Dre McKenzie Interview
Nov 30, 2007 7:37 PM
(re)Mixed Media
Read the entire "New Rules of the Game" article on the state of urban music production.
Dre McKenzie is Head of A&R, G-UNIT Records
Remix: Over the years, major labels have had a lot of follow-the-leader mentality as far as you hear a hit song today, and you’ll hear 100 more that sound just like it in coming months. But, we’re also constantly hearing from A&R heads that they’re looking for something fresh. So, which is it? What do you tell new producers who wanna be noticed?
DM: I tell them to submit to me what feels great to them. Hit music is material that resonates emotionally within listeners that span from one end of the socio-economic spectrum to another – and mega-hits often times transcend genre. What I mean by this is that a hit record is one that touches us somewhere within our nation’s – and these days, the world’s – collective psyche, in a way that moves us. Literally, it makes us do something physically, be it jumping up and dancing or makes our hair standup or gives us goose-bumps or simply has us sing along out loud or even makes us cry. We all know when a record we love starts playing – we feel it – we don’t just hear it.
So, I always encourage producers to make emotive music – production that draws the listener to one emotional extreme or the other – be it happiness, sadness, aggression, introspection. When a hit record is realized, executives tend to use it as an example of what I just described. They want to capture the same sense of “belonging” that the particular hit record they’re referring to allows the listener to feel. It’s most important that a producer continues to make music that they are driven toward creating. Producers are artists. Soon enough, if this is even the goal, your musical creativity will find its way to the right artist and their musical creativity. They will mesh perfectly. Think of great music as treasures buried in sand. Think of time as the breeze that blows away that sand. If you want your music noticed, give it time. Of course, keep developing yourself, and make sure it’s definitely something more than a few people would consider a treasure.
Remix: What’s the deciding factor in whether a project starts from a producer’s catalog of beats, including purchases from sites like PMPWorldwide.com and iStandardProducers.com, or with the artist working from the ground up on beats with a producer?
DM: Really it’s up to what’s best for the artist’s creative process or what the person leading the creation of the project wants. For example, the A&R. Also, you have to take into consideration the style of the producer with whom the artist wants to collaborate.
For instance, some producers know how to bring the best out of an artist – how to realize a particular sound. Others don’t, but are great at creating beautiful music on their own. Just as well, some artists would rather be guided by a producer who knows how to make a record – as in structure, feeling, ‘ride’ of a song, you know, where it takes the listener. On the other hand, some artists would rather simply get music and come up with concepts and shape the record themselves. Both are great approaches – the goal should be to get the best possible outcome.
It does though get expensive when you talk about going into a studio with a producer because there and several costs you’re going to incur that will all come out of the artists pocket at the end of the day unless otherwise agreed to by the producer and studio. If finance is not an issue, this can be a great way to go. But it’s not necessarily the ideal way. Some artists will take a beat and make a hit record, sometimes going back to the producer and saying “do this, that, and the other thing to this beat”…pretty much on your own time. <laughs>
Personally, a hit record starts with the music, so if I can get a beat that’s crazy to start with, I feel confident in having an artist spend time on it.
Remix: Should up-and-coming rappers concentrate more on their own art-form (i.e. the writing and rapping) or, from an A&R’s perspective, should they start hooking up with producers and concentrate on their own sound? I’m interested in exploring whether the hip-hop stars of tomorrow have to start out with the big picture already in mind, acting and sounding like a major act phenomenon now. For instance, we’re starting to see newcomers inking their home-town producers’ names on the front of their indie CDs – just like the majors – simply to earn ‘street cred’. What are your thoughts on this?
DM: Both are important to pursue. An artist really has to do everything within their power to make their mark. This is why I always emphasis the tteam’ element to an artist’s success. A great team wins that Grammy, that VMA/BET Music Award, or Oscar for song. Not just the artist.
As an artist, work with your managers – both business and personal – to find the right producers to bring out the absolute best in your sound. Work toward finding the best producers who understand your message and who are really the best possible people to capture your sound. Your ‘sound’ is really your ‘message’ to the world, anyway. Just as well, writing is a really critical skill that every artist should constantly improve upon. You don’t want to end up a puppet, saying stuff ghost writers put into your records. Also, you want to be able to eat off of your publishing – where the real money is in this industry. Finally, the way someone raps/spits along with the pitch/tenor of their voice is what makes them unique. You can’t teach the essence of that. You can point out things that the greats do – like they way they ride a beat, or the way they structure their songs, but you can’t teach talent. So rappers just coming into their own should focus on writing, their flow, and their overall sound, the message in their music – what defines them as an artist. As for overall sound, you’re competing with the major artists of today so make competitive music. The quality of the music you create, from the content to the mix clarity and power behind the sound should give the majors a run for their money. Where there’s a will there’s a way, right?
Remix: Absolutely. That’s got to be the indie’s motto every second of the day. Listen, let’s move to present and future business model. Declining record sales are obviously killing us right now, but what else is happening – what other factors are involved in all the drastic shifts we’re seeing in the industry’s infrastructure right now?
DM: Oh yeah, definitely at the top would be declining record sales, but also decreased price points on compact discs. They are the reason for the downsizing at almost all major labels, the disillusion of many labels, and the continuing shrinkage of the music industry’s human resources as a whole. When the big-wigs don’t know how to retain their huge salaries and income streams, people start disappearing. Also, this has brought about the “360 Record Deal”, where the label receives a negotiated piece of revenue from almost every aspect of an artist’s work, in exchange for a negotiated amount of support in each of those areas.
Another major factor would be digital distribution and the digital medium as a whole. iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon.com Music, Last.fm, and countless others. Digital media is the new music superhighway. Last year, around this time, EMI Music Chairman Alain Levy spoke at The London Business School and commented on how the CD, as it is right now, is dead’, and told the audience that 60-percent of CD purchasers transfer music from the CD to a digital format to be played on digital personal music players. Many people agree with him, and the majors are beginning to take note.
I remember being at Columbia and Epic Records two plus years ago within the then huge downsizing that took place. New Media personnel were some of the first to go. I thought to myself “who is in charge that thinks this is smart?” Now, some indie labels are primarily new media. We’ll begin to see the emphasis at major labels shift to new media and technology-driven companies soon enough.
Remix: How has the overall business model changed in Urban relative to the rest of the industry? Any significant differences?
DM: Budgets for Urban artists are lessening. Whereas in the late nineties and throughout the early 2000’s it wasn’t uncommon to see recording budgets of $500k+, and even millions at times, given to new artists, that’s now rare. They average about half of that now and less. Advances are far less today too. Advances now look like purely the minimum it would take an artist to create an album. And most advances are recoupable by the label – purely a loan that you have to repay. Whereas five to ten years ago an act would get signed because of the possibility that they could sell albums, they aren’t getting signed today. Then, the glass was half full. Today, it’s half empty.
Remix: What’s the most important thing that a new producer or artist should realize about the way labels do business today – and tomorrow – as opposed to before?
DM: Major Labels want artists that will debut as high up on the Soundscan Charts as possible when they release. They want artists that other artists will secretly want to be like and that the public will imitate. They look for trendsetters, a person that can enter a room and all eyes are on them, the attention just flows toward them. Labels want artists that embody excitement. Enough of all of these things traditionally drive sales. That’s star quality.
As opposed to before, ring-tone sales are highly emphasized because there’s practically zero overhead or expenditure relative to CD manufacturing costs. So you see a sharp rise in one-hit-wonders, particularly in hip-hop and R&B because hit records will drive profit through real-tone sales. It’s also why you see a lot more singles deals launching the careers, albeit sometimes short-lived, of some of these artists. At the end of the day, a business is a business, regardless of what field it is. The music biz is no different. You have to realize that labels want to brand themselves and stand out among their peers. It’s critical that artists realize profit allows for employees to have jobs and for artists to have careers, so the ability to make profit shouldn’t be taken for granted. It’s easy to say that everyone already knows this but far too often people – not just the artists themselves, but sometimes their team – allow their passion for their work to cloud judgment as to whether there’s enough of a market to substantiate the signing and financial backing of their project at a major label. If you can prove there’s a market by actually selling your product or creating enough of a buzz around you and your work, then labels will absolutely take interest.
Much of the time, the people who actually sign the acts have to report to their boss’s boss’s boss. They themselves have to prove to people who don’t even listen to the music itself…their boss’s boss’s boss <laughs>… why their company should spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on you, the artist. In this sense, sales receipts or something that shows real sales, that show a market actually exists for your work, go a very long way. If not, in business terms, your project is a risk. Businesses don’t like risks. They like sure-fire sales. Lastly, artists don’t have to necessarily run the businesses behind their careers; they should though be knowledgeable about the finer points on what’s happening with their careers. Make sure that your team knows how to run a business and how to deal with the parent company or distributor you are signed with. You have to make certain there are people that have your best interest in mind. Good, intelligent, witty, ethical, talented people. Expect to learn this lesson one way or the other – either by listening to a person like me now, or in 10 years when you learn by experience. I’m telling you, leverage is king: what you get out of a record deal is what you negotiate. The more you have that they want, the more you will get from them.
Remix: What’s happened in the industry that really ticks you off, at a personal level?
DM: Administrative and creative people – the worker bees – getting laid off from their jobs when the real cuts should have been made at the leadership levels. Those positions where the executives hide their ignorance of the industry and the market they operate in by letting go of people they employ in order to lessen the financial losses they experience by emphasizing the difference between expenditure and revenue with their Board Membership. It’s disappointing, on a human level. I don’t appreciate the disregard for people’s lives by leaders of companies who would let go of thousands rather than attempt to actually embrace, learn, and institute the future of the industry into their own business. I was blessed enough to have never experienced that side of the business, but many of my friends have, and it’s heartbreaking.
Remix: What needs to be brought back from hip-hop’s past, if anything?
DM: The fun!
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