Herbie Hancock – HuffPost 6.24.11

Mike Ragogna: I know I’ve asked you this question before, but I’m going to ask it again because it’s always a lovely answer. My question to you is, what advice do you have for new artists, right now?

Herbie Hancock: This is a transitional stage in the music business–the whole business of music, with record labels, intellectual properties and so forth. So, what I might have told musicians 15 years ago is different from what I tell them now. Now, we have the great opportunity to continue to own our intellectual property. Fifteen years ago, I might have said, “Try to get on a major record label,” but I don’t easily give out that advice anymore–sometimes, that’s not the best solution. I encourage young musicians to also study business and get some sense of what business is about because the musicians of today and the near future will be businessmen themselves and are being businessmen themselves. Prince is a perfect example. He’s come up with amazing solutions for his own career that the labels, in some cases, are trying to catch up to–what Radiohead is doing, and many others. So, it’s a brand new day, as far as the music business is concerned, and there are ways to put out your records yourself, cheaply.

I can freely give the advice play the music that’s in your heart. You don’t have to sell out to anybody because you can own that. Play what you believe in and develop that, and if a major label doesn’t pick up on it, that’s not going to be your problem. You go on the internet and you can find companies that work only with independent artists or primarily with independent artists. The best advice I can give to a musician is to continue to follow your heart, to be open, be not just a musician, but a human being, and develop your character, so that that emerges as part of the story you’re trying to tell with your music.

MR: And that’s what you do to this day?

HH: That’s my goal. That, and to continually be a student of music, and a student of life until the day I die–and beyond. (laughs)