Hip-Hop - breaking news, gossip, slander, lies etc

[Poisonous Dart]

To add...

First of all, artist development is DEAD. Labels are looking for someone who has moved X amount of units independently or has generated a buzz SO ENORMOUS that they have to sign them (Lupe Fiasco, Saigon, Papoose, etc.).

Second of all, the industry is screwed at every end right now. They are running scared right now and facing the scary prospect of an unknown future. All of this synergy and cross promotion isn't helping the music industry as of now...shit, the hit that Sony's entertainment divison took from the PS3 manufacturing issues (hemorraging money for AT LEAST a year) forced them to break up their urban music divsion and split their artists among Epic and their other associated labels.

Those previous models all will ultimately lose a label money...damn shame, too.

One.

 

[the undisputed truth]

I'm talking about splitting the difference between album and single and performance based deals based on initial reaction to the first EP. Labels need to look at how to capitalise on synchronising legit digital releases to cut down on the time for pirates to leak stuff while building up a loyalty fan base on line...

...I know what the markup in merch and ticket prices are and the bigger names can afford to a take a hit on those prices without it affecting their profit margins too much. As it stands you just subcontract out the live/merch aspect to promoters who then have to crunch the numbers and meet their own bottom lines

Guest spots and hot remixes would be rewarded to artists who meet target based sales to justify the next release. Eg if you put out an EP with a projected sales target of 100k in 3weeks and make it then a label will pay more and better market your next EP. If not then you just get the budget release to see out your multi EP deal and then as a free agent you can either take it elsewhere or up your game...

...the money made is invested into the next EP release and the buzz lasts longer rather than as now where a major invests all the remix and guest spots upfront for an album that gets leaked, doesnt make it's money back nor maintains a buzz longer than the time it takes for the next big relase to hit the following week

a major label could fund say 6 artists to put out trial EP's to test the waters and play them off against each other to see who to invest in next instead of relying on the A&R skills of somebody and taking a huge risk on one artist who is probaly only good for one album anyway...

...as it stands they're just picking off the underground as judged by mixtape popularity which only serves to increase piracy

 

[petergunn]

GO BUY THE NEW CLIPSE ALBUM. maybe this has been said before upthread but it deserves saying again

WAMP WAMP...


i posted this in the "racism in the US" thread, but i figure i'll toss it here...

Papoose records a song about the recent cop shooting in nyc...

http://www.prefixmag.com/media/papoose/50-shots-mp3/2682

 

[hint]

Labels need to look at how to capitalise on synchronising legit digital releases to cut down on the time for pirates to leak stuff while building up a loyalty fan base on line...

This is already happening. Changes in the chart rules, to allow for download-only new entries... major labels actively servicing MP3 blogs pre-release...

...if you put out an EP with a projected sales target of 100k in 3weeks and make it then a label will pay more and better market your next EP. If not then you just get the budget release to see out your multi EP deal and then as a free agent you can either take it elsewhere or up your game...

This isn't how record deals work. There is no obligation for the label to "see out" a multi-album or multi-EP deal. EP deals would make artists even more disposible for major labels - one flop and an artist will be dropped. At least with album projects there is more money invested and therefore more of an incentive to make the project work.

Anyway... this is all a bit off topic.

 

[gumdrops]

andy capper, the vice uk editor wrote a piece on clipse in the guardian yesterday. it read like something from vice, but a bit milder for nice guardian readers. it was basically to the effect of this album makes you feel dangerous without having to do crack and is the audio equivalent of crack etc and its all so great. im not really surprised vice writers love clipse (of course they do), but it seems a bit weird having the guardian happily extolling the joys of 'crack rap'.

 

[mistersloane]

andy capper, the vice uk editor wrote a piece on clipse in the guardian yesterday. it read like something from vice, but a bit milder for nice guardian readers. it was basically to the effect of this album makes you feel dangerous without having to do crack and is the audio equivalent of crack etc and its all so great. im not really surprised vice writers love clipse (of course they do), but it seems a bit weird having the guardian happily extolling the joys of 'crack rap'.

Oh Andy wasn't extolling crack rap's virtues, was he? He was saying the album is wicked and better than actually doing crack, which he sees growing as an illicit middle class 'naughty' drug, which was fair enough I thought, different to extolling it I think....he was majorly wrong about the meaning of 'Only Built For Cuban Linx' though.

 

[Poisonous Dart]

I gotta read this...

Oh Andy wasn't extolling crack rap's virtues, was he? He was saying the album is wicked and better than actually doing crack, which he sees growing as an illicit middle class 'naughty' drug, which was fair enough I thought, different to extolling it I think....he was majorly wrong about the meaning of 'Only Built For Cuban Linx' though.

I just LOOOOOVE it when journalist fuck up the meaning/symbolism of something in hip hop. One.

 

[mistersloane]

I just LOOOOOVE it when journalist fuck up the meaning/symbolism of something in hip hop. One.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/urban/story/0,,1960737,00.html

The quote is 'Only Built For Cuban Linx...abandoned any kind of social commentary or moral posturing'...

Heaven n Hell? Rainy Dayz? North Star? Andy's a sweet guy and some tracks on the Cd don't moralise but as a whole it's one of the most depressing, mentally ill 'soundtracks' ever, which acts as a commentary on the whole thing...

 

[gabriel]

i didn't read the clipse/crack rap thing in the guardian, but i did think it was:

(a) an AWFUL idea for an article, not to mention an unnecessary and inaccurate perpetuation of a racist stereotype
(b) not surprising that it was published in a broadsheet newspaper, given their 'policy' on black music

of course, given that i didn't read the article, maybe i'm wrong...

 

[STN]

Gabriel, I don't know about that. The guy who penned the article purported to have had a problem with crack in the past (though, reading the article, I did suspect he was overplaying it somewhat), in the context of it being seen as a 'naughty, naughty' (his words) drug in Pete Doherty-type rock circles, so the article wasn't quite as odious as you might think. If anything in fact, it seemed like a fairly broad discussion of crack in music, with Clipse as a kind of topical jumping-off point.

 

[STN]

Oh, sorry, looking back at the thread, I see it;s all been done before...

 

[stelfox]

i didn't read the clipse/crack rap thing in the guardian, but i did think it was:

(a) an AWFUL idea for an article, not to mention an unnecessary and inaccurate perpetuation of a racist stereotype
(b) not surprising that it was published in a broadsheet newspaper, given their 'policy' on black music

of course, given that i didn't read the article, maybe i'm wrong...

i did read it and i thought it was a bit dumb, mainly because it was yet another media type saying "hey, look at me - i had a crack habit".
this has gotten to such a point of cliché that i am seriously considering acquiring one myself, just to further my career.
the other problem with this is that i can't think of a single rap album that's actually about *taking* crack. in fact there are very, very few single tracks on this subject from a first-person perspective.
moving weight is very, very different to being a junkie.
no rapper that i've ever met will admit to smoking up, but they'll proudly discuss engagement with the business end of the drug market as a rite of passage and a parallel with the rap game.
really, crack rap is all about tenacity, aspiration and authenticity, whereas taking crack is pretty much about giving up on life and losing all sense of yourself.
there's actually lots of interesting stuff to say about this, in terms of american society and its mores. i'm also not sure that discussion of these things does perpetuate a racist stereotype (or at least not a hegemonic white-on-black stereotype), because it's the artists themselves who have embraced this theme so wholeheartedly.
still, given all that, my question is: what does andy capper's oh-so-very-decadent-i'm-sure dabbling in britain's narcotic underbelly - a transgressive luxury most people really can't afford - have to do with any of that? i'm thinking pretty much fuck all, really.

 

[elgato]

i agree

what also annoyed me about it was how frivolous it seemed, it dealt with some unbelievably large issues in dismissive and ill-informed sound-bytes. but i hate pretty much all of that vice type journalism, it comes off so self-indulged, and without depth.

and to expand slightly on what you say, does the attempt to link the proliferation of crack rap to middle-class crack habits really carry any weight whatsoever? it seems tenuous to say the least

 

[Sick Boy]

Nevermind all that.

Rap makes this poncy nancy boy feel DANGEROUS.

What?!

 

[Poisonous Dart]

Yep. I wrote another goddamn blog about the hip hop music industry...in particular the bootlegging and illegal downloading aspect of the music. Read on AllHipHop.com here:

http://community.allhiphop.com/showthread.php?t=328105

One.

I can amend this blog and add ANOTHER sales loser due to record label drama/pusheing back an album and adding another single....

13 CLIPSE HELL HATH NO FURY STARTRAK/JIVE/ZLG 81,428

Cot Damn!^ This is a shame. Based on the buzz, hype and internet talk, you woulda swore this was gonna push 200,000+ easy...Damn! One.

 

[mistersloane]

I can amend this blog and add ANOTHER sales loser due to record label drama/pusheing back an album and adding another single....

13 CLIPSE HELL HATH NO FURY STARTRAK/JIVE/ZLG 81,428

Cot Damn!^ This is a shame. Based on the buzz, hype and internet talk, you woulda swore this was gonna push 200,000+ easy...Damn! One.

I think that's about right...Clipse now are all about the idea of pushing underground weight through mainstream distortion, and I think the figures accurately reflect what they, and the record company behind them, wanted them to do. I think they're pushing a longevity aspect. Which isn't based upon first week sales.

 

[mistersloane]

i did read it and i thought it was a bit dumb, mainly because it was yet another media type saying "hey, look at me - i had a crack habit".
this has gotten to such a point of cliché that i am seriously considering acquiring one myself, just to further my career.
the other problem with this is that i can't think of a single rap album that's actually about *taking* crack. in fact there are very, very few single tracks on this subject from a first-person perspective.
moving weight is very, very different to being a junkie.
no rapper that i've ever met will admit to smoking up, but they'll proudly discuss engagement with the business end of the drug market as a rite of passage and a parallel with the rap game.
really, crack rap is all about tenacity, aspiration and authenticity, whereas taking crack is pretty much about giving up on life and losing all sense of yourself.
there's actually lots of interesting stuff to say about this, in terms of american society and its mores. i'm also not sure that discussion of these things does perpetuate a racist stereotype (or at least not a hegemonic white-on-black stereotype), because it's the artists themselves who have embraced this theme so wholeheartedly.
still, given all that, my question is: what does andy capper's oh-so-very-decadent-i'm-sure dabbling in britain's narcotic underbelly - a transgressive luxury most people really can't afford - have to do with any of that? i'm thinking pretty much fuck all, really.

It has alot to do with the introduction of what you're saying into the mainstream, Stel. I'd personally like to see a deeper perspective pushed, which is exactly what you're talking about, and is kinda why I perpetuated the point.

What I don't get is why if the 'artists' call themselves 'artists', then why they aren't pushing further geometry of thought, i.e. DMT or other, perhaps less economically worthwhile but more revolutionary, drugs. Perhaps it's because all they believe in is money, which, in my opionion, is just fucking crap, and you know how much I listen to hip hop.

 

[the undisputed truth]

longevity as opposed to first week sales...

...When ATCQ - peoples instinctive travels came out in 89 or whatever you practically couldn't give it away. I'd imagine first week sales woulda been in the negative yet that is now a bonafide classic.

With that in mind, how many of this years crop or who does anyone think will stand the test of time and in 10 yrs time have an album which will be looked back as a classic that was slept on ???

Clipse ??? I doubt it...

 

[mistersloane]

longevity as opposed to first week sales...

...When ATCQ - peoples instinctive travels came out in 89 or whatever you practically couldn't give it away. I'd imagine first week sales woulda been in the negative yet that is now a bonafide classic.

With that in mind, how many of this years crop or who does anyone think will stand the test of time and in 10 yrs time have an album which will be looked back as a classic that was slept on ???

Clipse ??? I doubt it...

I think there are always years when 'that' don't happen, but Clipse done came damn close this year

 

[Precious Cuts]

I can amend this blog and add ANOTHER sales loser due to record label drama/pusheing back an album and adding another single....

13 CLIPSE HELL HATH NO FURY STARTRAK/JIVE/ZLG 81,428

Cot Damn!^ This is a shame. Based on the buzz, hype and internet talk, you woulda swore this was gonna push 200,000+ easy...Damn! One.

I'm not surprised. I loved Lord Willin'. I didnt like the Got it 4 Cheap mixtapes. I don't like the new album and the singles were garbage. The Neptunes production is not bad, but I would say its regressive and dated. I don't know if they pulled out all their drum kits and synths from 5 years ago, or else used old tracks that never got released back then, or maybe they were recorded for the album and shelved since then - either way it sounds stale.
The Clipse "crack rap" strikes me as long on wordplay and short on reality. It's classic studio gangsterism infused with underground "lyricism". In the vein of Kool Keith's sci-fi themed underground rap or necro's horror themed underground rap, this is coke-themed underground rap. It's overwrought wordplay based on a fantasy. Maybe that's what makes it so palatable for ex-backpackers and pampered vice types.