Matt Winn

Kirk Franklin & The Family Christmas album is one of the best Christmas albums of all time.

I’ve been pressure testing the economics of IRAS with Codex and Claude. It costs us about $500 per release. That’s before studio, artwork, video or advertising. It then costs thousands a year to maintain the catalog, handle rights, correct releases and collect income.

Jealous everyone back home got to see Ye last night 😤

Maybe some of the pressure, anxiety and fatigue we’re experiencing at this time in the business comes from all of us trying to stand in front of the music. The artist has to be everything. Theit teams and label has to make everything a moment. How much room are we leaving for the song to speak?

Maybe we’ve made the artist too much of the point in the music business. God made music. Artists are vessels for it. What happens when we put more effort into making people care about the person delivering it than helping the music do what it can do in people’s lives?

A song deserves a life beyond its release date. Places to be heard, reasons to be played again, people who make it part of their lives. I want to put more thought into how we help that happen.

I’m now questioning how much of artist development we spend getting people ready for an opportunity someone else might provide. What can we create, exchange and earn together in the environment we’re already in? That deserves more of our attention

I keep thinking about the young artist I was and how much it would have meant for someone to see me. There will always be another young person with that kind of talent. That’s part of why I still want to do this work.

My cup runneth over, but what’s in the cup is for me. What runs over is for everyone else. I want to build a life that keeps filling it.

My desire to do this work survived the disappointment. I still want to develop artists, bring people together and give something back. I’m learning how to do that with more discipline so the life I’m building supports me too.

I still care about what I’ve built and the people I’ve stood beside. I’m just no longer willing to keep proving it at the expense of a life I want to live.

There’s iconic then there’s Michael Jackson. Even his impersonators have more motion than most 😅

Everything was so much simpler.

The first discipline at IRAS is sight. This applies to artist and company. Perception comes before action, because perception creates awareness. Awareness then requires responsibility. “Once you’re aware, you’re responsible”. That’s the standard. theiras.com