Dave Wilkes: E1 Music VP of A&R
How does an up-and-coming emcee, producer or rapper stand out starkly on the music industry’s radar? If you think the answer is spending many long hours submitting your material to as many A&R recruiters as you can find, you might be surprised at what an iconic A&R veteran has to say. Dave Wilkes is Vice President of A&R at E1 Entertainment, formerly Koch records. As the exclusive distributor of Death Row Records - the notorious independent Rap label through which Tupac, Dre, Snoopy, and Suge Knight found fame - E1 Entertainment auditions the work of hundreds of new rap and hip hop emcees and producers. Death Row has been growing steadily since it’s deal with E1 Entertainment, and every MPC-wielding beat chemist wants a slice of that pie. As VP of A&R at E1 with a decades-long career of recruiting and managing artists who have defined the music industry, Dave Wilkes is
exactly the kind of industry insider who needs to notice you, whether you’re a producer, singer, or songwriter. With years of experience looking after recruiting established recording artists, Wilkes understands the industry’s competitive nature well as anyone. So, producers who want to get noticed by companies like E1 Entertainment, listen up.
Hip Hop Game = Intense Competition
The first thing Wilkes will tell you about E1’s hip hop A&R team is that they’re overworked:
“because we’re an independent company, each one of the employees probably works as hard as 2 or 3 employees [compared to] the way these businesses used to be run.” Part of that workload comes from the plethora of rap and hip hop artists that approach E1 to get their beats and rhymes noticed. “In the hip hop area, people seek us out like crazy… that’s a gigantic revenue centre for us,” Wilkes Said. Since hip hop is such a bustling sector of E1’s business, they don’t have time to consider producers who haven’t poured their souls into the work they do.
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Build Your Own Music Scene
It might be tempting to sit and build beats at home, and send them with high hopes to record label A&R reps, but according to Wilkes that’s a dubious strategy. He suggests starting your career simply by getting involved: by getting to the club and finding a DJ who will play your beats, or an emcee interested in rapping over them.
“Try to establish something on a regional or a local level that will allow a record company to discover you, rather than you trying to spend all your time calling record companies. So many people call us, but the ones who are putting that energy into establishing something in their region, you know, there’s people in every record company that do nothing but scour local clubs or internet sales. [We can find you] if you have … your own music on the internet, and you’re actually doing something to drive people to your website so that they can buy it.”
Wilkes’s Own Example
Wilkes’s career began, humbly, as the doorman at The Bitter End, the notorious NY nightclub that birthed many of America’s biggest comedians, actors and Singer/Songwriters. “The Bitter End was the center of the music business and the comedy business in the United States, it was the hottest club in America.”
When asked about how it’s possible to get from doorman all the way to manager, Wilkes draws a perfect rough sketch of a career that grows naturally on its own momentum: “You start talking to people, and you find out who is good and who is new, and you start to talk to them, and then you end up managing them, and then all of a sudden you’ve got a management company, and then you become the manager of the club, and then you become a publishing guy, and then some big company hears about you and hires you, and … you kind of just grow … like a recording artist would grow.”
Look Beyond Your Music Genre
The upshot of Wilkes’s advice should be obvious: stand out. Stand out by making a local name for yourself. Stand out by carving out a fresh niche all your own. Finding a fresh niche doesn’t always mean whipping up a new style from scratch. Wilkes encourages rap and hip hop artists to take their cues from other genres.
“Everybody has to realize that there’s a big musical world beyond and around hip hop, and before hip hop, too, and that’s still very viable music … [Listening to music outside rap and hip hop] opens up a whole new world; you start getting into Jazz, getting into blues, and you’re learning about people like Mississippi John Hurt, and I can’t imagine there’d be hip hop artists who wouldn’t love to know about these guys, and they probably do by the way.”
Wilkes’s Veteran Music Industry Advice
When you have beats or songs that you’re enthusiastic about, get them out into the world. Look hard, and you’ll find ways of networking yourself with the musical community around you. Maybe you’ll find yourself a job as a bouncer or bartender, and you can network directly with performers. Maybe you’ll volunteer as a sound man. Most Rap and hip hop artists had humble beginnings; take Yung Joc, who wrote a jingle for Revlon, or Just Blaze who got his start as a recording studio intern. If you’re passionate about producing, take whatever roads are there in front of you. Be unique, be yourself, show the world.
Wilkes concludes that “music is music. All music is either great music, or it’s not great. It could be hip hop, it could be classical, it could be singer/songwriter, it could be jazz. If an artist is great, [they’re] unique and idiosyncratic, so they’re recognizable and they have something to unique to say. You can go back to any of the hip hop artists that are very successful [and see that] they all have something to say that people want to hear… or they said something that people want to hear, and have heard, but they say it in a more unique way, and they have to have some artistic quality to them…” Whatever you do, says Wilkes: “make it your own, and have something to say.”
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I’m a up and coming music producer and I want to comment on this subject. I can honestly say that I have my own style when it comes to production and been doing this for a little over 5 years now, but from my dealings with local artist to submitting music for possible placements, the first thing they say its that their looking for music similar to this style or whatever hot right now. It seems like the industry is following suit right now and is not looking for that new sound right now, because I submitted original music to record companies, and it seemed like it was overlooked, but when I submitted music that sounds like a Lil John style beat or another known producer beat, it was recognized by a record company.True story.
Whats the standard?
I am a beat maker/ songwritter and I am currently about to get involved into a music producer/ management contract where they are supposted to be shopping my beats around and trying to get me placements.
1) Should I be paying the management company 20% of the gross or net profit?
2) Should their be anything regarding publishing in the company?
3) I feel like the contract I have is a Artist Contract instead of a beat makers, What are the terms for a typical producer/ management contract?
Thanks, I look forward to your response.
Hello, my name is Daniel “Skillz” Bryson and I am very eger to get into the music biz. Once I found my passion for music at a young age it kind of stuck on me. But anyway, I’m 18 years old and I’ve had a dream to start my own record label for years now. I’ve done all the research as far as what it takes, the cost, and what is needed to make my label GROW. I am also a Producer, Songwriter, Artist, and I’m learning to play live instruments but I focus heavy on producing. I am building my own studio as we speak and I am already signing other artist and producers to my label to start off with, with plans of creating contracts for them. I am going to school for music business and I am wondering if there was any additional information and tips that you could give me and my label to grow into the large independent label I dream of? Any information you could give directly to me as opposed to general info about how a label would grow would be great. I would greatly appreciate your help and We look forward to hearing back from you soon. If you have any questions for myself I will gladly answer them.
good stuff…
HELLO:1-CHRIS…I JUST HAD THE SAME TYPE OF CONTRACT…I OPTED NOT TO SIGN BECAUSE THE CONTRACT WAS BASICALLY ALL ABOUT WHAT I WOULD DO FOR THEM.., AND PRETTY MUCH NOTHING OF WHAT THEY WOULD CO FOR ME..IT WAS ALSO EXCLUSIVE, AND FOR THREE YEARS, THEN WHEN I STARTED TALKING ABOUT BEING PAID FOR MY TRACKS, THERE WAS ALOT OF RUN-AROUND, MY ADVICE IS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU(OR YOUR TRACKS) ARE WORTH, LET THEM KNOW, AND SEE IF THEY ARE WILLING TO EVEN COME CLOSE….IF NOT, DONT SELL YOURSELF SHORT..IF THEY WANT YOU, SOMEONE ELSE WILL TOO.
ONLY ADVICE,
R.E.D.
Hi im an 18yr old singer/rapper/songwriter. Who has been, in the process of creating my own style an versatility. I live in Trinidad an music such as hiphop an r&b is a very hard industry to reach some where. Yet still ived been persistant in doin what i love, an always tell myself i will make it. The music which people produce today all sounds like a mimic of sumthing we have all hear already. So we u create your own style an sound, like i have done i should be easier too be heard above the rest!
First off, very good interview. I completely agree with the idea of networking. Its nearly impossible to reach a national or worldwide audience from your basement or home studio. However, with the help from the internet, we can now reach levels that in the past were unreachable. So let’s use it to our advantage. I’m always looking for new people to work with.
-Shawn
Brilliant article. About coming up with a new sound: I am a music producer/beatmaker/songwriter/artist/graphic designer. When i came into the industry in my country, Swaziland, there were a lot of good musicians. The only problem they had was that they were emulating other people. When my music first hit the radio, it hugged people of all ages, genders and from different musical backgrounds. Everyone was talking. I am part of a music group called Stealth Independence, set to free the minds of the Swazi youth and the world at large. We made our countrymen believe and have a respect for music. I do what I feel. Trends change, I make music that will last for ages. I am inspired by producers like Timbaland, Dr Dre, William, Akon, Kanye, Eminem, R. Kelly. These guys, each, have their own unique sound which explains why they shine.
Thank you to everyone who’s sharing stories and experiences, please keep them coming. Daniel, we’ll be posting a few more industry interviews in the very near future. Hopefully you’ll find some of your answers there.
Ok thank you. Even though you other guys weren’t talking to me but thanx for the info you posted also it gave me a future outlook on what I should be aware of. I also look forward to hearing some feedback on the music and beats I will be posting soon
I usually don’t comment on websites but this one is so relevant and well put together that I just had to stop and say,GREAT WEBSITE.
i just wanna kno how can i get an a&r to listen to me i have tha talent i perform write songs and co-make beats so let me kno how do i get on
you can try http://www.modernbeats.com/song-submit