All Episodes

June 1, 2022 • 16 mins

Wendy Day has helped build several billionaires through her nonprofit, Rap Coalition, and she returns in this deep dive to help aspiring artists land a record deal. 

Host IG:@itstanyatime

Guest IG: @rapcoalition

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's deep Dive,
we are joined by the woman who builds millionaires in

(00:22):
the music industry, the infamous Wendy Day. This Deep Dive
is brought to you by MasterCard bridging the Well Gap
together with Greenwood. But first, if you missed our previous episode,
Wendy Day talked about how she started her nonprofit, the
Rap Coalition, and how she's assisted in negotiating some of
the most incredible and epic contracts the music industry has seen. Wendy,

(00:47):
Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I've
done some really fun stuff in my career. You have,
you have, and it was such a pleasure talking to
you last time. Some of the artists that you've worked with,
and just your passion for helping others be successful in
the music industry and an industry that's ripe with shady

(01:07):
deals and you know a lot of different characters that
act as bad actors that you know really are out
there just to sort of pull in money and not
really help the artists. So it's really exciting to have
people like yourself that are really pushing for these new
artists and their success in the industry. Thank you. I'm
so happy to be here. I love what you guys
are doing well. I want to start in our deep

(01:29):
dive by asking you a couple of questions. You know,
a lot of the money moves audience are up and
coming music artists. They're really interested in growing and scaling
their careers, and the music industry has changed dramatically. So
when you are mentoring new artists in the present day today,
what are some of the things that you advise them
to do or to avoid perhaps as they're looking for,

(01:53):
you know, big record deals. Absolutely. Um. The first thing
that I advise anybody to do is study the industry,
like really read as much as you can and learn
as much as you can, because it's not what you
think it is. When you come into this industry. It
can be very misleading. There's not a lot of transparency,

(02:14):
and it's not an easy industry to travel if you
don't understand how it works. Um. And then for artists,
we really focus a lot on content because it's very
very very content driven. We look at music and videos
not only as artwork, but as contact and you've really

(02:34):
got to build a fan base and share who you
are and your story with your fans. It's it's not
it's not just about liking music anymore, and really have
to embrace and engage and interact with the person that
are style all of that. It is really about, you know,
the person, and that's sort of the thing I think

(02:55):
the gift and the curse of social media, you know,
and in our past episode you talked about you're like, listen,
the days are over when we're just listening unilaterally on
the radio. Right. People want to engage with you, and
so part of the artist's responsibility is building a social
media following, absolutely, and it's a blessing and a curse
because it's a full time job to be on social media.

(03:17):
You know, TikTok alone is a full time job. And
that's not the only platform. You've got to be on
Instagram and Facebook and step and and Twitch and trailer
and you know, the list just goes on and on
and on. But it's it's and the artist today they
didn't live, you know, through the nineties and the two thousand's,
so they don't know anything different. Like, this is the

(03:40):
world today, So it's a for us. It's a better
world because it's more direct to fan and it's easier
to build your fan base, which is your tribe. Right,
It's so much easier to build your brand today than
it was in the nineties. There's also much more data
and research at our finger tips. You know, back in

(04:00):
the nineties we went by gut, do we like a song?
Do we not like a song? Whereas today I can
go into the dashboard on any platform and find out
who the artist market is and where they're located and
what they like to do, just by doing a deep
dive and finding out, Okay, what do these fans like
to do that's in common with this artist? You know.

(04:21):
One thing that I think is really interesting You said
this before, was like you have to do your research,
and you know, data drives a lot of this, and
so I think a lot of the misconceptions are these
artists are just these high level creatives and they're not
concerned with the business aspect of it. And I feel
like those days are over over. You need to know

(04:41):
your business and your industry from top to bottom. So,
for example, like I think for a lot of aspiring artists,
they hear that they've signed something like a ten million
dollar deal. What does that even mean anymore? And does
that exist? It does exist. Um, those deals are for
the artists that have a lot of leverage, meaning they've

(05:02):
build up their own fan base, they've built their social
media to have real followers and real numbers and real engagement.
And those deals really do still exist. But that doesn't
mean somebody just cut you a check for ten million
dollars and says, okay, by go make music, let us
know when you're ready. It's an advance and and it's

(05:24):
a portion of that that's usually that number usually implies
what the value of the deal is over a three
to five year period, and all of that money is recoupable.
So if somebody is giving you an advance of let's
say a million dollars on your first release, you have

(05:44):
to pay that back from your share of whatever the
royalties are. So it's not even off the top, it's
it's whatever your royalties are. And you don't get what's fair.
You you get what you negotiate. Okay. So when we
talk about royalties and music deals, what exactly does that mean?
You know, a new artist is out there, like, what's

(06:05):
a royalty? Yes, Um, every time someone streams your song,
you get paid for that. So for Spotify, it could
be anywhere from point zero zero three sense or point
zero zero zero seven sense. But you make a you
make a small payment, you make a small payment to

(06:26):
you the company does Spotify does for everything that you stream.
That's what a royalty is. A royalty can also be um,
a payment that you get from your song being used
in a film or on a TV show. A royalty
could also come from you selling a T shirt that
has your logo or the name of your song on it.

(06:49):
So there's a lot of different streams of income for artists,
all right, And that brings me to this whole question
of this idea of three sixty deals. What's the three
st deal? And how do I know if I want
one or I don't want one? Um, a three sixty
deal is where the label benefits off of each stream
of income. So back in the eighties and nineties, when

(07:13):
artists would do a deal, they would sell part of
their publishing, they might sell part of their merchandise rights,
and they would get a royalty deal, but they'd get
to keep a percent of everything else. But a three
sixty deal means that the label now takes a percentage
of your touring, and a percentage of your merch rights,

(07:35):
and a percentage or you're publishing, And if you do
an endorsement or sponsorship deal, they're getting a portion of
that as well. So they're really eating from all of
the streams of income of just the ones that they
used to back in the day. The more leverage you
have in a deal, meaning the more you can prove
that you have a fan base and the more you

(07:56):
can prove that you are making money in the music industry,
the better your deal is going to be if you
choose to go get a deal. But the great thing
about this century is that we can go direct to fans.
We can stay independent. We don't really need a record
label anymore. Wow. Okay, so let's talk about these independent

(08:17):
independent artists. How do they start that? So you're saying, basically,
you know you've got a fan base, you're making music,
Where do you put the music out? Can you go
straight to the streaming platforms? You can't. You need to
go through a distributor, And there's different kinds of distributors.
You can go to somebody that pays you a flat rate,
which is like tune Core, Destroy Kid for example, and

(08:38):
they will pay you. You pay a fee for your
music to be uploaded to the DSPs, which is like Spotify, Apple,
Amazon Music, and then they pay you a hundred percent
of the income. After that, then there are distributors that
will do a split with you. So you might do
a deal and that would be like Orchard or um

(09:00):
Symphonic for example, where it would be an split. You
get eight percent of the income they keep, but they
upload your music for free to all of the DSPs,
and in some cases they'll even try to help you
get um on some playlists like it's Spotify. Oh fantastic.
I love this all right, So let's go back to

(09:22):
the big record labels. What is something you want these
bigger record labels to start including in their contracts. Is
there something that people should look out for or start
asking for. Absolutely, And of course, the more leverage you have,
the more you can ask for. But I think artists
should ask to be signed for less time and more money.

(09:43):
I would love to see a lot less be recoupable,
which means they don't have to pay for as much
out of their pocket or or with the money that
the labels giving them. I would love to see advances
be a little bit bigger in that case, because then
they would necessarily be debt ridden the way they are today.

(10:04):
I would also like to see artists get healthcare in
their contracts. That's a little bit harder to do to
get things that that can really help you as a
person and help you survive because artists really aren't employees,
so they don't have healthcare, they don't have um I

(10:25):
ra is, the same things that like an employee would get,
and I'd love to see more of that happen. Wow,
that's really interesting. I never thought about that, Like, where
do they're just supposed to pay out of pocket for
you know, healthcare? Everything? Like you know, this is it's hard,
It is hard, and they're they're always the last to
get paid. So remember when they're getting an advance, they're

(10:45):
paying their manager of that advance to manage them. They're
paying their business manager, their accounting five percent, their lawyers
probably getting five percent, they have to pay taxes on
the income, so and they're always the last to get paid.
So it's very challenging as an artist unless you're a
superstar like Drake or Rhana or Eminem or you know, um,

(11:08):
and being a young boy, it's just you're not making
a whole lot of money where you can afford to
take that kind of financial hit, you know. And especially
as we went through COVID, I feel like a lot
of artists lost a big chunk of their income from touring.
But you know, we've started to see different forms of
social media help them. I know there's a lot of

(11:29):
audio platforms that came up people were performing through versus
and socially. Do you have any thoughts on how like
n f t s are going to revolutionalize the creator industry.
I'd just like to hear you know what you absolutely um.
I think any way that artists can make money is
a benefit. And I'm noticing that artists are really embracing

(11:50):
all of web three. So they're embracing they're embracing n
f t s, they're embracing everything. And that's really exciting
because we didn't embrace the digital revolution immediately, like we
really kind of lost out, but we seem to have
learned from that, recovered, and now I'm seeing artists create

(12:11):
n f t s even to help fund their careers.
Of course, the bigger you are, the more value your
name has and the more exciting your n f T
can be. But I love seeing artists that are creative
create an art form that goes along with the music,
so it's not just a music piece that they're selling.

(12:33):
It's really like a whole piece of art. And it's
just I love seeing where this is going. I'm really
fascinated by that. And I'm really like, I love n
f T s, I love crypto, and I love this
athlete block chain because everything in the music industry is
so hidden, like it's not transparent. And the great thing
about the blockchain is it's really like precise and it's

(12:56):
very hard to hide things and you can't actually, and
I think that's the beauty of it. And you know,
one of these things that I think this Web three
world is really going to do is expose a lot
of that put it on the blockchain, and just this
idea of creators being in control of their own royalties,
um tracking it and also just being able to create

(13:18):
and then you know, create this revenue source in perpetuity
is really incredible. It is incredible, and it's it's really
tying into their brands and their imaging. It's one area
where they can control how they're seeing. So they may
have a record label that says, Okay, we want you
to make more commercial music or more street music. The

(13:40):
n f T space is where they can really show
people who they are. Yeah. Yeah, And this just idea
of being able to capture your ownership I think is
so important. Wendy, you are just a wealth of knowledge.
You were on top of all things that are happening
in the music industry and now web three And tell
us about the space you're sitting in. Oh, yes, I

(14:01):
built a coworking space. Um. I've I've always loved real estate,
and coworking is how I built my company. And I
was a little frustrated when I was coming up in
the music business because I learned a lot about music,
but I didn't learn a lot about building a company
and scaling up and you know, how to really make money.

(14:23):
And one of the great things about having a coworking
space is there's so many different companies in here that
can all network with each other. But not only that,
we're bringing people in. Um once a month so and
it will become weekly as we grow, but once a
month people are coming in to teach us about, you know,

(14:44):
how to pay taxes, how to incorporate. We're also doing
a lot of mind body stuff like how to eat clean,
how to um how does nutrition play a role in
your brain power and your ability to focus longer? And
as I'm aging, like that stuff really matters to me.
I can't just eat pizza and stay up day anymore,

(15:06):
so I need to learn how to take better care
of myself. Oh I love that, And I just feel like,
you know, these collaborative learning environments, you know, there's so
much that we said, like I'm in music, the person
sitting beside me is building you know, a tax business.
But you know they all sort of intertwined so that
we can all sort of, you know, lift each other
up and be successful at one time. Exactly. Wendy, thank
you so much for coming in the Money Money News Podcast.

(15:28):
We appreciate you and all that you love what you're doing.
This is so important. Thank you for doing this well.
Thank you so much. Can you remind our audience again
where they can find you on social media? Absolutely? Um.
Instagram is where I spent most of my time at
RAP Coalition. But if you go to wendy day dot
com that links to everything that I do excellent. Thank

(15:49):
you so much, Wendy, thank you thanks for having me.
I love what you're doing. Thank you all right, Money Movers.
That's all the time we have for today, but make
sure to follow Wendy on all her social media handles,
and if we have helped you make your money move,
please make sure to let us know by sending us alike,
sharing the knowledge, or leave us a review on Apple podcasts.

(16:09):
Make sure to tune in Monday through Friday and subscribe
to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so that
YouTube can have the keys to financial freedom that you
so rightly deserve. Thank you so much for tuning in
Money Moves audience. If you want more or a recap
of this episode, please go to the bank Greenwood dot
com and check out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money

(16:33):
Moves is an I heart radio podcast powered by Greenwood
Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcast on
I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts from
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

United States of Kennedy
Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.