I agree. He's elitist attacks as well as his scary ass ways can be annoying . I can watch two videos of his before he starts to annoy me. I find his topics more appealing than DJ Akademiks himself.
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Here's A Contract Offer From Universal Music
- Thread starter boombapdame
- Start date
I agree. He's elitist attacks as well as his scary ass ways can be annoying . I can watch two videos of his before he starts to annoy me. I find his topics more appealing than DJ Akademiks himself.
yokuzin
Much Love. Peace!
Sony Planned to Sell Music-Publishing Unit, Beatles Songs - Bloomberg
Pretty much explains a lot. Not to mention it's more sharks than ever now. They see the potential in selling you a dream because you "heard of them". And as tough as most will talk without them figures in their face.....when you think about those dead gum bills then you forget about the 100's of thousands of views you were getting on your own. Because they "aren't paying the bills AT THE MOMENT. Those "celeb "publishers" can pay your bills......in exchange for what they can do with the fanbase you've generated. And make it appear as NOTHING to you. Be careful. Money talk.
Pretty much explains a lot. Not to mention it's more sharks than ever now. They see the potential in selling you a dream because you "heard of them". And as tough as most will talk without them figures in their face.....when you think about those dead gum bills then you forget about the 100's of thousands of views you were getting on your own. Because they "aren't paying the bills AT THE MOMENT. Those "celeb "publishers" can pay your bills......in exchange for what they can do with the fanbase you've generated. And make it appear as NOTHING to you. Be careful. Money talk.
the legal jargon is supposed to make sure that lawyers have a job. that makes sense now.
anyhow, from what i understand. there's different streams of income and ways to for the record/music company to generate money from an artist.
with that being the foundation. why not write up a contract that is beneficial to both sides? why all the extra unnecessary stuff. trying to lock someone up,
or get someone caught up in a bad deal to keep someone indebted to them is not really beneficial to either side.
terms? how many albums you wanna make? are you a songwriter? a producer? do you wanna make it a deal based on per song?
territory?
recording funds? how much am i going to be paid? straight up. no need for "non-recoupable," contingent on the vertices of the congruent rhombus of derivative auxillary dividend
arbitrary ancillariness. what does that mean? i don't know either. no bullshit, extra confusing jargon, overdraft fee, interest, i just wanna put you in debt so you owe me and i "control" you as an artist.
you want me to record this album. you pay me. we can come up with a fair wage.
if you're going to give me a certain amount of money to record this album, then we can map out, or decide what the money is going to go to.
if you're a producer, it's to upgrading your equipment. building your studio. establishing relationships with an engineer who will mix your records. studio access.
if you're a songwriter. money to go to recording equipment, so you can record demos. money to buy beats from producers so that you can write to original/exclusive beats. studio time.
if you're a performer/artist, money to go to finding the songs you want to purchase. to help you book shows, if you would rather skip the whole selling tickets to book shows. getting beats, all that stuff.
royalties? simple split. what 25%? what are all the revenue streams? 25% of all of that. so if a record company is responsible for "branding," "marketing," "promoting" and all that, then they are going to make way more money. their
job is supposed to be to take you from selling your music at shows, and hustling it, to making it available to everybody by putting it in stores. they are to distribute your product (from a business stand point.)
licensing? 50%, if I'm solely a writer? 25%, if i'm solely a producer 25%. if I make the beat and write the song? that means I have 50% ownership of the actual song. maybe even an extra 5% for writing the hook. assuming i wanted to own more than 50% of the song i wrote. now if you can get that song in movies, or you have access to artists that you feel are better suited to record the songs i write or have people you want to interpolate or spruce up "rough" beats. that's fine. i make fifty percent for making it. you make fifty percent for getting it exposure.
social media? live videos and interviews. so the fans can interact. in todays day and age the artist is supposed to be engaged somewhat with his audience. you want to have some sort of relationship or commonality with the person who's music you purchase or support. so to provide that platform, for again that exposure, would be "part of the job" in essence. but the record label should provide the artist with the "press kit" type of stuff to again help create that brand.
ticketing? if you put up the show and are again creating a platform for me to perform and do my music (as an artist) then we can split that like 25 to 50%. depending on how popular of an artist from 0 to 50% is a lot of room to work with. if im trying to demand 50% of the ticket money, without proving myself that doesn't make sense.
an example: kanye west had that Glow in the Dark tour a few years back. That show was one of the best shows I've ever been to. He was in his super prime. Around the time Graduation dropped. N.E.R.D., Rihanna, and Lupe Fiasco. there was a crazy big ass set, it was in a huge ass stadium. it was a huge ass production. if you were a sponsor, you would love to have your product there, or you would essentially be lobbying to get your product at one or
as many of those shows as you can. if you get fifty thousand people paying fifty dollars for a ticket. that's 2.5 million dollars. tickets weren't only fifty dollars. people are going to drink water. they're gonna get beer. they're gonna get hungry. they're gonna wanna buy a shirt or some sort of merchandise. you know the deal. if you go to a major concert like that you're probably going to be bringing at least fifty bucks with you. so again that's like fifty thousand people going into a situation with a hundred dollars a head. (that's a couple of coachellas when you do that math after a 40 or 50 city tour.)
so kanye and friends can demand fifty percent of all ticket sales and divide that amongst themselves. so if you generate 2.5 million dollars a show. and do 50 shows. thats what 102.5 million or something like that. i dont know but you get the point.
anyhow you might think. ahh hell naw, record labels ain't gonna give an artist half of ticket sales like that. but they would and they should, because if i were gonna make a couple hundred million, would that really hurt me to give the artists ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy-five million out of all that money? not at all.
i know there's a lot of paranoia, and an idea of fear that's been created by all of the music industry horror stories. but at the same time, the music industry is referred to as a machine. why fight the machine. man made machine. machine didn't make man. so let's make it work for us.
anyhow, from what i understand. there's different streams of income and ways to for the record/music company to generate money from an artist.
with that being the foundation. why not write up a contract that is beneficial to both sides? why all the extra unnecessary stuff. trying to lock someone up,
or get someone caught up in a bad deal to keep someone indebted to them is not really beneficial to either side.
terms? how many albums you wanna make? are you a songwriter? a producer? do you wanna make it a deal based on per song?
territory?
recording funds? how much am i going to be paid? straight up. no need for "non-recoupable," contingent on the vertices of the congruent rhombus of derivative auxillary dividend
arbitrary ancillariness. what does that mean? i don't know either. no bullshit, extra confusing jargon, overdraft fee, interest, i just wanna put you in debt so you owe me and i "control" you as an artist.
you want me to record this album. you pay me. we can come up with a fair wage.
if you're going to give me a certain amount of money to record this album, then we can map out, or decide what the money is going to go to.
if you're a producer, it's to upgrading your equipment. building your studio. establishing relationships with an engineer who will mix your records. studio access.
if you're a songwriter. money to go to recording equipment, so you can record demos. money to buy beats from producers so that you can write to original/exclusive beats. studio time.
if you're a performer/artist, money to go to finding the songs you want to purchase. to help you book shows, if you would rather skip the whole selling tickets to book shows. getting beats, all that stuff.
royalties? simple split. what 25%? what are all the revenue streams? 25% of all of that. so if a record company is responsible for "branding," "marketing," "promoting" and all that, then they are going to make way more money. their
job is supposed to be to take you from selling your music at shows, and hustling it, to making it available to everybody by putting it in stores. they are to distribute your product (from a business stand point.)
licensing? 50%, if I'm solely a writer? 25%, if i'm solely a producer 25%. if I make the beat and write the song? that means I have 50% ownership of the actual song. maybe even an extra 5% for writing the hook. assuming i wanted to own more than 50% of the song i wrote. now if you can get that song in movies, or you have access to artists that you feel are better suited to record the songs i write or have people you want to interpolate or spruce up "rough" beats. that's fine. i make fifty percent for making it. you make fifty percent for getting it exposure.
social media? live videos and interviews. so the fans can interact. in todays day and age the artist is supposed to be engaged somewhat with his audience. you want to have some sort of relationship or commonality with the person who's music you purchase or support. so to provide that platform, for again that exposure, would be "part of the job" in essence. but the record label should provide the artist with the "press kit" type of stuff to again help create that brand.
ticketing? if you put up the show and are again creating a platform for me to perform and do my music (as an artist) then we can split that like 25 to 50%. depending on how popular of an artist from 0 to 50% is a lot of room to work with. if im trying to demand 50% of the ticket money, without proving myself that doesn't make sense.
an example: kanye west had that Glow in the Dark tour a few years back. That show was one of the best shows I've ever been to. He was in his super prime. Around the time Graduation dropped. N.E.R.D., Rihanna, and Lupe Fiasco. there was a crazy big ass set, it was in a huge ass stadium. it was a huge ass production. if you were a sponsor, you would love to have your product there, or you would essentially be lobbying to get your product at one or
as many of those shows as you can. if you get fifty thousand people paying fifty dollars for a ticket. that's 2.5 million dollars. tickets weren't only fifty dollars. people are going to drink water. they're gonna get beer. they're gonna get hungry. they're gonna wanna buy a shirt or some sort of merchandise. you know the deal. if you go to a major concert like that you're probably going to be bringing at least fifty bucks with you. so again that's like fifty thousand people going into a situation with a hundred dollars a head. (that's a couple of coachellas when you do that math after a 40 or 50 city tour.)
so kanye and friends can demand fifty percent of all ticket sales and divide that amongst themselves. so if you generate 2.5 million dollars a show. and do 50 shows. thats what 102.5 million or something like that. i dont know but you get the point.
anyhow you might think. ahh hell naw, record labels ain't gonna give an artist half of ticket sales like that. but they would and they should, because if i were gonna make a couple hundred million, would that really hurt me to give the artists ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy-five million out of all that money? not at all.
i know there's a lot of paranoia, and an idea of fear that's been created by all of the music industry horror stories. but at the same time, the music industry is referred to as a machine. why fight the machine. man made machine. machine didn't make man. so let's make it work for us.
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Desire Inspires
New member
That's what I'm saying. Work within the machine and make other moves. Nobody gets rich from record deals. But a record deal can be a springboard into other revenue streams. So it doesn't matter if a record sells 10,000 or 10 million copies these days. The artists still will not get rich from that alone. They can do concerts, product endorsements, acting, and other things to get money.
Just Clauz
New member
Dude man I would throw myself all over that deal. Ion care about they taking a big piece of my pie. Get in the game humble, get some exporsure, make relationships, create opputinities, and when youve made them enough money to call yourself an established artist, you can bargain for a bigger check.
Just make sure your lawyer and agent are straight up with this.
Just make sure your lawyer and agent are straight up with this.
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SwagProductionz
@SlurRty on Twitter
So basically they own you and at the end of the day ... their word rules above all lol
Desire Inspires
New member
Check out this post about how to make big money from a record deal:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/10685777-post69.html
I guess if you are looking at the contract purely from the perspective of making money from music, then yes, the deal is horrible. but my thought is why work so hard to earn money from music in the first place?
There are people far more popular than any of us here and they struggle to make a good living from music. Most musicians are not going to even make a living from music let alone get rich. But musicians can use the record deal as a springboard to get into other business ventures. Music itself is not very lucrative. Trying to be successful only from selling music is largely a waste of time.
The amount of music you have to sell to be successful is great. And let us remember that people are not paying for music these days. They download it for free or listen for free on YouTube or Pandora. The content, which is the music, does not hold enough value itself to sustain a career for most musicians.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/10685777-post69.html
I guess if you are looking at the contract purely from the perspective of making money from music, then yes, the deal is horrible. but my thought is why work so hard to earn money from music in the first place?
There are people far more popular than any of us here and they struggle to make a good living from music. Most musicians are not going to even make a living from music let alone get rich. But musicians can use the record deal as a springboard to get into other business ventures. Music itself is not very lucrative. Trying to be successful only from selling music is largely a waste of time.
The amount of music you have to sell to be successful is great. And let us remember that people are not paying for music these days. They download it for free or listen for free on YouTube or Pandora. The content, which is the music, does not hold enough value itself to sustain a career for most musicians.
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Just Clauz
New member
I agree. I spend alot of time thinking what I can do with this music. There so many oppotunities. Producing for other mucisians, make soundtracks for movies, become a songwriter for other artists, promote music hardware ect....The list goes on.
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melotonebeats
New member
wow thanks for posting this. very interesting to see these types of contracts
Legal Dollaz
New member
That's not a full complete artist contract, more like a key point summary of a contract. Now if your goal is to sign with any major label no matter what at all costs then you've already made up your mind before the offer was given but if you've already proven that you have fans spending $$$$ on your music (5,000 downloads according to this example) then know you do have options and some level (not much but better than zero) of negotiation leverage. Last thing you want is to receive a $7,500.00 advance (before paying your attorney and taxes) and get locked into the corner which is what labels do FAR more often than not...
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boombapdame
Member
As the OP I posted because I hate the literal owning of artists hence why I consider it slavery.
Pumpthrust
New member
No different than a home loan or a college loan.
does the 360 deal mean that they own a part of the side ventures too?
You means millions of downloads these days. Didn't they just release a statement saying no artist went platinum in 2014. What would you prefer:
A)500,000(gold) downloads at 99cents each and be on a major label and sign a 360 deal.
Or
b) have 40,000 downloads on your own independent label and no 360 deal.
In situation A, you may not see a penny from those downloads because the label will claim they have not recouped their expenses as well as give up a portion of your show money. While Situation b, you get the $40,000 dollars minus ITunes cut plus you get all of your show money.
Let's compare Bobby Shmurda's income on a major to Tech Nine on an independent.
Bobby Shmurda has been hard at work playing shows, but it turns out he's hardly getting paid.Shmurda took to his Instagram to air some grievances about not getting properly compensated for his shows. He didn't name any names or blame anyone specifically, but Bobby went so far as to suggest suing anyone who has a contract with Bobby Shmurda but doesn't have his signature on it.
The clips were only up briefly on his Instagram and have since been deleted.
The most heartbreaking part came from his caption which read (italics ours), "“Nah idgaf I’m doing all theses show not getting ma money dey got me doing shit every ****ing day so its hard to keep up Witt dis shit den I ain’t got nobody to trust ain’t no help in dis ***** I’m ready to go back to da trap be4 jail #RNS dats how I feel foh.”
It's sad to see a young guy get caught up in all the foul ways of the industry, but that's life. Hopefully Bobby can get his situation figured out and get his money right. His five-track EP, Shmurda She Wrote, is set to be released Nov. 10 on Epic Records.
UPDATE: Bobby's mother and manager, Leslie Pollard, recently spoke to Billboard about the situation, saying that the rant wasn't about Bobby not getting paid, but rather him just being new to the music business. Her full comments can be read below.
"It's not that he's not getting paid, it's that he's new to the business," Leslie Pollard tells Billboard. "There's a chain of command that he has to go through before he gets his payment. I guess he's thinking all the money should go from the front man to his hands -- it doesn't work like that. Of course they hold onto it so he actually does the show. Then it goes to his business manager, then to the touring accountant, and then to him."
Tech N9ne: Hip-Hop's Secret Mogul
Within the walls of a nondescript building in an ordinary suburb of Kansas City, hip-hop’s most mysterious mogul stands atop a staircase, surveying his latest products as a proud farmer might gaze out at a bumper crop of corn.
Below, the shelves of the supermarket-sized room bloom with t-shirts, backpacks, water bottles, sunglasses, sticky-notes, g-strings and just about anything else that can accommodate Tech N9ne’s name or his logo, an interlocking bat and snake that form the first letters of his Strange Music empire. Other curiosities on the floor include a dusty Dodge Challenger (a graduation present for the rapper’s son), two bins filled with bras (thrown at the Tech during shows) and an $80,000 custom motorcycle (destined to become a wall ornament in his new recording studio).
Tech scoots down the stairs, his bald head gleaming in the bright fluorescent light, and soon he and his business partner, Travis O’Guin, are tearing into the latest cardboard box to arrive on the slow boat from Asia. More t-shirts. These ones are emblazoned with the motto “Strange Music Saved My Life” (the rapper also sells a shirt that reads, “Strange Music Ruined My Life”). Tech’s face erupts into a grin.
“This is how busy I am,” he says. “I’m like, ‘When did this come in?’”
Tech Boom: The Midwest's answer to Cash Money.
Tech isn’t exaggerating about his schedule. He has played over 1,000 shows over the last five years; since 2006, he’s released more than one studio album a year on average. For his latest effort, this year’s Something Else—which was battling Jay Z’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail for the top spot on the rap charts when I visited Kansas City this summer—he collaborated with B.o.B, T-Pain, Cee Lo Green and fellow Cash Kings Wiz Khalifa and Kendrick Lamar.
All that hard work is finally paying off. He and O’Guin have crafted a one of the most streamlined independent operations in hip-hop–perhaps of any genre–making Strange Music something a leaner, stealthier, Midwestern version of Cash Money. As a result, Tech pulled in an estimated $7.5 million over the past year, up $1.5 million from his Cash Kings debut in 2012, topping better-known artists including 50 Cent, Mac Miller and Rick Ross.
“What sets him apart is not only that his all-around work ethic is crazy, from the stage to the studio, to writing them rhymes,” says Lamar. “[But] in everything, he reaches for perfection.”
Full coverage: Hip-Hop Cash Kings 2013
For Tech N9ne, aged 41, the results have been a long time coming. Born Aaron Dontez Yates to a single mother in a rough section of Kansas City, he started rapping as a youngster and earned his nickname for his rapidfire style (he now sees the name as a combination of “technique” and “nine, the number of completion”).
Tech always had a flair for the eccentric, whether it was hunting ghosts as a youth or donning dramatic face paint before shows as an adult. As s a rapper, he married the verbal dexterity of hip-hop’s Golden Age with the tenacity of thrash metal. That was enough to score him some success as he bounced between local labels, landing in 1997 at Quincy Jones’ Warner Brothers-backed Qwest Records. But nobody could agree on a single, and Tech’s career stalled.
It wasn’t until he met O’Guin in 1999 that things began to change. O’Guin told the rapper he was a big fan of his music—and asked why Tech was never on television or radio while lesser rappers prospered. Tech felt that his tangled web of handlers were preventing him from reaching his full potential. O’Guin told Tech about the millions he’d generated from his furniture business, and suggested they go into business together.
“We did a 50/50 partnership of Strange Music, and it was the best move I could make,” Tech recalls. “He took this idea I had in my head, the snake and the bat … Travis is such a shrewd businessman, he took this idea and put it everywhere.” Says O’Guin: “I realized this was a lot more interesting than furniture.”
But before Tech could get to the point where he was selling Strange Music beer coozies for $4.99 and pendants bearing his logo for $74.99, he had to get out of his existing deals. It certainly didn’t hurt having O’Guin, a defensive lineman-sized force of nature, at meetings with some of the more questionable local labels with which Tech had become entangled. But Tech’s new partner also helped him get lawyered up and started cutting deals; O’Guin would eventually pour in $2 million of his own cash before he started getting money back.
Before that happened, the duo encountered more than their share of adversity. They partnered with JCOR Entertainment to launch Tech’s album Anghellic in 2001, but six months–and 100,000 copies–in, the company stopped paying him. Tech and and O’Guin were able to get the album’s rights back, at which point they teamed with MSC, a label launched by Priority Records founder Mark Cerami, and rereleased the album, selling 300,000 more units. Tech’s 2002 follow-up, Absolute Power, sold over 350,000.
After moving to Los Angeles in 2004 to be near MSC’s Hollywood offices, the duo decided to return to Kansas City in 2006. They’d sold half a million records in a little over a year, earning enough respect to land a distribution deal with Fontana/Universal–and rebooted Strange Music by themselves. In 2006, Tech released Everready—this time keeping the bulk of the bucks gleaned from its sales of more than 250,000 units for themselves. And that trend has continued.
“I don’t get in his way, creatively,” says O’Guin, picking up a black football jersey adorned with a letter X flanked by a set of flaming wings, and holding it up to his chest. “We’ve got one rule: we don’t talk about hurting kids.” Tech pipes in: “Exactly.”
These days, the entire operation is generating just shy of $20 million per year. As we wander through the warehouse, O’Guin explains that the streams are split fairly evenly between the three main categories—merchandise, which totals roughly $6.1 million annually; music, which brings in about $6.5 million; and touring, which adds closer to $7 million. The genius of the duo’s operation lies in the cost structure: for all three streams, there’s essentially no middle-man.
Merchandise comes in directly from manufacturers, mostly in China, leading to astounding margins (the average cost of a t-shirt that retails for $25 is about $3). CDs and LPs are pressed independently through a distribution agreement with Fontana (giving Tech a cut that’s perhaps six or seven times as much as he would receive at a major label). Strange Music slices off another layer of cost by owning its own fleet of 23 tour vehicles, enough to take $1.7 million worth of merchandise on a recent tour (O’Guin says they refilled the trucks three times). And then there are the endorsements.
“Monster Energy is one of the only deals,” says O’Guin. “We’ve been approached to do 20 different deals, but there’s a lot of them that just don’t make sense to us: ‘Hey, we want Tech to do this.’ He ain’t going to wear that damn shoe—”
O’Guin’s attention is diverted by a recently-arrived box of black-and-white scarves, each about six feet long, with the words “STRANGE MUSIC” spelled out in block letters. “Dude!” he says excitedly, his voice booming over the crinkling cellophane. Tech wanders over, suddenly enthused for the fall fashion season. “Oh, shit! October time!”
The tour complete, I follow them out to the parking lot. O’Guin ushers me into his long black Bentley Mulsanne, which is parked diagonally and seems to take up as much space as a school bus (he tells me he has 24 cars in total, including a Lamborghini Murcielago, a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Ferrari F-430; Tech isn’t as much of a car guy, he says, but has a penchant for Mercedes).
On our way to Strangeland Studios, the duo’s $4 million facility currently under construction, O’Guin estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 people have had the Strange Music logo tattooed on their bodies.
“When you put this on a person, on a shirt, on a hat, they become walking billboards,” Tech tells me, his tone dripping with amazement. “And conversations start.”
Perhaps it’s the decades spent toiling in relative obscurity or maybe it’s just his personality, but Tech does seem to carry a sense of wonderment with him wherever he goes. He gushes over collaborations on his new album with rockers including System of a Down’s Serj Tankian and the remaining members of the Doors.
And he recalls when, at a recent concert in Utah–standing backstage as 3,500 fans screamed his name at the top of their lungs–O’Guin tapped him on the shoulder.
“He was like, ‘This is your life,’” Tech recalls. “And said, ‘I know! Shit is crazy.’”
Tech N9ne: Hip-Hop's Secret Mogul
Within the walls of a nondescript building in an ordinary suburb of Kansas City, hip-hop’s most mysterious mogul stands atop a staircase, surveying his latest products as a proud farmer might gaze out at a bumper crop of corn.
Below, the shelves of the supermarket-sized room bloom with t-shirts, backpacks, water bottles, sunglasses, sticky-notes, g-strings and just about anything else that can accommodate Tech N9ne’s name or his logo, an interlocking bat and snake that form the first letters of his Strange Music empire. Other curiosities on the floor include a dusty Dodge Challenger (a graduation present for the rapper’s son), two bins filled with bras (thrown at the Tech during shows) and an $80,000 custom motorcycle (destined to become a wall ornament in his new recording studio).
Tech scoots down the stairs, his bald head gleaming in the bright fluorescent light, and soon he and his business partner, Travis O’Guin, are tearing into the latest cardboard box to arrive on the slow boat from Asia. More t-shirts. These ones are emblazoned with the motto “Strange Music Saved My Life” (the rapper also sells a shirt that reads, “Strange Music Ruined My Life”). Tech’s face erupts into a grin.
“This is how busy I am,” he says. “I’m like, ‘When did this come in?’”
Tech isn’t exaggerating about his schedule. He has played over 1,000 shows over the last five years; since 2006, he’s released more than one studio album a year on average. For his latest effort, this year’s Something Else—which was battling Jay Z’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail for the top spot on the rap charts when I visited Kansas City this summer—he collaborated with B.o.B, T-Pain, Cee Lo Green and fellow Cash Kings Wiz Khalifa and Kendrick Lamar.
All that hard work is finally paying off. He and O’Guin have crafted a one of the most streamlined independent operations in hip-hop–perhaps of any genre–making Strange Music something a leaner, stealthier, Midwestern version of Cash Money. As a result, Tech pulled in an estimated $7.5 million over the past year, up $1.5 million from his Cash Kings debut in 2012, topping better-known artists including 50 Cent, Mac Miller and Rick Ross.
“What sets him apart is not only that his all-around work ethic is crazy, from the stage to the studio, to writing them rhymes,” says Lamar. “[But] in everything, he reaches for perfection.”
Full coverage: Hip-Hop Cash Kings 2013
For Tech N9ne, aged 41, the results have been a long time coming. Born Aaron Dontez Yates to a single mother in a rough section of Kansas City, he started rapping as a youngster and earned his nickname for his rapidfire style (he now sees the name as a combination of “technique” and “nine, the number of completion”).
Tech always had a flair for the eccentric, whether it was hunting ghosts as a youth or donning dramatic face paint before shows as an adult. As s a rapper, he married the verbal dexterity of hip-hop’s Golden Age with the tenacity of thrash metal. That was enough to score him some success as he bounced between local labels, landing in 1997 at Quincy Jones’ Warner Brothers-backed Qwest Records. But nobody could agree on a single, and Tech’s career stalled.
It wasn’t until he met O’Guin in 1999 that things began to change. O’Guin told the rapper he was a big fan of his music—and asked why Tech was never on television or radio while lesser rappers prospered. Tech felt that his tangled web of handlers were preventing him from reaching his full potential. O’Guin told Tech about the millions he’d generated from his furniture business, and suggested they go into business together.
“We did a 50/50 partnership of Strange Music, and it was the best move I could make,” Tech recalls. “He took this idea I had in my head, the snake and the bat … Travis is such a shrewd businessman, he took this idea and put it everywhere.” Says O’Guin: “I realized this was a lot more interesting than furniture.”
But before Tech could get to the point where he was selling Strange Music beer coozies for $4.99 and pendants bearing his logo for $74.99, he had to get out of his existing deals. It certainly didn’t hurt having O’Guin, a defensive lineman-sized force of nature, at meetings with some of the more questionable local labels with which Tech had become entangled. But Tech’s new partner also helped him get lawyered up and started cutting deals; O’Guin would eventually pour in $2 million of his own cash before he started getting money back.
Before that happened, the duo encountered more than their share of adversity. They partnered with JCOR Entertainment to launch Tech’s album Anghellic in 2001, but six months–and 100,000 copies–in, the company stopped paying him. Tech and and O’Guin were able to get the album’s rights back, at which point they teamed with MSC, a label launched by Priority Records founder Mark Cerami, and rereleased the album, selling 300,000 more units. Tech’s 2002 follow-up, Absolute Power, sold over 350,000.
After moving to Los Angeles in 2004 to be near MSC’s Hollywood offices, the duo decided to return to Kansas City in 2006. They’d sold half a million records in a little over a year, earning enough respect to land a distribution deal with Fontana/Universal–and rebooted Strange Music by themselves. In 2006, Tech released Everready—this time keeping the bulk of the bucks gleaned from its sales of more than 250,000 units for themselves. And that trend has continued.
“I don’t get in his way, creatively,” says O’Guin, picking up a black football jersey adorned with a letter X flanked by a set of flaming wings, and holding it up to his chest. “We’ve got one rule: we don’t talk about hurting kids.” Tech pipes in: “Exactly.”
These days, the entire operation is generating just shy of $20 million per year. As we wander through the warehouse, O’Guin explains that the streams are split fairly evenly between the three main categories—merchandise, which totals roughly $6.1 million annually; music, which brings in about $6.5 million; and touring, which adds closer to $7 million. The genius of the duo’s operation lies in the cost structure: for all three streams, there’s essentially no middle-man.
Merchandise comes in directly from manufacturers, mostly in China, leading to astounding margins (the average cost of a t-shirt that retails for $25 is about $3). CDs and LPs are pressed independently through a distribution agreement with Fontana (giving Tech a cut that’s perhaps six or seven times as much as he would receive at a major label). Strange Music slices off another layer of cost by owning its own fleet of 23 tour vehicles, enough to take $1.7 million worth of merchandise on a recent tour (O’Guin says they refilled the trucks three times). And then there are the endorsements.
“Monster Energy is one of the only deals,” says O’Guin. “We’ve been approached to do 20 different deals, but there’s a lot of them that just don’t make sense to us: ‘Hey, we want Tech to do this.’ He ain’t going to wear that damn shoe—”
O’Guin’s attention is diverted by a recently-arrived box of black-and-white scarves, each about six feet long, with the words “STRANGE MUSIC” spelled out in block letters. “Dude!” he says excitedly, his voice booming over the crinkling cellophane. Tech wanders over, suddenly enthused for the fall fashion season. “Oh, shit! October time!”
The tour complete, I follow them out to the parking lot. O’Guin ushers me into his long black Bentley Mulsanne, which is parked diagonally and seems to take up as much space as a school bus (he tells me he has 24 cars in total, including a Lamborghini Murcielago, a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Ferrari F-430; Tech isn’t as much of a car guy, he says, but has a penchant for Mercedes).
On our way to Strangeland Studios, the duo’s $4 million facility currently under construction, O’Guin estimates that between 5,000 and 10,000 people have had the Strange Music logo tattooed on their bodies.
“When you put this on a person, on a shirt, on a hat, they become walking billboards,” Tech tells me, his tone dripping with amazement. “And conversations start.”
Perhaps it’s the decades spent toiling in relative obscurity or maybe it’s just his personality, but Tech does seem to carry a sense of wonderment with him wherever he goes. He gushes over collaborations on his new album with rockers including System of a Down’s Serj Tankian and the remaining members of the Doors.
And he recalls when, at a recent concert in Utah–standing backstage as 3,500 fans screamed his name at the top of their lungs–O’Guin tapped him on the shoulder.
“He was like, ‘This is your life,’” Tech recalls. “And said, ‘I know! Shit is crazy.’”
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Spaceman_Ant
New member
Yep...