Information is king when trying to get a brand new Independent Record Label off the ground. The first step towards running your own Independent Hiphop Record Label has to be understanding what departments are found within a typical Record Label.
I have put together a “Family Tree” to illustrate who does what and who reports to who within the label structure. This description is based on a Major Label structure. The only difference between your Independent Hiphop Record Label and that of a Major Label is that you will most likely have one person responsible for several departments at a time. Your job is to figure out who to put in what position so that the situation fits within their capabilities.
The Following Is a Description of Each Department Within a Record Label:
CEO
A CEO/President/Owner of a Record Label wears many hats. His or her main duty is focusing on the overall direction of the Label itself. What type of artists to sign, methods of marketing, and basically having the final say and approval over each departments’ day-to-day operations as reported by the Vice President. A CEO in a Major Label is more responsible for the politics “behind the scene,” than say an owner of a small Independent Label. An Independent Label CEO might be more involved with day-to-day operations, banking, marketing, and networking.
Vice President
The Vice President of a Record Label is directly responsible for implementing the direction as given from the CEO of a Record Label. The Vice President will hold daily meetings to get updates and plan future endeavors with department heads. In addition, the Vice President is, most likely, directly responsible for distribution negotiations, media buys, and generally “making things happen” when a department head is having difficulties with a resistant outside vendor.
Accounting
In some Record Labels this is actually titled Business Affairs, or the Business Department. This is the department directly responsible for accounting, banking, taxes, and the handling of all artist royalties. Accounting reports directly to the CEO.
Legal
This department is pretty straight forward. Each label will have a team of attorneys to handle all of it’s legal affairs, to include: contract negotiations with artists, vendors, and all other contractual obligations of the Record Label. In many cases, CEO’s are attorneys themselves. However, labels still have a huge Legal Department to handle day-to-day legal obligations of the corporation.
A&R;
The A&R; (artists and repertoire) Department is often considered the partying department at a record label. A&R; is in charge of finding talent, setting up a production team to work with the new artist, and is the label’s liaison between the artist and Record Label. Main duties include: assisting with song selection, signing a producer to produce the artist’s album, and negotiations with recording studios, video houses, etc.; that will ultimately record the artists’ creativity. As you can imagine, going to clubs, scouting new talent, chatting it up with recording studios, superstar producers, and the such, makes this one of the most sought after jobs in the recording industry.
JR A&R;
A Jr A&R; rep is a street savvy person with a keen ability to get into the coolest parties, hottest clubs, and basically knows the who’s who of the city they reside in. An A&R; Department might have 100 Jr. A&R; guys stationed around the country, or world, finding the talent. They report directly to the A&R; Head and are the folks on the street making things happen.
Production
This person is responsible for any audio/video production of the record label. They are to make sure artists are at studios on time, studios have the proper files to work with, masters are delivered to A&R;, etc. They report and work directly with the A&R; Department to ensure the production aspect of making an artist are handled in a timely manner.
Artist Development
I have included this here because it’s needed. Major Label Record Companies have basically stopped funding Artist Development – Rather, they are now searching out artists that already have a total package – so little investment is needed to get the artist to market. Many Industry Analysts have made it very clear that this is the wrong direction for any label to take. In the past, an artist was developed over a number of years. And, in most cases, an artist’s 2nd or 3rd album would finally be seen as a success. Then through artist development an artist’s career would ultimately go up and up. Typically, an Artist Development Department would be responsible for turning an everyday person into their own marketing machine. Interviewing skills, stage presence, image, and choreography are only a few of the roles an Artist Development Department would handle for a record label.
Marketing
Marketing Departments of the past were pretty straight forward. They would handle all print, broadcast, and in-store marketing duties. There would be several departments specializing in each of these sections. Today, however, marketing must take on a whole new approach altogether. Marketing includes: Street Teams, Online SEO Experts, Social Networking Staff, and Traditional Broadcasting and Online Broadcasting. The Marketing Department is also in charge of art. This includes anything made for the Marketing Department to use as promotional matierial: CD covers, posters, flats, in-store banners, etc.
Street Teams
The Street Team Department is directly responsible for the “Word on the Street.” They work cities. They hang posters, pass out fliers, talk with folks at malls, call radio stations to request songs, get local clubs to host parties for artists, obtain guest appearance slots on local radio, and a whole lot more. They ARE the word on the street.
Online
This department is responsible for an Artist’s online image. This is accomplished through websites, search engine optimizations, banner ads, site reskinning, and basic marketing on the web. In today’s record label this is most likely the single most important department after A&R.; An active Online Department will have many workers and sub-departments including design, seo, ppc managers, social networking, and programming.
Art
The Art Department handles all marketing materials for a Record Label to include: Graphics, Audio Clips, Video Promos, Flats, Fliers, Posters, One Sheets, etc. This is the department that “Creates the Image.” An Art Department takes direction directly form the Marketing Department Head.
Publicity
A lot of folks confuse Marketing with Publicity, or think it’s the same machine. It is not. Marketing is basically paid advertising. Whether it be paying a street team to pass out fliers, or buying an in-store listening station at a retail record store. Publicity, on the other hand, is taking advantage of “earned” press. A Publicist’s job is to get you coverage in the media – No matter if it’s, radio, print, or news agencies. In addition, a Publicist is responsible for putting a positive spin on bad press received and getting the most out of a good news event being reported. A Publicist’s job is to get artists invited to parties, events, and news worthy situations, to then get media coverage for that artist being at that party, event or news worthy location.
Publicity Video
This department works directly with Publicity. It is this department’s job to locate all video recorded of the artist. I am not talking about music videos. Rather, I am talking about news or media coverage. This department is responsible for locating any media that has quality video clips included, to further exploit through internal publicity measures.
Publicity Radio
As we have all heard, Radio DJs love to gossip and talk about Artists. The Publicity Radio Department’s main function is to find out what radio is saying about Artist to further exploit, or curb anything being talked about.
Sales
The Sales Department is responsible for just that, Sales of an Artist’s offerings. This can include: CDs, DVD videos, Mechandize, or Appearences. The sales department is who brokers deals with manufacturers, distributors, and vendors. Sales is also the department who takes orders from marketing to obtain in-store listening stations, light board buys, billboard buys, etc. The sales Department may have upto 100 employees in a Major Label Operation.
Sales Distribution
This Department is responsible for making sure sales outlets get the product they are to sale. They work one on one with distributors to ensure Marketing matierials are in store at the time CD arrives, works with retail to ensure front self support, and basically is the labor force behind the Sales Department.
Conclusion:
Now, this is only a list of the major positions and departments in a Record Label. There are many more and this list can be broken down into several if not a hundred sub departments within departments. A record label is as big as it’s end of year earnings. Think of it this way…
If you can do better business with more folks, do it. If you do not have the management in place to handle running a 100 person operation do not do it. Management is the #1 killer of a good idea. Can your idea be implemented in a timely manor? Do you have the man power to ensure everyone is doing their assigned job? Do you have the money to run so many departments with so many employees?
Most Independent HipHop Labels run very effectively with only a hand full of people wearing many, many hats. As your sales increase then finding additional employees is easy. Managing those employees is the hard part. Hire for management, not labor. By hiring managers you open yourself up to a company that can run itself. Let your newly hired managers hire their own employees, with your approval. This will ensure that your managers are happy and feel as if they actually have some sort of control of their future. This will increase your chance of success.
