When he's not busy with the current bidding war over the Ottawa Senators, Snoop Dogg is continuing to act on behalf of the people.
Last week, he appeared on a panel discussion with Variety executive editor Shirley Halperin and Gamma Records co-founder Larry Jackson put on by the Melkin Institute — an economics-minded "nonpartisan think tank" — and brought up the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in connection to how the "fucked up" streaming model is "not working" for the music industry.
"Streaming gotta get they shit together, 'cause I don't understand how the fuck you get paid off of that shit," the rapper and entrepreneurial mastermind said [as transcribed by Stereogum]. "Could somebody explain to me how you could get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? That shit don't make sense to me."
"I don't know who the fuck running the streaming industry — if you in here or not — but n—, you need to give us some information on how to track these monies down, 'cause one plus one ain't adding up to two," he told the room. "That shit don't add up. And I have to say, that's a lot of the main gripe with a lot of us artists. We do major numbers with streams in this shit, but it don't add up to the money. Where the fuck is the money?"
Snoop went on:
When I first came out, my records would sell based off of physical. If you sold a million copies — $9.99, nine million dollars, you get this percentage, that's what it is. So if I sell how many streams, how much money do I get? It's not being translated, and it's not working for the artist right now, and I just want to speak to that in the music industry. That's fucked up, and we need to figure that out the same way the writers are figuring out.
The writers are striking because [of] streaming. They can't get paid. Because when it's on the platform, it's not like in the box office. In the box office, if it does all these numbers, you may get an up. Oh, it did this many? Here's another cheque! But on streaming, you got 300,000 hours and somebody watched a movie. Where's the money? And I know I'm going off of script right now, but fuck it. This is business. This is business. This is a room full of businesspeople, and somebody may hear this and be able to do something about it so that the next artist don't have to struggle or cry or figure out how to get to his money. Because some of these artists are streaming millions and millions and millions of fuckin' streams, and they don't got no millions of dollars in they pockets.
Last week, he appeared on a panel discussion with Variety executive editor Shirley Halperin and Gamma Records co-founder Larry Jackson put on by the Melkin Institute — an economics-minded "nonpartisan think tank" — and brought up the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in connection to how the "fucked up" streaming model is "not working" for the music industry.
"Streaming gotta get they shit together, 'cause I don't understand how the fuck you get paid off of that shit," the rapper and entrepreneurial mastermind said [as transcribed by Stereogum]. "Could somebody explain to me how you could get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? That shit don't make sense to me."
"I don't know who the fuck running the streaming industry — if you in here or not — but n—, you need to give us some information on how to track these monies down, 'cause one plus one ain't adding up to two," he told the room. "That shit don't add up. And I have to say, that's a lot of the main gripe with a lot of us artists. We do major numbers with streams in this shit, but it don't add up to the money. Where the fuck is the money?"
Snoop went on:
When I first came out, my records would sell based off of physical. If you sold a million copies — $9.99, nine million dollars, you get this percentage, that's what it is. So if I sell how many streams, how much money do I get? It's not being translated, and it's not working for the artist right now, and I just want to speak to that in the music industry. That's fucked up, and we need to figure that out the same way the writers are figuring out.
The writers are striking because [of] streaming. They can't get paid. Because when it's on the platform, it's not like in the box office. In the box office, if it does all these numbers, you may get an up. Oh, it did this many? Here's another cheque! But on streaming, you got 300,000 hours and somebody watched a movie. Where's the money? And I know I'm going off of script right now, but fuck it. This is business. This is business. This is a room full of businesspeople, and somebody may hear this and be able to do something about it so that the next artist don't have to struggle or cry or figure out how to get to his money. Because some of these artists are streaming millions and millions and millions of fuckin' streams, and they don't got no millions of dollars in they pockets.
Elsewhere in the conversation, he touched on another hot topic — which is deeply entangled with the WGA strike and writers not being fairly compensated for their work — in the creative industries: AI.
"It's blowing my mind 'cause I watched movies on this as a kid years ago," Snoop said of the technology. "When I see this shit, I'm like, 'What is going on?'"
He added, "And I heard the old dude that created AI is like, 'This is not safe 'cause the AIs got their own minds, and these motherfuckers gonna start doing they own shit.' I'm like, is we in a fuckin' movie right now or what? The fuck, man?"
You can check out a recording of the full panel discussion via the Melkin Institute's website.
