How Much Money do Hip Hop Producers ACTUALLY Make?

Producers feel free to share stories on how you first made money!

Definitely why it's pretty common to have producer tags.

You hear the same tag on a number of songs you really like and then you look them up and they become a producer you know

Recently Spotify started putting a "credits" section that you can look at when you tap the three dots next to a song, and it lists the artists, writers, and producers of the track. Certainly a good thing for producer recognition, and opened my eyes to how prevalent songwriting was among popular artists.

Deals are usually like this:
Fee (fully/partly/non recoupable)
Master/ Net song royalty % (paid by label every 6-9 months)
Publishing % (pretty standard 50 goes to music 50 to lyrics, paid by PRO's by ASCAP, BMI etc)

So it's not you either get paid upfront OR you get royalties. Usually it's both and terms are always negotiable so both sides are happy.

I'm a producer in a country that doesn't even use trap beats or listen to deeper roots of rap other than mainstream radio hits. Thanks to videos like this - I keep grinding

Producers will always have the short stick in this business especially when working with the big labels. They will steal your beat and reverse engineer it if you don’t come to an agreement. My friends have produced for a lot of up and coming artists’ debut albums. Often times not get paid and when the album pops off then the team is trying to lowball them knowing they have leverage. Want to take it to court? They will try to drag it out until you go broke. So most producers don’t have the money or connections to get a good lawyer to represent them so instead they will take the small payment. Music industry is just shady in general and about every producer who signs to a label regrets it. It’s best to stay independent and have your own studio. This way you get to charge studio time as well. Protect your art and integrity, don’t let money dictate you and keep pressing.

Little tip for aspiring producers, if you want to work with a famous or up and coming artist. Make friends with the sound engineer. Even become a sound engineer and apply yourself at one of the studios. You have constant cash flow and in the free time you get to use the studio. Meantime you get to network. Networking is the key and just stay true to yourself. Don’t try to pretend and you will find a circle

as a producer i need this

Looking forward! Super interesting content as always. You're like the mate I never had, to talk about music in it's complete detail and also see whats behind...
Keep it up :)

I think OZ is a good example for a successful and famous producer. Through his production for Drake plus the work he does for German artists like Shindy, he became one of the biggest names in German rap.

That’s why most producers end up being rappers themselves here are a few examples
Pi’erre Bourne
Kanye West
KanKan
Dr Dre
Pharrell
& many more

I've been living full time off music for 5 years now, leasing and selling exclusive rights to artists/labels makes an income but isn't sustainable long term. Like stated in the video, the royalties are just pocket money compared to the upfront fee. Unfortunately this isn't sustainable long term so need to figure out how to tilt the scales as artists who used my beats are buying new cars, houses etc whilst I'm renting a roof over my head and just got food in the fridge. I'm grateful for being in such a position but there are levels to this that don't add up for what we as producers bring to the table.

As producer you should expand your production make music for commercial,movies, different genres of music besides hiphop .

Phillip, you’ve made 3 thumbnails already but please stay with this one. 😂

That ken yeat diss 😭

Tbh there's so much nuance in how to get paid in music. Lil Nas buying the beat for $30 doesn't necessarily the producer isn't making money on royalties. Also, producers get a small % of the master recordings but they should be getting a decent chunk of the mechanical royalties so its kinda convoluted.

I just want to clarify on the 30$ beat for Lil Nas X. The producer behind it actually got paid way more.

The 30$ dollar beat is a license by Beatstars - the beat was actually still 100% owned by the producer. Later on a different deal was negotiated.

But the point you are proving is still there. As a producer myself - I've seen people in the community who have been ripped off - one example was ASAP Ferg Plain Jane - the beat was sold exclusively for 200$ and I'm sure the producer probably didn't get paid anything more...

Didn't expexct it, but since I'm a producer I really need it. Big thanks 🙏

6:12 it's not completely right, every producer has the decision to sell their beats with whatever rights they want to, also selling non exclusive beats to top tier artists like with juicy J and takeoff who both used the same beat by buddabless. It's essentially the same with people do artworks, they can also not sell their rights to the Cover and capitalise on the popularity by selling Prints for example

Looking at Kanye, we can assume every producer is an unstable billionaire

Scott Storch should defo have been mentioned, as he's a generally well known producer for all the hits he made in the 00s