Too Short recently spoke with MTV2’s Sucker Free, discussing the merits of being an independent artist and how he started out doing things on his own. During the interview, he recalled signing with 75 Girls Records at the onset of his career, which gave him experience in how to hustle independently.
“When I came out in the rap industry, I was just a young kid, like 18, 19, trying to get my records out. And I worked with a label called 75 [Girls], and they were doing the independent thing. I was a youngster, but I kept my eyes open. I would ride with Dean, the dude who ran the label, I would ride with him not just to the studio, but I would go to the pressing plant, I would to go the distributor and I would keep business cards and stuff like that. A couple years later, like 1989, I was on my own. I didn’t have a choice, man. Grabbed some money, pressed up some cassettes, drove to a record store and said here, take these, pay me later. We did that all over the city, and the stuff was selling.”
The West Coast veteran recalled recycling his first paycheck back into his career, pressing up 15,000 cassette tapes and making a profit. He recommends to new artists to get their buzz up using social media sites, which will later open doors.
“I remember the first time I ever saw some money, I don’t remember how much I spent, but I got 15,000 cassettes,” he said. “I dropped them off at one distributor. Seven days later, he had like, $60,000 for me. I was like, this is what I want to do. You don’t have to deal with every single distributor anymore. You don’t really have to deal with major labels if you don’t want to. You can do iTunes or all the other websites or deal with independent record stores. It’s a big grind out there. If you can get your social weight up now, you’re really poised for either a major label deal or a good run as an independent. That’s what I tell a lot of young cats now. Make yourself famous and doors will open.”
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Your career is failing. Sign to Roc Nation and come join us in the chamber. We’ll save you but sacrifice your soul in the process.
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Stop watching Angels and Demons and get a life. As for Too Short, distributors aren’t even stocking CD’s anymore. About the only avenue left are indie record stores, but they only keep a few copies of every album on hand, so essentially it’s Itunes or bust for most of these Oakland rappers.
Fuck itunes and record sells make you a dope mixtape and do those shows….thats where the money is going to be. Then when you get your buzz up sell those records. Curren$y is showing how you suppose to do it. He averages 100,000 albums sold and thats all his money. You times that time 10 and thats a 1,0000,000 dollars without the show money. Its just that simple if you have talent you can make some money maybe not major money but you will not have to work again.
Different time now, people want free music today.
U GET FREE MUSIC, IT’S CALLED MIXTAPES. Y’ALL JUST WANNA BE GREEDY.
No reason someone can’t part with ten bucks for an album.
To the youngster, take the word from a general, if it was done before it can be done again, go get your own money man
the problem with the game today, is everyone wants to be a rapper and everyone has the “media outlets” to over saturate the market with garbage. Independent artists dont get a fair shake unless they are co-signed by someone established.