Now that his seemingly neverending squabbling with 50 Cent has resulted in his new album Deeper Than Rap leading this week’s album charts (if not serving as much of an in-store draw), Rick Ross has decided to move on to a new target: Known Curtis Jackson associate Eminem, who–what do you know!–has a new album of his own coming out next month. In the above video, which is filmed while Ross and his people are on some sort of expensive vacation, Ross brags about his album sales and kvells over his own personal DJ being overpaid and waves a pair of Kanye West-designed shoes around before taking time to call Em a “hunghkey” (ugh) during Yet Another Tirade About How G-Unit Sucks. I’m sure the pretty much inevitable second-week sales drop-off will result in some Eminem-led counterattack coming from the other side of the table, but for now, let’s look at some figures that a commenter on Nah Right claims are a comparison of budgets for Jadakiss’ The Last Kiss, which came out two weeks ago, and the Ross album:
On April 7th Jadakiss dropped “The Last Kiss” which debuted at Number 3 on the Top 200 Billboard charts with 135,000 records sold.
2 weeks later, on April 21 Rick Ross dropped “Deeper Than Rap,” which debuted at Number 1 on the Top 200 Billboard charts with 158,000 records sold.
Both artists debuted with good numbers but let’s take a look at the breakdown of services offered to each artist:
Rick Ross Video Budgets: $600,000
- Mafia Music
- Magnificent
- All I Want
Jadakiss Video Budgets: $350,000
- By My Side
- Can’t Stop Me
- Who Run This
__________
Rick Ross Promo Tour:$300,000
-3 month run w/ 8-member entourage
Jadakiss Promo Tour: $50,000
-2 week run w/ 1-member entourage
__________
Rick Ross New Media: $100,000
Jadakiss New Media: $ 25,000
__________
Rick Ross Single at Radio: Magnificent (peaked at #5 on Urban Charts)
Jadakiss Single at Radio: Can’t Stop Me (didn’t spin outside of NY)
___________
Rick Ross Radio Promotions: $100,000
Jadakiss Radio Promotions: $25,000
___________Rick Ross Trade/Magazine Promotions: $50,000
Jadakiss Trade/Magazine Promotions: $50,000
____________
Rick Ross Beefs: 5 (50 Cent, Trick Daddy, LLoyd Banks, Tony Yayo, Eminem)
Jadakiss Beefs: 0
_____________
Rick Ross Total Budget: $1,150,000
Jadakiss Total Budget: $500,000
______
Difference in Records Sold First Week:
Rick Ross: 158,000
Jadakiss: 135,000
DIFFERENCE: 23,000 units
________
After reading the breakdown it’s clear to see which artist is in the red with their company. The moral of the story is, in the climate that we’re in with the music industry major record labels should not be spending so much marketing dollars based on hype, beef, bad energy, and bad decisions made by record executives. Let this be a lesson learned…
Not sure how the five beefs figured in monetarily there, and these figures may be a bit fuzzy, but Jada’s success did take people by surprise a bit, and the relative closeness of first-week sales numbers despite radio not nibbling on his lead single is at least an interesting comparative point to make.
Video: Rawse: “Eminem, you’re a munghkey. He’s really a hunghkey (honky).” [Nah Right]
Love seeing the numbers broken down like this, kinda suspected that was the case. The Jadakiss album is by no means a masterpiece, but it’s pretty solid and it’s really kind of heartening to see a genuinely skilled rap veteran sell on the same level as less talented peers like Rick Ross (or outsell even less talented peers like Jim Jones) who have a lot of other factors (label budgets, media hype, radio play) on their side but not a genuine fanbase with respect for their abilities as MCs.
RAWWWWWWSSSSSSSSSSSSS!