Wendy Day | Ep 4 | The Banski Show

Wendy Day | Success in the Music Industry, Rap Coalition, & the Artist-Centric Mindset

The Banski Show – Episode 4

Guest: Wendy Day, founder of Rap Coalition, Power Moves, and Artist-Centric

  

Summary:

This week’s guest on The Banski Show is Wendy Day, who runs Rap Coalition, a not-for-profit artist advocacy organization, as well as the for-profit institutions Power Moves and Artist-Centric, both of which are designed to help artists make money off their music. 

 

Banski and Wendy first discuss Wendy’s career path and how she started her organizations. After learning how imbalanced and unfair the music industry was, and seeing how many artists in the industry were being taken advantage of, Wendy decided to open Rap Coalition in order to help rappers get out of bad deals with labels. She then moved on to found Power Moves a few years later in order to be more proactive about helping artists score good deals up front, instead of just getting them out of bad situations.

 

Banski and Wendy then move on to chat about a variety of topics related to getting started, and being successful, in the hip hop/rap industry, including: the importance of making connections and forming relationships within the music industry, the costs that go into the setup and marketing of helping a new artist get started, Wendy’s suggestions for what up-and-coming rappers should focus on in order to make money, how artists can market themselves and get their names out there, the importance of making a business plan for boosting their career, and more.

 

Wendy also shares some interesting stories from her own personal journey through her career, including her introduction to rap and hip hop culture in the 80’s, how she became more involved in the industry over the years, and some of her experiences meeting various well-known rappers (including Tupac) throughout her career. She closes by offering a few words of advice to those getting started in the industry, saying that the most important thing is to really get to know the business of the music world inside and out before you jump into it, by learning from the people already within it.

 

 

Key Quotes:

·       “One of the ways for people of color to get out of the struggle is to start their own businesses.” 

·       “It’s a single’s market today, so you want to promote as much music, repetitively, as you can.”

·       “I think the reason that artists sign to labels today is because they don’t have investors and they need somebody to put up the money.” 

·       “The most important thing I can tell an artist or any independent artist that’s relatively new, is learn the business. Like really learn how this works….You can’t be on the outside looking in and think you understand….You really have to be inside of it. So learn as much as you can from the people that are inside.”  

Wendy’s Links:
 
 http://wendyday.com/

http://www.HELPFULANGEL.COM 

http://www.ARTIST-CENTRIC.COM 

http://www.YOUTUBE.COM/THISISWENDYDAY 

http://www.ASKWENDYDAY.COM 

http://www.INDUSTRYREPORT.COM 

http://www.RAP-RESOURCES.COM