What Is Publishing? | Wendy Day Interviews Deborah Mannis-Gardner

Hey, this is Wendy Day. Thanks for tuning in. I have one of my favorite people in the music industry right here with me, and I've been promising you guys for months that I would learn how to do this so that I could interview some of my industry friends. Um, and without further ado, this is Deborah Manus Gardner. She runs DMG Clearances. Hi Deborah, how are you?

Hey Wendy, I'm great. Thank you for having me.

No, thanks for doing this. I appreciate you so much. Um, you work in a world that's not my forte, so, um, the folks who watch my videos have been asking me questions and I've been giving them like, you know, like superficial answers, um, knowing full well that I was going to have you on here and, and you're an expert at this. So I absolutely want to ask you like 8 million questions.

I'll even let you ask 8 million and one.

Okay, good, good. That's what friends are for. Okay, so, um, let's start with how did you get into the music industry?

I fell into it. I'm— I have a degree from Emerson College. I have a couple degrees, and I really thought I'd start with being in music videos. And so, uh, from music videos it went into doing music clearances. I started working for a small company called Diamond Time. That was a UK-based company that came to the States in 1990, and I joined that company to do clearances. Wasn't sample clearances, it was music clearances. And I was fascinated more about what was going on in rap and hip-hop and samples. And I had a boss, and I said to her, can we— I want to do this. There are no rules, there's no structure. I kind of want to I'm going to look into this. And there weren't a lot of people doing it. There was Madeline Smith on the West Coast. She was really handling like the N.W.A. stuff. She was handling Eazy-E and N.W.A. And there was Hope Carr who was handling stuff for Tommy Boy. And then the lawyers were struggling trying to do it themselves. So I stepped into the arena because the attitude from the labels and the publishers were, oh, rap, hip-hop, it's a phase. It's not going to be around. And this is theft, and this is stealing, and just really negative shit behavior.

I remember that.

And so for me, I looked at it as an art. And I'm known for saying that a lot. It's like a collage. So if you go to a museum or gallery and you look at a piece of art that is made up of other pictures, like cut-ups from magazines and newspapers, and you don't consider that art, that's your choice. You might say, well, only Monet is art, or Picasso is art, or Renoir. Salvador Dalí. But collages, modern contemporary art, is just as important. And that's what sampling is, and that's how hip-hop and rap started. Because these kids didn't know how to play the instruments, so they were taking the music, obviously pre-existing music, changing it up, and then creating beats and putting lyrics on top. I mean, it's the most incredible, amazing thing of the way it's started. And I was excited, and I just jumped in, you know, without any rules. Yelled at constantly by old-school publishers. Like, you know, back then, you know, you had to do the song to get permission. You know, how today it's like, oh, can I get permission before I do it? No, we need to hear it. Well, back then, you stole it and used it and now asking us your permission? It's like, it's like from one end to another. So it's very very different world from 27 years ago. So I kind of fell into it and loved it. And it just kind of became my battle for these kids. And they were kids. That's what they were. Everyone looks at LL Cool J, and he's all this established— well, when he did 14 Shots to the Dome, he wasn't this big phenomenal thing. We did that album. In a week.

Wow.

We did the sample clearances in one week. I did the East Coast producers. I worked with Marlee Marle, and Madeline Smith worked with, I think it was Supercat and Quincy, and did the West Coast. And we collaborated together to make sure that we got that done in a week, and then we went out for dinner and celebrated. So—

That's a big celebration.

That was a lot of work. Yeah, it was a lot of work. But it was— and so as excited exciting samples were back then, I find it still as exciting now. And you know, even when we got together, people were like, oh, people don't sample as much, samples are gonna die out, samples are too expensive. My business is still steady and flowing. I've been in business since January 1st, 1996. And I don't just do samples, but that's my love and specialty. And people still sample, and why shouldn't they sample? And there are people that you should never sample, and there are people that like it, I'm gonna ask you about all of that, so keep that in the front of your mind. But it's, it's an art, and I don't necessarily like it when it's like the whole, the whole musical bed of the sample and someone raps on top. Sometimes it can work. You know, when I worked on one of Common's earlier albums, he had all these different like pieces, you know, he would have like 6 samples in one song. It It was like a gumbo. Yeah, so it was really neat. Now, you know, not so much, but Kendrick had a lot of samples on his album. It was fun. It was exciting. And then we pulled out what we had to pull out to keep things under control because he had a lot of producers. But I love the art of sampling. I love the sound and what— everyone's like, oh, the labels are so greedy. The publishers are greedy. But let's not forget what it's done for a lot of artists. A lot of artists that would have been forgotten. Let's not forget what it did for James Brown. James Brown's music was limited to those audio configurations that the kids listened to or bought, but he wasn't making revenue. The revenue started again with the sampling and then the revival of James Brown. There's nothing you can say to make me change my opinion. And people can disagree with me, but I'm going to stick with that.

And you're allowed to, damn it.

And, you know, Syl Johnson to this day will call me and thank me, you know, for like, you know, Wu-Tang using him. And, you know, people— Hamilton Bohannon, who is not the easiest person to work with but who I love to death, you know, had a comeback because of people sampling his stuff. There's that generation of Black musicians who were really fucked over that finally are seeing money because they're getting paid.

Yes, finally.

The sampling. So there's, there's nothing you can say to me to make me think differently of sampling. You could try, but I won't.

Well, awesome. Well, let me, let me ask you, um, what is publishing?

Okay, so there's two parts to a song, and I guess most people know the master side, the recording side, which is the side where the person actually records the music, the song that they've done, and that creates the configuration that people listen to, purchase, or what have you. The publishing side is the music side, the, the words, the lyrics, the music, the beat. And in this world of rap and hip-hop, the producer gets publishing. Now, that's a whole new world because think back to the Beatles. Who was the producer of all the Beatles stuff? Stop me.

I'm a rap fan.

What's his name? Now the name eludes me, but you know, he was huge. He was knighted. He just died last year. I'm going to pull out my phone and Google him. Brian—

His name is Brian something.

Yes. He produced and orchestrated all of the Beatles stuff and didn't get any publishing or writer credit or anything.

Really?

Back then you didn't. Um, that was a whole different world. The producers only would get royalties. Even if you look at the rock stuff, what did the producers— rock music— who produced Zeppelin? You're a Zeppelin head.

Um, I don't know who produced Zeppelin. I, I never paid attention with, with rock. It didn't matter to me who was orchestrating it. What mattered to me was the sound of the music. Like, I know who John Bonham is, I know who Robert Plant is, but I have no idea who produced it.

Producers were important. Producers were very important, right? They made the sounds, they put it together, but they never got a piece of the publishing. It was this genre of music that changed all of that, where the producers who came to the table with the beats, whether it had a sample or whether it was something they created, okay? And so going back to publishing—

are you talking about George Martin?

George Martin. I just Googled.

I secretly snuck into Google.

That's good, George Martin. So George Martin, if you were to research him, he was the one who orchestrated and produced all that Beatles stuff. And he didn't get any recognition.

And he never got an ownership of the songs.

Never complained. Wow. But our genre of music that we deal with, we structured it completely different so that when the producers came in, they just didn't get a royalty share on the master side. But they would get a publishing share, so which would be negotiated. So like when 14 Shots to the Dome was done, it was actually, uh, I think it was a 70/30 split where Ella got 70 and Marley got 30, and then the sample had to come out of Marley's 30% share. Can't believe I remember that shit from that long ago, but yeah, it's kind of frightening. A lot of times though now it's like a 50/50 split where the person who wrote the lyrics and then the producer who did the beat, and it's a 50/50 split. And then they determine, does the sample come off the top or does the producer eat the sample? That is a whole nother argument with me because I think the sample should come off the top. Even if the producer added it, the writer and the artist still reaps the benefits, and therefore I think it's—

Absolutely.

But, and Marshall is like that. Marshall always, he's like very honest and fair And, and, and is, uh, I have so much respect for him.

You know, he's the most loyal artist I've ever worked with. We're talking about Eminem, in case you don't know.

Oh yeah, he's extremely loyal and, and fair. Yeah. And his team that I work with there, I mean, there's really good, good people.

And, and, um, that's so rare in this business.

It is. Um, Khaled. Honest, fair.

I love Khaled.

Sweet. You know, when I was sick, Khaled—

says thank you.

When I was sick, you know, I was working on his album, to see, make sure I was okay because of the pressure and the deadline. Has not let anything go to his head. Right. And is so grateful for where he is. Right.

And he's always been that way. The Khaled that I met in '93 is the same Khaled that I saw a couple months ago.

Yeah, so there, there are people out there. And, and, and so when it goes to the samples, you know, that usually, in my opinion, should come off the top. And I fight with attorneys all the time about that, and they're like, oh, I gotta look out for my client, blah blah. Okay, so back publishing. Your publishing is made up of— there's lyrics that are written, the music that is written, and the beat. And sometimes people are like, you know, they try to split that apart, that they get the writers and they get the publishing share and this. But the bottom line is it all gets really split down the middle. So let's say there are no samples, and let's say, uh, Willpower, amazing producer, super hot beats, produces a beat, doesn't have any samples, and it's for Wolf. And Yellow Wolf is the only one that wrote all the lyrics. It'll be, it'll be 50/50 split, right? Both are listed as writers. They both— both their publishing companies are listed 50/50 writer split, 50/50 publishing split, straight down the middle. That's how that would be.

You know, when I first started in the industry, that's what confused me, because with, with the writer share and the publisher share, it almost made it like there was 200%, because if you're splitting, you know what I mean? It was very confusing to me to hear it that way, but I had to learn to adjust my thinking to here's the publisher's share and they split it 50/50. And then here's the writer's share and they split it 50/50. And that's just how a song is made up. It has those two 100% shares.

Well, that's, you know, it's like in the PROs, you know, sometimes a writer only collects when a publisher doesn't collect. So you kind of have to do that. And, you know, back, if you look at sheet music and old music, Gershwin and stuff like that, they used to split it up. Like, well, he wrote the words and this person wrote the music. And so they would divvy this up. I mean, publishers were known as being penny pinchers because our government created a rate as to what the value of a song is. Talk about separating church and state. Well, maybe we should be separating music and state. But our government is so nosy about music, we created the value or statutory rate or value of a song. And so you have these battles going on right now because our government deemed the value of a song for streaming or for mechanical or what have you, but on the master side there aren't any regulations and these labels are gobbling up all this money. So when you look at Drake and how much money he's made on streaming you know, because of all the downloads and streaming for his album. Good for him and the label, but on the publishing side, there's not a lot of money because it was regulated as to what that value would be by the government, right? That's why the publishers are up in, in arms and upset about this.

Got it. So publishing is the ownership of the actual music, or the words and and the beat, the lyrics, the track, whatever, however you want to say it. Um, is, is publishing something that an artist should ever give away for free?

Never. I don't believe in free. I don't believe in free anything.

Um, you know, my videos, they should be free.

I mean, I speak, um, well, I speak on panels a lot and I, I need to do more. And I try to remind people, you know, like if you have the opportunity for your song to be synced up to a visual for a TV show or what have you, or movie, you don't ever do it for free. It's not worth it. You need— it devalues things. You know, your music is a commodity. It's kind of like buying a piece of art and let's say this art has a piece of value to it and then you want to take that art and be able to pass it down to your children and your grandchildren and so on and so forth because it has a value to it. Music is the same thing. Now, you as a recording artist, if you're signed to a major label, you don't own your masters. They own your masters. But you as a writer, you own your publishing, and you might have someone administer your publishing, take care of it for you, as you should as a business person, but you should own this because when you pass, that goes on to your children. Right.

So administer— I heard you say administer— that's somebody who collects your money for you?

Yeah, I mean, there's two different— there's many different types of publishing deals, and, you know, having a deal with one of the majors is not necessarily the answer. You know, Warner Chappell, Sony ATV, Universal Music, BMG— that's, that's not always the answer. They're the companies that can give you big fat advances, which you then have to recoup. But there are smaller companies, and then there are individuals that do administration, and they're called boutique publishers. And, you know, the way publishing works is It's strange, but you can only collect in that territory. So for example, I have a partner, Deborah Evans, down in New Orleans. She is a boutique publisher, Della Music. If she was your administrator, she would get a percentage, it's 15%, of whatever money she collects for you. And she also pitches your music, but she— her job is to make sure she gets everything off the internet, the streaming, Everything. Everything. She basically chases your money, chases your music, and makes sure all your music is registered. But then she also has sub-publishing in place. She went to meet them, and she has sub-publishing contracts with every publisher, because every publisher has every territory, right? And then she takes your music and registers it with each one of her sub-publishers so that they can collect in every territory. Granted, they get their cut for their work, as everyone does, sends it to her, And then she sends it to you, right? But also what your sub-publishers do, like I have her hooked up with like Fuji Pacific. I have her hooked up with, you know, great people in South Africa from all over the world. They take your music and they pitch it and they use it for commercials or movies or whatever they can to exploit it. So they make money so that you can make money.

Exactly. And without her, you wouldn't get that revenue. So it's worth giving a percentage of what you get in order to have her do that for you.

Right. I mean, some people go with companies like Kobalt, which is just an administrator, um, because they think they're getting a better lower rate, but all they do is collect. They don't pitch, right? They claim to pitch, but that's my—

that's my complaint about most major label publishing deals is they tell you they're going to get you all of this work, and then there's this misleading— there's this misleading factor that you think you're going to get to produce for artists that are signed to the label side of that publishing company, and very often all they do is collect. So you're, you're doing a deal for 50% of your publishing, you know, of course you get an advance, but you're doing a deal and then they're not pitching you, they're not bringing in the work that you think they're going to bring in.

I mean, it's very rare. It's very hard to someone at Warner Chappell to take you as a writer, as producer and get one of their artists that's a writer to use you.

Right.

Because it's all creative decisions if you think about it.

Right.

So—

And it's separate companies. The label is separate from the publishing company.

You know, everything happens because it happens. And like, someone hears something and they like it, and that's why it's going to happen. And you know what? When you pitch stuff, people hear like hundreds of songs. What are the chances? It's hard.

Right, like winning the lottery.

Yeah, and so things happen because things happen, and you know, there really is no set way of making things happen. If you're really good, you're really talented, and someone hears you, then they're going to snap you up and they're going to utilize your services. Again, I'm 27 years in this, you know, I have contacts that are of the highest caliber and it doesn't matter. And I have access to all these artists just like you do, and it doesn't matter. And there's politics involved, and there's buddy systems, and there's a lot of bullshit. And there's certain artists that only want to work with certain producers or have their own team. I mean, that's more and more common in hip-hop and rap, and I don't know if it's a comfort level, I don't know if it's a fear that they don't want their secrets to be known. I think that's a lot of it from the bigger ones, right? But I think a lot of big rappers have their own producers and own teams, and they don't want any outsiders in, right?

You, you mentioned something earlier, and it triggered a question. Are there any companies out there that will chase royalties, like back royalties, for the older artists? I get a lot of artists, like from the '90s, and that reach out to me and they're looking for somebody to help them, um, collect their royalties. Are there any companies out there that do that?

There are a couple of companies, and I would have to— I'm not going to blurb anything out now because I would want to evaluate each situation to hook them up with the right person.

Gotcha. It's not a blanket, it's not a blanket answer, basically.

It's not, because you've got to make sure there aren't conflicts, because a lot of companies that are owned by lawyers or you just have to make sure there aren't conflicts. So I really have to always reach out to that person and say, do you have a conflict with X, Y, and Z? And if they do, say, okay, since I know you can't handle it, who would you recommend out there to handle this? And that's how— and I don't get a cut or get anything out of that. I just kind of like hook people up to go after stuff like that.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, cool. It's not, it's not easy to collect that stuff. I mean, no, I have not. I have a writer that did never got paid on a Tupac album, right? And he wants to go after it. Yeah, well, the Tupac estate's got some pretty intense lawyers, right?

And a lot of artists can't find their contracts, or there weren't contracts involved, and it becomes a little bit murkier there too.

It's, it's, well, you know, mine is during the time of Shiv Night where it was a fist. You can't have anything, right? No paperwork and a fist. But, um, I'm gonna hit the publishers instead and say, you know what, do the right, do the right thing.

Exactly. Deb, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you so much.

Oh, my pleasure. Yay!