Like why are they taking a cut into artists music? They arent doing anything innovative

Marketing

whos career boosted signin to empire?

Lucki

Why go broke tryna push it yourself when you can utilize their budget and connections

Some form of credibility

quick bag

little external control

Lucki and Niggas like Peezy

There was a meme about how Ghazi was killing niggas cause he had Dolph Mo3 Von and/or some other niggas lol

Most of the post 2018 popping rappers that aren’t really mainstream did it thru Empire. Couldn’t tell you the particulars but it seems like it’s perfect for people who don’t wanna be on a major but are bigger than just randomly throwing s*** on streaming themselves

EMPIRE is basically a place where artists come and signe on an album by album basis for marketing and promotion budgets

They’re a “fast label” for indie artists to approach and acquire marketing/promotion/production resources without the commitments of large labels

It’s why their releases are mostly fiercely indie artists like Larry June, Key Glock, Babyfave Ray, Lucki, etc

We can argue about the numbers someone puts on the charts and if that really matters, but EMPIRE is where an indie artist goes to get bang for their buck and take a lot of money home even if they aren’t playing massive crowds

Also those artists get to keep their masters which is a big deciding factor as well

Right I think x was on them too

Artist distribute through Empire or UnitedMasters because they are able to leverage their work and catalog for short term deals and marketing they wouldn’t have had distributing at a TuneCore or Distrokid. Situation varies per artist but in my opinion it makes more sense to work with a major label when taking this leap to the next level because it’s essentially the same thing with more team members. Usually comes off as the safer option to go distro though, because there’s far less of a stigma when signing distribution contracts because you can still pass as “independent” because you still have majority share in the master royalty

i definitely believe so. glock n dolph always talks about owning their masters and most deals are on an album-by-album basis rather than extended contracts that apply to multiple releases

he signed one for 17, everything else was self released

actually ? was a self release and BVF / SKINS were on empire, prolly as a choice by his estate

I mean yeah they own 80% (usually) after they recoup which may take years or never happen so unless you are taking a small advance and have your business ziplock tight you literally don’t own your master and may never receive a payment on the backend or be able to license your music as you wish.

pretty sure future

I don't agree with this

Lucki was signed to Empire..got fat..became a meme at the perfect possible time..got discovered by the undergound TikTok audience..and eventually got championed as an Underground king by the same audience

None of this was planted by the label, Im sure they gave him some nice money though..marketing was cool too ngl..not tryna slander Empire with this, I just dont agree

Actually everything else was through capitol via 10k projects for "?"

You think that meme s*** happened by itself?

Mo3

They actually got a pretty deep roster

And K Dot

most of my favorite artists are under empire but empire bots views for sure or got really good promo

had no idea x was independent until now that’s impressive af