Some emerging hip hop artists have absolutely no plans of going the independent route. Their plan is mostly centered around finding one of these industry gatekeepers that will open up the magical gates of the hip hop mainstream, and that little industry elves will do all of the promotional and marketing grunt work for them. First of all, none of the people on the other side of that gate is going to take interest unless you have built a substantial buzz on your own. The “BUZZ”rules and the bigger the buzz, the greater your options.
The people inside of the kingdom don’t trust their own ears, they trust the number of Twitter followers, YouTube views, and Facebook fans. To them the numbers don’t lie, and this creates low risk for them. Why bust their asses trying to break an unknown artist they believe in? That’s too much fuckin work. Lil’ Swaggadoicious* got some wack ass rhymes, but he has 40,000 Twitter followers and a million YouTube views, so they’re putting an offer on the table. And screw you and your dope music if you can’t show that anyone is interested in it.
The truth is, you’re going to have to do the grind work before and even after you get signed. Just being in the mainstream doesn’t automatically create a quality fan base for you. You have to do that on your own. A lot of music posted on this blog doesn’t come from the artists themselves. It sometimes comes from loyal fans who want to put me up on artists that moved them. These are the kinds of connections you want to build.
*As far as I know, there is no rapper named Lil’ Swaggadocious…I surely hope not.
