If you're making top 10 beats, get a lawyer first!

[seckle]

Word of caution for those selling beats to high profile artists on major labels. get a fucking lawyer and get paid first, or else this is how they do you!!

You make the beat in june 2010



6 months later It goes straight to fm radio playlist, and gets performed by the artist on national tv, all over the radio...



And by feb 2011, they havent given you royalties

[fractal]

thank god for getting paper elsewhere, that's tuff!

[Sharmaji]

I mean... this is nothing new. Whole industries (ie, publishing administration companies) exist to track down the $ and make sure you get paid.

End of the day, the biz is thuggish and always has been. You want your $? come and get it, kid. It took me 5 years to get paid on some bullshit session as the artist had been through 2 labels at that point, the original one who booked me and had my paperwork had been dissolved, and the new one didn't think it was their problem to pay the musicians from the sessions. Eventually the artists' management paid me outright-- proof that there is still some honor here, as they went ahead and made the situation right, regardless of who was in charge.

I've got another artist who's in a similar situation, yet who fired her management-- i highly doubt i'll actually be getting paid for the sessions i did a few years ago, legit, on the books through AFM. This shit happens, and it sucks, and if you do it by the books-- it's built into the mechanism that you, not the label, will get fucked.

I gotta say tho,at the level that bangladesh is at, i'm surprised there wasn't someone like Kobalt or another large admin company going in, guns blazing,and helping him get that $.

[Shum]

Stories like this are why I hate dealing with things on the business side of the music biz. Like vultures in the desert most of the time.

[seckle]

waiting 14 months for a royalty check on a #1 rap single is FUCKING CRAZY!!!! this is why journalists aren't calling it a music "industry" anymore. its barely a "business". seems like the only business being done in the music industry is lawsuits.

[collige]

I gotta say tho,at the level that bangladesh is at, i'm surprised there wasn't someone like Kobalt or another large admin company going in, guns blazing,and helping him get that $.

This, you'd think that Cash Money would be nicer to the man who produced A Milli, considering how much of a hit that was.

[jsills]

im all for selling out. im about to go write me some mega hits. bangladesh maked it look easy.




why the hell do you think BG, Juvenille, fucking Manny Fresh all left cash money? they were getting fucked over and went independant to make more money off their own brand. bangladesh likes being a brand name corporate producer. good on him.

i swear i dont know why i like his beats but i do. motherfucker.

[cyrusfx]

Whatever. I actually feel more sorry for the people who wasted their money purchasing this track. It sounds like a pile of anus.

So when's Harry Belafonte getting _his_ royalty check?

Cry me a river, "Bangladesh."



Unless you're a pretty face with corporate backing, don't expect to earn much more than minimum wage in the music industry. And if you can't hang, nobody will care if you leave because you're being replaced by 100 new artists who will work for free, today.

[jungletime21]

50 cent said it best -

"these industry ****** aint friends."

[adamc]

cash money have tried to run their outfit like gangsters since they started

i know stories of them calling up publishers (incidentally, the publishers I am signed to) and threatening them with violence if they don't hand over publishing rights to certain artists

bottom line, sign with a decent publishing company who actually care about their artists, not just the paper they can collect

[Sexual_Chocolate]

This is nothing new.

Record companies with-holding money from there artists.

in all honesty, if your an artist/producer who wants to make money then be prepared to be raped from all angles.

Watching those videos, i say bangladesh's biggest problem is his ignorance. i mean, your working for a guy whos in and out of jail every few weeks... wtf do you expect? a rolls royce and a mansion? get real.... There pockets get filled first, then they worry about the lower ranks

[Intended Malice]

The fact that small independent labels came to be as strong as they are is partly why I actually got into dubtsep, and as involved as I have become--I don't typically do forums, and I'm unlikely to admit it if asked. I can still remember watching that video of Mala in 2007 saying that 'No one is going to do it for you, you have to do it for yourself,' and nodding along and smiling as I was doing something similar in my own life. That is perhaps the most insightful thing I have ever heard anyone say about how to approach the business side of producing music.

I think its having seen the once small labels like DMZ, Medi, Tectonic, Chestplate, Deleted Scenes, Swamp81, Osiris and Wheel and Deal over the years establish themselves as the actual labels talent want to release on is inspiring and indicative that it is possible if you remove the pointless bureaucracy/gatekeepers/starfuckers/PR out of the equation. Provided what you want to do is release music and be heard, the rest is for the Market to decide. I wish Get Darker the same.

I think if you're foolish/eager/naive enough to let people use your material without any mutually consented exchange (whatever that may be) prior to them doing so then you deserve what inevitably always happens. I'm also not a believer of intellectual property rights, but I do buy all of my music and try to go see them at shows because I'm a fan of it or the producer to motivate them to make more. I don't do it to satisfy their chart number position or platinum record numbers or whatever 'pro labels' seem to concern themselves with. I simply do not accept that flawed premise. Your product should stand on its own merits in the Market, and if cannot succeed in spite of those factors it doesn't belong there. Then again, I haven't really listened to mainstream music since the late 90's.

[jungletime21]

******!

[wooda916]

I can only listen to 'A Millie' with out lil wayne "rapping" over it. The beat is what makes the tune good, so the fact he didnt get paid for so long is a disgrace, but im not shocked or surprised.

I still to this day cannot understand the hype over lil wayne. He is the most talentless waste ive ever had the displeasure to listen to.

[jsills]

I can only listen to 'A Millie' with out lil wayne "rapping" over it. The beat is what makes the tune good, so the fact he didnt get paid for so long is a disgrace, but im not shocked or surprised.

I still to this day cannot understand the hype over lil wayne. He is the most talentless waste ive ever had the displeasure to listen to.

i cant wait to sell out and have haters. cant fucking wait.

[tacospheros]

first, yah id be pissed too if i was getting shafted like that too



but i could also make that beat in ten minutes in fruity loops . fuck mainstream hiphop

[cyrusfx]

I still to this day cannot understand the hype over lil wayne. He is the most talentless waste ive ever had the displeasure to listen to.

Agreed. Its the whole image thing that keeps him afloat. A bunch of suburban white kids all want to feel like they're gangsters so they go out and buy his album with his hairstyles and crazy antics. Now they can be a part of that, and everyone's a winner, and we all lived happily ever after.

[fractal]

tbf cash money changed the game in terms of beats. a lot of dragg/witch house and other new music have similar drums to early manny fresh beats imho. i love the militant snare and rim shots


but then again, i'm not an 18 year old convinced that all pop is evil so...

[Gourmet]

Cash rules everything around me - C.R.E.A.M

Sucks for this guy!
Major rip off
Lil wayne is a boss tho, don't enjoy all his tunes but i heard he owns a shipping company
Hes got it sussed.

[SK0Hdubstep]

I gotta say tho,at the level that bangladesh is at, i'm surprised there wasn't someone like Kobalt or another large admin company going in, guns blazing,and helping him get that $.

This, you'd think that Cash Money would be nicer to the man who produced A Milli, considering how much of a hit that was.

He's still waiting on royalties for a milli aswell i believe. Lil Wayne straight jacks Bangladesh's shit