THE 360 ROTATION

What it do family? Y’all know how I get down when it comes to this music industry thing. I stay trying to put my people’s on to game. Give you those intangibles that many will not tell you about, because it’s in their interest to take advantage of you.

I’m reading this beautiful article on allhiphop.com and I’m like, this is part two to my mp3 blog! All of the homies were building about this over at the X-spot so I figured I would bring it back to headquarters and this way we wouldn’t be comment moderated over here and could expand our minds.

Avenger XL brought up some very solid and valid points. Dudes like Pill or Wale will never see budgets or label pushes like Taylor Swift will. Hip Hop WAS a cash cow. The deals rappers were signing were slave deals. How many times have people reffered to Q-Tip’s lyrics on the industry? How many fans loved Gza’s song because he gave you the real on the labels? These slave deals made record execs UBER RICH y’all. We can all quibble about how it’s the artist fault for signing on the dotted line, but reality has to settle in somewhere because even Joe Six Pack gets paid pennies on the dollar for that 9 to 5. But the contracted worker needs to know their net worth, something we tend to push aside because we want that paper. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I have seen and known sell out for what they thought was “real money”, only to be caught up in the fine print. And that’s another thing too, smart ass nukka’s don’t read until it’s too late, late being when the check doesn’t look right, just like a recording contract.

Most of the old heads don’t even own the publishing rights to their hit songs so I can imagine what these youngin’s actually own with this disposable music age we live in. These 360 deals that the labels are passing out now give them the right to have their hand in your pockets all of the time. We all know they really do not provide the services they are being paid for, so why do dudes sign these deals? It’s not like you need them to mass produce vinyl, I already showed y’all it’s a computer world. If rappers are going to get signed off of the strength of their grass roots following and successful mixtapes, money off of self bookings of shows and endorsements (whether street or corporate), why would you need the major label? Rappers are literally allowing a fox into the hen house and we need to understand this atrocity and stop this practice. Study that breakdown of percentages. Said rapper/artist ALLOWED them to come in and make that money, money that was all YOU if you would have kept on grinding. This internet age allows you to keep things for yourself, you can submit videos and interviews all day without a label. Distribution? Y’all already know I said it’s a better look to sell tangible objects rather than music. How much do you think payola determines anything anymore? If nation or eskay post your music on nahright, you’ve pretty much done more than what a street team could ever do. If Combat Jack says your name in a sentence, be prepared to supply the demand.

Blogger’s note: XXL your co-sign is losing weight. Fix that. *


I’m not gonna go off on a tangent on this one, because y’all are out there and you have coherent thoughts and good views on this subject. But check this out on ya boy Guch, he has a 360. Let’s build in the cipher.

The $ykotic Don McCaine

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