Hip Hop Sales Collapsing: "They can no longer fool the white kids"

[sobman]

When the political activist Al Sharpton pivoted from his war against bigmouth radio man Don Imus to a war on bad-mouth gangsta rap, the instinct among older music fans was to roll their eyes and yawn. Ten years ago, another activist, C. Delores Tucker, launched a very similar campaign to clean up rap music. She focused on Time Warner (parent of TIME), whose subsidiary Interscope was home to hard-core rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. In 1995 Tucker succeeded in forcing Time Warner to dump Interscope.

Her victory was Pyrrhic. Interscope flourished, launching artists like 50 Cent and Eminem and distributing the posthumous recordings of Shakur. And the genre exploded across the planet, with rappers emerging everywhere from Capetown to the banlieues of Paris. In the U.S. alone, sales reached $1.8 billion.

The lesson was Capitalism 101: rap music's market strength gave its artists permission to say what they pleased. And the rappers themselves exhibited an entrepreneurial bent unlike that of musicians before them. They understood the need to market and the benefits of line extensions. Theirs was capitalism with a beat.

Today that same market is telling rappers to please shut up. While music-industry sales have plummeted, no genre has fallen harder than rap. According to the music trade publication Billboard, rap sales have dropped 44% since 2000 and declined from 13% of all music sales to 10%. Artists who were once the tent poles at rap labels are posting disappointing numbers. Jay-Z's return album, Kingdom Come, for instance, sold a gaudy 680,000 units in its first week, according to Billboard. But by the second week, its sales had declined some 80%. This year rap sales are down 33% so far.

Longtime rap fans are doing the math and coming to the same conclusions as the music's voluminous critics. In February, the filmmaker Byron Hurt released Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary notable not just for its hard critique but for the fact that most of the people doing the criticizing were not dowdy church ladies but members of the hip-hop generation who deplore rap's recent fixation on the sensational.

Both rappers and music execs are clamoring for solutions. Russell Simmons recently made a tepid call for rappers to self-censor the words nigger and bitch from their albums. But most insiders believe that a debate about profanity and misogyny obscures a much deeper problem: an artistic vacuum at major labels. "The music community has to get more creative," says Steve Rifkin, CEO of SRC Records. "We have to start betting on the new and the up-and-coming for us to grow as an industry. Right now, I don't think anyone is taking chances. It's a big-business culture."

It's the ultimate irony. Since the 1980s, when Run-DMC attracted sponsorship from Adidas, the rap community has aspired to be big business. By the '90s, those aspirations had become a reality. In a 1999 cover story, TIME reported that with 81 million CDs sold, rap was officially America's top-selling music genre. The boom produced enterprises like Roc-A-Fella, which straddled fashion, music and film and in 2001 was worth $300 million. It produced moguls like No Limit's Master P and Bad Boy's Puff Daddy, each of whom in 2001 made an appearance on FORTUNE's list of the richest 40 under 40. Along the way, the music influenced everything from advertising to fashion to sports.

The growth spurt was fueled by sensationalism. Tupac Shakur shot at police, was convicted of sexual abuse and ultimately was murdered in Las Vegas. But Shakur both alive and dead has also sold more than 20 million records. Death Row Records, which released much of Shakur's material, was run by ex-con Suge Knight and dogged by rumors of money laundering. But between 1992 and 1998, the label churned out 11 multiplatinum albums. Gangsta rappers reveled in their outlaw mystique, crafting ultra-violent tales of drive-bys and stick-ups designed to shock and enthrall their primary audience--white suburban teenagers. "Hip-hop seemed dangerous; it seemed angry," says Richard Nickels, who manages the hip-hop band the Roots. "Kurt Cobain killed himself, and rock seemed weak. But then you had these black guys who came out and had guns. It was exciting to white kids."

Hip-hop now faces a generation that takes gangsta rap as just another mundane marker in the cultural scenery. "It's collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids," says Nickels. "There's only so much redundancy anyone can take."

Artists who never jumped on the gangsta bandwagon point the finger at the boardroom. They accuse major labels of strip-mining the music, playing up its sensationalist aspects for easy sales. "In rock you have metal, alternative, emo, soft rock, pop-rock, you have all these different strains," says Q-Tip, front man for the defunct A Tribe Called Quest. "And there are different strains of hip-hop, but record companies aren't set up to sell these different strains. They aren't set up to do anything more of a mature sort of hip-hop."

Of course, gangsta rap isn't a record-company invention. Indeed, hip-hop's two most celebrated icons, Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., embraced the sort of lyrical content that today has opened hip-hop to criticism. And the music companies, under assault from file-sharing and other alternative distribution channels, are hardly in a position to do R&D. "When I first signed to Tommy Boy, [the A&R person] would take us to different shows and to art museums," says Q-Tip. "There was real mentorship. Today that's largely absent, and we see the results in the music and in the aesthetic." That result is a stale product, defined by cable channels like BET, now owned by Viacom, which seems to consist primarily of gun worship and underdressed women.

During the past decade, record labels have outsourced the business of kingmaking to other artists. Established stars Dr. Dre and Eminem brought 50 Cent to Interscope. Jay-Z founded his own label, cut a distribution deal and began developing his own roster. But most established artists do little development. That leaves the possibility that hip-hop is following the same path that soul and R&B traveled when they descended into disco, which died quickly.

No longer able to peddle sensation, rap's moguls are switching tactics. Simmons, while still something of a hip-hop ambassador, is hawking a new self-help book. Master P, whose estimated worth was once $661 million, watched his label, No Limit, sink into bankruptcy. He recently announced the formation of Take a Stand Records, a label catering to "clean" hip-hop music. "Personally, I have profited millions of dollars through explicit rap lyrics," Master P stated on his website. "I can honestly say that I was once part of the problem, and now it's time to be part of the solution."

Chris Lighty, CEO of Violator Entertainment, whose clients include 50 Cent and Busta Rhymes, is looking at ways that record companies can work with artists in one area where rappers have been innovative: endorsement and branding. Whether it's 50 Cent owning a stake in Vitamin Water or Jay-Z doing a commercial for HP, most of these deals have been brokered by the artists' own camp. But Lighty sees in hip-hop a chance for record labels to generate more sponsorship and endorsements. "Record companies are going to have to make even better records and participate in brand extension. It's the only way they can survive," says Lighty. "We need to change the format, and this is the only way. 50 Cent is a brand. Jay-Z is a brand."

But the current hubbub over indecency poses a direct challenge to that brand strength, as the artist Akon recently discovered. While performing in Trinidad, Akon was videotaped dancing suggestively with a fan who was later revealed to be only 14. The video attracted the ire of conservatives like Bill O'Reilly. In the wake of the controversy, Akon's tour sponsor, Verizon, removed all ringtones featuring his work and retracted its sponsorship. The message was clear: Hip-hop needs a new and improved product.

Now if we can only imagine the impact kabosh (probably funkra to) would make WITH THE PROPER HANDLING.

Its ok though cause we're going to be able to think about it for a few years to come

 

[Amerikilla]

instead of trying to advance hip-hop, why don't they just take it back to its roots? the real shit instead of all the fake gangster shit.
"cleaning" up hip-hop isnt gonna make it any better

 

[imported_KuTTY_CaL]

record companies will only sign people that are marketable. lately it seems like someone obsessed with money and material possesions can be a rapper. the record company will do everything for them even right their ryhmes for them. originality is too big of a risk to take as it might lose money\

fuckin record companies turned hip hop culture which was a form of expression, and made it into 95% business and 5% art. its all about makin money these days not about expressing yourself

 

[Amerikilla]

record companies will only sign people that are marketable. lately it seems like someone obsessed with money and material possesions can be a rapper. the record company will do everything for them even right their ryhmes for them. originality is too big of a risk to take as it might lose money\

fuckin record companies turned hip hop culture which was a form of expression, and made it into 95% business and 5% art. its all about makin money these days not about expressing yourself

^^well said, i agree 100%

 

[Traviz1990]

record companies will only sign people that are marketable. lately it seems like someone obsessed with money and material possesions can be a rapper. the record company will do everything for them even right their ryhmes for them. originality is too big of a risk to take as it might lose money\

fuckin record companies turned hip hop culture which was a form of expression, and made it into 95% business and 5% art. its all about makin money these days not about expressing yourself

yup co-sign, now days rap is either about money,diamonds,clothes,or drugs and to be a rapper now days your gotta rap about that stuff listed above, alot of people at my school like (65% or more) like this shit this soulja boy leanin n rockin shit, they think this is hip hop and the way the industry get paid from these teens buying the leaning n rockin shit makes one hit wonders that have one album then you never hear from them agin and so the industry has it as you cant be a rapper unless your from the streets had a rough life or rap about the stuff i listed

 

[ds2]

there are more bootleggers than actual loyal fans nowadays.

 

[Robby2Slobby]

People don't get loyal fans because they don't make CDs worth listening to.

People try to make hits, and that's all these people want to listen to.

Rap has become focused on making hit records instead of good records.

The southern style is killing hip hop more than anything. The catchy hooks and shit like that is all that kids want to listen to, they only want to dance to it, and they don't really give a shit about the actual song, and that's why they won't buy an album because they'll hear the same song on the radio 25 times a day anyway.

Plus, who in there right mind would buy an album for just one song?

 

[Traviz1990]

People don't get loyal fans because they don't make CDs worth listening to.

People try to make hits, and that's all these people want to listen to.

Rap has become focused on making hit records instead of good records.

The southern style is killing hip hop more than anything. The catchy hooks and shit like that is all that kids want to listen to, they only want to dance to it, and they don't really give a shit about the actual song, and that's why they won't buy an album because they'll hear the same song on the radio 25 times a day anyway.

Plus, who in there right mind would buy an album for just one song?

ya plus almost every one has a mp3 player so they can get the one track they like and put it on there

 

[Violentken88]

I hate pretty much everything on the radio nowadays. Kia Shine shut the fuck up ain't nobody give a fuck of how "crispy" you are. Shit like that is killing rap music. Everybody seems to only like shit thats on the fucking radio. People should look around and find people that put effort into their music these days instead of hearing complete garbage like "Party like a rockstar" and all the shit that is just as bad as that.

 

[ThizzIzWatItWaz]

party like a rockstar aint that bad of a song, its got some good energy,, i dont know about the rest of the shop boys shit but party like a rockstar was at least half original.

I want to know if half of these rappers gettin play on the radio even get to sit down and write their own shit anymore, i swear almost all of it sound like the same people say "okay Franchise Boys, today we're gonna do a song, about leanin back and forth, and we need you all to yell "HEY!!" every three seconds... THATS IT! NOW WE GOTTA HIT BOYS!!"

 

[djakanum1]

party like a rockstar aint that bad of a song, its got some good energy,, i dont know about the rest of the shop boys shit but party like a rockstar was at least half original.

I want to know if half of these rappers gettin play on the radio even get to sit down and write their own shit anymore, i swear almost all of it sound like the same people say "okay Franchise Boys, today we're gonna do a song, about leanin back and forth, and we need you all to yell "HEY!!" every three seconds... THATS IT! NOW WE GOTTA HIT BOYS!!"

r u serious or joking?? im not kidding either

 

[ThizzIzWatItWaz]

r u serious or joking?? im not kidding either

About what?

 

[Theezy]

Whoever wrote that report couldnt be more on the money. Rap used to be about self expression and stating whats goin on in the world that the media wouldnt report on...

Now a dayz its like iv always said. Big booty black chicks, big rimz, big houses and lots of money. Its just rediculous.

I am wayyyyy to drunk to go all in depth with this shit like I always do. Bottom line, this post proves even more why we need more people like Tech on the radio. People who sing about real shit and rappers who can bring back what rap was originally about. Mutha fuckaz who need to tell the story about how the world really is. Which nobody in the mainstream does anymore.

I really wanna say so much more. But I am too drunk to takw the time.. I will comeback tomorrow most likely and inculde more... But for now I am done!!!

 

[DaSlacker]

hiphop needs actual mcs... not entertainers who get their lyrics from ghostwriting teams...

 

[Soe]

Like lil woof woof ^^^