Both women and men are intelligent beings. Some are more intelligent than others. As you can tell by my name, Charlene, I am a woman. I’m a big advocate for female music producers. It breaks my heart there are not more in the commercial entertainment industry. However, I’m disappointed in a lot of my fellow female producers. Why? Many female producers have not capitalized on the befits of sexism and technology. I know, you’re thinking what could possibly be a benefit of sexism? Sexism causes lower wages for females, but spells CHEAPER PRODUCTION COSTS to labels! In this period of economic crisis and massive downloading, you will see a lot more underground and female producers emerge.
Right now Missy Elliot is the leading female music producer in the commercial entertainment industry and she is averaging some where around $30,000-$50,000 a track (give or take). Missy’s price is not bad. In fact she is much more affordable than Scott Storch or Timbaland who make around $80,000 – $100,000 per track. Missy is just as qualified and talented as any of these male producers. However, she’s getting paid half has much (the pitfall of sexism). It’s still a nice pay rate; I’d love to have it. More importantly as labels continue to downsize Missy becomes the more viable option when hiring a big name producer. We already discussed the unresolved continuing problem of downloading that is bankrupting the music industry as we speak. However, lets also discuss having to pay producers $80,000-$100,000 per track on top of other production costs to make an album. The economy is bad, price of gas is through the roof, cost of education is ridiculous, mom and dad are cutting little Tommy and Mary’s allowance because they need to save money, so what do little Tommy and Mary do to entertain themselves since they can’t go anywhere or leave the house? Watch MTV, BET, hop on MySpace, Face Book, You Tube, Instant Messenger, and DOWNLOAD!! Mom and dad are not going to take them to the store; the price of gas it too high and they do not want to spend money.
Missy Elliot’s pay rate will prove to be a blessing in her career during this time of economic crisis, but the female producers who will really benefit from this are independents such as Jamille Luney. Jamille’s going rate is between $5,000-$10,000 per track and she already has a following (without major marketing). Labels save loads of money using a producer like Jamille and they are not sacrificing production (go listen to the track she did for the Nas and Alicia Keys remix http://myspace.com/jamilleluney). Many record labels are turning to the streets for inexpensive well produced beats.
Before Kanye West was a household name, he produced tracks for Rock- A -Fella records for Jamille’s current pay rate. The bottom line is a lot of talented female producers are going to get a shot and I think Jamille Luney is leading the pack in 2008. Missy will still reign as the queen. It would be nice to see Missy take Jamille under her wing. I think Elliot and Luney should team up before the industry tries to turn them against each other to create a girl cat fight for promotion. The Kanye 50 cent dog fight was not that exciting, but two females is a male centered society’s dream!
