Behind The Music

So the soap opera that is my life running this record label (with my cousin) continues…the world keeps spinning and so do these artists heads….With respect to the artist that I deal with, I will refrain from using their real names when venting with hopes of not hurting their fragile little egos or causing unneeded drama. Let me properly frame the situation….hmmm….I went out and found this artist and started working with him, for the intents of this blog we are going to call him Dr. Doolittle. Because that’s what most of these artist do (little), and expect us as the label to do everything for them short of wiping their ass. And when we decide to make a business decision they wanna start a fuss and start trying to act like they are the ones losing sleep, breaking their backs for the label and their demands need to be met. When obviously it’s the other way around. I explained to Dr. Doolittle before we even started doing music , exactly what type of business we are running and what we expect from him as an artist and what he can expect from us as the record label. With all that said, he claimed he understand and we start working together . Dr. Doolittle whom we are writing, producing and recording all of his music has finished a whopping 2 songs in the first 2 months of the 90 day trail period that we have him under before we decide to sign him. And we’re thinking that everything is going fine, we would obviously like to have finished more music finished but we trying to allow the artist to get into a rhythm and not rush him. So one session the artists, Dr. Doolittle (22) says that one of the songs we gave him to sing is too mature because it mentions sex. He said that he didn’t want to sing the song because it may alienate him from the younger audience. And we are like What?? Its plenty of artists with young audiences that mention sex….Chris Brown (18) “Take You Down”, Pretty Ricky got a whole song about Phone Sex, Ciara in her song “Promise” said she wanna ride it….So that’s completely inaccurate and just a showing of the artist narrow mindedness and lack of knowledge on how the business really works. But we don’t wanna be jerks or assholes, so we like O.K. kid we'll work with you, and we agreed that we can tone the shit down. Even though we knew the artist was wrong. But we came to an amicable agreement anyway or at least we thought we did.

Next thing we know the artist doesn’t show up to his next studio session, stops answering the phone and stops returning our emails. So we're sitting here confused like "what is going on?", and then his manager calls us and wants to talk about the artists creative control. Creative Control???? 2 songs in 2 months, 0 money earned, Hours of unpaid studio time racked up, No records sold, the artist is in the Red (in debt) and Dr. Doolittle is demanding creative control?? We're not unreasonable men, but we are not going to grant creative control to unproven artists who don’t even have their facts straight. So the manager’s argument for why Dr. Doolittle should have creative control is because that’s just the way he is.…..WTF? That’s it…that’s all you got, nigga please….this Is a business, I don’t give a fuck about that shit. I have to do plenty of shit in this business that I may not want to do and I wont put the burden on the artist, I'll suck It up and keep the ship moving forward because that’s what it takes to be successful. Cant Stop, Wont Stop ( I hate to quote a puffy song but its true).

A MUST FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THIS (800 MG's)

Then the manager starts griping about how the artist doesn’t want to drive home late at night after the studio sessions, so can we move the studio sessions to an earlier time…..FUCK NO….Niggaz got jobs, if our jobs let us off @ 9 then the studio session is at 9:30 and that’s out of our control. But who cares about staying late in the studio, If you’re really trying to make it in this industry then you will stay late, sleep in the damn studio if that’s what it takes to get a major label deal. There are hundreds of thousands of artists and new ones poppin’ up everyday that are all competing for the same plate of food. This is an ultra competitive industry! You have to be willing to work harder than the next man or you will be passed up…I guarantee.

Hard work beats talent, when talent don’t work hard!

Cut the shit. When this is something you truly love, then its not work. I love to do this shit, so staying up late nights, over night, in the studio 2 days in a row non-stop, its nothing to me. Difficult takes a day, Impossible takes a week, I can do this is my sleep. Because I'm focused, determined and humble enough to work for free now, so that in the future I can get paid to do this. You wanna know about humility and hard work read Russell Simmons book “Do You: 12 Laws Of Success”. It’s a great read and its very inspirational. A must read for anyone thinking of getting into the music industry on any level.

Back to the story so the manager says he is going to discuss the things we talked about with Dr. Doolittle and he’s going to call us back. Its been a week and we haven’t heard shit, no returned phone calls, no returned email. Nothing. Honestly, I still don’t have a problem with the artist, if he wants to come back and work hard with this music and understand his role he is welcome. But obviously since he hasn’t contacted us then that must not be what he wants to do. Looks like another 2 months wasted and the search for the next American Idol continues……