Dan Runcie
@RuncieDan
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Founder of Trapital: sharing insights on entertainment, media, and technology.
Joined March 2009
I wrote about Snoop Dogg, who gets paid $500k per day by NBC Universal to have the time of his life at the Paris games. 1994 Snoop wouldn't believe the life of 2024 Snoop.
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In 2004, Jay Z and Damon Dash went separate ways after Roc-a-Fella Records. Their breakup was infamous, but its impact lives on. Here’s how their split influenced a generation of hip-hop artists.
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Quinta Brunson made sure that Abbott Elementary didn’t sound like your Twitter feed. She reached a much bigger audience as a result. Here’s why.
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In the late 90s, two New Orleans-based record labels, No Limit and Cash Money, made the deals of a lifetime. Here’s how they pulled off hip-hop’s Louisiana Purchase.
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Tyler, The Creator’s career is a blueprint for longevity. For 15+ years, he worked on his craft, served his true fans, and ignored everyone else. Here’s why his run on top will last longer than most artists.
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TikTok and Ticketmaster teamed up to add in-app ticket purchasing. Artists can sell concert tix directly to their followers. TikTok is on a mission to eat everyone else’s lunch.
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Beyoncé starting Parkwood Entertainment was one of the best career decisions that a superstar artist has made. Here’s how it led to bigger payouts and more creative control.
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First, Jay and Dame had opposite temperaments. Kanye West explains it better than anyone in this clip:
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It’s still impressive that Rihanna has TWO billion-dollar brands. • Fenty Beauty: $2.8 billion. She owns 50%.• Savage X Fenty: $1 billion. She owns 30%. They have unique success stories which makes it even better.
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In 2013, J. Cole made an investment in his fanbase that pays off year after year. Here’s why he's still making millions from a $1 concert tour.
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For most artists, "360 deals" are horrible contracts. Why give the music company a cut of all your revenue?. But most artists aren't Jay Z. Here's how Jay's 360 deal helped make him a billionaire.
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Most artists want career growth too fast, often to a fault. Curren$y is an outlier. Here’s how his balloon growth strategy helped him have staying power.
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For years, Cash App lagged behind Venmo. But that was before it teamed up with rappers as influencers. Here’s how hip-hop helped Cash App become a $73B+ business.
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Justin Bieber's music rights sale is official. Hipgnosis paid $200M+ for Bieber's masters, publishing, and neighboring rights for his full back catalog with 290+ songs. I have a lot to say on this one but I'll keep it brief.
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Last week was the 20th anniversary of The Black Album, which means 20 years since The Black Phone. This Nokia special edition phone was stacked:.• The Black Album preloaded.• Jay Z ringtones.• weekly texts + voice msgs from Jay. All for $124. This thing was ahead of its time.
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The Weeknd’s career is a classic case study in mystery marketing. “Even no branding is branding,” he once said in an interview. Here are the tactics that helped him become a superstar.
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Since the beginning, Quinta was intentional about Abbott Elementary's voice. She didn't want to make another show that sounds like a viral topic on your timeline. Here’s a segment of her 2022 interview with The New York Times:
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Ownership in Hollywood is rare for most actors, but Issa Rae found a way to own what matters and still form strong partnerships. Here’s how her moves led to her 8-figure deal with WarnerMedia.
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When Nas invested in Coinbase in 2013, it was valued at $143M. Coinbase is now worth $100B. Let’s assume Nas invested $500K. Even if his stake has diluted 50%, that investment would now be worth $175M.
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This will be the fourth Super Bowl halftime show that Roc Nation helped manage. Here are a few ways Jay Z’s company improved things.
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DJ Khaled albums are NBA All-Star games. Big stars come together each year. It’s fun, but no one gives 100% effort.
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It's ironic to hear from a "child of the internet," especially given her background:. • 2014: went viral on IG after “He got money” videos.• 2014 - 2018: BuzzFeed (sold two shows).• 2018 - 2021: Black Lady Sketch Show, various projects. But that's what shaped her vision.
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Will Smith posted a pic and said he's "in the worst shape of his life." Post goes viral. Two days later, Will Smith announced a new YouTube six-part docuseries about getting back in shape. This is Westbrook Media flywheel in action.
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Rick Ross flies Delta and cuts his own lawn. This is the type of story I'm here for.
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Could hip-hop have emerged without Sylvia Robinson? She’s the one who started it all. It was the early 70s at a party in Harlem, Sylvia witnessed Lovebug Starski take the mic. It was fresh, new, and unique. Sylvia drove around New Jersey to find three young talents, got them to
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Jay Z says he doesn’t charge other artists for guest verses. He's not relying on $100k checks to make his money. If he does a guest verse on a song, it's because he wants to.
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Music is struggling to develop more superstars. Hollywood is struggling to elevate more A-Listers. These industries weren't built for nonstop content. Harder for great talent to reach that same level.
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Pharrell Williams is Louis Vuitton’s new Men’s Creative Director. This yet is another example of how LVMH relies on hip-hop culture. Here are a few examples.
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The wealthiest artists used their leverage to build companies that sell consumer products.
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Kanye sold 40K+ tickets on 3 days notice for his listening party in Atlanta. Tix were $20 or $50. Total revenue ~$1M. No performance. Just walking around playing music. Very few artists can pull that off.
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In 2010, Jay Z turned his book release into a guerilla marketing masterclass. Here’s a breakdown on the rollout for his autobiography, Decoded.
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Even though Quinta made internet-centric content as BuzzFeed, she preferred to watch traditional network TV. Internet shows were too close to home. "The more pop culture I ate up, the more I wasted away as a person.” She wrote in her book 'She Memes Well.' She needed a break.
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Lil Baby didn’t start rapping until 2017. Three years later, his album My Turn was the most popular album of 2020. Here's how his career grew like a rising tech startup.
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Snoop Dogg did an NFT drop with his new album, B.O.D.R. (Back on Death Row). He dropped 25,000 Stash Box NFTs for $5K each. Sold 8,800 so far. That's $44M in revenue!. Snoop maximized the moment. Love to see it.
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Cool visual. Songs with 1B+ Spotify streams. 90%+ were released in the past 20 years.
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Here’s a clip from my Nov 2021 interview with Master P. He talks about how marketing helped his success.
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Abbott has now won several Emmys, sets ratings records, and still trends on Twitter without trying to. If that’s not a flex, then I don’t know what is.
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SZA just grossed $34.5M from her SOS arena tour. 18 shows, nearly $2M per show. Back in 2017, she made $30k - $45k per show. Huge jump. One of the best runs in recent years.
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Burna Boy is having his moment:. • Spotify’s most-streamed African artist 2022.• Sold out MSG.• Performed at NBA All-Star Game.• Will be the first African artist to headline a UK stadium show. Here’s how he’s been playing the long game.
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“I love seeing you in a small venue like that… This is the shit they gonna remember forever.” - Rihanna
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Usher will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. This will be the fifth show that Roc Nation helped manage. Here are a few ways Jay Z’s company improved things.
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Quinta was intentional about Abbott's storyline too. She wanted to make a show about teachers. Most viewers can relate to them, but few shows ever focus on teachers as people. Plus, most teachers don't have time to debate on Twitter. It all ties in. From her NYT interview:
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ABC's Abbott Elementary was Quinta’s chance to apply her creator insights to the huge opportunity to make good shows for network TV. From her 2022 Vanity Fair interview:
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I wrote about a theory I'm calling The OutKast Edge. It's when an outsider takes longer to pop, but slowly grows a loyal audience and gains enough leverage to stay true to themselves when they reach the top. It's named after OutKast. Here's why.
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When Beyonce and Adidas partnered on Ivy Park, many believed it could be as big as Yeezy. But Ivy Park – Adidas partnership has struggled. 50% sales decline since 2021. I have a lot to say, but I’m not too surprised.
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Once P signed the deal, he went to work. Here’s his 1998 run:. • 23 albums.• 15 million copies.• $160 million revenue.• No touring, all album sales.• those iconic Pen & Pixel album covers.• "Make Emm Say Uhh" was a huuuuge hit.
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Spotify has ~300 songs that have 1B+ streams. 27 of them are 20+ years old. These are the songs that all the investors want.
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Jay Z, Will Smith, and Sequoia Capital just invested in Landis, a startup that buys homes and rents them to future buyers until they can qualify and afford the mortgage. They must have heard how many millennials browse Zillow all day lookin at homes out of our price range.
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"Degrees don't matter" tweets don't work for a lot of us. I'm helping my 17-year-old cousin apply this year. He's not rich or white. His undergrad experience will open doors and offer access he wouldn't get elsewhere. Even the best online resources can't match that.
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Rihanna, Jay Z, and Kanye West all made Forbes Billionaires 2022 list. They took different paths but had a similar journey to $1B+.
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Travis Scott's Astroworld Tour 2018-19:.• 58 live shows.• 4+ months of travel.• 850K fans.• $64M gross. Travis Scott's Fortnite concert 2020:.• 4 virtual shows.• one weekend, no travel.• 28M fans.• $20M. I doubt he does another 50+ city tour.
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Your followers are not your fans. That’s hard for many artists and creatives to accept, but it’s the truth. Artists hear the same rhetoric often: “Build your social media following!” “Use it to promote your work!” “Be your own distribution!” It’s good advice, but it’s reductive
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Who are the moguls today? Are they still the major studio heads? Or the people who built their own table? Or the people who control the tech platforms?
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While this is an easy place to land, it's reductive. When success is oversimplified, nuance is lost and smart lessons are ignored. Jay and Dame’s split is a classic case of every founder’s dilemma:. ‘Do you want to be rich or be king?’.
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Netflix today:.• moves $100M cash to Black-owned banks.• announces Ozark season 4.• announces Bozoma Saint John as CMO. Damn. Any other flexes coming before COB?.
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Nas and a16z just invested in Carry1st, a mobile games company based in Africa. $20M round. a16z's first investment in a company with HQ in Africa!. Great sign for African startups. Going up from here.
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Jay Z focused on being rich. His wealth came from deals with big companies like Live Nation, LVMH, NFL, and more. He also partners with “underdog brands” that need a boost. He moves like a PE firm. @Complex points out great examples here:
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“Some people like to say, ‘there are no gatekeepers, you own your audience’ blah, blah, blah. There are always gatekeepers.” - @WebBarr
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Other artists gave him props for Dollar & A Dream. “This is real good appreciation. They gon love that shit forever.” - Kendrick Lamar
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If all the top creators want shows on HBO, then who’s making good shows for the larger audience on network TV?. A campy show like Fox's The Masked Singer is watched by twice as many people as HBO’s critical, darling Succession. Network TV's not growing, but it's still huge.
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Disney bought the rights to Hamilton for $75M. You know what this means:. - Hamilton the movie.- Hamilton ten-episode limited series on Disney+.- Hamilton rides at Disney World.- Hamilton on Ice.- Hamilton spinoff movie with backstory on Aaron Burr.- Hamilton: Endgame.
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Issa Rae now co-owns a hair care brand called Sienna Naturals. I gotta make room for it in her synergy map.
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In 1996, No Limit made a deal with Priority Records:. • distribution deal.• profit split: 85% No Limit - 15% Priority.• $375,000 advance from every album.• No Limit maintained ownership of its masters.
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2. Creative control on future albums. Beyoncé released four albums with Parkwood: 4, Beyoncé, Lemonade, and Renaissance. She owns her masters for all four and changed the game with the digital drop in 2013. Those albums had much stronger themes of Black empowerment and feminism.
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An artist can have the biggest album in the world but you've probably never heard it unless you follow that artist. That's how fragmented music has become.
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1. Her $50M Pepsi deal. Pepsi-Beyoncé worked because she worked with “no compromise and without sacrificing my creativity.”. Plus, Pepsi sponsored the Super Bowl Halftime Show where she performed twice. Artists don’t get paid for the show, but Bey got paid by the sponsor.
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When the Roc was at its peak, hip-hop was focused on building its own brands. Everyone pushed their own clothing line. Even the Roc had Rocawear, Roc Films, and other divisions. It was hip-hop’s dot-com era, and Dame was in his element.
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Snoop Dogg buying Death Row Records is the best story of all these recent catalog deals. In most deals, artist sells to investors or record labels. This is the artist who helped make that catalog now buying it outright. That's dope.
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It's wild that Cardi B "Invasion of Privacy" is 5 years old. Even wilder that it's her only album, she hasn't toured, and still stays relevant. Her career says a lot about how the industry evolved. Multiple approaches can work.
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“If you're not using Reddit and you call yourself a marketer, you're playing yourself” - @marctothec
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This is how survivorship bias works. Today, Jay Z commands as much respect in hip-hop as Jobs in tech. Which means his ‘cool and reserved’ business style gets placed on a pedestal.
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Universal Music Group goes public tomorrow. Expected valuation is $39B but could be higher. Universal CEO Lucian Grainge will get at least $150M. If tomorrow's valuation hits $50B, he gets $210M.
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My guy LaRussell brought us under the hood. Here’s a breakdown on how he runs his music career. Most of his revenue is from live shows and merch.
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These were just a few highlights from the new essay I wrote on Quinta Brunson and Abbott Elementary. It goes in more depth on:. • reaching the overlooked majority.• the power of saying “No”.• why Quinta has The OutKast Edge.
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While Dash was criticized for his brashness, other industries celebrated that style. Steve Jobs was known for berating co-workers, which has led to countless tech CEOs and VCs modeling Jobs’ aggressiveness.
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He had paid $25K to meet Michael Jackson’s attorney and get advice. The attorney told P that if he had $200K for his own marketing, then he could get a distribution deal and get better terms with a record label. Expensive meeting, but the advice paid off.
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Insecure’s @IssaRae on the tradeoffs between ownership and partnering with major companies. “You’re trading in at this point… That means that they pay you a particular amount to be able to have access to the things that you create. Right now, it’s a trade-off.”
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In 2016, The Formation Tour made $256M from 49 stadium shows in 5 months. That’s more money than her 2013 Mrs. Carter World Tour made, which did $230M but took 12 months and 132 arena shows. Time is her most valuable resource, and she bought more of it back.
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These are two of my favorite hip-hop deals, by far. The industry was still focused on east vs west coast, but these deals put New Orleans on the mainstream map. They knew the value of owning music. It's especially relevant now during this music catalog spree.
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DJ Screw would sell $15,000 worth of mixtapes a day. He made seven-figures a year selling tapes out of his house, his car trunk, and at car shows. One of my favorite hip-hop entrepreneurs. RIP.
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According to Birdman, Cash Money’s Masters still generate $20M+ annually.
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TikTok is testing 3 min videos. Perfect length for music videos. One step closer to the modern day MTV.
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A few years ago, I drew this sales funnel to highlight where each element in Beyoncé’s business fits in her strategy. Parkwood made this all possible.
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Tyler Perry's first six plays were massive flops. He lost all his money and became homeless. But after those failures, he put in the work to better understand and reach his customers. Here's the strategy that led to his billion-dollar empire.
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It's been 10 years since Trinidad James dropped, "All Gold Everything." He then got an 8% royalty share from “Uptown Funk” cause it used his hook “don’t believe me just watch.”. If you only have one big hit, that's how you do it.
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Beyoncé’s mentality with Parkwood led to four key moves that she leveled up with:. • A $50M deal with Pepsi.• Creative control on future albums.• Her concerts upgrading to stadiums.• Ivy Park - Adidas partnership. Let’s break them down.
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Wow. Cameo's out here making some money y'all. • 5,000 videos sold per day.• $60 avg spent per video.• that's $300K generated daily. $110M annually!. Cameo takes a 25% cut. On track for ~$27M revenue.
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But a lot has changed since then. Today, Jay Z is the billionaire. ‘The business, man.’ The majority of his wealth is owed to his partnership mentality. He’s wealthier and more publicly celebrated than Dame, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t merit in Dame’s playbook.
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Future sold his catalog to Influence Media Partners. Billboard estimates that the catalog is worth $65 - $75M. Good for him. One of the most prolific artists out.
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Beyoncé’s a unique star. Her pre-Parkwood career was already one of the most successful runs ever. Then she went to another level for the next decade. That’s the power of creative control. Let’s see what her next decade has in store.
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French Montana should drop a new single before Morocco’s next game. He should be out there like Drake in the Raptors NBA Finals.
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But a few sources told me that Justin Bieber needed liquidity. He canceled/postponed recent tours, not just due to COVID. His stadium tour was downgraded to arenas due to low ticket sales. Others were canceled for health reasons. This cash can help cover the tour money owed.
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Which rapper is most likely to still drop new music when they’re 70+ years old?.
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Spotify laid off 1,500+ employees, 17% of the company. If you’re a music or entertainment company that’s hiring, drop your open roles below in the replies so people can find them.
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Burna Boy will be the first Nigerian artist to headline a US stadium when he takes stage at Citi Field in July. Please. Buy all the Burna Boy stock you can. Only a handful artists are doing solo shows in stadiums. He’s in rare company.
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