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Article Sep 17 2019 Written by

How To Promote Your Hip Hop Record

The music industry has changed dramatically over the past few years. One of the biggest changes has been the shift from physical records like vinyl and CDs to digital music. Despite this, vinyl still features heavily in the live shows of many Hip Hop and DJ acts even though some have moved to digital decks and laptops.

The promotion of music has also changed a lot. If you are one of the many Hip Hop artists who are looking to get their next break, then these simple tips will help you to start building a following.

Upload Your Music to Soundcloud

One of the best platforms that you can look to put your music on is SoundCloud. SoundCloud is a global music platform that allows creators to upload their work and share it publicly or privately for free. According to SoundCloud themselves, there are currently over 190 million tracks on the platform from over 20 million artists and creators. It’s a great first step if you are demoing or aren’t ready to put music on platforms like Apple Music or Spotify.

Get Booked for Gigs

Once you have a good amount of music that you are confident with, and that you have recorded, you can begin to start looking for gigs. Before doing this, it may be best to build at least a small following of fans. This can be a prerequisite of some promoters who may even ask you to sell a certain amount of tickets for a show.

Another option aside from contacting promoters directly is to sign up to a platform like Alive Network. People can enquire and book you through a site like this. It’s another way to put yourself out there cheaply and effectively.

Collaborate with Different Artists

Collaborating with other artists is how many Hip Hop artists get their big break. It may be that you decide to do a guest vocal on a well-known artists track. Similarly, you might be able to invite them to collaborate with you for a song on your album or EP. The other option is to try and get a support slot to make a guest appearance at one of their shows. Any artist that has a bigger following than you do will help you to get exposure to new fans that won’t have heard your music before.

Create Social media Profiles

Social media wasn’t really around 15 years ago and many of the bands and artists back then had to use a range of different offline methods to promote new tracks and shows. TV appearances and radio interviews were really common, as were signing events. Now with social media, is it easier than ever to tap into a sub-culture and engrain yourself into the music scene.

The best thing to do when starting to promote yourself is to start local. You will want to find local Hip Hop groups that you can contribute to. You will also want to find other online communities to promote your music and your shows. Having your own social media profiles for your act is also really important so people can find you when searching online.

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