Today, I’m talking with multi-faceted artist Cassandra Kubinski. She has been with us on the podcast in 2018 and was in our Profitable Musician Summit about crowdfunding. If you want to know about her whole artist journey where she also went through several pivots, you can listen to episode #166. Today, she is going to talk about collabs to tap into new audiences which most probably has never heard her music before.

Last year is big on recording and performing. She spent the start of this year performing and meeting with publishers before Covid 19 happened. She has quarantined herself in her condo in New York and she now planned to release the music she has previously recorded. This year is more on collaborations.

Previously when she released music, she did a few shows in different locations but wasn’t really a heavy touring artist. When the pandemic started, what she did was Facebook live shows and now, she does more of Instagram collabs. She was more focused on expanding listenership in DSPs.

How she decided to do collabs:

Cassandra checked her life and she asked herself where she would like to have her music and where she hasn’t really expanded to. It also came with the fact that it is overwhelming to do everything yourself. She resorted to collabs, not just to increase results but also to have more fun, feel less alone and feel a sense of teamwork.

Being passionate about Yoga and mindfulness, she explored how she can link it to music and found DJ Taz Rashid. So now, she has created a collab with him for a remix of her song and it also includes collaboration with other yoga-focused artists.

How to approach other artists for collabs:

1 – Research.

  • It will show you if you really want to pursue the target you want to pursue. If you become more aware of what other artists is up to, you can use that as basis of what pitching to them as to why they should work with you (apart from confirming you want to work with them).

2 – Finding contact details.

  • Apart from pitching via email, she also tailor fits her messages and sends messages via DMs.
  • Once you get their interest enough for them to respond, make sure you have an answer when they ask, “What do you have in mind?”
  • Some artists may work with you for free but some may ask for payment, but make sure you have a contract just in case. It is your decision if the artist is a worthwhile investment but make sure you have a clear agreement.

Outcome of her collab with Taz Rashid:

  • Her monthly listenership on Spotify more than doubled.
  • Previously, her old songs were the most popular but doing the collab allowed her newest release to become the most popular.
  • Increased listenership led her to create a music video for its promotion.
  • Doing her collab with an artist in the yoga space expanded her potential as a live artist in that space as well.

Collab with Hannah Grace Colin:

  1. She looked at the other artists involved in Season 8 of Dance Moms which Cassandra previously worked with.
  2. She found Hannah Grace Colin whom she think she would vibe with.
  3. She reached out through Hannah’s father seeing Cassandra’s comment on one of Hannah’s YouTube video. Cassandra commented since she wasn’t really able to find another way to contact her.
  4. Hannah had more following than Cassandra but through talking with Hannah and her parents, she was able to discover some other things that would be beneficial for Hannah.

About collab with organizations:

Aside from collab with other artists, Cassandra also collabs with organizations. The two biggest projects were for autism and for pet rescue. The newer song, “You Get Me”, is to support pet rescue and adoption. She originally did a music video concept for a commercial pitch. They didn’t get the commercial but they reached out to women in music and Jam Murphy reached back. They came back with an idea for a video with fitness models with their rescue dogs. Then she thought, “Who is this gonna benefit”? Then she reached out to a distinguished animal trainer for broadway, movie and TV, Bill Berloni. Cassandra worked with him many many years ago in Annie. He is the behavioral expert and consultant for the Humane Society of New York and they brought 7 dogs for the video. This particular video was able to raise more than $1000 dollars and they were invited to be a part of an event that helped raise $25000 for the said organization.

What’s important with pitching for possible collaborations is specificity and knowing how you can help the person you want to collaborate with.

You can find Cassandra Kubinski at https://www.cassandrakubinski.com and find her on socials as Cassandra Kubinski except on Twitter where she is @cassandrakub. She will be coming up with a PDF called “Partnership Power”. Just shoot her a message and when she is ready, she’ll send you a copy.

Link mentioned in this episode: https://www.cassandrakubinski.com