At this point in time, pretty much everyone knows that the music industry is not as financially viable as it once was.
In the 1990s, an artist could release a single from an album, then the full-length album, then a remix album, then a live version of the album, and expect all of them to sell in record stores. Then the bottom fell out of the record business with the advent of file sharing, downloading and streaming. Now anyone brave enough to get involved in the music industry today must find creative and innovative ways to stay afloat.
Enter singer-songwriter Ryan Leslie.
With the birth of his new company, Disruptive Multimedia, the “Diamond Girl” singer has found a new way to stay ahead of the game. Designed to allow artists to interact with fans in a personal manner, the platform allows the artist to digitally distribute their music to fans and allows for direct contact via email or even phone. According to Leslie, artists who do exceptionally well on the site can even earn a record deal.
“I’m giving all my top-performing artists the opportunity to earn a $100,000 record deal.I use the data from Disruptive Multimedia to drive my decisions, and your great performance will have earned my confidence in your ability to invest that money wisely,” he says.
Any artists looking to possibly join Disruptive Multimedia should know that it’s not a complete free for all and as easy as logging on and signing up. Leslie has to approve you to join. He has made his phone number available for artists to contact him to gain approval onto the site. Though a bit of a hoop to jump through, Leslie says it’s all worth it in the end.
“The biggest difference is that you get paid right away. When you sell on iTunes, when do you get paid? If you’re on TuneCore, maybe once every 30 days. If you’re going through a record company, you get a statement every 90 days, and then you get paid 90 days after that. If I sell 1,000 CDs on a Monday, I’m up $10,000 in my bank account on a Wednesday. And I know every single one of those thousand people,” says Leslie.
Disruptive Multimedia doesn’t officially launch until July 4, but interested parties can check out the beta version of the site at https://app.dmm.fm.
