For Promotional Use

3-28-25

Now, lately, I've been on a mission. Make money. Get money. From this music. Enough spending money and not making anything back. Get out there and sell your music. Stop giving it away for free. Stop doing frees shows. Get paid. Right? Well... most of the time.

Sometimes, you gotta promote. And the only way to promote is to spend money. All the corperations do it. Through magazines, billboards, commercials, whatever. You gotta get your name out there. And in music, nothing promotes music better than: Music.

Sometimes you gotta let the people hear it so they know what they're missing. A picture online is cool. A flyer on a street post. Cool. They don't hear it tho. Pass out some CDs. When I sell them I can. Sometimes I just give them out, knowing its a promo for the next album. Like today, gave some CDs to the cool staff at Dreams Dispo. I gave two to the kid outside the store who said he didn't have any money. If someone only has 2 bucks, good enough. People I gave free music to in the past have seen me recently and purchased music. People that have seen me do free shows now recognize me. Now I'm getting paid shows. It all starts somewhere.

The tough part, is knowing when to do something for free and when to charge. When to compromise and when to stand firm. If you do it for free at first, will they bother to pay later when its been free? It you charge from the start will they even buy something they don't know about? When you're a new artist, it seems like nobody will listen to you. Well, the truth is nobody is listening to you. How can they? You aren't known yet and have no songs out. Step one. Just get some songs done. Then put them out. Get a response. Then improve. Don't just throw music out there, yet you have to get something out there. 

Right now, I'm putting out free music, through the site, youtube, cds, whatever, and also charging for CDs and have the full albums available via payed download. I worked hard on these projects and I need somethin for them. I don't want people to not listen because money is tight nowdays, I get it. 

Mixtapes are an easy way to get something out. What is a mixtape? Nowdays a mixtape is any free or promotional "album". It started as Dj tapes, mostly live party recordings on actual casette tape. These could get copied and sold throughout the underground hip hop scene. From famous live performances and battles, the djs had it. Later it was more about exclusives. Remixes, freestyles, unrealeased old songs, new songs before they got out - the DJs had them. Then the rappers became the focus and put out their own mixtapes, still using a dj most of the time, and putting out material you couldn't get anywhere else. This is the formula that made artists like 50 Cent. Sure he was signed in 1997 to Jam Master Jay Records, then Columbia around 99. Still it was the mixtapes and promotional material that caught the attention of not only the streets, but major artists like Eminem who signed him.  Not tryna get signed you get the point tho.

Mixtapes took Lil' Wayne, a major label artist since he was a kid, into a new height in the rap game. Mixtapes you can just rap to rap. Often over other rappers beats. This makes the production cost low and easy to just get music out there. If you think that's cheating, same way people just download beats off youtube nowdays. Plus the point is, you know the beat is hot already. Now what can YOU do on it? If you can't sound good on a Dr. Dre beat, then what beat will you sound good on? Its also like practice. On my albums, I make my own beats or know the producers personally. 

So enough about mixtapes. Just get out there. I've mentioned before how the internet is oversaturated with rappers. How will they find you? Why would I click your song when there are millions of songs to choose from? Soemtimes you gotta put it in their face, pause. Get out it the streets. And I'm tellin this to myslef too. Make some shirts with your logo. Wear them, pass them out. Make people your walking billboard. Pass out stickers. People always tell me "I got your sticker on...." It stays there and when they see it they remember you. And who doesn't love stickers?

Anyway I'm out 4 now. I didn't even smoke my herbals I just picked up. Time to do that and get back to the studio. Who says stoners are lazy?

Last thoughts. Promote. Sometimes it cost money. That's what owning a business is. To spend and invest. Every time you make money, it goes right back into the business. Then you improve the business, make more money, and invest it right back in. More equipment, better gear, advertising. It all costs money. You've already invested into computers, mics, hours, and days into this. Invest a little more a make it legit. Business license. Trademarks. Then its up to you to make it back. We all want to be musicians for a living, yet who's actually making a living from this? Even major artists have to go into movies and clothing and anything to make a buck. And they still go broke. Invest that new chain money into a studio. If every rapper threw into the pot, we could own the music industry. Yet we don't want to. I guess Suge, Irv (RIP), and J Prince tried that. Shut down. Powers that be said No way. 

So maybe that'll be the next topic. Who owns hip hop?