This Is Why I’m Suing Capital Records: Mims Drops Knowledge on Music Industry Posted by Nathan S. on 08/09/13 | Filed under Opinion, Sales, Mims

I'll admit that I hadn't really thought about Mims as an actual person in a while. Over the years since 'This Is Why I'm Hot" dropped (holy sweet baby jesus, has it really been six years?) , he's become more of a symbol of the ringtone rap era, a "hey, whatever happened to?" joke, than an artist to be learned from. Frankly, that "Mims is alive?" mindset is what made me watch this Mims interview in the first place, but then it turned into something much more. It turned into Mims dropping some serious knowledge on the workings of the music industry.

Here's the long story short. Mims made a ton of money off his first album, but he quickly discovered that there's a big difference between making a ton of money, and having a ton of money. According to him, Capitol Records engaged in some shady accounting practices to make the revenue seem less than it actually was, and expenses more than they actually were, therefore drastically lessening his cut.

Or put another way...when I was a kid I got all mad at my mom because I had to wash the dishes every night. In retrospect, she probably should have told me to quit fucking complaining and wash the dishes, but instead she said fine, we'll alternate nights washing dishes. Sounds totally fair, right? So I agreed.

But what I failed to realize what that she also totally controlled the dinner menu. So on nights when it was her turn to wash dishes, we'd eat take out, and on nights when it was my turn to wash dishes, we'd have a fucking medieval fest that took every pot and skillet we owned to cook. To this day I'm convinced she'd melt a tablespoon of butter in an entirely separate pot just to make me wash it.

The lesson I learned, and the lesson Mims learned? It doesn't matter how well you negotiate your piece of the pie, ultimately the person who controls whether or not there's even any pie at all can still fuck you. Something to keep in mind for all those artists out there considering chasing the major label dream vs. staying independent.

Thanks Mims! Seriously, my bad on the whole forgetting you were an actual human being thing*.



* That "This Is Why I'm Hot (Reggae Remix)" was always better than the original though.

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