With a career that spans over 30 years, rapper Snoop Dogg is an O.G. in the Hip-Hop game. But the “Drop it Like it’s Hot” artist recently revealed that his son schooled him on a new way to make more money from his popular catalog.
During an appearance on the Business United podcast, the rapper shared that his 26-year-old son Cordell Broadus opened his eyes to the economic potential of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
More artists have turned to (NFTs) as a way to cut out the middle man and maintain control over their work. They’re different from other audio files, as they have one owner and cannot be copied and shared in the same way. As a result, artists can set their own pricing and distribution strategy and create exclusive opportunities for fans.
Since acquiring the Death Row Records catalog and brand in February 2022, Snoop has made it his business to ensure the artists get the money and recognition they deserve for their music. For that reason, one of his first major moves as owner was to remove the songs from traditional streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify and make them only available in the metaverse.
“First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people because those platforms don’t pay,” he said in a 2022 appearance on “Drink Champs.” “And those platforms get millions and millions and millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels. So, what I wanted to do is snatch my music off, [and] create a platform, which is something similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu. It’ll be a Death Row app, and then the music, in the meantime, will live in the metaverse.”
Snoop realized he needed to change the game after earning less than $45,000 after reaching a billion streams on Spotify. It was Broadus who helped with that process.
“My son, he the one who spooned me and groomed me to this,” Snoop told Business United. “In the beginning it was a bunch of motherf–kers just using my name, my face, and just doing all kind of sh-t…and he called me, he said, ‘Pops, it’s what you can’t do. You can’t be mad because if they using your face and your likeness, they love you. They just don’t know how they get in touch with you. So what you should do is reach out to them and say thanks or good looking out, or do you want to collaborate?’”
And now the rapper and entrepreneur wants to help other artists get the coins they deserve as well.
“Let me tell you the thing that worked with me. It was simple. It was transparency,” he said. “That’s what the music industry and the film industry doesn’t have, so this was a way to show transparency. Give me a song. I’m taking 60 percent ’cause I’m putting it out for you. You getting 40 percent. That may sound like a lot, but you just made $100,000.”