I’m so sick of folks out here acting absolutely crazy. I want to explain a very simple principle to you. First ask yourself this,

If you played little league…. Are you now a professional baseball player?

If you drew pictures in Art class….. Are you now a professional artist?

Should everyone that can carve a turkey be a surgeon?

Fam… just because the world has made it easy for you to make music, doesn’t make it your profession. It’s actually VERY disrespectful to those in the game that have suffered and clawed their way through being broke and all kinds of other things you have NO IDEA that await you in the music industry. Making music is a beautiful thing. I think everyone should experience its joy. It is OKAY for it to be a hobby. Too many people aren’t honest with themselves. Honestly Fam, let’s keep it real. There is music links circulated all over the net of some music that’s terrible. It’s not even recorded properly and it just wastes space in cyber space.

I don’t know who has been lying to you, but I’m going to tell you the TRUTH about what kind of money goes into funding your own music career. Incase you didn’t know, you will spend THOUSANDS of dollars on it and possibly NEVER make any back. You will give away music for the first few projects. Those projects will cost you money. Promoting those projects properly (which means you hire someone to promote you) cost money. The more you want it exposed, the more money it costs. If you don’t promote your project, you will not build a fan base. If you don’t have a fan base, who’s going to buy your music? If you buy downloads and followers… what happens when you put a song on iTunes? If you have 100k fake followers and can’t sell 2 Singles for $1… why on earth are you wasting time & money? There are THOUSANDS of other emcees JUST AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER then you. I’m not trying to be mean, this is REALITY. You should know exactly how big the mountain is.

SOME OF THE WORST THINGS PEOPLE DO EVERYDAY:

Tweet strangers (people you don’t even follow) your links directly. They don’t click on it. You’re wasting time.

Tweet your music to famous people hoping they click it and love it. Let me know who get signed that way when you find out.

You are the only person promoting yourself. If you don’t invest in you, why would a label?

If you are still doing illegal things and your MXTP cover is your product, who is going to sign a law suit waiting to happen?

DISRESPECT THE DJ If you don’t know how important the DJ is? You are banned from making anymore music. It shows you researched NOTHING.

Get on social media and DISRESPECT the people that created the music of the game you’re trying to get into. NOBODY invests an artist who is disrespectful, immature, & unprofessional. You know why? THERE’S A MILLION MORE OUT THERE.

Not have help. There are a few (not many) folks in the music industry (myself included) that will not take your for a ride and rob you and actually give you what you pay for. What I’m telling you FOR FREE would cost you THOUSANDS of dollars to HOPEFULLY one day learn it from a Management or Development person.

Get mad when people don’t like your music. If this is you? You are banned from hip-hop. NOBODY likes everything. How dare you ask people to listen and when they tell you the truth, you get mad? You need to pay attention. Why? Because this is your BASELINE OF FEEDBACK. If 100 people listen to your song and anything over 80 say they didn’t like it? You need to seriously re-consider doing music or the kind of music you’re doing or accept that your fan base is going to be smaller then you anticipated.

Waste your money.

Not know what kind of rapper you are.

Hobby Rapper

Freestyle Rapper

Battle Rapper

MXTP KING

Feature Rapper

Indie Artist

Label Artist

Let me expound here a little bit… When asked “who is your fan base?” EVERYBODY is not an acceptable answer. Everybody would include kindergarten, middle school, high school, and senior citizens all in the same group.. In the words of Sneak Vandel,  “FALSE”. We’re going to get into this in depth in another article but it’s something you need to think about. I also want to give you a reality check about “getting signed”. In the words of Gryndhousz, “You have a better chance winning the lottery.” and that is 100% true. The days of getting signed to a major record label for a 50k advance and all that are long gone unless you are an artist ALREADY making money and numbers on your own that warrant such a deal. These days labels sign known artists or very young artists, they get a 100 page contract and lose all sense of ownership and identity to themselves as an artist. Make no mistake, anyone raking in the dough on the level you aspire for? Most of what you see come across in costume, dress, sound, etc is entirely dictated by the label that own’s the artist. We’ll visit that in depth in a future post.

Fam, this information would normally be contained in a development or management session. I am spilling FOR FREE what I use to eat & pay my bills with because in all honesty, I don’t want you stupid. If I know the way, it’s my job to share it. I don’t depend on any of you to buy services here, hit my blog, or buy our music. I depend on God. What most people don’t understand is that giving things away can get you credit at a bank you’ll never owe it back to. #ProphetTweet LOL Okay, back to business. Let’s start with something basic… Your first MixTape.

You want to drop your 1st MXTP

Studio Time: $35-$250 p/h depending upon where you go. You get what you pay for in most cases unless you happen to personally know somebody. If you don’t know the studio ask to hear some of their work!

15 Song MXTP: You should record a minimum of 25 songs to choose from. You should never just throw something together.

25 songs x $40 per hr for each song to record

25 songs x $40 per hr for each song mixed (bare minimum it’s more when it’s done 100% professionally)

If you want your tracks Mastered, it’s going to cost an additional $25 -$100 per song

Features: Well this depends on what kind of splash you’re trying to make on the scene. Let’s say the fan base you’re aiming for is Little Wayne’s fan base because for whatever reason he is your hip-hop hero. You should be aiming for those kind of sound features. Get Wayne out of your mind though unless you have a million dollar budget for this project because a 16-bar verse from him is going to cost you well over 50K. Your feature cost depends on the caliber of the artist. There are some you can get for $500-$1000 but nine times out of ten you have to know somebody that knows them to get that price, so plan on $1000 at least for each feature. If you’re having a well known underground artist feature, they may not charge you for the verse if they like the project but they will definitely charge you for their studio time which would roughly be $100.

Production: On a MXTP if you are using other people’s beats (aka “industry beats” beat from a song on the radio) this won’t cost you anything. If you have a friend or team member that makes them you’re still fine, but if want original music and don’t have anyone around that makes beats? You can tack on anywhere from $100 (for something decent)- 5k per beat depending on what kind you want & the caliber of the producer. So multiply 15 songs x $100 per beat and that’s another $1,500 on the bill.

Artwork: Decent underground artwork $30 -$100

Duplication: If you want hard CD’s, you’re looking at $250 off the rip (CD & Case) depending on how many you want and they are expensive. Sometimes 50 CD’s are $200.

Promotion: Typically, folks who make hard CD’s skip this step and just pass out CD’s which of course only reaches where YOU DO. Artists that are hip to social media should hire people to promote there.

If your MXTP is hosted by a DJ, add $100-$5, 000 depending on the status of the DJ

If you do an indie video, add $300-$500

Also add what you afforded for the song’s promotion again because the video also needs promotion.

Add in promotion costs for however long you plan to promote this project.

You will do all this for FREE music. This music you are GIVING away. You have to build a fan base. Nobody is going to buy your music unless they know you or they just rock with you like that. Honestly, if you put out a song on iTunes today, how many people do you know for a fact would buy your single for $1? Count them times .70 (iTunes sells your track for $1 but you only make .70 off each single). That’s how much you’d make with no fans. It costs $10 to load it to iTunes so subtract that from that number. It costs roughly $100 to copywrite & publish the track so subtract another $100. Whatever you’re left with is what you’d make right now selling a piece of music with no fan base. Is your number positive or negative? You will more then likely do this kind of project at LEAST 2-3 times before you should even try to sell anything. Fam, if you are not willing to commit to that? You won’t make it. Some of us have lost EVERYTHING over our music. My team? In the words of @kinggeorge427 “We starved together, we’re going to eat together.” Anyone of the greats in hip-hop, went through most if not all of everything I mentioned. If you’re not prepared for battle, don’t try to be a soldier. We’re only hiring warriors in hip-hop for the next 5-10 years. But if you’re ready? Welcome to #OPERATIONREVOLUTION

If you are in need of organizing, help with your project, or are interested in pricing for this kind of service, click the Queen the Prophet BIO at the top of this page and submit the inquiry form. Please allow up to 72-hours for response due to the high amount of inquiries received.

This has been a @queentheprophet public service announcement.

#HIPHOP101