yea I completely agree
theres this faux idea of independence which is just unrealistic for artists who aren't established

I think artists need to create a platform somehow. whether its through social media like TikTok or otherwise they need some initial base. from there they need to market their music incredibly well - even paying for people to help do this. they should sell merch and tour locally as much as they can to stay afloat and honestly should consider labels either indie labels like XL or major labels as long as they can get a contract theyre happy with. nothing wrong with taking meetings just make sure it works for you

Great write up, you got social media?

And that leak buying s*** always fascinated me how niggas will pay thousands for unreleased songs but once that music is "released" niggas wont pay a dollar, even if streaming didnt exist

I've been wondering why niggas arent selling music thru Iphone Notes or like u said where the fans become the label

Streaming is a temporary solution. I'm tryna learn more about the business side as a producer and streaming made it so much harder to follow the money and the music industry was already a maze lol

Great post tho and keep tagging me in these

Man lowkey we need a business subsection of music forum for niggas who wanna seriously talk about s*** like this without niggas reaching to be funny or "Didnt read lol" memes

Wish there were more places online to discuss that type of stuff seriously

Yeah labels are one app away from their entire s*** collapsing

But it would take a hell of a concept/idea

I need a safe beat tag to play every time I click on a safe thread

Nah I just post this stuff here only

It is wild. Half the time these are songs that are mumble demos. There’s gotta be an untapped market there

Yea streaming is stupid complex. I did an explanation of how royalties work in my music industry thread if you haven’t already seen it but it’s still hard to wrap my head around

good thread brother @op

yea exactly

it will need good venture funding and industry support as well and idk how likely that is when labels have such a chokehold on the industry

Pls

@safe great topic/thread. if you're considering "real" independent artists, do you think it's worth discussing indie labels like Rhymesayers and how they've carved out artist-friendly niches, or even like independent record-pressing stuff like Flenser? Independently owned media (music labels or otherwise) is one of my favorite topics in general. Even Year001 I think is independent?

Yes!!! Absolutely
To me independent labels like Rhymesayers, XL, Dirty Hit are some of the best options for artists
I don’t think you need major label resources to blow up but you do need resources and I think indie labels are the perfect balance of having the resources and connections to help you while still being artist-friendly

@op I think this is my fave thread of yours yet

i think one other thing which is important in these discussions is "scope". major labels have greatly skewed what it means to be an artist. people think in order to be a career artist you need to be #1 on spotify and on billboard or whatever, and featured on commercials. realistically there are a lot of artists who are "career artists" who are only known locally or in niche circles, and are just complacent with their community to be self-sustaining (whether "locally" as in a city/state, or "locally" as in a sub-group on the internet). labels like Rhymesayers prove this is possible, that you don't need to be making millions to be a career artist. smaller scope sufficiency is something which people look over very often

❤️
gonna put some good time and thought into the blowing up one and try and provide some real benefit to people w it so stay tuned for that one

@op turn these into youtube videos

yea thats a great point
I really agree as well that those labels make that a viability and that was actually a lot of the reason I think a progressive payment system for streaming makes sense
it hurts superstars slightly but it would massively increase the viability of people to just be fairly lowkey career artists
I think streaming has been good overall for artists but I think has just made being a career artist like you say being harder and made it more all or nothing
artists on labels like rhymesayers still rely on merch, physicals and touring which is all well and good but they should be able to earn more from streaming given how big of a proportion of industry revenue it is

Great thread @op enjoyed this one as I was able to apply it to a friend of mine who recently got signed by a label. I think majors obviously do have their issues but the indie labels can be a great way to increase your exposure, the rise of playlists also mean you can get a bigger audience, opening up more doors for touring money which is bread for the vast majority of acts

definitely!
I think anything that can be changed to make touring less vital for artists is great. its perfectly fine for artists to make money from touring but covid has showed the risks of this. artists who are releasing songs with 1m plays should be earning a living wage just from people listening to those songs and I think currently they aren't

ive thought about it. those video essay types are a lot of the inspiration behind my formatting and stuff
idk though its a significant amount more work but I am definitely thinking about it

if anyone is interested in turning these into nicely made YouTube videos lmk - I'd want them to be done well but I'd be happy for you take the vast majority of profits as long as you gave me credit and a little portion for writing these

I prefer reading these as essays, but I wouldn't be against yt videos.

they'd definitely stay as essays on here - the YouTube would just be supplementary