Last night in Los Angeles, I stopped into the Hotel Café for a night of live music. It was the kind of evening that reminds me why I love this city — artists standing on stage, guitars in hand, sharing original songs that felt intimate and alive. The talent was undeniable.
What struck me, though, was how hard it was to actually find these artists afterward. No handles on stage. No mention of where to follow them. No sign pointing the audience toward their digital homes. Just songs that came and went, beautiful but fleeting.
It reminded me how often musicians forget: this is called the music business. The art is vital — it’s why we all show up — but without some attention to the business, those moments don’t always live beyond the room. A simple Instagram tag, a link, a way to connect can make the difference between one night’s applause and a lifelong supporter.
Walking home, I ducked into Record Parlor — one of those dangerous late-night stops. I told myself I’d just look around, but of course I left with vinyl under my arm. This time, it was a promotional copy of a Kashif record. For me, Kashif’s name is forever linked to Whitney Houston. Whitney’s legacy looms so large in my mind and heart that I tend to study everyone who helped shape her sound. Kashif was one of those people. He produced her breakout single, “You Give Good Love,” a song that has meant a great deal in my own life.
Holding that record, I thought about Whitney’s balance of artistry and business. She was as real a musician as you could find — one of the greatest vocalists of all time — and at the same time, she understood the value of marketing, presentation, and vision. She wanted to win, and she worked for it.
That’s what connects a night at Hotel Café to the latest industry headlines, like Reservoir’s acquisition of the Miles Davis catalog. Legendary music continues to be bought, sold, and traded like blue-chip stock. These catalogs are priceless, and yet they’re moving around in a marketplace driven more by finance than by artistry.
There’s a lesson in that. If artists don’t take the business seriously, someone else will. It doesn’t mean abandoning the music — it means carving out time and intention to build careers that can sustain the art. Sometimes that looks like four hours for the craft and four hours for the business. Sometimes it’s as small as writing your handle on a sign.
Because the truth is: music is too precious to vanish into the night. It deserves both the song and the structure. Both the art and the architecture. And as musicians, we have the power — and the responsibility — to make sure our work carries forward, not just as a memory, but as a legacy.
I want to clarify that I'm not saying “no Instagram handle at a gig = Wall Street eats your catalog,” but rather that both are symptoms of the same larger problem: artists disengaging from business out of exhaustion, disillusionment, or even trauma.
What might seem like a small thing — not putting up a handle at a show, not claiming your audience in real time — is really part of a larger pattern. I don’t believe artists are careless; I think many are weary. Streaming has stripped away income, the industry has caused harm, and for a lot of musicians, the safest posture is to retreat into the love of the craft and nothing more. That love will always be there, and it’s beautiful. But passion doesn’t replace responsibility. When you’ve invested years in your gift, it’s worth protecting and sharing it with intention. Every audience, no matter how small, deserves to be seen as the start of something bigger. That mindset shift at the micro level — taking ownership of the little things — is what ultimately builds resilience at the macro level. Otherwise, a culture of “giving up” leaves too much space for others to decide the fate of our music.