The Era of the
Artistpreneur
BY ANDREW KING
“I’m not a businessman; I’m
a business, man.”
It’s been nearly 15 years since
Jay-Z rapped those lyrics over
the remix of Kanye West’s “Dia-
monds from Sierra Leone,” and
while the line has been among
my favourite bits of clever hip-
hop braggadocio ever since, it
has also proven prophetic for
many in the music industry.
As Forbes asserted in the
headline for an article from
January 2018, “In The 21 st Cen-
tury, To Be A Musician Is To Be
An Entrepreneur.” In the piece,
Paul Pacifico, CEO of the Asso-
ciation of Independent Music
(AIM), says: “Artists today are
pretty much by definition music
entrepreneurs and owner-oper-
ated companies, building their
38 CANADIAN MUSICIAN
businesses and their brands.
For them, technology has been
the principle driver, reducing
the barriers for entry in terms
of lower costs and the democ-
ratization of industry supply
chain resources, such as pro-
duction equipment and support
services.”
Of course, the vast majority
of examples he cites are more
of the sole proprietorship or
small business type than Jay-Z’s
massive entertainment and
lifestyle empire. And though Mr.
Pacifico’s statement sounds like
one he has either memorized
verbatim or carefully crafted in
front of a computer screen, that
makes it no less accurate.
When I got started on a basic
outline for this piece, the first
call I made (to someone outside
of the Canadian Musician office)
was to Rick Barker. Now the
president and CEO of his Nash-
ville-based firm the Music Indus-
try Blueprint, Barker’s career is
as long as it is diverse. Once the
manager for global superstar
Taylor Swift, he has since served
as the social media mentor to
finalists on American Idol, worked
as a private consultant to com-
panies like Big Machine Label
Group and Live Nation, and has
managed American Idol winner
Trent Harmon since 2017.
Barker has also become a
popular podcaster and author
and a sought-after consultant
and speaker through his work
under the Music Industry Blue-
print banner, all with the stated
goal of “helping you navigate the
new music business.”
I was initially running the
idea by him to see if he’d be
interested in collaborating in
some capacity; five minutes
later, I’d regretted not recording
our call.
He acknowledged that those
competing for a sustainable ca-
reer in music these days do in-
deed need to be entrepreneurs;
the challenge, he says, is that
most artists aren’t inherently
entrepreneurial.
“What ‘thinking like an entre-
preneur’ means is not being afraid
to get punched in the mouth,”
Barker asserts – “and I think most
artists are so afraid of what ev-
eryone thinks. An entrepreneur
doesn’t care; an entrepreneur just
goes out and does.”
That’s not to pick on musi-
cians or creative types in gen-
eral. The fact is that successful