Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights from Music Executives and Artists for aspiring and emerging music managers, executives and artists on how to navigate the music industry. This newsletter is brought to you by Mauricio Ruiz.

Information is still one of the biggest barriers in the music business.

People love blaming gatekeepers.

Labels. Playlist editors. Agents. A&Rs. Managers. Some executive who could change your life with one email.

And yeah, access matters. Of course it does.

But a lot of the time, it’s not one person blocking you.

It’s what you haven’t learned yet.

That’s the part that gets expensive.

You don’t know how the deal works. You don’t know where the money goes. You don’t know what rights you’re giving up. You don’t know what a fair split looks like. Somebody says “standard” with enough confidence, and you nod because you don’t want to look green.

Then you learn.

Usually after it costs you something.

That’s how this business worked for a long time.

The real information lived in rooms most people couldn’t get into. You learned by being around the right people, by making mistakes, or by getting burned and deciding that was never happening again.

That’s part of why I wanted to build The Manager’s Playbook.

This week’s episode was different.

Donavan Brown moderated the conversation, and I was on the other side of the questions for once. First live episode. First in-person episode. Full circle, in a way I probably didn’t fully process until we were already doing it.

We talked about the early days. Film. Mad Ruk. Managing Jessie. Figuring things out while the plane was already in the air. Then eventually stepping away from management and trying to build something that could stand on its own.

But underneath all of that was the same thing.

Information.

At one point, I talked about a dinner with Zach Katz, Troy Carter, and a few other heavy hitters. Zach asked me what I wanted my legacy to be.

I don’t think I had ever really said it out loud before.

But the answer was simple.

I wanted to take what I knew and give it back.

To Toronto. To managers. To artists. To young executives. To people trying to understand this business without always having someone they can call.

That’s what the newsletter started as.

That’s what the podcast became.

A way to share the conversations I was already having one-on-one.

When you’re coming up in music, most of your education happens in real time.

Not in a classroom.

It happens under pressure, with real consequences attached.

You’re sitting in a label meeting trying to read the room.

You’re on a call with a lawyer, hearing language that sounds simple until you realize every word has weight.

You’re staring at a deal memo wondering if the offer is fair, or if you’re just too inexperienced to know what fair even looks like.

Somebody tells you something is “standard.”

But does standard mean normal? Does it mean lazy? Does it mean bad for your artist? Does it mean nobody bothered to push back?

That’s the business.

And when you don’t know, you have to ask.

That was one of the biggest lessons for me while managing Jessie.

I had to get comfortable saying, “Explain that again.”

Not once. A lot.

Publishing. Deals. Splits. Recoupment. Whatever it was. I would rather look inexperienced for five minutes than pretend I understood something that could hurt the artist later.

That’s part of the job.

Your ego can’t be bigger than the responsibility.

The good thing is, the information gap is smaller now.

There are podcasts. Newsletters. YouTube channels. Social pages. Books. People are talking openly about publishing, management, rollout strategy, label deals, touring, fan building, ownership, content, marketing, all of it.

A lot of what used to be “inside baseball” isn’t as hidden anymore.

It also creates a different problem.

Not all information is useful for where you are.

A strategy that works for an artist with momentum might do nothing for someone still trying to build their first real fanbase.

A deal that makes sense when you have leverage might be a bad deal when you don’t.

A rollout that works in hip-hop might not translate to R&B.

Advice from a major label executive might be true and still not help an independent artist with no team, no budget, and no infrastructure.

A clip can sound great on Instagram and still be completely wrong for your situation.

That’s where judgment comes in.

The new gate isn’t just information. It’s knowing what to do with it.

Can you hear somebody else’s playbook without copying it?

Can you take the lesson without stealing the tactic?

Can you admit that ownership is powerful, but ownership without infrastructure can get heavy fast?

Can you admit that a label deal isn’t automatically bad, and independence isn’t automatically noble?

Can you understand that leverage is not something you announce?

You prove it.

Audience. Revenue. Demand. Consistency. Team. Vision. Execution.

That’s the part people have to sit with.

The information is out there now. More than ever. The harder part is knowing what applies to you, at your stage, with your resources, in your lane.

That’s still where people get hurt.

Not because they’re lazy. Sometimes they heard the right advice at the wrong time. And sometimes they copied the wrong person.

Sometimes they watched one podcast clip and thought that was enough to replace a real lawyer, accountant, manager, or advisor.

It’s not.

This is still a people business.

The people who last are usually the ones who keep learning, keep asking better questions, and stay humble enough to admit what they don’t know yet.

That’s the actual playbook.

Not copying someone else’s career or chasing every strategy because it sounds smart. And not pretending you understand the deal because you’re embarrassed.

The playbook is learning how to think, listen and apply information in context.

Because information can open the door.

But judgment is what keeps you from walking into the wrong room.

Watch Episode 67 with myself and Donavan Brown LIVE NOW

To celebrate 50,000+ subscribers on YouTube and 50+ podcast episodes, we turned the first chapter of The Manager’s Playbook into a digital magazine issue.

But before anything, thank you. If you’ve watched, listened, shared, or even sent one message saying “this helped,” you’re the reason we’re here. You didn’t just support content. You helped build the community around it.

Inside the issue is a curated rundown of every episode, the biggest takeaways, and the lines worth revisiting when you’re building in real time. Think of it as a reference guide you can save, share, and come back to whenever you need clarity.

Read the 50th Edition Magazine below.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the host and creator of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, dedicated to demystifying the world of music management, and Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more.

I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard and the NBA.

Follow me on IG @mauroisruiz

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