possible . Like my newsletter , that was one of the best decisions I ever made . It ’ s one of the only things where I can communicate with people directly , without a buffer or someone trying to get me to pay for an ad or whatever . I was amazed by how many people were picking up things that I wrote in the newsletter and putting them in the press or putting them in reviews or interviews and stuff . I was like , whoa , this is a very powerful tool .
CM : What did you learn about making money in the music industry ? Things that independent artists should know about creating opportunities , creating revenue streams , that kind of stuff ?
Pemberton : It was really about finding out how much does this stuff cost ? I was like , “ Okay , so I ’ m booking my own shows , and I ’ m booking my own travel . How much does the travel cost ? How much does the hotel costs ?” You balance those costs against how much you ’ re making . I never knew any of that stuff . Once I started doing that , I was like , “ Well , I ’ m making money , so what ’ s the problem here ?” And then finding out , how
much does it cost to actually press your own record ? How much does it cost to make shirts and sell your own merch ? I started doing that and I was like , “ Well , okay , I ’ m making money doing that .”
I feel like , to not be making money in this world , you have to be incompetent . If you ’ re a label and you ’ re hemorrhaging money or whatever , you ’ re doing something wrong because there ’ s a lot of things you can do that work .
CM : Your career has overlapped with the rise of music streaming . There ’ s a lot of simplistic narratives out there about streaming either ruining artists ’ ability to make a living , or being the saviour that brought revenue growth back to music post-Napster . How has your thinking about the pros and cons of streaming evolved ?
Pemberton : It ’ s interesting , because I use the streaming apps . One of the problems with Spotify is it ’ s the best application ever for listening to music . It ’ s so functional and so easy to use , and they have such great reach , so it ’ s hard to fight against it . I mean ,
I do understand people ’ s argument with it about how much we actually make from it . But I think the most important thing is to use these platforms , but don ’ t let them use you . That ’ s the way I think of all this stuff .
As you know , this is an easy way for somebody to listen to my music really quickly . Now that I ’ m more into TikTok , for instance , I am finding ways to get people off of TikTok and onto my Spotify page . I ’ ve been making playlists and stuff and people go there , and then my music is in the playlist . So , I don ’ t think of Spotify as this one thing where I ’ m like , “ Okay , I ’ m waiting for the Spotify payments to come in ” and that ’ s going to be the income that I care about . I think of it all as this entire ecosystem and they help each other . Like , I ’ m playing a festival , people know I ’ m going to be playing the festival , so they go listen to me on Spotify , right ? I go on TikTok , I find a creative way of promoting the festival . There are new fans that are going to see me at the festival , but they ’ re going to listen to you on Spotify first . So really , I ’ m in control of the means of production here .
Michael Raine is the Editor-in-Chief at Canadian Musician .
Excerpt from Bedroom Rapper : Cadence Weapon on Hip-Hop , Resistance & Surviving the Music Industry
This is a short excerpt from Rollie Pemberton ’ s recently-published book . This excerpt has been shared with permission from McClelland & Stewart , an imprint of Penguin Random House of Canada .
I ’ ve obsessively analyzed lyrics for as long as I can remember . In the early internet era , I was a frequent user of ohhla . com , the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive . This was just masses of unverified text posted on some webpages , nothing like Genius and the crowd-sourced , meticulously annotated lyrics database and social network they ’ ve cultivated , but it was like a reference library to me .
One of the things that attracted me to lyricism was that it was a form of expression that was an equal playing ground . Just as basketball is a more accessible sport than hockey because the only equipment you need is a ball , some sneakers , and a hoop , rap was a game that anyone with a pad and a pen could play . And like basketball , the skills were scalable . You could easily try out techniques that you saw on tv at your local street court . At home , I would try to rap fast like Myka 9 . Writing was incredibly empowering . As a shy nerdy Black kid growing up in the Canadian prairies , it felt like the only place where my words held weight was on the page . Lyrics can be playful , powerful , painful . Listening to the legends and fables of the hip-hop stars I idolized , it seemed like you could really change the world with some well-placed words . Or at least change some minds , change some lives . That ’ s what happened to me when I first heard Pharoahe Monch , Posdnous , Too Poetic from Gravediggaz , Ghostface , and Aesop Rock .
I was a kid . I appreciated how all the rappers had different ways of expressing themselves . The way you rapped was just as distinctive as your penmanship and just as difficult to copy .
Rhymes over a beat can be like an incantation , an electric burst of magic with limitless potential . But ultimately , lyrics are a form of communication , a vehicle for sharing ideas , memories , and emotions . It ’ s about both grasping for the intangible and tapping into the collective consciousness . It ’ s oral storytelling and it ’ s also a way of making sense of your experiences and the world around you . Lyricism is the synthesis of life . Even mainstream pop songs have ideologies and perspectives that inform them .
Lyrics can be impactful . Rap verses are often used in criminal trials , as if they were incontrovertible evidence of real-world wrongdoing and not examples of artistic licence . I ’ ve seen careers ended with one line . I ’ ve seen lyrical beefs escalate into real-world conflicts . But I ’ ve also seen lyrics lead to outrageous wealth and fame . Part of what makes songwriting feel magical is the fact that even if you repeat the methodology behind making a hit , it might never feel quite the same when you try again . Despite what the pros in Nashville and L . A might tell you , it isn ’ t an exact science .
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 41