Theophilus London & The Business Of Music
I just downloaded I Want You, his mixtape that dropped today, and realized how brilliant his moves are from a business perspective. I’m not talking about his music (whether you like it or not), I’m talking about his success as an artist.
I’ve felt for a while that it’s not worth it for breaking artists to sell their music to consumers. Vinyl is cool but the production is costly and most artists break even. And they have to sell A LOT of units in order to make a living in the digital marketplace (keep in mind those numbers are for solo artists). The money worth chasing is in live performances, corporate endorsements, and licensing.
Theophilus works this to his advantage. Click over to his MySpace and you’ll see that he’s performing all over the world. Last October He teamed up with Mark Ronson and Sam Sparro to create Chauffeur, releasing a track to promote Ronson’s Gucci boat-sneaker. Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound put out “Humdrum Town” with a music video in January. I Want You is his 3rd mixtape, hyped to the max and stuffed with uncleared samples. That’s another cool thing, when you take money off of the table artists can express themselves without limits. Yes, this is still illegal, but would Whitney Houston really sue him over a track that didn’t have a proper release?
What can aspiring artists learn from him? Make music that’s different (and awesome, of course), give it away for free, wait for the right opportunities, and don’t stop making music.
[...] about the music industry. My boy Loren Wohl, over at RCRDLBL, really hit it on the head in his post regarding Theopilus’s new free-for-download album, I Want You “Theophilus works this [...]