In repsonse to some of the questions raised on this thread, one of my favourite hip hop journalists sums it up:
I became really aware of just how bad this whole game is the other day when I was having a conversation about Papoose’s debut album. I was asked how I thought it would do, and when I replied with my thoughts on how I thought the album would sound, the person who asked me the question said, “No, I meant sales. What do you think it will do?”
Wow. I didn’t start doing interviews and writing columns to answer questions about that. I got into the journalism side of hip-hop for three reasons. I thought I would be good at it and I would get albums for free and before everyone else. Before HHG, I was working jobs to pay for CD’s. I never wanted to get into this so I could be like Mel Kiper and make a career out of making wrong predictions. Making predictions about album sales is for those tools at CSPAN. And at what point did everyone start caring and memorizing sales numbers before lyrics? I bet most “fans” can’t remember a line off Nas’ Hip-Hop Is Dead but they can tell you what it did its first week out.
Nuff said.
Or maybe to add:
For some, that number is important in the same way fans memorize the salaries of professional athletes. But think about how that ruins sports. If fans didn’t think about A-Rod’s $250 million, they would probably hate Mr. April less. But because they see that figure every time he comes up short in October, it becomes even easier to hate him.
Jay’s Kingdom Come was considered a failure by some because it didn’t go platinum its first week out, despite the hologram cover. It’s okay to not like that album for songs like “Hollywood,” but never dislike an album because it didn’t have high sales. The problem is the cool kids in hip-hop who like Hell Razah and artists like him would rather download the music instead of going to the store to cop it, where a generation ago most would cop the CD officially. If the cool kids can kick the geeks out of Best Buy, maybe this thing called hip-hop can actually be saved.
Shout out to hiphopgame's 730.
That being said, Headphone Music in Parallel World, is one of the best albums I've ever heard in my life.
(And this is after I thought Listeners Digest was'nt really all that before you brush this off as some Zubz stan fan type comment. ). Sales sales sales :?
Nelly's Country Grammar did 6mill plus.
Fiddy's Get Rich Or Die Tryn did 10mill +.
I never did think these were "dope" albums because of sales, they were dope because of their content. And becuase they had a monster like Universal backing them, enough people got to contribute to their
"dope" sales numbers. If those albums sold 2 copies and I had one of them, I would've still thought those were
dope albums, based on the sames things:
1) the content executed like a mutha,
2) how nothing else sounding like it when it dropped.
Talking about these SAMA nominees are wack coz they have'nt sold 50K, (not because of the content of their albums) is just stupid. There is no monster like Universal backing these to get enough people purchasing to get those "millions" numbers.
what is very stupid of note, is not having the business knowledge of what it takes to have a turnover of one million compact discs...(the actual numbers involved in the financing of the cost of production of the product, the above the line, through the line and below the line marketing, the physical distribution of the product), realising that when you weigh this up with the turnover on selling 1 million CDs at the current (already supposedly overpriced retail prices), and after the 14% VAT you're going to have to cough up in addition to everything else you've been invoiced..YOU"RE f***ED, & anyway, by previous actions, a lack of a thorough knowledge of the key business relationships necessary to execute your vision but running your mouth off about the same acts that are backed by the same people that are part of the possible necessary business relationships you'd need to foster to push your mill,
but still thinking you'll just drop and because you're "the truth" you'll do a mill and everyone will love you. :? ? I can't think of anything more stupid that's f*kcing up my day more, on this day where I'm having a bad f*kcing day, than this display of ignorance that nobody says anything about.
To push the mill please pick up a book on how to build a company of your own to do this
and unless you talking to Rupert Family members, or MIH Holdings shareholders-people with real paper, not your Bank branch manager-you've got a long way to building that company quick to get it to have muscle to do this, coz without that, it's not just gonna happen coz you think you've dropped a couple of mixtapes. That's just how it is because you're AFRICAN mu%herf@cker$.
Nothing personal So all I'm saying is, because my AG time is valuable, if you gonna hate, in amongst opinions of substance to ponder over, may it be backed by substance worth pondering over (i.e. more reasons than "I'm hotter, I'm truth"), coz clicking through pages and pages of bullsh!t based on personal fantasies you daydream about : as if you're the first genius to ever think of such thoughts, is clearly irritating me. Particularly today.
I shall now proceed to catch a much needed chill pill. It's Friday.
