A Few Tips for Music Creatives

Christian Hip Hop Artists have a lot ahead of them, as being a creative today can be a wonderful thing. Disintermediation, independence, and autonomy create opportunities. However, it also creates the need for more ownership and understanding of the end-to-end process.

This is by no means an exhaustive end-to-end guide, but will hopefully help with some of the most pertinent items to help you increase your effectiveness in music ministry. 

Ensure You AND Your Music are registered in the right places

I can’t emphasize this enough. Please ensure that each of your songs has an ISRC code. Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording, independent of the format in which it appears (CD, an audio file, etc.) or the rights holders involved. https://usisrc.org/

Professional Rights Organizations

BMI

https://www.bmi.com/: BMI is the bridge between songwriters and the businesses/ organizations that want to play their music publicly. As a global leader in music rights management, BMI serves as an advocate for the value of music, representing over 18.7 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.2 million songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

ASCAP

https://www.ascap.com/music-creators: ASCAP is a membership association of more than 875,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

SESAC

https://www.sesac.com/: SESAC currently licenses the public performances of more than 1 million songs on behalf of its 30,000 affiliated songwriters, composers, and music publishers

Organizations That Track Your Music

Sound Exchange

https://www.soundexchange.com/:   SoundExchange solutions make it easier for creators and their representatives to manage the business side of music. SoundExchange Direct is a free service available to all creators via the website or app. After registering, creators can search and claim their recordings, track their catalog, and review their digital royalty payments.

Special Note to Christian Hip Hop Artists: The songs we play on Holy Culture Radio are captured on SoundExchange, which makes quarterly payments. There is a significant difference in the amount paid for radio spins versus Spotify Streams. An example below shows how much it takes to earn $100 between the two. Literally – – 3 Spins versus 42,000 Spotify Streams.

Dive deeper into this royalties topic here.

Mediabase

https://www2.mediabase.com: Mediabase is a music industry service that monitors radio station airplay in 180 US and Canadian markets. Mediabase publishes music charts and data based on the most played songs on terrestrial and satellite radio and provides in-depth analytical tools for radio and record industry professionals. Send your new music here – https://www2.mediabase.com/mbapp/NewMusicNotification

Marketing and Promotions

You’ve been faithful to the calling, you’ve followed your passion/purpose, and you believe you’ve played by the rules and put in the work, but you launch and find things aren’t moving as you thought they might, right? Don’t be shocked; it is a crowded market. Statistically, it is noted that 60,000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day! Further, there are over 90 million tracks on the Spotify database, which just means that people have a lot of choices in terms of what to consume.

So, you must market and promote your work in order to break through. Below are some things that might help.

Work with DJs and Radio

DJs and Radio can still play an important part as curators and breaking your song. While TikTok and social media are the ever-present form of discover in most people’s eyes, 3 billion people still listen to the radio around the world, reaching 92% of U.S. adults every week!

Be sure to send artist drops to stations. Stations love to add your voice into the mix, introducing your song and other places in programming.

For Holy Culture Radio, be sure to reach out to the shows that you believe your music is a fit for. Also, remember, some of them do interviews. Go to www.HolyCulture.net/radio and scroll to the bottom. You can use their pages to contact them.

Dice Gamble and DJ Focus of Da Fixx Morning Show share some other tips during one of their shows. Get the tip sheet and listen to the podcast; it was very insightful.

Use all of the radio outlets that play Christian Hip-Hop as a starting point.

• Holy Culture Radio – Submit Here
• GH3 Radio
• Boost Radio
• Hot Chart Reporting Stations

Record Pools

Leverage record pools to help get singles into the hands of DJs and other tastemakers who can help create momentum for you. Get them your music and your electronic press kit (EPK). Christian Hip Hop artists have a unique advantage here as there are several record pools devoted to, or with a specialization on, Christian Hip Hop.

• Kingdom Affiliates – https://kingdomaffiliates.com/ 
• XRP Record Pool – https://xrprecordpool.com/ 
• UGM Digital – https://ugm.digital/

This post will be updated constantly as the music industry and business are always evolving!

Trig