He come into the music business and say you get next to a guy like Leo or like Def Jam or whatever like that and say the deal he’s jerking you pretty bad. And so when he reads your book he’s like hey, I’m supposed to get this, this and this. I said but sometimes you can just throw the rules out and if you’re gut says hey I could blow up with this guy go ahead and sign the deal. Now, here’s part two to that chapter, after you blow up take the contract, go to the Leo’s office, get a match and burn it. After you sell five albums say hey Leo, watch this, this is our contract. Shhhhh. New deal.
My philosophy is if you have a gut reaction and you have a gut thing like this is the right label I’m supposed to be with fuck it. Against all odds take the deal. Take the deal. And then after you take the deal know that you have to sell records or you’re gonna get fucking jerked. But you know what we all get jerked. Even when it’s a great deal in the beginning; if you sell records you’re gonna renegotiate that great deal. So who cares? Just get in with the right people who you think is gonna blow you up and is gonna be the thing. Forget that deal. And then once you get in and have the signed contract work your ass off. And after you work your ass off and you get up and you’re this big success walk into the thing after you’ve sold your millions of copies and say hey you guys know you’re gonna have to give me a new deal here right. Guess what they’re all gonna say yeah we know. And they’re gonna sit around at the table and you negotiate a new deal. Cause they want another record and they know they jerked you. They know they jerked you. so the new deal they’re still gonna jerk you, how about this, they’re still gonna jerk you but you’ll make a lot more money and then if you sell some more records again then guess what, new deal again. We’re gonna keep tweaking this up till it’s right.
Rick Ross is a rapper, you know who he is? He had a big record, “Every damn hustle, ever damn –“he’s from Miami. Every label was calling this guy right. It got down to either he was gonna sign with me or with Def Jam. Right? And I told Rick Ross; I said with all due respect, I said J-Z is the best artist of our generation. He is the best rapper, he is extremely charismatic and everything. But I said Joe, if you want to sell records your best shot is with me becuase that’s what I do. I plot, I strategize to make Rick Ross sell millions and millions. And I said I just don’t know if J has what I have. And I said after you sign with J the label is gonna work your music. J ain’t gonna – he’s the president. I said with me I’m the president right, I said I’m gonna – if you sign with me I’m gonna work your records. And I said herein lies the difference because I’m gonna micromanage you to the tune of 2-4 million albums sold. I said you could do that with J but I said me personally I think your better chance is with me. I said I’m a guy who helped J sell 5 million albums. This is what I do. Now he went – they had more money, they was giving more things, he went with them. He’s gonna probably get a gold, maybe sell 700,000 albums, successful. But I promise you if he would have went and came with me he would be selling 2 million albums in this messed up time or whatever becuase I believed in him. He had that gift and I wanted him that bad. Now what do you do? Do you take the fool’s gold? Here, if these guys are gonna give you $1 million I’m gonna give you 200,000; you’re gonna run and take that million. Maybe the last million you ever get. But with me, with this 200,000 you sell a couple million albums you may make $100 million in the course of your career. This is what I was saying. It wasn’t that much of a difference but I’m saying even like artists should come to me for less.
You know Leo used to say that and I agreed with him but to a certain extent. You know what I’m saying. But artists should definitely come to me for less because with me the potential for you to have a long lasting, successful career is higher than with anyone else I feel.
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