On April 3rd, Shaw University partnered with Dreamville Festival to host “Education Day”. This was a series of several lectures and workshops surrounding navigating the music industry. One of the workshops featured music manager Christela Rodriguez, who discussed how to break into the business side of the music industry. An area she has had a lot of success with.
In the workshop Rodriguez discussed her climb in the industry. Rodriguez was born in California, and grew up in a music centered household. When she went to college, she majored in Anthropology, but knew her main passion was music. So she would work small gigs at music festivals as a way to get her foot in the door. While working at a music venue in Santa Cruz, Rodriguez met up and coming R&B artist Saba. This was the beginning of the cultivation of their business relationship. She was still a college student, and mentioned in the workshop that it was difficult handling school and managing a new artist. However she learned many lessons through her quick jump into the music industry.
She shared how she learned the hard lesson of time management. When the artist she manages, Saba, was releasing Care for Me, his sophomore album, he collaborated with known artist Chance The Rapper. It was a few days before the album dropped, and she needed to work out some contractual arrangements with Chance’s lawyer. However, it being a last minute request caused an inconvenience for Chace’s lawyer. And it risked her artist Saba’s relationship with Chance. Rodrigueez said this was a collaborating moment for her, that she has to remain responsible and organized in order to protect her artist’s relationships.
Rodriguez is at a very strong point in her career. She recently was Assistant Manager for Kendrick Lamar’s most recent album, GMX. It was a huge album that had over one million copies sold. Rodriguez’s position required her to manage all the samples and rights to the songs. This is a hard task because whatever track is being sampled needs permission to be used from the artist or their estate. Getting in contact with an artist and or estate is a difficult task on its own. But it was particularly challenging for Rodriguez because Kendrick is such a high profile artist, leaks were an extreme risk. During the lecture Rodriguez shared that after contacting a sample artist or their estate, she would meet up with them, take her own computer, and insert a flash drive of the only copy of the sample. After playing it for the estate/artist, they then would decide whether or not to allow Kendrick to use the sample in the song. Rodriguez mentioned that this high pressure situation gave her more context of the music industry, but also confidence as she was able to manage it all successfully.
Christella Rodriguez began her young adult life as an anthropology undergraduate, now without any music related degree she has been on the management team for a Super Bowl Halftime Artist. She is a prime example that options in the professional world are truly limitless, you just have to give yourself a chance!
