November 2011
1 post
Uh oh....
I just imported all of my Blogger posts here, and it seems from the Tumblr dashboard that they loaded backwards, giving you 2006 posts as current. Heavy sigh….
Please check the dates on what you read. Some things may be out of date….at least til I resolve the problem…
October 2011
2 posts
Wendy Day Has A New Book...Yaaaay!!
New Blogs and Updated Websites from Wendy...
I’ve just set up two new blogs through my websites. They are a blog where I’m posting ALL of my articles (in one place so there aren’t 5 article archive sites with articles, just 1….and that blog is: www.rap-coalition.com And then I’ve set up a personal blog where I talk about life and music industry stuff (everything BUT articles I’ve written)…and that...
May 2011
1 post
I’m reading an article on the Navy SEALS. It recounts Hell Week, wherein you either pass or fail, make it or don’t. Only 21 of the author’s class of 220 survived the test. What does it take to succeed? “What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That’s hard to say. But I do know - generally - who won’t make it. There are a dozen types that fail: the...
March 2011
16 posts
All Record Labels Are Not Created Equal
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) 2.08 updated 3.11
The term “record label” stands for many different types of companies that put out music. It can signify a conglomerate like Sony or Universal which are huge well-established multi-national corporations with offices in many countries around the world, or it can indicate a small artist-owned company with a staff of one or two,...
"How Can I Get A Record Deal?"
By Wendy Day (from www.rapcoalition.org) 5.06
This is the question I am asked most frequently— obviously by people who don’t know me, because those who do know me ask me how they can sell more records on their own, not how can they get into a slave contract and become a sharecropper. But once again, for those who don’t want to do for self, I will attempt to break it down from my...
How To Get A Record Deal
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.Rap-Coalition.com) 3.07
Yeah, I know I’ve already written about how I see artist getting deals in this industry, but I still get over 100 calls and emails a week asking me this same damn question, so it looks like I’m going to have to write about it yet again.
Almost every artist I know wants a record deal. There are basically three types of record labels...
Structure + Organization
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition
One of the main things we lack in urban music is structure for our companies. Sometimes it seems that those who have the money have mediocre music, and those without real funding have the best shit, but whether this is true or not, one thing everyone seems to be missing is the proper structure to run a company like a real company.
It starts with the basics of...
No Leaders In Rap
From my Blog on 1.14.06:
I’m not used to writing like this. Since 1992 when I started Rap Coalition, 99% of everything I write is with the emphasis of teaching folks or sharing knowledge and information about the industry.
So writing a Blog, where I get to drone on and on about whatever is important to me, without giving a thought to the reader, is very foreign to me. Foreign, but...
Business Plans
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition 1.08
My office is red. It’s not a Blood or a Crip thing, hell, my car is blue. It’s just that it was planned around a red chair that I liked in a store, and the next thing I knew, most of the chairs, accessories, and stuff were red to match that first chair.
I don’t mind it at all. It wasn’t planned to be red, but it worked out nicely since my office is so...
How Producers Make Money
[This article is a bit outdated. It was written over 5 years ago, but there are still some gems in it…]
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition 2.06
There are a handful of ways that spring to mind for a gifted producer to make money. First, I must say that not everyone who makes tracks is a producer. There are beat makers and there are producers. A producer makes music that suits a rapper’s...
Producers And Beatmakers
By, Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 2.09
Over the past ten years, the price of equipment to make beats has come way down. In addition, the ability to upload production to the internet and circulate music quickly, easily, and cheaply has made the amount of producers and beatmakers soar in the urban music industry. And if you also factor in that EVERYONE thinks they have the perfect ear for music...
Networking At A Conference Or Seminar
By, Wendy Day 8.06
Attending conferences and seminars is a great way to build a career in the music industry or to promote an artist to industry insiders and industry wanna-bes. Industry functions are a great way to learn, network, promote, and meet other people. It’s also a wonderful way to see who’s who. Over the phone, any radio promoter or street team person can tell you they are the...
A Manager Can Make, Or Break, Your Career
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition 3.07
Whether you need a manager to help you with your career or whether you want to be one, you need to read this. A good manager can enhance and help the career of an artist or a producer. But an ineffective manager can ruin an artist’s career. People don’t go out of their way to hire someone to destroy them, but they do inadvertently choose folks who are...
Clearances For Features
By Wendy Day (www.HelpfulAngel.com) 11.09
You are an unknown struggling artist. Rick Ross is in town performing and you have the ability to offer him a few thousand dollars to come by the studio and drop a quick 16 bars. Your cousin knows Akon and said for $80k he’ll sing the hook on your song, you just have to send him the money and the ProTools session. Lil Boosie went to jail and his...
Marketing
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) 1/07
Dictionary.com defines marketing as the “activities of a company associated with buying and selling a product or service. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people. People who work in marketing departments of companies try to get the attention of target audiences by using slogans, packaging design, celebrity...
How To Jerk An Artist
By, Wendy Day (www.RapCoalition.org and www.Rap-Coalition.com) 12/08
I’ve seen so many people get jerked in the 17 years that I have been pulling artists out of bad deals. And I have been vocal (for free) about how artists can protect themselves from getting jerked by less than savory managers and production companies, greedy labels, and unscrupulous scammers. Yet, every week it seems I get a...
The Ever-Changing Rap Music Business
By, Industry Veteran Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) (1/2010)
2009 marked the end of a decade and there were many changes that occurred in the music business.
When Don Diva called and asked me to write about the changes I’ve seen over the last 10 years, I started writing this before I even got off the phone. It’s easy to write about something you live and are passionate about. In fact, it almost...
The Changing Landscape Of Retail
This article is over 5 years old and outdated regarding retail in today’s marketplace. I posted it for nostalgic reasons…
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (11.05)
When I got into the music industry in 1992, it was a very different business. The changes have affected mostly everything from talent to sales to radio to distribution, but I think the biggest changes have occurred at...
Indie VS Major
By, Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 1/09
Independent Release
Anyone with proper financing, good music, and thorough music industry experience could choose to put out music independently. With the financial beating that most indie distributors are taking (the economy is in the toilet, in case you live under a rock), and ease with which one could upload and sell music digitally, it is easier now more...
February 2011
8 posts
The Changing Geography of Pop Music - The Atlantic →
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway...”
– Attributed to Hunter S Thompson, but doubtful that these were actually his words…
4 tags
Perception Is Reality
By, Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 11/2010
One of the most difficult parts of being in this industry, is accepting that perception is reality. What people THINK is true, IS true to them. Let me explain. If you think an artist is wack, he is wack. Even if 2 million screaming fans buy his music, you still think he’s wack. It would be difficult for anyone to convince you otherwise.
To millions...
3 tags
Behind The Scenes
By Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 10/2010
To those outside of the music industry, the business of music appears easy and available to all. It’s not. Part of what has led to this mistaken impression, is the amount of idiots that work in the music business (or pretend to work in the industry but really just keep busy all day accomplishing nothing real or of value). As people outside of the...
4 tags
Changing Times
By, Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 6/2010
OK, so writing this article is the first productive thing I’ve done since I got my iPad. It’s crack to me. I’m so addicted to my iPad apps. I can’t get any work done. And I’m gonna have to take out a loan to pay for all of these expensive ass apps I am downloading onto my toy! The apps on my iPhone were 99 cents to $3.99. The iPad? The business apps...
4 tags
360 Deals Are Today’s “Record Deals”
By, Wendy Day 2/2010
I gotta state right upfront that I am biased against 360 Deals. I understand WHY they exist, I just find them unfairly oppressive in the label’s favor in an industry with a draconic history of jerking artists out of money. I stopped negotiating deals for artists in 2005 because I refuse to do a 360 Deal for any artist! How strongly do you have to hate something to stop your...
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5 tags
Who The Heck Is Wendy Day?
Wendy Day founded the not-for-profit Rap Coalition in March of 1992, out of disgust for the way urban artists are unfairly exploited in the music industry. Wanting to shift the balance of power to favor the artists, Wendy dumped her life savings (selling her condo, her stocks and bonds, and her BMW) into starting the advocacy organization to support, educate, protect, and unify hip hop artists and...
January 2011
4 posts
360 Deals ARE Today's "Record Deals"
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) I gotta state right upfront that I am biased against 360 Deals. I understand WHY they exist, I just find them unfairly oppressive in the label’s favor in an industry with a draconic history of jerking artists out of money. I stopped negotiating deals for artists in 2005 because I refuse to do a 360 Deal for any artist! How strongly do you have to...
Perception Is Reality
By, Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) One of the most difficult parts of being in this industry, is accepting that perception is reality. What people THINK is true, IS true to them. Let me explain. If you think an artist is wack, he is wack. Even if 2 million screaming fans buy his music, you still think he’s wack. It would be difficult for anyone to convince you otherwise. To millions of...
Behind The Scenes
By, Wendy Day To those outside of the music industry, the business of music appears easy and available to all. It’s not. Part of what has led to this mistaken impression, is the amount of idiots that work in the music business (or pretend to work in the industry but really just keep busy all day accomplishing nothing real or of value). As people outside of the industry watch the spate of...
Changing Times
By Wendy Day OK, so writing this article is the first productive thing I’ve done since I got my iPad. It’s crack to me. I’m so addicted to my iPad apps. I can’t get any work done. And I’m gonna have to take out a loan to pay for all of these expensive ass apps I am downloading onto my toy! The apps on my iPhone were 99 cents to $3.99. The iPad? The business apps are $9.99 and up. Games and...
February 2010
4 posts
Mistakes Artists Make
Mistakes Artists Make By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) I’ve learned so much from mistakes—both my own and others’. Mistakes are NOT necessarily a bad thing (provided you can fix the situation when things go wrong), if one learns from them. The cool thing about mistakes is that it means that you are trying new things and taking action (assuming you aren’t making the same...
It hit the internet last week in a study by Tom Silverman that a label that I had built and consulted, TMI Boyz out of Houston, were the second largest selling independent release last year. And while it would have been nice for us to hit #1, I am quite happy with the #2 position as well, of successful indie releases from last year. Upon our first week release, we hit the Billboard rap chart in...
Measuring Success
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) One of the many changing things in the urban music business is how we measure the success of an artist. Measuring Rap, R&B, Reggae, and even Dance music sales has always been challenging, and even though companies like the Neilsen-owned SoundScan claim to have been 100% effective, they were not. SoundScan is a company that began measuring...
FROM BOB LEFSETZ BLOG: The Warner Music Group is making money. The publicized loss is due to accounting, having to do with amortization and other issues Wall Street understands and lay people do not. But what is the future? You can read the transcript of the Warner earnings call here: ...
January 2010
7 posts
In my last post, I posted an article Tom Silverman wrote about the indie music business. As a disclaimer, I must say that I set up and consulted the label for TMI Boyz—the group listed as the second most successful indie label in 2008 and 2009, AND the #1 successful RAP indie label of all indie releases in 2009. Of 200+ labels that year that released indie projects, only 13 sold above...
More Bob Lefsetz: The Tommy Silverman Debacle Tommy’s larger than life, but so old school as to make Will Ferrell seem like a high school student. Tommy’s a hustler. Who made it on his own ingenuity and ears. But does what he have to say today truly apply? Maybe you’re not in the same network as me, but I’ve been e-mailed Tommy’s interview with musiciancoaching.com again and again in the past...
Tone Deaf Forty years ago, if you worked hard and saved your pennies, you too could live the life of the rich and famous, if only for a night, or a weekend. Now the gulf between the worlds of the rich and the poor, between the haves and the have-nots, is so vast as to seem uncrossable, and the public is pissed. Not only right wing Tea Party members, but left wing Democrats. How did we get such a...
Here are some Bob Lefsetz RANTS that I’ve been meaning to post over the past few weeks: Bundling The recorded music business must switch to subscription, it’s its only hope of economic survival. The iTunes Store is killing the music business. Sure, it provides a legal alternative to theft/copyright infringement, but the economics make no sense. Because instead of spending $10-$20 for an...
The Ever-Changing Rap Music Business By, Industry Veteran Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 2009 marked the end of a decade and there were many changes that occurred in the music business. When Don Diva called and asked me to write about the changes I’ve seen over the last 10 years, I started writing this before I even got off the phone. It’s easy to write about something you live and are passionate...
This will appear in the February Issue of Don Diva Magazine: The Ever-Changing Rap Music Business By, Industry Veteran Wendy Day (www.WendyDay.com) 2009 marked the end of a decade and there were many changes that occurred in the music business. When Don Diva called and asked me to write about the changes I’ve seen over the last 10 years, I started writing this before I even got off the phone. ...
360 Deals Are Today’s “Record Deals”
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com) I gotta state right upfront that I am biased against 360 Deals. I understand WHY they exist, I just find them unfairly oppressive in the label’s favor in an industry with a draconic history of jerking artists out of money. I stopped negotiating deals for artists in 2005 because I refuse to do a 360 Deal for any artist! How strongly do you have...
November 2009
2 posts
Although I didn’t write this expose, I found it important enough to post it here. Julia Beverly is officially my hero for this one… We HAVE to clean up this industry, folks!! SCAM AFTA SCAM: A TRUE STORY OZONE investigates how a new breed of greedy artist managers and booking agents, led by Gucci Mane’s representatives, are sucking the blood out of the music industry. by Julia...
Clearances
By Wendy Day (www.HelpfulAngel.com) You are an unknown struggling artist. Rick Ross is in town performing and you have the ability to offer him a few thousand dollars to come by the studio and drop a quick 16 bars. Your cousin knows Akon and said for $80k he’ll sing the hook on your song, you just have to send him the money and the ProTools session. Lil Boosie went to jail and his manager has...
October 2009
6 posts
Hip-Hop Marketing in the Digital Era [21 August 2009] By Quentin B. Huff Thanks to waning album sales, the experts say we’ve reached the end of the Record Store Era. It looks like we’ve finally come to grips with the reality that the music business is different now, in the Digital Age, compared to the industry’s business model of the past. Much of our analysis pertains to the changes in that...
Will Your Life Work The Way You Want It To in 2010? By Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup For The Soul series) It’s never too early to start planning for next year, especially now that we’ve marked 2009 as one of recession and things may turn brighter in future months. This year carried with it uncertainty and unsettling economic news, but I say these circumstances compel us to take a deeper...
What is Prison? By, Frank Berryman PRISON IS: A place where u write letters and can’ think of anything to say… A place where u wait for letters that come less and less often… A place where u gradually stop writing altogether. A place where u lost respect for the law because you see it raw, naked,...
This came in last week’s Bob Lefsetz’s email blast: Just want to hip you to this week’s “New Yorker”, the “Money Issue”. There’s so much good shit here, I almost couldn’t turn out the light last night. Start with Tad Friend’s article on Nikki Finke, “Call Me — Why Hollywood Fears Nikki Finke”. Not only are Ms....
The Spotify Guys By, Bob Lefsetz They’re Swedish! Martin Lorentzon couldn’t stop saying how much he loves L.A. Because in the winter in Stockholm, it gets light just before nine and dark again around three, and that’s just too little daylight, for too little time. If only winter were a couple of months shorter, it would be tolerable. Then again, Sweden’s got better cell...