Okay I promised my Twitter fam that I would write a blog post on how to get your music featured by bloggers or listened to by A&R and managers.

For those of you who don’t know a lot about me, let me give you a little background. I am a freelance entertainment writer. I currently write for Unrated Magazine (an entertainment e-zine) and the blog you’re reading now The Music Hot Spot, but previous to this I was a songwriter and demoed several songs and did capture the interest of a few managers, producers, etc.

So what is it exactly that I do? As a freelance entertainment writer, I attend exclusive events, interview artists, and review music. The word freelance allows me to do this at leisure and I’m not exclusive to a company.

As you can imagine my inbox is bombarded with new music on a daily basis. Everyone wants to be featured and frankly its a hell of a lot easier to get featured on a blog than a mainstream magazine.

I want to give you guys some helpful hints to getting a blogger such as myself or someone within the music industry interested in your music. No matter what genre of music these tips will be useful.

So let’s start with the obvious:

1.) Make good music. Now this is extremely subjective. What might be good to you may not be good to someone else. You’ve seen American Idol. You’ve seen the people who auditioned and you probably thought, “Who told them they could sing?”  Even when you look at who’s popular in the entertainment industry right now, you may feel the same way…but remember everyone is not for everybody. So how do you know your music is good? Let’s start with the obvious. Someone other than your friends and family tells you so.

2.) Have a fanbase. With social-networking being so popular right now, even if you only have a small number of fans currently you can definitely grow a fanbase. Try YouTube (upload freestyles or acapellas), Twitter (use the TweetMySong feature), Facebook Fan Page (start a dialogue) and Myspace (great for housing all of your tracks). Let people know about your music and create a movement. For instance, Nicki Minaj has the Barbie movement, Jermaine Dupri has the lifers, whatever you call it, make sure your fans are riding for you and will promote you at any costs. Quite frankly, most bloggers aren’t looking to break artists that don’t have some type of fanbase, so prove to me why I should feature you.

3.) Have a catchy hook. Sorry, but a hook sells a song. How low can you go? Oh sorry, just had a Luda moment. But you get the point. The hook needs to be catchy. You want people singing it long after the song goes off their I-pod. It’s the hook that’s going to sell your song, so make sure you craft something that’s catchy! Nuff said!

4.) A hot track. Again this is subjective as well, but let’s face it, the hook and the track sells the song. Craft you a club banger and you will definitely catch the interests of bloggers, fans, A&R, managers, etc. But one word of caution! Please make sure your track is not so busy that your track rides harder than your lyrics. I received a song from an artist today that was so busy, I couldn’t even hear his lyrics. But I digress…

Sidenote: If you are in need of tracks email me. My son makes DOPE hip hop beats (exclusive and non-exclusive). And his rates are reasonable.

5.) Create a buzz. Drake who? Last year, Drake gave new meaning to the word buzz. Of course Drake had Degrassi as a starting point, but did you see the buzz he created? The bidding war that ensued? Keep your name on everybody’s lips and bloggers and A&R’s will come looking for YOU.

6.) Leave the hip-hop on the album. Hey I enjoy slang like the best of them, but quite frankly I don’t want to receive an email that goes like this:

eh yo I got dis dope track u should listen to.  Hit me up and let me know what u think.

Um sorry, delete. And I never even listened to your track.  Leave the Twitter language on Twitter. Craft a nice thought out email. Remember: nine times out of ten you’re sending an unsolicited email, so why ruin your chances of getting your email read? Include your bio, a photo, and links to your music. Don’t ask me to hit you for your music! I don’t have that type of time. Include it in your email. Also as a sidenote and this is VERY important: Email don’t SPAM. This goes for Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, etc. If you annoy people, they’re not going to want to support your project.

And the bonus:

7.) Trick me. Do a feature. This works well for both hip-hop and other genres, but especially for hip-hop artists. Go to Billboard.com and see what the top ten songs are in your genre. As of today, Ludacris’ How Low Can You Go is number 2. That means, everybody is checking for this song. So what are you waiting for?!? Hop on the track. Then send it out to your friends on Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. Email me and everyone else you can think of and say check out this remix to How Low Can You Go. Nine times out of ten, I’ll listen cause I like Ludacris. And if you’re dope, I’m more likely to listen the next time you send me a song.

I have a soft spot for unsigned artists and I want to see you succeed. Let me know if these tips help and if you want to see more posts like these by leaving a comment below. And if you have a question you need answered please ask me by clicking here.

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