Stories From the Music Industry Trenches: “Small World”

Five years ago, I was in negotiations for a 10 song production deal with an indie label. At the time, I had not sold a beat for more than 0 and hadn’t worked with any known artists. Needless to say, this deal was going to bring in a lot more money than that.  After working out the basic terms, I was eager to sign the dotted line.  Even though I got a lawyer to check out the paperwork when it came, I was so impatient, I decided to get some free legal advice online first. I did a search for “Entertainment Lawyers” and anonymously instant messaged a random entertainment lawyer to see what he thought about the deal.

I talked to this guy about the deal for a bit then just started to BS with him.  Turns out he was in NY. He was also working as a consultant on an MC’s project. Out of all the MC’s in the world this guy could have been working with…, it was an MC who was from the same camp I was about to sign the song deal with. He asked me to come through to the studio a few days later.  I came with some tracks and he chose two, which ended up being my first big check (Which was cut before we finally straightened out the song deal).

Lesson Learned: It’s a small world, especially in the music industry. Treat it as such.

Applications: This is an extreme case, but this exemplifies the value of networking. If a producer can randomly contact an entertainment lawyer online and turn that into good money, there is no reason for any producer to waste any chances he may have to network. Also don’t forget to treat everyone you may come across networking with respect. Assistants and interns are future executives and as a rule, respecting people can only help things…

You can also look at this as a cautionary tale. Because if you do ever decide to badmouth someone (Which is pointless 99.9% of the time), you never know who knows who and how it can come back to bite you.

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Jim Bond is the man behind The Be A Better Producer Blog. He has been developing himself as a music producer for almost 10 years (And has been on the grind for 7). Early on in his career, Jim earned a reputation as having a serious grind within the music industry, using a combination of out of the box thinking and pure will (& good music) to get his foot in the industry door. With no management, Jim has managed to work with a range of artists such as Jim Jones, Lloyd Banks, Ghostface Killah, M.O.P., Ras Kass, Max B, Royce Da 5′9″, Serius Jones and many more. The Be A Better Producer blog is the #1 spot on the net to learn about Beat Making & Hip Hop Samples and also to purchase top quality Drum Sound!


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