Zack O'Malley Greenburg, Author of We Are All Musicians Now, standing in colorful night city scape, wearing sunglasses

“Artists are canaries in the coal mine of modern business, experiencing seismic tech disruptions years before those in other industries. Follow the music, see the future.” –Zack O’Malley Greenburg

Zack O’Malley Greenburg is working on a new book project called We Are All Musicians Now. He calls artists canaries in the coal mine of modern business.

Zack has written a a few books on hip hop, which include the Jay-Z biography Empire State of Mind and A-List Angels: How a Band of Actors, Artists and Athletes Hacked Silicon Valley. He was a senior editor at Forbes for about ten years. He has also written for the Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Billboard, Vibe, Sports Illustrated and several other big and noteworthy publications. Lending even more legitimacy to his knowledge, Zack has profiled the likes of Jay-Z, P Diddy and Dr Dre throughout his career.

This is Zack’s second appearance on the Unstarving Musician. He first appeared in episode episode 149 back in May of 2020. In this conversation we cover his move from Forbes to Substack, his book We Are All Musicians Now, his Substack, niche writing, the exodus from big media outlets, the relationship between indie artists & super fans, the rise of the super fan, NFTs, teachings from hip hop, intellectual property and more.

Find Zack at ZogBlog.co and ZogBlog on Twitter.

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Mentioned in this Episode

Zack O’Malley Greenburg on Substack

ZOGreenburg.com

Empire State of Mind: How Jay Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office by Zack O’Malley Greenburg

A-List Angels: How a Band of Actors, Artists, and Athletes Hacked Silicon Valley by Zack O’Malley Greenburg

The New Music Industry Podcast / Music Entrepreneur HQ

Related Episodes

How Creators Can Become Owners—Zack O’Malley Greenburg (Ep 149)

Do The Hard Thing First—David Andrew Wiebe (Ep 132)

Robonzo on episode 259 of The New Music Industry Podcast – Growth

Robonzo on episode 164 of The New Music Industry Podcast – How to be a Happy & Profitable Live Performer

This episode is powered by Podcast Startup, the learning platform for creators with a voice.

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This episode was powered by Music Marketing Method, a program for independent musicians looking to grow their music career.

Music Marketing Method was created by my good friend Lynz Crichton. I’m in the program and I’m learning tons! I’m growing my fan base and learning about many ways that I’ll be earning money in the new year. It’s also helping me grow this podcast. How cool is that?

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Resources

The Unstarving Musician’s Guide to Getting Paid Gigs, by Robonzo

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