whats enough to live off of? everyone thinks yu need to have millions to live..... for those of you who place your artistic vision above the money, you need to realize a few things:
1- you will need to be willing to go independent and self promote....
2- which means you had better be able to do live shows and develop a fan base through that......
... because major labels are looking to make money off of you. bottom line- you work to keep them rich, and if you dont keep them rich they have no use for you. i dont care how nice your lyrics are, how skilled a producer, because there are chingy's out there with half your talent and musical knowledge who is 10 times more marketable than you, and this guy will get the deal every time. the suits arent concerend with your vision unless your vision has dollar signs dancing in, above and around it.
so whats enough money to live off of? how much do you need? see, some of you need to be a little more realistic here..... you dont need to go 3 time platnum to have good money. you can go independent and sell 50,000 units of a self produced and promoted cd and walk away with $150,000 in your pocket...... granted, thats a tall order and A LOT of hard work to do on your own, but it is very possible when you do live shows and do everything yourself..... which means you could quit your day job (give two weeks and dont burn your bridges!) and focus on music while living modestly for a year or two......
i know something like this isnt as easy as it sounds, but you have to look at it this way: if you managed to move that many on your own, you could then negotiate a distribution deal..... or even catch the attention of a smaller label in your region, and i imagine you would have made a ew connections by this time anyways.....
the thing is getting outside the box that tells us how things DO work and are SUPPOSED to work and be bold enough to try things differently. the guys that do that are the guys who wind up with REAL money.
and..... uh.... the beat is a very big part of the song. you dont listen to hip hop for the beats, or for the words, you listen to it for the combination of the two....... one without the other just doesnt work.