Gino The Ghost, Slams Spotify for Low Payouts, Talks New Single “Easy,” and Much More

Gino is widely known as a hit songwriter across various genres of the music industry and co-wrote on Saweetie’s recent EP release, “ICY”, including the #1 multi-platinum hit single “My Type” as well as her debut project, “High Maintenance”. He also co-wrote “Kills You Slowly” for The Chainsmokers, a part of their #1 album, “World War Joy,” and is working with several notable artists. As he transitions from songwriter into emerging music artist, Gino frequently collaborates with the likes of Trap Money Benny, Hit-Boy, Jean Baptiste, Izy Beats, Ale Alberti, JR Rotem, Harry Fraud, Gian Stone, Timbaland, The Roommates, London On Da Track, Zaytoven, Bibi Bourelly, Nic Nac & Trackside amongst others. “Gino and I aimed to deliver a straight club banger with an undeniable bounce, sure to turn up any function. This will have everyone of Gino’s fans in their bag and his doubters in their feelings, Easy,” says manager and President of Artistry Records, Adam Small.

Gino is currently gearing up to release his upcoming EP produced at the hands of Trap Money Benny and is expected to release early 2021.

How are you doing?

Gino The Ghost: It’s going good. I cannot complain.

You gave us the “Laugh Now Cry Later,” freestyle. Very dope freestyle. Is there going to be an extended version of that?

Gino The Ghost: Thank you! So, I’ve been doing these minute-long freestyles and just dropping them. Every once and a while I would do a full version to put on Sound Cloud, but I have a new single coming out. So, just kind of giving a little taste, dropping something small and also, it’s a freestyle. So, I can’t really make any money off of it, so I’m not going to go all in (laughing), you know what I mean.

Tell us about the upcoming single and what we can expect.

Gino The Ghost: My last single was a record called, “Quarantine,” which is kind of a little bit more pop-leaning. I kind of started… I won’t start from the beginning-beginning, but I started as a rapper. And since moving to L.A. and getting into songwriting, I’ve definitely been crossing genres and working in different genres, I’ve had a lot of fun working in pop too. So, “Quarantine” is a record that I kind of just made one night. It happened to be more pop than people are used to hearing from me. So, this next record, it’s called, “Easy,” it’s definitely what people are used to from me. It’s a rap record. It’s a slapper. My homie, Bijan Amir produced it. He produced, “Ric Flair Drip,” and a bunch of other stuff. He’s really fire. So, yeah… it’s just me getting back to my shit talking roots. I’m an Italian from Detroit, I used to be a battle rapper, so I kind of just came up talking shit. And I wanted to get back to that. Tap into my shit talking ass.

You talked a little shit on the, “Laugh Now Cry Later,” freestyle about Spotify though.

Gino The Ghost: (Laughing)! I did. We can get into that if you want to. I can talk about that shit for days!

I definitely want to get into that because I think you will be educating other artists, so tell us about it, man.

Gino The Ghost: Well, it’s frustrating for me because I’m also a writer. I work on the label side a lot too. I work with a lot of A&R friends. My manager who also happens to be an A&R, and a label owner. So, I have been fortunate to be able to kind of dig my claws into the business side of things. It is alarming the lack of money that is paid out by these DPS’s. It’s not just Spotify obviously, Apple, Tidal is way better, but even them. They just don’t pay anything. So, the long and short of it is, roughly, per million streams, you’re getting about $4,000 total revenue. That’s total. That means, the label is taking about 70% of that generally. If you’re a songwriter or a producer for example, let’s say, I write a record and I own 25% of it. That means I’m generally one of four people in the room, right. So just quick math, 30% of $4,000 is like $1,200, and then 25% of $1,200 is $300. So, you’re telling me that I wrote a record getting a million streams and I’m getting $300… what the fuck Im’a do with $300 in L.A.

Spotify meanwhile is taking in ad revenue. It’s frustrating because Spotify claims to be a platform that aligns itself with the artists and creators, and they do these Spotify highlights where they highlight producers and writers, but then their CEO comes out and says, “You shouldn’t be in the music business to make money. You can’t put out one song every 4-years and expect to make money.” Basically, just saying flood the streets with music. I’m like, “Bro, you make $4 billion dollars in the music industry. How are you going to tell people not to be in the music industry for money (laughing)?” He is right. You shouldn’t make music to make money, solely. If you want to just make money, go be in real estate. Go play with the stock market. You gotta have a passion for this. You gotta be willing to not make money for a long time, but I’m in the music business. I do this for a living, so give me my money too. I’m also here to make money.

I get it. On your track, “Quarantine,” you were actually early with that title because the song had nothing to do with the pandemic. Explain that one.

Gino The Ghost: It’s funny because I wrote it like a year before anything happened with the pandemic. My manager was like, “Yo, we love the record, but the title… no one knows what the fuck quarantine means. I think you need to change the title. It’s a little too didactic. No one knows what that word means.” So, I changed it to, “Cold Mornings.” Which was a little more radio friendly at the time. We have just been kind of sitting on it. I’ve been pitching it around a little bit. And yeah, then the fucking pandemic hit. I called him and was like, “Hey, remember when it was called this?” He was like, “Yeah, let’s change it back and let’s drop it.” I don’t want to think that I manifested it, but it was definitely an odd coincidence.

What made now the perfect time to launch your solo career and, not necessarily step from behind the pen because you’re still writing, but pursue your stuff more?

Gino The Ghost: Honestly dude, I’ve just kind of been antsy. I was an artist forever, man. Then the song writing really started to blow up for me. That got me in a bunch of doors. It’s tough breaking as an artist, man. It’s hard to get in the industry. It’s a lot of gatekeepers, there’s so much music, there’s so much mediocre music, you either catch one or constantly put shit out, or keep pushing until you get in. Unless you play it smart. I’m fortunate. My manager is well-connected, he works his ass off, we kind of came up together. We got in a lot of rooms and made a lot of things happen, fortunate to sell a lot of records, and I just kind of… I’m a cocky motherfucker. So, eventually it’s like, “I’m ready for it to be about me.” I had just been sitting on so much music. While I’ve been writing records for other people, I’ve also been working on my own stuff over the years. I owe a lot to songwriting because I’ve been a nasty rapper forever. I’ve always been able to rap. Who gives a fuck? You need to be able to make songs. It’s not about being able to rap. If I wanted to do that, I would’ve just stayed as a battle rapper. So, being a songwriter allowed me to learn how to write great records. I just worked with some of my icons and some of the best in the industry that taught me, and I learned with them and worked with them. I just got a gauge for how to write songs. Whether it’s a top-40 singing joint or it’s a club record or whatever it may be. Now is kind of the time to start putting my shit out.

Do you feel like your time in the film industry matched with your ability to be an amazing songwriter helps you be a great artist?

Gino The Ghost: Definitely! What I’ve learned… being an artist, a lot of people say, “You have to be an actor when you’re an artist. You have to be “on” constantly.” I think there is this misconception that you have to act. Its not even that, you’re constantly in the spotlight. There is so much stuff you have to do, always. Even this phone interview. You have to be able to manage your time, you have to be able to be “on” at any given moment. Acting was definitely a way to prepare me for that. I’ve always been an entertainer in general. I love being in front of people and just talking. I don’t shut up as you learned already. I think it definitely prepared me for the spotlight and for being able to just multi-task and manage my time. Also, the film industry is fucking brutal, man. Maybe more brutal than the music industry. It’s so cutthroat. The first thing that I ever auditioned for ever in my life as an actor. It was for a movie called, “Kill The Irishman,” with Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken. I was 14 or 15-years old. I had no head shots. I just walked in and auditioned. They loved me. I got two call-backs. I got the part. I was like, “Oh, acting is easy. This is great!” And then about a week before my fitting, I got a call that they cut my part. So, that was kind of like a taste of how the business is. Any entertainment business, it’s cold blooded. I think it’s all braced me for a cold world.

All that said, what keeps you in an industry that you know is cutthroat and hard to make it in?

Gino The Ghost: It’s a lot of fun. I love making music. I love storytelling. For me, making a record is another opportunity for me to tell another story. It’s my story, it’s somebody else’s story. It’s cool. It’s just dope that I get to create for a living. That’s definitely one thing. I love being able to collaborate with others. You get to meet cool people, gain their perspective. The best part of collaborating for me, all of this stuff I told you about my past, people have completely different upbringings and completely different ways to how they have gotten to where they are. You bring that together and that makes a different story. People want to be famous for different reasons. I think for me it’s just to be able to… it sounds corny, but to be able to affect people, change people and I want to entertain people. The world is just so fucked. Bro, it’s just so fucked. So, any opportunity for me to be able to brighten people’s day or allow them to see things differently. I talk about politics a lot on my social media pages, but I don’t rap about politics. But I’m very passionate about it. I love Talib Kweli and those dudes, but that’s not really what I’m doing on my artist side. To be able to give people my thoughts on things.

You seem to be able to corner several markets in terms of genre-bending. Is that important for you?

Gino The Ghost: When you’re a new artist, when people hear a sound, they are expecting it all the time. “This is who this guy is, dope!” For example, if what you’re going to see, it’s going to happen. I put out, “Quarantine,” and then my next record is going to be, “Easy” at like 105 BPM. I don’t know how people are going to react. People that have been following me for a while or been a fan for a while, they know. I don’t give a fuck is kind of the revelation that I’ve come to. Because I’ve been going back and forth on it for a while. Do I just stick to one thing as an artist and then as a songwriter continue to do many things? And I just kind of realized what made me like certain artist growing up, like Drake, that dude can do anything. When he put out, “So Far Gone,” he had karaoke on there and he had records where he was just rapping for 5-minutes. That to me… if I can do many things, and I have many tools in my tool belt, why would I not use them. Why would I not utilize them and flex that I can do many things? It’s still me. It’s still my style, even if it is genre-bending.

You asked earlier if being an actor has prepared me for this, and I think that’s another example. When you’re an actor, you get a script, you go to your audition, the casting director doesn’t know what he wants to hear. “I need this character,” and your job as an actor is to say, “I’m Gino The Ghost, and this is me acting as this. This is my character that I’m going to play. This is what I would be like.” So, for me, it’s me every time, but this is me in the pop lane, this is me rapping, this is me on an R&B record. If I want to do a fucking country record, I’ll do a fucking country record. And you’re seeing it with Lil Nas X. His album was great. And he’s brand fucking new, and it worked. “Panini” is a whole different record from, “Old Town Road.”

You’re definitely seeing more and more of that. Good luck. I can’t wait to hear more music from you. You are super talented, my man. Is there anything else you want to add?

Gino The Ghost: My catchphrase is, ‘The Price Went up Again, Dummies,’ and umm, The Price Went up Again, Dummies!

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