BURBANK, Calif. & NEW YORK, Aug 31, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- --Acquisition highlights Disney's strategic focus on quality branded content, technological innovation and international expansion to build long-term shareholder value
--An investor conference call will take place at approximately 10:15 a.m. EDT / 7:15 a.m. PDT August 31, 2009. Details for the call are listed in the release.
Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company (DIS 26.00, -0.84, -3.13%) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (MVL 48.38, +9.73, +25.18%) in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today.
Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration.
Based on the closing price of Disney stock on Friday, August 28, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share or approximately $4 billion.
"This transaction combines Marvel's strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney's creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories," said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. "Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney."
"We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation," Iger said.
"Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses," said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's Chief Executive Officer. "This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world."
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel's properties.
The Boards of Directors of Disney and Marvel have each approved the transaction, which is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, effectiveness of a registration statement with respect to Disney shares issued in the transaction and other customary closing conditions. The agreement will require the approval of Marvel shareholders. Marvel was advised on the transaction by BofA Merrill Lynch.
Investor Conference Call:
An investor conference call will take place at approximately 10:15 a.m. EDT / 7:15 a.m. PDT today, August 31, 2009. To listen to the Webcast, turn your browser to http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/presentations.html or dial in domestically at 800-260-8140 or internationally at 617-614-3672. For both dial-in numbers, the participant pass code is 51214527.
The discussion will be available via replay on the Disney investors website through September 14, 2009 at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT.
About The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, interactive media and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company with revenues of nearly $38 billion in its most recent fiscal year.
About Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a library of over 5,000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation) and publishing (via Marvel Comics).
Forward-Looking Statements:
Certain statements in this communication may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements relate to a variety of matters, including but not limited to: the operations of the businesses of Disney and Marvel separately and as a combined entity; the timing and consummation of the proposed merger transaction; the expected benefits of the integration of the two companies; the combined company's plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements that are not historical fact. These statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Disney and Marvel regarding future events and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Neither Disney nor Marvel undertakes any obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Such differences may result from a variety of factors, including but not limited to:
-- legal or regulatory proceedings or other matters that affect the timing or ability to complete the transactions as contemplated;
-- the possibility that the expected synergies from the proposed merger will not be realized, or will not be realized within the anticipated time period; the risk that the businesses will not be integrated successfully;
-- the possibility of disruption from the merger making it more difficult to maintain business and operational relationships;
-- the possibility that the merger does not close, including but not limited to, due to the failure to satisfy the closing conditions;
-- any actions taken by either of the companies, including but not limited to, restructuring or strategic initiatives (including capital investments or asset acquisitions or dispositions);
-- developments beyond the companies' control, including but not limited to: changes in domestic or global economic conditions, competitive conditions and consumer preferences; adverse weather conditions or natural disasters; health concerns; international, political or military developments; and technological developments.
Additional factors that may cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements are set forth in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Disney for the year ended September 27, 2008, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on November 20, 2008, under the heading "Item 1A--Risk Factors" and in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Marvel for the year ended December 31, 2008, which was filed with the SEC on February 27, 2009, under the heading "Item 1A--Risk Factors," and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by each of Marvel and Disney.
Important Merger Information and Additional Information:
This communication does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. In connection with the proposed transaction, Disney and Marvel will file relevant materials with the SEC. Disney will file a Registration Statement on Form S-4 that includes a proxy statement of Marvel and which also constitutes a prospectus of Disney. Marvel will mail the proxy statement/prospectus to its stockholders. Investors are urged to read the proxy statement/prospectus regarding the proposed transaction when it becomes available, because it will contain important information. The proxy statement/prospectus and other documents that will be filed by Disney and Marvel with the SEC will be available free of charge at the SEC's website, www.sec.gov, or by directing a request when such a filing is made to The Walt Disney Company, 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521-9722, Attention: Shareholder Services or by directing a request when such a filing is made to Marvel Entertainment, Inc., 417 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016, Attention: Corporate Secretary.
Disney, Marvel, their respective directors and certain of their executive officers may be considered participants in the solicitation of proxies in connection with the proposed transaction. Information about the directors and executive officers of Marvel is set forth in its definitive proxy statement, which was filed with the SEC on March 24, 2009. Information about the directors and executive officers of Disney is set forth in its definitive proxy statement, which was filed with the SEC on January 16, 2009. Investors may obtain additional information regarding the interests of such participants by reading the proxy statement/prospectus Disney and Marvel will file with the SEC when it becomes available.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
DJ AM FOUND DEAD!!!
Law enforcement sources tell us DJ AM -- also known as Adam Goldstein -- was found dead this afternoon in New York City.
Sources tell us he was found in his apartment at around 5:20 PM. We're told drug paraphernalia was found at the scene.
We're told DJ AM had not been seen or heard from for a few days -- one of his friends went to check on him, but got no response after knocking on his apartment door.
We're told the friend called the police, who broke down the door and then found DJ AM's body.
Back in September of 2008, DJ AM and Travis Barker survived a plane crash in South Carolina. Four people died in the crash -- which was caused when the airplane aborted takeoff and then ran off the runway.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
DIANE BIRCH
I love her vocals.. so pure. reminds me of an old rustic soul folk singer.. she has that "it" factor in voice that will make her huge.. just wait and see.
7 STEPS TO SELF-PROMOTION
Once again my girl Adrienne D. Hill came through with a good read so I am going to re post this for my people
Hey guys! Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks, I was WAY under the weather. Anyway, have you as an artist even felt at wits end wth your promotional efforts? Tired of passing out free CDs and sending links to your music to no avail? Well- Its time to focus your efforts and do it like the pros do it....
Here's How:
1. Identify Your Goals - When you set out to promote your music, don't try to cover too much ground at once. Look at the way larger artists are promoted - they have specific campaigns that promote specific things, like a new album or a tour. Choose one thing to promote, like:
* A single
* A show
* A website
Once you know what to promote, you will be able to make clear goals for yourself, i.e. if you want to promote your website, then your goal is to bring traffic to the site. With these goals in mind, you'll find it easier to come up with promotion ideas, and you'll be better able to judge the success of your promotions.
2. Target the Right Audience - With your promotional goal in mind, figure out who the right audience for your campaign is. If you have a gig coming up, then the right audience for your promotion are the local print publications and radio stations in the town in which your show is happening. If you have a limited edition single coming out, your primary audience is your band mailing list, plus the media. Going for the right audience is especially important if you're on a budget. Don't waste time and money letting town X knowing about an upcoming show in town Y or a folk magazine about your new hip hop album.
3. Have a Promo Package - Just like when you send a demo to a label , to self promote your music, you need a good promo package. Your package should have:
* A press release detailing your news
* A short (one page) band bio
* A CD (a demo recording is ok, or an advance copy of an upcoming release)
* A package of any press coverage you have had so far - press coverage begets press coverage
* Your contact information (make sure to include an email address - people may hesitate to call you)
* A color photo, or a link to a site where a photo can be downloaded. The press is more likely to run a photo if they don't have to chase it.
4. Find Your Niche - The sad truth is, every writer, radio station, website, or fan for that matter, you are trying to reach is likely being bombarded with info from other music hopefuls. You a reason to stand out. Try to find something that will make people more curious about you - give them a reason to want to know more. Being elusive worked wonders for Belle & Sebastian at the start of their career and people write about Marilyn Manson for being, well, Marilyn Manson. You don't have to devise a huge, calculated persona, but giving people a reason to check out your show or your CD before the others can only help.
5. Bribe 'Em - Another way to stand out from the crowd is plain old free stuff. Even press people and label bosses love getting something for nothing, and you'll whip your fans into a frenzy (and get new fans) by giving stuff away. Some ideas:
* Put some money behind the bar at a show and give free drink passes to all the industry people who come to check you out.
* Give people on your mailing list an exclusive download once a month (be it a new song or an alternate version of a song)
* At gigs, raffle (for free) mix CDs made by the band - everyone who signs up to your mailing list at the show gets entered in the drawing.
6. Branding - Get your name out there. Make up some stickers, badges, posters, lighters or anything else you can think of that include your band's name. Then, leave the stuff anywhere you can. Pass them out at your favorite clubs, leave them on the record shop counter, poster the light posts - go for it. Soon, your name will be familiar to people even if they don't know why, and when they see your name in the paper advertising an upcoming show, they'll think "hey...I know that name, I wonder what that's all about.."
7. Keep Track of Your Contacts - As you go through all of these steps, chances are that you are going to pick up a lot of new contacts along the way. Some of these contacts will be industry people and some will be fans. Never lose track of a contact. Keep a database on your computer for the industry people you have met and another database of fan contacts. These databases should be your first port of call for your next promotional campaign - and these databases should always be growing. Don't write anyone off, even if you don't get much feedback from them. You never know who is going to give you the break you need.
Hey guys! Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks, I was WAY under the weather. Anyway, have you as an artist even felt at wits end wth your promotional efforts? Tired of passing out free CDs and sending links to your music to no avail? Well- Its time to focus your efforts and do it like the pros do it....
Here's How:
1. Identify Your Goals - When you set out to promote your music, don't try to cover too much ground at once. Look at the way larger artists are promoted - they have specific campaigns that promote specific things, like a new album or a tour. Choose one thing to promote, like:
* A single
* A show
* A website
Once you know what to promote, you will be able to make clear goals for yourself, i.e. if you want to promote your website, then your goal is to bring traffic to the site. With these goals in mind, you'll find it easier to come up with promotion ideas, and you'll be better able to judge the success of your promotions.
2. Target the Right Audience - With your promotional goal in mind, figure out who the right audience for your campaign is. If you have a gig coming up, then the right audience for your promotion are the local print publications and radio stations in the town in which your show is happening. If you have a limited edition single coming out, your primary audience is your band mailing list, plus the media. Going for the right audience is especially important if you're on a budget. Don't waste time and money letting town X knowing about an upcoming show in town Y or a folk magazine about your new hip hop album.
3. Have a Promo Package - Just like when you send a demo to a label , to self promote your music, you need a good promo package. Your package should have:
* A press release detailing your news
* A short (one page) band bio
* A CD (a demo recording is ok, or an advance copy of an upcoming release)
* A package of any press coverage you have had so far - press coverage begets press coverage
* Your contact information (make sure to include an email address - people may hesitate to call you)
* A color photo, or a link to a site where a photo can be downloaded. The press is more likely to run a photo if they don't have to chase it.
4. Find Your Niche - The sad truth is, every writer, radio station, website, or fan for that matter, you are trying to reach is likely being bombarded with info from other music hopefuls. You a reason to stand out. Try to find something that will make people more curious about you - give them a reason to want to know more. Being elusive worked wonders for Belle & Sebastian at the start of their career and people write about Marilyn Manson for being, well, Marilyn Manson. You don't have to devise a huge, calculated persona, but giving people a reason to check out your show or your CD before the others can only help.
5. Bribe 'Em - Another way to stand out from the crowd is plain old free stuff. Even press people and label bosses love getting something for nothing, and you'll whip your fans into a frenzy (and get new fans) by giving stuff away. Some ideas:
* Put some money behind the bar at a show and give free drink passes to all the industry people who come to check you out.
* Give people on your mailing list an exclusive download once a month (be it a new song or an alternate version of a song)
* At gigs, raffle (for free) mix CDs made by the band - everyone who signs up to your mailing list at the show gets entered in the drawing.
6. Branding - Get your name out there. Make up some stickers, badges, posters, lighters or anything else you can think of that include your band's name. Then, leave the stuff anywhere you can. Pass them out at your favorite clubs, leave them on the record shop counter, poster the light posts - go for it. Soon, your name will be familiar to people even if they don't know why, and when they see your name in the paper advertising an upcoming show, they'll think "hey...I know that name, I wonder what that's all about.."
7. Keep Track of Your Contacts - As you go through all of these steps, chances are that you are going to pick up a lot of new contacts along the way. Some of these contacts will be industry people and some will be fans. Never lose track of a contact. Keep a database on your computer for the industry people you have met and another database of fan contacts. These databases should be your first port of call for your next promotional campaign - and these databases should always be growing. Don't write anyone off, even if you don't get much feedback from them. You never know who is going to give you the break you need.
THE NEW Jay-Z-Venus vs Mar from Blue Print 3
Just got this and said me being the uy I am I would share with all of you.. Honestly.. I have yet to hear any Blue Print 3 tracks that I was just in love with. I am scared that we might have another Kingdom Come on our hands.. Not good.. Not good at all.
http://www.limelinx.com/files/b6e42dda3e6711d1ca73d3344115d18e
Monday, August 24, 2009
MIAMI (AP)—Michael Beasley(notes) of the Miami Heat is being treated for depression-related issues at a Houston rehabilitation facility, a person briefed on the situation told The Associated Press on Monday.
Beasley checked into the facility last week, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of privacy concerns. It’s unknown how long Beasley will remain at the facility, or whether he will be available when the Heat open training camp on Sept. 28.
A photo of the No. 2 pick in the 2008 NBA draft was posted Friday to his Twitter account, in which Beasley displayed a new tattoo across his shoulders. The image also captured what appeared to be a small plastic bag on an adjacent table, the contents of which were unclear.
It’s unknown if Beasley was already in rehab when the photograph—and several comments, including “Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done” and “I feel like the whole world is against me I can’t win for losin”—were posted on the feed.
Beasley’s account has since been closed. Another account he used was shut down July 27.
“What Michael Jr. is going (through) is just a bump on the road we call life,” said a posting Monday on Michael Beasley Sr.’s Twitter feed. “Please pray for him, he needs it.”
A phone call to Beasley Sr.’s home in Bowie, Md., went unanswered.
Yahoo! Sports first reported Beasley entered a rehab facility.
Beasley finished his rookie season as Miami’s second-leading scorer behind Dwyane Wade(notes), averaging 13.9 points and 5.4 rebounds. He spent much of the year as a reserve, and both Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and team president Pat Riley talked often this summer about utilizing Beasley more this coming season at small forward and power forward.
“Beas, we hope that we’re going to see a lot of him at the 3 spot,” Riley said in a conference call with the team’s beat writers earlier this month.
At times this past season, Beasley’s immaturity was of some concern to teammates. He typically laughed off such criticism, saying he was young and acting accordingly.
“The guy’s got a lot of talent,” Wade told The AP during a July conversation on a number of topics, including Beasley’s potential. “I can’t wait to see what he does with it. He’s 20 years old. I’d love to see it all come together this year.”
Beasley’s second season, much like his first pro year, is off to an ominous start.
Beasley was fined $50,000 by the NBA last September after security officers at the league’s rookie symposium detected the scent of marijuana in a hotel room occupied by Beasley, Mario Chalmers(notes), Darrell Arthur(notes) and two women. Chalmers and Arthur were fined $20,000; Beasley drew the stiffer fine for at first trying to hide his presence from NBA officials.
Beasley told The AP in January that there were times during his first six months as a professional that he felt “everyone was against me” and that many things “get blown out of proportion”—referring specifically to the rookie symposium incident.
He spent one season at Kansas State before entering the draft, averaging 26.2 points and 12.4 rebounds in his lone college year.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
MYSPACE BUYS ILIKE!!!!
After days of mounting speculation, MySpace has confirmed it has bought social music application iLike which has a global user base of 55m.
Financial details were not made public, but it is speculated that iLike came with a $20m (£12m) price tag. MySpace, however, was at pains to stress iLike would not be altered and would sit within MySpace in general rather than its struggling MySpace Music arm.
Earlier this week it was reported that MySpace had turned off auto-play on artist sites as a means of saving money on streaming royalty payments.
Neither party was prepared to comment on what this acquisition would mean for iLike’s relationship with Facebook where 80% of its traffic is believed to come from.
This all comes as iLike increases its music offerings by launching its own download service last week and offering cheap mobile app templates for new artists.
CEO of MySpace Owen Van Natta says, “One of the great things about MySpace is that its openness enables discovery – we’re going to take that strategy one step forward by also allowing users to experience content on the distributed Web. By joining forces with iLike you should expect that we’ll be testing more things and building product that keeps both platforms highly engaging and social.”
Financial details were not made public, but it is speculated that iLike came with a $20m (£12m) price tag. MySpace, however, was at pains to stress iLike would not be altered and would sit within MySpace in general rather than its struggling MySpace Music arm.
Earlier this week it was reported that MySpace had turned off auto-play on artist sites as a means of saving money on streaming royalty payments.
Neither party was prepared to comment on what this acquisition would mean for iLike’s relationship with Facebook where 80% of its traffic is believed to come from.
This all comes as iLike increases its music offerings by launching its own download service last week and offering cheap mobile app templates for new artists.
CEO of MySpace Owen Van Natta says, “One of the great things about MySpace is that its openness enables discovery – we’re going to take that strategy one step forward by also allowing users to experience content on the distributed Web. By joining forces with iLike you should expect that we’ll be testing more things and building product that keeps both platforms highly engaging and social.”
EMI Music Publishing has completed an agreement with Island Def Jam exec and hitmaker Antonio LA Reid to form a joint venture to sign new songwriters.
The new L.A. Reid Music Publishing Company will provide EMI Music with the exclusive services of Reid, who is being charged with discovering and signing new and established songwriters to publishing deals.
“Throughout my career in music, I’ve been devoted to the songwriter’s craft first, last and always,” says Reid, who has been behind a raft of big selling acts including Toni Braxton, TLC, Usher, OutKast, Pink and Ne-Yo. “I consider the business of publishing to be the heart and soul of the industry.”
EMI Music Publishing president of West Coast Creative, Big Jon Platt adds, “LA’s track record speaks for itself. He’s discovered some of the most enduring talents of the last twenty years, and his hit rate with songwriters and recording artists alike is phenomenal.”
Reid was appointed Chairman, Island Def Jam Music Group in 2004, after serving as president and CEO of Arista Records since 2000. Prior to that, he was the co-founder of LaFace Records, the Atlanta-based label that introduced Toni Braxton, OutKast, TLC and Usher.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
R Kelly is back with a new album
R. Kelly has dubbed his next album Untitled, and he is eyeing an October 13 release date for the new work. He offered a preview on Monday night at his Chicago home to friends, MTV News and a few other media outlets, and it sounds like the new album follows Kelly's usual themes of love and sensuality.
"By the grace of God, I'm still here doing it big," Kelly told his guests, according to MTV. "I'm trying to get back on top of that mountain and roar like the Lion King."
Kelly debuted the video for his new single, "Number One," with Keri Hilson, and also played one of his favorite new tracks, "Exit," which he co-produced with Jazze Pha. "I can't leave this club without you girl, you deserve an encore," he sings, accompanied by a piano. At times he incorporates a do-re-mi-type flow, MTV reported. Another Kelly favorite is "Echo," in which he actually yodels, and "Elsewhere" is a break-up/make-up ballad.
In conjunction with Untitled, the singer will launch the Ladies Make Some Noise! tour on October 8 in Connecticut. Tickets for the 36-date outing go on sale starting August 22. The trek is scheduled to wrap on December 8 in St. Louis.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Dre improves MP3 sound quality
By Eamonn Forde
Rapper and producer Dr. Dre is working with technology company Hewlett-Packard (HP) and chairman of Interscope Jimmy Iovine to dramatically improve the audio quality of digital music files.
HP will launch a range of premium laptops, headphones and software that will come under the Beats By Dr. Dre brand umbrella. They are expected to go to market in the US this autumn.
Consumers had previously accepted a degree of deterioration in sound quality in exchange for the speed, portability and convenience that digital brings to music.
However, with mass broadband uptake, larger files can now be moved around online with relative ease and, as a result, consumers are demanding better audio quality from their downloads, with 320kbps becoming a more common compression rate.
Dre has already launched a headphone range earlier this year in conjunction with Monster Cable in the US.
Rapper and producer Dr. Dre is working with technology company Hewlett-Packard (HP) and chairman of Interscope Jimmy Iovine to dramatically improve the audio quality of digital music files.
HP will launch a range of premium laptops, headphones and software that will come under the Beats By Dr. Dre brand umbrella. They are expected to go to market in the US this autumn.
Consumers had previously accepted a degree of deterioration in sound quality in exchange for the speed, portability and convenience that digital brings to music.
However, with mass broadband uptake, larger files can now be moved around online with relative ease and, as a result, consumers are demanding better audio quality from their downloads, with 320kbps becoming a more common compression rate.
Dre has already launched a headphone range earlier this year in conjunction with Monster Cable in the US.
Michael Vick On 60 Minutes
Mr. Michael Vick spoke Sunday with James Brown on his return to the NFL after the experience that most thought would break him. Openly and repentantly he discussed the time spent and jail, and reflected on what it was like to see his life downwardly spiral at his peak. Never in my twenty-nine years have I seen such a fall from grace. Even when they ridiculed Michael Jackson over the infamous molestation charges, it was after several years of questionable behavior. There has never been a single incident that has destroyed an Athlete/Entertainer in the manner in which Michael Vick was. Maybe it is because his fall was higher than most. Even When Kobe was accused of rape, he was never completely ostracized in this manner. Maybe it is because Michael Vick was found guilty. Maybe it was because this country has a sick love affair with famous people. No country in the world can build up a person and destroy them just as easily.
Friday, August 14, 2009
TOP TEN REASONS RELATIONSHIPS FAIL!!!
ok here is my top ten list of reasons relationships fail
#10 women can never let little things go
#9 men are not that sensitive to women
#8 someone is always more controlling than the other
#7 someone always has there eye out for something better.. male and female... everybody wanna upgrade.. eff beyonce be content sometimes with what you have. the grass aint always greener. #6 unable to accept people for who they are without trying to change them. this is it people.. we can try but we r who we r and that's it
#5 people have low self esteem and expectations about themselves and and eff shit up...!!!
#4 to damn selfish
#3 listening to everyone around you and not your damn self... take time to recognize what you want, who you are and then try to find some1.
#2 unreasonable expectations about how relationships should work. your knight might not be in a knights uniform. be open 4 love in all forms
#1 no one wants to effing LISTEN and COMMUNICATE effectively. an open dialogue with each other. don't talk at them or to them. talk with them
Poparatzi - Musiq
#10 women can never let little things go
#9 men are not that sensitive to women
#8 someone is always more controlling than the other
#7 someone always has there eye out for something better.. male and female... everybody wanna upgrade.. eff beyonce be content sometimes with what you have. the grass aint always greener. #6 unable to accept people for who they are without trying to change them. this is it people.. we can try but we r who we r and that's it
#5 people have low self esteem and expectations about themselves and and eff shit up...!!!
#4 to damn selfish
#3 listening to everyone around you and not your damn self... take time to recognize what you want, who you are and then try to find some1.
#2 unreasonable expectations about how relationships should work. your knight might not be in a knights uniform. be open 4 love in all forms
#1 no one wants to effing LISTEN and COMMUNICATE effectively. an open dialogue with each other. don't talk at them or to them. talk with them
Poparatzi - Musiq
Sunday, August 9, 2009
PJ Morton and Jessie Boykins Live In Chicago At The Double Door 10/2
It is my responsibility as Co-Founder of Lucid Entertainment to bring the very best talent to Chicago in a live form. To give a stage to Artist both indie and major that I feel people should know. Well we have put together yet another "experience" for everyone. On October 2, 2009 Lucid Entertainment will try to overload Chicago with Soul. This action packed line up from beginning to end will make everyone think twice about every concert they have attended before and after.
click the link for tickets
http://www.ticketmaster.com/PJ-Morton-Jessie-Boykins-J-Ivy-Nikki-Nikkita-tickets/artist/1350899
or pick up your tickets at Dr Wax
5225 S Harper Ave # D Chicago, IL 60615-6306 - (773) 493-8696
Let me help paint the picture for you.
Project Fr3sh
Nikki Nikkita
J Ivy
Jesse Boykins III
PJ Morton
Start Time: Friday, October 2, 2009 at 8:00pm
End Time: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 12:30pm
Location: Double Door
Street: 1572 N Milwaukee
City/Town: Chicago, IL
click the link for tickets
http://www.ticketmaster.com/PJ-Morton-Jessie-Boykins-J-Ivy-Nikki-Nikkita-tickets/artist/1350899
or pick up your tickets at Dr Wax
5225 S Harper Ave # D Chicago, IL 60615-6306 - (773) 493-8696
click the link for tickets
http://www.ticketmaster.com/PJ-Morton-Jessie-Boykins-J-Ivy-Nikki-Nikkita-tickets/artist/1350899
or pick up your tickets at Dr Wax
5225 S Harper Ave # D Chicago, IL 60615-6306 - (773) 493-8696
Let me help paint the picture for you.
Project Fr3sh
Nikki Nikkita
J Ivy
Jesse Boykins III
PJ Morton
Start Time: Friday, October 2, 2009 at 8:00pm
End Time: Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 12:30pm
Location: Double Door
Street: 1572 N Milwaukee
City/Town: Chicago, IL
click the link for tickets
http://www.ticketmaster.com/PJ-Morton-Jessie-Boykins-J-Ivy-Nikki-Nikkita-tickets/artist/1350899
or pick up your tickets at Dr Wax
5225 S Harper Ave # D Chicago, IL 60615-6306 - (773) 493-8696
Sometimes we dream
Its funny how two of the biggest icons of my lifetime were both named MJ. We all know who Michael Jordan is, and everybody who has ever played basketball has tried to mimic him in some respect. Whether you stuck out your tongue, closed your eyes while shooting a free throw, or in mid air you tried to switch hands on a lay up. No matter what you did you wanted to be like Mike. I think growing up in Chicago gave us a profound respect for the game and Michaels place in it. Most people were not even Chicago Bulls fans but they were MJ fans. Its also amazing how people can separate the two. I remember singing this song and wanting to be like Mike. This is for you sir.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Hey Big Spenders
I was doing some research and found out that the 5 companies who spent the most in advertising may appear a little differently than you thought. After asking some people on twitter nearly everyone had Gatorade, which is owned by Pepsico on their list. Pepsico came in at #23. Kind of befitting seeing as though Michael Jordan Is probably their biggest figure. Walmart which is the number #1 retailer in the world is not even in the top ten. Walmart came in at #15 I thought I would see McDonald's as the number 1 or the Army but no. After giving you a chance to formulate your own ideas of the list, I will give you a hint. If you have one of these products, you probably use it everyday. Still no clue? well the top 5 advertising budgets are 1) Proctor and Gamble 2) Verizon Wireless 3) AT&T 4) GM 5) Johnson and Johnson
Life In A Glance
who i am is based off of the life that i have lived... simple right? the experiences we have both good and bad shape the people we become. you heard that before too right? we are given the choices. now this is not a note about right or wrong or the power to over come in unfortunate situations. we know that people will be good or bad decision makers for what ever reason. but the question is why does misery love company? because you choose this way and i did the opposite, does not make me wrong. i did what my prayer and heart lead me to. as a believer in Christ and his teachings, i know that we all have a purpose and life is predestined. people come in and out of your life for whatever reason, for however long, and have some point and meaning. however obscure or pointless their existence is to you they are there for a reason. now, navigating through all of this and walking into the person you want to be is different.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
A MUST READ FOR ALL INDUSTRY WANNA BEs
The Ballad Of The Mid-Level Artist
By, Danny Goldberg
I used to run big record companies and now I run a small company, Artemis Records, which I also partially own. Universal and Warner Music Group, two of the big four international music companies, have fired me. Artemis is distributed internationally by Sony and in the U.S. by RED, which is predominantly owned by Edel, a European indie. I have a tangled web of friendships and feuds with executives and artists at every company. My wife, Rosemary Carroll, is an attorney who represents many artists. I am not objective, but I have opinions.
In the frenzy to identify exactly how the Internet will improve the music business, some Web executives and tech savants have claimed that digital distribution will lead to fairer and more generous contracts for artists. These claims are based on the oft-repeated assumption that major-label recording contracts are unfair to artists, allowing the labels to grab a disproportionate share of profits. Cathartic as it is to vent at record companies and carry the banner for artist empowerment, it seems to me that many of the attacks on the inequitable sharing of the pie have been overstated. The problems most artists have with record companies (and there are many legitimate problems, don't get me wrong) have nothing to do with how the money is divided up, so long as we are talking about acts that actually sell enough records.
It goes without saying that the blockbuster artists who sell millions of albums make lots of money. Not only do such sales levels generate millions of dollars in royalties (and goose important income streams such as publishing and performance fees), but they also provide these artists enormous leverage to renegotiate. Why, you ask, would a record company owed several albums by an artist improve her deal? Because record company executives are judged on their annual, sometimes even quarterly, performances.
When I was at Mercury Records, we agreed to give Shania Twain an increase in her royalty rate in the range of 40 percent if she would deliver Come On Over in time for a fourth-quarter release in 1997. Shania had a weak deal despite having sold 10 million copies of her previous album, The Woman in Me. The boost in royalty rate was conditional upon Shania finishing her work quickly; she did, and the Q4 (ed note: fourth quarter) release of Come On Over significantly propped up the PolyGram numbers for 1997. And in the process, the renegotiated rate has earned Twain at least an extra $10 million. Every artist coming off a multimillion seller has similar leverage with the bosses of the big companies.
Conversely, artists who have a relatively small audience, say under 50,000 albums, clearly make no money for themselves or their record companies in the major-label game, so it really doesn't matter how their royalties are calculated or what their rate is.
But let's look at mid-level artists, many of whom: Aimee Mann, Chuck D and Michelle Shocked, to name a few have been outspoken critics of the major-label system. These are the artists who are most often plagued by the legitimate problems I alluded to above: insensitive executives who pressure them to copy current hit sounds; rapidly changing corporate cultures in which an artist can be romanced into signing in one season and virtually ignored by the time he delivers his album (often for reasons having nothing to do with the quality or even the commercial viability of the record), and the increasing demand on the soon-to-be-four remaining major record groups to act as efficiently managed profit centers for their multinational parent companies. This type of pressurized quarter-to-quarter accountability strikes many as antithetical to the spirit of the days when many labels stood loyally by their artists for year after year, building careers lovingly and patiently until sometimes, the big payoff arrived, or if not, so what? Why can't all labels, goes the daydream, be like Warners in the 1970s?
That this image of art making nice with commerce is as much nostalgia-tinged fantasy as reality does little to diminish the hold it has on the collective unconscious, especially that of singer-songwriters. It should be noted, though, that this golden era of artist development was facilitated by a one-time-only, post war, baby boom that dramatically spiked the number of album-friendly record buyers. And any artist around then will tell you that the royalty rates back then were anything but golden. The profits generated by these factors provided the labels the ability to stick with artists for longer periods of time, also known as “artist development." The collapse of artist-development budgets was forestalled in the '80s when $9.98 cassettes were replaced by $16.98 CDs, a “conversion" which permitted continued double-digit annual growth despite the smaller Gen X pool of buyers. When sales of catalog CDs reached a saturation point in the early '90s and companies were still required to show the same growth, cutbacks in staff and a reduced commitment to artist development began in earnest.
Up until the 1970s, record companies unquestionably hoarded a disproportionate share of the profits, and many artists, especially black artists, didn't get paid at all. Over the last several decades, however, as the business grew, a class of lawyers emerged to take advantage of the record companies' needs for marketable product, and the deals themselves have vastly improved for the artists.
Some of the criticisms leveled at the labels hark back to earlier eras. For example, some PR-hungry artists and managers have claimed that there are still “breakage" clauses in contracts, remnants from the days of vinyl. In reality most companies, including the one I ran, have long since eliminated them.
There are, however, still boilerplate formulas called “packaging deductions" (a 25 percent reduction from the CD list price) and “free goods" (15 percent). Putting aside the murky origins of such clauses, the practical effect is straightforward: they reduce the value of a point on a $16.98 CD to between 10 and 11 cents (a point is shorthand for a royalty percentage). For the purposes of this article, I am assuming a point equals 10 cents, and that the royalty rate for our hypothetical mid-sized artist is l4 points, or $1.40 per album.
So let's take our mid-level artist, and say that she managed to sell 200,000 copies of her latest CD. How does the artist make out? Based on a royalty rate of $1.40 per album, 200,000 CDs sold results in earned income of $280,000. However, before the artist buys her mom a car (or pays off her college loans), she first needs to deal with the dreaded recoupment. If our artist received a $25,000 advance and spent another $115,000 making the record, this $140,000 is deemed recoupable, which means that the label can collect that amount against royalties.
Also, let's assume the artist received $70,000 in tour support (recoupable) and another $70,000 in recoupable video and promotional support (this is usually split between the label and artist). That adds up to $280,000 in recoupable advances, thereby canceling out the $280,000 earned by the artist on points from her CD sales. Royalty-wise, it's a wash. (There's a holdback for returns of 15-20 percent, but royalties for these “reserves" are usually paid out in 18 months minus any actual returns.)
Album royalties, luckily, are not the only stream of income for an artist. Artists who write their own material enjoy a tremendous economic advantage over those who do not. If an artist writes her own songs, she earns additional monies known as mechanical royalties. Assuming a mediocre .75 percent mechanical rate per song times 11 (a roundabout number of songs on an album), the hypothetical writer-artist would earn around 60 cents an album, or $120,000 on sales of 200,000 units. (Artists with a strong contract can get up to 85 cents in mechanicals per album-and these payments are all “from record one,'' and not subject to any kind of recoupment.) Solo artists like Mann or Shocked also don't have to divide royalties with other musicians, although they will have to pay managers, lawyers, and accountants (standard is approximately 25 percent of net income). They also can make extra money -facilitated, in our hypothetical, by the sale of 200,000 albums - from concert appearances, merchandise like T-shirts, and performance royalties, from radio airplay for example, which are collected and distributed by ASCAP and BMI. None of this is to suggest that an artist selling 200,000 albums is living large; she is, however, considerably ahead of 90 percent of Americans.
What would the label make on the sale of these 200,000 albums? Are labels making their parent companies' shareholders rich at the expense of these middle-class artists? Retailers pay around $10 an album, which amounts to a gross revenue for the label on those 200,000 CDs of $2 million.
No one knows exactly how much distribution and manufacturing costs. The big companies all have large overheads to provide these functions, often creating separate divisions to handle them. The record company presidents run their divisions with internal charges for manufacturing and distribution that add up to around $2.65 a unit. There's obviously profit built into that but the per-unit amount varies, depending on the amount of overall record-group volume as well as unpredictable outside events such as retail bankruptcies. As a rule of thumb, I was always told to assume about $1.00 a unit profit on these combined functions. For the purpose of this exercise I'm assuming a “real" cost of $1.65 per unit for combined manufacturing and distribution.
Here are the record company's expenses:
· Recording and recoupable marketing costs: $300,000
· Mechanicals: $120,000
· Non-recoupable marketing: $600,000
· Manufacturing and Distribution: $330,000
· Total label expenses: $1,350,000
This leaves $650,000 in profit, right? Not necessarily. Out of that comes all of the salaries of the people who work at the record company. These include the people who do the color separations for CD covers, who create Web sites for artists, and who make hundreds of calls to radio stations, journalists, and retailers. Struggling divisions spend more, but a healthy U.S. record company with a decent catalog allots around 20 percent of their gross revenues to overhead, or, in this instance, $400,000.
That still leaves the label with a profit of $250,000, right? Yes, and the middle-level artist has reason to gripe, but not without coming to terms with a fundamental fact: big record companies weren't established to enable artists to sell 200,000 copies. Big record companies need big sales. Even the most astute A&R people are wrong two-thirds of the time. On average, even at a successful company the cost of promoting and marketing a label’s "misses" eats up most of the profits, from not only the mid-level successes but even the gold-plus hits. Executives at major labels, then, are usually disappointed by sales of 200,000.
A major record company's profits come from the Shania Twains of the world, the very artists who have the least to complain about. Remember the $600,000 allocated to marketing on 200,000 albums, this represents 30 percent of the total revenue. On an album that goes on to sell millions, the share of income spent on advertising and promotion drops to 10 percent, leaving an extra $2 an album profit for the label. After a certain point, albums sell themselves through word of mouth.
Based solely on these numbers, you might wonder why Seagram spent all those billions to buy PolyGram. Those sky-high valuations take into account two other crucial factors: international profits and catalog value.
Album prices are higher in Europe and Japan, and artist royalties are usually reduced to three-quarters of the U.S. rate. Hence, labels clear more profit per unit sold. And once again, with rare exception, the artists who generate strong international numbers are those with big pop hits.
Secondly there is the asset value of owning a catalog, which is why master ownership is so jealously guarded. The Beatles' albums still sell millions each year. Bob Marley's Legend anthology sold five million copies in the '90s. Catalogs of hits make very high margins and generate money for decades through re-issues, compilations, licensing for soundtracks, etc. It is widely assumed that the widespread use of MP3 music files on the Internet, like the introduction of any new format for music, will drive up the value of hit catalogs, but the key word here is "hit." No one ascribes much catalog value to an album that sold 200,000 in its first release.
Mid-level artists are, in essence, valuable to labels only in terms of their future potential, or if they garner such great press that they help a particular executive burnish his or her reputation as a sensitive soul. Such repute, alas, is far less valuable in the marketplace than an expertise in marketing megabits or implementing cost cutting.
One major label doing very well in the last year showed an aggregate profit margin (including a calculation for distribution and international) of a little over 10 percent. Nonetheless, there was increasing pressure from the parent corporation and from Wall Street to raise the margin to over 15 percent. Nine times out of 10, this is done by signing fewer new artists and by taking fewer marketing risks on the new artists under contract (staff cutbacks usually follow suit, as well).
If an album fails to create immediate excitement, word comes from on high to shift manpower and marketing dollars to a different project. This syndrome, far more than substandard royalty rates, is what devastates artists. After touring tirelessly and building a devoted fan base, after a year or two of pouring their hearts into writing and recording a record, after hearing cries of genius from friends and fans alike, artists naturally believe that with a little more advertising, one more video and a real shot at radio play, they too, could move millions. But the attention span of majors nowadays, with a few exceptions, resembles that of the 13-year-olds at the core of their audience.
Reduction of risk-taking by the major record groups means that cutting-edge musicians are driven to independent labels like mine, which have scarcer resources and lack the added profits from distribution or international sales. Indies have traditionally presented an alternative, both aesthetically and economically to the blockbuster-driven mindset of the majors. In the 1980s, several indie-rock labels such as Dischord and Touch and Go erected a payment system that gave artists 50 percent of the net profits.
This "partnership" may seem more artist-friendly but the net amount of money made by artists on those labels is not demonstrably greater than it would have been with the same level of marketing in a royalty-based system. It's just that the major labels rarely find themselves spending so little in support of one of their albums. More recently the redoubtable Ani DiFranco has chosen to control her own infrastructure and forgo bids from majors and indies alike. I'd posit that in exchange for maintaining total business control, DiFranco has probably sacrificed income. (And in return for the greater per-unit margin, she's had to pay a year-round staff and be her own bank.)
This decade's version of the indie-label-as-salvation mantra is, of course, the Internet-based music company. There has been much talk about the bloat of the majors, and of how much more efficient the Internet will be. This is true up to a point, although bear in mind that the big companies (when they make the move to digital) will benefit from the same efficiencies that Internet companies are relying on, and they'll have the added clout of their catalogs. Undoubtedly the math will change with the advent of Net distribution. But Internet startups claiming the change will be seen in the next year or two are selling snake oil. Companies that have reaped positive PR by offering "artist-friendly" contracts and "new business models" have yet to mint a single real-life success story. One hundred percent of nothing is still nothing. If these companies start adding value to an artist via marketing and promotion, those costs will add up and inevitably be passed along.
Looking beyond the royalty mcguffin, there are some legitimate changes brought about by technology that could be especially advantageous to our mid-level artist. These include:
Lowered recording costs. Remember the $115,000 recording budget? Home-studio systems like ProTools have dramatically reduced recording costs. This means that artists under contract can keep more of the money from an advance, and that unsigned artists can make a decent album much more cheaply which increases their likelihood of getting a deal (funding and marketing) and making money sooner. If an artist makes an album for $45,000 instead of $115,000, with all other assumptions in the earlier model staying the same, they would begin earning their $1.40 per unit royalty after 150,000 albums sold instead of 200,000.
Cutting out the middleman. The biggest piece of the $16.98 pie still goes to retailers. For many years to come, retail is going to be very important to most artists. Some cult artists may make their music available exclusively on the Internet, thus permitting a much higher margin for them and/or lower prices for the consumer.
Retiring the CD. Manufacturing and distribution costs are obviously going to decline as more and more music is delivered through the Internet. The savings from digital delivery can be divided among the artist, the label and possibly the consumer. (Online and offline concert ticket pricing has taught us that the price for music is determined not by the physical costs of delivery but by what consumers are willing to pay). In theory, in a pure digital marketplace, if an album costs $14, with half going to the artist, a royalty flow on the more cheaply produced album described above could commence at only 10,000 units sold, depending on the artist advance.
Before we celebrate the coming renaissance, recognize that it will take years before many of these costs are reduced, and that until labels figure out replacement revenue streams, they'll be loath to adapt to the new models.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that marketing costs, a major expense for labels, will decline. In a complex Internet environment, it will still take serious dollars to expose new music to potential fans, and top marketing and promotion staffs will never come cheap. Artists should be able to make a living at a lower sales level, but the vast majority of aspiring musicians, critical favorites, and local bar bands will still have a hard time supporting themselves and their families. The biggest obstacle to commercial fulfillment for all but the few genuine stars will not be the music business, but the wants pf the people: the cruelest, most fickle and most generous boss of all.
Danny Goldberg, president of Artemis Records and Sheridan Square Entertainment, has worked hands on with more popular musical talent than literally any other recorded music executive in the 1990s. He is also one of the very few who has worked with every major genre of popular music: rap, country, folk, classical, jazz, pop, rock, R&B and jazz.
This article first appeared online at Inside.com and is reprinted here with permission.
By, Danny Goldberg
I used to run big record companies and now I run a small company, Artemis Records, which I also partially own. Universal and Warner Music Group, two of the big four international music companies, have fired me. Artemis is distributed internationally by Sony and in the U.S. by RED, which is predominantly owned by Edel, a European indie. I have a tangled web of friendships and feuds with executives and artists at every company. My wife, Rosemary Carroll, is an attorney who represents many artists. I am not objective, but I have opinions.
In the frenzy to identify exactly how the Internet will improve the music business, some Web executives and tech savants have claimed that digital distribution will lead to fairer and more generous contracts for artists. These claims are based on the oft-repeated assumption that major-label recording contracts are unfair to artists, allowing the labels to grab a disproportionate share of profits. Cathartic as it is to vent at record companies and carry the banner for artist empowerment, it seems to me that many of the attacks on the inequitable sharing of the pie have been overstated. The problems most artists have with record companies (and there are many legitimate problems, don't get me wrong) have nothing to do with how the money is divided up, so long as we are talking about acts that actually sell enough records.
It goes without saying that the blockbuster artists who sell millions of albums make lots of money. Not only do such sales levels generate millions of dollars in royalties (and goose important income streams such as publishing and performance fees), but they also provide these artists enormous leverage to renegotiate. Why, you ask, would a record company owed several albums by an artist improve her deal? Because record company executives are judged on their annual, sometimes even quarterly, performances.
When I was at Mercury Records, we agreed to give Shania Twain an increase in her royalty rate in the range of 40 percent if she would deliver Come On Over in time for a fourth-quarter release in 1997. Shania had a weak deal despite having sold 10 million copies of her previous album, The Woman in Me. The boost in royalty rate was conditional upon Shania finishing her work quickly; she did, and the Q4 (ed note: fourth quarter) release of Come On Over significantly propped up the PolyGram numbers for 1997. And in the process, the renegotiated rate has earned Twain at least an extra $10 million. Every artist coming off a multimillion seller has similar leverage with the bosses of the big companies.
Conversely, artists who have a relatively small audience, say under 50,000 albums, clearly make no money for themselves or their record companies in the major-label game, so it really doesn't matter how their royalties are calculated or what their rate is.
But let's look at mid-level artists, many of whom: Aimee Mann, Chuck D and Michelle Shocked, to name a few have been outspoken critics of the major-label system. These are the artists who are most often plagued by the legitimate problems I alluded to above: insensitive executives who pressure them to copy current hit sounds; rapidly changing corporate cultures in which an artist can be romanced into signing in one season and virtually ignored by the time he delivers his album (often for reasons having nothing to do with the quality or even the commercial viability of the record), and the increasing demand on the soon-to-be-four remaining major record groups to act as efficiently managed profit centers for their multinational parent companies. This type of pressurized quarter-to-quarter accountability strikes many as antithetical to the spirit of the days when many labels stood loyally by their artists for year after year, building careers lovingly and patiently until sometimes, the big payoff arrived, or if not, so what? Why can't all labels, goes the daydream, be like Warners in the 1970s?
That this image of art making nice with commerce is as much nostalgia-tinged fantasy as reality does little to diminish the hold it has on the collective unconscious, especially that of singer-songwriters. It should be noted, though, that this golden era of artist development was facilitated by a one-time-only, post war, baby boom that dramatically spiked the number of album-friendly record buyers. And any artist around then will tell you that the royalty rates back then were anything but golden. The profits generated by these factors provided the labels the ability to stick with artists for longer periods of time, also known as “artist development." The collapse of artist-development budgets was forestalled in the '80s when $9.98 cassettes were replaced by $16.98 CDs, a “conversion" which permitted continued double-digit annual growth despite the smaller Gen X pool of buyers. When sales of catalog CDs reached a saturation point in the early '90s and companies were still required to show the same growth, cutbacks in staff and a reduced commitment to artist development began in earnest.
Up until the 1970s, record companies unquestionably hoarded a disproportionate share of the profits, and many artists, especially black artists, didn't get paid at all. Over the last several decades, however, as the business grew, a class of lawyers emerged to take advantage of the record companies' needs for marketable product, and the deals themselves have vastly improved for the artists.
Some of the criticisms leveled at the labels hark back to earlier eras. For example, some PR-hungry artists and managers have claimed that there are still “breakage" clauses in contracts, remnants from the days of vinyl. In reality most companies, including the one I ran, have long since eliminated them.
There are, however, still boilerplate formulas called “packaging deductions" (a 25 percent reduction from the CD list price) and “free goods" (15 percent). Putting aside the murky origins of such clauses, the practical effect is straightforward: they reduce the value of a point on a $16.98 CD to between 10 and 11 cents (a point is shorthand for a royalty percentage). For the purposes of this article, I am assuming a point equals 10 cents, and that the royalty rate for our hypothetical mid-sized artist is l4 points, or $1.40 per album.
So let's take our mid-level artist, and say that she managed to sell 200,000 copies of her latest CD. How does the artist make out? Based on a royalty rate of $1.40 per album, 200,000 CDs sold results in earned income of $280,000. However, before the artist buys her mom a car (or pays off her college loans), she first needs to deal with the dreaded recoupment. If our artist received a $25,000 advance and spent another $115,000 making the record, this $140,000 is deemed recoupable, which means that the label can collect that amount against royalties.
Also, let's assume the artist received $70,000 in tour support (recoupable) and another $70,000 in recoupable video and promotional support (this is usually split between the label and artist). That adds up to $280,000 in recoupable advances, thereby canceling out the $280,000 earned by the artist on points from her CD sales. Royalty-wise, it's a wash. (There's a holdback for returns of 15-20 percent, but royalties for these “reserves" are usually paid out in 18 months minus any actual returns.)
Album royalties, luckily, are not the only stream of income for an artist. Artists who write their own material enjoy a tremendous economic advantage over those who do not. If an artist writes her own songs, she earns additional monies known as mechanical royalties. Assuming a mediocre .75 percent mechanical rate per song times 11 (a roundabout number of songs on an album), the hypothetical writer-artist would earn around 60 cents an album, or $120,000 on sales of 200,000 units. (Artists with a strong contract can get up to 85 cents in mechanicals per album-and these payments are all “from record one,'' and not subject to any kind of recoupment.) Solo artists like Mann or Shocked also don't have to divide royalties with other musicians, although they will have to pay managers, lawyers, and accountants (standard is approximately 25 percent of net income). They also can make extra money -facilitated, in our hypothetical, by the sale of 200,000 albums - from concert appearances, merchandise like T-shirts, and performance royalties, from radio airplay for example, which are collected and distributed by ASCAP and BMI. None of this is to suggest that an artist selling 200,000 albums is living large; she is, however, considerably ahead of 90 percent of Americans.
What would the label make on the sale of these 200,000 albums? Are labels making their parent companies' shareholders rich at the expense of these middle-class artists? Retailers pay around $10 an album, which amounts to a gross revenue for the label on those 200,000 CDs of $2 million.
No one knows exactly how much distribution and manufacturing costs. The big companies all have large overheads to provide these functions, often creating separate divisions to handle them. The record company presidents run their divisions with internal charges for manufacturing and distribution that add up to around $2.65 a unit. There's obviously profit built into that but the per-unit amount varies, depending on the amount of overall record-group volume as well as unpredictable outside events such as retail bankruptcies. As a rule of thumb, I was always told to assume about $1.00 a unit profit on these combined functions. For the purpose of this exercise I'm assuming a “real" cost of $1.65 per unit for combined manufacturing and distribution.
Here are the record company's expenses:
· Recording and recoupable marketing costs: $300,000
· Mechanicals: $120,000
· Non-recoupable marketing: $600,000
· Manufacturing and Distribution: $330,000
· Total label expenses: $1,350,000
This leaves $650,000 in profit, right? Not necessarily. Out of that comes all of the salaries of the people who work at the record company. These include the people who do the color separations for CD covers, who create Web sites for artists, and who make hundreds of calls to radio stations, journalists, and retailers. Struggling divisions spend more, but a healthy U.S. record company with a decent catalog allots around 20 percent of their gross revenues to overhead, or, in this instance, $400,000.
That still leaves the label with a profit of $250,000, right? Yes, and the middle-level artist has reason to gripe, but not without coming to terms with a fundamental fact: big record companies weren't established to enable artists to sell 200,000 copies. Big record companies need big sales. Even the most astute A&R people are wrong two-thirds of the time. On average, even at a successful company the cost of promoting and marketing a label’s "misses" eats up most of the profits, from not only the mid-level successes but even the gold-plus hits. Executives at major labels, then, are usually disappointed by sales of 200,000.
A major record company's profits come from the Shania Twains of the world, the very artists who have the least to complain about. Remember the $600,000 allocated to marketing on 200,000 albums, this represents 30 percent of the total revenue. On an album that goes on to sell millions, the share of income spent on advertising and promotion drops to 10 percent, leaving an extra $2 an album profit for the label. After a certain point, albums sell themselves through word of mouth.
Based solely on these numbers, you might wonder why Seagram spent all those billions to buy PolyGram. Those sky-high valuations take into account two other crucial factors: international profits and catalog value.
Album prices are higher in Europe and Japan, and artist royalties are usually reduced to three-quarters of the U.S. rate. Hence, labels clear more profit per unit sold. And once again, with rare exception, the artists who generate strong international numbers are those with big pop hits.
Secondly there is the asset value of owning a catalog, which is why master ownership is so jealously guarded. The Beatles' albums still sell millions each year. Bob Marley's Legend anthology sold five million copies in the '90s. Catalogs of hits make very high margins and generate money for decades through re-issues, compilations, licensing for soundtracks, etc. It is widely assumed that the widespread use of MP3 music files on the Internet, like the introduction of any new format for music, will drive up the value of hit catalogs, but the key word here is "hit." No one ascribes much catalog value to an album that sold 200,000 in its first release.
Mid-level artists are, in essence, valuable to labels only in terms of their future potential, or if they garner such great press that they help a particular executive burnish his or her reputation as a sensitive soul. Such repute, alas, is far less valuable in the marketplace than an expertise in marketing megabits or implementing cost cutting.
One major label doing very well in the last year showed an aggregate profit margin (including a calculation for distribution and international) of a little over 10 percent. Nonetheless, there was increasing pressure from the parent corporation and from Wall Street to raise the margin to over 15 percent. Nine times out of 10, this is done by signing fewer new artists and by taking fewer marketing risks on the new artists under contract (staff cutbacks usually follow suit, as well).
If an album fails to create immediate excitement, word comes from on high to shift manpower and marketing dollars to a different project. This syndrome, far more than substandard royalty rates, is what devastates artists. After touring tirelessly and building a devoted fan base, after a year or two of pouring their hearts into writing and recording a record, after hearing cries of genius from friends and fans alike, artists naturally believe that with a little more advertising, one more video and a real shot at radio play, they too, could move millions. But the attention span of majors nowadays, with a few exceptions, resembles that of the 13-year-olds at the core of their audience.
Reduction of risk-taking by the major record groups means that cutting-edge musicians are driven to independent labels like mine, which have scarcer resources and lack the added profits from distribution or international sales. Indies have traditionally presented an alternative, both aesthetically and economically to the blockbuster-driven mindset of the majors. In the 1980s, several indie-rock labels such as Dischord and Touch and Go erected a payment system that gave artists 50 percent of the net profits.
This "partnership" may seem more artist-friendly but the net amount of money made by artists on those labels is not demonstrably greater than it would have been with the same level of marketing in a royalty-based system. It's just that the major labels rarely find themselves spending so little in support of one of their albums. More recently the redoubtable Ani DiFranco has chosen to control her own infrastructure and forgo bids from majors and indies alike. I'd posit that in exchange for maintaining total business control, DiFranco has probably sacrificed income. (And in return for the greater per-unit margin, she's had to pay a year-round staff and be her own bank.)
This decade's version of the indie-label-as-salvation mantra is, of course, the Internet-based music company. There has been much talk about the bloat of the majors, and of how much more efficient the Internet will be. This is true up to a point, although bear in mind that the big companies (when they make the move to digital) will benefit from the same efficiencies that Internet companies are relying on, and they'll have the added clout of their catalogs. Undoubtedly the math will change with the advent of Net distribution. But Internet startups claiming the change will be seen in the next year or two are selling snake oil. Companies that have reaped positive PR by offering "artist-friendly" contracts and "new business models" have yet to mint a single real-life success story. One hundred percent of nothing is still nothing. If these companies start adding value to an artist via marketing and promotion, those costs will add up and inevitably be passed along.
Looking beyond the royalty mcguffin, there are some legitimate changes brought about by technology that could be especially advantageous to our mid-level artist. These include:
Lowered recording costs. Remember the $115,000 recording budget? Home-studio systems like ProTools have dramatically reduced recording costs. This means that artists under contract can keep more of the money from an advance, and that unsigned artists can make a decent album much more cheaply which increases their likelihood of getting a deal (funding and marketing) and making money sooner. If an artist makes an album for $45,000 instead of $115,000, with all other assumptions in the earlier model staying the same, they would begin earning their $1.40 per unit royalty after 150,000 albums sold instead of 200,000.
Cutting out the middleman. The biggest piece of the $16.98 pie still goes to retailers. For many years to come, retail is going to be very important to most artists. Some cult artists may make their music available exclusively on the Internet, thus permitting a much higher margin for them and/or lower prices for the consumer.
Retiring the CD. Manufacturing and distribution costs are obviously going to decline as more and more music is delivered through the Internet. The savings from digital delivery can be divided among the artist, the label and possibly the consumer. (Online and offline concert ticket pricing has taught us that the price for music is determined not by the physical costs of delivery but by what consumers are willing to pay). In theory, in a pure digital marketplace, if an album costs $14, with half going to the artist, a royalty flow on the more cheaply produced album described above could commence at only 10,000 units sold, depending on the artist advance.
Before we celebrate the coming renaissance, recognize that it will take years before many of these costs are reduced, and that until labels figure out replacement revenue streams, they'll be loath to adapt to the new models.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that marketing costs, a major expense for labels, will decline. In a complex Internet environment, it will still take serious dollars to expose new music to potential fans, and top marketing and promotion staffs will never come cheap. Artists should be able to make a living at a lower sales level, but the vast majority of aspiring musicians, critical favorites, and local bar bands will still have a hard time supporting themselves and their families. The biggest obstacle to commercial fulfillment for all but the few genuine stars will not be the music business, but the wants pf the people: the cruelest, most fickle and most generous boss of all.
Danny Goldberg, president of Artemis Records and Sheridan Square Entertainment, has worked hands on with more popular musical talent than literally any other recorded music executive in the 1990s. He is also one of the very few who has worked with every major genre of popular music: rap, country, folk, classical, jazz, pop, rock, R&B and jazz.
This article first appeared online at Inside.com and is reprinted here with permission.
Managers By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition
Managers
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com)
A manager is the key component in any artist’s career! A manager is the person who helps the artist set goals and then puts the team in place to achieve those goals. The manager also sets up a system of checks and balances to be certain the team is on track to achieving those goals. He or she handles all of the artist’s business-- essentially becoming the face of business for that artist. And here’s the most important part: a manager can make or break an artist’s career!!
A good manager can enhance and help the career of an artist, a DJ, or a producer. But an ineffective manager can even more easily 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 inexperienced, not properly connected, and who possess no experience in management. I see this everyday. If we had better managers in urban music, there would be no need for Rap Coalition, and we’d have rappers with longevity like Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, and Madonna.
When artists call me and ask me to refer managers, I cringe. I can think of only a few people that I would personally hire if I wanted to be a successful artist in this business, and they are too busy right now to be effective for anyone other than the artists they already manage. How can I refer artists to someone that I’d never hire in a million years (I don’t), or how can I refer a few folks worthy of referrals, but whom I know are too busy to even find the time to return phone calls (again, I wouldn’t). So I rarely refer managers. This is a problem.
A manager is supposed to be the liaison between the artist and the record label. They are the person responsible for relaying the artists’ concerns and fears to the label (therefore a label employee is rarely a good choice as a manager if they work at YOUR label). They are also responsible for offering constructive ways to fix problems. On the flip side, they are also the ones responsible for getting the artist to do what he or she needs to do, often a difficult task. Good communication skills, relationships, experience, and being organized are key for the person entrusted with this life-changing position. An artist who hires a friend is an idiot. An artist who hires a relative to manage his or her career is an idiot. While they may be trustworthy (we hope) and hungry (ambitious), they are not experienced or connected enough most of the time to do an even basic job of managing a career.
If you look at the bulk of artists with failed careers or declining careers, you can often see they are managed by inexperienced managers or people who work for the record label (either openly or covertly). While the artist only has one career, the managers are able to move onto other clients or other jobs within the industry to make money, so the decision of management affects the artist far more than the manager.
A manager is also responsible for obtaining opportunities for the artist to make money outside of the record deal (endorsements, touring, acting, merchandising, etc). So few managers in urban music are good at this, therefore we now have a spate of companies setting up solely to do deals between urban artists and corporate America (myself included). If we had better and more skilled managers out here, these cottage industries would not be popping up all over to accomplish what an experienced manager should be able to do on their own (by the way, the manager usually still gets a percentage of that income even if someone else brings it to the table).
When To Choose A Manager
Choosing a manager should occur when there is something to manage. At the beginning of an artist’s career, the focus should be on building a buzz and hype for yourself. The more well-known you become, the easier it will be to attract the right people to your career. It’s simple business basics really…managers get paid 20% of a new artist’s income, or 10% to 15% of an established artist’s income. Managers are in the music business to make money. An artist becomes attractive to a manager when that manager can apply their connections, experience, and contacts easily, and to where 20% really becomes something of value. The hotter an artist’s buzz, the better manager they will attract. The more they have going on with their career, the better manager they will attract. Having a manager on board before you sign to a major label would be a good decision because having them involved in the bidding war and negotiation process will help you--a great manager adds tremendous value in a label’s eyes.
How To Choose A Manager
You have one career, and most rappers only get one shot. So unless you want to languish at a mediocre label selling 25,000 CDs and downloads a year, you better get this right the first time around. The key, in my opinion, would be to know who the top managers in the business are, and attract one of them, or someone who trained under one of them.
For some unknown reason, in urban music, we have people who sprout up out of the blue and announce “I am a manager.” They don’t train under an efficient manager to gain experience and connections. But they are often on the streets enough to know who the hot artists are, and they get on by latching onto that artist’s coat tails. The problem is that these hot artists need someone who can take their career to the next level, not act as an anchor around their neck to make a quick buck.
First of all, you want a manager who is professional and runs their business like a business. They need to excel in basic business skills such as returning phone calls, attending meetings, planning schedules and calendars, knowledge of the music industry and how it works, and they need to know who’s who in the industry and have some access to those people. Sadly, there are plenty of mis-managers who sit back and answer the phone (sometimes) and choose opportunities to bring to the artist from what is offered, and then there are effective managers who not only choose from the offers that come in everyday, but are also visionary enough to figure out what the artist wants to be doing, and goes and gets it for them.
For many artists, they plan to hire a manager for the newer level their career is at, and then they plan to hire an experienced manager once they become a star. The problem with this plan is that it often creates a power struggle within the camp for control of the artist’s career during the transition phase. Additionally, there are multiple fees to pay, plus having an inexperienced manager early in a career is not a smart way to build a career to attract a more serious manager. It’s best to manage yourself until you get to a point where you need a professional to take you to the next level. This is a BUSINESS! A power struggle also forces away many of the good people within the camp who could have been helpful in the artist’s career.
I, personally, think managing artists sucks. It’s a thankless babysitting job for the most part, and unless you happen to get to work with a Platinum superstar, there is not enough money involved in management for most folks to eat well. So many managers who could have been great, leave to start their own labels (where the REAL money is) or leave the music industry to get better paying jobs elsewhere. Some who work under the big management companies like Violator, The Firm, etc, leave to start their own management companies long before they have the proper connections and experience in place to do so, because they grow weary of working hard for little pay under others. They don’t realize the financial realities of the music business, and often jump into a worse situation.
My biggest concern, and the reason I am even writing this, is that management consists of shaping, developing, and controlling artist’s careers--their LIVES. If a manager fucks that up, they are fucking up another human being’s life. Most don’t look at that, they look at their own thirst for money. A manager, by contract, is supposed to have the artists’ best interests at heart. How many do you suppose can forego a benefit for themselves to benefit their client? Precious few.
I once did a deal for an incredible artist at a major label. I kept telling him he needed a good manager to help shape his career. Six months into his first release, he STILL didn’t have one; he just had friends around trying to act like a manager. He was afraid of choosing the “wrong” one (he had been burned years ago by a real scumbag) so he had chosen none. By his third release, he finally got a real manager, but by that time so much damage had been done to his career that his star was fading, not rising. Every time he put out a release, it sold less. It’s hard to resurrect a career…far easier to do right the first time from the beginning.
The artist should NEVER be the bad guy at the label, it alienates the label staff--but the manager can be the bad guy. The label may hate the manager, but if they love the artist they will still work just as hard for him or her. If they hate the artist, his or her career is over. Politics reign supreme at record labels, and the staff works projects that are slam dunks, or projects they like…regardless of who the priority is at the label. Also, if the artist has burned bridges in the industry (like with radio, club DJs, etc), not only will their careers suffer, but so will the careers of artists coming up under them. A good manager ensures the artist is never on the firing line, because the manager is always. And with some experience and relationships, the manager is not out there burning bridges. If something does go wrong, it’s fixed immediately and not left to fester til it’s time to work the next release and ask for more favors.
A good experienced manager knows what to expect and how to work records. They work in conjunction with the label not in opposition to it, and certainly not without input and suggestions to the label. If you have no experience and things are going wrong, how will you fix them? How will you even know when things are going wrong if you haven’t worked a project before?
So how does an artist choose a good manager in this day and age where there are so many snakes, and so many inept managers with promising business cards? The best suggestion I can make is to look at the careers of other artists you admire--whose careers you admire, not music, and seek out that person. Is that artist getting opportunities that are usually afforded only to superstars, but isn’t selling as many units to do so? Is the artist getting a lot of awareness outside of what the label does for him or her? Do they seem to have a stream of income to fall back on besides being beholden to the label. Research, research, and then more research.
Make certain that if you meet with a manager that they really did everything they say they have. Look for a manager who has great relationships with booking agents, entertainment attorneys, corporate America (for sponsorship of tours and endorsement opportunities), access to label presidents and A&R staff but who does not have a deal at any given label (unless you don’t mind being put through their deal), and even film agents if you want to go that direction with your career. Follow up, ask questions, get references… after all, you only have one career, and a bad manager can end it prematurely for you.
Things to watch out for:
-a manager with a loyalty to any one label
-a manager who collects your money (they should NEVER touch your money, a business manager or accountant does that job)
-a manager who works at a label, especially if it is your label, or a manager who owns a label and wants to manage you AND sign you to his label (this is called double dipping and is a breach of fiduciary duty).
-artists he or she has managed before but no longer does (ask the former artists why they left)
-managers who promise to book you shows (that is NOT their job)
-managers who ask for more than 15% or 20% (max) of your entertainment income
-managers who want to sign you to 7+ year deals (watch out for those contract terms called “options” that extend the life of the contract automatically)
-a manager who wants to take or buy your publishing from you
For The Aspiring Managers Reading This
If you want to become a manager, or be a better manager, the best thing you can do is work under a fully experienced manager to learn as much as you can. This will also give you access to their connections and relationships so you can begin to cultivate your own. This is a “who you know” business. You probably won’t make much money at first, but the long term benefits are outstanding. On average, managers get between 15% and 20% of the artist’s entertainment income. How amazing would it be to sit back in ten years and contemplate not only the millions of dollars you made in the music industry, but also the careers you built and the lives you’ve impacted along the way. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?
For My Southern Playas
Recently, I have been discussing with some of the power players in the industry why southern artists get little regard in NY inside of the music industry. Southern music sells very well and many of our biggest stars are from the south. Yet they don’t get much face time on BET, rarely get magazine covers by themselves, hardly ever get the bigger endorsement deals, etc. So I starting asking “why?” and people were happy to share the answers with me.
What I thought was a dislike for southern music, is really a dislike for the business practices. I heard story after story of bad experiences in trying to deal with management or teams for Gucci Mane, OJ, Young Jeezy, Plies, Shawty Lo, Soulja Boy, UGK, Young Buck, Yo Gotti, Rick Ross, etc. The biggest complaint was one of access…either no one knew whom to call or who was in charge. I heard the frustration of being sent from person to person within a camp just to set up a photo shoot for a major publication or not having phone calls or emails returned. Others complained of artists having inept teams who didn’t understand how the industry worked or basic understandings of who was who in the music business. Many of the teams had outrageous demands for their artists, or the artists just never showed up. Basically, all of the problems were ones that would have been eliminated by having an experienced team.
Many of the people I spoke with said they called some of the bigger DJs in the area where the artist was based to find out who represented the artist, and the DJs bad mouthed the artists telling of their own bad experiences which made the folks no longer want to work with the artists. People in this industry definitely talk. You know it’s a serious problem when I call a video booker and still hear negative stories about a group that hasn’t appeared on TV in years, or stories about an old management team from 5 years ago for a platinum rapper. You only get one chance to make a good impression, and people work with people they like and who are easy to work with. Don’t believe me? How many southern artists have been on the cover of XXL or Vibe (RIP), featured in clothing ads, or featured on BET in the past few years that the south has been running shit? It seems out of proportion to me.
So, until we in the south get our shit together on the business tip, we can expect for the better opportunities to go to the artists with proper representation, good teams in place, signed to respected record labels, and less buzz and sales. Fortunately, many of the artists whose names were shared with me regarding difficulty with their management teams, have changed management. This seems to be a blessing for all involved. But what happens when those old teams start to manage new artists? Can they undo the damage to their reputations, and have they learned enough to now be effective? We can only hope. Especially since these artists and teams are some of my favorite artists and people!!
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com)
A manager is the key component in any artist’s career! A manager is the person who helps the artist set goals and then puts the team in place to achieve those goals. The manager also sets up a system of checks and balances to be certain the team is on track to achieving those goals. He or she handles all of the artist’s business-- essentially becoming the face of business for that artist. And here’s the most important part: a manager can make or break an artist’s career!!
A good manager can enhance and help the career of an artist, a DJ, or a producer. But an ineffective manager can even more easily 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 inexperienced, not properly connected, and who possess no experience in management. I see this everyday. If we had better managers in urban music, there would be no need for Rap Coalition, and we’d have rappers with longevity like Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, and Madonna.
When artists call me and ask me to refer managers, I cringe. I can think of only a few people that I would personally hire if I wanted to be a successful artist in this business, and they are too busy right now to be effective for anyone other than the artists they already manage. How can I refer artists to someone that I’d never hire in a million years (I don’t), or how can I refer a few folks worthy of referrals, but whom I know are too busy to even find the time to return phone calls (again, I wouldn’t). So I rarely refer managers. This is a problem.
A manager is supposed to be the liaison between the artist and the record label. They are the person responsible for relaying the artists’ concerns and fears to the label (therefore a label employee is rarely a good choice as a manager if they work at YOUR label). They are also responsible for offering constructive ways to fix problems. On the flip side, they are also the ones responsible for getting the artist to do what he or she needs to do, often a difficult task. Good communication skills, relationships, experience, and being organized are key for the person entrusted with this life-changing position. An artist who hires a friend is an idiot. An artist who hires a relative to manage his or her career is an idiot. While they may be trustworthy (we hope) and hungry (ambitious), they are not experienced or connected enough most of the time to do an even basic job of managing a career.
If you look at the bulk of artists with failed careers or declining careers, you can often see they are managed by inexperienced managers or people who work for the record label (either openly or covertly). While the artist only has one career, the managers are able to move onto other clients or other jobs within the industry to make money, so the decision of management affects the artist far more than the manager.
A manager is also responsible for obtaining opportunities for the artist to make money outside of the record deal (endorsements, touring, acting, merchandising, etc). So few managers in urban music are good at this, therefore we now have a spate of companies setting up solely to do deals between urban artists and corporate America (myself included). If we had better and more skilled managers out here, these cottage industries would not be popping up all over to accomplish what an experienced manager should be able to do on their own (by the way, the manager usually still gets a percentage of that income even if someone else brings it to the table).
When To Choose A Manager
Choosing a manager should occur when there is something to manage. At the beginning of an artist’s career, the focus should be on building a buzz and hype for yourself. The more well-known you become, the easier it will be to attract the right people to your career. It’s simple business basics really…managers get paid 20% of a new artist’s income, or 10% to 15% of an established artist’s income. Managers are in the music business to make money. An artist becomes attractive to a manager when that manager can apply their connections, experience, and contacts easily, and to where 20% really becomes something of value. The hotter an artist’s buzz, the better manager they will attract. The more they have going on with their career, the better manager they will attract. Having a manager on board before you sign to a major label would be a good decision because having them involved in the bidding war and negotiation process will help you--a great manager adds tremendous value in a label’s eyes.
How To Choose A Manager
You have one career, and most rappers only get one shot. So unless you want to languish at a mediocre label selling 25,000 CDs and downloads a year, you better get this right the first time around. The key, in my opinion, would be to know who the top managers in the business are, and attract one of them, or someone who trained under one of them.
For some unknown reason, in urban music, we have people who sprout up out of the blue and announce “I am a manager.” They don’t train under an efficient manager to gain experience and connections. But they are often on the streets enough to know who the hot artists are, and they get on by latching onto that artist’s coat tails. The problem is that these hot artists need someone who can take their career to the next level, not act as an anchor around their neck to make a quick buck.
First of all, you want a manager who is professional and runs their business like a business. They need to excel in basic business skills such as returning phone calls, attending meetings, planning schedules and calendars, knowledge of the music industry and how it works, and they need to know who’s who in the industry and have some access to those people. Sadly, there are plenty of mis-managers who sit back and answer the phone (sometimes) and choose opportunities to bring to the artist from what is offered, and then there are effective managers who not only choose from the offers that come in everyday, but are also visionary enough to figure out what the artist wants to be doing, and goes and gets it for them.
For many artists, they plan to hire a manager for the newer level their career is at, and then they plan to hire an experienced manager once they become a star. The problem with this plan is that it often creates a power struggle within the camp for control of the artist’s career during the transition phase. Additionally, there are multiple fees to pay, plus having an inexperienced manager early in a career is not a smart way to build a career to attract a more serious manager. It’s best to manage yourself until you get to a point where you need a professional to take you to the next level. This is a BUSINESS! A power struggle also forces away many of the good people within the camp who could have been helpful in the artist’s career.
I, personally, think managing artists sucks. It’s a thankless babysitting job for the most part, and unless you happen to get to work with a Platinum superstar, there is not enough money involved in management for most folks to eat well. So many managers who could have been great, leave to start their own labels (where the REAL money is) or leave the music industry to get better paying jobs elsewhere. Some who work under the big management companies like Violator, The Firm, etc, leave to start their own management companies long before they have the proper connections and experience in place to do so, because they grow weary of working hard for little pay under others. They don’t realize the financial realities of the music business, and often jump into a worse situation.
My biggest concern, and the reason I am even writing this, is that management consists of shaping, developing, and controlling artist’s careers--their LIVES. If a manager fucks that up, they are fucking up another human being’s life. Most don’t look at that, they look at their own thirst for money. A manager, by contract, is supposed to have the artists’ best interests at heart. How many do you suppose can forego a benefit for themselves to benefit their client? Precious few.
I once did a deal for an incredible artist at a major label. I kept telling him he needed a good manager to help shape his career. Six months into his first release, he STILL didn’t have one; he just had friends around trying to act like a manager. He was afraid of choosing the “wrong” one (he had been burned years ago by a real scumbag) so he had chosen none. By his third release, he finally got a real manager, but by that time so much damage had been done to his career that his star was fading, not rising. Every time he put out a release, it sold less. It’s hard to resurrect a career…far easier to do right the first time from the beginning.
The artist should NEVER be the bad guy at the label, it alienates the label staff--but the manager can be the bad guy. The label may hate the manager, but if they love the artist they will still work just as hard for him or her. If they hate the artist, his or her career is over. Politics reign supreme at record labels, and the staff works projects that are slam dunks, or projects they like…regardless of who the priority is at the label. Also, if the artist has burned bridges in the industry (like with radio, club DJs, etc), not only will their careers suffer, but so will the careers of artists coming up under them. A good manager ensures the artist is never on the firing line, because the manager is always. And with some experience and relationships, the manager is not out there burning bridges. If something does go wrong, it’s fixed immediately and not left to fester til it’s time to work the next release and ask for more favors.
A good experienced manager knows what to expect and how to work records. They work in conjunction with the label not in opposition to it, and certainly not without input and suggestions to the label. If you have no experience and things are going wrong, how will you fix them? How will you even know when things are going wrong if you haven’t worked a project before?
So how does an artist choose a good manager in this day and age where there are so many snakes, and so many inept managers with promising business cards? The best suggestion I can make is to look at the careers of other artists you admire--whose careers you admire, not music, and seek out that person. Is that artist getting opportunities that are usually afforded only to superstars, but isn’t selling as many units to do so? Is the artist getting a lot of awareness outside of what the label does for him or her? Do they seem to have a stream of income to fall back on besides being beholden to the label. Research, research, and then more research.
Make certain that if you meet with a manager that they really did everything they say they have. Look for a manager who has great relationships with booking agents, entertainment attorneys, corporate America (for sponsorship of tours and endorsement opportunities), access to label presidents and A&R staff but who does not have a deal at any given label (unless you don’t mind being put through their deal), and even film agents if you want to go that direction with your career. Follow up, ask questions, get references… after all, you only have one career, and a bad manager can end it prematurely for you.
Things to watch out for:
-a manager with a loyalty to any one label
-a manager who collects your money (they should NEVER touch your money, a business manager or accountant does that job)
-a manager who works at a label, especially if it is your label, or a manager who owns a label and wants to manage you AND sign you to his label (this is called double dipping and is a breach of fiduciary duty).
-artists he or she has managed before but no longer does (ask the former artists why they left)
-managers who promise to book you shows (that is NOT their job)
-managers who ask for more than 15% or 20% (max) of your entertainment income
-managers who want to sign you to 7+ year deals (watch out for those contract terms called “options” that extend the life of the contract automatically)
-a manager who wants to take or buy your publishing from you
For The Aspiring Managers Reading This
If you want to become a manager, or be a better manager, the best thing you can do is work under a fully experienced manager to learn as much as you can. This will also give you access to their connections and relationships so you can begin to cultivate your own. This is a “who you know” business. You probably won’t make much money at first, but the long term benefits are outstanding. On average, managers get between 15% and 20% of the artist’s entertainment income. How amazing would it be to sit back in ten years and contemplate not only the millions of dollars you made in the music industry, but also the careers you built and the lives you’ve impacted along the way. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?
For My Southern Playas
Recently, I have been discussing with some of the power players in the industry why southern artists get little regard in NY inside of the music industry. Southern music sells very well and many of our biggest stars are from the south. Yet they don’t get much face time on BET, rarely get magazine covers by themselves, hardly ever get the bigger endorsement deals, etc. So I starting asking “why?” and people were happy to share the answers with me.
What I thought was a dislike for southern music, is really a dislike for the business practices. I heard story after story of bad experiences in trying to deal with management or teams for Gucci Mane, OJ, Young Jeezy, Plies, Shawty Lo, Soulja Boy, UGK, Young Buck, Yo Gotti, Rick Ross, etc. The biggest complaint was one of access…either no one knew whom to call or who was in charge. I heard the frustration of being sent from person to person within a camp just to set up a photo shoot for a major publication or not having phone calls or emails returned. Others complained of artists having inept teams who didn’t understand how the industry worked or basic understandings of who was who in the music business. Many of the teams had outrageous demands for their artists, or the artists just never showed up. Basically, all of the problems were ones that would have been eliminated by having an experienced team.
Many of the people I spoke with said they called some of the bigger DJs in the area where the artist was based to find out who represented the artist, and the DJs bad mouthed the artists telling of their own bad experiences which made the folks no longer want to work with the artists. People in this industry definitely talk. You know it’s a serious problem when I call a video booker and still hear negative stories about a group that hasn’t appeared on TV in years, or stories about an old management team from 5 years ago for a platinum rapper. You only get one chance to make a good impression, and people work with people they like and who are easy to work with. Don’t believe me? How many southern artists have been on the cover of XXL or Vibe (RIP), featured in clothing ads, or featured on BET in the past few years that the south has been running shit? It seems out of proportion to me.
So, until we in the south get our shit together on the business tip, we can expect for the better opportunities to go to the artists with proper representation, good teams in place, signed to respected record labels, and less buzz and sales. Fortunately, many of the artists whose names were shared with me regarding difficulty with their management teams, have changed management. This seems to be a blessing for all involved. But what happens when those old teams start to manage new artists? Can they undo the damage to their reputations, and have they learned enough to now be effective? We can only hope. Especially since these artists and teams are some of my favorite artists and people!!
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