Mixtape: 5 Things You Aren't Doing That's Killing Your Mixtape Project

13 Mar Mixtape: 5 Things You Aren’t Doing That’s Killing Your Mixtape Project

Posted at 18:56h in Music Business by Cory Austin 1 Comment

Pondering big dreams of breaking into the rap game?

You and a million others probably want to consider some different options before you release your mixtape or album. Are you bringing anything unique or different to the table? Jumping straight to recording then music release is a big NO.. NO.. and setup for disaster. You should reevaluate your efforts with at least a 30 day plan of execution.

For alot of starving hip hop artists, this is the exact case. STOP for a second and think….

The walls of Datpiff is a graveyard for thousands of mixtapes that have dropped and failed miserably. Why? Because the artists lacked education and guidance on a proper musical release. The culture of music has now become A BUSINESS and this business only works when ran as a well oiled machine.

So what can you do?

Its important as musicians we understand how to present a high level of craft without sacrificing quality. I came across a video by producer Bryan Ellis, who brought some great points up, regarding musicians looking to capitalize on their mixtape projects. Easy steps that are commonly overlooked by young, inexperienced musicians. If you want to be seen as a professional music artist. I would say; work these keys into perfection and incorporate each one into all your musical efforts!

Here are 5 Things You Should Be Doing When Releasing Your Mixtape.

1.) Create A Platform: Blog and YouTube for Artist Promotion

Take some steps to get people interested in you as an artist. Show them the struggle its taken you to develop your upcoming project. Film yourself going through your writing process, your collaborations and getting your artwork done. Record your day to day struggle that you are going through in order to release your project.

2.) Get Professional Graphic Work on Your Covers

This is a very important step in today’s digital music world. With so many saturating the hip hop market with their musical projects, the consumer tries to narrow down their choices easier and faster. This happens by fans choosing unknown artists specifically by the quality of their cover design. This says alot! Artists that realize that professional high quality representation is important deserve high traffic fans on demand.

3.) Professional Quality Production

Make sure that you are only using professionally mixed beats, this becomes a huge turn off to many fans when they have to listen to music that incorporates low-budget beats. Make sure that you you stay away from tagged beats, while Bryan explains this as one of the single most annoying things from musicians. I believe when you work within the industry this becomes a pet peeve more than simple fans that like a quality beat with lyrics. Either way NON-TAGGED beats should always be your preference. When you want to build professional business relationships, I 100% agree this labels you immediately as someone who is not serious.

4.) Professional Quality Engineering

This is a step that can not be avoided, make sure your music is recorded by someone that knows how to Engineer. The problem is many artists try to cut studio costs by recording at home studios or recording themselves. Nothing wrong with this process, just make sure you get your music recorded by someone that knows how to do professional engineering. If you do not have that option then send your music to a professional studio that can. You cant put a price on professional quality sound once, mixed and mastered. Remember its your music, its worth it! Your Worth it!

5.) Always incorporate a budget for doing your music marketing!

Ok, I can agree with Bryan, this is the one step that I see musicians over look all the time. They try a very weak social media effort rappers especially! They never think about having a budget for their musical release. If you want to release your mixtape in 30 days (I suggest more time) you should be setting up a plan that will incorporate a campaign for your project. Instead of depending on promoting it using social media links and creating email blasts, real promotion should be running with professionally created ads promoting your music as a professional ad campaign.

Listen here and get the full video where Bryan covers in detail how musicians should think and approach the release of a mixtape projects. This is great information for new or veteran rap artists that don’t have a good plan of execution under their belt. Listen to these wise words, study the game and be a student of the art. Be sure to like and share this post!