Young Guru – 3.11.13

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Young Guru: For new artists, I would say number one is to study the landscape. It used to be before that, you’d say, “I’m going to sit at home and I’m going to make a bunch of music and then I’m going to take that music to someone and get a deal.” I don’t know if that’s particularly the correct way for everyone in 2013 where you can exist as an independent artist and you can make a great living and make a great salary and bring enough attention to yourself where if you do decide to go to a record label, you can then bring some type of value, where that record label is going to have to respect what you do. If I go to a record label and I just say, “Hey, I’m just anybody and I have some music,” that’s one thing, but you’re going to sign as one of the flex bands. But if you come to a label with a million Twitter followers, or let’s not even make it that dramatic; if you come to the label and say, “I have a hundred thousand Twitter followers, and this many people on Facebook, and this many hits on YouTube,” they have to start respecting that. So the independence that artists can enjoy now is much different than before. The power is there. They can shoot their own videos, they can set up tours, and what hip hop is now seeing is what rock ‘n’ roll had set up for so long. You’ll see hip hop guys now tour for two or three years before they decide if they can put out an album, which I think is the better way.

MR: What advice was given to you that you feel like was the most important that you’ve ever gotten?

YG: Oh, wow, that’s a great question. I think from Tony Maserati, who is one of my mentors, got great experience with Bob Clearmountain, who I call an O.G. when it comes to making music. He’s done everyone from The Rolling Stones to Aretha Franklin–the list goes on and on with him. Tony Maserati is a direct student of his, and Tony Maserati taught me. So the thing he taught me was to go out and create my own sound. You can go out and create a sound like someone else, but that person will always be above you because you’re copying their sound. Whoever comes in and creates their own sound creates what we call their own lane, and then people have to come to you for that sound. I think that’s the biggest thing to concentrate on, to make yourself unique, where you have your own sound.