To get straight to business I have some advice you up and coming artist be need to be advised on. Recently I was downtown in Philly getting ready to meet up with my homey Trel Mack to hang out and handle some business. While on the way there I ran into this dude trying to sell me his album, mixtape, or whatever for 5.00 dollars. I’m pretty sure many of you up and coming artist do this and always say “5 ain’t much man, support me”.

Let me tell you something I understand you had to pay for studio time, album covers, duplications, all that but if I never heard of you why the hell I’m should your damn CD? No disrespect but that’s like a car salesman trying to sell me a car I never test drove, see the comparison? Anyway while talking to this dude I tried and tried to explain to him that you need to give them away for free and he looked at me like I was crazy.

The CD is on its way to being extinct like a dinosaur soon. CD sales in the industry are on life support and every year the sales physical album sales decrease which is terrible. If music fans today won’t even buy a top selling artist like Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne’s album what makes you think they will buy yours. Yeah these artisst had huge first week numbers in CD sales and don’t forget they drop heavily the following weeks to come, but that’s nothing compared to the music fans that downloaded their albums for FREE, yes FREE!!!

A smart artist on the rise will give the music away for free, can you imagine how many hands that will touch the product and increase your chances of getting heard? Exactly! But this dude just didn’t get the picture and he didn’t even realize who he was talking to.

 But no, he wanted to go the hard route and hustle his music all day for a petty five dollars and I know for a fact he had a harder time. You never know whose hands your album will touch if you simply give them away.

The funny thing is this dude had know idea I was a journalist for many major online hip-hop sites and print publications and if I liked what I heard, who knows I could’ve did a review, got a track online, etc. See the bigger picture now my fellow artist that’s trying to get on? You don’t know who is who or who knows who, or who is very connected to get you to that next level, so why not sacrifice the money to get heard instead? Yeah I understand some people might take it and throw it away but at least they are seeing your name.

You see this industry is built on sacrifice and you have to put in that work. Working for free in this business is a must and the many people who reach the pinnacle of the music industry made it for the love and passion of this game and then the money came.