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Biz Markie's Blueprint: The Estate Deal Behind Generational Wealth · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Yo, we gotta start today with some real legacy business.
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  Downtown Music Publishing just struck a deal to represent Biz Markie's catalog and
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  his name, image, and likeness rights.
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  Marcel Hall been gone since 2021, but this is the 40th anniversary of his debut
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  album, and his widow Tara Hall is the one steering the ship as executor.
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  Biz Markie sampled over fifteen hundred times, man.
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  Fifteen hundred.
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  That's not just a catalog, that's a whole sound library other artists built careers
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  on top of.
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  "Just a Friend" alone is DNA in half the culture.
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  When you're that foundational, the publishing admin matters just as much as the hits
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  did.
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  See and that's what people sleep on.
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  Y'all think the money stop when the artist stop touring or pass away,
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  but sync licensing keep paying if somebody set it up right.
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  Movies, commercials, samples, video games, that catalog still on the road even when
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  the man ain't.
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  That's the part I want everybody to sit with.
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  Tara Hall said it herself, she building a blueprint for how to honor a legend while
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  finding new ways for his work to live on.
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  That's not just sentiment, that's estate structure.
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  Recorded masters flowing through Revilo Records with Warner and Rhino on
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  distribution, publishing sitting with Surrey Lane, and now Downtown handling admin
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  and NIL.
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  Every piece got a lane.
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  This is knowledge of self on a whole other level.
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  In this culture we always talk Supreme Mathematics, build and destroy,
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  but the real build is what you leave behind when you not in the room no more.
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  Biz Markie's estate is proof the paperwork you do while you living is the
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  inheritance your family collect when you gone.
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  Facts.
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  And this is where the strategist in me gotta break it down plain.
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  Publishing splits, sync rights, NIL, those are three separate income streams that
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  most young artists don't even know they own separately.
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  You can lose one and still eat off the other two, if you set it up right from day
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  one instead of scrambling after you blow up.
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  As a producer, I tell people all the time, know what publishing share you keeping
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  before you ever step in the booth.
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  The sound and the brand is what makes people remember you, but the split sheet is
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  what makes sure your kids remember getting paid.
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  For indie artists like me it's simpler than people think too.
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  Register your publishing, own your masters if you can, keep your merch and your name
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  tight in writing.
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  You don't need a Warner deal to start building a Biz Markie type blueprint,
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  you just need to stop treating the business side like homework you can skip.
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  And that's the discipline.
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  Forty years later they still collecting off a song that made people laugh and dance.
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  That's what ownership and knowledge of self actually buy you,
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  longevity past your own lifetime.
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  So here's the takeaway for anybody listening building their own catalog right now.
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  Get your publishing administration in order early, understand your NIL rights are
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  separate from your masters, and put a real executor plan in place,
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  not just a verbal promise to your cousin.
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  Own your masters when you can, keep your merch and licensing paperwork clean,
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  and treat every placement like it's building toward year forty,
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  not just this quarter.
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  Protect your sound and your samples, know your splits before the song drop,
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  and respect the artists whose sound you building on top of.
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  And above all, know self.
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  Build something your family can stand on when you not around to explain it yourself.
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  That's the real generational wealth.
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  Appreciate y'all rocking with us, we out.