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You're listening to special programming sponsored by Triple Eight Media Group. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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It's the ABCs and the 123s of the music business for those who don't know but need to know.

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Welcome to the 411 with SOS. I'm your host SOS. Our talk today continues on the business of music but I'm putting a focus today on what it's like to be an independent artist. We're gonna give you a couple of ABCs on how to be a good client. Artists signed to record labels have the benefit of an army of people working on their behalf. You as an independent artist may have one or two people in your camp, therefore you have to learn how to be all things that the label would provide, you have to provide for yourself. So you have to be a first manager, you have to be your own publicist, you obviously have written, probably produced, engineered, you have to be your agent, you have to be your tour manager, you literally have to learn how to do all of the things that your career will need you to know how to do in order to be competitive in the marketplace. Because you are competing with all of the artists that have the resources that are coming from a major or a minor record label, i.e. funding.

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Mamita, I can't even tell you so much as to how you just knocked that out of the park. There you go. Oh my god. There we go. We're getting started. Okay. That is my co-host today. You know, I'm here. Hi, Devin over here. Industry adjacent for 20 plus years. We've been here. We've seen it all and we're excited to share

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it with you today. Yes. Take it away, SOS. So, understanding the job that your team does, no matter how small or large that team is, is really important. The foundation of your success as an independent artist is really going to be understanding the business of music. That's why I'm making these talks. I want to reiterate, I want to reemphasize at every turn that while you and your creative side, you're doing the music, you're providing the feel-good aspect of what people are looking for from their entertainers, you have to also know all of the things that is happening behind the scenes. You need to know what the marketing department does. You need to know what the radio promotion department does. You need to know what the people who promote your music at the DSPs would do. You actually have to educate yourself on all of these things. And if you're lucky enough to have a team, like I said, you need to know what is it that each team member does, right? Because you are not just the recording artist, you are also the business person. So you're wearing both hats, multiple hats, actually. So that's the first one.

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Now, I know that that can also seem very daunting. But as we've seen, the difference between a successful artist and somebody who ends up falling into the wayside of the minutiae are people who are very clear about what the job entails. Now, people kind of forget because it's fun and sexy. And you know, we're at Fashion Week, and you're here and there and you're in Paris, and it's amazing and you're at Chanel and you're buying, that there are always forces on behind the scenes that are conducting their own agendas, that have their own large grand scheme for how the game is going to play out. So you as an individual artist have to be very, very clear about what you would like for your career, about where you would like to go, and being crystal clear to avoid falling into the minutia.

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A lot of distractions.

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Many distractions.

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I'll tell you, there are a lot of distractions. The more your fame grow, the more your popularity grow, you're going to get a lot of other folks that are gonna be showing up with their level of expertise, with their stories of how things should be done, or what their idea of a successful artist career looks like. I would advise you to really stay focused because if you have armed yourself with information that is, you know, we all know that knowledge is power, then you are going to be able to stand firm and allow all of the people who are coming with their best intentions and their good advice and all of these things, you will know what to take and apply to your career and what to just say thank you and let it sit right there. That's really, really important. Knowing who you are, right? Would you say?

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SOS, I was even going to ask you, how do you feel about something like, you know, making sure that your copyrights and your music ownership and your publishing is up to date? What if you're, you know, what if a label is telling you or somebody in A&R is telling you that that's not important?

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The first thing you do as an artist, if you are a songwriter, you create a split sheet for your music. You are going to register your music is going to get are not aware of who you are, you're never going to see a check, right? So song publishing is extremely, so important. I was working with this artist one time, and when she came to me, she had everything done. She had 15 songs for her project done. She had shot a video. She had released two videos all of these and I asked her You know about her publishing and she was like, what do you mean? And I said, okay Well, you know who wrote the songs on your album? She goes, oh I did with my producer and I said, well, did you guys turn in your split sheets? You know showing what percentage of the song you own? Versus what percentage of the song he owns and then did you in turn send that to your publishing company so that they would know that when this record is heard on the radio? They're supposed to collect the checks and send them to you Nothing nothing so she gets crickets So she had done all this work recorded all this music and it was really good. I ask you a question

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How much do you think she invented monetarily?

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Invested I'm sorry into her into that project. She told me it was more than $30,000. So then I said to her, well, how are you going to recoup that money? Crickets. So that's what I mean that you have to be informed and you have to know. And I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer here. I really, we are here to try to give you advice that is going to help you be successful in this business. Because knowing what you're supposed to be doing, even if you can't get to the things that you need to do, but you know what it is that you need to do, you're ahead of the game. But like that particular example that I just mentioned, not knowing that you were supposed to register. And so I called the producer as a matter of fact, and I asked them why they had not.

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See, everybody needs somebody like you on their team. What are you calling producers and getting split sheets, post-production, letting everybody know, no, this is what we're doing. Yes. Sorry because

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Okay, so she had hired me to help her You know do a forensic on her career and to help manage her and that was the first thing that I asked them I and they had been they had been recording for a year and I said so why? You know if you know that this should have been done. Why did you not do it? And his response was oh, you know, we were gonna get to it And so I we were gonna get to the money part you guys. The major? We were going to get to the money part. No, no, no, because people's memories are a little bit foggy after a while. Can I ask you how foggy memories get after a successful project? Extremely. And like I explained to her, I said, so if there was anybody else in the room, I asked her, was there anybody else in the room and you guys were writing and recording this music? And for one song, she said, yeah, yeah, somebody else was there and I said, did you guys credit him? I said, did he contribute anything to the song? And she said, what do you mean? I said, like, did he suggest use this word instead of that or that line instead of this and do it like this? Yeah. I said, then he is a songwriter on that song and you guys need to give him credit because if you don't, when that record drops, it becomes a big hit. He's going to come for what you denied him. So creating your split sheets, if you are writing the song by yourself, if you are writing the song with someone else, if you have people in the studio that are just hanging around throwing out ideas, understand that all of these people are a part of the creator process on that particular song and you have to give them credit. And you should immediately go and register that music so that everybody's memory does not become foggy five years when that record is a hit.

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There we go. Boom. First piece of advice, everybody, make sure that you're publishing and your split sheets are up to par because those will come back to haunt you very swiftly. If I may, I'd like to ask for, you know, the layman's, the people out there, what would you define as a split sheet? What would you define like a quick little, okay, so, and these are things that dictionary for so a split sheet so to speak a split sheet is Detailing the ownership of whomever wrote the song does that have to be prepared by an entertainment attorney? No, you can you can go online

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You can pull the sheets and any producer any songwriter should have a no that means them

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Yes

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You would have stacks and copies of them and I suggest that it's done in the moment, because like I said before, you don't want to rely on trying to remember what happened last week or three weeks or four. And when money is involved, we all know that when money is involved,

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it gets a little bit sticky.

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Yes, it does. Everybody feels very passionately about what they contributed to your project. Absolutely. And so it's always best to make sure that people know that you're a consummate professional, this is what we're going to be doing and avoid the drama later on. Clarify. Even if people, trust me, we've heard stories, know it was my best friend, know it was my brother's girlfriend's sister's husband's cousin, they won't think me, we're best friends, we're really close. When money is involved, people get... When the green and the blue starts rolling in...

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It's a whole different story. It's a whole different story. A whole different story. So again, educate yourself, ask questions. I get questions all the time. People email me ask me questions all the time. I'm happy to answer anything. I tell Devin, my little co host here today, you know what, I know what I know. And I'm happy to share because I am personally tired of all these stories of people who put their life, blood, sweat and tears into building a career. And you know, speaking frankly, and truthfully, our industry is not made up of all of the most ethical people in the world. So you cannot rely upon somebody else to care about your career more than you need to care about your career.

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Amen. Amen to that. And so everybody, just to do a quick little recap for you, we would say make sure that your publishing is up to par, please, you guys. Research what publishing entails. and tails, make sure that you're clear about your agreement with every collaborator that you go out and work with. Exactly. It's very easy to think, oh, I've met this new producer, we're really jiving, we did eight, five songs, we did, you know, 15, 20, we did a project. But nothing was explained clearly, difficult questions weren't asked. Right. He owns that project. And you feel like you own that project. Exactly. So if you had gone into it from the very beginning having these conversations, okay What percentage of the split are we gonna have? You know, how much do I see like you what do you think is fair? Right. What are you? What are you looking for? From the but at the beginning don't try to negotiate later If you have all of this clear before the song is recorded then there's no confusion. Boom. Done one problem solved publishing negotiating Publishing, negotiating, clarity. Amen, you guys. Three steps, three tools that will help you alleviate, I would say, between 20 and 45 percent of headaches that we see in emails, in meetings, in people coming to us. Now I want to ask you this, SOS. What about people who are up to par with their publishing, they're familiar with the behind-the-scenes aspects or making sure that, you know, their T's are crossed and their I's are dotted, and they're looking for really to begin going out into that marketing phase, right? What kind of tools, what kind of steps would we suggest? Are there any people they should call? Would you recommend people, would you recommend artists maybe hire a stylist? Do you feel like that's something that benefits people in terms of how you look and present yourself to the industry?

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I definitely, because I want to remind everybody again, you're competing on the same playing field as established artists with lots of resources. So yeah, I'm not saying that you know you're gonna go out and get that Balenciaga dress, but you definitely want to within what you believe is professionalism. And I, one of the things that I do constantly is I keep in contact with the younger folks in my life, ask a lot of questions. What is going on? What's appropriate? What's not appropriate? So rely upon your team. Again, you are going to have some people in your life, especially at the beginning of your career, that are going to tell you the truth, right? It becomes a little bit more difficult when you're famous because nobody wants to upset, you know,

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the star or that grub. Exactly, the meal ticket.

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The train, the train. You don't wanna get off that gravy train. So in the beginning, you have these people that you can trust. You have them that you can ask. What about this? What about that? Absolutely.

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Ask people to help you refine your look. Yeah. Because I agree completely. We have, you know, we've seen people who have amazing voices. Their writing is heartbreaking. Your ears are, you know, you're crying because it's so touching. And then you're looking at the cover of the album and you're like, what would make me? When you were standing on a shelf of 75 other albums, the question is, thank you.

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You want yours to stand out. Because before they've heard your music, they probably have seen some sort of publication, images out there on you. So all of those things are important. Again, you're competing with the professionals and the resources that they have.

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With Cardi B. You're competing with Nicki and you're competing with Ariana. So you have to bring it. And you don't necessarily think of yourself that way because you might do you know XYZ genre but I would also then suggest

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go ahead and research who is the top dog in your field. No so I definitely I totally agree with you Devin you want to stay informed about your competition about the people you admire about the people that you're emulating about the people's careers that you see yourself being there all of that is important and the other thing I would like to say is don't spend all your time in the studio recording because like I said being The head of your label being your own PR being your own publicist being your own marketing You have to make time to do those things I have a particular person that I'm gonna bring on the show later on and He and I would talk and every time I spoke to him. He was like I'm going in the studio and one day I said well, how many songs do you have? Oh, I've recorded about 30 and I said, okay, and what are you doing with them? Well, I'm gonna put them out Okay. Well, you don't need 30 records in the marketplace, right? You want to work the ones that you've recorded that you know are gonna go the distance and break your career for you

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Can we talk about that really quick SOS because I think that is an amazing point that you're bringing up How should people I don't know if it's maybe A&R themselves, but you know, would you suggest that people ask their friends and family, which is the best song?

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Absolutely. Well, I mean, everybody has a fan base, too, right? So you're in your market locally, you probably have connected with some folks at the radio stations or some folks that are, you know, doing the things that you want to be doing in your city, right? You, you, the first place that you break from is where you're from.

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So... You have to be a local star before you can become our national hero. Exactly.

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So rely on, again, at the beginning of your career, everybody's gonna tell you the truth. Everybody's gonna tell you the truth at the beginning of your career. When you become Drake, they're not going to. No one will. So you definitely, I would say, yeah, definitely rely upon the resources that are there for you and keep building from that because that's just a

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Microcosm of everything that has to come and as an executive I've heard you tell me many times, right? Artists are not necessarily the best business people which is why you have a song that you were

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So passionate about and you're bleeding heart, right, you know, that might not be the hit might be telling you that might not be the hit, right? So you definitely want, because artists are attached to their songs. Like Erica Badiou says, I'm sensitive about my stuff, right? Be careful what you say to me. That's not just her. That's all creative people. And, and the, and the greatness, the great thing about being signed to a record label is that you're going to have an A&R executive, who is going, whose job is to only make sure that they put out the record that's going to be a hit. So it might not be the favorite one that the artist records, but us record people, we know a hit record when we hear it. So you definitely want to have your favorite top three or five and do a poll. And whichever one or two, whichever one or two come back consistently, that's what you... When I was an executive and I could not hear the hip-hop records at the moment, I would pull my young people into my office and play them three songs, which of these records we going to radio with? And whatever the majority was, I went and I fought for that record. You are not your best judge.

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You're not a good objective judge, right? Artists are notoriously mistaken about what they think the single should be. And that's why you have the folks that work at the record label that help you not to make the mistake and we're I'm gonna say This too. I've noticed, you know as an artist as someone in who observes artists It's very easy to feel like where your passion is Your fans will feel that passion and I always try to remind people people aren't really coming for the passion Sometimes they're really coming for the fantasy So really make sure you're refining your fantasy be very very clear on what it is that you are offering folks You know, what are you offering your fans? It's different that they can't find anywhere else that they get Oh my god excited and hype for and go ahead and refine that deliver that so what are we gonna talk about next? We all have a bad day. We all have a moody time. Yep What's the real? Leeway what what can people really skate away with what are? What is acceptable bad behavior so to speak and what is truly you're out the door so where would you suggest for maybe a? artist Little bit like one single already kind of got a little buzz But you haven't really broken to a national market and so you've got two or three people that are helping you

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But you don't want to start smelling yourself too much. What would you say? Okay, so my personal philosophy is you can never be too nice. Just like everybody in the world, the lady at the coffee shop had a bad morning so you walk up, you greet her, she's another human being to you, say hello, say thank you, have a nice day. Costs you nothing. I've seen a pattern in our industry where bad behavior seems to be reinforced and bad behavior seems to go unchecked and unpunished and rewarded and all of that. That only lasts but so long. And if you will notice, that behavior is only tolerated from people that are super successful.

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And what does super successful translate to?

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You're making a lot of money for the label, so they're going to put up with a certain amount of your antics. I do not suggest, even as a established, professional, successful person, I think that behavior is unacceptable. So as an independent artist and you're coming in and you're starting to get a little bit of success.

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People are gonna be inviting you out to the club. You're gonna be starting to get offers from five, $10,000, can you stop by here? We really wanna see you here, oh my gosh.

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They're gonna want you to come in at 11 and leave at 2 or 3 or 4 whatever you have committed to So if you have been hired to do an event that starts at X hour and ends at X hour Because whether you've signed a contract or you've given your word That is a commitment that you have made that you must honor right the people that are coming to see you They may have had a bad day as well. So they're not particularly interested in your antics. So being professional, being respectful, being grateful, being kind is going to give you such a tremendous boost. I was recently working with this young artist who is amazing, Jay Brown, his single, Vibe. And, you know, we had a lot of events for him to do. And the one thing that just kept coming back when I would talk to the people were Oh my gosh, he was so nice. No, I know I'm not really being paid to do that But you know what? I really liked him. So I'm really gonna go ahead and push this for him Just because he was grateful those professional are

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Invaluable you can't make it out. I right right love and adoration like exactly and conversely

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If you turn people off and you were not a pleasant person and you were really

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unpleasant and difficult they're like okay bye. There's a million kids trying to come up and email they will quickly find somebody else to come in quickly behave and go home yes now I would suggest it's very easy when you start getting a little bit of shine to feel like oh my gosh they really see that I'm special that's why they invited me out so let's say as you said you gave your commitment you didn't really know how to negotiate so you didn't really negotiate getting out of the club at 12, so you're going to be there from 11 to 2. Let's say you've got a studio session at 8. I would suggest, just as someone who has seen it, come and go. That's the time that you come, you're smiling, you're professional, you don't drink, you hang out a little bit, you smile, take pictures. I would even say 1.45, club's about to close, thank you so much, do your handshakes, do your rounds, get out of there. And the next stop you're going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own.

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I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own. you are representing you, your brand, and your career. If you are signed to a major label, there's five people waiting to take your place. And if you're not signed to a major label, there's 25 people waiting to take your place. So the way you handle yourself,

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because you are your business. And I'll say this, I've noticed as we talked about earlier, there's a trend that seems to be, you know, controversy sells controversy will get me there. If you're a Lindsay Lohan, if you're Paris, if you are Amanda Bynes, you might get a little leeway for being dramatic. You know, out of the blue, people get tired of it. Regular folks or folks that people deem like me, people don't have leeway for that. No, they feel no sympathy, no antics. They don't they don't care. So don't bring me antics. Everybody has a bad day. Stay professional and remember that you are representing you and your career. And people like let's say you're a club promoter right this is also a lesson that I think is a really good spot for artists and just collaborators in general to get to is to take you know two or three minutes and go what does that job entail though right because we all know a club promoter oh cool you're a club promoter, but okay, what does that really look like? Okay, I'm corralling cats, nobody's answering, people don't reply, they want to take the money and go. So if you were a stand-up guy in a sea of fickle and maybe I will, maybe I won't. You will get booked time and time again. Every time.

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And here's something else I would like to remind everybody about. You must read the agreement that you sign.

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Thank you.

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Even if you don't have the skill set of an attorney, you can basically go to the internet and you can Google words that you don't understand, but you are going to be asked to sign contracts for these appearances and for these shows, even the local ones in your market. A contract is a binding agreement. You need to know what's in it. And if you don't want to read the contract, you at a minimum must ask the person I would preferably do it in writing what are you expecting me to do you want them to detail for you thank you 50 pictures 50 holes on Instagram whatever it might be exactly know what you are expected to do and then that way there's no confusion between what your obligation is to the client that hired you and then the client is clear that you are a savvy person because you asked all the questions and you have all the answers in writing. Email them your questions, they send you, that's your obligation right there. Whatever they told you you had to do, that's it. Now if they come with some more stuff after that going, oh you know we have another

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club we want you to go, no sir, no ma'am. And I'll say this, right, we just had a discussion about professionalism and unprofessionalism and leeway But I do not want that to be translated into I must agree to everything that people offer me No, because I am a new artist. No, please understand that you in the marketplace everybody Presents themselves and the market decides what it'll bear right? So you so to speak have a little bit of control over over What you feel your prices if you feel like you're uncomfortable with 45 pictures or for standing and taking pictures of a hundred folks Negotiate what you want. Thank you. That is a Negotiate the terms that will always come back and be needed. Yes, it will because

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again, everything in your market is a microcosm of the greater that's gonna that is to come and I have seen that that is

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really the benefit of, you know, we all want those super agents that are out there fighting and superheroing, caping for us, and they're gonna move the sun and the stars. And what I've seen, the difference between those kind of agents and just so-so agents are the questions. What is my client gonna really be doing? How long do you want her? When are they gonna be in? When are they're gonna be out? Are they getting hair and makeup? Having clarity, having everything clearly defined creates harmony and less confusion. And then, you know, people aren't saying that you feel comfortable creating a writer. You absolutely should create a writer. I would even as an independent artist, I wouldn't put everything in all white. I mean, I respect it, Jen. I respect it because that is a vibe in the gardenia candles. That's me. I feel you now. You know, if we're just starting out, you got one single, thank you, we might not get all that.

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But you still have to have a writer. What do you need? What kind of equipment to perform on? And you know what? Asking for what you want doesn't mean you're going to get it, but when you are speaking clearly from a place of professionalism and experience, the person doing business with you knows that you're not just some average Joe that they're going to pull the okie-doke on.

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Yes, ma'am.

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That's what we would like for you to meet.

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So as we wrap this up today... Thank you so much, friends. We want to say thank you so much for tuning in. The journey to artistry is always exciting and nerve-wracking. We love to be here, to be able to hold hands and kind of cheer on and give a pat on the back because sometimes it can be daunting.

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It can be very daunting. It can be very overwhelming. But of course, if your passion is calling you to go in this direction, there's a lot of information and there's a lot of help out there.

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And SOS, can I plug and offer everybody, if you have any questions, please feel free to write into the show. Please DM on Instagram. SOS has our sessions that she offers a la carte. So if you need a little bit more of a intimate touch, you need somebody to kind of help quarterback and give you a little bit more refinement and let you know this is really an open area for you and you might need to go ahead and start patching it up. Right in.

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We are here to help you.

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The worst that could happen is we don't have experience or you're trying to do something out of the realm of what we know and we might have to tap in for somebody else or say, you know what my dear, call this person. I don't really know how to get you on a stadium tour without any album. Good luck though, right?

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But I like your hustle.

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I like your hustle and we like your enthusiasm.

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I like your ambition for sure. Thank you so much.

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This episode is brought to you by Triple Eight Media Group. Thank you.

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We'll talk to you next time. And Star Max Studios. Bye. Bye.

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Thank you.