If you go back as little as even 10 years ago the answer to this question was probably yes. In today’s music climate that answer is not so simple. With the emergence of social media, digital streaming platforms and the rise of the independent labels, an artist needing a major label may not be the case anymore.
Artists like Chance the Rapper and Russ have shown us that you are able to make it as a truly independent rapper. Going back as far as the 1990s when Cash Money, No Limit and Roc-a-Fella (and even BadBoy to a certain extent) were created, these independent labels had no backing and were created because the major labels weren’t expressing interested in these artists or because these artists wanted to create something for themselves and own everything. Yes, it can be argued that once all of these acts (with the exception of maybe Russ, as Chance at one point had a partnership with Apple, even though he was still technically independent) got to a certain point in their careers and popularity, they got backing in some fashion by a major label. But other than maybe distribution these labels and artist still operated as independent.
For artists and people who think the major labels are the devil, let me assure you that they maybe greedy, they maybe self serving and they money hungry, but they are not the devil. Major labels hold connections that as a new act (and even for some established acts) are hard to get. The major labels are able to get artists radio promotion and air play, placements in television/film and marketing tools that independent artists (again unless you have those connections or have a team that can get those for you) aren’t able to access.
That being said, do you actually need a major label to make it as an artist in music today? If you were to ask anyone working for those major labels they of course are going to say yes. If you were to ask independent artist who have had successful careers on their own, they will tell you no. Listen to any one of Russ’s interviews and he will tell you how he was able to do it on his own, while still owning all of his masters, the rights to his music and not giving up anything creatively. He was able to create a loyal following through releasing great music, cultivating a fan base online through social media, and distributing his music himself. This led him to be able to travel the world doing sold out shows overseas (and sold out shows in the states), having millions of streams on multiple songs, and having songs from both new and old albums go gold and platinum (sometimes multiple times over). Chance is the same way. Staying independent he was able to win a grammy for a mixtape. He was nominated and won awards for his Coloring Book mixtape and was still considered to be the best “rookies” when he released his first actual album last year. Chance was also a XXL freshman (one of the top in his class), and Russ probably should have been too.
Most artists that you seen get signed to major labels nowadays, are basically doing everything themselves and operating as independent artists until they get signed. If you create enough buzz independently that major labels are coming to you to sign with them, you could potentially stay independent and be successful at it. However, again as stated above, the major labels are able to do things for artists that most can’t do on their own. The major label machine (as they call it) is called that for a reason. These labels have a major influence on what songs and which artists break and don’t break. They have the ability to take an artist out of complete obscurity and make them an International star (think Lizzo most recently). Now, granted, when this happens people tend to think of these artists as “industry plants,” which if you are in the category of people who think industry plants are a thing, these artists probably are. An industry plant is considered to be an artist who comes out of no where with very little or sometimes no background in release music, defiantly not releasing any music that is widely know, and all of a sudden becoming the biggest act of the year. Not to bash any artist but to drive my point home, Lizzo (and some could argue Lil Nas X, however in his case I will say I know people the producers who did his “Old Town Road” beat, and a big part of the reason he became “famous” was due to the fact when this song was shooting up the country charts, the country charts took it down and essentially boycotted the song because as they said, “it’s not a country song, it’s to hip-hop sounding) burst on to the scene last year with a smash single that was all over radio and television. She was on the top or near the top of most music charts, and was all over mainstream media. So much so that even though I wasn’t a huge fan of hers or the song (at the time only knowing the song because of how much it was played, but I couldn’t tell you the name of the song or the artist) I had to look up if she was dating someone on the Minnesota Vikings. Before this song, I’m sure she had done and/or released music, but nothing of note that people were talking about that made her worthy of this kind of backing from a major label, and public notoriety from essentially her first single. She had a song (probably given to her by someone at the label) recorded it, and the label put a tremendous amount of money behind the song to get it to the point it got to. She won almost every Grammy Award last year (I’m not actually sure if another female or artist period won an award other than her, I am being facetious here) and became the biggest act of the year. She dropped an album following that song with one other single, but now hasn’t been to active and we haven’t heard much from her since (other than appearing nearly naked to sit court side at a Lakers game). Not saying that she is one, but this would be an example of an industry plant, an artist that is created by a label for the sole purpose of creating one maybe two records that the label can put an astronomical amount of money behind for promotion, just so they can make as much money as humanly possible in a short period of time, and then we don’t hear from that artist again.
Independent labels have also paved the way for artists to be able to create a sustainable career without the need of major label backing. TDE, QC, and Dreamville are some of the top independent record labels (or production companies depending on how they self identify) in the world and have been responsible for some of the biggest acts of this generation. Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, (granted he is the head and creator of Dreamville) Migos, Cardi B, Lil Yachty, and SZA all came and were developed by these labels. Yes, it’s true each of these labels has a connection with a major (mostly for distribution purposes) but they are all acting on their own accord, independently from the major labels. Their purpose is to find and develop talent so they can have sustainable careers, not be big for a year and disappear. A lot goes into artist development in these cases, sometime taking years between releases, or spending years working with the artist from the time of them first signing until their first release. While this scenario is different from truly doing it yourself (as in the cases of Russ and Chance) the principles are similar. Independent labels are doing what artists should and can do by themselves, just with a bigger team to work with and help the artists.
With access to social media platforms independent artists now have access to an unlimited amount of people. Instagram has given artists a platform to advertise, promote and market them selves to millions of fans and potential fans all over the world. Instagram has become the greatest marketing tool in the world, used by companies and individuals of all customer sizes. The ability to play music, upload just about any type of video and photo, the IG live and TV feature allowing artists to interact with fans live for an hour at time is something that is invaluable to new artists. Facebook has the largest user base in the world, with around 2 billion monthly active users world wide. The ability to create artist and fan pages and groups specifically geared towards your fan base and topics that pertain to you and your fan base, has given artists a reach they could only imagine. The fact that Facebook owns Instagram and you are able to cross promote on both platforms (with the same single ad and ad spend) allows artist to reach two broad audience ranges at the same time. The emergence to TikTok with a two billion active user base, has replaced Vine and in most cases SnapChat, and have created a platform that can capture a younger audience with a shorter attention span, using the short video format. Arguably the greatest social media tool at an artists disposal that is under utilized is LinkedIn. This is the business version of Facebook. Practically every business person in every industry is on LinkedIn. This platform gives you the ability to not only post on a feed and in groups like Facebook, but connect with industry professionals you would never have access to otherwise. If more artists took advantage of LinkedIn, they would be able to not only promote on a platform where most (if not all) of the industry people are, be able to connect with the industry people (and similar people as LinkedIn gives its users a list of similar profiles to the one you are looking at or searching) as well. This platform is greatly under utilized by the general public most definitely by artists, writers and producers (on LinkedIn I personally have over 5,000 connections, and growing, from simply sending out connection requests to people in positions I would like to connect with, and from some of these connections I have working relationships that have been mutually beneficial). Using LinkedIn to its fullest potential would allow you to connect with radio stations, A&Rs, label personnel and industry professionals that you are trying to connect with anyway and get your music in front of.
With social media and digital streaming platforms at your disposal, the marketing that was once only accessible by a major marketing team, is now at the finger tips of every aspiring artist. Digital streaming platforms have allowed artists to distribute their music easily for free to everyone in the world. Social media platforms have given artist an ability to engage with their fan base on a daily basis in a variety of different ways. YouTube has created a database of teaching videos that can teach artists everything they need to know about every aspect of the industry. By Googling what ever you don’t know will result in millions of avenues to learn on the topic you are lacking knowledge in. Artists can now, on their own, learn how to do everything from record, to mix, to distribute music, to monetizing their work, to how to contact and email A&Rs and so much more. It is a ton of trial and error, but if you keep working you will figure out what works and eventually reach a tipping point. With all this accessible information and obtainable tactics, are major labels necessary to make it in the music industry?
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