LIVE with Wendy Day September 6, 2017 | Answering Your Questions Live

Hi guys, this is Wendy Day from Wrap Coalition. Thanks for tuning in to my livestream. I'm so happy that you're here. Okay guys, I'm almost there. I'm coming, I promise I'm coming. 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, how are you? Let me put on my glasses so I can see you. Yay! Hi, how are you? You guys doing well? Well, another month has passed. I missed you. I even put lipstick on for you tonight. How are you guys? So I can't believe how quickly a month goes. You guys are saying like, long time no see, and I feel like, I feel like we were just here together. It just goes like that. It's kind of amazing. So what have you guys been up to? It has been a while, but it feels like it was yesterday. Dark Brothers Entertainment, you're on a cruise? I'm so jealous, that's awesome. I'm good, I'm just back from Florida. It looks like I got back at the right time. Um, there's a big hurricane coming, I guess you guys know that. But I got to speak at the Coast to Coast Conference in Miami, um, and then prior to that I was at CD Baby in Nashville. That was really good too. Um, it wasn't very well represented by urban music, but I, I feel sometimes like CD Baby doesn't really reach out to our community the way that they should, you know. Um, Money Baby, how are you? Welcome back. But I really, I, you know, Miami was so valuable. Well, first of all, I like going to Miami anyway, but Miami was so valuable because I was in a room full of 300 new rappers that asked me like a shit ton of questions. I spoke on a panel about how to make money with your music in the music industry. And the questions, like, were amazing. Um, and one of them I want to share with you. I actually got it by email. And, um, I think his name— I should have printed it out, um, because I'm so bad with names— but it was Bryce Peebles, I think. And he asked, you know, with social media Does it really benefit an artist to, like, be in your face all the time? Like, isn't that kind of overkill to always, um, be on social media and always be accessible? And he referenced Drake and Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé as examples of people who aren't all over Instagram all the time and seem to be doing really well with their careers. And as I pointed out Like, once you're a superstar, you don't have to be on social media the way you do when you're brand new. Like, when you're brand new, you need people to know who you are, you need repetition, you need to be discovered by people, and you need people talking about you all the time, you know. And I kind of joked and said, you know, you're, you're trying to build a career in the music industry, you're not in the witness protection program for the mob. Like, You, you need to be accessible, and you need your fans to find out who you are, and you need to have them see you over and over and over and over again until you become at the level of a Drake or the level of Beyoncé or whoever. Um, it's just really important to do that. So I wanted to share that with you guys. Can you guys hear me okay? I can't read the messages with these damn glasses on. Meek J, how are you? Polly Foster, Serena, guys, how are you? So what do you guys think of music industry conferences? You know, um, I didn't see a lot of people there that know me. Um, Meek J, awesome for you for dropping your information. Good, I'm glad you can hear me. Um, Lamar Riddick, you're welcome for the quick response via email. Um, you know, it's funny because people always say that, like, they call me on a Monday and I don't call them back until Wednesday. Not my clients, but people in the music industry. And I always laugh because you guys who email me know what the secret is. You just fucking email me and I'm back to you like within, what, like 20 minutes? Kubri Music. You just launched— why is this in my way, YouTube? You launched a musical miniseries, Travel Love, about your return to Latin America after the election of Donald Trump. Wow, that must be interesting. Anita saying, can you explain about how you got the lawyers when you were doing the cash money deal? Um, yes, I didn't acquire cash money. Um, I actually helped them build their company to get more attention, and then I actually brought them to my attorneys. Um, I was working with Andy Tavell and Peter Thea at the time. They were my attorneys. So I had my attorneys just do all the paperwork, and it was Peter Thea and myself that negotiated that deal. Peter executed all the paperwork, um, and he added a lot. I don't mean to take anything away from him, but it was basically Peter and I with, um, Mel LeWinter. Uh, Michael Reinert was the attorney for Universal. Mel LeWinter was the president of Universal at the time, and Doug Morris, who was the CEO. And, um, we hammered out a deal that we thought was fair for everybody, where everybody could make money. But they were my attorneys. Um, where did I find them? They were my attorneys. Um, how does anybody find an attorney? You interview a bunch of music business lawyers. Um, my lawyers are always very powerful. I choose to work with people that can pick up the phone and call like, um, John Janick at 4 o'clock in the morning at Interscope if there's a problem, or Craig Kalman at Atlantic at 4 o'clock in the morning if there's a problem. I don't necessarily want to be the one to call a label president and wake them up. You know, that, that's not necessarily a great way to build a relationship, but a lot of these attorneys have those relationships already. So I chose, and I still do, um, I choose extremely powerful attorneys so that they can flex their power for me when I need something. It's not something that I use regularly. I haven't really had to flex on somebody in a long time, but, um, my attorney right now is Tim Mandelbaum, and I know that Tim can get anybody I need on the phone within, you know, 15 minutes or so, and that's important to me. Meek J said, I actually really wanted to go to Miami. I heard about it the day before and couldn't schedule it in. Um, but I was the reason. Thank you so much that you wanted to go, but you have access to me, so you didn't need to, to, um, incur the expense of Miami in order to ask questions. Wavy Pluto, thank you so much. I want to do an industry conference online. I haven't quite figured out how to work that out yet. I have a conference call tomorrow to discuss it with somebody, um, but I'm really— I would really like to do like a virtual music conference nobody would get to perform, but it would all be educational. I think that would be like freaking awesome. And Serena said, I saw you twice at the Tampa Music Conference. Tony West is from Detroit. Yay! Anita Cooper said, basically you made contracts for giving them knowledge on how to expand their music brand. No, I did contracts based on a distribution deal through Universal Records that gave them advances of, I think it was $3 million a year for 3 years on an 80/20 split. But I didn't make the contracts, I'm not a lawyer. Thank you, Tip Daly, that's super cool. Um, 89106 is asking, is there still money in music? There absolutely is. Absolutely, there's music, there's money in music. Um, I think it was, it's on my Instagram feed, I think it was Universal said they made $6 million a day in the last quarter in streaming music. I don't want to, I don't want to give you guys the wrong figure, so go to @rapcoalition on my Instagram and go back, um, maybe 2 weeks and you'll see the post there. It's pretty interesting. Tony West to register with Mute Media Base. If you Google register with Media Base it will link you to the site. There's a form that you fill out at Mediabase. I can't remember what the exact components are, but every time I look it up, I go register a song with Mediabase in Google and it always comes up. It's a form that you fill out and then you send them the song via email. There's also a way to encode it. You can have your engineer encode the MediaBase in there. But if you just Google that, you can, you can find that. And I think also I wrote an article on my blog, industryreport.com. It's like the 10 things you should do before you put out your music. I'll bet that I included the link in there in that article. Raycio Texas Boy is asking, I have 1,000 CDs, is that enough to go to another city to start off? Yes, if it's a small city city like Macon, Georgia. If it's a large city like Houston, no. But it's a start, so start small and work up. Lamar Riddick: When doing the regional buzz building on a small budget, do you just do free shows and call the venues in advance, or do you just show up and promote? Both. I did watch the video, by the way. I just wanted clarity in that. I love you for that. Um, yes, you do both. You build relationships with the promoters in the city or the town where you're trying to do shows. Obviously the promoters that, um, that work in, um, in hip-hop. So you want to make sure that you're targeting the clubs that can actually book you, right? And anytime there, there is an opening or a show that you're able to participate in, you want to let them know that you're willing to do it for free. I don't think you should pay for it. I think you should do it for free or they should pay you. They're the two choices that I think make sense. When you're new, you're going to do more free shows, obviously, than when you're established. Um, and then I know you said you watched the videos, but Tony— I did an interview with Tony on how to get shows and he talked about doing door splits and how to get together with other artists and do your own shows. So if you haven't seen that one, then definitely take a look at it. But yes, I, I always reach out to the promoters ahead of time. But also, if I'm in a city and I don't know who the promoter is, like let's say it's a Tuesday night and I'm in Birmingham, Alabama, and I have no idea that there was a hot club night, I would go to that club, I would promote in that club, and then I would ask the promoter for that night, hey, My artist has a hot song. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's whatever the name of the song is. And, you know, we'd be willing, since we're here, to get up and perform, you know, in front of the crowd. We've got the show CD. Make sure you have show, um, CD, show on memory stick, show on your phone. That doesn't mean you rap over your CD. You want a track that you're going to rap over, right? You don't want to have a finished song and you're rapping along to your own voice. It's annoying and extremely unprofessional. See, Renee, I'm sorry and thank you. Angel's awesome. Ray Poindexter, how are you? How much money is needed for marketing to get an artist to buzz like most new rappers from SoundCloud? I hate to bust your bubble, but the new rappers from SoundCloud pretty much had budgets. I know that SoundCloud, um, invested in quite a few of them. Other guys had their own money. Once they started bubbling and started getting money for shows, um, they started to blow up. I think maybe the SoundCloud wave is over. You know that they fired the guy that was run— I shouldn't say that. They let the guy who was running SoundCloud step down. When the new investors came in last month, they put a new president in charge. So I think it's a different day at SoundCloud. Anita is asking what the title of my job is. Consultant. I'm a music business consultant. Hi Def ATL saying, if you had $3,000 and no buzz, would you rather put it towards printing CDs or put it towards posters and flyers, put it toward buying Viral promotion. Oh, that's a tough question because 3,000 isn't enough regardless. Um, maybe viral promotion. I, I— that's a really hard question to answer. It depends on what area you're in. Like, if I'm in New York City, I'm not going to pass out CDs. Um, I would pass out download cards. Um, what are my choices? Posters and flyers. If I'm brand new, I want people to hear my music, so I want to pass out something that's going to allow them to hear my music, whether it's a download card or whether it is a CD if I'm in the South. Um, I think I'd put it into viral promotions. But for what I do, guys, like, my focus is always for you to make money in, in music. So it's, it's hard to say what I would put that into because I don't know that $3,000 is going to give you enough of a buzz to start getting shows or to get paid for shows. I'm going to hope that by asking what you should do with $3,000, that you made your first $3,000 and that maybe you've got more money coming. Because the real answer to that is, if I only had $3,000, I would invest that into finding an investor that could get me where I want to be in the music industry, that could invest into my career I'd probably put that $3,000 into having somebody help me put a business plan together and then finding an investor who could put up a quarter million dollars so that I could take my career off to the next level. 38 Hot saw me at the CD Baby conference. Yay! CCV Dog, no, you can't send me music to critique. Um, that's not what I do. It— I get too much music. So rather than play favorites and listen to some music and not others, I don't listen to any music at all. Also, what I think doesn't matter. I'm not your market. It's better for you to, to build a fan base than for you to send me music. I don't help people get their music out. People hire me to set up their record labels. But there are people that you can hire to help you market and promote your music, um, at the point that you're at in your career. Smoke Management: There are a lot of scam promoters out there. How can I find out who's legit and who's not? Is there a website that provides a good standing rating? No, there's not a website that does that. I think the reason there's not is because there are, um, so many promoters and they change so quickly that somebody who is legit today could be jerking people 3 months from now, or 3 weeks from now, or 3 days from now. But you're right, it's a very, um, it's a very corrupt industry. And the way that you stay on top of it is to be part of your rap community. Like, be cool with all the other artists in your area that are doing something, you know. Make friends with people, ask them, you know, hey, Who have you worked with that's good? Who have you worked with that's bad? What producers are assholes? What producers are great? You know, who are the managers that can help me get to the next career? Who are the guys that just take money and run? You know, you really need to become part of your community. Do I put out a mixtape or push a single first? Um, Richie Porter, I would do both. I would drop a mixtape and I would work one of those songs off of that mixtape The reason I'd want the mixtape in the marketplace is so that people would know who I am and they would, um, like my single and go to see what else I have out there, like what my body of work is. So I would do both. Meek J is saying a lot of DJs want musicians to pay for spins through an app. What is your preferred method to getting a DJ to spin your artist's records? I get the records so hot on the street that they come to me and ask for the record. Remember, I work with artists that have budgets though, so it might be a little bit different than you guys who may not have a budget. But if you get the song hot in the clubs and you get the club DJs really bumping it, you can get to radio from there. If you're trying to get the record bumped in the clubs, you want it hot on the street, so you want to make sure that you're hitting all the colleges, the high schools, the, you know, you're hitting everybody you can to get your song hot on the street. So you're going to go from streets to clubs to radio, right? Each one kind of builds to the, to the next level. And I say that because I wasn't quite sure when you said, um, a lot of DJs want to be paid to spin. I didn't know if you meant at clubs or like at radio, so I thought I'd answer both of those. Lamar Riddick, I'm in West Virginia and I have not a clue. I will branch into DC and Pittsburgh, of course. Yeah, but far as here, it's really non-existent for hip-hop. Then you're gonna have to go where it is. You're gonna have to go where it is. Although I gotta tell you, there's two radio stations in West Virginia. There's two, um, hip-hop stations in West Virginia that I go to to get— well, I don't go to, I hire somebody to go to to get music played. And your music is clean, says Lamar Riddick, so schools and churches as well. Um, I've never promoted at a church, but I have done high schools, middle schools, and colleges with clean music, and malls. Be a little careful with malls, sometimes they get funny and they kick you out. Lol, lol is asking me how would I go about— I like that because it makes me feel like I'm laughing. Um, how would I go about getting a buzz for a teen— teenager? The same way that I would for an adult. There's nothing different about a teenager except the contract that they sign. Um, it has to— the contract has to be approved by their parents, and in some states a judge has to approve it. Alante Sturgis, I hope I pronounced your name correctly. I think that I did not, and I apologize. After releasing numerous videos and building an online fan base, what should an independent artist do next to succeed? Go out into the real world. You can't succeed just having an online fan base. You actually need to go out into your community and build your music on the streets. I look at the internet, which is very important by the way, but I look at the internet as streets. You know, I've seen a lot of artists just break on the internet. I think a lot of people don't have the proper budget to do this, so they figure the internet is relatively free. It's basically just a connection, and they feel like they can market and promote online, and some do a really good job. But at some point, you have to go bigger, right? You need to be able to go out into your community If you want to be able to do shows and if you want to really get to the next level, people really need to know who you are and see you and touch you and feel you and, you know, be fans, like physically fans, right? Alante saying, hi, Def, ATL is a great videographer. Yay! Smoke Management is saying, how big of a fan base do you need to approach the major to take you seriously as an artist? Um, first of all, you don't approach them, they approach you. So you want to be big enough that they start calling you, and it just depends on what else is out there. Like right now, there are kids getting millions of views on YouTube and millions of spins at Spotify, plays at Spotify, streams at Spotify. So if you want a major to call you instead of them, you need to be getting more than they're getting. Um, the labels started calling for trouble when we got to about, uh, 200,000 on his Instagram. And remember, these are all real. We didn't buy any, um, we didn't buy any fake friends for him. Um, when he started doing shows outside of the, uh, Southeast. Um, so we were doing shows for over a year before the labels really noticed. He was up to $12,500 before the first major label called about him. Um, I don't know what his video views were because Tony handled that, but I know it was in the millions before, um, before a label called. And again, it really It really depends on what else is out there. So if there is somebody else out there that's getting, you know, 100,000 streams and you're getting 200,000, they're going to call you. If there's somebody out there getting 2 million streams and you're at a million, you're at a million or 100,000, they're not going to call you. They want you to have a fan base. Lamar Riddick, I don't, I don't know the call letters. You email me and I'll, um, I'll pull up Mediabase and tell you. I think one might be Charlottesville. Is that in West Virginia or is that on the border of West Virginia? Um, but there's two of them. LOL is asking, is it effective to do covers of numerous songs on social media? Um, for a singer, uh, yeah, it probably is. If you can cover a song and it catches attention, that's probably an amazing thing. Um, for rap, no, I don't think it's effective to cover songs. And forgive me, guys, I work with rappers My company is Rap Coalition, so I don't know a whole lot about singers and how they, and how they build a career. It's, it's, it's not my lane. I'm sorry. I have some videos that I posted of guys that work with singers and songwriters, and I'll try to post more, some interviews, because it's just not my world. Tony West is saying, can you give me some info about Mediabase? What kind of info do you need? Mediabase is a company that measures the amount of spins that you get at radio. And there's different formats. There's urban, there's rhythmic, which is a little bit more pop, then there's top 40, which is very pop. They're really the 3 that we focus on in, you know, with rappers. I'm not sure what other information to give you. You register your song through Mediabase. It has to play for a minute and 30 seconds in order for the fingerprint to show up, and then you're able to pull up— you can register it for free, but you got to pay to subscribe to Mediabase to see where you're spinning. Almost all radio guys at labels, if you build a relationship, will pull it for you for free, and the radio guy that you hire should have access to Mediabase and so that he can send you reports to show you that he or she is doing what they're supposed to be doing. Alante Sturges saying, was Trouble doing shows when you met him? No. And if not, how did you all start the process of him setting up and getting paid? Um, we started releasing— he had, um, he had put out 4 mixtapes before I started working with him. And I guess they ran out of money because they just kind of stopped and he went away. Um, but even at that point, he wasn't really getting paid for shows. I think it was like $2,000 here, $2,000 there. And, um, I knew who he was just from the streets, you know, from being a fan of music. I was an Alley Boy fan, so I was a fan of Duct Tape. And when they started working Trouble, I realized that Trouble was the superstar. Um, one of my friends was managing him, and, um, they fired him. He went out to LA to go to film school, and, um, Trouble just kind of sat still for like a year and a half, and his name never came up. And I didn't understand where he went or what happened to him. And an investor that I was working with lost his artist— an investor out of Chicago lost his artist and he asked me to introduce him to some artists around the country that already had a little bit of a fan base. And I remembered that I really like Trouble's music a lot, so, um, I set up a list of artists. There were 4 different artists. One was in New York, one was in Cali, one was in Houston, and one was in Atlanta. And it was after Thanksgiving. Um, we started with Atlanta because I was in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, so he flew into Atlanta I can't remember, was the day after Thanksgiving or 2 days after Thanksgiving, but we sat down with Trouble. We had lunch with him, then we went and had a couple of drinks at a bar, and we ended up spending like 6 or 7 hours with him. And the investor really liked him, and he really liked the music that he heard, and he asked me if I felt that I could work with him. And obviously I felt like I could because I I really felt that he had potential that fans wanted to hear. Like, he built his, uh, a small fan base with a limited budget, so I figured with a decent budget behind him, we could take him to the next level. And that's what we did. We put out, um, we put out a mix CD. I think it was called All On Me. Um, it didn't do very well. It kind of bubbled. We put him in the studio with Zaytoven, and he did a, uh, Zaytoven project, and we put that out. And right before we released that, we put out a single called Ready, and Ready just took off. Like, it grew legs, and we ended up taking it to radio. And from the radio play of that song, we were able to start getting him paid shows. So we were probably almost a year into working with him before he started to get like, like serious paid shows. And then from that, he was on a song with Young Thug that was on Thug's album called Thief in the Night. And Thief in the Night just kind of took off on its own. We never put a budget behind it. 300 never put a budget behind it. It just really started to bubble on its own. And then from there, um, he was on Key to the Streets with Lucci, which, uh, Think It's a Game was taking all, you know, to radio, but they were taking it all the way to number one. So he was— he constantly had music working in the marketplace for 2 years to get to the level where we, we got him to. And, you know, he made a million dollars last year, so I'm really proud of him independently. He decided that he wanted to sign to a major label um, a deal came along from Interscope that was too good to say no to, and now he's an Interscope recording artist. He signed through Mike Will Made It, and there's a Mike Will Made It album coming. I hope I answered your question because you really asked what the process was of setting him up, and I would be here for the next 5 hours if I had to break down like the process that we went through to do all of that. I'm writing a book about how to put out music independently, so it'll be in there exactly, you know, not just him, but, you know, all of the artists that I've worked with recently. As an artist, what is the best way to learn about the music business? How do you create income? You want to stay independent. The best way to learn about the music industry is to read as much as you can. Go to as many conferences you can, listen to the panels. After the panels, go up and exchange information with the panelists. Start building relationships. This is a relationship-driven industry. That doesn't mean you hit people up and annoy them to death. You build a relationship. It's like building a friendship. So you have something in common, you've got this industry in common, so play on that. Follow people on social media, talk to them, find out what they're interested in, show interest in who they are, show interest in what they do. You know, don't just make it a one-sided relationship where, you know, hi, I want something from you. That doesn't work. You know, you wouldn't interact with somebody that was always trying to get something from you either. So build a relationship. Um, how do you make money in music? You create income. The shows come first. You really create income by building a buzz. When you build a buzz, you're building a fan base for yourself. When that fan base is willing to give you money for your music or your merchandise or to come see you perform, that's when you start making money. So really, the answer is to build a buzz. That's how you start monetizing. Frederick Ellis says, I may emailed you on August 11th, could you please respond to my email? I'm sure that I have. Um, as many people on this feed will attest, I respond almost instantly. So if you emailed me on the 11th, I probably responded on the 11th or the 12th. I suggest you check your spam folder. Um, if you really can't find it, email me again and, um, I will go through my sent file. If for some reason I missed your email and didn't answer it, I will. If you asked me to listen to music Um, I sent you back a note saying that I don't listen to music. Um, Alante is asking, has Trouble's rate increased since the release of his EP? Yes. Um, he went from— he was at $12,500 because it took a while for, um, the deal to be negotiated. He went back down to $10,000. He's back up to $15,000 now. But I believe that— and I don't book him, I don't work with him anymore. Tony does, my husband does. Um, I moved on to work with other artists because once an artist is signed, like, there's nothing for me to do, right? Like, Interscope doesn't need me, they're Interscope. So, um, I, I don't, I don't 100% know what's going on with him, but I do know that his price dipped a little bit and then it went back up. Um, I know that he's doing shows for less than that because he's trying to do as many shows as possible, but I'm not sure like what price, like what his bottom figure is. I'm guessing it's probably around $12,500, but yeah, he's getting $15,000 right now. Lamar saying, um, I'm not sure, I'm from Florida, living here, still researching the area. Absolutely, email me and I'll let you know what the stations are. Not that you— not that you need to hit the stations, but you should really make friends with the people that work there, the DJs and stuff, right? Hi Def ATL is asking what's the best way to attract an investor. I think I have— I know I have at least one video that explains that, so if you could go watch the video, that would be awesome. Um, it's called How to Find an Investor, and it's somewhere in my feed. It's one of the first ones that I did. You guys do have great questions, I agree. M. Darty, what's with these producer leases and exclusive rights? I'm willing to advance on the beat, but I want to do it 50/50 like you said to do. Um, I don't do producer leases. I can't put money behind a beat that my artist doesn't own. It just, it, it doesn't make business sense. So, um, I can't speak on lease beats. And I think it— I think you should advance on the beat. Um, we do as well. We didn't for Trouble because there were so many people giving him free beats. He was at a point where he got so hot that after he worked with Zaytoven, we never had to pay for another beat again because guys were— guys like Mike Will Made It were stepping to him and saying, you know, here's, here's my beats, take whatever you want, use whatever you want. And then they just want the ownership of the publishing on the back end. Once an artist starts to blow up, publish— publishers— producers are happy to work with you because they know they're going to get paid based on their publishing. When I say small fan base for, um, thank you, Kubri Music. Um, when I say small fan base for Trouble, was it a few thousand or tens of thousands? It was tens of thousands. You gotta figure that if 1 out of 1,000 people are going to like your artist— and I'm kind of making up numbers here— that if you want 10,000 to like your artist, then you're gonna have to reach a million people. You're gonna have to really go bigger than just your area. Like, when I work a project, I don't just work Atlanta, I work I draw a circle around Atlanta that's a 5-hour driving radius, like 5 hours in any direction. So my market becomes, um, from Atlanta all the way to Tallahassee, Atlanta all the way west to Mobile, Alabama, um, all the way east to the West Coast like Savannah and Charleston, all the way north to North Carolina like Charlotte, Raleigh. So I'm talking about a pretty large area that we target because we need to reach millions of people in order to find tens of thousands of fans. Meek J saying, I'm based out of Atlanta, I run an indie label, Can't Stop Music, and a production company, Going Postal Films. I love it. How do I find investors? I'm going to tell you the same thing. I have a video that talks about how to find investors. I've got a video on how to write a business plan. And then I've got articles on, um, at industryreport.com that talk about how to put together a business plan. Smoke Management saying, I'm from Canada, so hip-hop's not popping out here for opportunity like it is in the US. How do I get the US to take notice of my music? I think you're gonna have to come here. I know that Drake did it, um, by spending an awful lot of time in the US. And from there it just kind of, it kind of mushroomed for him. So I think you may need to travel. Lamar saying bring Starbucks gift cards to the conferences. Yes, I still do that too. I went to CD Baby with, um, 5 Starbucks cards. Coop, I don't know when my book's coming out. I'm still writing it. I've been writing it for a year. It's so, it's so hard for me to get the time to devote to it because I'm so busy. And then, you know, so much changes. Like, I had to just go back and write an entire chapter on playlists because in the past year playlists have become like almost like they went from being important to being necessary to now if you're not on a playlist it's really hard to get streams, you know, um, in abundance. You've really got to be on playlists. Dakhala, thank you. Um, I'm actually, I'm actually here the first Wednesday of every month now. I haven't, I haven't, um, completely, um, distanced myself from this because I know you guys need this and I know that there's nobody else out here really doing this. I've seen some other folks doing videos, but they don't have experience in the music industry and I don't agree with all of their advice. I just, I want to make sure that you guys have real life experience. Like, the stuff that I share with you is the shit that I'm actually doing, and it's working. Thank you, Troy. I love New Orleans. Smoke Management said you don't listen to music. Who sends you the music, and is there a link or email I can send my EPK for consideration? For me, no. An EPK is a press kit. I don't write articles on artists, so there's no reason for me to, to check out an artist. For what I do, people hire me to help them make money in the music business. I don't look for talent, so there's no reason for me to listen to music or to watch videos or to check you out as an artist. It's not what I do. And if you're looking for feedback on your music or your image or whoever, you know, whatever your image is or whatever your music is. There's a ton of people out there that do that, like TJ's DJs, @tjsdjs. TJ Chapman is on Facebook Live weekly, um, probably even more often than weekly, like every couple of days, um, giving feedback on music. And he does it for free. You can, you can butt in line for $25 if you want to, but you don't have to pay him. Like, he'll give feedback on music. So what I think doesn't matter. Like, what matters is you building a fan base and you building relationships with the DJs that can actually play your music. If you want somebody's attention for your music, the best way to do that is to build a buzz. We all know which artists are buzzing. We all know who's out there grinding. That's the way to get attention. Just having talent is not enough. That's like saying, you know, I want to, I want to be in the NBA, but, you know, come watch me, um, throw this ball through the hoop. It's like, no, you got to stand out. Like, you've got to be the top guy in your high school, and then you've got to be the top guy at your college, and then maybe you'll get drafted into the NBA. But just being able to rap or sing, it's, it's not enough. It's never been enough. I've been doing this 25 years, and I don't know of anybody where somebody has said, oh my God, you're really talented, let me just pluck you out. I've read many stories that said that, but when I've talked to the artist to find out how they got on, I've heard stories of them putting out music and singing in open mics and talent shows and, you know, like really grinding to come up. It's, it's not like winning the lottery. Thank you, Polly. That's a great point. Um, if you follow Tony, you can catch him on his Facebook Live feeds. He's a great resource. Um, he doesn't save them, so you have to catch him when he goes live. I've tried to get him to save them, he doesn't want to. And let me forewarn you that he will not be as nice as I am in giving advice. He can be extremely brutal. So if you are easily offended, I don't know that watching his Facebook Live is a good idea. Good job, Meek J. Oh good, Polly Foster, um, posted her son's, um, Instagram stuff. T. Wallace says that's unck. You're right about that. Um, 89106, you can go to helpfulangel.com to, um, see exactly what I do. I don't— I don't want to use this forum to promote my shit, so if you go to Helpful Angel, it'll tell you exactly what I do, how I do it, and what I charge. But, um, I try to keep that separate from here because this is really about you guys. This is not about me. LOL LOL saying, do you think that young people should start off in this business? Absolutely. It's a young person's game. Um, I'll even say the very unpopular thing of the older you are, this— the harder this is. Meaning if you're between 18 and 24, you will find it relatively easy to succeed in this music industry. If you are older than 30, you will find it very hard. That doesn't mean you won't make it. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you'll find it very hard. Art of War Media. Oh, you're gonna release your first album? Excellent! I'm so glad. And you've got your video shot? Good. Good. Jay Jones, yes. DJ Chemical Base, how are you? It's so good to see you. Wow, guys, that was 45 minutes. That went fast. Jeez. Wow. So what else do you guys want to know? You're being a little quiet tonight. You know, if you guys want to email me ideas for videos or people that you think that— lol, you're welcome— that you think I should interview, please feel free to do that. Hit me at thisiswendyday@gmail.com. And you know, don't pitch me to do interviews with people that are your friends or artists. I want to interview behind-the-scenes people, and they've got to really be doing something. They've got to be really successful, not looking like they're successful, right? Like really successful where they can give us some— where they can give us some like genuine information. Smoke Management says, I've been connected with Making It Mag since birth. I like them too. If I was to jump ship and come up, what city would be worth my time? I'm white, mind you, and I know hip-hop and rap is very reluctant to let new people in. Um, it's not, Smoke, it's not that it's reluctant to let new people in. It's that there are 100,000 rappers, of which you are one. So you have to stand above that din. Like, if all the rappers are here, you need to be at this level. And I don't mean skill, I mean in terms of promotion and marketing. So you've got to be standing out and doing things that will get you noticed. And you can't just do it once. You've got to continually do stuff that'll get you noticed. You've also got to have music that's better than everybody else out here, because if there's 100,000 songs and they all kind of sound the same, you know, or, or there's like 20 different sounds that they all sound like, then you're gonna need to be the best at that sound. So what city should you go to? I don't know that I can answer that because you don't necessarily break from a city. You break based on the work that you do in that city, you know. Um, there's some cities that are easier for me to work. Um, Columbia, South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, Atlanta, because I'm based here, I've got relationships. Macon, Georgia, Valdosta, Georgia. Um, I've got great teams of people, like I know who to go to for help in, in Tampa, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Miami, um, Biloxi, Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham. So it's not necessarily what place is best, it's what place can you stand out the best. That's really kind of what it is. I love making it, Meg. Love, love it, Turl. Love it, Earl. Love Turl. Okay, love to— okay, I give up. Anyway, you know who you are. Um, I'm Infamous in Hip Hop. Thank you. Heard that you handled the Dilla MCA scenario. Nope, that wasn't me. So how would you advise artists or labels to build in that lane of hip-hop? Build a fan base wherever and whatever your fan base is. It doesn't matter if you're a gospel artist, build your fan base. If you're a backpack rapper, build your fan base. If you're a trap rapper, build your fan base. If you're a SoundCloud rapper, build your fan base. It's all about your fan base, so it's not about the type of music that you make at all. I know that's hard to imagine. Thank you, Smoke. Lamar's asking me, which video do you have talking about getting on Spotify playlists? Um, videos don't get on Spotify playlists, songs do. So what you want to do is get your music onto different Spotify playlists. So whatever playlists are out there On Spotify, you want to get on as many as possible. Um, I'm not going to tell you to go right for Rap Caviar because it's going to be next to impossible to get. I can't get on Rap Caviar for my clients. You've got to kind of build up to that, right? Um, but get on as many playlists as you possibly can because that's where people discover music. They also discover music on YouTube, so get on as many YouTube playlists with your video as you can. But Spotify is for songs. Um, Imar Willis saying, Wendy, I'm gonna be performing at a festival, but I don't believe I'm ready considering I have zero buzz. What should I do? I would use it to get a buzz. I would use it as an experience, um, to really do what you do, you know. I would use it to get to the next level. That's what I would do. Um, Polly, we'd have to have that conversation separately. We're in Greenville. Um, it's a struggle everywhere when nobody knows who you are, but we've brought Trouble through 4 times in Greenville, and it's been a great market for us. We've made a lot of money in Greenville. Maybe 3 times, maybe 3 times Greenville. 7623 is asking me on my email. It's thisiswendyday@gmail.com. And it's in the link below this video. Um, I don't know that I can give you a consultation about where you're at and how you can move further because that's not what I do. Um, I've recorded over 100 videos explaining how the music industry works. I've got a podcast, I've got a blog to sort of help you, um, but I don't consult people individually unless they're my clients. And my clients are mostly people that are building independent record labels and they've got investors in place. And I've got a bunch of videos on how to build a buzz and how to increase your fan base. Um, take a look at a lot of the videos I have, guys, like The information that you're seeking, I promise you, is there. Like, when I made the videos, I didn't just— I didn't just pick topics arbitrarily. I've been doing this for 25 years, so I based it on the questions that you guys ask me the most. Um, I didn't do them in the order that I'm asked the most. I did them in the order that was comfortable for me to record in terms of time, location, all that kind of stuff. So, um, they're there though. There's over 100 videos that talk about all different aspects of the music industry, and then areas where I'm weak, like touring. I'm not great at touring, so I interviewed Tony, who, you know, has been out on the road with Trouble for the past 2 years. Um, I suck at the whole songwriting side of stuff. I'm not great on the publishing side, so I interviewed folks who know about publishing I interviewed a bunch of producer managers to talk about how to get your songs out there, the difference between a lease and an exclusive beat, why one's good and one's not. So the information's there, you just have to really go through and find it. I guess like anything in life. Art of War Media, brand marketing. How important is brand marketing when you come out with promotion? That all of your materials are consecutive and uniform at every social event, media, um, online. Absolutely, you've got to have one concise image. The, the, the key to breaking through all of the din that's down here, like all of the other rappers, is repetition. So if your repetition is coming with different looks every time, nobody's gonna know that that's you. Like, if in some of your material you've got a hat on and they can't see your face, or in other material, you know, you've got a ponytail and then you've got dreads the next day and then you're bald the next day, like, people aren't going to recognize you just from your eyes, your nose, and your mouth. You've got to have something that's unique so that they can grab onto you. You know, that was the great thing about Rich Homie Quan and, um, Young Thug. When they came out, they stood out. Like, they— you knew who they were. And I feel that way today about, um, Lil Perp and, um, Peep. Like, when I see them, I recognize them. Lil Uzi Vert, Yachty— when I see them, I recognize them immediately. I know who they are. Because they have the same look over and over and over. And then once people started to know who they were and their fan base grew, that's when they started like changing the color in their hair or changing their hairstyle. Um, I, I think that once somebody can make a meme that looks at you like Yachty with the, the braids and the, um, beads at the end, once there's a meme, that's when you can change your image. I'm being funny, but you know what I mean. Frederick Ellis is saying, I really want to move to Atlanta to start my indie label, but I can't seem to get out of Dallas, which is a dry market. What do you think is the issue with the Dallas, Texas music scene? I think the Dallas scene, um, has a couple of problems, the biggest one of which is that nobody has broken out of there. Like people are spending money, but they're spending it on stuff that doesn't really work to help their careers. So the guys that have broken, like the Duros, um, you know, they've broken because they've signed to a production deal or they've signed to a record label. They haven't really gone 100% indie. There's no examples to follow. The great thing about Atlanta— and I'm not saying that you should move here— but the great thing about Atlanta is We've got plenty of examples of guys doing this successfully. So you, when you're here, you can look at what Quality Control is doing, you can look at what Think It's a Game is doing, you can see exactly what it means to be indie. There's an example for you to follow so that you can learn what to do and what not to do as you move forward in your career. And I don't think you really have that in Dallas. You've got a shit ton of talent. You've got a market that's pretty cohesive. You've got a bunch of guys in the industry, you know, DJs, and, you know, Vertigo is there. You've got people that really support and try to move the industry forward, but you don't have a lot of success there. I like— I'm watching Trap Boy Freddy. Like, I really like his grind and his movement. I think that he's somebody that can be really successful in that marketplace. Um, and I realize that that's trap music— Trap Boy Freddy, right? But I'm really impressed with what he's doing. I'm so impressed with what he's doing that I saw he was friendly with Jordan Tower, and I reached out to Jordan Tower and said, you know, give me Freddy's number because I want to mentor him. He's somebody that I feel I can help. And while I can't, you know, consult him exactly on his career, I can at least be open enough that if he has questions, he can call me and ask, and I can answer them. You know, he's at a point where I think he, he's going to make it, so, um, I want to be as helpful as possible to him and give him as much access as I can to help him. Lamar is asking me what vlogs have I done explaining this. Um, you can go, you can see the list of all my vlogs. I know that it's a little difficult on the YouTube page, it gets a little confusing, but if you go to rapjewels.com, um, all of my videos are posted there and you can just scroll down. They're, they're columns too wide, or if you're on your phone, it's one wide, so you'll be scrolling forever. But you can see every video that I've done. They're all there except this one, but this one will be there in a couple days. Smoke Management, I can't answer that. I can't tell you what you should be paid per show because it depends on what you're worth in the marketplace. You get paid based on how many people the promoter think you can bring to a venue. So you're going to be paid one price if the venue holds 500 people. You're going to be paid a different price if the venue holds 30,000. So I can't really tell you where you start, but you'll probably start roughly somewhere around $500 a show, $1,000 a show, $1,500 a show, and then you'll know instinctively when to raise your price. As the calls start coming in and as you're booked for 3 or 4 days out of 1 week at $1,500, you know to raise it to $2,000 or $2,500. If you get to $2,500 and people are calling but they're not booking you, your price is too high. Bring it back down. Meek J, you're awesome. LOL saying, what's the most important thing in building an artist to you? The most important thing is great music. They've got to have music that can stand out. The second most important thing, and this is going to probably depress everybody on here, is having enough money to build a buzz and a fan base. It's, it's not a free industry. You've got to have some money to be able to move around. You've got to have some money to be able to have tools to be able to market and promote your music. Can you talk about film soundtracks, all of the connecting factors and angles of music supervisor licensing and scoring? Um, I've got a video that does that. Um, I can't because it's not something I'm proficient at, and I don't want to ever give you advice on something that I don't do myself. But there's an interview with me and Deborah Manus Gardner, and she talks about how to get on movie soundtracks, um, games. She is the person that I went to to get Trouble onto Grand Theft Auto. So I interviewed her, um, and it's like an hour long, the interview. It's pretty long, but we went pretty thorough into how to get on film soundtracks and such, and you know, whose job is what, who does what. How to find them. Smoke Management, why does negative music trend higher in mainstream than positive? Why does negative news draw a bigger audience than positive? It's who we are as human beings. LOL's asking, can a lot of artists really have their break in Houston, Texas? Don't know. I haven't seen anybody break out of Houston in a long time. I thought, um, there were two guys that were— first of all, Sauce Twins were coming up. I thought that they would break out. They didn't. But there were two guys, um, jeez, what were they called, man? They did songs together too. Damn it, I have such a bad memory for names. But there were two guys that were coming out of Houston. They looked like they were doing pretty well. I think one of them got signed, the other one didn't. Houston to me is a great market. It's, it's— nobody's really Nobody's really marketing and promoted the way that I feel that they should to take over the marketplace, you know. Like, I see flossy people throwing money and trying to look bigger than life. That doesn't work. Um, there aren't a lot of people that are building relationships and doing what's necessary to really succeed, in my opinion. Um, Smoke, you're talking about Bun B, Paul Wall, and Pimp C. Um, yes, they were in Houston. That was in the '90s. We're talking about like people that are breaking today in music. DJ Handcuffs, I don't know of anyone looking for comedy rap music. 7623, if you go to helpfulangel.com, it explains exactly what I do, what I charge, and how to become my client. New Orleans is a great market, you know. New York— New Orleans has always been a great market. I think you can make a lot of money in New Orleans. Smoke Management is asking how much money is a good starting budget. I am so not the person to ask that because I'm at a little bit different level than an artist who's starting out, but I believe that in order for you to shoot enough videos and and have enough content, hire a publicist, hire a radio guy, um, hire a marketing team, street teams, um, a digital guru to help you online, you're looking at a budget of about $150,000. I haven't been able to do it for less. I told you that was going to make you not happy. That doesn't mean that you can't do it for less. There's a shit ton of people out here that are doing it for less. That means I can't do it for less. Lamar's asking, do I think you should save money earned from music as a starting— as a starting independent artist until you reach a certain amount, or invest all of it back as you get it? I think you need to put it back in as you get it. Okay, thank you, Frederick. It's Rap Coalition at AOL, right? And I will respond. Alante saying, how do you feel now Trouble signed knowing how admittedly you are against labels, even stating if he signed you would faint? Um, I did faint. Um, they made an offer that couldn't be refused, so, um, I don't feel badly at all that he signed to Interscope. It's something that he wanted to do. It was important to him. Um, if I were him, I wouldn't have done it. I think that he could have made more money on his own, but I think at the end of the day, it matters how you feel as an artist about whether you want to keep doing all the work yourself or you want a team that's a building of people behind you helping you do what you do. It's about how entrepreneurial you are. It's about how how you want your career to go. I mean, if you're going to become a pop superstar, I, I think it's easier if you have a major label behind you, you know. Even Taylor Swift, she's, she's technically independent, but Universal has done an awful lot to help her, you know. So I just think it depends on what your goals are and what you're comfortable doing, you know. Not every rapper is an entrepreneur. I am, so it's easy for me to do it independently, but not for others. So I'm happy he's happy. You know, at the end of the day, when somebody hires me, they hire— they hire me, like I work for them. So if he wanted to stop rapping, that would be his choice. If he wants to sign to Interscope, that's his choice. You know, I'm happy for him. I want him to be happy, and he's happy. And it made Jay Jones happy. You know, I don't know of anybody interested in managing an Arizona country rap star. What a great— um, thank you, Jay Jones. Um, that, you know, what a great question. Um, I think to find a manager, you really need to— and it all comes back to build a buzz. Didn't I say that way too many times tonight? Build a buzz. Um, but That's exactly it. Like, you want to attract people to your career that can help you, the best thing you can do is help yourself. Like, if you get big enough to the point where you're attracting top-notch management, you know, let's be real, is anybody here in this, in this, in this room, if you had the opportunity to work with Chance the Rapper, would you say no? You know, but if if he had come to you 3 years ago and you didn't know how you could help him, you might say, no, I can't help you. You know, it's, it's really about somebody seeing the direction that you're going and being able to just step in and apply their contacts and connections and help, you know. So if there's anybody out there that wants to, um, work with an Arizona country rap star. I think, I think I know of one. Lamar's asking, are there such things as non-recoupable advances, or is that just called a signing bonus, and are they rare? Um, they were bigger in the '90s than they are now. I do know people that have gotten, um, non-recoupable bonuses when they sign. I've never asked for one in a deal. Because I had more important things to ask for. There were things that I really wanted my artists to have, like 100% ownership of their own publishing. So I never went for the cash, because if you're successful, the cash is going to come. That's a personal opinion, right? DJ Handcuffs is asking, are there new music tech companies that we need to be looking at? Um, I haven't really— I haven't really stayed abreast of who's out there and who's coming. Um, the owner of A3C, Mike, told me about BeatStars, I think they're called. It's a site where you go to buy beats, um, that he was really excited about. I haven't been there yet to look at it. Um, he just told me about it at A3— at, um, excuse me, he runs A3C. He told me about it at CD Baby, and I've been on the road since I saw him, so I haven't checked it out yet to see what they're all about. But I will. Thank you, Desert Boy Sly. Okay guys, we're a little bit over an hour. Knight Rider ENT, thank you. It's good to see you all. And remember, I do this the first Wednesday of every month. Thanks for tuning in. If you send me your questions ahead of time, I'm happy to ask them because I know, you know, some of you are asking at the end and I get a little more tired towards the end. But if you send in your questions, I will ask them in the beginning. Um, thank you all for tuning in. I appreciate you greatly, and I will see you all on the first Wednesday evening of October at 7 PM. And it's the same time that A3C will be in effect, and I will be there. I'm speaking twice. Follow my Instagram for details or follow me here on YouTube. Okay guys, take care. Bye!