WENDY DAY  (July 2008) | Interview By: Javon Adams

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Interview was done in June 2008

Questions Asked By: Javon Adams

Wendy Day Interview Audio: Listen Here
 

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Dubcnn: Ok, Dubcnn this is an exclusive we have Wendy Day. How are you doing?

I am awesome, thank you for asking.


Dubcnn: Thank you for taking a few minutes of your time. I wanted to kind of get right into it because I know you just came in from out of town. I wanted to ask you, in terms of music nowadays….the digital age, how does it benefit artists both on the major and independent side of things in your opinion?

Um, on the independent side, and I’m going to start with the independent side because that’s my preference. On the independent side the way that the digital revolution has benefited artists….first of all it’s made it cheaper to record music, substantially cheaper. In today’s economy pretty much anybody that wants to be a recording artist is able to make their own music in their home, upload it to their computer and get it on the net almost instantaneously. And that is something that we didn’t have even a short five or ten years ago. So I think that the accessibility of the internet allows people to get their music out there quickly, its cheaper to make it and its even easier to market it.

Back in the day you had to sort of go out there on what they call the Chitlin Circuit where you went from town to town, city to city to market and promote. And although you still kinda have to do that if you take this seriously, somebody who is not quite as serious can sit in their house and pretty much never leave and make the music, market the music and get it out there to the public.


Dubcnn: Gotcha. On the Power Moves tab on your wendyday.com site you made the comment, “Why just put out a record when you can build and empire?” Do you think that that’s the major fault with emcees, they don’t have the long term goals in mind when they start?

Well, yes and no. I think a lot of people don’t have the long term vision but there’s also a lot of artists that just don’t have business sense. I’m not so naïve to think that every rapper can start their own record label because it takes a certain skill set to be able to market and promote as well as raise the money to start a record label. So I don’t want to be naïve in my thinking and say that ‘gee, every rapper should put out their own record.’ But the ones that have the ability should definitely do that. The days are over when you send a demo to a record label, they listen to it they love you and they sign you and you get a really good deal and you become a star.


Dubcnn: Now, kind of along those same lines when you said that not all emcees are cut out to be…have that business savvy you have a saying that “Team + Grind = Success”. Does that kind of go into what you meant by that statement?

Exactly. That’s exactly what I mean by that statement. People that don’t have the business savvy should find people that do. When I say ‘find people that do’ I don’t mean your ‘boys’ or your cousin or your best friend’s dog’s brother’s sister. It means find the best person for that job and whatever that job entails find a person to fulfill that need within your area and make it happen for yourself.


Dubcnn: Now with the barriers to entry …regardless the industry somebody might be in music is no different to that…so with the digital age being able to kind of help to counteract some of that barrier to entry that used to exist years ago…how does somebody go about not only surviving but thriving in the current market today with that independent mindset.

Well, although the economy has changed and the barrier to entry has reduced it is still a business. The way that I work with artists is still the same but of course I add the internet component, you know the world wide web but for the most part it is still the same. Choosing a target area, marketing within that area, going from place to place…that’s why I referenced earlier when I said someone that takes it seriously is still going to have to go out and grind as opposed to just sitting in their house and uploading music to the internet. For me, my artists still have the same grind that they always did. It’s the same s*it different day basically


Dubcnn: Right. So in that grind when there are so many different components and elements to it, how important is the DJ to an artists success?

Extremely important. You know, deejaying goes back to the beginning of rap. I come the era of rap where the DJ was actually more important than the rapper was. And that still exists today because showmanship carries so much weight in this industry. When you can actually perform and the fans can see you they’re more likely to go buy and support your record. And I think a lot of the problems that we have with rap shows is that they’re a little bit boring. A lot of people will rock off of a DAT or whatever and it loses that component of showmanship that the DJ brings to it. If you look at some of the larger tours that go out pretty much everybody has a DJ. And that shows you the importance of it.


Dubcnn: Now, one of the things I wanted to ask you, kind of veering off…you’ve been doing this for a while in terms of helping artists and labels and whatnot. Walk me through the first time you ever went through helping an artists or a label and that experience.

Wow. I don’t know that I could, it was so long ago. I mean I’ve been doing this for 16 years and I’ve worked with hundreds of artists. I guess probably one of the first projects that I worked on was Do or Die. They had a song called, “Po Pimp” and they were out of Chicago and I was working with a label called Creators Way. They had Do or Die signed to them and they had Twista signed to them. I had attended a convention in Baltimore that basically…it was a three day seminar that basically taught people how to put out a record. I went and I took notes and I paid attention and flew to Chicago and said, “Come on guys, lets put out this record!”

We decided to put it out independently. Back then you were able to put out a single and profit from it so we put out a single as opposed to an album. The labels came running when they saw the numbers that these guys were doing. They were selling hundreds of thousands of singles in Chicago. The labels came running and there was a tremendous bidding war and Rap A Lot actually won the bid. And then we repeated that success with Twista with a song called “Emotions”. We just followed the formula and it worked.


Dubcnn: I’m sure it must have felt really good to take the lessons that you learned or when you were sitting there taking notes and doing that and being able to apply them successfully.

Sure. I mean you still need to do that today if you’re going to put out a record and your gonna be relevant in today’s marketplace you still have to sit down and make a plan. You need to figure out exactly what your target area is going to be. It needs to be an area that you can drive from place to place within a certain amount of time. The way that I do it is I figure out what my target area is and then I draw a circle around that area and I usually use a five or a six hour driving radius because that’s the territory you would be able to work efficiently with a decent budget. I make sure the artists go from town to town and city to city and work the record. And by ‘work the record’ I mean work it on the street level, hang their own posters, put fliers in the high schools and in stores. Basically just build the image and the awareness of the artists within that six hour radius.


Dubcnn: I read where you said before that, “Very few people win.” Is there anybody that you have worked with that was really trying as hard as they could that fell short and really surprised you?

Wow. Um, probably Ras Kass…


Dubcnn: I’m always…that one kind of sticks in my mind too. I’m glad you mentioned that because he’s somebody that you had high expectations of for years and years now.

bsolutely. And he didn’t work for numerous reasons, many of which I wouldn’t go into on the record. But Ras is my favorite rapper and he still is today. I never quite understood why everybody said, ‘Oh, he’s too intelligent’. I never understood why there wasn’t a market for overly intelligent rappers. I never understood why the art form had to be dumbed down in order for it to sell well.


Dubcnn: Exactly. I was talking to somebody the other day, I remember years ago reading an article where, I think it was Biggie or maybe it was Jay-Z said he felt he had to dumb down his lyrics a little bit…

It was Jay


Dubcnn: …in order to get that mainstream success and I always wondered about that.

Yup, it was Jay that said that. In fact there’s a couple of lines in different songs where he references Common and he references Talib Kweli and he basically mentions that the reason that they aren’t more successful is because they never dumbed down their lyrics.


Dubcnn: Out of all the artists, and I know you’ve been a part of, you had a hand in the Cash Money deal and countless others…obviously your reputation speaks for it self. Is there any, a couple, two or three that stick out? The ones that you’re kind of most proud of?

I guess there’s probably two or three that I’m most proud of. Of course the Cash Money deal because they got to keep ownership. It was an 80-20 split and they got to keep 80%. When the deal was up after three years if they had wanted to leave with all of their masters they could have. That is unheard of in the music business. So I’m very proud of that one. And that one really was because the guys let me do my thing. They let me tell labels no for nine months until we got to a point where the deal was worthy of them. And they were smart enough to let me do my thing and I appreciate them for that.

I’m pretty proud of Eminem’s deal as well. When I was shopping Eminem in, I guess it was ’96 – ’97, I took him to every label and I mean every every label and everybody passed. Everybody passed because he was a ‘white’ rapper. So many people said to me ‘Vanilla Ice, Vanilla Ice’ so we sat down and figured out another tact and another way to get him exposure so that people could see that he really did have talent. I ended up doing a thing called Rap Olympics which was an event out in Los Angeles which was the catapult that got him his deal with Aftermath. So I’m really proud of that and the fact that we didn’t take no for an answer because technically he could have stopped rapping and gone to work at Burger King. He was financially devastated at that time and he needed to do something and I’m just thankful that we had that opportunity.

I’m real proud of David Banner’s deal too. Banner is somebody who was really close to me, you know he even lived with me for six months when he was homeless. And his deal I’m proud of because the deal that he had signed when I met him, actually before I met him, was the most oppressive deal I’ve ever seen in the history of Rap Coalition and I’ve been doing this for 16 years and seen some really f*cked up deals. And his deal, without a doubt hands down is the worst. He ended up giving away more than 100% of himself through the production company he was signed to.

I met him in 1998 right after I had done the Cash Money deal and I remember looking at all of his paper work and thinking, “Oh my God, I’m never going to be able to sort this out.” It’s so oppressive and it’s so deep and it’s so thick and, you know it took a couple of years. We ended up, he was signed to Penalty although Penalty and Tommy Boy weren’t really the problem it was the production company that was in between the label that were the problem. We ended up getting rid of the production company and he went right to Tommy Boy eventually. Tommy Boy gave it their best shot but they just didn’t understand Southern Rap at the time. I guess they still don’t. In fairness, Tom Silverman gave it 100%, he gave it his best try and then he was kind enough to let Banner walk. We bought his masters back from Warner Bros. and we revamped him and put his record out independently and caught the attention of Steve Rifkind.

I remember sitting at my desk thinking, “I’m never going to be able to sort this out” because the deal was so incredibly f*cked up. And it took a while, it took until 2003 but five years is not really a long time to wait when you are trying to build that kind of a career or become a million dollar enterprise that David Banner is. You know, he’s a multi-millionaire.


Dubcnn: You mentioned that one of the things Cash Money did was they ‘let you do your thing’. Even with your track record do you still encounter people that that want your services but won’t let you do your thing?

All day, every day. It’s the craziest s*it. Its like somebody hiring a plumber and then the plumber gives them advice on how to fix their pipes and they don’t listen. Or then they say, ‘come over here and fix my electricity’. It’s like, “What?!” Why would you spend all this money to hire me and then not listen to me? And there’s a lot of deals that I walked away from because I felt that people didn’t listen.

I was working with Trill Entertainment on Boosie and Webbie’s deal and I walked away before we did the deal with Asylum because I just didn’t think it was a good deal. I didn’t think they understood and I decided to walk away rather than hurt my reputation.

The group that had the song “Party like a Rockstar” which was huge and I just felt that the production company didn’t really understand how the music business worked. I didn’t feel like he understood the opportunities. He saw only the money and I walked away from that situation as well. I didn’t want my name attached to something that I knew would be a One Hit Wonder. And sadly, both of those deals have become what I predicted. I wish I was wrong because there’s lives at stake.


Dubcnn: True, true. So, going along those lines how full is your plate these days?

Wendy: It depends. I guess the real answer to that is ‘as full as I keep it’. You know, I’m a workaholic so I like being busy at all times. Right now I’m working with Young Buck trying to help him with his situation with G-Unit. It’s going pretty positive. 50 is being open minded and listening and Buck is open minded and listening and I’m somewhere in the middle trying to make sense of it all.

I’m working with a label out of Houston called TMI Boyz and their record just dropped this week which is very exciting. I’ve been working with them for a little over a year. So I guess the real answer is that I am as busy as I keep myself


Dubcnn: Any last words for Dubcnn?

Keep doing what you guys are doing. I love Dubcnn. I think that you guys are on the leading edge of this and you guys come to this with an extreme intelligence and there’s very few websites that are intelligent in hip hop. I love what you do and I love what I do and I’m happy that we can be in this industry together


Dubcnn: And people can stay abreast of what’s going on and your thoughts and ideas on wendyday.com, right?

Exactly. Wendyday.com is sort of like the central website. I’ve got five websites and two blogs, three blogs and people always complaining that its hard to find them all. So I linked them all together in January and you can go to wendyday.com and it sort of links all the websites together.

There’s websites there for artists, there’s websites there for Indy labels, there’s my blog. I think Ricky Ross’ blog, not the rapper, you know Freeway Ricky?


Dubcnn: Yeah

I think his blog is linked there. So you can really go there and see a bunch of different opinions from different people and stuff about the industry


Dubcnn: Well, once again I want to thank you and I know Dubcnn thanks you and hopefully we can hook up again down the road.

Thank you love. And I really appreciate your patience tonight.