With the state of the current music industry, its really rough for new and even established artists. With that being said lets examine a scenairo.
Lets start with your up and coming rapper out of Florida who has blazed the streets all over Florida. Your grit and determination has won you many fans regionally. Everything you do with 110% the effort. But you lack the manpower and the resources to move to a nationwide scale.
Steps in ATL rapper who has the biggest street buzz since 50's pre album mixtape run. Who is given a label deal 2 months after an impressive 175,000 first week number for a new artist.
Ink dry..deal done. You appear on the 2nd album of the head honcho. You the head honcho and his original protege team up to form a super group. The Album is recorded in less than 2 months. The marketing campaign for the album is viewed as controversial. The video is basically shunned from all the major music channels. The major label does minimal promotion and titles the project an authorized mixtape(which is cool if u are on an indie label or one of the majors many incubator labels(asylum koch etc..) but not if you are on a major label it really makes no sense). The project does suprisingly well for first week sales about 100,000 units sold. Heres the problem, the followup singles are more of cool album records than smash hits. The project is certified gold(meaning 500,000 records have been shipped keyword being shipped not actually sold) but yet the official soundscan is somewhere in the area of 365,000 records sold a very solid effort considering what was put into the project.
Now everyone gets back in the studio working on individual projects of each member. The head honcho wants his other artists to put out albums before his 3rd solo project. At the imprint various scenairos are thrown around on how to market and present the other 2 members of the super group to a nationwide audience. Rapper A throws out a record spends his own money promoting the record. Yet the imprint only half way get behind the record stalling the mommentum. Rapper A continues to grind his way to getting his record out. He gets his release date and gets his first single with head honcho. The imprint gets out slowly working the record once again. This time Rapper A does not let history repeat itsself and goes all out getting the record out slowly but surely the record gains mommentum. Yet the major has yet to really step in due to the fact the imprint isn't really just super crunk about the release. Really the major doesn't step in until 6 weeks before the album drops to come up with its marketing and promotional plan. Which in these days of the declining sales, instant death for any artist.
The video for the single is shot and finished and ready to be serviced. Yet the major label drops the ball this time by delaying it getting serviced to the major music networks primany channels instead it goes to the secondary channels and picked as jam of the week. Many industry insiders know the project is doomed from the start and many jokingly throwing around first week sales projections. Head Honcho states his projections of Rapper a's first week numbers as "He gonna do what he suppose to do." Release Date hits first week numbers come in and the verdict is 17,577, which for little to no promotion for a brand new artist to majority of the nation is a mini victory. It could have been avoided with proper planning and marketing. A Fall and winter college promo tour could have been scheduled. Better job by the imprint working the record before the major stepped in. Number 1 thing is the imprint should have been alot more excited about setting up the artist to succeed more than what was done.
The Problem is being signed to rapper run imprint under a major. The main rapper under the imprint is established, any artist under him is going to have to work 20x harder to establish himself out of the main rappers shadow. Sometimes the main rapper has to really cosign any artist under his imprint to kind of push up in the spotlight as individual. Their have very successful rapper-protege stories(50 cent-game, Jay z-Kanye West, T.I.-Young Dro) in those cases the imprint's staff gave 200% to make sure the projects were successful no matter the market state. Imprints now dont do shit for anyone else that isn't the main rapper. The answer the project failed they say"The game is fucked up." Everyone is cheap trying to get the new lambo and the new bentley coupe when in the end your overall business and your people are suffering. When projects fail no one is happy except those with the control of the money pot.
El Finito
BIG NEWS TODAY, MY SOURCES HAVE CONFIRMED DEDICATION 3 IS INDEED IN PROGRESS AS WE SPEAK. DRAMA AND WAYNE HAVE MUTUALLY AGREED TO "GO IN AGAIN" AND SHOCKED THE WORLD WITH DEDICATION 3. SINCE THEY LAST DID A PROJECT TOGETHER DRAMA WAS BUSTED, ALBUM FLOPPED AND SEEN HIS SUCH IMPRESSIVE MIXTAPE RESUME BECOME A THING OF YRS PAST WITH SOME VERY FORGETABLE PROJECTS THIS YEAR. WHILE MR CARTER HAS BECOME THE PREMIER ARTIST IN THE GAME WITH HIS DOUBLE PLATINUM IN 6 WEEKS ALBUM CARTER 3.
