Wendy Day has negotiated hip hop deals for over twenty years.  She’s been a champion and advocate for the fair treatment of hip hop artists during her career and has been responsible for some of the biggest deals in hip hop history. Before she stepped on the landscape, no artist in the genre had ever walked away from closing a label deal with the amount of payment, rights, and ownership that she was able to secure for her artists. One of the most monumental deals was the 30 million dollar label agreement she got for Cash Money Records. A deal that also awarded them ownership of their master recordings, which was close to unheard of in hip hop at the time.
Here are just a few of Wendy’s former clients: Cash Money Records (Juvenile, BG, Lil Wayne, Hot Boyz, Big Tymers, Baby aka Birdman), Read the rest of this entry »

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You just got the record deal you’ve been dreaming about your whole life. The label has dropped a fat ass check on you so you buy a couple of whips, a MTV crib, and a diamond encrusted charm that looks like your face. Your single is being played on all of the stations across the world and you’re gracing the cover of every hot magazine…Okay…slap…slap. Time to wake up.

I was just hanging out with an artist who had just inked a deal with one of the hottest hip hop labels in the game right now (names are irrelevant to my point). Upon congratulating him about his accomplishment, he replied “thanks, now the real work begins”. I knew exactly what he meant. Read the rest of this entry »