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Equity Over the Check: Why Jay-Z and 50 Cent Bet on Ownership · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Yo, welcome back to Clone Wars: The Spinoff.
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  I want to start with something the OGs learned the hard way.
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  Back in the day, a lot of us signed whatever was in front of us for a check that
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  felt big at the time.
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  Masters gone, publishing gone, name and likeness gone.
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  Today we're talking about the flip side of that lesson - artists who said no to the
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  bigger check because they wanted the smaller piece of the actual business.
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  This is a real culture shift too, not just a money shift.
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  When a brand only wants to pay you a flat fee, that's a paid ad,
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  plain and simple - they get the clout, you get a check, and six months later nobody
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  remembers the campaign.
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  When a brand gives you equity, that's them saying we're actually building something
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  with you.
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  That changes how you show up creatively, how you talk about it,
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  everything.
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  Right, it's the difference between renting your name out for a weekend and actually
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  owning a piece of the block.
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  Let's put real numbers on it, because the math is not close.
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  Jay-Z's D'Ussé deal - if he'd taken a straight endorsement over ten years,
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  industry estimates put that around fifty million dollars.
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  Instead he took equity in the brand itself.
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  When LVMH bought a majority stake, that fifty million turned into roughly seven
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  hundred fifty million.
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  That's fifteen times the payout, for choosing ownership over a paycheck.
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  Fifty Cent did the same thing with Vitaminwater.
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  He turned down guaranteed money to take equity in Glaceau instead.
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  When Coca-Cola bought that company for over four billion, his stake was worth
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  somewhere between sixty and a hundred million - about twenty times bigger than the
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  check he walked away from.
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  And this isn't old news anymore, this is the standard now.
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  This year, more than half of all brand deals - fifty three percent - are structured
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  with performance or equity upside, almost double what it was two years ago.
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  And that's not just a superstar move anymore, that's trickling all the way down to
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  where I'm at.
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  I've started asking brands I work with for a revenue share on merch drops instead of
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  just a flat sponsorship for a tour date.
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  Even a small percentage of a product line beats a one-time check,
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  because that check spends the same day, but the percentage keeps hitting every time
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  somebody buys a hoodie.
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  For indie artists listening, you don't need a Jay-Z sized deal to use this.
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  If a small brand wants you to post about their product, ask what a rev share or a
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  small equity piece looks like instead of a flat rate.
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  Worst case they say no and you take the check anyway.
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  Best case you're building something that pays you after the tour's over.
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  This connects straight back to knowledge of self.
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  Before you can negotiate equity instead of a check, you have to actually know what
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  you're worth - your numbers, your reach, your leverage.
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  That's the foundation, that's the one.
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  Everything after that is wisdom, sharing what you know, and understanding,
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  actually applying it in a real deal.
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  And once you get that equity, the real strategist move is what you do with it next.
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  Don't just let it sit in your personal name - talk to a lawyer about holding it in a
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  trust or an LLC, same way you'd want your publishing catalog held.
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  That's how a hundred million dollar payout turns into something your kids are still
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  living off of, instead of a number that disappears in five years.
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  That's the whole point of the culture shifting from flexing the check to flexing the
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  ownership stake.
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  An endorsement ends when the money clears.
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  Equity keeps paying, keeps compounding, and it's something you can actually pass
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  down or sell later on your own terms.
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  Build instead of just taking the bag.
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  That's Clone Wars for today - appreciate y'all riding with us,
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  we'll get into the next one soon.