Music, on your own terms
Going cold turkey, without the misery.
Quitting the label path, the algorithm, and the received wisdom about how music is supposed to work. Two desks, one that argues and one that counts, written by someone who releases his own records rather than someone selling a course about it.
Read the latest take Open the free split sheet toolThe two desks
One is loud on purpose. The other is boring on purpose. They need each other.
Opinions, left to cool
Arguments about music that had to survive contact with evidence first. Every piece ends with the receipts, meaning what holds up, what's shaky, and what didn't survive checking.
Rap LedgerThe money and the paperwork
Split sheets, distributor fees, publishing, release timing. Free browser tools and dated, sourced numbers for the unglamorous half of putting music out.
Start with these
You can't unhear it
Do the lyrics matter, or is it just how it makes you feel? It depends whose brain is listening, and writing music changes that brain.
Free toolSplit sheet calculator
Add everyone in the room, split the writing and the master, see instantly if it adds to 100%. Prints to a signable document.
Free toolDistributor cost calculator
Enter what you release and what you earn. It ranks the four big distributors by what they actually cost you over the years you hold the release.
MoneyWhat distribution actually costs in 2026
Four distributors, the real annual cost at 1, 4 and 12 releases a year, plus the social-media royalty cut that isn't on the pricing page.
Why this exists
Going cold turkey means quitting the thing everyone tells you that you can't quit. Cool turkey is doing it without the misery, and without pretending it's easy. For artists that means the label path and the guru advice. For everyone else it means the feed deciding what you hear.
There's an enormous amount of music media covering who is beefing with whom, and almost none covering the fact that your distributor quietly takes 20% of your TikTok money, or that the research on whether lyrics even matter says something stranger than either side of that argument believes. Both of those are worth someone's time.
Every number here is dated and sourced. Every opinion here has been checked against something. When either turns out to be wrong, the page changes and says so.