The Lokkz
The Lokkz Music
Hey guys, it's The Lokkz here. I've been producing for about 8 years now and about 6 months ago I decided to turn it into a business. I mainly sell beats with different leases ranging from $20 - $50 and I don't have a huge following yet so this could be a factor to your answers to my question, but I'm mainly promoting my quality of music, not my reputation yet.. Lately I've had some artists hit me up wanting to do EPs or albums and they want to do it 50/50 split. That way we would equally own publishing and copyright and I would get 5% of sales. Since this is a full time business for me I have to make sure I'm making the money I need to stay afloat and plus it's risky to do all of this work, let artists use it, and hope that they have their shit together and know how to make money. I usually let them know I charge an upfront payment for the music which is usually half of the exclusive price though many artistsdon't think I should do that but if they don't have the funds for that then I suggest to just do leases but they usually stall on that. This gives me the impression that they just want the music for free. I'm just curious to what you guys think of these deals and should I risk it, send them the contracts for the beats they want and pray that they make the right moves? or should I require an upfront charge for my services with the 50/50 split and stay firm with it, or should I just do leases? Once my website gets consistent large volumes of traffic and I'm making consistent money off of leasing then I would be more willing to just make music and worry about the money in the royalties but right now that isn't the case.