Securing the bag is the name of the game for any artist, dj, producer or manager in the music business, and there are a number of ways to go about reaching your goal.
In the fourth and final episode of our video series with Sprite®, "Thirst For Yours," HNHH's Head of Artists Relations Brandon Barrett discussed the art of securing the bag with CEO of #JUSTREGULARDAY Neil Dominique, DJ/Creative S-WHiT, Sprite Way artist Indiana Rome, and the Director of Urban at The Orchard/Sony, Naji Grampus.
Even as a manager, Neil Dominique has to admit that artists can get the bag nowadays without the help of a manager or a label.
"I think that's the dope part about where we are right now with the music industry, and really like making money - you really don't need anybody to get to the money. You don't need a label. You don't need a manager, it's crazy that I'm saying that, but like if you really want to stand on your ten toes and figure out a way it's really that simple."
And once you do secure that bag, the goal is to make sure that they keep coming in. With that in mind, he mentioned something that he heard from Diddy that he continues to live his life by. "Even if you get a million dollar check, act like it was just a dollar. Always wake up like you have nothing... You could have five million in the bank right now but if you go in with that attitude and that mindset like, 'look, I'm broke,' your success is going to be crazy."
Of course, one of the best ways for an artist to maximize their streaming revenue is to get on an Apple playlist, but DJ S-WHiT explains why it's beneficial to aim for smaller playlists rather than just shooting for the big dogs.
"I know people say playlists play a big part, and it does play a big part, but one thing that people aren't understanding - tag little playlists too. Get on people's personal playlists because things populate and it's an algorithm at the end of the day."
"If you can get 50 baby playlists, populate it, get it moving in the system, and now you got these numbers in the back end and now somebody else is paying attention, and it's like, 'OK now he's deserving of getting on this playlist because we feel like we're missing out on something. Don't focus solely on the big playlist."
To that point, Naji Grampus adds, "Some people go, 'I just want to go straight to Rap Caviar,' right. If that were to happen, you could get on Rap Caviar, but since there's not that much familiarity with who you are, you're going to develop a skip rate, people are going to start to skip it. So I think it's important to be able to build up to where they're able to see that your trajectory is growing as opposed to you just start at the top and nobody's really f*cking with it."
He concludes, "playlists matter, but at the end of the day, there's no magic formula, there's no like, 'if you get on this tomorrow your records going to blow up.' It doesn't work like that."
