The music industry is built on money that's never been collected.

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]What's been most surprising to you about the industry?

[00:00:03]>> I pretty much think the music business was built on money that's never been collected. That was one thing I had to learn was cuz I'm like, "Yo, I got master points on these albums and these albums got a multitude of plaques, but I'm not seeing no extra money." So, I had to hire business management team.

[00:00:16]They helped me track down all my sound exchange documents, reread all my contracts. Once they started knocking on the doors of all these major labels, next thing I know, I just started getting random checks popping up in my bank account. You know what I mean?

[00:00:28]because there will be money that just doesn't get paid out to you. Honestly, besides like your pros, like BMI, ASCAP, or whatever, you won't get paid unless you go get it.

[00:00:37]>> So, basically, it's points on songs, money that's owed to you, but if someone doesn't go track it down and be like, "Wait, wait, wait. Where did this money trickle down to? My client never got it." Who keeps it?

[00:00:47]>> I think the label just keeps it, bro.

[00:00:49]And they'll keep it for different reasons. Like I said, it could be for, oh, this artist is in the red and we're not paying out till this because something wasn't signed. document might not be fully executed on both sides from the producer and the artist and that's why something didn't get paid out.

[00:01:03]There'll be a bunch of different things and I had to learn like that over time.

[00:01:06]I had no clue that was a thing until I started to get curious and be like, "Yo, like where's this money at?"

[00:01:11]>> There's a lot of gray areas, right? So labels will do stuff like they'll expense all kinds of against the artist deal. And so they're like, "Yeah, they never recouped." Cuz I've heard of artists that have like crazy multi-platinum records with a billion streams and somehow they're not recouped. And they're like, "How's that possible? We didn't spend like tens of millions of dollars on this. You know, we shot a video.