This post will adress how to get known by record labels. There's really only two ways:

1: Someone from a label hearing some of your work dry with no reccomendation.
2: Someone from a label hearing about you via word of mouth reccomendation and looking into you.

Either are equally as easy/hard as the other but I'll discuss em both anyway.

• Getting a label your work from dry: Lets say I wake up one day and say "yo Dooms, you know wht you should do yo? Go to XYZ record label's office and drop em a CD"! This is essentialyl the same as mailing one in or anything of the sort. The CD gets to em and who ever you visualize listening to it (like diddy or Jay or who ever else you fantasize about) will never hear it. It'll get listened to by one of many screeners who listen to it to make sure you atleast rap on beat and speak english and if you sound like you're speaking through a vocal transformer or any other dysfunctional shit liek that. They also listen to if it's catchy or inteesting. These people are called "Talent Scouts" and can sometimes be a regular-ass A/R with no clients, but in any case, if it passes, that'll get passed on to the next guy up who's an A/R. He just listens for two things: 1: if he can work with you, your sound, and what he percieves you may be like as a person and 2: if any of that will make you "marketable" meaning if people will swarm out to buy anything you're on to the point that the company makes money off of you. that A/R will pass it on to some senior exec or a financing manager and so on for their second opinion to see if they think it'd be worth investing in you. If they're feeling strongly that they can make the company's investment in your sound profitable, they'll make the effort to contact you for you to sit down and talk to them. You go in, tlak to them, and they read a lot from the things you do besides the msic you make, they listen to your attitide, willingness to cooperate, how much bullshit you'll take, etc. Maybe they like your overall attitude but on closer examination they don't liek your music. And it's not that it's not entertainng, its that they dont' see thta peopel will go apeshit over it or otherwise get that investment returned and multiplied. From there they'll decide if they need to see you again for what ever reason that'll essentially boil down to them making the same decision of "Are they worth it". These guys have all sorts of formulae and past experience and sales and marketing research to determine how they'd need to market you and if you'd be sellable like that so don't think it's all just "luck". This stuff is calculated out to the last cent before you even come in the office. If you come in the office. The upside to this is that you dont' spend 1/10th the time in whoring yourself around to clubs and gigs. The downside is that your CD on't goes as far as what label you send it to. No other labels hear it.

• Getting a label your work through word of mouth: Lets say I woke up this morning and said "Dooms, know what you should do yo? You Should enter every battle competition at every club you can get yourself to and enter freestyle cypher you can and really set shit on fire." I'd go ge what ever info I needed to get on theclub's battle roster and go walk into street cyphs and so on in the hopes that someoen in either crowd happens to be either in the know, or a talent scout(s) for XYZ label(s). These scouts will reccomend you to the exact same A/R mentioned in the prior scenario, just thta now they'll do it with strength and conviction like "yo, this guy dooms...he's nice. The crowd responds to him and he's nice live." The A/R takes all this into consideration when he listens to your stuff now. The process of "marketable" (which just means that they'll invest money and see that amount plus far more come back IN as a result of promoting you) or not marketable is the exact same. This is where things liek radio play, CD's sold underground, shows done, etc., already give the A/R's a relatiev forecast of whta kind of crowd you bring and what you'll move. The upside to this is that multiple labels can hear your work at once time. The downside is that it can take far longer to get heard in the necessary chanels that would bring this level of credibility. Typically, your introductory contract to the company will be higher as a result of public history and "buzz".


Both methods can get you the same place and both are "getting known". Notice that one method was not listed here and that's the net. The net is completel ignored by the industry for a very good reason. Anyone with any kind of set-up and any level of scincere interest can record a track and contacting the owner of that track (if needed can often be quite difficult. The screening process in the delivery of the CD and the performing method is the natural screening process. There's far less 'garbage music' in the office since the percentage of people with lackluster work will already pull out and decide to not mail in or perform anything and makes screening the aplicants far easier and faster. Stuff like photocopy paper'd CD covers and things like that are near guarantees that your CD will end up in the garbage. There's no natural screenign process liek this on the net. Any person goign through a phase of "fuckin around with rap" can record tracks on their computers and post it on the net, get people excited (who could just be that very same person on multiple names sweating themselves) and not be able to generate anything at the end of the day. Record companies cant' stand that thought, so the net is completely ignored by talent scouts at major labels. Additinally, if you come ot them, they know that you're willing to get reamed a little easier for them, where as if they com ot you, you feel as though you're in control and it'll be harder to work you. The only possible exposure that can come from the net is the word of mouth type and that's not the same caliber of the live performance word of mouth since no one EVER gets into convos abotu up and coming rappers and someone blurts out "yeah..that guys nice but you know of this cat in the internet?".

I hope this helped put things in perspective to someone somewhere.


- Dooms.

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