Friday, August 14, 2009

Managing Your Money

I just did a tour in europe that  I booked all by myself 
just to see what booking a tour is all about 
I teamed up with Claudio an agent and  Carla who is  an Italian residing  in jamaica. 
We agreed to do a  three weeks  tour covering all the major territories in europe which 
is kind off what we I did  last year only this time I was handling the business, 
which turned out to be a good decision  .In all the years of touring with different 
managers this is the most I have ever earned on a tour three times  the amount I earned 
even on tours that did  I more shows, I know all about the  expenses that a tour accumulate, the Bus, the flights, hotels  ect. but on this tour we took more flights had a bus for a few days had good hotels  so I did not lower the standard  to earn more .
I am not trying to tell any other artist to do the same but I can only share my experiences 
because it is so sad at times when you see or know of an artist who should be well set and he has nothing to show from the successful career he had or still has, because some of these managers are only opportunist they sit by the phone and wait on calls from agents to get the artist work so sometimes your money has to go through three or four different people before it gets to you, just the same with publishing you do a publishing deal with someone in jamaica and it runs through two or three administrator before you see a dime.
Now back to opportunist managers the ones that can only get you work when you are hot the ones that do nothing to earn their 20% and the unfair ones that takes 20% off the top which I had fall outs with managers like that before, because I will not let you take 20% off the top like what international artist managers does ,lets say lil wayne manager takes 20 percent off the top it doesn't hurt lil wayne because those artist has record labels that take care of the expenses to promote the artist then  recoup all expenses before  the artist gets his royalties  and thats when the manager gets 20% now look at a jamaican artist without a label he gets 10k and  the agent who books the show get 10% so 9k is left the manager takes 20% off the top which is 1,800$ so a little over 7k is left the artist pays his band 2k, 5k is left his back up singer if any 1k,so 4 is left engineer 500$ so a little over 3 k is left then the artist has to do promotions videos,payola,ect what is left for him to save a little over nothing .So if artistes do not take their financing seriously and leave it up to these people then they are gonna have nothing to show at the end of the day, let the  managers gives account of every dollar that is spent and do not  let them tell you that you have to go shopping in limousine and you have to wear a gucci suit on every show because image is everything  thirst is nothing I know of artistes who spend more to look good on a shows than what they are  getting for the shows .  I pay  managers 20% off what I get and if I am the one doing all the work and you just booking its 15 or 10% and if can't  have have a say on  how  my money is being spent you out .Leave a comment .mr vegas 



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