Written by Polina Bogomolova
From Feb 7-9th, Orlando welcomed producers, artist managers, labels and music industry executives from different parts of the United States at WorldScout Music Expo. Opportunity was given to new artists, to have an audition in front of all these people from the industry, and to visitors to experience lectures from the panelists. The schedule was so busy, sessions happened concurrently, and visitors had to choose what topic is more important for their knowledge, which became hard to do.
Here we have a brief but fulfilled review of 3 talks at WorldScout: Tish Hyman, Steve Lobel, and Scott Storch.
Tish Hyman: “Publishing from The Artist Perspective”
For those, who aren’t common with Tish Hyman – singer-songwriter and rapper from The Bronx, who began her career as a battle rapper and works with Universal Music Publishing Group nowadays. She collaborated with artists like Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Kelly Rowland, Ty Dolla $ign and many others.
During her lecture at WorldScout, she directly tells us what to expect from publishing companies, Trisha gives us signs which we should notice before and advise what exactly to gaze at, deciding to work with publishers.
“They would give you money to owe your music… They sell themselves mentioning their clients, managers and artists who they work with, but you have to look at the budget that they offer.”
Then, she elaborates on very confusing (her own definition!) information about how the deal with publishers actually works, mentioning MDRС (Minimum Delivery Release Commitment). In a nutshell, if you signed for 3 songs by a publishing company as a songwriter, in fact, you should write 6 songs.
“You do publishing not to buy a car, but make your life better and keep working on music”, says Trisha, explaining why publishing can be a helpful tool for new artists. She mentions writing camps, how they work and why it is a terrific experience, especially at the beginning of an artist career.
Giving detailed information about the session topic, she mixed it with truly inspiring words and didn't let her lecture be tedious and plentiful of terms, theory and facts.
Overall, Tish Hyman is such a charismatic and down-to-earth person!
“Make music you love, not for the radio. No one can tell a story as you can do it, we just wanna hear what you have to say. Nobody called me when I tried to make music to get top charts and radio. And please, always stay grateful."
Steve Lobel: An Insiders Perspective
A few hours later, time comes for the headliners of the event – legends Steve Lobel and Scott Storch.
Steve Lobel – a brilliant manager of Scott Storch from Queens, who worked with Nipsey Hussle, 2Pac, Missy Elliot, Souljah Boy, Fat Joe and who manages his own label company, production company, management company and film company. Steve Lobel’s talk was literally about everything: his life story, his views on the current situation and trends in the music business, his priorities and advice on how to survive in this industry.
Here are some of his thoughts on how you should act in the music business if you want to achieve something:
“Never forget where you came from…Keep good relationships with people, people are more important than business... 90% of people in the music industry are shit…If you’re the sweetest guy in the world, you still have to fight for yourself.”
Telling us about his beliefs, the audience couldn’t stop from moving their heads up and down, showing by this gesture their understanding of Steve Lobel’s statements.
Later, Steve advises hiring a lawyer and finding a team, once you’re in the industry. Why is the first thing to hire a lawyer? Because you don’t want to sign a contract which is going to make a fool of you, for sure. Why is it needed to find a team?
“Everyone achieves more, when they’re in a team.”
The brilliant manager and entrepreneur keeps motivating the audience, saying, “Most people are followers, not leaders, and I’m sure everyone in this room is here because they are the leaders and they don’t want to be followers.”
Steve is concerned about today’s society, “A lot of people sell their souls to look great, they have no principle, morals and you don’t have to be like that”. Also, during the whole conversation, he keeps mentioning social media and how people are obsessed with it nowadays, “Social media is a gifted curse”. He reminisces, “Before social media, we worked harder.”
We can see that though Lobel doesn’t like social media that much due to honest reasons, he still doesn’t ignore it, understanding its value. On the question “How to stay steady?”, he answers, “Build your brand, don’t put your social media in the wrong direction and teach people something (through social media)”.
Talking about Music Business trends in 2020, Steve mentions such music genre as pop-smoke and streaming platforms, points out that the education part is screwed and it is necessary to stay relevant. But what about revenue? Where is revenue? He states that merchandise, pop-ups, and publishing are those “places”, where the revenue of music business is.
The answer to the question “What would you change in Music Business if you could go back?”, makes the audience applaud. “If I could change something in the Music Business, it would definitely be Artist Development”, answers Steve without any doubt. “You should do something impossible to make people know about your personality (nowadays)”.
Coming to the end of his talk, Steve repeats simple, beautiful and obvious facts again and again, “Don’t follow trends, be yourself”, pointing out that though social media is the main tool to promote yourself and to be noticed (followers, likes and all that stuff), still, “Quality over quantity”. If you’re popular on Instagram but can’t perform live, then you’re nothing.
Reviewing the whole talk of Steve Lobel, there’s no wonder why he is one of the most successful managers of the music industry and why people call him “legend” – people come first for him even in business.
Scott Storch: His journey into the music business
Last but not least, here Scott Storch goes – a legendary 8-times Grammy-winning producer, who’s known for “Cry Me A River” by Justin Timberlake, “Candy Shop” by 50 Cents, his work with Christina Aguilera, Tony Braxton, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Gucci Mane, Trippie Redd, DaBaby and so on.
He began his talk, giving an insight into how his music career started. “Back to 1999th, I came to California for the first time ever in my life. There I met Dr. Dre and started working with him. Then, I realized I’m finally in the music industry”.
Scott reminisces about his work with Dr. Dre, “I had a song with Dr.Dre, which is called “100 pressures”, and I would actually like to drop it, but it got leaked so it’s not going to happen. Dr.Dre is never satisfied with the first take”.
Talking about his favorite artists to work with, he mentions Dr. Dre again, adding to the list Beyoncé.
Going deeper into the conversation, Scott opens up and tells about personal situations with sincerity, “I recreated my whole life and destroyed my career with drugs… Then, became sober and learned music again”. What does it mean, to learn music again? Obviously, Storch means not to learn how to play instruments again, but existing and upcoming trends in music production. He learned to be aware of today’s music culture and specifics, but still create his own sound.
“I lost all my connections and all relationships because of drugs, and when I became sober I told Steve..."
Steve answered, “See, Scott, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to reach them out and ask to work together again. Instead, we’re going to find new artists, work with them, develop them and then show and prove everyone you’re back and you’re better than ever”
– Scott about his comeback to the music industry five years ago and how he started working with new artists such as DaBaby.
As a music producer, Scott points out how important an engineer is, “Engineer is highly important for a singer, musician, label. It’s like a nervous system”.
Though many people can doubt it is still possible to create a unique sound, believing that everything is already created and simply copied itself in some ways, Scott recollects, “It’s still possible, you just have to find the right writers and teams. Plus, there’s one more advantage of creating music now – computers with millions of sounds”.
The whole session of Scott Storch sounded like his interview and it's perfectly fine because his life story is a lesson, which every person, who wants to work in the music industry, should know. Recently telling some moments of his life, we could hear advice between its lines. But don’t rush and don’t recall he has only the past to tell you about, because much more things are coming soon. On the question “What to expect from you in 2020?”, Scott answered,
“You know, I’m signed by Atlantic (Records), and I’m preparing an album with a bunch of pop, hip-hop and Latino artists. I would also like to have remakes of my old tracks. Moreover, we’re creating a movie right now”.
Okay, then! Cannot wait to hear and to learn what Scott Storch is preparing for us, but know for sure it’s going to blow our minds.
Big shoutout to one of the 3300+Climbing former coordinators Nequa. She's the one who helped us make the connection to Rap Plug's media team. If it wasn't for her, we would not have been able to cover this event. Thank you Nequa!
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