Stakes is High: The Pressure for Hit Singles

The digital era has been drastically changing the landscape of the music industry. Recently record labels have started to adjust their artist’s agreements to offer deals solely on digital singles and not on albums.

This is great for the record label because they get to save costs on manufacturing, packaging, shipping costs, etc. It is also less of a gamble, if the digital singles do not sell well, the label can just cut their losses and move on. Does this create a positive or negative benefit for the artist?

DJ Snake is an example of someone who has been able to create success off of digital singles without putting out an album and Weird Al has recently said he will only be making digital singles now because it is easier for him to stay current that way. So some artists do benefit from this contract style, especially if their genre is more dance-oriented.

In the case of Hip Hop, it is cause for some concern. Nas’s Illmatic is considered one of the most classic Rap albums of all times and arguably never had a commercial hit song. If Nas came around during the digital age, he could have chosen the wrong singles to put out and his option may not have been picked up, robbing the culture of such a classic album.

There is more pressure than usual for younger artists to create a hit song with their very first effort. At this stage of the game, the industry is declining quickly and labels are not willing to go all in on an artist until they have proven to be a success with multiple efforts. With the high demand of pressure of immediate success from both sides, it is import for rappers to have a proven concept. The solution may be in independent mixtapes.

This is nothing new in Hip Hop, as many rappers in the past have worked their way up through mixtapes, but there is going to be a bigger demand for proof of concept now and this may be some up in coming rappers only hope to do so.

The industry is an ever-evolving battlefield and rappers need to really study what is going on and strategically play the game if they want to work the major record labels. Right now, the biggest step is to find out how to prove that they are worth a full album deal or else they will have to hit a home run on their first at-bat in order to be able to stick around.

– Megillah

Wrap Up of Hip Hop and the GRAMMY’s

The 57^th annual Grammy Awards occurred on February 8^th, 2015. Hip Hop made a lot of news during the Grammy’s, but nothing was more talked about than Kanye West going on stage after the announcement of Beck’s Morning Phase winning album of the year. Once again the media and the Hip Hop community were focused on a negative image of Hip Hop.

Despite the lack of coverage and hype, there were some positive things that came from Hip Hop artists during the Grammy’s. Common and John Legend had one of the most powerful performances during the ceremonies with a very soulful rendition of their song Glory off of the Selma soundtrack. A song with a wonderful message of overcoming injustices, that should inspire anyone who is feeling oppressed.

Pharrell Williams performed one of the most upbeat pop songs of 2014, with Happy. During the performance Pharrell, took a moment to make a serious statement to support the Black lives Matter movement by having a group of individuals with hooded sweatshirts behind him put their hands up in a sign of surrender. Unfortunately this was rarely discussed, as many in the media seemed more focused on his bellhop uniform.

Hip Hop was treated even worse by the Grammy’s as the winners of the Hip Hop categories were announced prior to the airing of the telecast. The last time this happened was in 1989 when DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince decided to boycott the event in protest of the ceremonies lack of respect towards Hip Hop. It was clear that not a lot has changed over the last 25 years as the Grammy’s snubbed Hip Hop again, when everyone was distracted by the actions of Kanye West.

I personally am not a fan of the Grammy’s and feel that that music awards are pointless since art is subjective. I feel that the individuals voting for the awards don’t really know Hip Hop all that well and that the albums nominated don’t really represent the culture, but alas, it must be something Hip Hop participates in to be respected as a genre of music.

The problem is, even after 25 years of participating, one negative action by a rapper can be the excuse the industry will use to disrespect Hip Hop. It may be time for Hip Hop to start distancing itself from the Grammy’s. If popular artists start boycotting like Will & Jazz did in ’89, maybe the award show will realize just how powerful the genre has become and will start to put a little more effort into accepting the culture.

-Megillah

Breaking The Negative Stigma Attached to Hi H

Cholla Magnet High School in Tucson, Arizona recently found itself violating a state law banning certain ways of teaching ethnic studies when they included music by KRS-One in their English From Culturally Relevant African American Perspective course. KRS-One responded to this news by visiting the high school on January 28^th for three hours to give a speech and Q&A. A cypher even broke out afterwards, which really allowed these young minds to experience the culture first hand.

KRS spoke on being proud of your culture and representing it in a positive light. When he was thanked for visiting the school at the end, his response was, “Don’t thank me for fulfilling my responsibility.”

KRS-One took action when he heard of an injustice in education and gave some time and effort into helping out a community. This is the side of Hip Hop that is rarely portrayed in the media. It is not uncommon for popular rappers to help out and give back to communities; unfortunately, it is not often that we hear about it.

Mainstream Hip Hop is currently stuck in a rut of negativity, in regard to the images that are seen by the masses. The majority of people view Hip Hop by what they see on television. For instance, one of the most popular shows right now is Empire, a show about family in the Hip Hop music business that will do anything to each other in order to take over the father’s record label. There are very little redeeming qualities in these characters as their life decision are all based on “getting that paper.”

People also gain a lot of impressions from social media, and Twitter has become a huge focus of negativity for Hip Hop and meme’s and parody videos have only exacerbated the situation.

The stigma needs to change and it starts with anyone involved in the culture. We need to share the positive things that are going on in Hip Hop as well as challenge things like World Star Hip Hop containing the name of the culture in their website. World Star constantly puts out negative product that has nothing to do with Hip Hop, yet it is being associated with the culture.

KRS-One is a very busy man and still found the time to shed some positive light on Hip Hop. I challenge everyone reading this to do the same. Share positive things on social media, if you run into an injustice, utilize your talents to stand up to it. We have the power to change the perceptions of the culture. For me Hip Hop has been one of the most encouraging, unifying, and powerful aspects of my life and I know there are many others that are the same way. Now it’s time for those outside of the culture to view it the same way.

– Megillah

Megillah on Twitter and Hip Hop

Twitter has become a quick and easy way for rappers to get a message out to the public or to each other. Unfortunately the message doesn’t always paint the artist in the most positive light.Lil’ Wayne, T.I., Q-Tip, Lupe Fiasco, Action Bronson, Kid Cudi, Azealia Banks, and Iggy Azalea are examples of Hip Hop artists who have recently been involved in some sort Twitter controversy.

Since an artist can spontaneously put out a tweet without going through previous channels of publication, it takes away the time gap that the artists’ Public Relations Representative would use to prevent any possible negative press. Twitter is starting to become such a nightmare for record labels that it is possible that there will start to be Twitter regulations within artist contracts, if it isn’t already happening.

The question then becomes, should artist have to filter their tweets through a representative at their record label? A lot of artists probably feel that controversy sells and that their tweets are actually increasing their income, so why would the label care? Well, there are a few ways emcees are losing money by using Twitter. One is that they could schedule an interview on a television program or a major publication and actually get paid for their thoughts. The other is that they could articulate their beefs onto a record and put a song out.

There is always the case of the artist using Twitter as a way to talk bad about the record label, a la Lil’ Wayne. There have been many cases in recent years of employees getting fired for utilizing social media to express their grievances about their job and musicians are not exempt from this. Protecting the name of their business would be the biggest reason for record labels to start enforcing social media restrictions.

Twitter control in the music industry may be inevitable and seems to big a blow to freedom of speech. On the other hand, it has its benefits for Hip Hop heads that like to hold on to the “golden-era.” Rappers may have to go back to beefing on wax and letting the fans decide who was able to lyrically superb. This would be more reason for Hip Hop music to head back towards its roots of focusing on lyrical ability and storytelling. Hopefully rappers will start gaining more attention off of some dope bars instead of sentences that contain a hashtag.

-Megillah

Is Data Analysis Changing The Landscape of Hip Hop?

Label executives are changing the way that they are searching for new talent. A lot different record labels are utilizing the latest technologies by doing their talent searches through data analysis.

One of the main sources executives are using is Shazam, a mobile application that can identify a song being played in the background. Last year, Shazam launched an interactive map, so that users can zoom into cities around the world to see which songs where searched the most through the application. Through this map, executives can search around the globe and use the data to predict which songs would eventually become a “hit.”

Executives are also using various other data searches such as hits to an artist’s Wikipedia page, Spotify streams, Facebook likes and Twitter followers to discover which bands or songs might be able to break into the mainstream. They have the least amount of faith in Facebook and Twitter as “likes” and “followers” can easily be purchased.

Talent scouts are rarely going out to the local clubs anymore to see bands perform live and judging the crowds reaction based on their gut feeling in order to figure out which artists to sign. They can easily just stay in their office and utilize data analysis to predict whom they will be signing.

This is a huge change in the landscape of Hip Hop. The culture was created off a party themed environment and having charisma and being able to control a crowd were a big part of what made a young emcee successful. Hip Hop thrives in the live performance, which is the foundational source of entertainment for the culture.

The focus of up and coming rappers must now shift from being able to win over a crowd to being able to record a track that is going to gain the curiosity of the listener. They have to create something that is going to catch someone’s attention to the point that they get out their smart phones and click on Shazam or look them up through Wikipedia in order show up on the radar of the major label executives.

Basing talent off of data analysis is going to create an even further gap between “catchy” songs as the representation of Hip Hop music by the major record labels, as opposed to lyrical talent. The only way to be able to combat this phenomenon would be to search dope lyricist through as many applications as possible in order for them to have a chance to enter the limelight.

– Megillah