Pissing Off Artists With The Truth

I realize most of you don’t want to hear what you have to do as artists to succeed. Many of you want to be told what you are doing is right. But would you prefer to fail? Because most of you will.

Somewhere, somehow, you got the idea that this is a free industry and someone will come along and discover you, and put you on! Well, if that IS the case, they won’t ‘discover you and put you on,’ they will sign you to their company and take 88% of the money. That’s called a production deal or a “middle man deal.” They rarely work out well, for obvious reasons.

If you balk, and have enough leverage (which you don’t, because all you’ve done to build your name and career is sit at your computer and send out links or mp3s of your music), the person ‘putting you on’ might sign you to a 50/50 deal–but they still collect 100% of the money because they have the leverage. IF you make any money, after paying back 100% of your expenses from your half (and you won’t) THEN you get a check. In 20 years, I can count those artists on both hands–and none of them ‘got on’ by sending out music to industry folks. I’m still waiting for a successful artist who got signed from a demo or from sending out music for “feedback” to step forward and say “this is how I did it.” They can’t. There aren’t any. But I see tons of artists signed to nobodies or bullshit labels/companies/middlemen impossibly trying to break their 7-10 year contracts….daily.

If you’re going to send out music, send it to fans–ya know, the people who might like it and spend 99 cents to download more of your songs from iTunes (which you get onto through companies like TuneCore). The fact that it’s 2012 and I’m still saying this same shit (for 20 years now) over and over, tells me most artists aren’t looking to succeed.

It makes me sad that in 5 or 10 years from now, you’re gonna think you failed because your music wasn’t good enough. No, you failed because you didn’t take the time to learn how the music industry works AND because you were too stupid or arrogant to look at the top 20 selling artists in your genre and figure out what they did to succeed.

Furthermore, you’re an idiot if you think a good co-sign ‘put them on.’ The successful artists were signed because they had something going on in their region and the bigger artist noticed and signed them (yes, they signed their friends too, but they were rarely successful and besides, that’s not you–you are not Lil Wayne’s or Ricky Rozay’s lifetime buddy, try as you might). When you look closely, you will see this is the case: Lil Wayne didn’t put Drake or Nicki Minaj on….they were signed because their respective buzz was through the roof!! Hopefully you will realize this before you turn 30, which is really too late!!

You didn’t notice because you’re either too ignorant to learn how this industry works or you were too busy sending me your music to notice what’s REALLY going on… Regardless, good luck to you! I want you to win! I really hope one of you proves me wrong. I’ve been waiting 20 years for that!!

Yeah, I realize this post pisses you off. You really just want me to listen to your music and tell you that you’ll be the next hot thing in music, that you’re better than Jay Z and that you’ll sell way more than he ever did. LMFAO!!!! But I’m not willing to lie to you!! And I’m not willing to waste my time listening to your music when I know that all that matters is the buzz you build. When I hear the buzz, I’ll listen to your music.

By the way, building a buzz with fans IS how Jay Z ‘got on’…

Wendy Day
Rap Coalition
http://www.WendyDay.com
http://www.About.me/WendyDay
@RapCoalition (follow me on Twitter)

My newest eBook THE KNOWLEDGE TO SUCCEED: HOW TO GET A RECORD DEAL can be found at Amazon and iTunes. Click here: http://ow.ly/6KKi3

“Who I am is who I want to be!”
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

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