HOW MIKE G.L.C SOLD OVER 500.000 CD ON THE STREET OVER 5 YEARS
Unless you've lived under a rock for the last 6 years you will be aware that since 2005 there have been hordes of young men and some time young girl selling and distributing mixed cds in major cities across the uk, from Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, and every predominated High street in London, Oxford Street, Hammersmith, High Street Kensington, Wood Green, Dalston and Camden over the last 6 years have been the marketplace for cd sellers. What a lot of people don't know that this was the brainchild of artist and entrepreneur MIKE GLC, on returning home from prison in early 2004 mike quickly recorded all the material he had written whilst incarcerated. A LONG GOOD FRIDAY was released 6 month later spurring urban classics such as LETTER TO MY GIRLFRIEND, a Long Good Friday was a joint enterprise with long term working partners and friends Dark and Cold clothing. A Long Good Friday was the first cd and dvd set EVER from a u.k urban artist at that time, and with its fold out plastic deluxe cover casing also push the boundaries of packaging and presentation. Dark and Colds aim was to produce a product worth its £15 pound price tag. At first disruption was solely shop and internet based main outlet being dark and colds clothing and cd store in west end. BUT THIS WAS NOT MOVING QUICKLY ENOUGH FOR MIKE who was desperate to created an income which would match that of an more unsavory past to simply put it, mike needed £300-500 a day to keep him from reverting back to the streets so rather than waiting for customers to walk in to the shops to buy it Mike opted for a more aggressive approach of selling the cd in the street with a street team, the only problem was the price, £15 was viable in the shops but in the street people did not want to spend more than £5, BUT DARK AND COLD HAD SPENT A LOT OF TIME AND MONEY ON THE PACKAGING AND GENERAL PRODUCTION OF THE DVD and needing at least £8 back on each unit only leaving £5 - £7 split between mike and the person selling the cd. Mike and Dark and Cold agreed that mike should create a bootleg version which would only be sold in the street, so mike went out and purchased two laser jet printers, 5 cd burners which at that time retailed at £800 each but the lay out was worth it, this now meant Mike could manufacture a single c.d for 20-25p per unit and produce 45 cd every 10 minutes all he had to do now was inspire his street team, Mike next move was genius and changed the face of urban music FOR EVER it was to give the person selling the cd £3.25p out of a evry £5 c.d sale allowing the seller room to make deals like selling 3 cd for £10 not only did this help young cds sellers make up to £100 - £200 a day it also gave them a feeling of working for themselves. Mike also had a strict policy that if you was involved in illegal activities you could not work for him, as he did not want the street team to look like a gang, and selling cds wasn't %100 legal in itself, west end in particular marylebone police admired the fact he was giving young tenagers some thing good to do with there time, and if they could would leave them to it, but every once in awhile would have to clean up the street, stating we're just doing our job and some police officers would even go on to help forward application to the council for street trading licences but to no prevail this soon forced mike to slow down down the street sales, Mike then decide to take his show on the road. Spending the next year and a half traveling the uk and with all that he had learnt he planned the release of a GET CARTER which till this day including the internet is the highest selling mix c.d EVER in the u.k. The other game changer was the decision to sell other arist products for the likes of ruthless records who at the time was creating products for artist such as blade brown, gigss and the hype on the mic series this allowed the seller to make more money. on average mike would have 5 - 10 sellers at one time all selling at least 20 - 30 mike glc cds a day this was being done for over 3 year span. selling over 500.000 copies to date, THE JEWEL IN HIS CROWN will always be GET CARTER WHICH SOLD OVER 160.00 COPIES IN 6 MONTHS and if you go to west end oxford street or any major town you will see his legacy remains.
This amazing accomplishment was televised and documented by the BBC, CHANNEL 4 . the VOICE, THE GRIDEAN ,TIME OUT MAGAZINE, MTV to name a few MIKE WAS ALSO WAS ASK TO SET UP ( CHANNEL AKA ) WHICH WAS THEN ( U CHANNEL ) STREET TEAM.
By LATE 2007 problems started arise, good money was being made from selling cds on on a daily basis ( better than selling drug is some cases ) and this started attracted a more aggressive and unruly seller often breaking away from Mike and starting there own little break away faction. Organisation started to crumble more people started to do there own thing not understanding the power was in unity, mike being mike had anticipated this a year earlier and with concile becoming more and more aggressive in stopping unlicensed c.d sale. Mike briefly campaign to legalise it, even going as far as hiring sosilerter to research and draw up proposals to present to council, all to no prevail.
In 2008 mike GOT ARRESTED FOR FIREARMS, LACK OF EVIDENCE LEAD TO CHARGES BEING DROPPED, MIKE ALWAY STATED HE WAS AT THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME. This insadent lead to mike giving music a back seat deciding to contrate on his biunsess ventures, www.profilepush.com, www.iprsworld.com, www.iprsworld.net, industry magazine , and the the highly anticipated HIT MEN SAGAS COMIC AND CARTOON SERIES.
The money Mike made from the sales allowed him the time and resources to start his ventures.
But Mikes love for the rhyming of words will never die and as we all know mike is one of the best uk lyricist of our generation, and would only make more music if he felt he still had something to say, well he did.
MIKE STARTED PUTTING OUT VIDEOS AND FREE STYLES HERE AND THERE, LIKE THE STREET CLASSIC BROKEN ICE, AND THE NOW LEGENDARY LINK UP T.V
FREE STYLES.
And bit by bit has found himself more and more in the studio. NEW FANS WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIS PAST OLD FANS WANT TO KNOW WHAT HES DOING NEXT, MIKES BACK... mike has now recorded two new mixtapes and an album set of release next year off his own high calibre ent, and has decide to kick if off with a celebration of of HIS AMAZING CD SALE ( 500.000 AND RISING ) A MIX OF ALL HIS BEST SONG FROM THE MIXED CDS GET CATER, LONG GOOD FRIDAY, LAST OF A DYING BREED, LAST SUPPER , MOVEMENT MUSIC . AND HAVE THROWN ONE OR TO MODERN CLASSIC AND UNHEARD SONG OUT SOON.
