Check out Gerd Leonhard’s Open Letter to Independent Musicians.

Almost all rappers I speak with focus on cd sales as the primary way they will generate income in the future.  I think this is a mistake because the internet and mp3 enabled devices have made buying a cd obsolete.

If we treat P2P file sharing networks as a business and compared P2P to the biggest music retailers - WalMart, Amazon, and iTunes - P2P wins hands down in the shear amount of music they distribute.  This tells us that people want to to get their music immediately and for free.

But how do we feed ourselves if we give away our music?  What we must realize is that making our music easily accessible is a tactic to grab people’s attention.  Once we get their attention, tell them our story, and engage them in on going two-way communication we will greatly increase the amount of ticket sales and merchandise sales.  And we will then open up new worlds of sync rights (podcasts, video games, tv, movies, ect.).  After that new revenue streams will emerge that we had never considered.

It’s only a matter of time before we see very successful artists emerge upon this new shift of paradigm.

Here are three keys to success I see in the new future of the hip hop music business:

  1. Make your music as easily accessible as possible.  This means breaking down the barriers imposed by the current Recording Industry.  Use new technologies like reverbnation, imeem, myxer, hypemachine, and ccmixter. Pay special attention to any website that allows users to download, rate, and comment on your music.
  2. Tell your story.  The story you tell will keep a fan’s attention.  Put your music in context.  Regularly post videos about yourself and fine tune the story about what you stand for and why.  Here are some great questions to ask yourself when building your story.
  3. Build long-lasting relationships through conversation.  Allow your fans to participate in what you do.  Enable people to make their own remixes and mash-ups of your music.  Lead your followers.  This is how you build a movement.  Technologies like twitter, facebook, and blogger are great communication tools.