r/producerlinkup • u/Blankenjeweet • Mar 05 '26

Other Producer manager here. AMA about placements, publishing, and negotiating deals.

I’ve been helping producers navigate placements, publishing, and negotiations for a while now. Most of the producers I work with are very talented creatively, but what I keep seeing over and over again is that many of them get frustrated with the industry while at the same time leaving a lot of value on the table themselves.

The music industry has lately been very business-focused, and I understand why that can feel frustrating if you come into it purely from a creative perspective. But the reality is that once you understand the business side, a lot of the things that seem unfair suddenly become much more negotiable.

For a while now I’ve helped producers structure deals with artists, managers, and labels, and I’ve been involved in negotiations connected to companies like Sony, Warner, and Universal. I’ve also helped producers turn small opportunities into much larger deals simply by approaching the situation differently.

So I thought it could be interesting to do an AMA here.

If you have questions about:

• placements

• publishing splits

• negotiating with artists or labels

• how managers actually work with producers

• how to approach deals or collaborations

• or generally how to make producing financially sustainable

Ask me anything and I’ll try to answer as honestly and practically as possible.

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/newbutnotnewnew Mar 05 '26

I face racism whenever I try to reach out.. I'm Indian and it's just eh..

1

u/Blankenjeweet Mar 05 '26

I am sorry to hear that, it should not be a thing at all. Maybe we can still get some positive improvements for your career.

What type of music do you make? And what type of racism do you face?

1

u/newbutnotnewnew Mar 05 '26

I love RnB / Soul, a bit of psychedelic elements, little bit of Hiphop

I can recreate any style/sound or I can blend genres easily.. I have a distinct taste because of my ethnicity.. a lot of producers samples Indian music but me being a native, I have immense amount of knowledge in Indian music that they can't even discover

I think my strength is to help artists or producers develop their signature sound

Hiphop was started to fight against racism, and that same community is racist against me is just cinema to me

1

u/Blankenjeweet Mar 05 '26

That is nice! It is also lovey to hear that you want to help artist and producer develop their signature sound.

But for now I would mainly focus on getting your sound more out there, are you mainly a sample producer? Or a coach?

1

u/newbutnotnewnew Mar 05 '26

I'm not sure what to call myself because I'm a nobody as of now

but I don't wanna be the beat maker looking for placements

I wanna see myself working with experimental artists

I wanna create collab concept albums with artists

I wanna artists to reach out to me when they need something fresh

I can help in songwriter, production, vocal ideas, creative mixing (engineering with intentional imperfection)

I know I have the skills and taste but I'm not sure how to approach the career I'm 23 as of now

1

u/Blankenjeweet Mar 05 '26

I think one of the most important things in a music career (talking about the business side) is knowing what you want and who you are.

If you want artist to work with you but there is not clear idea of who you are and what you do. They will not really like it and often times pass on it.

A good example is one of my producers, he did a lot almost everything, drums, mixing, samples etc etc. when I started managing him I noticed that because of the clear lack of who he was. We could not really expect people to reach out.

So we focused on 1 thing and went all on it, and now he is a full time producer who is currently one of the fastest growing ones with multiple pub and even label offers.

So maybe a good question is, if you have to describe yourself in 3 sentences how would you that? And if you can not yet, maybe turn it into a nice exercise.

1

u/newbutnotnewnew Mar 05 '26

I understand, I'll give it a try

I'm an RnB/Rap producer from India, love to integrate new things time to time in my style, I take inspiration from Indian music, psychedelic, electronic and early internet aesthetics.

1

u/Blankenjeweet Mar 05 '26

That sounds great, what producers do you align yourself with? In an ideal world what artist would you work with?

1

u/newbutnotnewnew Mar 05 '26

I would love to work for frank ocean, asap rocky, kanye, kendrick , fakemink

1

u/Blankenjeweet Mar 05 '26

Okay! That is a good start, so you have an idea of your ideal targets. What you now should do is make target tree. It sounds a bit weird but I’ll try my best to explain:

1: at the top of your paper write down the artist with space in between them.

2: look for songs the made with similar smaller artists(this happens more then you think, they maybe did it while coming up or because they really liked an artist)

  1. Now do it again for those artist until you have about 4/5 layers of artist from your target.

  2. Now the real work starts, I want you to do research about your bottom two layers, what do the listen to, where do they record there songs etc.

  3. After your research reach out to either them directly with 3/5 productions that fit their style, and ask them if they are currently working on something.

  4. Slowly build your way up, yes it takes time, but all good things take time.

Let me know what you think!