First and foremost, if and when you get signed to a record deal make sure you didn't give up your soul. Too many people fail to realize that these guys (music business people) don't give a flying fuck whether you can battle emcees, or put two metaphors in the same line. Whether or not you will make them money is the true question. Jeru of GangStarr states in the wrath of the math he came to the table and he was greeted by "snakes", nuff said.
Second, this just became your freaking 9 to 5 get it, this is your job now, you have to make it work if you don't recoup you have to pay them back. Yes that means O.C. still owes some money, & Jeru probably can't make the phone bill this month and the list goes on. Are you sure you want in on this type of loan sharking.
Third and this is just as important as the first two, there a billion people better than you when you get signed, so leave your egos at the door. You are nobody and can probably be replaced within the minute.
Fourth get it right! Your real intent for wanting to rap is to make money and be a big willie. All that shit about keeping it real is just a farce some gangster rappers created to give a reason for using all that violence & cursing in their songs, nuff said. If you really wanna keep it real, rap about real life cause you damn well know you can't walk on the sun and your defiantly not swimming in women like a life guard. You cannot watch BET and music videos all day and not have a somewhat distorted view of what the music biz is really like when you come into this industry.
Fifth doing a song with Puff Daddy is not gonna help you sell records. Politics in the industry makes success a little more complicated than that. Puff daddy sells records because he knows how to market things. Let me break it down more, it takes managers who are on your side fighting the labels for you; it takes dope music which reaches larger markets than your mom dukes; it takes an image people must relate to you or wanna give you hot sex on a platter; it takes some kind of gimmick. Think for a second.....what the hell makes you any different from the other billion rappers out there? It also takes, and this is probably the hardest thing to obtain, intelligence. Yes I said you have to be smart, dropping out of school will get you a chance to emcee while you pick up trash in bathroom at Denny's.
Six how bad do you really want this stuff cause everything changes, everybody changes, and you change, can you stand the rain?
Snoopy.
supa_kev@hotmail.com
Return
to Editorial Page
