John Legend has had 'all of you' singing to his latest track like some nursery rhyme. For its all business before the music. Just thinking how does such a man, though talented, have all ladies globally singing to his single? How does he do it? Is it just pure talent or there is something else to it. Will we at some point get to see a Kenyan artiste move the world and keep it at his/ her toes? well the answer that struck me was simple, Management! I thus took myself on a journey to try and understand how this is done and the roles management plays for an artiste.
Most importantly, how do they get paid. Not being selfish but do you even know who manages he dude?
The first two parts of this series examined two of the three essentials of
artist management:
passion and connection. We now arrive at the last essential management
criteria: capital. Please recall that while this series of articles is
written from the perspective of providing advice to the artist looking
for a manager, the information is equally applicable to those interested
in a career in artist management. The goal of the series is to provide
both the artist looking for a manager, and the individual interested in
management with the needed perspective to increase their odds of
success.
How managers get paid
First, you need to
understand a bit about how managers make their money. Typically a
manager will receive a commission—usually 15 to 20 percent—of all of the
income that you generate (the gross). This includes money from gigs,
money paid to you from a record label as a personal advance against
royalties (typically, not from money advanced by a label for you to
record your record), money from merchandise, income from your music
being used in movies or commercials, and any other source of income you
generate as an artist. It is therefore in
the best interest
of the manager to leverage all of those connections I mentioned above
to help you generate as much money as you can, which of course,
generates more money for them. This is capitalism at its finest, and
when it works, it works great for everybody.
The problem is that
young or unestablished artists typically take quite a while to generate
any revenue. Also, these artists typically don’t have any money of their
own, so the management is left to spend their own money in order to
develop the band before any money comes in. Because of this, you will
occasionally see management securing other pieces of the artists’
potential income as a kind of collateral against the money and time they
are putting up. Sometimes, for example, management will acquire some
part of the artist’s publishing—in other words, a piece of the equity in
the copyrights of the songs. This means that when these songs begin
generating mechanical, synch, or performance royalties, the manager will
be paid a percentage of the money. Managers do this because they often
defer their commission while spending their own money. They have no
guarantee that they will ever recover their investment. This practice
has largely been frowned upon (by both artists and managers), and was
seen only occasionally in the past. However, I’m seeing it happen more
and more, and I believe it will become even more of a common practice in
the future.
As an artist, you must seriously debate whether parting
with your publishing, in order to provide a sort of insurance to a
manager, is the right thing to do. My opinion is that it is usually the
wrong thing to do. Whoever you assign any part of your publishing to
must be able to do something with it. By this, I mean they must be able
to “work” your publishing to generate awareness about you and money for
you. If they cannot do this, do not assign any part of your publishing
to them. Therefore, if a manager is requiring you to assign some portion
of your publishing to them, you should only do this if you feel the
manager is going to actively engage in working your songs.
Of
course, it may not be this simple for you, especially if you don’t have a
lot of options. You may feel that the prospective manager can help your
career in many ways, and that it would be foolish to miss the
opportunity to have him or her represent you by clinging too tightly to
your publishing. You may be right. Your publishing is valuable. Part
with it with caution, and only if you’re getting something of real
tangible value in return.
It's Money that Matters
Money is a significant factor in creating effective artist/manager relationships. The manager is
spending money, hoping for a
return on investment.
Publishing is one way to hedge that bet. Of course, managers who have
no money will not be able to offer you much for your publishing.
Managers
who have no money have a hard time being effective. There are always
expenses involved in getting a band signed: recording costs, gas for the
van, fan mailings, travel, guitar strings, and so on. It all adds up.
Of course, management doesn’t have to pay for any or all of these
things. But remember, they can’t make any money unless the band is
making money, so they usually opt to pay for these things and others so that the band has a better chance of getting signed.
Even
after you get signed, management is often the fountain of money. For
instance, an artist and manager may determine that they need an
independent publicist because they feel the label’s publicist (if it has
one) can’t do an effective job due to workload, the label’s priority
scheme, or whatever. The label is not obligated to pay for this (though
often they do), and so the band and management are left to decide
whether or not the potential added exposure they would get from a
publicist is worth the out-of-
pocket expense.
Many times, in a situation such as this one, the band itself is not
generating enough income to pay for something like this, so the
management foots the bill. Theoretically, management will be reimbursed
for these costs once the band does start generating some money. If
neither the band nor the management can afford to pay, it really is the
band that suffers.
Good managers understand that new and developing artists are much like
startup businesses.
The first couple of years (or records) typically are money losers. The
hope is that after the painful initial period has ended, there will be a
financial reward that will recoup all the early losses and then some.
This is why managers will fund an artist’s career at the early
stages—and, in fact, sometimes well into an artist's career.
Summary
In my opinion, it is better to have a
manager who is passionate—and not a bozo—than one who is connected or
financed but lacks passion, vision, or understanding of what your goals
are as an artist. You will be working very closely with this person, and
you need to be able to communicate easily and effectively together.
Additionally, you need to trust that they will represent your artistic
vision in a way that you are comfortable with. They will be your
mouthpiece in many situations. Lastly, you need to really understand
what your objectives are and choose a manager who will help you get
there, and then set new objectives with you and help you achieve those.
Good managers aren’t easy to find, so you must look long and hard and
carefully. In many ways, the manager becomes another member of the band.
By
Sebastain Ngida: Endongo MusiQ 
