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Runway’s JV Deal and the Artist Leverage Playbook · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Welcome to the show, everybody!
• 0:01
  I'm Dangerous Zygos, here with DJ Universe, Calvin Blingwell,
• 0:05
  and Dandy Market.
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  And look, as the C.E.O.
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  of Currency Development, I always look at the structure of the money first,
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  and right now, the money is moving in a very specific direction.
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  Atlantic Music Group's 10K Projects just backed a new Runway Records joint venture,
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  and this isn't some vanity imprint play.
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  Nah, this is different, Zygos.
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  10K is looking at the scoreboard.
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  Runway is coming in as a developmental hub with heavy data: over sixty million
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  streams overall, three Top Ten records on the TikTok Top Fifty,
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  and their artist Aziedoesntexist is pulling in over eight hundred thousand daily
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  streams.
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  "Everglades" hit number one on the Spotify Viral Chart.
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  That is pure proof of concept before the ink even dried on the JV.
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  Man, "Everglades" is a monster record, but we gotta talk about what a joint venture
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  actually means for the artist on the ground compared to a traditional major signing.
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  In a JV, Runway and 10K are splitting the risk and the bag,
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  but Runway keeps the keys to the culture.
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  The major label is basically outsourcing the street-level scouting because they
• 1:15
  can't buy taste, they can only fund it.
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  Exactly, Calvin.
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  I had to stay lit to survive, and in this game, survival means knowing who actually
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  holds the leverage.
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  With a traditional major deal, you get that big upfront machine,
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  sure, but you lose clarity.
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  You don't know who really owns the masters, the recoupment math is fuzzy,
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  and you are locked in for years.
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  But a JV-backed boutique like Runway?
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  If they have a track record, does that actually give the artist more leverage,
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  or is it just a shinier trap?
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  It only gives you leverage if you bring your own infrastructure to the table first.
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  In hip-hop, the legends who lasted--the ones who built empires--built their name
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  before anyone else could write a check.
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  It is about that discipline, what I call knowledge of self before the deal.
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  If you do not know who you are and what your brand is worth before you walk into
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  Atlantic's building, they will define it for you, and they will price it cheap.
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  That's facts.
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  The old-school grind wasn't "please sign me," it was "look at this movement I built,
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  now how much are you going to pay to partner with it?"
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  You gotta be undeniable on your own first.
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  So let's get into the actual contracts, because this is where artists get hurt.
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  If you are sitting across from a label, even a cool indie JV like Runway,
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  you need to ask four killer questions.
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  Number one: Who owns the masters, and for how long?
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  Number two: What is the term length?
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  Number three: Is there a reversion clause--meaning, do those masters come back to me
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  after ten or fifteen years?
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  And number four: What is the marketing commitment in actual,
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  written dollars, not just "reasonable efforts"?
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  And you gotta know where the money is flowing from!
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  Is the check coming from Runway, from 10K, or is it passing through a distributor
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  first?
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  If you can't map the corporate parent-company stack, you do not understand the deal.
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  Aziedoesntexist had eight hundred thousand daily streams *before* the deal.
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  That data is a shield.
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  When you have pre-signing momentum, the label isn't saving you from obscurity; they
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  are buying into an ongoing business.
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  But look, the data only gets you through the door.
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  Virality is a spark, but sonic identity is the fireplace.
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  A TikTok spike is cool, but if that sound doesn't translate into a loyal fan base
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  that buys hard tickets to shows, buys merch, and streams the deep cuts of the
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  catalog, that JV relationship is going to cold-dry real fast once the algorithm
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  moves to the next trend.
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  Man, that is the gospel right there.
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  Touring, merch, direct-to-fan, content monetization--that has to grow independently
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  of the label's marketing budget.
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  A record deal should be one single stream of your income, not your entire life
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  support machine.
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  If the label decides to shelve your album, and your rent was depending on that
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  advance, you already lost.
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  Which brings us to the ultimate financial literacy test: publishing versus masters.
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  I still meet artists pulling millions of views who do not know the difference
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  between the composition royalty and the sound recording royalty.
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  If you don't know your split sheets, your performance rights organizations,
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  or how your mechanicals flow, you are leaving generational wealth on the table.
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  Knowing your business inside and out is the modern version of knowledge of self.
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  It's about turning that creative spark into an asset that feeds your kids' kids.
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  Don't just sign for the moment, sign for the legacy.
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  That's our time for today.
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  Appreciate y'all locking in.
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  I'm DJ Universe, with Dangerous Zygos, Calvin Blingwell, and Dandy Market.
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  Keep building, keep reading those contracts, and we'll catch you on the next one.