Guerilla Marketing: My Daily Grind Part 2

Ahhhhh, ladies and gentlemen it's another week to progress in this steady declining genre of music called "Hip-Hop." Nah, let me stop, so I can kick off this new Guerilla Marketing blog this week. I started my last blog off by saying, “on the independent circuit there are no A&R’s, publicists, promoters, bookies, etc.; guerrilla marketing is the constant. Inn less you stumbled upon a large sum of money or an investor believes in you, any and all resources will have to be bought out of your own pocket.” Notice how I highlighted the “investor believes in you” part. Well, the same day Yo Raps dropped my first blog I met with an old buddy of mine named Kalid Attia, who is want I call a serious entrepreneur. Before I get to my point I want to give a little background on my relationship with Kalid. We both played high school ball in Virginia and ended up playing college ball at Salisbury University on the eastern shore of Maryland. We even had lockers right next to each other in college, so it was ironic that in late 2007 I spotted Kalid at a festival that had well over 5,000 people there. I had struck it up as another time in my life where God was putting someone back in my life for a specific reason. Fast forward or back track to last Wednesday and my thoughts were finally confirmed by a meeting we had. Over the past few months Kalid had become a heavy supporter of my music and he was heavy into expanding and investing money, so I thought I would ask for his advice on getting an investor. I had no intentions or thoughts of Kalid stepping up to the plate because he was a friend of mine, but that’s exactly what he did. God blessed me and Kalid basically is my investor now, but instead I would say we are business partners. It’s weird because its almost like I willed it to happen after telling my cousin B.K. and contact that I needed at least $500 to $1000 a month to really get the continued supplies I need to operate efficiently.  I just wanted to share this little bit with everyone because I talked about it in my last blog and I wanted to touch more on the aspect of an unsigned artist having to be a business man first and an artist second. Next, I am gonna touch on the indie grind of setting up your performing rights society information. 

Most unsigned artists, and I was one of them, don’t think about simple things like joining a performing rights society and copyrighting their music because they are too busy making the music. Well, back in 2003, I took a year off from music and basically studied the industry. I never had a mentor to tell me the business side of things, so I researched it myself. I would encourage all artists to head over to ASCAP (ascap.com) or BMI (bmi.com) and register with the performing rights society that fits you the best. You need certain qualifications to join, but that information is provided on the sites. ASCAP and BMI pay you for your radio spins on commercial radio and you can register all your tracks online. If you’re an artist you will want to get your writing duties and a Publishing company through either society so you bring more power to yourself in any label negotiation. Plus, you can use your Publishing Company as a means of writing off supplies and things come tax time. Next I would head over to Sound Exchange (soundexchange.com) and join that organization because they are the one’s that pay you for your satellite/Music Choice/Internet radio spins. Follow that up by visiting the AARC (aarcroyalties.com) so they can track and compensate you for the hometaping and rental of your sound recordings. Now, there are only three more things to do; sign up for the BDS (bdsonline) and Mediabase (mediabase.com) so any radio spins you have are tracked on a regular basis. Finally, I would head over to the Copyright Office (copyright.gov) and get your music copyright, so no sharks in this copycat industry steal your ideas and sound like Mr. Chris Webber did to me; nice try. Finally, once you have done all of that I would hit up Soundscan (soundscan.com), so they can track your record sales once your product hits stores. Okay…I hope this information was helpful and I know some cats know all of this, but I also know there are a lot of unsigned artists who don’t. With that said, it’s been a pleasure to drop some more knowledge everyone can benefit from and I will be back next week with some more Indie Grinding tips.  

Wordsmith
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Posted by Wordsmith Jul 23, 2008 Last Updated: Mar 24, 2009