Do You Need Money to Make It in the Music Business? Yes! (But also No)

Yes! You will need a budget if you’re looking to gain exposure, have a great mix, attend networking events, or even get a verse from your favorite local rapper. They call it the music business, and the business is what keeps this machine running. You’ll need money to book venues, you’ll need money for beats, you’ll need money for your background dancers, and yes you’ll need money to even get into some of these networks. However, you also don’t need to spend that money. Let me take today to break down the real reason why you may never make it to where you are trying to go in this industry but also address some solutions that may help if you don’t have the bag.

Let’s address this now. If you don’t have money for beats you’re probably not gonna stand out from the crowd simply because you sound like everyone else. Most of the free beats you find online has already been distributed to at least 1000 different artists and groups. I can count on two hands how many up and coming artists have passed a link to their EP to my DM’s and the same beats that I’m hearing on their project I’ve heard on someone else’s. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough free beats out there, there are plethora, but that doesn’t mean you probably won’t have one or two or even three on your project that isn’t on someone else’s. If you’re looking to standout that means you’re probably going to have to pay a producer for custom production. Yes, there are producers who are giving away free beats to artists who don’t have funnels or even their own website but the amount that are giving beats away to just any random artist is not as many as you would like to think. A creative wants to be sure his/her art is appreciated. I guarantee that if you are asking for beats and that person sends them to you and you don’t respond within a week that you got them you might as well keep looking for more beats because unless you are a big name artist no producer is going to wait for you. So your solution here is to either DM or e-mail a hundred producers for custom production for free or pay a premium, there is no shortcut here.

Another thing that you will need in regards to moving your crew forward and his business is marketing. If you are looking to gain the most exposure in regards to the projects you are working on or even a possible single that you wanna release you are going to want to have money dedicated either for Instagram or Facebook ads. You may even look at more traditional marketing strategies like magazine ads or even billboards (if that’s your thing). Either option will require a budget of some sort. No one is going to want to promote your music for free unless there is something in it for them. For example, if you were to approach a social media influencer to promote your music more than likely you would need money to pay them to make a post about your music. You may even look at other nontraditional ways to partner with them. Maybe you want to look at making them the executive producer of your album or creating theme song to their podcast. Either way it goes you will need to have money readily available to dish out to get your music and your brand in front of more people.

I know I have said this before but I will say it again. There is nothing wrong with an artist charging for a verse for your record. If the artist has somewhat of a following or even a decent skill level they are going to want to be compensated for their work. If you walk into the situation thinking that you can get something for free just because you asked you are in the wrong business. If someone were to approaches you , especially someone you've never heard of, about working on their project and helping them accomplish their goals more than likely you would like to be compensated as well. So the mindset to have in regards to working with anyone in this business is to have a budget readily available. One thing I can say as someone has been in this business is that I've made it a priority and a standard to never have someone work for me for free. It's one of the reasons why my crew likes working with me so much is that they know that if Hänz asks someone for something they know that I'm going to compensate them. In other words, if I ask they know it's going to be worth their time. A few people have turned that money for their service down and that's OK, but that's not something that I expect all the time and neither should you.

All in all when you are looking to move the needle on your career please have in mind that you will probably need a budget you don't want to become the person that everyone knows is looking for a hook up. It's not good for your brand in the short term and especially in the long term as well. Always be cognizant of how you are presenting yourself when you are looking to work with people in this business. The one thing that will help you stand out the most, unfortunately for some, is to have a budget. Now how you feel about that is on you and what you do with that information is also on you.

I'll see you back at work.