"Chasing Placements"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mev_The_Producer
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K-1ne said:
I would combine major placements with developing artists, licensing beats, and whatever else you can think of to develop your brand.
The more revenue streams there are, the better.
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You got it sir. The majors are RAPIDLY diversifying their revenue streams and so should you...IF you're approaching this as a business owner of your own product/service. Brand recognition and brand credibility are two terms that should be at the top of your objective list if you really understand what's going on in the biz right now.

If your just looking to 'be down with the industry' in the traditional sense because getting an occasional invite to a label listening session is more important to you than achieving long-term financial sustainability off of your craft then you should continue to chase after the smoke-n-mirrors.
 
j.troup said:
But it's also about taking charge of your own destiny, and not waiting for someone else to grant you success.

You can live high and mighty in another man's penthouse...until he decides to kick you out.
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Powerful statement!

This is EXACTLY what is happening in the major label system right now in regards to urban music (especially hip hop, with R&B right behind it) because they are in the process of figuring out how to get paid off of your pursuit of success WITHOUT having to invest heavily (or not at all) into you. That's what the myspace deal is about. That's what the tunecore deal is about. Thats what the spotify deal is about. Do you even know about these deals or are you too busy watching the latest sex bunny on Worldstarhiphop? LOL. While your chasing a recording deal at Universal, Doug Morris is busy getting corporate sponsorship for his new Vevo music site. While your chasing a deal with Aftermath Dre is pushing music accessories (when was the last new artist signed to his label that actually released a funded project?)

I laugh when people say the major labels are not going to die (well EMI might not) and I tell them your right but who says their future is going to have anything to do with YOU????

If your not paying attention to the moves on the board how do you expect to win the chess game?
 
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j.troup said:
If my brand were based on selling beats, then you'd be right. But it's not.



I'm chasing Oprah's success model. And whoever thinks Oprah makes all her money from her afternoon talk show is sorely mistaken.
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I feel what your saying about your model being traffic driven, I'm just a greedy dude, and I like to get the most return I can on each beat, if I can make 5 beats, original songs with the right artist that makes it into a hit, I can still have a decent reputation to where I could do a traffic run business and I didn't have to put up as much energy to get the same amount of money ... but I get where your coming from
 
AbnormalIsDope said:
I think niggas forget to do it for the love and not the bread. Im not saying don't get paid but try to work with money always being the motivation if u got talent it will come(possible pause)

http://abnormalisdope.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/abnormal-speaksthe-other-avenue-of-placements/
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IF you want to make music your career than there is no escaping the business side of it.

And unless you already got lots of though, you will HAVE TO figure out how to maximize your returns from your music.

That is just reality.

Now if you get signed and get advances than you will have the luxury of spending most of your time on making music
 
mobeatz said:
IF you want to make music your career than there is no escaping the business side of it.

And unless you already got lots of though, you will HAVE TO figure out how to maximize your returns from your music.

That is just reality.

Now if you get signed and get advances than you will have the luxury of spending most of your time on making music
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I get u... Im saying that money shouldn't be the only reason for doing beats. Illmind said he would do joints and wouldn't see money for hellas. Alchemist only charge Saigon 100 Dollars 4 beats at one time. That love even if it's a discount.How u think cats like Just Blaze have so many beats with cats u neva heard of or that are not major,cuz of da love of the game
 
Great topic, reading everyones insight is really interesting. Good points by everyone.
 
AbnormalIsDope said:
How u think cats like Just Blaze have so many beats with cats u neva heard of or that are not major,cuz of da love of the game
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Guys like Just Blaze can AFFORD to do "pro bono" work, because they're rollin in it anyway.

Guys who ain't Just Blaze have to think about rent/mortgage, food, utilities, transportation/car payments, (possible) kids etc
 
MrJames851 said:
I feel what your saying about your model being traffic driven, I'm just a greedy dude, and I like to get the most return I can on each beat, if I can make 5 beats, original songs with the right artist that makes it into a hit, I can still have a decent reputation to where I could do a traffic run business and I didn't have to put up as much energy to get the same amount of money ... but I get where your coming from
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My model is INFLUENCE driven.


Influence is POWERFUL. That's where the money is.
 
The most important thing is to understand that this is a business first. Then from there you have to create a product that is in demand. That can be your sound your song your srtist your vibe whatever it may be you must create a demand. Or you can try to find someone that is willing to invest in your sound artist or style. The positive about that is they layout the $. The downside is they may dictate your sound style or artist. If you brand yourself based off of your sound, style, image or overall business ethics then you will never fail. It's just a matter of how effective you are in building your brand. It's a numbers game...1 that likes your sounds turns into 3 which turns into 10 which turns into 10,000 which you see the math. Create your brand.....Marketing is the most effective way to make $ period. Well effective ROI proven marketing is the way to make $ period.
 
I'll add this too...

Music isn't going anywhere anytime soon... we all know that but people still get disgruntled, quit, sell their gear or whatever when music doesn't bring them any money. I never understood how a person that really likes music and the music making process could do that. Like I might go a few weeks without making anything... but I'm not going to sell my gear or say I quit making music forever because I'm not raking in a ton of money, lol... you never know what might happen...

Like when PMP was starting up, scouting was being done of FP to show that it shouldn't be solely a place for established producers but a place for the most current sounding music and people that believe they had marketable music. Well, there were a lot of heatmakers on FP that had quit coming around for some reason... they missed the scouting period, only to show up on the site again after the scouting period was over... oh well.

The moral of this post is... just make music and don't be so hard on yourself. Music should be fun first... isn't the ultimate goal to do something you enjoy doing. When you enjoy doing something, you do it whether it makes you money or not. If you're putting more effort into hustling than into your music, you're shooting for the wrong music biz job. The music biz isn't made up of only artists and producers... did Suge Knight rap? produce? or did he find rappers and producers and made one of the most memorable Hip Hop labels ever.

Story. I remember this dude called me and said he was a manager of a rap group and he was looking for a producer for them. I had been making music for a short time and had some shytty website lol. I don't know how the dude found it. He told me to come and meet the artists and to bring some music to play. So I did, the rappers didn't like my beats and I didn't like their raps, they already had a college buddie that they wanted to be their producer but their "manager" didn't like his songs, he liked my songs. So after about an hour or so of "hanging out" at the managers crib, I realized that this was this managers first group and he was pretty much looking to come up off of these kids. Since he had given himself the title of manager, he felt obligated to do something for them or they would bounce on him. Sort of like when people start a myspace and call themselves a business eventhough - it's just a myspace page. Well, the guy had a contract already for the artists with a local record label that wanted to diversify and get some rap money and he was getting them regular shows where I think they were getting a SUPER small cut of the door. The manager was really green but had he been more professional I might would've believed that he was a legit player. Maybe he was getting his feet wet but mostly we drank Hennessey and listened to the songs by the artists - that were still on his computer, lol.

I'm rambling now but what if you decided not to play Timbo but play Suge Knight and find some artists, download all of SuperStar O, VybeBeatz, and JJ's FREE beats, make a mixtape and put a few of your songs on there... then keep buying those $20 leases until something jumped off... wouldn't that be some ish?

I think most people are too proud to use somebody elses beats but that's just an ego thing... thanks for reading eventhough I said nothing. I'm trying to kill 1 hour and 10 mins.

Happy Holidays.
 
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Live a Dream said:
I have immense fun in NOT doing a regular job, it's not just the money I'm after.
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being able to not do a regular job comes from having money, so you gotta look out for yourself that way unless you wanna have a "real job" to fund that lifestyle
 
j.troup said:
My model is INFLUENCE driven.


Influence is POWERFUL. That's where the money is.
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I'm not tryna give you bars like the kids say, I'm just trying to understand cause you obviously believe what your saying ... I just don't see how you elevate to a person of influence by being the guy
you can't get 99cent beats from, I can understand a numbers guy coming in and saying Troup has this amount of people coming to him, so I'll use his spot for advertisement or whatever to get some of that, but that's just talking about traffic, I don't see where that really makes you influential, because for the most part anybody with that low price on beats is gonna get a good bit of your traffic, not to take away from your talent, but I'm just not seeing where the influence is ...... now on this forum you def get a lot of respect and people weigh what you say pretty heavy, and then the Open Labs thing obviously came from the perception of having influence, I just don't see it coming from being the bargain beat brand
 
biggrome said:
When you enjoy doing something, you do it whether it makes you money or not.
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but when there's a point once you have to support yourself where you can't always be hobby with it, I get to the point where I feel like I can't be "playing with my toys" when I have to take care of business, if I can't eat and its costing me money trying to have fun, then it won't really be any fun for me because I know I can't survive, but I go back and forth with that ... I never wanted to be the person that gets up and goes to work everyday hating that job, and I always felt that the best way to do good at something is to do what you like, i.e. when the Pittsburgh Public School system decided (in my 11th grade year) that they would now require us to do a graduation project in order to graduate, my first thought, after "f ya'll ... why ya'll always gotta start mess on our year?" was "well, if I gotta do it, I'll do it about music, since I'm already conducting my own "research" for my own purposes of learning what I need to learn ... and other than having to report each step along the way, it wasn't work to me, that's my goal for my career, but I'm not in high school anymore, and I have lots of other things to think about in order to stay alive, so it makes it hard to enjoy time spent away from "the task at hand" no matter what it is, and I try to focus some of my efforts on changing my passion into something that can get me that paper so I can enjoy myself and still be taken care of
 
Skrilla said:
Very good insight in this thread I agree w/ rome and troup jus try 2 make money off ur music any way u can and not just placements
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i tend to agree too, for the producers trying to break through. 20 to 100 dollars for a lease is 20 to 100 dollars you didn't have before the lease. 20 dollars fills a gas tank so that you can get out in the streets to nework for a day.
 
MrJames851 said:
but when there's a point once you have to support yourself where you can't always be hobby with it, I get to the point where I feel like I can't be "playing with my toys" when I have to take care of business, if I can't eat and its costing me money trying to have fun, then it won't really be any fun for me because I know I can't survive, but I go back and forth with that ... I never wanted to be the person that gets up and goes to work everyday hating that job, and I always felt that the best way to do good at something is to do what you like, i.e. when the Pittsburgh Public School system decided (in my 11th grade year) that they would now require us to do a graduation project in order to graduate, my first thought, after "f ya'll ... why ya'll always gotta start mess on our year?" was "well, if I gotta do it, I'll do it about music, since I'm already conducting my own "research" for my own purposes of learning what I need to learn ... and other than having to report each step along the way, it wasn't work to me, that's my goal for my career, but I'm not in high school anymore, and I have lots of other things to think about in order to stay alive, so it makes it hard to enjoy time spent away from "the task at hand" no matter what it is, and I try to focus some of my efforts on changing my passion into something that can get me that paper so I can enjoy myself and still be taken care of
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these two statements don't jibe...they make it sound like you've fallin into just the life pattern you've tried to avoid...even with your music.
 
MrJames851 said:
I'm not tryna give you bars like the kids say, I'm just trying to understand cause you obviously believe what your saying ... I just don't see how you elevate to a person of influence by being the guy
you can't get 99cent beats from, I can understand a numbers guy coming in and saying Troup has this amount of people coming to him, so I'll use his spot for advertisement or whatever to get some of that, but that's just talking about traffic, I don't see where that really makes you influential, because for the most part anybody with that low price on beats is gonna get a good bit of your traffic, not to take away from your talent, but I'm just not seeing where the influence is ...... now on this forum you def get a lot of respect and people weigh what you say pretty heavy, and then the Open Labs thing obviously came from the perception of having influence, I just don't see it coming from being the bargain beat brand
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You keep equating PRICE OF BEATS to LEVEL OF INFLUENCE.

Those two things have nothing to do with one another.
 
$.99 Double Cheesburgers have a high level of influence. Don't act like when that's all you want, your girl don't tell you to bring her back a combo meal, and then the kids need kid's meals, then you want a milkshake, before you know it....

They know that when they make those Double's .99.....

Business 101.
 
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