The hip-hop culture has long been driven by the lifestyle of the urban inner cities and the competition of sport. Measuring success in hip-hop is vastly subjective. You could simply look at album sales as the barometer, but the culture and the sport of hip-hop has advanced far beyond just album sales. Yet and still we checkout the Billboard charts every Tuesday to check for which artist sold the most that week. In hip-hop going head to head, and releasing albums on the same day is the closet you will get to a Sunday during the football season.
This past week was arguably the biggest weak in hip-hop so far in 2013. Superstar Kanye West released his seventh studio album entitled Yeezus, rising star J. Cole released his second album Born Sinner, and independent star Mac Miller released his second album Watching Movies With The Sound Off. Each artist has achieved levels of success within the music industry and as they prepared for their released dates each artist took a vastly different approach in their marketing campaign.
Kanye West, always known for his ability to command the spotlight took control of Twitter on May 2nd when he simply tweeted "June 18th. After confirmation of the tweet being the release date of his new album, Kanye then took it up a notch and simulcast the release of his music video for the song "New Slaves" in 66 locations across the globe. Kanye also garnered attention for the artwork (or lack thereof) for Yeezus. With announcement of the album coming only a month and a half before its release, and a marketing campaign that lacked a lead single from the album, Kanye pushed the limit of simplicity with his moves.
J. Cole, the 28-year-old Roc Nation artist shook up things when he announced his album would be pushed up a week to compete directly with Kanye West. A student of the game, Cole explained his reasoning for the release date move up saying " I worked too hard to come a week later after Kanye West drops an amazing album. It'd be like, 'Oh and J. Cole dropped too, a week later.' Nah. I'm going to go see him on that date. He's the greatest. So it's like, I'm a competitor by nature so it was instant, it wasn't even a thought”. Cole also released a Born Sinner series of vlogs leading up to the release of his album. The vlogs included commentary from Kendrick Lamar to his mother Kay Cole. He is currently in the midst of a 10 city "Dollar & a Dream" promo tour. Each cities venue will be kept private until the day of the show, with show admittance only costing $1. Cole really made sure to appeal to the emotions of his fan base with his marketing strategy.
Mac Miller, made waves with his independent album debuting at #1 on the Billboard charts in 2011. The 21 year old from Pittsburgh has amassed a tremendous independent following. Miller capitalized off his success with the premier of his MTV reality show "Mac Miller and The Most Dope Family" in February. Mac Miller has used the show as a major vessel to garner attention towards the album as the show follows Mac and his crew adjusting to life in Los Angeles. Mac Miller constantly grows his fan base through grassroots of shows within the college market as well.
Three different artist, three different marketing strategies, three different levels of success. The competition of hip-hop forces me to tell you that it's projected for Kanye West to debut with the highest selling week, with a reported 380,000 units sold. J. Cole is projected to sell around 300,000 and independent artist Mac Miller is projected to sell roughly 100,000, no small feat for an independent artist.
As hip-hop evolves we are seeing that the marketing of projects vastly differ in style. In the 90's and even early to mid 2000's most artist would follow the same media path and release a pattern of music to drum up support for their music. Now artist are using approaches that fit to their specific niche. Whether thru projecting videos across the world or starring in your own reality show, hip-hop music continues to grow as a culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment