Let me first say that I don’t “eat off rap” so I am not qualified to give advice on “what to do”, but I have seen first hand some of my friends make their entire living off rap.

If you are anything like me (the fact that you are reading this at routinefly means you are) there’s nothing you would love more than to create/perform rap music and get paid well for it. 

I’m going to direct this post towards rappers, i suppose it could be used for producers/djs as well but that’s another post.

As I write this I realize this topic is way bigger than I though and there is no way I can touch on every aspect, so I will focus on one of the most important/difficult ones

MAKE A LOT OF SONGS!

The more music you make the more money you’ll make. The game has changed, it’s not 12″ singles and radio shows anymore, it’s blogs and mixtapes (why are they still called tapes?). This is what separates successful artists from wannabes.

Every artist who has “made it” can write and record a song in 1 day.

If you can’t produce a steady stream of songs to keep fans interested, no one will be interested. If you don’t have a new cd to sell at shows you aren’t going to make any money. Rap is here today, gone today. That little freestyle that got posted at www.nahright.com is already off the front page, no one cares. You have to keep cranking out product.

There is no need to get signed to a record label anymore. (Not that it wouldn’t be nice) If you have the motivation and product (songs) there are tons of ways to get them out to the public, and best of all, places like www.tunecore.com where you can upload your music digitally for sale all over the world.

All the artists who cannot produce enough product will not be able to eat off rap.

…I have to get back to work. I have a “job”. rap is only a hobby for me…

Oh yeah, you have to do a shitload of shows too.

Posted by MF Shalem on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 10:03 am.