When Grammy nominee Brent Faiyaz and his manager, Ty Baisden, were offered a record deal with a quarter million dollar advance, they walked away. Instead, they opted to go independent.
New artists usually seek notoriety by signing with a major label. But the contracts often leave them with few rights to their music and little-to-no longterm earning power. In recent years, however, more and more artists have decided to buck signing with a label and pursue their independence, according to veteran music attorney Richard Grabel.
The best contract that Faiyaz and Baisden reviewed, for example, gave them 18 percent of the royalties — money paid by the record label to the artist for each time a song is played or purchased.
After scooping up a Grammy nomination for his performance on GoldLink’s “Crew,” Faiyaz and Baisden chose the indie route. They set up their own company, Lost Kids LLC, and invested $30,000 out of their own pockets for a debut album. Now, they use data from streaming platforms like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music to build their fan base. Knowing who plays Faiyaz’s music — and where — helped the duo sell out a tour across the United States and Europe.
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“I believe that the system that we're building is based off of transparency,” Baisden said. “And one day somebody will give me 20 million dollars to do it and to keep doing it.”
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Legend
Let’s go
Let’s go
Wild
Goat
As of Dec. 29th, 2023:
Guess what, He's up now!
3:00 This ”pay/stream” changes every month relative to the artists percentage of the total amount the global streams that month, roughly. It’s a very complex and intricate system that streaming services use to calculate pay-out.
2:54 what everyone is here to see
Informative
And 82% is offensive, but not th +99% that the DSP's take for streaming?
My question is, once you put the work in and saw what that 82% was for, would you lower your cut as the label putting in that amount of work? You probably want a bigger cut knowing that you don't have the level of infrastructure and you couldn't do it quite as efficiently
Joe Budden podcast brought me here a few years late but incredible video
Back to this video four years later, this literally what Russ also been saying for years now. Folks, this is the blueprint to success for all current and future independent artists.
Why is there a siren in it? Why do some filmmakers do that???? I know some do for intensity but it’s annoying.
Chance firing Pat solidifies that he was capping when he said he met Kanye so he can never fail
Now he gotta song wit drake
Goat
And now his drake song just dropped, full circle . Such a beautiful thing
What's the background song at 1:15 that continues to play
Crew should’ve just been his song
He was younger and more energetic then, he seemed to have cooled down lol. He’s still the same amazing artist.
he is criminally underrated.
Artist's don't want to sell there soul's to a satanic industry who would of thought !
The internet is the best school to date
very informative
Where does he pay for his ads?
I can't overstate how happy I am Sonder/ Brent bucked the system. Chance and others paved the way…. I hope this continues, as I feel creates a more continuity of the sound as well as creative control of his content.
he’s come so far