Segment: Read The Fine Prints - Contracts Will Make or Break Your Career

What if the biggest difference between artists who build sustainable careers and those who flame out after a few hits isn't talent, passion, or even opportunity, but simply understanding that no matter how hungry you are for success, you must read the fine prints before signing anything because the music industry is show business and if you don't understand the business aspect you will work your whole life and realize there's nothing to show for it? In this raw and deeply personal episode of Konnected Minds, we sit down with an artist who reveals the uncomfortable truth about getting signed to a record label as an overexcited young man who never had to struggle for studio sessions because talented people always wanted to help, why he never mentioned his friend Senabaita's name in any interview until today but this was the guy at University of Ghana who had studio equipment and a home setup and would say come come when you want to record so paying for studio sessions was never even a thing in his mind because his reality was people were always ready to offer help whenever they heard him sing, and why going into the conversation about getting signed it never crossed his mind how others struggled to pay for studio time or get money because even though he had none money was still never a thing in his mind. He breaks down why if he could go back and make decisions differently today he would not have been an overexcited young man who just wanted to make music for passion alone because no matter how much passion you have it's show business and there's a business aspect of it, why you can make all the music and make all the love songs and make the world dance but if you don't read the fine prints you work your whole life and realize you've worked but there's nothing to show for it, why he doesn't own all of his masters and to go into detail about that conversation would require diving deep deep deep deep deep deep so he'll leave it at here but he wishes he read the fine prints and now he'll deal with the consequences of not reading them. But he also confronts the reality of what he tells young talented kids who get into his DMs asking for help. Why his advice is simple and powerful in one line: read the fine prints, why the music industry is a wild wild place and if he didn't have the passion for what he's doing he would have hung his mic and called it a day by year five, why sometimes you go into the deepest and deepest of lows where you ask yourself is all of this even worth it, all these late nights and being on sets for 12 hours and people insulting you, is it even worth what you're getting at the end of it, and why the answer is no it's not worth it but what is worth it is the passion. He reveals why he balances passion with business now because it's very important and you need to be able to survive and keep doing what you're doing by putting money back into your business, why no matter how hungry you are he wasn't hungry when he went into it but was just a kid that loved music who just wanted to sing and did not care what he sang, and why he doesn't wish to be diplomatic and political but for this specific conversation he recognizes there's depths and depths and depths that would need an actual conversation to delve deeper into so he doesn't want to say it and leave it shallow for interpretation. But he also shares the powerful realization that changed his perspective. Why he appreciates that regardless of what happened the path he took is what made him who he is today, why he's super super super grateful for the opportunities, why growing up he heard something means the truth is only one but as an adult he's realized that's false because two things can be true, why a situation might be negative but that situation also helped shape the person he's become, and why when people listen to his childhood story they might say what bro but he recognizes both the negative and the positive truth of it. He confronts the brutal reality of the music industry. Why anytime he speaks to artists about money stuff and hears conversations about artists selling their catalogs and not owning masters there's always a thought that somebody is trying to use somebody, why that's something you're going to have to learn the difficult way because everybody's using everybody, why one of the best things you're going to have to have is leverage because leverage is what allows people to not be used, and why leverage shows up in so many different ways from knowing what you have to knowing who you are to knowing what you bring to the table so that when you walk into any room nobody can bully you. But we also dive into why he stayed under record labels for so long. Why every year taught him something and a lot of what he learned started from year four or five, why he learned very early on that he was a man of his own with his own values vision thoughts and ideas about how he wanted life to be but was working with people who were...