Infrastructure: Part 1 of 3 by Quanstar from Indie Hip Hop 101

Every artists’ career is made or broke by marketing and infrastructure. Marketing is your advertising and is the engine that drives the car in the race. The best marketing strategies are pretty simple and easy to execute. All have general tasks across the board, but vary on specific terms and tactics which are based on the artist and the demographic that is being targeted. I am currently working on a series of articles that deal with marketing to the “underground hip hop” (I hate that phrase) and college demographics. This will take a few months to complete, so by process of elimination, my next three articles are about infrastructure.

Your infrastructure is all about who’s handling your marketing and revenue streams; in other words, the pit crew that makes that engine run. The most important components of this is management, publicity, and booking. They determine how you’re going to get out there, who’s getting your music, where your music should be pushed, and when is the best time to put your music out there. For many independent hip hop artists all these questions are dealt with and answered by one person…you. This in itself is a pretty huge task, especially when adding the time and concentration it takes to write songs. Overwhelmed by these tasks, most artists, including myself, have shopped the market for help to alleviate some of the pressures of the “Do It Yourself” lifestyle; however, in the process of looking for a manager, booking agent, and/or publicist I can probably guarantee that most run across one of these people:

• cats that don’t know what they’re doing and looking to figure it out at your expense
• cats that do know what they’re doing and looking to take you for everything you get

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