The eminent death of hip hop has been a long and on-going argument over the past few years. Is commercialization killing this culture? Maybe its the Dirty South's onslaught on the game that is weakening the structure? It has to be a complete lack of creativity among all hip-hop artists...right? All those points can be argued until you are blue in the face, but the thing I believe to be the culprit is hip hop itself that is killing hip hop. There I put it out there. What I mean is low sales happen because people drop 12 mixtapes and purposely leak half their albums before the actual album drops. Where is the consumer's motivation to purchase an album that he or she already has most of, and once the album is released some blogger will give you the rest. Imagine what 50, Kanye, and Jay would have sold if they could have sealed their albums. Anticipation is sometimes the best marketing tool. Are you gonna ask the girl that you fuck after school on the way to your real girlfriends house to prom? No, why pay for the cow when you get the milk for free. Its sad, but many of the artists of this culture are prostituting themselves (yes even you 50). Look at any other genre of music, they all have no problem putting up big sales. You think that new Garth Brooks is gonna leak? Is Coldplay gonna put out a mixtape a month before the release of their album, probably not because they don't have to. As long as you have fans you will always sell as long as you make music for your fans. I do admit that it would be funny to drive through the suburbs and see a cat selling bootleg Carrie Underwood CDs in front of a tanning salon. I think Lil Wayne is about to find this out, he might sell well, but not to his full potential. He showed to much of of his strategy before the big game. Its like giving Belichick your play book before he has a chance to videotape your plays before the SuperBowl. I'll holla.
No comments:
Post a Comment