Gee Smiff on Music Sync Licensing Opportunities, and How Sync Licensing Deals Help Artists to Keep Creating

Launching a career as an artist is no easy feat. It’s a passion and often both a vocation and an avocation. Yet for many artists—whether their craft is music, filmmaking, or even content creation—it can feel like a grind to both make ends meet and pursue their careers in their art.

That’s why at Soundstripe, we strive to help keep all creatives creating by putting artists at the forefront of everything we do. We’re proud to share that we’ve paid out over $13 million in royalties to our artists since the company was first founded in 2016. That’s $13,278,773.24 as of the last day of 2024 to be exact. A number that grows every day as our core catalog continues to expand and our music is used in more and more places.

But what are these royalties and how does sync licensing work for both musicians and creatives? Gee Smiff is one Soundstripe artist who has found a way to further his career thanks to his success in sync, with music sync placements in ads from some of the world’s biggest brands, including McDonald’s (which you can watch here) and Walmart.

We caught up with Gee to discuss how music sync licensing opportunities have impacted his career and highlight some of his favorite sync projects. But before we get into it, let’s explore what sync licensing is and how it helps talented artists like Gee pursue their art and support their careers.

What is sync licensing?

In the music industry, sync licensing (short for synchronization licensing) is a type of music licensing that allows companies, brands, or individuals to use existing music in various visual formats: films, commercials, video games, and so on.

Historically, sync licensing music has been a lucrative opportunity for artists because they’ve been able to make an upfront fee for landing a deal, plus performance royalties for plays over time.

Yet, the sync space has also been hard to break into as it’s been limited to a select few musicians, rights holders (i.e., record labels and publishers), advertisers, agencies, and media companies with the budgets and needs to negotiate sync licensing deals. And there are only so many films, television shows, and big-ticket commercials produced each year.

How sync licensing is changing

Fast forward to today, though, and sync has become a great option for artists once again. With the rise of social video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, plus the growing popularity of podcasts, livestreams, and other emerging forms of entertainment, the demand for legally cleared music is higher than ever before—and very much still growing.

However, as the rise of influence culture has disrupted sync, many new music providers have entered the market with licensing models that are less favorable to artists, offering upfront pay only and no back-end royalties.

At Soundstripe, we’re committed to fairly compensating musicians and empowering them to keep creating the dynamic music providing the soundtracks to this new generation of content creators. Soundstripe artists always retain a writer’s share so they get the performance royalties they’re due–in other words, a piece of that $13 million pie we mentioned earlier. (If you’re confused why we refer to our music library as ‘royalty free,’ it’s because our users never have to worry about royalties – we handle that all behind the scenes.)

But enough talk about Soundstripe and our unique sync licensing model. Let’s hear from Gee about how he got started with sync, his approach to writing for new projects, and the greatest music sync licensing highlights of his career.

Soundstripe: How has sync impacted your career?

Gee Smiff: Sync has been the greatest thing for my career. I've really been blessed. God has blessed me with opportunity after opportunity, stuff that I wouldn't even have expected to happen. When I first started in this, I was going for mom-and-pop ads, but the stuff I’ve been able to be a part of now is still mind-blowing to me.

Soundstripe: Did you know anything about sync licensing opportunities as an artist just starting out? Was sync part of your original plan for your music career?

Gee Smiff: I didn't know anything about sync when I first got into music. All I wanted to do was to put my music out there on the internet and have people listen to it. I didn't even want to be famous. But as I was trying to do this artist thing and running into the speed bumps that everybody trying to do the same thing hits, I started thinking to myself, “What can I do to stand out and actually find a lane for myself?” And I ultimately found that through sync.

Soundstripe: What have been your favorite music sync placements so far?

(Turn 10, a Microsoft first-party studio and Soundstripe Enterprise customer, placed Gee Smiff's track "Hero" in the Fast X Car Pack for Forza Horizon 5 trailer.)

Gee Smiff: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been really huge into racing games. And one of my songs was on a YouTube trailer for Forza Horizon 5. It was a collaboration with the Fast and the Furious franchise, so that was amazing to me. Also, another was with my brother, who’s part of the Playmaker Podcast Network. They produce podcasts for pro athletes, and he actually put one of my songs as the theme song for the Roommates Show with Jalen Brunson & Josh Hart. That was pretty dope.

Soundstripe: How do you approach writing music for sync?

Gee Smiff: I have two methods. One is a passive method, and the other is where I’m sitting down with the beat writing it all from scratch. For the first one, I have multiple notes on my phone of, let’s say, four-bar rhymes, a rhyme scheme, or other ideas that I want to save for when the opportunity comes down the line to bring them out. I’ve been doing this for years now, so I have a lot of material to pull from whenever in a writer’s block.

When it’s the other method, like for the Forza ad song that I did with Jake Korkan, [the producer will] send me over like five beats to listen to. I’ll find one that I really like, and I'll just sit there, and I'll just think about what’s the catchiest thing I can say to solidify the vibe of this track. If there’s a targeted brief or idea that we're trying to hit it makes it so much easier to hit the mark. From there, I'll start coming up with words, mumbling flows, and writing what works down, going through the dictionary in my head, and coming up with these rhymes and metaphors.

Soundstripe: What's been the best surprise of your sync career?

Gee Smiff: When family members notice my songs on TV or in movies without me having to tell them about it. It’s a dope feeling, because I always imagined somebody calling me after hearing my song on the radio like in the biopic movies or something. Instead for me it's commercials, trailers, and TV shows. Every time I get placed, I add it to the family group chat, and we celebrate another family win. We're all about making sure we lift each other up when good things come. It’s important to celebrate the triumphs more than you harp on the bad.

To keep up with Gee Smiff and his burgeoning career, you can follow him on his Instagram here.

If you’re interested in learning even more about sync licensing and how best to use royalty free music in your different commercial projects, here are some additional articles from the Soundstripe blog that we’d recommend.