Why Every Rapper & Artist Need To Lock In Their Website Domain
Imaging an independent artist putting in years of work, time, and money growing their brand and music to find out their domain is unattainable. Everyday independent artists release new music, brand themselves on DSPs, blogs, and event fliers not realizing they are putting their brand at risk of being highjacked and held for ransom by a domain reseller. When artists don’t have a website or don’t even have a domain reserved with a .com behind their stage name, it could be a recipe for disaster the second they need a website for branding sake or to start selling merch to fans. Rule number one in this day and age is to register your domain first and everything else should fall into place.
There’s been countless cases when an artist go on domain registrars like Godaddy, Namecheap, or EnzoDomains to buy their .com & launch their site to find out their domain is marked up costing thousands of dollars to retrieve it. Most of the time it’s being sold by somebody who has no business owning the name. So artists have to resort to putting “music” or “hip hop” after their name. Not a good look for anybody’s brand to be honest.
With the internet and social media, especially artists who run paid ads, it’s not hard for resellers to come across names of artists who are gaining a buzz or look like they are investing in themselves. Resellers purchase these artist domains on any domain registrar only mark it up for thousands of dollars hoping to cash in, literally holding the domain for ransom. One of the best legal hustles for domain thieves in this sharky music business. Many of our favorite artists are highjacked and countless others which is proof this type of brand violation does exist. Prime examples of some of our favorite artists doing it right is MeyhemLauren.com, BoldyJames.com, and XPTheMarxman.com.
If an artist is in no rush for a website, securing and registering the domain still has it’s benefits. We recommend just forwarding the domain to a Linktree, Instagram, of Spotify account. This way is cost effective for many artists who are not prioritizing a website, but still want to protect their brand.
