and he's somebody that I, I like a lot. We talk every now and again on social media. I think he's an amazing rapper. And he did a freestyle on Flex's show, God, I guess about 3 months ago. And his freestyle was so amazing, and it touched me, like what he was saying, that it made me re-look at my son. I mean, I've known him for years, but it's like he's my new favorite rapper right now because of a freestyle he did on Flex's show, right? So I, I think that if you're gonna do something that brings attention, and that person who, who, who notices you is supporting you financially, that's a great thing. Like, right now, my son could put out an album of burping and farting and I would buy it, right? Because that, that's how dope that freestyle was. Like, I thought it was amazing. So if you do something that gets you a new fan— and again, I've known him forever, like, I've known him more than 10 years. You know, and I've always thought he was amazing, but now he's like my favorite rapper of the moment. Like, right now he is my favorite rapper. So you got to do what brings attention, but you also have to eat if you're doing this for a living, right? So, um, the artists that I work with, we do not do remixes, we do not rap over other people's beats. It's my biggest fight with clients because everybody wants to touch that new hot beat that drops. The problem is they become one of many instead of having a great song themselves that stands out. I'd rather you be known for having a great song. I'd rather you be known for a mediocre song than to be known as a great freestyle over somebody else's beat. It's just a personal, um, It's just a personal opinion. Doc Holland misses my weekly videos. I miss you guys too. I was dropping 3 videos a week there for 6 months. For 6 months I kept it up. It's a lot of work. Wanna come say hi? Okay. They say that you stopped doing your Facebook Live.

I was just on Facebook Live. I got off when you went live.

Yeah, they told me.

Xnay to K. Got you. The Janik, you know.

Cool. What's a good percentage to contribute towards when you're managing an artist and their expenses? I don't think a manager should— what do you think, Tony? Should a manager ever pay money?

Listen, man. Listen, man. Okay, look.

Wait, which way are you going? There we go. There we go.

Okay, look, man. A manager, as a manager, as a manager, okay, of an artist with a platinum plaque and a number one record and all his other accolades that the rap dude that I manage has accomplished.

Congratulations. Yeah, whatever. Exactly.

Managers always incur expenses that they can't get back. So if I drive down to Decatur to give some DJ a t-shirt for trouble, I can't get my gas money back. It's just part of doing the job. If I send somebody, I send somebody out, one of you guys, a CD or t-shirt or piece of promotional material, then that's $7 or $10. I just eat that, you know what I'm saying? Like, petty to bill them for that as an artist. But as a manager, I'm not expected to, obligated to, nor is it any part of my job description to contribute to the promotion and marketing of the artist with my personal dollars. That's not how that works. Managers don't pay for that. The, the— the company that governs the sale of the artist's music or the monetization of the artist's music will contribute to the promotion and marketing of the product. If it's just the artist by himself, then he is the company and he's gonna put forth the money that needs to be put forth to make this music grow and get heard and whatnot. But that's never the manager's responsibility. So that's not what a manager does and it's Wendy has a blog about the parts of your team that you need, and eventually you will need a manager, but a manager is not your solution to paying for shit. A manager is not your solution to getting shows. A manager matches whatever you're doing on your own with the opportunity that your work presents. So really it's still all on you anyway. The manager is just the buffer when it gets too busy.

So the manager is sort of like the hyper boost button in a video game. You're already playing and you're already doing well and you press, you press the hyper boost and you go extra far.

Can I give a better example?

Yes.

The, for the sports, for the sports fans, the manager is kind of like the offensive coordinator. Okay. The quarterback gotta be on the football field. The running back gotta be on the football field. These people are running the ball and moving the ball up and down the field. The offensive coordinator is in the skybox overlooking the entire playing field for opportunities, for weaknesses to exploit, for traps and pitfalls. This is what the manager is doing for the artist's overall career and matching opportunities with the work ethic and attitude of the artist.

Okay, I like that. So sports. Thank you, love.

You are welcome. Y'all have a good night, man. I'm gone.

Are you cooking tonight?

Oh yeah, I'm at home.

He's the grill master.

I gotta— I still gotta get propane.

Oh, okay. I'll talk to you in a bit, babe.

Okay.

Oh, you're okay. I'm here all night. Okay, um, my Instagram— somebody just asked me— it's @rapcoalition. @rapcoalition. R-A-P-C-O-A-L-I-T-I-O-N. I will type it as I answer the next question. Um, when you say combine the beats to save on copywriting to one unit, you mean have them on one continuous file like 5 songs back to back. They don't have to like blend into each other. Um, you can put space in between. And I would suggest you call the Copyright Office and ask them the best way to do that, because the way that I used to do it, it was a long time ago and it's old school. And I would put as many beats as I could on a CD, and then I would copyright that as, um, I'm going to use the same example I did before, David Banner. It would be David Banner Beats 1, then the next CD would be David Banner Beats 2, and then I would keep copies of those CDs. Because CDs aren't really, uh, used very much anymore, I would suggest that you either email or call— probably call the Copyright Office, their phone number is on their website— and ask them as a producer what is the best way to bulk up your beats. Odd Man Out, you are awesome. It's $55 to copyright in the US and €200 in Europe. €200. Wow, that's expensive as fuck. My God.

Wow. Okay.

I'm over it. William Fisher's asking me, how do you start a touring company? Um, that could be a couple of questions. As an artist, how do you start your own touring company is you incorporate your name— Wendy Day Tours, or, you know, Bob Smith Tours, or Lyrical Tours, whatever your name is as a touring company— and that's how you set up the company. Um, if you're asking how do you start a company that actually books artists or sets up tours? I've never done that, so I can't really answer that. Um, I know that Tony and I did a video about how to like promote your own shows, so there's some booking information in that if that's the question that you were asking. But if you're an artist and you just want to go out on tour yourself, all you have to do is incorporate, and then once you start going out on the road, all of your income will come into that touring company. And it just— if a fight breaks out at a show and somebody gets hurt, they can't sue you personally. They're going to sue your touring company so that you're not going to lose everything that you work so hard for. Unless you personally punch somebody in the face, then you have a problem. But that's not usually what happens. What usually happens is a fight breaks out in the crowd security steps in to stop it, and you as the artist get sued because you're the one in that equation that has the most money. People tend to go for the money. Um, Mr. Mack, production deals are not essential for new producers or musicians. Um, producers usually do production deals when they don't have a place to make beats or record. Um, they're becoming a little bit archaic archaic because the price of recording has come down. Like, you can pretty much— I'm on a, on an Air, um, I'm on a MacBook right now. I'm sorry, MacBook Air right now. And if I were a producer, I could make beats right here. So I don't necessarily need access to Patchwork Studio in downtown Atlanta to make beats anymore. Back in the day, production deals existed because you couldn't make beats cheaply, you needed a ton of studio equipment. So artists would— producers would give up 50% of their income in order to have a free place to record and make beats. Um, today you don't necessarily have to do that. Production deals are more for, um, like if you wanted to jump on a company's bandwagon that had a lot of successful artists, like as a producer, if you wanted to be signed to QC or to, um, Street Execs, or a company, you know, Think It's a Game, a company that has a lot of artists that need production a lot, um, you would sign to them so that you would get steady work. You would get more work, but you'd be giving up a percentage of ownership of that work. So I haven't figured out the best way for a producer to seed yet. It's so overcrowded out here, and so many producers don't get paid today. It's, it's just— I gotta tell you, I'm with Sunny Digital. I think there needs to be a union. It's really a problem. Thank you, Spade. Spade also likes Um, DistroKid and Vidia, V-Y-D-I-A. Mr. Mack is asking, how do you code a record? Is it the job of the producer or the artist? Um, it's the job of whoever takes on that job, meaning As a producer, you always want to ask them if they want you to handle the metadata or if they're going to handle the metadata. Sometimes it happens in the mixing process, sometimes it happens in the mastering process. I have a friend who just dropped a record on Friday with no metadata in it whatsoever. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but that should never happen. So it's the job of whoever you decide as a team is going to handle it. Um, if I were a producer, I would probably handle it for my client because it would be one more service that I offered, and it's one more way for me to stand out, and it's one less thing for them to have to worry about. Christina Reed is asking, do you have to copyright a logo or trademark it? And you Googled, but it confused you. A copyright is not for a logo, that's a trademark. Um, copyrights are for like lyrics and music, and trademarks are for names and logos, if that helps. Thank you, Kyle. Odd Man Out is saying, um, of course you have to incorporate trademark, copyright, publish, market, etc. Thank you, Eric. You know, I have not watched his Facebook Live yet. Um, I don't— I mean, I've, I've watched it when I'm sitting in the room next to him, but I haven't gone on as a viewer to watch it. I don't ever want to like make him self-conscious, although it probably wouldn't. Hooligan Movement: Should new producers be focusing more on artists hearing their material or landing soundtrack score placements as far as earning money? I would do both. I would, I would, and I know you don't want to hear that. Um, but there's 24 hours in a day. Um, I would, I would, I would pursue as many avenues for income as I could. And having said that, just understand that as a producer, the more successful songs you have, meaning songs that an artist has blown up and sold a lot of copies of. The more of those you have, the easier and more money you will make in all aspects. It's easier to get people to pay attention to you when you say, I am a platinum producer. King Peavy is saying, so should you submit your music to be licensed for movies and TV and market the project as a whole to the fans? Absolutely. Terrence is saying Will Power was just speaking about a producers union on his podcast. It's really a problem. Like, people are really not getting paid, and some of my clients, um, are offenders in this. You know, it's really hard when you're an artist and you start to blow up, every producer in the world gives you beats for free, and they say they don't want anything in return, but they don't realize that if that song becomes a hit record, they don't have to necessarily get paid for it unless you have a contract. You've got to have some sort of an understanding or a signed split sheet or something that says that if this song blows up and becomes something, then you have to give me X percent of the income and X percent of ownership of the publishing. You should never give up your publishing for free. And the problem with not having a contract is that you would have to take somebody to court to enforce your rights. And many of you don't have money to pay rent this month or next month. So how are you going to take somebody to court if they don't pay you? So it's just better to do it right up front than to have it unspoken and hope that you'll get paid. I just don't find people very altruistic in the music industry. I find it— I find it hard for me to get paid, and I have a little bit of power. So I can't imagine if I was brand new trying to get paid. My God, just— I am Swag Right Clothing, big fan of yours, Wendy Day, for years. Not an artist, but how do you feel about people like DJ Khaled who are not artists but release music under an artist name with features? Um, you know, he's such a big part of the culture. I guess if he weren't DJ Khaled and he were DJ No Name, DJ Never Put In Any Work, um, I would have a problem with it. But Khaled has been around at least as long as me, and I'm at 25 years now. Um, and he's remained relevant. And it's really hard to be here this long and stay relevant. Like, I fight every day to stay relevant. So I, I, I gotta tell you, I'm impressed with his business model and what he's accomplished, you know. Um, people like his music, so whether it's his or somebody else's, as long as everybody's getting paid properly, I have no complaints. People seem to love him. Khaled is everywhere right now. Like, he's like even on TV shows. He's even acting in movies. Like, he's just everywhere right now. Thank you, Manager Onk. Thank you, Mr. Mac. Mr. Mac is saying, I see where you're, um, coming from on the producers, on the production deal. Um, you know what, you know what I didn't say, Mr. Mac, though? And, and I don't, I don't know, I don't know how well you know me or if you follow me, but this is a producer-driven industry. Like, the, the music is the thing that fans hear first, and the music is what makes fans shake their ass on the dance floor, and the music of a song is what makes people hum along. The lyrics— and every rapper is about to cringe when I say this, and every singer— is like the icing on the cake. It's a production-driven environment. Without a great beat, I don't think you can have a great song. I think that you can have a great beat and shitty lyrics, and people will gravitate towards it, you know, not as well as they would if it was a great beat and great lyrics combined, right? But I just think that producers really matter, and they're the last to get paid. They have to fight for what's theirs. They get paid once. They don't get to do shows. Like, I totally understand why Metro Boomin and Sonny Digital became artists, because in order to make a great living today, that's what they had to do. You know, every up-and-coming producer jacks the sound of whoever's hot at the moment. So you no longer have to go to Sunny Digital to get that sound or Drumma Boy to get that sound. You can go to Bob down the street and he's gonna make a beat that sounds just like Sunny Digital or sounds just like Drumma Boy. So there's no longer a sound. You know, when I was coming up in hip-hop, there was the Pete Rock sound, the DJ Premier sound. The Timberland sound, the Dr. Dre sound. And if you wanted that sound, you had to go to the originator. You couldn't just go to some knockoff guy and get a bullshit beat. And today you can. So the producer doesn't really have any, any power or leverage in the music industry anymore, and it really pisses me off. So I, I, I, I get that you're asking me questions on production and producers, and you're probably a little bit frustrated, but just understand that for me, they're a key component of the music industry, even though I can't answer you the way you want me to answer you, right? And I would totally get it if you were a little, um, frustrated. Thank you, Odd Man Out, you've been really helpful. Um, Racio Texas Boy, I go through, um, a guy in Orlando. His name is Manny. Um, shoot, I posted him. He's on Instagram at JLM— J like John, L like Larry, M like Mary— JLM Printing, I think. And there might be an underscore before his name. If you hit me on, hit me on Instagram and ask me, just under any one of my recent posts, just @rapcoalition, and ask me the name of the, of the CD company that I use, and I will, um, I will put a link under his, one of his pictures on his page. I will you so that you will be able to know who I go through. They are 30 cents apiece. I think I pay— I paid $2,950 for 10,000, and I probably press 30,000 to 40,000 when I press CDs. That's to give out to promote. And CDs are dying, by the way. It's declining. Doc Holla, the music industry does need a union like the actors have. And I've been trying so hard, like my whole career, to start one, and it's just like, it's a nightmare to start a union. So I'm gonna leave that to somebody younger and with more energy. King Flaw is asking me, where do I hit you? You can reach me at thisiswendyday@gmail.com. This is Wendy Day at gmail.com. There's also underneath this video and all my videos, there is a, an email address that also comes right to me. And email is the way to hit me. I very rarely answer my phone. I never answer my phone if I don't know who it is. You would have to text me first. But I just don't have much time, so I could either answer my phone or get work done. Y'all know what I'm gonna pick. Alexa, Christian, you're in the Caribbean. I'll trade places with you. Okay, here's what's really funny. I have Alexa, and Alexa just heard me speak to you and answered. Alexa, what's the weather? Alexa, what's the weather? Currently in Alpharetta, it's 82 degrees with cloudy skies. It's hot here. You can look for some clouds with a chance of thunder showers with a low of 71 degrees. JB Sanchez, you're asking me, um, you're asking me how effective is PR— oh, I missed the question. Um, you're asking me how effective PR is for an indie artist building a buzz. It is part of your mix, your marketing mix. I do think it's important. Um, it's one slice of the pie, and you need to have all the slices of the pie in order to properly market and promote a project. So I do believe it's important. I did say earlier that on one of the projects that I've worked recently, I did not hire a publicist, and, um, it didn't make too much of a difference, I'm embarrassed to tell you. He still succeeded. People just don't seem to be as tied to the blogs as they once were. It seems like people check blogs to find out, you know, like who's fucking who and what happened on, you know, a TV show, like what happened behind the scenes at the BET Awards last week or whatever. It just seems to be more scandalous stuff than, um, you know, real news or a place where artists break. It seems to me that the playlists are where artists break music today. I put a lot of attention and money into Spotify playlists. Thank you, York Williams. I think altruism is key. Um, King Peavy is asking, how many posters, flyers, CDs should you start with if you're a local artist and promote yourself? Is there such a thing as too much? Um, you can tell when you're saturating a market because you'll go to hand somebody something and they'll be like, I already have that. So once you start hearing that a lot, you're done. Like, that's enough. Um, I usually start with, um, let me give you advice, not tell you what I do. I, if I were you, I would start with 5,000 of everything Um, maybe not posters. I don't know that I'd press 5,000 posters right off the bat. I'd probably start with 500 or 1,000 depending on where the price breaks is— the price break is. Um, with posters it gets to a point where the price for like 500 is a dollar less than 1,000, right? So you, you figure out what the prices are for 500, 1,000, 1,500, 3,000, 5,000. And then you print based on where the price break is. Um, but I would start with less and then order more as I needed them, rather than fill up your garage with a bunch of stuff that might just sit there if you don't promote properly. Um, so whatever you can handle, right? Your budget— it depends on the size of your market. I work a 5 to 7 state area you might only have the budget to work, you know, 5 cities near you or 3 cities near you. So figure out what you're going to give any out in each area, and then that's how many you print. And then when you start to run low, order more. Understand that it probably takes 2 to 3 weeks for you to re-up, so just make sure that you order, um, 2 to 3 weeks ahead. Hey, Misi, how are you? RR, Jill Sanchez, JB Sanchez. I'm a little blind today, aren't I? J-Star said icing on the cake. People like icing. Icing and sprinkles. Yes, me too. Thank you, um, Alexi. I don't want Alexa to start going off again. But thank you so much. Um, a producer, RR, will start his own, um, his own company that will— I would start, if I were a producer and if budget wasn't a problem because I was already making money, I would start a publishing company and incorporate it, and I would start my own producer company. So let's just say that, um, my name was RR the Super Producer. I would incorporate as RR the Super Producer LLC, and then I would also incorporate RR the Publishing Company LLC, whatever the name of my publishing company was. And that name would be also the same name as my ASCAP or BMI or SESAC affiliation. DJ Chemical Bass says, um, your book on how to get a record deal, does it have the 10 important steps to do on the business side? It does not. Um, if you go to industryreport.com, um, the 10 steps are there. I also made a matching video, um, here on my YouTube page. And it's posted below there as well. And I think it's also on rapjewels.com, but I can't remember if I posted it on Rap Jewels. I probably did, but for sure it's on my YouTube page, and for sure it's on my blog, which is Industry Report. Um, there, I just saved you, uh, $11. Odd Man Out says technology has destroyed the hip-hop producer. You know, it's funny, I, I It's funny you mentioned my, my book, um, um, DJ Chemical Base, because, um, Odd Man Out just made a point that I actually talk about in my book. I, I think it's the technology, but I also think that we're totally oversaturated. Like, all of a sudden we went from having 1,000 producers to 100,000 producers, and technology drove the price down So in a way, yes, it destroyed the industry, but what happened was there's just too many people selling beats. So I watched the price of beats for a brand new producer go from $1,500 to $1,000 to $500 to $100 to $25 to $15 to free. And, and that's what's killing the producer because nobody can make any money. If you sell beats for $25 you would have to sell a million of them to make a good living, right? You'd have to sell more than that to make a good living. So it's just, it became unrealistic for, for there to be this many producers to choose from. There aren't this many sounds out there, you know. I agree, Terrence. Terrence says it's because too many artists say, can you make a beat like this one? You know, that's been happening since time began. Everybody wants whatever the hit beat is. Like, I'm sure when Panda came out that everybody was like, yo, can you make me a beat just like Panda? It's just, it's, it's heart-wrenching to say the least. It's worse than ever now because the beats The beats used— the sounds used to be hard to get. They were coveted. And today, um, you can listen to a beat and you know exactly where the producer got every sound in his beat. So if you wanted to go recreate the same sounds, you could. You know, there used to be sound kits that, you know, you couldn't really get. You had to be in an inner circle to get them. I remember Um, was it KLC? KLC from Beats by the Pound. He was given somebody's drum sounds and he was thrilled, like that was such a big deal for him to get the, the, the drum sounds from somebody else. And today it's like you can Google and get them, you know, it's— they're not special anymore. And yes, that's a, that's a technology issue. So yes, I believe that technology has killed the producer, but also the oversaturation, the fact that there's just so many people that woke up this morning and said, I think I want to make beats for rappers. There aren't that many rappers. Every person in this world could rap and there'd still be producers left over. Okay, that's not really true, but you see my point. Chief Holiday, um, I absolutely agree CDs are dying, but here in the South, um, people still, people still use CDs to, to spread music. Chief Holiday, there is no one-stop shop for independent artists. I'm gonna go to your website, and if you're not cheaper than everybody else, I'm gonna make you look like such a fucking asshole for doing this. Um, I do agree with you though. I love you for saying this. Artists depend too much on the internet. You're absolutely right. Um, they do depend too much on the internet. They forget to go out and work the streets, you know. Um, QR codes are not the wave yet. Um, QR codes are great, and I use them myself, but if I give out 100 flyers with QR codes on it, maybe one person will use the technology. It's, it's really that pathetic. We could have this conversation like not in front of everybody because I'm not trying to blow you up. I'm not trying to make you feel bad just because you came onto my shit and self-promoted. But, um, yeah, we should talk. We should talk outside of this. Doc Hollis says the blogs became too worried about the politics that they wouldn't post or took forever to post content. Absolutely. And then they complained that the shit wasn't new. My problem with the blogs is that they all started taking money, so you know, really garbage artists that had money could get their songs posted, and then the fans were like, oh my God, what is all this garbage? And they stopped taking the blog seriously. The blogs totally burned themselves out. Like, they totally, totally deserve everything they got. I just— I remember the day when artists would tell me, yo, I don't, I don't need to build a relationship with such-and-such blog. You know, like, I'll just give them $500 and they'll post my shit. Okay, good luck with that. Um, Mr. Mac, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. You're talking about— you're asking about websites offering streaming and marketing services. Um, I'm a big fan of doing stuff in the real world and online. Um, for me, marketing is a pie, and it's all the different pieces of the pie that make up the whole pie. So one of the pieces of the pie is the internet. It's a very important piece of the pie, but it's still just a piece of the pie. You've still got, um, promotion. Um, I still do street promotion, and maybe that's why my artists stand out, because they're still doing like some of the old school shit and some of the new school shit, and they're kind of bringing the best of both worlds together. We still hire publicists for most of my clients, if not all except one. Um, what else do we do? We do promo tours, so we get out and perform in front of the fans. And, um, I'm trying to remember the other, um, video promotion. We still do video promotion. So it's all of those pieces of the pie that come together. And if you want to see the pie, it is on the bottom of one of my articles. Um, at industryreport.com. I think it's the marketing article. Mike Pratt is saying people still use CDs everywhere, not just the South. I've just noticed, like, in New York I can't really give out CDs. Like, people look at me like I'm crazy when I hand them a CD. I have to hand them download cards. They're like business cards that have like everywhere you can possibly go to find the artist's music— Spotify, SoundCloud, blah blah blah blah blah. Odd Man Out, I don't press vinyl for any of my artists, so I don't know if there are any good vinyl pressing plants still around. I'm sure there are because vinyl is popular again, um, but for new artists it's a little bit harder to sell vinyl and it's a little expensive to give away for free. There used to be a great vinyl pressing plant in Nashville. I don't know if they're still there, but you could certainly, um, Google. Mike Pratt is saying, 'Tons of consumers grab CDs out of convenience.' Yes, and a lot of people still drive cars that have CD players. I admit that they're there. I just know that, um, like, if I'm in New York promoting for an artist, or North Jersey, it's really hard for me to give CDs away. But if I'm in Macon, Georgia, it's really easy to give CDs away. So I always have CDs. Like, don't think that I don't press up, because I do. But for the most part it depends on whether I'm in a city or in a rural area, whether I'm in the Midwest or the South or the West Coast or the East Coast. There's just certain places where I can't give out CDs. I thought it was big cities. I thought because I was in New York or Chicago, um, I couldn't give out CDs. But I found like even in smaller towns like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I couldn't give out CDs. Like people just weren't really accepting them. They weren't really taking them. I'll still have them. It just means I'll only give out 1,000 instead of 10,000. When I'm in Macon, I can give out 10,000 CDs. I can't do that in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thank you, Meezy. Yes, hit, um, hit helpfulangel.com and, um, press on the email link in there for contact, and I'm happy to have that conversation with you. Um, I, I try, I try not to— I try not to promote myself on here because my goal isn't doing this to get clients. My goal is doing this to give back because most of the people in the music industry can't afford to hire me. So I'd rather I'd rather do this to help people, not to self-promote. But, um, if you hit me on my website, I'm happy to have a conversation with you. Mike Pratt said public agencies have attempted to kill the underground mixtape game. Yes, Wendy Day Day has moved from Canal Street to the discount malls in the A. Yes, it's true. Um, I have to secretly admit to you that I don't mind the bootleggers because I use them to promote. My thinking is I give out CDs for free on the street all day every day, so if I can go to a bootlegger and give him 1,000 CDs and he like spreads them out for a buck apiece or 2 bucks apiece or 3 bucks apiece, I don't care if he makes the money. I see that as the price to hire him as a street team, you know. I care about the music getting out there. And again, I work with newer artists. I don't work with Future, I don't work with The Weeknd, I would, I would very much give a shit if I worked with Jay-Z and 444 was getting bootlegged. That would piss me off, right? But I don't, and I'm spreading the buzz, so I don't really mind. My artists are going to make money streaming, and they're going to make money doing shows. The show money comes first, and then the streaming money, because remember, they're all independent, so they're getting 100% of the money that's coming from streaming after— well, 80/20 if it passes through a distributor, 100% if it passes through TuneCore or DistroKid, right? But Meezy, thank you, um, for sending me $2. That was crazy cool. I forgot that button was there. Pluto Dash says, I'm killing YouTube, Tony's killing Facebook. That's so funny. Yeah, Mr. Mac, check the marketing pie. It's in an article at industryreport.com, and I think it's the one— it's either called promotion or it's called marketing. It's one of the two, and, um, you'll recognize it when you see it. It's, it's a pie and it's made out like I have each slice labeled. I also have one that's a puzzle. It's 9 squares, and then each of the squares is named with a different type of promotion that we do, one of which is like radio promotion. Um, a lot of you guys aren't at a point where radio will benefit you. It'll just be like a huge expense for you. So get it popping on the streets first, right? Another one is street promotion, club promotion. Okay, Doc Holla, out here in the West we will fight you if you try to pass us a CD. It's looked upon as an annoyance. Yeah, Southern California is more of an 'are you on the radio' type of region. Right, but you know that, like, once you start to— once you start to really promote, you learn what you can do in each market. You learn what you can do and what you can't do, right? So, um, it— you know, do, do what works for you, but just make sure that you always have what you need. I carry a backpack, and in that backpack are download cards and, and MP3 sticks, because I'm going to give DJs, you know, a jump drive, right? The MP3 stick, and fans are gonna get the CD or the download card. You know, I'll usually have both with me so I can ask them, hey, what do you prefer? And some of them do have a QR code on it. That's just— I'm having a little trouble getting people to accept the technology. I'm working on that. Okay, I've confused JC Kush, so let me help you out here. Am I supposed to trademark my name? Yes. And make it an LLC, or can I trademark my name and then make a publishing company, record label, an LLC once the money comes in? Okay, you trademark your name, right? That's a separate thing. You're absolutely going to trademark your name. It's probably going to cost you somewhere— just to file the trademark is around $800, $900. So it's probably going to cost you somewhere between $1,500 to $3,000 to trademark your name. So that's kind of an expensive thing to do. So do the preliminary search first to make sure that your name is available. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. Um, and then the company is going to be whatever your company is called. It doesn't have to be your name, like it doesn't have to be JC Kush LLC. It can be Um, you know, Smoke 'Em Records. It could be Kush Records. It could be Cushy and Comfortable Records. You know, it could be whatever your company is called. You're gonna, you're gonna incorporate your business, your company. It doesn't necessarily have to be your name, right? Okay. And then make a publishing record company once the money comes in. Yes, yes. And then as a third thing, so you've trademarked your name, you've set up your corporation as an LLC, whatever it's called, then you're going to incorporate your publishing company. So let's just say your, your, um, your publishing company is called Cushing My Pen instead of Pushing My Pen, right? Cushing My Pen. You would have Cushing My Pen LLC, and that would be your ASCAP name, your BMI name, your CSAC name, whatever the name of your publishing company is. With the performing rights organization, that's what you're going to incorporate as your publishing company, right?

Okay.

And I would do that one last because the publishing money comes last. If you have a budget, do all of them up front. Oh, okay. Odd Man Out just said it so much faster and so much better than I did. Then I'm going to read it to you. Yeah, you nailed it.

This is—

yeah, you nailed it. Okay, Odd Man Out said, JC Kush, trademark the name and copyright your material if your money isn't abundant— isn't in abundance first. Always protect your family first. Think of your product as your child and copyright first, if anything. There we go. Thank you. So Terrence Walker is saying when he gives beats to artists, he gives them flash drives, um, with the music jump drive, right? USB drive, whatever you want to call it, um, with all of your info, your PRO, etc., your ASCAP or your BMI information. Absolutely. And I'm assuming you mean it's in the metadata on each song, because understand that when an artist takes your, um— you didn't call it a jump drive, what'd you call it? Flash drive. When your artist takes your flash drive and they put it into their laptop or their computer, they're going to most likely move all of that music to whatever computer they're using in the studio, right? And you want to make sure that if that, if that flash drive gets separated from the music, they can still look at the music and know who you are. There are many, many, many, many, many, many, many times where I have seen an artist record and they don't know where the beat came from, they don't know whose it is, and they will put out music and just hope that that producer gets in touch with them. They always get separated. So, um, metadata, metadata, metadata, metadata. I can't tell you enough. J-Sar says, when I can, I aim to have small talk with someone before giving promo material. I get less frisbees that way. Yes, same on the internet, right? It's, it's— you don't want to spam people. You want to, you want to have a conversation with them. You want to engage them, because if they like you, they will listen to your music. If they like you as a person, they will listen to your music. Ah, Odd Man Out said, Wendy Day, you told me that years ago. Well, you remembered it better than I did because you said it better than I did. I love that. I love when the teacher becomes the student. I am such a sponge for knowledge, it's pathetic. I have all this useless information up here, and then I have this little tiny section right here of like shit that we can all use. So I'm happy to share all of it with you, but I'd rather share the useful shit with you. Sun Twisted is saying, does it make sense to raise production prices and only target artists who are making money and still pay for beats, or is the oversaturation so high that even those artists don't buy beats? Some do, some don't. It depends on the artist. Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't target just artists that can pay because sometimes to build a buzz, you're gonna do work for somebody that's up and coming, um, in your area, you know, or even in another area. So you might do a track for an artist that has a little bit of a budget and a little bit of a buzz, and that shit goes sky high. Or you could do something for 2 Chainz where you might get paid $5,000, but it's filler on his album because it's up against a track by Sunny Digital, it's up against a track by Metro Boomin, you know, it's a tough call. I'd rather have more music in the marketplace than just one where I made a bunch of money. And I hate to say that because this is about making money. I don't ever want you to think that this isn't about making money. This is about building a career. But when you're at a point where you don't have a lot of placements where you can start getting paid for your beats, you need as many great placements as you can get. And sometimes it's better to have a lot because you don't know— you know, I can't look at an artist and tell you, oh, he's going to be successful. I can't tell you that. But I can tell you that Somebody that has a budget to market and promote is probably going to go a little bit further. They're going to reach more ears than somebody who has no budget to market and promote, even though the broke person might be a better rapper. It, it's not based on talent, and it should be, but it's not. It's a business, you know. We don't all buy the best brand of cola. We don't all buy the best brand of toilet paper. We buy the toilet paper that we like. We buy the toilet paper— excuse me, we buy the cola, which is kind of toilet paper. We buy the cola brand that we like. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the one that's the best for us or the one that's best tasting. It's what we're used to. It's what we like. It's what's convenient sometimes, you know. King Peevee saying, when doing a promo tour, do you meet with DJs in those cities? Absolutely. What else do you do besides passing out material? We hit college campuses, we hit, um, we hit high school campuses, we hit whatever the hot hip-hop gear stores are, the hottest barber shops, flea markets, pool halls, um, and it's hard for me to to tell you, because each market is different, right? Like, we don't really have flea markets in— I shouldn't say we because I don't live in New York anymore, but when I lived in New York, there were no flea markets. But when I go to LA, there's a shit ton of flea markets. So you do— you go to the places where your market hangs out, wherever people that might like your music are hanging out, you go there. And ditto on the internet. Don't forget, you work the internet just like it's another market. So I don't want you to avoid the internet, I just don't want you to only work the internet. I want you to get out there into real life and start moving amongst the fans and your people. J, sorry, you are icing, it's true. Um, Mr., I don't think I answered anything about entertainment agents, so I don't think you missed the answer. I think I missed the question. John, um, and I don't know what it was. So agents are the people that book you for shows. Um, they're really called booking agents, not entertainment agents. I hope you don't mean managers. Um, so an agent— as a producer though, you wouldn't be asking me about booking agents. A booking agent is the person that books the show. Um, the other person that you as a producer might be asking about is a manager. And a manager usually gets paid 15 to 20% of income. Um, so your manager would get 15 or 20% of the beats that they sell or the music that they place in TV or film or video games. Um, I hope I answered your question. Yeah, I don't think you would have asked me. I don't know what an entertainment agent is. Um, Odd Man Music is saying, Wendy, is it best to license your production or sell the beat? Um, I think you're— instead of licensing, I think you mean leasing the beat. Here's the problem with leasing the beat, um, and, and those of you who hear a lot are really tired of hearing me say this, so I apologize, but when you spend money to market and promote a song You need to have the exclusive license of that song, which means I, I bought the beat from you. That doesn't mean I own it. It means I have the right to license it from you. You still own 100% of your publishing, which is 50% of the song, right? There's a song, the song is 100%, 50% is the lyric, 50% is the production. So you own 100% of the production, which is 50% of the song. Okay, so if I, if I can't license the exclusive rights from you to use that, then I'm not going to spend money on marketing and promoting that song because Juicy J could pop up tomorrow using that beat, or 2 Chainz, or Future, or somebody else. And I don't ever want to put money into marketing and promoting a song that somebody else could pop up who's more famous than my client. Because remember, I work with the guys who are new and starting and small, so anybody bigger that's using that beat is certainly going to get more attention than one of the artists that I work with. So I always like to have exclusivity, and to get an exclusive deal with you, I can't lease the beat. Leasing means you're going to lend it to me, you're going to lend it to this guy, you're going to lend it to that chick, you're going to lend it to him, you're going to lend it to her. It's not exclusive, and I'm not going to put the kind of money that it takes to win with a record. I'm just not going to put that kind of money into a song that isn't exclusive, and a major label really isn't going to do it. So if you're trying to get your production placed with and I'm just gonna keep using the same examples. I'm gonna use 2 Chainz again. I don't know if you give a shit about producing for 2 Chainz, but I will tell you this: his label is not going to lease a beat from you. They're gonna want exclusivity. They're not gonna spend money. You know, I spend this much money, major labels spend this much money, so they're not gonna spend the money to market a song on a beat that they leased. So I am not a fan of leased beats. I totally get why producers do it, because there's 73 rappers out there that are gonna rap on your beat and it's never gonna go anywhere, and you don't want to lose a beat to people that aren't known when you might be able to sell that beat to like a 2 Chainz for $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000. I totally get that, but you can't properly market and promote with a leased beat. So again, that's your call. Odd Man Out said yes, leasing. Sorry, not a problem. Sacred G, you're back! James Drew says, I don't have the budget to release music to get a lot of ears. Am I best to try and move to a place where I can find a team or funding, or just release music for free to build for now? I would build as many fans as you can. You know, I, I, I— it's very hard for me to answer that. Should you move to a place where you can do better? I'm one of those people that I move for opportunity. I live in Atlanta because I can benefit the most amount of people living in Atlanta. If the new hotbed for music was Des Moines, Iowa, I would probably move to Des Moines, Iowa. So I'm not sure that I'm the best person to ask that. I don't have children, so I don't have to worry about pulling somebody out of school, you know. Do you have a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Like, there's a lot of things you have to take into consideration before you say, I'm going to pick up and move. And then where are you going to move to that's a better opportunity. Like, so many people move to Atlanta that are rappers and singers and producers. And if you think it's oversaturated in the industry, you should come to Atlanta. Like, my God, is it oversaturated here. And there's not a lot of people that get on in Atlanta that aren't from Atlanta or that haven't been here for a very long time. Like, you can't, you can't move from Detroit to Atlanta and get on. It doesn't really work that way. I just haven't seen anybody succeed. I guess you could be the first, but I don't know that you're trying to be the first here. I think you're trying to follow a pattern that has kind of worked for other people recently, hoping that it would work for you. So, um, I think that you build your fan base where you are, and it's hard for me to say that because I don't know where you are. Um, you might be in a little ice hut in the North Pole, I don't know, in which case you should probably move anyway just because you want to be warm. You know, maybe you're in Miami and you think that you can't build a team. You know, it's so hard to answer that. It's such a hard question. There's so much more that goes into making that decision than I can't get on where I am. Guys in St. Louis tell me they can't get on. Guys in Chicago tell me they can't get on, and I've built 3 or 4 artists out of Chicago, you know. Um, people tell me they can't get on out of Newark, New Jersey, and I'm about to work a client out of Newark, New Jersey, and he's going to get on. So it's not necessarily where you are. It might be that you don't have the right budget, which you have just said. Um, I'm talking to everybody now. Like, it might be that you don't have the right budget. It might be that you don't have the right know-how. So you don't really know what you're doing and you're trying different things and they're not working. And, you know, it's sort of like being on a baseball diamond and you're swinging a hammer instead of a bat, so that your hit area on a bat is this, but your hit area on a hammer is this. And you're doing the same thing, you know, you're, you're swinging a hammer instead of swinging a bat, but you have the motion correct It's just you don't have the right tool, you know. So it's— you might hit the ball with the hammer, yes, you might hit the ball, but it sure is harder to hit it with a hammer than it is to hit it with a bat. And it might not go as far because of the, the dynamics of the hammer, right? So you might hit it with all your might and it only goes, you know, 10 feet or 12 feet, whereas with a bat, that same swing might have sent it over the fences. You know, it's the tool and it's the knowledge that might be lacking. So there's so many different dynamics that go into that. Yes, Alexa is asking— damn, there goes Alexa again. Sorry. So, sorry, I don't know that. So A Critton is asking me, is asking me, I'm gonna have to like turn her off the next time you're on my live feed so that you guys don't have to listen to what's her name in the background answering questions. Um, you're asking about the master of a track. If I have a work-for-hire arrangement with the producer, is that producer still entitled to the master?

Okay.

A master is the ownership of the actual physical thing that the music is on, right? So it would be a CD, or it would be the internet, if you will, the song on the internet that's streaming. The publishing is the ownership of the actual music, the actual song. So the publishing and the master are two different things, but every song has a master and it has somebody that owns the publishing. A work for hire is in respect to the publishing. And by the way, don't ever do a work for hire, please. If there's one thing you take away from here tonight, don't do a work for hire. It means that you are only entitled to the payment that you get when you sign that paper. If, if the song blows up and becomes the next Panda by Desiigner or the next Bad and Boujee by the Migos, you will never get another dime. It doesn't matter. A work for hire is signing away your rights, so please don't ever sign a work for hire. I don't care how desperate you are and how great that money looks. When that song becomes a hit record, you will be sick that you don't get a percentage of it, and you can't— there's nothing you can do. You can't sue. You signed away the rights. So a master is the actual ownership of the ability to reproduce that song. The publishing is the ownership of the music and the lyrics in that song. Odd Man Out, why didn't you say that better than me? That was good the way I just said it, was good. So you get it now, right? The publishing is the song ownership and the master is the vehicle that the song moves on. And you want to own as much as you can of all of that. The record label almost always owns the master, almost always. No work for hire, no work for hire, no work for hire, no, no. Um, Coke and Colada, I do not know when Spotify will be rolling out QR codes for songs and playlists. Um, I didn't know that they were. They have these unique little sound— they look like, um, they look like, uh, sound bars that actually, um, are how you link, but it's not a QR code. I didn't know they were doing QR codes. I hope that they do. QR codes just haven't really caught on the way I wish they did. I use them You know, and they're really cool because you can put your logo in them and stuff. Like, QR codes are just the bomb, but unfortunately I don't see a lot of people using them. They didn't catch on the way I thought they would. Terrence is saying— Terrence Walker saying college campuses are the shit. I have an artist who makes a living touring at college campuses, and they're in smaller markets like C and D markets. James Drew says, um, first of all, I'm here because of So Sincere from Cleveland. I love her, she's awesome. James Drew, thank you for coming. JC Kush, what goes under the personal LLC as a business versus the publishing LLC? I, I think you asked that after I answered, but, um It's not necessarily a personal LLC. The name of your company should be whatever you want it to be. In some cases, it's the artist's name. Like, in some cases, it's JC Kush LLC, but it doesn't have to be. It could be Kush Records, it could be Cushy Comfy Records, Cushy Comfy LLC. It could be whatever you want to call it. It could be called, you know, This Is My Shit LLC, like whatever you want to call it. It doesn't have to be your name. It doesn't have to be personal. In some cases, people do want to name their companies after themselves, but you don't have to. And then the publishing LLC is whatever your publishing company is called. Sacred G is saying, shout out to Wendy Day, long time no see, still out here grinding.

Yay!

James Drew is saying, I don't have the budget to release music to get a lot of ears. Am I best to try and move to— I already answered that, sorry. Did I go backwards? I'm sorry, babe. And how much is the kind of money to win? That's another hard question to answer because I don't know what market you're in. Um, if you're in New York City, you're going to need a good quarter million dollars. Um, here in Atlanta, a great budget is $150,000. That's what I need to get an artist to the point where money is coming back in to their company. Um, I've seen artists do this on $30 grand. I've seen artists do this on $50 grand. I've seen artists do this with $5 grand, $10 grand. Um, I can't— I haven't figured out yet how to make money for an artist with such a small budget. But there are other people who seem to be able to do it. So how much is the kind of money to win? I would make a list of everything you want to do. I would price it out, and then that is your budget. So if you want t-shirts, figure out how many you want, get a price for that many t-shirts. Figure out how many, um, how many flyers you want to press up, posters, if, if you're taking that route. I do. I still use posters and flyers because we go out on the road, we do a lot of shows, and when somebody pulls up to the club, my artist shit is all over the outside and the inside so that they own that spot for that night. Um, with some artists, we still post up at busy intersections in smaller cities. So it just, you know, we still use some of the older school techniques and we combine them with the newer school techniques like You may want to hire a social media marketing person, um, figure out how long, how many months you need that for, and then price it out. Add all that stuff up and there is your budget. That'll tell you what kind of money it takes to win. But I personally have not been able to do it under $150,000, and I've tried. Mr. Mack, when should a producer look for management? When when you need one. Such a half-assed answer though. I, I know this answer sucks, but it's the truth. You look for a manager when there's something to manage, when you can no longer do all of this yourself and you're at a point where you can make money. Because remember, you don't just wake up one day and say, oh, I'm gonna hire a manager. You have to be attractive to a manager. You've got to be in a position where they feel they can make money with you because they don't get paid an hourly rate. They get paid a percentage of your income. And it's not like there's a bunch of people that a manager has waiting to sell your beats to. They have to take your music and go out and find people who will buy your beats, and they need to believe that they can make money with you, or they're not going to do the work. They're going to be ineffective. So you look for a producer when you're bubbling enough to attract somebody who can better your career. You want to attract somebody that can get you to the next level, not just attract somebody who comes up to you and says, "Hi, I'm a manager." It's like, "Great, who have you managed before? What have you done? How did you benefit their career? What can you do for me?" Don't just take somebody's word for it. Do the research. Find out. Make sure they really manage that person. Make sure they're the ones that got them to that level. There's an artist that I'm friends with that just hired a new manager, and he had a totally different team that got him to the level he's at. He just hired a brand new manager. So even though that person can say to you, hey, I manage him— yeah, you do, but you haven't brought him any success yet. You haven't made him a dime yet, so you haven't really managed him yet. You're just the new manager. So do the research and just make that what people say is true. There's a lot of people in the music industry that aren't shit. You guys probably know that, right? Like, that's not a— that's not like an earth-shattering discovery that you heard here first. There's just a lot of bullshit in this industry. There's a lot of people that can't deliver, and then there's a— who think they can but they can't. And then there's a lot of people who don't even try to deliver. They're con men, and their game is to make money off of you. And it's, it's sad, but it's, it's true. Um, Dark Brothers Entertainment is saying, so when we do the split sheet, the producer will get 100% of the song when I buy it? No, when you do the split sheet, the producer gets 50% of the song and the rapper or the singer gets 50% of the song. And if you've got a co-producer, then your 50% will be a little smaller. If there's more than one person singing or rapping, then their share will be smaller than 50%, but it starts out at 50/50, the producer and the artist, right? And that's 100% of the song. So if you do a split sheet and somebody is getting 100% of the song, then that's a work for hire. That means you don't— there's only 100%, so you don't get paid any of that. Suntwisted says James, $30,000 a month for 9 to 12 months. Terence Walker— oops, I just leaned on my computer and made it go way up. Crap, I hate when that happens. There we go. Yeah, there's a writer share and a producer share, but for right now, let's just focus on the song. It's 50/50 because you're talking about— you're talking about the split sheets. And thank you, Terence Walker, you nailed it. Nike Gaming Channel, um, my day has been really good. I've been a little bit busy. Um, there were a couple of artists that came into town this weekend. I had a list, I had a her Herculean list of shit that I wanted to get done over the holiday. There were like 40 things on that list, and I was like, okay, I can do this. There's 4 days, I can do 10 things a day, I'm good, I'm in there. Um, and then, um, Mr. Kane came in from Baton Rouge. I spent some time with him, I spent some time with Scotty ATL. So I, I have these big chunks of time that are missing out of my schedule. So instead of getting like 40 things done, I got like 5.

Of.

So, um, I'm kind of working double time right now, but I'm good. Thank you for asking. Hustle Boy is asking me, independently, how do I get radio play? You hire a radio promoter. First you make sure you have a record that is worthy of getting radio play, um, and then you hire an independent radio promoter. I have an interview with Lester Pace, who is the guy that I use for radio promotion, and I pretty much asked him all the questions that you probably would or should ask him. So if you'll check out, um, it was since January, um, I don't exactly remember when, but it was definitely since January that I interviewed him. Um, you might be able to find it faster at rapjewels.com.

.com.

I have all my videos archived there, like, in order. I just find YouTube to be a little bit scattered. It's hard to find shit on there for me, so I figure if it's hard for me, it's hard for other people. But you hire somebody and you pay for radio play. DJ McGrath is saying, if me and my partner signed to a label as a band, would we still be bound to that band, or could we go and do our own thing individually, um, yet stay signed to the label also? Um, DJ McGrath, you can do that provided there is a clause in your contract that allows you to do that. Most major labels will not let you do that. You have to have a lot of leverage to be able to say, okay, I'll sign here as a group, but I want to be able to go off over here and do my own shit as a solo artist. Most labels will sign you as the group individually and collectively. That means if they blow you up, One Direction, and you go out separately and do your own thing, they still want to profit. So they're gonna— you're gonna be signed to them as an individual and as a group. But you can carve that out. Like, if you have enough leverage going in, you can absolutely say, I'll sign as the group, but I'm not willing to sign as a solo artist. And if you've got enough leverage, they'll be like, okay. Wu-Tang Clan is probably the best example of that. It's a '90s example, but it's still an example. They signed to Loud Records as a collective, as a group, and then each artist went and did a separate solo deal at a different label. Coca-Cola said that he heard, or she heard, that they were going to do a Snapchat type thing for artists to promote their Spotify. Man, that would be awesome. I think they've done it, but I don't think it's a QR code. I think it's those little— it's a little square that has like, um, bars in it, like waves, like sound. Um, it's not a QR code, but I think they've done that. And I just started seeing them maybe 2 weeks ago. I like QR codes too, Sacred G. I use them a lot. I have QR codes on my business cards, in fact, but very few people will scan them. Like, the cool thing about a QR code is you can go into your dashboard and you can see exactly um, how many people have scanned, where they're from. You can get all sorts of data. And, um, either nobody gives a fuck about me or they're just not scanning my QR code. I'd like to think it's the latter. Kyle saying, um, Kyle BW1, do you think exposure or buzz would ever be enough to get an investor on board? Absolutely, it's enough to get an investor on board. How much money do you think an artist needs to be generating before they think about investing? I don't think it's about money for an investor. I think it's the opportunity to make money. Um, almost— I don't want to say all. Let me think for a second. It might be all. I think everyone who's ever hired me has, has put money behind somebody that already has a buzz. Let me just think if that's true. Yeah, even going back to the '90s, like, like, um, Do or Die and Twista had a bit of a buzz, like, in Chicago. Even Cash Money, even Cash Money, when I started working with them, they had a buzz. Um, I was able to come in and make it bigger. I can't think of an example of of somebody who had no buzz when their investor stepped in. And understand, they come to me with the investor already in place, so I'm not there usually when the investor comes on board. I'm, I'm remembering like stories of how people met. Joyner Lucas is probably the artist with the least amount of buzz when I met him, when I started working with him. And he met his investor in a strip club. He was performing in a strip club, and he, he ended up sitting next to the guy who became his investor. They knew each other for about a year before the investor invested in him, but he just— he was a fan. He came as a fan, and he watched Joyner build his career for like a year before he really started to like move forward and get serious. And, um, I remember when they flew into Atlanta to meet me, it was a team of like 3 or 4 guys, and we all sat down. And, um, I don't think Joyner— I don't think Joyner had a big following. I mean, he had a following in, in, you know, in Massachusetts where he's from, but not much, like maybe a couple thousand on Instagram and, um, and Twitter. But yeah, I would, I would build a buzz if you're trying to find investors. You want to show them that you're a hard worker, and you want to show them that you're serious. Yes, would you please post a link to the article on the Spotify QR codes? Absolutely, Coke and Colada, thank you. I'm a junkie for information. I love that. Please, somebody just asked me what about Connecticut and I lost it. There it is, The Great Six Two. What about Connecticut? Um, Connecticut is a hard market, but your competition is limited. You're gonna spend time probably mostly in Hartford, New Haven. Um, I would go to Providence, Rhode Island. I would hit Boston. I would hit Springfield, Massachusetts. I would hit upstate New York, like Poughkeepsie, Albany. I would go bigger than just Connecticut. There's a little bit of an audience in New Hampshire. It would depend on how far a drive, like Concord, is from you as to whether I would I would suggest you do that. I would probably not go north of Boston. I'd probably start going south of Connecticut. I'd probably hit Philadelphia, Harrisburg, maybe Pittsburgh. It depends on the music. Pittsburgh is less of a lyrical place. Um, street shit does very well in Pittsburgh, more so than lyrical. Rap, so it depends on the type of music that you make. But I would work with somebody from Connecticut, like I wouldn't be afraid of that. I would love the fact that nobody's broken out of there yet, and I would use that as part of my promo campaign, like, yeah, I'm the first, motherfucker. DJ McGrath is saying, could a 2-person or 3-person band be signed to a label as an LLC? Yes, but it's still— it still ties you. Like, um, you— your holding company can be signed to the label and you're just members of your holding company, but the contract applies to you personally regardless of whether or not— um, I remember when I was working with Young Buck, I was pulling them off of G-Unit, and this is before— this is before they all got back together, right? And he signed as a holding company to G-Unit. And I thought, oh good, you know, this will help us. And it, it made no difference one way or the other, unfortunately. Alexa is asking me— oh, she didn't go off— um, is asking me what is the best arrangement to make with the producer. Um, and it depends on the producer because some producers will give you beats for back-end money. Some producers want money up front because they don't think they're going to make any money on the back end. Some producers might love you, um, because you're so talented that they want to be your producer. Um, so the best deal you can make with the producer is absolutely, um, that they own 100% of their publishing and you own 100% of yours. So they own 50% of the song, you own 50% of the song, right? Um, that's definitely the best beat. And yes, I know I'm not getting into songwriter publishing— into, into— just leave it at that for right now, right? So I would do a deal where if the song blows up, I will give you X percent of the income from this song. That's what I would do if they're giving you the beat for free up front. If you're paying for the beat, then I might just give them like, you know, 1 point depending on how much leverage they have. You know, it depends on who's bigger. Are they a better known producer than you are a rapper, or are they brand new to this? So everybody has leverage. Everybody has the position that they come from, right? There's a great book you guys should read about publishing. It's where I learned what publishing was. It's Donald Passman's Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business. It's in like its 407th pressing. Um, I'm exaggerating, it's in like its 9th or 10th pressing. But he explains publishing so well that once I read that It was all very clear to me. It's Donald Passman, P-A-S-S-M-A-N, Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business. It might be called All You Need to Know. It's everything, everything you need to know about the music business. Um, RR, I'm not a producer, so I don't know what a good metadata tool is. Um, maybe one of the producers on here could talk about what they use. Um, I always have the mix engineer do it. Somebody asked earlier, you know, who, who should do it. For me, I always ask the mix engineer to do it. Sometimes it's done for me already, sometimes it's not done and he's the first to do it, but I don't tell him how to do it, so I don't know what tools he uses. Um, but maybe somebody on here could tell you what they use for metadata. If not Um, ask a bunch of producers what they think and let them tell you, and whatever name comes up the most is probably one of the best. The Great 62: What business entity should I go with? Most people go with LLCs because the income passes through to your personal income, but that question is usually answered by an accountant because it depends on your tax situation. As to whether you want to have the money pass through to your personal income or whether it should pass through as its own separate corporate entity. But most people do an LLC. My companies are all LLCs. Sacred G is saying, do you believe in sending in jewel case CDs to stations instead of paying the your budget for radio promoters. I always hire a radio promoter because if I go to a radio station and I say, "Could you play my record? Here's $10," they will throw me out of the building so fast and I will get hurt when I hit the curb. So I always pay somebody that does it for a living, and then what they do on their own, I don't know where the money goes. I don't know who they're paying. I don't know how much they're paying. I don't care. I just care that my song gets promoted. King Peevee's asking, what's a radio promo show? Um, I believe what you're asking me is when a radio station asks you to come do a free show, um, you do the show for them for free in exchange for a certain amount of spins. So if you're doing a show for them for free, they're gonna play your song for the 3 weeks before the show and maybe a week after the show. Um, and, and you benefit because you just got like 4 weeks of radio play in exchange for a show. They benefit because they're helping break an artist, so you're going to remember them down the road as the ones who showed you love early. And if you're in a position where you don't need them to show you love early, it benefits you because you're going to get— even if you're paying for radio play through your through your promoter, you're going to get more spins when you're doing a show for free. They're going to keep the door, you know, if you're, if you're a better-known artist where people are paying to come in because you're there that night, they're going to get to keep the money from the door. So they're happy and you're going to get more spins and money didn't change hands, so everybody's happy. Payola is illegal, just so you know. You wouldn't know it in this industry though. Thank you, Doc Holla. Um, RR, Doc Holla answered you about the metadata, kind of. You can tell I'm not a producer. I don't even understand the answer. He said most DAWs— most DAWs have metadata encoding. See what I'm saying? I'm so glad that, like, that's not my world. The Great 62 is saying, what ways can I get my artist music out on an indie label? Are you the indie label or you're trying to get them signed to an indie label? Um, there's an article and a video. Um, the article is at, um, industryreport.com. It talks about how to promote your music. Um, it's either called marketing or it's called promotions. And then I made a video to match it and, um, if you go to rapjewels.com, it'll be much easier to find it. Um, just search for marketing and search for promotion and watch anything that comes up, because all of those will help you. All the videos that I made on marketing and promotions will help you. That's how you get your artist music out, either on an indie label or as an indie label. But you are the indie label when you're, when you're brand new, right? Like, you are the label. Terrence Walker said, I produced for Raekwon, and that's exactly what he told me. Yay! So neither of us are lying. Hey guys, everything that you learn in the music business, just go and, and check for yourself. Like, read more, ask more people, study more. Don't just take what I say or what somebody else says for fact, right? Because we may be wrong. There may be a better way to do things. Like, you guys are asking me about metadata and I don't know. What if, what if I just answered that and said, oh, you do it by— and you would think, oh my God, that's how you do it. No, everything that I'm telling you, go like, just take that as, okay, that's Wendy Day's opinion. And now go and research and see what you find, because maybe somebody else has a better way to do something than I do. I'm constantly learning, so maybe somebody has, you know, more knowledge in a certain area than I do. I only know what I do all day, every day, so there's shit that I don't know. I'm not a producer, you know. I don't, I don't know shit about programs or engineering. You would think after 25 years that I could turn up the volume in the studio. Can't even do that. Somebody has to show me, here, turn this to turn up the volume. So there's shit I know and there's shit I don't know. I try not to answer what I don't know, but I would never, I would never want to steer you wrong. So please, just every information, all the information that you get, just keep getting more. And if stuff starts to like, you know, you get different answers, then Hone in on that and go ask more people and see the answer you get. Just keep, keep, keep learning, keep researching. Don't take it— don't take anything for fact. Kyle's saying, so once you've shown you have an audience, that's enough to go out and find one, meaning an investor, I think, and start developing your business plan. Um, yes. You, you seem surprised by that. Um, once you've shown that there's a market for what you do, why wouldn't somebody want to buy into what you're doing, right? So let's look at real estate as a comparison. If there's a house for sale in a hot market and it's reasonably priced, it's probably going to sell. Somebody is going to want that house. So if you can prove that your music is in a hot market and that people want it, why wouldn't an investor want to invest in what you're doing? They could make money. You know, you can make a lot of money in the music industry. I watched an artist just take a budget of $300,000 and turn it into a couple million. In 2 and a half years. Got it. Coca-Cola, TechCrunch.com. Thank you. It's from May 5th. You rock for that. Um, Brandon's asking me, what about Virginia? Um, I think Virginia is also a good market. You've got DC, you've got Baltimore. Thank you, Coca-Cola. Um, you've got DC, you've got Baltimore, you've got, um, further south you can go down to Richmond, you can go into Norfolk. Richmond and Norfolk are great markets. Almost every artist I work with, I hit Richmond and Norfolk. Almost every artist. It's got, it's got the hip-hop fans and it's got the rap fans. So you can, you can work trap music, you can work street music, you can work, um, artsy rap, you can work hip-hop, backpack lyrical, like whatever type of music you make. It just seems like in Norfolk and, and Richmond there's a market for it, you know. So, um, it— I think it's a— I think Virginia is a great market. Um, MRC, there is no best distribution company for hip-hop. Um, you're gonna need to just do the research and talk to people and find out who they use and what they like and what they don't like. Because pretty much they all do the same thing. They all get your product up onto the platforms like Spotify and Apple Music and iTunes, and they collect your money for you. So it's not rocket science. It's kind of hard to fuck that up. Where they differ from each other is, you know, who's going to help you get on the front page of iTunes when your music is dropping. You know, if there's a problem with your upload, you know, is the distributor reachable? Like, for me, I love TuneCore. Um, I use TuneCore for almost all of my brand new artists because I think they're great at what they do. But if something goes wrong, you can't just pick up the phone and call TuneCore. You've got to actually send a support email and then wait for it to come back. And sometimes that can be 24 hours, sometimes that can be 48 hours. And when you're dropping a record and it's loaded with the wrong artist or in the wrong place, or maybe the album title is listed as your name as the artist and your name as the artist is listed as the album title, like you need to have that fixed very quickly. And sometimes just sending an email and waiting for a response can seem like forever. So there is no best distribution company for hip-hop. There are many, many, many, and there's a lot of scammers out here. There's a lot of people that go and get a distribution deal like at Universal, and then they come out on the street and they say, oh, you can come through my company, I have distribution through Universal, and that doesn't mean that Universal is paying attention to your release or is going to work your release. It just means you're coming through somebody who has a sub-distribution deal through Universal. It doesn't help you really at all, and some of these guys will charge you 50% or, you know, like a 60/40 split or a 70/30 split, and that's just crazy to me to give somebody 30% just because they're with Universal, but they're not doing anything for you. You can go to TuneCore and get 100% for yourself, and the same work is done. It just, you know, it just, it just depends. Do companies even sign distribution deals anymore? Yes, yes, all of my clients have distribution deals. They're all non-exclusive though. But, but we sign them. We have paperwork. Sun Twisted, um, I don't— you're asking me if I have any interest in doing a live Q&A for real estate investing. No, um, for me, I know what I know, and it's not something that I can really teach people. We'd have to be one-on-one and looking at the buildings and the comps and then I can show you how I flip, but I can't teach you how I flip. So that's why I don't teach anything about real estate investing. I've made more money in real estate than I have in music, just so you guys know. Like, it's not a bad thing to have a side hustle. And I don't— I'm not a realtor. I, I'm an investor. I buy and sell. I have rental property. I flip properties. Um, Tony and I are trying to flip a hotel right now. It's a lot of work. Okay, Kyle's making a really good point. I want you all to hear this, so I'm going to read it slowly so that you don't miss it. It's so important. Kyle says, I'm blown away because even though there's people who like and follow us, they aren't trading dollars for it. They share, they like, and they engage. I thought there was some dollar amount I needed to be making. No, no, likes online are not um, are not income, right? And, and that's why you hear me tell you guys, like, go out into the real world. Don't just market and promote online because it's a false sense of reality. Like, you're inundated with people on your Instagram all day talking to you, so you think that you're popular. But if you go into Instagram and say, hey, I have a new t-shirt, or my single is dropping, please go support you'll find that like maybe 5 people or 50 people or 500 people will go and support, but you've got, you know, thousands of followers or 10,000 followers or millions of followers. Just because somebody likes you for free does not mean they're going to spend money. That's the difference between somebody who's just kind of there and watching you and a true fan. You know, the thing about Instagram is it's very passive. We pull out our phones for the most part, right? We pull out our phones and we just watch our feed. So we're looking at whatever Instagram is putting in front of us. Every now and again we might go look at somebody, like something like today with the whole Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian thing. I'm sure most of us went to Blac Chyna's Instagram, went to Rob Kardashian's Instagram, went to T.I.'s Instagram. Oh, what's Tiny saying? Went to Tiny's Instagram. Instagram, and we became a little more assertive in checking people out because there was something going on. There was some drama and some hubbub. But for the most part, we don't really use Instagram as a tool to seek shit out. We just sit back and very passively we scroll and we see what, what comes in front of us. So there are artists that could drop albums and we don't hear about it because they're not in the feed at the time that we are looking at Instagram. So I just— don't depend on social media solely. It is just one piece of the pie. It's just one piece of the pie. And I love that you said that because I never think to say that. I never think to say that, you know, on Instagram I've got 11,000 followers. If I asked everybody to come hear me speak, I'd probably get 30 people to show up, honestly. Okay, maybe 60 tops. It's just that not everybody sees it and not everybody is going to make the effort. And that, that's if I'm speaking for free. Let's not even talk about money. For somebody to actually make effort to get up and get off their ass and come see me I don't know. I wouldn't depend on it. I certainly wouldn't depend on it for a living. Oh yeah, Doc Holliday, thank you for saying that. Um, RR, you can use iTunes. They do metadata encoding also. I forgot about that. That little window pops up. I do know more about it than I thought. Still, ask people who know. Doc Holliday says, I know you're a fan of Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Are you equally enthusiastic enthusiastic about Instagram ads. I am. Instagram ads are great for impulse buys. Um, if you're trying to build a buzz, I don't know that I would use an Instagram ad because what would you sell? It has to be something visual. You can't really run type. Um, for example, I have, um, lists of ANRs at record labels that I sell. I have lists of— oh, this is like a free plug and I don't mean it to be— um, I have lists of, um, film and TV, um, buyers for people that want to place their music. But I can't really run an ad on Instagram because it's not visual. I have to explain, hey, this is a list of ANRs at urban record labels. And when I put that much type in, it gets kicked back out. They won't take it. So you've gotta— if you're gonna sell something on Instagram, it's got to be something that's visual. Okay, so as an artist, you can play music in your ad, but then what's your visual? Is it part of your video? And then what are you selling? Are you trying to drive the person to Spotify? Are you trying to sell t-shirts, which would work? Are you trying to sell tickets to to shows, because if they don't know who you are and you're just in their feed trying to sell a ticket to a show, you— they really kind of have to know who you are before they decide to come spend money and an hour, you know, listening to you. So, um, Instagram is a little harder of a sell. I think, I think that, you know, if you're Future and you've got some cool new t-shirts that you're selling, yes, If you're Future and you're gonna be performing in Cleveland, Ohio, and you just advertise to all your Instagram potential attendees, I think it would work because everybody kind of knows who he is. When you see him on the feed, you can kind of figure out that it has something to do with rap. But if you're unknown, I just don't know how you would successfully advertise and make it worth the return on investment. I'd probably try it with a small budget, like I would try it with $100 to see what happens, and if it works well, then I would probably dump more money into it. Sun Twisted, yes, it's cool, but it's a lot of work. It's like 100 rooms that you have to renovate instead of like a house that has like 9 rooms to renovate. Odd Man Out, missed you. Um, The Great 62, I don't have any info on online distribution. You're just gonna have to do the research. You're gonna have to ask other people. I know there were some people in the room tonight that really like DistroKid, so I would take a look at them. Um, I would take a look at Empire. I would take a look at OneRPM. I would look at TuneCore. Um, and there's other people out there. There are people from time to time that come into my feed and promote their distribution company, but some of the companies I've never heard of, and it makes me nervous when I've been doing this 25 years and I haven't heard of their company. It makes me a little nervous. Um, what percent of industry money goes to digital distribution compared to physical in 2017? Um, MRC Promotions— I just posted on my Instagram page at Um, it's @rapcoalition. Those exact stats, exactly what you're asking me. Um, I don't know it by heart because I just saw it this morning and I just posted it, but if you go to @rapcoalition, there are like 7 or 8 posts that I made in a row. It's maybe 2 or 3 back, but just pull up my, my feed, um, and you'll see the, the charts. And there's charts that answer that exact question. And hip-hop is the number one, um, genre of music at streaming. The number one. Hi Hector, I had a great, um, Fourth of July. Thank you. Um, Underworld Entertainment said CD Baby. Um, I, I, I've never tried CD Baby, so I, I can't give you a heads up. I can tell you that BookBaby, their sister company, distributed my book for me. I wrote a book called How to Get a Record Deal— that's not a plug— um, and I put it out independently. And, um, BookBaby is my distributor on that. They pay 100% of the income, which is what I like about them. Alexei is asking, what is the best route to get music videos on a major television network? Um, there's one major television network, BET Jams. Um, the rest of the networks are sort of secondary. Fuse, um, MTV doesn't play videos anymore. Um, I always hire a video promoter. They cost anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000, and they work your project for about 8 weeks. Um, it depends on your movement whether or not major television picks it up. They don't just play music from brand new artists that don't have a buzz in their marketplace. It used to be that they didn't play videos for artists that didn't have radio play, so it's come a long way. But still, like, I couldn't make a video today and send it to BET Jams and get it on tomorrow, you know, I don't have a buzz. As an artist. King Peavy's asking what's some good markets to hit in the Midwest seeing that drill music took over even though that's dying out. Yeah, drill music kind of, um, came and went. Um, I like St. Louis a lot. I like, um, Cleveland. I like Detroit for promotion. I like Indianapolis. I like Fort Wayne. I like Gary, Indiana. Um, I like Peoria, Illinois. Um, I like Chicago, but I don't, I don't promote in Chicago anymore. Not because there's anything wrong with Chicago. I don't promote inside of New York, LA, Chicago, or Miami. And the reason for that is because for the price that it costs me in any one of those 4 cities, I can hit like 7 or 8 smaller cities. So rather than spend, you know, $25,000 or $50,000 to market inside of Chicago. I'd rather take that budget and hit all of the cities around. I'd rather hit Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Springfield, Illinois— um, where's Springfield, Missouri? Springfield. Um, St. Louis, um, down into Memphis, uh, Louisville, Frankfurt, which is a huge university town Lexington, Kentucky. Um, every city in Ohio I think is great, from Akron, which is small, to Cleveland, which is good size. You know, Cincinnati, all of them. Um, I usually hit Pittsburgh if I'm hitting Ohio. I'll hit Pittsburgh because it's closer to Ohio than it is to Philly. Um, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint. Um, is that good enough? Yeah, that's, that's That's where— that's the cities that I would choose to market in. Um, there's a city called Kankakee. When I was working with, um, Do or Die and Twista, um, both of those groups got more shows out of Kankakee in the early days of their career than any other place. That was 20 years ago. Is it still hot? I don't know, but I would sure go find out. I would go see if there's a market there. Doc Hollis saying the Donald Passman book was my first industry book. Me too. Yep, there was another book, um, I forget what it was called, but it was this thick, and it was written by a lawyer, and it was like reading Latin. This Business of Music. I still remember. Do you know what I used that book for? I used that book to prop my door open in the summertime so I could get a breeze. And I was mad because the book was like, you know, $35. It was like this thick. Um, but it was called This Business of Music. That was the first book I tried to read. I couldn't get past like 10 pages. I think I'm somewhat intelligent. I don't know. I'd like to think that I am, but I couldn't get past 10 pages of that book. And then Donald Passman's book came out, and it was like, oh, like the skies opened up and it just became clear. And the way he wrote it, like, you didn't have to read it from front to back. He would tell you, okay, I'm about to talk about this, so if you know about it, skip it, go to page 12. Okay, I'm about to talk about this, if you already know about it Go to page 43. Like, he made it like idiot-proof. Like, he made it so easy. I even read the shit that I knew about. That's how good the book was, front to back. And I've read it so many times, and he's updated it like 9 or 10 times. He's, he's an industry attorney, an entertainment attorney. He's like Janet Jackson's attorney and a bunch of other, you know, superstars. But he, he just— it's like, it's like talking to me. It's like sitting on a sofa with him and him talking to me. That's how he writes. And I love that. And that's how I wrote my book. Like, he inspired me to dumb it down and make it simple because I don't need people to know that I know big words. Fuck that. I want you to understand what I'm trying to say more than I care— I don't care if you think I'm smart or not. Fuck that. I care that you understand what I'm saying so that you can then either use it to benefit yourself or take it and change it to what works for you and utilize it, you know. And to me, that's just what education is. There's an article by, um, this is untwisted, there's an article by Ari Herstand, A-R-I, last name H-E-R-S-T-A-N-D, um, where he does a comprehensive comparison on the most popular online distributors. Awesome. I think I've seen that. Was it written a while ago? Sun Twisted, was that written like maybe a year and a half or 2 years ago? Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, uh, look for that and ask if I can get permission to post it on my blog. I bet he'll let me. Thank you, Ben, appreciate you. Um, The Great 62, is there still a market for physical distribution? I don't know the answer to that because I don't distribute physical CDs anymore. I haven't, I haven't, I give them away for promotion, but I haven't used a physical distributor in 9 years. I think Blood Raw was the last artist that I sent through a distribution company. CDs are still 24% of our sales, so they're still— they, they still matter. Um, I just can't seem to get them into the stores where people buy music. Like, I can't get a smaller artist into Best Buy or Target or Walmart. Like, they're all top 40 artists. So if I were Jay-Z, I would have pressed up CDs. But for a smaller unknown artist, no, um, not with, not with the fans streaming as much as they do, you know. I just, I, I realize I'm leaving money on the table, but my fear is that it's going to cost me more to press the CDs than I'll make. And since it's going in that direction, if CDs were increasing I would absolutely bite the bullet and do it, but they're not. They're declining, and they're declining quickly every year to the point where they're almost irrelevant. You know, like I said, it's 24% of the market, so I'm not sneezing at it. I'm not saying completely ignore it because that means you're leaving 24% of your money technically on the table. But I think it's the larger artists, because even if you distribute CDs where are you gonna put them? You know, most of our market buy music from the bootleggers, and the bootleggers aren't gonna pay you, right? It's promotion. So we can't get in Target, we can't get in Walmart, we can't get in, you know, until you're in that top 40 or top 50 or top 60 artists that sell. It just doesn't make sense. Guys, I've been doing this for, um, over 2 and a half hours, so, um, I'm gonna answer up to, um, DJ Handcuffs, and then I'm gonna stop because I'm tired. Um, this is the longest one I've ever done, and I do really try to stay till the end, but, um, I'm hungry and Tony made steaks. Okay, so you know what, let me come backwards. Okay, um, DJ Handcuffs is asking, what about duplicate CDs or UBS? Are UBS memory sticks? Um, I like, um, I like memory sticks, but they're expensive, so I use them for DJs. Um, oh look, you're a DJ! I love DJs. I give you guys memory sticks for the most part, and then inevitably I'll be standing next to you in the DJ booth and you'll say you didn't get the music. So I'll give you the memory stick, but I'll also email it to you from my phone just as I'm standing there, because most of you are DJing and you don't have a place available to plug in my memory stick. Some of you do, some of you don't, but most of the time your DJ ports are full. So I'll give you the memory stick because it's usually cool. Like, for Trouble, we gave out little guns, and, um, on his second release, we gave out little bullets. It was really cool. Um, but I'll also stand there and then email you or text you or AirDrop you the music when I see you. Odd Man Out, you're so welcome. The Great 62, you're welcome. DJ Handcuffs, you're welcome. Thank you, Coke and Colada. It was, yeah. Okay, I can't go backwards because I'm missing, I'm missing the beginnings of your questions. Okay, let me just come back. Donald Passman book, article by Ari Hurston. Great point. Thank you so much. Um, Benjamin Whitfield is asking me, what people, outlets, sources do you follow online, podcasts and personalities? Um, I'm a terrible person to ask that because I don't. Um, the great thing about having a husband in the music industry is that Tony seems to like doing the shit that I don't, and I seem to like doing the shit that he doesn't. So if you push us together, we're almost like a whole human being. It's really cool. So I don't listen to podcasts in the industry. I know that's terrible. I don't listen to Breakfast Club. I don't go to the BET Awards. I am so standoffish when it comes to the fame side of shit. For me, I care about my artists making money. I don't care about— and I understand that everything leads to the money, but I don't care about the flossy shit. I don't want to go and hang out so I can take a picture with Future, or I can take a picture with, you know, Big Boi, or, you know, Jay-Z, or whoever. Like, I'm in my 25th year. I could give a fuck about that side of stuff. So I don't do any of the flossy stuff, and I know that's not what you asked, me. Um, but that's why I don't go to like the Grammys and the, you know, the stuff that everybody does. And I'm telling you that so you'll understand my mindset. So I don't listen to Funkmaster Flex unless something hits my feed. Like I saw Myson do a freestyle on Funk Flex that I thought was amazing, but I don't really follow him. I don't follow Ebro. Um, every now and again I will listen to Combat Jack but I have a relationship with Reggie Osei. I've known him for years back when he was an entertainment lawyer, you know, so it's, it's, it's, it's like tuning into a friend. Um, I know him, so I, I feel, I feel a closeness to him when I listen to his show. I don't listen to everything that he does. I don't have that kind of time, but if he's got somebody on that I think is really interesting, I'll check it out. Um, same with Rap Radar. I've known Elliot forever, so every now and again he'll interview somebody that I want to learn more about, you know, somebody that I don't know much about. Like, I'd really like to see an in-depth interview with Lil Yachty because I don't get him. I don't— and that's no diss, um, I'm really glad he exists, which probably just made a bunch of you like disconnect, but I love that he's making money and I love how much the kids like him. Like, he is the king of the weirdos, you know. He's like in that, um, it's almost like an alternative punk side of hip-hop. It's like these artsy weirdos that don't really fit in, and by grouping together, they fit in, you know, like the Lil Pumps of the world. And, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, I love that they exist. I know that my generation hates them but I don't. I love them, but I don't understand him. So I would really like to hear an in-depth interview with him so that I can understand who he is and where he comes from. And I don't mean a short interview, I mean like the kind of interview that Elliot Wilson does where he gets really in-depth. Um, in terms of podcasts, I love podcasts, but I don't listen to any music podcasts. I listen to Tim Ferriss Um, if you guys have heard of the book, um, The 4-Hour Workweek, he's the guy that wrote that. Um, his new Titans book is amazing, and he gives a more well-rounded view of the world. Um, there's a couple of podcasts that different tech guys in Silicon Valley, um, have, and I'll listen to them to find out like what technology is coming. I'm really interested in virtual reality and and how it can impact rappers and help them make money. Um, the fact that a kid can put on some goggles and, um, you as an artist can be standing right in front of him, or he could put on some goggles and he's standing on stage right next to you and there's 100,000 people. Like, like Chance the Rapper is standing right next to him and there's 100,000 people screaming, and he can turn and look at him to watch the show, or he can look at the audience or he can go out into the crowd. Like, that fascinates me. So if there's one of the tech guys that's on my radar that's talking about that shit, I'll tune in because I want to know, you know, who are the top people in that field and who should I be interacting with to get opportunities for the artists that I work with, right? Um, I don't read any music blogs unless there's something When Prodigy passed away, I read the blogs, but I don't really read the music blogs. Um, every now and again I will to sort of stay in touch. But you know what I read more than anything is there's an app on my phone, um, that has the news. It's called News 360, and, um, it's an app that you tell it what your interests are and these articles pop up. So every night when I'm laying in bed, this is what I'm doing, like before I fall asleep. I will, um, I'm trying to show it to you and I can't get anything to come up on it. Of course, it's because I'm sucking up all the bandwidth. Um, let me turn my Wi-Fi off, maybe I can get it to come up. But it, like, if you tell it you like, um, if you tell it you like music or you tell it that you like, um, architecture, like whatever you tell it that you like. And then as you go through, you can like articles. See the little shit at the bottom? You can like articles or dislike articles, and it will give you more of what you like and less of what you don't like. So, um, I'm still getting mine comfortable with me. I've had it for almost a year, but I forget to go in and like and dislike stuff, so, so it's it still like will show me articles about shit I don't care about, but for the most part it tailors the news and it crawls the internet and it finds stuff that matters to me. So my music news will come from there, and it might be an sohh.com article, it might be AllHipHop, it might be Hot New Hip Hop. It's never WorldStar, but it might be news from one of the blogs, but I don't go to the blogs and actively read what's going on in hip-hop because so much of it is bullshit. And I've been doing this a long time, and I know that the stories that drop aren't always what's 100% accurate. Sometimes it's just to get eyeballs, it's clickbait. And in, in rap, we do that worse than anybody. So I just try to keep my distance. And Benjamin, I know that you didn't mean this to be a question where I would take an hour and a half to answer it, but I read books more than anything, and I listen to Audible. Audible is like downloadable books that are read to you. It's like books on CD on your phone. And whenever I'm in the car, I listen to that or to NPR. I'm more interested in not just the business side of music, but the business side of life. And I get more ideas and input from listening to what other people are doing in other fields. Like, what are they doing in tech? What are they doing in film? What are they doing in the publishing world? You know, book publishing, magazine publishing. And sometimes I'll hear an idea that somebody's doing, I'll say, oh shit, I can use that for the artist that I'm working with. And it translates nicely from that industry into our industry. So that was a very long-winded answer. Hector is asking me, when at a networking event or emailing, should I introduce myself by my birth name or my rap name? Both. What's more professional or common? Um, I like when people hit me up and they say, hi, my name is John Smith. I go by the rap name Lyrical. I don't know, I don't know why I keep picking the name Lyrical, but I'm just gonna keep running with it. To me, that's more professional. And when I respond, I very rarely will say, hey John, how are you? I'll say, hey Lyrical, how are you? But it shows me that Lyrical has a business sense and he knows to introduce himself as John Smith, as opposed to— and I just made that up, there is no Lyrical name John Smith, um, in case you didn't figure that out. But it shows me that he also has some business sense. Um, one of the things that most people do when they network with me or they email me is they forget to tell me who they are, and I don't know if that's their name in the email address or if that's their girl's account or if that's their friend's account or if that's their group name or their artist name. Like, they'll ask me a question, and then they'll just say, you know, bye. And then I'll be like, fuck, I don't even know who I'm addressing. So I'll just answer them blindly. And then 3 months later, they'll hit me up and say, hey, you know, you— thanks for answering all my questions. This is, you know, John Smith, and you were really helpful. And I'm going like, John Smith? I don't remember a John Smith emailing me. And it's because John Smith never told me who he was. Um, also when you're networking, remember that like people speaking on panels and people that already have a career in music, um, and I'm gonna put myself into this category, remember that we meet hundreds of people every day. So if you come up to me, you might look familiar to me, but there's a 99.9% chance that I don't remember your name. So the The best way to make it so that you're not uncomfortable and I'm not uncomfortable is to walk up to me and say, hi, I'm John Smith. And if I already know your name is John Smith, I'll go, I know, John, how are you? But I love that, and I do that when, when I introduce— like, if I see Puffy somewhere, I'll be like, hi, Puff, and I'll hug him and I'll go, Wendy Day. And he'll go, I know who you are. But I'd rather do that than have him, instead of listening to what I'm saying, he's going through that Rolodex in his head going, okay, who the fuck is she? Is, is that Violet Brown? No, that's not Violet Brown. Is that the chick from XXL? No, that's not the chick from XXL. Is that Janie? No, that's not Janie Jennings. I'd rather just tell him, hey, I'm Wendy Day, and I know he knows, but I'd rather do that to be sure than have him miss part of what I'm saying to him or asking him because he's trying to figure out who the fuck I am. And I do that with everybody. So if you guys see me out and I walk up to you and say, hey, I'm Wendy Day, you know, chuckle because it is funny, but just understand I'm doing it because I don't want you to be uncomfortable because you can't remember who I am. And vice versa, I don't want to sit there and go, oh man, I always forget this kid's name. He steps to me at every convention and I'm such an asshole, I don't remember his name. Don't put me in that position. Walk up to me and say, hi, I'm John Smith, I'm lyrical, and I'll go, yeah, I remember remember you, or I'll go, thank you, because I didn't remember your name. Just a thought. If you make it easy for people, they will love you. If you make it hard for them, they'll avoid you, because who wants to be uncomfortable, right? I'd rather duck you than be uncomfortable. Okay, that's not really true, but some people would rather duck you than be uncomfortable. I'd rather be uncomfortable than duck you. Um, Sun Twisted is asking if I know how much it costs to run a 30 30-second ad on Hot 97 or Power 105? I don't. I have never run ads on either station. But you know you can call them, right, and ask to speak to the sales department and ask— either ask for a media kit or ask them, tell them you're a student and you're doing a research paper for school and you need to know what a 30-second radio ad will cost. And understand that there's different prices for different times of the day. The, um, morning drive and the evening rush hour drive are the most expensive times to advertise on radio. The cheapest time is overnight, which I think is from midnight till 5 AM. I think that's what they consider overnight in New York. Um, it's a little cheaper because there's less listeners. The more ears listening, the more expensive the price. Um, Alexa is asking me, is Lester Pace the go-to guy for video promotion as well? He is not. They are completely different jobs. I use a guy out of New York called Noah Jolles, J-O-L-L-E-S, for video promotion. The great thing about Noah is if he can't help you, he won't take your money. At least that's been my experience with him. If he jerks you, it's not my fault. That was a joke. Coke and Colada saying, is running a commercial or on radio with your music playing effective for capturing fans' attention? Or a waste of money? I don't know, I've never tried that. I've always found it cheaper to pay a radio promoter to get me into rotation than to play during an ad. Also, you get paid for radio play. You don't get paid if you're running an ad. Not that that's a deciding factor. It's not like you can spend $500 at radio and make $1,000 in Spotify. Spins. It's not that at all. You might pay $30,000 at radio and you might make $10,000 in income or $5,000 in income. So it's certainly not a lick, but you do get paid by ASCAP or BMI for radio play. And guys, I think we got through this. I'm so glad you tuned in. Um, JC Kush posted the link to Ari's take on distribution companies. Are you asking him to, or did you say that he did? Because if he did, I'm gonna let everybody know. Odd Man Out says Wendy would be in the background at conventions networking like crazy. You'd have to see her in action to understand what she's saying and how she moves. You know what's funny though? Like, before I speak on a panel, no one comes up to me. Like, I'll be sitting in the audience and people will just walk by me like, oh, that must be somebody's mom, or that must be somebody's grandmother. You know, I'm not that old, um, but they'll be like, oh, that, you know, she can't possibly be somebody in the music industry. And then I'll speak on a panel, and then from that point on I get deluged with people. It's the craziest shit. So at the beginning of a convention, I can walk in, I can walk around the lobby, I can sit in the bar, I can have restaurant— I can have lunch in the restaurant at the hotel. But as soon as I speak and come off that panel, it's done. I can't go anywhere without people. It'll take me an hour to walk from, like, at the panel, from the table to the back of the room. Because people will just like inundate me. And it's so funny because if somebody were just to approach me before I spoke, if they just did a little research and pulled up a list of the panelists and then Googled them for images, um, they could sit there and talk to me for 3 and a half hours and I'd have a conversation. But because they don't really know who I am, they don't do that until afterwards when everybody's trying to get my attention, and then I can't remember anybody because it's like, there'll be like a thousand faces at me, and then 3 days later somebody will email me and say, hey, remember me? I spoke to you after the panel. No, I don't remember you. You were one of a thousand. But if somebody emailed me and said, hey, remember me? I sat next to you at the panel before you spoke. I remember you because you stand out. Like, nobody talked to me before the panel, you know? It's just, it's crazy. It's crazy, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Um, the next one I think is August 2nd. It's the first Wednesday in, um— oh, this is funny, I just got to show you this. Remember when I said it's Kardashian-free zone? Look what's on the top of my news feed now. Okay, I'm way too close. Can you read it? It's the update of Rob Kardashian plus Blac Chyna putting her on blast for Cheating. Chyna responds. I will not be reading that. Hip-hop, it's like WWE. It's crazy. When did it get this crazy, guys? And it's not even hip-hop. Like, they're not hip-hop. Like, which one of them is hip-hop? Okay guys, thank you for tuning in. I love that you hung in there this long. We're at exactly 3 hours right now. You guys stayed for 3 hours. Thank you guys, I appreciate you so much. I'll see you next month. Get your questions ready. Bye guys.