“The most understated commodity of this craziness right now is the barter-and-trade for features,” says one A&R
But exchanging money for a guest verse is just the first step in a complex process. “The kids sometimes don’t understand — ‘here’s your verse’ doesn’t mean that you can commercially release it,” says Matt Buser, an entertainment lawyer. A rapper hoping to use a feature has to come to separate agreements with both the featured actthat act’s label. “These people are exclusively signed,” Buser continues, “so their label has exclusive rights for their performances on master recordings.
If all the parties involved are signed to major labels, there’s at least a chance that a clearance will come through eventually. “It’s a revolving door; we all need favors from each other,” Denton says. Labels will try to work out some sort of compromise. But at least major-label artists probably have enough clout to get a feature clearance in some form at some point — even if it takes months. In contrast, if one of the rappers asking for clearance is an independent act without much leverage, he or she is in a far more vulnerable position. “Young rappers stack up their money to go get a feature from a big artist, they pay him $100,000 on the spot to cut a verse, and it never comes out because his label will never clear it,” Buser says.
Still, if the bureaucratic stumbling blocks can be overcome, nabbing features can be a great deal for the rappers on the receiving end, providing
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