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Biz Markie’s Publishing Deal and the Blueprint for Legacy Wealth · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Yo, we gotta start here.
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  Biz Markie passed in 2021, and this month his catalog just got a brand new
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  publishing deal.
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  Downtown Music Publishing is now handling his publishing admin,
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  his sync licensing, and his name, image, and likeness.
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  Five years gone and the business side just leveled up.
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  That's wild to me as a producer because Biz Markie's voice and his records have been
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  sampled over fifteen hundred times.
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  Fifteen hundred.
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  That's not a catalog, that's a whole ecosystem other people been building careers
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  off of.
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  Okay but real talk, why should an indie artist like me care about a deal this big?
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  I'm not signed to nobody managing my NIL rights.
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  Because the mechanics are the same whether it's fifteen hundred samples or fifteen.
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  Publishing admin, sync, and NIL are just three different pipes that all lead back to
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  one bank account.
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  Once you understand how they work for Biz Markie's estate, you understand how
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  they're supposed to work for you, right now, while you're alive to collect.
• 1:02
  Let's talk sound for a second.
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  Biz Markie wasn't just a rapper, he was a human sample pack.
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  'Just a Friend' alone has been flipped, interpolated, and referenced across genres
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  for decades.
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  That's culture compounding interest.
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  Every time a new producer touches it, it's a fresh sync opportunity and a fresh
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  royalty trigger.
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  Right, and that's exactly why publishing administration is its own lane.
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  Downtown Music Publishing isn't writing his songs or performing them,
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  they're collecting and tracking what's owed across sync licensing,
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  mechanicals, and performance royalties, then routing it through Surrey Lane
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  Publishing back to the estate.
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  Recorded masters run through a completely separate pipe with Rhino and Warner.
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  Two different rooms, two different checks.
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  See that's the part nobody tells young artists.
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  I had a song land in a small streaming series last year, and I almost left money on
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  the table because I didn't have my publishing split sheet filed before the placement
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  cleared.
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  Sync money moves fast, and if your paperwork isn't tight, you miss the wave.
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  That's discipline, plain and simple.
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  Legacy isn't just bars and stage presence, it's whether your splits,
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  your registrations, and your contracts are in order before somebody comes knocking.
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  Biz Markie's team built that infrastructure.
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  Most artists wait until it's too late, or until somebody else has to build it for
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  them after they're gone.
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  This is the real lesson.
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  Tara Hall, his widow, is the executor managing all of this,
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  and she called it a blueprint for honoring a legend while finding new ways for his
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  work to keep earning for future generations.
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  That's generational wealth in real time.
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  An estate plan, a trust structure, and a publishing administrator working together
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  so the income doesn't die with the artist.
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  And that's knowledge of self in the deepest sense.
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  Know your catalog.
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  Know your contracts.
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  Know exactly who owns what piece of your name and your music,
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  because if you don't know it while you're living, your family is forced to learn it
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  while they're grieving.
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  For me the takeaway is simple: you don't need fifteen hundred samples to need a
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  will, a publishing administrator, or an LLC for your masters.
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  Start that paperwork at show number ten, not after you sell out an arena.
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  And culturally, this is why sampling and crate digging matter.
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  Biz Markie's sound lives on because new producers keep reaching back for it.
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  Preserving that catalog right is literally preserving hip-hop's memory.
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  That's our Supreme Mathematics close.
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  Knowledge, the foundation, is knowing your business before anybody else has to know
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  it for you.
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  And Culture, the fourth degree, is making sure what you built still feeds the people
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  coming after you.
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  Build that blueprint now, so your catalog keeps talking long after you're done
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  speaking.
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  That's the lesson, that's the show.