5 Red Flags That Artists Should Look Out For

Payola

This is the most well-known scam out there. Payola is when an artist pays for play. This sort of scam is usually done at radio stations. Artists should get air-play based on merit. 

Shady managers

In my interview with Kay The Manager, we spoke a little bit about red flags that artists should look out for when they enter discussions with a manager. She said that the biggest red flag an artist should look out for is managers who want to take an artists master rights. 

Shady lawyers

Lawyers are an essential part of contracts and they are there to act in the best interest of the party they represent. With that being said, a lawyer cannot do this if they are negotiating on behalf of the artist and the record label because more likely than not, the artist will be the one who suffers as the lawyer is usually contracted (paid) by the record label. 

Shady publicists

This is a tricky one because the nature of their job relies on the relationships they have in the industry. A publicist should have access to writers and various publications in order to generate hype around an artist, but be wary of publicists that are eager to guarantee that you will get certain placements. Even if a publicist has relationships with people in the industry, the music still has to go through an internal process that is conducted by a team of individuals. 

Shady blog writers

I wholeheartedly believe that artists should not pay for blog placements. It's the same idea behind payola. It would be easy for someone like myself to charge artists a fee to write a blog post about them but that would be unethical because Slikouronlife doesn't charge for blog posts. Our job is to listen to music and decide as a team what we should or shouldn't write about. Do not pay for blogs posts, please.