EPISODE 276 "SIGNED TO AN ARTIST: FAILURE OR THE FUTURE"

In the music industry, there used to be a time when everyone's job was just their job. Label's were labels, artist were artist, managers, promoters, producers...everyone had their lane. Then the digital age came and shit changed RAPIDLY. Now everyone feels as though they can do everyone else job because it is not as hard to do...or so it seems. one of the things that the digital age brought about was empowering the Independent artist and also the mentality that artist don't need the labels as much. A spawn of such a mentality is now you see more and more ARTIST who are the head of their OWN labels. Now  it seems, especially in RAP MUSIC that if you want to get on, you don't go looking for the top Label owned by some guy with a degree is music marketing, you go looking for the dude with the biggest chain and entourage. This is what we are seeing now...RAPPERS signing OTHER RAPPERS to deals more and more sometimes with GREAT RESULTS (see Maybach and Young Money) and sometimes with DISASTROUS results. So the questions to be posed are simple but then again not so simple. But what we do know, is you are seeing more ARTIST/CEO in this field then ANY OTHER FIELD. Is this good for the business or not, who knows. But this trend is NOT going away. As someone who has dedicated a better part of my life creating my own music and branding my own Indie Label, I am that guy. But I also wish I didn't HAVE to be that guy! So basically I will ask

1) DO YO THINK IT'S WISE FOR ARTIST TO SIGN TO LABELS OWNED AND RAN BY ARTIST? 2) DOES A LABEL THAT'S OWNED BY AN ARTIST SEEM LESS PROFESSIONAL? 3) DOES IT SEEM LIKE ARTIST OWNED LABELS ARE MORE OR LESS SUCCESSFUL THEN LABELS RAN BY NON ARTIST? 4) IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST WOULD YOU SIGN TO ANOTHER ARTIST WHY OR WHY NOT?