What's going on cats?? Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend so that you all could come back to see my written mind presented and viewed for you. This week's post deals with a big discussion within, not just the hip-hop industry, but the music industry as a whole. Yesterday, there was a report that came out that stated that, for the first time in recent memory, if not ever, there was an entire year where there were no platinum releases. NONE. ZERO. That, to me, was a sign of the industry times. Last year, Beyonce closed out 2013 with her very strategically placed digital self-titled album, and shortly after released the physical copy. That was the last big album to hit over one million units. Let's face facts: unless you're Mrs. Knowles-Carter, Mr. Carter, Drake, Taylor Swift, and maybe the other Mr. Carter (Weezy), there's not a great chance of an artist hitting the once heavily desired platinum status. Nowadays, and how it's been over the past several years, artists are now fortunate to get a Gold plaque.
Major labels were huge cash cows for artists. In many cases, they still are. However, the days of wanting and needing to depend on a major are subsequently over. It was almost considered nearly talentless if an artist didn't have a major label that they signed with, or at least signed to a label with no distribution deal with a major like Def Jam, Interscope, Sony, or Priority. Most of the time, especially in the ever lucrative nineties, if you were signed to a major or had a distribution deal with a major, you were quicker to go gold or platinum than say someone who was signed to Koch or Landspeed, who were both indie distributors.
Let's go over the differences between the indie route and the major route. There's absolutely no doubt that being signed to a major will get an artist out to the masses a lot more. Everything from promotion to marketing and bigger contracts automatically draws people to go this direction. Radio and music videos (which are almost becoming relegated to channels like Youtube or MTV2) are pretty much promised, and with high end budgets, an artist is able to acquire top notched producers, music video directors, and tours. The bottom line: tons of exposure.
As far as the indie route, it's just that: independent. Pretty much everything comes out of your pocket. From video shoots to producers and guests on your album. You're responsible for your own promotion, marketing, and exposure. The question gets asked, "How do indie artists make money?" The answer comes the same way major artists have to make money: touring and appearances. It's a lot quicker to recoup the half a million dollar advance the majors give you than say an indie distributor will. However, with today's marketing, it's not quite as hard anymore with avenues like Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, and other ways to get your craft out for the world to experience.
Most people would generally think that indie artists don't become millionaires or don't see the plush lifestyle those in the majors do. That's not always the case. Case in point: Tech N9ne. The Kansas City native has been an indie artist and head of his own label, Strange Music, for over twenty years and has been on the Forbes List over the last couple of years. Reportedly other artists such as Cormega and Sean Price have been said to have accumulated over a milli over the years as well. Let's also face it, there's far less hassle. Between fees all over the place due to the advance the majors give you, it's not hard to go nearly broke owing everyone such as engineers, guests artists, estates for sample clearances, lawyer fees, and many others. With that being said, indies obviously have less of a problem with that situation.
There's another taboo about the majors that has caused many people to not even look in the direction of them, and that's artist and repertoire development. A long noted, underground, behind closed doors secret within the record industry is that a lot of label heads or A&R reps "develop" artists, as in wanting them to sometimes compromise their craft for the purpose of selling units. Basically, these people prefer artists to be more like actors and actresses more so than being themselves and creating the music that is more dear to their hearts. With majors, you answer to a lot of different bosses. Going the indie route, you're the boss, or even if you're signed to a distribution deal to more lesser known companies such as E1 (the former Koch Records), there's not an extensive amount of red tape.
The many artists that have switched from majors to indies has hit staggering numbers. Artists such as Joe Budden (even though he's signed to Shady/Aftermath in a group deal with his fellow Slaughterhouse members Royce Da 5'9, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz), Mobb Deep, Scarface, and most recently The Game have all made enough money in the majors to answer to themselves and become their own bosses and determine their own sound. That's not to say that all major labels and A&R reps go the way of wanting a certain "feel" with their artists, but it's been widely said that this occurs the majority of the time. Let's take two examples: if anyone remembers the video for Dr. Dre's "Dre Day", the very beginning of the video has a fake Jerry Heller (the controversial former manager of N.W.A.) and a fake Eazy-E (played by hilarious comedian A.J. Johnson) has Heller going over how Eazy was going to get marketed and was going to pretty much exploit him so that Eazy could get rich. There's also the cut "Gun Clapp" by Boot Camp Click's three-headed monster OGC. This was a perfectly illustrated example of how A&R's want an artist to have a certain "look" and "feel" and, once again, it's for exploitation purposes. This cut, in my opinion, was a staggering statement made from a group who's click was all a part of indie label Duck Down Records, but had a distribution deal with Priority (let me just say that their album, Da Storm, is among the most hard-hitting and slept-on releases of the entire nineties and still remains as my favorite album to ever come from the BCC camp).
Artists are now starting to get that making lots of money and getting tons of fame and notoriety isn't worth sacrificing who you are, nor your craft. It's refreshing to see more artists not succumbing to the dumbing down of their talent to obtain more attention, in spite of wanting to gain more audiences. To all my indie artists, keep grinding. It's a harder route that will require more work, but it will all be worth it, plus in most cases you'll get back what you put into it, maybe even more. With the majors, Spearhead stated in the sorely under-appreciated hip-hop documentary "Rhyme Or Reason" that "Majors were like big corporate banks, and these banks give you loans called advances that you must pay back with phat interest." With all this being said, majors will get you fame, fortune, and notoriety, but will it be worth selling out your craft?
That's all for now kiddies. As usual, I'll leave you with the hottest cuts of the week, at least thus far. The first will be from west coast underground fave Choosey. His debut album, Left Field, was just released this past Tuesday and it's very dope. On the track "Fly Me To The Moon", he and producer Exile (trust me, this cat will be in your top five faves if you've never heard his work before) construct this EPIC production underneath some mellow and laid-back bars. The next cut comes from the aforementioned Joe Budden. He's dropping his forthcoming album, Some Love Lost, in November and I have to be honest with you, this sounds damn good. For the most part, Joey has sounded a lot more introspective, but also a lot more hungry over the past few years since he left Def Jam. This track is the first single from the album "Ordinary Love Shit Pt. 4 (Running Away)". This is a seemingly heartfelt, yet intermittently venomous, stab at whom we can highly imagine being former on and off flame, model and Love & Hip-Hop star Tahiry. It's always refreshing to hear an emcee wear his heart on his sleeve in this overtly macho, fake ass thugging going on, and I have a feeling Tahiry will have a lot to say about this...or maybe not. Only time will tell. Next week will be a monster day of releases, as Ras Kass & Apollo Brown will drop their highly anticipated collar album, Blasphemy. Run The Jewels (the incredible duo of El-P and Killer Mike) will drop the sequel to their phenomenal self-titled debut, RTJ2, and finally Black Milk will release his fifth album, If There's A Hell Below. After checking out the stream, this may very well be his best album to date. This is an incredible album. Check you guys and gals out next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment