aight, so a lot of people in the music industry sign contracts.  such as snoop signed a contract wit no limit to do 3 albums and he got $10 mil for it.  so here are my questions....

does the album sales affect a rappers pay at all if he is signed in a contract?  Such as if snoop only sold a total of 400,000 copies combined of all 3 albums, would he still get that 10 mil?  or if he sold a total of 15 million copies combined would he get paid more?

do some rappers on majors get paid by the amount of albums that are sold?

rappers who get into contracts where they are trapped (such as crooked I at death row) and don't put out albums, do they still get paid?  did crooked I get paid when he first signed to DR?  

anyone know exactly how this shit works?

it depend,ther iss all kinda contraccts

I know that.  I am asking, if WC signed a deal with Def Jam to do 3 albums for $10 mil, and even tho ghetto heisman flopped, and they didn't want to back him anymore, does he still get all that money?

I think the bottom line is...that every artist should really pay attention while signing a contract, 'cause as we all know "the industry is shady".

I know a little bit about this...


First off, almost every contract is slanted and filled with shit to make most artists, 90% of artists, not make any money at all.  Shit like this happens...


Say you get signed, and you don't have any previous deals, or you were on a small label.  They'll do something like give you a 200 thousand dollar advance.  You naturally go crazy and spend it all.  What you don't know is that you have to pay that 200 thousand back out of album sales, which you'll only get about 2 dollars or less for each album sold.  Also, many times the studio time and some promotion fees come out of your cut.  Almost ANY artist, with the exception of people that just blow up and go Plat, doesn't make hardly any money at all on albums beyond the initial advance.  

Take somebody like Reuben Studdard, though, who won american Idol.  He probably has a shitty contract, where he only gets paid a little bit for touring, etc. but they have a clause built into most contracts where if you sell a RIDICULOUS amount of albums, you get even more of a perecentage of what you sell.  Luckily, he sold a shitload of albums, so he's sitting pretty.  He's probably earned a million dollars or so off of everything he's done... which isn't a ton of money, but he's still a millionaire.  Meanwhile, the record company's probably earned 20-30 million off of him .

there's just sooo many ways to make money off of music, and soooo many ways to get screwed.  A lot of people sign over the rights to their songs as soon as they're signed, and everything they write while signed! OASIS is one of the biggest bands in the world, but all of their music belongs to Sony.  Michael Jackson gets paid off of OASIS albums, because it's in OASIS' contract that they're publishing is owned by Sony music, which Michael owns half of their publishing catalogs.  


Now, you tell me... if you're in OASIS, and you write a song... why in the fuck should Michael Jackson make any money off of it?  That's just stupid, but that's how the music industry is set up.  

A guy like Cee-lo or Warren G or Nate Dogg or somebody... the only chance they have to make a significant amount of money off of an album is to sell a shiiiiitload, a million or more albums.  Then the money will kick in, but in the meanwhile, they owe the label for jewelry, videos, studio time, etc. etc. all kinds of shit.