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As a way of profiling three artists who made three solid hip-hop albums this year–Turf Talk, Prodigy, and Project Pat–the New York Times‘ Kelefa Sanneh has written another entry in the “hip-hop: possibly dead, definitely changing” trend piece parade. The reasons, in case you’ve been otherwise occupied: sales are in the crapper, hip-hop sales are really in the crapper, one-hit ringtones rule, albums by former backpack outliers are (shockingly, right?) selling better than albums by the one-hit ringtoners, and the genre’s mainstream is taking the reality of the new model harder than most thanks to its longstanding “if you’re not getting money, you ain’t shit” philosophy. The difference being, Sanneh argues, that the rappers themselves are (sometimes) finally realizing the need to scale back their ambitions and “keep grinding” on the indie circuit. But what if hip-hop’s multitudes can’t be contained by the indie circuit alone? What if the genre needs the money men to foster creativity? What the underground needs the promise of the giant gold tank to keep that grind rolling?
Under-the-radar releases, weird tour schedules, modest sales figures: none of this is new. The success of Southern hip-hop in the last decade was built on a foundation of independent and independent-minded rappers, many of whom worked with the scrappy regional distributor Southwest Wholesale, which is now closed, like many of the little shops it used to serve. In an earlier era these regional scenes were farm teams for the industry, grooming the top players and then sending them up to the big leagues. But what if there are no big leagues anymore? What if there’s no major label willing or able to help Turf Talk get his platinum plaque? Would his next album sound as brash? Will his musical descendants be as motivated? The mainstream hip-hop industry relies on a thriving underground, but isn’t the reverse also true?
Eventually, a (new?) group of executives will find a business model that doesn’t depend on shiny plastic discs, or digital tracks bundled together to approximate them. But for now the major league is starting to look a lot like the minor one. And in ways good and bad and utterly unpredictable, rappers may have to reconsider their place in the universe, and their audience. Some will redouble their commitment to nonsense, like Project Pat. Some will wallow in their misery, like Prodigy. Some will merely revel in their own loudmouthiness, like Turf Talk, hoping someone will pay attention. But if sales keep falling, more and more rappers will have to face the fact that they aren’t addressing a crowd, just a sliver of one.
Well the second graf kinda undercuts the questions raised in the first by basically chalking up the future of the biz to “who knows,” which is probably sensible response at this point and the major headache/obstacle in writing any state-of-the-industry article these days. But the one thing Sanneh’s article ignores almost entirely is the hip-hop underground that never saw itself as a “farm team” for the industry but as a refusenik/D.I.Y. wing of the genre itself, a market smaller than that mixtapes-to-riches model that folks like Project Pat and Turf Talk once followed but even more tenacious and unlikely to abandon hip-hop for accounting when sales dip below 25,000. Cross-genre comparisons are always imperfect, especially given the whole “who knows” aspect, but if the major-label market for Daughtries dried up tomorrow, it’s unlikely rock’s underground would suddenly decide the genre was creatively bankrupt, just as it’s unlikely their rap peers will either. And if there’s a possibility that the lack of renumeration means Turf Talk’s “musical desecendants” be less “motivated” or “brash,” there’s also the possibility they will take the genre further out aesthetically, become even more committed to producing interesting (if commercially unviable) regional variations, or (less excitingly) find a way to mimic the stagnant post-gangsta landscape on a smaller scale. Or perhaps ringles or the killer comet will mess up everything up even further. Who knows!
The Shrinking Market Is Changing The Face Of Hip-Hop [New York Times]
All this article did was further cement the fact that Kelefa Sanneh knows nothing about Hip-Hop. Heck, he barely knows anything about rap music.
Seriously, Adam?
He’s looking directly into a fading sales model of rap music that helped a number of unknowns propel themselves into big commercial successes. I don’t know about you, but I live in Memphis where people like Project Pat are ringtone dynamos, sold their mixtapes and CD’s out of the trunks of cars and at tiny neighborhood stores like Boss Ugly Bob’s when nobody knew who they were.
The irony of an act like Dem Franchise Boys rapping, “If you aint’ talking money I ain’t really tryin to hear ya” is when they’re not selling records, nobody wants to hear them either. I mean, you might not like Kelefa Sanneh’s particular choices in rap music, but you’d have a difficult time disproving that he is correct in his theory.
That’s not the theory I take umbrage with, it’s his idea that all of this is a new phenomenon and the fact that he seems to have been blind to it until Koch records sent him a mailing despite thousands of MCs living and performing in the city he reports from.
@Adam Bernard: I’m not sure how you jump to the conclusion that a writer explaining a somewhat obscure phenomenon to daily newspaper readers must not have known anything about it before writing the article. The fact that Sanneh was writing articles like this about middleground regional rap 7 years ago leads me to believe that he wasn’t “blind to it” before being sent a Turf Talk promo:
[www.villagevoice.com],sanneh,15793,22.html
OK, that link came out messed up, I’ll try it again:
[tinyurl.com]
I’ve seen his previous work and been equally unimpressed. As someone who is deep in NYC’s underground Hip-Hop scene I can say there’s plenty he’s missing that’s right under his nose.
@Adam Bernard: Umm, I don’t want to start a fight on this post, but you do realize that if you’re going to talk this way, you need to back up your credentials somehow?
Also, be respectful when you speak to GovernmentNames. He’s one of the best, and certainly best-informed, commenters here.
@Adam Bernard: you are mega-corny. stop gassing yourself and learn some respect…sucker.
@Adam Bernard:
All this article did was further cement the fact that Kelefa Sanneh knows nothing about Hip-Hop. Heck, he barely knows anything about rap music.
wtf does this even mean?? plz to explain difference between “Hip-Hop” and “rap music”
As someone who is deep in NYC’s underground Hip-Hop scene I can say there’s plenty he’s missing that’s right under his nose.
lol senneh writes, like what, 4-5 articles a week for the times? there is a lot of shit he has to choice but to miss (a lot of it begrudgingly i’m sure, as he noted in his top 10 list last week where he said he wasn’t happy that he didn’t get to write about the-dream’s album) but i mean he’s writing about turf talk in the fucking new york times. i would hardly say he’s overlooking the underground or w/e it is that you’re trying to say.
no choice*
Damn, I was just gonna say something moderately snarky about the word “loudmouthiness” – but ya’all got a straight up beef in the making going on here. Much more interesting.
Also, as someone who traffics in the world music sub-basement of the music industry, I gotta say that 25,000 sales is a figure that some labels would kill for.
It’s all a matter of perspective, people.
Note all the artists mentioned in the article are on a LARGE indie label. That doesn’t qualify as underground. Underground is hand to hand, underground is passing out your own flyers, underground is praying enough people show up at the door so that you get your percentage from the bar/club owner.
I’ve been bitching about this NYT clown for years, though: [adambernard.blogspot.com]
And if you’re truly starved for credentials (which I find kind of laughable since we’re all on the same website here) I’ve written for essentially every major Hip-Hop magazine (The Source, XXL, Vapors, Elemental), I feature an interview with an underground artist on my site every Monday and that site was just named one of the top five music blogs in a Hey! Nielsen / Billboard.com poll.
I’m done now. You may continue your banter.
@Adam Bernard: Oh please.
What’s your real issue here, man? Is it that K Sannah wrote about an issue you think is “over?” Or is it that he didn’t write about artists who you think are “underground” enough? If it’s the latter, recognize that nobody cares about the business model of some dude passing out his own flyers.
And when I asked for credentials, I meant how do we know you’re so “deep in NYC’s independent scene,” but now that you mention it, all of those magazines have sucked for a long time now.
omg no way THE SOURCE? I MUST BOW DOWN!! TELL ME SOME BENZINO STORIES, DUNNY!
if you’re asking senneh to write about rappers w/ 85 friends that toil away in clubs and on open mic nights then you’re pretty fucking delusional. to be completely honest, why should i care about those people (esp. when you’re writing for something as big as the new york times!!)? the story of someone not making money of rap (or idk making a little $$$ off selling mixtapes out the trunk) and where they are going with their “art” is way more common and way less interesting than someone like turf talk- or artists on koch or koch in general- that have found a way to beat the system so to speak in a genre where indie artists are very rarely rewarded handsomely.
Man, nothing is going get accomplished here. This is getting worse than a phillaflava thread.
How deep in it am I… deep enough to have been knowing Stronghold since before any member had any kind of deal (Walz included). I’ve been in the scene since the late 90’s, when KS was still up in Boston.
And the NYT should care about the non-label artists because a lot of them, whether you like their business model or not, are living full time off of their music WITHOUT the indie labels, and WITHOUT the major labels. THEY are the real stories.
My beef with KS is that he has never, and seems to never plan on, being a part of the NYC Hip-Hop scene, and being a writer for an NYC paper (yeah yeah, world paper, yadda yadda, NY is in its name) he should be at least attempting to get to know it.
I am now officially done with this thread because it’s turning into silly personal jabs.
fans not friends
the argument of commercially successful rap/hip-hop vs. underground is a never-ending argument that has no final answer to it because when you make music, you don’t know if what you’re doing is ever going to make dollar one. you make this thing because you love it and some people manage to get ahead in the game where others do not.
going back to the Project Pat example, let me tell you about Pat & Three Six Mafia circa, oh, mid-1990’s. Nobody was interested in what they were doing and they were all struggling in relative obscurity in Memphis in what was referred to as an “underground movement”. Today, Dirty South style is the commercial favorite and is very popular. Three Six Mafia are Academy Award winners…..WHAT? Everything runs in cycles.
Considering that the style and content of their raps haven’t changed, you can’t exactly label rappers who managed to have made it out of the underground on their own merits as “sell-outs”.
And by the same token, don’t hate on the underground movement because it takes heart to struggle in relative obscurity out of passion for what you do.
My beef with KS is that he has never, and seems to never plan on, being a part of the NYC Hip-Hop scene, and being a writer for an NYC paper (yeah yeah, world paper, yadda yadda, NY is in its name) he should be at least attempting to get to know it.
this seems like something more suited for the voice to be honest. maybe im just being an optimist. i think it’s a victory that a rapper like turf talk is getting written up in the new york times!! i can’t really help you if you think it’s a problem.
im not “hating” on the underground, just saying that this article would be way less interesting to me if it focused on ppl i’ve never heard of and whose story is kind of overdone (i.e. the struggling indie artist/the indie artist who has made it).
and re: personal jabs, flaunting your resume doesn’t really prove cred. if you know your shit you know your shit whether you’ve been published in rolling stone or don’t even know what a blog is.
@loudersoft: href=”#c3520840″>jordan_s: Yeah, no one’s hating on underground artists. But this is a story about a BUSINESS model, and in order for the story to work, there has to be BUSINESS happening, not small petty commerce that’s not regulated by the IRS.
And Jordan, I totally agree with you on how different publications should cover different things, depending on their audiences. Adam may not think this is important, writing for the illustrious publications that he does, but Sanneh was stretching pretty seriously for the NYT’s audience and I applaud him.
@Oh Word: No offense, but you probably shouldn’t have sent us to a page with a link to “Gawker launches shitty music blog,” unless that just totally went over my head.
@Oh Word: In the world of publicity hate can sometimes be just as good as props, and both are mutually appreciated by me.
You may dislike my opinions, but I really do appreciate the fact that you talk about them. I’m not writing to make everyone agree with me, I’m writing to create conversation. Clearly, if you’re, in turn, writing about me my goals are being accomplished. This is why I will continue to thank you even though you don’t understand why.
You know what, all this talk is pretty cheap. I’m going to be at Kats’ show (a dope underground artist from NYC) on Saturday in the city. If you want to know the time and place so you can meet with me and discuss this further just email me at adamsworldblog@gmail.com
Just be warned, you might get dirty, you’ll have to experience underground Hip-Hop up close and personal.
I have never understood the hip-hop blogger animosity towards Sanneh.
In the middle of this older post I link to two other bloggers attacking Sanneh for no apparent reason….
[www.ohword.com]
KS does very good work and I’ve yet to see any of these arguments against him make any sense at all.
Adam Bernard on the other hand wrote this bullshit
[adambernard.blogspot.com]
and as a result was the target of my derision (and it totally went over his head)
[www.ohword.com]
Adam, the intense individual.