someone with more knowledge of the industry than me, explain to me who makes money off of "label imprints" and how

no one?

imprints are sometims said to be something given to a successful artist by the parent label for one or more of several reasons - the artist has enough pull to ask for it as a stipulation of the contract; the notion of an imprint already associated with a successful/popular artist appeals to the parent company (you the listener/consumer might develop a brand association with an imprint that the larger label is unable to develop, therefore they find a way to get your money & loyalty thru the imprint), the idea of keeping a group of related artists nicely walled off from the rest of the corp. appeals for several reasons (artist whose imprint it is fucks up = whole imprint jettisoned, lots of birds killed w/one stone; artist is perceived as not fitting w/history/identity of label, but label is not against making money from an imprint - identity's a big issue with corporations) though I can't back any of that up with links - it's just how ppl talk. I do know that it's actually kind of anti-bloat - the larger a label's gotten, the slower it tends to move; growth and age slow businesses down. a new imprint, as a division of a company, can create something that's much more able to move at the speed of the marketplace.

everybody gets paid the same as employees, I'm sure there are perks & bonuses assoc. with successful signings but I don't think it's a "sign somebody good, profit; otherwise, you're working for free." I do suspect there's a good deal of inter-office crossover between the parent label & an imprint, though not 100%.

a new imprint, as a division of a company, can create something that's much more able to move at the speed of the marketplace.

if badly launched it can also sink like a stone, of course

thanks john

i guess i was wondering whether or not this is a good decision for the artists or not, i mean obv i would never begrudge an artist (esp w/ the economic backgrounds a majority of rappers come from) for signing a deal, but i feel like im always reading about artists signing to an artist imprint and just never getting anything out, but i guess that isnt thaaaaat much diff from the biz in general. or artists signing bad talent, but i guess that's not that much diff either

also, for instance, is hot stylz seeing any money off of "lookin boy"? i

i guess i was wondering whether or not this is a good decision for the artists or not

For the artists signed to the imprint, you mean? Depends on 1) the strength of the team assembled to manage the imprint 2) the resources the imprint gets from the parent company and 3) the management skills up top at the imprint. It's really non-different from a label deal in that respect. Getting money from record sales is uncommon at all levels of the business though - it's advance/recoup, and the more money spent promoting something, the longer it takes to recoup. If Hot Stylz turned down an advance and kept costs down, they're probably getting paid about the same as they would by their parent company. But publishing and licensing is where the money's at, and those are separate deals (or were: for all I know it's bundled into standard contracts now), so assuming Hot Stylz didn't do something stupid and sign a pub deal that gave (them? him?) a big advance against future pub revenues at a lame percent, he/they should be profiting nicely. however nb that few artists are able to resist that big publishing advance no matter how many times people tell them "you'll never get your material back & the pub company will keep half of what would otherwise be yours." Sometimes, the pub. company is part of the label, which could conceivably be an appeal of imprints: imprint signs young talent than slower-moving label wouldn't find, young talent sells publishing to label for big advance, label gets a percentage of a number they would otherwise never have seen.

hmm ok

yeah i think in the case of hot stylz there are probably seeing $$ off "lookin boy" since they basically re-recorded a youtube video

thx again john

almost finished rereading Hit Men so this is indeed very interesting, thanx.