How Grammy Nominee Brent Faiyaz Built His Music Career Off Streaming

“It was never about the money, it was always about the terms.”

Ain’t this a change from the forties and fifties, even sixties, when you were paid off in Cadillacs and there was little transparency, never mind having a bottom of the barrel royalty rate.

Ain’t this a change from the eighties and nineties, wherein superstars demanded big advances, not trusting the label to ever account accurately to them.

Those are ancient paradigms the major label system is still stuck on. If it weren’t for their catalogs, they’d have been eclipsed. But after taking more of the artist’s pie with their 360 deals the tide has turned, credit streaming, credit accurate data, the artists are demanding MORE!

Vice News is incredible, but it’s behind a paywall on HBO and the branded channel has gotten little traction. This is another paradigm change, Netflix has a multiple of the number of subscribers of HBO and it’s built on an on demand model, whereas HBO is positively ancient, you’re supposed to tune in at a specific time, what are we living in the twentieth century?

No, the twenty first, deep into the second decade, in an era where information is too plentiful and it’s hard to get your message heard. Despite all the e-mail lists of articles to read, none of them hipped me to this video, I got it from a reader, proving once again it’s all personal, it’s who you know, what they tell you, are you trusted.

So, what you’ve got here is genius, and almost nobody knows about it.

You’ve got an act inspired by Chance, the Curt Flood of the music business, to do it his way, to pass up the easy money and do the hard work for the rewards.

And the astounding thing is…THE MUSIC IS GOOD!

I always cross-reference the data. I immediately went to Spotify and checked the play counts. And the ten most popular cuts were all over a million, in some cases significantly, so I played them.

It was R&B. Brent Faiyaz used to be a rapper, now he’s a singer, and the world is his oyster, if he can make people aware of himself. This is the kind of music you can play at a dinner party, when you’re making love, when you’re lazing on a Sunday afternoon.

Now would it be bigger if it were on a major?

I’M NOT SURE!

The active audience is all hip-hop, as are the radio stations, this kind of music takes longer to percolate, take hold, but with acts like Sade it lasts longer. But Sade was the beneficiary of MTV.

But Brent Faiyaz is the beneficiary of STREAMING!

Your eyes will bug out when you read how his manager utilizes the FREE tools/data from Spotify to target both touring and ads. The business has become more sophisticated, the old shotgun approach doesn’t work, it certainly isn’t cost-effective.

Videos like this get one excited about the future of the music business.

Assuming you see them.

Brent Faiyaz – Spotify playlist

“Facing boycott, Laura Ingraham apologizes for taunting Parkland teen over college rejections”

The corporation is not your friend. It’s an inanimate entity that depends upon you for survival. You tell it what to do, not vice versa.

The veneration of companies, especially those in tech, came in the wake of the capitulation to corporations by musical acts in the nineties. You couldn’t believe in the pop stars, you could believe in Steve Jobs and Apple, back when he didn’t do any market research and told you what you wanted, as opposed to the “artists” on assembly lines trying to turn out songs akin to Camrys. Not a bad automobile, but hard to get excited about.

Then Napster eviscerated recording income and the music business rushed to the man, i.e. the corporations, to fund their endeavors, to make them rich. From privates to sponsorships, the goal was to get the man to pay, as if the man never extracted his price.

They call it a chilling effect. Corporations don’t want to be associated with anything controversial. So, inherently, if you were taking the money, you were blinking, even if it was subconsciously.

Now Live Nation is a public company itself. It’s no wonder it makes sponsorship deals with the man. But no one would come if there were not talent on stage. WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE SELLING?

Certainly not controversy, unless it’s related to sex and breaking the law. Music has been dumbed-down, just like the movies. Sure, there’s a business in superheroes, but there’s no NUTRITION!

And common wisdom tells us the public is fine with this, artists selling out, being fed pabulum.

And then comes Parkland.

In case you missed the news, Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted giving David Hogg crap about being rejected by four colleges. We can wonder about a person who attacks a minor publicly in this way. Is this the same mind-set that condones coal mining and fracking and everything with an environmental cost as long as the Republicans stay in power? Is this how low one team has gone? Where winning is everything and decency is nothing?

Looks like it.

And then David Hogg takes to Twitter and asks who Ingraham’s sponsors are. And then employs social media to get his followers to contact them and get them to abandon Ingraham.

AND THEY DO! JUST THAT FAST!

Now ultimately Ingraham apologizes, with some baloney about it being Holy Week, as if one needs an excuse to do the right thing, but the point here is David Hogg and his posse harnessed the power of corporations to THEIR benefit, not vice versa!

That’s what artists do. David Hogg is more of an artist than most of the acts in the Spotify Top Fifty.

An artist does what’s right, not what’s expedient.

An artist speaks from the heart, with his or her truth, believing the audience will resonate.

An artist is a leader, not a follower, he or she is always one step ahead of his fans.

We’re living the Arab Spring. Which is not surprising, that we’re seven years behind, after all this hogwash about the U.S. being the greatest country in the world the truth is we’re ignorant in so many ways, and we’ve let money rule us.

That’s what this is about, money. Believe me, otherwise Laura Ingraham wouldn’t back down. An artist is not beholden to money, especially today. He or she can utilize the digital tools to get their message out, and if it resonates, there is no limit to its acceptance, unlike Bill O’Reilly, who loses his platform and falls off the edge of the earth.

This is not about right or left, sure Ingraham was way out of line, and one has to ask why the right continues to punch below the belt, this is about the power of the individual, the power of right, the power to lead.

You go into uncharted territory. Based on a feeling. You ride the reaction. You make it up as you go.

That’s why we adhered to the acts of yore, we had no idea what they’d do next, NOW WE DO! Music is like baseball, the game remains the same, only the players change, whereas in art…the game needs to be constantly reinvented.

Everything’s up for grabs. And if you’re an artist know that money is secondary to message, and if the message is good enough there’s plenty of money.

Play from the heart. Don’t overcalculate. Turn on a dime. Harness the power of your adherents, use the man as a tool.

Like David Hogg.

(Accompanying Herself On Piano) NEW YORK TENDABERRY

Laura Nyro Sings “Save The Country”

I got fury in my soul
Fury’s gonna take me to the glory goal

Stormy Daniels outranked the Grammys, she pulled more viewers on the same damn channel, CBS, 22 million to 19.8. What is happening here? It sure ain’t exactly clear.

But what we’ve got is a President who resembles a heavy metal band, an outlaw who appeals to a tiny sliver of the populace which believes it’s been screwed and wants revenge, even though the rest of the people abhor them.

Meanwhile, today’s metal bands are a caricature of themselves. If they really wanted to make a statement, they’d shun the tattoos and piercings and play acoustically.

But that ain’t music today.

I read something interesting over the weekend, you can do anything, people can connect with anything, as long as your work is based in passion, as long as it’s what YOU want to do, that’s what’s missing from today’s music scene, there’s too much CALCULATION!

And bitching.

Funny how everybody said Spotify was the enemy and now music revenues have gone up by double digits. Funny how the press amplifies the stories of the nitwits and the left behind. Meanwhile, Spotify going public means nothing to you, it’s a business story, the Wall Street casino, it’s just a way for investors to cash out, pay no attention.

Meanwhile, the only thing everybody cares about these days is politics.

Used to be the highest calling was to work in the music industry.

And then tech.

Now the only thing people want to pay attention to is our government, because they’re afraid. Meanwhile, we’ve got no leaders, and the parking meters have all been sold to hedge funds, truly.

We were for the Vietnam War before we against it. Folkies were for peace, but it wasn’t until the rockers started standing up that the rest of us did too, when we we realized that the United States could not only be wrong, it could lose.

Very tumultuous times the late sixties, akin to now. Only in this case the twentysomethings have been superseded by the teenagers, who are taking matters into their own hands and injecting a shock to the system.

“For What It’s Worth” came out in 1967. Before Martin and Bobby were cut down, that happened the following year. “For What It’s Worth” was a reaction to the Sunset Strip riots at Pandora’s Box, now a footnote in history, the song eclipses the inspiration. But protest penetrated the Top Forty.

Now the Top Forty means less than ever before.

You see the systems are collapsing. The major labels say you need them to get on radio and TV when they mean less than ever before. Spotify says you don’t need a label at all. And you just can’t fathom how you can rise above.

Only by being in your own business. Every act is in its own business these days. If you’re waiting for your lucky moment, you’re delusional, satisfy your core and hope that they spread the word, don’t care about anybody else, the press, the looky-loos, they won’t adhere to you and help you survive, in a nation of grazers you want to lock on to your own people.

Like Laura Nyro.

She became famous for writing hits for others, most notably the Fifth Dimension. And when she was doing her act, live entirely solo, there was no one else like her, proving once again the way to prominence is by being unique.

Her first LP was a demonstration of her hits.

The second, although it contained the soon to be legendary “Stoned Soul Picnic,” made a statement with “Poverty Train,” but that was back in ’68, when we were concerned about our brethren, trying to lift them up rather than get them addicted to opioids.

And then Laura wrote “Save The Country.”

Come on people, come on children

Great artists implore their audience to action. They’re cheerleaders, getting the audience off its feet, to stand up for what’s right.

I got fury in my soul.

I do. Do you? I think you do!

In my mind I can’t study war no more.

I can’t study duplicity, dishonesty, I don’t want to feel powerless, I want a call to action.

We could build a dream with love

Like those demonstrating students, unlike Fox News. Hatred has ruled for far too long. We’ve got to come together, like in that old Youngbloods song, we’ve got to get back to the garden, like Joni Mitchell sang, we’ve got to leave behind the hedonism, the capitalism, and focus on the message.

There’s power in song.

HARNESS IT!

Manager of Marshmello (and more!)

I wrote about Moe here:

Moe Shalizi

You can listen to a one minute excerpt of the podcast here:

Moe Shalizi on the podcast: pic.twitter.com/g1nf8s2IiI

— Bob Lefsetz (@Lefsetz) March 27, 2018

Listen to the entire podcast here:

TuneIn

iTunes

Google Play

Stitcher

Soundcloud

Overcast