MixTapes & Free Music | Wendy Day

Hi guys! So, mixtapes. You know, I've been doing this 25 years now, and mixtapes have always mattered in urban music. Always, always, always, always. Um, in today's music industry, at least here in the South, we give away a lot of music for free. And we do that because it's so oversaturated. There's so many artists today that in order for a rapper to stand out, they need to get their music to the masses, to the people, and let the people kinda decide what they like and what they don't like. In rap, we've always lacked artist development, and it's just the nature of the genre of rap. The labels in the early '80s when rap first started treated rap like it was disposable, like it was a fad. And the funny thing is, when I got into the music industry, it was 1992 And 12 years in, the labels were still calling it a fad, which is really kind of funny, um, as mainstream America embraced rap— the fashion, the style, the terminology, the attitude, the swag, if you will. I hate that word, um, but hip-hop was everywhere, you know. I remember realizing that there was no going back when I was watching TV in the '90s and Fruity Pebbles, um, had Fred and Barney rapping in the commercial. It was just crazy. And I realized that rap is everywhere, you know. Fast forward to today, the most popular, um, play on Broadway is Hamilton, and Hamilton is a hip-hop play, or hip-hop opera if you will. Um, so there's no denying how popular rap has become. I was just reading a report, um, from BuzzAngle, and you're going to read an article by me probably by the end of the week about this, um, talking about how the most, um, listened to genre of music in the streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc. is rap. Rap is the number one streamed music, and it accounts for a very large amount of listeners. So there's no denying how popular rap has become. And as it's got— gotten cheaper to record, um, you can basically create a rap album in your bedroom or in your basement or in your house. You don't have to go to the studio anymore to cut an album, and you can find beats for $25 online. Actually, you can find beats for free online, um, but I don't recommend that you do that. Um, but you can make music really cheaply. And what happened was when the prices went down to record, and then when the internet, um, when people started downloading and streaming music, the internet kind of leveled the playing field. And a lot of people decided that that's what they wanted to do. They wanted to become rappers or producers or singers or whatever, especially rappers and producers. And it really created an oversaturation in the marketplace. I always joke saying that we've got more rappers and producers than we do fans. And even though I'm joking when I say that, there's a little bit of truth to that. There's just an awfully large number of people that are coming into the music business with the intention of making money, and it's driving down prices for producers, it's driving down show prices for artists, and It's increasing the competition for major labels as to who they're going to sign. And even though we never had artist development in rap, really, in the history of rap, um, we really don't have it now. Um, what's happening is we're watching artists develop in front of our eyes. So back in the day when I started listening to rap, somebody who just started rapping within the past year or two would never make it to the public. Just the, the entire, um, um, way that an artist had to get signed to a record label in order to reach the public was a multi-year process. So it might take somebody, you know, 3 to 4 years to get signed. It might take another 2 years once they're signed to come out. So we weren't really receiving music from artists that were their first attempt at rapping. But in today's marketplace, somebody can start rapping in January, and by May they luck out and have a hit record online. And all of a sudden, you know, they're being courted by major labels, or they're being, you know, offered $25,000 per show by promoters because they're so popular. And What's happening is we're seeing artists develop in front of our eyes from when they first start rapping till when they reach the, the consumer. And what that's doing is it's making it harder for the really talented people to stand out because there's just so much— there's so much din at the, at the bottom entry level. And then when somebody comes in, they kind of have to climb up through all of that dead weight and then kind of stand out. And it just takes a little bit longer to climb in a career today than it did years ago because it's so oversaturated. And I don't want to belabor that point because I don't want you to feel like you can't compete or that it's too crowded for you. Um, let your fans decide. Don't, don't make that decision. If this is your dream and this is what you want to do, you know, give it a fair shot. But all that to say, I'm coming back to the topic now of mixtapes. Because of the oversaturation, many of the artists, when they put out music, if they don't give away their music for free, they're not going to be able to build a fan base because the, the fans have gotten so used to getting free music that if you don't give away your music, there's something wrong with you. So you've got to build your fan base first with music, mostly free music, you can still put it on sites for sale. Like, just because you're starting out and you've got your first mixtape, provided you own the rights to all of the music, meaning you didn't take somebody else's beat, um, you know, like somebody that's already on, like, uh, Kendrick Lamar's beat or a, uh, you know, Young MA beat. A lot of people kind of bit her beat and put music out. When you don't own the beat, you can't sell it. You can only give it away for free. And even that, you know, technically you're not supposed to do that, but I know in hip-hop we don't really follow the rule on that one. We kind of just put our music out there. But having said that, when you give away your music for free, you should also sell it. You should also go through a distributor like a DistroKid or a TuneCore or CD Baby or whoever— 1RPM, Empire— get your music out there into the marketplace, get it for sale so that if somebody does want to support you and, and buy your music or stream your music where you get paid, then they can certainly choose to do that and you will make money. And I think that's kind of the whole point, is that you want to be able to do this for a living. You don't want to have to work a day job for the rest of your lives, or you don't want to do this part-time. You want to be able to make money with your music and tour and make show money with your music. That's really the point. If that's not the point, then, you know, you watching these videos is kind of a waste of your time because I'm not talking about music as a hobby. I'm talking about the music business, so making money in music, right? So when you put out your mixtape, not only do you need to put it out there, but you've got to market and promote it, which means you need some sort of a budget. So even as you're selling it, it's your choice. If you want to drive people to add your song to their lists on Spotify, you know, you certainly can. If you want to drive people to download it at DatPiff for free, or stream it at DatPiff for free, or MyMixTapes, or Spinrilla, or any of the, the mixtape sites, you certainly can. Um, you know, the thing that, that drives me the craziest about the mixtape sites is that in order to stand out, because there's so much music there, you've got to buy into one of their programs, one of their promotional programs. So you're actually spending money, and you can spend anywhere from like $3,000 and up at one of these sites, but you're actually promoting music that you're giving away for free. So you might be spending $3,000 or $5,000 or $7,500 in order to get people onto that site to know who you are, to listen to your music, to download it, to stream it, to whatever. Um, and that's just crazy to me that you're gonna spend money to give something away for free. But it's, it's, it's what happens in rap, especially in the South, you know, where I'm based. It happens all day, every day. So, you know, yes, you can take a stand and say, I'm not going to give away my music for free, or I'm not going to promote it. But then how are you going to stand out? You know, how are you going to— how are you going to get people to listen to your music when there's so many other artists out there that are willing to give away their music for free, a lot of music for free, and have budgets to market and promote it? You know, how do you compete if you're not in that category? So, um, the sites that I utilize for my clients. I use DatPiff, I use my mixtapes, I use Live Mixtapes, but I prefer Dat— I prefer DatPiff to Live Mixtapes. They seem to have a little bit larger of, of a following. Also, it's a lot easier to deal with them. Live Mixtapes, it's— as most of you know, it's a little bit hard to get a hold of anybody in order to promote or get your music up there if you're a relatively new artist. I use Spinrilla, My Mixtapes, the app. We do a lot of marketing and promoting on there, and that's pretty much it. And then of course we upload music to SoundCloud, we upload to Audio Mac. We use Audio Mac mostly if we're going to promote it to the blogs. Audio Mac, I think, is owned by Complex, the Complex family. So when they post music, if it's not on Audio Mac, it's a little bit more challenging to get them to post it. And I always like to make it as easy for people as possible to work my projects, right? Because I want the exposure everywhere that I can. We also put the music up on YouTube, not just videos, but we'll put the music streaming on YouTube with the artwork for the single cover. And then sometimes we'll even, we'll even have lyric videos— almost forgot what they were called— we'll have lyric videos, which are relatively easy and inexpensive to make. Anything that we can utilize to bring fans to the artist. And of course, we still use websites. Um, I know every time I say that we use websites, I get people commenting saying, um, I have Facebook, I don't need a website. You still need a website. A website is like your central clearinghouse for all of your product, you know, whatever that is. Like, if you go to wendyday.com, it has all of my links there. It's got place, you know, it's got the link so that you can go buy my book, it's got my bio, it's got pictures, it's got everything that you need. You still need that in, in today's market. You absolutely need that. We drive fans to the artist's website more than we drive them any other place because once we get them to the website, we can capture their email address, we can get them to buy merchandise, we can get them to stream music, we can get them to hear the new music, we can get them to see the tour dates. It's sort of like one-stop shopping for the artist. It's, it's like I said, the central clearinghouse. It's the holding, um, place for the artist, and it's important to have that. There's a video that I did about websites, um, I can't remember how long ago, but if you dig back in the archive or if you go to rapjewels.com, rapjewels.com, um, you'll see the video that I did on, on websites, and I explain exactly how we use websites landing pages, capturing email addresses, how we set them up, what pages we have. So all that stuff is there for you if you, you know, if you want to follow my plan, basically. But sadly, I just feel we still need the mixtape sites. For those of you who are rapping over other people's beats, I'm not going to stop you from doing that, but I am going to tell you that there are two types of artists that do that: the amateurs and then the artists who are very well known, like a Drake or a Meek Mill or Wale or, you know, whoever. Um, when an artist is established, they will rap over, um, a really hot beat as a way to garner attention and to let people in their fan base know that they're still attached to the street, like they still recognize a really hot beat. That's why you see artists like Drake doing songs with Kodak Black and the Migos, and he just did one with Trouble, um, because he'll do songs with whoever the hottest street artists are so that he can increase his fan base. And it works for him. I mean, he's the number one streamed artist at Spotify. He, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna are 1, 2, and 3 on Spotify for 2016, so they're doing something right, um. But I guess I'm getting kind of long-winded. Um, I think I've made my point about mixtapes. And, um, again, unless you're a brand new artist and you can't afford beats, so you have no choice but to rap over somebody else's beat, or if you're an established artist and you're doing it because you want to, you know, garner the, the streets, the new fans that are coming up that have entered the fan base since you got on. Um, other than that, you know, you, you can't get the rights to rap over somebody else's song, so you're not able to— you're not able to make money doing it. And, you know, your, your version of that song is only as hot as that beat is. And remember, shit lives on the internet forever, so, you know, somebody might be looking at your music and they see you rapping over the Bobby Shmurda beat, and it's like man, wow, that's, that's so old. It kind of dates you, and it, it just kind of looks a little crazy. So I just think you should use original material. You know, it's your choice. I'm not going to stop you. Um, I've seen artists rip beats awesomely, and it's impressive. I just don't see the value of it in terms of making money, the financial side. I see the value of it in terms of the art form, in terms of hip-hop, the art form. I just don't see its place in the music business, just like I don't see a place for battle rap in the music business. I love it as an art form, you know, I love watching guys battle, but it doesn't, you know, in terms of selling music, streaming, download, CDs, whatever, it just doesn't have a place, unfortunately. So, um, there you go with mixtapes. Put out as much music as you can afford to put out. Um, with Trouble, we try to put out 3 to 4 releases a year. Um, he hasn't put anything out in 7 months as of right now. We're working on a new release, but I can see the decline in his buzz, you know, over the months of November and December. I see the show decline, I see the buzz decline. Um, you know, he's still streaming like, um, I think he's at 5 million streams a month right now, so his streaming numbers are really great. But the income and the, um, the show money is not as great as it once was. The merch sales aren't as great as it once was. You know, he's still doing well, so I'm not mad, but he could be doing better. So, um, for us, we're getting ready to drop an album. We try to keep, like I said, um, we try to keep music in the marketplace. We try to keep as many videos popping as we can. Um, if I could drop a video a week on an artist, I'd be happy. A video every other week is certainly not too much to ask, but you've got to keep up with everybody else and what they're doing. And it's just the, you know, it's the way the new music business is. So thanks for listening, guys. I hope this wasn't too much rambling, and I'll see you in the next video.