lol old tray dee interview

[DeeezNuuuts83]

have to laugh at how much theses artists think theyre entitled to.
heres an idea sign your contracts after having an accountant looking at them

snoop shoulda done his biz right wit dude though. when he left snoop stop making hot shit.

True.  With their experiences with Suge and Death Row (some good, some bad), you'd think that Snoop would at least take care of his homies who appeared alongside him on some fairly successful albums and not give them a shitty album deal.  True, having an accountant look over their contracts would have helped, but there's a certain level of trust that they had with each other, and Snoop broke that trust.

I don't disagree with Snoop getting the lion's share of that -- it was his name that likely fueled a lot of its sales (as it was marketed as "Snoop Dogg Presents Tha Eastsidaz" and put on shelves alongside his other albums), but it was just split so disproportionately.  It's reminiscent of how the money was split between N.W.A.

the nwa members got paid better

Did they?  I remember reading in the N.W.A chapter of that VIBE History of Hip-Hop book that on Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube only got something like $23,000 for his involvement, which included his own contributions along with writing a lot of Eazy's lyrics (and likely some of Dre's).  Pretty shitty for a double platinum album.  I also remember reading that when Jerry Heller's involvement had increased and he tried to get them to sign actual contracts, he was giving the group (aside from Eazy, who was getting a much bigger cut) $75,000 advances toward their slave contracts.  Remember that Cube was the only one who didn't want to sign right away and wanted to have the contract reviewed.

[Dre-Day]

have to laugh at how much theses artists think theyre entitled to.
heres an idea sign your contracts after having an accountant looking at them

snoop shoulda done his biz right wit dude though. when he left snoop stop making hot shit.

True.  With their experiences with Suge and Death Row (some good, some bad), you'd think that Snoop would at least take care of his homies who appeared alongside him on some fairly successful albums and not give them a shitty album deal.  True, having an accountant look over their contracts would have helped, but there's a certain level of trust that they had with each other, and Snoop broke that trust.

I don't disagree with Snoop getting the lion's share of that -- it was his name that likely fueled a lot of its sales (as it was marketed as "Snoop Dogg Presents Tha Eastsidaz" and put on shelves alongside his other albums), but it was just split so disproportionately.  It's reminiscent of how the money was split between N.W.A.

the nwa members got paid better

Did they?  I remember reading in the N.W.A chapter of that VIBE History of Hip-Hop book that on Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube only got something like $23,000 for his involvement, which included his own contributions along with writing a lot of Eazy's lyrics (and likely some of Dre's).  Pretty shitty for a double platinum album.  I also remember reading that when Jerry Heller's involvement had increased and he tried to get them to sign actual contracts, he was giving the group (aside from Eazy, who was getting a much bigger cut) $75,000 advances toward their slave contracts.  Remember that Cube was the only one who didn't want to sign right away and wanted to have the contract reviewed.

23000? i don't buy that. jerry talks about the contracts in his book too, i quoted it before on this forum ( dont remember where i posted it though).
one of the things he said is, that cube is still receiving royalties from the sales of straight outta compton. i know a lot of people think jerry heller is the devil, but he explained in his book how every $1 of the sales was split. yes he also said that eazy e received the most, as he was the owner of the company. i think that's fair.

yes i know cube didn't sign that contract, he didn't trust it. but he works with similar contracts for his artists, so how serious should i take his rant?
sure he wasn't the only one ranting, but there are also artists like above the law & dj yella who felt they were treated properly

[DeeezNuuuts83]

23000? i don't buy that. jerry talks about the contracts in his book too, i quoted it before on this forum ( dont remember where i posted it though).
one of the things he said is, that cube is still receiving royalties from the sales of straight outta compton. i know a lot of people think jerry heller is the devil, but he explained in his book how every $1 of the sales was split. yes he also said that eazy e received the most, as he was the owner of the company. i think that's fair.

yes i know cube didn't sign that contract, he didn't trust it. but he works with similar contracts for his artists, so how serious should i take his rant?
sure he wasn't the only one ranting, but there are also artists like above the law & dj yella who felt they were treated properly

I'm just going by what I remember reading.  I'll have to check out that Jerry Heller book since I'm curious how the split was.

I'm not saying he was the devil (and I never said that either), but of course in his own book he will paint a different picture of himself than how he had been portrayed, whether it's true or not, so we have to look at it from various angles.  I do remember in an interview that ended up being a part of MTV's Life on Death Row documentary, there's footage of Jerry saying that "Dre was certainly being paid according to his contract, but perhaps not what his value had become."  While that could be true, it may not be the whole truth.  For all we know, Dre, perhaps like other N.W.A members including Cube, may have had a slave deal to begin with, so to say that they were being "paid according to contract" might be nice but it doesn't mean that the record company wasn't taking advantage of them.

Again, like in Snoop's case, I do feel that Eazy-E did deserve a bigger cut of the money, given the fact that he was the one who funded the start-up of N.W.A.  But I distinctly remember a Cube interview (perhaps heard in the Beef DVD) where he talked about how Eazy-E kept the money from Eazy-Duz-It (or at least didn't break bread the way the others had hoped, considering everyone else's involvement, like Cube penning a lot of the lyrics) while again taking a big cut of the N.W.A projects.  Obviously the way business works, the guys at the top get the biggest cut, but again, it didn't seem like Eazy was trying all that hard to get the other members of N.W.A much of a paycheck.

[Smackdog]

snoop likes to play dress up as a pimp and dance around in music videos like that,  that is all you really need to say about the man.

[Hack Wilson - real]

snoop likes to play dress up as a pimp and dance around in music videos like that,  that is all you really need to say about the man.

lol

[Dre-Day]

23000? i don't buy that. jerry talks about the contracts in his book too, i quoted it before on this forum ( dont remember where i posted it though).
one of the things he said is, that cube is still receiving royalties from the sales of straight outta compton. i know a lot of people think jerry heller is the devil, but he explained in his book how every $1 of the sales was split. yes he also said that eazy e received the most, as he was the owner of the company. i think that's fair.

yes i know cube didn't sign that contract, he didn't trust it. but he works with similar contracts for his artists, so how serious should i take his rant?
sure he wasn't the only one ranting, but there are also artists like above the law & dj yella who felt they were treated properly

I'm just going by what I remember reading.  I'll have to check out that Jerry Heller book since I'm curious how the split was.

I'm not saying he was the devil (and I never said that either), but of course in his own book he will paint a different picture of himself than how he had been portrayed, whether it's true or not, so we have to look at it from various angles.  I do remember in an interview that ended up being a part of MTV's Life on Death Row documentary, there's footage of Jerry saying that "Dre was certainly being paid according to his contract, but perhaps not what his value had become."  While that could be true, it may not be the whole truth.  For all we know, Dre, perhaps like other N.W.A members including Cube, may have had a slave deal to begin with, so to say that they were being "paid according to contract" might be nice but it doesn't mean that the record company wasn't taking advantage of them.

Again, like in Snoop's case, I do feel that Eazy-E did deserve a bigger cut of the money, given the fact that he was the one who funded the start-up of N.W.A.  But I distinctly remember a Cube interview (perhaps heard in the Beef DVD) where he talked about how Eazy-E kept the money from Eazy-Duz-It (or at least didn't break bread the way the others had hoped, considering everyone else's involvement, like Cube penning a lot of the lyrics) while again taking a big cut of the N.W.A projects.  Obviously the way business works, the guys at the top get the biggest cut, but again, it didn't seem like Eazy was trying all that hard to get the other members of N.W.A much of a paycheck.

i found the parts i quoted before

ruthless took twenty five cents out of each dollar of publishing royalties

the other publishing companies involved also took twenty five cents

Of the fifty cents left, the lyric writer took twenty five cents, and the beat writer took twenty-five cents.
Dre composed the beats for every song NWA ever put out, so he always got that quarter out of every dollar coming in, less deductions for all his sampling

i know you didn't say he was the devil.
yeah i've seen that video interview too.
dre & ice cube say they were getting ripped off but i don't believe that. in my opinion they were just jealous of eazy. the success of nwa boosted their ego's

[DeeezNuuuts83]

i found the parts i quoted before

ruthless took twenty five cents out of each dollar of publishing royalties

the other publishing companies involved also took twenty five cents

Of the fifty cents left, the lyric writer took twenty five cents, and the beat writer took twenty-five cents.
Dre composed the beats for every song NWA ever put out, so he always got that quarter out of every dollar coming in, less deductions for all his sampling

i know you didn't say he was the devil.
yeah i've seen that video interview too.
dre & ice cube say they were getting ripped off but i don't believe that. in my opinion they were just jealous of eazy. the success of nwa boosted their ego's

Interesting.  I'll check that VIBE History of Hip-Hop book too, though I'm not sure if I have that book at my place or if it's in a box with other books in my closet back at my family's house, just to pull up the numbers that they spoke of.

The breakdown of the revenue per dollar is interesting but can get confusing.  I assume that the publishing company would pertain to the specific artist performing (like how Dre's was "Ain't Nuthin Goin' on but Fuckin'" and how Pac's was "Joshua's Dream"), but obviously when there are multiple artists performing, that quarter gets split up.  Similarly, with writing credit, that will likely get split up too, since while Cube wrote a lot of lyrics, I don't think he wrote for EVERYBODY.  Additionally, guys like Puffy were known to increase their cut by doing stupid things, like how Puffy always throws his adlibs onto other people's songs, even though he's not the main artist and he's not really contributing anything.  But because his voice appears on the song, he gets to nudge himself into the publishing and writing credits too.  I think it was The LOX who had talked about how Puff would do all sorts of shit like that, like bringing his cars to video shoots to use on-screen while charging them a rental fee of some sort.

[HighEyeCue]

I would have liked to known how much of Snoop's lyrics were ghostwritten by Tray Dee in those days

[D-TalkX]

have to laugh at how much theses artists think theyre entitled to.
heres an idea sign your contracts after having an accountant looking at them

[Dre-Day]

i found the parts i quoted before

ruthless took twenty five cents out of each dollar of publishing royalties

the other publishing companies involved also took twenty five cents

Of the fifty cents left, the lyric writer took twenty five cents, and the beat writer took twenty-five cents.
Dre composed the beats for every song NWA ever put out, so he always got that quarter out of every dollar coming in, less deductions for all his sampling

i know you didn't say he was the devil.
yeah i've seen that video interview too.
dre & ice cube say they were getting ripped off but i don't believe that. in my opinion they were just jealous of eazy. the success of nwa boosted their ego's

Interesting.  I'll check that VIBE History of Hip-Hop book too, though I'm not sure if I have that book at my place or if it's in a box with other books in my closet back at my family's house, just to pull up the numbers that they spoke of.

The breakdown of the revenue per dollar is interesting but can get confusing.  I assume that the publishing company would pertain to the specific artist performing (like how Dre's was "Ain't Nuthin Goin' on but Fuckin'" and how Pac's was "Joshua's Dream"), but obviously when there are multiple artists performing, that quarter gets split up.  Similarly, with writing credit, that will likely get split up too, since while Cube wrote a lot of lyrics, I don't think he wrote for EVERYBODY.  Additionally, guys like Puffy were known to increase their cut by doing stupid things, like how Puffy always throws his adlibs onto other people's songs, even though he's not the main artist and he's not really contributing anything.  But because his voice appears on the song, he gets to nudge himself into the publishing and writing credits too.  I think it was The LOX who had talked about how Puff would do all sorts of shit like that, like bringing his cars to video shoots to use on-screen while charging them a rental fee of some sort.

yeah i think it's the publishing companies of the artists.

welll mc ren wrote his own verses and wrote for eazy e, cube wrote for eazy too. cube wrote express yourself for dr.dre

[Cavvy]

I would have liked to known how much of Snoop's lyrics were ghostwritten by Tray Dee in those days

Id have to guess very few of his rhymes were ever written by Tray Deee
Dudes not exactly what you would call a great lyricist.

[bouli77]

not a great but definitely a lyricist and a good one for that matter

[Smokin Briccz]

lol classic interview

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Hey Dre-Day -- found that book I was talking about when visiting the fam for Easter. It said:

"Of the $650,000 N.W.A grossed from their tour, Heller kept $150,000 for himself, while Cube walked away with a paltry $23,000. By the end of 1989, Eazy-Duz-It and [Straight Outta] Compton had sold a combined three million copies.  For writing the lion's share of both albums, Ice Cube saw a total of $32,000."

[Dre-Day]

Hey Dre-Day -- found that book I was talking about when visiting the fam for Easter. It said:

"Of the $650,000 N.W.A grossed from their tour, Heller kept $150,000 for himself, while Cube walked away with a paltry $23,000. By the end of 1989, Eazy-Duz-It and [Straight Outta] Compton had sold a combined three million copies.  For writing the lion's share of both albums, Ice Cube saw a total of $32,000."

thanks for sharing.

i still wonder how the author of the book got those numbers. if these are true then cube definitely got ripped off, but i believe he earned more.
not sure how much jerry heller earned, but he did bring it up in his book if i'm not mistaken. i can look for that