While navigating the music industry, one thing Chamillionaire was sure to hold on to was his integrity.
In case you missed it: The rapper turned tech entrepreneur revealed how sticking to his views resulted in one of the 2000s biggest songs. According to Chamillionaire, his hit “Ridin’” came to be after refusing to pay up for a Timbaland beat.
Check out the full story here.
Lessons learned: Staying true to himself is one of the multiple lessons learned that today’s artists can emulate. Prior to revealing his four-time platinum single’s backstory, he let people in on his opinion in regard to the music business.
In a past interview: Chamillionaire stated his belief that the industry is designed to rip artists off and backed it up with his own personal experience.
After learning about the importance of audits from fellow rapper Nelly, he went on to hire Jay-Z’s auditor, which turned out to be his saving grace.
“He goes and finds over $600,000 that the label hid from me,” he revealed during the interview. “I was like, ‘Wait a second. Is this the way it always is?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, you got to keep on doing this.’ So, I realized that all my peers didn’t know this.”
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More on the music industry: As he was talking about the industry, he also shared another one of his findings — people have allegedly paid a lot of money to get their records to No. 1.
Following all of his findings about music, he sought out equity. But to leave Universal Music Group, he had to hold what he learned over their heads.
“I got off of Universal, and they didn’t want to let me go, because I told them if you don’t let me go I’m going to teach all these guys on the label how to do an audit,” he said in the interview. “And they let me go because of that. They didn’t want to pay all that money.”
Although he didn’t tell his former label mates at the time, Chamillionaire is giving insight today that could possibly help artists of this generation.
