Brownie McGhee Quotes

One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'

To set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didn't sign to Atlantic just for the money.

We're giving RCA another record, and that should finish them.

My first record deal was an independent record deal back in 1995 or early 1996.

I was initially signed to a German label a few years ago.

A development deal is where they're giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they'll put an album out.

The Roots - we signed our first record deal when I was about 19 years old.

Def Jam just made deals with me. They wouldn't let me go because they didn't really have that much street cred. So they kept me around.

I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage.

Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.

I had to get out of my record deal that I signed with my previous band and get a full solo record deal going so, with all of the paperwork that, that entails it did take a while.

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.

When I was young, I was offered my first recording contract in 1971 and was offered quite a bit of money if I would change my character and be a '70s version of Cher.

I'm really happy with Elektra, I don't have anything bad to say about them at all. I always knew a major label was the right place for me to be. I never really had an opportunity to go to an independent label anyway.

I had a very unusual contract. Most artists actually pay for their record dates and it comes out of their royalties. I paid for nothing.

I guess I've learned that there's really no such thing as a bad label, there is only a bad contract.

When I first got my record deal, I was like, 'I just want to sing,' and I never put much thought into what really goes into a record. But as I got older, I developed a passion for writing.

You don't want the biggest record deal as far as money goes, you just want to make sure that the people at the label really support your band and the music and stuff.

A group or an artist shouldn't get his money until his boss gets his.

So you have to just be really careful and make sure that when a deal comes along, that it's like the right deal for you... not necessarily the most money, because you have to pay the record label that back in like record sales and stuff.

I was signed by L.A. Reid on Arista Records when I was 16. He understood me and believed in me. Arista folded and I got put on RCA or whatever, then there were new people there, and every six months it changes and more new people come in.

Drake was a fan before a friend. He already was a Cash Money millionaire. When opportunity came, maybe we put the most on the table. That was my thinking because I just thought that this was a very talented young man. We saw a future with him, so it was about him being comfortable.

I think, back in the day, when I was first starting to make music, all I wanted to do was to get a record deal.

Island Records was the first record label to... acknowledge me. After that, quickly, Republic Records, and then Atlantic Records, Sony Records and Warner Bros. It was all the labels at once. It was absolutely insane, like, knowing that this many record labels were interested in me.

When a record co. finds a guy now, they want to own everything. They want to own the rights to market that person's particular name. They want a piece of the action all the way through.