Today’s music industry is a wide-open, insanely twisted version of what we all used to know. And I LOVE it! With artists coming up and working on their own material to fans in ways never dreamed, i.e. youtube.com, myspace.com, and the whirl-wind plethora of ring tone sites, combined with itunes and Napster, and retaining ownership of their own work, including masters and publishing, it is undeniable that RIGHT NOW is the time be an independent artist! This is especially true for the Hip Hop/Rap market place.
Look at artists like Souljah Boy. A 16 year-old kid, that took his self-produced song, created a dance for it, uploaded some videos to Youtube and Myspace, started promoting, and boom… over 3 million views, 1 million ring tone sales, and landed a major label deal that includes 80% ownership of his masters and publishing. This is un-heard of! Labels are NOT use to letting go of those rights, and thus those royalties, to artists, but because of the posturing that this artist had by doing these things independently, he was able to get the "dream deal" that he wanted. He is not the only artist having success that way! You can search Myspace and Youtube and find plenty of artists working there material this way, and although they might not be landing major label deals, they are making money… not necessarily small money either… doing what they love… MUSIC.
One key independent artists being able to utilize these mediums to be successful is the fact that they are free to use. Artists with little to no budget have avenues to promote there work without much if any cost, and do so effectively. There is one catch for a lot of these artists however. What if they are not producers? Soulja Boy learned how to make beats for his work and therefore didn’t have to buy beats to write and record over. Why is this important? Quality beats and production is EXPENSIVE. Top producers can bring price tags of 50k and up. High level independent producers can push beats for 1, 3, 5k and more. And even up-and-coming producers have price tags from 100 to 1k per beat for exclusive production and licensing. So how do these rappers and singers with little or no budgets get beats and production for record to so that they to can start using these new online methods of promotion? How can these guys be successful in this, or any market, if they don’t have the backbone for there projects… the music? Well, and new phenomenon is sweeping the internet in 2008 in the online beat selling world.
The non-exclusive, also know as the beat-leasing, market has caught on, and given the literally 500,000+ up-and-coming rapper, singers, and artists an affordable way to get quality production for there projects.
There are tons of websites popping up geared to this market, but I am going to talk about one… www.AlpyneProductions.com is becoming the premier place to for these artists to get beats in todays market. Alpyne is a 9 year veteran of the production game, including topping the mp3.com charts in 2000 and 2001 (yes, these charts included Eminem, Jay Z, Ludachris and the rest of the major music world), a healthy term on soundclick.com after mp3.com shut down, many, many endeavors offline with independent and major label artists, being in rocbattle.com’s top 10 on more than one occasion, amassing over 1.5 million plays on Myspace, and now launching AlpyneProductions.com. His music is original and creative, and definitely has a signature sound, but also has that "feel" of something
you want to hear in the mainstream. And aside from the quality of music, his site is easy to navigate, all transactions are handled through Paypal, so you know you’re covered in the event something was to go wrong, and he even has a Free Beats section. All you have to do is become a member of the site, which is free, and you get access to Free Beats. Oh… and how about this for the kicker… this guys beats are of the same quality as any top producer in the game (i.e. Dre, Scott Storch, Timbaland, etc.) but the non-exclusive beat leases on his page are only $13
each!!!!!!! That’s half of almost every other producer (whether or not the music is of this quality) in the lease market!
His tagline is “Industry Level Beats At Street Level Prices” and have to say that is 100% the best way to describe it!
I’ve said all of that to say this… all of the major label labels are screaming about the music market dying and complaining about sagging record sales for a reason, but not the reason that they want you to believe. Record sales are sagging for major labels because independent artists are coming up and taking a huge chunk of the market. That’s it… no grand reasoning or dramatic twist to it… we as independent artists are taking the industry and making it ours, a little a time, and as you can see, we are making things happen. Whether or not you use www.AlpyneProductions.com or some other producer, all of you independent artists out there still struggling to come up, get you some QUALITY material, dive into this online phenomenon of a market place, dig in and grind until you get where you want to go. It may not be QUITE that simple, but trust me, it’s NOT as hard as you think it is either. Lets take advantage of the times, the tools we have, and GET THIS MONEY!
Post a Comment